MPs keep getting paid for six months after losing their jobs.
The ‘winding-up’ payment for MPs who lose their seats or stand down at an election is equivalent to four months’ salary, not six. Those who lose their seats and have been in post for at least two years can also get a payment equivalent to double the statutory redundancy entitlement.
The Conservatives increased the amount of time MPs can be paid after losing their jobs from three months to six months.
False. The decision to change the length of the ‘winding-up’ period from two months to four months was made by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, not the Conservatives.
Social media posts claim MPs keep getting paid for six months after losing their jobs, and that the Conservatives increased this from three months. But neither of these claims is quite correct.
A post on X (formerly Twitter), says: “When MP’s [sic] lose their jobs they keep getting paid for 6 months (the Conservatives increased it from 3 months before they lost).”
This post has been screengrabbed, or copied and pasted on Facebook.
After a general election, former MPs may be eligible for two different types of payment: a winding-up payment, which the posts appear to be referring to, and the Loss of Office Payment (LOOP). They can also be reimbursed for winding-up costs.
The winding-up payment was introduced from April 2019 following a review by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) of MPs’ pay at the beginning of the 2017 Parliament. Then, it was worth two months’ net salary for MPs defeated at any general election, and for MPs standing down at an early general election.
In July 2023, this winding-up payment period was increased to the equivalent of four months’ salary, not six, as the posts claim.
This payment, which is of a value equivalent to four months’ salary after the deduction of tax and National Insurance, is to “compensate for the work former MPs are required to do in closing down their parliamentary affairs”. From April 2025, four months’ salary for an MP would be worth a total of £21,675 after income tax and National Insurance.
The decision to increase the payment from two to four months’ salary was made by IPSA (which is “independent of parliament and government”), not the Conservatives. IPSA confirmed to Reuters that “all changes were decided by IPSA—not Parliament or government”.
LOOP payments were introduced at the beginning of the 2015 parliament. Since 2017, former MPs have been eligible to receive LOOP if they were an MP on the day before the dissolution of Parliament and a candidate for re-election but were not re-elected. They must also have held office for a continuous period of two years before then.
The amount of the LOOP payment is equal to double the statutory redundancy entitlement (which is currently capped at £21,000). The exact amount each MP may receive is dependent on their age, salary and length of service.
During the four months departing MPs are given to wind-up their constituency office and parliamentary affairs they can also continue to be reimbursed for other costs incurred during the closure of their office—these are known as winding-up costs. These payments could cover staff salaries, outstanding rental fees, removals and cleaning.
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This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because MPs can receive the equivalent of four months’ salary, not six months’, when they leave Parliament following an election. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, not the Conservatives, increased the ‘winding-up period’ from two months.
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