Third Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation
Thursday 15 April 1999
[Mr. Jim Cunningham in the Chair]
Draft General Teaching Council for Wales (Constitution) Regulations 1999
10 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Charles Clarke): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft General Teaching Council for Wales (Constitution) Regulations 1999.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to consider the draft General Teaching Council for England (Constitution) Regulations 1999.
Mr. Clarke: First, I shall say a word about general background. From September 2000, the general teaching councils for England and Wales will provide an independent and authoritative voice for teachers and work with the Government and others to raise standards. Teachers will have a major role in regulating their profession.
The GTCs will advise the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales on a wide range of teaching issues, including recruitment, supply, initial training, induction, professional development and conduct. Like other professional bodies, the GTCs will develop and consult on a code of professional conduct and practice for registered teachers. They will maintain a register of qualified teachers and will have powers to strike off teachers for serious professional misconduct or incompetence. The GTCs must be separate bodies with a distinctive professional voice, not a collection of existing interests. Each will be a teaching council and not a teachers' council, a GTC will not be a super-union or a talking shop, but a professional body.
In common with other professional bodies, the GTCs are likely to set a modest annual registration fee of about £20 a year, which is the fee charged by the General Teaching Council for Scotland. I pay tribute to the work done in Scotland on this matter over many years. The Government will fund the initial start-up period.
The regulations provide detail that was not provided when the Bill that became the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 was debated early last year. We wanted to proceed through dialogue and consultation and to ensure wide discussion with the various relevant interests on issues that needed to be addressed. We wished to achieve a balance between wide consultation and ensuring the full right of Parliament to scrutinise key aspects of the legislation.
I should make it clear that I am speaking on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales to present to the Committee regulations that will govern the composition of the general teaching council for Wales.
The regulations will provide GTCs with a good mix of experience, commitment and expertise. They will ensure that the GTCs command the respect of teachers, parents, teachers' employers, the general public and the many organisations with which they will work.
Regulation 3 of the regulations affecting England deals with the size of the GTC. The main change that we made after consultation was to increase its size to 64 members. The change was necessary to accommodate important additional interests not represented in the original proposals, including those of chief education officers and equal opportunities groups.
Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead): Did the Minister say 64 members or 63? The Regulation refers to 63.
Mr. Clarke: I said 64, and I was just about to explain why the regulation refers to 63. The change was necessary to accommodate important additional interests not included in the original proposals.
Mrs. May: I am just showing that I am awake.
Mr. Clarke: The hon. Lady is always awake, sharp and alert, and she is an example to the whole opposition, in contrast to the shadow Secretary of State. The change accommodates the interests of other parties, including chief education officers and equal opportunities groups. Once the disability rights commission is established, I intend to make it one of the equal opportunities groups able to appoint a member. Until that time, the regulations provide for only 63 GTC members; that is the answer to the hon. Lady's question. In keeping with the Government's commitment to retain a majority of teachers on the general teaching council for England, the number of teachers was also increased.
Regulation 9 of the regulations affecting England requires the Secretary of State to ensure that at least two of his or her appointees represent the interests of pupil's parents. It also ensures that, when deciding whom to appoint, he has regard to the desirability of the GTC's membership reflecting the interests of the general public and of teachers of pupils with special education needs. The Secretary of State is therefore required to take account of those specific interests in deciding on his or her nominees.
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough): Before the Minister leaves that point, will he tell us why it has not been possible to state how parents will be chosen, how the interests of children with special educational needs will be represented and why specific representative groups have not been included in the regulations, rather than leaving appointments to be made later by the Secretary of State?
Mr. Clarke: We gave a great deal of thought to those two important points. We felt that it was difficult to decide what was the appropriate national representative body or structure through which parents' representatives might find their way on to the general teaching council. In England, for example, it is not clear what representative structure could be established to ensure that two parents to be appointed were representative of the whole. Some people have argued for the inclusion of particular national organisations for parents, but, as the hon. Gentleman will probably concede, it would be difficult to suggest that at this stage, at any rate they were genuinely representative across the range.
There are proposals to establish a more general structure for example, by bringing the parent-governors of schools in a particular local education authority together into one structure, and through that building up an England-wide structure that could in some sense be representative. However, as I hope that the hon. Gentleman will concede, we are not yet at that stage, and it would have been previous to suggest that we rely on such a structure before it existed. We are considering ways to develop more effective representative structures, which could be taken into account later. If they are established, either the regulations could be changed or the Secretary of State could state that he or she would make his or her nomination taking that structure into account.
Mr. Willis: Do I detect from that answer that the Secretary of State will not appoint anyone because there is no way to decide which parents should sit on the council?
Mr. Clarke: No, the specific obligation on the Secretary of State set out in regulation 9 states:
'the Secretary of State shall ensure that two or more of those members represent the interests of parents of pupils.'
Parents interests are important, but I acknowledge the truth of the hon. Gentlemans point that at this stage the Secretary of State cannot turn to organisation X, Y or Z and say in April 1999 that it is the authentic voice of parents. That is why we have framed the regulations as we have. However, it is of course important to develop representative structures for parents; the Government are committed to that course, but it is a long and complicated process starting from where we are now.
I shall not go into the same level of detail in relation to special educational needs, but similar issues arise in that area, as they do in some other constituencies that felt that they should be represented. We felt that, instead of defining a series of bodies to nominate where it is not certain that they could authoritatively be regarded as representative, we should channel nomination through the Secretary of State. That is the process set out in the regulations.
However, let me make it clear that as and when different channels emerge that are seen to command the respect of people across the range of particular interests, we are open to considering different forms of nomination either in regulations or in guidance operated by the Secretary of State to take account of that.
In addition to the composition of the general teaching council, the regulations deal with a number of constitutional issues. Briefly, those include regulation 4, which deals with the electoral constituencies for different types of teacher; regulation 5, which deals with which teachers will be entitled to stand for election; regulation 6, which concerns the electoral scheme for teacher elections, which is to be made for the first set of elections, which we expect to be held in spring 2000, by the Secretary of State; regulation 10, which sets the terms of office of members of the general teaching council; and, finally, regulation 12, which relates to the chairman of the council.
In Wales, the Secretary of State may nominate the initial chairman of the council. We had not intended to follow that course in England, and the English regulations reflect that. However, we are reconsidering that position, because we are anxious that during the period before the general teaching council is elected and shortly thereafter, before it can make its own first appointment of a chairman there should be a spokesperson for the general teaching council, to develop the debate. We are actively reconsidering the appointment of the initial chair of the council, consulting a range of bodies, and we may seek to amend the regulations on that point. I believe that it is right to mention that in introducing the regulations.
Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion): On choosing the first chairperson, can the Minister confirm that, once the transfer of functions to the Assembly has occurred, the Assembly or, perhaps, in effect, the secretary for education in the Assembly will fulfil the functions described in the regulations as being those of the Secretary of State?
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