HC Deb 26 March 1985 vol 76 c233 4.43 pm
Mr. Clement Freud (Cambridgeshire, North-East)

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, the teachers' pay dispute and the Secretary of State's handling of the matter.

The matter is specific because the House has a responsibility to consider the matter in the light of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965. The House has not fully debated the strike or its consequences, even though it has been going on for nearly a term. We have received from the Secretary of State only a statement in which he made much of the partnership in education. The House needs to know what he meant by partnership.

The matter is important because this is the week when children are making vital choices about their CSEs and 0 and A-level courses for 1987. The disruption this week threatens that process, and its continuation threatens children who are preparing for their examinations. This is the week leading up to the Easter holidays. It is not only union conference time, but it could be a watershed in the dispute, providing an opportunity to find a settlement away from the bitter context of the strike.

The matter is urgent because the House and the country need a considered statement from the Secretary of State, instead of informal and confusing comments. If he continues to do nothing, the strike will drag on, morale will sink still further and the service will face total collapse. Even if the strike peters out — and one suspects, by his inactivity, that that is what the Secretary of State hopes for — is it right that the right hon. Gentleman's ritual girations should become an annual event, a sort of non-fertility right?

It is no longer acceptable to teachers, parents or employers to have to guess what the Secretary of State is thinking, to go on with no leadership from him, with the children caught in the cross-fire. The Secretary of State is the only person who can provide a way out of the present dispute. The House should, therefore, have an opportunity to debate this specific, important and urgent matter.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely, the effects of the teachers' dispute. I have listened with care to the hon. Member, but I regret that I do not consider the matter that he has raised to be appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10, and I cannot, therefore, submit his application to the House.

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