The Welsh people will be delighted to learn their Senedd Parliamentarians are set to receive an inflation-busting pay rise next year of 2.4%, despite many public sector workers – and their counterparts in the UK’s real parliament – set to face a freeze. Like IPSA, AMs’ pay is set by the “independent” remuneration board, who have recommended the rise despite the parliament in SW1 freezing pay. Did the Assembly really think no one would notice?

The 2.4% pay rise represents a £1,624 rise for the basic salary of members, bringing their wage to an incredible £69.272. Despite the pocket-lining set to go down like a lead balloon, the chair of the remuneration board proudly presented the proposals, claiming that because Assembly Members’ pay was frozen at the start of the year, the May 2021 pay rise will only be £1,624 as opposed to £4,672. Wales’s Covid fight has been, by many measures, the worst in the world; the idea a £5,000 pay rise was ever on the table as opposed to at least a 50% pay cut, is mind-boggling…