by Workingman » 07 Feb 2015, 19:38
The average payment for those 220 who lost their seats in 2010 was £47,000 or £10.4m in total, so to pick on 14 is a bit disingenuous of the Mail.
The problem is that the system does not meet the needs of the present day.
If MPs came from all walks of life and covered a broad spectrum of the population then some sort of "retirement" system would be needed. If, say, a plumber or a technician gave up work in order to represent their community they would need some sort of safety net on the day they lost their seats. It is unlikely that their employers would keep their jobs open for them, and their skills may be out of date. Without a safety net we would not get the variety......
..... And there lies today's problem. The vast majority of modern MPs are self-financed, or rich if you want to put it another way. Many of them see politics as a career for life rather than a vocation. If they get knocked out in one election they come back for the next, and maybe in another seat. These people do not need the safety net, or not one with such large payouts.
Personally I would stop career politicians by limiting the number of parliaments they can sit in, or limiting the number of consecutive parliaments to two, plus for every one they sit in they must miss the same number - sit in one, sit out one: sit in two, sit out two. And to bring in "ordinary" people I would have a reasonably generous safety net, but one suitably means-tested.