HL Deb 16 February 1965 vol 263 cc400-4

3.3 p.m.

Report of Amendments received (according to Order).

Clause 1 [Committees to consider remuneration of teachers.]:

LORD COLYTON moved, after subsection (3), to insert: () Any such variation or revocation shall be made by Statutory Instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the object of this Amendment is to secure some degree of Parliamentary control over the right of the Secretary of State for Education to remove a body or organisation from the employees' side of the negotiating bodies. This need arises out of the new situation resulting from the representation of the Secretary of State, very rightly, but for the first time, on the employers' side of the negotiating bodies.

The contention which I developed at some length at Committee stage was that if this Clause 1s allowed to pass as it stands, it will put the Secretary of State in the position of being judge and plaintiff in his own cause; and I venture to say that it might, in my view, run contrary to established and well-known trade union principles. I set out these arguments at some length on Committee stage, and I understand that since then the Government have been giving further thought to this matter and that the noble Lord, Lord Bowles, will have some suggestion to make when he comes to speak. In these circumstances, and without prejudice to my right to speak again if necessary, I think it might be for the convenience of the House if I were to wait and hear what the noble Lord has to say before I develop my arguments. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 2, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Colyton.)

LORD BOWLES

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, withdrew his Amendment at the Committee stage be promised to look at the matter again in the light of what I had had to say about it and to submit a revised Amendment for your Lordships' consideration at the Report stage. I think the noble Lord must have seen the point of a good many of the observations that I made on that occasion, for the present Amendment has a very different appearance. As the noble Lord has explained, he is no longer proposing that the Affirmative Resolution procedure should apply to changes which are proposed to be made in the composition of a negotiating committee. This is a welcome change; for the original suggestion certainly seemed quite inappropriate.

Secondly, the Schedule, in which he previously sought to specify the teachers' associations from among which the Secretary of State might select those to be represented, has gone; and again I regard this as an improvement. The noble Lord also accepts my suggestion that if protection of the kind he has in mind is thought to be necessary at all, it should be available to the local authority associations, just as to the teachers' associations; for his Amendment, as it is now, would apply symmetrically to both sides of the Committee. In these respects the noble Lord has succeeded in meeting the criticism I made of his earlier Amendment and it has greatly gained in brevity and elegance in the process. I am sorry to have to say to the noble Lord, however, that these changes have not satisfied the Secretary of State that the Amendment can now be properly accepted.

The number of occasions on which Parliament would be required to take notice of changes in the composition of one or other of the negotiating committees would be no less than before. Any change, however routine its nature, would be subject to Parliamentary procedure. The substitution of the Inner London Education Authority for the London County Council on April 1 of this year would be subject to Parliamentary procedure. So would any change, such as the National Association of Schoolmasters may themselves be seeking after the present round of negotiations, in the numerical representation of any body, even if the change had been agreed among all concerned. I submit again to your Lordships that Parliament has much more important things to do than to sit in judgment on matters of this kind. They are not questions of policy but administrative details and, as such, are much better left to Ministers in the certain knowledge that Parliament can and will call them to account if doubt arises about their discharge of their duties.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has considered this revised Amendment very carefully, but the objections of principle to bringing this wide range of administrative details within the scope of Parliamentary procedure, even though it be in the Negative and not the Affirmative form, seemed to him to be overwhelming. Moreover, there is a defect of drafting which I think I ought at this stage to mention to your Lordships. It refers to "variation or revocation" being made by Statutory Instrument, but does not specify what kind of instrument—for example, an Order. This means that the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, which governs the procedure for laying instruments before Parliament and their annulment would not apply. The noble Lord's intentions would not be achieved and there would be an insoluble procedural problem. Therefore, I ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment if the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, does not withdraw it.

My right honourable friend is at the same time very willing to try to satisfy noble Lords who have expressed their anxieties over this aspect of Clause 1 of the Bill, and he has considered what alternatives to the present Amendment might be open to your Lordships. It is evident from the speeches that have been made at one stage of the Bill or another that the one possibility that really causes alarm and from which I believe the desire for this Amendment stands, is the possibility that the Secretary of State might use his power to remove from membership of a negotiating committee an association which previously had been represented there and which had no wish to be removed. I have argued on the previous occasion and I maintain that such an action would be so controversial in itself that it would inevitably come to be debated in Parliament, whether or not a specific Parliamentary procedure was involved. That is what would differentiate such an action, if the occasion for considering it ever arose, from the general run of administrative adjustments to the composition of the negotiating committee. This could be a special case deserving special treatment.

Perhaps I should point out at this stage that, although I do not wish to involve your Lordships in any of the technicalities of drafting, it is a mistake to regard the words "vary" and "revoke" in Clause 1 (3) of the Bill as if "vary" covered the minor routine variations and "revoke" covered the possible removal of an association from the negotiating committee. In fact, what may be varied or revoked is not an association's membership, but a previous determination by the Secretary of State. The most sinister expulsion of an association that the noble Lord seems to fear might be achieved through the word "vary", while the power to "revoke" might be used on occasion for some simple and non-controversial adjustment.

Although my right honourable friend would not himself have seen any need to suggest such provision, he would not consider it an unreasonable proposition that Parliament should take notice of any proposal to remove from a negotiating committee an association which had previously been represented there and which was not willing to be removed. He accepts that such a case could be made out for saying that a proposal to make such a change, but no other proposal to change the composition of a negotiating committee, should be made subject to the Negative Resolution procedure in Parliament.

If the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, and those who have supported his Amendment and have backed it on the Order Paper to-day, were willing to accept this formula, which they will observe covers much less ground than their Amendment but nevertheless covers the one point in which they have professed the greatest interest, and if they were to withdraw their own Amendment, I would undertake that Government Amendments would be tabled for discussion at Third Reading that would have that effect. I think that your Lordships will agree that in making this suggestion my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is going to the furthest limit in his willingness to satisfy the anxiety that some noble Lords have expressed. To go any further would be to place improper and undesirable burdens on the time and functions of Parliament. I trust that the noble Lords supporting the Amendment will see the reasonableness of my right honourable friend's suggestion and accept it. But if they do not, and and insist on seeking to impose upon the Secretary of State and upon Parliament the unnecessary and burdensome procedure envisaged in the Amendment, then I call upon your Lordships to reject it.

LORD ABERDARE

My Lords, when we discussed a similar Amendment on the Committee stage of this Bill I was very unhappy to have to disagree with my noble friend Lord Colyton, and it gives me much greater pleasure on this occasion to be able to say that I support, certainly in principle, what he is trying to achieve by his Amendment. However, the noble Lord, Lord Bowles, has pointed out that there are various administrative difficulties involved with this particular wording, and he has given the undertaking that the Secretary of State will introduce an Amendment on Third Reading to meet the substance of what my noble friend had in mind. If my noble friend is happy with that, certainly we shall be happy, too.

LORD COLYTON

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord and to his right honourable friend for this statement, which substantially meets the main point which I and some of my noble friends have been pressing upon the Government. I shall await with interest the precise wording of the Government's Amendment. Unfortunately, I have to leave on a business visit to the United States on Thursday morning, and I must therefore apologise to your Lordships for the fact that I shall not be able to be in my place and comment on the matter at Third Reading that afternoon. However, I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Iddesleigh, who, with my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton, has supported me throughout this dialogue, will be able fully to represent the views of those of us who have urged the Government to accept an Amendment to this Bill. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.