§ MR. CHANNINGI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, at Levenshulme, near Manchester, out of a, number of parents who applied for free places, 11 parents applying in respect of 16 children in or above Standard II. have been directed by the Department to send their children to St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church; whether the whole of these parents are Protestants; whether the population of Levenshulme is now 10,500, and the accommodation required on the one-sixth scale would be 1,700, while the actual accommodation is only about 1,100 places; and why the Department, having regard both to the deficiency of accommodation, and to the fact that Protestant parents are seeking free places for their children, has not used its power under section 3 of the Education Act, 1891, to provide sufficient accommodation and suitable free places for the children of Protestant parents?
§ SIR J. GORSTThe applications for free places were sent in the ordinary course to the School Attendance Committee. A schedule was, as usual, sent 1059 by them to the Department, giving the names of the applicants and the schools at which there were free places to be obtained. The Department sent the information received in the ordinary course to the applicants without inquiry as to their religious tenets or the denominations to which the schools indicated belonged. The number of school places in Levenshulme is now 1,137. A new school for 200 children was sanctioned last November. The accommodation will then be sufficient. The Committee of Council has no such power under section 5 of the Elementary Education Act, 1891, as the honourable Member supposes.
§ MR. CHANNINGMay I ask whether the 5th section of the Act of 1891 did not impose a duty on the Department to provide?
§ SIR J. GORSTThere is no deficiency in the opinion of the Committee of Council.
§ MR. CHANNINGI shall raise this Question on the Estimates.