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Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): Has any decision yet been made about the considerable financial debt of the previous Ba'athist regime?
Mr. Straw: No decisions have been made. The matter is covered to a degree by 1483. However, quite a lot of the debtors—sovereign states and others—have been in touch with the coalition provisional authority to ask for their money, and we are considering their claims.
Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside): Have any serious challenges been made to the credibility of reports from the UK forensic team that there are at least 50 mass graves and evidence of at least 300,000 murders
during Saddam's regime? How many more people would have died or been tortured if Saddam had been left in power?
Mr. Straw: I have seen no challenges to those figures, horrifying though they are. I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) that we grieve for anybody who has been killed or injured in whatever circumstances in Iraq. We do not know the exact number of people who were killed as a result of coalition action, but I grieve for them. I know for certain that within a year, far fewer people will have died as a result of coalition action and far more will have been free than ever would have occurred under the Saddam regime.
Paul Flynn (Newport, West): Members of two of the bereaved families have publicly asked the agonising question, "Did our loved ones die in vain?" For the first time in our history, it was we MPs who took the decision to send our soldiers to kill and be killed. Because of that, we cannot make independent judgments on our own decisions, whether we do it individually or collectively as Committees. Do we not need to give those bereaved families not just sincere condolences from every Member of the House, but an assurance that the reasons for the war will be exposed faithfully? Cannot that be done only by a fully independent inquiry?
Mr. Straw: No doubt we will discuss the matter further tomorrow, but I do not accept that. I shall develop the point tomorrow. My hon. Friend is right to this extent: it was not quite the first time that a substantive vote was taken, but it was the first time in the circumstances. I am proud to be a member of a Government who introduced that constitutional change, which will stand for all time. Of course, responsibilities go with it, but I do not accept that in a House of 651 Members, those whom we have chosen to serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee are not capable of independence of judgment in the circumstances. It must be acknowledged—this could not be examined by some independent judicial inquiry, as it is a political issue—that overwhelmingly, the basis on which we went to war was 1441. People talk about dossiers. I remind the House that those were the two dossiers that I submitted to the House in February and March, containing page after page of material, above all from UNMOVIC and the IAEA, revealing the extent of
Saddam Hussein's failure to comply with the will of the United Nations. That was at the heart of the argument before the House on 18 March.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North): Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that both he and the Prime Minister, on numerous occasions and in numerous interviews, told the House and the public that the purpose of the war against Iraq was to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction? Does he accept that what he said today is an attempt at rewriting history, pretending that that was not the motive that was given, when it clearly was the motive that was given? In those circumstances, why does he not support an independent judicial inquiry that can make a judgment on the assertions that were made, the documents that were presented and the arguments that were put for war against Iraq, and the reality of what has happened since?
Mr. Straw: What I said is what I said. My hon. Friend needs to apply himself to the basis on which the House voted, after intense debate and a period of consideration going back for eight months. Yes, we did speak about the need to disarm Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction. So did the Security Council. It was not a hole-in-the-corner thing, as is sometimes implied, all depending on whether it took 45 minutes or 90 minutes for those weapons to be prepared. It was on the basis of the clearest possible evidence of two key sets of facts: in the words of the United Nations Security Council, Iraq's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the fact that it had had such programmes and was plainly seeking to rebuild them, and above all its defiance of the will of the United Nations. I say to my hon. Friend and the House—and this underlines the nature of the argument back in March—that had Saddam Hussein complied completely, immediately and fully with the terms of 1441, and had the inspectors been able to say that, there would have been no basis for military action. It was Iraq's wilful failure to comply that was at the heart of the decision that the House rightly took on 18 March to take military action.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle): The Americans have offered $25 million for information leading to the capture of Saddam Hussein, and since then there has been the tape allegedly portraying the dictator. Is there any evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein is still alive and in Iraq?
Mr. Straw: There is neither proof of life, nor proof of death.
Point of Order
Mr. John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, of which I have given you notice. On today's Order Paper, in the written ministerial statements there is listed at item 12 an apparently innocuous item entitled, "Publication of the Butterfield Review". Far from being innocuous, this is an extremely important review of a huge VAT scam. As a result of mismanagement and gross negligence, billions of pounds have been lost to the Exchequer and many prosecutions have failed. So immense were those series of frauds that they distorted the balance of payments figures, jeopardising the macro-economic management of the economy. In those circumstances, will you make it clear to Treasury Ministers that such a major report should have been introduced to the House by an oral statement followed by questions?
Mr. Speaker: These matters are for the judgment of Ministers, and the Minister concerned has obviously used his judgment.
National Minimum Wage (Tips)
1.50 pm
Mr. Michael Connarty (Falkirk, East): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend Regulation 31 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 so that amounts paid by customers by way of service charge, tip, gratuity or cover charge whether paid to employees through the payroll or by any other method are excluded from payments taken into account as remunerations contributing to the National Minimum Wage.
The question is: when a customer gives a tip, who is it for? Customers, and I think all hon. Members, believe that a tip is for the individual waiter or hotel staff member whom they give it to or leave it for or that it will be shared through a pooled tip system—we would call such a pool a kitty in Scotland, but it is officially called a tronc—to be shared among the staff. Customers believe that in the UK, where we have a national minimum wage by law—I think that, at £4.10, it is still too low, but it will be increased to £4.50 in October—the tip will make a small addition to that sum. It will not do so if it is paid on a credit card, in a cheque, through a pooled system or tronc and through the payroll. Even if a customer gives cash, if the hotel or restaurant runs a tronc or pooled tip system divided up by a tronc master, who tends to be the head waiter—I was told this morning about a headwaiter who took 80 per cent. of all the tips before distributing the rest—it may still be used to pay towards the minimum wage.
I often hear people say "It wasn't meant to be like this"—I use the phrase myself sometimes when I look at Government policy—but it was. In the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999, regulation 31(1)(e) states that
- "service charge, tips, gratuities or cover charge that is not paid through the payroll",
The problem was highlighted in the case of Nerva and others v. RL&G Ltd., which involved two London restaurants—Paradiso e Inferno in the Strand and Trota Blu in Leicester square. The case was brought in 1995, before the national minimum wage was introduced, but was concluded only last year at the European Court of Human Rights. The High Court ruling said that
- "ownership of tips through cheque and credit card first passes to the employer",
An excellent article by Philip Inman in The Guardian on Saturday 24 November 2001 revealed that even cash tips are not going to staff. It said that, if the establishment in question operated a tronc or pooled tip system paid through the payroll, it did not go to the staff on top of their minimum wage. The article cited the example of the Sanderson, a well-known London hotel where rooms cost from £240 to £2,000 a night for the main suite. That hotel paid £2.50 an hour and topped up the amount to the minimum wage from tips through the payroll. Popular restaurant chains such as Caffe Uno and Garfunkels operate the same tronc system.
This Bill would ensure that all additional payments made by customers as tips, gratuities, service or cover charges have to be paid in addition to the minimum wage by excluding tips paid by any method from minimum wage calculations. It would also reduce the complexity of enforcement, because, as I told the former Minister, enforcement officers would not have to find out whether tips are paid towards the minimum wage. Everyone working in an establishment would receive the minimum wage. Tips above that would be a matter for them, the tax office and their employer.
The Bill would deliver the guaranteed national minimum wage for the 1.8 million people who are probably the most vulnerable workers in this nation, as was the Labour's Government's intention when they said that they would introduce the original Bill. It would ensure that, when tips are paid and by whatever method, they are for the staff as a little extra for themselves and not their employer.
I commend the Bill to the House.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Michael Connarty, Jim Dobbin, John Robertson, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Vera Baird, Mrs. Anne Campbell, Mr. Parmjit Dhanda, Mr. Bill Tynan, Mr. Jimmy Hood, Linda Gilroy, Mr. Bob Blizzard and Angela Eagle.
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