MPs could face a crackdown on paid media roles such as presenting for GB News after the Commons leader, Lucy Powell, said the new modernisation committee should review the rules.
Powell, a cabinet minister and the select committee’s chair, said it would look into the advantages of paid media engagements compared with the potential conflicts of interest and attention.
There has been a large increase in MPs taking on paid roles as presenters in recent years, with the Guardian revealing that GB News had paid Conservatives more than £660,000 in salaries and appearance fees since the channel launched. Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson, MPs for Reform UK, both host shows for GB News.
Labour politicians have also had paid media gigs, including David Lammy, now the foreign secretary, who presented an LBC radio show.
The committee placed overhauling standards at the top of a list of priorities it published on Thursday, after 16 MPs were suspended for at least one day during the last parliament – more than in the previous five parliaments combined.
The committee said: “Members across the house will know that the events of recent years and the misconduct of individual members has eroded public trust and confidence in this institution.
“It is incumbent on all of us to embody the high standards that the public expect of us and we must all act to change and improve the reputation of this place.”
In addition to looking at potential changes to parliament’s culture that would “address cultural issues of bullying and harassment and sexual harassment”, MPs’ second jobs in the media are likely to be a focus for the committee.
The committee said it “should consider what advantages, if any, outside paid engagements such as media appearances, journalism and speeches furnish to the public, versus the potential conflicts of interest and attention that arise from such paid endeavours”.
