While some other MPs were giving the extra money to charity, Mr Elliott said he would have to look at the figures and his costs of running constituency offices.

“I think in the past years as an Assembly member I have always put money into the two constituency offices, up to £10,000 and I’ll have to look to see if I need to add anything along with that.

“As far as charity goes I would always support charity and the voluntary and community sector. That may mean £100 here and £100 there , but I’ll have a sit down and look at it and see . It’s always difficult because you get so many requests for that type of support, it is quite difficult to help everyone. I clearly will continue to do that and help others where appropriate.”

It was officially announced last week that all MPs will see their annual salaries increase from £67,060 to £74,000 backdated from May, after the Independent Parliament Standards Authority ruled that that the upgrade was justified.

Mr Elliott agreed that the increase was “unacceptable in times of austerity”.

“Obviously this is something done by an Independent body and we as a party opposed the increase, even after it was mooted a few weeks ago. We didn’t feel it was right or appropriate.

“We’re not in favour of it at this time. I think if they were going to do an increase what they should do each year is keep it in line with public sector pay. Obviously MPs are slightly easier targets because they are public, people don’t hear what senior civil servants are on, or hear what the BBC are paid even though it is the public that funds them.

“Obviously you are always open to that scrutiny that others aren’t, but anyway that’s the way of it. I just wish others were open to the same scrutiny.”

Mr Elliott said that the increase may be a difficult pill to swallow for many especially given the announcement in the budget that  public sector pay rises are to be  capped at 1%.

“Irrespective of what you do as a public representative people are going to say it is too high anyway.  My view is probably it should be lower and it should be graded against something. I think they could grade it against something else, which means at least there’s a good argument why you’re paid a certain amount.

“Even if that’s graded against a school principal for example or somebody in the legal profession within the prosecution service. I think they need to base it on something to be fair.”