Clause 2.—(STANDARDS FOR ENTRY TO THE TEACHING PROFESSION.) (Hansard, 27 April 1965)

§ Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll)
I beg to move, in page 1, line 16, to leave out "standards of education" and to insert "educational qualifications and".

§ Mr. Speaker
I think that it would be convenient to discuss, at the same time, Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 16, to leave out "and fitness to teach"; Amendment No. 13, in Clause 7, page 4, line 16, after "education" to insert "and" and Amendment No. 14, in Clause 7, page 4, line 16, to leave out "and fitness to teach".

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Judith Hart)
Would it be convenient to discuss also Amendment No. 3, in Clause 2, page 1, line 17, to leave out "required of" and to insert "appropriate to"?

§ Mr. Speaker
If the House so pleases.

§ Mr. Noble
Further to that, Mr. Speaker, it seems that Amendment No. 5, in page 1, line 22, to leave out "requirements" and to insert "conditions", might be discussed at the same time.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am not sure that that is acceptable.

§ Mrs. Hart
Yes, Mr. Speaker, it would be quite acceptable. In the circumstances, I wonder whether it might be convenient to take all the Amendments to Clause 2, that is, including Amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 17, to leave out "entering the teaching profession" and to insert for registration under this Act".

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not think that the hon. Lady can quite usurp control of that one.

§ Mr. Noble
The inclusion of Amendment No. 4 at this stage would not be acceptable Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Then the agreement is that we discuss with Amendment No. 1 Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 13 and 14.

§ Mr. Noble
I am pleased to move the first Amendment, because, although we had a very interesting and useful debate on this problem in Committee, which created a good deal of interest on both sides, there may well be some hon. Members with a special interest in education matters who were not members of the Committee but who may wish to express a view. I can tell the hon. Lady that, in looking through the Government Amendments as a whole at this stage, I very much appreciate that many of them have clearly been designed to try to meet points which my hon. Friends and I made during the Committee stage.
I think that Amendments Nos. 3 and 5 may be the hon. Lady's attempt to come some way to meet problems which we raised, but they do not meet them entirely, in our view. The problem confronting us was how best to draw up Clause 2 so as to give the Teaching Council the maximum amount of freedom and yet avoid—this was the obvious difficulty—using phrases which, because of their vagueness, might cause trouble later. Our arrangement to discuss Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 at the same time, of course, reflects the fact that Clause 2 and 7 are complementary, to a great extent, in our thinking.
We felt that standard's of education were exceedingly difficult to define. If I remember aright, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin)—who is not in his place at the moment—and, to some lesser extent, perhaps, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) felt, as we did, that educational qualifications were much more easily defined and used. Towards the end of her argument, the hon. Lady admitted that what she and we had in mind was very much the same and that standards of education would virtually amount to, and would have to be translated into, educational qualifications before they had any real meaning.
I hope, therefore, that the hon. Lady will be able to tell the House that she can come a little further with us than 297 Amendments Nos. 3 and 5 at present show because, although they move in the right direction, they do not of themselves remove the uncertainty of these rather general terms.
We discussed for some time, and quite rightly, the meaning of the words "fitness to teach." The hon. Lady found that this was most easy to express—I put it no higher or lower than that—in terms of illness, that, for instance, if a teacher was suffering from tuberculosis or some contagious disease, he or she would not be fit to teach. However, most of my hon. Friends were worried about this point because they felt that fitness to teach raised more than the simple question of health.
They felt, like the hon. Member for Govan, I think, that straight questions of health were matters on which local authorities and others have always insisted and would continue to insist, and, therefore, such questions within the terms of Clause 2 were rather irrelevant. In a Clause which is designed to lay down conditions for entry into the teaching profession, we felt that one was trying to define the sort of personal qualities a man or woman should have in being able to manage a class, to keep order in difficult conditions, and other factors of that kind rather than straight questions of health.
This being so, we felt that the words "fitness to teach" should be left out, because they related to something which could not normally be determined until a teacher had had practical experience for a number of months in a school. We felt that they added nothing and, like the words "standards of education", were vague enough to cover almost anything. Educational qualifications, on the other hand, are definable and easily understood. If the words "fitness to teach" were left out, there would be no question at a later stage of young men and women feeling, perhaps, aggrieved because the colleges of the Training Council had barred them from entering their desired profession on grounds which they could not understand and the Council could not interpret in a clear and simple way so that they understood what the position was.
After our interesting debate, the hon. Lady herself found a certain amount of difficulty in making up her mind on what 298 the right answer was and she very properly asked that she might take the matter back and reconsider it to see whether words could be found which avoided the difficulties which we on this side foresaw but which, at the same time, met the points which she and many of us recognised.
The hon. Lady said that she would make an honest attempt to look at these words and see what she could do to help the Committee get the right answer to the problem. In moving this Amendment, therefore, I do so very largely in the hope that she will be able to convey to the House the difficulties which she now sees and the ways in which she hopes to meet them.

§ Mrs. Hart
As the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) has said, the Amendments to Clause 2 that he and his hon. Friends have put down, together with more or less parallel Amendments to Clause 7, very much repeat Amendments that he moved in Standing Committee. Indeed, we have before us, in effect, two proposed new versions of Clause 2(1). I hope that the House will bear with me if I quote both versions because this will show the issues clearly. If we accepted the Amendments suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, subsection (1) would read: It shall be the duty of the Council to keep under review the educational qualifications and training required of persons for registration under this Amendment and to make to the Secretary of State from time to time such recommendations with respect to those standards as they think fit. We have considered very carefully what could be done to improve the wording and the subsection will read, if our Amendment is accepted: It shall be the duty of the Council to keep under review the standards of education, training and fitness to teach appropriate to persons entering the teaching profession and to make to the Secretary of State …". The right hon. Gentleman argued in Committee, as he has tended to argue now, that perhaps the phrases used in the Bill—"standards of education" and "fitness to teach"—which we would retain, are too vague to provide an adequate basis for a statutory provision setting out the general functions of the Council. Similarly, the Amendments to Clause 7 tabled by the Opposition display its dislike of the words "fitness to teach".
299 The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that I undertook to consider, in the light of a very full discussion of Clause 2, whether the wording should be altered. As he has also recognised, I have sought to do so as carefully as I could. We have concluded that a number of adjustments in the wording should be made and those which we propose we believe express as clearly as possible the function it is intended to cover by Clause 2, on the one hand, and Clause 7, on the other. I would be out of order if I anticipated precisely the Amendments to be considered on Clause 7, but when we come to them I shall explain them in more detail.
7.15 p.m.
It seems to us right and proper that, in a Clause which is setting out the general functions of the Council—which is what Clause 2 does—we should use a reasonably broad rather than a narrow wording. I think that perhaps I can take the right hon. Gentleman with me on that. We do not wish, under the essential Clause 2, to circumscribe the Council in any way that can be avoided. We see no difficulty in defining the duty of the Council in the way our revision of the Clause would do it. We believe that we need the words used in the subsection and not least the phrase "fitness to teach" in order that the Council can feel able to put forward to my right hon. Friend such recommendations as it thinks fit.
I believe that the Government Amendment, No. 3, will help the House to see the way in which we view the Clause. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman put his finger on the essential nature of the misunderstanding that is liable to arise in considering Clause 2 in relation to Clause 7 when he said that "standards of education", as quoted in Clause 2, would have to be translated into "educational qualifications"—he was quoting what I said in Committee—so as to have real meaning. The essential point is that one has to take as wide a remit as is reasonable under Clause 2 in order to be able to make the more specific and more precise regulations under Clause 7—in other words, in order to translate the duty imposed on the Council under Clause 2 into this follow-up in terms of regulations 300 to be made by my right hon. Friend under Clause 7.
The effect of Amendment No. 3, therefore, is to make a little clearer than it was the distinction between the duty of the Council under Clause 2 and the powers of the Secretary of State under Clause 7. What we do here is to use the words "appropriate to" instead of "required of", because we think that this assists in clarifying the difference between the two Clauses. So now, under Clause 2, the Council is given this broad duty, comprehensively defined, and because the Council is of the greatest importance it is equally important that it should not be unnecessarily circumscribed in its duty.
Under Clause 7, my right hon. Friend will make regulations governing entry to teaching. We have Amendments to Clause 7 to consider which are designed to clarify the position. Amendment No. 3 is designed to make the distinction between Clauses 2 and 7 clear and to remove any misunderstanding. I hope that, in the light of my explanation, it will be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to take the view that we have gone as far as we can in meeting the understandable doubts felt in Committee and have clarified the situation as far as possible.

§ Mr. Noble
I think that the hon. Lady has met at least 50 or 60 per cent. of the points we made in Committee. As she promised, she has had a good look at this, and I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. Noble
I beg to move in page 1, line 17, to leave out "entering the teaching profession" and to insert: for registration under this Act". This, again, is an Amendment which we moved upstairs and which the hon. Lady resisted. Perhaps the hon. Lady would feel it helpful to the House now to discuss it with Amendment No. 24, to Clause 17, standing in the name of the Secretary of State, in page 10, line 3, at end insert: teach" means teach in an educational establishment (as defined in section 145 of the Act of 1962) or in an approved school, and "teaching" and "teacher" shall be construed accordingly 301 since it appears that with that Amendment the Government are trying to meet at least part of our case.

§ Mr. Speaker
I saw the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State nodding assent to that suggestion, but so that it may be on the record I will say that she has.

§ Mr. Noble
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There appears to be a spirit almost of indecent haste this evening which certainly does not meet with my disapproval.
The problem we were faced with on this provision was whether it was intended or not to control, through recommendations by the Teaching Council, the type of qualifications necessary for schools outside what one might call the "State schools", and there were, of course, the problems of the universities and other educational establishments concerning the words "entering the teaching profession". These could, I think, have been taken to mean the teaching profession of any sort, kind or description.
The hon. Lady made it clear to the Standing Committee that there was no intention, at the moment at any rate, of trying to control entry to the well-known Scottish public schools and some private schools by the Secretary of State. This was something which many of us on this side of the House felt to be important. As we all appreciate, there are different standards, sometimes better and sometimes, I am afraid, possibly worse, in some private schools from those in State schools.
On the other hand, there might well be a good deal of resentment, and there certainly would be, if we tried to control entry to the universities. There might be if we tried to control entry into agricultural colleges and so on and if we tried to ensure that every master in Loretto and Fettes and the other great schools had to be registered. The last thing we would want to do would be to make it difficult for those establishments, which do a great deal to keep up the standards of Scottish education, to get the staff they thought necessary.
By mentioning Section 145 of the 1962 Act in her Amendment, the hon. Lady has excluded university teachers and teachers in the theological colleges and other places of that sort which are now no longer to be considered suitable for 302 recommendations by the Teaching Council on fitness to teach and standards of education. However, perhaps she would like to explain how far she feels that this exemption goes beyond the universities and the theological colleges and whether it is still her intention and that of the Secretary of State not at the moment to make regulations about the sort of qualifications needed for people in private schools and in the great public schools.
If the hon. Lady is able to do that and to help the House in that way, we can probably accept her serious attempt in Amendment No. 24 to meet our argument.

§ Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison (Edinburgh, South)
I should like to direct attention to Amendment No. 24. In Standing Committee I asked that the Bill, which makes special arrangements for the teaching profession in Scotland, should be a complete Bill and that the interpretation Clause should not refer to other Acts. I cannot understand why interpretations and definitions are not included in the Bill. It is extremely awkward for practising lawyers to have to have recourse to previous Acts. It wastes time, is difficult to follow and can lead to complications. By doing so in this Bill, we are putting through a very shoddy bit of work.

§ Mrs. Hart
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) knows that he has my sympathy for his point of view. I expressed it in Standing Committee. I regret that it is not possible to carry out the whole process of law reform in relation to one Bill in a month or two. If it were, we would have done so. However, I can assure him that it is our intention as far as possible in all our legislation—and we tried hard in this—to omit unnecessary encumbrances by references to other Acts. It was just not possible to avoid them altogether and that is why we have these references to the Act of 1962. I can assure him that we tried and did not succeed, but we have begun a process which will inevitably take us a long time to complete satisfactorily.
The right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) had me a little confused when he first put down this Amendment 303 again, because I was not quite sure what his purpose was. He appears to have two purposes—one which he expressed in Committee and that expressed by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) about the definition of "teaching profession".
The first stems from a very natural concern about limiting the definition in order that the Secretary of State has no power to make recommendations in respects in which he has no power to act, which is the point originally made by the hon. and learned Gentleman, for example, in the universities. If that is one of the prime purposes of the Amendment, then Amendment No. 24 covers it completely, because what it is intended to do is to exclude university teachers and by doing that to include all other teachers in further education and in the schools within the terms of the 1962 Act. In other words, we are carefully limiting the definition to respects in which the Secretary of State has power to take action under the 1962 Act.
On the issue of independent schools; I must again make something quite clear which I tried to make clear in Committee. What the right hon. Gentleman is doing here is to set up a false premise and then ask me to knock it down. The false premise is that this is a Bill which will give the Secretary of State power in any way to control the kind of teachers employed in any school, State or independent. What the Bill does is not that, but to concern itself with entry to the teaching profession and with the registration of persons thought eligible for entry into the profession.
The regulations and control, such as there are, over the people employed in State or independent schools arise from the 1962 Act. They have existed since 1962 and will continue to exist under the 1962 Act. Up to now, as I explained in Committee and as the right hon. Gentleman has correctly said, my right hon. Friend has not proposed to direct the independent schools that they must employ teachers who are certificated, as now, or registered, as it will be in future. If he were to choose to do so, it would be not under the Bill but under the 1962 Act.
304 I hope that that resolves the difficulty and that I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Bill does not do the thing which he does not wish it to do and that it was never intended to do so. He has been talking about the 1962 Act and to that extent creating a difficulty for himself. I hope that with that assurance on the one point and that explanation on the other I have found it possible to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. N. R. Wylie (Edinburgh, Pentlands)
In that case, what difference is there between Amendment No. 4, which uses the words for registration under this Act and Amendment No. 24, which excludes universities and theological colleges? Is there any distinction?

§ Mrs. Hart
Yes, in that we are concerned with entry to the teaching profession and not with the employment of teachers in establishments. We do not wish in the Bill to seek to extend the Secretary of State's power to cover entry to that part of the teaching profession which is concerned with the universities.

§ Mr. Noble
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.