How to take the toxicity out of the MP’s salaries debate

The long drawn out process of giving MPs a divisive and unnecessary pay rise has been going on for what feels like years now. I’ve written before about why it would be grotesque for MPs to see their salaries increase at a rate ten times what many others workers are receiving (especially those in the public sector, whose salaries MPs are deliberately holding down). I

also don’t buy the argument that if we don’t pay MPs ever higher salaries then working class and lower paid workers won’t want to do the job. Go down to your local Tesco and ask them if they could get by on 66 grand a year and watch them laugh their heads off.

Those MPs on all sides of the house who have said they will return any OTT pay rise or donate it to charity are on the right side of public opinion (but might find themselves on the wrong side of the debate in the tea room).

But there’s a relatively simple way to make the MPs salaries issue simple, easy to explain and take it out of the hands of politicians. It would also stop the outcome being subjective. As I suggested earlier this year:

“Why not set MPs salaries at a level that is a multiple of the average UK salary? (For example 3x). That would mean that being an MP would continue to be a lucrative profession, but their salaries would only rise at a rate at which they were delivering prosperity for ordinary working people. It would also make future pay rises completely defensible, and might also encourage some MPs to take a greater level of interest in the real average national salary – and how to increase it – than is currently the case.”

Another alternative would be pegging the rate at which MPs salaries rise to the National Minimum Wage. I dare say that might motivate some in the house to get people out of poverty pay…

I fully expect MPs to get their payrise though. And I fully expect them to be attacked as venal and greedy and out of touch. And whilst their bank balances may improve, the way people look at politics will not.