Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 20 Rhagfyr 1973.
Mr. Ivor Stan brook:
I, too, have reservations about the wisdom of our rising tomorrow and not returning until 15th January for reasons some of which have already been advanced. One other reason is the problem of the status of engineers and their right to practise in Europe after the end of this month.
This is a problem which almost by definition is urgent, because the situation in which we are at present placed—I say "we", although I am not an engineer, either chartered or of any other kind—is that British engineers who are chartered at this moment may as from the beginning of the new year be entitled to practise in Europe. But the others—they are the majority—will not be so entitled unless a formula is devised to enable us to put forward the type of standard, qualifications and equivalents to the Community which will admit engineers other than those who are at present deemed to be chartered engineers.
No doubt the House is aware that my hon. Friend the Minister of Aerospace and Shipping has been in negotiation with the various institutions and bodies concerned—the Council of Engineering Institutions and some other engineering institutions outside the council which are very closely concerned with the problem.
Today my hon. Friend told me:
I have agreed with the Council of Engineering Institutions that mutual recognition within the EEC should be sought for all adequately qualified engineers whether they are in membership of the institutions inside or outside the CEI. For this purpose it has been agreed with the CEI that there shall be an extended register of engineers having these qualifications… My officials are continuing urgent discussions with the interested parties to this end.
That is all very well, but I believe that no further meeting is proposed of those officials with members of the institutions concerned before the end of the year.
We know that the negotiations with the EEC about the status of engineers will commence in the early days of the new year. It therefore seems to follow that the many perfectly well qualified engineers who are outside the Council of Engineering Institutions may lose their right to practise in Europe almost immediately the new year begins. This is a situation which I am sure the House does not desire. Therefore, it should surely be dealt with before long. The recess will not assist us in settling this problem.
I illustrate the problem by reference to one such institution which is not within the Council of Engineering Institutions and whose members, therefore, are not considered to be chartered engineers. I refer to the Institution of Heating and Ventilating Engineers. It has 6,429 members, 4.100 of whom are not eligible to be considered as chartered engineers and will not therefore be eligible to practise in Europe after the end of the year. It is one of the institutions outside the council. The council consists of 15 engineering institutions and at the moment they alone have the right to admit their members to the status of chartered engineer.
It would follow that the solution to the problem could be the admission of suitable institutions like the IHVE into the council on the same terms as those which are already admitted. But that is not the policy. The policy is to raise standards, as I understand it, and there is a sort of drawbridge which is being raised against engineers belonging to institutions outside the council. That is the way in which the dilemma arises for members of all such institutions—80 of them, comprising many institutions throughout engineering and many thousands of British engineers who are well qualified by any reasonable standard to be considered on the same level as chartered engineers.
What has been proposed so far by the council as the solution to the problem is that all those members of non-CEI institutions who already have chartered engineering status or a degree should be admitted. But the difficulty comes over the others, in the case of the Institution of Heating and Ventilating Engineers numbering over 4,000. It is suggested by the council that there should be a mature candidate's route. It proposes that those members of the institutions concerned who are over the age of 40 who have been more than 15 years in a responsible engineering job and can write a satisfactory thesis of 5,000 words up to degree standard should be eligible.
One does not need to examine such a proposition deeply to realise that it is an almost impossible requirement for any man over the age of 40, holding a responsible position, to attain a qualification of academic degree standard when he is already engaged full time in a job and has had great experience in his own industry without that basic academic degree qualification.
I ask my right hon. Friend to emphasise the urgency of the matter, because the solution surely is that adopted for the admission into the Council of Engineering Institutions of the Institute of Fuel, whose members were taken in as a whole by a screening procedure under which each one was able to register his experience and qualifications, a process which allowed membership of his own institution to be represented along with the representatives of the CEI itself, vetting each one for suitability and, if necessary, requiring, viva voce, some other form of test. Imposing a formula of the kind proposed seems to be another device for putting off the problem indefinitely and causing great injustice to many thousands of British engineers.
For that reason, I believe that it is wrong to adjourn unless this problem is considered in the urgent spirit which it demands.