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David Willetts vows to give up £80,000 second job
Havant MP David Willetts has vowed to give up his second job from which he earns £80,000 a year.
The Tory, who already takes home 64,766 as an MP, is an adviser for pension company Punter Southall and earns 2,000 a day for 40 days' work a year.
But he has now promised to give up the post after Tory leader David Cameron made it clear he wants MPs with second jobs to give them up by the end of the year at the latest.
The Conservatives make up more than half the number of MPs who hold jobs outside Parliament.
Mr Willetts, who last week paid back 600 he overclaimed in council tax as well as 135 for lightbulbs in the wake of the expenses row, said: 'I'm going to give up my post at the end of the year and I'm going to reduce my hours for the last six months so that the rate will go down to an annual rate of 60,000.'
He added: 'I've held the post for about three years and before that I was an adviser to a bank in the City from 1997 onwards.
'This is all in the public records. I believe it broadens the experience of people who are MPs but I think David Cameron is being quite fair. There is an election in the offing and it is right for us to devote ourselves to electioneering.'
From next week all MPs will be forced to disclose all outside earnings, who they work for, how many hours they devote to the job and the nature of the work.
Despite promising to give up his second job Mr Willetts warned that a total ban could lead to a situation where only people who were already very wealthy or politicians sponsored by trade unions would become MPs, which he believes would be unhealthy for Parliament.
Former Tory leader William Hague was one of the highest earners in Parliament earning around 230,000 last year from after-dinner speeches, advice to private companies and writing books, according to The Sunday Telegraph.
WHO DOES WHAT
• Robert Goodwill, the Tory shadow transport minister and MP for Scarborough and Whitby, runs a cemetery on his farm and told The Sunday Telegraph that he occasionally digs graves.
• Former Conservative leader William Hague earned around 230,000 last year from after dinner speeches, advice to private companies and writing books.
• John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham, receives more than 200,000 a year from his computer software company.
• Nick Raynsford, the former housing minister, collected 148,000 from six private-sector jobs last year, mostly connected to housing.
• Conservative MP John Bercow, the new Speaker of the House of Commons, was paid 40,000 by a health care firm that runs a number of special needs schools.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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