§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education if he can state how many council school departments there are in England and Wales according to the latest available Returns; and whether he can say in how many of these there are neither religious observances nor religious teaching day by day, together with the name of the local education authority or authorities in the areas of which such schools are situated.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL, Bristol, N.)The total number of council schools on 1st January, 1906, was—in England 5,796, and in Wales, 1,004. The return as to religious instruction recently presented to Parliament gave no information as to the number of days in each week on which religious instruction is given in the schools. So far as can be gathered from the answers sent in by local authorities to Question 5 in the Return, it seems that there were seven schools in England and 158 in Wales in which, so far as the local authorities were aware, there was neither religious instruction nor religious observance; but I understand that, from the wording of several of the replies, it seems to be not quite certain whether in some of these schools there may not have been some religious observance as distinct from religious lessons. The schools in question were in the areas of three non-county boroughs, viz., Hyde, Glossop, and Rawtenstall in England and in the urban district of Ebbw Vale in Wales, and in five counties, viz, Carmarthen, Cardigan, 334 Brecon, Pembroke, and Denbigh, in Wales.
§ DR. MACNAMARAIs it not quite incorrect to say that in schools under sixty-eight local authorities there is no religious instruction of any kind? That was the statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
§ *MR. SPEAKERIt is a very inconvenient plan to ask questions about statements made in another place.