MP resigns over second job
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 12:00 AM
By Liz Stephens
Dartford MP Howard Stoate has announced he will resign at the next election because new rules banning MPs' second jobs mean he will no longer be able to practise as a GP.
Since the expenses scandal, MPs have to register the details of their second jobs, but Labour MP Dr Stoate says that his party are determined to go further in the lead-up to the general election and ban second jobs for MPs altogether.
"It is apparent that Labour candidates standing for parliament at the next election will be expected to give up their outside jobs if they are elected," he said.
Dr Stoate said he considered this would make his position "untenable" and that he believed the change would "diminish" his work as an MP.
"I feel that my experience as a GP has helped me enormously in my work," he stated, and stressed he had been re-elected twice since 1997 by voters who knew he was a practising GP.
"I have never allowed my medical responsibilities to interfere with my parliamentary duties," he added.
MPs' earnings from second jobs have been thrust into the spotlight in the drive to clean up Westminster following the expenses scandal.
Conservative leader David Cameron announced last month that all his party's frontbenchers will have to give up their outside jobs by December, in preparation for the general election.
More than half of MPs with outside interests are Conservatives, most notably Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, who gets £5,000 a month for his columns in the Times, and David Willetts who is paid £60,000 a year as a pensions adviser.
Dr Stoate had previously had his expenses highlighted by The Daily Telegraph. The paper revealed he had claimed £55,836 in four years, for a flat 15 miles from his constituency home, on which he paid no rent or mortgage.
He repaid all claims for this year saying the expenses system had become "completely discredited".
The Dartford MP is one of 33 MPs to announce their intention to stand down at the next election since the expenses stories began.
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