HC Deb 11 March 1893 vol 9 cc1777-81
MR. B. L. COHEN (Islington, E.)

said, he thought he would not need to detain the House more than a short time in bringing under its notice the case of the Second Division Clerks, whose work in his opinion contributed as much to the efficiency of the Army as did that of the most distinguished of Her Majesty's subjects who wore her uniform. He had ventured to intrude on the House because the case he had to submit constituted an injustice to a very meritorious class of public servants and conduced neither to the efficiency nor to the economy of the great Department of State over which the right hon. Gentleman presided. He was told that he could not move the Resolution which stood in his name, but he hoped that before he sat down he would have made out a case which would justify the right hon. Gentleman in giving assurances that the legitimate expectations of the class whose cause he was advocating should no longer be disregarded. Now the 118th paragraph of the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Civil Service Establishments was as follows:— The essence of our proposals is to assign a greatly increased share of the work to the Second Division, and in connection with this object to improve their scale of pay, and to attach to their class certain specified staff appointments for which their experience especially qualifies them. We are disposed to hope that if our proposals are adopted means may be found to apply the whole of them to the existing Second Division Clerks pari passu with a corresponding and simultaneous diminution as opportunity offers of the First Division. That Report was submitted to Parliament in 1888, but the principles of the recommendation had been recognised by the Lords of the Treasury in a letter dated as far back as 1884, in which My Lords wrote— Although the number of Second Division Clerks promoted to the First Division must always bear a small proportion to the number not so promoted, it is not necessary that they should be an insignificant proportion of the First Division. On the contrary, My Lords look forward to that division being largely replenished in certain Departments from the best members of the Second Division. It will probably also be necessary to reserve a power of direct appointment to the First Division. But there are many Departments in which this power need not—so far as My Lords can foresee—be exercised habitually or even frequently. Promotion from the Second to the First Division may therefore fairly be considered as a legitimate aspiration for the superior members of the former. The right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the late Government stated in this House on the 28th March, 1890, that Promotion to the First Division was one of the methods provided under the present scheme for rewarding meritorious Second Division Clerks, and many such promotions have been made in other offices. The House would thus see that the principle of the Resolution he had desired to bring forward had the authority of the Royal Commission presided over by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Blackpool Division, of the Lords of the Treasury, and of the Secretary to the Treasury in the late Government. He desired especially to impress upon the House that weight of authority, because he was aware that in proposals such as he was submitting private Members did not frequently get much support from right hon. Gentlemen on both Front Benches. The present, however, was a case which he thought would appeal to the sympathy, at any rate, of private Members on both sides. He had not brought forward the matter with any desire to delay business, nor had his action any suspicion or shred of Party interest in it, as at a public meeting in connection with the question, held last November, and presided over by the hon. Member for South Islington, there were present Members of the House belonging to all Parties. This question was one which excited a large amount of interest in the House itself, and many hon. Members held there were just grounds of discontent at the legitimate expectations of this deserving class of public servants remaining unsatisfied, to the serious injury of the service. He put a question on this subject, and in reply to it on the 6th of February last the right hon. Gentleman paid a very handsome tribute to the merits of the Second Division Clerks, who were, he said, qualified for any work in the office; but he added that it was necessary to promote men from the outside in order to preserve the necessary gradation of age. But he would like to point out that the age of the Second Division Clerks eligible for promotion ranged from 25 to 30, and as they continued in the service until they attained the age of 65 years, those who would be most likely to be promoted would still have an official future before them of from 30 to 40 years, whilst their whole official career would cover a period of from 40 to 50 years—not a short qualification. Moreover, there was no necessity to promote the elder members of the Second Division, seeing that the Ridley Commission itself strongly enforced the principle of promotion by merit rather than by seniority, so that the gradation of age on which the right hon. Gentleman insisted would not only be in no way prejudiced, but would be promoted by the concession now asked at his hands. The right hon. Gentleman next urged, in his reply to the question of the 6th February, the necessity of reducing the number of clerks in the First Division to 60. This decision, which he believed was promulgated in 1891, naturally caused bitter disappointment to the clerks of the Second Division. How was it to be effected? It was to be done by filling up only one in every four vacancies that occurred. At least, that one might have been given to the Second Division, the clerks in which had a right from what had been promised to expect it. But nothing of that kind was to be done. The House would remember from the answer of the Secretary to the Treasury to a question put by the hon. Member for the Uxbridge Division, that out of a total of 109 promotions given to the Second Division since September, 1888, only one had been so given in the War Office. And in this connection he would like to add that in the same period the Admiralty, with 229 Second Division clerks, had 17 promotions; the Board of Trade, with 75, had three; the Inland Revenue, with 212, had 50; the Local Government Board, with 66, had five; and the War Office, with 235, a larger number than any other Government Office, had only one. It was not, however, on justice and good faith alone that he based his claim to consideration. The present system, besides being not more— perhaps less—efficient, was also far more costly, as he would prove by illustration. A vacancy occurred in the First Division. A Second Division clerk, drawing £160 a year, might be promoted, and his salary would be increased at once to £200, while his place would be taken by a Second Division clerk at £70. The two posts, therefore, cost the country £270. But if the system were continued of importing outsiders straight into the First Division the new arrival at once entered into an income of £200, whilst the old Second Division clerk retained his £160, and there was a total cost of £360 against one of £270. This was not all, because before many years elapsed —say six—a young man coming into the First Division from outside would, after a period from 18 months to two years, become eligible for a senior clerkship, beginning at £450. That such a promotion should be given to a young man of, say, 27 years of age, while numerous Second Division clerks, deserving and admitted by the right hon. Gentleman to be qualified, were expected to remain on a dead-level scale, and while the conditions under which they entered the Office were being flagrantly violated, could not be described otherwise than as a gross injustice. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed his sympathy with the Second Division clerks in the interview he had given to a deputation which waited upon him some time ago, and he was sure the right hon. Gentleman and the House would appreciate the feelings of those clerks when they saw young men imported from outside, and who had not worked as they had done, almost immediately placed in a position to draw salaries far in excess of what their services justly entitled them to expect. This did not exhaust all the privileges which these young First Division clerks, of whom there were already 15 in the Office, and more of whom were expected to come in, enjoyed. They received all the private secretaryships, the actuary-ships, and the president clerkships, all being posts carrying at least £150 a year, besides salary. They had on the average not more than about eight years' service, and three of them had already been made senior clerks—one at £450, another at £500, and the third at £630. He wished to assure the right hon. Gentleman he had not brought this case under his notice in any spirit of insubordination on the part of the clerks in the Second Division, who were already convinced of his sympathy. He told the deputation which waited on him that the decision to bring in young men from outside had been come to by the high permanent officials without his knowledge. He was aware it was absolutely necessary that a good deal of the direction of Government Departments should be left to the permanent officials, than whom there did not exist a more capable and more devoted body of public servants. But at the same time the fact existed that just expectations had been disappointed, and promises were unfulfilled, and he put it to him whether, when he heard of decisions being taken by the permanent officials which were contrary to expediency and involved grave injustice to a worthy body of public servants, he did not think the time had arrived for the responsible Minister to interfere. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give him an assurance that the expectations of the Second Division clerks would no longer be disregarded, and that something more than sympathy would be extended to them. They desired to have something tangible and concrete. The right hon. Gentleman was aware that in some public offices compensation was given where promotion was deferred. The Second Class Clerks did not ask, at any rate at present, for compensation; all they wanted was that their case should be favourably considered, and that they should have something more than that deferred hope which made the heart sick.