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Mr. Steinberg: I thank my hon. Friend--for I have been working along with him for so long that I now regard him as such. He has spoken of all-party consensus. Does he envisage a leading role and a majority say for the teaching profession on the governing body of the council?

Sir Malcolm Thornton: If it is indeed to be a general teaching council, I do not see how it could function in any other way. I am grateful to my hon. Friend--if I may call him that, as a fellow member of the Select Committee--for his opening comments. For many years, the Select Committee has demonstrated the way in which it is possible to unite behind a principle whose benefits can be envisaged.

The hon. Member for Walton drew attention to elements of the new clause relating to discipline. Those are matters of detail, but of important, significant detail.

I hope that the debate will generate the realisation--and a message to that effect, which the House can send those outside--that the time has come to establish a general teaching council, and that the will for it to be given a fair wind exists in all parties. Members of the forum, who have worked tirelessly, and with belief in what they are doing, for many years should understand that hon. Members on both sides of the House are saying, "Get on with it; present detailed proposals. Then we can enter into serious negotiation." I believe that that can happen.

I want specific legislation, early in the new Parliament, to give effect to these proposals, and to provide the teaching profession with the representation and, above all, the esteem that it needs and deserves.

Mr. Don Foster (Bath): I am absolutely delighted to follow the hon. Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton), whose involvement in the issue and whose concern for it is well known by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I agree with the vast majority of what he says, but I come to a different conclusion.

There is considerable support among hon. Members on both sides of the House for raising standards in our education system. There is a genuine acceptance that we can do that only if we have highly dedicated, highly skilled and appropriately qualified teachers who are enthusiastic about their work. Unfortunately, many teachers are bowed down by the constantly changing demands that are made of them, the increased pressure, the lack of resources to support them in their work, and the poor state of the buildings in which many of them have to operate. As a result of those pressures, sadly, many teachers--about four out of five--are leaving the profession before retirement age.

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As we know, the Government's response to that has been to introduce overhasty changes to the teachers' pension arrangement. Some such changes might be needed, but it is equally important that the Government should have considered why so many teachers are leaving the profession, and should have begun to try to deal with those concerns.

If we are to improve the status of teachers, so that not so many leave and so that we can re-enthuse the profession, we need to ensure not only that they are given the tools to do the job and opportunities for high-quality service or continuing professional development, but, perhaps above all, that we truly raise the profession's status, so that teaching can again be considered a highly valued profession. Perhaps the best way of doing that is to ensure that the profession has its own professional body: a general teaching council.

Like the hon. Member for Crosby, I do not believe that the new clause goes far enough to establish the sort of general teaching council that I want. Like the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg), I want to make it clear that the council will be led by the profession. I want to go further than I suspect the hon. Gentleman wants to go, and ensure that the council will control entry into the profession and be responsible for removing people from it if they do not meet high standards, but the new clause does not deal with any of those matters. It sets up a body that is purely consultative, but its final paragraph contains the option--the opportunity--to build on such a body.

The hon. Member for Crosby said that the time for a general teaching council had come. I agree and we need to take action now to show the teaching profession that we truly value it. It would be appropriate to establish the general teaching council in the limited form proposed in the new clause and later, through subsequent legislation, to add measures that I know many hon. Members would like to introduce. Therefore, I urge the hon. Member for Crosby and his hon. Friends to consider whether it would be sensible to make a start today and to accept the new clause.

4.15 pm

Mr. Forman: I have listened carefully to the speeches made so far and have sought to clear my mind a little on some of the ideas that have been put forward.

I am prepared to accept that my hon. Friend the Minister of State might argue that the Bill is neither the place nor the best legislative vehicle through which to introduce such a measure. None the less, not having had the benefit of attending debates in Committee, I think that it would help the House and those who follow these debates if my hon. Friend could find a brief way of summarising the Government's reservations about the proposal. I, for one, think that, in principle, it is a good idea. It is probably long overdue from the professionals' point of view. Above all, such an initiative could remoralise rather than demoralise the teaching profession, which is urgently necessary for reasons that will be familiar to the House.

The first intervention made by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) was, if I may say so, not of the best. If one is to have a valid general teaching council that does all the things that a real profession would expect of such a body, it is absolutely essential that

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it should have real influence and power in the spheres of disciplinary action, professional standards and the rest. He has simply to draw a parallel with, say, the General Medical Council, the Bar Council or the Law Society to see the force of that argument. The teaching profession is every bit as important as the medical and legal professions and should have in its realm a professional council that is as prestigious and useful to its status as the other bodies to which I referred.

Mr. Steinberg: I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument, but what worries me is that such a body would become the profession's disciplinary watchdog. I personally would not want it to go down that line. I believe that present mechanisms adequately cater for bad teachers, and there are disciplinary measures in schools and local authorities. I would not want a specific watchdog to be set up as the be all and end all of discipline in our education system. That would be going down the wrong path.

Mr. Forman: As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have noticed, the essence of most professions is that they make themselves freely and willingly responsible for standards, discipline and status in their professional sphere. It would therefore be a little odd if the teaching profession, which is a noble and long-standing one, were a large exception to that general rule.

One point that arises from my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton) is that, if the body were brought into being, its remit should be confined to those who teach in schools. There is something very distinctive about school teaching that merits the uplift and extra esteem that the device could introduce. I should be a little wary about extending it into the sphere of further or higher education.

Bearing in mind what hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, I entirely agree that, for such a body to be a success, it is important that it commands in advance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby said, virtually universal agreement and support among those who would fall under its remit. I am gratified to learn that, through the auspices of the forum to which my hon. Friend referred, that is the direction in which things are moving.

Such institutional measures, which are after all intended to last for decades, if not centuries, are best if they can be removed from any temptation to engage in party political squabble. The model of the Dearing committee--in which we are approaching some of the thorny issues of further and higher education under the auspices of the great, good and wise Sir Ron Dearing--should be borne in mind when debating such a measure, which for reasons that still elude me, has not been brought to fruition over all the years since it was first mooted.

I look forward to my hon. Friend the Minister's speech. I say to him and the House that it is about time that we got on with this rather good idea, even if we can make progress only in principle.

Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North): In considering new clause 10, I should like only to express--in a non-carping manner--my surprise and disappointment that it provides for a general teaching

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council for a unit known as "England and Wales". One persistent irritation of being Welsh is that one consistently finds that political decisions about one's country are made within that type of framework and with the use of the phrase "England and Wales". There is such a thing as "Scotland", and there is such a thing as "Northern Ireland", but then there is something called "England and Wales". It reminds one a bit of "Sam'n Eric" in "Lord of the Flies"--except that that phrase denoted two equal individuals making one whole, whereas I do not believe that anyone regards "England and Wales" as a union of two equals.

Plaid Cymru and I favour a significantly distinct approach in many aspects of education policy in Wales, and specifically in mechanisms to maintain and raise standards. We sincerely believe that, over the past decade and more, many of the Government's reforms have been largely irrelevant to Wales. Although some of the reforms have been damaging, many of them, at best, have been merely irrelevant. That is why we are in favour of a radically different approach. We propose a parliament for Wales, which would have the power to design radically different proposals.

New clause 10 has been tabled by Labour Front Benchers--one of whom is the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), who supports Labour's policy of establishing an assembly in Wales. A consistent claim has been that, although it would not have primary legislative powers, such an assembly would enable the development of distinct policies for Wales. I have received assurances from Labour Front Benchers that their Welsh Assembly would be able to pursue significantly different policies in Wales. It therefore seems very strange that we are now considering a general teaching council--a very significant body--for "England and Wales", and not for Wales and for England.

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