At long last, an end is in sight to the European Parliament’s embarrassingly outdated system of pay and expenses. We voted today by a huge majority to endorse a new members’ statute. The long-awaited new rules need to be approved by national ministers too, but this ought to be no problem.

First and foremost, the new agreement settles the issue of MEPs’ salaries. At present, each MEP is paid the same as a member of his or her national parliament. This leads to huge discrepancies among the sum being paid to different MEPs for doing essentially the same job: Italian MEPs earn €12 435 per month before tax, while Hungarians are paid just €840. The agreement is now that, from the start of the next parliament, all MEPs will be paid the same sum of €7000 per month — which will naturally be a pay cut for some MEPs (including the British), but a rise for others (including the poor Hungarians).

Another big breakthrough is the reform of travel expenses. MEPs are currently paid a lump sum for flights to and from Parliament, equal to the cost of an economy class ticket for every flight. This leads to problems since many budget airlines these days offer tickets at substantially cheaper rates than standard economy class, but there is no mechanism for taking account of this. The loophole quite rightly tarnishes Parliament’s reputation. Under the new agreement, fares will be refunded on an actual-cost basis, as they always really ought to have been.

As for the other expenses, namely office and staff allowances, these remain very similar to the House of Commons system. (For a detailed comparison of the current system, click here.)

For the record, all Labour MEPs have their accounts examined by external auditors every year to ensure they have only been used for legitimate expenses with proper receipts. We wish other parties did the same!