A former Birmingham MP is at the centre of a row over “jobs for the boys” after he was offered a lucrative post as head of a Government quango.
Lord Rooker, who represented Birmingham Perry Barr for 27 years, has been asked to chair the Food Standards Agency – where he will earn £60,000 a year, working just two days a week.
The peer was the Minister for Food Safety until October last year.
Opposition parties claim he is just one of a number of Labour politicians cashing in on their government careers by winning top jobs with agencies which are supposed to be non-political.
Former Culture Secretary Chris Smith was named chairman of the Environment Agency last year, with a salary of £102,000.
Baroness Andrews, a former Labour minister, became chairman of English Heritage last month, earning £45,000 a year for less than two days’ work a week. And another former minister, Larry Whitty, runs Consumer Focus, the official consumer protection watchdog, on a salary of £48,000 for a three-day week.
But under new rules announced by Gordon Brown last year, the appointment must also be approved by the Commons Health Committee, made up of backbench MPs including Charlotte Atkins (Lab Staffordshire Moorlands) and Richard Taylor (Ind Wyre Forest). The committee has summoned Lord Rooker to appear before it next week and explain why he is the best person for the job.
Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming (Birmingham Yardley) accused Labour of trying to maintain control of the machinery of government even if it lost the next election.
He said: “There are these boys and girls of the Labour party appointed to senior posts in important agencies.
“Labour should not expect to keep control of the machinery of government in the event of a change of administration following an election.
“Jeff Rooker is a good bloke and I’m not saying his appointment was wrong but it is a little fishy to have a lot of Labour peers appointed to all of these posts.”
Conservative Treasury spokesman Greg Hands said: “The whole point of these independent agencies is that they should be independent of government, yet many are full of recent ex-Ministers.
“Paying them big sums from public money makes it a bitter pill to swallow.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said Lord Rooker had responded to a job advert when the position became available, and went through a standard interview process.
Lord Rooker was not available for comment last night.
