HC Deb 23 January 1963 vol 670 cc239-48

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. I. Fraser.]

11.5 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas (Cardiff, West)

I wish to draw attention to a matter where there is, I believe, discrimination against the colleges of advanced technology. I apologise that the title of this Adjournment debate in the notices about the building is slightly misleading, but I wish to deal largely with questions of salary and salary negotiation.

In 1961, the Minister of Education made an important announcement concerning the colleges of advanced technology. In an effort to raise their status and put them on a level with the universities, he removed the C.A.T.s from the control of local education authorities, established for them governing bodies, and, at the same time as he announced their promotion to direct grant status, he added that, if the colleges were to be able to attract staff of the quality they needed, they must be in a position to offer to their staffs salaries comparable with those paid to university staff carrying similar responsibilities. I think that we all appreciated the reason for that statement, because the matter of recruitment of the right quality and the right numbers of teachers was of the first importance.

Obviously, the Minister felt that it was too urgent a matter to await the report of the Robbins Committee. But, since the 1961 announcement, the Ministry of Education has done nothing, as far as I can see, to establish salary negotiating machinery for these colleges of advanced technology. It is important to remember in this connection that university staff deal with the University Grants Committee and with the Treasury, but the Minister of Education carries full responsibility for the staff of the C.A.T.s. I think that I am right in that.

On 28th December last, the Treasury announced the long overdue increase for university teachers. The House will remember the great debate we had here, when the Opposition attacked the Government for their dilatory treatment of the university teachers. This 10 per cent. increase was announced the day after Boxing Day. At the same time, the Minister referred the remuneration of academic staff of universities to the National Incomes Commission for review under paragraph 4 (ii) of the National Incomes Commission White Paper, Cmnd. 1844, and the Treasury added that this reference would also cover colleges of advanced technology.

This reference has been made without any consultation whatever with the professional bodies who represent the teachers serving in the colleges of advanced technology. It sets a dangerous precedent. It is bound to alarm other professional bodies. Is negotiation on salaries to cease in the future? Do the Government propose to anticipate salary claims from other unions in this way and shelve their own responsibility by pushing on to the National Incomes Commission a duty which rightly belongs to them?

Lack of consultation with those who represent the teachers in the colleges of advanced technology is a great error, but there is another disturbing aspect of the Treasury's announcement. The Treasury has announced that it has invited the University Grants Committee to recommend how this additional sum should be distributed between the various grades of staff In its announcement, the Treasury goes on to say that Any distribution recommended by the University Grants Committee will involve some consequent adjustment as from the same date to the salaries of the more senior staff at the colleges of advanced technology. This means that the large majority of teachers in these colleges will get no further increase until the National Incomes Commission reports. It means also that they have to wait until after the Robbins Committee reports, which, the Minister has recently indicated, is still some months away.

I believe this to be a most unfortunate error. It means that the Minister has postponed still further parity with the universities, which he declared and we believed to be urgent eighteen months ago. It also means that when the new Burnham salary soaks, which are being negotiated, come into operation, as they should, on 1st April next, when the present scales end, the majority of teachers in the advanced technology colleges will be worse off than those in technical colleges to whom the Burnham award will apply. They will be the only category of teachers who will fail to get an increase in the spring.

When the Treasury refers to some of the more senior members of the staff of colleges of advanced technology, we are left in doubt. Those who staff the colleges want to know how senior a man must be to qualify for this increase. Must he be a senior or principal lecturer? The overwhelming majority of teachers in these colleges are on scales which, at the maximum, are substantially lower than the new scales given to university lecturers.

I understand from the reply given by the Minister to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), shortly before Christmas, that 1,022 members of staff of the colleges of advanced technology are below the level of senior lecturer. Only 834 are of the level of senior lecturer or above. A lecturer in a college of advanced technology is fixed at a maximum of £1,800 and a senior lecturer can rise to £2,000. Under the recent award, however, a man in a comparable grade in a university gets a maximum of approximately £2,150 plus family allowances, which can amount to a substantial sum.

In all the colleges of advanced technology, 55 per cent. of the staff are below the status of senior lecturer. I want to know whether they are cut out from any increase under the present award. In Birmingham, which is the best example, only 45 per cent. are below the status of senior lecturer. I regret to say that in the Welsh College of Advanced Technology, 67 per cent. of the staff are below the status of senior lecturer. I therefore want to ask the Minister one or two questions.

What prevents him from settling the problem of, first, upsetting the university teachers and, now, upsetting the teachers in the colleges of advanced technology? What prevents him from establishing parity between both these educational institutions? As someone said recently, this is the only country in the world in which these colleges of advanced technology would not be called technical universities. If they are to be given the status which I am sure the House wants them to have it must come in the salary field as well as in every other field. Secondly, will the Minister undertake tonight that those who fall below the grade of senior staff will not be worse off after April than teachers who serve in the technical colleges to whom the Burnham Committee Report will apply?

Thirdly, will he give an undertaking that steps will now be taken to provide salary negotiating machinery for the colleges of advanced technology as exists in—I suppose—every other walk of life in this country? I hope that he will not tell me he will refer this question of negotiating machinery to the National Incomes Commission, because it is his responsibility and his alone. The Minister has it in his power to act quickly in this regard, and I believe he can restore a great deal of good will if he is prepared so to do.

My fourth question is: will he advise the governing bodies of some of the colleges of advanced technology, including the Welsh college, of the desirability of revising their staff gradings? The introduction of these colleges of advanced technology is one of the most welcome improvements in recent years, but I believe they cannot serve the nation as they ought unless those who are employed in their service feel that they are given the proper status and absolute parity with those who serve in the universities of the land. I am grateful to the Minister for the patience with which he has listened to me, and I can only hope that he will be able to give satisfactory answers to my questions.

11.17 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Christopher Chatawav)

The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) has laid stress, as I knew he would, and he was right to do, upon the need for parity of esteem, status and treatment between the colleges of advanced technology and universities, and it was from this desire that his questions to me stemmed tonight. I would hope to show that it is that very consideration which has led my right hon. Friend to take these steps which he has proposed.

The House will forgive me if, in seeking to make this explanation, I start from the time before 1st April, 1962. When the colleges of advanced technology were maintained or assisted by the local education authorities like other technical colleges and the salaries of the academic staffs in them were determined by the Burnham Technical Committee, it meant those staffs had responsibility and qualifications similar to those of university staffs although negotiated under a different system and on a different timetable. To remove this anomaly the Minister proposed as part of his general proposals for transferring C.A.T.s to direct grant that the salaries of those staffs should be related to and negotiated at the same time as those for university staffs. At the time when the proposals for transfer of C.A.T.s to direct grant were under discussion in 1961 the Minister said that if his proposals were accepted he would open discussions with a view to setting up suitable machinery for the negotiation of salaries. Therefore, it has been clear from that time that one consequence of the transfer would be that salaries in the C.A.T.s would be related to those of university staffs.

Mr. G. Thomas

All the staffs.

Mr. Chataway

This was the intention, certainly, and this was the ideal to which we were working, and this gives the answer to the second question which the hon. Gentleman put to me, that of the relationship between teachers in technical colleges and those in colleges of advanced technology. Clearly, the intention is that the teachers in CA.T.s should have their salaries related to the universities.

Towards the end of 1961, the Minister began discussions with the staff associations for the colleges and subsequently with the national representative bodies—the Association of University Teachers and the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions—on the right form of negotiating machinery. Meantime, the salaries of the staffs continued, even after 1st April, 1962, to be regulated according to the provisions of the Burnham Reports.

The hon. Member will appreciate that the two salary structures—university and Burnham—were different and that it would not be easy to arrange a smooth transition from the Burnham system to a new one more closely related to the university system. By the end of last summer, broad agreement had been reached between the Ministry and the national teachers' bodies concerned on the main outlines of the negotiating procedure to be followed.

In the ordinary way the next step would have been to bring this machinery into play at the same time as the normal university salary negotiating procedure. This would have implemented the Minister's original proposal that CAT. salaries should be reviewed at the same time as university salaries. At this time, however, the Government had been considering the position with regard to university salary negotiations and eventually came to the conclusion that the most appropriate way of dealing with the review of university salaries was to refer it to the National Incomes Commission under Paragraph 4 (ii) of the National Incomes Commission White Paper. The hon. Member will see in that paragraph the limitations that are set upon this procedure, and that may allay some of his fears as to the precedent set on this occasion.

The question then arose of whether CAT. salaries should be referred at the same time to the Commission, and it was decided that they should. This seems a right and, indeed, inevitable decision if one accepts, as I think one must and as I think the hon. Member and the House wish to, that these staffs are doing very similar jobs of work to those in universities.

The Commission has not yet settled the procedure for the submission of evidence by all the interested parties, but when it has done so the various bodies concerned, such as the Association of University Teachers and the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions, will be fully informed, and the hon. Member can rest assured that arrangements will be made for the preparation and presentation of evidence by the interested parties.

Now we come to arrangements made for an immediate increase in university salaries and consequential adjustments to C.A.T. salaries. The arrangements for the N.I.C. Review will take some time to prepare and the Government accept that an immediate increase for university teachers is urgently needed. Unlike the C.A.T.s, these teachers have received no increase since January, 1960, other than a 3 per cent. rise in April, 1962, which was allocated wholly to junior grades.

Thus, as the House will know, it has been decided to authorise an immediate overall increase of 10 per cent. in university salaries. Again, the question arises of whether something should be done for C.A.T.s at the same lime, and, again, my right hon. Friend's view is determined by the fact that there should be a relation between university and C.A.T. salaries. This means that there must be an adjustment of C.A.T. salaries, but an adjustment is not equally necessary for all the C.A.T. staffs. It must be remembered that owing to the very substantial increase which C.A.T. staffs received as a result of the last Burnham settlement in January, 1962, junior staffs in the colleges at present enjoy an advantage over all the junior grades in the universities.

For example, an assistant lecturer in a university is paid on a scale of £900-£1,050, whereas an assistant lecturer, Grade B, in a college of advanced technology may start at £1,000—according to my information—and sometimes more, rising to about £1,500. The university lecturer scale is at present £1,150-£1,950, whereas the scale applicable to grades of lecturer and senior lecturer in a college of advanced technology, which correspond to the university lecturer grade, ranges between £1,600 and £2,000.

Whatever may be decided about the distribution of a university increase— and that has to be decided after the recommendation of the University Grants Committee—it seems certain that the remuneration of the junior grades in colleges of advanced technology will continue to compare favourably with that of corresponding grades in the universities.

This led my right hon. Friend to the conclusion that adjustments in the C.A.T. salaries should be limited to the more senior grades. The precise adjustments called for will be a matter for discussion with the teachers' associations and the representatives of the chairmen and principals of the colleges, and meetings will be held with these bodies as soon as it is known what increases are to be approved for the various grades of university staff. Here, again, my right hon. Friend's concern is to secure as near a parallel as possible between the staff of the colleges of advanced tehnology and the staffs of the universities.

The hon. Member asked me exactly what the word "senior" means, and whether it will be limited solely to senior lecturers, or will include lecturers. On that point, I am not able to give? him a specific answer, for a reason which I hope he will understand. It is that, clearly, if we wish to maintain this attitude towards parity, we must await the recommendations of the University Grants Committee and the decisions made upon the University Grants Committee's recommendations, and the way in which increases are made in the staffs of senior lecturers at the colleges—and exactly what will be the dividing line between "senior" and "junior" in this respect must await the recommendations of the U.G.C. and the discussions that will be held with the principals and chairmen, and the associations.

Mr. G. Thomas

Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the A.T.T.I. has direct access to the University Grants Committee to deal with the salaries question?

Mr. Chataway

No. The University Grants Committee will make recommendations only on the way in which it considers the increases ought to be allocated among university staffs, but it will clearly be upon the basis of that recommendation that the discussions between my right hon. Friend and the teachers' associations will take place.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that while we understand that there may be some difficulty over this intermediate period, this is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. The salaries for the staffs in the colleges of advanced technology are being settled at one remove by a body which has no connection with them, and not only on which they have no representation but to which they have no right of access or—as happens with the U.G.C.—membership, so that it will not be composed of persons with direct knowledge of the institutions about which they are making recommendations.

We hope that the whole situation will be cleared up as soon as possible, and that far more satisfactory negotiating arrangements can shortly be made.

Mr. Chataway

I accept that it is a difficult transitional period. But I do not want to leave the impression that the decision about increases for C.A.T. staffs would be dictated by the decision arrived at as a result of the recommendations of the University Grants Committee. Obviously, if we wish to maintain something near parity, the recommendations of the University Grants Committee will be relevant. But they will be followed by discussions with the teachers' associations and representatives of the chairmen and principals of the colleges. After those discussions decisions about increases for the senior staff in the C.A.T.s will be made. So there is no question of their receiving an absolute diktat from the University Grants Committee on which they are not represented.

Mrs. White

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the matter would be greatly simplified if the C.A.T.s could be turned into universities?

Mr. Chataway

From the point of view of this discussion there can be no disagreeing that that would simplify my task tonight. But for the wider questions, which the hon. Gentleman did not really raise, like so many others, we shall have to wait for Robbins.

This leaves the question of the college establishments, promotions and upgrading to which the hon. Gentleman referred. On those, I can reassure him. The question of the appropriate establishment of staff in any college is quite separate from the appropriate level of remuneration for each grade. The governing bodies of the colleges fix their own establishments of staff subject to the overall financial limitation set by the amount of the annual budget approved by my right hon. Friend and to the limit on the number of posts at head of department, reader and principle lecturer level. These limits are fixed in relation to the teaching needs of the college and the financial resources available from year to year. They are not affected by the decision concerning the salary scales for each grade.

Having had the good fortune to visit Loughborough College of Advanced Technology last week, I fully share the conviction of the hon. Gentleman that these colleges must be recognised as equivalent in status to the universities, and I hope that I have been able to reassure him and the House that throughout my right hon. Friend has been acting in that conviction.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Twelve o'clock.