The End of “Gold Plated” MP Remuneration Packages

Houses of Parliament. Photograh by Peter Broster

Westminster MPs will be getting a pay rise may be getting a boost, but it is the added extras, expenses, resettlement grants, and gold-plated pensions where reform is needed.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has recommended that MPs’ pay should be increased by £6,000 to £74,000 a year from 2015, a move that has found few supporters as the British public still sees MPs’ salaries through the lens of the recent expenses scandal. This perception of MPs by the public at large has caused the leaders of all three main parties to attack the proposals, but this leaves Parliament facing another crisis over MPs’ pay – IPSA was set up to depoliticise the issue, but as the proposal has come under such broad attacks, can MPs reject it?

However MPs decide to handle the overall salary proposals from IPSA, they will struggle to reject the further proposals that will find wider public support. Under the proposals departing MPs will receive a reduced “golden goodbye” which currently can be as much as £64,766; and their current final salary pension scheme will be downgraded to a career average system. They will also be stripped of their £15 per day budget for dinner when staying late in Parliament.

At a time of austerity it is a difficult case to make for pay rise, but it is certainly time that MPs lose their extra bonuses, pension schemes, and expenses that are just not available to people in the private sector.