£1m for McLeish by the time he retires

Published on Saturday 7 September 2002 01:00

HENRY McLeish stands to net more than £1 million of taxpayers’ money from his single year in office as Scotland’s first minister.

By the time he retires, the disgraced MSP will have raked in 1,001,773 in salaries, expenses, pensions and one-off payments. After the age of 65, he will pick up a minimum of 62,000 a year in pensions, even without allowing for inflation.

And should he take up a lucrative lecturing post in the United States, he can expect to earn upwards of another half a million pounds before retirement.

Mr McLeish stood down as first minister in November last year and on Thursday he announced that he would stand down from the Scottish Parliament at the elections in May next year.

But yesterday pressure was growing on Mr McLeish to justify claiming so much money for his time in office and to explain why he claimed a one-off payment of 36,000 when he left Westminster, despite telling MPs that he would not be accepting the money.

Henry McLeish took over as first minister on 27 October 2000 after the death of Donald Dewar, and remained in office for just over a year. He resigned on 8 November 2001, after a series of damaging revelations about his financial affairs, which culminated in his admission that he had wrongly claimed 36,000 in allowances while renting out part of his constituency offices in Glenrothes.

During his time in office, Mr McLeish, 54, was paid 68,159 a year as first minister, on top of his salary as an MSP. From the time of his appointment as first minister to the time he relinquishes his seat in May, he will have picked up in the region of 120,000 for his work as an MSP.

But Mr McLeish was also being paid 47,000 a year as an MP until he left Westminster six months later at the 2001 General Election, adding another 23,500 to his total, and he would also have been able to claim expenses as an MP, equivalent to about 26,000, based on the average MP’s claim of 52,000 a year.

On top of his salaries and expenses, Mr McLeish is also entitled to a 34,000 a year index-linked pension for his time as first minister, in addition to a pension of about 30,000 a year for his time as an MP, amounting to a minimum of 704,000 by the time he retires.

And he will also have collected two one-off resettlement payments, 24,114 for not returning to Holyrood after the next election and 36,000 paid to MPs who left Westminster for Holyrood.

Yesterday Tommy Sheridan, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP, said Mr McLeish should stand down immediately and forgo the pension.

"The whole sorry saga sounds more like a fiddle than a muddle," he said.

"It is an obscenity that he should claim 34,000 a year after one year in office when his constituents get much less than that after 40 years.

"It is a further obscenity that he will be claiming the resettlement money for leaving Holyrood after claiming 36,000 to move there in the first place."

He said he was angry that Mr McLeish had claimed the 36,000, which he is said to have used to pay back the money he overclaimed in office allowances, after telling parliament that he would not do so.

The Scottish Conservative Party also criticised Mr McLeish for accepting so much money from taxpayers.

A spokesman said: "There is no doubt that by the letter of the rules he is entitled to every penny of this money but the question the public will be asking is ‘Does he deserve it?, especially the 34,000 a year pension for one year’s work as first minister.

"The public is very uneasy about the pension he is picking up and the money he received for leaving Westminster.

"We would question whether these are the actions of a man who cares about the public purse or whether he just cares about himself."

Mr McLeish could also boost his earnings by taking up a post lecturing in the United States.

Previous registers of MPs’ interests have revealed that he has lectured at Oklahoma State University, with his travel costs met by the university, and there are suggestions that he could now accept a lecturer’s job for six months a year. Salaries at the university vary, but Mr McLeish could expect to pick up in excess of 60,000 a year.

When he announced his decision to leave Holyrood, Mr McLeish said he planned to remain active in Scottish life, dividing his time between reading, writing, teaching, lecturing and projects which would contribute to social and economic advancement.

He could also supplement his earnings through working for one of the many quangos set up by the Scottish Executive, with members frequently picking up five figure sums for attending a couple of meetings a month.

But Mr McLeish still faces the possibility of criminal charges over the so-called Officegate affair which brought him down. A police investigation into the matter is continuing.

Mr McLeish could not be contacted for comment.