Why Cormack's proposal makes the case for greater public involvement

Stephen

Deselect the B..! Now!

Philip Walker

Why not just have a national whip-round, and share out the loot according to a predefined formula?

(My tongue may be in my cheek, but only just.)

Verity

No.

There's no need to give an inch to these greedy people. They chose to become MPs. If they want large amounts of money, they can go into the private sector, if they are talented enough to get employment.

Thinking up ways to slip more money from the taxpayer's wallet doesn't hack it at all. No living expenses. Zero. American Congressmen get no "living allowances".

Either build a purpose-built dormitory/hotel for them to stay in free in London (that means them alone - not providing a second home for their wives and families), or let them find their own way. American Congressmen will often share digs with another Congressman in DC.

Cormack's proposal is racing off in the wrong direction.

No.

Pam Richards

Why stop there. Why not double everyone's salary!

Owen Ireland

Why not round it off to a simple £500k? I mean, these guys work much longer hours than some individuals working in our beloved financial system, and look what they get...

Ray

Double MPs' pay? Fine. However, half their numbers at the same time.

Dave B

How about just banning allowances, and keeping the pay the same?

There's no shortage of bods who want to be MPs, and no evidence that our current MPs are philosopher kings.

Chuck Unsworth

Why increase their pay? Frankly I can think of few MPs who warrant that kind of money - and expenses. Professionalisation of politics is something to be avoided at all costs.

John

Fine but sack half of the MPs. The chamber should be able to accomodate 320 odd seated Mps quite comfortably. At least there should be no Health and safety issues in terms of standing in the aisles and overcrowding in the lobby.

At the same time they ought to consider electronic voting, to the extent that some MPs could vote from their constituency say. Their office staff should be employed by HoC directly, and allocated to MPs accordingly so the "family Empire building firms" can be disbanded.

Pat Morgan

It's typical of MPs spending their long summer break thinking of ways to get more money out of the tax payer.

Are we paying for all their food during this break? Do they spend there whole day "scouting" round for receipts?

They disgust me.

Desperate Dan

As Irwin Seltzer says: Pay cuts won't lead to a shortage of MPs.

Ian C

I thought that the new Speaker was meant to be the one taking the lead on this. He needs to be speak louder as he cannot be heard.

Bruce, UK

The test is "as a private individual what would HMRC say/do to me if I claimed for..."

No special rules, no parliamentary privileges, no nods and winks, no excuses, no ifs, no buts.

C Powell

What Verity said.

£65,000 is nearly 3 times the average salary and you now want MPs to have a salary of 5 1/2 times average wage + gold-plated pension?

You cannot be serious.

MPs will have to earn our trust for a very long time before they should even think of asking for a pay rise. On the contrary, a 10% cut in the pay of all government ministers, MPs and senior civil servants should be the first thing a new government should do.

chris

Another MP who is completely out of touch.

Also, everyone else in the country has to go through a proper process when employing someone, including transparency to show that there has not been any bias. How many wives would be employed on this basis?

Verity

Hmmmm ... so that seems to be a "no" to Mr Cormack.

As people have said above, if MPs aren't happy with their salaries, they can stand down. It is not up to the taxpayer to accommodate their fantasies of indispensibility.

Keep their salaries the same, and remove almost all currently legitimate expenses. Those who need/want more money yet wish to remain MPs, can get off their arses and find a second job. William Hague does brilliantly. Of course, he doesn't see himself as a permanent guest of the taxpayer, but gets out and adds to his income through his own efforts and talent.

What is it with this notion that the taxpayer is there to provide MPs with a lifestyle?

CS

I've spent several months carefully designing a new model for parliamentary salaries and expenses which I believe should satisfy all parties.

You get your £60K basic + expenses to run a constituency office + travel expenses between Westminster and your constituency. You get expenses to pay for renting a flat in London if your consituency isn't within reasonable travelling distance. You can have as many other jobs on the side as you like provided that you declare them openly so that your constituents can make up their own minds if you'd be spending enough time as an MP.

And (here's the genius part) any MP who feels that he or she can't afford to live on that should fuck off and get another job.

Paul B

I agree with Verity. Like most people, MPs ned to live off their salary, and if not, then go elsewhere. I have no objection though to them earning a second income from an outside interest.

Just out of interest Verity, what is the salary of a US Congressman/Senator ? I could look it up, but for sake of record, thanks in advance.

David

It's a sensible suggestion. it avoids any issues surrounding expenses, and ensures that MPs have the fund necessary to do the job.

Verity

What I find breathtaking is how absolutely self-involved - to the exlusion of any reference to reality - they are. They - including Cormack - appear to think that the public is worried that MPs aren't paid enough and don't have enough privileges and will welcome suggestions about how he, the taxpayer, can help to alleviate this anxiety with new "funding" proposals.

Do they bay at the moon? Do they weave daisy chains on the tube on the way to work? Can they not sense the mood of the country?

David

"American Congressmen get no "living allowances"

Indeed. McCormack's suggestion would put us on par with the US payment system.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm

Pete, Scotland

Absolutely no way!!!

How about the voters that elect them into office decide what they are worth.

Their wages are transparent, their hours worked are transparent and their expenses are transparent.

Maybe then they will become honest employees of the electorate.

Hysteria

base pay seems reasonable to me - plus allowable expenses under usual HMRC/Private Industry rules. (Although I too favour a dormitory approach and direct hire of support staff. If a wife wants to apply for the job, let her apply along with everyone else.

I also like the idea of cutting the numbers of representatives

bastards

Megg

Apart from say, a dozen decent MPs, the rest are not worth the amount they are already paid. Lets have some completely new MPs, then if Westminster improves, think about salary increases.
Decent MPs who come to mind :-
Vince Cable
Kate Hoey
Frank Field
Sarah Teather
Graham Brady
Patrick Mercer
David Laws
David Davis

There are a few more, but I can't name them at present.

Verity

Well, Paul B, I'm not American (although I lived there for a number of years) and wouldn't have this information off the top of my head. But I looked up Representatives (Congressmen is the collective noun; it means Representatives and Senators) get US$174,000 salary. At today's conversion rate, that's about $105,000 on a much huger taxpayer base.

The number of Representatives (the lower house)is 435 to serve a population of 301m. As opposed to, what? - 650 MPs to serve about 70m Britons?

Michael Booth

I am with Verity on this one and the answer to Sir Patrick Cormack is a most definate 'NO'

Halve the number of MPs and have Parliament sitting for two sessions of three months each - for the rest of the year MPs have to fund themselves through a second job.

Nicholas

Personally I think they should be able to claim their actual living expenses and no more. That would sort out those who have a genuine calling from the "career" politicians. To curb the temptation for corruption make malfeasance in public office a mandatory life sentence to be served in a third world prison.

One of the Blessed Thatcher's biggest mistakes was to increase the pay of the police. It turned the force (service?) into jobsworths almost overnight. Prior to that only those with a genuine calling were attracted to it. Now you have the usual 9-5, pension and smug "regulation Bobs" that fill the civil service and local government walking about in the ridiculous "Mitchell Bros" quasi-special forces uniform.

subrosa

Why can't MPs be put on a graduated salary scale similar to the civil service, military etc?

I know it would be popular with them but it's by far the fairest way to pay for experience and years of service.

Verity

Nicholas, I usually agree with you, but why would the British taxpayer want to fund MPs' living expenses? We've seen where that leads. Bath plugs, patio heaters, moat cleaning, cots for babies in London and designer kitchen sinks.

The comparative generosity of emoluments paid to American Representatives was computed at today's exchange rate. Usually - before the recession - the pound is higher against the dollar and the amount Representatives get would not appear to be so much greater than what British MPs get. Also, they don't get any expenses. And they have larger constituencies.

What on earth makes the denizens of Westminster Palace think they are worthy of a larger slice of the taxpayers' income? I'd like to see one of them come forward and put a case in The Speccie, for people to cede a larger share of their income to MPs and their families. The very notion is swivel-eyed lunacy.

Verity

What is breathtaking is, this Cormack clearly put forth his proposal in the expectation that it would find favour with the voters! How deaf do you have to be? Or how smug?

Irwin Stetzler's column over on The Telegraph has drawn 80 comments, all of them negative. What a failure of judgement!

Clockwork Orange

CS : 3.15pm

As far as I'm concerned, your time has not been wasted. Your proposals ooze common sense and practicality. Your language is succinct.
By far the best comment on any subject I've read in any publication for months.

Obviously some of Pickles' magic has rubbed off on this guy Cormack. Where do they find these droogs ?

Paul B

Verity "much huger" ;-). Did u go 2 the same skule as me

Im only joking!!

madasafish

Anyone with half a brain can see Southern MPs benefiting and Northern /Scottish ones losing out.#

Which sums up the proposal and the proposer.

# due to transport and overnight housing costs.

David

"The number of Representatives (the lower house)is 435 to serve a population of 301m. As opposed to, what? - 650 MPs to serve about 70m Britons?"

This ignores the number of elected officials at state, county and municipal level, of course. We have comparatively less at equivalent governmental levels.

David

"(Congressmen is the collective noun; it means Representatives and Senators)"

In practice in the US, the term is used for members of the House of Representatives, with members of the Senate known as Senators.

Verity

Paul B - Joke away. There's nothing grammatically wrong here. Inelegant, yes. Grammatical, also yes.

Gaswork

They are just going to have to tighten their belt? Is this not the advise they give they are always looking for ways to reduce our salary? See them in there true light, out with the old in with the New UKip are you up to the fight cos the ConLab party have failed for 40years please no more of this greed, the country comes first, sack some see how they like that!

Andy Leeds

I've a much better idea. Lets not pay MPs at all. Give an allowance to employ one secretary, free second class rail travel to and from the consituancy. Parliament would not sit until 2:30 in the afternoon (like it use to do until this lot messed about with everything) so all MPs could be part-time and actually do some honest work or starve. I would limit the number of Minister to less than 60 and pay them a modest salary so they could perform their office.

Verity

David, OK. Life is too short to peel a grape or argue with a troll.

(Palin for 2012.)

Nicholas

Verity, I mean living expenses - food, rent, etc., instead of a salary. Their job is all found but no pay, especially if they were made to live in a hostel under constant CCTV surveillance. I am deeply suspicious of those who wish so much to interfere in and take control of the lives of others.

F. Angry

Edited to remove swearing:
Many subjects of this realm would make a far superior effort for substantially less compensation out of duty to ones country.

Jeremy

Pete Hoskin:

"So, Sir Patrick Cormack has proposed a solution to the expenses row: doubling MPs' pay to around £130,000 and then banning all allowances, save those which pay for staff and the maintenance of a constituency office..."

Double their pay? And give them allowances on top? And this is being proposed as a "solution"?

You know, I've always been against revolutionary change (the dreadful violence which accompanies it is so off-putting) and for evolutionary change; but no matter how often they are told, our political class just cannot seem to stop taking the p**s out of the very people who pay their salaries.

Parliament has given away so many of its powers and so much of our sovereignty and independence to Europe, on the one hand, and the United States on the other, that there is precious little justification for MPs receiving a pay increase of any sort whatsoever.

In fact there is far more justification for them taking a substantial - a very substantial - pay cut. And you can include their allowances in the term "pay cut", as well.

Given that the real powers which now determine the fate of this "nation" and its people are located abroad, I really am beginning to question the point of our internal political process, and the point of Parliament's continued existence at all.

Why pay them more and yet more and still more for doing and representing less and less all the time?

To say that we cannot simply go on like this, is an understatement...

carol42

Wouldn't doubling their pay double their salary based pensions? think what that would cost.

Rush-is-Right

Just one look at the photograph of 'Sir' Patrick Cormack tells you everything you need to know. He's a fat, complacent, self-regarding twerp. He was rightly identified in the opening paragraphs of Peter Oborne's excellent book "The Triumph of the Political Class" as a prime specimen of the kind of MP we could all do better without.

Jack R

Politicians travelling first-class on the finest gravy train in Britain warn the public that with a national debt of £1.4 trillion we are all likely to suffer the pain of austerity in the years ahead. We have the likes of Patrick Mercer assuring us that he understands public anger and that he believes "taxpayers' money is precious". So "precious" that he apparently had no qualms about claiming £400 food allowance while taxpayers' have to tighten their belts.

Mercer says he drove 40,000 miles every year in his car, and almost all of that was in his constituency. That’s more than a thousand gallons of petrol per year at taxpayers’ expense. Taxpayers' money is precious?

Politicians tend to overvalue their worth and the likes of Alan Duncan think they are "forced to live on rations" and are "treated like shit", clearly a case of pearls before swine. It is time the gravy train was derailed and politicians made to feel the austerities of everyday life, like the firemen, nurses, police and the misused Army.

Verity

Jack R - I don't know that the tinpot, heavily costumed and tasered thuggish police can be mentioned in the same sentence as firemen, nurses and our Armed Services.

Sheila Oliver

The LibDems in Stockport- Andrew Stunell and Mark Hunter- would appear to have paid large amounts from their office allowances into LibDem coffers - maybe £65,000 - for things like awaydays, pagers and research. Can I read the research, I asked? No, came the reply. The amounts paid were largely in nice round numbers like £4,000. Some of it went in rent for Mark Hunter's constituency office. If I am paying for two flats for these MPs in London, maybe the LibDems should waive the rent on Mark Hunter's constituency office. Just a thought.

Jack R

Verity- I understand what you are implying about our Police and for the most part you are correct but I cannot agree
that they are unimportant and of little value (tinpot) to the populace. Indeed there are times when the public perceive malfeasance and misfeasance and like you say thuggish behaviour but without them life would be intolerable.

If you are wondering why I dislike Patrick Mercer a friend told me of his eye-opening Orwellian experience at the hands of the Blarney Stone kissing MP. Having made a study I conclude the man to be nonchalant, inwardly rotten and pernicious, obdurate hearted and insincere toady seeking advancement via the national media. That Verity is my assessment of the much vaunted MP.

Verity

Jack R - "f you are wondering why I dislike Patrick Mercer ...". I wasn't, actually. I'm not interested in long explanations of why someone dislikes someone. And why address me?

james

hi, I'm 13 and I'm doing a debate on why we should double an mps average salary (adds up to £130,000). I completely don't agree with this but sadly I'm proposing it. Are there any ideas on why we should double the average wage of an Mp?