Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-177)
20 OCTOBER 2004
DR CHRIS
POND OBE AND
MISS ANNE
FOSTER
Q160 Chairman: It may be an unusual year,
Anne.
Miss Foster: Point taken, Chairman.
Chairman: "May" being the operative
word.
Q161 Ann Coffey: Or month.
Miss Foster: Taking that point,
that it rather negates the point of announcement of the calendar
in advance, obviously there may be other factors to consider.
The one thing that the staff have said is that the announcement
of an extra week at Easter came a little too late for most staff
to be able to take advantage of it in terms of holidays, but,
ultimately, having a calendar is preferable to not having one.
Q162 Chairman: September.
Dr Pond: I was going to deal with
the first question that Mr Tyler put and the last. The first question
was to what extent House of Commons' staff can take off time in
session. It varies between departments. When I was secretary of
one of the union branches a decade or so ago, one of our Member's
wives was expecting a baby and he went to see his establishment
officer to ask if he could have a couple of days off in the middle
of February. He was told in no uncertain terms that all confinements
have to be planned for the recess—to which he replied that
that was against his religion! I tell that story because in some
departments there is a rather macho culture that you must be there
every day on which the House sits. Indeed, in such offices as
the Legislation Office, it is difficult, very difficult, to accommodate
time off in session. In some other departments—in the Department
of the Library, for instance—staff, I think, are allowed
15 days in session to be taken in conjunction with their line
manager. It all depends on how closely the job the member of staff
is doing follows the pattern of sitting and the tenor of business
in the House itself, so it is a bit of a mixture. September sittings,
I think it is fair to say, staff have found it difficult to cope
with because, if you can only take your time off in the parliamentary
recess, September, when the schools have gone back, was an ideal
opportunity to take a holiday. Those offices whose attendance
is closely connected with the sittings of the House—the
Procedural Offices, Serjeant's, and so on—do, I think, very
much miss the opportunity of being able to take off some time
in September. Having said that, of course, we understand why it
was done and the corollary, which is the half-term weeks, have
been very welcome to other staff. There is an element of swings
and roundabouts. One other thing I would say about the September
sittings is that we have had one or two grave concerns about health
and safety this September sitting, because works projects do go
on throughout September and it is sometimes very difficult to
work round them. A simple example of that is that the clerks who
were going to take divisions during the September sitting found
it very difficult to get a cup of coffee on times they were on
call because the route from those cafeterias that were open to
the Chamber were blocked off by works in all sorts of places.
I think the House does have to consider the costs and benefits
of September sittings quite closely.
Q163 Mr Tyler: We have probably covered
some of this ground, but how long would it take and how many more
staff would we need to make these changes? In the light of the
discussion we have had—and you have introduced some of your
ideas about what might happen eventually on Thursday and so on,
and you said before that about a quarter of staff had jobs which
were directly related to the timetable of the House—what
would be your view of how many people we would be talking about
recruiting? Which areas have the greatest pressure? If we take
the Library as a working example, if you have, say, 10 people
on duty can you have eight people but with staggered shifts? And
are there ways in the long term of mitigating extra costs and
so on?
Dr Pond: Yes, certainly there
are ways of mitigating it. In the Department of the Library the
library management have already started to adjust the number of
people on each shift. Of all the departments, the Department of
the Library has, I think, taken the idea of the 11-hour break
to heart and has enshrined it in their agreement with the unions.
So it is possible, but in the Procedural Offices and in the Serjeant's
Department and to some extent in the Refreshment Department it
may be more difficult. I think the lead-in time there would probably
be longer, for the reasons that Anne gave, because you simply
cannot go out and pick up casual staff and put them into post—if
you do, you get the sort of trouble we have had during the September
sitting with the wretched Sun reporter who masqueraded
as a waiter—so that all the proper processes, including
security checks, have to be gone through for our mutual protection.
I would not have thought that we could start this in less than
six months at the very least. If you wanted me to pluck a figure
out of the hat as to the number of extra staff we might need,
I would have thought that 15 or 20 might be a starting figure.
And that, of course—we are all taxpayers: we all realise
that the taxpayer's purse is not open-ended—is quite a big
step to take.
Mr Tyler: Thank you very much.
Q164 Chairman: Could I finally, perhaps—unless
anyone else wants to come in—ask you this: the pressure
on staff while the House is sitting is pretty considerable. Notwithstanding
the Working Time Regulation issues that you have explored very
expertly with us, do people, given that the House sits for roughly
35-36 weeks a year, look at it as the time when they get a breather
is when it is not sitting, which is quite a substantial slice
of the year?
Dr Pond: Of course there is an
element of that, Chairman, but I think it is a fallacy to think
that because the House is in recess the staff are not here. Although
there are some staff whose attendance in recess is not necessary—for
instance, if there is no Hansard to write, there does not
seem a lot of point in bringing in skilled Hansard reporters
to twiddle their thumbs—in most departments of the House
that is not the case and the departments function in exactly the
same way out of session as they do in session.
Q165 Chairman: But with, perhaps, less
onerous hours.
Dr Pond: Marginally, in some cases,
yes, but not significantly. In my own department, for instance,
we work an hour shorter on four days and half an hour longer on
Fridays—which is very silly. It is a less stressed time,
but, equally, because there are some housekeeping functions that
there simply is not time to do properly during session—they
all have to be done in the recess. It would be a fallacy to think
we are sitting around doing nothing.
Q166 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Could we
have statistics as to how many staff do not work during the recess
as against those who do? I appreciate that the Library, with which
you are involved, clearly does need to provide ongoing services
to Members whether they are here, whether they are in their constituencies
or whatever.
Dr Pond: Yes.
Q167 Sir Nicholas Winterton: And clearly
there will be a number of other departments, but clearly the refreshment
departments will be dramatically less in number during recess.
Dr Pond: I do not think they are
dramatically—
Q168 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Hansard
will be dramatically less, if any, because there is nothing going
on during recess. Are you able to let us have any statistics as
to those numbers of staff who do not need to work during the recess
as against those who do?
Dr Pond: Mr Chairman, I can certainly
let the clerk have a note of how this appears to the unions, but
I think perhaps that question might be more properly addressed
to management because I do not know. There are so many local arrangements,
particularly in departments like the Official Report, that I myself
do not know the answer. I would gladly give an overview in writing
to the clerk if it would help, but, as I say, I think you should
ask management for that information.
Q169 Anne Picking: Under our previous
Chairman when the new sitting hours were introduced, one of our
main concerns was that there would be no major or detrimental
effect to the staff terms and conditions of employment. I would
like to ask you if you have found that that is the case. Have
there been any redundancies as a result of the sitting hours and
has there been an extension of short-term contracts?
Dr Pond: There has not been an
extension of short-term contracts. As Anne Foster said a little
earlier on, a number of staff are beginning to be hit in the pocket.
Some people who have large mortgages liked working all the hours
God sent simply because that meant that their night duty allowance
was quite large. The night duty allowance is now a reducing factor
in our remuneration packages and we are very much more reliant
on our ordinary basic salaries. Have there been redundancies?
There have been reductions in the night duty cohort in the Department
of the Library and I think in one or two other departments.
Q170 Anne Picking: Catering, for example.
Dr Pond: Have there been reductions
in catering?
Q171 Mr Pike: There has certainly been
redeployment, has there not?
Dr Pond: There has been a lot
of redeployment and there has also been a lot of change in working
practices because the Refreshment Department, has been set new
financial targets by the Commission, and that would include, I
think, some staff restructuring. There were, I think, one or two
compulsory redundancies in the Refreshment Department—one
of which is the subject of an employment tribunal at the moment—which
might be directly related to sitting hours, particularly because
of the much smaller use which is now being made of the Members'
dining room.
Q172 Barbara Follett: Dr Pond, you have
been working in the House of Commons for many years now and I
am going to ask an open-ended question which you may hate. One
of my children always says, "If I had my wish . . ."
and then tells me their dream scenario. I wonder if you could
just tell me how, if you were organising it, you would like the
hours to be arranged on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
We will not hold this against you!
Dr Pond: The more the House departs
from the normal business hours of the nation, the more problems
it mounts up for the staff. That is a rather guarded reply.
Q173 Mr Tyler: It is a very good one.
Dr Pond: But I had, for instance,
on attachment, some colleagues from the Swedish Parliament about
six or seven years ago and their view of the sitting hours of
the British Parliament was that it was bizarre because they could
not understand how Members could be sufficiently fresh at 9 and
10 o'clock at night, let alone two or three in the morning, to
be able to discuss great matters. We talked over the issues. The
point that Sir Nicholas made about the quality of scrutiny is
a very important one. I think if you compare the two Parliaments
there is a noticeable difference. We are a very robust Parliament:
the quality of scrutiny is sometimes very sharp. I would not see
it in any other way. I think, from the point of view of staffing
and servicing the needs of a great institution like Parliament,
if you had management here they would say it would be much easier
to do it if Members would work standard office hours. I know there
are good reasons why they may not, but, looking back—you
alluded to my long service, and it is actually 29 years, not as
much as your learned clerks', but it is quite a long time—I
think the way we did business in the 70s and early 80s was, frankly,
absurd. I think if Members look back on those days, a few may
look back with nostalgia but, equally, there were times when Members
were walking around like zombies during the Consolidated Fund
and that was not a sensible way to conduct the business of a great
nation. The more we approximate to normal working hours, I think
the more effective we will eventually be.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Could I put a
very quick question because you are a very experienced man within
Parliament. Does not so much of the time that we spend depend
upon the amount of legislation the government of the day is putting
through? If the government put through less legislation, we would
not need to work the hours that we do.
Q174 Ann Coffey: Or if they talked less.
Dr Pond: Sir Nicholas, there are
lots of factors in this. Self-imposed limits on speeches is one.
Q175 Ann Coffey: Hear, hear.
Dr Pond: Good scrutiny on one
hand has to be matched with obstruction on the other. Filibustering
is another one. We have seen it all. They are all legitimate parliamentary
tactics. It is a wonderful institution to work for, but—
Q176 Ann Coffey: Please, God, modernise
it!
Dr Pond:— I have seen very
effective parliamentarians who can do business in quite a short
time.
Ann Coffey: Hear, hear.
Q177 Chairman: That is a very effective
bit in your evidence, if I may say so. Both you and Anne have
been very helpful. We want to make clear—and I hope you
might have a chance to explain this to your members—that
we were not going to proceed with this change without getting
your evidence because it is rather important to us. I must say,
listening to both of you, if there was ever a need for union representation
I think I might turn to you.
Dr Pond: Thank you very much for
seeing us. We will report your kind words to the Trade Union Side
on Monday, which I know they will appreciate, and if we can help
with any more information please let us know.
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