MEPs’ £2.3m ‘golden goodbyes’
DEFEATED British MEPs are in line for up to £2.3million in ‘golden goodbyes’.
Thirty-four UK MEPs who lost their seats at the Brussels and Strasbourg parliament are eligible for the ‘transitional allowance’.
Anti-Brexit Tory MEP Charles Tannock is in line for one of the biggest settlements because payments are linked to length of service. His 20 years means he will be able to receive up to £150,000 – a month’s salary of around £7,500 for each year worked in parliament.
When each of the UK MEPs’ length of service is taken into account, it means the total bill could reach £2.3million. It is funded from the EU’s multi-billion annual budget, paid for by the taxpayers from the bloc’s 28 member states.
The payments are capped at a maximum of 24 months and a minimum of six, and MEPs must have served at least a full five-year term before being eligible. The allowance is designed to provide former MEPs an income while they look for a new job.
Former MEPs are refused the payment if they are of pensionable age under EU Parliament rules – which is aged 63.
It means Edinburgh-born David Martin, the UK’s longest serving MEP, is likely to miss out on the windfall because he is now aged 64.
Mr Martin, who was first elected in 1984, is a member of the European Parliament’s additional voluntary pension scheme, which was created in 1993 but closed to new applicants in 2009.
That means he is likely to receive tens of thousands of pounds above and beyond his first pension. All in all, he could walk away with a combined annual pension of £114,000 a year.
Ukip leader Gerard Batten, who lost his seat, will also move straight onto the parliament’s gold-plated pension scheme at the age of 65.
Mr Tannock, 61, will be able to draw the transitional allowance for two years before also being able to move onto the pension scheme.
Of the 34 eligible British MEPs, 20 are entitled to the minimum £44,930, while six are in line for more than £100,000. Labour’s Linda McAvan, the Tories’ Jacki Foster and Plaid Cymru’s Jill Evans are also entitled to £150,000.
Remainer officials described Mr Tannock’s defeat as a ‘real loss’ to the anti-Brexit cause after he ‘fought solidly’ against Britain leaving. After losing his London seat he tweeted: ‘One long and deeply enjoyable chapter closes and I hope another will shortly open.’