HC Deb 20 April 1983 vol 41 cc285-6
48. Mr. Parry

asked the Minister for the Civil Service what matters he expects to discuss at his next meeting with the Civil Service unions.

Mr. Hayhoe

Plans for my next meeting with the Civil Service unions have not yet been made.

Mr. Parry

When the Minister next meets the Civil Service unions, will he assure them that civil servants and public service workers whose jobs are affected by privatisation will not suffer any reduction in their pension rights?

Mr. Hayhoe

Discussions are going on with my right hon. Friends who are concerned with aspects of government where privatisation proposals are under consideration, and these would be matters for them.

Sir John Biggs-Davison

Do not candidatures for union office show that there are civil servants employed by the Ministry of Defence who are openly hostile to the defence policies of the present and the previous Government? Do Her Majesty's Government think that this is a satisfactory state of affairs?

Mr. Hayhoe

One should not envisage circumstances in which all civil servants were necessarily supportive of the views of the Government of the day in their private opinions. We have a long tradition that the private views of civil servants, particularly those in senior positions, must be kept separate from their Government work. I accept that in the Ministry of Defence particular considerations apply, and those who are positively vetted will have these matters taken into account.

Mr. Alan Williams

As it appears that the Government are about to run for cover before inflation rises, and as inflation is so critically important to those on fixed incomes, when the Minister next meets trade unions, representing as they do over 500,000 Civil Service voters and as many again Civil Service pensioners and their families, will he give them a categoric assurance that, in the unlikely and improbable event of a Conservative Government being re-elected, they would not abandon index-linked pensions nor allow any reduction in the pension entitlement of those whose jobs were privatised? Or does the Minister still intend, ominously from the point of view of civil servants, to fudge both these issues this side of a general election?

Mr. Hayhoe

I made the Government's position clear in the debate last October. I would be happy to meet representatives of the Civil Service unions to discuss these matters if they so desired. I see no worry on their part and no desire or request for a meeting. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to make a political point without being fully aware of the views of the civil servants involved.

Mr. Alan Williams

Does the Minister realise that prevaricating and evasive as that reply was intended to be, it will be clearly understood by civil servants throughout the country to mean that an incoming Conservative Administration would end the indexation of public service pensions?

Mr. Hayhoe

Perhaps I see more representatives of Civil Service unions than does the right hon. Gentleman and am better able to judge their awareness of the realities of the situation, which are very different from what the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

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