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10.33 pm
Mrs. Ann Taylor (Dewsbury): I start by mentioning a point that has so far not been mentioned. It is appropriate for the House to thank the Clerks of the House of Commons for the extraordinary work that they have had to do in the past 24 hours on the amendments and the selection. I will not mention their pay, but I will mention that they were here at 5.30 this morning, just as hon. Members are on some occasions.
There are many occasions on which the Leader of the House and shadow Leader of the House can make joint recommendations to the House on matters that concern the House. I had hoped that tonight would be such an occasion. I had hoped that the Leader of the House would put forward a resolution in partnership with me, and that our joint resolution would solve many of the problems exercising people's minds this evening.
The matters that we are discussing should be decided by individual Members of Parliament, which is why Opposition Members have a completely free vote this evening. Several issues are being discussed together: the pay of Members of Parliament; Ministers' pay; pensions;
the office costs allowance; and travel. All those issues have one thing in common: none of them should be determined by Members of Parliament. My starting point is the fact that I have never believed that I, as a Member of Parliament, should determine my own salary; nor should we do so collectively. That important principle must govern our decisions this evening.
When the Prime Minister referred the issue of Members' pay and related matters to the SSRB, I was involved, through the usual channels, in discussions about the nature of that reference. Obviously, we do not disclose the details of such discussions, but it is no secret that the very last item on the list of what the review should cover was inserted, at my request, on behalf of colleagues. If hon. Members turn to the report and look at the letter that the Prime Minister sent to Sir Michael Perry, who heads the SSRB, they will see that the final point in that letter is that the review should cover
I wish that we did not have to vote on accepting that independence. I wish that we could legislate away our right ever to make decisions on this matter again. That is not possible, but it is important that we establish for the future the principle that Members of Parliament should not determine their own pay.
At the invitation of the SSRB, and as shadow Leader of the House, I gave evidence to the review body. Some of the points that I raised have been taken on board; others have not. But whether the SSRB accepted or rejected the points that I made should not govern my decision on how to vote this evening. We should not try to cherry-pick the recommendations before us, because if we believe that we should not make that decision, and if such a reference has been made, we should accept the package that has been put before us, with all the recommendations, regardless of whether they coincide with the evidence that we gave.
The key section of the SSRB package and the report is not what it recommends on Members' pay, pensions, Ministers' pay, office costs or travel; it is recommendation 14, which recommends that a review mechanism be applied automatically to the salaries of Members of Parliament and Ministers. The decision to accept that this evening is the only way to get rid of the ridiculous situation of Members voting on their own salary on an annual basis.
It is important to consider all that the SSRB says on this issue. It is no use the Leader of the House telling us later that he will put in place a similar type of review mechanism, because anyone who has read the SSRB report carefully will have read in paragraph 13 on page 2:
The key line in the document for tonight's debate may be the line that says of the new linkage that it will be effective only if
We have heard a little tonight about the need for restraint, and I know that some Members have taken what the Prime Minister said at face value, but this is a very peculiar form of restraint. What is being suggested is a 3 per cent. increase, but it is 3 per cent. only six months after the last increase and only nine months before the next increase. I do not know if that is the message that the Government will send to public sector workers throughout the country, but I am pretty sure that that is not the message that they have sent out before.
The most important point to bear in mind is that, if we do not accept the package as a whole, we cannot avoid being told on every occasion that this is not the appropriate time to solve the problem of Members' pay. I have looked back over many debates in the past 15 years, and in every debate Ministers have said, "This is not the appropriate time. The problem will be solved in future." Here we are, in 1996, still trying to deal with problems that have confronted the House regularly in the past 20 years.
The Leader of the House said that the Government had put forward evidence to SSRB on affordability, and he said that that evidence was given by the Lord Privy Seal, Viscount Cranborne. I find it slightly surprising--
Mr. Newton:
I do not think I said that, but in any case I said that the Government had presented written evidence to the SSRB on affordability. Someone had said that no Minister had given evidence; the fact is that the Lord Privy Seal did. Those two points are distinct.
Mrs. Taylor:
I am glad to have the clarification from the right hon. Gentleman. He was asked from the Opposition Benches who gave the evidence, and I do not know whether he understood or heard correctly the question to which he was replying when he said the Lord Privy Seal.
I accept that, in other ways that have not been revealed to us, the Government gave evidence to the SSRB on affordability. It is certainly the case that members of the Government gave evidence to the SSRB. I have just looked at the list of those who gave oral evidence. Six Labour Members gave oral evidence, as did 12 Conservative Members, including three Cabinet Ministers, two Whips and two junior Ministers. The SSRB had the opportunity to take on board the views of Ministers, because at least seven gave evidence to it. It then came up with the report before the House.
I found the Leader of the House's statement on mileage costs and the rates that are available at the moment--he suggested that it might be possible to continue them--absolutely astonishing. I presume that that kind of statement leads to headlines such as the one that appeared in The Daily Telegraph today: "MPs must choose pay rise or perks". That is an offensive approach to deal with this issue. What message are Ministers trying to get across? Is it, "Take 3 per cent. and pretend that you have not had a pay increase, but go out and buy a large car and milk the mileage"? I cannot believe that the Leader of the House is comfortable with his proposal. In the post-Nolan era, this is a ridiculous message to send out to the community.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin)--whose name is also on the motion--has said that, if the Minister refuses to move the motion, he will move it and a vote will take place.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)
rose--
Mr. Rowe:
I understand that many hon. Members may feel that it is inappropriate for me to speak at this time. I have sat through the whole debate--and a number of hon. Members who are complaining have not. First, I repeat what I have said on many occasions when we have debated this issue: it is 30 years since I entered the grade in the civil service to which we used to have our salaries linked--30 years later, that cannot be described as the career progression of a greedy man.
Secondly, it is worth suggesting--as I did to the Senior Salaries Review Body--that a good comparator might be a fixed proportion of the average salaries of the editors of the tabloid newspapers. One of the things that affects the public interest in our salaries is the public's perception of what this place is for and what Members of Parliament do. What we do here is arcane to most of our constituents--they have no idea what we do or whether we do it well or badly. They have to make a judgment based on comments from Members of Parliament and the media.
I believe that we should accept the report's recommendations, but that we should also look seriously at how the House of Commons serves the nation in circumstances that have changed beyond all recognition in the past 30 or 40 years. The nature and the volume of our work and our relationships with other bodies--such as the European Union--have changed dramatically. The mechanisms for dealing with those changes are often out of date and do not function particularly effectively. It is time that we examined those issues.
I agree entirely with those hon. Members who believe that there are too many Members of Parliament. We should look at the numbers. Perhaps we should start rationing the number of Members of Parliament who come from the same household--but that may be unkind.
"a linkage to provide the basis for annual uprating in future years without the need for Parliamentary decision."
That point is key for me and for many colleagues on both sides of the House.
"We needed to find a new automatic linkage for uprating in future years."
The SSRB went on to identify the linkage that it recommends.
"salaries are set at the recommended level"
now. That means that, if we do not accept the package, we will not be accepting what the SSRB has said is the only successful method of linking pay to other
mechanisms that ensures that the House will not have to deal with this in future. If we accept what the Leader of the House suggests, this issue will return to the House time after time, as the SSRB report says.
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