HC Deb 30 June 1932 vol 267 cc2100-1

Lords Amendment: In page 33, line 21, at the end, insert: Provided that, before giving Ms approval, the Secretary of State shall satisfy himself that the proposed expenditure is reasonable and, where it is proposed to purchase, build or establish a new school, that there is a deficiency of approved school accommodation which cannot properly be remedied in any other way.

Mr. STANLEY

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

I think I ought to offer a word of explanation on this Amendment, although I am asking this House to agree with it. Under the old Act, which is renewed in this Bill, the obligation of providing approved school accommodation or, as it used to be called, industrial and reformatory school accommodation, is imposed on the local authorities. Now, for the first time, although this obligation has been in existence for many years, it was thought necessary to put in a provision that before an approved school is built the Secretary of State shall satisfy himself that it is wanted and that there is not an empty approved school next door which would suit just as well. That might give rise to the idea that it has been the practice to build approved schools that were not wanted and for the Home Office to encourage local autho- rities in. so doing. Of course, there never has been any question that that was so. The obligation which is on local authorities at the moment is only to provide accommodation where it is needed.

We should never attempt to urge local authorities to build accommodation if it were not needed, and, as hon. Members know, the whole tendency in past years has been not to build more schools, but to close existing ones. Still, in the other place it was felt that in dealing with matters of this kind one cannot be too cautious, and that a time might come when a local authority, in what would seem to be a fit of mania, would want to build an approved school which nobody required, and that a Home Secretary, catching the disease, would apparently encourage them to do so. I have no hesitation in accepting the words of the Amendment, which only carry out what has been the practice of the Home Office for many years, but I should not like the House to think that it was another place which suggested to us for the first time that when before we consent to approved school accommodation being provided, we ought first to find out whether it is wanted.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES

I should very much object to the acceptance of this Amendment if I thought the words meant anything. Any Member of this House who might sit in the Home Office at any future time and had to decide whether or not a new school were required in a certain place could drive a carriage and pair through the whole of this new Clause. It states that the Secretary of State, before giving his approval, is to satisfy himself that the proposed expenditure is reasonable. One Secretary of State would regard the expenditure of £2,000 as reasonable, and another Secretary of State might regard £5,000 as reasonable for exactly the same object. This Amendment seems to be more of a hint to the Government to economise than a piece of legislation. I am rather astonished that their Lordships should take the trouble to draft it, because it is more in the nature of a letter than a legal enactment.