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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I speak again because the hon. Lady is worrying me with her statements, which are not relevant to the Bill. The Bill is about how ministerial salaries will be adjusted in future, yet the hon. Lady is talking about specific Ministers and their role. There may be some other way--perhaps an Adjournment debate--
whereby she can raise these matters and get the Ministers responsible to give an account of themselves. She really is going well outside the scope of the Bill.
Mrs. Gillan: Thank you for that advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was just concluding my remarks in a way that is directly related to the Bill. Questions must be asked when Ministers who have waived or who are in receipt of full ministerial salaries have their briefs cut down insize, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Should not explanations be provided and perhaps even adjustments made in their salaries in response?
Mrs. Ann Taylor: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall reply briefly to the debate.
I shall start with the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who invited me to enter into the spirit of her comments. On that basis, I do not think that most of her comments were relevant to the debate and the spirit of the debate was somewhat marred by her unnecessary accusations. Indeed, they detracted from its main purpose, which is to discuss how ministerial salaries will be adjusted in future.
However, I shall take up one point that the hon. Lady raised--that relating to Ministers' job performance. She will know from her time as a Minister that it is not true to say, as she did, that there is no appraisal of Ministers. Leaving aside the obvious appraisal by the Prime Minister and the resulting promotions and demotions, all Ministers, like all Members of Parliament, are under constant appraisal, not only by other hon. Members and the general public, but by their constituents. That is probably the best possible type of appraisal.
Mrs. Gillan:
I hope that the right hon. Lady appreciates that I have raised this matter tonight because I consider it to be a matter of great concern. How does she suggest we remedy the situation when Ministers who are responsible for entering into the spirit of the Standing Orders of the House, such as Standing Order No. 18 by which we table questions for an answer in three days, do not meet those targets? How does she suggest we enable Ministers to meet those targets? What sanctions are available to us when they fail to do so? Madam Speaker ruled that there were no sanctions available to the House and that it was entirely up to Ministers.
Mrs. Taylor:
I recall the hon. Lady raising this point before; we checked from the time when she was a Minister at the Department for Education and Employment. It was quite common then for Ministers in that Department to use holding answers where they thought it appropriate. That will continue to be the case. Doing so is often not the Minister's preferred option, but the House is entitled to accurate answers and that may require the use of a holding answer.
To return to the main purpose of the Bill and of the debate, I was pleased that the hon. Members who spoke, even the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, welcomed the Bill and the thrust of the proposals.
The measures have been around for some time and it is important that there should be consensus in the House when we are dealing with topics of this nature. I therefore welcome the remarks of the hon. Members for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack) and for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). We are all of one mind about the purpose of the legislation. We are also all of one mind that it is somewhat undignified for Members of Parliament to have to vote either on their own salaries or on that of Ministers. That should be avoided as far as possible and the Bill is a step in that direction.
Not surprisingly, given his background, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire gave us some history to the issue, which put into perspective some of the comments we occasionally hear about salaries, both of Ministers and of hon. Members. He raised questions about the voluntary denial ordinance on Cabinet Ministers. It is true that Cabinet Ministers, who are entitled to a salary of £60,000, are actually taking the old salary, which I am informed is £43,991. He questioned the wisdom of that. I understand why: if people do not fall in line with recommendations, there can be problems relating to catching up or to future increases. I say simply that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made it clear before the election that he was opposed to the move and it was a case of keeping that promise. However, the hon. Gentleman was right to point out the difficulties that can occur.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
So that we are in no doubt, will the right hon. Lady confirm whether it is the Government's intention that Ministers should take next year what they have forgone this year?
Mrs. Taylor:
It was made clear at the time of the announcement that the new salaries would not be taken and that we would not take what we had forgone by way of receiving the money at some stage, but that we would go on to the new salary level at the start of the next financial year. I had one slight disagreement with the hon. Gentleman when he said that Ministers receive modest recompense. I do not think that it is modest any more and one way to ensure that it is in line with what it should be is to use a mechanism such as we propose in the Bill.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire spoke about the fact that we do not have separation of powers or Ministers from outside Parliament and that Ministers should be responsive and ensure that they are always accountable to the House. That is a point of principle on which there can be no disagreement whatsoever and it is important that we stick by that practice. Serious attempts are made to do so and Madam Speaker's comments about a significant change in Government policy being reported to the House are something that Ministers can and do take on board.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire should not always believe everything he reads in the papers, or assume that every point of order raised on the Floor of the House is correct. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) suggested that the White Paper on Scottish devolution had been deliberately leaked. I wrote to him immediately asking for the evidence that he said was in his possession. I also contacted my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who made inquiries in his office and with the newspaper concerned. We were able to say categorically that there had been no
such leak. The hon. Member for Woodspring appears to have accepted the point and he wrote me a letter this afternoon to that effect. Sometimes points of order create the impression that something has gone wrong when that is not necessarily so.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Of course I accept what the right hon. Lady has just said. Equally she will accept that there has been a disturbing number of leaks. I hope that she is as opposed to them as we are.
Mrs. Taylor:
I am not sure that that is right. I do not want to imply that I disbelieve the hon. Gentleman, who speaks in good faith, but sometimes people have looked at what is written in policy documents before the election and drawn assumptions about what has later been translated into policy. That is not deliberate leaking: it is people working out the direction of Government policy. That is wholly reasonable.
I want to get back to the debate and to the Bill, since I see you on the edge of your seat, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am glad that there is agreement about moving in the proposed direction. I welcome the points made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall, who spoke of taking away the annual embarrassment. That is what this is allabout. Indeed, during the previous debate on these measures, a Conservative Member called the procedure demeaning--and so it is when Ministers and Members of this House have to vote on these issues.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall raised some interesting points about the salaries of the Leader of the Opposition and the Opposition Chief Whip. I have said for a long time that I believe that there is a strong case for looking at the funding of political parties. There is widespread agreement that the issue should receive further attention. Given the increased number of Liberal Democrats in the House, I understand why the hon. Gentleman is anxious to emphasise that the balance within the Opposition has changed. He is also anxious to make the point that he opposed certain ideas the Conservative Government did not oppose--but that is for Opposition Members to decide. They can argue among themselves about who the Opposition on any particular topic really are.
It is important to have an official Opposition, and we think it right to give public funds to Opposition parties to assist them to carry out their functions in this House. That is good for a healthy democracy. Hon. Members may squabble about the amounts, but the principle has been established and it should command general agreement.
Mr. Tyler:
Does the right hon. Lady agree that this, perhaps, is the moment at which an initiative in this area
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