Clause 6.—(STAFF.) (Hansard, 27 March 1963)

§ The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster-General (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter)
I beg to move, in page 3, line 34, at the end to add: (3) For the purposes of pensions and other superannuation benefits—

(a) service in an established capacity in the employment of the Trustees shall, where the person in question has been admitted into that employment with a certificate from the Civil Service Commissioners, be treated as service in the permanent civil service of the State within the meaning of section 17 of the Superannuation Act 1859; and

(b) service in the employment of the Trustees in any other case should be treated as service in the civil service of the State not falling within the said section 17.
I hope that I shall not incur your displeasure, Sir Robert, or cause the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) any inconvenience, if, in the course of moving this Amendment, I also refer to the Amendment in Clause 12, page 5, line 28, at end insert: (4) As respects service in the employment of the Trustees of the British Museum before the commencement of this Act, section 6 (3) of this Act shall be deemed always to have had effect. which relates to a similar topic.
The purpose of this Amendment, as, indeed, of the Amendment in page 5, line 28, is to put beyond doubt the fact that the staff of the Museum are civil servants for the purposes of the Superannuation Acts. When the Bill was in 1459 Standing Committee, the hon. Member for Sowerby and one or two other hon. Members raised the wider question whether the staff of the Museum were or should be civil servants in the full sense. That was, if I may be allowed to say so without transgressing the rules of order on this Amendment, an important question, but which was perhaps limited in its practical significance by the fact that, in any event, these are staff to which Estacode is applied. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary undertook to consider this wider question and to discuss it with the Standing Committee of the Museum. I have taken steps in that direction and have also made certain preliminary soundings of the staff concerned.
That Standing Committee has indicated considerable doubts as to the desirability of proceeding on the wider front of making the staff civil servants for all purposes. Preliminary inquiries indicate that there is a wide division of opinion on the merits of this among the staff. I hope that hon. Members will feel, as I do, that under these circumstances it would be wrong at this stage to propose a change of this character. Fortunately, the timetable of the Bill—that is, the timetable in the physical sense of how we hope to run it—permits these consultations to be carried further, with the possibility that if a change on the wider front were thought right—and I express no opinion now on that matter—any necessary Amendment could be introduced in another place.
It has emerged in the course of our discussions and consideration of the matter that, as the hon. Member for Sowerby originally suggested, there is at any rate some doubt as to whether the members of this staff are civil servants for the purposes of the Superannuation Acts. They receive, and have for a long time received, pensions on the same basis as under the Superannuation Acts and it is our intention, as I am sure it would be the wish of the Committee, that that should continue.
But the doubt having arisen, I am sure that it is right to lay it to rest; and the purpose of the first Amendment is to provide for the future that for the purposes of the Superannuation Acts the staff shall continue to be treated as civil servants. The second Amendment makes 1460 quite certain that there is no doubt in respect of past service.

§ Mr. Douglas Houghton (Sowerby)
All this seems to have arisen out of quite a guileless question asked in Committee upstairs. At the time we were debating an Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher), the purpose of which was to put beyond any doubt the fact that the staff of the British Museum were civil servants.
I have always been bewitched by the phrase "employed by and under the Crown". We thought, in moving the Amendment, that by saying that the staff should be deemed to be employed by and under the Crown we would legitimise them and make them civil servants. However, we were told that the Amendment would not achieve the purpose we had in mind. Indeed, I think that the Minister went so far as to say that he had been advised that it was meaningless. So up I got and said, in effect "Well, let us apply another test. Are these people covered by the Superannuation Acts?" The Economic Secretary replied that he did not know but that he would find out. And here we are.
I am sorry for Her Majesty's Government. Everything they touch comes to pieces in their hands. They really should see a psychiatrist and go into a nursing home for a while. Because I asked a simple question—about whether or not these people were covered by the Superannuation Acts—all this has arisen. The Government have discovered that they are not, and that they are not covered by any Acts. The Government have found, therefore, that they have been paying pensions to the British Museum staff for years and years without any statutory authority. What has the Public Accounts Committee been doing?
Apart from that it is obvious, from the second Amendment to which the right hon. Gentleman made a passing reference, that there is to be an indemnity to cover Ministers who have been paying these pensions without any statutory authority. A little later we have to pass something that will save them being clapped into gaol. Of course, the pensioners concerned will know nothing whatever about this. It will make no difference to them. They have had their pensions all along and will continue to get them, 1461 but this is an important question of whether expenditure has the authority of the House.
We clearly welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has proposed, though it goes only part of the way. He is now trying to clear up the money side of the matter, but still to be cleared up is the status side, because the right hon. Gentleman chose his words most carefully. He said that this Amendment would put beyond any doubt that the British Museum staffs were civil servants for the purposes of the Superannuation Acts—that, and that alone. As he pointed out, however, it does not deal with whether those staffs are civil servants in the full sense.
The right hon. Gentleman told us that there were some differences of opinion between the staffs concerned—that some did and some did not want to be civil servants in the full sense—and that there was an opportunity for the matter to be discussed further, quite properly, with those concerned and with the trustees, so that anything that it might be necessary or desirable to add to the Bill could be attended to later in another place.
I quite understand that. I am sure that some members of the British Museum staff prefer to be known as members of the staff of the British Museum, and consider that it gives them a kind of passport amongst antiquarians throughout the world. Others are probably prouder of being members of Her Majesty's Civil Service than of being employees of the Trustees of the British Museum, and feel that full status is more desirable. Perhaps some want both—I do not know—but these things are important to many people.
In the Standing Committee, I pointed out that this question can really decide some important things though, admittedly, this Amendment is probably more decisive in its consequences than anything else that might be added to the Bill to make them civil servants in the full sense. This Amendment deals with where the money is, and the other Amendment deals with where the status is as distinct from money—because we are sure that members of the staff will continue to receive the full conditions and remuneration of the corresponding grades in the Civil Service.
That being so, this little storm in a teacup ends quite happily. Everybody 1462 is to be satisfied, the Ministers are to be freed from this particular blame, the Public Accounts Committee can sleep at nights—and so can we, I hope, when we finish with this Bill—and we have, at least, made a clean job of this particular doubt. The moral is: "Don't ask simple questions in case you get complicated answers."

Dr. Barnett Stress (Stoke-on-Trent, Central)
Everyone who knows him will appreciate that when my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) hears the word "pensions" or the word "superannuation" he immediately reaches for the Order Paper, if not for something more. It was fascinating to hear him, the day before he asked this simple question, declaring that the best thing that he could do was to keep his mouth shut. However, he found how very useful it was to open his mouth, seize on the simple word "pensions" that fell from the lips of the Economic Secretary, ask his question, and bring about this excellent result.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) is not now here, and offers his apologies to us all. He particularly asked me to tell the Chief Secretary that he and the Trustees are deeply grateful for the steps the right hon. Gentleman has already taken. We have been told by my hon. Friend that there are two aspects of this matter. There are money and status—or name. Money is a reality. I have the impression—I may be wrong—that probably the staff will be content with things as they are if we pass these two Amendments. If I were a member of the staff I would much rather be under the overall management of a body of trustees such as those who are to be appointed, than under any particular Minister of the Crown who changes from time to time. They come and they go; whereas trustees seem to be a much more permanent body.
The denial that we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby that he had no intellectual capacity, that this Bill had been pitch-forked into his lap without any notice, and that therefore he could not help us in any way, has been belied by the fact that he is in some matters a very great expert.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
First, I should like to thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) and, through him, his right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) for the kindly and agreeable things the hon. Gentleman said on his right hon. Friend's behalf. For our part, we naturally regret the absence of the right hon. Gentleman who is and has been for many years a trustee of the British Museum to which he has given good and very distinguished service.
Coming to the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), he began with a remark that I am quite unable to accept from him. I refer to his statement that in Committee he asked a guileless question. No one who knows the hon. Member would believe that for one moment.
The hon. Gentleman's other point, whether or not under the existing law these people are covered as civil servants by the Superannuation Acts, is, I am advised, a very difficult question. But I think the Committee will agree that the payment of public money to these very devoted and admirable people should not be on a basis that admits of any doubt at all.
The purpose of this Amendment is not to clear up, as the hon. Gentleman 1464 rather lightheartedly suggested, some situation in which public funds had been paid without authority. It is to clear up a doubt which, on examination of the relevant Statute, appeared to be a possible doubt, and we wanted to put it right. Therefore, there is no question of any such thing as an Act of indemnity. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be glad of that, because if anybody had to be indemnified, as this is a state of affairs which has gone on for a very long time, it would not only be Her Majesty's present advisers.