Teachers' Pay and Conditions Bill

HC Deb 10 December 1986 vol 107 cc445-556

Again considered in Committee

Mr. Nellist

On a point of order, Sir Paul. I wish to raise a point that I mentioned during the Division about half an hour ago. As I understand it, we have just voted on amendment No. 2, which was essentially a paving amendment for amendments Nos. 8 to 14, any one of which could have been introduced if amendment No. 2 had been passed. As the Committee has not accepted that amendment, I assume that we cannot vote on amendments Nos. 8 to 14.

Amendments Nos. 17 to 20 propose a substantially different approach from that of making an order. Would it therefore be possible, provided that his remarks are germane to amendments Nos. 17 to 20, for my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) to make a contribution to the debate? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] I am not asking hon. Members; I am asking you, Sir Paul. My hon. Friend was unable to catch your eye when the Division was called.

May I request that the Committee be given an opportunity to vote on amendments Nos. 17 and 18? If that is possible, how shall I do that? There is a difference between the machinery for negotiation mentioned in amendment No. 17 and the retrospective nature of amendment No. 18, neither of which has been properly covered in the options that have fallen because we did not pass amendment No. 2.

The Second Deputy Chairman

I assure the Committee that the Chairman of Ways and Means considered these matters very carefully before the proceedings began. The occupants of the chair, of course, have been following the debate carefully. The ruling is that I am not prepared to allow another Division on the group of amendments that we have discussed. The Chairman of Ways and Means will consider the request by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) as to the possibility of a Division on one or other of the new clauses which have been discussed with that group of amendments. That is made with no commitment. That matter will be considered and, if it is decided that a Division can be held on one or other of the new clauses, it will, of course, take place at the appropriate time, according to the Amendment Paper.

Mr. Clay

On a point of order, Sir Paul. Before the Division on amendment No. 2, my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) was on his feet. I was sitting less than a yard from him. I accept that it is not always possible for the occupant of the Chair to notice those hon. Members who are standing, especially down this end of the Chamber. As I understand it, in Committee proceedings if an hon. Member is standing and he or she catches the eye of the occupant of the Chair, the only way in which he or she can be stopped from speaking is by a closure motion. That motion was not moved before the Division on amendment No. 2. I ask, in case this happens again to any hon. Members including my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton, who are standing and wishing to speak—after all, my hon. Friend had not spoken in the debate until then, but he was clearly standing and hoping to catch the Chairman's eye—that you will cast your eye in various directions, especially this one, as the night continues, so that hon. Members are not again denied the opportunity to speak on matters that they think are important.

The Second Deputy Chairman

I think that it will be clear to the Committee that there is a wide range of amendments still to be considered. I shall be very disappointed if any hon. Member on either side of the Chamber does not have an opportunity to catch the Chairman's eye at some time during the coming hours.

Mr. Radice

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 5, at end insert 'and is replaced by a negotiating machinery as set out in the document agreed under the auspices of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service between representatives of the local education authorities and of the teachers' unions.'.

The Second Deputy Chairman

With this it will be convenient to consider the following: Amendment No. 5, in page 1, line 5, at end insert 'and school teachers' pay shall be determined by the agreement reached at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service between the local education authorities and the teachers' unions'. New clause 1—Pension arrangements— 'The Secretary of State shall ensure that, for the determination of pension arrangements, the agreement on pay reached under the auspices of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service on 21st November 1986 shall be deemed to have effect from 1st January 1987.'.

Mr. Radice

This group of amendments centres on the role of ACAS and the agreement negotiated under ACAS auspices between employers and unions representing well over half the teachers. Before any Conservative Member says that this does not have the support of many teachers, I remind them that the NUT and the AMMA between them include well over half the teachers. Hon. Members will have seen the preliminary results of the AMMA ballot, which show that the majority of AMMA members favour the agreement. I suspect that the same is true of the NUT. The claim which is continually made in trying to undermine the agreement—that it does not have the support of the majority of teachers—will be seen to be unfounded.

I remind hon. Members that the immediate background against which the Bill is being introduced is more promising than it has been for a number of years. As I said on Second Reading, the public are paying much more attention to education, and this in part, is related to parents' anxiety to have a long-term settlement of the issue. We must all work towards that end.

I recognise that the Government have at last switched policy. We have said several times that it is a pity that it did not happen before. If money on the scale that is now being offered had been offered two years ago, there would not have been a teachers' dispute. However, we recognise that the Government have shown a new willingness to fund a reasonable settlement, and that creates the possibility of settling the issue.

The third encouraging feature is that the local authority employers and unions representing the majority of teachers have agreed to this far-reaching package, covering pay and conditions. Even the Secretary of State, albeit reluctantly, has had to admit that the talks have made useful progress.

Most hon. Members would agree that a lasting solution to the problem of teachers' pay and conditions must tackle four issues. The first is that teachers' pay has fallen behind that of comparable groups of professionals. That is the relative criterion by which we should judge teachers' pay. No one would challenge that statement.

Secondly, the existing pay structure which links promotion opportunities to pupil numbers at a time of falling rolls has locked the great bulk of teachers on to the bottom two pay scales. We must do something about that. Thirdly, there is a need for a clearer definition of teachers' professional duties and for improvements in the conditions of service. Again, there is not much quarrel about that. Fourthly, we need an overhaul of the present arrangements for dealing with the determination of teachers' pay and conditions. Again, there will be no quarrel about that.

I argue that the deal reached by the local authorities and the unions representing the majority of teachers tackles all those issues. It will ensure that all teachers receive a significant salary increase, especially the low-paid workers, and, by replacing the present system of pay scales by a single main professional grade, it offers every teacher the prospect of a steady improvement in earnings as their careers progress. The new main professional grade offers all teachers the prospect of their salaries rising through 13 increments from £9,970 to £15,058. That is a professional career structure, leading to professional salaries.

By contrast—this point has not been made sufficiently strongly—the Government's proposals will put a ceiling of £12,700 on the earnings of an unpromoted teacher. The problem is that many teachers will reach that ceiling after only a few years' service. The pay structure favoured by the Government does not offer enough teachers a decent salary scale, whereas the new salary level and structure will ensure that teaching recruits and retains people of the highest ability and motivation.

I know—no doubt we shall argue about this—that the Government believe that there should be more promoted posts and additional increments. I hope that the Minister of State will comment on the fact that the NUT has said repeatedly that there is a case for an allowance additional to the first two allowances. I understand that the Government favour five additional allowances, so we are beginning to enter an area where compromise is at least possible. The Government have not recognised that sufficiently, and when we are away from the hurly-burly of the hustings later tonight—when serious professionals get down to discussing the details—I hope that we can agree that the gap between the two sides is not too large.

The agreement incorporates a list of 13 duties, setting out teachers' professional obligations, including participation in schemes of appraisal and consulting parents. I do not want to read out the contractual duties of teachers, although no doubt some of my hon. Friends will want to do so as the evening wears on. I have a list here which I can lend them when the time comes. But that is relevant, because the Government have said that those duties should be in a teacher's contract. They are already in the ACAS agreement and we have not had sufficient recognition of that from the Government.

10.45 pm

The last point that needs to be recognised is that the Nottingham/London agreement acknowledges the need for a radical overhaul of the Burnham committee. Again, the Government have not sufficiently accepted the progress that has been made. The agreement recognises that pay and conditions of service need to be dealt with together and that the Government should be involved in collective bargaining. In the previous debate the Secretary of State made much of the fact that the ACAS agreement had merely spelt out in principle the role of the Secretary of State and said that his role should be discussed with him. He pooh-poohed that, when instead he should build on it in order to obtain a satisfactory solution, so that the fact that the Government pay at least 46 per cent. of the total teachers' salary bill can be recognised in the negotiating structures. That is something on which both sides of the House agree.

If we can get that, the Government should be seizing on it. They should accept that there is a great movement forward here. If we can get an agreement covering all those aspects, there is no need for the Government to move in the way that they have on the Bill.

This is basically a good agreement between the employers and the unions representing the majority of teachers which should be recognised as such by the Secretary of State. The differences between the Government's position and that reached at Nottingham and London are not all that great. I have heard a lot about the cost, but I repeat that that is no unbridgeable divide. Everybody is well aware that a month's delay in implementation saves at least £40 million. That is a pretty big move towards the £80 million we are talking about.

As I said on Second Reading, if the Secretary of State wants an agreed package, there is one there for the asking. It really is up to the Government to make up their mind. Do they want an agreed settlement, with all the benefits that that is likely to bring in acceptability and in creating peace in the classroom, or will they risk the gamble of imposing a solution which could well be unpopular and could lead to renewed disruption—although I hope that it does not? The Secretary of State will have the added problem that he will be blamed directly for what happens. If he steps in in this deus ex machina role he will be blamed if things go wrong.

In the circumstances, the sensible position for a Government, particularly in the run-up to an election, is to work hard and get an agreement, which I believe can be obtained, between the employers, the Government and the teachers, based on the London/Nottingham agreement and taking into account the points that the Secretary of State has made.

The purpose of our amendments is to remind the Secretary of State just how great is the progress that has been made, how small the differences are and how sensible it would be to grasp the ACAS agreement and for the Government to make it their own.

Mr. Greenway

The position adopted by the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) is both encouraging and discouraging. He knows that I am of the opinion that, if humanly possible, a compromise should be reached. He also knows that I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State makes a compelling point when he says that there must be a sufficient number of differentials to cover those who have heavy, medium and little responsibility.

Mr. Radice

I know that the hon. Gentleman believes in a compromise solution and he has made that clear in the House. I respect him for what he has said. We listen with great respect to what he says about educational matters. However, how many additional posts does he think are required?

Mr. Greenway

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's solution, in terms of the number of posts required, is very much nearer to what is required than the ACAS agreement. There should be four or five differentials. To have fewer would lead to the position that I knew when I began to teach 30 years ago, and it is not a position to which we should return. In that school 30 years ago there were about 30 staff, only one of whom, besides the head and the deputy head, was paid for additional responsibilities. It did not allow that school to be run adequately and efficiently. In schools of that size today there are 12 or 14 posts of responsibility. That is near to what is envisaged by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and it would be in the interests of the teaching profession. We must make it possible for people to gain promotion.

I remember the very first strike of teachers at the William Penn school. They were members of the National Association of Schoolmasters. They went on strike to gain a place on the Burnham committee. The next strike involved NAS members throughout London. The attitude of teachers to strikes has changed completely within the space of only a few years.

The hon. Member for Durham, North said that he thought I was right when I said that a compromise ought to be the aim, but he has moved an amendment that asks the Committee to accept the ACAS deal. Such inconsistency is unacceptable. The 13 conditions in the ACAS agreement cover much valuable ground. I appreciate that the unions have made progress on devising a respectable contract for teachers. But somebody needs to speak up for those who have to run the schools. Not to have a clause that requires teachers to carry out the reasonable duties that a head teacher requires them to carry out is a very serious ommission. I do not support dictatorial heads, but they must be able to say to their teachers that something has to be done and that they must do it. It is a serious omission, and for that reason alone I could not vote for the ACAS agreement.

Mr. Radice

The preamble to the 13 duties reads: Under the reasonable direction of the head teacher. I should have thought that that was very clear.

Mr. Greenway

I am not satisfied about it; it needs to be tightened up. I have studied the matter and discussed it with those who are responsible for running our schools.

Under the agreement in the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Durham, North, teachers with small responsibilities will get a whacking increase. Other teachers with heavy responsibilities who are bearing the heat and burden of the day in a way that only those with top responsibilities in schools can will get little. That does not seem to be equitable. A great deal more talking needs to be done to produce a compromise that is fair and in the interests of all sections of the profession.

Mr. Dormand

It has to be said at the outset, that while there are some differences of opinion among teacher unions about the negotiated agreement, there are no divisions whatsoever on negotiating machinery. I respect very much the experience of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) in teaching and the responsibility that he had, but I am surprised that he made no reference to that at all. I hoped that he and other Conservative Members would realise that that is the crucial thing with regard to ACAS, but there are other matters to which I shall refer.

The unions have already agreed to replace the Burnham committee with a national joint council for dealing with pay and conditions of service for teachers and, in so doing, acknowledged the need for a role for the Secretary of State in the new negotiating machinery. That is important, On Second Reading on Monday, I was astonished at the Ignorance—I think that that is the correct word—shown by Conservative Members in some of their speeches—

Mr. Radice

About what was in the Bill.

Mr. Dormand

Indeed. That is absolutely right. But I am referring in particular to the Burnham committee. At least two Conservative Members assumed that the committee was still supported by ACAS, the unions and everybody else. That was not so. It was astonishing, in a Second Reading debate on an issue of such importance, to come across such a lack of knowledge.

Mr. Frank Cook

They believe what they want to believe.

Mr. Dormand

That is absolutely right. Nobody is showing more evidence of that than the Secretary of State. He is overriding the normal democratic processes. Some of us had considerable respect for the Secretary of State. I think that I am right in saying that this is his second term in the House of Commons. In 1973 I heard what I considered to be a good speech by the right hon. Gentleman. I said how good I thought it was but that he had better be careful because he might get the reputation of being a smoothie. I am not the only one who refers to the Secretary of State nowadays as a smoothie. It appears that that is the reputation that he is getting. But a "smoothie" seems to suggest something fairly superficial. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) has made a more devastating criticism of the Secretary of State, with which I agree. It was widely reported in the press after his speech on Monday.

The unions and Labour Members accept that there is a role for the Secretary of State in the negotiating process. I say that because the impression is given constantly that that is not so. I am at a loss to understand that. I do not see that any mileage or kudos are to be gained by that. Labour Members and ACAS—apparently everbody but the Government recognise that there is a role. Indeed, it is an important role.

Mr. Radice

There has to be.

Mr. Dormand

That is right. The reason is, as the Secretary of State has said properly on several occasions, that he represents the taxpayer. That is right. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I have to say that that is a role that has been played by the Secretary of State under Burnham for all the years that that system has been in operation. Why should there be criticism, or inferred ciriticism, from Conservative Members on that point. What is to be gained by trying to give that impression?

11pm

The principle that any new machinery for teachers' pay and conditions of service should include direct negotiations—I repeat, direct negotiations—is absolutely fundamental. Unless the Government or even the Opposition, recognise that, they are doing the education service a grave injustice. The advisory committee is a direct and total denial of that principle. I have done some research in the Library on this and I know of no other country, at least in the western world, where such complete denial is part of the process of determining such matters. After all, there are few things more important than the pay and conditions of any category of society, including the vital service of education.

The agreement provides for a national joint council to deal with pay and other conditions of service for teachers and in doing so it acknowledges the need for discussions with the Secretary of State on his role in the new negotiating machinery. Having said that, I fail to see how anybody, except perhaps one or two Conservative Members can fail to be disillusioned by the provision for consultation in the Bill. It is no more than a farce. It has been said on a number of occasions that it is a facade. If that is not recognised then, frankly, the Government and Conservative Members are not doing education a service.

The Secretary of State and Conservative Members frequently refer to the division among teachers' unions. On the question of negotiating machinery, the Secretary of State has had a clear and unequivocal joint letter from the NUT, the NAS/UWT, AMMA and the Secondary Heads Association. I believe that some hon. Members have received a copy of that letter. I shall quote from the letter because I think that it is important. It states: We are united in our opposition to your Bill which removes from teacher organisations the right to direct negotiations. We urge you to reconsider your position and to accept the principle that any new negotiating machinery for teachers' pay and conditions should include direct negotiation. I hope that I am not wearying the Committee by the use of the words "direct negotiation", because, after all, that is the nub of the problem. As I and some of my hon. Friends have said, we know of no other country where that is denied. It is a brushing away of the democratic process in 1986. The quotation sums up in the clearest terms what the amendments are about. They have the support of the vast majority of teachers.

I have referred to the unions, but, of course, there is the same kind of support from the employers' organisations. All hon. Members have had letters from the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of County Councils. I was particularly interested to read the views of the Association of County Councils. It said that it has argued for many years for the repeal of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965 which, it feels, has inhibited proper negotiations concerning teachers' salaries, and effectively blocked the sensible possibility of negotiating pay together with other conditions of service for more than 20 years. I do not agree with that view. I think that the association has gone over the top. There is some substance in it but that is not the issue. We are talking about the consensus between everybody concerned, and the Government are simply not recognising that. There is a wave of protest and the Government still fail to recognise and deal with it.

I repeat what I said on a previous occasion. I am deeply concerned that the Government have not recognised how far the unions have moved in agreeing to include conditions of service in the negotiations. It is yet another example of the Government being out of touch with the realities of the world of education and of teachers in particular. They had better be aware of the resentment that that is causing among teachers and employers. The Association of County Councils states: The majority of teachers' representatives had generally, and until recently, opposed any changes which would have allowed effective negotiations. They have now, under the aegis of the ACAS talks, agreed a new framework for negotiations with the employers which would enable those changes to take place. Other hon. Members will be aware of how long the ACC has been trying to bring about those changes. I do not want to make you blush, Mr. Armstrong, but you were one of the most distinguished headmasters that our county had and your reputation lives on. Part of that reputation was concerned with what I have just said. I hope that Conservative Members will bear that in mind because it is of fundamental importance.

It is no wonder that the ACC enthused so much about what it considered to be a fundamental change of heart, but the employers' joy was soon extinguished because the Bill removes from them any decision-making at all. That has been one of our constant criticisms. Under the Bill, the Secretary of State hogs all the decisions on basic pay and conditions. He will decide what is to be discussed and what is to be referred to the advisory body.

We are not likely to get an answer on this, but my hon. Friends and I would be interested to know how many objections have been and will be made by Tory councellors. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Minister is not listening."] I appreciate that the Minister has important matters to consider—

Mr. Frank Cook

Her car is coming. She is on her way to Annabel's by the look of it.

Mr. Dormand

How many objections have there been from Tory councillors? The agreement was clearly reached with the assent of all or most Tory councillors. It will also be interesting to see how many objections there are in the future because this measure will sweep away the powers of Tory councillors as well as those of the Labour persuasion.

When I collected my late mail between the two Divisions a short while ago I certainly did not expect to find a letter from the employers' chairman of the management panel of the Burnham primary and secondary committee. It is a short letter, but it is the most important that I have received so far on this controversial Bill. It says: As you will know the Government has introduced a Bill to repeal the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965 and establish, initially on an interim basis to March 1990, an Advisory Committee which will make (non-binding) recommendations to the Secretary of State on teachers' pay and conditions within pre-determined financial constraints. I have written to the Secretary of State (as attached) calling upon him to reconsider his position. The Government's Bill would, if enacted, have the effect of excluding both the employers and the unions from decision-making on the most expensive element of the education budget. I break off the quotation there because that epitomises my argument and that which my right hon. and hon. Friends have made and will continue to make for the rest of the debate. The letter continues: Even leaving aside the unilateral nature of the Bill, the implications of the proposed Advisory Committee clearly stretch beyond issues of teachers' pay and conditions in such a way as fundamentally to call in question the balance between LEAs and the DES. I do not think that any Conservative Member can deny that that is absolutely correct. The letter continues: I am convinced that the Government's Bill will, far from achieving its purported objective, make the situation in the schools even worse than it has been. Moreover, it is in itself retrograde and undemocratic and should for that reason alone be rejected. I would be very willing to discuss these issues with MPs either singly or collectively. The issue must be considered important if he is prepared to discuss the matter singly. I should like to repeat the penultimate sentence which runs: Moreover, it is in itself retrograde and undemocratic and should for that reason alone be rejected. That is the nub of the argument. If the employers' chairman from the management panel of the Burnham primary and secondary committee has added his weight to the letters, objections and telephone calls that we have received and still the Government will take no notice, when will they take any notice of any argument? We know, of course, that they are autocratic.

I could refer to many other documents, but I know that other hon. Friends wish to speak. The amendments are simply a recognition of present circumstances in the world of education. They are a recognition of the fairness which everyone except the Government appreciates is essential if stability and progress are to return to our schools. I repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North has said often, and has repeated again today—we are as anxious as anyone that peace and stability should be restored to classrooms.

The Government could be hardly more wrong than they are to try to impose what they call a solution in the form of the Bill. The amendments recognise the balance and compromise which are essential ingredients in a sensible solution, especially in the present inflamed situation. I give the amendments my wholehearted support.

Mr. Flannery

Tuesday's Guardian carried the heading: Government determined to close this sorry business—Baker hardens stance on forced teachers' deal The report said: The Education Secretary, Mr. Kenneth Baker, has hardened his stance in the teachers' dispute, telling MPs yesterday they must be in no doubt about the Government's determination to 'close this sorry business.' Throughout the Commons second reading debate"— many of us were involved in that— on the bill to abolish the Burnham teachers' pay negotiating machinery, Mr. Baker made plain his willingness to use its powers to impose his own solution to the two-year dispute. The negotiating process has been built up over many years. Any hon. Member who has taught, as quite a few have, knows how teachers gradually learn about the process of democracy in negotiations, especially between a local education authority and its teachers' organisations, and how that education authority is itself democratically built up, and what there is in the authority. There are elected representatives, usually with long and detailed experience. Not everybody can do the job. It took me years to get on to a local education committee.

Mr. Greenway

indicated assent.

11.15 pm

Mr. Flannery

I can see the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), an ex-teacher like myself, nodding in agreement.

We all know what it took. The type of person who can go on an education committee does not grow on trees. They are people with long experience, who have devoted themselves to this and have proved themselves. They come from both sides and there is a core of elected people and a little group of co-opted people. Through the years, they get to know one another. A rapport develops — an integration born of democracy and of long years together.

Side by side with these committees are the teachers' unions. None of us wants the teachers' unions to be disparate and split. We would like them to be unified, just as the authority is unified. In all areas—for example, big cities—there are joint committees of the teachers' unions. On the committee on which I served for many years, head teachers were represented, with their members changing at two-year intervals. Each of the teachers' unions was there, working together, and they formulated their conclusions about what they needed to negotiate on. They went back to their organisations, returned to the joint committee and then on to the local education authority as representatives of the unions. All this was a natural process of democracy being built up with patience year after year.

To override this because of frustration will not solve the problem of teaching our children, a problem that has come about over this long, weary, tiring, but still democratic, process. It is untidy, but it is the best that we have got, as Churchill said. It is a process whereby people get together, and no matter what difficulties they have, they attempt to come to a consensus or a compromise, and go on with the education of our children.

Everything that went on in that process came from the hard work of democratic people and through organisations built up patiently over 100 or 150 years by the people who worked in them. That process of patient, built-up democracy is so precious that to destroy it by a hasty move is not in the interests of the people who would take such action. At a later stage, the short cut that they are taking will find them out, just as any diktat, anywhere, made by the the Right, the Left or the centre, will not work, but will promote its opposite.

Democracy, which is a steady, on-going process, will ultimately prevail. Those who take the short cuts embodied in the Bill are ploughing the ocean. It will swill back over them at some stage, just as it has swilled back over Chirac in France, after the nonsense that he tried to put into the French educational system, having been warned by the President not to do it.

The Bill is born of frustration. The Government no longer have the patience to go on with the democratic process. They are angry, hurt and upset and no longer willing to go on arguing. The Government created the situation because they did not provide enough money to pay for the educational system that had been patiently built up over the years. They have allowed our schools to get into a mess and they sought and finally found a short, quick way out.

Our amendment seeks to replace the Burnham committee. We admit, many of us against our will, that the work of that committee has come to nothing, but that is because the Government failed to provide the money to keep it in being. We accept that, democratic as it is, the committee is not acceptable to this powerful Government with their overwhelming voting power in the Chamber and a paucity of arguments. The Government did not know what to do and finally took these draconian measures. It saddens me to find many democrats on the Government side bowing their heads to this draconian process.

We say in the amendment that the Burnham committee should be replaced by a negotiating machinery as set out in the document agreed under the auspices of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service"— that is ACAS— between representatives of the local education authorities and of the teachers' unions.". Together with the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), I am one of the longest serving members of two Select Committees. We have been to other countries to study their education systems. I see in the Chamber hon. Members who have gone with me to Northern Ireland, and they know that what I am saying is true. We looked at education systems and in our private conversations we proudly agreed that none of them is as good as ours.

Just over a year ago I was in Germany with members of a Select Committee, and I can say categorically that the system we saw there is not nearly as good as ours—in spite of Germany's advances in trade and industry. Our failure in those fields is due to the failure of the Government's policy of monetarism and because Germany has invested money in its industry. It has nothing to do with the education system.

In Germany, there are no television sets in primary schools. We were told that there were some in the secondary schools, but when we checked we found none. The schools there are not as well equipped as ours and our schools are more relaxed and better in every way. In France, before a teacher can be moved from one school to another or placed in a school, permission has to be sought from Paris. I think the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Brinton) was with me when we went with members of a Select Committee, and he knows that that is true.

Mr. Tim Brinton (Gravesham)

The hon. Gentleman says that I was a member of a Select Committee in the last Parliament and that I can confirm all that he says. I am afraid I cannot do that, because as a television practitioner I would not worry too much if there were no television sets in schools. There is one difference between us.

Mr. Flannery

The hon. Gentleman is a friend and we had the occasional drink together after meetings. He says that television in schools is not a good thing. I suspected on occasion that the hon. Gentleman was reactionary when it came to television in schools, and now I know that that is true. Anybody who does not realise that if it is used intelligently television is a great instrument for advancement is detached by a few years from today's reality.

We wish to insert the following: and school teachers' pay shall be determined by the agreement reached at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service between the local education authorities and the teachers' unions. We are speaking against the background of a democratic process that has taken many years to evolve, a process that was hard-born and difficult, and the Government have failed properly to maintain the education system because they have not made enough money available to pay teachers adequately. They have become frustrated and have sought escape by taking the most draconian route open to them, a route which bypasses the democratic process. They have opted for a system which is unacceptable to those who have to teach in the schools, and without those people we cannot have education.

Teachers are massively dissatisfied with the Bill, which is unifying them against the Government. The Bill will bring about a struggle, and teachers will be agonising over whether to unleash another struggle. They will be agonising over what they should do. They will be discussing these matters with one another and asking themselves, "Do we engage in another struggle or do we bow our heads?" I have heard some teachers saying in this place this evening that if they bow their heads they will get nowhere and if they struggle they will be accused of unleashing further conflict.

There is a struggle taking place that involves the maintenance of democracy in education and an antidemocratic short cut, and the short cut will be upheld by the Government's voting power in this place, despite their paucity of argument. The amendments are hard thought out. They are in favour of democracy in education and against a process of anti-democratic short cuts and diktat. If the Government's anti-democratic actions unleash a further struggle, be that on their conscience. They must understand that at some stage people will fight back against diktat, and that is the position we are reaching.

Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North)

ACAS is a fine body, and I am sure that at least my right hon. and hon. Friends have had occasion to use it. It is a sensible, even-handed organisation which is respected by industry generally. It often solves complex problems in an imaginative and intelligent way that is acceptable to both sides of industry. I shall try to relate the role that ACAS could play in the teachers' dispute to the many interested groups in the education system. I do not think that there can be disentanglement without consideration being given to all the interested parties.

I am a parent, and I represent many thousands of parents in the part of the Knowsley which comes within my constituency, an area that has a high school-age population. It is of great concern to me and many other parents that we should get the education system right. We must achieve a lasting partnership between all the forces within the system, that will enable us to build for the future and provide a proper education system for our children. I accept that to some extent the Secretary of State has sought to achieve that in some of the actions that he has taken, but he has not succeeded.

Local education authorities are part of that which we call education, and we have seen Conservative Members beating them across the head with a big stick over the past few weeks. Conservative Members must understand that local authorities are elected democratically through the ballot box to look after the interests of local people. As such, they have a legitimate interest in the education system, and we cannot dismiss the role played by local authorities or feel that they have nothing to say on the subject, because they do. They are democratically elected and are an important ingredient in the whole equation.

Many parents are deeply concerned that the education system has gone sadly wrong because of recent events. Relationships have been soured and the whole process has been disrupted. None of these things has improved relationships within the schools, between teachers and education authorities, between teachers unions and the Government and between parents and teachers, all of which are in danger of going seriously sour.

11.30 pm

I have been a school governor for many years. It is now in vogue to say that there should be more parent governors with more powers, but my experience during the lifetime of this Government has been that many governors are extremely confused about their existing role and what is happening to the education system. The Bill will add to their confusion and make them even more worried about the process in which they play a part.

We have heard about head teachers, and you, Mr. Armstrong, were referred to with some distinction by my hon. Friends. I have talked to head teachers in my constituency and elsewhere, and they feel that the process within which they are involved, the relationships within their schools and their relationships with the wider community are seriously in jeopardy because of a failure over a number of years to resolve these problems. They are especially concerned that factors such as the career structure and the recruitment of younger teachers have not been well served.

We must also talk about the teaching profession itself. In the early days of this Government I was a teacher in the further education sector. I shall be honest with the House. I left the teaching profession to work in the co-operative movement because, like my colleagues, I could see the way things were going. We felt that although there were growth sectors that could create new employment, the Government were not behind the education system. That process, which began in 1979, has merely accelerated to the extent that we are now in this sorry mess.

We must forge a new consensus that will give people in the profession—parents, teachers, local education authorities and others—some confidence that we know what we are doing. Above all, it should be a consensus which, unlike the Bill, does not alienate the teachers.

It is no good me or anyone else talking about partnership, consensus or a future for education if the end result is a disgruntled and unhappy teaching force. Education is a delicate balance between a number of interests that should not be seen as competing, because they are all to do with educating young people for a better future. That balance is totally destroyed by alienating the professionals in the way that the current process has done.

I have already referred to, and praised, the services of ACAS. Why not let a balanced body that is respected by everyone mediate in this matter and come up with a solution? My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) referred earlier to the contractual duties of main professional grade teachers, which, I understand, were agreed under the auspices of ACAS. An example of what can be achieved in the long term is the fact that several points have been agreed that should be highlighted.

The second point agreed stated: Promote the general progress and welfare of a class or group of pupils; to provide initial guidance counselling on educational, social and career matters and record and report on these matters and on the personal and social need of pupils; liaise and consult with parents and outside agencies, and attend meetings arranged for these purposes. We should expect teachers to perform such duties, but that is being put in jeopardy today.

Another duty is to Advise and co-operate with colleagues on preparation and development of courses of study, teaching materials team planning teaching programmes, methods and pastoral arrangements. That is honourable and proper, but it is jeopardised today.

The document also says that another duty is to Co-ordinate the work of other teachers"—

Mrs. Rumbold

I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. He is reading a list of duties for teachers which were agreed in recent negotiations with ACAS and at Nottingham. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that those agreed duties are the duties originally proposed by my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State?

Mr. Howarth

I repeat that one of the duties is to Co-ordinate the work of other teachers and undertake a defined role in the review, development and management of assigned curriculum, pastoral and organisational activities. Fine points have been agreed, but they are being jeopardised.

Mr. Fatchett

The Minister's intervention makes our argument for us. The unions have moved towards the Government. Is it not about time that the Government moved towards the unions and bargained voluntarily with them? They are not prepared to do that.

Mr. Howarth

That is the precise point. We are in danger of alienating the good will that emerged during the discussions and allowing the process to get out of hand.

I have some suggestions about what the Government should concentrate upon. We should be trying to wring out positive things from the education system. Many teachers are concerned about this. They are concerned not only about salaries, but about status and career structures and how they relate.

I am prepared to give the Government credit where it is due. They have achieved something with the police force, although that is unrelated to our discussion. Many of us take issue on some aspects of policing, but the police have a career and salary structure which builds for the future and for a high quality policy force. I accept that some benefit will be derived from that. If we can do that for the police force, why can we not do it for education? Why can we not trust in the goodwill and co-operation of an organisation such as ACAS to help us? Do the Government not believe that children deserve to be taught properly by a settled profession? The Government are not contributing towards the establishment of a settled profession.

What are parents to think of an education system which is in disarray and which we think is about to enter a period of disruption and problems? As a parent, I know of all the problems involved in educating children and in the balance of people's domestic lives when they try to cope with the sort of disruption that is almost certain to follow the passing of the Bill.

Children's futures will be damaged. Education opportunities will be missed and the potential to improve teaching and the running of our schools will be lost, because goodwill will be lost. The future of education will be undermined and the future of some children may be jeopardised.

Local education authorities are dismayed by the Secretary of State's apparent obsession with the books that ILEA is worried about. He seems more interested in that topic than in what goes on in schools. The right hon. Gentleman is corresponding with the chairman of the education committee in Knowsley about whether there will be a city technology college in the area, and the chairman of the education committee has said that we in Knowsley are concerned with children who have little or no support in the home and who are victims of other kinds of economic and cultural disadvantage". Those matters should be given more weight. They are not receiving the attention that they deserve because there is trench warfare between the unions and the Government.

I suggest that local authorities would be delighted if the dispute could be settled through ACAS in a sober, considered and thoughtful way so that we can get on with building up the education service. Many, probably most, teachers would accept that that would be an intelligent way forward. Once the agreement is settled and secure they can get on with the job that they trained for and aspire to—teaching children.

The ACAS option would also give the profession the opportunity to settle matters for a generation or more. As with the police, new entrants would know what future and what pay scales to expect. I am sure that the profession would accept the ACAS option as a viable one. Once matters were settled, head teachers, who are another important ingredient, would welcome the chance to get on with organising the education of our children.

The amendment would give all interested parties the opportunity to consign the recent past to history and to concentrate on the many issues that would still be outstanding. For example, what do we want from our education system and from our teaching profession in helping to deliver those objectives? How can we ensure that curriculum developments and teaching methods enable our children to realise their potential? I feel strongly about that matter, because I lived in an area where many of my contemporaries who were bright and had great potential did not get the chances to realise it. To a great extent, that is still true in my constituency.

How do we involve the wider community? I am talking not of a trivial or flash-in-the-pan approach, but of involving the community, local government, the profession and parents in building a consensus in education. It is important to build on that consensus. We are talking about a partnership in which due weight is given to all those involved, and in which staff in the education system, parents, local education authorities and the wider community consider that they have a stake in the education service.

By solving the vexatious and highly charged problem of pay, conditions and structure through ACAS, we shall open a road that will lead to new opportunities and to a new age in which we may properly discuss the problems of educating our children.

11.45 pm

Mr. Dormand

All hon. Members will agree with my hon. Friend's view. His speech has not only been eloquent and passionate, but very informed. His last point about partnership is crucial. Does he agree that, since they were elected in 1979, the Government have placed great importance—some may say they have had a fetish about it—on non-interference in local affairs? They have placed a great deal of importance on autonomy and letting local people get on with the job. My hon. Friend referred to the role of governors. He is right about that matter. The Government have made great play of the fact.

Mr. Dunn

indicated assent.

Mr. Dormand

The Minister has shown his agreement. Since 1979 the Government have placed great importance on the role of governors. This is a draconian Bill, as my hon. Friend said, which represents complete and utter interference from the centre. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that we must continue to repeat this fact. I suspect that Conservative Members know it, too, but are afraid to say so.

Mr. Howarth

I take my hon. Friend's point. The Government pledged themselves to take the state off the backs of the people but they have put heavy burdens on the backs of many people, particularly those in the education service.

As a former councillor, I believe that the autonomy of local government has been seriously jeopardised. That is reflected in the education service. A wealth of evidence has been produced by bodies such as the AMA and the ACC as well as by independent bodies. The Audit Commission has made criticisms. The evidence is so strong that we are sure that local autonomy has gone out the window. The Bill is one more example of that process.

I referred to the crisis in the education service, which seems about to deepen. The forces to which I referred are likely to be even more disgruntled, worried and concerned. If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen fail to recognise that this is happening, in the short term there will be damage to the future chances and education of our children. In the long term, children will not achieve their aims. That is a serious concern of Labour Members. In the long term—Labour Members hope it is not too long—the Bill may be one more nail in the snug-fitting coffin that is being prepared for the Conservative Government.

Mr. Cohen

I was disappointed that I was not called in the debate on the first group of amendments. I shall not go over them—[HON. MEMBERS: "GO on."]—although I am being egged on by my hon. Friends. I wanted to raise the issue of the breaches of international law that could occur under this legislation. The debate on the first group of amendments provided a good opportunity to consider International Labour Organisation conventions 98 and 151, to which the Government subscribed, yet they are now breaching them. That is a serious matter. As we know, the Government are relying heavily on international law to fight terrorism. Although this issue is not on the same scale, once international law is breached, no matter how small the breach—it is not small to the teachers—Britain's role in other important international matter is weakened. This debate is not the right time to make a point on that, but I hope that there will be opportunities later to debate possible breaches of international law under this legislation. I would welcome that, because the Chamber is full of lawyers, and it would be good to take advantage of informed legal expertise.

The Government's continuous mishandling of this long-running dispute has been damaging to the teaching profession and to schoolchildren, who are being denied their fundamental right to education. Parents are increasingly angry about the Government's role in exacerbating this long-running dispute. It will be brought home to parents that this legislation will exacerbate the discontent in schools and the dispute. Parents will become wise to the Government's actions and will be very annoyed.

Above all, the Government have shown their contempt for teachers. They have totally disregarded the role of ACAS in settling the teachers' dispute and in forming the framework to deal with future disputes and negotiations. I know that you have let the debate become a little wide-ranging, Mr. Armstrong—

Dr. Marek

No.

Mr. Cohen

I bow to my hon. Friend's greater experience in these matters. ACAS has a valuable role to play.

ACAS has made recommendations regarding the replacement of Burnham. Those recommendations are contained in a Library briefing paper, which is an excellent summary. The document states: The ACAS Agreement between the local authority employers and the teachers' unions (drawn up on 21 November 1986) proposed a new negotiating machinery in the form of a National Joint Council composed of representatives of the LEAs and the six teachers' unions to negotiate pay and other conditions of service for all teachers in maintained schools in England and Wales along the following lines. It is interesting to note that ACAS wished to involve the teacher unions and the employers directly in the national joint council. Just compare that with the Government's denial of such an effective role to the employers and the unions.

The document continues by detailing the arrangements: National Joint Council. The parties will establish a National Joint Council for the purpose of negotiating pay and other conditions of service for all teachers in maintained schools in England and Wales. Delivery of agreements. The parties will seek the introduction of a legislative requirement obliging LEAs to implement the salary scales agreed by the NJC. Otherwise, the agreements of the NJC will be made binding both on LEAs and on teachers through incorporation by the LEAs of national agreements into the contracts of individual teachers. Therefore, a formula is available to settle disputes.

The document continues: Composition of the NJC. The NJC will be composed of representatives of the local education authorities in England and Wales and of the six unions presently represented on the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee. The balance of the representation on each side will be determined with the assistance of ACAS. That is much fairer than the Government's advisory committee, to which the Secretary of State will appoint whom he wants.

On the role of the Secretary of State, the document states: The parties will seek discussions with the Secretary of State on his role in the new machinery. By introducing this Bill, the Secretary of State is saying that he is not interested in getting round the table and working out a formula whereby everyone is involved in the negotiations. The document continues: Local disputes. In drawing up the detailed constitution of the proposed NJC the parties will make arrangements for dealing with local disputes over the determination and application of national agreements and for access to those arrangements. I read that document because I think it is important to know what ACAS has said it recommends as the replacement for Burnham. It must be compared with the Secretary of State's proposal for replacing Burnham. He does not propose an integrated, detailed and fair formula which involves all the parties. He has said, "Burnham is no good; it will be replaced by me." ACAS has been constructive; the Secretary of State has been singularly destructive in this matter. ACAS has sought democratic solutions in replacing Burnham; the Secretary of State has made singularly undemocratic proposals.

In reply to the earlier debate, the Secretary of State said that the parties had sought to impose their agreement, reached by the employers and the trade unions, with the help of ACAS, after very hard negotiations, upon him. In every other walk of life, employers and trade unions get together, negotiate and make agreements that eventually stick, but the Secretary of State says that that is not good enough in this case. He is the odd man out in this process. He has put a block on the agreements that were reached after such hard negotiation. He is imposing his will upon the teachers and the employers.

There will be great anger, not only among the teachers but among the parents as well, when it is realised that agreement was reached, yet that has been denied by the Secretary of State. In its place he has put his own wide-ranging set of impositions and powers. He is removing the right of teachers to negotiate and have a realistic say in the negotiations of their pay and conditions of service. The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to impose any level of pay and conditions of service that he wishes on teachers in England and Wales. The Secretary of State will pick all the members of the advisory body and instruct them on what matters they can and cannot look into. He will tell them what money is available and what settlements cannot be made.

12 midnight

After all that, if the Secretary of State does not like what the advisory body says, he will have the power to over-rule any of its recommendations on his own. On top of that, he can make differential salary awards for different areas of the country and for teachers of different subjects. He has taken all those powers unto himself with no real democratic control upon him, and certainly without the people in the profession having a realistic say. He will be the only arbiter on pay and conditions of service of teachers and can modify or even ignore the advice of his own self-appointed advisory body.

The Secretary of State is adopting a fundamentally undemocratic approach in the Bill. Teachers' rights are being ridden over roughshod. Free collective bargaining is to be denied and the valued ACAS role, to which I and other hon. Members have referred, is also to be ridden over roughshod. There is to be no place in the Secretary of State's scheme of things for ACAS in bringing the parties to the table to reach the necessary agreement.

ACAS has not been lightly involved in these matters. Time is short, and nobody is interested in delaying these matters unduly, and other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall not read in detail the agreement that ACAS reached. However, let me read the list of contents of that agreement to show how serious and detailed has been the role of ACAS in obtaining that hard-won agreement.

First, on the duties of teachers, the document lists their basic contractual requirements, the school-based job description and the voluntary activities. On the working time of teachers, it lists the days per year, the hours per week, the working time of head teachers and deputy head teachers. On the contractual limitations on teachers' workloads, it lists the class size and teaching support time, cover for absent colleagues, entry grade teachers and, teacher supply, On grade structure, it lists the general description of the new structure, the implementation from 1 September 1987, and the interim arrangements. On pay, it lists levels applicable from 1 September 1987, assimilation at 1 January and 1 September 1987, special education, starting salaries and incremental progression. On appraisal, it lists the ACAS working party report which was agreed easily by both sides.

Mr. Freud

Will the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee, because he felt aggrieved at not being called to speak on the last group of amendments, whether this is the speech that he would have made on those amendments or whether it is a completely new speech?

Mr. Cohen

This series of amendments is about the role of ACAS. That is why I am referring to its role. If I had spoken in the debate on the previous group of amendments, I should have referred to the international law issue, to which I hope we shall return at a later stage.

Dr. Marek

At this stage it might be appropriate to read out amendment No. 4. It says: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, at end insert 'and is replaced by a negotiating machinery as set out in the document agreed under the auspices of the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service between representatives of the local education authorities and of the teachers' unions.' The purpose of my question is to ask my hon. Friend to confirm that he is quoting from the document that is mentioned in amendment No. 4.

Mr. Cohen

Yes, that is the document from which I am quoting. The list is extensive and covers a wide range. Earlier in the debate the Minister of State said that her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wanted to impose some of these conditions in the first place. That cannot be right, when so many new elements were agreed around the negotiating table between the parties.

As for special education, the agreement says that teachers who are currently in receipt of special class allowances—those on existing scales 2S and 3S—will from 1 January 1987 receive an allowance of £855 and will continue to receive it. Assimilation into the main professional grade of an existing scale 2S and 3S will be on the basis of the equivalent incremental point on scales 2 and 3, as the case may be. That is not an unreasonable increment for special education teachers. We do not provide sufficient salary incentives to attract teachers into special needs education. If the Secretary of State throws out the ACAS agreement he will also throw out the minimum additional element that ought to be paid to those who teach children with special educational needs.

As for class size, the agreement says that the overall class size limit of 33 shall be implemented as soon as possible and not later than 1 September 1987. It also states: It is further agreed that an overall class size limit of 30 should be the first priority for implementation after the 1990 review". I think that classes of 33 are still enormous. Proper education will not be given to the children in the way that we would like. That is the very minium. It is probably below the minimum that should be accepted in our schools. I bet that in the private schools, there are not classes of 30 and 33. Why should the schoolchildren in the state schools have that number in classes? It is wrong. Again, the Government are throwing out that proposal. Apart from not wanting to put up the money to pay the teachers, I suspect that that was one of the reasons in the back of the Government's mind for not wanting the agreement. They are prepared to see classes well over that number continuing for a good time yet. It is a shame that that has gone out of the window.

That is all that I want to say on the ACAS agreement—[HON. MEMBERS: "Good."]—directly about the agreement. If I had wanted to delay the Committee, I could have read many other passages from it. I am not keen to do so. Almost uniquely, the teachers are being hammered by the Bill taking away their rights. Since 1919 they have had the right to negotiate their salaries and conditions of service. It has been enshrined in legislation since that time. The new proposal in the Bill which takes that away from them is unique in the history of public sector pay negotiations. No other group has been subjected to such authoritarian treatment by the Government. Other public sector groups with wage-fixing negotiations and agreements and independent review bodies could also suffer.

The teachers should not have fewer rights and less protection against unreasonable and arbitrary behaviour by the Secretary of State or any Government than other groups of workers that have independent review bodies and negotiation machinery. On what possible justification can the Minister say that teachers should have fewer rights than those other groups? A precedent will be created.

Dr. Marek

The only justification that the Secretary of State has is that he has a large majority. If the Government did not have that, and if there was a small majority, we would not have seen this legislation. There would have been no chance of it. After the next general election, there will be no chance of it. At the moment, the Government are in a fortuitous position. They thought of something that they could do to hammer the teachers even more, as my hon. Friend says. I cannot honestly think of any other reason why they are singling out the teachers in that way.

Mr. Cohen

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is not morally justified and cannot be justified on any grounds of reasonableness.

The Bill represents a precedent for other employees and employers in the public sector with the end of their role in free negotiations between the employees and employers. The negotiating machinery and the review bodies that all the other public sector workers have will inevitably be at risk following the precedent set by the Government against the teachers.

Let me give some examples of all the other groups of workers who will be affected. There are loads of other bodies and negotiating machinery. The teachers in further education could suffer. About 700,000 professional, technical and clerical staff in local authorities could lose their rights if the precedent in set under the Bill is extended to them. Local authority manual workers have a national joint council and could suffer. There is the building and civil engineering NJC. Engineers, electricians, chief executives, chief officers, the probation service, magistrates courts, justices clerks, municipal airports and local authority fire brigades could suffer. The industrial Civil Service has a joint co-ordinating committee and could suffer. The non-industrial civil servants have a national Whitley council and eight Whitley councils cover the staff of the National Health Service such as ambulancemen, ancillary staff, dental services staff and many others. All those are at risk under the precedent that the Government are setting in teachers' pay negotiations. On top of that, as has been said, the police could be at risk from the precedent. Clearly that is quite wrong.

12.15 am

The precedent does not start with the teachers. It has been set before under the Government with the GCHQ dispute. The Government denied trade unionism and basic civil liberties to the workers there. The Government are in the process of extending that. It is now the turn of the teachers and after that perhaps it will be the NHS workers or other groups of workers. The Government are adopting salami tactics in terms of their anti-civil-liberties, antidemocratic and anti-trade-union approach.

The truth is that the Secretary of State and his predecessor had ample opportunity to settle the long-running dispute, but they blew it because of their prevarication and refusal to settle and provide the right resources when they had the opportunity to do so. Now, they are blowing it because of their authoritarian presumptions and the tendency to take all powers to themselves. The Government are blowing it because of the 19 conditions that the Secretary of State sought to impose without any flexibility and because they are riding roughshod over the negotiating machinery. The Secretary of State could have settled the dispute, but he is now in danger of it running on and on.

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend mentioned GCHQ. The Government have not been very successful there. I wonder whether there are lessons that should be learnt by GCHQ and whether they should not be making the same mistakes as they appear to be about to make with this Bill.

The First Deputy Chairman (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

Order. The hon. Gentleman should not follow that line. We must stick to the amendments before the House.

Mr. Cohen

I accept that, Mr. Armstrong, and that is what I have been seeking to do. I shall not respond to that point.

Free collective bargaining and recognising the role of ACAS in settling a protracted dispute must be better than the Secretary of State taking all power to himself. The negotiated ACAS agreement shows that that formula works. That agreement introduced a system of appraisal of teachers for the first time, provided a detailed conditions of service agreement where none existed before, established a new negotiating machinery to replace Burnham, created a new salary structure for the profession and increased the salary levels to reward effective teaching. All that was in the ACAS agreement. It shows that free collective bargaining and ACAS involvement can work. That should be the approach adopted.

ACAS is essential. Calling in ACAS does not mean that the teachers will refuse to settle unless they get the kind of handouts that take place in the City. The London Evening Standard of 6 November states: Former defence secretary Sir John Nott, chairman of merchant bankers, Lazards, doubled his salary to £366,436 last year. I am sure that the teachers would settle for less than half that figure. Indeed, I am sure that they would settle for far less than the golden hellos of more than £100,000 that are now commonplace among merchant banks buying stockbrokers, jobbers and so on.

New clause 1 refers to the role of ACAS in determining pension arrangements. In answer to a written question recently, I was told that top civil servants now receive a pension of £26,000 and a lump sum of more than £77,000. One wonders what the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, will get when he goes. He may talk about economy with the truth in Australia, but there will be no economy with the public purse when he goes. No teacher expects a salary, let alone a pension, like that, but ACAS should at least be able to help teachers in determining their pension arrangements.

The Secretary of State may impose his will this time round, but the dispute will still be brewing and boiling in the schools. The teachers' strong feelings about being underpaid will be compounded if the lid of the pressure cooker is screwed down and they are excluded from the negotiating process. That is bound to cause discontent and resentment, and I believe that further industrial action will be inevitable. The teachers themselves make that clear in their briefing to Parliament, when they say: The Bill would seriously damage industrial relations. The Government is presenting this measure as a means of resolving the long-running teachers' pay dispute. Yet intervention of this kind is guaranteed to create disillusion in schools. With no avenue open for teachers to formulate aspirations and air grievances, this disillusion would simmer away in schools, leading to a de-motivated, unenthusiastic and uncommitted teaching force. If teachers are denied proper channels to enable their complaints to be redressed, such feelings would in due course be more likely to lead to increased disruption than any dissatisfaction that could arise from negotiating machinery. Clearly, further industrial action is likely to result from the Government's treatment of teachers in the Bill.

The Government are being thoroughly cynical. They know that further industrial action is inevitable as a result of their proposals. They just hope that the Bill will delay it until after a general election. They will not have to worry about it then, because they will be in opposition. The only way forward must be direct negotiations and agreements freely reached with the help of ACAS. That is the only way in which our teachers and schools can get on with the essential job of educating the next generation for the benefit of the country. The Government's formula is one for chaos.

Mr. Clay

One of the fascinating things about this debate is that it is not that long ago that many of the arguments that are being advanced by Opposition Members were being made by Conservative Members. The debate is about an amendment concerning the role of ACAS and the Government's refusal to accept its role and the settlement negotiated through it.

I am on the moderate wing of the Labour movement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) can testify, because I sat on his general management committee for quite a time. He can vouch for the moderation of my views. There are people in the Labour movement and the trade union movement who, especially when they have been caught in a bitter dispute, have taken the view that ACAS is not necessarily always the best thing since sliced bread.

That view is probably less popular than it used to be, but some people think that agreements negotiated through ACAS are sometimes not as good as those that can be achieved by slogging it out with the employer. We do not have to look back far to discover how much the Government's attitude has changed. The only recent dispute which had a bigger impact than the teachers' dispute on British society was that of the National Union of Mineworkers. After a certain point in that dispute, Ministers argued time and again that the NUM and its supporters ought to take up the agreement negotiated through ACAS by the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers. What a change there has been!

Not long ago the Government were begging people on strike to accept an agreement that was negotiated through ACAS, as though it was the final arbiter of proper procedure and wisdom in disputes. In the Government's mind, its role was almost God-like. One could argue that the NACODS agreement has turned out to be worthless when it comes to stopping pit closures or, indeed, anything else, but the Government, who backed the National Coal Board, argued that people should accept what was negotiated through ACAS. Here, the Government are trying to deny what has been negotiated. They are even opposing an amendment which would recognise the work of ACAS and write into the Bill the negotiating machinery that ACAS was instrumental in negotiating.

As I am a moderate person, I have some knowledge of the way in which some people in the Labour movement think. It occurs to me that if I was a wild Trotskyite revolutionary who wanted to do a lecture at a weekend school for young comrades on the illusions of the parliamentary road to democracy, I could take as my text for the whole weekend the Government's conduct on the Bill and their attitude to the amendment. It would be a marvellous opportunity to argue that there is a great deal of cynicism about parliamentary democracy.

The Secretary of State was earlier abusing Burnham, as he usually does, saying that it was unsatisfactory that at one time the NUT had a clear majority on it, and asking what sort of way that was to do business. That is an interesting point. The Government have a majority in the House of Commons, and it is extraordinarily cynical of a Government who claim that Labour Members are subversives and do not respect parliamentary democracy, to say in effect, "Who cares whether someone has a majority? What does a majority matter?" If a majority does not matter, the Government have no legitimacy. This is an illustration the Government's attitude towards democracy.

12.30 am

In my experience as a trade unionist, I learnt that ACAS can be an extremely useful and important body, sometimes even if it is never involved in the dispute. Often, when trade unionists are faced with a problem they say, "Let us involve ACAS," just as employers often say that. However, if one cannot involve ACAS, and the possibility of ACAS solving the dispute is discredited, that will have not just the effects about which Labour Members have talked, in teaching, schools, industrial relations in schools and so on, but a much wider industrial effect.

In the future, anyone who suggests that ACAS does not have a solution and cannot settle the dispute, and perhaps it would be better to hold out for a different solution, will have a powerful argument. He will be able to say, "What is the point? After all those meetings, dragging through the weekends in London and Nottingham, balloting, conferences, and, finally accepting a negotiated agreement through ACAS, the Government just ripped it up and would not have it. What is the point of going to ACAS when the Government can deny and negate its efforts?"

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

Will my hon. Friend accept that in most trade unions there are differences of opinion within the executive, with one group wanting to negotiate, and one group not wanting to negotiate? My hon. Friend is illustrating the way that the Government are giving extra strength to those within an executive who may not want to negotiate through ACAS.

Mr. Clay

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, because it will help me to move on. I do not want to take too much time. I was coming to that point.

There are differing views, not only within the teaching profession, but within the different teaching unions, about the agreement. No hon. Member would have to go far to verify this. One could do so by walking into a school and talking to the teachers there. I can remember being in a school the day after the agreement was reached and asking teachers what they thought about it and the division of agreement within that staff group. Some teachers—I am not saying that I endorse their attitude—felt that the employers' agreement was not sufficient and that after all the struggle, the fundamental demoralisation, the agony that had been caused, the disruption and the cruelty of the Government towards education, something better should have resulted.

I remember some people saying, "With a bit of luck, Baker will be daft enough to try to impose his own settlement on the profession and then we will be back in business, because he will not get away with it." I do not take any view about whether or not that is helpful, but by taking the attitude that they have done and by trying to discredit what ACAS has done, the Government are in many ways strengthening the hand of those who think that the employers' agreement was insufficient.

The Secretary of State, and indeed no Minister or Government Member, is naive enough, or, for that matter, cynical enough, to say that because of the closeness of the vote in the NUT those who voted against were in a sense saying that the employers' agreement gave them too much. Those who voted against the agreement were clearly saying that even the agreement reached with the employers with the assistance of ACAS was not sufficient. The Government are strengthening the hand of those people, and in a sense one could ask why we should intrude on that grief when the Government are taking that attitude.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) said, democracy is at the hub of this argument. This is a fundamentally undemocratic measure. It relates to the wider question of democracy in society and the legitimacy of Parliament, and seems an extraordinary way to deal with legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and some Government Members quoted the details of the agreement, and my hon. Friend spoke about what is denied by this clause. Those denials could be replaced if our amendment were accepted. Those speeches demonstrated the complexity of these negotiations and the sensitivity of industrial relations in education. It seems quite extraordinary that, in the light of all that complexity, the Government can legislate on a historic and constitutional matter without a White Paper or a Green Paper.

As an example for the class that one might hold if one were some wild-eyed revolutionary Trotskyist trying to demonstrate that in many ways the parliamentary process is a farce, one could have no better legislation. All that one would need to say was that when a Government are up against the wall and cannot get their own way, out goes all the nonsense about Green Papers, White Papers, consultation, hours during the night in Committee and lobbying. In two or three days flat, they just roll out their majority and steamroller the legislation through without consultation.

That attitude is increasingly consistent with other activities of the Government and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton said, it is in the tradition of what the Government did at GCHQ. I know that we must not stray into that, but the action of the Government there is relevant to the amendment, because the Government are taking away not only the right of local authorities to negotiate, but their financial freedom so that they cannot spend what they want on education.

In many ways, the Government have removed the freedom of speech. One of the interesting matters raised by the clause and by our amendment is that when one looks at the Government's employment legislation, one finds that the actions of many trade unionists in Britain will become more directly political. If the Bill is passed, the teachers unions will have no option other than direct conflict with the Government. If those unions are in dispute with the Government, they can either take strike action, causing disruption, or say openly that the Government are not prepared to deliver the pay and conditions that the teachers find necessary and call for the removal of the Government.

If the Bill is passed, the teachers unions will quickly organise political fund ballots. The teachers will probably vote overwhelmingly for such ballots because, as a result of other Government legislation, those unions will be unable to say anything in negotiations, because any disagreement with the Government could bring them in contempt of the employment legislation that has already been enacted. That is another interesting example of the Government's cynicism.

When the Government came to office they talked about rolling back the frontiers of the state. No Government have rolled in those frontiers more than this Government have done. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington said that there could not be anywhere else in the Western world where a Government could impose pay and conditions on trade unionists so directly without any proper consultation or negotiation. That may be so, because I have not studied the Western world in those terms, but I suspect that it is necessary to look to the German Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union, Hungary and other such countries for parallels. Some of my hon. Friends may disagree with me, but I am a moderate on these matters.

There is a word which is often used loosely between those on the Left in Britain, but it is appropriate to describe the nature of the Government and what they are doing. The word is Stalinism. The Government's aim is centralised state bureaucracy. The Conservative party deluded sufficient of the electorate to make them believe that it was opposed to such bureaucracy and that the Labour party and Labour-controlled local authorities stood for it. The Government have rejected ACAS, which is recognised as an impartial arbiter, a pressure valve and a means to avoid conflict. They have decided to impose pay and conditions willy-nilly, and they must be described as Stalinist.

There are many lessons that will be learnt from the Government's conduct. If they get away with the Bill, I dread to think—

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)

To judge from some of his recent comments, I agree that my hon. Friend is becoming dangerously moderate in his views. Does he agree that there are many Members in this place, primarily Labour Members, who believe that the Conservative party will go along with parliamentary democracy only if it serves its interests, and that as soon as it appears to threaten the interests of the class that it represents, parliamentary democracy will be cast aside? Will he accept that there is an element of that attitude in the Bill?

Mr. Clay

My hon. Friend has made a useful intervention. It is not for me to refer to various political schools in explaining that view. It is extraordinary that the Government have provided such a classic textbook example to prove the validity of my hon. Friend's analysis of how society and this place work, how forces in society conflict and how conflicts are resolved, or not.

The Government are not entirely philosophically consistent. They want to impose state direction on teachers, yet at the same time, being the opportunists that they are, the Secretary of State for the Environment is saying to certain local authorities, "Why do you not tear up the national agreements with your employees other than teachers and negotiate locally?" How can a Government be so inconsistent in wanting to impose central pay and conditions on teachers, while encouraging local authorities to tear up national agreements? The answer lies in the balance of forces and not in a consistent industrial relations philosophy. It is about taking whatever opportunity is best to break trade unions and to impose the lowest possible pay and conditions.

12.45 am

If the trade unions can be opposed and broken on a local basis, that is what the Government are in favour of. If they have to take on the job themselves, they will do it in a central and state bureaucratic manner. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is quite right. This is about the Government using legislation only when it suits them to impose things that are in the interests of their class.

Mr. Banks

Does my hon. Friend agree that as soon as parliamentary democracy stands in the way of the Conservative party, parliamentary democracy will go out of the window?

Mr. Clay

Indeed. Before my hon. Friend intervened I was about to make that point. If the Government get away with this, I dread to think what will be next. People have said of the Government, "They could not do that," yet a year or two later they have done it. People have then said, "Well, they have got away with that, but they would never go that far," yet they have. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If this Government are elected again—I am quite sure that they will not be—and if the present crisis conditions continue, many of which have been made worse by their own conduct as a Government, there are no lengths to which they will not go to impose their will in the interests of their class.

Mr. Banks

That will be so if the worst of all possible currencies takes place and the Conservative party wins the next general election. However, the more likely possibility is that the Labour party will win the next election. We shall then have an elected Socialist party committed to Socialist policies, and the Conservative party may attempt to undermine it. Are there not indications in the Bill that that attitude to a democratically elected Socialist Government would lead Conservatives to try to undermine them?

The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean)

Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) will not be tempted to go too far down that road, as we are now straying too far from the amendment.

Mr. Clay

I accept what you say, Sir Paul. I realise that to give a full answer to the fascinating question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West would be to stray a little too far from the Bill. I shall therefore restrict my reply.

If, after a long dispute, an agreement between employers and trade unions negotiated through ACAS — which included future negotiating machinery that replaced the machinery that the Government wanted to see the back of—was ripped up by the Government, who said, "We shall impose our own settlement," many people would say, "Even Tories do not do that." We have learnt that they do. Therefore, the point made by my hon. Friend is very worrying. He is saying that if this Government were re-elected — which is totally improbable—we would see quite terrifying things, and this Bill is terrifying enough. It sends a cold chill up one's spine to think that this Government have such contempt for democracy, as exemplified by their attitude in the Bill, that even when we have a Socialist Government who are trying to undertake a Socialist reconstruction of society they are likely to get up to such antics.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

I am sorry that I did not hear all the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay), or that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). I have just returned from the picket line at the Wapping print dispute—

Mr. Forth

Are they still there?

Mr. Corbyn

I witnessed an example of oppressive government. The Government pay thousands of police to keep 5,000 people out of work. They have such inadequate industrial relations legislation that a private sector employer is allowed to dismiss people at will.

The Government's attitude to ACAS over the teachers' pay dispute, and over education disputes generally in the last five years, shows that they are trying to establish the rule of the jungle in the public sector. They openly applaud the rule of the jungle in the private sector and they are prepared to pay for a private army—the police force—to support the likes of Rupert Murdoch.

Mr. Clay

I take the point. My hon. Friend is saying that there is nothing consistent in the Government's attitude other than their wish to oppose trade unionists and to strengthen employers' hands. They argue that black is white on one occasion and that white is white on another. Not long ago Ministers and Government Back Benchers asked us, "Why do you not accept ACAS? Why do the miners not accept the NACODS agreement?" That agreement was negotiated through ACAS. The Government said that it was the most wonderful agreement then, but it was not worth much. Not long ago the Government said that ACAS had achieved a wonderful agreement—although it was worthless—and now the Government say that they are not interested in the agreement. They want to keep ACAS out and to have the right to impose conditions directly.

I return to what I was about to say when my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West made his helpful intervention about more philosophical matters. The Bill is a classic illustration of the Government's cynicism. The parliamentary system is shown to be worthless when the Government put on their big boots and put the boot into the trade unions. It is a classic text for those who argue that the issue is about the class war. This Government use this place as a convenience so that they can put rubber stamps on aims which they cannot achieve by other means. It is ironic, but that is a lesson to those who argue that that is the nature of society.

If I were the Stalinist that I described earlier, and if I did not take the view that I do of places such as the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary and Poland I would suggest that we have heard much about spies, KGB agents and double agents in recent weeks, and I believe that we would be talking not only about the former head of MI6 and Lord Rothschild, but about people on the Government Front Bench. They have, in many senses, justified the Marxist analysis of class war more successfully than any of my hon. Friends could have done.

Mrs. Rumbold

It may be convenient if I intervene now. We have had some interesting speeches, including that of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay), though his contribution was slightly inaccurate.

The hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) raised four issues. He said that we were discussing ACAS negotiated agreements which were brought about, in part, because the pay of teachers had fallen behind that of other groups. The Government have largely recognised that. There is on the table an average pay rise of 16.4 per cent. on top of the 7 per cent. awarded at the end of March. Together they add up to a rise of 25 per cent. for the 18 months to October 1987.

No one has objected to the additional sum of £600 million for teachers. It seems to be a generally agreed and acceptable figure. It is helpful to point that out. However, my right hon. Friend has said—and I believe that most people think that he is being reasonable—that there must be something in return for that large sum of money.

For a number of years I and others tried to get conditions of service discussed at the same time as pay rises. Conditions had to be brought into the package and a clear definition of a teacher's job and a structure with sufficient incentive posts seems a reasonable return for that money.

Mr. Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent, Central)

Will the Minister explain what detailed differences she sees between the 13-point agreement at ACAS and the 19 points that the Secretary of State insisted on? We might then be able better to understand what more she feels should be given in return for the £600 million.

Mrs. Rumbold

I was about to come to that matter. My right hon. Friend has recognised that useful progress has been made in recent months during the long, drawn-out negotiations between the employers and the unions. He has made that plain to the House on a number of occasions and did so on Monday this week and on 27 November. We welcome the emergence of a clear definition of the teacher's job.

Mr. Hunter

I greatly welcome what my hon. Friend is saying. It is worth stressing, because the Opposition often say that if the money now on offer had been made available some months ago we would not have reached the present situation. However, the essential point is that if we had injected that money some months ago we would not have been able to renegotiate the contractual side of teachers' obligations. The money is on offer because there has been movement in the negotiations on contracts.

Mrs. Rumbold

My hon. Friend is exactly right. He makes an important point, because teachers need to know what is a reasonable expectation for their day-to-day work, head teachers and local authorities need to know that there is no doubt about what can be expected from teachers under their contracts and parents need to be assured that teachers will be fully committed to the education of their children.

The teacher's working year was agreed at 195 days, which gave days five more than the pupil year for in-service training and other activities that are essential to the smooth running of schools and the career development of individual teachers. It has also been agreed that teachers should be available for work at the direction of the head for 1,265 hours a year. That is not a full statement of the professional teaching commitment, but I am told, and I believe, that many teachers devote many more hours to pupil assessment, lesson preparation, and so on. The 1,265 hours represent the amount of time during the year when head teachers will be able to call upon teachers for teaching, meetings, pupil supervision, and other activities that necessarily may have to be undertaken at specified times.

1 am

The Bill represents an extremely positive set of benefits for employers, teachers and schools. My right hon. Friend has fully recognised that fact. There are no differences. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) said, it is significant that the Bill has come about through a long, drawn-out period.

Mr. Radice

Negotiation.

Mrs. Rumbold

Not really negotiation. One has to remember, as I tried to remind the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth), that the original suggestions for a set of teachers' conditions came from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) some months ago.

Mr. Radice

No, it did not. It came from the employers long before that.

Mrs. Rumbold

The 19 points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East put on the table essentially became the points that were worked on by the employers and the unions during many discussions over some years.

Mr. George Howarth

I did not disagree with their origin. Others would know better than I do. I pointed out that the Bill prejudices the potential for agreement.

Mrs. Rumbold

I shall refer to that point. It is important for Opposition Members to recognise that this has come about not because one or two people sat down and thought about this matter over the past six or nine months. It has been a long, slow, drawn-out process of drawing the unions, I regret to say, to the point at which it had to be agreed that the conditions of service must be included in the discussions about pay.

Mr. Radice

Of course it has been a long, drawn-out process. It is a process of negotiation and acceptance. It is true that the trade unions have moved a long way. I acknowledge that the former Secretary of State played a part. I think the hon. Lady mentioned the fact that, in 1984, the local authorities put forward their own opinions about what they thought should be done by teachers. Their 13 points have been accepted in the ACAS agreement. I am sure that the hon. Lady will agree with that.

Mrs. Rumbold

The conditions of service have been worked out over a long period. They were worked out by employers, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East, and also, to a certain extent, by trade unions. There is no disagreement about this matter or about my right hon. Friend being grateful and glad that this has come to pass. Because he has a duty to provide sensible education, he must secure for the teaching profession, to his satisfaction, not only conditions of service and reasonable pay, but something that he considers essential — a clear definition of the structure with sufficient incentive posts.

We have heard a great deal of discussion about the imposition of the ACAS agreement. Amendment No. 4 seeks to replace the discredited Burnham machinery. We have heard from many hon. Members that the Burnham machinery was no longer satisfactory. I remind Opposition Members that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) said that on a number of occasions the Remuneration of Teachers Act was placed before various Secretaries of State. It was suggested that they should carefully consider the machinery, because it no longer seemed to work. Indeed, I remember leading such a delegation to one Secretary of State and suggesting that the Remuneration of Teachers Act was no longer a suitable way of negotiating pay and conditions of service because, in those days, we could not touch the teachers' conditions of service. We are not talking about anything new.

The amendment seeks to replace the discredited Burnham machinery with what is contained in the ACAS agreement, which, we are told, has been signed by a majority of the employers and four of the six unions. Of course, the Committee is aware that two of those signatories—the Secondary Heads Association and the Professional Association of Teachers—have pulled out of the deal. The National Association of Head Teachers was not a signatory. Both head teachers associations, representing those who have to manage the schools, have less faith in the structure which is being considered than Labour Members, who will not have to suffer from it. Two of the six unions remain inside the ACAS agreement. Even if the hon. Member for Durham, North is correct in assuming that balloting of the AMMA and the NUT will make it possible for them to say that a majority of teachers favour the deal, the majority of unions are clearly not in favour of it.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made clear to the Committee why the Government find the proposals which are on the table unacceptable. Our reasons are centred on cost and the absence of a proper promotion structure for the teaching profession.

Mr. Fisher

If the hon. Lady is so confident about the views of teachers on the Government's proposals, will she or the Secretary of State ballot all teachers and let them judge whether the Secretary of State has got it right? He will not, because he knows that teachers would overwhelmingly reject his proposals.

Mrs. Rumbold

Sadly, my right hon. Friend does not have the power to ballot the teachers. Only the trade unions have that power.

Mr. Radice

Do not disparage their ballots.

Mrs. Rumbold

My right hon. Friend has just been challenged to ballot the teachers. I have no doubt that, if he had the power, he would be only too willing to ballot individual schools. That would be much to his liking and would be very much in the interests of the world at large.

Mr. Fisher

There are plenty of opportunities in this place, or in another place, to table a new clause to give the Secretary of State powers. The Opposition would not oppose such a new clause. We would be extremely interested to see what a ballot on this issue would reveal. We would assure a fair hearing and passage for such a new clause. I challenge the Government to table that new clause if they are so confident of their views.

Mrs. Rumbold

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would love to challenge me to table all sorts of new clauses, but at the moment I am busy answering the debate. It would probably be beneficial if I continued to do so.

There are cost difficulties. There is a substantial sum which the agreement includes and which is not acceptable to the Government. There are several other loose ends and obscurities. The key points of the proposed new negotiating machinery are not clear. The largest head teachers union favours separate arrangements for the head teachers. That is not directly dealt with in the ACAS document. Pay is to be statutory, but apparently conditions are not. That risks plunging us all back into the morass of local disputes on conditions of service. Local authorities are to incorporate the new conditions of service in teachers' contracts, but there is silence on the enforcement of contracts by the local education authorities. To put it at its lowest, there is room for doubt over local negotiation of elements of the proposed contract.

The major omission in the ACAS document is the role of the Government. Paragraph 7.4 of the ACAS document states: The parties will seek discussions with the Secretary of State on his role in the new machinery. But paragraph 7.3 of the document states that the national joint council proposed by ACAS would be composed of employers and unions. "Employers" means the local authorities, so it is hard to see what significant role is envisaged for the Government. In a sense, the Government have a role, because they fund the local authority employers to the tune of 46.4 per cent. That may not seem an enormous proportion to some people, but it represents a substantial proportion of the total amount that is spent by local authorities on paying teachers. Since we are talking about the amount of money that is spent by local authorities on the education service, I suppose that it is not disputed that a substantial amount of the rate support grant given to local authorities goes to the education service.

It is well known that the education authorities absorb an enormous amount of the rate support grant. That is perfectly acceptable, but it is a fact that must be recognised. It must also be recognised that the Government, who foot the bill, should have a firm and clear role in any negotiating machinery that decides on the pay of teachers. A role confined to picking up the tab for any agreement is not acceptable. Since 1944, Governments have had power to contain the cost of school teachers' pay, which is now well over £5 billion. I doubt whether any Government would be willing to cede their right to have a voice in a negotiated agreement on the year-on-year arrangements for teachers' pay.

From 1965, a concordat between the Government and local authorities operated, giving the Government a weighted vote on the Burnham management panel and a veto over total cost. That operated very well until 1985, when it was unilaterally repudiated by the employers. Since then we have had 18 months of unsatisfactory negotiation and unjustifiable disruption in our schools. This wonderland of unrealistic negotiations simply cannot continue. The Bill restores a proper role for the Government in teachers' pay negotiations and links that to the duties and responsibilities of teachers for the first time.

The amendment is a recipe for further chaos picked out from the ramshackle agreement, which commands limited support, and which has been swallowed lock, stock and barrel by Opposition Members. In the interests of the children in our schools, I urge the Committee to reject the amendment.

Mr. Madden

At the heart of tonight's debate, as at the heart of all our debates on education during the past two years, lie the proper salaries needed to recruit, retain and motivate teachers. Like many hon. Members, I have had conversations with teachers. One—a head of an upper school in my constituency—was deeply worried about the education that he could offer the children in his school. He contrasted two appointments: one for a managerial post in the youth training service in Bradforrd, which attracted more than 80 applicants, and two teaching posts in his school, both of which were nationally advertised. he received one application for one post and no applications for the other. Both those posts carried salaries of about £7,000 a year.

The second conversation that I had today was with a teacher who was an NUT representative, who told me bluntly that if the Government and those who support them in their activities think that they will bring early peace to the classrooms of Britain, they are not only fooling themselves, but attempting to fool Britain's parents and public.

1.15 am

I believe what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) and many others have said about the corporatist nature of the Bill. Mussolini would have been proud of it because we have here a Secretary of State, a Minister of the Crown, seeking to take unto himself highly centralised powers over the education service. We have a Secretary of State who wants to end the bargaining rights of teachers to negotiate their salaries and conditions of service. We have a Secretary of State who only a few days ago was talking about his ambition to set a national curriculum for the children in Britain's schools. We have a Secretary of State who recently announced 20 city technology colleges which he hopes to establish in inner cities throughout Britain. Those colleges, if they come, will cream off the most talented children and staff and in my part of the world they will find great difficulty in getting private industry to find the millions of pounds necessary to establish those colleges.

My constituents want the Government to put available resources into the maintained sector. They want pupil-teacher ratios reduced. They want the fabric of the schools improved and the quality of education substantially improved. They do not want this highly centralised corporatist legislation which will not bring peace to our schools and will do nothing to improve the quality of education which our children receive at school.

The Government are deliberately seeking to provoke substantial numbers of parents into declaring war on teachers. That is what they have been about. It was revealed earlier today that the Government are so fearful of teachers because they have launched sustained action over two years in pursuit of reasonable salaries to recruit, retain and motivate teachers.

The Government are confused and frightened and do not know what to do in the face of the challenge that they have received from Britain's teachers. Therefore, the Government have chosen to use the legislation to intimidate teachers, to drive them to accept an enforced pay settlement.

Mr. Hunter

As a former schoolteacher, I feel obliged to dispute profoundly the hon. Gentleman's underlying point. What the Government are now doing is precisely what he demanded in his opening comments—to attract, retain and motivate teachers. That can only be done by the sort of measure that my right hon. Friend is seeking to implement.

Mr. Madden

This is the second occasion—

Mr. Hunter

The fourth.

Mr. Madden

This is the fourth occasion on which the hon. Gentleman has intervened and on each occasion he has reminded us that he was a teacher. I understand that he was a teacher at Harrow.

Mr. Hunter

I remind the hon. Gentleman that during my brief interim at Harrow school the staff did not benefit from Burnham scale salaries.

Mr. Madden

The hon. Gentleman's intervention epitomises the lack of understanding by this Government and the Conservative party of the education that the majority of children in this country receive. It stems from the fact that the Conservative party does not understand or use our education system. Therefore, it is fundamentally uninterested in and disregards the education that the majority of our children receive. The Opposition want to give children the most decent start in life that we can provide for them. That is why we oppose this measure. It will do nothing to improve the quality of education for the vast majority of our children. It will not help to recruit and retain teachers and motivate them to provide the best possible education for our children. The Government are confused and frightened. They do not know how to handle the situation with which they are confronted.

Mr. Corbyn

I agree with my hon. Friend about the effect on the teaching profession and upon teachers in general, but does he not agree that this is a very serious matter? The Government are taking centralised control over an industrial dispute. It is exactly the kind of control that they could take in any other circumstances, if they were allowed to get away with it, by imposing wage settlements, in just the same way as they have taken away the safety net of minimum wage legislation. It will have serious consequences for industrial relations in every industry and in every profession.

Mr. Madden

Indeed. Because of the factors to which my hon. Friend has referred, very many other workers in the public sector are extremely concerned about this measure. They regard it as a threat to them. They, too, fear that their bargaining rights will be taken away. It is no use the Government saying that that is a fanciful suggestion. We need only to look back to GCHQ where the Government took away the right of people to enjoy trade union membership.

In this measure the Government are displaying their anti-trade union posture. This Secretary of State for Education and Science will seek publicly to deny that. Many references have been made to the Secretary of State as a man of sweet reasonableness, as the man with the smiling mask, but behind that smiling mask is a person with centralist ambitions. He wants to set a national curriculum, and before long he will want to appoint every headmaster and to take more and more powers unto himself. That is how this Government seek to control something which they do not know how to handle.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

On my hon. Friend's point about the so-called sweet reasonableness of the Secretary of State for Education and Science, does my hon. Friend realise that there is something else about this Bill that has to be noted? Having made a minor improvement to his standing inside the Tory party, the Secretary of State—looking to the time when the Prime Minister has gone, and coming from what is loosely regarded as the "wet" side of the Tory party, although many of us on this side of the House would say that there is not a gnat's whisker between any of them—is using the Bill to impose a settlement in order to try to improve his virility symbolism within the Tory party so that he will get the votes after the Tory party has got rid of the Prime Minister. The Secretary of State is prepared to scupper the Burnham negotiating machinery in order to try to look after No. 1 at a later date.

Mr. Madden

As always, there is a great deal in my hon. Friend's speculation on this point. Parents recognise that although for two years the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) told us that absolutely no money was available to resolve the teachers' dispute, this Secretary of State remarkably quickly found substantial additional resources to offer the teachers. Unfortunately, instead of adding a little bit to those additional resources and allowing proper negotiations to proceed, he has sought to confront the teachers by introducing the measure, which has been deliberately designed to enable the Secretary of State to enforce a pay settlement upon the teachers.

Mr. Corbyn

Is my hon. Friend aware that the charm of the Secretary of State may well have got through to a few journalists in the Murdoch empire, but I hear that it is fading fast in Mole Valley, where all this week the local newspapers have carried as a headline a statement by the prospective Labour candidate, Mr. Chris King, condemning what the Government are doing, and in particular the Secretary of State's role in attacking teachers in his constituency?

Mr. Madden

I said that the second conversation that I have had with teachers today included a warning that if the measure were enacted, and if a pay settlement were imposed, it would do nothing to bring peace to our classrooms. I should like to read an extract from a letter written by Ian Murch and Howard Roberts, both NUT executive members for west Yorkshire: This 'realistic choice' that we are being offered is between having our throats cut by Kenneth Baker or agreeing to cut them ourselves. Under either plan we agree to the abolition of teaching as a profession in return for pitiful amounts of money. Weakness encourages bullies, and the 'realism' we are asked to endorse will encourage Baker to press on with the abolition of collective bargaining over teachers' pay and conditions rather than appease him. The real alternative is what it always was—a decent rise for the job that teachers do now. That is a fair statement of the view held by a large majority of teachers. What they want is a decent rise for the job that they now do. They want a decent salary that will be sufficient to recruit, retain and motivate teachers. They want resources to be put into the education service so that the problem of the crumbling schools in my constituency and my city can be tackled urgently. They want more resources to be put into the education service so that more good teachers can be appointed and so that we can reduce the size of classes. We want more resources so that children in constituencies such as mine can be given the equipment that they desperately need, and so that they can be given a half decent start in life.

That is what the people want. That is what the parents want. That is what the children want. They do not want this corporatist nonsense that will put off the day to which we can look forward, when peace comes to our classrooms. The responsibility for that lies squarely with the Secretary of State and with the Government. If they steamroller the legislation through the House in the way that they now propose, I am certain that they will live to rue the day.

Dr. Marek

I listened with interest to the Minister as she wound up the debate. I noted four things that she said.

First, the hon. Lady said that the majority of the teachers might support the deal by ACAS, but the majority of unions do not. What type of democracy is that? I thought that the Conservative party would be committed to one person, one vote, but apparently that is not so. When it suits the Government, they are prepared to waive the rules a little and abide by some other rules.

The hon. Lady then said that at last there will be a proper role for the Government in the determination of teachers' pay. I doubt whether it will be a proper role. It will be the whole role, and no one else will have any role at all. The most interesting was thing that she said that the Secretary of State had no powers to order a ballot on the Government's 19 points and pay scales and that she would be delighted if the Secretary of State had that power because she was sure that he would like to hold a ballot. There are ways of organising a ballot without necessarily giving the Secretary of State powers to do it. We would have to oversee it to ensure that it was right, but a ballot could be arranged by all the teachers on the basis of one person, one vote, to see whether the Government's preferred solution is the one that they favour, or whether they favour the ACAS deal. I somehow suspect that we will not get much from the Government on that.

1.30 am

Mr. Corbyn

What my hon. Friend is saying is interesting. From my knowledge of teachers in my constituency, I know that what he has said is correct, in that the teachers are extremely unhappy, worried and frustrated. The most interesting feature of the teachers' dispute in the past year and a half has been the unstinting support of large groups of parents around the country for the teachers' general case that they are underpaid, that they are being badly treated by the Government, that they are trying to improve the education service and that the real enemy of the education service is the Minister who was sitting on the Government Front Bench, but he has fled already.

Dr. Marek

That is a good point. I am sorry to say that my hon. Friend is absolutely right. If a big well opened up underneath the Government's feet and they all fell in, we would have much more success in education in this country.

Mr. Roland Boyes (Houghton and Washington)

Does my hon. Friend recall that the year before the six metropolitan counties and the Greater London council were abolished there was an opportunity for an election for councillors to those authorities which would have given the people living in those areas the opportunity to express a view about abolition? Does he further recall who was the Minister of State, Department of the Environment at that time and who led for the Conservative party on the Bill for abolition? It was the same man who has proved, once again, that he is not a democrat and that he is totally against the ballot box. He was against the ballot box for the abolition of the metropolitan councils and the GLC, and he has not been in favour of one person, one vote, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) has suggested, to enable the teachers to express a view. The people were not allowed to express a view then, and the teachers are not being allowed to express a view now. It is no coincidence that the Secretary of State for Education and Science was the Minister of State, Department of the Environment at that time.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) will not be tempted in extending the debate. We must stick to the Bill and this amendment.

Dr. Marek

I am grateful to you, Sir Paul, for your advice. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) for making that comment. In obedience to your strictures, Sir Paul, I shall say nothing about that, but the House has heard what my hon. Friend had to say.

The Minister of State said that the agreement is ramshackle. I have the agreement before me. It is quite lengthy and it goes into a lot of detail. I do not understand in what ways it is ramshackle. I am tempted to go through it in detail and invite the Minister at appropriate times to point out the ramshackle bits of it.

Mr. Gerald Birmingham (St. Helens South)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the definition of ramshackle applies to the sections with which the Minister does not agree and which do not support her point of view? In those circumstances, the Government will seek to use any superfluous and almost asinine phrase in order to attack it.

Dr. Marek

I hope that it was just a throwaway phrase that was given to the Minister by her advisers sitting in the Box, without proper consideration.

Mr. Boyes

During the Minister's speech I was studying a certain part of the Bill because I shall be making a contribution to the debate. Therefore, I am not exactly sure of the context in which she used the word "ramshackle". It would help if my hon. Friend would remind us, because a few minutes have gone by since the hon. Lady sat down. Will my hon. Friend put the word into context?

Dr. Marek

The Minister was urging us not to support the amendment because it was based on a ramshackle agreement. The Minister nods, so that was the sense of it. I believe that that view is quite wrong, so it may be worth delving into the matter a little further.

Mr. Cohen

Does my hon. Friend recall that the Minister intervened earlier to claim that certain elements of the agreement were there only because the Government wanted them there as part of their 19 points? If that is so, the hon. Lady cannot then claim that it is a ramshackle agreement.

Dr. Marek

The more we consider the Minister's comments, the more we become aware of the inconsistencies in the Government's position. My hon. Friend is right. The Minister cannot have it both ways. As my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) said, the unions have moved a long way on this. In the light of what has been said, it may be useful to read out the Minister's 19 points and consider to what extent the agreement satisfies them.

Mr. Corbyn

It is clearly essential to go into the detail of the agreement. Is my hon. Friend aware that in education and in local government generally there are many other agreements between employing authorities and trade unions representing manual grades, white collar grades, teachers, and so on? If the principle behind the clause is the imposition of a pay settlement on the teachers, the same could be done for any other freely negotiated agreement between local authority employers and employees, giving the Secretary of State the power to veto any agreement over and above national agreements in those sectors. If the Bill goes through, chaos could ensue in industrial relations throughout local government.

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Bill will not solve the problems of the teaching profession. It will make them much worse.

I am conscious of the time that we have taken so far. We have taken about nine hours to get halfway through the second group of amendments. At that rate, we shall be here for another hundred hours.

Mr. Corbyn

It is going to be a cold night for the Minister.

Dr. Marek

I hope that we shall make more rapid progress as the night goes on. If not, we shall lose not only Thursday and Friday's business but also the Consolidated Fund Bill debate on Monday. I shall therefore try to speed up my remarks.

The amendment seeks to replace the blanket powers given to the Secretary of State by some form of control. It is always dangerous to give blanket powers to one person. I should like to hear any Conservative Member try to defend the kind of blanket power that is given to the Secretary of State by the Bill.

Mr. Forth

indicated dissent.

Dr. Marek

I shall be happy to give way if the hon. Gentleman can tell us how that blanket power is restrained or curtailed in the Bill, because I cannot see any restraint on it at all.

Mr. Bermingham

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill has been approached in a dictatorial manner, in that most Bills go into Committee upstairs, as will the Criminal Justice Bill tomorrow? The Government seem to want to take dictatorial powers and use their vast majority to deny ordinary Members the right to disagree at length and at leisure.

Mr. Forth

What is the hon. Gentleman doing now?

Dr. Marek

I do not know whether I can help my hon. Friend, because this is a Committee of the whole House.

I wonder why the Government are rushing forward now, after two years of delay as they put it. They have suddenly introduced this draconian Bill which gives the Secretary of State blanket powers. Apparently no more delay can be tolerated. The Secretary of State must have his powers, and he will not even think of accepting the amendment.

Mr. Nellist

My hon. Friend was present earlier when I touched on these matters for a few minutes. Does he remember my saying that we should be wary of being too critical of the fact that the Secretary of State is rushing the Bill through because it will be a useful precedent for a future Labour Government who want to tackle the problems of mass unemployment, decaying housing, low living standards and inadequate pensions? Such a Government may wish to get through in two sittings legislation which helps working people.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. We really must stick to the amendment.

Dr. Marek

In view of what you have said, Sir Paul, I shall not comment on what my hon. Friend has said, but the House has heard him.

What the Government are proposing is not a solution. Even 15 years ago, the teaching profession was held in high esteem. People looked up to teachers and thought that they were doing a good and necessary job that was essential if this industrialised nation was to stay at the forefront of technology. Is it not strange that teachers have lost that esteem and professional image? That would not be a party political point but for the fact that it has happened since the Government came to power. We now find that we are quibbling about hours of work outside teaching, dinner duties and marking homework. What have we come to?

There has been a sad decline, and I regret it. When I was at school, teachers did their job and were paid reasonably for it. If they were not, they did not complain. Hon Members may be able to explain that. There is clearly something wrong, and the Government cannot absolve themselves of responsibility, because they have been in office since 1979. They have not been a moderate consensus Government but an extremist Rightist Government.

Mr. Nellist

Raving Rightist.

Dr. Marek

I shall stick to "extremist Rightist" because that sums them up well. They have made their mark on how the country regards itself, its wealth and how much it can produce. As part of this, they have made their mark on the teaching profession and on the standards and quality of education.

I shall not run down the human race, and certainly not teachers, who battle against all the odds in trying to do a job, and now have to battle hard just to stand still. In many cases, because of the Government's actions, they are slowly being sucked backwards, in spite of their desire to do a proper job.

I should like to return to the situation of 10, 15 or 20 years ago, but the Government are not going about it in the right way. They would if they accepted the amendment, because ACAS would be concerned, and any agreement—if would have to be an agreement—going into the details of terms and conditions of work and remuneration would be freely entered into. If the Government do not accept the amendment, the Secretary of State will, by diktat, be able to impose his will. That will not solve anything.

1.45 am

ACAS is seen to be impartial, which is part of the ILO convention to which some of us referred. If it were involved in the talks, the teaching profession would be confident that it was not about to be sold down the river in any negotiations, that any agreement would be carried out fairly, and that there would be no hidden Government agenda. All too often, the Government have hidden agendas. We do not know what the Government intend. The Bill does not tell us what the Secretary of State intends.

To be fair, we have a press release from the Department of Education and Science, dated 31 October 1986, entitled, Kenneth Baker's 16 per cent. pay offer to teachers. It is not about the pay offer, but is about the 19 points and conditions. I shall develop my argument about what will happen if the Government get their way over the Bill by referring to the salary scales contained in the press release and those in the ACAS agreement. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North referred to them earlier.

With the ACAS agreement, the main professional grade starts at £9,970 and goes up to £15,058, whereas the Secretary of State's nine-point scale starts at £7,900 and goes up to £12,700. Clearly, teachers will not have as much job satisfaction from their remuneration if they accept the Government's scale. That starts about £2,000 lower and finishes about £2,400 lower.

Mr. Bermingham

Does my hon. Friend agree that if one pays peanuts, one gets monkeys? Is not the tragedy of the teaching profession that, by and large, over the past 20 or 30 years there has been a failure to recognise that teachers are a valuable part of our society and to remunerate them properly? Is the Secretary of State not going back to the poor law type state of the 1890s and 1910s, when teachers were improperly remunerated? This was further compounded by the Governments of 1951 to 1963, when the average pay for teachers fell far behind the general norm and people were driven, by sheer economic need, from the teaching profession, with the result that students and pupils were not given the benefit of the education facilities that were available. Until the Secretary of State recognises that a teacher is worthy of his hire and ought to be properly remunerated, our educational standards will continue to fall below those in Europe.

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend is basically right. I am not sure that I agree that our teachers are monkeys, but I am sure that he did not mean that.

Mr. David Harris (St. Ives)

Disgraceful.

Dr. Marek

The hon. Gentleman who made that sedentary intervention can intervene or make a speech and I am sure that it will be interesting to hear what he had to say. I look forward to that.

Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury)

I shall not interrupt any longer than necessary the flow of my hon. Friend's admirable speech. He is right to identify the information given by the Secretary of State in his press release about levels of remuneration upon which he is likely to insist if the Bill is passed. Does my hon. Friend agree that the central problem with the Bill is that, although the Secretary of State has said what he is likely to do in the immediate future, we have no information about what he is likely to do after that? The Bill proposes to give him wide-ranging powers and there is no information about teachers' remuneration in the years to 1990 and possibly beyond.

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend is right. This is basically an enabling Bill, which gives the Secretary of State total power. We have a hint of what will happen and I shall develop that in detail later. We can compare the two pay scales and make our own deductions about what is likely to happen.

Mr. Nellist

Is my hon. Friend aware that since this debate started, Labour has apparently gained five points in the opinion polls? Does he think that the late arrival of the Prime Minister shows some panic on the Treasury Bench?

Dr. Marek

I do not want to stray from the amendment, but the news about the opinion polls has cheered me up. We have been losing a few points recently and I am glad that we have got them back and a few more.

Mr. Skinner

There could well be another reason why the Prime Minister is here. Perhaps she has been tipped off that the closure is about to be moved. I hope that is not the case, because I want to speak. I hope that her entrance does not mean that we will shortly have a vote, but I notice that the Tory Benches have filled rapidly in the last few minutes.

Dr. Marek

Is my hon. Friend asking me to speed up?

Mr. Skinner

No.

Dr. Marek

I should like to return to the question of pay scales. The simple, straightforward main scales suggested in the ACAS agreement and those suggested by the Secretary of State are not at all the same. Of course, there are premium payments for teachers who take extra responsibilities and for teachers who do the job well, but I object to a system in which that plays a large part in how we pay a profession. Instead of trying to do the job well, the way they want to do it, teachers will look to the headmaster to see if he will recommend them for promotion or if he will give them some other sort of recommendation which will enable them to get an increase based on merit.

Mr. Bermingham

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me again. Does he accept that my earlier comment was the usage of an old phrase and in no way implied any disrespect for the teaching profession for which I have the greatest admiration? Does he agree that if we adopt a merit points system—[Interruption.] I hear the Secretary of State chattering. If he want to intervene he can do so. Leaving that aside, does my hon. Friend agree that a merit points system would tend to make teachers seek to please rather than seek to teach, which would be detrimental to the education system?

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend makes the point for me. That is a serious criticism that can be made of the Secretary of State's thinking, as far as he has gone, as set out in his press release in October. Surely we want a profession in which teachers are prepared to work extra hours if they feel that children need them to do so. We used to have a profession where that happened, and I am sorry to say that there has been a degeneration. That is because teachers are worried about the minutiae of conditions of service, employment and remuneration. This is sad, because the more time the profession spends worrying about such matters the less time it has to teach children. The more time it spends worrying about minutiae, the lower morale becomes.

The profession worries about these matters only when it thinks that there is cause for concern, when it thinks that remuneration is not what it should be, or when it thinks that terms and conditions of employment are not quite right, and when things are not quite right, teachers worry and their morale sinks. One of my criticisms of the Government is that they have caused that to happen to teachers and to many others across the public sector.

Mr. Corbyn

rose—

Mr. Boyes

rose—

Dr. Marek

I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington.

Mr. Boyes

My hon. Friend may not be aware that for about a dozen years I worked in schools. I found that many extremely well qualified teachers were working hard and being under-remunerated. Since 1979, when I became involved in full-time politics, no other group of workers has lobbied me more than teachers, and it is clear that teachers' morale is at an all-time low. They have been messed around by the Government over pay and conditions. They have been asked to work in buildings that are virtually falling down. The Government have not provided money to improve our schools. Moneys for materials and the financing of new schemes have been cut. Teachers are fed up to the back teeth. The Secretary of State is back in his place—

Mr. Kenneth Baker

I have not been away.

Mr. Boyes

The right hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber when I reminded the House that he would not allow elections to take place when he was abolishing the met counties and the GLC. It is clear that the Government do not like ballot-box democracy.

Mr. Corbyn

rose—

Dr. Marek

I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a moment.

I wish to make two serious points. First, we do not want a teaching profession that spends its time worrying about matters other than teaching. Secondly, we want a profession that has high morale.

Mr. Corbyn

My hon. Friend is making an important and serious contribution. In speaking about the way in which teachers have to go about their work. His comments about their salaries and conditions of work are correct. Another serious problem is the condition of schools and the financing of education as a whole. This is not related exactly to clause 1 but it comes within the purview of conditions of work. There is an increasing involvement in financial administration and the social problems that come from the cuts—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. This is a debate on the ACAS agreement and pay and not conditions in schools.

Mr. Bermingham

On a point of order, Sir Paul. Is not the question of conditions in schools inextricably linked with teachers' conditions, as they cannot teach without such conditions being involved?

The Second Deputy Chairman

I have made it clear that conditions in schools are out of order on this amendment.

Mr. Bermingham

Further to that point of order—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman a ruling and I hope that he will not dispute it.

Dr. Marek

You are quite right, Sir Paul, in that the ACAS agreement relates mainly to remuneration, but it also refers to terms and conditions of service. I take it that in referring to remuneration, you included the additional aspects mentioned in the ACAS agreement.

2 am

Mr. Corbyn

Is my hon. Friend aware that many teachers are extremely concerned about the prospect of conditions of service agreement being vetoed and national conditions of service being imposed by the Secretary of State because of the inextricable link with public spending cuts on education, the way they affect the schools and the difficulties in which teachers are placed because of those cuts?

Dr. Marek

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Of course the morale is interrelated, and everything affects the way in which a teacher carries out his job.

Mr. Boyes

I draw my hon. Friend's attention to paragraph 3.1.3(iii)(b) on page 3 of the ACAS agreement which deals with the contractual limitations on teachers' workload. It uses the phrase: and improve in particular physical standards of provision". Surely my hon. Friend will agree that pay and conditions are relevant as they are included in the agreement, and I am absolutely sure that the phrase I have quoted opens the debate to include conditions in schools. I shall ask my hon. Friend to give way again on this very point after he has developed his argument further.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. I am quite sure that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) will accept my ruling and will stick to the amendment.

Dr. Marek

I do not intend to make a long speech, so I shall not reply to what my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington said. I hope that he catches the eye of the Chair later so that he can make his own speech and raise those points, which are pertinent to the extent that they are interrelated within the whole subject.

There is a problem about the different amounts of money available and the difference between the cost of the two schemes. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North put forward a solution whereby the more expensive deal could be delayed by about two months so that the gap could be narrowed. Such a solution would be preferable to throwing away the ACAS agreement and relying on the Secretary of State's preferred scheme.

In drawing up his scheme, did the right hon. Gentleman speak to any teacher representatives or to any teachers? He might have talked to the National Association of Head Teachers. It would have been better if he had explained why he preferred his scheme to the scheme worked out by ACAS. If he talked only to the Treasury, there cannot be that much difference between us. The Secretary of State should not then mind implementing the ACAS agreement, possibly delaying it a month or two.

Mr. Bermingham

I am puzzled. How does my hon. Friend calculate a teacher's remuneration when the classroom is dripping? In my constituency some schools are cold because of heating problems and there is a shortage of books. How does one calculate rates of pay for teachers who have to work in such conditions, when for other teachers conditions are ideal? Working conditions must affect the knowledge that a teacher imparts.

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend is right. Environment has a bearing on performance. If the amendment were accepted and ACAS were able to dwell on such matters, we could take account of environment. I should like teachers to receive the same salary for the same job in conditions up to minimum standards. That is not possible at present, but that does not mean that it cannot happen in future. We should not be content with deteriorating buildings.

It is not in the interests of children to have teachers whose promotion relies upon their being nice to their headmaster. Their teaching will be coloured by their wish for promotion and salary increases based on merit. We should regard teachers as professionals, capable of doing a job. If in some weeks they spend only 42 or 45 hours teaching, that should not matter because in other weeks they will willingly spend 50 or 52 hours teaching and think nothing of it. That used to happen, but it does not now.

Mr. Boyes

I am at a disadvantage because of one of your rulings, Sir Paul. My hon. Friend is developing a critical and crucial argument. The final decision could hinge on his argument. I ask him to give way because I have an important point which will strengthen his already strong, powerful and convincing argument.

I ask you, Sir Paul, to turn to page 15 of the ACAS agreement. Appendix 1(b) is entitled "The Contractual Duties of Entry Grade Teachers". Paragraph 1.6 refers to "teaching and materials." I might be interrupting my hon. Friend during a vital part of his argument. I might already have spoiled the sweep of it for him. But I ask him to give way.

I have researched the document carefully, because I have served on Committees under your chairmanship, Sir Paul, and I know that you are a fair and honest man who makes rulings with the best of intentions and after taking the best advice. I have found another reference to materials. Will you rule me out of order if, when my hon. Friend gives way, I ask him about this aspect of the ACAS agreement? It worries me greatly and it is of paramount importance.

The Second Deputy Chairman

I will certainly not give a ruling on arguments that have not yet been advanced.

Dr. Marek

rose—

Mr. Boyes

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Dr. Marek

In a moment. My hon. Friend makes a serious point and I hope that he will make a speech, because I should be interested to hear what he has to say.

We need management in schools, as everywhere else, and none of us is asking for an anarchic system, though we should like more co-operation and consultation and we are certainly asking for a system of negotiation and consultation on remuneration and conditions of work. Clearly the day-to-day running of a school would not work if the head were regarded in the way that we regard the Secretary of State. That would be a recipe for disaster and would lower morale even more.

Management and responsibility need to be rewarded, but it is anathema to me to give a management powers of patronage by allowing heads to give different pay increases to different teachers on the basis, at least partly, of the head's subjective view of merit. Most teachers would reject such a system.

The last point that I wish to make in seeking to persuade the Committee to vote for—

Mr. Boyes

My hon. Friend and I were trained in mathematical disciplines. A little while ago he mentioned the figure 19 and said that he would put on record the 19 points that the Secretary of State insisted on. Will my hon. Friend assure me that he will put those 19 points on record?

Dr. Marek

Yes, I shall. The Minister said that the ACAS agreement was a ramshackle agreement, but nothing could be further from the truth. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) read out the subject headings of the ACAS agreement and hon. Members are, no doubt, familiar with them. I do not want to waste time by reading them out again.

However, it would be appropriate for us to bear in mind the 19 points set out by the Secretary of State. The first was: Plan, prepare, determine and review as necessary personal teaching methods and work programmes. That is included in the ACAS agreement. The second point was: Teach and ensure the discipline and safety of assigned timetabled classes and groups, with the different educational needs of pupils in mind. The third point was: Set, mark and record pupils' work. All those matters are in the ACAS agreement. I cannot see why the Secretary of State should say that it was a ramshackle agreement. It was not.

2.15 am

The Minister's fourth point was: Promote the general progress and welfare of a class or a group of pupils, and provide initial guidance or counselling on educational, social or career matters. The fifth point states: Assess and record pupils' personal and social needs, development, progress and attainment; provide or contribute to oral or written assessments and reports on individuals and groups. Again, that is clearly spelt out in the ACAS agreement. There is certainly no sign of the ACAS agreement being ramshackle. In fact, the ACAS agreement contains many of those points in much more detail. From that point of view, it is to be recommended. The Committee should vote for the amendment.

The Secretary of State's sixth point states: Contribute to and participate in formal performance appraisal and review, team planning, self-evaluation, in-service training and professional development in assigned areas of the curriculum, and pastoral arrangements. The seventh point states: Advise and co-operate with colleagues on teaching programmes, methods, equipment and materials within assigned areas of the curriculum. Again, that is spelt out in the ACAS agreement. Nothing in this agreement could be said to be ramshackle in any way. It is a pity that the Minister described the agreement in that way.

The eighth point states: Co-operate with appropriate specialist agencies and other appropriate outside bodies. The ninth point states: Ensure the safety and good order of pupils by carrying out an appropriate share of supervision on pupils' arrival at and departure from school, on dispersal and assembly at the beginning and end of the midday break, whenever pupils are authorised to be on school premises—with the exception of the midday break — and elsewhere when pupils are the responsibility of the school. That is a rather long, tortuous paragraph, and it is not clear. The remainder of the paragraphs are short: 10. Consult and liaise with parents, attending meetings arranged for that purpose. 11. Participate in staff meetings and activities. That is all in the ACAS agreement.

Paragraph 12 states: Undertake an appropriate share of the collective staff responsibility to substitue for an absent colleague when required, within limits as agreed. If hon. Members examine the ACAS agreement, which is part of the amendment, they will notice a detailed table about when teachers should and should not cover for absent colleagues and when supply teachers should be brought in. The ACAS agreement is far better on this point than the vague wording of the Secretary of State's press release.

Mr. Clay

Is there anything in the Secretary of State's 19 points that is not in the 13 points? That seems to be the conclusion to which my hon. Friend is moving. In that case, I am puzzled. I understood that as a matter of comprehension, as it was called in my days at school, teachers skilfully teach pupils to be succinct, not to use too many words when few will do, and to subsume, under as few headings as possible, as much information and specific detail as possible. It seems that the Secretary of State has a nerve to make a list under 19 headings, when the employers and teachers have managed to compile one under 13 headings. The Secretary of State says that he wants higher standards from teachers. He is not setting much of an example—

Dr. Marek

rose—

Mr. Corbyn

rose—

Dr. Marek

Of course I shall give way, but I shall be ruled out of order if I give way too early.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. I cannot allow an intervention within an intervention.

Dr. Marek

To the best of my knowledge, I do not think that there is. If I am wrong on that point, I invite the Secretary of State to intervene and put the matter straight. I do not want the House to be misled in any way.

Mr. Corbyn

Is my hon. Friend aware that there is only one Liberal Member in the Chamber? The Liberals have been leaving rapidly. Will he give way if the remaining Liberal wishes to make an intervention so that we can hear the Liberal party's point of view on this matter?

Mr. Freud

On a point of order, Sir Paul. May I move that the question be now put?

The Second Deputy Chairman

No.

Dr. Marek

I am grateful to you, Sir Paul. I shall not delay the Committee much longer.

The document continues: 13. Carry out an appropriate share of such administrative and organisational tasks as flow naturally from the above duties. 14. Take part in arrangements for presenting pupils in public examinations, and contribute expertise to the preparation and development of courses of study and teaching materials in response to changes in public examinations and assessment procedures. 15. Contribute as required to the appointment, induction, professional development and assessment of junior colleages, including new entrants to teaching. 16. Co-ordinate the work of other teachers, as required, taking a leading professional role in the review, development and management of assigned curricular, pastoral or organisational activities. 17. Supervise ancillary staff where designated to do so. 18. Order and allocate appropriate equipment and materials. 19. Carry out such other related duties and responsibilities at the school as may reasonably be allocated, as need arises, by the Head Teachers."

Those are the Secretary of State's 19 points. I shall not, because I would trespass too far on the Committee's time, compare them in detail with the ACAS document. I have looked at the document, although perhaps not in sufficient detail to enable me to answer every question, especially to answer categorically the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay). I believe that the document covers all these points in much more detail.

The Secretary of State may not like some of these points. I may not like some of them. I think that we could all offer different suggestions. But that is not the point of the argument. The Secretary of State should be in the general oversight and guiding role and leave the nitty gritty of the negotiations to the LEAs and to the teachers' organisations to sort out. Why does he concern himself so much with the little changes? Some of the changes that he wants to make will have disastrous effects. The remuneration change in particular means that teachers would always have to look over their shoulders to see whether they were pleasing their head master, perhaps not following their best educational instinct. The problem will not be solved because of the Secretary of State's involvement in all these details or because he is giving himself blanket powers—[Interruption.] I hope that the Secretary of State is thinking about this. That point has been made often by Labour Members, and there has not been a decent answer from the Minister. Indeed, the Minister said that this was a "ramshackle" agreement.

Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting these points on the record, particularly for the benefit of those of us who represent Scottish constituencies and who are not, therefore, involved in this extraordinary arrangement. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point about ACAS. Does he not think it odd that the Secretary of State for Education and Science for England and Wales has been so cavalier about ACAS? The position in Scotland is very different. We have the Scottish joint negotiating committee. Section 97B(3) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 states: Any such arrangements may include provision for the appointment of arbiters by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service for the purposes of any reference under this section. So ACAS is written into the statute that governs these matters in Scotland, yet the Secretary of State for England and Wales is excluding it totally.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. The Bill deals with England and Wales only. I am sure that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) will not be tempted to discuss the position in Scotland.

Dr. Marek

You are right, Sir Paul. A small part of the Bill, towards the end, deals with the whole of the United Kingdom. But this part of the Bill deals only with England and Wales. I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) says. I only wish that the Secretary of State took account of existing practice elsewhere.

This document has 21 closely typed pages and it deals with employers' responsibilities, safeguards, social priority allowances, salary issues, the duration of the agreement, contractual duties of entry grade teachers and the duties and responsibilities of head teachers. It is an extremely detailed and comprehensive document, and it is a great pity that no Government has said in detail why it could not be accepted. The Minister did not even give a reasoned political argument as to why the document should not be accepted. She said that it was a ramshackle agreement, but she did not delve into it too much. She dismissed it at the end of her speech as a ramshackle agreement—

Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow)

The hon. Lady has a ramshackle mind.

Dr. Marek

I shall not delve into that. We shall have to wait and see as the debate develops.

Mr. Corbyn

Is my hon. Friend aware that, before the hon. Lady became a Member, she was prominent in local government associations? In that capacity, she reached many agreements with trade unions, and negotiated many agreements herself. Does she now repudiate the work of those local authority associations?

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend is right. That Minister has a local government background, as do I and my hon. Friend. Agreements are never 100 per cent. right. They may be only 70, 80 or 90 per cent. right, but goodwill and much hard work went into drafting the agreement.

Mr. Madden

On a point of order, Sir Paul. The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud), the Liberal spokesman, has made three interventions in the debate so far. The first was to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) for how long he was likely to speak; the second was to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) whether he was making the speech that he should have made earlier; and the third was to move the closure on these amendments. Now he is reading a newspaper article about smoking. Is that in order?

The Second Deputy Chairman

I shall assume that the hon. Gentleman is preparing himself for the debate.

Mr. Madden

Further to that point of order, Sir Paul. The article that the hon. Gentleman is busily reading is about smoking. I cannot see how that bears on the amendment.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Of course, it is not in order for hon. Members to read newspapers, but I intend to put a charitable interpretation on it. If the hon. Gentleman is reading something which has nothing to do with the debate, I am sure that he will desist.

Mr. Skinner

Further to that point of order, Sir Paul. I have not been reading a newspaper for the past three and a half hours. I have been doing what you suggested the Liberal Member should do—preparing myself to take part in the debate. I have here a copy of the amendments, the Bill and the list of amendments that have been selected. Having prepared all this material, I wonder whether I shall have a chance to use it.

The Second Deputy Chairman

If the hon. Gentleman looks, as he will have done, at the wide range of amendments that are available—

Mr. Skinner

I want to speak on this debate—on industrial relations.

The Second Deputy Chairman

—he should find opportunities.

Dr. Marek

This is an important debate on the two amendments and the new clause, because there is still time for the Government to have second thoughts. Even if they cannot accept the amendment, they could say that there is some merit in involving ACAS in the deliberations over the remuneration of teachers.

Dr. Godman

I hesitate to intervene as I represent a Scottish constituency, but I was educated in England at the Westbourne street boys' school in Hull. Is it not the case that, whether we are talking about teachers and local authority employers or about the Transport and General Workers Union and the National Dock Labour Board, there must almost always be a compromise in collective bargaining? Both sides of the negotiating table must make concessions. ACAS plays an important role in many areas of collective bargaining involving all kinds of employees and employers. Might not ACAS play a similarly valuable role in this area of collective bargaining as well?

2.30 am

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend is right. That point has been made a number of times, but it loses nothing from having been made by my hon. Friend yet again. I live in hope that the more times we make it, one or two Conservative Members might realise that there is more than a grain of truth in what we are saying.

Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley, West and Penistone)

Is it not weird that we have a Government and a Minister who, not too long ago, decided for their own purposes to create a union which would have ACAS as one of its advisers, yet now they are taking away the same right from another body of people because it suits their purposes?

Dr. Marek

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. The Government should resist their centralising tendency on this matter, as on many others. The country would be better for that. We would have a better education system and teaching profession if the Government were to show the country that they are prepared to let ACAS have a role, if nobody else, and that they will have a system which is impartial. seen to be impartial and which has a chance of obtaining mutual agreement between the two sides at the end of the day.

The Minister might think that he is impartial and fair, but not many other people think that at the moment. I say with the deepest of respect that at the moment people do not think that, and the teaching profession certainly does not think that. The Minister has a chance to put the matter right by bringing ACAS in, and I hope that he will.

Mr. Skinner

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) raised the points of order about the Liberals. While I was meeting the teachers outside in the Lobby and some of my hon. Friends were speaking in the debate, I was not aware of what the Liberal and Social Democratic parties had been doing in the debate. I had to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) what had happened. It should be put clearly on the record so that it gets outside that the Liberal party, even more so than the Tory party really, wanted to get the Bill faster than the Minister. The teachers should be told.

The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) stood in his place when my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) was manfully putting his points across, and moved, That the question be now put. That is usually the tactic of a Minister.

Dr. Godman

A Freudian slip.

Mr. Skinner

I don't think it was.

Mr. Freud

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I know that we are galloping on in the Bill, but there are some 18 more groups of amendments. We have tabled 18 amendments. [Interruption.] Quantity does not make up for quality. It is only fair to explain that the sooner this particular group of amendments is debated, the sooner will the Liberals' voice be heard and their amendments put.

Mr. Skinner

The hon. Gentleman is now guilty of repetition. If he were appearing on "Just a Minute" he would be pulled up for repeating himself. He has said three times that the Liberal party wants to deal with these amendments. We have to show the teachers we met today in the Central Lobby that we mean business. My hon. Friends have been honouring the pledges that they gave to the teachers. When I went out, Sir Paul, to meet the 600 or 700 people who were queueing to get into the building, they called upon us and on Tory Members of Parliament, if they could find them, to come into the Chamber and oppose by all legitimate means this dastardly measure that has been introduced by the Government. I do not know what Liberal Members of Parliament have been saying to the teachers.

Mr. Fatchett

My hon. Friend did not have the benefit of attending the rally in Central Hall, Westminster, today, but Ann Sofer, speaking on behalf of the Social Democratic party and presumably also on behalf of the Liberal party, said that the alliance would fight the Bill at every possible opportunity. Does my hon. Friend consider that the behaviour of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) is consistent with the pledge that was given by his SDP colleague?

Mr. Skinner

That puts the matter into proper perspective. A spokesperson told the rally what the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party intend to do, but after the rally Dr. Death had a word with them and said, "Now be careful. There are some right-wing parents in the south who want the Secretary of State for Education and Science to wield the big stick. Don't get up to any hanky-panky. Tell the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East to keep his trap shut, apart from trying to move the closure at every possible opportunity." It shows once again the two-faced nature of the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party.

Mr. Madden

This is most revealing. My hon. Friend will recall that the alliance has made a lot of fuss in the Chamber. It has demanded more rights and more opportunities to speak. Microphones have been moved. Does my hon. Friend not think that it is important that those outside should know that the SDP half of the alliance has been completely absent throughout the Committee stage, which started at just after 4 pm. It is now 2.38 am. Apart from some very brief appearances by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock), the SDP has been totally absent, leaving the almost mute spokesman for the Liberal party to carry these onerous responsibilities, although his only contribution so far has been to try to move the closure.

Mr. Skinner

I am pleased that my hon. Friend has referred to the public address equipment and to the microphones in this place. A special microphone was installed for the Liberals, no doubt to help them to take part in all-night sittings. It is a pity that they are not using it. I notice that another microphone has been installed on the other side of the Chamber. I believe that it has been put in for the leader of the Social Democratic party when he crosses the Floor of the House.

Mr. Harris

If the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back, he will remember that he and I protested about the installation of this microphone. I said that I did not need it, and jointly we said that we did not think that the leader of the Liberal party needed his, either.

Mr. Skinner

As I told the right hon. Gentleman at the time — he did not believe me then — I am pretty convinced what it is for. No doubt he will finally make his way across the Floor, and Liberals such as the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East will stew in their own juice. That is what the SDP leaders are about. They want to use people so that they can run the show. They tried to run the Labour party—I am just leaving this point, Sir Paul—and because they could not, they left, without a ballot, and they are now dominating the Liberals. That is why "Spitting Image" has got it dead right when it shows David Steel in David Owen's pocket.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reaching the end of his preamble and is about to come to the amendment.

Mr. Skinner

I was distracted. I am trying to keep to the point, although I did not see the Serjeant at Arms' point, irrespective of what the Wapping press had to say. The Division took only 14 minutes, which is par for the course. The Chairman of Ways and Means was upset about that because one of the members of the Wapping press said that he was in the Chair when, as you know, Sir Paul, you were in the Chair—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. The hon. Gentleman is now straying into something else that has nothing to do with the amendment.

Mr. Skinner

I happened to mention it to the teachers outside. As they were still queuing, complaining about the fact that the ACAS agreement had been withdrawn by the Secretary of State, they were crestfallen because they could not find any Tory Members of Parliament or for that matter any Liberals to help them fight the Bill. I thought that I would tell them a few amusing stories about the palace of varieties to pass the time. I told them what the Labour party was doing, and I am certain that they felt pleased that on this occasion the Labour party, unlike the Liberals and the SDP, would be coming here today to use all legitimate parliamentary means to frustrate the Bill. That is important. That has been lacking in this Parliament. Nothing pleased me more than to hear my colleague the hon. Member for Jarrow and others like him in the Whips Office wanting to make sure that we fight in a more consistent fashion against some of these obnoxious pieces of legislation. We have found one here. It will strike a chord outside. Many people listening to the 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock news will be pleased to know that the Labour party is fighting the Bill line by line.

I hope that in the next set of amendments dealing with further education, some of my hon. Friends will deal with this matter—it is just a thought to pass on. In every textbook about politics, one reads about the way that one can use Parliament. One of the ways is to occupy time. The Opposition cannot do any more than that.

Mr. Corbyn

rose—

Mr. Skinner

At this point, my hon. Friend wants to occupy time.

Mr. Corbyn

Does not my hon. Friend think that ACAS could be put to good use in liaising between the Liberals and the Social Democrats, or perhaps investigating exactly what attitude Liberal and SDP-controlled or led local authorities have taken towards the teachers' pay dispute, the argument over salaries and conditions and indeed, this piece of legislation? As there is silence from the Liberals and the SDP tonight on the matter — they are absent — there is a need for someone to tell us exactly where those two parties stand. Perhaps there are differing points of view beyond those two. Perhaps there are differing points of view beyond those two. There might be two in Parliament, two outside or 200 outside. Or they might not have a clue and have no option to offer anybody.

Mr. Skinner

In fact, it was summed up in a previous debate about the teacher's dispute when there was a strike taking place in various schools up and down the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) will remember. He took part in that debate and I listened. The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East, the education spokesman for the Liberal party, decided to make a speech on that occasion. He did not manage to get round to ACAS because I do not think that he thought for one moment that that was where it would finish up. In a nutshell what he said—my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough will confim this—was that he was on the side of the teachers and on the side of the Government at the same time. I think that that adequately sums up the position of the alliance. In almost every contentious issue the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party back every horse that is running in the race.

2.45 am

Dr. Godman

Surely the reason for the stunning silence of members of the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party is their ignorance of industrial relations and collective bargaining. I would have thought that the essential thrust of the amendment is the role offered to ACAS. It seems, perhaps my hon. Friend will agree, that the employers and the trade unions would surely benefit from the guiding role performed by the experts in collective bargaining. The importance of the amendment is the role being offered to ACAS and, in turn, offered to both employers' and employees' representatives in these difficult and trying circumstances.

Mr. Skinner

That is a worthy point. One of the planks of Liberalism as I used to know it before I became a Member of the House was based upon the least Government interference in any situation. That is what Liberalism is all about. The Liberal party said at its conference this year as it has in previous years, that it believes in less Government intervention and in bodies dealing with industrial relations matters. Therefore, one would have thought that the alliance spokesman would have come here today and applauded the fact that ACAS got round the table and managed to come up with a 19-point resolution of the problem. [HON. MEMBERS: "13 points."] I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) referring to 19, but I will accept 13. When I was outside today—

Mr. Freud

I would simply like to point out that it was the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party that tabled a reasoned amendment on Second Reading. That amendment was supported by the Labour party. To date, we have reached clause 1, page 1, line 5 and it ill becomes anyone to criticise one for silence when we have so far, in nine and a half hours of debate, covered five lines.

Mr. Skinner

The hon. Gentleman does not understand—he has been here many years—that it is the duty of the Opposition to frustrate a Bill that they deem to be wrong for the people to whom it applies and that everything that has happened today has been in order. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that certain contributions have been out of order.

Mr. Freud

I am not.

Mr. Skinner

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is saying, then. That is a reflection on the Chair. The Chair is dealing with the debate. At some later stage I might not be happy about the closure motions that are put and accepted by the Chair but, at this stage and after these hours when my hon. Friends have been speaking within the order of the House, I believe that they are doing a job that has to be done and that they are carrying out the promises they made to all the teachers outside. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) wants to make a valuable contribution.

Mr. Nellist

Before my hon. Friend was sidetracked by the almost unique intervention of the Liberal spokesman, he was answering a point from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). I hope that he will continue with that. In recent months, my hon. Friend and I have had the benefit of discussions with a former ACAS chairman, Mr. Jim Mortimer, who is now doing other things. Mr. Mortimer had certain views about his experience with ACAS and about the anti-trade union laws brought in by the Government in the past seven years. This is one of the few occasions when we can get to grips with those matters. Members who were not present for those discussions may benefit from some of the points that were made.

Mr. Skinner

Jim Mortimer had a somewhat chequered career, finishing up as general secretary of the Labour party. I shall not go into the pros and cons of that, because at that time he had nothing to do with ACAS. Nevertheless, he gained valuable experience with ACAS. I do not wish to offend my hon. Friend, but I have not exactly fallen in love with ACAS. It is as well to make that clear now. That is not to say, however, that ACAS could not achieve a more reasonable settlement than the Government on some occasions. That is what we are saying today. We speak from a position of strength when we say that although ACAS has done a bit of meddling in its time and sometimes come down on the side of the employers, and notwithstanding its somewhat Establishment make-up, it has still managed to make some sensible arrangements in difficult circumstances when there was a multitude of unions which somehow could not get their act together until the settlement was finally agreed.

Mr. Corbyn

I have a good deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend's comments about ACAS, but does he agree that one of its advantages is that the terms of its establishment mean that it is bound to promote collective bargaining on both sides and thus supports the principle of trade union organisation? The present Secretary of State is bitterly opposed to the very existence of trade unions. That is why a considerable number of trade unionists are in prison in this country for defying the legislation that the Secretary of State supports.

Mr. Skinner

I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to people like Terry French, or Mike Hicks, who was arrested on the Wapping picket line. That is part of the Government's policy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) has said, it is a bizarre state of affairs when the Government say that they wish to interfere with free collective bargaining, to have nothing to do with the ACAS agreement and to impose their settlement on the unions and especially the NUT whether they like it or not, when that very Government were elected on a mandate of non-interference.

Just before the 1979 general election, the Conservatives took part in a debate in the House about the Ford settlement, which was 17 per cent. The then Tory Opposition claimed that there should be no interference between Ford and its employees. My hon. Friends on the Front Bench will recall the forthright statements of the Tories on that occasion that we should not interfere in the Ford settlement. They put down a motion about it with the intention of embarrassing the Labour Government and setting the theme for the election of a Tory Government who could then claim in their election campaign that they were all for free collective bargaining. There were to be no incomes polices of the Liberal or SDP kind. There were to be no £6 or 10 per cent. pay policies. The ethos of their campaign was that, as a result of the Ford debate, when they were elected, there would be no interference. That is what happened for a long time.

Dr. Godman

The references to Liberal Members' contribution is something of an irrelevance, because they are an irrelevance in a debate about industrial relations and collective bargaining in England and Wales. I can understand my hon. Friend's suspicions, or even cynical, view of ACAS, but surely he agrees that it has played an important role in bringing about a peaceful resolution of several industrial conflicts. It does not always play to the establishment in collective bargaining. Sometimes, ACAS has nobly defended the interests of trade unionists who were powerless.

Mr. Skinner

My attitude to ACAS is coloured by what happened in the miners' strike. It had ample opportunities to find some form of settlement. I believe that the Government told ACAS what the score was and that they and MacGregor intervened and stopped ACAS, which was probably trying to find a solution or a halfway point. Because of the umbilical cord between the Government, some of the establishment, such as MacGregor, and ACAS, the Government were able to force their way and get the settlement that we have today.

I hazard a guess that ACAS has probably grown a bit since then and that, in regard to the teachers, it thought, "Here is an industrial problem. The teachers have been on strike on and off for about 18 months. It is not like the teachers to take industrial action"—[Laughter.] Oh, no. I visit most picket lines, and during my 30-odd years on the political scene I have not had to visit many teachers' picket lines until recently.

I believe that ACAS might have thought, "This is a bit different. Perhaps the Government have gone one step too far." Nobody is impartial, but looking at the problem from a more objective point of view, ACAS might have thought, "We must stand firm and come up with a resolution."

Mr. Corbyn

What my hon. Friend is saying about teachers becoming more aware of their situation is important. In the 1979 low pay dispute, the participation of teachers in support of manual workers in schools was minimal in many places—but not any more.

Does my hon. Friend agree that often, when local authorities reach agreement, the Government pull the money out from under the employer? That is true of the nurses' pay claim, which has not been properly funded, and of the local authority manual workers' claims. The Government operate double standards. They say that they are not interfering in collective bargaining, but they pull the strings from a distance to drive real wages down.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend is making the point that I heard earlier, that this is the thin end of the wedge, and the Government have decided that ACAS has come up with a resolution of a problem, and they do not like or want it because it places them in a predicament. It could be that the Government are saying, "Well, it happened to be the teachers, but it doesn't matter what it is—ACAS may come up with some other settlement, such as that for the nurses before the general election, and we might find that unpalatable." It could be that the Government have decided that ACAS deliberations cannot be accepted despite the fact that they could resolve the problem.

3 am

Dr. Godman

I point out to my hon. Friend that I said that I shared some of his suspicions about ACAS. However, he should remember that it is not some kind of mediating body that seeks to bring together two forces that are equally powerful. I would have thought that in any analysis of industrial relations in the United Kingdom, it is almost always the case irrespective of the industry, that the employer possesses much more power than organised labour, and despite what this doltish lot say about dockers and others, that is the case for just about every industry, including education.

Mr. Skinner

That is a fair point, and that is why we are here at three o'clock in the morning, addressing the position of teachers, and redressing the balance by calling on the Government to accept the amendment. We have spent some time discussing ACAS. We must try to influence the Government into accepting its role.

Today, I was talking to some teachers who had come here to lobby. They could not get in, but I managed to find a way to bring them in so that they could lobby Tory Members of Parliament. They were able to find Labour Members of Parliament to talk about ACAS and the amendments. One of them asked me, "Do you know where Parkinson is?" He obviously meant the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Parkinson). I said, "Probably not, because he has got 10 jobs." They could not believe me. I had to get the Register of Members' Interests from the Vote Office to show them. I thought that I did the right and proper thing by letting them have a copy for research and analysis.

One of them asked whether the right hon. Gentleman needed the money, but I do not know about that. They could not find the right hon. Member for Hertsmere, but I helped them by going through the list and telling them who was a Tory Member, because it does not signify whether they are Labour or Tory or sky blue or pink. They spent their time putting in green cards, which is an important function of this place, especially on a day like today. They referred to the Secretary of State, and they were livid that they could not see him. They sent a message through his Parliamentary Private Secretary, but they did not see the Secretary of State.

These people were worried about the "Weekend World" programme, on which the Secretary of State appeared. Another Tory Minister appearing on another Tory programme. It is run by a Tory, Matthew Parris. It used to be run by another Tory who has now left the country and is living on much more than a teacher's wage somewhere in the Channel Islands.

The teachers said it was high time that somebody put the alternative point of view. I told them that a host of my hon. Friends were in the Chamber ready to explain the teachers' case when speaking to various amendments, including the one about ACAS. The teachers were pleased at that, even though we did not get the chance to appear on "Weekend World" and put their case. On that programme Matthew Parris plays pat ball. Many hon. Members are interviewed on television and worry about what the last question will be. We think somebody will drop us a cobbler. Tory Ministers, such as the Secretary of State for Education and Science, appear on that programme and for them it is like Christmas Day, Boxing Day and a birthday rolled into one. They cannot fail. If you, Sir Paul, ever get a chance to appear on that programme to talk about ACAS, ask for Matthew Parris and it will be a doddle.

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. This may be interesting, but I cannot relate it to the amendment.

Mr. Skinner

If you get the chance, Sir Paul, to talk about the way you keep order in the Committee and if you are worried about whether you will be interviewed by Sir Robin Day or somebody who might put a few trick questions, settle for "Weekend World".

Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes)

Kilroy-Silk?

Mr. Skinner

The hon. Gentleman mentions Kilroy-Silk. There might yet be a debate on the programme about ACAS, and it will probably be about the teachers, who knows? The viewing figures are terrible. There are fewer people watching that programme than there are hon. Members present in the Chamber. I do not know what will happen to Matthew Parris and I hope that no one can detect a smile on my face. He will probably have to ask ACAS to sort it out when he is threatened with the sack, but he will hardly get an all-night sitting on his behalf.

The teachers that I met were huddled in corners in the Lobbies trying to contact various hon. Members. I met them after they had met various people and they were overwhelmed with the support that they had from Labour Members. [Interruption.] It is not always the case. I explained to them that for the first time in a long time we would use legitimate parliamentary tactics to try to frustrate this piece of legislation.

There has been a poll since we started this debate and we have already narrowed the gap. There has been a five-point improvement since the debate began. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow will agree that the ACAS agreement was a good one.

In some respects, my hon. Friend and I have different views about ACAS, but we do not need to go through that again. Perhaps we do. From the speeches that I have heard in the debate, that agreement favours the lower paid more than the higher paid. That is an egalitarian agreement and must be supported.

The discussions took several days and the people who took part in them are to be commended. In spite of the pressures from some of the small teacher unions that represent the headmasters and people like that—the people mainly associated with the Tories—the discussions ended in proposals which shifted the balance in favour of teachers coming in at the lower end of the scale, and especially teachers who have to teach in dilapidated schools. To some degree, but not entirely, that must be a factor in favour of the settlement.

Mr. Edward Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney)

My hon. Friend has referred to Tory headmasters. The representations that I received today from Merthyr and Rhymney were from headmasters who are not Tories.

Mr. Skinner

That is even better. What will the next poll show? We are not here by accident; we are not here on a fool's errand. We are taking part in the debate because we know that the Bill is an injustice. Not all my hon. Friends who are in the Chamber come from the teaching profession. Many of us left school a long time ago, but we feel that the Tory Government are up to something that is wrong. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney is able to say, quite properly, that he has met headmasters who are not Tories. Perhaps some were Tories, but they have come to the conclusion that the ball has to stop now.

Mr. Alen McKay

My hon. Friend has spoken of fear and unease about the Bill. Some of us are thinking—this should be the thinking of those outside the House—that the Bill is the beginning of a scheme that the Tories have to mount a further attack upon the working class across the board. The Bill is the first of a series of measures to that end.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend is on the right lines. I would merely say that the Bill is not the first measure to attack the working class. The Tory Government have taken on a long list of workers over the past seven years. The teachers have acted spendidly in their own defence for 18 months and they are almost at the end of the line. They are probably the first of what we call, loosely, the professionals who have been tackled. I advise anyone who is a member of the National and Local Government Officers Association and thinking of voting Tory at the next election to watch out. He should understand that he is next in line. The Government have taken on some badly organised groups of manual workers and now they are taking on the teaching profession. The teachers are the thin end of the wedge. The Government will say, "We have dusted down the teachers and told ACAS to get lost. We can now move into another area," and who knows where it will end?

Mr. Bill Michie (Sheffield, Heeley)

We know that some teachers voted Tory in 1983, and I spoke to two or three this afternoon who did that. When they did so they never believed that a Tory Government would remove their union's negotiating rights. The teachers who voted Tory in 1983 for short-term, selfish reasons have learnt their lesson. They will not make the same mistake at the next general election.

Mr. Skinner

I have no doubt that we have reached watershed. I know that that word is over-used, but we are speaking about workers who, by and large, have not been involved in industrial disputes. That was the position until the Government were elected. I am sure that other groups, such as those that are represented by the National and Local Government Officers Association will be concerned, and we must use the debate subsequently to spread the message among other groups. We must explain that if the Government are prepared to rush this Bill through Parliament with their 160-odd majority, even though there is no need to do so, that spells disaster for many other workers. Perhaps one day they will get around to the solicitors.

3.15 am

Mr. Boyes

Exactly how many people are in NALGO? There are many votes to be had, and many of those people have already experienced one hard lesson. I apologise for referring to it again, but I feel so bitter about the way in which the Government treated the metropolitan counties and the GLC. Those bodies never got the chance of going to ACAS or of going to the ballot box and their employees lost their jobs. My hon. Friend raises an important point, because NALGO is watching the teachers very carefully. Does my hon. Friend realise that more than 1.5 million people belong to NALGO and that every one of them will see this Bill as a party political—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. It is not in order to discuss NALGO on this amendment.

Mr. Boyes

rose—

The Second Deputy Chairman

Order. I call the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).

Mr. Skinner

The last thing we want to do is fall out with the Chair. That can be done on many other occasions. Although we may lose the vote, there is no point in infuriating Sir Paul when we are winning the argument. He has deemed that everything up to now has been in order—

Mr. Boyes

On a point of order, Sir Paul. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has so touched me that I believe I might have offended you. I apologise for having strayed.

Mr. Skinner

There is no need to crawl.

Mr. Boyes

I had no intention of straying. But my hon. Friend has convinced me that it is necessary to apologise. I hope that you will accept my apology for straying outside the terms of the amendment. I should not have referred to NALGO or the abolition of the metropolitan counties and the GLC with the consequent job losses for NALGO members without recourse to ACAS. I assure you, Sir Paul, that I shall not do it again on this amendment.

The Second Deputy Chairman

I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I can assure him that he has not offended me. However, it is my job to ensure that the debate is in order. It is a wide debate, but I am being very tolerant as I recognise the important issues and the strength of feeling on them. We must, however, stay within the rules.

Mr. Skinner

One could say of your response to my hon. Friend's contribution, Sir Paul, that you have spoken just like ACAS and have come up with the solution.

Dr. Godman

I appreciate that there are some differences in our perceptions of ACAS, ACAS officials and the functions that they perform in collective bargaining. If the amendment were carried, ACAS officials would be able to provide a most useful function in collective bargaining on terms and conditions of employment without playing a direct interventionist role. In my view, ACAS could play an important educational role in industrial relations training. Many in the teaching profession had little or no experience of collective bargaining and had not been involved in industrial disputes until recently. ACAS might have an important educational role.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend knows a lot about ACAS. That is becoming apparent. My hon. Friend could make a valuable contribution to this debate. To be serious, in all his interventions my hon. Friend has tried to probe, to find out and to explain precisely the role of ACAS. That is why I am convinced that our debate on these amendments should not go by without a contribution from my hon. Friend.

On training, the Government are very unsure of their ground. They are not keen on training anybody, apart from Parliamentary Private Secretaries. There have been plenty of them. One is now asleep. Is it in order, Sir Paul, for a Parliamentary Private Secretary to be fast asleep? There is a limit. I see that the hon. Gentleman has taken out the matchsticks but it is coming to something when such lack of interest is shown.

The Government have a majority of 160 on paper — they did not have that majority in the last Division. The Government majority then dropped by about 100, and that says something else. People close to the Minister treat the House with comtempt when they think, "Let's get on with the vote. We shall win the vote. We don't care about the teachers. We don't make contributions apart from brief ones by the Minister."

Dr. Godman

I should like to ask a supplementary question about the training role of ACAS. I try to be a fair-minded, constructive critic of Tory Ministers, but it is fair to say that in terms of industrial relations training, earlier Tory Governments encouraged—albeit adventitiously—the development of industrial training.

The Industrial Relations Act 1971 came into force on 28 February 1972 long before I entered the House. That Act, with its industrial relations code which was approved eventually by ACAS, encouraged the development of training. I say that from experience because I was involved in the training of shop stewards and managers at Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. ACAS was involved. If the amendment were carried it would give a major impetus to the able work performed by ACAS. I say that despite criticisms by some of the hon. Friends. That was the point that I was trying to make.

Mr. Skinner

I am not opposed to the evolution of ACAS. Nothing is static and if I said — was it adventitiously?—a few moments ago that I was not too keen on ACAS generally, that is because I was coloured by its attitude during the strike. Is the word "adventitious" in order, Sir Paul? Is it mentioned in "Erskine May"?

As ACAS is evolving—my hon. Friend knows so much about ACAS that he must have been watching it evolve; it is almost as if he can see it grow. He could get a job there. Don't get me wrong. Some people come here and end up as bookies' runners, but my hon. Friend has shown some expertise about this ACAS institution and that has been helpful to all of us. It has been a sort of educational experience for some of us.

Mr. Dixon

ACAS night classes.

Mr. Skinner

Well, I am not sure that ACAS would call them night classes. It has probably got something to do with my background, but I have a feeling that ACAS would call them seminars. That is what worries me. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow is with me on that. I think that he has been with me all the way. He has not said a deal, but I keep looking at his face to make sure that we are on the same wavelength on this ACAS business. That shows the broad expanse in our party.

My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) and I take an arm's-length position on ACAS, while accepting what it has done on this issue, and the Labour party also accommodates my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow who has studied ACAS, not only in relation to this matter, but in a wider form. He has been able to show the rest of us that it has possibilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and I will watch this growth under the next Labour Government, because ACAS could get a little too close to the Establishment.

Dr. Godman

I should be grateful if my hon. Friend refrained from calling me an expert on ACAS. I suspect all experts and I am an observer.

Mr. Skinner

A better word.

Dr. Goodman

Yes, a much better word. I should like my hon. Friend to take on board the fact that if the amendment were passed—there is some doubt about that, because of the lumpen bourgeoisie on the Government Benches—the procedures established with the intervention of ACAS would force on employers and employees' associations training needs which would have to be met with sensible and realistic programmes for the training of trade union representatives. In a diffuse sense, ACAS has a training role to play in this area of collective bargaining.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend has put the matter in a better perspective. It was wrong of me to presume that, because he knew so much about ACAS, he was an expert. We do not always get hon. Members to acknowledge that they are not experts. Most people would jump at the chance to hear somebody call them an expert. My hon. Friend is modest.

Mr. Corbyn

My hon. Friend should look behind him.

3.30 am

Mr. Skinner

I do not think that the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) is the only one. He purports to be an expert on the law. One of my hon. Friends says that he is not, but I shall not go into that matter because it may open another can of worms. It may lead us to that Wright fellow in Sydney. I do not know whether ACAS could resolve that problem.

Would not things look up if this amendment were carried? Imagine what prospects would open for these people—ACAS, supported by my hon. Friend, as he observes them. They could then muscle in on all sorts of things. Not that I wish to see the Government rescued in respect of their spies and all the rest of it. We know where the spies come from, anyway. They come out of the belly of the Establishment. They have not caught a shop steward yet. The newspapers always suggest that the spies come from the Left, or ACAS. Most of them seem to come from public schools. That counteracts what ACAS has done. Perhaps my hon. Friend and others have forgotten that we have got to the kernel of the matter—the lowly paid.

I hope that hon. Members do not get me wrong on this point. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not wish to be misquoted, either, in future when there is a Labour Government. I am pleased that the Government have been multi-egalitarian in the way that they have distributed the available money. It is a type of harbinger for an incomes policy. Although ACAS has come up with this solution, I should not want anybody to get the impression that somebody from outside could tell NUPE laundry cleaners—people who are lower paid—that the only way to get a decent wage increase is to finish up at ACAS with this posh body. Although the collective bargaining procedures go to ACAS, we would rather see those people collectively bargain together — more joining NUPE, the General Municipal and the other unions that cover those trades — to try to get better wages. In that way, the two functions could operate together.

Dr. Godman

It must be noted that the amendment states: under the auspices of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service between representatives of the local education authorities and of the teachers' unions. During the evolution of ACAS, over 10 years, it might be possible to give it additional powers that will enable it to redress, change or counteract the imbalance in power that exists between employers' organisations and employees' associations.

Mr. Skinner

So long as we understand that, as in this case, ACAS is free from any Government interference. The debate is about a Government who are imposing a settlement. In forthright terms, we do not want to see that development. We have had a conflict between the Government, who hold the purse strings, and the teachers' unions. As a result, they have found a way to ACAS. That is OK by me. That is a fairly sensible conclusion. We hesitate about the fact that, in future, ACAS might intervene in an area where it is not altogether welcome. That is a worthy matter to put on record as we utilise the arguments about ACAS. That prompted the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East to start writing.

Mr. Boyes

He is doodling.

Mr. Skinner

He is probably practising for his next radio programme.

The essence of the low pay argument is good in itself. Today, I heard the views of some teachers. They said, "Whatever you do, Dennis, you tell Harold Walker this, if he gets into the Chair." I said "He will, because he is always there. He will be there. He is the sort of Chairman who understands the issues — not that he can be anything other than impartial." He is not one to stop my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow from making a valuable contribution about the role of ACAS, as he has observed it over the years.

Mr. Dixon

Not during the miners' strike.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow observed it then. During the strike, ACAS was picked out by the Government. Obviously, there were some ACAS personnel who were made of the right stuff to stand up to MacGregor and the Government. As I said earlier—my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow might not have been listening closely—those people believe that the teachers have been given such a raw deal that they have to assert themselves against the Government. This is because of the outrageous way in which the Government dealt with the teachers after they had lost so much money.

Mr. Dixon

rose—

Mr. Skinner

I have been trying to get my hon. Friend to intervene.

Mr. Dixon

I have not intervened because I have a cold and can hardly talk. I agree with my hon. Friend's point about ACAS during the miners' strike. But we do not want to get carried away with ACAS. During the period I was involved in the trade union movement, I always considered that going to ACAS was like having a row with the wife and getting the mother-in-law to arbitrate.

Mr. Skinner

We have been discussing ACAS, completely in order, for about an hour, Mr. Walker, and I have been struggling to approach the matter in an academic fashion in order to fit in with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow. I should not have done that. I should have resorted to my instincts. There, in a nutshell, is what I have been trying to say. The debate could have finished early. In some ways, our legitimate parliamentary tactics could have been frustrated if the throat of my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow had not been so sore. He could have jumped in straight away.

Mr. Dixon

I would not have moved the closure.

Mr. Skinner

You missed the best part, Mr. Walker, when the Liberals decided to speak for the first time today. They wanted to move, That the Question be now put. That caused a certain amount of hilarity, as you can guess, Sir — not that we should be totally amused about this debate.

Mr. Bermingham

rose—

Mr. Skinner

No, we should not be continuously amused about the debate, because my hon. Friend is now going to make a legal point.

Mr. Bermingham

Does my hon. Friend agree that—now that we have had the mother-in-law join the mother and the wife, now that we have had the Liberals' retreat and now that we have had all the academics—the Secretary of State, in seeking to pour scorn on ACAS, shows his complete contempt for anyone who seeks to disagree with him?

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friends will have heard that, in a quiet unassuming fashion, How my hon. Friend from ferret land has intervened, only a second after my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow. The contrast! I talked about how this party embraces people who know ACAS inside out, people who do not trust ACAS and people who go to court about ACAS; yet here we are—and this is the significant point—all on the same side because we know that injustice is being carried out by the Government against the teachers.

Mr. Rowlands

rose—

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend who comes from Wales wants to contribute.

Mr. Rowlands

I have been pondering my hon. Friend's comment a few minutes ago that all headmasters are Tories. I want him to withdraw the absurd slur that he has made on the many headmasters who are anything but Tories. Will he do that for me?

Mr. Skinner

I thought I had done it in a commendable fashion. I said earlier that we had all met people from the Lobby, and I said, off-the-cuff, that one headmasters' organisation, about which I had been reading in the newspapers, was supporting the Government. I might inadvertently have given the impression that I thought all headmasters were Tories. I am not sure about it. It is pretty clear that the headmasters are coming over to our side, and that is a good thing. So there is no doubt that—

Mr. Rowlands

Will my hon. Friend withdraw?

Mr. Skinner

No, I will not withdraw anything. No one has made me do it in 16 years, and I am not starting tonight. I have made considerable concessions tonight, but my hon. Friend should not ask me to travel down that road.

Mr. Godman

rose—

Mr. Skinner

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for ACAS.

Dr. Godman

Looking at the role that is envisaged for ACAS in the agreement, may I point out to my hon. Friend that I am not an uncritical admirer of ACAS? I approach ACAS in a fair-minded and constructive way. We must acknowledge that, in some instances, ACAS has defended the interests of workers who are badly organised. I remind my hon. Friend that if the amendment were passed and if ACAS were to play this role in collective bargaining in education, it might encourage the House to look afresh at ACAS and to give it greater powers. Those powers would have to be based on the premise that, in almost every case, the organised work force is less powerful than the employers. May I make one further point? I never thought that I would end up as my hon. Friend's straight man.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend has been making valuable contributions. He said that he was not an uncritical admirer of ACAS. It has all gelled at the end, has it not? As we come towards the end, a couple of us on this Bench are not quite in love with ACAS. My hon. Friend gave the impression initially that he was an expert—

Dr. Godman

An observer.

Mr. Skinner

He is an observer. Now he is not an uncritical admirer on occasions—

Mr. Flannery

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Skinner

I will when I have made this point, which is important. I do not wish to impugn the name of the Chair, Mr. Walker, and I do not say that we should have a minute's silence, but we should remember that you set it up and that you have played a valuable role—

Dr. Godman

I do not seek to curry favour with you, Mr. Walker.

Mr. Skinner

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), who has not been in the Chamber lately, but who spoke earlier.

Mr. Flannery

I am disconcerted about my hon. Friend's difficulties with this group of Welsh headmasters. May we enlist the good offices of ACAS to help him with this problem group who, although we are assured that they are solid Labour supporters, belong to an organisation that has been acting like a bunch of Tories? I refer to the National Association of Head Teachers. Could ACAS help him out of the dilemma?

Mr. Skinner

Looking at it objectively, as an observer, during the past week or two, I got the impression that that organisation was causing some trouble for ACAS. As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said, there are some Labour supporters in that organisation, but the body itself exudes a sort of bluish dye. It has frustrated to some extent the attempts made by the bulk of the unions, including the National Union of Teachers, to obtain this important settlement.

Mr. Nellist

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) talked about ACAS having to conciliate between employers and employees, particularly when the employees were in the weaker position. I hope that my hon. Friend will explain that in virtually every case the latent strength of workers, who are the only ones who produce wealth in society, is not fully realised, and that is where the trade unionism comes to the fore.

3.45 am

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is well into his second hour on amendment No. 4 and since we have had a change of Chair, will he recap on some of his earlier points, at least for the benefit of Mr. Walker?

Mr. Skinner

I do not have to recap. I can give a summary. I shall only point out that it was Mr. Walker who set up ACAS.

In short, we have discussed the valuable role of ACAS and the fact that in 1979 the Government set out to get rid of it. Then they used it during the miners' strike. Then we tended to put forward the argument, with which I think that most Opposition Members concurred, that ACAS had asserted itself during the teachers' dispute and had come up with a kind of resolution. We also discussed the question of its evolution. Could it grow? Where and how would it grow? What kind of shape would it have in the future? Would it be more beneficial? There were also the dangers that it might interfere more in collective bargaining and some of us were worried about that. We have covered the landscape of ACAS and it has all been important.

Dr. Godman

If we examine the amendment and take on board the power that ACAS has acquired in education, despite its chequered history — I am not unmindful of what happened in the dispute in the coal mining industry—it could play a powerful role. Surely my hon. Friend will agree that it is entirely sensible to envisage an ACAS that is independent of a Conservative Government or a Labour Government, which acts on behalf of weaker groups in the industrial world.

Mr. Skinner

We could have a good theoretical discussion about what would happen if ACAS managed to grow in that fashion. I would rather tend to the view that it would militate against the growth of trade unionism. Some of us have the old-fashioned view that in industrial struggles which take place every day on the shop floor, or in this case in the classroom, the battle for trade unionism survives on the basis of a union being able to say to its members that it is in a position to fight. We would not want to see ACAS develop into a kind of cushion, making it a soft option, which would mean that joining a trade union was not all that important. That is the area in which we would have doubts.

Mr. Boyes

Let me ask my hon. Friend about those headmasters. I do not want to ask him to withdraw anything because even if the Serjeant at Arms had his sword pointed at my hon. Friend's throat he would not withdraw anything that he had said. However, many headmasters support the Labour party. Tonight's opinion polls show that the number of headmasters who support Labour is growing by every second. I hope my hon. Friend agrees that the rise of 5 per cent. in the opinion polls is not just because of today's debate. I hope he agrees that the 5 per cent. rise is also due to the announcement by the leader of our party that the Labour party will get rid of nuclear weapons.

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Harold Walker)

Order. The hon. Gentleman must deal with ACAS.

Mr. Boyes

I am dealing with ACAS, Mr. Walker. I digress for just a second, because you were not in the Chair when we referred to Labour's 5 per cent. rise in the opinion polls. Ever since I became a Member of Parliament I have listened to every statement on education, and no hon. Member knows more about that subject than my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery). For many years he has championed the teachers' cause. Even though he says that the association is a little on the Conservative side, I know that he will not disagree with me when I say that many headmasters are members of the Labour party. Both of us used to be teachers and both of us were members of the Labour party then. We might have been headmasters by now, but we would still be Labour party members.

Mr. Skinner

At a meeting in my constituency about 10 days ago a headmaster was on the platform with me. We spoke to about 700 people concerning a dispute over the reorganisation of the schools. I took the side of the schools. The dispute may eventually reach Parliament, in which case we shall have to do battle with the Secretary of State for Education and Science. So I have been busy doing a little pre-electioneering. It was not bad to speak to so many teachers and parents. The headmaster stood beside me on that joint platform. People like him are in the right. The same will be true at Bolsover. When I speak there on Sunday the audience is expected to be about 1,000, and I shall again be talking about the reorganisation of schools.

I have made the point over and over again that there are always exceptions to the rule, but by and large this organisation has cuddled up to the Government during the dispute, particularly during its latter stages.

Mr. Nellist

I appreciate my hon. Friend's point, to which we shall no doubt return, but when we were discussing ACAS on the previous group of amendments I do not believe that any hon. Member mentioned that our principal objection was to the Secretary of State having the power to appoint an advisory body and then to impose a pay structure and conditions of service. That is patronage. While we are dealing with this group of amendments, surely we ought to be discussing the Labour party's demand that members of the conciliation service ought to be elected.

Mr. Skinner

That must have been in Mr. Walker's mind when, as a Minister, he set up ACAS. Accountability is important. I am not averse to that. However, although we have supported ACAS in this dispute I think that we should be a little careful about how far we back it on every single issue.

Mr. Rowlands

My hon. Friend has referred continually to head teachers belonging to only one union. Will he accept that there are headmasters and headmistresses even within the National Union of Teachers and that he should not therefore refer to all headmasters and headmistresses as belonging to one union that tends to be Conservative-controlled?

Mr. Skinner

I think that the record will show that about an hour ago I made no reference whatsoever to all headmasters and headmistresses being Tories. The record will show that I did not say that. It will also show that I have not said that all headmasters and headmistresses are in that one organisation. I am getting a bit fed up of someone being so pernickety, when Hansard will show, when it is produced, that no such statement was made by me. I have no reason to worry about withdrawing because I said simply that the organisation that was named gave more than a little difficulty for the NUT and three other teachers' organisations while people were trying to resolve the dispute. Of course, there are headmasters and headmistresses in the NUT—a few. There are some in another organisation that has also played a part. But there is no problem about me withdrawing my remarks because they are consistent with with what I have just said. The report will show that.

Mr. Flannery

We are talking about ACAS and head teachers. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that some are also in other unions — very few. The secretary of the Burnham committee was a head teacher. He was helped there by people who are no friends of ours. After their antics, he was removed. He is not secretary any longer, and he had only his own vote on the committee.

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend knows the issue inside out. In almost every education debate he has made a contribution and kept hon. Members informed about the conflict. There is no doubt about that. My hon. Friend referred to the component parts of the problem, and I tend to the view that generally he has got the facts right. So I hope that Labour Members will agree with my hon. Friend in his summing-up of what has been a side show. I said that now that the head teachers were coming over to our side, that was welcome, and it could mean that we get more support. My hon. Friend and I are saying, "Come over a bit more quickly. Do not play the Tory game, because when they have used you, just like the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, they will get rid of you. They will not be bothered about you after you have been used."

I was about to refer to the Government's fiddling on the issue. Their interference is another example of the fiddles with which they have become associated in every single Department of State. One can go through them all, and find their dirty pawmark on almost every single Bill, the unemployment figures, and the twisted trade figures. They have now increased the invisibles to £900 million a month. Nobody believes it. What about their attitude towards the City? Now they are fiddling the figures for the teachers. They have tried to argue that they will give more money to all teachers, when as a result of the fiddling they will give more money, with some exceptions, to those on the highest pay. That is another reason why we supported the ACAS resolution of the dispute as opposed to that of the Tories. My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow had a sore throat earlier. I am getting the same complaint.

Dr. Godman

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend will speak, and he does not have a sore throat.

Dr. Godman

I sincerely regret intervening again but it may well be that where the amendment reads, "under the auspices" it might have been better if it had read, "with the assistance and advice of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service." For all its faults and despite its history, it is an advisory, conciliation and arbitration service and if it were to be introduced into the educational sector of England and Wales, far from weakening the trade union movement, it could be argued that it might well strengthen the trade union involvement in collective bargaining in the education world.

4 am

Mr. Skinner

My hon. Friend has made that important point before. It brings us back to the argument about the role of ACAS. I do not think that the teachers would want to see their collective bargaining eroded in any way by ACAS. I do not think for one moment that any of the teachers' unions, from whatever side of the fence, would necessarily want to say, "Let us get to ACAS at the earliest possible moment." They want to find a solution to the dispute so that their pay is increased, they are able to teach the kids better, they have improved facilities to work in, the pupil-teacher ratio is lower, and the extra space arising in some schools because of falling rolls is used to advantage. They want to do all those things and resolve them on their own without having to run to ACAS every five minutes, even though, on this occasion, ACAS managed to get a resolution of the dispute.

Mr. Frank Cook

I must apologise for my inability to catch my hon. Friend's eye previously when he was referring to the nature of the Department of Education and Science and its similarity with other Departments. He said that there were the same sort of pawmarks over this measure. My hon. Friend will recall the high regard in which I hold the animal kingdom and I wonder whether he would consider changing "pawmarks" to "palm prints".

Mr. Skinner

That is an indication of the way things change in one's own lifetime. It is an interesting aside. It is worth noting that when I became a Member of the House 16 years ago no one would have made that sort of contribution, yet now it has some relevance. It almost has a sort of ACAS imprint on it. If my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) will settle for "imprint", I am quite happy. Some of my family would share that view. I was brought up in a hurly burly environment where such a thing would not have been mentioned. Now it is part of the evolution that is taking place, as we see ACAS grow, ACAS develop and ACAS observed, and all the other things that are happening to ACAS.

Mr. Dixon

ACAS postponed.

Mr. Skinner

We see all those things and we see headmasters switching from Tory to Labour. That is welcome. Now we see that a greater interest is being taken in this place in the animal kingdom which, let us hope, does not have to go to ACAS to get its problems solved.

Mr. Michie

I should like to refer to ACAS—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because we do have some dilemmas. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that ACAS does have a role to play but that it should not stem the growth of trade unions. However, if the Bill goes through and its results are reflected in other jobs and professions, ACAS will be useless anyway. Basically, we shall have dictatorship from the top. Arbitration will be out of the window because the Secretary of State will have all the power.

Mr. Skinner

We covered that point earlier at some length. We have had that valuable discussion which, I think will assist in shaping our own attitudes towards ACAS in the future.

Let us suppose that the Government remain in office for another 12 months. Personally, I doubt that very much. I think that the Prime Minister has already put March on the calendar. She is waiting for the first little patch of blue in the sky and then she will go. March is the first possible date. If there is no blue in the sky then, it will be postponed until May or June, and so on. I think that ACAS will be playing a role in various other disputes. For instance, local government officers now have a vested interest in joining the growing army of Labour voters in the next general election.

I come now to the philosophical point in the Government's attitude to free collective bargaining, because that is the kernel of the amendment. Last week, when the Secretary of State first announced his intentions on this, my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) and one or two others made their contributions. I thought that what I said on that occasion would form the basis of my speech today, but I have had to deal with ACAS at rather greater length, as the House knows. I had intended to follow up what I said to the Secretary of State on that occasion—that the Government were elected not to interefere.

The night before the Secretary of State made his statement there was a debate about 300 people sacked by J. E. Hanger. The Minister replying to that debate said that it was not for the Government to interfere between the artificial limb makers and the company that had sacked them. I wondered where this lot would end. We had the same arguement on the Silent Night dispute and in every Government statement under the sun, but the plight of the artificial limb makers struck home with me because they were dealing with thousands of disabled people. Yet the Government insisted time and again that they could not possibly interfere. The very next day the Secretary of State for Education and Science comes along and says that he intends to interfere with teachers' pay. That shows the Government's hypocrisy. It is hypocrisy on a grand scale. They could not intervene to save the jobs of the artifical limb makers at Roehampton, because the Government were in cahoots with the company that had sacked those 300 men and women.

That is why the teachers are so upset. Almost every one of them in the Lobby today was asking what was all this nonsense about interference when the Government had been saying for seven years that they could not possibly interfere with anything—including OPEC oil prices, though that was certainly a "kid 'em and cod 'em" exercise. The Government's philosophy has been non-interference—let the market place decide—but suddenly they decide that it is time to poke their noses into the affairs of 400,000 teachers and their families.

We are here tonight because we can see the hypocrisy of the Government's position. Let there be no mistake about it. Whatever the results of their little private polls, based on cobbled-up questions, a wider group than teachers will see that a Government elected on a mandate of non-interference with free collective bargaining are now dictated to 400,000 teachers what their wages should be. Moreover, they are tilting things in such a way that, by and large, those at the top of the scale will get more and those at the bottom will get less. That is injustice on a grand scale. That is why we have had to fight the Bill, and why we have kept in order. There is no question of our wanting to stray from the subject of the debate. We have used our opportunities today to try to satisfy the promises and pledges that we have made to the hundreds of people outside and in our constituencies during the past few weeks while the argument has raged. We would not be doing our duty if we did not try to fight the Bill line by line, clause by clause. There is a long way to go. I have not been on my feet for this length of time because I want to be, but because I have to make that contribution to the group who are fighting the Government.

Like many others, the teachers have taken part in the destabilisation of the Government. It must be destabilisation if the Government resort to the tactics that they said they would never use—intervention. The teachers have something to their credit. They have helped to destabilise the Government, even in their last few months in office. We have to support them until the Bill is concluded.

If the Government had any sense, even at this late stage they would withdraw the Bill. They would see the writing on the wall. We have heard hardly one speech from Conservative Members, and we noticed that in the Division on the previous group of amendments the Government could not get more than 219 votes—out of a total of 390 Members.

Dr. Godman

They are the lumpen bourgeoisie.

Mr. Skinner

They have had to give pairs and bisques, I think they are called—a type of absentee ticket—to some of their people because they do not have the stomach to fight. When their majority falls to 50-odd, as it did in the previous Division, the Government are being told something.

When the Government do not have the decency to acknowledge that, after all of their rabbiting on about ballots for all groups of workers, they will not allow the teachers to have the opportunity to have a ballot to decide the issue, that makes their hypocrisy even worse.

People see through such things. They might think that the spy thing is a bit complicated and be fed up with reading about it, but there is an inconsistency in letting one lot of people print a book but not letting another lot print one. By and large, voters see the simple issues. They know where the Government stand on non-intervention and market forces and what the Prime Minister has said time and again about them, but here they are, in their last days, poking their nose in on a grand scale.

Teachers have an advantage over some groups of workers. They can communicate to a wider audience than even miners. Miners spend their days down the pit or at the pit top. They are in a closed community. To some extent, the same is true of steel workers. When they are tackled, the ripples to do not spread as far as they should, but teachers have to talk in their vocation—it is the essence of what they have to do. They also see through hypocrisy quickly.

The Secretary of State has turned round. I thought that he was about to bow like he did at the Tory party conference. I have never seen a bigger fool in Christendom than when he bowed. His head nearly touched the floor, he was so elated at the fact that he had been able to read for about 20 minutes from two of those boards that Reagan introduced. He has the cheek to tell teachers, with their difficult job, that he will regulate their pay, when they have a proper system of collective bargaining. He has the cheek to interfere on that scale. It is a form of unilateralism. He is a unilateralist on teachers' pay.

4.15 am

The debate has been essential as part of the several components that make up the details of the national debate. I do not want anybody to tell me that the settlement is too costly, and there is not enough money to find the extra for the teachers that the ACAS settlement will mean, when it is not much more than the Government have to offer. There is plenty of money in the country. The Prime Minister came back from the Common Market the other day, and she was not talking about non-intervention. She was trying not to talk about the fact that there will soon be a big fat bill for the Common Market gravy train. Those out there are living off the backs of teachers and the rest of them, and are producing little or nothing, but the Prime Minister comes to the Dispatch Box, in the very week when the Government are hammering the teachers, and says that she is to bring in Supplementary Estimates to bail out the Common Market. That is on top of the £6,000 million that has already been paid net by the British taxpayers, including teachers, to keep this crazy ship afloat.

Who are these people to talk about the teachers having assessments? Who has assessed this lot? Who decided that they were capable of running the country's affairs, when they cannot even keep their own spies in order? Who are they, when they can let the pound sink to the bottom of the Thames, they wreck business men and women and, the foreign reserves are lower than they are in Italy, after seven years of Thatcherism? Who are these people to tell the teachers that they cannot have an ACAS settlement because they know better?

Who assessed the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), the Minister for foot and mouth? Who assessed them for pay? They all get the same money. An articulate teacher or headmaster might want to assess that lot, and make variations on the scale for these Ministers. What would they pay the Secretary of State? What is he really worth?

Mr. Bermingham

Not a lot.

Mr. Skinner

There are all those Tory party officials masquerading as Ministers. What would be the assessment of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? He admitted from the Dispatch Box that he does only about 15 hours a month for his big, fat ministerial salary. What would happen to his salary if he had to be assessed in the way that the Secretary of State is telling the teachers that they should be assessed? He would not be rushing across to America without his passport. How does he do that? Not many other people could manage it. We do not want the Tory Government telling teachers that they should be assessed when they cannot even do their own job properly.

We are battling on behalf of the teachers as part of their campaign. That is why we met them today and we have kept our promise to battle on their behalf. Without exception, we in the Opposition—I cannot speak for the SDP and the Liberal party, because most of their hon. Members have not even poked their noses into the debate—are determined to put the teachers' case, about which they lobbied us today. If the Secretary of State had any sense he would take this bill back from whence it came.

Mr. Bermingham

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has accused me of speaking quietly. I hope that when I speak quietly I sometimes speak with some common sense. This dangerous little Bill and the amendment are important.

Before I speak about the Bill and the amendment, I shall correct my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover on another matter. By doing that I shall perhaps add to his fund of knowledge about Hangers and the disablement workers. He is probably aware that BTR owns that company and is trying to take over Pilkington in my constituency. I am worried and the people of St. Helens are worried about that, because we do not want to see happen to Pilkington what has happened to Hangers. I hope that I can rely on the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover when we fight the proposed takeover by BTR. I notice that he nods. I am grateful for his support.

I admit that I have immediately gone off track, but perhaps in my own quiet way I can return to it. I worry when the conceit of power reaches dictatorship. On the teachers' pay dispute there is conceit of power on the part of the Secretary of State. I do not apologise for calling the Secretary of State conceited in his belief that he has supreme ability to judge what a teacher is worth, what he or she should be paid, and how teachers' settlements should be arrived at. Who will decide? Will the Secretary of STate personally decide that a teacher in Cowley hill school in St. Helens will be graded 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, or will he put in one of his minions to do it. I worry about that.

Dr. Godman

My hon. Friend talks about the arrogance of Ministers taking power under this Bill. I was struck by what Louis MacNeice said over 40 years ago about Oxford dons. He said: They have charm without warmth and knowledge without understanding. That charge can be levied against this doltish lot. Does my hon. Friend agree that this amendment is double-edged, in that it provides ACAS with a glorious opportunity to put its chequered history to one side and to develop in a much more independent fashion?

Mr. Bermingham

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend says. I listened with interest to his debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover. Many of us have much to learn from that debate because it enabled us to see the two sides of the argument about ACAS. As my hon. Friend the Member of Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) is aware, ACAS grew from perhaps the first tentative discussions on industry by Professor John Wood in the early negotiations into which he was called, long before ACAS existed, to seek to resolve by conciliation. The idea of conciliation, diplomacy, discussion and resolution can be explored further in future.

I was referring to the Secretary of State and I used the word "conceit". I stand by that. I say "arrogance", and I stand by that, too. It is being said that if the Government do not like what two completely independent bodies arrive at by way of negotiation—

The Chairman

Order. I am having some difficulty in following the hon. Member, and that will continue to be the position if he persists in speaking while turned away from the Chair. It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman were to turn more towards the Chair.

Mr. Bermingham

My deepest apologies, Mr. Walker. I hate the thought that you might miss one word of the pearls of wisdom that I seek to drop. I shall naturally turn to face you, Mr. Walker, and turn away from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow. My hon. Friend raised such an interesting matter that I felt the courtesy of addressing him was necessary. I appreciate, Mr. Walker, that I should have addressed you.

When two parties reach a solution to a problem, it ill behoves someone else to walk in and say, "I don't like it. I shall destroy it. I shall take it away. I alone have the right to decide." Why is this happening? Why has the Secretary of State felt it necessary to say to the teaching profession, "You may negotiate with those who employ you, who are in day-to-day contact with you, but, if I do not like your solution, I shall do it my way." It is rather like a child in a school playground who wants to join in the ball game, and when he does not get his own way he steals the ball. That is the arrogance that has developed over the past seven years.

When people in society reach agreement and the Government start to steal the ball, thinking that they alone have the monopoly of wisdom, we are reaching a dangerous state. My great fear is that we shall return to the conditions that applied in the 1930s, which were summed up as follows: Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn't speak up. We must remember how the quotation develops, which is as follows: Then they came for me … By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone. The danger of the road that we are now treading is that the Government seem to believe that they have a monopoly of wisdom and that anyone who might take a slightly different view is utterly wrong. The teachers and the local authorities can no longer negotiate because they may not come to the answer that the Government want.

The Government say that the trade unions are wrong. They said that they were wrong during the miners' strike and they took away their rights. With the miners, they took away the pits. That was quicker. Where does this road end? When the Government debate an idea in the House, they work on the principle that they have a majority of 160 votes or more, that it does not matter what anyone else says and that they will steamroller through their policy.

The consideration of the Bill in Committee should not be taking place on the Floor of the House. The Bill should be considered by a Standing Committee in the same way as the majority of Bills. The Government's conceit and that of the Secretary of State is demonstrated by their view that they have some divine right to steamroller their policies through the House and to change the order, as it were, because that suits them. The Secretary of State leans back, closes his eyes and appears to be going to sleep. It does not matter what any of us say. He wants his Bill and the votes for it are to be found in the corridors and cubbyholes of this place. The only thing that we can do is to argue—at 4.29 in the morning—and we have reached only amendment No. 4.

Democracy is valuble. The Government are treading a very dangerous road by taking the view, "We do not care what anyone else says. We will get our way." That philosophy has destroyed more societies than any other in history. That philosophy destroyed the Roman empire and created the problems of the 1930s in Europe, and it is destroying this land. The conceit and danger that flows from the contempt for opposition creates dictatorship but does not sustain democracy. That is why at half-past four in the morning I ask the Government and the Secretary of State to think again. They should allow the Bill time. They should listen to what is being said and be aware of the dangers. There is no monopoly of wisdom in government or in the Civil Service. There is a right to dissent.

4.30 am

Under the International Labour Organisation agreements there is a fundamental right for an employee to negotiate with an employer. I know that the Government do not give a fig for international arrangements. I cite another simple example that will occur later today. In the Criminal Justice Bill, clause 22 flies in the face of agreed conventions on refugees. That again shows the conceit of a Government who tear up their international arrangements.

The people of this land—[Interruption.] It seems that someone has a hearing aid and we are getting a whistling noise. I get very paranoid. We have this Australian spy business. Apparently everything is bugged nowadays, and I am beginning to wonder whether one of us is bugged.

I come back to the point about democracy —[Interruption.] I think I know where the noise is coming from. It is in the Reporters' Gallery. Obviously a machine is going wrong.

There is a fundamental principle at stake — the right of a human being to try to negotiate his or her own conditions of service, but not with the all-powerful central state system. I can imagine what the Secretary of State would say if we lived in a halcyon society under a Labour Government who suggested that the education service should be run from London rather than by local authorities. The right hon. Gentleman would be screaming about a centralist society, extreme Left-wing views and so on. What is he seeking to do? Why cannot the Derbyshire, Cumbria, Hampshire or Norfolk county councils negotiate with their own employees? Why must the Secretary of State take the power himself? There is no justification for what he seeks to do.

Very gently, I ask the Secretary of State to accept the amendment, because then there would be a litte fairness and a little less dictatorship. If the Secretry of State is a democrat, he will agree with me. If he is a potential dictator, he will disagree. I await with interest to see what he does.

Mr. Fisher

We have had a good debate, not least because we have had the benefit of hearing—apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice)—no fewer than eight of my hon. Friends making speeches and another 12 who have intervened. However, what has been lacking in the debate was any serious dialogue from the Government. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) spoke for six minutes and the Minister for 21 minutes.

We heard nothing from the Government about the principles behind ACAS and its useful role in the negotiations, or about our amendments dealing with ACAS machinery and the Nottingham settlement. I regret that, because these are vital issues. The House will regret that the Government choose to remain silent.

From the Liberal spokesman we had only an attempt to close our debate. The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) suffers from "speedophobia" and believes that we should rush our consideration of the Bill. He will agree that the issues are important and that the House has never had such a long discussion on ACAS machinery. I assure the hon. Member that all aspects of the Bill will be discussed. We are seeking to compress into a short time the scrutiny that would take five or six weeks in a Standing Committee. If we were upstairs he would not complain that we were still considering clause 1. We shall get through the Bill.

Mr. Freud

I am glad to hear that. I was concerned because the Bill has 200 lines and we have spent over 12 hours on the first five. Substantial contributions must be made on the other clauses. We on the Liberal Benches made it clear on Second Reading that we were content with clause 1. To remind us time and again that we are honouring our commitment on Second Reading ill becomes the party with which we have much in common.

Mr. Fisher

I take issue with the hon. Gentleman. There can be little in common between our parties if he is content with clause 1. He cannot have listened to the debate. We object to the arbitrary repeal of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965. We agree that the Burnham negotiating machinery should be reformed radically and we have tabled constructive amendments suggesting how it should be reformed.

It seems that the Liberal party is content with a Bill which abolishes the Remuneration of Teachers Act and replaces it with the Secretary of State. The first line contains a fundamental principle and if the hon. Member does not understand that fact, he has not been listening to the debate. A fundamental democratic right is being taken away from trade unionists and local authorities, and enormous, amazing powers are centralised on the Government. When we inherit those powers we shall repeal them and produce democratic, accountable collective bargaining machinery. That is the only way forward.

We have attempted, successfully I think, to put the arguments over the past few hours. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North said that we would give the matter serious and detailed consideration and I believe that we have done so. My hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman), for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) and for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) all have considerable industrial relations and trade union negotiating expertise. They spoke on those aspects and my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Mr. Dormand), who was a chief education officer, and for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), who was a head teacher, gave us the benefit of their expertise.

It is difficult to select one speech from the debate, but I think that the Committee would feel it wrong not to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) who made a fluent, well-reasoned and effective speech in his first Committee contribution.

There is often not much new material in these debates, but my hon. Friend the Member for Easington produced one piece of new material when he read out the letter from the chairman of the employers' side of the management panel of the Burnham primary and secondary committee. Perhaps the Secretary of State and other hon. Members will receive the letter tomorrow.

The chairman said: I have written to the Secretary of State calling upon him to reconsider his decision … The Government's Bill … will make the situation in the schools even worse"—

Mr. Kenneth Baker

I am not surprised by that letter.

Mr. Fisher

Is the Secretary of State really saying that he is not surprised that the employers' side on the Burnham committee is making such statements? The chairman says that the Bill is "retrograde and undemocratic". If the chairman of the employers' side feels like that, who agrees with the Secretary of State? Only the hon. Member for Ealing, North, who knows something about education, has supported the right hon. Gentleman in the debate. His other hon. Friends have been conspicuously absent. They must know in their heart of hearts—

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hogg)

We know that it is a filibuster; that is the reason.

Mr. Fisher

Conservatives talk about a filibuster, but they were quite keen to talk in our first debate. When we discuss collective bargaining, ACAS and constructive alternatives for a negotiating machinery only one Conservative Member wants to support the Secretary of State. It is very interesting.

Mr. Flannery

Is it not clear that the Minister has an utter and arrogant contempt for all of us and that he has a special contempt for the chairman of the management side? Although local employers pay 54 per cent. of teachers' salaries, the Minister regards himself as the chairman of the management side and, indeed, does not want a management side. He will do it all himself.

4.45 am

Mr. Fisher

When my hon. Friend referred to the Minister having contempt, I am sure that he meant to refer to the Secretary of State. All hon. Members will agree that the Minister of State did not show contempt. She showed ignorance and a lack of coherence in her arguments at some stage. She made an attempt to justify the Government's position on this matter. As my hon. Friend pointed out in an intervention, yet again, as she and some of her hon. Friends did on Second Reading on Monday, she made a good case for re-negotiating and finding a better way of handling the negotiating machinery. She made a good case for reforming Burnham. We agree with her on that matter, and so will the unions and the employers—the local education authorities. She did not go on to make a case for replacing it. She basically came back to the one thing that the Secretary of State said ad nauseam since he stopped bad-mouthing the Nottingham agreement and calling it a fiasco.

The Secretary of State has changed his tack because he has realised that he was wrong about that matter. He has continued to say that there are not enough incentive points. He believes that there should be five. There are two in the ACAS settlement, and we refer to them in the amendments. The NUT has made it clear that it would be interested in talking about a third point. The hon. Member for Ealing, North, who knows a little more about education and has had greater experience in this field than some other hon. Members—though probably not more than the Minister of State—said that he recognised that five may be wrong and that perhaps we should talk about four. As my hon. Friend has said, we ask whether there should be five, four or three incentive points. That fairly fine difference—perhaps the difference between the two parties—is one incentive point.

The Secretary of State is prepared to take these extraordinary measures, constitutionally and through Parliament, and give himself extraordinary powers to take away democratic rights from trade unionists, teachers and local authorities—and from Conservative local authorities, many of whom object just as thoroughly as Labour-controlled authorities. They know what it means to education. That is all for the sake of, possibly, one incentive point.

Can the Secretary of State really be so petty and silly? That is what it comes down to. Parents will understand that. The difference between the two positions is probably one or two incentive points. It is not a matter of principle, it is a matter of detail to be negotiated. The Secretary of State knows that but he is too proud or too arrogant—may be he has other motives—but he will not negotiate or conciliate. He has not asked them to come and talk to him. Frankly, it is a disgrace to his office that he will not do so. He puts Parliament, the teaching profession and the future of the way in which education is negotiated in this country in jeopardy for such a small, fine point. He is standing on his pride. He wishes to see everybody crawl to him and accept his terms.

Time and again, the Secretary of State has said, in answer to questions, "They can come and talk to me, but on my terms. They must accept it. I can move no further." is that the way in which a pragmatist—a politician or somebody who wants to find an answer—should behave? Of course it is not. The teachers made that clear this afternoon. They were not all Labour supporters—they were not even all alliance supporters. Amazingly, there were probably some people who voted Tory at the last general election. Whether they will do so again after this remains to be seen. They know the reality. They know that the Secretary of State will not dare, and does not care, to negotiate. They will take that message back to their schools and talk to parents. Parents will understand that, too. Not only is the Secretary of State wrong in this matter, but he is making a stupid mistake.

If the Secretary of State considers that he is so right and so clever and that the country will believe his view of things, will he back that judgment and have a ballot of teachers? The Government are keen on ballots when they think that they will suit their convenience. The Secretary of State knows very well that, if teachers in all six unions—even the ones that do not like the ACAS agreement, such as the NAS and the NAHT—were asked whether they supported the Secretary of State's statement, they would probably give a derisory vote. I should be amazed if he got 10 or 15 per cent. of teachers to agree with him if he put it to a straight ballot. The Minister of State says, "Oh no, we cannot possibly do that." Of course, the Government can do that. They can table a new clause. They have given themselves amazing powers in the Bill, so they can certainly give themselves the powers to consult and ballot teachers. But they will not dare do that in this place or in the other place because they know the result.

The Secretary of State not only is not interested in conciliation, he is not even interested in hearing anyone's opinion but his. I am sure that he has the votes to railroad this measure through eventually, but he is wrong. He is making a terrible mistake and is certainly not making any friends.

The Minister of State talked about the role of the Secretary of State. Of course there is a role for the Secretary of State, whoever are in power. At the moment the Secretary of State rightly contributes 46.4 per cent. to the teachers' salary bill. Paragraph 7.4 of the ACAS agreement states that that will be discussed. There is a role for the Secretary of State, but not the arrogant, dominant role that he envisages. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman can understand that. He should think again.

The amendments are simple. They provide for the setting up of the negotiating machinery agreed at ACAS and for the determination of teachers' pay by agreement. Sadly, the Minister of State did not mention new clause 1—I am sure that that was an oversight—on teachers' pension arrangements. I am sure that the Minister would agree that pension arrangements for teachers are important for those 400,000 workers. It is sad that that measure was not considered because it is important. We should like to vote on it separately at an appropriate time, Mr. Walker. I ask you to consider that, Sir. The pension arrangements for 400,000 workers are worthy of a separate vote.

The arguments have been well rehearsed, so I shall not go through them again. We have been through them all. The Secretary of State may say that his door is open—

Mr. Flannery

His mind is shut.

Mr. Fisher

—but, once the teachers get through it, there is nothing that they can say to him, except, "Yes, we agree with you." My hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough took my line, although it was not a very original one. The right hon. Gentleman's mind is shut. I suspect that he was deaf to most of the debate as well. He can laugh. There have been many references to the right hon. Gentleman's smile. He is not being very clever. He is not bein,g politically shrewd or wise in the Bill. The Government have given no answers in the debate. They are, perhaps, drunk with their majority. Immediately after the last general election, the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) lost his place in the Cabinet because he said that majorities of this size were not very healthy and that they led to trouble. The Government's majority has led to various sorts of trouble. The Secretary of State and the Government are so drunk with their majority, their rhetoric and hostility towards trade unions, industrial relations, local government, decentralisation and the public sector—in this case, the maintained sector of education—that it is leading them astray. People would call their actions idiocy. The Opposition would call it rank injustice. We shall certainly vote for the amendment and we ask for a separate vote on pension arrangements, Mr. Walker.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 31, Noes 131.

Division no. 27]	[4.55 am
AYES
Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)	Madden, Max
Bermingham, Gerald	Marek, Dr John
Clay, Robert	Michie, William
Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)	Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Cohen, Harry	Nellist, David
Cook, Frank (Stockton North)	Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Corbyn, Jeremy	Radice, Giles
Dalyell, Tam	Raynsford, Nick
Fatchett, Derek	Richardson, Ms Jo
Fisher, Mark	Rowlands, Ted
Flannery, Martin	Skinner, Dennis
Freud, Clement	Spearing, Nigel
Godman, Dr Norman	Stott, Roger
Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)
Home Robertson, John	Tellers for the Ayes:
Howarth, George (Knowsley, N)	Mr. Allen McKay and
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)	Mr. Don Dixon.
Livsey, Richard

NOES
Alexander, Richard	Couchman, James
Amess, David	Currie, Mrs Edwina
Arnold, Tom	Dickens, Geoffrey
Ashby, David	Dicks, Terry
Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)	Dover, Den
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Dunn, Robert
Baldry, Tony	Fairbairn, Nicholas
Batiste, Spencer	Fallon, Michael
Bellingham, Henry	Favell, Anthony
Bendall, Vivian	Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Benyon, William	Forman, Nigel
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Biggs-Davison, Sir John	Forth, Eric
Blackburn, John	Franks, Cecil
Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter	Fraser, Peter (Angus East)
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Freeman, Roger
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Gale, Roger
Bottomley, Peter	Galley, Roy
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Garel-Jones, Tristan
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Goodhart, Sir Philip
Bright, Graham	Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Brinton, Tim	Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)
Bruinvels, Peter	Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Burt, Alistair	Hampson, Dr Keith
Butterfill, John	Hanley, Jeremy
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Hargreaves, Kenneth
Cash, William	Harris, David
Chope, Christopher	Hawkins, Sir Paul (N'folk SW)
Churchill, W. S.	Hayes, J.
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Hickmet, Richard
Conway, Derek	Hind, Kenneth
Coombs, Simon	Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)
Cope, John	Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)
Corrie, John	Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)	Moynihan, Hon C.
Hubbard-Miles, Peter	Neale, Gerrard
Hunt, David (Wirral W)	Neubert, Michael
Hunter, Andrew	Newton, Tony
Jessel, Toby	Nicholls, Patrick
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)	Norris, Steven
Jones, Robert (Herts W)	Oppenheim, Phillip
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine	Osborn, Sir John
King, Roger (B'ham N'field)	Page, Sir John (Harrow W)
Knowles, Michael	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Latham, Michael	Pawsey, James
Lawler, Geoffrey	Pollock, Alexander
Lightbown, David	Portillo, Michael
Lilley, Peter	Powell, William (Corby)
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)	Powley, John
Lord, Michael	Proctor, K. Harvey
Lyell, Nicholas	Raffan, Keith
McCurley, Mrs Anna	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Macfarlane, Neil	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Maclean, David John	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
McLoughlin, Patrick	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Malins, Humfrey	Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Malone, Gerald	Spencer, Derek
Marlow, Antony	Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Mather, Carol	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Maude, Hon Francis	Thurnham, Peter
Mayhew, Sir Patrick	Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Merchant, Piers	Walden, George
Miller, Hal (B'grove)
Mills, Iain (Meriden)	Tellers for the Noes:
Mitchell, David (Hants NW)	Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd and
Moate, Roger	Mr. Tony Durant.
Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 1, line 5, at end insert 'except as it refers to teachers in further education.'

The Chairman

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 16, in page 1, line 6, after 'of, insert 'school'.

No. 29, in line 13, leave out paragraph (b).

Mr. Bennett

The Opposition expect this to be a fairly short debate, compared with the earlier debates. Our intention is to probe rather than to criticise the Government. We are delighted that the Government have not decided unilaterally to abolish the right of collective bargaining to those who work in further education. However, we should like the Minister of State to explain why the Government are so pleased with the further education negotiations and would like them to continue in their present form although they believe that it is necessary to abolish collective bargaining for those who teach in schools.

Throughout the greater part of the negotiations the same negotiator has led both the further education and the schools negotiations and has striven to obtain a settlement. A fair number of unions and professional associations are involved in the further education negotiations. The local authorities and the teacher unions have conducted the negotiations under their own auspices and have not had to call in ACAS. As ACAS has been brought in only to facilitate the school negotiations, that is no reason for the Government's view that one set of negotiations should be dealt with in one way and the other set in another.

I accept that good progress has been made. Perhaps that is why the Government are pleased about the further education negotiations in September on structure and the new form of appraisal. However, the negotiations have collapsed. Is that why the Government are pleased? Are they pleased that the talks have collapsed? I hope that the negotiations will resume in January. If the talks are to make reasonable progress in January, the Government must say how much money is available for the further education settlement. The school negotiations continued for a very long time and they were unable to make reasonable progress because of the former Secretary of State's reluctance to tell the teacher unions and the local authorities how much money was available.

If there is to be any prospect of resuming the talks on restructuring further education and on appraisal, the Government must find about £160 million. I hope the Minister will be able to tell the Committee that that money will be made available, or that at least the Government will say when they will be able to inform the local authorities and the teachers' unions about how much money is to be made available. If they do not provide that information, the negotiators will be blindfolded and their job will be made extremely difficult.

Those who work in further education at all levels have slipped below average earnings by at least as much as the teachers, and in some cases they have slipped even further behind. For example, on a cash index of 100 in 1975, following Houghton and the adjustments to teachers' salaries at all levels, the income of lecturers in further education in 1986 has increased to 274. If that is compared with the average earnings of non-manual workers, both male and female, over the same period, the cash index has increased from 100 to 359. That shows that those in further education have slipped even further behind than school teachers.

I hope that tonight the Government will say something about part-time workers and the increasing number of people in further education who are on short-term contracts. Short-term contracts are a cause of considerable concern to those in further education, in particular to those who are on contracts financed by Manpower Services Commission funds.

The short-term funding in FE causes a great deal of concern and alarm. I hope that the Minister can throw some light on the Government's thinking about the negotiations with regard to the effect on the number of part-time and short-term contracts that are available in FE colleges.

We also ask the Minister to give serious thought to the anomalies that will develop as a result of the Bill in regard to pupils of 16, 17 and 18. Some will attend sixth form traditional schools, others will attend sixth form colleges, which will be under schools regulations, and teachers will have all forms of collective bargaining taken away from them by the legislation. Other pupils in the same age group doing exactly the same courses will be in FE or tertiary colleges where the lecturers will be under the Burnham provisions for further education and will retain the rights to collective bargaining and negotiations on their rates of pay. We welcome the fact that they are retaining those powers, but it is anomalous to take them away from one group and leave them with the other.

I press the Government to give us their views on the way in which the talks have gone on new structure and appraisal. Considerable dissatisfaction is felt by the local authority associations and the further education unions about the Burnham FE structure. It would be appropriate if a new negotiating body was developed, perhaps before some of the acrimony that developed in the last years of the Burnham negotiations develops in further education.

I hope that the Minister will justify to us the differences between the treatment of schools and FE and give us clear information about the current position of the talks and how much money will be made available to facilitate progress. Is she satisfied with the suggested structure? I hope that she will refer to appraisal, give her views on the problems of the short-term contracts, and above all, say how much money will be available to make the move forward. I hope that the hon. Lady can give us constructive answers. If we can make real progress, we might be able to have a fairly short debate.

Mrs. Rumbold

I shall address the amendments in the order in which they appear on the Amendment Paper.

Amendment No. 6 would repeal the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965 only as regards school teachers' pay, leaving its provisions in force for the future determination of further education pay. The weaknesses of the Burnham system apply just as much to further education pay as to that of school teachers. There is an unwarranted dislocation between pay and other conditions of service in both cases. Everyone is agreed that new machinery is needed that brings both aspects together.

In further education, there is already a national joint council of local authority employers and unions, which is trying, albeit with limited success at present, to look at pay and conditions together. The Government are willing to leave determination of those matters to such a body for the future.

Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West)

Will my hon. Friend refresh my memory? Is it not the case that the Association of Polytechnic Teachers is not on that body? I have a terrible feeling that we are doing enormous damage to a union in the polytechnic world, of which we have always thought highly. As a result of this Government's measures it has been placed on the Burnham committee, but the provisions in this Bill deny that role.

Mrs. Rumbold

Although the Association of Polytechnic Teachers has a place on the Burnham further education committee, it has rarely been invited to sit in the negotiating chamber with the committee. The Government's present proposals would leave it open for it to apply to the national joint council. It represents a substantial body of interested people. We are told that both the unions and employers are reasonable and would be only too willing to accept representations from properly constituted unions. One would hope that we would have proof of that in the near future and that it will be made a full member of the national joint council, which we propose to leave in place.

Dr. Hampson

With respect, I do not think that many Conservative Members would accept that as sufficient. We all supported strongly the application of the Association of Polytechnic Teachers to have fair representation on Burnham. That teachers union felt badly discriminated against because of its strong position in the polytechnic world, as against the further education world in general, and it had problems with the other major union. We would like to hear that the Government will do something to guarantee that it will have a place in the new system immediately should these provisions come into effect.

5.15 am

Mrs. Rumbold

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case. I assure him that we are conscious of the fact that there is an injustice in the position of the APT, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will undertake to look carefully at its position.

Amendment No. 16 would limit the continuation of existing pay arrangements, until superseded, to school teachers. Unless other amendments were made, the pay scales and pensions affecting further education teachers would fall with the passage of the Bill, rather than when superseded by future agreements between employers and unions, as intended. The sub-paragraph provides that existing arrangements will continue until superseded by new provisions made for school teachers under the provision of the Bill and, for further education teachers, agreed between employers and teachers. The amendment would mean that the present further education pay scales and provisions would fall with the enactment of the Bill, whether or not new provisions existed to take their place. That cannot be sensible.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

If amendment No. 6 were carried it would make sense.

Mrs. Rumbold

I am not certain about that.

Amendment No. 29 makes it clear that further education teachers and employers are to be empowered to settle matters between themselves or in such other manner as they may agree. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) asked about the money to be available for employers to negotiate the pay for further education teachers. My right hon. Friend has made it clear that any new money that the employers negotiate will have to be found from within their own resources. I believe that the employers are well apprised of that situation. If there are difficulties within the negotiations at present, I feel confident, as I am sure the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish does, since we have been hearing about, and extolling the glories, wonders and magnificence of, the national joint council, that things will be clarified in January when the talks resume and that a satisfactory conclusion will be found for the dilemma that apparently seems to exist within the national joint council.

I have covered the points that have been raised. All the negotiations, of course, are between the employers and the unions. All the matters which the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish raised about part-time teachers, teachers in tertiary colleges and so on are for those people to discuss in the joint council. I urge the Committee to reject the amendments.

Mr. Richard Livsey (Brecon and Radnor)

The amendments set one group of teachers against another. We need to see some unification in the profession, yet here we see the Government making attempts to split it. Teachers in the further education sector will apparently be the subject of negotiations under present arrangements, whereas those in schools will be subject to another set of rules. That shows a certain amount of inconsistency in the Government's approach to this matter. For example, teachers in sixth form colleges will be included in the arrangements, while other teachers will not. That is extremely divisive.

The subject of appraisal in the further education sector is of great interest to me, as I worked in that sector before coming to the House. The career structure in that sector is not at all clear at present and the differences in pay and conditions between LI and L2 lecturers and senior lecturers leave a good deal to be desired. If a better career structure can be provided through amendments to the Bill and discussions about it, that will be a great improvement on the present situation. The erosion of pay scales in recent years has not been in the best interests of futher education.

Pay in the further education sector has also fallen sadly behind. It would be impossible to bring back Houghton overnight, as lecturers' pay has fallen 33 per cent. behind in the 10 years since the Houghton agreements. In my previous occupation, I noted with interest that my salary as a senior lecturer before coming to the House about 16 months ago was the equivalent of the top scale for a police constable. After a degree, various amounts of training and 14 years lecturing, that is disgraceful. Police constables are valuable members of society, but they do not spend their days instructing 50, 60 or even 100 students, imparting knowledge and sharing it with those students. If the present arrangements are left in place, as the amendment suggests, I trust that the FE sector will get a fairer crack of the whip. Having been a member of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education for many years, I know that we have not had a fair crack of the whip for some time and that there has been tremendous erosion of our position. It is also important to achieve proper pension arrangements for the FE sector.

I think that I speak for my party in saying that it is an extremely divisive arrangement to split off the FE sector from other sectors.

Mr. Allen McKay

I am not very clear or very happy about the provision or about the Minister's reply. Many education authorities are now going in for tertiary colleges. I am not convinced that that is the best path to take. I have always been a strong supporter of sixth form colleges attached to schools. I appreciate some of the arguments in favour of tertiary colleges, but I am still not convinced. I do not see why they should provide better education opportunities because there are more students and a greater variety of teachers. Why should it be better for working-class children to have larger numbers when the public schools always go for smaller numbers?

I wonder why we are hiving off the further education sector. Why do we have a Bill which takes away the negotiating rights of teachers organisations? Is the Secretary of State looking further ahead? I understand that he is taking powers to introduce different rates of pay in different areas. Will local authorities negotiate separately with their staff? Is the Secretary of State prepared for that?

Mr. Fatchett

I do not know whether I should start by declaring an indirect interest, in that my wife is a teacher in further education. Perhaps I can act as a negotiator on her behalf.

My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) warmed my heart when he talked about short-term contracts. I listened with interest on my wife's behalf to see whether the Minister came up with an answer to that problem. My hon. Friend was right to say that there has been a substantial growth in Manpower Service Commission funding for short-term contracts and in short-term contracts generally. It would have been interesting if the Minister had commented on that.

It would be churlish of me not to say that I agreed with some of what the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) said. He spoke of lectureship scales in further education. He will have noticed that Ministers seem to have no difficulty with regard to scales when we are talking about further education, but that they have a limited and particular set of objectives when we come to teachers. If it is right to have scales in one sector, I should have thought that it would be right to have them in another.

My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish asked the Minister why there is disparity of treatment. The Minister said that there is a national joint council for further education teachers with which the Government are not prepared to interfere at this stage. I suspect that the Minister might join us on the next group of amendments, which suggest that we should have a national joint council for teachers.

I realise that the Minister is a fair person. She says that she likes a national joint council for further education, so I should have thought that she would be consistent and join us on the next group of amendments. I welcome her support and hope that it will be transferred into votes. Perhaps she will take the Secretary of State into the Lobby with her. We heard her say that the national joint council is the factor that makes all the difference.

As for scales and the collective bargaining machinery, teachers in primary and secondary education are treated differently from teachers in further education. We object to that fundamental difference, and the Minister has given no explanation for it.

5.30 am

We asked about one or two other detailed points—for example, money that may be available in the negotiations that will affect further education lecturers in the early part of 1987. What we really object to is the difference of treatment. We cannot understand how the Government can treat some teachers in one way and further education teachers in another. We are not asking that further education teachers be treated as badly as teachers in primary and secondary education — we are asking that teachers in primary and secondary education have their rights preserved. Because of the Minister's inadequate answer, and because of our fundamental objections to the Bill, we shall divide the Committee on amendment No. 6.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 27, Noes 124.

Division No. 28]	[5.30 am
AYES
Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)	Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Clay, Robert	Nellist, David
Cohen, Harry	Parry, Robert
Cook, Frank (Stockton North)	Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Corbyn, Jeremy	Radice, Giles
Dalyell, Tam	Raynsford, Nick
Dixon, Donald	Richardson, Ms Jo
Fisher, Mark	Rowlands, Ted
Flannery, Martin	Skinner, Dennis
Godman, Dr Norman	Spearing, Nigel
Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)	Stott, Roger
Home Robertson, John
Howarth, George (Knowsley, N)	Tellers for the Ayes:
Livsey, Richard	Mr. Derek Fatchett and
Marek, Dr John	Mr. Allen McKay.
Michie, William

NOES
Alexander, Richard	Hawkins, Sir Paul (N'folk SW)
Amess, David	Hickmet, Richard
Arnold, Tom	Hind, Kenneth
Ashby, David	Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)
Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)	Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)	Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Hunt, David (Wirral W)
Baldry, Tony	Hunter, Andrew
Batiste, Spencer	Jessel, Toby
Bendall, Vivian	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Benyon, William	Jones, Robert (Herts W)
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Biggs-Davison, Sir John	King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Blackburn, John	Knowles, Michael
Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter	Latham, Michael
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Lawler, Geoffrey
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Bottomley, Peter	Lilley, Peter
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Lord, Michael
Bright, Graham	Lyell, Nicholas
Brinton, Tim	McCurley, Mrs Anna
Bruinvels, Peter	Macfarlane, Neil
Burt, Alistair	Maclean, David John
Butterfill, John	McLoughlin, Patrick
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Malins, Humfrey
Cash, William	Malone, Gerald
Chope, Christopher	Marlow, Antony
Churchill, W. S.	Mather, Carol
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Maude, Hon Francis
Conway, Derek	Merchant, Piers
Coombs, Simon	Miller, Hal (B'grove)
Cope, John	Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Corrie, John	Mitchell, David (Hants NW)
Couchman, James	Moate, Roger
Currie, Mrs Edwina	Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Dickens, Geoffrey	Moynihan, Hon C.
Dicks, Terry	Neubert, Michael
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.	Newton, Tony
Dover, Den	Nicholls, Patrick
Dunn, Robert	Norris, Steven
Durant, Tony	Oppenheim, Phillip
Eyre, Sir Reginald	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Fairbairn, Nicholas	Pawsey, James
Fallon, Michael	Pollock, Alexander
Favell, Anthony	Powell, William (Corby)
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey	Powley, John
Forman, Nigel	Proctor, K. Harvey
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)	Raffan, Keith
Forth, Eric	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Franks, Cecil	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Fraser, Peter (Angus East)	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Freeman, Roger	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Gale, Roger	Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Galley, Roy	Spencer, Derek
Garel-Jones, Tristan	Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Goodhart, Sir Philip	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)	Thurnham, Peter
Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)	Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)	Walden, George
Hampson, Dr Keith
Hanley, Jeremy	Tellers for the Noes:
Hargreaves, Kenneth	Mr. Michael Portillo and
Harris, David	Mr. David Lightbown.

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Fisher

I beg to move amendment No. 30, in page 1, line 15, at end add— '(3) The remuneration and other conditions of service of school teachers shall be negotiated by a National Joint Council established by the parties after the making of an Order by the Secretary of State. (4) Schedule () has effect with respect to the composition of the National Joint Council and other matters'.

The Chairman

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 32, in clause 2, page 1, line 16, leave out from 'appoint' to 'on' in line 18 and insert— 'a National Joint Council nominated in accordance with Schedule (National Joint Council) to negotiate'. No. 45, in page 1, line 20, at end insert— 'and shall establish a National Joint Council for the purpose of negotiating pay and other conditions of service for all teachers in maintained schools in England and Wales.'. No. 49, in page 1, line 23, leave out subsection (3) and insert— '(3) The National Joint Council will be composed of representatives of the local education authorities in England and Wales and of the six unions presently represented on the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee. The balance of representatives on each side will be determined with the assistance of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.'. No. 91, in page 2, line 4, after 'Committee' insert— 'or the National Joint Council'. No. 104, in page 2, line 12, after 'Committee', insert— 'and the National Joint Council.'. No. 105, in page 2, line 12, leave out subsection (5) and add— '(5) It shall thereafter be the duty of the Advisory Committee to report its conclusions on the matters referred to it to the Secretary of State and such body or bodies as may from time be constituted for the negotiation of national collective agreements between teachers and their employers and to advise such body or bodies further in their consideration of such matters.'. No. 119, in page 2, line 14, at end add— '(6) In drawing up the detailed constitution of the proposed National Joint Council the parties will make arrangements for dealing with local disputes over the interpretation and application of national agreements and for access to those arrangements.'. No. 124, in clause 3, page 2, line 15, after 'Committee,' insert— 'and the National Joint Council.' No. 211, in clause 6, page 4, line 2, leave out from beginning to end of line 3, and insert— '"National Joint Council" means the National Joint Council on School Teachers Pay and Conditions established under section 1'. No. 230, new schedule — Membership of National Joint Council— '(1) The National Joint Council ("the Council") shall be comprised of representatives of the local education authorities in England and Wales and the six unions represented before the passage of the Act on the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee, and the balance of representation on each side shall be determined by the parties until the assistance of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. (2) The Secretary of State may, with the agreement of the organisations to be represented on the Council, make an Order to provide for the appointment by him of representatives to the Council in such numbers and according to such conditions as he may agree with all the parties.'.

Mr. Fisher

The amendments continue the debate that we have had on ACAS but in a rather different form. Amendment No. 30 seeks to set up a national joint council and the other amendments take up the detailed arrangements for that and reflect some of our proposals for changing the numbers of those who would participate in the work of the council.

The debate on ACAS, to which my hon. Friends contributed so fully and interestingly, showed that there were certain differences of opinion about the value of ACAS. Some of my hon. Friends expressed uncertainty about its long-term value because it is a third party in industrial negotiations between unions and employers. These fears are understandable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) said, however, there could often be a constructive and useful role for ACAS, and that sometimes where there is a need for arbitration an arbitral body such as ACAS, being a third party, can achieve results that no one else can.

On the whole, the Opposition believe that, where possible, direct collective bargaining between unions and employers is preferable. We have some reservations about ACAS, though we recognise that in the teachers' dispute, which has continued for some time and where there have been difficulties in coming to decisions on pay and conditions, ACAS has played an invaluable role in bringing parties together. If the Secretary of State had been as constructive in bringing the parties together, we would not be in the present position, leaving aside the issue of when the money might have been provided.

There are occasions when we feel that ACAS is neither necessary nor appropriate, and we believe that the establishment of a national joint council would provide negotiating machinery for negotiating pay and conditions for all teachers in maintained schools in England and Wales. That form of negotiating machinery would be direct collective bargaining between union and employers and it is one possible answer. The amendments are drawn from the Nottingham agreement, which was arranged under the auspices of ACAS, for the consideration of the Committee. We recognise that we are not proposing the only way in which negotiating machinery can be established, but we believe that a national joint council would be infinitely superior to anything that is provided in the Bill. We believe also that trade unions and employers—the employers include many Conservative-controlled authorities—jointly believe that a national joint council would be much more effective than the Burnham machinery. The Minister of State waxed eloquent on why Burnham has imperfections, but some of the blame must be placed on the Government for interfering in the arbitration role of Burnham.

5.45 am

My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) referred to the reasons why Burnham has failed to come up with the goods and said that as authorities have been rate-capped and cash-limited, Burnham has been unable to operate as an effective deliverer of collective bargaining agreements. If the Secretary of State looks at the history of Burnham before he went to the Department of Education and Science, he will know that the Government have been meddling in the arbitration. For example, they prevented arbitration referrals from either employers or trade unions and said that it had to be the wish of both parties—effectively giving employers a veto over any transfer to arbitration. That is not constructive or helpful. Leaving aside the money problems, it is hardly surprising that Burnham has foundered, given that the Government have been meddling in the arbitration arrangements.

The unions and the local authorities are agreed that Burnham needs to be replaced. We suggest the national joint council—and join the unions and employers in doing so—as one possible solution. We do not feel that it is the only way, but we seek to propose a machinery that is collective and voluntary, in which the parties can participate and which fairly and democratically represents all the parties involved.

Dr. Godman

Does my hon. Friend agree that national joint industrial councils play an important role in other industries in helping to establish and maintain good industrial relations between employers and employees?

Mr. Fisher

I absolutely concur. Being well briefed, I am sure that the Secretary of State has seen the documents put out this afternoon by the NUT, one page of which specifies the multiplicity of industries and sectors that have national joint councils, all of which work pretty well.

In one of his interesting contributions, my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) quoted from that list, so I shall not weary the Committee by repeating it. If hon. Members are fair-minded they will realise that national joint council exist in a number of sectors and industries—particularly in the public sector—and that they play a valuable role. We seek to extend that machinery to the education service.

We do not regard that as mischievous. This is not a wrecking amendment. It is genuinely constructive and is put forward with the confidence that on this occasion both the unions and employers feel that it is a constructive way forward. It is also put forward on the understanding that it is not the only way. We would be very happy to consider further amendments from the Government if they found an alternative method that was both democratic and collective.

Education is undoubtedly a complex service. As the 1944 Act says, it is a national service locally administered. The six unions involved traditionally represent sectors of education that have very different roots and expectations, and often there are different economic circumstances and conditions of service. Indeed, the Nottingham agreement clearly lays down the different conditions for main professional grade, entry grade, deputy heads, heads, and principals. Education is more complicated than most other professions or services. Multiple employers, and the Government having a role, create complex elements in the equation and make education a difficult bargaining area.

Expertise among those involved is needed. We must come up with the right answers on pay and conditions on a rolling basis. That cannot be left to the Secretary of State and his Civil Service advisers. An advisory committee cannot have any credibility, however good the Secretary of State's intentions, if he appoints its members. The Secretary of State must devise machinery which allows those involved to appoint the members. The Secretary of State is window-dressing and being disingenuous. He is fair-minded and must know that such a committee will not have credibility. Such a complicated service requires those directly involved—the trade unions and the employers—to be directly involved in the negotiating machinery. That is what we seek in a national joint council.

I have no doubt that the Minister's instructions are to resist our amendment. He will take his troops into the Lobby against us, but what does he think teachers will do if he imposes a settlement and rejects our amendment? How will teachers vent their frustrations democratically? How will they press their views? He is forcing them to continue that which he says he wishes to avoid—further disruption in the classroom. Without joint negotiating machinery with the support and involvement of employers and trade unions there is little alternative to industrial action—classroom action—whether that means working to rule or working to the strict limits of contracts. If the Secretary of State has any sense and can look into the future, he will recognise that. But he intends to set up machinery which he knows is not and will not be accepted, which has no credibility and which does not democratically involve the employers and trade unions.

Many people are happy with the present arrangements, but the Secretary of State will leave them with no option. The right hon. Gentleman might try to gain political capital by saying, "It is disgraceful that teachers, in spite of it all, are taking industrial action." But how else are they to express their grievances? We do not have to agree with those grievances. I do not agree with members of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers on some issues, but they hold sincere beliefs which they believe to be important to their colleagues and people working in similar conditions. How does the Secretary of State expect them to express their views fairly and reasonably if he does not set up negotiating machinery which has their confidence, which involves them and which allows them their own representatives? Surely the Secretary of State understands that he is corralling those people into a situation that he would wish to avoid.

The other amendments deal with the composition of the national joint council. The Secretary of State will have read the document signed by the unions, under the auspices of ACAS, post-Nottingham on 21 November, so I need not weary him with the details of the national joint council, but the unions' agreement foresees representatives of the six unions and of the local authority associations involved.

The aspect that is not quite so straightforward is the role of the Secretary of State. The Government provide 46.4 per cent. of the money, so it is proper for the Secretary of State to have a role and the document provides for discussions about that role. It does not lay down a template; it is only fair that the Secretary of State should discuss his role with the other partners.

The Secretary of State is not the only person responsible for education. He says, rather pompously, "I have a responsibility for education and I must fulfil it." But local education authorities have a responsibility that they also contracted at the ballot box, and teachers have a practical responsibility. Those three parties, along with parents and children, have a responsibility for making education work.

The Bill, and the rejection of the national joint council, will leave everything with the Secretary of State and his appointeees. The Secretary of State cannot say that he is the only person in the country responsible for education. Education is a partnership. Even when the Government force the Bill through and take all the powers, the delivery of education will still have to be a partnership. The best way to make the partnership work and to deliver effective education is to have negotiating machinery that involves all the parties on terms that they accept. The Secretary of State knows that his proposals do not provide for that. If he is a fair man, he will recognise that a national joint council, which is a practical and reasonable suggestion, is an idea that he would be well advised to adopt.

There is no great political principle involved in the establishment of a national joint council. It is not a terrible political trick to sidetrack the Secretary of State or to strip him of his responsibilities and involvement. The right hon. Gentleman must recognise that the local authorities, which provide 54.6 of the cost of teachers' salaries, also have a responsibility and he must join them in a partnership if he is to deliver something effective.

If we were a Standing Committee and had time for representations to be made to the Secretary of State our uncontentious amendments might be accepted. The Secretary of State would lose nothing by accepting the amendment and he would gain credibility and send a message to employers and teachers that they had a role alongside him in negotiations and that that role should be incorporated in negotiating machinery that everybody accepted. If the right hon. Gentleman genuinely wants peace he will seek a partnership and compromise along those lines. If he rejects that, parents and teachers will have to conclude that he does not seriously want peace.

6 am

Mr. Kenneth Baker

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) who moved the amendment, said that these matters relate to the second set of amendments that we debated earlier with regard to ACAS. They cover much the same ground as the first set of amendments on the negotiating position after the Bill is passed. The hon. Gentleman put a strong case for a joint negotiating council. One must query the criteria and conditions for the establishment of such a negotiating council. One must work from a pragmatic base.

In the previous debate on FE, the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) put forward the argument that the Government would go along with a joint negotiating council for FE, but not for teachers. Why not? To find the answer to that question, one has to examine what a joint negotiating council for teachers and FE has resulted in. The record of success of the joint negotiating council, which is broadly what Burnham is, has not—

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

No.

Mr. Baker

I shall pursue my argument in my own way. All hon. Members agree that conditions should be negotiated together with pay. Looking back upon the Bill of 1965, it now seems quite barmy that they were separated. If hon. Members consider what has happened when there has been, in effect, a joint working party over the course of the past year, outside the umbrella of the concordat, they will see what sort of record of success there has been. One cannot say that it has been a successful record. In Coventry, an agreement was initialled by five unions. They were asked to develop it, work it out and work it up. Straight away, I was asked to sign up for it. As the process of working it up and talking together proceeded, the unions started to break away from it. A meeting was called in Nottingham, which then went to London and resulted in the document of 21 November, which four unions signed. Although the hon. Gentleman calls it an agreement, he knows that it is supported by only two unions.

Mr. Radice

Which represented the majority of the teachers.

Mr. Baker

The hon. Gentleman made that point, but in the middle of November, he said, "It is supported by the majority of the unions." In fact, the NUT advertisement that appeared in the press two days ago erroneously referred to it in similar terms. I am sure that the editors got the copy and got it in place before they knew what happened last Friday and Saturday. I do not accuse the publishers of being deliberately misleading. They were overtaken by events. The history of this sorry saga is that one is overtaken by events. Now, two unions remain fully signed up. They are holding ballots. One does not know what the result of those ballots will be. The unions are deeply divided.

This Monday an advertisement appeared in The Guardian. It had been put in by that part of the NUT that is against the NUT's policy. Basically, it is the Inner London Teachers Association, but I think that it has wider support than that. That group is campaigning for a "Vote No" in the NUT ballot.

Mr. Radice

That is democracy.

Mr. Baker

Of course it is. I do not deny that. It shows that the NUT, which has campaigned strongly for this agreement and has probably dominated the discussions leading to it, has a group within it which goes to press to say: If the deal were accepted it would worsen the working conditions of every teacher and cause 1,000s to leave altogether. The group says that the deal involves "illusory gains", "jam tomorrow", "Baker's dozen", and all the rest of it.

Mr. Flannery

I think I told the right hon. Gentleman that I was at the NUT conference. It should be made clear that at that conference the NUT voted on the employers' offer. That had nothing to do with the Government. The Government should not take comfort from what the Secretary of State is saying, because there is not the slightest difference between the two sides in their opposition to the Government. They differ on the employers' offer, but they are totally united in their opposition to the Government.

Mr. Baker

That position has yet to be made clear. We know that the hon. Gentleman is an assiduous supporter of the NUT. At that conference the motion only just squeaked through, with 55 per cent., and a ballot is now being held.

The profession is divided on this matter. Individual unions are divided. If Labour Members say that the joint negotiating council, or joint working party—call it what one will—is what they want, they must be able to show that it works effectively. For the past year, there has been something very close to the joint negotiating council—

Mr. Fisher

Come on.

Mr. Baker

With respect, the machinery has been working closely since 1985 on the basis of the joint negotiating council. It has not led to resolution because not only the unions but the employers are divided. The Labour employers have been fairly united and consistent, led by Councillor Pearman. The alliance expressed misgivings at certain stages, but I think that in the end it voted for the 21 November agreement, so it is party to an agreement that is falling about its ears. The Conservatives walked out, walked back again and then walked out again. The Conservative employers announced that they would not support that agreement.

Mr. Spearing

There may have been difficulties in the past few months. The right hon. Gentleman said that the unions are divided, but we are talking about the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) for a national joint council. Can the right hon. Gentleman say that the professional associations and the employers are on record as being against the proposal that is at the heart of amendment No. 30? The right hon. Gentleman has to prove that they are, not that they are divided about his proposals or the present structure. That is not what the amendment proposes.

Mr. Baker

I was coming to that. Obviously, I shall refer to the words in the so-called agreement of 21 November. It states: The NJC will be composed of representatives of the local education authorities in England and Wales and of the six unions presently represented on the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee. I accept that they want some form of joint negotiating council. Four unions have signed up for it. The 21 November document goes on to say—this is the difficult part for the unions— The parties will seek discussions with the Secretary of State on his role in the new machinery. So far, the unions have not sought to do that. Those that have come to see me have not raised the issue of future negotiation. I dare say that they will. One group is coming to see me on Friday and another next week, and I am sure that the matter will come up. The nub of representation on the joint negotiating council is how it should be determined. There has been a High Court action. Those who defend Burnham, and who would defend this type of operation, would be able to say that it did work in a period when one union ruled the roost. The NUT did rule the roost and thereby imposed a degree of unity on the unions by sheer numbers.

Mr. Flannery

Sheer numbers is democracy.

Mr. Baker

I put it to the hon. Gentleman that all those other unions that felt that they were being dragged along in the negotiating process may not have felt the great advantages of that form of democracy. That is one reason why, during the past 15 or 20 years—the hon. Gentleman wants to call them professional associations and they certainly started as that—the dominance of one union on Burnham exacerbated the intense union rivalries which have embittered the entire teaching profession, to the extent that a great membership battle is going on. The unions jealously guard their numbers and watch carefully whether the membership of the AMMA or the NAS/UWT is increasing, or the membership of the NUT is decreasing. The reduction in NUT membership reduced its representation on the Burnham committees. Therefore, the way in which it would be represented on a joint negotiating council is an important matter that is left rather vague.

Paragraph 7.4 deals with the role of the Secretary of State. Again, that is vaguely expressed. There is a recognition that the Secretary of State should have a role. Should there be weighted voting, as in Burnham, or should he have an explicit veto, as there was with the concordat? Of course, the concordat was torn up.

There are substantial practical problems that have not been resolved—

Mr. Radice

The Secretary of State is saying that the difficulties in the teaching profession and in education are so immense that what might be a solution anywhere else—presumably he would support that solution—just will not work. The Secretary of State said that he was responsible for education. That is the great message. Of course, he is. What is he doing to ensure that those problems are overcome? He cannot pretend that taking all the powers to himself will produce a more united teaching profession—

Mr. Fisher

United against him.

Mr. Radice

—except against him, and a more united local authority grouping. Or does he suggest that this interim solution will be in place for ever?

Mr. Baker

In answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about what I am doing, may I say that the first thing I am doing is introducing the Bill in an attempt to resolve a difficult problem. It is recognised as a difficult problem, with no easy answer. Had there been a easy answer, it would have been resolved much earlier; not in the past two or three years, but some time in the 1970s.

We had a statutory Burnham negotiating committee with the concordat. That gave the Government control over the total cost of pay settlements and a strong influence over the pay structure—not a determinant, but a strong influence. The committee dealt with pay alone, and it was not a successful arrangement. More recently, we have had the Burnham committee without the concordat, as a result of the unilateral decision by the local authority associations. The Government were patient and waited to see how that might work. My predecessor was patient—

Mr. Radice

Answer the question.

Mr. Baker

I am just coming to the answer. My predecessor was patient, and that was unsuccessful. A joint working party, was set up by the unions and the associations represented on Burnham to consider both pay and conditions of service. The Government were present, but with limited voting power. The working party was not successful.

Then we had the reference to ACAS earlier this year, and negotiations were carried out with its help and guidance. There has been some useful progress, but we still do not have sufficient agreement of total cost, including pay structure, teachers' duties and conditions of service.

Mr. Radice

When will the Minister answer the question?

Mr. Baker

I am about to turn over a page. When I reach the next page, the hon. Gentleman will hear all the answers there. Nor do we yet have the proposals for future negotiating arrangements. That is the background against which the Bill has been prepared. It provides for the establishment of an interim advisory committee. I emphasise that it is interim.

All the interests concerned will be able to offer that committee views—the unions, the local authority employers and other interested bodies. The Secretary of State will be required to consult the local authorities and the teachers' unions before giving effect to recommendations from the committee, whether or not he judges it necessary to give effect to the recommendations in modified form. That is clause 3(1), to which we shall come later.

6.15 am

In all this there is nothing to prevent the unions and the local authorities working together and offering agreed evidence to the advisory committee or to the Secretary of State. If they wish, they can do that. They can negotiate together and present a united front.

Finally, the Secretary of State will have to submit his conclusions to Parliament before giving effect to them. Nothing could be more democratic than that.

Mr. Radice

The Secretary of State has cleverly ducked my question, as he pretty well does all the time. How does he think that that will bring the union side together with the employers side, except, perhaps, in hostility to himself? What does he think will happen then? If it is an interim arrangement, he is obliged to tell us what will happen after 1990.

Mr. Baker

I have been asked by the hon. Gentleman several times now whether I agree with collective bargaining. If collective bargaining is effective and all the parties are involved, one should obviously try to find a way to achieve that.

Mr. Fisher

What is meant by "effective"?

Mr. Baker

For management to resolve a dispute in less than five years would be effective.

The review of the structure of the salary and profession started in 1981 and it went on until 1984–85.

Mr. Fisher

rose—

Mr. Baker

I am still trying to reply to the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice), but I shall do the hon. Gentleman first.

Mr. Fisher

I shall be most grateful if the Secretary of State will do me first. Perhaps he will answer my question, which he has not yet heard, first. He said that there was nothing to prevent the unions and teachers negotiating together and then presenting joint evidence to the advisory committee, but he has just told the Committee how extremely difficult it has been for them to negotiate with formal machinery. How does he expect them to negotiate satisfactorily in order to form joint evidence with no machinery whatever?

Mr. Baker

They can do that themselves. After all, that is what we have just approved for further education. If they want to discuss together, they can, and not only regarding the presentation of evidence, but in the subsequent phase where I have to consult both the unions and the local education authorities. One knows perfectly well that that will be a form of intense discussion and consultation, because there will be proposals from the interim advisory committee and there will no doubt also be proposals from the unions and possibly from local authority employers. The resolution of that will have to be determined by the House. How much more democratic can we get? Hon. Members cannot dismiss the House of Commons and say that the present procedure, as Labour Members well know, involves no parliamentary process for the implementation of the findings of the Burnham committee. I issue orders and that is that. We are providing for a parliamentary process similar to that.

The hon. Member for Durham, North asked about the interim position. It may well be that one will be able to move towards a form of joint negotiations after a period of an interim committee, but that will have to await the outturn of events. The other view, as some people have already advocated to me, is that there should be a fully fledged and independent review body. That view has been put to me by some members of the profession.

It is sensible for the Government to proceed with the measure and to establish the interim advisory committee as a means of trying to resolve what has been an exceptionally difficult process of negotiating a settlement between six unions which have different views and profoundly different interests. Successive Governments, Labour as well as Conservative, have never seen fit, or have never been able, to relax their control over the cost of the overall settlement. That is quite understandable. It is not just a question of the 46.4 per cent. There is also a commitment of resources through public expenditure allocations to the local authorities. I do not believe that a joint council would work at this stage. That is why we have suggested an interim advisory committee, and I commend it to the Committee.

Mr. Spearing

The Committee's deliberations have reached a very interesting stage. One of the advantages of our parliamentary procedure is that the strength of Parliament can be displayed, even though it is 6.20 am. I appreciated the Secretary of State's apparently reasonable and philosophical tone. Gone are the great polemics of substitute Second Reading speeches in the glare of "Today in Parliament." We are now much closer to reality. For the first time in months I have a twinge of sympathy for the Secretary of State—

Dr. Godman

No, do not have any sympathy for him.

Mr. Spearing

I am dissuaded by my hon. Friend. However, the Secretary of State was pitched into this position and found himself floundering among the extraordinary machinery that he has inherited. Therefore, he decided to bring down his sword of Damocles by introducing this Bill.

We have just had a fairly wide-ranging review of how to find a way out of this mess. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) suggested a joint council. He has skilfully inserted into a not very good Bill the means of converting the present machinery into something that is entirely new that does not require the Secretary of State to decide and then to obtain parliamentary approval.

I draw the attention of the Secretary of State and the Committee to the fact that this problem is not new. Far from there being fundamentally new problems, the old ones are still with us. However, instead of dealing with them constructively, as the amendment does, the Secretary of State has skilfully exacerbated the difficulties and let the milk boil over before deciding to turn off the gas.

I should like the Secretary of State to answer the charge of the Association of County Councils. I do not think that the Government believe that the Association of County Councils is irresponsible. The Government may hold certain views about some teachers' associations and some local authorities. We do not share the Government's views, but their attitude has been made plain. However, I should not have thought that it extended to the Association of County Councils.

In its communication the Association of County Councils says that it has argued for many years for the repeal of the 1965 Act which it believes has inhibited proper negotiations of teachers' salaries". The Secretary of State has opposed changes that would have allowed effective negotiations to take place.

What is the Secretary of State's answer to the very serious charges that have been made by an important employers' association? Apart from the different employees' associations that came into existence for understandable, functional and historic reasons, as I showed in my contribution of about 12 hours ago, there are different associations of employers, each of which has its own particular and rightful place in the machinery.

The ACC goes on to say: The Government has hitherto consistently refused to agree to the employers' request for legislation to improve the negotiating arrangements. The employers know a little more about education than the Secretary of State and the inhabitants of Elizabeth house. I do not blame them for that; it is in the nature of the national education machine. Here employers are using their proper role and responsibly saying that the Government have refused to agree to improvements in the legislative machinery. The Government have a responsibility to tell us—I do not think they have told us—why they have not responded at least to the employers' request in the past few months and years. There is an answer to that question, which I shall not pursue now. It does not show the Government in a good light. Perhaps it will be more appropriate to pursue it later.

I refer to the efficacy of the joint council that we are now discussing. The real parameters of the problem have not been changed. The forces in the education world that are moving in that area have not changed over the years. They have been present in some form since 1944, and were certainly present in 1965 when the present legislation was introduced. It is to the 1965 Act that I want to turn the attention of the Government. I ask for their reply to the points that I shall make.

It was on 20 November 1964 that Mr. Michael Stewart introduced the present legislation, which the Secretary of State has claimed is outdated and will not work. It was introduced on a Friday. The debate started at about 11 am and finished at 3.15 pm. There was no vote. The 1965 legislation was agreed because, as was amply demonstrated during debate, the Bill was drafted by the then Conservative Government and Sir Edward Boyle, and introduced by Michael Stewart. The elements that are now facing us faced them. For the first time, the Minister introduced his own representatives en masse into the Burnham committee. He said, "I shall have 15 of the 26 representatives of the employers on the employers' panel." That was a big change, but it was reckoned to be fair by everybody concerned because, as we have heard today, the Minister, as an employer, claims rights of representation on the employers' panel. But the conditions of their presence and what they were there for were carefully laid down.

I should like to quote in full something that Mr. Michael Stewart said on that occasion because I believe that the Secretary of State—I am glad that he is still with us—has misused what Mr. Stewart was saying at that time. It relates to the importance and presence of the Secretary of State's representatives on that panel. Mr. Stewart said: The Bill provides for the contingency that exceptional circumstances might justify the rejection of the arbitrators' recommendation. But to limit the use of this power and to safeguard against its abuse the Bill provides two separate safeguards. First, the decision to use it is vested not in the Secretary of State, but in Parliament"— the Secretary of State referred to that— and it requires the affirmative action and not merely the acquiescence of each House separately. Secondly, the criterion by which Parliament must judge a proposal to reject the arbitrators' recommendations is whether national economic circumstances require it. The effect of that is that the circumstances must be economic. They must not be purely educational in character.

6.30 am

In other words, when the present machinery was installed, both sides of the House said, "Parliament must have the last say. The Secretary of State can reject a long series of negotiations and arbitrators' proposals but, if he does, the last ditch refusal must be based not in educational matters, arguments about distribution in particular, but related to national economic circumstances." We now understand that the rejection, not of the arbitration result but the so-called ACAS agreement, is not connected with national economic circumstances. The Secretary of State has not claimed that. He has claimed that it is to do with his view of the needs of education at the time. He may feel justified in doing that. He has pressed it very hard.

Mr. Kenneth Baker

indicated assent.

Mr. Spearing

I am glad to have the Secretary of State's confirmation. In doing that, he breaks with the accord of 1965, which said that the long-stop device should be related only to national economic matters.

It was not only Mr. Stewart who said that. A leading member of the Government at that time was Mr. Christopher Chataway. Mr. Chataway, alas no longer with us, had long experience in education as a member and leader of the Inner London education authority.

During the course of the debate, Mr. Chataway said: On the question of the overall total cost, the ultimate say rests with the Secretary of State. I was glad that he made the point today that there would not be any question of the Secretary of State's representatives coming along and issuing an ultimatum at the start of the talks. Clearly, that would be wrong. It would not be acceptable if the Secretary of State's representatives were to come to the Committee and say, 'it is to be £50 million. We have decided on the figure, and now what we are going to negotiate about is the way in which it is going to be distributed.' When my right hon. and learned Friend met the teachers' associations and the local authorities in September he made it clear that he, too, was not suggesting any such system."—[Official Report, 20 November 1964; Vol. 702, c. 794–803.] When he referred to his right hon. and learned Friend, he was, of course, talking about Mr. Quintin Hogg.

In 1964 when the Bill, which was to become the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965, began its passage, neither side of the House saw the power that the Secretary of State is now, in effect, using as one that related to negotiation and internal distribution.

When I say that we are still on the same psychological parameters today as then, the Secretary of State will now know what I mean. He will say that conditions have changed, that things have been fouled up and that the associations, as I prefer to call them, have fallen out among themselves, and so on. I have to remind him that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, because in 1964 the representation of the Secretary of State on Burnham was justified morally and in common sense by the fact that it was claimed, without any dispute, that 60 per cent. of the salary was paid by the Exchequer.

What has happened since then? Because of the change in the rate support grant arrangements and the attitude of the Government to local government as a whole, that 60 per cent. has been much reduced. A figure of about 44 per cent. or, at most, 50 per cent., no doubt varying from county to county and LEA to LEA, comes to mind. Certainly conditions have changed but the arithmetic about the representation on Burnham has not. I wonder whether there would have been a difference under Burnham if the 15 representatives had been reduced pro rata with the input from central Government. That might be an argument, but I am not making it. I am saying that the real psychological parameters in the whole bag of tricks are much as they were in 1965 and that the structure then created would have worked if those involved had wished it to do so.

That brings me back to the fundamental point that education in national negotiations, like education in the classroom, depends upon the will of those in the ring to reach an agreement. Any one of the three elements can at any time play a mischievous part and prevent such agreement from being reached. As my earlier quotation showed, even the Association of County Councils believes that the Secretary of State has played a part in preventing agreement. At any rate, the association wants a change in the machinery and we have yet to hear why that has not been accepted.

I shall prove my point by a quotation from Mr. Quintin Hogg when he was Minister of State. He is now Lord Chancellor, and thus a member of the Cabinet which no doubt approved this Bill, reluctantly or otherwise, with or without discussion. I can certainly imagine some of the dramatis personae in that argument. We do not even know which side the Secretary of State was on. I wonder what the Lord Chancellor said in Cabinet on this occasion. In November 1964, he said: The first point that I would seek to make is that this debate illustrates something which I have said on many occasions, and that is both the folly and, in the end, the corrupting nature of any attempt to bring the education service too strongly in the path of politics. I have always tried to pursue, in relation to education, as detached a view as I could and I think that this is a proper approach to the matter."—[Official Report, 20 November 1964; Vol. 702, c. 833.] So say many of us here.

It is the path of politcs, to quote a useful phrase which may even come to the aid of the Secretary of State when he is protecting education, which has brought us to this sorry state. If the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), had not pressed what we saw as the path of politics far too strongly in negotiations in the past few years, the existing machinery could and would have worked. Pressing the path of politics too strongly has caused the present foul-up. All would have been well had not the path of politcs intruded into machinery that was never intended to cope with it. We have Lord Hailsham's authority for that.

Amendment No. 30, so ably proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central. (Mr. Fisher), offers the Secretary of State another path. The Bill, curiously enough, follows much the same structure as its two predecessors. Its centrepiece is Parliament's final approval, by order, as it has been since 1963, but the content of the order should result from the national joint council and not the old style Burnham committee. There is a very big difference. The Secretary of State did less than justice to the proposal when he referred to the joint council being composed in a rather vague way. I made a dissenting noise at that point because he was not giving sufficient weight to the proposals in amendment 49, which is also in this group.

Amendment No. 49 says: The National Joint Council will be composed of representatives of the local education authorities in England and Wales and of the six unions presently represented on the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee. The balance of representatives on each side will be determined with the assistance of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. The Bill proposes no automatic arithmetical proportionate membership such as we have now. Whether that is right or wrong is another matter. The amendment proposes that the balance of representatives on the national joint council should be established by some form of mutual conciliation. It is up to the Secretary of State to table further amendments if he wants to decide how the balance will be struck, but with the help of ACAS. What I imagine will be a relatively small body should reflect a balance of interests, including the panel of employers' representatives.

Mr. Kenneth Baker

The hon. Gentleman is highlighting the difficulty of the problem. He speaks of the assistance of ACAS, but suppose the unions do not agree with its advice and there is no agreement about how many representatives there should be of each union. ACAS has tried to find an agreement since the beginning of the year, but there has been none among the unions. What leads the hon. Gentleman to suppose that, when trying to establish the balance of power—a critical issue—the unions are likely to agree with what ACAS recommends? The same is true for the employers. The hon. Gentleman's optimism is overcoming experience.

Mr. Spearing

I suggest that it is the Secretary of State's pessimism—and especially that of his predecessor—which prevented the existing machinery from working. I do not pretend that the answer is easy. That is why I welcome the philosophical and thorough approach of the amendments. Perhaps both sides are a little closer on an analysis of the problem, although they have not reached accord on the optimum solution.

Dr. Godman

I readily accept that there have been formidable problems with the Burnham committee. The problem of the balance of power has been experienced by many national joint industrial councils and in many cases it has been resolved to the qualified satisfaction of those involved.

Mr. Spearing

That is a helpful intervention. We have here a problem which often arises in the House. It is the least worst solution. People often complain about our procedures and say that they are arcane, difficult and illogical, and ask why we go through the night debating a vital matter. We all know that we often come up with the least worst solution.

The Secretary of State has fairly and rightly drawn attention to some of the difficulties. He may be right, but if his chosen path is not right, we should stick with the machinery that we have got and not act like the sorcerer's apprentice.

The existing machinery is by no means perfect, and most hon. Members want to change it. It may be that there is only one alternative to the draconian power that the Secretary of State is trying to take or the pro rata of Burnham. The proposal of the joint council might work better than the present machinery.

6.45 am

In two years' time, the Secretary of State will have to produce another Bill. I suspect that many of his hon. Friends support him because they can say that while the Bill is outrageous in what it proposes, it cuts the Gordian knot and gets the schools back to work and gives them time to think up some better form. Perhaps there is not one. Perhaps the best way to go about it is along lines similar to those laid down in the 1965 Act, perhaps amended slightly, but with an understanding from each of the three partners inside their own groupings, which means inside the Cabinet and inside the Government, that they do not mess up and go down the path of politics referred to by the Lord Chancellor. That would be self-restraint from the Government, as there would have to be from the employees, that they would not play too much among themselves. There may be a feeling of constraint among the employers, the county councils and other authorities that they must not play too great a part in this difficult tripod of our education structure. In the end, that may be the only way in which it can be done. If that is shown to be true, it will prove that in this sector one cannot use the usual rules of industrial arbitration, or the usual rules of statute.

Everything starts on atmosphere. Everything begins and ends on the invisible threads of personal relationships, which occur inside a classroom, a school, the local education authority, the Cabinet and the minds and hearts of those involved in education. The Secretary of State should consider this proposal and say why it cannot work. Instead of looking at alternatives to the present structure, he has chosen the sword. In the end, the sword will not flourish and cannot succeed in this educational quagmire.

Dr. Godman

I speak in support of amendment Nos. 30 and 49. My support for the amendments stems from my belief that it is almost always the case that employers possess much more power than employee associations, or trade unions. That holds true as much for those employed in the education system as for those in manufacturing industry. I also believe that a formal structure of collective bargaining is an essential element in the development of good industrial relations. I would have thought that all of us here are concerned with the development of good, co-operative relations between employers and trade unionists.

By power, I mean where an individual or group has the ability or means to coerce others into complying with instructions, even though such compliance may conflict with the interest of those in the subordinate position in the relationship. One has to acknowledge that within the teaching unions as with others, there is a distribution of power among those trade unionists. A national joint industrial council can play a powerful role in the establishment and maintenance of good industrial relations, and there is a great deal of evidence from other industries to support this assertion. One thinks of the work carried out for many years by the national joint industrial council for the fishing industry. There are national councils responsible for collective bargaining about terms and conditions of employment in a range of industries extending from defence to private industries such as shipbuilding and engineering. I have mentioned the council that existed for a time for the fishing industry and one thinks also of the council for those employed in the maritime auxiliary services.

Many personnel managers and senior managers involved in collective bargaining prefer to deal with organised labour within a framework of national joint industrial councils. I think that the Donovan committee in its report published, if I remember rightly, in 1968 pointed to the formal and informal systems of collective bargaining.

Mr. Fatchett

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Dr. Godman

I shall in a moment. In cases where there is a clash between the formal and informal systems, one often sees a worsening of industrial relations. For example, if the informal system predominates, it is almost inevitable that industrial relations will be much less co-operative and much more unprincipled.

Mr. Fatchett

My hon. Friend says personnel managers have a current preference for the bargaining structure about which he speaks. He will note, if he adds a historical perspective to his analysis of the development of collective bargaining, that it was Government through the initial Whitley reports who advocated structures such as the national joint councils. It was the espousal by private industry of the Whitley report that led to the creation of NJICs in many industries. Therefore, there is a long history of public policy advocating the sort of machinery spelt out in this set of amendments.

Dr. Godman

I am conscious of the history of national joint industrial councils, but I had better not go down that road. The national joint industrial council for the fishing industry was introduced to an industry characterised by casual employment and with the worst group of employers in the history of modern British industrial relations. Nevertheless, that council imposed a system of order on the fragmented processes of collective bargaining in the deep-sea fishing industry. In talking about teachers and their employers we are talking about an entirely different system of collective bargaining. Nevertheless, the principle is the same.

Mr. Spearing

Mr. Whitley was the Speaker of the House of Commons and the analogy that I attempted to draw between atmosphere, decision, and the procedures in the House of Commons and the self-disciplines of national joint bargaining are not coincidental: they are fundamental. I think that my hon. Friend has helped the Committee a great deal in suggesting that the stage at which teachers' bargaining has arrived may be, paradoxically, at an earlier stage in the cycle of evolution of national joint bargaining than that which has been reached in some other industries. It may be also that the Secretary of State should learn from that.

Dr. Godman

It seems that teachers—

Mr. Fatchett

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Dr. Godman

I ask my hon. Friend to let me get into my stride first.

It seems that teachers and their representatives have to make difficult choices and will have to accept that, but that is the essence of collective bargaining. Both sides must accept that which they would rather dismiss. The hawkish lot on the Government Benches seem to think that a national joint council would go beyond democratic compromise, but it is in the nature of national joint councils that agreements are hammered out. It is my experience that by and large they are honoured.

Mr. Fatchett

I realise that my hon. Friend has moved on in the development of his argument. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) has said that a Mr. Whitley was Speaker of the House of Commons, it may be useful, as a Yorkshireman, to remind my hon. Friend that Mr. Whitley was a Yorkshireman and represented a Yorkshire constituency. The links with the argument that he is advancing are traditional and personal.

Dr. Godman

I think that the links may be somewhat tenuous. I am a Yorkshireman who for a long time has been domiciled in Scotland with, happily again, a Scottish wife and family.

I would wish to leave Mr. Speaker Whitley behind, though he has an honourable place in history. I believe that it is essential to have a structure for collective bargaining in education, and that with a formal structure it is possible to encourage some local autonomy. A national joint council composed of employers' representatives and teachers, representatives as outlined in amendment No. 49 is the way ahead if our objective is good industrial relations.

The Secretary of State observed in an intervention that some teachers' unions are unwilling to accept what he might call the democratic share of the representation on such a council. It seems that this is an area where ACAS has an important role to play. I spoke about ACAS earlier, and I believe that it could resolve, for example, initial conflicts of view and objectives at once. I believe genuinely that such conflicts would be resolved with the assistance of industrial relations specialists.

These are useful amendments on the composition of a national joint council. It could be that for one or two years the chairman of the NJC, as envisaged in the amendments, would be a local authority councillor, with a teacher, or teacher's representative, taking on the role of deputy chairman. Once their periods of office expired, these roles would be reversed so that for one or two years the teacher would become the chairman. That is an established practice with many national joint industrial councils, and I can think of no reason why the procedure of alternating chairmen should not be established for a national council dealing with teachers.

7 am

As with other national joint industrial councils, tough negotiations would be conducted by both sides at the monthly or quarterly meetings of the council, but agreements would have to be reached and, as elsewhere, both sides would have to make concessions. That is at the heart of industrial relations, and that is what we mean by collective bargaining—that, as is customary in collective bargaining elsewhere, concessions are made to achieve agreements that are binding on both sides.

It would be possible to arrive at a sensible composition of teacher and employer representatives on such a council. I support the amendments because of the need for a formal collective bargaining structure, such as that determined to a large extent by such a council. The Secretary of State will reject them, but national joint councils have an important part to play in many of our industries, and such a council could play a valuable role in collective bargaining between teachers and their employers.

Mr. Flannery

In his reply to the amendments, which I support, the Minister lingered lovingly over splits among the teachers. Of course there are splits. No one is more aware of that than we are. There have always been splits, although these have recently been accentuated simply because they always occur in struggles.

Unlike the Minister, we do not rejoice about this, because it creates terrible problems. It was significant that in an intervention in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) the Minister again entered that arena. He just cannot stay clear of it. There is something about this subject that gives the Minister pleasure, and he cannot help exulting about it. It is all grist to his mill of anti-democracy.

When the Minister talked about the difference in the composition of the JNC, he laboured mightily to try to prove that it was not possible for the local education authorities and the six unions, under guidance from ACAS, to arrive at a reasonably acceptable democratic conclusion. There is always difficulty with such matters, but the Minister is determined to highlight the difficulties in order to justify the destruction of any democratic negotiation.

Local education authorities are elected bodies which have had a long struggle to achieve democracy. They are the best that we can manage. All hon. Members know about the long struggle to establish trade unions. The Combination Acts stopped the trade unions in the early years. We still rejoice in the Tolpuddle martyrs and celebrate them every year. Democracy is a long and continuing process.

On Monday I mentioned Winston Churchill, who said words to the effect that democracy is awkward and unwieldy but the best thing we have. Indeed it is. Anything that violates democracy will ultimately be found out. There is no doubt about that. In the long term the antidemocratic people will be defeated. In the meantime they will cause misery, and unnecessary problems will be heaped upon us. They will cause trouble for the Minister, for us, the children and for everyone concerned.

I am sure that all hon. Members have a copy of the ILEA brief, section 3 of which states: The Bill replaces, therefore, the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee set up by the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965. Although the Bill does not explicitly remove the rights of collective bargaining … there will, for practical purposes, be no forum for this to occur. Any agreement could be overridden by the Secretary of State. It is quite clear that he will immediately use the powers in the Bill to impose a settlement to the current dispute without reference to the Advisory Committee and rely on the Advisory Committee operating under directions issued by him in future years. That is the nub and essence of the Bill.

Mr. Corbyn

The Minister seems to be lacking faith in his own judgment, because although he has not yet appointed the advisory committee he has already ridden over a decision which it might have had the opportunity to take. Is that not an unpalatable prospect for anyone looking for a job on his advisory committee?

Mr. Flannery

I agree, but even deeper than that is that, after long struggles, we now live in a democracy. Dictatorship comes about because the old rulers can no longer rule in the old way and because the people are no longer willing to be ruled in the old way. Leaders take over and dictatorship is established.

We live in a democracy. For a Minister or Government to take short cuts with democracy, in a democracy, after a long struggle is disgraceful. That is being done to save what amounts to petty cash. In this case we are talking about saving £80 million. That is even more serious when there is no obvious regret by those who are engaging in anti-democratic methods. Instead, for some curious reason, the Minister seems to take joy in what he is doing.

Our task is to foil the Secretary of State in every possible way. We could give hostages to fortune because if the right hon. Gentleman treats these amendments with the contempt with which he has treated everything else, he will be conniving in allowing an area of democracy to slide away. That would strengthen the hand of those who would take further short cuts and go on to invade other areas. It would become a wide-ranging attack on the unions and democracy in education.

The Secretary of State was asked earlier what the advisory committee will do when he has used the elected dictatorship which conciously violates democracy. Even though there is a counting of heads. The right hon. Gentleman said that it would be difficult to get a range of democratic bodies to agree on setting up a democratic committee to continue democracy and negotiation. We all know that there would be difficulties, but we should try to overcome them.

When the Secretary of State hand-picks a group of people, including the chairman and deputy chairman of the advisory committee, that might be easy, but they will merely carry out his orders. The most that they can do is to reflect some ideas that they might glean from talking to elected groups. That will have little or no impact on getting the money that is necessary to educate our children, or in securing peace in our schools and all the things that Labour Members want, but which Tory Members, most of whom went to public school and do not understand the state education system, only say that they want. In fact, they want peace through a dictatorial attack on the education system and a deprivation of money.

The attitude of the Minister, as he lies there with his sleeping pack behind him, is one of utter contempt. The right hon. Gentleman is not sleeping. He is showing us that he is not even interested in what we are saying. Although we shall not win the vote, we shall win the argument and our case will become reality, because the difficulties will be so tremendous that something will happen and make what happened to Chirac look like a tea party. [Interruption.] I must object to the interruptions of hon. Members beyond the Bar. They are not officially in the Chamber and if they want to come in they should do so.

Mr. Allen McKay

I am pleased that we have woken up some Conservative Members. It is nice to know that we are speaking to people who are listening—even though only three Conservative Members are left after our long and laborious night.

Mr. Fatchett

It has been extremely enjoyable.

Mr. McKay

And informative, too. We have reached the nitty gritty of our amendments, and the Secretary of State's attitude reminds me of something that happened when I went on a parliamentary visit to the United States to study democracy in local government. We visited one place where we saw a cross between a quiz and a galactic war. It was in Dallas. Only Texans would build things like that, anyway. The people in the auditorium could have five minutes to speak on the subject under discussion. The chairman said to me, "This is democracy at work. All the people here can have a say. They will please themselves what they do." That is what the Secretary of State will do. He will become judge and jury. He will pay them and guide them.

7.15 am

Subsection (2) states: The Secretary of State shall appoint an Advisory Committee on School Teachers' Pay and Conditions to examine and report to him on such matters relating to the remuneration and other conditions of employment of school teachers in England and Wales … The Secretary of State may give directions to the Committee with respect to matters referred to them". Following a direction from the person who set it up, the committee will consider wages and conditions of service and financial or other constraints to which their recommendations are subject". The Secretary of State will not only set up the committee and give it directions, but will tell it how much it can spend. He will take away any semblance of free collective bargaining, of which the Government are supposed to be the champions.

I am bothered about the education of children. That is what the argument is about. My constituents are fed up to their teeth with children constantly being sent home from school when their parents are at work. More serious is the interruption to children's education. The Secretary of State's proposals will worsen the position. I hope that I will be proved wrong and the Secretary of State will be proved right. However, in correcting the problem, he will also create another wrong.

In the years that I worked as an industrial relations officer, I found that if impositions do work, they worked for only a short time. The problem was caused by the Government, who have cut local government and education finances. The Secretary of State knows that had extra money been provided when he became Secretary of State we would not be debating this matter until this hour, because there would have been no problem. The denial of the money caused the problem in the first place. By using his powers, the Secretary of State will cause problems for many years to come. With the return of a Labour Government, we shall get rid of them anyway. If the Prime Minister is right about the timing of the election, we shall debate this matter again and again.

If the Secretary of State is heavy handed and acts in a dictatorial manner, he will destroy an element of democracy which we cannot afford to destroy. He will destroy democracy at the gress roots of the education system. His proposals will not get the best out of teachers. He proposes to pay them according to their expertise and ability. I do not know how he will find that expertise and ability. It smacks of looking for blue-eyed boys and favourites. That will lower teachers' morale even more.

We want the Secretary of State to consider our suggestions seriously. We are not saying that the present system is right and should not be altered, but the right hon. Gentleman's proposals will make it even worse. We are trying to put in his mind ideas from which he could build a more regulated system. Our proposals will satisfy the teachers and the trade unions, because they have already had a hand in them, and they should satisfy the Government because they will be part of that new system. There is no reason why our proposals should not work.

The Secretary of State said that he was in an impossible position and had to do something about it. He put across that idea very well. The problem with industrial relations is that one is always in an impossible position. The art of getting out of it is to do one's best and not to take the easiest and cheapest means. Indeed, sometimes one has to buy one's way out of it. It is ironic that we have a Government who created the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. They are going against their convictions in opposing the national joint council. I ask the Secretary of State to look seriously and favourably on our amendments and to give credence to the idea that they are better than his proposals and will work better than his will. He should therefore accept our amendments.

Mr. Corbyn

A great deal has been said on this subject, and I do not want to detain the Committee too long. The Secretary of State believes that he can somehow resolve a long-running and fundamental dispute simply by rejecting our proposal to establish a national joint council that could determine wages and conditions through a spirit of collective bargaining. He favours a body appointed by him, comprising his favourities who will do what he wants when he wants. How does that solve the problem? There will be no one with any respect for that body because people will know that, in reality, it is the Secretary of State. What will be its decisions? Will anyone agree with them? When the right hon. Gentleman's bidding has not been successful, what will happen? We shall go straight back to where we have been for the past year—into another teachers' dispute and another problem in the schools—because the right hon. Gentleman will not face up to the fact that the reasons for the dispute are that teachers have been consistently underpaid and that the Government have cut education spending.

Anyone who looks at the history of industrial relations will realise that there has been a constant struggle for the right of trade unions to undertake proper collective bargaining in a free spirit. The Government are keen on free collective bargaining for trade union rights, provided that it is in Poland. They are not awfully keen on the same for this country. In the past seven years, they have systematically attacked the rights of trade unions to organise and have systematically destroyed whatever national minimum standards applied through the wages council system. In this legislation, the Government are trying to set up something that is much worse than the rather inadequate bodies about which many of us have complained.

The body will be created from the Secretary of State's prejudices, and one dreads to think of the sort of people who will serve on it. Where will they come from? Will they be aspiring Tory Members of Parliament or former Tory Members of Parliament? Will they be people from the public schools, who will try to worsen the conditions of the maintained sector? Where will these creeps come from? Are there enough creeps in the country to fill the Secretary of State's advisory committee? Or will it be the ultimate trip-up by the Secretary of State, who is noted for his smooth appearance and approach? Will he finally trip over his own Brylcreem? I believe that he will be in a real mess over this.

The Secretary of State knows perfectly well that it cannot work. He knows perfectly well that he cannot solve the teachers' dispute other than by starving them to end the dispute or by ordering them back to work. This is a very dangerous step, because he is setting up an advisory body, which is dictated to by the Minister, and which comes to the decisions that the Minister wants. Will he then seek legal backing to impose its decisions on disputes? The advisory body will be no more independent than was the Spanish parliament under General Franco, or any other dictator around the world. That is the way we are moving in clause 1 of this nasty Bill.

If the Secretary of State bothered to talk to teachers and parents, he would discover that, although many parents are angry at the number of times their children have been sent home and very angry about the loss of education for their children, and there is a great deal of chaos in the schools, the parents are not queueing up to attack the teachers. He will discover that some teachers, parents and children are getting together to attack him, because they know that the root cause of the problem is him and his Government, not the teachers. If he was a teacher, he would either have left the profession a long time ago and sought more lucrative employment, such as being a Tory Member of Parliament—

Mr. Kenneth Baker

Lucrative?

Mr. Corbyn

It is extremely lucrative when one has several jobs. But what can the people who love teaching and who want good education and standards do? Are they supposed to continue existing on starvation wages, or will they leave the profession? Those who wish to continue have stayed, suffered and fought for education and for the campaigns mounted by their unions.

At the end of this debate, the Secretary of State will be very tired. He will probably be extremely bored, listening to Labour Members saying almost the same things to him, but it will not solve any problem. By Monday or Tuesday, or January or February, or whenever he succeeds in forcing through this nasty Bill, the same problem will land straight back on his doorstep and he will have to do something about it. He has solved nothing tonight and he will solve nothing tomorrow unless he faces the real issue, which is the conditions under which teachers operate, rather than attacking them for attempting to organise and obtain proper free collective bargaining.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

To conclude the debate, I ask the Secretary of State especially whether he has given any attention to amendment No. 119. That deals with a problem in his new procedure which he may have overlooked. Under the existing Burnham arrangements, if there is a local dispute about the interpretation of the agreement, the matter could be referred to the joint secretaries for interpretation. I gather that, at present, there is a dispute about people who have obtained degrees in the United States. Until 1982, anyone who had a good degree from the United States received the extra payments on the scale rates. In 1983, the Government decided that they would no longer automatically recognise for good scale rates degrees from the United States. Some believed that the intention was that individual degrees from the United States would be considered; others thought that no degrees from the United States should qualify for extra payments. As I understand it, the Burnham committee is at the moment being asked to interpret that particular problem. I can give many more examples.

Who will now be responsible for interpreting either the Burnham proposals which are carried forward by the legislation or the proposals which would come from an advisory committee?

Mr. Kenneth Baker

The hon. Gentleman mentioned amendment No. 119. That should not be necessary. An order placed before the House under clause 3 can cover both remuneration and conditions of employment. Once the order has been approved by both Houses of Parliament it will carry the force of law. It will then be for local authorities to implement the provisions in the order. It will be a matter for each local education authority to decide what local consultative arrangement it has for the implementation of the contents of the order.

7.30 am

Mr. Bennett

I hope that the Minister will give more thought to that. I, for my sins, sometimes have to sit on the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments which looks at the orders which come up. They are extremely complex and sometimes one considers that a particular clause had to be written in, and sometimes several clauses, for that one example which may come up perhaps once every five years. There is danger about that approach of having to write everything into regulation in case one example arises. The attraction of the Burnham system, as I understand it, is that although it has laid down pretty detailed guidelines the exceptional cases can be referred to a body for interpretation. That has some attractions.

No doubt we can return to that matter later. However, I suggest to the Minister that he may be encumbering himself and the local authorities with some exceptionally detailed regulations. There is some evidence, particularly in areas such as social security, where amending regulations have to come out extremely rapidly. I suggest that the Minister gives the matter a little more thought.

If the Minister's objection on the general question of national joint councils is that one which is not really a national joint council has been acting like one, the present complicated procedure and the ACAS discussions do not augur well for one in education.

However, I suggest that the main problem in education is that at ground level the Secretary of State has used his influence to try to set one teacher union against another. It has been particularly noticeable that since the discussions arrived at at Coventry are not included, he seems to have put all those efforts into trying to set one union off against another. I suggest that instead of doing that he would be better occupied trying to demonstrate that a national joint council could work.

If the hon. Gentleman were to look at the possibilities of voting procedures within a national joint council, not just a simple majority but perhaps a two-thirds majority to obtain agreement, I am sure that he could design a procedure that would encourage the teaching unions to work together, along with the local authorities, recognising the legitimate special interests that some of the union groups represent.

The more that the Secretary of State encourages divisions in negotiations the more he encourages divisions and bitterness in the schools. If we want to allow our schools to return to giving a first-class service to our children, we want to get all teachers to work together in schools, and for there not to be the bitterness that does exist in some schools where people feel that perhaps over school meal regulations or some other regulation, one group of the profession has been causing particular problems for another area.

I am sure that a national joint council would be the way forward and I regret that the Minister has set his face against the legislation and is insisting on introducing a temporary measure when either a national joint council or something along those lines will have to be introduced if we are to have a return to genuine collective bargaining. If the Government will not do that, I hope that we shall be able to repeal this legislation and ensure that we can return to joint collective bargaining in the near future.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 26, Noes 137.

Division No. 29]	[7.35 am
AYES
Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)	Michie, William
Clay, Robert	Park, George
Cohen, Harry	Pendry, Tom
Cook, Frank (Stockton North)	Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Corbyn, Jeremy	Redmond, Martin
Fatchett, Derek	Richardson, Ms Jo
Fisher, Mark	Rowlands, Ted
Flannery, Martin	Shields, Mrs Elizabeth
Foster, Derek	Skinner, Dennis
Godman, Dr Norman	Spearing, Nigel
Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)	Stott, Roger
Howarth, George (Knowsley, N)
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)	Tellers for the Ayes:
Marek, Dr John	Mr. Don Dixon and
Maxton, John	Mr. Allen McKay.

NOES
Alexander, Richard	Crouch, David
Amess, David	Currie, Mrs Edwina
Arnold, Tom	Dickens, Geoffrey
Ashby, David	Dicks, Terry
Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)	Dorrell, Stephen
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Dover, Den
Baldry, Tony	Dunn, Robert
Batiste, Spencer	Evennett, David
Bendall, Vivian	Eyre, Sir Reginald
Benyon, William	Fallon, Michael
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Favell, Anthony
Biggs-Davison, Sir John	Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Blackburn, John	Forman, Nigel
Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Forth, Eric
Bottomley, Peter	Franks, Cecil
Bottomley, Mrs Virginia	Fraser, Peter (Angus East)
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Freeman, Roger
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Gale, Roger
Bright, Graham	Garel-Jones, Tristan
Brinton, Tim	Goodhart, Sir Philip
Bruinvels, Peter	Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Bulmer, Esmond	Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)
Burt, Alistair	Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Butterfill, John	Hanley, Jeremy
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Hargreaves, Kenneth
Cash, William	Harris, David
Chope, Christopher	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Churchill, W. S.	Hickmet, Richard
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Hind, Kenneth
Colvin, Michael	Hirst, Michael
Coombs, Simon	Holt, Richard
Cope, John	Howard, Michael
Cormack, Patrick	Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Corrie, John	Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Couchman, James	Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Hunter, Andrew	Neale, Gerrard
Jessel, Toby	Neubert, Michael
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)	Newton, Tony
Jones, Robert (Herts W)	Nicholls, Patrick
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine	Norris, Steven
King, Roger (B'ham N'field)	Onslow, Cranley
Knowles, Michael	Oppenheim, Phillip
Lang, Ian	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Latham, Michael	Pawsey, James
Lawler, Geoffrey	Portillo, Michael
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark	Powell, William (Corby)
Lilley, Peter	Powley, John
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)	Price, Sir David
Lord, Michael	Proctor, K. Harvey
Luce, Rt Hon Richard	Raffan, Keith
Lyell, Nicholas	Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
McCrindle, Robert	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
McCurley, Mrs Anna	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)	Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm
Maclean, David John	Rossi, Sir Hugh
McLoughlin, Patrick	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Malins, Humfrey	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Malone, Gerald	Spencer, Derek
Maples, John	Stanbrook, Ivor
Marlow, Antony	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Mather, Carol	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Maude, Hon Francis	Thurnham, Peter
Merchant, Piers	van Straubenzee, Sir W.
Meyer, Sir Anthony	Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Miller, Hal (B'grove)
Mills, Iain (Meriden)	Tellers for the Noes:
Mitchell, David (Hants NW)	Mr. Tony Durant and
Moate, Roger	Mr. David Lightbown.
Moynihan, Hon C.

Question accordingly negatived.

Motion made, and Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 144, Noes 33.

Division No. 30]	[7.45 am
AYES
Alexander, Richard	Corrie, John
Amess, David	Couchman, James
Arnold, Tom	Crouch, David
Ashby, David	Currie, Mrs Edwina
Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)	Dickens, Geoffrey
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)	Dicks, Terry
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)	Dorrell, Stephen
Baldry, Tony	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Batiste, Spencer	Dover, Den
Bellingham, Henry	Dunn, Robert
Bendall, Vivian	Durant, Tony
Benyon, William	Evennett, David
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Eyre, Sir Reginald
Biggs-Davison, Sir John	Fallon, Michael
Blackburn, John	Favell, Anthony
Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter	Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Forman, Nigel
Bottomley, Peter	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Bottomley, Mrs Virginia	Forth, Eric
Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)	Franks, Cecil
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Fraser, Peter (Angus East)
Bright, Graham	Freeman, Roger
Brinton, Tim	Gale, Roger
Bruinvels, Peter	Garel-Jones, Tristan
Bulmer, Esmond	Goodhart, Sir Philip
Burt, Alistair	Greenway, Harry
Butterfill, John	Gregory, Conal
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Cash, William	Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)
Chope, Christopher	Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Churchill, W. S.	Hanley, Jeremy
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Hargreaves, Kenneth
Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)	Harris, David
Colvin, Michael	Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Coombs, Simon	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Cope, John	Hind, Kenneth
Cormack, Patrick	Hirst, Michael

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)	Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Holt, Richard	Mitchell, David (Hants NW)
Howard, Michael	Moate, Roger
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)	Neale, Gerrard
Hubbard-Miles, Peter	Newton, Tony
Hunt, David (Wirral W)	Nicholls, Patrick
Hunter, Andrew	Norris, Steven
Jessel, Toby	Onslow, Cranley
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)	Oppenheim, Phillip
Jones, Robert (Herts W)	Ottaway, Richard
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
King, Roger (B'ham N'field)	Pawsey, James
Knowles, Michael	Powell, William (Corby)
Lang, Ian	Powley, John
Latham, Michael	Price, Sir David
Lawler, Geoffrey	Proctor, K. Harvey
Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel	Raffan, Keith
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark	Raison, Rt Hon Timothy
Lightbown, David	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)	Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas
Lord, Michael	Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm
Luce, Rt Hon Richard	Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)
Lyell, Nicholas	Rossi, Sir Hugh
McCrindle, Robert	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
McCurley, Mrs Anna	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)	Spencer, Derek
Maclean, David John	Stanbrook, Ivor
McLoughlin, Patrick	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Malins, Humfrey	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Malone, Gerald	Thurnham, Peter
Maples, John	van Straubenzee, Sir W.
Marlow, Antony	Waddington, David
Mather, Carol	Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Maude, Hon Francis
Merchant, Piers	Tellers for the Ayes:
Meyer, Sir Anthony	Mr. Michael Neubert and
Miller, Hal (B'grove)	Mr. Michael Portillo.

NOES
Barron, Kevin	Michie, William
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)
Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)	Park, George
Clay, Robert	Parry, Robert
Cohen, Harry	Pendry, Tom
Coleman, Donald	Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Cook, Frank (Stockton North)	Redmond, Martin
Corbyn, Jeremy	Richardson, Ms Jo
Dobson, Frank	Rogers, Allan
Fatchett, Derek	Rowlands, Ted
Fisher, Mark	Shields, Mrs Elizabeth
Flannery, Martin	Skinner, Dennis
Foster, Derek	Spearing, Nigel
Godman, Dr Norman	Stott, Roger
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter
Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)	Tellers for the Noes:
Howarth, George (Knowsley, N)	Mr. Don Dixon and
Marek, Dr John	Mr. Allen McKay.
Maxton, John

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.