Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick is to head delegation of MSPs on visit to Orkney.
The Scottish Labour proposal to ban MSPs from second jobs had been rejected by Holyrood’s presiding officer.
Jim Murphy wrote to Tricia Marwick stating the party would include a pledge in its 2016 election manifesto to prevent MSPs from holding paid directorships or consultancy posts.
It followed the controversy in which former foreign secretaries, Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Labour’s Jack Straw, were caught in a newspaper sting allegedly offering to use their political influence in return for payments.
Ms Marwick has written to Mr Murphy stating that legislation places stronger check and balances on MSPs than at Westminster, which included criminal offences for failing to register or declare “significant financial interests” – something that did exist for the Commons.
The code of conduct also effectively prohibited MSPs from undertaking paid lobbying work, she said.
Ms Marwick added that only a “very limited number of MSPs” held a second job and none carried out consultancy work.
But she agreed to pass on Mr Murphy’s letter to the standards committee to see whether it wished to consider the issue.
Presiding officer says no need to ban MSPs from second jobs
