HL Deb 04 March 1976 vol 368 cc1185-96

5.12 p.m.

The Earl of KINNOULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether public corporations should be allowed to impose conditions of employment on their employees which could interfere with the responsibilities of those employees who are elected members of local authorities. The noble Earl said: My Lords, my Question has nothing to do with edible fats! Some years ago, I put down a Question on a similar general topic in the form of an Unstarred Question. When the Government came to reply by way of the formidable noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, he started by saying that he was tempted to say "no ", and sit down. I am glad to say he did not, and we had a most illuminating reply from him. Tonight, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, when he comes to reply on behalf of the Government, will give an equally illuminating answer to the Question on the Order Paper, because I believe this general issue is fundamental to our democracy; indeed, I believe that it is an issue which is as sincerely and as passionately felt as the issues in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill which we discussed earlier this week. It is an issue which has been drawn to my attention by the National Association of Local Councils. The issue is whether a public corporation should in any way influence an employee when he is democratically elected to represent his community—that is, whether the corporation should at all influence his duties as a council or, possibly in its own interests.

My Lords, the matter would fall into two parts. The first is whether this should be so, and the second can be expressed by the question, where does the employee stand when he is employed by a public corporation and when his council, on which he represents the members of his community, is in conflict with that corporation over some issue? The case to which I wish to draw attention tonight specifically highlights the general issue. It is a case which occurred some two months ago, although in fact it "blew up "three or four months before that. The case concerns a village called Kielder in Northumberland.

This village is somewhat unique, because it is situated in the midst of a forestry complex. It was originally designed and sited—and, indeed, is largely owned—by the Forestry Commission. Almost all those employed in the village are employed by the Forestry Commission. I may say that in mentioning this case I do not in any way intend to castigate the Forestry Commission over this issue. Indeed, the Chairman of the Commission is a distinguished Member of this House. I took the opportunity last week of giving him notice of this Question. I understand the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has been briefed to give an answer on this case.

My Lords, as I have said, Kielder is a unique village to some extent, but it is not exceptional. Most of the homes are owned by the Forestry Commission; I believe the figure is 90 per cent. The Forestry Commission employ some 80 per cent. of its working population, and therefore have a substantial influence on the community. Nevertheless, like all good villages, it has a democratic, active parish council. I believe that three-quarters of the members of the council are employees of the Forestry Commission. A conflict arose some months ago between the parish council and the Forestry Commission. I understand it was a disagreement concerning certain planning proposals which the Commission intended to introduce. It specifically involved what is known as "a sleeping policeman ", and a Commission road, but it was a road which was nevertheless used by the public and by the school transport to serve the village. I believe that it also involved the local village plan.

All these issues are of burning interest to the community of Kidder. I am told that the parish council initially tried to act as responsibly as it could. It tried to seek agreement with the Forestry Commission privately, to discuss the matter in as sensible a manner as was possible. But when this failed, the parish council eventually sought to solve the disagreement publicly. Not unnaturally, in this case, statements were made publicly criticising the policy of the Forestry Commission. It was at that stage, last January—two months ago—that the handling of this particular case became somewhat disturbing.

My Lords, I am told—and I hope the facts are correct, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, will put me right if they are not that the chairman of the parish council was summoned to a meeting at Newcastle, some 60 miles away, to discuss the contentious issue with the Commission's conservator and chief administrative officer. I presume that the chairman of the parish council went to the meeting as an employee, presumably to discuss his actions and, indeed, the actions of the parish council, as an elected representative of the people. I am not privy to the conversation that occurred on the 19th January 1976, nor have I deliberately spoken to the gentleman involved, because, frankly, I think it might embarrass him.

Two days later, on 21st January, the chairman of the parish council who had attended this meeting publicly put on record his letter of resignation as chairman. Perhaps I can briefly read a short synopsis of part of that letter: Following my interview on Monday, 19th January, 1976, the conditions imposed by the Commission make it no longer possible for me to carry out my duties as chairman or councilor in the manner expected by the electorate. Therefore, with great regret, I tender my resignation from the Kielder Parish Council with effect from the above date, and wish to thank all members of the council for their full and loyal co-operation.

There, apparently, we have a case of undue influence by a public corporation acting as an employer on its employee when the duties of that employee occurred when he was wearing his other hat as an elected member. Where do the loyalties lie in this matter? That is the nub of the general issue.

The repercussions of this case, before one briefly questions the general issue of the parish council of Kielder, are of great concern to the other members of the parish council, because not unnaturally they feel that, as a number of them are employees of the Forestry Commission, they are unable to discuss matters concerning the Commission at the present time. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, can give us some satisfactory answer on this case tonight and can reassure us that the matter is being put right in some way.

My Lords, on the general issue, as I see it, the first question was whether it was right for an employer, the national corporation, to summon the employee 60 miles to discuss business which was his concern as an elected member of the council. Secondly, was it right for the employee, as chairman of the parish council, to be associated with a public disagreement over actions of a public corporation of which he was an employee? Thirdly, how many other cases are there of this nature? Is this perhaps the tip of the iceberg? Fourthly, is there a feeling that all members of elected councils who are employed by national corporations are automatically muzzled when it comes to any question of disagreement with some public policy that the national corporations have instigated, perhaps from the head office in London. concerning an issue miles away? What view do public corporations take of allowing their employees to attend meetings? Do they lose earnings? What rights are protected under, for instance, the Employment Protection Act, 1975? I hope the noble Lord will spell this out. My Lords. I have made a number of inquiries with various national corporations and I find there is a disparity between them—I will not mention specific cases—as to the generosity of treatment of employees. I would hope that there would be a basic standard which perhaps the noble Lord could explain.

On the general issue of conflict of interest, I have sought advice from a number of people on this issue. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Colville will be speaking later, because I feel that with his legal expertise and wide knowledge he brings a very important view to this issue. I am looking forward to hearing what he says. I am told, briefly, that in the case of employment in a private company the issues are often more narrow as regards the employee of a company vis-à-vishis duty as an elected councillor. The issue is often more narrow and he often stands down, partly as a matter of loyalty, but also, and more seriously, because there could be a pecuniary interest.

But where an employee has some conflict of interest with a public corporation I believe the situation is very different. Take, for instance, a policy by the Post Office who decide that a branch office in a village is to be closed down. It could well be that the postman working that village, who has served the community loyally for many years, is also a councillor. Is he really to be muzzled? His knowledge is not private; it is public knowledge what the corporation wish to do. is he to be muzzled and thus rendered unable to help the community to fight the issue of the closure? The same thing might apply with the railways. You might have a stationmaster whose branch line is to be closed. Is he really to be muzzled? Is this really democracy? Is this really a split in one's loyalty, on a policy about which he has had no discussion and probably not knowing who made the decision? I hope this is the sort of issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, may address his mind this evening, and that the particular issue of Kielder is a matter about which he will be able to reassure us. It is a matter, as I said at the beginning, which raises wide and not easy issues. It is a matter which many people feel, as in the case of Kielder, raises disturbing factors, about which I hope the noble Lord can reassure us tonight.

5.26 p.m.

Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS

My Lords, it seems to me that my noble friend Lord Kinnoull has asked most of the questions that could arise out of this case, but nevertheless I hope that I may be able usefully to add a few words to it before we hear what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has to say. Among other things, I was impressed with the point my noble friend made, that there may well be other examples of this sort of thing having happened which did not, for some reason or other, come to the attention of a Member of this House or of another place, and where there is still time to do something about it. I very much welcome, therefore, my noble friend having broadened this question out a little, so that we can look at the more general principles which underlie what has happened. Equally, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, in a moment, will make a speech which is applicable as well to the Forestry Commission as to any other of the large public bodies with whom I think we are primarily concerned this evening.

My Lords, some Members of this House, perhaps particularly the people who have been involved in local government, might think that the easy answer to a situation of this sort is that a member of a council who is also an employee of a large public corporation should seek to keep out of any discussion which involves that large public corporation, because of a clash of interests. As my noble friend has just suggested, in the case of some private organisations it may be that he has to do so, because of the possibility of having a financial interest to declare. But, unfortunately, this case itself shows that that is not the simple or the satisfactory answer. In the first place, as my noble friend has said, if that were to be applied in the case of the parish council at Kidder, there would be virtually no parish council left to discuss the issues so far as the Forestry Commission are concerned, because most of them are in the same position as the chairman, being employees of the Forestry Commission. Therefore, that would not be satisfactory.

The second thing that occurs to me is that to create such a general rule would be a pity, because it would deprive that council of the intimate knowledge of the facts and the policy of the public body concerned which would be available to the council through that very employee who was concerned with the day-to- day activities of it. In the same way I rather regret the Addison Rules in this House, whereby distinguished chairmen of all sorts of public bodies—who probably know far more about them than any of us—are disallowed, as a rule, or at any rate disallow themselves, from giving us their intimate knowledge of the things we are talking about. So it seems to me that that is not the answer.

I can perhaps go a little further than my noble friend, because I know of cases where precisely the opposite of what happened at Kielder has come to pass. I do not want to go into the details, but it will not be only parish councils which are concerned with this sort of thing. There are areas of the country where, for one reason or another, it is likely that a large number of members of a council may be concerned with the basic industry of the area. I have only to cast my mind to West Yorkshire to think at once of areas where members of the council are very strongly linked to the National Coal Board, because many of them are miners who are concerned with it. I hasten to say that this is in no way a criticism of any of them, but simply an illustration of what happens.

A district council may be involved in this way. It would, I think, be preposterous for anybody to suggest that the councillors on a district council—which is a planning authority and has many other important functions—should not be allowed to discuss things like the progress of the coal mining industry. They are not in any way so disallowed. The Coal Board does not take the sort of attitude that has occurred in this case with the Forestry Commission and, I would suggest, for extremely good reasons. After all, the geographical position of employment has important byproducts in the form of the proper use of the infrastructure of an area, the social effects on those who live there, the possibility of the basic employment being taken away, and hardship and other disadvantages arising as a result of that. On occasions like this it is not only necessary but essential that councillors should be able to discuss the broad implications in their official capacity and should be able to negotiate with a body such as, if you like, the National Coal Board, and should take part in any public disputes about the way that plans are to be drawn up and implemented. And they do, because I have been there when they have done it. So far as I know, nothing amiss has ever come to those councillors who have sent their officers off (after taking the decision themselves) to state the case at whatever the forum may be.

The only thing that seems to me to be necessary—I hope that it is this simple—is for the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, to say that that is the sort of attitude that public corporations ought to take. I appreciate that when one says this one has to bear in mind that it will no doubt be the duty of the employee of the public corporation to phrase his criticism, or his approbation, of what his employer is doing—that is to say, when he is talking about this sort of thing as a councillor—in a sensible, tactful and restrained way. He must be careful, and I should think that the employers equally would like to be careful before they were to impugn what has been said by a councillor merely because he happens to be one of their employees and is mixed up with the matter under discussion.

I am sure that both parties in this kind of affair would be well advised to be careful in what they said and how they said it. But once that standard of conduct has been reached, it seems to me that it would be only right for the Government to do what I know is done on many occasions (as I have just explained by one example); that is, to underline the fact that, normally speaking, the Government would not wish to see public corporations censuring, or putting into positions of impossible difficulty, employees of that corporation who were acting properly in accordance with their duty as an elected member of any local authority of whatever size. These are said to be burning issues in Kielder. These things usually are burning issues at whatever elevation you are in the local government world, however big or small the council you may be on, and I would hope that there will be no bar on these things being discussed freely and openly, if tactfully and carefully, by all those elected to do so.

5.33 p.m.

Lord JACQUES

My Lords, the last words of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, "tactfully and carefully "have a great bearing on the particular case with which we will be concerned. The noble Earl has raised in his Question the general issue, and I should like to deal with that first. The general issue raised is about the conditions of service which public corporations may lay down for their employees. He is rightly concerned that people who perform public duties, and give service to their local community as elected members of local authorities, should not unreasonably be prevented by their conditions of employment from performing these valuable functions. On the other hand, I think the House will appreciate that an individual also has certain obligations to his employer. Occasionally the interests of his employer, and the nature or requirements of his public duties, may come into conflict.

In the Government's view, public corporations should not be in a different position from other industry in this matter. They should be free to lay down such conditions of employment as they consider appropriate, subject of course to their carrying out proper negotiations with unions representing their employees about terms and conditions of employment. As noble Lords will recognise, there are some occupations, or particular jobs—especially those involving professional and managerial employees with considerable responsibilities—where there could be an overlap of interests between the requirements of the job and the requirements of duties as a local councillor. Where the employee concerned is a public servant, this overlap can be particularly difficult. We have to bear in mind how the relationship between an individual's employment as a public servant, and his voluntary public duties, may appear to the public. If public servants are to retain the confidence of the public, they must be seen to be above suspicion, and not be put in situations where their integrity might be questioned.

This is recognised in, for example, the Civil Service Code on pay and conditions of service. Civil servants are classed into three groups—broadly, those who are free to take part in national and local political activities, subject of course to moderation and discretion—and I should like to repeat "subject to moderation and discretion "because it has a very important bearing in this particular case. Secondly, there are those who may take part in such political activities subject to certain conditions; and, thirdly, those who may not take part in national politi- cal activities but may seek permission to take part in local political activities. I may say that the chairman of the parish council in question comes in the first category; that is to say, he could take part in local politics subject of course to moderation and discretion. It is one of the distinctive features of our Civil Service that civil servants do not mix politics with business. That is a restriction which civil servants accept when they accept employment in the public service.

Parliament in fact recognised this principle in legislation only a few months ago. The Employment Protection Act 1975 places an obligation on employers to allow their employees reasonable time off work for the performance of certain public duties, including duties as a local authority member. But we recognised in the legislation that, although people in Crown employment should not have unreasonable restrictions in terms of time off work placed upon their participation in public duties, it is right that their conditions of employment restrict the nature of the duties which they could undertake. Section 121 of the Act provides that the obligations on an employer to allow time off for certain public duties does not extend to allowing time off for certain political activities, or activities which may conflict with an employee's official functions, if it is part of his terms of employment that his right to take part in such activities is restricted. In other words, the Act takes note of the Civil Service code of conduct and says that the employee cannot have time off to do things which he is forbidden to do by the code. That is the general principle underlying conditions of employment for public servants.

I now come to the case mentioned by the noble Earl relating to the Kielder parish council. I think it would assist your Lordships if I described briefly the special relationship that exists between the Kielder parish council and the Forestry Commission. The Forestry Commission have a very large area of forest in the North Tyne Valley and have established a forest village at Kielder, which is for the most part occupied by their employees. Indeed, those employees, together with their families, form about two-thirds of the people living within the area of the parish council. It is not unreasonable therefore to expect their interests to be strongly represented in the council. Three of the six parish council members are at present Commission employees.

Given this background, I am sure that your Lordships will recognise that a special relationship between the Forestry Commission and their employees serving on the council is desirable in order to avoid as far as possible any conflict between those employees' private interests and their employment as Government servants. The Forestry Commission, like other public bodies, places no restrictions on their employees participating in parish council affairs. Indeed, it welcomes and facilitates such participation by allowing time off with pay when this is required, thus going beyond the obligations imposed by the Employment Protection Act. However, it naturally expects that any servant of the Crown should try to conform to the general principle of conduct applied in the Civil Service Code, which requires him to avoid conflict between his official duties and his private interests.

The recent resignation of the chairman of the Kielder Parish Council arose, it has been said, because conditions were imposed upon him by the Forestry Commission as his employer. I am sorry if the employee in question felt that the discussions he had had with the Commission's local conservator of forests made it necessary for him to tender his resignation from the parish council on these grounds. The council has assured me that these discussions were in no way intended to interfere with parish council affairs, nor to bring any pressure to bear on him. Rather, the intention was to try to secure better relationships and balance between his official duties and private interests.

Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS

My Lords, I think the noble Lord referred to the council. Did he mean the council or the Commission?

Lord JACQUES

My Lords, the Commission have assured me that these discussions were in no way intended to interfere with parish council affairs, nor to bring any pressure to bear on him.

Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS

My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord.

Lord JACQUES

Rather, the intention was, my Lords, to try to secure better relationships and balance between official duties and private interests. It was with regret that the Commission heard of the chairman's resignation. They felt that it is perfectly possible for an employee to combine the obligations he owes to his employer with the services he offers to local government. I have read the papers relating to this particular case and I would advise the House, having read those papers, that I have firmly come to the opinion that the Forestry Commission are the piggy in between two pressure groups both consisting of employees, The roads in question are private roads, which belong to the Commission, and at the request of the local management the Commission took steps which would cause vehicles to slow down and drive less recklessly. That was done at the request of the local management.

Shortly afterwards, the employee representatives on the consultative committee of the council pressed the Commission to go a little further—in other words, to make the humps rather bigger humps so that the speed would be more drastically reduced—and, as a result of that pressure and some monitoring of speeds, the Commission went a little further on the understanding that it was for a trial period of six months. Later, another pressure group of employees in the parish council took the opposite view; they did not want the more extreme measures which had been insisted on by the employees' consultative committee. Thus, we had the two pressure groups competing to get their way with the Commission. I might add that some of the more extreme measures that were taken have already been undone, so, at least in part, the wishes of the parish council have been met.

Finally, I can tell the House that a meeting of Kielder Parish Council is being held today at which the conservator of forests will be present. I hope that the outcome will be a better understanding of the problems which affect the local affairs of this remote community and that the meeting will lead to closer harmony of the interests of the parties. However, I assure the House that on my reading of it, this is a case of pressure groups of employees operating in different ways on the Commission. I am sorry for the Commission.