MPs to get £3,300 pay rise next year amid coronavirus crisis

MPs are set to get a pay rise of more than £3,300 next year.

Millions of jobs are at risk as the Government's furlough scheme winds up and the UK's recovery slows ami the resurgent coronavirus pandemic.

However, MPs are in line for a £3,360 pay increase next April, after the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) recommended that a proposed pay rise should go ahead.

MPs have been given a pay rise each of the last six years, with current salaries at £81,932.

IPSA said set MPs salaries against the year-on-year three-month average growth in public sector pay, which currently stands at 4.1 per cent.

The Commons watchdog were set up in the wake of the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009.

Business Secretary Nadhim Zahawi defended IPSA on Sky news on Friday.

Mr Zahawi Sky News' Niall Paterson that an independent body "had to be the right way forward.

However, he criticised the pay increase.

"I don't think a pay rise is appropriate", he said.

"I think it's incumbent on the leadership of IPSA to explain to the public - because we all exist in the same sort of social fabric of society and the court of public opinion is important - as to why they think this is the right thing to do,"

The business minister, a multimillionaire who does not take his ministerial salary, pledged to donate his pay increase to a charity in his constituency.

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