HC Deb 01 June 1894 vol 25 cc178-9
SIR L. LYELL (Orkney and Shetland)

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland on what grounds has Shetland been specially excluded from the district to which the provision of the Minute of the 28th of February, 1893, of the Scotch Education Code apply; whether an application by the School Board of Yell to participate in its benefits was made before the Code of 1894 was issued or determined; whether he is aware that in the parishes of Barves, Lochs, and Uig in the Lewis, which have received £2,599, £2,144, and £1,583 respectively under the special arrangement since 1888, the school rate has been reduced to 4d. and 6d. in the £1; whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the School Board of Yell has had to levy a rate of from 2s. to 3s. every year since the schools were built, and that there is a prospect of a 3s. 6d. rate having to be levied beyond a poor rate of 7s. 6d. in the £1; and whether, in view of the fact that in respect of proportion of population and rental to the number of schools maintained the Island of Yell is less favourably situated than any of the above parishes in Lewis to bear the increased expense which an additional school required by the Department will involve, he can modify the effect of the existing Code, or otherwise grant the relief which would have been available had the Minute of February, 1893, still applied to Shetland?

THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,) Glasgow, Bridgeton

Shetland has not been specially excluded from the provisions of the Minute of the 28th of February, 1893; but as these provisions were adopted only as a temporary expedient in 1888, and as the Department has restricted them as far as possible, it was thought right, in renewing the Minute this year, to confine it to the two counties, Ross and Inverness, in which alone the arrangement had been adopted. The School Board of Yell in January last informed the Department that the Parochial Board had refused to levy a school rate, and had recommended the School Board to apply for the benefits of the Minute. They were informed that the arrangement could not be extended to the district on such a ground. The School Board subsequently stated that they adopted the recommendation of the Parochial Board, and were referred to the previous letter. No further communication was received until after the Code was laid before Parliament. Under the special arrangement there has been paid to the parishes named, since 1888, £8,452. But of this £4,654 was paid before 1891, and came, not out of the Parliamentary Vote, but out of a sum assigned to each parish under the Probate Duties Act, 1888, the proportion accruing to Yell being otherwise applied. The total amount allotted to these parishes last year was £136. I am glad to be able to confirm the statement as to the reduction of the rate, although the subsidy is now so trifling. The school rate in Yell has amounted to 2s. for several years; but has not reached 2s. 6d. since 1886, nor 3s. since 1881. I do not know the prospective rate for the coming year. In several parishes in Shetland the rate has been higher than in Yell. In the years preceding 1888, when this arrangement was adopted to meet urgent difficulties in the Western Hebrides, the rates were on a much higher scale. The cases named were also more urgent than that of Yell, both as regards pressure of debt and the proportion of rateable value to population. Even if the Minute still extended to Shetland, I could not agree to its application to Yell. The Department is bound, not only by engagement to the Treasury, but in the interests of localities, to restrict as far as possible an arrangement which necessarily interferes with local administrative responsibility in a manner which can be justified only by circumstances of extreme and special urgency.