§ No person shall be assessed or rated to or for any local rate in respect of any land or buildings used exclusively or mainly for the purposes of the schoolrooms, offices or playground of a Voluntary School, except to the extent of any profit derived by the managers of the school from the letting thereof.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSmoved after the word "rate," to insert the words "other than a School Board rate." The hon. Member explained that the clause provided for exemptions from all kinds of rates
in respect of any land or buildings used exclusively or mainly for the purposes of the 958 school rooms, offices, or playground of a Voluntary School, except to the extent of any profit derived by the managers of the school from the letting thereof.He said that he strongly objected to the whole clause, and at any rate asked that those people who were now so much assisted because they were friends of education should contribute by paying the School Board rate in the district. If all public buildings of this kind were exempted from rates it would be difficult to argue against the clause, and if these schools were used exclusively as elementary schools, there might be a case made out in favour of the proposal of the clause. It was true that the schools were used in the day time for educational purposes, but in every other respect they were practically the private property of the managers or trustees, for the time being, and in many cases it was almost impossible for anybody not connected in some way with the Church of England to obtain the use of any of these schools for any purpose outside what might be approved of by the clerical management. The only rate in regard to which by his Amendment an exception would be made, was the School Board rate, which was an educational rate. The general ratepayers of the district would have to contribute their quota, whatever that might be, to the provision of this £600,000 granted by the Bill to Voluntary Schools, and they would also have to bear their own School Board rate. He did not think, therefore, it was too much to ask that the supporters of Voluntary Schools, which were used in a large measure as private property, should not be exempted from paying an educational rate such as the School Board rate. He begged to move the Amendment.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYcould not think the hon. and learned Gentleman was serious in bringing the Amendment before the House, nor had he made out any case for an exception from the exemptions in favour of any rate. If there was one rate more than another which it seemed absurd to throw on the Voluntary Schools it was the rate required for the maintenance of Board Schools. It would savour of, he had almost said, insult, to say that they would relieve the supporters of Voluntary Schools of other rates and still leave them liable to that particular rate which 959 went to swell the pockets of rivals who were the chief source of their difficulties.
§ MR. CHARLES HARRISON (Plymouth)supported the Amendment on the ground that it was not fair and just that the rate for the Voluntary Schools should be practically thrown back again upon those who were already paying the local rates on School Boards as well as School Board rates.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. HERBERT ROBERTSmoved to leave out the words "or mainly." The object of his Amendment, he explained, was to provide that the Voluntary Schools should not be exempted from rates unless they were used exclusively for educational purposes. If they were used as other than educational institutions then they ought to pay to the ordinary rates. By introducing into the clause the words "or mainly," a number of very difficult questions would arise, and the door would be opened to all kinds of difficulties and doubts. Who was to be the judge of whether these buildings were used mainly for educational purposes? Suppose, for example, that the Church schools in a country village were used once or twice a year for Church concerns, would that be sufficient to exempt a school from rating liability, or would it have to pay? He urged that it should be laid down clearly once and for all, through this Bill, that if these schools were to be exempted from rating they must be used as schools and schools only. If the managers desired to have the right, which they had enjoyed in the past, of using the schools on certain occasions for other purposes outside those connected with education, then he submitted they ought to pay for that privilege in the shape of not being exempted from rating liability. He begged to move the Amendment.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERALhoped the Committee would not accept the Amendment. The effect of the hon. Member's proposal would be that if the schools were not used exclusively for educational purposes, they would lose the benefit of exemption from rates altogether. Thus if they were used for a parish meeting, or as polling stations for parliamentary purposes, or for the district council, they would be deprived of the benefit of exemption, which would be contrary to the spirit of the Act of 1894. There would be no difficulty in deter- 960 mining whether a school was mainly used for purposes of education. The right of exemption would be ascertained in the ordinary way. Exemptions, subject to certain conditions, were already enjoyed by different societies and institutions, by chapels and other buildings, and no difficulty was found in the matter.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSdid not think the Amendment of his hon. Friend quite carried out the object he had in view. His object was to have it declared practically in an enactment that the clerical managers of the schools were to have no benefit or advantage in these schools of a personal character. The Solicitor General had pointed out that the omission of the words "or mainly" would make it absolutely necessary that the school should not be used for any purpose at all other than for elementary education. Thus if the Amendment were carried and a parish meeting were held in the school, it would make it assessable to the rate, although no one on that side of the House objected to such a use of a school.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. EDWARD STRACHEY (Somerset, S.), with a view to prevent Voluntary Schools being exempted from the payment of rates when profit is derived from letting the premises, moved to leave out the words "except to the extent," in order to insert instead thereof the words "so long as no profit." He remarked that in some places the school rates amounted to 1s. and 2s. in the pound in addition to other rates, and if Voluntary Schools were exempted in those cases it would be a valuable concession to them. But sometimes almost prohibitive charges were made for the use of the school rooms for lectures and political meetings, and where a large profit was made in that way he did not think the schools should be exempt from the payment of rates. In future the school buildings would practically be maintained by the State, and, therefore, it was not unreasonable that the use of the schools for public purposes should be without charge. If a profit was made by the letting of the schools, they should be rated on the ordinary estimated value of the school, like any other premises 961 by which a profit was made. The proposal to rate schools according to the profit derived would cause assessment committees much unnecessary trouble. It would also involve a return being made each year by the school managers of their profits. In fact, they would have to make a return like that of Schedule D for the income tax, and this would be no little trouble to them.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERALhoped the Amendment would not be pressed, as he did not think a school should be penalised because during the year it had occasionally been let for small local purposes.
§ MR. HERBERT LEWISagreed that in ordinary circumstances a school building should be treated as an unoccupied house for rating purposes, but when profits were made by letting the building it was in a different category.
§ SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)advised his hon. Friend not to press the Amendment, because its practical effect would be to work injustice. [Ministerial cries of "Hear, hear!"] In a large number of country parishes the schoolrooms were the only rooms for any general purpose. They could be used compulsorily for polling purposes and Parish Council meetings, and they should be used compulsorily for other purposes. Parish schools were used for a large number of small entertainments and lectures, which were not only amusing, but instructive. He did not think school managers were bound to let the promoters of these have the schools for nothing, and he was afraid if the Amendment were adopted the managers would refuse the use of the schools rather than lose the exemption from school rates, and this might lead to much public inconvenience.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid the clause seemed to clearly suggest that school managers had a right to let the schools for profit. He asked the Solicitor General whether they had this right, and, if so, what guarantee was there that the money would not be devoted to educational purposes, but applied by the managers to their own ends.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid that no right to make tiny profit was conferred. The words were that the schools should be "exempt from rating except to the extent of any profit derived by the managers from the letting thereof."
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid he never suggested that the words conferred a right. But they indicated that the managers might let the schools for profit. Assuming that the managers did so, was there any guarantee that the money would be applied to educational purposes and not go into their own pockets.
§ MR. STRACHEYremarked that, in deference to the wishes of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, he would withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. H. LEWISmoved to insert after the word "extent" the words "or the estimated money value of any advantage," with the view to giving Assessment Committees power to inquire into the extent of any profit made by the letting of schools. He submitted that when the managers treated the schools as private property and used them for their own advantage, this power should be given to the Assessment Committee.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid he did not know what was the precise class of cases to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had alluded. Did the hon. and learned Gentleman mean to suggest the case of the manager of a school giving a private entertainment to his friends? He did not think he had any right to do so. He submitted that the cases supposed did not really in practice exist, and that the effect of introducing the words proposed would not have a satisfactory effect.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ On the Motion "That the clause stand part of the Bill,"
§ MR. HERBERT LEWISsaid they had hitherto refrained practically from putting forward their chief objection to the passing of this clause. All they could do under the circumstances was to make such a protest as they were able to, but they knew only too well that no protest of any kind, no reason and no argument of any description, would have the slightest effect. [Cries of "Oh!"] So far, at any rate, they had had no effect. He was afraid the House of Commons was 963 hardly fulfilling its proper function when the arguments put forward by Members elected to that side of the House were not considered in any way. His objection was that they would not be doing the right thing if they exempted school-rooms from rating which he feared were to an enormous extent used as private property. He knew of cases where the Nonconformists had at great sacrifice built a public hall in the village they inhabited simply in order to assert the right of public meeting. He could mention cases also where clergymen had prevented public meetings being held on the most extraordinary grounds. He protested against the arbitrary way in which the Nonconformists had been treated in the past in regard to the use of the school-rooms, and he therefore begged to move the rejection of this clause.
§ MR. HARRISONsaid he did not know if he would be in order in discussing an amended clause on this question.
THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSsaid the hon. Member was entitled to urge upon the Committee as a reason for rejecting this clause that he had a better clause which he proposed to submit, but before the clause of the hon. Member could be discussed in detail this clause must be negatived.
§ MR. HARRISONsaid he ventured to think the scheme proposed by this clause was one which ought not to be adopted. There were two great objections to this clause. The drafting of it was essentially bad. It would not, he thought, effect the object it apparently had in view; and, secondly, as it would cast the deficit caused by exempting the Voluntary Schools on the parish instead of on the fund levied on the area out of which the local rates on School Boards were paid, it would be inequitable. As to the first point, the clause in the Bill did not confer on the Voluntary Schools the benefits it proposed to confer. It contemplated the retention on the valuation list of the Voluntary Schools. It did not wholly exempt them. It would do so if no person was to be assessed or rated, for there would be no beneficial occupation. But the last portion of the clause assumed the schools were to be retained on the valuation list for assessment in respect of profit which they might make. The proper form of drafting should be, not to declare that no person should be assessed 964 for the schools, but that, as in the case of exemption of churches, the property assessed, "the church," the hereditament, should be exempted. It was decided in the case of the Foundling Hospital that, in London at all events, which had a special Act (the Metropolis Local Valuation Act), the property must appear on the valuation list, and that the overseers or other officers would be bound to observe and give the schools the advantage of any privilege or provision for being rated or taxed on any exceptional principle of valuation. But this clause did not give that exceptional advantage to the property of the schools, but only declared no person should be assessed or rated, a provision only advantageous in rating law for the purpose of destroying a beneficial occupation, and therefore a non-liability to be placed on the valuation list at all. This clause would not save the schools from being placed on the valuation lists, and, when placed there, would not confer an advantage or benefit, because it was an advantage or benefit directed to the person, and not to the property. As to the second objection, it was forcibly illustrated in the case of London. The 434 School Boards in London paid for local rates £92,000 a year, or equal, on the 394,000 children in Board Schools, to 2s. 7¼d. per child. That sum was paid as a School Board expense, and was levied in the School Board rate over the whole metropolis. Every ratepayer in each parish was therefore paying for local levies on School Boards 2s. 7¼d. for each child in School Board buildings. On the other hand, the 492 Voluntary Schools were paying £8,666 for local rates, and this Bill proposed to exempt them from this payment. On the 176,552 children in the Voluntary Schools, this payment was equal to a grant by the rest of the ratepayers of the metropolis, already paying 2s. 7¼d. per child for the Board School local rates, of the payment of an additional 118d., or nearly 1s., for the Voluntary Schools, which would benefit to that extent over and above the 5s. grant which they would obtain by this. Bill. Not only would the London ratepayers collectively pay this rate for Voluntary Schools relief amounting to 1s., but in the case of particular schools they would pay as much as 16s. per child. For instance, Voluntary Schools in Battersea, 965 Charlton, and Woolwich, by the exempting of the Voluntary Schools from local rates will be relieved of what was just under three farthings for each child in the Voluntary Schools; whilst in the Voluntary Schools of St. Michael's, Paddington, they would obtain relief to the extent of 6s. 9d. for each child. In St. Bride's, in the City, to the extent of 7s. 7d. per child, and the Saltram Crescent School, Paddington, to the extent of 16s. 1d. per child. This relief so awarded in these particular instances was to be obtained under the operation of the Bill at the expense of the ratepayers in the particular parish in which these Voluntary Schools are situated. But if, instead of referring to particular schools, they turned to the 11 School Board divisions in London, then the relief to the schools in the division would be, in the City, 1s. 7d. per child, in rich Marylebone 1s. 3d., in rich Chelsea 11½d., and all this relief would be effected at the expense of the ratepayers in those particular divisions. If the 2s. 7¼d. paid for local rates on Board Schools was paid out of School Board area, so also ought the 1s. in respect of which the Voluntary Schools would be relieved, instead of having to be made good by other ratepayers, in the parish, ought to be paid out of the same fund and area. That was the provision in the Government Bill of 1896; which, by Section 20, provided that the rates on Voluntary and other schools should not be paid by the parishes but as an expense of School Board area, and levied accordingly. London only reflected the same principle which he had been illustrating in boroughs, where there are often several parishes for local taxation. In all these cases the leakage or deficit caused by abstracting the Voluntary Schools from local taxation should be borne and paid, not by the parish, but by the borough, and out of the borough rate. In regard to counties the same principle applied. The parish in which the particular school was situated should not be called upon to provide the leakage caused by its exemption but the entire area—the county in which the expense and not the particular parish. The additional clause he had placed on the Amendment, had that object in view. He submitted it was a scheme far preferable and much more equitable than 966 that proposed by the Bill. For those reasons he supported the omission of Clause 4.
§ MR. BUXTONsaid he did not intend to oppose the clause, hut there was one important point connected with it which, as a London Member, he would like to point out. The amount which the Voluntary Schools of London would gain by the abolition of rating, was £8,700. With 173,000 children in average attendance in the schools that sum worked out at 1s. per head in addition to the 5s. grant, so that the managers of the Voluntary Schools in London would receive, not 5s. but 6s. per child. He was also bound to point out that this subsidy to managers of Voluntary Schools would work out very unequally in different parts of London. In the City where managers do not need assistance, it would amount to 1s. 7d. per child, while in the poorer parts of the Metropolis had great difficulty in obtaining subscriptions, it would amount to no more that 3¾d. per child. He also supported the view of his hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, that the deficit caused by this exemption from rates, should not be borne by the particular parishes, but by the general rate of the Metropolis.
§ MR. H. C. F. LUTTRELL (Devon, Tavistock)hoped that the Amendment would be pressed to a division, as he intended to vote for it. The clause proposed to give to the Voluntary Schools an advantage which was not given to the Board Schools, but more than that, by the exemption of the Voluntary Schools from rates, the burden of rates on the Board Schools would be increased, because the rates on the Board Schools must be heavier if the Voluntary Schools were exempt from rates. He did not see why, if by the last clause, they exempted Board Schools from the 17s. 6d. limit, they should not exempt them by this clause from rating.
§ MR. SCOTTopposed the adoption of the clause on two grounds. First, because it proposed to exempt from rates what were in fact private educational institutions. And, secondly, because it was partial in its application. A comparison had been instituted between this proposal and the exemption of churches and chapels from rates, but in the latter case the exemption was carried through all round, 967 whereas, in this case, they were selecting a certain category of schools for the exemption, while they declined to extend it to others more deserving of that favour. On what ground were elementary schools to be exempted from rates when the institutions devoted to higher education obtained no such exemption? The Solicitor General said that this proposal was founded on the Act of 1843, which exempted from rating societies established for the promotion of science and the fine arts. But that Act had practically been inoperative, and the only institutions which had benefited from it were Mechanics' Institutes. University Colleges were at least as important as Voluntary Schools; and, after all, the value and quality of elementary education was to a large extent determined by the efficiency and quality of the higher education. The Owen's College, with which he was associated, paid in rates last year over £12,000.
§ MR. SCOTTsaid that he would not pursue the point. He was merely dealing with the analogy which both the First Lord of the Treasury and the Solicitor General had endeavoured to set up, and winch he held to be bad. He would undertake to vote for this clause if the First Lord of the Treasury would give him any encouragement to believe that by subsequent legislation this exemption from rating would be extended to University Colleges.
§ SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid that he should vote against the clause on the ground of its inequality. He should be out of order in discussing the fact that the clause did not apply to Board Schools; but if it had so applied, instead of to Voluntary Schools only, he should have voted for the clause.
§ MR. ALBERT SPICER (Monmouth Boroughs)said that he disliked preferential grants, but this principle had been practically admitted by the country for some time. In the chief town of his constituency, all the Voluntary Schools were rated at 20s. each, and the Board Schools at a much larger amount. The effect of the clause would be to make people realise that these schools were not private property, but were to be used for the benefit 968 of the public generally. He hoped the Government would see that fair play was given all round in regard to the use of the school rooms; and when the extravagant expenditure of School Boards was referred to in future, he hoped it would be remembered that the cost included rates. He should vote for the clause.
§ MR. JOHN BRIGG (York, W.R., Keighley)said that, as the Amendment had been ruled out of order, he could only protest against the clause as a whole. He knew what it was to live in a district where the only suitable meeting place was the room of a Voluntary School, and where the use of that room was refused to one political Party.
§ MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that in some districts Voluntary Schools were now practically exempt from rating; but there the schoolrooms were put at the disposal of the public; so there was no injustice done. He should vote against the clause on the ground that it was part of the Government scheme for the endowment of one or two denominations. An exemption from rates was being given to buildings which were practically under the control of one man—the clerical school manager—who had absolute discretion as to the use of the room, and who used it to tyrannise all over the country. The whole Bill was an iniquitous and impudent attempt to give an additional endowment to a Church already endowed.
MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid that often during election campaigns he had been unable to find a suitable meeting-place, because the clergyman had refused the use of the schoolroom. Welsh Members had special reason to oppose the clause. They did so mainly on the ground that it added to the resources of Church schools from Imperial funds, and did not, on the other hand, confer any public advantage on those who lived in the neighbourhood. There was no necessity for the exemption, because a very large majority of the schools in Wales had more than ample funds. As a protest against the unjust character of the Measure he should divide against the clause.
§ Question put, "That the clause stand part of the Bill."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 283; Noes, 88.—(Division List, No. 130.)
969§ Clause 4,—