§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will give the average wage and hours of work within the Common Market; and when British hours and wages will be harmonised to the level of the Common Market.
§ Mr. John GrantThe information requested is not available for the Common Market as a whole.
It is not part of current EEC policy to harmonise terms and conditions of employment in general, save for the recommendation, adopted in July 1975, for the implementation by 31st December 1978 of the principle of a normal working week of not more than 40 hours and minimum annual paid holiday of four weeks. The Government support this recommendation on the basis that its progressive achievement is a matter for collective bargaining, subject to the requirement of counter-inflation policy.
§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will publish in the Official Report as much detailed information as may be available showing the actual or estimated groups and trades of workers who were on a stated date below the national average wage.
§ Mr. GoldingAn extensive amount of such detailed information for April 1977 is given in analyses of distributions of 589W earnings in the results of the New Earnings Survey, which is published by HMSO and is available in the Library. The estimated April 1977 average of all full-time non-manual and manual workers aged 18 and over on 1st January 1977 whose pay for the reference pay period was not affected by absence was slightly under £70 per week. Most sizeable groups of workers identified separately in the survey include some earning below and others earning above such a specific amount. The analyses relates to full-time men and women separately in the various occupations, industrial, wage negotiation, age and regional groups. For each group, they show the percentages with earnings below such specified amounts.
§ Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is able to estimate the average number of hours worked per week in each region of the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. GoldingThe New Earnings Survey indicates that, in April 1977, the average total hours—including paid overtime—of full-time employees, whose pay for the survey pay-period was not affected by absence and whose hours were reported, were as follows:
Average total weekly hours, April 1977. Region Full-time men aged 21 and over Full-time women aged 18 and over South-East 42.5 37.3 East Anglia 43.4 37.7 South-West 42.1 37.0 West Midlands 43.1 37.4 East Midlands 43.3 37.6 Yorkshire and Humberside 43.4 37.5 North-West 43.2 37.5 North 43.4 37.5 Wales 43.0 37.7 Scotland 43.6 37.9 Great Britain 43.0 37.5 Northern Ireland Not yet available