HC Deb 07 March 1963 vol 673 cc81-2W
Mr. G. Johnson Smith

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he intends to ask the National Incomes Commission to assume a continuing responsibility for advising the Government on university salaries.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

University salaries are to be referred to the National Incomes Commission for a fundamental and wide-ranging review of the type that might formerly have been undertaken by a Royal Commission appointed expressly for the purpose. The reference does not imply a decision that the Commission should take over from the University Grants Committee a continuing responsibility for advising the Government on university salaries. When the Robbins Committee has reported on the institutional arrangements for laying out and controlling the expenditure of public money on higher education, it may become desirable to consider afresh what the permanent machinery should be. But the reference to the National Incomes Commission does not raise that question; and does not imply that the University Grants Committee will not have a continuing responsibility for advising the Government on this as on other university matters.