§ MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether Voluntary schools which have this year joined diocesan or any other associations can withdraw from such associations next year without placing themselves in a worse position as regards their claims to the aid grant under the Voluntary Schools Act, 1897.
§ SIR J. GORSTThe Education Department has no authority to interfere in the withdrawal of schools from associations. Their function is confined to refusing the grant to schools which remain unassociated without alleging satisfactory reasons.
§ MR. CHANNINGIs the right honourable Gentleman aware that an assurance in the sense indicated in the Question was given by the Duke of Devonshire in another place on the 12th July? Will it be adhered to?
§ SIR J. GORSTI am certain that every assurance given by my noble Friend the Lord President of the Council has been or will be adhered to.
§ MR. CHANNINGI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, with regard to the fact that the managers of the Severn Road British and Foreign School at Birmingham objected to join the association formed by the British and Foreign School Society for Warwickshire and adjoining counties, and claimed to have the aid grant under the Voluntary Schools Act, 1897, although remaining unassociated, and that the Department, after considering the case, allowed the aid grant to this school, whether the Department has allowed the aid grant to other British and Foreign Schools where they have objected to join the British and Foreign Schools' Association, and have remained unassociated; on what grounds the Department has come to the decision to refuse the grant to Church of England Voluntary schools under similar circumstances, and to compel these schools to either join the diocesan and ecclesiastical associations, which they object to joining, or to join the British and Foreign Schools' Association, which they equally object to join; and whether the Committee of Council will reconsider their policy in this matter, and allow the same freedom of action to the managers of Church of England schools as has been allowed in the case of British schools, without deprivation of the grant?
§ SIR J. GORSTThe answer to paragraph 1 is yes, because the objection appeared to the Education Department in that case to be reasonable. The cases referred to in the second paragraph were not, in the opinion of the Department, similar. All schools are treated alike.