§ MR. CARLILEI beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether in the event of the accommodation in the Garforth parochial school being insufficient, the course incumbent on the Board of Education was to require a reduction of the attendance to the number for which adequate accommodation is provided; under what section of any Education Act the Board claims the right to insist upon the reorganisation of the school; and whether the Board is advised that Section 7, Subsection (3), of the Act of 1902 gives the Board authority to intervene in case of a difference between the local education authority and the managers of a non-provided school.
§ MR. McKENNAThe answer to the first paragraph of the Question is in the affirmative, and it is the necessity for bringing about that reduction in the accommodation that rendered inevitable a decision as to which children, the older or the younger, were to be excluded from the school. In reply to the second paragraph, I may say that whenever in a matter of this kind the local authority and the managers agree as to the best selection of children to be excluded for this purpose, as is usually the case, the question in the second and third paragraphs of the hon. Member's Question does not arise; when this is not the case, as unfortunately occurred in connection with the Garforth parochial school, the Board of Education may have to determine, under Article 53 of the Code, as to the reasonableness of the grounds on which children may be refused admission. Whether, apart from this, a question might arise under Section 7 (3) of the Education Act, 1902, would depend upon various circumstances in each case, and no general answer could properly be given to this point as raised in the third paragraph of the hon. Member's Question.