MPs’ pay & pensions

We were made responsible for determining MPs’ pay and setting the level of any increase in their salary in 2011, under the terms of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.

We are also responsible for the oversight of the MPs’ pension scheme.

Read more about MPs’ current pay.

We have a statutory duty to review MPs’ remuneration in the first year of each Parliament. We conducted a consultation in October 2020, fulfilling the requirement to do so by December 2020, a year after the last General Election in December 2019.

This consultation ran until 13 November 2020.

This consultation included the proposal that the existing approach to determining MPs' pay could continue. This approach links MPs’ pay to an official statistic on public sector pay that is first published each year in mid-December.

The unprecedented impact of the Covid pandemic has had an effect on public and private sector earnings and that applying the official statistic for public sector earnings growth would result in a salary increase for MPs that would be inconsistent with the wider economic data and would not reflect the reality that many constituents are facing this year.

The IPSA Board therefore decided that the salary for Members of Parliament will remain unchanged for the financial year 2021-22.

Further details can be found in our Interim Chair's letter to MPs, here.

Following the 2017 General Election, we conducted a consultation in May 2018, as required by statute.

After considering the consultation responses, we decided not to change the determinations on MPs' basic salary and additional salary for Committee Chairs. The July 2015 and May 2016 pay determinations will continue for this Parliament. We also decided that an amount equal to two months’ net (take home) salary should be paid in addition to the Loss of Office payments for former MPs who have lost their seats. MPs who stand down at a snap General Election, but not at a planned General Election, will also be entitled to the equivalent of two months’ net salary. Between 2012 to 2015, we conducted a comprehensive review of MPs' pay and pensions.

In July 2019 we published the revised MPs’ Pension Scheme, following public consultations from 10 May to 15 June 2018 and 28 January to 18 February 2019.

Those consultations proposed amending the MPs’ Pension Scheme to make certain technical changes to MPs’ pensions and to provide for improved lump-sum payments to the beneficiaries of any MPs killed in the line of duty. This new MPs’ Pension Scheme puts those changes in place. It has effect from 1 April 2019.

Following the 2015 General Election, we conducted a final consultation in June 2015, as required by statute.

We announced on 16 July 2015 our final decision on MPs’ pay in the 2015 Parliament. We have now implemented all elements of the package.

All MPs will now be paid an annual salary of £74,000, backdated to 8 May 2015. Annual changes in MPs’ pay during this Parliament will be linked to changes in average earnings in the public sector, rather than to those in the economy as a whole as previously proposed. We will review MPs’ pay again in the first year of the next Parliament, as required by statute​.

In December 2014, following a public consultation from 11 July to 20 October 2013 and as part of the reforms announced in December 2013, the new MPs’ pension scheme was laid before the House of Commons.

The consultation proposed amending the MPs’ pension scheme to put it on a par with those available in other parts of the public sector. This new MPs’ pension scheme puts those changes in place. It has effect from 8 May 2015.

In December 2013, following two public consultations, we proposed a modern, professional package for MPs’ remuneration.

There were six main elements to our proposal:

  • to make a one-off adjustment to MPs' pay from £67,060 to £74,000 a year, to reflect that it had fallen behind

  • thereafter, to link changes in MPs' pay to their constituents' pay across the country

  • to reduce MPs' generous pension benefits

  • to scrap resettlement payments for MPs which had been worth up to a year's salary

  • to tighten MPs' expenses further, and

  • to call on MPs to produce an annual account to help constituents to understand their work

As a whole, this package of reform would not cost the taxpayer a penny more. It would bring MPs’ pensions into line with others in the public sector, it would get rid of generous and out-of-date benefits and, after a one-off pay adjustment, it would permanently link MPs’ pay to the pay of the people they represent.

The first wide-ranging consultation on MPs’ pay and pensions, and other elements of their remuneration package, took place in October 2012. This followed extensive evidence gathering, including public opinion polling, focus groups and citizens’ juries.

The resulting consultation was open-ended. It did not make firm proposals, but asked questions about all aspects of MPs’ remuneration. It also provided evidence on how MPs’ pay compared with that of other professions, other representative bodies in the UK and overseas, and with national average earnings over the previous 100 years. The paper also examined alternative pension arrangements in detail.

In October 2011, IPSA was given responsibility for determining a new scheme for MPs’ pensions.

Before conducting our larger review of MPs’ remuneration, we held a small consultation on interim arrangements to be introduced in April 2012.