This petition was submitted during the 2015-2017 parliament
Rejected petition Prevent politicians with vested interests from serving the general public.
Throughout the UK employers do not allow employees to undertake their duties if they have private or vested interests in their work.
Any politician with private or vested interests that display a clear conflict of interest should be prevented from taking part in democratic process.
More details
Politicians should be withheld/prevented from partaking in democratic process if:
- Their interests affect their judgement on policy, political and parliamentary issues if said private/vested interests stand to lose out (financially or otherwise) in the process
- They stand to gain financially on a private level (vested interests - serving the self before the people)
- They do not hold relevant qualifications for the role and are clearly affected or influenced by private/vested third parties
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
The House of Commons Code of Conduct already contains a rule which says that
"MPs shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest."
You can read the Code of Conduct here:
https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmcode/1076/1076.pdf
You could start a new petition asking for a specific change to the rules.
You may wish to sign this petition, which calls for MPs to be banned from having second jobs outside Parliament:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/191268
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.