HC Deb 22 May 1980 vol 985 cc708-10
Q1. Mr. Butcher

asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 22 May.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)

This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. This evening I shall leave for a visit to the North-East of England.

Mr. Butcher

Will my right hon. Friend find time today to remind trade union leaders that pay has risen by 12 per cent. more than prices in the last three years while output has risen by a mere 5 per cent.? In expressing the hope that we are about to enter the post-Clegg era may I ask my right hon. Friend whether she agrees that a closer link between increases in wages and efficiency may, of necessity, mean an acceptance of pay increases less than the current rate of inflation?

The Prime Minister

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is vital to achieve a closer link between increased pay and increased efficiency. For that purpose it may be necessary, for a time, for some firms to accept a rate of increase below the level of inflation. After all, the rate of increase that one is entitled to have is the rate of increase that is earned. Otherwise the extra goes into increased prices.

Mr. Foot

In the light of that reply will the right hon. Lady, either today or very soon, make arrangements to meet representatives of the nurses? Does the Prime Minister regard herself as being bound by the commitment which she herself made to the nurses just over a year ago? Will she tell the House and the country how she proposes to carry out that promise?

The Prime Minister

If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the increases afforded to the nurses he will find that they have been of the same order—about 65 per cent. or 66 per cent.—as have been afforded to doctors, in view of the latest award of the review body, since 1978.

Mr. Foot

Does the right hon. Lady think that that is a fulfilment of the pledge she gave to the nurses? Is she aware that the nurses do not think that it is a fulfilment of that pledge? Will the Prime Minister have an early meeting with the nurses to discuss the matter before she puts into operation the arrangements for the doctors, the dentists or the nurses?

The Prime Minister

I hope that the nurses would go to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. As the right hon. Gentleman will remember, we are pledged to put into effect the report of the review body on the doctors. It is the third stage, begun by the previous Labour Government, which we have honoured and will continue to honour. It is a good thing that we have taken over that pledge. When the doctors have received that amount they will have had the same as nurses will have had since 1978 assuming that the nurses take the 14 per cent. increase this year.

Mr. David Steel

Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer's invitation to the trade unions to discuss pay is the first step towards recognising the need for a pay policy? If it is not, will the Prime Minister explain how she expects the Scottish teachers, for example, to accept a pay rise of 14 per cent. which is 8 per cent. below the going rate of inflation unless that is to become a general rule fairly applied to everybody?

The Prime Minister

There is no general rule that can be applied to everyone, because circumstances are very different. The right hon. Gentleman would perhaps accept that a policy that tried to close the gap between increased pay and increased efficiency could in some ways be called a pay policy—the only sound pay policy that there is.

Mr. Kilfedder

Yesterday, when, despite her assurance last week, the Prime Minister had secret talks about Northern Ireland with the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, a former gun-runner, whose brazen and hostile claim to the territory of Ulster acts as an incentive to the Provisional IRA, did the right hon. Lady make it absolutely clear to Mr. Haughey that the Ulster people, despite Provisional IRA atrocities, and whether or not the British guarantee remains, will never capitulate and be swallowed up by the most theocratic country in Western Europe, which still refuses to extradite IRA terrorists from the Republic and which still allows IRA Provisionals to operate from the Republic?

The Prime Minister

If the hon. Gentleman reads the communique, he will find what he seeks, in that I made it perfectly clear that the pledge that we have always given to Northern Ireland stands, that there will be no change in Northern Ireland's constitutional status unless a majority of the people of Northern Ireland wish it; and until they do Northern Ireland stays firmly within the United Kingdom.