RISE: Jacqui Smith will get more money

As most of the UK suffers pay freezes - or even reductions - due to the dismal economic situation, MPs will see their salary jump 2.33 per cent from April 1, it emerged today. The Westminster rise brings their parliamentary pay - before allowances - up from £63,291 to around £64,766. News of the extra money set to pour into MPs' pockets came as the row over expenses reached boiling point today. Humiliated Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was facing demands to resign after her husband admitted paying to watch adult films using her taxpayer-funded expenses. Prime Minister Gordon Brown today appealed today for Smith to be allowed to get on with her work as Home Secretary, saying: “This is very much a personal matter for Jacqui. She has made her apology, her husband has made clear that he has apologised.

“The best thing is that Jacqui Smith gets on with her work, which is what she wants to do." Ms Smith promised she would repay the money and yesterday her husband, Richard Timney, apologised to her – but not to taxpayers. Calls were growing today for Ms Smith to step down. Former shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: “I don’t call for people to go unless I think there is absolutely a smoking gun. “But I think in this circumstance the sympathy for her will be even less than it otherwise would have been because she’s not that good at her job.”

Ms Smith is already facing a sleaze probe over at least £116,000 in expenses she claimed for the upkeep of her family home under MPs’ second-home allowance – while claiming that her sister’s house in London was her main residence. The latest embarrassing episode, revealed ­exclusively in yesterday’s Sunday Express, is seen by many as the final nail in her political coffin. News that MPs’ basic pay is to be boosted will anger those who are already outraged that salaries are topped up by expenses and allowances worth up to around £180,000 a year to pay for their offices, staff and travel and the cost of spending time away from home while working at Westminster.