Dalyell attacks Blair over appointment of inexperienced MPs as ministers

Tam Dalyell, the father of the House of Commons, attacked Tony Blair yesterday for appointing a string of high-flying young MPs to ministerial posts in last week's reshuffle.

Mr Dalyell criticised the decision to give the important post of School Standards Minister to David Miliband, former head of the Downing Street Policy Unit, just months after he entered Parliament.

Mr Blair also added David Lammy – at 29, Britain's youngest MP – to the front benches, promoting him from unpaid parliamentary secretary to a junior health minister.

Mr Dalyell told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that Mr Miliband should have been made to wait "just a little longer" before becoming a Minister of State, in effect number two in the Department for Education and Skills.

He said: "Bluntly, I don't think people should become ministers when they have only been a year in the House of Commons. I think really those who laboured in the Parliamentary vineyard for a long time – in their 40s and 50s – really deserve to be considered.

"The difficulty in appointing people so young is that a lot of others rather lose heart and think that they have been passed over. I don't think people should be appointed after only one year, whatever the service they may have given to the leader of the party."

Mr Dalyell, 69, entered Parliament aged 30 in 1962 and was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Richard Crossman, then Minister for Housing, at 32.

He said he would like to see legislation forcing people to work for five years outside politics before becoming MPs.

His comments were echoed by Donald Anderson, Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

He said: "There were a number of grumbles in 1997 that there appeared to be a substantial degree of ageism. There were very few colleagues over 55 who were put into government. The tradition has been to let colleagues learn the ropes either on select committees or in the whips' office before they are put into government posts. There have clearly been departures from that."

Mr Miliband, 37 next month, became the MP for South Shields last year after writing Labour's general election manifesto. He declined to comment on Mr Dalyell's claims.

But a Downing Street spokeswoman, said: "The Prime Minister made his appointments last week and they are based on ability."