Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill
(1 day, 9 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, the Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill is a short but important piece of legislation, which has come to us unamended from the other place. It seeks to amend the statutory limit on the number of ministerial salaries available, currently capped at 109, to 120. The proposed change to 120 reflects the average size of Governments since 2010 and would largely end the practice of unpaid Ministers, which I know has been a source of concern for noble Lords in recent years. It will ensure that the Prime Minister of the day has the flexibility needed to appoint enough paid Ministers to meet modern government demands.
For noble Lords who are not familiar with the current position, it might be helpful to shed some light on it and why the change is required. As noble Lords will be aware, under our constitution, the monarch appoints the Prime Minister as the person most able to command the confidence of the other place and all ministerial appointments thereafter are made by the monarch on the sole advice of the Prime Minister. There is a statutory limit on how many ministerial salaries are available, as set out in the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975. The current limit is 109 salaries. It has not changed since the 1975 Act was introduced over half a century ago.
In addition, there is a separate statutory limit on the number of Ministers who can sit and vote in the other place, whether paid or unpaid, under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. That limit is 95. There is no equivalent limit on the number of your Lordships who are able to serve as Ministers.
The Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 also sets out salaries that should be paid to eight other officeholders: the Speakers of both Houses, the Leader of the Opposition in both Houses, the Opposition Chief Whip in both Houses and two assistant Opposition Whips in the other place. The Bill does not seek to amend those salaries.
Within the current limit of 109 Ministers, there are 83 salaries that can be allocated at the Secretary of State, Minister of State and Parliamentary Secretary ranks. A further four salaries are allocated to the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Advocate-General for Scotland, and 22 salaries are allocated to Government Whips. I ask noble Lords to bear with me with all these numbers. I just want to give absolute clarity to the House.
The Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 sets cumulative limits on the salaries allocated to Secretaries of State, Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries. Within the overall limit of 83, the cumulative limits under the Act are 21 Secretary of State-rank salaries; 50 Secretary of State-rank and Minister of State-rank salaries; and 83 Secretary of State-, Minister of State- and Parliamentary Secretary-rank salaries. These limits were set in 1975, which is over 50 years ago.
As a result of the demands of modern government, all Governments since 2010 have consistently featured a larger ministerial team than the existing Act’s provisions permit to be paid. That has ranged from an average of 108 Ministers in the Cameron and May Governments to 123 in the Sunak Government. There are 122 Ministers in the current Government. This has led to an unsatisfactory position where Governments of all parties have become dependent on Ministers being willing and able to work unpaid. Historically, this has fallen predominantly to Ministers in your Lordships’ House.
I know that this regrettable situation has been a source of frustration for many years. It was also described by one noble Lord as a “humiliation” during the passage of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. In Committee, Amendment 90 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, and, on Report, Amendments 13 and 13A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord True, sought to address this by preventing unpaid Ministers being eligible for membership of your Lordships’ House. The subsequent government defeat on Report when the mood of the House was tested showed us the strength of the feeling there was on this issue. The Government rejected the amendment at ping-pong as it did not deliver the change needed and it did not increase the overall number of ministerial salaries available. But, as I said at the time, the amendment itself raised an important principle, and the Government are pleased to bring forward legislation today which will largely end the practice of unpaid Ministers. It remains the case that the Prime Minister will decide on the allocation of ministerial salaries.
I am confident that the whole House supports the notion that Ministers in this place and the other place should be paid for the work they do. Ministers in this House work extremely hard, often managing some of the broadest and most demanding portfolios in government. For a significant number of them to serve in the House unpaid cannot be right. In terms of the business of the House, a Minister in this House from either party could be doing the work of three or four Ministers in the other place.
To summarise, the Bill increases the cap on ministerial salaries from 109 to 120. All additional salaries will be allocated at either Secretary of State, Minister of State or Parliamentary Secretary rank at the request of the Prime Minister. As I have said, they will operate cumulatively. This means that salaries not allocated at a senior rank can be used to pay a Minister at a more junior rank within the limits. The Bill will therefore make provision for one additional salary at the Secretary of State rank—that increases to 22; four additional salaries at Secretary of State or Minister of State rank, increasing the overall number to 54 from 50; and 11 additional salaries at either Secretary of State, Minister of State or Parliamentary Secretary level, increasing the overall limit of those from 83 to 94.
If all additional salaries were allocated to the most senior Minister possible, this would result in one extra salary for Secretaries of State, three for Ministers of State and seven for Parliamentary Secretaries. The limits on the Lord Chancellor, Attorney-General, Solicitor-General, Advocate-General for Scotland and Government Whips remain unchanged. The limits on other officeholder salaries also remain unchanged.
As I have said, the increase to 120 salaries reflects the average number of Ministers in each Government since 2010. The change is set out in Clause 1. The existing limit of 95 Ministers who could be Members of the other place under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 will be retained. Therefore, 25 salaries will, in effect, be reserved for Lords Ministers.
It is also important to stress that the Bill does not increase the pay of Ministers. Pay in your Lordships’ House increased in 2019 and has been frozen at that level since then. Ministerial pay for Ministers in the other place has not risen since 2008. In addition to the ministerial salary, Ministers in the other place receive a salary for their role as an MP, which of 1 April this year is £98,599. If noble Lords look at the Explanatory Notes, they will see that it looks as though Lords Ministers are paid at a higher salary than Ministers in the House of Commons, yet Ministers in the House of Commons also receive their MP salary, but for Lords Ministers, that is the only payment they receive. The Prime Minister maintained the ministerial salary freeze on entering office, and the Bill does not change that either.
To conclude, this short Bill has a welcome aim: to ensure that the Prime Minister has the flexibility to appoint enough paid Ministers to meet the demands of modern government. It is also right that anyone in this country can aspire to be a Minister in either House, no matter what their background is, rather than relying on personal wealth in lieu of salary, and the burden of unpaid Ministers has disproportionately fallen on Ministers in this House.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord True, who helpfully indicated his support for the Bill during Third Reading of the hereditary Peers Bill. I am grateful for his support and hope the Bill will receive similar support across the House, and I look forward to seeing it on the statute book as soon as possible. I beg to move.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for her introduction to this Bill and for her very clear explanation of it; I can confirm that I support it and I can therefore be brief.
As most of the House who have followed this will know—the noble Baroness alluded to this—I have form on the matter. When I became Leader of the House in 2022, I found it absolutely astonishing that in the 21st century we had a statutory position where, practically, in one of our Houses of Parliament in many circumstances people had to have private means to become a Minister. There have always been wealthy people who have been willing to do this signal public service for nothing. They still exist, and I of course salute them for their public spirit in doing that. Some on my side, when I was Leader, made great personal sacrifices, for which I once told the House I was ashamed to ask them, and for which I was beyond appreciation when I saw them ready to make those sacrifices.
However, the converse of that appreciation is that it cannot ever be right that those who do not have the means cannot serve this country as a Minister because a post is unpaid. I said from the Front Bench, both in office and in opposition, that I believe this matter must be addressed. Whenever we discussed it, there was widespread support for the principle, and I think that was found when my predecessors also tried to address the matter. But there was always a reason not to act, and not only in my time but before.
I think I have told the House that, when I tried to get something in a Bill such as this when I was Leader in the 2023-24 Session, I was told by my own very senior colleagues that it would “cause comment”—perhaps we were approaching an election or something. When I tried to address the matter by different means, ensuring at least that senior unpaid figures on both the Government and Opposition Front Benches, such as a Foreign Office Minister and leading shadow spokesman, might be allowed deemed attendance when they were out of London, perhaps on related business, this was disagreed to by senior figures then in the Labour Party on the basis, as I was told, that Labour would have fewer Ministers and so it would not be necessary. It has not quite worked out that way and it was never really going to. As the noble Baroness explained, this position has grown and persisted for decades.
The number of unpaid Lords Front-Benchers, which rose as high as 13—or maybe even 14—in my time is still at least 11, as advertised currently on the GOV.UK list of Ministers. It would be invidious to list those names, but they include some of the most hard-working and respected Members on the Front Bench opposite, just as they did under our Government.
This Bill could bring that inherent unfairness in public life to a close. I hope that, when the noble Baroness responds, she will undertake that it will do precisely that—she said it would largely do it; I understand there may be transitional reasons why that might not be possible. But I affirm that public office in the 21st century must be open to all.
The Bill allows the total number of paid Ministers, as the noble Baroness explained, to rise to 120 against the current 109. The existing limit on the scale of patronage in the other place set by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, as she explained, remains unchanged at 95. So if the Commons end, if I may put it thus—or the other place, or the patronage secretary—still decides that the House of Commons Members should take up all their potential places, the number of Lords Ministers allowed to be paid by statute will rise from 14 under the present system to 25 under the revised system brought in by the Bill.
The noble Baroness alluded to the fact that that is still a ratio of nearly four to one between this House and the other place. I do not wish to disparage anyone, because I had an uphill struggle with my own colleagues, and I make no disparagement of the Government because they are addressing the point, but over the years I have sometimes wondered whether some of our colleagues at the other end actually know the burdens on Ministers in this House, the revising Chamber, and the amount of continuous work that arises, for example, from our less regimented system of organising Questions and the clear and penetrating scrutiny of Bills.
I said I would not name names, but I look at people such as the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, who carries out what I think we would all acknowledge is one of the hardest jobs in government, carrying the Home Office brief in your Lordships’ House, and I remember my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, whom the House was praising not long ago, and who was a truly outstanding Minister of State in the Foreign Office and an indefatigable traveller in service of his country. Those people need to be properly recognised. Many might and could contend that the real answer would of course be to restrain the growing size of the payroll in the other place. It does not need to be 95—it has not always been 95—but that is not on offer currently, and therefore I feel that in the interests of the whole House we should proceed as the noble Baroness suggests in the Bill.
I was very grateful for the support that Members across the House, as the noble Baroness reminded us, gave to an amendment which I moved during the passage of the House of Lords Act earlier this Session. I recognise that it was not actually practical in its explicit effect, but it was designed to allow this House to express a view and perhaps force the other place to consider this issue. That has been done, and I am grateful for the constructive discussions that I have had on this with the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, both when I was in government and now in opposition. I hope that we can continue to give positive consideration to issues that arise from the burdens on various Front Benches in this House.
However, setting that aside, for the interim I welcome the Bill. It ends a long-standing injustice, it opens doors that should never have been closed, and I ask my colleagues on this side to give it a fair wind in the full spirit of respect and sensible co-operation across this Chamber for which I will always stand.
Lord Barber of Chittlehampton (Lab)
My Lords, as someone relatively new to the House I am very struck by how hard Ministers work in this House, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord True. Having spent 20 or more years working with Governments of different persuasions and seeing Ministers in the Lords, I always think that the Lords Ministers often work harder and get less credit for the work that they do.
I will make three further points in support of this Bill. First, I am honoured to follow both the noble Lord, Lord True, and my noble friend Lady Smith. I congratulate them on the speeches they have made but also on the collaborative approach they have taken to this issue. As a result, I am confident that, should we pass the Bill—I hope we will—it will bring benefits both to this House and to the Government long into the future.
On a previous occasion, the noble Lord, Lord True, set out three principles, which I will repeat because each is important. There should be a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work—and this fits with how hard Ministers in the Lords work. There should be equal treatment of Ministers in both Houses, which is also an important point. Perhaps most importantly, nobody should be prevented by lack of means from taking on the role of a Minister. My noble friend Lady Smith totally supported those three principles and I do too.
Secondly, I emphasise the last of those three points as particularly important. If, regardless of means, we want the younger Members of this House to be able to take on ministerial responsibility, this Bill is essential. Those of us who are—how should I put it?—later in a career are more likely to have a pension or other retirement income than our younger colleagues. I look at the cohort of young noble friends with whom I was privileged to join the Government Benches in January, and see evident competence, commitment, passion and talent. I would not want either the Government or the country to be deprived of the contribution that any one of them might make as Ministers simply because the role was unremunerated. A similar case no doubt has been made in the past, and the noble Lord, Lord True, says he might have made it in relation to all sides of the House in the past and the future.
Thirdly, there is an encouraging precedent. Some noble Lords may be aware that I have a modest sideline in medieval history. In 1406, Henry IV was troubled on many fronts. There was a standoff between his Government and Parliament over both his reform agenda and his tax demands. There was anxiety about religious extremism; at that time, it was not the IRGC but the Lollards. Then, as now, English shipping was under threat in an economically crucial narrow strait, the English Channel rather than Hormuz. Then, as now too, there were expensive wars in two locations that were distracting the Government. Finally, according to the Speaker of the day, Sir John Tiptoft, there were some “rascals” in the King’s Household. To use Barbara Tuchman’s evocative phrase, we sometimes find that we are looking in a “distant mirror”.
As part of his response, Henry IV drew heavily on talent in the Lords. He strengthened his council and decided that all the newly appointed Ministers in his council should be paid. Professor Given-Wilson, one of our most eminent contemporary medieval historians, concluded that this new council was “remarkably successful”. After the introduction of pay for these Ministers, 1408, was, he said,
“financially speaking, the most orderly of the reign”.
The economy was turning a corner.
The principal case set out by both the preceding speakers in favour of this overdue reform is overwhelmingly strong. Meanwhile, with this reform, a glance in that “distant mirror” suggests that, perhaps in spite of everything, we can look forward to positive financial and economic developments in due course. I support the Bill.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord True, I add my support to this Bill. It seeks to rectify situations that, as Leader, I too sought to address but unfortunately did not succeed in doing so. Namely, it amends the law to ensure that Ministers, whether they are here or in the other place, are paid for the work that they do. That may seem common sense and unarguable but, for too long, legislative restrictions on the number of Ministers have led to a situation where Ministers in the other place have taken the bulk of the paid positions, leaving too many Lords Ministers to perform their duties without salaries.
In my time as Leader, I was involved in numerous reshuffles with the infamous whiteboard and Post-it notes that came with it. When it came to deciding Lords ministerial positions, the Chief Whip and I were given considerable discretion about the appointments, but we too often had to argue for paid positions for our Front Bench rather than see them allocated to Members of the other place. Although we managed that with varying degrees of success, there were simply not enough salaries available, so we invariably had to ask some Lords Ministers to take on their roles unpaid. On occasion, as we have heard, this meant that excellent colleagues either were unable to take a job in the first place or, if they could, found themselves unable to continue in unpaid roles indefinitely, depriving the Government of talented individuals. This wholly unsatisfactory situation is what the Bill aims to tackle.
As has already been recognised in the speeches we have heard, noble Lords across the House are well aware of how hard our Ministers work. We see daily the breadth of responsibilities that Lords Ministers have in not just their specific departmental policy areas but their much broader role representing the Government in this House. The challenges of not having a salary are a particular issue for Ministers, as a key part of their role is the requirement to travel frequently to represent our nation, so they cannot attend the House regularly. To expect people to do their jobs for free due to outdated legislation is entirely unreasonable.
The unfairness of the current situation was made particularly stark to me during Covid, when the House agreed to a proposal from the commission that additional payments be made to Opposition Front-Benchers to reflect fairly the additional work that they were undertaking to prepare for debates and legislation, when the House was sitting virtually and in its hybrid form. However, no such recognition could be or was given to unpaid Lords Ministers, who were leading the response to the pandemic in the most challenging of circumstances.
One of the arguments against the Bill made in the other place is that it does nothing to encourage the slimming-down of government; indeed, it increases the cost. While that is true, the Bill is simply dealing with the reality of the size of government today not the one that we may wish it to be. It addresses the unarguable point that the Leader of the House made: that the consistent losers from the current legal restrictions are Lords Ministers. Passing the Bill would not mean that the number of Ministers cannot be reduced; it would mean that people would be paid for the job that they are doing today. A very modest reduction in the size of the Civil Service, for instance, would more than cover the financial implications of the Bill.
If the Government decide not to make such reductions, the Bill will add a modest uplift simply to reflect what should have been happening in any event. Ministers across both Houses should be paid for the job that they are doing.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the excellent speeches by the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. I think there needs to be a Lords Minister in every main department. Those jobs can be extremely demanding, and it is the right principle that money should be paid for good work done.
However, this Bill is an opportunity for the Government to think more widely about how the tasks of Ministers can be made a bit easier, how the chances of success can be enhanced and how the public can feel that they are getting more out of their Ministers who are, rightly, being paid for the jobs that they are doing.
When I was the executive chairman of a large quoted company, it would never have occurred to me that it would be good practice to go into the office one day, without having alerted any of my senior colleagues, and tell them that I had decided to swap them all around just for the sake of it; and that I was going to make the sales director the finance director and the engineering director the sales director, and that I was going to sack somebody else, all on the same day. I would not think that that would have a happy result. Successive Prime Ministers have been quite wrong to have these big clear-out days as some assertion of power, because those whom they sack will never like them again and quite a lot of those whom they appoint are given jobs that they do not want or understand, so they also harbour a grudge about the experience of the reshuffle. We need something better than that.
We need senior Ministers mentoring and looking, in private, at the performance of more junior Ministers. Leading Cabinet members should be mentored and their performance reviewed by the Prime Minister and other Cabinet members perhaps by the Deputy Prime Minister; and obviously all Ministers should be mentored by their departmental ministerial heads.
I wonder if it is not time to be a little bolder and change the language. Why do we call most of our Ministers junior Ministers? People think it a privilege, necessity or requirement to see a Minister, so we do need then to undermine the Minister’s authority before the meeting begins. Surely each is either a Minister or a Cabinet Minister, who is a super-Minister with strategic obligations and ultimate responsibility for the departments in which the other Ministers are working. That could be extremely helpful from the point of view of working out the structure, so I think that we need only two main types of Minister: heads of department or Cabinet Ministers paid a higher salary; and Ministers paid the Minister of State salary. I think the Parliamentary Secretary salary is still quite low given the magnitude of many of these jobs and the responsibilities that they entail.
I would strongly recommend that we consider some kind of performance review system. One of the things that made reshuffles so particularly difficult for many of my ministerial colleagues when we were undergoing them was that they had absolutely no idea whether the Prime Minister and the Whips thought they were doing well or badly and whether they were going to be promoted, demoted or shuffled sideways. Sometimes, they were sitting there with their phone for a day or so while the reshuffle agonisingly went on and were not even rung up and told that they were just going to stay put—which might have been good news, a relief or a disappointment. On performance, therefore, we need a system where they are mentored, assessed and allowed to say that they need better resources or more support.
As a general rule, it would be much better if we did not change Ministers so often. Looking at the Governments of the last 25 years—Labour, coalition or Conservative—there has been an in-and-out far too frequently. I would have thought the norm should be that you appoint somebody for a four to five-year Parliament as a Minister. If they then do very well and you want to promote them, that is a bonus; if you have to manage them out because they are so dreadful, you do so only after giving them plenty of chances and trying to help them do a better job, and then you do it in an orderly and sensible way. There would be a bit of movement but you would not have these blow-up days when everybody is put at risk.
This might start to work rather better. It takes four years for a Minister to read their way in, get used to working with their officials, and put in place the laws and the budget programmes they want to and then see the results of their labour—whereas most of us were never allowed to see the results of our labour because we were moved on to some other crisis point or difficulty before we had seen the whole thing through. You would not normally do that in a business.
I make these modest suggestions to the Leader. I hope she will pass them on to the Prime Minister, because I think government would be much better if Ministers were looked after and mentored but also expected to perform, and if we had a more orderly process for appointing and removing. It does seem that, with the current system, in all too many government cases, too many people are still selected who have bad histories that come to meet them in an unfortunate way as soon as they become Ministers. It would be much better if more time were given to the selection, once you had set up an initial Government, and there were more conversations with people to find out what they were good at and wanted to do, and a bit about their background, to avoid embarrassment.
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to add my support to this Bill. As with all new arrivals, I have had to learn a great deal from scratch about the workings of this House—right from the first day, when, on the occasion of my introduction, I very nearly forgot to shake the Lord Speaker’s hand on my way out of the Chamber and learned that the way noble Lords help their colleagues from making mistakes is by a sort of insistent murmuring from all sides. Some noble Lords this evening might suggest that I still have not quite got the hang of sitting down quickly enough from time to time. However, I quickly learned just how hard Ministers work.
In my first week, back in March 2024, I had many opportunities to listen to Ministers in the then Conservative Government—and I do mean many. It might be considered invidious to pick individuals out, but I would like to give some real examples to bring the subject to life—with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord True, because some of my examples might be similar to his.
I start with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, whose expertise and courtesy from the Dispatch Box immediately impressed me. Upon checking parliamentary records while thinking about this speech, I saw that she gave no fewer than 48 spoken answers that week—on the earnings of mothers and fathers, independent schools, special needs, school meals and free childcare—and a speech on gender recognition abroad. The previous week, she gave five speeches, including one on International Women’s Day, in which she said:
“I started with an 1,100-word speech and have finished with 5,000 words of notes and no speech. So I will do my best, but I fear that I will have to write to many of your Lordships at the end of the debate”,—[Official Report, 8/3/24; col. 1794.]
making the point that the work Ministers do in the Chamber is only the tip of the iceberg. Even so, it is a pretty big tip.
That week, I remember being equally impressed by the knowledge and style of the noble Lords, Lord Markham and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, to take just two more examples. The noble Lord, Lord Markham, gave 18 spoken answers—nine on cancer staffing and nine on children’s cancer—and a speech on sexual and reproductive healthcare. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, gave 15 answers, on the death penalty and on the execution of Hussein Abu Al-Khair, as well as a Statement on the latter.
Of course, my Labour colleagues have been just as busy since the general election three months later. Rather than listing them all and risking some more of that unnerving, insistent murmuring—but this time, as it is Second Reading, from my Whip if it takes me over my allotted time—let me mention just three: those Ministers who share responsibility for the criminal justice system.
My noble friend Lord Timpson gave no fewer than 51 speeches and two interventions on the Sentencing Bill. Just last month, my noble friend Lord Hanson gave 45 speeches, as well as five interventions and seven answers, on crime and policing, the Golders Green ambulance attack and immigration fees. In particular, on 25 March—a night some of us well remember—he said:
“We have spent over 88 hours in Committee, we have had a full day’s Second Reading and 44 hours on Report … Given that we sat late on a number of occasions, I put on record on behalf of the whole House our thanks to the doorkeepers and staff of the House. There were a few days when I did not know what time I was going home—and neither did they”.—[Official Report, 25/3/26; cols. 1523-24.]
Finally, my noble friend Lady Levitt’s work in the Chamber last month included 13 speeches on the Victims and Courts Bill, nine answers on humanist weddings, and 28 speeches, plus an intervention, on the Crime and Policing Bill. Just to reinforce the point one last time, she and my noble friend Lord Hanson finished at 2.11 am on the morning of 19 March.
What do these six noble Lords have in common, apart from sharing an impressive combination of civility and command of their subjects? The answer, of course, is the fact that they did, or do, all this unpaid as Ministers. This is clearly ridiculous and unacceptable. It is absolutely self-evident that hard-working Ministers should be paid for the vital work they do. I enthusiastically commend the Bill.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. I do not think it is acceptable that we ask Ministers to do their work unpaid, a burden that has fallen disproportionately on Members of this House. As we have heard, former Leaders on these Benches have worked hard to change that, but, sadly, without success. The noble Baroness the Leader is to be congratulated on the Bill we have before us.
I focus my remarks on another aspect of ministerial salaries: the absence of any provision for paternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave. Ministers, as officeholders, are not employees and so do not qualify for any of the normal provisions. For many years, the system for taking maternity and other parental leave was managed informally, with a period of leave agreed with the Prime Minister and cover normally provided by other Ministers within a department or a Whip stepping up. Given the limit we have on ministerial salaries, covering a colleague’s maternity leave was normally in addition to someone’s existing duties, as there were not any spare salaries to appoint a replacement.
I was particularly aware of this when I was pregnant with my daughter in 2021 and was also a Government Whip. I worried that any leave I would take would either put a heavy burden on my other colleagues in the Whips’ Office, who were all already covering at least three or four departments each, or involve asking someone to provide cover for me unpaid.
Happily, the problem was solved before Margot was born, as the inadequacies of the previous system were exposed even more clearly when the then Attorney-General, Suella Braverman, needed to take maternity leave. Because the role of Attorney-General comes with specific constitutional responsibilities that can be fulfilled only by the specific officeholder, staying in post while cover was provided by another colleague was not an option. Because of the limit to ministerial salaries, it meant that Suella faced having to resign in order to take maternity leave, which was not a very satisfactory position at all. The Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill was hastily written and passed to create the position of Minister on leave for Ministers who wished to take a period of maternity leave, the salary for which did not count towards the formal cap for salaries, freeing up the ability to appoint a replacement for that period of leave.
I was the second Minister to take up that provision, and used it again when I had my son Max in 2024. It was a very welcome step forward but it was acknowledged at the time that there were areas that the Act failed to address. There is still no formal provision for paternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave, with these still being handled through informal agreement and cover.
It could be argued that this is less of an issue for paternity leave, given that the statutory entitlement is only two weeks, so easier to cover informally. Those who followed the Employment Rights Act through this House will know that I am of the view that two weeks is woefully inadequate and something that I hope the Government’s ongoing review of parental leave will address. Nevertheless, even at two weeks, the current system does not address the fact that if you are an officeholder with formal constitutional responsibilities attached, it simply is not possible for someone else to cover them, even for a short period. The current system also does not address the fact that, even though take-up across the country is low, other fathers have the opportunity to take a longer period of leave via shared parental leave.
Another quirk of the system is that even a Minister who is a new mother, with the ability to be appointed as Minister on leave, does not have the ability for their partner to take up any shared parental leave. Given the demands of a ministerial role, including, as we have heard, long days and—often in this place—very late nights, this is a particularly impactful oversight. The ability to succeed in these roles is often down to the long-suffering and unseen partners who support Ministers. Under the current system, unlike for other couples, a Minister’s partner does not have the ability to take any more time to care for their new baby than the existing two weeks of paternity leave. That is due simply to the fact that their partner is a Minister and therefore an officeholder rather than an employee. I think most people would see that as an unintended consequence rather than a deliberate policy choice.
There is also no provision equivalent to adoption leave, which, unlike paternity leave, is available in ordinary circumstances for up to a year to one parent in an adoptive couple. Finally, there is an important omission when it comes to the provision of sick leave. This was something that affected my friend and former colleague James Brokenshire when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and was diagnosed with lung cancer.
The areas that I have highlighted were unfinished business from the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act five years ago. After the passage of that Act, the Government committed to returning to this at a later date. I had hoped that this Bill was that date but, as it is a money Bill, we cannot address the gaps in today’s debate in our House. I appreciate the noble Baroness the Leader of the House finding time to discuss these issues with me yesterday. I know she is committed to ensuring that we can benefit from the talents of all Members in this House in ministerial office, regardless of background or family circumstance. I would appreciate hearing from her what plans the Government have to address the gaps I have spoken of today.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
My Lords, I have been struck by the cross-party tone of this debate. I continue this tone with a short intervention on the closely related matter of how ministerial pay is determined.
In January, Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, proposed a change to IPSA’s pay setting, with which I heartily agree; I think it very worthy of consideration. He told the Financial Times that he
“would really love for IPSA to peg MPs and ministerial pay to our growth rates as a country, as opposed to what it is at the moment, which is a slightly byzantine formula”.
His thinking was that such a move would help the Government, and other parties in Parliament, to prioritise economic growth at every level. I am pleased to say that the Business Secretary’s excellent proposal was received positively by other MPs.
There are few MPs more on the pulse of public opinion than Chris Curtis, the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North and co-chair of the Labour Growth Group. As the former head of political polling at Opinium, Curtis has a strong handle on what the public are thinking. He argued:
“It’s the right thing to restore trust in politics for the public to see MPs linking their pay to the improvements in the economy we are aiming to deliver”.
The Business Secretary’s proposal to peg the pay of MPs and Ministers to economic growth has international precedent. Singapore has used various forms of this model for the past 20 years. Between 2000 and 2011, Ministers and MPs in Singapore received a “GDP bonus”, which was explicitly tied to economic growth. No bonus was awarded if real GDP growth was under 2%, with the potential for an extra eight months of pay if it exceeded 10%. In 2012, the scheme developed into a slightly more flexible “national bonus”, which bundled four elements together, giving each equal weighting: the real GDP growth rate, the real median income growth rate, the unemployment rate and the real growth rate for the bottom 20% of Singaporean citizens. This seems a very sensible approach as it makes the link far more explicitly to GDP per capita rather than GDP—a far closer reflection of people’s everyday living standards. It should be noted that, in the years since the scheme was introduced, the average growth rate in Singapore has been 4.6% as opposed to the average growth rate in the UK of 1.7%. These growth figures suggest that the scheme is a useful tool to boost economic growth.
I therefore hope that we can unite around the Business Secretary’s very practical suggestion to link the pay of Ministers and MPs to our national prosperity, properly incentivising and rewarding them for growing the economy and people’s standard of living. I for one would be delighted for our elected representatives and Lords Ministers to receive a bonus of eight months’ pay if economic growth hit 10%. Frankly, I would be happy to award them the eight-month bonus if growth hit 3%—something it has not done since 2000. This would incentivise all parties to make growth their number one priority.
I very much hope the Government will include a Bill on Peter Kyle’s excellent proposal in the King’s Speech. I do not expect the Lord Privy Seal to reveal the contents of the King’s Speech in her winding up, but perhaps she might tell us whether the Business Secretary’s proposal is under consideration by the Government. At a time when politicians often struggle to agree and the country is divided, I hope this is a sensible proposal that the whole House and the whole country can unite around.
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
My Lords, this House is often confronted by issues of great complexity, but happily today we are dealing with a rather straightforward single issue on which I hope we will be united.
Like others, I am a relative newcomer to this place. Since my arrival, I have come to understand a little the range of demands placed on Front-Benchers on all sides of the Chamber, but particularly on government Ministers. The demands placed on Ministers in the Chamber are considerable: being required to respond to questions from noble Lords on aspects of every policy covered by the Minister’s department.
The challenge of steering a major Bill through this House is enormous, requiring a mastery of detail and, incidentally, endless patience and bottomless stamina. I have recognised that the courtesies and conventions of this House also require many hours of patient engagement outside the Chamber with noble Lords who wish to pursue a particular interest in a Bill or some other aspect of public policy handled by the department concerned.
I recognise of course that for a Minister there are countless other commitments to be met outside the duties in this House. I recall asking my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury on one occasion how he had enjoyed a recess, which I had certainly appreciated when it arrived. He explained that he had spent the entire time on ministerial visits to five or six capital cities in Africa. No rest for the wicked.
For too long, as the party opposite has testified so compellingly after their long period in office, the ministerial responsibilities in this House have been met only by persuading some good colleagues to accept all those responsibilities without receiving any remuneration. This has been wrong and unfair. The noble Lord, Lord True, talked about a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. I could similarly refer to receiving the rate for the job.
Over the years, I have found myself involved in many complicated negotiations about pay and reward. Sometimes I have been asked to defend robustly ambitious pay claims that have been lodged. But this is one occasion where I find no difficulty in supporting the pay claim that this Bill deals with. When the starting point is zero, the only way is up.
This is about simple justice, but it is also about ensuring that people of talent, dedication and a strong sense of public service who have no supplementary private means are not deterred from accepting a call to office by the denial of a fair and reasonable salary. The Bill seems to be long overdue and I strongly support it.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con)
My Lords, in so far as this Bill rectifies an anomaly, it is to be welcomed. I very much endorse what others have said: of course Ministers should be paid. It has been a disgrace that Ministers, particularly in the Lords, have given sterling service without remuneration. I take that as given and I endorse what everybody has said about Ministers in this House.
What I wish to question is the premise of the Bill that the number of Ministers is appropriate. I refer especially to Ministers in the other place. The Explanatory Notes list the number of Ministers in recent Parliaments. The notes do not go further back. Over time, the number of Ministers has grown. Ministers will doubtless concede that this is a consequence of the growth of government responsibilities. There is another explanation, which is more plausible, given that the responsibilities of Governments in times of world war and running an empire were substantial. It is that the growth in the number of Ministers is a consequence of creeping prime ministerial power.
Ministerial posts are an important tool of prime ministerial patronage. The more Ministers, the greater the grip of the Executive through an expanding payroll vote. The term “payroll vote” is demonstrably a misnomer in that it encompasses not only Ministers who are not paid but Parliamentary Private Secretaries who, through a tightening of the language of the Ministerial Code, are now expected to vote loyally with the Government, even though they are neither being paid nor are formally part of the Government.
The subject was addressed in 2011 by the Public Administration Committee in the House of Commons in a report entitled Smaller Government: What Do Ministers Do? I gave evidence to the committee. When asked how many Ministers there should be, I argued that one should start by identifying the responsibilities of government and then determining how many Ministers are necessary to fulfil them. Instead, Ministers are appointed to tighten the Prime Minister’s grip on power, to reward loyalty and, on occasion, to ensure that critics are inside the tent rather than outside. Jonathan Powell told the committee on an earlier occasion:
“If the Prime Minister had his way, he would appoint every single backbencher in his party to a ministerial job to ensure their vote”.
A previous report by the committee, Too Many Ministers?, found that the United Kingdom was an outlier in the number of Ministers appointed, and that the ratio of Ministers to MPs was 1:8, compared with 1:14 in Spain and Germany, 1:16 in Italy, and 1:29 in France. It also noted the growth in the number of Ministers since 1900, with the increase marked in Ministers below Cabinet level. The earlier report concluded that this trend had several detrimental effects, not least placing a burden on the public purse and harming the interests of good government due to too many Ministers clogging up the decision-making process and blurring lines of responsibility.
In short, the appointment power is wielded for political benefit and not for the purpose of good—and certainly not for the purposes of efficient—government. As the 2011 report noted,
“activity needs to be distinguished from achievement. Effectiveness … needs to be distinguished from efficiency”.
It goes on to say:
“The accounts we have received give the impression that ministers are too involved in the day-to-day running of their departments; take too many relatively minor decisions; and engage in numerous activities that could be delegated to others. This draws their focus and energy away from their primary objective, providing leadership and setting the overall policy of their departments … Having fewer ministers, who gave priority to their core responsibilities, could help bring about this change in culture”.
We need government characterised by leadership and not management. Related to that, we need not only fewer but better trained Ministers. This is a subject that I have pursued for some years.
This Bill is necessary, but it is not sufficient. It ignores the wider and more serious issue of the quantity, and indeed the quality, of Ministers. It should, following a review of government responsibilities, be replaced by a Bill that repeals the current measures dealing with numbers and salaries, caps the number of Ministers below the current maximum, and provides that no one may be appointed to a ministerial post, paid or unpaid, above that cap. That is but one step; another is ramping up the training of Ministers. We are promised a national school of government, but we have been here before. In September 2021, I initiated a debate on the case for introducing training in core leadership skills for Ministers and civil servants, but there is still some way to go.
It is in the interests of good government to make the changes that I have outlined, but it would take a brave Prime Minister to implement them. That, I fear, is why we are left with the tidying-up Bill that is before us. It is a lost opportunity.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I support the Bill. However, I have a number of questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer, as we have an opportunity to debate issues about payments to unpaid Ministers. Let me say at the beginning that it is understandable that, due to the complexities of the social world and related workload, the number of Ministers needs to be increased, but that does not necessarily mean that we will have better or more accountable government.
I like the idea of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and fully support ending the practice of unpaid Ministers. I am sure that the Minister would now like to extend that principle to the entire population. We have nearly 6 million, predominantly female, unpaid carers who provide vital support for the old, sick, disabled and unfortunate. Their labour reduces pressure on public services. When will they be paid a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work? Some 1.4 million carers receive carer’s allowance of £86.45 a week, which adds up to £12.35 a day. Can the Minister explain when the principle of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work will apply to carers? It is vital that it applies to everybody, not just to Ministers.
We also need transparency about the income and wealth of all Ministers. Disclosures in the Register of Members’ Interests are very limited. Over the years, there have been numerous scandals about the tax affairs of Government and shadow Ministers. One way of instilling public confidence in the institutions of government is to require Ministers to publish their tax returns. In recent years, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister have published their tax returns, but that needs to be on a statutory rather than voluntary basis. It should apply to all Government and shadow Ministers and be extended to Members of this House and the other place.
There was a glimmer of hope in Labour’s Fair Tax Programme in 2019, which promised:
“Public filing of tax returns of wealthy individuals”,
but that pledge seems to have been ditched. In Norway, everyone’s tax return has been publicly available since 1814, which is a major reason why it has fewer tax and political scandals. The extension of tax transparency can help to avoid scandals and enhance confidence in the political system. I hope that the Minister will commit to introducing a Bill in Parliament that will facilitate tax transparency of ministerial incomes and wealth.
All too often, Government and shadow Ministers argue that worker salaries and salary increases should be related to increases in productivity. Of course, the allocation of productivity to each individual worker is highly problematic and very difficult to calculate, but that has not stopped Ministers pushing the idea. Can the Minister explain how the productivity of the newly paid or already paid Ministers is actually measured? Is there a mechanism? Can she share it with this House and the public at large? Can she publish the results so that people can then comment when they are asked to increase their productivity?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
My Lords, first, I express my gratitude to the Whips for allowing me to speak in the gap and apologise for not registering in time.
I have a few quick points to make after hearing what I already know, which is how hard-working and truly valuable Lords Ministers are. By the way, I exclude myself from that group. The idea that we should not pay Government Ministers anything is frankly absurd. In fact, this is an anomaly in our history, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Barber. I add that if you go back to the 1790s, William Pitt was paid £5,000 a year to be Prime Minister and another £5,000 to be Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which equates to nearly £2 million a year in today’s money. Unfortunately, he then had to borrow a further £2 million from George III to cover his debts, putting some of our more recent profligate Prime Ministers into perspective.
The point is that if we want great statesmen running our country, we need to pay them properly. We can almost draw a geometric line from the salaries of our Ministers from the late 18th century to the zero rate today, and plot our general economic and national decline along it. In no other area of the world would we not pay for expert leadership. If I need to see a medical expert—I am going through my usual middle-aged checks at the moment—my GP does not say, “I’m so pleased. We’ve managed to track down a brain specialist who is the cheapest in the country. In fact, he’s completely free”. No, we would want the best, and actually we would want the most expensive.
I was appointed a Government Minister without any experience of the job or any formal training—and no salary. Indeed, often when asked, normally incredulously, how I got appointed a Lords Minister, I used to reply that I competed on price. Indeed, on the departmental website it said in bold letters after my name “unpaid”, and one visiting dignitary asked me about this with a clear tone that he would rather speak to someone who was paid rather than to a volunteer. I was then fired after two weeks and reinstated two weeks after that, with great dignity, by our leader—a victim, I may say, of fire and rehire. I was asked whether I got my redundancy bonus, and I said that I took 100% of it, which for those of your Lordships who were not listening carefully, was £0. My children kept telling me to resign and go and make some money.
The fact is that we are being dishonest with ourselves and our citizens, with this pretence that we are somehow careful with public money. This really is nonsense. We should pay Ministers far more than we already do. By the way, as we have heard from some noble Lords, we should expect far more from them in terms of outcomes. To say otherwise—and I am afraid my own party was guilty of this—is derogating our nation and is against all the laws of society and economics.
I end, if I may, with an additional plea. Again, under the pretence of good management, Ministers have precious few direct expenses, particularly for those who are unpaid. It is actually quite a costly business being a Minister. On my first day as a Minister, I asked whether there was a car to take me to see an ambassador. “No, Minister”, came the reply, “but we do have the number of a local taxi firm”. One high-level investment summit I had to leave by bus, with all the Saudi delegation looking rather surprised as I waved embarrassedly out of the window of the number 14. Global superpower Britain we were not.
In my last few days in office, we knew what the outcome would be so I was preparing for the worst. A slightly meek official came into my office and said, “Minister, I am afraid you owe us £39.50”. “What for?”, I asked. “For the hotel you stayed at when you visited our ambassador in Germany. It was over the threshold for Ministers’ expenses, so you need to pay the difference”. My last act as a Minister was literally to write out a cheque to His Majesty’s Government, effectively for doing my job. At least Ministers will now have a salary to meet their expenses when they represent their country abroad.
I support this Bill, but in my view it does not go far enough. The issue needs to be debated further. Please can we start by being honest with the people of this country that good politics is not free? We want the best leaders in the world, and we should be prepared to pay reasonably for them. To pretend otherwise is dishonest. This Bill is welcome, but it is only one step in the right direction.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches support this modest improvement. In the late 19th century, the Liberal Party spent a great deal of time campaigning for MPs to be paid, against strong Conservative opposition, on the grounds that we wanted anyone to be able to take part in public life and not limit it to those who could afford it.
I declare a strong personal interest. I was appointed to this House when the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, then Lord Bonham-Carter, died suddenly, so I was appointed straight on to my group’s Front Bench. I have spent 29 years as an unpaid Front-Bench spokesman, including five years as a Lords Whip and Minister, mainly in the Foreign Office. I am very conscious of the difficulties that causes, although, as it happens, my wife and I both had professorial pensions—you can live pretty well on that and do not need too much else.
I mildly minded it when I was sent abroad and thus could not claim my Lords allowance. To add to the anecdote from the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, I remember that in the first two years of the coalition the Foreign Office was trying to demonstrate how economical we were being. Having represented Her Majesty’s Government at a conference on the Balkans in Dubrovnik, I was collected by a Croatian Government official car, delivered to the airport and deposited at the front of the easyJet queue to come home. When I was swapping stories with other Ministers about which airlines we had been booked on to, David Lidington won because he had been on Wizz Air.
We all have attempts to save money. I strongly agree with those who have said that we need to pay our Ministers here and in the Commons well, because we have a problem with political recruitment and we want to have good Ministers and good opposition politicians to improve the quality of our Government.
This Bill is a small step forward in the very slow process of reforming our second Chamber. There is a very long way to go. The hereditary Peers Act, which is just about to come into effect, has taken us a bit further, but there is a lot further to go. After the election, the Conservative group was by far the largest in the House, but it has been given several dozen additional appointments since then, which has meant that the Government have also wished to add to their Benches. We are expanding towards 900. Thinking about the future, it is highly likely that in three years’ time we may find ourselves without a single-party majority and with some sort of coalition Government, quite possibly with one coalition partner that has few or no Members in the House of Lords. The question of how we adjust our numbers when Governments change is one that we cannot duck for much longer.
I support a time limit for appointments and a different system for them. I certainly support an age limit. I should explain to the Lord Privy Seal that, for that reason, I am at last stepping down from being on the Front Bench now that we have a younger colleague on our Benches at least as expert in the portfolio for which I stand as I am. I shall be a Back-Bencher from now on, but will occasionally be awkward and interfering as ever.
The Lords has changed enormously since I joined. The Lord Privy Seal rightly reprimanded me some weeks ago for suggesting that we are still a part-time House. I have been thinking about that correct reprimand. The 200 to 300 of us who do most of the work are now full-time. We work far harder than we used to and that is partly because the Commons does much less of the detailed legislative scrutiny it used to do some 15 or 20 years ago. This House is now the place where amendments are made to government Bills. But that leaves us with a great deal further to go in defining what it means to be a full-time House, because half of our Members are still part-time with outside interests. If we are to be a full-time second Chamber, it requires quite a lot more thinking through.
Others mentioned the quality of Ministers in the Lords. We are extremely lucky to have this quality of Ministers, many of them unpaid. I asked one of our Ministers last night whether she was paid or not and was surprised to learn that, compared to what she must have been earning before she took office, she is doing astonishingly well.
We have expert Ministers here. We also want expert Ministers in the Commons. We know, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said, that the quality of Ministers in the Commons and the length of time they spend in each office is a matter of some contention. I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, that Ministers should stay longer in post. I say in passing that the last coalition Government had Ministers staying in post for a great deal longer than any single-party Government have had since 2015. There are advantages in coalition government, as well as some disadvantages.
Ministerial patronage and using reshuffles as party management are part of the way in which the Commons is managed, and that is unfortunate. We would do better if government patronage were reduced and the tail of Ministers, PPSs and trade envoys was shrunk. The Commons would then rightly criticise the Government more, be more independent and do more of the work that this House has now begun to take on.
Lastly, if we want to have good governance in this country, we have to pay Ministers well. I regret, and we on these Benches do not accept, the long-term freeze in ministerial salaries. I saw the report from the Taxpayers’ Alliance that remarked that there are now a large number of local council executives who are paid more than the Prime Minister. That is partly because the Prime Minister is paid so remarkably little. If we want to hold on to good people and attract good people into politics, we have to accept that we must pay them well. We have been lucky that we have had enough people here who have already made a lot of money and were therefore able to come and work for nothing in the Lords, but that was not a proper thing to do. I therefore repeat that we on these Benches support the Bill while saying that we have a lot more work to do to reform this House.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. It has gone rather wide of the subject in many ways, but that has not been unhelpful.
We are fortunate in that we have a number of very experienced Ministers in this House. A number of us had ministerial lives before coming to this place. I can say on a personal level that having experience as a Minister and taking on a different job makes it easier. For Ministers coming in for the first time and taking on a ministerial role, the noble Lords, Lord Redwood and Lord Norton of Louth, and others made valid points about the support available for training. There is no other job like being a Minister.
The work that has to be undertaken in this place is extensive. I thank my noble friend Lady Ramsey for the example that she gave to identify how ministerial brains in the House of Lords have to bounce around so many subjects and absorb so much information. Whether I am sitting on that side of the Chamber or this side, I am consistently impressed by the work that they do.
I will try to address some of the points that have been made. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord True. We have discussed this issue over a number of years, not just since we have been in Government, and he is right that it is a long-overdue measure. The noble Lord always talks about ending the freeze on ministerial salaries. That freeze on ministerial salaries is not addressed in this Bill, but, when it was introduced by Gordon Brown and then reduced by David Cameron, people did not think about the House of Lords. A Member of Parliament in the other place on a ministerial salary also gets an index-linked salary. However, I think I am right in saying that I am paid less in cash terms than my noble friend Lady Royall was when she did this job many years ago. Therefore, for Members of this House it has had a disproportionate effect.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said that a number of Members who have made lots of money take on ministerial jobs. However, many who take on unpaid ministerial jobs do not have lots of money, but make a decision and a choice to serve. We should be very grateful to them. As the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, said, it particularly affects those Ministers who have to travel as part of their job. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and my noble friend Lord Hanson were mentioned. Ministers who are not being paid a ministerial salary can claim the daily allowance if they are in the House. But we expect our Ministers not to be tied to Parliament. We expect them to go out, to engage with people, to see some of the things that they are talking about, to have meetings in other places and to travel overseas, so they have been greatly disadvantaged.
I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Lord Barber of Chittlehampton as new Members seeing the work done by Ministers in this House. That was really helpful. My noble friend Lord Barber of Chittlehampton made a comment about it being of greater benefit to the House and the Government. I think having paid Ministers is probably of less advantage to the Government, because the Government must fork out the salaries rather than the House. But it is of enormous value to your Lordships’ House as a whole.
The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, talked about the whiteboard of ministerial shuffles. My first reshuffle was done on pieces of paper stuck on with Blu Tack. It is now interactive. It sometimes seems that Lords Ministers are thought about afterwards when other ministerial positions are taken, yet Members of the House of Commons whom I have spoken to who have seen the work of Lords Ministers and others in the ministerial team all comment on the work that our Ministers do. I think the noble Baroness was right.
I understand the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on whether there are too many Ministers, but this has been the reality of government for some time. He is right to ask whether we get efficient government, but the pace of government and the pace of communication these days is a pressure that we do not always realise. I was reading some political diaries, I think by Duff Cooper, before the Second World War, and Chips Channon. The pace they were working at was significantly different from what we are doing now. If they had to travel somewhere, they were talking about several days to get there—journeys that now take a few hours. The pace of ministerial life and the pace of public life are significantly different.
I thought the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Redwood and Lord Elliott, on ministerial training were interesting. I was thinking back to when I was first a Minister and the support and training that I got. There is some degree of mentoring, but it is more difficult when a new Government comes in after a period in opposition. All Ministers need time to find their feet. Across the House, we see Ministers grow in confidence and ability into their positions. That experience does count, so I do take that on board.
The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, made an interesting suggestion about economic growth and tying ministerial salaries to it. I would be significantly better off if that was the case, after the complete ministerial freeze for many years. It is very unlikely to be in the King’s Speech. I cannot give away any confidences about what might be in it, but MPs’ salaries are determined by IPSA, an independent body, and I wish the noble Lord luck in trying to persuade IPSA of that. The ministerial pay freeze remains in place. However, there is a point about members of the public understanding the formula by which decisions are taken on that, so I am grateful to him for making that point on growth.
The noble Lord, Lord Redwood, made some interesting comments. I was thinking back through my ministerial life as he was speaking. My sense is that most Prime Ministers do not like big reshuffles, but, once you start, one thing happens and then another. There is something about having experience in a department and getting knowledge, but there is also something about bringing a fresh perspective on something. He raised an important point about longevity in office and also the ability to show leadership and decision-making. Those two qualities are hard to learn, but for Ministers they are essential.
I shall tell just one anecdote, so as not delay the House. On one occasion in a new post as Northern Ireland Minister, I was given a cheque and a letter to sign. It was to reimburse a mother whose son had forgotten his bus pass on the way to school. He sent in a form to be reimbursed for his bus fare, and I was being asked to sign the letter and the cheque. I sent it back and said, “I don’t intend to sign this. This is not a matter for me”. I was told, “But our previous Minister did that”. I said, “Yeah, he had one department, I’ve got three, I’m not doing it”. It is up to Ministers to set the boundaries of where they think it is appropriate that there is ministerial intervention. His point on that was really welcome.
This has been a helpful debate. There are a number of points to take note of. The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, mentioned other issues around maternity pay. They are not the subject of this Bill. I take the point she makes about unfairness. I think she was probably the first Member of this House to take maternity leave as a Minister. I remember some very nerve-wracking moments in that July before she gave birth when she was rather large and it was a very hot day and we were all hoping that she would last to the end of the debate before giving birth.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, it is probably a sign of how the House of Lords has changed. It was probably never anticipated that Members of the House of Lords would be giving birth and being young mothers. That just shows that society is changing. We are not a House of people who can afford to do the job for nothing. If we want Ministers to be recompensed in terms of the status of the role to recognise the work they do and to be fair in how we treat them, they should be paid. I will take the points away that she has made, and I am grateful for the time she gave me in discussing these things. They are not something that I was familiar with, and I found that extremely helpful.
I am grateful for the comments that have been made. I think this Bill is the right thing to do for this House. I end by saying that across both parties we are grateful for the efforts those in ministerial roles make and the time they take. I think there is significant support for this legislation across the House. There may be demands to go further and to look at other issues, and I understand that, but I am a great believer in incremental change.
Bill read a second time. Committee negatived. Standing Order 44 having been dispensed with, the Bill was read a third time and passed.