My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have no fixed practice in circumstances such as these but give careful consideration to each case on its merits.

My Lords, surely this is a matter of principle. Are the Government really saying that there are circumstances in which individuals will be sent back to join the Armed Forces of the illegal régime of Rhodesia and thereby, if the negotiations which we hope will be successful are not successful, prop up the continued existence of that régime which for 10 years we have been trying to put down? Particularly in the case of Mr. Desai last weekend, whether or not evasion of the draft was the principal motive in his coming here, do not the Government think it was grossly unfair to him to send him back to face what may be severe penalties for coming here in the first instance and evading the papers which were served on him?

No, my Lords; I do not think we take the same view as does the noble Lord on the last point in his supplementary question. So far as general practice is concerned, the situation is this. We will look at every case on its merits, but we cannot ignore the potential size of the commitment to admit anyone who applies to come here because he does not wish to serve in the Rhodesian Armed Forces.

My Lords, is it the case that the Government consider every case on its merits? Is it lot the case that they consider it only when it is referred to the Home Office by a Member of the other place or this House? Is the Minister aware that I have recently taken up a case which had been refused entry at Heathrow, but upon consideration the Home Office accepted it? Before a decision is reached at Heathrow, would it not be desirable that cases will be referred to the Home Office?

My Lords, the immigration officers act on the basis of immigration rules. If any approach is made by a Member of either House, then either my right honourable friend the Home Secretary or one of his colleagues will look at the circumstances of the case. So far as this narrow issue is concerned, until May of this year we had received no applications from Rhodesian citizens to enter or remain in this country on the grounds of wishing to avoid military service.

My Lords, is it not a something of a misnomer to describe Rhodesia now as an "illegal régime", when in fact Her Majesty's Government are sponsoring a conference and recognising the existence of Rhodesia?

My Lords, that is a rather wider question.

My Lords, the noble Lord has said that he had received no case of a person who wished to remain here in order to avoid a call-up. If that is so, will he look at the case of Mr. Archie Coleman and Mr. Selwyn Quarrie who originally arrived here in May and who have been on IS96s ever since, reporting regularly to the police every week? Will the Minister consider the possibility of testing the bona fides of people who say they are conscientious objectors by bringing in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, notwithstanding the fact that these people are not de jure refugees?

My Lords, as I have indicated, until May of this year we had received no applications of this kind. I will look at the two cases that the noble Lord has raised and will study the suggestion that he has made or will ensure that my honourable friend the Joint Minister of State will do so. What I have said indicates that we are prepared to look at every case on its merits. We consider that that is the appropriate way of dealing with these matters.

My Lords, is it the policy of Her Majesty's Government not to discourage recruitment to the Forces of a régime in rebellion against the Crown of this country?

My Lords, what I have indicated is that we are not prepared to indicate that we will admit anyone who wants to come here simply because they do not wish to serve in the Rhodesian Armed Forces. Such a commitment would be a very substantial one and I do not think we could lightly enter into it at the present time.

My Lords, appreciating what the Minister has said, that the immigration officers at Heathrow are given rules to act by and that their task is very difficult, may I ask whether it is not clear in cases of this kind—and I have knowledge of the two cases raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury—that the immigration officers should consult with the Home Office before they decide to send a person back rather than wait for a Member of Parliament or a Member of your Lordships' House to raise the matter with the Home Office?

My Lords, I think it would be going too far to say that no immigration officer should take a decision on his own account, for this would slow down the administrative processes by which it is decided whether or not to admit a person. I hope that I have indicated that the Government are prepared to look at cases on their merits and that we will do so in the future as we have done in the past.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, proposals for the harmonisation of Summer Time dates within the European Economic Community in 1978 and 1979 are under consideration. In the meantime, France and the Benelux countries are understood to be making their own arrangements for a period of Summer Time next year which will be substantially shorter than the period of British Summer Time. We have made it clear to our partners in Europe that any change in our arrangements would have to be acceptable to Parliament.

My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that encouraging Answer, may I ask that the Government should take into consideration when negotiating that this is a matter which is of considerable importance within the travel industry and other areas where the present difference of dates causes extreme confusion, and that to concede to our partners would be a concession to European opinion which would be as rare as it would be welcome?

My Lords, we will take that into account.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, public warnings about potentially dangerous light bulbs with protruding wires were issued by the Deparment of Prices and Consumer Protection on 1st and 11th October. The British lamp industry has informed the Government that stringent testing and inspection procedures are already used but that further measures are now being taken to ensure that only safe bulbs are released for sale. It is already a contravention of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1975 to sell or possess for sale any light bulbs in this dangerous condition, whether British-made or imported.

My Lords, I am very much obliged. Are the Government satisfied that the sanctions are sufficient to prevent manufacturers and importers from releasing these dangerous bulbs on to the market? Is it not the case that you cannot expect busy wholesalers mid retailers to inspect every single item, nor can the Department be expected to get the message through to every member of the public that they must inspect every single light bulb that they buy?

My Lords, I would not claim that we are satisfied with the situation. We have asked the British Standards Institution to call their committee together to reconsider the matter of standards. Such a meeting is due to take place on 19th November. I can assure the noble Lord that the Department's views about the inadequacy of the present standards will be conveyed to that meeting.

My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to say how many thousands—if it amounts to that figure—of these light bulbs have been imported from Europe, and whether they are still in this country? Are they going to be sent back, and is the money we spent on them going to be repaid?

My Lords, it is not possible to say how many defective bulbs have been imported. I believe eight million bulbs altogether are imported. This should be seen against the 240 million British made bulbs.

My Lords, is there no general testing of e electrical equipment that comes into this country? Is my noble friend aware that the magazine Which? constantly calls attention to the failure of imported electrical equipment to satisfy regulations? Is it not proper that all imported electrical equipment should be subjected to at least spot testing, even if every single item cannot be tested?

My Lords, since my noble friend refers to imported electrical equipment, perhaps I should make it clear in relation to electric light bulbs that the second release from my Department made it clear that both British and imported bulbs are subject to the defect that has recently been revealed. As to the question of testing, I think some system of spot testing is desirable. I am not fully acquainted with the present position, but I will write to my noble friend.

My Lords, regarding the last part of the noble Lord's answer, is he aware (as I am sure he is) that Czechoslovakia and the COMECON countries are large exporters of these bulbs? Will the noble Lord say what consultations have taken place with the Governments of those countries to encourage them to test the articles at source?

My Lords, the attention of manufacturers in the Eastern European countries concerned has been drawn to the defects found in their bulbs, and they have assured us that the procedures for testing are being reviewed in their countries.

My Lords, regarding checking procedures of imported bulbs, my noble friend may be surprised when I tell him that just last week my good lady purchased a light bulb of English manufacture, and as she put it in the light bracket the bulb came to pieces. I looked at it but I could not give you the name of the bulb manufacturer. Therefore, if there are to be spot checks I hope they will be carried out on British manufactured bulbs as well as imported ones.

My Lords, the hazard to which my noble friend refers is a different one: the exploding bulb. We do not want to get into an argument as between imported or home produced light bulbs; our anxiety is to see that all are subject to safety tests.

My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us how we can tell when a light bulb is "dud"?

My Lords, it is not a case of a light bulb being a "dud"; these bulbs will light but they are dangerous. The question was about the hazard of protruding wires. They can be readily recognised because the wire is easily seen. The wire is in danger of being bent over to touch the cap of the bulb, and that would electrify the whole system. That is the danger. I have an example of such a bulb in my room and I shall be glad to show it to the noble Lord.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

My Lords, there are no reciprocal arrangements between the United Kingdom and the Bahamas for the issue of work permits. No fee is charged for a work permit by the United Kingdom. Fees charged by the Bahamas vary according to the category of job and range from 25 to 5,000 Bahamian dollars per annum.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. Would he not agree that, despite the absence of any formal reciprocal arrangements, there really ought to be some form of equality? If he is unwilling to introduce fees for Bahamian citizens applying for work permits in this country, will he use his influence with the Bahamian Government to see that the fees charged there are more equitable?

My Lords, the fees charged by the Bahamian Government are a matter for the Bahamian Government. As regards the question of our charging fees, I would say, first, that very few countries charge fees for work permits; so far as we know, there are only three in the world. Secondly, there were only 11 permits issued in the United Kingdom to Bahamian citizens last year, so that very little would be raised. Thirdly, if we are to have fees for this, I should hope that they would be on a better basis than tit-for-tat.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that further answer. Could he then revert to the second suggestion that I made; namely, the possibility of making representations to the Bahamian Government to reduce the fees there or make them more in line with the benefits granted?

My Lords, we have no evidence that the fees charged by the Bahamian Government cause hardship to any resident of the United Kingdom.

But surely, my Lords, if this were done by us it would be denounced universally as blatantly racist.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement on Sterling.

My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee on Recommitment. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Recommitment be discharged.

moved Amendment No. 1:

Page 1, line 19, after ("pupils") insert ("of compulsory school age").

My Lords, this has not been suggested to me. It sounds to me in no way objectionable, and if the noble Lord wants to do it in this order I will be very happy to do so. But the order in the Marshalled List is the order which I was proposing to take, unless otherwise asked.

My Lords, plainly I have been misinformed. I understood that this was the order in which it had been intended to take them. I have no wishes in the matter at all. I shall now proceed as though nothing had happened.

We return, therefore, at the outset of our debate on this Bill to an Amendment which we tabled and discussed in Committee. The original intention of the Amendment was to secure that sixth form colleges could be run as academic institutions suitable for pupils of comprehensive schools who had academic gifts. It is in no way aimed at destroying or curtailing the operation of the comprehensive principle at any point in the career of schoolchildren of compulsory school age. It was framed, in fact, as a means of making it easier to overcome what, to all of us, is seen as being one of the undesirable side effects of the introduction of the comprehensive principle in one of its forms, and I refer to the generation of schools of very considerable size.

I submitted at Committee stare that one widely accepted way of reducing the size of such units was to set up sixth form colleges and the Minister pronounced himself in favour of them. I suggested that they would operate far more effectively if they were permitted to select their entry on grounds that were academic—that is, grounds that were based on ability and aptitude—and I tried to make it clear that the pursuit by school pupils of academic excellence, upon which the whole future of excellence of the administration and industrial performance of this country depend, is made very much easier and more profitable in an atmosphere where that pursuit is recognised as the dominant aim of all those participating. Whatever the social advantages of non-selective education up to the age of 16, the educational advantages of selective education from that time onwards are considerable and have a close bearing upon the future prosperity and cohesion of this country.

However, in his reply, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said at col. 1331:

"The Government are perfectly clear that they want to eliminate selection at all stages of secondary education, and the Government … see no reason to make an exception for sixth form education."

A little further on he went on to say:

"It has always been the Government's view that the sole criterion for admission to a sixth form course should be the pupil's ability to profit from that course."—[Official Report, 6/10/76.]

In accepting that the ability of a pupil was a criterion for admission to a course, he emphasised that it could not, under the Bill, he a criterion for admission to the school in which the course was held.

While I did not in any way accept the wisdom of the noble Lord and his Party in making this decision—and that is a matter of political choice on which we on this side disagree, differ from them fundamentally—it became clear almost immediately afterwards from an intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, that there were other reasons of an entirely pragmatic and non-political nature that must be taken into account before such a choice can be endorsed by this House, whatever its political complexion may be. If I may summarise, they are briefly as follows. First, there already exist a number of routes by which pupils over compulsory school age can pursue their education beyond the fifth form, and they can do so without remaining at school. Some of these routes are part-time and provide an area for the development of exactly that interrelation between employment and learning that the Prime Minister, in a speech to which I shall have occasion to refer again later, warmly encouraged. Others are full-time and involve institutions of education other than schools.

The second consideration is that the traditional and essential function of the sixth form has hitherto been to provide an extension of education beyond compulsory school age for the specifically academically able up to university entrance level. They are the proper institutions to provide this service and, if they do not provide it, it will not be adequately provided at all in the foreseeable future. If noble Lords opposite want to widen this function and take in an extension of non-academic schools careers, that is an addition to that vital function and not something to replace it. There is scope for such an extension and it will be for them to see that it is not done at the cost of the prime function. Whether or not they can do so is a question that may be open to doubt, but it is not the question to which I am now asking noble Lords to address their attention.

The third consideration is that in present economic circumstances, to quote the Prime Minister again,

"There can be little expectation of further increased resources being made available, at any rate for the time being."

This, I take it, was a euphemistic way of saying that the resources that we are sampling at present already taste very strongly of the bottom of the barrel. If that is so, the 15 sixth form colleges, which the Minister has already told us operate selectively, and any new colleges which may be subsequently opened under the auspices, or perhaps I should say the blight, of this Bill, cannot be expected in any realistic way to deploy any resources beyond the performance of their essential functions; and that is especially the case where such a deployment would merely be in duplication of some of the other resources in other institutions of further education and polytechnics to which I have already referred.

The fourth consideration brings me back to the very valuable intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, at an earlier stage. It is this: as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said, it has always been the Government's view that the sole criterion for admission to a sixth form course should be the pupil's ability to profit from that course. But the criterion for admission to the college is no more than the sum of the criteria for admission to the courses it offers; and as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said, obviously if a child is going to take A-level he must have O-levels in order to pursue the course satisfactorily. That is one measure of ability to which the Minister referred. The Minister was quite clear, and rightly so, that there should be no question of pupils entering upon courses from which, by reason of lack of ability, they could not profit. But if the sixth form college offers only academic courses, it will be forced to admit selectively on academic grounds: that is, on grounds of ability or aptitude.

However, the Bill expressly makes clear in Clause 1, on page 1, lines 17 to 20, that this will disbar the local education authority from placing students in that college. Existing selective colleges will then be faced with the alternatives of closure or of a considerable deployment of scarce resources in needlessly duplicating facilities already available to their potential pupils elsewhere. That is an anomaly in this Bill and it is one quite clearly which, from the tone of the remarks made by the noble Lord at Committee stage, was not foreseen when the Bill was drawn up. In his concluding intervention at Committee stage, in col.1336 of the Official Report, on 6th October 1976, he said:

"Though I do not want to look at the principle involved"—

and he meant the comprehensive principle as applied to post-O-level education—

"I am quite prepared to look at the point the noble Lord—"

and he was referring to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, to whom I should perhaps apologise for having followed him so closely in this argument—

"has raised, which we can deal with, or otherwise, at a later stage."

That later stage has arrived and as it was our Amendment originally we have tabled it again to provide an opportunity for an explanation of the point; and upon what that explanation is and what evolves from it will rest our decision on what to do at the conclusion of the debate. I beg to move.

My Lords, since I have been referred to so frequently perhaps I should make my position quite clear. When this point was raised in Committee the Minister was kind enough to say that he would look at the point, and he has been kind enough subsequently to write to me, which I very much appreciate. In his letter he gives an assurance that there is no intention of interfering with the operation of sixth form colleges. I hope I have not misinterpreted the letter. Naturally I accept the sincerity of that assurance without any reservation of any kind, but I have to tell the noble Lord the Minister that that assurance can be fulfilled only if this Amendment is accepted by the Government.

The position is as follows. There are three types of operation at sixth form level emerging increasingly. There are tertiary colleges which, as your Lordships know, I personally favour very much, which protect the comprehensive principle and offer the full range of courses. There is no problem there because they operate under further education regulations and are therefore excluded from the provisions of this clause. There are sixth form colleges which have a policy of open admission: that is to say any child of appropriate age can come, and they seek to provide a course which is appropriate to the ability of the child. They do not affect Clause 1. But there are a. number of colleges to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has referred which are deliberately designed to provide sixth form courses essentially for A-levels and which therefore necessarily require as a condition of admission appropriate evidence that the course can be pursued satisfactorily.

It is true, of course, that normally young people who do not want to pursue these courses can go to an institution of further education in the area and pursue other courses, so that the full educational opportunity is not barred. These colleges are run under schools regulations. As such, such a college is a school. If therefore any parent, teacher or body of teachers makes a complaint, say, under Section 68, to the Secretary of State against such a college the Secretary of State, in my judgment, would necessarily rule against the authority and the college under this clause. If in his endeavours to fulfil the undertakings the Minister has given he did not so rule, then any parent taking the Secretary of State to court must win because the words of the clause are perfectly clear. This is a school. Its admission policy is on the evidence of academic aptitude, as evidenced by passing certain examinations at the necessary level. I would appeal to the Government, in order to secure that these undertakings are fulfilled, to accept this Amendment. That would resolve the problem and I do not believe it would in any way harm the impact of the Bill.

My Lords, when we discussed this Amendment on the first day of the Committee stage I made the Government's position quite clear. We wish to eliminate selection at all stages of secondary education, and see no reason to make an exception to those aged 16. But both the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, raised one particular point. In essence they wished to know whether a sixth form college would be in breach of the comprehensive principle if it were not able to provide for pupils of lower ability who wished to pursue certain practical and technical courses normally found within a further education college. On that occasion I said that although I did not want to look again at the principle involved I was quite prepared to look at this specific point. I did in fact correspond with the noble Lord on that point, as he has been kind enough to say. He pointed out on that occasion that where an authority's provision for the 16 to 19 age group is in tertiary colleges students of all abilities and aptitudes would be catered for within one institution.

It has never been envisaged that sixth form colleges should provide the same breadth of courses. To duplicate un-necessarily the courses provided in the local further education college would be a waste of time and money. The Government wish to encourage close co-operation between the schools and colleges providing for 16 to 19 year olds in any area; and for two main reasons. The first is that they want to see the most efficient use of teachers and equipment. Secondly, they want to ensure that between the school and further education sectors a full range of courses is offered for students of all abilities. I can assure noble Lords that there is no question of a sixth form college contravening the comprehensive principle because it could not cater for a pupil wishing to follow a course which it did not provide and which in any case was either already being offered or could be provided more satisfactorily at the local further education college. I hope this will go some way towards satisfying the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, but he shakes his head and so it seems I am unlucky.

I have looked at our latest information. Of the 72 sixth form colleges and two sixth form centres in operation in September 1976, only three still operated selective admission procedures; and of these, two are moving towards becoming open access colleges. By "open access" we do not mean that any student can control for any course. Clearly anyone wishing to study for A-level in a particular subject will need the entrance requirement set by the tutors for those who wish to follow that course. What it does mean is that no general entrance requirement—for example, passes in five O-levels—will be required before a young person can enter the college. Thus there is no entrance requirement to the college but only entrance requirements that are relevant to the course or courses the pupil wishes to take.

Nor does open access mean that a sixth form college must provide every conceivable course which, if I understood the noble Lord aright, is what the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, appeared to be saying. A sixth form college will provide only those courses for which there is a demand, for which it has resources and which are not readily available elsewhere. This clause will bite only on those colleges with a general academic standard for admission, such as five O-levels. It will be perfectly permissible for open access colleges to set standards for admission to particular courses. That is the Government's position and I am afraid I cannot accept the Amendment.

My Lords, I am afraid that this is a very difficult situation. One sees the virtues of the arguments on both sides, but my judgment must come down on the side of the Government. More young people are staying on at school after the compulsory school leaving age and we wish to encourage this trend. I should have thought that taking into account the present very large unemployment problem everybody would wish to encourage this trend as much as possible. It is far better to be learning than to be idle.

When it comes to a choice of what kind of education they are after, there may be very good reasons why young people will want to stay in the school atmosphere rather than move to tertiary colleges, even if academically they are not of a very high standard. Although I say this, I am very much in favour of tertiary colleges; they encourage these young people who feel that they wish to move out of the school atmosphere and go on to tertiary education. Nevertheless, we must take account of the fact that there are young people who wish to stay in the school atmosphere, and parents also who wish them to stay in that atmosphere. I understand that parental choice is still an important feature of Conservative Party policy. Therefore, where there are sixth form colleges I think it is important that young people should be allowed to go to them.

Nor do I see that there is a very great academic difficulty about this unless young people wish to pursue a course which is not offered at a sixth form college. If they do, we have the assurance of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, that these young people do not in any way lay themselves open to the law. Where, however, they can be accepted, surely this is a situation where, almost more than anywhere else, the comprehensive system and the mixed ability teaching system work. We tend to think of mixed ability teaching, if we approve of it at all, as working only at a fairly low age level, but of course that is absolute nonsense. The older one is, the better the system can work.

One of the great vices of the present debate is that we tend to think of the selective system and the comprehensive system as entirely opposed to each other. They are not. The ideal of the best educationalists in both system is that every child shall be taught individually according to his or her abilities. When you get to sixth form level and to the academic children, plus the children who have voluntarily chosen to stay on, and when you get to the usually higher ratio between staff and pupils, you are most able to take the individual pup I, whether he be very bright or not so bright, and teach him individually: set him or her to do his own job in the school library, with film strips, or what have you. The sixth form colleges and the sixth forms are much more able to take care of mixed ability groups than are certain classes in middle schools, particularly these which are situated in difficult and crowded social situations. Therefore I see no difficulty and I think, on balance, that although there are difficulties the Government are right to resist the Amendment.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said that a college is a school. May I ask the noble Lot d whether a sixth form college is to be treated as a school? So many of the following clauses hang on this question that I should be grateful if the noble Lord could clarify the point.

My Lords, I understand that the answer is, Yes.

My Lords, I cannot feel satisfied with the answer of the Minister and I support the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. If we had infinite resources, then I suppose one could build as many non-selective sixth form colleges as there might be children who wanted to stay on until they were 18, but we have not. We are in for quite a long period wren it will be necessary to make the very best use of the courses which can be provided, using the highly qualified teachers that we have in a restricted number of colleges, which number none of us sees much chance of increasing in the near future. Therefore we ought to look at the sixth form college problem more from a practical point of view, given the organisation of secondary education as envisaged in the Bill.

The fact is that secondary education cannot be organised on the principles of Clauses 1 to 3 without doing educational damage. That is mainly because a limit will have to be put upon the size of all but a very few exceptional comprehensives, not for educational reasons but for reasons of administration and in order to create that sense of community without which a school is not a school and is sometimes a bear-garden.

Public opinion will not for much longer accept the chaos which now characterises some of our large comprehensives. The Soviet Union found that out years ago and limited by decree the general run of schools to a maximum of 800 pupils. Whether or not the limit has been observed I do not know, but at the time Mr. Khrushchev told me that this limitation was necessary because many teachers had no liking or gift for administration. Is the same true here? That is a question which requires very careful investigation and we have put down an Amendment asking for such an investigation to be made. However, we do know now that a great many local education authorities have come round to the view that most comprehensives must be limited to five-or six-form entry if they are to reach the best standards (I think particularly the best standards of discipline) of which their staff is capable.

A price has to he paid for this limitation on size because in four cases out of five the comprehensives will be too small to develop a strong sixth form. That will happen only in some very favourable neighbourhoods. Then what happens? Limitation of size forces selection, either between a group of comprehensives, or from comprehensives to a sixth form college or to some other such institution. The local education authorities will have to decide which is the less unsatisfactory course: either children dawdling, running or being transported from one comprehensive to another in search of the courses that they want to take and therefore wasting time and probably getting up to mischief, or selecting children at 16 to go on to a sixth form college where the courses that they want are taught by qualified teachers. Noble Lords will notice that either method requires selection.

My noble friend's Amendment is necessary to give the sixth-form colleges as they are now a chance to do the best they can for able children. If they do not select they are not going to attract highly qualified teachers to teach the less well-known subjects, or, indeed, some well-known subjects, like mathematics and the more difficult languages. Therefore, I support this Amendment but with a heavy heart, because sixth-form colleges will decapitate so many comprehensives. The highly qualified teachers will not like teaching in the small comprehensives and many bright children will never arrive at the point where A-levels are within their grasp. Their talents will either be underdeveloped or undiscovered, and the loss of the A-stream all the way from 11 to 17 will deprive the country of leaders in a great many walks of life.

I should like to make two further points. As I have said, in most comprehensives linked to a sixth-form college a strong sixth form can never be developed in the school. At 16, or even before, the bright children will have moved on. This will be a great loss. A sixth form gives a sense of responsibility to the whole school. It is a status to aim at and to work hard for; it encourages staff and pupils to do their best all the way up the school. It helps the head teacher to organise discipline inside the school. Take all that away and substitute a sixth-form college in a different, building with a different staff who will not know any of these young adolescents until they arrive at the age of 16—and then they will be pretty difficult to know—and you have lost something very valuable indeed.

I am astonished that the universities have not seen what is happening and have not demanded changes in this Bill long before it came to your Lordships' House. The consequences of going comprehensive in the manner proposed in the first three clauses of the Bill will damage education for the able children, will be had for industry and will be extremely bad for the universities. If my noble friend presses his Amendment to a Division, I shall be with him.

My Lords, I think some noble Lords are making a mountain out of a molehill over this Amendment, because from what I can see there would be very few pupils affected by this. As we have heard from my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, most of the sixth-form colleges are what he calls "open colleges", and it seems to me that few pupils would opt to go into a sixth-form college where most of the children had O-levels and were going to take A-levels; but if they do want to do that, then I think they should be encouraged to do so and not prohibited. While this Amendment looks as though it is doing something positive, in fact it is doing something negative, because it is giving the local authorities the power to exclude such pupils from the sixth-form colleges. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, when he says that surely they could be catered for.

I agree with the legal interpretation put on this matter by my noble friend Lord Alexander of Potterhill, when he says that if a child were excluded, then the parent would probably (though we never know in view of recent rulings) be able to pray in aid Section 68 of the 1944 Education Act—but we all know where that has led some people lately. That aside, it seems to me that so few pupils will be affected by this provision that those who are affected should be welcomed into the sixth-form colleges and we should not seek to exclude them.

My Lords, by leave of the House, may I say that there are 85 sixth-form colleges, of which 17 would be in breach of this clause. If those 17 have to satisfy the clause they will have to extend the range of their courses and their staff. In fact, they would become virtually tertiary colleges to meet the needs of the whole range of ability, which is a major problem and therefore would necessarily call for considerable resources. As to how they would operate, I may say that I was recently in Solihull, and it is perfectly true, as the noble Lord the Minister said, that they operate very closely indeed with the further education college which is nearby, so that those who do not go to the sixth-form college go to the further education college. It is a fact that last year they won 20 scholarships, so I think it would be a pity if they had to depart from their present purpose.

My Lords, it is important that we should not turn a Report stage into a Committee stage argument but I should just like to say to the noble Lord, by leave of the House, that I do not agree with his figures.

My Lords, may I say that when I heard my noble friend—if I may so call him—Lord Eccles, say that he confronted this question with a heavy heart, I completely agreed with him. I am personally out of sympathy with the intention of the Government to do everything at once and to enforce on the educational system changes which will involve years of reorganisation when a slightly slower pace might have enabled us to reach the wished for goal with much less dislocation. I imagine that I shall be almost alone in this House when I express my deep conviction that the true target in this connection is not the existing organisation but the influences which have paused the existing organisation to come into being.

I am totally out of sympathy with the general policy of the universities South of the Border to inflict upon school education before the age of 18 a sort of imitation of university education as it used to be in my young days. think the Scottish system, which provides for greater versatility and for more superficiality, perhaps, up to the age of 18, is a much superior system, and it is no accident at all that where in the rest of the world the education in this island has been imitated, it is the Scottish system and not the system South of the Border—with one or two notable exceptions—which has been imitated. I have no sympathy at all with the pride in the specialisation w rich is en-enforced in the sixth form colleges, whatever designation they may enjoy. I have no sympathy at all with the system which enforces on my grandchildren at the tender age of 14 or 15 the choice whether they should be scientists or humanists. I think in this Amendment we are completely on the wrong track and, therefore, whatever Division takes place, I personally shall remain glued to my seat.

My Lords, I wish to make only a brief intervention at this point. We have heard about the administration, we have heard about the different types of sixth-form college, we have heard about the large comprehensive schools and the small comprehensive schools: what we have not heard about are the children themselves. Never have children wanted more to have the confidence of those people who are teaching them and have been looking after them from the age of, possibly, eleven onwards, than they do now. With broken homes, with increasing crime figures, the one place where there is a possibility of stability is in the schools where members of the staff have been teaching children—and I am particularly thinking of girls—from an early age. I would beg noble Lords to consider the child through its school years when they are considering the way in which they are going to vote on this Amendment, with which I have very great sympathy.

My Lords, this first Amendment of the Report stage of this Bill demonstrates a problem which, it has struck me throughout the Committee stage, plagues the Bill despite the excellent and thorough arguments and replies which the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, have given us in answer to our Amendments. As I see it, the problem is the inflexibility of the provisions of the Bill.

I would assure the Government that this Amendment was not originally put down again on Report with any intention on the part of my noble friend, Lord Elton, or myself that we should press it to a Division as a matter of principle, but because the needs of children differ, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, has said so pertinently. We now find, having listened to the debate, that there are very deep considerations to be taken into account as to what should be done with this Amendment, and not least the technical imperfections of the drafting of the Bill which have been shown up by the speech made earlier in this discussion by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill.

The simple effect of this Amendment, if it were to be pressed, would be to allow local authorities to have regard to ability and aptitude in providing sixth-form education. Even the Minister in charge of the Bill could not believe that the choosing of pupils for the sixth form should not pay some regard to their ability to profit from the courses offered; yet that is the really incredible effect of this Bill. Because he was a reasonable man the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, took that view before he read the Bill in any detail. Because he is, as we all know, an honest man, he stood up and said, "To me, 'sixth form' has an academic meaning, whereas it has not in secondary education now, nor should it have".

Let us just look for a moment at his opinion and the really extraordinary reason which he gave in Committee for its correction. I would guess that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, being a totally reasonable man, before he read the provisions of this extraordinary Bill took the view that sixth forms should, as far as possible, open their entry to any pupils who had any chance at all of tackling the courses offered. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, would have taken into account that the raising of the school-leaving age was designed to encourage more pupils to to stay on longer at school. I am sure also that the noble Lord was armed with the knowledge that many people want to see a broader sixth-form curriculum—only this afternoon we heard the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, speak again on this particular point on which he has expressed his views trenchantly and forcibly on previous occasions in this House. But to move from all that to the assumption that it should therefore become the law of the land that every single sixth form must admit every single pupil to every single course without any regard at all to either aptitude or ability is really a very large assumption indeed. It will lead to problems of the type which my noble friend Lord Eccles has outlined.

This coercion in the Bill leads the Government into a second problem which plagues the Bill, namely, obscure drafting, a fault which in no way should be laid at the door of the Parliamentary draftsman but which is evidence of the impossibility of translating the intentions of Ministers with regard to this subject into a draft which can take account of the practicalities of life. In the real world, where young people reach the stage when they want to choose courses suitable to their abilities and aptitudes, what are they going to do? They will look around to find where those courses are offered.

The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has reminded us of the problem as he sees it with regard to the drafting of the Bill on this point. Having listened to the noble Lord speaking, I think it is clear that if a sixth-form college can exclude some pupils because it does not offer certain courses, this is bound to be selection by ability and aptitude. I have listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, had to say and I would ask the Government this question, and perhaps, as this is Report stage the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, will be able to reply. If the Government are saying that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, is wrong, then I hope they will explain the distinction between a college which refuses admission on the grounds that it does not offer the necessary courses and an institution which includes courses of such a standard that some pupils might then be refused admission?

I know perfectly well that the Government will tell me that the second option is completely prohibited by the terms of the Bill. Why is it that the first option cannot be prohibited too? I am driven to the conclusion that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, is right; that the drafting of Clause 1(1) will lay a duty on authorities to see that their sixth-form colleges can admit any pupil for any course. May I offer the Government a word of warning on this, of an entirely practical kind? I do not know whether the noble Lord has seen the report of the Head-masters' Conference some three weeks or so ago, in which Mr. Dance, Head-master of St. Dunstan's College, Cat ford, and formerly the head of the Luton Sixth-Form College, said that he was concerned whether sixth-form colleges were desirable at all, because at Luton he found that too much—and I quote his words—"remedial work was needed when pupils arrived". He added that it had been a relief to him to return to a school where there was a sense of continuity. That was a very significant statement, because the Luton Sixth-Form College is one of the seventeen selective sixth-form colleges in the country. Presumably the state of affairs on which Mr. Dance was expressing an opinion would have been less marked at the college of which he was then the head than it would have been at colleges which were totally open.

My Lords, I am bound to put it to the Government that they are laying a very formidable burden on local education authorities. Even if the legal advice given to the Government on this Amendment is that this is not so, undoubtedly the Bill is going to continue the practice of spreading sixth-form teaching resources ever more widely, rather than concentrating them, a point on which my noble friend Lord Eccles spoke.

A week ago the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister made his speech at Oxford, expressing his concern about the results of our education system. He expressed his view in terms of the skills which should be acquired by school-leavers and he was specific. The right honourable gentleman said:

"Is there not a case for a professional review of the mathematics needed by industry at different levels?".

The Government will remember that the right honourable gentleman went on to ask why there were 30,000 vacancies for science and engineering students last year while the humanities courses in higher education were full. These are wholly reasonable words. But what is the Bill doing? It is busy ensuring that the answers to questions which the Prime Minister put are never going to be provided. By removing the discretion of local authorities to provide education as they think best you arc going to be hard put to it to provide, for instance, the sort of maths teaching we want. We shall be discussing this point in more detail when we come to the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Eccles.

My Lords, at col.1342, of Hansard for 6th October last, during the Committee stage of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, put the matter more clearly than I could when he said that if the rare resources for teaching maths up to Advanced level are going to be deployed properly, selection is inescapable. This is precisely what this Bill is aiming to prevent, and that is the point to which this Amendment is directed. The Bill will also work against the expressed desire of the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister for a swing towards science and engineering, because the total imposition of comprehensive education is absolutely bound to destroy schools which have a science and engineering staff, facilities and traditions.

I remember well the Birmingham proposals in 1973 for reorganisation. There were schools which bear the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, and because they do, they have a very strong engineering side to them. I remember how anxious and concerned the noble Lord on the Cross Benches was that those schools were to be turned into mini-comprehensives within a consortium of schools. I remember well the reorganisation proposals for Harrow Secondary School. By common consent, including views given in letters written to the Department at the time by Members of Parliament on the Labour Benches, that school had almost the finest science department of all the maintained schools in the country. It was literally going to be destroyed and dismantled in order to turn the school into an 11 to 16 comprehensive. I am not arguing for a return to the technical schools of the tripartite system, but having listened to my noble friend Lord Eccles I am driven to the conclusion—and I would hope the Government are, too—that if you pull up good sixth form teaching by the roots in this way you cannot hope to achieve the declared objectives of the Prime Minister, when he said that what was needed was a more technological bias in science teaching that would lead towards practical application in industry.

Whether in the light of the Prime Minister's Oxford speech the Government are prepared to write some flexibility into the Bill I suppose we are now going to discover, for a new Secretary of State is saddled with a Bill on which the Government have so far refused to make one concession. Surely this could be an opportunity to recognise that a degree of flexibility for local education authorities is necessary. In addition, I hope the Government will take on board the fact that authorities are genuinely worried that the wording of Clause 1(1) as it appears will lay a duty on them to provide courses at any standard for any pupil who may be admitted. It will be for my noble friend Lord Elton to decide what we ought to do about this Amendment. There is no wish on this side of the House to breach the general principle of the Bill in this respect. As I said when I started, we put down this Amendment for a second time purely to find out what the effect of the wording of the Bill will be in regard to sixth form teaching.

I am bound to say that, in a clash of opinion between the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, I believe that the noble Lord, with all his experience, is right. The effect of the wording of Clause 1(1) will be to make every sixth form open. There are questions to be answered when the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, comes to speak. Is the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, right in saying that you may not refuse admission to an institution because it is an institution but you may refuse admission to an institution because a pupil has not got the correct qualifications for a particular course? Why is it that the wording of this Bill, in distinction to the wording of the 1970 Bill when it was introduced by the last Labour Government, outlaws selection in sixth form colleges but will allow sixth forms in schools to be as highly selective as they wish. We shall hear the answers to these interesting questions in a few moments; then it might be right to have some discussion between the Government, the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, and other noble Lords, and maybe we can return to this matter again on Third Reading.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement which has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His words were as follows:

My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for having repeated that Statement. I think on this sort of subject we must be very careful what we say. Certainly it is not the wish of anybody in your Lordships' House to say anything which would make a difficult situation more difficult. I would only say—and I think the noble Lord the Leader of the House would agree—that above all what is needed now is confidence here and abroad. If that confidence existed I think we need not fear what other people think. I hope the Government will address themselves to that aspect, and quickly.

My Lords, I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said. This ought to be a lesson to all of us. If a massive wave of selling of sterling can be sparked off by one newspaper article it shows how fragile our credibility overseas has become, and sterling will presumably be at risk until negotiations have been completed with the IMF. Therefore, I would ask the Government whether it would not be wise to try to hasten these discussions so that the period of risk is shortened.

My Lords, I would say how grateful I am to the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Byers, for their responsible attitude. I expected that. I remember that my first baptism here on a similar matter led to a debate, but today I believe it is right to exercise a measure of restraint although it is right for noble Lords to ask certain questions. I agree so much with the question of confidence and how important it is. On the question of talks with the International Monetary Fund, they will begin in November but there have already been soundings between officials.

My Lords, speaking from the Cross-Benches, may I say how much I personally agree with the attitude which has been adopted by the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party. Speaking as one who in the past has had something to do with the national Press, I was a little shocked at the cocksureness and irresponsibility of the article referred to. On the other hand, may I say to the noble Lord that I hope the reputation which he has been able to convey to the House of the alleged information conveyed in that article will not lead to any complacency on the part of the Government with regard to the measures which need to be taken if we are to be saved from the fate which was perhaps foreshadowed in that article. One has only to travel abroad as I have been doing in the last few weeks to realise with a sense of humiliation the compassion with which our ability to manage our affairs hitherto is commonly regarded by people of good will and of all political persuasions.

My Lords, I naturally thank the noble Lord. May I say that Mr. Simon, the United States Treasury Secretary, said that we have taken some rather courageous measures and I believe that we have to.

My Lords, by leave of the House I should like to make two comments, both factual, on what has been said. The first is that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, referred to Luton in a sense which suggested that it was selective. It is not selective at the moment. Secondly, the difference between the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, and mine were so wide that I must repeat my figures, which come from the Department. Of the 72 sixth form colleges and two sixth form centres in operation in September 1976, only three still operated selective admission procedures and, of those, two are moving towards becoming open access colleges. This being a Report stage discussion, I shall not resume the argument.

My Lords, I rose to my feet prior to the Statement of the noble Lord the Leader of the House in regard to the serious situation in which we find ourselves, in order to follow Lord Belstead. I listened to his opening speech and also to the speech he made later on the Amendment. What was noticeable was that he quoted from an ex-Minister of Education, in the person of Lord Eccles, and he also praised Lord Robbins on the Cross-Benches. He played with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, because of his knowledge of the educational position in this country prior to his coming to this House. But he had not a word to say in reply to the questions that were posed to him by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, or my noble friend Lady Bacon. Nor had he anything to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, in regard to the very important question which she put.

There is another aspect which has never been brought within the ambit of consideration regarding the 17s to 19s, quoted in the course of the debate—these young people who are not prepared to go in for their A-levels after being successful in their O-levels. There is one thing being overlooked, in my submission, and it is this. A lot of these young people who have left the sixth form have left the schools, and have not made application to go into these colleges but have gone into industry, have what is known as day release. They go to technical colleges; this is where you are going to get your technologists from and not so much from the universities. It is to the technical colleges that we look these days to produce those young men and women for the future of this country. I do not know whether Lord Belstead will make any reference at all to what was said by Lord Beaumont and my noble friend Lady Bacon, seeing that both of them are educationists in their own right. I was a member of a county council before I became a Member of Parliament, and I say this in all sincerity and without any sense of arrogance. Lord Alexander did not always receive the praise of local educational authorities up and down this country before coming here. I would say to Lord Belstead that he has played his tactics very well on this occasion, but the time will come when he will try such tactics once too often and he will find that he will be brought down. He will find that what he has to say on important issues like this will not come off in the way it has today.

My Lords, I trust that the House will indulge me in exercising my normal prerogative. It is a difficult task to reply to this debate. It has in part turned out to be a debate about the merits and demerits of the sixth-form colleges as a means of education. To start at the point of greatest difficulty, I must refer to the third intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, which was by leave of the House. We are in some difficulty about the figures, because although there is a difference between the figures presented by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, this week and those presented by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, this week, there is also a difference between the figures presented by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, this week and the figures presented by him last week. To get a reduction from 14 to three in a matter of seven days is progress of a very high order.

The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has already advised us to look at this carefully because the question is not as simple as it seems to be thought to be in some parts of this House. First of all, I must emphasise to noble Lords who dislike the idea of an increase in the number of sixth-form colleges that, deplorable as their effects may be in some directions, there are those who feel that they are less deplorable than the effects of gargantuan size which in many cases are the alternative in a straight-through comprehensive school covering the whole of the ability range. This, I think, is a point that should be brought home to the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon. And I am sure that my noble friend Lord Belstead had no intention of being discourteous either to her or to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, as the noble Lord, Lord Slater, seemed to think he might have, in not referring to what they had said. He referred in substance to what they had said even if he did not refer to them by name, and perhaps it is the courteous thing to refer to by name only those who have uttered sentiments with which one agrees.

The fact is that come the passage of this Bill, in whatever form, there is going to be an increase of demand for places in sixth form colleges and there is going to be in some cases an excess of demand over availability. We have heard nothing from the Government so far to say on what basis they would allocate the insufficiency of places to the over-sufficiency of pupils applying for them. Is it not going to be on the grounds of aptitude or ability? I shall be very surprised if it is not.

We are in a much more difficult position when we come to examine the noble Lord's reply to the substantive point that I sought to make in my speech in introducing this Amendment. He has said in effect that the admissions criteria for an institution are not the sum of the admissions criteria for the courses which that institution offers. Even if we look at it only in those simple terms, I feel that this is a matter of such importance that it must be decided on an irrefutable authority and one which we have had time to examine. I would have thought that this was something in which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack might well interest himself between now and Third Reading, because if we do not have an assurance of the rectitude of Lord Donaldson's interpretation of this Bill, then, like Lord Alexander, we simply cannot accept the assurance of an intention as being superior to the clear duty of the court to rule in a contrary sense if a case is brought. It does seem to me difficult, and indeed odd, to suggest that if a pupil should arrive at a sixth form college and say, "I want to study history. I have got an O-level in history", he can be brought in; but if he arrives and says, "I want to study history but I have no O-level in history", he can be told that he cannot come in to that college.

What happens if he addresses himself to the head of the college and merely says, "I wish to come to your college. I have no O-levels"? He is then not going to be qualified to enter any course, or indeed the college. On a layman's view, it seems to me prima facie to suggest that a sixth form college is selective if it says that. Indeed, my doubts as to what the noble Lord means by an open college and a non-selective college are deepened by the figures he gave in his last intervention just before my reply. He said that the college at Luton was non-selective. I just wonder what non-selective is in that case, and I shall want to study that against the undertakings that the noble Lord has given as to the intentions of the Government.

What has been said by the noble Lord is so set about with uncertainty that it would be irresponsible to move this Amendment at this stage, since we shall be moving on uncertain ground. As I' said at the last stage, it is the duty of the Government to make clear what is the law and it is for the Government to draft their legislation in such a way that it can be understood outside the courts as well as inside the courts. Therefore, if the noble Lord cannot do better than he has now done, I hope your Lordship, will bear with me if I reserve the right to come back with this Amendment at Third Reading. Frankly, we are not satisfied. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

moved Amendment No. 2:

My Lords, we discussed a rather similar Amendment at Committee stage, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, but warmly welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. On that occasion I explained that the Conservative Amendment would enable local authorities legally to retain their selective systems, and it was then withdrawn. This Amendment, although, similar, has one important difference. Local authorities would have a duty to arrange suitable education for pupils with particular needs, but subject to the comprehensive principle. This Amendment does not share the defects of the former one; in principle it is reasonable but, as I hope to convince the noble Lord, totally unnecessary.

In earlier debates we established the fact that, whether or not the first fourteen lines had been added to Clause 1, local authorities are to have regard to the comprehensive principle,

"in the exercise and performance of their powers and duties relating to secondary education …"

In other words, the duty to have regard to the comprehensive principle in no way absolves authorities from their duties under Section 8 of the 1944 Act to offer such variety of instruction and training as is necessary in view of pupils' different ages, abilities and aptitudes. Authorities are already under a duty to provide children with a suitable education, and when the Bill is enacted, they will still be under a duty to continue to do this while having regard to the comprehensive principle—that is, within a school that admits children without reference to ability or aptitude.

As I said during the debate on the previous similar Amendment, the principle in Clause 1 is really quite narrowly drawn: all that it does not allow is the making of special arrangements for the admission of pupils on the basis of their academic ability. It would be permissible for a pupil to be admitted to a school in order to benefit from special facilities if his admission was not governed by his general academic ability and it would remain a duty of the local authority to ensure that each child was provided with an education suitable to his or her needs. It is because this ideal is more readily attainable within a comprehensive system that we support comprehensive rather than selective schools. I hope that in the light of what I have said the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the Amendment; if not, I must ask the House to reject it as being unnecessary.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, has assured us that the Amendment is unnecessary because Section 8 of the Education Act 1944 remains in force and that that lays a duty on authorities to provide schools which are suitable to the age, ability and aptitude of pupils. I accept from the noble Baroness that she means exactly what she says, but I confess that she could have fooled me, considering the reception which our first Amendment had in Committee when we tried to write in Sections 8 and 76 of the 1944 Act and for which it seemed the Government were not particularly enthusiastic. That aside, I have a more positive concern about this issue and it lies within the new draft Manual of Guidance which the Department of Education and Science issued in the summer and to which I referred in Committee.

The reply which the noble Baroness just gave does not seem to be quite in tune with new draft Manual of Guidance, a document which has raised considerable anxieties. As I pointed out in Committee, there is no mention in the new draft of the part which would b played by religion in deciding admissions to voluntary schools. In addition, there is no mention in it of many of the other reasons why parents want their children to go to a particular school; because it is large or small, because it uses new or traditional methods, because it is mixed or single sex or—and this is, I think particularly worrying the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley—because it has especially good teaching in a particular subject. The noble Baroness kindly wrote to me on 20th October on this general point and in her letter she said:

"You also referred to the draft circular about the admission of children to schools of their parents' choice. Reference to religious factors was omitted quite deliberately, together with reference to other factors of a general kind (e. g. preference for single sex education) because such factors are mainly relevant to the general arrangements made by authorities for allocating places, whereas the draft circular was intended, unlike the old Manual of Guidance, to be concerned with particular cases which might be referred to the Secretary of State."

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for writing to me, but I find that passage worrying. Surely it is precisely on the grounds referred to in her letter that particular cases of parental choice get referred to the Secretary of State. It is because parents want a single-sex or denominational school or a small or traditional school that they sometimes come in conflict with their local education authority and eventually the case goes to the Secretary of State under Section 68 of the 1944 Act.

Am I to assume that because there are legitimate reasons for parents wanting choice of school and because they are accepted as being legitimate reasons by the Department of Education and Science, they do not need to be referred to in the new draft Manual of Guidance? I should like to think that I have t tat right, but my hopes were dashed when I read on in the draft manual and, on coming to paragraph 8—which I have quoted before but will repeat—I read:

"Questions of a school's suitability to the ability and aptitude of a child are not expected to remain of practical significance for much longer as they should not normally arise in the case of admission to a comprehensive school."

With their obsession for academic selection, I could have understood it if the Government were saying in their draft circular that questions of the ability of a child should not be allowed to arise in the case of admission to a comprehensive school. I would not applaud it, but I could understand it.

As noble Lords have pointed out incessantly in these debates, the aptitude of a pupil may require choice of one school and not of another. I am therefore particularly glad that the Amendment refers to the needs of children. In Committee I gave an example of a dyslexic child I knew who was not making any progress at school and was moved to another school where his need for specialised teaching would be met. Could anybody doubt that that boy had been admitted to his second school on grounds of need, the need in that case of his particular disability? My noble friend Lady Faithfull spoke in previous debates on this subject of children who were not categorised as handicapped but who were in need of special care and education, often in boarding schools, because they had symptoms of maladjustment and were probably backward. Those pupils are placed on grounds of their needs, the needs of their aptitudes and sometimes of their abilities, also.

The point to which I did not receive a reply in Committee was the question of what one does if one has a very gifted child who will obviously make progress in one school rather than in another. Presumably the Bill will prohibit admission to one school rather than the other because the admission of that pupil would be decided on the grounds of his or her need, in this case the need of ability, which can strike at the very root of the life of a very gifted child.

I was particularly glad that Lord Beaumont pointed out that this is not a wrecking Amendment but is subject to subsection (1). It says that there should be the discretion of local authorities to be allowed to take those pupils of whom I have tried to give illustrations into one comprehensive school, if the Government like, and not into another. The Bill, so far as can be seen, will prohibit the placing of a child in one school rather than in another, even if they are comprehensive schools. If I am right on that, then that is the reverse to progress in education and the Amendment would help to rectify the damage which I still believe Clause 1 will do in this respect.

My Lords, I am sorry that, because of its drafting, I cannot support the Amendment. To place a duty on local education authorities to arrange for pupils to go to particular schools because of their particular needs is not in my opinion a practical proposition; that is, unless one accepts the entire principle of selection over all schools in the area. I should have no objection whatever if it was so drafted that it was not a breach of Clause 1 for a local authority to arrange for the admission of pupils with particular needs to schools most suitable for them. Then one would rest on parental choice.

This is a very real problem. The banding system will not work in practice, in my view, because of the difficulties of transport and the complaints of parents. It would be a very difficult operation. Inevitably, therefore, comprehensive schools will vary a great deal in their nature; they will vary in the range of ability in the schools according to the districts or areas in which they are. I am thinking of the last city in which I administered; the comprehensive school in Fulwood would be very nearly a grammar school while the comprehensive school in the Attercliffe Valley would be a very different comprehensive school indeed.

Obviously if one accepts what is now the amended Clause 1, the provision of Section 76 applies and parents would have the right to say to an authority, "I would prefer my child to go to this rather than that comprehensive school because he has particular needs, "whatever these might he, "and I should be happy if the authority will say we accept that and we agree." He is not required to go to the neighbourhood school, so to speak, if a case can be made. Obviously it would depend on the availability of places in the particular schools. However, to place a duty on the authority to arrange to do that is very different. I do not think it is a practical proposition in terms of administration.

My Lords, by leave of the House I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has said that this is not a wrecking Amendment. On the other hand, we think it is quite unnecessary and, perhaps I may refresh the memory of the House as to what Section 8(1) of the 1944 Act states. It is that:

It shall be the duty of every local education authority to secure that there shall be available for their area sufficient schools—(a) for providing primary education … and (b) for providing secondary education … and the schools available for an area shall not be deemed to be sufficient unless they are sufficient in number, character, and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable in view of their different ages, abilities, and aptitudes, and of the different periods for which they may be expected to remain at school, including practical instruction and training appropriate to their respective needs."

That part of the 1944 Act still goes side by side with this Bill when it is enacted and we are still subject to it.

So far as the comments which I made in my letter to the noble Lord are concerned, if he had read on it would have said:

"There is no intention of implying that denominational preferences should no longer play a part in school allocations but as explained in the debate at column 1624 we are going to have another look at the arrangement for allocations for school places and the Secretary of State will, among other things, be reviewing the draft circular to which he referred."

I am quite sure that this Amendment is unnecessary. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, that it would be unwise to place a duty on authorities, and I hope the noble Lord might withdraw it.

If I might intervene briefly, my Lords, to take up a point which the noble Baroness made. She quoted to us in extenso the part of Section 8(1) of the 1944 Act which sets out the duty of a local authority to provide places,

"… sufficient in number, character, and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable …"

Of course, the whole Bill is concerned about whether children who have the needs meet up with the places that offer the resources they require. Therefore, I do not think that what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, seeks to do is in any way superflous at all. That was the substance of our Second Reading and a good deal of our Committee stage debate, and I am surprised that it seems to be slipping away from us. The ethos of the comprehensive idea, the respectable content of the comprehensive idea, is that you remove from a child the agonising and odious choice between schools with different academic and, therefore, different social connotations and you present the same choice to the child within a school where the choice is no longer odious because it is not publicly discerned.

That is a condensed but recognisable description of the situation. That is what the noble Baroness and her friends seek to do. What we are saying is, "A 1 right"—and I specifically said this at the last stage on this Bill—"if that is what you are seeking to do and if you can do it, well and good." What we want is for children to be well-educated, educated as well as is possible with the resources at our command. But we said that we are not confident that it is physically possible to produce all these different choices in the one school. It becomes very big if you do and we have just had a debate about the sixth-form colleges which arose simply because of the need to make these schools less big.

Another solution is to split them up in some other way. But if you split them vertically instead of horizontally, and split them according to some criterion other than age, then some of the resources you want will be in one school and not in another; the choice will no longer be within the school, and thus the covert choice—to extend the paraphrase I have used—will be an open choice between two schools. Now, obviously, if the comprehensive principle is to survive, it must not be a choice resting upon academic aptitude and ability of the mass of the children, because that brings you back into the bipartite system.

What you have to do is to say that the schools are generally selected without reference to ability and aptitude, but in particular cases—and the noble Lord has wisely used the word "particular" as we did in our first draft—wherethere is a brilliant teacher of music in one school and you have a musically gifted child in another, regardless of any other considerations that particular nerd and we have avoided the use of aptitude and ability) shall be taken into consideration and the child shall be transferred. You cannot say that is not a choice by reference to aptitude and ability and that destroys the principle of the Bill in reference to that school. Here is a child who is admitted to that school in regard to its particular ability for music. I am sorry I chose music, because there is an Amendment covering music already. Let us say it is sculpture or Greek—it does not matter what it is so long as it is a breach of the principle.

The noble Lord has a point and the noble Baroness has not answered it. I did not anticipate that she would because it will be very difficult to do. If the draft which the noble Lord is submitting to the House has the effect that I think it has, as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill—who is exercising a considerable effect on our debates this afternoon—thinks, then if he is right in this interpretation, and he would seem to be, you could say that every child is a particular child and every child has particular needs. Therefore, we are back to where we tried not to be before; though it might give a certain glow to our political hearts it would be in direct contradiction to the principle of the Bill. That, I know, is not what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, wishes to do, and far be it from me to egg him on to do things which are contrary to his principles. But he has a point and I feel that the noble Baroness has not answered it. It must be answered if unfairness is not to result, and I hope that we resolve this question before the Bill leaves this House.

My Lords, one thing is quite clear, and that is that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, cannot both be right. It cannot be both unnecessary and impractical. So I should like to take the two arguments separately. I take very seriously the point which the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has made, but I would say to him that if we cannot find a way in this Bill whereby we can make it more flexible for individual children without breaching the whole principle, we certainly will have failed in this House. I believe we can find such a way. I believe that my Amendment is two-thirds of the way there, if not further. It is my intention to ask the House to divide on this issue and I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, that perhaps he and I could get together in order to bring an Amendment to the Bill, as it will be amended, on Third Reading and to put in an extra qualification if one is needed. It seems to me that what is needed is a qualification about what is practicable for local education authorities. We can pass this Amendment now and then put in an extra qualification if necessary at Third Reading. I believe that would be a very straightforward way of dealing with the matter and would waste less time in your Lordships' House.

To the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, I would merely emphasise what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said. Section 8 of the 1944 Act does not lay a duty on local education authorities actually to help put children into the right schools. What it does is to say that they must provide the requisite number of places in order to deal with them, of particular types over a whole local education authority, which is a very different point altogether. The noble Baroness says that this Amendment is unnecessary, but I think that it ought to be put in because everyone knows—the Government Front Bench knows—that there is considerable worry in this country that what the Government are trying to do is to impose a rigid grey comprehensive system over the whole country. Whatever noises the Conservative Front Bench may be making at this particular moment, the Government Front Bench and myself know that this is untrue; but it is very important in my mind that we should make it quite clear to people that it is untrue and that we should make the system in such a way that it cannot be made true. It was for that reason, and with the assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, and anyone else who feels the same way he does, that we will examine the possibility and desirability of putting down a further qualifying Amendment at a later stage that I ask the House to divide.

moved Amendment No. 3:

My Lords, I should like to support the noble Viscount in the excellent case that he has put for this Amendment. Nobody knows more than he or has more experience and nobody could put the case better. I support it because I have had experience of mathematics in my own family. True, the boy in question did not go to a comprehensive school. If he had gone to a comprehensive school he would have had to fight very hard to get anywhere where he would have received the sort of teaching in mathematics that he obtained in the private sector. Nevertheless, once taught and once reaching a very high stage, he will then be in a position to help to train others if he so wishes. But some effort must be made to bring in this particular skill. My experience as chairman of an education committee for many years was that there were certain schools and certain teachers who were extremely good at mathematics and one was able to see that the children who wanted mathematics teaching got to those schools or to those classes in the schools. But one had to make a selection; there was no other way of doing it. And mathematics teachers wanted to get pupils who would benefit from the kind of skills that they were able to teach.

It seems to me that to be so hidebound about the way you deal with these special and important subjects means that you are shutting your eyes to what it is possible to do. I think it is necessary to have a clause of this kind in the Bill. After all, we have it for two other subjects, music and dancing. As my noble friend Lord Eccles has said, this is of vital importance in the development of our industrial life. Unless there is something of this kind in the Bill then, as my noble friend has said, the whole standard will continue to go down. It is going down now and we must stop it from going down. Unless this Amendment is accepted we shall be simply aiding what we are all desperately anxious to stop at the present time. I support the Amendment strongly.

My Lords, the noble Viscount, in 75 per cent. of what he was saying, was talking about a serious reality which the Government would not for a moment wish to deny, which is the importance of putting right the present shortage of, particularly, graduate teachers of mathematics. Where we differ is in the view that this Bill is the place to do it. The Amendment would enable an authority virtually to retain its selection procedure on the grounds that it was an effective use of mathematics teachers. The word "partly" does little to mitigate this defect, and in a previous debate I pointed out that in a selective system pupils were only partly selected on academic ability—geographical area, age and sex all played a part in this selection. It is reasonable, however, to use this Amendment to discuss mathematics education in the light of the comprehensive principle, which is something of the greatest importance in our opinion; but if the Amendment is pressed to a vote it must be clearly seen as potentially wrecking. Hence, we shall have to ask the House to reject it.

My Lords, there can be no dispute that mathematics is a vital part of the school curriculum. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister, as the noble Viscount has said, in his speech at Ruskin College on 18th October voiced the concern of all of us that the standards of numeracy of school-leavers shall be such that they have the option to pursue careers in science and technology and to meet the requirements of employers at different levels. But we need facts here. We need to know whether the achievements of the schools genuinely fail to match the needs of industry. There is a letter in The Times today, which most noble Lords will have seen, questioning this. We want to discover whether this is a serious failure to match or a matter of misunderstanding or of minor discontinuities which can be put right relatively easily.

At present there is no objective statistical evidence about national standards in numeracy. Such evidence as there is does not support the conclusion that there has been a substantial fall in standards. The Department of Education and Science has now given its Assessment of Performance Unit the task of developing methods of assessing and monitoring the achievements of children at school. The unit is treating mathematics as a priority area and is building on work already carried out for the Department by the National Foundation for Educational Research—and the noble Viscount will note that this is not a Departmental examination—in preparation for a monitoring system to cover mathematical skills. It is hoped that a start can be made on monitoring performance in mathematics in 1978. The National Survey of Secondary Schools by Her Majesty's Inspectorate is concerned among other things with the development of numeracy in the last two years at secondary schools, as I told your Lordships in Committee. This Survey, based on a 10 per cent. sample of all maintained secondary schools, will go on for 2½ years. These investigations together with information from national monitoring of performance of pupils in mathematics will give us much more evidence of the true situation in our schools.

To turn to the question of the numbers of teachers, the persistent shortage of teachers of mathematics is, of course, a serious problem. I recognise, as I think the noble Viscount does, that there is a vicious circle here. If the schools produce too few entrants to higher education in the shortage subjects, a consequence must be a shortage of teachers of quality in those subjects. This shortage itself is one of the factors which leads to too few pupils studying them to a higher level. In these circumstances there can be no quick or easy remedy. But let me say again what I said in Committee. The number of A-level mathematic passes rose from 37,000 in 1964 to 47,000 in 1974. Over 25 per cent. in 10 years. This does not suggest that the rapid increase in the comprehensive education is having an adverse effect.

Let me explain the extent and nature of the shortage of mathematics teachers. The Department of Education and Science carries out an annual survey of teachers of shortage in secondary schools, based on an inquiry to heads of a 10 per cent. sample of secondary schools. On this basis, the net shortage of mathmeatics teachers was estimated to have declined from 1,140 in 1974 to 720 in 1975. This net improvement reflects the fact that heads report a net surplus of certificated teachers of mathematics. But the heads state their main need as being for graduate teachers of mathematics, and here the picture is more gloomy; the shortage of graduate mathematics teachers increased somewhat, from 1,450 in 1974 to 1,580 in 1975. This is clearly a situation which gives cause for concern.

For a number of years the Department has, on the basis of the results of its surveys, asked teacher training colleges to give priority to the admission of students who want to train to teach mathematics, or other subjects shown in the surveys to be difficult to staff in the secondary schools. The Department also keeps university departments of education in touch with its thinking on these matters. The available figures indicate that entrants to specialist courses in mathematics have not increased as a proportion of total entrants, although mathematics has on the whole been holding its own as a subject. The colleges have also been made aware of the importance of providing adequately for mathematics as part of the training offered to intending teachers of young children. The need to continue adequate provision for the subject has again been emphasised in guidance given to the colleges earlier this year for their forward plans for course provision over the next few years, as the total size of the teacher training system declines and with it the risk that those subjects to which recruitment is difficult will no longer he adequately provided for. These forward plans, co-ordinated on a regional basis, are now being carefully examined by the Department so that further guidance can be given to the colleges if necessary.

One of the main results of the reorganisation of the teacher training system now in progress will be to strengthen the part played in teacher training of institutions with strong mathematics and science Departments. At the same time the establishment of the bachelor of education degree and the diploma of higher education in place of the old teacher's certificate should enable more students with scientific and mathematical backgrounds to opt for teacher training after a period in which they can carry forward these subjects beyond school level. These developments should help to strengthen the place of mathematics in the training system.

There is a further specific point to make on initial training. Noble Lords will know that, when compulsory professional training for graduates wishing to teach in secondary schools was introduced in 1973, it was agreed that new mathematics and science graduates should be exempted from the requirement because of the severe shortage of teachers of these subjects. The Advisory Committee on the Supply and Training of Teachers recommended at their meeting in June last that these exemptions from the training requirement should now be abolished. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State recognises the arguments in principle for professional training; but in the light of the continuing severe shortages in these subjects, and the contribution which untrained graduates are making to the schools, she has now decided or balance that the time is not yet ripe for removing the training exemption. We must encourage as many mathematics and science graduates as possible to teach in our schools.

In several of our previous debates I have been at pains to point out that we are legislating against selection for admission to secondary schools, not against selection for courses followed within those schools. A school whose admission arrangements are in accordance with the comprehensive principle may specialise in certain areas of the curriculum. We should consider this type of specialisation likely to be of overriding importance only at sixth form level; and, of course it may apply to other subjects besides mathematics. One school may develop its mathematics provision; another its provision for languages, music or engineering. And where it is the most convenient way to arrange such matters children from other schools would attend courses at the school with the specialist teaching facilities. This kind of co-operation between schools—and indeed with the further education sector—is to be encouraged.

Authorities must consider carefully their 16–19 provision. We want to make the most effective use of all teachers, not only mathematics teachers. There are several subjects for which teachers are difficult to recruit: mathematics is not unique in this respect. It is clear that certain reorganisation structures lend themselves more readily to the efficient use of specialist teachers. Sixth form colleges and tertiary colleges, catering for 16 to 19-year-olds, and upper schools, catering for 13 to 18 and 14 to 18-year-olds, can bring together pupils and teachers in efficient working ratios for the more advanced levels of work. Nothing in this Bill will prevent reasonable arrangements from making the most effective use of all teachers.

I have spoken at considerable length, which indicates the importance that the Government give to the general point which the noble Viscount has raised. In relation to this Bill, this Amendment is unnecessary and, I fear, potentially wrecking. I hope that the noble Viscount will withdraw it; if not, I must advise the House to vote against it.

My Lords, I do not know what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will feel regarding taking this Amendment to a Division. If he does so, I will certainly support him. We have been told in this debate and in previous debates that there is a great shortage of mathematics teachers. If there is such a shortage, this branch of the profession will have to be built up and that will take time. In the meantime, I see no other alternative but to have some form of selection. This deficiency must be put right, as the Prime Minister said at Ruskin College last Monday. I fully support the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in his admirable speech.

My Lords, there is another problem which this Amendment would not solve—not that I am out of sympathy with its purposes. I believe the great problem in possible falling standards in mathematics is not in the secondary schools but in the primary schools. The reason for this, despite repeated attempts which some of us have made in the National Advisory Committee on the Training and Supply of Teachers, is that we have never faced the issue of making O-level mathematics a requirement for all those who wish to enter a college of education. We do so for English. It must be 15 years since I suggested we did so in mathematics but the representatives of the colleges would not accept it because the great majority of teachers going into primary schools are women and they argued that we would lose a great many good women teachers if they were required to take O-level mathematics. I reject that proposition. It is a fact that, whereas our ladies would be ashamed to suggest that they were illiterate, they can smile beautifully and say: "Figures? I haven't a clue". In other words, there is an acceptance among women that not to be numerate is in no way a disgrace—

And they are right.

and it may apply to some men also. My Lords, I suggest that this is where the attack should be made. In general, graduate teachers of mathematics do not teach in primary schools—that would be quite exceptional. The need, therefore, is an attack in the primary schools which will not cause children at that stage to have an adverse reaction. A teacher who is not interested in mathematics, and not very skilled in the teaching of arithmetic, will transmit a dislike of the subject to the children. That, in turn, will cause them not to pursue the subject subsequently. I venture to suggest that the Department might look carefully at whether the stage has been reached where requirements in mathematics, as well as the requirements in English, for all students entering colleges of education should be imposed.

My Lords, I should like to align myself firmly behind the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for his admirable proposal embodied in this Amendment. In this day and age mathematics is not merely a building block but a foundation stone for education of all kinds. It teaches honesty and produces a mental discipline which is good, and although it may not have the visual or oral glamour of music or dancing, it is essentially an emotional subject. Mathematics can be extremely attractive and sentimental, if properly taught and appreciated. As I say, I should like to align myself whole-heartedly behind the noble Viscount.

My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for having unfortunately missed a small part of his opening remarks. I agreed with 90 per cent. of what he said, and perhaps the 10 per cent. I did not agree with occurred because of my absence during those few minutes. I think the importance of this point has been underlined by every speaker, and not least by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, when he told us about the Government's decision not to remove training exemptions. That is an extremely important decision, which must have been taken under very considerable pressure from the trade unions the other way, and which shows the importance attached by the Government to this problem.

Nevertheless, I do not think this Amendment is in fact the right way to deal with the situation. I am against our putting specific exemptions like this into the Bill. It is very difficult to know when to stop and where to start. In spite of the fact that music and dancing add to the Bill, as a correspondent whom I quoted at an earlier stage said, an almost frivolous air, they have a defence in that there are already specialist schools dealing with those subjects. I think we are going quite a long way towards dealing with the problem in the progress we have already made in this Bill. At an earlier stage your Lordships were good enough to approve the last three lines of sub-section (2)(b) of Clause 1 which gave power to the Secretary of State to make categories of exemptions in the future. That is perhaps a better way of dealing with this problem, rather than taking what are rather technical decisions in this House. At the same time your Lordships have just been good enough to pass my Amendment No. 2, enabling local education authorities to match particular children with need for mathematical teaching with the best mathematical teachers in that area. If your Lordships should pass Amendment No. 13, concerning the Committee of Inquiry which would have the duty of looking into the facts of the situation, then with those three Amendments I have referred to—provided that your Lordships are firm in keeping them in the Bill, whatever happens—we shall have gone a long way towards meeting the point put by the noble Viscount, and we may be doing it in a rather better way.

My Lords, I should like from these Benches to welcome with great enthusiasm the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Eccles. I think it is 'fortunate that the Amendment should have been moved by somebody with his distinguished experience, stature and eloquence. I must say that it was not matched in content by the reply gained, although there was a great deal of interest in that. It was noticeable that at Ruskin College last week the Prime Minister said in terms:

"I am concerned on my journeys to find complaints from industry that new recruits from the schools sometimes do not have the basic tools to do the job that is required."

He went on to say that there was concern about the standards of numeracy in school-leavers. It seems to me tint this is a matter of some urgency, when one looks at the economic and industrial scene around us. It also seems that this Bill is designed to accelerate the decline which we detect, and which the noble Lord does not detect, in the standard of mathematics in this country at the present time.

The argument is simple. I can do little more than recapitulate what the noble Viscount has said, but it may be that my approach will be somewhat different. Our resources for the teaching of mathematics are limited and inadequate. The need to make use of them is general and urgent. Surely, as a first step, regardless of any doctrinaire position adopted by any Party, we should at least ensure that wherever possible the children best able to make use of those resources are brought into contact with them. The device of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, for doing that was a sort of shuttlecock between schools with mathematically able children and schools with mathematically able teachers. The noble Lord said that they would be seconded to or could attend courses at other schools. There seems to be a certain absurdity about enrolling children in one school, with the deliberate intention of then ferrying them to another school for a great deal of their school career. Everybody in this Chamber must be aware, as I am, that at an early age one is aware of whether or not one is mathematically able. I was aware of the fact, to my great regret, at the age of 11 or 12. Computers did not exist then to make the analogy, but a lot of my friends had minds like silent and swift abacuses, whereas my own was like a rather jumbled cupboard. Whether it is a matter of heredity or the elective principle I do not know, but I think that among your Lordships the distribution is about the same as it is in constitutional terms. The fact is that by the age of 11 or 12 there are some of us on whom it is not worth wasting the highest mathematical teaching talents; and I am one of them.

The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and his Party are, it seems, completely "sold" on the comprehensive idea. When one used to ask them why that was, it used to be pretty clear that it was for the purposes of what one may loosely call "social engineering". They looked to it to produce homogeneity in our society. My own view has always been that in the long term it will produce a polarisation far less satisfactory, as a result of neighbourhood schools. But I do not want to tempt the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to charge me again with making a Second Reading point, so I shall move on. But I would say that in one of the more revelatory passages in our Committee stage the noble Lord disavowed the idea that the motives for comprehensive education were in any way social. Time did not allow for it to be made clear what other motives there could he for this extraordinarily expensive and disruptive reorganisation of our schools. I hope the omission may soon be made good, but even if such an explanation is not forth-coming, which it certainly ought to be, we have to look no further than our Prime Minister for an endorsement of what some of us have been proclaiming for a very long time. He said at Oxford last week:

"There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills."

It may be that this illumination has not yet spread beyond the Prime Minister and the more reasonable occupants of the Benches opposite. It may be that some of them still think that you have to mix pupils up in batches as if they were cement in order to produce a society that is either cohesive or just.

I would refer them first to the pronouncement of their Leader, which I have just quoted and, secondly, to my two certainties about the division between the mathematically gifted and the mathematical dunces. I think that even if they do hold these views it will be seen that they ought not to resist the Amendment of my noble friend. My certainty is that the division between the mathematically gifted and the mathematical dunces follows absolutely no discernible line of social demarcation. It is as clearly in evidence in the most patrician public schools as it is in the most disadvantaged and educationally deprived areas. Therefore selection on grounds of ability or aptitude in this subject will have no effect on the impact of the comprehensive system. The choice will be mathematically determinate but socially random, if T may so express it.

Therefore it is really necessary for the noble Lord to say what he expects of the comprehensive system, other than social advantage for our society, which causes him to reject this principle, which would not upset the social impact of comprehensive reorganisation in any way. If the motive is social egalitarianism that is a recognisable motive, although we do not welcome it. I can only say that to pursue it to the extent of rejecting the advantages which selection in this area would bring to the children on the one hand and to the nation on the other seems to me to be an example of exactly that which I said our Party were set against at the beginning of the debate on this Bill at Second Reading; and that was the universal, blind and undiscriminating application of the comprehensive principle. I believe that my noble friend Lord Eccles summed it up very nicely when he said that the Government's attitude to this Amendment was a test case of the good intentions of their Prime Minister, because he has said that he deplores what appears to be our shortcomings in the mathematical and industrial fields. My noble friend has gone further and said that here is one way in which we can help them.

The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has come forward with a number of interesting aspirations and intentions, but they will not mature until after the Bill has been effective for some time. I note, in passing, that it is not until 1978 that we are to have the statistics from the assessment of performance unit, which he said are the statistics that we lack before we can determine whether or not there is a decline. If he is to say that we should not take this step until we have these statistics, then he is in the position of the captain of a sinking ship with the water washing around our knees, saying: "Stand away from the pumps. You cannot use them, until I have sounded the water in the bilges", because subjectively it is clear, however objectively it may be obscure, that things are not as they should be.

There is also an absurdity in the position of a Government who reject an Amendment, which is as eminently constructive and sensible and as much in the public interest as this, and which is clearly not in breach of the general principles of the Bill, on the grounds that it is in breach of the principles, when they already have music and dancing. It seems to me that they are prepared to educate infant Neros to fiddle, while we destroy ourselves and leave the embryo Einsteins untaught in schools without adequate supervision. I think that their position is regrettable. I think it displays a far greater commitment to ideology than it does to political reality.

I would refer the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to the article by J. B. Priestley in the Sunday Telegraph only yesterday, which said that common sense dictated that when you found a good school you left it to get on with its job and ideology dictated that you removed it and replaced it with something else. I fear that that is the position that we are in—and he is a veteran Socialist. I think that the Government are here committing themselves far beyond the brief which they originally had. They are now legislating to satisfy their ideologues, who are pushing them on from behind, and they have got out of touch with reality. So I hope that my noble friend is successful in pressing this Amendment.

My Lords, a really astonishing remark fell from the Minister's lips. I think I have got it right. He said, "Nothing in the Bill will make it impossible to make the best use of all our highly qualified teachers of mathematics". Let me give him just one example to show that that is not so. I know—and lie would know if I told him which I it was—an admirable grammar school in South London which had about 650 girls, a sixth form of 200 and far above the average number of scholarships to universities. Its arms have been twisted, because it has no money to go independent, and it has been compelled to come into the comprehensive system and the sixth form may be reduced to about 60. How does the noble Lord think that that kind of thing can take place, without a number of very highly qualified teachers saying: "I am sorry. I have spent more than half my life teaching sixth forms. I am not the kind of person who can teach children over the whole range of ability. I have had plenty of other offers from the computer industry, or wherever it is, for my mathematical ability, and I am off". That is happening. That is one reason why, at any rate, during the period when there are not the resources to make the new comprehensives really able to cope with the full range of ability, we shall have fewer qualified teachers than we have today.

The second reason—I am sorry, but I said it before and perhaps I did not make myself plain—is that for the production of mathematicians who will become graduates thereafter, and, we hope, return to teaching, it is no good selecting them at the age of 16 and sending them to a sixth form college, where there may be an admirable set of mathematics masters or m: stresses. Unless they learn their mathematics all the way up towards the A-level, they will not be fit and they will probably give up the struggle ever to take A-level at all. That is why selection is still needed now, because if you deny selection you will deny to a very large number of children the opportunity to be taught t y well-qualified teachers before they reach the age of 15 or 16, and in many cases that will be too late. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, was here. He understands that far better than I do, and he would put it to your Lordships most convincingly.

I now come to what the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said. He made the case for this Amendment as no one has ever done. He said, like the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, at the Committee stage, that the rot is in the primary schools. Very well then, he said, the remedy for that is to make O-level in mathematics a condition of a student going to a college of education to train to be a teacher. But how are all these girls to get O-level in mathematics, unless we make the very best use of the highly qualified teachers we have? Any teacher who is going to do any good taking a class for O-level in mathematics, must himself, or herself, have learned mathematics to A-level, or they will not teach O-level at all well. Where are they to come from?

We know that there is a tremendous gap. We could not have had the speech from the Prime Minister, which my noble friend Lord Elton quoted, unless that gap was very widely recognised, and recognised as very serious in the national interest at this time. To carry out the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, it would be admirable that every student presenting himself, or herself, at a college of education should have an O-level in mathematics. But there will have been

moved Amendment No. 4:

My Lords, in rising to support the Amendment which has just been extremely ably moved by my noble friend Lord Elton, I should like to bring before your Lordships' imagination for one moment a case of which I happen to know the facts. Two small girls living in a country area, whose mother had to be moved into a mental home, whose father abandoned them, had to be sent to a non-maintained boarding school in order that they might have a certain sense of security and care in being looked after. These children were of an age that had they been boarded out and sent to the local day comprehensive school I regret to say that owing to influences that were around them there would have been nothing but potential criminal tendencies developed. It is on those grounds—human grounds of the individual child or children—that I feel so strongly this particular Amendment could be accepted. I am certain that they are not in large numb m. s. But there will be cases up and down the country which, through domestic, parental, or some problem of that nature, 'will need special care and special cherishing, which one can deal with only by moving them into a non-maintained boarding school.

My Lords, may I support the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, on this. I have dealt with a number of children who can only be sustained in a small school for, say, 30, where there were particular problems with the family and with the child itself. I should very much like to sup port this Amendment.

My Lords, if I may deal with the remarks of the two noble Baronesses first, there is nothing in the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, which is contrary to the practice which the Bill would authorise without this Amendment. I think there is a total misunderstanding here.

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister a question before he goes on. What if the children to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte, was referring were placed at a boarding school, and the entry to that school did require a level of academic standard—in other words, they were selective?

My Lords, in the absence of other alternatives, in my understanding this would be possible for the local authority to use, just as we have said from the word "go" that boarding is a priority. The local education authority has a duty to provide boarding, if possible, within the comprehensive system, but it may not be possible. This has been the position from the beginning, as I understand it. If this Amendment were to be approved, it would be open to any local education authority to take up any number of places at non-maintained schools, without having regard to the comprehensive principle, whenever they thought that a non-maintained school could offer an "educational opportunity" not available in the maintained sector. This would be a very wide freedom indeed. Of course, the Government are not opposed to widening the range of educational opportunities available as much as possible: that is, indeed, precisely our objective in promoting the current Bill. We do firmly believe, however, that the comprehensive principle should be observed as far as possible in the provision of education—the words "as far as possible" are the governing words here.

It. is for this reason that Clause I exists and it was for the same reason that Clause 5—restoring to the Secretary of State her powers to control the extent to which authorities may make use of the non-maintained sector—was originally included in the Bill. It is our intention to ask our colleagues in another place to restore the powers contained in the original Clause 5 of the Bill, and if this happens we have declared our intention of administering these powers flexibly, giving sympathetic and careful consideration to a range of circumstances in which authorities, for good reason, may wish to make use of the non-maintained sector.

We are firmly opposed, however, to the selection of pupils to attend non-maintained schools on grounds solely of academic ability. If this Amendment were to be accepted, it would be open to any authority to do this simply by declaring that any particular pupil could only receive a particular educational opportunity (in itself an ill-defined and totally subjective concept) at a non-maintained school. This could, moreover, be done on a sufficient scale to undermine the provision of a fully comprehensive system. It is, therefore, not out of any desire to deny opportunities to particular pupils, but only through our wish to see a general improvement in opportunities for all pupils through the observance of the comprehensive principle that I would now ask the noble Lords to withdraw this Amendment. My right honourable friend has indicated her intention to use her powers of control over the use of the non-maintained sector sympathetically; the effect of the Amendment would be to render those powers useless, and to affect adversely the purpose of the Bill. I hope the noble Lord will not feel it necessary to press the Amendment.

My Lords, before the noble Lord opposite indicates his wishes in the matter—and I do not wish to throw any spanner in the works—I wonder whether the Minister could tell me what is the situation of the religious schools, the denominational schools, with which I am concerned. I listened to the case referred to by the noble Baroness opposite, and it occurred to me that there might be just such a case where the only school available of a certain denomination was a non-maintained school.

My Lords, it is exactly the same as a boarding school. If it is the only available place, it would be up to the local education authority to make use of it, as I understand it.

My Lords, it is perhaps not unusual that I shall find myself speaking in support of both sides of this House from time to time. This Amendment cannot be sustained without destroying the Bill. There are probably three reasons why local authorities use places in non-maintained schools. The first, and much the largest, is the need for boarding education, and we do not have the facilities for boarding education in maintained schools. As I understand it, an assurance that that would continue to be effective has already been given during an earlier discussion. There are a substantial number of these, of the order of about 10,000. The second reason is where there is a special need not necessarily requiring boarding education, but where there is a genuine lack of the necessary facilities in the area of the authority. As I under-stood it, on that again, there was an assurance that that would be acceptable, although I believe it was indicated that it was presumed it would be temporary rather than permanent.

The third reason is that of authorities wanting to select pupils on the grounds of academic ability, and to send them to schools where they feel they will have a greater opportunity than in the schools of their own area. We know authorities where this happens. This Amendment would enable the third principle to operate. On these grounds, it seems to me that the Government must necessarily reject it, but I hope we can have a repeated assurance that the first two grounds would be acceptable, even if Clause 4 were restored to the Bill.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I am very glad to give that assurance.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, said that the objective was to put into effect the comprehensive principle as far as possible. If that were so, I think it would be a bad thing. Luckily, I do not think that it is so in fact. I think that what we are agreed on is that the comprehensive principle ought to be put into practice all over the country, and that we should have a comprehensive system of education in this country. But it appears as a pattern from this Report stage and also from the Committee stage that within that system, we should be making the greatest flexibility for individual children, as much as we possibly can.

What this really boils down to—and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, put his finger on it, although I dc not agree with him—is whether we are going to be more paranoic about a Secretary of State than we are about local education authorities. I think that in this case we are right to be. It is very much more likely that whatever the present Secretary of State says, there may be another Secretary of State who says something completely different. This is much more likely than that local authorities are going to use money which they now have not got, and which they are unlikely to have. for the next 20 years, as far as I can see, to breach the comprehesive system in a massive manner by sending lots and lots of children to maintained schools because of their academic ability. This seems a nightmare, and one which has no remote likely-hood of happening.

On the other hand, I think the vision of a future Secretary of State not using the powers against local education authorities which he or she is given under this Bill is a very real one. That is why, if very sadly the Government decide they will put back the old Clause 5 in another place, I hope your Lordships will not agree with it. I hope your Lordships will, complete the good work by passing this Amendment today.

My Lords, am not entirely happy with the assurance, given in good faith I know, by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to the noble, Lord, Lord Alexander, that where there is a question of boarding need or a genuine lack of the necessary facilities in the area of an authority the Secretary of State will use her powers under the Bill (if the old Clause 5 is put back) to see that authorities can go on taking up places. I am not happy about this for two reasons: first, because the Government have defended their intention to revoke arrangements to take up places at independent schools on the grounds that by the use of these powers local education authorities might seek to avoid complying with the comprehensive principle of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, repeated this view today and it was also effectively dealt with just now by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley.

That is a fundamental misconception of the way in which local education authorities go about their duty to provide education. If possible, authorities will always want to provide their own schools, not least their own sixth forms; but for different reasons, often financial, authorities choose to take up places at independent schools which pupils in the locality have often attended for a great many years. In passing, may I say that surely it is fundamental to the autonomy of authorities that they should be free to decide how to place their pupils at the most suitable schools. In recent years authorities have built up considerable expertise with staff consisting of educational advisers, psychologists, doctors and very often their own inspectors. What is the use of building up a structure like that if an authority is forbidden to use its discretion as to where to place its pupils?

My second reason for being unhappy about the undertaking which the noble Lord has given is connected with the question of boarding need. No one knows more about this than the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, who three years after the Martin Report chaired a committee on the question of boarding education. This evening he has put his finger on what was always held to be the fourth criterion for boarding education, where the special aptitude of the child requires a special training which can only be given by means of boarding education. One is talking about a report which was produced 16 years ago and it is interesting that the Public Schools Commission of 1968 not only accepted the Martin Report categories but elaborated on them and added two more which are particularly relevant to this Amendment. The Public Schools Commission—which, after all, is not notable for its particularly Right-Wing views—held that pupils should be considered for boarding education, and I quote—

"If the child's aptitude or intended course of study requires some special educational provision not available in accessible day school or college of further education …"

and the Public Schools Commission added a final criterion to which they said they attached great importance, namely—

"where there are any other exceptional circumstances which severely impede a child's educational progress".

When the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, was replying in Committee to the Amendment on boarding education, the noble Baroness disregarded the fourth criterion of the Martin Report and the recommendation of the Public Schools Commission, and it is for this reason that I am worried also about the undertaking which has been given concerning boarding need. We should get plainly into our minds that it is a limited undertaking.

In addition there are a variety of other reasons, with which I will not weary the House and with which we are all familiar, as to why parents sometimes want their child to go to a non-maintained school. My noble friend Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte and my noble friend Lady Faithfull have mentioned some of them in passing. My noble friend Lady Faithfull made the point on previous debates that you may get children who are in need of boarding education because they arc bordering on being maladjusted, and my noble friend Lady Brooke made the same point. When he was proposing this Amendment my noble friend Lord Elton said that the difficulty here is what happens if unfortunate children of that sort are placed—as is likely—in a non-maintained boarding school which is selective in its intake.

If the Government are going to refuse this Amendment I would suggest that they will be meddling with arrangements which have continued for many years and where schools have often committed themselves to substantial expenditure in order to enlarge or convert, perhaps from single sex to mixed, or simply to improve their premises for the good of children in the area. I happen to live only I z miles away from a very ancient foundation, Woodbridge School, which spent a huge sum of money out of its own pocket in order to provide—and I know the Government will be pleased to be reminded of this—for a totally open sixth form for all pupils of the area. But they cannot be absolutely sure that under old Clause 5 of the Bill the Secretary of State will allow this arrangement to continue. Further, when one considers that 20 per cent. of all sixth form pupils in the country are still at independent schools and that some 35 per cent. of all independent school-leavers go to university one must conclude that sixth form facilities in the independent sector ought to be made available as widely as possible, not as narrowly as possible.

If the Government refuse the Amendment they will be rejecting closer links between the maintained and the independent sectors and will be affirming that what they really believe in is educational monopoly. I think this Amendment is very modest in its effect. In essence it is no more than an extension of Section 8 of the 1944 Education Act which we have written into the Bill, saying that as part of the opportunities of education for pupils authorities should be able to use independent education. This has been the law since 1944. Local authorities have had full discretion in this respect since 1959. I hope we may have persuaded the Government to look with a little more favour on this Amendment than they have suggested during the debate. If not, I very much hope that my noble friend will press the Amendment.

My Lords, may I inquire whether the Government Front Bench intend to reply to what my noble friend has said before I reply to the debate?

My Lords, at Report stage I think it would be quite inappropriate.

My Lords, it would be inappropriate for the same voice to speak twice, but there is more than one voice to cut off anything which the noble Lord wished to say. I wished to say two things myself: first, I notice that whenever there is an Amendment to which the noble Lord and the noble Baroness opposite take particular exception they instantly say that it is a wrecking Amendment. I presume this is because they wish to label it with something which will produce a shout of rage when it goes down the corridor. If they look at the wording—even with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill—it provides for "opportunities for education to a particular pupil". Flow you could expect to use that reasonably to send all your best pupils out of the local authority to non-maintained schools at considerable expense to the rates and in the face of popular hostility among the local electors I do not know. It is not a wrecking Amendment.

The noble Lord laid great stress on the words "as far as possible" being a limitation of the duties of the 13111, but if those words are to have effect or the problem that we are discussing then they would have to occur at line 17 of page 1 of the Bill, because they would have to qualify,

"the general principle that such education is to be provided only in schools where the arrangements for the admission of pupils arc not based wholly on selection by reference to ability or aptitude."

They do not there occur. Thirdly, what the noble Lord says is very welcome in the form of an undertaking, but it is not what the Bill says, and, as I said before, it is to the Bill and not to Hansard that he courts will address themselves when any case is brought before them. Therefore I feel that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness have not answered the case we made. We made it before, we took it away to consider after listening to their arguments and they still have not satisfied us. Therefore I beg to press the Amendment.

My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration of the Bill on Report be adjourned.

My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

moved Amendment No. 160:

It is a fair suggestion, but at this moment in time I cannot undertake to accept it. We are having a serious discussion, and therefore all suggestions are fair. However, I should like to try to persuade the noble Earl that the Government's view is not quite as rigid as he seemed to make out. I seem to remember that at about midnight one day last week we were talking about events arriving out of a blue sky. But what we are really talking about is a situation where a company is in difficulties—and companies can get into difficulties through no fault of their own—and has to decide whether to go it alone and, with the help of its bankers, fight its way through its difficulties, or turn to the Government and get a loan which in fact affects the degree of compensation that it is likely to receive.

The situation which the noble Earl described is perhaps possible, but I do not think that it actually will be so. Banks, taken by and large, are very loyal to their clients. If a client came to them and described the situation which the noble Earl has foreseen, I think they would support him, but if they did not, then we have this particular situation which we have to consider. May I just give the Government's argument as clearly as I can?

As I see it, and as the Government see it, Amendment No. 160 seeks to offer a further choice of valuation—and we have to deal with other choices of valuation in a later discussion—for a company facing bankruptcy; namely, the full valuation less the aid given. The amount of aid given does not have any bearing on the question of whether or not a company is solvent without it. It is either solvent, and thus to be compensated for in full, or else insolvent and thus virtually worthless. The clause already provides two options for compensation, either 5 per cent. of the full compensation or the amount which the shareholders would have received had their bankruptcy taken place. In the vast majority of cases, and this is an unfortunate fact, shareholders receive nothing out of a compulsory winding up, and for this reason I believe that to offer 5 per cent. in these special circumstances is by no means unfair. But to offer any more, except in the remote possibility where shareholders would have received more had the winding-up proceeded, would perhaps be considered unjustified largesse on the part of the Government. It is for this particular reason that I feel I must reject this particular Amendment.

I was surprised that the noble Lord did not accept the Amendment and I was greatly surprised at his reasons for not accepting it because the whole point of the compensation through-out the Bill is that it is based on spurious data; that is, the notional value at 1974. In the example I gave it is possible that in 1974 the company in question was viable and would not go into liquidation. If in 1976 one is buying out a company at 1974 prices, I suggest that it is not fair to say that because subsequent to 1974 the company got into difficulties we should therefore use a different figure from that on which the whole of the compensation is based, which is the 1974 figure. If in 1974 that company was viable, why should it not be paid out in compensation at 1974 prices?

I find the argument adduced by the noble Lord strange because it may be that a company will go into liquidation and, if it does, there is very little left for the share-holders. But in the example I gave the company was not, in 1974, in liquidation and was not likely to go into liquidation and I do not see why the noble Lord says that the Government would be paying out largesse if he accepted the Amendment. It would not be largesse. It would be just and fair to pay the 1974 value less any sums which the Government had paid. Would the noble Lord care to explain—I am willing to be told if I am wrong—whether, if a company was solvent in 1974, under these provisions it would not be paid out at 1974 prices?

The argument is that in the period between 1974 and 1976 a hypothetical situation may have arisen in which a company is in such difficulty that it is at risk of becoming insolvent and being forced to wind up its operations. It is obviously the Government's wish that such companies should continue trading and one would hope that if such a situation arose the company would turn to the Secretary of State, get a grant and continue doing what it was doing at the time of the original situation in 1974 when it was brought within the ambit of the Bill.

I remind the House that we are talking about hypothetical situations, not real ones. If such a situation were to arise, then either the shareholders would get 5 per cent. of the full compensation—and it is open to them to decide—or the amount which they would have received had the bankruptcy taken place. I think we can assume that at this moment all companies which are concerned with the progress of the Bill would choose to take what assistance the Secretary of State can give them rather than go into liquidation and throw their work forces on to the labour market. Admittedly, this is not a usual situation about which we are talking—it is a hypothetical one—and I believe that the terms proposed by the Government are fair; either 5 per cent. of the full compensation or the amount which the share-holders would have received had the bankruptcy taken place.

I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has opposed the Amendment so strongly. Do the Government understand that the problem is one of blight? We all know that if one is living in the shadow of a projected motorway or similar development the value of one's property can decrease sharply. Similarly, a company threatened with nationalistaion can find itself in a similar position. The noble Lord will recall that the Bill did not appear in the first Session of Parliament, over which the present Government had some control, although it was expected to arrive. There was a period of' uncertainty before the Bill was introduced in another place and that exacerbated the situation to which my noble friend has drawn attention. The Government are being unreasonable over this and I hope that my noble friend will press the matter to a Division.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne and I, too, find the Minister's argument extraordinary, especially when he described this as a hypothetical case.

Can any noble Lord tell me of a factual case of any company suffering from blight? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will tell me of one?

It is all very fine to ask that sort of question and I think I see the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, smiling. I would remind him that we have not yet had the vesting date and much can happen before then. What he is seeking to defend is putting something in the Bill which I suggest is unfair. My noble friend, Lord Trefgarne, referred to blight and what I think he had in mind was the situation where a company might have been viable in 1974 but could not find the funds to re-tool or buy new equipment, or carry out this new order which it has got since 1974, aid because it might have been in difficulty it must go to the Government. Once it f as gone to the Government, the Secretary of State is obliged to pay out in compensation what is frankly a derisory amount. Had that company in 1974 been in difficulties and had it in 1974 got a grant from the Government because of those difficulties, things might have been different. But it is possible that in 1974 the company was totally viable, and it is the mere operation of obtaining funds from the Government later to develop its exercise that the Government put in this provision which, frankly, will result in a thoroughly unfair amount of compensation. The obvious and reasonable thing, I suggest with humility, would have been to pay out what was agreed to he the proper price in 1974 less any funds the Government paid into the company. Even then the Government would be getting the company at a value probably much lower than is current value simply because it would have borrowed the money to develop its work.

I find the noble Lord's argument thoroughly unconvincing. I suppose that at this juncture he will not accept the Amendment and I see him, I think sadly, shaking his head in dissent. I am sorry about that. With respect, he is being most unreasonable. I hope there will be a little give somewhere from the Government, otherwise it makes the exercise in which we are involved rather tedious, particularly when we are trying to provide constructive Amendments, of which this is one. However, if the noble Lord sees fit not to accept it, then I shall be obliged to withdraw it and reconsider the matter.

Before the noble Earl seeks leave to withdraw the Amendment, may I ask the Minister, as one who has had to deal with this question only in relation to Communist Governments who have tried to take over companies without paying any compensation at all, how the figure of 5 per cent. was conjured up? It seems remarkably low. One does not know what proportion the compensation bears to the value of the company. It could be virtually taking it over without any compensation. If the noble Lord would explain the clause a little more we might be able to have a better view of the Amendment.

I am not the most skilled person on the procedures of your Lordships' House, but I thought that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, had withdrawn the Amendment—

and, if he had withdrawn it, that is the end of the discussion on the Amendment.

I was careful in the words I chose. I think I said that I would be obliged to withdraw it and then sat down. I did not actually seek leave to withdraw it.

I said as I rose, "Before the noble Earl seeks leave to withdraw the Amendment". I would be grateful if the Minister would explain the provision further; I am sure he understands it better than I do.

May I put it in words of one and a half syllables? The Opposition is making too much of the "investment blight". No noble Lord opposite or on the Cross-Benches has told me of a company which is blighted. We have given assurances to companies to ensure that normal, on-going business is not blighted by the Bill and we believe that companies are operating quite normally against the background of this Bill. If any noble Lord can tell me of a case of blight I should like to know of it.

Is the noble Lord really saying that because we cannot mention a particular case, we must now write this grotesque provision into the Bill?

Am I right in saying that the noble Lord said he had had enough talking? Am I not allowed to talk if I want to? I cannot hear what the noble Lord says.

I apologise. I said that I was bad on procedure. I thought that the noble Earl had withdrawn his Amendment, but I find that he has not.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I was wondering why he said that this was a hypothetical case and asked for evidence. When we are dealing with a Bill, we cannot, until we know what the conditions are and until all the firms that are to be nationalised have been gone into, give any evidence. One cannot say that one cannot have a clause in a Bill which is hypothetical unless one gives the cases. That seems to me to be quite ridiculous and I cannot understand it at all. We want clauses that are fair to the people so that, when we come to deal with the compensation, we can then provide the facts; but we cannot do so on a hypothetical case because at the moment we have no hypothetical cases. So what I want to know is why the noble Lord used the word "hypothetical".

I am afraid that hypothetical is hypothetical. I merely asked for an example of a blighted company. None has been given. Therefore, it is very difficult to say whether we are being fair or not. So far, no unfairness has appeared.

I am going to throw a small pebble into the pool by asking the noble Lord whether, if he is satisfied that no case will arise, it is necessary to have the clause in the Bill at all.

Oddly enough, that was almost the question that I was going to ask the noble Lord and, as we are asking each other questions, perhaps I may ask him this. Does he know of any company that was reasonably solvent in 1974 which has subsequently received a Government grant which will result in that company being paid out only either 5 per cent. of its 1974 prices or the current break-up value?

While we are asking each other questions, maybe I can join in and ask the noble Earl a question. We have been asked a lot of questions and I believe that I am entitled to ask one in return. Noble Lords opposite passed Amendment No. 156 when we were nearing the end of the previous Committee stage: am I right in thinking, as I think I am—for it is the Amendment of noble Lords opposite and not mine—that, under that Amendment, somebody who was not satisfied with the particular item of compensation with which we are dealing at this stage could go to the tribunal and say that, having regard to all the circumstances, the compensation was not fair and could ask the tribunal to alter the compensation? If that is the case, I am not quite sure what we are arguing about.

I can tell the noble Lord exactly what we are arguing about: we are trying to make the provisions of the Bill reasonable. I do not think it much of a statement to say that because somewhere in the Bill there is the right of a company to go to arbitration, therefore all the other provisions of the Bill can be absolutely haywire for, if they are not right, the company can go to arbitration. Clearly, we must try to get things right, but the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, asked me specifically whether I knew of any company that was going to be blighted. I shall find out, for I cannot tell him on the spur of the moment. But that does not alter the reason for trying to make the provisions fair. What I should like to know is whether the noble Lord knows of any company which has received funds from the Government and which, as a result of receiving those funds, will have the reduced amount payable.

I think that we are getting down to details. I shall inform the noble Earl at Report stage.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. We are getting down to details, and I believe that they are rather important details, but I will withdraw the Amendment and shall come back to it at Report stage. I now, formally, and at the noble Lord's pleasure, beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

moved Amendment No. 162:

Page 49, line 14, leave out ("either").

We have been discussing a group of Amendments which relate to the reduction of compensation for companies saved from collapse by Government financial assistance in the period, shall we say, from 1974 to whatever date it is when the Bill becomes an Act. May I briefly outline the basic philosophy behind the compensation terms before dealing with the Amendments which we are discussing now, Nos.162 and 163.

Compensation is fixed on the basis of a past reference period, the six months up to the end of February 1974. At that time, all the companies named in the Bill were viable concerns at the end of the reference period and the basic assumption still is that they will remain in that state up to the vesting day. Just to make the point clear, no company as of now has come to ask for aid under the clause, so we are—I know it is a longish word—in a position where the whole situation we are discussing is "hypothetical". I agree that it is the duty of this House and another place to discuss hypothetical situations, but hypothetical situations are less important than real situations, and as of now no company has come forward for help. The noble Lord opposite has said that clearly the prospects of individual companies may have changed since the reference period. But that in itself does not affect the basis of compensation. By basing compensation on a past period, the compensation payable is fixed, and generally speaking the shareholders are assured as to the basis on which the compensation they will receive will be assessed. We are talking about something that is not hypothetical but is factual.

However, all of this is built on the premise that the companies continue as going concerns up to the vesting date, and I think we can agree on that. If a company should collapse before the vesting date, then clearly the whole basis of compensation is destroyed. That is recognised by the provisions of Clauses 27 and 29 which have already been discussed. But for a number of reasons the Government may not be prepared to see a company collapse before vesting day, and again, noble Lords who arc fair-minded men would not wish that to happen. In those circumstances, the Government may decide to support the company in the intervening period with some form of financial aid. If a company is saved from collapse solely by the Government digging into their pockets—ot should I say more carefully as noble Lords will correct me—digging into the pockets of the public, it is clearly wrong that the shareholders should nevertheless receive full compensation as if the company had remained viable by its own efforts.

I believe that it would not be right for the House to accept these Amendments. When a company is running into financial difficulties, its directors will seek to avert the final collapse by early action and not wait until the receiver is at the door: that is to say, provided their accounting procedures are adequate. As soon as the danger signs appear, the company will seek whatever financial assistance it can to stave off collapse. The noble Lord opposite said that the bank might not support it. That again is a hypothetical situation, because I believe that banks tend to support their old and trusted clients.

It may be that the company has no option but to turn to the Government, if the size of the problem is too great for any other sources to deal with it. While the ultimate collapse without assistance might be inevitable and clearly foreseen, it might nevertheless not occur at once—shall we say that while the organisation was working at full blast, the order book was shrinking and the future looked some-what bleak. If the Government give aid in these circumstances it is just as much to stave off bankruptcy as if the bankruptcy would have occurred the next day. As I understand it, sub-paragraph (b) of sub-section (6) which the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, is trying to delete in Amendments Nos.162 and 163, is to recognise this fact. If that sub-paragraph were to be deleted, then a company could receive aid a mere week before its bankruptcy and this maintain its right to full compensation. It is for those reasons that I must resist these two Amendments.

Before my noble friend replies on this Amendment, and since the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, said that he wished: o give his view on these Amendments in the context of an explanation about the Government's philosophy on compensation, may I ask him one question? If I understood him aright, he was saying that if between the date in 1974 when we have a fixed point—which is a fact, not a hypothetical position—and the vesting date, a company's activity level and profit level drops so badly that it collapses, then, of course, the whole basis of compensation collapses also? But if that argument applies to a company whose level of activity and profitability changes dramatically in the downward direction, what about the position of a company whose level of activity and profitability changes dramatically in an upward direction? Does not the whole basis of compensation logically collapse, just as much in the case of a company whose level of activity and profitability changed dramatically upwards since 1974? Is that different in principle from one which changes dramatically downwards?

We are talking about collapse. If a company's profitability rises, then I suppose there are hypothetical situations when that could bring about the collapse of the company; but it is highly hypothetical and unusual.

I thought that the noble Lord was trying to tell us an important thing—which we grateful for him trying to tell us—namely, something more about the underlying philosophy of the Government in setting these principles for compensation, which we shall debate more generally in a few moments, and that is why the statement is important and needs to be clarified. As I understood it, he said that it was part of the philosophy that if the situation changed dramatically since 1974, then the basis of compensation would also be undermined. He took the case of a change which was dramatic alas! in the bad direction; but logically the argument applies just as much if the dramatic change were to take place in an upward or hopeful direction. Both cases in logic, I suggest, would completely upset the basis of compensation.

The distinction which the noble Lord has not made and which we would make is that a company's activity and profitability after the date in 1974 can go up or down, and the basis of compensation is not affected; it would still be the base period of 1974. What we are pointing out is the distinction if the company ceases altogether. If the activity drops so low that the company goes bankrupt, then at that point the distinction should be made; but we are not making any distinctions if the profitability or activity goes up or down, except for this one case which, I think the noble Lord would accept, is of a different degree from an increase or decrease in activity or profitability.

I think I now understand the Government's position. What the Government are in fact saying is that if, following 1974, a company (to put it crudely) sits on its behind and does nothing, then its compensation is fixed. If, on the other hand, in the national interests as well as its own, it really forges ahead and greatly increases its level of activity to the national benefit, then it does not get any benefit from it. Is that really very fair or very encouraging to the sort of effort we want over what is a period of two or three years?

I do not think there have been cases, unless the noble Lord can bring them to our attention, where companies have sat on their backsides, and I hope the noble Lord was not suggesting that that was the case.

But if they have not, as I believe is the case, and they have greatly improved their business, on what conceivable basis of fairness is it right to give them only what the Government say they were worth in 1974, when since then they have been forging ahead to the national benefit and not just their own?

There is one question I should like to ask arising out of this small debate, and that is this. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said that no company had approached the Government for rescue aid. Is there any prospect of any companies approaching the Government for rescue aid? It is very easy, perhaps, obviously telling the complete and utter truth and looking backwards, to say that no company has, but is there any prospect, looking forward, of anybody approaching the Government for rescue aid?