HC Deb 05 April 1944 vol 398 cc2027-9

(1) Notwithstanding anything in this Act, except with the approval of the Minister, a local education authority shall not cease to maintain any county school or auxiliary school nor shall any such school be discontinued and, if the number of pupils in average attendance thereat as computed by the Minister, is thirty or upwards, the Minister shall not give such approval unless he is satisfied that accommodation for the pupils attending the school is available in other schools in the case of which the conditions hereinafter mentioned are satisfied.

(2) The conditions to be satisfied in the case of any such other school as aforesaid are—

  1. (a) where the school under consideration is a county school, that the other school is also a county school.
  2. (b) where the school under consideration is an auxiliary school, that the other school is an auxiliary school of the same denominational character as the school under consideration and is situate within the area of the local education authority in whose area the school under consideration is situate; and
  3. (c) in either case, that the other school is reasonably accessible, regard being had to all the circumstances.—[Mr. Stokes.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

This new Clause is self-explanatory. What we seek to do is to repeat what we tried to do before, that is, to secure some respect for the rights of parents in this matter. In the Necessity of Schools Act, 1933, there were certain provisions which prevented a small denominational school being closed unless another school of the same denomination to which the children could be transferred was available. We understand that we cannot expect to get the 1933 Act restored in toto, and the effect of the Clause is to prevent the future closing of denominational schools except with the permission of the Minister and except in cases where there are 30 pupils unless alternative accommodation is available.

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler)

I sympathise with the motives of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) in moving this new Clause. As, however, we have amended the existing law contained in Section 19 of the 1921 Act and in the Necessity of Schools Act, 1933, and have removed the 30 children, qualification, we have, in our view, met the situation from the point of view of the hon. Member and his friends and of those interested in the smaller schools. In future the decision on the proposed closure of a school will not be determined by reference to the number of pupils attending. If the hon. Member will turn to Clause 12 of the Bill, he will see that public notice is necessary. That will ensure that local opinion is brought into the picture before a school can be closed. Our object in removing the provisions of the Necessity of Schools Act and Section 19 of the Act of 1921 was not to make it more easy to close these schools, but to make the decision depend upon the circumstances of the school and not on the number of pupils attending. There are a great many village schools which, as a result of reorganisation, may well fall below the technical figure of 30, but if we were to retain the provisions of the present law it might lead to these schools being closed. We do not wish to disrupt village life, and therefore we have introduced this new procedure, which provides for the issue of public notices and for the matter to be referred to the Minister. We have done that on purpose and we think it will be wiser to adhere to the terms of Clause 12 of the Bill which the Committee has discussed rather than go back to the older provision.

There is another matter which I must draw to the attention of the hon. Member. At the request of his friends and with the general approval of the Committee, we inserted an Amendment to Clause 8 (2) of the Bill. I am advised that this Amendment, which related to the wishes of the parents, is particularly applicable to this decision. I would remind the Committee that the terms of that Amendment were: (b) to the expediency of securing that, so far as is compatible with the need for providing efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable expense to the authority, provision is made for enabling pupils to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents. There are a good many provisions affected by this. We have, in fact, substituted for the artificial figure of 30 pupils the opinion of the locality and of the parents as to whether a school should be kept going. These two criteria are better than the artificial one of the number in the school. To that extent we think the Bill strengthens the position, and I would advise the hon. Gentleman not to press his new Clause because the Bill is an improvement on the position as it was.

Mr. Stokes

I agree with the Minister about the arbitrary figure and I am glad that he aims at something lower. On that understanding, and on the assurance that the Minister gives that the position is better than it was before, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause.

Motion and Clause, by leave, with drawn.