HC Deb 19 July 1966 vol 732 cc586-96

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

1.35 a.m.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne (South Angus)

The matter I wish to raise arises from an exchange at Question Time on 15th June, when I gave notice to the Secretary of State for Scotland that in view of the unsatisfactory nature of his reply I would seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

The Questions put to him concerned the Prices and Incomes Board's Report on Scottish Teachers' Salaries. This rather sorry story goes back to December last year, when the Scottish Joint Council recommended an award of 15 per cent. for teachers in Scotland. The Secretary of State amended the award, after due consideration, to 13 per cent., and I say at once that, in my view, he had not only a right but a duty to consider the award as it emerged from the Council, bearing in mind the requirements of the teaching profession and of the national economy, and to approve or reject or amend the award.

The right hon. Gentleman exercised his right and I have no quarrel with that. But then he decided to refer the amended award to the Prices and Incomes Board. He invited it to consider whether, on an overall comparison, any further increase was needed to bring Scottish teachers into a fair relationship with those in England and Wales. It was at this point that we took very strong exception to his action.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch), on a memorable occasion, accused the Chancellor of the Exchequer of sheltering behind the fig-leaf of the "luckless Jones". The Secretary of State has gone one step further. He is using Mr. Jones and the Board as a body shield to protect himself against the indignation and indeed the fury of the Scottish teachers. But on this occasion his body shield turned round and "socked" him one, and it served him right. The terms of this reference to the Board were a nonsense. The Board should have been empowered to look at the award and not merely at the possibility of a further increase over and above what the right hon. Gentleman had authorised. To this extent, the terms of reference were far too circumscribed.

Furthermore, the terms of reference were in flat contradiction of the Govern- ment's prices and incomes policy. This was pointed out by the Board in its Report, Command Paper 305, on page 22, in paragraph 48, where it pointed out that the Government's own White Paper on the policy placed an obligation on the Government and the public sector, no less than on the private sector, to give less weight than hitherto to traditional comparisons.

The Board also pointed out that the terms of reference were undesirable in themselves. It stated, in that same paragraph: …we conclude that the application of ' an overall comparison ' between two different education systems with different levels and structures of salary and scarcely no movement of teachers between them can militate against desirable improvements in each; I think that perhaps the best comment on the Prices and Incomes Board's Report was contained in The Scotsman of 25th May last, when it stated: …. the Report will at least educate members of the Government who ought to feel ashamed that they have directed the over-burdened Board to undertake an unnecessary task. When a Committee report that they have been given a remit which could not be carried out, it is no credit to those who drew up the terms of reference. I do not disagree with one word of that, and The Scotsman adds that it hopes that Members will learn from their experience. But we learned long ago that this is something that right hon. and hon. Members opposite are quite incapable of doing in this or in any other instance.

The confidence of the Scottish teachers has been gravely undermined, and I would ask the Under-Secretary to clear up at least one specific point. There are fairly widespread rumours that the Board had tried to recommend a 5 per cent. increase, but that that recommendation had been sent back by the Secretary of State with an order that it should be reduced. I must say that I find this hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that the Board would tolerate such interference, but something should be done to repair the damage which will result if there is any intention of tampering with the original recommendations of the Prices and Incomes Board.

I suggest that damage has been done, and there is even some new talk of a strike by teachers in Scotland in the autumn. I am bound to say that the teachers would be ill-advised to take that course, but there is without doubt this understandable resentment at the disgraceful and inconsiderate way in which the Secretary of State treated them which goes so far as to make them think in terms of withdrawing their services. It would not be in the interests of the teaching profession, and would cause serious harm and destroy the support which the teachers enjoy among members of the public.

I should like to turn briefly to the future, because if from the bungling and mishandling of this affair we can salvage something for the positive side, all will not be lost. The Board made two specific recommendations. The first was that the timing of the awards to Scottish and English teachers should in future coincide. This, one would have thought, would have been a desirable change, if only that it would ensure that the Secretary of State did not in future get himself involved in wasting the time of the Prices and Incomes Board as it was wasted earlier this year.

Secondly, the Board recommends that the Scottish negotiating machinery should be remodelled along the lines introduced in England, with the Secretary of State involved from the start, and with the provision of arbitration in the event of a dispute. I am all for the Secretary of State being represented, but is it really desirable that the right hon. Gentleman should virtually abandon his ultimate right to amend or reject an award, as can the Minister of Education in England, in favour of an arbitrator on the matter of the size of an award? We all know what arbitrators do they tend to split the difference and go for the middle figure, irrespective of economic considerations.

It would be interesting to know what the Government have in mind now, because in the Queen's Speech it was said that new machinery would be introduced for settling the remuneration of teachers in Scotland. When will that be introduced? Will it be ready in time for the next round of negotiations or is this to be another victim of the Government's propensity for overcrowding the Parliamentary timetable with irrelevancies which only waste the time of all of us?

Finally, I should like to say a word about the Roberts Committee which reported the other day and came forward with some sensible suggestions about incentive payments to persuade teachers to move to schools and areas where shortages are most acute and where they are most needed. Frankly, I found the scale of incentives recommended quite inadequate, and I hope that we shall have incentives which would really encourage teachers to move to areas where the need is greatest.

It ought to be recognised that Scotland does not suffer from an overall shortage of teachers, but rather from an acute shortage in some areas and in some faculties. I should like to see greater emphasis in future salary negotiations placed on what I would call the market forces. The teachers' organisations are largely concerned predominantly with the bulk of their membership, but that does not always mean that this is the class which corresponds with that part of the teaching profession where the need is greatest.. If the need is for science teachers and there is a shortage in Glasgow, then I say that that is where the bulk of an award should go, and if unmarried women teachers, or even teachers in Angus, find themselves not doing so well as a result, then it seems to me that this is a price which would be worth while to get teachers where they are needed.

We shall hear later of the cuts which are to be imposed on the school-building programme as a result of the Government's total mismanagement of the economic affairs of the country. In the light of the vicious, and basically unnecessary, economies likely to he imposed later, the mismanagement of the teachers' salary negotiations by the Secretary of State this spring may well pale into insignificance.

I hope that from the experience that we have undergone, and from the Report of the Prices and Incomes Board, with its swingeing condemnation of the Secretary of State's conduct, the Government will take up the positive suggestions made by it and incorporate them as soon as pos- sible in a new and more satisfactory negotiating machinery for the settling of teachers' salary negotiations.

1.46 a.m.

Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrew, West)

One is always pleased when the leopard changes its spots, and it is of particular interest to me to hear the Tories in this House raise the question of teachers' salaries, because I was a Scottish teacher for 15 years, 13 of which were spent under a Tory administration. Most of that time was spent in leading the teachers in my area against the kind of cuts to which the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) has referred.

I might have paid more attention to what he had to say were it not for two things. One is the virtual absence of any Tory back bencher, to be contrasted with the turn-out on this side of the Chamber, which shows who is really concerned with Scottish education. The other was his extraordinary statement that there is no overall shortage of teachers in Scotland. In other words, his speech has not been in the interests of securing the right kind of salary machinery or the right kind of salaries for Scottish teachers, but has been a propaganda exercise. The hon. Gentleman does not know his own subject.

There is an overall shortage of teachers. This is why we deplore the events of this year. If he had said this we might have listened with more care. The unfortunate thing about this was that it tended to intervene in one of the most promising developments which has taken place in Scottish education, namely, the discussions between Scottish teachers and the Department about looking at the best kind of qualifications and regulations for teachers.

The hon. Member's speech was very contradictory, but as soon as hon. Members opposite talk about the Prices and Incomes policy they place themselves in a contradictory position. We have three views on it. There is the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), and the view of the right hon. Gentleman for Barnet (Mr. Maudling). Now we have a fourth view —that of the hon. Member for South Angus. The situation facing Scottish teachers is how to secure a united profession, and the kind of speech we have had tonight will not assist in achieving this end. I want to see them united so that if necessary they can fight the Government on a united basis.

I hope that the Government will tell us tonight that they want to change the machinery as quickly as possible. Despite what may be said about the financial situation there is no hope for a region such as Scotland without greater recruitment, and one of the ways in which to achieve this is to look for a further change in the salary structure by making a revision in 1967.

1.53 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Milan)

May I begin by answering two specific points? There is, first, the question of whether there is an acute shortage of teachers in Scotland. Of course there is, and I should be delighted if there were not. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) says, this is one of the most important factors in the whole Scottish teaching situation and something that concerns us very much.

Secondly, the Report of the Roberts Committee has only just been published. It will be necessary to have discussions about it with the various interests involved, and I do not think that the House would expect me to say anything about the recommendations at this time.

Turning to the main theme of this short debate, although the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) used a good deal of extravagant language about my right hon. Friend, it seemed to me that he was putting up what was an extraordinarily flimsy case. I find it difficult to know just what it was he was recommending that my right hon. Friend ought to have done. At one point, he seemed to suggest that my right hon. Friend should simply have decided that the increase should be 13 per cent., and stuck at that. On the other hand, at another point he seemed to suggest that the whole of the teachers' salary negotiations should have been discounted and the whole matter put over to the National Board on Prices and Incomes to look at completely de novo.

Whatever merit there might be in either of the suggestions, it is clear that neither would have had the support of the teachers' organisations, and it is extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman should have been accusing my right hon. Friend of causing discontent in the teaching profession when, simultaneously, he was making the kind of suggestion about the reference to the Incomes Board and the sticking to the 13 per cent. which he made during the course of his speech.

To go back to the beginning of the controversy, the recommendations from the Scottish Joint Council were put to my right hon. Friend in November of last year.

These recommendations involved an increase in the salaries bill of an average of about 15 per cent., although there were differences between different scales. I want to make it clear—and I think that the hon. Gentleman recognised this—that the ultimate responsibility for the determination of teachers' salaries rests with the Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman had to recognise that, because on two previous occasions—and notably in 1961—Conservative Secretaries of State had turned down recommendations by the National Joint Council.

One of the difficulties in this situation is that the Government are not primarily a party to the negotiations. The recommendations come from the Scottish Joint Council, but the ultimate determination rests with the Secretary of State. In the situation as it was last November—and indeed as it is at the present time—the Secretary of State had to determine the salaries in the light of the general economic and financial situation, and of course also in the light of the Government's established policy on prices and incomes, and he had to take into account the salary award which had been made in 1963. One of the factors, but by no means the determining factor in the situation, was the award which had taken place in England from 1st April, 1965.

In those circumstances my right hon. Friend decided that a reasonable award would be an overall increase of 13 per cent., but he was concerned at the time to make sure that that increase would bring Scottish teachers into a fair overall relationship with the teaching profession in England and Wales. There was never any question of the 13 per cent. itself being in doubt. The question, and the one which was put to the Prices and Incomes Board, was whether any further adjustment was necessary to put Scottish teachers into an overall fair relationship generally with teachers in England and Wales.

The hon. Gentleman said that the Prices and Incomes Board in its Report rather discounted the importance of the overall comparison. I think that if one reads what the Board said about this, it is clear that in the past there has been general recognition that this business of overall relationship plays at least a part in the decision which is reached regarding increases in Scottish teachers' salaries, and in fact it was one of the factors which the Scottish Joint Council adduced in evidence which it gave to the Board in favour of the 15 per cent. which it had awarded.

We accept what the Board said, that it would be a mistake to make too much of the overall comparison. As the Board said in its Report, the only rational way to determine an increase in teachers' salaries in England and Wales, or in Scotland, is through a separate examination of the problems of each, but we were concerned as were the teachers' organisations, at the time when the reference was made, to ensure that the reference did not allow the Board to make a detailed comparison scale by scale between English scales on the one hand, and Scottish scales on the other. This was not out of any malicious intent on the part of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Apart from anything else, this was something to which the teachers' organisations themselves attached a great deal of importance, because there was to be no question of an assimilation of the negotiating machinery for Scotland and that for England and Wales, and no question of an assimilation of the scales.

The Board in general concluded that no further adjustment to the salary scales beyond the 13 per cent. was needed, solely on the basis of an overall comparison with England and Wales, and it was in the light of that conclusion, and in the light of the general economic and incomes policy consideration, that the Secretary of State decided that he would not be justified in making any further adjust- ment to the 13 per cent. increase which he had determined.

He therefore made a statement in the House to that effect on 26th May. I may say, in answering the specific point that the hon. Gentleman raised, that there was no question of any interference by the Secretary of State in the work of the National Board for Prices and Incomes and in fact Lord Peddie, a member of the Board, wrote to the E.I.S. to that effect.

I think this particular accusation has now been completely cleared up and I was sorry the hon. Gentleman should even have mentioned it tonight. It was following the determination of the Secretary of State that the 13 per cent. should stand that he did meet the Scottish Joint Council on 7th June and had a full and frank discussion. The Regulations in final form have now been published and they were laid before the House on 19th July. They are now available in the Vote Office.

So far as the future is concerned, of course it is recognised—and the Secretary of State himself recognises, and this incidentally was not a recommendation of the Prices and Incomes Board but was simply a recognition of an announcement which the Secretary of State had already made—that the present salary negotiating machinery is not satisfactory.

We are already in discussion with the local authority organisations concerned and with the teachers' organisations on a revision of the salary machinery which would bring the Secretary of State directly into the negotiating machinery. From what I understand the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend to have said, both would welcome that. These discussions are going on in confidence, although I see some reference has been made to them in the Press, and it is hoped that legislation following from them will be published by the end of this year. Of course, we are committed in the Queen's Speech to introduce new machinery in the current Parliamentary Session.

To sum up, there have, of course, been very considerable difficulties about these recent salary negotiations. I would not pretend for one minute that the teachers' organisations are anything like happy at the present time. I emphatically reject the kind of charges which the hon. Member has made. We also intend to introduce new salary negotiating machinery which, if it does not avoid the argument we have had in the past, will avoid some of the big difficulties that we have been suffering from under the present machinery.

2.3 a.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur (Perth and East Perthshire)

I am sure that the House would want to express its gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) for raising this matter. It would be generally helpful if I were to say that I am convinced that the central issue in this unhappy affair was not the question of 2 per cent. up or 2 per cent. down in salary. Some people may believe that the Government lost the confidence of the profession because, in view of the economic situation, they denied the extra £1 million which the 2 per cent. would have meant. The central issue is the clumsy, inept way in which the Government have handled the whole operation from the beginning, at a time when the confidence of the profession is needed to meet the problems with which they have to live and overcome and the stresses which will accompany the raising of the school-leaving age in 1970–71.

Whatever the Under-Secretary may say, the Government have made a mess of things. If they try to deal sensibly and fairly with these problems they will have our support, which may bring harmony and rebuild a new confidence and maintain the traditions and standards of Scottish education for the stresses of the coming years. I was glad to know that the Government intend that the Secretary of State should be directly represented on the newly-constituted Scottish Joint Council.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour,

Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at five minutes past Two o'clock.