SCOTTISH parties are divided over how best to prevent the “cash for access” scandals that currently dog Westminster being repeated at Holyrood.

Labour called for a ban on Holyrood parliamentarians holding company directorships or consultancies.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said that MSPs’ parliamentary work should take priority but insisted outside interests could bring “knowledge, experience and skills” to Holyrood. The SNP, meanwhile, said Holyrood already set the “gold standard” in terms of accountability and transparency.

A number of MSPs have outside sources of income, ranging from a few hundred pounds a year to tens of thousands.

Conservative MSP Alex Fergusson receives “between £15,001 and £20,000” annually in his role as a limited partner in an agricultural tenancy partnership, according to the Holyrood Register of Interests. The MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, a former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, also receives over £40,000 a year from Scottish and Southern Electricity for the lease of land that was developed for the Hadyard Hill wind farm.

John Scott, Fergusson’s neighbouring Tory MSP in Ayrshire, receives in excess of £5,000 a year, in part from a wind farm development on his land. Scott earns a similar figure each year from agricultural land in South Ayshire.

SNP MSP Joan McAlpine writes a weekly column for the Daily Record, earning £400 per column, a total of £20,000 a year.

McAlpine told The National that “there is a huge difference between writing a newspaper column in your own time, as many politicians do, and taking money from private companies to perform services which are often unclear”.

Earlier this week, video emerged apparently showing former Conservative foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind and ex-Labour secretary Jack Straw offering their services to a private company in exchange for cash.

“Writing a newspaper column is completely transparent – you are paid for the words that appear on the page,” McAlpine said. “Taking money to lobby or influence on behalf of a third party is not transparent and could well compromise a politician, as is the case with Straw and Rifkind.”

Gil Paterson, SNP MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie, is part-owner of a family business in Glasgow, earning between £15,000 and £20,000 a year for less than 20 days work.

Conservative Lothian MSP Gavin Brown works one day a week with a training company in Edinburgh, taking home between £10,000 and £15,000 a year. Another Tory MSP, Jamie McGrigor, records earnings of between £3000 and £5000 a year for work on his sheep-farming business in Argyll.

Stephen Boyd of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) said that, so far, Holyrood has avoided the kind of lobbying and “cash for access” scandals that have dogged Westminster in recent years.

“The STUC does not believe any politician should take a second job that prevents them properly fulfilling their representative function or that leads to real or potential conflicts of interest,” he said. “However, we would note that the situation at Holyrood does not appear to be anywhere near that which is being revealed by current events at Westminster.”

Jim Murphy called for legislation to introduce a ban on any MSPs holding paid directorships and consultancies.

Writing to the current Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, the Scottish Labour leader said that he wished to see the “highest possible standards of openness and transparency” at Holyrood.

“The Scottish people need to know that when they vote they are electing an individual who will represent them directly, and not be swayed by private interests,” he wrote.

“Scottish Labour is committing, in our manifesto for the 2016 Holyrood elections, to the introduction of a statutory ban on MSPs seeking employment, while sitting as MSPs, outside Parliament,” he added. But the SNP appeared to back the current system of regulation.

“The practice of Labour and Tory MPs seeming to offer themselves for hire at Westminster is one that is utterly unacceptable and is one that has rightly outraged voters,” an SNP spokesperson told The National. 

“[Holyrood]’s rules on outside interests and expenses are a gold standard for accountability and transparency and Westminster should have adopted a similar system long ago.”

The Scottish Liberal Democrats said some second jobs could be useful for parliamentarians. “Clearly, it is totally inappropriate for MPs
to be doing paid work as a lobbyist and none should. A blanket ban on all second jobs, however, would be too blunt a tool as some second jobs may add to an MP’s experience and ability to do the job,” a Lib Dem spokesperson said.

And a Scottish Conservative spokesman said that parliamentarians’ role as an MSP “must come first”, but that outside interests could bring “knowledge, experience and skills” to Holyrood.

A number of Scottish MPs have second jobs outside Westminster. Former prime minster Gordon Brown earned the highest additional income of any MP last year, receiving £962,516 on top of his annual salary of £67,060. Elsewhere, Labour’s Gordon Banks, MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, earned more than £25,000 a year as a director of a building supply company in Fife. John Thurso, Lib Dem MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, was paid almost £7,000 for just 15 hours work as the director of a wine and spirit competition.