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Tag: Speeches

  • Michael Hamilton – 1978 Speech on Festivals at Stonehenge

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Hamilton, the then Conservative MP for Salisbury, in the House of Commons on 31 July 1978.

    I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for being here at a late hour to consider the problems of Stonehenge. I wish that it had been possible to spare him. But, as he knows, the difficulties arising from the annual solstice celebrations have not abated. It is the Government alone who can improve matters.

    In March I wrote to Lady Birk, who has responsibility for ancient monuments, ​ asking her whether I would be on my feet, yet again, in this Chamber after this year’s summer solstice. I asked her whether there were any grounds for believing that what had happened in three-successive years would not recur. In the event, troubles did recur. I cannot speak too highly of the Wiltshire police—of their patience, humanity and efficiency.

    Despite the efforts of the police, at dawn on 16th June the same padlocked gate was forced and the same farmer has suffered heavy damage to field and fencing. When I took a look at the situation the following day, I found that the illegal army of festival-goers had already dug in—vehicles, tents, stage, the lot.

    The Minister will not be surprised if am critical. His Department owns the monument—and the monument acts as a magnet. Young people are attracted to it from all over the country and the Continent. They know that the main axis of the monument is aligned to the midsummer sunrise at 4.59 a.m. on 21st June. They know that Stonehenge is steeped in mystery and legend. They seek to get as close to it as possible, and that much is not difficult to understand.

    Their number runs into thousands. I am told that the invasion is planned and publicised by two communes in Muswell Hill. They arrive for a fortnight, and the Minister knows that there is no sanitation, no water, no firewood, no provision of any kind. The Minister is rightly concerned with the safety of the monument itself. He rings it with dannert wire, a necessity which both he and I regret. But the direct result is that the invading army, unable to penetrate the Minister’s defences, denied the chance to pitch camp within the stone circle, turns off the road a few hundred yards short of but in sight of the monument itself.

    The Minister then washes his hands of the whole business. It is, according to Lady Birk’s letter to me,

    “a matter for the police and the owners and occupiers of the land.”

    Yet, all too correctly, she points out:

    “the legal remedies open to owners and occupiers in the case of mass trespass are difficult to bring to bear in time to prevent the trespass from taking place. Neither we nor the police know the identity of the organisers and there is accordingly little prospect of obtaining an injunction to restrain them. Even if one were obtained against some individuals, and served upon them, others would be likely to take their place in promoting the festival.”

    Precisely. To put it another way, the law is inadequate. This is an ignoble posture for Government. The Minister rings his own plot with dannert wire, and with all the resources of the State. He then tells the National Trust and its farming tenants to fend for themselves, and in the same breath accepts the total absence of legal remedy available to them.

    So the first thing I ask the Minister for tonight is compensation for the farmer who has suffered. The Department’s receipts from the monument exceed £150,000 a year, and I am talking about 1 per cent. of that figure. These are unique circumstances. There is no danger of creating precedents, for there is only one Stonehenge, and its problems are peculiar, not general.

    I suggest that the Department should consider claims on an ex gratia basis. I suggest that the ability to claim should be confined solely to farming tenants of National Trust land surrounding the monument. I expect the Minister to accede to this request.

    If he tells me that he can find no way of doing so, I shall ask myself what calibre of Ministers are being appointed to the Department today. If a Minister cannot find £2,000 to ensure the good name of his Department, something is seriously wrong.

    A year ago the Minister spoke of

    “football crowds doing damage to shops and houses on their way to football grounds, in which cases the owners of the grounds cannot be expected to compensate all in the area for something a third party does.”—[Official Report, 27th July, 1977; Vol. 936, c. 905.]

    With respect, this is a wholly false analogy, and the Minister knows it.

    At Stonehenge the invaders have only one wish—to pitch their tents at the monument and the Minister’s dannert wire prevents them from doing so. His Department is on record as saying,

    “We realise, of course, that action to deter trespass on our land may deflect the festival on to other land nearby.”

    I have a second proposal. I suggest that in future the Minister should receive the invaders on his own land. He has a lease of some 30 acres, so there is plenty of room. The police will be happy about that. Archaeologically the dangers are no greater than at present. The National Trust is greatly troubled by the whole ​ business, but it would be prepared to agree that one site is less objectionable than others. The great advantage would be that damage to private property would cease.

    The Minister cannot have it both ways. Either he receives the tents and vehicles himself, or he assists those who carry the burden instead. His present stance is equivocal, and it does him no credit.

    I start from the premise that we cannot go on as we are. I accept that no alternative course is perfect, and I realise that the Minister’s 30 acres are cheek-by-jowl with the monument. This means that for a fortnight visitors will be horrified by the clutter of vehicles and tents close by. I repeat that no alternative course is perfect.

    However, I suspect that there is another reason why the Minister shies away from admitting the festival on to his own land. The festival is illegal—it is mass trespass. He cannot condone illegality. To me, that argument is valid the first year. It is less valid the second year. In the third year illegality becomes a recognised feature. After four years the argument about not condoning illegality becomes academic and hypocritical.

    Of course I deplore non-observance of the law, but I believe that we must face reality and cannot go on as we are. I believe that the Minister’s attitude, safely behind his barbed wire, is the regrettable attitude of “I’m all right, Jack.” If plans have to be made to hold in reserve and readiness water carts, firewood and what are called “Portaloos”, so be it.

    Finally, action is needed here in Parliament. The law is inadequate, yet the Department is silent. I believe that a Bill —the Night Assemblies Bill—would have helped. Surely that measure contained much that was constructive. Was it not regrettable that that Bill should have been talked out at a late stage by some of the Minister’s less responsible colleagues?

    I hope that the Minister will say a brief word tonight about his intentions in this respect. I have not time now to deal with the important questions of crowd control and all the rest of it. That must wait. We are deeply proud in Wiltshire to have this great monument, but it is an inheritance which brings practical ​ problems in its train. I hope that the Minister will help.

  • Dominic Raab – 2020 Statement on the Coronavirus

    Dominic Raab – 2020 Statement on the Coronavirus

    Below is the text of the statement made by Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, on 16 April 2020.

    Good afternoon,

    Welcome to the daily coronavirus press conference from Downing Street.

    I’m joined by Sir Patrick Valance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, and Professor Chris Whitty, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer.

    Sir Patrick will provide an update on the latest data on coronavirus.

    But, first, let me update you on the steps we are taking to defeat the coronavirus, and the decisions we have taken today.

    Step-by-step, our action plan aims to slow the spread of the virus.

    So that fewer people need hospital treatment at any one time, and that is the way we can protect the NHS from being overwhelmed.

    At every step along this way, we have followed, very carefully and deliberately, the scientific and medical advice that we have received.

    So that we take the right steps at the right moment in time.

    At the same time, we are dramatically expanding NHS capacity, in terms of the numbers of beds, key staff and life-saving equipment on the front-line, so people get the care they need, at the point in time that they need it most.

    And that’s also why we have directed people to stay at home. To deny coronavirus the opportunity to spread, to protect the NHS and save lives.

    Now, today’s data shows that:

    327, 608 people in the UK have now been tested for the coronavirus;

    103,093 people have tested positive;

    And sadly, of those with the virus, 13,729 have now died.

    These are heart-breaking losses for every family affected.

    And it remind us exactly why we need to follow the social distancing guidance.

    Earlier today, I chaired meetings of the Cabinet and COBR to consider the advice from SAGE on the impact of the existing social distancing measures.

    There are indications that the measures we have put in place have been successful in slowing down the spread of the virus.

    But, SAGE also say that it is a mixed and inconsistent picture and, in some settings, infections are still likely to be increasing.

    SAGE assess that the rate of infection, or the R value, is almost certainly below 1 in the community.

    That means that on average each infected person is, in turn, infecting less than one other person. But, overall, we still don’t have the infection rate down as far as we need to.

    As in other countries, we have issues with the virus spreading in some hospitals and care homes.

    In sum, the very clear advice we have received is that any change to our social distancing measures now would risk a significant increase in the spread of the virus. That would threaten a second peak of the virus, and substantially increase the number of deaths.

    It would undo the progress made to date, and as a result, would require an even longer period of the more restrictive social distancing measures. So early relaxation would do more damage to the economy over a longer period.

    I want to be clear about this. The advice from SAGE is that relaxing any of the measures currently in place would risk damage to both public health and our economy.

    Patrick and Chris will be able to go into further detail on all of this shortly.

    But based on this advice, the Government has determined that current measures must remain in place for at least the next 3 weeks.

    Now, in terms of the decisions that lie ahead, we want to be as up front with the British people as we possibly can.

    So, let me set out 5 specific things which the Government will need to be satisfied of before we will consider it safe to adjust any of the current measures.

    First, we must protect the NHS’s ability to cope.

    We must be confident that we are able to provide sufficient critical care and specialist treatment right across the UK.

    The NHS staff have been incredible.

    We must continue to support them as much as we can.

    Second, we need to see a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rates from coronavirus so we are confident that we have moved beyond the peak.

    Third, we need to have reliable data from SAGE showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board.

    Fourth, we need to be confident that the range of operational challenges, including testing capacity and PPE, are in hand, with supply able to meet future demand.

    Fifth, and this is really crucial, we need to be confident that any adjustments to the current measures will not risk a second peak of infections that overwhelm the NHS.

    The worst thing we could do now is ease up too soon and allow a second peak of the virus to hit the NHS and hit the British people.

    It would be the worst outcome, not just for public health, but for the economy and for our country as a whole.

    So, the current restrictions will remain in place.

    The Government will continue to monitor the data on the impact of the virus.

    We will soon be able to test 100,000 people every day.

    That will give us greater understanding of the scope of infection across the country.

    It will also help us plan how to change the measures when we are ready to.

    When we are confident on these five points.

    Guided by science and data, we will look to adjust the measures to make them as effective as possible in protecting public health, while allowing some economic and social activity to resume.

    We will only do it, when the evidence demonstrates that is safe to do it.

    It could involve relaxing measures in some areas, while strengthening measures in other areas.

    But in formulating the right balance we will be at all times guided by the scientific advice and the evidence.

    I should add at this point that we recognise all the economic and social impact the current measures are having.

    That is why we put in place an unprecedented package of support for jobs and businesses, as well as for hospices and charities who are doing so much to support the most vulnerable in our society.

    And, I know that many people would like to hear more detail, some people are calling for exact dates, on what will happen next, and when.

    We are as being as open as we responsibly can at this stage.

    And it would not be responsible to pre-judge the evidence that SAGE will have and review in just a few weeks’ time.

    I know some people will look at other countries, and ask why the UK isn’t doing what they’re doing.

    I can reassure people that we carefully follow what is happening in other countries.

    We will always look to learn any lessons in how they are approaching their response.

    And I’m talking to Foreign Ministers on a daily basis, I know Chris and Patrick are doing the same with their opposite numbers around the world. Ultimately, we have to do what is right for the British people, based on the advice of our experts, Grounded in the conditions here in the UK, and we will make those decisions at the right time for this country.

    That’s what we have done so far.

    That’s what we will continue to do.

    I appreciate the impact of these measures is considerable on people and businesses across the country. The costs being shouldered.

    The sacrifices people are making.

    Being isolated from friends and family.

    Whole Households, cooped up inside, all week long.

    Parents having difficult conversations with their young children, who just don’t understand why they can’t visit grandparents or go outside and meet up with friends as they normally do.

    Families struggling managing home-schooling, and balancing that with working from home.

    I know there are people very concerned about their household finances.

    Uncertain about their jobs.

    Worried for their small businesses that remain closed. We get it.

    We know it’s rough going at this time

    Every time I come to this lectern, and I read out the grim toll of people who have so sadly passed away.

    I walk away from here, and I think about what their sons and their daughters must be going through right now.

    Their brothers and sisters.

    Their grandchildren.

    All the loved ones left with their unbearable, long-term, grief.

    It makes me and it makes this government focus even harder on what we must do.

    And, I know that, together, united, we must keep up this national effort for a while longer.

    We’ve just come too far, we’ve lost too many loved ones, we’ve already sacrificed far too much to ease up now, especially when we’re beginning to see the evidence that our efforts are starting to pay off.

    And your efforts are paying off.

    There is light at the end of the tunnel.

    But, we’re now at both a delicate and dangerous stage of this pandemic.

    If we rush to relax the measures in place, we would risk wasting all the sacrifices and all the progress we have made. And that would risk a quick return to another lockdown.

    With all the threat to life a second peak of the virus would bring, and all the economic damage a second lockdown would carry.

    So we need to be patient a while longer.

    So please please stay home, save lives and protect the NHS.

    So we can safely return to life as close to normal as possible, as soon as possible.

    It’s been an incredible national team effort.

    Now is not the moment to give the coronavirus a second chance. Let’s stick together, let’s see this through.

    And let’s defeat the coronavirus for good.

  • John Stokes – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Stokes, the then Conservative MP for Halesowen and Stourbridge, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    In some ways it is a pity that this debate has been so wide ranging and dominated by the bizarre and perhaps brilliant exposition of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) which I felt was more suitable to an eighteenth century Parliament than to our Parliament. I often wish that we did live in those great and glorious days but, alas, we do not. I agree that when Members of Parliament were not paid we were probably better governed than we are now, but we have to address ourselves to the realities of the present situation.

    I was sorry that the right hon. Member for Down, South seemed to imply ​ that he was a slightly more honourable Member than others. I am sure that he did not mean to imply that, but it might be read into some parts of his rather puritanical and hair-shirted speech. The right hon. Member was very personal about himself. I do not intend to be. I will say that although it had been my ambition to come to this House for as long as I can remember, I waited until I had started a business and made a success of it and had some money behind me, apart from what I might earn here. When I came here I never thought for a moment of what I would earn or how well off or otherwise I would be.

    That is not the case for everybody. Many hon. Members entered this House years before I did. Many depend entirely and exclusively upon their salaries. It is those hon. Members about whom we should be mainly concerned. Those of us who have the advantage of another income must be particularly careful to give that point due regard. It is always a difficult thing for us to consider our own salaries. There are two difficulties to overcome. I speak as someone who has been dealing with salaries and other matters for most of my adult life since the war.

    The first point to make is that we are practically the only people in this country who fix our own remuneration. Secondly, that already difficult situation is exacerbated by the Government’s pay policies, which have introduced anomalies, delays and frustrations. The occupation of Members of Parliament, strictly speaking, cannot be compared with any other job.

    I deal first with Ministers’ salaries. We have heard a lot about Members’ salaries but little about the salaries of Ministers. I believe that they are still scandalously low, by any comparison. That must have a bearing on Members’ salaries. I cannot see why the Prime Minister should not be paid a salary of around £50,000 a year. That is much lower than the salaries of some of the chairmen of our great companies. The salaries of other Ministers could then rise in proportion.

    There is a new factor affecting the salaries of Ministers and hon. Members—the vast improvement in the salaries, pensions and conditions of service of the Civil Service. There has been created a ​ specially favoured class, insulated from the financial problems faced by almost all other people. While I would not for a moment claim that we should enjoy such exceptionally favourable terms, I do say that it is wrong that there should be such a colossal disparity between the Civil Service and ourselves. This disparity is shown up in the non-contributory pensions and in the pay and other conditions of service enjoyed in the Civil Service.

    I speak as a Member who, since leaving the Army, has spent most of his life as an industrial manager. I believe that we must attract into the House more people from industry, commerce and the City. The able young men, possibly in their early thirties, who are making their careers outside, must be offered some sort of salary which will not involve too great a financial sacrifice, particularly if they are married, with families. We can never make up our minds what sort of people we are here. Listening to the right hon. Member for Down, South, I felt that he seemed to think that we were still members of the old aristocracy or landed gentry, or possibly the richer burgesses from the towns. Those days are over. This place should represent all classes in society. We still have—I hope that we always shall have—the upper House to correct any excesses of democracy here. I strongly believe that the upper House should be based on hereditary peers. If we are to say that, surely we must have a truly democratic assembly here.

    Pay policy has utterly confounded salaries in this place, as it has in every other department of our national life. I do not believe in incomes policies. They are holding back the country’s industrial, commercial and professional life. As long as the Government insist on a rigid pay policy we are placed in an awkward situation. If this House later decides that all of those in the country—those who work and those who do not, those with responsibilities and those without them, those who are highly skilled and those who are not—should be limited in their new contracts of employment to an increase not exceeding 5 per cent. it will make us look very selfish and foolish if we talk about paying ourselves thousands of pounds a year more.

    That is not to say that we should not do so. It shows how absurd and ridiculous is the 5 per cent. limit. There has been much talk of attaching our salaries to an outside source. This has its attractions. However, I believe that we should have the courage to say that we are comparable with no one, and that we have, in our own wisdom, the right to fix our own levels of pay. The time is soon coming when we must make a supreme effort to deal with this matter once and for all. I feel most embarrassed when I see older Members here hanging on, dreading retirement, because of the continued delay about fixing proper rates of salary and pension.

    It is also extremely confusing and muddling to have one rate of salary here and to have another notional salary for pension purposes. The only way to deal properly with pensions is to have a proper rate of salary here.

    We have very serious issues before us. People say that the public are extremely disagreeable about our salaries, but I believe that to be largely unfounded. In all the correspondence that I have received in the eight and a quarter years that I have been here, I have not received a single letter either about my salary or about the salaries of other Members. Therefore, I say to hon. Members on both sides of the House, let us be bold, decide what is right, and make absolutely sure that the new figure applies the moment the new Parliament meets.

  • Charles Morrison – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Charles Morrison, the then Conservative MP for Devizes, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    I feel that the sands of time have run out even before I start, so I shall endeavour to be brief. I agreed strongly with the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) when he said that hon. Members should be able to live adequately. I might add “by roughly equivalent standards”, but I emphasise “roughly” because I also agree with him that we are unique and I do not think that our salary scale should be attached to any other scale. That must mean a review by the Boyle committee or its equivalent not just once in a while, at the behest of the Government, but at regular intervals. This is an objective towards which we should be working.

    I was glad that the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) laid so much emphasis on the extent to which, even now, certain people—an increasing number in future—will be precluded from becoming Members because they will not be able to maintain the standard of living that they could obtain outside.

    However highly motivated the potential parliamentarian aged 28 or 30 may be, since it is not unusual for young people of that age to have been married only recently, he may well have to consider carefully his responsibility towards his wife and family. In addition, when wives consider the alternatives of the parliamentary salary or their husbands continuing in their present careers and gradually climbing the ladder, most will tell their husbands that in no circumstances should they go into the House of Commons. That is an important aspect for us to take into account.

    There was a germ of truth in some of the comments of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), but his main argument was old-fashioned stuff, which had nothing to do with the world in which we have to live. He said that we should make our decision on behalf of subsequent Parliaments and not for ourselves. I disagree; I believe that we should make the decision, implement it, and go to the country carrying that responsibility on our own shoulders, rather than half-pretending that only others will benefit from our decision. I would prefer to come clean with the electors to putting up a smoke-screen and pretending that something that is to happen will not happen.

    I agree strongly with those who said that it is never the right time to review parliamentary salaries. For almost as long as I can remember, there have been the additional problems involved with incomes policies, but the real and relative values of parliamentary salaries have been steadily eroded. If it pleases the right hon. Member for Down, South, I add the words “while I have been an hon. Member.”

    The fact that salaries are too low is entirely the fault of ourselves, particularly the Back Benchers. Our salaries are not imposed on us by the Treasury; they are imposed on us because we have not been prepared to take a strong line ourselves. In the past, there has been a lot of lobbying by us all, particularly Back Benchers, about salary increases, but when the Government of the day decide to make increases or to implement someone else’s recommendations, we Back Benchers have too often run scared. We have run for cover and let the Government carry ​ the can. In consequence, we have got what we deserve—or, perhaps, what we do not deserve.

    Looking to the future, it is important that, to a much greater extent, we should personalise the responsibility on each of us for justifying the salaries that we receive. This is a subsidiary objective in the development of the joint approach between both main parties for which the greatest credit must be given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) and the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes).

    The Minister referred to future pay increases and said that there were grave difficulties in giving a blind commitment in advance. I understand that. It is not surprising that there should be that reaction from the Government Front Bench, in isolation. It is not impossible for the commitment, which has been requested by other hon. Members, to be made by both Front Benches and, if need be, by the minor parties. If such a commitment is not made there will be continuing and growing dissatisfaction because of the uncertainty that will arise.

    Unless some such commitment is entered into there will be an unseemly row, such as there has been in other countries, for example, Australia. The outcome of that sort of row will be that the Back Benches will be in control and will impose their will on the Government of the day and, perhaps, the Opposition Front Bench. The Government have to remember that they are the servants of Parliament, not vice versa.

  • Alexander Lyon – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alexander Lyon, the then Labour MP for York, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    Membership of the House is unique, but that does not make it any easier for us to make a unique valuation of our worth. It falls to us to do so by the nature of the means by which we are paid. We have to decide, though perhaps on the advice of some committee, how much we shall pay ourselves, and there is no escape from that.

    If I could believe that the 630 Members of Parliament had the political courage and virility to take a decision about their worth in complete isolation from the valuation of any other job in the country, I should be happy to leave it at that. I accept the difficulties of trying to tie ourselves to a particular status in the Civil Service, to the status of a company chairman or any other analogue anywhere else. But the reason why we turn our attention to that is that we have lacked the courage in the past to say to people that membership of the House of Commons, although it is unique and although it is an inestimable privilege to be here, is nevertheless a factor which we have to consider in deciding the amount of money which we are paid since, like anyone else who goes out to work, we are dependent for the standard of living ​which we provide not just for ourselves but for our families upon the salaries which we receive.

    It is right that we should make a position for ourselves which allows those Members—their number is increasing—who decide that they must be professional Members of Parliament and have no other income to live adequately upon those resources without having to burden themselves and their families with concern about finance on top of all the other concerns which we take upon ourselves as Members of Parliament.

    Accepting that, I should be quite happy to make a judgment of our own worth and tell people that, if they did not like it, that was what we thought appropriate and at any subsequent election they must make whatever choice they liked about our valuation of ourselves. But I know that that is not how the House works, and still less how the process of government works.

    For that reason, we have tried to find alternative ways of reducing the political tension which arises whenever we decide what we should be paid. We have tried the advisory committee. We are now suggesting another way—tying ourselves to Civil Service rates of pay so that automatically we get a payment which we do not have to settle for ourselves.

    If hon. Members feel that that is an easier way of settling a valuation of our services, so be it. I should go along with it. But I think that to pay ourselves the rate of an assistant secretary is to some extent demeaning. I remember that when I was a junior Minister, and only a junior Minister, the lowest form of Civil Service life allowed through my door was an assistant secretary, and he was allowed in only in exceptional circumstances. When I recognised that when he came in through the door he was at that time being paid substantially more than I was being paid to take the decisions on which he was advising, it seemed to me that it was a bit demeaning to talk about that, but at the present time an assistant secretary on the full rate is being paid about double the rate at which we are paid.

    We cannot be immune to that. It is not true that civil servants will categorise us, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) said, according to the amount ​ of money we receive and that a permanent secretary will be dismissive of us simply because we are paid less than he is. If we were paid a lot more, he would be dismissive of us. The real reason why he is dismissive of us is that we do not assert the power we have. Indeed, my main concern in this matter is that we are Parliament. It is not for us to wait upon the Lord President of the Council. It is not for us to wait for the Cabinet or Lord Boyle, or, indeed, the assistant secretaries or the Civil Service unions. We are Parliament. If we really had the dignity which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) says we have, we should be impervious to the criticisms of outside bodies of that kind. We should decide how much we were to be paid.

    I had not intended to refer to the speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South, which seemed to me to be beneath contempt, but, when he expresses populist sentiments of the kind which we heard from him this morning, I recall how much he charges for his television appearances, and I take it ill from him when he talks about hacks. Incidentally, I noticed that when he uttered his populist sentiments the hacks disappeared from the Press Gallery in order to put into tomorrow’s newspapers what one Member of the House thinks about 629 others. I do not regard that as improving the standard and dignity of the House of Commons. Moreover, one may add that among those hacks who disappeared gleefully to report that we should not be paid more than £6,000 a year some will not be able to report it in The Sun as they are on strike because they were paid only a 10 per cent. increase on their £13,000 a year and they want a lot more. They are the real hacks of Fleet Street.

    Therefore, we need not apologise for saying that we ought to be paid a proper salary—and by a proper salary I mean something which will allow a man to be a professional Member of Parliament and live on his salary without having constantly to consider his own finances as opposed to the other issues which he has to consider.

    In deciding what that value is, the kind of role we have is an important matter. When I see the Badge Messengers who bring us our messages wearing their white ties and tails, I remember that I was ​ told that they wear that dress because they are the descendants here of the butlers who used to come here in the nineteenth century to prepare the meals for their masters who came down for their evening sojourn in this place.

    But that was an entirely different kind of Member from the Member who is here today. I recall the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) once told me that, after his first arrival in the House in 1945, he went to King’s Cross station to catch the train back to his constituency and there met a Member of Parliament—who shall be nameless—who said “I am just making my annual visit to my constituency.” None of us could get away with that now, whatever the size of our majority.

    The truth is that, whatever the right hon. Member for Down, South thinks—I am little surprised at his recollections—we are all conscious that we are working harder and we are doing a more professional job, even if we are not full-time professionals. We are doing a more professional job in the House, and we are doing it with much less support in the way of services, facilities and accommodation than is enjoyed by most other people who are doing a professional job.

    I want to put this matter into its context. My judgment is that the House of Commons is no real challenge to the power of bureaucracy and the power of Government in this country as at present constituted. We must revise the way in which we work so that we can take a real share in decision-making. We cannot go on with the tradition which has come down to us since the sixteenth century that we simply correct Government decisions after they have been made—that we are the better after the event. The fact that we have the party structure and that we have a systematised way of expressing opposition, which simply means that we can delay things for a little while but in the end the power of the Whips will decide, means that the decisions when taken by the Cabinet are almost always irrevocable.

    I accept that in this Parliament—I see my right hon. Friend the Lord President looking a little pained—things have been slightly different because it has not been possible to amass the majority quite as ​ easily as in past Parliaments, but overall the Government get their way. They got their way last night in circumstances which seemed to be quite unexpected. It is the unexpected for a Government not to get their way, and as long as that continues decisions when in the Cabinet are almost always irrevocable.

    Therefore, if we wish to influence the Government and, more important, if we wish to check the power of the bureaucracy, we must be involved in decision-taking before the decisions are made. That requires that we go over to the kind of powerful Select Committees which amass the evidence and evaluate it before it goes to Ministers and before the final decision is taken. This calls for a Member of Parliament entirely different in kind from the Member we have today. Such a Member must be here more often than we are. He must have support services in the way of research and staff which we do not have. He must be able to work during the day and have his nights off. That means that we have to alter the times at which we sit.

    We shall not get that sort of hon. Member on the present part-time basis. I admit that I am a part-time Member in that sense. I do not regard myself as doing a part-time job for my constituents, but I have another source of income. I hate having it and would much prefer to be a professional Member. The only reason why I have the outside income is that I cannot live on the present income of an hon. Member and I regard the other job as a sort of insurance.

    If we were given a proper salary and were paid properly for a period after we left the House, none of us could ask for more and we could all become professional Members. I do not think that it is necessary for us to have a ruling that everyone should be a professional Member, but our hours, means of working, pay and resources should be based upon the notion that that is what we are, and I hope that the Boyle committee will evaluate our work on that basis alone. If it tries to evaluate our work on the basis that some of us have other sources of income, that will be an injustice to those who are already professional Members.

    We are also discussing the question of the new parliamentary building.

    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

    Order. The hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. We are not debating the new building at present. That debate will come on later.

    Mr. Lyon

    I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In those circumstances, I shall not say much about the new building, but it is part of the whole business of what sort of evaluation we have of hon. Members. We must not have the sort of evaluation that says that we cannot be housed in proper facilities with proper accommodation, but we must allow civil servants and anyone else to be housed in such accommodation. Indeed, we make it an offence for employers not to house their employees in proper accommodation, yet we bury ourselves in little holes down Whitehall or round the back of the Jewel Tower. That demeans the role that we should have.

    I support the notion that we should be paid properly and should have proper back-up services. We should not be so dependent upon our allowances for secretarial assistance and so on. These should be provided for us because of our need for them rather than by our having to claim them. That is a better way of dealing with our status in this place.

  • 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.