§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Touhig.]
§ 7 pm
§ Mr. Huw Edwards (Monmouth)I am pleased to have the opportunity to draw hon. Members' attention to the case of my constituent, Marjorie Evans. Mrs. Evans lives in Usk, in Monmouthshire. Since 1987, she has been the head teacher of St. Mary's school in Caldicot. The school has more than 200 pupils and includes a special needs unit. Although the school is in Monmouthshire, it is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth).
Mrs. Evans recently returned to school after an 18-month suspension. Her case has been lengthy and controversial, but the school is not in my constituency and my involvement was therefore limited to supporting Mrs. Evans as a constituent and making representations on her behalf after the conclusion of the case.
I appreciate that ministerial responsibility for the school and for Monmouthshire education authority lies with the National Assembly for Wales. However, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards will acknowledge that the case has national significance and implications for education and the teaching profession in England and Wales. My aim in the debate is to highlight some of the wider issues that arise from the case and its implications for education. First, I want to examine the background.
I was first aware of the Marjorie Evans case when it was reported that the stipendiary magistrate in Abergavenny had suggested that Mrs. Evans could face a custodial sentence for assault. It was alleged that she had slapped a pupil who was being disruptive. The pupil was known to suffer from behavioural problems and had been prescribed Ritalin. The conviction and the three-month suspended sentence caused considerable public disquiet. Mrs. Evans appealed against the conviction and the case was heard in Cardiff Crown court. She was cleared of all charges. There was considerable public relief at the overturning of the conviction, and Mrs. Evans walked from court with her reputation restored, ready to return to school.
Immediately afterwards, however, the police stated that further charges were being investigated and that Mrs. Evans remained suspended. The matter was considered at considerable length by Gwent police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the board of governors and Monmouthshire county council. It was concluded that
there was no credible evidence against her",and she was able to return to her position. There was another wave of relief and, indeed, joy when Mrs. Evans returned to St Mary's school. It was a great pleasure to speak to her on the phone with the happy noise of the school in the background.I met Mrs. Evans at her home in Usk after the magistrates court case in Abergavenny. She was with her local National Union of Teachers representative, Andrew Haig. Mrs. Evans has been represented throughout the case by her union, and credit must be given to Gethin Lewis, secretary of NUT Cymru, and the NUT solicitor, David Evans.
950 Mrs. Evans had been found guilty of assault and her reputation had been besmirched by the comments of the stipendiary magistrate, who claimed that she had been a disgrace to the community, the teaching profession and the pupils in her care. The legal aspects of the case merit a separate Adjournment debate. This evening, however, I shall concentrate on its educational implications.
My impression of Mrs. Evans at the time was of someone who was dedicated to the education and care of children; she had been in teaching for more than thirty years. Not only had her career been brought to a shuddering halt by the allegations against her, but she faced the possibility of a jail sentence and the end of her career. Mrs. Evans is a remarkably strong person who was intent on clearing her name and returning to school, but nothing would ever be the same again.
Mrs. Evans has come to personify every teacher's nightmare and she has endured what every teacher dreads. She wants to ensure that no other teacher has to go through a similar ordeal again. She has come through it, yet serious questions remain.
Four key issues arising from the case deserve to be considered. They are the management of disruptive pupils and the exercise of reasonable restraint; the automatic suspension of teachers subject to allegations by pupils, parents or even fellow staff; the need for guidance to local education authorities and governing bodies on dealing with allegations of abuse; and the disciplinary process for dealing with teachers adopted by governing bodies and LEAs. I shall outline some of those issues in more detail.
It is an unfortunate aspect of teachers' role that they have to deal with disruptive pupils. In certain cases, that behaviour may be violent either towards members of staff or to pupils. Where teachers have to restrain pupils, there is clearly a problem of defining what reasonable restraint is. It is a legal duty of head teachers to maintain order, yet to do so they require the power and resources to meet the expectations of society and their legal responsibilities. It is a matter of considerable concern throughout the teaching profession, and the profession deserves clear national guidelines that apply to England and Wales and that are applied consistently.
The case also raises the question of exclusion for persistently disruptive pupils and the resources that are necessary to continue those children's education outside the mainstream education system. There is in Monmouthshire no pupil referral unit for pupils at key stage 2 who are boys between the ages of seven and 11. There is no provision whatever for girls of any age.
I am a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, and during our recent inquiry into social exclusion in Wales we visited a pupil referral unit in Denbighshire, where excluded pupils were able to continue their education and receive the specialist support that they needed. It would be ideal if such provision were available in all authorities. It is a matter that the Government should look into.
Teachers are in a unique position, as the primary responsible adults with whom children come into contact outside the home and who are in a position to detect signs of abuse. Yet their daily contact and caring role makes teachers vulnerable to accusations of abuse by pupils, parents or even staff. Such allegations may be false, malicious, misplaced or misinterpreted. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards to consider whether it is appropriate for a teacher to be automatically 951 suspended when the allegations are of low-level physical abuse. Such teachers are suspended on full pay. That is intended to be a neutral form of action, yet in reality it rarely is.
Even where teachers have been exonerated, their careers have been ruined by the stress of months of suspension, and pupils have been denied the skills and support of the teacher who has been so suspended. There is no question but that teachers should be automatically suspended in cases of suspected sexual abuse or where there is evidence of serious physical harm. The key question is whether it is appropriate automatically to suspend a teacher who is subject to an allegation when there has been no investigation of the teacher's viewpoint.
The next point concerns the availability of expert advice. Do local authorities have access to specialist advice in such cases? Can they remain impartial when giving advice? Teachers who are suspended have to prove that they are innocent; that is quite different from the usual process of law. It is proposed that there should be agreed national guidelines across England and Wales to assist LEAs and governing bodies to investigate allegations before they consider suspension.
We owe a great deal to the people who sit on governing bodies. They give of their time voluntarily, but they take on immense responsibilities for the running of the school. They need support, advice and training to help them carry out such a difficult task as being involved in disciplinary action against teachers. There was considerable public concern in Marjorie Evans' case about why it took 18 months from her suspension to her return to school. She had to go to the High Court to require Monmouthshire county council to reveal the allegations against her and which disciplinary procedures it was following.
I understand that Jane Davidson, the Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning in the National Assembly for Wales, has ordered an inquiry into the process and has invited the county council, the NUT and the governing body to respond. These issues were raised at a conference in Cardiff last November, called by the NUT to discuss best practice in dealing with allegations of abuse against teachers. I met Mrs. Evans at the conference. These issues are likely to be raised again at the NUT national conference in Cardiff this weekend, which I also hope to attend. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment will attend, too, and may make a statement pertaining to the implications of the case. Recently, I was pleased to welcome him to my constituency and to King Henry VIII comprehensive school in Abergavenny, where he heard of the support of the teachers of Monmouthshire for Marjorie Evans. He has been an inspirational figure, and I hope that he will be able to look at those issues in some detail.
Our teaching profession plays a vital role in the education and welfare of children and young people. I commend teachers' dedication, skills and professionalism. They deserve protection from the threat that their careers could be ruined as a result of false or malicious allegations. Pupils deserve the opportunity to be taught and to study in a classroom undisturbed by the activities of other pupils who are disruptive or violent, whether to other pupils or to staff.
The case of Marjorie Evans has highlighted a series of issues that deserve the fullest examination. She has endured a traumatic episode. We rejoice that she has 952 resumed her career, but lessons must be learned. I sincerely hope and believe that the Minister will be able to take on those issues in her deliberations with ministerial colleagues and representatives of the teaching profession.
§ The Minister for School Standards (Ms Estelle Morris)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) on securing this debate. Adjournment debates are traditionally occasions when hon. Members bring concerns of individual constituents to the attention of Ministers and the House—and long may that continue—but I am not sure that I have ever answered an Adjournment debate in which an hon. Member has talked about the case of an individual constituent that has had such wide-ranging implications for my Department's work. I thank my hon. Friend both for letting us know what has happened to Mrs. Evans and for focusing us on some difficult issues.
I do not think that there are easy answers to any of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised. People have deliberated about and discussed them for many a year. They are now perhaps further up the nation's agenda than they were previously. I suspect that that is in no small part due to the incidents that have surrounded the suspension and reinstatement of Mrs. Evans.
Having acknowledged my hon. Friend's contribution, I know that he will appreciate that I want most of all to acknowledge Marjorie Evans, her contribution to education and what has happened to her in the past 22 months. She is a teacher of long standing, high reputation and high esteem. She has been teaching for more than 30 years. If we added together the number of children whom she must have taught and the number of communities that she must have served, the total would be higher than any of us could imagine. As many good teachers who have been in the profession for as long as Marjorie Evans know, they change people's lives. I think that, when Marjorie Evans started her career, she never for a minute dreamed that she would make headline news because of these incidents.
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Mrs. Evans on the steadfast way in which she has behaved throughout, and on her successful return to school. She has shown tremendous courage, energy and continuing commitment to her community and to the children. There will have been many who would not have withstood what she went through and still have wanted to return to school. As I said when I had the chance to spend a few minutes with her before the debate, I wish her well for her return and for September—the start of the first academic year in which she will have resumed her duties in full.
I put on the record my appreciation of the work and representation of the National Union of Teachers, the professional body of which Mrs. Evans is a member. Such bodies have many roles in our national life, but any individual teacher who is a member of a teachers' union hopes most of all that, when they need help individually in their professional life, the union will answer the call. The NUT has done that exceptionally well. I know that Mrs. Evans pays tribute to the work of the officers of the NUT in Wales. I join in recognising their steadfastness and enthusiasm in representing her.
My hon. Friend was right to say that Mrs. Evans is a teacher in a school in Wales and that this Parliament has no responsibility for what goes on in Welsh schools, 953 which is properly the responsibility of the Assembly. I do not want to tread on any toes in that respect. Instead, in the time I have available, I should like to do two things. First, as I have had the opportunity to speak to my colleague Jane Davidson, the Assembly's Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, I should like to confirm the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth. Secondly, I should like to reflect on some matters outside the Evans case from which we may be able to learn some lessons that we can apply in England, in Wales and in Scotland.
My hon. Friend was right that Jane Davidson has confirmed to me that she has written to the local authority and the governing body seeking information on the procedures that they followed in the Evans case. The Assembly will want to exercise its power to examine those procedures, but not the specific allegations against Mrs. Evans. As one of the features of the case has been a re-examination of allegations, it is important to make it clear that the Assembly and the Minister will want to examine only procedures and not the substance of the allegations. The examination will be conducted under section 496 of the Education Act 1996 which allows examination and consideration of the reasonableness of procedures used.
The governing body and the local authority were asked to respond to the Assembly by 12 April on the procedures, particularly on the time scale allowed for decision making. I am pleased that my colleague Jane Davidson has also invited the NUT to comment on the case and its involvement in it. I understand that the school's governing body has asked for a one-week extension, to 19 April. which has been granted.
I know that, on receiving the representations, my colleague Jane Davidson will decide on possible action as quickly as possible. She will want first to decide on copying the information in the responses to each of the parties, which will be a matter for her, and then to advise the Assembly on the information. Only after completing her investigations will she want to say whether the local education authority or the governing body acted unreasonably and whether, on behalf of the Welsh Assembly, she wants to direct them to change their procedures. As a Minister in the United Kingdom Parliament I will have no involvement in those matters.
Additionally, while she is investigating those matters, Jane Davidson will quite properly neither meet Mrs. Evans nor speak on the record about them. That is how the process should properly be conducted, and I think that it is in everyone's interests that we keep that process separate from my comments on possible lessons to be learned.
As I said, the specific case is a matter for the Welsh Assembly. However, I know from my duties in the House and in relation to teachers in England that such a case could have occurred in an English school. I think that we will all want to examine the case to determine whether we can improve how such matters are dealt with.
It is hugely difficult to strike the right balance in dealing with such cases. I am not being complacent, but I suspect that whatever rules, lessons or guidance we decide we want to follow, some of the most difficult decisions that Ministers, local authorities and governing bodies ever 954 have to make will be on such cases. However, we have to become better at making such decisions by establishing clear guidelines and ensuring that everyone understands his or her responsibilities. As I shall explain later, we particularly have to ensure that action is taken in a timely fashion.
I think that there is great agreement on the challenge facing us and that it is more a matter of striking the right balance. Regardless of what people think about Mrs. Evans's case or other cases that have come to public attention, no one—not Mrs. Evans, the school, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth, the Welsh Assembly, and certainly not the United Kingdom Government—wants allegations of abuse or inappropriate behaviour against children not to be investigated.
There have been too many debates in the House on cases—not least in Wales—in which allegations have not been properly investigated for us not to have learned some lessons. Some children's lives have been blighted because there have not been timely investigations. However, although the facts sometimes show that allegations are true and that there was a need for an investigation and action, sometimes the facts show that allegations are not true. When they are not true, a different set of people—teachers, teachers' families, the wider school community and the wider general community—become the victims.
That is the difficulty involved in examination of cases such as this. Once the allegations have been made, whether they are true or not, a life may be ruined unless they are dealt with in a timely and correct fashion. We must work harder to get the balance right.
Let me acknowledge something, without giving any figures. I do not think that anyone, certainly in Government, has ever said that some teachers' careers have not been blighted. As one who taught in a school for 18 years, I know what it must be like to have taught children, to have trusted them and gone to work every day to further their chances in life—to have put heart, soul and professional energy into that—then to find that false allegations have been made about one's professional conduct. I well understand what it must be like to find that one's standing in the community that is the most important to one has been put at risk. But we need to get the balance right, and there are no easy solutions in that regard.
I am especially struck by the inordinate length of time that it seemed to take to process the case that we are assessing. We need to examine the way in which such cases are dealt with and to find out why progress is so slow—why there are gaps of weeks or months while nothing is resolved. During the last 12 months, the Government have been working with a teacher and child protection group consisting of a joint forum, containing representatives of teachers' unions—including all six teacher representatives of the NUT—and representatives of local authorities. We have looked at ways of speeding up the process to ensure that any allegations of abuse are dealt with as quickly and fairly as possible.
That, I think, is how we should act. While not cutting out investigations, proper consideration, discussion with governing bodies, letting local authorities have their say and following the proper course of law, we should ensure that all those elements of justice—which we want to retain—do not move as slowly as they seemed to in the 955 case of Mrs. Evans. My hon. Friend is right: in due course the Secretary of State will want to report to the nation on what we have learned from our working party, and how we want to proceed on the basis of that.
Of all the lessons that have been learned, I think that the one relating to speed needs most to be considered. We should think about guidance and guidelines that suggest how governing bodies should carry out their responsibilities. Considering those who go on to governing bodies, and choose to give their time—voluntarily—to a community and a school, I suspect that not many governors imagine that they could eventually be put in this position. At times like this, when difficult decisions must be made, governing bodies—not just the governing body at St. Mary's, but governing bodies of schools throughout our countries—need support.
We should also consider whether the guidelines that we give governing bodies help them to do their jobs as effectively as they might, and whether, during that difficult procedure, they need support to carry out their functions. I do not want anyone to interpret that as a suggestion that their rights or obligations should be removed; we should ensure that they are supported as much as possible.
The process that we have been discussing has been unusually lengthy. What I have been most conscious of throughout is this: we may reflect nationally on what it means for the 450,000 teachers in our two countries, and for the 24,000 schools and 24,000 governing bodies, but at the centre of the debate is one school, St. Mary's junior school—not in my hon. Friend's constituency, but in the neighbouring constituency of my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts—one governing body, and one community that wants to get on with learning, teaching and furthering life chances. Over the past two years—nearly—those people have been propelled, not through their wishes or for reasons of their making, into national headlines that they did not invite.
Every teacher at St. Mary's, every parent who sent a child there and every governor who gave generously of his or her time did so not to have a debate about this issue, but to get on with the process of teaching and learning. That is the agenda on the basis of which that school can move forward. We should not forget that.
§ Mr. EdwardsDoes my right hon. Friend agree that such disruption affects other schools as well? While Mrs. Evans was suspended as head of her school, a 956 head from another school—St. David's school in Abergavenny—was transferred there, so that other school, too, might have been disadvantaged.
§ Ms MorrisMy hon. Friend is right. Schools are learning communities, but they are also dependent on other schools. That wider learning community—all the neighbouring schools—has felt the impact. I have never been to an area where schools did not show generous concern about what happens to their neighbours—they are eager to give of their talents, and care when other schools are in difficulty. I readily acknowledge that.
I suspect that what is beginning to happen at St. Mary's is that relationships are being rebuilt; trust is beginning to be firmed up again; and the focus on teaching and learning is beginning to return. In relation to my hon. Friend's point, we also owe a debt of gratitude to the teachers—both the full-time staff and those who came in to help—who have kept the school going throughout 21 months of turmoil. Learning has continued: children have left and begun school during that time.
Most of all, schools want stability. They want a head who is secure in a permanent post. They want to be able to focus on teaching and learning—for children and for the wider community. St. Mary's school is embarking on that task of rebuilding and of settling down. I am sure that everyone in the House will wish the school well.
After all the turmoil that Mrs. Evans has undergone and after all the support given by my hon. Friend, perhaps something worthwhile will come out, because we too have learned lessons—both as a school service and as nations for whom education is a major service. We shall reflect on the matter. It is poor consolation for people whose lives have been disrupted, but I suspect and hope that in future cases, the lessons that we have learned from St. Mary's will be reflected. In that small way, I hope that something good might have come out of a case that has made people suffer and made them miserable for the past 21 months.
To finish on a note that will unify us, I wish Mrs. Evans well in the career that she has resumed. I thank my hon. Friend and everyone who has supported Mrs. Evans. Most of all, I wish the children, the governors, the parents, the community and the teachers every good fortune as teachers focus on what they went into the job to do—teaching the children who come through their gates.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Seven o'clock.