Pressure intensifies to scrap pay rise for MPs

The Chancellor suggested the move will be blocked after the general election. Picture: PA

The Chancellor suggested the move will be blocked after the general election, stressing that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s (Ipsa) position was not “final”.

The comments came after new Ipsa chief executive Marcial Boo reiterated its commitment to the increase from £67,000 to £74,000. He said the economy was recovering and politicians should not be paid a “miserly amount”.

“All the evidence points towards MPs’ salaries having fallen behind,” he said. Some viewed the £74,000 figure as “at the low end” and failure to pay “fair” rates would make it harder to recruit good candidates for parliament in future.

Mr Boo said: “This is an important job, the job of an MP. They are there to represent us all, to form laws, to send young people to war. It is not an easy thing to do. We want to have good people doing the job and they need to be paid fairly. Now, that’s not paid in excess but it’s not being paid a miserly amount either.

“It’s our job to reach the judgment of what the right amount is. There are lots and lots of professionals in public life and in the private sector who earn a lot more than that – so it is not an excessive amount at all.”

There was an outcry when Ipsa announced the rise last year, with party leaders David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg arguing it was unacceptable when public sector rises were capped at 1 per cent. MPs are already due a 1 per cent increase to £67,731 next April and under Ipsa’s plan it will go up again a month later to £74,000.

The watchdog has said it will conduct one further review of the pay rise after the election – as it is legally obliged to do – but Mr Boo made clear its conclusions were unlikely to shift.

“As of now, September, it doesn’t look like there is any major economic factor that would change the determination that we reached in 2013,” he said.

Mr Boo – whose own £120,000 salary is £10,000 more than that of his predecessor – insisted a change in the law would be needed to prevent Ipsa following through on its proposals.

Another potential block to the pay rise was removed over the summer when Ipsa chairman Sir Ian Kennedy was reappointed for another 18 months – meaning he will remain in post after the general election.

John O’Connell, Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Hiking politicians’ wages at a time when the national debt is still rising would be totally inappropriate. In insisting on a pay rise, Ipsa is demonstrating itself once again to be totally unfit for purpose. This overgrown monster of a quango needs to understand that the public don’t want the cost of government to go up any further.”

A Labour Party spokesman said: “If the package of proposals being set out by Ipsa is as reported, it cannot go ahead when people are going through the biggest cost-of-living crisis for a generation.

“We cannot have an outcome for MPs which does not command public confidence.”