MINISTRY OF OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT (MR. B. H. SPRATT) (Hansard, 16 May 1969)

§ Mr. W. R. Straubenzee (Workingham)

I am grateful for the opportunity in the short time remaining today to raise the case of my constituent, Mr. B. H. Spratt, 1946 of Wargrave. I thank the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development for his presence here. Perhaps I may add that I have myself flown back to the House by helicopter especially to be here, and that I did not realise what an excellent method of transport that wonderful machine provides.

I imagine that the hon. Gentleman and I will not disagree on the basic facts of the case which I have to make, but, since I have some criticism of the decision to which he came, I make clear at the outset that throughout our lengthy negotiations—this pile of paper beside me shows that they have, indeed, been lengthy—he has always pleaded the matter with great courtesy, as have those who advise him. I gratefully acknowledge that at the outset.

The case began when my constituent answered an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph of 16th March, 1965, inserted by the hon. Gentleman's Ministry advertising for a civil engineer in Barbados. My constituent accepted the offer, after an interview and a medical check, on 18th July of that year, he signed an agreement on 1st August, 1965, an agreement drawn up—I think that this is agreed between us—by the Crown Agents.

On 18th Sept., 1965, my constituent arrived in Barbados with his wife and three children after having, naturally, sold up his home in this country. It was at that point that his troubles began. He found that the accommodation available for him was at a very second-rate guest house, at his own expense, of course, in spite of the phrase in the advertisement to which I have referred Furnished Government quarters at moderate rental". The chief personnel officer of the Government there had no idea when these furnished Government quarters would be available. My constituent was, therefore, thrown on to his own devices, and eventually he found a three-bedroom bungalow at a rent equivalent to £720 a year.

I mention that figure because the Ministry's letter of 13th July, 1965, an important letter in this case, quoted a figure of between £75 and £138 a year. To be fair, it doubled that figure in a letter of 16th November, but even that 1947 doubled figure is substantially less than the £720 which my constituent found was what I may call the commercial rate. More than that, this was at a time before the tourist season began in December, when rents at the equivalent of £180 a month were not exceptional.

At this point, the Barbadian Government offered unfurnished rooms to my constituent in what was a converted barrack block, 200 years old, without proper sanitation. It is not unreasonable that Mr. Spratt refused to accept that accommodation on behalf of his family and himself. Eventually, he was offered a flat at almost double the rent quoted in the letter of 13th July, 1965, to which I have referred. I am truncating my account of the events because we have little time—grateful though I am for the opportunity to raise the matter. On 21st December, 1965, faced with that accommodation difficulty, my constituent left Barbados.

However, this was not his only problem, because the Government of Barbados refused him any overseas allowances until he had signed a further form purporting to be an option for an overseas service aid scheme. My constituent refused to sign the additional form because it contained clauses different from the contract he had already signed.

That was the situation when my constituent came to see me, which I took up with the hon. Gentleman. After considerable correspondence with me he wrote to me on 9th November, 1967, reporting that the Government of Barbados thought that it was my constituent who was in breach of his contract with them. The hon. Gentleman ended his letter as follows: I regret there is no further action that we can take to assist Mr. Spratt. That gave me the very clear impression that the Department was washing its hands of the matter.

Subsequently, however, because I make no apology for the fact that I am a rather persistent person, I sought and was most courteously given a personal interview with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that I am not misrepresenting the interview when I say that I think we agreed on three matters.

First, I represented to him that the original advertisement by which the post 1948 was offered was misleading. In a letter to me on 15th February, 1968, the hon. Gentleman conceded that point, although I should add in fairness that he would say that the misleading impression was at least in part corrected by subsequent documents.

Second, I represented to him that my constituent was not sent on a training course suitable for particular reference to Barbados.

Third, I represented to him that it was entirely proper of my constituent not to sign the additional form of option because of the additional clauses it contained, and in the letter of 15th February he agreed that my constituent had not been warned of the sub-standard accommodation which he found, and that he was quite reasonable in not signing the additional contract. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman's letter uses the word "nonsense", that is, it would have been nonsense for my constituent to sign the additional form of contract.

After additional pressure, on 23rd October, 1968, the hon. Gentleman was able to make a payment to my constituent of the disturbance allowance of about £130 to which he would have been entitled had he fully completed his contract. I gratefully acknowledge that that payment has been made, after some pressure.

Had my constituent been enabled to fulfill the whole of his contract with the Government of Barbados, among other things he would, under the terms of the Ministry's letter, have been repaid half the cost of his return fares and half the cost of removing his baggage. I think that that is agreed. The first amounted to £216 and the second to £138, so we are not talking about small sums in relation to the contract. But so far I have totally failed to move the Parliamentary Secretary either into making a payment of those two sums himself or persuading the Government of Barbados to make them.

The hon. Gentleman tells me that there are, broadly, two reasons why he should not do so. First, he says that his Minister was not a party to the agreement between Mr. Spratt and the Government of Barbados. I would urge him to look again at his Ministry's letter of 13th July, 1965. Even if in a strict legal sense the home Government were not a party, 1949 they most assuredly were agents in the matter, as they held themselves out to be. I consider that the home Government have a major responsibility.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman says that the facts of the determination of the contract by my constituent are in dispute between him and the Government of Barbados. I cannot accept that. The Department accepts from me that the accommodation offered was sub-standard and, therefore, it knows why the contract was determined. It was not wilfully determined; it was not just a change of view or whim which brought my constituent back. He came back because of standard of the accommodation which was offered.

It is surely an important part of the British contribution to the world today that men like my constituent should be encouraged to offer their services abroad, in the same way Mr. Spratt offered his services to the Government of Barbados. I confess that, as a result of this case and another, I am anxious whether, I am sure inadvertently, the Department is not giving a wrong impression to those who are engaged in these contracts through the agency of the Department.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will feel that he should look closely at the whole range of these developments and letters of offer. In this particular case I hope that on reflection he will say that it would be appropriate, no fault lying at the door of my constituent, for an ex gratia repayment to be made in respect of two items to which my constituent unquestionably would have been entitled had he been enabled to complete his contract. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see the force of these arguments.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Albert E. Oram)

Before I comment upon the points made by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), which were put lucidly and fairly, I will say a word about the long exchanges which he and I have had over the case of Mr. Spratt.

It is two years since the hon. Member first wrote to me on the subject. Since then my right hon. Friend and I have exchanged nearly 30 letters with the hon. 1950 Member. He claimed to be persistent, and I make no complaint.

The hon. Gentleman and I, as he has said, had a meeting about the case last year, and more recently he raised the question in the House. The hon. Member is to be complimented on the persistent and careful attention with which he has advocated his constituent's case, even to the extent of arriving today by the somewhat unorthodox method of helicopter.

The hon. Member may well feel that our exchanges have been more prolonged than he would wish. Three and a half years have passed, and I can well understand his feeling that things have been moving all too slowly.

I would point out that we are concerned in this case, at least potentially, with a legal dispute between Mr. Spratt and the Government of Barbados. It is not just an administrative matter, and I suggest that many legal disputes have been spread over a far longer period, as the hon. Member knows all too well.

I make this point to put the matter in perspective and to indicate the sort of case we are discussing. Mr. Spratt's contract of service was between himself and the Barbados Government, not the Ministry of Overseas Development. If there is a dispute arising out of Mr. Spratt's contract, it is clear who are the parties to the dispute, and where any remedy may lie. I need not dwell further on this point, but I wanted at the outset of my remarks to make this point, because in my mind it is a matter of importance to establish that this is potentially a legal dispute.

It may be helpful, particularly in view of some of the hon. Gentleman's concluding remarks, if I say a few words on the general question of my Ministry's responsibility towards officers recruited from Britain for service with overseas Governments under the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. This is the background against which we must see Mr. Spratt's case. I must emphasise that these officers become public servants of those Governments and the contract they enter into it with them. The fact that the Ministry puts out advertisements, reimburses the employing Government with part of the salary and family expenses, does not affect the relationship between 1951 the officer and his Government. It is important that it should not.

Before entering into an Overseas Aid Scheme Agreement with a country we satisfy ourselves, as far as possible, that adequate safeguards exist to protect the interests of officers designated under the agreement to serve in that country, and before helping with recruitment from Britain, we try to establish that the conditions under which the officers will work will be reasonable. Disputes which arise between the employing Government and its officers must, however, be dealt with through the local machinery for that purpose, although in suitable circumstances, and this case illustrates this, we would ask the local British Government representative to intervene or to use his influence to help an officer in dispute with his employer.

It is an essential part of the agreement that the British Government should not interfere in the relationship between the officer and the employing Government simply because we pay part of his emoluments to induce him to leave his home and work overseas.

The hon. Gentleman made some general remarks on which I would like to comment, about the general responsibility of the Ministry. I recognise that he is concerned that the Ministry should do its utmost to avoid sending people out to jobs overseas which turn out to be very different from their expectations. I entirely share the hon. Gentleman's concern. In passing, he referred to the fact that he had written to me on another case, a case in which I may say our Ministry has a much more tenuous connection that it has in the case of Mr. Spratt. I hope that the hon. Gentleman read my reply to his latest letter on this second case as indicating that we are very far from being complacent.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my assurance that cases like that of Mr. Spratt are not typical of the many appointments which are handled through my Ministry on behalf of overseas Governments. There are over 10,000 officers serving abroad under the Overseas Service Aid Scheme and similar arrangements. While I would not pretend that problems do not arise from time to time over the conditions of service of some of these 10,000, the great majority receive a square 1952 deal from their employing Governments and recognise this.

I referred earlier to the considerable amount of correspondence which the hon. Gentleman and I have had on the subject of Mr. Spratt's case, but I do not want to give the impression that the Ministry took no interest in Mr. Spratt's affairs until the hon. Gentleman brought them to my notice. This is certainly not the case. Mr. Spratt himself copied to the Ministry of Overseas Development the various representations which he made to the Government of Barbados during his short stay in the island, and the Ministry has throughout done its best to get at the facts and put before the Barbados Government the various representations which Mr. Spratt urged we should bring to their attention.

In doing so the Ministry was acting as a sort of honest broker, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman recognises that this is not always an enviable rôle. I assure the hon. Gentleman that, bulky though it is, his correspondence with myself is far outweighed by the letters and telegrams which the Ministry has exchanged with the Barbados Government on Mr. Spratt's affairs.

So far, I have been talking about the general background and about the manner in which this case has been handled, and I should now summarise the essential facts of the case as I see them. I agree largely with the recital which the hon. Gentleman gave, and he quoted from a number of my letters, which was helpful to our discussion. I am now sticking solely to the bare bones of the case, and I agree that there is a good deal of detail about which discussion could go on.

Very briefly, then, what happened was as follows. Mr. Spratt accepted a three-year appointment as an engineer in the Barbados Government's service, but was dissatisfied with the housing offered by that Government. He therefore threw up the appointment and left Barbados at his own expense less than three months after his arrival. The Barbados Government took the view that under the terms of his contract that action rendered Mr. Spratt liable to pay them the cost of the outward passages to Barbados for himself and his family, together with the equivalent of three months' salary in respect of his unauthorised departure, and 1953 they accordingly claimed some £900 from him.

Concurrently, as the hon. Gentleman said, Mr. Spratt was claiming from the Government of Barbados the amount of the inducement allowance payable to him for the short period he was serving there—a sum of about £130—and, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, these inducement allowances are intended to supplement the local basic salary attaching to a post. The hon. Gentleman recognised in the supplementary question which he asked the other day that the Ministry intervened, and this inducement allowance was ultimately paid for from funds voted by this House.

I want to emphasise that those parts of an expatriate officer's allowance which are ultimately paid for by the British Government are made in the first instance by the overseas Government and subsequently reclaimed by them from the Ministry of Overseas Development. In Mr. Spratt's case we were ultimately able to secure the agreement of the Barbados Government and arrange for his inducement allowance to be paid to him direct by the Ministry.

We felt able to make representation to the Barbados Government on Mr. Spratt's behalf in respect of his inducement allowance because, as we saw it, there was no real dispute as to his entitlement to this allowance. I must also report—and this was the gap in the hon. Gentleman's recital—that the Barbados Government decided in November, 1967, not to press their claim of £900 against Mr. Spratt. This, too, was an important decision, and the hon. Gentleman would be justified in inferring that it was not unconnected with the many communications between my Ministry and Barbados which I mentioned a few moments ago.

The hon. Gentleman is mainly representing that the Ministry should go further and make direct payments to Mr. Spratt in respect of half of his return fare and the fares of his family, and in respect of their baggage, on the ground that these items too are ultimately pay- 1954 able by Britain and not Barbados. The difficulty here is that payment of these items is contingent on the Barbados Government agreeing to pay their share of Mr. Spratt's travel expenses in both directions, and it is precisely this agreement which has not been forthcoming, given the stale of dispute between them and Mr. Spratt.

If I may put it another way, his entitlement to his inducement allowance is contingent solely on his having been in post in Barbados. The same is not true of his travel expenses. Were we to pay half of these, we should in effect be intervening in a contractual dispute between an overseas Government and a former employee. Indeed, we might be held to be passing judgment on the case. I hope that that will help the hon. Member to understand the background to the reply which I gave him on 1st April. I felt that possibly my supplementary answer was not fully comprehensive in the matter.

These, then, are the bare bones of the case as I see them. The hon. Member referred to the circumstances in which the Ministry for Overseas Development acted as recruitment agents for the Government of Barbados and to what he considers to be the moral obligation incumbent on the Ministry to correct what he described as misleading statements made to Mr. Spratt about the housing conditions. With respect, I cannot accept the hon. Members argument. I shall, of course, look again at what he said this afternoon. I pay tribute to his persistence.

I thank the hon. Member for his tribute to the care with which I have examined his representations. I assure him that I have looked at this case very thoroughly indeed, and if I cannot accede to the argument which he has put forward, it is because I believe that to go beyond what we have already done would be an improper course for the Ministry to take.