HC Deb 30 November 1956 vol 561 cc837-48

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

3.59 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson (Dundee, East)

I desire to raise the question of the dismissal of Mrs. Judith Hart by the East Kilbride Development Corporation. I raise this question not only because I consider it a grave personal injustice, for which the Minister has a responsibility and which must concern this House of Commons, but also because I think that this dismissal raises certain questions of important principle in relation to the private and political freedom of individuals working for public bodies. During recent years, there has been a great ex tension in the number of public authorities, and they have become employers of much greater numbers of people in a far wider variety of jobs. The old criteria which used to apply—

It being Four 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. R. Thompson.]

Mr. Thomson

The old criteria which were held to apply to the Civil Service in the older and more restricted sense of that term no longer can be held to apply to many of the new public activities of our community. I am bound to say that if other public authorities, hospital boards, new town corporations, National Assistance boards and so on had behaved in the way the East Kilbride Development Corporation behaved towards Mrs. Hart, many thousands of people in different parts of the country would be affected.

I should first like to establish briefly the facts of the matter. I do not think they are in dispute. Mrs. Hart is a very brilliant sociologist. She is a first-class honours graduate of the London School of Economics. Some of the officials of the Minister's own Department will remember her as research assistant on the very important Working Party on Mid-wives. She was appointed as part-time sociologist to the East Kilbride Development Corporation in October, 1955, and took up her duties at the beginning of this year.

On 14th June this year a paragraph appeared in a Glasgow evening paper indicating that Mrs. Hart was one of a number of nominees for a selection conference in connection with parliamentary activities on behalf of the Labour Party in the constituency of Lanark. The very next day, 15th June, before the selection conference had taken place and before Mrs. Hart had been selected as a candidate, she was informed that a telephone message had come from the chairman of the Corporation himself that she was to stop her work for the Corporation, and she could no longer be employed by the Corporation since she had entered political affairs not merely as a prospective candidate, at that stage, but merely as a prospective prospective candidate.

This was followed by a letter on 19th June from the general manager of the Corporation putting the matter in writing. I will quote the relevant sentences of his letter: The Corporation have noted that you have been adopted as one of the prospective candidates for the Lanark Division of Lanarkshire. They take the view, with regret, that there is an incompatibility between that position and your work with the Corporation. Nothing could be clearer than that. I do not think there can be any doubt whatever about this. Mrs. Hart was dismissed because she became a Labour candidate for the Lanark Constituency. I myself can testify personally to her character. She is a very easy person to work with, and from those who have worked with her I have never heard any complaint in that respect. I cannot say with too much emphasis that there can be no doubt that the reason for Mrs. Hart's dismissal lies in what was indicated in the general manager's letter of 19th June, namely, that she had become a Parliamentary candidate.

Mrs. Hart, naturally, appealed against this decision, as she was entitled to do. On 28th July her appeal was heard before the Development Corporation, with the chairman presiding. It was a rather strange meeting, as I have had it reported to me. At that meeting, the chairman said that the general manager's letter of 19th June should never in fact have been written. If this had been a move to reverse a mistaken decision, it would have been a very good thing; we all understand that mistakes can be made. It was, of course, nothing of the sort. It was a rather more discreditable kind of move, because it was made quite clear that a fresh notice of dismissal would follow.

This fresh notice of dismissal came in due course in the form of two letters sent simultaneously, one of them withdrawing the letter of 19th June and the other dismissing Mrs. Hart without giving any reason at all. The Development Corporation was pressed to give a reason but refused to do so.

The Minister will be aware how serious a matter it is if a public body like a development corporation refuses to give a reason for dismissal to a person with the kind of professional reputation possessed by Mrs. Hart. That, however, was not the only bad way in which the Development Corporation behaved at that stage. As the Minister is aware, at that point I was making representations to his Department about the matter and the notice of dismissal was sent to Mrs. Hart before I had been given any information whatever. Therefore, the Development Corporation not only behaved badly towards Mrs. Hart, but behaved badly towards the Government, to whom it was responsible, and it behaved with great disrespect to this House.

I am grateful to the Minister who dealt with this matter for the frank apologies he gave me and I absolve him from any responsibility in the matter, but I do not absolve him from not having sufficient self-respect to stand up to the Development Corporation over the dismissal, especially in view of the way that the Development Corporation had handled the matter. In his reply at that time, however, the Minister was considerably more forthcoming than the Development Corporation had been to Mrs. Hart's approaches, and he gave two explanations of why Mrs. Hart had been dismissed.

First of all, however, the Minister conceded the important general principle that there was no general bar to employees of new town corporations being Parliamentary candidates. I am grateful to him for that and it is an important matter that should be as widely publicised as possible. Unfortunately, however, the Minister proceeded to defend the decision in Mrs. Hart's case on two grounds. The first was that the post held by Mrs. Hart would have in any case ended at the end of October because the social survey with which she had been connected was finishing. The second ground was the nature of the job that Mrs. Hart was doing. She was doing door-to-door interviewing and the Minister said that that was a kind of job which was incompatible with being a Parliamentary candidate in the same area. Both these reasons are so distorted as to reach the point of downright inaccuracy.

The Minister, who will have access to the records of the Corporation, will be able to find out for himself that the social survey was not coincidental with Mrs. Hart's appointment. When she was appointed, no mention whatever was made of the social survey. In fact, it was suggested by Mrs. Hart and by her chief sometime after she had been appointed, in late February or March. That was the first that was heard of the social survey.

I have with me the letter of appointment to Mrs. Hart, dated 21st October. 1955, in which it is stated: Your duties will be such as may be prescribed from time to time. The engagement will be terminable on one month's notice on either side …". That gives no indication that her engagement was for the purpose of the social survey. More than that, however, the letter went on to give certain details about holiday arrangements and spoke of the arrangements between the time of her appointment and 31st March this year. It also refers to the arrangements for her holidays between 1st April this year and 31st March next year. There can be no doubt, therefore, that when the original appointment was made, Mrs. Hart was being appointed as a part-time worker for a continuous job of sociological research. The social survey merely came later and I have no doubt that it was used as a convenient excuse by the Development Corporation when it got itself into an indefensible position. The Secretary of State should not have supported the Development Corporation in such evasive tactics. So much for the one excuse about the particular job of the social survey being ended.

New towns are among the most interesting social experiments now taking place in the country and there is ample scope for continuous sociological work. I have no doubt at all that the Development Corporation of East Kilbride would greatly have benefited through having the services of Mrs. Hart on their staff as a very competent professional sociologist for as long as it could have enjoyed her work.

The other reason given for Mrs. Hart's dismissal was that she was doing door-to-door interviewing in her work. That interviewing was not in fact an integral part of her work for the Corporation. It was a very small part and it was not an essential part. Indeed, that kind of interviewing is a technical job which is not normally carried out by a person of Mrs. Hart's professional qualifications. As I understand it, she did it to fill in certain gaps in a postal survey in connection with the social survey, and she did it for only a few hours in the months she was in the service of the Corporation. There was no reason at all why she could not have gone on as a sociologist in the employment of the Corporation without being called upon to do door-to-door work. Therefore, both those reasons for her dismissal fall to the ground.

I would say a word about the general principle involved in prohibiting somebody working for a public authority, in a capacity which brings him or her face to face with the voters in a given area, from being a political candidate. On the surface, that argument seems reasonable. It seems a reasonable proposition to say that it is incompatible with work for a public authority involving door-to-door interviewing, to be a political candidate. For myself, I was at first inclined to accept it, but on reflection one sees that the implications are very large indeed.

There are so many different kinds of people nowadays employed by a variety of public authorities, who come in first hand contact with the public. If we debar them all from exercising normal political rights we are taking a very serious step indeed. For instance, if Mrs. Hart's dismissal is to be taken as a precedent by public authorities, are postmen who go from door-to-door to be debarred from activities in local political parties, and from being candidates on their behalf in the areas in which they work? What about the fellow who goes round reading gas or electricity meters? He goes to the very firesides of the people. Is he to be debarred from becoming a political candidate because he is employed by a public authority and comes face to face with the people who will eventually have to vote either for or against him? What about the employees of the telephone department of the Post Office? There are so many implications of this principle.

We have in the House—the Joint Under-Secretary of State has as one of his Ministerial colleagues—an hon. Lady who was a personnel officer in a factory before coming here. I have no doubt that her services to the Government are greatly enhanced by the experience of her work as a personnel officer. Would she have been debarred from becoming a Parliamentary candidate if, instead of having worked in a private factory as a personnel officer, she had worked for a nationalised industry? Consider the position of a hospital almoner serving under the National Health Service. I should think few people could be better equipped to join our counsels here, and especially our debates on social questions, than such a person. Is an almoner to be prevented from standing for public office because she is employed by a hospital in the National Health Service?

What about the position of teachers? There has never been any suggestion that teachers should be prevented from becoming Parliamentary candidates or Members of Parliament, and we have teachers on both sides of the House, and have had many teachers in the House in the past. Many school teachers have stood as Parliamentary candidates although employed by local authorities in the constituencies in which they sought election. A school teacher is in an especially delicate position because he deals with the immature minds of children of families who vote for or against him if he stands in a Parliamentary election. But a teacher is a professional person with a professional integrity in his work, and that has always been understood. Why should it not be understood in the case also of a professional sociologist employed by a new town corporation?

The same applies to doctors and dentists. They are in intimate personal contact with the public. It is true that they are not employed by the State, but they are under a contractual arrangement through the National Health Service with the State. Are they to be prevented from becoming Parliamentary candidates on the same basis as was Mrs. Hart?

Serious, far-reaching issues are raised by this dismissal by the East Kilbride Development Corporation of a sociologist in its service. There is the simple issue of the very great personal hardship to Mrs. Hart. If she had been a man instead of a woman, if she had not been the mother of two children and had been dependent on her professional salary for her livelihood, let the House consider what her position would have been. A man with a family in this position would have been faced with the dilemma of remaining in his professional post or sacrificing his post and his family's interests in order to fulfil his political convictions. This is not the kind of dilemma which we ought to put before people who do this kind of job.

The Development Corporation in this case has acted on a foolish impulse which it found later very difficult to defend. I do not believe that it appreciated the far-reaching implications of its decision. It is, however, the responsibility of the Government and of the Secretary of State for Scotland to be vigilant on the general principle involved by the actions of the agencies for whom they are responsible—and the Corporation is the responsibility of the Government.

There is a tendency in these matters to feel that Development Corporations are somehow or other remote from the Scottish Office and that the Scottish Office is only in a tenuous sort of way responsible for them. But these Corporations are directly under the Scottish Office's orders. A Development Corporation, with its intimate contact with the public, plays the rôle of a local authority, but is itself an appointed body. Therefore, it is especially essential that in these circumstances the Secretary of State should be alive to the public interest and should be able to protect it against any arbitrary action by a Development Corporation.

It is on these grounds that I plead with the Minister to look again at this case. I apologise for bringing him and his advisers here on a Friday. I understand the reasons why his colleague is not here, but I felt that this matter was sufficiently important to justify my raising it on the Adjournment. I plead with the hon. Gentleman to right this personal injustice and also to try to establish, by reinstating Mrs. Hart, principles of public responsibility in these matters which will allow personal and political freedom for people employed by Development Corporations and all similar public bodies.

4.19 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Henderson Stewart)

The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) has left me little time to answer a case which he has developed at some length, but I must do the best I can. The case refers to the action of one of our new town Corporations in discontinuing the engagement of one of its junior and, I underline, temporary staff. In my view, at any rate, that is a matter in which the House of Commons should be chary of interfering at any time. In the case of nationalised industries, as the hon. Member knows, we have adopted and have maintained in practice over the years the principle of not asking Parliamentary Questions or seeking to pronounce on what we call the day-to-day business of the body concerned.

I acknowledge that the constitution and work of the new town corporations are not exactly on all fours with those of the boards of nationalised industries, but for practical purposes I think it manifest that if we are to expect responsible administration by the members of the corporations we must leave them to make their own decisions on day-to-day administrative matters.

Certainly if every appointment by and every discharge of staff from these corporations were to be made the subject of a Parliamentary debate, the immediate and inevitable effect would be not only to clutter up the business of this House, but also to undermine the status and authority of these new bodies, with lamentable results upon their work, and with the almost certain consequence that we could not get responsible men and women to serve upon them, and that would be a great loss for the House. I feel sure that these views are shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

The case before us relates to the engagement and dismissal of a junior and temporary employee of the East Kilbride Development Corporation and, as such, would not, and in my opinion should not, normally engage the attention of the House. It has been brought up by the hon. Gentleman in this instance, and has been replied to by my right hon. Friend and his representatives by letter and by Parliamentary Question and Answer, because it appeared to raise the question of political bias on the part of the Corporation, or more precisely, it appeared to suggest that the Corporation had been actuated by political motives in dispensing with the services of this lady.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

I have made no accusation of political bias. I am engaged upon the principle of whether an employee of a corporation can be a political candidate of any party.

Mr. Stewart

It is not quite as easy as that. As I say, because of that, it seemed to raise a question of public interest. That was why my right hon. Friend, apart from extending normal courtesy to the hon. Gentleman, has taken up this matter.

The Secretary of State considered that it was a matter calling for investigation. He has made inquiries of the Corporation, since he has no other way of proceeding. He has had a full report from the Corporation, which he accepts, and upon the basis of that report I can assure the House and the country that there is no basis whatever in the charge which the hon. Gentleman has made in the House this afternoon.

What are the facts? Mrs. Hart commenced work with the Corporation on 16th January this year. She was engaged in a part-time, temporary capacity to undertake a specific piece of social research. Her duties were to include the analysis of data collected by postal questionnaires to householders in the new towns and, in particular, to undertake house to house visits covering those households which had failed to return the questionnaire.

The Corporation informed us that when it offered Mrs. Hart her appointment—and I invite the hon. Gentleman to note this—it indicated clearly to her that her appointment was made for these specific purposes and that the appointment would terminate as soon as the work was finished. It was known to the Corporation when Mrs. Hart was appointed that she had been a Parliamentary candidate for one or two seats in the past, and they were led to understand that she hoped at that time to be adopted as prospective candidate for South Aberdeen at the next Election.

In appointing Mrs. Hart the Corporation was quite clear—and my right hon. Friend entirely agrees with its view—that there was no incompatibility between those circumstances and the duties on which she was to be employed. But she was advised at that time that because of the special nature of at any rate some of her duties, namely the house to house calls, such an incompatibility might arise were Mrs. Hart to decide to take up political activity in the locality. That is a different thing from the broad principle of having an interest in political activities. She was asked to consult the Corporation if she contemplated taking any active steps in that direction, that is to say, of becoming a candidate in the very constituency in which she was working.

In June, 1956, it was brought to the notice of the Corporation that Mrs. Hart had been formally adopted as prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Lanark division of Lanarkshire; that is to say, the electoral division in which this new town is situated. At that time, the work which she was about to undertake for the Corporation—I think that she may have done, as the hon. Member said, about a couple of hours of it—consisted substantially of house to house visitations. That would be part of her duties, and would complete the sociological work for which she had been engaged.

I do not want to under-rate the importance of that work. It meant going from house to house asking intimate questions about the people there. Indeed, if the hon. Gentleman had been a householder there and had been visited by the Conservative Parliamentary candidate, who had asked him about his children and all the private family details he might well have objected, and asked "What is this Tory candidate asking these questions for? Is it for the Corporation, or is it for the local Tory Party?" That was an impossible position which no one could tolerate.

On 19th June, the Corporation wrote to Mrs. Hart and said that they had heard that she had been adopted as prospective candidate for one of the Lanarkshire divisions. They took the view, with regret, that there was an incompatibility between that position and her work with the Corporation, and that it would be necessary to discuss the question of terminating her engagement. Meantime, she should not undertake the house to house visits for the purpose of her work.

Mrs. Hart then made representations to N.A.L.G.O., and N.A.L.G.O., with Mrs. Hart, met the Corporation. It was explained to both what was intended. It was explained to her that the job that she was doing would end some time in October; and a letter to that effect was sent to N.A.L.G.O. on 8th August. Therefore, she had fairly long notice that that was the Corporation's intention. But she also got an opportunity, in October, to meet the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the Corporation-two very prominent members of the hon. Member's party in Scotland. She put her case—it was an appeal—and they reaffirmed the view that had been taken before, that, in all the circumstances, and considering the nature of her employment, it was right that her work should terminate. A letter had been sent to Mrs. Hart on 27th September, intimating that her appointment would terminate on 31st October.

There is a good deal more that I could say, but I repeat what the hon. Gentleman himself recognises, that the Corporation at no time took the view that the fact that one of its employees had Parliamentary or political interests, was a bar to employment. I would not dream of taking that view; but when part of the job is this particularly private one of going from house to house asking people about their private affairs, it was not right that the person acting for the Corporation should also be a local political candidate. Upon that I stand, and I believe that the House of Commons, in its wisdom, will agree that the action taken was, therefore, proper.

Mr. Thomson

Would the Minister apply that policy to doctors, for instance?

Mr. Stewart indicated dissent.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.