Tory MPs have received £15.2m from second jobs since the last general election, dwarfing the combined earnings of politicians representing other parties.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May was the biggest recipient, taking home £2.5m on top of her parliamentary salary, mainly for giving speeches to US organizations such as the bank JP Morgan and the firm private equity Apax Partners. She takes an £85,000 salary from this pot and says the rest of the money is used to fund her private office, promote her involvement in public life and make charitable donations.
Other prime recipients include Boris Johnson, who has hit the global speaking circuit with gusto after being ousted from Downing Street last summer. He has already received more than £1 million since October from just four speeches, at a rate of more than £30,000 an hour. Despite this, he also had his family’s rent paid by the owners of JCB and received gifts of flights and accommodation from Rupert Murdoch.
Analysis by Sky News and Tortoise found MPs collectively received £17.1m of outside income since the 2019 election, with most of the money going to Tory politicians. Labor MPs earned £1.2m of outside work, while Lib Dem MPs pocketed an extra £171,000 and SNP MPs pocketed £149,000.
Labor leader Keir Starmer told Sky News he supported tougher restrictions on MPs holding overseas jobs, repeating a promise made during the 2021 scandal over paying Owen Paterson to lobby for a company while he was a Conservative MP.
“What I want, what I still want, is for the new House of Commons to agree new rules,” Starmer said, although he insisted he did not want a total ban on MPs receiving extra money on top of their jobs . “Generally speaking, I think there’s a million miles of difference between someone who’s advising a company on strategy and someone who’s writing a policy book.”
Starmer himself received around £26,000 for legal work carried out while he was a Labor MP, but before he became opposition leader.
MPs receive a basic salary of £84,144 together with necessary expenses for their jobs, housing and staff. Government ministers receive additional payments depending on their status, topping out at the Prime Minister’s salary of £164,000 a year.
Although 54% of MPs are conservative, they represent 89% of external income in the last three years. . This includes Geoffrey Cox, who has earned £2.2m from legal work in the past three years while Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon.
The former attorney general received much of it for his work advising the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands, which is being investigated by the UK government for corruption.
John Redwood, Andrew Mitchell and Chris Grayling were among other prominent Tory MPs who received more than £200,000 in extra income since 2019.
The Labor MP with the highest external income was David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary. He has taken home £202,000 since the last general election on top of his main salary, with his main source of income being fees for presenting a weekly program on LBC radio station. The only other Labor MP in the top 20 was Jess Phillips, who has earned £162,000 over the past three years from media appearances and writing books, including £5,000 for being a guest on Have I Got News for You.
Starmer defended Lammy on Sky News: “I think David does a lot of media work, and I think working with the media and writing books is part of the political process. But there is a discussion, I was urging the whole House of Commons to agree new rules because I think we should get rid of second jobs with some exceptions.”