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Category: Speeches

  • Robert Rhodes James – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Rhodes James, the then Conservative MP for Cambridge, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    I agree with the closing words of the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart), because we all feel a great sense of uneasiness at debating this matter at all. I have great sympathy with some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell).

    It is a privilege and honour to be a Member of this House. We have come perhaps for many different reasons, but the honour and privilege of being here is something that we all feel, whatever our political views, very deeply. First, we have the conflict as to what is the job of a Member of Parliament anyway, and, secondly, we are all volunteers. So why should we find ourselves in the position of, in effect, voting money for ourselves or putting ourselves in the position of at least appearing to do so?

    I am conscious, particularly as we are approaching a General Election in which many Members will not be standing again—including you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the right hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart), I regret to say—of the fact that while I am Member for Cambridge now I shall not be for ever. In course of time I shall have a successor, and I should like to hand to him the same traditions and at least some improvement on the conditions which obtain for Members at the moment.

    The right hon. Member for Down, South came to this House in 1950. I first came in another capacity in 1955. When I returned as a Member after an absence of 12 years, I was astonished by the enormous increase in the burden of work falling on the average Back Bencher. Of course, constituencies vary very much, as do the burdens; there is also a variation of manner in which Members cope with their burdens. Mr. David Lloyd George made it a point of principle never to open, let alone read, letters from constituents. Every few months, he would dig out those letters and throw them away. His biographer said that this was one of the egocentricities with which his constituents learnt to live. Whether his attitude would be tolerated by a constituency today is another question.

    Quite apart from the additional constituency work entailed in these modern days, the burden inflicted upon Members by Whitehall has increased. We have to consider whether we should not ask what is the nature of our job and whether we should continue to pretend that we are still in the Victorian era when a gentleman of leisure, having thought deeply about the great affairs of the day, came down to the House in the late afternoon or in the evening and made a great speech on the Spanish question, for example. I wonder whether we are not putting ourselves in the position of being little more than glorified councillors.

    What should the position and role of a Member of Parliament be? I agree with those, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), who have criticised Members in the past for their cowardice or failure to grasp the problem. Nevertheless, having said that, I have to feel some sympathy with our predecessors. When I was a Clerk in the House, at the age of 28 I was earning £500 a year more than Sir Winston Churchill or any other Member. I felt that situation very acutely. I feel it now as we come again to talk about these matters. We are talking about ourselves, and that is why I try to think of my successor, whoever he may be and whenever he may come in.

    There are two points which I wish to emphasise. First, I am worried about a situation in which the allowances are so substantial and so important to Members. It worries me a great deal. Everyone is an “honourable Member” and so on, but when one is in a situation where allowances arc so vital, as I know they are to many Members who have no other source of income, the possibility of difficulty and of temptation clearly arises. I would like to see us come to a situation in which the salary is very much higher and we can look again at the whole question of allowances.

    Although I agree with what hon. Members have said about comparisons with other countries and other legislatures, I think that there is something to be said for that part of the American system whereby the President and Congressmen and others are paid substantially and reasonably and given very good facilities, in return for which every candidate must ​ give a clear declaration of his interests, his income and his background.

    I know that a lot of hon. Members do not like that idea, but I have no reluctance at all about it. It seems to me quite legitimate to ask, in return for a substantial increase in the parliamentary salary, that candidates should be clear and should inform their potential electors of their worth. The present Register of Interests is quite worthless. The word “barrister” or “consultant” can mean anything. It can mean a very small income or it can mean an enormous income. It can mean a part-time Member of Parliament or an absolutely full-time Member of Parliament.

    If we are to move—I know that we shall not do it today, but I hope that we shall in the future—in the direction of a substantial and reasonable salary for Members of Parliament, we for our part must recognise that we have an obligation to be absolutely open with our electorate about our worth and our general financial position.

  • David Stoddart – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Stoddart, the then Labour MP for Swindon, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is about the smartest operator in this place. He has shown today how smart he is. He appears to have the argument both ways. He blames this House, quite wrongly by his own standards, for inflation, yet he does not want to give it the credit for doubling living standards over the past 25 years. That is sleight of hand.

    On the right hon. Gentleman’s figures, a salary of £1,000 a year for an MP in 1950, allowing for inflation, would be £4,782 today. But if we doubled that, as everyone else’s standard of living has doubled—for which we can take some credit—the figure becomes £9,564, or almost exactly the figure proposed as the pensionable salary. So by his own argument the right hon. Gentleman confirms that the pensionable salary is correct. I hope that he will support it. He cannot say that this House is responsible for inflation and should penalise itself while at the same time refusing the House the credit for doubling living standards.

    Mr. Powell

    The hon. Gentleman is mistaken, with respect. It is perfectly possible to believe and to argue that Governments can and do cause inflation but that they cannot and do not cause an increase in the standard of living. There is no inconsistency between the two propositions. They may or may not be right, but they are not inconsistent.

    Mr. Stoddart

    I think that there is great inconsistency between them. The right hon. Gentleman has argued that rapid inflation does the most damage to the standard of living. I have heard him argue that, and he is probably correct. So there is no inconsistency in what I say.

    I have been unable to discover the figures for professional salaries paid in 1950 as compared with today, but I have found the figures for the average manual wage. In 1950, it was £7·52 a week, and in 1977 it was £72·89. An increase of 10 per cent. would give us a figure of over £79, representing an elevenfold increase in money terms. I am sure that ​ hon. Members would settle for that kind of increase on the £1,000 that they enjoyed in 1950. So the right hon. Gentleman is caught up in his own argument.

    But there is something more serious about his attitude. It strikes at the very roots of representative democracy, which I know he supports and wants to continue. On his argument, it is certain that there is no possibility of representative democracy in this country. It would preclude many people from giving their talents.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) mentioned the responsibility of all men and women to their families. If he had a family, a teacher, a doctor, a civil engineer, or an architect could not afford to give up his profession for the salary paid here—

    Mr. Alan Clark

    Yes he could; he could take a cut in his standard of living.

    Mr. Stoddart

    Yes, but he would also have enforced a cut in the standard of living of his wife and family, which he has no right to do.

    Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth)

    It is not that he could not do it so much as that more and more people will not do it. That is why we shall get fewer people of high ability from the professions, simply because it is not worth their while. More than that, it means such a cut in their standard of living that they will not put up with it.

    Mr. Stoddart

    My hon. Friend is right. The House would be denying itself the wide scale of experience and ability that is essential to a representative Chamber if it is to check the Executive. For that reason the argument of the right hon. Member for Down, South was wrong. If it were put into effect it would endanger the democracy that he, above all, wishes to defend.

    The right hon. Gentleman discounts the attitude of people towards salaries. He believes that people have more respect for Members of Parliament or Members of any other Assembly if they do it for nothing—if, in fact, they do not put any value at all upon their services. I ask him to look at the respect with which county councillors and district councillors are sometimes held by the electorate. I ​ think he will find that the lack of remuneration may have something to do with the low respect—not justified—in which the electorate holds such people.

    The right hon. Gentleman also discounts the differences between salaries paid in this legislature and those paid in legislatures elsewhere. I agree that because France happens to pay three times as much to its legislators as we pay ours is not necessarily an argument for paying us three times as much as we are getting. Nevertheless, there must be a relationship; indeed, there is. I repeat that the value that people put on an institution may well be—it is not always so—related to the value that the institution puts upon itself. That is perhaps one of the reasons why the United States Congress may be held in greater esteem than this House.

    I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider his attitude, particularly bearing in mind that next year we shall be electing yet another Assembly—one which neither of us wants. It will have an effect on salaries paid in this House, and may have an effect on the regard in which this House is held throughout the country.

    I believe that the Government and the House have failed to consider Members’ salaries in a proper way for a very long period. The House of Commons has been far too frightened of the electorate and has put far too low a value on the job that it does for the community. I hope that we shall reach a new era—I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has decided that the matter should be referred to the Boyle committee—when the salaries of Members cease to become a political issue, in the sense that they have been a political issue over the years. I do not think that they can cease entirely to be a political issue, but I hope that some means will be found, whether by relating the salary to salaries in the Civil Service or to the salaries of circuit judges, or what have you, by which the salaries of Members of this House can be settled without a political battle and without Members being criticised in the press over the business that we have of fixing our own salaries.

    I hope that these motions will be passed in their entirety. My right hon. Friend has given an assurance that he will refer ​ the matter to the Boyle committee, but I hope that he will also give an assurance that he will accept the Boyle recommendations in their entirety.

  • Alan Clark – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alan Clark, the then Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    I completely reject the concept that our salaries can in any way be linked to, or that they are in any sense comparable ​ with, earnings in other parts of society. I find it humiliating and ludicrous that company directors, and still less colonels or middle-range civil servants, should be compared with Members of Parliament.

    I take the view—I say this at the outset to put at rest the minds of hon. Members on both sides of the House—that Members of Parliament should not receive any salary at all.

    Mr. William Hamilton

    He would.

    Mr. Clark

    The hon. Member says that I would. Would he care to elaborate on that?

    The hon. Member rejects my invitation to explain. But he was arguing earlier, in a speech to which I listened with great interest, that we should be attached to a certain grade in the Civil Service. He knows how civil servants treat Members and the combination of contempt and evasion with which they try to keep us in our place. He knows very well that from the moment that we were attached to a certain grade in the Civil Service we would be completely brushed aside by those of a senior grade and we would be simply categorised at a medium range in the administration of the country.

    Mr. George Cunningham

    By whom would we be categorised in that way?

    Mr. Clark

    I should have thought that it would be done by anyone who could master simple arithmetic.

    However, if Members of Parliament are to be paid a salary that is in any way commensurate with the arduousness of their task and the duties they have to perform, it should be something between £90,000 and £130,000 a year.
    Let us consider the status, the responsibility, the unsocial hours, the working conditions and the hardships to which we are subjected daily in these crowded, stuffy quarters. Let us consider the disgusting and repetitive food that we are offered here. Deep-fried whitebait has been on the menu every day this Session. Let us consider the level of humiliation under which we exist, comparable only with that in domestic service in Victorian times.

    Yesterday, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) was talking about knee pads being used by those who had to crawl about for jobs. Members of ​ Parliament stand in a state of apprehensive subservience to practically every other individual whom they meet. They are subservient to their seniors because they hope to receive favours from them. They are subservient to their colleagues because they hope that perhaps at some time they may require their votes for some internal election. They are subservient to members of the party who elected them and put them here, and are apprehensive that these people may suddenly change their minds. They are, of course, subservient to their constituents, upon whose votes they rely for return to this place.

    In view of Members’ conditions, their duty to scrutinise and amend legislation and the disagreeable regime under which they try to work, either they do so from a sense of honour and duty, in which case their remuneration should be a totally secondary consideration, or, if they are to be paid, they should be paid at least at a level which completely removes them from any comparison with a middle-range civil servant or military commander. That is a completely mistaken yardstick for 635 individuals who have come here from a sense of idealism and a genuine desire either to alter or to conserve things.

    The hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) was very dismissive of the the concept that the aristocracy should compose the Members of this Chamber, but, as I said to him, the concept of aristocracy simply means the rule of the best. It is arguable that this country was governed much better when the aristocracy occupied places in this Chamber.

    Mr. John Stokes (Halesowen and Stourbridge)

    Hear, hear.

    Mr. Clark

    I am grateful for that support. Were this country’s prosperity, standing, prospects and size of its dominions any less when the aristocracy governed? No, they were much greater.

    I do not relate the two directly, but if Members are to be paid on a proper assessment of what they do and of their status, honour and obligations, they should be paid six-figure salaries. If we look instead for a combination of a sense of honour a sense of duty and a sense of privilege which allows people to endure all our conditions, it is immaterial what ​ they are paid. Personally, I would prefer that we were paid nothing at all.

  • Christopher Price – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Christopher Price, the then Labour MP for Lewisham West, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    The speech by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) was, in one sense, preposterous and ludicrous. However, it contained, as do all the right hon. Member’s speeches, certain germs of truth with which I have a sympathy.

    The right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) spoke about company chairman earning £36,000 per year and said that that was an appropriate salary for our Prime Minister. There are dangers in taking the monetary values of our capitalist society and judging our salaries by them.

    There are some dangers—I do not wish to exaggerate them—in taking the salary of, for example, an assistant secretary or colonel and comparing it with ours. The danger in that is that we would type ourselves as assistant secretaries or colonels. I believe that that would be undesirable.

    I speak with some experience, because I have voluntarily stopped being a Member of the European Assembly, where I mixed daily with Members of Parliament who earned four, five and sometimes six times as much as I. Those Members of Parliament were firmly notched into a particular position within the hierarchy of their countries.

    I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South that we would lose something important if we admitted for one moment that the House of Commons was not unique. It is not to be judged by any other standard in British life. For my sins, I happen to have appeared before the Committee of Privileges for doing something in the House which I thought asserted exactly that principle—that we have the right to say things here which no one else and no other court in the land has the right to say.

    I suspect that Boyle will recommend a linkage, but I hope that we shall not allow any linkage that emerges to lead to the Treasury’s imposing regulation after regulation upon our salaries. That would break us away from the unique position that we are now in.

    Many changes have been pushed through. There was the little change which no one noticed which made us no ​ longer self-employed but employed people. The small print said that to be employed one did not have to have an employer. Technically, we are the only group which receives an employed person’s salary but which has no employer.

    Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South and Finsbury)

    Let us not put that notion abroad. What happened was that in the 1973 Social Security Act it was provided that all persons who paid tax under schedule E as against schedule D would in future be treated as employed earners for the purpose of national insurance. We are not the only group that fits that category. Company directors are in that category. It is important that that idea should not be given any more currency, because it is not true.

    Mr. Price

    I persist in my argument. I do not understand enough about company directors to know whether they are technically employed by companies.

    Whatever the arrangements for our salaries and allowances, and however they are organised, it is important that we should not be “employed” in the same way as civil servants. Our role is different, and we must assert the right to keep it that way.

    The most eloquent testimony in the speech by the right hon. Member for Down, South was that this Parliament happens, for good or bad reasons, to be different from the other Parliaments with which I have come into contact on the Continent, because of the puritanical conspiracy that is unique to Britain and that stretches across from the right hon. Member for Down, South to the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. It is a conspiracy which, in a curious way, asserts that our democracy is different and that we should not try to fix our rate for the job in relation to anything else. It considers poverty in politics a virtue.

    Mr. Powell

    The word is not puritanical. It is aristocratic.

    Mr. Price

    I agree that there is an element of that. But the greatest characteristic is its nonconformist nature. It springs from the country’s being Protestant rather than Catholic at heart. This puritan conspiracy has both good and bad points. I do not believe that the ​ aristocratic element is anything of which to be proud.

    The reason why this House used not to pay its Members a salary at all, and then began to pay its Members a comparatively low salary, was that before the Second World War a large majority of its Members did not need any pay. In fact, for quite a long time this House was a machine for ensuring that the aristocracy and the moneyed folk of the country kept unscathed their position of power and wealth in society. The reason we had to bring in salaries was that there came into Parliament increasing numbers of people who wanted fundamentally to change that balance of power.

    We still have many people in this Parliament who want to change that fundamental balance of power. Indeed, I was elected in October 1974 on a manifesto whose last sentence is engraved, I hope, on my leader’s mind and certainly on the minds of everyone on the Government side of the House—that our whole aim is to change the balance of power and wealth in favour of the working people of Britain. I think that we have gone a little way towards doing that.

    Therefore, in the sense that we pay ourselves half salaries, as it were, as compared with the sorts of salaries that a large proportion of Members could get if they decided not to come into the House, it is an unattractive proposition, because it is a hangover of the old idea that so long as we pay ourselves low salaries we shall get here the sort of people who can earn their money outside and, therefore, will support those professions in which they can earn their money outside.

    I feel a little persecuted by the lawyers at present, because the lawyers are one such group in the House. I wish that I could earn, through my humble journalistic efforts, as much as some of my lawyer colleagues in the House receive. But as long as we have a tremendous legal element in the House, to those people the salary is not all that important.

    Mr. Lawrence

    The hon. Member seems to be in danger of perpetuating the widely held myth that most of this House is made up of practising lawyers. I think that there are fewer than 30 practising lawyers in the House. I wish that the hon. ​ Member would take that on board and not go on repeating what is clearly a falsehood.

    Mr. Price

    I did not make any statement about the proportion. The hon. Member may well be right. I do not know. The only point that I was trying to make was that as long as we have a comparatively low salary we shall attract people of that kind. To the extent that we attract that sort of person, there will be no incentive to raise the salary at all.

    Mr. Alan Clark

    I should like to ask the hon. Member a question about the aristocracy. As I understand it, he equates the aristocracy with moneyed folk. But “aristocracy” means “the best”. I am sure that the hon. Member would feel that this House, from which the Government are drawn, should consist of aristocrats. Does not he agree that the aristocracy is something whose ingredients shift and alter? I take the view that it is perfectly legitimate and possible that the trade union movement can contribute aristocrats to our Government.

    Mr. Price

    I do not want to pursue that point, except to say that it has always been the characteristic of the moneyed folk, in all societies, to call themselves the best, the aristocrats—even in Athens. However, I do not want to get drawn down that road; I want to move over to what I believe to be the admirable side of the puritanical conspiracy that governs our salaries and has governed them ever since 1945.

    I reject the aristocratic side, but there is a very strong strain in British life, in, for instance, our trade union movement, which is reluctant to pay a general secretary more than the average wage that the membership of the union receives. One could replicate that in various other parts of our national life.

    During my year in Europe, I found that this tradition, this strain, was unique to this country. To the extent that our salaries have been held down for this sort of reason, it does not derogate from our honour, standing and status; it is something that simply must be taken into account by anyone who comes into the House.

    Having said that, however, I feel, like my right hon. Friend the Member for ​ Fulham (Mr. Stewart), that all those things being considered, and in spite of the figures given by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr Powell), things have got quite badly out of joint. There is a point at which salaries drop to a level at which people simply do not understand why we allow the situation to continue. My feeling is that this is connected with the sort of fear that Labour

    Governments, particularly, have had, especially after the Labour Government’s experience in 1964. They were quite wrongly castigated by a vicious, nasty Tory press, for purely political reasons, for implementing the recommendations of the Lawrence committee, which had been set up by a Tory Government and agreed by both parties.

    That traumatic experience of the Lawrence committee is so branded on the hearts of every Labour Cabinet—it was said that we were putting up our salaries before pensioners could get their money—that over the period of Government from 1974 through to the 1990s, they have been and will be unduly concerned about it.

    The Boyle report recommends increases in November or December. I do not know what sort of time scale the Leader of the House has in mind for all this. My view is that when we are reelected, if salaries were then to rise, with an increase of what might well look like nearly 100 per cent.—nearly double—it would pass with little more than a murmur.

  • Michael Stewart – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Stewart, the then Labour MP for Fulham, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    I, like the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), was a Member of the House in the 1950s. I wish to make some comments not entirely in accord with his description of the situation. It is true that there were some hon. Members then, as there are now, who had other sources of income, private means, and therefore found what I believe was a most unsatisfactory salary to be a salary on which they could manage tolerably well.

    As the right hon. Gentleman has somewhat personalised the debate, I shall weary the House for a short while by describing my own position. Compared with many hon. Members, I had a number of advantages. I had a London home and a London constituency. My wife and I did not have any dependent children. We were both able to earn a certain amount by writing and lecturing. We did not earn substantial sums because education work is never tremendously well rewarded. However, we had advantages that many hon. Members did not enjoy. Even with the possession of those advantages, I could only just about manage. I was able to manage because I had been a junior Minister from 1945 to 1950 and in that time I had been able to save. I was able to keep going during the 1950s by gradually reducing those savings. I do not think that I lived extravagantly.

    With the advantages that I have mentioned, I could just about manage. That meant that many other younger hon. Members with three or four dependent children and with travelling expenses that I did not have to meet, and who before coming into the House pursued occupations that they could not continue once they were here, even on a part-time basis, were in a grave situation. They had to hope for the best. They had to hope that somehow they would be able to make some provision for their old age.

    I accept that many hon. Members in that position at that time did their work diligently. However, it is not right that people should be asked to do the work of Members of Parliament under the financial strain that many of us—I to a limited extent and others to a much greater extent—had to suffer. Members should not be required to do the work under that strain. I reject the idea that in the early 1950s we were all right. That is not borne out by the experience of most hon. Members who served at that time, unless they were fortunate enough to have private incomes.

    It is also reasonable to say that the fact that the general standard of life has risen to some extent affects the amount that we should receive. I agree that Members of Parliament should not be desperately eager to see that they are always ahead of the pack. However, it is not desirable that over the years they should drop down and down in the general scale of incomes. That is what the right hon. Member for Down, South is suggesting. When it was pointed out to him that incomes in general had risen, his reply was one of the expressions of contempt which, if I may say so, he frequently uses as a substitute for argument. I do not think that we can accept his proposition.

    The right hon. Gentleman spoke frequently of honour and of how we are discredited by raising our own salaries. I am entitled to point out that what is proposed will not make all that difference to me or to any hon. Members who are to retire at the next General Election. It will make some difference and I shall not be sorry to receive it, but I am not concerned about these matters very greatly on my own behalf. However, I should be failing in my duty if I did not have some regard to those who are to come to the House.

    It is true that there are some who will say “I care nothing for my income so long as I can be a Member of Parliament.” My own feeling is that anyone who is a family man has to pay some attention to his income. Anyone who is so devoted to being a Member as to be not greatly concerned about what happens to his family is not entirely likely to make the best sort of Member. The right hon. ​ Member for Down, South should take a more generous view of what a Member of Parliament is entitled to and should be entitled to in future.

  • Emmanuel Macron – 2020 Statement on the Coronavirus

    Emmanuel Macron – 2020 Statement on the Coronavirus

    Below is the text of the statement made by Emmanuel Macron, the French President, on 13 April 2020.

    Frenchwomen, Frenchmen,

    My dear compatriots,

    We are living through difficult times.

    We are all feeling fear and distress right now, for our parents, and for ourselves, as we face this dreadful, invisible and unpredictable virus.

    Tiredness and weariness for some, mourning and sorrow for others.

    This period is even more difficult to deal with when there are several of you living in a cramped apartment, when you don’t have access to the means of communication necessary to learn, to have fun, to communicate. It’s even harder when there is tension, when there is violence in a family’s daily life and we are all aware of, in this period, the loneliness and sadness of our senior community.

    And yet, thanks to our efforts, we have improved every day. Our civil servants and health personnel, doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, ambulance-drivers, paramedics, our soldiers, our firefighters, and our pharmacists are our front line, and they have put all their energy into saving lives and caring for others. Their line held. French hospitals have been able to care for all those who came through their doors. These past days and weeks are, and will remain, a tribute to our caregivers working in hospitals and in the community.

    Within our second line, our farmers, teachers, truck drivers, delivery and warehouse workers, shop assistants, refuse collectors, security and cleaning staff, civil servants, journalists, social workers, mayors and local elected officials, and so many others I will have forgotten; helped by so many French people who have played their part. All have allowed life to continue.

    And each of you, in what I am calling our third line, each of you by your sense of civic duty, by respecting the rules of confinement, thanks also to the vigilance of our law enforcement officers, you have ensured that the epidemic is now beginning to stall.

    The results are in. Several regions have been spared. In recent days, the number of patients entering intensive care has gone down. Hope is returning.

    Tonight, I want to thank you very warmly, for your dedication and to express my gratitude.

    So, were we prepared for this crisis? Obviously not enough but we have faced the situation in France like everywhere else. We had to respond to the emergency, make difficult decisions on the basis of partial information, often changing, and we had to constantly adapt, because this virus was unknown and it still carries many mysteries to this day.

    Let’s be honest, the moment has revealed flaws, shortcomings. Like all the countries of the world, we have lacked gowns, gloves, hydro alcoholic gels. We were not able to distribute as many masks as we would have liked for our caregivers, for staff caring for our seniors, for nurses and home helpers.

    From the moment these problems were identified, we mobilised – government, local communities, manufacturers, associations – to produce and acquire the necessary equipment. But I fully appreciate that, when you’re at the front, it’s hard to hear that a global shortage is preventing deliveries.

    Orders are now placed. Above all, our French companies and our workers responded and, like in wartime, production has been set up: we reopened production lines and we requisitioned.

    Imagine, in three weeks, we will have multiplied by five the production of masks for our caregivers in France and we will have produced 10,000 more additional respirators on our soil. These respirators so precious in intensive care unit.

    Thanks to these efforts, we will be able to face the situation and we will continue to distribute more equipment.

    But like you, I saw failures, still too much slowness, useless procedures, and the weaknesses of our logistics. We will draw from this, in due course, when it comes to reorganising.

    Let us also be fair with our country, recent weeks have been marked by real successes: the doubling of the number of beds in intensive care, never achieved before, the unprecedented cooperation between the hospitals, private clinics and the city doctors, the transfer of patients, to the least affected regions but also to Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany and Austria – which I thank – the establishment of distance education, organisation of solidarity chains in our municipalities, the success of all those who have continued to commit to feeding us during these weeks , the repatriation of tens of thousands of French and European nationals from countries around the world and support for the French from abroad.

    Very often, things which seemed impossible for years, we were able to do in a few days. We have innovated, dared, taken action on the ground, and many solutions have been found. We will have to remember this because so many strengths remain for the future.

    My dear compatriots, if I wanted to address you this evening, after having consulted widely over the past few days, it is to tell you in full transparency what awaits us for the coming weeks and months.

    Hope is reborn, I told you, yes, but nothing is taken for granted. In the Grand Est as in Ile de France, hospital services are saturated. Everywhere, in France as in the overseas territories, the system is under tension and the epidemic is not yet under control.

    We must therefore continue our efforts and continue to apply the rules. The more they are respected, the more lives we will save.

    This is why the strictest confinement must still continue until Monday, May 11. It is, during this time, the only way to act effectively.

    This is the condition for slowing the spread of the virus even further, succeeding in finding places available in intensive care and allowing our carers to rebuild their strength. Monday, May 11 will only be possible if we continue to be civic, responsible, obey the rules and if the spread of the virus has actually continued to slow down.

    I fully appreciate the effort I ask of you, telling you this. During the next four weeks, the rules laid down by the government must continue to be respected. They are showing their effectiveness and should not be strengthened or reduced, but fully applied. I ask all of our elected officials, whose importance I recognise during this period, I ask all of our elected representatives, to help ensure that these rules are the same everywhere on our soil. Curfews have been decided where it is useful, but further restrictions should not be added during the day.

    For our daily life, we must continue when we go out to apply social distancing measures: to keep away and wash our hands. I also want to remind you that everyone who has a chronic illness or suffers from other illnesses must be able to continue to consult their doctor. Because it is not only the virus that kills: extreme loneliness, the cessation of other treatments can also be dangerous.

    I also hope that hospitals and retirement homes can allow visits, with the right protections, from loved ones to dying relatives, so that they can say goodbye.

    During this confinement phase, the country fortunately continues to live. Certain activities are prohibited because they are incompatible with sanitary rules. For all other economic sectors, when the security of workers and entrepreneurs is guaranteed, they must be able to produce and have largely done so, for a month now.

    For all those who must be helped during this period, the partial unemployment measures for employees and financing for companies will be extended and reinforced. They are unprecedented and already protect more than 8 million of our employees and many of our companies.

    For craftsmen, traders, the liberal professions and entrepreneurs, the solidarity funds are a first response but I understand your distress, I have heard it, I have read it: the charges that keep coming in, the bills, rents, loans – this is why I asked the Government to greatly increase the aid, to simplify it, so you can overcome this period. I hope that the banks can shift payment deadlines further than they have ever done and the insurance companies must also be a part of this economic mobilisation. I will follow it closely.

    There is work to be done in the coming days to support you economically during this period.

    A specific plan will be implemented quickly for the sectors which, like tourism, hotels, catering, culture and events, will be affected in the long-term. We will cancel charges and put in place specific aid.

    For the most fragile and needy, these are also difficult weeks. I want to thank the mayors, locally elected officials and associations who have quickly mobilised alongside the Government. I have asked them to go further and provide immediate exceptional assistance to families with children who have the lowest incomes so that they can meet their basic needs. Students in precarious situations – sometimes living far from their families – especially when they come from overseas, will also be helped.

    As of Wednesday, the Council of Ministers will decide on new financial measures and the government will provide all the necessary answers.

    May 11, my dear compatriots, will be the beginning of a new stage. It will be progressive, the rules may be adapted depending on results because the primary objective remains the health of all French people.

    From May 11, we will gradually reopen nurseries, schools, colleges and high schools.

    This is a priority for me because the current situation is deepening inequalities. Too many children, especially in working-class neighbourhoods and in our countryside, are deprived of schooling without having access to digital technology, and cannot be helped by their parents in the same way. During this period, housing inequalities and inequalities between families are even more pronounced. This is why our children must be able to get back to school. The Government, through consultation, will have to develop specific rules: managing time and space differently, protecting our teachers and our children, all with the necessary equipment.

    For students in higher education, classes will not resume physically until the summer. The Government will specify the organisational requirements, in particular, for assessments and competitive exams.

    11 May will also be when as many people as possible will be allowed to return to work and when our industry, our businesses and our services will be restarted. The Government will start preparing immediately for these reopenings with industrial partners so that rules can be established to protect employees at work. This is the priority.

    Public places, restaurants, cafes and hotels, cinemas, theatres, performance venues and museums, however, will remain closed at this stage. Major festivals and events with a large audience will not be able to take place at least until mid-July. The situation will be collectively assessed each week from mid-May in order to make adjustments and to give you visibility.

    For their protection, we will ask the most vulnerable people, the elderly, those with severe disabilities, people with chronic illnesses, to stay confined even after the 11 of May, at least initially. I know it is a major constraint. I appreciate what I am asking you to do and we will, between now and the 11 May, work to make this time more bearable for you. But you will have to try to stick to it to protect yourself, in your own interests.

    From 11 May we will have a new way of organising things in order to succeed in this step. The widest possible use of tests and detection is a favoured weapon for exiting confinement at the right time.

    Until then and in the next few weeks, we will continue to increase the number of tests done each day. This is what has been done for the past fifteen days. During the weeks to come, I have asked that these tests first be performed on our elderly, our caregivers and the most vulnerable. And we should continue to mobilise all means of carrying out these tests, everywhere, that is to say in all public and private labs.

    On May 11, we will be able to test anyone with symptoms. We are not going to test every Frenchwoman and Frenchman, that would make no sense. But anyone with symptoms should be able to get tested. People with the virus will then be quarantined, taken care of and followed by a doctor.

    To support this phase, we are working on several innovative projects with some of our European partners, including a digital application which, anonymously and only for volunteers, will allow people to know whether they have been in contact with someone carrying the virus or not. You’ve probably already heard about it.

    The Government will have to work on this possibility; we must not neglect any option, any innovation. But I hope that before May 11, our Assemblies can debate this subject, and that the competent authorities can enlighten us. This epidemic cannot weaken our democracy, neither can it diminish our freedom.

    Until further notice, our borders with non-European countries will remain closed.

    We will deploy all the necessary means to protect the population. In addition to the social distancing measures that you know well and that you will have to keep practising, from 11 May the State, from May 11, together with mayors, will have to allow each French person to obtain a mask for the general public. For the most exposed professions and in some situations, such as in public transport, its use may become systematic.

    This will be possible thanks to our imports and thanks to the tremendous mobilisation of entrepreneurs and employees all over France to massively produce this type of mask.

    The Government will present within fifteen days, on the basis of these principles, a post-11 May plan and the details of the organisation of our daily life.

    Regular meetings will be held so that we can adapt to the measures taken and decide together, on a regular basis, how to adjust things.

    So when can we expect this hardship to end ? When can we get back to the lives we used to have? I know your questions, I share them. They are legitimate. I wish I could tell you everything and answer each of your questions. But frankly, in all humility, we have no definitive answer to this.

    Today, according to the first data which will soon be refined by so-called serological tests, a very small minority of French people have contracted COVID-19. This means that we are far from what specialists call collective immunity, that is to say the moment when the virus stops its circulation by itself because enough of us have been infected.

    This is why the first way out of the epidemic is vaccination. The world’s best talents, and researchers are working on it. France is recognised in this area and has excellent resources, because it is undoubtedly the safest solution, even though it will take at least several months to implement it. Our country will invest even more massively in research and I will carry in the coming days an initiative with many of our partners on your behalf to accelerate the work in progress.

    The second path is treatment. We’ve been working on it from day one. I know there have been many debates in the country. All options are explored and our country is the one that has launched the most clinical trials in Europe. I myself wanted to understand each of the possible options, to make sure that everything was tried as soon as possible and rigorously. It is not a question of giving a treatment if one is not sure about it. It is about carrying out all the clinical trials so that all the options are tested. And believe it, our doctors, our researchers are working hard. No option is overlooked, no option will be overlooked. I commit myself to this.

    Tonight, I share with you what we know and what we don’t know. We will eventually prevail, but we will have several months to live with the virus. With humility, today we have to decide and act with lucidity. Yes, because look at Asia, where the virus seemed to have been defeated and it is coming back in many countries which consequently again, decide to shut their economies down. We must therefore proceed with calm and courage.

    But what I know, what I know right now, my dear compatriots, is that our Nation stands strong, united, with a common goal.

    It was said that we were people lacking discipline, and now we respect some of the most rigorous rules and disciplines ever imposed on our people in peacetime.

    It was said that we were an expended people, set in our ways, far from the passions of our foundations, and lo and behold, so many of you are acting with dedication and engagement in the face of this unexpected threat.

    We stand together, brothers and sisters, united, fellow citizens of a country. Citizens of a country which debates, which discusses, which continues to live its democratic life, but which remains united. And I want to share my pride with you this evening.

    This idea that made France what it is today remains, alive and creative. And that should fill us with hope.

    During the coming weeks, the Government, the Parliament, our administration, with our mayors and local elected representatives, will have to prepare the next steps. As far as I am concerned, I will try to use our voice to encourage a more united Europe. The first decisions went in the right direction and we pushed a lot for that, whether it was about the European Central Bank, the European Commission or governments.

    But we are at a moment of truth which requires more ambition, more daring, a moment of refoundation.

    We must help our neighbours in Africa to fight the virus more effectively, and to help them economically by massively cancelling their debts.

    Yes, we will never win alone.

    Because today, in Bergamo, Madrid, Brussels, London, Beijing, New York, Algiers or Dakar, we mourn the dead from the same virus. So if our world as it will undoubtedly, fragments, it is our responsibility to stand together and find new ways to cooperate. It will also be up to us, in the coming weeks, to prepare for the aftermath.

    We will have to rebuild our economy stronger in order to produce and give full hope to our employees, our entrepreneurs, and keep our financial independence.

    We will have to rebuild French agricultural, health, industrial and technological independence and more strategic autonomy for our Europe. This will require a massive plan for our health, our research, our seniors, among others.

    We will also have to remember that our country depends entirely today on women and men whom our economies recognise and pay so poorly. “Social distinctions can only be based on common utility”. These words, the French wrote them more than 200 years ago. Today we must take up the torch and give full force to this principle.

    We will have to build a strategy focused on long term, the possibility of planning, low carbon emission, prevention, resilience which alone can make it possible to face the crises to come.

    These few obvious statements are clear to us today, but they will not suffice. I will therefore come back to you to talk about the “after.” The moment we are living through is a personal and collective shock. We should live it as such. It reminds us that we are vulnerable, something we had probably forgotten. Let’s not try and use this moment to confirm immediately what we had always believed. No. We must, in this moment, think outside the box, outside ideologies and reinvent ourselves – including me.

    There is an opportunity in this crisis: to reconnect with each other and prove our humanity, to build a new project in harmony with each other. A French project, a common foundation for our lives together.

    In the coming weeks, with all the composing elements of our Nation, I will try and create a path which makes this possible.

    My dear compatriots, we will have better days. I believe that truly.

    And the virtues which, today, allow us to keep going, will be those which will help us to build the future, our solidarity, our confidence, our will.

    So take care of yourself, let’s take care of each other.

    We will hold firm.

    Long live the Republic.

    Long live France.

  • Rishi Sunak – 2020 Statement on the Coronavirus

    Rishi Sunak – 2020 Statement on the Coronavirus

    Below is the text of the statement made by Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 14 April 2020.

    Good evening from Downing Street, where I’m joined by Steve Powis, Medical Director of the NHS and Yvonne Doyle, Medical Director at Public Health England.

    Earlier today, the government’s independent fiscal watchdog…

    …the Office for Budget Responsibility, the OBR…

    …published a report into the impact of coronavirus on the economy and public finances.

    It’s important to be clear that the OBR’s numbers are not a forecast or prediction.

    They simply set out what one possible scenario might look like – and it may not even be the most likely scenario.

    But it’s important we are honest with people about what might be happening to our economy.

    So before I turn to the health figures, I want to spend a few minutes explaining what the OBR have said – and let me thank them for their continued work.

    There are three brief points I want to make.

    First, the OBR’s figures suggest the scale of what we are facing will have serious implications for our economy here at home…

    …in common with other countries around the world.

    These are tough times – and there will be more to come.

    As I’ve said before, we can’t protect every business and every household.

    But we came into this crisis with a fundamentally sound economy, powered by the hard work and ingenuity of the British people and British business.

    So while those economic impacts are significant – the OBR also expect them to be temporary…

    …with a bounce back in growth.

    The second point I want to make is that we’re not just going to stand by and watch this happen.

    Our planned economic response is protecting millions of jobs, businesses, self-employed people, charities and households.

    Our response aims to directly support people and businesses while the restrictions are in place…

    …and to make sure as restrictions are changed, we can, as quickly as possible, get people back to work; get businesses moving again; and recover our economy.

    The OBR today have been clear that the policies we have set out will do that.

    The OBR today have been clear that if we had not taken the actions we have, the situation would be much worse.

    In other words, our plan is the right plan.

    The third point I want to make is this: right now, the single most important thing we can do for the health of our economy is to protect the health of our people.

    It’s not a case of choosing between the economy and public health – common sense tells us that doing so would be self-defeating.

    At a time when we are seeing hundreds of people dying every day from this terrible disease, the absolute priority must be to focus all of our resources…

    …not just of the state, but of businesses, and of all of you at home as well, in a collective national effort to beat this virus.

    The government’s approach is to follow scientific and medical advice through our step-by-step action plan…

    …aiming to slow the spread of the virus, so fewer people need hospital treatment at any one time, protecting the NHS’s ability to cope.

    I said in my Budget a month ago that whatever the NHS needs, it will get – and we have honoured that promise:

    Yesterday we published an update showing that we’ve given our public services an extra £14.5 billion in recent weeks.

    We are taking action to increase NHS capacity, with more beds, more key staff and more equipment on the front-line.

    And the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will be updating on our plans for social care tomorrow.

    This is why we are instructing people to stay at home, so that we can protect our NHS and save lives.

    I can report that through the government’s ongoing monitoring and testing programme, as of today:

    302,599 people in the UK have now been tested for coronavirus, with 93,873 people testing positive

    19,706 people in the UK have been admitted to hospital with the virus, down from 20,184 people yesterday;

    Sadly, of those in hospital, 12,107 people have now died – an increase of 778 fatalities since yesterday.

    Our thoughts are with the families and friends of all those who have lost their lives.

    These figures are a powerful reminder to us all of the importance of following the government’s guidance:

    Stay at home. Protect our NHS. And save lives.

    Thank you.

  • Enoch Powell – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Enoch Powell, the then Ulster Unionist MP for South Down, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    I am not opposed to the third of the three motions which are being considered together in this debate, but I am opposed to the first and the second. Although I suspect, from divers indications, that there may be general support for them in the House and, indeed, for propositions more far reaching, it is perhaps right that a contrary view should be stated.

    My opposition is upon two separate grounds, the one narrower, the other ​ broader. The narrow ground is that Members of this House of Commons ought not, even when they decide that it is right and necessary to increase the remuneration of Members of Parliament, to do so in such a way as to benefit themselves in this present Parliament. We, who alone have control of the public purse, ought not to vote money to ourselves. If we think the remuneration should be increased, let us make that decision for subsequent Parliaments—for those whom the electorate shall decide to return here in future; but let us not be seen to be using our power to benefit ourselves who sit here in this present Parliament.

    That argument would, in my view, be valid quite apart from one of the principal reasons which brings us here, time after time, with this question, as the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) said. Part of the reason is inflation. What we are doing is voting ourselves, or seeking to vote ourselves, an offset to the deterioration in the value of money for which we ourselves are responsible.

    I shall not attempt to divert this debate into an economic discussion; but the Prime Minister believes that it was the profligacy of the previous Administration which, by increasing the money supply, caused the inflation of 1975 and 1976. That is the official view of the Government. So, at any rate on that view, we stand self-accused of being the cause of the inflation which has been inflicted upon the country. When that is so, it is an addition of shamelessness to use our power of the purse to vote ourselves an offset to see that we are all right, Jack. That is the narrower ground why I consider this to be a shameful thing that we are doing in the form in which we are doing it.

    But the wider ground is that we have the whole idea of remuneration of Members completely and dangerously wrong. The right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) said that the financial position of Members had slipped. He assents to my quotation. Of course, all these comparisons very much depend upon the starting point which one takes. But I shall take a starting point which is not arbitrary from my point of view. The House and the country may be interested in the ​ financial comparison between the year 1950 and the year 1978.

    I belong, as others still here do, to the generation which came into the House after the war. It was a generation which longed to find a place in this House. To say the worst of it, those who came in at the General Election of 1950, the first General Election after the cessation of hostilities, were not the least distinguished generation of hon. Members to have entered this House and to have served in it.

    The salary then was £1,000. It may surprise hon. Members to recall that a single Member of Parliament, who had no other income, paid £344 in tax out of that £1,000. In 1950 one was “passing rich” on £1,000 a year, if I may misquote Oliver Goldsmith. With a gross income of £1,000 in 1950, an unmarried Member of Parliament had a net income of £656.

    Many of us who threw ourselves with the utmost enthusiasm into the work of this House were in some demand for journalism, broadcasting and in other ways. But the majority of those of whom I am thinking were, while Members of Parliament, mainly dependent upon that remuneration.

    I have ascertained the net income which would correspond today to £656. It is £3,589 in purchasing power. I have ascertained further what at today’s rates of tax the remuneration of a single Member of Parliament would have to be to yield the same net purchasing power after tax as the salary in 1950. That sum is £4,782, somewhat larger than the salary payable at the beginning of this Parliament, which some of us still draw and which was £4,250.

    A salary of £4,782 would be the equivalent in purchasing power, net, after tax, of the remuneration on which the post-war generation of Members of Parliament, who against heavy competition managed to find a place in this House, in some cases very marginally, did their duties here nearly full time in many cases and reared families and provided by insurance for their old age or the other events which might befall their families. I thought the House might like to be reminded of those facts.

    Mr. James Lamond (Oldham, East)

    I have been following the right hon. Member’s argument very closely, and it is extremely interesting. But there is a factor which he has not taken into consideration. It is that the general standard of living in the country has increased considerably since 1950. The standard of living has increased, and the expectations of all the people have increased since that time, including those of Members of Parliament.

    Mr. Powell

    The desire to be in this House has neither increased nor diminished, so far as I observe. However, there were factors that I had omitted, and I shall proceed to mention them.

    At that time, there were none of the perks of all kinds which we receive today. I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is not the right word. I should have said “allowances, reimbursements and facilities.” As the hon. Member for Fife, Central said, except for correspondence with local authorities and Ministries, we stamped our own letters, as our constituents did theirs to us. There was no secretarial allowance.

    Let me spend a moment on that, since one of these motions relates to payment for a secretary. The majority of hon. Members in this House do not need a secretary for the proper discharge of their duties.

    Mr. William Hamilton

    Oh, come.

    Mr. Powell

    Very well. One of the privileges which we have in this House, according to the right hon. Member for Taunton, is that of free speech. During the first 18 years that I was a Member of this House I had no secretary. In those years many complaints were made of me; but one complaint that was not made was that I neglected my correspondence or my duties to my constituents; nor was it urged against me that I was failing in diligence in applying my mind to the matters which successively were put before this House.

    Has the volume of constituency correspondence increased? [HON. MEMBERS: “Yes”.] That is curious. I am well aware of Parkinson’s law; and I dare say that it operates in all sorts of areas. But my recollection is pretty clear about the volume of constituency correspondence ​ when I came into the House in 1950. Of course, we could have some statistics about this. But I depose that in my own case the volume of correspondence which I received as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West was higher then than it was 25 years later. That is one hon. Member’s testimony.

    Mr. Peter Bottomley rose—

    Mr. Powell

    I see that a new hon. Member wants to intervene.

    Mr. Bottomley

    The right hon. Member is not putting forward an argument; nor is he giving any general information which may be of use to the House or the country. Has he sought information from the House of Commons post office to confirm his impression about the volume of incoming correspondence to Members of Parliament?

    Mr. Powell

    If hon. Members wished, I am sure that an investigation could be made. I am not suggesting it but, if hon. Members wished, I am sure that we could have an investigation made of the number of constituents’ letters received by hon. Members per diem and per week. But in the absence of those figures we must state our own experience, opinion and, in the case of those who have a considerable length of service, our recollection.

    I now have 90,000 constituents and a very considerable correspondence otherwise. I find at present, taking one week with another, that a half-time secretary meets my needs. I am not saying that she is not a very good secretary. I am not saying that I am not a very fast worker. But it is perhaps a little local colour which is worth contributing to a debate in which we are enhancing further the allowance to enable every hon. Member of this House to employ a full-time secretary if he wishes.

    Mr. William Hamilton

    He will not be paid it if he does not.

    Mr. Powell

    The hon. Member for Fife, Central says that he will not be paid it if he does not employ a full-time secretary. Well, we are all hon. Members in this House and, therefore, what he says must be true.

    I shall not pile on the agony by referring to research assistants, although it sometimes strikes me to wonder what most ​ Members of Parliament could possibly do with a research assistant, considering the excellent services, very much better than 25 or 30 years ago, that we can receive in the House of Commons Library without additional cost to the public purse.

    When I said that the equivalent remuneration to 1950 is £4,782, that was an overstatement. It would probably be truer to say that, taking one thing with another—I have not mentioned all the details such as reimbursement for travel by car and so on which did not exist 28 years ago—the real remuneration of hon. Members who are now on £4,250 is the same as the real remuneration of hon. Members in 1950, the post-war generation on £1,000.

    What, then, is the case for a higher remuneration? What is the case for the figure of nearly £7,000 as proposed in the motion, let alone the case for the much higher figures which have been mentioned?

    Mr. William Price

    As I understand it, the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s speech was devoted to the belief that I had no right at all to introduce any provision today. He has been consistent in that view, and I respect him for it. I understand him to be saying that we should not have any increase within an existing Parliament. Does it follow from that that he accepts my right to introduce something in the next Parliament? If so, what should that figure be?

    Mr. Powell

    I was at that moment about to come to the question whether there was any justification for the real remuneration of an hon. Member of this House being increased above the traditional figure, if I may so roughly describe what it stood at for several years before or after 1950, with adjustment for the deterioration in the value of money.

    The hon. Member for Fife, Central, in comparing our remuneration with that of a police constable and other worthy members of the community, said that we get the respect we deserve, and he seemed to think that we should increase the respect we get by increasing our remuneration. He even went so far as to say that it was our inadequate remuneration which ​ was the cause of our not being sufficiently respected.

    I wish to state the opposite view. I do not believe one can make oneself respected by putting up one’s income—certainly not by voting oneself an increase in income. It may or may not be right to do so; but the notion that we should be more respected because we put ourselves on the basis of an assistant secretary in a Government Department or a county court judge is something which this House should unite in repudiating.

    It is inherently impossible to discover an analogue outside for a Member of Parliament. This is a unique House and the Members of it fill a unique position, and a uniquely honourable position. Whatever analogue one chooses, it is still absurd to say that the remuneration of a full colonel—or a field marshal perhaps?—a county court judge or a stipendiary magistrate or what one pleases is an analogue for the remuneration of a Member of Parliament.

    Our position is unique, this House is unique by reason of our unique position, and we alone fix arbitrarily what remuneration we believe is defensible and what remuneration we believe will be to the future benefit of this House; for when we take decisions on this kind of subject we are taking decisions about the future of this House of Commons and about the quality of those who will sit here.

    Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West)

    The right hon. Gentleman said that there are no analogues in this respect. There are analogues, but not in this country. If we look over the water to the United States Congress, where there is a large estate but where the Members have fewer responsibilities because they are responsible only for federal government, we see that they fix their pay on the simple basis that no civil servant should be paid more than a member of the legislature. I am reliably informed that the civil service trade unions in the United States are among the strongest advocates of an increase in pay for representatives there.

    Mr. Powell

    The right hon. Member for Taunton said earlier that modesty is our characteristic in this House. He was heard without dissent. But in one respect, ​ at any rate, I am not modest—and that is in regard to this House. I regard no other assembly in the world as in any way comparable with this House of Commons. I have nothing but contempt for those who would argue that we should conduct ourselves in such and such a way, or remunerate ourselves in such and such a way, because the assemblies in France or the United States or some other part of the world do this or do that.

    Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton)

    It could be done for nothing.

    Mr. Powell

    There is a very good case for doing it for nothing Our honour and the honour of this House is derived from the view that is held of our motives. It is upon that, and that only, that our honour rests—namely, on our motivation. If we pay ourselves in this House a salary such as a person of reasonable talents and education might aspire to if he gets to be a county court judge or a full colonel, if we arrange for ourselves allowances for the expenses we decide to incur such as an employee in a Government office would have, if we provide ourselves with a pension so as to make a career with retirement to look to afterwards, we shall be valued at the valuation we put upon ourselves—as hacks, as people who have come into the job which offered us the best return for our limited talents and who wish to make a career of it, intending to hang on as long as possible until we disappear into a relatively comfortable retirement.

    It ought always to be a privilege, and a privilege that demands some sacrifice—that is a word that has been used already in the debate—to belong to the House. There has been talk about hon. Members having undergone sacrifices in receiving the remuneration that has been available to them over the past 25 years. They did not seem to be conscious of the sacrifice they were undergoing when they sought to be re-elected.

    We ought to be worthy of our honour and tradition. We should claim no more than that minimum remuneration on which any, high or low, can find the means, if that is his ambition, of serving in the House so long as the electors return him. If we alter that basis, we shall become a career assembly, we shall become an assembly that is not one ​ which men compete to belong to for the sake of belonging to it whatever they have to lose elsewhere in order to do so. We shall become an assembly that will be valued by the scale suggested by the hon. Member for Fife, Central—in accordance with the money that we pay ourselves.

  • Edward du Cann – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Edward du Cann, the then Conservative MP for Taunton, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, who has given that clear explanation which we all so much appreciate, will not think me in any way discourteous if my first words are of complaint. It seems to me profoundly unsatisfactory that all the proposed amendments to the motion are out of order. I understand that the reasons for that are largely technical. The chief reason, at least in respect of the amendment standing in the names of the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes) and myself, is likely to be removed in a day or two, when the Parliamentary Pensions Bill receives Royal Assent, but that is scant consolation if one is not able to move the amendment today. This is typical of the confusion, muddle and total unsatisfactoriness which bedevil the whole of the situation and the discussions about Members’ remuneration.

    Not only did the House as a whole appreciate the explanation that the hon. Gentleman was good enough to give us; I am sure that all of us who have been responsible for the meetings with the Leader of the House, to which he referred, appreciate what the hon. Gentleman said about the way in which the representations have been conducted. It might be appropriate if I were to say now directly to the Leader of the House in public something that I have already said to him in private—that is, how much those of us who have been to see him have appreciated the courtesy and infinite fairness with which he has consistently heard us.

    We have had a large number of meetings and a large number of people have seen the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he will not mind my adding that I think that the way in which those meetings progressed indicates clearly how necessary it was to have them. The ​ Leader of the House took a great deal of convincing in the first instance that what we had to say was sensible and, indeed, responsible and in the general interest, but the fact that he has accepted that view and now has done something constructive about it is something for which we should all be grateful.

    I should like to express appreciation that these motions have now been tabled. It is unquestionably right—no one can deny it—that the pay and allowances and pensions of Members of Parliament should be improved in the terms described by the Parliamentary Secretary.

    It is also totally appropriate—I have always agreed to and acknowledge this—that what is done at this moment must come within the Government’s guidelines. I have never suggested that Members should do anything other than conform to the same rules and obligations, voluntary or compulsory, which affect the remainder of our fellow citizens. If we are lucky enough to have certain privileges in this House—for example, free speech—we should be extremely jealous of those privileges. They should never be exploited, and in the ordinary way we have no business to argue that we should be in a privileged position in any other sense than what is necessary for the performance of our duties.

    But certain things need to be said, and said plainly while we have the opportunity. There is no doubt that even at these enhanced rates the pay of Members, their pensions, and certain of their facilities are abysmally and stupidly inadequate. That is a matter of fact, not of argument. For many years the way in which we have dealt with our own situation has been unfair, but that is cur fault—I would not argue differently. As the Parliamentary Secretary suggested, this has always been a difficult and embarrassing matter. It is right, however, that it should be realistically approached, and that is my purpose this morning.

    I am all for modesty. Modesty is one of the happiest and most charming of human virtues, and I think it behoves all of us who have the privilege of being in this place to be especially modest. However, I believe that in relation to our own circumstances we have displayed a degree of modesty which shows it to be a false modesty, and in so doing we have done ​ the nation as a whole a disservice. To pretend that everyone should be paid some trivial remuneration because merit or responsibility cannot be properly rewarded may be honourable enough, but it is a foolish policy.

    Therefore, my aim this morning is clear—to bring into the open some of these matters and, above all, to make the point that the responsibilities that we have cannot in any way be delegated. Hence the campaign in which I have been engaged, with my right hon. and hon. Friends and right hon. and hon. Members opposite—I am grateful to them for their support and encouragement in it—to ensure that the issues are better appreciated.

    What is the right rate of pay for a Member of Parliament? Should we be paid the equivalent of the rank of colonel in the

    Army, of an assistant secretary in the Civil Service, of a county court judge, or of the chairman of a medium-sized company? These are all suggestions that I have heard canvassed.

    The present position is that we are not paid amounts approximating to any of those suggested rates. We are paid very much less-50 per cent. or 60 per cent. of those amounts.

    Should we be paid the same as is received by a skilled artisan working, for example, on a newspaper? Let anyone pick up the reports and accounts of a newspaper company and see the money which such skilled persons are paid. Let anyone calculate what is received by people on the shop floor, throwing in additions for unsocial hours and the rest, and see what the figures would be. We are not paid even according to those levels. Yet I firmly argue that the responsibility that Members of Parliament carry—particularly those who accept special duties in this place—is very much greater and always will be than that which is carried in any of those categories.

    Let us compare our situation with membership of other Parliaments. I gave some of the figures and comparisons in a speech on 21st June, and I shall not repeat them. Suffice it to say that the British Member of Parliament is paid, on average, a half or one-third, or perhaps even a quarter, of the rate that other Members of Parliament in democratic Parliaments are paid. Next June, we shall be having elections to the European Parliament. So far as I can see, our present remuneration is likely to be between one-third and a quarter of what Members of that august Assembly will receive.

    The file of cuttings kept in our excellent Library shows that there is not one serious newspaper which does not acknowledge how unsatisfactory the present position is. I cite just one example, a newspaper that suggested that we are just about the worst paid in the western world.

    It is not only of today that it is appropriate to speak. Without doubt, the good will of former Members of the House is being exploited. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) remarked, in a telling speech to which the Leader of the House listened, there are 270 potential pensioners of the House who do not draw a pension at all, just as there are, as the Minister hinted, a large number of Members in the present House who do not draw and may not be drawing the full amount that we see in the list on the Order Paper this morning.

    A number of Ministers in the House of Lords are paid less than their equivalents in the House of Commons are paid. In respect of present office holders, the list of anomalies is legion. Let us take the position of the Prime Minister. I rejoice that it is proposed that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should be given an increase in his remuneration, but at £22,000 he will be drawing a salary approximately one-third of the remuneration of chairmen of some of the largest companies in the United Kingdom, and perhaps an even smaller proportion than that. The same is true of the Lord Chancellor of England. It is true also of a Cabinet Minister, whose salary, at £14,300—is vastly less than the remuneration given to the chairmen of nationalised industries. Junior Ministers, at £6,000, will be drawing less than is received by advertising account executives.

    All this shows two things, does it not? It shows that once one starts having pay freezes, and the like, a number of distortions arise. Second, it shows, by comparison with the real world outside the ​ House, how eccentric is our pay and how out of line it is with that real world.

    In an endeavour to establish the rate for the job, as the Minister said, the Top Salaries Review Body was established. I think it appropriate as a general point here that we should pay tribute to Lord Boyle and his colleagues for the work that they do for the national economy. The Review Body reported in 1975 that the right rate for the responsibility of being a Member of Parliament was £8,000 a year. A lesser figure was decreed by the Government and agreed by the House.

    It is never the right time, is it, to do the right thing in regard to Members’ remuneration and conditions? For that past foolishness—I call it by no stronger term—we have to run all the harder now in order to catch up.

    One can revise the figure recommended by that distinguished and disinterested group of persons after subjecting the whole matter to the most careful inquiry, and update it in two ways. One can use either the retail price index or the index of average earnings. Updating £8,000 according to the rise in the retail price index between June 1975 and June 1978, one arrives at £11,500. That is the figure that appears in the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Anglesey and myself. Using the index of average earnings, for which the figures I have are not quite as recent as those for the retail price index, one comes to a slightly higher figure—£11,678.

    The purpose of tabling the amendment, therefore, is to illustrate the scale of sacrifice that Members of Parliament have made in the national interest. It is not true, as was said on the radio this morning and as, I dare say, a number of careless people may assume, that what the right hon. Gentleman and I are arguing for is a 100 per cent. increase in Members’ remuneration.

    The truth—I want to bring this out clearly—is that Members of Parliament are drawing only about 60 per cent. of the amount which an impartial investigating group of persons stated as the proper sum.

    Moreover, as the Minister indicated and as I remarked earlier, the figure that appears on the Order Paper in the name of the Leader of the House is not the ​ amount that many Members of Parliament receive. More than 100 Members of Parliament draw a smaller amount. It would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could tell us what their position is now. Are they entitled to draw their full amount or not?

    I come now to the Minister’s statement on the reconstitution of Boyle. I say at once that that is much appreciated. It was something for which the right hon. Member for Anglesey and I, together with our colleages, representatives of the 1922 Committee and the Parliamentary Labour Party, argued strongly, and we are glad that the Government propose to agree to it. I think that it is a wise decision and is the right decision.

    Mr. Clement Freud (Isle of Ely)

    Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that as the TSRB has given a decision, if the case goes back to it and it gives a different and advantageous decision, it may lead to every person who has been awarded anything by the body going back again?

    Mr. du Cann

    I shall come to that in a moment. I am sure that the decision to refer the whole matter to the Boyle Committee again is entirely wise, but there are some matters that I should like to raise in relation to that reference.

    First, I hope that the Leader of the House will agree that the reference should be comprehensive. There are many matters to be considered. It is not only the question of what is the absolute rate for the job, which bears on the intervention of the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) but it is necessary, once and for all, to settle whether it would be appropriate to have a sort of running comparative yardstick. I think not, but I recognise that many hon. Members argue for that. I think that it is for us to make decisions and not to hide behind the skirts of another profession.

    The reference should also include pensions. It was impossible not to be moved by the discussion in the House the night before last, especially by the telling speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North who spoke about the 270 of our colleagues who do not have pensions. As the Minister said in that debate, we need to reconstitute that pension scheme in order to have more flexible rules. That is obviously a ​ wise way to operate and it would be helpful to have the Boyle Committee’s views and recommendations on that aspect.

    Clearly we must also look at the scale of allowances and the comparative position of Ministers in another place, just as we must consider the position of Ministers in general. Last, but by no means least, we must consider the remuneration of the small group of our most senior public servants, including the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and yourself, Mr. Speaker, and especially your pension provisions.

    It is clear that the position of hon. Members has slipped through our carelessness, indifference and cowardice. It is urgent that the matter should be thoroughly investigated and it is fine that this is to be done. But that is not enough. There must be a commitment by the Government and the Opposition. What is the point of having an inquiry, with all the work that goes into it, if we do not know whether its results will be accepted?

    I speak only for myself—I cannot commit my colleagues or Labour Members—but I should be willing to abide by the recommendations of the Boyle Committee, good, bad or indifferent. If we ask distinguished people to do a great deal of work and to make a thorough survey, we should say that we shall accept their conclusions. The Government and the Opposition should both say that. It should be an understood commitment so that we can remove this matter from politics altogether and say to the British people that we are conscious that we have not got this right in the past, but we are now determined to do so and, whatever party forms the Government and whatever allowances may be due in future, we are determined to see that this business is put into proper order. I hope that the Leader of the House will state that on behalf of the Government, plainly and forthrightly, and that the Shadow Leader of the House will echo that commitment.

    We have been fooled once, because the Boyle Committee made a recommendation that was casually tossed on one side. That is not the way to do things. I hope that there will be a general consensus that that precedent will not be ​ followed in future, and that by setting up the Boyle Committee and agreeing to implement its recommendations, even if we have to phase them, we shall ensure that this matter is handled with better sense and dignity than in the past.

  • William Price – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by William Price, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    The purpose of these motions is to give effect to the appropriate increases in parliamentary pay, Members’ secretarial allowance and the salaries of Ministers and office holders in accordance with current stage 3 pay guidelines. Under the guidelines, Members are eligible for an increase of 10 per cent. in their parliamentary pay. The first motion therefore increases the figure from £6,270 to £6,897, with effect from 13th June. Corresponding increases are given in the abated parliamentary salaries payable to Ministers and office holders.

    No doubt some of hon. Members will say that 10 per cent. is not the right figure, although I hope that many will argue that it is too high. Some may want an increase based on a figure more appropriately reflecting the salary that a Member should be receiving, and the last Top Salaries Review Body report may be called in evidence.

    We have carefully considered that argument, as well as all the others put to us. Although we fully appreciate the strong feelings held in many parts of the House, we are convinced that the proposals on the Order Paper represent the only defensible course in terms of pay policy. Certainly it is not part of my case that the present situation is anything like satisfactory and I should like to say something about future prospects a little later. However, I hope that it will be accepted that Members of Parliament should be seen to accept no more than their constituents in the current pay round.

    It will be argued—I have a good deal of sympathy for the point of view—that it will never be the right time to correct the serious defects of the past. We recognise that argument, but we say that we could not pick a more difficult time. I do not need the House to remind me that I have been standing here each year since 1975 saying almost exactly the same thing. That is true, and I may as well admit it.

    Some hon. Members are concerned about the disclaimers of the stage 1 increase of £6 which many signed. They believe that the time has now come to withdraw that. That, of course, is a matter for the individuals concerned, but no other TSRB group has received that £6 and for Members to do so now would, I believe, be seen as a conflict with pay policy.
    Although Members will have reservations about the proposals on salary scales, I hope that there will be general approval of the Government’s recommendations on pensionable pay. Last year’s £208 pay increase was added to the £8,000 pensionable rate. The stage 1 £312 increase remained unincorporated, and in last year’s debate the Government recognised the force of the argument that it should be included but could not at that stage support the proposal. My right hon. Friend has re-examined the issue in the light of current circumstances and we are therefore proposing that it should now be done.

    The figure of £9,372 given in paragraph (2) of the first motion thus comprises £8,208 plus £312 plus 10 per cent. The table in paragraph (3) prescribes the supplements payable to cover the 5 per cent. pension contribution on the difference between actual and pensionable pay for the various new rates of parliamentary salary. The rate of contribution to the scheme will increase to 6 per cent. with the passage of the Parliamentary Pensions Bill and the rates shown in the third column of the table are in anticipation of that increase.

    The second motion increases the reimbursement limit for secretarial allowance from £3,687 to £4,200. That will not only allow Members to increase their secretaries’ pay by the amount under the guidelines; it will allow the increased costs of employers’ national insurance contribution to be met, and that is a move which I know many hon. Members welcome.

    To some extent, the increases in national insurance costs were anticipated in the Review Body’s 1975 recommendation on the secretarial allowance. However, I am proposing an additional element of almost £150 within the proposed new limit to cover increases which have arisen since then.

    The third and final motion seeks approval of a draft Order in Council to implement a salary increase of 10 per cent. for all Ministers and office holders. The maximum salaries for these appointments are laid down in the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, and the rates may be amended by order in council, subject to a draft being approved by resolution in each House.

    There is one point that I should make in connection with the order. Throughout, the order quotes maximum salaries which are not necessarily the actual salaries being paid. Appointments held by Ministers in another place attract higher rates of pay than the corresponding appointments in the House of Commons because of the addition of the rounds 1 and 2 increases which were available to Commons Ministers through their parliamentary pay. Since the 1975 Act gives no power to differentiate the rate laid down if an appointment is held by a member of one House rather than another, the higher rate has necessarily been given, but the Act permits a lesser amount to be paid than that authorised for any post.

    Now I come to the question in the future, which is a matter of considerable interest to Members and one which inevitably will lead to some controversy. It is not an easy matter but it is not, in our view, one that we can ignore. During the past 12 months, Members have put to my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council by means of letters, Questions and through deputations, a multiplicity of views concerning the course that we should adopt for the future, and we of course are aware both of the amendments that were tabled to these motions and of Early-Day Motion No. 502.

    I want at this stage to record on behalf of my right hon. Friend the value that he places on the constructive and helpful discussions that he has had with ​ a group of Members led by the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes). We have said many times that we accept the argument that here are real problems of Members’ pay, but there is no magic formula available to us which will suddenly put right the injustices of the past, particularly at a time of continuing pay restraint for the rest of the country. We can see little benefit in breaking away from the procedures already established for determining Members’ pay, and my right hon. Friend, with the approval of the House, therefore intends to recommend to the Prime Minister that the TSRB should be asked to undertake a further review of parliamentary pay and certain related issues.

    So long as we can keep the scope of the reference fairly limited, there is every reason to expect a quick report, and one issue in particular that we should like it to look at again is the question of a salary link—an attractive proposition to many Members.

    Obviously, we shall be asked whether we can give an assurance that the Government will fully implement the resulting recommendations. My right hon. Friend has some sympathy for that view and has seriously considered whether a forward commitment would be appropriate. The Government believe, however, that there are grave difficulties in giving a blind commitment to accept immediately whatever the Review Body recommends.

    Nevertheless, I assure the House that the Government recognise that they have a strong obligation to Members on the matter of their pay, and I remind the House that they have said that there would have to be clear and compelling reasons for the TSRB recommendations not to be accepted.

    I believe that a further powerful argument in this respect is a move towards a bipartisan approach on pay, led by the right hon. Members for Taunton and Anglesey. This development has meant that for some time there has been a substantial common approach between the parties on the problem of how Members’ pay should be tackled, and we are hopeful that there will also be a common approach to the acceptability of the report.

    This is a matter on which the time will never be right; neither will the amounts recommended meet with universal approval. There are very powerful views on this matter in all parts of the House, and they are by no means unanimous. What I do say is that the proposals before the House today are the most—and, in my view the least, as well—done in the circumstances. I hope that they will meet with general approval.