§ 2.35 p.m.
§ Mr. Airey Neave (Abingdon)According to the news this morning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch) is to be congratulated on the fact that he is to turn his great abilities towards the preservation of the future of our Air Force. This will, therefore, be the last occasion on which he will deal with the subject of atomic energy, so I hope that he will listen to one or two observations I wish to make on the subject of the staff of the Atomic Energy Authority.
It is clear that we have long been suffering in this country from a very serious shortage of technicians and scientists, and particularly of engineers. I think all would agree that it is important that in the sphere of atomic energy we should hold our position in the world. Many prophecies have been made about the future of the atomic energy programme in this country, but it is impossible to realise it unless we recruit the ablest people to do the job. Now is the occasion for a review of the progress in the recruiting of suitable technicians and scientists for carrying out that programme.
The shortage of skilled engineers is the thing to which I wish particularly to draw attention. No doubt my right hon. Friend will remember the first Annual Report of the Atomic Energy Authority. In two places in that Report the Authority makes the point that it has difficulty about the payment of salaries. It says, in paragraph 6, that it is to a certain extent lacking in freedom of manoeuvre, compared with industry, in the matter of salaries. The fact that it makes the point twice is of some significance.
The payment of salaries is bound up with the White Paper on the future organisation of the Atomic Energy Authority, issued about three years ago, and with the Waverley Report on the subject. No clear undertaking was given in the matter. So far as I know, it was generally understood that something in the nature of Civil Service salaries should be paid to the staff who were transferred from the Ministry of Supply to the Atomic Energy Authority.
What is the position now? Why does the Atomic Energy Authority make this 2082 point so much? Does it find there is difficulty in getting the right men in competition with industry because its hands are tied in the payment of salaries? Is the real reason that it cannot pay its technical employees salaries which are widely divergent from those in the Civil Service? According to the Report, this difficulty seems to apply to all non-industrial grades.
The Report also makes perfectly clear that the net increase in the number of technical personnel is disappointing, particularly on the engineering side. No one, I think, will complain about the salaries paid to the top management grades, but if it is true that in other non-industrial grades the Authority has not the same freedom as industry, will my right hon. Friend see what can be done about it? Surely it is time to introduce greater flexibility in the payment of staff, because the whole future of the programme depends upon getting the right people.
Now, when we are beginning to leave the research stage and enter the industrial stage of the atomic energy programme, it is most important that the system should be revised if, as the Authority says in its Report, it is able only to keep pace with wastage. The Authority is not tied by Parliament at all, but in the White Paper it is laid down that it should not pay anything greatly in excess of Civil Service rates.
That leads me to the position of the staff as a whole in relation to the transfer of employees from the Civil Service to the Authority. It will be remembered that when the Authority was set up there was established a period of two years during which those employed under the original Ministry of Supply arrangements should be allowed to say whether or not they wished to transfer to the Authority. They must now choose to enter the service of the Authority by 1st February, 1956, and from what I have heard a number have rejected offers made to them by the Authority. Can my right hon. Friend say how many have so refused? In particular, can he split the figures into executive and technical categories? Does he view the refusals as a matter of alarm, or has it been possible for the Authority to replace those who wish to remain in the Civil Service? If many were to reject service in the Atomic Energy Authority 2083 good salaries would be all-important in getting replacements.
Whatever my right hon. Friend's answer is to that question, the long-term problem still remains. Staff has to be recruited and then trained, and I now want to deal with the training of the Authority's employees once recruited. This is a matter of the highest importance at the present time and, quite apart from the difficulty of recruitment, facilities for training should be extended very considerably. Can my right hon. Friend say what extension has been made to the training system which existed under the Ministry of Supply and what facilities there now are? I know there are some facilities, but I want to know whether they are to be extended so as to enable junior members of the staff to go to technical colleges and universities.
During the debate on scientific and technical manpower on 21st July last, I particularly asked that new technical colleges and institutions should be built in the neighbourhood of atomic energy establishments—not specifically for employees of the Authority, of course, but at least to help them. I instanced the remoteness of Dounreay from any technical institutions. I should also like to know what technological courses are now available to junior employees. An apprentice scheme has been set up for both craft and student apprentices. Does the authority intend to extend that scheme, and can the apprentices get further education, and in particular to get degrees?
I think it is perfectly clear that the present piecemeal manner in which opportunities for technical education are being afforded will eventually show the need for some kind of central institution for nuclear physics or nuclear technology, on the lines, perhaps—although it is not the perfect analogy—of the Brookhaven Institute, in the United States of America. The programme of training would, of course, be governed by the Authority itself. If this idea were accepted, details would have to be worked out. If it were done, I think that industry would have to be brought in, and perhaps contribute to the costs. The idea of a national institute for nuclear physics may be well worth consideration, and is a subject about which the House might like to hear at a later stage.
2084 My next point is one to which I referred in an Adjournment debate in January this year. It has been raised by the staff associations within the Atomic Energy Authority, as my right hon. Friend may think very natural. In the weapons group there are a number of people employed solely on the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Their fear, which should be allayed, is that if any change in international policy led to a relaxation of tension they might find themselves out of work. The difficulty is that the Atomic Energy Authority is a statutory body, it is separated from the Civil Service, and there is no alternative Department to which those people could go in such circumstances. An assurance as to their future employment would be useful.
I should like the Minister to say what he thinks the future pattern of the staff structure of the Authority is to be. Can he make any comment on the type of staff required? I think that he will agree that the Government should be thinking ahead about this, particularly now that Calder Hall has been started and the building of other power stations of that type will soon begin. We have to think of our world position. We depend on the skill of our scientists and technicians—and engineers in particular—and foresight exercised now will certainly help us in the years to come.
§ 2.50 p.m.
§ The Minister of Works (Mr. Nigel Birch)I am sure we are all indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) for raising these very interesting points. It adds to the very natural good will which any Minister feels when privileged to speak on the Motion for the Christmas Adjournment. I will try to answer the points which my horn Friend raised.
My hon. Friend first referred to the shortage of technical staff. As he is very well aware, there is a national shortage of professional engineers, particularly of design engineers, which afflicts not only the Atomic Energy Authority but the whole of our industry. As my hon. Friend said, this point was mentioned twice in the Report of the Authority. Since that Report, certain further measures have been taken to improve the pay and conditions, and it is hoped that this will enable the Authority to have rather greater flexibility and to compete 2085 successfully with outside industry. We are not altogether unhopeful that things will improve considerably.
My hon. Friend's next point related to how well or ill the transfer of staff from the Civil Service to the Authority was going, and he asked for certain figures. As he knows, the staff were given until 1st February of next year to decide what they were going to do. The position is that 78.5 per cent. of the civil servants now with the Authority have accepted the offers; 10.5 per cent. have rejected them and 11 per cent. have not yet notified the Authority of what they want to do.
I think that is reasonably satisfactory, particularly as the percentage varies between the different classes, as my hon. Friend assumed. The rejection rate is higher among the non-specialist staff—for example, executive and clerical officers—than among the professional and scientific classes. The figures are: 8 per cent. of the professional and scientific staff have decided not to avail themselves of the offers, whereas 15 per cent. of the clerical and executive staff have rejected the offers.
Of course, quite a number of the people in the executive and clerical grades who have rejected the offers are people of considerable seniority who, not altogether unnaturally, do not want to start in a new organisation rather late in life. The total numbers are not very great and do not constitute a very serious problem. Most of the wastage caused by these rejections has been made good without much difficulty.
My hon. Friend's next point related to the question of training. It is obviously true that training is absolutely vital in order to overcome the Authority's longterm staff problems. There are, in fact, comprehensive schemes for craft and student apprenticeships, and in appropriate cases the Authority provides practical training for students before they enter university and, indeed, after they graduate from universities.
Very special consideration has been given to what are known as "sandwich" courses. These combine theoretical training in a university or technical college with practical training in the Authority's workshops and laboratories. There are also opportunities for the staff to compete for bursaries which will take them to university. The Authority also 2086 runs a large number of advanced courses in nuclear technology within its own organisation. There is, for example, the reactor school at Harwell. The whole object of these arrangements is to extend and improve on the basic system—and a very good basic system it was—which the Authority inherited from the Ministry of Supply, and to ensure that the Authority gets enough staff with the required qualifications and knowledge.
Reference was made by my hon. Friend to the difficulties of getting outside instruction at some of the remote establishments. This constitutes a great problem, particularly at such places as Dounreay and Calder Hall. But especially sympathetic consideration has been given to those difficulties, and we are well aware of them.
My hon. Friend mentioned a larger project, to which he has given some thought, for some centralised organisation for training people particularly in nuclear subjects. I have noted with interest what he has said. I cannot say anything more today on that subject, except that I am grateful to him for his suggestion.
Then there is the question of the very natural fear of redundancy in the weapons group of the Authority. The weapons group constitute a balanced scientific and technical staff, and they are housed in buildings which have equipment and facilities. It seems to me, therefore, extremely improbable that there is any real danger of widespread redundancy, whatever might happen about the future of atomic weapons. It is worth remembering that there are many fields in which the Authority at present is quite unable to devote as much time, brain power and skill as it would like to the developments which lie ahead; clearly, if there were a release of skilled personnel from the weapons group, the Authority would be only too happy to use them on other tasks.
My hon. Friend concluded by saying a word about the future pattern of the Authority. I do not think one can lay down anything definite about this. The essential point is that the Authority is a pioneering organisation, and its job is to keep abreast of advances in scientific thought and of new discoveries. What is certain is that all types of skill, both 2087 scientific and administrative, will be needed, and that the Authority will continue to need to recruit good men, as this is an expanding field. But I think it would be unwise for me to try to predict exactly what the pattern of that expansion will be.
I therefore end by saying that I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising these points; I have tried to answer them as well as I can, and I wish him a very merry Christmas.
§ 2.59 p.m.
§ Mr. Henry Usborne (Birmingham, Yardley)Before we leave this interesting subject and before the Minister leaves the Chamber, I should like to offer one or two observations in support of the general argument which was deployed by the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave). I speak with some personal feeling about this matter, because I am a professional engineer myself and I am head of a light engineering firm in the Midlands. I also represent one of the Birmingham constituencies.
I want to put to the House what I believe to be a general feeling which is widely prevalent in the Midlands at the moment. It stems partly from the fact that there are not enough young men in this country coming through the universities and technical colleges with the qualifications which engineers and engineering firms require. I know there is a desperate shortage. I do not myself know how this can easily be solved, but I want particularly to put these points in connection with the Atomic Authority.
With this very limited supply of these highly qualified young men, we have a feeling that the Atomic Energy Authority does two rather unfortunate things to our firms in the Midlands. In the first place, it tends to attract a greater number of these young men to the Authority and away from us than we think is fair, and secondly, flowing directly from the first, in the process and through the law of supply and demand the price one has to pay in order to attract to private enterprise and engineering in the Midlands the kind of men we need has now very greatly increased.
We are all aware that if wages and salaries continue to rise it will be 2088 extremely difficult to keep prices down. Very often, I think too glibly, we are apt to assume and say that this is the result of organised labour clamouring for higher wages on the shop floor. Let us not forget that there has been at least as big—and in my opinion a very much bigger—an increase in the last four or five years in the salaries of the higher echelons of management, particularly of engineering firms, than there has been in wages on the shop floor. This is due to the law of supply and demand. The demand is heavily increasing and the supply is nothing like keeping pace with it.
I should like to give the House a simple illustration. It is my personal job in my firm to try to attract, recruit and select the kind of young qualified engineer whom we so badly need in my firm. In the process of trying to carry out that duty I have repeatedly made applications to the appointments boards of most of the universities. I have written to the boards at both Cambridge and Oxford—and I put Cambridge first, because there are a few engineers in the House who come from there, and I think they are the best. Both the Oxford and Cambridge boards have told me that at present there are ten jobs trying to catch each engineer who qualifies at Oxford or Cambridge today. In the last five years not a single name from either Oxford or Cambridge has been presented to me even to consider. Very much the same applies to the other universities in the country.
It is desperately hard for private enterprise and engineering firms of the size which is traditional in the Midlands to obtain the kind of qualified technical people we so badly need. I know, of course, that it is in the national interest to keep well ahead in nuclear development. I am well aware, as Professor Bronowski has pointed out elsewhere, that perhaps the most important export of this country in the next decade or two will arise through the manufacture, sale and installation of atomic reactors. Understandably, therefore, a great proportion of our technical and skilled engineers ought to go into this sphere, but let us beware: it may well be that within a decade Britain will be the greatest exporter of atomic reactors and will fail to manufacture a single up-to-date machine tool and will fail to get any markets at all for her bicycles or pots and pans.
2089 This is precisely what is happening, particularly in the machine tool companies, at the present day. In these industries we are falling desperately behind in the competition for world markets, because we cannot deliver in time. The Germans, in particular, the prices being more or less equal today, can get what orders the machine tool industry needs, precisely because they can produce and deliver quickly. Most of the machine tool companies in this country about which I know could do the same if only they could get a few more well-trained, qualified administrative draughtsmen to take the higher posts. These are so scarce that they simply cannot be found.
In light engineering we are watching the few engineers being turned out—far too few—being tempted away by the glamour of atomic energy, and we are desperately afraid that in the process we may find that the exports and the economy of the country is liable to become lopsided. I speak for many Birmingham and other Midland firms. We think this is a critical question. I do not suggest that anyone, least of all myself, knows exactly how to solve the problem, but the Government ought to be fully aware of it, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman has listened carefully to what I have said about it.