HC Deb 15 March 1965 vol 708 cc1015-24

Lords Amendment: In page 11, line 28, after "shall" insert "(a)".

10.10 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Anthony Crosland)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

As the Amendment is introductory to the next one, I suggest that it would be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time the Amendment in page 11, line 31, after "Council" insert: and (b) apply to officers and other persons taken into the employment of the Science Research Council subsequent to the coming into force of the provisions of section 3(2) of this Act, to work on activities taken over under that subsection from the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science (whether or not while in that employment they cease to be engaged in those activities)". These are Government Amendments, which do not affect the main purposes of the Bill. They make it possible for new staff recruited by the Science Research Council and employed initially on activities taken over under Section 3(2) of the Act from the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science to be given terms of service which include membership of the Atomic Energy Authority's pension scheme. They further enable persons who enter the Atomic Energy Authority's pension scheme to remain in that scheme if subsequently they are transferred to duties under the Science Research Council which have not been taken over from the National Institute. The power given by the Amendment is permissive and not mandatory, because Section 2 of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1959, is permissive.

Mr. Airey Neave (Abingdon)

The staff of the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science will be delighted with the decision of the Secretary of State. It is interesting to note that on 20th January I moved an identical Amendment, except for a few words, and that it was rejected on the ground that it would create various anomalies. However, the Government have now seen the light. To quote the noble Lord, Lord Snow: However, the Government accept the force of the argument put forward by noble Lords that the close proximity and long association of the Rutherford Laboratory with Harwell and the Atomic Energy Authority creates special circumstances and that there might be recruiting and other psychological difficulties."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 9th March, 1965; vol. 264, c. 24.] That is exactly—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and, 40 Members being present—

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Neave

Before that intervention I was telling the House how glad I was that the Government had come to the same conclusion as I had reached when I moved my original Amendment in identical form.

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that it is very important that the recruiting to the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science should be kept up to the highest level and that it would be very dangerous to lower that level. The noble Lord, Lord Snow, who took the Bill through the House of Lords on behalf of the Government, expressed exactly the same views as I had expressed. I am glad that this has been accepted. It will be welcome in my constituency, where all these things are taking place.

Dr. Jeremy Bray (Middlesbrough, West)

We cannot allow the Amendment to pass without a certain amount of misgiving, first, because of its effect and, secondly, because of the way in which it was argued or put across in the House of Lords.

Its effect is to discriminate in favour of nuclear phycisists as opposed to any other kind of scientists employed by the Science Research Council. It discriminates in favour of scientists employed by this Research Council as opposed to those employed in an engineering, chemical, medical, or any other kind of research establishment. It seems an extraordinary discrimination to make when setting up a new science organisation, particularly when it is set up by a Labour Government.

I agree that its effect is desirable in so far as it removes an anomaly internally, within the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science, but I remind the House of the arguments adduced from the Government Front Bench when rejecting an Amendment of this sort at an earlier stage, both in this Chamber and in another place.

We were told on 20th January that the Amendment would go too wide that it would create a specially privileged group of technicians, executives and clerical staff, that the Government were anxious to have transferability but that they would be hindered if the Amendment were adopted. The noble Lord, in justifying the rejection of such an Amendment in another place, said that the whole question of pension rights—as they affected mobility between Government services, industry and universities and within industry, between one firm and another—was being actively considered by the Government.

The noble Lord went on: I do not think we shall find a good solution until we have gone into the matter much more deeply than any of us has at the moment; but for the present I much regret that the Government cannot accept this Amendment." [OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 23rd February, 1965, Vol. 263, c. 791.] That was at 8.15 p.m. during the Committee stage. At 8.24 p.m. an undertaking was given to have another look at the Amednment, but I agree that it was an undertaking given without commitment.

On Report the general principle was still maintained that an employing organisation should not offer better terms to some of its employees for comparable work done by other employees in similar circumstances. This seemed to be of great importance from the point of view of the whole staff of the Science Research Council in the longer term. However, the Government accepted the Amendment because, they said, they knew that the noble Lords were speaking not only with the weight of their experience but with the weight of the experience of those who did this sort of work.

Mr. Neave

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the Amendment was originally moved by Lord Bridges, who is Chairman of the Governing Board of the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science?

Dr. Bray

Yes. I was about to draw attention to that. The Government pointed out that the noble Lords …have been speaking not only with the weight of their own experience but with the weight of the experience of those who actually do the work … No Government can lightly ignore the feeling of scientists, old and young, and therefore we most willingly accept the force of these arguments" [OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 9th March, 1965; Vol. 264, c. 24.] I wonder at the attitude of scientists in other research establishments—other kinds of scientists working in other spheres of science. Are they not to have the 7 per cent. higher pension which is now being given on a discriminatory basis? I hope that they will get it. It would be splendid, but is it a precedent which the Treasury really wants to give in this way, and was the right place to start this in nuclear physics, which most people feel already commands a rather disproportionately large amount of the money spent on research in this country?

The hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) first proposed this Amendment and said on that occasion that it would be tragic if the standard of recruitment in nuclear physics in Government research establishments was to fall. I agree but, in the national interest, is it not more important to raise the standard of recruitment in other spheres of science and engineering? What justification is there for setting up as a position of special privilege a nuclear research establishment?

Then we look at the way in which it was put across in the House of Lords. The change took place in the course of 10 minutes. In the intervening period, the only noble Lord who had spoken was the noble Lord, Lord Dilhorne, who, in this place, had not been found to be an over-persuasive advocate in favour of nuclear science. The noble Lord who proposed the Amendment was the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, a very distinguished former Permanent Under-Secretary to the Treasury and a very distinguished Chairman of the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science—the ideal advocate, one would have thought, of a narrow special interest. The tactics were right—to do it, not in the Commons but in the House of Lords.

The lesson we have to draw is, first, that another place is not the right place in which to advocate special interests. It is the place that can bring the expertise and experience of its Members to the judgment of great principles, but in the weighing up of particular interests between one group and another we have to recognise that there is disguised by the dignity of the place the very particular interests that noble Lords have.

That this is a special interest is evident from the way in which Lord Bridges argued the case. He started by arguing the need to maintain the quality of recruitment in the one case as against the next-door research establishment at Harwell in the future, where there would have been different pension schemes. When he had won his point, when he had had it accepted by the Government, when the noble Lord, Lord Snow, proposed an Amendment granting it, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, went on to argue an entirely different point, which was comparability of pension rights as between the research establishment at the Rutherford Laboratory and that at Daresbury. It was good advocacy—and we all do it on behalf of the interests for which we speak here—but the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, was speaking as chairman of a particular research council—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is on dangerous ground. We do not criticise debates in another place. The hon. Gentleman can urge here what arguments he wishes for or against the acceptance of the Amendment, but not by quotation of an argument in another place.

Dr. Bray

I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker, and withdraw at once anything that may go outside the rules of order.

The question remains: what do we do now? The Government are committed to what I think is a rather sorry Amendment and a rather sorry principle. They will be under very strong pressure to amend the pension rights throughout the Science Research Council—there will inevitably be pressures in that direction. The Government, however, should go further and give us the very firm assurance that many of us feel is necessary, and press still harder a reconsideration of the question of the transferability of pensions, the question of mobility throughout industry, and between industry, universities and research establishments so that this becomes, not something we can only look forward to in the distant future, at the end of five years of a Labour Government but something which has a powerful and early influence on the raising of standards of productivity and the effectiveness of employment of manpower in this country at an early date.

I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to give us the assurance that this precedent having been set, the implications of it for scientists and others employed by the Science Research Council will be explored, and, also, that the still wider implications of the transferability of pensions will be fully considered by the Government.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

I had not intended to intervene in the debate, had it not been for the speech of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray). I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman is dangerously near adopting the argument that, unless one can do everything, one should do nothing. Surely what we are doing here is to ensure that those who are doing very similar work to what is being done in the Atomic Energy Authority should not be penalised merely because on 1st April, 1965, they had become members of N.I.R.N.S.? It is surely equitable that those who have been transferred from one to another should be on an equal basis as to pension rights.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think from my saying that that I would not have great sympathy with his other point that the time may well have come when we should review all the pension rights of scientists, in universities and elsewhere. There may very well be need for this. However, that does not strengthen the hon. Gentleman's case for continuing what otherwise would be a gross injustice.

From the speech made by Lord Bridges in another place on 23rd February—I cannot quote from that speech tonight, because Lord Bridges is not a member of the Government—it is absolutely clear that this is an effort at least to ensure that there is no inequity as between those who joined before and those who joined after 1st April, 1965. Surely we must try to even out the inequities where we see them. If we had to wait for a general review before we did that, unnecessary inequity would continue.

I feel that the hon. Gentleman is on a bad point here, because despite the wish of all of us to see scientists given proper reward in pension rights, nevertheless we do not wish to see an inequity continued, even though there was no doubt that it was an unintentional one.

Dr. Bray

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that other anomalies are created? For example, new recruits at the Rutherford Laboratory will receive the higher pension scheme, whereas new recruits within N.I.R.N.S. at Daresbury Laboratory will not receive the higher pension scheme? Further anomalies are created. In fact, we have increased the number of anomalies rather than diminished them.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

We may have to come to an agreement as to what is a nicely calculated balance. In my view, the anomaly which would be created if the Amendment were not accepted would be far greater than the anomalies about which the hon. Gentleman complains.

Mr. Robert Maxwell (Buckingham)

It is with regret that I have to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray). I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on accepting the Amendment. It is an anomaly that there was no reason to allow for. I am particularly glad that the Government, having made a mistake in rejecting the Amendment when it was originally moved in the House of Commons, are prepared now to accept That is as it should be. That this is the thin end of the wedge is no argument. All the other anomalies should be put right, too. Of course we will not be able to put them right tomorrow, but if we can get this right in regard to N.I.R.N.S. let us do so. I am very glad that it will be done.

Transferability of pension rights is a matter of the greatest national importance, because the mobility of our technical and scientific manpower and its need to be able to move from Government to industry and from industry to Government Departments is absolutely essential. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will have something to say on this when he replies.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. John Biffen (Oswestry)

If it is a small crumb of comfort to the Secretary of State for Education and Science, may I hasten to say that I do not feel in any sense as sour about the Government accepting the Lords Amendment as does his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray). Undoubtedly there must be a little interest on this side of the House, to put it no higher, in the fact that the Amendment was not accepted when it was originally proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave). Indeed, on that occasion he put his case with such persuasiveness that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), who was answering for the Government, said that he had argued his case very well.

There is a very real interest in why the Government Changed their mind, and in particular we would like to be assured where the balance lies with respect to the increase in anomalies as a result of this Amendment. However, we are very glad that the Government have seen fit to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Crosland

With the permission of the House, perhaps I may speak briefly again.

This has been an immensely difficult and complicated issue. To be frank, I think it has taken up a disproportionate amount of time on the part of hon. Members, Ministers, officials and everyone concerned. The reason we changed our minds since the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) moved his Amendment is that after listening to the many representations from the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, other staff organisations and scientists, we were convinced that their case was right. I make no particular apology for that. We were simply convinced by the arguments which they put forward, and that is the reason why the Government have changed their minds.

The fact is that, whichever decision was arrived at, there would have been a large number of anomalies in this pensions field. I agree that one could argue indefinitely whether there were slightly more or slightly less. At any rate, in this field one cannot avoid the existence of a large number of anomalies, and we decided in the end that, based on the particular argument with reference to the Rutherford Laboratory, this was the right course to take.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), apart from his reference to anomalies, raised two other points. He asked whether other scientists in other scientific establishments would soon be asking for the same concession. When we had our discussions with the Institution of Professional Civil Servants and other staff associations we gained the impression very strongly that outside this particular group of people there was not very strong pressure for this discriminatory measure, to use my hon. Friend's words, to be extended. We gained the strong impression that by amending this, we were not leaving the door open for the complete extension of this type of pension scheme to all the other establishments coming under the Science Research Council.

My hon. Friend raised the wider long-term question of the transferability of pension rights more generally. This is a matter to which the Government attach the very greatest importance and, as my noble Friend, Lord Snow, made clear in another place, he is himself spending a good deal of his time trying to see if we can get some more complete and adequate transferability of pension rights. I can assure my hon. Friend that on this point there is no difference between us whatsoever. We attach as much importance to this as he does.

Lords Amendment agreed to.

Remaining Lords Amendment agreed to.—[Special Entries.]