Stormont MLA Remuneration Board Bill passes despite opposition
The Assembly Members (Independent Remuneration Board) Bill will establish a new independent board to determine salaries and pensions for MLAs.
It will replace the previous Independent Financial Review Panel which has been defunct for a number of years.
Currently, the basic salary for an MLA is £51,500, but this can rise with position including chairing some committees or serving as a minister, with the First and deputy First Ministers receiving a salary of £123,500.
A report alongside the Bill showed MLA salaries are lower than those received by Members of the Scottish Parliament (£72,196), Assembly Members at the Welsh Assembly (£72,057) and Members of the Irish Parliament (113,679 euros/£94,537).
The Bill, put forward by the Assembly Commission, was passed by an oral vote by MLAs on Monday, with the sole MLAs representing the TUV and People Before Profit both opposing the Bill.
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston claimed it is 'nothing more than a vehicle to enable MLAs to award themselves a substantial pay rise', and objected to former MLAs being entitled to sit on the new board.
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll also criticised that former MLAs could sit on the board, and said that a pay rise for MLAs amid 'rising rates of poverty' would be 'completely tone deaf'.
However UUP MLA Andy Allen, who sits on the Assembly Commission, described a 'technical Bill' to deal with the process of how salaries and pensions are set.
Closing the debate Sinn Fein MLA Sinead Ennis slammed what she termed 'inaccuracies and misunderstandings' over the Bill.
She also warned that if the Bill did not pass the Assembly 'will have failed' to ensure legal clarity and leave no structure in place to determine the salaries and pensions of MLAs.
'In passing this Bill today, future discussions and decisions around the salaries and pensions of members will shift to the independent remuneration board,' she told MLAs.
'That board has independence in deciding what factors it wants to consider before determining its view on the appropriate level of salaries and pensions for members.
'That is the appropriate way of dealing with these matters.'
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