Ban on MPS’ second jobs does not affect House of Lords

A KEY member of Sir Keir Starmer’s team who was paid to advise a gold mining firm in a multibillion dollar legal dispute would keep his second job even if Labour’s sleaze reforms were adopted.

Lord Falconer, Labour’s shadow attorney general, is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, an international law firm.

Labour’s planned standards reforms, which would ban MPS’ second jobs, do not extend to members of the House of Lords. At least five other members of Labour’s front bench team in the upper chamber have second jobs, although only one, Baroness Hayman of Ullock, works directly for a political communications company.

Other jobs held by Labour spokesmen include Lord Ponsonby’s role as a director of Eastsib Holding, a firm that owns companies that extract Russian oil and gas. Lord Collins of Highbury, the party’s deputy leader in the Lords, is a paid consultant for Embignell, an insurance company.

Baroness Thornton and Lord Bassam, are paid by the Good Governance Institute and Business in the Community, respectively. There is no suggestion any of the peers have broken rules and

‘Lords do not receive salary, they receive a daily allowance. They work on entirely different basis’

all interests have been properly declared. Outside employment that involves advising a private company on parliamentary affairs or how to influence parliament, is already banned in the House of Lords.

Peers are not paid a salary, but can collect a payment of £323 for each day on which they contribute to a debate in the Chamber or work on committees.

They are not required to declare the value of payment they receive for employment outside of Parliament, but must declare any shareholdings, nonfinancial interests, hospitality they receive and property they own.

Labour’s motion on standards reform, which was voted down by MPS last night in the Commons, proposed that “members should be banned from any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant”. It made no reference to the House of Lords. The Government’s amendment, which proposed similar reforms, also applied only to the Commons.

Labour’s reforms were voted down in the Commons by 231 votes to 282.

Alexander Stafford, a Tory MP, yesterday asked the party’s shadow leader of the Commons, Thangam Debbonaire, why the party’s reforms were restricted to MPS. Ms Debbonaire said that peers worked on an “entirely different basis”.

“Unlike this House, Lords do not receive a salary, they receive a daily allowance, which is not the same. They work on an entirely different basis. They also don’t have constituents.”