§ 1. Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Minister of Public Building and Works why he replied in his Ministerial capacity to the hon. Member for South Dorset in a letter dated 20th January to the effect that representations regarding his condition of employment made by a South Dorset constituent to his Member of Parliament were not fitting.
§ The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. Charles Pannell)I wrote three times to the hon. Member and wished to make it clear that employees must not be encouraged to believe that they can obtain special concessions by approaching their Member rather than by using the normal negotiating machinery available to all.
§ Mr. KingIs it not a fact that any aggrieved citizen has an historic and traditional right to appeal to hon. Members of this House? Is not any attempt to interfere, or tell a constituent it is not fitting for him to write to his Member of Parliament, an example of monstrous Ministerial arrogance which back benchers on all sides of the House will resent?
§ Mr. PannellI could not hope to match the arrogance of the statement we have just heard. I have never disputed the right of an industrial employee to approach his Member of Parliament, but an aggrieved employee can take his case to the management direct or through his trade union. It was because these methods were not exhausted in the case about which the hon. Member wrote to 978 me that I made the remark he complained of. I am as sensitive to the rights of individuals—having had to represent them for a long period—as the hon. Member is likely to be.
§ Sir Knox CunninghamWill the right hon. Gentleman say since when it has become unfitting for a Member of Parliament to approach the Crown in the matter of an employee through the Minister who is responsible for the Crown as in this case?
§ Mr. PannellI am sure that we should have a state of complete industrial anarchy if people thought that was the first appeal rather than the last. I am very anxious to keep all the channels open, but it would be very wrong to encourage the belief anywhere that people can, through their Member of Parliament, get something which they cannot get through a proper approach, through the proper negotiating machinery.
§ Mr. KingIs not it a fact that whatever the rights of trade unions, to which we give great sympathy, what the Minister wrote was:
It is not fitting that representations of this kind"—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. A verbatim quotation from a document is out of order at Question Time.