§ 41. Mr. MacShaneTo ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make it his policy to extend parliamentary allowances to allow the full-time employment, at standard rates of pay, of at least one personal assistant, one research assistant and one constituency case worker for each hon. Member on the basis of direct payment of such salaries, national insurance and pension.
§ The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton)I have no plans to introduce such a system. I believe that the majority of hon. Members would prefer the flexibility of the existing office costs allowance.
§ Mr. MacShaneDear, oh dear! I had hoped that the Lord President would act as Father Christmas to us today.
Since I was elected to the House six months ago, I have been amazed by the third-world working conditions and staffing arrangements for hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. I have to operate in an office in which one could not swing a dead mouse. I am pleased to see that the Minister for Transport in London agrees with me. I believe that those conditions are a deliberate means of preventing scrutiny of the Executive. All I am asking for is what an ordinary person in our job should have: a secretary, a researcher and someone to help with the constituency case work.
§ Mr. WinnickA press officer.
§ Mr. MacShaneNo, I do not need a press officer.
The Lord President and a small number of his colleagues will shortly be sitting on the Opposition Benches and I suggest that they should make preparations now for that eventuality.
§ Mr. NewtonI had some difficulty in discerning all of the hon. Gentleman's points because of the Christmas background noise, but perhaps I can make three points. First, if the hon. Gentleman thinks that the conditions in the House are, to use his words, "third world", he should have seen what it was like when I came here 20 years ago. Secondly, it was decided recently—I cannot honestly claim as much credit for it as I would like since the House defeated me on the subject—to increase significantly the office costs allowance of hon. Members. Thirdly, to echo what I said in my original answer, it was made very clear in the debate on that increase that hon. Members value the flexibility of the existing arrangements.
1395 In the spirit of the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I cannot offer him very much for Christmas, although at the moment there appears to be a vacant space at the top of a tree.
§ Mr. DunnDoes my right hon. Friend agree that parliamentary allowances should also reflect the number of electors in the constituency of each hon. Member?
§ Mr. NewtonI sense some support for my hon. Friend's suggestion—presumably it comes from those hon. Members who have constituencies like mine where the population has risen dramatically. I would not want to be the Leader of the House who attempted to justify that distinction in a clear-cut manner.