§ MR. SUMMERS (Huddersfield)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the passage in the last Report of the Committee of Council on Education in which they express regret to find, on examining the School Returns, that the education of so many children of 10 years of age and upwards is discontinued as soon as, by passing the prescribed standard, they are freed from the obligation to attend school and become entitled to go to work; and whether he will take the facts cited in the Report into consideration in connection with any proposals that may be made to amend the Factories and Workshops Bill?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS, Birmingham, E.)My attention has been called to the passage in question. The hon. Member is doubtless aware that the effect of the Factories Act is that children between 10 and 13, if they are employed in a factory, are obliged to continue half-time attendance at school; whereas outside a factory a child of 10, as soon as he has passed the prescribed standard, is free from the obligation to attend school, and may enter upon full-time employment. The raising of the age at which a child can be employed in a factory from 10 to 12 will have the effect (in factory districts) of increasing the number of cases deplored by the Committee of Council, because every child between 10 and 12 who can pass the prescribed standards will betake himself to other employment; whereas if those children were employed in a factory between 10 and 12 they would probably continue that employment, and also their attendance at school, up to 13.