So MPs are now set for a 10 per cent pay rise, taking their basic salaries to £74,000. Cue fury about MPs shoving their snouts in the trough as they award themselves a pay rise. Social media is bristling with fury that MPs could be so out of touch.
The reality is, of course, that MPs are not awarding themselves anything. They have no power over their pay. They have not voted on their pay and they will not vote on their pay. This is because they contracted decisions on pay out to an independent body, IPSA, to make these decisions. One of the reasons for setting up IPSA was so that MPs could not vote on their pay and be accused of being selfish, or be too frightened of being accused of being selfish to vote on a pay rise, even if they believed that to be the right thing to do.
IPSA has launched its final consultation on the 10 per cent pay rise today, arguing that the IMG and the OBR ‘predict that the UK will continue to be economically healthy over the coming years’ and that therefore ‘we can see no clear reason why the economic circumstances today should lead us to depart from the determination of £74,000 that we reached in December 2013’.
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