Unite, one of the UK’s biggest trade unions, has carried out a survey of parliamentary staff on the pay offer for 2026-27 (Alamy)
3 min read
Parliamentary staff have overwhelmingly rejected a pay offer that falls below the salary increase awarded to MPs, according to a trade union survey.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) announced on Monday that MPs’ basic salary will rise by 5 per cent to £98,599 a year from April, while also aiming to move towards a salary of around £110,000 by the end of the Parliament, due in 2029. The MPs’ pay decision for 2026-27 includes a 1.5 per cent benchmarking adjustment, as well as a 3.5 per cent cost-of-living increase.
However, MPs’ staff are only being offered an ‘optional’ 3.5 per cent pay increase, despite months of lobbying by the trade union and some MPs for a substantial rise in staffing budgets due to low pay and unsustainable workloads.
In a survey of parliamentary staff by trade union Unite, seen by PoliticsHome, 91.5 per cent of respondents said they would reject the 3.5 per cent automatic pay uplift for staff salaries for 2026-27. Only 4.6 per cent of the more than 600 respondents voted to accept the offer, while 3.8 per cent abstained.
Parliamentary staffers told PoliticsHome on Monday that there was widespread “fury” over the proposals, with one saying that IPSA “treats MPs’ staff with total contempt”.
The Speakers Committee on IPSA are meeting later on Wednesday afternoon, with trade unions hoping to get the chance to challenge the IPSA budget. The committee technically has the power to veto or amend the budget, though this power has not been exercised before.
Trade unions representing parliamentary staff are hopeful that IPSA will come back to the table with a new offer.
In an email to staff on Tuesday morning, Unite asked all parliamentary staff – including non-members – to fill in the survey and “join the union to challenge this injustice and ensure a fair pay settlement”. The union recommended that respondents reject the 3.5 per cent offer.
A spokesperson for the Unite Parliamentary Staff Branch said the survey of MPs’ staff showed the “widespread outrage at yet another year of real terms pay cuts”.
“Offering staff a pay rise less than MPs and lower than inflation is nothing short of an insult,” they said, demanding that IPSA explain why the larger uplift applied to MPs would not apply to staff “who carry the bulk of the work and absorb the worst pressures of the job”.
Parliamentary staff have had a 14.6 per cent real-terms pay cut since 2020, based on RPI, with many caseworkers earning little more than the minimum wage.
“Our offices are chronically under-resourced, with staff often required to work unpaid overtime, provide practical and emotional support for constituents facing difficult situations, and support MPs in high-pressure situations,” the spokesperson continued.
“Our jobs are fundamentally insecure, yet our pay and pensions lag far behind those of comparable jobs in the civil service and local government.
“We are proud of the work we do to serve our communities and support our MPs, but stress and burnout are at an all-time high. If we want a thriving democracy, we need to start by paying the people who make it work fairly.”
IPSA does not have the power to set exactly how much a member of MPs’ staff should be paid; instead, it is proposing an automatic 3.5 per cent pay uplift for all staff, funded by a 5 per cent increase to staffing budgets, and an increase of at least 5 per cent to the minimum of each pay band. In practice, this could mean some staff salaries could rise by more than 9 per cent.
However, MPs have the authority to block their staff from receiving the 3.5 per cent pay rise. PoliticsHome understands some parliamentarians, including Labour MPs, signed to prevent their staff from getting pay uplifts last year.
