Underworked and Overpaid

Here's an interesting report from The Times which throws more fuel on the fire of the role that Scottish MPs play at Westminster.

I have some sympathy with this point of view I have to say because I have some experience of the relative workload of Scottish MSPs in the Holyrood Parliament and Scottish MPs at Westminster.

And in my view there is no contest; the contingent that Scotland sends south of the border doesn't represent good value for money. 

Scottish MPs ‘are underworked and overpaid’

Scottish MPs claimed an average of £10,000 more in costs than those outside Scotland last year EMPICS Sport

By Matt Dathan - The Times

English MPs have called for their Scottish counterparts to be paid less and to cut back on their expenses after it emerged that MPs north of the border claimed an average of £10,000 more in costs than those to the south.

With more powers being offered to Scotland, a handful of Tories want the discrepancy in workload between Scottish and English MPs to be reflected in their pay packets. There have also been demands to reduce the number of MPs that Scotland sends to Westminster.

Despite claiming more in costs, Scottish MPs do not represent their constituents on devolved matters such as health, education and housing — meaning that they do less casework than English MPs. An additional transfer of powers would reduce their workload further.

Constituents raise their concerns on devolved matters with MSPs, who bill the taxpayer for running their own constituency offices.

“There’s a question here about value for money,” said Andrew Bridgen, Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire. “The fact is they have less work to do because they have another tier of government below them. There is a difference in the workload between English and other members of parliament. There are different demands made of them and normally, in a job where there are different demands, there would be a pay differential. I do question the validity of the system.” Conor Burns, Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, said he wanted to go farther and, if more powers are handed to the Scottish parliament, reduce the number of MPs that Scotland sends to Westminster.

“Certainly I think there should be a discussion on the number of Westminster Scottish MPs,” he said.

“You’ve had significant devolution to Scotland already and three Westminster parties want to devolve more. Reflecting that, you’ve got members of the Scottish parliament who are very well resourced with staff allowances and responsibilities to support their constituent casework and yet you’ve got Westminster Scottish MPs who are no longer doing casework on devolved issues, who are also supported to the same extent as MPs representing English constituencies, who are doing a lot more casework.

“So in essence it boils down to this: we already have two classes of MPs. We have English MPs doing a bigger job than Scottish MPs and I think the allocation of resources between what are now distinctly different roles with distinctly different workloads needs to be reflected in the resources available.”

All MPs are currently paid £67,060 per year. Non-London MPs are able to claim up to £160,000 for office and staffing costs, with London MPs able to claim £170,000. However, there is no differential between the 59 Scottish MPs and their southern counterparts.

An analysis of figures published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority this month showed that Scottish MPs claimed an average of £159,858 last year, compared with £149,333 claimed by non-Scottish MPs.

Taxpayers also have to foot the bill for members of the Scottish parliament, who are paid a basic salary of £58,678 each and are able to claim up to £80,000 in office and staffing costs.

In addition to their local MSP, Scottish voters can also raise concerns on devolved matters with one of their seven regional MSPs, meaning that Scots are represented by nine different parliamentarians compared with one for English voters.

However, the calls to reduce the cost of Scottish MPs were criticised by the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Jonathan Isaby, its chief executive, said it would lead to an overall rise in the cost of politics. He said: “If we were to reduce the pay of Scottish MPs, there would doubtless be calls to increase the pay of MPs with bigger caseloads, which would lead to an even more unequal settlement.”