§ 59. Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the President of the Board of Education whether his attention has been drawn to the statement made at a meeting of the Glasgow School Board, on the, 26th September, that the decrease in the school attendance was due to the fact that employers are getting rid of young people who come under the National Insurance Act and taking on in their places young people of from fourteen to sixteen years of age, who are outside the Act; and what steps he proposes to take to counteract this result of the National Insurance Act?
The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood)My attention has been called to a newspaper report of the statement in question, which, however, scarcely bears the interpretation put upon it in the question of the Noble Lord. The question of the decrease of school attendance being under discussion, one speaker attributed it in the main to the briskness of trade and the consequent exceptional demand for the services of young people, and incidentally expressed the opinion that employers were getting rid of young people of sixteen to eighteen who were under the National Insurance Act and replacing them by younger people. That question was not, so far as I can judge by the report, discussed by the school board, and no evidence was adduced in support of the view that school attendance is being affected in the way suggested.