Westminster accounts: MPs earn £17.1m on top of their salary since last election – with the Tories taking in £15.4m | Politics news

[ad_1]

Members of Parliament earned £17.1m on top of their salaries in this Parliament, with about two-thirds of the money going to just 20 MPs.

As part of the Westminster calculations, a joint venture between Sky News and Tortoise Media to highlight how money works in politics, we found that the majority of the extra earnings went to Tory politicians – totaling £15.2m – while Labor MPs took in £1.2m. extra pounds sterling.

All MPs earn a basic salary of £84,144.

Read more: Find your MP with the Westminster Accounts tool Transparency in policy often feels like it’s not enough We want to highlight Westminster Accounts: Keep track of the money How to explore the database yourself

Former Prime Minister Theresa May has the most on the list, earning £2,550,876 since the session began in December 2019.

Meanwhile, Labor’s shadow foreign secretary David Lamy topped his party’s list with additional earnings of £202,599.

Debate over second jobs has dominated 2021 after former Tory MP Owen Patterson was embroiled in a lobbying scandal that eventually led to his resignation.

Other high-profile cases emerged of MPs staying within the rules but earning thousands from outside work, and demands for reform began ringing out from across the House of Commons.

Some of the changes are due to come into force later this year, with MPs banned from taking up work as political or parliamentary advisers from March.

One source involved in drafting the new rules suggested this could affect the second jobs of about 30 MPs.

But they won’t stop others from earning large sums of money for speeches, television appearances, and legal work.

As previously mentioned, Mrs May has had the biggest accolade of the past three years with a long list of speaker engagements.

Her largest salary came from the Cambridge Speaker Series, which gave her £408,200 for six talks in California, plus flights and accommodation for herself and one of the staff.

Mrs May managed to earn £38,000 from the MPSF for a talk she gave virtually.

Please use the Chrome browser for an easily accessible video player

2:00 How to explore Westminster accounts

Perhaps most notably, the money she received from the World Travel and Tourism Council for a speech she gave in November.

Its registration in the register of interests of members is not indicative of the fact that this £107,600 speech was made in Saudi Arabia – a country which it barred ministers and officials from visiting for a period when it was prime minister after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Mrs May said the money she earns goes to a company called Theresa May Office Ltd, from which she pays herself a salary of £85,000 a year. She says the remaining amount goes to support her charitable work, though it is not known how much, and to pay for other activities as a former prime minister.

MPs are not required to declare their charitable donations, but Mrs May does wide-ranging charities – including diabetes groups.

Despite repeated requests to comment on her earnings, no response has been received from Ms May.

The second highest paid MP to act outside Parliament came from Sir Geoffrey Cox, who raised £2,191,387 from nine different law firms and a local Conservative Association.

Image: A photograph of Sir Geoffrey Cox when he was Attorney General. Pic: UK Parliament

There was controversy last year when it emerged that the former attorney general had been paid more than £800,000 by law firm Withers for his work on a corruption investigation in the British Virgin Islands.

His earnings from Withers have now risen to over £1.8m in the past three years.

In a statement, Sir Geoffrey said: “A solicitor who is retained to advise a case is no more personally determined by the purposes and opinions of his client than a plumber with the opinions of his client or a physician with those of his patient.

“There is therefore no conflict of interest between my work as a lawyer and my role as a Member of Parliament. On the other hand, I frequently put my experience and understanding of the law at the service of my constituents in helping them resolve their individual problems in regular surgical advice processes.”

The former Attorney General added: “Private practice as a solicitor is certainly not time consuming and demanding than the role of an Attorney General. If it is possible to take on the role of an Attorney while being a Chief Law Officer, it is certainly possible to do so while continuing to practice selectively at the Bar.”

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is the third largest earner in Parliament.

The Oxbridge MP has climbed significantly in the earnings ratings, declaring that his earnings have exceeded £1m since he stepped down from office last September.

Almost all of his declared earnings since the last election have come from just four speeches in October and November last, one of which was paid in New York at a rate of about £32,500 an hour.

Fourth place goes to Tory MP Fiona Bruce, who receives £711,749 from her law firm on top of her salary.

Image: Tory Fiona Bruce. Pic: UK Parliament

In a statement to Sky News, Ms Bruce said: “Much of the amount declared is in fact tax paid directly to HMRC on my behalf, which, to be strictly correct, I declared I had not personally received.”

She added, “An examination of my entries shows the limited hours I spend in the law firm, and this limited time does not detract from my commitment to my constituents.”

Fellow Conservative Sir John Redwood was fifth, with £692,438 and the majority came from his ‘global strategist’ role at investment firm Charles Stanley.

And sixth is Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell with £464,232 – more than £100,000 of which was paid for advising SouthBridge investment bank on ‘African matters’. Mitchell’s earnings were accrued while he was on the bench. He resigned all his foreign interests when he returned to government in October.

Another high-profile name on the list is former chancellor Sajid Javid, who earned £361,566 advising banks on the global economy and giving speeches.

Conservative MP Sir Bill Wiggin has earned more than £250,000 as an asset manager – managing four funds, all located in the tax havens of the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, while former transport secretary Chris Grayling, known for awarding a £14m ferry contract to a shipless company , now making £100,000 per annum advising a port and shipping company.

Only two Labor MPs make it into the top 20 highest earners list, one being David Lammy, who declares his income from over 40 different sources – more than any MP on our list.

Photo: Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lamy

The shadow foreign secretary listed at least 30 speaking and training engagements since December 2019, worth around £100,000, as well as more than £87,000 for a radio show on LBC.

Sky News contacted both Mr Lamy and the Labor Party to ask if his work would qualify as an ‘exemption’ from Sir Keir Starmer’s planned ban on second jobs, but no response has been received.

However, Mr. Lamy has in the past given an impassioned defense of his work on his radio show, saying: “Why am I here? Why am I happy to be here? One because I’m the only black broadcaster on LBC. It’s important to my constituents – I love the fact that they’re getting close to me.” And I can hear opinions they agree with being put forward to the audience.”

Jess Phillips is the only other Labor MP in the top 20, at number 19 with £162,838 of overseas earnings coming from a range of places – including nearly £65,000 for an advance payment on a book, and £25,000 £30 for appearing in Have I Got News For You, and shy of £30,000 for columns in The Independent.

The Liberal Democrats’ overseas earnings totaled £171,000 – but £159,758 was taken by the party’s leader, Sir Ed Davey, who is the 21st highest paid MP.

He earns £5,000 per month as a political advisor to Herbert Smith Freehills and £37,984 as an asset manager for solar projects.

Commenting on the results of the Westminster calculations on MPs’ earnings, Hannah White, director of the Institute of Government, said the partisan affiliation of those earning the most outside income showed why reform was slow.

She told Sky News: “When you look at the data, it’s very clear that there is a partisan pattern in which MPs get outside earnings.”

“I think that points to one reason why there is not much incentive to sort this out in this parliament.

“[It explains] Why was that so even though Parliament decided it wanted to put some limits on overseas earnings, the changes that have been made are really very minimal, and there is no real incentive for the ruling Conservative Party to push their MPs to change something like that”.

[ad_2]