Second home allowances were in part designed to compensate for MPs being too embarrassed to vote themselves big pay rises. But this argument suggests that MPs are paid too little. In fact, international comparisons show that British MPs are doing relatively well.
Sure, there are better paid places to be a politician. Parliamentarians in Italy, Canada and the US do much better than their colleagues in the UK. According to the Senior Salaries Review Body’s analysis of international political pay (the table is reproduced below), Italians are paid about 67 per cent more than British MPs’ base salary of around £65,000 (and that was calculated before the collapse in the pound).
But many other countries pay about the same or are less generous. Australia pay 7 per cent less, France 5 per cent, New Zealand 15 per cent and Spain an eye-watering 52 per cent.
Many MPs also complain that their pay has not kept pace with other salaries or inflation. But, as the SSRB found, this is nonsense. MPs base their case on a few years that are unrepresentative of a broader trend. If you look pay since the 1990s, MPs’ salaries outpace average earnings, public sector earnings and inflation. Again, I’ve reproduced the chart below.
But there is one point to be made in favour of the maligned UK parliamentarians. The system of allowances that has caused such outrage over here is replicated in most other Western democracies in one form or another. Members of the Bundestag, for instance, receive a set of official allowances of about £3,500 a month (affectionately known as the amstausstattung) which covers all their staff, travel, accommodation and office expenses. No receipts are required. Italian MPs get a lump sum of about £4,000 — again no receipts needed.
My favourite is the Swedish model. Members of the Riksdag can use about 250 overnight apartments in Stockholm which provided free of charge. The alternative is an allowance of about £600 a month for accommodation. Anyone for an ‘Honourable Tower’ in London?
..
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
