Invoking the Twenty-Seventh Amendment
Nigel Williams, 14 February 2013
There are a lot of things to recommend in the American constitution. Barack Obama has begun his second term as US President but is prevented from standing for a third. Before Franklin Roosevelt, that was enforced by custom alone but in 1951 it became the subject of the Twenty-Second amendment to the US Constitution. The good sense is encapsulated in Acton’s Dictum that power tends to corrupt. In the Bottom Billion, Paul Collier argues persuasively that democracy by itself does not guarantee society’s well-being. A vital contribution comes from the constitutional checks and balances that prevent the over-concentration of power. Limiting the top job’s duration to eight years is a valuable check.
In January 2013, coverage of a survey of MPs manufactured some public outcry. It was reported as ‘MPs call for “32% Salary Increase”’. The current back-bench salary in 2013, to the nearest thousand is £66,000. Average Conservative MPs thought they were worth £95,000. Labour and Liberal Democrats asked for £77-78,000. Only five MPs from other parties were asked, so it’s not possible to say whether Greens or Scottish Nationalists generally offered better value.
YouGov had surveyed MPs on behalf of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority or IPSA, the separate body that has set their salaries since the expenses scandal. A YouGov survey of the public in August 2012 discovered that 60 per cent of the public thought MPs were paid too much, against 5 per cent thinking they needed more. Much of the difference is human nature. We are more aware of the skills, training and effort needed to do our own jobs than we are of other people’s. There is often a gap between what we would pay someone else to do a job and what we would expect if we did it ourselves. In fairness to MPs, most of those surveyed (64 per cent) were willing to match the public sector settlement of 1 per cent for 2 years after the end of the current pay freeze. In 2011 and 2012 they declined any increase.
It is not obvious what should be the point of comparison for MP’s salaries. Given that 60 per cent of the public replied that members were overpaid, percentage changes have the drawback that their starting point is the existing salary. A 1 percent increase sounds meagre. For someone on a work placement scheme to preserve £53 of weekly benefits, it is barely 50p. An MP would net £7.56 each week after 40 percent tax. For a worker with median weekly earnings of £472, £7.56 extra to take home would need a gross increase above 2.3 per cent.
Under the Constitutional Reform and Government Act 2010, the IPSA may determine salaries whenever it deems appropriate provided it does so in the first year of each Parliament. The public needs to trust that the Authority is acting in the public interest. Safeguards such as the Freedom of Information Act apply to it as to any other public body. There is no reason to doubt their independence but there is a way to strengthen the public perception that their MPs are earning their salaries. Something needs to bridge the gap between what MPs want and what the public are willing to give them. One way involves taking a lesson from the US Constitution. The Twenty-Seventh Amendment was proposed in 1789 but didn’t make it into that year’s Bill of Rights. It was finally ratified in 1992, saying:
‘No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.’
The UK equivalent would be to delay the implementation of any pay settlement until after a General Election. Even if the public felt that MPs were getting too much, they would still have their say over which individuals received it. If the IPSA were ever over-generous in filling the trough, the electorate would still get to choose the pigs.