MPs to get a 2.7% pay rise…? This must be some sort of joke

POLICE officers – subject to a brutal Government pay freeze since 2020 – have reacted with a mixture of astonishment and anger to the news that MPs are being granted a 2.7% pay rise.

All MPs will get a £2,212 pay hike on 1 April, seeing an MP’s basic salary go up to £84,144 a year.

Over the past 10 years due to ‘austerity’ based pay freezes and subsequent below inflation pay rises, police officer pay has fallen in real terms by 20% behind the cost of living.

Unlike nurses and firefighters, police officers were given no pay rise in 2021 with the public cost of the Covid-19 pandemic blamed by the Treasury.

Now household bills are rising sharply and National Insurance is going up in April – the same week MPs will receive their rise.

Officers have reacted to the news with fury – especially as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which sets MP salaries, said the politicians should be paid fairly for the responsibilities they carried, which ‘dramatically increased’ during the pandemic.

Laura Heggie, Chair of Essex Police Federation, said: “The suggestion of MPs getting a 2.7% pay rise is just inconceivable. It makes my blood boil. To cite ‘dramatically increased duties’ last year is some sort of joke.

“A starting police officer currently gets £21,402 a year which is a quarter of the wage of an MP. Over half the officers that join Essex Police take a cut in salary to become an officer.

“In the recent PFEW Pay and morale survey over half of the Essex Officers were worried about the state of their finances on a daily basis, with 68% saying they were worse off financially than they were five years ago.

“It could almost be acceptable if we were on a level playing field but we’re not, we couldn’t be further from it. It is for exactly this reason that we need a fair independent body deciding on our pay and for that body to not only be ‘independent’ but to be adhered to.”

In May 2021 the Police Federation withdrew from the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) after recommendations from the body were once again disregarded by the Government, seeing officers with no uplift in pay despite the efforts and challenges faced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Laura added: “We are all being hit with the rising cost of living but clearly that’s not something the MPs are going to worry about.

“Come on people there needs to be a reality check – rather than increasing MPs already overinflated wages, save it and start to give a decent wage to those on our frontlines, our emergency services, actually doing ‘dramatically increased duties’ and risking their lives day in day out to protect the public. The people that deserve it.”