Committee on Standards and Committee of Privileges

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Mark Field

Monday 12th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Again, the hon. Gentleman anticipates something that I may say a little later, but if he looks at paragraph 176 of the Wright Committee’s report, he will see what is deemed Back-Bench business and what is deemed business that the Government should schedule. It states:

“Backbenchers should schedule backbench business. Ministers should give up their role in the scheduling of any business except that which is exclusively Ministerial business, comprising Ministerial-sponsored legislation and associated motions, substantive non-legislative motions required in support of their policies and Ministerial statements”.

It may help the hon. Gentleman if I say that the Government will ensure that there is adequate time to debate on the Floor of the House any matter referred to the House by the Committee on Standards or the Committee of Privileges. I suspect that there will be a dialogue with the Backbench Business Committee to ensure that time is available at the appropriate moment.

Amendment (c), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), would set down in Standing Orders a requirement that the membership of the two new Committees should always be the same. The Procedure Committee examined the case for a requirement of identical membership in paragraph 63 of its report, and concluded that the case had not been made. I recognise that there is a case for an element of shared membership, and possibly even for identical membership, but the Government, like the Procedure Committee, do not support the notion that there should be an inflexible provision to that effect in Standing Orders. With that assurance, I hope he will not move his amendment. In splitting the Standards and Privileges Committee, the Government do not intend to revisit the decisions taken at the beginning of this Session on appropriate Committee membership.

The second issue that has been raised about lay members is their status. The Committee on Standards and Privileges has stated that

“if the proposed external members of the Standards and Privileges Committee are to carry credibility, they need to have full voting rights.”

The Procedure Committee considered the matter carefully and in great detail, and it invited the House to study with care the arguments for and against full voting rights. As the Government made clear in our response, we have carefully considered the arguments about whether lay members should have full voting rights. We have concluded that it would not be appropriate to grant such rights in the first instance, in view of the authoritative evidence given to the Procedure Committee that it would create a risk that lay members’ participation would not have the protection of parliamentary privilege.

Lay members will be able to participate fully in evidence taking and informal consideration of draft reports. In addition, there will be two specific protections for their position. The first is the requirement that any written opinion of a lay member present at the relevant meeting on a report agreed by the Committee must be published as part of its report. The second is that the Committee cannot conduct any business unless at least one lay member is present.

A decision to proceed on that basis will provide a guarantee of the effective participation of lay members in the decision-making processes of the Committee, and can be taken without prejudice to subsequent consideration of full voting rights. The Government will consider the case for legislation that would place beyond doubt the position of a Committee on Standards including lay members with full voting rights, as part of our work on preparing the forthcoming draft parliamentary privilege Bill and the accompanying Green Paper.

The third and final issue that has been raised about lay members was voiced in the debate in December 2010 and echoed in the Procedure Committee’s report. It relates to the selection of lay members and control over how they subsequently carry out their work. The motion proposes to entrust that matter to the House of Commons Commission, which would also take responsibility for a motion for dismissal in the unlikely eventuality that it should prove necessary. I believe that the Commission, chaired by the Speaker, is the best way to ensure that there is a fair and open process that leads to the House being asked to appoint only excellent candidates.

I know that some concern has been expressed about the term of office of lay members. The Procedure Committee recommended single five-year terms. However, it also acknowledged uncertainty about appointments straddling two Parliaments. The motion therefore provides for appointments for the remainder of one Parliament and reappointments for a period of up to two years in a new Parliament. Although I understand the advantages of a single term, the Government remain to be convinced that it is appropriate for lay members to be appointed for a period that, by definition, lasts longer than the appointment of hon. Members. There will be a very strong presumption indeed that lay members will be reappointed for a further term at the start of the subsequent Parliament. If they were not, the Committee on Standards would find it difficult to operate. I offer my commitment that the Government will assist in such a process.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I accept that there is a general demand for lay members, but I am sceptical as to how independent-minded they will be—I have in mind the less-than-independent IPSA as a guideline. I will not detain the Leader of the House on that.

There is a more detailed issue: cost. If lay members are involved in the Committee on Standards, especially lay members with a legal background, surely any Member of the House before it will demand expensive legal representation. Will the cost of that representation be met by the Committee, or will an individual Member be expected to meet it through his own resources?

[Sir George Young]

There are no changes to the resources available to hon. Members who appear before the Standards Committee. We are suggesting a per diem remuneration for independent members—£300, I believe, which is parallel to what independent members of SCIPSA are paid. In putting lay members on the Standards Committee, we are not making any other changes to how the Committee operates. As I said earlier in answer to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the memorandum says that all the basic rules for the two separate Committees remain unchanged apart from the addition of lay members.

[Mark Field]

There might be no desire to change the Committee’s procedure, but I suspect that there will be a different approach outside, particularly among the media. There will be much more scrutiny of a Committee that has lay members, particularly if they are high-profile legal figures. What protection will there be for MPs who find themselves subject to an investigation under the new regime, so that they have what they consider to be essential legal advice, which might come extremely expensively?

[Sir George Young]

My answer now is the same one I gave to my hon. Friend a moment ago: there is no change in the resources available to hon. Members. Currently, some decide to take legal advice and pay for it out of their own pocket; others simply represent themselves. We are not proposing changes to the way in which Members interface with the Committee, but seeking to ensure that the Committee’s decisions have greater credibility in the outside world by adding lay members to it. That is the only change that we propose to make.

Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Mark Field

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I would like to make a bit of progress before I give way.

It is accepted by Members on both sides of the House that the UK faces an unsustainable structural deficit that must be brought down. The Government have been forced, as any Government would be, to take difficult decisions across the public sector that have consequences for hon. Members. In March, the House agreed that Members’ salaries should be frozen this year in line with the two-year pay freeze on public sector workers earning more than £21,000. After that debate, I commenced the relevant parts of the CRAG Act, formally transferring power to IPSA. I am sure that the chairman of the trustees and the House will recognise the comparison of that procedure and the one we are debating this afternoon—we are transferring responsibility while at the same time expressing a view.

Before the election, all parties publicly agreed that the current final salary terms of the parliamentary pension scheme should be brought to an end. However, as with other public service pension reform, changes will not be made retrospectively, nor will they have an impact on past benefits—an assurance that is as important to Members of the House as it is to those in other public sector schemes.

Looking ahead to a future scheme, the coalition agreement committed us to consult IPSA on moving from the final salary arrangements. In June last year, the Government established the independent public service pensions commission, chaired by Lord Hutton of Furness, to make recommendations on how to put public service pensions on a sustainable footing. Although the Hutton report did not include hon. Members within its scope of inquiry, it was immediately apparent that reform of the parliamentary pension scheme must be tackled in the light of the commission’s findings and their subsequent application to other public service schemes. I do not believe that there is any case for our scheme being treated differently from other public service schemes. Indeed, there would be justifiable disbelief if it were.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I accept that there is much to be said about our needing to set the public an example, particularly given the reforms we are trying to make to public sector schemes, but unlike many public sector schemes the parliamentary scheme is—or is near to being—fully funded and the contributions are rather larger. Will the Leader of the House go into more detail on the nature of the parliamentary scheme, which is slightly misunderstood in much of the press coverage?

[Sir George Young]

The contributions for those subscribing at one fortieth are indeed higher than those for many elsewhere in the public sector, but so are the benefits. The Exchequer contribution, at some 28%, is also substantially higher than for other public sector schemes. One needs to consider it in the round when one comes to a judgment about the appropriate treatment of the scheme.

Today’s motion supports the approach to public service pension reform set out in the final report of the independent public service pensions commission.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Mark Field

Thursday 5th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that response, which deserved a far wider audience on the Labour Benches than it received today. While the Leader of the Opposition still struggles to be identified by the “Today” programme, the shadow Leader of the House has at least managed to define himself in these sessions as a sort of Rory Bremner without the accents. The fact that he rarely turns his creative energies to the business before the House for the next week is, I think, a welcome acknowledgement that so far as the running of the business of the House is concerned, I enjoy his full confidence and support.

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the current affairs debate. It shows the value of business questions that when serious propositions are made by the right hon. Gentleman and Members from all parties, the Government can respond to the views of the House and in some cases find time for a debate.

On heathlands, the Government will want to keep the House in the picture, whether by written ministerial statement or otherwise, and I take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion.

As for the Easter recess and when the House might rise next year, the right hon. Gentleman is well ahead of the game. I think I first asked about last year’s Easter recess in October the year before. I went on asking and—I have had to refresh my memory on this point—it was 12 days before the Easter recess in 2010 that I actually got the date from the then Government. For him to ask some 11 months in advance is, I would gently suggest, a little premature.

On the matter of the correspondence between my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio and the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), as the shadow Leader of the House knows a reply was sent by the Minister responsible for constitutional reform. If a reply has been sent by the right hon. Member for Warley, it will of course get a proper response, which will include the specific questions that the shadow Leader of the House raised.

I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that OFFA will decide whether a university can charge £9,000, so my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was absolutely right. Universities can charge that figure only if OFFA is satisfied that the necessary arrangements have been made, for example, to secure access for those on lower incomes. There is no clash there.

Finally, on the whole business of collective responsibility, I am amazed that the right hon. Gentleman should seek to raise this when he is speaking for a party that since losing power has deluged high street bookshops with inside accounts from all the main players, giving us the grisly details of the spats, feuds and briefings within the then Cabinet. Things do not sound much better in the current shadow Cabinet, with one Brownite insider reported as saying that the Leader of the Opposition’s team is “terrified” of the shadow Chancellor and shadow Home Secretary because;

“They think they're going to come and try and kill him. And the reason they think that is because they will.”

The truth is that the tensions within one party that sits on the Opposition Benches are much more damaging than the understandable tensions between two parties during a referendum campaign and local elections. From next week we will be back in business, working together in the national interest to get the economy back on its feet. Our divisions will heal, but Labour’s never will.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I am sure that the prospect of yet another Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority debate next Thursday fills the Leader of the House with the joys of spring. However, as he will be aware, there is one piece of unfinished business. Although there will be no determination of any salary until April 2013, will he ensure that he will trigger the mechanism that puts the power for setting salaries into the hands of IPSA, so that it can do its preparation work in advance of that deadline?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We have not seen the motion that we will debate next Thursday, although we have received a general indication of the subject. I hope that the House will stand behind the principle of independence and transparency that was agreed in the previous Parliament and to which I very much hope we can adhere. I can confirm that I shall trigger very shortly the transfer of responsibility for fixing MPs’ pay from where it rests at the moment to IPSA.

Members’ Salaries

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Mark Field

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

If my hon. Friend looks at the comparator, he will see that it includes a number of people who earn less than £21,000 and that, crucially, it includes settlements that were made before the last election. To that extent, it lags behind the public sector pay freeze that we announced in the Budget.

To answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, the 2008 resolution also requires the SSRB to conduct a review of Members’ salaries in the first year of each new Parliament. By rescinding the resolution in its entirety, the motion removes the requirement for the SSRB to conduct such a review this year. The review of Members’ salaries will instead take place following the commencement of section 29 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which will transfer the determination of our salaries to IPSA on a statutory basis. As I said at business questions last week, the Government intend to commence that section shortly. If, in future, the House wants to overturn any recommendations, it will require primary legislation, not a 90-minute debate such as we are having this evening.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Given the self-denying ordinance that the Leader of the House is proposing today for salaries, will he give a commitment that he will bring in primary legislation to ensure that there will be no increase in allowances for the next two years under IPSA, or is this the same old story that we have had in the past of holding the salary in a blaze of glory, and turning around and seeing allowances increased?

[Sir George Young]

There is no intention of doing that.

The Government’s policy is to have a public sector pay freeze for those earning more than £21,000 a year. Members of Parliament clearly earn more than that. I think that it would be unacceptable for those earning just more than £21,000 to have no increase and for Members of Parliament earning three times that sum to get a salary increase of about £650. That is why I think it is right this evening to ask the House to freeze our salaries. I very much hope that the House will approve the motion in my name and that of the Deputy Leader of the House.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Mark Field

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Following the Leader of the House’s written statement this morning, might I respectfully suggest to him that, just for once on MPs’ pay and conditions, he tries to be wise before the event? Regaining the trust of the general public after the calamitous expenses scandal requires that this House abides in full by the independent reviews, come rain or shine.

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It will be for the House to decide whether to go ahead with the 1% pay increase that has come about through the machinery that was set up in 2008. The coalition Government have made their position on public sector pay very clear: we think that there should be a two-year pay freeze; that unless one earns less than £21,000 a freeze is a freeze; and that for those who earn under £21,000 the increase should amount to £250. Members earn substantially more than £21,000, and I believe that the House will want to reflect very carefully before it takes a 1% pay increase against the background of the restraint that many other people, earning much less than we do, have to face over the next two years. So I hope the House will come to a collective view when the motion is laid and agree that it is right for Members to exercise restraint for the time being.