House of Commons Hansard Debates for 25 Nov 1992

Dr. John G. Blackburn (Dudley, West) : This is essentially a domestic debate--it is our only forum in which to discuss our pay and conditions and, I note from the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), pensions. Although it is largely a private debate on the dealings of the House, I am delighted that it is open to public scrutiny.

I shall speak of a subject that, during my years in the House, I have never heard voiced. If my proposition is accepted, it will mean a reduction not in hon. Members' pay but in their disposable income. Today I am compelled to outline a policy that I pray will receive the constructive support of all hon. Members. It relates to the death of a Member in the service of the House.

I remember, as will other hon. Members, Sir Anthony Berry, who was killed in the Grand hotel by an IRA bomb, and William Roberts, who all but died at the Dispatch Box as he addressed the House. Liberal Members, like everyone else, mourn the tragic Saturday morning when David Penhaligon suffered a fatal and horrific car crash. We also remember John Spence and Eric Heffer, who were loved by all hon. Members.

I see that the leader of the Ulster Unionists is present. The House mourned when Rev. Robert Bradford was shot dead in church while conducting his surgery as a Member of Parliament. We remember Donald Coleman, Spencer Le Marchant and a man whose spirit still pervades the place, Sir John Stradling Thomas, who was loved by all. What is the response of the House towards the death of hon. Members in such circumstances ? I do not think that

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the response is very good--and I say that as an hon. Member. Even worse, we treat the death of our colleagues in an off- hand way. We perhaps think about them for a short period, then dismiss them from our memories.

I am open to correction, and shall give my interpretation of how we treat the death of other hon. Members--I am not talking about using funds from the Chancellor's purse. We do so by perhaps writing to the family, or attending funerals and memorial services at which we pay tribute. Seldom, if ever, are we asked to exercise benevolence to the bereaved families--I have never been asked.

Every day for the past 40 years I have read a book which describes the gifts and states :

"the greatest of these is charity".

I want the House to share and support my vision of benevolence. When a Member dies in the service of the House, we should be corporately invited to authorise the Fees Office in writing to deduct £20 at source from Members' salaries. In that way, we would exercise charity to the families of dead Members of the House, in the form of a sum of about £13,000. That is my proposition--and I believe that it could be done. It would be a practical expression of sympathy and affection for the family of a colleague who had served in the House. I am conscious that I will not receive a positive response from Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen or from Ministers, but I am entitled to my vision. I intend to sow the seed of an idea this evening. I hope that the Leader of the House will consider it and that it will be discussed--to use the mystic expression--through the usual channels. I shall not lay down my sword on this issue. I believe that we should exercise this benevolence, within the community of the House of Commons, for the benefit of the widows and children left behind by Members who die in the service of the House.

5.1 pm

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe) : I beg to move, as an amendment to the Motion, at the end to add

and that the Leader of the House should make regulations to provide that any pension which may become payable to or in respect of any Member of this House under the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1987 should be calculated as if--

(i) the salary specified in paragraph (a) were £32,057 ; and (

(ii) the salary specified in paragraph (b) were £24,132 ; if that Member pays supplementary voluntary contributions in 1993 of an amount which in the opinion of the Government Actuary is the average amount necessary to meet the full additional cost of the pensions so enhanced.'.

The amendment is tabled, as the House will have noted, in the names of all the managing trustees of the parliamentary contributory pension fund. Our purpose is to give Members the opportunity to make an extra contribution to the fund, so that any pension benefits payable either to them or to their dependants, if they leave the House during the period 1 January 1993 to 31 December 1994, will be calculated by reference to the notional salary of £32,057. The amendment will also help widows and other dependants of Members who die between those dates.

With regard to the first substantive point made by the Leader of the House- -about the parliamentary scheme

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being a defined benefit scheme--the amendment provides an option for Members to ensure that they or their widows and other dependants are not penalised if their service ends at any time in the period between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 1994. This is an insurance against that contingency which it will be for each Member to decide in his or her case. Our submission is that they should not be denied that choice.

As for the second point that the right hon. Gentleman put to me this afternoon, it calls, in effect, for a separate and freestanding scheme for additional voluntary contributions--AVCs. While the right hon. Gentleman may argue that this would be desirable, I believe that our existing parliamentary scheme should itself provide all reasonable facilities for the protection of its members and their dependants. That is the basic rationale of, and justification for, the amendment before the House. In my view, all benefits should be integral to the scheme itself.

Sir Peter Hordern (Horsham) : I should just like to be certain about the right hon. Gentleman's point on additional voluntary contributions. Is he as clear as I am that it would be perfectly proper for the existing parliamentary scheme to take additional voluntary contributions, as that was the point that I think my right hon. Friend was making? If so, it is the most desirable outcome that we could hope to achieve.

Mr. Morris : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. My advice is that we need a separate and free-standing scheme to provide AVCs--that it would not be possible to make that provision within the parliamentary scheme as it stands, and that new regulations would be required. It might assist right hon. and hon. Members for me now to explain how the calculation of salary for pension purposes is made. Benefits are based on the amount of gross salary due to a Member during his or her last year of service. For example, if a Member left the House on 30 June 1993, his or her salary for pension purposes would be the amount of gross salary due for the period 1 July 1992 to 30 June 1993. Thus, the calculation of the pension or any other pension benefits would be based on the salary of £31,455.50, rather than the current salary of £30,854. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) fully understood that point.

The lump sum payable in the event of the death of a current Member is twice the Member's annual salary. Members will note that this figure will be higher if the notional salary of £32,057 is used in the calculation. I must also point out that, under our nomination procedures, this payment is often made directly to the widow or widower and without the need for grant of probate. Thus, financial help can be made available fairly quickly at a most difficult time for the bereaved family. Any widow's, widower's or children's pensions calculated by reference to the notional salary of £32,057 will also be higher.

I must emphasise that the cost of this facility will not fall on the public purse, in that Members who wish to avail themselves of it will bear the full actuarially calculated cost themselves. Speaking as chairman of the managing trustees and on behalf of all my colleagues, I am sure that all Members will agree that this is a reasonable proposition for the House to consider.

The fate of the Government's proposal to the House will be decided in the Division Lobbies this evening by Members themselves ; but we must recognise that the

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interests of widows and other dependants will also be affected by the proposals, and according to whether our amendment is accepted or rejected. Although their entitlements to benefit are clearly at stake, they cannot directly affect the outcome of the debate, and the managing trustees seek, by means of their amendment, to protect their interests.

Mr. Ashton : Can my right hon. Friend give me any quick, rule-of- thumb figures for the effect of the amendment not being carried on, say, a Member who spent 10 years in retirement drawing his pension, who was outlived by his wife by five years--women tend to marry younger and live longer--and who I believe might forfeit about £10,000 if this settlement is not agreed to?

Mr. Morris : There can be no definitive answer to that ; it would depend on the last year's salary of the Member who had died or had to leave the House because of ill health. Our essential point is that Members and their dependants will be at risk, as between 1 January 1993 and 31 November 1994, unless we provide the opportunity for insurance that the amendment offers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) is right to say that we should not limit our consideration of the amendment to the immediate future. The pension is based on the final year's salary of the individual Member who dies or for some other reason is no longer in the service of the House. We have heard this afternoon of Members who have died in circumstances of some hardship, and we have heard a proposal for helping them further by voluntary means. As my hon. Friend fears, the effect of not carrying the amendment could be long-term.

I hope that the House will agree that the amendment is a safeguard that we have a duty to provide. The additional cost if the option is used, will be voluntary. The amendment is aimed solely at protecting Members and their dependents who, because of ill health or death in service, end their service to the House between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 1994.

5.10 pm

Sir Jim Spicer (Dorset, West) : I shall speak in favour of the amendment. Before I do so, I welcome the assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that we shall reconsider linkage before the end of 1993. I am sure that no hon. Member wants to return to what I would term the obscene practice of voting on our own salary, and inevitably coming face to face with media criticism every year. That was an invidious procedure for everyone. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend clarified the matter.

I am a relatively new trustee, and I wish to pay tribute to the chairman of the managing trustees of the parliamentary contributory pension scheme, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), for the way in which he conducts our affairs. I am currently on a learning curve, but I support what he has said about the situation that could apply between 1 January 1993 and the end of 1994.

Perhaps it is morbid to dwell on the subject, but I am told that, in an average year, 12 Members will leave the House in one way or another. We have now been sitting for about five or six months in this Session and we are way behind our quota for the year. It would be intolerable if, between now and the end of 1994, a Member were

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disadvantaged financially, as a result of death or retirement, in terms of the grant paid at the end of his or her period of service. A widow's rights for the rest of her life and the ex- Member's retirement life should come within the same category.

The amendment is well based and deserves support. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House should consider it a bird in the hand. He said that there might be further discussions, but it seems that the amendment sets out the way forward. It is something tangible, and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support it.

5.13 pm

Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) : Like the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer), I shall declare an interest. I too am a new pension fund trustee. Again taking up the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, I commend the chairman of the trustees, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), on his work. I hope that the House will consider the amendment with sympathy. It relates to the impact that the motion will have on the pension fund, the beneficiaries and others. It should be understood that the motion will have effect over a two -year period, all the way through to 31 December 1994, if it is accepted as it stands.

It is not impossible, for example, that there will be a general election between now and 31 December 1994. If that were to happen, the severance pay of any Member on leaving the House because of retirement or defeat at the polls would be affected. There would be some impact on the amount of money that he or she would be able to claim under the current schemes. If we make any changes, we should do so only after a great deal of careful consideration. Right hon. and hon. Members should understand the importance of--

Dr. Godman : Have the trustees received any representations from representatives of Members of the European Parliament on these matters? It seems that we have before us a curious form of the application of subsidiarity. It appears that the House is determining the pension rights of MEPs, their widows--God forgive me for saying so--and their widowers. It is a most curious form of the application of subsidiarity if MEPs have not been involved in the discussions.

Mr. Kirkwood : I am sure that those who occupy the Government Front Bench have heard the point made so succinctly by the hon. Gentleman. I am not aware of any representations coming to the Committee that deals with the trustees of the pension fund. If any representations were made, they should have been made directly by MEPs to the Government.

Mr. Dicks : The hon. Gentleman said that there would be a freeze for two years. I was under the impression, wrongly, that it was for one year. Perhaps he will explain.

Mr. Kirkwood : I knew that I should not have become involved in this. I am a new trustee. Calculations for severance pay are based on the two years of previous service. Until 31 December 1994, the calculation will take into account the period of the freeze that we are discussing in the light of the motion.

I have taken some advice--I did not just make up what I said--and I believe that I am right. The effect would not

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be great, but there would be an impact on severance pay. It seems that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) is already contemplating defeat at the next general election, and perhaps before 31 December 1994. He should not worry too much, because, if this Parliament lasts until then, the effect will not be great. I have one or two additional--

Mr. Dicks : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Kirkwood : I am not the best person to deal with these matters.

I have one or two further comments to make on the substantive motion. First, like everyone else, I am extremely nervous about breaking the link. Any breakage of the linkage that we have established would be unfortunate. I understood the Leader of the House to say that he was not really breaking the link, because he was holding fast to the principle. He said, in effect, that he was uncoupling it for 12 months.

I do not understand why the Government did not say, "We shall have a 1.5 per cent. increase just like everyone else." How did a freeze suddenly emerge? The small print in the autumn statement suggested that we were facing a 1.5 per cent. increase as a matter of pay restraint. I can understand that, but I do not understand--the Leader of the House will help me a great deal if he will explain--why we have moved from that restraint to a full-blown freeze.

When I intervened in the speech of the Leader of the House, he made it clear that not much money would be saved. That must be so. It seems that we are talking about saving £1,000 per Member under the terms of the substantive motion. That is about £700,000-worth of public expenditure. That is a flea-bite when set against public expenditure totals. The Government could look at many other areas, such as Ministers' country houses, if they want to save money on that scale.

I am a new member of the Liaison Committee which is working out how to spend £500,000 or £600,000 of taxpayers' money to inform Select Committees by sending Members abroad. I am in favour of travelling abroad, especially in relation to some of the reports about Europe. It is entirely reasonable for members of Select Committees involved in the study of detailed subjects to be able to travel when absolutely necessary. However, members of the Select Committees on Trade and Industry, on Home Affairs and on Defence travel to Washington and such places. A great deal of money could be saved there.

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) raised an important matter when he asked what was to happen to the money. The answer given by the Leader of the House was unconvincing--it seems that it will return to the maw of the Treasury. Some of it may find its way to the Bosnian refugees or Somalia or to the miners' benevolent fund, and perhaps some of it will be used to supply arms to Saddam Hussein. The motion is a mere gesture and it would be far more effective to earmark the money. I thought that the hon. Member for Dudley, West (Dr. Blackburn) would have suggested putting the £1,000 per head into the Members' benevolent fund. That commends itself much more to me than allowing money to flow back to the Treasury.

The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) spoke persuasively about the Government setting an

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example by freezing our pay. I shall listen carefully to the Leader of the House. If he is to gain my vote, he will have to guarantee that such freezing will not be used as a precedent in the formation of Government policy on public sector pay. It would be easy for the Government and the Chancellor to say that a pay freeze at Westminster is biting the bullet and that public sector employees will have to accept the same medicine. If that is in the Government's mind, it is iniquitous. If it is not their thinking, the Leader of the House should say so clearly in winding up.

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton) : Like many other hon. Members, I have not been present for most of the debate because of other commitments. The hon. Gentleman raises important matters and, in coal industry terms, he is on what would be regarded as a good seam. What precedents are being established in the debate and what will be the link with civil service pay? It would be unsatisfactory for the House to decide Members' pay every year. Members' pay should be linked to a group in the civil service, although I entirely accept that the present group may be in the process of being phased out and that we will have to look at the arrangements again. The freeze should be temporary and we should look at these matters again soon so that we can quickly establish an automatic link.

Mr. Kirkwood : I think that in future I shall adopt the hon. Gentleman's technique of arriving late and making a speech without being called. I entirely support the thrust of his comments, but he may not have had the benefit of hearing the Leader of the House at the beginning of the debate.

This is a complicated matter, and some hon. Members are uncertain about precisely what is to happen. The motion states that, from 1 January 1993, pay will be frozen. I understood the Leader of the House to say that he intended to cling to the principle of establishing a link. I am not clear about what is to happen in 1993 to produce a pay level for 1 January 1994. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that the reference group was no longer suitable for calculating pay. However, he did not outline the consequences that flow from that or how he would cope. Will he review the method of assessing Members' pay? If he does, he will be turning over ground that has already been ploughed by the Top Salaries Review Body, which studied all the comparators at great length.

The Leader of the House is aware of the pay of Senators and Congressmen in the United States of America and the pay of public representatives in France, Germany or even Italy, who all receive substantially more than we do. I hope that he will look at all these matters afresh, give them the fullest consideration and take evidence and publish reports rather than picking a figure out of the air. The reference group that the Leader of the House mentioned may be subject to a 1.5 per cent. pay freeze, which may be increased or reduced. As Opposition Members have said, we do not even know the reference points in the civil service group. The right hon. Gentleman's only positive statement was that we would not lose twice. As far as it goes, that is reassuring ; but does it mean that, if the average restraint is 1.5 per cent. in the calendar year commencing 1 January 1993, we can expect to lose the 3.9 per cent. civil service pay award that has already been made? The only way to make up that ground is by increasing our salaries by 5.4 per cent. from 1 January

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next year. The Leader of the House will have to answer that question in specific terms before he can be confident that people will understand the full implications of the Government motion. I suspect that there has been some gesture politics by the Government, and that is no substitute for an effective economic policy. Since 1979, the Government have had a £100 billion windfall in oil and gas revenues and have received £60 billion from privatisation. They are in a sorry mess if their only effective action on the economy is to freeze Members' pay.

I am much less concerned about rates of pay than about House facilities to enable hon. Members to do the job for which we were elected. That has been a hobby horse of mine since I was elected in 1983. The people whom we scrutinise in the civil service and elsewhere have the benefit of access to high-tech equipment. The sooner that the Leader of the House and the House authorities start to provide such facilities for Members to do their job effectively, the better it will be for us all. I hope that the Leader of the House will try to answer some of my questions, especially the one about what is to happen after 1 January 1994.

5.27 pm

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) : Much has been said about Members' pay since it was first granted in 1911, which was a little before my time, and I am sure that much more will be said about it in future. It is an emotive subject that is often clouded by Opposition Members who are far more interested in the incomes of Conservative Members than those of hon. Members generally. That typifies socialist thinking--if that is not a contradiction in terms--and flies in the face of a common acceptance over the years, as stated in the 1983 Top Salaries Review Body report, that hon. Members should not be driven to take on additional paid employment simply because of financial pressures. For their own reasons, many hon. Members take additional paid employment. Some Opposition Members have a fixation, driven by dogma and stirred by envy, that levelling is the name of the game. As usual, the levelling is downwards.

As the Leader of the House said, there is a problem with the current pay settlement, because a productivity element is being introduced into civil service remuneration. It has been suggested that that should apply to the pay of hon. Members.

Mr. Dicks : I hope that my hon. Friend will point out that civil servants receive both a non-contributory pension and a lump-sum gratuity when they retire. The Government never took that into account when Members' pay was linked to that of civil servants and we received 89 per cent. of grade 6 pay.

Mr. Evans : My hon. Friend has made his point admirably, but I was going to make another point, in connection with performance-related pay. Who would judge the performance of Members of Parliament? I think that the electors would be the best judges : given that they supported the Conservatives in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, and will do so again at the next general election, Conservative Members should feel quite safe about being paid according to performance--although I would feel extremely concerned about the prospect were I an Opposition Member.

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The debate, however, is not about the remuneration of Members of Parliament in general ; it is about their remuneration during a period of pay restraint. This year, I voted--along with some Conservative Members and most Opposition Members--for an increase in office cost allowances. That was not a particularly popular move, but I felt that it had to be made. As has been said, Members of Parliament need to have the tools for the job, and those tools are very expensive-- especially for new Members, who incur the start-off costs of all the new equipment that they must acquire. Pay, however, is an entirely different matter ; I do not think that Members' pay should be differentiated from that of other people.

My constituency has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, but I cannot be complacent. This week one of our major cement companies, Castle Cement, announced 70 redundancies. Other job losses, short working, pay freezes and--in certain circumstances, in the private sector--pay reductions have been commonplace for the past two years, and have become more so as the world recession has gripped. How would it look to the country at large if we, as a group, voted ourselves a pay rise while others suffered pay cuts? We should look worse than pickpockets, taking from others and hoping that they were looking the other way. The public, however, are not looking the other way ; they are looking at the House.

I believe that the autumn statement was imaginative, realistic and a boost to confidence. It sent the nation a determined message that all possible measures would be taken to speed our journey to recovery. The public sector, which has enjoyed a real improvement in living standards since 1979, has been asked to restrict wage rises to 1.5 per cent. this year. That will help to ensure that resources are available for the capital projects that we have all pressed the Government to continue ; it will also allow social security uprating, which the House will applaud.

This debate is not about gesture politics ; it is about sending the public a message about the need for restraint on the part of the public sector, Members of Parliament and the private sector. The private sector has taken the brunt of the knocks from the recession : frozen pay is no stranger to companies whose profits have slumped and whose markets have shrunk. In a recent speech, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked for pay restraint in the boardroom as well as in the toolroom. I echo those sentiments, along with the message that has been sent to the captains of our newly privatised companies and, of course, to the rest of us : there can be no conscientious objectors in the fight against recession.

Too many bosses of late have been grabbing double-figure pay increases. Some water bosses seem oblivious to what is happening around them. While other workers are forced to forgo their jobs, let alone pay increases, water bosses have been heaping riches on themselves. They should hand those riches back.

Mr. Derek Fatchett (Leeds, Central) : The hon. Gentleman has raised an interesting point. May I draw his attention to the behaviour of the chairman of Yorkshire Water, who has just taken a substantial pay increase? I wonder what advice the hon. Gentleman would offer his hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Sir G. Shaw), who is a paid director of Yorkshire Water- -that constitutes part of his outside earnings. Would he advise his hon. Friend to tell the Yorkshire Water chairman not to take a pay increase at all?

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Mr. Evans : According to figures that I have before me, the Yorkshire Water boss received a 40 per cent. pay rise this year. I shall comment on that but I shall leave it to hon. Members to decide what they ought to do with their own incomes.

As I have said, there should be no conscientious objectors in the battle against the recession, whether the battle is fought in the boardroom or in the toolroom. When the foot soldiers are in the firing line, the captains can be found in the mess swigging down the brandy and stuffing their pockets with cigars ; but everyone must make a sacrifice for the country, and the sight of some top people raiding the war chest is certainly an unpalatable one. I hope that shareholders, in Yorkshire and elsewhere, will take note of that.

Mr. Fatchett : The hon. Gentleman seems to have missed the essential point. What advice will he give his hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey, who is a director of Yorkshire Water?

Mr. Evans : I have already responded to that question. As I have said, such companies have shareholders, and I hope that they will note exactly what bosses and others are being paid. I repeat that there can be no conscientious objectors.

In 1983, the Top Salaries Review Body stated that it would damage the national interest if the salary of Members of Parliament was allowed to remain too far below the levels available to able men and women in other walks of life. The current national average pay for men is about £340 a week--I realise, of course, that averages take extremities into account. Clearly, Members of Parliament do worse than some people, but we do a great deal better than others. My real reward will come in heaven ; but I fully understand why some Opposition Members may prefer to receive their rewards now, on earth.

It is rumoured that some hon. Members will want to show solidarity with public-sector workers by abstaining this evening, or sitting on their hands. That, however, is hardly the response for which the public sector will look. The way in which to show support for both public and private sectors--the way in which to send clear messages to boardroom bosses and industrial leaders--is to vote for a pay freeze, and to support the Government's economic recovery package. 5.37 pm

Mr. Doug Hoyle (Warrington, North) : The House will not be surprised to learn that I do not intend to follow too closely the rather naive speech of the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). Let me make one point about it, however. The hon. Gentleman described Opposition Members' criticism of moonlighters as the politics of envy ; but did he not engage in the politics of envy when he--rightly, in my view--criticised company directors who had accepted huge pay increases? It does not quite add up.

Mr. Nigel Evans : I was asking for pay restraint in all sectors-- public and private, boardroom and toolroom--in the next pay round, irrespective of current earnings. We should note, however, that the 49 companies that have been privatised since 1979 now earn the country £2 billion in taxation, year in, year out. Before they were privatised, they cost the Exchequer £50 million a week.

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Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. Each intervention has tended to be longer than the last. Sadly, long interventions are not the prerogative of either side of the House.

Mr. Hoyle : As a matter of fact, I was finding the hon. Gentleman's reply quite interesting. I take it from what he said that he will tell his hon. Friends who hold directorships and consultancies not to accept pay increases in the coming year.

Mr. Nigel Evans : Yes.

Mr. Hoyle : Let me make it clear where I stand. I am totally opposed to pay freezes, so I shall vote against the Government motion. The pay freeze for the public sector will not make matters better. As my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) said, many people, because of the restrictions on local government, will lose their jobs. Far from improving things, the pay freeze will make matters worse. The restrictions on purchasing power will not lead to economic recovery. We shall be shoved deeper into recession. We are linked to those in grade 6 who received their pay increase last August. We ought therefore, if there is any natural justice, to have got ours in August. It just so happens that our increase is due next January. We ought to be given that increase, for our pay is linked to grade 6. The Leader of the House was ambiguous. He referred to the link having been maintained. With whom is the link being maintained? It will be difficult to maintain that link, for the Leader of the House went on to say that those in grade 6 are to go on to performance- related pay. If Cabinet members were on

performance-related pay, they would have to pay money to the Treasury for years to come. To whom, therefore, shall we be linked? Can the Leader of the House assure us that pay restraint will apply for only 12 months?

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) : What repayments were made by the Labour Government to the Treasury for their performance between 1974 and 1979?

Mr. Hoyle : That is a pathetic question. When we left office, the economy was in good shape. [Laughter.] I shall take the smile off the face of the man who hails taxis. When we left office, unemployment was very low and it was continuing to go down.

Dr. Godman : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Hoyle : More than 30 per cent. of manufacturing industry has been destroyed by the Government's economic policies since 1979.

Mr. Richards : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hoyle : I shall not give way to any other hon. Members-- Dr. Godman rose --

Mr. Hoyle : --because it is very unfair to my hon. Friends.

Dr. Godman : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Hoyle : I shall give way with pleasure to one of my hon. Friends.

Dr. Godman : Can I remind my hon. Friend that, in his motion, the Leader of the House appeals to my hon. Friend and to the rest of us to behave in a decent and

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fair-minded way by refusing a pay increase? Does my hon. Friend agree that the Leader of the House could respond in a decent and fair-minded way by ensuring that the money saved is given to those non-governmental organisations that seek to help people in the developing world who at this moment are starving?

Mr. Hoyle : My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which I hope the Leader of the House will take on board, though I doubt whether he will. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) asked a similar question, but he received no reply.

Mr. Richards : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hoyle : No, I am afraid that I am not going to give way to the hon. Member.

Mr. Richards : He is afraid.

Mr. Hoyle : That's a laugh, isn't it? A Whitehall farce, if ever I heard one.

We are being used as a stalking horse to justify the public sector pay freeze--people who are among the lowest paid in the country. The Government want to be able to say, "Look, now that we've frozen MPs' pay, we expect you to restrict your pay demands." The Government are playing gesture politics. That is entirely unfair and will not work. The Leader of the House said that he would listen carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) had to say when he moved his amendment. I do not understand why the Leader of the House did not accept the amendment, particularly as my right hon. Friend said that it would be up to hon. Members to make supplementary voluntary contributions. Now that the Leader of the House has listened to my right hon. Friend's speech, I hope that he will say when he replies to the debate that he accepts the amendment.

To turn to the stench that is coming from the other side of the House and to the hypocrisy of those who signed early-day motion 834, it is difficult to get at the exact truth, for the new Register of Members' Interests will not be published until next January. However, only three of those who signed the early-day motion have no outside interests in the form of consultancies or directorships. All the others have, on average, four. I have informed all these hon. Members that I might refer to them, so I have complied with the conventions of the House.

The hon. Member for Slough (Mr. Watts) signed the motion. His directorships are Kenton and Middlesex building society and Global Satellite Communications (Scotland) plc. He has an office--John Watts and Co., Chartered Accountants. He is parliamentary adviser to the Institute of Actuaries and consultant to Rank Hovis McDougall and Wisdom Securities Ltd. There is one interest for which he might not be paid quite so much--as adviser to the Working Men's Club and Institute Union. That really is going down market, but he goes up market after that. He is also parliamentary adviser to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. By playing at gesture politics, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will suffer too much.

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