MSPs set to freeze their own pay

MacDonald: showing solidarity

With the public sector facing unprecedented cuts, MSPs have recognised that they must set an example by refusing an increase to their 56,671 salaries when they are reviewed in March.

The Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB), the organisation that looks after Holyrood's finances, is examining a pay freeze amid an emerging consensus among MSPs that they risk electoral wrath if they accept a substantial salary rise.

SNP ministers have already agreed to a pay freeze while imposing wage curbs on Scotland's highest-paid public servants to help cut costs.

Members of the SPCB are even discussing breaking the long-standing arrangement that sees Holyrood salaries tied to those at Westminster, to ensure that a freeze can be implemented in Scotland.

The discussions have been held because, under the current system, a pay rise at Westminster is automatically replicated at Holyrood.

"There is a view that (the Westminster-linked pay arrangement] is unsustainable and that will have to be addressed," a parliamentary source said.

Breaking the tie with Westminster would enable a pay freeze to be delivered at a time when MSPs across the parties realise that they must be seen to be tightening their belts.

Currently, MPs' and MSPs' pay levels are set by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), the organisation that also offers independent guidance on salaries for army officers, senior civil servants and judges.

Responsibility for MSPs' pay was handed over to the SSRB in 2001 after the unedifying spectacle of MSPs voting themselves a 13.5 per cent salary rise.

MSPs' salaries are automatically set at 87.5 per cent of the 64,766 currently taken home by MPs. The SSRB is due to decide 2010/11 salary levels for MPs, and hence MSPs, in March.

Last year, MPs and MSPs were given a 2.33 per cent pay rise. But the current mood among MSPs is that divorcing themselves from their Westminster counterparts, tainted by the parliamentary expenses scandal, could bring electoral dividends.

Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, the head of the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, has suggested that MPs' pay could rise to almost 80,000 to compensate for loss of allowances.

Any change to freeze MSPs' pay would have to be the subject of a vote at Holyrood. But a consensus supporting a pay freeze for MSPs is developing across the parties.

Yesterday, Derek Brownlee, the Conservative finance spokesman, said: "We are talking about a broader public sector pay freeze. It is necessary and we can't ask the public sector to accept that and not ask politicians to do the same.

"We are asking the public sector to take tight settlements and politicians are going to have to be part of that."

Margo MacDonald, the independent Edinburgh MSP, agreed. "It is something we should do just now to show a bit of solidarity with people in the public sector who've lost their jobs, those whose jobs are at risk and those who have been forced to share jobs and take wage cuts," she said.

One Labour MSP, who declined to be named, said: "We have been talking about this a lot. Most of my colleagues recognise that we must send out a positive signal and people appreciate that at a time when public sector workers are experiencing tough times, we cannot be seen to be distancing ourselves from the economic situation."

Ministers in the Scottish Government have already sent out a signal and frozen their parliamentary pay and ministerial pay. Senior civil servants have also had their pay frozen.

The Finance Secretary John Swinney has also written to quango bosses, urging them to relieve the burden on public spending by waiving their substantial annual bonuses.

Yesterday, Jeremy Purvis, the Lib Dems' finance spokesman, called for high-earning quango chiefs to be summoned to a meeting to disclose whether or not they are taking their bonuses.

On the issue of MSPs' pay, Purvis added: "The Corporate Body needs to have these discussions on behalf of the whole parliament. Then it is up to the MSPs themselves to decide.

"It is up to the Corporate Body to take consideration of this issue as it arises at Westminster."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We have already taken action that has not been happening elsewhere in the UK. Ministers have taken a pay freeze, which includes both their ministerial salary and MSP salaries, and for 2010/11 will be paid at April 2008 levels.

"That freeze will also apply to senior civil servants and we are looking to extend that to quango bosses."