Order, Order!

The dimunitive speaker of the House of Commons - John Bercow - has lots to say for himself - which is not necessarily a bad thing.

One issue which has been exercising Mr Speaker of late - is the power exercised by select committees - the need to make these committees of backbench MPs more robust and independent of government.

Now that's a good thing and it would lead you to believe that John Bercow is a reforming Speaker - but on a subject closer to home he's much more conservative and reactionary.

And that subject is his pension as House of Commons Speaker - which is much greater than even that of an ordinary backbench MP.

Yet John Bercow refuses to fall into line with other MPs - who have accepted changes to their future pension arrangements - though they could hardly do anything else when the government is urging pension reform right across the public sector.

Last week MPs agreed to increase their pension contributions by 3% of their salaries - and for a new, less generous, scheme to be introduced from 2015 - which will be based on career average earnings.

The Speaker's pension is governed by different arrangements - and remains a final salary, low contribution scheme - until John Bercow agrees otherwise.

So far, he is refusing to give his consent to the changes - which would treat him in exactly the same way as his fellow parliamentarians.

At the moment John Bercow's retirement package - one of the most generous in the country - will pay him the equivalent of half his salary throughout his life - whenever he retires.

The Speaker's pension is currently worth about £40,000 a year - because he is paid an extra £80,000 a year or so on top of his MP's salary - a similar pension would cost more than £2million to fund privately.

Mr Bercow does not have to make any contributions to the Speaker's pension scheme- and he is entitled to an additional MP's pension - which does requires contributions.

Control of MPs' pensions has now been handed over to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) - which is a good thing.

And one of its first tasks should be to hold Mr Speaker, Sir to account - because he's bang out of order.

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