Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill

Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.