MP's second jobs

Are second jobs for MPs such a good idea?

Well, one thing we know about them is that the types of second jobs that MPs have skew dramatically towards financial services and PR/lobbying. Draw your own conclusions from that.

There's a good round-up of the issue in the FT here from a couple of years ago [£] here: 

"In declarations made since the last election in 2019, some of which relate to the year before the vote, 37 MPs have registered income of various kinds from financial services companies — the largest such bloc of corporate income. The sector accounts for 8.1 per cent of UK GDP....

By contrast, just 13 MPs have received income from manufacturers, which contribute 9.9 per cent of GDP. Just 8 MPs have financial links to retailers, which contribute 4.9 per cent. Public relations or lobbying companies have employed 30 MPs."

Since the 2019 election, we've seen a number of MPs using their status to promote the interests of the companies that pay them in unacceptable ways.

There's a lot more to this, as that article shows, but I'm left with one question:

No question sharing the experiences and perspectives of the people that they represent is good for democracy. As Edmund Burke put it in the classical rendition of the role of an elected representative...

"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

But surely we could find a way of doing it in a way that is less open to corruption or even the perception of it?