HC Deb 02 December 1948 vol 458 cc2300-12

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Snow.]

9.55 p.m.

Mr. Price - White (Caernarvon Boroughs)

In the brief period available to me, I wish to direct the attention of this House to a letter which was sent out by the Establishment Department of the Ministry of Food at Colwyn Bay on 12th October last—a letter the terms of which I can only describe as infamous. I should, at the outset, make it quite clear that I mention the name of Colwyn Bay, which lies in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Denbigh (Sir H. Morris-Jones), who is unfortunately not able to be present tonight, because this letter was received by and vitally affects a number of my own constituents; hence my raising the matter tonight. This letter was addressed—as the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food was good enough to tell me early last month in reply to a Question I put to her—to 33 temporary civil servants of the Ministry of Food. It read as follows: Sir or Madam, Reports from your senior officers indicate that you are not carrying out with due efficiency the duties appropriate to your grade. It has therefore been decided to transfer you to another post, particulars of which will be sent to you shortly, and I am to warn you that if a similar report is received from your new division, serious consideration will be given to the termination of your services with the Ministry. Any observations you may wish to make should be forwarded in writing to the Establishment Department, Colwyn Bay Hotel, within three days of receipt of this letter. I am, Sir or Madam, Your obedient Servant, M. Moir. There is a very strange anonymity about that signature. For all I know, the letter is simply signed by a very charming and very efficient lady or an equally charming and efficient gentleman. As we all know, in Ministerial documents and missives, it is the pride of the Ministry that some sort of title should appear under the signature. After all, the Ministry of Food, whether at Colwyn Bay or elsewhere, has, of necessity, a very large number of people who may never have heard of M. Moir. I raise the point as to whether, strictly speaking, this letter, although addressed from that Department, came from anybody else but M. Moir. In the first place, I think that the Minister might see to it that when threatening letters are sent out they should be sent over a dignified title.

That letter very naturally raised a great deal of concern and disquiet, not only among the recipients, but among their colleagues who felt that if the sword dropped on certain necks adjacent to them, their own necks were not particularly safe in the immediate future. I cannot believe that such apprehension would conduce to the efficient running of the particular Department of the Ministry. I will say, with great respect, that the hon. Lady gave me an explanation. It is sometimes said that men hide behind the skirts of females for protection. I must say that this time the hon. Lady has hidden behind the skirts of officialdom. She informed me across the Floor of the House that the representative of the staff on the Whitley Council had agreed to the procedure. I almost felt that she sighed with relief as she said that.

When she replies, I would like her to tell me how far the representatives of the staff on the national and local Whitley Council are truly representative of the temporary civil servants. The disturbing factor is that those receiving this letter had completed service with the Ministry of Food at Colwyn Bay, or elsewhere, of something like five years. If I employed someone, or if any hon. Member or any business man or official employed someone for five years, and it took them that time to find out whether he or she was inefficient or not, the sooner the business went to Carey Street the better.

I have always paid the hon. Lady the compliment—and I trust I shall long continue to do so, although not in her present position but possibly a little nearer to where I am standing——

It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. J. Henderson.]

Mr. Price-White

I have always, I say, paid the hon. Lady the compliment of believing that she thinks before she speaks in the replies she gives. On this occasion, I think, she spoke before she thought. She made a statement that has aggravated the situation. She said that this letter had been sent to 33 civil servants, and that she and her Minister were quite rightly determined to secure the efficiency of the Ministry and its staff, but that during the war they had to take what they could get. That was not a remark to inspire confidence among members of the staff of the Ministry of Food who were recruited during the war. The Ministry of Food, of all Ministries, did a first-rate job during the war, and they produced better results than we are experiencing today. There was no question of selectivity during the war, but we had to take what we could get. But we won the war, and the Ministry did their job.

This explanation of the threatened notice of impending dismissal, that the Ministry had to take what they could get during the war, was rather unkind, and it is certainly not an expression which is likely to increase the morale, efficiency and team spirit of the staff of the Ministry of Food. When a temporary civil servant enters the Ministry's employment he is handed, with due ceremony, a staff rule book. This is not the rule book of the Civil Service Commissioners, but is the rule book that is given to temporary civil servants. Rule 5 states: If the conduct or efficiency of an officer is considered to fall short of the proper standards, he shall be notified by his superior officer of his shortcomings in order that he may have an opportunity of explaining himself and of correcting the deficiency before an adverse report is made about him. I can well appreciate the hon. Lady may argue that this letter of 12th October is a notice under the terms of this rule, but I maintain that it is nothing of the sort. All these ladies and gentlemen who receive these letters—and I have had representations from them all—have told me that no superior officer warned them about their work or suggested any degree of inefficiency. In fact, and I have permission to quote his name, Mr. Roberts, who had been employed for six years at Colwyn Bay, immediately he received this letter proceeded at once to his superior officer and asked what it was all about. He, quite rightly, said that he had served for over six years without any adverse comment, and that he had had no warning to indicate to him that his work was not up to standard until receipt of this infamous letter. He was told that his representations were comprehended, but that the information could not be divulged to him.

If this is typical of the attitude towards those who are employed by the Ministry, then it is time that the hon. Lady looked into the matter very thoroughly. I should like to know, and many temporary civil servants would like to know, who called for this report of inefficiency. Under what rule and what procedure was it asked for, and where does the eventual decision lie? These people were all we could get during the war and they did not do a bad job. They have been employed for these past few years and then out of the blue came these allegations. How many other temporary and permanent civil servants are apprehensive about a similar letter being received by them? Who has called for it and what is the decision and policy behind it? If we are going to make our Civil Service as efficient as it has been in the past, this sort of thing must be removed, and the sooner the better.

In connection with this question there arises the whole issue of the temporary civil servants. There is an unrecognised body known as the National Association of Temporary Civil Servants, and it produces notepaper as devastating and as impressive as any other organisation. Having regard to the fact that temporary civil servants are doing so much in connection with the lives of the people of this country, that association is a very necessary one. It has been formed, but has been completely unrecognised, and that has brought about a state of affairs which discloses the principle of the closed shop in its worst form.

I shall be glad to be corrected by the hon. Lady on this, but according to my information these temporary civil servants have no direct and proper voice upon the Whitley or other councils of employers and employees in the Civil Service. This particular association is doing its best to band together and represent the temporary civil servants, but it is ostracised by one official body, I believe that with which the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) had some association—the Civil Service Clerical Association. This is the sort of nonsense that goes on. The secretary of the North Wales branch of the Temporary Civil Servants Association also happened to belong to the more ecclesiastical branch of the Civil Service Clerical Association. He was sent a letter informing him that unless he dissociated himself from the Temporary Civil Servants Association, he was out. He did not dissociate himself and he was duly out in three days' time. That sort of occurrence arising in the Civil Service is much to be reprehended.

Finally, I ask the hon. Lady to go into this matter as it affects the position of temporary civil servants not only in her Ministry but in all other Ministries. A similar position arose at the Income Tax Commission's branch at Llandudno where a graduate of the University of Wales—I do not say he was better for being a graduate of a Welsh university than any other university—who had been acting in puerile jobs for five years was suddenly informed that he was inefficient and he was to go. Finally—and this to my mind rather blows the gaff—a young lady was also the recipient of one of these letters. She worked for the Ministry and ap- parently there had been good reports of her work, which had been commended, for nearly six years. When she received this letter she determined that she was not going to take a slap in the face like that lying down, so she addressed a letter to the sinister M. Moir, and this is the reply she received:

"MADAM,

Your observations in reply to my recent letter concerning the report and the manner in which you carried out the duties in your present grade has been received. I would point out that your senior officers were responsible for drawing up this report and you should refer to them for any further information regarding it.—I am, Dear Madam, Yours faithfully"—

and then comes the sinister "M. Moir."

At whose door lies the decision? This young lady was not going to take "No" for an answer. She was a member of the Civil Service Clerical Association, and I would quote what is typical of the replies in all cases. In virtue of her membership of the Civil Service Clerical Association she wrote to the branch secretary who ruled over the membership at Colwyn Bay. She got this reply, with the very friendly opening:

"DEAR COLLEAGUE,

Thank you for your letter of the 20th, to which was attached the letter that you received"—

the letter from the sinister M. Moir. Here is where the gaff was well and truly blown:

"I am sorry to say that there is nothing the Association can do to help you at the moment, as the letter comes into the scope of the redundancy agreement by which we have to abide."

The letter goes on with a few regrets.

If these arrangements, these letters and this very obvious and human panic, are because of the redundancy agreement, because the Ministry need a new staff, why did they not do it properly? Why did not the Ministry come out in a sporting way and, if there are too many people on the staff, call them together and say, "You are redundant. You have served us well, but we are sorry. You must take your cards at the end of the month. We shall be pleased to give you a reference to any other job you may he seeking"?

I doubt very much whether any private employer who had been foolish enough to endure inefficiency on his staff and the cost which it must have meant to him for six years, would have adopted a subterfuge to get rid of them. He would have called each member of the staff and told him bluntly that he was no good or that he could not afford to retain him. I should like the hon. Lady to confirm or deny whether the Civil Service Clerical Association is right in saying that the letter of 12th November is part of an agreed plan under the Whitley Council to get rid of redundant staff. If it is, all well and good, but let it be known to the temporary civil servants that they are losing their situation because they are redundant, and because there are too many people, doing too few jobs.

If that is the real reason make it so. Do not stoop to this spiteful, unnecessary and almost libellous way of telling people after all these years and after they had been doing, within their limitations and capabilities, a good job of work, that they are no good. Let it also be known whether the inefficiency which is alleged is recorded on the personnel files of the Ministry or not. What is fit to be told to the Civil Service Clerical Association is surely fit to be told to the country and to the people concerned. If it is not, I can only say that the system described to me by one of the victims is, as he says, a rotten, dirty, low-down trick.

10.14 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill)

I cannot hope to compete with the elegant language used by the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. It is most unfortunate that he should come here tonight and ventilate this matter in this way. If he had cared to tell me that he had heard from these people whom we have had to inform that we regard them as inefficient, I should have been only too happy to go through each case with him if he had named them. I am quite sure that I could have convinced him that the action taken by my Department was the right one.

I find myself in a most curious position, a most unaccustomed role, and that is defending the action of my Department in trying to improve the efficiency of the Ministry of Food. Not a week passes without an hon. Member opposite putting down a Question asking me for the numbers in one of the Divisions of my Department, and generally a supplementary question follows imply- ing that we are over-staffed and conducting our Department inefficiently. My right hon. Friend and I are always having to defend the large numbers which are in the Ministry of Food and the work of our officials, and we are glad to do so; but we do not sit back and say that things must continue in the way they have done in the past, knowing as we do that during the war years we were compelled to take on individuals to do certain work—often simple clerical work—whom we would not have taken on had there been a larger market.

The hon. Gentleman's illogical argument was a little difficult to follow. First of all, he challenged me with trying to replace these people. He then said that everybody had to take anything that was offered. He challenges me and then he agrees with me. He agrees that during the war Government Departments and businesses alike were compelled by the shortage of labour to take people whom they might not have taken had there been a choice. I should remind the hon. Member that my Department was established as a permanent Ministry after the war and we were in need of thousands of clerical workers. The hon. Member can go back to Colwyn Bay and have a long chat with the 33 and he will be very surprised to find out what their backgrounds were. I will not follow the example of the hon. Gentleman, which was grossly unfair, in giving the names in this House of people concerned in the case.

Mr. Price-White

I gave one name only and made it perfectly clear that I gave it with the express permission of the gentleman concerned. I gave no other names.

Dr. Summerskill

The hon. Member gave a name which he repeated about six times and he talked about it as a "sinister" name. The hon. Gentleman's speech was one of the most amazing contributions I have heard in my life. I want him to remember that conditions have now changed and that it is possible for us to get replacements. Because of that on 4th August this year we had a meeting at Colwyn Bay of the Colwyn Bay Whitley Committee, which represents both sides of the Civil Service, and it was agreed that a special survey should take place in order to assess the capacity of each of the clerks—there are 625—with a view to discharging those who were inefficient. That was agreed by both sides of the Whitley Committee.

A letter was sent by the establishment officer in Colwyn Bay to each senior officer telling them of the agreement, explaining the reasons for the survey and asking for reports to be sent on each clerk in their Division. The senior officers were told that, under this special survey, each clerk who was reported as inefficient for the first time should not be discharged without being given an opportunity of serving in another division.

In other words, the letter made it quite clear that we were not going to discharge these people without allowing each one of them a fair opportunity to show their capacity under a new senior officer who could not possibly be prejudiced. I suggest that no business firm would act in that way. A business firm, having found that a clerk was inefficient and knowing that that clerk could be replaced, would not say, through the manager or whoever it was responsible, "Now I will send you to another part of the business where you can have another chance." But that has been done in the case of each of these 33 people whom the hon. Member alleges have been treated in an infamous manner.

As a result of this decision, 625 clerks were reported on. Out of these 625 only 33 were reported as being inefficient. These clerks were warned of what was being done. It was made quite clear to them what our procedure was going to be—the procedure which the hon. Gentleman quotes under Section 5 of the Staff Manual to which I understand each clerk had access. That was waived for the time being, but I want to make it quite clear that the matter was thoroughly threshed out with the Colwyn Bay Whitley Committee before any step was taken. Before we asked for the report we informed the senior officers what was to be done. I think I have made it quite clear that this was in the nature of a warning, nothing more—a warning to these people that we were not satisfied with their work, but that they would be given another chance and then, in the event of their failing to do their work satisfactorily, they would be discharged.

I want to turn to the point raised about the officer who signed the letter. Again, I say I think it was grossly unfair of the hon. Member to mention this lady's name. She is a permanent civil servant, a very responsible woman, who has been with the Ministry for many years. Her grade is that of an executive officer and she is now receiving allowances while filling the post and doing the work of a higher executive officer. That work is regarded as appropriate to her grade. She reports directly to the senior establishment officer. For the hon. Gentleman to describe this highly respectable woman, a woman in whom we have confidence, as "sinister" is grossly unfair.

Mr. Price-White

I did not know it was a lady. I did not know who it was; that is my complaint.

Dr. Summerskill

The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed this matter on many occasions. I have not for one moment shown any desire to hide anything. I am very willing to be helpful. If the hon. Gentleman had asked me who was the lady who signed the letter I should have been glad to tell him.

Mr. Price-White

I did not know whether she was married or not.

Dr. Summerskill

What does it matter if it were a Miss, Mrs. or Mr. The Hon. Gentleman talks about her as anonymous." How can anyone be anonymous if she signs her name? I think the hon. Gentleman has been a little mixed tonight and I think he has been rather unfair to his particular woman.

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the National Association of Civil Servants. I observe that he did not tell the House how many temporary civil servants there are in that association. That association had a meeting in Colwyn Bay last week in order to agitate on this question. Ten people were in the hall; two were Press, two were visitors and the remaining six were from the association The hon. Gentleman should know that the Whitley Council is representative of those associations which are recognised by the staff as truly representing their interests. He talked about the closed shop, and made slighting references to the Civil Service Clerical Association. He should know that that association represents 50 per cent. of these workers. He then went on to suggest that the Whitley Council is not representative of the people about whom he is talking. I have looked carefully into this matter and find that of the seven people on the staff side of the Whitley Council in Colwyn Bay, five are temporary staff—five out of seven, representing these victims of the cruelty of the Ministry of Food.

Before the hon. Gentleman comes to this House he really must make himself better informed. He must realise that these people are fairly represented on the Whitley Council; that both permanent and temporary civil servants can raise their voices there. We should not have been so stupid or so cruel as to dismiss these people in an arbitrary fashion. We have simply called for reports from their senior officers and of 625 people we have been told that 33 do not come up to scratch. We, therefore, said to these people, "Look here, you are not doing as well as you should, but we are going to give you another chance. Go somewhere else for a period and let us see what we can do." What could be fairer?

I have looked into every case and I want to congratulate establishment officers, and particularly Miss Moir, for the part they have played in this matter. I welcome this Debate because it shows the public that in my Department we have no intention of tolerating inefficiency and that the Government as a whole will not allow Government Departments to become safe refuges for those who are not prepared to pull their weight.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. Joynson-Hicks (Chichester)

If it has done nothing else, this Debate has caused the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to complete a perfect volte-face. She started off by blaming the hon. Member for Caernarvon Boroughs (Mr. Price-White) for raising this matter, and finished by saying that she welcomed the Debate.

Dr. Summerskill

Let us be quite accurate. I think that I blamed the hon. Gentleman for making certain names public.

Mr. Joynson-Hicks

That was only one of the things for which the hon. Lady blamed the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Lady began by saying that many things were amazing, including the speech of my hon. Friend, but I venture to say that this Debate has shown us the most amazing procedure ever adopted by any Gov- ernment Department. I do not think that the hon. Lady's explanation would bring any comfort or justice to any person who had suffered in this way. Here we have 33 people employed by her Department for an average period of five years. No complaint is made about them to themselves. By arrangement with some organisation which represents their interests, but without their knowledge, they are reported upon by their senior officers. They receive this communication, which is in drastic terms, and when they seek to obtain information as to the basis upon which it is issued, they are told to go to their senior officers. Their senior officers say, "There is nothing we can tell you at all." I do not know of anything which is more hole-in-the-corner, and I cannot imagine it occurring in any other Department. The one good thing which has come out of this Debate is that the Ministry of Food is making some endeavour, albeit by a method of which no one could possibly approve, to try to introduce some efficiency into its staff.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes past Ten o'Clock.