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1.40 pm
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): I am very conscious that my comments will probably not win me any friends. Nevertheless, I intend to try to persuade the House that the proposal before us is a very foolish one. I have to declare an interest, in that I do not think that Ministers should be part of the legislature. I would like them out of it. The relevance of that is that they would then be paid a ministerial salary, but not a parliamentary salary as well. A driving force behind my argument is to identify some parallels with junior Ministers.
I believe that people in the legislature should all be paid the same rate because we are doing the same job. We may have different functions within the legislature, but the same intensity, responsibility and integrity is required of each and every one of us. The fact that some people fulfil different functions does not mean that they work harder or have greater decision-making responsibilities. I accept that Ministers take executive action, but those of us who are not Ministers have to judge every day how far we can push, persuade and probe them, bearing in mind all the constraints of party politics—let us be frank about that.
Some Members are the patron saint of hopeless cases. What about the people who take up the really unpopular causes? I have not done that, but there are some who have. Such people show enormous courage, and for that reason they attract every pressure group and lost cause. The burden on them is enormous, but that is not reflected in their salary. It is dangerous to create a disparity between some Members of Parliament
and others that is reflected in their salaries. As I have said, the situation is already distorted by Ministers. The gap between ministerial salaries and MPs' salaries is too big. Obviously, I would make an exception for the top echelon, for the people who preside in the Chair, and so on. By and large, however, the disparity is too great, and now we are going to compound it by having two tiers of Back-Bench Members. That is foolhardy in the extreme.It would be perverse if we were to pass this measure today and exclude the Chairman of the Procedure Committee. That would be stark staring bonkers, frankly, and I hope that, if that happens, it will be remedied pretty damned quickly. But it is the principle of the matter to which I am opposed today, and I urge the House to reflect on that, even at this stage.
I listened carefully to what the shadow Leader of the House said. He made a good point in acknowledging that the members of the Chairmen's Panel do unglamorous work which is not reflected in their salaries. That is absolutely correct. There will also be new cases; this problem will increase. There is a powerful case, for example, for the deputy Leader of the Opposition to be paid more. There could be a case to be advanced for some reflection of the Liberal party's role. People might disagree with the idea, but we can advance the case for the leaders of political parties being paid more.
Mr. Forth: And the shadow Leader of the House.
Andrew Mackinlay: And the shadow Leader of the House in particular. He is in constant attendance in the House. Are we really suggesting that he pedals less fast on the treadmill than the Leader of the House? I just do not accept that. We all have different roles, and I hope that we are all working ourselves to the very limit. If some of us are not, people should know about it.
The shadow Leader of the House mentioned the unglamorous nature of the work done by the members of the Chairmen's Panel. They do that work very well. There are other people who do unglamorous work here and who are paid more for it. They are the junior Government Whips. I have nothing against them, but they are paid large sums of extra money, as compared with ordinary MPs, and they only have a walk-on part. They do not have much to say. The only thing they do is to stand up at the end of the day and say, "I beg to move that this House do now adjourn." What has always amazed me is that they cannot learn their line. They read it every night. I invite hon. Members to look, next time. Presumably this does not apply to my distinguished colleague on the Front Bench this afternoon, but nine times out of 10 they cannot even rehearse their line. They have to stand up and read it from a folder, and they get £12,000 a year more for that.
I know how important the junior Whips are to the mechanisms and workings of Parliament. Of course I accept that. I am referring to the unglamorous nature of their work, because they have no speaking role in the House except to say, "I beg to move that this House do now adjourn."
Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Mid-Bedfordshire): If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that this money should be spread more widely, why should it not be given to shadow Ministers? After all, they have to do an enormous amount of work in shadowing a particular portfolio, and they have very little support. If we are going to give extra money to those who have a high profile, would it not be quite right also to give it to those with a rather lower profile but who have to work extremely hard?
Andrew Mackinlay: The hon. Gentleman makes me feel wholly inadequate because he has made that point much better than I was trying to do. It is absurd to extend this measure to the Chairmen of Select Committees, because there will be a compelling case to compound the error of creating two tiers. There is a case for shadow spokespersons to have facilities, and the list could be endless. In a short space of time, we could have two tiers of Members of Parliament.
Andrew Mackinlay: I am happy to give way to such a distinguished Member.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: That is very kind of the hon. Gentleman. The Chairmen's Panel consists of men and women who do a lot of unsung work that is vital to the way in which the House operates. In doing so, they forgo the opportunity of speaking in debates in the House, which would give them coverage not only in the national media but in their local media. Their role is very important and deserves to be valued in due course.
Andrew Mackinlay: That is a valid point. The House might like to reflect on whether it should adopt a practice from the House of Lords, where the equivalent of the Chairmen's Panel is much more extensive. Similarly, in the United States Congress, there are people who preside in the Chair when the Speaker is absent. That function should be spread around, and all of us should have the honour and the obligation to fulfil that function over the course of a Parliament at an equal rate. That would be much more sensible and equitable. It would mean that people were not preoccupied with fulfilling the important function of chairing Committees and being denied the opportunity to participate in debates in the House. I want parity of treatment in the House.
Mr. Salmond: Would membership of the Chairmen's Panel also be open to former Government junior Whips who have trouble reading out, "I beg to move that this House do now adjourn"?
Andrew Mackinlay: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, but I am in enough trouble as it is, and I have an appointment later with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) about some times at which I want to be absent from the House.
I was very sympathetic to the point that there is a need for increased back-up for the Select Committees and their Chairmen. I shall give an illustration, although I am not trying to denigrate my hon. Friends on the
Treasury Bench in any way. The junior Whips have the use of a Government car, but there may not be an overwhelmingly compelling case for them to do so. However, what they have, they hold—that is a good trade union principle—and I do not want to take it away from them. But if the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, had to go to the Chinese embassy or the Russian embassy one lunchtime, or if the Chairman of the Health Committee had to go over to the Department of Health at Elephant and Castle, they would have to go by public transport. There is nothing wrong with that, but if the reason for having a car is to expedite and maximise the scarce time and resources of people with a great deal of responsibility, there is a case for allowing the Chairmen of Select Committees to have them as well. The case for a car is much more compelling than the case for increasing their salaries. I am sympathetic to their need for facilities, including cars, but not to the proposal to increase their salaries.As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), this issue is inextricably bound up with the question of how Select Committee members are chosen. I hope that those who do not share my view that there should be more parity in salary terms, including Ministers, will join me in opposing the motion until we have a better system for the selection of Committee members and the selection—or anointing—of Chairpersons. Regardless of whether Labour, Conservatives or Liberal Democrats are in government, the Government of the day in particular—although this will also be true of Opposition Whips—will have a compelling wish, and the capacity, to mould Select Committees to the best likeness of the Government.
The Leader of the House explained the function of Select Committees, and said that he welcomed scrutiny. I accept that that is his view, and also that it is the desirable view; but I think we are being proud of ourselves prematurely if we imagine we have developed our Select Committee systems to the necessary extent. We have not yet done that, and I do not believe that this proposal will advance the position. In a sense, we have not earned what is being proposed.
I assume that after Christmas we shall have an opportunity to discuss the Hutton inquiry. I do not want to trespass on that territory at this stage—I am putting myself in purdah—but in that context as in others the whole issue of scrutiny is at stake. There is, for instance, a big question mark over whether the Osmotherley rules can be reinforced to prevent people from appearing before Committees. There is also a question mark over whether the green light can be given for public servants, Ministers and people in the private sector to appear before Committees and obfuscate. I hope that at some stage the Standards and Privileges, Liaison and Procedure Committees will consider how we can ensure that such people tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That is relevant to what we are discussing because, as I have said, I think it premature for us to imagine that we have reached a satisfactory stage in terms of scrutiny. Independence must be earned, and that returns us to the question of how people are selected.
At the time of the Iraq war, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) resigned ministerial office. I cannot find words adequate to acknowledge how courageous and principled his
resignation was. Nevertheless, I was equally amazed by what happened next. The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee became a Minister—I believe, incidentally, that he voted against the war—and there was then a vacancy for the post of Home Affairs Committee Chairman. My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen, having been a Home Office Minister, suddenly became Chairman of the Committee.No matter how distinguished and principled that gentleman was, or is—indeed, that is beyond doubt—I consider it wrong for someone to chair a Select Committee that will scrutinise the Department in which until recently he was a Minister. I think that that is stark staring bonkers.
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