COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 25 June 1968)

§ BARONESS PHILLIPS

My Lords, with permission I will take Amendments Nos. 1 to 3 together. I beg to move that this House doth agree with these Amendments. Taken together, they produce the result that instruments of government for colleges of education, but not other establishments to which the Bill applies, are to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

Clause 1(2) of the Bill as introduced provided that the instrument of government for any institution to which Clause 1(1) applied, namely, a maintained college of education or other institution of further education, should be made by order of the local education authority and that the body of governors to be constituted under it should consist of such number of persons, appointed in such manner, as that authority might determine. In its application to colleges of education this provision gave effect to the recommendation of the Weaver Report, and it was the intention of the Government that other institutions of 1250 further education should be treated in the same way. The absence of any requirement that the instruments of government for the colleges of education should be approved by the Secretary of State was criticised both in your Lordships' House and in another place when the Bill had its Second Reading. The Government have considered the position afresh in the light of this criticism, and have come to the conclusion that it would be right to provide that the instrument of government for the maintained colleges of education should be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. This is achieved by the three Amendments that I now commend to your Lordships' approval.