Teachers' Pay Dispute (Hansard, 17 December 1985)

§ 1. Mr. Yeo
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the teachers' pay dispute.

§ 2. Mr. Hancock
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teachers' pay dispute.

§ 3. Mr. Haselhurst
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the teachers' pay dispute.

§ 6. Mr. Alan Howarth
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the outstanding issues in the teachers' dispute.

§ 11. Mr. Randall
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will make a statement on the teachers' pay dispute.

§ 17. Mr. Merchant
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the teachers' pay dispute.

§ 19. Mr. Pawsey
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement about the current position in the teachers' dispute.

§ 20. Mr. Spencer
asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on the latest position in the teachers' dispute.

§ The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph)
The teachers' panel of the Burnham committee met on 5 December and resolved to seek an early resumption of negotiations. The management panel met on 11 December and agreed to undertake further informal discussions with the teachers' side. Discussions are taking place today.
I welcome any development which may help to achieve a settlement of this bitter, damaging and unnecessary dispute. But it remains the Government's view that an honourable, worthwhile and lasting settlement will come only from a bargain which clarifies teachers' duties and reforms their career structure as well as improving pay levels. The teachers' unions have so far refused to try to negotiate a deal of that kind.

§ Mr. Yeo
Is my right hon. Friend aware that hundreds of thousands of families are desperately worried by the serious and permanent damage that is being inflicted on their children by the dispute? Is he further aware that while many of them recognise that the intransigence of the NUT has brought about the situation, they look to the Government in general and to my right hon. Friend in particular to take a lead in bringing about an early solution to the problem?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
Yes, and some of the teachers' unions could end the disruption today. The Government have taken an initiative in the conditional offer that they have made.

§ Mr. Haselhurst
Does my right hon. Friend accept that there are two unyielding obstacles—the determination of 142 the teachers to prolong the dispute and the non-availability of resources to make an increased pay settlement in 1985? Will he equip himself with the powers necessary to pursue the objectives which he rightly has, and bring an end to this damaging dispute?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
If the Government sought to equip themselves with powers, I doubt whether that would immediately end the disruption.

§ Mr. Speaker
Mr. Alan Howarth.

§ Mr. Hancock
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My question is No. 2 on the Order Paper and I was informed that my question would be taken with question No. 1.

§ Mr. Speaker
The mistake is entirely mine. Mr. Hancock.

§ Mr. Hancock
Will the Secretary of State say whether responsibility for settling the teachers' dispute has been taken out of his hands by the Prime Minister? Will he inform the House what proposals she has laid before him for any solution to the dispute and of any initiative coming from her?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
The hon. Gentleman should not believe everything that he reads in the newspapers. The Government have no new initiatives to put before the House.

§ Mr. Howarth
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is the Government's desire that, as resources become available, teachers' salaries should more adequately reflect the great importance of their responsibilities and their high professional standards, but that one of the conditions for teachers enjoying such a high professional standing is that they should forswear the disruption of their pupils' education?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
I agree with the latter part of my hon. Friend's question. To ensure the recruitment and retention of the right quality of persons as teachers and effective teaching, the Government see it as necessary to provide an adequate pay and career structure.

§ Mr. Merchant
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the serious anxiety now being displayed by parents at the effective abandonment of children during lunchtime in many areas by the teachers' unions' withdrawal of supervision? Is he aware of the problems in Newcastle where, in some areas, children have been threatened with sexual abuse and assaulted during lunchtime because there is no supervision? What steps is he taking to ensure that local authorities use their maximum powers to ensure that alternative arrangements are made at lunchtime to provide supervision for those children?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
The House will be aware that the Government have introduced a Bill to enable local education authorities to make alternative and effective arrangements for midday supervision.

§ Mr. Spencer
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the National Union of Teachers has taken special selective action in the constituencies of some Members to whose views it has taken exception? Does he agree that that is an especially nasty and vindictive form of attack on innocent children?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
Yes, Mr. Speaker. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. It is only a fraction worse than the general indifference to children's welfare shown by some teacher unions.

§ Mr. Flannery
The Minister says that the unions could end the dispute overnight. Why does he not say that the reality is that the Government could end the dispute overnight? Despite his gerrymandering of the Burnham committee, the teachers' unity will continue for a long time after Christmas because of the Government's intransigence in failing to pay teachers a professional wage and refusing to give them the status that they should have, which would be the way to get children back to school. He knows that as well as the House does.

§ Sir Keith Joseph
Why does the hon. Gentleman persist in ignoring the fact that after a mere 20 minutes the National Union of Teachers and other teachers' unions rejected the Government's initiative when they offered substantial increases, conditionally, of pay for good teachers?

§ Mr. Sean Hughes
Did the Secretary of State mean what he said when he told the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) that the Government have no intention of taking any initiative to bring this dispute to a halt?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
The Government have taken an initiative which the teachers' unions could request the employers to pick up again tomorrow if they wished.

§ Mr. Barnett
Is the Secretary of State aware that the NUT's demands, which if responded to by him would settle the dispute, are entirely reasonable? It has asked for the cost of living during the current financial year to be taken into account, for the relativities between teachers and other professions to be restored, that there should be an element in the settlement to take account of the fact that teachers have fallen far behind others, and that he should give a commitment that there will be an attempt in future years to restore teachers' salaries to the level of Houghton? Is that not reasonable?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
No, Sir. The NUT walked out of negotiations in December 1984 which might have provided additional finance from taxpayers for the current year.

§ Mr. Haynes
Why does the Secretary of State have a one-track mind? There are two arguments in this. Why does he not stop interfering, and let the unions negotiate and settle the matter? They will win in the end.

§ Sir Keith Joseph
It would be extremely satisfatory if some Opposition Members spoke up for the children.

§ Mr. Greenway
Is my right hon. Friend aware that I recently saw a deputation of parents whose children had refused to attend a detention imposed on them for misbehaving during the teachers' strike? Is that not understandable, but sad, silly and tragic? Has not the time come for teachers to stop damaging children's education and to go back to work, and for a proper inquiry, not just into pay, but into pay and conditions, to be held?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's question. I am not convinced that an inquiry, however broad, would automatically bring this disruption immediately to an end.

§ Mr. Janner
Is the Minister aware that of the many teachers whom I have met and who are now in dispute, every one regrets having to take what he or she regards as necessary action to protect his or her profession and rights? Is he further aware that the teachers deeply resent the sort of allegation that he has seen fit to make again today, that they do not look after the welfare of the children, about whom they care deeply, but that that does not present them from trying to ensure that their profession has a decent life and continues to attract the first-class people whom the Minister would wish it to attract?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
The teachers are men and women given by God free will, and it is their decision to disrupt children's education. There is no question of having to do that.

§ Mr. Cormack
Does my right hon. Friend accept that while nothing can excuse the victimisation of children that is taking place on such a wide scale, and while only the teachers can give a status to their profession, there is real merit in my right hon. Friend considering during the recess the suggestion made by his predecessor, our right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Carlisle), who suggested the establishment of a review body to consider the whole issue, on condition that further action was immediately called off?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
The behaviour of teachers is not such as to recommend the Government to consider a review body. Moreover, it is perfectly possible for the employers and teachers to agree on pay that rewards good teachers, recruits and retains people of the right quality, and which is affordable.

§ Mr. Freud
Does the Secretary of State genuinely believe that he is doing enough to settle the teachers' dispute?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
If the hon. Gentleman has suggestions that would be affordable, would achieve the Government's purposes, and would end the disruption, I would gladly listen to them or read them. Of the options available to the Government, I believe that the right one is to persuade the teachers to do their duty by the children and to finish the disruption now.

§ Mr. Powley
Would my right hon. Friend care to reflect on the attitude of the general secretary of the NUT when in a 20-minute address to the Back-Bench education committee he never once mentioned the effect of the dispute on the children, whom we should consider primarily, nor its financial effect? Many of us see other areas for expenditure in the education service, such as on improvement in the capitation allowance, and in buildings, and on welfare in schools.

§ Sir Keith Joseph
I would not be surprised if that were true, and I am sure that the gentleman concerned remains self-righteous despite it.

§ Mr. Radice
With the dispute now in its 11th month, is it not about time that the Secretary of State took a fresh initiative? He has not moved since the beginning of August to try to end the disruption in our schools. Why does he not establish an independent fast-acting inquiry on teachers' pay, which many of us have been urging on him for many months?

§ Sir Keith Joseph
The employers also asked for an inquiry and the Government considered such ideas, but 145 there is no reason to expect that an inquiry would automatically end the current disruption. I hope that the hon. Gentleman tries to bring the same persuasive power to bear on the teachers as he does on the Government.