Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Sir Malcolm has held four cabinet positions including Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Scotland. No longer a minister, he is still the MP for Kensington earning a £67,000 a year salary paid for by the taxpayer and is Chair of the highly influential Intelligence and Security Select Committee.

Sir Malcolm also declares five other jobs outside parliament that have earned him over £800,000 in the last five years.

He was born in Edinburgh to a Jewish family that emigrated to Britain in the 1890s from Lithuania and counts Leon and Samuel Brittan among his cousins.

Educated privately at George Watson's College, he went on to study law and then political science at Edinburgh University.

He first entered parliament in 1974 as a Conservative and Unionist MP for Edinburgh Pentlands, while Labour were in power.

The following year, new Tory leader Margaret Thatcher promoted him to the front bench as spokesman for Scottish Affairs. He subsequently resigned the post, however, in protest at the decision of the Shadow Cabinet to vote against the Government's Bill for a Scottish Assembly.

In 1979, he became Minister of Home Affairs and the Environment at the Scottish Office under the first Thatcher Government, overseeing the introduction of right-to-buy for council tenants.

He was one of only four Ministers, including Kenneth Clarke, to serve throughout the whole 18 years of Conservative rule under both Thatcher and John Major.

In 1986, he became Secretary of State for Scotland, opposing the closure of the Ravenscraig steel plant in Lanarkshire in favour of wholesale privatisation of the industry.

He then served as Secretary of State for Transport from 1990-1992, overseeing the privatisation of Britain's railways, before becoming Secretary of State for Defence after the 1992 General Election.

He finished his career in frontline politics as Foreign Secretary before losing his Edinburgh seat at the 1997 General Election.

He returned to parliament in 2005 as MP for Kensington and Chelsea.