PEERS are handing themselves an inflation-busting 3.1 per cent pay rise in April — hiking their daily, tax-free pay to £323.
The move comes after the House of Lords decided to link allowances to MPs’ pay increases.
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But in contrast to MPs, peers do not pay income tax or National Insurance.
Critics also point out that MPs’ pay is linked to average weekly earnings in the public sector.
Peers receive expenses on top of the allowance for every time they are in the upper chamber.
The House of Lords is due to sit for around 150 days this year, so peers could get nearly £50,000.
With inflation at 1.4 per cent, TaxPayers’ Alliance boss John O’Connell said: “This looks like a plum deal for the Peers but a rum deal for the taxpayer.
“These allowances are meant to cover costs of working in Westminster to make sure the best can serve, not to offer the Lords and Ladies a large tax-free increase.”
But a Lords spokesman said: “Between 2010 and 2018, the daily allowance was frozen.
“In the last decade, the House of Lords daily allowance has increased by 4.3 per cent.
“In that same period, the salaries of MPs went up by more than 20 per cent.”
The Sun Says
WE didn’t think the Lords could do any more harm to their shattered reputation — but the grasping duffers have found a way.
The unelected chamber was already on thin ice before peers spent three years shamefully trying to overturn Brexit while pocketing £313 a day tax-free.
And you might think that, with their public standing now shredded, they would have the decency to freeze that rate.
Especially with inflation at only 1.4 per cent. But no.
They’ve voted themselves an inflation-busting 3.1 per cent instead — so they’ll now get £323 just for showing up.
A few Lords and Ladies have experience and ability, we admit.
The rest shuffle in for the warmth and the cash.
The truth is the House of Lords is an antiquated insult to our democracy, a dumping ground for political failures and discredited cronies, where almost no one is too odious . . . though it still draws the line at Bercow, obviously.
A courageous Government with a big majority would take it on and reinvent it as a mainly elected second chamber — with a small handful of unelected peers chosen for specific expertise.
How about it, Boris?
