The outcry over MPs having second jobs has prompted Stirling MP Alyn Smith to issue a statement on the matter.
In a letter Mr Smith – MP for Stirling since December 2019 and before that an MEP for Scotland from 2004 – pointed out that he has never had paid financial interests while serving in these roles.
He also urged constituents to query and question anything in his expenses and declaration of interests as Stirling MP.
As an MP Mr Smith currently earns £81,932 per year and can claim for office staffing and business costs. He claimed £49,223.33 in expenses for 2020-21.
From July 2019 MEPs earned €107,000 a year and received a general expenditure allowance of €54,756 annually. Mr Smith ceased to be an MEP when he became MP.
His ‘open letter to Stirling constituents on standards in public life’ follows the recent resignation of North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson who was found to have broken parliamentary rules on paid advocacy.
MPs are currently allowed to have second jobs if they do not have a ministerial role.
Backbencher Mr Paterson had been employed by two companies as a consultant earning him £100,000 a year.
He was judged by the House of Commons Standards Committee to have broken the rules on a number of grounds including approaching the Food Standards Agency on behalf of these companies.
Disquiet over MPs having second jobs continued following claims that barrister and Torridge and West Devon MP Sir Geoffrey Cox had carried out paid legal work in his Westminster office.
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MPs are forbidden from using public resources including parliamentary offices for personal or financial benefit.
In an advert taken out in the Stirling Observer Mr Smith said: ‘I have been contacted by a number of residents in Stirling concerned at recent events on standards in public life. I share these concerns that standards are being eroded, and thought it would be worthwhile to set out to you my own principles and outline how I conduct my own affairs as your representative in Westminster.
‘I believe standards, ethics and integrity are important in public life, even if in some quarters at Westminster that may be an old-fashioned view. I take my accountability to you seriously, whether you voted for me, for someone else or indeed did not vote at all.
‘On financial matters I have never had paid financial interests whilst serving as an elected representative.’
Mr Smith’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests for 2020 states he received a £1852 donation from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars for a trip to Washington DC in February that year. He was there to attend a Defeating Disinformation workshop. The return flight was £826 and six nights’ hotel accommodation £1026.
The Register also mentions a property in London (valued at over £100,000 and/or giving a rental income of over £10,000 per year) along with unpaid honorary roles with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the British Veterinary Association. Mr Smith sold the London property in June this year.
MPs receive expenses to cover the costs of running an office, employing staff, having somewhere to live in London or their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency in addition to their £81,932 salary.
The website of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the body established after the MPs expenses scandal of 2009, states that Mr Smith has claimed the following in costs since becoming MP for Stirling in December 2019:
2019-20 – accommodation £875; MP travel £8065.31; office costs £6001.31; staffing £25,923.88 (total £40,865.50).
2020-21 – acommodation £5194; MP travel £2439.16; office costs £25,766.17; staff travel £69.00; staffing £15,755 (total £49,223.33).
2021-22 – Mr Smith has so far claimed – accommodation £910.50; MP travel £1010.29; office costs £5789.71; staff travel £70.30 (total £7780.80).
