Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

MP's PAY
Here we go again. I hope you all had a very good Christmas and New Year break and feel refreshed and ready for all that 2008 will throw at us. No predictions, except this: I know that I will make many mistakes this year. How? Because the only way to avoid making mistakes is to avoid making decisions.

One of the first tissues on which the wisdom of Solomon is required is MP’s pay. Not a great first article for the New Year you may think, but as the story of “snouts in trough politicians” is already running I thought I’d grasp the nettle.

First of all, I think it plain wrong that we should have a vote on our own pay and this must stop. Some years ago our pay was linked to a certain grade in the civil service, but one year the automatic upgrade suggested such a large uplift that the government felt inclined to oppose it. So the link was broken, big mistake.

Now we have an independent body that makes recommendations every three years or so. It always seems to recommend hefty increases which the government of the day tries to oppose, so it still comes back to the House to decide.

We need a major exercise, with full consultation, to decide where your elected representatives should rank in the public sector pecking order. There are few comparable jobs, so this has a measure of creativity about it. In my opinion, not many would complain if we were grouped in the same pool as secondary school head-teachers, General Practitioners and senior local government executives. After all, we are the only law-makers in the country and carry a measure of responsibility. So why not decide where we fit into the hierarchy and then peg us there with inflation only increases thereafter. That way we don’t get to vote on our own pay.

The trouble with my analysis is that secondary heads get paid about £90,000 these days, GPs over £100,000 and top local government people well over £100,000. MPs get £60,000 – still a lot of money for most people – but imagine the outcry if we suddenly jumped to the level of my suggested comparators. It can’t be done.

So we are stuck with a system that involves the indignity of us voting on our own pay. There has to be a better way than this. Anybody out there got any wisdom? Keep it clean!

mail@garystreeter.co.uk

posted by Nigel on Friday, January 11, 2008