MPs deserve more than £94k a year

Yahoo

12-02-2025

Our 650 Members of Parliament are on course for a pay rise in April, to just under £94,000 a year.
Gosh – nearly six figures for waving some papers and asking an 'urgent question' about progress on a new A-road in Little Humpington.
That's not to mention subsidised housing costs, a great pension and the cheap grub and booze available in the many bars of the House of Commons.
I wish I could be angry, but actually, MPs are being chronically underpaid.
The 2.8pc bump, recommended by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), kicks in at the same time as Rachel Reeves's National Insurance raid on employers, which will leave many in the private sector with little or no pay rise at all.
And yet MPs remain the poor relations compared to their counterparts in foreign parliaments and the kinds of jobs they could walk into in the private sector.
Many, including Labour MPs, scoffed when Sir Peter Bottomley, the former Conservative MP for West Worthing, said in an interview a few years ago that MPs should be paid the same as GPs, suggesting around £110,000 a year would be more appropriate.
His unguarded comment that the financial situation was 'desperately difficult' and 'grim' for young politicians was seized upon by the opposition as an example of out-of-touch Tories.
Last year, there was much hollow laughter when George Freeman, the MP for Mid Norfolk, said he had stood down as a minister because his mortgage had risen 'from £800 per month to £2,000 per month, which I simply couldn't afford to pay on a ministerial salary'.
Many scoffed at the idea a salary of £118,300 wasn't enough, but Mr Freeman has a pre-politics background in science and technology and could earn far more in a second job than the extra money ministers are paid.
He revealed he had gone through a 'very painful' divorce and had two elderly parents and three children – none of which came cheap.
Instead of laughing at MPs who dare to say their salaries are a bit stingy, we should make drastic changes to their pay and benefits.
It was following The Telegraph's legendary investigation into the expenses scandal that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority was created.
Prior to that, MPs had set their own pay and topped it up by abusing the less-than-vigorous expenses system to claim back the cost of pretty much anything, including the infamous £1,645 duck house at Sir Peter Viggers' home (which was claimed for but rejected).
Now we should go further and raise MPs' salaries to bring them to a comparable level with other countries. For instance, in 2018, Australian politicians were paid around £100,000 a year while their British counterparts were paid just £77,300.
Today, MPs should already be earning well in excess of £100,000. That symbolic barrier would not only convince the most capable to consider public service over the City of London (six figures is considered positively plebeian these days in the Square Mile), but would also force MPs to confront the absurdities of the tax system in which thousands pay 62p in the pound over that level.
In return for providing a competitive salary, there should be an outright ban on second jobs. With proper pay, there can be no reason our MPs cannot devote themselves fully to serving their constituents, developing effective policy and holding the government to account.
MPs, particularly those who claim to be serious about cutting the size of the state – I'm looking at you Nigel and Kemi – should also fall on their swords and campaign to cut back the generosity of their pension scheme. It is now a relic of a bygone age.
IPSA is reviewing the mechanism it is using to set MPs' pay going forward. It is time to pay our MPs a full-time wage for a full-time job.
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