§ Q1. Mr. Pagetasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that there is concern that the holder of a high judicial office upon resignation or retirement may be offered paid employment in industry; and if he will consider introducing legislation prohibiting such transfers.
§ Q3. Mr. Masonasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that there is concern that highly placed civil servants upon retirement, and Ministers of the Crown following resignation, are quickly offered executive positions in industry and commerce; and if he will consider introducing legislation prohibiting these immediate transfers during a specified period.
§ Q5. Mr. Liptonasked the Prime Minister if he will seek power to apply to ex-Ministers, who become directors of commercial undertakings with which their former Departments had business dealings, regulations similar to those governing senior civil servants taking comparable directorships on their retirement.
§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan)I do not think that such legislation would be wise or necessary.
§ Mr. PagetIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that judicial pensions proportionate to Service men's pay are vastly higher than those of any other branch of the public service, and, in particular, that the Lord Chancellor, unlike any other Cabinet Minister, receives a pension of £5,000 a year pre- 1000 cisely so that judges need not hang around their necks a "For Hire" label? Does he consider it desirable for industry to be in a position to run its eye down the High Court Bench and decide whom it will buy? Does he think that justice appears to be done when judges might have appearing before them a potential employer who is in a position to quadruple their screw? Is not this a serious matter?
§ The Prime MinisterThere are two points. First, I think that it is desirable and beneficial to the country that men of considerable experience should be available, when they leave the Government, to the service of industry and commerce. Secondly, I understand that Lord Kilmuir, like other Lord Chancellors, does not draw his pension while he is not fulfilling a judicial function.
§ Mr. MasonIs the Prime Minister not aware that there has been widespread concern over a long period about this quick switch from Minister of the Crown to executive member, director or adviser of big business?
§ Mr. MasonThis is especially so if the Ministers happen to have been in negotiations previously with the firm which they are joining. Is the Prime Minister not aware that Cabinet Ministers, with their intimate knowledge of forward Government thinking and their personal contacts in high places in the Civil Service and in the Government, are in big demand? Would he not therefore consider, even if he avoids legislation, whether there should be some introduction of either a higher code of conduct or a period of restraint so that this quick switch from Minister of the Crown to big business does not seem so unseemly and so connected with the previous office?
§ The Prime MinisterNo, Sir. Dealing with the specific point, I know of no case in which the ex-Ministers concerned have been concerned with contracts or negotiations with the firms in question. As for the wider issue, I think that the hon. Member, like so many of his hon. Friends, is living rather in the past. He seems to expect that in future nobody will be able to enter public life unless he has a large private income.
§ Mr. LiptonDoes not the Prime Minister appreciate that there has been some marked falling off recently in standards of conduct? Does he recall that when this House was considering in 1959 the Lord Chancellor's pension, Sir Jocelyn Simon, then Solicitor-General, said that it was not altogether in accordance with custom for an ex-Lord Chancellor to take an outside post?
§ Mr. SpeakerI do not know from what the hon. Member is quoting, but verbatim quotation in Questions is not allowed unless it is an exceptional case.
§ Mr. LiptonIt was not a verbatim quotation, Mr. Speaker, but the sense of what the Solicitor-General told the House on that occasion. In the light of these circumstances, is it not more and more crudely obvious that the Tory Party and big business are just one and the same thing?
§ The Prime MinisterNo, Sir. I do not think that considerations relevant to what should be the pension of a Minister apply when the Minister in question does not draw the pension.
§ Sir R. NugentIs my right hon. Friend aware that there have been many men from industry and commerce who have given valuable service in the House, on both sides of it and on both Front Benches and back benches, and that to place any restrictions on movement from industry and commerce or back again would be against the best interests of the country?
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir. I find myself in complete agreement with my right hon. Friend.
§ Mr. GaitskellDoes the Prime Minister recall exactly what Sir Jocelyn Simon, when Solicitor-General, said on this subject when he was introducing the Judicial Pensions Bill? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Sir Jocelyn Simon said that there was a moral obligation upon an ex-Lord Chancellor to continue to preside over the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the House of Lords Law Lords? How can an ex-Lord Chancellor do this if he occupies a full-time post in industry? Can the Prime Minister give us any example of a former Lord Chancellor taking a post in industry, ex- 1002 cept that of Lord Birkenhead, and would he not agree that this was bitterly criticised at the time? The Prime Minister has accused us of being in the past, but is he aware that, with the exception of Lord Birkenhead, the conduct of ex-Ministers in the past was very much better than it is today?
§ The Prime MinisterEx-Lord Chancellors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries no doubt accumulated in those periods of small taxation and high fees during their period of service very large capital resources. All that has changed. I think that it is not only fair but generally beneficial that there should be this interchange between industry and commerce in this way.
§ Mr. GaitskellHow can the Prime Minister defend the Judicial Pensions Bill, which specifically increased the pension of the Lord Chancellor in order to prevent this kind of thing happening? Is the right hon. Gentleman now saying to us that all that is nonsense, that all that is in the past, and that in future Lord Chancellors can take any job they like?
§ The Prime MinisterNo, Sir. I am saying that the justification for the pension was that, if the Lord Chancellor was sitting as a judge—as a Law Lord or in other ways—although he was not obliged to do so, but so long as he had his health and strength, if he drew the pension and did nothing else, he was expected to sit as a Law Lord. In this case my noble Friend Lord Kilmuir, who is being attacked now—though why I do not understand—does not draw the pension.
§ Mr. Gordon WalkerWould the Prime Minister apply what he has just been saying about the Lord Chancellor to High Court judges, because I cannot see any difference between the two?
§ The Prime MinisterJudges of the High Court are generally men who have spent their whole life in the legal profession. They are similar to civil servants, working their way up through the legal profession to judges. It is their life. The Lord Chancellor—whether it is a good or a bad thing, it is part of our Constitution—is a political figure. He is in or out of office, according to the chances. I think that what Lord Kilmuir 1003 has done is perfectly proper. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to start another hare, we are prepared to run that too.
§ Mr. MasonIn view of the very unsatisfactory nature of those replies, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter again at the earliest opportunity.
§ Mr. SpeakerMr. Warbey—Question No. 2.
§ Mr. PagetOn a point of order. Where a number of Questions are being answered together, does a notice of this sort prevent further supplementaries on the other Questions?
§ Mr. SpeakerYes, I think it does, because they are all on one topic. It does not arise, anyhow, because I have called the next Question.
§ Mr. PagetWith great respect, surely the Question as to Ministers and the Question as to judges raise fundamentally different issues? I respectfully ask you if I may put a further point to make that distinction.
§ Mr. SpeakerNo, I am sorry. I appreciate the distinction, but I also must have regard to the fact that we have a number of Questions to aim at to the Prime Minister. That is why I called the next Question.