HC Deb 20 April 1967 vol 745 cc793-4
27. Mr. Whitaker

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will now take steps to abolish corporal punishment in schools.

Mr. Crosland

As I said in the debate on 16th March, I prefer to await the views of the teachers' and local authority associations on this and all the recommendations of the Plowden Report.

Mr. Whitaker

Would not implementation of this recommendation in the Plowden Report, far from costing money, save some? Will not my right hon. Friend stand up to a few reactionary teachers and bring our schools into line with our prisons?

Mr. Crosland

I do not think that it is a question of standing up to a few reactionary teachers. I made my position perfectly plain when we debated the Plowden Report. I am entirely with the Plowden Committee. I do not believe, and never have believed, in corporal punishment. The only question is whether the Plowden Report did not make too much of the issue. We know that the amount of corporal punishment which goes on in the schools is diminishing steadily every year. The question which we have to decide is whether to ban it by law would help or hinder the steady process by which it is disappearing.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

Will the Minister recognise that this is a matter for the headmaster of the school, who is responsible for discipline?

Mr. Crosland

I should have thought that the attitude of teachers as a whole was very clearly expressed in the evidence of the N.U.T. on the subject, which showed how rapidly the practice was disappearing and how few teachers approved of it. But it suggested that the best thing would be to leave it to die out of its own accord.

Mr. Whitaker

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the Conservative nature of the Minister's reply—

Mr. Speaker

Order. Points of order must be put in the conventional way.