Staffers are meant to declare any other job for which they are paid £470 or more in a year, and gifts or hospitality above the same threshold. This means that journalists and others can see who else the people employed by MPs are working for at the same time. Given the number of organisations with ideological, financial or other vested interests in influencing legislation, it is obviously in the interests of democracy for such information to be in the public domain. If, for example, an MP’s researcher is also being paid by a construction company or a hospitality chain, voters ought to be able to find out.