THE furore regarding second jobs for MPs raised its head again after the rather embarrassing sting involving Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind.

Another contemporary of mine received the same invitation from the bogus company and showed me the email. We could both see that it looked decidedly dodgy, indeed the web address didn’t even check out.

I find it hard to understand how anyone could have fallen for it. However that may be, the general prejudice is that MPs should confine themselves exclusively to their parliamentary business.

Equally, another deeply held prejudice – and constituents tell me this regularly – is that the public do not like the idea of “professional politicians” whose experience in life is largely confined to politics.

These two positions, though not entirely mutually exclusive, are never the less difficult to reconcile.

I make no secret of the fact that I hold down two jobs: I am a Member of Parliament, and I am a Minister of the Crown. Why do people not object to me working for the Crown as a minister, but do object if I work for the private sector?

What, in principle, is the difference? I think we all benefit from the fact that some MPs continue to have business and professional interests that keep them up to date and in touch with the commercial world, its priorities and preoccupations, on which our prosperity depends.

This adds important experience to our deliberations. Equally, I think there is something else very healthy about maintaining live professional and business links.

I say this as a former whip: an MP who has business interests tends to be much more independent-minded than someone entirely reliant on their parliamentary seat for their income. It gives them a sense of balance that enables them to see the world as it is beyond the immediate preoccupations of the Westminster “bubble”. They are harder to bully into the desired division lobby against their better judgement because they know that, if it comes to it, they can go and earn a living elsewhere.

I am proud of the fact that our parliament contains a mixture of representatives who still practice as doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, military reservists, company directors and others. If you disapprove of your MP holding a second job, just vote for somebody else – simple.

We maintain a register of exactly what your MP is earning outside parliament, for whom and how long they spend doing it at publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/150223/ 150223.pdf.

n It’s Fairtrade fortnight and I have been asked to say a bit about how we help producers in poor countries develop trading opportunities and improve the marketing of their produce, and our international treaty obligation to spend 0.7 per cent of our income as a nation on overseas development aid.

This is a highly controversial subject because overwhelmingly most people take the view that we are spending far too much.

Typically, people guess we spend between five and 20 per cent of our budget. But it is actually a mere 0.7 per cent. Actually, it’s less than we spend on emptying our bins.