Ms Patricia King:

Deputy Harris may have his own view of the role of trade unions and what they did or did not do, to which he is perfectly entitled. When a trade union representative made a case on behalf of a person or group, one could take it that this claim would be for a wage increase. It would not be that the person or group should get something bolted on to the side of their rate of pay which would have a degree of insecurity attached to it. I would be more inclined to say that some of the allowances are a demonstration of the lack of success in getting the rate of pay consolidated, rather than the way in which Deputy Harris has portrayed it.

The Deputy and I have something in common. I was born and reared in the county represented by the Deputy and I would say we come across some of the same types of people. If I was to tell the Deputy about some of the public servants I know, with whom the Deputy probably engages, the vast majority would be on the lower end of the scale. Apart from the embarrassment, they are concerned about the level of uncertainty attached to the rate and what will happen to the next piece of their pay. I am sure all of those people would say that to the Deputy.

There are a variety of reasons over the decades for this situation. Deputy Harris is correct in noting that I do not remember them all, but I must admit I probably remember some of them more than the Deputy. Among the issues were pay, recruitment embargoes and all sorts of instruments used by successive Governments to curtail the public service pay bill, although not in the way it is currently being done. However, there were methodologies in place and providing allowances to groups of people for particular circumstances was a way of dealing with the fact that pay was warranted but the pay bill could not rise. The people in the Department of Finance were familiar with the computations and what they told the world about the pay bill and whether it included just salaries or salaries and allowances and all that good stuff. However, that is why we are where we are. It is a combination, over decades, of ways and means that people found to deal with particular exigencies that had to be dealt with. That is basically what we are dealing with here. That is why I am telling the Deputy that the consolidation argument will not be easy.