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Mr. Wilshire: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The next debate is about a very serious and important matter. Many hon. Members wish to speak.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware of it, but there is another motion to deal with. Is that the matter that is so important?
Mr. Wilshire: Yes. It is an issue about which many hon. Members wish to speak--
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the next motion on the Order Paper is not for debate, however important he thinks it is.
CHILDREN'S COMMISSIONER FOR WALES BILL [MONEY]
Queen's recommendation having been signified--
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)(Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
- That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Children's Commissioner for Wales Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act.--[Mr. Touhig.]
Mr. Leigh: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The next item for debate is the Education
(School Teachers' Pay and Conditions) (No. 4) Order 2000, and it is very important. However, the Order Paper states that the Question will be put
- after 1½ hours or at 11.30 pm, whichever is earlier.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Debate on the motion must end at 11.30. I shall consider then whether to use my powers to adjourn the debate, rather than put the Question.
Mr. Bercow: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance as to whether, in the heavily circumscribed period available for debate, it is expected or obligatory that, even if there is not time for Back-Bench contributions, all three Front-Bench contributions will be made and heard.
Madam Deputy Speaker: My answer to an earlier point of order indicates the way in which I intend to conduct the debate.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think it would help the House if you would give your guidance as to whether your judgment will be affected by the length of speeches even in the very brief time available, and whether more than one contribution has been allowed for in that period of time. That would enable, for example, the person who first catches your eye to decide how to structure the debate in order to allow you to make your judgment at the end of the time available.
Madam Deputy Speaker: It would certainly help me make my judgment if we could proceed with the debate.
Education
11.20 pm
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough): I beg to move,
- That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Education (School Teachers' Pay and Conditions) (No. 4) Order 2000 (S.I., 2000, No. 3106), dated 21st November 2000, a copy of which was laid before this House on 22nd November, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willis: It is very sad indeed--[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): Order. The House must come to order.
Mr. Willis: Performance-related pay is an important issue, which for the last two years has vexed the minds of some 500,000 teachers throughout England and Wales. When they look at the newspapers tomorrow, or at Hansard, and see that, sadly, Members felt it was far more important to play games on the Opposition Benches than to discuss this important issue, they will draw their own conclusion about who has teachers' interests at heart.
We have never had an opportunity in the House to discuss performance-related pay, or indeed the Government's Green Paper, published in December 1998, entitled "Teachers: Meeting the Challenge of Change". That Green Paper contained a series of interesting proposals about the future of the teaching profession--proposals that Members on both sides of the House would have enjoyed debating. There was an important proposal to introduce information and communications technology and to make every teacher in the country ICT-literate. Another proposal was to introduce teaching assistants, who have a crucial role in the education delivery service. The changes to initial teacher training were trailed in that document. It had some profound things to say about the way in which the profession would be organised in this new millennium. Perhaps the most interesting issue, to which the Government have come rather late, is that of professional development of the teaching force. Those were all major issues.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willis: Given the time that is available to me, I am not prepared to give way. I apologise for that.
Sadly, two years on, the Green Paper, despite the fact that it has not been debated in the House, will be remembered not for the many excellent initiatives that it
contains, but for the Government's bungled attempts to impose performance-related pay on the teaching profession in England and Wales.
Miss McIntosh: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me?
Mr. Willis: The order that we are considering tonight is the culmination of that bungled and torturous process. Rather than unite the teaching profession around new structures for pay and conditions, the Secretary of State has shown us how it is possible to divide the profession and squander the good will of 500,000 teachers.
Miss McIntosh: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me?
Mr. Willis: In his judgment in the successful court case brought by the National Union of Teachers, Mr. Justice Jackson said that the course adopted by the Secretary of State had bypassed the School Teachers Review Body, Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. He said that if he did not make an order, the court would be allowing contractual provisions to be foisted upon some 400,000 schoolteachers in a manner not authorised by Parliament. That judgment on 14 July last year was a shocking indictment of the way in which the Secretary of State had tried to force through his proposals without debate or proper consideration.
Miss McIntosh: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to give way.
Mr. Willis: Imagine if a Conservative Secretary of State had been so judged in the courts--there would have been outrage among Labour Members.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): There frequently was.
Mr. Willis: The right hon. Gentleman says that there was, frequently.
Mr. Willis: Labour Members must recognise that it was a judgment of real significance in terms of the process.
Miss McIntosh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willis: Yet even with that judgment ringing in the Secretary of State's ears, he sought to deflect the blame, first by blaming the NUT and then his civil servants for the decisions that were taken. Never did the right hon. Gentleman say after that damning court judgment, "I got it wrong and I apologise to the teaching profession."
Miss McIntosh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
In the Department's submission to the court, its timetable for the validation of all assessments was not September 1990 or October, but 28 February 2001. That was the date on which the Government expected the threshold payments to be made available to teachers.
Miss McIntosh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willis: There was never any intention of paying teachers earlier than that. The Minister and the Secretary of State castigated the NUT, saying that teachers were prevented from having their payments in September. That was untrue and a dreadful statement for a Secretary of State to make.
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