Sajid Javid has called for MPs’ salaries to be doubled to attract talented people into politics.
The former chancellor, who previously worked in investment banking, said he would like to “halve the number of MPs and double the salaries” – taking their pay to £172,000 a year.
He said measly salaries are to blame for the lack of talent in government positions – taking a swipe at Tory ministers who are “not very good at their jobs”.
Speaking at an Institute for Government event, he accepted that MPs’ pay was “a lot of money – more than double the national average – but you get what you pay for”.
His comments come amid a Tory exodus from parliament, with Javid and around 30 of his colleagues announcing that they are standing down at the next general election.
Javid said “one of the reasons I think either people leave or you’re not getting more diverse backgrounds of people in different professions as well wanting to join parliament, I think salary is an issue”.
He said: “If people want to see your GPs or senior nurses or headteachers or an accountant give up their job to want to come into parliament they have to take a massive fall in their lifestyle to do it.”
Javid added: “A lot of people are not willing to do that. So you tend to get in parliament either really rich people who don’t need money and therefore they don’t care if their salary is £88,000 or £28,00Or you will get people that were earning sort of £30,000 – £80,000 is a big jump but they might not come with the skills that parliament needs.”
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