Senior Tory wants MP pay doubled - Sir Patrick Cormack (Bristol East Liberal Democrats)

Bristol East Liberal Democrats <info@bristoleastlibdems.org.uk>

Senior Tory wants MP pay doubled - Sir Patrick Cormack

August 19, 2009 6:17 PM

Senior Tory wants MP pay doubled A senior Conservative has called for MPs' pay to be doubled - in return for scrapping their second home allowance.

Sir Patrick Cormack says MPs annual pay should increase from £64,766 to more than £130,000. Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesman Ed Davey said the veteran Tory "must be living on Planet Zog".

But Sir Patrick said he was standing by the call, made in a submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

The committee, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, is carrying out a full investigation of MPs pay and allowances and is due to report later this year.

In his submission, Sir Patrick acknowledges his proposal could be seen as "politically unacceptable". But he insisted he had "reluctantly" concluded that it was the best way to restore public confidence in Parliament.

"It's outrageous and deeply insensitive for any politician, let alone such a senior Conservative, to propose doubling MPs' pay", MIke Popham, Lib Dem Prospective Member of Parliament for Bristol East said.

Sir Patrick last week publicly backed Tory frontbencher Alan Duncan, who was secretly filmed complaining MPs had to live on "rations", telling BBC Radio 4's The World at One: "We don't want a parliament of political anoraks and rich people."

Another Tory grandee, Douglas Hogg, whose expenses submission famously included the cost of clearing the moat at his country home, has also called for MPs to be given a six-figure salary - plus expenses.

In his evidence to the standards committee, he said the current MP's salary was "so low in absolute and relative terms" that members of the professional and business classes would be deterred from entering Parliament.

Ed Davey, for the Lib Dems, told the Evening Standard newspaper Sir Patrick "must be living on Planet Zog to think that doubling MPs' salary would restore public faith in Parliament".

He added: "While many people are struggling to make ends meet, it's outrageous and offensive for such a senior Conservative to propose doubling MPs' pay."