Senior MEP sparks outrage by handing over post to her husband As well as being married to Ms Wallis, Stewart Arnold is also employed by his wife as her chief of staff, under a special loophole that allows British MEPs elected before June 2009 to employ their close relatives. One door shuts on her career in Brussels and another one opens for her husband. I really cannot imagine her constituents will be impressed by any of this. Godfrey Bloom, Ukip MEP for Yorkshire, said: "Trying to shoehorn her husband into her old salary as she resigns really is a working definition of nepotism in my opinion." MEPs earn £80,000 a year, more than £15,000 more than their colleagues in the House of Common. Euro-deputies are entitled to a "daily subsistence" cash payment of £257 for each of the 184 days the parliament sits. "General expenditure allowance," which is supposed to help MEPs run their local office, will be increased to £3,627 a month. Both allowances are automatically paid directly into bank accounts belonging to MEPs without receipts of expenditure required.