HC Deb 08 April 1976 vol 909 cc768-78

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Torney (Bradford, South)

I am glad to have this opportunity to drew the attention of the House to the grossly unjust interpretation by the Department of Education and Science of a Statutory Instrument introduced last year. The Department has failed to give proper consideration to all the arguments put forward by my constituent. The Department's interpretation seems to have been coloured by the desire to ensure that my constituent does not enjoy his proper pension entitlement.

Instead of this one-sided attitude, the Department should have assessed the Statutory Instrument fairly with a view to ensuring the justice we are accustomed to receive in our courts. The purpose of this debate is to give the Department the chance to look again at my constituent's claim, but also at the wider aspects of its machinery for assessing the meaning of legislation and the facilities for teachers and others employed in education to secure adequate redress for disputes with the Department's findings.

My constituent, Mr. Arnold, is a teacher of fine art at Dewsbury and Batley Technical and Art College. His dispute with the Department of Education concerns its refusal to implement Statutory Instrument 276 1975 in his favour. The Statutory Instrument results from the deliberations of a working party which was set up by the previous Government to examine war service counting for superannuation purposes. It was agreed by the present Government and allows half of the war service to count towards the superannuation of ex-Service personnel who went direct from war service into approved teacher-training.

The story of my efforts with the Department of Education to secure the rights of my constituent read rather like a nasty plot by top civil servants to stop my constituent, at any cost, from having half his period in His Majesty's Forces during the last war count towards his pension from teaching. First, the Department said that to have this pension concession the transition from the Forces to teacher training must be immediate and that Mr. Arnold had not complied with this rule. One could say that this was technically correct, but let us examine the fact.

My constituent left the Forces on 1st July 1946. That is a long time ago and much has changed since. He commenced his course of training in September 1946. Apparently no one had informed the Department of Education that most of its own schools are closed during part of July and most of August. Certainly universities and technical colleges close from late June until late September or early October. Mr. Arnold could hardly attend a course of training on 2nd July, the day after he came out of the Forces, if the colleges were shut. To avoid looking ridiculous, the Department dropped that one.

Continuing the saga, the Department decided that there was no record that Mr. Arnold had received a grant. I concede that the Statutory Instrument clearly lays down that a Department of Education further education and training grant under the 1946 Regulations must have been paid for anyone to qualify for the additional superannuation. Mr. Arnold is certainly not a rich man. Although in the course of his war service he rose to the important rank of captain, a captain in the Army in those days was not paid so fabulously that he could afford to live without an income.

Mr. Arnold served his country well. When he left the Forces he was definitely unable to sustain himself for four years, which the training would take, without some form of income. He had to have a grant whilst training. He definitely had a grant. He remembers, even after 26 years, the office which dealt with it. That was an office which the Department had at that time in a part of outer London, which I know very well, called Honeypot Lane. It was then in part of the County of Middlesex, which has disappeared, and is now the County of Greater London.

The Department has lost the records and, realising how thin its case would be to refuse my constituent his rightful pension on these grounds, it produced the final crunch line—that my constituent does not qualify because he did not have one year's additional teacher training. The Department is as wrong and unjust about that as it was about its other two so-called reasons, which are no more than flimsy excuses.

Again, we must examine the facts. Mr. Arnold attended the Camberwell College of Art from September 1946 until July 1947—one year. At the end of that time he took the Department of Education's intermediate examination in art.

From September 1947 until July 1950—three years—he attended the Slade School. The Slade School is part of London University. As a result of his three years there, Mr. Arnold secured the London University diploma in fine art. In the same way as the Department was unaware of the opening and closing dates of its schools, it was also possibly unaware that the London University diploma in fine art is in itself a teaching qualification. It is accepted that it has graduate status and carries a graduate salary. Perhaps the Department is un aware of that. Perhaps it has forgotten or lost the records.

In case it has lost the records, I shall try to refresh its memory. University graduates, and people such as my constituent with a diploma in fine art, did not have to take the extra year in 1950. That is when my constituent won his diploma. For this purpose I am not concerned with what has to be done in 1976, I am talking about 1950, 26 years ago. In 1950 it was not compulsory to take the extra year's teacher-training to teach in any of our schools.

Why should Mr. Arnold be expected to take an additional one-year course that was not compulsory when he had already fully equipped himself by four years of intensive training? Furthermore, he was anxious to redeem the promise he made to the Department when applying for his grant. Another point that proves he applied for his grant is that he promised to become and remain a full-time teacher. I know that that will be challenged, but my constituent made that promise. He was under the impression that he would not obtain his grant unless he promised to become and remain a full-time teacher if he passed his examination, which he did.

It is only in recent years that the rules have been changed to make it compulsory for graduates to take one extra year on a teacher-training course before being allowed to teach. In the short time at my disposal I do not propose to go into the merits or demerits of the extra year of teacher-training. In any case, it has no relevance to the matter we are discussing.

My constituent did everything he was required to do to qualify himself to teach. He has taught continuously since leaving university. At first he taught at the West England College of Art, Bristol. He then taught at the Dewsbury and Batley Technical and Art College, where he is still teaching. If Mr. Arnold wished, and if the prevailing economic climate in education allowed him to do so, he could secure a teaching post in an ordinary school. He could teach our children. He is qualified to do so. I challenge the Minister to dare to say otherwise. If he did so, his Department would stand accused of allowing unqualified teachers to teach.

The officials accept that he is qualified to teach children in our schools, but at the same time they say he is not qualified to have half his war service count towards his pension. What kind of gobbledegook is that? A man is either qualified to teach or he is not. If he is qualified to teach, as is Mr. Arnold and as Mr. Arnold has done for 26 years, he should be entitled to every wage increment and fringe benefit that goes with the job. If a man is not qualified to teach, he should not be allowed to enter the classroom in the first place.

I make my claim for one solitary teacher, but doubtless my hon. Friend will suggest that there are other similar cases and that to agree to my claim would create a precedent. So be it. I agree there may be other cases of injustice caused by the Ministry's interpretation of those Regulations. They, too, should receive justice, even if it means a little extra cost to the Department. Whatever the cost, I doubt whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will need to introduce another Budget to cover it.

The mind boggles when one reflects that the people who run our education system lose records, do not know when schools and colleges are open or shut and have one set of criteria for qualifications to teach and another for wages and conditions in a job. These are the people who ultimately control our schools. These Ministry wizards control policy. I wonder whether they have any clue of what happens in a classroom and the sort of problems faced by the teachers of the nation's children every day.

The Ministry's case against allowing my constituent to count half his war service for superannuation purposes is so weak that it is almost non-existent. A court would undoubtedly find in our favour but, alas, we cannot afford to lake the case there.

I appeal to the Minister of State to suggest to the Secretary of State, whoever he may be at the moment, not to make himself look as ridiculous as his officials look. He should immediately use his discretion, stand up to his officials and allow my constituent to have his full superannuation rights by agreeing that half his war service be counted.

10.17 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. Gerry Fowler)

I admire my hon. Friend's pertinacity in pursuing this case. We all admire those who are zealous in the interests of their constituents, but my hon. Friend has perhaps gone a little beyond the pale tonight in his abuse of my Department's officials.

I can assure him that no official of my Department, senior or otherwise, is concerned to persecute his constituent. I should be rather surprised if any official had even met his constituent, so it would be rather hard to ascribe a motive for such action.

Mr. Torney

They have met me.

Mr. Fowler

I am sure that that would have endeared them to my hon. Friend's constituent rather than otherwise. I can see no reason why they should be induced to persecute him.

We can use our privilege in this House to attack officials who are trying to do an honourable job. It is not something I should ever wish to do. The refusal of the concession which my hon. Friend seeks for his constituent has nothing to do with the will, malice or benevolence of any of my officials, myself or my right hon. Friend, who—my hon. Friend may wish to know—is still Secretary of State. It is simply a question of the Regulations approved by the House. I cannot change those Regulations. Only the House can change them.

Since my hon. Friend clearly feels passionately about this issue, he should have raised it as a general matter when the Regulations were laid last year and not now as an individual case. He was right when he said that there were a number of teachers in a similar position to Mr. Arnold who find it difficult to understand why their war service does not count for superannuation. In that sense, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to explain the matter again. It has been explained in the House before, but misunderstanding obviously persists.

We have to ask how the war service concession arose and what is its basis. My hon. Friend will remember that it arose out of a motion which the Labour Party put down when in opposition on 28th November 1973. The terms of that motion were: to allow half of all teachers' war service to be credited for pension entitlement as is the practice in the Civil Service". That motion was accepted by the then Government. There was no intention by either Government or Opposition in 1973 to put teachers in a more favourable position than civil servants in respect of war service.

It was consequently necessary when implementing the concession to have regard to the conditions of the Civil Service settlement which had been made in 1946. One condition had been that, except for some who came in via a reconstruction competition, entry to the Civil Service had to have been made before July 1950. The same date had in equity therefore, to be taken for teachers. While it was not very relevant to the teaching situation, it was not wholly irrelevant, since at that time a regular pattern of appointments by reference to academic years had not fully emerged. That is why it was possible to make the date comparable with that chosen for the Civil Service.

The date did not, however, make allowance for the professional training which had to be undertaken by prospective teachers who were not in possession of a degree or other acceptable qualification, but which was not normally necessary for entry into the Civil Service. I accept that civil servants do not need to have professional training. My hon. Friend may think that that is undesirable and that there should be professional training for the Civil Service, but that is the fact of the matter.

Summarising the Regulations, provision was accordingly made for the concession to be extended to those teachers whose entry into pensionable teaching service had been after June 1950, but who had either entered a normal course of teacher training before July 1950; before November 1950 entered the fourth year of a combined degree plus professional training course; or at any time taken a course of professional teacher-training under the emergency training scheme or the further education and training scheme.

Mr. Arnold, who did not enter reckon-able service until September 1950, that is, after the cut-off date of 30th June 1950, does not qualify for the war service concession because he did not take a course of professional teacher training or, in the words of the Regulations: a course of training approved for the purposes of Regulation 15 of the Primary and Secondary Schools (Grant Conditions) Regulations 1945". The course which he took from 1947 to 1950 at the Slade School was for the London University Diploma in Fine Art. The diploma was at that time one of a limited number of specialist qualifications which were accepted for qualified teacher status—my hon. Friend is quite right about that—but the course leading to it was not a course of teacher-training. That is what is at issue, whether it was a course of teacher-training in the sense of the normal certificate course or the degree course plus a year of professional teacher-training.

It was, like any other degree course, an advanced course in a particular subject which fitted those who took it for many occupations and was not specifically related to teaching—just as my degree entitles me to teach, although I never took a course of teacher-training. The same principle applied until 1970, when the regulations were changed. I have in that sense qualified teacher status, but I would be no more entitled to a pension concession in respect of war service than is Mr. Arnold.

That Mr. Arnold can in 1976 demonstrate that he has in fact subsequently followed the profession of teaching must be regarded as irrelevant. In determining the principles for implementation of the war service concession it was necessary to assume that it had been made in 1946, when the corresponding concession had been made to civil servants and when the Government of the day had been prepared to extend it also to other public servants—although there was some opposition to this from other quarters which caused the then Labour Government to drop that proposal. At that time provision for exceptions to the requirement of entry into pensionable teaching service before July 1950 would clearly have been made only where a course of professional teacher-training was being pursued.

My hon. Friend has made considerable play—I do not blame him for this—about the grant under the further education and training scheme which Mr. Arnold claims to have had. I say "claims to have had" because there is no note on his personal file in the Department of his having had that grant. But that means very little. It is not to doubt Mr. Arnold's word in the matter. The administration of the further education and training scheme was a particularly hectic undertaking, and I am told—I am not surprised at this—that some papers went astray in the then Ministry.

There is also the matter of an undertaking to teach, which Mr. Arnold says was a prerequisite of his being given a grant. This, too does not appear on his personal file, and on this I must say that it is most unlikely that he would have been asked to give an undertaking. I should be surprised if the board which interviewed Mr. Arnold for his grant did any more than to ask him—as it would have done with all candidates—what he proposed to do after obtaining the qualification for the study of which he was applying for a grant. That is the normal thing to ask. It would be quite abnormal if that had been made a prerequisite of the grant. I have never come across an instance of that in a grant for a degree course of study, as this was—least of all in fine art.

I can offer no explanation about the question which the Ministry put to Mr. Arnold about whether he entered a course of further education or training immediately after the war. What I suggest happened there, from what my hon. Friend said this evening, is perfectly simple. He pointed out that Mr. Arnold took a course for a year at the Camber-well College before proceeding to the Slade. The course at the Slade is a higher education course which is relevant to qualified teacher status and the like. I imagine, at first glance at Mr. Arnold's file, that that seemed the course which gave him his qualified teacher status. Therefore, the official dealing with it may have been tempted to say that there appears to be a gap of more than a year. I doubt whether it was the gap of a vacation to which my hon. Friend referred. but my hon. Friend's account of what happened there is a perfectly full one.

But all these are relatively unimportant points. The important one, as I have said, is that the course which Mr. Arnold took was not a recognised course of teacher-training. I am sure that my Department's explanation is the only possible one, although it is not for me to say whether it is—as I shall explain. My hon. Friend has disputed this and has disputed my Department's interpretation of the Regulations. I do not want to pursue it at greater length and, indeed, there is no time in which to attempt to do so. This Adjournment debate is not the time to argue detailed questions of the interpretation of subordinate legislation.

As the Department does not have power to determine questions arising under its own Regulations the question is one for the courts. But I am legally advised that it is quite clear that attendance at a course in respect of which grants were paid under the 1946 Regulations—that is to say, the Further Education Regulations—is not sufficient to attract the war service concession in the context of this particular Regulation. The course must in addition be one approved for the purposes of Regulation 15 of the 1945 Regulations, that is to say, the Primary and Secondary Schools Regulations. That is why I cannot meet my hon. Friend on the issue that he has raised tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.