Ministry of Works and Buildings.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 21 May 1942.

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Photo of Major Abraham Lyons Major Abraham Lyons , Leicester East

This matter was brought up in answer to a Question which I put to the Minister some two weeks ago. I am sure the whole House is grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this question again, speaking as he does with very great authority. If I do not follow him now in this matter it is not because my interest is any less or that I desire to retract the criticism which I made about this projected trip, which seems to me a great waste of time and effort and likely to fulfil no real purpose.

In the few minutes at my disposal I should like to raise a matter which was dealt with at Question time, and I gave notice that if time permitted I would raise it again. Yesterday, I asked a Question in reference to the appointment of a gentleman as deputy secretary in the Planning Department of the Ministry. It must not be thought that I make any suggestion of any sort or kind against the gentleman concerned. I do not, but I have a great deal of criticism to make about the way in which the appointment was made and about what appears to be the refusal to give the House of Commons information about this extraordinary new departure. Apparently a complaint was made of the criticism which I made about other answers which were given to me, and my use of figures and facts which he gave. Whether that criticism was right or not, the House will be able to judge. I will read now the answer which my hon. Friend gave to me yesterday about the appointment of Mr. Lawrence Neal. He said: Mr. Lawrence Neal has been appointed Deputy Secretary in the Planning Department of the Ministry at a salary of £2,000 a year. It was agreed that he should continue to devote not more than one day a week to the affairs of his firm, Daniel Neal and Sons Limited. The appointment was made by selection. The work of the Sea Fish Commission, of which Mr. Neal was a member, came to an end in 1936, but Mr. Neal will continue for a short time to be a member of the Retail Trade Committee which was appointed by the then President of the Board of Trade in May, 1941, in order to assist in the preparation of that Committee's Third Interim Report.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th May, 1942; col. 214, Vol. 380.] I asked him how many candidates were chosen for the selection, by whom the selections were made, whether the appointment was advertised, and whether the Central Register was used, and I further asked how the candidates were chosen for the interview. To those questions I received no answer.

This is an extraordinary new departure. The way in which the Ministry of Works and Buildings makes its appointments and continues to do so is subject to a good deal of criticism inside and outside the House. The gentleman in question is the owner of a firm of suppliers of children's clothing. I make no suggestion of any sort or kind about him, but as managing director or owner of this firm he is suddenly put in the position of a civil servant in a high place and granted a salary of some £2,000 per annum for it. It is a novelty to say that such a gentleman can go about the business of his firm on one day a week. That is a proposition, so far as I understand, entirely opposed to all the established principles of the Civil Service and certainly to the established principles of a civil servant in a position carrying a salary of £2,000 a year.

How was this done? Who decided that this appointment was necessary? Who decided to go outside the Civil Service and into the retail shops to appoint this particular gentleman? Do not let it be said that I am making an attack upon this gentleman. I am doing no such thing. I do not know the gentleman, and I have not the slightest reason to attack him in any shape or form. I desire to make no suggestion about him. I attack the principle that the Civil Service has been left aside and the retail trade has been approached and that a gentleman from the retail trade has been brought into the Civil Service in conditions entirely different from anything known inside the Civil Service. My hon. friend said that the appointment was made by selection. Selection of whom?