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Sir Nicholas Winterton: It was a very good report.
Sir George Young: I am obliged to my hon. Friend.
My Committee was not asked whether Chairmen should be paid, which Chairmen should be paid, how much Chairmen should be paid or when payment should start, and I was pleased about that. We were asked a specific question about what should happen to Chairmen's outside interests if they were paid. In compiling our report, we were greatly assisted by views and representations of a large number of Select Committee Chairmen and others, whose names appear in the annexe. There was no unanimity, as one might expect, but the centre of gravity of the representations is broadly reflected in our recommendations.
We noted that Members of Parliament who are paid officer holders, but are not members of the Government—incidentally, such officer holders are paid more than is recommended for Committee Chairmen in the SSRB's proposals—were not subject to any restrictions on their outside interests. Having discovered that receipt of a salary from public funds had not hitherto been seen as grounds for imposing restrictions on Members' outside interests, we saw no reason to apply a different principle to payments to Select Committee Chairmen. Although our research was not exhaustive, we found no other country, Assembly or Parliament in the UK where paid Chairmen have to renounce their outside interests. Our first conclusion was that Select Committee Chairmen who are paid as such should not, subject to what I shall say in a moment, have to relinquish their outside interests.
We qualified that recommendation by referring to work that arises directly from Committee work as set out in paragraph 17. Besides the work that Chairmen do in the House in leading their Committees, many of them also undertake a lot of outside work—articles, broadcasts, conference addresses and so on. That is beneficial both for the Committees—it spreads knowledge about their work and enhances their visibility and their reputation—and the House, as it helps to enhance its public profile and the public's knowledge of its scrutiny work. Paying chairmen will not, and should not, result in any need for change in that outside work. However, in the view of my Committee, it changes the question whether Chairmen can properly accept payment for work set out in paragraph 17 that arises from their chairmanship.
We therefore asked the House to endorse two principles. First, there should be no question, nor any appearance, of any double payment from a Chairman's salary and an outside activity arising primarily from that chairmanship. Secondly, Chairmen should not gain private benefit from work done in whole or part with assistance from public resources. The differential
between MPs and Chairmen, which the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay) mentioned, would be widened unacceptably if Chairmen got a salary and were paid for activities arising from their chairmanship. It would also go down badly with the general public.
Mr. Salmond: A few moments ago, the right hon. Gentleman said that his Committee had looked at the situation in other Parliaments and Assemblies in the UK. If my memory serves me correctly, in the Scottish Parliament, Committee Chairmen are not paid, but in the Welsh Assembly they are paid £5,000. The Northern Ireland Assembly is obviously not in existence at present. Was it the National Assembly for Wales that determined the recommendations made by the right hon. Gentleman's Committee?
Sir George Young: We discovered that there are no restrictions on the outside interests of Committee Chairmen, whether paid or not, other than those that apply to everyone else. In one body, there is a payment for Chairmen, but the principle that we were looking at was whether Chairmen should have to renounce certain interests.
The right hon. Member for Swansea, West made a point about transitional arrangements, but we have dealt with that, and recognise that a change in mid-Parliament may cause problems for some Chairmen. We therefore propose that for the remainder of this Parliament Chairmen should have the option to decline the proposed payment, in which case their existing freedom in relation to accepting outside interests would remain unaltered. We stated that if the House endorses what we propose, we will bring forward some guidelines to help Select Committee Chairmen, and the Registrar can give advice. We also said that if Chairmen are to be paid, the interests that they declare prior to being chosen should become public knowledge as quickly as possible. Finally, if the basis for paying Select Committee Chairmen changes, we might want to reconsider the matter. In other words, what may be right at £12,500 might not be right if the figure were higher.
On the broader issue, I spoke and voted for the payment of Chairmen last time we debated the matter. I have no interest to declare, as my Select Committee is not in the frame for payment. I understand the reservations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) about the cohesion of Committees being at risk if Chairmen are paid. I understand the issue about rotating sub-committees and the argument about two classes of MPs, which the hon. Member for Thurrock mentioned. We do not have the separation of powers that exists in the US and the position is not comparable, but I take a strategic view of the question.
Over recent years, Parliament has conceded much of its authority to the Executive, and we need to change the terms of trade. There is no one solution that puts that right, but there are various measures relating to how we manage the business of the House, how we programme Bills, how we resource Select Committees, how the House becomes more accessible and more intelligible to the public we represent, and how we hold Ministers to account. Those other measures are for another day, but part of the solution, in my view, is the development of an alternative career structure within the House. We need
measures to counter the gravitational pull of ministerial office, and some public statement that the job of scrutiny has proper recognition and status.I see paying Select Committee Chairmen as an important step in the rebalancing that I propose. That is why I voted for it and will vote for it again today. I have two qualifications, however. First, I think the SSRB has undervalued my colleagues and there is a risk of sending out the wrong signals. It is not at all clear how the SSRB arrived at the figure of £12,500. The Hansard Society report and Norton considered much higher figures. But with the promise of a further review, which should take place in the near future, I am prepared to risk the under-valuation of my hon. Friends and Labour Members. Also, if the House is to vote itself extra payments, it is better to do so under cover of the SSRB report, rather than going for a figure of our own.
My second caveat is one that we have touched on. I see Select Committee chairmanship as an alternative career structure, but it should not be a complementary career structure. If I blink, I may see the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) back in the Liaison Committee as Chairman of Home Affairs. As we heard in the debate, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) moved seamlessly from office to being Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.
Part of the package that we voted on last time was a different method of appointing Select Committees, prising the fingers of the Whips off the process. I voted for payment and for independent nomination as two sides of the same coin. I got one, but I did not get the other. I shall vote for payment today, but I very much hope that there will be some reassurance from the Deputy Leader of the House on the issue of nomination, and that we can revisit the matter in the near future.
3.37 pm
Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan): I regret that I have only a couple of hours to develop my argument as to why the motions cannot be supported given their unsatisfactory state. I say that not to threaten the House with a lengthy speech, but to reflect the fact that the debate hardly seems to have grabbed the attention of all our colleagues, judging from the number of contributions that we have heard compared with the time that the Leader of the House allocated for that. Compare that with yesterday's debate on drugs, with one and a half hours allocated and many Members wishing to speak.
I do not know the reason for the poor attendance at today's debate. It is an important issue. The right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) used the phrase "under cover". Perhaps some of our colleagues are under cover on questions of making additional payments to Members of Parliament.
I am not certain whether there is an overriding principle that should make us vote against the proposals. I understand the argument from the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) about two classes of MPs. With his rapier-like logic, he identified many deficiencies in the motions. There could well be an argument for supporting them, but the Government should be clear that they have met the preconditions.
They should explain which Chairmen of which Committees will get the payments and why, and the process whereby Members end up with such appointments should be made transparent both within and among parties. None of those conditions has been met, as has been made perfectly clear in contributions that were excellent in quality, although limited in number.I can reassure the hon. Member for Thurrock, who is desperately concerned about his popularity these days and has added the junior Whips to his long list of political enemies, that he is not unpopular with me. Indeed, he will not become unpopular with me as long as he uses his contributions in the House to prick the bubble of pomposity that surrounds many of the recommendations. I thought that his logic was commendable. He told us that, on the basis of the arguments advanced today, a case could be made for suggesting that just about everybody in the House should receive an extra payment. Indeed, I thought at one stage that the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) was about to argue that nobody in the House did not deserve an additional payment. Such questions must be answered.
The Chairman of the Liaison Committee, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), made a devastating contribution. His knowledge of Select Committees is probably more detailed than that of any other hon. Member, as he chairs the Committee of the Chairmen of Select Committees. He did not suggest that additional Committees should be paid more, as the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) did, but considered that one Committee on the list—he was coy about naming it—should not be included, as his knowledge told him that the duties of its Chairman were not worthy of extra payment. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will intervene to tell us which Committee he was referring to—a question that I have been thinking about for the past hour and a half. None the less, in the light of his knowledge, there is a severe question about the list.
It is not good enough for the Leader of the House to say that if we voted the motion down, it would never come back. Perhaps it would come back in a form allowing those with detailed knowledge to contribute in deciding which Committees should feature on the list and with a rationale explaining why the Chairmen of 25 out of 35 Select Committees should be awarded payment, while the other 10 Chairmen are not. Such a motion might also explain why other Committees are excluded, as has been mentioned. It would be perfectly reasonable to allow the right hon. Member for Swansea, West and others to contribute in trying to formulate a better list.
Much the most worrying of the contributions pointing to the difficulties raised in the motion was that of the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), who referred to fairly widespread malpractices—let us call them that—in terms of multiple involvement in Committees and the non-filling for weeks on end of vacancies on unpopular Committees. I can tell him that there are volunteers on the minority party Benches who could fill such vacancies, which are apparently not taken up. He rightly pointed to the previous debate on this matter, in which there seemed to be tremendous enthusiasm among the Whips about blocking some key
points that might have made the recommendations acceptable, including checks and balances on how nominations are arrived at. Given the narrowness of the majority in agreeing to the original motion and the activities of the Whips on that occasion, the Leader of the House cannot seriously tell us that there is a huge consensus behind the proposals, as there clearly is no such consensus.Three aspects would have to be addressed before the recommendations could be approved. The first is the question of openness in the process by which people are nominated—an issue that has not been resolved. I think that everybody agrees that Select Committee places and chairmanships should be apportioned between the political parties, but we have pointed to recent occasions on which only intervention by some parties has saved others from making the wrong appointments. I remember that, when the hon. Member for Macclesfield was being bumped from the Select Committee on Health, he had enthusiastic support not only from those on the Government Benches, but from people such as me. When attempts were made to bump out the Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport and the voting took place, it was only the ability to mobilise cross-party support that saved the House from making a decision that clearly would have been wrong. So although it is correct that the balance should be apportioned between parties, there has to be some sort of check—possibly in the form of the nominations committee that has been suggested—because there are many examples in the recent past of things not being done properly.
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