HC Deb 14 December 1967 vol 756 cc717-38

Not amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.

Schedule 2.

(PROVISIONS RELATING TO CONTRIBUTIONS AND BENEFITS.)

7.40 p.m.

Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll)

I beg to move, in page 15, line 33, at end insert:

Provision affecting teachers who continue or resume full-time teaching

7. Provision for paying allowances, until such date and subject to such conditions as may be determined, to or in respect of teachers who continue or resume full-time teaching and have reached the age of 65 years.

Having listened to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas), who seemed to have a conception of time such as is said to occur in the West Coast of Scotland, I hope that I shall not fall into the same error, because even if the House is indulgent, the length of time which it takes for important things should not be unduly extended. As the Under-Secretary knows, this is an important point coming at the end of a Bill welcomed by both sides of the House and by the teachers of Scotland.

This is not an easy subject; if it had been, it would have been settled many years ago. When we were discussing this subject in Committee, I made the point, quite fairly, that the Educational Institute for Scotland had asked me some years ago whether I could achieve the purpose of full pay and pension for it, because it believed that it was important if it was to get enough teachers to meet what was already then a critical teacher shortage in Scotland. I frankly admitted to the Committee, as I now admit to the House, that I failed to fulfil that request for the Institute.

This does not mean that this is not something important to teachers. It does not mean that they have in any way reduced their desire for this change, for in the last three years the situation has gone from being critical to being very serious. As we all know, we are faced with the problem of the raising of the school leaving age in three or four years and with the almost complete certainty of a shortage of more than 6,000 teachers. Therefore, anything which the House does today, if it can provide more teachers for a hard-pressed service, should not be lightly decided.

In Committee the Minister answered our argument and we are perfectly prepared to concede to him that this is not an easy matter to decide, but it is a subject about which every hon. Member on his side of the House pressed very fiercely a few years ago, when I was considerably attacked and abused by them for not achieving that purpose. The hon. Gentleman is now in that position and has been in it for a considerable time. Although they were unwilling to support me in the Division in Committtee, it was the unanimous view of hon. Members that this was the right action to take at this moment.

7.45 p.m.

We have tried to draft the Amendment as nearly as possible to meeting every argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman in Committee. I can briefly summarise our attempt to do so. In the first line of the Amendment we refer to "until such date". We are perfectly aware that providing additional pay and pension is difficult if it conflicts with other services within the Civil Service who might demand the same thing, and we realise that this may be done for only a short number of years during the acute stage.

We then use the words: and subject to such conditions as may be determined ". We give the Secretary of State the widest possible discretion to bring in this provision in whatever way seems to him to be necessary for not only the time, but the conditions which he has to meet. We also use the words: who continue or resume full-time teaching which meets the point that there may be teachers who would resign in order to come back and so take advantage of full pay and pension. We have also said: and have reached the age of 65 years. We have met every serious objection which the hon. Gentleman raised when he answered our proposition in Committee and we have done it simply and deliberately because we believe that in the conditions now existing, with an already acute shortage and with the raising of the school-leaving age only three or four years ahead, it is absolutely obvious to every teacher in Scotland that there is a critical situation and that an even more critical situation will exist. It is the duty of the Government, therefore, to take such action as is necessary to increase the number of teachers by whatever the figure may be— it may be only 200, 400, or more—in whatever way possible if the raising of the school-leaving age is to be successful and is not to throw an appalling burden on the teachers who have to operate it.

No one in Opposition can guarantee that the drafting of the Amendment is correct. All I can say is that we have done our best to provide words which seem to us to meet every objection to the Amendment which we moved in Committee. I regard the Amendment as a test of the Government's sincerity in their attempt to get enough teachers at a critical period, and I profoundly hope that it will be accepted.

Mr. William Hannan (Glasgow, Mary-hill)

I welcome the spirit in which the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) has moved the Amendment. I am not clear about one aspect, but that is a matter of detail of wording which can be left. I appreciate his purpose, which is in keeping with what has been my own attitude since 1958, when, as he knows, the Knox Committee reported on the supply of teachers.

That Committee regarded this suggestion as so important that it made an interim report and a deputation visited the then Secretary of State to impress upon him—using the form of words which the right hon. Gentleman has just used—that it was a test of the sincerity of the then Government's anxiety to add to the number of teachers then necessary, a number which has continued to grow. In Committee the right hon. Gentleman indicated the difficulties facing him. I am satisfied that my hon. and right hon. Friends have no doubt tried in the present circumstances, but for the very same reasons as prevailed previously— Treasury reasons—they are finding difficulties. In order to sustain this case one has only to refer to the first Report of the Departmental Committee on the Supply of Teachers of Mathematics and Science, about 1955 or 1956. Paragraphs 59 and 60 refer to this idea of having teachers return to teaching.

I want to make it clear that the teachers' position is not of interest to me so much as the position of the children who will be left without teachers or with part-time education. As my hon. Friend knows, children in the City of Glasgow are having only half-day instruction—this in the mid-1960s, when the school-leaving age is shortly to rise.

That decision is not of our making, but it is one that we have indicated we will try to implement. It was a decision of the political party to which my hon. Friend and I belong. There are practical difficulties but, in viewing the present shortage, particularly in the secondary schools, the raising of the school-leaving age in 1970 and the Brunton Report, which asked for a different type of teacher by the 1970s to deal with this situation, it is important that, even at this late stage, my hon. Friend should be asked again whether he can give any further indication of what progress or consultations, if any, there have been. Can he give some assurance that the proposal to pay salary plus pension to teachers who desire to return has been investigated? Note, too, that by the terms of the Amendment it is from age 65 and not as was formerly suggested, from age 60.

There are two or three singular differences. For example, die teacher who goes directly into the Armed Forces and; serves a period of 12, 15 or 20 years can come from the Forces with a pension and then enter teaching. If he were to leave leaching and go to any other job, he would have his pension plus salary for that job.

Mr. John Brewis (Galloway)

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the teacher could enter into teaching in a privately-ran school and still maintain his pension?

Mr.Hannan

Yes. He can leave leaching in the public service and go into a private school, or undertake private tuition and keep his pension. He can enter into a job in security. He can become the janitor in the same school at which he taught and he would then receive his pension and janitor's pay.

My hon. Friend and his colleagues are always perturbed about certain features of life among young people, such as vandalism and misbehaviour. I do not want no exaggerate this, but it is precisely at the ages of from 13 to 18 that the largest lumber of such incidents occur. Statistics prove this. This calls for the services of experienced men to deal with such pupils, and this is one more reason for trying to avoid being penny wise and pound foolish. These men would be invaluable.

Can we hope for a higher percentage of graduates entering teaching than we are getting at present? The current figure is about 50 per cent, or 52 per cent. I do not know whether it is possible to get any more. It is true that men are now allowed to take the three-year college course to become teachers, but not in the senior secondary schools, the very places where there are 15 and 16-year olds. None of us, in normal circumstances, would urge the terms of this Amendment upon my hon. Friend, and he knows that. It is the extraordinary circumstance, not only of the "bulge", but that boys and girls are voluntarily remaining at school which makes this suggestion helpful.

One example comes readily to mind. In the emergency of war the nation found it possible to re-employ retired policemen. They were given certain duties and received pension and pay. What is possible in war ought to be possible in peace. Here is a war of interest in order to try to cater for young people in the schools at the most impressionable years of their life. I feel that we have persuaded my hon. Friend. Can we urge him to go back and try once more?

Let me be perfectly honest with the right hon. Gentleman. There would be no use him trying to pull my leg or twit me, challenging me to support his Amendment. We are old in the service of this House, and we know how these things work. I would not propose to vote with him in the Lobby if he was to divide the House tonight. This is an opportunity for the House to express itself in a sincere fashion. I have been frank and I hope that my remarks will be accepted in the spirit in which they were made. I feel very keenly about this and, I care not from which side of the House it comes, the quality and the purpose of this Amendment is worth while.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Brewis

We on this side of the House are very pleased to have the support of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan). Any teachers who read the report of the debate will see at once the great sincerity with which he put forward his argument.

The problem is quite simple. We are desperately short of teachers. According to the last figures which I saw, we are employing just under 3,000 uncertificated teachers who are to leave the schools shortly. The school-leaving age is to be raised fairly soon. We must get as many teachers as we can. An extra two or three hundred would be worth having.

A number of teachers approaching retirement age who have done very good service in teaching went into the profession in the late 1920s or early 1930s because it was difficult to get a job in other industries during the depression. There was, therefore, a particularly big intake of graduates in the teaching profession in the early 1930s. Those are the people whom we shall lose. This is yet another reason why this is an opportune time to consider this proposal.

Most teachers retire between the ages of 60 and 65. If we could keep them on to 65, many might stay on a year or two more if they had this sweetener of being able to serve the extra years on full pay and pension. It is said that a principle is involved. If that is so, it was breached, as the hon. Member for Maryhill said, during the war in the case of the police. If it be a principle, it seems to me extraordinary that a teacher should be able to retire from the public education service and go into private education or tutoring without losing his pension.

It has also been said that there are shortages in other branches of the public services like the Armed Forces and the fire service. Old men of over 65 are not likely to be of much use in those cases, but they can be extremely useful in the teaching profession. This is yet another reason why we should adopt this proposal.

The Amendment would operate for only a limited period—until the teacher shortage had been righted. We want young, well qualified teachers in the profession, and what we suggest is a stop gap which is badly needed. I urge the Under-Secretary of State to agree to the Amendment.

Mr. Peter Doig (Dundee, West)

This is one of those Amendments which appear to be reasonable in isolation, but there can be no doubt that if it were agreed, even for a limited period, that teachers who carried on in the profession should receive their pension and full salary, every teacher, on reaching pension age, would automatically retire and would then decide to work on. In these circumstances, pensions and salaries would be paid to all teachers over 65. Once that happened, how long would it be before policemen put forward the same argument? It would be said, "There is a temporary shortage of policemen. It is necessary that we should have more policemen". How long would it be before they received, not only their pension, but full pay if they continued in the police service? The same would be said of architects, surveyors, lawyers and sanitary inspectors. The argument would apply to all professional people employed by local authorities who were in short supply.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) said that there are children in Glasgow schools who are receiving only half a day's instruction. I agree that this is a terrible state of affairs. But there could be trouble at the other end of the scale. This has arisen in my constituency. Children are being taught by teachers of nearly 80 years of age who are well past their best. One sometimes wonders whether it is best that children should receive half a day's education for a very short part of their school lives or should be taught all day by very elderly teachers, sometimes for a good few years, who are well past their best.

Mr. Noble

No one is seriously suggesting—and the hon. Gentleman must know this—that an education authority should keep on beyond the age of 65 people who are not fitted to teach.

Mr. Doig

It is very difficult, as the right hon. Gentleman must know, when the onus is put on the director of education or the education authority, to say to someone who has been a teacher for a number of years, "I am sorry, but you are past your best and you will have to retire". It is a very difficult decision to take and usually it is taken only after substantial complaints have been made by the parents.

We are told that the circumstances are extraordinary. I agree. It is proposed that the Amendment should operate for only a temporary period. But once it is applied, and once it is extended to other parts of the public service, as it assuredly would be, how long will it be before we are able to repeal it? I do not know how many hon. Members have had the job of taking something away from people when they have been used to having it. It is one of the hardest things in the world to do, and I imagine that the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) knows it probably better than anyone else.

I suggest that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State should stick to his guns, because if the Amendment is accepted, not only will professional people who are in short supply, but joiners, bricklayers, bus drivers and everyone else will demand to receive their pension as well as their full wages if they return to work. They will not sit back and see the difference in standard of living between people who are better off and themselves grow wider. If it were implemented, this would be one of the most costly proposals ever put forward. The advantage which would accrue from it would be very small compared with its cost. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State should stick to what he said in Committee and resist the Amendment.

Mr. Hector Monro (Dumfries)

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) has thrown a fair amount of cold water on a very constructive attempt to find a solution to this problem which would provide the teachers that we shall want in the near future. We have looked upon this very much as an ad hoc decision. I know that the word "crisis" is not accepted, but the situation will not be far from crisis point by 1970.

It is wrong of the hon. Member for Dundee, West to put forward comparisons which do not stand up. We all know that the police would not contemplate allowing officers to retire at 65, which is in any case past the time when most of them retire, and then re-employing them because we must have fit, active men in the police force. That goes for bus drivers and even local government officers. That is not a fair comparison when we are dealing with an exceptional case. The figures vary as to what the result of this Amendment might be. We talked in Committee of the possibility of 200 or 400 teachers returning to the profession. It could be more. We know that a large number of teachers retire each year. The number returning to the profession might reach 1,000.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) in the Committee explained in detail the position of those who might retire at 62 or 63, and in view of what was said there by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, this Amendment stipulating 65 does seem to me a very wise solution.

In his very sincere remarks the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) talked of the position of the children. It is the position of the children that we must consider first and foremost, and if in any way we can help to provide the teachers for the children of all ages we shall be doing something constructive and something which the people of Scotland will accept and welcome, as would also those other people who might be in these circumstances comparable with the teachers, people like policemen and bus drivers; they also will accept that education is a priority and a special case.

I felt that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) gave a glimmer of hope when he said in Committee: It has been considered by the present Government since 1964. It is part of the review of public service pensions which is part of a review of the National Insurance Scheme. The Government have it very much in mind, as clearly they must, in relation to the raising of the school leaving age in 1970."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Scottish Standing Committee, 28th November, 1967; c. 41.] I think that that indicates that the Government are showing sympathy with what hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House are suggesting.

The point which we put to the hon. Gentleman tonight is that time is not on his side, and so will he give an indication that at a later stage of this Bill he will have an Amendment made on the lines of this which we have suggested tonight, and, better still, announce to the teachers that this is his policy and that he hopes it will bring in the teachers we hope to have by 1970?

Mr. James Hamilton (Bothwell)

I do not want to take up the time of the House or prolong what, having listened to the contributions so far, I think has been a very reasonable, sensible and responsible debate, but I must say that I have a great deal of sympathy for the Amendment which has been moved with the expressed determination to get the necessary teachers who are urgently required at the present time and who will be still more urgently required by the time we raise the school leaving age in 1970.

I would put forward this point of view. I would ask the House to consider, if we require teachers, as we do require them, and will require them, most certainly for technical subjects particularly, and we find at this moment in time that we cannot get the types of people we need in the profession, and for the very good reason, which has been constantly expressed by each and every one of us on both sides of the House, that, for one thing, salaries are totally inadequate, then if the Treasury—and, after all, that will be the deciding factor—has money to spare, that that money should be used to encourage some of the people who are moving into industry in preference to coming into the teaching profession to enter the teaching profession instead.

8.15 p.m.

It could be said that I have a pecuniary interest, because my own daughter is moving into the teaching profession. I myself, before I became a Member of Parliament, was very much involved in industry.

I know, because of my local government connections, the difficulties which are encountered by education authorities in getting the teachers, particularly for secondary schools. As for the primary schools, when I put a Question to my hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland I was assured that, because of the extra places which had been made available in the training colleges, and also because we are going to have males being allowed to come via the training colleges to teach in primary schools, by 1970 we expect to have sufficient primary teachers. If that is the case, and we have to accept it as such, then the point I would make is that they are required for the secondary schools.

Surely the House must agree with the expression of opinion which I humbly put to them, that if we agree to the Opposition's suggestion, will we at the end of the day get 200 teachers? I have a great measure of sympathy with the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig). He tells us, and quite correctly, that there is a very serious shortage of architects. It is a fact. There is also a very serious shortage of skilled craftsmen. That is also a fact. There is also, of course, a very serious shortage of policemen. Nevertheless, even bearing all this in mind, that does not make a case for the Government to oppose the point of view put forward in this Amendment by the Opposition. But I would expect them to be equally fair to us, when they make an honest appreciation of the situation, and I would say to them that I sincerely believe that at the end of the day we will not get the 200 teachers they talk about.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West said is true, that we have in our schools at present many teachers who are at 70 years of age. I know some who are at 75 years of age. I ask—and with all deference, if only because we have some Members of this House who are at that age—is a person at 75 tolerant and at the same time on equal terms with the children, and, most important, is that person with modern trends in education?

I ask my hon. Friend, if it is humanly possible, and if he in his wisdom believes that we shall get the 200 teachers, by all means to agree to the suggestion in the Amendment, but if he is going to tell us, what he has told us before, that the Treasury has got money to spend, I would suggest to him that he tries to encourage youngsters into the profession, because if he will not give them salaries commensurate with their responsibilities in coming into the profession, obviously they will not come in, but they will go into industry, and then there will be no possible chance at all of their coming into the teaching profession. I would ask my hon. Friend, when he replies, to take cognisance of this point of view and let the House know what the Government's intentions are.

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison (Edinburgh, South)

I should like to support the Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble). I have always very strongly felt this to be a move that we should make, and I urged it upon the Secretary of State of the day when the Conservatives were in office. It seems to me that if the nation wants teachers and wants to reduce the size of classes and wants efficiency in the educational world then it must pay for it and do everything possible to get the teachers to meet the situation.

As I understand it, the Educational Institute of Scotland puts this matter of full pay and pension as a top priority as a means of getting more teachers. Why do not the Government accept this? Will they explain to me what other methods they intend to use to obtain teachers? I have never heard an answer to that question.

On the general point, I have always opposed the theory that a person cannot have full pay and a pension in any profession, whether he be a local government employee, a bricklayer, an architect, or anything else. The nation is in a parlous state, and we want all the resources that we can get. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will explain his philosophy in resisting this very sensible Amendment, which has the support of almost everyone in the educational world and every sensible person in Scotland. Why is he in such fear and trembling of the Treasury?

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson (Stirling and Falkirk Burghs)

I do not want to add very much to the debate, because I think that everything important has been said already. However, I want to align myself with my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite in support of the idea behind:he Amendment.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has told us that it cannot be done on financial grounds, that if it is done to attract more people to remain active in the teaching profession, it will have to be done in other cases, and that it is financially impossible. However, I am not quite convinced that, if it is done in aspect of the teaching profession, it will be impossible to prevent an extension of the principle. A resolute Government able to explain the circumstances could do it. However, I am prepared to accept that it would be difficult and that it might well be that the floodgates would have to burst.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) said about the categories affected is correct, but where we get from that is that the public services as a whole are in great danger of being unable to function properly because they will not be supplied with the necessary staff.

The conclusion which I draw from that is one which takes me back to my early days as a keen fighter in the Labour Party. I will not attempt to remind my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite of the principles which used to be discussed in those days, but they are still there. A famous economist summed it up a little while ago in a phrase which I cannot quite remember but which referred to contrasting public squalor with private affluence. This is a serious and difficult situation. It looks to me as if, except for a few sectors in the public sphere, we shall come into the private sphere. I am sorry about it.

Taking this one instance, one has watched the teaching profession, schools and the problems of staffing them for the last 20 years, and one has seen continual defeat. We now find that we simply have not done enough to staff the science and maths departments of schools, and we see the resulting position today. It will not be cured immediately, and science and maths are merely the first dramatic subjects to be affected. Unhappily, the same is happening in other departments of our schools, and it means a decline in standards in our schools.

Much against my desires, we have to accustom ourselves to the fact that, in the 1920s and 1930s when industry did not attract or want graduates, the teaching profession was staffed by an unusually high quality of people. Today, those people are not likely to be attracted into the teaching profession, and our children will suffer.

I am sorry to find myself convinced at last that this will happen. However, it is only one stage in a process which I have watched for a couple of decades. I regret the attitude of the Government to this case. The number of additional full-time teachers which we should get is probably pretty small. Nevertheless, they would be experienced teachers and an addition to the teaching staffs of our schools. Now, I am afraid, we have to give up all hope of this.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan)

It would be true to say that no arguments used today have not been deployed on Second Reading and Committee. As a result, the House will not expect to hear any originality of argument from me. What I have to say will not differ substantially from what I have said already at considerable length in Committee.

In moving the Amendment, the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) in what was a very moderate speech, admitted that this was not an easy problem, otherwise it would have been solved years ago. That was one of the points which I made when we discussed the matter in Committee. There are considerable ramifications involved. His Amendment is certainly an attempt to express in a rather more moderate form the arguments which were put up in Committee.

He said that he could not guarantee that the drafting of his Amendment was right, and I have to tell him that it is defective from a drafting point of view. Indeed, I am not even sure that its proposed position in the Bill is the correct one. However, I do not intend to ask the House to reject it simply because it is not an adequate Amendment in drafting terms.

Whether or not we have any Amendment to the Schedule will make no practical difference to what the Government can do about full pay and pensions. That will depend on Regulations under the Bill which will come once it is an Act of Parliament. As I pointed out in Committee, if the Government decided that they should give full pay and pensions, even to the over-sixties rather than the over-sixty-fives or on any other kind of basis, it would be open to us to do it under the Regulations. It is not necessary to have any provision in Schedule 2.

In Committee, I said that the matter is by no means closed. It is not a question consideration of which is finished for all time. But not having the Amendment in the Bill will not in any way prejudice anyone who feels that the Government should do this, whether in the original Regulations or perhaps rather later on.

8.30 p.m.

Having said all that, I must still point to the very considerable difficulties in this sphere. Although I did not in Committee, and do not now, say that I must resist this Amendment in principle, I keep being accused of turning it down because I am arguing that it is breaching some inalienable principle. I am not doing that. I prefer to look at this as a practical problem, but it is the practical difficulties involved in it which make it very difficult to see that we should be able to get an adequate solution.

Nor do I accept the argument—I do not know whether it is meant to be a flattering one or not—that I am convinced that this Amendment is a very sensible one, and it is only because I am under some sort of pressure not to give way on it that I am being so stubborn. I genuinely believe, as I have said before, that there are considerable difficulties, and I am by no means convinced of the Tightness of taking a step of this sort, even if these difficulties were not present, as indeed they are.

The difficulties were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig). The first was that it would be extremely difficult, having conceded the point here, to prevent pressure for concession on exactly the same point in other parts of the public service. My hon. Friend mentioned a number of other public services where there are considerable shortages of staff. This does not apply only to the Government service, but also to local authority service where the same practice is in operation that full pay and pension is not payable.

Mr. Hannan rose —

Mr. Millan

I will not give way. I should like to be allowed to develop this a little. I know that during the war the practice was breached in the case of the police. That is another example of a profession where there are considerable shortages, as hon. Gentlemen opposite are continually reminding us, especially in Glasgow. One could quote other public services where there are similar shortages of staff and where undoubtedly there will be pressures to extend any concession to teachers to those other public servants as well.

There is also the point that the implications for the National Insurance Scheme could be very substantial. Again, it is no use hon. Members saying that the situation is in no way 0analogous, because there are analogies that can be drawn between public servants' occupational pensions and the National Insurance Scheme, and many National Insurance retirement pensioners would be very ready to draw these analogies. As the House knows, the Government are considering the whole future of National Insurance and the question of occupational pensions, and within that review public servants' pensions will have to be considered.

I have already given the House the pledge that the kind of point that is being put in the Amendment is something which will be considered in the context of that review. But since the review is going on and the Government have not yet published any conclusions about it, it is unreasonable to expect me to accept that we should make this very important change in one category of public servants only, namely the Scottish teachers.

A number of arguments were used this evening, about which I want to say a word. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) mentioned the numbers of children receiving part-time education. No one deplores that more than I do, but I do not believe that a proposal of this sort, to give full pay and pension, would make any substantial difference to that problem. The problem about part-time education in Glasgow and elsewhere— and the incidence tends to be exaggerated —is one of distribution of teachers, not of the total number.

As the House knows, the Government have made proposals for inducement payments to teachers. This is something which hon. Gentlemen opposite tried to do on a number of occasions, and I give them credit for that, but they were unsuccessful. However, we have now produced a more coherent and effective set of proposals for inducement payments to teachers in the areas of greatest teacher shortage. I hope that we shall be able to start making these payments, if the teachers' organisations and the employing authorities agree, by 1st April next year. That is the way so tackle that problem.

Concerning the general teacher shortage, I find it incredible that my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) should take such a gloomy view following upon his study of what has been happening over the last two decades. If he looks at the figures, he will see that the number of teachers in Scottish schools today is immensely greater than it was two decades ago. The present number in the colleges of education is nearly double what it was only six or seven years ago.

In these circumstances, it seems extraordinary that one should talk in terms which suggest that we are attracting no one to the teaching profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. The latest change in teacher recruitment introduced by the Government, namely, the admission of men to the three-year courses at colleges of education for primary teaching, which started only a month or two ago, already shows signs of being a considerable success, because no fewer than 300 young men have already entered these colleges for the course, which shows that despite the gloomy prognostications of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs, teaching is still, to many people, an attractive proposition.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson

I do not think that I used the word "studied". I would not claim to have studied the process. I have observed it at a distance. I did not say that nobody was coming into the teaching profession. My hon. Friend is right on the question of numbers. Perhaps I did not make clear what I was saying. I was talking about secondary schools, to which we are unable to attract the teachers we need for the mathematics and science departments. The argument that I am putting is that although these are the two departments which are most in the public eye, the same thing is happening in other intellectual or non-technical sections of the secondary schools

Mr. Millan

If my hon. Friend assures me that he has not been studying the matter, I am willing to accept that assurance. But even what he has just said is not strictly accurate, because the number of graduates has not been decreasing, either. In fact, we expect that the number of graduates going to colleges of education during the next few years will show a substantial increase, in line with the increase in the university population generally.

There are particular difficulties about mathematics and science, although even here it is not by any means true that these subjects give the most difficulty in every school in every area of Scotland. There are many schools in which there are special difficulties in English, rather than in mathematics or science. But again this is part of a much wider problem which has nothing to do with recruitment to the schools. There are considerable problems in respect of mathematics and science graduates, for example, in the recruitment of these classes to industry, as well as to the schools. Therefore, to put all this at the door of some failure in the educational system is misplaced. It is a very much greater problem than that. What I do not see is the relevance of the proposal that we are discussing to this problem anyway, and I am not sure that I have not been out of order for the last 10 minutes.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson

I do not see the relevance of my hon. Friend's reply to my argument. I realise that there are difficulties about recruitment to industry. What I am saying is that the Government's policy for the schools has not succeeded in staffing them at the level which is needed. We need highly qualified staff in the science departments, to produce scientists for industry. It is a long, slow business. I do not think that what my hon. Friend has said in any way contradicts what I said. I was not talking about graduates, but about honours graduates.

Mr. Millan

All that my hon. Friend is saying is that we have a shortage of teachers. There is nothing between us on that. What I am not accepting is his analysis of the situation, and I am not accepting his proposed solution to it so far as it is contained in the Amendment, and perhaps I might now get back to it.

As I said earlier, there are no new points in the Amendment and no new points have been brought forward by hon. Members tonight. Admittedly, the Amendment narrows a little the kind of Amendment which we discussed in Committee, but it does not eliminate the serious objections which I have mentioned, and which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West. I cannot, of course, say what the numbers are likely to be. No one can estimate that—the only way would be to try this proposition—but all the estimates which I can make suggest that, on this proposal, the numbers of over-sixty-fives might be a good deal smaller than most hon. Gentlemen think.

We have recently introduced a more limited concession on abatement of pensions for teachers, which does not, incidentally, apply to other public service. I referred to this in Committee. There was a change in the salary of reference against which the calculations of abatement are made. The salary of reference now being used is the current salary, and not that on the date that the teacher retires.

These Regulations were laid only on 29th November and are retrospective to 1st July. We shall be able to see whether this limited concession, as I admit it to be, will attract more teachers back into the schools. We should be able to judge this quite soon, I hope, but, in the meantime, for the reasons which I have given and repeating that this matter is constantly being considered, I have to advise the House to reject the Amendment.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthar (Perth and East Perthshire)

Yet again the Under-Secretary has invited us to reject the Amendment. He keeps saying that the Government are considering this matter. He has told us that repeatedly. I am not interested in the fact that they are considering it. What we are looking for is some action from the Government. We want to know what they will do, and the only sign of action which they give is to invite first the Committee and now the House to reject an Amendment which, from every point of view, makes complete sense in the present position in education.

Of course I accept that the Amendment may not be perfectly drafted or, strictly speaking, necessary, but the hon. Gentleman gives us no cause to believe that he seriously intends to do anything to meet this situation. It is, therefore, necessary for us to go on tabling Amendments and trying to improve the Bill so as to get the positive declaration from the Government which has so far been completely lacking.

The purpose of this Amendment is simply to ease the shortage of teachers— no more than that. My hon. Friends the Members for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) and Dumfries (Mr. Monro) and other hon. Members have made that abundantly clear. It is no use the Under-Secretary saying that the number of teachers is going up. Of course it is and we welcome that, but—I think that this was the point in the mind of the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson)—the number is not rising fast enough to keep pace with the demand for teachers for children attending school, particularly since, only three years from now, the number of children in secondary schools will rise sharply and the gap between the numbers of children and teachers will grow.

By 1973, the number of children in secondary schools will have risen by 34 per cent, but the number of qualified secondary teachers by only 23 per cent., so the position then will be substantially worse than today and rather worse than it will be in 1970.

My hon. Friends and I do not pretend that our Amendment solves the problem, but it is at least a help. It would provide a number of teachers—some hundreds, possibly—with the experience which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) wanted, the sort of teachers whom we will be desperately short of from 1970 –71 onwards, the men of experience who can teach particularly older children who will be staying at school, for whom teachers of long experience are particularly needed. It is there that the pressure will be greatest.

We have tabled the Amendment out of consideration not for the Department, for local education authorities or even for teachers, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries emphasised, for children. It is the children with whom we are concerned. It is they who will suffer if the education which they get from 1970 onwards is not adequate.

The hon. Gentleman's reply was disappointing in view of what he said in Committee. Then, he gave us some reason to hope. He told us that there were certainly considerable difficulties over our proposal. He went on to say that he would not claim that the difficulties were insuperable. And then, using some stirring words, he exclaimed that where there was a will there was a way. The way is here. I regret that the will is lacking.

The hon. Gentleman then paraded the old, familiar objections, supported by his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig). But the fact that there are shortages elsewhere in the public service is no reason for saying that we cannot help to meet a shortage in the teaching profession, an area which is easily identifiable and which, it is known, will be facing a particularly serious position from 1970 onwards. I do not accept that to introduce this limited proposal for a limited period for a limited number of teachers would necessarily lead to an escalation involving all the other public services.

The hon. Member for Dundee, West suggested that local education authorities would find themselves forced to employ all teachers over 65 who wished to stay on, but that is sheer nonsense. If a local authority has any strength of purpose it will not re-employ teachers if they are not good teachers. But at least this proposal would enable them to employ those teachers over 65 who can still contribute to the teaching of children.

We keep hearing about the practical difficulties. The practical difficulty I have in mind is the one which will confront education in Scotland from 1970—that is, that there will simply not be enough teachers. I am completely unconvinced by the hon. Gentleman's negative reply and my hon. Friends are bitterly disappointed by it. I have doubted the Government's capacity to meet the challenge of 1970—a doubt which I have expressed before—and, if any confirmation of that doubt were needed, the hon. Gentleman has provided it tonight.

Amendment negatived.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.