MPs' pay set to increase 2.8% to £93,904 in April

MPs' basic salary is set to rise 2.8% to £93,904 from April, after Parliament's expenses watchdog decided to link it to wider proposals for the public sector.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) said the rise should reflect government plans for workers such as teachers and NHS staff.

Those pay deals are currently being negotiated with unions, following ministerial submissions to pay review bodies late last year.

A final decision on MPs' salary will be made in mid-March, following a two-week consultation beginning on Monday.

The recommended rise is higher than the current CPI figure for inflation, which measures price rises over the previous year and stands at 2.5%.

But it is lower than the measure of public sector earnings that has typically been used by Ipsa in recent years to set MPs' salary.

In September 2021, the watchdog said it would, for a period of three years, link their salary rises to average public sector pay figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in October.

Had this figure been used for next year, MPs would have seen their salary rise 4.2%, to a total of £95,182.

Ipsa points out that it has not always stuck rigidly to the October earnings figure - and it has the flexibility to use other statistics if it wants to.

Last year, it recommended a 5.5% rise, in line with the deal awarded to senior civil servants, after concluding the official pay figures did not fully reflect "underlying trends in public sector pay".

Ipsa chair Richard Lloyd said its recommendation for MPs' pay next year reflected the experience of the "wider working public sector population", as well as the "current economic climate".

Ipsa has also recommended the 2.8% uplift should also apply to the £18,309 top-up awarded to MPs who chair select committees.

In the spring, it is set to launch a wider review of MPs' pay that will determine the salary they are paid from April 2026 onwards.

Among other factors, this review will look at how MPs are paid in comparison to elected politicians internationally.

MPs previously set their own salaries but this changed after the 2009 expenses scandal, which saw Ipsa set up in an attempt to make the pay-setting process more transparent and independent.