§ Lord KENNETasked Her Majesty's Government:
- (i) What is the average number of hours a week worked by Members of the House of Commons who are also Members of the European Parliament.
- (ii) What is the average number of hours a week worked by Members of the House of Commons who are not Members of the European Parliament.
- (iii) What are the average hourly earnings of (a) Members of the House of Commons who are Members of the European Parliament, (b) Members of the House of Commons who are not Members of the European Parliament, (c)the average industrial worker; and (d)the average general medical practitioner.
- (iv) Whether, if these figures are unknown to Her Majesty's Government the Secretaries of State for Employment and for Health and Social Services will take steps to find them out.
§ Lord PEARTMembers of Parliament carry out their duties in very different ways and the limits of Parliamentary work cannot be easily defined. No realistic estimate of the average hours worked by Members is therefore available. General medical practitioners work variable and irregular hours which would be impracticable to monitor and their remuneration is designed to cover practice expenses as well as earnings. The Government therefore consider that the collection of information needed to compile average hourly earnings of Members of the House of Commons and of general360WA medical practitioners would be impracticable and unjustifiable.
The average hourly earnings of full-time manual workers in the industries covered by the Department of Employment's regular October inquiry were in October 1976 about 152p for men aged 21 and over and 109p for women aged 18 and over.