HC Deb 04 March 1986 vol 93 cc138-9
6. Mr. Robert Banks

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what response he has received to his draft circular on the treatment of politically controversial issues in schools and colleges; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Chris Patten

The drafts were issued on 4 February, and it is too early for there to have been any significant reponse.

Mr. Banks

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this initiative. Does he agree that it is a cardinal principle in the teaching profession to maintain impartiality in teaching political matters, and that heads and teachers who express a strong political allegiance drive a wedge between the vital relationships of teacher and pupil, and teacher and parent?

Mr. Patten

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am sure the House will accept that brainwashing in the classroom can have no place in a free society.

Mr. Maclennan

What steps is the Minister taking to assist the police to do their proper job of giving advice about crime prevention in schools, which is being stopped in some Left-wing-controlled, Labour-dominated boroughs in London?

Mr. Patten

A very useful document is being produced by the Society of Education Officers and the Association of Chief Police Officers. That will be endorsed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and myself. It is an admirable document and I hope that it will receive wide circulation.

Mr. Greenway

Is my hon. Friend aware that in my professional career I had a colleague who insisted on plastering his walls with posters of Chairman Mao, the hammer and sickle and all sorts of exhibitions of his love of Communism, and his teaching certainly had to be watched? However, he was the exception rather than the rule. The teaching profession, on the whole, contains its own integrity and most people are not given to political bias in the classroom.

Mr. Patten

I completely accept my hon. Friend's view. I think that the antics of a few discredit the hard work and conscientiousness of the overwhelming majority of teachers. I should confess to my hon. Friend that my moral tutor at Oxford was a former member of the Communist party.