HC Deb 27 October 1952 vol 505 cc1689-704

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

9.26 p.m.

Dr. Horace King (Southampton, Test)

I am asking the Government to withdraw a circular which interferes with the elementary freedom of British civil servants. British citizens boast that they are politically free people. That roughly means that British citizens have the right to vote, to speak and to write freely, to form associations of any kind, to offer themselves for election to locally and nationally elected bodies, and to raise personal or group grievances by petition or letter to the Crown or to Parliament.

People take most of these freedoms for granted, but it is worthwhile reminding ourselves that not a single one of them but had to be won, and that even the most obvious right that I exercise tonight as a Member of Parliament to say what one likes in this House and to propose what Bills one likes cost the life of the most distinguished Back Bencher who ever spoke in this House, Peter Wentworth, many years ago.

It is worth remembering that even the right of every adult to vote is hardly a quarter of a century old, that the rights of civil servants to express political opinions, and, having formed trade unions, to meet and talk with their fellow trade unionists, had to be won inside this century and that the second of them was taken away from them by a Government between the wars and had to be won back after the Second World War, after having been refused them by the present Prime Minister during the war.

We should be proud of the freedoms that we have won, many of them in this century, many of them by bitter struggle, by sacrifices on the part of trade unionists and even by personal sacrifice on the part of many of my hon. Friends on this side of the House.

It is in that spirit I would point out that as yet not everybody in this country is politically free, even in a so-called free democracy. For example, the elementary right to stand for election to public bodies is not universal. Teachers, local government officials, policemen, busmen and dustmen are not eligible to stand for election as free citizens to the body which employs them. That is a great wrong to hundreds of thousands of public employees and one which should be put right. It is not until a local government employee has reached the stage where he is no longer eligible to earn his living in an intelligent way that he is deemed by the law to be eligible to sit and to administer the affairs of the country.

There are restrictions in the off-duty life of the British policeman. Although, like every other citizen, he is a human being as well as a wage-earner, his political and social life are circumscribed. Some of us hope that a Home Secretary will one day give full civic freedom to the British policeman. Political freedom includes more than the right to vote; it includes the right of a citizen to approach Parliament on any matter touching his life and wellbeing. That is an ancient right, the right of petition of the British citizen to the Crown and to Parliament.

That right, I believe, is bound up with the undoubted right of a Member of Parliament to say what he likes in this House, subject only to the disciplinary control of his fellow Members, and that discipline exercised only in the interests of order and decency. Indeed, cases in which free citizens have in letters to Members of Parliament made personal, grave and possibly libellous charges against other people, have been ruled by law not to be libellous when they occur inside the privilege of writing to one's Member of Parliament.

Part of the British Civil Service denies its employees this right of an approach to a Member of Parliament. A circular which I have previously, so far in vain, urged the Minister to withdraw, says: RULE ON APPROACHES BY CIVIL SERVANTS TO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.—A civil servant must not attempt to bring political or other outside influences to support or advance individual claims as a civil servant. If he is dissatisfied on a personal matter his proper course is to approach his senior officer about it, or to pass his complaint through his senior officer to his Establishment Division or to seek the help and advice of his Staff Association. In the last resort he may appeal to the Head of his Department. Most British citizens have other resorts after having pleaded with the head of their Department, after having taken all the legitimate methods of stating their case, but not the civil servant. The Bill of Rights says that the freedom of speech or debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be questioned or impeached in any court or place out of Parliament."' It should have a proviso—"This does not apply to all civil servants." For if a Member of Parliament were to raise the individual professional grievance of a civil servant on the Floor of this House, whilst nobody would dare to attempt to punish the Member of Parliament who raised it, his employers could, and apparently would, punish the free Briton who gave the Member of Parliament the information.

I think this so wrong that recently I ventured to raise with Mr. Speaker whether the circular of which I complained before was not itself a breach of the Privilege of Members of Parliament to say what they liked in this House. Of course, I accepted the opinion of Mr. Speaker that it was not any such breach of Privilege, but I still consider that if, because of this circular, a Member of Parliament dare not speak of a matter here for fear of hurting a citizen whose case he seeks to advance, then this circular, morally at any rate if not legally, contravenes the spirit of the sheet anchor of British freedom, the right to raise grievances.

May I clear out of the way the misapprehension under which the Minister suffered when I last questioned him on this matter? I do not seek, nobody in their senses would seek, to introduce party political influence into the Civil Service. We are rightly proud of the fact that we have the most incorruptible Civil Service in the world, that we are well served by our State employees. I am certain that the Minister agrees with me, although it is from the opposite benches only that at election time candidates go out of their way to denigrate the Civil Service. We do not want party appointments. We do not want party protection. We do not want "spoils of office" in questions affecting the promotions, wages or pensions of civil servants. But when a citizen comes to his Member of Parliament, it is not a party matter.

Members of Parliament today handle thousands of constituency cases. I know of no Member of Parliament who, in dealing with a personal case, would ask whether the constituent voted for him at the last election. One takes up a constituent's case not as a Socialist, not as a Tory, but as a Member of Parliament helping the British citizen. If I may give a personal example. If my own children were in trouble they would seek the help of the Minister who is to reply to this debate, as they live in Surbiton and are his constituents. I am certain that they would receive the careful help that I know he gives to all his constituents, even though my children spend most of their spare time making sure that one day Surbiton, too, will return a Labour Member of Parliament.

One would not want civil servants to avoid any of the procedure outlined in the circular, procedure that is necessary in the interests of decent relationships between employee and employer. One would want no backstairs political intrigue, no "sea" lawyer always rushing off to his Member of Parliament. Such a creature inside the Civil Service would get no sympathy from a Member of Parliament any more than such a creature outside in the wide sphere of life would get sympathy. But the right that most citizens have, and it is a right that they prize, is that when all normal means of satisfaction has been sought, a man may "Write to his M.P. about it." I believe that to be a precious privilege, even if sometimes, like most Members of Parliament at the receiving end, I find it a burdensome privilege to a Member of Parliament.

The case of an individual British citizen who has been wronged, or, much more commonly, who thinks he has been wronged, can be taken by his Member of Parliament to the Minister concerned, right through to the Floor of the House of Commons if necessary. That is democracy, that is magnificent, but up to the moment it does not apply to the Civil Service.

I may be told by the Minister that civil servants are treated as human beings in some ways; that they may talk to their Member of Parliament about everything except their conditions of work. They may talk to their Member of Parliament about whether we should recognise the present Government of China, about the sanitary conditions in the schools in their area, or about the need for a new lamp in the street, but whatever they do they must not speak about the conditions under which they earn their living. These, however, are essential features of the life of the civil servant just as of everybody else, and these are things about which most people particularly want to talk to their Member of Parliament.

I was tonight tempted to give examples, and then it seemed to me that it would be pitiful and humiliating as a free Member of Parliament that I should have to disguise the cases of three men whom I know in order that there should be no repercussions in the lives of these three men, each of whom has a legitimate grievance and has talked to me about it, and each of whom had to decide with me that I dare not do anything about it.

But in each case there was an individual anomaly, and each was the kind of case I would have willingly taken up for any other citizen who lives in the free section of our community. As a freely elected Member of Parliament, I find it most humiliating to tell a fellow countryman that I cannot take up his case without risking hurting his career.

To me it was shocking that a man working in a Government factory was brought before his superior officers and reprimanded because, having been transferred into the Government factory from the free world outside, he had thought he was still in order to write to me as his Member of Parliament about conditions in his factory.

In asking the Minister to withdraw the circular, I am asking nothing unreasonable. What I seek obtains in some Government Departments and for some civil servants. It is true that it was won after a long struggle and that in that struggle, as far as the Post Office was concerned, men like my hon. Friend the Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams), and the Post Office Workers' Union, played an important part.

Let me illustrate my case from the Post Office. There, so far as manipulative grades are concerned, a man with a personal grievance may approach his superior officers and trade union organisation. That is right, and normally that is the end of it. If there is an injustice the injustice can be put right. But, if it does not end there, if the postman is not satisfied, he can ask and will get permission to lay the matter before his Member of Parliament.

I have had such postmen in my constituency bringing a complaint to me-against the Postmaster-General or against superior officers after they had exhausted all the usual channels of protest. The Postmaster-General, I am quite certain, finds no inconvenience in what seems to me a very natural chain of procedure. I doubt whether anyone inside the Post Office can find any example of any abuse of such a scheme.

How can it be abused? What harm can a man do by going to his Member of Parliament? Similarly, in the Armed Forces if a man has a grievance he usually takes it up with the usual channels and, finally, to his commanding officer. But the Service man also has a right, when all normal methods have failed, of bringing the matter before his Member of Parliament. Outside Government employment every British citizen has the right. Even the local government employee, restricted as he is, has the right to write to his Member of Parliament without endangering the structure of local government.

Cases needing help may be rare, but no matter how rare the case the right of an individual exists and should obtain inside the Civil Service even if only one man's freedom is at stake. Even the best machinery of negotiation and the best machinery of management or trade unionism can make an error. Even the most admirable rules and regulations may fail to fit some individual case which needs some further ventilation. Even the law itself has its Court of Appeal. In the most rare cases it is just possible that some very grave injustice may be committed because the right to take a civil servant's personal problem further is not permitted.

The demand I make on behalf of my fellow citizens is moral rather than material. We Members of this House probably know that we cannot solve most of the cases that come to us from our constituents. We may fail to solve them, may fail to help the man, but the man who has approached his Member of Parliament, even if his Member of Parliament has failed, has the moral and physchological satisfaction that his case has been examined at first hand and at the highest level. Many a grievance is an imaginary one but, if one believes in the individual, one must accept the right of the individual to be different, to be odd, to be stubborn, to be, in other words, an individual. I believe that applies to the civil servant as well.

To sum up, many civil servants have not the full freedoms which most British citizens enjoy. The State ought to be a model employer. I ask the Minister to give his employees the right that millions of their fellow workers have outside the Civil Service—that after exhausting all the proper and specified means of making complaints about some personal grievance they should have the right of calling in the aid of their Member of Parliament. If he will do that perhaps on some other occasion we might get rid of some of the other shackles which are still on the shoulders of many British citizens.

9.44 p.m.

Mr. Peter Roberts (Sheffield, Heeley)

I only wish to intervene in this debate for a short time. I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. King), said. I am only sorry that in the middle of his speech he should turn on hon. Members on this side of the House and accuse them of something they certainly do not do. That was when he said that they denigrate the Civil Service at election time. I think it unfortunate, when making a case which is certainly a human and personal one, he should go down so far in debating tactics as to enter into an aside of that kind.

I should like to ask my hon. Friend one point on this matter which has also disturbed me. I should like to know what form of disciplinary action could be taken against the civil servant who disobeyed the circular which apparently he has sent or is sending out and the custom which has long been the practice in the Civil Service.

It is a thing which should be generally known, and I am not sure it is generally known, even to many hon. Members of this House, that if certain of their constituents come to them they must be careful how they handle them and deal with them, in case, by their action, they should get them into trouble. On one or two occasions I have had experiences similar to those which the hon. Member seems to have had. I feel a little difficulty in having to say that as a Member of Parliament I am not able even privately and confidentially to take up the matter at the highest level.

I feel that it is a certain restriction upon my activities as a Member of Parliament. I have on some occasions in my constituency said I felt that the problem is certainly a difficult one but one which might be looked upon sympathetically by our Government, and I shall look forward with interest to hear what my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, has to say.

9.46 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter)

I think nobody can complain either of the not unimportant subject matter which has been chosen for tonight's debate or, indeed, the tone of either of the speeches, one rather longer and one rather shorter, to which the House has just listened. I am at one with both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. King) in agreeing that this is a matter which is well worth while ventilating in this House.

Perhaps I may first clear up a misapprehension which was certainly in the mind of my hon. Friend and I think also in the mind of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. My hon. Friend the Member for Heeley (Mr. P. Roberts) was good enough to refer to the circular which I had sent out or was sending out. Let me make it clear that, so far as I am aware, there is no current circular dealing with this matter.

The words which the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, quoted came from the appropriate edition of what is called, by a horribly telescoped word, "Estacode," which is the code of rules of the Service. To reassure my hon. Friend, I think I am entitled to point out that the edition in which the words complained of occur was issued in August, 1951. Therefore, it was not a circular, and if it was I did not send it out.

Dr. King

If anything I said gave the hon. Gentleman the impression that I was blaming him as a Minister for introducing this circular, I apologise. This circular has been in existence for a time.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I did not understand him to attribute it to me. It was my hon. Friend who I thought was under that impression, and I was only anxious to get the facts of the matter quite clear, that so far as I know there has been no central circular, though the words in Estacode could quite properly be referred to in a Departmental circular issued by any of the Departments. But from a purely procedural point of view the present form of the rule is the form which was issued in August, 1951, in the then edition of that rather disagreeably named publication.

This matter is quite clearly one which is not free from difficulty, and it is certainly not one on which I should wish to be in any degree dogmatic. It is difficult because it involves a balance of two very important considerations, and it involves an attempt to reconcile them. The first consideration is that to which the hon. Member for Southampton, Test referred with, I thought, great eloquence, the very important principle of the rights of a citizen of this country to take his grievance to his Parliamentary representative and, if that Parliamentary representative thinks fit, to have it raised on the Floor of this House. That is a very great principle. It goes very deep into our constitution, and I would not in any sense seek to diminish its very great importance, both from a constitutional point of view, and from the point of view of the liberty of the individual.

The other consideration also was referred to by the hon. Member. It is the great importance of maintaining in this country our tradition of a Civil Service which not only is wholly nonpolitical, but which, if I may adopt the phraseology of the late Lord Chief Justice, is manifestly seen to be nonpolitical. I was very glad that the hon. Member for Southampton, Test did pay a tribute to the Civil Service though, like my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley, I was a little sorry that he sought to suggest that admiration for this great national service was not equally shared by hon. Members on this side of the House. I can assure him, with great respect, that on that point at any rate he really is in error.

I am inclined to think that we in this country tend sometimes to under-rate the great national advantage we draw from the Civil Service in this country. It is only, perhaps, when we visit other countries which do not have this great advantage to their public life and administration that we fully appreciate the great advantage which we have. I think that no hon. Member would wish, even in the name of the rights of the individual, to do anything which would seriously diminish not only that detachment from politics, but that clear appearance of detachment from politics which is very nearly as important.

The matter we are discussing does involve the question of how best and at what point these two considerations to which I have referred can be reconciled. I should make it clear perhaps what is the position so far as the Civil Service is concerned. I shall not have the temerity to follow the example of the hon. Member into the realms of local government, since I understand that most prohibitions there are statutory and, be they wise or unwise, we are, as I understand it, not permitted to discuss them on the Motion for the Adjournment. No such difficulty arises in the case of the Civil Service proper and it is to that that the hon. Member directed the greater part of his speech.

The relevant ruling is included, as I have said, in this publication called Estacode, a copy of which and the relevant passage from which was, I think on the hon. Member's request, recently placed in the Library by the Treasury. It is important to have the wording very clearly in mind because a certain amount of my argument must follow this wording. It reads: A Civil Servant must not attempt to bring political or other outside influences to support or advance his individual claims as a civil servant. If he is dissatisfied on a personal matter his proper course is to approach his senior officer above him, or to pass his complaint through his senior officer to his Establishment Division, or to seek the advice and help of his Staff Association. In the last resort he may appeal to the head of his department. It may perhaps be of assistance to the House if I make it clear first of all what that prohibition does not do. It does not in any degree interfere with the exercise by a civil servant of his ordinary rights as a citizen on outside matters. He is as fully entitled as anybody else to seek the assistance of his Member of Parliament on such subjects as his Income tax, his desire to get a house, or any of the manifold problems about which, as hon. Members know so well, our constituents do quite properly approach us.

Equally, nothing could stop a civil servant—and here I think the hon. Member for Southampton, Test did not fully apprehend the effect of the rule—writing to his Member of Parliament about any general Civil Service question. An obvious example will spring to mind, and particularly in the case of the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward) if she were here—the question of equal pay.

On all such general Civil Service questions, the civil servant is perfectly entitled to get in touch with his Member of Parliament and seek his assistance. What he is prohibited from doing under the rule which I have read out is raising particular Civil Service questions personally affecting him, and, in particular, the sort of problem which involves his obtaining some advantage not necessarily open to everybody else. The obvious example in this respect is the question of promotion, since it follows that if one person is promoted to a particular vacancy, somebody else cannot be.

That is the rule, and there is, in theory, a fairly strong justification for it, though it is possible to exaggerate its practical effect. That is so because it seems to me very improbable that, in most circumstances, any responsible civil servant would think it right to seek the support of his Member of Parliament in order to seek some vacancy of promotion which, ex hypothesi, he was assuming he would not get without his aid.

I can perhaps illustrate that general position from my own personal experience. I have the honour to represent in this House a constituency which probably includes as many civil servants as any constituency in this country. I have represented it for seven years, and, when preparing myself for this debate, I did tax my memory to recall whether I had been approached in this sort of way by any civil servant constituent.

I am bound to tell the House that, in the course of those seven years, as far as I can recollect, no suggestion of that sort has ever been put to me by any civil servant constituent. I think that that does reflect, accurately and very favourably, the general approach of the service to this question, and I mention it only by way of illustration of the fact, apart from the theoretical argument with which I propose to deal, that it is in fact possible to attach excessive practical importance to this rule, whichever way—and I admit the argument is doubleedged—hon. Members regard it.

Perhaps I may put the argument on the general question, and that, I think, will help to get it into proportion. The civil servant who feels aggrieved in this sort of way, affecting his personal position or interests, already has a number of ways in which he can take up the question. If he wishes, he can raise it with any staff association of which he happens to be a member, and all hon. Members who have dealt with Civil Service staff associations know with what zeal they protect and defend the interests of their members—very properly.

Equally, if a civil servant wants to take another course and does not happen to be a member of a staff association, he can take up the matter with his own immediate senior officer and the establishment officer of the Department, or, ultimately, with the head of the Department, and that provides a system for dealing with this sort of problem.

I think the House should be careful to consider how the system would operate if these cases at all stages—and I will come to the later stage of the organisation in a moment—were taken up by Members of Parliament.

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. Kaberry.]

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

It could be felt, however wrongly, that the support of a Member of Parliament was a factor in the professional advance of one civil servant against another. It might even be thought, completely erroneously no doubt, that the political colour of the Member who raised the question might have had some bearing on the matter. It would at least introduce the suspicion that party political factors could affect the careers of civil servants, and I am sure all hon. Members would agree that even the faintest suggestion of that kind of thing would be wholly deplorable.

The hon. Gentleman referred by way of contrast to the position of the Armed Forces. In theory, of course, even in the Armed Forces, Queen's Regulations provide in general that outside influence should not be brought to bear in cases of this sort, though I believe that perhaps is really not always enforced. But there is all the difference in the world between the Armed Forces and the Civil Service.

The Armed Forces have not the alternative methods of raising grievances; they have not the staff associations or Whitley Councils, or anything of that sort, and, in general, they are much less directly connected with political factors and conflicts, and it is very right that they should be. Except in the very highest ranks they do not have those regular contacts with political Ministers which a large number of civil servants have in the course of their duties, and therefore the analogy is not a complete one.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the example of the Post Office. He quite rightly said that the rule there is in substance what he would like it to be throughout the service in general, that is to say, that political assistance is barred until every other avenue of raising the grievance has been followed. The Post Office rules for dealing with grievances are very complicated, and I do not propose to inflict them on the House, though I have the particulars here, since in different circumstances and for different purposes different groups have different people to whom they can appeal.

The matter is rather complex, but the Post Office rule is that when whatever rights that particular aggrieved individual may have have been exhausted, and not before, then he is perfectly entitled to seek the assistance of his Member of Parliament. The Post Office is, of course, a Department of State, but it is worth remarking that it is not perhaps exactly similar to the ordinary Departments of State. It has sometimes been referred to as our oldest nationalised industry, and, of course, it is in a very considerable sense a large commercial undertaking with a political head and is not, perhaps, quite so closely connected, at any rate in the lower levels, with party and political matters as is the ordinary Department of State.

But there is certain force in the example to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and, indeed, he was good enough, and courteous enough, to intimate to me that he would be quoting this example. When the hon. Member for Southampton, Test first raised this matter in the Parliamentary Question to which he has referred, he certainly did not make it clear to me, and on re-reading the Question and supplementary questions I think I am entitled to say that he did not in fact succeed in making it clear, that he was suggesting what he is suggesting tonight. His Question appeared to suggest the removal of restrictions on contact with Members of Parliament at all stages of an individual's dispute.

My answer to him on that occasion was given as an answer to that Question. It may well have been that the hon. Member had then in mind what, if I may say so, he has much more persuasively put forward tonight. I do not know. But I think that hon. Members reading the OFFICIAL REPORT will appreciate that he was then attacking on a much wider front and much less persuasively than he did this evening.

As I understand his case, it is that the Estacode rule should be modified to the extent that recourse to the assistance of a Member of Parliament should be permitted, but only after normal methods of redress have been tried in vain. That is to say in substance, mutatis mutandis, the Post Office rule should be applied throughout the service.

Tonight I cannot say more than that that is an aspect of the matter on which certainly my mind is not closed, and into which I certainly would like to look further. I do not make any commitment. When one is dealing with so vastly important a matter as the maintenance of the complete political detachment of the finest Civil Service in the world, it is a very rash and foolish man who lightly overturns the rules laid down by other Administrations, whatever he may think in other contexts of those previous Administrations.

But I think I can say that the suggestion which the hon. Member for Southampton, Test has now made is much less subject to the objection to which I have referred of involving political interference than was what I took to be his original suggestion in his Parliamentary Question. Although I have stressed that I am in no position tonight to give any indication of any proposal to change the rule, I can tell the House that I am looking and the Government will look carefully into this question with a view to seeing whether some move can be made in the direction, to which the hon. Member and my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley referred, without involving unfortunate consequences for the service.

Having said that, I think it would be very inappropriate for me to say more, except once again to thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test for having given me such very full notice of the point he was going to raise, and to thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley for the most agreeable way in which, between them, they have conducted this debate.

Adjourned accordingly at Eight Minutes past Ten o'clock.