MPs have pocketed £10m from second jobs and freelance work in the past year, a Guardian analysis has revealed.
Much of this has been driven by Boris Johnson’s earnings of £4.8 million as well as ex-Tory ministers taking up a pile of highly-paid roles including slots on GB News.
Back in May, The National reported Johnson had logged 69 entries in his MP Register of Interests for outside income, gifts and donations since he quit as PM.
But even without Johnson’s income, The Guardian analysis found about 90 other Tory MPs brought in approximately £4.75m – an increase from nearer £4m in 2021.
The analysis looked at all MPs who made more than £1000 in the past year, excluding income from completing surveys.
Some of the highest-paid include the former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is paid about £29,000 a month to host a programme for GB News – which would make him about £350,000 in a year.
Ex-cabinet minister Brandon Lewis now has three business strategy jobs, including one working for a property developer, making him in total £150,000 a year, while former minister Chris Skidmore has three jobs in clean energy and policy making him about £200,000 a year.
A much smaller number of Labour, SNP and LibDem MPs also brought in outside income of just over £400,000.
There were plans to cap MPs’ income from second jobs following the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal and anger over Geoffrey Cox being paid nearly £6m as a lawyer since joining Westminster - voting by proxy on days he was undertaking paid work.
The proposals were ditched by the UK Government last year.
The rise in incomes over the past year appears to have been partly driven by a minority of Conservative MPs taking on very highly-paid work, including well-paid media gigs for GB News and TalkTV.
Sue Hawley, of the campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, said parliament and regulators needed to tighten up the rules on second jobs.
She said: “It’s increasingly clear that parliament, and its standards regulators, need to be looking closely at when MPs earning huge sums outside of their role in parliament damages the reputation of the House of Commons.
“There is a real risk that MPs and ex-ministers earning such huge sums fuels cynicism about parliament and risks undermining faith in democracy.
“It’s also clear that as ministers eye the possibility of being ejected at the next election, the rules on the revolving door need toughening up urgently to prevent potential conflicts of interest. That’s why the government needs to heed Lord Pickles’ call to lay out a timetable for urgent implementation of these rules over the autumn.”
Figures also highlight how some ministers have left office under Johnson, taken up second jobs and then returned to Government under Rishi Sunak.
Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden was paid £8000 to advise the hedge fund Caxton Associates on policy and £5000 by an art services business in the short period he was out office last autumn under Liz Truss.
Meanwhile, Gavin Williamson, a former education secretary, resigned his £60,000-a-year second job working for RTC Education, a firm run by a Tory donor, when he went to work for Sunak in October 2022 and then signed back up again in February 2023, a few months after he was ousted from cabinet again.
The high earnings are also driven by former prime ministers and senior ex-cabinet ministers making money from speeches and television appearances.
Theresa May and Liz Truss were both paid six figures to run their post-No 10 offices from giving speeches, while the former health secretary Matt Hancock registered about £450,000 from media appearances, speeches and his book.
The highest Labour earner over the last year was shadow foreign secretary David Lammy who made more than £90,000 from presenting on LBC radio and giving speeches.
Labour has indicated that if it wins power it will not allow MPs to take up paid directorships or consultancies.
