Clarke boycotts conference over NUT hecklers

Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, announced yesterday that he would boycott the annual conference of Britain's biggest teaching union because of delegates' unruly behaviour.

Neither Mr Clarke nor any other minister will address the National Union of Teachers in Harrogate at Easter, the first time a Labour Secretary of State has declined to attend.

The heckling by far-left activists that had become a feature of the NUT's recent meetings threatened to bring the profession into disrepute, Mr Clarke said. Doug McAvoy, the union's general secretary, accused Mr Clarke of being immature and said the boycott showed the Secretary of State was sulking after the NUT refused to support his school workforce reforms last month.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said NUT delegates were often more badly behaved than the disruptive pupils they complained about and should not be given the "oxygen of publicity" of a minister's presence.

Mr Clarke said conferences should promote "constructive dialogue" between teachers and the Government. "However, in recent years the conduct of delegates at the NUT conference has not encouraged such positive dialogue, indeed the opposite."

Both Estelle Morris and David Blunkett, Mr Clarke's predecessors, were roughly treated at NUT conferences. In 2000, delegates walked out on Ms Morris. Mr Blunkett hid in a cupboard to escape delegates while shadow Education Secretary in 1995.