HL Deb 14 January 1986 vol 469 cc965-77

3.12 p.m.

The Earl of Swinton

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

Shortly before the House adjourned for the Christmas Recess your Lordships approved the draft Education Support Grants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1985, and those regulations have since been made by my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Education and for Wales. Those regulations empowered my right honourable friends to pay education support grants on expenditure incurred by local education authorities on securing the supervision of pupils in schools at mid-day. As I explained to the House then, the Government's purpose in so amending the regulations was to use education support grants to assist local education authorities to achieve their long-standing objective of securing reliable and adequate supervision of pupils at mid-day in the interests of the orderly and efficient conduct of schools.

The primary legislation under which education support grants are paid is the Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984. Section 2(1) of that Act provides that the total of expenditure approved for education support grant in any one year should not exceed one-half of 1 per cent. of the amount determined by the Secretary of State as representing, in his opinion, the appropriate amount of expenditure for local education authorities to incur in the year in question for educational purposes. The Government thought it right at the time that the Act was passed to impose such a limit, because the intention was that education support grants should be funded through the redeployment of expenditure within existing plans. The Government therefore wished to reassure local authorites that the amount of expenditure to be redeployed in this way would be small, and deliberately arranged that the limit could be increased only through primary legislation.

In August last year my right honourable friend announced that the Government were willing to make available an additional £1,250 million over four years if a satisfactory agreement could be reached on teachers' duties and on a new salary structure. He also made clear that part of those resources might be used to pay for mid-day supervision. As I explained to the House in December, the Government are now ready to increase relevant expenditure for local authorities in England and Wales by up to £10 million in this financial year and £40 million in 1986–87 to assist authorities in the provision of new arrangements for mid-day supervision. This is "new" money, over and above our existing plans for education for the relevant years.

The existing limit on the amount of expenditure which may be approved for education support grants would allow my right honourable friends to approve a total of some £52 million in 1985–86 and £55 million in 1986–87 in England and Wales. In 1985–86, the first year in which education support grants have been paid, about £30 million of expenditure has been approved for support in England and £2 mllion in Wales on activities other than mid-day supervision. There is, therefore, sufficient headroom within the limit imposed by the 1984 Act for my right honourable friends to approve a further £10 million of expenditure on mid-day supervision for the remainder of this financial year. For 1986–87, however, an increase in the limit on the amount of expenditure which may be approved is necessary to enable my right honourable friends to fulfil their intention of using education support grants to assist local education authorities with their arrangements for mid-day supervision.

Clause 1 of this Bill accordingly raises the limit in Section 2(1) of the 1984 Act from one-half to 1 per cent. This will allow an additional £52 million of expenditure to be approved in England and £3 million in Wales next year. In law this additional headroom could be used for any purpose prescribed in regulations approved by both Houses and made under the 1984 Act. However, as my right honourable friend said in the debate on Second Reading of this Bill in another place, the Government recognise the continuing public concern about the balance between the power of Ministers to pay specific grant for purposes of national importance and the discretion of local authorities to meet local needs as they believe best. My right honourable friends therefore intend, pending the outcome of the review of local government finance, to keep expenditure approved for activities other than mid-day supervision within the original limit of one-half of 1 per cent.

Clause 2 of the Bill excludes remuneration paid to teachers exclusively for mid-day supervision from the remuneration which is the subject of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965. The principal effect of the clause is to make it quite clear that the remuneration for mid-day supervision is not to be subject to review by the Burnham Committee or determination by the Secretary of State for Education. It would not be appropriate for it to be so subject because this supervision is not teaching work.

The Government's principal and overriding aim in introducing this Bill is to enable them to offer additional resources through education support grant and so assist the education authorities to secure the effective supervision of pupils at mid-day. Teachers have long sought to have mid-day supervision removed from their duties. There was for many years dissatisfaction over a provision of regulations made in 1945 which empowered local education authorities to require their teachers to supervise pupils taking school dinners. A working party which reported in 1968 led to this power being removed, and recommended the employment of additional mid-day supervisory assistants in schools, but failed to provide a basis for a lasting solution to the problem of responsibility for supervision of pupils at mid-day.

Since 1968 teachers have continued to undertake mid-day supervision, but have insisted that they did so voluntarily and were free at any time to withdraw their services. This has led to sporadic difficulties in schools as teachers exercised what they have seen as their right to refuse to participate in mid-day supervision arrangements. In the current dispute over teachers' pay many more teachers have resorted to this method of exerting pressure on their employers and as a result few schools have been immune from difficulties. The absence of effective supervision has caused considerable anxiety among pupils and their parents and the work of schools has been seriously disturbed, despite the effort of many head teachers to maintain adequate supervision.

The Government believe that the time has come for urgent action to avoid this disruption at mid-day. Following the making of the Education Support Grants (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations, the Department of Education and Science and the Welsh Office have issued addenda to Circulars 5/85 and 51/85 on education support grants, inviting authorities to seek approval of expenditure on midday supervision arrangements in 1985–86 and setting out the Government's intentions for 1986–87, subject to this Bill obtaining the approval of your Lordships and receiving Royal Assent.

The Government envisage that the additional resources will be used to employ supervisors charged with the responsibility for seeing that pupils are effectively supervised at mid-day. These supervisors will work under the overall authority of the head teacher or his deputy, and will be employed under separate contracts relating exclusively to mid-day supervision such that no payment will be made if the contract is not honoured. Other details of the arrangements will be for individual authorities to decide. In particular, it will be up to the authority whether teachers should be given the opportunity to participate, and up to the teacher to decide whether to accept that opportunity by entering into a separate contract for mid-day supervision in addition to a normal teaching contract. But the new arrangements will not rely on the voluntary participation of teachers: there will be a clear contractual duty for those employed as supervisors.

This Bill will enable the Government to carry forward their stated intention to use education support grants to help local education authorities to see that schools are effectively supervised at mid-day. It is a constructive measure which should be good for schools, teachers and parents, but most especially pupils. I commend it to this House.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Earl of Swinton.)

3.21 p.m.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Earl for the lucid way in which he introduced the Bill. I cannot start to consider the merits or the demerits of the Bill without remarking on the disparity between the number of speakers on education and the number of speakers on the Salmon Bill that follows. Those who have an exaggerated view of the importance of this House in the legislative process will no doubt take note of that disparity and note the priorities of noble Lords as between the education of our children and the protection of our fishing. I hope that the noble Earl will risk the wrath of his fishing friends by confirming that this is not the Government's sense of priority as between education and salmon.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, is not the disparity in numbers of those noble Lords who have put down their names to speak on these two matters a clear indication of the complete satisfaction of opinion with the Government's education policy?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, that intervention could be turned on its side, if not on its head. It reminds me of the old saying: If a man whose turnips cry, Cries not when his father dies, 'Tis a sign that he would rather Have a turnip than his father". There are four reasons for concern over the Bill, possibly in increasing order of importance. The first is the fact that it is based on the Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984. Secondly, there are the implications for school meals themselves. Thirdly, there is the issue of money, to which the noble Earl referred. Fourthly, there is the question of the role of this Bill in the unfortunately continuing teachers' dispute. The Education (Grants and Awards) Act 1984 was never intended for this purpose, neither by the Select Committee that recommended it nor by the Secretary of State in putting it before another place. The Select Committee said that such centralisation as is inevitably contained—the noble Earl confirmed this—in the Education (Grants and Awards) Act was for, and I quote: experimental or innovative schemes which appear to the Secretary of State to be of potential national importance". It cannot be said, I believe, that the supervision of school meals falls into that category. The Secretary of State, introducing the Education (Grants and Awards) Bill in 1984, said that the kind of things that he had in mind were pilot projects with a limited number of authorities. Again, this can hardly be said to apply to the supervision of school meals. Both Houses, I believe, accepted the Education (Grants and Awards) Bill on the basis that it was not to be a general infringement of the right and duty of local education authorities to determine the way in which moneys available should be used for the education system. This new amendment Bill extends the Education (Grants and Awards) Act in such a way as to deny local authorities the right to spend some of their own money. I shall come to that issue at a later stage.

It cannot be said, as the noble Earl remarked, that this is genuinely new money being made available by Government for this purpose. We must therefore have very severe reservations about this extension, and indeed denial, of the principle of the original Education (Grants and Awards) Bill. It shifts the balance as between central government and local education authorities in a dangerous way. Although the Secretary of State said in another place that he could give an assurance that it would not go any further, he did say that this was pending a further review of local authority finance and he could not give any guarantees beyond that time. I shall be grateful if the noble Earl, in his reply, is able to confirm that the Government have absolutely no intention under any circumstances of further extending the Education (Grants and Awards) Act.

The second issue is, after all, what the Bill is about—the supervision of school meals. This is not such a simple matter as it may seem. Lunch-time at school—it has, unfortunately in some schools, been cut down to a very short time—is not only a time for the meal itself but also an occasion in many schools when all sorts of other activities take place. There may, for instance, be musical practice or meetings of different clubs and societies. Surely teachers must be involved in those activities. This must mean that many teachers, as part, I should have thought, of their normal duties or at least recognised by them as being part of their responsibility, if not a formal duty, will be involved in work in contact with the pupils during the lunch break.

Indeed, the meal itself is not an insignificant matter. It is important that the meal should be part of the educational process and part of the process of understanding how to live in a civilised society. It should be part of the process of helping children, particularly those most in need of a balanced and adequate diet, to make choices that are good for their health. I am very disturbed that there should be the possibility of disparity, perhaps not universal but certainly widespread, between the role of the teacher in education during the rest of the school day and what will happen under this idea of bringing in outside supervision that has no educational qualification and that does nothing other, I should have thought, than keep order. I am doubtful about whether those who are brought in can be of sufficient calibre to perform this function adequately. After all, the pay, for a short period of the day, when people could be earning money in many other ways, must be minimal. I am bound to say that I disagree with the views of the Inner London Education Authority, which takes the formal position that teachers should not be encouraged to supervise school meals under the provisions of this Bill. The question of the role of school meals, nutritional and educational, is put at risk and put into the melting pot by the Bill. I am not satisfied that the Government have adequately thought through the matter.

Thirdly, there is the question of money. The noble Earl said quite bluntly that this was new money. But, of course, the £10 million in 1985–86 and the £40 million in 1986–87 do not come from any other Vote. These sums come from the money already put aside by the Government conditional upon restructuring that has not yet been made available. In any case, any money made available on this basis may be provided 70 per cent. by government but is still provided 30 per cent. by local authorities. This means that local authorities are in effect losing control of £ 12 million of their own money and being forced to spend it on this item as opposed to any other item on which they might choose to spend money. So, here again, it cannot be said that this is genuinely new government money. It is a restriction on local authorities' control of their own finances of the moneys that they raise themselves. Not only is it a restriction but it is one which is being imposed at a time when central Government funds for education are being reduced not simply in real but in cash terms. As between 1985–86 and 1986–87 the money available will be reduced from £11,000 million to £10,935 million, which may not seem very much but in real terms is a reduction of 4.5 per cent. To make £28 million available in the circumstances of a general reduction in central Government funding for education of 4.5 per cent. does not sound to me like new money and will not be seen by local education authorities or teachers as new money.

However, the fourth point, while not more important intrinsically and in the long term than the others I have raised, causes us very great concern indeed. Here is a Bill being introduced at considerable speed in the course of the teachers' pay dispute. We would all wish that the teachers' pay dispute had come to an end—and I shall not broaden the issue to the question, about which I know my right honourable and honourable friends feel very strongly, that the Government should not have been, and should not now be, so resistant to independent inquiry, which could have put an end to this dispute many months ago.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the teachers' dispute in general may be, surely the motivation of a Government which seeks to resolve by diktat (because there has been no consultation) one item in a settlement which has to be arrived at eventually, we hope sooner rather than later, must be a suspect motivation. It is evident, I am afraid, that the Government are looking to outflank, outwit and weaken the position of the teachers in the on-going dispute. In these circumstances, although we shall of course follow the tradition and the constitutional position that we do not oppose Government legislation at Second Reading, we hear and examine these proposals with a great deal of scepticism and disquiet.

3.33 p.m.

Lord Ritchie of Dundee

My Lords, I too should like to express the thanks of these Benches to the noble Earl the Minister for explaining to us the Bill which is before the House. Like the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, I do not want to widen the issue. There is obviously a great temptation to do so. But in order to explain what I want to say I feel I must say a little about the general situation.

I am sure that none of your Lordships would disagree that the teaching profession is of supreme importance and that teachers should therefore be held in the highest honour in the land. It is the fact that they are not so held which is really the root cause of the present unhappy and distressing situation. It has to be said that perhaps an indication of this, as the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, pointed out, is that we have so few speakers this afternoon on this subject.

After 11 months of bitter strife teachers have been reduced to a most distressing state of demoralisation. This is some feat considering that teachers are renowned for being impervious to political considerations and shut off from them in their staff rooms. I understand—and I am speaking of the South of England—that quite a number voted Conservative at the last election. The pay dispute has been compounded by the current idea that a number of teachers are considered bad teachers so that the profession tends to feel threatened as well as devalued. I understand now that in staff rooms the subject is not discussed at all because currently there is there an atmosphere of disillusionment and helpless despair. They know that the parents are blaming them; that the children are witnessing scenes which they will never forget, to the detriment of teachers; and they do not like the situation.

As we all know, in the last year there has been a drastic reduction in the numbers entering the profession, and many are leaving it. I cannot help thinking, for example, of a young teacher I met the other day whose work, in remedial maths with fourth and fifth year children in a secondary school, I particularly admired. She is ceasing to be a teacher. The education service, the teaching service, are losing her because as a single mother in a one-parent family she cannot afford to remain in the profession any longer.

I cannot help feeling that at the root of the trouble is a misunderstanding of the teachers' situation. Teachers are not selling goods or performing any ordinary service. They are giving themselves in the most exacting of professions. They are dedicated people—dedicated because they are there to serve children. They are also very humble people because children are no respecters of persons. Of recent years they have undertaken more and more responsibility. Just consider the additional responsibility, especially in cities, of the multi-cultural society in which we live and which schools serve. Consider the revolt of youth that has taken place over the last few years; such things as drug abuse; and teenage children facing the prospect of unemployment when they leave school. All these factors involve additional stresses and strains for teachers. All of them have been taken on willingly.

I think it is true to say that in some cases teachers have also had to become practically social workers. In considering what happens in schools in the lunch hour it is very important to point out the distinction, as did the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, between supervising the meal and the many extra curricula activities that take place in many schools at that time. Supervising meals, and indeed the school generally, during the lunch hour is not fun. This includes not only the dining halls themselves but also the playground, other social areas, as they are called, and perhaps even the perimeter of the campus. It has to be done, obviously, but nobody wants to do it. It is a bore and a chore and it can be nerve racking and stressful. It can bring one into conflict with children.

By contrast, the extra curricula activities are admirable and they all take place at this time. These may take any form, as your Lordships realise. They may be aerobics, choir practice, music, drama, dance, photography, philately, or anything one likes to think of. These are not a bore. Any teachers worthy of the name enjoy doing this because they can pursue their own hobby. They can communicate their own enthusiasm to the young; and there is no more exhilerating experience than doing that. It also brings them into contact with the children they are teaching in an informal situation on an equal basis. The personal contact, the social experience, makes this particularly enjoyable.

However, against all this it has to be said that teachers desperately need a break in the middle of the day. I have the feeling that over the last 11 months—or whatever it is—a number of teachers experiencing this, having a taste of this, for the first time, have come to realise how valuable this is. They realise that the opportunity to recover from the morning's teaching and to prepare for the afternoon's teaching means that their afternoon teaching is of a higher standard than it was when they were occupied the whole time.

We have therefore a confused situation. Should teachers be supervising during the middle of the day or should they not? The Bill we are considering paves the way for midday supervision to be carried out largely by external ancillary staff. This is very far from being an ideal situation. Notwithstanding what the noble Earl the Minister said, although it is true to say that up to a point teachers have sought it for a long time—I think "long sought" was the phrase used—they are ambivalent about this because they realise that the job cannot be done nearly so effectively by outside staff.

We must remember that personnel who are suddenly brought from the outside world into the overheated atmosphere of a school do not know the children. They do not know what the children are like and they do not know their background. They do not know where the troublemakers are; they do not know their names. I can assure your Lordships that that is one of the most disadvantageous situations to be in if one is dealing with children. Children are good at becoming anonymous hooligans and at telling you false names when you ask them.

What is more, teachers brought in from outside often let misdemeanours pass because, after all, they will be going at a certain hour and as far as they are concerned they are finished with the situation. However, often a problem arises during break-time which is not finished with at that time and which has to be sorted out later by the head teacher or his deputy or one of the group tutors or one of the year tutors, and which perhaps might have been better handled at the beginning. Moreover, children are much less likely to be badly behaved and abusive to their own teachers than they are to staff brought in from outside, because they will very likely have a positive relationship with their own teachers.

Some teachers are resentful of what they regard as outside casual labour being brought in to do a job which they feel requires trained, professional experience. I have talked to teachers about this problem and I know their feelings. Of course head teachers and their deputies have to be present anyway, but the question arises as to whether they will be paid. I presume, from what the Minister has said, that they will be paid.

There is also the question of extracurricular activities. Obviously imported staff cannot carry out those activities and the Bill does not appear to relate to the matter. However, let us consider the situation when there are teachers occupied in the activities about which I was speaking earlier—for example, dance, drama, aerobics and so on. Such activities will occupy a large number of children. There will be perhaps 50 children who will either be taking part or watching. Those children will have been taken off the playground and the teachers concerned will be doing the work quite voluntarily. However, there will be some external staff on the playground, which has been half emptied anyway, who will be being paid. The teachers will not continue to do this work without special pay. One wonders whether they will ever again be prepared to go back and do this type of work without special pay.

This Bill does not solve any of those problems. Furthermore, it is, in the circumstances, provocative. That has already been said and I do not want to elaborate on it. However, I should like to say that the method of funding from ESGs—educational support grants—does not meet with our approval on these Benches and we shall be returning to the matter during the Committee stage.

I should like to put to the Minister an idea which has just come to my mind. A worthy object of an educational support grant would be research into diet, research into the food which is offered at mealtimes, which I can assure your Lordships is in many cases unhealthy. If given the choice, children choose nothing but chips, which they cover with a sauce containing red dye. It is a very worrying situation.

Your Lordships may ask: what is the solution? I know of one school which in former days had an admirable arrangement. The school was divided into four areas: the dining hall area, the playground and two others. Twelve teachers were on duty throughout the midday break and they were divided into four groups of three. Each individual teacher only did 20 minutes duty. How they worked it, I do not quite know, but the duty only came round once a week. One feels that it should be possible to organise some such system, but it depends on goodwill and co-operation. As soon as one talks about providing specific payment for specific tasks, that type of thing begins to fade into the background.

I am afraid that the Bill looks like the beginning of the process. I do not think that it constitutes a serious attempt to solve the problem. In my view it is an emergency measure designed to pacify parents and the public in a situation which is actually hazardous. It is a miracle that so far no major accident has taken place during the time of the dispute. Head teachers and their deputies are exhausted and unprepared to bear the burden single-handed any longer. The present Bill is only a stopgap. In another place the Minister described it as "small but valuable". At a later stage he became almost lyrical and described it as "this admirable little Bill". It does not seem to me to be that at all—"little", yes, but "admirable", no.

The problems can be solved, but I feel strongly that they need to be addressed by a body which does not as yet exist; namely, a single, united professional organisation for teachers, comparable to that which the doctors have and in which professional problems—and this is a professional problem—can be solved by the professionals involved with no need for intervention from Whitehall or Westminster. However, at present that is impossible because the issue is the crippling shortage of funding and the underpayment of teachers. I cannot believe that. until this is resolved, either this Bill or any other Bill will solve the problem of midday supervision.

3.46 p.m.

The Earl of Swinton

My Lords, I am grateful for the points which have been made by the two noble Lords in the debate. This is a very short Bill which has already been the subject of considerable discussion in another place. It is understandable that some noble Lords should be concerned as much about the Government's motives in introducing this measure as about the substance of the Bill. First, I should like to reassure the House that our purpose is to encourage the establishment of new arrangements which are for the benefit of pupils, parents and teachers.

The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, began by querying the relative interest of the Government in salmon fishing and education. I cannot speak on behalf of noble Lords who have put their names down to speak on the two Bills. However, looking at the batting order, education is in the No. 1 position and salmon is No. 2. Perhaps that may assure the noble Lord where the Government's priorities lie. The noble Lord asked me—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, also referred to this matter—about whether this was a proper use of education support grant money. Under the 1984 Act, ESGs may be paid on expenditure for, or in connection with, educational purposes which it appears to the Secretary of State that authorities should be encouraged to incur in the interests of education in England and Wales.

Expenditure on midday supervision is expenditure for, or in connection with, educational purposes, and it is expenditure which my right honourable friends consider to be in the interests of education, with good reason. The regulations provide that, except in exceptional circumstances, the school day should be divided into two sessions with a break in the middle of the day. Most pupils wish to stay on the school premises, and many educational activities take place during the break. Without adequate supervision arrangements, head teachers have found themselves unable to discharge their responsibility for the safety of the pupils. Some have found it necessary to exclude pupils from the premises, although this does nothing in itself to secure the safety of pupils—rather the contrary. Absence of adequate midday supervision leads to considerable disruption of the normal life of the school. It restricts the ability of the school to provide for the general education of pupils. My right honourable friends are in no doubt that it is in the interests of education to encourage authorities to incur expenditure on securing adequate supervision at midday and that that is a proper use of education support grants.

The noble Lord went further and asked me to confirm that the Government have no intention of further extending the scope of the Education (Grants and Awards) Act. By the Bill, the Government are imposing a limit of 1 per cent. of the planned expenditure on education on the size of the education support programme. That limit will stand in law. Clearly I cannot give an assurance that no future Government will ever seek to change that limit of 1 per cent. However, by placing it in primary legislation the Government have ensured that it can only be changed by the will of Parliament.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl will permit me to interrupt. I realise that he is in no position to commit future governments, but it was not just a question of the percentage of expenditure. It is a question of how far we are getting away from the spirit of the Education (Grants and Awards) Act, which was intended to deal with expenditure for experimental purposes particularly among selected local authorities, and not general educational expenditure. That is the issue on which I seek the noble Earl's assurance.

The Earl of Swinton

My Lords, I explained in the last answer I gave, and I quote the words, that it could be used "for, or in connection with, educational purposes". Again I cannot commit what this Government might do over a period of time. But it seems to me to be fair and right that this is in connection with educational purposes and is a proper use for this money.

Both the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, brought out the question of new money. I should like to make clear that it is important to recognise the distinction between the size of the education programme which my right honourable friends may decide to support, and the way in which that programme is funded. Clause 1 of the Bill deals with the size of the programme. It would raise the maximum expenditure which the Secretaries of State could choose to support next year from some £52 million in England and £3 million in Wales to roughly twice those amounts.

In practice, my right honourable friends have chosen to limit the programme to rather less than the amounts allowed in the existing legislation. In England, for example, authorities have just been notified of approvals totalling just under £40 million for activities other than midday supervision in 1986–87. Nevertheless, there was insufficient headroom remaining to support the new activity of midday supervision, hence the need for Clause 1.

I think that this is where the confusion arises. The Government can find money for a specific grant in one of two ways. They can decide aggregate Exchequer grant first and deduct money from that total for the specific grant, so leaving less to be distributed to local authorities as block grant. In that event the specific grant redeploys resources but does not add to them.

Up to now the education support grant has been so found. But there is another way. The Government may add to aggregate Exchequer grant an amount corresponding to the increase in specific grant. In this way the total grant paid by the Government to local authorities goes up as a result of the specific grant. It is this latter course which the Government are taking with the grant made available for midday supervision in 1985–86 and 1986–87. I would agree that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is absolutely right in saying that it is 70 per cent., but that 70 per cent. is new money, and I hope that I have reassured the noble Lord on that point.

On the question of school supervision being done by teachers, perhaps I may tell the noble Lord a story of my own. I think that the days when everybody ate as a nice, cosy family group at small tables with teachers have gone. Nowadays they tend to be canteen arrangements. I know of a school, of which I happen to be chairman of the governors, a special school which was not built very long ago, where we had this system of dining. I used to go there quite a lot and eat with the teachers at different tables and talk to the children. That has gone by the board. I was rather horrified when I went there last time to find that it has been replaced by a canteen system. I went round the teachers and said, "What do you think of this? Has not the lovely family atmosphere"—which the noble Lord described so well in his speech—"all gone out of the window?" They said, "Yes, it has. We are sorry to have lost it, but this is much more like the real world that children will go to outside." These were genuine teachers. They were not trying to butter up to me. They said, in effect, "We think, in view of what the children will find when they have to eat in factory canteens, staff canteens, or whatever, this is a better way of preparing them for it". The noble Lord may not agree, but I do not think that that is a strong point.

Lastly, I must turn to the question both noble Lords put to me: in seeking this change now are we provoking the teachers?—perhaps we should not proceed with this initiative during the dispute over their pay. I really cannot agree with this. I do not deny that the Government are looking for swift action and that we hope that the consequence of that action will be to remove from the teachers a weapon which they have used all too successfully during the dispute. But the needs in our schools really are urgent. Without adequate supervision at midday, as the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie of Dundee, said so well, schools are unable to function normally. In some cases pupils have been turned off the school premises, with all the risks which that entails to their safety and welfare.

We really cannot afford to wait until the teachers' pay dispute is settled before taking action. Let us not forget that teachers have long campaigned to be relieved of the pressure on them to volunteer for supervision, and that the long-term effect of the new arrangements will be that every teacher who wishes to have a break at midday will be able to have one. To describe that as provocation is, I venture to suggest, far-fetched.

Of course we share the concern and regret of noble Lords that the teachers' dispute should have gone on for so long. I very much hope that today's joint talks at ACAS will help the two sides to bring this damaging dispute to an end. For almost a year now pupils have been losing lessons, and enduring the uncertainty and insecurity caused by forms of action which are quite inappropriate to the classroom and the teaching profession. Who would have imagined that teachers would engage in lightning strikes lasting 20 minutes or so and deliberately designed to disrupt the life and work of the schools?

With this damage being done, and pupils direct witnesses of this sort of behaviour, it should go without saying that the Government want the earliest possible end to this dispute. Yet it has been suggested that the Government are not doing enough. I must refute that criticism. Our first concern must be for the children. We must be able to hold out to them the promise of uninterrupted education. This is why we need not only an early end to the current pay dispute but also a lasting long-term settlement covering teachers' pay, their career and promotion structure, their duties and their conditions of service. The Government pointed the way towards just such a settlement last August when we said that we were ready to see an extra £1,250 million spent on teachers' pay and midday supervision over the next four years. Quite deliberately, this was not a no-strings pay offer; this additional investment was offered in return for the long overdue reform of the teachers' pay structure and the clarification of teachers' duties. The employers converted this into a specific pay offer last September. The unions took a mere 20 minutes to reject that offer.

This offer involved just two conditions: first, that teachers should formally accept terms of service generally in line with those long taken for granted by most teachers, with the addition of systematic arrangements for appraisal (instead of today's haphazard, informal arrangements) but minus midday supervision; second, that the pay structure should provide substantially more promotion opportunities to help recruit, retain and motivate teachers of the right quality across the whole range of school responsibilities.

Let us hope that today the unions reconsider their dismissal of this approach. There is nothing but misery in the pursuit of a straight pay increase way beyond what their employers can afford to pay. It is wrong for teachers to disrupt the education of the pupils in their charge. It is quite inexcusable when they have been made an offer which recognises the case which they have made for better pay and prospects. My Lords, in conclusion, I thank your Lordships for an interesting debate and ask that this Bill be read a second time.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.