Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, earned money from legal work in the past on top of his job as an MP, the Commons register of interest shows. Starmer, a barrister and former director of public prosecutions, was paid almost £26,000 for work carried out while he was an MP but before he became Labour leader in 2020. He does not currently do legal work, as he gave up his certificate to practise when the party said in 2019 it would ban second jobs unless there were specific exemptions. Labour supports an overhaul of the rules around second jobs for MPs but has stopped short of saying they would be banned altogether. In the House of Commons on Monday, Starmer called on Boris Johnson to “ban paid directorships and consultancy roles” for MPs but the party said its policy was wider than that, in favour of banning second jobs unless there were specific exemptions. This would, for example, allow MPs to still be able to carry out professional work on the side as doctors, nurses or social workers, or write a book, but not do consultancy or legal work. Only three Labour MPs have second jobs in consultancy or as directors, compared with 90 Conservatives. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP and chair of the Commons standards committee, who is looking at the case for reform of the rules, suggested on Tuesday that political consultancy seemed to be an “inappropriate peddling of influence”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I can’t prejudge what the committee will decide but that is certainly the argument that has been made by the committee on standards in public life.” “In the end it is about whether you are using those magic letters MP, which can sometimes open doors, whether you are using that always on behalf of your constituents or whether you are using that on behalf of some commercial interest of your own.”