MPs signed off their own bumper pay hike and expenses boost despite Treasury warnings that the move was 'unjustified'.The Chief Secretary to the Treasury tried to intervene as a powerful Commons committee considered the proposals. But the appeal for restraint was ignored, with the 5 per cent rise - more than for the NHS and most public sector workers - taking effect in April. That pushed salaries to £98,599, while the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) has also made their expenses more generous.Ipsa has been handed responsibility for setting MPs' pay, but the watchdog's budgets must be approved by the cross-party Speaker's committee.That happened in March - but the committee has only just slipped out a letter from James Murray, who was Rachel Reeves' deputy at the time.Referring to the 5 per cent pay increase, Mr Murray said: 'This would be significantly higher than ONS wage forecasts across the whole economy (3.2 per cent) and the OBR’s inflation forecast (2.2 per cent) for 2026-27. 'It would also outpace other public sector workforce pay uplifts for 2026-27, such as the recently announced 3.3 per cent headline pay award for nursing staff.'I am not aware of any issues being identified for MPs that would offer a potential justification of this pay award, and HMT would therefore reject this pay award request if it came from a government department.'