Conservative MPs earned a combined total of more than £9.2million from freelance work and second jobs in 2023, SW Londoner analysis reveals.
In total, MPs earned £9,763,268, almost 95% of which was taken home by Tories.
Labour parliamentarians earned around £316,000 combined, in addition to their parliamentary salaries, while SNP MPs received just under £21,000 in total.
Part of this is due to the Conservatives having had more seats in Parliament than any other party.
The average earned by a Tory MP last year was, however, still significantly higher than the average for the other parties and more than ten times that of Labour.
Conservative parliamentarians earned an average of £26,299 from second jobs and freelance work, markedly above that for all MPs, £14,883.
On average, a Labour MP received £1,598 and a Lib Dem, £1,745 from work outside Parliament.
This is in part due to a small number of high earning Tory MPs.
The top 20 highest earning parliamentarians last year all sat for the Conservatives, with Boris Johnson having earned the most, despite leaving the House on 9 June.
The former prime minister received more than £3,568,000, in addition to his MP salary, principally for several “speaking engagements” in 2023, before leaving Parliament.
Geoffrey Cox, Theresa May, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Liz Truss were also among the five highest earning parliamentarians.
Former attorney general Cox took home over £746,000, principally for providing “legal services”, while former prime minister May earned around £487,000 for making speeches.
Rees-Mogg received nearly £330,000 largely due to his work as a GB News presenter and Truss, having brought turmoil to the markets during her brief premiership the year before, earned around £318,000 in 2023 due mostly to stints on the speaker circuit.
The highest earning Labour MP was David Lammy, now foreign secretary, who received £83,698, largely for speeches and presenting a show on LBC.
Featured image credit: Chatham House/Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
