Education: Lifelong Learning

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, may I take advantage and speak during the gap? I congratulate the noble Baroness on allowing this debate to take place. I was interested when she mentioned Vince Cable; his political education started in Glasgow, as she perhaps knows. He started off as a Labour councillor for Maryhill, not far from where I was a councillor, and was a Co-op party member on the council. If my memory serves me right, we put him in charge of the fairground in Sauchiehall Street—one of our main streets—at Christmas time. We all said, “This councillor’s going to go a long way”.

I say to the right reverend Prelate that the churches should be able to take a great deal of credit for education. I go back to talking about councillors in Glasgow. One of those whom I had in the same ward as me was Councillor Pat Trainer. He was the child of Irish immigrants who could not read nor write, and it was the Bishop of Glasgow of that time who said that the children of Irish immigrants needed education. Pat, because he came from the Gorbals in Glasgow, got the Franciscans to come and teach him. Such was the poverty of that young man that he had to learn his lessons by looking over the shoulder of a fellow pupil, because his family could not afford a writing slate. Pat, who is only a generation away from me, turned out to be a lovely handwriter. He became a full-time trade unionist because of the education that he received, and he was fanatical about education; he fought for primary schools and secondary schools. Whenever a boy or girl was denied a grant to go to university, he was the first up to the education department to see why that grant was not being paid for his young constituent’s education. Pat used to have a saying that if you ceased to learn, you ceased to live, and he would be pleased about the fact at least that our education facilities are far superior to what he had to put up with when he was a young boy.

We should readily acknowledge that the trade union movement—and, yes, the Workers’ Educational Association—have provided first-class facilities throughout the years. As someone who went to school at 15, I know that by the time I became interested in the trade union movement and in Labour Party matters, tackling the grammar of minute-taking and writing letters did not come easy. With a young family, it was ideal for me to be able to go to the night classes that were provided by the TUC in Glasgow. Of course, they were provided not only in Glasgow but throughout the country, and it says a great deal for the trade union movement that not only were they fighting for conditions and wages, they were also fighting for education.

I know that I am due to finish shortly. Consideration should be given to mentoring by retired journeymen and journeywomen going back into the factories. They are more patient with young apprentices, and the young apprentices will respect them when they are given lessons by a person who has all those years of skill behind them.