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8.14 pm

Mr. Alistair Burt (Bury, North) : Having crossed swords with the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell), during his speech, I am happy to agree with his conclusions about the professional status of teachers. There is no difference between the two sides of the House on that. In recent years, the Government have tried their best to restore the professional status of teachers. The Government have treated both teachers and nurses better than the Labour Government ever did.

I begin by declaring an interest, as I have recently been appointed a parliamentary representative of the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association. I join two other colleagues from the House—the hon. Members for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) and for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), who also represent the AMMA. I have been appointed to replace my hon.Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), whom I congratulate warmly upon his promotion into the Government. I pay tribute to him for his work on the Back Benches for the AMMA and for teachers and education in general.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury is a genuine man and a good friend, who has the interests of education very much at heart. I wish him well, and I am sure that all Conservative Members, and many Opposition Members, look forward to him working in the Department of Education and Science at some time in the future. I worked there for three years as parliamentary private secretary to my right hon.Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), who has certainly left his mark on education. It says much for his foresight that so much of today's wide debate on education is based upon issues that he raised to such public prominence. His recognition of the problems of standards in schools led to his determination to end so many years of talk about a national curriculum, and to introduce one. He focused the nation's attention on standards and quality, on parental choice and the local

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independence of schools, and laid a basic framework, which has quite rightly been fleshed out and altered in the light of practical experience, just as he envisaged.

A back-handed tribute to my right hon. Friend is that the Opposition's so-called big idea for the forthcoming general election is the very idea that he had and developed three years ago. Opposition Members are seeking, unsuccessfully, to fight on what is really our ground. Their record on education—opposing the reforms of recent years—and their record when in office should fill no one with any confidence. One example is the Opposition's continued and persistent opposition to grant-maintained schools. Whatever may have been the original ideological objection on the Opposition Benches, the history of grant-maintained schools can now be evaluated in the light of experience.

As reports come through from various schools, especially those in which head teachers originally opposed the idea, they show that there is a tremendous change in staff attitude and morale. Case after case comes to the Department as the schools report. Teachers say that the whole atmosphere in a school, which had been threatened in one form or another, has changed. Headmasters report that they had been thinking of giving up the profession entirely 18 months ago, but they now feel—as their schools feel—rejuvenated.

I suggest to Opposition Members that any measure that can achieve that for education is worth considering. It is a choice and it is different. Grant-maintained schools may not be one's planned idea of how state education should go, but it is still state education—free education for children in our towns and boroughs. It is still an opportunity for them. The fact that it is something different, which teachers, head teachers, parents and children like, means that it should be given a chance.

If only Opposition Members would curtail their ideological opposition to an idea that they did not like when it was introduced and give it a chance, perhaps the county would have some confidence in their education programme. For as long as they persist in objecting on almost ideological grounds alone to developments such as grant-maintained schools, there will be no confidence in them. Grant-maintained schools have proved their worth and are giving real excitement back to people who are slogging away for children in our towns and cities. It has given them a chance.

I am glad to return to the theme of the debate—the Bill. This has been the sort of evening during which debate has ranged more widely. Back-Bench Members have enjoyed it because it is not often that we have an opportunity to spread ourselves a bit with the Whips nodding encouragement and telling us to keep going. However, the matters in hand are just as interesting.

One of the continuing problems in education over the past few years has been teachers' pay and conditions and the mechanism for deciding on them. I was in the Department of Education and Science when the difficult but necessary decision was taken to abandon Burnham. I am aware of the controversy and the arguments about the loss of negotiating rights and the effect of that on teachers' status. I have no doubt that the right decision was taken to end the unholy mess that Burnham had become and to set up the interim advisory committee. The situation in

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classrooms had become almost intolerable, and although the anger at the loss of negotiating rights was genuine—I had letters from teachers in my constituency proving that it was not a put-up job and that they were really upset—so was the sense of relief that something had been done to end the Burnham stalemate and give teachers some money.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley, who was then Secretary of State for Education and Science, had a cartoon from the Evening Standard. It is still on the wall of his current office. It shows a teacher being escorted by a policeman down an identification parade at a police station. The line contains various undesirables and thugs of one sort or another and in the middle, rather incongruously, is my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley. The policeman is saying, "Can you identify the man who stopped you in the playground and forced a £600 a year rise on you?" At the time of the imposed settlement teachers were complaining that money had been forced upon them and they were angry and upset at receiving such a large increase.

The proof of the pudding over the past three years is that that anger has, to a large extent, subsided. I do not receive as many letters about the matter from my constituents. Also, a combination of various acceptable settlements from the interim advisory committee, good financial support from the Government and responsible attitudes from the majority of teachers and their trade unions has meant no disruption in schools. The disruptions in schools three or four years ago led to a dreadful atmosphere and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley taking the action that he did.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell : The hon. Gentleman mentioned pay and the imposed pay rise. What does the hon. Gentleman say to teachers who have to work at night and who will in the future have to take home assessment sheets and work preparing for the next day's class? What about that side of the job? Surely they should not be doing that in this day and age.

Mr. Burt : I am not sure that teachers should not be doing that. Necessary work in preparation for classes has always been done by teachers, often outside their existing hours and often involving work at home. That is understood. At the moment, there is an excessive amount of work in the early stages of the national curriculum. A teacher in a secondary modern school in Rossendale took me through an exercise similar to that which the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) showed my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State today. She showed me the sort of work being done for assessment. I sent it to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister has recently written back to me explaining, as the Secretary of State explained to the hon. Member for Blyth Valley, that the Government do not lay down in concrete what forms should be filled out. They are saying what work should be noted, not how. My view—I have expressed it to the Secretary of State—is that there is a good argument for saying that some of the work is excessive.

As the national curriculum is being implemented, the Government should decide what it is essential to record. I hope that the back-breaking work which I have seen and which the hon. Member for Blythe Valley described will not last for ever. It is the early stages. A great deal of work

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is being done and in years to come it will be recognised by the authorities that much of it need not be done. We must devise a system that accurately records children's development without overdoing the pressure on teachers so that they find themselves doing that and nothing else. That would be ridiculous.

In some places, it is being overdone, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friends on the Front Bench are receptive to the practical examples being sent to them. At some stage, a sensible balance will be achieved between what needs to be recorded and what does not, to teachers free to do the work that they must do while still keeping decent records.

Ms. Armstrong : The hon. Gentleman is making a good case for our arguments. We said that teachers should be much more involved in the development of the national curriculum and assessment procedures. If the hon. Gentleman had supported that, we might not have had these problems now. Will he support the view of Her Majesty's inspectors that primary teachers in particular should be given at least 10 per cent. non-contact time so that during the school day they can attend to the problems that we have been identifying?

Mr. Burt : I shall not talk about percentages, but I recognise the problem. It is appreciated that primary school teachers could do with more time and I am not against that.

In the introduction of something as complex and necessary as the national curriculum, there was bound to be a period during which different ideas and procedures would be considered so as to see what was best. It would be impossible to devise the best system at the first go. I was not able to support the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Ms. Armstrong) because I do not think that her system would have been the best. We need to get the system into schools and then see what is best. If the Government pick up on that and the good common sense that teachers often display, we can get a workable system.

As we are coming to the passing of the interim advisory committee, we must not forget that it worked to stabilise the difficult position in schools during the mid-1980s. It has been a success. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley for his foresight in taking a difficult but necessary decision. The 1987 settlement provided a pay rise of 16.4 per cent. The 1988 settlement increased the number and value of incentive allowances, some by as much as 60 per cent. The 1989 settlement secured pay rises of between 6 per cent. and 15 per cent. Burnham had to go and the interim advisory committee was the best thing in the intervening time. It was right to introduce it.

I welcome the introduction of incentive allowances. They have proved themselves. We can now see how they have increased in size and value. There are now some 174,000 in existence and there will be 14,400 new ones next year. They vary in size from just over £900 to £5,088. They will be increased next year by at least 20 per cent. for teachers who are not at the top of the main scale but who are awarded one of the 14,400 extra incentive allowances. It was a good idea, which brought some flexibility into the pay structure. It is right to recognise excellence, high professionalism and commitment.

All that said, it was clear that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) said, the committee was

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an interim measure. It was not acceptable to go on as we were. Hence the determination of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley who, even as he worked on other matters, consulted extensively to try to find a new system to lay the foundations for what was announced in July by my right hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. MacGregor) and what has been brought forward today by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State.

I welcome the broad thrust of the Government's proposals. Both I and moderate teachers, with whose representatives I have been in contact, welcome the return of the negotiating procedure. I am glad that we were not too hasty about bringing it back. It was right to talk it through carefully. However, I am pleased that there is to be a return to the negotiating procedure. I recognise the genuine feeling of concern in the teaching profession about its withdrawal.

I am pleased that there are to be separate committees for heads and deputy heads. I am also pleased about the linking of pay and conditions—a long overdue reform—the issuing of a timetable and the provisions to avoid deadlock. They are also welcome to all those who remember the interminable indecision of Burnham.

I intend to highlight two concerns that have been referred to in the debate. I do not believe that they are insuperable. The Bill ought to be given a Second Reading, but I expect those matters to be fully debated in Committee. I hope that the Government will therefore accept well-meaning expressions of concern. On the machinery of negotiation, the Government will need to exert themselves as to the issue of their reserve powers in order to explain precisely how they intend to use them, and under what circumstances.

Although I believe that reserve powers are a legitimate refuge for a Secretary of State in order to deal with a problem, it is clear that a full explanation of their intended use would take much of the sting out of attacks upon them. There is no overwhelming consensus for an independent review body, and the credibility of the new pay arrangements will be adversely affected unless a measure of independence is guaranteed. I hope that Ministers will take due note of that in the wind-up speech and in Committee.

Ministers must also recognise that there is a certain amount of concern in the teaching profession about local determination of pay. I believe that to be an evolutionary development from the flexibility introduced through the interim advisory committee. However, it is new and not fully tested. The Secretary of State would do well to proceed with caution and to listen carefully to the arguments on that point in Committee. I believe that it is a welcome development, but it is fraught with difficulties and must be properly and fully explained.

At the heart of the Bill is a further Government commitment to restore the status of the teaching profession. That is both right and proper. The problem is not so difficult as it is sometimes made out to be by Opposition Members. The vast majority of my constituents have a high regard for their children's teachers. They recognise that tremendous efforts are being made to cope with changes to examinations and with the national curriculum. Parents want, as do teachers, the continued improvement in standards and quality to which this Government are committed. They made their benchmark on that at a far earlier date than the Opposition. Parents in my constituency want their children's teachers to be well

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paid. They also want the Government to recognise that fact. Our record in that respect is far better than that of the Opposition.

The Bill—the main thrust of which I welcome and support, with some reservations that must be considered in Committee—represents yet another change in education. Few other areas of our national life have experienced such change in recent years. Despite the media's concentration on some bad examples of education in England and Wales, the majority of schools—heads, assistants and teachers—have made strenuous efforts to come to terms with and to implement change, to the best of their ability. However, the speed and, on occasion, the manner of those changes have caused concern.

Despite the extraordinary achievements of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) in all her many works, the Government have been thought sometimes to be going too far and too fast and listening too little. When change is necessary, speed of decision is a good quality for which we should make no apologies, but there is no reason why adequate explanation and a determination at least to create some form of consensus should not be an integral part of our future approach.

Recently the Foreign Secretary said that, should he be elected Prime Minister, he would introduce, as a stamp of government, the policy of listening, deciding and persuading. I hope that that will be the stamp of the new Government under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). I am sure, knowing him, that the sentiments expressed by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will strike a strong chord among the teaching profession and the wider public. Such an approach would be warmly welcomed. I hope that we make a good start during the passage of the Bill.

8.34 pm

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : It is interesting to reflect on the departure of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) and her arrival on the collective bargaining scene in 1978. When there was a dispute at Ford and the workers went on strike to share, as they then described it, in Ford's prosperity, the right hon. Member for Finchley hastened there to assure the strikers that, under a Conservative Government, there would be free collective bargaining. This measure demonstrates the calumny of that announcement. It is not true. It amounts to more centralised dictatorship by the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

Schedule 1 provides the Secretary of State with the power to appoint the main committee and the sub-committee. He will have the absolute power to determine pay relationships. At the same time, the Government welcome the changes in eastern Europe. There were no free, independent trade unions in those countries. Trade unions were very much the creature of the state. Eastern European states fell into the error of not allowing independent trade unions to scrutinise the machinery of government.

By taking these powers, the Secretary of State intends to bring back pay bargaining, but it is not really pay bargaining ; it is pay deciding by the Secretary of State. He has not chosen to make provision for the affirmative resolution procedure. The House would then have, as of

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right, a paltry one and a half hours in which to discuss the merits of the Secretary of State's decision. The Secretary of State intends to use instead the negative resolution procedure. For the Bill not to provide for the affirmative resolution procedure is yet another characteristic subversion by the Government of our powers and an example of the Secretary of State's determination to have strong, centralised powers of imposition.

According to the negative resolution procedure, a prayer has to be tabled and time obtained. The time obtained need not necessarily be the full one and a half hours required for the affirmative resolution procedure. The time obtained has to be negotiated through the usual channels. If we want a debate to be held under the negative resolution procedure, that has to be negotiated through the usual channels, too. With the affirmative resolution procedure, there has to be a resolution affirming the statutory instrument.

The Department of Education and Science is notorious for abusing the legislative powers of the House. Under the Education Reform Act 1988, powers are provided—they are known as the Henry VIII sections—by means of which the Secretary of State can amend the primary legislation passed by the House of Commons. That is an outrageous misuse of legislative powers.

Mr. Straw : My hon. Friend speaks with considerable authority as Chairman of the joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Will he confirm that there is also this difference between the negative and the affirmative resolution procedures : that an order under the negative procedure can come into force before it has been debated in the House, even though a prayer has been tabled against it?

Mr. Cryer : Indeed : my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Moreover, because of primary legislation passed by the House, an order can be laid, and can come into force, even when the House is not sitting. The day when it was laid before the House counts in the number of days within which prayers can be laid. The annulment procedure for negative instruments is less than satisfactory.

A delegated legislation conference of Commonwealth countries was held at the end of 1989, at which the Department of Education and Science was criticised for the way in which it has abused the procedures of the House—not by me or elected representatives but by advisers to the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, who were looking for particularly outlandish examples of abuse of powers.

The Bill will not improve the generally low morale of the teaching profession. Teachers must not only battle with the removal of negotiating rights and of the collective bargaining system which they had been used to for many years, but must deal with the shortage of money, which is not exemplified by them personally, although their pay is not good.

I hope that the Minister will say how the financial provisions in schedule 3 for the chairman, deputy chairman and members of the advisory committee will compare with teachers' pay. It is interesting to note that the Secretary of State has the power to determine their pay and conditions, but will their pay be in line with teachers' pay or will it be very much more? If it is greatly enlarged, as I suspect, over the generality of teachers' pay, the Bill will cause even more affront to the teaching profession.

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Quite apart from their incomes, teachers are concerned about the lack of money for education. For example, they are outraged by the nearly £9 million that was paid in 1989-90 to the city technology college in Bradford, when roughly £9 million has been provided for the capital expenditure of almost 300 state schools in Bradford. I attended prizegiving at Buttershaw upper school last Friday, when the head made it clear—I endorsed his view strongly—that the CTC can provide nothing that cannot be provided in a superior and emphatically better way in the state sector.

When the Government speak of choice, they are speaking of the choice between a state sector starved of public funds and the demonstrable public relations front of the CTC, which has a new building, new equipment and has had lavish expenditure on its facilities. Compare that with, for example, the theatre of Buttershaw upper, which has been in existence for 25 years but is having to raise money for refurbishment because insufficient money has been made available by the Government.

Teachers at Buttershaw upper, as in every other state school in Bradford, are dedicated and devoted to their cause and to the children they serve. None the less, a comparison with the CTC is invidious. The Government pour money into CTCs, but as the Department of Education and Science deals with applications from local authorities in a fairly leisurely fashion, it will be almost two years before a school that was damaged by fire—its pupils have transferred to buildings in my constituency because of that fire—can be restored at least in part.

Under local management for schools, teachers have extra burdens thrust on them, which is causing enormous difficulties. When the Pickles majority of Conservatives were in power in Bradford, they imposed their local mangement schemes on schools but made no provision for a schedule of dilapidation for each school and made no clear apportionment between local authority expenditure and school budget expenditure on major capital items. That is causing enormous difficulties. Since Labour councillors gained control of Bradford, they have redirected expenditure, albeit under a limited Tory budget, to the best of their ability. Several million pounds have been given to education, which forestalled what would have been a certain crisis because of the lack of expenditure by Tories in Bradford.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett : Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the statistics on teachers' pay, capital expenditure, size of classes or any other education statistic were better under the Government in which he was a Minister than under this Government? He was a Minister in that Government, who had an appalling record.

Mr. Cryer : I am delighted to tell the hon. Gentleman that, contrary to the campaign on denigration and mischievous misrepresentation which he and his fellow Conservatives have undertaken, in comprehensive education, which covers between 85 and 90 per cent. of our children, the number of O and A-levels obtained per thousand children increased virtually every year from 1970. Therefore, why on earth the Government are attacking comprehensive schools I really do not know. On the criterion of academic achievement, comprehensive schools have been successful. I know, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise, that education is not

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solely about passing examinations but about many other things. The hon. Gentleman and his fellow Conservatives tend to take only the examinations criterion into account.

Mr. Bennett : Examination results are an important criterion and quality control standard. Why did the Inner London education authority, before it was abolished on 1 April this year, spend more on pupils than any other authority, yet come 88th in the examination league? Waltham Forest, another Labour authority, spent £2,345 per pupil but came 95th. The best authorities spent the least, and in the main were Conservative authorities. Before the hon. Gentleman says that the reason for that is the existence of middle-class areas, I would point out that Wigan, a Labour authority, came 15th in the examination league. It is a question not of money but of quality of examination results and quality control in schools.

Mr. Cryer : The hon. Gentleman has trotted out these claims before, but London has some of the worst education problems. He is saying that, if an area has bad education problems, it cannot exceed a centrally directed level of expenditure. It is characteristic of him and his fellow Conservatives that they are simply not prepared to take into account the variations in pattern around the country. Of course there will be a higher and lower level of education expenditure, and there is bound to be some variation in examination results. That is one of the differences between regions and cities. It does the hon. Gentleman no good to advance that argument, which is paltry, to say the least.

I draw the House's attention to the other aspect of centralised control that causes me considerable concern. Clause 5(4) says :

The reference to revoking directions shows some formality, but nowhere in the Bill do I see a definition of "directions". A direction is not subject to the approval of the House or of anyone down the Corridor ; it is an unfettered, unanswerable, unaccountable power given by the Bill to the Secretary of State for Education and Science. That is not good enough. The directions should be defined. This is a way of getting around the delegated legislation powers laid down by the House. The Department of Education and Science not only abuses the powers of subordinate legislation but tries to get round it altogether. That must be stopped.

Over the past few days, the Government have been trotting out a lot of support for the United Nations. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) drew attention to the International Labour Organisation, which has strongly criticised the Bill. I need not go into the criticisms, because my hon. Friend read them out. I want to point out the importance of this United Nations-affiliated body. If the Government choose to support the United Nations over the Gulf, they must not be selective. They must take notice of the ILO and recognise that it is worried about the deliberate unilateral abrogation of collective bargaining rights for teachers. This is unfair and unjust for teachers, just as it would be for any other section of employed people. I hope that the Government recognise that.

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