South Tyneside Independents» Featured Articles » Departing MPs receive a ‘golden goodbye’

Departing MPs receive a ‘golden goodbye’

The recent General Election saw a huge turnover of MPs. It seems many of them decided against standing for re-election after last year’s expenses scandal and others were rejected by the electorate and were voted out at the election.

With the help of the Tax Payers Alliance we can reveal the following that the majority of departing MPs are receiving a one-off Resettlement Grant of 50-100% of their final annual salary, dependent on their age and length of service and if this is not enough, the first £30,000 is tax-free! This in addition to a generous Parliamentary pension.

The Resettlement Grant is the equivalent of a redundancy payment, so MPs find it easier “adjusting to non–parliamentary life”. When a MP wins an election, he or she enters a contract with a term of up to five years. If they then go on to lose the election this is not the equivalent of redundancy – it is the end of their contract. Beyond this, MPs are entitled to this payment even if they decide not to run for re-election and are therefore considered to have resigned, not ‘fired’.

As an alternative, the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) have recommended giving MPs a month’s salary for every year of service up to a maximum of 9 months’ pay, and only for those MPs that lose their seat. However, the pay-offs would still be overly generous considering that a MPs’ monthly pay was £5,397 in 2008-09. Other workers that come to the conclusion of a fixed-term contract are not recompensed in this way so why should MPs be either.

218 departing MPs (those who decided not to seek re-election) are entitled to a staggering payout of around £10.4 million between them – an average of £47,706.

Defeated MPs (those voted out by the electorate) are entitled to £3,312,328 in total. Under the SSRB’s recommended changes, these same MPs would have received £3,276,080 – a difference of just £36,248.

Here in the North East departing MPs are entitled to a total of almost £1 million, individually this equates to:

DEPARTING MP & PARTY	CONSTITUENCY	TOTAL
Stephen Byers (Labour)	North Tyneside	£64,766
Hillary Armstrong (Labour)	Durham North West	£64,766
Vera Baird (Labour)	Redcar	£32,383
David Clelland (Labour)	Tyne Bridge	£54,403
Frank Cook (Labour)	Stockton North	£32,383
Jim Cousins (Labour)	Newcastle	£54,403
Bill Etherington (Labour)	Sunderland North	£44,040
Doug Henderson (Labour)	Newcastle North	£64,766
Fraser Kemp (Labour)	Houghton & Washington East	£40,154
Alan Milburn (Labour)	Darlington	£49,222
Chris Mullin (Labour)	Sunderland South	£64,766
Dari Taylor (Labour)	Stockton South	£50,711
Peter Atkinson (Conservative)	Hexham	£49,222
John Greenway (Conservative)	Thirsk & Malton	£64,766
John Cummings (Labour)	Easington	£54,403
Denis Murphy (Labour)	Wansbeck	£54,403