SIR – Anyone who worked in the printing industry in the days of unions and the closed shop will remember that journeymen in various trade sections were forbidden, both by their own union rules and by national agreements with employers’ federations etc, from either working for other firms in their spare time or owning and operating their own printing presses – sensible precautions to protect the interests of worker and boss alike.

Yet no such restrictions seem to apply to Members of Parliament, many of whom routinely seem to neglect both their constituents’ interests or Parliamentary duties at Westminster in pursuit of money from other sources, often outside the UK.

With MPs’ wages set at several times more than average earnings, plus still very lavish expenses available and the right to employ relatives on exorbitant salaries etc, why should they be allowed to show such contempt for those whose votes they so eagerly seek each election time, and who pay their wages and pensions, by ignoring them and Parliament itself in this way?

Time for such outside work to be banned and MPs made to do what they are elected and paid to do.

D S Boyes, Upper Rodley Lane, Leeds