§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Education 191 whether the Board will make an additional grant to local education authorities in order to reduce the additional burden thrown upon the ratepayers in consequence of the new regulations with respect to the staffing of elementary schools prescribed by Circular 709 and incorporated in Article 12 of the Code of 1909?
§ Mr. RUNCIMANOn the general question I must refer the hon. Member to my replies to the great number of questions on this subject which I answered in the course of the last Session of Parliament. I do not propose to ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for money to be applied specifically to the discharge of any one particular duty of local education authorities. And to assist a local education authority in proportion to the extra expenditure, if any, entailed upon it by the new staffing regulations would be equivalent to giving it a bonus for laxity in the performance of its duties in the past. From the Estimates recently circulated the hon. Member will see that we are about to ask the House to increase the Vote in respect of Public Elementary Schools by about £350,000.
§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the additional expenditure thrown upon local education authorities by the national service of the medical inspection of children in the elementary schools, and in order to insure the efficiency and thoroughness of the work of such authorities in this respect, the Board will make such additional grants as will correspond with such additional expenditure, and to that extent relieve the already overburdened ratepayers?
§ Mr. RUNCIMANI think my answer to the last question addressed to me provides an answer to this one. I am fully alive to the fact that the due performance by local education authorities of their duty to provide for the medical inspection of school children entails additional expenditure, but any additional pecuniary assistance that may be given to local education authorities will be given to them in respect of their work in connection with elementary education as a whole and not in respect of any particular part of it. I can make no further statement on the subject at present.
§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTDoes not the right hon. Gentleman realise that in this particular matter there is a distinc- 192 tion between the usual service or work for which grants are made and this particular service, which is a national service?
§ Mr. RUNCIMANYes. I am afraid that that does not vitiate the answer which I have already given.