HC Deb 19 March 1946 vol 420 cc1691-2
60. Dr. Santo Jeger

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that the rates of pay for typists and shorthand typists in Government Departments compare unfavourably with rates in private employment outside, he will consider making some alteration to meet the cost of living and outside competition.

Mr. Dalton

I have decided to raise the rates of pay for permanent typing staffs in London and the larger provincial towns, and to raise the rates for temporary typing staffs in Government services to the same level as those of the corresponding permanent staffs. These increases will be retrospective to 1st January last.

Mrs. Leah Manning

Does that mean that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to raise them to the rates of men in these Departments?

Mr. Dalton

I have yet to discover a male typist in a Government Department.

Hon. Members

Oh.

Mr. Teeling

May 1 ask whether it applies equally to clerks and typists in the Foreign Office serving abroad?

Mr. Dalton

I have been asked about people in London and the major provincial centres in this country.

Mr. W. J. Brown

Is the Chancellor aware that the proposed new rates of pay have been rejected by the Civil Service trades unions as being profoundly unsatisfactory, and that unles he goes a long way further than he is proposing to do now the problem of recruiting typists and shorthand typists for Government Departments will remain unsolved?

Mr. Dalton

It Is a very large question and neither I nor the hon. Member could do it justice at the Question hour. We shall no doubt have an opportunity of discussing it later on. It is a difficulty peculiar to London. In provincial centres comparable difficulties do not arise. In the Ministry of National Insurance, in particular, which has gone to Newcastle, these difficulties are not existent. This is an argument for a certain dispersal of the Civil Service to provincial centres.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan

In referring to provincial centres, is the Chancellor including Edinburgh?

Mr. Dalton

1 would not insult Edinburgh by that description although I had it in the back of my mind.