Wimbledon MP wants GP's salary (From Your Local Guardian)

Wimbledon MP wants GP's salary

4:41pm Monday 28th January 2008 in Wimbledon By Diana Pilkington

The MP for Wimbledon is calling for his salary to be in line with that of other, more highly paid, public sector employees.

Stephen Hammond has argued that MPs should be paid the same as a GP or senior civil servant, who he says earn an average of £108,000 and £118,000 respectively.

This compares to his salary of £62,500 a year.

Mr Hammond said: "We do a job roughly equivalent to that of a public sector GP or senior civil servant."

"It's incontrovertible that our salaries have not kept paced with that," he added.

He said that the skill level of an MP's job was similar to that of higher paid public sector workers, and stressed that MPs are available at weekends.

His views come amid members' responses to recommendations by the Senior Salaries Review Board, which saw one Conservative MP, Anthony Steen, controversially ask for a taxi allowance to avoid using the Tube.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "MPs already get a good salary, an extremely generous pension and sizeable expenses - that should be sufficient. After all, this job is meant to be about serving the public first and foremost. People are already concerned that some politicians are taking advantage of the taxpayer financially - further pay rises would only fuel that feeling. We all have to tighten our belts in tough economic times, and it is only right that MPs do so too."

Mr Hammond has also addressed the issue of how London MPs are remunerated.

As his main home is in London, he does not claim the untaxed additional cost allowance (ACA) that many MPs use to keep a second home near Westminster.

Unlike those who receive the ACA, he pays tax on the London supplement of £2,700 that he receives, which he says is creating "two tiers" of MPs.