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10.14 pm
Sir David Mitchell (North-West Hampshire): As many hon. Members have said, it is very difficult for Members of Parliament to be in the position of having to decide their own salaries. There is a genuine difficulty, in that I--like many other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate--do not know exactly what should be the right level of pay. However, I suppose that one criterion might be comparison with the status and salary of senior staff of the House. That is why I tabled a question, to which I received an answer yesterday, which revealed that 130 members of the staff of the House are paid more than hon. Members.
I should like to ask the Leader of the House whether he thinks that the value of a Member of Parliament compares with, for example, that of the director of works. A Member of Parliament is paid less than the parliamentary director of works, less than the deputy director of works, less than the fire safety manager, less than the furnishing manager, less than the works manager, less than the quantity surveyor and even less than the executive chef.
Last year, I had a comparison made between exactly what the purchasing power of my salary was when I was first elected as a Member of Parliament, in 1964, and what it was last year. The fact is that there was almost no difference between my salary's purchasing power when I entered the House 32 years ago and its purchasing power last year.
Is there any other profession which has had the enormous increase in work load that hon. Members have experienced over the past 30 years and which has had no real salary increase? In what other job is that true--dustman, train driver, clerk, journalist, newspaper editor, Lobby correspondent, shop assistant or civil servant? Name any profession, but not one has had no real increase in 32 years' service of one form or another.
Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South):
I do not suppose that my speech will do my chances in the shadow Cabinet election any good, but I have heard that that election will be abolished to spare me the embarrassment.
I welcome the review body's recommendation to abolish higher mileage allowance rates. It has always seemed to me to be absolutely indefensible that, contrary to all the rhetoric coming out of this place, we have an allowances system that actively encourages the use of large cars--I am sorry that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has left the Chamber--at the expense of public transport. I hope that the House has
the courage to grasp that nettle today, because, if we do not, we shall forfeit the right to be taken seriously on transport and environmental policy.
I welcome the recommendations on the office costs allowance, and I shall vote for the recommended increase.
Unhappily, amendment (m), which I tabled, has not been selected. It is about linkage. We always seem to relate our pay to that of some anonymous civil servant. I favour--this should appeal to any socialists who happen to be present--linking it to the state pension, so that we irrevocably link future increases to the fortunes of the less prosperous of our constituents rather than to some anonymous civil servant.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) said that we should not fudge the issue of wages. I am not in favour of fudging it, either. I am totally opposed to any rise above the rate of inflation. The issue is not whether we are underpaid for the job that we do--there are many opinions about that--but whether our pay is so inadequate that we constitute a special case, entitled to exemption from the rules that Governments of all political persuasions seek to impose on others. I do not believe that any reasonable person could come to that conclusion. By no stretch of the imagination are we a special case.
I do not accept any of the arguments that have been advanced by those who advocate the increase. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) and the right hon. Member for Worthing (Sir T. Higgins) argued that our remuneration has fallen below the level of the 1960s, or at least has not increased since then. That is nonsense. In the 1960s, a Member of Parliament was, quite wrongly, expected to pay for his own office costs and his or her London accommodation. Those items are now, quite rightly, covered by allowances. We are incomparably better off than we were in the 1960s, and we should not pretend otherwise.
I do not accept that £34,000 is a low salary. We are in the top 10 per cent. of income earners. We all earn more than the overwhelming majority of our constituents. I appreciate that that will be less true of those who represent the more prosperous areas, but the fact remains that £34,000 a year is a good salary, even in the most prosperous areas.
I have heard it said that we must raise salaries in order to attract better-quality candidates. The truth is that all parties are heavily over-subscribed with applicants for winnable seats. That is especially true of the Conservative party. If it was left up to the free market on which most Conservative Members are so keen, we would be paying ourselves less, not more.
We all know why the crisis--if I might call it that--has arisen. It has arisen because Lord Nolan has closed off some, but by no means all, of the opportunities that many Conservative Members take for granted of supplementing their income.
Mr. David Shaw (Dover):
Stop writing the books.
Mr. Mullin:
I have not written a book since before I was elected. Many Conservative Members take for granted the fact that they can supplement their income by selling their services to outside interests. Others may have climbed on the bandwagon, but that is how it began. That is why we are in this crisis--because of Nolan.
I can never recall seeing Conservative Members as upset as on the day that Nolan reported. One said to me, within the hearing of the catering staff--he was a multi-millionaire, so I do not suppose he has to worry too much--"No Conservative can live on £34,000 a year." Believe me, I understand. By definition, Tory Members tend to represent the leafier areas of the country. They belong to a party where status is everything. They rub shoulders every day with people who earn a great deal more than they do and, to put it crudely, in the past 17 years, they have handed out a great deal of dosh to their friends and many of them want their cut.
Some Tory Members take the view--[Interruption.] Tory Members are often seeking to put clear blue water between the two sides of the House. Speaking for myself, an ocean of clear blue water separates us on this issue.
Some Tory Members take the view that the nation should be grateful to them for taking the time off from making money to come and govern us. I do not share that view and--I suspect--nor does the nation.
I apologise for making a party point, but I believe that we are all being dragged into what is essentially a Tory crisis in the hope of giving respectability to a proposition that is utterly without merit.
There is a more serious point. It is not healthy in a democracy for too wide a gap to grow up between the life styles of elected representatives and those whom they represent. I believe that as a matter of principle and that, as far as possible, Members of Parliament should share the same sunshine and the same rainfall as those whom they represent. We already earn more than 90 per cent. of our constituents, and that is enough. There is no justification for widening the gap.
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Eltham):
I should declare that I have more interest in the outcome of the debate than most hon. Members, as I may become a ministerial widower at some stage. Having said that, let me refer to one or two points that have been raised in the debate.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham(Sir P. Lloyd) recommended that we ought to set the pay to come into effect at the beginning of a Parliament and that it should not change during that Parliament. I support that. Sadly, it is not one of the recommendations and there is no amendment that would allow it to happen. I believe that there should not be an annual pay increase for Members.
I also believe that we should reduce the number of Members and that during this Parliament--[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker:
Order. Mr. Bottomley.
Mr. Bottomley:
During this Parliament, we should pass a resolution giving instructions to the boundary commissioners that next time there is a boundary change--in 10 or 12 years' time--the number of constituencies should be reduced to about 450. That would give every hon. Member about the same number of constituents as my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Sir T. Higgins) currently represents. That would demonstrate that, although there should be a pay increase, Members are willing to accept--at the next convenient moment--a greater work load. We should also recognise that many right hon. and hon. Members already represent that number with distinction. It is not easy, but it is possible.
The hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) mentioned the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. She makes worthwhile comments, she clearly has administrative ability and she is the kind of person who could become a Secretary of State. Why should she have to take a pay cut of £10,000 a year, were she to be Secretary of State for Health, for example? Another example is one of the head teachers represented by David Hart. Why should the head of Holland Park comprehensive take a £25,000-a-year pay cut as the Member of Parliament for Holland park? It does not make sense.
I received today a bit of paper about the pay of the assistant director of housing in the London borough of Greenwich, which says that it is lower than pay in 24 other London boroughs. It is not the average or median pay, but below that received in other boroughs. It is £55,000 a year. Is there anybody in the House at the moment who has served as an assistant director of housing? Such people may not be put off just by Members' pay. There may be other reasons why they are not applying to be Members of Parliament.
Let us consider a director of social services who receives £70,000. I may not have met any Members who are former directors of social services, but that could be because the level of pay is not encouraging them. When was the last time that someone of lieutenant-colonel rank came into the House? I think that the answer is 20 years ago. When was the last time that the finance director of a medium-sized shire district council came into Parliament, let alone a grade 5 civil servant or a hospital consultant?
Pages 6 and 7 of volume 2 of the review body report, which, as far as I can see, have not been reproduced in our national newspapers and, up to today, have not been talked about by our national broadcasters, make the point.
When someone says, as a professor of community care did in a letter to me today,
Let us take some of the people who comment on our affairs. I invited someone from the Press Gallery to come down to the Chamber and make his point about our pay. He said, "It would cost me a £12,000-a-year pay cut to do that." I am sure that being in the Press Gallery and commenting on our affairs is more important and deserves more pay, because those people have to listen to our speeches--at least when they are in the Gallery.
Let us consider what is facing the House today. Are we going to say that £43,000 is too much for Members of Parliament to earn? I do not think that anyone believes that. We should say to the Government--we can understand why they have to take their 3 per cent. line--that, in future, when a review body is set up or asked to report on pay or conditions, its report should be put to the House for a vote. Then, if they wanted, the Government could table an amendment to bring the proposal down to another level. That way would be more open and straightforward.
I recognise that the amendment that I tabled to the first motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, which would have had the effect that I described, has not been selected. Nevertheless, we ought to be willing to say for ourselves, for those who will follow us and for those who will compete for selection with us, that we should set a rate of pay that is not a disincentive to parliamentary service--not one that would make anybody rich, but one that is worth while, which would encourage some of those in comparable jobs in the private and public sector to come forward.
A fair number of other points could be made. Many hon. Members can manage on present levels of pay. It depends on the family life cycle, whether one has a spouse who is earning and all kinds of things. At one stage during my parliamentary service, I faced the choice of going broke or going out. I do not think that my service here is that important by itself, but that choice is illustrative of the pressures on hon. Members.
"I'm not sure that most M.P.s are worth the proposed salaries",
it might be better to improve Members of Parliament rather than cut pay. Why should someone who is a professor of community care not feel attracted to Parliament?
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