How much should we pay our MPs?

[Kermit power]

Yet again, the tabloids today are covered with stories of MPs' salaries and expenses. The Daily Wail seems to be leading this assault with the following absurd quote:

Daily Wail said:

Members are effectively trebling their pay by pocketing on average £144,176 on top of their back-bench salaries.

Now, this quote is absurd, because MPs' expenses include things like wage costs for staff and legitimate travel expenses as well as anything which may or may not be legitimate. I frequently claim £3-5k per month in expenses travelling around Europe, but nobody has ever tried to suggest that should be considered part of my salary. What these expenses do highlight, however, is that there is a complete lack of understanding of how MPs are actually paid.

Now, assume that you were to take over the committee which sets MPs salaries. You can rework the expenses so that everything is completely, 100% transparently demonstrated as legitimate work expenses from which no MP profits or loses to any degree. Once you've done that, you need to set a salary which you think is reasonable for an MP.

How much would you pay them?

Set aside any personalities in doing this. Don't think of Winky and his vile minions, but think of the sort of fine, stand up person of integrity that you'd like to represent you. How much would they be worth to you?

Again, many of the papers are suggesting that MPs are already overpaid on their £64k basic salary. It might be easy to think this if you're struggling to make ends meet on £15k a year, but you don't need to rise all that far up the sales or managerial ladder in a lot of sectors of our economy before you'd be taking home comfortably in excess of £64k.

As a few examples, Surrey County Council are currently recruiting for a Parking Strategy & Implementation Group Manager for up to £75k, decent software sales people may be taking home anything from £80k to £200k or more, and a Police superintendant can earn £68k or more.

So where would you set the balance? On the one hand, nobody wants to spend more than we have to on something like this, but on the other hand, these are the people we're trusting to run the country on our behalf, so you have to consider, if you want really competent people running the country, how much those people might be earning in other industries.

I reckon it will be interesting to see the results! Just remember, you're choosing how much you'd want to pay the MP you would want to represent you, not necessarily any existing MP.

[Kermit power]

Plotloss said:

Minimum wage.

Being a politician should not be a career choice.

Would you really want your country to be run by people willing to take a minimum wage job?

Remember, I'm not asking what people think the current bunch are worth, because in many cases the answer would probably be "they should be paying us for all the mess they've made", but how much we should be paying the people we actually want running the country.

[Kermit power]

Stevenj214 said:

Plotloss said:

Being a politician should not be a career choice.

I agree with this point.

I think more important than the basic salary, where there are many arguments for all ranges, politicians should only be considered if they have experience and a proven track record of success in their field.

I pretty much agree with that. Would we accept people who have worked in local government though?