AIBU to be surprised by MPs earning £98k plus expenses?

There are far easier ways to earn £98k. Definitely not enough imo.

Banking - heck Monzo graduate scheme starts at £50k

I work in the public sector. All drinks are provided and we get a delivery of fresh fruit twice a week. Bit daft in the post Covid times as most people wfh.

i don’t see the issue with expenses. Every job i have ever had I was reimbursed for costs I incurred doing my company’s business.

I don’t think it’s a lot at all. I have half their stress and half the vitriol for more money.

I think 50-60k would see more running to industry for far better money.

Mumsnet is the wrong forum to ask this, everyone's on £100k plus here and talk about it the same as average folk will about a £40k salary.

I think £100k plus expenses is fair however I think second jobs should absolutley be banned unless its something like being a doctor and you need to keep your hand in (and is also in the public interest) and you shouldn't be allowed large gifts or favours. Being a politician shouldn't be seen as a lucrative career but a civic duty for the good of the country.

I knew. And honestly if you see the usual salaries of top management and leadership in London you'd realise why if anything this is probably too low. I have worked under many incredible Directors and CEO's who would be better than our current elected officials, I have long held this view.

But there is a reason our best business minds are not in Parliament. You can earn significantly more and have more respect, privacy and job security in the private sector. You have to be a weird kind of egotistical personality to choose Politics for yourself in the modern age.

They should be on performance related pay and have KPIs and targets to meet.

I worked in Parliament for years for an MP. You’ve illustrated perfectly that you have no idea what an MP does and what their expenses pay for.

That’s a very revealing chart. Thanks.

It just goes to show how many MPs are ‘professional’ greasy pole climbers. They hang around in state or charity or union funded jobs while scratching around for selection to stand in a constituency. The experience many MPs bring is very limited indeed and, frankly, many are just self-interested shouty dimwits.

That's fascinating! No wonder the trades are in such a mess!!

Salaries for MPs were brought in in 1911 so there coukd be a wider range of MPs than just those with inherited wealth or sponsorship from landowners.

If the salary was too low it would presumably be a return to that kind of system

MPs' pay facts | IPSA https://share.google/GzEPDqp0tmyBQfza7

This is the breakdown of employment MPs held before entering Parliament in 2024. As it’s a big Labour majority, the employment is very skewed towards the parliamentary sector, public service and charities. It does go a long way to explaining why they don’t understand business or economics. Most have never had to. The business sector, outside professional services, is far too
low.

@Petrolitis I don't agree with them not sitting on boards of companies. They really should be doing some outside activities to enhance their understanding of business or indeed another field. A board member is not anywhere near a full time job but it does promote understanding of the challenged faced by industry and commerce. Far too many MPs are economically illiterate. Any education and wider understanding of business is to be welcomed. Urban MPs could learn more about the countryside too!

As for expenses! Tea bags! My DH ran a company and tea bags and coffee were provided! Plus MPs expenses are for travel, having two “homes” in constituency and in London and maintaining an office in the constituency. It’s not for biscuits from Fortnum and Masons.

Personally I prefer a move to the state paying a grant for MPs offices and staff up to a certain sum because they cannot operate without one.

It absolutely is not a massive wage. School heads, council leaders etc get paid more.

MPs get massive abuse and some even get murdered.

Pay them more but do not allow them to have second jobs or to sit on the board of companies after they've been MPs for a decade.

We want the best people and we don't want a USA style situation where politicians end up in the pocket of lobbyists or doing the bidding of firms that employ them after their term.

That would apply to only a handful of potential MPs.

Nearly all the hopefuls who want to be MPs spend years in dreary party branch meetings and pointless council debates. They want to be MPs because they have this utter delusion that they’re talented and that the country needs them. So they do the leafleting, the votes for conference, the selection panels and all the rest of the crap.

If these people make it to Westminster they get to display their preening self-regard and an honorific, plus use of subsidised bars.

@DenizenOfAisleOfShame You are completely missing the point that very good people who already earn well refuse to be MPs. They don’t want the massive salary hit. So yes, for some, a MPs salary is better but I want movers and shakers as MPs. Not charity workers or SPADs.

An MP’s salary is higher than in most of the jobs that MPs were doing before being elected. But that’s not really the point.

A few MPs become MPs because they genuinely feel the calling or have another good motive. But the great majority of them just want the influence, ‘prestige’, attention and self-importance of being a politician on the national stage. They’re careerist politicians who are too dim to achieve or get satisfaction from work in the usual way.

We have a big problem with hopeless, stupid MPs. We don’t need to make it worse by offering more money.

I think we are better with a diverse range of people in parliament - younger people have a fresh perspective and challenge and we need more voices from different backgrounds.

I work for a local paper and see what they're actually doing. I wouldn't do it for double that.

No way I'd do it for 98k.