HC Deb 09 March 1945 vol 408 cc2425-50

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Mathers.]

1.10 p.m.

Mr. McNeil (Greenock)

After the speed with which we have disposed of £6,944,108, I am optimistic that the right hon. Lady who is going to reply may come some distance to meet me, since the maximum sum with which I am concerned is some £2,500,000. For the benefit of hon. Members who may not have followed the discussion of this matter, let me explain that on 22nd November the Ministry of Health issued a circular to local authorities which ruled that training courses should be termed "reserve courses" and would be ended as from 1st January this year, and predicted that there would be a closure of what have been called war-time nurseries. In response to a Question which I put to the Minister on 21st December the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the purpose of the war-time nurseries had been to enable women with young children to help in the war effort, and where those facilities were no longer required their continuance for that purpose at the cost of the Exchequer could not be justified. He also suggested that where suitable they might be handed over to local authorities for the purpose of nursery schools. That is a separate usage, which does not meet the case—but perhaps I may discuss that point a little more fully, since apparently the right hon. Lady does not agree.

It is true that the war-time day nurseries were set up partly at the demand of the Ministry of Labour because there was a need to mobilise married women, and a consequent need to take care of their children. Some 1,500 of these were created in England. The Treasury guaranteed the full cost of erection and, with one qualification, the full cost of running. The qualification is that the mothers, who had of course to be in wartime employment, made a contribution of 1s. per head per day. Of course, these are not completely new features. Some people imagine that they are a war-time growth. but that is not so. Nor is it true that the Treasury made no contribution towards this matter before the enactment relating to war-time nurseries. I find that provision was made in the block grant for the running of some of these day nurseries, which provide for children up to the age of two years, as distinct from the nursery school which takes children from the ages of two to five.

Strictly, on the careful wording to which the Minister confined himself in replying to me, there is a case for saying that since these day nurseries have exhausted their war-time usefulness they should not continue to exist upon an Exchequer grant. I have, however, been quite surprised by the amount of support which I have had from many sections in this House, from local councils and from individuals who have written to me since I first raised this matter. If my understanding of the view of the Ministry is correct, they say that these institutions are exclusively a war-time feature. I suggest to the right hon. Lady that there are a number of war-time features which come within the competence of her Ministry or are associated with it which I am certain she would not wish to see disappear. The feeding of children, industrial feeding, the development of radiography, the pulmonary tuberculosis grant, the compulsory treatment of venereal disease—these are war-time expediences, but I am quite certain the right hon. Lady will exert herself to maintain them in peace time, because they have proved their usefulness. I hope she will extend that kind of argument towards the day nursery.

Secondly, the Minister inferred in his reply that the justification for the grant could only be found in the number of women made available for war-time pro duction by care being taken of their children. We already see quite definite byproducts of the feeding and the care instituted in these day nurseries. I do not wish to bore the House, but there was a particularly good letter, which I feel sure the right hon. Lady will have seen, in the "Medical Officer" from Dr. Paul of Smethwick, who has had experience of these day nurseries. He pointed to the remarkable development, not of the semi-neglected child, but the average child in these nurseries. Moreover, while I am delighted, as is everyone in the House, to see that we are to have some university chairs in the subject of child health, I am sure that while we are on the brink of knowledge about child health, and while I am certain that these chairs will make a most important contribution, the pivot of child health, for a long time, must be the instructed and the educated mother. There is no place of practical demonstration in these matters except in clinics, where attendance is of a very limited type, and, outside very limited periods before and after birth, only occurs when a child is unwell.

There is no opportunity far instruction comparable with that provided by these day nurseries. Indeed, although I know that everybody may not completely approve what I am about to say, I am not certain that there is not a cast-iron case for saying that every schoolgirl should, as part of her curriculum, have an opportunity of attending in such places as day nurseries to be instructed in mothercraft. Even more controversial is the argument for insisting that every schoolboy should also take some part of his curriculum at these nurseries. If these day nurseries disappear there is, as I say, no centre where mothercraft can be taught. Moreover, though a case can be made that such features as day nurseries are not the best way of tackling the care of the child and the maintenance of the family, there is not the remotest hope that the present or any other Government will, in the near future, be able to produce the houses which are the basis of responsible, healthy family life. I, therefore, argue most strongly that, at any rate until housing has attained adequate dimensions in this country, any Government must be concerned with providing supplementation to such housing as they can provide.

I have great sympathy for people who are worried about whether what I am advocating will pander to the irresponsible parent. I clearly see their viewpoint but I also see that as long as we have cramped, sub-let houses and overcrowded homes, which are now the experience of most industrial districts, parents, whether responsible or irresponsible, will not have the opportunity either of providing for their infants and children as they would wish, or of providing for themselves as they would wish. I would like to know how many separations and divorces could be traced, particularly among young married couples in the war years, to the birth of the first child. Take the case of a young couple who dance together and go to the pictures together. I cannot see anything harmful in that. They live in a room in a sub-let house, and then, most properly, along comes an infant, and the girl is tied there night and day. The husband will not, and cannot, sit with her all the time and their companionship is destroyed. He goes off to pubs or politics—one is as bad as the other if it splits the home. The provision of day nurseries to meet that kind of condition is, I am inclined to argue, essential until such time as we have reasonable homes, with the development of trained homeminders.

I am not of the opinion that after this war there will be, under any reasonable organisation, difficulty in providing work; there will be, for a number of years, great difficulty in providing workers. Therefore I anticipate that there will be a demand for women to continue to work, and at any rate there is a substantial and unfortunately growing class of women—widows—who will have to work. Unless we make reasonable provision for their children, we are asking them to carry an additional burden on top of that of widowhood. I know that we shall have a reasonable answer from the Ministry. I agree there is a section of the community, careful and just people, who arc concerned about this question of responsibility. I have two things to say on that. I can see no evidence that it is the irresponsible parent who is systematically using these day nurseries. In fact, I would be inclined to submit that the argument is the other way round. It is the people who have answered the country's plea, who have discharged an obligation which the country wished them to take on. But even if there is, as there is almost bound to be, a small proportion of irresponsible mothers who are perhaps even abusing these day nurseries, if they are irresponsible, if they are living in the conditions of bad housing which are almost typical in our industrial areas just now, then the punishment falls on the children, whether we provide day nurseries or not, and the day nurseries will in some cases mitigate the penalties inflicted on the infant.

I am prepared to listen to a great deal of criticism. I am prepared to admit that there are clearly two sides to this case, but I get extremely angry at the slight correspondence I have seen from what I hope I shall not be misunderstood in describing as the leisured classes of this country. They have been able, and I am not for a moment criticising it, to employ trained personnel to assist in the nursing and maintenance of their children. I am only asking that similar facilities, in a communal way, should be extended to other sections of the community. I plead most earnestly that the Ministry will at any rate reconsider their attitude in this matter.

1.26 p.m.

Sir Percy Harris (Bethnal Green, South-West)

I am very sorry that what I consider to be this very important matter has come up on a Friday, when very few Members are present. I know that Members of all parties feel very deeply about this great work which, if he will allow me to say so, we associated with my right hon. Friend, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he was Minister of Health. We pressed him very hard, and he responded, and I know that he took a tremendous interest in the matter. I have been associated with the day nursery movement now for the last 20 or 30 years. In Bethnal Green during the last war, a day nursery was organised on a temporary basis in a school yard. It was found that mothers had to go out to work and could not look after their children, and just as in the case of the present organisation it was organised to deal with an emergency. This little nursery, which was the work of voluntary effort and voluntary subscriptions, backed by an organisation, continued right down to the present war, when, like so many nurseries, it was evacuated to the country.

I am going to make a statement that perhaps some people will challenge. It revolutionised the neighbourhood, a very poor and overcrowded neighbourhood known as the Brady Street area of Bethnal Green. The mothers came from that neighbourhood. Children were taken from birth to three years of age, and from the age of three they sometimes stayed until they went to the ordinary infants' school at the age of five. Its use and value went far beyond the question of helping women to go out to work. I agree with the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) on the educational value to mothers and to neighbours. People talk as if mothers knew exactly, when a child is born, how to feed it, clothe it, wash it, and take care of it. That is a pure delusion; it is an old wives' tale. The art has to be learned, usually from the grandmother, neighbours or the doctor. It is not a thing that can be learned by instinct. I remember a time, long since gone, when in the East End, mothers used to keep their babies quiet by giving them sips of gin. It was well meant. But that little nursery school changed the attitude of the ordinary East End mother.

It did more. One could go into the infants' department of the school and almost pick out the children who had had the advantage of being brought up and trained in our little nursery, because of their better physique and better manners. My right hon. Friend will remember Miss Robbins, a very famous teacher who organised the scheme—this particular nursery was almost entirely run by teachers with the aid of a trained matron. She would say that although these children came from the poorest of poor homes they were the best mannered and the best trained infants. I am a fanatic on this subject. I would like to see in almost every street, middle-class as well as working-class, a day nursery. My hon. Friend said, with some reason, that some people say, "Children should be at home." With middle-class people, in the past, there was not only the nurse and the nursery, but a nursemaid. That kind of thing has gone. It is not allowed now by the Minister of Labour, and I doubt if in future it will again be possible for people to have housemaids and nurses. We want people from all classes of the community to use these nurseries.

Looking after children is a job for 24 hours a day, going on by night as well as by day, and it is very difficult to expect a professional woman to give so much time to the care of a child. The result is that she does not have children, or has only one. That is our population problem. Yesterday we passed a Bill to give 5s. a week for each child, as an inducement to people to have children. I have said to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir W. Beveridge) that day nurseries in every neighbourhood would do more to increase the birth rate than even the excellent Bill which we discussed yesterday. I hope that my right hon. Friend who I am sure is sympathetic will make it clear that the Government do not intend to discourage day nurseries. I think that the day nursery is even more important than the nursery school. I shall get into trouble for saying that; but when a child gets to the age of three it can go to the infants' school: the difficulty is during the first three years of the child's life. I beg my right hon. Friend to let these splendid people, who are giving their time and enthusiasm to the day nurseries, know that they will be encouraged to continue their work after the war is over.

1.33 p.m.

Major Sir Derrick Gunston (Thornbury)

I should like to join in what has been said, very eloquently, by the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) and the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris). I am not merely speaking for myself; several Members of the Conservative Party have asked to be associated with what I am going to say and the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) in particular has asked me to associate him with what I am about to say. We very much appreciate the great work done by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in instituting the war nurseries. But I rather think that the Minister took too narrow a view when he said that the nurseries were started to help the war effort, but many things during our history have been started for one purpose, and, because they have proved so valuable, have been developed for another purpose. I suggest that nothing has been more valuable than the work done by the day nurseries. They have given wonderful skilled care to young children. I think that the Minister is wrong to suggest that these services may be taken over by the local authorities in nursery schools. The nursery school does not take a child under two. So that would mean abolishing all the creche services for children under two, which would be the most retrograde step any Government could take. I know the views of the right hon. Lady, and I hope she will be able to satisfy us on the matter.

Some people take the view that the place for a child under two is in the home, with the mother looking after it. That is all very well if there is a home, but in many of our cities, which have been blitzed, four or five families are living in one house. It is intolerable that the mother should have nowhere to put the child during the day, when she goes out with her husband or for some other recreation. She may want to have another child, and it would be very difficult for her to do so if she had to look after the child under two for 24 hours a day. If the Ministry of Education are going to take over these services, it should be realised that the nursery school is open only in school time. That means that there will be no place for the child during the holidays, which form quite a large proportion of the year. The Government must really think again.

I am sorry that the matter has had to be brought up on the Adjournment Motion, because it is worthy of a full Debate in this House, since it affects the whole future of our children. I am rather surprised at the suggestion that has been made—not in this Debate—that it is necessary to take this step to save money. I believe that the total cost of this service is £2,500,000. I cannot imagine a greater extravagance than to save £2,500,000 on a service like this. I have never suggested that the war-time nursery is the last word in perfection, but we ought to be careful before we abolish it. Eventually, that service ought to be developed to work in connection with the infant welfare service. Do not abolish it now, so that you cannot build on it. It ought to be possible for the Minister of Health to say that he will keep on these days nurseries until the local authorities are ready to take them over into the nursery school system, always provided that there will be some method of dealing with children under two. The Educational Supplement of "The Times" made a rather good suggestion on 24th February. It said: Would it not be possible for the war-time nurseries to remain open under the Ministry of Health until the local education authorities are ready to put into operation their schemes for nursery schools? I have had a letter which I think summarises the views that have been put today. It is from the Teddington and Hampton Women Citizens' Association, and it says: Nurseries for young children, far from being closed down, should be made a widespread social service. It is surely inconsistent, when the Government is stressing the importance of at least arresting a decline in the population, to refuse to take steps, which are ready at hand, to give parents the means of providing happy and not over-burdened homes for their children, and to endow the children with increased capacity for safe and healthy parenthood. We shall not get that if we abolish wartime nurseries. I would agree with what the hon. Member said about training. I understand that the training class, for young students of 15 plus who go into these nursery schools, is to be stopped in 1946. That seems a very retrograde step. I put this to the Minister of Education. Nursery schools often get their staffs from girls who have been trained in these day nurseries. These girls are very valuable. If that system is cut down, the nursery schools are bound to suffer. I have painted a very gloomy picture, because that seems to me to be the picture presented by the Minister. I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to allay our fears, and give us an assurance that there will be some scheme by which the war-time nurseries will be continued, and advantage taken of the great service they have given.

1.42 p.m.

Mr. Creech Jones (Shipley)

I join with other Members who have spoken in the plea that further consideration should be given to this problem by the Government. I am of course not competent to speak with real authority about this problem, but I have observed to a large extent the beneficial results which have followed from the institution of day nurseries during the war. I think that has been one of the most interesting, and certainly one of the most socially beneficial, experiments tried during the war. I recognise that experiments were made long before the war, and that what we have seen in the war period is merely an extension of the system tried out in earlier days, Because of the excellent results in the building up of good habits, in the training provided, in the improvement of the health of children going to these nurseries, it seems to me that here is a very interesting social service, which ought to be maintained. It would be unfortunate if the discussion were confused by too much reference to the nursery classes and nursery schools. What we are pressing for is provision from the time of birth to the age of two or three, and it is perfectly clear that, in the days to come, increasing need for such nurseries will be felt by the masses of the people. I will not amplify the case which has already been made by my hon. Friend who raised the matter, but I think it is clear that just this sort of provision ought to be made for the harassed housewife during periods of illness, and, often for the widower, who has no alternative in respect of his children. There should be, too, facilities, particularly in a period of full employment, for the mother to follow her occupation. For all these reasons it is important that this kind of provision should be maintained. It may be urged that the experiment during the war period has been costly. That is true, though there are a large number of reasons which account for that rather excessive cost; but now that, in so many districts, the buildings are there, the workers have been trained and the results have been so excellent, it would be a thousand pities if this work were now abandoned.

Therefore, I urge that the Government should reconsider their attitude. Already considerable disappointment has been expressed by local authorities who have not been permitted to go ahead, and certainly by local authorities in areas where these nurseries are now closing down, and in the circumstances, because of the valuable service for health and the general facilities for the public, it would be a great pity if the scheme were now abandoned. There are areas where generations of working women have been obliged to go out to work and to make the most scanty, inadequate and almost distressing arrangements while they were at work in mills and factories, and I suggest that to make provision whereby the child has its health built up and attended to, and is given proper attention is the way to encourage mothers rather than discourage them. I hope the Government will reconsider its attitude and will see that this experiment, which has been so successful during the war period, shall be continued into the peace years.

1.48 p.m.

Mrs. Tate (Frome)

I find myself in entire disagreement with every speaker whom I have heard in this Debate, not because I do not take an equal interest with them in the welfare of the child. I have, for many long years, been a wholehearted supporter of nursery schools on the lines on which they were founded by that very remarkable woman Margaret Macmillan, but these nursery schools take children from the age of two until they are five, and they have people trained to look after little children in both a physical and mental capacity. The moment we changed that school and took in children from nought to five—[Hon. Members: "No one wants to."] Well, nought to two. I think I am right in saying that they take children from infancy, and one hon. Member said that they take children from nought to two.

Mr. Creech Jones

In day nurseries?

Mrs. Tate

Yes, day nurseries. We have been spending vast sums of money to try to educate women to realise the advantages of nursing their own children. We poison the milk of the country, so far as we are able to do, by pasteurising it—

Mr. McNeil

What about some figures?

Mrs. Tate

—and now we are going to take children from their mothers and homes. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] if a child from nought to two is in a day nursery it is difficult to know how the mother is going to nurse it. In time of war these nurseries have met a tremendous need of those women, and there is no praise too great for them, who, in addition to doing a very hard day's war work, have done a very hard day's work in their own homes. They have been completely exhausted after their tremendous, and often unrecognised, contribution to the war effort. I say that there is a tremendous need in this country for nursery schools for children from two to five. The Government are committed to the policy of nursery schools, but the staff for these schools will not be easy to find. The pay is by no means large and the training is not such as appeals to every woman. It is not every woman, contrary to the general belief, whose ideal is looking after little children, and there will be a shortage of staff for the nursery schools to which the Government is already committed. For Heaven's sake, let us see that we get the nursery schools, for which there is such a tremendous need, at the earliest possible moment; but if we press for a continuation of war-time nurseries we shall inevitably postpone the date on which we shall see nursery schools. In the interests of the children—and all of us have only one aim, the interests and welfare of the children and their parents—we ought to bear this in mind.

I sincerely hope that the number of women who go out to work after the war, in addition to doing their own housework, will be very much less than at present. I am strongly in favour of a woman being able to follow her career after marriage, if she and her husband both think fit, but I am certainly not in favour of women having to augment the family income in order to be able to subsist. Yesterday we discussed the Family Allowances Bill, which I hope will make it very much easier for a woman to look after her children in her own home than it was in the past. I know that housing conditions are appalling, and it is largely because of these conditions that there will be such a crying need. I beg hon. Members not to lose something which we can have, and to which the Government is committed, for the sake of a dream. I believe that if we continue war-time nurseries we postpone the date when we shall get nursery schools, simply because there will not be the staffs for both for a very long time to come. I want to refer to some of the arguments used by hon. Members. The hon. and gallant Member for Thornbury (Sir D. Gunston) said that we want to increase the birth-rate. In my opinion you will not do that by encouraging women to put their babies in schools and continue to work. It may be your idea, but it is not mine.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner)

The hon. Lady must not hold me responsible for these enormities. She keeps using the pronoun "you."

Mrs. Tate

I do apologise. I appreciate that you, Sir, are responsible for nothing that is not good, and, in the interests of seeing the right kind of nursery school—

Mr. McNeil

Nobody is talking about nursery schools.

Mrs. Tate

Well, I am. The hon. Member is in favour of free speech, and I am most certainly talking about nursery schools, and, if he does not take care, I shall go on talking about them for a considerable time. Nursery schools are everything that we need for young children, but I have never been in favour of schools for taking them from nought to five years of age for this reason: Where we take children from nought to five, we are obliged to have a trained hospital nurse at the head of the school. The training of a hospital nurse is not such as to make her, in my opinion, ideal as the head of a nursery school, because her training, and the better trained she is the more emphasis there will be on it, has been in the prevention and treatment of illness, and not in the development of all the latent capacity of a healthy child. Different training is needed for the two specialised jobs. I want to see a tremendous extension of nursery schools, but I believe that, if we continue the war-time nurseries, we shall postpone the date when we shall get them.

1.56 p.m.

Mr. Cove (Aberavon)

I want strongly to support the arguments which my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) has brought before the House to-day. I want the continuation of the day nursery schools, and I would—I hope very respectfully—remind the hon. Lady who has just spoken, that she knows nothing—at least, she gave me that impression from her speech—about working class life and working class homes. I will take her to one. I urge that these nurseries should not merely be war-time nurseries, but that they should be peacetime institutions as well. I was born the eldest of 12 children in a terrace house. If the hon. Lady will listen for a minute, I may be able to convince her of the necessity for these day nurseries. There are thousands of houses like that now—one parlour, a kitchen, a pantry, but no scullery, and three bedrooms, for father and mother and 12 children. This was in the Rhondda Valley. It so happens that the rainfall there is pretty high, and we had the washing day every Monday. I used to help to wash in the old tub. Where was the washing done? In the kitchen, full of steam and moisture, with the young babies in the cradle in the corner. As the children came along I and my mother used to buy a drug called "Poppies" to put into the milk bottle of the child in order to stop it crying and send it to sleep.

The point I am trying to make is that the bigger the family in the working class home, the greater the necessity for the care of the children between nought and two, and the greater the need, on behalf of the woman and the health of the child, for taking that burden out of the hands of the mother. I beg the hon. Lady to remember that, at least in the mining industry and in the textile industry, it is the mother who has borne the heat and burden of the industrial revolution in this country. When the boys became older, they went to work at 12 years of age.

What happened? I am willing to give her my own experience because it is typical. Father might go to work on the morning shift, another brother might go to work on the afternoon shift, and another on the evening shift. All the time the children were coming along. There was never any leisure for the working class mother and never any hope of being free from the care of the children. Can one wonder that food was always on the table? More often than not the feeding time of the men coming home from work did not coincide with the dinner time of children coming home from school. Tens of thousands of mothers in South Wales, of whom I am speaking more particularly, and in other areas never had a chance of leisure and decency. There were frayed tempers on the part of the older children and certanliy on the part of the mother. It is a great injustice upon the mother. It is a very bad thing for the children, particularly in large families with the young ones coming along, to be a burden on working class mothers.

There is a nursery school in my area. I have written about it to the Minister. In the Penybont rural area of my constituency there is one of these schools. Whatever arguments one may use for and against it, there is in my area a keen and live demand that the day nursery school should be continued. It was put there for war workers but the miners' wives and the miners now are saying, "Keep this day nursery school open. It is a great thing for the children and it is far better for them to be there, particularly if you have a big family, because they will be better cared for." How many times have I stuffed the "dummy" into the mouth of a crying brother or sister? The "dummy" has not yet gone out of date entirely, though things are much better than they were. Child upbringing has been improved, I agree, owing to a large extent to the pioneer work of Margaret Macmillan and others. I once went down with Margaret Macmillan herself to the grand oasis at Deptford. A great contribution has been made and children are better brought up now.

We do not lessen parental responsibility by making it possible for the mother to have rest and a chance to enter into social life and cultural pursuits. We do not destroy parental responsibility by making children more welcome in the home by relieving the burden of the mother. I plead for this not merely from the point of view of the health and well-being, physically, mentally and spiritually, of the child and of the well-being of the parents and the easing of the life of the mother, but from the point of view of its being an essential national policy to arrest the decline in our population. I do not want to say anything further except to reiterate and to say definitely that in hundreds of thousands of working class homes this institution is demanded and will be increasingly demanded. I cannot for the life of me see why such a provision should curtail the extension of nursery schools. It can only be prevented if the Government themselves decide to prevent it. In any case I would appeal to the Minister to allow these day nursery schools to continue throughout the working class areas not merely as a war-time necessity but as a necessity for social life and social good in peace-time.

2.6 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Lawson (Skipton)

I intervene only because I wish to refer to a Question which I put down to the Minister of Health on this matter about a week ago, but before I do that I would like to comment upon what the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) said. Her theme was that it was wrong and anti-social that provision should be made for these mothers who desired their children to go to a war-time nursery from the age of nought to two.

Mrs. Tate

The hon. Member really must not try to put words into my mouth which I did not utter. I did not insist that it was wrong or anti-social. I said that it would postpone the day when we had an adequate number of nursery schools which the Government promised. I did not say it was anti-social, and I hope that if the hon. Member tries to quote me he will at least quote me correctly.

Mr. McNeil

Does the hon. Lady approve of the principle of nurseries?

Mrs. Tate

There is not a human being in very congested areas who, while the housing conditions are as they are, would not approve of the provision of nurseries. I merely say that they are not nearly as important as nursery schools, and it would postpone the day when there can be nursery schools to insist on the continuance of this war-time measure. In many areas it is only a war-time measure.

Mr. Lawson

I apologise to the hon. Lady if I put words into her mouth, but I understood her to object to the plea that has been made for the continuation of war-time nurseries on two grounds. One was that it would postpone the setting up of nursery schools. That argument does not arise, because the case put forward is that existing war-time nurseries should continue. But I also gathered—and I do not want to be unfair—that on general grounds she thought it was bad that children between the ages of nought and two should be cared for in any other way except in the home by the mother.

Mrs. Tate

I do not care to have them mixed from nought to five in a nursery school.

Mr. Lawson

I am sure I am right in saying that what the hon. Lady said was that it was bad that the mother should be able to get rid of the child at the age of naught, because she thought it was right that the mother should feed the child. All I want to do is to point out that nurseries for children from the age of nought to two touch working class mothers who desire that their children—there is not to be any compulsion at all—should be provided with facilities which have been open for a long time to the more fortunate sections of the community. I should imagine, if one could find the statistics required, that the majority of ambassadors, bishops, prime ministers and cabinet ministers have been from the age of nought to two looked after not by their mothers but by "nannies" and persons of one sort or another. If they have made this a great country in the past I do not think it would have any unfortunate effect on the ordinary sections of the population to allow them this opportunity, and, as I say, there is to be no compulsion.

I now come to a more particular point, and have to offer an apology to the right hon. Lady who is to reply. I refer to a Question which I put down to the Minister of Health on 8th February. I have not given the right hon. Lady notice that I proposed to raise the matter because it was impossible to tell whether this Debate would take a long time, and I did not know that I should be able to raise it. I asked: How many children who had been attending the Amersham War-time Nursery have now been prevented from attending on the grounds that their parents are not war workers; what is the present number of vacant places in this nursery; and if he will give instructions that any places not required for the children of war workers will be allocated to other children who would benefit by attendance at this nursery. The point of the Question is that children had been turned out of this nursery on the ground that their mothers were not war workers. The main substance of the Minister's reply is as follows: I am informed that there have been six refusals of children on the ground that their mothers were not working. From the latest figures supplied at the end of December, 40 children are on the register of this nursery, which has 40 places. The average attendance in December was 31. Three of the 40 children had been admitted on compassionate grounds; 37 were the children of working mothers."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1945; Vol.407, c. 2242.] He went on to say that it was not the policy to take in children who were not the children of war workers. I am not expecting the right hon. Lady to give me a detailed reply to what I am going to say but I give this as an illustration of the problem involved. The Minister's information was that there were 40 children on the register and that there were 40 places. My information, which I believe to be fairly accurate, was that in this particular nursery there are 48 places, that in November there were 48 children on the register, that the number had fallen on 1st January to 40, and on 12th February had gone down as low as 36. There were 12 vacant places in this wartime nursery. Some of the vacancies have been caused because children, whose home conditions really made it very desirable that they should be in this war-time nursery, had been turned out under the ruling the Minister of Health. The plea I am making is that we should use all the available places in our existing war-time nurseries, giving first priority to the children of war workers, and then using any surplus places for other children whose home conditions made it desirable that they should be allowed to attend. In this particular instance the Minister's reply admitted that six children had been refused on this ground. In the middle of February there were 12 vacancies out of 48, which is a very high proportion. If that proportion is general in the country, it shows a very bad state of affairs.

What are the arguments which may be put up for the Minister's case that these nurseries should be only used for children of war workers? It may be that there is an argument of cost, but I do not think that that argument arises, because the overhead expenses of the nursery go on just the same, whether there are 48 children on the register or 36. I believe I am right in saying that the cost of food which is consumed by children in the nursery is borne by the parents concerned. In any case, even if that is not so, the extra cost cannot be very great. It seems a retrograde policy to be closing these war-time nurseries. If the ruling which has been used to expel these children is applied, it will mean that before the end of the war all these war-time nurseries will have been closed down. Some people have told me that they fear that one of the reasons which has influenced the Government in closing these nurseries is that they see in it a means of solving the unemployment crisis, which I am not at all sure is not looming quite near.

We cannot escape the conclusion that there may easily be, within the next couple of years, a first-class unemployment crisis. Therefore, any Government will be interested in getting as many people off the register of unemployed as quickly as possible. One of the effects of closing war-time nurseries, I believe, will be to make it less possible for women to be available for work. It will, therefore, help to reduce unemployment figures, but will do so in a very wrong way, and I do not want to feel that that is happening. So I add my plea to those of other hon. Members who have asked that these nurseries should not be cut down. We cannot, at the moment, ask that they should be increased in number and in size, but at least the existing facilities should be maintained under the Ministry of Health until such time as they can be merged into the larger scheme. I am sure the support which has come from both sides of the House to this idea to-day, should weigh strongly with the Government; I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to give us some assurance that these nurseries will go on and that, when the right time comes, they will be increased.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh)

I have listened with great care and interest to the various arguments that have been put forward in this Debate. The main point I want to make is that there is no question of closing war-time nurseries where these are being attended. I can give facts and figures about several war-time nurseries where there is the staff, but where there are very few clients, if one might use that term. I am sure hon. Members will agree that it would be quite impossible to continue to keep open those where there are perhaps two, three, four or five children only, and where in a great many cases, the mothers of those children are not on war work. There are, quite definitely, cases of that sort, and the arrangement is simply that where the nurseries are not attended, over a period, and where it is seen that they are not required, those nurseries should be closed.

I think hon. Members know well the work which we have done, at the Ministry of Health in looking after small children, and my own particular interest over a number of years in this question, and I can assure them without the slightest hesitation that our interest is not decreasing but is increasing in this problem of finding the best way of looking after children under five.

I was very interested to hear the praise given to our wartime nurseries. With my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and my right hon. and learned Friend the present Minister of Health, I have had a great deal to do with these nurseries, with the difficulties of setting them up, and of getting them going, and I am very glad now to hear a good mead of praise, when we did not at first always have the help that we might have expected. It was a difficult job. I think we now have to face the fact that we are not doing anybody any good by keeping open at the present moment a nursery that is not being attended, and it is completely unfair to take in girls to train as probationers if they have not the children to look after.

The hon. Gentleman referred to a cirular on the subject of training. I am very glad he raised this point because there has been misunderstanding upon it. The point about the trainee is this: The training is generally a two years' course for a diploma under the National Nurseries Association. I think it would be wrong, where a nursery may be closing, to say that particular two years' course would be given for certain. That we want to go on training girls in this work is very clear. Perhaps hon. Members are not aware of this—we are setting up a nursery nurses board, a national board to give a national diploma for girls leaving school and taking training in nursery nursing. Even if they do not go on with nursery nursing, I agree with the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) that they will have learned something which will be useful in their own homes. I mention this now because we want more girls to take up this training; but in certain cases it would be wrong at the present moment, where there are few children in the nursery and the numbers are falling off, to take girls into such nurseries to train for a particular certificate that takes two years.

I think the main argument put up by the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate)—I know it very well because she has discussed it with me many times—is that while she wants care for children under five, she wants care for the child between two and five to be in the nursery school and not in the nursery—she wants it in a separate building from that where children below the age of two are being taken. I think that throughout this House there is complete agreement that we want care for children under five.

The hon. Member for Greenock said that after all this was not a completely new war-time scheme, that there had been similar schemes before and that the local authority and the welfare authority had a right to set up nurseries. So they will in future. We are not taking away any right whatever; the Government had to step in with a war-time nursery scheme with a 100 per cent. grant, in order that full provision should be made for children under five. The problem was discussed whether there should be nursery schools, or what might be called "the care of the child under five," and it was agreed that during war-time the scheme should be under the Ministry of Health and that we should call them "war-time nurseries"—which were neither the day nursery of the local authority before the war nor the nursery school, but hybrids. In this "war-time nursery" there would be teachers as well as nurses, but where there were children under two, there would have to be a State registered nurse. Some nurseries have children under two, and others only take children between the ages of two and five. The present wartime nursery is really something between the nursery school and the nursery—although I personally wonder sometimes if we are not labouring this title too much, since it is the proper care for the child under five that we want.

As hon. Members know, the Government's policy has been announced for nursery schools for children from two to five, and I am glad to say that in many cases we hope it will be possible to take over the present war-time nursery, in its present building—in some cases the buildings have been requisitioned and so cannot be taken over—and with its present staff. I want to make this perfectly clear, that those who are working as assistants or nursery nurses in these war-time nurseries—which when taken over will be called nursery schools—will be kept on, at the same pay, but the training in future may be slightly different. All the staff will remain except the State registered nurse who has been looking after the children under two. So in a great many cases this war-time nursery experiment has helped forward the nursery school. We have not the same gap as we might have had because already in some cases these war-time nurseries have suitable equipment and staff, and after the turnover they will be called nursery schools and will come under the aegis of the Minister of Education. I can see no reason why these children will not be as well looked after in this scheme of nur- sery schools as they have been under the old title of war-time nurseries, and I want to see the Ministry of Education taking over these war-time nurseries as nursery schools as soon as possible. Some of our nurseries cater only for children from two to five. I think the numbers are, roughly, about 1,600 nurseries and about 1,200 of these taking children under two as well as from two to five. There were about 18,000 places for children under two out of a total of about 70,000 places for children under five. I must, however, make it quite clear to the House that a great many of those places for children under two were not taken up.

I must also point out that the war-time nursery with a war-time grant of 100 per cent, is being used to care for children whose mothers are working, but not necessarily on war work. They were started for mothers who were doing war work but very soon this was extended. I think every hon. Member will agree that it would be quite stupid for one local authority to have a nursery for children from two to five and, as a sort of opposition, a nursery school. Therefore, the arrangement is for the war-time nursery for children from two to five to become the future nursery school.

In a great many places these war-time nurseries are not being used to capacity. I have notes of several, but I will not take up the time of the House with too many of them. As I say, we have no intention of closing war-time nurseries that are being used but there are cases such as the following. We were pressed to open a war-time nursery in a particular area and it was, in fact, opened in May, 1944. At no time have there been more than five children there, although we were told, of course, at the beginning that this nursery would be wanted for any amount of children. The authority asked if they could close the nursery in August of 1944 but we opened it again in October, because we thought that in harvest time there might be more people needing it. It is in a country district. We then had ten mothers who were going to do part-time work and then only for a short time. So it was quite clear that in that area the nursery was not wanted. In another area the nursery was used by only six mothers doing whole-time work, so we decided to close it. We then received a petition against the closure signed by what we believed to be 50 mothers who claimed to use the nursery. We discovered that only 12 in all had been using the nursery, and six of those were part-time workers. When we examined the petition we found that it was signed by people who thought there ought to be a nursery but were not using it themselves; some of the signatures were those of people who had no children at all.

The hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. H. Lawson) referred to the nursery at Amersham, and to the number of vacancies there. However the point we have to remember is that, quite naturally, from time to time there are vacancies through illness, and it is not always possible to fill in gaps when children are away for a short time. In fact, very often we put on the register a larger number of children than we would want in the nursery because, with these small chidlren, so often there are a few away. However, we have looked into the circumstances of that particular nursery and it is well used by children whose mothers are working; there have been a certain number of compassionate cases taken as well.

As I have already pointed out, no power has been taken away from local authorities to run nurseries or to look after children. The war-time nurseries were set up particularly to look after the children of mothers who were going out to work during the war as they were doing in greater numbers than they had ever done before. Hon. Members may say: "What is to be done for the children under two? What of the future? What is to happen to the children under two?" We are examining at the present time, and discussing, a great many different schemes, but the problem is not as easy to solve as some hon. Members may think. I want to tell the hon. Member for Greenock that we have lately set up a committee to go into the whole matter of the teaching of parentcraft. A good deal of work of that kind can, I think, be done after the war through the maternity and child welfare centres. Attached to many of these centres are rooms in which the children can play while the mothers attend lectures and discussion groups—an important feature which, I think, should be extended.

I read a newspaper article the other day which stated that my right hon. and learned Friend was not in favour of having nurseries to which children of a few days old could be taken. I am sure there is not one Member of the House who wants that. We have, of course, made arrangements through welfare authorities for those unfortunate children who are orphaned or who are deprived of their mother's care through sickness, or for some other exceptional cause, but we do not want any idea of nurseries for children who are only a few days old. There is, however, the problem of children under two who are in need of care because, for one reason or another, they cannot be looked after by their mothers. As I said, the welfare authorities have power to have nurseries. That power has not been taken away, but where my anxiety comes in is that I do not think that that will meet all the needs. If a nursery is to be of real use it must be near the home. The mother cannot go two miles to the nursery to leave her baby, and then go another two miles to work. The number of children under two for whom nursery care would be wanted would be so small in each area that the mother would be bound to have a long distance to travel. If I may Ilse the expression, the "catchment area" for the babies would have to be so wide that the mothers, in a great many cases, would have to go a long distance to reach that nursery.

But we are looking into the whole matter of the welfare of small children. In Birmingham, the welfare authorities have a good scheme in which they employ certain people, who are registered, to look after small children. These people are paid by the authority and, in turn, the authority is paid by the mothers. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) said that looking after children was a 24 hour a day job, and the hon. Member for Greenock also said that it was a day and night job, and that in a good many cases married life broke down because young people could not go out together as the wife was completely tied. I do not think the hon. Member would mind the wife being tied for the first few months.

Mr. McNeil

No.

Miss Horsbrugh

One suggestion which was made was that mothers' clubs should be formed and that trained people, such as those belonging to the Red Cross organisation, could go to a house one evening a month to look after children while the mother went out.

Mr. McNeil

Where there is a house.

Miss Horsbrugh

The hon. Member said that a mother could not leave her children and go out. Another suggestion was that a mother should be able to take her child one day, or half a day, each week or month to a room at a welfare clinic where they could be looked after while she went out for the afternoon. We are trying to see what are the best means of solving the problem, but I am convinced that there is no one scheme that will suit all needs. As I have said, we shall keep the wartime nurseries going where they are wanted, but it is not right to keep a large staff in a building to attend to only one or two children.

Mr. H. Lawson

Where there is a desire on the part of the parents for their child or children to attend a war-time nursery, and there are vacancies, will they be allowed to attend, irrespective of whether the mother is working or not?

Miss Horsbrugh

The difficulty is that the money for war-time nurseries comes from a war grant. It has been clearly laid down that these nurseries are for the children of mothers who are working. We have, in addition, arrangements for bringing in children on compassionate grounds; but the time is coming when there will be the nursery schools which will cater for children from two to five; we want to turn over to that stage as soon as we can. I had a case brought to my notice where only one of the mothers was working and the others said: "We are not working, but could we send our children there as well?" But I do not feel that we ought to keep such nurseries open if there is no need for them. What we want to see is the nursery school for the children of two to five to which the children can go whether the mother is working or not.

Mr. Cove

I do not want to damp the right hon. Lady's optimism, but may I tell her about a case in my area? We had a war-time nursery and it was closed, although there has been a demand for it from the wives of miners who, in an area like that, are really war-time workers. They are performing a war-time service under the conditions which exist in that area, and I gather that they have been turned down.

Miss Horsbrugh

No local authority which has asked to keep a nursery open has been turned down. The hon. Gentleman said that I was being optimistic, but I hope that through what we have learned we shall be able to do something even better for mothers and fathers and small children in future, than we have been doing in the past.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Nineteen Minutes before Three o'Clock, till Tuesday next, pursuant to the Resolution of the House this day.