Does independent regulation of MPs’ pay and expenses improve political trust? Evidence from a survey experiment

The UK Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) was the world’s first fully independent regulator of MPs’ remuneration, set up in 2009 to restore standards and rebuild trust. However, more than 15 years later there is low awareness of its role and political trust continues to decline. This paper uses original data from two pre-registered survey experiments (n = 1957) to test whether informing citizens of the existence of IPSA, or framing pay and expenses figures with contextual information, could improve perceptions that remuneration is fair and increase trust in the government and politicians. Making MPs’ remuneration more salient is found to have a negative effect on trust – especially when expenses are mentioned – but highlighting the role of the regulator and alternative framing may mitigate this to some extent. The findings have significant implications for policymakers as they suggest public engagement on fair remuneration may be counterproductive in relation to trust.