| the Furore over MPs expenses and pay |
| The issue: |
Dear Sir George,
Firstly congratulations on your party’s recent election results and also with your own nomination for speaker of the house; I think you’d make and excellent speaker should this be something you decide to pursue further. The other matter I wanted to pass comment on was with regard to the expenses. Whilst I know some of the claims made by a minority of MPs and lets face it these were also accepted and paid out by the fees office, were shall we say somewhat imaginative, I think the core problem here is that this culture was born out a situation whereby MPs have been very substantially underpaid for their work, with the long hours and the intrusive nature of the work with regards to family life. A majority of the population will have little idea on comparative pay scales because it falls totally outside of their experience or that of family and friends.
Personally I think that parliamentary pay should be decided by an independent commission and that their decision be final and that MPs could only seek redress through an adjudication process and panel such as ACAS and not via a parliamentary process, less they be forced yet again to reject such a pay rise on party political lines or due to the prevailing economic circumstance. After all, politics is already a very magnanimous choice of career and so we should not make it economically impossible or painful to boot. In the past MPs have been made to vote down significant, advised and warranted pay increases as deemed necessary by independent panels due to the political pressures from within their own parties, as it’s always seen as somehow unseemly to accept big pay rises whilst also holding the moral high ground on pay scales in the city or wider industry. If we compare MPs with other white or even blue collar workers in the city an MPs pay scale is quite shambolic. I’d be happy to see the pay at least doubled forthwith and continue with sensible expenses being extended to active MPs such as yourself and the predominance of MPs.
With regards to the second home allowance I’d say that a better system in time would be one of having several halls of residence provided at tax payers expenses with additional non-residential, non-parliamentary related services provided at reasonable cost to the occupants, with each MP provided good amenities for themselves and visiting family suitable to reasonable need i.e. a variety of apartment sizes, telephone and broad band connection with all parliamentary business calls provided free to the MP, also food services, cleaning services and a parliamentary shuttle provided free. Security can then be provided collectively to the MPs and effectively by the police. The exception to this being situations where an MP already has a London residence but has a constituency outside of London and wishes to retain the London property rather than use halls of residence for MPs. White Hall would have been ideal and perhaps still could be, I would imagine several locations to be the best fit for the many hundreds of MPs we currently have.
Kindest regards.
|
| Date Issue Raised: |
07 Jun 2009 |
| My response: |
Many thanks for your thoughtful email about MP’s pay and allowances. And thank you as well for your comments about the election results
We have agreed that, in future, our pay will be determined by an outside body and we will not need to vote on their recommendations. This should avoid the problems you have rightly identified. Sir Christopher Kelly is looking at the related issue of our allowances, and he is looking at the “hall of residence” option which is being widely canvassed.
Thanks for finding the time to email.
Best wishes, George Young
|
|
Sir George Young Bt MP: Constituency and Parliamentary Website 