By Ian Drury
27th May 2008
MPs are demanding an extra £38,000 a year each under plans to stamp out abuse of expenses.
The move would take their annual salaries to nearly £100,000 - at a time when millions are struggling to cope with soaring living costs and police, nurses and teachers have received below-inflation wage rises.
The politicians want a pay increase of £15,000 each.
As Gordon Brown prepares to hit motorists with road tax hikes, Michael Martin (left) is suggesting MPs should get an extra £23,000 a year
Commons Speaker Michael Martin is also considering giving each MP an extra £23,000 a year to replace the controversial second homes' allowance.
It would bump up their annual pay from around £62,000 to just under £100,000 - an inflation-shattering 60 per cent.
Such extravagance will outrage hard-pressed families who are feeling the pinch as pay deals are capped while food, fuel and mortgage costs spiral alarmingly.
It will also cause astonishment at a time when Gordon Brown is preparing to hit 18million motorists, including drivers of family cars, with road tax hikes of hundreds of pounds a year.
But senior MPs say the move would bring them closer in line with the salaries of public sector staff such as council officers, headmasters and GPs.
Derek Conway was one of the first MPs to be hit by an expenses scandal when it was revealed he employed his sons
Sir John Butterfill, a Tory backbencher, said: 'MPs' salaries have gone up by substantially less than inflation each year since 2002. We are due a catch up.'
Another senior Tory said: 'Civil servants and GPs get considerably more there is an argument for giving MPs more in their pay packets and scaling back on allowances.'
Labour backbencher Martin Salter, MP for Reading West, has also argued that there is a case for MPs to be paid more and then funding their London living allowances out of their income.
But Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance pressure group, said: 'People are angry that some MPs are already abusing taxpayers' generosity - the last thing we want is to pay them even more.'
A £38,000 rise would place MPs among the most well-remunerated of Europe's politicians.
A backbencher receives a basic monthly salary - without expenses - of around £5,151, more than France (£4,138), Sweden (£4,521) and Finland (£4,671).
The £38,000 rise would put them on about £8,166 a month, again without expenses.
MPs on the House of Commons Commission, which is chaired by Speaker Martin, asked for the pay rise in submissions to a review led by Sir John Baker, head of the Senior Salaries Review Body.
He will present his findings to the Prime Minister within weeks, then MPs will be asked to vote on them.
MPs believe that bumping up salaries by between £10,000 and £15,000 by 2010 would broadly bring them into line with council officers and headmasters.
There was unhappiness at Westminster this year when MPs were cajoled into accepting a 1.9 per cent pay rise.
Meanwhile, the Commons' Members Estimates Committee which is overseeing a shake-up of Parliamentary expenses is expected to propose giving MPs a tax-free lump sum of £23,000.
It would replace the additional costs allowance (ACA) of up to £23,000 a year.
Although not all MPs claim the full amount, the perk is controversial because it allows MPs to run and furnish a home near Westminster.
Because the new lump sum would be a 'block grant', MPs would not be forced to submit receipts.
That has led freedom of information campaigners to fear the move would perpetuate the abuses of taxpayers' money by shrouding what MPs spend in secrecy.
MPs currently claim an average of £135,850 on expenses, including living, office and staffing costs. This does not include their pay.
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