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Members' Salaries, Pensions and Allowances

It is really an earnest of our good intent that we propose to scrap the existing mechanism, but we do not expect the current situation to drift on; we expect there to be a new comparator and a new mechanism. The review is due to report to the Prime Minister in May. The issue will be back before the House before the recess, and there will be an opportunity for the House to decide. Our concern is that we should clear the decks now, at this vote, showing the House's intention that we move forward to a different system. If we leave the current system in place, it can always continue. We should make the decision on April 2007-08 pay, but in future we will do it differently, with a comparator and a new mechanism. That is what we are asking the House to decide on. There are amendments on that point, and I shall address them in more detail later in my speech. I will take interventions, and I do not mean not to answer hon. Members' questions, but may I deal first with what the Government propose and the Government's response on the amendments? If there are any points that hon. Members wish to take up or which they are not clear about, I shall take them at the end. Perhaps we can proceed on that basis. Since 1996, MPs' pay has been increased in line with the average of the increases to the maxima and the minima of the pay bands in the senior civil service. Over the past two years, this has meant that MPs have had below-inflation pay increases—2.2 per cent. in 2003, 2 per cent. in 2004, 2.8 per cent. in 2005, 2 per cent. in 2006, which was staged, and this year 0.66 per cent. The question of our pay increase for 2007-08 needs to be seen against that background, and also against the background of our strong commitment to our public services and those who work in them; in the context of our determination to sustain a strong and growing economy that can withstand global financial turbulence; and alongside the approach to pay that the Government are taking for the public sector as a whole. We ask the House, in the motions that are before it, to stage the 2.56 per cent. recommendation made by the SSRB and which we accept, but to stage that increase so that it amounts to 1.9 per cent. in value across this year. For the same reasons that I have just set out, we do not accept the SSRB proposal that Ministers' pay should increase faster than that of other hon. Members. For future years, we propose that we do not have votes on our own pay again. The public find it unacceptable, we know that it is inappropriate, and some other legislatures in parliamentary democracies are able to do it differently. For example, MPs in New Zealand do not vote on their own pay increases.