HC Deb 03 June 1946 vol 423 cc1751-62

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Walker-Smith

I apologise, Major Milner, for being—as is perhaps unusual in a politician—ahead of my time in that way. If I may resume my rather premature observations in regard to the payment of £500 a year to junior Ministers of the Crown, I was saying that we are not a particularly logical nation and that I would be the last to urge that we should make any fetish of logic. Nevertheless it seems to me that with the provisions contained in this Clause we really have descended to depths of illogicality further than we ought to sink. It seems to me that it may be a logical thing to consider all Ministers of the Crown as also doing their duty in Parliament and to pay them the full salary of Members of Parliament. It may also be a logical thing, as has always been done in the past, to exclude Ministers of the Crown from payment of Parliamentary salaries. But what cannot in any case be considered a logical proceeding is to pay half the Ministers half a Parliamentary salary. I hope we shall have more enlightenment in the Committee this evening as to how this extraordinary state of affairs is justified. I have been unable to discover why it is that Ministers of the Crown were in fact disqualified from the receipt of salaries. I have perused the proceedings in Committee on the Ministers of the Crown Bill, 1937, and I find that no reference was made to it in the Debate on the Clause on that occasion, and that no light was shed on the question why Ministers of the Crown should not draw a Parliamentary salary.

I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though his service in this House does not date back to 1911 when the payment of Members was introduced, will nevertheless be able to show why this principle was established. If it was established on some good constitutional ground, presumably that consideration still applies, and if it is to be departed from, some reason there for should be given. It may be that there was some feeling of delicacy on the part of Ministers of the Crown in 1911, who, in proposing payment to Members of Parliament, wanted to make it clear that they did not wish to propose anything from which they themselves would benefit. That is a feeling which, if it existed, would do them credit; but it does not help to get a right and logical procedure in regard to the relationship between salaries for Members of Parliament and salaries for Ministers of the Crown. The only ground on which the present arrangements appear to be based is the overriding anxiety on the part of the Government to find some tax-free emoluments for junior Ministers of the Crown. That proposition appears to me to rest itself on the assumption that taxation will always remain at the high level at which it does today, which makes it so necessary for these people to have some tax-free income—

Captain Crookshank

I think my hon. Friend is in error. It is not tax-free income but surely expenditure against which expenses can be put, which is not quite the same thing.

Mr. Walker-Smith

I am very much obliged to my right hon. and gallant Friend who has put me right with his usual perspicacity. I was aware that the position is as he describes it. I was trying to telescope my remarks a little in order not to keep hon. Members opposite up longer than was necessary. If I might resume, with the correction my right hon. and gallant Friend has been good enough to supply to the Committee, I was saying that the only justification I can see for providing an income against which expenses can be set in respect of allowances for taxation does rest upon the supposition that taxation will continue interminably at its present high level. For myself, I am not inclined to take so pessimistic a view because I do not think we shall have the present Chancellor or the present Government in office interminably.

Therefore, it we are legislating on a long term view, we should not rest ourselves on a proposition which will not be true in a few years' time, or which at any rate may not be true in a few years time. We cannot find, in my submission, any more logical basis for giving this £500 a year salary as a Member of Parliament to one half of the Ministers and not to the other half. It seems to me that it would be better, if the Minister wishes to give junior Ministers a salary that in his view would be sufficient, for him courageously to come to the House and say that their salaries are insufficient and that he proposes to fix for them salaries which he thinks will not deter Members in his party from accepting junior offices under the Crown. I appreciate, Major Milner, that there are many talented hon. Members opposite who have lucrative positions in capitalist society which they might very well be reluctant to jettison for a junior Ministry of the Crown with a salary at its present rate. If that is the reason for raising these salaries, surely the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer should come to the House and say that, bearing in mind that his party does contain these people who are enjoying large revenues because of their executive or managerial skill in the capitalist system or even their hereditary interest in it, he proposes to fix the salary for junior Ministers at a figure which will not deter them from taking office. That would be a logical thing to do, and I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer why, if it is thought that the salaries of junior Ministers are too low, he does not come to the Committee and say so, and tell us that he proposes to fix them at a scale which he thinks would be sufficiently attractive.

In any event, it appears to me that he has adopted a completely illogical course which must at the least require certain explanations to justify it and to commend it to this Committee. I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he would make clear first, what is the principle on which Ministers have hitherto been disqualified from Parliamentary salaries; secondly, on what principle that has now been reversed; and thirdly, that if it is to be reversed, why it has not been wholly reversed so as to put Junior Ministers and Cabinet Ministers on the same basis and to give them the same salary as attaches to Members of Parliament as a whole.

Hon. Members

Agreed.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, Southern)

I do not know why hon. Members opposite are so keen to go home. The night is still young. I have seen some of them in much merrier mood about two o'clock in the morning than they are in tonight. After all, what is it that we arc trying to get? We are speaking on this Clause, and we are trying to increase the salaries of junior Ministers of the Crown. For the time being junior Ministers of the Crown are Members of the party opposite. No doubt if hon. Members on the back benches try very hard, in the forthcoming changes of office they may soon be in that happy position themselves. I join with the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) in asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer for some explanation of this point. During the Second Reading Debate he sought to justify what is done in this Clause, if I remember his argument rightly, by saying that whereas Members of Parliament were to gain to the extent of £400 tax-free, by the latest changes—[HON. MEMBERS:'"No."]

Mr, Dalton

Gross.

Viscount Hihchingbrooke

Yes, £400 gross against which they can claim tax relief. Junior Ministers of the Crown have £500, and it was argued that therefore that was a just division. I think the best way to look at it is from the point of view of basic salary. Members of Parliament get £1,000 against which tax can be charged. If they can prove claims for tax relief they get it entirely free. Take a Junior Minister with a salary of £1,200.

Mr. Dalton

They are all £1,500.

11.30 p.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke

There is provision here for £1,200 salary under Subsection (4) of Clause I. Let us take the case of a Minister having a salary of £1,200. He is charged tax at 10s. in the £, or at any rate, something of that order. That reduces his salary to £600 or £650.

Now, under the new proposals, can he include his expenses and get another £500, making it £1,100 against the £1,000 which the ordinary Member of Parliament can get free of tax if he proves his case? I do not think that the ratio, if this be so, is a right and proper one, remembering the responsibilities of a junior Minister of this House. A much better arrangement would be to allow the junior Minister to claim on tax up to the limit of his salary if the Chancellor could approve of it. That would have given the junior Minister a clear £1,500 or £1,200, or whatever it may be—up to the full extent of his salary. In fact, I would have gone farther and allowed the senior Ministers to have done so.

Mr. David Renton (Huntingdon)

I think that important principles, though they are, perhaps, simple ones, are involved in this Clause about which there appears to be some obscurity. Until hon. Members become Ministers of the Crown—even junior ones—they should be expected to he part-timers, giving about a third of the day and half the night to Parliamentary duties, and the rest of their time to gaining other experience outside. That, I think, is expected from all sides of the House. There is no third stage, no halfway stage, between being part-timers giving some time to our own businesses, and some to the business of Parliament, and the period when we become Ministers of the Crown, and have to devote all our time to public duties. If we are to continue to attract the best people into politics, we must guarantee— especially in these days when large private incomes are not the rule—that those who are prepared to give their whole time to Parliament will be able to live in such a way as would be expected of Ministers of the British Crown. By adopting the halfway stage between the two extremes, if I may use that expression, the Bill confuses the issue. If the Chancellor can reconcile the principle to which I refer with what he has done, in the Bill, I think the Committee will be grateful.

Mr. Dalton

In these proposals we are following nearly, but not quite, the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee. That Committee recommended that the private Member's salary should be increased from £600 to £1,000, and it also recommended Income Tax reliefs which we have not accepted. It also recommended that Ministers in receipt of less than £5,000 should receive an increase of £500, free of tax. We are now recommending that, in the same way for the junior Minister as for the private Member, proof be given in all cases of expenses incurred. We have, therefore, followed closely these unanimous proposals and, in practice no doubt, junior Ministers will be able to put up a case if not for the exemption of the whole £500, then for nearly all of it, by specific statements made as to expenses incurred. Therefore we are keeping very closely to the recommendation that was made to us unanimously by Members of all parties, but we are safeguarding it in this case as in the other, by requiring individual proof to be given. I think that this is just, because the junior Minister is in an intermediate position, and we should wish to place him between the Minister having £5,000 a year, and the private Member receiving £1,000 a year. It does still make it, under this scheme, financially Worth while for the private Member to accept office as a junior Minister, including in this the office of Whip. It does make it worth while, leaving out of account the possibility of the private Member making additional income by other activities. Therefore we do retain the relativity, and we do remove what until now was the absurd position that the private Member being invited to become a junior Whip should lose money. That is obviously nonsense. You cannot get the promotion of talent under these conditions, and under conditions that will, in fact, now stop if this is accepted. In future there will be an increment of net income, in the vast majority of cases, for the private Member who accepts promotion to the junior Ministerial rank or even to a post in the Whip's office.

I ask the Committee then to accept this proposal, noticing, in passing, the approach of the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) to this point. He did not state it exactly; it was stated by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) in an earlier discussion on this matter. The proposal was then suggested that the private Member, on becoming a Minister, whether a junior Minister or a Minister of Cabinet rank, should continue to receive his full salary as a Member of Parliament. That would be open to the grave objection that you would discriminate against Members of another place. These provisions are solely designed to assist Members of this House; there is no assistance in any of these proposals, for members of another place who happen to hold Ministerial office. But if it were attempted to modify this proposal in the sense of giving full private Member's salary—the £ 1,000 a year as we have now decided it, plus £4,000 a year to make it a total of £5,000—then this would discriminate between Members of another place, and that we do not think would be wise or reasonable. On this point we think we ought to hold the relativity reasonably fairly where it gives sufficient improvement to the position of the junior Minister, or Whips, as compared with the private Member of Parliament. In this world we cannot do more than rough justice from stage to stage. We hope this particular proposition will be acceptable to the Committee.

Captain Crookshank

I notice the Chancellor did not reply to the hon. Member's request that he should explain on what principle it was decided that the Ministers should not have any kind of Parliamentary allowance. When the scheme was introduced I noticed the right hon. Gentleman did not give any explanation; I suspect he has not the foggiest idea.

Mr. Dalton

The answer is quite simple.

Captain Crookshank

It is a pity the Chancellor was not courteous enough to give it to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Dalton

It is history.

Captain Crookshank

The right hon. Member has been a lecturer in his time. He still has the opportunity, of course. On the Clause as it now stands I frankly said, on the Second Reading, that the general plan outlined was one which, on the whole, I thought was a good one. But I must say I would not have used—and I think that on reflection perhaps the Chancellor would prefer to modify them—the words which the right hon. Gentleman used just now that one of the purposes was to make it financially worth while for a Member to take office. Surely he could not have meant that. I would have thought that the sort of way he would put it would be that the acceptance of office by a private Member should not be necessarily a financial catastrophe to that Member.

Mr. Dalton

It is the same thing.

Captain Crookshank

No, it is not. To say it is financially worth while to take office would make it appear that private Members were grasping at the opportunity of getting office for the money they were going to get out of it. That is the only interpretation of those words, and that is why I say the Chancellor did not really mean that. What he meant was the case to which I alluded in the Second Reading Debate, namely, that it was known that on occasions hon. Members who had either professional or business ties and had certain obligations at the time they were suggested for office, did not find it possible to accept office; that it was incumbent upon them if they accepted office to give up all other sources of income, and that it was to get over that difficulty that a certain rise in the salary of junior Ministers was considered by Governments desirable. But it was not a case of making it financially worth while to become a Minister. I hope, without being at all smug, that we can say of hon. Members opposite, as I hope it can be said of us on this side, that those who take office take it, rightly or wrongly, because they think they can help the State in a higher capacity than if they were private Members.

I would, however, like to come back to the question of whether it is possible to deal with Cabinet Ministers under these proposals. Under this Clause, I think the right hon. Gentleman can do so, because it refers to Ministers so long as the salary is less than £5,000 a year. It does not link it up with the question of whether they are first-class Ministers or junior Ministers. It merely gives the touchstone of whether in the Estimate they are put down as receiving £5,000 a year, should the Committee of Supply grant it to them. So far as I can see, if we passed this Clause, there would be nothing to make it impossible for the salaries of all those Cabinet Ministers in the next Estimates to be changed from £5,000 to £4,500. They would then, I presume, come within this Clause; it would then be competent for them to receive £500 as Members of this House and, by virtue of that office as a Member of this House, such a Minister would be able to charge against that £500 any necessary expenses incurred in the duty of a Member of Parliament. I think I am right. I think this Clause makes that possible.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

indicated dissent.

Captain Crookshank

If the Financial Secretary would explain to me why not, I should be glad. I am only anxious to help. I feel there is a grievance on the part of Cabinet Ministers who are earning £5,000. I myself have never been in that position, so I speak quite impartially. It is only since I have left the Post Office that anybody seems to have thought fit to raise the salary, and I am grateful for the sake of my successor, that he has been so fortunate, although I cannot think his merits are greater than those of his predecessors. However, he has been fortunate. This is a matter which Cabinet Ministers obviously find difficult to raise themselves. I hope, therefore, that the Chancellor will look at this matter and see whether, without any more Bills, under the wording of this Clause, the actual Cabinet salary could drop to £4,500, thereby enabling Ministers under this Clause to get the £500. The gross amount would be the same, but they would have something against which they could charge constituency expenses to which they are exposed just as much as the rest of us. I hope the Chancellor will consider that point. I understood from what he said that he thought that would be a discrimination against Ministers in the Upper House. Of course, if all the salaries were dropped it would be a discrimination to the extent that £500 a year would be dropped from the gross salary if it were made universal, but it is not beyond the wit of man to introduce Supplementary Estimates and, indeed, in the main Estimates it is frequently the case within my knowledge that particular posts or offices carry varying salaries according to the occupant. It is quite common to find a little footnote saying, " during the occupancy of the present holder of this office " such and such a personal salary will be paid. Therefore—and again I am only trying to help the Chancellor—it would be quite possible, I think, subject to any advice he may take, to have just such a proviso, that if the holder of that particular office was a Member of another place the salary should remain at £5,000 a year, but if the holder were a Member of this House it would be £4,500.

I throw these suggestions out to the Chancellor in a real desire to help the comparatively few hon. Members who sit or the front bench opposite and who are unfairly treated in this respect. It is a point of real substance. I do not see why all of us who sit in this Committee should not be treated as Members of Parliament primarily; and the fact that some become Under-Secretaries and some become Cabinet Ministers should be over and above that. However, the Chancellor does not agree, to the extent of letting everybody have £1,000 a year as Members of Parliament, and makes variations, because he has drafted the Clause in this way. We have to accept that. He has the majority, and he can drive the Clause through if he wants to. He can put it at £500. All I suggest is that he and his advisers should apply their minds to seeing whether the assistance we are giving to junior Ministers in this Clause should not be extended to those who at present get a gross sum of £5,000. Perhaps by some rearrangement it might be possible to bring them within the benefit of this Clause. If that arrangement can be made, I do not suppose anybody would have any objection.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

Talking of Ministerial salaries is an embarrassing matter. As most of what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) said dealt with Ministers of Cabinet rank drawing £5,000 a year, perhaps it is less embarrassing for me, not being one of them, to reply than it would be for the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. This matter has been carefully examined, and it is the Government's view that only junior Ministers should be legislated for. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman wanted to know whether the wording of this Bill did not enable Ministers of the Crown receiving £5,000 a year to be brought within the ambit of Clause 3. That is impossible, because the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, lays down quite definitely that the annual salary To each of the Ministers of the Crown named in Part I of the First Schedule to this Act, shall, subject to the provisions of this Act as to number, be five thousand pounds. Thus the salaries of these Ministers are definitely fixed. Clause 3 of the present Bill, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, applies only to those receiving less than £5,000.

The other question the right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked was why the amount paid to Members of Parliament is called a " salary."That, perhaps, is a lesson to all of us. It dates back to 1911 when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the late Earl Lloyd George, referred to the new allowance which it was proposed to pay under a resolution then passed by the House as a " salary."Those of us who have gone through the evidence submitted to the Collins Committee at the end of the first world war, and who have read the reports of the Debates in this House will, perhaps, remember that the late Sir Austen Chamberlain, in one of those Debates, referred to the fact that it was a pity that this allowance had been referred to as a " salary." Had it been called an " allowance " history might have been different. But the fact is that it is called a salary, and I am afraid we have to accept the facts as they are. As the present proposals are practically the findings of the Committee that sat upstairs, I hope this Committee will accept them.

Captain Crookshank

I am much obliged to the Financial Secretary for calling my attention to that. I was not sure, in view of what had been said about the Minister of Pensions—

Mr. Dalton

The Act of 1916.

Captain Crookshank

No, it is the same Act of 1937. That is where the Chancellor keeps going astray. What seemed to me to apply in one case I thought might apply in the other. Evidently the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not want to help his colleagues, but it is no concern of mine, if they do not want it. I was merely offering a suggestion that this was the occasion on which it might have been done. The Financial Secretary has pointed out prohibiting words, but there is nothing to prevent an Amendment being made within this Bill to take out the prohibiting words. However, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not want to have the benefit, and if he does not want his colleagues to have the benefit, who am I to press it upon them? I thought it was a generous gesture on the part of hon. Members on this side of the Committee.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.