PENSIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS UNDER S. 2 (Hansard, 9 June 1972)

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis
I beg to move Amendment No. 21, in page 9, line 35, leave out 'and the amounts of the two pensions shall be cumulative' and add 'but no person shall be entitled to receive a greater pension in respect of his period of reckonable service than he would receive had he been paid the normal parliamentary salary throughout that period'. I notice, Mr. Mallalieu, that you were looking at me probably hoping that I would not speak again, and no one wishes for that more than I. I might have been unable to attend to the wants of nature so I will be as brief as I can. The Amendment is designed to limit pensions of Ministers and others to a maximum of their normal parliamentary salary on return. Perhaps the Minister can give me the assurance we want and we need spend no more time on this.

§ Mr. Kenneth Baker
The Amendment goes rather wider than the description by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). I am advised that as drafted it would completely eliminate from the scheme the whole ministerial pension supplement, and clearly I could not accept that. Part of the Boyle recommendations was not only that our own scheme be substantially improved, as it has been in many ways, by going to sixtieths by the death grant, and by relating the pension to terminal salary and things of this sort. It also introduces a supplementary scheme for Ministers on the basis that when an hon. Member becomes a Minister he can take 935 on no other occupation but he must take on considerably greater responsibilities and neglect any other form of employment—and I use the term "employment" in a rather technical sense. It seems, therefore, only appropriate that someone who becomes a Minister should be given the opportunity to contribute at exactly the same rate as an ordinary Member on the balance of his salary over and above £4,500 a year and to earn the same number of pro rata sixtieths. That is the intention of the Clause. There for I cannot accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. Lewis
As I understand the Bill as drafted Ministers will have the same benefits as ordinary hon. Members but they will have the option of additional contributions on their additional salary as a Minister. That is right and proper. This is a valid point because Ministers are precluded from taking other outside employment. They are barred from accepting payment or fees in any way, shape or form which might conflict with Ministerial office. This not only relates to paid employment. If the Prime Minister, God forbid, goes on the radio or television and is offered £250 guineas—it would be 250 guineas overpaid—he cannot accept it.
3.0 p.m.
I accept that Ministers are precluded from accepting any payment other than their normal parliamentary salary, but my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Opposition Whip, the Deputy Chief Whip are to have their salaries increased by just over 200 per cent, and all will be able to receive other payments from outside.
The present Leader of the Opposition—and the future one, as the Prime Minister soon will be—will get a salary of £9,500 plus £4,000 or £5,000 in tax-free perks. On top of that he will pay his contribution to a pension fund if he wants to, and later if he wishes to retire he can either draw his ex-Prime Minister's pension of £7,500 or his contributory pension, whichever is the better. He obviously would draw the £7,500 pension rather than the contributory one.
Similarly, the Opposition Chief Whip will receive a salary of £7,500 plus £2,000 or £3,000 on top. He, again, will pay for his pension on a voluntary basis. The 936 same applies to Assistant Opposition Whips. In addition, the Leader of the Opposition can appear on television and can draw his fees from that source. My right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip has recently been on television and he, too, will receive fees for those appearances.
A number of these gentlemen will receive a 187 per cent, increase in salary, which is a pretty good sum. Mr. Richard Marsh knows all about these matters. When the railway men were offered 12½ per cent., he said that it was a generous figure by any standards. I do not know how generous Mr. Marsh would regard an increase of 187 per cent. We all know that Mr. Richard Marsh is about to receive £80 a week on top of his present salary of £400 per week. I do not know whether he would regard that increase as generous. Incidentally, the rise has been held up at the moment because the Government no doubt regard it as a little indelicate to pay him that sort of money when the rail dispute is taking place.
My point is that all these people will be able to claim the best of both worlds. The Prime Minister will have a salary of £20,000, plus his perks. The Leader of the Opposition will receive his official salary and by the time he is paid all the other fees for appearing on television, writing books and articles, and all the other ancillary sums, he will be getting more than the Prime Minister.
If the Minister and I were asked to go on radio or television to discuss this Bill, I hope I should get a fee, and I hope that it would be a good one. I hope that I would take it. I would pay the tax upon it and I would be very happy. The Minister would not be entitled to claim any fee. That is one of the "plums" of office. The same does not apply to the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip. But they would make radio and television earnings only by virtue of the offices that they held. Again, this would be extra money. The Leader of the Opposition could be getting more than the Prime Minister and the Opposition Chief Whip could be getting more than the Patronage Secretary at a time when they were receiving more in pensionable rights than ordinary Members.

§ Mr. Kenneth Baker
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. It concerns three 937 people—the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip—

§ Mr. Lewis
And the Leader of the Opposition in the Lords.

§ Mr. Baker
Yes. As regards the Prime Minister, the position is that when someone becomes Prime Minister he ceases to be a member of the House of Commons pension scheme. He cannot go on contributing to it. He cannot get any benefit from it. If he dies in office as Prime Minister he does not get the death grant of £4 500. When he ceases to be Prime Minister his contributions are returned to him; he cannot then rejoin the Members scheme as a former Prime Minister. So this question does not arise in relation to a former Prime Minister. A person in that position is not entitled to draw the pension due to an ex-Prime Minister while he is in office or if he is Leader of the Opposition or a Member of this House.
The position as regards the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip is interesting, and the hon. Gentleman raised a point which had not occured to me. As I understand it, they are receiving remunerations for the offices they hold and, as a result, they can go into the supplementary pension scheme and get pensionable rights. But they do not bear the restrictions that a Minister bears. They have other chances to earn more money in the way of directors' fees or whatever it may be. That is true. The hon. Gentleman has stated the position correctly.
I am afraid that I can give the hon. Gentleman no hope that I could change the position just for those officers. It might be possible to change it if the hon. Gentleman were to plead with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip to make some self-denying ordinance in this matter. It is an interesting point, and I am sure, again, that the next review body will take it into consideration.

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis
The Minister has not satisfied me at all. I am not interested, with great respect, in my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. I am not interested, with great respect, in the Prime Minister. I am interested 938 in the principle. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is not introducing this Bill. It is the Government's Bill. What is more, my right hon. Friend will not always be where he is today. Shortly he will be on the Front Bench opposite, and the Prime Minister will be on this side of the House. I am not objecting on any personal grounds I object on principle.
Why should the present Prime Minister or any future one come out of office with a very good pension and make £250,000 on his writings? That might be thought to be fair and reasonable, but he does it by virtue of the fact that he has held that office and received a handsome salary for it. He comes out of office and continues at almost the same salary—and sometimes better—as Leader of the Opposition. As Prime Minister he has been rightly precluded by Statute from accepting any payment by way of fee for a directorship or anything like that. Even if he writes an article or gives an interview he cannot get any payment for it, and rightly so.
But as soon as he leaves office and becomes Leader of the Opposition, receives the equivalent of about £13,000 or £14,000 a year, a lot of it tax-free, he can go on radio and television, take up writing, and all the rest of it, without restriction and probably draw another £10,000 a year so that he is financially better off than when he was Prime Minister. I cannot see how that is fair and reasonable.
It is no good the Parliamentary Secretary saying, "But Boyle will look at it." Will Boyle look at it? My right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said that we had to accept Lawrence. We had to accept the first Boyle Committee Report. We shall no doubt be told, "We shall have to accept this position because when the Bill came before the House on 9th June the House accepted it." Therefore, Boyle will say, "It is now an Act of Parliament." As it affects the present Leader of the Opposition and the present holders of these sinecures, I am against it on principle.
One day not too far distant I shall be attacking the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath)—I think he will then be the right hon. Member for Chislehurst—on the same principle. If he had been 939 a gentleman he would have given way. I shall attack him by saying, "Why should this man go on radio and television? Why should he be writing books and getting a salary from the State and be in a position to get a lot of extra money for attacking the Labour Party and the trade union movement?" He will be writing articles and appearing on radio and television. He will be attacking the low-paid workers, calling them blackmailers, and all the rest of it. He will be able to do that without let or hindrance, and the taxpayers will not only have to pay him his salary, but allow him to receive fees for doing it. We can and do restrict the Prime Minister from doing it, but we shall not be able to restrict him as Leader of the Opposition.
This provision should not be allowed to go through. The Parliamentary Secretary said it is a point to which he had not given thought, but that it is a point of substance. I am not asking him to reduce these salaries. I am not asking him to preclude these people from having the right to contribute for their extra pension. I am saying that in another place he should put these persons on the same basis as Ministers of the Crown. Do not let them have something far better than Ministers of the Crown and the Prime Minister.
When we discussed the first Amendment the Parliamentary Secretary said that the Lord Chancellor, Mr. Speaker, and the Prime Minister were cases on their own, and hence they would be treated differently. On that basis and under the present arrangement these people will be far better treated than the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Speaker. They should not be so treated.
This is not a personal matter. I shall want to return to this matter and be able to say, as I did when I opposed Mr. Speaker King's salary increase, when I opposed a lot of this on Second Reading and when I opposed the Common Market, that all the way through I have been consistent. I have not indulged in party politics. It would not make any difference to me who was in office. When the time comes I want to be able to say that I opposed it when I had the chance.
The Minister can prevent my having that opportunity. Let him, without com- 940 mitment, say that he will at least consider this matter before it reaches the other place to see whether something can be done along the lines I mentioned, because he has accepted that I have a point and that this is something that needs to be put right.