NEW CLAUSE.—(Allowance for cost of education.) (Hansard, 7 July 1927)

§ Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
The right hon. Gentleman rather misled the Committee I thought. Anyone listening without very great attention would suppose that the Clause refunded to this wealthy person the whole amount he spent on the education of his child. I was temporarily misled and had to look at it again. All it does is to allow back the Income Tax on the amount spent on the child's education, whether at an expensive school, a grammar school, a secondary school or a cheaper school. That is not a very great amount and it only affects comparatively a small number of people. But do you want to encourage parents to continue the education of their children? My hon. Friend was in favour of the Clause. He wants to encourage parents to keep their children at school and to sacrifice so much for the education of the child right up to the university rather than yield to the temptation of having the child going out and earning money. Do we want to encourage that or not? I hope my hon. Friends on these benches will not allow anything in the nature of setting rich against poor to play upon them. We are told by the people who advocate birth control that if we had enough good things in this world and there was no poverty, it would not be necessary to teach poor people birth control. Here you have this clam of the community that is earning from £500 to £800 a year. It is ground down by the cost of living and taxation. It is 1532 not having families. The usual thing is one, two or three children and very few more. Do you want to encourage these people to bring children into the world? They can bring them up in healthy surroundings and they ought to be able to give them a good education. Taking the broadest view, is that to the advantage of the State? Is it right to encourage those people? Is it worth doing for the comparatively trivial amount the Chancellor of the Exchequer will surrender? I suppose the amount would work out at the cost of one week of the Shanghai Defence Corps. How many young men in Shanghai, potential fathers of the future, are going to be ruined-however, I will not stress that point. The right hon. Gentleman was unsympathetic. This is a very big subject my hon. and gallant Friend has tackled, and I hope he will pursue it. I hope he will use his great and deserved influence in his party to create interest in the matter. I do not suppose my hon. and gallant Friend will press the matter to a Division. This is missionary work that he and I are doing, and I hope our missionary work will make converts of many in the future, and even of the right hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
The Mover of the Clause is not going to press it to a Division so there is no point in continuing the discussion, but unless he and my hon. and gallant Friend can indicate where some of the hundreds of thousands of working class children are likely to obtain some educational advantages as the result of the passing of a Clause of this kind, I fear they are not likely to get the universal support of Members on these benches..

§ Major HILLS
The effect of my Clause will be this. The coat of education, over the £36 at present. allowed for the first child, will come off the Income Tax on income at a comparatively low level upwards. It does not only apply to the rich people. It gives a larger proportion of relief to the lower incomes.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
Of the 15,000,000 to 18,000,000 workers there are at least 90 per cent. whose wages do not touch the Income Tax level at all, assuming those persons have only one or two children. For instance, the amount allowed for a married man and his wife, 1533 £225, exceeds the wages of 80 to 90 per cent. of 10,000,000 or 15,000,000 people, and consequently the Clause will have no value to that class, which is a large section, and what I rather fear would be the result is not that one desires to set a class against a class, but that such Motions as this tend to solidify a particular small class as against a bigger class. After all, if we are to take the national point of view, I quite agree educational advantages ought to be provided whenever they can, but in a universal way and certainly not in a small circumscribed way on lines similar to this. I have in mind the annual Debate that takes place on the Army and Navy Bill, where we find that the students who are sent to Dartmouth College, at a probable cost to their parents of some £300 per annum, are exclusively drawn from the very wealthy section of the community. No working man's child, no matter how bright a specimen he may be, no matter what his educational attainments may be, purely because of economic circumstances in his home, has a ghost of a chance of obtaining one of the seats at any of the colleges that provide officers for the Army and Navy. Therefore, unless any concession that is going to cost I do not care whether it is hundreds of thousands or millions is going to dribble through to the lowest layer of the community, one would hesitate before giving approval to a Motion of this kind, because the division between the poor section, the middle-class and the wealthiest class of all is already far too great. I want to suggest that though the hon. and gallant Gentleman may honestly desire to provide additional facilities for certain classes of children we ought to do something on broader and more national lines. We ought to try and extend greater educational facilities to the poorest of the poor who have few facilities for real educational development instead of attempting to extend the advantages enjoyed by a comparatively small class of the community.