MPs who have been shamed and humiliated by revelations about their expenses could be in line for a pay rise of up to 15 per cent.

In evidence to a Commons committee, overshadowed completely by the publication of the expense files yesterday, Bill Cockburn, head of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), said he believed parliamentarians were underpaid by "10 per cent to 15 per cent”.

Until this year, the Commons voted to decide its own pay, but the SSRB has now taken on responsibility for setting increases. Despite pay freezes across the British workforce and even cuts in the private sector, MPs were handed a 2.33 per cent rise in April, taking their annual salary to £64,766.

While most of Westminster was pouring over the heavily redacted MPs’ expenses claims which were posted online shortly before 6am yesterday, Mr Cockburn told the Commons Public Administration Committee it would be carrying out a “broader” review of remuneration after the next general election.

"It is always politically difficult to increase it, but as we have found in the past, in our view MPs' pay is 10 to 15 per cent below what it should be,” he said.

“There is a degree of underpayment in our view, but it is difficult to address this under the present arrangements.”

Mr Cockburn’s comments came as more than a million pages of obscured expenses documents were published, further enraging the public after weeks of disclosures that suggested many MPs were making unwise, or in some instances improper, claims.

Parliament was accused of complicity in a cover-up after the much-anticipated publication revealed that many of the most egregious claims had been concealed by swathes of black ink.

The severely-edited disclosure showed that the worst abuses, including payments for moat cleaning and the “flipping” of second homes, may never have come to light if a full version had not been leaked.

Theresa May, shadow work and pensions secretary, admitted that reading today’s heavily critical newspapers had made public’s anger clear.

“It’s only when you see it like this that you see how much information has been taken away,” she said, admitting that voters felt let down.

“We collectively as members of Parliament have to take responsibility for this. . . a culture of entitlement grew up and that was wrong,” she said.

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