Sleaze row: UK PM faces grilling from lawmakers

Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a parliamentary grilling yesterday over sleaze allegations, as tensions ran high within his Conservative party due to his proposals to ban MPs from paid political consultancy work.

With opposition parties on the attack and rank-and-file Tory MPs unhappy, the quizzing from the heads of parliament's cross-party select committees at 1500 GMT could be the least of his worries.

But he has tried to get on the front foot to tackle a simmering row about MPs supplementing their publicly funded salaries with lucrative second jobs, stoking claims about conflict of interest.

On Tuesday, he wrote to parliament's speaker to say he will back proposals to bar British lawmakers from acting as paid political consultants and advisers.

British lawmakers are permitted to hold outside roles, as long as they declare them, but are not allowed to use their parliamentary offices or resources for such work. Paid lobbying is also forbidden, with wrongdoing accusations probed by parliamentary standards watchdogs.

But Johnson's proposals, which appear to stop short of an outright ban on consultancy and advisory work, have been criticised as too vague, and still open to interpretation.

The current scandal mushroomed this month when Johnson tried -- and failed -- to overhaul how the watchdogs system operates after MP Owen Paterson faced suspension over lobbying ministers for two firms that had him on the payroll.

It soon emerged numerous other MPs had high-paying second jobs, in particular lawyer and former attorney general Geoffrey Cox. He has been accused of using his parliamentary office for outside legal work, which has netted him more than £6 million since becoming an MP in 2005, on top of his annual MP's salary -- currently around £82,000.

Paterson has resigned from parliament, while Cox denies breaking the rules.