No10 insists Rishi Sunak WON’T intervene on MPs’ pay after official figures show they are in line for 7.1% hike to £92,700 in April – with tax-free daily allowance for peers set to hit £366
Rishi Sunak has made clear he has no intention of intervening on MPs’ pay after it emerged they are in line for a 7.1 per cent pay rise.
Downing Street stressed that an ‘independent process’ sets the salaries for politicians and it would be a ‘matter for Parliament’.
MailOnline revealed yesterday that the metric usually used to set politicians’ salaries would see them rise by more than £6,000 to £92,731 in April.
Peers are also on track for a big windfall, with their tax-free daily ‘attendance allowance’ likely to be increased by the same proportion, from £342 to £366.
The increase would be the highest for MPs since their salaries were dramatically boosted in a review in 2015, and could be controversial as CPI inflation is running at 4.9 per cent and expected to be falling sharply next Spring.
It is larger than the 5 per cent award for most NHS staff this year, although that was accompanied by lump sums.
The metric usually used to set politicians’ salaries would see them rise by more than £6,000 to £92,731
The spokesman for Rishi Sunak (pictured) stressed that an ‘independent process’ sets the salaries for politicians and it would be a ‘matter for Parliament’
The Commons watchdog will not confirm the pay increase for MPs until the New Year, and does have wriggle room to adjust the level. It did so two years ago during the pandemic.
An Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) spokesman said: ‘The IPSA Board will make a decision in the New Year.’
However, campaigners have urged MPs to ‘think long and hard’ over whether the rise should happen after ‘a year of sluggish growth and a still-growing tax burden’.
Asked whether Mr Sunak would intervene against the increase, the PM’s official spokesman said: ‘This is an independent process that was for very understandable reasons set apart from government.’
A No10 source added that it is a ‘matter for the House’.
Ipsa was given control of politicians’ salaries after the credit crunch, and the watchdog has linked increases to a specific metric on changes in average public sector earnings for October.
That figure has come in at 7.1 per cent, having dipped sharply from the 12.5 per cent recorded in August.
The House of Lords has committed to following the uprating used by the Commons.
That could see the daily allowance for peers – who do not usually receive a salary – go up from £342 to £366.
Official figures last week showed real wages rising at the fastest rate in more than two years.
Taking the headline CPI into account the increase in regular wages was 1.2 per cent in the three months to October, a level not seen since 2021
Regular pay, excluding bonuses, was 7.3 per cent higher than a year earlier in the three months to October, according to the Office for National Statistics.
That was slower than the 7.8 per cent hike recorded in the previous quarter – but crucially Brits were getting better off due to falling inflation.
Taking the headline CPI into account the increase was 1.2 per cent, a level not seen since 2021.
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