Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
20 OCTOBER 2004
DR CHRIS
POND OBE AND
MISS ANNE
FOSTER
Q140 Mr Tyler: I think you have given
us an interesting insight. Most of us assumed, naívely,
that it was a question of taking time off in lieu. You have introduced
a factor of which we had not been aware, this buffer being necessary.
I think you have answered the question as to whether existing
staff could deal with this, and you are saying, essentially, no.
What would be your estimate of, if you like, the take-up time?
If the House decided it wanted to change, there would be presumably
a recruitment and a training exercise, never mind the cost exercise.
What would be your judgment about how the House might best go
about it?
Dr Pond: Might I ask Anne to deal
with this because she is much more experienced in personnel matters
than I am.
Miss Foster: There is certainly
a large lead-in time when it comes to recruitment. For a start,
you would have to advertise and then you are waiting for your
applications to come in, then we have to convene panels. We do
know that in the Table Office they have said that extra staff
would be needed—this is in the Clerk's Department—and
with overall recruiting times it would mean they would require
significant notice of such developments, particularly as the extra
staff they would need would be of A2, possibly, and above, and
they would need proper training. So we are talking about a significant
lead-in time there.
Q141 Mr Tyler: You do not see any way
of, so to speak, shuffling current staff, maybe thinning out the
staff and having them on two shifts, or some version of that.
That is not a practical option, in your view.
Miss Foster: I know the staff
are prepared to be flexible, but I think they would need to have
an indication of how long they would need to be flexible for rather
than an ad hoc arrangement.
Q142 Mr Tyler: Yes. You do not see that
being in any way a permanent solution.
Miss Foster: No.
Dr Pond: I think it would be very
difficult to bring in changes to apply immediately after the election,
if we are assuming the election is in May next year—although,
if you reported quickly and the House agreed to such changes,
it might just be possible. But I know the Clerk has said quite
trenchantly that the lead-in time that the board of management
was given last week was completely insufficient.
Q143 Anne Picking: I just wanted to make
the point that we do seriously value what the staff have done.
I think the transition they have made, given the change in sitting
hours, without any fuss has been quite incredible and I think
that should be on record.
Dr Pond: Thank you.
Anne Picking: I am very concerned about
the morale of staff, if we talk about further changes. The morale
must go down. If the staff have been flexible and doing all these
things to help accommodate the unique institution that we are—however,
above being a unique institution I think we should be the best
possible employer—how do you think further changes will
affect the morale of staff?
Q144 Sir Nicholas Winterton: There speaks
a trade unionist.
Dr Pond: I think the staff morale
did take a bit of a dive in some offices when it was realised
that the result of the last changes would be a greater increase
in the length of the working day in the first part of the week.
People have done it, but there is a certain amount of disaffection
about it. I think to exacerbate it would be very, very unpopular.
I am very grateful for what you said about the House being a responsible
employer. Industrial relations in the House are generally conducted
in a spirit of cooperation and goodwill but the goodwill of the
staff should not be tested too far.
Q145 Chairman: Could I ask a question
before I bring Oliver in and we move on. This has been very valuable.
In all this complicated Working Time Directive issue, together
with the ECJ ruling to which you referred, presumably people make
arrangements, either formal or informal, that if you are on until
11.40 the night before you do not necessarily have to come in
at quarter to eight. There must be only a very few people who
actually do that. Or is it a large number?
Dr Pond: I do not think it is
very few, Chairman. It is a significant number and it is not simply
in the offices which are underpinning the work of the Chamber,
it is in ancillary offices, like in the Vote Office, for instance.
Q146 Chairman: That has always opened
up early, has it not?
Dr Pond: It has, yes, but there
are people, I believe, who go off duty at 10-10.30 and come back
for 7.15. That is a distinct burden, because, although Members
get an additional living costs allowance to allow them to buy
or rent somewhere fairly close to Westminster, staff, I am afraid,
do not have that luxury. Particularly those on relatively low
pay have quite a long journey to get home, so, if you finish at
11.15 at night, you may well not get home until way gone midnight.
Q147 Sir Nicholas Winterton: They do
have free taxis.
Dr Pond: Only after 11 o'clock,
Sir Nicholas. I am glad you mention that because we have had one
or two examples of members of staff, particularly young women,
being mugged late at night on making their own way back from night
duty. We have three times asked management to bring forward the
time of starting of taxis to 10.00 or 10.30, because of the dangers
that staff faced getting home in some distant suburb about midnight,
and we have been turned down.
Q148 Mr Pike: When you were referring
to the Vote Office, we have obviously increased as well, have
we not, the outbuildings, like Portcullis House and 1 Parliament
Street and other places, so that staffing, the people who have
to stay to maintain those offices, is more than it was 20 years
ago.
Dr Pond: There is an element of
truth in that, Mr Pike, but I think departmental managements are
beginning to question whether they need to have every outlet open
all of the time. Certainly that has been the case in my own
department, the Department of the Library, where previously we
used to have a branch library open until late at night but we
have now decided that it makes much more sense to concentrate
the facilities where Members are going to use them over in the
Palace. But it is an additional problem, you are quite right.
Q149 Mr Heald: What would the implications
for staff be if we sat either at 10.30 or even at 9.30 on Thursday
morning but still finished at six, and at the same time we decided
to scrap Friday sitting?
Dr Pond: Assuming the Wednesday
finish is the same as now—
Q150 Mr Heald: Indeed.
Dr Pond:— I would not have
thought that would throw additional burdens on staff, no. I think
that is a solution I had not seen put forward. I would like to
think about it, but I do not think that would put additional burdens
on staff. No, I think that would be in order.
Q151 Mr McLoughlin: You were talking
a little while ago about members of staff here who are on the
lower pay scales. Would you define what you mean by lower pay
scales and what proportion of staff employed at the Palace of
Westminster are on those scales.
Dr Pond: I can give you those
figures for night duty, Mr McLoughlin, but if you wanted figures
for the whole of the House I think you would have to ask your
clerk to get it from the Establishment Office. In night duty,
I would define relatively low pay as being band C or below: band
C in the civil service is executive officer. In terms of pay,
the highest point of C is about £23,000[1]
Miss Foster: That is the maximum;
the minimum is about £18,000[2]
Dr Pond: The numbers we have are:
on band C and below, on night duty, 73; on band B2 (the next one
up) and above, 65.
Q152 Ann Coffey: I would like to explore
what your views would be if we moved Private Members' Bills, which
is the unwhipped business, to the Tuesday morning. Effectively,
we would have a situation where we could have the two alternative
proposals, I suppose. One is that we keep the present start time,
whipped business finishes at 7 o'clock and after that there is
three hours laid aside either for Private Members' business or
adjournment debates—and I understand there is a difference
in work consequences for Private Members' Bills and the adjournment
debates. An alternative proposal would be where we move the sitting
of the House forward to 2.30 and we have Private Members' Bills
after 10 o'clock at night.
Dr Pond: My reaction to that is
covered by my answer to an earlier question, which is that whether
business is unwhipped or not makes very little difference to the
staff because the House is the House and the House is sitting
and the House still has to be serviced no matter whether or not
there are going to be 400 Members in attendance or 40. That would
make, I think very little difference: the House would still be
sitting; amendments could still be handed in; questions could
still be answered. The full back-up from the staff would, I think,
still be required, with the additional difficulty that this would
not be certain, because, as the Chairman said a little while ago,
you can never know that the Government are not going to put down
an exemption motion for a particularly urgent bit of business
or that a minister is not going to come in at 10 o'clock to make
a statement on something that has happened in the Middle East
or what have you. I think putting on Private Members' Bills on
Tuesday evenings would make very little difference to the calls
on staff.
Q153 Ann Coffey: What would your view
of that be?
Dr Pond: I think it would only
exacerbate the problems for the start times on Wednesday.
Q154 Ann Coffey: So it is the gap that
is the problem.
Dr Pond: It is the gap that is
the problem. I think a much better solution, Ms Coffey, on
Private Members' Bills would be some kind of arrangement whereby
they were automatically referred to a second reading committee
for their second reading unless 40 Members signified their objection
at the time the motion was made to refer it. Then you would not
require large numbers of Tuesday evenings to deal with the second
readings of Private Members' Bills because that would be dealt
with in Committee, but the constitutional checks and balances
on private Members for getting legislation through would be maintained
by still having to get them through report and third reading.
Q155 Ann Coffey: That sounds very interesting
but I do not quite understand what you mean.
Dr Pond: The second reading committee
is an animal which is occasionally resorted to—your learned
clerk will be able to tell you much more than I can—for
a non-controversial bill. The formal second reading is of course
reserved to the House as a whole but the second reading time,
the opportunity for debate which Members so value, takes place
in a committee room. It is rather like we used to have when I
first came: large numbers of prayers against statutory instruments
dealt with on the floor of the House, an hour and a half at a
time, and that has been taken off into delegated legislation standing
committees.
Q156 Sir Nicholas Winterton: You are
not suggesting that as an improvement.
Dr Pond: Delegated legislation
standing committees?
Sir Nicholas Winterton: You are not suggesting
that is an improvement in proper scrutiny.
Ann Coffey: Hang on, he is just offering
his opinion.
Chairman: I would like him to answer
the question rather than get side-tracked.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: He has come up
with a suggestion to what we should do; I am coming back to him
on whether he really thinks that is an improvement in the scrutiny
of legislation.
Ann Coffey: I just asked him for his
opinion. Thank you very much. You carry on.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: He has made a
statement to which he should be accountable.
Q157 Chairman: I will start shouting
"Order" soon.
Dr Pond: I think the advantage
of it is that it shifts business off the floor of the House.
The disadvantage, as Sir Nicholas says, is that the quality of
scrutiny may be diluted, and that is a balance on which the House
has had to adjudge in a number of areas. It was a question which
was paramount in the setting up of the Westminster Hall Chamber.
Members have differing views of the Westminster Hall Chamber.
Q158 Sir Nicholas Winterton: It is very
good.
Dr Pond: I have been to a number
of debates in the Westminster Hall Chamber at which the quality
of debate has been really excellent and I do not think the quality
of debate in a second reading committee would be radically different
from that on the floor of the House. But I am not a Member and
that is merely a suggestion. You may think it is an absurd one.
Ann Coffey: Thank you very much.
Q159 Mr Tyler: I wanted to turn to the
annual calendar and its effect on staff. To what extent are staff
able to take annual leave during the period when the House is
sitting? Has the introduction of more certainty about the annual
calendar been helpful to staff? We recognise it is helpful to
Members and we hope it is to staff. What about the merits and
demerits of the September sitting, bearing in mind that the September
sitting has been put in place, I hope on a permanent basis—although
we are not going to have it next year—so that we could have
identified constituency weeks to coincide with half term in the
spring and the autumn terms, and also so that the annual summer
holiday could start at a reasonable time for the benefit of northern
and Scottish MPs, and I hope that is also helpful to staff. So
your comments generally about the calendar.
Dr Pond: If I may, Mr Tyler, I
will answer the latter part of your question later on and ask
Anne to answer the first part of it.
Miss Foster: With regard to the
annual calendar, staff welcomed it, but they have said that in
practice it has proved less useful because they are not allowed
to rely on the dates. They said it was noted in the announcement
of this year's calendar by the Leader that it contained a proviso
"not to book holidays based on the dates"—which
negates the point of it.
1 Witness correction: £25,665. Back
2
Witness correction: £19,139. Back
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