MPs Remuneration Package
I just can’t believe that this idea was proposed. I just can’t believe it. I am utterly gobsmacked. How could they possibly think that it would be a good idea? In any respect?
Seriously, just giving MPs a block grant £23,000 per year to pay for “expenses” and having absolutely no requirement for any receipts at all is nothing short of abhorrent. Anything that they wish to claim as expenses should be supported as a receipt. Absolutely everything. It is not their money, but ours, and if they can’t be arsed to get a receipt, then they must be willing to pay for it themselves. And every expense claim must be listed in a publicly-accessible database at least annually, if not monthly.
Surely MPs get a large enough remuneration package as it is, with
- Annual salary: £61,820
- Second-home allowance: £23,083 (maximum)
- Travel: 40p per mile for up to 10,000 miles; 25p after that
- Pension: 1/40th of salary
- Resettlement grant up to 100 per cent of final salary, with first £30,000 tax free
I’d be more than happy with that kind of package! And I think that most other people would as well!
However, I don’t automatically disagree with the idea that MPs should be paid more. As Chris Dillow shows, in relation to the average wage, MPs pay has fallen. If their pay had kept pace, they would be on more than £140,000 a year. But any increase in their standard wage must be offset against either a massive decrease in the expenses that they can claim, or a huge increase in the transparency of all of expense claims made. Or, preferably, both.
I’m not dead against MPs getting paid more - within reason - but not without big big big changes to the rest of their remuneration package.
MPs need to remember that they are our servants, not the other way around. If MPs just want more money and are complaining that they are being paid “£40,000 less than equivalent roles in the private sector”, then, well, they can just fuck off and get a job in the private sector - if the private sector will have them.
But the very idea that MPs should get given £23,000 for “expenses”, with no need to justify them or even say what the money was spent on is simply disgusting. That sort of process has no place in what is supposed to be a transparent and democratic institution.
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