POWERS over teachers’ pay should be transferred to Wales before the Tories tear up their terms, Plaid’s education spokesman said yesterday.

Assembly Member Simon Thomas warned it was “inevitable” and said the Welsh government could deliver a fairer deal for teachers than Westminster politicians.

But NASWUT Wales secretary Geraint Davies said that the majority of teachers in Wales opposed pay devolution.

The disagreement came in a Plaid Cymru fringe meeting organised by Welsh teachers’ union Ucac.

Delegates heard how the Tories destroyed national pay rates by handing power to headteachers at English schools.

Teachers’ pay expert Osian Elias was clear that was an “ideological policy.”

Mr Thomas argued that the deregulation “experiment” could be rolled back in Wales with a new national system.

“We should be clear that teachers will be paid the same wherever they work in Wales,” he said.

Ucac officer Roland Nefynn Wynne said the body that sets teachers’ pay is too close to the Tory government to be “unbiased.”

He said their pay recommendations have clearly been “based on the Conservative parties and its ideas.

“So it’s time that the terms and conditions of teachers should be transferred to Wales,” said Mr Nefynn Wynne.

But Mr Davies said: “The feedback we get from teachers is that they’re happy with their pay and conditions as they are.

“We can’t get better illness, maternity or pension terms than we have at the moment.”

lukejames@peoples-press.com