COST OF PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

COST OF PARLIAMENT.

BRITISH MEMBERS' SALARIES

THOUSAND POUNDS A DAY. It costs £IOOO a day, Sunday and week-day, all the year round to pay members of the British House of Commons their salaries of £4OO a year, and to pay their first-class railway fares. Travelling expenses have gone up £6600 this year. The reason is that more Labour members live in or near their constituencies than members of other parties, and more week-end journeys are made.

A supplementary estimate for £1,858,500, issued on February 18, says the political correspondent of the Daily Mail, makes the revelation that, including this sum, the supplementary estimates, issued for 1930, amount to just under £14,000,000. Of this, £10,500,000 went to the Ministry of Labour for unemployment insurance.

The total cost of salaries and travelling expenses of members of Parliament fot the year is £365,962. Of this, £42,100 is for travelling. Owing to the Imperial and India Conferences the cost of Government hospitality has risen from the original estimate of £36,000 to £47,000. For the Diplomatic and Consular services £62,900 more is wanted, making the total £1,139,579. Replacements of outfit, travelling and replacement of niotor-cais account for £14,000 in excess of the original estimates, and £B9OO goes to meet " a claim by a person who has proved that he deposited roubles with the British authorities in Russia in 1918."

l,;i\v charges require ji n additional £6OOO, old-age pensions account for a further £3so,ooo—the total hill under this 11end is £36,886,000—the Mines Department costs £187,432 (an increase of £14,100, largely duo to recent legislation), and an additional £85,000 is required for Labour and Health department buildings.

Taper and printing show an increase of £24,000, the total sum now being £1,703,521, and the Ministry of Pensions asks for an increased sum of £246,500.