§ Mr. Tierneyasked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) if he will consider publishing fuller earnings information on the retail trade than at present;
(2) if he will consider the provision of fuller information regarding labour turnover in the retail trades than at present;
(3) if he will consider publishing a more detailed breakdown of statistics covering the retail trade industry than at present.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerIn the 1975 New Earnings Survey, now in progress, extra information is being sought from the retail distribution sector as part of an EEC survey of the structure and distribution of earnings. This should yield analyses of both April 1975 earnings and annual earnings within nine sub-groups of these trades by size of company, by length of service and by category of employee, in addition to the wide range of the normal survey results published annually. Those who have been less than 12 months with the current employer will provide a measure of labour turnover. More generally, a more detailed breakdown of retail trades will probably be introduced in due course as part of a general revision of the Standard Industrial Classification used for official statistics.
§ Mr. Tierneyasked the Secretary of State for Employment if the figures contained in the CIR Survey of 1973, which showed that approximately 17 per cent. of full-time and approximately 29 per cent. of part-time adult female shop assistants were paid below the statutory minimum, have been brought up to date.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerThe Wages Inspectorate maintains annual figures of the number of workers found to be paid below the statutory minima. The latest figures show that, of all the workers covered by the nine retail Wages Councils whose wages were examined, approximately 11 per cent. were found to be paid below the statutory minima.
§ Mr. Tierneyasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take steps to improve the effectiveness of wages 410W councils covering the retail trades, in view of their failure to improve the position of the low-paid.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerWe are discussing with the parties concerned proposals made by the Commission on Industrial Relations in its Report Number 89 to improve the operation of these councils including changes in the Wages Council machinery. In addition, the Employment Protection Bill includes provisions intended to improve the wages councils system as a whole, and the Government have drawn the attention of all wages councils to the TUC's guidelines, including the low-pay target, and indicated their support for the guidelines as a basis for pay negotiations.