Would paying more attract a better calibre of MP? The evidence suggests not

Higher pay would tempt to parliament the low performers of high paying professions, thus pushing out high performers of lower paying professions

 

MPs caught plotting ‘under the radar’ lobbying (on behalf of clients) for cash, are quick to use their mischiefs as an excuse to lobby (on behalf of themselves) for even more cash.

They claim if MPs were paid more we would get better quality MPs, asserting that:

  • Some high powered people don’t apply to be MPs because they don’t want to take the pay cut.
  • If they didn’t have to take the pay cut, they could become high powered MPs.

Let’s put aside the copious evidence that the existing rewards of being an MP are sufficient to pull in a plentiful number of people who consider themselves ‘high powered’: Oxbridge graduates are just one per cent of the population but made up 27 per cent of all MPs, and over one in three of Tory MPs, in the 2010-15 parliament.

oxbridgegraph

And let’s overlook that there are many high powered MPs in parliament who do the job for reasons of public service, regardless of the pay. Just as there are many high powered people with vocations to work in other relatively low paying professions.

Instead focus on that group of people who refuse to be an MP unless the money can match that of their alternative employment.

For those who measure a person’s merit by their pay:

1) merit is measured by how much they earn.
2) the amount earned is only a measure of their merit within their profession, and not across professions.

For example, if a banker earns more than a doctor that is not because the banker is ‘better’. It is because the banker is in a higher paid profession than the doctor. Just as the thousandth ranked UK banker earned more than a million euros, while the thousandth ranked tennis player earned just a few thousand.

Therefore using money as the measure, to get the ‘best’ we would want people paid in the top quarter (above the 75th percentile) of earnings for their profession.

A look at wage figures for different professions from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) illustrates that by paying MPs more we would actually get a worse quality of MPs. Higher pay would tempt to parliament the low performers of high paying professions (bankers; lawyers; lobbyists) thus pushing out high performers of lower paying professions (teachers; IT managers; nurses…).

The graphs below show the range of salaries for different professions. First we explain how the graph works:

graphexplain

  • 25 per cent earn less than the first blue block, marked Q2 (the second quartile)
  • 50 per cent earn less than the second blue block, the median.
  • 25 per cent earn more than the third blue block, marked Q3 (the third quartile)

For a selection of professions, salary ranges (from the Office for National Statistics, table 14.7a) are:

employeequintile

Evident from this is the fact that the current MP’s salary, £66k, is already above the 75th percentile for postmen, nurses, teachers, IT managers and train drivers. So an MP’s pay is already enough to get the top 25 per cent talent from those professions.

earnings

On the other hand, £66k is well below the pay of a 75th percentile lawyer, doctor, or company director.

lawyerpay

Even the MPs’ 10 per cent payrise in May 2015, to £74k, still wouldn’t be enough to bring in the best money driven candidates from these high pay professions.

To attract money-driven top 25 per cent (top quartile) lawyers, doctors, and company directors, the salary of an MP would need to rise to £100k. This is clearly ludicrous:

a) Based on market driven supply & demand, there has never been a shortage of people wanting to be an MP. Whether they are any good is a matter of opinion.
b) The statistics show the vast majority are sheep, voting according to the party line.

voteagainstownparty

One possible solution:

1) Parliamentary candidates state in their election campaign literature how much money they need for it to be worth their while representing their constituents, signed off by the party leader.

2) The party leader is given a salary budget after the General Election of £67k times the number of MPs he gets. (ONS figures for 2013 show £67k p.a. is more than 94 per cent of income tax paying Britons’ pre-tax incomes). And it is left to the party leader to share this out.All done in full public view. Now that would be fun to watch!

pretaxincome

34 Responses to “Would paying more attract a better calibre of MP? The evidence suggests not”

  1. AlanGiles

    Even if you paid them more, ghastly little men like Duncan-Smith, Chukka Ummana, David Laws etc would still be fiddling expenses. The old saying “the more you have, the more you want” comes to mind.

  2. littleoddsandpieces

    I do not begrudge a pay rise to MPs who say they have not had a pay rise for quite a while.

    What is lost is the care for the million and rising starving from babes in wombs to grannies each year, with the insufficient foodbanks who only give emergency food aid, when in Europe the EU funds daily free cafes, open 7 days a week that provide a free hot cooked meal and hot drink to equally, without conditionality of vouchers or restrictions how many times a year access, to the working poor, poor pensioners and the unemployed.

    And denying any state pension for life to huge numbers of men and women

    coming from next year because of the flat rate pension,

    that is anything but single tier as it will

    varying widely for individuals for decades to come,

    with official forecasts for next year as low as £55 per week with no top

    (currently full basic state pension is £113.10 per week).

    See why under my petition, in my WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT section, at

    https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

    Bearing in mind that many benefits end after age 64.

    97 per cent of the benefits bill goes to the working poor and poor pensioners.

    The state pension is around the 4 per cent lowest income
    and huge numbers of men and women only have the state pension as food and fuel money in old age, as were too poor for any other pension provision.

    This continues with the half of over 60s who are within the working poor.

    The poor now outnumber all other voters and yet parties that would represent them are not being given any media attention. From my personal website it is my hope to do what little I can to remedy this.
    Please share on your social media such as Facebook and Twitter these web pages:
    http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk

  3. Tim Jenkins

    If the conclusion here is not to pay MPs more i agree. But the focus on equivalent pay rates etc entirely misses the point. MPs value is about civic duty. If we start valueing them in terms of competetitive pay rates it has a corrosive effect on their real value. If we are to repair our system of representative democracy we need to strengthen civic duty, solidarity and even altruism. Like muscles these grow stronger with exercise so let’s have this debate using the right values not inappropriate market values.

  4. Jake

    People who argue based on equivalent pay rates must be rebutted with the fallacies in their own arguments. For us to just say they miss the point, and them to just say we miss the point, will surely miss the point.

  5. Arthur ASCII

    MPs are handsomely paid for the job they do. Sadly, the Westminster bubble is filled with greed.

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