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Mr. Nick Hawkins (Blackpool, South): My right hon. Friend may be aware that I and a number of other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), have explored insurance in some detail. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the position of the teaching unions is significant in this regard? It is clear to all my hon. Friends that many teachers join the teaching unions when they first qualify simply to get insurance. Their membership is then regarded by the often militant political leadership of those unions as in some way being support for their political policies. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a good thing if insurance cover was separate from union membership--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the Minister replies, I must remind all hon. Members that interventions are supposed to be brief and to the point. We seem to be straying away from the new clause.

Mr. Forth: With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) that he makes an interesting point which should, perhaps, be pursued. Many, however, would say that it is unlikely that people as perceptive and worldly wise as teachers would sign up to something as important as a trade union for something in a sense as trivial as the obtaining of insurance cover. Were that to be the case, it could give rise to some rather worrying aspects. The matter should, perhaps, be pursued but not necessarily within the confines of our debate on the new clause.

There have been cases of teachers being investigated by social services departments or the police for trivial instances of restraint of pupils. That is absurd and it is one of the main reasons why we tabled the new clause.

Mr. Pawsey: I apologise to my right hon. Friend for failing to congratulate him on the signal honour he has

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received. I am sure that all Conservative Members join me in warmly welcoming his membership of the Privy Council.

I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to proposed subsection (1)(c), which refers to

"engaging in any behaviour prejudicial to the maintenance of good order and discipline at the school".

My right hon. Friend will recall that our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently referred to the cadet corps in schools. Does he believe that the phrase I quoted has some significance to school cadets?

Mr. Forth: I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that the view that our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and other colleagues have taken is that the development of the ethos that exists in the cadet corps can be a force for good only if it is offered to more and more pupils in schools for the good reason, which my hon. Friend and other Conservative Members well understand, that the team spirit and self-discipline that exist in the cadet corps sit comfortably with the objectives of the new clause. My hon. Friend makes a good and effective point.

Mr. Hawkins: I join in the congratulations that have already been given to my right hon. Friend on his membership of the Privy Council. Does he agree that one of the interesting things about the way in which the recent suggestion about voluntary service in the cadet force has been portrayed is that the leaders of the teaching unions have deliberately misrepresented it as a plan to make cadet service compulsory? The whole point is that our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was talking about voluntary service. There was deliberate misconstruction which the media--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already drawn it to the attention of hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) that interventions are supposed to be brief and to the point. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard me; I made that point only a couple of seconds ago, and my voice has not gone at all.

Mr. Forth: Regrettably, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South is right. We find so often that misinformation is spread, often deliberately, by people who wish to misrepresent what the Government intend to do. In that way, they spread unnecessary fears among teachers and, occasionally, among parents. Surely we all understand that membership of the cadet corps has always been voluntary and will continue to be so. We are saying that membership should be encouraged.

Mr. Kilfoyle: Does the Minister accept that there is virtually no disagreement about the new clause? Does he also accept that his hon. Friends do not need to filibuster?

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Will he accept the Opposition's advice, and let us get on with the more substantive points of difference between the two sides of the House?

Mr. Pawsey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) to suggest that Conservative Members are filibustering when we are--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the Chair had thought that there was filibustering or tedious repetition, the Chair would have intervened. So far, the debate has been in order.

Mr. Forth: I hope that, in the same spirit in which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) was able to accept the brevity of the previous debate, he will allow that the House occasionally wishes to explore in a little more detail the provisions of a rather more complicated new clause. In deference to his request, however, I shall try to make progress.

I was arguing, was I not, that there had been cases of teachers being investigated by social services departments and the police. There has been at least one well-publicised case of a teacher being arrested after intervening to break up a playground fight. That cannot be right. Teachers and appropriate other staff in schools, such as lunchtime supervisors, should be allowed, without fear of prosecution, to use moderate physical restraint where it is necessary to stop pupils fighting. Occasionally, where a pupil is damaging school property or indulging in persistent, defiant disruption which is causing a complete breakdown in good order and discipline in the classroom, there may be nothing for it but for the teacher to lead that pupil away by the arm even though the pupil is not necessarily causing injury to himself or others, or would not be guilty of an offence because he is under the age of criminal responsibility.

Keeping discipline is a key part of a teacher's responsibilities. The teachers' unique position with regard to the youngsters in their charge and the classroom environment justifies setting out in a single statutory provision that they may lawfully use reasonable force in certain closely specified circumstances. I stress again that that has nothing to do with corporal punishment, which remains largely illegal. Prevention and punishment are two very different things.

I also emphasise that where a teacher has to restrain a pupil, he or she may use only such force as is reasonable in the circumstances. Ultimately, of course, it will be for the courts to determine what constitutes reasonable force, but I expect that a court would decide that the new clause would not authorise the use of force to restrain a pupil from committing trivial misdemeanours. Force should be used only as a last resort to prevent seriously bad behaviour and, in any event, any force used should be proportionate to the misbehaviour. My Department will issue detailed guidance on the use of physical restraint after consulting the relevant interests. I am sure that Opposition Members and my hon. Friends would expect no less of the Department.

Mr. David Jamieson (Plymouth, Devonport): Can the Minister clarify a point? As one who has pulled apart warring pupils on many occasions, I thought that it was

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within the law at the moment that reasonable force could be used to restrain a child who was doing damage to himself or someone else. Would it be deemed a serious misdemeanour if a child was not trying to inflict damage on someone else or on property, but was trying to leave the room without the teacher's permission? Could that be deemed an occasion on which such restraint could be used?

Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman may--inadvertently, I am sure--be trying to draw me into a matter of detail, albeit an important detail, in advance of the consultation that we want to conduct before we issue guidance. My initial reaction is that an incident such as he describes would probably be more of a disciplinary matter than one that justified the sort of restraint that we are discussing in the new clause. That point probably illustrates better than any other the fact that all reasonable people, especially teachers in the classroom, can readily identify the cases that require this exceptional restraint to be used and the great majority of cases in which there would be no question of its being used.

Mr. Jamieson: I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point. I raised it because I believe that the cases that have been investigated are more to do with the teacher using restraint because a child has disobeyed an order than preventing a child doing damage to themselves or property. It would be helpful if that matter was clarified because, as the Minister will appreciate, there is a great difference between that type of incident and others. In my view, the only circumstance in which a teacher should use that type of restraint is when there is immediate danger to the child, some other person, or property.

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