§ 4. Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity what study she has made of the evidence supplied to her by the hon. Member for South Bedfordshire of salary increases of up to £13,000; and if she will take steps to ensure that all proposed wage and salary increases of £1,000 plus are referred to her Department for vetting.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerI have written to my hon. Friend about the points he raised in his letter. All increases are subject to the requirements of the incomes policy, but the information to be submitted to 1550 my Department under the early warning arrangements is restricted to increases involving more than 100 workers. My right hon. Friend is reviewing the scope of early warning as part of the reformulation of the policy after the end of 1969.
§ Mr. RobertsDoes it not have a damaging effect on industrial relations when workers who are fighting for a few shillings a week extra find that their bosses can get many thousands of £s a year extra easily? When my hon. Friend is carrying out the references to which he referred in answer to Question No. 1, will he bear in mind this enormous rise at Vauxhall Motors? In general, does he agree that the problems of British industry are basically never solved by a race of supermen but by the man working on the shop floor?
§ Mr. WalkerI agree largely with the latter part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. He must not assume that large salary increases for chairmen of companies are necessarily inconsistent with the policy. The ceiling and criteria in Cmnd. 3590 do not apply to progressions based on added experience, increased responsibility, or special effort, and N.B.P.I. Report No. 107 suggested that increases for top executives as a whole had been rather less than those within the economy as a whole.