MPs had until today to declare outside interests. There are two basic views on whether MPs should have outside jobs:

• MPs should work full-time to represent their constituents, for which we the tax-payers pay them so they should not have outside jobs;

• MPs with outside jobs are more in touch with the "real world" so they make for better MPs than career politicians.

Both arguments are valid and can find support from the expenses scandal:

• MPs’ first priority should be to serve the nation and their constituents and not to feather their own nests by fiddling their expenses or moonlighting so they should no more have outside jobs than make dubious expenses claims;

• If they had been less wrapped up in the cosy world of Westminster, they might have realised that some of their expenses claims, although within the rules, were clearly unethical and unacceptable to anyone with a grain of commonsense in the real world, so they should have outside jobs.

Although I would prefer my own MP to be full-time, I think there is a good case for some MPs to have outside jobs, so long as their constituents accept the situation and that is the point. We do not think there should be legislation to forbid outside jobs for MPs, but we think constituents should be able to decide, which they cannot effectively do with the present voting system.

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) would allow each voter to express a preference either for candidates who intended to work outside Parliament or for those who did not from the same party. Just as each multi-member constituency would elect MPs from different parties to represent it, so each could also elect some MPs with outside jobs and some without.

We do not need the heavy hand of the law to govern this. The people should decide. Only STV would let them.