Civil Service Pay

Debate between John McDonnell and Alex Burghart

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that I will come to that point very soon.

As everyone will, I hope, appreciate, the Government put fiscal responsibility at the very centre of our policy, and we are taking appropriate steps to manage inflation. Obviously, at the moment, it is not public sector wages that are driving inflation. Many factors are driving inflation. Inflation is besetting our closest friends and competitors around the world; it is an international problem. However, if we were to take the advice of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) and others, we would find ourselves in trouble.

The Governor of the Bank of England and its chief economist have both said that inflation-matching pay rises in the public sector can spill over into higher pay across the economy, and that would make the fight against inflation even more challenging. That is why halving inflation is the top of the Prime Minister’s five immediate priorities, alongside growing the economy, reducing national debt, getting the NHS backlog down and stopping small boats crossing the channel. Our focus is on pay for 2023-24.

[John McDonnell]

It is difficult to see how a reasonable settlement below the rate of inflation—for example, the fire brigade settlement of 7%, with backdating and 5% for next year—could in any way offend against the Bank of England Governor’s comments. Have the Government even considered an offer of that sort to the civil service?

[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman is a former shadow Chancellor. He will appreciate that the higher the pay settlement, the slower the rate of decline in inflation is likely to be. [Laughter.] He laughs; I hope he has realised how the numbers work.

[John McDonnell]

This is unique in economic history in this country. We are arguing that a pay award below the rate of inflation is still inflationary. I have never heard that one before, and I think we should record it for posterity.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

There was a flippant remark from the Minister with regard to meeting PCS members. I just remind him that PCS members in my constituency—two Border Control staff—died during the pandemic because of covid. They sacrificed their lives keeping this country safe.

[Alex Burghart]

On a point of order, Mr Pritchard. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that there was no flippant remark about PCS whatsoever. [Interruption.] There was no flippant remark whatsoever. The record will state that all I said was that you had been invited to join the picket line, Mr Pritchard. That is not a flippant remark about PCS.

[John McDonnell]

This is a serious debate about people living in poverty.

Enabling the Public to call a General Election

Debate between John McDonnell and Alex Burghart

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

I must say that it is a pleasure—a genuine pleasure—to take part in an Adjournment debate such as this, to respond to a speech that has been very well researched, and to think about the big and important questions we should we always consider when looking at the future of our constitution and our democracy. To an extent, we spend too little time in this place thinking about how the operation of our Parliament, our Government and our relationship with the voters works, so I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for taking the time to do this work.

As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman is proposing that we amend the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 to the effect that the sovereign would dissolve Parliament if that Parliament was more than halfway complete—halfway through its five-year maximum term—and if at least half the number of voters who had voted at the previous general election signed a petition calling for Parliament to be dissolved, although as he said, that threshold is perhaps up for debate and is a starter for ten.

There is a mechanism that a Government could use if they wished to pursue this. We have had a very successful online petitions website for a number of years now, which allows people to register their interest in particular issues and to ask the Government to respond. At the moment, however, it does not quite have the verification capabilities necessary to allow Governments to be assured that those signing up are genuine voters, but perhaps those problems can be overcome. With reference to that successful site, I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that, for the past four months, it has had a live petition calling for a general election as soon as possible; in those four months it has acquired about 900,000 votes, which is a good sum but a very long way off the 50% that would be necessary under his system to trigger a general election. Even if these are, by his definition, extraordinary times, the clamour for a general election might not, therefore, be as strong as his remarks suggested.

That said, his well-considered remarks deserve proper consideration here, although I say at the outset—this will be no surprise to the hon. Gentleman—that we are not inclined to support his proposals. The 2022 Act, which fairly recently acquired Royal Assent, covered many of the issues on how Parliament is to be dissolved and general elections are to be held. I seem to remember that there was no opposition on that from the Labour Benches; I believe all Labour Members abstained. The hon. Gentleman perhaps missed an opportunity to table amendments at that time, but the joy of our system is that we can bring forward good ideas—or less good ideas—at any point.

For a number of practical reasons, the hon. Gentleman’s proposal should be resisted and treated with great caution. It would introduce an unnecessary element of instability into our system; if we were to create a petition mechanism that kicked in at two and a half years, we would very likely find that we quickly entered a time of perpetual campaigning—two and a half years of preparation for starting an official petition campaign, followed by two and a half years of trying to get the petition through. I know the hon. Gentleman is an avid campaigner and will probably relish that prospect, but for those of us who cherish the opportunity for stable Government it would prove a great distraction.

I thought the hon. Gentleman might well mention the Chartists; indeed I feel I see before me a descendant of the Chartists of old. He will take some comfort from the fact that the Chartists were proved right on all their demands apart from one—their request for annual Parliaments. At the time, even some of their most ardent followers disputed the idea on grounds that it would create unnecessary cost, distraction and the inability of Governments to operate over the medium term.

That brings us to the crux of why the proposal would could be damaging to our finely balanced constitution. It is important to have Governments who can be assured that if they have a majority in the House—if they can command the confidence of the House—they will have space to operate and to take difficult decisions. Stability is often most needed at times when Governments are most unpopular, and we would run the risk of introducing a mechanism that would create further instability in periods of instability, and that could be to the detriment of all of us. There is, however, a very interesting idea in the hon. Gentleman’s proposals, and I am sure he will continue to develop them and bring them back to the House.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The Minister mis-portrays my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who is more a Digger and Leveller than a Chartist. He seems to be arguing about stability and how we would be in a continuous campaigning mode. Some people would call that campaigning; others might call it a continuous accountability mode in which Governments have to demonstrate daily that they are abiding by the will of the people who elected them. That is no bad thing, is it?

[Alex Burghart]

I stand corrected on the heritage of the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). Accountability comes in many forms. We are all accountable to our electorate through media and debates such as this. However, that is different from having a system that gives Governments a period of up to five years in power to make decisions that they can prove the benefits of. Indeed, it was not so long ago that we had Parliaments of seven years in this country and that the French presidency lasted seven years for the reason that Governments had time to fix problems and prove that their method of government was effective.

[John McDonnell]

That leaves the decision on when to call a general election to the whim of a Prime Minister and the judgment of the ruling party on when it can manipulate its popularity. Surely that is equally unstable. All we want to do is enable the people to make that decision.

[Alex Burghart]

I have a distinct recollection of a Prime Minister trying to do that in the not-too-distant past and finding that the electorate took a different view on whether she had made the right decision to call that election. Governments and Prime Ministers use that power at their peril, and they are aware of that.

To my mind, and the mind of the Government, it is much better to be able to guarantee a period in which a Prime Minister and Executive who hold the confidence of the House can legislate and operate in order to solve the problems that the country faces. To all parliamentarians comes judgment day, as Karl Popper referred to it. We must all face an election. The question is when. When our electorate go to the polls, they know that they are likely voting for us to be here for five years and on the understanding that, whoever gets into power will get five years to do the best job they can for the country and solve the problems that the country faces. That system has served us well, and that is why we continue to defend it. It has been a pleasure to debate with the hon. Member for Leeds East this evening, and I look forward to talking to him on constitutional matters long into the future.