Question to the Scotland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what assessment he has made of effect of the UK Internal Market Bill on teaching standards in Scotland in the event that the provisions of that Bill demand that the General Teaching Council for Scotland give full registration to teachers irrespective of their qualification status.

Teaching standards across the UK are very important to the Government and under the provisions of the UK Internal Market Bill, relevant authorities in each of the devolved administrations will still be able to set standards and control who can teach in them as they do now. The Bill provides that if a relevant authority decides that recognising teaching qualifications from other parts of the UK automatically is not appropriate, it can put in place an alternative recognition process in accordance with clause 24 to check qualifications and experience.