HC Deb 22 December 1964 vol 704 cc1156-66

9.5 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, to leave out "approved by him and".

I suggest that it would be convenient for the House to consider, at the same time, the Amendments in page 1, lines 11,25 and 26; in Clause 3, page 3, line 22, and in Clause 8, page 6, line 2.

The first of these Amendments are drafting Amendments designed to improve the clarity of Clause 1, and the others are consequential. They do not in any way represent a change of policy but achieve, as I am advised, more clearly and precisely the intention that the Government always had in mind in regard to Clause 1—an intention which, judging from the comments on the Clause both on Second Reading and in the Committee, I am sure is shared by hon. Members on both sides.

We have two purposes in mind. The first is that the Secretary of State, in determining the composition of the committees to be set up under the Clause, should be able to determine which bodies are to be represented on both sides and how many representatives each body should have; also that he should be able to vary the bodies themselves or the numbers of representatives each may have when the circumstances justify it. This power that we intended the Secretary of State to have is similar to that which he had under Section 89 of the 1944 Act, and is the way in which that was implemented. Our second purpose is that the bodies represented on the committees should be completely free to choose the individuals who should represent them there, and to change the membership as they themselves consider necessary.

The original wording of the Clause was not quite satisfactory for achieving these purposes, or we were advised that there might be some doubt about it. That wording had four weaknesses. First, it did not unambiguously enable the Secretary of State to decide how many representatives each of the bodies selected by him should appoint. Secondly, it left the appointing bodies to appoint their own representatives, but brought their choice of representatives within the scope of the Secretary of State's approval.

Thirdly, it did not enable the Secretary of State to alter the composition of the committee in terms of the allocation of seats once it had been approved. Fourthly, it rigidly established the individual membership of the committee except to the extent that the appointing bodies might have included a power to vary their representation in the terms in which they made their choice. Because the original wording was capable of being so interpreted we have tabled these Amendments, which achieve the objectives to which I have referred.

The Amendments have roused some comment, particularly from the National Association of Schoolmasters, whose representatives have gone on record and have been reported in the Press as being alarmed at our intentions. I emphasise once more that this does not represent any change of policy whatever, but merely clarifies a position that the National Association and other bodies have accepted in the past. Indeed, representatives of the National Association were added to the old Burnham Committee because the Minister, a few years ago, had the power, to which I have referred, to add new bodies to that Committee. The National Association campaigned to be added, and was successful in its campaign.

Its representatives have themselves recently suggested to us that they are entitled to more representatives because of an increase in membership. We have promised to consider that in due course. We believe that it is not possible to do it at present, as we are anxious to appoint the committee quickly and to begin negotiations in relation to the deadline of March.

It would therefore not be appropriate now to consult all the bodies concerned, which would be necessary if we were to make art alteration at this stage. If they are to return, as they are entitled to, to an application for extra membership of the Committee, they will need to rely on the power of the Secretary of State to alter the composition of the committee. Therefore it is a little difficult to understand why they should be alarmed by these Amendments. I take the opportunity to assure them that we are seeking to put the Clause in such a way that there is no possibility of legal doubt about the powers of the Secretary of State in the way I have described.

Mr. Harold Gurden (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I was glad to hear the Minister of State say that this was only a drafting matter, but I am not sure that he proved it by what he said. I was rather concerned that there was a change. The words used in the third Amendment may from time to time vary or revoke any such determination seemed a rather stronger power than I thought the Minister had. I quite accept that it could be as has been described and that there may be no cause for alarm. I must accept that that is the explanation.

Looking back to the Standing Committee stage of the Bill, I am the more suprised that hon. Members on that Committee accepted this sort of principle. I know it has always been thought right, but it is against all trade union practice for a Minister to be able to say to any individual union, or individual members of a union, "You are out from now on", as easily as that. I do not know if there is a parallel for this. Even on the Whitley Council I am not sure that anything goes so far as this. I should have thought that hon. Members who have so much at heart the principles of trade unionism as expressed by them from time to time would not have allowed this to go unchallenged.

I do not want to go back on arguments which might have been made in Committee, but this occurred to me when I looked at the Amendment. The Minister of State mentioned the National Association of Schoolmasters. Although it is the second largest body of teachers, it has only two representatives as against 16 for the N.U.T. It seems quite out of line and against all trade union principle that there should be uneven representation.

Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, West)

What is the proportion of membership in relation to the National Association of Schoolmasters and the N.U.T.?

Mr. Gurden

I thought the hon. Member knew these things quite well. The N.U.T. has a membership of 250,000 and 16 representatives, whereas the National Association of Schoolmasters has 35,000 members—it is the second largest body—and has only two representatives. I shall not argue the case for the N.A.S.; it is capable of arguing it, but there is an imbalance in the whole set-up. This should be changed and made a fair representation. We have to match against the figures for the National Association of Schoolmasters, two representatives and 35,000 members, another body which has one representative for 1,000 members. This cannot be right. There is a case for reviewing the whole question of membership.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. James Tinn (Cleveland)

The number of representatives which the N.U.T. and the N.A.S. have is exactly right in proportion to their membership. Until we can find a way of splitting representatives, it' is difficult to see how smaller associations can be dealt with otherwise than by allowing them to have one representative.

Mr. Gurden

I am not saying that, taking any two bodies, the balance is not right, but, taking the whole list, there is a serious imbalance. I appreciate that the N.U.T. would have to give up some of its representation if the representation of the other bodies were to be made more nearly right. I am not arguing for any one of these bodies. I can understand the alarm of the N.A.S., which was not allowed representation on Burnham until my right hon. Friend gave in and allowed it to be represented.

The Amendment gives the Minister power to throw out the N.A.S., and indeed the N.U.T. and any other body, and have the members that he wishes to have on the negotiating body. I am surprised that the supporters of trade unions and trade union principles here have not made a fuss about this. Do they intend to do so now? I should have thought that they would support every one of these unions or associations in their bid to have fair representation on the new body.

Mr. Stan Newens (Epping)

What does the hon. Gentleman consider would be fair representation for the N.A.S., to give only one example, different from that which it has at present? I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not dodge this question. I should like him to answer it directly.

Mr. Gurden

I shall allow the hon. Gentleman to make his own speech. I am not the Minister. We are talking about the future, not the past. I have referred to this only to excuse the N.A.S. or any other body for being alarmed on seeing such an Amendment on the Notice Paper, knowing the difficulties which the Association has had in the past. The Association will want to know what representation it is to have in the future. If the Amendment in page 1, line 25, which will give the Minister power from time to time to vary or revoke any such membership, is to be agreed to, we should have an assurance from the Minister that these bodies will have fair representation on the new committee. It is the new committee with which we are concerned now. We should like the Minister to go a little further than he has up to now and tell us what sort of representation there will be on the new body.

I have every hope and belief that the new body will work well. It is a good setup, However, I do not think that it is the right time to antagonise any of these people or to make them feel insecure. I understand that the N.A.S. and, probably, other bodies have had consultations with the Minister. The association tells me that the Minister did not say that he intended to table an Amendment such as this, although the consultations were held within a few hours of the Amendment being tabled. If that is so, the Minister should go a little further and assure every one of these bodies that they will be well looked after and will have fair representation and that there will not be any repetition of the troubles and difficulties which have occurred in the past. I hope that the Minister will go a little further than he has so far.

Mr. Richard Hornby (Tonbridge)

I should like to make one or two comments in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) has just said. I apologise that I did not hear the opening words of the speech in explanation by the Minister of State, but the point is, and I think that he took it in his speech, that anxieties have been expressed by some constituent bodies about the meaning of the Clause, and it is well that the House should ask for and be given the fullest explanation of what is involved. It is a sad fact that relationships between one representative body and another in the educational world are not perhaps the happiest advertisement for the teaching profession as a whole. One would like to see getter relations, and the more that can be done to make the position clear the better for all concerned.

Subject to what the Minister of State was able to say and anything that he may be able to add, I think that these proposals make sense. The proposed committee is large and if variations may be in mind, and if the membership of one body or another may or may not change, there is need for some such powers as these. I cannot see how alterations could be effected unless some such wording as is now proposed appeared in the Bill. It would not be my wish therefore to oppose the Amendments, but I wish to call attention to the anxieties that have been expressed by various bodies and to say again that it is in the interests of all concerned that the Minister of State should give as full an explanation as possible.

Mr. Merlyn Rees (Leeds, South)

I accept the remarks of the hon. Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby) that there are anxieties on this point. Most of them were removed when my hon. Friend the Minister of State spoke at the beginning of the debate, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) has raised a question in my mind which I should be grateful if the Minister of State would clear up.

The hon. Member for Selly Oak suggested that because of this Clause, and because of the additions made in the Amendments, it is the intention to vary the proportions on the new Burnham Committee when it meets officially for the first time. Surely this is not the case. If this is the sort of feeling that is going about, yet again there will be anxiety on the part of many people. Can we be assured that the proportions stated by the Minister on Second Reading are the proportions which will obtain when the new Burnham Committee first meets officially and, as it were, legally, under the terms of the Bill when it becomes an Act?

Mr. Quintin Hogg (St. Marylebone)

I do not think that we need take very much time on these Amendments. I do not want to intervene in this question of proportions between the different associations involved, but I think that a word of criticism is not out of place about the need for the Amendments and the stage at which they have been introduced, which I think has given rise to some of the misgivings.

Presumably before the Bill was introduced the Government had the best advisers, in the form of Parliamentary draftsmen, on how best to formulate their proposals. On Second Reading, as far as I remember, they were greeted with almost universal praise. No one suggested that the Clause was particularly obscure. As far as I was able to understand, I thought that I understood it. We had a Committee stage at which we had a very agreeable discussion on the Clause, and the Bill was virtually unamended in Committee where one would have thought that this kind of discussion was more appropriate than at a sitting in full House at 9.30 p.m. with Mr. Speaker in the Chair. The Amendments then appeared on the Notice Paper at a rather late moment for Report.

I put a wet towel round my head to see what it all meant and I came to the conclusion that it all meant precisely nothing: that is to say, when the Amendments—and they are numerous and comprehensive—were carried, as no doubt they will be in a few minutes' time, or as soon as the Minister has replied, no effect whatever would be achieved on the legal construction of the Bill. I believe this to be the case. Having heard the Minister of State introduce his Amendments, I understand that that is his view, too. One wonders at what stage anybody imagined that he had found any obscurity in the original words. We did not. Who was the gallant hero who thought that the parliamentary draftsmen had so completely botched their job the first time? It was not us.

If we are to find out all this sort of thing when we have reached only Report, we need not one House of Lords but two Houses of Lords to act as a kind of double longstop against the Government's mistakes. At the end of the day, one is left with the impression that this is a rather slipshod way of doing things. Whilst one does not need to make too heavy weather about it, it seems to me to be an odd kind of procedure to which we are reduced.

Mr. Prentice

I should like to say how distressed I am to hear about the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) with a wet towel round his head. I am sorry that this has occurred. The business of putting down Amendments on Report is not unknown. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his right hon. Friends were in Government, I remember sitting on the benches opposite and often having to deal with Amendments put down on Report to clarify the meaning of a Clause because the Government of the day had been advised by their legal advisers or parliamentary draftsmen of a clearer way of phrasing the Clause. That is all that is happening now. It has happened under many Governments.

The House will be aware that Clause 1 as originally drafted, and as still drafted, used a different language from Section 89 of the 1944 Act because it must be a larger Clause to allow of the Secretary of State being represented on the committee, and so on. Therefore, this was, in a sense, a new exercise to determine, on the point which we are discussing, the same objectives: that the Secretary of State would have power to make appointments and to revoke them in the way described and, equally important, that the bodies should have the right to make their own choice of representatives to serve upon the committee and to alter them as they decide. We have been advised that the wording which we have now put down is a better way of achieving that common objective. That is really all that is before the House tonight.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) seemed at one stage to question whether the Secretary of State should have the right to vary or revoke the membership of the committee. The hon. Member and everyone else will, I think, agree that the only alternative is for the Clause to lay down precisely how many representatives each trade union and each of the local government bodies is to have, in which event, if circumstances were to change in the future, we would need amending legislation to make an alteration. That would be nonsense, as I am sure hon. Members on both sides will agree.

There could, of course, be changes in the relative membership of trade unions which justify a change in membership, or there could be reforms in local government which would mean that county councils as against boroughs should have a different representation. All these things might happen. It would be clumsy if legislation were needed every time to amend the composition of the committee. That has been the common view under the old legislation and under the Bill.

I realise that anxiety has been expressed by the National Association of Schoolmasters. That was why I deliberately introduced that subject when introducing the Amendments. It is, of course, possible for that Association and for those who express anxieties to say that for various reasons they are entitled to greater representation.

9.30 p.m.

It is also possible on their behalf to object to the powers of the Secretary of State to vary the committee, but it is not possible to do both at the same time. If we are ever to consider their case, or anyone else's case for different representation, we must have the power to vary the committee, and it is not really possible to make both objections simultaneously. I think there is some danger that they are being made simultaneously. It is a little illogical, and I ask hon. Members who raised the point to consider the illogicality of it.

I would say particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) that so far as the membership is concerned my right hon. Friend has already made clear at previous stages of the Bill that he would vastly prefer that the teachers' organisations should agree among themselves as to the distribution of the membership, but, as he said in Committee, as they have not on this occasion or previous occasions reached agreement, he is forced to allocate seats on the committee.

He was asked to receive, and he and I received, a deputation from the National Association of Schoolmasters. They asked for larger representation. We made it clear that this would not be the right thing at this stage, and it would not be the right thing because if we were to do this or to consider doing this we should have to consult all the other bodies and have to hear representations from them about the relevant membership and there might be some dispute about the actual figures. This would inevitably take some time; and we are all of us, and particularly the teachers' organisations, anxious to get on with the job of negotiating a new settlement.

Therefore, my right hon. Friend decided to make it quite clear to the N.A.S. that the existing numbers should prevail. I say all this here on the Floor of the House because the Association has itself gone on record publicly reporting what it said on that occasion. Of course, it is open to the Association or to anyone else later on to ask for a change, and if it is asked for it will have to be considered on its merits and the other related bodies will have to be consulted. On that we have no decision one way or the other except to say that they have the right to come to us to ask for a change.

That is all there is to it, and I think it would be wrong if anyone were to think that there is a great issue of principle involved in these Amendments, which are to clarify the purpose we all had in mind from the beginning.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 1, line 11, leave out from "more" to end of line 17 and insert: persons nominated from time to time by the Secretary of State to represent him, together with persons representing one or more bodies to which this paragraph applies; (c) persons representing one or more bodies to which this paragraph applies".

In line 25, at end insert: (3) The Secretary of State shall determine which bodies to which paragraph (b) or paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of this section applies are to be represented on each committee constituted under this section, and the number of persons by whom any such body is to be so represented, and may from time to time vary or revoke any such determination. (4) Subject to any such determination of the Secretary of State, it shall be for each body to which any such determination relates to nominate from time to time the person or persons by whom it is to be represented on a committee constituted under this section.

In line 26, leave out "when approving a committee" and insert: at the time when a commitee is constituted".—[Mr. Prentice.]