Cost of Parliament falls

New figures revealed in a written answer from Baroness Royall to the peer Viscount Tenby show that the cost of running Parliament fell by just over £30 million in the last year. The House of Commons went up by more than £12 million, in part because the total cost of MPs' salaries and pensions rose by £6 million, but the Lords dropped by to £46 million£106.5 million leading to an overall cost to the tax-payer of £498.4 million compared to £531.8 million the previous year.


MPs' salaries and pensions cost a total of £157.2 million, while Lords administration costs dropped from £152.5 million to £106.5 million. Wonder what the figures will be like next year, now that they have to declare expenses and aren't quite so keen on screwing us for every penny they can?

We'll be very surprised if there isn't at least one minister on the news later droning on about how these figures demonstrate what good value Parliament is - so we'll probably watch something else instead.