HC Deb 18 June 1963 vol 679 cc232-309

3.45 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, at the end to insert: Provided that any such order shall include the complete assimilation of teachers with less than three years' training to the higher basic scale for teachers with three years' training or the equivalent. The point of this Amendment is to make it obligatory on the Minister, when formulating his scales of teachers' salaries under the Bill, to assimilate forthwith, instead of over a period of sixteen years, those teachers who have had only two years' training instead of the three years which has now become customary.

The Minister has already stated that this is not a matter of principle where he is concerned. He has agreed that it would be grossly unjust that teachers who had only two years' training, at a time when only two years' training was available, should be treated differently in the long run from those who now have the standard period of three years. But, unfortunately, the Minister is in favour of justice being delayed. Hon. Members on this side of the Committee feel that it would be a serious embarrassment if, for another fifteen years, these teachers felt that they had a grievance—which no doubt they would air on every possible occasion—and that it would be far better to "grasp the nettle" here and now and agree that they should be assimilated with those who, in the future, will have a longer period of training.

This, again, is a question of judgment. It is not a question of principle, and we think that so far the judgment of the Minister on this point has been mistaken. Frankly, we consider that the right hon. Gentleman is being extremely foolish in preserving a continuing grievance for himself and his successors. It is quite true that this would cost more money. The Minister made great play with that point when dealing with the matter on an earlier occasion. I have no doubt that he or his Parliamentary Secretary will do so again this afternoon. But surely it is worth while, in the present state of feeling in the teaching profession—even though it may cost a little—to secure the maximum of good will and contentment among the members of the profession.

There are not many teachers who had only two years' training. They are experienced people who have given years of service to the schools and they have earned their increase the hard way. They have not had the benefit, which will be enjoyed from this year onwards by other teachers, of being allowed to take three years over the preparation for their professional life instead of only two years. Those of us who have discussed this matter of training with the authorities in the teacher training colleges are aware that the two-year courses were often crammed and over-full and imposed a considerable strain on both staff and students.

Those teachers who are in future to have three years' training will be able to begin their professional life in easier circumstances. They will have longer experience and be somewhat more mature when they start on their careers. Those who have had an easier time will be receiving the full benefit of the increase whereas those who have to start against some disadvantage will be without the increment. The Minister has said that they will not be denied it for all time, but fifteen years is a very long time when one is at the beginning of those years.

It seems to my hon. Friends and myself that this is something on which the balance of judgment is at fault. What is to be gained is purely in financial terms. There is no other argument that I have heard advanced against the assimilation of the two types of teacher. It is simply a matter of £. s. d.; I have heard no other arguments.

I believe that I am right in saying that the teaching profession is extremely anxious that teachers should not have this division in their ranks. They fully appreciate that it is through no sin of omission on the part of those who had only two years' training—it was all that was available to them. They feel that it would be unjust and deleterious to good relationships within the profession if, instead of having one body of teachers, we were to have this continuing division over a very long period of those who had two years' and those with three years' training.

It is only natural that those who feel they have been badly done by should spend their time at meetings and conferences year after year, if this goes on for fifteen years, manoeuvring to try to get improvements while there might be matters of far greater educational importance which should be attracting their attention. Human nature being what it is, if they have a grievance of this kind it is only to be expected that they will occupy their time, and that of their fellow teachers, discussing the grievance in and out of season. At a time when everything should be done to encourage the profession to look upon itself as a united body, able to take a statesmanlike view of matters which are of great importance in the education of young people, we are throwing this apple of discord among them quite unnecessarily.

Although I have no doubt that it will be deployed this afternoon, I cannot believe that the financial argument should be conclusive. In Standing Committee we asked that the Minister should reconsider this matter, even to the extent of shortening the period. It is far too long. I put this to the Minister. What would he feel like if he were on the other side, connected with one of the teachers' organisations, and had this problem on his plate for all this time? I also put to him—we are not discussing it this afternoon, but no doubt it will be discussed later here and elsewhere—that we have to consider the future pattern of negotiating machinery.

It is not impossible that in the changes which may come about in that machinery the Minister will take part. Does he want this question brought up on every occasion when he feels that there are other matters far more important, and to have this bedevilling all kinds of negotiations? This is laying up trouble for himself and his successors quite unnecessarily.

At the very least we would expect, since we discussed this matter in Standing Committee, that the Minister would have reconsidered it. We asked for assimilation forthwith, which, I believe, would be by far the best and most statesmanlike thing to do, but, if the Minister feels that he cannot face the Treasury on this, the least he should do is to say that he will provide for assimilation over a period of two or three years instead of fifteen. If he were to come forward this afternoon with such a proposal, in these circum stances I think that, in consultation with my hon. Friends, we would consider withdrawing this Amendment—

Mr. Frederick Willey (Sunderland, North)

No.

Mrs. White

My hon. Friend says, "No". I was trying to be conciliatory because we have other matters to consider after this one.

We think that this is a mistaken policy of the Minister which would do an injustice to a very large number of teachers—far the largest proportion of existing teachers—and that it should be rectified. I cannot believe that, on consideration, the Minister can maintain the position which he has held hitherto. I hope very much that without further ado we shall hear that he as had second thoughts.

Dr. Horace King (Southampton, Itchen)

I wish to support the Amendment. Of all the Minister's alterations to the Burnham proposals, what he has done on assimilation is about the most niggling and least justifiable.

Let me remind the Committee of the issue which is at stake. Up to the present a teacher is trained for two years and, when he is two years' trained, he is fully qualified. He has achieved all he has to achieve. From now on teachers will have to train for three years. Unless they train for three years they will not have obtained the minimum qualifications. This is a great reform for which many of us have pressed for many years. It seems a great pity that it should be marred by this salary anomaly that the Minister proposes to insert in place of what Burnham proposed.

The Burnham Committee argued, I believe quite rightly, that as the two-year trained teacher was fully qualified in exactly the same way as the new three-year trained teacher will be qualified, according to the law governing the training of teachers at the time they trained, they should be treated alike for salary purposes. It is this equating of the two which is called assimilation. The Minister agrees with the Burnham Committee on this. There is no need to argue the principle in Committee. The simple issue is whether we make the assimilation in one fell swoop, as the Burnham Committee proposed, or spread it over a period, as the Minister is proposing.

I do not share the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) that this anomaly will remain for fourteen or fifteen years, because I am quite certain that this Government and this Measure will be out of the way long before that time. The simple issue is that Burnham wants to put right what the Minister and Burnham both agree would be wrong if it remained. Burnham wants to do it at once and the Minister wants to do it gradually. By deferring it, the Minister can save a little money inside the global sum, and the global sum is no battle between the two sides. What he is saving on assimilation he is distributing elsewhere. He says that he wants to use it to reward age and experience, but many of the teachers concerned in this anomaly are themselves of age and experience. Quite a lot of them are obviously older than the three-year trained teachers who will come in in an anomalous advantageous position.

As I pointed out in Standing Committee, if the proposals go through in their present form there will be a shocking anomaly. The three-year trained teacher is the one who will benefit, but the Minister has arranged that those teachers who take a special two-year course can come out of it as fully qualified as the three-year trained teachers although they have done two years.

Unless this Amendment is accepted, the position will be that some of the two-year trained teachers, the youngest entrants to the profession, will have the benefit of the Minister's proposals while the rest of the two-year trained teachers, including men and women of age and experience whom, the Minister says, he wants to reward, will not get the benefit.

My hon. Friend has pointed out that the cost of the Amendment cannot be very much. But it need not cost anything. The Minister can put right this anomaly by drawing back some of the largesse which he has distributed so haphazardly inside the rest of the scale. But whether he does it either by increasing the amount of money which he provides, leaving his own pet projects untouched, or by redistributing it inside his own proposals, I would plead with him to put this anomaly right. It will be a source of irritation among the teaching profession, and when he has conceded the principle, it seems to me foolish to leave the irritation to rankle when he could so easily put it right.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Norman Cole (Bedfordshire, South)

I want to say a few words in support of the purport of the Amendment. As my right hon. Friend knows, I have taken a great deal of interest in this Bill both on Second Reading and in Committee, and as I shall do in its further stages.

It seems to me that my right hon. Friend is in great danger of continuing an anomaly which springs from what we used to call in the old days the existing dual scales. This will apply to a number of people who are already teaching, whom the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) has spoken about, who have trained for a further year and who have obtained their third year of qualification, and those who are yet to come who, under the new training, have to be trained for three years.

Therefore, those who will remain only two-year qualified teachers, whether it be for five years, three years or fifteen years will be sandwiched, as it were, between these two groups of people, and I can see nothing but dispute and difficulty, not with the individual teachers but with the N.U.T. on this point of principle. I point out to my right hon. Friend that it is quite impossible to deny that not every two-year trained teacher now teaching is able to go back and do his third year to qualify for the higher scale. Sometimes his circumstances will not allow it; sometimes his family circumstances will not allow it. Those who do go back forfeit something, because they lose the opportunity perhaps of applying for another post, and also, I understand, lose a year of increment, but they pick up later in the dual scale.

There are three aspects of this matter to which I should particularly like to invite my right hon. Friend's attention. The first is that I agree that there is nothing between the two sides of the Committee or between Burnham and my right hon. Friend as regards the acceptance of the principle. My right hon. Friend, I understand, has told the Burnham Committee that he accepts the principle, and he has gone further in saying that about 95,000 teachers out of 195,000 have assimilation of this kind. To use his words, he thought that this was a pretty good first slice of the problem. I agree. But if fortuitously or deliberately we have to put in nearly 100,000 teachers already to recognise the principle of assimilation, why not let us end this dispute here and now and include the whole lot?

I do not believe that it will make a tremendous difference in the £21 million involved, and that if the principle is accepted—and I imagine that the Treasury must have had some hand in the acceptance of the principle—we cannot find the extra money without interfering with any of the other pet projects, as the hon. Member for Itchen has called them, but which my right hon. Friend has a perfect right to put in the Bill.

Secondly, I would point out that on an earlier occasion, just after the war, when even a shorter period than two years was accepted for the training of a teacher, the principle of assimilation never became in any way a stumbling block. In other words, this principle has been accepted in the past. I admit that the difference between two and three years' qualification in times of comparative peace is a very different thing from something accepted in a time of emergency. Nevertheless, the principle has, to 100 per cent., been accepted in the past and it is difficult to understand why it cannot be accepted now.

I do not believe, like the hon. Member for Itchen, that this will necessarily last as a running sore for the next fifteen years, but I do know that there will be very stormy and heavy seas ahead between my right hon. Friend and the existing Burnham Committee in the setting up of the new constitution, which I shall be pleased to see come about as soon as possible. Therefore, as we need to start off with a good deal of good will on both sides, this would be a chance to give to the teachers this point of satisfaction so that they will feel that when we come to the much more important negotiations, as they will be, my right hon. Friend will have at least made a gesture which is no more than a recognition of the principle which has already been accepted.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

I want to ask the Minister two questions arising out of the Amendment which I fully support. First, I suggest that it is unthinkable, as the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) has just said, that this should be a running sore for the next fifteen years, particularly as the Minister has accepted the principle. I would like him, if he is not prepared to accept immediate assimilation, to give the Committee some idea of what is in his mind as to the time scale concerned.

Secondly, I should like the Minister to tell us not merely what the cost of accepting this proposal would be in the first year, because that, obviously, is the year in which the cost is greatest, but, for example, what the cost would be in five years' time if no further steps in regard to assimilation had been taken.

Mr. James Boyden (Bishop Auckland)

I support the Amendment. I cannot understand how, in the present situation, the Minister can resist it. He wants the most amicable relations in the teaching profession in setting up the new negotiating machinery, and, as I understand it, this is one of the things which has caused the maximum amount of bitterness in the teaching profession.

I should have thought that all of us would have done everything possible to get as united a teaching profession as possible, and that the Minister would have been particularly open to this argument at the moment. He has a whole set of precedents in relation to his own ideas. Several times I have reminded him, when he was talking about the new scales and thinking of doing something to equate the profession, that he was not doing it very scientifically.

There are many precedents in other professions when qualifications are altered for assimilating people with existing qualifications to the new quali- fications. It applied to dentists, and to architects. As the hon. Member for Bedfordshire South (Mr. Cole) said, there was a very good precedent for this in the emergency training arrangements when the Burnham Committee recommended that assimilation should be given to those with less than two years' training.

If one compares in equity the present position of new entrants to the teaching profession, they are having a very much better deal than many of those who have borne the heat and burden of the day. The attempt to reduce the numbers in classes is having some success. The school building programme is making some advance, although not as fast as we would like. Conditions advocated on this side of the Committee have not been improving anything like fast enough, but they are improving. It is only reasonable to say that these people who have been referred to should in equity be given what the teachers' side of the Burnham Committee are asking.

Logically, if the right hon. Gentleman does not concede this point he should give existing teachers, who wish to take a third year of training, or to increase their qualifications, as good conditions as possible to do so. He would, therefore, be in the position of taking out of the teaching profession for a time thousands of teachers for whom he has not the facilities if they wish to bring themselves up to the three-year level.

I hope that it will not be long before it is regarded as axiomatic that if any teacher in any grade of school wishes to improve his qualifications in order to go to another grade of school, the State will provide the facilities, the scholarships, the money, and the time. We are a long way from this state of affairs, but the Minister's present attitude merely puts that idea still further back.

I am quite sure that this is one of the fundamental ways by which the teaching profession can more easily cope with the problems which face it, and I am astounded that the Minister is taking this retrograde step. I am surprised that he is intransigent. In an article in Education this week, under the title "A Reasonable Man", there is a sentence which reads: One of the things which has emerged from the events of the spring is the ignorance of the Minister and his advisers on how negotiations are conducted. The right hon. Gentleman shows an equal ignorance about the way in which to get the full co-operation of the teachers in a set of negotiations which the Minister wants to bring to a successful conclusion during the next few months.

Mr. J. C. Jennings (Burton)

I should like to make two comments. Assimilation depends to a large extent on the definition of qualified teachers. This is the whole kernel of the problem. The position is anomalous, because under the old regulations a two-year trained teacher was considered by the Ministry to be fully qualified whereas under the new regulations it takes three years' training for the new entrant to be regarded as fully qualified. Everything, therefore, depends upon accident of birth and when a person was trained—not where or how he was trained. I therefore appeal to the Minister to take the question of qualified status into consideration.

Secondly, on Second Reading I told the Minister exactly what I thought about the Bill and exactly what I thought about him. I am still anxious that the excellent reputation with which he came to the Ministry should be continued and our hopes fulfilled. If he granted this concession it would go a long way to retrieving the ground which both he and the Government have lost in this matter.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright (Dearne Valley)

I support the Amendment. I cannot understand why the Minister is unwilling to accept it. It appears that he intends almost always to ignore the wishes of the N.U.T. and the other teachers' unions and that he intends on this point to ignore the wishes of the Burnham Committee, too.

Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman agree to the immediate assimilation of two-year trained and three-year trained teachers? His failure to do so ignores the experience of a teacher gained in five, six, seven or eight years in schools. That experience must be taken into account. The teacher did not take a two-year training course because he wanted only a two-year course. At that time, two years was the period laid down and it was regarded as sufficient by the authorities to make a person fully qualified to teach children.

There is, therefore, no justice in penalising those people who years ago entered this honourable profession. Because of an accident of birth, as the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) said, they are to be penalised in the future. It cannot be the cost of assimilation which prevents the Minister from accepting the wishes of the trade unions—or, rather, I should say, of the unions, for on the last occasion that I spoke I was pulled up by the Minister on this issue. I have no experience to enable me to make a comparison between two-year and three-year trained teachers. It is sufficient for me that those who are in the profession do not want this difference in rate of pay to be continued. It is important that the teachers should work together amicably. I know of nothing which creates more enmity and sometimes bitterness between people doing the same kind of job than for them to be given a different rate of salary.

If it is a question of cost, surely the Government can find the money. If it is not, then I cannot understand the Minister's attitude in creating a difference between teachers which will do the profession no good and which will certainly not be helpful to teachers in their duty of giving children a better education than they had in the past.

I am a member of a trade union and I represent trade unionists. I know what happened in the industry with which I was connected when the rates of pay were different. Enmity was caused between individuals. Teaching is quite different from mining, but, knowing human beings as I do, I am sure that some enmity will be caused between teachers.

The Minister should look at the problem again and should accept the Amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs.White) spoke of removing the difference in the next two or three years. I think that assimilation should take place now and that teachers with either two years' or three years' training should have what they wish—the same rate of pay according to their years of service.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Christopher Chataway)

The matter raised by the Amendment stems from a reform which was introduced nearly three years ago, in 1960. It was a reform in which we can all take some pride. The minimum training period for teachers in England and Wales was then increased from two to three years.

This being so, both the Burnham Committee and my right hon. Friend agreed that the basic scales for the future should be the scales applicable to teachers with three years' training, but the question then arose how to treat those teachers who had trained in two years when that was the minimum required of them and who retained, of course, without any question, the status of qualified teachers.

I think that everyone would agree, as a matter of principle, that when an important change of this kind is made in the qualifications required of new entrants to a profession, with resulting improvements in the rewards that they receive and the standing that they enjoy, those members already in the profession before the change must, sooner or later, have their share of those benefits. If nothing of the kind were done—this is a point which has been made by a number of hon. Members—theprofession would include for the following forty years or so a depressed class who, however able and energetic they might be, would be unable to achieve equality with their younger colleagues. Clearly, that would not be healthy.

But there are many different ways in which these members—in this case, the existing teachers with only two years'training—might be assimilated, or brought into line for salary purposes with those entering under the new conditions. The Burnham Committee recommended that this assimilation should be carried through in one single step for all the teachers concerned—there are about 195,000 of them—from 1st April, 1963. This proposal was estimated to cost almost £6 million, and thus amounted to more than one-quarter of the entire settlement.

Mr. Lubbock

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with my point. He has quoted the figure of £6 million for the first year.

Mr. Chataway

I will come to the point made by the hon. Gentleman. He asked how much it would cost in five years' time and asked me to speculate as to which of future Burnham awards would contain further tranches of assimilation. I do not think that I can enter into that kind of speculation, because, clearly, that will be a matter for discussion and negotiation when the next salary award is made. If the hon. Gentleman wishes for his own information to have an estimate of what we now estimate it would cost in five years' time to introduce assimilation, I will get that figure for him and send it to him.

Mr. Lubbock

That was not the question I asked. My question was this. If no further measures towards assimilation are undertaken beyond what is in the Bill at present, how much would the difference in cost be between accepting the Amendment and not accepting it five years into the future? I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that no further measures for assimilation will be made during the period in which the Bill operates, which is two years. This is what he seemed to be implying in the last few words he said.

Mr. Chataway

I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman that figure. I can tell him that the cost of full assimilation over the cost of the proposals made by my right hon. Friend would be in the region of £3 million. In its anxiety to do justice to teachers in service with only two years' training, the Burnham Committee introduced a curious anomaly. I think that this is worthy of the attention of hon. Members, because a number of them have suggested that the position will be anomalous as a result of my right hon. Friend's proposals.

Under the current and preceding Burnham Reports, the teacher who had stayed for a third year of training in college would find, on entering upon teaching, that he was on the same salary point on the scale as his contemporary who had entered college alongside him but had left after two years. That is the present position. They would continue to advance up the basic scale by identical steps to the maximum; and only at that point would the teacher with the additional year of training move one increment ahead of his contemporary.

Under the Burnham Committee's proposal for assimilation, the teacher who had stayed for the third year would find that his contemporary with only two years' training was actually one increment ahead of him until they reached the maximum of the scale. Whether intended or not, this might have caused some misgivings to those with longer training.

The Burnham Committee's proposals to achieve complete assimilation immediately in one step, six months before the first of the new three-year trained teachers entered the schools and at a cost exceeding one-quarter of the whole settlement and involving the anomaly I have described, seemed to my right hon. Friend a serious misjudgment of priorities.

Dr. King

I am sure that the Minister does not want to mislead the Committee. He knows that the Burnham Committee solved the problem of the anomaly he has mentioned between the really three-year trained man of the past and the two-year man who was to become a three-year man and climb up the scale with the other man by adding £30 a year to the maximum which, in time, would have righted the anomaly about which the hon. Gentleman professes to be worried—a £30 which he is taking away.

Mr. Chataway

The hon. Gentleman can argue that the proposal for protection is linked with this matter. On the next Amendment we shall discuss protection. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the two-year trained teacher who entered the profession at the beginning of this academic year could well be in an advantageous position over the three-year trained teacher who entered at the beginning of next year and the protection proposal would have had no relationship to that sort of instance.

Mr. Cole

I am thinking of the figure of £6 million which, as my hon. Friend points out, is more than one-quarter of the entire settlement. I am sure that my hon. Friend has checked his figures. Is he quite certain that the £6 million does not take into account the basic increases in scale in any case, as distinct from the suggested possibility of assimilation?

Mr. Chataway

No; this is the cost of assimilation—£6 million—which is, as my hon. Friend recognises, over one-quarter of the total cost of the award. It was with the considerations to which I have referred in mind that my right hon. Friend decided to tell the Burnham Committee that, although he fully accepted the principle of assimilation, he did not think it right to implement it all at once as the Burnham Committee had proposed.

When the Committee had declined to make any modification in response to his letter of 20th February, he suggested that at this stage assimilation should be offered immediately to those two-year trained teachers already on their maximum and to the remainder as and when they would reach their maximum. Under this proposal, about 90,000 of the 195,000 teachers concerned—or almost half—would have the benefit at once, and at about half the cost. This is obviously a very substantial first instalment.

It will be clear to the Committee that, if my right hon. Friend were to accede to the requests which have been made this afternoon, he would be able to do a very great deal less in increasing differentials, or the total cost of this award, which is already a generous one, would be appreciably increased. As I suggested in Standing Committee and my right hon. Friend said on Second Reading it would be an unhappy precedent if it seemed to be suggested that it was for the Burnham Committee to look after the basic scale and for the Government then to look after differentials by way of addition.

Moreover, under my right hon. Friend's proposal, the anomaly to which I referred would be removed. The teacher with three years' training and his contemporary who entered college alongside him but left after two years would receive the same basic scale salary throughout their careers.

If the object of assimilation is that existing teachers with two years' training should be treated on a level with those with three years' training—that is what I understand it to be—I claim that my right hon. Friend's proposal achieves it at this time much more fairly than that of the Burnham Committee.

A further criticism was raised by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King). He said that, although my right hon. Friend is not willing to give complete assimilation to all teachers who trained in two years when that was all that was required of them, he is prepared to do so for teachers who successfully complete training courses of less than three years' duration now. This point was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole).

4.30 p.m.

The point to remember here is that teachers who are trained through shortened courses of less than three years' duration since the introduction of the minimum three-year course are allowed to do so only because they have some earlier training qualifications, or perhaps, a longer experience of life which leads the training authorities to believe that they are capable of reaching the standard of the three-year trained teacher in that shorter period.

Most hon. Members welcomed the introduction of the three-year course. It was not introduced for nothing, but because it was believed that it would produce more highly trained teachers; and to suggest that there is no difference between teachers trained in three years and those trained in two is pushing the point too far.

Mr. Wainwright

The hon. Member has referred to teachers who, having taken two-year courses, have qualified in a similar way to those who have taken three-year courses because of what he described as their "experience of life", presumably outside the teaching profession. Is that not tantamount to saying that teachers who have gained experience inside the profession over the same period of years cannot be compared with the experience gained by persons outside the profession? If so, the Parliamentary Secretary would seem to be adducing a farcical argument.

Mr. Chataway

The answer is that my right hon. Friend has agreed to assimilation of two-year trained teachers on to the three-year scale, at the maximum; so anyone with that number of years' experience will be paid as a three-year trained teacher.

Mr. Jennings

My hon. Friend is saying that such a person will get the status of a three-year trained, qualified teacher having done Jess than three years in a training college simply because he is a mature student. Does he not realise that a two-year trained teacher, having served less than the number of years required of him to be on his maximum is, from the point of view of maturity and experience, in a far better position than the other type of person and should, therefore, be considered in this light?

Mr. Chataway

My hon. Friend may argue that assimilation should be introduced after five, six or seven years—

Mr. Jennings

No.

Mr. Chataway

—but the argument he is adducing now is not one for complete assimilation of all teachers immediately but for introducing assimilation in five or seven years instead of at the top of the scale, as my right hon. Friend proposes—and this, obviously, must remain a matter of judgment and balance.

Before commenting further on the Amendment I wish to correct one impression. It is not only those who are of maturer years who may qualify for a two-year instead of a three-year course. Those who have had earlier training qualifications may also be in this position if they are also adjudged to be suitable for a three-year course. As the standard required of those people at the conclusion of their shortened course is the standard of the three-year trained teacher, it is only fair that they should be treated accordingly for salary purposes; and I suggest that there is no unfairness in this to the former two-year trained teachers who are not required to measure up to the same standard.

Dr. King

The Parliamentary Secretary is arguing that these exceptional, two-year trained teachers are to be as well qualified as those who take the full three-year course and that, because of that, they should be assimilated at once. But he does not know how many of the 100,000 teachers he is ruling out by drawing the present line for assimilation, had they been placed in the position of having to take a three-year course, would have been able to qualify for two years in the same way. All the teachers we are pleading for today did what the law asked them to do and took two-year courses. We are pointing out that they might have been able to have met the three-year course inside two years.

Mr. Chataway

I see the point of the hon. Member's argument, but I am sure that he will not seriously suggest that it would be feasible to select, from the number of those who are at present two-year. trained teachers below the maximum, those who might come into the category he describes. It may be that there are one or two, perhaps a larger number, but we have to deal with broad categories and I am suggesting that there is no unfairness as between a person who now qualifies for a shortened course, and, therefore, for recognition as a three-year trained teacher, and the broad majority of those who previously trained as two-year trained teachers.

It will be evident from the explanation I have given that the Amendment cuts right across the policy my right hon. Friend has been pursuing in this matter and that if it were accepted it would mean that my right hon. Friend would be unable to make the increases in differentials and to implement the other proposals to which we have throughout attached considerable importance. I therefore ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Harold Steward (Stockport, South)

Can my hon. Friend go a little further than that? He will recall that, while many hon. Members have supported the Bill, they have been rather unhappy on the question of assimilation. I believe it to be right that the Amendment for immediate assimilation should be rejected, but it is almost equally wrong that we should have to wait until the maximum before any full assimilation can take place.

We have been told in the past that some of the drawbacks of the working of the Burnham Committee have been that the points in the Minister's mind have not been known. It is, therefore, not completely hypothetical to invite the Minister, even at this late stage, to tell us what is in his mind about the equity of assimilation at an earlier stage than the maximum.

I am pressing the Minister to say, here and now, what he thinks about assimilation at a stage earlier than the maximum—as and when the funds are available to do it; and I appreciate the point about the amount of money required to achieve assimilation within even five years—and to give an indication of his views so that many of us may be happier about the immediate future than we are with the Bill as it stands.

Mr. Chataway

I hope that I will be able to reassure my hon. Friend. It is not for my right hon. Friend to dictate what the next salary negotiations will produce. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) seemed to be asking my right hon. Friend to say that the next salary negotiations will produce a certain result in regard to assimilation. Clearly, my right hon. Friend cannot make any promise on that score. However, he has made it clear on a number of occasions that he is not opposed in principle to assimilation below the maximum at some later stage. I would not think it unlikely that a further tranche of assimilation will be discussed at the next salary negotiations.

Mr. Cole

I am still rather worried about the figure of £6 million. If we have accepted the point of the 90,000 out of the 190,000 teachers—and I imagine that some of the money involved has been included for award purposes—is it strictly true to say that the Amemdment would cost an additional £6 million?

Mr. Chataway

I said £3 million.

Mr. Lubbock

The hon. Gentleman has avoided points put to him by myself and by his hon. Friend. It is quite true that I have accused the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of being a dictator, and I am now asking the hon. Gentleman to explain how the dictatorial powers contained in the Bill will be used. In page 2 of the Bill there is the date, 31st March, 1965; at any time before that date the Minister can exercise the powers conferred on him by the Bill. All we ask him to say is whether, with those powers, he intends to implement any further measures of assimilation before 31st March, 1965.

Mr. Chataway

No. I thought it clear that there is no proposal for further assimilation within the next two-year period.

Mr. Willey

The Parliamentary Secretary has tried hard, but his effort is not good enough. I hope that before we dispose of this Amendment we shall hear from the Minister of Education himself. We have had some attention paid to matters of minimal importance, but not sufficient attention has been given to the particular issues of the argument. The Parliamentary Secretary no doubt feels that he has been shot down by his hon. Friend, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King)—and they both speak with a feeling of opinion within the teaching profession—but one of the reasons why I should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman is that he first made his news known in a letter dated 20th February.

We were all shattered and staggered yesterday to find out what the condition of the Government was just at that time. When I got advance notice—possibly the usual leak, though I do not know—of the Minister's intentions, I said that I could not believe them; that as the Burnham Committee's Report had been so widely accepted in all educational circles the Minister must be a lunatic if he proposed behaving in this way.

We got the letter, but we now know the date of the letter, and the state of the Government at that time; how they were behaving, and how responsible Ministers were acting without reference to the Prime Minister. I should like to know how much on his own initiative and responsibility the right hon. Gentleman acted, how much of the letter the Prime Minister knew about before it was sent, and whether this matter was discussed in the Cabinet. We are now entitled to know those matters, so I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will later intervene in our discussion. This is one of the crucial points upon which he upset the decision of the Burnham Committee, and we should like to know to what extent he accepts sole responsibility for what was done.

The main issue was very fairly and properly put by the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings). With the greatest respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he does not understand what the principle here is. Assimilation over a shorter or longer time is not a question of principle. By the very nature of things, this problem will be resolved in the long-term because, eventually, all the two-year-trained people will retire. It is a question of degree. We have to face up to the principle of recognising teaching as a profession so that when a definition is made that these people are fully qualified, they are fully qualified. That is the point of principle.

I want the Minister to face this issue of assimilation, because it has faced every profession. I should regard it as the essential criterion that determines a profession. The dentists had to face this problem. When they altered the terms of entry to the profession they had complete assimilation. The architects had to deal with the same question, and they had complete assimilation. So, hitherto, have the teachers. Why have we not done it this time?

We know that in this instance the Burnham Committee acted within a figure of £21 million. I have paid my tribute, and I pay it again, to those who took part in the negotiations, because they put the professional interest as first and paramount. They paid for assimilation. They knew they had to make an award within £21 million, and they paid for assimilation, and I think that they were right so to do. Whenever I have met groups and bodies of teachers I have made the essential point that it should be cardinal and clear that teaching is a profession. That was the issue, and that was the issue that the right hon. Gentleman failed to face. That is why there has been such feeling about this. The teachers feel that, at very great sacrifice to themselves, they put their professional status first, but the Minister has upset that and denigrated their profession.

4.45 p.m.

It is no good the Parliamentary Secretary saying that we are not entitled to know the right hon. Gentleman's intentions. Of course we are entitled to know, because we know quite well that if the Burnham Committee, or any other representative body, again negotiates teachers' salaries, complete and immediate assimilation will be agreed. We know that, so we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman what his intentions are. Are we to have another dispute, or does he say that this is an interim intervention and that there will be complete assimilation the next tune teachers' salaries are discussed?

We are entitled to know this, because the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely alone. I challenged the Parliamentary Secretary on this in the Standing Committee, and he gave no reply. I said that at the time of the Burnham Committee's award, everyone in every branch of the profession accepted assimilation. I called in aid a journal sympathetic to the right hon. Gentleman—The Times Educational Supplement—which said: The new proposals were indeed foreshadowed in the last Burnham Agreement. Taken with the increase of 1962 they can be regarded as satisfactory. Though there will be many to dispute it they may even be described, in the circumstances of the times, as generous. Three features of the provisional agreement deserve special commendation. It was wise to bring the two-year trained teachers into line with their three-year colleagues by abolishing the lower scale. With the compulsory extension of training this was, of course, something that would have solved itself in the fullness of time. But the summary change should make for a quicker harmony. Since it benefits a section of the profession from which much union activity comes it will allow future salary appraisals to take place in an atmosphere free from at least one major grievance. So it is a step in the right direction. That is what everyone felt. This was not an easy matter for the teachers' representatives to agree, but they agreed, and we should have held fast on it. The Minister is being unfair, uncharitable and ungenerous to those who took part in the negotiations.

The right hon. Gentleman should recognise that he has done two things, and render account to the House. First of all, his action is the greatest possible slap in the face for those on both sides who took part in the negotiations. At some risk of criticism from their own membership, they called for a sacrifice on the part of many teachers in order to make it quite clear that they were establishing the professional status of teachers.

Secondly, he has made it much more difficult to conduct negotiations in future, because this will be a bone of contention. It is the right hon. Gentleman himself who has made it a bone of contention, and knew quite well when he wrote that letter that he was making it a bone of contention. Views have been expressed on both sides of the Committee—I take the absolute view—but, if we cannot have everything, let us have an undertaking from the Government that there will be assimilation when the next award is given to the teachers.

This is a matter of cardinal importance. This was a major rebuff to the teaching profession and I still hope that the right hon. Gentleman will intervene. We have had the rejection of our case about the basic scale, but on this point I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will realise that the burden is on him to accept the decision taken by the Burnham Committee.

Dr. King

I am disappointed by what the Parliamentary Secretary has done by way of reply, but I will not stand between the Minister and the Committee for more than two minutes. I could have under-stood it if the Parliamentary Secretary had said, "We accept the principle. We should have liked to go much further, but we cannot afford it. Therefore, we have done bare justice to the older members, those on the maximum. We wish we could have done it for the others, but we cannot." The hon. Gentleman has attempted to say, on the one hand, that the Government accept the principle and, on the other, has tried to make a case for not conceding it to all teachers.

Let us look at the simple facts. The Parliamentary Secretary argues that the man coming in for two years, as part of the three-year course, should be assimilated straight away because he has age and experience or has some mysterious qualities from outside. On the other hand, the hon. Gentleman is saying to teachers with all kinds of ability who have taken the two-year training, which was available to them at that time, "Unless you are on your maximum salary you no longer count for salary purposes as a fully qualified teacher." Some people who have not taken the prescribed minimum course will now be assimilated, but nearly 100,000 who took the prescribed minimum course at their time will not be assimilated. This is indefensible.

The only fair way is to include all teachers who are fully qualified. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) was right when he said that when any profession or any group of workmen have stepped up the minimum qualifications for entry to that profession or trade they have always safeguarded the people who had the maximum qualifications which were fit and proper for the job after that moment. There never was an exception.

The right hon. Gentleman the Minister comes before us with a wealth of Treasury knowledge and I ask him to tell the Committee how much this will cost. We are told that it will cost £3 million, but that is only in the first year. Even if the Government survive and even if they are replaced by another Tory Government and the right hon. Gentleman remains as Minister of Education, and even if there are no changes in future salary negotiations, one by one the qualified teachers whom the Minister is keeping from being assimilated will reach their maximum and will become assimilated. The cost is £3 million in the first year, but it is a declining amount year by year as other teachers whom the Minister is at present depriving of their right come into this category.

I am always worried when the Treasury argues through any Minister that it would not be right to correct a certain anomaly because there might be another. We had an example in the Parliamentary Secretary's reply when he called attention to the comparative positions of older teachers who were three-year trained when this third year was an extra year, and older teachers who had only two years' training, but who would now be "assimilated". As we propose to deal with this anomaly in the next Amendment, I will leave this problem until then.

Mr. Wainwright

There is a point which I should like the Minister to take into account. If, in the first year, 90,000 teachers will be taken out of this group, this will leave 100,000 to be gradually totally assimilated in fifteen years. This means that there will be 50,000 in seven years' time who will not have been totally assimilated. If these considered that it would be remunerative for them to go back for another one year's training to qualify for the third year, what provision have the Government made to provide places for those who apply?

Does not the Minister admit that if he will not agree to assimilation the Government are duty bound to provide places for these teachers who want to qualify by taking the further year? If this is so, has the right hon. Gentleman considered the number of teachers who will then be withdrawn from schools and the numbers who will be required to take their place?

Mr. Jennings

I should like to explain my personal position. On Second Reading, I said what I thought about the Bill and explained that I would abstain from voting. I feel so strongly on this particular injustice that, having abstained up to now on the Bill, in view of the extremely unsatisfactory reply and explanation given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, I must tell my right hon. Friend that unless I have something far better in compromise form or total acceptance of the Amendment I feel constrained to vote against the Government on this Amendment.

The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle)

I should like to say, first of all, to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) that he has made his position perfectly clear this afternoon. I hope that, at any rate in manner, what I have to say to the Committee my hon. Friend will find acceptable, but I say straight away that I cannot advise the Committee that there is any compromise proposal here, for reasons which I shall put as clearly as I can.

In answer to the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), I ask the Committee not to draw me further about that matter this afternoon; but in-service training for teachers is a subject which I have very much under consideration at present. I am not in a position to make a statement about it today.

Mr. Wainwright

Does that mean that the right hon. Gentleman will give a guarantee to those teachers who want to apply for a further place that those places will be provided?

Sir E. Boyle

I am sorry, but I do not want the hon. Member to draw any sweeping deductions from what I have said. I meant that his intervention raised the important question of in-service training. It is not a subject that we have debated often, and it is not strictly in order on this Amendment, but I want the hon. Member to know that it is one which is under consideration at present.

Mr. Boyden

Surely the right hon. Gentleman's Department has already reduced the number of supplementary courses, available to two-year trained teachers?

Sir E. Boyle

I do not believe the hon. Member is correct about that.

I should like to take up the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who asked about the circumstances of my original letter and my statement in the House of Commons in February. I assure him that I made that statement and wrote that letter with the full support of my colleagues in the Government.

There was one aspect of the hon. Member's speech with which I agree. He made it perfectly plain that the Amendment is strictly in line not merely with what I said on Second Reading but with the principles as I set them out in my original letter. I remind the Committee of what I said. There has been no change of front or any attempt to mislead on this matter. I believe that from the beginning, whatever the difference of view and whatever the sharpness of controversy, we have all at least known what we have been discussing.

I said: I welcome in principle the proposal to put these teachers on a level with teachers with three years' training, now that three years is the minimum training for future entrants to the profession. But I do not think it right to offer this assimilation, completely and at once, to every two-year trained teacher given that some of the money so expended could be applied instead in ways that would permanently improve the scales and thus make the profession more attractive. Lower down in my letter, I set out the principles on which I have stood throughout and said, among other things: I would wish to see the proportionate share of the total salary bill now taken by additions for longer training, higher qualifications and posts of responsibility both in primary and in secondary schools (that is, some 15 per cent.) maintained or improved. I think that this was implicit in my original letter. It would not have been possible to have total assimilation, and the existing sum on the basic scale maintained and carry out the proposals which I thought were right with regard to differentials. This was the main point of judgment which from the start had to be considered.

5.0 p.m.

On the basic scale, as the Committee knows, the proposals which I have outlined already involve something of an increase in the basic scale and, therefore, the point of judgment more than any other which the Committee has to consider is: does one look on maintaining the proportion of 15 per cent. for differentials or total assimilation as the more urgent consideration? In my Second Reading speech, I came, as it were, absolutely clean and explained precisely the motives in my mind. I should like the indulgence of the Committee while I quote one passage in my speech. I said: There is one feature, common to the assimilation and protection proposals, which I wish especially to emphasise for the benefit of hon. Members. Both these proposals would benefit exclusively teachers already in service; neither could help recruitment to the profession for no new recruit could benefit from them. Yet together they accounted for over 30 per cent. of the total cost of the agreement. If I am charged today with tilting the balance a little less in favour of existing teachers than the Burnham Committee did and with correspondingly improving the prospects offered to new entrants, this is a charge I willingly accept, for it only strengthens my belief that my action has truly been in the best long-term interest of the profession.—[Official Report, 25th April, 1963; Vol. 676, c. 433–4.] I hold to those words, and deeply though I respect the views put forward by both sides of the Committee, particularly by my hon. Friends the Members for Burton and Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), none the less on the point of judgment this was the fundamental view which I took, and I still stand by it.

Mr. Jennings

While the Government, quite rightly, agreed that there should be three years' training as a minimum, they knew quite well that they would have this problem to face. My right hon. Friend has placed differentials in the forefront of his scheme. Would not he regard complete assimilation and the unified treatment of all members of the profession as a priority in differentials?

Sir E. Boyle

I do not regard total assimilation, complete and at once, as deserving a higher priority than maintaining the existing proportion devoted to differentials. That is the difference between us.

Mr. Jennings

It is a question of judgment?

Sir E. Boyle

Yes, it is entirely a question of judgment. However my hon. Friend must be fair in controversy on this matter. I certainly agree that the principle of assimilation is important. I have made it clear from the start that I regard it as absolutely right that there should be assimilation straight away at the maximum for 90,000 out of the 195,000 two-year trained teachers.

The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) asked a specific factual question. He said that, granted that the Amendment would save £3 million now. how much would it save in five years' time. The answer is approximately two-thirds—about £2 million. The total cost of the assimilation proposal is £6 million. When one allows for wastage, in particular—thatinelegant word we often use—the total cost would be about £4 million in five years. Therefore, in the case of the Amendment, the saving would be about £2 million in five years' time.

Mr. Cole

My right hon. Friend spoke of slightly redressing the balance between the attraction to potential new teachers and those already in the profession, who number in round terms about 250,000. Does not my right hon. Friend think that the best advertisement for any profession of this kind is the happiness and spirit of fairness which exists in the profession and that this is likely to be far more effective than any sort of attractive monetary scale?

Sir E. Boyle

I think my hon. Friend's case is decisive in saying that we want to make a major first step in the direction of assimilation. I do not regard my hon. Friend's case as decisive in saying that we should have brought about total assimilation in one "go" this time.

I should like to answer the question raised by the hon. Member for Stock-port, South(Mr. H. Steward). In view of what has been said about my connection with the pay scales which will be shortly introduced, I should, in fairness to myself, be careful about expressing too dogmatic a view on what may be the outcome of the new round of teachers' pay negotiations, whatever the machinery for it may turn out to be. I cannot believe that the Minister of Education, whoever he is at the time and whatever his party, will not be presented with a case for bringing about complete assimilation. I accept that, and I would rather not express a view about whether it should be done in one tranche, but I certainly think that it is overwhelmingly certain that the Minister of Education, whoever he is, will expect to deal with a large tranche on next time round.

Mr. Willey

If the Minister is so certain about this, why is he not humble enough to think that he may be wrong?

Sir E. Boyle

I am prepared to recognise that what we are dealing with is a point of judgment. In view of what has been written in recent months, I should say that I have never regarded myself as the one person whose judgment is infallible. But I have certain responsibilities under Section 89 and, in exercising them, I have to act on my own judgment, fallible though it may be.

The hon. Member for Southampton. Itchen (Dr. King)—by chance he is not in his place at the moment, but he has listened to the whole debate so far—made a point about shortened courses. When my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary spoke about shortened courses of less than three years' duration, he was referring to the number of students, probably totalling not much more than 1,000. The issue of total assimilation, which I recognise is something on which the Committee feels strongly, raises very much wider issues than just the 1,000 or so three-year trained students taking shortened courses. I accept that one of the arguments for moving in the direction of complete assimilation is that it will make it easier for more students to be got through their course of training in less than three years, where this can be justified.

I have tried to explain that the point of judgment on this Amendment is the most important we have to discuss. I regard it as even more important than the one we discussed before the Whitsun Recess, I have explained why I took certain views when I sent my original letter; I have defended them in the Committee and in the House, and, in view of what I have said, I must ask the Committee to reject the Amendment and to approve the Government's proposals.

Mrs. White

I do not wish to detain the Committee long, because we have had a full debate in which most of the arguments have been redeployed, but, as the Minister said, this is a most important Amendment. The Minister is not entirely to be acquitted of misleading people, because many people were misled by his letter of 20th February and thought that what he wrote would be translated into very different terms from those ultimately published.

It has been clear throughout that the Minister accepts the principle of assimilation but is not going to put it into practice, except in the slowest possble way.

There it is. The Minister admits that it is a question of judgment. That is the burden of our argument. We consider that his judgment is wrong. The main point was put by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), who said that the best recruiting factor for this great profession is to have a united and contented profession. By persisting in error, as we think he is doing, the Minister is making that much more difficult.

It is not simply a question of salary, as we have said throughout. It is a question also of self-respect, of the feeling of the profession that it should be res-

pected, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) has said, like other professions which have had to face just this sort of problem. Has anyone any doubt that if the teachers had been left to themselves they would have agreed upon assimilation, because they feel that this is something which a profession, when it reaches the point of accepting higher qualifications, takes in its stride?

The Minister has put a spanner into all this. He has had to admit that probably in the very next round of negotiations this matter will not only be brought up again—that is inevitable—but that it will be settled in the way we are asking him to settle it now. Why leave this irritant and leave a factor which will divert attention from other things which are more important?

I do not want to continue the argument. The matter is plain between us. I can only ask my hon. Friends and those hon. Members opposite who are convinced by the arguments which have been put forward to support the Amendment in the Division Lobby.

Question put, That those words be there inserted:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 197, Noes 243.

Division No. 135.] AYES [5.13 p.m.
Abse, Leo Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Hayman, F. H.
Ainsley, William Deer, George Henderson, Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)
Albu, Austen Dempsey, James Herbison, Miss Margaret
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Diamond, John Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Bacon, Miss Alice Dodds, Norman Hilton, A. V.
Barnett, Guy Donnelly, Desmond Holman, Percy
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.) Driberg, Tom Hooson, H. E.
Beaney, Alan Duffy, A. E. P. Houghton, Douglas
Bence, Cyril Ede, Rt. Hon, C. Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton) Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly) Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Blackburn, F. Edwards, Walter (Stepney) Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Blyton, William Evans, Albert Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Boardman, H. Fernyhough, E. Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Bottomley, Rt, Hon. A. G. Finch, Harold Hunter, A. E.
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S.W.) Fitch, Alan Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Bowles, Frank Fletcher, Eric Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Boyden, James Foot, Dingle (Ipswich) Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M. Foot, Michael (Ebbw vale) Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Bray, Dr. Jeremy Forman, J. C. Janner, Sir Barnett
Brockway, A. Fenner Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) Jeger, George
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) George, Lady MeganLloyd(Crmrthn) Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Brown, Thomas (Ince) Ginsburg, David Jennings, J. C.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Carmichael, Neil Gourlay, Harry Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Castle, Mrs. Barbara Grey, Charles Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Cliffe, Michael Griffiths, David (Rother Valley) Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Collick, Percy Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly) Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) Griffiths, W. (Exchange) Kelley, Richard
Crossman, R. H. S. Gunter, Ray Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Cullen, Mrs. Alice Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.) King, Dr, Horace
Dalyell, Tam Hamilton, William (West Fife) Lawson, George
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) Hannan, William Ledger, Ron
Davies, Harold (Leek) Harper, Joseph Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Davies, Ifor (Gower) Hart. Mrs. Judith Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) Parker, John Stones, William
Lipton, Marcus Paton, John Strachey, Rt. Hon. John
Loughlin, Charles Pavitt, Laurence Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)
Lubbock, Eric Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd) Swain, Thomas
McBride, N. Peart, Frederick Swingler, Stephen
MacColl, James Pentland, Norman Symonds, J. B.
Mclnnes, James Prentice, R. E. Taverne, D.
McKay, John (Wallsend) Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
McLeavy, Frank Probert, Arthur Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
MacPherBon, Malcolm (Stirling) Pursey, Cmdr. Harry Thornton, Ernest
Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Hudderafield, E.) Redhead, E. C. Thorpe, Jeremy
Manuel, Archie Reid, William Timmons, John
Mapp, Charles Reynolds, G. W. Wade, Donald
Marsh, Richard Rhodes, H. Wainwright, Edwin
Mason, Roy Roberts, Albert (Normanton) Warbey, William
Mellish, R. J. Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) Watkins, Tudor
Mendelson, J. J. Robertson, John (Paisley) Weitzman, David
Millan, Bruce Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton) White, Mrs. Eirene
Milne, Edward Ross, William Whitlock, William
Mitchison, G. R. Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E. Wilkins, W. A.
Monslow, Walter Short, Edward Willey, Frederick
Moody, A. S. Silverman, Julius (Aston) Williams, LI. (Abertillery)
Mulley, Frederick Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)
Neal, Harold Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) Willis E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.) Small, William Winterbottom, R. E.
Oliver, G. H. Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) Woof, Robert
O'Maliey, B. K. Sorensen, R. W, Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Oram, A. E. Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank Zilliacus, K.
Oswald, Thomas Spriggs, Leslie
Owen, Will Steele, Thomas TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Paget, R. T. Stewart, Michael (Fulham) Mr. G. H. R. Rogers and
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) Stonehouse, John Dr. Broughton
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter Courtney, Cdr. Anthony Hay, John
Aitken, Sir William Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne) Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Allason, James Crawley, Aidan Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Ashton, Sir Hubert Critchley, Julian Hendry, Forbes
Atkins, Humphrey Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver Hiley, Joseph
Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham) Curran, Charles Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Barber, Anthony Dalkeith, Earl of Hocking, Philip N.
Barlow, Sir John d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry Holland, Philip
Barter, John Digby, Simon Wingfield Hollingworth, John
Batsford, Brian Doughty, Charles Hopkins, Alan
Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate) Drayson, G. B. Hornby, R. P.
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton Duncan, Sir James Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Bell, Ronald Duthie, Sir William Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay) Eden, Sir John Hughes-Young, Michael
Dennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) Hulbert, Sir Norman
Bidgood, John C. Elliott,R.W.(Newc'tle-upon-Tyne,N.) Hutchison, Michael Clark
Biffen, John Emery, Peter Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Biggs-Davison, John Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn James, David
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel Erroll, Rt. Hon. F, J. Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Bishop, F. P. Farey-Jones, F. W. Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Black, Sir Cyril Farr, John Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Bossom, Hon. Clive Finlay, Graeme Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Bourne-Arton, A. Fisher, Nigel Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith
Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Fletcher-Cooke, Charles Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Brewis, John Forrest, George Kerby, Capt. Henry
Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter Foster, John Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Brooman-White, R. Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh(Stafford&Stone) Kershaw, Anthony
Brown, Alan (Tottenham) Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) Kirk, Peter
Browne, Percy (Torrington) Gammans, Lady Lagden, Godfrey
Bryan, Paul Gardner, Edward Langford-Holt, Sir John
Buck, Antony George, Sir John (Pollok) Leavey, J. A.
Bullard, Denys Gibson-Watt, David Leburn, Gilmour
Bullus, Wing Commander Eric Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central) Lilley, F. J. P.
Burden, F. A. Glover, Sir Douglas Linstead, Sir Hugh
Butcher, Sir Herbert Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) Lloyd, Rt.Hn.Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) Godber, Rt. Hon. J. B. Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Carr, Compton (Barons Court) Goodhart, Philip Loveys, Walter H.
Carr, Robert (Mitcham) Goodhew, Victor Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Cary, Sir Robert Gower, Raymond MacArthur, Ian
Channon, H. P. G. Gresham Cooke, R. McLaren, Martin
Chataway, Christopher Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Chichester-Clark, R. Gurden, Harold Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) Hall, John (Wycombe) MacLeod, Sir J. (Ross and Cromarty)
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) McMaster, Stanley R.
Cleaver, Leonard Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Cooke, Robert Harris, Reader (Heston) Macpherson,Rt.Hn.Niall(Dumfries)
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) Maddan, Martin
Cordle, John Harvie Anderson, Miss Maginnis, John E.
Corfield, F. V. Hastings, Stephen Maitland, Sir John
Marshall, Douglas Quennell, Miss J. M. Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Mathew, Robert (Honiton) Ramsden, James Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden) Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Mawby, Ray Rees, Hugh Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. Renton, Rt. Hon. David Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Maydon, Lt,-Cmdr. S. L. C. Ridley, Hon. Nicholas Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Mills, Stratton Ridsdale, Julian Touche Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Miscampbell, Norman Robertson, Sir D. (C'thn's & S'th'ld) Turner, Colin
Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr) Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool,S.) Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
More, Jasper (Ludlow) Roots, William Tweedsmuir, Lady
Morrison, John Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard van Straubenzee, W. R.
Nabarro, Sir Gerald Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey) Vane, W. M. F.
Neave, Airey Russell, Ronald Vickers, Miss Joan
Nicholls, Sir Harmar St. Clair, M. Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennia
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey Scott-Hopkins, James Walker, Peter
Noble, Rt. Hon. Michael Sharples, Richard Wall, Patrick
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie Shaw, M. Ward, Dame Irene
Orr, Capt. L. P. S. Smith, Dudley (Dr'ntf'd & Chiswick) Webster, David
Osborn, John (Hallam) Spearman, Sir Alexander Wells, John (Maidstone)
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) Speir, Rupert Whitelaw, William
Page, Graham (Crosby) Stevens, Geoffrey Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Page, John (Harrow, West) Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Peel, John Stodart, J, A. Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Percival, Ian Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth Storey, Sir Samuel Wise, A. R.
Pike, Miss Mervyn Studholme, Sir Henry Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Pilkington, Sir Richard Summers, Sir Spencer Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard
Pitman, Sir James Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) Woodhouse, C. M.
Pitt, Dams Edith Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.) Woollam, John
Pott, Percivall Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side) Worsley, Marcus
Prior, J. M. L. Taylor Sir William (Bradford, N.)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho Teeling, Sir William TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Proudfoot, Wilfred Temple, John M. Mr. Frank Pearson and Mr. Pym.
Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, at the end to insert: Provided that any such order shall make provision on a personal basis for additional increments beyond the maximum to graduates or other teachers with three or more years' training. The Minister said that the last Amendment was a matter of judgment. This one is very much more. It is believed almost universally in the teaching profession and in education circles that the Minister's decision not to accept this proposal of protection is not just a matter of judgment—his judgment against theirs—but a sheer breach of faith. The Amendment involves a small amount of money, and I hope that for the first time in these proceedings the right hon. Gentleman will be able to change his mind on this question and accept the principle of protection which the Burnham Committee had in its Report.

This is rather an obscure matter. The story really begins in 1944 when the Burnham Committee was negotiating the scales of salary which were to come into force on 1st April, 1945. At that time the normal training college course was two years; and that was the Committee's starting point. It then looked at the position of those teachers who had more than two years' training or study. For example, there was a very well known course in training colleges situated near universities, a three-year course which had existed for many years, in which the student took a university degree and a teacher's certificate in three years.

There were a number of three-year trained teachers and four-year trained teachers to be considered. The first point was that they started their training at the same time as their fellows who were taking a two-year course, and because they came out of college a year later they lost one increment on the way up the incremental scale compared with their fellows who had entered college at the same time. Secondly, they lost a year's salary because they stayed a year longer in college. The third detriment that they suffered was that they drew a smaller pension and a smaller lump sum. Their pension was, and I think still is, based—or very nearly so—on the number of years served as the numerator over the denominator of 80, and the lump sum was the number of years served over 30. So the teacher who did three years' training suffered a one-eightieth reduction in pension and a one-thirtieth reduction in lump sum. Altogether such teachers suffered three detriments.

In 1944 the Burnham Committee set out to compensate those teachers and decided to do two things. First of all, it decided that an extra increment on the incremental scale should be given to those teachers so that on the way up they would be on an equal footing with their colleagues who entered college at the same time as they did. Secondly, it was decided that when those teachers reached the maximum this increment would be continued. This was regarded as rough and ready compensation for the sacrificing of a year's salary because of the year's extra training and the loss of pension and lump sum. Similarly, for the four-year trained teacher the Committee added two increments to the maximum.

This system has obtained from 1st April, 1945, up to the present day, and teachers with more than two years' training who entered teaching in the period from 1945 to 1963 have done so in the expectation of this extra increment or two extra increments above the maximum. That was part of the conditions. It was part of the general attractiveness of the profession. Certainly it was one of the major factors, I suppose, which persuaded them to take an extra year's training above the normal, basic amount.

We now come to the recent negotiations. The normal training which faced the Burnham Committee was now not two years but three years. That is why it decided to assimilate the two-year trained teachers' salaries to the three-year trained teachers' salaries. This is the true principle of assimilation—this and nothing more. But it still left the problem of the teachers who had spent one or more years' training more than they need have done. I think that the Burnham Committee felt that if the two-year trained teachers' salaries were to be assimilated to the three-year trained teachers' salaries, the existing three-year trained teachers should in some way be assimilated to the four-year trained teachers because the existing three-year trained teachers were promised an extra increment at the maximum. As I have said, this was one of the things which made them decide to do a year or two years' extra training.

The Burnham Committee decided in its Report to add one increment—that is, £30—to the maximum for any teacher who had spent three years or more in training. That refers to existing teachers, not future ones. Both sides of the Committee agreed to this, and they felt—they have gone on record as saying this since then—that they could not do otherwise, and that if they had done otherwise it would have been a breach of faith.

But the Minister rejected this because—my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) has replied to this point—he felt that on logical grounds it interfered with his pattern of assimilation. Indeed, it is perhaps truer to say that he believed it was contrary to the principle of assimilation. But the teachers concerned—the existing teachers—had expected this extra increment from the day they entered the profession. That was why they undertook the longer training. The Burnham Committee felt itself in honour bound to do this. Clearly, if the two-year trained teachers had to be brought up to the existing three-year trained teachers, the existing three-year trained teachers would get no compensation for their loss of a year's salary or the loss of pension if this protection principle were deleted from the Report. The Joint Four said: Assurances given repeatedly since 1945 are such that failure to provide the safeguard would, in our judgment, be a breach of faith. 5.30 p.m.

I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. It would, cost a very small amount of money. He has not accepted any Amendment so far, but I appeal to him on behalf of the small number of teachers to keep faith with them. They expected this. It was one of the things that brought them into the profession, one of the things that impelled them to have training above the normal. If he persists in deleting this from the Burnham scale, he will continue to break faith with the teachers.

Dr. King

I wish to support the Amendment moved with his customary clarity and fairness by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short). There are some graduates who after their three years' work on the degree take a course in the education department of a university for what is called the "teacher's diploma". Incidentally, the day will come when all graduates will have to do this by law if they wish to become teachers.

It is foolish to thrust a man or woman into the teaching profession merely with academic qualifications and without professional training qualifications. I carry the Minister with me in saying that it is the policy of the teaching profession and of himself that one day every graduate coming into the profession shall have the kind of qualifications that the teachers have whose battle we are fighting with this Amendment. Unfortunately we are receding from that position owing to teacher shortage. But it is the ambition of both sides of this Committee, certainly that of the right hon. Gentleman.

It has always been the case that a graduate who wanted to be qualified as a professionally trained teacher has lost a year's salary because he entered the profession a year late. In addition, he has found his pension position a year behind. He has stood the risk of losing, at any rate in certain conditions, part of his pension and also part of his lump sum.

Burnham has always compensated for this to some extent, and, in the proposals that the Minister has turned down it did so by an extra allowance of £30 a year carried on to the maximum so that the professionally trained graduate teacher who had done an extra year's training at a university got the benefit, after some twenty-four years of his teaching career, of a larger maximum that the graduate who had not done that extra training. It is that extra amount which the right hon. Gentleman is taking away.

It also applies to teachers entering from a two-year training course. There were colleges—my wife attended one forty years ago at Cambridge—which had provision for an extra year. Some even took a degree at college. For those teachers who embarked on a two-year training course and then for some reason or another went further and took a three-year course, the Burnham Committee proposed £30 on the maximum. Moreover, the emergency-trained teachers who became qualified teachers by only one year's training—I make no complaint of that, for it has produced a fine body of young men and women without whom we could have not got by—and then took an extra year, as some have done, were also to qualify for the extra £30 on the maximum.

These are the categories the Minister is sweeping away, and he is doing it, as the Parliamentary Secretary told us in Committee, in the name of logic. The Minister says that three-year training is now the normal thing. He says that one cannot have it both ways. One cannot say to the two-year trained teachers that they will now be assimilated with the new three-year trained teachers and then plead a special case for the old three-year trained teachers.

Let me point out, in case he has forgotten, that the Minister has refused assimilation to start with. He stopped the assimilation of 100,000 teachers. Moreover, the teachers for whom my hon. Friend pleads in this Amendment are all men and women who have taken more than the minimum qualifications. They have taken an extra qualification. What Burnham has done up to now is to give them some reward for their extra initiative, for their extra ability, for their extra training and, above all, for the sacrifice that they made.

I once said that there is no feature of this scale which did not affect me in some way or other before I came to this House. I remember forty-five years ago, when I had taken my degree at university, what a temptation it was for a poor boy like myself, living on a very tiny scholarship at university, to rush out and take a teaching post and earn money. I remember how difficult it was to persuade oneself that it was right to go on and take a teaching diploma at the university in order to fit oneself better for the profession. By doing so, one made a financial sacrifice straight away—a sacrifice which would last throughout one's teaching career until one reached the maximum, and which only began to be compensated for once the maximum had been reached and in the years that followed.

I think it exceedingly ungenerous of the Minister to reverse this into a disincentive to men and women in the profession who have served faithfully and well. Indeed, I felt rather ashamed of him when, in resisting the last Amendment, he pointed out that it would benefit people inside the teaching profession instead of being an attractive jam to attract people into it.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) was right when he said that the real incentive to get people into a profession is to deal fairly with those already in it. Here we are pleading the case of men and women who gave up a year's salary to secure extra qualifications for their life's work. They forfeited a year's pension. They did all this with assurance, for they could not have expected the appearance of a dictatorial Minister tearing up the Burnham. Committee.

These young men or women secured this extra qualification in order to serve their profession better and get extra reward towards the end of their career for the sacrifice they made at the beginning. It is for that reason that the Association of Assistant Masters, to which I belonged for a quarter of a century, denounces the Minister for breach of faith.

In many ways the last Amendment was one of the most important that we have discussed. This Amendment is one of the most emotional. It raises issues of good faith, and some of us are rather looking beyond this debate to the future. We want to get back good relations between the Minister and the teaching profession. Therefore, on this issue, which is not one of judgment but really one of good faith, I hope that the Minister will accept the Amendment, which will cost very little, but which will put him right with the teaching profession on the issue of confidence and the provision of fair treatment for those already in the profession.

Mr. Cole

I am aware that there is an argument that if one is keen on assimilation, if one is prepared to go to the stake for it, it is a contradictory argument to add increments over and above the top of the scale for those who are in a special position, in particular those who have a three-year qualification.

To those who might adduce that point, I can only say that it is clear to the teachers themselves and to the N.U.T. Indeed, I put the question to the representative body whom I saw about it and they agreed that it was, as it were, a final reward for those who for one reason or another had taken a three-year course to qualify, without necessarily making that reward a continuing thing all through the scale. It was something at the top of the scale, and I shall say more about this later. It would be a reward at the top of the scale for the teacher with the longer period of qualification.

The two points are not dissimilar. They live together. They are co-admissible, and it is not right to say that because we are keen on assimilation we are therefore wrong to suggest that there should be these extra points at the top of the scale.

Next, the argument might be used against the Amendment that we have been unsuccessful in persuading the Minister to agree to the Burnham recommendation about complete assimilation, and therefore, since dual scales are to continue throughout the whole scale up to the maximum, why are we keen on persisting on this award for those at the top? This is also something to which I have addressed my mind, and I still feel that as assimilation has to some extent been agreed to by the Minister, and since assimilation may possibly come within a certain length of time despite the fact that we have obtained assimilation for only 90,000 of the 195,000 teachers, we should go for these extra increments.

I am deliberately doing it this way because I am trying to look into the mind of the Minister. One way of putting an argument is to put the points of one's opponent and then knock them down before he produces them. To say the least, it embarrasses him if it does not win the battle.

The next point against the Amendment is this: if so many people abominate this whole question of dual scales, why are we supporting this Amendment for extra increments at the top of the scale? The answer is that there would be in that case no duality at all in the whole course of the 15-year scale. It is only at the top. It is a final reward for those who make sacrifices. The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) referred to the sacrifices made by these teachers, and my mind went with him when he talked about the temptation, after having qualified, in having to decide whether or not to stay on for another year.

5.45 p.m.

One hopes that the world, society, and the professions will always recognise such sacrifices—the financial, personal and psychological sacrifices—that are made and the frustration that arises from not getting on with the job that one wants to do. A young man of 18 today wants to go out and earn, say, between £4 and £5 a week in a job in business. If only he waited until he was 21 and trained he would be able to earn £15 a week, but it is no good trying to explain that to him.

Sacrifices were made not only by those who stayed on at university to take a diploma, but by those who went back to the training colleges, if they could find a place, and if their schools could free them for the additional year, to get a three-year qualification at a time when it was not required by law. What did they lose? First, they lost a year's increment on the scale. They received the teacher's allowance from the Ministry while they were doing their training, and I suppose that one made up for the other, but to me as a business man it seems that they lost something which, however intangible, was valuable. They lost being in the swim of the profession for that year. They lost their chance of going for another post which might possibly have led to a higher position. They lost the general awareness of being in touch with their profession and teaching objectively for that year.

They then went back to their profession, with the possibility of greater reward at a later stage. Assimilation or no assimilation, I believe that they should get some extra reward somewhere along the line, and I think that the maximum is the right place to do it. When a man has reached an age which coincides with his being on the maximum, it is very good for the profession that he should receive another increase or two because of the year that he gave up 8 or 10 years previously. I recently talked to a young man who was doing this, and I should like to feel that in 10 or 12 years he may still have this extra increment to come because of what he did in 1963.

There is one final argument which I do not think can be controverted, and which I ask my right hon. Friend to consider. I shall not go over what was said about my right hon. Friend's acceptance of assimilation. If I have understood the matter aright—and I ought to because I have given it some thought—the 90,000 teachers to be assimilated will all be on the maximum of the scale. It therefore seems to me that it would be proper to accept the Amendment so that the present state of assimilation which is applicable to those at the top of the scale could also, side by side with it, come into force with the extra increments for those who have done their three-year training either through a university or through going back for the extra year. Those two things live together. They are both taking place at the maximum of the scale, and if my right hon. Friend has not addressed his mind to that point, I ask him to do so now.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

The case for the Amendment has been so well argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short), my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) and the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) that I do not intend to go over the quite irresistible arguments in logic that they have addressed to the right hon. Gentleman.

On the last Amendment he told the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) that he hoped the hon. Member would be pleased with the manner of his reply. I doubt very much whether the hon. Member for Burton felt very assured by his limited account of what would happen. Had I been a supporter of the right hon. Gentleman and he had made the remark to me, and then, in the course of his speech, he had not been quite clear whether I was an hon. Friend or an hon. Gentleman, I should have had grave doubts about the matter.

I have no doubt that that is why the hon. Member for Burton is not here at the moment. He is still trying to sort himself out, and to discover whether, in the esteem of the right hon. Gentleman, he is an hon. Friend or a mere hon. Member.

Dr. King

Perhaps my right hon. Friend would like to know that the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) was not in any doubt about the Minister's reply. He voted with the Opposition, for the Amendment.

Mr. Ede

That is an adequate punishment for the Minister. I am glad to hear it.

What appals me about the whole Bill is the way in which the right hon. Gentleman seems to regard the present state of the education service as something that is likely to go on for a considerable time. As one who has given the whole of his life to the education service—first as teacher, then as administrator and afterwards as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board and to the Ministry—I am appalled at the feeling that now exists in the service, and I believe that the remarks made during the course of the last Amendment should be borne in mind. We should try to reach a position where young people of ability and advanced education can feel that they are going into a service in which these miserable, petty disputes have come to an end.

I do not know how much the Amendment will cost. My hon. Friend seemed to think that in money terms it would not cost very much. But if it is not accepted, and the Minister constructs the new scales—because we have nothing to do with them; he will do the lot, and we shall be told in the end what he has decided—according to the kind of petty considerations which have been used to support his attitude up to now, we shall not see the education service get back to the position in which it was when people felt proud to belong to a profession in which there was a partnership between the Board or the Ministry, local authorities and the practitioners in the schools.

All that we do here, and all that local authorities do, must depend upon the spirit of the people in the classroom if it is to be successful. If we perpetuate the ill-feeling that now exists, owing to the fact that well-established principles in connection with the remuneration of teachers are in jeopardy, relationships in the classroom will not be improved. I deplore more than I can put into words the continuance of this belief that the civil war which now exists inside the service will continue, and that the Minister accepts that position.

I urge on the right hon. Gentleman to show by his action on Amendments such as this that he wishes to see this miserable feud brought to an end. He created it. It will peter out only if he shows himself to be large enough to be able to recognise the danger in which he has placed the education service, and takes small steps like this to remove the sense of grievance that undoubtedly exists among recruits into the profession who, in their early years, will find themselves immediately brought into this civil war.

The unity of our education service to that extent will be damaged, and these young people will be involved in a war that ought never to have broken out, and which certainly ought not to be made to last any longer than is necessary. That necessity will end when the Minister is prepared to recognise the depth of the feelings that his actions have aroused.

Sir E. Boyle

We are discussing the rather curious proposal of the Burnham Committee that total assimilation should be followed by a measure that one can only call de-assimilation. As I made clear in my initial letter on 20th February, and again during the Second Reading debate, this was a proposal that I could not accept even in principle quite apart from the money involved. I realise that a point of principle is involved here but this, to my mind, goes beyond the issues of judgment that we were discussing on the last Amendment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), whose speech I listened to with interest, raised a number of matters that he thought would anticipate the points that I might raise. I will attempt to deal with his arguments, but in making one or two of his points he reminded me of the Scottish teacher who looked the difficulties boldly in the face and passed on. In the latter stages of his speech he seemed to be saying that because assimilation and protection were both matters that could be attended to on the maximum of the scale they must therefore be reconcilable, one with the other. But this technical issue raises very great difficulties, even from the point of view of the Burnham Committee's own strategy.

Mr. Cole

My right hon. Friend is not giving the point quite the emphasis that I gave it. His proposals for assimilation at the moment refer only to the maximum of the scale. Therefore, this proposal, which also applies to the maximum, coincides.

Sir E. Boyle

That is exactly the point that I thought my hon. Friend had in mind—that because my proposals for assimilation would refer to the maximum there would be no difficulty in reconciling them with the proposals for protection that we are discussing.

I noted with interest that in the Second Reading debate the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), in her admirable winding-up speech, while castigating me in respect of other points on which I disagreed with the Burnham Committee—and I apologise to her for speaking in her absence—went to the length of saying that she thought that this protective device was the most questionable of the Burnham Committee's proposals.

This is a somewhat technical matter. The purpose of the Amendment is to require the Minister to provide, in any order under the Bill, for the payment, on a personal basis, of additional increments beyond the new maximum to existing teachers with three or more years' training. The story is this: under the existing Burnham Reports, teachers—and the word is interpreted in its widest sense, to include assistant lecturers in establishments for further education—who had taken three or more years' study or training, when the minimum training period was two years, receive one training increment for each such year beyond the minimum two. These training increments enable them, when they enter the teaching profession and throughout the whole of the incremental part of the basic scale, to have the same basic scale salary as their contemporaries in training who left after only two years.

But the training increments also continue beyond the maximum, and thus give the teachers with three or more years' training a salary lead at maximum over their two-year trained contemporaries. It has always been understood that this salary lead at maximum not only rewarded the teacher with the additional training but also compensated him for his loss of salary during the one or more years of additional training, and for the loss of those years as contributory service towards his pension.

6.0 p.m.

I think it fair to say that in the past the reason for this training increment, from the pension and superannuation aspect, has been at least as important in the minds of people as other aspects. Now that the normal minimum training period has been raised from two years to three years, the process of assimilation on the maximum—the point on which we are all agreed, that it should be at least the maximum—Will be bringing the existing two-year trained teachers up to the same salary maximum as the three-year trained teachers.

To put it in another way, the three-year trained teachers will be losing the lead at the maximum which they have hitherto enjoyed, and it was this state of affairs which led the Burnham Committee to propose this measure of de-assimilation and to recommend the restoration of that lead by giving them, on a personal basis, an additional increment to the new minimum.

I cannot agree with this principle. If we are agreed that it is right for the former two-year trained teachers now to be paid the same at the maximum as those with three years training, I cannot accept—I ask the Committee also to reject it—that simultaneously we should protect the three-year trained teacher—

Mr. Short

The formerly trained teachers.

Sir E. Boyle

—yesthe formerly trained teachers—from having the two-year trained teachers brought up level with them. After all, those former three-year trained teachers lose nothing, neither their salary nor their pension.

Dr. King

They do in relevance.

Sir E. Boyle

I agree and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman who, as always, has raised so clearly just the point of debate and judgment on which the Committee has to decide.

Neither their salary nor their pension will be absolutely less in any way than they had been led to expect. I cannot agree that the principle of protection is right simply because the relevant position has altered. To say otherwise is directly to say that we cannot have assimilation without immediately bringing in this measure of de-assimilation which seems to me unjustified.

Mr. Short

The Minister is basing his whole case on the relative position.

Sir E. Boyle

I have always said that I think it absolutely right that the proportionate share of the salary bill taken on the worth of longer training and higher qualifications for posts of responsibility should be maintained or improved. But it is not right to do that in this way. Cancelling the effect of assimilation is not the right way in which to do it.

Mr. Cole

I wish to put a question to the Minister to which I am sure the answer is "Yes" or "No". Can he assure the Committee that if the Bill becomes law, any of the former three-year trained teachers, from whatever source they may come, will have the same maximum as the two-year people on the maximum? Can he assure us that the former three-year trained teachers will lose nothing in pension or salary rights?

Sir E. Boyle

My hon. Friend is not asking about the relevant question but about the absolute position and my answer is that they lose nothing. Neither salary nor pension will be less in any way than they had been led to expect.

Dr. King

But the Minister will admit that they are losing when a comparison is made with the Burnham Committee proposals?

Sir E. Boyle

That is not the question which I was asked. My hon. Friend asked whether they would lose, not relatively, but in absolute terms.

Mr. Cole

Will my right hon. Friend abandon this rather equivocal phrase "than they were led to expect"? They would have exactly the same as the two-year trained teacher?

Sir E. Boyle

The answer is they lose nothing—full stop. In absolute terms. I am trying to be as accurate as I can.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) raised the point of relativity. The relativity has altered. The hon. Member for Itchen raised the question of the position vis-àvis the Burnham Committee proposals. I accept that not having protection will affect some people adversely compared with the Burnham proposals. But my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South asked the straightforward question: will they lose anything? The answer is that they lose nothing.

I wish to deal with the question of the "breach of faith". The Association of Assistant Masters produced a pamphlet which I have read. Incidentally, the Association supports the Bill in principle, and says that the sooner it becomes law the better. But the Association considers that there is a moral commitment to those existing teachers who took three or more years over training when only two years were required.

I believe that the deliberate decision to assimilate the two-year trained teachers to the three-year trained teachers' scale completely changes the situation and renders irrelevant any such commitment as previously existed with the two-year scale. There is a reference by the Association to teachers who make sacrifices in order to improve their academic and professional qualifications, and the same point was made by the hon. Member for Itchen.

I accept that this has considerable relevance in relation to a small minority of the teachers concerned who stayed on at college for three years with a student grant when they could have started earning. But many other college-trained teachers took their three years by returning to training after some years of teaching experience and on a secondment on full pay from the authorities. There is the further point that over two-thirds of all the teachers concerned in this Amendment were graduates and I think that to make too much of the point that it was a sacrifice to stay for a third year at a university when two years gained no qualifications whatever is perhaps pitching the claim too strongly.

Dr. King

It is a three-year degree course and one is comparing the question of three years and four years. If I can help the Minister, it is when students like myself were living at university on £80 a year.

Sir E. Boyle

I accept the hon. Member's point regarding the difference between the three-year and the four-year teachers. I put them in the first category I mentioned, and I think that this does not apply to all the teachers to which the circular refers.

I cannot help feeling that this proposal was wrong in principle. While I have made clear my position on the issue of differentials I think this the wrong way to do it, for the reasons which I set out in my letter, and which I mentioned during the Second Reading and repeated again this afternoon. I do not wish to leave the Committee in any doubt about it. I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment on the ground that it is wrong in principle and does not square as I believe at all satisfactorily with the argument used during the discussions on an earlier Amendment.

Mr. Willey

The Minister has referred to a curious proposal. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman something which I consider rather curious. So far today no one has said a word in his favour except his Parliamentary Secretary. It is curious that no one has supported the right hon. Gentleman in what he has said in opposing this Amendment.

The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) invited us to get into the mind of the Minister. I have been trying to do that and I have come to a curious conclusion. I think that the post which the right hon. Gentleman holds should be held only by a married person. I say that for the very good reason that if we are dealing with people we do not settle things purely on the grounds of logic. If we live in a family we get used to understanding why people say things and take different actions, and in that small community we try to reach reconciliations.

We have developed in this country, and we are proud of it, a voluntary system of negotiation which depends upon many illogical reconciliations. What distressed me about the right hon. Gentleman was when he said, "I cannot agree with this proposal". That is not the issue at all. He has got himself into awful trouble by taking this attitude. The issue was; in what context and what circumstances had the Burnham Committee come to an agreement? The right hon. Gentleman is an absolute dictator. He is taking the view that he can disregard the whole of the history of the Burnham negotiations and himself take a totalitarian decision. Of course, he can take a decision which is logical and divorced from reality. That is what he is doing in this case.

The right hon. Gentleman has a choice here, because he could accept this Amendment without being unable to take the other action he wants to take. He could accept the Amendment without it costing the Treasury any significant sum. The right hon. Gentleman is saying, "I do not agree". This is the real issue in this dispute between him and Burnham. I should like him to have a word with his diligent Parliamentary Private Secretary, who is very well-versed about the shipbuilding industry. There are many difficulties there about demarcations and relativities. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman could logically sweep them all away—and the shipyards would never work again. We know the difficulties and the Parliamentary Private Secretary knows them. We know the patient way in which we have to endeavour to solve them. The same is happening here.

I ask the Minister to pay attention to what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said. By resisting this Amendment, the Minister is making certain that there will be acrimony within the teaching profession. I put to him three broad considerations. I am sure that he agrees that one of the things we have to consider about teaching as a profession is the provision of incentives within the profession for people, not only to seek additional responsibility, but additional qualification. The right hon. Gentleman is not helping us. This will not encourage the approach within the profession. It is a very difficult problem, but something which ought to have his attention, and no doubt it has. I should like him to bear it in mind while he is considering the present Amendment.

The second broad point is this. My hon. Friends have said—and we have repeatedly come back to this argument—that if we are trying to attract people to the profession we have to treat those already in the profession with justice. What the right hon. Gentleman is saying, even if he is to be logical, is the most curious of arguments. It is that there is some principle in this, but it affects only a very small minority of people in the profession. That is all the more reason for meeting it. He should know from experience, if he discussed these matters more with people who have taken part in the negotiations over the past years or in any other negotiations, that very often it is because of the limitation of the area of dispute that the dispute is so aggravated.

Finally, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to recognise that his is not an honest argument. He does not get out of it by saying, "I was not a party to the negotiations. I have no responsibilities. I can take de novo a completely fresh decision which will be logical and which will stand on its own". He is displacing, in part, the Burnham negotiations. People who sat round the table to discuss negotiations had to be honourable to undertakings which they themselves had previously given. I say with respect to the right hon. Gentleman that it is quite dishonest—I am sure that he will appreciate it if he looks at it—to say, "I am replacing this and accepting personal responsibility for a decision in this case. I disregard these obligations which the negotiators had until I intervened". He cannot disregard in such a cavalier way the obligations which have been built up previously in these negotiations.

This is very largely morally, if not legally, a breach of contract. It is a breach of contract given personally to people in the past and properly not concerned with the logic but concerned with the inherent sense of justice within the negotiations. The Burnham Committee had to agree with this.

6.15 p.m.

Sir E. Boyle

Is the hon. Member saying that because some of the partners to the Burnham negotiations were, as it were, mandated by their own people to press for a certain provision and able to persuade the Burnham Committee to agree to that provision, to that extent I am acting dishonestly—call it what you like, wrongly—in using my responsibilities under Section 89 of the Act?

Mr. Willey

I shall put it again simply. I am saying that the right hon. Gentleman says, "I am replacing the Burnham Agreement. Therefore, I have to satisfy my conscience that what I am doing is fair and equitable", and disregarding the obligations which were built into the negotiations when they were conducted on the Burnham Committee. That is a dishonest thing to do. The right hon. Gentleman is amending the Burnham Committee's award. He is not establishing an entirely new structure for teachers, but amending the Burnham award. The least he should do, particularly as the cost is so minimal and it would not prevent him doing the other things he wants to do, would be to respect the honourable obligations which governed those who sat round the table.

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has done that. I hope that on this Amendment, which in no circumstances prevents him from doing the other things he wants to do, he will respect the obligations which the negotiators of the Burnham Committee had. I hope, particularly in the light of what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields said, that he will accept the Amendment. This may be illogical and may not square with what he proposes to do about assimilation, but it is something which honourable men felt they were bound to do. If he wants to establish good relations in his discussions with them about negotiating machinery for teachers, the least he should do would be to show respect for the obligations they felt they had incurred in previous Burnham negotiations.

Sir James Pitman (Bath)

I am very glad that the Minister has made it so absolutely clear that there is no absolute injustice in this and no absolute change in the rate of remuneration, because this has been something on which there has been very wide and general misunderstanding.

At the Easter Conference of the National Union of Teachers, at Margate, I was informed by someone who ought to have known better that there was an absolute reduction in salary. I said to him, "I think that it is quite impossible that any Government should suggest a reduction in salary for anyone." He assured me that it was so and I said that I would go back to London and find out whether it were so. He then talked to some other people and came back and told me that I reminded him of the man who saw a giraffe in the street and said, "There ain't such an animal". There is a complete misunderstanding on this question of absolute rates.

The issue is very largely a question of relative rates and the relativity before and afterwards. It seems that a great deal of it turns on the question of pension. It may be the correct way of doing this, though it may indeed be oversimplifying the situation, to say that we should handle it at the pension level by some adjustment, making thirty-nine seventy-eighths correspond with forty eightieths on the ground that the teacher who stays in training has a shorter service and thereby has one year less relatively in service in relation to another teacher.

I urge the Minister to consider, when he gets this Bill out of the way and can consider any future legislation, the question of pensions and to put this relativity right in the place in which it is relevant to put it.

Mr. Ede

I apologise for speaking again, but I cannot accept the doctrine that if an absolute injustice is avoided we ought to be satisfied. I cannot understand that line of argument at all.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will listen to the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), because I regard with the utmost apprehension the effect on the recruitment of young people into the teaching profession, where they have contacts with the rising generation and who, by their own mental attitude, often determine the effect of their teaching on the young, if there exists the feeling there is at the moment between the Minister of Education and those engaged in the class-rooms in the day to day work of education.

I said in a previous debate that when I was a young man teaching in a school the local education authority reduced by £5 the maximum of the scale along which I was slowly travelling towards the magnificent maximum of £130 a year, although, of course, £130 a year, before

the First World War, was worth a great deal more than it is today.

In those days, when we were negotiating salaries with one or other of the 317 local education authorities who then controlled the local administration of education, we were armed with a small book which was issued by the National Union of Teachers. It showed the salary scale paid by each of those 317 local education authorities—the minimum salary, the increments and the maximum salary—to any teacher who drew that scale of salary for forty-four years. That was then reckoned to be the normal teaching life of the teacher, starting at the age of 21 on leaving college and going on to 65, the retiring age under the Superannuation Acts.

That document no longer exists. The creation of the Burnham Committee wiped out the necessity for it and, of course, reduced the competition between one local education authority and another, by introducing a fancy arrangement which would enable a rather better show to be made.

The right hon. Gentleman must believe that young people still look at the whole of the service, or, at least, if they do not their parents do when recommending to them whether they should accept the service. To put people into the position at the beginning of their service that they regard themselves as labouring under an injustice which has been inflicted upon them by authority is not to make for good work in the schools and particularly in the classrooms.

Question put, That those words be there inserted:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 178, Noes 222.

Division No. 136.] AYES [6.24 p.m.
Abse, Leo Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) Edwards, At. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Ainsley, William Carmichael, Neil Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Castle, Mrs, Barbara Evans, Albert
Bacon, Miss Alice Cliffe, Michael Fernyhough, E.
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.) Collick, Percy Finch, Harold
Bence, Cyril Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) Fitch, Alan
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton) Crossman, R. H. S. Fletcher, Eric
Benson, Sir George Cullen, Mrs. Alice Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Blackburn, F. Dalyell, Tam Forman, J. C.
Boardman, H. Davies G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G. Davies, Harold (Leek) George,LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics,S.W.) Davies, Ifor (Gower) Ginsburg, David
Bowles, Frank Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Gourlay, Harry
Boyden. James Deer, George Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Braddock, Mrs. E, M. Dempsey, James Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
Bray, Dr. Jeremy Diamond, John Gunter, Ray
Brockway, A. Fenner Donnelly, Desmond Hale, Lesile (Oldham, W.)
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) Duffy, E. A. P. Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Brown, Thomas (Ince) Ede, Rt. Hon. C. Hannan, William
Harper, Joseph McInnes, James Short, Edward
Hart, Mrs. Judith McKay, John (Wallsend) Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Hayman, F. H. McLeavy, Frank Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Healey, Denis Mallalieu, J.P.W, (Huddersfield,E.) Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Henderson, Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis) Manuel, Archie Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
Herbison, Miss Margaret Mapp, Charles Small, William
Hill, J. (Midlothian) Marsh, Richard Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Hilton, A. V. Mellish, R. J. Sorensen, R. W.
Holman, Percy Mendelson, J. J, Soskice, Rt. Hon, Sir Frank
Hooson, H. E. Millan, Bruce Spriggs, Leslie
Houghton, Douglas Milne, Edward Steele, Thomas
Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr) Mitchison, G. R. Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Howell, Denis (Small Heath) Monslow, Walter Stonehouse, John
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey) Moody, A. S. Stones, William
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) Morris, John Strachey, Rt. Hon. John
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.) Moyle, Arthur Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)
Hunter, A. E. Neal, Harold Swain, Thomas
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) Symonds, J. B.
Irving, Sydney (Dartford) Oliver, G. H. Taverne, D.
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas O'Mailey, B. K. Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Jeger, George Oswald, Thomas Thornton, Ernest
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) Owen, Will Thorpe, Jeremy
Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield) Padley, W. E. Timmons John
Jones, Dan (Burnley) Paget, R. T. Wade, Donald
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.) Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) Wainwright, Edwin
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) Parker, John Warbey, William
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) Paton, John Watkins, Tudor
Kelley, Richard Pavitt, Laurence Weitzman, David
Kenyon, Clifford Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd) White, Mrs. Eirene
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. Peart, Frederick Whitlock, William
King, Dr. Horace Pentland, Norman Wilkins, W. A.
Lawson, George Prentice, R. E. Willey, Frederick
Ledger, Ron Probert, Arthur Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Lee, Frederick (Newton) Pursey, Cmdr. Harry Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick) Roberts, Albert (Normanton) Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) Winterbottom, R. E.
Loughlin, Charles Robertson, John (Paisley) Woof, Robert
Lubbock, Eric Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton) Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.) Zilliacus, K.
McBride, N. Ross, William TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
MacCoil, James Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E. Mr. Redhead and Dr. Broughton
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter Cordle, John Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Allason, James Corfield, F. V. Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Ashton, Sir Hubert Courtney, Cdr. Anthony Harris, Reader(Heston)
Atkins, Humphrey Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne) Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham) Crawley,Aidan Hastings, Stephen
Barber, Anthony Critchley, Julian Hay, John
Barlow, Sir John Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Barter, John Cunningham, Knox Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Batsford, Brian Curran, Charles Hendry, Forbes
Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate) Dalkeith, Earl of Hiley, Joseph
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Bell, Ronald Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F. Hocking, Philip N.
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay) Digby, Simon Wingfield Holland, Philip
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) Doughty, Charles Hollingworth, John
Bidgood, John C. du Cann. Edward Hopkins, Alan
Biffen, John Duncan, Sir James Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Biggs-Davison, John Eden, Sir John Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John
Bingham, R. M. Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) Hughes-Young, Michael
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel Elliott,R,W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne,N.) Hutchison, Michael Clark
Bishop, F. P. Emery, Peter Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Black, Sir Cyril Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn James, David
Bourne-Arton, A. Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J. Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Farey-Jones, F. W. Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter Farr, John Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith
Brown, Alan (Tottenham) Finlay, Graeme Kaberry, Sir Donald
Browne, Percy (Torrington) Fisher, Nigel Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Buck, Antony Fletcher-Cooke, Charles Kerby, Capt. Henry
Bullard, Denys Forrest, George Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Bullus, Wing Commander Eric Foster, John Kershaw, Anthony
Butcher, Sir Herbert Gammans, Lady Kirk, Peter
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) Gardner, Edward Lagden, Godfrey
Carr, Compton (Barons Court) George, Sir John (Pollok) Lambton, Viscount
Carr, Robert (Mitcham) Gibson-Watt, David Langford-Holt, Sir John
Cary, Sir Robert Glover, Sir Douglas Leather, Sir Edwin
Chataway, Christopher Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) Leavey, J. A.
Chichestor-Clark, R, Godber, J. B. Leburn, Gilmour
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) Goodhart, Philip Lilley, F. J. P.
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) Gower, Raymond Loveys, Walter H.
Cleaver, Leonard Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill Hall, John (Wycombe) McAdden, Sir Stephen
MacArthur, Ian Pike, Miss Mervyn Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)
Maclay, Rt, Hon. John Pilkington, Sir Richard Teeling, Sir William
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.) Pitman, Sir James Temple, John M.
MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty) Pitt, Dame Edith Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
McMaster, Stanley R. Pott, Percivall Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax) Prior, J. M. L. Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Macpherson, Rt.Hn.Niall(Dumfries) Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)
Maddan, Martin Proudfoot, Wilfred Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, s.)
Maginnis, John E. Pym, Francis Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter
Maitland, Sir John Quennell, Miss J. M. Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Marshall, Douglas Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Mathew, Robert (Honiton) Rees, Hugh Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald Renton, Rt. Hon. David Turner, Colin
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. Ridley, Hon. Nicholas Tweedsmuir, Lady
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. Ridsdale, Julian van Straubenzee, W. R.
Mills, Stratton Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) Vane, W. M. F.
Miscampbell, Norman Roots, William Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr) Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard Vickers, Miss Joan
More, Jasper (Ludlow) Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey) Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Morrison, John Russell, Ronald Walker, Peter
Nabarro, Sir Gerald St. Clair, M. Wall, Patrick
Neave, Airey Scott-Hopkins, James Ward, Dame Irene
Nicholls, Sir Harmar Sharples, Richard Webster, David
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey Shaw, M. Wells, John (Maidstone)
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick) Whitelaw, William
Orr, Capt. L P. S. Spearman, Sir Alexander Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Osborn, John (Hallam) Speir, Rupert Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Page, Graham (Crosby) Stodart, J. A. Wise, A. R.
Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Partridge, E. Storey, Sir Samuel Woollam, John
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe) Studholme, Sir Henry Worsley, Marcus
Peel,John Summers, Sir Spencer
Percival, Ian Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side) Mr. McLaren and Mr. Ian Fraser.
Mr. Boyden

I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, at the end to insert: Provided that provision shall be made for the increase of the Special Schools Allowance. This Amendment is in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington).

When we were discussing this at the last meeting of the Standing Committee, I thought that the right hon. Gentleman gave us some slight encouragement, but possibly it was more to the form than to the substance. Perhaps I may refer him to page 127 of the Official Report of the Committee, where it is reported that he said: My difficulty is that in its proposals the Burnham Committee said nothing specific about those schools. However, I do not say this morning that during the term of the operation of the Bill I shall never bring in any proposals that affect the special schools. I am at present looking at a number of matters that affect teachers in those schools—and I entirely agree with the hon. Member about the importance of such teachers."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, I6th May, 1963; c. 1267.] I hope that, having conceded nothing so far, the Minister will take this occasion to concede the case for special allowances to teachers in special schools. Although the Burnham Committee had not agreed on any specific recommendation, the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that the National Union of Teachers was pressing very hard for special consideration to be given to teachers in special schools.

There are several ways in which this could be dealt with. One proposition is that all teachers should be given a graded post. Alternatively, the weighting for handicapped children could be increased and, as a result, there could be more posts of special responsibility. We do not say in the Amendment which special measures should be taken, but we say that it is a matter of urgency in which an important sector of the career prospects of teaching can be improved—which is very much after the Minister's heart. It can be done at relatively small cost in a very important sector of education.

The problem of finding enough qualified teachers to take the special training is very acute. The problem of children awaiting admission is very acute—and the children who await admission to special schools partly do so because there are not enough schools available but, much more important, also do so because there are not enough teachers qualified and trained to handle this category of pupils. The figures which the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to give me in an Answer on 22nd May show that on 20th January, 1963, there were roughly 300 blind or partially sighted children awaiting admission to special schools, about 200 deaf or partially deaf, 600 physically handicapped, 900 delicate children, 900 maladjusted children and 10,000 educationally sub-normal children, in addition to a few epileptic children and children suffering from speech defects.

The total is 13,000 children awaiting places. Even if we deduct the number of children whose parents object to their going to special schools or children who are under school age, we still have the considerable figure of about 10,000.

It follows from this situation that the right hon. Gentleman ought to take any steps he can to increase the flow of trained teachers and to give them adequate reward for taking on an onerous task and a fairly onerous training. In his interest in the career structure of the profession, this is one small field involving relatively minor cost in which he could do some-think to assist immediately.

I quote, for example, from an article in The Times Educational Supplement of 17th May on "Education for the Handicapped", which said: The work of special schools is still developing. Their possibilities have not yet been fully realised. At a stage when this field of education is developing, it is highly important that the maximum encouragement should be given to the maximum number of teachers to come forward and to train for it.

The article continues: From a professional point of view a teacher can hardly be given a more challenging or absorbing task than to work out what, how and, above all, why these children should be taught. He will be unhampered by a legacy of secondhand ideas because he will be breaking new ground. He will be free from the pressures of external examinations. He may even be free from predetermined timetables and schemes of work. The point is that there is great scope for experiment and, with that, there is very great scope for proper training and the maximum amount of it. I refer now to the fear of the teachers in this field that not enough is being done and that the Minister's adoption of a new attitude on scales will have a damaging effect on recruitment to this special work. At the moment, with the new contemplated scales only two-year trained teachers will be available for the extra course. If two-year trained teachers take the course they will be under the financial disability which we have already discussed on previous Amendments. Therefore, it is necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to address himself to this problem.

The chairman of the Guild of Teachers of Backward Children, Mr. S. Segal, made some quite strong and valuable suggestions at Leicester recently for training courses and provision for remedying the poor situation which exists with regard to the number of teachers who are qualified. The Guild proposes a National College for Special Education which could provide a combination of correspondence and short courses in co-operation with universities, training colleges and local education authorities. This is a thing which the Parliamentary Secretary has heard from me on more than one occasion, that we should use all the methods we can to get training in special fields. I interrupted the right hon. Gentleman to say that I thought that the number of supplementary courses has been reduced. If he examines the matter, he will find that this is so. The actual amount of training being provided is doing no more than holding its own.

On the three scores—first, that the problem is acute; secondly, that there is now a disincentive for teachers to go into this field; and, thirdly, that there is great need to multiply the training, to improve it and to reward it on the lines of the suggestion in the Amendment—I urge the right hon. Gentleman to take action now. He has taken arbitrary powers unto himself. He has an opportunity to deal with this problem. I strongly urge him to do so now.

Mr. Sydney Irving (Dartford)

I want briefly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden). I have a particular interest in special schools and have had the privilege for some years of serving on the Minister of Education's Advisory Committee in this connection. I want to acknowledge at once the very great progress which has been made since the war in providing special educational treatment for fairly substantial numbers of the less fortunate of our child population. I believe that some of the most interesting and stimulating work in the whole education service is being done in these schools.

As my hon. Friend said, anyone who is knowledgeable in this work knows only too well that we need large numbers of specially trained and specially qualified people if this work is to succeed and, indeed, to expand. It is, however, accepted not only that these are necessary, but that ideally it is particularly important that teachers should not teach in certain types of special schools unless they are, first, mature individuals and, secondly, are experienced as teachers, experienced not only with backward children and with handicapped children of all sorts but with normal children. This makes the problem of recruiting suitable teachers very difficult indeed.

I happen to be the chairman of the governing bodies of a number of different types of school, ranging from a grammar school through to a special residential school for educationally subnormal children. My experience is that, although there are tremendous difficulties in recruiting teachers foe every type of school, by far the greatest problems arise in recruiting really suitable teachers for special schools. I do not believe that to accept the Amendment would at one blow sweep away all the problems which face us here, but I am convinced that it would make its contribution to getting the right type of teachers and, at the same time, it would be a recognition of the splendid work which is being done by so many teachers in these schools at the moment.

I therefore sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to accept the Amendment.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Chataway

I well remember the pleas which were made in Standing Committee by a number of hon. Gentlemen for those who teach in special schools. I hope that the announcement that I am able to make on behalf of my right hon. Friend will be felt by hon. Members opposite to go a long way towards meeting the Amendment.

My right hon. Friend indicated in Standing Committee that he was examining a number of matters affecting teachers in special schools and special classes. He drew attention to the fact that there was no recommendation from the Burnham Committee in its proposals for any increases in the allowances payable to these teachers.

My right hon. Friend has taken the line that it would not be right for him to make any important structural changes in allowances on his own initiative under the powers proposed in the Bill. However, in view of the increases in the other kinds of responsibility allowances which my right hon. Friend is proposing, and in view of the representations made by hon. Members, he would for his part be prepared to increase the allowance which is payable to all teachers employed in special schools and to many of those teaching in special classes in ordinary schools.

The proposal is that that allowance, which at present stands at £70, should be increased to £80. The cost of that proposal would be in the region of £70,000 a year.

I am very glad to be able to make this announcement because I agree with a very great deal of what has been said by the hon. Members for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) and Dartford (Mr. Sydney Irving). I had the good fortune to attend the conference of the Guild of Teachers of Backward Children at Leicester this year and to discuss a number of the ideas that the hon. Gentleman mentioned with the chairman, Mr. Segal. For my part, I believe that the special schools make some of the strongest demands in sheer professional expertise on the teachers who work there. I therefore hope that there will be general agreement in the Committee that it is right that we should make this increase.

The Amendment in the form in which it is tabled is open to objection for lack of precision, since there is no single "special schools allowance" recognised in law to be increased. I therefore hope that the hon. Members will consider withdrawing the Amendment, in the light of the announcement that I have been able to make.

Mrs. White

We are gratified that for the very first time we have had a slight concession from the Government. The concession is one of the smallest that they could possibly have made, a matter of £10. It seems to me that, in relation to the problem concerned, if the Minister was to make this gesture for a relatively small number of teachers he might have been rather more generous. I do not like to look a gift horse in the mouth, but £10 a year—

Mr. Chataway

A total of £70,000 a year—it depends on the way you look at it

Mrs. White

I am looking at it as it appears to the individual teacher. The sum of £10 is rather derisory. Had the amount been increased from £70 to £100 I would have said, "All right, we shall accept that with grace and gratitude", but £10 is a very small sum.

Let us consider the people whom we are discussing. They are teachers who are doing a difficult job. They are teaching handicapped children, including the educationally sub-normal, children with physical handicaps and others. Anyone who has had the slightest experience of dealing with children of this kind knows that there is no more arduous work than constantly paying attention to the idiosyncrasies of such children. These teachers are dealing with children with a multiplicity of handicaps and often a child does not suffer from one handicap but is affected in other directions.

The strain of looking after children of this sort, giving them the sort of individual training they need, is perhaps the greatest of all in the sphere of education. Generally speaking, children affected in this way are taught in small groups. Even so, the strain is considerable and the number of teachers who have had adequate training for this work is very small.

I confess that I was shocked to be reminded once more of the slight progress we have made in the training of teachers for handicapped children. I read with interest the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary recently at the conference of teachers of handicapped children. I have a galley proof of his speech with me. He paid a sincere tribute to them. I also read with interest the speech delivered by Mr. Segal who, as we all know, is a devoted officer of the Guild of Teachers of Backward Children, in which he reminded us that, in the Ministry's own calculations, no fewer than one child in ten in our schools may be regarded as in some sense sub-normal—not necessarily seriously so, but in some sense either backward or retarded.

Mr. Segal said: Since 1950, when the one-year supplementary and advanced courses were begun in this field—a grand total of 613 teachers has been trained, an average of not more than four for each L.E.A. He went on to point out that of that total …304 are in special schools, an average of two for each L.E.A. in ordinary schools. 66—more than 10 per cent. an average of less than one for each L.E.A.—are already out of the service". In other words, the size of the problem and the paucity of the supply of teachers should have encouraged the Government to have done something more generous. Mr. Segal went on to say that …based on the recommendations of the Ministry's own Advisory Committee…10,000 such specialist teachers… are required and that if all the children who require special education were placed in classes of 20 or fewer, it is suggested that we should need 35,000 specialist teachers.

I quote these figures because we must approach this problem in relation to the financial inducements which are given to get the teachers we urgently need. Financial inducements are not the primary or all important matter for people undertaking this work, for there must be a special interest and devotion on their part. After all, a person going into this sphere of education realises that he or she could do much less arduous work in another branch of the profession.

I have with me a copy of a letter writen by a well-known headmaster of a school for handicapped children in which he says: New scales have recently been issued for teachers in technical colleges and schools. Teachers in approved schools"— who also perform a difficult task— get separate consideration, but the teachers in special schools are the Cinderellas of the profession. Taking advantage of our sense of dedication, we have been neglected in every Burnham salary award since 1948. The constitution of Burnham is so framed that our claims never get proper consideration. The present anomalies are seriously affecting recruitment to our particular field of education as we do not accept newly trained and inexperienced teachers into our schools. We think, and rightly, you will agree, that teachers should have had five years experience of working with normal children before tackling the mare arduous and difficult task of teaching handicapped children. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree with those sentiments.

We have far too few specially trained teachers when the need for them is undoubted and when some compensation should be given to those who feel that they have not had fair treatment. I am willing to be fair about this, for this is not solely the responsibility of the Minister. For various reasons the teachers have felt that they have not had a fair deal from Burnham, either. The Minister has recognised the anomaly and since he is intervening, as we suggested in Standing Committee, it is a pity that he has made such a small concession to a deserving body of teachers.

It is a shame that he has intervened in such a niggardly way. To offer £10 a year—I will not use the word "insulting", which would be too harsh an expression—does not seem to be commensurate with what is needed. To add £10 to £70 and make the total £80 is an ungenerous gesture. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary must have felt that we would welcome this gesture with enthusiasm. However, I cannot find it in my heart to do so. Had he suggested the round figure of £100 I would have agreed. That, in the general scale of allowances and increments, would have bean more generous. The figure of £100 would have been warmly welcomed. However, we certainly welcome the gesture, although it is not adequate, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) will agree that it is not a sufficient tribute to those who are doing this hard and demanding work.

Dr. King

I do not wish to delay the Committee, except to point out that our present discussion is almost an interlude in the battle that we are fighting with the Government. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) on pressing the Amendment in Committee and on pursuing it today and I wish to thank the Minister for going some way along the road to recognising the claims of the special schools.

If there is a fault in the Burnham Committee it is that, over the years, it has not sufficiently recognised the arduous nature of the work done by teachers in special schools. Possibly the greatest advance we have made since the war in education has been in the treatment of sub-normal children. There was a time in the early days of this century when the young teacher was put in charge of the most difficult children and when members of the profession regarded the teacher of backward children almost as a backward teacher. We have left those days far behind. We are beginning the task of securing equal opportunities for the spastic, the epileptic, the mentally backward, the physically backward, and the rest, and in this sphere some of our greatest educational discoveries have been made during these last years.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Amendment, and I thank the Minister for, at any rate, accepting its spirit, even if he has not given very much money. As my hon. Friend has said, though the concession is small in amount it means that in the years ahead the case of the special school teacher will be recognised more and more by subsequent negotiating bodies.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Wainwright

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) on his Amendment, but has the Minister taken sufficient cognisance of the many circumstances surrounding these children and their teachers? A lot of patience and a wonderful temperament are needed to teach 30 or 40 normal children—I know, as the father of four children, that my own temper has been strained many times—so that, in any circumstances, teachers need a certain amount of dedication. How much more is that the case in order to teach mentally handicapped children, sub-normal children, spastic children?

I emphasise that we have accepted the responsibility to educate these children as far as is possible, which means that we must try to make certain that we attract to this special teaching sufficient people with the right kind of qualifications and the right temperament—teachers who are dedicating themselves to this form of education. If we are doing that, we are making a great contribution towards easing the most difficult lives of these children. I am not quite certain, however, that what the Minister suggests is enough for that purpose.

Several years ago I had to deal with the case of young parents who had a child of 7 or 8. The child was normal except that it had been completely deaf from birth, and the parents had been able to teach it only one little word. It was able to utter something that sounded like "mother". The parents had tried persistently to teach the child to say a few words, but that was as far as they had got. They had tried to get the child into a special home, and I was successful in getting it a place in a special school in Doncaster.

It is some years since I heard from the parents, but they were then highly delighted. Somehow or other, the teachers responsible had been able to teach that child to speak a few sentences. How they did it, I do not know. I have promised myself to go to one of these schools on some occasion to see their methods, but I do realise the amount of patience and tolerance which is required of these people is worthy of all praise.

We should be able to convince ourselves that we are doing sufficient to attract enough teachers into the special schools, so as to ensure that these children for whom we take responsibility get some education, even though the standard may be low when compared with that achieved by normal children. I do not think that this increase from £70 to £80 will attract the specialised teachers who are necessary for this work, and I hope that the Minister will reconsider his suggestion.

Mr. Boyden

This is the first concession that we have had on the Bill. It is a very small one, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will continue to look at this problem very seriously indeed, and that, on the basis of this extra £10, he will in future discuss the matter very carefully with those concerned. I hope that in the course of the other negotiations that will take place later he will be able to bring to the House something more attractive to these teachers. In that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Willey

I beg to move, in page 2, line 4, at the end to insert: (4) Every order made under this section in relation to any description of teachers shall include provision for securing that the remuneration payable to any teacher of that description in respect of any person to which the order applies is not less than it would have been if any scales of remuneration submitted to the Minister by order of section 89 of the Education Act 1944 had been approved by the Minister. I will speak briefly, for two reasons. First, it is rather more encouraging when the Parliamentary Secretary is in control, and I should like this Amendment to be discussed before the Minister of Education returns to the Chamber. Secondly, this matter has been discussed indirectly throughout our deliberations.

Hon. Members know the essential point in the argument about the right hon. Gentleman's quite unwarranted interference with the Burnham Committee, and I call in aid a letter I received some time ago from Sir Ronald Gould, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, which concludes: I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House would prefer to see teachers and local authorities acting in harmony with the Minister of Education rather than in conflict with him. If you share our concern, I would ask you to use your good offices to see that the Remuneration of Teachers Bill is amended so as to secure the implementation of the Burnham Committee's proposals or to permit a compromise whereby the Minister might provide that limited sum of extra money that would enable his views and the proposals of the Burnham Committee to be reconciled. That is the point we have reached.

We have tried genuinely and seriously, and as forcibly as we could, to persuade the Minister that he has been wrong to interfere with the negotiated settlement, and we have failed. We now take a step that we hope will have the support of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, by proposing that if we cannot reach any agreement on the Minister's interference we should seek a reconciliation. The only ground of reconciliation for us will cost the Government and the Exchequer not a very appreciable sum of money, but certainly something. We say that the only fair and equitable way, and the only diplomatic way, to preserve good relations is to say that if the right hon. Gentleman insists on his views he should add the cost of those views to the £21 million involved in the Burnham award.

I emphasise what the circumstances are. They are that the Burnham Committee obviously came to its agreement within a figure that was acceptable to the Government, the Treasury and the Ministry—£21 million. I do not want to go over this disputed territory again, but it is quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman had access to the Burnham Committee.

It is quite clear that this was the position obtaining alter Lord Eccles's disagreement with the Committee and, whatever misunderstandings there may have been about this, it is quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman could have conveyed forcibly, or less forcibly, his views to the Burnham Committee either directly or indirectly. In these circumstances we must recognise that the Burnham Committee, honestly and not without difficulty, came to its conclusion. Since then, the Minister has said that there are certain factors which he thinks ought to affect an award made to teachers at the moment. In short, he has said that there ought to be a steepening of differentials. As we have failed to convince the Minister that he ought to accept the Burnham award, we should tell him that he ought to accept both points of view.

We accept the view that the Burnham Committee, within limits imposed by the Government and negotiating within a global sum, honestly reached an agreement acceptable to both the local authorities and the teachers' representatives. The Minister believes that other objectives ought to be superimposed on those achieved in that negotiating machinery. If he believes it, let him pay for it. This is not a large sum of money. This is a late stage in our proceedings but if the right hon. Gentleman does this he will be taking the only possible path to secure a reconciliation in this unfortunate and unnecessary dispute between him and the teachers and the local authorities.

When we began our proceedings on the Bill I stressed to the right hon. Gentleman, and most of those who have taken part since in our discussions have re-emphasised it, the importance of recognising a partnership in education. This has not been disputed by the right hon. Gentleman. It is only his actions which have disputed it. I believe that British education depends upon the checks and balances which lie within this partnership. The only way in which the right hon. Gentleman can avoid seriously impairing this partnership today is by saying that he recognises the strength of the opposition to his action and that, however right he feels his action has been, it is action taken in complete isolation hardly without any support from either the teachers or the local authorities. I should have thought, therefore, that it was well worth while to seek this reconciliation and to re-establish the partnership upon which British education depends. It is in that spirit that I move the Amendment.

Dr. King

I wish that I could share the hope of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) that the Parliamentary Secretary will be more amenable to the arguments of the Opposition than the Minister. I am afraid that the pleasant interlude we have just had is over and that we are back to the cold war. Indeed, in this Amendment we are right back to the beginning and the end of the argument on Clause 1. The Minister accepts the global sum proposed by the Burnham Committee, but he wishes to do something extra for a highly selective band of teachers between the ages of 27 and 36 years, and he wants to give a tiny extra amount to those with extra responsibilities.

The Burnham Committee says that the bulk of the global sum should be used to increase the basic scale for all teachers and that the mass of the money should be devoted to a flat increase of £50 a year. Inside the global sum the Minister wishes to distribute the extra bonus by cutting down the basic initial salary and by taking money from young teachers to give to some other teachers. The teaching profession says that this is wrong.

7.15 p.m.

We are suggesting in the Amendment what was the Burnham Committee's first reaction to the Minister so long ago, since when so many things have happened. If the Minister is dead keen and makes it a great matter that he should give certain increases to certain teachers—although he has not done that in a sensible way even if it seemed sensible to him—and if he believes strongly in this, then let him pay for it out of the extra money which the Amendment asks him to provide. Above all, let him not do it at the expense of the young teacher. It is not an exaggeration to say that all the bitterness existing in the educational world would vanish overnight if the Amendment were accepted.

Earlier today the Minister tried to ride off and say that the group we were discussing, the graduates with an extra year's training, were not worse off because they were not getting less money under his settlement than they are receiving now, but the real criterion is whether any group is receiving less under the Minister's proposals than they were receiving under the Burnham proposals. If the Minister wants to raise the differentials further than the Burnham proposals, and if the Burnham Committee wants to raise basically one or two items in the teaching scale more than the Minister does, this seems to me to be the last chance of a compromise.

The compromise is to let them both have their way. Let the Minister concede that the Burnham Committee is right in saying that the teacher is underpaid when he enters the profession, and the Burnham Committee will gladly concede the Minister's stretching or increasing differentials and maintaining them at the present differential rates compared with the basic scale. Since the Minister has not moved on this matter for three months, I urge the Committee to take this last opportunity to persuade him to do it.

Mr. Chataway

The purpose of the Amendment is to secure that no teacher, whether in a primary or a secondary school, in an establishment for further education, or in a farm institute, shall receive less under an order made under the Bill than he would have received if my right hon. Friend had approved the proposals of the Burnham Committee under Section 89.

It is clear that this goes to the roots of the differences between us, but I find it rather hard to accept the word "compromise", which is used by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) as applied to this suggestion, because I have never understood that the teachers' associations were opposed to increases in differentials and I have certainly never understood that we were opposed to increases at the bottom of the scale.

In this situation, I do not think that it could be described as a compromise if we were to accept the recommendations of the Burnham Committee in so far as they affected those whose salaries otherwise would be less under the Minister's proposals and we were prepared to add another £7 million to £8 million over the two-year period or £3 million to £4 million over the one-year period to fulfil my right hon. Friend's objectives. It is clear that, to increase the salaries of some of those on the basic scale and to increase the differentials, my right hon. Friend has had to propose in his pay scales sums for certain teachers which are less than those proposed by the Burnham Committee.

We debated this subject in Standing Committee, although in a rather different form, and hon. Members argued then, as they have argued today, that the Government should be willing to increase the total cost of the settlement to meet their wishes without diminishing any of the other proposals of the Burnham Committee. I pointed out then, and I must point out again today, that the salary increase now proposed, representing almost 7 per cent. and coming only fifteen months after the last increase of over 14 per cent., was already generous and that the Government could not be expected to increase it in the way suggested.

Although my right hon. Friend has not been able to modify his position on these major issues of the basic scale, which are now well known, he has at all times said that he would be responsive to constructive suggestions which fall generally within the framework of the principles which he has enunciated from the start. He has received three such suggestions, one from hon. Members opposite and two from the Burnham Committee. The first, which concerns teachers in special schools or classes, has already been dealt with on the last Amendment.

The second constructive suggestion came from the Burnham Technical Committee and concerns the differentials between the scales for assistant lecturers, grade A, and assistant lecturers, grade B, in establishments of further education. This differential is at present £200 at all incremental points except at the maximum, where it is only £180. After considering the Committee's points, the Minister is ready to see the maximum increase by £20, so that the differential becomes uniformly one of £200 at all points; and he would suggest a similar change at the maximum of the grade B scale in farm institutes.

In passing, I should like to take the opportunity to make clear, in case it is not understood everywhere, that my right hon. Friend is ready to accept and embody in the appropriate order under the Bill the Burnham Technical Committee's proposal that a training addition should be allowed where a teacher has taken a course of teacher training at a technical teacher-training college. I hope that this will act as an incentive for more people to consider training before moving from industry into further education.

The third constructive suggestion came from the Burnham Farm Institutes Committee. My right hon. Friend is ready to meet its wishes and is willing to see introduced special responsibility allowances for certain assistant lecturers, grade B, similar to those already payable in further education.

I thought that the Committee would like to have these details and hope that they will be accepted as evidence that my right hon. Friend is ready to see his proposals modified and, if necessary, some marginal increases incurred in the total cost of these settlements where

they can be justified. It will be necessary to incorporate these changes in the orders amending the existing Reports, and, in preparing the necessary documents, I hope that the Department will have the benefit of advice and technical assistance from the other parties concerned.

I am unable to accept this Amendment. The Committee will appreciate that it is on a subject which has, I think, been very fully debated. To accept it, the Government would either have to abandon all the proposals which have been made for increases in differentials or add a further £7 million to £8 million over the two-year period. This we are unable to accept and, therefore, I must ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Willey

I am obliged to the Parliamentary Secretary for being reasonable on small matters. He should have been more reasonable on the larger issues. He has at last at this stage, the last stage of the Bill, seen reason on two or three minimal matters. The pity is, and it is a reflection on him, that he has not been reasonable on the broad issue which defines the dispute between the Minister and both sides of the Burnham Committee.

We would far rather that this dispute had been settled rather than aggravated. In view of this, it is with regret that I must ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to express their views on the Amendment in the Division Lobby.

Question put, That those words be there inserted:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 166, Noes 194.

Division No. 137.] AYES [7.26 p.m.
Abse, Leo Castle, Mrs. Barbara Evans, Albert
Ainsley, William Cliffe, Michael Fernyhough, E.
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) Collick, Percy Finch, Harold
Bacon, Miss Alice Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) Fitch, Alan
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.) Cronin, John Fletcher, Eric
Bence, Cyril Crossman, R. H. S. Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton) Cullen, Mrs. Alice Forman, J. C.
Blackburn, F. Dalyell, Tam Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Boardman, H. Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) George, LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn)
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G. Davies, Harold (Leek) Ginsburg, David
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W.(Leics, S.W.) Davies, Ifor (Gower) Gourlay, Harry
Boyden, James Davies, S. O. (Merthyr) Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M. Dempsey, James Griffiths, W. (Exchange)
Bray, Dr. Jeremy Diamond, John Gunter, Ray
Brockway, A, Fenner Dodds, Norman Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) Donnelly, Desmond Hamilton, William(West Fife)
Brown, Thomas (Ince) Duffy, A. E. P. Hannan, William
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) Ede, Rt. Hon. C. Harper, Joseph
Callaghan, James Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly) Hayman, F. H.
Carmichael, Neil Edwards, Walter (Stepney) Healey, Denis
Henderson, Rt.Hn. Arthur(RwlyRegis) McLeavy, Frank Silverman, Jullus (Aston)
Herbison, Miss Margaret Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield,E.) Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Hill, J. (Midlothian) Manuel, Archie Slater, Mrs, Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Hilton, A. V. Mapp, Charles Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
Holman, Percy Mendelson, J. J. Small, William
Hooson, H. E. Millan, Bruce Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Houghton, Douglas Milne, Edward Sorensen, R. W.
Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr) Mitchlson, G. R. Spriggs, Leslie
Howell, Denis (Small Heath) Monslow, Walter Steels, Thomas
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey Moody, A. S. Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) Morris, John Stonehouse, John
Hunter, A. E. Moyle, Arthur Stones, William
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) Neal, Harold Swain, Thomas
Janner, Sir Burnett Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) Symonds, J. B.
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas Noel-BakerRt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.) Taverne, D.
Jeger, George Oliver, G. H. Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) O'Malley, B. K. Timmons, John
Jones, Dan (Burnley) Oswald, Thomas Wade, Donald
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.) Owen, Will Wainwright, Edwin
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) Padley, W. E. Warbey, William
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) Paget, R. T. Watkins, Tudor
Kelley, Richard Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) Weitzman, David
Kenyon, Clifford Parker, John Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. Paton, John Whitlook, William
King, Dr. Horace Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd) Wilkins, W. A.
Lawson, George Peart, Frederick Willey, Frederick
Ledger, Ron Pentland, Norman Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Lee, Frederick (Newton) Prentice, R. E, Willis E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick) Probert, Arthur Winterbottom, R. E.
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) Pursey, Cmdr. Harry Woof, Robert
Loughlin, Charles Redhead, E. C. Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Lubbock, Eric Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) Zilliacus, K.
Mahon, Dr. J. Dickson Robertson, John (Paisley) TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
McBride, N. Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton) Mr. Sydney Irving and Mr. Grey.
MacColl, James Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)
McInnes, James Ross, William
McKay, John (Wallsend) Short, Edward
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter Digby, Simon Wingfield Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Altken, Sir William Doughty, Charles Kerby, Capt. Henry
Allason, James Duncan, Sir James Kirk, Peter
Ashton, Sir Hubert Eden, Sir John Lambton, Viscount
Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham) Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) Langford-Holt, Sir John
Barber, Anthony Emery, Peter Leather, Sir Edwin
Barlow, Sir John Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Leavey, J. A.
Barter, John Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J. Leburn, Gilmour
Bateford, Brian Farey-Jones, F. W. Lilley, F. J. P.
Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate) Fell, Anthony Lindsay, Sir Martin
Beamish, Col, Sir Tufton Finlay, Graeme Loveys, Walter H.
Bell, Ronald Fisher, Nigel Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) Fletcher-Cooke, Charles McAdden, Sir Stephen
Bidgood, John C. Foster, John MacArthur, Ian
Biffen, John Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) McLaren, Martin
Biggs-Davison, John Gardner, Edward Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Bingham, R. M. George, Sir John (Pollok) Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Bishop, F. P. Gibson-Watt, David McMaster, Stanley R.
Black, Sir Cyril Glover, Sir Douglas Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Bourne-Arton, A. Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham) Macpherson, Rt. Hn.Niall(Dumfries)
Brown, Alan (Tottenham) Goodhart, Philip Maddan, Martin
Browne, Percy (Torrington) Gower, Raymond Maginnis, John E.
Bryan, Paul Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. Maitland, sir John
Buck, Antony Hail, John (Wycombe) Marshall, Douglas
Bullard, Denys Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Bullus, Wing Commander Erie Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden) Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) Mawby, Ray
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) Hay, John Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Carr, Robert (Mitcham) Heald, Rt. Hon Sir Lionel Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Chataway, Christopher Hendry, Forbes Mills, Stratton
Chichester-Clark, R. Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk) Miscampbell, Norman
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) Hocking, Philip N. More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Cleaver, Leonard Holland, Philip Morrison, John
Cooke, Robert Hollingworth, John Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Cooper, A. E. Hughes Hallett, Vice Admiral John Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Cordle, John Hughes-Young, Michael Neave, Airey
Corfield, F. V. Hulbert, Sir Norman Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony Hutchison, Michael Clark Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne) Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Critchley, Julian James, David Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Cunningham, Knox Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich) Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Curran, Charles Johnson Smith, Geoffrey Page, Graham (Crosby)
Dalkeith, Earl of Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green) Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith Partridge, E.
Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F, Kaberry, Sir Donald Peel, John
Percival, Ian Shaw, M. Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth Shepherd, William Touohe, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Pike, Miss Mervyn Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick) Turner, Colin
Pilkington, Sir Richard Spearman, Sir Alexander Tweedsmuir, Lady
Pitt, Dame Edith Speir, Rupert van Straubenzee, W. R.
Pott, Percivall Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) Vane, W. M. F.
Price, David (Eastleigh) Stodart, J. A. Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Prior, J. M. L. Storey, Sir Samuel Walker, Peter
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho Studholme, Sir Henry Wall, Patrick
Proudfoot, Wilfred Summers, Sir Spencer Whitelaw, William
Pym, Francis Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Quennell, Miss J. M. Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.) Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin Taylor, Frank (M'oh'st'r, Moss Side) Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Renton, Rt. Hon. David Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.) Wise, A. R.
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas Teeling, Sir William Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Roberta, Sir Peter (Heeley) Temple, John M. Woollam, John
Roots, William Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret Worsley, Marcus
Ropner, Col Sir Leonard Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
St. Clair, M. Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton) TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Scott-Hopkins, James Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon,S.) Mr. Frank Pearson and Mr. Rees.
Sharples, Richard Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; as amended (in the. Standing Committee), considered.