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Members' Salaries, Pensions and Allowances

As regards my right hon. Friend's continuing double act with the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter), the point is not whether we have an independent mechanism for recommending pay but whether the recommendation is implemented. When we have had recommendations from independent mechanisms in the past, the Government have tended to say, ““That's too much—we're going to whip our Front Benchers to vote against it””, and that is the end of it. What we want from both sides is an undertaking that if such a mechanism is established—I think that most of us are in favour of that—the Government do not interfere to try to prevent a recommendation from being put into effect.