"MPs can't live on £60K a year" says Sir Malcolm Rifkind

[CFSKate]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/investigations/11429070/MPs-cant-live-on-60k-a-year-says-Sir-Malcolm-Rifkind.html

Is he being unreasonable?

Plenty of non-family members work for MPs! People are willing to do it for free.

Plenty of barristers in parliament carry on at the bar at the same time. Geoffrey Cox MP for example earned £100,000 in three months last year, although he is a QC.

I don't argue for MPs to earn less. But I do think it's grossly insensitive in an era of pay restraint and freeze to complain about earning that much.

Don't forget also that £67k is entry level. The higher public sector salaries quoted here are after long periods of hard graft at lower salaries normally.

Expenses changes have clamped down quite a bit on the money to be made from buying property. That ship has sailed.

I agree that £60k is fuck all, especially for London.

And I don't want only rich MPs so it needs to be better paid.

I'm not sure why anyone cares about Jack Straw saying he has access to ambassadors though, they don't actually have any power or influence.

That's precisely it toospotty - it is exceedingly insensitive to complain about a "paltry" salary when people aren't getting payrises and are constantly squeezing their pennies.

Are you seriously suggesting that the House of Commons is filled with public school boys because no one else can afford to live on £67,000+ expenses?

I know you will say 'well if we are to attract the best people blah, blah...'
Well who are the best people? Because as far as I can see the best people are ordinary people elected to represent their peers.

Serving the public is a privilege. MPs get to decide who eats and who doesn't, who lives and who dies. You get to send young people to war. You can do huge amounts of good and huge amounts of harm.

It helps if you can relate to the people you are supposed to be working for. And they wonder why they are out of touch, why people do not know who the hell to vote for anymore.

Of course anyone could live on £67k, but why would someone who has the ability to earn more choose to do it, unless they have so much private income that the difference between say, £67k and £100k is immaterial to them?

So, by keeping the salary "low" you don't attract ordinary people made good and want to do good types, you attract people who like the idea of power and have no idea how real people live.

I think there's another issue - it's selling your contacts. Having spent a lifetime working in public service I am certain that if I tried to sell my contacts I'd be dismissed on the spot! "For £1,000 I can introduce you to my head teacher friend who will offer your Year 7 a place over the heads of those on the waiting list'
"Let me introduce you to my senior social worker friend who will oversee the investigation into your family surrounding abuse / domestic violence and it will go no further... it will cost you £5000."
Why is it accepted that MPs can introduce companies / individuals to lawmakers (for a fee) with the aim of ensuring that laws are changed to suit the company? Surely it's unethical and wrong!
It's yet another example of how MPs work on a totally different moral framework from those who appoint them.

Public servants aren't just teachers and nurses and all those worthy professionals that always get trotted out in arguments that MPs should only be paid tuppence ha'penny and be grateful. They are also people like the chief executive of my local county council - with an annual salary of £161,255 pa and responsibility for only one county he is paid £19k more than the Prime Minister. It's people like the permanent secretary to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, who earns £18k more than the PM, and a special advisor to the Asset Protection Agency who only works two days a week and is paid roughly the same as a back bench MP. It's all these people on this list too.

That's true Chillie, but also, really good ambitious teachers and nurses can earn more than MPs.

Unmissable - because being an MP is a privilege. Not just a career milestone.

You know - you are meant to have integrity and principles.

MPs are already in the top 3% of earners in the country. Fir many people £67,000 would represent a substantial salary increase.

Chillie, people talk about all the public sector staff on lower salaries because they make up the overwhelming majority. Many of the highest paid public sector workers have spent much of their career in the private sector and transferred their salary across.

When people talk about the PM's salary, they rather ignore the enormous earning potential of a former PM, the excellent pension, and the opportunities open to them. Ditto all very senior politicians. They can earn double their salaries on leaving just from a few executive directorships.

To the person who says "if they were well paid before what happened to all their money" (sorry can't remember who) the answer is simple:
When candidates are running for parliament, before they are elected they are paid nothing.
They cannot claim any expenses.
Becoming an MP is expensive.
They give up work, and work entirely for free on the campaign. They pay to go to endless events & fund raisers.

That IMO is the main reason why there are few MPs who were eg teachers, nurses etc. because how many employers let you have weeks & months off to campaign? How many people can afford to take several months off work totally unpaid with no definite job at the end?

My DH is standing for parliament in May. If he wins, it will be a pay cut from what he used to earn. But at the moment, he earns nothing at all, and hadn't done for several months.

there is never any shortage of applicants to stand as an MP so I don't agree that paying them more would attract a better calibre of candidate

Depends what you mean by better Alec. It would/could attract different people. People in good careers, who need or want to earn a decent living, rather than, as we have now, predominantly people who don't need a job at all.

The majority of MPs are NOT currently able to survive on private incomes! Despite the stats about the disproportionate number of them from private school, there are still plenty who come from 'normal' backgrounds. Only a very small number don't need a job at all.

"!! If £67k is fuck-all then what is £8k per year!?!?"

Well, quite.

The working class sngle parent knows that with a stint as an MP on her CV, she can return to the law any time she wants or she'll get jobs on the media/ book publishing/ after school/ consultancy/ think tank / broadcasting circuit.

Come off it, the idea that it is a terrible financial sacrifice to be an MP is bollocks. They go in at a 60K salary and they come out millionaires.

That's not true though AskBasil. If they have a long and distinguished career as an MP/Minister, absolutely, they'll never be poor again.

But, as a PP said, they first have to give up their job to run the campaign, with no guarantee of success and then they have to do it again 5 years (or less) later and could be out on their ear. They're not going to get rich from public speaking after a single term.

being an MP is a gateway to much greater earnings - having MP on your CV puts you in line for a whole series of cushy one day a month 'executive' directorships for stupid money as well a host of board member roles and being Chair of this and Chair of that. The £67k basic salary is just the beginning, not the end.

Many of the highest paid public sector workers have spent much of their career in the private sector and transferred their salary across.

Surely if they work in the public sector it's all about the nobility of public service though, so they shouldn't need/want to transfer their private sector salaries across. Or does that only apply to MPs?

Even having one term as an MP gives you unprecedented access to jobs and roles you otherwise wouldn't have IMO.

I'd like to see the person who gave up a well-paid job to be an MP and can demonstrate that they 've materially suffered as a result.

I don't disagree with you, Chillie. It's pretty demoralising for public sector workers on low salaries and pay freezes to see those enormous sums being flung about as somehow representative of the public sector. And most of those noble saviours of government piss off back to the private sector after a short stint too. But that's why it's not fair to use that very small percentage of high salaries to illustrate public sector earnings.

Also, if I may say it yet again, many highly paid professionals who go into politics carry on earning substantial amounts in their spare time. Having MP on your CV makes you far more desirable as a company director or consultant.

If MPs were only allowed to earn their salary of £67k then it would not be much for London but the reality is they are allowed to take outside work.

Reasonably senior civil servants earn a lot more than that by a wide margin but are not allowed to work outside that job.

Where I object is that when an MP gets work that is effectively only available to them because he/she is an MP.

Completely unrelated work is OK as long as it does not affect your ability to carry out your duties as an MP.

I'd pay MPs more - perhaps on a par with GPs, perhaps even more. However, they would not be allowed to undertake any other paid work at all while serving as an MP .

It astonishes me that we as an electorate cannot see the link between the private companies who stand to make money from privatising the NHS and education system, and the MPs who both have a stake in these businesses and vote on changes which benefit them. While we're making sacrificial lambs out of idiots with duck houses and political has-beens, private companies and the MPs in cahoots with them (or consultants, as they call themselves) are trousering the money from the NHS and school sell-off.

Discussing this on newsnight now

as well offering questions for cash, Rifkind earns the following:

Non-executive Director of Unilever plc; £85,992 annually
Non-executive Director of Adam Smith International; £35,000 annually
Member of Advisory Board, L.E.K. Consulting; £25,000 annually

so, he really doesn't have to worry about being forced to starve on his terrible MPs salary

and if was earning £150k a year as an MP does anyone seriously think he still wouldn't take up all those Director jobs? Of course he would.

If he was paid £150k a year as an MP he could reasonably be asked/told to have no outside interests.