Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind deny wrongdoing over 'cash for access' report

Two former British foreign ministers denied wrongdoing on 23 February after they were secretly filmed offering their services to a fake Chinese company in return for thousands of pounds.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a senior member of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives who heads a committee scrutinising security policy, and Jack Straw, Labour's foreign minister when Britain went to war in Iraq, have both been suspended from their parties, also known as losing the parliamentary 'whip'.

The allegations, made by the Daily Telegraph and Channel 4, echoed the 2010 scandal when former ministers were recorded saying they could influence government policy for cash.

It prompted opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband to call for lawmakers to be banned from paid directorship or consultancy work, a move Cameron said he did not support as parliament was "enriched" by people gaining outside experience.

In the footage, Rifkind tells the reporters he has "useful" access to ambassadors, while Straw talks about how he worked "under the radar" to use his influence to change European Union rules for another company.

Both have referred themselves to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. There was no suggestion in the report that they did anything illegal.

Rifkind told the BBC he had met the company to hear what they had to say but was not negotiating and not accepted anything from them.

Potentially compounding a perception some lawmakers are out of touch with the public, he also said parliamentarians must be able to supplement their income - already twice the average national wage - to attract the right calibre of person to the job.

Straw, who was highly critical of colleagues during the 2010 expose, is shown saying he normally charges around 5,000 pounds a day for external work such as speeches.

He said the recorded discussions were about what he might do when he leaves parliament in May, a decision he announced more than a year ago.

He said he had fallen into a skilful trap.

"It was a meeting that I thought was private, it was a similar meeting to those which I've held with four or five other approaches that have been made to me, not about what I do now, but about what I do when I finish as a member of parliament, but that's how I felt. But I also want to emphasise that in the 36 years in which I've been a member of parliament, I've acted with complete probity and I believe integrity as well, and I shall continue to do that in the future, and so far as my outside activities during the period as a member of parliament are concerned, there has be the fullest and most thorough declarations of all of those."

The new report will further dent public perception of Britain's main political parties which has given anti-establishment rivals a boost before May's vote.