Welcome to the age of the £1million MP
Following on from our last blog on the rise and rise of MPs staff costs, we are estimating that the average final cost per MP for the 2010-2015 Parliamentary term will be in excess of £1.1million per MP - once winding up costs and severance pay is factored in.
We won’t have the final total until September 2015 (yes that's in 4months time !) as MPs that did not stand or failed to retain their seat in the election have 2 months after May 7th to empty their Westminster office, close down their constituency office, make their staff redundant and file those last business costs and expenses.
Whilst there have been plenty of headlines and twitterstorms over MPs claims over personal expenses, be it poppy wreaths or rent on second homes, we have not seen any major increase in the total for these categories since 2010.
The most significant spend is MPs staff - these are the caseworkers and office managers that an MP can employ to help them. We would expect MPs who do employ a number of experienced staff to be very responsive to their constituents in terms of surgeries, email and letter replies and helping their boss (the MP) to manage their time effectively. We hope to give indications of this in the future.