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Mr. Kenneth Clarke : I believe that the hon. Gentleman has quoted the opinion of a committee of laymen in the ILO. It is not a legal opinion. That committee received no representations from the Government about breach of the convention, so it cannot be said at the moment to be the authoritative view of the ILO. If the ILO is minded to come to that opinion, that is because it has failed to understand that teachers in this country are employed on a basis whereby although the employer is the local authority, central Government provide about two thirds of the cost.

I can well understand that that rather unusual situation is not replicated in most ILO member states. Most of those states would recognise the Government's right to determine the level of a pay settlement for civil servants where that is paid in full and they would expect a Government to keep out of negotiations in which the Government were not the employer. That is the approach in this country. The problem is that the ILO has not cottoned on to the fact that although we are not strictly the employer, central Government provide two thirds of the cost. That is why, as we all agree, the Government have a legitimate interest in the outcome of negotiations and must be allowed to bring their influence to bear.

Mr. Straw : There were some worried looks in the officials' Box as the Secretary of State said that the ILO committee had not considered the Government's reply. The committee received the Government's reply dated 4 October 1990. In its preamble to the conclusions, it recites in great detail exactly what the Government had to say. I will lend the Secretary of State my copy, but he needs to do something about his briefing. A committee considered the matter, but it had full notice of the Government's position.

I wish to refer briefly to the opt-out arrangements. Most of us had hopes that the end of the Thatcher era would lead to an end to the paranoia which has unfortunately characterised much of the Government's approach to local authorities and trade unions. Sad to say, looking at the Bill, the chance of that habit of the past 11 years being changed seems slim.

The United Kingdom is a very large country with a lot of people in it—[Laughter.] Small countries do not need to have their administration divided regionally and locally.

The size of this country means that any national service must have its administration split, regionally and locally. The choice is either to have a service administered by local authorities which are locally elected and accountable or, as with the national health service, to have regional and local administration by appointed, unaccountable bodies often packed with partisan appointments with which the Secretary of State is all too familiar.

I believe that we are better off with a model under which local authorities run the education service, as that produces better administration, better value for money and is also better politics for the governing party—something that the present Government always miss—because responsibility can be shared for the kind of service that is produced. Allowing local authorities to opt out of pay negotiations, as with permitting schools to opt out of local authority control, is not a clearly thought through

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policy, but a piece of guerrilla warfare against the established position of local authorities. As policy, it is inherently irresponsible.

The test of any policy is what happens if it works. The previous Secretary of State for Education and Science was frightened about the kind of conclusion that would occur if the policy of schools opting out actually worked. On 13 October, he told the Financial Times :

That is exactly the case. Opting out may be able to work administratively for a handful of schools, but if a large number of schools opt out, that will replicate all the problems which occur in administering the health service and a parallel system of administration would have to be set up.

Exactly the same thing would happen if a large number of local authorities opt out of pay negotiations. The Secretary of State said that he anticipated 75 per cent. of local authorities opting out of pay negotiations. Where does that leave the Government's legitimate interest in the outcome of those negotiations? If they all opt out, the Government cannot take any interest in the outcome of the negotiations. The Secretary of State blithely says that he is perfectly willing to anticipate that, but is he willing to anticipate a situation in which the only constraint that the Government can exercise over teachers' pay is through the revenue support grant mechanism which has no control over or say in the conditions or structure of teachers' pay? Is that the conclusion at which the Secretary of State wishes to arrive?

Mr. Clarke : Those that opt out would be making a comparison between the national arrangements in which the Government were engaged and having their own local arrangements where they would have to decide what policies they could afford. I described the circumstances in which I thought that local education authorities would make their own arrangements where they had specific management objectives—for example, particular recruitment problems which the local authority in Essex could not overcome without using that option. I do not think that that policy poses a threat and I am not altogether sure whether the hon. Member for Blackburn is against it.

Mr. Straw : Either the Secretary of State has not understood my question or, more likely, he has decided not to answer it, for reasons that I well understand. There is a fatal contradiction between the position that he took 10 minutes ago, when he not only argued strongly for the Government to maintain a financial interest in the settlement and pay two thirds of the money but said that the Government have a major interest in the nature of the education service.

Mr. Clarke : I did not.

Mr. Straw : With great respect, the Secretary of State did say that, as the record will show. He now says that the Government's only interest is in the overall pay bill, not the structure of the teaching profession. I believe—I think that the Secretary of State believes in truth—that the Government have an interest in the structure of the profession, the conditions of employment, and whether

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heads and deputies should be paid more, relative to other groups. The Secretary of State must consider that issue before allowing individual authorities to opt out of a national pay framework by picking up notes on the back of an envelope written by the Adam Smith Institute without any clear thought about the final conclusion.

We accept the need for local authorities and governors of voluntary-aided schools to have a wide measure of discretion over teachers' pay. It is our judgment that the framework established by the interim advisory committee secures a good balance between the need for a national framework and the need for local discretion. It would be unwise, even for the present Government, to begin to dismantle or stage guerrilla attacks on the framework before it has had a chance to settle properly.

What will the consequence be of allowing individual local authorities or grant-maintained schools to opt out of a national framework, especially when the Government do not intend to give those authorities any more money? The consequence will be that some local authorities, those which can command the greatest increase in resources, and some schools, those that can raise cash from parents, will pay more. At a time of teacher shortages—they do exist—the consequence will be that the richer, wealthier authorities will pay teachers more at the expense of the poor authorities with the greatest problems. Precisely that consequence has flown as a consequence of city technology colleges paying their teachers more than the scales that authorities in surrounding districts are able to pay their teachers.

How on earth can the opting-out procedure improve the standards of the one third of children who are getting a raw deal, usually to be found in those local authorities with the least resources? What will the balkanisation of a national pay framework do for teachers' mobility? It is important that teachers are mobile.

Under the provisions for a local authority to opt out of national pay negotiations, at least that local authority has to apply to the Secretary of State, who then makes a decision about the arrangements. Under the proposals for a grant-maintained school to opt out, under the arrangements announced in April, there was an obligation on the governors of a grant-maintained school to consult with staff. That proposal was contained in the Department of Education and Science press notice of 26 April. The Bill, however, contains no obligation for the governors to consult anybody. In addition, once an application has been made by the governors, the Secretary of State has no discretion to refuse the application. If the Secretary of State has discretion to judge whether the arrangements are appropriate in respect of a local authority, why can he not exercise his discretion in respect of a grant-maintained school?

Mr. Clarke : Because the governors of a grant-maintained school have a discrete budget and have responsibility for keeping the school solvent, and are bound to operate within those confines. A local education authority has a much bigger budget and the scale is quite different. It is conceivable that the local education authority might be pursuing a policy of confronting the Government on their financial contribution, which the Government would like to approve. At the national level, where we are agreed that the Government must have an interest, the contribution has a direct bearing on the Government's issuing of revenue support grant.

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If a local authority seeks to leave the system, or a grant-maintained school breaks out of its own violition, they do so knowing that the Government's national obligation has already been defined and they are constrained by what they know to be the available resources. That system is not anarchic and does not constitute balkanisation—it merely allows a further logical extension of the local flexibility that we already have, and which I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman welcome a few moments ago.

Mr. Straw : The policy is quite different from local flexibility and will lead to a two-tier service, particularly in the context in which the Government seek to bribe schools to opt out of local authority control by giving them money that they could not otherwise have. It does not seem sensible for the Secretary of State to have some sort of reserve power over the applications from grant-maintained schools. What happens if Stratford school, which has been allowed to opt out and is now losing most of its pupils, suddenly decides to pay its teachers on a different scale? That could have a further serious and damaging effect on the education of the children in that school.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett (Pembroke) : Why?

Mr. Straw : Because it could lead to a further loss of teachers—children have to be taught by someone. The opting-out system is destroying that school. Given the Secretary of State's responsibility for the education of those children, he should have reserve powers over what may happen—[Interruption.] What did the Secretary of State say?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Order.

Mr. Straw : The Secretary of State raised the issue of teacher shortages. The new arrangements are set against a background of serious teacher shortages. The Secretary of State is a fool to himself if he believes that teacher recruitment, retention and morale are under control, because they are not. A major survey conducted by his own Department this January showed that there had been a 50 per cent. increase in the number of teacher vacancies over a two-year period. The Secretary of State should look at that survey. I know that he has a reputation for liking neither statistics nor statisticians, but he should look more fully at the data.

The Secretary of State spoke of recruitment to teacher training courses, which is welcome, but there are two factors that the Secretary of State should consider. First, recruitment in the sectors of most extreme shortage is down again this year. Figures for today, given to me by the Graduate Teacher Training Registry, show that maths applicants are down 760 against a target of 1,170, religious education applicants are down 219 against a target of 328, home economics applicants are down 60 against a target of 120 and craft design and technology applicants are down 240 against a target of 400. Those problems of under-recruitment now are built on year-by-year problems of under-recruitment.

Secondly, the Secretary of State should bear in mind that of every three people who enter teacher training, only one is left in teaching five years after qualification. It is no good the Secretary of State merely reading out his brief about low levels of wastage. There are terrifying levels of

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wastage through teacher training courses, between qualification and entry to the profession, and from the profession, especially in the first five years. It is because of those wastage levels that there are as many people with teaching qualifications outside the school system as within the school system—even the Secretary of State's officials confirm that. If it were all so wonderful, we should not be in that position.

The long title of the Bill refers to making arrangements for teachers' pay and connected purposes. In the Bill, the Government have missed a great opportunity to embark on a programme to re-establish teachers' professionalism and sense of pride. The Bill should contain measures properly to increase the recruitment, retention and morale of teachers and should establish a general teachers council. That was recommended by the all-party Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts, it would cost little and it would dramatically improve teachers' sense of professionalism and self-esteem.

We need a reform of teacher training with much better induction and support, and the Government must tackle the problem of the many people who train to teach and either do not enter the profession or drop out in the first two or three years. We need a national core curriculum for teacher training to provide many different entry routes but only one exit level—that of graduate qualification. We need to pilot teacher training schools so that the burden of inducting new young teachers does not continue to fall on those schools with a large number of vacancies and, therefore, the greatest amount of stress.

We must have real programmes for career development for teachers. That includes appraisal. I read an interesting interview in The Times on Monday, given by the Secretary of State. As part of the general November approach of Ministers, he seems to be dumping the policy of his predecessors. Speaking of teacher appraisal and his predecessor, he said :

What has changed is that the Government realise that the previous Secretary of State made a major error by not implementing the approach for national appraisal agreed by all parties to the scheme. The Secretary of State said that the £45 million required to implement that scheme is ludicrous, and that it was the estimate of the trade unions. He should do his homework before he comes to the House.

The estimate of £45 million in "School Teacher Appraisal : a National Framework" is not the trade union estimate but that of the working party on which two of his very senior officials sat and to which the Government are committed. The sum of £45 million is 0.5 per cent. of the teachers' pay bill. That is a small price to pay for giving the profession a proper system of career development. If such a system can be put in place, there will be much less chance of the sort of wastage that occurs at present.

In addition to teacher appraisal, we need systems which will reward new teachers and encourage them to stay in the profession and will better reward the career classroom teacher. The speed with which Conservative Members and leadership candidates are jettisoning so much of what they previously stood for, as we have discovered in the debate, is proof—if any were needed—of the failure of the past 11 years. It also proves that the Conservative party has few coherent policies, no principles and no shame.

The Bill is based on the tired and failed agenda of the past 11 years, on exactly that bizarre combination of

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over-centralisation and near anarchy which was the hallmark of the 1987 Act. It will give unnecessary power to the Secretary of State for which he will not be properly accountable. It will divide and weaken the profession, and that will place at risk better standards of education. We shall oppose it in the Lobby.

5.12 pm

Mr. Bob Dunn (Dartford) : I apologise in advance to the House because I shall not be able to remain for the whole of the debate owing to a long-standing and important commitment in another part of the Palace of Westminster.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett : My hon. Friend is the returning officer.

Mr. Dunn : I am not the returning officer, but one day I hope to be.

I have known the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) for 11 years, and I know of him for many years before our election to the House in 1979. I can go back the best part of a quarter of a century to the time when the hon. Gentleman was a student leader and I was a student. I remember him coming to address a student body in Manchester, when he was described as shallow, devious and vituperative. I am glad to say that he has remained true to the promise of his youth. His recent comments about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister were disgraceful. He reached a new low in vituperation. I have heard it said of the hon. Gentleman, "Show him a belt and he has to hit below it."

On 18 July, I asked the Labour party to make plain its intentions about the future of selective education in north-west Kent. The hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) promised to send me a copy of the Labour party's review. I still await that document. A few days ago, the hon. Member for Blackburn rather churlishly refused to let me intervene, and at that time the hon. Lady again said that she would send me a copy of the review. I am still waiting.

The hon. Member for Blackburn spoke about re-creating the old coalition of vested interests. There was nothing new or special in his speech. I was an Under-Secretary at the Department of Education and Science for five years, from 1983 to 1988. During that time, in 1985 and 1986, the Burnham arrangements collapsed. Those arrangements worked to a degree for almost 70 years and were based on consensus, the coming together of the various interests to decide on teachers' pay but not on conditions of service. Percentage or cash increases reflected the needs of the local authority, the schools and the Government.

Unfortunately, that consensus was destroyed by the coming together and working together of left-wing local education authority leaders and left-wing trade unionists. When that consensus was destroyed—I am sure that hon. Members will agree that it was destroyed—it created an inevitable vacuum in the arrangements by which teachers' pay was settled. Burnham was finished.

I welcome the attempts by successive Secretaries of State to make the interim arrangements work. Clearly, those arrangements were conceived as only temporary. Something had to be arranged which would reflect the

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genuine and decent interests of the various parties. I totally support the Bill, because it does much to square the circle of the difficulties that we have inherited.

I should like to deal with an issue in which I have taken a special interest in recent years—the differences in teachers' pay, recruitment and retention between the south-east and the rest of the country. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister started her political career in my Kent constituency 40 years ago. In that constituency, there are some difficulties in arranging an adequate and varied short list for senior teacher posts. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) spoke about that. In view of the national pay scale, no ambitious teacher is prepared to forego the quality of life and living standards that obtain in the north-west and propose to give up his home by applying for a job in London or the Home Counties. Those areas have a higher cost of living and certainly a higher cost of housing.

On many occasions in the House and to different Secretaries of State, I have advocated the need for regional pay and for schools to become cost-centred pay bargaining units. Therefore, I welcome the part of the Bill that provides for local education authorities or grant-maintained schools to opt out of national pay bargaining arrangements. If the local education authority or the grant-maintained schools that I currently have and that I will have decide to adopt a degree of local flexibility and to pay the market rate, that would be good for the schools in my constituency.

If this debate is to be genuine, we must recognise that one of our problems is that a science or chemistry graduate with a good degree could expect a salary of between £10,000 and £14,000 on leaving university if starting at a pharmaceutical plant somewhere in London, but if he or she started teacher training or began probationary work in a school, the salary would be much lower.

We need the flexibility to recruit staff if we are to bring teachers back into teaching. Many graduates who leave teacher training colleges or university with bachelor of educaiton degrees do not even step inside a school. Those are the men and women whom we need to bring back into our schools so that we can give variety and choice to those who govern our schools when they are recruiting. Therefore, I welcome the opt-out arrangement, because it will give schools flexibility when determining their recruitment arrangements.

More importantly, however, it will show school governors the realism that they must adopt in their day-to-day and month-to-month running of our schools. There is no doubt among my hon. Friends—or, I am sure, among Opposition Members—that the arrangements for the local financial management of schools has opened the eyes of many school governors as never before.

School governors, who often used to be ciphers who sat on the platform at speech day or prize day and went to the annual cheese and wine party given by the parent teachers association, often had no concept of the problems facing the local education authorities. If a window was broken in the school, a docket was sent to county hall or to the local education office nearby and, about a week later, someone from direct labour would turn up to repair the window at great cost. Giving school governing bodies control over the budget has led to the inevitable realisation that the administration's life is not always as easy as they have

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thought. Governing bodies have started to realise that those who run our education authorities have to decide their priorities.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) can confirm, my county of Kent has suffered in the past 10 years. We were starved of financial support by the last Labour Government because our county would not go down the comprehensive route. When there is talk about "evil women"—I deprecate such talk in public life—the person who should stand at the Bar to apologise to my hon. Friends and to me is the right hon. Shirley Williams, for the great damage that she did to our schools when she was Secretary of State for Education and Science. [Hon. Members : "Hear, hear."] There is rare unanimity in the Chamber, except for the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor). However, I know that he knows that, when the right hon. Lady was doing that demolition work, she was a member of the Labour party and acted with the full authority of the Labour Government of the day. We know jolly well that, given the opportunity—which, of course, they will not be—Opposition Members would tread the same path as before.

Opting out will become not only fashionable but the norm. The relative advantages of such flexibility will be seen by teachers, unions and school governors alike as an enormous benefit to those who maintain our schools. If there is a problem in recruiting a science, physics or history teacher to fill a vacancy, the governors will have to take whatever decision they think fit in the light of the priorities set by the school governing body.

I gather that The Independent was very much in favour of such flexibility on 23 July, which it described as

It continued :

The Daily Telegraph, which is a well-known paper of the centre—[Laughter.]—well, I regard it as being in the centre—also stated on 23 July that the proposals are

I am sure that no hon. Member would disagree with that.

I hope to alert the country—there is a lot of alerting going on at the moment—to the fact that the Labour party has adopted its traditional servility to the teacher unions. Nothing has changed. It is said of the Opposition's education team : "Show me a vested interest and I will kneel before it."

The hon. Member for Blackburn has talked about his plans for the future. In the final sentences of his speech, he said that he would like this and that. I, too, would like something and it is only a small request. I hope——

Mr. Straw : For a job.

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