87% of MPs raking it in with second jobs Posted by Jamie at 2 51 PM on Sunday, October 3

NINE out of 10 MPs are cashing in on second jobs - with one trousering more than £285,000 since May's election.

Some 563 of the 650 MPs - 87 per cent - have revealed incomes on top of their £64,766 Commons salaries.

Many work as highly-paid lawyers, directors and business advisors.

New Tory MP Stephen Phillips - a QC - has pocketed £285,150 for legal work in just five months since the election.

Fellow Tory Tony Baldry has stashed away £133,067 from directorships and legal work. In many cases he billed clients more than £1,000-an-hour.

But while his posh colleagues coined it in, Tory Robert Goodwill earned £100 for 10 hours' work as a tractor driver.

The first register of MPs' interests of the new Parliament also reveals:

Former Tory ministers Nicholas Soames and Sir Malcolm Rifkind each pocketed more than £17,500 a month from a series of directorships.

Ex-ministers Tim Yeo and John Redwood earned more than £10,000 a month, new Tory MP Jonathan Evans is paid £12,500 a month by a pensions firm and Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg gets £10,000 a month from an investment firm.

Emma Boon of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Taxpayers want their MPs focused on working for them. It is taxpayers who pay their salaries."

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