§ 3. Mr. Symondsasked the Minister of Education if she is aware that a teacher or other person employed by the Committee for Education of an excepted district under the Education Act, 1944, is ineligible for election either as a borough councillor or as a county councillor in that area; and what steps she proposes to take to deal with this anomaly and to ensure that such a person shall be eligible for election to one or other of the two authorities.
§ Miss WilkinsonTeachers in excepted districts are usually appointed by the local council as divisional executive, and so are precluded from being members of the council by Section 59 (I) of the Local Government Act, 1933. They also receive their pay from, and are in the service of, the county council, as local education authority, and the High Court might, therefore, hold that they are ineligible for membership of the county council also. The position of these teachers was reviewed when the Education Act, 1946, was under consideration, and it was decided that to amend the law would have involved departing from the well-established principle that an employee should not be eligible for membership of a local authority which could be regarded as in any sense his employer.