Pensions Chaos Follow-up
After a strike over pensions which I wrote about earlier this week, and following on from a sequence of revelations which has not enhanced the reputation of politics, MPs have done something which will further reduce the respect in which they are held. They have voted more taxpayer’s money to their own pensions.
Many of the people who go into politics have enough ability that they could earn a lot more in other fields. Nevertheless, the sight of people paying themselves more out of public money is not particularly attractive, whether they are MPs voting themselves more salary and pensions or councillors voting themselves more allowances.
My personal view is that the remuneration of elected politicians should not be decided by the politicians themselves. Instead the salaries, allowances, and pensions of MPs, MEPs, and councillors should be delegated to an independent panel. This would not be perfect – I have sometimes considered the recommendations of the existing panels to be too generous (and voted accordingly.) But in a climate when councillors are frequently ordered not to vote on issues which are very important to the people we are supposed to represent if there is the last hint of a conflict of interest, it is about time that the far more serious conflict of interest when people vote on their own remuneration is addressed.
Incidentally, I entirely agree with the comment posted by "The Morningstar" on my previous item - a major part of the difficulty in funding pensions was caused by Gordon Brown's £5 billion a year raid on pension funds. And the reduced incentive to save caused by his means-tested pensions credit has further exacerbated the problem. As Labour MP and former minister Frank Field put it, the present government inherited one of the strongest pensions positions in Europe but we now have one of the weakest.
Many of the people who go into politics have enough ability that they could earn a lot more in other fields. Nevertheless, the sight of people paying themselves more out of public money is not particularly attractive, whether they are MPs voting themselves more salary and pensions or councillors voting themselves more allowances.
My personal view is that the remuneration of elected politicians should not be decided by the politicians themselves. Instead the salaries, allowances, and pensions of MPs, MEPs, and councillors should be delegated to an independent panel. This would not be perfect – I have sometimes considered the recommendations of the existing panels to be too generous (and voted accordingly.) But in a climate when councillors are frequently ordered not to vote on issues which are very important to the people we are supposed to represent if there is the last hint of a conflict of interest, it is about time that the far more serious conflict of interest when people vote on their own remuneration is addressed.
Incidentally, I entirely agree with the comment posted by "The Morningstar" on my previous item - a major part of the difficulty in funding pensions was caused by Gordon Brown's £5 billion a year raid on pension funds. And the reduced incentive to save caused by his means-tested pensions credit has further exacerbated the problem. As Labour MP and former minister Frank Field put it, the present government inherited one of the strongest pensions positions in Europe but we now have one of the weakest.
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