Standards chief says MPs should prioritise their main job

Lord Evans, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life has said MPs must focus on their role as an elected representative.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning he said it is “clear that the MP who has been elected by their constituents, that their main focus, their main priority is on being the best MP that they can be”.

“The critical thing is that nothing that an MP does should get in the way of their ability to work in support of their constituents – so the amount of work they do, the sort of work, needs to be judged against that,” he said.

“If somebody is spending a huge amount of their time on a second job, then they can’t be maintaining support for their constituents,” he went on.

His comments come after The Mirror revealed that Sir Geoffrey Cox MP, already facing criticism over his lucrative legal work in the British Virgin Islands, is profiting from renting out his taxpayer-funded London flat while claiming £1,900 a month for a second home in the capital.