We at Basildon Borough Conservartives are alarmed by the latest misleading news story doing the rounds, namely that MPs are receiving an extra £10,000 each for working from home.
We want to be totally clear with constituents about this HIGHLY misleading headline that has appeared in yesterday's copy of The Times: MPs ARE ABSOLUTELY 100% NOT GETTING ANY EXTRA MONEY FOR WORKING AT HOME.
MPs are not in receipt of an extra £10K at all. This is simply untrue.
The facts are this:
- MPs' office budgets were extended by £10K - i.e. not pay or additional money for MPs; no additional money goes into our MPs' pockets - but this is to allow people who might not currently have things like laptops to purchase them in order for staff to be able to work from home. This is a notional budget and MPs have not been given any money.
- This is not money that is given out; it is money that can be reclaimed on purchase of vital equipment, and only if needed. The VAST majority of MPs will never use this because they have scope within their existing budget to do this. So most of this money will never ever be spent.
- So, in reality, while some MPs may need to purchase a laptop or a mobile phone in order to enable a member of staff who is usually based in an office to work remotely, many will be able to fund this from their existing office budgets and will actually spend precisely ZERO of this notional £10K.
The £10K is a contingency fund for this emergency situation, not additional money for MPs.
We recognise that, as with so many such stories, this lie will be all over social media and will already have been read and believed by a great many people but, to repeat - MPs ARE ABSOLUTELY 100% NOT GETTING ANY EXTRA MONEY FOR WORKING AT HOME