Via a survey carried out for LondonlovesBusiness.com comes this list of the top five London MPs for annual outside earnings on top of their MP salary of £65,738:
- Sir Malcolm Rifkind, MP for Kensington (Con) – upwards of £240,000
- Nick Raynsford, MP for Greenwich and Woolwich (Lab) – £60,657
- Mark Field, MP for Cities of London and Westminster (Con) – £41,740
- Jo Johnson, MP for Orpington (Con) – £12,314
- Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Lab) – £10,326
What do you think of these figures: good to see MPs having a range of activities or bad to see MPs spending time earning these sorts of sums?
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10 Comments
Reform of the qualifications for becoming an MP are required.We don’t want to have another expenses riot do we.
What on earth does Malcolm Riffkind do to pocket that kind of money given surely his ‘government links’ as an ex-Cabenet member must be getting quite rusty. Even Charles Clarke didn’t manage to make that much out of his multiple extra jobs after he lost his Cabinet post in the last parliament.
I think he has something to do with a defence contracting firm – I vaguely recall seeing him mentioned in that context on Newsnight back when defence contractors in Iraq was an issue. Not sure though so don’t quote me on it.
this is rather meaningless if we don’t know HOW they earned that money.
The nature of the jobs is listed on the source article – mostly directorships and speech-giving.
Mixed feelings myself: I would not want to limit what MPs can do too much, but I’m surprised that they have enough time to earn that much. That they all appear to be very safe seats is probably no coincidence.
rifkind is a qc and with a directorship or two could pick up that kind of money easily
Main problem is if outside earnings link into parliamentary work – eg. getting a decision favourable to a particular industry or firm through parliament because of MPs links and lobbying. If it doesn’t, then good on them for having outside interests.
Interesting to see all your thoughts on our findings (I’m editor of LondonlovesBusiness.com). Thanks Zoe for pointing out where more detail could be found.
@Simon, @Laura, @Sandra and @David
We ran an article explaining in full Malcolm Rifkind’s earnings – it’s here if you’re interested:
http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/616.article
Apart from Rifkind I’m amazed the figures are so low.
Combined with the low basic pay MPs recieve (for professional London based jobs) it will make the pool of competent qualified people willing to be MPs smaller. No wonder that so many MPs are now dependent on a private income or a well paid spouse.
I’m slightly surprised that £12k or so gets one into the top 5, and how little the Beeb are paying Diane Abbott. I reflect that in the very very unlikely event of my becoming a London MP, my pensions and investment income would put me at No. 4 on the list, without me doing any outside paid work at all.
The usual picture of an MP with substantial outside earned income used to be a barrister. In the 1930s Clement Davies was a prime example as a very high earning barrister also a MP.
Interesting that only Malcolm Riffkind in London conforms to this pattern.