Cut MPs' pay - but let them earn outside the Commons, says Paul Goodman for Policy Exchange

Policy Exchange has been busy recently.  Last week, it published "Coming Clean", a pamphlet about drugs in prisons.  Today, it issues "Who do we want our MPs to be?" - by Conservative Home's Paul Goodman (MP for Wycombe until May).

Paul's case is that the Commons has a choice: MPs can either be citizen legislators, free to work and earn outside the Commons, or professional politicians, who aren't - but that if they're to be the latter, it follows that they can't represent different interests, which is what the Commons should be for in the first place.

He therefore recommends making MPs less dependent on the taxpayer - by scrapping some of Register of Members' Interests' requirements and, in the medium term, cutting MPs pay and perks (for example, by closing the pension scheme to new entrants).

Click here to download the whole report.