HL Deb 01 May 1984 vol 451 cc475-7

3.38 p.m.

The Earl of Swinton

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat the Answer being given to a Private Notice Question in another place on the teachers' pay dispute. The Answer is as follows:

"I very much regret the teacher unions' refusal of a 4.5 per cent. offer which—as has been made quite clear to them—would stretch to the very limit, and for many beyond, their employers' capacity to pay. I am very sorry that the teacher unions should be willing to contemplate action designed to disrupt the education of their pupils. I hope that individual teachers will reflect on the irresponsible and unprofessional course which union leaders are now inviting them to embark upon and that there will be reconsideration by the union leaders of the 4.5 per cent. offer which I understand remains explicitly on the table".

My Lords, that concludes the reply.

Baroness David

My Lords, I must thank the noble Earl for repeating the reply that has been given in another place. But does the noble Earl not think that perhaps the present situation would not have come about if the Secretary of State had not interfered with the negotiations and taken too active a part himself, as became apparent when he was answering questions in another place on 3rd April? Is the best way to have good relations with one's workforce to antagonise them and take what, in effect, is a threatening attitude and say, as he did, that if more than a 3 per cent. increase is agreed there will be less money for books and equipment? Is it right to say that in an effective society pay will reflect supply and demand and that plenty of good teachers are coming forward? Market forces, indeed! Surely a good employer should pay attention to the fairness and justice of the case and show some sympathy.

Since the Houghton award of 10 years ago teachers' pay has slipped very badly. In real terms, pay has fallen by about 30 per cent. since then. To offer only 3 per cent. when inflation is running at 5 per cent. can only seem grossly unfair. It should be remembered that 70 per cent. of teachers earn less than £10,000 a year and the lowest paid get less than £7,000. Has not the management panel of Burnham mismanaged the negotiations so far—in fact, been really inept and intransigent? If the 4.5 per cent. had been offered earlier on, almost certainly that offer would have been accepted, as it was in Scotland and by the teachers in further education. Has not the handling of the whole issue been exceedingly clumsy?

It is not surprising that the teachers and all teachers' unions have taken the same attitude. It is not surprising that they should feel aggrieved and angry. The only sensible solution at this point must be to go to arbitration. Now that things have come to this very unhappy state, could not the Secretary of State use his influence with the DES members of the panel to suggest that arbitration is the only possible and reasonable way forward?

Lord Kilmarnock

My Lords, we too should like to thank the noble Earl for his reply. Will he accept that only the other day—I think it was yesterday—Mr. de Gruchy of the NAS/UWT said that if the employers had come up with the 4.5 per cent. offer a couple of weeks ago they would probably have got away with it, but now they have got the teachers' backs up? Are not the Government rather good at that? As the noble Baroness has suggested, the 31 per cent. erosion over 10 years is an obvious fact.

While one must recognise the teachers' position, one must also recognise that the employers are in a difficult position due to the extreme uncertainty into which local government finance has been thrown by the Rates Bill. Will not the noble Earl agree that his reply simply indicates that the Government have really washed their hands of the matter apart from their intervention suggesting a trade-off between salaries and books? Is it not time, therefore—these are my two final questions—for a further review of the teachers' Burnham scale and an encouragement of arbitration when agreement is not reached, coupled with a Government pledge to uphold arbitration awards?

The Earl of Swinton

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for the way they have received this Statement. But I must say that I really cannot agree with either of them. Looking back in retrospect, if the employers had put on the table their final offer of 4.5 per cent. it would have been received badly. After all, when one is going into negotiation one does not start off with one's final offer. The whole point of negotiation is that one negotiates. There have been six meetings of the Burnham P and S Committee this year and, although no advance on the 29th February formal offer of 3 per cent. was made until yesterday, in the interim there were lengthy and substantial private discussions about hypothetical figures; so there have been negotiations going on throughout the length and breadth of it and I cannot accept that this matter has been handled ineptly.

I consider that the management panel was quite right to refuse arbitration. When an offer exhausts an employer's capacity to pay, that employer cannot then go to an arbitrator who, because he does not have to find the money, can regard affordability as just one of a number of factors instead of what it is, the one determining factor. The fact that the employers have come up with this final offer of 4.5 per cent. means that that is what they have got to offer. As I said in the original Statement, some of them will be very pushed indeed to find even this. Therefore, one really cannot go to an arbitrator in those circumstances.

I do not think teachers are being asked to make sacrifices so that there should be sufficient books and equipment in the schools. They are being asked to settle at levels of pay which attract and hold applicants suitably qualified for teaching posts—in other words, the level at which labour supply and demand are in balance. As the noble Baroness said, that is the market force.