HC Deb 05 February 1937 vol 319 cc2011-22

Order for Second Reading read.

3.20 p.m.

Mr. Holmes

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This Bill has for its intention the abolition of the system of tipping. I believe it is a matter of ignorance among many people that a large number of those employed in hotels and restaurants receive no wages. Waiters, chambermaids, cloakroom men and porters sometimes receive a nominal 5s. a week, and sometimes nothing at all, and in some cases they even pay for their position. Therefore, when we go to a hotel or restaurant and give a tip we are not handing something to the servants for special services which they have rendered to us but we are, in fact, contributing to wages which in other trades and industries would be paid by the employers. The Hotels and Restaurants Association circulated on 25th November a Memorandum in which they said: The present practice of giving gratuities is intended to be a reward for special services or attention. The chairman of the executive committee of this Association is Mr. Reeves Smith, the managing director of the Savoy Hotel. A week or so ago, on a regional programme of the British Broadcasting Corporation, he broadcast in opposition to the principles of this Bill, and, as I have said, we are told in the circular that the gratuities given in hotels are a reward for special services or attention. Most of us in this House have been to what is probably the most popular restaurant in London, the Savoy Grill, and all that Mr. Reeves Smith need do to prove this contention of his is to tell us how much the waiters in the Savoy Grill receive every week from the Savoy Hotel.

Mr. Kelly

He dare not tell you.

Mr. Holmes

There are three sets of people who are interested in this matter —the public, the owners of hotels and restaurants, and those who are employed in them. So far as the public are concerned I think all of us feel that the tipping system is a nuisance. We frequently do not know how much to give, and are doubtful whether the amount we have given is satisfactory, and that particularly applies to women; and I venture to believe that most of the public would be only too delighted to feel that they could pay their bill without having to think when leaving a hotel or restaurant that they had to give something in the nature of a gratuity to one or even many of the servants. So far as the servants in hotels and restaurants are concerned the system has various effects. It results in irregularity in the amounts they receive each week. Sometimes the tips will be good, sometimes the tips will be poor, and they cannot be assured of taking home a regular sum each week. In the second place, there is great dissatisfaction among the staffs of hotels and restaurants, as it frequently happens that the most deserving individuals of them do not receive a tip. Very often the servant's tip depends on his being in evidence at the moment when the guest is leaving.

Mr. Rhys Davies

Can the hon. Gentleman explain how it is that, in practically all other countries in the world, although 10 per cent. is added to the bill by the proprietor of the restaurant or hotel, the client is still expected to give a tip when he leaves?

Mr. Holmes

I will deal with that point straight away. The reason is that the giving and receiving of tips are not an offence. That is why it is being made an offence under the Bill, both for the giver and receiver. In the third place, the tipping system enables hotel and restaurant proprietors to employ men and women for longer hours than any other trade or industry; the workers are willing to work because of the tipping system.

Mr. Macquisten

It is a form of overtime.

Mr. Holmes

Whether the Bill goes through or, on the other hand, is never heard of after to-clay, the tipping system in hotels and restaurants is doomed. It does not follow the trend of the working and the spirit of industry at the present time. A few weeks ago the House passed without dissent a Bill providing for holidays with pay. The servants of hotels and restaurants can never enter into the benefits of that Bill, since where there is no pay there cannot be holidays with pay. Many businesses have developed systems of bonuses and profit-sharing by means of co-partnership schemes, based upon salary or wages received, but as there is no pay, there can be no such schemes for the servants of hotels and restaurants. Very few big companies have not a staff pension fund based upon small payments by the workers and a considerable payment by the employer, to give security to the workers against illness, accident and old age and, so far as the breadwinner is concerned, against his premature death. The schemes are arranged with one of our well-known and reliable insurance companies, and the basis of the benefits is the salary or wages received by the workers. It will be impossible for hotel and restaurant staffs to share in funds of that nature, because they are receiving no pay.

Mr. Rhys Davies

In view of the fact that this place in which we are meeting is outside the law, may I ask the hon. Member whether the Bill would apply to the Dining Rooms of the House of Commons?

Mr. Holmes

Unfortunately, the time left to us to-day is very short, and my hon. Friend is so anxious to get out his one or two points that he is making somewhat irrelevant interruptions. They do not come in the right place. With regard to his question as to the House of Commons, I can at any rate give him an answer so far as the staff art: concerned. It is that the staff would be delighted to see this Bill go through and to find that the House was willing to give them a regular weekly sum all round, and all the year round. My hon. Friend may be quite sure that, if he votes for this Bill, he will not meet any black looks when next he goes into the Dining Room.

With regard to the point that, even if tips are abolished, we shall still be expected, even if a service charge is made on the bill, to give something before we leave, that is not entirely so on the Continent. You can go into many parts of Germany and Italy to-day where you will find that a tip is refused because the penalty of its acceptance has been made so strict. The reason why I have brought forward this Bill to make it an offence so far as both the receiver and the giver of a tip are concerned, is in order to do away with the particular point to which my hon. Friend has referred.

Mr. Griffith

Will it be possible to deal with an offence under Clause 1 of the Bill without an expensive system of agents provocateurs or police supervision; and is not that rather an undesirable procedure to adopt?

Mr. Holmes

I hope not. I should think there would be no difficulty in observing people who do this sort of thing. You cannot as a rule give a tip without someone seeing you do it, particularly in a restaurant, and during the Committee Stage I hope the legal learning of my hon. Friend opposite will put us right in regard to this particular point.

If the Bill goes through there are two sets of people who must not be put to any disadvantage thereby. The first are the proprietors of hotels and restaurants, and the second are the people employed therein. They have grown up under this system. It has not been created by them; it has been part of our national system, and therefore, if we abandon it, we must see that they are in no worse a position than before. It can very well be argued, and probably will be argued, by hotel and restaurant proprietors, that, by reason of the fact that they have not been called upon to pay a full weekly wage to those whom they employ, they have charged less to the public than they otherwise would. That may be perfectly true, because hotels and restaurants have to compete with one another in the same way as other trades, and they have doubtless to adjust their prices accordingly.

Mr. Levy

When the hon. Member refers to hotels, does he intend that term to be all-embracing, and to include boarding houses, residential hotels and so on?

Mr. Holmes

At the moment we will leave it at the words that stand in the Bill and allow those who are legal-minded to define it later on, in the same way as in a recent Bill that we passed something was left to the Law Courts to construe. Hotel and restaurant proprietors must be allowed to make up for what they will have to pay in the way of wages and salaries by increased charges to guests or by means of a percentage, on the continental style, on the bill itself. It must be seen that if the proprietors charge a percentage on the bill, that is divided among those who are employed in a fair and adequate way. It is for that reason that my friends and I have asked the Ministry of Labour, although we recognise that it is putting a considerable amount of work upon them, to act, as it were, as arbitrators in the matter. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend laughs, but one knows what a large-hearted man the present Minister of Labour is and I am sure, if he felt that this was something that was for the public good, he would be only too glad to shoulder the burden.

I move the Second Reading of the Bill in order to get rid of a system that is annoying to the public and in order to place those employed in hotels and restaurants in a position to earn a regular wage every week, and to be able to share in all those benefits of holidays with pay, staff pension funds, co-partnership schemes and all the other means that are being adopted now to make those employed in various trades and industries more satisfied with their part in the progress of industry and to promote that good spirit between employers and employed which has made considerable progress since the War.

3.39 p.m.

Mr. Thurtle

I beg to second the Motion.

My name is on the back of the Bill and it gives me much pleasure to support the Bill from the standpoint of enhancing the dignity of labour. In my view anything that tends to degrade people who are performing a useful and necessary service is to be deprecated. There is no doubt that the practice of tipping is degrading and I should like to see it abolished. If I might be allowed to adapt Shakespeare, I would say that, unlike the quality of mercy, the habit of tipping is twice damned. It lowers him that gives and him that takes. I think we ought to try and treat waiters just as we would treat other people according to the golden rule of doing unto others as we would be done by. My ideal is a race of free and independent and self-respecting Englishmen or Scotsmen or Irishmen or Welshmen. I like to see men with a large measure of self-respect. A man who is performing a useful and necessary service —waiting is a necessary and useful service—ought not to be subjected to the practice or custom which stamps him with the brand of inferiority. There is nothing at all wrong with the job of waiting. It is just as honourable as any other form of employment. I am very glad to see from the statistics of the Ministry of Labur that more and more Englishmen are becoming waiters. I have not any narrow insular views, but if I have to choose as to the kind of person I would have to wait upon me I would rather have an Englishman than a waiter of any other nationality. I submit that while this practice of tipping continues the self-respect of the waiter is bound to suffer, and for that reason you will have a certain reluctance on the part of Englishmen, who have a good deal of self- respect, to go in for this particular job. What is a tip? It is, to use an Americanism, a kind of charitable hand-out.

Mr. Macquisten

No.

Mr. Thurtle

It is, and it puts the service of the waiter on the basis of a sense of inferiority. I am not using too strong language when I say that a man is compelled to prostitute his self-respect for economic considerations. That is not what we want. We want self-respecting people engaged in this particular occupation. We want to encourage service on the basis of mutual self-respect as between the person who is served and the person serving. There is the argument of the Hotels and Restaurants Association against the Bill. They say the percentage system was started in France because it was not customary for waiters there to be paid a wage, whereas in this country it is the custom for wages to be paid. I do not know whether it is a very general custom that wages are paid even in this country, but, if it be so, what sort of wages are paid? You hear all sorts of stories about the waiters in popular restaurants getting a mere pittance by way of wage and being expected to make up their income to some reasonable standard by means of tips. That is not the sort of thing we want to have. It is said that there is no general demand from waiters for this Bill. I wonder what sort of authority there is for that contention. My hon. Friend who moved the Second Reading said that the waiters in this House would be very glad indeed if the system of tipping were abolished and they were assured of a regular wage. I feel certain that that is what most waiters throughout the country feel.

Anyhow, it is not our business to encourage the sort of servility which tipping produces. We want to encourage more and more self-respect, and more and more independence on the part of those who are carrying on the job of waiting. Take it from the standpoint of the person who is being served. How does he feel about tipping? I do not know how hon. Members feel about it, but I always feel a sense of repugnance on giving a tip. There is a sort of embarrassment about it (Laughter). Hon Members laugh. They may ascribe that to some sort of stinginess on my part, but it is not that at all. If one is sensitive one has respect for the feelings of others. I always feel that it spoils the relationship between the waiter and the person who is being served to have to give the waiter a tip. While he is waiting upon you you ought to treat him as a kind of brother, more or less as your equal, but when it comes to the business of giving him a tip you put him into a position of inferiority. That is a very undesirable practice to encourage.

It is said by the Hotels Association that, if this is to apply at all, it should apply all round. They understand that it is only to apply to certain hotels and restaurants and that boarding-houses are to get off scot free. That kind of argument is an old device in this house; proposals of all kinds are opposed because they are not comprehensive enough. I admit that this Bill is open to objection on that score, but we have to try and make it practicable, and it would not be practicable to apply it to boardinghouses. But as far as it goes it is a good Measure. I am sure that it is wanted by the people concerned. It will do a good deal towards increasing the self-respect of those who are employed as waiters. It will increase the wages of those engaged in the work, and it will do something which we all want to see done—it will encourage Englishmen, who do not go in very much for this kind of work, to go in for it more and more. For these reasons—and I will not go into others because time is going—I strongly support the Measure, and hope that the House will see that it receives a Second Reading to-day.

3.48 p.m.

Mr. Bracewell Smith

My hon. Friend who moved the Second Reading of this Bill mentioned that certain establishments pay no wages at all. I think that every Member in this House would condemn any kind of arrangement of that type. I would like the hon. Member to inform us of the names of those establishments. I do not know of any. If tipping lowers the self-respect of waiters, as far as hotels and restaurants are concerned. it lowers the self-respect of taxi-cab drivers, railway porters and of everybody who receives tips. Surely, you are not going to confine the giving of tips to certain employés in certain industries. People have self-respect in every industry and, there- fore, why was not a Bill brought in to cover all systems of tipping, and not just one form of industry covered by hotels and restaurants? I will first deal with the provisions of Clause 1—I do not think that I shall reach Clause 2 or have time to discuss the method as to how wages are to be regulated by the Minister of Labour. I am sure that Members on the front Bench opposite would say that the Minister of Labour has other things to do in the preparation of the Bill which he is going to introduce without being saddled with the work of regulating the wages of those engaged in hotels and restaurants.

Under Clause 1 you have a most amazing proposal. This question of criminal action is confined to those carrying on the normal scope of their duties. Who is going to define the normal scope of duties in hotels? I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware that certain representatives of hotels go to Southampton and to Waterloo and meet passengers, visitors from other countries, and collect their luggage. Are those to be classed as normal duties? Is every employé in hotels and restaurants to carry a card on his back or in his pocket to show the visitor exactly what are his normal duties? It would be a very difficult matter to define the normal duties of employés in hotels and restaurants.

What is a hotel? It is defined as an establishment of not less than six bedrooms. A restaurant is an establishment employing not less than four people. Refreshment bars are excluded from the application of the Bill. Therefore, if I order a cocktail in a refreshment bar, and give the barman 6d. I am committing no crime under the Bill, but if I sit in the lounge of a hotel and I give the waiter 6d. for bringing me a cocktail, I am committing an illegal action. What is the sense of such a proposal? One might stay at a boarding-house which has more than six bedrooms. The hon. Member would have difficulty in convincing the Committee, if the Bill went to Committee, of the difference in type of the accommodation given by a hotel and a boardinghouse. The Bill does not even mention whether the establishment is to be licensed or unlicensed. If it is to be considered wrong to tip in a hotel of more than six bedrooms, and boarding-houses are excluded from the Bill, surely it must be wrong to tip in a boarding-house just as it must be wrong to tip in a hotel.

What about refreshment cars? Hon. Members going to their constituencies at the week-end and feeling particularly happy because they have been successful in getting a Measure through the House or in opposing a Measure, might, in their glee, give the waiter 6d., a 1s. or a penny. I mention the three sums to cover every point of view. They would be committing no offence, but if they happened to be in the lounge of a hotel before they caught the train and they were still in the same frame of mind, still in a spirit of hilarity, and gave the same gratuity, they might not catch the train. They would immediately be confronted perhaps by a spy or a public informer who is on the look-out for cases of tipping. Their name and address would have to be taken because they had given the waiter the 6d., the 1s. or whatever the tip might be.

Hon. Members must realise the tremendous anomalies that this Bill would introduce. I am sure that the hon. Member who introduced the Bill did so simply because he wanted to bring forward the question of tipping. I suggest that if he wanted to put forward his views on tipping he should have done so in the form of a Motion, not in the form of a Bill. The whole question could then have been raised and we could have debated tipping in the United States, in France, Italy and in Germany, and thus have obtained a bird's-eye view of this terrible and horrible crime of tipping. In France they have a system of adding 10 per cent. on the bill in restaurants and 15 per cent. in hotels, but you tip just the same. I have done it myself, and I am sure that other hon. Members have also done it. I contend that the imposition of a percentage on a bill does not abolish tipping.

There is one other point which seems to have been forgotten. Tipping is not compulsory. We are still free agents. We can tip if we want to, or not. Why bring in this Bill? There are certain establishments where tipping 'is prohibited. I do not know why the hon. Member has confined his attention to hotels and restaurants. I contend that the imposition of any kind of percentage on a bill does not do away with tipping. And tipping is not a crime. In France it is not a crime, and I am not suddenly fined £1 for a first offence and £5 for a second offence. What is going to happen if the Bill does become an Act of Parliament?

Mr. Thurtle

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that question.

Mr. Smith

If the Bill were an Act of Parliament, hon. Members would not be here listening to the Debate. They would be having lunch, and I presume that if they gave the waiter a tip which he thought was not large enough he would report to the management that they had broken the law by giving him a tip at all. Then along would come an inspector. I do not know whether we are going to have a new army of investigators watching our every movement at table, watching whether you slip a sixpence under the saucer. It is going to be a nightmare when we are dining out or giving a birthday party if we are to be surrounded by a number of spies watching our every movement. The very fact that this army of officials may be there will destroy our appetites and interfere with the full enjoyment of the party.

It being Four of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 2.

Adjourned at Four o'Clock until Monday next, 8th February.