Sunday, June 29, 2008

Reforming MPs pay


MPs could get a
daily handout of around £150 for turning up at the Commons in return for giving up their controversial second homes allowance.

Senior MPs drawing up reforms of Parliamentary expenses are said to favour the system that would have an upper ceiling of about £24,000 a year.

Isn’t this something that the European Parliament has? I am sure I read somewhere that all they had to do to get the money was to turn up and sign the register. They weren’t needed to actually vote on anything. Infact after signing they could just go home and still get the money.

MPs expenses should be reformed but not this way. Their salaries should increase, yes you read that correctly. I don’t think they do a good job. That’s not the reason why I think they should get a higher salary. Our MPs are of low quality. We should be trying to get high quality people to become MPs like executives who earn hundreds of thousands of pounds per year. We should pay enough to get rid of the idiots and attract the people who will benefit Britain. Give them £150,000 per year and you will see more quality people wanting to become MPs.

Reform their expenses too. Don’t give them money to buy a house. Buy a plot of land in London and build enough flats to accommodate them all. They will all have to stay there. In the long term this will be a cheaper option than giving MP after MP enough to buy a house and maintain that house. At first it will be expensive but once the land is bought and the flats are built there will be very little expenses for homes. All that will be required is a little maintenance.

For the rest of the expenses there wouldn’t need to be a limit if every single expense was made public. If people knew what they were spending taxpayers’ money on they wouldn’t spend it on stupid things. Look at Scotland for an example of what this has done.

Allow them to employ family members but make that public too. If their constituents feel they are being taken for a ride they can hold them to account.

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