§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he can state in how many cases, if any, under Sections 8 and 9 of the Education Act of 1902, the Board of Education has had appeals for the erection of new elementary schools in areas already sufficiently supplied with provided school accommodation at the instance of parents who have expressed dissatisfaction with the Cowper Temple religious teaching provided by such existing provided schools; and in how many cases such new schools have been sanctioned.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,) Bristol, N.The Board do not receive applications for now schools from parents, but from persons prepared to provide new premises. The number of such proposals received since the Act of 1902 is very large. Many of them, for one reason and another, have not been proceeded with; and it is thus impossible for me to say how many of the various proposals were occasioned by any dissatisfaction of parents with the teaching given in existing undenominational schools (if any) in the area. If we take into account, however, only those cases where a new school or enlargement has, in fact, been sanctioned by the Board on appeal, the point referred to by the hon. Member only arises, of course, in cases where the new building has been provided to give denominational education. Of these there have been twenty- 1374 five, of which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, eight were numerically redundant, that is to say, there was sufficient room in neighbouring schools to accommodate the children for whom the new building was to be provided, and therefore only those parents would presumably use the new schools who preferred the new denominational instruction given in them to the religious instruction provided in the neighbouring schools, whether council or voluntary, as the case might be. All of these eight now buildings were Roman Catholic, except two, both of which were Church of England. In the seventeen other new denominational schools or enlargements, I cannot say to what extent those conditions prevailed; but, so far as can be ascertained, there seems not to have been room in any existing schools within reach for the greater number, at all events, of the children who are accommodated in the now buildings. It is, therefore, impossible in these instances to make any deduction as to how far the parents of the children to be accommodated were dissatisfied with the Cowpor-Temple religious teaching.