.svg)
Parliament’s expenses watchdog is inviting ordinary citizens to weigh in on the prickly question of how much MPs should earn – and what it really costs to keep democracy running.
Over the next few weeks, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) will post 10,000 invitation letters chosen by lottery. Roughly 25 recipients will ultimately form a “citizens’ forum”, meeting for two full‑day sessions and two evening discussions online. Each participant will receive a modest honorarium of about £250.
Ipsa, which has set MPs’ basic salary at £93,904 from 1 April 2025 and signs off all parliamentary “business costs” (its preferred term for expenses), says the public often misunderstands how these decisions are made. A 2021 Find Out Now survey suggested just 3 percent of people thought MPs were underpaid, while 62 percent felt they earned too much, 27 percent judged the pay about right and 8 percent were unsure.
The new forum will explore what MPs actually do day‑to‑day, the real price of running an office and staff, and what level of pay and support is “fair”. Ipsa chair Richard Lloyd argues that salaries must be high enough to attract people who are not independently wealthy, especially at a time when abuse and threats against MPs are on the rise.
“We know people care about democracy, but trust is low,” he said. “We want a frank conversation about what democracy is worth and how we fund it.”
The exercise, run with the New Citizen Project and the Sortition Foundation, is scheduled for September. Ipsa will also gather views through wider online engagement, interest‑group outreach and expert consultations under the banner “What’s Democracy Worth?”. Findings will go to the IPSA board and feed into decisions on MPs’ pay and funding from 2026 onward—the most ambitious public‑listening programme Ipsa has attempted since its creation in 2010.
