§ COLONEL LOCKWOOD () Essex, EppingI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his answer of the 15th instant, stating that the report of the Committee for the reorganisation of the Education Office is for the most part carried out as soon as made, is to be understood to mean that, action may be taken by the Lord President upon a report of the Departmental Committee on matters of office organisation without regard to the privilege of Parliament under the Board of Education Act of last session, by which the draft of the Orders in Council dealing with the transfer of the powers of the Charity Commission and of the Board of Agriculture must be submitted to each House of Parliament for one month before taking effect; and whether it will be necessary to delay the organising and manning of the Education Office, so that regard may be had to that necessary preliminary assignment of functions on which all proper organisation must be based, and over which Parliament has been given direct control by the aforesaid provisions of the Act.
§ THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OP COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST,) Cambridge UniversityNo; the new functions to be conferred on the Board of Education by Orders in Council cannot be finally provided for until such orders are passed in the manner prescribed in Section 5 of the Act. But the provision to be made for performing the existing functions of the Committee of Council, to which the reports of the Organising Committee hitherto made exclusively refer, need not be delayed.