§ Mr. Lomasasked the Minister for the Civil Service why, under paragraph 10(c) of Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, the Parliamentary Commissioner is debarred from investigating any action taken in respect of personnel matters in relation to service in any office or employment, or under any contract for services; and if he will seek to introduce legislation to allow the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate any Government Department in its capacity as an employer.
§ Mr. Charles R. MorrisNo. This Government agree with the reasons for this exclusion, which were set out in two White Papers published in May 1971 (Cmnd. 4661) and December 1972 (Cmnd. 5166). The Parliamentary Commissioner was set up to invstigate on behalf of Members of Parliament complaints by private citizens that they had suffered from maladminstration by a Government Department. The Government do not consider that it would be consistent with this purpose to extend the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner to the relations between the Crown as employer and its employees or between the Crown and other persons with whom it enters into business contracts.
The general trend of employment legislation now provides that, as a general 334W rule, the grievances of individual workers should be remedied by properly instituted procedures. It would be inconsistent with this policy to provide yet another remedy for Crown servants by extending the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner when there are already well-developed procedures which make adequate provision for redress of grievance. I would also draw my hon. Friend's attention to the Government's statement on this question contained in Cmnd. 6764 (Observations by the Government on the Second Report from the Select Committee on the PCA, Session 1975–76).