Well, that's infuriating

[lexin]

The MP's pay body has recommended a pay increase of 9% for those poor downtrodden MPs of ours.

I haven't had a pay increase above 1% for any of the last seven years. As far the buying power of my pay is concerned, I'm currently around 16% worse off than I was in 2005.

MPs pay increase should be linked to that of civil servants, IMO.

Comments

[liadnan]

I thought it was actually, I'm sure that came in under Major. MPs were grade 6 I think. Ministers had already been on (various higher) civil service grades. (Prior to that I am pretty sure Sir Humphrey gets it in somewhere in YPM). Did the link get abolished?

[lexin]

Seems to have done; their pay isn't set at any grade that's recognisable to me, seems to be far above G6, for example, and civil servants have had a 1% pay rise in most government departments for the last three or four years and in mine for seven. That's when they haven't had a 0% pay rise, which I have in the three of the last seven years.

Am I sour about it? Oh, just slightly.

[liadnan]

So would I be. From the legal profession the observation has been made that the total bill for the increase is a noticeable chunk of the claimed savings for Grayling's next round of legal aid cuts, and that MPs are paid a great deal more than the vast majority of barristers with a criminal defence practice - despite the figures of a very few high profile people.

[lexin]

I heard on R4 (Law in Action) about barristers pay. Many of them earn less than I do, which is awful considering the amount of effort that goes into becoming a barrister.

[liadnan]

The vast majority of those who do criminal defence work and are thus concerned with the biggest single element of the proposed round of cuts* certainly do**. The figures that get trotted out by the government and their preferred media outlets tend to concern a few exceptional people, and/or people who have nothing to do with criminal legally-aided work at all. (They also tend to be gross turnover on the basis of work done, rather than either net receipts less expenses or net income on a work done basis before tax)

*criminal defence work. Also judicial review, but legally aided judicial review is very likely to be much the same people - cases relating to prisons, immigration, etc etc, rather than eg planning jrs. Civil legal aid has been dying for the last ten years - I have had little to none in the last several years - and finally hit the end of the road in the previous round, LASPO, which came into force 1st April this year - from the ambit of which criminal work was expressly excluded, but which put an end to legal aid for almost anything related to my practice and also vast swathes of family law work.

** times are tight for many of the rest of us as well, but it's of a different order of magnitude.

[nineveh_uk]

As far as I can see, it's not that they don't see that it's a giant "Fuck you" to the public sector employees they've said this month should have flat pay scales/cuts/be sold off. It's that they know very well and don't care.

Ed. And I agree entirely that MP's pay should be linked to civil servants. Also any other benefits.

[lexin]

I think they should also have to follow the same rules about expense claims. A lot of the things MPs claim as expenses, would not be allowable by any reasonable employer and certainly aren't allowed by the civil service.