expenses expenses

Well the media seem to have given up talking about real issues and we are left with discussing MP pay packets, as such I thought I would join in the fun.

Mainly because I don't actually have a strong opinion to one side or the other, and hope to point out it's not as clear cut as it could be.

My own bias is that I claim expenses, roughly £30-100 a month (sometimes a lot more sometimes a lot less).

I always see that as ok because me expenses are such things as:

-second class rail fair to a meeting I need to attend

-tube travel in London

-items of stationary that I bought for the general use of the office

oh and then the big ones

-gas, electricity and phone bills.

I see this as ok because:

firstly I live and work in london, and have a pay of £100 per week full time. (which is technically illegal, unless you do rather special accounting)

So I need any extra help I can get.

The deal with the job was they provide a room for me to live in (effectively as a lodger) and from my share of the gas and electricity bills they would pay 1/4 (any more and tax problems occur).

oh and the phone bill is only used for work use anyway - any personal calls on it I have to pay for and can't claim.

So as someone who is laughably underpaid (it's a long story lets not get into it now), I really need the added bonus of expenses.

With MPs, they earn a lot more than me, in fact I believe someone said they earn around £60k (I'll assume that is the base average for the rest of this article).

Well ok, how much should they get paid? This is actually a tough question but so far in the world the fairest system seems to look at what they could earn in other companies doing roughly equivalent jobs. In which case the cabinet would be like a board of directors and PM like a CEO, and thus you'd expect anything from £150-200k upwards.

'normal' MPs could perhaps be seen as top level management and only would be worth £80k? definitely more than £60k at least.

(Also remember that the directors pay is normally proportional to the size of the company, and the UK is a fairly large country in terms of money, diplomatic standing etc - not the largest obviously but a leading player).

Now the scandel seems to be that MPs are topping up their pay by anything up to £20k annually with expenses that actually should be seen as personal and not benefiting the country.

Well that still means their total income isn't that unreasonable? surely.

From a christian perspective I can't really see the point of expenses, just pay everyone an average £20k (or whatever the average expenses per year claim is) more, and expect that MPs will donate things like staplers to theirs offices if they decided they need to buy one rather than going through the hassle of calling it an expense.

However from the basis that not everyone is going to donate things like that, and people could 'lose out' then make it a £15k pay rise, and the rest of expenses for things which obviously benefit the country/offices of parliment like new printer ink because it was needed suddenly late one night and had to be bought.

So basically that is the view of 'hey guys MPs deserve a lot of money, let them have it, and get rid of all the pen pushing that makes it happen.

----

however there is ofcourse the counter view:

What about working for the good of the country? Sacrifising one self for the common good?

Ok so businesses pay more, but they are trying to make money. The Goverment should be trying to improve everyones lives.

Why can't MPs stay in travel-lodge rather than a second home in london?

Or Just buy a block of flats somewhere and kit it out like student halls (so they have a single or if married double bedded room, and a canteen to buy simple food from... and a kitchen to share between 8 rooms or whatever).

They don't have to live in these places all year long, so surely just a place that they can sleep in and eat is enough?

The house of commons, is meant to be full of 'common' people. Unlike the Lords (which traditionally had the people who owned the land and the businesses) these people should represent the common people, so surely they should get paid a common wage?

Isn't the UK average around £20k? government statistics say that you only need £10k to be happy, so if anything thats generious.

Someone said they work 60 hours a week... why? to make money or to sacrifise themselves for the country?

in business if you do that, it's so that you can be a high-flyer, and become rich (generalisling a lot here)

If they are in it for money, then their motives are not right for governing the country,

if they are sacrifising themselves, then they wouldn't look for legal loop-holes to get more money.

Maybe the work-load of MPs should be reduced. How that would work I don't know, but really if they are to relate with the common folk then their own balance of work and rest, work in the office and activities unrelated should reflect the average person more. perhaps 35-40 hrs a week, (i.e. 9-5 + 5 hours extra) and be encouraged to take up an activity like sport, bird watching, local civic societies, going to the pub, or even church. Bascially anything which makes them more 'common'.

So yeah, either you think they deserve to be paid well, and this is all a lot of noise about nothing.

Or you think they are being paid enough as it is, and should be content with that.

(or even more, they should cut down on pay and work to represent us more).

On balance, I think pragmaticaly if you want to encourage people who might be good, you have to pay a resonable wage - and competative.

So I would go for a pay rise, by however much is the average expenses, and let them have two mortgages if they choose, or let them use travel lodge and pocket the extra.

But as someone who is making sacrifises for my work, as I know the financial situation of this church, I am ok to do it 'if' other people do as well, rather than taking advantage.

When there was talk of hiring another worker for 22k per year I thought "was this person really going to be worth 4 times me?" and was about to have an argument about a pay rise (except they never did hire in the end).

But anyway I make sacrifises because I judge the church to need it in order to survive.

Really 500MPs claiming an extra 20k = 10,000k per year. This saving is eqivalent to 5 people not going to university in the year so the LEA not having to help fund them.

really in terms of the total budget it makes little difference.

So er yeah, that's my thoughts. (most of them contradictory, but hey)