During last weeks Panorama expose of Parliamentary Corruption, Sir Alistair Graham (Chair, Committee on standards of public life 2004-07) was interviewed to give his understanding of the way in which MPs and Peers should behave. He explained his view that they should have outside interests although the programme did not enable him to provide any definition of what he meant by this.

It is clearly vital that our legislators are able to draw on experience of life away from Westminster in formulating policy that will affect us all. This is particularly important in a context where so many of the most powerful of these legislators are drawn from a very limited social and educational pool such as Eton oldboys and Oxbridge graduates. The extent to which some of these representatives have never worked for any length of time outside Parliament also presents a challenge. The outside interests of an MP can never compensate for a lack of day to day experience in business, the charitable or public sectors in a context that the rest of people in society would recognise.

Along with the reference to outside interests Alistair Graham also spoke on the nature of the code of conduct that our legislators are supposed to work within. It would be reasonable to assume that this would set a framework that would ensure that these men and women act in a manner that the rest of society would expect and understand. According to Sir Alistair

“Members of Parliament under the code of conduct can take consultancies or money for giving advice and assisting people in terms of how the parliamentary process works but they cannot take money for actually carrying out their Parliamentary duty.”

I think this standard is a long way from the position that most of us would adopt if we were being consulted on a code of conduct. It can only make sense to the 650 MPs and over 800 peers. Imagine if a school teacher was allowed to receive payments from a company or private individual to explain how the admission procedures, the  procurement processes or marking schemes worked. In a matter of weeks all parents would come under pressure to ensure that they offered the teacher a great deal more than an apple to ensure that their children passed out with good grades. The same is true for any other area of public life.

One of the reasons given for allowing our MPs to have outside interests is that at the next election, these men and women may discover that they are without a job, for no reason other than the electors voting based on national rather than local issues. Under these circumstances not only would these people get a 6 month redundancy package (far greater than most employees) but they would also experience something that many of their erstwhile constituents have also experienced. To allow them to prepare for electoral changes may seem reasonable on one level but as Panorama has shown us, it leaves MPs vulnerable to very sharp practices which are clearly damaging the reputation of our Parliamentary Democracy.

Although not perfect this e-petition provides a good step in the right direction as a way of holding our MPs to account in the way that a Councillor on a small parish council would be held. It calls on them to withdraw from votes and debates where they have a financial interest. This would mean that those seeking to pay our MPs to influence legislation would need to find a new way of working. Do please consider signing it!