MEP Allowances

You will often read in the press pretty lurid tales of how much MEPs get "no questions asked" etc, etc, on our "lavish gravy train lifestyle". The story will always present the information in a way that suggests all my office budgets are somehow part of my salary. If only!

In this section I list the truth of it, without fuss, without hype, without the intrigue you'll so often be led to believe exists. It is complicated, and I have tried to summarise masses of complex rules but, to the best of my knowledge, this is a decent summary of how it works. Please note that this is the system as it was in the last mandate 2004-2009, which ended on 14 July. We have spent a week and a half working under the new system and will put up a similarly full explanation as soon as we get to grips with it ourselves!

SNP parliamentarians are committed to work to Scottish Parliament standards, and I will be publishing my numbers quarterly, the same as MSPs do. As I said repeatedly during the campaign, Scottish politicians should operate to Scottish standards, and we will. Parliament is in recess so there are effectively no numbers to report, but we will get this section up to date soon.

Below I also outline how I run my office, and how the only money that ends up in my pocket is my salary. In order to do my job I have a permanent team of four people as well as interns, a great deal of travel and live away from home roughly three nights a week. My job is to be available to the whole of Scotland, and to cover the whole of the output of the European Union. This is a busy operation.

I hope that I will get some credit for being upfront about the whole business. Since I was elected I have argued and campaigned for maximum transparency, and the system is changing, albeit slowly.

I'm sick of all MEPs being tarred with the same brush because a few bad apples tarnish the whole lot of us. The SNP has long campaigned for transparency and accountability, the Campaign for Parliament Reform has always had SNP support and the Scottish Parliament is an international example of best practice in financial transparency. The European Parliament is not, but there are a great many of us working within it to bring about reform.

I hope that constituents will read this and at least acknowledge that I have nothing to hide. I'm also tired of the parliament staff being criticised by people who should know better. The system is far from perfect but there are a lot of good people trying to change it, not all of them politicians.

The first distinction to make is between salary, expenses and allowances. My salary is my salary, my expenses are the money I pay then claim back on flights, taxis or daily living expenses, and my allowances are made available to me to pay my staff costs, office rents and costs, and other expenses like paper and phone bills.

Salary

Salary and pension

My salary is the money I receive from the taxpayer in Scotland to do my job. That's mine, except for the £250 each month of my net monthly wage I pay to the SNP because I want to. MEPs currently receive the same pay as their national counterparts, so the MEPs receive 27 different salaries depending upon where they come from. In my case, as far as the EU is concerned my "national" counterparts are MPs at Westminster, so I receive an annual salary of just under £65,000 a year, in Sterling, into my personal bank account along with a payslip through the post. I am also a member of the MP pension fund, and make contributions to that, same as other MPs. All of this is on the public record at Westminster.

"Second" Pension

You may hear about a further pension, which the European Parliament runs for members. I have never signed up to that pension. I have a perfectly adequate pension and did not sign up to this additional scheme.

Allowances

General expenditure allowance

This is the "office budget" and pays for: office management costs, telephone and postal charges, computer equipment (purchase and maintenance), and cost of travel and, if needs be, accommodation within the UK when I'm travelling with work. My office account receives €4,052, though paid in Pound Sterling per month from the Parliament in Brussels.

I have offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness, in order to have an office closer to people in Scotland than Brussels.

The office budget is often criticised in that the Parliament does not require receipts for this expense. I do think this is poor, and ensure that this budget is reviewed by a firm of Scottish Chartered Accountants, and they provide me with a statement saying everything was spent within the rules. I am not required to do this but I do for my own peace of mind.

Secretarial Assistance Allowance

This is the staff budget, and as you can guess pays for my staff, my employer taxes and their pension contributions. It could also pay for their travel but I pay for that myself (see below). The budget is up to €16,914 per month and is paid directly to, in my case, a firm of Scottish Chartered Accountants, who ensure that the team is paid and their (and my as their employer) taxes are managed properly.

The Parliament will not pay out anything until the finance office sees an employment contract, and proof the staff member is registered for social security, in our case a P45 or P46.

I am not related to any of my team, and they all work exceptionally hard.

Annual Travel Allowance

A travel budget is provided by the Parliament to me for meetings outside of Brussels or Strasbourg or Scotland/the UK.

This budget allowed me to go to Iceland where I addressed the Icelandic Parliament about how to better interact with the EU; and to Gaza, the West Bank and Israel to see the awful conditions there and argue for peace; and to Kosova where I met with all sides of the ethnic conflict there to promote civic nationalism as Europe's newest state became independent.

This budget is this year up to €4,000, and covers expenditure incurred in travelling anywhere in the world in performance of my duties. To claim on this budget the finance office requires receipts, an itinerary, other supporting documents and refunds the actual cost paid by me. This budget runs from January to December, and once spent is exhausted. I have never exhausted this budget.

Expenses

My travel and living expenses are run as follows. I run a bank account in Brussels and a credit card onto which I put all my personal expenses. Chiefly, this is my rent, dinners and flight costs. Flights from Edinburgh to Brussels are expensive, there is no cheap option and sometimes there is a surplus in this account, sometimes not. I keep this account distinct from my personal accounts, and use it for office costs like staff travel or accommodation or the expenses of interns on my internship programme. As far as the Parliament is concerned this account is my personal money, I prefer to keep the account separate from my personal money so that the office can do more.

Travel expenses to Brussels and Strasbourg

This expense covers cost of travel undertaken by Members within the European Union in order to attend official meetings of the European Parliament, i.e. in Brussels or Strasbourg, or occasionally elsewhere. In order to qualify I have to sign the register in the meeting or the attendance register in the Parliament to prove I was physically there (see below) and provide my ticket stubs to the finance office.

The reimbursement is not worked out according to the actual cost of the ticket, it is worked out on the basis of the cost of an economy class unrestricted normal fare between the airport nearest to Member's residence (Edinburgh) and Brussels or Strasbourg airport.

The cost of the fare is worked out by distance, firstly between my house and my designated airport (Edinburgh) and then from Edinburgh to Brussels, and the distance is provided to the Parliament by IATA, the airline travel association.

There are further rules if travelling by car or train but I never have.

This is paid direct to me, to the account I mention above. As I say there are no cheap options from Edinburgh to Brussels, and to boot we often have to book or change flights last minute because my diary will change. In my experience this reimbursement only just covers the cost of air travel.

Subsistence Allowance

The subsistence allowance is to cover my daily expenses of living away from home. It is designed to cover a night in a hotel, taxis and meals and this year it is a flat rate of €298 per day for each day of attendance at official meetings of Parliament.

This is worked out roughly to cover a night in a hotel, taxis and meals, and is a realistic figure for this. I, like most MEPs, have a flat in Brussels. It is a little studio flat which I rent, because it makes a big difference to have somewhere to hang a shirt and leave a toothbrush. My rent, clearly, runs all year round.

I do not get this money if I am not there to sign the register, so depending upon Parliamentary business I will receive this money, or not. As I outline above, I keep this distinct from my own accounts.

I do not and have never signed in then left the Parliament before 3pm. To be honest, this is actually not for any high-minded reason: the morning flight home to Scotland is at 10am (check-in 9am) so on the couple of occasions I have been in Brussels and taken the morning flight back I head straight to the airport from the flat. My usual flight is at 16:30 so I leave the Parliament at 15:00.

Download Alyn's accounts for:

• January to May 2009 (pdf 55KB)
• 2008 (pdf 50KB)
• 2007 (pdf 50KB)