Higher Education: Teachers' Pay (Hansard, 11 July 1991)

§ The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, universities do not rely exclusively on public funds for their income. Accordingly, the Government have no plans to extend the proposed review body for school teachers to cover the pay of teachers in higher and further education.

§ Lord Rochester
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. However, does she acknowledge that in the Statement made by her right honourable friend the Secretary of State in another place on 17th April giving reasons for the establishment of a review body for school teachers, he said: We want to raise still further the esteem in which the teaching profession is held in our society"?—[Official Report, Commons, 17/4/91; col. 433.] Should not that statement have equal application to teachers in universities, polytechnics and colleges of higher and further education and be validated by a policy that enables all teachers to have their pay determined in the same way?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Lord is right. The standing and status of teachers, whether in the university, polytechnic, higher education, further education or, indeed, the school sector, is most important. Nevertheless, there was a real understanding of a particular problem as regards the perception by the public and parents of the teaching profession. It was especially to address that point that the Secretary of State introduced the pay review body.

§ Lord Beloff
My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that her first Answer is wholly beside the point? Although it is true that universities receive funds for research and through contracts, the basic staff—that is, the professors and lecturers—live, as other people do, on their salaries. Those salaries have declined relatively in regard to the rest of the teaching profession and relatively in respect of wages and salaries in general over a long period of time. How can my noble friend justify that discrimination at a time when higher education is being asked to absorb an ever larger number of students?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the distinctions that I made are, nevertheless, very real. Recruitment and 1513 retention are not a general problem with higher education. However, there are particular problems with some areas of teaching. The Government are doing their best to introduce flexibility into the pay of teachers in higher education in order to address merit, recruitment and retention of teachers. But one cannot avoid the fact—and this, again, is another distinction—that university teachers have opportunities outside their profession which are not open to school teachers.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, will the noble Baroness bear in mind that all institutions in higher education—that is universities, polytechnics and colleges—are now independent institutions? Therefore, their employees are not employed by the Government but by institutions. If they want to have their ray and conditions negotiated separately, they have a perfect right to make that decision. Moreover, when the further education colleges become independent shortly, they will also, if they so wish, be able to negotiate their own pay and conditions.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right; they do indeed. In fact, the Government believe that the negotiating machinery is a matter for the higher education sector and that negotiations should take place predominantly between employer and employees. The interest that the Government have in the macro situation is that government money made available to the higher education sector has to be protected. There has to be accountability.

§ Earl Russell
My Lords, as a university teacher I must, of course, declare an interest. Is the noble Baroness aware that her first Answer gave the appearance of encouraging universities to increase their income not derived from public funds? Is she further aware that if much more of this were to take place, it could be at the expense of UK students and therefore prove an obstacle to the expansion which the Government wish to see?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Earl sees far more in my first Answer than is the case. I believe that he infers from it an undercover message. I said that, universities do not rely exclusively on public funds". That is a fact. There was no hidden meaning in my Answer. Moreover, there is no suggestion that anything that is happening in the higher education sector is being done at the expense of students.

§ Baroness Park of Monmouth
My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware of the extent to which such a review body would take pressure off the universities, which are already struggling with hard decisions as they try to meet the Government's objectives for a major expansion of the university system? It would remove the threat of possible confrontations with staff year by year and would make a major contribution to the efficiency of universities.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I note and understand my noble friend's point. Nevertheless, it is true that 1514 my right honourable friend has determined that the pay review body for this particular group of employees shall not be extended.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, is the Minister aware that we are now well into the month of July and there is still no settlement of university teachers' pay, which should have been resolved soon after April? Does she agree that this is a wholly unsatisfactory situation for which there are two reasons? The first is that the current negotiating machinery is inadequate; the second is that the universities have been inadequately funded to meet the perfectly reasonable demands of university teachers that their pay should at least be increased in line with inflation if not catch up with the other groups to which noble Lords have referred.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, as regards funding, university teachers' pay has increased in real terms by 14.5 per cent. since 1979. That does not include flexibility payments. At the same time, for the past two years, pay for the university sector (which is £2.3 billion for this year) has increased by 10 per cent. So far as concerns the negotiating machinery, the Government will always consider changes which the university sector presents to them. Thus far, the alternatives suggested have called for unconditional funding; that is, automatic settlements based on formula. I am afraid that that is a proposition which the Government will not accept.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, I, too, should declare an interest as some of my salary is paid from such funds. Is it the Government's position that if the universities set up a pay review body that would be perfectly okay?

§ Baroness Blatch
No, my Lords; that is not what I said. The higher education sector is about to be restructured. I said that it could determine its own machinery for negotiation.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend can consider two suggestions. First, in view of the concern which has been expressed on all sides of the House in this matter, will my noble friend convey the same to her right honourable friend the Secretary of State? Secondly, while accepting the decision that has been taken at present, will she agree that, once the new machinery is working and operating, the matter should be reconsidered?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I always refer back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and report fully the views expressed by noble Lords in this House.