§ MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education if he is aware that the ratepayers (Church and Nonconformist) of Dinas Powis, in Glamorganshire, have in the past four years contributed some £3,500 towards the cost of education in the county; that the local education authority have during that period allowed nothing out of the rates for the maintenance of the Dinas Powis School; that the nearest provided school is at Cogan, some two and a-half miles distant; and that about 100 children attending the Dinas Powis School are the children of Nonconformist parents; and whether, in the circumstances, he will represent to the local education authority the desirability of their contributing towards the maintenance of the Dinas Powis School, out of the education rates paid by the Dinas Powis ratepayers, a sum sufficient to maintain the school in a state of efficiency not lower than that of the provided schools throughout the county.
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. LOUGH,) Islington,1476 W. As I informed my hon. friend on the 25th April, so long as the local education authority perform their statutory duty of maintaining and keeping efficient the public elementary schools in their area, the expenditure incurred by the authority on individual schools is not subject to review by the Board of Education and does not require their sanction. The accommodation at the Dinas Powis School is scarcely adequate and there are certain defects in the furniture which are now the subject of correspondence with the education authority. With these exceptions I have no reason to suppose that the condition, of the Dinas Powis School is other than satisfactory.