REMUNERATION OF TEACHERS BILL (Hansard, 25 February 1965)

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I suggest that it will be convenient for the House to consider together all the Amendments that stand in my name. This is the third occasion on which I have addressed your Lordships on the point to which these Amendments relate. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, has twice tabled Amendments and twice withdrawn them. The Amendments now stand in my name because I undertook, when the Bill was before us at Report stage on February 16, that I would have Government Amendments tabled that would indicate how far my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was prepared to go to meet the noble Lord's point of view. The noble Lord has pursued this matter with great assiduity, and I am sorry that, for very good reasons that he explained to us on the last occasion, he is unable to be with us this afternoon.
These Amendments can, I think, be very simply explained. Their principal effect comes from the new subsections in Amendment No. 2. In my notes and in the draft sent to the printers, they were shown as (4A), (4B) and (4C), but I understand that your Lordships' printers do not print letters, so perhaps I may just refer to them as the first, second and third subsections. The effect is, in general terms, that any change in the membership of a negotiating committee under the Bill which has the effect of depriving any body of its whole representation there is made subject to the Negative Resolution procedure in Parliament; to be more precise, any such change must be made by order contained in a Statutory Instrument which may be annulled by a Resolution of either House of Parliament. This is the substance of the Amendment that I told your Lordships on the last occasion my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was willing to accept. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, would have gone further and subjected to 922 Parliamentary procedure a great many other changes in the composition of negotiating committees, right down to changes of the most trivial kind. But the present Amendments cover the main point that he and other noble Lords supporting him have advanced in their arguments, and I do not believe that it is reasonable to ask Parliament to go any further.
The remainder of the Amendments are incidental and consequential. The first subsection makes an exception to the procedure I have just mentioned for cases where a body previously represented on a negotiating committee is going out of existence: it would be a pointless distraction for Parliament to have to take notice of an order making a change of that kind. The Bill must provide for the possibility that a body which ceases to be represented on a negotiating committee may subsequently resume membership, and the second subsection accordingly provides that an order made under the first subsection may be revoked by a subsequent order. Since the Secretary of State's general power to add new bodies to the negotiating committees is not made subject to any Parliamentary procedure, such a revoking order is not made subject to any Parliamentary procedure.
Finally, a consequential Amendment is proposed to Clause 7 to ensure that its provisions apply only to orders governing remuneration, as was always intended, and not to orders under the new subsections; the Secretary of State is not asking to be empowered to remove any body from a negotiating committee with retrospective effect. My Lords, these questions have been very fully discussed on several earlier occasions. I commend these Amendments to your Lordships in the belief that we have now arrived at the right answer. I beg to move the first Amendment.
Amendment moved— Page 2, line 1, after ("and") insert ("(subject to the following provisions of this section)").—(Lord Bowles.)

§ THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Colyton was named as being unable to be present to-day, but I believe he is reasonably satisfied with this Amendment and joins with me in thanking the noble Lord for putting it on the Paper. We are very 923 glad that the apprehensions felt by part of the scholastic profession are reasonably removed by this Amendment, and we feel that we have taken part in a piece of industrial conciliation. The National Association of Schoolmasters have not found it necessary to have recourse to a one-day strike or a mass lobby of Parliament in order to obtain the substance of what they very justly desire; and we hope that some schoolmaster in instructing his class in civics may find a good word to say of your Lordships' House as a body which is at least occasionally useful.

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, for what he has said, and I am also reassured by his subsequent remarks.

§ LORD ABERDARE
My Lords, may I say that I think it is a very happy outcome that Her Majesty's Government have been able to produce an Amendment which is satisfactory to my noble friend Lord Colyton and to the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh? I am sure that all your Lordships now hope that the Burnham Committees will be able to get on with their work effectively and efficiently without further controversy.

§ LORD BOWLES
I am most grateful to the noble Lord. On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I beg to move the second Amendment, which contains the three subsections to which I referred.

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3.

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I beg to move.

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment.

§ LORD BOWLES
My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.