For a public sector equivalent, £74k is at the top end for the headteacher of a primary school, and the bottom end of secondary.

Good.

Good.

Good as in that’s about right? i.e. you agree with the pay rise?

I thought MPs were public sector employees, that’s 1% pay rise.
As for housing, if Westminster is paying for mortgages, why not have all those properties signed over to Westminster then reassigned to whoever wins the seats at the next election? That way, in around 20 years, all the required housing is owned and no expenses get paid on it.

Good as in that’s about right? i.e. you agree with the pay rise?

Good as in secondary headteachers have considerable more responsibilities than a backbench MP, so they should earn more.

So you agree that an MP should earn about the same or a little bit less then the lowest paid secondary head and this pay rise is deserved?

So you agree that an MP should earn about the same or a little bit less then the lowest paid secondary head and this pay rise is deserved?

No.

I am intensely relaxed that MPs are well paid, I think it should be considerably more than £74k though.

As for housing, if Westminster is paying for mortgages, why not have all those properties signed over to Westminster then reassigned to whoever wins the seats at the next election? That way, in around 20 years, all the required housing is owned and no expenses get paid on it.

To be fair I’ve always thought building an MP equivalent to a student halls of residency in central London would make a lot of sense.

As I recall, MPs’ pay is in something like the top 3% of earnings. Are you suggesting that there is nobody in the remaining 97% with the qualities to be an effective MP?

Personally I’d hope the country is run by the top 0.1% rather than the top 3%

Footflaps Eh? WTF? What do you think a world authority in academia earns (before publishing, guest speaking, just in their faculty role)? There are other qualifiers for entering parliament than your previous salary and other measures of an individuals contribution to society. We don’t want or need a country governed by business people/bankers, they have sufficient power as it is.

Also the country is run by civil servants it’s MPs jobs to make the civil servants job more difficult. That’s all.

scotroutes – Member

I do have a degree of sympathy with our elected politicians. Put yourself in their shoes..

You’re a prospective MP.
You’ve a full-time job and family.
There’s an election called.
You need to tell your employer that you might not be turning up for work after the election but you don’t want to lose your current job if you’re not elected.
So, you get in. But the “contract” only lasts five years.
You need to travel to/from London on a regular basis and/or move your kids from school to school.
You can’t afford to sell your current house, knowing you need to be in the constituency regularly and you might need it again after five years.
At the next election, regardless of your individual performance, you can be made redundant with no notice (I know there’s a “let-down” package)

Without a decent pay and expenses package, the only folk that could afford to be MPs are those that are already independently wealthy.

It seems unlikely to me that a prospective MP would being working for anyone bar the Party they represent leading up to a general election, in most constituencies the battle to become the candidate would be harder than the battle to become MP so they would be working for the party for years before.

5 Years is a long time for a fixed term contract, if you see it that way.

Whilst some of their work is in London and the Commons, if they’re not in the cabinet (which pays 136k a year) they SHOULD be working in their constituency on behalf of their constituents. Notoriously their travel and accommodation expenses are far more generous than in the Private Sector – no Travelodge for them – I’m not sure if they still can, but for a very long time they were allowed to buy a second home in London to work from whilst parliament is in session, have the tax payer pay the mortgage and keep 100% of the sales proceeds when they sell, plus they can put their entire day to day costs on expenses – £45 lunches, haircuts, phone bills etc – of course they used to charge for duck houses and moat clearing so we should be grateful they toned it down to almost sane levels of pisstaking.

If you want to be bored out of your mind, have a look on BBC parliament when they’re debating something non-news worthy you might see 5-6 MPs out of the 600 or so are actually in Westminster.

As others have said, most will employ their partner or other family member as their PA, there’s no requirement for entry and no justification of need either – £40k a year.

Again, we shouldn’t confuse MPs with Cabinet Ministers.

about 95% of MPs have about as much say in running the country as one of the women on the checkout at your local Aldi.

which might be just as well since there is nothing in place to ensure that they are any better qualified.

Personally I’d hope the country is run by the top 0.1% rather than the top 3%

You’d hope, but it’s abundantly clear that that isn’t the case. And what qualities should we assess to establish who is ‘top’?

I realise that neither of these comments is particularly helpful. In the context of the original question, I’d say that MPs salary is ridiculously low for the sort of people you would like to be running the country, but probably somewhat excessive given who actually is in parliament.

Personally I’d hope the country is run by the top 0.1% rather than the top 3%

I hadn’t realised than we live in a meritocracy.

Footflaps Eh? WTF? What do you think a world authority in academia earns (before publishing, guest speaking, just in their faculty role)?

I was thinking on the lines of ability, ideally you’d want the very best running the country rather than ‘just good enough’. As for what academia earns, that all depends on how good they really are. If they really are world class, then they can nip to the US and get $200k+ at Stanford or Harvard etc.

I hadn’t realised than we live in a meritocracy.

meritocracy – government or the holding of power by people selected according to merit

You’d flipping hope so!

You do realise the opposite of the term ‘meritocracy’ is ‘nepotism’? You’d prefer a bit more nepotism?

You were using income as a proxy for ability which, while it has some merits, (notably ease) it is not a linear relationship.

Seems fine to me. I’d expect an MP to earn six figures all in so there you go.
70m ish wage bill for all of them seems a drop in the ocean and they are supposedly running the country.

I may not actually think this.

meritocracy – government or the holding of power by people selected according to merit

I flipping hope so!

You do realise the opposite of the term ‘meritocracy’ is ‘nepotism’? You’d prefer a bit more nepotism?

I don’t know why you’re so keen to advance arguments I haven’t made.

We do not live in a meritocracy with regard to earnings – i.e there is no reason to believe that the top 0.1% of earners posses more desirable qualities than those in the remaining 99.9%. Many would argue that the opposite is the case.

The argument that we need higher salaries to attract better MPs is bogus.

about 95% of MPs have about as much say in running the country as one of the women on the checkout at your local Aldi.

which might be just as well since there is nothing in place to ensure that they are any better qualified

Qualified? You’re familiar with the whole concept of democracy, right? Some people seem to have a rather bizarre take on it. You are meant to be representative of your constituants. You’re not turning up at Westminster with your CV asking them for a job. If your consituants.. actual people… want you to represent them, then thats that.

Maybe the problem we’ve got in this counry is that all the parties think that the ‘qualification’is a an expensive private education, PPE at Oxbridge, then a spell in the press office or a thinktank.

Which makes you ideally qualififed to represent other people that had an expensive private education, PPE at Oxbridge, then a spell in the press off office or a thinktank, but not much else, as you’ve seen **** all, so know **** all.

So I’d say presumed ‘qualifications’ are the whole problem!

7m ish wage bill for all of them seems a drop in the ocean and they are supposedly running the country

The Tory Cabinet runs the country.

You were using income as a proxy for ability which, while it has some merits, (notably ease) it is not a linear relationship.

Or rather you assumed I was.

Which makes you ideally qualififed to represent other people that had an expensive private education, PPE at Oxbridge, then a spell in the press off office or a thinktank, but not much else, as you’ve seen **** all, so know **** all.

Many people think that we would be better off if more MPs came from “normal” backgrounds – e.g. armed forces, professions, trades, unions. In nearly all of those cases, earnings are less than an MP’s salary, so why do we keep seeing the argument that MPs need to earn more?

It was a pretty safe assumpiton though, because you did.

Or did you leap from using 3% of income to 0.1% of another hitherto unalluded to and as yet unidentified dataset expecting us to follow using our paranormal abilities?

I’d say that MPs salary is ridiculously low for the sort of people you would like to be running the country, but probably somewhat excessive given who actually is in parliament.

Brill comment 🙂

I don’t know why you’re so keen to advance arguments I haven’t made.

We do not live in a meritocracy with regard to earnings – i.e there is no reason to believe that the top 0.1% of earners posses more desirable qualities than those in the remaining 99.9%. Many would argue that the opposite is the case.

The argument that we need higher salaries to attract better MPs is bogus.

Merely pointing out that you appear not to know what the term you used actually means. It has nothing to do with income. I think it would be a reasonable ambition to have the country run by folk from the top 0.1% most able people available, irrespective of their previous salaries. To get a good cross section of varying experiences some of them would have been earning considerably more (headteachers 😉 ), some a lot less (poets, academics etc). I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make the assumption that a good base salary for the role will help to attract the right folk and also reward those that take the role and work damn hard in it. I want my education select committees full of folk that were education experts in academia or headteachers or ran LEAs. Same for the defence committees etc. I have no issue with them being paid £74K as long as the piss taking in the expenses is curbed at the same tim.

e.g. armed forces, professions, trades, unions. In nearly all of those cases, earnings are less than an MP’s salary, so why do we keep seeing the argument that MPs need to earn more?

Because if you were successful in a lot of the careers you have just listed (those are the ones we want) you would be earning more than £68K or whatever MPs are paid at the moment. We’ve talked about head teachers. Do you know what a naval captain earns, a doctor – hell someone running a successful electrician business!

Well imagine the situation where MPs, elected mayors, health service exectutives, civil servants and senior local council officials sit around the table to discuss the Manchester devolution proposals.

Is it right that the MPs are the lowest paid people in the room?

They could make the brews

Well imagine the situation where MPs, elected mayors, health service exectutives, civil servants and senior local council officials sit around the table to discuss the Manchester devolution proposals.

Is it right that the MPs are the lowest paid people in the room?
Can’t focus on the question as I’m too busy thinking about unleashing a pack of rabid dogs into the room and locking the door.

Maybe a more structured pay rise would have been more appropriate. Your bog standard backbench MP could have recieved a pay rise of say 4% whereas the cabinet/opposition equivalent could have been given the larger rise.
I think the public wiuld have been more receptive to something along those lines.

Maybe the problem we’ve got in this counry is that all the parties think that the ‘qualification’is a an expensive private education, PPE at Oxbridge, then a spell in the press office or a thinktank.

I would like our MPs to have a pretty good grasp of science and a reasonable grounding in history at least. Which would rule out 95% of the current lot.

as its a Tory hobby

Looks like a pretty even spread across parties to me :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal

They should make MP’s salary 3 x the minimum wage.

5 Years is a long time for a fixed term contract, if you see it that way.

And a £30k tax free pay off for losing your seat probably cushions that a bit.

…add in the gold-plated final salary pension…

Merely pointing out that you appear not to know what the term you used actually means. It has nothing to do with income

You clearly linked it to a reference to income. But do keep digging.

Do you know what a naval captain earns, a doctor – hell someone running a successful electrician business!

A salaried doctor typically earns less than an MP. I don’t mind someone in charge of a nuclear submarine earning a bit more, but maybe that’s just me.

ransos – Member
A salaried doctor typically earns less than an MP. I don’t mind someone in charge of a nuclear submarine earning a bit more, but maybe that’s just me.

I’m guessing you found this page: http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/doctors/pay-for-doctors/

Doctors in training

All doctors in training earn a basic salary and may be paid an additional supplement depending on their working pattern.

In the most junior hospital trainee post (Foundation Year 1) the basic starting salary is £22,636. This increases in Foundation Year 2 to £28,076. For a doctor in specialist training the basic salary is between £30,002 and £47,175.

Specialty doctors

Doctors in the specialty doctor grade earn a basic salary of between £37,176 and £69,325.

Consultants

Consultants can earn a basic salary of between £75,249 and £101,451 per year, dependent on years of seniority in the consultant grade. Local and national clinical excellence awards may be awarded subject to meeting the necessary criteria.

General practitioners

Many general practitioners (GPs) are self employed and hold contracts, either on their own or as part of a Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The profit of GPs varies according to the services they provide for their patients and the way they choose to provide these services.

Salaried GPs have a salary range between £55,412 and £83,617. It is up to the employing organisation to decide how much to pay a Salaried GP within this range.

So senior salaried GPs and all consultants will be paid more than MPs.

I think it comes down to the low opinion the public currently has about MPs and the government. We have a low opinion of them so we resent their pay. If we felt they were actually doing a good job representing us and running the country I expect fewer people would resent them for earning the sort of money they currently earn. Whether our perceptions fully match the reality – I don’t know.

Given that this pay rise is intended to be accompanied by a commensurate reduction in their expenses and so should not affect their overall remuneration package I can’t get too worked up about it. In fact having independently wealthy people like David Cameron and George Osborne trying to make out they’re noble by objecting to it is one of the most annoying things about it all.

So senior salaried GPs and all consultants will be paid more than MPs.

Which is why I said “typically”, because most doctors are not consultants or senior GPs.

If we felt they were actually doing a good job representing us and running the country I expect fewer people would resent them for earning the sort of money they currently earn. Whether our perceptions fully match the reality – I don’t know.

For me, it’s more that I can’t see what improvement we would get for paying them more.

I think it comes down to the low opinion the public currently has about MPs and the government

I think it comes down to taking comparison to the top few percent of earners who have done incredibly well over the past 30 years against a flat-lining majority.

Pay them the average wage, and expenses (travel subsistence and so on) with the proviso that they’ll get a massive bonus at the end of the following parliamentary term (in 10 years) if it can be demonstrably shown via some independent authority that any legislation they have actively taken part in has been of benefit to the nation. Bonus NEVER paid if that that same period, the economy tanks or we have to get involved in a shooty war.