The pay and responsibilities of our honourable MPs was under discussion.

Peter Lilley was actually arguing that an MP's pay should reflect their responsibilities.

His view was that if people receive more responsibilities, they get higher pay. If they move to a post with fewer responsibilities, they expect to receive lower pay.

The same should be true of Parliament.

This is important because Parliament is considering transferring significant powers to the EU on energy, foreign policy, immigration and several other areas under the Lisbon treaty.

A substantial transfer of powers has already occurred under previous treaties and when the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified, the course will be set to reduce British MPs to a similar level of responsibilities to today's county councillors.

Since we joined the EU there has been a steady loss of UK sovereignty.

Almost 80 per cent of laws now originate from Brussels, so surely our MPs now have considerably less to do than they did when Westminster was responsible for 100 per cent of our laws.

For those MPs who oppose the reduction in salaries, I look forward to hearing them argue for having their cake and eating it.

I doubt that they would convince many of their constituents that, unlike other occupations, MPs' pay should continue to be increasing while the level of responsibility they carry is shrinking to almost nothing.

However, Turkeys don't vote for Christmas do they?

Steve Allison,
UKIP Councillor,
St Hilda Ward,
Hartlepool Unitary Authority.