MPs' pay: Watchdog calls for rise of more than £6,000
MPs' pay: Watchdog calls for rise of more than £6,000
MPs' pay should be increased by £6,000 to £74,000 a year from 2015, the Commons expenses watchdog has said.
But the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa)
also recommends cuts to perks such as meal allowances and taxis and a
less generous pension scheme.
And "golden goodbyes" paid to retiring MPs could also be trimmed.
The plan has been condemned by party leaders and some MPs who say Ipsa should go back to the drawing board.
The watchdog is to consult on the rise but MPs can not block
it because they handed control of the decision to the independent body
in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "The cost of politics should
go down not up. And MPs' pay shouldn't go up while public sector pay
is, rightly, being constrained."
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who has said he will not
take the increase, said it was "about the worst time to advocate a
double digit pay increase for MPs," adding that the public would find it
"incomprehensible".
'Fixes and fudges'
Labour leader Ed Miliband said he did not believe the rise
should go ahead - and confirmed he would not take it if it did, but he
said he was confident Ipsa would change its recommendation after a
public backlash.
"I don't think MPs should be getting a 10% pay rise when
nurses and teachers are facing either pay freezes or very low increases
and people in the private sector are facing similar circumstances," said
Mr Miliband.
Prime Minister David Cameron has criticised the proposed
increase but a No 10 source declined to comment on whether he would be
taking it. Pressed on the question, the PM's spokesman said: "it's not a
pay rise, it's a proposal".
He pointed out the IPSA package was still to go out to consultation and Downing Street would be submitting its own response.
The Ipsa proposals include:
- A salary of £74,000 in 2015, with rises after that linked to average earnings across the whole economy
- A new pension on a par with other parts of the public sector, moving from a final salary to career average scheme, which Ipsa says will save taxpayers nearly £2.5m a year
- Scrapping "resettlement payments", which were worth up to £64,766 for long-serving MPs still of a working age, the first £30,000 of which was tax-free. and introducing "more modest" redundancy packages, available only to those who contest their seat and lose
- A "tighter regime" of business costs and expenses - including an end to the £15 a night meal allowance and taxis home after late sittings
Ipsa chairman Sir Ian Kennedy said: "The history of MPs'
pay and pensions is a catalogue of fixes, fudges and failures to act.
The package we put forward today represents the end of the era of MPs'
remuneration being settled by MPs themselves.
"For the first time, an independent body will decide what MPs
should receive. We will do so in full view, and after consultation with
the public."
'Obscene'
Sir Ian told BBC Radio 5 Live MPs should be treated like
"modern professionals" and part of the package was a "radical proposal"
to introduce an annual "report card" to show the public what MPs did for
their money.
He said the pay rise proposal was
"fair" because MPs' pay had "fallen back" over the years and they
needed to properly rewarded for the job they did, adding that the
expenses scandal had been the result of too much pay restraint.
He said there was never a good time to increase MPs' pay, but
said the changes were designed to "last a generation rather than just
respond to the latest political issue", and taken together with the
expenses reforms would save taxpayers money.
"When you look at the package as a whole it is fair to the
taxpayer and fair to MPs," he told callers to the Victoria Derbyshire
phone-in programme.
He said he would over the next two months listen to the views of the public who had taken part in the consultation on the Ipsa website,
but he believed the package was not over-generous and was in line with
previous recommendations by the senior salaries review board and other
bodies.
A stream of callers to the Victoria Derbyshire phone-in
attacked the proposed pay rise, with one describing it as "obscene" and
another asking Sir Ian: "What planet are you on?", although a handful of
callers supported the package.
Sir Ian is paid £700 a day and works on average two days a
week, which he said added up to an annual salary of between £60,00 and
the "high 70s".
MPs' pay around the world (2012) |
|
|---|---|
| Source: Ipsa | |
| Spain | £44,618 |
| France | £52,028 |
| UK (Westminster) | £65,738 |
| Germany | £72,294 |
| United States | £111,251 |
| Japan | £167,784 |
MPs are currently paid £66,396, but that is due to rise to £67,060 in April 2014 and rise by a further 1% the following year.
The recommendation amounts to a rise of around £6,300 a year, or 9.3%, on what MPs would be getting in 2015.
Some MPs have attacked the proposals, saying Ipsa should have
taken greater account of the state of the wider economy and the pay
freeze across the public and private sector.
Margaret Hodge, Labour chairwoman of the influential Public
Accounts Committee, said it was "inappropriate at a time when every
public sector worker is being asked to take a 1% rise" that MPs should
be out of line.
Labour MP John Mann said: "It really gives us all a bad
reputation, a bad name. It's been bad enough after the expenses scandal
and, frankly, if this was to go through it would be catastrophic for the
reputation of Parliament."
MPs will not get a vote on the pay decision but Mr Mann said
he hoped to force one in the Commons before the next election in 2015,
which he said Ipsa could not ignore.