§ Notwithstanding any provision regulating the trusts or management of a school, the governing body of the school shall have power to fulfil any conditions which may be required to be fulfilled in order that service in that school may be recognised service for the purpose of this Act.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
3160§ Mr. LEWISThis is the small Amendment of substance to which I have referred. The object is to make it possible for schools which are regulated by trust deeds to do anything that is necessary to comply with the conditions of recognised service in spite of any provision to the contrary in their trust deeds. For example, it may be that the trust deeds of a school prescribe that the governing body shall be so constituted that no popular element of any kind can be introduced into it, and it is desirable that we should enable them to modify their trust deeds in order to introduce that element of public management which may possibly be a condition of the recognition of pensionable service. Now it would be possible for these schools to put themselves right under the Charitable Trusts Acts by amending their schemes, but, as the House is aware, that is a very lengthy, cumbersome, and an expensive process, and it is wholly unnecessary to put them to that trouble. This Amendment has been based on a precedent in Section 99 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, which is in almost identical terms, and enables managers of any elementary school, notwithstanding the provisions of their trust deeds, to fulfil the conditions required in order to obtain a Parliamentary Grant. There was another Act passed in 1903, the Education (London) Act, which enables governors of schools, notwithstanding their trust deeds, to add governors appointed by the local education authority, if such a condition is made a condition of a Grant by those authorities. I suggest that the Amendment has a reasonable object, and I trust the House will accept it.
§ Mr. KINGI hope there is nothing subterranean or suspicious in this Clause. It looks all right, and I hope it is all right, but it is not at all desirable to have a new Clause—a really very effective Clause—without our having the text before us, and it is not at all necessary at this stage, as it could be put off till Monday. I shall not, however, oppose it, in view of the exigencies of the Session, and the good faith we have in Ministers—not in everything, but in this—which enables me to say I welcome the Clause.
§ Question put, and agreed to.