HL Deb 13 December 1965 vol 271 cc487-9

2.53 p.m.

LORD WALSTON

My Lords, the purpose of this Order is to increase the £6 million limit imposed by the Commonwealth Teachers Act 1960 for expenditure on Commonwealth education and co-operation to £11 million. As your Lordships will remember, after the Commonwealth Education Conference in Oxford in 1959, Her Majesty's Government undertook to be responsible for the award of a total of 500 scholarships and fellowships in United Kingdom universities, colleges of technology and other appropriate establishments. Thereafter, various items of legislation were enacted to make that possible.

The object of this, which I think will be clear to all—and I am sure that it will appeal particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, who has often shown his interest in these matters by his questions—is to ensure that the rate of development of Commonwealth countries, in particular, in this instance, is accelerated and is not held up by lack of skilled people in the recipient countries, or by lack of training on their part to enable them to make the full use of such aid as they are given. I think that in all parts of the House we realise that in the final analysis, the efficacy of aid must depend to a large extent upon the ability of recipient countries to provide the people who can make proper use of that aid. That is the reasoning very largely behind this original enactment.

The Overseas Development and Service Act 1965 includes provisions for technical assistance in the form of British expatriate staff serving overseas. Teachers now provided with finance under the Commonwealth Teachers Act will normally be financed under the Overseas and Development Service Act, save in exceptional cases, which I need not go into in any detail. In other words, we are now embarking on a policy which has been started in a modest way in earlier years, not only of bringing Commonwealth teachers to this country under scholarships and bursaries, but also of sending teachers from this country out to the Commonwealth countries in order to do teaching on the spot to a very much wider public.

Section 1(3) of the Commonwealth Teachers Act 1960 limits expenditure under this Act and the Commonwealth Scholarship Acts 1959 and 1963 to a total of £6 million; but Section 1(4) provides that for this limit Her Majesty may, by Order in Council, substitute a limit of such larger amount as may be specified in the Order; but no recommendation shall be made to Her Majesty to make an Order under this subsection unless a draft of the Order has been laid before Parliament and approved … and no such Order shall be made so as to come into force before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and sixty-five. At this time, there is approximately£1 million which still remains unspent out of the limit of£6 million to which I have already referred.

This Order has become necessary, therefore, under existing regulations, in order to enable a larger amount to be spent for the increase of these educational services, and in particular for the sending of teachers from this country to the Commonwealth countries. This Order, as I have said, increases the limit from£6 million to£11 million which is an amount sufficient to cover expected expenditure in the financial years 1965–66 and 1966–67. It is the intention to introduce legislation during the present Parliamentary Session to amend the Commonwealth Teachers Act so as to obviate, inter alia, the need for further Orders in Council. But the present Order is necessary to authorise sufficient funds to be available until that legislation is enacted. I am quite sure that the objectives behind this Order have the sympathy of both sides of the House, and I very much hope that your Lordships will give it your approval. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Draft Commonwealth Teachers (Extension of Financial Authority) Order 1965, laid before the House on December 1, be approved.— (Lord Walston.)

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, this is a tremendously worthwhile Order which follows a tremendously worthwhile Act, and I thank the noble Lord for having explained it to us. I need hardly say that the Act in question, the 1960 Act, was a Conservative measure, and that this Order was foreseen in it. Of course, it was a Conservative Government which was responsible for the three Commonwealth Education Conferences, the last of which took place in Ottawa in September, 1964. At that Conference my right honourable friend Sir Edward Boyle played a very active part. Indeed, it was he who told the Conference that Britain would increase to an average of £5 million a year over five years the capital assistance provided for higher education, including teacher training in developing countries. I do not think I need say any more, except that we naturally warmly welcome this Order. I dare say the noble Lord will be gratified to learn that I have no questions to ask him about it.

On Question, Motion agreed to.