'Golden goodbye' payouts to North MPs could cost £1m
You'd have thought one of the compensations of being an MP who stood down or lost their seat at the election would be avoiding any dodgy headlines about your finances.
But the today has highlighted as "resettlement grants". Some have called them "golden goodbyes".
It adds up to more than a million pounds across the North East, Cumbria and North Yorkshire.
These grants are designed to ease the pain for MPs who've either retired or lost their seat. The idea is to help them cope with the sudden loss of their salary.
They're based on length of service and age.
And they can be worth a healthy amount.
Some of the MPs in our area are entitled to almost £65,000, according to the Alliance - a year's salary effectively.
That includes the likes of Durham North West's Hilary Armstrong, Carlisle's Eric Martlew, and Penrith and the Border's David Maclean.
I can certainly imagine some people might take a dim view of payouts to North Tyneside's Stephen Byers. He was also entitled to almost £65,000, but of course his final days in the Commons were dominated by his famous claim to be a "cab for hire".
What neither the Alliance nor I can tell you though is whether any of these MPs accepted these payments either in part or in full.
But there was some talk before the election that one of the factors that may have persuaded many MPs to stand down at this election was the fact that these grants are likely to be far less generous in the future, so you have to suspect many will have been accepted.
about his intention to accept his payment of £44,000.
These payments though also go to MPs who lost their seats. So former Redcar MP Vera Baird and Stockton North's Frank Cook are entitled to around £32,000, and Dari Taylor, who lost in Stockton South, around £50,000.
To add insult to injury, the first £30,000 of these payouts - if taken -are also tax-free.
Some MPs have justified these payments by likening the loss of their seat to being made redundant. They have a sudden loss of earnings that they cannot replace quickly.
But the Taxpayers' Alliance say these payments are unacceptable. It says MPs are effectively on a five-year contract with the electorate and losing the seat terminates that contract.
At most, they say, an MP should be entitled to a month's salary when they leave or lose their seat.
Here's the full list from our region according to the Taxpayers' Alliance. Again I'd add the qualification that these are what the Alliance believes our MPs were entitled to. We don't know whether MPs actually claimed these amounts.
£64,766 - Hilary Armstrong (Durham NW), Stephen Byers (North Tyneside), Doug Henderson (Newcastle North), Eric Martlew (Carlisle), Chris Mullin (Sunderland South), John Greenway (Ryedale), David Maclean (Penrith and the Border).
£59,584 - David Curry (Skipton and Ripon)
£54,403 - David Clelland (Tyne Bridge), Jim Cousins (Newcastle Central), John Cummings (Easington), Denis Murphy (Wansbeck).
£50,711 - Dari Taylor (Stockton South)
£49,222 - Alan Milburn (Darlington). Peter Atkinson (Hexham)
£44,040 - Bill Etherington (Sunderland North)
£40,154 - Fraser Kemp (Houghton and Washington), Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough)
£32,383 - Frank Cook (Stockton North), Vera Baird (Redcar)
I'm Richard Moss, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Political Editor for the North East and Cumbria. Welcome to my irreverent - but hopefully insightful - northern take on reporting politics for Look North and the Politics Show.
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