§ 2.50 p.m.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government why no member of the trade union movement was appointed to the Technical Education Council.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD)My Lords, my right honourable friend, in establishing the Technician Education Council on the advice of the Committee on Technician Courses and Examinations, accepted the Committee's recommendation that members of the Council should be appointed in a personal capacity. Therefore no member was appointed as representative of a particular interest. The intention was that, collectively, members should contribute as wide a range of experience as possible from the relevant fields and among the members is one who holds office within a trade union. There will therefore be practical experience available to the Council from this important field.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord the Minister for his reply, but may I ask him whether, in setting out the terms of reference of this Council, which are:
will be concerned in the development of policies for a scheme of technical education for persons of all levels, of technician operations in industry and elsewhere,it would not have been advisable to have somebody from one of the trade unions in which there has been considerable study, undertaken over a number of 816 years, particularly in the field of technical education? The member to whom the noble Lord the Minister refers may well be a member of a trade union, although I should have thought that it was much more of a professional association than a trade union. The trade union movement has a great amount of expertise and knowledge to offer in this particular field. May I ask the noble Lord whether, having regard to the fact that matters like wage structures will eventually arise, it would not have been advisable to have somebody officially representing the appropriate trade union?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I accept what the noble Lord says about the expertise which the trade unions can bring to this work. My right honourable friend consulted very widely, and among the bodies whom she consulted was in fact the Trades Union Congress. As regards the future, it would be fair to say that the Council will proceed with the close involvement and co-operation of industry, professional bodies and the education service, both centrally and at local and regional level, and it will be for the discretion of the Council as to what contacts it has with the trade unions from now on.
§ LORD PARGITERMy Lords, would the noble Lord not agree, in the circumstances, that having regard to the importance of the trade union movement and their particular interest in this problem of technical education—many unions are interested in this question, both directly and indirectly—although the appointment may well have been a personal one, is it not often the practice for the Minister to consult various organisations before making appointments, and to appoint people who will easily fill the Bill from the Minister's point of view and also from the trade union point of view?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, yes, that is what my right honourable friend did, and I expanded on that aspect a moment or two ago in my reply to the noble Lord, Lords Wells-Pestell.
§ BARONESS BACONMy Lords, while appreciating what the noble Lord said about choosing people as individuals rather than as representatives, is he aware that the Trades Union Congress has a very strong sub-committee dealing with 817 the whole question of further and technical education, and that when the previous Government were considering all these matters this sub-committee gave me the greatest help? It seems a pity that nobody who has had experience on that sub-committee is on this Council.
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, my right honourable friend made the appointments in a personal capacity because that was the recommendation of the Haslegrave Report. That is why it was done in that way. But may I repeat that my right honourable friend indulged in the very widest consultations, and these included the T.U.C. It was in the light of those consultations that my right honourable friend finally made her appointments.
§ BARONESS BACONMy Lords, I think that the noble Lord has misunderstood my question. I said that I appreciated the point he made about the appointments being made in an individual capacity and not as representatives. But is it not also rather curious that in their individual capacity nobody connected with the T.U.C. and their very important subcommittee has been chosen in an individual capacity to sit on this Council?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, my right honourable friend accepted the main recommendations of the Haslegrave Report. It would have been strange if my right honourable friend had extracted that one particular recommendation, that appointments should be made in a personal capacity, and said that she did not agree with that. As regards a representative of the trade union movement, in my original reply I made it clear that there is such a representative although not sitting in a representative capacity on the new Council.
§ LORD WYNNE-JONESMy Lords, does not the noble Lord find it very strange that when this Council was set up, with I think some twenty members, they could find only one suitable trade unionist; that that trade unionist—I believe I am right in saying—represents the electronics and radio side, and that the whole of the rest of the technical field has been ignored? And is the noble Lord aware that throughout the technicians' unions there is now an elaborate grading system, in which the 818 positions that technicians attain, and the salaries they are paid, depend upon the qualifications they have? And does he think it right and suitable that such people are ignored in a Council which is concerned with laying down the conditions for these technical qualifications?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, there is no question of ignoring anybody; and for the Record may I say that the noble Lord was not correct when he suggested that there was a representative of a particular trade. If I may remind the noble Lord, the recommendation in the Report was that probably two-thirds would be representatives of educational interests and one-third of the Council probably should be representatives of what the Report calls "other interests". In fact, if noble Lords look at the list of representatives who are now on the Council it will be found that the balance is rather more evenly divided than that.