MPs demanding a £7,600 pay rise were today backed by the Deputy Speaker.
Lindsay Hoyle said it was wrong for David Cameron and Ed Miliband to tell backbenchers they should decline a salary increase.
“It’s not up to leaders to start dictating,” he said. “It isn’t in my opinion the right of leaders to say what is good for backbenchers.”
Ipsa, the parliamentary pay and expenses body, recommended an 11 per cent rise in backbench pay - only for Mr Cameron and other main party leaders to warn that it would be wrong to accept at a time of austerity.
The controversy was fuelled by revelations that MPs are claiming thousands of pounds each in gas and power bill on their second homes, while most families struggle with higher bills.
Mr Hoyle, seen as a frontrunner to succeed John Bercow as Speaker in 2015, delighted backbenchers with his comments to BBC radio.
“We’re on slightly more money than other backbenchers and therefore we shouldn’t be saying that you shouldn’t have a pay rise. I don’t think that’s fair.”
