ANDREW MACKAY, the Tory MP forced to resign along with his wife Julie Kirkbride over the expenses scandal, is in line for a special Commons pension deal worth £1.4m.

MacKay, 59, the former parliamentary aide to David Cameron, will be able to draw his index-linked £40,000-a-year pension five years before his 65th birthday without reducing its value. He also has the option of taking a chunk of his pension as a tax-free lump sum of more than £200,000.

About 80 MPs who are standing down, including about 13 embroiled in the scandal, will leave with pensions worth a total of more than £60m.

Douglas Hogg, who claimed second home allowances to clean a moat, is sitting on the equivalent of a £1.25m pension pot after being an MP for 30 years; Anthony Steen, who claimed the row over expenses was caused by jealousy, has the equivalent of a £1.2m pension pot; and Sir Peter Viggers, who claimed for a duck house, has the equivalent of a £1.1m pot.

Hogg will have an index-linked pension of about £43,000 a year, while Steen and Viggers each get about £49,000 a year.

While some constituents have been mollified by the resignations of MPs, there is likely to be fresh anger over the huge bill to the taxpayer of a Commons clear-out. MPs have voted themselves one of the most generous pension schemes in the public sector, and also get generous golden goodbyes.

One of the biggest beneficiaries will be MacKay, who claimed a second home allowance even though he did not have a property in his constituency. In addition to a resettlement grant of £64,766 and a winding-up allowance for his constituency and parliamentary office of £40,799, he will be entitled to draw his full pension when he stands down.

MacKay’s pension would cost about £1.4m to buy on the open market. The perk entitling him to take his pension early with no financial penalty is being phased out. It is available to MPs aged between 60 and 65 at the next general election.

Kirkbride, 48, will have an index-linked £20,000 when she retires, equivalent to a pension pot of £552,000.

The current scheme dates from 2001, when MPs voted for their entitlement to accrue at an annual rate of 50% faster than most of the public sector.

Tom McPhail, the head of pension research at Hargreaves Lansdown, who provided the analysis of MPs’ entitlements, said: “The MPs’ pension scheme is overdue for fundamental reform. It allows an MP to retire on the equivalent of the national average wage after only around 17 years’ work. How can this be justified?”

The firm has calculated the equivalent pension pot based on available annuity rates, length of service and the age of MP.

Several shamed Labour MPs will do well. Elliot Morley, who said he mistakenly claimed for a nonexistent mortgage on expenses, will get an annual pension of about £33,000, while Ben Chapman, who overclaimed £15,000 on expenses in mortgage interest, will get about £20,000. Margaret Moran, who claimed £22,500 to treat dry rot at her Southampton home, will have been an MP for 13 years when she stands down, and will get a pension of £19,500 a year, equivalent to a pot of £551,623.

The departure from the Commons of Sir Nicholas Winterton and his wife Ann will also be eased by the generosity of the taxpayer. Their pension pots will have a combined value of more than £2m. The couple announced their retirement after it was disclosed they had claimed more than £80,000 in second home allowances on a London flat owned by a trust controlled by their children.

Sir Nicholas, 71, will leave with an annual index-linked pension of about £52,000, equivalent to a pension pot of £1.1m. His wife Ann, 68, will leave with a pension of £38,000, equivalent to a pot of £900,000. The couple will also receive resettlement grants of more than £70,000: comprising £32,000 for Sir Nicholas, and £38,000 for Ann. They will also get winding-up allowances for their offices of £40,799 each.

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