The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has confirmed that MPs will receive a 10% increase in their salary. The annual pay of an MP will increase by almost £7,000, rising from the current level of £67,060 to £74,000.
The approval of the 10% pay increase is likely to prove controversial, as even its beneficiaries have often not been in favour of the idea in recent discussions. Downing Street and a number of MPs have said that an increase in pay is “not appropriate.” In the run-up to the General Election in May, a number of parties promised that if they were elected into power they would accept a cut to MPs pay in order to reduce strain on the public purse.
Now that the increase has been confirmed several MPs, including Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper who are contending for leadership of the Labour party, have said that they will forego the increase. Still others, such as Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, have expressed an intention to donate the extra money to charity.
Sir Ian Kennedy, chairman of the IPSA, described the issue of MPs’ pay as a “toxic” one, and said that the matter “had been ducked for decades.”
Nonetheless, Sir Ian insisted that the pay rise MPs are to receive is not going to cost the public anything, because it is being offset by cuts to the various benefits and allowances MPs are to receive. Expenses claims, severance payments and pensions are all being cut to make room for the increase in salary.
The IPSA, which was set up in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal, also said that there would be changes to the way future increases in MPs’ pay were made. From now on, the IPSA said, the salary received by MPs would rise in proportion to the average increase of wages in the public sector. This seems to indicate something of a turnaround since previous statements made by the IPSA, which suggested that MPs’ pay rises would be linked to average earnings. The latter is predicted to be higher over the next five years than the average public sector pay increase, meaning that the new stance is likely to result in more modest pay rises in years to come.
This change is also important because, at some times in the past, average public sector pay increases have been shown to be negative due to factors such as job cuts. If the average wage in the public sector decreases again and MPs’ pay is linked to it, this means that MPs will see their pay fall instead of rise.