I have started a Scottish Parliament petition to have the salaries of the Members of the Scottish Parliament reduced to the Scottish median income (currently around £39k, approximately corresponding to the pay of band-5 NHS nurse). The current MSP salary just shy of double that, is, I think, grossly inappropriate.

My rationale for this is twofold.

First, the MSP position requires no formal qualifications nor any prior practical experience, which (by definition) makes it an unskilled job. The normal remuneration for unskilled jobs would be minimum wage and likely a zero-hours contract. In contrast the current MSP salary of £77,711 puts them into 7% of top UK earners (Scottish numbers on this seem to be hard to find, but I expect the percentile is even smaller).

This is astonishing, not least because the position doesn’t have any formal contractual obligations either (no hours of work, no requirement to turn up to vote, etc.), and it arises solely because the MSPs determine their own salaries. It’s time to end this nonsense.

The argument has been made to me in the past by a sitting MSP that such a salary is justified because MSPs bring with them a wealth of varied qualifications and experience not strictly required for the job. This is a moot point. Such is the case in any job, and is never a consideration in regards to renumeration, e.g., a teacher or a nurse taking a second job in a local pub to supplement their income will not get paid on the basis of their degrees.

Second, and this is the critical point, individuals on exceptionally high salaries are not capable of representing the needs and interests of their constituents. Reducing MSP salaries to a more typical Scottish income would make them more invested in making Scotland a better place for everyone.

Indeed, this point has been confirmed for me recently quite forcefully by a former First Minister, when she said she was not able to spot her husband’s large scale fraud because of her (and his) high salaries; large incomes do dramatically skew one’s perception of the world.

This has also been evident in the policies of the Scottish Government and the legislative agendas of the Scottish Parliament. An example that is close to my heart is the environment. I strongly believe that we need to take radical environmental action for the sake of the future generations of Scots. But the environmental policies pushed from above are formulated from a position of significant affluence, without any understanding of their implications for Scots on lower to mid incomes; this can never work, and the pursuit of such policies will necessarily fail both present and future generations.

It will be said that halving MSPs salary would push the sitting crop of them into hardship, due to their mortgages, etc. I have little sympathy for this argument; any of the sitting MSPs not happy with such remuneration can simply resign. A salary that is good enough for a nurse should be good enough for an MSP — there are plenty of folk in Scotland that would love earning a median income, and the Parliament would a better place if more of them were represented in it.

The Petition.