Have your say on MPs’ pay

Date published: 13 October 2025

There are less than three weeks left for members of the public to respond to IPSA’s consultation on proposals for MPs’ pay for the remainder of this Parliament.

Last month, IPSA convened a Citizens’ Forum on MPs’ pay and funding where a representative sample of the UK population put forward recommendations for IPSA to consider.

Some of the Forum’s main recommendations, such as that MPs’ pay should be benchmarked against comparable roles in the UK and linked to national average household incomes, have been reflected in the consultation.

The Forum members concluded that the level of pay for MPs is mostly right, but asked for more accountability and transparency.

Opinions on pay shifted significantly for members of the Forum.

Before the Forum, 65% of members thought MPs were paid too much. After deliberation, 67% viewed MPs’ pay as about right - reflecting deeper understanding of the role's demand and complexities.

Richard Lloyd, IPSA’s Chair, said:

“We believe MPs should be paid fairly for the important role they have in democracy.

“We are grateful to the 23 members of our Citizens’ Forum for the time they took to debate a complex and divisive topic.

“Now it’s over to the rest of the British public. I encourage everyone to read our consultation with an open mind and share your views about how IPSA might fund and pay MPs in the future”.

The consultation is open until 31 October. Anyone can respond through a quick and easy online survey.

ENDS

For more details, please contact IPSA's Press Office via communications@theipsa.org.uk.

Notes to Editors 

  1. IPSA was created in 2009 by the Parliamentary Standards Act. The Act was amended in 2010 by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. Together they gave IPSA three main responsibilities: to regulate MPs’ business costs, to determine MPs’ pay and pension arrangements, and to provide financial support to MPs in carrying out their parliamentary functions.

  2. IPSA is independent of Parliament and the Government. This allows us to make decisions about the rules on business costs and on MPs’ pay ourselves, without interference. You can find out more about IPSA's role and responsibilities on our website.

  3. The Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs (‘the Scheme’) governs what MPs can and cannot claim. We review our rules regularly and consult the public when we do so.

  4. New Citizen Project is an organisation which specialises in participation strategy and design, and was commissioned by IPSA to design and deliver the Citizens' Forum. It has run multiple deliberative democracy projects, including RSPCA’s Citizens’ Assembly on the Future of Animal Welfare. It also designed the overarching RAPID Democracy framework for the People’s Plan for Nature, a pioneering deliberative project commissioned by RSPB, National Trust and WWF in 2022.

  5. The recruitment process for the Citizens’ Forum was run by the Sortition Foundation. Sortition is a not-for-profit organisation specialising in recruiting for these kinds of events. 10,000 addresses in the UK received a letter inviting residents to take part in the Forum, and were recruited to form a group representative of the wider population.