Starting today, 1 April, MPs’ basic salary will rise to £98,599. For comparison, the average full-time worker in the UK made £39,039 a year, as of April 2025.
The pay bump marks a 5% increase in MPs’ basic wage. For comparison, average inflation stood at 3% as of January 2026.
Likewise, MPs’ salaries are expected to continue to rise to around the £110,000 by 2029, which marks the end of the current parliament. For comparison, even chancellor Rachel Reeves’ promise that people will be £1,000 better off by then is looking shaky at best.
However, the basic salary is only the beginning of the story. MPs also get an expenses allowance to cover absolute necessities like their second homes in London, their offices, and travel. Likewise, if an MP also sits on a committee or holds an additional role, they of course receive extra money.
Meanwhile, teachers in the UK are still buying classroom supplies out of their own pocket.
MPs pay rise has to be a joke
If all of this is setting your blood to boiling, please calm down. Don’t be like the the Taxpayers’ Alliance said, who rushed to state that people will be:
seething to see politicians receive an inflation-busting pay rise, all while they suffer a personal recession.
Likewise, take care not to follow the example of the group’s chair John O’Connell, who said that:
After years of broken promises, falling living standards and deteriorating public services, MPs are being rewarded for failure with a princely pay boost.
You see, it’s not like MPs are setting their own salaries or anything – that would be monstrously corrupt.
Instead, politicians’ wages are determined by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). IPSA makes its decision based on a number of factors, including 3.5% cost-of-living increase, along with a 1.5% benchmarking adjustment.
The watchdog compares MPs’ salaries to other politicians in similar democracies, as well as senior figures in the public sector and the NHS. Public sector salaries are, in turn, set by review bodies and, ultimately, by MPs.
Fortunately, MPs’ salaries are not compared to lower-ranking public sector workers, as this would look less favorable. For example, most NHS staffers will receive a 3.3% pay rise this year. Similarly, Civil Service workers received pay awards of up to 3.25% on average for 2025/26.
‘The wider economic context’
The independent head of IPSA is Richard Lloyd. An interesting an unrelated fact about Richard Lloyd is that he worked as a special adviser to prime minister Gordon Brown.
Explaining his decision, Lloyd said:
The role of an MP has evolved. They are dealing with higher levels of complex casework, and abuse and intimidation towards MPs and their staff has been growing.
In reaching our decision for 2026-27 we have benchmarked MPs’ pay against other responsible, senior roles in civic society and similar worldwide democracies, as well as considering our own core principles and the wider economic context.
In future years we will continue to consider prevailing economic and fiscal conditions when confirming annual pay decisions taking into account the experience of people outside of parliament.
When more work has been added to my jobs for the same pay as before, managers have called it a ‘necessary adjustment’ and ‘good business sense’. It’s nice that this kind of good business doesn’t apply to MPs.
It’s also nice that, despite their increasing casework and full-time jobs as MPs, parliamentarians are still finding time to work other jobs like appearing on the news in exchange for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some even work extra jobs like appearing in cameo videos saying hi to neo-Nazis.
Growing levels of abuse, often factually accurate
Likewise, it’s also completely true that MPs are facing ever increasing levels of abuse. I know this, because I’m one of the cunts writing the abuse, and I’m writing more and more of it by the day.
However, I’m calling snivelling toerags like Starmer ‘snivelling toerags’ because he sucks up to fascist dictators like Donald Trump. I call Kemi Badenoch a racist horror because she talks about slashing human rights so that she can attack migrants. And, of course, I call Farage a far-right neo-Nazi shill because of the video evidence that he is a far-right neo-Nazi shill.
If MPs would like to receive less abuse, many would benefit from considering whether this abuse is linked to their being contemptible scum.
Until that point, they can kindly go fuck themselves – I imagine it’s covered by expenses.
Featured image via the Canary
