Page 94, the Private Eye podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.

My name is Andrew Hunter Murray and this week we are talking about standards rising,

falling, possibly being maintained. At the moment, the Parliamentary Committee on Standards

is holding an inquiry into the code of conduct for MPs as it relates to taking second jobs,

being paid for those second jobs, how much people are being paid for those second jobs,

whether those jobs might interfere with their duties as an MP.

As part of this process, the Committee on Standards invited three members of the I's team,

the editor, Ian Hizlop, plus friends of the podcast, Richard Brooks and Solomon Hughes,

to speak to the committee about the work they're doing and about whether it's actually doing any good.

But first, a little bit of context. The rules about paid advocacy for parliamentarians are very old.

In fact, the Committee mentions in its November report that in 1695, the House of Commons

resolved that offering money to any member of parliament for any promoting of any matter whatsoever

counted as a high crime and misdemeanor and tends to the subversion of the English constitution.

You would think that over three centuries later, the rules had been very carefully ironed out

and there was no contravention of them. Recent stories such as that of Owen Patterson

show that these rules are still being contravened. One element of this is that the rules have changed

a lot and what counts as lobbying or undue influence is very difficult to pin down exactly

and it's incredibly difficult to monitor. As things stand at the moment, about 200 MPs over the last

year were paid some money of some kind from outside sources, sources other than parliamentary ones.

Now that varies hugely between those earning 50 quid for doing a few surveys over the whole year

and those earning nearly a million pounds such as high-flying lawyers. So the Committee is trying

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