SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE ORDER

HC Deb 11 March 1964 vol 691 cc569-620

9.45 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science (Mr. Quintin Hogg)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Secretary of State for Education and Science Order 1964

the grant for the National Assistance Board for the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1963.

be made in 'he form of the draft laid before this House on 4th March.

Although this Order appears to be somewhat technical—and it is, for this reason, that I hope that my right hon. and learn ed Friend the Attorney-General will be here to deal with technical questions if necessary—it is no more than the legal machinery necessary to give effect to the Government's decision in connection with the appointment of a new Secretary of State for Education and Science. I shall, therefore, not spend the time of the House on any of the technicalities; and if there are any questions of policy my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education is ready to answer to avoid the necessity of my asking the House for leave to speak a second time.

There are, I think, only two points to be considered on this Motion. The first is the establishment of the new Secretaryship of State and the federal structure of the Department under him. The second is the transfer to hint of the functions previously held by other Departments: first, of course, the functions relating to the universities and University Grants Committee, formerly discharged by the Treasury and now by myself; secondly, the functions of the Education Department and, thirdly, the functions of the Office of the Minister for Science. It does not of course include the reorganisation between the Research Councils consequent on the Report of the Trend Committee, because that will require an Act of Parliament and will have to come later.

I do not believe that there will be much dispute about the creation of a new Secretary of State or about the federal structure of the new Department over which he will preside. This organisation was one of the four possible models which were set up for discussion after the publication of the Robbins Report and the model follows very closely the preferred model organisation proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in his speech in the House on 19th November. It is, therefore, I would hope and expect, broadly acceptable to both sides of the House.

As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explained in his statement to the House, the new Department will consist of two administrative units. One of these will deal with the universities and civil science and the other with schools and other forms of education in England and Wales. Each unit will be associated with one of the two Ministers of State—although I think that it would be fair to say that one must not expect the exact limits to be necessarily exactly the same as those of the present Departments—it may be convenient from time to time to make some adjustments in the distribution of duties between them. There will be two Permanent Under-Secretaries who will be accounting officers for the two units.

The House might be interested to know what the physical arrangements for the new Department will be. There will be a new building, now under construction, to house most of the new Department. Until then, the unit dealing with schools will be located in Curzon Street—in the present Ministry of Education—and that dealing with universities and science will be in Whitehall. The Secretary of State will have offices at both places, but it is my intention to have my main desk at Curzon Street.

The position of Scotland will be little affected. The responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland are not changed by the present Motion.

There will be separate Votes, as at present, for the universities, for the various research councils and for other forms of education. The University Grants Committee will have direct access both to the new Secretary of State and to the two Ministers of State. The only other change affecting the University Grants Committee is that, as has already been announced, its organisation will be strengthened to enable it to deal with the heavier load with which it will be faced as a result of the Robbins Report. I need hardly tell the House—although, perhaps, I should mention it—that the University Grants Committee will retain its traditional position in relation to the universities and to Whitehall, on the "buffer" principle, as it was called, recommended by the Robbins Committee.

Although the new Department will include two separate units, a number of common services will be desirable. For example, there will be common establishment, common legal and common information services, and there will be a common list of staff. I turn, therefore, from the first of the two points to the second—from the institution of the new Secretary of State and the federal organisation of his Department to the transfer of duties and functions.

The object of the transfer of duties and functions is, in effect, to reconcile the two divergent points of view that are, I think, generally agreed to have been represented in the discussion following the Robbins Report. In my submission, the arrangement at which we have arrived has given full weight to both of these points of view and, by the particular federal organisation we have adopted—which I have attempted to describe—we have avoided any risk that the new Secretary of State will be overloaded at the centre.

It will be remembered that, with one dissentient, the Robbins Committee recommended two Ministers; one of these was to have been for higher education and for the arts and sciences and the other the existing Minister of Education responsible for his existing field, less such organisations as the colleges of advanced technology and the training colleges which might either immediately or hereafter be transferred to the Minister for Arts and Sciences. The dissentient voice in the Robbins Committee recommended a single unitary Minister to be responsible for the field of higher education, for other education and for the existing responsibilities of the Ministry.

The Trend Report, which followed shortly upon the publication of the Robbins Report, seems to have envisaged a field of responsibility comparable with that of the majority of the Robbins Committee. In the public debate that followed there seemed to me to have been established two broad propositions.

The first is that outside the world of the universities and science there was widespread, and I would have said, pretty general support for the proposal that, after taking into account the special position of Scotland, school education and higher education should come under a single Minister. That was the first result of public discussion on the Robbins Report. On the other hand, and this was the second result, inside the university world there was almost, though perhaps not quite, as much support for the majority Robbins solution as there had been outside for the minority Robbins solution. In particular, I believe that scientists were strong in their insistence that one should not attempt to separate the work of higher education from research, and in particular, the work of the universities from the Research Councils.

To carry out our programme for higher education and research and our general education policy we need the good will not of one of these two broad movements of opinion but of both of them, and the two points of view, although expressed in divergent terms, need therefore to be reconciled. Our view is that they are not irreconcilable, assuming that a structure can be devised, as we think we have devised it, which does not impose too much burden at the centre. I think that we have achieved that, although I would say to the House that its success will depend and must depend upon the extent to which effective devolution is possible.

The main criticism which has been made of these proposed arrangements is that the Secretary of State will have responsibilities greater than can be shouldered by a single Minister. In particular, I have heard the view expressed that responsibilities for science and technology should have been excluded from the new Department. I do not think that under the federal structure which I have described the new Secretary of State will be, for instance, as heavily loaded as, let us say, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Foreign Secretary, to name only two of my colleagues.

In the fist place, he will be assisted by two Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries, and in the second place he will not have the immense load of direct executive responsibilities of many of the major Departments of State. A large pact of the work for which he will be answerable will be, as it is now, in one way or another, administered indirectly—the schools, for example, through the local education authorities, the universities through the U.G.C., the Atomic Energy Authority by its Board, the Research. Councils by their respective governing bodies. This, I would say therefore, is a tolerable administrative load, and the indirect feature of the rule will combine with the federal structure to ease the burden on the Secretary of State. Moreover, the whole philosophy of the administration of these various bodies presupposes now, and will continue to do as it has always traditionally done, a very high degree of academic and administrative freedom to the various bodies who take a pride in presiding over them.

I now turn to the position of the Research Councils and the Atomic Energy Authority. All these to a greater or less extent carry on research in their own establishments and play an importtant part in university research by sponsoring and financing research projects and by giving grants for the supply of expensive equipment. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Agricultural Research Council, in particular, are also responsible for Government encouragement of research and development in industry and agriculture respectively. For this reason we believe that the Minister responsible for the Research Councils should also be responsible for the University Grants Committee and for the grant of general university funds.

There is another side of the same matter which really points in the same direction. It is not simply that the Government work in the central chain of Government laboratories needs to be tied in with the work of the universities, the colleges of technology and of the research associations. It is that the work in industry—and there is a growing amount of research and development in private industry—cannot be separated from the work in the science and technology faculties of universities and other institutes of higher education or from that in Government laboratories and co-operative research associations.

Indeed, if I have a criticism of what happens at present, it is that this work is not sufficiently closely knit together. I should like to see, for instance—and I think that I heard the hon. Gentleman say that he, too, would like to see—visiting professors, on the continental model, attached from industry to universities and other higher educational institutions, and teachers both in those universities and institutions acting as consultants to industry.

To give another example, I should like to see the technical facilities available in Government laboratories like East Kilbride or Mill Hill available to university graduates to do work for a doctorate under appropriate university supervision. In short, I should like to see the whole chain of Government and university, industrial and co-operative laboratories in closer association with each other than they are at present. To achieve that, I believe it is necessary to have a general view of both and to tie both into technical and scientific education if the picture is to make sense.

I know that it is tempting, but I think that it is also fatal, to draw a series of hard and fast lines between different kinds of research—between, for instance, pure research and applied research—and to say that industry should deal with one and that higher education should deal with another. I believe that that distinction is quite artificial and unreal. It is easy to draw a distinction between research, on the one hand, and development, on the other, and to say that one is for the Minister of Science and the other for the Minister of Technology; or between the kind of research indulged in by the hard-headed industrialists, as I believe they are called, and the long-haired academics, as some people call them.

Of course, these differences exist up to a point. These distinctions can be drawn. But, as I was reminded the other day, I have been responsible for this field of activity for seven years, and I feel bound to tell the House that I regard those distinctions as artificial. I regard an attempt to divide laboratories into these artificial categories, to divide them into technological educational institutes, on the one hand, and universities, on the other, is ultimately fatal to good organisation. Any attempt to do so would, in the end, drive one to ignore or to attempt to break up the absolutely indispensible central chain of Government laboratories.

Therefore, I say that it is necessary to take a general view of the whole field. The inevitable consequence of accepting a single general Ministry is to follow the advice of the Trend Committee, of the Robbins Report, of the Vice Chancellor's Committee and of many leading academics, in putting the responsibility for the Research Councils under the same ministerial set-up as is responsible for the two branches of education.

The Order embodies two principles which I ask the House to accept. Both emerge, I think, from the valuable ventilation of public opinion which followed the publication of those two Reports. The first principle is that education cannot be separated from higher education, that there is a continuous spectrum running from the primary school right up to what, I fear, is called tertiary education in the universities. This has been widely supported and seems now to be generally accepted, but, as I have said, there is a second principle no less important than the first equally at stake.

This second principle is that the handling of universities, and of new technological universities in particular, cannot be separated from the handling of research. The function of a university is not simply to teach. It is, and must be, equally to consolidate and advance the frontiers of knowledge. Part of the value of a university education to an undergraduate lies in the exposure of his mind to teachers who are doing precisely this. From this point of view, the treatment of universities must be associated with the treatment of research in other areas.

Mr. A. Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)

I have been very interested in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's description of complete over-lordship over all these different institutions, but I am wondering what is to happen to the Royal Aeronautical Establishments at Bedford and Farnborough, at which a good deal of money is spent on research and development. How will he separate these from the D.S.I.R.? Will they still be under a different Minister?

Mr. Hogg

Farnborough, yes, but I think that Cranfield will not, Cranfield will, under the present arrangements, come in the U.G.C. field. I will add this to the right hon. Gentleman, however—it may be that the House will agree—that, in my view, the scope of the Order is limited to the setting up of the new Ministry and the transfer of functions to it. We shall need to look again at the reorganisation of individual Government or public establishments under it when we come to consider the Trend Report and its various recommendations. The reason for this is not merely technical. It is that for that purpose we shall require an Act of Parliament, when the occasion conies, whereas for this purpose it is sufficient to pass a Motion of this nature.

I feat that I have detained the House unduly long, but this is a matter about which, I am sure, the House would have demanded something more than a perfunctory explanation. I have tried to compress a very great deal of material into as narrow a compass as I could. In conclusion, I claim that the arrangements which we propose, which I have tried to explain, are arrangements which reconcile and embody both of the two principles which I have sought to set out and which, at the same time, provide a workable portfolio for a single Ministry organised under a single Minister in the federal manner I have described. This is the purpose behind the Order and, for the reasons I have given, I ask the House to accept it.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey (Sunderland, North)

The Lord President of the Council has enunciated two principles which are generally accepted and are not controversial. I want to turn to two other points which are controversial. As a matter of interest, it is noteworthy that the date on which the Order comes into effect is All Fools' Day.

There are one or two interesting facets of the Order which will determine its effectiveness. It is interesting to note that we now have three Ministers of Education who are all old Etonians. If the Govern- ment are endeavouring to get a modern look about government, this does not contribute to it. It does not reflect the country's educational system if the Prime Minister finds that he can turn to only one school for his three Ministers of Education. It is interesting, also, to note the serious way in which the Government are treating their new attitude towards resale price maintenance, in that we now have a cut-price Cabinet Minister. This is the first time that this has happened. This, too, affects the Minister's status in the Cabinet.

To turn to the substance of the Order, in education we all pay tribute to the Government for rejecting the views of the Robbins Report and taking, as I have argued before, a decision which was essentially political and deciding that the right decision for education—this is the first of the principles enunciated by the Lord President—is to have single Ministerial responsibility for education. If we consider the question of the effectiveness of the Order, we have to bear in mind the fact that of the two battling twins who fought out this issue the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who opposed vigorously the application of this principle, has ended the day as being the single Minister responsible. This, at least, forces us to reflect again upon the likely effectiveness of the Order.

It is odd that we are now deciding upon single Ministerial responsibility, but that we are to have two voices in the Cabinet. In the recent debate on science, the right hon. and learned Gentleman made the point of there being a single points of responsibility in the Cabinet. We now lave two points of responsibility in the Cabinet. I was prepared to give this matter serious thought because I assumed that the Minister of Education would be left undisturbed in charge of his Department. That being so, there was, possibly, an arguable case that in these circumstances it might be a good thing to have at the Cabinet table a second voice representing the schools. That, however, is not what we have got.

We are to have the Lord President of the Council whose main interest will be in research and higher education, and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Education sitting together in the Cabinet, but the responsibilities of the Minister of Education have been changed. He is no longer responsible for the schools, but is to be responsible for the universities and higher education. The universities will have two voices in the Cabinet, whereas the schools, the whole of the State system, the maintained schools and all the other sectors of education will have a still, small voice in another place.

This is a considerable change in the effective balance of political power in education. The Lord President of the Council—I do not blame him, because he has just come back to us—did not deal with the position of the House of Commons. In the House of Commons, there will be no Minister accountable for the maintained or State system.

Mr. Hogg

Nonsense.

Mr. Willey

The right hon. and learned Gentleman should not say that this is nonsense. He said that his position as Secretary of State is tenable only because we have devolution of responsibility.

I am not denying the Lord President's responsibility for policy, but the present Minister of Education is to be responsible for the universities and higher education. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be responsible for policy to this House, but a new Minister, in another place, will have an old-established Department and his own accounting officer. If that Minister is to run his Department, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not be able to reply in this House on the matters of administrative detail which are continually raised under the present system, and which will continue to be raised.

Mr. Hogg

The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken here. There is to be only one Secretary of State and he will be responsible for both the administrative units. The two Ministers of State will be associated with the two parts, but there is no question of each running a Department, because that is not so. There is nothing in what I said which justifies the hon. Gentleman in saying what he has just said. Indeed, the whole basis of what I have tried to say is to the contrary.

Mr. Willey

The right hon. and learned Gentleman must think before he intervenes. He was talking about devolution of responsibilities and of a federal structure. He spoke of autonomous institutions and, in a rather perfunctory way, about the basis of his own responsibilities.

Mr. Hogg

The autonomous institutions to which I referred were not the administrative units which we are discussing, but the universities and colleges of advanced technology, as the hon. Gentleman will see in HANSARD tomorrow. The whole basis of a federal structure is that the parts are not independent departments but are administrative units within one Department.

Mr. Willey

If the right hon. and learned Gentleman looks at HANSARD tomorrow he will see that he made a point about local authorities, devolution and a federal structure. The simple position we face in this House is that we are to have a Parliamentary Secretary answerable for the whole of the maintained system of schools, and that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, if he recognises the departmental responsibilities in the sense in which a federal structure will work, will be no more than a pillarbox.

I say emphatically that this is an affront to the State system of education. The Government are accepting Robbins with a flourish and are throwing Newsom into the wastepaper basket. It is a slap in the face for the maintained schools and the State system.

Again, what about Burnham? The Minister of Education is in a mess about that. We discussed this during the passage of the Remuneration of Teachers Act, 1963. Is he now running away from it? The right hon. Gentleman has submitted his proposals, which are not acceptable. Is he to trespass on the responsibilities of the new Minister for schools or will he continue to be so responsible for this aspect. Is he to abdicate his responsibilities and retire from the scene?

It seems extraordinary that, at this late stage of a Parliament, we should have this amazing disruption of the administration of education. I think that the only sensible explanation is in The Times today. It said: If, of course, the Conservatives lose the election, then Sir Alec will have ensured that he has Front Bench spokesmen of considerable parliamentary experience and skill to face a Labour Government on the increasingly important questions of university expansion and scientific development. I think that that is rather unfair to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because he has not been entirely happy in his return to this House. We remember him as a vigorous opponent in opposition and no doubt he will do far better on these benches. This reorganisation, therefore, appears as a temporary measure to give the right hon. and learned Gentleman a chance to widen his experience in anticipation of his being in opposition.

While the Government's approach to education is right, it is the steps they are taking to implement it that we criticise. The approach of the Government to science is wrong, however. I agree that we are not discussing the Trend Report. No doubt we shall have an opportunity when we have Government legislation implementing it. We are discussing Ministerial responsibility and issues of principle. What we have is this Gargantuan Ministry which, in spite of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's persuasive eloquence, is absolute nonsense. He can explain it only by saying that there is such devolution as to make nonsense of the purpose of the federation. The Economist dismisses it as a dreadful misunderstanding of the processes of science, and in a sense it makes nonsense of the Government's approach to education. This so overloads the right hon. and learned Gentleman's responsibilities that he will not be able effectively to deal with education.

We have had various proposals and suggestions from all sorts of quarters about higher education and science. The right hon. and learned Gentleman very properly rejected them because we could not have a division in education and the important first priority was to have education right. But no one in his right senses at any time suggested that science should go with the whole of education, not even the right hon. and learned Gentleman. What he and the Government have done by lumping the two together is, by definition, to get both of them wrong.

The interesting thing was that when we discussed this matter earlier the right hon. and I earned Gentleman, as tonight, was on this false point of the central and single point of responsibility in the Cabinet. We have two points of responsibility in the Cabinet, but he neglected to pay attention to the fact that the Government have not implemented the Trend Report. The National Research Development Corporation stays with the Board of Trade and outside this Ministry which does not absorb the I.R.D.A., as the Trend Committee recommended.

It was at this point that the Trend Committee itself confessed that it was trespassing into policy, and it is policy which we are discussing tonight. I remind the House that the Trend Committee said: We are conscious that this suggestion of the rôle that the Development division of the I.R.D.A. should play trespasses beyond our terms of reference into the field of policy. Nevertheless, we believe that, if industrial research and development are to receive a fresh stimulus, the Government will be compelled to play a more positive part in initiating action for this purpose. This is a policy issue and that is what we are discussing.

It is on this cardinal issue, of which we were given notice by the Trend Committee and on which the Trend Committee, feeling itself limited by its terms of reference, still made a recommendation on which we have had no policy—what better forms are we to devise to see that the Government play a more positive, constructive and helpful part in promoting science in British industry?

The issue left with the Government was what better machinery we were to provide fir the development and exploitation of the results of science. This is the cardinal point. It is when we consider a decision to undertake large-scale development in industry following research, when we get to the development and exploitation of a discovery or an invention, that we go well beyond the spectrum about which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is so fond of talking, and it is then that entirely new factors arise.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has not faced up to this. He can talk a great deal, but he will not take action when governmental responsibility arises and calls for action. Here there are not only scientific or mainly scientific factors, but the division of priorities between different industries, economic, social and political factors.

I can give three illustrations and the first is nuclear propulsion for British shipping. For years now this problem has been bedevilled by the absence of any effective machinery to take a political decision. That is what is wrong.

I give two other examples. The development of transistors depended on the research physicists. I am told—and I accept this, as I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman does—that a great deal of the ground work of this research was done in this country, but the development was carried out in the United States. The question that we have to answer is how can we better provide for the utilisation of the results of research by British industry?

Another example is to be found in the development of computers. I read—and I have no reason to doubt this, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman can correct my information if necessary—that to lay the basic technology of advance computers would involve the expenditure of hundreds of millions of £s within a little more than a decade. This is a political decision and that is what we do not have.

To his credit, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has spoken philosophically about this on many occasions. He has distinguished between defence where the Government can act because the national interest is involved, and industry where other motives such as profit operate. We have to ensure that in a competitive world our industry reaps the benefit of research just as much as competing countries do. This is the problem which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has refused to face. This is the problem to which we want an answer. This is the problem to which the electorate will pay attention in the forthcoming General Election, because, as I have said, no one doubts the quality and the scale of British research, but everyone questions whether we get value for money from that research. They question the use that we make of it and the speed at which the research is translated into industry.

We talk about exports. If we look at the performance of the different exporting industries, we see a vast difference between them, depending on how science-based they are. It is closing the gap that demands action from the Government, and that is what we have not had. Even in this respect the Government have adopted a negative position. They have retreated even from Trend. We have proposed a Ministry of Technology. I am sure that that is what we need, but if the right hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to criticise that proposal, he, as a Member of the Government, is responsible for producing an alternative.

Mr. Hogg

The hon. Gentleman asked me to correct him. On the question of nuclear ships, clearly the responsibility for placing orders rests not with the Secretary of State whom we are discussing tonight, but with one of the executive Departments, presumably the Ministry of Transport. On transistors, and indeed for that matter on computers, responsibility for sponsoring the electronics industry—the hon. Gentleman is mistaken in saying that the basic work was done here because the work on semi-conductors was done in America—rests with the Ministry of Aviation. It is outside the scope of the Order that we are discussing tonight.

Mr. Willey

It is not for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give lessons to the Chair on what is in order.

Mr. Hogg

I was not doing that. The hon. Gentleman asked me to comment. He invited me to do so, otherwise I would not have intervened.

Mr. Willey

The right hon. and learned Gentleman, for good measure, threw in a comment about the Chair, which I would have thought he would have had the grace to withdraw, but he did not.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman seems uncertain about where responsibility lies. What is wrong is that there is no clear governmental responsibility. There is no responsibility for the various committees which one after another inquire into this problem. Quite clearly the problem of computer development ought to be a Cabinet matter, and, as regards transistors, I can only say that the evidence which I have is a greater tribute to British research than the right hon. and learned Gentleman is prepared to concede.

Perhaps I might summarise our complaints about the Order. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Government have, in principle, got education right, but in applying that principle, for personal or political reasons they have taken steps which unfortunately have led to the denigration of the State system and maintained schools.

As far as research goes, the right hon. Gentleman said nothing about the question of development. This is the cur- rent, overriding question of the moment, and till the Government face up to this and provide a better method for translating the results of research to industry they are not facing the priority job in the field of science.

What the Government have done is to provide a two-headed Ministry. If it is to be a multi-headed Ministry it ought to have had another head, a head for development. It is a two-headed Ministry which will not do either job properly. It will be discouraging to scientists and disruptive of education. It is very disappointing that the Government should have thought fit to do this on the eve of a General Election. It can do nothing but harm, and for that reason I shall invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the Order.

10.31 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson (Stirling and Falkirk Burghs)

I want to talk about one aspect in particular of the Order, and that is the Scottish aspect of it, or one part of the Scottish aspect of it. The difficulty about this situation, a situation discussed by the Robbins Committee, the overriding Ministerial responsibility for education, higher education and school education, is that a solution is found only by mounting one Minister for each part of education—trying to ride two horses. This is a natural political solution, and just what is being done. We have got two separate Ministers, one for higher education plus science, one for schools in England and Wales, each of them a Minister in the ordinary sense—I am not quite sure that I follow the right hon. Gentleman's definition of the federal principle in the Ministry—and yet each of them subordinate to an overriding Minister, a sort of overlord. This is, I think, clearly understandable practice for any politicians, trying to solve a problem like this by this sort of method.

But there is a third animal, the Scottish animal, which does not fit into the picture at all——

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

It is just not there.

Mr. MacPherson

—and there is a serious difficulty, a difficulty which, I think, is minimised by the right hon. Gentleman talking of the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"]

There is a phrase one has come across before in Government pronouncements on this matter, and there is a phrase which describes that situation which does not seem to me to be at all satisfactory. I must say that the predecessors of this situation are not satisfactory either. One of the weakest possible passages in Robbins is the passage in which he discusses the connection between the Scottish Secretary of State and the higher education system. He has just a very simple suggestion: some way must be found of associating the Secretary of State for Scotland with the universities and the U.G.C. Nothing could be vaguer. Even the right hon. Gentleman's pronouncement today was not vaguer. It was just as vague. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he talks about the situation being that of no change in the Scottish Secretary of State's responsibilities. I do not believe this is true in fact, and if it were, I would not think it the best solution of the problem we have now.

Before coming to that particular aspect of it, let us look for just a moment at what is perhaps a minor aspect but one which I think deserves some attention from at least Scottish Members, but, indeed, from all Members.

The University Grants Committee will be responsible under the new set-up to one of the two Ministers of State. It will have as part of its domain the Scottish universities, including the new Scottish universities when they are established. Looking collectively after the whole group of universities, it will be responsible to one of the two Ministers of State——

Mr. Hogg

No.

Mr. MacPherson

I understand that the Secretary of State is responsible——

Mr. Hogg

The Grants Committee will be, as now, responsible to the Minister to whom the previous functions of the Treasury are transferred; that is to say, to the Secretary of State.

Mr. MacPherson

As I understand it, the Secretary of State, who will have higher education and science in his province, will be sufficiently a Minister, in a definitive sense, to have his own accounting officer at least, and it is difficult for most of us to follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he suggests that the responsibility will really lie with the overlord Minister. In that case, what are the Ministers of State to be responsible for? This rather changes the argument. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is to say that the U.G.C. is not responsible to the Minister of State for higher education and science but is responsible to the Minister of State for Education, very well—that rather changes my point on the relationship between the Secretary of State on the one hand and the Minister concerned with higher education on the other.

Let us turn, however, to the question of the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland under the new system. I should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to realise that in Scotland there will be a considerably increased number of autonomous institutes. We are just getting one, and another new one is to come—and I might say that it is being delayed almost beyond the patience of myself and most of my colleagues. Presumably, there will be others after that, made up, if one follows the probable course of events, by changes in the status of the training colleges and of colleges like the Heriot-Watt, for instance. There will be eight or ten Scottish autonomous institutions, which is a fairly considerable body of educational work and higher scientific work.

There are today only four universities in Scotland, and a fifth one building up, responsible under the old system to the Treasury, with the Secretary of State simply associated with them. It is not quite the same thing to say that, in the same way, the Secretary of State will be associated just as loosely in respect of probably twice as many institutions as now exist. Furthermore, the students who will be going through these institutions, the graduates who will be coming out of them, will represent a far bigger proportion of the Scottish people than they do now, and the interest of the Scottish people in higher education is already growing.

I do not think that they are likely to be happy with the idea that the Secretary of State is only to be vaguely connected with these higher institutions. They may have been in the past: the past system was a rather impersonal one, in which Ministerial responsibility for policy was not exercised very strongly; in which the universities were a sort of afterthought, a sort of exceptional part of the whole Treasury setup. Now, with the completely different attitude of the public, and of the Scottish public, towards higher education, and with a far greater proportion of people quite directly interested—as students, as graduates, as parents—I do not think that this situation is likely to commend itself to the Scottish population.

I take one particular illustration of this difficulty, the training colleges and colleges of education. At present they are directly under the Secretary of State for Scotland. In whatever new developments take place one presumes that they will now be either secondary universities or, more likely, parts of universities. They will not be directly under the Secretary of State for Scotland. At the moment, I suppose, the right hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that the Secretary of State's responsibilities remain the same, but in a short time—perhaps only months—his responsibilities will not be the same.

The point is not simply to contradict the right hon. Gentleman, but to stress the point made strongly by Lord Eccles in another place in a debate earlier this Session—the necessity for the same Minister to have a strong and direct interest in, on the one hand, the training of teachers and, on the other, the staffing of the schools. This is going to present to the right hon. Gentleman very considerable difficulty. I need not go into it in detail, because the right hon. Gentleman will be familiar with what Lord Eccles said. Suppose that we get the training colleges and colleges of education—Murray House in Edinburgh combining with the Heriot-Watt Institution. That is a reasonable proposition, but one cannot say that the Secretary of State would be in the same position in respect to the training of teachers as he is now.

One cannot say that there will be the same close connection between the training of teachers and responsibility for it, on the one band, and the employment of teachers in the schools, on the other. For these reasons, I am very strongly opposed to the set-up which the right hon. Gentleman has put forward in this Order.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden (Bishop Auckland)

The situation which the right hon. Gentleman has invented comes straight from "Gulliver's Travels". I have never heard of a federation in which the governor-general had two desks. I think the President of the United States works from one desk in the White House. I know of no univer- sities where the vice-chancellor has two offices. The federation which the right hon. Gentleman has produced is a dual invention. The geographical separation of Curzon Street and Whitehall persists. There is no suggestion of a scheme to overcome it.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to common services for information and legal services, but the sort of services required are statistical services so that, particularly in estimates of scientists and scientific and mathematics teachers for grammar schools, this should bulk very large. Whereas in the case of the Ministry of Public Building and Works a political decision was taken to produce a big Department, and whereas all the work is going on there with bad planning and lots of mistakes, in this situation Robbins has forced on the Government a decision taken with no preparation at all.

Both right hon. Gentlemen on the Government Front Bench know the horrible building in Curzon Street and how inefficient it is for administration. If the Government had been working over the last three or four years for a proper orientation and administration of the educational service, they would have planned the movement of the two Departments described tonight into a new building starting afresh with proper administration and a flow of work. The same kind of haphazard organisation has been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. He says that all the implications of the Trend Report need new legislation and another look.

There are about three bites at the cherry. This first one is for electoral reasons to make the whole thing look unified. Then there is to be some reorganisation following implementation of the Trend Report. Finally, there is a physical move into a new building which may be proposed.

The whole thing is typical of the Government giving lip-service to planning but when it comes to the point utterly failing to take the proper steps and the right methods to do it. The right hon. Gentleman is in the position of an overlord with no kingdom to administer, because the kingdoms will go on in their own sweet way. If that is not so, then the right hon. Gentleman will be overloaded, because he is taking on far too much if he is to give the decisions—and he has made no suggestion of new methods in the Civil Service of getting the information up to him so that he can give a limited number of decisions instead of ranging over the whole field.

In the other Government reorganisations which have taken place—for example, the Bill dealing with defence—much clearer thought has been given. But education rates very much lower in the minds of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite; anything is good enough for education. We have Curzon Street, another building, the overlord without thinking out the problems, no new ideas on Civil Service procedure on how to get to the right hon. Gentlemen the proper papers and the proper information for decision. It is nothing more or less than an electioneering stunt to persuade the people that the right hon. Gentleman truly believes in the unity of education. The Government have given very little evidence of this before and very little tonight.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee (Wokingham)

When I think of the number of debates about education in which the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), many other hon. Members and I have taken part, I feel that his last comments are less than generous to the Order. There was a wide measure of agreement between both sides of the House—I am talking about the educational aspects—on the kind of structure which is embodied in the Order.

The hon. Member, for example, said tonight that over the past year my right hon. Friends ought to have been planning for something like this situation—physically planning. But if they had done so while the Robbins Committee was sitting and before it had made its recommendations, they would, in my view quite rightly, have been roundly condemned from the Opposition benches. This high-powered Committee was set up to examine this and related matters in 1960. To have prejudged its recommendations by setting up the building of the structure in my judgment would not have been realistic.

Mr. Boyden

I recall that several years ago some of my hon. Friends and myself strongly advocated that, because of the urgency of the university situation, the Robbins Committee should be asked for an interim report. Time and again this request was refused.

Mr. van Straubenzee

I dare say. The Committee was working under considerable pressure. The hon. Member—and this applies to other hon. Members—has a considerable insight into the Committee's work.

But eventually the recommendation was made which, I think rightly in this sense, was not accepted by the House. In debate after debate on the educational side of matters both sides of the House were anxious to achieve closer association of the present educational side of our work with higher education and universities. Over and over again, particularly in our last debate, we pressed for this. When I think how easily, if Robbins' principal recommendation had been accepted, we might tonight have been debating not this Measure but a Measure by which two separate. Ministries were set up and by which a Ministry of Lower Education was set up, I am bound to say that I feel that this Order has not been received in the way that we were entitled to expect. It does no good at all to look at it in terms of personalities on one side or the other. It might be constructive for my hon. Friends and I to inquire who will be the Shadow Minister for Science.

Mr. Speaker

It might be constructive, but certainly out of order.

Mr. van Straubenzee

In which case I would not dream of asking the question, Mr. Speaker.

I have frequently been on the record as saying, and I repeat, that I believe that one of the most difficult problems facing the House from the point of view of education is the sense of status of our teachers. It is not just a case of money, important though that is, and salary structures, and that, too, is important. It is a case of the feeling of being as important as they really are to the nation. Today we are showing this great force of men and women, who are performing one of the greatest functions of the nation, that their status is of vital importance in one all-embracing federal structure type of Ministry.

This it was more than anything else which I hoped we should safeguard, and in my short intervention, which has been provoked by the niggardly way in which the Motion has been received, I stand firmly by it and hope that all hon. Members will do the same.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

It is traditional with Scots that they love education. Anybody who wants to see exactly how the Scottish Tories regard education and important changes concerning it need only glance at the benches opposite. There is not one Scottish Minister on the Front Bench and until a minute ago there was not even a Scottish hon. Member to be found anywhere on the benches opposite. It would have been courteous of the Secretary of State for Scotland to have waited. Perhaps after hearing his right hon. Friend dismissing Scotland in a sentence he decided that he could leave.

As with all Orders, I read them carefully. On this occasion I did not expect that we were going to receive the kind of speech we got from the Minister. To be fair to him, the content of his speech was such that it requires and is worthy of a full day's debate. Indeed, the importance of the subject should have prevented us from having to debate it at this late hour.

The right hon. Gentleman said that we would not be satisfied with a perfunctory statement. He was right. How do Scottish hon. Members feel about the treatment Scotland received in his speech and in the Prime Minister's announcement? Speech after speech tonight has made the answer clear. It is all very well to tall about the status of teachers and this grand body of men and women who are serving the nation so well, but what will the Scottish teachers get from the new set-up? The Robbins Committee and the Prime Minister have said that education must be treated as a totality, as a whole. In making his announcement on 6th February the Prime Minister said: … the right course is to have a single Minister with total responsibility over the whole educational field, who should be Secretary of State for Education and Science. I have read this often, but I do not see any reference to the change of responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland over to the present Secretary of State. He is to have no control over him at all. Just as well. I do not mind the right hon. Gentleman taking powers under Article 1(3) and having transferred to him Part I of Schedule 3 of the Agriculture Act, 1957. I think he deserves them. He is to be responsible for Promoting or, with the approval of the Ministers and the Lord President of the Council, undertaking investigations and research relevant to the problems of pig production, marketing and distribution and the production, processing, manufacture, marketing and distribution of pig products. That is now one of his new duties. This is going the whole hog. But the Prime Minister says: with total responsibility over the whole educational field."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1963; Vol. 688, c. 1339.] Robbins made the mistake. The Prime Minister made the mistake. We do not mind that. We do not expect the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to do anything right. He cannot work this one out with a box of matches. If we do that and appoint a single Minister, as we now have, the question obviously arises, what about the Scottish schools? If it is important to have the follow through—I think one Scottish professor talked about from the nursery schools to research into particles and atoms—what about the Scottish schools? Are they to be left out? As the right hon. Gentleman delightfully said, "after Scotland". We cannot say "after Scotland" in this respect. Full consideration must be given to the continuity of education in Scotland, from schools to universities and to training and technical colleges as well.

Where is the Secretary of State for Scotland when we are discussing these matters? However, when we have a Prime Minister representing a Scottish constituency and a Secretary of State for Scotland both having gone to the same school, and that an English public school, one cannot wonder that they get into this muddle.

We had an interesting report from the University Grants Committee last week on its activities. It gave a very interest- ing background of the relations between State and university. One thing is perfectly clear, and it is something that has been avoided right up to the present time. It is that there was always this concern about the position of the Scottish universities in relation to Ministers in this House. Indeed, there was concern at one time in relation to Welsh colleges as well. When the change was made in 1911, Lloyd George, who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, took care to ensure that the Welsh colleges did not come under the English Board of Education. But even in 1911, when eventually things were taken together and came under one Minister, that one Minister was a Treasury Minister. This was done for purely financial reasons.

If we are making a change of substance and changing the relationship between Government and State and university, then, of course, we must ask how the right hon. Gentleman can justify standing at the Box and thinking to appease the Scottish people by saying that the position of the Secretary of State for Scotland is unchanged.

We are concerned not with the Secretary of State for Scotland, but with Scottish universities and Scottish education, which is unchanged and which should not be unchanged, because the problems of the Scottish universities and Scottish schools, the needs of Scottish universities and schools to meet the needs of the nation within their respective organisations, are exactly the same as in England and Wales. To meet the need we get this treatment of education in England and Wales as one, but Scotland is left out.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is to take a certain measure of responsibility for Scottish universities. This is not a static position. There will be growth from technical college to university status, and our teacher training colleges in Scotland may give degrees—we do not know, but it is possible. As soon as that happens, they will come under the right hon. and learned Gentleman, under a system drawn up because we must get education as a whole; but the teachers he is to control will not be teaching in schools for which he has responsibility.

We start with the irrefutable fact, which may be irksome to some and which may be undesirable to certain tidy intellectuals and offensive to some rather insular Englishmen, that we have an independent system of education in Scotland which has its own background and traditions and standards. The standards and qualifications of teachers in Scotland are entirely different from and very much higher than those in England and Wales. A male teacher in Scotland must be a university graduate, except for certain subjects. How does that affect the set-up? It does not make sense and it was never intended to make sense, because the right hon. and learned Gentleman never thought of Scotland at all.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) spoke about a still small voice speaking in another place about English schools. We should have someone speaking in the Cabinet for Scotland, but it is not a still small voice—there is no voice at all. If there had been, this would never have happened. What is the logic of this position? The right hon. and learned Gentleman overloads himself with multifarious duties. It is not an overlord we have but an overloading. I am certain that the federal system will break up.

The Minister of Education is laughing. I do not know what about. He is in a very embarrassing position, for we have been told that he will not be able to answer for the administrative unit for which he is to be responsible. The only person to whom he is to be answerable is his right hon. and learned Friend, and he knows quite well that, but for the dramatic renunciation scene which the whole of Britain saw enacted at Blackpool, the right hon. and learned Gentleman might still have been in another place still denouncing this very system.

I hope that we shall have another chance to look at this and to get an explanation of the part which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is to play in respect of Scottish rights. I hope that my hon. Friends from England and Wales will forgive the roughness of the Scottish voice tonight, but we feel that although Scotland is not mentioned, it is affected.

If the right hon. Gentleman carries out his responsibilities and duties as is intended in the administration of this matter for the benefit of schools and universities. somehow or other and somewhere Scottish schools will be neglected. They did not fit in and all the Secretary of State for Scotland has been given to do, as we are told by the Prime Minister, is to have some say in appointing members to the University Grants Committee. We want more than that. We certainly do not want the activities of the present Minister of Science overspilling into Scotland.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)

I did not rise to speak earlier because unfortunately I missed the beginning of the Minister's speech, for which I apologise to him, and I thought that he might have then dealt with a matter to which I wanted to refer. But to judge from speeches made from this side of the House I understand that he did not, and therefore I should like to add to what has been said about the position in Scotland.

I believe that the general decision by the Government is right, that is to say that there should be one Minister of Education. There will be difficulties about some of the scientific institutions and so forth, but, as the Minister has said, that can be debated on a future occasion. This leaves us with the Scottish position. There is no doubt that if it is a good thing to have one Minister in charge of education in England, obviously there is a case for having one in Scotland. At the moment we are not being given that.

I fully agree with the Government that there is a difficulty here, and they may argue that Scotland is no worse off than before because there was always this division in Scottish education. Others may say that that division was between the Secretary of State, on the one hand, and ate United Kingdom Minister, on the other, whereas the proposed arrangement may give the impression of a division between a Secretary of State for Scotland and a Minister who is for education purposes primarily an English Minister. But, whether we like it or not, these changes herald a much more definite policy on education coming from the Ministry of Education. This is inevitable.

Universities, for instance, are already greatly concerned to know the number of places which they may have to provide in different subjects in the years to come. I believe that they will require more and more guidance from the Minister about the future trend of education. The same will be true of the schools. This may mean greater influence being brought to bear on education from the Minister than has been the case hitherto. I know that the Minister and the U.G.C. have said that there is no intention to interfere with what is taught. I appreciate that, but inevitably questions will be asked and guidance sought about the general direction of education and what subjects are needed and in what quantities. If that is so, there are differences between Scottish and English education, apart from the position of teachers which was admirably dealt with by the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson), into which I do not intend to enter further.

There is also the general point of the formulation of educational policy. I should like the Government tonight to spell out at what stage in decisions on education the Secretary of State for Scotland will be consulted and where he will fit in. I do not believe that it is sufficient for him to have some say through the University Grants Committee or in appointments to that Committee. We must give further consideration to the question of the stage at which account is taken of the position of Scottish education in future developments and to how education policy will be formulated. This is a matter of concern to Scotland, and I hope that before we part with this Motion—as I say, I think that in this Order the Government are moving in the right direction—we shall have a much fuller explanation.

I regret that the Secretary of State for Scotland is not here to take part in the debate; but, no doubt, we shall have a winding-up speech from the Government Front Bench, and I hope that this point of the formulation of policy and its effect on Scotland will be dealt with more fully than it has been up till now,

11.10 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)

I do not intend to delay the House for long because I believe that all that can be said about the position of Scotland has already been said. I am, however, confused about how this tidiness is to be made effective.

I wish to raise the question of the College of Aeronautics and Farnborough. These places are linked, because Farnborough's education and that of the College of Aeronautics is practically one. So this tidiness at the one end will cut this in half. Farnborough, Bedford and the D.S.I.R. have wind tunnels, and presumably that is a kind of unity in science. Yet this is to be cut in half, and people are going to deal with the same thing in different departments under different Ministries.

Take the question of agriculture. We in Scotland have a College of Agriculture which needs a close connection with the Department of Agriculture. The College of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture arrange for lecturers to go out to farmers, which is a direct connection between the College of Agriculture and the practical work of farming. The Minister is right in saying that one should not make a particular distinction between pure science and applied science. The Agricultural Council is concerned with pure science and gives grants for pure science, and it is difficult to say when pure science ceases and applied science begins, applied science being involved with the lectures to the farmers.

I do not believe we can get this nice tidy system whereby everything is in a separate compartment. The whole country is one, and the life of the universities, of the schools, of these agricultural colleges and aircraft establishments flows not only in educational circles but right into the works, at Farnborough where some of the most important scientific computer work is being carried out, and in the University at Edinburgh. It is not possible to separate the work of the university from the work of Farnborough in industry.

I should, therefore, like the Minister to give a rather clearer impression of how far all these different things will have their links with industry and with the community maintained, instead of being cut off into compartments divorced from the life of the community. One of the criticisms of the universities is that they haw become so divorced from the community that many people in the universities do not know what is going on in the world outside. There has been criticism that a person might, by taking educational steps, become a professor or a lecturer without having any connection with the industrial life of the country on which it all depends. The blood of the one ought to flow into the other with no interruption at all.

While I do not expect the Minister to make a tidy pattern, because I think it is impossible, I hope that he will elucidate some of these problems which will arise for him and for the Government in trying to get this thing called education into a compact whole.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Merlyn Rees (Leeds, South)

I add my voice to those which have already questioned the federal structure which we have had put to us this evening by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. In my view, although the right hon. and learned Gentleman says that he is responsible for all education, in practice, the Ministers administratively in charge will effectively have the responsibility. I question also the arrangement where-under the Minister administratively in charge of the schools is to be in another place and will not be a Cabinet Minister. The hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) spoke about the status of teachers. Here is a point at which we see at once that the Minister administratively in charge of education in the schools is a lesser animal than the Minister in charge of the universities.

At a time when big changes are taking place in the Burnham arrangements, at a time when the Plowden Committee has not yet reported, throughout the country there are all sorts of ideas being argued. First, there is talk about changing education at 9, others suggest changing at 10, with the argument running the whole gamut through 11, 12 and 13 up to 14. We need effective control to see that the Plowden ideas which are breaking through before the report comes out are effectively managed.

Newsom concerns me because of problems in my constituency, but I now find—I am choosing my words carefully—the new Minister who is to be responsible is not a man who, according to my researches, has made a great contribution in the educational world. I am anxious, therefore, as someone who was once a teacher, as someone who is a parent and as someone who has, to call them such, Newsom problems in his constituency.

Other problems arise out of the federal arrangement which has been put to us. I shall touch on them briefly because of the time. I take, first, further education. Further education has grown greatly in recent years. One can go to regional and area colleges which not only are doing ordinary national and higher national certificate courses but are doing extramural London University degree courses. Yet under the new arrangement, such colleges—and they vary—come under the Minister administratively in control of schools. To my knowledge, many of the area and regional colleges in recent weeks have felt themselves to be outside the pale, betwixt and between.

A problem arises for the training colleges. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) is fond of telling the story that, at the end of the war, the education Ministers went to the U.G.C. or the vice-chancellors' committee and said that we needed more teachers, and yet—whether it was the U.G.C. or the vice-chancellors' committee, I am not sure—no one was interested it this administrative point. This is still an important matter. There is a need for more teachers. How can we be sure that, when the training colleges come under the U.G.C., as I agree they should, the needs of the school system for more teachers will be sympathetically met?

I am anxious about the whole functioning of the Department concerned with schools. Like the hon. Member for Wokingham, I am concerned about the status of teachers. When one works first as a teacher in school and then in a university, one finds that the treatment is quite different. One is a completely different person, treated in a completely different way, whether for superannuation, the method of reporting in the morning, freedom during the day, or anything else. If there were a statue outside that piece of ghastly architecture in Curzon Street, there would be two figures in it. One would be Dr. Kay-Shuttleworth reading a Poor Law report and the other would be Sir Robert Morant waving a Holmes circular. I can only hope that, when these changes come about, attention will be given to the status of teachers to bring it more into line with that of people working in other institutions.

I hope also that there will be more people concerned with making policy who understand what goes on in the State schools. I am not making a "chip on the shoulder" point here, but I believe that, far too often, the people who are making policy decisions about the State schools have never worked in them and have never sent their children to them. With the best will in the world, they miss the essential point about them. I oppose this Order because this federal structure really means that there is no essential change compared with what went before.

11.20 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

I was shocked to hear the Lord President saying how little his new overlordship Ministry would be burdened by responsibility for the Research Councils and the general responsibility for fundamental research. If he is, as Secretary of State, to be so little burdened by these scientific responsibilities, what has he been doing in the last four years as Minister for Science?

What he is saying is that he has been holding only a nominal post in which he did nothing. He cannot have it both ways. Either he did nothing then or he will do everything now. The extent to which he is proposing to unify education, fundamental research and responsibility for applied research in industry is a revelation, if we needed one, of the extent to which the Tory Government propose to take effective steps to introduce science into industry. This is why the proposed new Department fails not only on education grounds but, in particular, because it shows a total lack of understanding of what is needed to revive the British economy and give British industry the slant it needs for the future.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman should take very seriously the absence from this debate of the Secretary of State for Scotland. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said, it is not true that the functions of the Secretary of State for Scotland remain unchanged under this Order. To the extent that the U.G.C. is to have access directly to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and that he, therefore, will control the universities of Scotland, then the Secretary of State for Scotland, in respect of responsibility for schools and training colleges and other institutions in Scotland, is demoted to the level of one of the Ministers under the right hon. and learned Gentleman. That position must be faced. It is not a happy one.

Scottish schools have their own traditions, and their curricula are suited to the history and traditions of Scottish education. What is to happen to that now? I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to have discussions, even now, with the Secretary of State for Scotland. If the Secretary of State for Scotland has nothing to say, then let the right hon. and learned Gentleman have discussions direct with the representatives of Scottish education. I do not believe that enough thought has been put into this by the Government. If they have thought about it, then they have come to the wrong decision and they should even now seek to rectify their mistake.

11.22 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

In the short time at my disposal I wish to single out the topic of the reactor group of the Atomic Energy Authority. Perhaps one can understand, that although one may not agree with it, that under the Secretary of State for Education and Science should come Dounreay, Risley, Harwell and perhaps Capenhurst. But imagination boggles at the thought of his being responsible for Hunterston, Bradwell, Berkeley and Chapelcross. At this late hour I will confine myself to saying that I would be curious to know about their future.

Mr. Hogg

The hon. Gentleman is worrying himself unduly. The great power stations are under my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power. They do not come into this Order at all. Obviously, experimental reactors are part of the Atomic Energy Authority, but the idea that Bradwell comes under the Authority is incorrect.

11.25 p.m.

Dr. Alan Thompson (Dunfermline Burghs)

The Lord President of the Council spoke of the U.G.C. as a "buffer". I prefer the more positive approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees), who spoke of the need of somehow persuading and guiding the Committee to see education in totality in relation to the universities, the schools and the outside world.

I think that this idea of the University Grants Committee as a buffer is backward-looking. I understand how the question arose. It derives from the pre-war idea that the U.G.C. consisted of a small group of gentlemanly people dispensing about £2 million a year on a small number of universities—deciding, for instance, whether to build a women's hostel at this or that university college. But the U.G.C. at some future date will be spending nearly £2,000 million on higher education. Yet it is basically an instrument that was designed in the 1930s when higher education was not nearly in the same economic social and dynamic context as it is today.

I appreciate that university education involves problems of administration which are different from other sectors of education. As an ex-university teacher I know that very well, but I think that we must not get it into our heads that the U.G.C. is a buffer to protect university education from the realities of the outside world. The system has worked up to a point. I know that if the Foreign Office wants development in Arabic studies somebody from the Foreign Office meets a vice-chancellor in the Atheneum and one of the universities founds a chair. I admit that the system has not worked badly, but I do not think that that kind of rather informal gentlemanly proceeding is the right thing for the future. I do not think that if the U.G.C. is to be protected from the scrutiny of this House at the most relevant points, it will work in future.

We want a more formal definition. I am in favour of the retention of a University Development Council, as we should call it, but I think that we want some more precise idea of what it is answerable for, and to what extent it is subject to the scrutiny of the House. While the U.G.C. has many achievements to its credit, I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South made the fair point that in the past it has not been sufficiently responsive to outside influences.

We must concern ourselves not only with university administration at Ministerial level, not only with university administration at U.G.C. level, but with university administration at university level. That I is, the university governing bodies must be such, and the charters which set up new universities must be so framed, that they contain a cross-section of the community. The university governing body of Oxford consists entirely of university staff, and senior staff at that, and there are some universities with hardly any outside representatives on the councils.

These bodies spend vast sums of public money. The decisions they take affect teachers, schools, and the education system right down the line. They affect industry horizontally, and they affect every aspect of life, yet their membership is drawn from a small inward-looking group of people. These bodies must be outward looking. In this respect Scottish university administration is often superior to its English equivalent.

I regard it as part of the functions of the Minister to look at university charters to ensure that the governing bodies of these new universities are designed to meet the needs of the 1960s, and not the needs of the 1860s. Not long ago I asked a question about how university charters were framed. I was not satisfied with the reply that I received, and I hope that the Minister will look at this, because it seems to me that we should bring universities into touch with the outside world, into contact horizontally with industry, and into contact vertically with the education system beneath them. This can be done by a new approach, and I hope that the Minister will look at this.

I shall not deal with the situation in Scotland, except to ask the Minister to ensure that the governing bodies of Scottish universities are associated with the broad educational needs of Scotland, and that on the governing councils of the universities there are representatives of teachers organisations and of Scottish life. That will go a long way to ensuring that universities respond to the life about them, whether they be North or South of the Border.

11.29 p.m.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman (Coventry, East)

I shall be very short in summing up the objections that we have to this Order.

I start by referring to the phrase used by the right hon. and learned Gentleman about this being a federal solution. If we read the Order, we see that nothing could be less federal. It represents one of the most centralised solutions that there has been, in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman takes all possible powers to himself and leaves no powers outside. I take it we must never think that this Order means what it says. What it means, though it does not say so, is that there is to be a devolution of powers to the two Ministers of State.

So we come to the objections from all Scottish Members, because they would like to know what the real meaning is, compared with the theoretical meaning in the Order, because from the point of view of Scotland all that matters is that here is something which is theoretically centralised. The right hon. Gentleman gave us an assurance it would work differently in practice. We all look forward to hearing what the old Minister of Education has to say about it, what, in his view, will be the solution of that problem.

It is true, of course, that the Prime Minister, in first telling us of the solution, told us that this was largely borrowed from the Labour Party. It is true as regards education. I have no doubt that, broadly speaking, it is the right solution, but when we come to the details there are still some questions which have not been cleared up.

The first relates to the Secretary of State's own powers, and his own Ministry. Take the comparison, which is a valid one, with the Ministry of Defence and the three subordinate Ministries which are ceasing to be separate Ministries. The Minister of Defence has his own Permanent Secretary, his own staff; indeed, in a small sense, his own Ministry. We should like to hear whether the Secretary of State will have, distinct from the two Departments under the Ministers, a central Ministry, and, if so, what its function would be. We would conceive it to be a Ministry which would have a central planning function, and concerting common services, including establishment, information and staff.

We wonder, for example, whether the present Minister of Education's architectural and engineering unit would be a central service for the whole Ministry. We should like to hear something more, therefore, about the actual functions. Is the new Minister a Ministry on his own? Does he have a Permanent Secretary of his own, as the Minister of Defence does? If not, is he merely an overlord, with a theoretically totally centralised Department, but, in fact, looked after by two others administering it for him?

I come to the new Minister of higher education and science. He has, in the arduous duty of administering education, what the Provost of King's—I think it was—in an admirable description in the Observer the other day, described as the job "of a mangy old lion." Because, he said, after all, what does he do, this Minister of higher education? At Question Time yesterday, when I asked whether he imposed his will on the U.G.C. he simply told me, "It is not for us to do anything." Very well, He is not to impose his will. What will the Minister do then? Will he be telling us about allocations and grants in aid to the U.G.C.? We should like to know what else he will be doing. Does he do that once, and then stop? If that is his total job, I can see he deserves the slight reduction in his salary as a result of the transfer. Or will he be concentrating on the function of the application of science to industry, of which we should like to hear something tonight?

It is unfair, I think, to say that he is a "mangy old lion", as the Provost of King's called him. He is to be a frustrated young buffalo. Perhaps he will tell us what he will be doing. Since the U.G.C. will have staff for administration, what exactly will he do now? How will he spend his arduous hours he has to consume in administering education? According to the Minister he will be absenting himself from imposing his will.

Perhaps the Minister will say something about the functions in relation to training colleges. Will they be under him? Can we have firm information? The last time, he was a little ambiguous on the subject of the Robbins recommendation on that subject, and we should like to hear something about that.

We come to the other Minister of State—the Minister of State for schools. He is in the other place; one of the Lords in Waiting, or the Lord Chamberlain, or whatever he is. When he was sitting here he did not seem an outstanding personality of the Government. I presume that the explanation of the noble Lord's selection is that he is to be the office boy upstairs while the Secretary for Education takes on himself the real, detailed administration of the schools.

Perhaps we can be told about Question Time. Is Question Time to be rearranged? Is the Secretary of State to answer all the Questions about education, all those about research and science—the whole spectrum—and a few crumbs be given to the Parliamentary Secretaries? Or will we see a more rational arrangement? We should like to hear something about the division of duties between the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the noble Lord who will be theoretically on a par with the ex-Minister of Education, administering a great Department for him.

I should like to reinforce what my hon. Friends have said about the Burnham negotiations. Are we to understand that the noble Lord will be conducting those negotiations, or will, the Secretary of State for Education and Science find the time to carry out those negotiations personally, and report on them to the House? The Order in Council is quite clear; he will do everything—but everything! Every single thing is concentrated on this one man—every power, every authority ever enjoyed by a Minister of Education, or Minister for Science or Lord President of the Council is to be in his one personal self.

Of course, we do not believe it. We know that his is just what is put in an Order in Council, and that all this will be spelt out in a practical solution. This belongs to the words in the text of an Order in Council and it has not yet been spelt out. We await with some interest the reply, end as we know that it will not be wholly satisfactory, we will vote against it.

Then there are the Research Councils—we look forward to the Secretary of State for Education and Science transferring his attention to science and Research Councils. We should like to hear something of what he will do about them. Will be appoint a civil science board? Will he create a social science research council? Will he develop the arts and humanities? We should like to hear about all these parts of his job before he comes to his main job of the application of science to industry.

I think that the Grand Panjandrum Secretary, the Pooh-Bah Secretary, was very interested in the application of science to industry. He said that it is impossible to make any difference; that the nursery school is linked to the primary school, the primary school to the senior school, the senior school to the secondary school, the secondary school to higher education, higher education to Research Councils, Research Councils to applied science, applied science to research and development, research and development to industry. One Minister must run the lot—it is impossible to separate them.

That is all right, but what about defence? What about the biggest example of research and development there is—the place in which we have spent more money than anywhere else on research and development? Why has not the Secretary of State for Education and Science mopped up the Ministry of Defence as well? It is impossible to divide them—they are closely linked; just give him time. I quite see the point. We shall then have one of these Orders in Council saying that the Prime Minister is theoretically responsible for Government, but that really the Secretary of State for Education will be running the Government for him. It will be nice to think of.

I was not quite clear about the position of the N.R.D.C. That is under the Board of Trade—why has he not mopped up that? Is not that body applying science to industry? Is it not "the" thing set up for research and development? Why is that left to the Board of Trade? Is it because there was a powerful interest that was an obstacle too great for him to absorb it in the early stages of his Great Panjandrum career? I expect that it will be absorbed in the weeks before the election.

The last point I put to the Minister is about private industry. After all, there is a lot of research and development in private industry. Why does he not take that over as well? Courtaulds and I.C.I. have research and development. One thing we have put to him before is that there is a real problem in the application of science to private industry and the help which the Government can give to it. We believe that is a quite different job from that of teaching in infant schools or even of running research councils. The job of seeing to it that our technology—Government-financed—goes to the assistance of private industry is absolutely distinct from the work of research councils or the work of the Ministry of Education. This is why we suggested a Ministry of Industry and Technology to do that side of the work.

I imagine that the ex-Minister of education will find a little time for seeing the F.B.I. and saying, "I know that you have asked for £50 million to build up industry. In the time I can take off from Research Councils and other work, I will come to you to see that the £50 million is invested wisely." I do not think that this is a wise solution. From all we have heard we think it more sensible to say, "Yes, we should have a Minister of Education and under him two Ministers, but it would be wise to leave the control of scientific research and the control of science in industry to other Ministers who can concentrate on it.

Because he has failed to take our advice on these two particulars, and is taking it only in the narrow educational field, we have decided to vote against this Order.

11.42 p.m.

The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle)

The hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) ended his speech with what he called "the narrow educational field". That seems a curious description of one of the most important reforms we have had throughout history of the educational service. We are deciding tonight for the first time that we shall have, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, "a single Minister with total responsibility over the whole educational field." In order to allay anxieties"—

Mr. Crossman

The word "narrow" was used in comparison with the fantastically ambitious views of the hon. Members opposite who want not only education, but all research and its application to industry, under one Panjandrum. In that position I said—in quotes—"taking it only in the narrow field of education".

Sir E. Boyle

They must have been large quotes.

I shall deal at the end of my speech with the hon. Member's comments on science, but I want to make perfectly clear to the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and other Scottish hon. Members that I shall refer to Scotland in my speech, but it will take an unconscionable time if I have to refer every time to England and Wales when I am including Scotland.

I start by answering some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). He rightly said that we are taking a political decision to have one single Secretary of State. I think that this decision will be one of major importance for the future of the education service. I want to spell out the implications of this decision for the Cabinet, the House of Commons and the working of the Department. It is quite misleading to speak, as the hon. Member spoke, of two voices in the Cabinet. My right hon. Friend will alone speak in the Cabinet as the spokesman of the education service in England and Wales. He will have the sole responsibility in Cabinet for the education service in England and Wales. It has been made perfectly plain by the Prime Minister that I am remaining in the Cabinet at his special invitation, not by virtue of the post I shall occupy.

Mr. Archie Manuel (Central Ayrshire)

It is a sop.

Sir E. Boyle

I go from there to the questions of Parliament and responsibility to this House.

Let me make it quite clear that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be responsible to the House for the whole range of education policy. All Questions relating to the present Ministry of Education, the present office of Minister for Science and the old responsibilities of the Treasury for paying grants on these matters should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. It is, of course, entirely within the practice of the House for my right hon. Friend, if he wishes, to make arrangements as to which of his under-Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries replies.

I also wish to emphasise the implications of these arrangements for the new Department. There is no question of each of the two Ministers of State being responsible to either House for a Department. On the contrary, both Permanent Secretaries will be responsible to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The point is that the new Department will consist of two administrative units, one of which, as my right hon. Friend said, will deal with universities and civil science and the other with schools and other education in England and Wales. Each unit will be associated with a particular Minister of State, but there will not be absolute one-for-one correspondence between the unit and the Minister of State and there may well be some subjects, for example overseas relations, which will straddle the interests of the two Ministers of State. Both Ministers of State will report to and be responsible to my right hon. Friend and they will in no sense be departmental Ministers. Each of us will be referred to as a Joint Minister of State for Education.

The hon. Member for Sunderland, North referred specifically to Burnham. I hope that I have made it plain that I have no wish to shirk this issue. It was common ground in the House last year—and I must not develop this at length that—some change in machinery was needed. I have written the letter which said I would write when I answered a Question by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White). I have, so far, had only one answer. Of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be responsible to this House for these negotiations. I have no desire to shirk the matter, and it may well be that my right hon. Friend will wish to consult me and even to some extent to bring me into these negotiations. There is no reason why he should not do so.

I cannot accept the suggestion by hon. Members opposite that the Government's arrangements are in some sense a denigration of the maintained schools. That is not true. It is rather interesting that some weeks ago when it was thought that—if I may be personal for a moment—I should be the Minister of State associated with the schools unit, exactly the opposite point was being made by critics of the Government. They said, "Clearly, the present Minister will go on doing the same work as before. He will be Minister for lower education, not in the Cabinet by virtue of his job, and the Secretary of State will interest himself primarily in the universities and in science." I believe that the arrangements which have been announced show clearly that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends to exercise his responsibilities equally over the whole educational field. There is no question of any denigration of the maintained schools.

I am in a rather unusual position in replying to the debate, but one advantage, surely, of my being associated with the universities and science unit is that we wish to make the federal Department as much a unity as possible, and there is something to be said for the Minister of State with a long experience of the Department going to the new unit to see how the work of that unit can be fitted in with the rest.

Mr. Ross

What about Scotland?

Sir E. Boyle

The hon. Member need not be impatient. I will deal with Scotland. He and I have debated happily before.

There are a number of aspects of the education service which straddle both units. One has been mentioned tonight by a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson)—teacher-training. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) on the question of technical colleges. There are many subjects that will straddle both units and there is no reason why my right hon. Friend, if he wishes, should not call on the advice of either Minister of State on any departmental issue.

A number of points concerning Scotland have been raised. My right hon. Friend made it clear in his opening speech that the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland are unchanged by this Motion. On the question of universities, my right hon. Friend will be responsible for the grants to Scottish universities. He will have the same responsibilities as the Treasury. I can tell the hon. Member for Kilmarnock that I recall, when I was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, answering a debate on Scottish universities. I do not remember any objection being raised to that procedure. There are a number of other aspects of Scottish education to which I wish to refer.

Mr. Ross

If it was essential to change the relationship and influence of the Government from the Treasury to a new Minister of Education, is it not wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to adduce that kind of argument simply because when he was at the Treasury there was no objection Our whole objection is that that influence has now passed to that Minister simply because he also has responsibilities for English schools. Obviously, that leaves Scottish schools completely out of the picture.

Sir E. Boyle

Believe it or not, Treasury Ministers are English Ministers, too.

Mr. Woodburn

On the question of his right hon. Friend being responsible for paying the grants, when I was Secretary of State for Scotland I used to sign for the cash to the U.G.C. for university grants. Does the new arrangement mean that the Secretary of State will still sign the cheques? How does the Secretary of State become responsible for paying the grants?

Sir E. Boyle

There is no difference in the arrangements and it may be that the Secretary of State for Scotland will actually sign the cheques. I was talking about who was responsible for the grants.

Several other aspects of Scottish education have been raised. Several hon. Members referred to the colleges of education. What I have said about the universities will apply to such institutions as and when they reach university status. If colleges of education in Scotland in future come within the responsibility of the U.G.C., then account will be taken of the Robbins recommendation that there should be a separate committee to deal with them and that the Secretary of State for Scotland should be associated with the consideration of matters affecting them. On the general subject of training colleges, I cannot make any further statement tonight simply because we have not yet heard the response of the universities to the Robbins recommendation, which directly affects them.

Several hon. Members have referred to the liaison between Scottish and English education. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) spoke on this subject. All I can say is that there is, I believe, closer liaison now on many more matters than the right hon. Gentleman realises. For example, on the question of grants, following the Anderson Report there was a joint committee of the Government on that subject. I can assure hon. Members that we have such joint committees on a number of matters, such as pensions, superannuation, the supply of teachers and others, all of which are of common interest to all concerned.

Mr. George Lawson (Motherwell)

Does the right hon. Gentleman not appreciate that the very fact that the Secretary of State for Scotland has been absent from the Chamber for virtually the whole debate indicates that in future he will have no place or part to play in higher education? Does he not agree that this is most humiliating and damaging?

Sir E. Boyle

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the Prime Minister's statement, and the Answer he specifically gave in column 1343 of HANSARD of 6th February, he will see that the position of the Secretary of State for Scotland is quite unchanged by these proposals.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Sir E. Boyle

I really must get on. We are not, with respect, in Scottish Grand Committee now. I have answered three points put to me from hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mrs. Hart

May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

Is it on a point of order?

Mrs. Hart

Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. As there is no Scottish Minister present when we are discussing matters which have constitutional import for Scotland, is it not right——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Lady will know that that is not a point of order.

Sir E. Boyle

I should like to reply to three points raised by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden). He asked whether we were to have a common statistical service. The answer is that we certainy intend to do so. The statistics of the Ministry of Education have been a marked feature of our achievement in recent years and we intend to work towards a common statistical service. The hon. Gentleman said that we should have a new building, and my right hon. Friend said that a new building is under construction to house most of the new Department. Finally, the hon. Gentleman spoke about Civil Service arrangements. I would have thought that the pattern of two units with Ministers of State associated with them would facilitate Civil Service arrangements in this field, and there must be a more carefully articulated arrangement for Civil Service advice to pass up to my right hon. Friend.

Before I come to science I would like to answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, South when he spoke about the need for more people in the Ministry who understand State schools. If he will refer to an article, which I will send him, in New Society, some months ago, he will agree that

the Ministry of Education got very good marks from the writer precisely on this point. We are a Department that looks from the outside towards the inside, rather than the other way round.

On the subject of science, I would like just to say this to the hon. Member for Coventry, East. He first asked me about the architects and buildings branch of the Ministry. I very much hope that one of the advantages of one single federal Department will be, as we grow, that we shall gain from the experience of the architects and buildings branch. That is highly desirable. The hon. Gentleman then asked what, in fact, I would be doing and raised a number of objections to the Government's proposals for science, all of which were answered conclusively by my right hon. Friend on 24th February.

My right hon. Friend spoke on that occasion about the principles of concentration and diffusion in scientific policy. He said: I do not believe that either of these two systems is wholly satisfactory. What is wanted is not a choice or a compromise between the two, but a full recognition of the separate rôle which each must play in a full and satisfactory organisation of civil science."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1964; Vol. 690, c. 66.]

The hour is late and I do not propose to detain the House for more than another moment or two. I am sorry to have detained it for so long. I would only say, in conclusion, that as far as science is concerned we stand by the principles which my right hon. Friend enunciated on that occasion. As far as education is concerned, I am sure that we are serving the interests of the whole service by the proposals which my right hon. and learned Friend has put forward tonight, and I ask the House decisively to approve them.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 155, Noes 97.

Division No. 44.]	AYES	[11.58 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter	Bidgood, John C.	Channon, H. P. G.
Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)	Biggs-Davison, John	Chataway, Christopher
Allason, James	Bishop, Sir Patrick	Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)	Black, Sir Cyril	Clarke, Brig Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Balniel, Lord	Bourne-Arton, A.	Cleaver, Leonard
Barter, John	Box, Donald	Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Batsford, Brian	Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Curran, Charles
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)	Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Currie, G. B. H.
Berkeley, Humphry	Browne, Percy (Torrington)	Dalkeith, Earl of
Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.	Johnson, Eric (Blackley)	Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)
Doughty, Charles	Johnson Smith, Geoffrey	Scott-Hopkins, James
Drayson, G. B.	Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Shaw, M.
du Cann, Edward	Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith	Shepherd, William
Duncan, Sir James	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Skeet, T. H. H.
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Kerans, Cdr. J. S.	Stainton, Keith
Elliott, R.W. (Newc'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Kerr, Sir Hamilton	Stevens, Geoffrey
Errington, Sir Eric	Kimball, Marcus	Storey, Sir Samuel
Farr, John	Kirk, Peter	Studholme, Sir Henry
Finlay, Graeme	Lambton, Viscount	Summers, Sir Spencer
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Lancaster, col. C. G.	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Freeth, Denzil	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.	Lilley, F. J. P.	Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)
Gammans, Lady	Lindsay, Sir Martin	Teeling, Sir William
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)	Litchfield, Capt. John	Temple, John M.
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)	Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Glover, Sir Douglas	Loveys, Walter H.	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Gower, Raymond	Lubbock, Eric	Thorpe, Jeremy
Grant-Ferris, R.	McLaren, Martin	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Green, Alan	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy(Bute & N. Ayrs)	Turner, Colin
Gresham Cooke, R.	Maddan, Martin	Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.	Markham, Major Sir Frank	van Straubenzee W. R.
Garden, Harold	Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)	Vane, W. M. F.
Hall John (Wycombe)	Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)	Vickers, Miss Joan
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)	Mawby, Ray	Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Harrison Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Wade, Donald
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Walder, David
Hastings, Stephen	Miscampbell, Norman	Walker, Peter
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Wall, Patrick
Hendry, Forbes	Morgan, William	Ward, Dame Irene
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Webster, David
Hirst, Geoffrey	Neave, Airey	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Hobson, Rt. Hon. Sir John	Partridge, E.	Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Hocking, Philip N.	Peel, John	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Quintin	Percival, Ian	Wise, A. R.
Holland, Philip	Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Hollingworth, John	Pitt, Dame Edith	Woodnutt, Mark
Hooson, H. E.	Pounder, Rafton	Woollam, John
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.	Proudfoot, Wilfred	Worsley, Marcus
Hughes-Young, Michael	Pym, Francis	Yates, William (The Wrekin)
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Iremonger, T. L.	Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Ridsdale, Julian	Mr. Chichester-Clark and
Jennings, J. C.	Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)	Mr. Ian Fraser.
NOES
Ainsley, William	Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)	Pavitt, Laurence
Albu, Austen	Hannan, William	Pentland, Norman
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Hart, Mrs. Judith	Probert, Arthur
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)	Herbison, Miss Margaret	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Bennett, J (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Hill, J. (Midlothian)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Blackburn, F.	Holman, Percy	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W (Leics, S.W.)	Houghton, Douglas	Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)
Boyden, James	Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)	Ross, William
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Silkin, John
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Howie, W.	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Callaghan, James	Hoy, James H.	Slater Joseph (Sedgefield)
Carmichael, Neil	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Steele, Thomas
Cliffe, Michael	Hynd, John (Attercliffe)	Stonehouse, John
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Irving, Sydney (Dartford)	Taverne, D.
Crossman, R. H. S.	Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)
Dalyell, Tam	Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Lawson, George	Thornton, Ernest
Delargy, Hugh	Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)	Wainwright, Edwin
Dempsey, James	Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)	Warbey, William
Dodds, Norman	Loughlin, Charles	Watkins, Tudor
Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)	McBride, N.	Weitzman, David
Fernyhough, E,	MacColl, James	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Finish, Harold	Mackie, John (Enfield, East)	White, Mrs. Eirene
Fitch, Alan	MacPherson, Malcolm	Whitlock, William
Forman, J. C.	Manuel, Archie	Willey, Frederick
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	Mendelson, J. J.	Willlis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Galpern, Sir Myer	Millan, Bruce	Winterbottom, R. E.
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)	Milne, Edward	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.	Mulley, Frederick	Woof, Robert
Gourlay, Harry	Neat, Harold	Yates, victor (Ladywood)
Greenwood, Anthony	O'Malley, B. K.
Grey, Charles	Oram, A. E.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
		Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. Redhead.

Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Secretary of State for Education and Science Order 1964

be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 4th March.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.