Do We Really Need 646 MPs?
Now that they've been caught fiddling their expenses in so many ingenious ways, our MPs have realised that something has to change if they are to regain the public's trust.
They were faced with two main options.
Either they could curb their rapaciousness and just claim a justifiable level of expenses.
Or they could change the expenses system to give themselves even more money while making the system easier to abuse.
Naturally, they have decided to award themselves even more of our money while reducing the need for them to explain what they have done with our money.
Our MPs claim that they need their generous expenses because they are so poorly paid compared to other 'professionals'.
However, while pleading poverty, our MPs seem to forget a few far from minor details.
Firstly they receive over £60,000 a year or just 32 weeks work.
Moreover, they have voted themselves the most generous pension scheme in Britain.
An ordinary person would have to put an incredible £50,000 each year into their pension savings to receive the same pension benefits as an MP.
Taking their pensions into account, our MPs actually earn over £110,000 a year.
Fortunately few MPs, however, have to live on these generous piles of our cash.
Cabinet ministers all get a salary of about £138,000 a year (with over four months holiday).
Most whips, deputy whips, speakers and deputy speakers pick up over £100,000 a year each.
Many government MPs hold obscure roles in civil service departments like health, education, defence, justice and so on, adding many tens of thousands of pounds to their annual takings.
Other MPs of all parties sit on a plethora of committees, most of which are completely powerless hot air factories, but which nevertheless considerably boost their members' meagre earnings.
MPs can also earn tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds a year acting as consultants for private companies - a privilege not available to most people in other professions.
And then of course, there is much more cash to be picked up by appearing on TV and radio.
If our MPs were hugely overworked, their massive remuneration might be justified.
However, each year they actually have less and less to do.
When this Government swept to power in May 1997, less than half our legislation was initiated and authored in the EU.
By 2001 this had reached 55 per cent and, according to an answer given in 2007 in the German parliament (the UK Government has refused to provide the same information), 84 per cent of their legislation now comes directly from the EU.
Imagine you owned a corner shop and you lost more than half of your customers - you might consider reducing your staff and even paying yourself slightly less.
Yet, our leaders have never considered cutting their numbers to match their greatly reduced workload.
In fact, they keep awarding themselves larger salaries, increased pensions and ever more allowances to do around half the amount of work that they were doing just over a decade ago.
In the last five years alone, the amount of money our MPs have taken in salaries and expenses has gone up by a satisfying (for them) 64 per cent, from less than £100m in 2001-2 to over £155m in 2006-7.
Over the same period, the number of expense claims submitted by MPs has almost doubled from just over 30,000 a year to close to 60,000 and the number of staff employed to help our MPs do less and less work has gone up by over a third from around 1,800 to over 2,500.
In addition to the money paid directly to MPs for salaries and expenses, we also pay another £210m a year for administration, support services and subsidized food and drink at Westminster.
Westminster administration costs have increased by around a third in only five years, again at a time when our MPs have had less and less to do.
A hint that our parliamentarians are actually at a bit of a loose end as to what to do with their time came in 2009 when MPs had over 100 days (almost four months) of holidays.
The reason was that the Government had run out of legislation to put before Parliament.
The total cost to us of our MPs is now over £366m a year.
If we reduced the number of MPs to match the recent halving of their workload, we could save around £180m a year.
We could also shove all the remaining MPs back into Westminster, sell off the rather luxurious Portcullis House and use the money raised to improve the living standards of the million poorest pensioners.
Moreover, now that our Prime Minister has rushed into signing the EU Constitution-by-another-name without asking our permission, more powers will soon move to Brussels, leaving even less work for our MPs.
Yet, rather than prudently pruning the number of MPs and their costs to match their ever-decreasing workload, we can expect that the Government will give in to MPs' pressure for further increases in salary, pensions and allowances.
The UK has 646 MPs in Westminster, 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), 60 Welsh Assembly members, 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland (MLAs) and 78 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) - 1,021 politicians to represent the interests of less than 70 million people.
This gives us one politician for about every 68,000 citizens.
In the US, with 435 Members of Congress, there is a Member of Congress for every 680,000 citizens.
We don't need 646 MPs any more - or even 500 - or even 400.
There is no reason why we should not at least halve the number of UK-based politicians (MPs, MSPs, members of the Welsh Assembly and MLAs) to reflect the continuing and accelerating transfer of political power to the EU.
They were faced with two main options.
Either they could curb their rapaciousness and just claim a justifiable level of expenses.
Or they could change the expenses system to give themselves even more money while making the system easier to abuse.
Naturally, they have decided to award themselves even more of our money while reducing the need for them to explain what they have done with our money.
Our MPs claim that they need their generous expenses because they are so poorly paid compared to other 'professionals'.
However, while pleading poverty, our MPs seem to forget a few far from minor details.
Firstly they receive over £60,000 a year or just 32 weeks work.
Moreover, they have voted themselves the most generous pension scheme in Britain.
An ordinary person would have to put an incredible £50,000 each year into their pension savings to receive the same pension benefits as an MP.
Taking their pensions into account, our MPs actually earn over £110,000 a year.
Fortunately few MPs, however, have to live on these generous piles of our cash.
Cabinet ministers all get a salary of about £138,000 a year (with over four months holiday).
Most whips, deputy whips, speakers and deputy speakers pick up over £100,000 a year each.
Many government MPs hold obscure roles in civil service departments like health, education, defence, justice and so on, adding many tens of thousands of pounds to their annual takings.
Other MPs of all parties sit on a plethora of committees, most of which are completely powerless hot air factories, but which nevertheless considerably boost their members' meagre earnings.
MPs can also earn tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds a year acting as consultants for private companies - a privilege not available to most people in other professions.
And then of course, there is much more cash to be picked up by appearing on TV and radio.
If our MPs were hugely overworked, their massive remuneration might be justified.
However, each year they actually have less and less to do.
When this Government swept to power in May 1997, less than half our legislation was initiated and authored in the EU.
By 2001 this had reached 55 per cent and, according to an answer given in 2007 in the German parliament (the UK Government has refused to provide the same information), 84 per cent of their legislation now comes directly from the EU.
Imagine you owned a corner shop and you lost more than half of your customers - you might consider reducing your staff and even paying yourself slightly less.
Yet, our leaders have never considered cutting their numbers to match their greatly reduced workload.
In fact, they keep awarding themselves larger salaries, increased pensions and ever more allowances to do around half the amount of work that they were doing just over a decade ago.
In the last five years alone, the amount of money our MPs have taken in salaries and expenses has gone up by a satisfying (for them) 64 per cent, from less than £100m in 2001-2 to over £155m in 2006-7.
Over the same period, the number of expense claims submitted by MPs has almost doubled from just over 30,000 a year to close to 60,000 and the number of staff employed to help our MPs do less and less work has gone up by over a third from around 1,800 to over 2,500.
In addition to the money paid directly to MPs for salaries and expenses, we also pay another £210m a year for administration, support services and subsidized food and drink at Westminster.
Westminster administration costs have increased by around a third in only five years, again at a time when our MPs have had less and less to do.
A hint that our parliamentarians are actually at a bit of a loose end as to what to do with their time came in 2009 when MPs had over 100 days (almost four months) of holidays.
The reason was that the Government had run out of legislation to put before Parliament.
The total cost to us of our MPs is now over £366m a year.
If we reduced the number of MPs to match the recent halving of their workload, we could save around £180m a year.
We could also shove all the remaining MPs back into Westminster, sell off the rather luxurious Portcullis House and use the money raised to improve the living standards of the million poorest pensioners.
Moreover, now that our Prime Minister has rushed into signing the EU Constitution-by-another-name without asking our permission, more powers will soon move to Brussels, leaving even less work for our MPs.
Yet, rather than prudently pruning the number of MPs and their costs to match their ever-decreasing workload, we can expect that the Government will give in to MPs' pressure for further increases in salary, pensions and allowances.
The UK has 646 MPs in Westminster, 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), 60 Welsh Assembly members, 108 Members of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland (MLAs) and 78 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) - 1,021 politicians to represent the interests of less than 70 million people.
This gives us one politician for about every 68,000 citizens.
In the US, with 435 Members of Congress, there is a Member of Congress for every 680,000 citizens.
We don't need 646 MPs any more - or even 500 - or even 400.
There is no reason why we should not at least halve the number of UK-based politicians (MPs, MSPs, members of the Welsh Assembly and MLAs) to reflect the continuing and accelerating transfer of political power to the EU.