The change.org petition calls for the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, to spend a year living on £53 a week. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
By Adrian Holliday, Mar 28, 2013 Filed under: News 421 Comments
British MPs are struggling to make ends meet on £65,738 a year. A new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) says 70% of MPs claim they deserve a +32% pay rise, potentially lifting salaries to £86,250.
And 20% of MPs thought remuneration of at least £95,000 a year was deserving. Could MPs get the salary jump they want?
More please
Pay packets for most ordinary Britons – the average British wage in 2013 is £30,917 for men and £24,253 for women, according to Payscale – struggle to keep pace with rising food and energy costs. In terms of public relations, hiking the pay of MPs would be tricky.
However ex-Cabinet minister and Labour MP Jack Straw says the time for a MP pay bump is as good as any. The Telegraph quotes ex Lib Dem defence minister Sir Nick Harvey. Harvey claims it unreasonable for MPs to make “enormous” financial sacrifices for their job.
Harvey thinks a £65,000 salary for a post that requires no training or qualification is not acceptable.
£31,000 hike
Looking at pay ambitions along party lines, the IPSA online interviews with 100 MPs revealed that some Tory MPs thought annual salaries should come closer to £96,740; Lib Dems thought the right salary was £78,361, while Labour members of the House of Commons plumped for £77,322, on average.
Not a great difference between Lib Dems and Labour – £1,039 – there while the gap between Labour pay wants and the Tories extends to £19,418. This gap widens to £31,000 if you compare what a Tory MP currently makes and what some Tory MPs would like to claim.
On average however across all parties, the survey found that MPs want a 32% pay hike to £86,250.
Bear in mind MPs who take on extra responsibilities such as Select Committee Chairs receive extra payments of up to £14,582. There are also other benefits MPs have including childcare vouchers and greatly subsidised meals.
Pension advantage
Many MPs are indeed hard working and there is some justification for a pay rise, given the workload, responsibility and stress of the role. But the pleading for more money does not look good against, for example, the abandonment of plans to hike MPs pension contributions in 2013.
There was supposed to be a 1.85% increase in how much MPs would pay into their final salary scheme. But IPSA intervened and the move was abandoned.
At the same time, many public sector workers are seeing substantial hikes in the cost of their pension contributions. Meanwhile the scandal of MPs expenses still resonates.
22 Responses
All they need is some good advice from the DWP Secretary of State, IDS, who can show them how to live on £53 per week. They will be quids in, in no time.
Absolutely Peter! IDS should teach them all his miraculous financial skills.
April fool’s day has come and gone,can’t fool me with that
we’re all in this together
Ah, mps…..don’t you just love them? No? Me neither. They make laws for the rest of us knowing full well they, themselves, will never have to worry about some WCA or even their pension funds, index linked as they are.
Cameron, as (a joke of a) Prime Minister will, on being kicked out, receive a nice wee rhodium handshake. And what has he done to eat it? Bugger all whilst IDS and Osborne have ensured the nation disintegrates.
Roll on the revolution……
he,s taking advantage of Braindead uk,,,because WE LET THEM
There’s nothing like rubbing salt into an already festering wound, as the evil ones dance in glee!
One % would be a lot more than most people earn in a month so only fair that MP`s get at most the same as benefit claimants ie 1% of £53 which gives them a generous 53 pence….
they are having as larf
Pay rises for little or no value whilst we starve! Give them only what the general public feels that they deserve.
Madame Guillotine was put to good use some time ago in France. We now need a UK model.
The gap just gets wider, in the eyes of the prat Cameroooon the UK only consists of London and the rich. He does not realise there are other cities which have people living there, he is so blinkered. He now wants to push anyone that does,nt fit into his posh bracket out of the city to places as far away as he can push them into destitution.
Regards a pay increase for MP’s they are there to work for the public e.g.our employees and therefore it should be the general public who decide if they should recieve more and should be put out to a national referendum, not decided by themselves. Paid by results should be the course taken and it would follow they should work for “THE BIG SOCIETY” and volunteer their services for free.
Whatever we think or do is totally irrelevant. Whenever a committee vote on an issue to do with themselves it always gets passed.
The only way forward is to devolve the power of wages and expenses to a different, stand alone, body.
Sadly, this never works either, as both parties rely on each others benevolence. In other words, they always see each other ok, whats good for one is good for the other. You never shoot the goose that lays the proverbial golden egg…….
If the powers that be, inflict a one percent freeze, then they should lead by example.
This will always be bollocks!, as they seem to relish taking money from the weakest and vulnerable and then put their flippers out and clap as deserving another fish.
Somehow they require some form of remuneration from stealing money from other sectors…….
Been there,seen it, done it!
Once you set foot on any form of committee, instantly you lose contact with the principles you purport to represent. Self interest becomes the primal goal.
There is no solution, but yards of resentment, hatred and a feeling of betrayal.
Corruption by office……
These so called MP’s should get a pay decrease and stop all of there allowances, and do what they said on there manifesto and not go back on every thing they said they would do. I THINK WE NEED MORE RIOTS THIS LOT CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT, WHAT NEXT “TOILET TAX” SORRY THATS ALREADY ON THE WAY.
If anybody has any idea what an MP really has to do, the amount of work actually involved, the crap that gets flung at them and constantly travelling for many of them, then you might think again about such remarks. I detest them as much as anyone when they ignore our real needs! But that is cultural change that is required not just having a go at their salaries. To do an effective and good job on behalf of thousands of people requires much more money than they get at present, whether we like it or not. Being disabled costs more than I get in help, so am aware of the other costs in time, emotion and out of pocket expenses when away from home. After paying statutory taxes etc this is not a lot of money, in any language to perform effectively in a very thankless job. We need these guys on our side, when they themselves do not have to be concerned about their bills etc they can then be more effective and more aware on our behalf. We might also attract a better class of more empathetic
individuals. Although it could also be said it could attract the more useless failures as well!
I have said for years now that riots, civil war and maybe even international law would break out as the only way to see these nasty people get what they deserve. Trouble is who do we vote for then. I suggest Black Triangle party
My local MP Jackie Doyle Price said that the £400 per month food allowance was abolished in 2010 so she cant claim it anymore anyone know if that is true ?
START CELEBRATING, THATCHERS DEAD!!!
Cut their Salaries by at Least £32,000 Pounds a Year
Stop the Politicians taking the Piss Out of Us
Get them Out of Office and Parliament
I have just finished a little bit of reasearch into current earnings; it appears from actual figures published that an MP can get up to £208000 in expenses, not all do, but should they wish it can be achieved, add to that their wage, currently £65000 that is a massive income potential of £273000, or 930% above the national average wage and they are asking for a 32% pay rise; they should be ashamed of themselves for their greed and actually volunteer to take pay ciuts to earn a maximum of three times the national average including expenses, thus saving the Country a potential of £120million pounds per annum the equivalent of 4800 nurses being employed per year; I know what I would sooner have..
Benefits have been cut, People are living on very low wages,
then you have the bed room tax con,
Now you have the politicians giving them selves a massive pay rise,
they are criminal, they do not care about the people in this country who are struggling to make ends meat,
they are rubbing our noses in it. I have no respect for any of them.
did i not read a few weeks ago that they had given themselves a huge wage rise of around £100,000 or did i dream that………or is this the same one now being acted upon?