Expenses: Top Speaker candidate argues for £100k wage

Published on Saturday 23 May 2009 18:58

THE favourite to become the new Speaker of the House of Commons has argued that MPs should be paid the same as GPs and local authority chief executives, or equivalent to more than £100,000 a year.

Conservative MP John Bercow told a review of parliamentary salaries that it was "perverse" that MPs wages had not "kept pace" with comparable professions in the public sector.

He said their jobs were on a par with GPs and local authority chief executives who, on average, now earn between 100,000 and 110,000 year. If adopted, the increase would amount to a pay rise of 45,000 for MPs.

Bercow is 3-1 to become the new Speaker, following the resignation of Michael Martin last week and, if elected, will be charged with handling the Kelly Commission on standards in public life which is expected to offer recommendations on MPs pay and conditions later this year.

Many MPs are now privately claiming that any cut in their expenses brought about by the scandals of the last three weeks should be balanced by what they say is a long-overdue increase in their wage packets.

But taxpayers' groups last night said MPs were already among the best paid politicians in Europe and any attempt to increase their pay packets would be an insult following the tide of recent expenses abuses.

In 2006 Bercow laid out the case for increased pay. He said:

"I suggest that those responsibilities, in terms of breadth, scope and contact with the public are comparable with those of a general practitioner or the chief executive of a medium sized public authority."

Bercow failed to return calls and e-mails from Scotland on Sunday to explain his current position.