HC Deb 11 December 1990 vol 182 cc914-22

7. In the first column, for the entry 'Her Majesty's Commissioner of Lieutenancy in the City of London' there shall be substituted the following entry:—

Member of Her Majesty's Commission of Lieutenancy for the City of London.

The motion seeks the approval of the House to the amendment by Order in Council to schedule 1 of the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975— [Interruption.] I am delighted to know from the encouraging noises around me that this is a matter of such widespread interest to all hon. Members.

As the House is well aware, the Act is concerned with the maintenance of the independence of the House and the safeguarding of hon. Members from undue influence by the Executive through the exercise of its patronage. Schedule 1 lists those offices whose holders are thereby disqualified from membership of the House.

It has been the usual practice for any legislation that establishes new offices or winds up existing ones to amend schedule 1 accordingly. The 1975 Act is therefore reprinted from time to time, in accordance with the provisions of that Act, to incorporate such amendments. The last reprint was made on 1 January 1987. A further reprint will be ordered when the new order has been made. In addition, from time to time it is necessary to use the procedure outlined in section 5(1) to bring schedule 1 up to date by Order in Council. That section provides for the schedule to be amended, following a resolution by the House, either by adding offices which have been created by administrative action, by amending or correcting existing entries, or by deleting offices that no longer exist or for which statutory disqualification is no longer appropriate. The procedure has been followed on eight previous occasions, the first being in 1961 and the last in December 1986.

Copies of the explanatory note describing the amendments in detail have been available in the Vote Office since 5 December. I hope that hon. Members have read and studied the note with great care.

Ministers have been individually responsible for the details of the additional entries and deletions that cover offices within their areas of responsibility. They have based their judgments on the same general principles and criteria which have been followed in the past and which are covered in the explanatory note.

Of the 66 amendments covered, 27 are new entries, 29 are deletions and 10 are amendments to existing entries. Approximately 202 office holders will be brought into the scope of schedule 1; and up to 120 others will no longer be disqualified, including the holders of offices that have been abolished. There is, therefore, a net increase of 82 office holders being disqualified. However, of the 202 who have been added to the schedule, 70 are members of staff of the Northern Ireland Audit Office who were formerly disqualified as civil servants under section 1(1)(b) of the Act.

We propose that the de minimis level—that is, the level below which the paid offices in the gift of the Crown or Ministers do not normally attract disqualification—should be raised to £7,000. The de minimis limit has no effect on the level of remuneration received by office holders. Its purpose is merely to prevent trivial disqualification. The 1986 figure of £5,000 has been uprated in line with movements in average earnings. We are following a well established procedure, and I commend the motion to the House.

10.20 pm
Dr. John Marek (Wrexham)

May I first welcome the right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) to the Dispatch Box as Minister of State, Privy Council Office? Recently a few Ministers have jumped in and out of office quickly and the previous incumbent of his post, the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), held it for only a few months before he was promoted to the Treasury Bench. However, the office is one in which the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex will be able to speak. Previously as Chief Whip he always had to hold his tongue.

I inform Conservative Members who are hanging about that the Opposition Front Bench has no intention of forcing a Division on the motion. I cannot speak for individual hon. Members, but Front-Bench Members wish the motion to go through because clearly the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 needs to be updated from time to time. It was last updated in 1986 and it is time for a further one.

I shall detain the House for only a few minutes to ask the Minister some questions about the motion. First, I should like to hear from him that the motion is basically a consolidation and updating of the Act. Certain positions which no longer exist have been struck off and other positions which have been created since 1986 have been included. Apart from increasing the de minimis level from £5,000 to £7,000, there seems to be nothing in the motion or the Order in Council that will be laid as a result which is of a political nature or calls for debate on a specific point. It would be useful if the Minister would confirm that.

I was unable to find particular mention of de minimis levels in the explanatory note which was put in the Vote Office. There is an explanation on page ii which gives the four criteria for disqualification. Criterion A in paragraph 5 explains that To prevent 'trivial disqualifications' a minimum salary level of £500 p.a. was adopted in 1957, rising to £5,000 in 1986, although disqualification might be proposed for offices with remuneration below this level at the Minister's discretion. The corresponding level is now £7,000". Perhaps the Minister could give a little more information to the House and give examples of posts which have been disqualified where the remuneration is perhaps just less than £7,000 per annum. Is the uprating from £5,000 to £7,000 important for avoiding disqualification of certain posts under the 1957 and 1975 Acts?

I should like to make several points about particular offices. First, I draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 7 on page 3 of the explanatory note. It is proposed that the tribunal established under part II of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 is now such that disqualification is not necessary. The explanatory note says: As the body is rarely convened and is to all intents and purposes defunct, disqualification of the Office-holders is no longer considered appropriate. If the body is defunct, why not get rid of it completely? If not, what exactly does it do? How often is it convened, and how important is it? I am quite prepared to believe what the explanatory note says, but a bit more elucidation from the Minister would be useful.

Let me now refer the Minister to paragraph 13 on page 5, along with paragraph 17 on page 7. Paragraph 13 proposes a new entry: Chairman of the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting", while paragraph 17 proposes another: Chairman of the Public Health Laboratory Service Board". I believe that those posts have been in existence for some time. I may be wrong about that, but, if they have, why has it taken so long for them to be included?

Paragraph 35 on page 13 proposes another new entry: "Social fund Commissioner". This is, I understand, a long-established body, and it may be only a change of name that is involved—in which case an appropriate deletion will have been made elsewhere—but, whatever the position, a word of elucidation from the Minister would again be helpful.

The explanatory note says: The office of the social fund Commissioner is established by section 35 of the Social Security Act 1986. The Commissioner receives remuneration of £19,104 per annum and is required to be politically impartial. That is quite right.

The proposed new entry will bring one office holder into the schedule. Was it too late to include that in the 1986 revision? If not, why was it not included?

Paragraph 47 on page 17 refers to an entry to be deleted: Chairman of the Staff Commission for Education and Library Boards in Northern Ireland".— The explanatory note is rather opaque, stating: The disqualification of this Office-holder has been reviewed and his disqualification is no longer thought necessary. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could elucidate.

Let me repeat that the Opposition have no objection to the motion. We may smile when we note that, between January 1987 and November 1990, the number of additions to those disqualified by primary legislation was 2,600, while the number deleted by primary legislation was 214. The Minister and his Government seem to be creating a good many quangos, and having to add a good many names to the provisions governed not only by the motion that we are discussing, but by primary legislation.

I remember the Government saying very stridently in 1978–79 that there were too many quangos and that life should be simplified. That does not seem to have happened. However, I repeat that the motion is necessary and that I hope that it will have a speedy passage through the House.

10.30 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)

I have examined the explanatory note with interest. It contains a number of common factors relating to people disqualified for election —for example, because they are required to be politically impartial—and most of them are appointed by the Government.

But being appointed by the Government is not the hallmark of being politically impartial. Indeed, after the sacking of various appointees over the years, it is a hallmark of political support for the Government that anybody is appointed, so it is not a clear statement of political impartiality to have been appointed by the Government.

On page 10 of the explanatory note appears an interesting difference from most of the other appointees.

No. 27, a new entry, is: Director of Nuclear Electric p.l.c. The House will recall that that arises because the Government, in promoting a privatisation procedure which is a national rip-off, have taken out the most expensive part of electricity generation, and that is the nuclear sector. One of the last acts of a former Secretary of State for Energy was to announce that the deCommissioning of Magnox reactors would be a charge on the public purse, not on the shareholders' purse. As a result of that burden on the public purse, there is a new Nuclear Electric plc and its directors will be disqualified under the Order in Council.

The entry to that effect says: Following the Government's decision to retain nuclear generating capacity in public ownership Nuclear Electric plc, a Companies Act company, was established with effect from 31 March 1990. It is considered that the Directors should be disqualified by virtue of their position of control in companies in receipt of Government grants and funds. That is as it should be, because they will have lots of public funds as they decommission stations, as problems arise with nuclear generation and as new nuclear stations are built. Tens of billions of pounds will be involved. But the entry contains this further qualification: Furthermore, the duties of some of the Directors are time-consuming and would prevent them from fulfilling parliamentary duties satisfactorily. Nowhere else in the document is that criterion used. We welcome that additional qualification, but if that criterion is being applied to the director of Nuclear Electric plc —that his duties will be time-consuming and could prevent him from fulfilling his parliamentary duties satisfactorily —will the Government recognise that if Members of Parliament are to fulfil their duties satisfactorily, they must work full time at their job?

I draw the attention of the Minister to the current Register of Members' Interests. We see that the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox) is a director of no fewer than six companies, in addition to being a consultant to 3M (UK) Ltd., Shepherd (Construction) Ltd., and Plaxton Group plc.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

And he runs the Conservative elections.

Mr. Cryer

No, that is done by somebody else who is a member of Lloyd's.

Clearly, that hon. Gentleman has a lot on his plate. One is led to wonder whether this is a new attitude on the part of the Government towards their Members who fill the pages of the register so lavishly, unfortunately without giving information about their remuneration from the directorships, parliamentary advisorships and so on that Tory Members do as part of their moonlighting, while at the same time they are busy urging ordinary workers to keep their wage claims to a minimum.

The instrument that we are considering is the precursor to an Order in Council which will give authority to add or delete various categories of people. It suggests that the Government are taking a searching look at the ability of Members to do their job. It is, of course, up to the electorate to determine whether a person is fit to be a Member of this place.

It would be a good idea if the qualification in entry 27 was understood at large. It would give the Government much more credibility if, when they were urging workers taking home about £150 or £160 a week who want a bit more to catch up with the cost of living due to the Government's economic policies, not to ask for large wage increases, the Government could say, "The outside duties of not just the new director of Nuclear Electric but other appointments are so onerous as to prevent them from fulfilling parliamentary duties satisfactorily and it would be better if Members of Parliament worked full time."

It is interesting that entry 27 is the only one with that criterion. I should be interested to hear the Minister explain why that post is subject to that particular criterion. Is it in the Ministers' minds to introduce the same criterion for other entries, and they have simply not bothered to repeat it? Why has the director of Nuclear Electric been picked out when I should have thought that there were many other entries from people who would be expected to be equally busy but are not subject to the additional criterion that, as they would be so busy, they could not be Members of Parliament?

10.36 pm
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Eltham)

If the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) is concerned that people should not work for more than eight hours, he should apply that limit to himself and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). We started today's debate at 2.30 pm and finished it six minutes ago, and I hope that, if they are going to take that line, those two Members will not contribute after 10.30 on future evenings.

I am having a row with the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting. I hope that if the chairman discovers that I have mentioned that fact in the debate, he or she will pay attention to my fault in passing on a constituent's complaint without disguising his or her identity. If the chairman becomes a Member of Parliament, I shall draw his or her attention to part III of schedule 1, and shall take up the issue more delicately outside the Chamber.

Let me pick up the point of the hon. Member for Bradford, South about whether someone has to have a party affiliation to be appointed to one of the boards. When I was a junior Minister in Northern Ireland I was concerned with the affairs of Citybus, Flexibus, Ulsterbus, Northern Ireland Airports and Northern Ireland Railways. I was not aware of the political affiliations of any of the people that I recommended to the Secretary of State. Many of the other appointees not covered by today's motion, but by previous ones, would be insulted if they thought that they obtained their positions because of their political affiliations. If we ever have another Labour Government and they pick up the idea that everyone who serves has to be a signed-up member of the Labour party, they will find that the quality of many of those serving will not be as good as it would if they were willing to take other factors into account.

10.38 pm
Mr. Renton

I thank the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) for his kind remarks at the beginning of his short speech. I understand his concern that when one leaves the Whips Office after a period of enforced silence, it is a matter of doubt whether one will find one's tongue again. Perhaps this was an easy baptism for me to ascertain that I could still speak after a fashion.

I assure the hon. Member for Wrexham that this is essentially a consolidation measure. The order is brought forward simply to update the 1975 Act, and should not be politically contentious in any way. However, the remarks of the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) inevitably introduced some political contentiousness.

Criterion 'c' on page ii of the explanatory note states: Offices imposing duties which with regard to time or place would prevent their holders from fulfilling Parliamentary duties satisfactorily, ie they would take up too much time or otherwise prevent an MP from attending Parliament. That has been in force, as the note says, since 1957. The hon. Member for Bradford, South, being a fair person, might think that that disqualification would apply especially to Members of the European Parliament: it would be difficult to be an MEP at the same time as being a Member of Parliament. Yet, extraordinarily enough, I note that the hon. Gentleman was an MEP for Sheffield from 1984 to 1989 and for the years 1987 to 1989 he was also the Member of Parliament for Bradford, South. I should have thought that his electorate would have wanted, in his words, to take a searching look at whether their new hon. Member was capable of fulfilling his duties——

Mr. Cryer

I expected that comment. The Minister will be pleased to know that, although I was for a brief time a Member of the EEC assembly in Strasbourg, I also managed to appear in the top half dozen Labour voters in this House and in the top two dozen of all voters, including Conservative Members.

Mr. Renton

The hon. Gentleman defends himself a little too much. He should have thought about the criterion rather carefully before accepting the onerous job of being simultaneously an hon. Member and Member of the European Parliament for more than two years—doubtless drawing two salaries and two sets of other inducements and expenses the while.

To return to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Wrexham, the de minimis limit is a level below which paid offices in the gift of the Crown or of Ministers do not normally attract disqualification. The reason why the limit is not referred to at greater length in the explanatory note or in the statute is that it is a non-statutory administrative device used by Departments to prevent trivial disqualification. Offices of profit in respect of which the annual remuneration is less than the limit would not usually be put forward for addition to the schedule unless they satisfied another criterion, too.

I am not aware that many posts are caught solely by the increase in the de minimis limit, but the hon. Member for Wrexham will note one example of a new entry at paragraph 17 of the explanatory note. As he said, the post of chairman of the Public Health Laboratory Service Board has been in existence for some time, but it is now remunerated at a level just above the de minimis limit at £8,085 a year.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about the tribunal established under part II of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949. I find it rather hard to give him clarification about that tribunal because I am told that it has no chairman and no members and it has never met. Although it has not yet been statutorily abolished, I understand that the relevant provisions or interference in the Act are to be replaced by legislation to implement an EC directive on electromagnetic compatability. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman the information that he required.

The chairman of the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting is being included because the Department of Health, in one of its regular reviews of whether other posts for which it is responsible should be included, came to the conclusion that as the chairman of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting was already disqualified, the time had come for the chairman of the English national board to be similarly disqualified. I have noted the somewhat tangential comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) on the same subject; they were interesting but I shall not elaborate on them now.

The hon. Member for Wrexham asked me why the social fund Commissioner had not been disqualified previously. He was not appointed until December 1987 and the social fund Commission was not properly established until April 1988. The schedule was last updated in December 1986. I agree that the reason in the explanatory note about the chairman of the Commission for the education and library boards in Northern Ireland is rather opaque. I shall consult further my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and write to the hon. Member for Wrexham about that disqualification.

In a minor way the hon. Member for Wrexham tweaked our tail by referring to the increase in the number of posts being created which then qualified for disqualification. Prospective new quangos are always closely examined before they are created and I assure the hon. Gentleman that all new bodies are closely monitored. We keep a close watch on the number of public bodies and we shall present later this month our annual publication "Public Bodies" which will show a net reduction in the total since last year and since 1979.

I am grateful to hon. Members for their interesting contributions to the debate. I am glad to hear that the Opposition do not intend to divide the House. Once again I commend the motion to the House.

10.45 pm
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

We have no intention of dividing the House. One reason for the debate is that occasionally there are mistakes and people are elected who should not have been elected. Many of them are supposed to be Conservatives who are not in the Chamber. I resent the attacks on my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) for being in the Common Market assembly. He went there to represent me. He was my representative in the Common Market.

Mr. Cryer

It is an assembly.

Mr. Skinner

Yes, an assembly. When he was elected and out of a job I said to him, "I hope that you will shove a lock on every Common Market gravy train that you can find, Bob. That is your job." Off he went, and he set up the socialist campaign group in the Common Market. That was not easy but he managed to recruit a few friends and did a good job. [Interruption.] He did not get Roy Jenkins who was the posh man of the outfit. He had been deputy leader of the Labour party in opposition and was not very well paid because there was no sinecure of any kind. He decided to go to lusher pastures and went to the Common Market. When his four years were nearly up he decided to come back and set up the SDP. He proposed to step on the plane and soar into the sky.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me which provision in the motion he is speaking about.

Mr. Skinner

I am making a fair point. What would have happened if at that time Roy Jenkins had wanted to come back as a Member of the House, before he was elected as the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead, with some kind of pseudo Common Market title that is not in the motion? Could he have been a Member? Roy Jenkins was President of the Commission and not a Member of the European Parliament like my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South, who beavered away trying to get a classless society in the Common Market. I have an idea that Jenkins was not up to that. He was busy supping all the claret he could find in the Common Market. There were no wine lakes when he was there.

Let us suppose that somebody stuck up there in the Common Market said, "I have read this document and I do not think that I am disqualified. I think that I will go back there when there is a vacancy, any old vacancy." [Interruption.] Leon Brittan has almost admitted that he is on his way back. He is making a big name for himself in the Common Market—at least, he thinks he is. He has been commenting on all the Conservative ballots in recent weeks. He has never been on British television and it is pretty clear that he is up to something.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. None of this has anything to do with the motion.

Mr. Skinner

The motion is comprehensive. It includes all the categories of people who would have to pass a test before they were elected to Parliament. Is it final? Does it include all the categories?

The Common Market is causing a number of ripples right across the political scene. Some people might have their eyes set on this place. Some people already want to wander in and out of the Common Market corridors ad nauseam. Who knows, they might want to take their seat here. Therefore, we must scrutinise this motion carefully.

You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were a Member of this House in 1974. I referred earlier to mistakes being made. In 1974, after the election of the Labour Government——

Mr. John M. Taylor (Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household)

That was a mistake.

Mr. Skinner

It was not a mistake. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) caused it. He decided that he wanted a bigger majority than he had and he got belted.

Mr. Peter Bottomley

The hon. Gentleman should remember that it was only after June 1975, perhaps following our change of leader, that the people started throwing out Labour Members of Parliament in the by-elections and the Labour Government had to make an alliance with Lord Jenkins and his party——

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. That has nothing to do with the motion before the House.

Mr. Skinner

I want to prevent mistakes being made, but I must answer the hon. Gentleman. It was not losing by-elections that caused the trouble. A fellow called Stonehouse was our majority, and he went missing. We were searching for him for 12 months. Our majority went on that beach. At least we thought it was on a beach. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were a Minister, and you were having to exist from night to night on the basis of finding Members of Parliament. Then we had the Social and Democratic party mob to contend with. At that time they were planning to leave, but we did not know exactly when they would. It was not just by-elections that caused the problem.

In 1974, not long after the election, I saw a pretty obscure title on the annunciator at 3.30 in the morning and I wondered what it was all about. The Leader of the House, Ted Short, was moving retrospective legislation. A Liberal, who is now Lord Winstanley, then the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, had been elected here despite being debarred because he was serving as a doctor on a medical appeals tribunal.

Both Front-Bench spokesmen—this is what happens in this place—made an agreement to sneak the change through in the early hours of the morning under an obscure title so that no one would notice and Mr. Winstanley could come back as a Member of Parliament without his leaving the building. They sent him out the Chamber, just in case. That is as far as he went. Hon. Members get thrown out of the Chamber for saying something out of place, but he was just asked to stand outside while the measure was slipped through. In the space of half an hour, after contributions from the Front-Bench spokesmen and myself, the Government managed to introduce retrospective legislation so that that hon. Member could keep his seat.

That brings me back to what the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) said. Little did I realise when I was opposing that motion that that Member's vote was needed later. It was not 1975. It was 1976, after the International Monetary Fund business when some of us had refused to support the various efforts of the Government at that time. I shall not go too far down that road, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I know that your heart is aching for the past and those great moments when we lived from day to day with people being shunted into the Lobby after being brought here. It is an important matter. When people stand for election, they should make sure that they are qualified to do so. In my view, we do not have a comprehensive picture. Let us scour the Common Market to ensure that the people there who want to pinch places in this House cannot do so outside the limits of this place.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That Schedule 1 to the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 be amended as follows:—