£90,000 pension for Lord Irvine

LORD IRVINE of Lairg has secured the most generous pension settlement in politics after being awarded £90,000 a year when he steps down as Lord Chancellor of England.

The former barrister, who was Tony Blair’s mentor during his legal career in the early 1980s, will also receive a lump sum of 180,000 when he retires as head of England’s legal service.

His pay-out dwarfs that of Henry McLeish, who has infuriated MSPs on all benches for collecting a 34,000 annual pension on the strength of his 14-month period as Scotland’s first minister.

Lord Irvine, 62, has been granted his generous pay-out due to a scheme set up by King William IV which has passed largely unreformed through 170 years.

The full extent of its generosity was laid out yesterday - fuelling concerns that Mr Blair has decided to keep the trappings of wealth left by the Tory government, rather than change the system.

The terms of Lord Irvine’s settlement date back to the Lord Chancellor’s Pension Act 1832, which has been tweaked by successive governments but never abolished.

Lord Irvine, one of the generation of Glasgow University-educated politicians including the late Donald Dewar and John Smith, already enjoys a 180,000 salary as Lord Chancellor.

He is paid more than any other non-legal members of Mr Blair’s government - including the Prime Minister himself.

A spokeswoman for the Lord Chancellor’s Department did not dispute the figures released yesterday and said that, as with other ministers and MPs, the Lord Chancellor’s pension was determined by an Act of Parliament laid down in 1972 and amended in 1981.

"As far as I am aware, nothing has changed since then," she said. The 1832 Act, which continues to be the basis for Lord Irvine’s pension, was not mentioned.

David Willetts, the Tories shadow work and pensions secretary, said the details of Lord Irvine’s settlement will only add to suspicion that the Labour government is using the old establishment rules to feather the nest of "Tony’s Cronies".

"These details will be an insult to thousands of ordinary working people at a time when the nation is facing a pensions crisis," he said.

"He’ll be far better off as a pensioner than most people in a full time job."

It emerged last weekend that Mr McLeish, who resigned as first minister after being embroiled in a series of expenses scams, has taken a 30,000 pay-off from Westminster - even though he voluntarily quit to become an MSP.

Alex Salmond, the former leader of the Scottish National Party, led several of the MPs who joined Holyrood in refusing to claim the cash - saying it could not be considered severance as they had decided to switch parliaments.

In office, Mr McLeish had said he, too, would not take the money as he considered such a payment inappropriate.

But he took the payment only a month after resigning as first minister.

He is now due to receive 34,000 a year in retirement - a sum guaranteed by his brief tenure as head of the Scottish Executive. He is due to retire from politics at the Holyrood election in May next year.

Tommy Sheridan, the leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, has calculated that Mr McLeish will have taken 1 million from the taxpayer by the time he is 70.

Lord Irvine is set to collect over 1.7 million in salary and pension entitlements through his 60s alone - even before the effect of inflation is taken into account.

A further example of a politician abusing the expenses system emerged last week when Michael Trend, a Tory MP, admitted he was claiming 19,700 allowance for a London flat when he was commuting to his Windsor constituency. He is now due to repay 90,000 in falsely-claimed expenses.

He claims that this was "a misunderstanding, honestly and genuinely-held".

The remarkable severance package available to the Lord Chancellor has long been one of the best-kept secrets in politics - and a position which Mr Blair was in no rush to abolish when he appointed his friend to the post in 1997. Lord Havers was made Lord Chancellor in 1987 by Baroness Thatcher specifically so he could claim the generous pay-out.

The former prime minister knew Lord Havers’ health was failing at the time and made the appointment to give him a lucrative settlement on retirement. He lasted 126 days in the post.

The Lord Advocate’s writ extends only south of the Border. The head of Scotland’s legal system is the Lord Advocate, who is a member of the Scottish Executive and sits on the Cabinet.