Ipsa

Given the state of the country, you’d have thought MPs might have better things to do than abuse and belittle those running the parliamentary expenses scheme. But that’s exactly what some of our elected masters appear to have been doing in recent months, according to a Freedom of Information request sent by Mr S. Staff at the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) recorded six anonymised incidents of ‘bullying and abusive behaviour by MPs’ in one 14-month period between July 2020 and September 2021. Among them include one male MP ‘threatening to make bullying and harassment complaints against [IPSA’s] validation team if they do not approve his wrongly categorised claims for

It was just 12 weeks ago that a sleaze scandal threatened to rock the Commons to its core. Owen Paterson’s efforts to overturn the findings of a probe into his lobbying activities triggered weeks of revelations, controversy and bad headlines about MPs’ outside earnings and second jobs. But three months on, are things going back to the bad old ways already? Take the register of members’ interests, on which our elected masters detail their consultancies, part-time gigs and share dealings. This list – supposedly designed to encourage transparency and enable scrutiny – is already difficult to scrutinise. Data scientists complain that it lists information in a highly variable free text

The cost-of-living crisis has begun to bite but lucky MPs will be (partly) protected from the pinch. Their salaries are set to be hiked next month by £2,200 from £81,932 to £84,144 a year, following a review by IPSA, the independent watchdog established in the wake of the expenses scandal. The hike is set to coincide with energy bills soaring for millions of families and a National Insurance hike tax for workers – plus the consequences of whatever sanctions Mr Putin decides to inflict on us. Understandably there’s been a bit of a backlash against the pay increase, with some in the Commons pledging to donate the extra cash to local charities. But the

Inflation, fuel prices and a looming cost of living crisis: it’s a grim economic outlook for many out there. Fortunately, MPs are doing their bit to help, namely by giving extra cash handouts to the staffers in the offices. Steerpike has spotted that almost a million pounds – £951,000 – was shelled out in ‘reward and recognition’ payments last year, according to the 2020/21 figures from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). A follow up request from Mr S has established the identity of the most generous bosses in parliament, with Sir Keir Starmer in the top ten of the 352 MPs who sanctioned such payments last year. Top of the

When Rishi Sunak gets up at the despatch box tomorrow to announce his spending review, the Chancellor is expected to commit to a public sector pay freeze — with NHS workers exempt. Ever since this was first reported in the media, the idea has met heavy opposition from Labour while Tory politicians have had to get used to being asked on air why their own pay is set to go up at a time when the bulk of public sector workers’ pay is not. That well-trodden answer tends to go along the lines of ‘it’s a matter out of our control as Ipsa (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) sets MPs’ salaries’.