Prime Ministerial pay syndrome

Matt Hancock has the makings of a very considerable Culture Secretary, writes Raymond Snoddy – if he can wean himself off spurious pay comparisons

If there is one thing politicians should stop doing it is comparing other people’s pay to that of the Prime Minster. They fulminate about how disgraceful it is that the BBC director-general and star presenters, university vice-chancellors, chief executives of NHS Trusts or almost anyone in the public sector should earn more than the Prime Minister.

Journalists who earn more than the PM’s £150,402 a year are happy to join the chorus – particularly using the figure as a stick to beat the BBC with.

The salary of the PM, which is around double that of a rank-and-file MP, is a completely inadequate measure to apply to any other person in any other market.

By definition there is only ever one Prime Minister at any one time and the rewards of the post, which make it very desirable to some, are honour, status and power rather than money.

There is no competitive market in Prime Ministerial pay.

In fact the pay has been held artificially at comparatively low levels for years with successive PMs declining to accept pay rises.

Overall they are well-rewarded for their efforts with plenty of perks and provisions and the use of well-staffed splendid residences without charge.

Then when they go, as go they must, there are no shortage of opportunities to become multi-millionaires through over-priced speaking engagements, lucrative memoirs and well-paid corporate advisory roles.

It is difficult to find, in modern times, an impoverished former Prime Minister and as such their pay should never, ever be compared to that of anyone else.

Matt Hancock, the new Culture Secretary played a blinder in his first week in office by denouncing the House of Lords for amendments to the Data Protection Bill that would lead to a second Leveson inquiry into the behaviour of the press and only the press, excluding both police and politicians.

They would also have the effect of extending Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act to data court cases. This would require newspapers, which have not signed up to a state-sanctioned regulator, to pay all costs in data protection cases even when they win.

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Three cheers for the new Culture Secretary for his unambiguous condemnation of legislation that would have the effect of imposing new limits to press freedom – particularly on leaks of data that turn out to be massively in the public interest and which would be a “hammer blow” to local newspapers.

And then, unfortunately, Hancock, who was initially sound on equal pay for men and women in the media, succumbs to a bad case of Prime Ministerial pay syndrome.

The BBC should only pay presenters more than the Prime Minister “in exceptional circumstances” said Hancock sounding a bit too much like his predecessor John Whittingdale for comfort.

Warming to his theme, Hancock, who is otherwise an excellent appointment at Culture, or at least the digital bits of the job, argued that while equal gender pay was a great thing, that pay had to be set at “reasonable” levels.

Naturally neither exceptional circumstances nor reasonable levels were defined.

He had been working himself up to Prime Ministerial pay comparisons by suggesting that the BBC’s international editors should not receive more than UK ambassadors in the relevant cities.

Ambassadors too have splendid perks of the jobs and not too many of them end up in war zones or being shot at and only have to face the moral hazard of having to lie for their country.

As the BBC noted rather sniffily, while the Corporation had the utmost respect for ambassadors “these are entirely different jobs and in a different market.”

Matt Hancock has the makings of a very considerable Culture Secretary if he can wean himself off spurious pay comparisons – except where legal matters of equal pay are involved.

He should also try and avoid the temptation that faces all Culture Secretaries in the end by not believing he knows more about when Strictly Come Dancing or the 10 O’Clock News should be should be scheduled than the BBC.

Hancock has so much of substance to get his teeth into – from fake news and the arrogance of the Silicon Valley tech companies, to the small but very series conspiracies fomented in the House of Lords to waste time on Daily Mail crowd-pleasers.

The most pressing task is to see off the Lords amendments which were apparently drawn up with the help of campaign group Hacked Off.

Hacked Off may be seriously misguided and really unelected, even by comparison with the House of Lords, but you have to reluctantly admire their dogged persistence and effectiveness behind the scenes.

The Culture Secretary should prevail because he has the support of Prime Minister Theresa May who said that the actions of the Lords “would undermine high-quality journalism and a free press.”

The Salisbury convention prevents the Lords from blocking proposed legislation that was in the Government’s election manifesto. As blocking both Leveson 2 and activation of Section 40 were in the Conservative manifesto the Lords are pushing their luck. They perhaps have some wriggle room because May heads a minority Conservative administration dependent on Ulster’s DUP.

The real worry is that with Brexit dominating everything in the Commons the Prime Minister may not want to impose a three-line whip and face a possible defeat from many MPs, who, like their Lords counterparts, have an inadequate grasp of concepts of press freedom.

The story of the “plot” in the Lords has come full circle with the revelation in The Times that the chairman of Hacked Off Hugh Tomlinson QC is representing the off-shore firm Appleby, which is suing both the BBC and The Guardian over the leak of the Paradise Papers.

The firm wants a permanent injunction preventing future use of information in the documents which exposed the tax haven avoidance schemes of rich private individuals – all of whom earn many times the pay of the Prime Minister.

Barristers have to represent those who ask them and Tomlinson, it is said, was not involved in the Lords’ amendments, but the link is interesting all the same.

The fear is that the Lords’ amendments – if they survive in the Data Protection Bill – would make the leaking of the Paradise Papers, which most people think were mightily in the public interest, much more difficult in future.

Many things for Culture Secretary Matt Hancock to chew on and engage with, as long as he can recover permanently from Prime Ministerial pay syndrome.