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Members Of Parliament (Salaries,Allowances And Travel Facilities)

Volume 25: debated on Thursday 10 June 1982

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8.5 pm

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
(Mr. John Biffen)

I beg to move,

That, in the opinion of this House, the salaries payable to Members of this House in respect of service on and after 13th June 1982 should be at the following yearly rates—
  • (1) £14,510 for Members not falling within paragraph (2); and
  • (2) £8,460 for Officers of this House and Members receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972.
  • I understand that it will be convenient to take, at the same time, the following motions: No. 3,

    That the salaries payable to Members of this House in respect of service on and after 13th June 1982 should be at the following yearly rates—
  • (1) £14,510 for Members not falling within paragraph (2); and
  • (2) £8,460 for Officers of this House and Members receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972.
  • No. 4,
    That, in the opinion of this House, the limits specified in the Resolution of this House of 5 June 1981 in relation to the allowances payable in connection with a Member's office, secretarial and research expenses should be raised so as to make the limits—
  • (a) in paragraph (a) of the Resolution (allowance in respect of aggregate amount of general office expenses and expenses on secretarial and research assistance), £8,752 for the year ending 31 March 1983 and £8,820 for any subsequent year; and
  • (b) in paragraph (b) of that Resolution (provision for enabling a Member to make pension contributions in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries expenses are incurred by him), £875 for the year ending 31 March 1983 and £882 for any subsequent year.
  • No. 5,
    That in the opinion of this House, the facilities available to the spouse of a Member of this House for free travel in accordance with the Resolutions of this House of 7 April 1971 and 22 July 1975 on journeys within paragraph (a) or (b) of the said Resolution of 7 April 1971 should be extended to children of the Member under the age of 18; but any child's journey in respect of which facilities for free travel are provided in accordance with this Resolution should count against the number of journeys for which facilities for free travel are available to the Member's spouse.
    For the purposes of this Resolution a Member's children shall be taken to include step-children, adopted children, foster children and any other child living as one of the Member's family.

    No. 6,
    That the draft Ministerial and other Salaries Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 27 May, be approved.

    No. 7,
    That this House—
  • (a) welcomes the Report of the Select Committee on Members' salaries which was ordered by this House to be printed on 17 February 1982;
  • (b) agrees with the recommendation in that Report that a review of Members' pay be conducted by the Review Body on Top Salaries once during the fourth year of each Parliament and that, where a shortened Parliament precludes this, the Review Body should carry out a new review not later than four years after the rates of salary consequent on the previous review first became payable;
  • (c) agrees with the view expressed in that Report that, between such reviews, Members' salaries should be adjusted annually by reference to increases in outside salaries, but does not accept the recommendation that there should be an annual automatic adjustment by reference to figures taken from the Department of Employment's New Earnings Survey;
  • (d) is of opinion that her Majesty's Government should instead, in the period between one such review and the next, move annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries and in so doing should be guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups in the Public Service over a relevant period.
  • Before calling upon the Leader of the House to move the first of the six motions, I have to inform the House that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) has asked permission to move amendment (b) to motion No. 2 and amendments (a) and (c) to motion No. 4 with figures differing slightly from those shown on the Order Paper. The proposed alteration in motion No. 4 would also involve two further amendments to that motion. Mr. Speaker has decided that it would be in the interests of the House to allow this to be done. Revised copies of pages 2864 and 2865 of the Order Paper have accordingly been placed in the Vote Office and a revised list of selected amendments has been placed in the Lobby.

    On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that the House will appreciate your ruling, which is no doubt satisfactory from everyone's point of view. However, I wish to ask about the position at the conclusion of the debate. I do not know whether it is proposed to have any Divisions, but if so, would we take all the motions seriatim?

    We shall take them in that manner. Matters are complicated when we debate motions together, but the Chair will make the subject of the Division clear.

    We have to consider tonight two separate but related issues, one short-term and one long-term. The short-term issue concerns the increase in hon. Members' pay, in the secretarial allowance and in Ministers' pay in 1982. I shall deal with these matters first. The long-term issue concerns the way that hon. Members' pay is to be settled in future. It is an issue on which we have the report by the Select Committee on hon. Members' Salaries to assist us.

    I have already told the House about the Government's proposals for 1982, in answer to a parliamentary question by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Lee). In the absence of recommendations by the Top Salaries Review Body this year, we considered that it was reasonable to increase hon. Members pay, hon. Members' secretarial and research assistance allowance and Ministers' pay by 4 per cent. each, in line with the pay factor included in Estimates. The reason why the TSRB was not asked to review hon. Members' pay and allowances this year is that at the time we would have had to make the request the Select Committee was still considering Members' pay and we did not wish to prejudge its conclusions. The Government's proposals are not generous, but in the circumstances—realism creeps through from time to time—I do not consider that they are unreasonable.

    Turning briefly to the specific motions, hon. Members will see that there are two dealing with their 1982 pay increase. The first is an amendable expression of opinion. The second bears the Queen's Recommendation and the amounts on it cannot be increased. The House may recall from previous debates that the second motion is required because an effective resolution of the House is necessary to increase Exchequer contributions to the Members' pension fund and to increase the pay of the United Kingdom Members of the European Assembly in line with that of Members of the House. The effect of these motions would be to increase the pay of ordinary Members to £14,510 with effect from 13 June, and the parliamentary salary of Ministers and other office holders to £8,460.

    The motion on the secretarial allowance increases the maximum of the allowance in a full year to £8,820, with a further £882 available to enable an hon. Member to make pension contributions for his or her employee.

    It might be helpful for the general structure of the debate if at this point I were to comment on the amendments which give an alternative option to the House. The amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) would increase that sum by 6 per cent. Any chosen: figure is a matter of value judgment and a degree of arbitrariness. It would be appropriate for the House to stay with a proposal which is related to the pay factor in the Estimates and if this were to be seen to be leading to any significant fall in equitable levels of pay it would be subject to subsequent investigation and remedy by recommendation of the Top Salaries Review Body.

    The other amendments which have been tabled by the right hon. Member for Deptford and his associates concern the office, secretarial and research allowance. The amendments propose that there should be an increase of 8 per cent., double that which is proposed by the Government. That figure, however chosen, bears a certain arbitrary implication, but I cannot find it appropriate to recommend to the House a figure that is double that of the pay factor in the Estimates and which is a touch above the general level of settlement in both private and public sectors.

    Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that a proportion of the amount that is provided for secretarial and research allowances goes o a other things which have little to do with pay; they are to do with purchases? Purchases can be far more directly related to the rise in the cost of living. Within that global figure, would it not have been better to have included some component to cover purchases and the substantially greater increases that relate to them?

    Once one moves into that territory, the index that one would choose for purchases would not necessarily be the retail price index. It might be the index of wholesale prices. We would be in difficult territory if we began to base the argument on the refined statistical indices that could be secured for that fraction—

    —of the total spending on the office, secretarial and research assistance allowance which went to the purchase of goods and services.

    I apologise to my right hon. Friend for jumping up rather precipitately. Would he not think it fair if a different allowance were made to Members' secretaries who serve only one Member and who are relatively underpaid compared with those who serve two, three or even four Members, who are in some cases grossly overpaid? Should there not be some differential?

    My hon. Friend makes an important point which should not be squeezed into the reply that I was giving to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). All hon. Members must be profoundly conscious that broadly speaking we have a uniform system of allowances and yet immensely individual patterns of expenditure.

    It may be a platitude but, my God, it is probably the truest thing that will be said this evening.

    All these matters should be considered further by the Top Salaries Review Body. I would far sooner that the study and the determination was undertaken by an organisation with an arm's length relationship with the House than that the House were to be seen obviously voting its emoluments and fringe benefits. When I come to the long-term considerations in the second part of my speech, I will touch upon the prospects of the Top Salaries Review Body being able to undertake just such a study that can reflect upon the problems that were mentioned by my hon. Friend.

    The right hon. Gentleman has just expressed the fervent view that it was better that the Top Salaries Review Body should deal with our salaries at arm's length than for the House to deal with the matter itself. Will he give an undertaking that in future all the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body will be automatically accepted? Is not the alternative that the House should make up its own mind on the Government's advice?

    There has to be an almost Augustinian approach to virtue in these matters. That is the ideal to which one aspires and I would have hoped that the experience of recent years might consolidate the view that this is something which for the future ought to be observed more faithfully than it has been in the past.

    Without wishing to be obsequious to Privy Councillors, the right hon. Member for Deptford was first on his feet.

    I shall leave the Lord President of the Council further unbattered if I may, because there has been a number of interventions.

    If the House is to vote for this sort of recommendation which is tied to Government expenditure or Estimates some months ago, would it not be far better for us to determine in the autumn of the previous year our increase from 13 June? We would be setting an example rather than trying to set an example after most other pay has been settled. Secondly, should not a Top Salaries Review Body report at least be put to the House so that we can vote on it rather than it being modified by the Government and left as a take-it-or-leave-it issue?

    I shall answer my hon. Friend's point about the timing of the Government's figure. This is intended to be for this year only. I am sure that my hon. Friend will realise that the motions before the House are designed to get away from that position for the future. He has made a fair point about the timing, but I am sorry that this year I have to present the position as it is.

    I did not entirely appreciate my hon. Friend's second point about the Top Salaries Review Body.

    My point was that it might not be possible for the Government to accept that the recommendation of the Top Salaries Review Body should be enacted. Would the Government consider and ensure that the recommendation is put to the House so that they could then try to lead as many as wanted to away from it rather than forbidding even the possibility of its being enacted?

    My hon. Friend is asking me to anticipate the second part of my speech. However, at the end of the day the figure that is presented to the House is amendable. Therefore, if the House wishes to amend it in accordance with the review body's recommendation it is open to it to do so. That has always been the position.

    I know that the hon. Gentleman would be, but I wish to complete the reference to the amendments. I do not think that I have indicated any unwillingness to give way. However, I have a responsibility to the House more generally to make a speech with some degree of structure as well as satisfying those who enjoy the blood sport of pursuing the Leader of the House in these circumstances.

    The other amendment, which is quite an innovation, is the proposition that there should be a London weighting allowance for secretaries. The view has always been taken hitherto that a cash payment should be made and that how that is used in respect of secretarial services, either in London or in the provinces, or as between equipment and the employment of persons, should be left to the Member's discretion. Once the House begins to make judgments on how expenditures should be undertaken, it will move across a Rubicon which in the fullness of time it will regret having crossed. However, I have no wish to be seen to be obdurate. If the later motions are confirmed by the House and a review is established by the review body of allowances for Members, it is exactly the sort of problem that it can assess and upon which it can make recommendations.

    A few minutes ago, and quite rightly, the right hon. Gentleman said that the House is always free to substitute its figure for one that is tabled by the Government in the opinion-expressing motion, and that that has always been the tradition of the House in dealing with this subject. That makes sense only if the Leader of the House is prepared also to say that when the House does pass—I do not think that it will do so tonight because I think that it will pass the opinion-expressing motion as it stands on the Paper—an amendment which raises the figure in the opinion-expressing motion, the Government will accept that as a decision of the House, and will then that night or on another night bring forward an amended, perfected motion to reflect the amended opinion-expressing motion which the House will then carry. Can the Leader of the House tell us whether that is his attitude to how these matters should be handled?

    No, I do not think that I can. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. The relationship between the House and the Government has not been at its happiest and most harmonious on these matters in recent years. I am proposing a modest step forward. I hope that it will take place in circumstances that will lead gradually to a better relationship that will not lead to the clashes that we have had in the recent past. There is nothing that I can say or pledge that will meet the hon. Gentleman's point in the way that he puts it. I think that the House will prefer me to say that in all candour. At the end of the day, these are matters in which the Government have a material political interest and they cannot abdicate the role which has often been performed by all Governments.

    I return to the text of my speech as opposed to dealing with the amendments on the Order Paper. As is usual, no motions have been tabled on Members' other allowances—namely, the additional cost allowance, the London allowance and the car mileage allowance. These allowances will be adjusted in the normal way following changes in the equivalent Civil Service allowances. However, there is one small change that I now propose concerning travel arrangements for Members' families. As things stand, Members' spouses are entitled to up to 15 free return journeys to Westminster on parliamenary business. My predecessor received representations from several hon. Members to the effect that, for Members with young families, the spouse could not generally travel to Westminster without bringing the children, and that the free travel warrant system for spouses should therefore be extended to children, within the existing limits.

    The Government accept that this is a reasonable proposition and the motion before the House provides for Members' children under 18 years to travel free to Westminster under the same conditions as currently apply to spouses. The total number of free return journeys available to Members' families will remain at 15 a year.

    The motion on Ministers' pay invites the House to approve the draft order which increases the pay of Ministers and other office holders by 4 per cent. The rates shown in the order for the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor are the rates that may be paid to the holders of these offices and will apply for pension purposes. However, as in previous years, my right hon. Friend and my right hon and noble Friend will draw only the same salary as their Cabinet colleagues.

    Is the Government's generosity towards the children of Members such that the number of free warrants will not be increased? Indeed, the Government will gain because in the majority of cases the children will have travelled for half price on the railway. The Government will be the gainer of half an adult's ticket.

    The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair debating point. However, the request for this reform, if I may dignify it by that description, came from Labour Back Benchers. I do not think that they will be as dismissive of its symbolism as the right hon. Gentleman is. However, it is true that the inuitlement is not increased as a result of this decision. The possibility of its utilisation may be further enhanced.

    Surely the Government will gain by this piece of so-called generosity because two children will travel for the same price to the Government as one adult. Therefore, in giving a ticket to a child they are gaining half an adult's ticket.

    I am grateful to know that in a previous Treasury incarnation I should be as pleased about the reform as I think I am pleased about it in my role as Leader of the House.

    Surely the Government would have been more generous if they had considered carefully the basis of allowances for spouses and children. One of the penalties of being a Member of this place is being estranged from one's family. We should have free access to our children, and that is what most of us want. We are grateful for any flexibility in the system, but I have four children and I like to see them as much as possible. I do not think that I should be rationed on how often I can see them.

    The House should reflect seriously before giving to itself privileges for children's travel which will be sought equally by those in many other occupations which involve the estrangement of families.

    The numbers argument is a most dangerous one to use in these circumstances. The way in which we treat ourselves is monitored most closely in the outside world. The fact that we are a mere 600-odd is not a material factor in the argument. I am distressed that what was an attempt to have a more generous interpretation of the spouse allowance has resulted in an attack on the Treasury Bench for apparent niggardliness.

    The last motion standing in my name on the Order Paper concerns the Government's proposals for dealing with Members' pay in the longer term. Before describing them, I should like to thank the Select Committee on Members' Salaries, whose report forms the starting point of what I shall have to say, for all its efforts. Members' pay is a notoriously difficult subject for the House and, even though I am not able to agree with all its conclusions in every respect, I consider that the Select Committee has presented the House with a most constructive report.

    The Select Committee recommended, first, that there should be a review of Members' pay by the Top Salaries Review Body once during the fourth year of each Parliament. If this were precluded by shortened Parliaments a new review should be undertaken not more than four years after the salaries derived from the previous review became payable. The Select Committee's second recommendation was that there should be annual automatic interim adjustments of salaries by reference to increases in the nearest percentile of the new earnings survey.

    The Government accept the first of these recommendations. There is, great value in having a completely independent review of Members' salaries. If the question were left entirely to the House, I suspect that we should have great difficulty in arriving at an acceptable figure. Moreover, there would certainly be some public suspicion that we were treating ourselves too generously, even if precisely the reverse was the case. I believe that having the independent review towards the end of each Parliament is sensible. If, however, a shortened Parliament knocks us off course, there is nothing to stop us having two reviews separated by less than four years to get us back on it again.

    The coming year is the fourth of this Parliament. Subject to the views of the House, therefore, we propose to ask the TSRB to conduct a review in time for next year's debate on Members' pay. We should also ask it to review Ministers' pay, the secretarial allowance, and such other aspects of Members' pay, in the broad sense specified by the Select Committee, as may need to be looked at.

    How Members' pay is adjusted between reviews also poses a problem. The Government reluctantly accept that there should be some form of adjustment by reference to changes in outside salaries, that is, some form of linkage. We have no enthusiasm for the idea, but, in view of resolutions of the House on the subject in recent years and of what the Select Committee says, we accept it. However, we cannot agree that the link should be automatic or that it should be with the new earnings survey. Although there are examples of pay increases operated by an automatic formula, it is not a practice I believe should be further entrenched and certainly not in an area as sensitive as Members' salaries.

    I am a little puzzled by the Government's reluctance to link pay with an outside body. A few moments ago the Leader of the House said that he was not able to tell us what car allowances and London allowances would be in the year ahead because he had to wait until those figures had been sorted out for the Civil Service. We seem to be linked to the Civil Service for our car and living in London allowances, but apparently it is obnoxious to the right hon. Gentleman to have similar linkage on salary. Some of us are a little puzzled about his attitude on the question.

    The Select Committee was not proposing a linkage in respect of salaries. We are discussing the interim increases between the four-yearly review by the Top Salaries Review Body and what form of linkage would be appropriate for that practice. I should strongly discourage the concept that the House should expect for itself some kind of automatic pay increase that proceeded by some stealthy manner or some wholly irreversible manner—for that is what it would seem to do. If the House is not prepared to accept the responsibility of discussing these things once a year, then there will be a great deal of well-justified anxiety and suspicion about how we concluded these matters.

    As for the form of the link, whatever may be the relationship in the long run between average earnings and those in the public service, it is right in principle that MPs' pay should keep in step with that of public servants. Any other system would be certain to give rise to bad feeling. Moreover, the new earnings survey is published in November and covers earnings in the year ending with the previous April. The changes that it records are therefore, on average, over a year old when it is published. That could give rise to great difficulty in a period when the rate of increase in pay settlements was falling.

    As an alternative, we propose that between reviews the Government should move annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries and in so doing should be guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups in the public service for the period concerned. There are several important points in that formulation. The first is that, as now, Members' pay would be adjusted following an annual debate. There would not be an automatic adjustment. The second is that, although the Government would be guided by the average increase for particular public service groups, and would normally expect to propose to the House an adjustment in Members' pay that corresponded to the average, there could be circumstances where that course could not be followed for one reason or another. In short, the Government reserve the right to respond flexibly to exceptional circumstances.

    The motion refers to
    "appropriate groups in the public service".
    The groups that I have in mind are the non-industrial Civil Service, primary and secondary teachers, National Health Service doctors, dentists and administrators. It is not necessary to make a final decision about the groups to be included at this stage. However, the general principles are clear. The groups should represent a widely based segment of the public services but particular groups to whom the Government have given special commitments, such as the Armed Forces and the police, should be excluded. As I envisage that the average pay increase for all groups would be weighted by numbers in the group, there would be little point in including numerically small groups. The groups that I have mentioned all have their settlement date on 1 April. That is useful as it means that, on the one hand, the changes in pay would be recent, unlike the new earnings survey link, and, on the other, that the settlements should have been concluded in time for a debate on Members' pay before the Summer Recess.

    The Government do not propose to apply linkage to Ministers' pay, or to the secretarial allowance. Between Top Salaries Review Body reviews those items would be revised on an ad hoc basis.

    Much passion is aroused by the question of linkage, but in the scheme that I have outlined and that recommended by the Select Committee it is of only secondary importance. The periodic reviews by the TSRB will be the chief means of keeping Members' pay on a satisfactory basis. Providing that those are undertaken regularly, it does not matter much if the interim arrangements are approximate rather than precise.

    Amendments have been tabled which concern these resolutions. The first, which deals with the important matters of pension and severance pay, was tabled by the right hon. Member for Deptford. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) tabled an amendment on pensions, but it was not selected. I understand the concern about severance pay, although it has been examined in the past. However, it would be appropriate, if the House votes for the Government motion this evening, that the Top Salaries Review Body should undertake this autumn a consideration of the matters that are dealt with in those amendments.

    There are other amendments in the name of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas) that invite the House to accept the full Select Committee report without addition, adjustment or amendment. The House is confronted with a straight choice this evening in the Lobbies. The first is, about the comparita that will be used for calculating the interim increases. I have explained our reservations about the new earnings survey as a means of securing the comparisons because we believe that the range of public sector settlements is more appropriate.

    The second is whether the increase that will be derived from the comparita should be automatic, as are the mileage allowance or the additional cost changes, or whether it should be the subject of debate, endorsement and confirmation by the House each year. It would be a most significant and dubious departure if we proceeded to a position whereby the annual increase was made automatically without any possibility of judgment in the House. That is why I believe that the arrangements for accepting much of the spirit of the Select Committee's report, buttressed by the Government's proposals, will enhance what is before the House. I hope that we can come to a broad and settled view. The Government's response to the Select Committee's recommendations has been sympathetic and is none the worse because it has not been an unconditional endorsement.

    If the House supports the proposals that I have outlined, we shall have taken a modest step in the direction of freeing Members' pay from the capricious circumstances that have attended it in recent years. No doubt we shall have our quota of problems in the future, but I hope that we can avoid the worst pitfalls. I am sure that the House will not expect a perfect arrangement, but I am convinced that the Government's proposals offer a modest and tangible way forward.

    8.43 pm

    I beg to move amendment (a), to leave out "£14,510" and insert "£14,787".

    I understand that it will be convenient also to take the following amendments:

  • (b), to leave out "£8,460" and insert "£8,618".
  • (a) to motion No. 4, to leave out "£8,752" and insert "£9,022".
  • (b) to motion No. 4, to leave out "£8,820" and insert "£9,158".
  • (c) to motion No. 4, at end add
  • "(c) additionally, that in those cases where individual Members can authenticate the expenditure they be reimbursed for the payment of an annual London weighting allowance of £1,087 to their secretaries".
  • (a) to motion No. 7, to leave out from "1982" to end of motion and add
  • "and agrees with the recommendations of that Report".
  • (b) to motion No. 7, to leave out from "payable" to end and add
  • '(c) agrees with the view expressed in that Report that, between such reviews Members salaries should be adjusted annually by reference to increases in outside salaries as indicated in the nearest percentile in the Department of Employment's New Earnings Survey.
  • (d) does not accept the view in that Report that the question of Members' pensions and severence payments should be subsumed under the general heading of "Pay" to await consideration in the context of the next general review of Members' pay, but is of the opinion that, in the light of anomalies inherent in the present severance arrangements and the in creased insecurity attached to the role of a Member, the Top Salaries Review Body be requested to undertake an urgent review of pension and severance arrangements and make recommendations accordingly.' .
  • I preface my contribution to the debate by paying tribute to the Chairman and members of the Select Committee, whose report provides a valuable and helpful backcloth to the debate. If I have decided reservations about some features of their recommendations, that is in no way a reflection on the diligent and responsible way in which they have carried out their task. Having read their report, I also wish to express my appreciation of the oral evidence of the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), my right hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) for the continuing work that he has undertaken on behalf of Labour Members.

    I have listened attentively to the Leader of the House. Parliamentary salaries should not be so generous as to be an attraction in themselves nor so low as to discourage able aspirants from seeking membership of the House. Members have a right to a fair and reasonable scale of remuneration and a salary sufficient to enable them to do what their constituents increasingly expect of them—to devote a major part of their time, if not their whole time, to their parliamentary duties. It is on the basis of that simple proposition that I take issue with the figures in the motion tabled by the Leader of the House on behalf of the Government.

    Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House accept that parliamentary salaries cannot be fully protected, or indeed isolated, from the consequences of economic inflation. Nor is anyone in the House impervious to the political sensitivities, to which the Leader of the House referred, surrounding Members' pay and allowances. It is time we started distinguishing myth from reality in this issue.

    It is a myth that the sustained restraint and self-discipline which Members have exercised over many years in regard to parliamentary pay has ever persuaded anyone to follow our example. The reality is that, during the last 20 years, there is no recorded case of any group—administrative, professional or manual—ever following the lead in pay restraint demonstrated by Members of the House.

    If we take the operative date of the proposed annual interim increases, 13 June, in the context of the annual wage cycle, we are at the end of the queue. I suspect that we have been deliberately pushed to the end of the pay round so that parliamentary pay will not be taken as a lead—

    Even if one were to accept the right hon. Gentleman's argument that people do not follow us when we are restrained, would he not agree that if we were unrestrained at a time when they are being restrained, it would have the opposite effect and we would be setting an extremely bad example?

    I can understand the feelings which have generated that thought in the hon. Lady's mind, but I cannot recall an occasion when increases given to Members and Ministers could ever be designated as unrestrained. I invite the hon. Lady or, indeed, any hon. Member, to name an occasion when any increase that we have ever accepted for ourselves could be designated in any way as unrestrained.

    The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) is probably still thinking in terms of Europe, where "restraint" is the last word which is ever used and "unrestrained" is the word one could apply.

    Indeed, my hon. Friend has made a valid point.

    The issue posed in the Government's motion on pay and allowances is not one of Ministers earnestly seeking partially to protect parliamentary salaries and allowances from the continuing erosion to which they have been subject as a result of Government policy over the last 12 months. The issue is essentially political. We have listened to Ministers day in, day out, and they never weary of preaching the virtues of free collective bargaining. But what they are embarked upon this evening is an exercise to impose on Members and their private secretaries the Prime Minister's wretched 4 per cent. pay policy.

    I felt that it might be helpful to our deliberations to establish just how many groups in the public sector have actually settled at 4 per cent. or less. I, as every hon. Member does, went into the Library and invited the able assistance of the House of Commons Library statistical section to find out just how many such groups had settled at 4 per cent. or less. I received the following reply:
    "You asked me to let you know which groups, particularly administrative and clerical groups, in the public sector have settled in the current round for 4 per cent. or less. I have not found any group which has settled for as little as 4 per cent. and Incomes Data Services (IDS) have also checked their files and found no such group."

    Having failed to persuade any other comparable group to settle for 4 per cent. or less, the Prime Minister and the Government have singled out hon. Members and their private secretaries on whom to impose what I can only describe as the Prime Minister's squalid pay policy obsessions.

    During the past year, settlements in the public sector, even if we exclude the recent massive awards to senior civil servants, senior Service officers and the judiciary, have varied between 6 per cent. and 13 per cent. The general body of civil servants, whom the Prime Minister appears to take a malevolent delight in clobbering, received 6 per cent. Members and their secretaries are offered 4 per cent., as will be seen from the motion on the Order Paper.

    Do Ministers believe that hon. Members and their families pay less for their food and the other essential prerequisites of life than civil servants? Does the Leader of the House accept that hon. Members and their private secretaries are in a better position to withstand the increases in mortgages, tube, bus and rail fares than secretaries in the Civil Service? That is the logic of the motions tabled by the Leader of the House.

    Last year, civil servants received an interim settlement of 7 per cent. plus £30. Hon. Members received an interim settlement of 5·73 per cent. This year civil servants were awarded 6 per cent. The Government motions envisage hon. Members and their secretaries receiving 4 per cent. How can that be justified?

    It would be wiser if we could clarify the position. The secretaries will not automatically receive a 4 per cent. increase. An extra 4 per cent. will be given to hon. Members as an allowance for secretarial and research work.

    I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reinforcing that point.

    It is neither equitable nor fair to accept the implications of the figure of 4 per cent. in the motions tabled by the Leader of the House. Not only have we fallen behind the movements in the retail price index and the average earnings index, but we are falling behind civil servants consistently year after year. The amendments that my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) and I have tabled seek to improve the figures that the Leader of the House has tabled to a modest 6 per cent. That is all we seek. We seek 6 per cent. for hon. Members and the secretarial allowance—a rate that has been conceded already by the Government to civil servants.

    In 1975 and 1980 the House went on record as being in favour of linking parliamentary pay with a Civil Service grade for salary purposes. At that time the Civil Service assistant secretary grade was selected as the nearest to the level of salary in operation for hon. Members. That Civil Service grade was selected for comparability purposes.

    Only those Members with an over-vivid imagination would aspire to the heights enjoyed by civil servants on assistant secretary grade. Their maximum pay is £19,612. With the inner London weighting allowance the salary is £23,288. That was the comparability that the House felt was fitting in 1979 and 1980.

    If we cannot aspire to compare ourselves with assistant secretaries, we must look at which Civil Service grade we could now equate ourselves with. A senior principal currently receives a maximum salary of £16,810. With the inner London weighting allowance, a senior principal receives £21,014. We cannot equate ourselves with senior principals. Perhaps we can equate ourselves with the principal grade. His current salary is £12,999. With the inner London weighting allowance, it is £17,035. If we cannot equate ourselves with him, who next? We go then to the senior executive officer who is on a salary of £10,000. With the inner London weighting allowance, he enjoys a salary of £13,056. I could continue.

    Under the Government, and the way that they think about the salaries of hon. Members, we shall be quickly down to the salary of the higher clerical officer. That is the reality with which hon. Members are confronted in the determination of salaries and secretarial allowances. I have read the Select Committee's report and listened to the Leader of the House dismiss the idea of a linkage with Civil Service grades. I have read the same arguments in the tendentious document published by a previous distinguished Leader of the House to hon. Members in October 1980 dealing with parliamentary pay and pensions. In that document he was dismissive of a linkage with Civil Service grades. It is done in France, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. What happens in the United States of America? Congress approved a motion that no civil servant would receive more in remuneration than that enjoyed by the Congressman. That is the reality of linkage. How can one dismiss the linking argument?

    The amendments in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley and myself dealing with Members' pay seek to increase Members' salaries by a modest 6 per cent. That is in line with that already conceded by the Government to civil servants. If we accept the Government's proposals for hon. Members' office, secretarial and research allowances, we shall be doing a serious injustice to loyal and dedicated staff who, I believe, bring a real commitment to their jobs. I am referring to hon. Members' private secretaries.

    The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) made the point that secretarial allowances will increase by 4 per cent., but that that might not mean a 4 per cent. increase for the private secretaries. Let me tell the House a fact of life regarding secretaries. Hon. Members are not big spenders when it comes to recruiting private secretaries. In general, they do not give large salaries to their private secretaries. To single out the secretarial allowance, when I have demonstrated that no comparable group has accepted a settlement of 4 per cent. or less, is really a bit much.

    I have great admiration for the way that the Leader of the House carries out his responsibilities, both in his present role and in his previous ministerial roles. I hope that he will look again at secretarial allowances to see what he can do. Our secretaries get little or no redundancy pay. Their salaries do not attract London weighting. Most of them work with Members because of a shared political commitment, so it is a bit much that the House and Members have singled them out as the banner carriers for the Prime Minister's squalid 4 per cent. pay policy.

    I should like to mention future arrangements for Members' salaries. I have tabled two amendments to the motions on these matters. Having read motion No. 7—
    "Future arrangements for Members' salaries"—
    and listened to the Leader of the House, I am still at a loss to know what it means. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was restructuring and making provision for a modest improvement to ensure an organised interim uplifting. However, we should read paragraph (d) carefully, because I am convinced that it was drafted by a civil servant. I say that as a former Minister of State, Civil Service Department. Paragraph (d) states that this House
    "is of the opinion that Her Majesty's Government should instead, in the period between one such review and the next, move annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries and in so doing should be guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups."
    The Leader of the House was not very forthcoming about the groups with which we are to be compared, but, even if he had been, they were to be used only as a guide. In my opinion, that is not good enough.

    Then there is the Select Committee's suggestion of increases on an annual basis by reference to increases in outside salaries, given to the nearest percentages in the Department of Employment's "New Earnings Survey". That is a far more efficient way to do it, and I hope that the Government will look again at that suggestion.

    The amendment that we tabled shows that the Opposition do not accept the view in the Select Committee's report
    "that the question of Members' pensions and severance payments should be subsumed under the general heading of Pay to await consideration in the context of the next general review of Members' pay, but is of the opinion that, in the light of the anomalies inherent in the present severance arrangements and the increased insecurity attached to the role of a Member, the Top Salaries Review Body be requested to undertake an urgent review of pension and severance arrangements."
    Let us make no mistake: pension and severance arrangements are of crucial importance for every Member of the House. There are anomalies in severance arrangements. A teacher contributes to his pension entitlement about the same percentage of salary as does a Member of the House, but as a Member one does not get a pension before the age of 65. A teacher is entitled to take his pension at the age of 60. Those are the anomalies that I believe should be seriously examined.

    As regards pension arrangements, one-sixtieth is nonsense. I do not know any parliamentarian who, having won a seat in the House to represent a constituency, can look to 30 years as a Member. We need a true rate which takes account of the hazards of parliamentary life.

    I recently read Lord Plowden's report on the Top Salaries Review Body's examination and recommendations on senior civil servants, senior Service officers and the judiciary. I was impressed that, in his preface, Lord Plowden referred to the objectives which his committee sought to establish. The objectives were to set limits that would ensure that the grades covered by the report are not affected by what he termed deep-seated feelings of unfairness. All I can say to that is bully for them if they have someone examining their salaries who does not want to leave them with a deep-seated feeling of unfairness.

    There is a widespread sense of unfairness among hon. Members on both sides of the House, and certainly among private secretaries employed by hon. Members, about the Government's proposals in these motions. That feeling also exists among those who watch events in this Chamber. I believe that hon. Members are entitled to expect better than the shabby treatment they have received so far.

    9.8 pm

    I shall confine my remarks to motion No. 7 and amendment (a) in my name, because I had the privilege of being Chairman of the Select Committee that produced the report. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) for their kind remarks about members of the Committee. I pay tribute to those hon. Members on the Committee for their work and for their support in the production of the report. I am also grateful for the fact that my right hon. Friend, on behalf of the Government, said that he supports parts of the report, but I am disappointed that the major part of it has been abandoned by my right hon. Friend.

    The problems faced by the House over the years in its attempts to determine a fair and reasonable salary for hon. Members are well known and I shall not rehearse them. The Select Committee's report sets out the problems fairly and clearly. Whatever methods have been tried, difficulties have been encountered. In the view of successive Governments, the time for effecting an adequate increase is never convenient. At the same time, the House is always sensitive to adverse public opinion and anxious to set an example.

    There is no doubt that, over the years, hon. Members' pay has frequently lagged behind that which an objective assessor would regard as fair. Many examples can be given where variations in independent proposals, or delay in their implementation, have produced injustice, while the effect of such restraint as an example to the public has, to put it at its highest, been negligible.

    One of the sad effects of all this is that in every recent year the House has been forced into somewhat unseemly debate and many divisions of opinion have emerged on how or what we should pay ourselves. The task of the Select Committee was to try to find an alternative to this recurrent, bruising wrangle. We tried to agree on an equitable method of determining Members' remuneration without being at the mercy of short-term considerations. At the same time, we had to bear in mind that the House cannot abandon its ultimate responsibility for determining its pay. This, as can be seen from our report, was no easy task. Every procedure suggested or considered has drawbacks. The problem is almost intractable and there is no comfortable answer. No method can be found that is likely to command the united support of both the public and the House. It is really a question of finding a solution with the least defects.

    I firmly and respectfully submit that the recommendations in our report are the least objectionable and the best form of compromise that could be devised and, as far as the House as a whole is concerned, infinitely preferable to the proposals in my hon. Friend's motion.

    What my right hon. Friend is proposing in paragraphs (c) and (d) is precisely what the Select Committee was seeking to avoid—a repetition of the annual, discredited public wrangle over Members' pay, an example of which may, I know not, probably be seen tonight.

    From the debate so far, it appears to be generally agreed that there should be an independent, in-depth review at the end of each Parliament. The House will then decide on the recommendations made by the review body. Updating between reviews will clearly be needed, and that appears to be generally agreed. But if we are to avoid the annual wrangle, it is clear that the updating must be a linkage that is automatic.

    The Select Committee recommends an automatic updating between reviews by reference to the average increases enjoyed by those in both the public and private sectors, receiving similar salaries. My right hon. Friend's motion—and this was reflected in his speech—wholly rejects any automatic linkage and suggests that the Government of the day should table
    "annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries",
    certainly not linked to but
    "guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups in the Public Service".
    My right hon. Friend described that as a modest step forward. In my submission, he is suggesting precisely what is happening today in the motions that have been put forward, which have led to the challenging speech of the right hon. Member for Openshaw and will probably lead to Divisions later tonight.

    I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about the wording in paragraph (d). It is so vague that, under whichever Government are in power, the interim years would clearly be at the mercy of political expendiency and we would be back to our embarrassing debates and Divisions.

    Therefore, I urge my right hon. Friend and the Government to think again, in the interests of the dignity of the House. Our recommendation for an interim linkage to the nearest percentile in the Department of Employment's new earnings survey is modest. In no way can it affect the Government's present overall economic strategy. Were the Select Committee's recommendations accepted by the House, and were the review to take place next year and a decision taken by the House on the findings of the review body, the salary increase would operate in the next Parliament and the first automatic updating would become effective at least one year afterwards.

    It should also be remembered that this is not index linking with the cost of living, which I agree would be objectionable. The House has the responsibility and the burden of fixing its remuneration. What possible fair criticism could there be if the House were to state that, between reviews, Members' salaries were to be increased by no more and no less than the average increase of similar salaries throughout the country? I cannot believe that that would have an adverse public effect.

    I remind my right hon. Friend, as he has already been reminded by the right hon. Member for Openshaw, that the House has twice recently voted for automatic linkage, but not the interim linkage, such as we suggest, whereby the issue returns periodially to the House.

    The House has voted for permanent automatic linkage to a grade in the public service. Naturally, the Select Committee had to take that into account in our deliberations. We considered and appreciated the force of some of the objections and were in favour of complete linkage only if no better solution could be found. In the event, we mainly agreed that we had found that better solution. There were differences of opinion in the Select Committee, ranging from those who believed in complete linkage to those who had grave doubts about any form of linkage. Our report represents a consensus—that which the Committee as a whole agreed would substantially achieve its purpose in a way that most shades of opinion could accept.

    If my right hon. Friend and the Government persist in slamming the door shut on the modest interim linkage that has been recommended, we are effectively back to square one, and all the embarrassments and controversies of past years will continue. Members' pay and allowances are essentially a matter for decision by the House as whole on a free vote—I hope a truly free vote. Ministers have the responsibility of recommending expenditure, but it is the House that always has the final responsibility of approval. It is the opinion of the House in this unique domestic issue of pay that should guide whichever Government are in office. The Select Committee's recommendations offer an acceptable and just solution. I hope that the House will agree.

    9.18 pm

    I shall begin with a few words on behalf of those who, by the nature of the debate, are unable to speak for themselves—the secretaries, research assistants and other staff whose remuneration we are debating. The miserable 4 per cent. rise is an insulting proposition and wholly inadequate. The Leader of the House referred to comparable groups of workers who might be taken as guidelines for rises in Members' salaries and, presumably, rises in the salaries of secretaries.

    An offer of 6·4 per cent. has already been made to the nurses and been rejected by them as inadequate. It is reported today that ACAS, a completely independent tribunal, has awarded a 6 per cent. rise to the teachers. In the light of those examples, I cannot see how the House can honestly say to the men and women who serve it loyally and capably as secretaries, research assistants and others, that they are worth only a 4 per cent. rise, bearing in mind the way in which inflation and general costs have risen in the past 12 months and seem likely to continue to do so. It is an insulting proposition and I trust that the House will reject it and vote for our amendment.

    There are other considerations, apart from rates of pay, relating to conditions for secretaries. Those who are members of my union, APEX, made representations to the Leader of the House in March through their proper union machinery. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman refused to meet representatives from the union. It was out of character, as he is a civil and courteous person and I should normally have expected him to meet them. Nevertheless, he did not.

    I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding. I saw members of APEX earlier this week.

    I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says, of course. In the correspondence forwarded to me, however, he said explicitly that he saw no point in such a meeting. If he later changed his mind, I am glad that he did so and that he saw them. Nevertheless, that was his initial reply in April. He said that he was not prepared to see them as he saw no point in doing so.

    In that case, I shall have to quote the letter. It is signed by the right hon. Gentleman himself.

    In that case, I at once withdraw what I said—I must, indeed, have been Leader of the House.

    Perhaps we should leave it at that. At any rate, I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has seen the representatives. I am only sorry that he declined initially to do so.

    The points made by members of my union in their submission covered a number of matters relating to their conditions of service. They accepted that there had been some improvements recently—for example, in provisions for pensions and in financial provision, allowing a Member to take on a substitute if the regular secretary is ill.

    They suggested particularly that secretaries should all be paid direct from the Fees Office. That can already be done, if the Member so chooses, and I do not think that it is a matter of great controversy.

    They suggested that the amount given be divided between secretaries and research assistants. Personally, I agree with the reply of the Leader of the House, that at is much better for this to be determined by the Member.

    They also suggested that there might be some form of incremental scheme for payments to secretaries. They further suggested the possibility of an allowance if secretaries were required to work late in the evening or at weekends, and an allowance for travel if they were required to go to the Member's constituency to carry out their work.

    My hon. Friend says that we can pay that. That is, of course, true if the total sum allows it. If, however, the sum is already committed in regular payments to secretaries, nothing is left over to make extra payments for unsocial hours. I merely put on record the requests and suggestions made by members of my union employed as secretaries in the House.

    A matter of greater substance is the request for London weighting. This is important. It seems anomalous that we accept London weighting for ourselves, in what is known as the London supplement for hon. Members who Live within so many miles of Charing Cross, but refuse it to our secretaries. Again, it is no use saying that a Member can give London weighting, because all Members have equal secretarial allowances. Clearly, those who live in London cannot give something extra compared with those living outside if the money does not allow for it.

    My hon. Friend is confusing the issue. It is a matter not of whether one lives in London but of whether one's secretary works in London. I pay the Civil Service rate, including London weighting, because my secretary works here. The same must be true for many hon. Members. It has nothing to do with whether I live in London.

    Where an hon. Member lives obviously relates to where his secretary works. Almost by definition that will be in London. In that case, there should be some kind of weighting or allowance to reflect the extra cost of living, working and travelling in the Metropolis. That is why I support (c) amendment to motion No. 4. It would make provision for that.

    I return to the linkage of Members' salaries. This has been effectively clealt with by the right hon. and learned Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas), the Chairman of the Select Committee. I am appalled that the Government have again rejected what was a modest compromise by the Select Committee. The Select Committee did not come out in favour of linkage, as I understand it. I simply came out in favour of a quadriennial review by the Top Salaries Review Body, or some such body, but with an interim linkage system, which would have dealt with some of the problems that we are dealing with now. The Government have rejected even that modest compromise. They have replaced it with the gobbledegook in paragraph (d) to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) has already referred.

    The Chairman of the Select Committee is right when he says that this takes us back to square one. Whatever the meaning of the words in paragraph (d), the Government will do as they like. They can be "guided"—heaven knows what that means—by some other consideration, but in effect we are back to the present situation. The old problem that some hon. Members thought could be solved by a linkage scheme remains unresolved. We are back to the annual wrangle, distaste and feeling of injustice, which has gone on year after year.

    Everyone knows that successive Governments have refused to implement the findings of the independent review board. Until there is some automatic linkage mechanism, there will be an annual wrangle. I should be prepared to accept the compromise suggested by the Select Committee, at least for the time being, although I hope that eventually the proper linkage principle, which the House has emphatically declared in favour of on a number of occasions, will be fully and properly implemented.

    The Select Committee commented on pensions and severance payments in paragraph 26 of its report. It said:
    "We noted in paragraph 12 above that the House in July 1980 expressed the opinion that pension rights should be bettered, and in our view, this expression of opinion reflected a long-felt concern that pension and reverence provisions are not yet adequate to avert real hardship for some. These are matters which undoubtedly should and would be further examined".
    There is no indication in the Government's proposals that they will do anything serious about this situation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Openshaw said, the age at which one can draw a pension should be reduced to 60, as is the case already in the Civil Service and in other professions. I also believe that the accrual rate should be increased from the one-sixtieth arrangement, although I am not sure whether one could jump to the one-fortieth arrangement all at once. On the figures presented by a previous Leader of the House, the average service in the House is 17 years. Although some hon. Members manage to remain Members of Parliament for 20 or 30 years, or more, that is the average length of service.

    There might well be some provision for the payment of a lump sum on retirement, as is done in the Civil Service. Further examination needs to be made of the arrangements for severance payments, although I accept that there are difficulties. At present, if a Member of Parliament loses his seat, or if his seat disappears as a result of redistribution, severance payment is payable. There may well be other instances—such as family circumstances, and so on—that would make it reasonable and logical for some form of severance payment to be made if someone ceased to be a Member of Parliament. That should be considered.

    The Government's proposals are mean, timid and unsatisfactory. The 4 per cent. rise offered to secretaries and hon. Members is thoroughly mean. As has been said, the statistical section of the Library could discover no other group that has settled for 4 per cent. or less. It is disgraceful that the Government should treat in this squalid way not only hon. Members—and it is our own fault if we do not vote against the proposals—but those loyal and devoted servants upon whom we depend for much of our work.

    Given the Government's argument about comparability with the public sector, they know perfectly well that most groups in the public sector have settled, or intend to settle, for about 6 per cent. and have no intention of accepting the Government's miserable 4 per cent. increase, which is deliberately designed to reduce their standard of living.

    9.33 pm

    The greater part of the speech by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) was concerned with secretarial allowances, and I shall deal with that matter in a moment.

    I characterise tonight's debate as the debate that should not need to take place and as the unnecessary debate. The fact that there are no fewer than 16 motions and amendments on the Order Paper is ample evidence of the unsatisfactory situation in which we find ourselves. The muddle of our arrangements and our obvious dissatisfaction with them has been evidenced this evening.

    As a matter of interest, we last discussed the remuneration and allowances of hon. Members and Ministers almost exactly one year ago—on 5 June 1981. That was the sixth debate on the subject in this Parliament. There was one debate on it in 1979, two in 1980 and no fewer than three in 1981. Therefore, this is the seventh debate of this Parliament. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas) remarked in his typically able and clear speech, such occasions are not always the most dignified parliamentary moments. How right he was when he said that we had a duty to ourselves—and, I believe, to the nation—to ensure that we do everything possible to avoid wrangles on such subjects.

    It should not be necessary to debate such matters seven times during one Parliament. One should be enough. I have a consistent view. Not every hon. Member will agree with it. I gave it in evidence to the Select Committee, presided over by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South. That view is that such matters should be settled at the end of a Parliament, to be valid in the next Parliament, and should not be fundamentally reviewed during the Parliament's lifetime.

    I do not accept the view that there should always be annual reviews. There are many who engage in employment for fixed periods for fixed remuneration. I do not see why that system should not apply to ourselves. Nor do I have much sympathy with the idea that it is necessary—perhaps some would argue essential—for these issues always to be referred to an outside body. In the end, we must make the decisions. It is a little cowardly always to ask others to settle our problems for us.

    I do not agree with the proposal made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—echoed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South—that we should consider these matters every four years as a matter of routine. Many problems would arise if we were to accept that advice. The appropriate time to deal with these matters is at the end of a Parliament so that those coming into the new Parliament, whether as Members of Parliament or their servants, know exactly where they stand for the lifetime of that Parliament.

    Why is it "a little cowardly" for us to hand over the decision on our salaries to another body, but not cowardly for judges?

    Judges do not have the responsibility of making the decision. The right hon. Gentleman knows that others make the decision for them. We have to make the decision. We ran to an outside body only because we were frightened to make the decision that we thought should be made by ourselves. That is how the process began.

    Considerable reference has been made to linkage. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South remarked, there are two sorts of linkage. There is permanent linkage with a particular profession—for example, an assistant secretary in the Civil Service or a lieutenant-colonel in the Army—and there is interim linkage. It is worth while reminding ourselves why linkage has been discussed. The proposal to link ourselves with a profession was made because we were certain that no Government would ever pay Members of Parliament properly. It was an attempt to force Governments to do so. We have now arrived at the idea of interim linkage, to which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House referred in making some interesting and important proposals. That is the main feature of the Select Committee's report.

    My argument is that if salaries or allowances require minor revision during the lifetime of a Parliament, that should occur automatically by reference to an agreed formula. It is said that the effects of inflation should lead to a minor revision of salaries or allowances, but equally it is argued that parliamentarians should not be entitled to insulate themselves against inflation, it being to some extent the consequence of careless architects.

    I agree with my right hon. Friend that the survey recommended by the Select Committee is not right. It is out of date, and there are certain implications in adopting that procedure. However, I could not understand the force of his argument for linking us to a basket of professions—I have not quite understood his proposition and we shall want to read his words with considerable care—and treating us in one way while he wants to treat secretaries in another and Ministers in yet a third way. I cannot see the reason for that. I cannot see why the three categories should not be treated alike.

    If we are to have a form of linkage during the lifetime of a Parliament, let us accept one norm for everybody and adhere to it. In that way everybody will know where they are.

    Under my right hon. Friend's proposals, which no doubt we shall have the opportunity to discuss with him, it seems to me that we shall have perpetual argument—the wrangles to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South referred—because different things will be done to different people at different times. That does not seem to be wise. Much embarrassment and difficulty, some parliamentary time and hardship would have been avoided if this sensible practice had been the norm in the past.

    We have a whole series of individual motions and amendments to consider. Broadly speaking, as my right hon. Friend remarked, they divide into two categories—the present and the future.

    The right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) made an important speech. He devoted much of his speech to the present day and the Government's proposals that Members' and Ministers' salaries and the secretarial allowance should be increased by 4 per cent. That is the purpose of motions Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 6 on the Order Paper. In parentheses, it is right to remark that, whatever the Government or the Opposition may propose in these matters, it is for hon. Members to decide. If there is anything wrong with the present position, the fault is ours.

    I remind the House that when levels of remuneration were set at the start of this Parliament, which was an uncomfortable affair, as we all remember, it was not envisaged that there would be any mid-term increase. That is an important point. That was the understanding of the House. Therefore, my right hon. Friend's proposals, which have been somewhat criticised by Labour Members, are a considerable advance on what was agreed and understood at the beginning of this Parliament. They are a considerable advance on 0 per cent.

    I was sorry that the right hon. Member for Openshaw spent so much time referring to this, that or the other group that had had this, that, or the other per cent. He and the hon. Member for Heeley, said that it was impossible to find any group that had had nothing over the past year or so. That is untrue. Many companies in the United Kingdom, because of the present economic stringency, have not been able to give their staff salary increases. By comparison, hon. Members are not doing too badly.

    There is another matter of which the House should be reminded. This proposal of 4 per cent. has been widely discussed. My right hon. Friend did not mention this, but he should have the credit for it. He has consulted widely and, as far as I know, what has been proposed has found a fair measure of acceptance. In the circumstances, I hope that the House will agree to what is being proposed and will support his proposals. That is why, although I am sorry not to agree with the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), for whose views I normally have the greatest respect, I cannot go along with the amendment that he and his hon. Friends have tabled.

    Furthermore, the 4 per cent. that is proposed has a particular advantage that we should bear in mind. A small improvement now lessens the substantial gap that has opened in past Parliaments between the level of salaries at their opening and at their closing, measured in real terms. We all recall that on occasions that gap has been so substantial that in more than one Parliament in past years Governments have cowardly—that is an offensive word to use, but I use it deliberately—failed to bridge them. Here, the ad vice given has been heeded, and I repeat my gratitude to my right hon.. Friend for what he has done in this respect.

    The right hon. Gentleman seems to be criticising his earlier point. As I understand it, he would be in favour of the plan that, at the end of the life of a Parliament—which, after all, is in the gift of the Prime Minister to a great extent—if one could determine what the salary should be for the incoming Members, they would know precisely where they stood, and would not wish these annual increases.

    The right hon. Gentleman is, in his last point, demonstrating that if there is no adjustment, the gap is so wide that Governments baulk at what would be the natural progression over four or three years. I am trying to fathom out which course he favours, because he seems to be contradicting himself.

    The hon. Gentleman is right to make the point that he does. My view is clear. I should prefer to set the salary for the whole. Parliament. If we are to have adjustments—it appears to be the wish of the House that we should have adjustments—they should be fixed by reference to a specific norm, which would be the same for everyone. That course has some incidental advantage.

    We should remind ourselves of the circumstances of the introduction of allowances. That owed much, if not everything, to the failure of successive Governments to pay Members adequately. There were pay increases in 1975, 1979, and 1980. As the Select Committee report said, Members' salaries have not been fully up-to-date since 1972. Successive Administrations foolishly believed that further specific allowances would be more tolerated by the public than higher remuneration for Members of Parliament. There was an attempt to fudge the issue of how much Members were costing.

    My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has tabled motion No. 5 and we appreciate the spirit in which it has been introduced. I hope that he will not mind if I tell him that I cannot get excited about the proposal for a limited amount of childrens' travel allowance—travel, I hasten to say, at the expense of the wife's opportunity to be with her husband. There is a sort of mad Irish logic about this proposal. The more children one has, and the more often one sees them, the fewer the chances there will be for the husband and wife to cohabit at the taxpayer's expense. But the fewer children one has, the greater will be the opportunity for husband and wife to come together.

    My right hon. Friend said that there had been representations about this, but to my knowledge they did not come from the Parliamentary Labour Party, and they certainly did not come from the 1922 Committee. He was wise to say that we must be careful when awarding ourselves allowances which most people do not have. If one works for a company, one cannot charge one's childrens' travel as a justifiable expense. I repeat that the only reason why we have the allowance is that we do not give ourselves enough cash in the first place. I hope that we shall not pass this motion tonight. We should not waste time on such trivialities.

    Why did the right hon. Gentleman not protest about car allowances, because the same is true there? This merely applies to rail the same principles that already apply to car travel.

    I have always expressed a consistent view on these allowances, as the hon. Gentleman will privately acknowledge. I merely make a point about the foolish complexities when allowances become more important than salary. It is also unfortunate that our system encourages various lobbies. That is not a healthy development.

    The question of the adequacy of allowances for secretaries and research assistants is a legitimate subject for the most careful consideration, but I am surprised by the proposal for the London weighting allowance, in part for the reason adduced by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) in an intervention and for other reasons with which I need not trouble the House. We have a problem with secretarial allowances because no two Members' responsibilities or activities are equal. However, we should decide two matters. First, to avoid potential embarrassment, payment should always be made by the Fees Office and not by Members. Secondly, allowances such as salaries should be set at the outset of Parliament and should be adjusted by reference to an accepted yardstick as a matter of routine, as so many of our allowances.

    The position of Members of Parliament has improved markedly since in 1978 an agreed view was formulated between the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the 1922 Committee and was then put to the elected leadership of both the major parties. Despite Governments, much has been agreed and achieved. I am in sympathy with the spirit of amendment (b) to motion No. 7. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley said, we must pay attention to many other matters. Much more must be agreed and achieved.

    Severance pay is one matter. Members and Ministers' salaries, despite the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body, are markedly too low by any yardstick. If we consider overseas legislatures and salaries paid in commerce, that is obviously true. The right hon. Member for Openashaw put it very well when he said that salaries must not be so high as to be an attraction by themselves, nor so low as to cause hardship. That is correct. Members' salaries should be at least £25,000 a year and Ministers' pay should be considerably higher.

    Of course, there should be an element of sacrifice in public life. That is healthy and appropriate, but the sacrifice can sometimes be too great. I do not wish to mention names, but every hon. Member knows of a colleague who died recently. The only reason why he remained a Member of the House when he had a serious physical disability was that the pension that he might have drawn had he retired would not have been adequate for his needs. We all know of other cases. The pension scheme is still in need of considerable improvement. The opportunity to buy extra years has been a great help, but we must work towards a fraction of fortieths rather than sixtieths.

    Last, but by no means least, we must reconsider our physical facilities, which are far from satisfactory. This building, which should be almost exclusively ours, is being invaded increasingly by employees. It would be much better if we could make a start on the new building in Bridge Street which is long overdue.

    As you often remind us, Mr. Speaker, from your distinguished Chair, it is an honour to serve here. The public who elect us to this place trust us to do our work confidently and adequately. We can only ever do that if we ensure that we have adequate conditions in which to perform those duties well.

    My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who is an outstanding member of the Administration and a man of immense intellect and competence, has taken over his responsibilities in what has begun to be a reforming Parliament. We have begun to reform, for example, the ways in which we keep the Executive under better and more continual surveillance. I hope that he will take from this debate the inspiration and encouragement to ensure that we reform not only the ways in which we do our work but the facilities we provide for ourselves and the remuneration we afford ourselves and our servants who help us.

    9.56 pm

    May I begin by picking up the last point that the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) made in his speech? He said that we were gradually improving the methods by which the House of Commons has exercised surveillance over and controls the Executive. In my view, it is not by procedural changes primarily that we exercise any greater control over the Executive than we have done in the past—goodness knows, we have made very little change in that respect—but it is by Members quite simply choosing to exercise the powers that they have got, whatever the procedural background is.

    That is not irrelevant to the subject matter of the debate. If Members are not prepared to overrule the Treasury Bench, with which this subject has got nothing to do, on this matter, they are not likely to exercise their proper constitutional function of controlling the Executive in any other matter.

    I am only sorry that the right hon. Member for Taunton was not with us on the Select Committee. Had we had the honour of his presence on that Select Committee, the Select Committee report might have been better and it might had had a greater chance of being accepted by hon. Members. He in the position that he holds and also the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party should have been on that committee.

    May I pick up one detailed point that he mentioned on the subject of children's allowances? I, like him, am totally uninterested in that degree of detail. I happen to be not affected by that allowance. He gave the impression that that particular facility is one which would not be accorded to persons working for companies or in other ways of life. I do not think that is so. There are very few jobs where there are two places of work. Where that exists, then this kind of facility tends to be provided. I think only of the sphere that I know in diplomatic life. Of course, there is out of public funds provision for children to visit their parents when they are on a diplomatic mission abroad. So do not let us give the impression that even in one tiny respect we are doing for ourselves something very different from what is normal outside.

    More generally on the debate, here we are again. In the light of what has happened and what has brought us to this point, namely, the Select Committee report, here we are going to be again and again and again without any prospect of the situation changing as a result of what has happened.

    These are not decisions which should be taken or allowed to be taken by Ministers. Of course, Ministers will always hold a view and they should put their view as the Government, but it is up to Members to vote on the matter. I think this will be my swan song because after eight years of being active on the matter inside the House and outside, I have just about had enough, so I say this for the last time probably to the House.

    What sickens me about the subject is not that Governments decline to suggest, which is all they can do, to the House that it should implement recommendations made to the House or to the Government, but that Members allow themselves to be persuaded or bullied or cajoled by successive Governments—this one is no worse than the previous one; they are a great deal better in many respects on this subject—into not doing what they actually want to do. If that goes on being the case, there is no solution to the problem. They may blame the Government at this stage in the debate for making a suggestion that they do not like, but after the votes are taken tonight, no blame will attach to the Government—

    It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

    Business Of The House

    Ordered,

    That, at this day's sitting, the Motions relating to Members' Salaries (Expression of Opinion), Members' Salaries, Members' Office, Secretarial and Research Allowance, Travel Facilities for Members' Children and Future Arrangements for Members' Salaries may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]

    Question again, proposed.

    After the Divisions tonight, if there are any, which is up to hon. Members, not the Government, no blame will attach to the Government. All the blame for whatever happens or whatever does not happen will attach, on this issue as on so many others, to hon. Members and not to the Government.

    The present salary that the House thinks is appropriate for a Member of Parliament is absurd: there is no other word for it. It is not a salary that is regarded as natural in other Parliaments, with rare and inappropriate exceptions. It is not a salary which compares at all with what has been decided by the House on several occasions in the past.

    If hon. Members will look at page 18 of our report, in an amendment that I sought to move but which was, of course defeated, they will see that I pointed out that if we take the figure that the House decided was right in 1964 and inflate it by one of two possible indices—one for the retail price index and another for average earnings—the salary at the time the report was written, just a few months ago, is 21·7 per cent. lower, taking the RPI, and 44·2 per cent. lower, taking average earnings.

    The next occasion after 1964 when there was a major decision as to what the appropriate level was was in 1971. It came into effect at the beginning of 1972. The present figure is 16·8 per cent. lower than the 1972 figure, going by the RPI, and 28·9 per cent. lower, going by average earnings. If the figure was right in 1964, it is certainly too low now, by a long way. If it was right in 1972, it is too low now.

    The significant thing about the work of the Select Committee and the evidence that was given to it was that most people—the right hon. Member for Taunton was an exception—who gave us evidence—I regret that that included those who in the past have played a principal part in the working of the Top Salaries Review Body—felt that the present salary of hon. Members was about right, but—I think that these are the words—perhaps somewhat too low. In other words, those witnesses felt that the salary appropriate to a Member of Parliament ought to be lower than the salary that they thought appropriate in 1964 and 1972, to which the House agreed on those two occasions.

    The main point that the House must face up to in debating and considering the issue is that the salary is too low and that it has got too low as a result of the process that tonight the Government are asking us to perpetuate In the end and in the beginning it is not a decision for the TSRB to take as to what the rough salary ought to be. It is a decision for the House to take a view upon. The House did take a view. In 1975 the House passed a resolution by a large majority in favour of linking our salary to that of a specified grade in the public service. By a tiny majority it specified the grade that it would like to choose, which was that of an assistant secretary in the Civil Service. Again, in 1980, we passed a resolution saying simply that we approved of linkage to a specified grade in the public service.

    It was therefore my view, the House having twice by considerable majorities expressed its opinion in favour of linkage, properly speaking, that what we should do is to put that issue to the House once again, and if the House repeated that decision that should be regarded as the end of the matter. We should then proceed in future upon that basis. The argument that is mounted against that is that the job of a Member of Parliament is unique and, therefore, one cannot possibly link the salary to any basket or anything of that nature. Of course the job is unique. All jobs are unique, but that does not stop one from having a view as to where roughly any unique job stands in the spectrum of what ought to be poorly paid jobs and highly paid jobs.

    The job of the Clerk of the House is unique. Can anyone think of any other job in the country comparable with that of Clerk of the House? It actually is unique. There is only one of him and there are 635 of us, but his salary is not just plucked out of the clouds. It is related to Civil Service salaries. I think it equates to that of a permanent secretary, not because he does the job of a permanent secretary but because it is thought that roughly that is where that kind of job fits into the salary spectrum.

    There is no problem whatsoever in that degree and that kind of linkage. Those of us who have gone for proper linkage over the years have had that attitude to it. We do not deny the claim that the job of a Member of Parliament is unique.

    Another mistake that we commonly make in discussing the subject is to feel that what we are doing is deciding our own salaries. Of course we are, but we are also doing something rather more important. We are discussing what the salary of a Member of Parliament ought to be. We may not be the people who should be here. It may be that by setting the salary at its present level we are cutting out the people who ought to cut us out. There are many people in the country who would not seek to become Members of Parliament, because the salary is too low. There are some people who, when they become Members of Parliament, achieve a salary which they have not previously enjoyed, but there are fewer and fewer of them. There are far, far more people who, when they become Members of Parliament, suffer a reduction in their standard of living and, more important, who face that reduced standard of living to an intensifying extent for the rest of their lives.

    That is the mistake that we are making. We are cutting Parliament out as a possible, or remotely attractive, proposition for a very large number of people who ought to be willing to come here. Once again, I tried to put a passage into our report which made that point, but naturally it did not attract a majority of my fellow members of the Committee. Until the House takes that broader approach to its decisions, we shall always go on in the mess that we are in now, and we shall always go on undervaluing ourselves and, more important, undervaluing the job which we are imperfectly doing.

    I think, Mr. Speaker, this is my swan song on the subject. I am heartily sick of it and I am heartily sick of the way in which it is hon. Members, and not the Government, who will not do what needs to be done. I cherish the fond thought that perhaps some day there will come a change of heart and that a greater respect for the House of Commons will come about, and with a greater recognition of the status that hon. Members should enjoy in the spectrum of other jobs and salaries.

    10.09 pm

    I shall confine my remarks, not to the current situation but to the future, because I was a member of the Select Committee, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas), and I am glad to have had the opportunity to sit on that Committee.

    Again, the Government are casting their baleful eye on the matter of Members' salaries. The record of successive Governments in this regard has been, to put it mildly, disappointing. Progress was achieved when the chairmen of the 1922 Committee and the Parliamentary Labour Party Committee worked jointly on the problem. In my view, the involvement of the Top Salaries Review Body has been generally beneficial, and I welcome the Government's commitment to a review next year by that body.

    Disappointment has arisen because successive Governments have too often intervened to cut back or delay the implementation of the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body. It was very much in the minds of the members of the Select Committees at all stages of their discussions and in the taking of evidence that we could have little confidence, based on the record of Governments, that the Government would implement adequately the recommendations made by the Top Salaries Review Body. That is the reason, or one of the reasons, why the Select Committee took the view that it would not be good enough merely to leave the situation to a four-yearly review by the Top Salaries Review Body, but that in addition we should have a mild form of linkage to maintain the salary position within reason during the four years between the major reviews. If we had more confidence in the Government to accept the full recommendations of the review body, such linkage would not be necessary. Again I make the point that the work of the Select Committee, its deliberations and its decision were based on what we believed would be practical and reasonable and would therefore commend itself to Members of this House and also—sadly, in vain—to the Government of the day.

    There were two simple recommendations. As hon. Members will have realised, not everyone on that Committee necessarily agreed that the recommendations went far enough. They were a compromise, but in my opinion they were a balanced and practical compromise, and I am extremely disappointed that the Government have not accepted them in full.

    As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South said, we are back to square one. We have not progressed. In my view, the salary base now is too low, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) and the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) said. Perhaps I am not as bold as my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton was in putting forward his figure, but I would say that £20,000, as of now, is a reasonable figure. A recommendation of the correct salary will be made by the Top Salaries Review Body next year, and I, for one, am likely to be happy with that recommendation.

    I make the point to my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton that it is not the Top Salaries Review Body that decides. It recommends, and it is for Parliament to decide. However, I believe that it is right to have an outside body to look at the problem. My right hon. Friend suggested that perhaps Parliament ought to settle its own salaries without the benefit of outside advice. I cannot see that as a practical proposition, based on the difficulties that have arisen over the years in that respect.

    The key question remains. We get a recommendation next year, but will the Government accept it? If the jump from the present figure to the new figure is, in the Government's view, too large, we know from experience—if the previous record is anything to go by, and I fear that it is—that they will limit or delay the recommended increase. Therefore, I appeal most strongly for Members to have confidence in themselves, in the job that we do here, and in our standing as elected public servants. Based on an outside review body's objective recommendation, we must vote for an adequate salary for the job in hand.

    If the House supports the Treasury Bench motion and thereby rejects the second recommendation of the Select Committee, we are as Members once again severely exposed to the vagaries of Government decisions on this issue. Our intention on the Select Committee was to provide, through the recommendation for annual reviews linked to the new earnings survey, a safeguard against the continuing problem of Members' salaries becoming seriously out of line between major reviews. If we throw away that safeguard, I am seriously worried that we shall never do an adequate catching up job.

    I repeat that our recommendations were modest. They were not for full index linking. The only index linking that we suggested was to be based on the average increase of similar salaries throughout the country and the fact that it would be based on an historic comparison adds weight to our recommendation. We are not asking for something that would be slap up-to-date. We are asking for a comparison with a survey, the material of which would be about a year behind.

    If those interim reviews resulted in the salary becoming too high, when the Top Salaries Review Body did its job at the end of four years it would be in a position to recommend that there should be no major increase. As my right hon. Friend the chairman of the Select Committee said, by throwing out this modest recommendation for keeping salaries reasonably in line between the four-year major reviews the whole problem of total linkage, voted on at least twice by the House, will erupt again. It is my firm contention that, unfortunately, the Government are again making a grave mistake, as they have done in the past, on this matter of Members' salaries and arrangements for the future.

    10.19 pm

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson). I think that I am the only Labour Member of the Select Committee who has spoken so far. Obviously, I speak only for myself and do not pretend to represent the views of any large body of opinion.

    It is, however, tempting to refer to some of the points that have already been made by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) and the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), but that would serve no purpose, because the only theme that I am aware of is that of total opposition to what the Government are proposing. So far, not a word has been spoken in support of the Government.

    I shall not be provocative, because I want us to win. I know that the Leader of the House was not the Prime Minister's first choice for the job, but clearly he will need to do better if lie wants to enhance his well-founded reputation for being a liberal thinker. He certainly has not shown that in this debate. Without being too uncharitable, let me amplify what I mean.

    I am not suggesting that we should set up machinery comparable with that in a factory, nor am I suggesting that we should have shop stewards, a convener or anything as proletarian as that. However, we badly need some kind of machinery that will avoid these distasteful annual debates which, as other hon. Members have said, are quite out of keeping with the problems with which we should be concerned.

    The Minister hoped that the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body would be observed more faithfully in the future. He has not made a very good start. What hope is there that any Government—Labour Governments were just as bad, if not worse—in future will accept any recommendations from the Top Salaries Review Body?

    The right hon. Gentleman said that the suggestion that travel facilities should be extended to children came from the Opposition. It certainly did not come from me. I do not think that I am past the age of creating children, but my wife assures me that she is past the age of child-bearing. Therefore, I have no vested interest in this matter. To the best of my knowledge, this question was not discussed widely even among Opposition Members. It is a trivial issue to bring forward in the light of the Select Committee report which genuinely tried to do a job.

    Probably out of courtesy and formality, the Government say that the Select Committee's report was very constructive. It was bound to be. I pay tribute to the Chairman. Not only was he able and courteous, but he had good members including myself, who genuinely sought to achieve a consensus that would be acceptable not only to the House but to the Government. That is a fair point to make. It is always annoying when people do not recognise that we have genuinely tried to prepare a report that was acceptable, even in difficult circumstances, to all Governments. That is something that should be borne in mind.

    When the right hon. Gentleman says that the Government reluctantly accept linkage and annual review, it is almost a slap in the face to the Select Committee. It is the only Select Committee on which I have served, and it is not a good advertisement. I feel that we have just been used. It was a means of pushing a problem to the side after an embarrassing vote about 18 months ago, and here we are back to square one.

    This is a difficult problem, otherwise we would not have such debates so frequently. It would be churlish not to accept that here have been many improvements. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks has only been here since 1979. I have been here for 18 years. All of us who have been here that long, or longer, recognise that there have been many improvements. We used to have to pay for telephone calls, postage and secretaries. There are many allowances. There has been a vast improvement, not only in our conditions but also in the services that are provided for us, either by those whom we employ or those who have some contribution to make. Nevertheless, there has still been a failure with regard to salary. It is the key question. It is not a party issue.

    We are unique. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) asked what is unique about a Member of Parliament. No two individuals are alike. No two Members of Parliament are alike—thank God. I do not wish to be compared with some hon. Members. The job is unique to the extent that not only are we different as individuals but also no two constituencies are identical in size, in the number of electors or the types of problem that arise. The job is unique in that sense and it is almost impossible to define an adequate salary for it. I said so in the Select Committee.

    In my constituency I am probably regarded as being well-off—"loaded", in Glasgow parlance. That does not apply to many hon. Members. If a Member's salary was his sole income, he would be regarded as being way down the social and economic scale in many constituencies. Of course it is difficult to make adequate comparisons. But we all agree that the salary is too low. That is not a Select Committee recommendation, but it is generally accepted.

    What is the role of Government? I am in the minority in my party. I believe in an incomes policy. All Governments operate an incomes policy—certainly in the public sector. Irrespective of what party wins the next general election, there will be an incomes policy of one type or another. We must be realsitic. I have great respect for the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury with his Calvanistic Scottish background and impeccable logic. But he is not dealing with a decision that will be made by the House of Commons. The decision on salaries will be made by a Prime Minister. It does not matter which party is in power. There is always the need to be seen, or to be thought to be seen to set an example. There are bound to be differences of opinion about incomes policy and wages.

    The Select Committee went out of its way to take account of all the problems that face any Government. Governments make the decision. Whether we like it or not—I usually do not—Governments have the power, if they are so minded, to present the matter to the House in such a way that makes party votes inevitable. The Select Committee genuinely tried to produce some form of working arrangement that would make sense to the House and make it easier for the Government to do what I hope at least some Members of any Government also want—improvement.

    Of course there must be public scrutiny of Members' salaries. I do not see many in the Press Gallery tonight. They will scrutinise what we do. They are probably filling in their expense accounts, for all I know. There is not one qualified journalist who does not earn more than a Member of Parliament.

    I remember asking James Fenton, when he was working for the New Statesman, what he was paid. He was then earning half of what a Member of Parliament was paid.

    It must have been some other job, or there was something wrong with the finances of the New Statesman

    The hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) must have forgotten that Mr. Fenton was allowed to earn money outside the New Statesman at the same time.

    I cannot think that any member of the NUJ would work for half the salary that a Member of Parliament now receives. I think that it is a trick question and I shall not follow it.

    Of course we have a right to expect public scrutiny of what we do here. That is the whole purpose of getting some kind of linkage. My interpretation of the Select Committee report was that the Top Salaries Review Body would carry out a four-yearly job evaluation, as it were, to see whether there had been any significant change in the life style or work style of Members of Parliament. For example, some of my hon. Friends think that we shall be out of the EEC in a few years. Perhaps the salaries should then go down again if the work load is lessened. It seems to me quite reasonable that the Top Salaries Review Body should carry out a four-yearly general review of changes in the work load of Members of Parliament in one way or the other.

    In between times, clearly there should be modest increases, linked not to the cost of living—no one could accuse the Government of accepting something that would be embarrassing to them—but at least linked to some comparable group of salaries that would make sense to us and to the public. I do not think that those are revolutionary proposals and I am disappointed that the Government have not found it possible to understand or appreciate the thinking behind the Select Committee report and to accept its findings.

    Finally, I hope that the Minister will give some indication that he accepts the urgency of examining pensions and severance pay. I know that it was not included in the remit of the Select Committee and the Select Committee rather strained its remit in drawing attention to this, but it was legitimate because the subjects are to some extent linked. I hope that if we do not win tonight—I assume that we shall be voting on this—the Minister will at least give some indication that in future there will be a greater possibility of accepting the Top Salaries Review Body and that in the meantime urgent action will be taken to improve pensions and severance pay.

    10.33 pm

    You will be well aware by now, Mr. Speaker, that we are still able to defend and stand up for our rights in this Chamber. I therefore intend to make a plea on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves in the Chamber—our secretaries.

    Before doing that, I, too, pay tribute to the members of the Select Committee and to the right hon. and learned Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas) who chaired it to the best of his ability. I am proud of the recommendations that it made, and it is a great pity that the Government have not taken full heed of them.

    Many of the secretaries have worked very hard for us over a long period. They have given of their best and they have worked long hours for little pay. The present allowance of £8,400 is supposed to cover secretarial, research and office expenses, although many people outside believe that a secretary working for a Member of Parliament qualifies for the whole of that amount.

    It is regrettable that there are many hard masters in the Chamber and outside who are not paying their secretaries what they are entitled to. There are many secretaries who should be earning at least £8,000 for working for us but who are getting only, the meagre sum of £2,000, £4,000 or £5,000. It would be interesting to know how many hon Members pay the full sum of £8,400 to their secretary.

    There is great validity in the hon. Gentleman's arguments. However, he should acknowledge that the opposite can also be true. If an hon. Member were to pay his secretary the full amount, which is meant to encompass part-time research assistants as well as secretaries, it would be difficult for other hon. Members to fund both a secretary and a research assistant, even part-time, because there is no clear division between the two amounts. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fairest approach would be for an hon. Member to have two separate allowances, one for a secretary, and one for a full-time research assistant?

    I am sorry to have to inform the hon. Gentleman that I disagree with him. It is up to each one of us to defend our rights and what we should pay our secretaries.

    Allowing for the employer's national insurance contribution of 13 per cent., there is only enough money for one full-time secretary. An increase of 4 per cent. would give her or him a meagre increase of 4 per cent. if the employer passed it on, which I do not doubt he would.

    Even in the public sector, settlements are near to 6 and 7 per cent. The Opposition Front Bench has tabled an amendment suggesting 8 per cent. I agree with that, although there are before us proposals for greater increases.

    Many secretaries do not receive overtime pay, luncheon vouchers, or London weighting. If an hon. Members keeps money aside for office expenses and research, his staff are hardly existing on what he pays them, unless he has private means. It is undemocratic that those with extra money should be able to give their constituents a better service than those without, though that happens in Britain.

    The most important proposal being discussed tonight is that for the payment of London weighting. The figure mentioned by the Government of £1,016 per annum is in line with what civil servants receive. I should like that London weighting to be paid direct to the staff concerned by the Fees Office although the motion does not mention that.

    If the Opposition Front Bench want the support of the minority parties in the House they should be more specific about how staff will qualify for the weighting. That is not clear. Perhaps the Shadow Leader of the House will clarify the position.

    My plea on behalf of those secretaries who work so hard and diligently for hon. Members is that they should have a reasonable wage of £8,400. I hope that all hon. Members will ensure that they are paid that money in full in the years to come.

    10.39 pm

    I shall not go down the road taken by the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), but I thank him for his words of praise about those of us who were members of the Select Committee on Members' Pay. I must confess that I was a very reluctant member of the Committee, because I thought that it was an invidious job for that Committee to have to judge our pay. However, having been appointed a member of the Committee, I attended its deliberations. I greatly appreciated the remarks made—both in Committee and in the House—by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Brown).

    I remind the House of our remit. It is simply
    "Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to give further consideratio a to the desirability and possible method of conducting reviews of Members' salaries by an independent body once during the first Session of each Parliament and of adjusting such salaries during the periods between such reviews by reference to increases in the remuneration of a designated group of outside occupations, and to make recommendations to the House."

    We fulfilled all that was asked of us. We offered the Government the !east that hon. Members would accept. However, that has been turned down. I take a somewhat cynical view of the way in which the Government turned down the Select Committee' s report. Why on earth did the Government set us up in those terms if they were then to reject the very modest measure suggested? The Government's alternative leads me to think—as perhaps I should have thought from the beginning—that no Government will give away the right to say "No" to a pay offer from the review body or to a formula to regulate pay between reviews. There are all sorts of incomes policies—be they written, formal or informal. I have a feeling that all Governments will say that they will ultimately decide how much Members of Parliament should get, because it will affect their standing in the country. Why w as the Select Committee set up if our recommendation was only going to be thrown on one side without something similar, and more positive, in its place? To some extent, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham)—whose contributions I always listened to with great respect in Committee—adopted a romantic view. I have never done so, but I confess co the Leader of the House that I am very disappointed with the result.

    10.42 pm

    I shall briefly refer to three of the motions. However, I should like first to welcome the Leader of the House. I know that this is not the first time that he has spoken in his capacity as Leader of the House, but it must be the first time that he has spoken on a subject that is so deeply personal to hon. Members. It is the baptism by fire that all Leaders of the House have to go through.

    The Leader of the House was unfairly treated in relation to motion No. 5. The right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) said, in a somewhat carping way, that the motion did not come from the 1922 Committee or from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Of course it did not; it came from the Floor of the House. It was mentioned in one of the six previous debates that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. It was clearly said that there was an anomaly if hon. Members could collect a car allowance and pop their children into the back of the car but could not benefit in the same way if travelling by rail. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) mentioned this matter on a previous occasion, because representations had been made to him. [Interruption.] The Chairman of the Conservative Party seems to want to have a debate of his own. I think that the Leader of the House will not mind my saying that the previous Leader of the House thought out the details. Therefore, the present Leader of the House is being unfairly treated for a perfectly sensible and generous gesture.

    There is one feature of Members' secretaries' salaries that has not so far been mentioned. The first van Straubenzee report, as it is familiarly known, said that the proper way to pay our secretaries would be to treat them in exactly the same way as Civil Service secretaries and secretaries of Officers of the House. The unanimous recommendation of that all-party report was that our secretaries should be put on the Exchequer payroll at the same rates of pay as Civil Service secretaries and secretaries of the Officers of the House.

    Some Members pay their secretaries whatever is the appropriate Civil Service rate. Some Members pay more and I regret to say that some probably pay less. Some secretaries work for one Member, while others work for more than one. It is all a mess.

    Secretarial allowances are paid in cash. It would be much better, as has been recommended by a Select Committee, if we like others outside in business had our secretaries paid for by the "company", as it were. Someone who works for ICI and has a secretary does not pay his secretary's salary personally. The company pays and it pays the standard rate. This is the arrangement for Officers of the House, civil servants and Ministers. Why should we not do the same? Nothing has been done by successive Governments to implement the Select Committee's report.

    The Government are making two assumptions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated publicly that the 4 per cent. pay increase this year was negotiable. The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords, the Baroness Young, also said that in her capacity of being in charge of the Civil Service. In the first year of the Government's administration civil servants were given a 26 per cent. pay increase. The increase for Members of Parliament was also quite generous. It was awarded in a year when those in outside industry could only afford about 8 per cent. It was somewhat invidious that central Government should be paying its own staff rather more than those in outside industry could afford to pay its staff in a bad year, but that is what happened.

    When the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Baroness Young said that 4 per cent. this year would be negotiable, they meant, apparently, that, unlike last year's 6 per cent. increase, which was not negotiable, more would be paid if a trade union argued. That is what has happened. Our secretaries do not have a trade union to represent them and nor do Members, and because of that we shall be the only two groups in the country to be subjected to the 4 per cent. increase. It seems that "negotiable" meant that it would be open to people to negotiate with power. In effect, the Government were saying "You cannot expect the Government to be reasonable. If you happen to have a strong trade union at your back, we shall give you more than the 4 per cent. that we offered originally. If you do not have a trade union at your back, you will get only 4 per cent." That is what has happened.

    I hope that everyone will take on board the implications of that policy. I am rather surprised that the Government should wish to convey that impression. It strikes me as rather odd that they should wish to encourage the trade union movement in that way. It is not the normal line of approach that one gathers from certain members of the Government.

    It is clear from motion 7 that we are modest in our claims. The Select Committee is similarly modest. There is at least one democracy, the United States, where by Act of Congress it is stated that no civil servant shall be paid more than a senator or congressman. Some people are. The United States Cabinet is, the Supreme Court is, and various other people are, but the civil service is not, because the United States, as a democracy, makes the assumption that if people have taken the trouble to elect a legislature it is of some importance. In this country we regard the legislature as secondary to not merely Permanent Secretaries but a large chunk of the Civil Service, the Armed Forces, the judiciary, Ministers and so on.

    This is very interesting. I do not know whether it is simply because it is that in London it is possible for people to earn money outside Parliament. It may be that we should have a two-tier structure and say that we should have a higher salary than the people technically subordinate to us if we do not have an outside job. It is much more difficult in Washington to have an outside job because Washington is not New York. One cannot simply go and work in a merchant bank in Washington.

    Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the book of the Common Market. The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) gets a certain sum from the Common Market, which would be reduced if he earned more than a certain amount from an outside source. This is a very legitimate system, which should be encouraged. It may be that we should have an adjustable system of salaries—I do not know. I do not object to people having jobs outside the House of Commons, but if the fact that some people have outside jobs will limit the salary of all the Members of the House of Commons that is wrong and perhaps we should take a leaf from the book of the Common Market in that regard.

    There is another respect in which even the Select Committee was extraordinarily modest. Why on earth should we say that the Top Salaries Review Body should determine this amount once every four years or however often it may be? It is extraordinary. This is an appointed body—the great and the good, chosen by the permanent secretary to the Treasury or the head of the Civil Service or the appropriate Minister, the Leader of the House or the Prime Minister. I should much rather have an appointed body, appointed by somebody else.

    I should rather have a body where nearly half of it, for example, was chosen by the CBI, and an equal number chosen by the TUC, but not by the Government in either case. Perhaps there might be a self-employed person as chairman, or something of that character. Why should we assume that the appropriate body to fix our salaries is a body chosen by the Government of the day. It is improper. It should be chosen by people dissociated from the Government of the day and dissociated from Parliament for that matter.

    When we come to the Government's amendments to the Select Committee's report, I can only say that I am amazed by paragraph (d). According to this, we are eventually supposed to be of the opinion
    "that Her Majesty's Government should instead, in the period between one such review and the next, move annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries and in so doing should be guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups in the Public Service over a relevant period".
    As has already been said, the vagueness of that is incredible. The period must be relevant, the grouping must be appropriate and then there is an average of what is appropriate.

    Do we mean judges? Or do we mean secretaries? What do we mean, because the rates of pay have been vastly different? Do we mean the relevant period of the first year of this Government, when civil servants got a 26 per cent. pay increase, the second year when they got 6 per cent. pay increase, the third year when they were offered a 4 per cent. pay increase and got something approaching 5·9 per cent. or 6·1 per cent. or whatever. The vagueness is incredible. It would be much more appropriate if we got the average of the whole of the people that we represent in this country or something of that character, which was the proposal of the Select Committee, not the average of people in the public service fixed in an arbitrary up and down way by a Government who clearly do not understand their own pay policy. I do not just mean this Government. Previous Governments had extraordinary pay policies as well—I am quite prepared to admit that. I am not making a party point. To say that it should be related to the public service in that way implies that the Civil Service is more important than Members of Parliament. It also implies that the Civil Service is more important than everyone else in the country who may not be getting as much or who may be getting more in a given year. Surely, if we relate it to anything, it should be to the whole country and not just to a section of it.

    10.55 pm

    My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House was both courteous and forthright when he opened the debate. He referred to the debate as a blood sport. It is not a blood sport but ineffective. All the debates that we have had on Members' pay in the seven years that I have been in the House have been ineffective. As the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) said, the reason is that Members of Parliament have not taken control. We are here to control the Government. Although I shall give full-bodied support to my right hon. Friend at the end of this debate, I should prefer to do so wholeheartedly. Now that I have given that assurance, he will probably switch off, as with many other hon. Members, having had only six hours sleep in the past 60 hours.

    My right hon. Friend must consider the future. Hon. Members should ask themselves whether a general practitioner should be elected to the House without a drop in salary. Should the headmaster of a large comprehensive school be elected to the House without a large drop in salary? Should someone such as the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury be able to transfer to the House from the Civil Service, where he had a distinguished career, without a substantial drop in salary, let alone whatever promotion he might have achieved? Should an assistant director of leisure services of a London borough be elected to the House without a substantial drop in salary? I could continue by mentioning a series of jobs in industry and commerce.

    Even with our present salaries, most people who are elected to the House will be earning more, if we take the average earnings in Britain. Here we are on the horns of a dilemma that is normally exposed unintentionally by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who says that more people are trying to enter Parliament than there are places and d that we are paying too much. That is a fractious argument, because one could put a tax of £3,000 a year on a Member of Parliament and end up with 635 candidates. I doubt whether the right hon. Member for Down, South or anyone else would be satisfied with all such people in the House of Commons.

    The test is the one that I put a few moments ago, and I take the general medical practitioner as an example. If a general practitioner were to enter Parliament, he should earn £23,000 a year. That figure is also suitable because I derive it from page xviii of the Select Committee report and the clause proposed by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, which was not approved. If we relate the 1964 figure to average earnings, the present salaries are 44 per cent. too low. To restore its value would mean a 79 per cent. increase.

    Not even Members of Parliament should expect to get the full increase. The big mistake that we have allowed our trade unions to make is to believe that all sections of society can be restored at the same time to their peak level. I shall take off 20 per cent. and instead of increasing Members' pay by 79 per cent. let us increase it by 59 per cent. The pay would then be £23,000 and that figure should be accepted.

    The motions are basically acceptable. There is no dispute that we will and should settle for 4 per cent. this year. In an intervention that my right hon. Friend allowed me to make earlier I made the point which I have made in previous debates that, if we are to take the norm, we should do so at the beginning of the pay round and not at the end.

    As I understand it, there is no great debate about the secretarial allowance. Clearly that will go up by 4 per cent. or whatever the Government figure is. There is no significant argument about that increase, although there are arguments about what the future level should be.

    The hon. Gentleman keeps on making the general assertion that there is no debate. He cannot have listened to the debate that has taken place so far. There has been major debate about why we should not accept 4 per cent. for uplifting Members' salaries and 4 per cent. for the secretarial allowance.

    What I was saying was that there is no doubt about what we will accept. If the right hon. Gentleman was serious about the point he has made. he would have recruited more of his hon. Friends both to be here and to vote. We know that they are not here and that they will not vote. I was here at the beginning of the debate and have been here for two-thirds of it.

    Was the hon. Gentleman here when my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) made his speech?

    No, I was not here for all of it.

    The point I am making is that there is no doubt that the 4 per cent. will and should be accepted and that the Government proposals for the secretarial allowance will also be accepted. The children's travel allowance is of no consequence and provides an option for Members of Parliament. I am all in favour of people having options.

    There is much doubt about the future. But there is no doubt about the Government motion or the Select Committee proposal. It is about whether Members will say what they believe the figure should be. More than that, it is also a question whether the Government will say in a reference to the Top Salaries Review Body what they believe it should be. So far we have allowed the Top Salaries Review Body to do its work and the Government emasculates it. Then the House debates it and normally we are left to confirm what the Government have proposed, or we do something different and the Government ignore US.

    We must be much more open. We must follow my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and, in as courteous a way as possible, be blunt. The Government should be blunt and say what they think the figure should be. The pay of Members of Parliament should be settled in the old Parliament before the beginning of a new one. I do not care very much about what the increases are during a Parliament, but at the beginning of each Parliament the salary should be at such a level that someone in the sort of professions I referred to earlier could become a Member without significant loss of earnings.

    When the hon. Gentleman said that there was no doubt about the 4 per cent., that might have been true when the Government first enunciated it. But the Government have since paid their own secretaries on average 6 per cent.—it is about 4·8 per cent. at the bottom of the scale and rather more at the top of the scale. The point is that it is a lot more than 4 per cent. in any case. Since there is a doubt, imported by the Government into this, because they accepted a reasonable negotiation and put on an extra 2 per cent. in round figures, why should they wish the secretaries of Members of Parliament to be paid 2 per cent. less than their own?

    I am sure my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House can answer that question later. I choose not to.

    The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) said that there was one group who could not speak for themselves—the secretaries. He is not right. There is another group who cannot speak for themselves—the Ministers. The argument that I put forward about Members of Parliament applies equally to Ministers. I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to consider how the interests of Ministers can be considered.

    Instead of just saying "Hear, hear", my right hon. Friend might come up with an answer, not necessarily tonight but for future years. While he is considering Ministers, will he consider London weighting for Members who represent London seats? That is one of the worst anomalies. London weighting for secretaries is not an important issue because the salary that they are paid for working in London presumably has a London weighting element in it, although it is not specified as such.

    With regard to pensions, it is ludicrous, given the average age at which people come into the House, and the disturbance to alternative careers that they might have to return to if they leave after 5 or 10 years or after 15 or 20 years, for them to be treated as if they were a civil servant or even an ordinary employee in industry, who expects to get half his salary after 40 years or two-thirds after 40 years. It is also wrong to expect Members of Parliament to wait until they are 60 or 65 to draw a pension.

    I hope that the Government will make sure that the House gets the opportunity of putting forward its view. The Government can put forward their view, and if necessary present it to a review body. Let the Government be as plain and blunt as I am. I am giving them my support. I hope that they will support my suggestions.

    11.6 pm

    I am concerned not about our current pay and allowances, but about another matter. I agree with the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann). The real answer to the question is that the House should determine its own pay and have the guts to recognise that we have underpaid ourselves for many years and get it right. However, we are right to say that we do not have the guts to do that. Therefore, we look for palliatives and other alternatives.

    The reason why we do not have the guts to do that is shown best by the speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). He has got to the stage where, if the Government say something, he must do as the Government tell him. If he has got to that stage so early in his career in the House, we know exactly why we are in this mess.

    I prefer the churlishness of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). I would go with him into any Lobby, because it is clear that he thinks about what he will do before he votes. He does not just do what the Leader of the House tells him.

    As long as we are in this situation we shall not be paid the salary that we should receive. The sum of £14,000 for a Member of Parliament is ridiculous. Members of Parliament in Botswana are better paid than we are, even though it is among the 25 poorest countries in the world. We are the seventeenth richest country in the world, yet we dare not pay ourselves a decent salary.

    I pass from that point, because for the moment my perception is that our most important need is not to deal with current salary and allowances, but to recognise that the status of Members of Parliament has so changed that any of us who leave this place after the age of 40 are unlikely to work again for a long time, and may never work again.

    At the general election, 45 Labour Members of Parliament lost their seats. At least 12 had to apply for help to the Parliamentary Labour Party benevolent fund, which is about as low as one can get. Eight of them went on asking for help for a considerable time. I know that four of them have not worked since the election and there may be more.

    I know from my experience that many ex-Labour Members of Parliament have taken jobs that were non-jobs. One is going round trying to sell Labour Weekly. Another man, in 1970, went back to his post as a printer in Fleet Street but was not allowed to become a printer. He was left to sweep the floor.

    It used to be the case that to enter the House was to achieve a status which, when one left, meant that one could always command a job. I suppose that the majority of Conservative Members can still do so, although, as I understand it, it is not so easy now. It is manifestly much more difficult for a great many of my hon. Friends.

    The most important thing that the House has to recognise is that when we come here we seriously damage our job prospects. Not only do we take cuts in salary but we lose chances of promotion. If I had stayed out of the House, I should probably have been a judge. As a judge, the Government would be giving me a rise of 18 per cent., even though they recognise that after 15 years, however old I was, I should receive a full pension and not a mere forty-sixtieths. Yet the Government think that it is necessary to pay judges 18 per cent. in order to maintain recruitment.

    I believe that we are worth more than that. We are worth a decent pension when we reach the age of 65. We have to recognise the fact that when we leave the House—especially if we leave it as a result of an electoral whim—we may not be able to earn a decent living. We owe it not only to ourselves but to our families to ensure that some kind of assurance is given for that time. What that assurance should be is a matter for discussion.

    I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that you did not select my amendment, which would have allowed us to put to the vote the general principle, but I recognise that the amendment, as I tabled it, has some defects. It should be possible to devise a pension scheme that applies for as long as ex-Members remain unemployed. If that unemployment continues until the end of their working lives, they should be paid a pension until then.

    If that is difficult to construct I suggest that there should be a pension after a period of at least two Parliaments. I should be willing to say one Parliament, because many of the hon. Members who lose their seats have been in the House for only one Parliament, having been elected to marginal seats. There might of course be difficulties about that. As a result of a by-election, a Liverpool Member entered the House the day before a general election. Had he lost the seat the following day under such a scheme he might have left with a pension for life, but there are ways of overcoming that difficulty.

    I have looked for precedents. Researches in the House have not shown me alternatives elsewhere, but some of my hon. Friends who have wide experience of Europe tell me that in Holland and Germany there are precedents for people receiving a pension for a period. Even in this country there are the judges, to whom I have referred, policemen and many people in the public service who receive a pension at an age lower than the retirement age.

    We should recognise that our job is so unique, and our job prospects when we leave here so difficult, that we should have that assurance. I am glad that the Leader of the House said that the Top Salaries Review Body would look at the matter. When it does, I hope that it will consider seriously what should be done to deal with this difficulty.

    There is the interesting example, which the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) has not given, of a field marshal. That is a unique distinction to achieve and he retires on full Service pay for the rest of his life, on the basis of the principle that he is not expected to do any other work. It is worth putting that into the maelstrom of the interesting and important remarks of the hon. Member for York.

    There are other examples. There is the Lord Chancellor. I was too sensitive to mention Mr. Speaker.

    I am sorry that I have been misled. However, the principle is perfectly clear. What worries me is that colleagues who have had the status of a Member of Parliament, whom we regard in this House as hon. Members and who have given of their lives to the House of Commons and the service of their country, should go on to what is virtually an unemployment job heap, and not be given the opportunity of some kind of assurance.

    I wonder whether it would be possible for the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) and the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) to get together and arrange a coalition with those of us who are over 60? When one reaches 60, one has one's pension, it is reduced, and it is difficult, but normally one's family has grown up. My hon. Friend the Member for York is right when he says that many people leave this House at the age of 40 or 45 and never have another chance of employment. Perhaps those of us who are over 60 should form a coalition and vote something down when the next chance occurs.

    I would prefer it if not only the chairmen of the respected parliamentary parties formed a coalition but if Members of the House did so. If we voted, we could put that lot in their place. the reason why we do not vote was given by the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. I only wish that we had the chance to vote tonight.

    Perhaps I might correct the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) spoke about a field marshal retiring. I remind the House that a field marshal never retires. He continues on active Service pay.

    11.16 pm

    I should like to take up the theme of the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham), whom I used to refer to as my hon. Friend. He said something that must strike a chord in the hearts of all those who normally take part in these debates. One sees the same team batting, from both sides. The hon. Member said. "Here we go again", and that when we come round again, whatever the review body decides, we shall be back at square one, because Members of Parliament lack the courage to do what they know should be done. I entirely agree with the hon. Member.

    I came here in 1964. It has been said today that we should know when we come here what the salary is likely to be. On that occasion—for the first time, as far as I know in the history of paid parliamentarians, which goes back to 1911; I have never believed in the hair shirt philosophy that Members of Parliament should not have reasonable or above-average salaries—it was decided that the salary was to be the figure set by Lloyd George in 1911. In 1963, when Lord Home was the Prime Minister, he and the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), because the salaries of Members of Parliament had not been increased for six years since 1957, and to save party rancour and stop hon. Members from standing up and saying that we need to set an example, it was agreed that, for the first time, our salaries would be taken out of parliamentary hands and be given to Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, Q.C. We knew that, at the beginning of the new Parliament in 1964, Members of Parliament would get a salary increase. It was almost double. It had to be, because the salary was £1,750. That is what Members got in 1964. For Back Benchers it went to £3,250. However, again, it was fudged. The Labour Party, which was in power, decided to make a grand gesture in respect of Ministers' salaries. Actually, there was a delay of six months, deferring to what we call the pension lobby, before Cabinet Ministers and junior Ministers got their salary increases.

    But Back-Bench Members of Parliament picked up the £3,250. Another seven years went by. Our late colleague, Charles Pannell—Lord Pannell as he subsequently became—in coalition with my noble Friend Lord Houghton, tabled a Private Member's Bill. The then Leader of the House persuaded them to withdraw the Bill and said that we would once and for all stop the fudging and mudging and introduce the Top Salaries Review Body. It was a sensitive issue for Members—I believed that we could deal with it—to be determining our own salaries during periods of wage restraint, and so on.

    Every time that Parliament has dealt with the matter—the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury is right—the Government have interfered. The Government, with the power of the payroll vote and party loyalty, which we all recognise, manage to get their way and substantially to interfere with what we have given to an outside body to do because we are frightened to do it ourselves. Unless we grasp the nettle, that interference will continue.

    None of the suggested remedies will work. They have all been tried before. The right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) said—I intervened in his speech to point out an obvious contradiction—that he favoured letting Members know their salaries in advance. We cannot determine the last year of Parliament because that is within the gift of the Prime Minister. It could be at the end of this year. No one can say. Everyone knows that Government's seize what they consider to be the best moment to go to the country to enhance their own prospects. They would be barmy not to do so. We do not know when the Government will go to the country. My belief is that it will be next year.

    Let us assume that one could declare what the salary will be for Members. The Government can rightly say that they are getting inflation down to single figures, which is what it was when they came into office, but in a period of rapid inflation, unless we adjust by some mechanism, preferably annually, the last agreement suggested for Members, we shall again have an enormous gap and Governments will fudge the issue once more. For instance, they fudged it when the Prime Minister suggested on the last increase that we should have the increase spread over three years. Due to some pressure through what is known as the usual channels the Government were gracious and said that we could have half the increase, with two quarters later on and have the adjustments in between.

    I believe there is only one way to tackle this issue. We must go for linkage. The House freely voted on linkage. That linked figure has got so far out of sight that nobody, not even the most independent minded man with no fear of any consequences from his electors, would say that we should get to that figure now, because that increase would be £7,000 or £8,000. We cannot have that. That is the problem we shall face. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) followed on the theme that the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury set when he last spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, that we should not compare ourselves with the Clerk of the House, although he effectively demolished the argument about uniqueness. He went through the list. He got down to a low position in the strata of Clerks. They have plenty to aim at. They are not subject to reselection. They do not face the vagaries of Government policies. They have little explaining to do. I say this respectfully because I want to keep them on my side. If anyone needs help, it is the hon. Member for Ince. They have a good job, but when the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury read down the list, I was staggered at the low level with which we could be compared. I do not know how things have changed since then, but it has obviously altered in our disfavour.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Openshaw was searching for a comparison. I am a working class Member of Parliament sponsored by the miners. The miners have a saying "Leave it to the brusher up". When my right hon. Friend next tries to compare the scales, we shall probably be with the brusher-up unless we grasp the nettle. That is how far we shall slip, because we cannot restore our position at one fell swoop as electorally the consequences would be disastrous.

    I said earlier that we do not give ourselves a proper increase because we wish to set an example. No one has ever yet said to me in an election or elsewhere "You lads are setting a wonderful example". There is a pending factory closure in my constituency with a severe reduction in employment. Obviously it is not the most convenient time to broach the subject of pay guidelines. However, on a previous occasion when another factory did close, the guidelines were broached because at that time there was much publicity about Members getting a relatively modest increase to catch up, although in percentage terms it looked a lot more than the norm that was set by the then Labour Government.

    One man challenged me in homely terms. He said "You are feathering your own nest while you are down there instead of fighting for us". Another colleague was with me who represented the Left-wing view of the party, but I dealt with the man's challenge and afterwards he asked "Is that all you fellows are on?" Even when I told him what we would get what was then regarded as a substantial increase, he did not believe me but said "Pull the other leg, Michael".

    The point is that no one takes a blind bit of notice of our sacrifices and examples. Anyone worth his salt knows that. People already think that we are getting three times more than we are. It is not that the public wants our salaries to be pitched at about £11,000, £12,000 or £13,000. It is simply that people do not believe the salary that we now receive.

    Does not my hon. Friend agree that the right way to get rid of this so-called adverse publicity, which always seems to frighten us, would be to tie ourselves to the pay of Fleet Street editors, because then it would never be mentioned?

    My hon. Friend made a telling contribution on severance pay and the hazards of life that hon. Members now face. He has now dealt even more eloquently with this nonsense about our pay. The question of Fleet Street pay and the publicity given to Members' increase was effectively dealt with by Bill Price, a former Member of the House. I think that he was a former journalist, and he effectively demolished that argument.

    No one notices the sacrifices that we make. People could not care less. In fact, the general reaction seems to be "If you are daft enough, keep on doing it but it ain't going to stop me from going for what my union feels is a proper increase".

    I was once a member of the NUM. I stood unsuccessfully against Joe Gormley in 1961 for the secretaryship of the Lancashire miners. I can say truthfully, but perhaps a little immodestly, that had I kept on I would have succeeded Joe in that job and I would be enjoying far better conditions and pay, without the hazards of reselection. Even the unions that indulge in reselection have a fall-back clause whereby, once one has tested the temperature twice, one does not have to do so again. I agree with that. There is some sense in it. They do not unremittingly demand reselection. If one has gone a few times and reached a given age, one can continue in the job.

    We believe, sometimes more on these Benches than on the Government side, that the unions are looking at Members' pay with envy and malice. Most members of unions feel that if we cannot fight for ourselves we cannot fight effectively for anyone else. I agree with that. A short time ago, my union, under the leadership of Joe Gormley, said that they must cease their hair shirt philosophy, and put the pay of officials equal to managers of the NCB. They did not believe that their resolution and resolve would be strong enough to improve the pay and conditions of their members if they treated themselves poorly. Joe Gormley said that they should be aiming for the top. The matter got through with little discussion. The members who attend meetings say to themselves "I have a chance to get up there and if he is making a reasonable job for me, all the better." Miners' officials therefore allied themselves with the top Coal Board officials, but not with the chairman—even the members would find that a little difficult to swallow. Nevertheless, they have a reasonable salary structure that does not depend on a hair shirt philosophy. It certainly does not depend on a balmy notion of setting an example upon which we seem to place too much faith.

    What should be our attitude towards pensions? My hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) touched upon the matter. Many hon. Members know that I am a Member of the Council of Europe. After a committee there one day, the chairman paid tribute to a German colleague. He announced that the report in question was the last one that would be produced by our distinguished German colleague. I had been on the committee only about 24 months.

    Later, when my colleague and I were in the cloakroom washing our hands, I said that I understood that it was his last report and that I had enjoyed the others. Like so many Germans, this chap spoke faultless English. He said, "Thank you very much, Michael. Yes, I am packing up." I said, "Are you packing up because you have not been put on the list, because you are not to be reselected, or are you just packing up?" He said that he was 57 and had been in the German Parliament for rather a long time.

    My German colleague had not been a member as long as me, but I did not have the shame to tell him so. He said that he had been a member for 15 years, that he would never make the front bench and was content to be a good back bencher. I asked him whether he could get a pension.

    He said that conditions were reasonable and that he could get one. I said "I am interested in the subject. Can you tell me how reasonable they are?" "Well", he said, "with my years of service"—he thought that it was an exceptionally long time—"I will qualify for 75 per cent. of my salary." His salary was light years ahead of ours. But I shall leave that aside for the moment: as my point concerns the percentage of salary that my colleague there received as pension. In addition to the 75 per cent., to ease him back into civilian life, he said that he would receive a full salary for three years. No doubt that was to soften the blow. I said that it sounded very good. My hon. Friend the Member for York said that he would like some pension arrangement to take effect after one Parliarnent and he gave the reasons for so thinking. I came here rather early from a mining area at the age of 38. The idea of having to go to 68 to get half pay makes me extremely angry. The pension scheme should be structured for hon. Members who come here at an average age of about 3.5. The system should not be based on a pension scheme which a person joins at age 18 or 20 or as a graduate of 23. It should be structured to the fact that the average age at which a person becomes an MP is about 35 to 40.

    Dutch Members of Parliament have a salary far in excess of ours, but I am talking about the principle. After serving four years in the Dutch Parliament, if a person does not get a job, in the first year out he receives 90 per cent. of the parliamentary salary, from which a pension deduction is taken. At the end of four years, if he has still not acquired a job, he will receive about 75 per cent, of full salary. Since four years' pension contributions have been deducted from that salary, he qualifies for eight years' pension rights. That is sufficient to provide him with about one-third of his salary and such an arrangement would cover the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for York.

    One calculation will appeal to hon. Members. We discuss this matter only once a year, so I hope that hon. Members will not be too fidgety if I take longer than 10 minutes. Hon. Members have received a document containing comparative wealth figures for Common Market countries. The top of the tree for purchasing power is Luxembourg with a figure of 120. The German figure is 116. France, Holland and the Benelux countries are ahead of us. The figure for Great Britain is 96. Greece is at the bottom of the scale. Just above Greece, with a figure of 76, is the Republic of Ireland.

    Irish Member; are troubled about how to settle their pay. The right hon. Member for Taunton made a joke about the Irish. The only people one can now insult racially are the poor old Irish. I happen to be Irish. I take great exception to such insults. Spleen is vented upon us because people cannot comment upon other races. Irish jokes are a standby for comics, and sometimes for hon. Members. The right hon. Gentleman talked about a mad Irish logic. I wish that we had some of that here because the Irish have dealt with the matter sensibly. They have asked an outside body to decide the proper rate of pay for Members of Parliament and nationalised industries.

    With their mad Irish logic, they have said that the Government should not interfere but that there should be a self-denying ordinance on the cowboys who, for political advantage if elections are near, want to say that they voted against such a move and that they spoke for the nurses, doctors or any other currently popular group. All the Government are required to do is to put the proposals to the House. No debate is required. I am talking of a country which is second to the bottom of the scale in terms of prosperity, cost of living and purchasing power in the Community. The Irish pension scheme is based on fortieths. Thus, if a man serves 27 years in the Dail he receives 27-fortieths, and he cannot contribute any more. Moreover, he can draw that pension, I think that this meets one of the points raised here today. If he has served for 10 years and is over the age of 50, he leaves with those years of accrued service and pension. That is why I say that if we could have a little more mad Irish logic on this we might do a lot better.

    We might even have a little mad English logic. What we have tried in the past has not worked, for the simple reason that when Members of Parliament face the reality of doing what they know in their hearts is right, we fudge it and run away and then blame the Government when we know in our hearts that we should be blaming ourselves.

    I hope that the Leader of the House will take on board the fact that hardly anyone who has spoken in the debate has welcomed the proposals. There was some comment about welcoming the children's transport facilities, allowing them the same number of tickets. That might have been of use to me a few years ago, but my youngest is now 18. Nevertheless, if hon. Members feel that it is of value, I shall not vote against it. The Leader of the House should take on board the fact that nobody has welcomed the proposals in general. I believe that there is a deep reluctance to accept them. We know that we have sold the pass yet again and that the 4 per cent. is an insult.

    I hope that the Leader of the House will take the mood of the House and will quickly ensure that instructions are given to the review body and that they reflect the mood of the House. We want substantial alterations in the pension arrangements. We must have a better system for the rate at which pension rights can be accrued. At present, a person who has served 30 or 40 years has to wait until the age of 65, although I understand that if he has 25 years service and is 62 years old he can surrender a little and go out. The arrangements must be brought into line with those prevailing in most Western democratic Parliaments.

    Further, I hope that the Leader of the House will give instructions that the question of linkage be examined, as it is the only remedy. Otherwise, as has been said, we shall face this problem time and again and we shall fudge it time and again.

    11.42 pm

    There has been much talk about lack of guts and courage, the cowardliness of Members of Parliament, and so on, but no mention has been made of the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no debate on this matter ever takes place in prime time. It is always late in the day, preferably after 10 o'clock at night, although we had something of a reprieve today in that we began at eight o'clock, so it is usually too late for the press and the public to hear the debate. I suppose that it is rather cowardly, really.

    The hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) and my Independent hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) reached roughly the same conclusion about what we should pay ourselves. The hon. Member for Woolwich, West achieved this by discounting a little—in my view, unfairly.

    While all this was going on, I had time to do a little calculation. When David Lloyd George introduced the first payment for Members in 1912, Members of Parliament were paid £400 per year. At that time, the old-age pension was five shillings per week for a single person and the average wage was £75 per year. The average wage today is £7,500 per year, so it has increased 100 times, and the old-age pension has increased by more than that. On that basis, the salary of a Member of Parliament should be £40,000 per year. That might well be the correct figure, but, however brave we might be, I do not think that any of us would suggest that our pay should be raised to that level. Perhaps we should therefore try to aim eventually for the discounted figure suggested by the hon. Member for Woolwich, West.

    Frankly, I do not believe that that gap will be bridged at all. Here we are meekly listening to the Leader of the House suggesting 4 per cent. Some hon. Members are bravely suggesting 6 per cent. That is a difference of 2 per cent.—less tax, of course. We will sneak out like thieves in the night, hoping that the press and the country have not heard us, because some might say that we do not deserve a decent rate of pay.

    I do not think that that is true. The work load has gathered enormously in importance and in the effort that it requires since Lloyd George's day. We have to be welfare officers as well, which Members of Parliament never were at that time. Our days are much fuller, and our work is much harder.

    In the light of that, I do not understand why there should be such an objection to getting some other body to decide the matter for us. We have not the guts to do it ourselves. We all accept that we are underpaid. Why on earth do we not let some other body do the work for us?

    Several precedents have been given us. I did not know about the Republic of Ireland, but I did know about Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the United States of America. I take the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) that Congress has a splendid resolution saying that no civil servant may be paid more than a member of Congress. That is the way to get a high salary for a Member of Parliament. The civil servants will then ensure that we are paid properly.

    Let us have an automatic linkage and work it out properly. There are the beginnings of that in the Select Committee report, although it does not go as far as I would have liked. It certainly did a great deal of work, and rather more speedily than the Government either knew or wished. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas), the Chairman, and his Committee on having produced it so rapidly and opportunely.

    In the light of a long debate, I think it wise to concentrate on just a couple of items. All the rest have been dealt with strongly. Those items on which I shall concentrate have not really had their full measure of discussion. The first is the question of secretaries' pay and inner London weighting.

    The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) asked for an explanation of annual London weighting allowance of £1,016 for secretaries. Incidentally, that figure is now out of date. I gather that it should be £1,142, based on the London weighting for secretaries in the Civil Service who work alongside our secretaries in the House. It applies to anyone who works in the Inner London area. It is as simple as that.

    There is a distinction between a secretary who works in Inner London and one who works in the provinces. There are hon. Members who represent constituencies in the provinces and who have secretaries there. Of course, the cost of living is more in London. We have all accepted that. We accepted it for ourselves. There is nothing unusual about that.

    Hon. Members who do not have London constituences but who live in London and have no other residence do not get a London weighting.

    That is perfectly true, but on the other hand they get allowances that London Members do not get, as the right hon. Gentleman knows.

    The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. Those hon. Members in the circumstances that I have just described do not get any allowance whatever.

    I stand corrected. I am astonished. I thought that London Members did rather worse than provincial Members. Perhaps the Leader of the House can enlighten us on this, I see that he remains seated. I thought that he, as the Leader of the House and a provincial Member must know. Perhaps we can compromise the issue. I do not want to take up too much time.

    If the Inner London allowance is paid to London Members, it strengthens the case for a large Inner London allowance for provincial Members. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) will begin to press for that. I am astonished that he has not tabled an amendment on that.

    My silence was intended to be a mercy to the House. I should explain that I am certain that the circumstances of my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) are quite different from mine, as a Member of Parliament for a rural area and as an office holder. However, I think that I fully understand my right hon. Friend's point.

    The right hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) has had his fun, but next time he should table an amendment. He should speak on it in the relevant context. We are discussing, not payments to hon. Members, but payments to secretaries. We are discussing why they should receive Inner London weighting. They work alongside secretaries who receive Inner London weighting. Inner London weighting is not unusual. Let us consider the allowance. We have an extraordinary idea of what a top salary is. Can it be that £14,000 is a top salary? That is our salary and it is subject to the Review body on Top Salaries. We have a most extraordinary idea of a top salary.

    We must do something about our secretaries. As the Leader of the House said, the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his secretary is an important, personal political relationship. However, it is a financial relationship in which the secretary gives of her time and career so that she can assist the Member of Parliament. It is not right that secretaries should have to take what little there is available. If, as the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) said, we were paid sufficiently, we could pay our secretaries out of that amount. No doubt that was true in David Lloyd George's day. However, the modern equivalent of £400 in 1912 is £40,000 a year. 1 would willingly make that exchange.

    We have not debated the subject of severance payments in detail, but I shall spend three minutes on it. Any hon. Member who leaves the House can get a severance payment, subject to age and length of service, ranging from six to 12 months. However, the conditions vary slightly. For example, if one's constituency disappears in a major boundary redistribution one becomes eligible. the difference between a major and a minor redistribution might be only two constituents. If an hon. Member is defeated in an election he is also eligible. However, any hon. Member can make himself eligible, even if there is no major redistribution and even if he does not contest his seat. He need put down a deposit of only £150 in any constituency. He need take no part in the election, but he is then entitled. 1 am over 50—although hon. Members may not have guessed it—and have been a Member of Parliament for more than 15 years, although hon. Members will be unaware of that fact. Therefore I am entitled to a year's severance pay. I need only contest a constituency such as Oswestry at the next election to get a year's severance pay. How ridiculous.

    In other words, the House has said that if an hon. Member wants to get his severance pay he can do so. Why not say that every hon. Member—whether he retires, is defeated or is the victim of a boundary redistribution—should receive severance pay on the scale laid down. It is not a generous scale. If we slightly amended the Congress resolution and provided that no civil servant may do better in any way than a Member of Parliament, there would be a great difference. Civil servants do extremely well in comparison with us when it comes to retirement pensions.

    I conclude by saying that I think that there are three issues on which Me House should divide. These issues are the percentage increase for Members of Parliament—I believe that it should be 6 per cent. and not 4 per cent.—the secretarial allowance and severance pay. There will be free votes, of course, and I cannot bind anyone. I do not wish to do so.

    This has been a fairly lengthy debate, although not particularly so by the standard of debates on this subject. The debate has had its nuances and changes of mood. It was much enlivened in its later stages by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire), who must have been inspired by the consideration of the Northern Ireland Bill. The hon. Gentleman brought to our proceedings an encyclopaedic consideration of our problems, which added to the charm and compelling nature of his case. Alas, I cannot accept his arguments on linkage.

    The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) said that this was a baptism of fire for me, and that is probably true. Given that there is real diffidence about considering these matters in the House, the debate has proceeded in a good, measured and constructive fashion. For all our allegations of cowardice and almost total reluctance to address ourselves to these great issues on pay, it seems that we overcame our inhibitions. In doing so we were immensely assisted by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas) and by all those who served with him on the Select Committee.

    It is proposed in the motion that Members' pay and the secretarial allowances should increase by 4 per cent., which reflects the pay factor in the Estimates. This has not been universally welcomed in the House, but I was reinforced by the support that I received from my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann). I note that the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) intends to divide the House on Members' pay. The increase of 4 per cent. is a value-judgment figure. It is somewhat less than generous, but it is defensible.

    Is there a group of workers covered by the Estimates which has been offered 4 per cent. and accepted it?

    There is not. If I had had such evidence, I should have used it.

    The proposals for the secretarial allowance have given rise to a sharp feeling of anxiety. I take note of the speeches of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) and of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley). I accept that there is concern about the comparison to be drawn between what happens to those who are employed in the Civil Service and work alongside secretaries employed by Members and what happens to Members' secretaries themselves. The differences in terms and conditions give rise to problems. That is why it is important that the review body should have an early remit to consider the allowances. In that context, I also took note of the argument put forward by the hon. Members for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) and for Nottingham, West, that not only the sums, but the way in which the sums are paid are matters for consideration by that body.

    The debate has also ranged widely on matters other than pay. Perhaps the most significant single topic that featured in the speeches was that of pensions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton has made his views on this subject clear on many occasions. I am sure that the House was pleased to have those views reinforced this evening. He again marched in step with the right hon. Member for Openshaw.

    The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) made a particularly effective and poignant speech, in which he referred to some of the difficulties faced by our colleagues after their defeat at the last election. I sense that this is something on which feelings in the House are not only strong, but are rising. Although the TSRB has recently examined pensions, it is appropriate that this should again be one of its early considerations.

    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Brown) made a powerful speech on the problems of severance. The matter was also mentioned by the right hon. Member for Deptford. Although I sound as though I am passing the ball down the line, it is a fact that no really effective judgments can be made on these matters until we have the measured judgment of the TSRB. The important thing is to have these matters remitted to it as speedily as possible so that it can begin its work this autumn.

    Needless to say, during the debate the question of the general level of Members' pay was raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) made a distinguished speech. It was the only one that supported my position, and I am extremely grateful to him for so doing. He said that the absolute level of Members' pay was unacceptably low, and he hoped a remedy would soon be found. I enjoyed his powerful contribution.

    The item that formed the core of the debate, notwithstanding the importance of the 4 per cent. issue was the report of the Select Committee. I welcomed the words of the right hon Member for Deptford on the importance of the TSRB. One or two previous remarks by his hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett), could at least bear the interpretation of his being somewhat less than enthusiastic about it.

    We shall not proceed to a more settled consideration of these matters unless the review body has the fullhearted support and confidence of the House. Central to the recommendations of the Select Committee is the role of the review body.

    That sticks in the craw of many of us a great deal. Apart from the fact that Governments have on many occasions rejected the recommendations of the Committee, in this Parliament the Prime Minister gave a promise to the review body that the Government would implement what it next recommended. She went back on that promise, and the right hon. Member voted in the Cabinet to support her.

    If the hon. Gentleman feels that there has been a deplorable standard of conduct by successive Governments in respect of the review body, I only hope that at this hour he will feel sufficiently uplifted by my charitable comments about the body to take encouragement and not repudiate me as though I were here to perform a cynical exercise.

    As to the work of the Select Committee and the Government's reaction to it, I understand that the authors of the report are rather disappointed that it has not been accepted in full by the Government, but I doubt whether the Government's reaction merits some of the language used in the debate. The hon. Member for Provan said that the Government's reaction was a "slap in the face" to the Select Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Sir W. Clegg) said that the Government's reaction was "cynical". My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) said that he was unwilling to trust the Government—I do not mean that in the harsh sense—in the light of their past behaviour.

    The difficulty has been the Government's reaction to the choice of comparator for the linkage and whether the figure produced by the comparator should be automatic or should come to the House for authority. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South, the Chairman of the Committee, said that the House could not abandon its ultimate responsibility for determining Members' salaries. Are the Government entitled to say "We accept the principle of linkage, although we have a different comparator from the new earnings survey, but we believe that it would be unwise to establish the precedent of automatic pay increases during a four-year period where the House did not have the responsibility or was not required to make a judgment on those matters."

    The comparator of the new earnings survey is not the most satisfactory. I gave some reasons for that in my opening speech. I inquired about the percentage change in earnings within the lifetime of this Parliament. The new earnings survey comes up with a figure of plus 53 per cent., against average earnings of plus 36 per cent. If that was believed to be the means whereby an automatic pay increase would be secured, the position would be politically embarassing and would demonstrate the wisdom of having another comparator and of the House being entitled to have a view on the matter.

    For those reasons, I ask my hon. Friends to support the Government's adjustments to the Select Commitee report, because I believe that that is the best way in which to proceed.

    Question put, That the amendment be made:—

    The House divided: Ayes 41, Noes 136.

    Division No. 201]

    [12.09 am

    AYES

    Atkinson,N. (H'gey,)McDonald,DrOonagh
    Bagier,Gordon A.T.McGuire,Michael(Ince)
    Benn, Rt Hon TonyMcKay, Allen (Penistone)
    Booth, Rt Hon AlbertMcNamara,Kevin
    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)Mitchell,Austin(Grimstone)
    Campbell-Savours,DaleMorris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
    Carter-Jones, LewisMorris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)
    Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)Price, C. (Lewisham W)
    Cohen,StanleySheldon, Rt Hon R.
    Cook, Robin F.Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)
    Cowans, HarrySnape, Peter
    Crowther,StanSoley,Clive
    Cunningham,G. (Islington S)Spearing,Nigel
    Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)Stoddart,David
    Davis, Terry (B'ham, Stechf'd)Straw,Jack
    Dormand, JackWalker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)
    Evans, John (Newton)Whitehead, Phillip
    Foster, DerekWoolmer,Kenneth
    Garrett, John (Norwich S)
    Harrison, Rt Hon WalterTellers for the Ayes:
    HomeRobertson,JohnMr. Michael English and
    Howells,GeraintMr. Frank Hooley.
    Lyon,Alexander(York)

    NOES

    Alison, Rt Hon MichaelFraser, Peter (South Angus)
    Ancram,MichaelGarel-Jones,Tristan
    Baker, Kenneth (St.M'bone)Glyn,Dr Alan
    Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)Goodhew,SirVictor
    Beaumont-Dark, AnthonyGoodlad, Alastair
    Berry, Hon AnthonyGreenway, Harry
    Best, KeithGriffiths, E.(B'ySt, Edm'ds)
    Biffen, Rt Hon JohnHamilton, Hon A.
    Blaker,PeterHamilton,Michael (Salisbury)
    Boscawen,Hon RobertHampson,DrKeith
    Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
    Boyson,Dr RhodesHawkins,Paul
    Brittan,Rt. Hon. LeonHayhoe, Barney
    Brooke, Hon PeterHeseltine, Rt Hon Michael
    Bruce-Gardyne,JohnHiggins, Rt Hon Terence L.
    Bryan, Sir PaulHogg,HonDouglas(Gr'th'm)
    Buchanan-Smith, Rt. Hon. A.Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
    Buck,AntonyHowell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldf'd)
    Butcher,JohnHurd, Rt Hon Douglas
    Cadbury,JocelynJenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
    Carlisle,Kenneth (Lincoln)Jopling,Rt Hon Michael
    Chalker, Mrs. LyndaJoseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
    Channon, Rt. Hon. PaulKing, Rt Hon Tom
    Chapman,SydneyLamont,Norman
    Clark, Sir W.(Croydon S)Lang, Ian
    Clarke,Kenneth (Rushcliffe)Lawrence, Ivan
    Clegg, Sir WalterLawson, Rt Hon Nigel
    Cope,JohnLee, John
    du Cann, Rt Hon EdwardLyell,Nicholas
    Dunn,Robert(Dartford)Macfarlane,Neil
    Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)MacGregor,John
    Eggar,TimMcNair-Wilson,M.(N'bury)
    Eyre,ReginaldMajor,John
    Fenner, Mrs PeggyMarlow,Antony
    Finsberg,GeoffreyMarten, Rt Hon Neil
    Fletcher,A (Ed'nb'gh N)Mather,Carol
    Fletcher-Cooke,SirCharlesMayhew,Patrick
    Forman,NigelMellor,David
    Fowler, Rt Hon NormanMiller,Hal(B'grove)

    Mills,Iain(Merdien)Sims, Roger
    Miscampbell,NormanSkinner,Dennis
    Milchell,David(Basingstoke)Stewart, A. (E Renfrewshire)
    Moate, RogerStewart, Ian (Hitchin)
    Moore,JohnStradlingThomas,J.
    Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman
    Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)Thomas, Rt Hon Peter
    Myles, DavidThompson,Donald
    Nelson,AnthonyThornton,Malcolm
    Newton,TonyTownend, John (Bridlington)
    Onslow,CranleyTrippier,David
    Page, Richard (SW Herts)Vaughan, Dr Gerard
    Parkinson, Rt Hon CecilViggers, Peter
    Patten,John(Oxford)Waddington,David
    Pawsey, JamesWakeham,John
    Percival,Sir IanWaldegrave,Hon William
    Pollock,AlexanderWalker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)
    Raison, Rt Hon TimothyWaller, Gary
    Rathbone,TimWard,John
    Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)Warren,Kenneth
    Rees-Davies, W. R.Wells, Bowen
    Rhys Williams,Sir BrandonWhitelaw,Rt Hon William
    Ridley,Hon NicholasWiggin,Jerry
    Rifkind, MalcolmWinterton,Nicholas
    Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)Wolfson,Mark
    Roberts, Wyn (Conway)Young, SirGeorge(Action)
    Rossi, HughYounger, Rt Hon George
    Sainsbury,Hon Timothy
    Shaw,Michael(Scarborough)Tellers for the Noes:
    Shelton,William(Streatham)Mr. David Hunt and
    Silvester, FredMr. Selwyn Gummer.

    Question accordingly negatived.

    Main Question put and agreed to.

    Resolved,

    That, in the opinion of this House, the salaries payable to Members of this House in respect of service on and after 13th June 1982 should be at the following yearly rates—
  • (1) £14,510 for Members not falling within paragraph (2); and
  • (2) £8,460 for Officers of this House and Members receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972.—[Mr. Biffen.]
  • Members' Salaries

    Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

    Resolved,

    That the salaries payable to Members of this House in respect of service on and after 13th June 1982 should be at the following yearly rates—
  • (1) £14,510 for Members not falling within paragraph (2); and
  • (2) £8,460 for Officers of this House and Members receiving a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 11975 or a pension under section 26 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972.—[Mr. Biffen.]
  • Members' Office, Secretarial Andresearch Allowance

    Motion made, and Question proposed,

    That, in the opinion of this House, the limits specified in the Resolution of this House of 5th June 1981 in relation to the allowances payable in connection with a Member's office, secretarial and research expenses should be raised so as to make the limits—
  • (a) in paragraph (a) of the Resolution (allowance in respect of aggregate amount of general office expenses and expenses on secretarial and research assistance), £8,752 for the year ending 31st March 1983 and £8,820 for any subsequent year; and
  • (b) in paragraph (b) of that Resolution (provision for enabling a Member to make pension contributions in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries expenses are incurred by him), £875 for the year ending 31st March 1983 and £882 for any subsequent year.—[Mr. Biffen.]
  • Amendment proposed: (a), to leave out '£8,752' and insert '£9,022'.— [Mr. John Silkin.]

    Question put, That the amendment be made:—

    The House divided: Ayes 44, Noes 132.

    Division No. 202]

    [12.22 am

    AYES

    Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)McKay, Allen (Penistone)
    Benn, Rt Hon TonyMcNamara, Kevin
    Booth, Rt Hon AlbertMitchell, Austin(Grimsby)
    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
    Campbell-Savours,DaleMorris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)
    Carter-Jones, LewisPrice, C. (Lewisham W)
    Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)Roper, John
    Cohen, StanleyRoss, Ernest (Dundee West)
    Cook, Robin F.Sheldon, Rt Hon R.
    Crowther, StanSilkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)
    Cunningham, G. (Islington S)Skinner, Dennis
    Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)Snape, Peter
    Davis, Terry (B'ham, Stechf'd)Soley, Clive
    Dormand, JackSpearing, Nigel
    Evans, John (Newton)Stoddart, David
    Foster, DerekStraw, Jack
    Garrett, John (Norwich S)Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)
    Greenway, HarryWhitehead, Phillip
    Harrison, Rt Hon WalterWinterton, Nicholas
    HomeRobertson, JohnWoolmer, Kenneth
    Howells, Geraint
    Lyon, Alexander(York)Tellers for the Ayes:
    McDonald, DrOonaghMr, Michael English and
    McGuire, Michael(Ince)Mr. Frank Hooley.

    NOES

    Alison, Rt Hon MichaelHamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
    Ancram, MichaelHampson, Dr Keith
    Baker, Kenneth(St.M'bone)Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
    Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)Hawkins, Paul
    Beaumont-Dark,AnthonyHayhoe, Barney
    Berry, Hon AnthonyHeseltine, Rt Hon Michael
    Best, KeithHiggins, Rt Hon Terence L.
    Biffen, Rt Hon JohnHogg, HonDouglas(Gr'th'm)
    Blaker, PeterHowe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
    Boscawen, Hon RobertHowell, Rt Hon D.(G'ldf'd)
    Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
    Boyson, Dr RhodesJenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
    Brittan, Rt. Hon. LeonJopling, Rt Hon Michael
    Brooke, Hon PeterJoseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
    Bruce-Gardyne, JohnKing, Rt Hon Tom
    Bryan, SirPaulLamont, Norman
    Buchanan-Smith, Rt. Hon. A.Lang, Ian
    Buck, AntonyLawrence, Ivan
    Butcher, JohnLawson, Rt Hon Nigel
    Cadbury, JocelynLee, John
    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)Lyell, Nicholas
    Chalker, Mrs. LyndaMacfarlane, Neil
    Channon, Rt. Hon. PaulMacGregor, John
    Chapman, SydneyMcNair-Wilson, M.(N'bury)
    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)Major, John
    Clarke, Kenneth(Rushcliffe)Marlow, Antony
    Clegg, Sir WalterMarten, Rt Hon Neil
    Cope, JohnMather, Carol
    du Cann, Rt Hon EdwardMayhew, Patrick
    Dunn, Robert (Dartford)Mellor, David
    Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)Miller, Hal (B'grove)
    Eggar, TimMills, Iain (Meriden)
    Eyre, ReginaldMiscampbell, Norman
    Fenner, Mrs PeggyMitchell, David(Basingstoke)
    Finsberg, GeoffreyMoate, Roger
    Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)Moore, John
    Fletcher-Cooke, Sir CharlesMorrison, Hon C. (Devizes)
    Forman, NigelMorrison, Hon P. (Chester)
    Fowler, Rt Hon NormanMyles, David
    Fraser, Peter (South Angus)Nelson, Anthony
    Garel-Jones, TristanNewton, Tony
    Glyn, Dr AlanOnslow, Cranley
    Goodhew, Sir VictorPage, Richard (SW Herts)
    Goodlad, AlastairParkinson, Rt Hon Cecil
    Griffiths, E.(B'ySt. Edm'ds)Patten, John (Oxford)
    Hamilton, Hon A.Pawsey, James

    Percival, Sir IanThornton, Malcolm
    Pollock, AlexanderTownend, John(Bridlington)
    Raison, Rt Hon TimothyTrippier, David
    Rathbone, TimVaughan, Dr Gerard
    Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)Viggers, Peter
    Rees-Davies, W. R.Waddington, David
    Ridley, Hon NicholasWakeham, John
    Rifkind, MalcolmWaldegrave, Hon William
    Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)
    Roberts, Wyn (Conway)Waller, Gary
    Rossi, HughWard, John
    Sainsbury, Hon TimothyWarren, Kenneth
    Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)Wells, Bowen
    Shelton, William(Streatham)Whitelaw, Rt Hon William
    Silvester, FredWiggin, Jerry
    Sims, RogerWolfson, Mark
    Stewart, A.(ERenfrewshire)Young, Sir George(Action)
    Stewart, Ian(Hitchin)Younger, Rt Hon George
    Stradling Thomas, J.
    Tebbit, Rt Hon NormanTellers for the Noes:
    Thomas, Rt Hon PeterMr. David Hunt and
    Thompson, DonaldMr. Selwyn Gummer.

    Question accordingly negatived.

    Main Question put and agreed to.

    Resolved,

    That, in the opinion of this House, the limits specified in the Resolution of this House of 5th June 1981 in relation to the allowances payable in connection with a Member's office, secretarial and research expenses should be raised so as to make the limits—
  • (a) in paragraph (a) of the Resolution (allowance in respect of aggregate amount of general office expenses and expenses on secretarial and research assistance), £8,752 for the year ending 31st March 1983 and £8,820 for any subsequent year; and
  • (b) in paragraph (b) of that Resolution (provision for enabling a Member to make pension contributions in respect of persons in the payment of whose salaries expenses are incurred by him), £875 for the year ending 31st March 1983 and £882 for any subsequent year.—[Mr. Biffen.]
  • Travel Facilities For Members'children

    Resolved,

    That, in the opinion of this House, the facilities available to the spouse of a Member of this House for free travel in accordance with the Resolutions of this House of 7th April 1971 and 22nd July 1975 on journeys within paragraph (a) or (b) of the said Resolution of 7th April 1971 should be extended to children of the Member under the age of 18; but any child's journey in respect of which facilities for free travel are provided in accordance with this Resolution should count against the number of journeys for which facilities for free travel are available to the Member's spouse.
    For the purposes of this Resolution a Member's children shall be taken to include step-children, adopted children, foster children and any other child living as one of the Member's family.—[Mr. Biffen]

    Parliament

    Resolved,

    That the draft Ministerial and other Salaries Order 1982, which was laid before this House on 27th May, be approved.—[Mr. Biffen]

    Future Arrangements For Members'salaries

    Motion made, and Question proposed,

    That this House—
  • (a) welcomes the Report of the Select Committee on Members' Salaries which was ordered by this House to be printed on 17th February 1982;
  • (b) agrees with the recommendation in that Report that a review of Members' pay be conducted by the Review Body on Top Salaries once during the fourth year of each Parliament and that, where a shortened Parliament precludes this, the Review Body should carry out a new review not later than four years after the rates of salary consequent on the previous review first became payable;
  • (c) agrees with the view expressed in that Report that, between such reviews, Members' salaries should be adjusted annually by reference to increases in outside salaries, but does not accept the recommendation that there should be an annual automatic adjustment by reference to figures taken from the Department of Employment's New Earnings Survey;
  • (d) is of opinion that Her Majesty's Government should instead, in the period between one such review and the next, move annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries and in so doing should be guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups in the Public Service over a relevant period.—[Mr. Biffen.]
  • Amendment proposed: (a), to leave out from '1982' to end of motion and add

    `and agrees with the recommendations of that Report' .—[Mr. Peter Thomas.]

    Question put, That the amendment be made:—

    The House divided: Ayes, 49. Noes, 117.

    Division No. 203]

    [12.34 am

    AYES

    Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)McNamara, Kevin
    Benn, Rt Hon TonyMiscampbell, Norman
    Booth, Rt Hon AlbertMitchell, Austin (Grimsby)
    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
    Campbell-Savours, DaleMorris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)
    Carter-Jones, LewisPrice, C. (Lewisham W)
    Clegg, Sir WalterRees-Davies, W. R.
    Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)Roper, John
    Cohen, StanleyRoss, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
    Cook, Robin F.Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
    Crowther, StanSilkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)
    Cunningham, G.(Islington S)Soley, Clive
    Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)Spearing, Nigel
    Davis, Terry (B 'ham, Stechf'd)Stoddart, David
    Dormand, JackStraw, Jack
    Evans, John (Newton)Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)
    Foster, DerekThomas, Rt Hon Peter
    Garrett, John (Norwich S)Ward, John
    Greenway, HarryWhitehead, Phillip
    Harrison, Rt Hon WalterWinterton, Nicholas
    Home Robertson, JohnWoolmer, Kenneth
    Hooley, FrankWrigglesworth, Ian
    Howells, Geraint
    Lawrence, IvanTellers for the Ayes:
    Lyon, Alexander(York)Mr. Michael English and
    McDonald, DrOonaghMr. Mark Wolfson.
    McKay, Allen (Penistone)

    NOES

    Alison, Rt Hon MichaelChapman, Sydney
    Ancram, MichaelClark, Sir W.(Croydon S)
    Baker, Kenneth(St.M'bone)Clarke, Kerneth(Rushcllffe)
    Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)Cope, John
    Beaumont-Dark, AnthonyDunn, Rober(Dartford)
    Berry, Hon AnthonyEggar, Tim
    Best, KeithEyre, Reginald
    Biffen, Rt Hon JohnFenner, Mrs Peggy
    Blaker, PeterFinsberg, Geoffrey
    Bottomley, Peter (W wich W)Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)
    Boyson, Dr RhodesForman, Nigel
    Brittan, Rt. Hon. LeonFowler, Rt Hon Norman
    Brooke, Hon PeterFraser, Peter (South Angus)
    Bruce-Gardyne, JohnGarel-Jones, Tristan
    Bryan, Sir PaulGlyn, Dr Alan
    Buchanan-Smith, Rt, Hon. A.Goodhew, Sir Victor
    Butcher, JohnGoodlad, Alastair
    Cadbury, JocelynGummer, John Selwyn
    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)Hamilton, Hon A.
    Chalker, Mrs. LyndaHamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
    Channon, Rt. Hon. PaulHampson, DrKeith

    Havers, Rt Hon Sir MichaelPollock, Alexander
    Hawkins, PaulRaison, Rt Hon Timothy
    Hayhoe, BarneyRathbone, Tim
    Heseltine, Rt Hon MichaelRees, Peter (Dover and Deal)
    Hogg, Hon Douglas(Gr'th'm)Ridley, Hon Nicholas
    Howe, Rt Hon Sir GeoffreyRifkind, Malcolm
    Howell, Rt Hon D(G'ldf'd)Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)
    Hunt, David (Wirrai)Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
    Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas)Rossi, Hugh
    Jenkin, Rt Hon PatrickSainsbury, Hon Timothy
    Jopling, Rt Hon MichaelShelton, William(Streatham)
    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir KeithSilvester, Fred
    King, Rt Hon TomSims, Roger
    Lamont, NormanSkinner, Dennis
    Lawson, Rt Hon NigelStewart, A.(ERenfrewshire)
    Lee, JohnStewart, Ian (Hitchin)
    Lyell, NicholasStradling Thomas, J.
    Macfarlane, NeilTebbit, Rt Hon Norman
    MacGregor, JohnThompson, Donald
    McNair-Wilson, M.(N'bury)Thornton, Malcolm
    Major, JohnTownend, John (Bridlington)
    Marten, Rt Hon NeilTrippier, David
    Mather, CarolVaughan, Dr Gerard
    Mayhew, PatrickViggers, Peter
    Mellor, DavidWaddington, David
    Miller, Hal(B'grow)Wakeham, John
    Mills, Iain(Meriden)Waldegrave, Hon William
    Mitchell, David(Basingstoke)Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cestor)
    Moate, RogerWaller, Gary
    Moore, JohnWarren, Kenneth
    Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)Wells, Bowen
    Myles, DavidWhitelaw, Rt Hon William
    Nelson, AnthonyWiggin, Jerry
    Newton, TonyYoung, Sir George(Action)
    Onslow, CranleyYounger, Rt Hon George
    Page, Richard (SW Herts)
    Parkinson, Rt Hon CecilTellers for the Noes:
    Patten John (Oxford)Mr. Ian Lang and
    Pawsey, JamesMr. Robert Boscawen.
    Percival, Sir Ian

    Question accordingly negatived.

    Amendment proposed: (b), to leave out from 'payable' to end and add—

    `(c) agrees with the view expressed in that Report that, between such re views Members salaries should be adjusted annually by reference to increases in outside salaries as indicated in the nearest percentile in the Department of Employment's New Earnings Survey.
    (d) does not accept the view in that Report that the question of Members' pensions and severance payments should be subsumed under the general heading of "Pay" to await consideration in the context of the next general review of Members' pay, but is of the opinion that, in the light of the anomalies inherent in the present severance arrangements and the increased insecurity attached to the role of a Member, the Top Salaries Review Body be requested to undertake an urgent review of pension and severance arrangements and make recommendations accordingly.'.—[Mr. John Silkin.]

    Question put, That the amendment be made:—

    The House divided: Ayes 35, Noes 111.

    Division No. 204]

    [12.45 am

    AYES

    Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)Foster, Derek
    Benn, Rt Hon TonyGarrett, John (Norwich S)
    Booth, Rt Hon AlbertHarrison, Rt Hon Walter
    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)HomeRobertson, John
    Campbell-Savours, DaleHowells, Geraint
    Carter-Jones, LevisMcDonald, Dr Oonagh
    Cocks, Rt Hon M.(B'stol S)McKay, Allen(Penistone)
    Cohen, StanleyMcNamara, Kevin
    Cook, Robin F.Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
    Crowther, StanMorris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)
    Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)Roper, John
    Davis, Terry (B'ham, Stechf'd)Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
    Dormand, JackSilkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)
    English, MichaelSkinner, Dennis
    Evans, John (Newton)Soley, Clive

    Stoddart, David
    Straw,JackTellers for the Ayes:
    Whitehead,PhillipMr. Frank Hooley and
    Woolmer,KennethMr. Nigel Spearing.
    Wrigglesworth,Ian

    NOES

    Alison, Rt Hon MichaelHayhoe, Barney
    Ancram,MichaelHeseltine, Rt Hon Michael
    Baker,Kenneth(St.M'bone)Hogg, Hon Douglas(Gr'th'm)
    Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
    Beaumont-Dark,AnthonyHowell,Rt Hon D.(G'ldf'd)
    Berry, Hon AnthonyHurd,Rt Hon Douglas
    Best, KeithJenkin,Rt Hon Patrick
    Biffen,Rt Hon JohnJopling, Rt Hon Michael
    Blaker, PeterKing, Rt Hon Tom
    Bottomley,Peter(W'wich W)Lamont, Norman
    Boyson,Dr RhodesLang, Ian
    Brittan,Rt. Hon. LeonLawson,Rt Hon Nigel
    Brooke, Hon PeterLee, John
    Bruce-Gardyne,JohnLyell,Nicholas
    Buchanan-Smith, Rt. Hon. A.Macfarlane,Neil
    Butcher,JohnMacGregor,John
    Cadbury,JocelynMajor,John
    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)Marten, Rt Hon Neil
    Chalker, Mrs. LyndaMather,Carol
    Channon, Rt. Hon. PaulMayhew,Patrick
    Chapman,SydneyMellor,David
    Clarke,Kenneth (Rushcliffe)Miller,Hal(B'grove)
    Cope,JohnMills,Iain(Meriden)
    Dunn, Robert(Dartford)Miscampbell,Norman
    Eggar,TimMitchell, David (Basingstoke)
    Fanner, Mrs PeggyMoate, Roger
    Finsberg,GeoffreyMoore,John
    Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)
    Forman, NigelMyles, David
    Fowler, Rt Hon NormanNewton,Tony
    Fraser, Peter (South Angus)Onslow,Cranley
    Garel-Jones,TristanPage, Richard (SW Herts)
    Glyn, DrAlanParkinson, Rt Hon Cecil
    Goodhew,SirVictorPatten, John (Oxford)
    Goodlad,AlastairPawsey, James
    Greenway, HarryPercival,Sir Ian
    Gummer,JohnSelwynPollock,Alexander
    Hamilton, Hon A.Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
    Hampson,Dr KeithRathbone,Tim
    Hawkins, PaulRees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

    Ridley, Hon NicholasViggers, Peter
    Rifkind, MalcolmWaddington,David
    Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)Wakeham,John
    Roberts, Wyn (Conway)Waldegrave,Hon William
    Rossi, HughWaller, Gary
    Sainsbury,Hon TimothyWarren,Kenneth
    Shelton,William(Streatham)Wells,Bowen
    Silvester,FredWhitelaw,Rt Hon William
    Sims, RogerWiggin,Jerry
    Stewart,A(ERenfrewshire)Winterton,Nicholas
    Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)Wolfson,Mark
    StradlingThomas,J.Young,SirGeorge(Action)
    Tebbit, Rt Hon NormanYounger, Rt Hon George
    Thomas, Rt Hon Peter
    Thompson,DonaldTellers for the Noes:
    Thornton,MalcolmMr. Robert Boscawen and
    Trippier, DavidMr. David Hunt.
    Vaughan,DrGerard

    Question accordingly negatived.

    Main Question put and agreed to.

    Resolved,

    That this House—
  • (a) welcomes the Report of the Select Committee on Members' Salaries which was ordered by this House to be printed on 17th February 1982;
  • (b) agrees with the recommendation in that Report that a review of Members' pay be conducted by the Review Body on Top Salaries once during the fourth year of each Parliament and that, where a shortened Parliament precludes this, the Review Body should carry out a new review not later than four years after the rates of salary consequent on the previous review first became payable;
  • (c) agrees with the view expressed in that Report that, between such reviews, Members' salaries should be adjusted annually by reference to increases in outside salaries, but does not accept the recommendation that there should be an annual automatic adjustment by reference to figures taken from the Department of Employment's New Earnings Survey;
  • (d) is of opinion that Her Majesty's Government should instead, in the period between one such review and the next, move annual motions to effect changes in Members' salaries and in so doing should be guided by the average change in the rates of pay of appropriate groups in the Public Service over a relevant period.—[Mr. Biffen]