Guardian News and Media/London

Two former foreign secretaries, Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind, have denied any wrongdoing after being implicated in a fresh “cash for access” scandal.
An investigation by the Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches alleges that Straw and Rifkind offered to use their positions as politicians on behalf of a fictitious Chinese company in return for thousands of pounds.
Straw - who was a Labour foreign secretary between 2001-06 - has suspended himself from the parliamentary Labour party and Rifkind - who was a Conservative party foreign secretary between 1995-1997 - has been summoned to see the chief whip over the claims.
Both have referred themselves to the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
Straw allegedly boasted to undercover journalists that he had operated “under the radar” to use his influence and change EU rules on behalf of a firm which paid him £60,000 a year. A recording obtained with a hidden camera shows Straw saying: “So normally, if I’m doing a speech or something, it’s £5,000 a day, that’s what I charge.”
Rifkind reportedly claimed to be able to gain “useful access” to every British ambassador in the world. Journalists recorded him describing himself as self-employed, even though he earns a salary of £67,000 for being MP for Kensington: “I am self-employed - so nobody pays me a salary. I have to earn my income.”
Rifkind told the journalists that he usually charges “somewhere in the region of £5,000 to £8,000” for half a day’s work.
Rifkind told the BBC’s Today programme that he had nothing to be embarrassed about and that the allegations were unfounded as he did not accept an offer from the fake firm.
Defending himself on Today, Rifkind said that “every single thing I said to these people, I would have been willing to say on television or to you, if you’d put the same questions to me at the time”. He said he had offered to give an interview to Dispatches to personally answer allegations, but that they had refused to allow him. The Dispatches investigation was aired on Channel 4 yesterday.
Rifkind said he would not resign as chairman of the Commons intelligence and security committee unless his committee colleagues wanted him to, arguing that the two things had nothing to do with each other.
Speaking to the same programme, Straw said that he was “mortified” that he’d fallen into this trap “set by very skillful journalists”. Like Rifkind, he said his words had been taken out of context and denied any wrongdoing.
Straw said that the recorded discussion was about what he might do once he left the Commons in May, but that he should have waited to have such conversations once he had stood down.
Straw says he has earned money from second jobs while working as MP for Blackburn, adding he had declared every penny. “I have never ever misused information or contacts that I gained as a minister,” he said.
The former Labour cabinet minister sought to explain his comments that he operated “under the radar”, saying that he had sought to negotiate changes to “obscure aspects” of EU sugar regulations on behalf of the company ED and F Man. “You can get further with EU officials by being polite and quiet and forensic rather than shouting,” he said.
Labour party leader Ed Miliband has argued publicly that MPs should be limited to earning 10% of their salaries through second jobs.
Straw told the BBC that he thought the current rules were satisfactory, but that they would be probably be reviewed in light of the scandal.
Rifkind argued with the idea that MPs should not be able to take second jobs: “The basic allegation, and you’re really referring to it at the moment, is there is something improper in the United Kingdom about a member of parliament being willing to take part - in this case on an advisory board - in a company that is seeking to invest in the United Kingdom. But of course there are probably 200 MPs who have various business interests other than their MP’s salary.
“Now, some people disapprove of that and maybe the Labour party is going to disapprove of that, but many of the public take a different view - not all of them, but many say ‘actually, we don’t want full-time politicians; we want members of parliament who have some outside experience of the wider world’. And that is a perfectly reasonable proposition.”