MPs could be in line for a bigger pay rise than the 2.8 per cent offered to teachers and nurses next year.
Keir Starmer is already facing threats of strikes from unions after the government proposed the wage increase for the NHS, education and civil servants.
And anger could be fuelled next week, as figures are released that are meant to set the level for politicians from April.
The ONS annual average for public sector pay increases came in at 3.5 per cent for September.
And the October number – the mechanism tracked by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) – could be higher, as large one-off payments from 2023 are falling out of the statistics.
MPs’ pay is currently £91,346, after a 5.5 per cent rise this year.
Ipsa was given control of politicians’ salaries after the credit crunch, and the watchdog has linked increases to the specific ONS public sector metric.
However, the watchdog has reserved the right to tweak the reading after Covid and surging inflation skewed statistics.
Last year it downgraded the level from 7.1 per cent, pointing to the effects of one-off cost of living bonuses in the public sector.
A final decision will not be made until after a wider review of MPs’ pay is complete, which Ipsa is legally obliged to conduct in the first year of a new Parliament. The deadline for that is July.
The House of Lords has committed to following the uprating used by the Commons.
However, any suggestion of a higher increase than the government is recommending for other parts of the public sector is likely to inflame tensions with unions.
Earlier this week the government submitted proposals to pay review bodies that would see a 2.8 per cent limit on salary increases next year.
That would include workers in education, health and the senior civil service – who received increases of between 4.75 per cent and 6 per cent this year.
The figure immediately sparked threats of a fresh wave of strikes, with public sector workers branding it a ‘joke’. The Treasury’s OBR watchdog is forecasting CPI to average 2.6 per cent next year.
But Downing Street insisted that bigger pay rises were only possible if productivity improved.
‘Real terms pay increases must be matched by productivity gains and departments will only be able to fund pay awards above inflation over the medium-term if they become more productive and workforces become more productive,’ the PM’s spokesman said.
An Ipsa spokesman said: ‘By law, IPSA must review MPs’ pay in the first year of each new Parliament.
‘This work is underway, and we plan to consult publicly on our proposals in late spring.
‘In general, any change to MPs’ pay are based upon a number of metrics, including national statistics on pay and reward, our own principles, and the wider economic context.’