Richard Lutz digs into a website that tells you just how much your MP makes on the side

You elect your MP and they earn £66,000 per year, tirelessly working your corner, ensuring your constituency is represented in the House to improve your roads, your schools, your police, even your views on foreign policy.

Well, hopefully….

But now that politicians like Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind have been secretly filmed touting for cash in exchange for ‘advice’ or ‘consultancy’, the lid has once more been lifted on the phalanx of MPs who are using their access to power to add extra income.

 

So, where to get hold of just how much your tireless selfless MP trousers in the quest to make this a better nation?

An amusing website (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/150209/part1contents.htm) liss all MPs and what they have declared as outside income. Warning: the following article uses information from this official site, but we can only assume that every last penny of a second income is formally declared.

So, for instance, in my own West Midlands in central England, here are some facts:

Two MPs have a nice little earner with links to Caucasian countries, according to the parliamentary site:

The Rt Hon Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury) is chair of Kazakhstan Kagazy ply which specialises in Central Asia waste re-cycling. From February 2014 to this February he was paid £110,000 for this job. That is about £833 per hour. The Baku-based Trend News Agency paid him more than £16,000 for advice on parliamentary relations. This is on top of other fees from other companies.

Nearby in Mid-Worcestershire, Sir Peter Luff (Con)  was also paid by Trend News Agency of Baku. He earned more than £16,000, the same as his fellow Tory MP for “..matters relating to parliamentary relations and business..”

Sir Peter also got £40,000 as non-executive director of Parity Group plc which provides information technology. And he was handed £25,000 from Marlin Group Holdings, suppliers of industrial automation technology, for being a non-exec.

Libdem John Hemming, (Birmingham, Yardley) runs his own businesses and earned £195,000 in self-employed income from his companies, which deal in software. He does not act as consultant nor advisor for any outside businesses.

Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington), married to Harriet Harman, received £3,000 from Unite the Union. The trade union cash went to his constituency party.

And Tristram Hunt (Lab, Stoke Central), a prodigious writer, not only made money from his publications but also a total of £100,975 from the accountancy firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers to fund a research assistant.

MPs who declared nothing include Lorely Burt (Lib Dem, Solihull), Ian Austin (Lab, Dudley North) and Chris White (Con, Warwick and Leamington).  

Tom Watson (Lab, West Bromwich East), scourge of Murdoch, trousered fees for public speaking or attending fund-raising dinners, which seems meat and potatoes for some MPs. And he has what must be one of the most intriguing declarations: he is honorary president of Goulash Co-operative, from Coventry. Watson owns a single share in this organisation and received no money for his labours.

One of the biggest earners in the Midlands making money outside Parliament is MP Andrew Mitchell (Con, Sutton Coldfield). Many know him as the ‘Plebgate’ minister who was in a big dust-up about what he did or didn’t say to a policeman.

Mr Mitchell is listed as receiving £14,000 last year from a group called The Foundation, and, between January 2014 and October 2014, was handed £36,000 from Montrose Associates for ‘strategic consultancy’. East End Foods of West Bromwich hands him £4,000 a day for his advice and he expects eight days work per year out of this arrangement (ie £32,000). Investec paid Mr Mitchell £60,000 last year, according to the public documents, as a senior  advisor and, in the sports world, Doug Ellis, formerly top man at Aston Villa, paid him a total of £40,000 of “donation or nature and value if donation in kind…” The MP points out that £30,000 of this was “..part of a larger donation to my political party….”

Some MPs enjoy extra income from Staffordshire digger maker JCB. Its research department pays £10,000 each to James Morris (Con, Halesowen and Rowley Regis), Daniel Byles (Con, N. Warks) and £15,000 each to Andrew Griffiths (Con, Burton) and Marcus Jones (Con, Nuneaton).

Outside the West Midlands, check the link above to see how your MP augments the £66,000 paid for being at Westminster. Some interesting names include Tory minister Eric Pickles (no extra income), and Jacob Rees Mogg who was paid over £110,000 by investment company Somerset Capital Management.

Top all-round earners, according to The Times, include ex-PM Gordon Brown who earned £962,000 – all of which went to a charity he runs with his wife; George Galloway who was paid £303,000 in external income for last year; David Blunkett who earned £178,000 and Sir Nicholas Soames who was £278,000 richer when he didn’t spend his time as an elected member.

The site also has a separate subsection, called category 2, which list all MPs who employ a relative. At a rough count one out of five Parliamentarians we vote in hire a wife, husband, daughter or son to work for them.

That link to find your MP:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/150209/part1contents.htm