With its back to the wall over the hugely unfavourable reaction from the public and the threat posed by a Nationalist MP in the matter of the pay rise to parliamentarians, the government has had to back down, not completely but enough to correct what the Prime Minister called mistakes when he formally announced the new arrangements in Parliament on Wednesday. More than a simple mistake, though, it was a blunder of the first order.
Ministers and parliamentary secretaries will now be refunding the rise in the honorarium they started getting, over and above their salaries, as from 2008.
The issue over the increase granted to them and to the rest of the parliamentarians has been referred to the House Business Committee, which has to decide the matter by the end of the month.
It is a costly mistake the Prime Minister has admitted to, one that has done incalculable harm to the image of the political class and, particularly so, to his government.
It does make sense for a minister or a parliamentary secretary to get the honorarium, besides the salary, and it is only reasonable to expect MPs get a decent honorarium to reflect their work and responsibilities. What has irked the people, of all sides of the political spectrum, was the manner in which the rise was made and the time it was officially announced. The Prime Minister has tried hard to prove the matter was not done behind the people’s back but none of the reasons he gave was convincing enough to deflect the people’s anger. One Nationalist MP threatened to vote against if it were put to the vote.
The Prime Minister said on Wednesday the government had intended raising the issue over the rise in the honorarium in a Select Committee of the House but this had never got off to the ground and Labour had eventually withdrawn from the Committee. In the light of this, he should have referred the matter to the House Business Committee rather than allowing a situation where ministers and parliamentary secretaries started getting the rise before the rest of the parliamentarians. The increase had to be paid out of the financial allocations given to the ministries, when it ought to be given out of Parliament’s allocation.
Perhaps the Prime Minister’s weakest argument was when he said that, contrary to the claim the government had wanted to keep the matter hidden from the people, the pay increase was made known in two newspapers long ago. But this was surely far from being the ideal way to announce the rise and clearly suggests the government might well have suspected an unfavourable public reaction to it.
Another weak argument brought up by the Prime Minister was that, despite the rise given in the honorarium to the ministers and parliamentary secretaries, the Cabinet still cost less because it was smaller when compared to predecessors. Surely, this was not the main consideration that led the Prime Minister to decide to cut the size of his Cabinet! Or was it?
It must have been really politically difficult for the government to back down from its original stand but if there is one good lesson to learn for the government from all this it is that it has to once again get closer to the grassroots of society.
As to the Labour MPs’ decision to give the rise, or part of it, to charity, it can only be a grand political gimmick.