§ MR. SNOWDEN (Blackburn)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education, if his attention has been called to the prosecution, on 8th October, at the Wakefield Police Court, of Alfred Whiteley, for not sending his two children regularly to school, and to the statement of the attendance officer that the managers of the Cathedral School had in the past allowed certain children to attend free as an act of grace; whether, in view of the difficulty existing in the city, of parents being able to get their children into convenient schools without paying fees, owing to the determination of the managers of such schools to keep them select by charging fees, he will cause inquiries to be made into the state of affairs in the matter of charging fees; and, further, if he will consider the question of making all places free in all schools supported entirely by public money.
§ THE PEESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,) Bristol, N.No information has reached me either of the prosecution or of the alleged statement of the attendance officer mentioned in the Question; a complaint was received by the Board from Alfred Whiteley in September last at being required to pay fees for the admission of his child to the school named, and on this being brought to the notice of the local education authority a free place was offered to him by the local education authority in St. Andrew's National School about a quarter of a mile from his house. The facts at present before me do not, I think, constitute a sufficient case for an inquiry of the nature suggested. It does not appear that there is any need to consider alterations in the existing law relating to school fees, since it is entirely in the option of the Local Education Authority to require the discontinuance of fees in any Public Elementary School maintained 1338 by them, and, as was pointed out to the hon. Member in reply to a Question asked by him on the 12th July,† it is the duty of every local education authority to provide a sufficient amount of public school accommodation without payment of foes in every part of their area.
† See (4) Debates, clx., 1063.