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Being an MP was unpaid until the early 20th century. Pay was introduced to make it viable for people who did not have an independent source of income.
The majority of the cabinet for the last 10 years have been independently wealthy (i.e. part of the millionaire / billionaire class), and not reliant on MP or ministerial salary, which sort of suggests that we are back in the 19th century.
Of course it isn't a fixed rule, but higher pay is generally likely to attract higher ability people. This is apparent in both the public and private sector. Why wouldn't this apply to MPs?
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@dubtap
I think an MP salary is attractive but attractive to a lot of chancers that would fail any round of interviews for a job with the same salary in the real world.
Happy to be corrected but weren’t MPs originally all the landed gentry who did a bit of public admin out of ‘noblesse oblige’ so the salary was an afterthought?
There are loads of jobs in government/civil service paying more than that because they need to attract serious people to actually do stuff, not Mark Francois.