House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 Jul 1992

Mr. Bell : The hon. Member makes my point for me. In an aside, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) referred to one of the issues with which we have to deal from time to time--whales. All of us find it difficult to cope with the mail in our post bags. Each letter received by a Member of Parliament generates four more letters. When an issue arises, it becomes impossible to cope with the burden. That is why we need appropriate secretarial and research assistance and appropriate allowances, so that assistants can "do their jobs properly"--as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) said in an intervention.

I wish to draw the attention of the House to another significant factor. This is the last occasion for us to debate this issue in the present Parliament ; it may be about seven or eight years before we debate it again. This Parliament will eventually end and there will be another review. Perhaps we shall take up the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) that the matter should be debated by a House of Commons Commission and that we should await its conclusions. The vote tonight will be the last vote for several years.

I do not propose to delay the House at length, but I repeat the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield : it is the duty of the House to hold the Government accountable.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East) : If some hon. Members have misgivings about the proposed increase in the limit for one reason or another-- collective or individual reasons of restraint--they do not have to claim the maximum ; they can claim much less.

Mr. Bell : It is optional ; I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.

Amendment (b) tries to take into account the Government's desire not to enhance secretarial allowances too much at this time, but to accept that the full amount to which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred, should be given next year, as this may well be the last review for five or six years. Our constituents, the taxpayer and the legislature will benefit, and the Executive will be held to greater account.

11.32 pm

Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery) : The Leader of the House sought to justify the payment of a lower figure than that recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body by reference to salaries paid to certain public servants. I suggest that that is a misleading analogy, because we are not talking about salaries. I suspect that the Leader of the House has been reading too many newspapers, as the implication in some of them has been that the allowances would be a means of feathering our nests. The only way in which a Member can feather his or her nest through the allowances is by fraud.

Some newspapers have suggested that some Members might commit the shocking act of paying their spouse to work for them. Someone ought to say in this debate that if any spouse does a genuine job of work for any Member of Parliament, they are entitled to be paid a proper rate for the job, and many are not.

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Earlier, I talked to one of my hon. Friends whose wife has worked for many years in a remote place as his full-time secretary. Such is the feathering of their nest that she is now paid about £8,000 a year for that full-time job. He cannot afford to pay her more, because his allowance is committed in other ways. I hope that I shall not provoke a major row in the domesticity of Scotland if I say that I think that my hon. Friend is underpaying his wife disgracefully. That should not happen.

The Leader of the House told us that the Government had decided, because of general economic conditions, that the figure should be reduced from the recommendation to £33,190. One is tempted to say that the Government are very willing to rely on consultants' reports when they suit them, but it is another matter when they do not. What on earth was the point of the arm's-length TSRB report on this important issue if the conclusions of those independent people are to be ignored?

What evidence does the Leader of the House have to support the figure of £33,190? I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would tell us that we did not need to employ two whole-time people or an office in our constituency--incidentally, one certainly could not obtain an office even in rural Wales for £2,000. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would produce evidence to support his claim that we did not need research assistants. Where is the evidence that Government briefings in notes on clauses on the Bills that we consider in Committee are an adequate basis for discussing or even opposing parts of those Bills? We did not hear a word of evidence from the right hon. Gentleman about those issues.

I am sure that many right hon. and hon. Members share my disappointment at the fact that the Government, relying on no evidence, have simply decided that hon. Members should have underfunded offices. It is time for us to tell the Government that hon. Members are not prepared to service their constituents poorly because their offices are underfunded. I believe in the principle of compartmentalising the allowances, because they could then be scrutinised more effectively.

A constituency allowance would be extremely useful, but while we have the present lump sum system, we have certain purposes to serve. Our first purpose is to serve our constituents. Even nine years ago, when I came into the House, we were not subject to organised mailing--sometimes it is nationally organised. Then, there were not as many word processors, which has led to so many personalised letters being sent to us. We must reply to those letters if we are to be competent, effective Members of Parliament.

I have added my name to amendment (a). I hope that new Conservative Members in particular will realise that, if they are to do efficiently the job to which they have had the privilege of being elected, they too should vote for that amendment. Otherwise, in three or four years, they will find that they are struggling--running hard to stand still. I do not believe that that is right for Members of this honourable House.

11.38 pm

Mr. Ken Maginnis (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) : I support the amendment and I realise that certain elements of the press may expect me to feel guilty about that. I do

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not. To be blunt, I wonder how some London journalists dare to write about us when they receive up to twice the salary of Members, as well as a large expense account. I think that they do rather well. Of course they work rather long hours, I am told--I think that we do as well. We are not here tonight to talk about Members' salaries, and that does not bother me greatly. As an ex-village schoolmaster, traditionally underpaid, I can make do on my present salary. While it is inadequate compared with what legislators receive in other countries, I can live on it.

However, I am angry over the totally inadequate back-up resources that I have at my disposal and the fact that the interests of my wife and children have to be sacrificed to make up the shortfall between what I receive and what I spend to service my constituency. Members must already work too hard for too long, away from their families, without having that added pressure.

In the last financial year, I overspent my office allowance by £5, 044. In the previous year I overspent by about £2,000. I have to find that from my personal resources--in other words, from my current salary--as I have no private means. I have a mortgage and two children at university. It is not a painless exercise for my wife and myself. I pity new Members, with young families, who came here in April. My staff, who are excellent, must be paid, but they are not paid what they are worth. Nor do they have a properly equipped office in which to work. For example, the photocopier that I bought nine years ago, when I was first elected, now manages about three reproductions before it has to be switched off, allowed to cool down and switched on again. I cannot afford to replace it.

The further one's constituency from London, the more acute the problem becomes. The most disadvantaged are Northern Ireland Members, although the problem applies in varying degrees to Members from Scotland, the north-east and all constituencies that are distant from Westminster.

Because of the remoteness of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, for example--the issue is further complicated by the direct rule system--I find myself with a constant conflict of duties. How do I divide my time between Westminster, where I want to play a full part as a United Kingdom Member, and Northern Ireland, where the interests of my constituents are dealt with almost exclusively from within the Northern Ireland Office at Stormont? Partly to resolve the issue at constituency level, I am obliged to employ two full- time and two part-time staff. As Northern Ireland does not have a meaningful local government stratum, virtually no problems can be resolved at town hall level. They all arrive on my desk.

Let me compare myself with a parliamentary colleague in, say, the south of England. I do not denigrate his or her work, but their parochial duties are often dealt with at local government level, and one secretary or personal assistant and a researcher can work here in the House, where they have access to free telephones and a library service.

My telephone bill in Fermanagh and South Tyrone for the last year was about £3,750. My main constituency office in Dungannon costs me, including rent and rates, about £3,000 per annum. My Enniskillen office, which is over 40 miles away from the Dungannon office, costs a further £2,000. In addition to lighting and heating bills, I

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am obliged to maintain three separate sets of word processors, one in Dungannon, one in Enniskillen and a laptop machine that I carry for my own use.

The TSRB consultants who interviewed me came and saw the situation in my office and constituency. I suggested that there should be a scale of allowances, related to distance from the House, ranging from £40,000 to £55,000 per Member. At present, my absolute minimum requirement to maintain my present position is £35,000 and I would need a further £10,000 to £15,000 if I were ever to hope to employ a secretary- cum-research assistant in this place. I do not have one at present.

At a time when the Prime Minister is promoting his people's charter, should not we start in the House by ensuring that those who are elected can pay their staff a reasonable wage so that the constituents who sent us here can expect a response to their problems? It must be remembered that Members are not handed the money as a lump sum but must reclaim it, having provided the necessary receipts. If some Members do not require the full amount, they do not have to spend it, but those of us with difficult constituencies, for whatever reason, should not be penalised.

I suppose that it is not wise to reveal the details of one's business as I have done. I do not make out that I am a martyr ; like most hon. Members, I enjoy my job and want to do it properly. None the less, I feel that the public should know how wrong it is for the Government to propose to underfund the work and business of this House because it diminishes the House and those who work here. 11.47 pm

Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay) : In the 1970s when Clive Jenkins was the leader of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs union, I remember calculating that a skilled white collar worker needed to invest some £31,000 a year to be effective in his job. To extrapolate from that and bring it up to date, it must be double that sum today. People running a business and providing the information services that we provide would have to find such sums out of their profits on top of their salaries, which I admit may be less than a Member of Parliament receives.

In my first year in this place I got away with a reasonable electric typewriter and a secretary, but since I have been here the work load has grown and I have gone from a typewriter with a screen, to an Amstrad, to a £4,500 machine with a laser printer. That is not because I am fond of equipment, but because it was essential to match the growing work load.

It is improper for us to be too censorious about the increase when we consider the number of hours and quality of work that we get from our secretarial back-up, most of which is carried out by women who are usually considered worthy of being paid slightly less than if a man were doing that job. If men provided the back-up secretarial assistance, we would be asking for much more. The women who back us up with clerical efforts and skills are worthy of a reasonable salary because they must cope with London prices. Many people outside who will scrutinise the sums that we talk about may deal with considerably lower salary scales, but they do not have to face up to the costs of living in the city--essentially for travel and rents.

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For all those reasons, we should adopt the figure that the review body recommended. Unless we do so, we cannot match the service that our constituents require. I find that a day's surgery generates some two days of work for my secretary. That is a fairly modest work load because my constituency is, fortunately, quite prosperous and does not generate as many case histories as some colleagues must cope with weekly.

I need a research assistant because of the many problems thrown up by the legislation that we in the House are constantly passing. The ordinary citizen needs an encyclopaedia, a citizens advice bureau and sometimes a solicitor in order to understand the way in which it impinges on their ordinary lives. We generate the problem. We must, therefore, at least provide the assistance and the back-up to help people cope with it.

I and a number of my colleagues now pay the Fees Office to be here--my contribution has gone from nil in the first year when I did not spend all my allowance, to barely breaking even in the second year, to £3,000 in my third year, to £5,000 in the last year but one, to more than £7,000 in the last year out of my salary in order to meet my work load, which colleagues may well think is partly self-generated, but I make no apology for that. That is my own choice, but for many colleagues that is a difficult matter with which to cope.

We should stop pussyfooting around, remember the people who do our wonderful back-up work--there are as many women working in this place as there are men, toiling away in the background, at salaries substantially less than ours, but deserving much better--bite this little bullet and make it clear to the public that we do this so that we can provide a reasonable service. Until we can cut down the legislative tendency of the Front Benches of both parties when in office, we should provide the service that the public need. 11.50 pm

Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield) : The hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) has made a powerful case on behalf of those who work for Members of Parliament and it is one that the House will disregard at its peril.

We are discussing not a financial but a democratic question. The Leader of the House is here to represent Members. He is the bridge between the Government and the House. I notice six civil servants in the Box who have advised him on his speech and no doubt will check carefully what he said. Not one of the civil servants whom he employs will be working under the conditions that he thinks it right we should work under with the staff that we employ.

As I said in an intervention, not a single civil servant has to choose between a computer, his secretary, a telephone call and his office rent-- not one. We are discussing the relationship between the Executive and the legislature. Therefore, this is not an occasion for the usual sort of argument that we have in the House ; it is one of those rare but important occasions when the House as a House looks at what the Government are prepared to do.

It is no good telling us what the percentage improvements are. Before 1910, Members of Parliament were not paid at all, and I am sure that if, instead of holding elections, we put out parliamentary seats to private tender the House could be filled with people who would be happy to pay to have the privilege of the

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influence that we have. When I was elected, I received £30 a week, no secretarial allowance, no franked postage, no office and, no telephone allowance and I was even prevented from bringing in a tape recorder to dictate here by someone from the Serjeant at Arms' office because some people did not approve of them. It is no good telling me that we are better off than we were then. The question is whether we are properly equipped to do the job that we now have to do. Every time I go to my constituency--this is true of every hon. Member-- everyone I meet is my employer. A number of people have written to me saying, "We haven't had a reply to the letter that we wrote to you, Mr. Benn," or, "We sent you a message and when shall we get an answer?" But no one has ever told me that my office is stuffed with unnecessary staff, because that is not the case. The truth is that we have to work with local authorities, district and county councils and Government Departments and, now that the agencies have been hived off, we have to chase them up as well. Every time the Government privatise anything, they set up a regulatory body. We are a regulatory body, but the Government say that we cannot do the job that we have to do.

Every hon. Member has his own personal experience. I shall not recite mine, but without the work of one Member of Parliament the Birmingham Six might still be in prison. That work took him years and years of effort. The same applies to other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Billericay has been active in promoting legislation. That is over and above the call of duty, as military citations used to say, but it is an important role for a Member of Parliament. We have to deal with our constituents and our localities, and weekly surgeries lasting five or six hours--as the my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) mentioned. Some of the cases are tragic and involve all sorts of matters. People come to us because they feel that there is nowhere else that they can go. As to the number of letters, during the Gulf war I received 12,000 letters--including one from almost every hostage in Baghdad. They wrote saying who they were and describing their medical condition, because they knew that I was going there. Was it not part of my duty to reply to them all? If I had not had the assistance of four or five volunteers in my office, that job could not possibly have been done. We deal also with parliamentary questions, speeches, early-day motions, Bills, Committee work and campaigns of one kind and another. All that requires proper staffing.

There has been an enormous growth in Executive power over the years. I once worked out--I have not updated my figures--that Government expenditure in the first 50 years of my life, from 1925 to 1974, rose 1,000 per cent. in real terms. The number of Members of Parliament is virtually the same as it was in 1925, but we cover a wider range of activity.

Mention has been made of the enormous growth also in the number of pressure groups. I cannot say that I care for some of them, but I agree with others. They bombard us with information. They are well-resourced--they have staff, computers and fax machines. We have to judge whether we agree with them. There is also the growth in the media. One has only to go to 4 Millbank to know that

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--it will not be long before they are bigger than we are. We will be at 4 Millbank, and the media will be over here, because they need more space.

All staff should be employed and properly paid by the Government. We could select them, but they would be paid from the public account. All equipment should be provided and, when a Member of Parliament is defeated or retires, he would hand it back--in the same way that the Leader of the House will return his seal of office when he ceases to be a Secretary of State or a Minister. There should be an absolute minimum of three staff for every Member of Parliament--one or two full-time in his constituency, and one in London. There is no other way.

Why did the Government establish an independent commission that had no motive for exaggerating our needs and then say that they could not manage to accept its recommendations? What was the point? I fear that it was to delay matters until after the general election. This decision is one for the House to take. I hope that the Whips have not used their influence and that no Member will find that he or she has been left off a Select Committee because he or she voted the wrong way tonight. I invite the House to support the amendments. They were recommended by an independent commission of inquiry that received evidence from many right hon. and hon. Members, myself included, and reached a very measured view.

11.57 pm

Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, East) : I intervene briefly to support the amendments. I do so as one who gave evidence to the Top Salaries Review Body, which studied at length the representations that it received. We referred these matters to the TSBR to take them out of the hands of Members of Parliament and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), I find it extraordinary that the Government, have torn up its recommendations. That is not the way to deal with the issue.

We asked that body to investigate matters affecting Members of Parliament because that was in the interests of the House as a whole, and it would take the issue out of controversy. I remind Conservative Members that this is not a political issue. I have sat in Parliaments under Labour and Conservative Governments, when they have been pressurised not to implement increased facilities for right hon. and hon. Members because that might upset the norm or Government policy. If we do not take the right decision this evening, we can forget any improvements for the remainder of this Parliament. That is the key issue. I believe that the amendments, especially amendment (a), will give us no more than what the report entitles us to--a "global" sum that would enable us to do the work that we must and want to do. I urge the House to support the amendments.

11.59 pm

Mr. Peter Hain (Neath) : Some hon. Members may feel that, as someone who has been in the House for a mere 15 months, I am being rather precocious in speaking tonight. I am comforted only by the fact that the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) and I--who were on opposite sides of the Grunwick picket line in 1977--are agreed on the issue : that must make us right.

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I am very conscious that those who have been in the House much longer than I have become accustomed to arrangements that appal a new Member. Those arrangements are primitive--not least in regard to the resources and conditions that we expect our staff to endure. The issue is not, as the Government would have us believe, about Members' pay. An article published in The Sunday Times on 5 July, headed "MPs strike it rich at palace of perks",

said that we were alleged to have an annual income of £102,671. As we all know, that is a fantasy figure of which Del Boy would be proud : I hope that he will apply for the post of editor of The Sunday Times when a vacancy occurs.

The issue is not about pay restraint--restraint imposed on us, as Members of Parliament. If it were, the Leader of the House would not have presented us with a proposed increase of 14.5 per cent--nearly four times the rate of inflation ; he would have presented us with an increase of about 4 per cent. But he did not do that : he plucked a figure out of the air, illogically and pragmatically, in the hope of buying a few votes against the amendments.

I urge the House to reject the hyprocrisy of editors who claim to be on the side of the people, and then deny us the rights and resources to check and challenge the Executive on behalf of the people. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) so eloquently put it, this is a constitutional issue which affects our right as legislators and our right to represent our constituents.

The Government want Members of Parliament to chase their tails, with very little time to consider the complexity of issues, the nature of political questions and the strategies and policies that we must pursue. Their proposals are almost designed to keep us under so much pressure that we cannot seriously do our jobs as parliamentary representatives, seeking to challenge the Executive and hold it accountable. Nor can we hold our constituents in the high regard in which we ought to hold them : we cannot give them the service that they deserve.

Let me briefly describe the experience of an hon. Member with a constituency office. That office, which had not been set up before I became a Member of Parliament for Neath, is now deluged with daily telephone calls from people with housing and social security problems--people without jobs who sometimes break down in tears. They are able to receive service on their doorsteps from their Member of Parliament or his staff ; they could not do that under the old resourcing arrangements. We need extra resources, to ensure that every Member of Parliament can provide such a local service. I believe that the Executive have launched a deliberate strategy to deny us the resources to do our jobs ; to centralise power ; to ensure that Members of Parliament are buried under an enormous case load ; to ensure that they cannot scrutinise the Government ; and to ensure that they are dog-tired and half-witted--that applies to me, at any rate. I ask hon. Members to imagine that they were able to act as normal people for once ; to listen to others for once ; to think properly for once ; to go home and share their spare time with their spouses and talk to their children for once. They should imagine themselves having the time and the resources to be human beings for once. This issue goes beyond the question of Members of Parliament having the resources to do their job and to support their staff. I urge the House to ensure that we get for our staff proper resources, pay and conditions so that we are able to

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raise a great number of issues covered by the report but disregarded by the Executive, including the disaggregation of allowances to ensure that the staff of Members of Parliament are not compared with computers but are given proper pay and resources. I urge the House to support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith).

12.4 am

Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West) : As we get very close to making a decision on behalf of our staff, I ought to point out that the Leader of the House has won neither the argument nor the support of his hon. Friends. Having listened to the comments made by his hon. Friends and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), as well as to those of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) who spoke so well on behalf of the staff, it is clear that the House does not believe the case made by the Leader of the House. That is because he did not have the courage to bring the report before the House early enough in this Parliament to enable hon. Members to have a full debate on its contents.

There is much in the Top Salaries Review Body's report that hon. Members, on behalf of their staff, would like to debate. All that we have been able to do tonight is to ensure that at least one of its recommendations is carried out--that Members of Parliament are given more financial support for their staff so that they can do their job. I hope that all hon. Members will support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury.

A number of the recommendations in the report still need to be discussed. I hope that the Leader of the House will respond to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) and that he will allow the House to discuss the contents of the Top Salaries Review Body's report. Hon. Members want to take account of many of its recommendations, in particular the need to provide support for those Members of Parliament who have constituency offices and who require more finance to run them.

The Leader of the House has clearly misread the mood of the House. I hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House will join us in the Lobby and support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury.

12.7 am

Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith) : I intend to make two points that have not yet been made. First, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) said what he did, for I believe that he is a constituent of mine. I may remind him of that fact when he next writes to me, but, as my secretary is away on holiday, he may not get a quick reply. All I would say to him is that there is no reason why any hon. Member should not say to his or her constituents, or to any member of the press, that we need this money to do our job as parliamentarians. That is what the argument is about.

Mr. Walden : I have been asked by my constituents about this. I have told them that there is a limit to what I can do for them, with one secretary, but that I do not believe, in the wider interests of the country, that I should vote myself more money.

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Mr. Soley : The answer is simple--the hon. Gentleman does not have to take the money. This is a matter not for the Government--I agree with everything that has been said about taking it out of the hands of the Government--but for Parliament.

Secondly, the Government tabled 1,000 amendments to their last Housing Bill, several hundred of which were tabled three days before the Bill returned to the Floor of the House. Every Back Bencher on the Standing Committee had to address those amendments and work out what they were to do. We took the advice of outside agencies. Therefore, we delegated our authority and power to outside agencies. We did so because there was no other way of getting through that spate of amendments. That applies to other issues, too. I shall end on that point.

It being one and a half hours after the commencement of the proceedings on the motion, Madam Speaker-- proceeded to put the Question which she was directed to put at that hour, pursuant to Order [9 July].

Amendment proposed to the motion : (a) in sub-paragraph (a), leave out £33,190' and insert £39,960'.-- [Mr. Chris Smith.] Question put, That the amendment be made :--

The House divided : Ayes 324, Noes 197.

Division No. 70] [12.09 am

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Adams, Mrs Irene

Ainger, Nick

Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

Allason, Rupert (Torbay)

Allen, Graham

Alton, David

Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)

Austin-Walker, John

Barnes, Harry

Barron, Kevin

Bates, Michael

Battle, John

Bayley, Hugh

Beckett, Margaret

Beggs, Roy

Beith, Rt Hon A. J.

Bell, Stuart

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Benton, Joe

Bermingham, Gerald

Berry, Dr. Roger

Betts, Clive

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Blair, Tony

Blunkett, David

Boateng, Paul

Bowden, Andrew

Boyce, Jimmy

Boyes, Roland

Bradley, Keith

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)

Browning, Mrs. Angela

Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Burden, Richard

Butler, Peter

Byers, Stephen

Caborn, Richard

Callaghan, Jim

Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

Campbell, Ronald (Blyth V)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Canavan, Dennis

Cann, Jamie

Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)

Clapham, Michael

Clark, Dr David (South Shields)

Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Clelland, David

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Coffey, Ann

Cohen, Harry

Colvin, Michael

Connarty, Michael

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Corbett, Robin

Corbyn, Jeremy

Cousins, Jim

Cox, Tom

Cran, James

Cryer, Bob

Cummings, John

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)

Cunningham, Dr John (C'p'l'nd)

Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)

Dafis, Cynog

Dalyell, Tam

Darling, Alistair

Davidson, Ian

Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Davies, Quentin (Stamford)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)

Day, Stephen

Denham, John

Dewar, Donald

Dixon, Don

Dobson, Frank

Donohoe, Brian H.

Dowd, Jim

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

Dykes, Hugh

Eagle, Ms Angela

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