§ Mr. du Cannasked the Prime Minister whether she will now publish the latest reports from the review bodies on Armed Forces' pay, doctors' and dentists' remuneration and top salaries; and if she will make a statement.
§ The Prime MinisterI have received reports from the Review Body on Armed Forces Pay, the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration, and from the Review Body on Top Salaries both on top salaries and on the remuneration of Ministers and Members of Parliament. All these reports are being published today, and copies are available in the Vote Office. The Government are extremely grateful to the members of the review bodies for these reports, and for the time and care which they have put into their preparation. Even though the Government are proposing that the recommendation of the review bodies should not all be implemented in full, I should like to make clear that they attach great importance to their continuing role and independence.
The Government have considered the reports and reached the following decisions.
The Armed Forces
The Review Body on Armed Forces Pay, which covers all ranks (other than medical ranks) up to and including Brigadier, has made its recommendations against a background of constraints on public expenditure, but also in the light of the Government's confirmed commitment to keep the pay of members of the Armed Forces at levels comparable with those of their civilian counterparts. The Government stand by that commitment and will accordingly implement the Review Body's recommendations. These represent an increase of 10.3 per cent., or 9.4 per cent. net, after taking account of increases in food and accommodation charges. The relevant cash limits will be adjusted to accommodate this increase.
NHS Doctors and Dentists
The pay of NHS doctors and dentists was brought fully up to date last year, when the Government implemented the review body's recommendations in full. The recommendations which the review body has made this year would add some 9 per cent. to the present level of expenditure on doctors' and dentists' remuneration, though because the review body proposes a deferred implementation date for the new level of target average net income for general dental practitioners the net cost in 1981–82 would be 8.3 per cent.
The Government considers that, when most groups of public servants other than the police and the Armed Forces are being expected to accept increases in the cost of their remuneration within a cash limit of 6 per cent., they are bound to ask the doctors and dentists to accept a similar limitation. The review body's recommendations could be accommodated within cash limits only at the cost of 344W significant compensating reductions in the expenditure on the National Health Service which would entail an unacceptable reduction in the standards of health care.
Accordingly the Government will implement increases for NHS doctors and dentists within an average of 6 per cent. The scales and rates recommended by the review body will be scaled down accordingly: proposals will be put to the representation of the medical and dental professions.
Top Salaries
Last year the Government decided not to implement in full the Top Salaries Review Body's recommendations on the salaries of the judiciary, the higher Civil Service and senior officers of the Armed Forces. In view of that decision, the review body has reached the conclusion that no useful purpose would be served by its recommending this year new salary levels beyond that which still remain to be implemented from last year. Instead, it has produced an interim report which urges the Government to implement its last recommendations in full and as soon as possible; and has given notice of its intention to submit a comprehensive report by 1 April 1982, containing recommendations on the salary levels which are appropriate at that date.
The review body points out that to implement last year's recommendations in full from 1 April 1981 would add about 12 per cent. to the salary bill of the groups concerned for 1981–82. The Government believe that it would not be right to increase the salaries of these senior people by more than the amount which has been offered for the non-industrial Civil Service as a whole.
The salaries of these groups will accordingly be increased by 7 per cent. This increase will, so far as the higher Civil Service is concerned and others affected by the 6 per cent. cash limit are concerned, be accommodated within that limit. The salaries and rates to be implemented are set out in one of the schedules following. So far as the judiciary is concerned, the distribution of the increases has been designed, in consultation with the review body, to move towards the relativities recommended by the review body's sub-committee which has examined those matters. The review body will be giving further consideration to the sub-committee's findings in its comprehensive report next year.
Ministers and Members of Parliament
Ministers and Members of Parliament are unique in that they still have to receive the third and final stage of the increases recommended for them by the Top Salaries Review Body in 1979. Last year the Government felt compelled to propose, and the House approved, second stage increases which fell short of those recommended by the review body; the House also approved revised rates for the third stage, to come into effect in June 1981, which were less than the rates which had been recommended by the review body.
These were embodied in. a Resolution of this House and an Order in Council approved by each House. But my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas), then the Leader of the House, undertook that the review body would be asked to review the third stage increase due in 1981, and he said that the Government would implement the results of the third stage review unless there were clear and compelling reasons not to do so.
In the event, the review body has taken the same course with the pay of Ministers and Members of Parliament as 345W with the other groups which come within its remit; it has not recommended new rates for this year, but has urged the implementation in full and as soon as possible of its recommendations for the third stage. It has, however, advised on the increase of the various Parliamentary allowances which are within its remit.
The Government proposes that the abated salary rates approved by the House last year to come into effect on 13 June 1981—which reflected last year's circumstances—should be increased by 6 per cent. This would bring the Parliamentary salary up to £13,950 with effect from 13 June next. The proposed new rates of Ministerial salaries are set out in one of the schedules following.
For Members of Parliament and Ministers outside the Cabinet these increases will just overtake the salary levels recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body in 1980 to come into effect in June 1981. The salaries of Cabinet Ministers and of the Attorney-General will still be slightly below those levels. The salary rates shown in the schedule for the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor are the rates approved by the House last year for pension purposes increased by 6 per cent; but my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor and I have decided that we will continue this year as last year to draw the same salary as our colleagues in the Cabinet.
Parliamentary Allowances
The Government accepts the review body's recommendation that supplementary provision, pro rata to the secretarial and research allowance, should if necessary be made available where an hon. Member continues to pay his secretary or research assistant for a period of absence of more than four weeks and needs to secure temporary help; and the recommendation that the secretarial allowance should continue to be available during periods of dissolution.
As to the amounts of the Parliamentary allowances, the Government considers that, at a time when pay increases for other groups of public servants are being held within cash limits of 6 per cent. and hon. Members themselves are being asked to limit to 6 per cent. the amount by which the rates approved last year are increased, increases in Parliamentary allowances should be kept within the same limit. The Government will accordingly invite the House to approve the following new rates for the allowances, in place of those recommended by the review body:
£ MPs' secretarial and research allowance 8,480 Peers' secretarial allowance 1,250 Peers' expense allowances (per diem) Overnight subsistence 24.40 Day subsistence and incidental travel 11.65 Secretarial costs, postage and certain additional expenses 10.60 Junior Ministers in the House of Lords
In announcing last year's increases in Ministerial salaries, I drew attention to the special problem which arises for Ministers of State, Parliamentary Secretaries and other office holders in the House of Lords from the fact that they do not receive any salary specifically in respect of their Parliamentary duties, and I told the House that the Government proposed to consider how the arrangements for their remuneration should be revised to take account of this problem.
346WThe Government now proposes to make arrangements for the Ministerial salaries of Ministers of State, Parliamentary Secretaries and other office holders in the House of Lords to be increased by £3,500 over and above the general increases which I have already described. This addition to their remuneration, in lieu of a Parliamentary salary, is rather less than half the amount of the Parliamentary salary payable to Ministers in the House of Commons. In the case of Ministers of State, this will be achieved by my exercising my discretion under paragraph 1(1) of part V of schedule 1 of the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, to secure that Ministers of State in the House of Lords are paid at the top of the new range of salaries for Ministers of State, which from 13 June will run from £19,775 to £23,275.
Ministers of State in the House of Commons will continue to be paid at the bottom of this range. In the case of Parliamentary Secretaries, a similar result will be achieved by increasing the maximum salary prescribed under the Act to £18,600; that will be the rate paid to Parliamentary Secretaries in the House of Lords, while, under the discretion given by section 4(2) of the 1975 Act, Parliamentary Secretaries in the House of Commons will receive £15,100. The salaries of Law Officers and Whips in the House of Lords, of the Leader of the Opposition in that House, and of the Chairman and Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees will be set £3,500 above the third-stage levels as approved last year and increased by 6 percent.
Implementation
The new rates for the Armed Forces (including senior officers), NHS doctors and dentists, the judiciary, and the higher Civil Service will be implemented with effect from 1 April 1981. The House will be invited to approve Resolutions and an Order in Council to implement the proposals for Members of Parliament, Peers and Ministers.
Following are the schedules:
Top Salaries Senior Grades of the Higher Civil Service New Salary rates £ Head of Home Civil Service 35,845 Permanent Secretary to the Treasury Secretary of the Cabinet Permanent Secretary 33,170 Second Permanent Secretary 30,495 Deputy Secretary 26,215 Under Secretary 21,935
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Senior Officers in the Armed Forces New Salary rates £ Admiral of the Fleet 35,845 Field Marshal Marshal of the Royal Air Force Admiral 33,170 General Air Chief Marshal Vice Admiral 26,215 Lieutenant General Air Marshal Rear Admiral* 21,935 Major General* Air Vice Marshal* *The rate for the medical equivalents of these officers will be decided in the light of the recommendations awaited in the supplementary report of the AFPRB on the pay of Service medical and dental officers.
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Salary implemented at 1 April 1980 Suggested salary payable from 1 April 1981 £ £ Lord Chief Justice 40,000 44,500 Master of the Rolls 37,000 41,000 Lord of Appeal Lord President of the Court of Session (Scotland) Lord Chief Justice (Northern Ireland) 35,500 39,000 President of the Family Division Lord Justice of Appeal 33,500 37,500 Lord Justice Clerk (Scotland) Lord Justice of Appeal (Northern Ireland) Vice-Chancellor 33,000 37,500 High Court Judge 32,000 35,000 Judge of the Court of Session (Scotland) Puisne Judge (Northern Ireland) President, Lands Tribunal (England and Wales) 24,000 25,500 President, Transport Tribunal Chief Social Security Commissioner (England, Wales and Scotland) President, Industrial Tribunals (England and Wales) President, Industrial Tribunals (Scotland) 23,250 24,750 Sheriff Principal (Scotland) Chairman, Scottish Land Court President, Lands Tribunal (Scotland) Official Referee (London) 22,500 24,500 Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster Recorder of Liverpool Recorder of Manchester Senior Circuit Judge, Newington Causeway Recorder of Belfast (Northern Ireland) President of the Lands Tribunal (Northern Ireland)* Chief Social Security Commissioner (Northern Ireland)* Circuit Judge 22,000 23,250 Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Member, Lands Tribunal (England, Wales and Scotland) Social Security Commissioner (England, Wales and Scotland) Judge Advocate General Sheriff A (Scotland) County Court Judge (Northern Ireland) Master of the Court of Protection Senior and Chief Masters and Registrars of the Supreme Court Registrar of the Court of Criminal Appeal President, Industrial Tribunal (Northern Ireland)* Member, Lands Tribunal (Northern Ireland)* Social Security Commissioner (Northern Ireland)* Sheriff B (Scotland) 21,500 23,250 Regional Chairmen, Industrial Tribunals (England, Wales and Scotland) 21,500 22,750 Chairman, Foreign Compensation Commission Vice-Judge Advocate General 19,500 22,000
Salary implemented at 1 April 1980 Suggested salary payable from 1 April 1981 £ £ Masters and Registrars of the Supreme Court 19,500 20,750 Metropolitan Magistrate Chairmen, Industrial Tribunals (England, Wales and Scotland) Provincial Stipendiary Magistrate Resident Magistrate (Northern Ireland) Chairman, Industrial Tribunal (Northern Ireland)* Master, Supreme Court (Northern Ireland)* County Court Registrars and District Registrars of the High Court 19,250 20,500 *These appointments have been added to the remit since Report No. 14.
Ministerial Salaries Ministers and other office holders Proposed new rates £ Prime Minister *36,725 Lord Chancellor *44,500 Mr. Speaker 29,150 Cabinet Ministers 27,825 Ministers of State (Commons) 19,775 Ministers of State (Lords) 23,275 Parliamentary Secretaries (Commons) 15,100 Parliamentary Secretaries (Lords) 18,600 Attorney-General 29,525 Solicitor-General 24,375 Lord Advocate 27,875 Solicitor-General for Scotland 20,925 House of Commons Leader of the Opposition 25,550 Parliamentary Secretary to The Treasury (Chief Whip) 23,225 Deputy Chief Whip 19,775 Opposition Chief Whip 19,775 Government Whips 12,775 Opposition Deputy Chief Whip 12,775 Chairman, Ways and Means 19,775 Deputy Chairman, Ways and Means 17,425 House of Lords Chief Whip 23,275 Deputy Chief Whip 18,600 Government Whips 16,275 Opposition Chief Whip 16,275 Chairman of Committees 23,275 Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees 20,925 Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords 18,600 Ministers Parliamentary Salary 8,130 * The salaries shown are those applicable for pension purposes. As last year the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor have decided to draw no more than the salary payable to other Cabinet Ministers (£27,825).