Quick! MP's need a Salary increase

[Porfre]

According to long serving Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley, his colleagues are suffering.

They're finding it difficult to survive on their MP salary of £82,000.

They need a Salary increase to £100,000, because of all their hard work.

How can you argue with that?

YABU- They dont deserve a salary increase.
YANBU - Of course their salary should be increased!

I think we can all agree that 1% would be plenty

And the country can't afford more. There is no magic money tree.

@FreedomFaith

We get who we vote for! We can't be angry at the mp because people votes for them. You have to be angry at the electorate, and/or the opposition parties for not providing a better alternative.

Oh I am trust me. But I at least didn't vote for the idiots, so I can still complain about them and wonder why others thought they were a good option. Plus the electorate have also been lied to numerous times by the current government, and have been led to believe there is no one better out there than the tories. I can think of many better options, my arse for example. It could make better choices.

If those voters are stupid enough to believe the lies them they have no business voting in the first place.

I always thought that MPs were paid that much money and were able to claim expenses to ensure that not all of them were people with independent wealth or family money. We need to ensure that the chamber isn't full of people like Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Objectively, I think MPs are underpaid for what they do. I know relatively junior staff in the City who are earning more. Why would someone capable of earning a similar amount or more take on the insecurity and shit of being an MP.

However, it is utterly tone deaf to raise that point now at at time of pay freezes, the furlough scheme ending, UC cuts etc. It just adds to the sense of the Westminster bubble.

I’d expect a decent MP to be skilled at small P politics. Read the room Peter!

They get £25 a day food allowance and the food in the restaurants in the houses of Parliament is already heavily subsidised, so they save twice.

Well, maybe they need to start making better life choices and live within their means? If they can't live on their £80k a year they need to start looking at their expenditure and make better personal choices, not have kids if they can't afford them etc.
Or upskill and work hard and then they can go off and earn more money?
I mean we don't really need MPs more than we need nurses, teachers, care assistants, shop workers or the like do we? And that's what they need to do to make more money, I'm sure someone will come along to fill the gap?

Oh and it's a vocation right? So do we really want people doing it for the money?

^ That's sarcasm by the way, in case anyone is tempted to take me seriously ^

If those voters are stupid enough to believe the lies them they have no business voting in the first place.

I like to think they were just hoping for a better future. Makes me feel better that there's people out there who can vote for our future who are extremely easy to brainwash.

There was indeed a link between MP & Civil Service pay.

MPsPay

I think the problem was when I was younger the link was to grade7 (Principal) or grade 6 (Senior Principal) but this has drifted upwards as the pay for these grades didn't go up as much as the MP's wanted their pay to increase.

Look everyone needs a salary increase, and I don't think £100,000 is an unreasonable salary for an MP. But, they have had increases over the last decade when the rest of the civil service has been on pay freeze/caps, I believe at one point they had an 11% increase due to the independent panel which recommends such thing. Until the rest of the civil service gets their independent panel and pay increases it's not fair they are singled out as a special case, again!

^^
This!

Paying MPs more would mean the job attracted, over time, better candidates who weren’t already independently wealthy, which is a good thing. But it does stick in the craw somewhat when the rest of the public sector is treated so badly.

I actually think it is a fair if not generous salary now but ministers should get a lot more as the responsibility they have over and above an MP is massive. The PM should be on more really as well.

He has been completely gone deaf talking about younger mp’s salary situation being ‘grim’. They are there to represent their constituents- most of whom will be earning a much lower wage.

Paying a huge salary like 500,000 etc wouldn't attract a better calibre of candidate. It would attract people who value money over everything else. A high salary doesn't make people work harder for care more, in fact quite the opposite.

I think that’s perfectly fair as long as they’re banned from any other work, “consultancies”, etc.

Maybe he should take up ironing as a second job?!

It makes more sense to increase their salary than to cut it to £30K or less as some suggest. The point of it paying well is that anybody can do it. If MPs were paid little or nothing only the wealthy would ever stand to become an MP.

If those voters are stupid enough to believe the lies them they have no business voting in the first place.
On the face of it, intelligence tests for voters sound like a good thing, but they will always be called discriminatory, you only have to look at the comprehension tests used in the United States at certain times and places.

As an ex teacher who spent her whole career on a pay freeze, I very much agree with this! If they want a pay increase (which may well be fair, see above) they need to sort out raising other public sector wages FIRST
Yeah but there are WAY more public sector workers to deal with. Increase 650 MPs salaries by 20%, that's an extra 13 million or so. Increase all public sector workers by 20%, you're looking at billions.

Maybe he should take up ironing as a second job?!

🤣🤣🤣

...or move to a cheaper area
..or sell stuff on ebay?

He should definitely get on MN for suggestions!

They can fuck off. 82k + all expenses covered (and usually a nice little bit of creating expense claiming to go with it...) PLUS they can take second jobs, and frequently do.

If they can't live off that they aren't fit to be MPs given how completely detached from fucking reality they must be.

It's always going to be politically unpopular to increase MPs salaries because most people don't rate the job current MPs are doing and the salary sounds high compared to other public sector jobs.

But you won't attract the best talent at £82k. I'm paid that and I'm a mid-level solicitor in the regions with nothing like the responsibility of an MP. A lot of experienced professionals working in law, accounting, finance, software engineering etc. are paid more than that, particularly in London. In some ways the salary probably makes MPs less representative overall because often they'll only do it if they have made their money elsewhere or have family money.

It's difficult as you don't want to pay so much that people only do it for the money but you do want to be able to attract good people who will focus on the job rather than do it on the side of or as a break from their actual career.

MP remuneration is tiny in the overall context of public finances. Increasing MP salaries by £20k would hardly register in terms of overall costs.

@HarrietsChariot

It makes more sense to increase their salary than to cut it to £30K or less as some suggest. The point of it paying well is that anybody can do it. If MPs were paid little or nothing only the wealthy would ever stand to become an MP.

If those voters are stupid enough to believe the lies them they have no business voting in the first place.
On the face of it, intelligence tests for voters sound like a good thing, but they will always be called discriminatory, you only have to look at the comprehension tests used in the United States at certain times and places.

As an ex teacher who spent her whole career on a pay freeze, I very much agree with this! If they want a pay increase (which may well be fair, see above) they need to sort out raising other public sector wages FIRST
Yeah but there are WAY more public sector workers to deal with. Increase 650 MPs salaries by 20%, that's an extra 13 million or so. Increase all public sector workers by 20%, you're looking at billions.

IQ tests whilst in theory a good idea, would present a difficulty in where to place the threshold which I think would be the hardest part. The issue historically in the US was that they used grandfather rights as well, so they set the bar quite high, made it so that it was very difficult for non-whites to pass and gave everyone who was white a free pass.

I have thought before about being required to take a voting qualification that covered the basics of how the health and education systems operate, monetary and fiscal policy, international trade etc. but the difficulty there would be trying to keep it unbiased.

A system based on making a net contribution could also have some fairness, if you pay in more than you cost/take out then you get to vote.

The issue we have with the current political system is also partially down to choice, the last election was largely a decision between Johnson and Corbyn, people were forced to vote for candidates that less than 15% of the electorate thought were fit to be PM.

The ideal would be a benevolent dictatorship and technocracy.

Does a back-bench MP have responsibility?

Apart from marching through the lobbies under orders from the Chief Whip, and hoping for promotion by keeping his head down and pretending to be a loyal supporter of the current dear leader?

You cant make this shit up! Just goes to show how clueless the people running the country are.

If being an MP is the only job, and they do not have 3 more homes and 6 properties they are landlords to plus inherited wealth and goodness knows what else, (as in Bumley's case), yes it is reasonable; but for someone like him to say that is sickening.

Having worked for an MP, they most definitely do not!

I saw Portillo this morning agreeing with him, saying that for young MPs starting out it's good money, but for someone with Bottomly's experience it's not enough (!). They guy's (Bottomley) 71! why doesn't he retire to spend more time with his money?

He's also married to Virginia Bottomley who sits in the House Of Lords for £300 a day so they're not exactly on their uppers.

As others have said though...the main issue with this is sheer brass neck of coming out with this on the same day as the UC cut.
We also have BJ who complains that he can't live on his tiny £150,000 salary when all his housing, transport and food costs are paid for him. The £150,000 is basically all pocket money.

@Sirzy

Does anyone have figures for the average expenses claim for an MP?

Averages are a very crude measure for expenses, an MP in a London constituency doesn't need a second home but will have to rent office space for surgeries.

On the other hand a NI MP, or one from Scotland doesn't really have an option that is not flying but might pay peanuts for office space.

The Telegraph's investigation of expenses a couple of years ago was interesting.