§ 83. Mr. MOUNTasked the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the financial difficulties of universities and university colleges and the desirability of encouraging local authorities to increase their grants to these institutions, he can see his way to reconsider the Regulation excluding from the calculations made in arriving at the 405 amounts on which deficiency grants are payable the grants made by local authorities to universities and university colleges?
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher)The responsibility for subsidising universities and university colleges out of State funds and for dealing with all questions affecting their financial relations to the State now rests with the Treasury, and the Treasury, in view of the greatly increased direct grants made to universities from the Exchequer, have directed the exclusion of contributions of local education authorities to these institutions from the calculation of Deficiency Grants. The hon. Member will, no doubt, realise that the non-exclusion of such contributions would have the result, in fact, that the Exchequer, in addition to its own direct grants, would be paying part of the local authorities' contribution.