(Jonathan Goldberg / Alamy)

4 min read40 min

A new survey by Unite’s Parliamentary Staff Branch found that 70 per cent of staff respondents reported having to dig into savings or use credit to cover everyday expenses in the last year. A total of 96 per cent said their financial situation was causing them stress and anxiety.

One MP’s staffer told Unite in their April 2026 survey that they “struggle to afford to eat, especially near the end of the month”, while others reported keeping their home heating switched off and taking cold showers to keep their bills down.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which allocates the budgets through which MPs pay their staff, insisted they “recognise the dedication” of staff and “continue to work closely with and respond positively to recommendations from unions”.

Unite’s survey was circulated to the office of every MP in Parliament, with 346 responses received from staff from every region and nation.

The survey found that staffers aged 18–24 have an estimated average salary of £32,229, compared with £39,676 among those aged 31–35. One staffer told Unite: “There is a complete lack of awareness of how difficult it is for younger people these days… little recognition of how low these salaries are in a time of high inflation and cost-of-living.”

Unite warned that low pay was having a “severe impact on work that staff are able to deliver”, and that there was also a “cost of high turnover to the public purse”, as MP employees seek better paid and less stressful jobs.  

“Unpaid overtime is how offices keep going,” another staffer told the union. “We all do it, we do it because we care, but we do it because we have to as well, as so many of us are overwhelmed.”

According to Unite, an automatic pay uplift for MPs’ staff was successfully negotiated in 2021, but since then inflation when measured using RPI “has consistently outstripped the annual pay awards”. Unite claims that on average, MPs’ staff would now require a 10.57 per cent pay increase simply to restore the purchasing power of their salaries to 2021 levels.

Earlier this year, Unite’s Parliamentary Staff Branch overwhelmingly voted to reject a 3.5 per cent pay offer, but Ipsa refused to improve it. Ipsa points out that MPs employ their staff – not Ipsa – and Ipsa therefore does not have the power to set exactly how much they are paid.

Ipsa instead provides an automatic uplift to MPs’ staff pay, unless an MP opts out from it, though MPs can also choose to award higher increases if their staff budget – set by Ipsa – allows.

Staff were angry that MPs were themselves awarded a higher pay increase of five per cent, with one staffer telling Unite: “It is not the MP answering the phone to angry constituents, it’s not the MP sitting in the constituency office all day where people may drop round unannounced and it’s not the MP managing huge levels of casework and correspondence.

“Our pay is no longer reflective of the difficulties and pressures experienced by those of us in public facing roles.”

Fintan McDonnell, vice chair of the Unite Parliamentary Staff Branch, said the union’s survey “should shame Parliament into action”, adding: “Behind every constituency office and parliamentary office are workers who keep our democracy functioning and support constituents through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. Yet many of those workers are now struggling to survive themselves.”

Responding to Unite’s findings, an Ipsa spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “We recognise the dedication of MPs and their staff, and continue to work closely with and respond positively to recommendations from unions, the Wellness Working Group, and other staff representative bodies to ensure we understand how we can best-support the people who work in MPs’ offices.

“We have recently consulted on the framework for setting MPs’ budgets, seeking feedback on the principles which should guide our decisions. The feedback we have received will be considered as we put together MPs’ budgets for the next financial year.”

They added: “We have also received feedback from some offices about the impact of rising and increasingly complex casework, alongside safety and security concerns, on the wellbeing of MPs’ staff. In response we have introduced additional, dedicated funding to support those offices facing particular pressures, alongside a ring-fenced training and wellbeing budget.

“We also have a separate budget which funds workplace adjustments for MPs’ staff in constituencies, as well as for MPs, volunteers, job applicants, or constituents visiting offices or surgeries.

“Ipsa’s role is to balance the resources MPs and their staff need with public confidence in how those resources are used.”

5 min read34 min

It is early 2011, a few months after I had joined the crossbenches in the House of Lords. The place? The grand staircase linking the cloakroom with the Principal Floor. The company? A pair of young naval officers who had come in for a cup of coffee and a chat.

The conversation ran like this.

Naval officer: “What makes the House of Lords run?”

PH: “I’m too new to answer that?”

At that moment Maurice Peston (old friend, Labour peer, distinguished economist, Robert’s dad) passes us in the opposite direction.

PH: “Ask Maurice. He’s been here for years.”

Maurice obliges without hesitation.

MP: “The House of Lords runs on gossip and the exchange of symptoms.”

Perfect. To the point, accurate, very Maurice.

I shall miss all that this autumn. I retired at the end of June. The Parkinson’s sapping and mining the old cognitive powers means I can no longer manage the reading and thinking required to do the job properly. The ‘symptoms’ have put paid to the ‘gossip’ – though I live in hope of the occasional weapons-grade morsel coming over the phone.

The job? Lawmaking plus scrutiny, plus running commentary on the government of the day.

Room for improvement? Certainly – one activity in particular. The Lords’ use of their select committees. The red benches are brimming with men and women who have been around the block a bit. It is vital for the country – never more so than in these anxious times – that the accumulated wisdom of the past is applied to the needs of the present and placed at the disposal of the future.

There are at least five previous political generations stockpiled in the Lords. That is a great deal of experience on which to draw. For a political historian of modern Britain, it was pretty close to heaven. You could even have lunch with your exhibits. On these fronts, not least as a provider of continuity and context, the Lords provides in some abundance, but rarely is there a flicker of it reflected in the media coverage of Westminster. The output brims with insight and utility, but what use is that if it is also shrouded in invisibility?

An institution that could be a very fine rolling think-tank for the nation, especially on the many knotty intractable problems and on scientific and technological matters in particular (we have many more experts here than in the House of Commons), the output is not, I fear, reaching those parts of policy, analysis and remedy that it could do. It’s as if the institution has become a slightly embarrassing relic of a past age. Alf Dubs warned me about this in, I think, my first week as a crossbencher. “Remember,” he said, “we’re all on a farewell tour in here.”

We have lived all our lives so far inside a comforting cocoon

There is nothing more irritating than hearing a retiree preaching to those he has just left behind. But I went one step further in my valedictory speech when I asked the members of the Constitution Committee on which I once sat to undertake a special inquiry into the vulnerable points of our unwritten constitution to a future authoritarian government uncaring of – or hostile to – the conventions that enable our constitution to work, day in day out.

Especially pertinent are those human ones that are not written down but together comprise a ‘good chaps theory of government’ (to quote the phrase minted by an old Cabinet Office friend, the late Clive Priestley). To my great relief and intense appreciation, the Constitution Committee is already at work on this under the leadership of Lord Strathclyde.

In my farewell speech, and in a BBC Radio 4 programme I subsequently made with Giles Edwards, I linked the work of the Constitution Committee with a ‘politics of decency’ which we need to succour as our great protection against any future creeping authoritarianism in our politics should, heaven forbid, a politics of pessimism deteriorate still further into a politics of despair.

I think such a descent into darkness is highly unlikely as the future course of our politics and our conduct of public life. But it could happen here. We have lived all our lives so far inside a comforting cocoon – a conviction that our host of often informal, usually unwritten conventions, took care of all this as it if were a state of nature that would see off any such threats that, for the first time in my life, I am not so sure.

We owe it to our children – and to that now gone early postwar British generation that gave my age group (born in 1947) such a splendid start in life – not to let it happen here through insouciance or indifference.

And that is why, in the end, I am optimistic. Most of the time, constitutional questions languish in a deep torpor in terms of public attention. Now is the moment for them to move into the front line of our concerns with the House of Lords and its Constitution Committee in the vanguard. 

Lord Hennessy is a former Crossbench peer

Peter Hennessy, with Giles Edwards and Andrew Blick, The Politics Of Decency, Haus publishing (forthcoming)

The inclusion of outdoor learning, nature and adventure in the new school Enrichment Framework is very welcome. As are the references to access to nature, outdoor spaces and adventure activities in the new Youth Strategy.

There isn’t a subject on the curriculum that can’t be enhanced by outdoor learning because learning in and about nature can re-engage learners with education itself, especially those that struggle in a traditional classroom environment.

Outdoor and adventure learning can simultaneously deliver curriculum outcomes, whilst building employability skills, supporting wellbeing, and connecting young people to real-world contexts and environments.

Outdoor learning works. Numerous government funded projects over many years have demonstrated the benefits time and time again. From London Challenge through to Nature Friendly Schools and more recently Generation Green 1 and 2 we’ve seen life changing results.

However, these benefits are still not a guaranteed part of every child or young person’s education. Funded projects are always welcome, as is their focus on the most disadvantaged learners, but piecemeal funding cannot meet the demand.

Those that would benefit the most are often at the highest risk of missing out. There is a risk that outdoor learning experiences are rapidly becoming the preserve of only those who can afford it.  That’s why this charity fully supports Caroline Voaden’s Outdoor Education Bill which aims to guarantee outdoor learning residentials as has happened in Scotland.

The bill is timely as we await Milburn’s recommendations from his Young People and Work review, following his stark warning of a lost generation unless urgent, systemic reform is undertaken.

That’s because outdoor, nature-based adventure learning also has a distinctive role to play in reducing NEETs. It rebuilds confidence and reduces anxiety whilst re-establishing a sense of competence and belonging. Confidence, resilience, and real-world capability matter to those taking their first steps on the career ladder as they transition to adulthood. “I didn’t learn to avoid uncertainty. I learned how to move through it” said a Year 10 Pupil.

It is also, by design, relational. It relies on trusted adults, peer collaboration, and shared challenges. In a system described by Milburn as fragmented and impersonal, that relational dimension is essential. As one student put it “It wasn’t a teaching leading us, it was a teacher helping us lead ourselves”.

Across our network of field centres, we are already delivering the kind of integrated, skills-focused provision that Milburn’s review calls for.

Outdoor and adventure learning must move from the margins to the mainstream – an entitlement, not an optional extra.

This charity is asking Government to publish the delayed Access to Nature Strategy from DEFRA and then work with DfE and DCMS and any Milburn recommendations to pull the policy threads together into a coherent outdoor adventure learning offer for all young people. Yes it will cost. Our 2 night +Adventure residentials start at less than £200, but if we are serious about tackling the truly staggering financial and social cost of rising NEETs, bold action will be needed.

Find out more at https://www.field-studies-council.org/adventure-residential-trips/ or contact [email protected]

The president posted an image of the supposed “next generation” design on his Truth Social feed:

Trump shared the image during a massive day-long posting spree, and it’s not clear if this is a real design for a new uniform or just one of the many images, memes and AI slop creations he likes to throw into his feed.

The image states that the design was inspired by the “discipline and functionality” of the uniforms in the 1997 film “Starship Troopers.”

Critics also pointed out that the design looked a lot like the evil Imperial uniforms seen in the “Star Wars” films.

Going to sleep late has many negative impacts on your mental health — and overall health.

fcafotodigital via Getty Images

What about people — like shift workers — who have to go to bed after 1 a.m.?