Starmer: MPs don’t deserve £3k pay rise
‘Spend money on key workers instead’
LABOUR leader Keir Starmer has said MPs should not receive an inflation-busting £3300 pay rise next April, but let the money go to key workers instead.
The independent body which sets MPs’ pay wants to carry on linking it to wage growth in the public sector, which was 4.1 per cent this month – well above the inflation rate of 0.2 per cent.
It would mean MPs’ pay would rise to more than £85,000, at a time when millions of workers are feeling financial pain due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Starmer said: “This year of all years we shouldn’t have it. That money, if it’s available, should be spent on key workers – those who have been on the frontline through this pandemic.”
Speaking to LBC Radio, Starmer called for a cross- party discussion about what to do.
He added: “I suspect there are lots of MPs that feel it just isn’t right.”
He said the decision had been “parcelled out to an independent body so MPs don’t decide for themselves what they get paid, but that’s mitigation, it’s not an excuse”.
Richard Lloyd, of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which sets MPs’ salaries, said the body had a statutory duty to review MPs’ pay in the first year of each parliament.
He added: “Given the huge economic uncertainties arising from the pandemic, we do not think it is right to depart from this approach now.”