AIBU to think we need MPs who can earn £1million a year

[Lovelyricepudding]

I don't know what the answer is but AIBU to think we need people who companies think it is worth paying £1million a year as MPs? The quality of most of our MPs is pretty rubbish and £82k a year is not a salary to attract big-hitters of the calibre we need. It sounds like Geoffrey Cox QC may have spent too little time focused on MP work and it is obviously wrong for MPs to benefit from external work gleaned due to their role as an MP. But how do we attract the most capable people into parliament when they can be so successful outside parliament?

@WhereYouLeftIt Rosena Allin-Khan still works as a doctor in her constituency - helps that it's in London of course. I believe pre-pandemic this was just in parliamentary recess and then she picked up more hours in the pandemic. And I'm pretty sure there's a Tory MP who went back to nursing also during the pandemic. I think it's really beneficial to have this sort of up to date hands on experience in parliament, so I wouldn't want an outright ban on MPs doing other work.

But how do we attract the most capable people into parliament when they can be so successful outside parliament? We need in parliament people of integrity, who can represent their constituents, understand what matters to their constituents and why. We don't need people whose motive to be an MP is because it's lucrative.

It's a fallacy that only high earners are capable.

I think MPs are overpaid, seeing as you don’t need any qualifications or experience to become one. £85,000 plus expenses is actually a very generous starting salary and there are opportunities for promotion.

Maybe if MPs earned an average salary, they would have more empathy with their constituents? My MP is a real snob.

We need to pay MPs £1m a year as a salary. It would be an absolute drop in the ocean of public expenditure. And then we might attract talented people to the job instead of the woeful bunch of tossers and liars who currently get drawn in.

How are candidates selected - central office or members? Or both?

I wonder if the selection process is at fault.

Maybe both Conservatives and Labour have chosen poor candidates based on commitment to XYZ rather than ability and/or character.

Or if they are chosen locally maybe there are issues with members priorities.

Or maybe sensible people don't want to go in to politics at all.

I don't actually know how they decide the candidates

I'd love to see Parliament full of people with a wide variety of life experiences.

YANBU the leaders of industry, the people able to take a struggling company and turn it around into a profitable and successful enterprise all command a salaries in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Most of them enjoy making money so won't give it up for an MP's salary, or even for the chance to be PM (well a few might for the 'look at me' aspect). To run a country you need the people with these financial/risk/strategy etc skills and to tempt tempt away from the corporate board room you'd need to match the money.
Probably going to get a load bleating that they should be paid minimum wage so then they'd know what it was like - well news flash the ones that you would attract paying NMW already know as that is already their earning potential - nobody with the right skillset is going to take that cut.
Politics isn't a game, you need competent people running the show.

I think they need yearly performance review to check if they’ve been sat on their arse all year.

no you're conflating the ability to be a good MP with a high earning type.

I'd be a brilliant MP - I wouldn't need £1m to do it. The current lot are awful because they're immoral and incompetent and pretty corrupt. They have no interest in the poor, disabled or ill. I don't think money will buy people who do have that interest or can act with integrity or competence.

If you have been a GP, a headteacher or the head of a Clinical Commissioning Group, all of whom have experience which would be valuable in Parliament, you would have to take a very significant pay cut to become an MP. It is not just people who've been successful in business who make a lot more than £80k.

Politics isn't a game, you need competent people running the show😂

And look at all the competent white middle aged male millionaires running the show at the moment.

I agree. Pay peanuts & you get monkeys. Their salaries are lower than your average company manager’s. And with the greater personal threat, this should be reflected in terms of much better security and an allowance for security equipment etc.

But they should be held to higher standards.

I think we need a mix.

You arent going to get any teachers, firefighters or nurses paid £1m and it doesnt make them less valuable as our representatives than corporate types.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Actually l think we need mp’s who’ve been unemployed, lived on universal credit, fought in Afghanistan, than a load of self important millionaire tosspots. As in the current government.

So it a no from me .

This.

To represent the people of a country you need to understand the people of a country.

Boris Johnson and the rest of them have no touch with any realm of reality.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Actually l think we need mp’s who’ve been unemployed, lived on universal credit, fought in Afghanistan, than a load of self important millionaire tosspots. As in the current government.

So it a no from me .

100% this!

It really is interesting how when an MP is caught out being corrupt a lot of people suggest they need paying more to avoid temptation - I've heard quite a few suggesting the same on LBC this week. Nobody suggests a lone parent working fiddly hours on the side to make ends meet should have their universal credit doubled. It's only a solution pondered for the rich.

Social workers, care workers, nurses - all work for a lot less but as it's 'vocational' it is expected they will do it for the cheapest rates, for the greater good. Being an MP should be no different.

I can see the logic but I will never understand how mps can go from transport secretary to health, to foreign secretary.
They are not experts in the field they find themselves representing. They are not going up against industry. It is (as previously mentioned) a vocation where you should (hopefully) want to make things better for people, make a difference.

Great then they can do even less than they do now

Why do we equate being paid huge salaries with ability and quality? This is why our world is so fucked .

MPs know what the pay is, if they don't like it, don't be an MP.

And as for all the consultancy/lobbying/directorships, I wonder, if their was a rule that any company they worked for was banned from getting government contracts how in demand the MPs talents would be then.

I think if we up the wage of MPs we'll invite even more greedy dicks to do the job.

The wage needs to be less, if anything and people who care about communities etc will be drawn to do the job.

And no they should not be able to work somewhere else at the same time.

There needs to be a formal interview process to become an MP candidate before election time. And there needs to be a monitoring organization, like Ofsted, to make sure MPs are doing their jobs properly.

To run a country you need the people with these financial/risk/strategy etc skills and to tempt tempt away from the corporate board room you'd need to match the money. To turn around a company usually involves getting rid of a number of people and squeezing more work out of the ones you have left. Unfortunately you can't run a country on the basis of getting rid of anyone you deem surplus to requirements.

The current way of running the country is from an employers' perspective, where it is quite reasonable to offer "flexibility" in the form of "we'll pay you for 16 hours a week but we expect you to be available for work 20 hours a day 7 days a week". From the employee's point of view this means never being able to commit to a family event, to an evening out with friends, to an evening in with your partner. But of course, if they're in this sort of job they've already demonstrated they are of no value and shouldn't expect anything better.

I want highly intelligent people with an understanding of economics. I want ex lawyers, economists, medics, company execs, successful business owners etc.
No I dont want people that have been on benefits just because they understand what it’s like. I want people that understand the bigger picture. So yes I do think that paying a wage that competes with big corporations would be a good start.

If for one moment you can put the individuals to one side, the roles themselves are massively underpaid. Do you really think the CFO of a FTSE 250 business should be paid more than the chancellor of the exchequer? Madness.

I'm sorry you just can't compare running a country to running a business, they're two completely different things.

So someone on universal credit is automatically unintelligent?

@Ted27

Many of the MPs raking it in with 'jobs' on the side have no particular skills or expertise. They are being paid for access - old boys network on a colossal scale.

This. They'd not get that amount if not for their position in Parliament. It's bog-standard cash for access.