House of Commons Hansard Debates for 24 Jun 1991

Redundant Churches

29. Mr. Tony Banks : To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, how many redundant churches have been sold or leased to churches which are not mainstream Christian denominations.

Mr. Alison : Since 1969, 90 redundant churches have been acquired for worship by other Christian bodies. It is not for the commissioners to judge which of these are "mainstream", in the terms of the question, but I am letting the hon. Gentleman have a list of those which have been made available.

Mr. Banks : I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I welcome redundant churches being taken over by Sikhs and Muslims for their temples. I am concerned about some of the right-wing, fundamentalist, out-to-lunch religious groups, such as the Ronald Reagan holy jellybean church. I have a letter from a friendly cleric in the east end of London, in which he tells me that some loony churches are telling members of their congregations that to vote Labour will damn their eternal souls or that it would cause their bottoms to drop off. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would deprecate such wild statements being made. I hope that he will encourage the Church Commissioners to ensure that the loony fundamentalist churches do not get hold of redundant buildings.

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Mr. Alison : If the loony left in the London Labour party were to take to the Christian religion, I suspect that it would swing markedly to the right. The loony religious aspect to which the hon. Gentleman referred rarely finds expression in overt political dispositions, of either the right or the left. Where there is any doubt whether the church is mainstream in the Christian sense of the word, consultations are widely held locally. The hon. Gentleman will be invited to sit in judgment on whether a mainstream church is well represented by a loony fundamentalist church. I hope that when he meets some of the fundamentalist churches, especially from the Afro-Caribbean sector, he will discern how extremely desirable, honourable and religious--in the best sense of the word--they are.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

Director of Works

31. Mr. Dalyell : To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, pursuant to his answer of 10 May, Official Report, column 603, what evaluation he has made of the value for money of paying the sum referred to to Saxon Bampfylde as headhunters in order to select a new director of works for the Palace of Westminster.

Mr. A. J. Beith (On behalf of the House of Commons Commissioners) : The Commission itself decided that management consultants should be used to assist in making an appointment to the important new post of director of works. The firm concerned was chosen from a list of six originally approached. The price charged was at the lower end of the tenders and I understand that the firm performed its duties very well. I expect an announcement of the name of the director of works to be made shortly.

Mr. Dalyell : What evidence does the hon. Gentleman have for using the words, "very well"? The firm having netted a cool £20,500 from the taxpayer, should not the House expect that in that which is done in its name a certain courtesy of confidence should be extended to candidates asked to apply by civil servants and permanent secretaries who have known them for a long time?

Mr. Beith : There were more than 200 applicants for that post and the consultants did a great deal of work in looking at the applications. If the hon. Gentleman has come across an unsatisfactory communication of some kind, I should be happy to look into the matter.

Mr. John Garrett : On recruitment, will the hon. Gentleman reconsider the reply that he gave me on 14 May, when he would not tell me what the educational qualifications were for the Clerk's Department?

Mr. Speaker : That is a bit wide of the question.

Mr. Beith : I was going to point out, Mr. Speaker, that that supplementary did not arise from the original question.

Refreshment Department

32. Mr. Simon Hughes : To ask the hon. Member for

Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, what is (a) the average wage per

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hour of those working in the House of Commons Refreshment Department, (b) the average percentage of hours worked that is paid for at other than ordinary rates and (c) the average number of hours worked ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Beith : The average hourly wage of full-time industrial staff in the Refreshment Department is £4.67. The hourly rates from which that figure derives range from £7.32 to £4.18 ; it also compares with average hourly rates in the catering trade of £3.65 for men and £3.14 for women.

It has not been possible to provide meaningful information on the other parts of my hon. Friend's question. The Commission is not satisfied with the form in which financial administration is currently available to the management and following the Ibbs report it will be one of the principal duties of the new director of finance and administration to review financial and management information systems.

Mr. Hughes : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his factual answer. Many of the people who work in the House live in my constituency and, as their representative, I must tell my hon. Friend that one of their great concerns is that their wages are not sufficient to enable them to stay here. The level of staff retention in the service Departments of the House is lower than it might be. Can we please consider the matter, as we want to hold on to good staff, whom the House values and would like to continue to employ?

Mr. Beith : The Commission is constrained by the statutory duty to keep pay rates in line with those of the civil service. However, it seeks to retain staff and there are some remarkably loyal and long-serving staff in the Departments of the House. The Commission will do its best to ensure that they have a satisfactory career.

Sittings

33. Mr. Butler : To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, what are the estimated savings in running costs if the House of Commons retained its average length of sitting days but imposed a limit of midnight on all proceedings.

Mr. Beith : The total savings possible as a result of the House deciding to alter its hours of sitting would depend upon a number of factors, such as the predictability of the duration of sittings, the terms of any renegotiated conditions of service that might be necessary and whether there was an overall reduction in sitting hours. Those factors would be difficult and costly to quantify. I do not think that the exercise could be justified unless the House was considering specific proposals.

Mr. Butler : Nevertheless, does the hon. Gentleman agree that such savings are likely to be considerable, because much money is spent in sustaining our acts of collective masochism? That money is not a good investment in our democracy.

Mr. Beith : Yes, Sir, so long as there was an overall reduction in the hours during which the House sat and a great deal of work did not bunch up, to such an extent that additional staff had to be recruited to deal with it.

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HOUSE OF COMMONS

Select Committee on Scottish Affairs

34. Mrs. Margaret Ewing : To ask the Lord President of the Council what recent meetings he has held with opposition parties to discuss the establishment of a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor) : None, recently

Mrs. Ewing : Surprise, surprise. Is not it appalling that given that there is much speculation that the House may review its procedures and mechanisms for working, it is still in breach of one of its Standing Orders through its failure to appoint a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs at a time when many issues in the Scottish economy and Scottish society need investigation? Is the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman's Back Benchers from Scotland more important to him than the rights of the Scottish nation? Or has he just given up altogether?

Mr. MacGregor : No, and I have been in Scotland all this weekend. The hon. Lady should not be surprised at my answer, because on 22 May in response to a question from her I said that I did not expect to add anything about a Scottish Select Committee after the recess and there has been no change in circumstances to warrant further meetings. The hon. Lady also asked me on that occasion about progress on the Scottish Grand Committee ; I am pleased to be able to tell the House that progress has been made on that matter. The Committee met twice last week and will meet tomorrow and at least two more dates have been fixed.

Mr. John Marshall : How many representations has my right hon. Friend received from the Scottish people on this issue?

Mr. MacGregor : Personally, I have received none.

Mr. McKelvey : Nevertheless, should not an answer be given to the question why we continue to be in breach of our Standing Orders? Is not this the mother of Parliaments? Why does the right hon. Gentleman continue not to do his duty and why is he sustaining a policy of neglect as regards Scotland?

Mr. MacGregor : There is no policy of neglect--I have just said that the Scottish Grand Committee has been meeting regularly--and nor is the House in breach of its Standing Orders. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, in the debate on 20 December 1988, the House recognised the inability of the Committee of Selection to nominate hon. Members to serve on the Scottish Affairs Committee.

Oral Questions

36. Mr. Harry Greenway : To ask the Lord President of the Council what is his estimate of the average number of oral questions submitted each day ; how many of these are committed to written status after failing to secure a place in the ballot for oral questions ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. MacGregor : The average number of oral questions submitted each day is approximately 170. It is estimated

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that only about 1 per cent. are retabled by hon. Members as written questions after being unsuccessful in the shuffle for oral questions. The evidence suggests that the procedural change relating to the printing of questions has been a successful innovation and is widely accepted by the House.

Mr. Greenway : Does my right hon. Friend agree that when hon. Members have taken the trouble to table questions, they have done so for a particular purpose and that it would be valuable if those questions were answered? Does he therefore agree that questions that are not among the first 30 drawn in the ballot should automatically be tabled as written questions?

Mr. MacGregor : That was neither recommended nor agreed and there is a good reason for that. It is open to any hon. Member who wishes to have his question answered to retable it as a written question and the fact that only 1 per cent. have done so suggests that many are satisfied. Moreover, the House has a duty to use taxpayers' money wisely and the change has saved several hundred thousand pounds in printing costs alone.

Mr. Dalyell : Does the right hon. Gentleman include in that 1 per cent. my question to the Prime Minister, which I have tabled seven times, but which has remained unanswered seven times because I was not lucky in the shuffle, asking about information requested from the sequestrators of the National Union of Mineworkers? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, on a matter such as the appalling situation that has arisen in relation to the NUM and the lawyers, when a man has tabled a question five times, that question should at least be answered orally?

Mr. MacGregor : The hon. Gentleman is no different from any other hon. Member ; if his question is unsuccessful in the shuffle, it is not reached during oral questions.

Mr. Barry Field : At risk of sounding like a long-playing gramophone record, may I again draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the fact that, if an oral question is not reached, an answer to it still appears on the board? Surely it would be sufficient just to print it in the record and it is not necessary to have a great paper chase when an oral question is not reached. Would not that save considerable resources and money?

Mr. MacGregor : It is a different matter when an oral question is not reached because it is one that was likely to be answered. We are talking about circumstances in which a question is unsuccessful in the shuffle and is not retabled by the hon. Member in question. When that happens, the question is not answered ; nor is an answer put on the board. I believe that that is right, because the practice involves considerable savings in civil servants' time and because the original practice has been proved not to be necessary.

Sittings

37. Mr. Skinner : To ask the Lord President of the Council what further discussions he has had in relation to hours of work and procedures in the House of Commons ; and if he will make a statement.

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Mr. MacGregor : I have been having a number of discussions and hope to make an announcement shortly.

Mr. Skinner : Why cannot the Leader of the House make an announcement? Is it because he does not know how to deal with the request that has probably been made about the ending of the pairing system, another name for which is organised truancy, or has he got caught up in requests coming from the Common Market that all these MEPs and bureaucrats-- federalists--should be allowed in here to crawl all over the place? Who is running the right hon. Gentleman's Department? Is it Jacques Delors?

Mr. MacGregor : It has nothing to do with either point. The pairing system has nothing to do with our hours of work and procedures. The question of access to various parts of Parliament--of the building--by MEPs is being considered by the Services Committee, but that is an entirely different matter from the points made by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Wilkinson : Will my right hon. Friend make a serious effort to produce the review of working hours? It has become a fetish or shibboleth for Ministers, and other right hon. and hon. Members with important responsibilities, to walk around like ashen-faced zombies through overwork late at night. There is no merit in that ; it makes no sense and brings the House no credit outside. Will my right hon. Friend do something, fast?

Mr. MacGregor : I do not think that there are any zombies here. In the past year or so we have changed our procedures on a number of issues, including private Members' Bills, ten-minute Bills, the tabling of oral questions and, in particular, the scrutiny of European legislation. The change involving European Standing Committees has already had a marked effect on the number of late sittings in the House. That is a considerable improvement and I think it important to make it work.

As for the review, there is a wide variety of views in the House about what changes should be made. I consider it important to proceed on the basis of some agreement and that is what is currently in my mind.

Dr. Cunningham : The Leader of the House will find a large measure of agreement and support for any proposal that he may present for a wide- ranging review of our practices and procedures, our sitting hours and related matters. May I urge him to present such a proposal, following his normal meticulous consultations? Will he also make an oral statement in the Chamber, so that the wide range of views can be expressed and we can have a genuine exchange here, rather than dealing with it by way of a written reply?

Mr. McGregor : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He and I share a number of views about the ways in which we can improve the workings of the House and I have always been extremely grateful for the co-operative manner in which he has approached such issues. This is very much a House of Commons matter. What has emerged from the many discussions in which I have participated is that wide variety of views. There is often a conflict of opinions, not between the two sides of the House but between hon. Members of all parties.

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I noted the hon. Gentleman's point about speed. I shall certainly address that ; as he knows, I am undertaking consultations. I also noted his request for an oral statement.

Exterior Refurbishment

38. Mr. Simon Coombs : To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement on progress in refurbishing the exterior of the Palace of Westminster.

Mr. MacGregor : My hon. Friend will be aware that the stonework repair and cleaning programme has now reached the Victoria Tower. Good progress is being made.

Mr. Coombs : Is my right hon. Friend aware that the general public are extremely pleased with the progress that

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has been made in improving the exterior of the Palace? Are there any plans to continue the work in the interior courtyard to improve the view for the staff?

Mr. MacGregor : I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The work has greatly enhanced this part of London and an historic building and it is widely appreciated. It is intensive work and must be undertaken at times that cause the least inconvenience to Members of both Houses. We intend to draw up plans and agree them with both Houses before the Victoria Tower work is completed, so that the work on the interior courtyards can follow without a break. It will be expensive and will involve a good deal of disruption, so it may take a considerable time.

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