A Staggering 130,000 People sign petition to scrap ‘distasteful’ £10,000 hand-out to British MPs

MORE than 130,000 members of the British public have signed a petition demanding MPs’ £10,000 work-from-home fund is scrapped.

MPs have been offered an additional £10,000 each by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) – the body that audits expenses of those in the Commons – to pay for increased costs as they and their staff move to working from home during the Covid-19 lockdown.

But some have expressed distaste at the decision to give MPs more funding while employees in the UK face being furloughed at 80 per cent pay and others have lost their jobs due to the impact of coronavirus.

As at 8.30am on Sunday, 135,192 people had signed the petition ‘A rejection of the MP’s £10,000 coronavirus ‘working from home’ allowance’ on the Change.org website.

Lucy Pearson, who started the petition, wrote: “While the rest of us lesser mortals struggle to pay bills, navigate HMRC and for many, learn they are not entitled to any support whatsoever during these dark times, already financially stable MPs are being given yet another perk.

“The extra budget can be used to buy equipment such as laptops and printers for MPs and their staff, or to cover additional electricity, heating and phone bills.

“The money, which comes on top of the existing office budget of about £26,000 a year per MP, will be available until next March.

“This petition is an opportunity for all of us to unite and to tell those in power that we’ve had enough of the gross inequalities that exist in this country.”