London: Britain's Parliament voted Wednesday to restrict lawmakers' ability to hold second jobs outside politics, in an attempt to stem a slew of damaging headlines over lobbying and political sleaze.
Opposition lawmakers, though, accused the Conservative government of watering down proposals that could have made a bigger difference.
The House of Commons voted to ban legislators from acting as paid political consultants or advisers.
But lawmakers rejected a more strongly worded proposal by the opposition Labour Party that would have barred more second jobs and set out a strict timetable for making the changes.
The proposals are an attempt to stem a tide of criticism over ethics that began last month when the House of Commons standards committee recommended that Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson be suspended for 30 days for lobbying on behalf of two companies that paid him more than 100,000 pounds
(137,000) a year.