British MPs to get extra £1,000 pay increase

The increase of nearly £1,000 is likely to spark fury in the wake of revelations about expenses abuses and with millions of workers across the private and public sectors facing freezes or even cuts.

However, it will come into force automatically as the Senior Salaries Review Body now has the final say on parliamentary pay under arrangements introduced in 2008.

Downing Street moved quickly to state that ministers would not take the extra money due to MPs, and had also agreed to freeze their own pay.

A spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister is clear that we need to strengthen public confidence in the political system and reduce the cost of politics.

“That is why paid government ministers will not be accepting the pay rise in MP salaries generated by the annual formula and based on the average pay award across the public sector in the previous year. They will also not be accepting a rise in ministerial salaries this year.”

SSRB chairman Bill Cockburn wrote to Commons Speaker John Bercow at the end of last month to inform him of the rise, which comes into effect on April 1.

It calculates awards for MPs based on the median increases given to 15 other groups of public sector workers. Doctors and dentists, top NHS managers, the judiciary and the Senior Civil Service were all handed increases of 1.5% last year.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of public sector Unison, told the Guardian: “It does not seem right that MPs can get a 1.5% pay increase, worth £1,000 a year on basic pay, when low-paid workers such as teaching assistants, school dinner ladies, social care workers, road sweepers will get nothing, because their pay is being frozen.

“They might want to contemplate the speeches and seminars calling for lengthy pay restraint in the public sector.”

Source: Press Association