The controversy over whether MPs should have second jobs outside Parliament is under the spotlight once again.

In the aftermath of the furious row over the revelations about former Conservative MP Owen Paterson receiving more than £100,000 for lobbying on behalf of companies he acted as a consultant for, is it time to tighten the rules?

An analysis of the Register of Interests shows several of Kent’s MPs earn thousands for roles with companies and organisations.

Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe)

• Member of the Advisory Board of the Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society.
• Paid £1,500 a quarter in return for 12 hours work, mainly four meetings a year, equating to 15 hours per month.

Damian Green (Ashford)

• Receives £40,000 a year as consultant to Abellio Transport Holdings, a rail and bus operator, for consulting on rail policy.
• Work commitment listed as 24 hours a month. Also receives £2,000 a month as Deputy Chair of Public Policy Projects, a public policy thinktank.

Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford)

• Paid £27,000 a year for role as Independent Non-Executive Director of British Racing’s Horse Welfare Board. Work commitment of 10 hours a month.
• Also has an unpaid job as non-executive director of Parkour UK - the organisation that governs free running.

Natalie Elphicke (Dover)

• Chair of the New Homes Quality Board, an industry-led initiative to promote a new code for housebuilding standards together with a structure for an independent New Homes Ombudsman.
• Paid £21,000 in November last year for six hours a week over a seven-month period; register states that now receives £3,000 a month for an estimated eight hours work a week.

Rehman Chishti (Gillingham)

• Receives £18,000 a year as Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom policy at the Religious Freedom Institute (RFI), a not for profit NGO based in Washington. Estimated 10 hours work a month.

Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet)

• No outside job but receives £1,500 a month as partner in Beak Kemmenoe, Chartered Accountants and Chartered Tax Advisers; hours estimated at 20 hours a month.

Here is the list of MPs who have no second job:

Sir Roger Gale (Thanet North)

Gareth Johnson (Dartford)

Adam Holloway (Gravesham):

Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)

Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood)

Laura Trott (Sevenoaks)

Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling)

Rosie Duffield (Canterbury)

Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald)

Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent)

Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells)

Kent's MPs were contacted for comment.

Analysis

There's a sense of déjà vu about the row over MPs and second jobs: The debate is reminiscent of the one that followed the expenses scandal.

Back then the argument centred around the claim put forward by MPs that they were only claiming what the rules allowed for; regardless of whether it was a new TV set or for cleaning a moat.

This time the debate is more narrowly focused on the question of whether MPs should be allowed to have second jobs, notably those in which they act as a consultant.

But there is something familiar about the justification. MPs who earn £81,000 a year are only doing what they are allowed to do.

Labour has clearly sensed an opportunity to make capital out of the row, with a commitment to stop MPs from taking on jobs as consultants.

There is always an argument to be made that having second jobs allows MPs to see life as constituents do.

That might apply to jobs on the public sector frontline, such as nursing or GPs.

When it comes to being a consultant for a company that just might be bidding for lucrative contracts or seeking to shift public policy?

That is a probably a step too far.

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