13: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Unsalaried MinistersNo one who is a Minister of the Crown shall be eligible for membership of the House of Lords unless they are in receipt of, or have been offered, a salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would mean that unpaid Ministers would not be eligible for membership of the House, effectively requiring all Lords Ministers to be paid.
My Lords, before speaking to Amendment 13, I should explain that I have tabled Amendment 13A on the supplementary list to put beyond doubt a point that may have been an unintended effect of the original drafting of Amendment 13. Amendment 13A ensures that the proposal in Amendment 13 would not apply to any existing Member of this House, but only to future ministerial appointments of new life Peers. After all, we on this side do not favour the forced expulsion of any Member of your Lordships’ House, and indeed your Lordships voted to support that important constitutional principle only last week. It has been agreed in the usual channels that, if the clarifying Amendment 13A is supported in a Division, Amendment 13 will be accepted as a consequential, so there will be only one vote on this issue.
The purpose of this is to send a clear message to the other place and to all Governments—I emphasise “all Governments”, and will come back to that—that service as a Minister in your Lordships’ House should be properly remunerated. There are other issues that need to be addressed, including pension and severance pay, but this amendment is about pay.
I spoke at some length on this in Committee, and I do not need to repeat all the arguments here, but let me set out three firm principles on which surely we across this House should all stand. The first is a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work; the second is equal treatment for Ministers in both Houses; and the third is that no Member of this House should be prevented from serving their party, their House and their country for the lack of private means to do so. That is an unfairness that should have ceased to exist in the 18th century, let alone now in the second quarter of the 21st century. None of those basic principles that I have set out currently applies to Lords Ministers’ pay. Surely all Government Ministers in the House of Lords, whichever party is in office, should be paid. If they wish to renounce that pay, or any part of it, that is all well and good, but that does not affect the basic underlying principles.
I apologise for jumping the gun, but the enthusiasm I feel for this amendment from my noble friend goes back to the previous Parliament: I pay tribute to the Leader of the House and to my noble friend for the efforts that were made in the last Parliament to right this wrong. Perhaps I could just make a few punchy points.
There is a limit, as my noble friend has explained, on the total number of Ministers. I was very indebted, in the last Parliament, to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who pointed out that there seems to be an increasingly inflationary effect on the number of Ministers who are needed to run this country. When I was Secretary of State, pre-devolution, we were responsible for everything, not just the devolutionary matters in Scotland, and we did it with one Secretary of State, four Ministers and two law officers. There are now 29 Ministers in the Scottish Parliament.
I am looking at my noble friend Lord Clarke. He and my noble friend Lord Fowler ran the Department for Transport in 1979 with two Ministers, and in 1979, that department was responsible for British Airways, the ports and the National Freight Corporation, none of which applies to the present or the previous Government’s Department for Transport, just to show that I am being non-partisan. In 1979, there were two Ministers, but by 2023 there were five Ministers in the Department for Transport, with much less to do.
The same was true of the DHSS, which had five Ministers in 1979. The DHSS was then split into two departments: the Department of Health and the DWP. The DHSS had five Ministers in 1979, but the two departments between them had 12 Ministers. You could argue that things have got more complicated, but there does seem to be an inflationary effect which even beats the Bank of England in the ability to create this kind of growth.
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It is just as outrageous for people at the other end of the Corridor to use patronage—because that is what I think is happening here—to create additional ministerial duties. Goodness knows what they are all doing; they must be tripping over each other in departments. As far as I can see, under the last Government we seemed to go through a period in which the Ministers were simply told what to do by people in No. 10 and a bunch of unelected special advisers. There is no justification for what is going on here. I very much hope the Government will accept that there is support on all sides of the House for dealing with this anomaly and ensuring that those who serve our country so brilliantly by being Ministers on the Front Bench are properly rewarded for doing so and, more importantly, that no one is prevented from doing so.
This system, in which Ministers are expected to rush here to get their £371, is ridiculous. How can this work for Foreign Office Ministers—such as the noble Baroness, who may be doing important work overseas and is completely unpaid, as in the last Government with the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—or Defence Ministers? It is completely unacceptable and is yet another example of how the other place shows a lack of respect for this place in how it receives and considers our amendments, and how it treats our Ministers and people in Parliament. I hope that the Leader will be able to persuade her colleagues to find a way of finally sorting this out, so that people can see that this House is respected and treated properly.
My Lords, as probably the most recently retired unpaid Minister, I acknowledge the shop stewarding role of the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Forsyth. Clearly, they raise an issue of principle. As they have set out, the issue is around a Prime Minister’s management of MPs in the Commons and both Acts of 1975. Although I do not think this amendment is really appropriate in this Bill, it is a substantive issue and it is clearly unacceptable that Ministers of the Crown are unpaid. It reduces the talent pool from which to choose, and it has a flavour of cricket 50 years ago and gentlefolk amateurs. That is quite unfair, but it gives a flavour of those compared with professional politicians.
How can this be solved? Of course, Prime Ministers could exercise rather more restraint over the number of Commons Ministers who are appointed—good luck with that. As the noble Lord, Lord True, said, we could also bring forward a little Bill to increase the number of paid Ministers allowed. I cannot believe—and the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, put his finger on it—that a Government would ever increase the number of paid Ministers in the febrile atmosphere in which we currently operate.
It is worth acknowledging that the inflation has gone down a bit. Research from the Library shows that in 2010, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, had 118 Ministers, which, by my reckoning, means at least nine were unpaid. The noble Baroness, Lady May, had a similar figure in 2015. Mr Johnson had nine unpaid in December 2019, according to a Parliamentary Answer. My figures show that Mr Sunak increased it to 17 unpaid Ministers, 15 of whom were in your Lordships’ House.
Frankly, I am very dubious that we will see any improvement until we come back to the fundamental issue of substantive reform of your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, may shake his head, but the reality is that the Lords is treated in the way that it is because we are not legitimate at the moment. I am afraid that the sorts of amendments from the Lib Dems on an elected House, and even tinkering around in terms of the numbers, is not going to cut the cake until we decide what the role of the second Chamber should be, its powers, how its membership is arrived at and whether Ministers would be appropriate to serve in such a reformed second Chamber.
My Lords, I support these amendments because arrangements in a free economy involve an exchange of labour in return for payment. Since time immemorial, we have accepted that the labourer is worthy of his hire. Not only does payment represent a benefit to him for work done, but it reflects the obligations on the employer to meet certain conditions and take certain responsibilities, as it does on him.
In the case of ministerial salaries, as my noble friends have pointed out, this has long been recognised in law, with limits put on the number of Ministers, of course. The Ministers of the Crown Act 1937 regulated the salaries payable to Ministers. As we have heard today, the 1975 Act expanded on that and on the limits on numbers.
Unpaid Ministers in the House of Lords should indeed be entitled to claim parliamentary allowances under the prevailing rules of Parliament, but they are not. As we have heard, many lose out even on the attendance allowance if they are on business abroad. There is good reason to pay people for work expected of them and done. In my view, it is thrice blessed. It blesses he or she who gives their labour, he or she who takes the money and he or she who benefits from the labour.
I am in no doubt that without payment—I speak as a former director of a think tank and an employer—we cannot expect clear responsibilities to be fulfilled without Lords Ministers and the public being clear about the obligations on all Ministers, including those in the Lords. Parliament and the Executive will not be seen to be responsible to their paymasters.
We need to be clear about what the duties are in this Chamber. We know what they are, but the public are not aware of them. We have heard today about the long hours and the serious grind that is put in by Ministers of the Crown. Therefore, it is in my view very important that this work and this contract of employment—for that is what it is, even if it is not stated—should be set out. People should freely see what is expected of Ministers and that they fulfil their duties. It is very good for democracy, for our constitution and for accountability, so I support the amendments. I also echo what was said by my noble friend Lord True, that they can denounce the payment—I add that they could give it to charity—but the principle should be implemented.
I was very happy to add my name to this amendment as someone also with personal experience. My noble friend Lord True set out three principles which I think we would all agree with. I think there is a fourth: meritocracy. The best person selected for a position should be selected regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality or wealth. We all believe in the principle of equality in this House, so why should it not apply in the case of Ministers?
My Lords, I too was happy to put my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord True, and agree with the points that my noble friends have made so far.
In contrast to the rest of the Bill, where we have been debating complex and profound elements of our constitution, this—as we have heard—is a much more common-sense amendment. It could be fixed with a single clause or even, to placate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, a sunset clause attached to it if others agreed that more reform was needed. In addition to the points made about being paid fairly for the work that one does, attracting the best talent from the widest pool and adopting an approach of meritocracy, as my noble friend Lord Markham said, I will make a couple of other points.
The first is stability. Both the previous and current Governments have been able to attract people of great talent, reputation and achievement, but historically that has not always been a stable ministerial model. Stability is important for delivering and executing a Government’s policy effectively. If a Minister changes every year, that is unhelpful, and I know that a number of previous Ministers have felt unable to continue in their role, despite the unquestioned expertise that they brought to it.
As has been touched on, there is also an effectiveness point. I was fortunate to be a Minister in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education. In the Department for Education, I did pretty much all my visits on a Friday because I needed to claim my expenses—or allowance, whatever it is called—for attending your Lordships’ House. As has been noted, colleagues in the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and so forth were not able to.
An article in the Times in 2023 reported a Conservative Back-Bencher—I am dying to know who it was—as saying:
“You can always find ambitious flunkies who will do it—but it is much harder to find anyone good”.
My Lords, I rise to give strong support to the amendment moved so ably by my noble friend. Like other noble Lords, I do so on the basis of some experience.
In November 2021, I was invited to join the Government as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office. I had been involved in the affairs of Northern Ireland since the mid-1980s and advised six Secretaries of State, so it was familiar territory for me. At the time, however, it was made clear that there was no salary. Ministers of the Crown are rightly forbidden from having outside interests. As has been pointed out, some are fortunate enough to be independently wealthy. Alas, I was not in that category. As a result, for reasons that will be understood across the House, it was necessary for me to attend your Lordships’ House each sitting day.
Being an effective Northern Ireland Office Minister requires a significant amount of engagement and visibility within Northern Ireland itself, but I was severely constrained from doing that for a year. For that first year, invitations to attend events or meetings from Monday to Wednesday—or to substitute for other Ministers who might have three-line Whips in the other place—had to be declined.
Noble Lords will be familiar with the ongoing significance of US involvement in the affairs of Northern Ireland and of the importance of engaging directly with Irish America. Of the ministerial team of three— I assure my noble friend Lord Forsyth—at the NIO at the time, I had by far the most experience in these matters and the best network of contacts. So in March 2022, then Secretary of State Brandon Lewis asked me to accompany him on the annual week-long St Patrick’s visit, which typically involves high-level meetings at the Executive Office, the State Department, the House Speaker’s lunch and the President’s reception at the White House. I see the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in his place; he will be familiar with those events. It is essential that the UK Government’s voice is heard during this frantic week. Unfortunately, however, I had to decline the invitation in order to attend your Lordships’ House. It was, to put it mildly, a less than satisfactory situation and, as has been referred to, a number of my noble friends had similar problems when they were in government.
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In Committee, I spoke very frankly of my sense of shame—and, I might have added, anger—that I was unable to resolve this issue while I was Leader of the House because of, frankly, opposition at the top of both major parties. I exclude the noble Baroness opposite from this, who was extremely helpful and constructive in our discussions. I need not repeat those points today.
Towards the end of the last Government, 14 Ministers and Whips in this House were expected to work unpaid. The unpaid Ministers included my noble friends Lord Howe, Lord Minto, Lord Camrose and Lord Roborough. It is richly ironic that their public service and self-sacrifice then will now be rewarded by this Bill, as originally drafted, excluding them from our House.
As I said in Committee, I felt particularly keenly that it was a disgrace that my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, a consummate and internationally respected servant of his country, lost out doubly as being unpaid and unable to claim an allowance because he was so often unable to attend the House because of his duties overseas. Such things should not happen.
Today, the Downing Street website tells us—I take it directly from there—that the noble Baroness, Lady Gustafsson, of Chesterton, and the noble Lords, Lord Hanson of Flint, Lord Timpson and Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, all work as Ministers of State unpaid. The noble Lords, Lord Moraes, Lord Wilson of Sedgefield, Lord Katz and Lord Leong, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, all work as Government Whips unpaid, according to the government website this morning.
Perhaps only those of us in this House understand the immense burden and workload that falls on Whips in your Lordships’ House. It is quite different from what happens in the Commons. We admire them all greatly, and each of those Ministers I named are greatly admired and respected by their colleagues on this side of the House.
But no one should be required to do all that work without pay. No one in any other workplace would tolerate that as a fair way to treat labour. Where is the clause in the massive Employment Rights Bill to right the wrong that is done not just to those individuals but, frankly, to the dignity of this House?
I take nothing away from the sense of public duty. I admire it tremendously because it has led noble Lords under successive Governments to give public service here without reward. But not everyone in this place has the means to do that. That is an unfairness and an injustice, and it should end.
The problem results from two 50 year-old statutes: the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 limits the total number of paid Ministers to 109, and the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 allows for up to 95 Ministers in the House of Commons. If the Commons takes up its full allocation of 95 ministerial places, the effective, legal statutory limit for paid Ministers in your Lordships’ House under that limit of 109 is just 14. Clearly, that is not enough. The system must be changed. Of course, it could be changed by a simple Bill agreed across the parties to amend paragraph 2 of Part V of Schedule 1 to the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 Act. I am sure we could agree that very swiftly.
The self-sacrifice and sense of duty of those who serve for nothing should be respected. However, it need not for ever be repeated. We cannot neglect this issue, I submit, for the dignity and effectiveness of this House. This amendment would force the hand of all future Governments and all parties in the other place to address the issue. Now that the Bill has now been amended and is going back to the other place, I hope we may agree to send this important message down the Corridor.
On the basis of my experience and my sense of the rightness and fairness of this House, it is high time to open up the opportunity to every one of us here who may wish to serve their party and country as Ministers or Whips in this place but cannot afford to do so without pay to have that chance.
On our side, we will work across the House to agree and expedite a fuller solution going beyond this initial step, which will redress the balance between Commons and Lords Ministers. In the interim, I commend this first step to the House, with the firm belief that if no message is ever sent, the same experience that I and former Leaders of the House have had will go on recurring and people here will be asked to work for nothing.
I think that it is very important that the principle that my noble friend has enunciated should be upheld: no one should be unable to be a Minister because they do not have the private means to do so. But just to follow up on my point, it looks to me suspiciously as though ministerial appointments in the other place were being used as a means of patronage by the previous Government to make sure that people would go through the Lobbies.
This Government do not really need much patronage —until recently, at least, they had a huge and loyal majority—but it looks as if that is what is happening. If we add to that the appointment of people who act as trade envoys and so on, it looks as if appointments are being used to increase the power of the Executive at the expense of the elected Chamber and this House. I think that my noble friend’s amendment and this principle is very important, because it goes to the heart of the ability of Parliament to hold the Executive to account.
This is not the only anomaly in the way this House is treated in respect of remuneration. Our Select Committees, if they go and do their work outside the House, can claim only half a day’s attendance, yet if people participate in our Questions remotely, they can claim a full day’s attendance allowance. I am sick to death of reading in the newspapers how we in this House are paid £371 for just turning up. No one points out that, out of that £371, people are expected to make a contribution to their overnight allowance and expected to cover their own secretarial and research costs. I point out that in the other place, the allowance for secretarial and other support can go up to £250,000 and the housing allowance up to £25,000.
Yes, MPs have constituents but, in this House, we often sit long after the other place has gone because we are clearing up the mess which is left when Bills have not been properly considered. Ministers in this House—God bless them—are expected to stand at the Dispatch Box, although they do not always do so, and answer questions not only on behalf of their departments but for the whole of the Government. This is an onerous task, and the idea that people should be expected to do that unpaid is, frankly, utterly outrageous.
Finally, the question which noble Lords and all other commentators will never answer is: what are the respective powers and relationships between the Lords and Commons, and how do you resolve differences? Let us get down to the real business and not go ahead with this proposal, which, I am afraid, is for the birds.
I have to say that I have never thought of myself as an ambitious flunkey, and I worked with excellent fellow Ministers. For me, being a Minister, although I was unpaid, was the highlight of my career. I would do it again like a shot, paid or unpaid, but it is not a choice we should ask potential Ministers to make.
It cannot be right that Members of your Lordships’ House have to face the challenges with which I grappled for a year and be expected to perform as Ministers without a salary—frankly, it is absurd. The Prime Minister himself is certainly aware of this issue, as he discussed it with me as a problem to be resolved during an event that we both attended at Hillsborough Castle in April 2023. I strongly support my noble friend and urge the Lord Privy Seal, herself a distinguished former Northern Ireland Office Minister, to accept this sensible and necessary amendment.
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