Members of Parliament are about to vote themselves another pay rise in the wake of a report by the Senior Salaries Review Body which found MPs’ pay had slipped behind comparable positions in the public and private sectors and that generous salary increases are now necessary.
Their allowances should also go up by almost 10,000 pounds a year to hire extra staff, it said. It recommended that all MPs should receive a backdated pay rise worth 2.56 percent for 2007/8, taking their salary to 61,820 pounds.
Police have been offered just 1.9 percent while teachers are to get 2.45 percent this year.
The proposals have been rejected by Gordon Brown as too generous but several backbench MPs are unhappy with his tough stance and some have said they will stage a pay rebellion when the matter comes before the Commons next week.
Do you believe MPs are worth the money they cost — and should they still be able to vote on their own pay rises?
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11 comments so far
Of course they should relinguish an anachronistic and, frankly, a woefully outdated form of financial backslapping.
I do think MPs need a living wage and a bit more for other expenses: pay peanuts and you get monkeys - so to speak.
However, and finally, MPs should get no more than the increase handed to the police.
Any more and they run the distinct risk of being labelled as gravy-train groupies.
- Posted by Keith M WarwickMPs are supposedly managing the country, in that those in the majority party form a government and those in the smaller parties form an opposition whose job is to curb the worst excesses of those in government and keep them on the straight and narrow. On that basis, they are all managers.
The actions of any individual MP are not critical except to his/her own career. No-one will die, and no enterprise will go bust, as a result of a single MP’s wrong decision. On that basis, they have no compelling individual responsibility to get things right, so can’t be regarded as senior managers and are more akin to middle managers, so should be paid accordingly (which they currently are, although decidedly on the high side).
So, if they are collectively responsible for managing the country and hold the position of middle managers, their pay, like that of middle managers, should be related to the performance of
the enterprise which they are managing. A simple matrix of indices which measure the performance of the country; economic growth, crime, employment, tax rates, public sector borrowing, size of national debt, etc, would provide an adequate overall performance measure. When things get better, their pay goes up; when things get worse, their pay stays the same. This would give every MP an incentive to do his/her job properly by constantly lobbying the government to do what is best for the country instead of slavishly acceding to the political dogma of his/her own party.
MPs should not be allowed to vote themselves a pay rise. The whole concept is an outdated farce.
Of course the indices would be “spun” to show the country’s performance in the best possible light, but that is no more than happens already and the truth will always out, as now with the crumbling economy. Blaming American mortgage lenders is no good. The mess in the UK is the result of poor management and should be reflected in the pay packets of the “managers”.
Could this system be implemented? No - because MPs would have to vote for it to happen and which of them in their right mind is going to vote for a pay freeze? And I can hear a droning, superior sort of voice right now, saying something on the lines of “…considerations of pay cannot be allowed to influence the decisions of government”. No, indeed not. We can see ample evidence of that!
- Posted by Mike TI don’t think MP’s put thier lives on the line everytime they are on duty nor do they work anti-social shifts,have thier leave cancelled at short notice,brave whatever weather is thrown at them so why should they get a rise more than anyone else, pherhaps Police,Fire service,Ambulance crews,Nurses and armed forces on active duty should have thier wages bumped up to the same as MP’s
- Posted by Steve BirkettMP’s are an expensive irrelevance except at election time and even that could be conducted in other ways.
- Posted by Dudley HolleyWouldn’t we all love to vote on what rise we received, have our council tax paid for, claim £20,000 a year for mortgage relief, even if we didn’t have a mortgage. The list of perks is endless and infuriating for the hard working, overtaxed voter, oh, and I forgot the extra £10,000 a year, just arranged for ‘communicating to the electorate’!
And finally, how many of us can have a job of such generous benefits, and then be allowed to have as many other jobs as we like.
No wonder whenever I watch PM’s question time, they all seem so jolly, and full of laughter…… wouldn’t you!
[…] for it by building the infrastructure. The PAS is part of this future, if it’s funded. The scheme could be funded if MPs only increase their allowances by £7,000 this year instead of the…. Alternatively they could fund the scheme for four years if they received the same level of support […]
- Posted by The Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Indifference of Government « ArchaeoastronomyThe whole concept of cost of living rises is a con, an MP’s basic cost of living is no greater than that of mine or anybody else. They live like lords, get their helpers to do all the hard work, their disposable income is huge. What we need is a level playing field, could start with the police getting the MP’s proposed increase and the MP’s getting the Policemens proposed increase. The Rich are running away with all the money and things must change!
- Posted by William FowlerPoliticians need to realise that they are public servants and as such need to practice what they preach and award themselves a below inflation increase as they have forced this on other public sector workers. If they don’t they are showing themselves as nothing but hypocrites.
- Posted by Colin HumberstoneThe very practice of voting themselves a pay rise brings their very exitance int to disrepute.
It makes me feel sick that the majority of people accept this absurd situation, largely because of ignorance of voting systems.
If you look at the number of people who voted in percentage terms of the eligible population and the number of votes for New Labour it would shame any western democracy.
The party leader that puts a sensible alternative to MPS voting their own pay rise through, will win a General Election with a landslide..
The question is …Who will be brave enough?
- Posted by Kevin FarleyMPs’ pay is unacceptably high and is mainly because of extra benefits and privileges that allow working for their own sake and getting paid by us. We should go on fiscal strike so they cannot pay their wages. I work for a local authority and I would loose my wage, too. But it would be for a good cause. Let’s decide on a date and tell politicians that we will stop paying taxes (at least 1 million of us) if they do not persuade us they did a good job working for us. They only listen to money; let’s have it talk in our name!!!
- Posted by MeThe government exists to run the economy. It follows that MP’s should be paid the national average wage. If they want a pay rise, they get it on performance related basis. At present, MP’s earn more than 95% of their constituents, that’s why they are out of touch. Support services for MP’s should come via civil service - including research - and no expenses would be necessary at all. The constituentcy MP’s office should be attached to the local council, and we coulsd sell offf the outdated westminster palace. They can communicate by video conference.
- Posted by Terry MiltonNew Labour MPs should be made to live on the minimum wage, since they tried so hard to bring it in for us.
- Posted by Rachel FarringtonA 95% wage rate above their constituents, and pay rises for themselves, in a country where they are eroding our public services at a rate far greater than Conservative could have managed.
Our payments of taxes make us the customer, well I’m one very unsatisfied customer, and would be happy to be one of the million to refuse to pay, I still remember the refusal to pay poll tax, and its impact on the then government.