I was shocked to read in the February 3 issue of Wirral Globe about the costs claimed by our MPs - an average of £200,000 each.

It led me to think about the costs of the approximately 600 MPs in England.

If they, on an average, claimed this amount, it would cost the country towards £1.2 billion!

This led me to research further into MPs salaries and pensions.

The starting salary is just over £80,000 - three nurses’ salaries, a pension scheme of final salary a 1/40 or 1/50, Nurses 1/80.

MPs have had a couple of pay rises during the last 10 years and nurses one, a rise of 1%.

Do we get value for money and do we need so many MPs?

J.Kennedy, by email