MR. R. R. WARING (Hansard, 5 March 1971)

§ Mr. Arthur Davidson (Accrington)

On this Adjournment debate I wish to raise the case of one of my constituents, Mr. R. R. Waring, of Oswaldtwistle, in Lancashire, who feels, and has felt for some time, that he has suffered an injustice and is still suffering from it due to no fault of his. The facts are simple. I shall not make a meal of them because I know that the hon. Gentleman is well aware of them.

Mr. Waring was employed for several years as a Class B clerk of the Territorial Army. He was very happy in that job and did it very well. He liked the job and had every chance of prospects of a good, long and useful career in that capacity, with very good promotion chances.

With the reorganisation of the Territorial Army, which was no fault of the hon. Gentleman or, for that matter, of Mr. Waring, like many other staff employed by the Territorial Army, he was 2188 made redundant. Subsequently, however, he obtained a post with the Inland Revenue. That was in 1968.

But, unfortunately for Mr. Waring, the only post that he was able to obtain was that of a clerical assistant. That is a grade which is equivalent in the Territorial Army to that of a Class C clerk. However, as I mentioned earlier, Mr. Waring was in fact employed as a Class B clerk. He therefore feels that, having been employed as a Class B clerk, he should have been entitled to the grade of clerical officer and not that of clerical assistant.

Mr. Waring feels that one of the reasons why he was not able to get a position as a clerical officer was that, at some stage in the past, and certainly before the hon. Gentleman occupied his present post, there was an error, in that notification was not given of Mr. Waring's correct seniority. Had that seniority been given him, he would have been in a better position to have got the grading to which he feels that his experience and work record entitles him.

He says that, after the reorganisation of the Territorial Army, when he and others were made redundant, many Class B clerks with less seniority than his own managed to obtain posts as clerical officers—in other words, posts a grade higher than his.

Let me hasten to say that I acquit the Minister, his predecessor and any official of the Ministry of deliberately trying to cover up what happened in Mr. Waring's case. Throughout, they have acted in good faith. However, there was a clerical error, the sort of error which happens from time to time.

In a letter which the hon. Gentleman wrote in his capacity as Minister to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington), whose constituent Mr. Waring then was, the Minister admitted that there had been a clerical error. I can do no better than read what the hon. Gentleman said in his letter: I am very sorry that due to a clerical error Mr. Waring's service with the East Lancashire TAFA was not correctly conveyed to the West Lancashire TAFA when he was transferred to the employment of the latter Association in May, 1961. Had his correct record of service been known to the West Lancashire TAFA his seniority date, 2189 taking into account his war service but excluding the period he served as a store-man, would have been 22nd October, 1942. With that date he would indeed have stood a better chance of being selected for one of the Clerical Officer posts at Failsworth. In fairness to the Minister, he goes on to say: However, I do not understand why Mr. Waring did not make any representation about his seniority date at the material time in 1967 or indeed before then. Whether or not the proper notification of his seniority date at that time would have enabled Mr. Waring to get a better job, I do not know. No doubt Mr. Waring does not know, and I am sure that the Minister does not. Nonetheless, Mr. Waring feels that he has suffered an injustice as a result.

Mr. Waring is a conscientious man who is not at the moment entirely happy in the work which he is doing in the Inland Revenue. I do not wish to say anything which will in any way prejudice his chance of promotion within that service, but his promotion prospects in his present job are not very good. His salary is lower than it would have been had he got a higher post, and so are his pension prospects.

The work of a clerical officer, or tax officer, in the Inland Revenue—is extremely technical and complex. For a mature entrant, as Mr. Waring was, to qualify to do that kind of job efficiently is indeed a very forbidding task. Perhaps the Minister would pass on to his right hon. Friend the view of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation, which is that it is quite wrong to expect mature entrants to enter as tax officers and to pick up the work quickly, because it is complex, technical and difficult work. I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to make any particular comment on that point.

Mr. Waring's case has been the subject of considerable correspondence with the Ministry over the years. It was first taken up by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the insistence with which he represented Mr. Waring's interests. The hon. Gentleman could not have done more.

Mr. Waring's trade union, the Inland Revenue Staff Federation, also took up his case and has represented him very well indeed.

2190 The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne passed the case on to me when Mr. Waring moved into my constituency. I have now taken the matter as far as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, who has replied that it is not within his terms of reference, so he can do nothing.

I do not wish to draw the Minister, and I do not expect him to give a firm answer to a suggestion which I am about to make. However, I think that the happiest solution—I have not consulted Mr. Waring on this matter, although I saw him only last week—would be for Mr. Waring to be reinstated, if possible, in the Territorial Army. He was very happy there. He did his job exceptionally well, and I am sure that his qualifications could be put to great use. The Government have announced that there will be more opportunity for entrants in future with the widening of the Territorial Army. I ask the Minister at least to consider whether this would be possible without in any way raising Mr. Waring's hopes or getting any firm assurance to that extent.

I have condensed the case as accurately as I can. I hope that the debate will yield some result, though again I do not expect a firm assurance from the Minister. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that Mr. Waring is not a man with a chip on his shoulder; he just feels that he has suffered an injustice and would like someone to sort it out.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ian Gilmour)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) for the very careful, moderate, accurate and, therefore, all the more effective way in which he has put the case of and for his constituent, Mr. Waring. I do not disagree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said. Therefore, my reply will entail some repetition, but it may be of some value to set out the background to the case in some detail.

First, I appreciate that Mr. Waring feels that he has been the victim of an injustice. As the hon. Gentleman said, Mr. Waring has been very persistent over this matter directly with the Ministry of Defence, through my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) and through the hon. 2191 Gentleman himself. I also fully concede that Mr. Waring was very happy when he was with the TAVR, but the reorganisation of the Territorial Army which, as the hon. Gentleman fairly said, had nothing to do with me or with Mr. Waring, entailed quite a large reduction in the number of civilian employees. It was then decided that those who were required for employment with the TAVR should become employees of the Ministry of Defence instead of employees of the Associations. Up till that time, they had not been the responsibility of the Ministry. There were vacancies for some of the Class B clerks in the equivalent Civil Service grade of clerical officer but some could take up employment with the Ministry only if they accepted a reduction in grade to clerical assistant.

As far as possible, the seniority lists maintained by the Associations were followed in filling the vacancies for clerks with the units of the TAVR, but there were the requirements of the Civil Service Commission that all those recommended to fill clerical officer but not clerical assistant posts had to be interviewed by a board, which included a representative of the Ministry of Defence. So, seniority was not enough, although it was a factor, to ensure selection for nomination by the Civil Service Commission. This procedure for selection and appeals was agreed by the staff side and every effort was made by all means—letters and so forth—to see that the employees were aware of the procedure and understood what was going on.

Mr. Waring's seniority as recorded on the documents held by West Lancashire TAFA, as it was called, was less than that of other Class B clerks who obtained clerical officer posts for which he had applied. In competition with them, he was not selected, but, as the hon. Gentleman said, was offered and accepted a post as clerical assistant with a TAVR III unit. However, following the decision by the last Government to disband the unit, his employment with the Ministry of Defence came to an end. He declined an alternative post as clerical assistant, quite reasonably, because of the travelling difficulties, and was found employment with the Inland Revenue, again as a clerical assistant.

2192 Mr. Waring's main complaint has been that his seniority was wrongly recorded and, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out from the letter I sent him, this complaint is, unfortunately, true. It is well founded. Mr. Waring had originally been employed by the East Lancashire TAFA, and when he transferred to the West Lancashire TAFA, in 1961, the East Lancashire TAFA did not correctly inform the West Lancashire TAFA of his dates of service. But even if his service had been correctly recorded, his seniority would still have been less than that of the other class B clerks who were selected by the board for the clerical officer posts which I have mentioned, and although Mr. Waring would have had longer total clerical service than another person who was later offered one of the posts because the original nominee had declined it, the other candidate had had ten years longer service as a Class B clerk than Mr. Waring. So, as the hon. Gentleman fairly said, it is a matter for conjecture. We can never know whether, if Mr. Waring's seniority had been correctly recorded, he would have been nominated for this post.

The Secretary of State was not responsible for the administration of the TAFA. I believe that the West Lancashire TAFA did everything it could to treat its employees fairly. This was an unfortunate error, but it certainly was not intentional. The hon. Member quoted my letter. Mr. Waring had the opportunity to draw attention to the mistake, because in 1964, after he had been transferred from the East to the West Lancashire TAFA, he was given a statement, under the Contract of Employment Act, which mentioned this date, and he did not comment on the error. I do not want to make too much of that. We all receive forms from time to time which we should read but which we fail to read, and Mr. Waring's omission was perfectly natural. But it is still fair to point out that he had the opportunity to correct the error.

In common with other employees who were reduced in grade as a result of the 1967 reorganisation, Mr. Waring received compensation for the reduction in his emoluments under the terms of the Redundant Association Officers (Compensation) Regulations, 1967. 2193 The hon. Member made some comment about the difficulty of people who enter the Inland Revenue gaining promotion. As he rightly said, I am not qualified to comment on that, but the fact is that Mr. Waring is still eligible for promotion, because clerical assistants can be promoted after 12 months' established service, and, therefore, no question of seniority bars him from promotion.

The hon. Member suggested that there might be a chance of Mr. Waring being employed again in the TAVR, which is being expanded. That would clearly be the happiest solution, because Mr. Waring was very happy with the TAVR and the TAVR was very happy with Mr. Waring. Clearly, I cannot make promises and it would be wrong to raise hopes, as 2194 the hon. Gentleman recognised fully and fairly. But we appreciate that this is where Mr. Waring's experience lies and where his work would be most valuable, and I am exploring the possibility of Mr. Waring being able to renew his connection with the TAVR as part of the increase in civilian staff which is necessary to implement the Government's plans for expanding the TAVR. I do not think that I can go further than that now, but I will gladly write to the hon. Gentleman about it as soon as I can.