MP pay is too high and too low at the same time. From April 2026 the basic salary is £98,599. Against a UK full-time median of around £39,000, that is a fortune. For someone who would otherwise be a local councillor, a party staffer, a mid-ranking official or a professional who never quite made it, it is the best job they will ever have. Safe, status-rich, and paid like a senior manager. For a high achiever it is a pay cut. A decent private-sector director, a good lawyer, a consultant, a founder, a specialist doctor or a senior operator can earn more than that without the public abuse, the two homes, the lost weekends or the certainty that one bad clip ends the career. IPSA itself benchmarks the job against police superintendents, NHS consultants and army colonels and still wants to inch toward £110,000 because even that is not competitive with what capable people can make outside. So you get adverse selection. The salary is lavish if you are ordinary and modest if you are exceptional. The people for whom it is a step up apply. The people for whom it is a step down often do not. Then we act surprised that the Commons is full of dross. You cannot simultaneously pay like a public-sector sinecure and expect private-sector talent. That is the whole problem.