MPs' expenses: things for policywonk to say if she gets the chance

[policywonk]

So I'm off tomorrow afternoon to this panel discussion thing: here are the details

I'll go through the old thread tonight but post any more stuff here. Y'know, if you want to.

I'm SO OVER MPs' expenses.

I had a great idea

Let the Queen move to Windsor and convert Buck Palace into 600 luxury flats

Problem solved

MPs do not get a 'full' pension for life - the amount they receive entirely relates to how long they have served for, and how long they have contributed to their pension fund for. If they've been an MP for 20 years, they get around £30k annual pension. This is, of course, considerable compared with most of the public sector, but if they have only held office for a single term, they only receive a fraction of that amount.

The pensions are hugely subsidised however; the MPs pay in 10% of their salaries. The rest is state funded.

ten per cent of your salary isn't 'heavily subsidised' am sure when I was in a company pension scheme I was only paying in three per cent or something (will only get a crap pension mind you).

edam it is heavily subsidised. The ratio of how much the state pays into MPs pension funds compared with what they contribute themselves is currently about 3:1. In my public sector job, the employer matched my contributions, so the ratio was just 1:1. That's very normal, I believe.

Oh, I see what you mean, read your first post as MPs paying in ten per cent of salary = heavily subsidised. Think you are now saying 'employer' (i.e. taxpayer) contributes three times as much as the MP pays in?

Think my employer merely matched my contributions (and has now closed the final salary scheme anyway so won't be any money left by the time I retire).

Yep, that's it - for the 10% of their salary that they pay in each year (£6,476), the state contributes three times that (about £19,428), to keep the pot at the level which will give them their proper pension. Nice work if you can get it...

Effie if you have been a senior person in the NHS for 20 years you will get a not-dissimilar figure

If you have been a senior person in the NHS for 20 years, bloody well done on surviving that long and avoiding being dumped when your organisation is merged, absorbed and merged again and the politicians need a scalp to claim... (although the ones who are up to no good do remarkably well).

I know plenty of people who have worked in the the NHS all their lives and now manage wards etc. If you work there for most of your working life you will get half your salary as your pension when you retire...

but edam - that's equally true (if not more so) of MPs. They are up for re-election every 4 years and can be dumped by their constituents or parties at any point.

I would be very surprised if a higher proportion of MPs survived 20 years than did NHS employees.

Also - not sure about this so would be interested if anyone knows - I presume they don't get any kind of redundancy package if they are not re-elected?

Why does a written constitution mean elected judiciary? The Supreme Court Justices in the USA are appointed.

[starts scanning NHS job vacancies...]

TYV, o yes they do. I think £40,000 resettlement package. I may be wrong and I dont have time to double check right now. But I know they def get a financial package if they loose their seat at GE. Rubbish isnt it. That is just saying, dont worry if you are crap at your job and your constituents hate you so voted you out, here a few sacks of cash for your trouble.
It is something to do with helping them to restart in a career away from politics!!!!
I wonder if they will pay me to restart my nursing career when I go back after my children go to school. I dont think so, do you?

TYV: wasn't pegging MP's salaries to those of civil servants an episode of Yes PM?

lol - you could be right Effie!

All humanity is in Yes PM so it would not be surprising if they came up with this first.

Employees in the NHS get a final salary pension It is an 80th scheme meaning they get 1/80th of their final salary for each year they work. So if you work for 40 yrs you get half your salary 40/80th.
I believe and I stand to be corrected that MP's have a 30th pension scheme. For each year they work they get 1/30th of their final salary.
I agree that not many MP's work there for that long but that pension is a pretty good one. bear in mind most MP's have second jobs (so I am led to believe) and so probably additional pension provision.
Given how the govt have screwed pensions in this country I do believe they should not be allowed a final salary scheme and should have a money purchase scheme like most of us have in the private sector and so if the economy nose dives so will their pensions just like the rest of us.

The thing that's annoyed me about this is not so much the claims themselves, but the fact that, as "expenses", this money comes tax-free. the system must be radically overhauled.

I think MPs should get subsidised travel or some kind of hall of residence accommodation. Travel should not be fully paid - perhaps then they won't let the train companies put fares up so often. and that's it. they can pay for their own lunches, just like the rest of us. and furniture, cleaning etc will be provided in their residences.

having said that, I think perhaps they should possibly do less constituency work (that being the justification for the two homes thing). maybe local councillors could do that, and give regular reports to the MP - it's silly to have them running up and down the country in order to act as "glorified social workers" as some do.

as for the salaries...I think civil servants' salaries are irrelevant. I'm tempted to say MPs should earn the national median wage (25k or thereabouts), so they know how their constituents live. but I guess we should put them in the top 10% of wage earners - which would be 40k (not the 60-odd they get). the argument that "quality candidates" wouldn't do it for that much is, frankly, insulting to 90% of the population (many of them of very high quality themselves).

policywork - coudl you please identify which of these trousers are the super duper linen ones?

oh and BTW i agree with parliamentary hotel idea. maybe they could find an old RBS building and convert it. since we already own 70% of it anyway

the problem with all these slightly punitive ideas (less money, little pension, halls of residence) is that it will disadvantage exactly the kind of candidate you want.

In my opinion, what makes a bad MP?
People of independent wealth, by and large, who have little or no appreciation of what it's like to live on a salary and rely on a pension.
People who are career politicians and spend their lives in Westminster.
People who use their position to further outside business interests and sit on multiple boards of directors etc.
People in it mainly for the power trip.

What does the HoC need in my opinion?
More people of moderate/ordinary wealth
More women and people with families
More former professionals with experience of living and working in the world before they entered Westminster
More people in it for altruistic reasons, not for the influence they can wield.

IMO, many of these very punitive changes would put off the type of people who SHOULD be entering politics, and leave the field clear for the type of people who SHOULDN'T. If you are a working professional, perhaps a head teacher or a family lawyer, with a family and a mortgage, you are simply not going to enter politics if it requires you to take a pay cut, give up your job (and the best earning years of your pension) in return for an uncertain pension pot, commute miles and miles at your own expense, and live in a tiny flat in Westminster away from your family.

I am not saying the current system is right, but punishing MPs too hard will only mean that only those of independent wealth, who don't need a realistic salary or a pension, will be able to enter which would be much worse for British politics than a few people claiming dubious coffee tables and bath plugs.

PS, PW please tell me these are your super trousers? www.marksandspencer.com/gp/product/B001NNE2XY/sr=1-3/qid=1242978386/ref=sr_1_3/278-8133086-0338613?i e=UTF8&node=&m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&keywords=&mnSBrand=core&size=60&rh=n%3A43097030&page=1

Lots of people who have to work away from home have accommodation provided with the job. No-one's suggested they should be stuck in studio flats.

And the 'no-one will want to do the job unless we pay them £££££££' has been used by MPs (especially the Tories) as a barrier to reform for donkeys years. All that 'we need to sit all night and make it impossible for anyone who has children to look after so we can keep our lucrative second jobs'. Doesn't wash with an electorate that earns, on average, £25k.

And the pension pot isn't uncertain - as we've established, it's very generous. So they might lose their job at an election - big deal, many of us get made redundant more than once in five years. Without such a whacking pay-off!

Maybe bringing MPs into line with the electorate would encourage MORE ordinary people to stand.

Agree with you about more women, though, it's shocking that only 15% of MPs are female. At that rate, each woman MP is essentially a token.

sorry, I was not saying that teh current pension entitlement is uncertain, I was saying that if the pension pot were reduced as BigGitDad suggests then it would be uncertain.

If, by being elected, you lose the final years of your secure final salary scheme then yes, I think you should be compensated for that.

And all the people saying "There woudl be loads of candidates who would do it for national average wage" - really? Would you? Why aren't you standing then, if the job is so alluring?

I don't think there is such a glut of superb candidates out there - particularly not superb female candidates of moderate wealth with kids.

I think second jobs should be banned btw. An MP should be a full-time job and salaried accordingly.

ILove - re. your point about written constitution and election of judges: I don't think the two necessarily have to go together, but written constitutions tend to adhere to the separation of powers (judiciary, legislature and executive must be kept separate). If the executive and legislature cannot appoint judges because of the separation of powers, then they often end up being elected instead. (As you say, the Supreme Court judges are appointed - I'm not sure how this happened, think it must be an anomaly; most judges in the US are elected.)

I'm not sure whether elected judges are necessarily worse than the system we have at the moment, which results in an incredibly socially biased selection of senior judges.