§ 7.41 p.m.
§ Lord KIRKHILLMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill which I seek to introduce to your Lordships' House today is commendably short, and my remarks will, I hope, be capable of a similar description. Before I describe the detailed provisions of the Bill, it may assist your Lordships' consideration if I set out some of the background to this measure. The employment prospects for newly-qualified teachers this summer have been raised on a number of occasions recently in another place, and your Lordships will have seen from Press reports that there is wide public concern about the matter. It is not possible to say precisely how many teachers may fail to 1274 obtain teaching posts next session, but there may well be as many as 2,000 or so out of the 5,500 who were expected to qualify this year. The Government hope that the number of unemployed will be less than that and that it will diminish as the school session proceeds.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is doing all he can to reduce the problem. For example, at present the retirement ages of teachers in education authority and grant-aided schools are set out in Section 16 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1969. The ages are 65 for teachers in promoted posts, and 70 for the others, that is teachers in the basic grade. Under the Teachers Superannuation Scheme, however, teachers may retire at or after the age of 60 and draw their accrued pension rights. In practice, the majority of teachers retire before the age of 65, and I understand that in 1975, 90 per cent. of all the teachers who retired were aged 65 or under. At the beginning of the 1975–76 school session there were about 300 teachers aged 65 and over in full-time permanent posts in Scottish schools.
My Lords, the Government, by proposing to reduce the statutory retiring age for non-promoted teachers from 70 to 65, thus making a contribution to the reduction in unemployment in young teachers, are very far from taking the view that no teacher should be employed above the age of 65. The Bill before your Lordships' House provides that while the retiring age should be 65 the employing authority may, in certain circumstances, continue to employ a particular teacher. It is necessary to leave such possibilities open, to deal with, for example, circumstances where it is impossible otherwise to find a teacher able to teach a particular subject, or indeed to take account of personal circumstances which may justify some employment beyond the statutory retiring age. The essence of the change being made is that while at present an employer must employ a non-promoted teacher until 70 if the teacher wishes, the employer in future will be able to decide whether a teacher should be employed after 65.
I turn now to the clauses of the Bill, but I should make clear to your Lordships' House that none of its provisions will alter the present position whereby a teacher may choose to retire at any age after 60 1275 and draw the pension to which he or she is entitled. Clause 1 of the Bill removes Section 16 of the 1969 Act, which I have described earlier, and replaces it with a new section. The new section has the main effect of reducing the age of retirement for a non-promoted teacher from 70 to 65. The new retiring age will come into effect on 1st January 1977, and will apply to anyone reaching the age of 65 after that date. For teachers already aged 65 and over on 1st January 1977, that date will be their date of retirement. I will deal later with the reason for choosing 1st January. Subsection (2) introduces the element of flexibility to deal with the needs of individuals and of authorities which, as I said earlier, is, in the Government's view, so important. Paragraph (a) enables an education authority to reemploy a retired teacher, but in a basic grade post only and on a temporary basis.
There is the possibility that automatic retirement of promoted teachers on their 65th birthday could cause difficulty or disruption in a particular school. The retirement could, for example, fall halfway through a term, or in the middle of a period of preparing pupils for an examination. In many cases, of course, employing authorities and the individual concerned will have foreseen the problem and will have made arrangements to prevent difficulties or disruption. Nevertheless, in the Government's view it is important that there should be some flexibility allowed to employing authorities, and paragraph (b) therefore enables an education authority to re-employ a promoted teacher in the post from which he has retired for a period of up to 3 months from the date of retirement. This should enable the teacher to stay in that post for a sufficient time to permit a smooth handover of responsibilities. It is, of course, open to the education authority to re-employ that teacher for more than 3 months, but when the 3 months are up the re-employment must be in a basic grade post.
Subsection (3) defines a post of special responsibility. In effect it is a post above the basic grade. It may help your Lordships to put the matter in context if I say there are at present in Scottish schools and further education colleges some 60,000 teachers and of these about 35 per cent. occupy posts of special responsibility.
1276 Clause 2 contains the citation, commencement and extent. It is, in the Government's view, important that those affected, both individual teachers and education authorities, should have time to adjust to the new situation. The date of 1st January is, therefore, the earliest at which the new provision could reasonably come into force.
The reduction in retiring age of non-promoted teachers proposed in the Bill has been the subject of discussion with the education authorities and the three main teacher organisations. The basic principle is supported by the authorities and two of the teacher organisations, including the Educational Institute of Scotland, which is by far the largest union. One organisation however, the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, has criticised the proposal on the grounds that it is against the interests of teachers whose service in the profession is relatively short and those who have entered or returned to the profession in response to Government appeals.
I recognise that, as a result of the proposals in this Bill, some teachers may have their expectations about their period of employment reduced, but, as I have indicated, there is sufficient flexibility in the Bill to enable authorities to continue individual teachers in employment if they consider that the circumstances either of the school or of the individual make this desirable. Moreover, it cannot be said that 65 is an unusually low retiring age; it is in fact the statutory retiring age for all other fields of local government employment. In the Government's view this is an important measure, and I commend the Bill to your Lordships for Second Reading.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Kirkhill.)
§ 7.49 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROYMy Lords, I would not ask the Minister to reply to any points on this Bill tonight, but I should like to make one or two comments. He has confirmed that the Bill has been brought in in order to provide more openings in the teaching profession for the young teachers who have just qualified. There is a shortage of teaching jobs in Scotland for those embarking on the profession. But why 1277 the Minister has felt it so urgent as to introduce the Bill so late in this Session is not absolutely clear, because I do not think that this Bill can be regarded as non-controversial in the way in which I think the last Bill we have considered will be.
The noble Lord said that there had been consultations, and we have seen from the Press that the SSTA (one of the teachers' associations) have registered their disapproval of the Bill; but I also noted in the Press, before the Bill was published, that the EIS, the largest teachers' association in Scotland, stated that they had reservations about the Bill. As the noble Lord mentioned, the objections appear to be related mainly to those who have come into the profession late in life, either through necessity or in response to an appeal from the Government, and those who might be affected by this would have small pension rights. They include teachers who, late in life, have been attracted by the special recruitment scheme to enter into the profession; women who responded to appeal from successive Secretaries of State—including, I suspect, myself—to return to the profession to assist pupils during the time of teacher shortage; and, thirdly, widows who were forced to re-enter the profession, sometimes late in life, to support themselves.
The noble Lord said that the Bill is flexible enough to deal with these cases, and clearly it lies with the local authority concerned to decide whether to re-employ teachers when they retire at 65 or not. Therefore, a great deal will depend upon the humanity of the local authority as well as the supply and demand for teachers in their area. We shall go into these matters more appropriately at later stages in the passage of the Bill.
I would not ask the Minister to try and reply to points now, but I wanted to register the fact that I do not think that this can be regarded as completely non-controversial. Although we shall ask for an explanation of these matters in this House, I feel sure that many points will be raised and there may indeed be some individual opposition to the Bill when it goes to another place.
§ 7.52 p.m.
§ Lord KIRKHILLMy Lords, I must respond very briefly to the last remarks of 1278 the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. I cannot understand why he thinks that this Bill can in any way be considered to be controversial. I should explain to your Lordships' House that the reasoning behind the apparent Government urgency in introducing this measure is an attempt by Government to ameliorate the unemployment rate among young teachers on the Scottish scene. I have also to say that the Secretary of State for Scotland consulted very seriously with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in the presence of the teacher unions, and only—and I repeat "only"—the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association have raised any objection. Indeed, the EIS gave their assent to the continuing discussions which took place at the COSLA meeting.
May I make one last point. In 1969 the promoted teacher could stay until he reached the age of 70. In that year a change was made, and thereafter he had to retire at 65. There is almost an analogous position developing in this new situation. Speaking personally, my view is that really 65 is an absolutely top age for anybody to be teaching the young in an age of ever-increasing excitement and awareness, with a new ethos developing almost by the year. I should have thought this is a sensible measure, which I certainly intend to continue to commend to your Lordships on future occasions.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.