MPs have been paid £10m from second jobs and freelance work over the past year, a total largely driven by the size of Boris Johnson's earnings as well as former Tory ministers taking up a series of highly paid roles, a Guardian analysis has found.
Almost 18 months after the furore over second jobs led to promises of a crackdown, MPs' earnings from work outside parliament have continued to rise.
The analysis looked at all MPs who made more than £1,000 in the past year, excluding income from completing surveys. Even stripping out Johnson's £4.8m, about 90 other Conservative MPs brought in approximately £4.75m - an increase from a 2021 total that was nearer to £4m. A much smaller number of Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs brought in outside income of just over £400,000.
Plans to cap MPs' income from second jobs were ditched months after the issue provoked a sleaze scandal that plunged Johnson's government into crisis. The promise of a clampdown followed the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal and a furore over Geoffrey Cox being paid nearly £6m as a lawyer since joining parliament, voting by proxy on days he was undertaking paid work.
The rise in incomes over the past year appears to have been partly driven by a minority of Conservative MPs taking on very highly paid work, from lucrative consultancies to well paid media gigs for the rightwing GB News channel, as well as Rupert Murdoch's TalkTV.
Some of the highest-paid MPs include the former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is paid about £29,000 a month to host a programme for GB News - which would make him about £350,000 in a year.
This story is from the August 07, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the August 07, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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