HC Deb 02 December 1908 vol 197 cc1461-2
SIR PHILIP MAGNUS (London University)

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether he intends the education settlement to be produced by the Education Bill to include a settlement of the difficulties that have arisen in the last three years in regard to secondary schools and training colleges; and, in particular, whether, in that event, he intends to make the requisite modifications in the secondary schools and training colleges regulations so that denominational schools and colleges shall receive grants from the Board of Education equivalent to the grants for those provided by the local authority, as will be the case in regard to elementary schools under the settlement embodied in the Bill.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. TREVELYAN,) Yorkshire, W.R., Elland

The various points referred to by the hon. Member do not arise under the Education Bill, which deals only with elementary education. If the Bill now under discussion is passed, the position of Nonconformists and others who are now under disabilities in other parts of the public educational system will, no doubt, be affected thereby, but the hon. Member's Questions are hypothetical, and it would be premature for me to give him a definite reply at present.

SIR WILLIAM ANSON (Oxford University)

That does not really answer my hon. friend's Question. Are these training colleges and denominational schools to be treated differentially, according to the religious instruction given, or will they henceforth be treated alike as before the year 1907?

MR. TREVELYAN

I cannot add anything to my right hon. friend's Answer.

MR. JAMES HOPE (Sheffield, Central)

Are we to understand that this part of the education question is to remain unsettled?

MR. TREVELYAN

I do not think so.

SIR WILLIAM ANSON

I will put another Question to-morrow.