London: The head of the House of Commons received an extraordinary package worth three quarters of a million pounds last year.
Tom Goldsmith’s remuneration came in at £750-£755,000 in 2024-25, largely thanks to a huge pension boost.
The Clerk of the House is the chief administrator and procedural adviser to MPs and Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
Mr Goldsmith took on the role in October 2023, with the latest accounts showing his salary last year was between £225,000 and £230,000.
He also received a ‘benefit in kind’ worth £21,000 – the estimated value for his grace-and-favour residence at Parliament.
However, those sums were dwarfed by pension top-ups. House staff enjoy the same gold-plated retirement deals as the civil service, with payouts linked to their salaries.
Figures for pension benefits were not published by the Commons last year due to accounting quirks.
But it has now revealed that the year Mr Goldsmith was promoted the value of his pension pot increased by £390,000.
Another £503,000 boost was factored in for 2024-25.
The pot is now estimated to be worth £1.75million. On retirement Mr Goldsmith will be entitled to £80,000-85,000 a year index-linked, plus a lump sum of £210,000-215,000.
There are doubts over whether that scale of pension could be obtained on the private market for that valuation.
A House of Commons spokesman said: ‘The Clerk of the House of Commons is the principal procedural adviser to the House.
‘In addition, he is the equivalent of a permanent secretary in a government department, as he is the Corporate Officer, Accounting Officer and head of the House of Commons Administration.
‘The House of Commons proactively publishes remuneration details of its senior staff, including the Clerk.
‘The Clerk’s pay (in the band £225-230k in 2024-25) has been linked to Judicial Salary Group 4 since March 2015, as agreed by the then House of Commons Commission.
‘This means that no House officials are involved in determining the Clerk’s pay, as Judicial salaries are set by the government, following independent advice from the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB).
‘The Clerk is a member of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, on the same terms and conditions applying to officials in government departments and other parts of the public sector.’
Commons sources stressed large increases in the value of pension pots were a ‘characteristic’ of public sector remuneration when people were promoted.
The amounts accrued are also affected by length of service any lump sums from previous employments within the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
Civil service pensions have been affected by changes introduced by the Coalition Government in an effort to get costs under control.
That overhaul included ‘transitional protection’ for those close to pension age.
But the Court of Appeal later ruled the arrangements discriminated on the basis of age, in a judgement known as the McCloud ruling.
To remedy the problem the government now lets affected workers choose whether to continue with the previous scheme or use the new one. These calculations were blamed for delays in the accounts.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘This overnight increase in one individual’s pension benefits demonstrates why the public sector had to move away from final salary pension plans.
‘The government needs to go further and remove all public sector workers from gold-plated pension schemes, instead replacing them with fully funded plans such as those in the private sector.’
