Stormont: MLAs approve new body to set their salaries
How much are MLAs paid?
MLAs earn £53,000 a year, which is less than their counterparts in the UK's other devolved legislatures in Scotland and Wales.Members of the Scottish Parliament receive £74,507 while members of the Welsh Parliament earn £76,380.At Westminster, MPs earn £93,904 a year while members of the Dáil (lower house of the Irish parliament) earn €113,679 (£94,537).The wages and expenses of MLAs were previously set by the Independent Financial Review Panel (IFRP).But the terms of its three members ended in 2016 and they were never replaced.MLAs at the time took issue with some of the rules the panel imposed, including limits on salaries for constituency office staff and other matters such as office signage.The Assembly Members (Remuneration Board) Bill will establish a new panel with the sole remit of setting MLAs' pay and pension entitlements.The bill was backed by the Assembly Commission, a body which handles the running of Parliament Buildings and involves representatives of Stormont's main parties.Like the IFRP, the new panel is expected to take into account other jurisdictions when setting MLA salaries.
TUV and PBP criticise bill
The bill was passed on Monday with just two MLAs voicing their opposition in the assembly chamber.Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) MLA Timothy Gaston said the bill had been marked by "secrecy, self-interest and indeed plenty of spin".He said there was no "proper public consultation" on the bill."In reality, it is nothing more than a vehicle to enable MLAs to award themselves a substantial pay rise," he said."This isn't about reform. It's a loaded dice. A guaranteed upward trajectory."People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll described the bill as "tone deaf".He raised concerns over former MLAs being able to sit on the "so-called independent panel".
The assembly member also criticised how a newly established board will not set rules on MLA expenses."Executive parties have proven time and time again they can't be trusted to oversee their own expenses," he said."Members can continue to deny that this bill will entail a massive pay increase. I say you're taking the public for absolute fools."Sinn Féin MLA Sinéad Ennis, the party's representative on the Assembly Commission, said there was "no good time to deal with these issues".But she there had been "misunderstandings and inaccuracies" over the bill which had been "regurgitated" during the debate.She said the commission has been focused "on the process of determining members' salaries, not the outcome".
Ennis said the board would have "independence in deciding what factors it wants to consider before determining its view on the appropriate level of salaries and pensions".Andy Allen, an Ulster Unionist Party MLA and member of the Assembly Commission, said the legislation was a "technical" bill."In passing this bill, the assembly is fulfilling its responsibility to regularise the position and provide legal clarity," he said.He said the "core purpose of this bill is to ensure that salaries of members are determined independently"."It is difficult to see how anyone could reasonably object to that."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
29 minutes ago
- BBC News
Knife crime and other offences fall in London, says Sir Sadiq Khan
Sir Sadiq Khan has admitted there is a "long way to go" when it comes to fighting crime in London, despite figures suggesting a potential drop in some serious mayor says new City Hall data shows knife crime dropped by 19% between April and June this year compared with the same period last year, while the number of residential burglaries, personal thefts and personal robberies also some offences, such as possession of weapons, rape and drug trafficking, all increased in that recorded crime has increased by 31.5 % in the Metropolitan Police area of London in the last 10 years, with violent crime increasing by 40%, according to official crime data. The data from the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime - which is not yet publicly available - appears to show annual falls in:Theft from a person from 25,272 to 21,937 (13%)Robbery of personal property from 7,106 to 6,209 (13%)Residential burglary from 7,974 to 7,144 (10%)The mayor of London said: "The latest figures show robbery, theft, residential burglary and knife crime are down in London, but there's still a long way to go before I'm satisfied."Backed with record funding from City Hall, the Met is putting high-visibility policing at the heart of fighting crime." 'Crime is up' According to the Office for National Statistics, many crimes recorded against people increased between the years ending June 2015 and March 2025, including violence against the person (40%), possession of offensive weapons (23%), sexual offences (75%) and theft from the person (207%).Reform UK Assembly Member Alex Wilson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service : "If Sadiq Khan thinks London is getting more safe, he needs to get out more. "The idea he points to incremental changes in just a few categories is ridiculous.""The long-term trends under Sadiq Khan are clear: knife crime is up, theft is up, shoplifting is up, fare evasion is up, phone thefts at the highest ever seen, and just 2% of burglaries in outer London result in a charge or analysis of the figures comes soon after the Metropolitan Police laid out proposals to close almost half of police station front counters in London - a move critics said would have a "devastating" impact on Met's commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has said despite funding increases, the forces faces a £260m shortfall and will have to reduce its he said the force was becoming "more capable" and was focused on "driving down crime on issues that matter most to Londoners".The Mayor of London has pledged a policing blitz on London's 20 most blighted town centres for shoplifting, robbery, knife crime and antisocial behaviour this summer.
The Guardian
29 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on Labour's feelgood economy: it's not for everyone – especially the poorest
When Sir Keir Starmer told reporters last week that his government's upcoming budget would 'build on what we've done' by focusing on 'living standards' and 'making sure that people feel better off', it was clear that he was trying to shift the political narrative from soulless statistics to lived experience. But if the prime minister is serious, he should look at the latest forecast from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). The thinktank warns that while some households may indeed 'feel better off', many – particularly the poorest – will not. NIESR says real disposable income for the bottom tenth of households will fall this year. Living standards for the poorest fifth of Britain are well below their pre-pandemic level. This analysis rather deflates Treasury ministers' claims that real wages under Labour had risen more in 10 months than they had in the 10 previous years of Conservative government. This political attack line might be arithmetically sound, but to make it stick requires a generous statistical interpretation. What ministers have done is go back to the post-2010 austerity years, when real wages slumped after the financial crisis. Critics on social media have warned against cherrypicking time periods. They say real pay climbed gradually between 2015 and 2019 in the UK, but dropped again during the twin inflation shocks of Covid and the Ukraine war, before rebounding sharply after 2023. Ministers are scoring political points – but these are cheap given that there have been, so far, no significant changes in industrial policy, collective bargaining or public spending. In fact, real wage gains under Labour have been modest. Average weekly earnings in real terms were £523 last July and £527 this June – an increase of less than 1%. Hardly a new dawn for workers. More troubling is the distribution – which is masked by the use of average figures. Strong wage growth, says NIESR, has been concentrated in the tech and public sectors, where low‑paid workers are underrepresented. Above-inflation increases in minimum wage haven't compensated for reductions in working hours. No surprise then that the thinktank's data shows that middle- and upper-income households are seeing improvements in living standards, while the poorest are falling further behind. For these households, costs such as food and rent are rising faster than incomes. They won't feel better off – because they aren't. The upshot is that real personal disposable income rose by 4.1% in 2024-25, but the gains went almost entirely to better-off households. Today's unemployment figures show four-fifths of recent job losses concentrated in retail and hospitality – sectors that employ large numbers of low-paid workers. Clearly, for low-income families, the cost of living crisis has not abated. NIESR warns ministers to act – or risk letting the poorest slide into destitution. The country's problem lies in its imbalances. For many Britons, the modest post-pandemic recovery in real incomes has come about largely because inflation fell. But productivity growth remains anaemic, and the underlying economic model – which is financialised, service-heavy and regionally lopsided – is widening inequalities. If the next budget fails to offer anything more than supply-side tweaks or fiscal restraint in the name of credibility, Sir Keir will find that 'building on what we've done' is not enough. For the poorest Britons, what's been done so far doesn't look much like progress at all.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Anti-JD Vance van tours Cotswolds while US Vice President stays in village
An anti- JD Vance van, displaying a doctored image of the US vice president, has been driven around Charlbury in the Cotswolds. The vehicle's appearance coincides with reports that JD Vance and his family are currently holidaying in the village. Political campaign group Everyone Hates Elon shared footage of the van on Tuesday, 12 August 2025. The group stated their action was a challenge to Vance's previous comments on free speech in the UK, referencing an unconfirmed claim that the image led to a tourist being banned from the US. Watch the video in full above.
