My Lords, if I understood the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, correctly, he feels that more restraint should be put on special advisers, and I agree with him. I have already said in this House that it was absolutely appalling that in the previous Government the Prime Minister’s special adviser
went about the business of blackening, or seeking to blacken, the names of the family of a member of the Cabinet. That was absolutely disgraceful. He then went on to have the absolute brass neck to write a book. When he was interviewed, he said, “Well, you see, when I left I did not get any money, so I have to get some money somewhere”. I say: welcome to the real world. I had constituents who were in employment for less than two years and they did not get any redundancy money, but they did not seek to brag about the bad things that they did.
I mention that because this individual was there on taxpayers’ money. To my shame as a practising Catholic, he went on to work for an organisation called CAFOD. Fellow Catholics, like me, are expected to give to missions on what is known as Mission Sunday, and they do so very generously. The poorest of the poor set aside funds that they have worked hard for to give to that organisation, and it really amazes me that someone gave that individual a senior job there. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that I feel strongly that if these people are employed by the Government and paid for by the taxpayer, they should be accountable in every possible way.
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As has been mentioned, Her Majesty’s Opposition get Short money. It is a substantial amount of money and it has increased rapidly since Edward Short—later Lord Glenamara—created it when he was Leader of the House. It should be remembered that it extends not only to funds but to office space here in central London, and it is a substantial amount, not in cash but in kind. I would see difficulties arising where members of the shadow Cabinet had to report in the same way as Ministers do. Ministers have a big back-up team, whereas members of the shadow Cabinet, particularly the junior ranks, do what they do on a more voluntary basis. They give up a great deal of their spare time.
However, I want to talk mainly about the role of the PPS. I was a PPS in opposition. I had the honour of serving Denis Healey when we were fighting against the extreme left wing of the Labour Party. It was a time when, as some noble Lords will remember, the lunatics were beginning to take over the asylum. As much as I made my peace with Tony Benn, whom I consider to be a nice man, he attracted some of the most dangerous elements that I have ever come across—and nasty people with it.
The PPS has a difficulty, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, touched on it. Not only is he or she an adviser to the Minister, with the honour of being taken into the inner circle when important decisions are being taken, but they have to go into constituency mode when they go home at the weekend. As my noble friend Lord Kerr said, you do not always know that you are going to land up in the company of one of these consultants. The local authority could say—it happened to me—“We would like to invite you as a Glasgow MP to talk about a certain industry within the city”. When you turn up, lo and behold, someone who is employed as a professional adviser is there. They could be from a roadworks or an engineering organisation; they could be from anywhere. That would put a serious responsibility on a Member of Parliament
who happened to be a PPS. He would have to be very careful about somehow getting the matter on the record. The media have a habit of building up a story and they would pounce on the fact that something was not declared. It might be that it was not declared inadvertently but that would not be how it was presented. Sometimes even a headline can be different from the story.
If anything is to be done about Parliamentary Private Secretaries, it should be borne in mind that they are usually young Members of Parliament who have not necessarily established themselves in their constituency. They are still building up their reputation and getting known, and they are as keen as mustard and going to all the meetings. We should be careful that we do not put that burden on them if we can help it.