David Cameron moved to close down the controversy over MPs’ second jobs today, announcing that his Shadow Cabinet would give up all outside interests by the end of the year.

In a further effort to contain damaging revelations, the Tory leader published a list of payments to his senior colleagues, before new rules that require the disclosure come into force on Wednesday.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, tops the list of earners, disclosing that he works an "an hour or so" a week for writing a column in The Times, for which he is paid £5,000 a month.

The second-best rate is commanded by Francis Maude — in charge of preparing for an incoming Conservative government — who is paid more than £6,000-a-day for his work as an adviser to Barclays Bank.

Mr Cameron said that by the end of December almost all of his Shadow ministers would be able to deliver 100 per cent focus on “setting out our credentials as an alternative government”.

However, Baroness Warsi and Baroness Neville-Jones would be allowed to keep their outside interests, since they received no other salaries, he said. In addition, frontbenchers not in the Shadow Cabinet would also be able to hold on to their second jobs into the next year.

Mr Cameron said that having a second job was not incompatible with being a good MP. “I do not think that a chamber full of professional politicians with no outside experience is a good thing,” he said.

“MPs and members of the Shadow Cabinet should be judged by what they do for their constituents and holding the Government to account. There are idle MPs with no outside interests and there are fantastic public servants that do have them.”

But he added: “My Shadow Cabinet have, however, recognised that we are in a particular period at the end of a five-year Parliament, where it does become necessary to demonstrate 100 per cent focus on Parliament, politics and so they’ve decided that from the end of December they won’t have any outside interests.”

Reforms coming into force from Wednesday mean that all MPs will be obliged to list hours and details of salary. But the Tory leader said that his Shadow ministers wanted to publish their information early and at the same time.

“We all want this information to be available now, not to emerge in a fragmented way, as and when individual declarations are made,” he said.

Previously, MPs have had to name their outside employers and directorships in the Register of Members’ Interests. They have never had to reveal how long they spend on the work, and needed only to give an indication of how much they were paid if the job related to their work as an MP.

More than half of the MPs with outside interests are Conservatives, but many have already announced that they are giving up their second jobs before the changes.

Some high-earning Tory frontbenchers, including William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, have already indicated that they are to give up outside roles. Mr Hague earned about £230,000 last year from after-dinner speeches, advice to private companies and writing books.

Other senior Tories quitting outside positions include the policy chief Oliver Letwin, who earns £60,000 for eight hours a week at the investment bank NM Rothschild, and David Willetts, the Shadow Skills Secretary, who is paid £60,000 a year to advise a pensions company.

Alan Duncan, the Shadow Commons leader, has already given up directorships of two oil companies and a US-based engineering company, from which he earned more than £80,000 a year.

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