House of Commons Hansard Debates for 2 Nov 1995

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"withholding information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest".

That is the heart of political debate in this place. The Scott inquiry examined those issues carefully and it will release its report soon.

Therefore, I believe that it is a little previous to suggest that this is the finished word on "Questions of Procedure for Ministers". I do not think that I have expressed vigorously enough my deep opposition to the idea that this is a weakening of that higher standard which requires Ministers to account truthfully to the House and to the public.

Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I intend to propose an amendment to the text. The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney asked me to reflect upon the published text and I shall now read my proposed change--which has been approved by the Prime Minister-- into the record. I obviously welcome the comments and views of hon. Members.

The new formulation of "Questions of Procedure for Ministers" shall be as follows:

"Ministers must not knowingly mislead Parliament and the public and should correct any inadvertent errors at the earliest opportunity. They must be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, withholding information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with established Parliamentary convention, the law, and any relevant Government Code of Practice".

I have provided three references: first, established parliamentary convention--I have given the reference in "Erskine May"--secondly, the law; and, thirdly, any relevant Government code of practice. My hon. Friend has also drawn attention to the document on open government that we have published already. I hope that the amendment provides greater clarity. Right hon. and hon. Members will no doubt wish to study the record and perhaps reflect further upon the debate. My hon. Friend referred to the ombudsman. I believe that Ministers should be accountable to the House for their actions. I believe that the ombudsman has a role in examining the actions of Ministers and Departments with regard to openness and access to information by members of the public. However, if it is thought that a Minister has misled the House, he must come to the Dispatch Box and give an account of himself. The House, and not the ombudsman, must examine the evidence and bring him to account.

Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for living up to his promise and reflecting further on the wording of the proposed revised draft of "Questions of Procedure for Ministers". The crux of the matter is how the public interest is defined. I thought that the form of words proposed originally was very weak. It said that Ministers must not knowingly mislead Parliament and withhold information

"only when disclosure would not be in the public interest". I think that the criteria that the Minister has submitted for judging the public interest are helpful; I shall certainly study them with great care. However, I remind the Minister of the remarks of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills a few moments ago. We are living in the shadow of the Scott report and I believe that, when it is published, it will throw a great deal of light on how

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public interest has been interpreted in the past and what is and what is not proper for Ministers to disclose to the House and to the public.

Mr. Freeman: It is fair to say that, when the Scott report is published, studied and doubtless debated, we shall all have to reflect on what it says and on the sentiments and the wishes of the House in that regard. I cannot possibly anticipate what will be said.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me to reflect further on that point, and I have done so. The amendment to "Questions of Procedure for Ministers" becomes effective immediately. Any further changes that may or may not be deemed appropriate will also become effective at the proper time. It is not a matter of the Prime Minister issuing instructions at the beginning of a Parliament and then forgetting about it; we have made an amendment that seeks to address the points raised and considered by Nolan.

Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock and Burntwood): I ask the Minister to reflect on what he said about Ministers' differing accountability to the House and to the ombudsman. In a number of instances, the ombudsman has been able to extract information from Ministers that Members of Parliament were not able to extract. That occurred most recently with the very important report about fraud in the Treasury. Is it not crucial that the same rules about openness should apply across the public arena, whether it is in relation to Members of Parliament or members of the public? Should not the guidelines reflect that fact?

Mr. Freeman: The rules apply specifically to Ministers of the Crown. In terms of being called to account by Parliament, it would not be helpful if the ombudsman intervened and examined the alleged statement or misstatement. In my judgment, it better reinforces the accountability of Ministers if the Minister involved, either by personal statement or by debate, accounts to Parliament directly. As for the role of the ombudsman in relation to open Government, the record so far has been successful. It was a sensible and constructive move and I see no degree of confusion or

irreconcilability between the role of the ombudsman in relation to Government Departments and accountability of Ministers for the veracity of what they say to Parliament. I hope that what I have just said will have shown the House the clear and satisfactory progress that we are making on developing the White Paper proposals in those key areas.

One further part of the White Paper that I wish to mention briefly--as it takes up half the committee's recommendations addressed to Government-- deals with quangos. The Nolan committee divided its recommendations into those that affected appointments to certain quangos--in this case executive non-departmental public bodies and NHS bodies--and those that dealt with the general propriety of board members and, in one or two cases, the staff of those bodies. On appointments, the Government were able to accept virtually all the committee's recommendations, many of which in practice built on the public appointment unit's review of guidance on public appointments. That was issued at the beginning of the year, formed the mainstay

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of the Government's evidence on public appointments and had already been agreed by Ministers by the time the committee published its report. The committee's main additional recommendations to that framework were that panels or committees with an independent element should be set up to advise on all appointments to executive NDPBs and NHS bodies; and that a new, independent commissioner for public appointments should be appointed. The essential principle of all such appointments is that they should be based on merit or qualification for the job.

In their response, the Government set out in some detail the way that they envisaged the advisory panels working in practice. They proposed that such arrangements should be comprehensively in place by July 1996. The Government also accepted the proposal for the commissioner and in my statement of 18 July I announced that the post would be publicly advertised immediately. That duly happened, and the arrangements for appointing the commissioner are now well advanced. We should be in a position to announce the new commissioner later this month.

On the general governance of quangos, the committee made a number of recommendations concerning the implementation of best practice procedures through, for example, codes of conduct and openness, building in each case on existing Government initiatives. The Government accepted those recommendations, and they are being implemented.

Among the most important recommendations were those proposing a review of the legal framework governing propriety, accountability and the arrangements for external audit in public bodies. We expect to complete that review by the end of the calendar year. I know that many with interests in the area, including the right hon. Member for Ashton-under- Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), contributed material to the review. We shall pay careful attention to what they have said, and publish proposals in a consultation paper.

In his speech to the House on 18 May, my right hon. Friend and predecessor the Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt) paid tribute to the selflessness--a Nolan principle, as I have noted--of the large numbers of people who serve on public bodies for little or no remuneration. I should like to echo his remarks, and I am sure the whole House joins me in that commendation.

We do not view non-departmental public bodies from the viewpoint of appointments or propriety alone. They exist to do a useful job; they are not set up when there is no need for them or kept needlessly in existence when their function is finished. Since 1979, we have abolished hundreds of NDPBs. I am pleased to announce that when annual figures are next published in December this year, they will show a further reduction of more than 100, which will mean a net fall of more than 40 per cent. since 1979, so I hope that the House will see that it is possible to combine economy and efficiency with the highest standards of propriety and that the Government are doing both.

The Government have never been reluctant to take any steps necessary to improve the quality of the country's public life and public services. I hope that I have clearly outlined to the House how we are now doing that through our White Paper response to the Nolan committee and the current work to implement that response. I know that they

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are issues of considerable importance to the House and I look forward to hearing the views of right hon. and hon. Members accordingly. With the leave of the House, I shall seek to reply to points raised in the debate when we conclude it.

7.44 pm

Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland): I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for his kind remarks. Of the 16 years that I have been in the House, 13 have been relatively silent. I spent 10 years as the Opposition Chief Whip, one further year as a Whip and two years as the parliamentary private secretary to our former leader, Neil Kinnock. It could well be that already people are saying to themselves, "I liked him better when he was silent." I hope that is not the case. We shall see.

I look forward very much to debating with the right hon. Gentleman these and others matters over the coming months, and I am sure that, as he says, even though we may differ--not violently but certainly substantially--at least the debate will always be courteous. I thank the Minister for fulfilling his promise in his statement to the House on 18 July 1995 at column 1473 first to publish a text for consultation on guidelines to Ministers accepting business appointments before introducing the rules at the beginning of the next Session; secondly, to have a debate on the White Paper as a whole in the spillover session; and thirdly, to consult on an extension of business appointment rules to Ministers' special advisers.

The Minister was courteous enough to answer two written questions of mine on Monday 30 October and to place other material in the House of Commons Library. However, I have to say--I hope he does not think that I am being churlish--that the press had the information at 2.30 pm, but it did not come my way until 5 pm. I know that Madam Speaker, and I am sure Madam Deputy Speaker, will have some views on that, as Madam Speaker has expressed her views from time to time.

The Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt), in opening the civil service debate on 23 March 1995, quoted the November 1994 report of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil, which said:

"The British Civil Service is a great national asset. Since the 1870s, it has been the permanent and impartial instrument of all administrations. Governments have always seen it as their duty to preserve its efficiency and honesty for their successors."--[ Official Report , 23 March 1995; Vol. 257, c. 549.]

Let me, on behalf of my party, wholeheartedly endorse that view. Before I was elected to the House, I spent 10 years in the private sector, nine years in the public sector and a number of years in the voluntary sector. I may be unique in that experience. Each sector has enormous strengths. Each has much to learn from the others. None has the monopoly of wisdom. In particular, the idea that the business culture is or should be paramount has in my view been profoundly damaging to our society and democracy. Hopefully, that short-sighted, arrogant philosophy has almost run into the sand. If not, it will do so shortly after the present Government are swept out of office whenever they have the courage to call a general election.

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Let us make no mistake. We would not be having tonight's debate without the deliberations of the Nolan committee. The Prime Minister set up the Nolan committee only because his Government were sinking beneath a sea of allegations of sleaze. That was the act of a man desperate to sweep those allegations from the tabloid front pages into the long grass of the lengthy consideration by the Nolan committee.

On 20 May, the Prime Minister announced to the Sunday newspapers: "I not only accept the broad thrust of Nolan's recommendations, I agree with Nolan."

Many of us heard the Prime Minister say in the House today that he accepted the broad thrust of Nolan's recommendations. If he agrees with them, let the Prime Minister support Nolan and vote for the implementation of his recommendations in full on Monday night. Business appointments are a bone of contention. The Chancellor of the Duchy's predecessor claimed in his evidence to the Nolan committee that no change to the existing arrangements was required. Other parliamentarians, such as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and Lord Younger, were critical of the current position, and Nolan accepted their concerns. Nolan recommended, on page 54 of his first report that

"a system similar to the civil service business appointment rules should apply to Ministers."

Nolan helpfully set out the salient features of the civil service scheme on page 52:

"i) all civil servants at grades 1 and 1A . . . and 2 . . . must submit their future job plans to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments for approval . . .

ii) they must seek approval both for their first job and for any others within two years of leaving the civil service."

Bearing in mind that far more public concern had been expressed about former Ministers taking up appointments than about civil servants doing so, the innocent layman would expect the rules laid down for Ministers to be at least as stringent as those laid down for civil servants. On the face of it, that is not so. When the Chancellor of the Duchy issued guidelines on Monday, the words "must submit their future job plans"

and

"must seek approval for both their first job"

had become "may seek advice" for Ministers. An obligation placed on civil servants had become an option for Ministers.

The Chancellor of the Duchy said in his statement to the House on 18 July:

"We accept the Nolan committee's recommendation that Ministers should be brought within the scope of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments."--[ Official Report , 18 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 1473.]

He claimed to be implementing Nolan in full. When the right hon. Gentleman briefed the press on Monday, he repeated that claim. When he spoke on television the other day, he made the same claim, yet it is clear that the scheme for Ministers is far weaker than that for civil servants--against the Nolan recommendation.

The Chancellor of the Duchy will argue that is irrelevant, because, if a Minister did not seek advice--or having sought advice, did not heed it-- that will seep into the public domain and lead to censure in the press. To

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me, that "may" is dishonest. Loosely translated, it means that Ministers had better seek advice or else. If that is the case, why did not the right hon. Gentleman say so? Would it not have been better to say, "Ministers will be expected to seek advice," or even, "Ministers should seek advice"? After all, in "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", the phrase "Ministers should" appears in almost every paragraph.

If the Chancellor of the Duchy is looking for an effective sanction to buttress "Ministers should seek advice" rather than "Ministers may seek advice", would it not be far more satisfactory to place a duty or even an expectation on the business advisory committee to make it public that a former Minister had not sought advice--or having sought it, had not heeded it? That would be far better than the somewhat dubious practice of someone- -not the Minister, of course--whispering behind a hand to some journalist, so that information seeps into the public domain.

I still believe that the guidelines are unsatisfactory and I urge the Chancellor of the Duchy to withdraw them, even at this late stage, and to replace them with new guidelines that will fulfil his promise to implement Nolan in full--especially as the right hon. Gentleman reiterated that he is seeking to aid the Prime Minister in his determination

"to uphold the highest standards in public life".

After the Chancellor of the Duchy made his statement to the House on 18 July, two of his former colleagues took up lucrative business appointments. The former Foreign Secretary went to NatWest for a sum rumoured to be £200,000, for a three-day week, and the right hon. Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham), a former Minister for Export Trade, joined his long-standing friend and patron, Lord Prior, at GEC for more than £100,000.

It is disturbing that both claim to have voluntarily submitted themselves to the advisory committee under the chairmanship of Lord Carlisle. It is difficult to disagree with the conclusion of The Guardian leader on 4 September:

"If the Whitehall machine gave Mr. Needham a clean bill of health then it is the system itself which is sick."

If the Chancellor of the Duchy does not like The Guardian , perhaps The Independent has more credence. The headline to its leader the same day shouted "Nolan is not enough". The leader writer claimed:

"Lord Carlisle has got it wrong. He should have insisted on a decent interval between Mr. Needham's period as a trade minister and his appearance on the GEC board . . . The Needham case is a timely reminder that, Nolan notwithstanding, the battle is not over yet". As to the civil service code, I congratulate the Government on seeing sense. The code is a major step in the right direction and although I share the fears of the Council of Civil Service Unions that the code does not go far enough, we nevertheless welcome it. Why should there be a new civil service code? Permanent revolution within the service has not only affected morale, leaving a pall of insecurity over its work, but has fragmented the service- -which has diluted its sense of unity of purpose underpinned by common values.

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More fundamentally, as the clash of cultures has deepened and become all-pervading, an increasing number of civil servants have complained of unwarranted pressure from a variety of sources. The code ought to help in that direction. It was seen as having several advantages. It was envisaged that the code would have

"some clear public status, public endorsement going beyond the government of the day."

The code would have far wider currency than existing documents, being available to all civil servants and to the public. The process of drawing up the code would itself encourage far wider public and parliamentary debate. The code would provide far greater clarity about the role, duties and responsibilities of civil servants. Finally, the code would be a unifying force in the increasingly heterogeneous civil service.

I see two great advantages in the code. First, there is the onus placed on Ministers to read the code, to take notice of it and not to ask civil servants to act outside its provisions. The other advantage is the institution of an independent appeals procedure, which is wholly welcome. My predecessor, the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), said of the code on 18 July:

"we still believe that legislation is necessary. If the Government were to press ahead with it, they would have our full

co-operation."--[ Official Report , 18 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 1475.] That remains our position.

It is revealing that the Government's first position was that the new code was not necessary. Fortunately, after the powerful inquiry conducted by the Sub-Committee of the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee under the distinguished chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), the Government saw sense, and some consensus has emerged from the subsequent consultations.

I hear rather dark rumours to the effect that the Sub-Committee chaired by my hon. Friend is to be abolished. The House would regret that. The quality of its work has been extremely high, and it has gained enormous respect throughout the civil service and in Parliament. The House will wish to join me in thanking my hon. Friend and his colleagues on the Sub-Committee for its outstanding work. I have a few reservations about the code. It is arguable that it does not fully address the relationship between civil servants and Parliament, especially parliamentary Select Committees. Secondly, the code does not adequately deal with a civil servant's relationship with the public. It is possible, for example, that Scott will argue that civil servants have a duty to the public interest over and above the duty that they have to Ministers.

Finally, the Chancellor of the Duchy will agree that the acid test of the code's effectiveness will be how it is implemented and received in the civil service. He will know that the Council of Civil Service Unions argues with some force that central Departments in the civil service should issue detailed advice and guidance to departments on a wide range of issues.

The Chancellor of the Duchy has been courteous enough to make an announcement to the House on "Questions of Procedure for Ministers", and we thank him for that. We shall study it with some care. Again, the House has Nolan to thank for developments on "Questions of Procedure for Ministers". Nolan recommended that

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"the Prime Minister puts in hand the production of a document drawing out from `Questions of Procedure for Ministers' the ethical principles and rules which it contains to form a free-standing code of conduct or a separate section within the new QPM."

The Government responded by accepting Nolan's proposals, with some reservations, and producing a draft of the new ethical part of the QPM.

There was some public criticism that the new draft would encourage ministerial secrecy. Nolan proposed a draft which included the words:

"Ministers must not mislead Parliament. They must be as open as possible with Parliament and the public."

The Government draft said:

"Ministers must not knowingly mislead Parliament and the public . . . withholding information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest".

Fears were expressed that Ministers could withhold information at will because they define the public interest.

The Observer of 16 July revealed that the Cabinet had, the previous week, accepted the proposal of the Chancellor of the Duchy to delete the public interest defence. The Times of 11 July claimed that the new draft would be published immediately following Cabinet approval. On 18 July, in his statement to the House when responding to my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury, the Chancellor of the Duchy referred to Cmnd. 2290, "Open Government", for a further definition of when disclosure would not be in the public interest. There are more than four pages of exemptions in that document, which the right hon. Gentleman claims is still under consultation more than two years after publication.

On 18 July, in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), the Chancellor of the Duchy said:

"I shall come back to the House during the debate"--

that is, this debate--

"with perhaps more thoughtful proposals on how more generally we can either cross-refer or define those circumstances."--[ Official Report , 18 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 1484.]

Now the Chancellor of the Duchy has fulfilled his promise. He has come back to us, and we shall study what he has produced with great care.

It would have been possible to range even more widely over the subjects touched on by the Chancellor of the Duchy, but I know that other colleagues want to contribute to the debate. I shall therefore say only that we are indebted to Nolan for making the recommendations on the subjects before us this evening. I am glad that the Government have taken most of them on board. I should be glad to hear what the Chancellor of the Duchy has to say about my submission that his recommendation on business appointments is rather weaker than Nolan recommended. I look forward greatly to future debates on the civil service in this House.

8.6 pm

Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): I know that the whole House will join me in welcoming the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) back to a more audible role at the Dispatch Box. I appreciate his remarks about the work of the Nolan committee. The right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) and I are the holders of a unique letter of appointment. Other members of the Nolan committee were advised of the expenses that

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they could claim for. We were advised that, as we were already in receipt of public funds, no money would be available to pay us for any of our work.

It would have been intolerable if Nolan's work had been consigned to the wastepaper basket. That is why I so greatly appreciate the role played by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy. His was not the most exciting speech that I have ever heard in the Chamber--he quite properly eschewed that--but he took us meticulously through the range of issues with which he has been dealing. Problems of standards in public life, and the leadership that we in the House ought to exhibit, are sometimes the subject of brilliant illumination, but more often they are matters of painstaking attention to detail of the type that the Nolan committee has performed.

Sometimes I think that these matters should not be the subject of so much party political exchange. This afternoon I resented the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition. He does no one any service by trying to turn these issues into acutely party political ones. On the contrary, they are in the main matters about which each and every Member of the House will have to make up his mind.

The committee's first report included 54 recommendations, to which the Government's response has been effective, more than adequate and prompt. I should like to put that clearly on the record.

I am glad that the Government accepted the recommendations about Ministers. I believe that that was right. I am not breaching any confidences by disclosing that there was a strong view across the Nolan committee that the procedures that existed for civil servants should be replicated as far as was sensible for Ministers. We recognised that there were differences for Ministers. Civil servants are in the main able to anticipate and plan their retirement. That is not always true of every occupier of the Front Benches.

I thought that the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was unkind in one respect. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy has said that Ministers may ask the advisory committee. He drew attention today to the word "may". He made the point that the committee was advisory and non- statutory. It seemed to me extraordinarily courteous of my right hon. Friend to say that he did not wish in advance to bind any other Administration that might at some long distant date possibly occupy the Government Benches.

He discharged his responsibility clearly and personally on behalf of the Prime Minister to make it clear that Ministers in the current Administration would be required and expected to ask the advisory committee about any appointment. I want to hear from the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland an unequivocal pledge that, if at any time in the future there were a Labour Administration, the same requirement imposed by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy would apply to any Minister leaving a Labour Administration.

Mr. Derek Foster: I have no hesitation in giving such a pledge. I intended to say that I was grateful to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for making it clear in his opening remarks about business appointments that

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the Prime Minister and the Government would expect Ministers to seek the committee's advice. That was a useful clarification of the guidelines issued on Monday.

Mr. King: I am grateful for that, as I know the whole House will be. The right hon. Gentleman may not be so pleased with what I am now about to say.

I resented very much the remarks that he made in reference to my right hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Mr. Hurd) and for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham). They were quite uncalled for. Although there was a brief mention of the issue in the tabloid press and other newspapers, once people had considered the matter, they observed that in both cases my right hon. Friends behaved with propriety. That is a good test. It is not a current issue at present.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney has gone to work for and make his experience available to a British bank operating in extremely competitive markets around the world. He will find George Shultz operating for the Americans. He will find French diplomats and politicians and German and Italian former leading Ministers who occupied different posts now seeking to assist their national economic effort.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney. He could easily have gone off and written a few more of the excellent thrillers that he writes--indeed, I am sure that he will. He will be working full time. However, he will make his contribution in the economic field.

The real point that I want to bring out relates to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North. It is no secret--indeed, it is well known in the House and it is certainly well known in industry--that my right hon. Friend was an outstanding ambassador for Britain. He was a first-class Minister for Trade, many would say probably the best that we have had for a long time. He struck fear into our foreign competitors because he was extremely effective in the relationships that he established and the help that he gave. I listened to what the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland had to say. I do not impugn in any way his patriotism, which I respect, but the people who would have been most pleased to hear what he said are our French and German competitors. They would have liked to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North told to do nothing for two years in the fields in which he worked.

It was in the interests of our nation that, as soon as my right hon. Friend left his ministerial role, he should make himself available in the fields in which he had operated to maintain efforts in exports, provided that he did not discriminate unfairly between one British company and another. I am not aware of a single complaint from a British company. My right hon. Friend's assistance is to the benefit of Britain and many of our constituents who work in the factories that my right hon. Friend helped to obtain orders for in recent years.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North is good in exports, why should we wear a hair shirt as a country and ban him from taking any part in exporting? Why should he not do so, provided that he does not make improper use of information that he gained

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as a Minister? Although the system is not yet set up, my right hon. Friend checked with Lord Carlisle to find out whether he thought that it was improper for him to act in that way. His energies will be employed to support British companies. I believe that that is absolutely right. If Opposition Members say that that is wrong, their views do not coincide with the best interests of Britain.

Mr. Derek Foster: I have the highest regard for the right hon. Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham). We joined the House together. We were members of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry together. He was a very good Trade Minister. However, the right hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) shares the myopia of a good number of his hon. Friends in not understanding the outrage, not of Labour Members of Parliament--that is not of much significance--but of the people outside. They are tired of the long parade of former Ministers going to lucrative jobs in the City or elsewhere. They do not understand it, and they are fed up. That is the mistake that the right hon. Gentleman makes. It is the mistake that his Government are making and that the Chancellor is making in providing a weak scheme.

Mr. King: That was a monstrous intervention. The right hon. Gentleman talks about outrage outside as if it was not stimulated by the comments made in here. He is at it again. It is disgraceful. No one in America said to James Baker when he went to work for the company for which he now works that he must not do it. George Shultz, who was a distinguished Secretary of State, worked for Bechtel. My old sparring partner, Dick Cheney, the former United States Secretary of Defence during the Gulf war when I discharged the role of Secretary of State for Defence, is now president of a major international company called Haliburton, a United States company. No one in America suggests that he is feathering his nest. There is a respect for such people of ability, who made a sacrifice for a period.

The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland must know from his previous incarnation as Chief Whip that many people in the House make sacrifices to be Members of Parliament and represent their constituencies. They do not receive the financial rewards that they could enjoy in outside activities. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney certainly made sacrifices for many years when he worked for his constituents and in the Government. Yet manifestly he is capable of making a much greater contribution and could have advanced himself considerably more than he did.

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