EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING BILL (Hansard, 12 July 1973)

§ LORD DRUMALBYN
My Lords. I beg to move that this Report be now received.

§ LORD DRUMALBYN
My Lords, these Amendments go rather further than the Amendment the noble Baroness moved in Committee, for they seek to enlarge the size of the Manpower Services Committee by two, and they also require those two members to be appointed after consultation with organisations whose membership is directly involved in training in industry or commerce. 838 Noble Lords will have noticed that the Amendments rather destroy the symmetry of the Commission in two respects. First of all, they alter the balance between the people with trade union knowledge and people with employer knowledge. The Manpower Services Commission has been carefully designed to preserve that balance. There are, in addition, local authority representatives, and one from education.
The other point is that the balance is also altered in the respect that the pattern of consultation is different. In the one case the text says that The said Commission…shall consist of ten persons appointed by the Secretary of State…after consultation with such of the organisations mentioned in that paragraph as he considers appropriate… Then it goes on to say:

"(a) as to the three members, organisations representing employers;

(b) as to three other members, organisations representing employees ".

Here we say: as to two members representing organisations whose membership is directly involved in training in industry or commerce". Noble Lords will see that this is not in the same pattern as the other two.
I cannot advise the House to accept the Amendments. In the first place, in the Government's view it is essential that if the Commission is to be effective it must be kept small. I certainly realise that the difference between 10 and 12 members is not in itself necessarily critical in that context, but the whole point is that an increase of the kind proposed is not just an increase in members; it also affects the balance of interest in the Commission—indeed, that is precisely what the noble Baroness wants—and it follows that it is very likely to lead to pressure from other interests not represented on the Commission that they should be represented. It is also almost certain to lead to pressure from those interests which are already on the Commission that their representation should be increased so that their relative position is not worsened.
The organisations which I think the noble Baroness has in mind are organisations such as the Institute of Personnel Management and the Institution of Training Officers. Membership of these organisations is drawn from the 839 management side of industry and commerce, and it is probable that giving the members of such organisations two new places on the Commission would lead to pressure for additional workers' representation, and this, in turn, to pressure from other interests and so on. Secondly, I think it is right that, while people appointed to the Commission are likely in practice to have had experience of employment and trading, as I pointed out in the Committee stage, it is not desirable in the Bill to lay down that a separate category of persons should be appointed because of their membership of particular organisations whose members are drawn from people with such experience.
The noble Baroness said in Committee —and I think she repeated it to-day—that membership of such an organisation and the ability to take a broad view (an ability which will be essential for members of the Commission) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I entirely agree with that. But it does not follow that one should specify that people with this particular experience, and in their capacity as such, should have two places reserved for them on the Committee. In my view and in that of my right honourable friend, it is the ability to take the broad view, as the noble Baroness has said, that is the first essential: that is what we should look for first and foremost, and we ought not to restrict our field of choice by requiring the membership of a particular category of organisations as a condition of membership. No doubt it will be difficult enough to find the right people to be members, anyway. I pointed out to the noble Baroness that it was virtually certain (I think in her previous Amendment she had required rather more—three, I believe—with these special qualifications, and she now has modified that to two) that there will be people with this particular experience coming up as a result of discussions with the C.B.I. and the T.U.C.
To sum up, my Lords, I think it is undesirable, in terms of the balance of interest in the Commission and the possible effect upon its size, that two extra places should be created and specially reserved for members of organisations specified in the amendment. 840 I can only say to the noble Baroness that I believe that when we finally arrive at this difficult task of selecting the people who we think will take this broad view she will not be dissatisfied.

§ BARONESS SEEAR
My Lords, this is not a big issue, and I realise that it is unlikely that this point of view will be incorporated in the Bill. However, I should like to make the point that very often it is assumed that people nominated by the employers are the same as the professional managers. The professional managers have a great deal to contribute. They know how to take the broad view and they are not "tapped" to the existing machinery to the extent that they should be. However, as I say, I realise that this provision will not be incorporated at this stage, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.