HC Deb 03 May 1937 vol 323 cc931-8

11.14 p.m.

Sir Edmund Findlay

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to his Majesty, praying Him to withhold approval from the Banffshire Educational Trust Scheme, 1935, made under the Educa- tional Endowments (Scotland) Act, 5928, in so far as it relates to the Banff Educational Trust and Murray's Trust, Macduff, a copy of which scheme was presented to, this House on the 22nd day of March, 1937. There have been since this scheme was first mooted very grave objections from all parts of Banffshire. It has been opposed by one party or other at every conceivable opportunity. It was hoped that, when Fordyce was eventually allowed to contract out, the scheme would not be continued. It is held that there are grave objections to it, that it is contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants of Banff and Macduff, that there is no particular need for it in view of the fact that the funds are efficiently managed at present, and principally that there is no provision for continuing the secondary school bursaries.

I would like to take that last point 'first. The Minister may say that it is now the duty of the education authority to provide ample and adequate secondary school education, and that, therefore, these bursaries should be shifted to some other purpose. I maintain that there is a need for them and that there is a precedent for their continuance. There is the case of the Duff Bursaries, Paisley, and the County of Kincardine and Aberdeenshire, and Fordyce. I will take the Fordyce case later, but I would say that it is not possible to draw an Act of Parliament so that there are no border-line cases, and the Murray Trust in Macduff is specially designed to meet these border-line cases. In the original words of the bequest it states that this money is to be given to parents not in receipt of parochial relief, and, to bring these words up-to-date, I think it will show that the wishes of the donor were that those people who might be on the border-line should profit by such an endowment as he left. I should be quite prepared to accept the reply of the Minister that it was no longer necessary, if he could assure me that the education is quite perfect and that no border-line cases exist.

The Commissioners also state that the expenses in connection with the endowments in most places have been too high. They cannot use that argument in this connection, for Macduff and Banff were complimented on the care with which the fund has been managed. I think there is a more serious reason why this scheme should not be approved, because it creates for the first time a serious difference between the methods by which those two schools of Banff and Fordyce will be governed. Since the Commissioners, in 1882, laid down these schemes, these schools have run on parallel lines. Now their lines have diverged, and I believe that one or other will suffer. As the Fordyce scheme was passed by Order in Council only in 1936, it is not possible to put it into question. That was agreed to by the Minister and the governing body of Fordyce, but as this scheme is different it will mean that the future of these schools will diverge. I humbly ask the Minister when he comes to weigh up this scheme not to weigh it up on its merits alone but to consider whether the disadvantages of having two trusts with dissimilar governing bodies will not outweigh the advantages which obtain under this scheme.

11.26 p.m.

Mr. G. A. Morrison

I beg to second the Motion.

I want to say a few words on one aspect of the question, namely, the threat to the prestige and status of a great secondary school. The secondary school concerned, Banff Academy, has a long and splendid history. I have special qualifications for speaking on this part of the problem, having been head of two great secondary schools. My experience is that a great secondary school is very sensitive to hints of change. The effects of legislative changes are not always easily foreseen, and great harm may be wrought unintentionally. Some of the most anxious hours of my life were spent over a similar question that arose in one of the schools of which I was the head. It would be a great pity if anything were to impair the prestige and usefulness of Banff Academy. There is not a shadow of doubt that local opinion is solidly in support of the retention of competitive bursaries at the academy. Parents prefer to have the main work of education securely founded, while ready to welcome provision in other ways for other objects. I am assured that, as Section 31 (1) of the approved scheme is worded, it is impossible to frame a scheme which can preserve local preferences, and that the education authority have little power to do anything but throw the pooled resources open to the whole county. It is not well that a community with a real enthusiasm for education should be left with a rankling sense of grievance, even of injustice, and I would ask the Under-Secretary to make one more effort to secure a settlement by consent. I am a native of the county, very proud of its traditions, and greatly interested in what may happen to them. Any help that I can give the hon. Gentleman towards the desired end will be very gladly given.

Mr. Westwood

Does the hon. Member suggest that competitive bursaries should be provided with money that was left entirely for the poor?

Mr. Morrison

In general, I should say that in that part of Scotland we prefer that system. If a boy can show that he is capable of winning a bursary, he feels that he has earned it like a salary. That seems to me a healthier system than applying to the education authority for what is called by a name we do not like —a maintenance allowance.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Wedderburn

The great objection to the scheme is that no provision is made for the continuance of the school bursaries available under the Banff Educational Trust and Murray's Educational Trust. I think that the general grounds for the discontinuance of school bursaries under this new scheme are well known to the House, because we have often had on occasion to repeat them in Motions of this kind during the last two or three years. The Education Act, 1918, laid down for the educational authority the duty of making adequate provision for secondary education without any payment of fees. That provision was mentioned by the hon. Member for Banff (Sir E. Findlay), but one ought to add that this was supplemented by a power under Section 4 of the Act to award bursaries in order to ensure that poverty should not prevent promising children from taking advantage of the education which was provided, and another Section of the Act, Section 6, was designed to secure that this power is adequately exercised by the local education authority. The Commissioners took the view that the school bursaries provided by endowments were, for this reason, not giving the beneficiaries something which they would not otherwise enjoy; they were merely providing something which would be provided and paid for by the local education authority, and that view was also taken by the House of Commons when the Educational Endowments Act, 1935, was before the House. An Amendment was moved to direct the Commissioners to pay special regard to the continuance of this provision by endowments, but it was defeated. By a decision of Parliament, therefore, the Commissioners were bound by this general principle, not to continue these secondary school bursaries which are fully provided for everybody by the education authority.

The hon. Member has mentioned what he calls border-line cases, referring, no doubt, to competitive schemes which were not intended solely for poor children. I think provision is always made in these schemes, and the Commissioners have always been careful to distinguish between an endowment bursary of the type awarded by the county council and an endowment bursary which by the direction of the donor was to be awarded on merit, but was not to be restricted for the benefit of the poor. If the hon. Member will look at the Banff Educational Scheme, on page 30, he will see that a number of specific bequests for that purpose have been continued, the Chivas Adam bursary of £9 the James Brown bursary of £12 and two other small bursaries are also included in the scheme on account of the special conditions attached to them by the donors. It is true that in a few cases the Commissioners have provided school bursaries in exceptional circumstances. I do not think that I need enter into these exceptional circumstances except in the one case mentioned by my hon. Friend, the Fordyce School Trust. My hon. Friend wanted to know why these bursaries had been continued there, while they had not be continued at Banff Academy. The Fordyce Trust endowment was formerly administered under a scheme framed under the Endowments Act, 1882.

These revenues were to be applied in three ways. One payment of £100 a year was to be made to the education authority for the promotion of higher instruction in that school, and that was allocated by the education authority among the teaching staff. One half of the residue was for the establishment of bursaries for competition among a restricted class and tenable at the public school at Fordyce, and the remaining half of the residue was for the establishment of bursaries for competition, again among a restricted class, and tenable at the University of Aberdeen. As for the third item, the University bursaries, the conditions which attached to their award and tenure raised some difficult legal questions as a result of which the Commissioners decided that it was better to treat that part of the endowment as applicable to the University and not to make any change in the governing body. What we are concerned with, for the sake of my hon. Friend's parallel, is the school bursaries.

It was represented to the Commissioners that the object of these bursary provisions under the 1882 scheme was not to provide a general opportunity for secondary education, but rather to attract pupils to the Fordyce Academy on account of its peculiar qualities. It is in a very remote situation; and it has a very long-standing tradition of its own in classical education. Although the majority of its pupils was drawn from the region nearby, there was also a large number of boarders from more remote parts of the community.

Sir E. Findlay

Were not those pupils from the more remote parts of the country the subject of a specific request by the trustees?

Mr. Wedderburn

Yes. That is another difficulty. The area of the Fordyce scheme extended outside the boundaries of the Banff Education Authority and outside the area covered by the Banff Educational Scheme. It was a specific purpose of the school, and of the bursaries, that it should try to attract scholars from other areas besides Banff. There was a number of boarders from more remote parts of the country. It was felt that this school had a character which it was desirable to preserve, and in order to fulfil that intention it was necessary that these bursaries should be continued, because if they had been discontinued, the education authority might not have been under the obligation to give those grants to children outside Banff. The object of these particular bursaries was to attract people from various parts of the country to this particular school. That was a function with which the Banff Education Authority was not concerned, and it could not rightly be said to step into the shoes of the Fordyce Educational Trust on that point. I think these facts clearly differentiate the case of the County of Banff Bursaries Trusts, in which the Fordyce school was included, from those of the Banff Educational Trust and Murray's Educational Trust, on behalf of which my hon. Friend moved this Prayer, because they have no corresponding specialities which might be compared with those which apply to the Fordyce Academy.

11.39 p.m.

Mr. Westwood

I trust that the hon. Members who moved and seconded this Prayer will be prepared to withdraw it after the explanation given by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. In the limited time at his disposal, lie explained what are the guiding principles as far as the Commissioners are concerned. I was rather surprised by the statement made by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Morrison). He seemed to suggest that money which had been left for the benefit of the poor should be used for bursaries. In no instance did the Commissioners in framing their schemes eliminate competitive bursaries where money was left for that purpose, but in every case they followed the directions of the Act to give consideration to the spirit and intention of the donors, Further, it was a direct instruction from this House that money left for the poor should not be diverted from the poor, and it would have been wrong to have used any of this money for the purpose of providing competitive bursaries.

It is clear from the seventh report of the Commissioners and also the eighth report, which is now available to members of this House, what was the guiding principle which directed us in our work in regard to these endowments. The Under-Secretary has already very ably explained that guiding principle. I am sorry that the original proposals of the Commissioners are not before the House. They brought forth all kinds of hostility. It was due to that fact that the Commissioners had to divide up the endowments and have several schemes instead of one scheme for the county. It was proved that Banff Academy had a good record and no one desires to besmirch that record, but, as I say, it would be wrong if money, left directly for the poor were used to provide competitive bursaries. It would also be wrong to allow money that had been gifted by some generous donor in the past to be used merely to relieve the local authority of Banffshire in carrying out its statutory duty of providing free secondary education according to the law in Scotland.

These facts are dealt with by the Commissioners in their eighth report and I intervene merely because I happen to be one of the unfortunate individuals who had to stand much of that abuse which has been referred to, while we were carrying through this work for education in Scotland. My name is attached to this scheme and I hope the scheme will go through. It is not perfect, but the Commissioners did everything possible to meet all legitimate objections. They spent a lot of time upon it, and prepared for this House what they considered to be the best scheme possible in the circumstances.

Question put, and negatived.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Sixteen Minutes before Twelve o'Clock.