HC Deb 29 June 1978 vol 952 cc1672-84

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House takes note of the Fourth Report from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services), in the present Session of Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 472), on Members' Secretaries and Research Assistants (Severance Payments &c.).—[Mr. Graham.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)

I suggest that it might be for the convenience of the House to discuss with this motion the next one concerning the Members' secretarial winding-up allowance.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead (Derby, North)

I wish to speak on both motions in the name of the Lord President, the recommendation of the Fourth Report from the Select Committee of this Session and the proposal from the Government. I do not wish to delay the House unneccesarily. We all understand why many hon. Members need to eat and drink elsewhere tonight.

I simply remind the House that we debated the Committee's Seventh Report of last Session—the first report which came from the Sub-Committee which I had the honour to chair—on 21st February last. The House will recollect that the proposal for a lump sum for severance pay equal to three months of salary in paragraphs 21 to 24 of that report was not accepted in the Government's motion because of the complication that many secretaries would be eligible for redundancy payments under the 1965 Redundancy Payments Act.

On that occasion the House strongly took the view that this matter should be looked at again. Hon. Members on all sides urged the reconvening of the Sub-Committee so that this could be done. In the few short months since that debate, six of our colleagues have died—Marcus Lipton, Sir John Hall, Alex Wilson, John Mendelson, Frank Hatton, and Joe Harper only last week. I give this list to remind those who need the reminder of the fact of mortality in this House. I also wish to emphasise the real suddeness with which someone in the employment of an hon. Member can find himself or herself bereft of that employment in unusual circumstances.

I am grateful to my four colleagues, to the Clerk of the Services Committee and the Accountant for meeting so quickly to bring forward new proposals which have the unanimous support of the main Services Committee.

I shall outline briefly the main proposals of the Fourth Report that is before us tonight. First, we looked at the question of eligibility. It says in the report in heroic misprint in paragraph 3: the legibility of many secretaries for payments under the Redundancy Payments Act The secretary who was not legible would soon be eligible for redundancy payments. Of course, it is the question of eligibility that is under discussion.

The Committee accepted that many secretaries are eligible for payments under the Redundancy Payments Act. We hope that our reform will draw attention to the fact that they can make a claim upon the Member, his estate or the State, if necessary, and that others in future who leave the self-employed category will be considered for such payments.

However, there remain a number of secretaries who for one reason or another are in the self-employed category. In some cases this is because they are the wives of the Members for whom they work. Such people are not in a position to make a claim under the 1965 legislation.

We go on in the report to draw attention to a second factor. That is, that unlike most employed persons—because of the unusual circumstances of employment in this place—the secretary often receives no notice of the termination of employment. I have already referred to the deaths of Members, of which there have been so many in recent months, but there is also the fact that a Member may lose his seat. Virtually by definition a Member does not expect to do so. Almost all of us believe that we are in a permanent state of grace with the electorate and we are amazingly surprised to find that occasionally fortune does not smile upon us. There are, for a number of secretaries, unforeseen circumstances which have made us look again at the whole question of severance pay.

We came to the conclusion in the Fourth Report that the only possible permanent solution to this problem lies in an extension of the present system for the payment of a secretarial allowance for Members. We recommended that that should be referred to the Top Salaries Review Body. The whole question of severance payment for Members' secretaries on a permanent basis must be discussed by Boyle and is not properly a matter for recommendation by a Sub-Committee of this House.

There does, however, remain—particularly as we are now in what is to all intents and purposes the last year of this Parliament—the interim problem. This could be dealt with by the setting up of a special temporary fund. Hon. Members will see, looking at the report, that we proposed that a special secretaries fund should be established, administered by Members of the House as trustees. We proposed that this fund should look at hardship cases and at the right to initiate investigations into such cases. We also proposed that it should hear claims for payments up to £500 by secretaries who could show to the satisfaction of the trustees that they had done parliamentary work after their Member ceased to be a Member, for whatever reason. Certainly in the event of sudden death, and to a lesser extent after a General Election and in other circumstances as well, a secretary can be kept here with no tenure, no expectations and no salary doing work to clear up the estate of that Member. In those circumstances, we felt it was right that a claim should be made upon the trust.

We went on to say that this temporary scheme should have an input both from the Exchequer and from Members and that Members should make monthly payments of £1 until the fund was wound up. But I understand that the meaning of the Government's motion tonight, which I personally welcome, is that it will avoid the time scale for the necessary legislation to set up such a trust ensuring contributions from every Member and will make certain that the scheme will be entirely funded by the Exchequer.

The Lord President was kind enough to write to me about this. I am grateful to him for his help in this matter and for bringing it before us so quickly. He told me that his proposal would make provision for an allowance of up to £500 under arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker, to be paid where secretaries or research assistants have to complete work after a Member has left the House. I have in mind that in practice the arrangements would he on very similar lines to those envisaged by the Report but with an informal panel of Members advising Mr. Speaker, rather than a formal trust. I welcome that, and I personally welcome the fact that it removes the necessity for Members to make a contribution of £1 a month on a temporary basis with all the unhappy overtones that there would be if any one Member decided, for whatever reason, that he wished to opt out of the scheme.

I hope that the Lord President will tell us that the Government's attitude is one not merely of taking note of the report but of fully supporting the idea of referring the whole severance problem to the Review Body. We also want to know how Mr. Speaker's advisers will differ from the proposed trustees under the Committee's scheme, and whether they can investigate special hardship cases. I remind my right hon. Friend that the hardship cases we had in mind—people who were not eligible in any circumstances for redundancy payments under the 1965 Act—had a claim on the proposed trustees, just as do all secretaries, whether they are eligible under the 1965 Act or not, who might come forward and make a claim for work done. I also remind my right hon. Friend of the position of secretaries of hon. Members who have died since the debate of 21st February. They could conceivably be hardship cases in the future.

I wish to thank all members of the Services Committee who have helped to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion tonight. This begins to rectify on an ad hoc basis the very real injustice to those who serve us in this House and who have been for a very long time the unsung work force which keeps the whole business of Parliament moving. I commend the report—and, if it is incumbent upon me to do so, the Government motion as well—to the House.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. John Wells (Maidstone)

Hon. Members in all parts of the House appreciate the compassionate interest of the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) in these matters. We may not all agree with him in detail, but we agree with him in broad principle. The only doubt I have relates to the great new industry which has spawned in the last two years involving Members' research assistants.

The hon. Gentleman rightly spoke about secretaries, and we all have in mind the staff of our late colleague Sir Peter Kirk and of others. The hon. Gentleman spoke of secretaries winding up the estates of late Members. By sheer definition of the word "research", how can a research assistant exist the moment his Member breaks his neck'? Such a person is an absurdity when his Member has gone to Heaven.

Therefore, I deplore the inclusion of research assistants in these considerations. I also deplore the great spawning increase in that trade throughout the building, with all these assistants getting in our way in the Library on Mondays and Fridays. These people should be put in their place—which in general is in the Capitol of the United States, or in Australia, or in Paris. Very few of them are British citizens. They are a damned nuisance, and the sooner we get rid of them the better.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke (Bristol, West)

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) has, as ever, made a spirited speech and expressed an independence of mind that we much enjoy. Indeed, he expressed a point of view that is held by a number of hon. Members. However, I very much doubt that a new Parliament elected to cope with all the many problems of the State will share his point of view. The demand for more and more facilities for more and more people to work in this building is growing every day. Although one does one's best to ensure that sensible demands are met, there is no doubt that the demand is increasing.

That is why we welcome the chance before the end of this Session to debate the report of the Committee on the subject of new building for Parliament. The House will then be able to consider how fast and how far to go in that direction. That is a matter for another day, but I hope that it will not be many days ahead.

The Services Committee and its Sub-Committees have drawn attention for several weeks to a problem which is only partly dealt with in this debate. It is not for want of any enthusiasm on our part that as yet we have not been able to work out a scheme to deal with all the problems. At first it seemed a simple, straightforward matter. Then, on close examination, it turned out to be most complex, and one difficulty after another was put in our way—not by those who wished to frustrate us, but by those who wished to point out the niceties of the law.

I welcome the Lord President's proposal because it provides for the payment of secretaries carrying out work of a parliamentary nature, clearing up the parliamentary affairs of a deceased Member, a defeated Member of even a retiring Member, up to a limit of £500. That is a fair amount. This will be subject to Mr. Speaker's agreement, and he will have the benefit of advice of an informal group of Members. In this respect Trustees of the existing Members Fund might turn out to be the appropriate body because it has wide experience of judging each case on its merits. Because the payment of sums of money for clearing up parliamentary affairs is not as straightforward a matter as the straight drawing of a parliamentary allowance by a Member of the House, the Lord President and those who advise him were wise to put in this procedure to ensure that the sums of money are properly applied.

There is particular difficulty in the case of a deceased Member where there is nobody with the intimate knowledge of that Member's affairs to sign a certificate or to write a letter. This proposal is to be welcomed because it solves that problem which, in so far as it relates to the services of Parliament, is the biggest problem. However,, it does not solve some other problems which we hoped our proposals would cover. I wish to draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to two categories of difficulty which could have been dealt with had we set up a secretaries fund on a similar basis to the Members fund, with the trustees having a wide discretion to deal with particular cases.

What we are not able to deal with this evening, but what we should bear in mind for the future, are those staff who have served here for many years, who have reached a great age, and who cannot afford to retire. They may have to die in harness at an advanced age because they were unable to enter any pension scheme, voluntary or statutory. In future we must address ourselves to the subject of a proper pension scheme..

It must be admitted that within the present financial limits of what is availble for Members to pay secretaries it is difficult to see how such a scheme could be worked out, but it may be possible in future. Those who serve for many years and who cannot afford to retire should be considered. There are not many such cases, but there are some.

I turn to the last point that I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that I shall not have to respond to his remarks because I am sure that he will give us a satisfactory reply. I refer to the sudden emergency that occurs, not to a Member of Parliament by being deceased, losing his seat or retiring, but some sudden domestic emergency which the secretary suffers or some other emergency related to the parliamentary activity. In the present arrangements we have no discretion to deal with such cases. We have discretion in the case of the Members Fund if an accident happens to a Member of if the Member dies, but similar discretion is not possible in respect of the limited scheme we are now discussing.

I hope that the Lord President will bear these matters in mind and will give us some hope that we may return to them in the future. We look forward to hearing his reply.

8.16 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot)

The hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke) sought, in his usual skilful style, to raise an entirely different matter. He mentioned a possible future debate in the House on the report on parliamentary building. That is an extremely important matter, and I fully accept that it would be most deplorable if it were never discussed in the House.

When we discussed the matter in the Services Committee, I understand that I gave an absolute undertaking to the Committee that there would be such a debate. If the hon. Gentleman says that is the truth, I am sure that is so. Therefore, we must seek to have such a debate. I should like to have had that debate in any case, but we all know that there is great pressure on parliamentary time. I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the great desirability of such a debate. Therefore, in view of my undertaking and the nature of the subject, we must do everything possible to have such a debate before we adjourn for the Summer Recess.

I shall not be tempted to follow the disrespectful remarks of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) about research assistants. They, as others, have a right to live. I shall not make any adverse comments about them. I have enough enemies in this life without wishing to range research assistants against me. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman must fight that battle by himself. I have nothing against research assistants and I think that they should be properly treated, too.

Mr. Wells

rose—

Mr. Foot

I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. This is not a debate about research assistants. It was the hon. Gentleman who introduced that aspect.

The whole House owes a great debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) for his speech in this debate and the clear way in which he stated the position, and also for the immense work he has undertaken. I wish to express by personal gratitude to my hon. Friend, and I am sure that I am expressing the view of the secretaries, Members of Parliament and indeed the whole House.

What should certainly happen in the establishment of a committee to advise Mr. Speaker is that my hon. Friend should be there to give him some advice. Nobody would be better qualified than my hon. Friend to do so. In response to that aspect of the matter, I think the wisest course would be that the Sub-Committee of the Services Committee, which has played such an important part, should be the body to advise Mr. Speaker. It does not rest with me who will be the Opposition's representatives on that Committee. That would be the intelligent way to proceed, and I believe that it would command the support of the House and of those who have followed this matter throughout.

We on the Services Committee, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North and others, have pursued the ques- tion of payments to Members' secretaries and research assistants, about which there is concern in the House, with all due speed and vigour. When we debated the Seventh Report of the last Session in February this year, there were serious reservations in the Government's response, but we have overcome those reservations and wholeheartedly respond to the latest report.

In our latest report, the Committee notes that even where an employer is unable to meet his obligations under the Redundancy Payments Act, an employee should not suffer since full payment may be made from public funds. I should like to draw the House's attention to this fact and to echo the report's hope that this knowledge will mean that even more secretaries will claim their statutory entitlements. Nevertheless, I accept that this does not meet all the problems that secretaries can face, and the report therefore goes on quite correctly to look at the cases where a secretary or research assistant may be faced with the task of completing parliamentary work that has begun when a Member has left the House, for whatever purpose. It is important that work done should be paid for. As is emphasised in the report, that is the object of the scheme before us.

However, on examining the report more closely, we found that in one respect there was a certain reservation. I was advised that the establishment of a fund such as that proposed in the report would require primary legislation. Indeed the Members Fund, with which analogy is sometimes drawn, is statutorily based. I wholeheartedly support the report's view that the question would best be examined by the Top Salaries Review Body. I shall propose that to the Prime Minister, who is responsible for making such recommendations. If he does not agree, I shall have some severe words to address to him. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North that we shall back that recommendation and ask the Review Body to look at the matter.

However, the implication of this must be that we are discussing the establishment of a temporary scheme only and I am sure that the House will agree that, for this reason alone, primary legislation would he inappropriate and would delay matters further. One of the purposes of this debate and one of the requirements of the House in our last debate was that we should not delay matters. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North has given further tragic evidence of why we must not delay.

I shall ensure that the Committee considers whether we can look at retrospective cases. I cannot give an absolute promise, but I certainly think that we should consider retrospective cases, at least back to the first meeting. In any case, it is necessary that we should have gone ahead to get the motion through without waiting for more general legislation or a report from the review body.

The motion fully accepts the spirit of the report and endeavours to give substance to it in a more direct way. Payment will be made solely by reference to the resolution, as is the case with Members' severance pay. One result is that the whole cost of the scheme will be met from public funds. That is the only way that we could have dealt with the matter expeditiously. It is acceptable to the Government on the understanding that the scheme is temporary pending a report from the Review Body, that the cost of the scheme should be met, as far as possible, from within the existing Vote provision and that the £500 will be paid only for work done. That is also in accord with the Committee's recommendation.

The scheme will be administered by the House's Accountant under arrangements approved by Mr. Speaker. It is contemplated that there should be a source of advice from hon. Members available to the Accountant and the most appropriate way of achieving that would be for the Sub-Committee of the Services Committee to be enabled to advise Mr. Speaker on this subject.

I know that I have not covered every aspect. I am not sure that all the cases raised by the hon. Member for Bristol, West would have been dealt with by a more formal fund or by a body entirely analogous to the Members Fund, but I agree that we must see how we can also deal with those matters. I hope that such an approach will help the House.

I hope that the motion will be passed and that the House will accept that the Services Committee has responded to the debate that we had a few months ago and that we are making one more con- tribution to trying to ensure that secretaries and research assistants who work for hon. Members are decently and properly treated. That has not been the case in the past. I believe that we are taking a good stride in that direction, and I hope that the House will approve the motion.

8.26 p.m.

Mr. Whitehead

Wtih the leave of the House, I should like to comment on the Lord President's very helpful summary of the Government's attitude. The whole Committee is grateful that the Government have not merely found it possible to take up the Sub-Committee's recommendations, but, in one important respect, to extend them.

Two points have arisen from the debate. There was a sustained onslaught on research assistants by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells), who is not here for the conclusion of the debate. It seemed to me that the hon. Gentleman was saying that all research assistants were transatlantic nuisances who hung around the Library and cluttered up this place and that they should not be considered in the terms of reference of the Committee's report or the Government's proposals. I must make clear that the Committee was required throughout to look at the position of research assistants, as well as the position of secretaries, precisely because we anticipated, as does the House as a whole, that the future employment of research assistants, who are making a genuine contribution to the legislative process here, will be extended. It is foolish to suggest that these people are a drag upon our proceedings or are treating their work as an extended overseas seminar from some Middle West high school in the United States.

It is clear that the Committee advising Mr. Speaker will take a different view of a claim by a research assistant for having wound up the correspondence of a Member as against the claim of a Member's secretary. By definition, a dead or retired Member is unlikely to be commissioning research. It is possible that those who have retired to the House of Lords—which is another form of death—may be seeking further information from their research assistants on conditions in that place, but I do not think that that would constitute a legitimate claim on the fund.

In his absence, I ask the hon. Member for Maidstone to take research assistants seriously and to accept that the members of the Sub-Committee who become advisers to Mr. Speaker will be able to make the appropriate differentiation in this respect.

I imagine that on most occasions Mr. Speaker and his Committee will not be called into action. These and many other allowances are paid at the discretion of the officials of the House, especially the Accountant, to whom I pay tribute. The officials are perfectly capable of distinguishing a "phoney" application from a genuine one for this allowance as for most of the other allowances that are paid in the House.

I again thank my right hon. Friend. I commend the Report to the House.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) was not present in the Chamber to take his medicine from the hon. Member for Dereby, North (Mr. Whitehead). My hon. Friend is a no nonsense sort of Member. There is an element of truth in what he said, but only an element. We have had some pressures this summer from a large number of overseas research asistants, who are possibly benefiting in a somewhat seminar capacity. I shall not pursue that argument. I accept absolutely that there is a growing demand for such assistants as there is for somewhere to put them.

I thank the Lord President for his most generous response to the possibility of a debate on the Fifth Report. I hope that the debate on that occasion will be as agreeable as the present debate.

The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Sub-Committee of the Services Committee, headed by the hon. Member for Derby, North, might be the appropriate body to advise Mr. Speaker. It might be better if Mr. Speaker were allowed to choose those who should advise him, bearing in mind, of course, what has been said by various important people. It may be that Mr. Speaker will want to draw on other resources to complement the humble Sub-Committee of the Services Committee. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bear that in mind.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House takes note of the Fourth Report from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services), in the present Session of Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 472), on Members' Secretaries and Research Assistants (Severance Payments &c.).