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(a) "year" means a period of twelve months beginning with 1st April ;
(b) "quarter" means a period of three months beginning with 1st April, 1st July, 1st October or 1st January.
(c) "the standard secretarial salary" means an amount consisting of the Standard Pay Point for a Senior Personal Secretary in the Home Civil Service in London and the Inner London Weighting.
(5) For the purposes of this Resolution the amount of the standard secretarial salary applicable in any year should be the amount specified by the Treasury as applicable in that year.
The motion represents the Government's recommendation to the House on the way in which we should proceed following the Top Salaries Review Body's report, which I laid before the House last Thursday, and which right hon. and hon. Members will no doubt have studied. As the House is aware, the report was commissioned a year ago. The report was received in February, but it was felt at that time, as my predecessor indicated in a written answer on 16 March, that it could more properly be considered by the new Parliament. It is a substantial report, which would entail major changes both in the structure and the amount of the allowance, and whatever view may be taken of particular recommendations, I think that the House would wish to express its thanks to the TSRB for the significant effort that the report represents.
It may be that the main issue on which the House will wish to focus is the amount of the allowance, but it is important that I should first say something about what might be called the structural changes proposed, all of
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which raise issues separate from the question of the actual sums of money, and which the House also needs to consider on their own merits.The first of these is the proposal to compartmentalise the allowance, which is at present, of course, a single all-purpose sum, into four separate allowances : one for staff costs, one for general office expenses, one for constituency office expenses where a Member of Parliament occupies only what is described as
"basic minimum accommodation at Westminster"--
a description that many hon. Members may think applies to a great deal of accommodation--and an initial acquisition grant for capital equipment, seen as an interim measure pending the central provision of such equipment.
While understanding the perception of improved accountability that underlines the recommendation, the Government doubt whether there would in fact be a significant gain in that respect, given that almost all the expenditure of Members of Parliament on such costs is now disbursed directly by the Fees Office or reimbursed against invoices, and the obvious scope for regarding some items of expenditure as falling under more than one head. Against a gain that would be at best doubtful, what would certainly be lost is the flexibility, which many Members value, to make the most effective use of the allowance--for example, by varying expenditure between staff and other costs--according to what is quite legitimately a wide variety of individual preferences and patterns of working.
Mr. Barry Field (Isle of Wight) : I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way on a matter of which I have given him notice. Will he not overlook the mileage allowance which I find has been paid to me incorrectly by the Fees Office, a point which I have drawn to its attention and which I have now arranged to reimburse?
Mr. Newton : I entirely understand my hon. Friend's reasons for raising that point, and I shall duly take note of it. But he will realise that the mileage allowance is not under discussion at the moment.
We see particular problems about the proposal to introduce a specific constituency office allowance, which the report itself acknowledges would entail further work and take time to introduce. In our view, the difficulties would verge on the insuperable, both in agreeing a definition of
"basic minimum accommodation at Westminster"
and in devising arrangements that would be seen as fairly reflecting the variations between those who do all or most of their work at Westminster, those who do all or most of their work in the constituency, and what I think is probably a growing number who divide it between the two.
Mr. John Garrett (Norwich, South) : An important part of the right hon. Gentleman's job is to safeguard the rights and privileges of the House and of right hon. and hon. Members. Does he think that he and, in effect, the Treasury should seek to decide the resources that are given to Parliament to scrutinise the Government? Would not that responsibility be better placed in the hands of a Committee of the House--particularly the Commission, now that it has responsibility for the staff of the House, accommodation, and equipment?
Mr. Newton : The appropriate course--and perhaps you, Madam Speaker, might agree, as Chairman of the Commission--is for the House as a whole to decide. The House is being given that opportunity tonight.
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The Government are firmly of the view that the most sensible course is to retain a single, undivided allowance--and the resolution provides for that. I shall mention one smaller change of merit that flows from the report that could be seen as being of a structural kind, and which the resolution also covers.We propose that eligibility to the office costs allowance should be calculated on a quarterly basis from 1 April 1993. That will rectify a long -standing anomaly, whereby a Member of Parliament leaving or joining the House part way through the year is entitled to claim against a full year's allowance. I know that that matter is of concern to one or two hon. Members who have mentioned it to me in the Corridors.
I should stress that that change does not mean that right hon. and hon. Members must claim the OCA on a quarterly basis or lose entitlement. Claims can still be submitted as and when Members of Parliament wish. The only change is in the total maximum amount to which a right hon. or hon. Member who enters or leaves the House during the year is entitled. I hope that clarifies that point.
Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro) : Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on from the separate provision for office costs, and while I accept his general point, telephones in the House are free to right hon. and hon. Members, but that is not the case in their constituencies. I run my office from my constituency, where the phone bill approaches £1, 000 a year. I cannot understand why a provision similar to that available in the House should not be made available at a Member of Parliament's constituency office, where his secretary works.
Mr. Newton : My understanding--I assume that the hon. Gentleman has made appropriate inquiries--is that costs properly incurred by a Member of Parliament in performing his duties, and whether the telephone used is in his constituency office or at Westminster, could be properly claimed and reimbursed.
Mr. Taylor : I was making the point that office telephone expenses incurred by our secretaries at Westminster do not count against the OCA, but they do in the constituency.
Mr. Newton : I am sorry--I mistook the hon. Gentleman's point. In practice, it is virtually impossible for the allowances to take full account, especially if we retain a single, undivided allowance--I sense some support around the House for that proposition--of every possible variation. The point could be made, for example, that right hon. and hon. Members who undertake most of their work in their constituencies may incur lower costs--although that too will vary from one part of the country to another--than Members of Parliament whose work is done at London rates. That illustrates the kind of difficulty that can arise if we attempt to over-refine the allowance.
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield) : The right hon. Gentleman represents the Executive, and he is discussing the provisions for the legislature. Can he give even one example of a civil servant controlled by the Government who has a single sum for his secretary, telephone, equipment, or office space? Not one civil servant must operate under the same conditions that he is trying to impose on right hon. and hon. Members.
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Mr. Newton : Again, I understand the point that is being made, not least in the context of a number of decisions that have been made over the years. The House has chosen to link some aspects of its remuneration to civil service rates, but I do not believe that there is a complete and sustainable parallel between the way in which civil servants are provided with the facilities to do their jobs and the way in which Members of Parliament are provided with the facilities to do a different job.
The second structural issue is the report's proposal to move as rapidly as possible to the central procurement of information technology equipment, and meanwhile to introduce an initial equipment allowance, partly offset by a reduction in the general office expenses allowance in the year in which that equipment allowance is taken.
The Government believe that the case for central provision of IT equipment needs a good deal of further consideration. We think that many Members of Parliament are likely to welcome continued flexibility to lease or purchase the equipment that is most suited to their individual needs. Savings equivalent to those achievable through central procurement might well be obtained by call-off contracts, without the need for bulk purchase by a central authority. Such an authority would inevitably base its specification on generalised requirements, rather than on individual needs. The House is currently undertaking a networking study, in the light of which further recommendations on compatible IT equipment may be drawn up. Although the Government have considerable reservations about a centralised system of procurement for office equipment, we think it sensible to allow the Select Committee on Information to examine the TSRB's proposals on the provision of equipment in the light of the networking study before a final decision is reached. I hope that hon. Members will agree that that approach is sensible. We do not, however, recommend the implementation of a separate one-off initial acquisition grant as an interim measure.
The third structural issue raised by the report is the proposal to create a Personnel Office, separate from the Fees Office, to "provide advice and guidance on personnel matters to MPs and their staff, in particular on rates of pay, and to review the pension provisions for MPs' staff".
While recognising the reasons for such a proposal, we are also conscious of the concern expressed by many Members that such an office could be seen as moving unacceptably towards intervening in, and centralising, the many individual arrangements that currently exist. Subject to the views of the House--I emphasise that--we do not recommend proceeding with this proposal, and accordingly the motion that I have moved this evening does not provide for it.
I shall, of course, listen carefully to all that is said about those issues in the debate, and I shall also listen to what is said by hon. Members who make their views known in the many other ways open to them. I am, however, somewhat encouraged--although, I hope, not unduly so--by the absence from the Order Paper of amendments on what might be described as structural points, apart from amendment (b), which you have selected, Madam Speaker. Although I suspect that that amendment is aimed at the level of allowance, it would also delay until 1994 the
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coming into effect of the switch to a quarterly basis for hon. Members joining or leaving the House, to which I referred earlier. The same absence of amendments does not, however, apply to the issue of the amount of an increased but non-compartmentalised allowance.Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) : Surely the reason for the absence of amendments from the Order Paper is the fact that, in the limited time of an hour and a half, it clearly would not have been possible for the House to do justice to all the important recommendations in the report. Will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that, once the main decision has been made on the increase or otherwise in the money, we can return to the other issues after the summer recess?
Mr. Newton : I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's point, although I had not realised that that was the reason for the absence of what might be called structural amendments. As I have said, I--indeed, everyone--will listen carefully to what is said in the House tonight, and that includes anything that the hon. Gentleman wishes to say about these or any other points.
I was about to deal with the amount of an undivided allowance--if I may use that shorthand. Let me first set out clearly the scale of the increase to which the report's proposals as a whole would give rise. At the very least, the maximum allowance for every Member would rise from £28,986 in 1991 -92 to £37,360 in 1992-93. For those taking the full constituency allowance and the initial equipment allowance--the latter partly offset by a reduced general office expenses allowance--the 1992-93 maximum would be £42,360. Thus, in percentage terms, the maximum increase would range from 23.6 per cent. to 40.2 per cent., in addition to the 4.25 per cent. increase due from April, in line with the existing uprating formula, giving overall increases in the maximum of between 28.9 per cent. and 46.1 per cent. on the 1991-92 figure.
Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) : Does the Leader of the House not recognise that percentages are meaningless and that those figures should be compared with the £75,000 or thereabouts that is available for Members of the European Parliament, who have a much smaller burden of case work than Members of this House?
Mr. Newton : I am aware that comparisons are sometimes drawn with Members of the European Parliament, both in this and in other ways. I have two points to make about that. First, their working patterns and methods are entirely different from ours. [Interruption.]
Madam Speaker : Order. I should be obliged if the House would not be so restive. It is only right that the Leader of the House should be given a proper and a fair hearing. He is having very great difficulty at the present time.
Mr. Newton : I do not think that the existence of higher allowances in any other country to which reference might be made can necessarily be taken as providing a good guide to what this House should do at this time in the situation in which Members of Parliament find themselves.
I have underlined the scale of the percentage increases that would be entailed if the report were to be implemented
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in full. The second point is that the background is not one of prolonged erosion of value but of significant real improvement by comparison with the position not so many years ago. As the survey at the back of the report itself observes :"any MP who was a Member of the House before the late '60s will testify that since then the position of the British MP has been transformed."
While the context of that comment goes wider than help with office costs, it is in fact the case that, between 1979 and 1991, the office costs allowance increased by 530 per cent., in cash terms, representing an increase of one and a half times in real terms. I make these points not because they can or should in themselves be conclusive, but because I think that they need to be taken into account by the House in making its judgment --and it is its judgment--bearing in mind also the considerable and inevitable uncertainty about the exact scale of the problem that the report seeks to address.
There will certainly be few in the House who would quarrel with the view that our work load as constituency MPs has continued to rise in recent years, but there are, I think, many who question whether the increase has really been on such a scale since the last big uplift in the mid-1980s, followed by annual upratings, as to justify a further increase now of the size that full implementation would entail. There is another factor that the House cannot--I repeat, cannot--escape taking into account in making its judgment, any more than the Government can escape taking it into account in considering what recommendation they should make and, indeed, in making their decision on another Top Salaries Review Body report which has recently commanded attention. That is the wider context in which these proposals come forward--at a time when it is necessary to constrain public expenditure and when so many other individuals and groups are being asked to accept restraint, or are finding it necessary to impose it on themselves. I have to say, quite simply, that the Government do not believe that the evidence would justify the House in going as far as the report suggests, or as far as some of the amendments to the resolution seek.
Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith) : The Leader of the House is not taking the House with him with this part of his argument, and I am not surprised. It is clearly weak, because he is now making comparisons with personal income. The allowance is to enable parliamentarians to do their job properly. Will he deal with that aspect and say why he thinks the TSRB is wrong to state that we need the money to do the job properly in Parliament?
Mr. Newton : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that my remarks just now were not related solely to salary issues. I said specifically that many other individuals and groups were being asked to accept restraint or finding it necessary to impose it on themselves. That affects not only people's salaries but many other things that they would wish to do if there were no difficulty.
Mr. George Walden (Buckingham) : I have listened carefully to my right hon. Friend's rational and persuasive presentation of the issue, and I am glad that he is about to deal with public perceptions. Let us not fool ourselves : whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, it is being observed by the public out there, and the public are about
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to undergo an economic phase in which they will have not inflation-plus rises but perhaps inflation-minus rises. They will ask themselves why we are behaving like a 1970s trade union and awarding ourselves increases for reasons that they will never understand.Mr. Newton : I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a point which obviously struck a chord with a number of hon. Members.
Mr. David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside) : Will the Leader of the House confirm that the advocacy of restraint has come from the Treasury, which, in a reply to me today, states that, on policy and advice alone, it spends more than £28 million a year, on outside consultancies £2.8 million and on hospitality £115,000 a year?
Mr. Newton : The suggestion that the House needs to act with reasonable restraint comes not from the Treasury but from many Conservative Members and, most recently, from my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) a moment or two ago.
The resolution therefore rests on the proposition that, while it is right that a significant increase should be made in the office costs allowance, over and above inflation, it should be based not on the additional half- member of staff proposed in the report, but on an additional one quarter, together with the full £4,000 proposed for general office expenses. That gives an increase from £28,986 to £33, 190, representing a real increase of 9.8 per cent. and--with the normal uprating increase of 4.25 per cent.--an overall cash increase of 14.5 per cent.
We believe that this proposal, while clearly less than the TSRB recommended, strikes a fair balance between the interests of our constituents as taxpayers and the undoubted need of hon. Members for sufficient support to carry out their duties. It would bring a real improvement in the funding for Members' secretarial and research costs, and I commend it to the House.
11.4 pm
Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland) : I have sat through many similar debates in my 22 years in the House, and this one is typical of most of them.
The Government commission an independent report. They establish a committee of people who are distinguished in their fields, under the chairmanship of Sir David Nickson. The secretariat is provided by the Office of Manpower Economics. Hay Management undertakes the research. The committee takes many months to do its work. It takes evidence from hon. Members on both sides of the House. The Government receive the report, suppress it, leak it selectively to the newspapers so that it is grossly misrepresented, then come to the House and tell us that they propose to ignore all the main conclusions of the work. That is a recipe for confusing the public, and it does the case of the Leader of the House and the Government no good at all to confuse--whether by accident or design--allowances granted to Members of this House to enable them to employ staff with their personal incomes. That is remiss of the right hon. Gentleman and those few people in the press who seek to convince the public that the debate
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is about the incomes of Members of Parliament. I know that that annoys many hon. Members, but, even more, it annoys our staff--those for whom we must fight in such debates, who have families, homes and mortgages to maintain and who are entitled to much better treatment and conditions than we are able to provide for them whether here at Westminster or in our constituencies.There is a rumour going round the House--I do not know whether it is true or not ; perhaps we may be advised--that the Government Chief Whip has been effortlessly gliding around the Corridors and Rooms of the House trying, for once, to ensure that the Government do not win in the Lobby tonight.
I may say that, in this context, the present Government are no better and no worse than Labour Governments, who also have a pretty undistinguished record on these matters. But if they want to absolve themselves of responsibility for the decision that I hope the House will take in a little while, as they apparently do, it would be better if they accepted the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett), whose point of view I share, and handed responsibility for this matter to the House of Commons Commission, which already has responsibility for every other aspect of the budget of the House. That would ensure that the House, on the recommendation of the Commission, no doubt following some similar work, could make its own decision, quite detached from the Executive of the day. In my experience, the only Prime Minister who has dealt with this matter properly and expeditiously is the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), who received the report, published it quickly and implemented it in full. On that occasion, all the fuss quickly went away. The Government have dragged the process out, with all the consequences that we face this evening--not just for ourselves, I emphasise, but for the people to whom we have a responsibility as employers.
Let me refer briefly to what the report says in its conclusions. Paragraph 51 states :
"These recommendations arise from our general conclusion from all the available evidence that the pressures and demands on MPs have altered since our last report, and that their workload has increased substantially. Accordingly, we believe that further resources are necessary to enable MPsproperly to perform their jobs."
Paragraph 53 says :
"Together our recommendations are consistent with the objective referred to at paragraph 11 that MPs should receive allowances which are sufficient to enable them to fulfil their duties, but that the way in which the allowances are used should meet high standards of public accountability and employment practice."
No one, surely, could disagree with any of that--except, apparently, the Government, for reasons that are not altogether clear following the speech made by the Leader of the House.
Mr. John Gorst (Hendon, North) : Perhaps I may help the hon. Gentleman by suggesting that the reasons are clear. The money to which we are referring is to enable Back-Bench and Front-Bench Members to examine what the Executive are doing. The Government have an interest, I suspect, in ensuring that it is as little as possible.
Dr. Cunningham : I am delighted that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. He anticipated the remarks that I was about to make, and I wholeheartedly agree with what he said. After elections, Ministers go to their offices and get a nice new Rover or Daimler. Everything is provided for
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them and they like what they have. I do not blame them for that. However, the last thing that they want to face day in, day out, is a better-informed, better-resourced House of Commons. The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) was absolutely right.As the taxpayer's interest has been mentioned, I make no apology for saying that it is in the taxpayer's interest to have a better-informed, better- resourced House of Commons with hon. Members who are more easily able to take on and challenge the decisions of the Executive. Nothing can be more in the taxpayer's interests than that.
I am very sorry about the way in which the Government have handled the matter and the recommendations that they have put before the House in the motion which I hope that the House will reject. I understand that at least some of the spouses of right hon. and hon. Members on the Treasury Bench are also pretty sorry about that. I guess that those who quite legitimately and properly employ their spouses as secretaries to aid them will get a bit of an ear-bashing when they get home tonight if the Government get their way. That is all well and good.
I must say to our friends, the ladies and gentlemen of the press who may want to record our deliberations, that I should be very happy for them all to write whatever they want to write about our decisions, accurate or otherwise, so long as they all publish under their columns their expenses for the past three months.
I hope that the House will listen carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) who will shortly move amendment (a), which I endorse, and which I invite all right hon. and hon. Members who are not the subject of the authoritarian activities of the Patronage Secretary, to endorse also.
Amendment (a) is computed on the basis of what the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body report would mean to us, given that we accept, at least for the moment--I stress, for the moment--the Government's intention to continue to pay the allowance as a lump sum in the way that it has been paid in the past. I know that many hon. Members want to examine that aspect of that decision in more detail later, but tonight is not the occasion to do that.
Amendment (a) takes the Government's recommendation of one allowance and adds to it the consequences of the recommendations of the TSRB. It is accurately and
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fairly calculated and I believe that it is right that at least that aspect of the recommendations of the people who did all that work over so many months, and who reached such emphatic conclusions and clear recommendations, should be implemented.Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will refer to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) who said that there are millions of people outside this place, in the public sector as well as the private sector, who are experiencing very difficult financial circumstances. They will misunderstand the hon. Gentleman--I speak as someone who is to visit his dentist in the next few days.
Dr. Cunningham : There are indeed millions of people outside this place in very difficult circumstances. However, it is rather peculiar that it is only on occasions like this that the hon. Gentleman seems to remember that they are there.
In the time that I have enjoyed the privilege of being a Member of the House, very few of my constituents have ever seriously complained about the provision for hon. Members to do an effective job on their behalf. Indeed, I have had far more remarks and observations from people in business and in industry and commerce who are astonished at the mediaeval nature of this place and the provisions not simply for us but for the people who work long hours on our behalf in conditions which, if we were acting like the trade union to which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) referred, would not be tolerated for a moment, not least because they do not meet the basic requirements of the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act, and this place would be closed down if the law applied to it.
Let us have no hypocrisy about what the public think and about taxpayer's interests, thank you very much. The public want, especially in these circumstances, more effective checks and balances to be placed upon the Government. I urge the House to take this opportunity, which is the only opportunity that new hon. Members will have in this Parliament, to strike a blow in the interests of greater and more effective scrutiny of the Executive, in the interests of our constituents and ourselves, and not least the people whom we employ, and vote for amendment (a).
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11.15 pmMr. Jerry Wiggin (Weston-super-Mare) : I have put my name to amendment (a). I am grateful for the opportunity to say that the Government were absolutely right to commission the report. The fact that they commissioned it recognises the substantial change that has taken place in the duties of Back-Bench Members, not just in their weekly mail but in their wider responsibilities, in the extra costs of employing highly skilled secretaries who now have a substantial job to do beyond just typing letters, and, of course, in the increased costs of office equipment. Any hon. Member who has recently sought to sell a second-hand typewriter or early computer will recognise that there are no great capital gains to be made in buying office equipment.
We have a unique job, which is scarcely ever recognised outside this place. It is unique because it is carried out in two separate places, it is carried out for ourselves, yet we have a sort of employer, it is different and it has to be seen as different. I congratulate the review body on the immense trouble tht it has taken and on its appreciation of many of the special difficulties that assail us. There will never be a perfect arrangement for us. Our London living allowance, for example, is a crazy calculation, but we are not debating that ; we are debating the office costs, which gradually, over the years, have become more sensible. I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) made, that this matter is not about our salaries or our income. I am delighted with the way that it has been reviewed, but perhaps there are those who think that, because the review has been headed "Top Salaries Review Body", there is some misapprehension. As every hon. Member does, I have to justify every penny of expenditure that I claim, and it has to be justified as an expense in association with my parliamentary duties. In no way could that be regarded as salary or pay.
It has been a long struggle to realism in getting our allowances put right. Since I have been in the House, 13 such reports have been referred to review bodies. The hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) was right to say that only one was adopted by the Government. It caused no difficulty, it went through quickly, and that was a way to handle it. I am very sorry that, yet again, by this attempt at cheeseparing, the Government have produced controversy, misunderstanding and a dispute which need never have existed had they published the report and adopted it.
The Government, if they propose to deal with these matters by referring them to review bodies, must decide in advance to accept the review bodies' reports. Otherwise they should not bother in the first place. They could just as easily make an arbitrary decision without all this work, without all the effort to arrive at a proper assessment. I make this plea to the Minister ; whatever the result of tonight's votes, let the Government, before repeating this exercise, as they will surely have to do in respect of other aspects of our salary and expenses, take into account the point that I have just made. If they do not do so, they will not get responsible people to sit on these boards, and an undesirable disallowance factor will be built in. I urge my hon. Friend to accept the amendment in full and without question. If he were to do so, we should have no controversy at all.
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11.21 pmMr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury) : This is, and should be, a House of Commons matter. It is not a matter for determination by the Executive, and when the Executive make a recommendation, it should be reviewed with a healthy scepticism. At heart, this debate is about how we can make sure that we can do a proper job for our constituents. The pressure on Members of Parliament has increased dramatically in recent years, and it continues to increase. There is legislation to scrutinise ; there are Select and Standing Committees to take part in ; there is now a flood of European Community directives to take note of and to follow through. At the last count, about two years ago, I found that I dealt with about 6,000 individual constituency cases in a year. I hold five surgeries a month, each lasting five or six hours. The flow of correspondence from constituents get greater and greater every year. The Leader of the House says that there has been no dramatic increase in the work load of MPs since we last debated this matter. I do not know whether that is true of his constituency, but it is certainly not true of mine. Surely, if we are to do our job properly, we need to be able, as a bare minimum, to employ two full -time staff, to pay them properly, and give them decent conditions of work, and properly to establish and equip an office in the constituency. As other hon. Members have said, this debate is not about MPs' salaries or perks, although some people much more well heeled than we are have sought to convince the public that that is the case. This debate is about our having the back-up to do our job. I should very much like to see changes in the system of the block allowance. I certainly favour central arrangements for the purchase of equipment. That would be much more cost-effective. There should be much more open disclosure of what happens to our allowances, and there should be proper conditions and contracts for the people we employ. These are the things we could do to improve the system that has been put before us, but I am afraid that they are not open for discussion tonight. In the meantime, we have the report of the Top Salaries Review Body and the Government's motion. The review body suggests that the allowance should be disaggregated, that it should be split up into blocks for staff, office equipment, a constituency office and a setting-up allowance. For a variety of reasons, some good, some bad, the Government have said that they do not wish to go along with that proposal. For the purposes of the debate, I am happy to accept that position.
The amounts proposed by the review body are as follows : £33,360 to employ two staff ; £4,000 for office equipment ; £2,000 for a constituency--I observe that £2,000 would probably be sufficient to rent a broom cupboard in my constituency--and, in effect, because of the discounting that takes place if we claim, a setting-up allowance of £3,000.
What I have done in my amendment is simple. I have taken the amounts for staff, office equipment and a constituency office and divided the setting- up allowance of £3,000 by five, because it is supposed to last five years. I have added up all those figures. The result is the figure of £39,960 in my amendment. The Government propose a substantially lower figure than the amount recommended by the review body. The Government's proposal is £33,190.
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Even tonight, the Leader of the House has not given us any justification of the figure and how it was arrived at. He has told us that is a percentage, but he has not told us why it is that percentage. It is as if the Government have simply decided on that figure. They have plucked it out of the air. That is the figure on the Order Paper. The alternative in my amendment is to take the total amount that the review body proposed and substitute it for the Government's figure.Parliament is not the Executive. We are here to do two specific jobs which no one else can do : first, to act as advocates for our constituents ; secondly, to scrutinise and hold to account the workings of the Government. To do both those jobs properly we need the necessary resources. I urge colleagues from all parties--it is a House of Commons matter, not an Executive matter--to support my amendment.
11.28 pm
Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) : I shall formally move my amendment when called upon to do so, Madam Speaker but I shall speak to it now.
My amendment takes into consideration the Government's position. We accept that there is a recession. We accept what the Leader of the House said about the wider context and why it was necessary to constrain public expenditure. Opposition and Conservative Members and, indeed, the country are prepared to wait for the recession to turn. We are waiting for the green shoots of springtime to become flowers, buds or shrubs. We shall be ready when that happens.
We must also accept that our work load has increased, but we do not accept the definition of the work load given by the Leader of the House. I refer again to the statement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) that, according to the report, our work load has increased substantially. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) also referred to our substantial and increasing workload. The retreads--those who have come into the House since the election and were previously Members of Parliament--say that the greatest thing that has struck them is the increase in their mail and work load and the difficulty that they have in coping with it. That is an additional reason for accepting the amendment rather than the Government's motion.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who may catch your eye later, Madam Speaker, was the first to draw attention to the fact that the House of Commons is essentially a legislature which exists to control the Executive. The hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) and my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and for Islington, South and Finsbury reiterated that.
We are here to hold the Government--the Executive--to account and it is the absolute duty of the legislature so to do.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset) : Does the hon. Gentleman confirm that the report of the Top Salaries Review Body says that, since it last reported, there has been a 50 per cent. increase in the number of letters with which we have to deal? It simply recommends an increase of one third in our staff levels, from one and a half to two. Clearly, the level of work coming into this place will be
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measured and, in addition to increases for inflation, we should have an increase for our staff because of the volume of work with which they have to deal.
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