| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
8.38 pm
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): Like other Opposition Members, I was rather surprised that it was not possible to find a new Labour lawyer in the House to take up such a responsible position. My mind went back to an article in The Independent last September, which reported:
- "New Labour is awash with lawyers, all waiting for their rewards".
The answer is a good and honourable one. Charles Falconer QC is an outstanding and gifted lawyer, and he has much in common with the Prime Minister. They have known each other since their schooldays, they have been friends for many years, they have great mutual professional respect, and they both send their children to fee-paying schools.
That is an important point to make when paying tribute to Lord Falconer, because he has taken an important salary cut. According to The Times on 8 May, in a decent year Lord Falconer could expect to make £500,000, which will fall to a derisory £78,000. Out of that, he will still have to find the £21,000 that he apparently spends sending his four children to private schools. I respect him greatly for taking a cut in his income of that magnitude, and my only sadness is that his children will not be joined at their private schools by the children of even poorer families, because of the abolition of the assisted places scheme.
I wish to draw attention to the gender discrimination that lies behind the treatment of Lord Falconer by the Government in comparison with the treatment of the new Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), with whom I have crossed swords in a previous existence outside the House. We are reliably informed by The Guardian that there are no fewer than 101 Labour women Members, but the Minister for Women was appointed six weeks after all the other Ministers, and will not receive a salary--not even a minimum wage. That contrasts badly with the treatment of Lord Falconer.
I shall conclude on a positive suggestion, arising from the bible of the old Labour party--The Guardian--which today pointed out that the Government will send no fewer than 50 of its Members of Parliament at a time away from Westminster to keep them out of trouble--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. The hon. Gentleman has strayed dangerously far from the confines of the order. He seems to be unrepentant. I wish him to return swiftly to the terms of the order.
Dr. Lewis:
I merely wish to suggest that similar consideration should be given, as we approve the order, to other people in less prestigious posts. They should perhaps be remunerated by a tithe from those of their colleagues who will not be serving in the House for part of the time.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford):
Given that the Opposition will not oppose the order, my comments are independent, but I hope that they will make a contribution to the decision. Perhaps they will inform future decisions, so that they will be better made. To my mind, there is something of the 18th century about the way that the new Government have approached their responsibilities. They have an 18th-century style majority, and they are now distributing the largesse of office among their friends.
On the one hand, we heard time and again before the general election attacks by the Labour party on the powers and privileges of another place, although the ordinary members of another place receive merely a subsistence allowance for their daily attendance. On the other hand, when the Government choose to magic their new Solicitor-General--who has not taken part in any election, and who does not face the duties to his electorate that we face to ours--into office, they brazenly ask the House to give him a salary nearly twice the size of that of an ordinary elected Member of this Chamber.
I expect howls of anguish from Labour Members, and, perhaps, given the earlier comments by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier), from some of my hon. Friends with a legal background, when they contemplate the huge fall in income that the Solicitor-General faces. Having accepted such a huge loss in his income, he would have shown a little more style if he had gone the whole way and accepted no income at all.
I believe it was said in the 18th century by one of the Treasury Ministers who served under Pelham and Walpole and other Prime Ministers of the day that, as Ministers of the Crown went to and from the House of Commons, they were passed their money "with a squeeze of the hand". Tonight, we will have a more open process to pass money to the Solicitor-General, and we must all be in favour of that. I believe it was an 18th-century Prime Minister who said that every man has his price, and some will say, perhaps mistakenly, that the price of the Solicitor-General is £78,000.
As my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) said, the order is a stark contrast with the treatment of the Government of their Minister for women. It says much for the latent chauvinism of the Government that they cannot see the irony in paying an unelected male
nearly £80,000, when they refuse to pay an elected female any money for her ministerial duties. At this rate, I fear that the effect of the order will be single handedly to reverse the great process that occurred under the previous Conservative Government, by which the wage differential between men and women narrowed to merely 20 per cent.
Ms Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside):
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that his comments are gross hypocrisy, given that the Conservatives now have fewer women Members than before the election, while the Labour party has many more? In view of that fact, the comments by Opposition Members tonight are grossly hypocritical, and do them little credit.
Mr. St. Aubyn:
I am grateful that the hon. Lady has drawn attention to the fact that there are now many lady Labour Members. I appeal to them to join me in criticising the difference between the treatment of the Solicitor- General and the treatment of the Minister for women. I regret that there are fewer women Conservative Members, and I believe that, at the next election, the electorate will vote in many more women Conservatives--and, indeed, many more male Conservatives--so that we return to government. We all look forward to that.
Mrs. Ann Taylor:
I confined my earlier remarks to the principles involved in presenting the order--and, having heard a couple of Conservative Members speak, I think that that was wise of me. I do not want to spend much time on some of the points that have been raised, but let me say a word about what was described as "gender discrimination".
I do not think that Labour Members need any lectures from Conservatives, who obviously found it difficult to bring themselves to allow women candidates to stand in winnable seats. This year, especially, when we have seen the election of the largest number of women ever, the vast majority of them on our side of the House, we need no lectures from Opposition Members.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
Would the Leader of the House care to comment on her own remarks in the context of women-only short lists? Might not those just possibly have had something to do with it?
Mrs. Taylor:
I am not sure that that is relevant to the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I shall answer the hon. Gentleman's question. He ought to know that most Labour women Members were not selected from all-women short lists. That is a matter of fact, for the record.
I can tell the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), who has recently been appointed to a junior position as Minister for women, to assist the Secretary of State for Social Security in representing the
interests of women, needs no help from Opposition Members in defending her position. I am sure that she will enjoy debating such matters with them whenever they take an interest.
8.42 pm
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |