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Members' Salaries, Pensions and Allowances

We are having an interesting debate on this issue. It is perhaps not as heated or exciting as some that we have witnessed in the past, because in some respects, there is a great deal of consensus around the House. To the extent that there is any tension or disagreement, it seems to cut to the question of the relationship between this sovereign House and the Government as it affects the matters before us. I should like to point out to Members the difference between the administration estimate—that is, the budget spending line that runs the House of Commons, employs the House staff, and is responsible for the fabric of the building and security—and the Members estimate, which we are discussing. The administration estimate is the property of this House. The House is responsible for it and it is administered by the House of Commons Commission. Members ask questions of the Commission about how those moneys are used. The Commission produces an annual report that Members can debate and lays before this House annually an estimate for the running of the House. The Members estimate, which is the budget spending line from which Members pay and allowances are paid, is not the property of this House but is deemed to be the property of the Government and the Treasury. That, at least, is the theory. One might ask various previous Leaders of the House who have been responsible on the occasions of these debates on SSRB reports whether they felt that they had control over the Members estimate. There have been some memorable debates in which the Government have not had their way and this sovereign House has shown that it is indeed responsible for this line of spending. In reality, the Members' estimate is neither fish nor fowl—it exists in a sort of limbo. Only a Minister of the Crown can propose an increase in expenditure against it. That is why expressions of opinion, whereby other Members can make suggestions, sit alongside the motion. On the question of a mechanism for deciding pay, I have no problem with what the Government are doing. They have proposed that for the current year, 2007-08, the pay rise for Members should be staged in such a way that its value is only 1.9 per cent. over the course of the year. There does not appear to be any great controversy about that. Nobody has argued against it or tabled an amendment suggesting anything different, and the Front Benchers of all three parties have urged Members to support that restraint at this time. The Government have also concluded that it would be right to have conducted a review that attempts to produce a new mechanism that does not require MPs to vote annually on their pay for the coming year. There is a general consensus around the House that if a workable system can be proposed, that is a good idea that we would all welcome. There is a problem, however, in relation to how the Government are going about this. In my view, the report that they commissioned from the SSRB should have been a report to this House, but because of the peculiar relationship that I have described as regards the Members estimate, it was a report to the Government, which they then sat on for more than six months. We all speculated that it must be a real hot potato, and that there must be something absolutely diabolical in the report that was causing the Government terrible political angst, which meant that they had to sit on it for six months. When the report came out I read it, re-read it and read it again, and wondered what on earth had caused the Government so much difficulty. That is the first grievance I wish to log about the way in which they have done their business. I wish to flag up some serious misgivings about what the Government now propose. They are asking us to rescind and tear up the resolution of July 1996, which has governed how such matters are dealt with for the past 12 years. Effectively they want us to sign them a blank cheque. We have to buy a pig in a poke, leave matters with them, and they will have a review conducted by someone of their choosing who will report back to them. We all just have to relax: it will all be okay because they will see us right. I do not think that that is a sensible or logical way for the House to proceed. That is why there is an amendment on the Order Paper in my name, and in the names of other Members who serve with me on the Members Estimate Committee, suggesting that we ought not to rescind the existing arrangement until we have seen what the review recommends, and resolved as a sovereign House what we are going to do about it, and what the arrangements should be in future. It is simply logical not to rip up the old system before resolving what the new one will be. More specifically, the Government have made no suggestion about what MPs' pay rate should be for 2008-09. That is why my amendment suggests that while we are waiting for a new system to emerge, we should have what is suggested under the existing system—what the SSRB recommended—for next year. It is the only proposal on the Order Paper that makes any provision for any pay rise next year. During the course of the debate, we have heard from the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) and the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar) various rather more detailed suggestions about the task that lies before Sir John Baker—what he will do, what he will recommend and what might come back before the House in July. I have no knowledge of that. I have no particular problem with that state of affairs; I am not sulking because things have been said to those two eminent Members that have not been said to me, but it seems odd that we are being asked to sign up to this change when none of the information concerned seems to have been shared, through the usual channels or by any other means. Sir John is being asked to return in July with a recommendation for a new mechanism. There is no suggestion as to when this mechanism will take effect, and it was more or less hinted in response to certain interventions that he will make some sort of recommendation for a pay rise for 2008-09. However, I am puzzled by that, because if Sir John Baker comes up with a new mechanism that will operate in future, and part of that mechanism might be the creation of a new body, when will it be created? When will it start to establish the comparators, mechanisms and so on? It will clearly not be possible to do that by July, and unless the new mechanism is determined by Sir John Baker doodling a sum on a pad, there is no possibility of any proposal of a pay rise for 2008-09 by the time we have the debate in July.