Alberto Costa MP

Chair of the Standards Committee

25th April 2025

Dear Alberto Costa MP, 

It damages the public's trust in our politics when MPs are distracted from their parliamentary work by their lucrative second jobs.

Perhaps most unfairly of all, when an MP's second job hits the headline for the wrong reasons, it leads to ALL MPs being tainted, whether they have a second job or not.

That's why we welcome the Standards Committee’s review into how the rules can be tightened on MPs' second jobs.

The Government is proposing a rule that MPs must reject job offers made "primarily because of their membership of the House".

Our view is that this does not provide sufficient clarity on which jobs MPs can accept. It's also easy for MPs and their potential employers to obscure the real reasons why a job is being offered.

The lack of clarity in this rule risks it being enforced unfairly, inconsistently, or not at all.

We need a clear, enforceable cap on time spent and earnings made from MP's second jobs.

A reasonable compromise, which acknowledges that some MPs may need to work to maintain professional qualifications, or occasionally write articles for newspapers, would be to allow them to earn up to the equivalent of half of an MP’s salary (£45,000 roughly), and spend up to 20 hours a week, on other interests. Thresholds set at these levels would enable an MP, who was a doctor, to continue practising medicine in a 0.5 full time equivalent role and maintain their licence /registration.

I hope the Standards Committee will consider this option.

Yours sincerely,

Tom Brake

Director

Unlock Democracy