HC Deb 30 March 1944 vol 398 cc1663-6
Sir P. Hannon

I beg to move, in page 61, line 3, at the end, to add: (2) The following further provisions shall also apply to any such local inquiry—

  1. (a) the Minister shall appoint a person or persons to hold the inquiry;
  2. (b) the person or persons so appointed shall hold a sitting or sittings in some convenient place in the neighbourhood to which the subject of the inquiry relates and thereat shall hear, receive and examine any evidence and information offered and hear and inquire into the objections or representations made respecting the subject matter of the inquiry with power from time to time to adjourn any sitting;
  3. (c) notice shall be published in such manner as the Minister may direct of every such sitting except an adjourned sitting seven days at least before the holding thereof;
  4. (d) the person or persons so appointed shall make a report in writing to the Minister setting forth the result of the inquiry and the objections and representations, if any, made thereat and any opinion or recommendations submitted to him or them to the Minister;
  5. (e) the Minister shall furnish a copy of the report to any local education authority concerned with the subject matter of the inquiry and on payment of such fee as may be fixed by the Minister to any person interested."
In moving this Amendment I should like to call the attention of the Minister to the provision made in Section 156 of the Education Act, 1921, in which the details set out regarding inquiries are, in substance, those of our Amendment, but we wish to define more clearly how the inquiry, when instituted, should take place. The object of this Amendment is to ask the Minister whether he would embody in the Bill or repeat the instructions set down in Section 156 of the Act of 1921, where the details of the arrangements made, the nomination of the Committee, the instructions given to the Committee and so forth, are set out. I would suggest that, in order that the inquiries should be conducted to the fullest satisfaction of all the interests concerned, it would be valuable, in the administration of the Bill, when it comes into operation, that some process should be observed such as was introduced into the Act of 1921.

Mr. Ede

There might have been some thing to be said for this Amendment if it had included the whole of the provisions of Section 156 of the Education Act of 1921, but, curiously enough, the last two paragraphs of Sub-section (2) of Section 156 have been left out of this Amendment. They are: (f) The Board may, where it appears to them reasonable that such an order should be made, order the payment of the whole or any part of the costs of the inquiry either by any local education authority to whose administration the inquiry appears to the Board to be incidental, or by the applicant for the inquiry, and may require the applicant for an inquiry to give security for the costs thereof: (g) Any order so made shall certify the amount to be paid by the local education authority or the applicant, and any amount so certified shall, without prejudice to the recovery thereof as a debt due to the Crown, be recoverable by the Board summarily as a civil debt from the authority or the applicant as the case may be. Quite clearly, if we are going to have the first part of the Sub-section, which enables all and sundry to demand inquiries, we must have some arrangement whereby frivolous inquiries, which may put the Board or local education authority to very considerable expense, can be checked.

Mr. Stokes

We will accept that.

Mr. Ede

I suppose the typists got tired —like the Chairman got tired—when the Clause was being copied, hut, after all, these are local government inquiries, and it is desirable that the Local Government Act, 1933, which was a very carefully thought out Act, should apply to the whole range of local government inquiries. All that my hon. Friends desire can be arranged under the Local Government Act, and I would suggest that it is desirable that we should have a standard form of conducting these inquiries which will apply over the whole range of the subjects with which local authorities are concerned.

Sir P. Hannon

Will the Minister take note of the words in the Amendment, which require that the person or persons appointed shall make a report in writing to the Minister, and the Minister shall furnish a copy of the report to any local education authority concerned with the subject matter of the inquiry, and, on payment of a fee, to any person interested? That is a very important consideration.

Mr. Ede

I do not think that any inquiry has been held since I have been at the Board of Education because people have been engaged on other subjects, but I have given evidence before inquiries of this kind and I have seen inspectors' reports on those inquiries and on my evidence, and have been informed of them. It is very valuable to see them afterwards when one can take a historic view of oneself and of the opinion others form of one's evidence. A copy of the Report is furnished to the local education authority concerned with the matter. The more we can make all this local government procedure uniform throughout the country the more convenient it is for everybody concerned. My hon. Friend can rest assured that certainly my right hon. Friend, and any successor whom I have ever regarded as likely, would not act upon the result of an inquiry without seeing the report of the inspector sent down to hold it.

Sir P. Hannon

Will that report be communicated to the person who makes application for the inquiry or on whose application the inquiry is instituted?

Mr. Ede

Usually the local education authority asks for the inquiry and the report goes to it. If any person asks for an inquiry, a copy of the Report is sent to him.

Sir P. Hannon

In view of the statement which has been made by the Parliamen- tary Secretary, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 87 and 88 ordered to stand part of the Bill.