MPS will be given the chance to vote themselves a pay increase of up to £25,000 in a bid to end the controversy over allowances for second homes, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
But the hike in salaries to more than £85,000 – well above the rises being offered to workers across Britain – has been lambasted as the wrong way to end a discredited system.
A committee headed by Speaker Michael Martin is proposing that in ret
urn for scrapping a controversial second homes allowance worth up to £22,110 a year, all MPs should be reimbursed with a hefty boost to their current salary of £60,277 a year.
"It'll be one of the options that's put to MPs in July," confirmed a source close to the committee.
The cross-party committee is looking at "radical" options for restructuring MPs' pay and allowances in response to a furore over expenses.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said that replacing a "discredited" allowance with a pay rise was not the solution.
"It would be rewarding MPs for their current abuse of the second homes allowance by giving them an equivalent pay rise. This is not on," said Elliott.
Liberal Democrat MP and right-to-know campaigner Norman Baker said: "It'd be totally wrong to scrap the second homes allowance. It's there to reimburse MPs for legitimate expenditure made in the course of their duty. To lump it all together and give MPs a big pay rise would benefit MPs close to London who have lower expenses while penalising MPs like my colleagues in Scotland who are more likely to have higher expenses."
He added: "It's a fix to try to get around the Freedom of Information Act."
After a lengthy Freedom of Information battle, a tribunal ruled last month that MPs must disclose exactly how they spend the £22,110 allowance, which reimburses MPs for the cost of running a second home.
The tribunal described the "laxity" of the "deeply unsatisfactory" existing rules. The House of Commons has yet to announce whether it will appeal against the decision.
A source said that given the "political sensitivity" surrounding MPs' pay, the committee would be prepared to drop the tax perk currently enjoyed on the homes allowance. The source insisted that the attraction of the scheme lay in the fact it would not cost taxpayers any more than at present.
The Speaker's committee will produce an "issues paper" at the end of the month, with a final report to be voted on by MPs in the House of Commons in July.
The full article contains 441 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
