HC Deb 10 May 1988 vol 133 cc132-3
2. Mr. David Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on progress towards a pay award for the National Health Service ancillary staff and how it is to be funded.

4. Mr. Win Griffiths

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on progress towards a pay award for the National Health Service ancillary staff and how it is to be funded.

The Minister for Health (Mr. Tony Newton)

Pay of NHS ancillary staff is a matter for negotiation in the ancillary staffs Whitley council. I understand that negotiations stand adjourned until 18 May. Health authorities are expected to meet general pay increases from their cash allocations and cost improvement programmes.

Mr. Marshall

The Minister's reply is wholly unsatisfactory. When will the Government stop treating ancillary workers as the poor relations of the Health Service and provide health boards with enough extra funds to give ancillary workers a fairer deal, without cutting any other aspect of the Health Service?

Mr. Newton

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that under the present Government ancillary workers have had an increase in real terms of just under 4 per cent., which compares with a reduction in real terms of 10 per cent. under the Labour Administration.

Mr. Griffiths

Will the Minister turn his eye away from history and look at the present? Does he realise that all health authorities see the people they employ as part of a total team committed to caring for the patient? Will he now commit the Government to a similar award for ancillary workers and ensure that the health authorities have the money to fund it properly?

Mr. Newton

Having spent eight years as a member of an Administration who have made this country's economy the strongest for a generation and made possible real terms increases in pay of many workers in the Health Service and elsewhere, to which I have referred, I have no intention of turning away from that history.

Mr. Fearn

Is the Minister aware that scientists in the NHS, as well as ancillary workers, have no pay review body and that their pay has fallen behind by 48 per cent.? Does the Minister have any intention of establishing a pay review body for them?

Mr. Newton

The answer to the latter part of the question is no, but if the hon. Gentleman is referring to medical laboratory scientific officers, who form an important group, he will know that there has been active examination of restructuring proposals, which I hope will help to solve some of the problems there.

Mr. Robin Cook

The Minister cannot pass the buck for the negotiations. Is he aware that the Whitley council adjourned so that the management side could consult him? What answer did he give? Does he recognise that, in the seven years since Clegg, the pay of ancillary staff has fallen behind the retail prices index, leaving the poorest even poorer paid? Will he concede that these are often the same people who are experiencing whopping cuts in their housing benefit? How long is he prepared to be Britain's largest employer of Britain's lowest paid workers?

Mr. Newton

I have already said that this group has had a real terms pay increase under this Administration, compared with a real terms pay reduction under the Labour Administration. We shall negotiate in good faith on the basis of a further offer, which no doubt the management side will make when the negotiations resume.