Members' pay and expenses 2015/16
This House of Commons Library Briefing Paper reviews changes in Members' salaries and the Members' expenses scheme since the responsibility for determining pay and expenses was transferred to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) is responsible for determining and paying Members’ salaries; for preparing and regularly reviewing and revising a scheme under which allowances are paid; and for paying those allowances.
Members’ salariesFrom 8 May 2015, the annual salary of a Member of Parliament has been £74,000.
IPSA’s initial decisions on Members’ pay followed the public sector pay freeze in 2012 and limits on pay increase to 1% per annum in 2013 and 2014. In 2012, it launched a review of Members’ pay and pensions, with changes to take effect from the beginning of the next (2015) Parliament. In July 2013, IPSA recommended that Members’ salaries should increase to £74,000 (from £67,060 on 1 April 2014), after the 2015 General Election.
Following further consultation, in December 2013, IPSA published a determination to this effect. The determination also provided for MPs’ salaries to be changed in line with the rate of annual change in average earnings on 1 April each year, from 2016.
In its statutory review of Members’ pay at the beginning of the 2015 Parliament, IPSA confirmed that Members’ pay would increase to £74,000, after the 2015 General Election, but it determined that subsequent annual increases should be in line with changes in public sector average earnings (not whole economy average earnings).
Members’ expensesSince the 2010 General Election, responsibility for devising a scheme for and paying Members’ expenses has rested with IPSA.
The MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (Seventh Edition) came into effect on 1 April 2015, although some changes only took effect from 8 May 2015, after the General Election. The main expense budgets provided in IPSA’s scheme and the maximum amounts that Members can claim in 2015/16 are set out in the paper (some amounts are reduced to 11 month equivalents for MPs newly elected in May 2015).
This paper was corrected on 13 June 2017. It previously reported that changes in Members’ salaries from April 2016 onwards were linked to changes in average earnings. In its July 2015 determination, IPSA changed this to changes in public sector average earnings. North East Hertfordshire was listed as a London area constituency. It was removed from the list of London area constituencies from April 2012.