Education Bill

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

I should like to think that one could get 51 per cent of teachers to vote to keep a professional council going. However, I rather doubt that that will happen. On the question of money, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I believe that £33 of the £36 annual subscription paid by teachers is subsidised by the state. That means that £3 is paid by teachers—£1.80 after tax, or the cost of a cup of coffee. That does not seem the right stance for a professional body as far as subscriptions are concerned. I am very sad because, in principle, the whole idea of teachers’ professionalism being represented through a body of this kind has always appealed to me. However, sadly, the past 13 years of valiant efforts to get the General Teaching Council to do what it always should have done have, by noble Lords’ admission, failed. It is time to return it to the education history books.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I am happy to support noble Lords’ Amendment 64 and the thrust of Amendment 64A in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones. At Second Reading, I went on record to defend the GTC for England. On these Benches, we support the removal of quangos that are unnecessary or whose functions are retained elsewhere. However, that clearly will not happen in this case. We will be left with little more than a list of teachers who are no longer fit to practise. There will be no remnant of a professional registration body.

It is said that a society is measured by how it cares for the vulnerable—the elderly, the disabled, those who are ill and children. A teacher has the future of a child in his or her hands. Nurses, doctors, lawyers and social workers have registration bodies that act independently of the Government. Only last week, I heard of plans by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to include the registration of healthcare workers. What is therefore special about teachers in England that this is denied to them? The elegant Amendment 64 calls for the members of the profession to reject the Government’s proposals, should a majority of them so wish, thus maintaining the status quo. Amendment 64A outlines a professional registration body as it should be through proposed new paragraphs (a) to (e), and it is a proposal of which teachers could be proud.

Consequently, on these Benches we support the intention of Amendments 64 and 64A. The noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, made the point that the GTCE had not worked so far. That is absolutely no reason to dismantle completely something that should exist. It is incumbent on us to leave it there and try again.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I shall be relatively brief; I suspect we shall want to adjourn fairly soon. I was pleased to put my name to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Puttnam, not just because there is a reasonable presumption that you should always agree with one of the people who proposed you at your introduction but because he is, as ever, right. As we have heard, the amendment suggests that teachers themselves should vote on whether the GTCE should continue. I looked up what the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, said on 2 June last year, when he announced the scrapping of the GTCE. Incidentally, I understand that the people working there, including the chief executive, were at the time as surprised about it as everybody else. Michael Gove said that the Government trust the professionals. This amendment trusts teachers to decide whether they want their professional body to continue.

The other half of the amendment uses the proper threshold. This should appeal to the Government, given that on 26 June, on the “Andrew Marr Show”, the Secretary of State Mr Gove confirmed that Ministers are looking at minimum thresholds in the context of strike ballots. In respect of such a ballot, which I am assuming that the Minister will say he supports, because it is so much in the spirit of where this Government are going, I would argue for the retention of the GTC, but with reform as necessary. Why the GTC? Because, in the end, professionalism is important. Again, I looked up the words of the Secretary of State in November last year in his forward to the White Paper. He said:

“At the heart of our plan is a vision of the teacher as our society’s most valuable asset”.

He went on to say:

“There is no calling more noble, no profession more vital and no service more important than teaching”.

Who could disagree with his words?

The Secretary of State’s actions cause me a little more concern. Given his commitment, if he so believes in them and their professionalism, it is a surprise that teachers have voted overwhelmingly that they have no confidence in this Secretary of State. Perhaps that is because of the reality of his attacks on that professionalism. Look at what he is doing to the pension scheme. When the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was in his place, he renegotiated the teachers’ pension scheme and made it effective and funded. They see that attack. They see anyone being allowed to teach in free schools, and they see a mum’s army being asked to come in and teach during the strike. If he was Health Secretary, would he have had said the same about nurses, and that mums should go and replace nurses in hospital if there was a nurses’ strike? If he was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, would he ask them to do the same if there was a firefighters’ strike? I suspect not. I suspect that he would respect their professionalism more than he respects teachers.

Then he wants them arbitrarily to close their professional body. As others have said, would he have closed the General Medical Council if he was Health Secretary? No he would not. He would respect their professionalism and their professional body. The other shocking consequence of the abolition of the General Teaching Council is that the teaching agency will take on only the disciplinary functions of the GTC, as we heard in a speech of my noble friend Lady Jones. Can he confirm this? Does this seriously mean that there will no longer be a register of teachers? If so, this is an extraordinarily reckless move by the Government. I assume that the logic is that it is now up to schools to decide whether anyone can teach and what they are paid, and it is all part of this wonderful freedom that we are now going to give head teachers. Hence the assumption is that everyone is eligible to teach unless they fail a CRB check. I find it incomprehensible as to how that will work—and not just in relation to the relationship with Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland and making sure that people can move freely, as was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I just do not understand how the teaching agency will exercise its disciplinary functions without a register or how this move will improve teaching standards. I see it only lowering teaching standards. There are opportunities to use a register to raise standards. You could introduce a right to continuous professional development to teachers and, in return, they would have to re-register, so that we could ensure that they continued to receive training and raise their professional standards.

Finally, I repeat the point that this is part of the power grab by the Secretary of State. He will be directly responsible for recruiting, training and disciplining teachers as a result of this Bill. That is a massive change. It makes him very vulnerable to problems, when problems occur, as they inevitably will. But that is his problem.

These are just some of the arguments and reasons why I would reform the GTC to distil its statutory functions down to those coincidentally in Amendment 64A, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. We could also think about the composition of the council and how it can be reformed better to represent the customer rather than the producer of education. With reform, I think the GTC can be an effective organisation, but I am happy to be hands-off about this and to leave it to teachers—hence my support for the amendment. If teachers do not want their professional body, they should be trusted to get rid of it.