Commons Sitting of 14 May 1953

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
BRADFORD CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
"to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the Bradford Corporation Act, 1910, relating to Bradford Corporation trolley vehicles," presented by Mr. Lennox-Boyd; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 84.]
WALSALL CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
"to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Minister of Transport under the Walsall Corporation Act, 1925, relating to Walsall Corporation trolley vehicles," presented by Mr. Lennox-Boyd; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 85.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  ELDERLY PERSONS (EMPLOYMENT)
  Mr. Vaughan-Morganasked the Minister of Labour what progress has been made by the Advisory Committee on the employment of older men and women.
  The Minister of Labour (Sir Walter Monckton): I understand that the Advisory Committee intends to present a report on the progress of its work in the autumn.

  AGRICULTURAL WORKERS, SCOTLAND (DEFERMENT)
  Major Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Labour how many deferments of call up have been granted and how
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  many refused to agricultural workers in Scotland during the last three months.
  Sir W. Monckton: Seven hundred and ninety-four and 47 respectively, of which 460 and 9 respectively relate to applications for the renewal of deferments.
  Major Anstruther-Gray: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for that broadly satisfactory reply, may I ask whether he will look again at those few refusals because I know that in more than one case in my constituency harm is being done to agricultural production?
  Sir W. Monckton: I am always prepared to look at any specific case brought to my attention. I constantly try to do that in respect of applications which come from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister aware that although these deferments have been granted to the end of the harvest we have to think of the next harvest, and farmers want to know how to fulfil the gigantic programme outlined by the Prime Minister when their men have been taken away?
  Sir W. Monckton: I have always to reconcile those considerations—which I fully appreciate—and try to meet the requirement of trying to get everyone fairly treated for National Service.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH

    Pneumoconiosis Clinics
    Dr. Strossasked the Minister of Health how many clinics are now available for the treatment of pneumoconiosis cases; how far cases so treated have shown signs of improvement; and for how long he proposes to continue the service given.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): On 31st December, 1952, there were 590 chest clinics in the National Health Service, in addition to the ordinary hospital out-patient clinics, at any of which patients could obtain the recognised palliative and symptomatic treatment for pneumoconiosis. I understand that one particular form of therapy is being investigated by the Medical Research Council but that the results are not yet available. I have no intention of discontinuing or reducing the clinic service.
    Dr. Stross: Will the Minister bear in mind that those of us who have watched the effect of this treatment on people suffering from pneumoconiosis are satisfied that at least the exercises and care offered to them do them a great deal of good even if the aluminium inhalation therapy is useless? When he ultimately has to make up his mind, will he take this into consideration?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes, certainly. As the hon. Member knows, the form of treatment to which I have referred is the inhalation of aluminium powder, and the results are being investigated.

    Abdominal Supports
    Dr. Strossasked the Minister of Health how many surgical abdominal supports were issued in 1951 for the six months June to December: and how many in 1952 during the comparable period.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The figures for England and Wales for the six months ended 31st December in each year are 52,435 and 29,549 respectively, including all types of belts.
    Dr. Stross: Will the Minister agree that that is a very remarkable fall in numbers? In view of his past statements about reviewing the effect of deterrents upon the whole of the service, will he not now reconsider the question of whether these abdominal supports should be issued free of charge?
    Mr. Macleod: I certainly studied the deterrent effect of all charges with the greatest care. This certainly is a very considerable fall, but in the six months before the charges were introduced a marked decline was shown, although I agree it was nothing like that of the six months following the charge.

    Day Nurseries
    Dr. Strossasked the Minister of Health the charges made for day nursery accommodation per week in Stoke-on-Trent, Slough, Bournemouth and Liverpool; and how many day nurseries have been closed throughout England and Wales since Circular 23/52 was issued on 28th July last.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): The maximum charges in the four areas are 14s., 43s., 44s., and 16s. 6d., respectively. Thirty-four nurseries had been closed up to the end of last March.
    Dr. Stross: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that in Stoke-on-Trent there is a very strict test of need—not a test of means—and, despite that very strict test of need for accommodation, the local authority have to find more than £11,000 a year net out of their own rates? Does the hon. Lady not consider this something which many local authorities cannot afford, as it is a 2d. rate? When are we to get real assistance from the Government on this matter?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: That is another question.
    Mr. Bowles: How does the hon. Lady account for the great difference which her figures have disclosed?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The charges to be made are at the discretion of local authorities, but they may not exceed the cost to the local authority per nursery place.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Health the comparative cost per child of day nurseries in Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Kidsgrove at the latest date for which figures are available.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: In 1951–52 the costs were £178, £147 and £136.
    Mr. Swingler: Are not these costs very high, and what is the Minister doing to reduce the costs of running these day nurseries in order that they may be maintained, and the charges, decided by the local authority, kept down?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: All local authorities are endeavouring to run their day nurseries as economically as possible. The hon. Member will appreciate that the biggest single item in looking after small children is the high incidence of staff.
    Mr. Swingler: Will the hon. Lady review the staff arrangements? There are many criticisms about the over-staffing of day nurseries. Would it be possible to review the staffing arrangements in order to try to get greater economy? It is the responsibility of her Department.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The general standard is laid down by the Ministry, but the administration of the nurseries is entirely a matter for the local authorities.
    Mr. D. Brook: In whatever decision she comes to, will the hon. Lady try to avoid running nursery classes on the cheap?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: Nursery classes are not the concern of my Department.
    Mr. D. Brook: I am sorry, I meant day nurseries.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Health how many day nurseries have been maintained in Staffordshire; and what was the cost of them to his Department in 1950, 1951 and 1952.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: Ten; the Exchequer grant payable in the years referred to was £21,620, £20,447 and £20,542 respectively.
    Mr. Swingler: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say whether it is the policy of her Department to encourage the maintenance of day nurseries and to keep them open? What action is being taken in Staffordshire, where there is a danger of day nurseries being closed owing to the high rate of charges, in order to ensure that there is a proper social service of day nurseries?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: A decision on the need for day nurseries is a matter for local authorities, who take into account local considerations.
    Mr. Bowles: Is the hon. Lady aware that in Warwickshire the cost is 50 per cent. more than in Staffordshire, namely £3 a week, and all the nursery schools have been closed by the local authority, including that in Nuneaton, with the consent of her right hon. Friend?
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Minister of Health how many children were attending day nurseries in Leek, Kids-grove, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Biddulph on 1st April, 1952 and 1953.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: Thirty-five and 13 at Leek, 44 and 24 at Kidsgrove, 73 and 23 at the two nurseries at Newcastle-under-Lyme. There is no nursery at Biddulph.
    Mr. Davies: is the hon. Lady aware that this drop in attendance is indicative of the fact that many mothers who need to work to earn a living are now unable to work and are going on National Assistance? Is not the Government's policy therefore penny wise and pound foolish in this matter?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: All the local authorities who have raised their charges to those whom they feel can afford to pay the higher rate have a very generous assessment of means. Where it is considered that the income is too low to afford the standard charge, local authorities make very substantial reductions.
    Mr. Swingler: Is the hon. Lady aware that it has hitherto been the policy of the Minister of Labour to encourage women to work in the pottery industry and other industries in North Staffordshire? If she is intending to encourage women to continue to do so, will she inquire into this deplorable drop in numbers, which shows that women are withdrawing their children from the day nurseries owing to the high charges, and will she consult with the Minister of Labour?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend has consulted with his right hon. and learned Friend. I understand there is no evidence that the closing or the lessening of the use of nurseries has had any adverse effect on the labour situation
    Mr. Dodds: How can the Parliamentary Secretary refer to the sympathy of local authorities when in her own county of Kent all the day nurseries are being closed down, and there is no question of sympathy at all?
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister or Health what alternative provision he will make for those working mothers who are financially compelled to withdraw their children from day nurseries in Staffordshire owing to the 350 per cent. increase in charges.
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Minister of Health (1) if he is aware of the concern aroused by the increase in charges in day nurseries in Staffordshire from 8s. 9d. per child per week to £2; and, in view of the importance of women's work in industry in North Staffordshire and the declared intention of many mothers to leave industry rather

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    than pay the increased charge, what action he proposes to take;
    (2) what action he is taking to ensure that the charges in day nurseries in Staffordshire are fixed at a reasonable level.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The standard charge of £2 a week in Staffordshire is based on the cost per nursery place, but is reduced according to the means of those parents who cannot afford it. The question of securing female labour for industry is a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour.
    Mr. Swingler: Does the Parliamentary Secretary appreciate that a great grievance arises when in two adjacent areas where women are working in the same industry, the charges vary by as much as 200 per cent.? Is she aware that the basic charge in Stoke-on-Trent is 2s. 6d. and in the county area of Staffordshire it is now 8s., and that because of different policies being pursued a very bad situation is arising among women working in the same industry in North Staffordshire?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: I appreciate the point raised by the hon. Member, but I think that the House would agree that this is a matter where local considerations should be judged by the local authority.
    Mr. Davies: Is the hon. Lady aware that people who are least able to bear the burden—unmarried mothers, widows and others—are now unable to go to work because of this general policy? May I beg her and her right hon. Friend to investigate this question of differential payments for day nurseries throughout the whole country and try to get a unified policy?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: But even a unified policy might not give equality if conditions vary in different areas. I cannot agree that the type of applicants mentioned, widows or unmarried mothers, are unable to work. The quite generous allowances permitted under the new scales in these areas provide that a widow with one child, paying 25s. a week rent, would have to earn approximately £9 a week before being called upon to pay the full charge.
    Mr. Manuel: What is the full charge?
    Mr. Partridge: Can my hon. Friend say which children whose parents have been assessed as able to pay the full charge came from families with substantial incomes?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: From the investigations made, and from those who replied to the questionnaire, it was revealed that between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent. were earning over £10 per week—
    Mr. Davies: Scandalous and ridiculous.
    Hon. Members: Order.
    Mr. Davies: I object to these absurd statements—
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: Of those families who replied when asked why they should not pay the full charge between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent. were earning over £10 a week—[Interruption.] A substantial number would not disclose their means, and withdrew their children.

    Tuberculosis Nurses (Shortage)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Health in view of the shortage of nurses in sanatoria and tuberculosis clinics, what special action he is taking to improve the situation.
    Miss Homsby-Smith: My right hon. Friend proposes to continue the various measures which are already in continuous operation, and under which the staffing situation continues to improve.

    Influenza Vaccine (Trial)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Health if he can yet make a statement in respect of experiments with an influenza vaccine.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The trial was extended to 31st March and the records are now being studied in detail by the Medical Research Council. I would prefer to await a full statistical report before commenting on the value of the experiment.
    Mr. Dodds: I appreciate that point, but as every person in the country has a vested interest in these experiments, may I ask when we may expect some statement about this very important matter?
    Mr. Maeleod: Unfortunately at all these trials there was a low rate of influenza both among the trial and control groups so the information is nothing like so adequate as we would like. But I will let the hon. Member know as soon as I am ready to make a full statement, and perhaps he will put a Question on the Order Paper.

    Doctors' Lists (Registrations)
    Sir L. Ropnerasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that in many localities individuals are experiencing difficulty in finding a doctor on whose panel they can be registered; and whether he will suggest a method of overcoming this inconvenience.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: No, Sir. Anyone who cannot find a doctor willing to accept him can apply to the Executive Council to be assigned to a doctor. If my hon. and gallant Friend will give me details of any cases he has in mind, I will look into the matter.
    Sir L. Ropner: Does the Parliamentary Secretary mean that she is not aware of the difficulty which is being experienced in many localities in obtaining a doctor? I thought her reply started with the words, "No, Sir."
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: Various circumstances may give rise to a doctor not accepting a particular patient. His list may be full. But anyone who cannot obtain a doctor in an area has only to apply to the Executive Council, who will make arrangements.

    Dental Patients (National Registration Numbers)
    Mr. Albuasked the Minister of Health whether he will instruct dentists not to ask for a patient's national registration number unless treatment is to be given under the National Health Service.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: It is not for my right hon. Friend to intervene in arrangements connected with private treatment.
    Mr. Albu: Does the Parliamentary Secretary consider that for a dentist to take a patient's registration number and then treat the patient as a private patient savours of sharp practice? Does she not consider that a patient is, under present circumstances, entitled to consider that he or she is being treated as a National
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    Health Service patient unless the dentist says to the contrary? Is not the proportion very much in favour of the National Health Service scheme at present?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: I think there is a responsibility on both sides. It is generally known and understood that to obtain National Health Service treatment a patient has to sign a form, and in so doing he knows he is receiving National Health Service treatment.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say how much longer the national registration number will be required from any section of the population needing treatment under the National Health Service?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: That is another question.
    Mr. Albu: Has the Parliamentary Secretary seen the case which I sent to her right hon. Friend in which a dentist wrote the national registration number on the appropriate coloured form, did not ask the patient to sign the form and then charged the patient the full private fee, the patient discovering only afterwards that this was more than the National Health Service charge? Does he not consider this utterly dishonest?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The patient had the machinery at his disposal to lodge and take up a complaint. The hon. Member knows that the Act provides that such complaints are dealt with by executive councils, so that the remedy lies in the patient's own hands.

    Hearing Aids
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Health whether sufficient hearing aids are now being produced to meet the current requirements of the National Health Service and the steady reduction of arrears.
    Mr. Iain Maeleod: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Hayman: Does the Minister expect to be able to clear these arrears within the year, as he told another hon. Member two months ago?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes, certainly I do; within the financial year. The waiting list in the area in which the hon. Member is most concerned has dropped from 66,000 to 42,600 in the last six months.

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    We are completely on top of the position now. There is ample supply and the difficulty is that there are too many to handle at the centres.
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Health what are the categories of priority in the supply of hearing aids in the National Health Service; and what is the order in which they operate.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: No fixed categories have been laid down but hospitals generally give high priority to the deaf blind, children and mothers with young children and, at my request, some degree of priority to patients who require aids for employment purposes.

    Fuel Efficiency (Hospitals)
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Health whether he will state the aggregate annual coal, coke and fuel oil consumption of the hospitals and institutions vested in him; what steps have been taken to inspire greater attention to fuel efficiency and coal conservation; and, in view of the coal position, what special steps he proposes in this connection.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am afraid I do not possess the information asked for in the first part of the Question. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of a circular which my predecessor sent to hospital authorities on the subject calling for regular returns of fuel consumption from the larger hospitals. Where these returns suggest inefficient use of fuel, the authority's attention will be drawn to it, and a visit paid by one of my engineers if necessary.
    Mr. Nabarro: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the circular to which he referred bears the date 1951, when conditions were rather different from the conditions obtaining today? In view of the fact that iron and steel are no longer rationed, and that there are fewer restrictions on capital investment, will my right hon. Friend consider drawing the attention of the regional boards to the urgency for fuel conservation in the immediate future?
    Mr. Macleod: The circular to which I referred is not dated 1951; it is dated February, 1952. It is quite true that steel is no longer a limiting factor, but the ceiling on capital investment still is, and
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    I cannot ask hospital authorities to give exclusive priority to this sort of work, although I fully recognise its importance, and it may be that not enough attention has been paid to this class of work.
    Mr. Manuel: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate whether attention is paid to the type of fuel-saving appliances which are being installed in hospitals? When the time is appropriate and when supplies of steel are more plentiful, would he be prepared to advise regional hospital boards throughout the country on what is the best type of fuel-saving appliance instead of leaving it to private interests in this country to push their own barrows all the time in order to get their particular fuel-saving appliance accepted?
    Mr. Macleod: I will send the hon. Member a copy of the circular I have issued, which gives those details, but I will certainly not take the action suggested in the last part of his question, which would imply a complete lack of confidence in hospital boards.
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Health to what extent capital expenditure limitation put upon the regional hospital boards is arresting or delaying necessary re-equipment schemes for power and heating and thus leading to coal wastage: and whether, after consulting the regional boards, he will make a statement.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: This information is not available, and I do not think I should be justified in putting boards to the expenditure of time and labour that would be necessary to get it. I have, however, drawn their attention to the point, and I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of a circular in which I suggested that they should have regard to schemes of the type he has in mind.
    Mr. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is a special problem here affecting hospitals, namely, that their capital investment programmes are restricted and that quite clearly the regional boards will, as a first priority, devote their available funds to medical equipment and buildings to house it, with the result that fuel efficiency will get relatively a very low position in the order of priority?
    Mr. Macleod: I do not dissent from much of that. As I said in reply to an

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    earlier supplementary question, it may be that too little attention is paid to this side of capital work, and these Questions help to emphasise the importance of it, but I think it right that the boards themselves should settle their own priorities in this matter.
    Mr. Stokes: Will the right hon. Gentleman pay regard to the fact that in hospitals, particularly, saving can be effected not so much through a particular unit but through paying attention to the necessity for rationalising boilerhouses? They usually have far too many.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most hospital management committees are very anxious to proceed on these lines? Will he do something to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give them more money with which to do it?
    Mr. Macleod: I am certainly most anxious to get as much money for capital investment in this service as I can, and it is no doubt true that many of our hospitals are old and out of date and, as a result, uneconomic in many respects.
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that Barnsley Hall Hospital, Worcestershire, consumes approximately 3,000 tons of coal per annum and that proposals to re-equip power and heating arrangements at the hospital, thereby saving 540 tons of coal per annum, were first made in 1947; that the regional board were informed of the proposal when the hospital was vested in the Minister of Health; that the scheme has been deferred annually since 1947 for reasons attributed to steel and cast-iron shortage; and whether, in view of the ending of iron and steel allocations, the free availability of supplies and the need to conserve coal, he will now authorise the scheme to proceed without delay.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am informed that the regional board have had this scheme before them since 1949 but have not so far felt able to give it priority over other urgent capital schemes in their area. It will be reviewed by the board along with other schemes of this kind, and I cannot say when they will be able to proceed with it.
    Mr. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it might be useful to take the initiative in this case, in
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    view of the waste of coal which is going on. Even in the short time since 1949 2,000 tons of coal has been needlessly wasted through the scheme not being proceeded with, which represents the productive effort of six coalface workers for a full year.
    Mr. Stokes: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind in this matter that what I was trying to impress upon him was the use of fewer boilers, not more?
    Mr. Macleod: I have taken the right hon. Gentleman's point. As for my hon. Friend's question, I fully agree with the importance of this matter, and I am always ready to ask my engineers to investigate any report which there may be of fuel inefficiency. I recognise that there may well be difficulties in the future over coal stocks, and it is important for all hospitals to review their policy in this field.

    Hospitals Television Hire (Coronation)
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Health why a hospital group in the London area, details of which have been sent to him, is paying £15 for each television set hired for Coronation day; and whether he will make more economical arrangements to prevent this exploitation of the desire of hospital authorities to enable patients to view the Coronation.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am informed that this hospital group are hiring 19 television sets fully serviced, at an approximate cost of £11 10s. 0d. per set, to be met from non-Exchequer funds, and I see no reason to intervene.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is not this a heartless example of Coronation profiteering—to pay £11 10s. for one set for one day—and is it quite impossible to prevent this rather crude exploitation of hospital authorities, sick people and the public purse generally?
    Mr. Macleod: No; I do not agree in the least. I have looked into the comparative costs. Of course, normally, it is quite uneconomic to hire sets for one day. These sets include aerials, service, the attention of an engineer and all the necessary equipment, and I cannot think

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    of a more suitable use of amenity funds than to enable hospital patients to see Her Majesty's Coronation.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: It is profiteering, anyhow.

  EDUCATION

    Training Colleges (Vacancies)
    Mr. Morleyasked the Minister of Education the final number of vacancies in teacher training colleges for the 1952–53 session.
    Mr. G. Williams: On a point of order. I do not think you called me, Mr. Speaker, to ask Question 22.
    Mr. Speaker: I called the hon. Member's name quite clearly, but he did not rise.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn): Altogether some 450 places were left vacant in training colleges for the courses which began in the 1952–53 session.
    Mr. Morleyasked the Minister of Education how many places in teacher training colleges in England and Wales had been taken up at the end of March for the 1953–54 session; and what was the comparable figure last year.
    Mr. Pickthorn: At the end of March, 9,620 places had been filled, or offered to students by training colleges, for courses of initial training beginning next autumn. The comparable figure last year was 9,196.
    Mr. Morley: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say what steps his right hon. Friend is taking, and what suggestions she is making, to ensure that there will be no vacancies in the training colleges in September?
    Mr. Pickthorn: The figures show some improvement, as the hon. Gentleman will have seen, and every effort is being made to keep that improvement continuing.
    Mr. J. Johnson: Must we sit down and patiently wait for the larger classes in the late 1950s before we get more teachers coming in?
    Mr. Pickthorn: No; every effort is being made to fill the places in the
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    training colleges, and the figures are, in fact, improving.
    Mr. Morley: Can the Parliamentary Secretary state what these efforts are? Could he be a little more specific in his answer?
    Mr. Pickthorn: The efforts are, by endeavouring to get the maximum publicity for the needs of the training colleges, and endeavouring to see that they are full, or as nearly full as can be managed.

    Secondary Education (Statistics)
    Mr. Morleyasked the Minister of Education what percentage of pupils of 12 years of age in schools under her jurisdiction are receiving education in grammar schools or streams, in secondary schools or streams and in comprehensive and multilateral schools.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Of the 12 year-old pupils on the registers of grant-aided schools in January, 1952, 20·5 per cent. were receiving education in grammar schools or streams, 60·2 per cent. in modern schools or streams and 1·3 per cent. in secondary technical schools or streams; 04 per cent. were in comprehensive schools.
    Mr. Morley: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say what steps his right hon. Friend is taking to encourage the establishment of more comprehensive schools?
    Mr. Pickthorn: No, I cannot say what steps my right hon. Friend is taking to encourage the design or the proposal for more comprehensive schools.
    Mr. H. Morrison rose—
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Nabarro: Oh, what a lovely morning.
    Mr. H. Morrison: I can well understand this perfectly permissible hilarity, but, for the benefit of those of us who did not get beyond what was then elementary education, can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what "or streams" means?
    Mr. Pickthorn: In modern schools, or the modern sections, unlike other streams, going up to school.

    Transport (Durham Proposal)
    Mr. Hartleyasked the Minister of Education when she will be able to give a decision in regard to the proposal about the transport of school children which was submitted to her Department by Durham County Council on 5th May, 1952.
    Mr. Pickthorn: My right hon. Friend wrote to the local education authority about this matter on 21st April, and is now considering their reply.
    Mr. Hartley: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary agree that a period of more than 12 months is an unduly long period for the consideration of this proposal before coming to any decision, and will he assure the House that the delay is not being used as a means of forcing local authorities to operate or implement the economies of Circular 242? Will he assure us, further, that a decision will be reached at an early date?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I am sure that there is no question of delay being used as a method of compulsion. As to the causes of the delay, my right hon. Friend did write on 21st April, and I do not think there can be any reasonable complaint about that.
    Mr. Bartley: Can the hon. Gentleman say what delay took place between the letter of 21st April and the receipt of the previous correspondence, despite the pressure by myself and the local authorities?
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Answer that.

    Unemployed Teachers
    Mr. A. Robertsasked the Minister of Education how many teachers trained at training colleges and certificated are unemployed.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Of a total of 12,501 teachers of all kinds who completed their training at recognised training colleges and university departments of education in the summer of 1952, 102 men and 68 women were on the books of the appointments board jointly administered by the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Education Committees as being without teaching posts on 1st April last, the latest date for which complete information is available.
    Mr. J. Johnson: Is it not a disgraceful thing that there should be so many
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    classes of 40 and 50 when we have an unemployed list of nearly 200 teachers who have not got positions anywhere in any county?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I think that almost all the unemployment arises from lack of mobility, because people, for one reason or another, are unwilling to go to anything but a small part of the country, or because people, for some reason or another, are unwilling to do anything but a very particular kind of teaching. I think that is what accounts for the unemployment; I have not got the proportion worked out, but I think I am not far wrong in saying that it is 1·4 per cent., and I think it arises in the way I have suggested.
    Mrs. Slater: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary how much of the unemployment amongst women teachers is due to the fact that some local authorities have cut down the complement of women teachers?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I am sorry, but I am afraid that I cannot give a specific answer.

    Grammar School Science Teachers (Vacancies)
    Mr. A. Robertsasked the Minister of Education how many vacancies there are in grammar schools, whether boys, girls or mixed, for teachers of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Vacancies are not notified to my right hon. Friend. During the past three years, there has been a small but welcome increase in the number of teachers holding degrees in mathematics or science who are employed in maintained grammar schools. At the same time, she is aware of the anxiety that is felt about the adequacy of the supply of such teachers and the matter is continuing to receive her close attention.
    Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: Will the Parliamentary Secretary bear in mind that numbers are not the only question involved here, but that the quality of science teaching is declining very considerably? Has he observed that there is a growing opinion in the universities, as evidenced by a speech yesterday by Sir Richard Southwell, and a letter in "The Times" yesterday by Professor

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    Skinner, to the effect that the universities will have to adjust themselves to a lower quality of students, and does he not regard that as something extremely serious?
    Mr. Pickthorn: No doubt, any inadequacy either in the numbers or the quality of science and mathematics teachers is a very serious matter, but the question whether the universities ought to attempt to meet that evil by lowering their standards is one which could not be discussed by Question and Answer across the Floor of the House, and is one which, fortunately, is no part of the responsibility of the Department for which I am answering.
    Mr. A. Roberts: Does the hon. Gentleman contemplate any measures to overcome this shortage?
    Mr. Pickthorn: The National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers is in continuous consultation with my right hon. Friend, and is keeping this matter under continuous review. We are all very fully aware of the difficulties.
    Mr. Harold Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the real difficulty is the fact that an honours graduate in mathematics or science is paid such a pittance for teaching that he is ultimately drawn into industry? That is the real reason why so few scientists are in the teaching profession today.
    Mr. Pickthorn: It is true, of course, that one of the main reasons why persons qualified for more than one profession choose one rather than another is the amount of direct financial remuneration. We are all perfectly well aware of that.

    New Schools
    Mr. Fernyhoughasked the Minister of Education how many new schools were completed in 1952; and on how many of such schools construction was actually commenced before the present Government took office.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Four hundred and eighty-nine new schools were completed during 1952, of which 485 were started before 1st November, 1951.
    Mr. Ferayhough: Will the hon. Gentleman kindly see that that information is sent to the Conservative Central Office in
    1402
    order that the briefs which they send out may contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I am glad to say that I am not responsible for the Conservative Central Office briefs, but I am quite certain they contain the truth and nothing but the truth. I cannot, of course, assert that they contain all the truth.
    Mr. Jay: Will the hon. Gentleman see that those figures are supplied to his own Minister?
    Captain Pilkington: Is it not a fact that the relevant point about this matter is the rate of completion?

    Technologists
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Minister of Education what action she is taking to increase the production of technologists.
    Mr. Pickthorn: The hon. Member has already seen Circular 255 describing the arrangements for making improved financial assistance available for selected technical colleges and courses. Applications for additional grant under this circular are now being considered, and have in some cases already been approved.
    Mr. Johnson: Is the Minister aware that these measures, while welcome, are quite inadequate, and cannot he make another effort to persuade his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to upgrade perhaps six of the major technical colleges to university college status so that we might tackle the job and spend more money on this vitally important task?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I do not think that the usefulness of this device—for the approval of which by the hon. Gentleman I am extremely grateful—has been by a very long chalk exhausted yet, and I think we must go on with this method. As to organisations promoted to university rank, as I indicated in another connection, that is not one of the matters for which I have to answer here.

    Camps
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Education how many camps will be available this year by arrangement with the National Camps Corporation

    1403
    Limited; approximately, for how many children this will provide; and whether Kennylands Camp will be in use this year.
    Mr. Pickthorn: The National Camps Corporation own 30 camps, of which 25 are at present occupied by children sent by local education authorities. The total capacity of these 25 camps is 6,000 places. Kennylands Camp is, and will continue to be, in use for children from Essex.
    Mr. Sorensen: Can the Minister inform me whether this represents an increase or a decrease over preceding years, and, approximately, how many children will be accommodated in Kennylands Camp?
    Mr. Pickthorn: It is about 200 now. I am afraid I have not armed myself with the figures for recent years, but if the hon. Gentleman will remind me I will send him a note about it or answer a Question on another day.

    CUBAN TRADE MISSION
    Mr. Russellasked the President of the Board of Trade when a trade mission is to be invited to visit this country from Cuba, as recommended in the recently-published report of the United Kingdom Trade Mission to the Caribbean.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: On a point of information, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether, in view of the great importance of the defence programme, we could have an answer to Question No. 34 about the purchase of javelins by the Kent Education Committee?
    Mr. Speaker: That Question has not been asked.
    The Secretary for Overseas Trade (Mr. H. R. Mackeson): The Cuban Government have already been informed that Her Majesty's Government would welcome a trade mission from Cuba. I am glad to say that this invitation has been accepted and that an important and representative trade mission will shortly arrive in this country. Arrangements are being made to introduce the mission to interested industries in this country, and I hope that their visit, which we owe to the initiative of Brigadier Crosland and his colleagues, will result in substantial export business.
    Mr. Russell: Will my hon. Friend ensure that in any negotiations he has with Cuba, the interests of Jamaica and other parts of the West Indies will be fully safeguarded? Secondly, will he try and persuade the Cubans to take more of our exports in return for the increased imports of sugar that we are taking from them?
    Mr. Mackeson: The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary is certainly "Yes." So far as the second part of his supplementary question is concerned, that is the object of this visit. We import about £26 million worth of goods from Cuba and sell them only £5 million worth. We are most anxious to sell them more.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Budget Poster
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will resume the custom of publishing an illustrated explanation of the Budget proposals, "The Budget and Your Pocket," in order that the community can be made aware of what benefit they receive from it.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): A poster showing the detailed make-up of the Budget will be published, as it was last year, after the Finance Bill has been debated.
    Brigadier Medlicott: Is it not clear that the good points in the Budget have already been carefully noted by the electors of Sunderland?
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is it not a fact that if this leaflet had been published the Sunderland election result might have been different?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I now appreciate the hon. Member's motive in putting down this Question.

    Estate Duty (Valuation Concession)
    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to Form 15 (17340) M21009/FS185— 10/50— 120,000 J.H.718/24A which states that Estate

    1405
    Duty is to take the pre-war value of property in certain circumstances at the time of death in accordance with a statement in the House of Commons on 18th May, 1944; whether he is aware that this valuation is not being accepted by the District Valuers Office, who are insisting on the replacement value of the property; and under which of his regulations and at what date this change was made.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As there appears to be some misapprehension about the scope of this concession, I think it desirable to give a rather long answer which, with the hon. Member's permission, I will therefore circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Freeman: Is the hon. Gentleman quite satisfied that the designation of the form is not such as to cause any misunderstanding, but to enable people to follow it without difficulty and without any misrepresentation?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the hon. Member had inspected the form before putting down his Question he would have realised that its designation is complete with the words "Form No. 15," and that the various other figures embodied in his Question are simply the printer's code number at the back.
    Mr. Freeman: Is it not a fact that these details are given on the form itself?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Owing to the fact that the Stationery Office observe the law, they are given in the usual position at the back.
    Mr. McCorquodale: May I ask that the hon. Gentleman does not get away with it by blaming the printers?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I can assure my right hon. Friend that I will always look after printers.
    Mr. Nicholson: Was it a reputable firm of printers?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As I understand it, all firms of printers are reputable.
    Following is the answer:
    The statutory basis of valuation for Estate Duty is the price which the property would have fetched in the open market at the date of death. In the case of a house owned and occupied by the
    1406
    deceased at that date this would be the full market value with the benefit of vacant possession.
    The effect of the concession announced on 18th May, 1944, in the cases to which it applies, is to exclude from that value
    "any increase … above the pre-war value in so far as it could only be realised by a sale with vacant possession."
    The concession does not substitute the pre-war value of property for its value at the date of death. It does not exclude such value as there was in vacant possession pre-war. Nor does it exclude increases of value due to causes other than sale with vacant possession, e.g. a rise in the value of property due to the change in the value of money generally since before the war. The only element of value to be excluded where the concession applies is that which represents the degree to which vacant possession at the date of death inflated value more than it did pre-war; no other factor which would influence the value is to be disregarded.
    There has been no change in the Board of Inland Revenue's interpretation of the concession, which has from the first been interpreted as described above. As to the method of valuation, it would be inappropriate to lay down a formula to be applied in all cases in which the concession is available, since the value of the property with the benefit of the concession is capable of being arrived at in a variety of ways. There is, however, no reason why regard should not be had in appropriate cases to cost of replacement less depreciation as one of the factors in estimating value.

    FRUIT TREES
    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Minister of Agriculture if he will make an estimate from the information available to him of the number of fruit trees of each variety known being grown at the present time; what steps are being made to augment this supply; and if he will take steps to encourage local authorities to grow all the fruit required to meet all demands in their own area as far as possible.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): With permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT an estimate of

    1407
    fruit tree numbers in 1952. As for the remainder of the Question, my right hon. Friend is not aware of any shortage of planting stocks of any popular variety of fruit tree, and there seems no reason to believe that production by commercial growers and domestic food producers will fail to keep pace with the demand for home grown fruit.
    Mr. Nabarro: Is my hon. Friend aware that Worcestershire will always look after the fruit?
    Mr. Baldwin: Is my hon. Friend aware that much more fruit was grown last year than could be sold, even at a halfpenny a pound over the cost of picking? Is he further aware that to ask the local authorities to grow fruit will still further increase the appalling rise in the rates at the present moment?
    Following is the estimate:

    ESTIMATED NUMBERS OF ORCHARD FRUIT TREES IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 1952 ('000 trees)

    Variety

    1952

    DESSERT APPLES:

    Cox's Orange Pippin

    …

    …

    5,370

    Worcester Pearmain

    …

    …

    1,710

    Others

    …

    …

    3,020

    COOKING APPLES:

    Bramley's Seedling

    …

    …

    1,895

    Early Victoria

    …

    …

    430

    Lord Derby

    …

    …

    280

    Others

    …

    …

    1,800

    PEARS:

    Conference

    …

    …

    1,400

    Others

    …

    …

    1,020

    CIDER APPLES

    …

    …

    1,700

    PERRY PEARS

    …

    …

    110

    PLUMS:

    Victoria

    …

    …

    1,050

    Gage

    …

    …

    375

    Damson

    …

    …

    420

    Others

    …

    …

    2,900

    CHERRIES:

    Sweet

    …

    …

    760

    Sour

    …

    …

    117

    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Minister of Agriculture if he will make an estimate from the information available of the number of trees planted and the number cut down or otherwise destroyed last year, showing, where possible, the details of all varieties known, particularly all kinds of fruit trees.
    Mr. Nugent: No, Sir. There is no reliable information available on which to base such an estimate.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Will my hon. Friend give further attention to discovering how many trees are rooted up each year, and, as his Department are trying to encourage growers to uproot old orchards, will he endeavour to keep a record of what happens?
    Mr. Nugent: A census of fruit trees is taken approximately every five years. The last time was in 1951, and the next census will be in about three years' time.

  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Coronation Seatholders (Police Assistance)
    Sir Edward Keelingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give an assurance that the police will help persons holding tickets for seats on the route of the Coronation procession to get to them even after the hour by which the police have recommended them to arrive.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): Yes, Sir. The police will give ticket holders all the help they can, but late-comers cannot be guaranteed access to their seats.
    Sir E. Keeling: While thanking my hon. and learned Friend for that answer, may I ask whether he is aware that the times of arrival recommended by the police involve a wait of from four to eight hours before Her Majesty passes, and that the advice, if not qualified, will reduce the number of people who turn out to line the route? Will he, therefore, give as much publicity as possible to the reply which he has just given?
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: No doubt my answer will get due publicity. Perhaps I can reassure my hon. Friend by saying that there will be plenty to occupy the attention of seatholders and others before the expiry of the four to eight hours.
    Mr. H. Morrison: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to go into this matter again? It is becoming an annoying practice on such occasions for people to have to arrive hours before. There may be an explanation, a good

    1409
    reason, but the public ought to know it, and there is another place that ought to know it as well. I ask the hon. and learned Member to take the matter seriously, because it is sometimes annoying and rather provocative for people to have to sit around for hours and hours, with a great deal of personal inconvenience before a function is to begin.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: My right hon. and learned Friend will, of course, give careful consideration to all that the right hon. Gentleman has said. I should repeat that the police will do all that they can to get late-comers in, even if they come after the time stated.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is it not clear that the police and other authorities concerned have grossly under-estimated the extent to which people will take advantage of television facilities to see the procession, and have over-estimated the crowds likely to gather on the Coronation route in view of the times at which people have been asked to be in their seats?

    Goods Vehicles (Metropolitan Police Action)
    Mr. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps are taken by the Metropolitan Police to ensure compliance with Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, and Section 16 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, as regards the Metropolitan area.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: The Metropolitan police have standing instructions to require production of the records of work of a goods vehicle driver whenever they have occasion to inspect his driving licence, and they take such action as may be called for if breaches of the law are disclosed. In 1952, 208 prosecutions were taken in the Metropolitan police district under Section 16 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, and 1,547 persons were cautioned by letter and a number warned orally for failure to keep such records or cause them to be kept. No police prosecutions were taken under Section 19 of the Traffic Act, 1930; suspected or alleged breaches of this Section are reported to the licensing authority for such action as that authority may consider necessary.
    Mr. Renton: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the reply he has
    1410
    given completely refutes, so far as the Metropolitan area is concerned, the idle scandalmongering by hon. Gentlemen opposite about the offences against those two Acts?

  MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT

    Road Haulage Disposal Board
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Transport which organisations he has invited to submit nominations for appointments to the Road Haulage Disposal Board; in which cases names have been provided; and in which the invitation declined.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): The following bodies were invited to submit names for my consideration:

    The British Transport Commission.

    The Federation of British Industries.

    The National Union of Manufacturers.

    The Association of British Chambers of Commerce.

    The Road Haulage Association.

    The Traders' Road Transport Association.

    The Traders' Co-ordinating Committee on Transport.

    Each organisation has submitted a name or names, except the Traders' Co-ordinating Committee, which expects to do so shortly.
    Mr. Davies: Why did the Minister include among the bodies invited to submit nominations bodies such as the Road Haulage Association, which are known to be interested parties, and will be more concerned about disposing of the national assets as cheaply as possible than obtaining the best possible price in the national interest?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I was proposing to give those reasons at length in a debate on the Adjournment Motion, which I have been informed will take place.
    Mr. I. O. Thomas: Would the Minister indicate, if he thinks there are valid and justifiable reasons for inviting the Road Haulage Association to submit nominations, why he could not extend those reasons to inviting the trade unions catering for the men, like the National Union of Railwaymen and other unions?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Had the hon. Gentleman attended the debates he would know that the trade unions, I am sorry to say, declined the invitation.
    Mr. Davies: Would the right hon. Gentleman now give the assurance that he refused to give on Monday that he will not appoint from these nominations anybody who has a direct interest in road haulage or any interest in financing it?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am under somewhat of a difficulty in that notice to raise this matter on the Adjournment has already been given. This I can say, that to me, to the Government and to Sunder-land the Road Haulage Association is a very proper body to consult in regard to A and B licence holders.
    Mr. McGovern: Are any distinctly Scottish bodies invited?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I said in the debate that I would consider any names that were submitted to me through these various bodies. The hon. Gentleman had better wait until I make a statement as to whom I have selected.
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Minister of Transport if he will announce the names of the members of the Road Haulage Disposal Board, together with their interests, direct or indirect, in the transport industry and the remuneration they are to receive by way of salaries, fees, allowances and expenses in respect of their membership of the board.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am sorry I am not yet in a position to give this information.
    Mr. Callaghan: The question was not put down in order that the right hon. Gentleman should be over-hasty, but to ask whether there was any other body, apart from the Road Haulage Association, which has entered into arrangements for financing the purchase of these units; and whether, in the circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman would agree that no such body should be appointed as a member of the Disposal Board?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not regard the formation of a company between the Road Haulage Association and the United Dominions Trust, or any other financial house that cares to make the same arrangement, as precluding a member of
    1412
    the Road Haulage Association from serving on this body. I understand, as a matter of fact, that the Road Haulage Association, though they might be recouped for expenses consequent upon the formation of the company, have actually no financial interest whatever in the proposed company.
    Mr. Callaghan: While I understand that it might be difficult to find someone who is not a member of the Road Haulage Association, that is not really the point. The point is whether the right hon. Gentleman is really saying to the House that he is going to appoint someone representative of the Road Haulage Association on the Disposal Board who also will have an interest, through the Road Haulage Association, in purchasing units.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: If the hon. Gentleman will recall the debates in which we both took part, he will know that in Clause 2 I do not appoint somebody because they represent a body, but
    "after consultation with such bodies representative of persons holding A or B licences …"
    The existence of this body, which has survived despite Socialist legislation, constitutes its right to give me its advice.

    TRAINEE SEAMEN (SWIMMING)
    Mr. Parkerasked the Minister of Transport whether he will take steps to see that all young persons training to go to sea learn to swim before taking their first job at sea.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The recruitment and appointment of men to the Merchant Navy is a matter for the shipping industry. While I myself would agree that it is in a seaman's own interest that he should be able to swim, I am not at the moment prepared to suggest to the industry that young men should be debarred from employment at sea unless they can swim.

    HISTORIC BUILDINGS (PRESERVATION)
    Mr. Colegateasked the Minister of Works whether the Government have yet decided on the method to be adopted for the preservation of historic buildings.
    The Minister of Works (Mr. David Eccles): Yes, Sir. The Government are preparing a Bill which will authorise the Minister of Works to pay grants for the repair and maintenance of buildings of outstanding historic or architectural merit. The grants could be either on an annual basis or for an agreed period of years. Historic buildings councils will be set up for England, for Wales and for Scotland to advise the Minister in the exercise of these powers.
    I am glad to say that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed to make £500,000 available from the National Land Fund over a period of five years, for the purchase of outstanding buildings which would otherwise be lost. This is additional to the £250,000 a year which will be available for repair and maintenance grants. It is hoped that the National Trusts will be willing to participate in the administration of this work.
    Mr. Colegate: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his welcome information, can he assure us that we shall see the Bill before the expiry of the present Session?
    Mr. Eccles: Yes. I hope to introduce the Bill quite soon. What progress it makes depends upon the time of the House.
    Mr. Snow: In so far as these grants, in the event, are proved to be inadequate for the overall problem, will the right hon. Gentleman consult the President of the Board of Trade to determine whether industrial interests might not be given leases of historical buildings that are now vacant and which might be used instead of new constructions?
    Mr. Eccles: We certainly will consider that suggestion, but we are making a start.
    Mr. Horobin: In view of the fact that the National Trust alone has a list of something like 100 important houses either demolished or in immediate danger, does my right hon. Friend not think that the sum he has mentioned will be quite inadequate to stem the havoc to our national heritage?
    Mr. Eccles: Of course the sum will not be adequate but it is a start and we must do as well with it as we can.
    Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Is it not a fact that the amount of money which has been made available for this purpose represents less than 1 per cent. of the amount of the National Land Fund? What is being done with the other 99 per cent.?
    Mr. Eccles: That is not a question for me.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 18TH MAY—Supply [15th Allotted Day]: Committee:
Debate on the National Health Service.
Lords Amendments: Town and Country Planning Bill.
Motion, standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Whiteley), relating to the House of Commons Members' Fund.
TUESDAY, 19TH MAY AND WEDNESDAY, 20TH MAY—Beginning of Committee stage: Finance Bill.
THURSDAY, 21ST MAY—Second Reading: Valuation for Rating Bill.
Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
FRIDAY, 22ND MAY—Adjournment for Whitsun and the Coronation until Tuesday, 9th June.
During the week we shall ask the House to consider any Amendments which may be received from another place to the White Fish and Herring Industries Bill and to other Bills; and the Motion to approve the Draft Canterbury Probate Sub-Registry Order.
Mr. Attlee: Has the right hon. Gentleman any statement to make about the Select Committee on the Palace of Westminster?
Mr. Crookshank: Yes, Sir. I have had representations made to me, asking the House to set up a Select Committee with regard to accommodation and other

1415
matters in this House, and a Motion will appear shortly on the Order Paper to that effect.
Mr. Powell: Will my right hon. Friend consider the desirability of providing time for a debate on the National Coal Board's Report?
Mr. Crookshank: That is a matter which will no doubt have to be considered in due course, but certainly not next week.
Mr. Pannell: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me why it is necessary to bring in the Valuation for Rating Bill next week, bearing in mind that the Bill affects every ratepayer in the country and that local authority opinion has not had time to advise hon. Members and to crystallize its views? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when we are discussing the local arrangements of the Central African Territories we appear to give the inhabitants of that country far more time to discuss their affairs than we give natives of this country to regulate their local government?
Mr. Crookshank: The reason, of course, is that we want to get on with this Bill. After the Bill has had a Second Reading—as I hope—it will go upstairs to a Committee. As a matter of fact, by the time we take the Second Reading debate the Bill will have been before the House for a fortnight, less one day.
Mr. Nicholson: Can my right hon. Friend say, as a matter of all party interest, which day new Members will take their seats?
Mr. Hale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is on the Order Paper a Motion, widely signed by hon. Members opposite, making what appear to be wholly unjustified reflections on the character and conduct of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan)?
[That this House deplores the conduct of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, during the course of debate on 22nd April, 1953 [Hansard, column 1215], in quoting words from a pamphlet and representing that they expressed the views of Mr. Gibson Jarvie, whereas the immediate context of the quoted passage showed clearly that Mr. Gibson Jarvie
1416
was, in fact, reprobating such views; regrets that the hon. Member has failed to withdraw his imputation, although invited to do so; and considers that his conduct constitutes an abuse of Parliamentary Privilege and is contrary to the acceped traditions of fair and responsible debate in this House.]
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether any Member who took the responsibility of signing that Motion has asked that it be discussed, to enable my hon. Friend to reply to it, or whether this was merely another abuse of the privileges of the Order Paper?
Mr. Crookshank: I should not like to go into a matter which is on the Order Paper now, but I should have thought that any Motion which possibly might reflect on an hon. Member was a matter on which that hon. Member himself might first wish to give an explanation to the House.
Mr. Callaghan: Has not the right hon. Gentleman had any representations from the Minister of Transport? The Minister invited an explanation during the course of the debate on the Lords Amendments, when I indicated that I was not ready to take advantage of this procedure because my statement would be highly controversial and I asked the Minister of Transport if he would convey to the Leader of the House that it was my desire that, as soon as the Motion was on the Order Paper, it should be debated. Is the right hon. Gentleman not ready to provide time or, if not, to advise his hon. Friends to take the Motion off the Order Paper? For myself, I prefer it to be debated.
Mr. Crookshank: It is not for me to advise hon. Members to take off Motions which they have put on the Order Paper. As regards having time for debate, I regret that at the moment that is not possible.
Mr. Attlee: Can the right hon. Gentleman let us know whether any representations were made to him by the Minister of Transport?
Mr. Crookshank: To the best of my recollection I was here at the time.
Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Is it not most unusual and out of accordance with the traditions of the House that when a Motion stands on the Order Paper reflect-

1417
ing on the honour of an hon. Member, the Leader of the House should deliberately refuse facilities for its discussion?
Mr. Crookshank: I have not refused facilities. I have only said that there was no time at present.
Mr. MacColl: If we give a Second Reading to the extremely technical Bill on valuation for rating on Thursday, so that we can consider it in Committee, can we be given an assurance by the right hon. Gentleman that we shall not be accused of obstruction and be guillotined if we try to make it a reasonable Bill?
Mr. Speaker: That is a hypothetical question.
Proceedings on Government Business exempted at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  EDUCATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  EDUCATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL

    New Clause.—(REMOVAL OF DISQUALIFICATION OF PERSONS EMPLOYED IN SCHOOLS, ETC., FOR APPOINTMENT TO CHILDREN'S COMMITTEES.)
    (1) Section ninety-four of the Local Government Act, 1933, shall have effect, as if, in the proviso thereto (which provides that a person shall not, by reason of his being a teacher in, or being otherwise employed in, an educational institution maintained or assisted by a local education authority, be disqualified for being a member of a committee or sub-committee of a local authority outside London appointed for the purposes mentioned in that proviso), the word "or" were omitted at the end of paragraph (b) and the following words were inserted at the end of paragraph (c), namely: —
    " or
    (d) appointed for the purposes of their functions under the enactments mentioned in subsection (1) of section thirty-nine of the Children Act, 1948."
    (2) Section sixty-four of the London Government Act, 1939, shall have effect as if, in the proviso thereto (which makes, in relation to membership of certain committees and subcommittees of the London County Council, provision corresponding to that made by the proviso to the said section ninety-four in relation to membership of committees and subcommittees of other local authorities), after the words "of the education committee," there were inserted the words "of the children's committee."—[Mr. Pickthorn.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    3.39 p.m.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn): I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
    I think that this new Clause which I have to commend to the House is fairly plain upon the face of it. Hon. Members who may not have followed our earlier proceedings will get the gist of it, leaving out the draftsmen's necessary verbiage, if they read it as follows:
    "Section ninety-four of the Local Government Act, 1933, shall have effect, as if, … the following words were inserted …
    ' or
    (d) appointed for the purposes of their functions under the enactments mentioned in subsection (1) of section thirty-nine of the Children Act, 1948.'"

    1419
    Then there is a subsection which extends the effect of that to the London County Council.
    Hon. Members who were present upstairs, or who have read our proceedings, will remember that we had before us an Amendment suggesting that it should be made possible for teachers to sit upon these children's committees. The Committee upstairs did not find it possible to agree to that Amendment because they unanimously accepted the advice which I gave them—upon expert advice given to me—that the Amendment as drafted was not consistent with some earlier statutes. At the same time, an assurance was given that we should look into the possibility of redrafting the Amendment, and I believe that all hon. Members upstairs were unanimous about our intentions.
    I hope that those hon. Members opposite who are particularly interested will agree that these words do give the effect that was sought. By the Act of 1933 teachers were disqualified—not for the first time, but specifically—from sitting on committees and sub-committees of local authorities. There was a proviso freeing teachers to sit on such bodies as education committees, mental defective committees and public library committees, and it seems slightly absurd that if teachers are qualified to sit upon those committees they should not also be entitled to sit upon children's committees.
    The sole purpose of this new Clause is to make it possible for teachers in the employ of local education authorities to be members of children's committees. I hope it will be agreed that the new Clause does carry out that intention.
    Mr. Ralph Morley: I thank the Minister for this concession. It really only restores the previous position. Formerly, children's committees were sub-committees of education committees, and teachers were allowed by law to become co-opted members of education committees and, therefore, to sit upon children's committees.
    When the legislation inspired by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was passed it was decided that the children's committee must be entirely separate from the education
    1420
    committee, with separate officers, and that debarred teachers from being co-opted members of the children's committees as they had been before. I am grateful to the Minister for having made this concession, and where local authorities take advantage of it and co-opt teachers to their children's committees I am sure that those teachers, by reason of their experience and knowledge, will be able to perform a very useful service.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hayman. New Clause.
    Mr. F. Blackburn rose—
    Mr. Leslie Hale: On a point of order. Yesterday, when I obtained the Order Paper I saw that among the Amendments to this Bill there was a new Clause in the name of the Minister of Education, dealing with the provision of transport in respect of certain pupils. It is only within the last half hour that I have found that that new Clause has been removed from the Order Paper and is not to be moved.
    Mr. Speaker: I must deal with the list of Amendments as they exist today.
    Mr. Ede: Further to that point of order. I was placed in the same difficulty as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). I thought I must have dreamt that that new Clause had previously been included in the list of Amendments when I read the Order Paper today. It would be courteous on the part of Ministers, if they have to withdraw an Amendment or a new Clause—as I understand they have had to do in this case, on technical grounds—to communicate with those whom they know to be interested so that we shall be in possession of the information.
    The Minister of Education (Miss Florence Horsbrugh): As the right hon. Gentleman has rightly said, at the very last moment a technical difficulty arose on the transport side, and when it was brought to my notice I thought it would be inconvenient to put down a technical Amendment to overcome the difficulty

    1421
    and that it would be better to withdraw the new Clause and see if it could be suitably amended when it reached another place.
    3.45 p.m.
    Mr. Hale: I should have supported this new Clause, Sir. Had I known it was to be withdrawn I should have put it down in my own name, so that it could be discussed.
    Mr. Speaker: I quite understand the point which has been raised, but I cannot listen to a debate on a Clause which is not on the Order Paper.
    Mr. Hale: Surely there was always a case for the acceptance by the Chair of a manuscript Amendment on the Report stage if a Clause which everyone thought was to be moved ministerially, with the consent of the Government, was removed from the Order Paper without any consultation with anybody else?
    Mr. Speaker: I cannot accept any new Clause by way of a manuscript Amendment. If the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) is not here to move his new Clause no one else can do it for him.
    Mr. Blackburn: My hon. Friend is not here because he is sitting on a Private Bill Committee upstairs which will not be concluded until 4 o'clock. In view of the other new Clauses which were down on the Order Paper he did not anticipate that this one would be called before that Committee had finished sitting. Is it not possible to move it formally on his behalf, Sir?
    Mr. Speaker: It is against the rules of order. The obvious remedy for an hon. Member who may be engaged elsewhere is to get the assistance of other hon. Members, who can put their names to his Amendment. If there had been two or three names, as there usually is to a new Clause of this kind, I should have called one of the other names in his absence.
    Mr. Blackburn: I did not put my name down to this new Clause, but I promised I would support it.
    Mr. R. T. Paget: This is another case where difficulty has arisen owing to the sudden withdrawal of a Government new Clause on which considerable debate was expected. Since the
    1422
    hon. Member for Falmouth and Cam-borne (Mr. Hayman) is not here, Mr. Speaker, would you accept a manuscript Amendment in the same terms, signed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn)? That would seem to get over the difficulty in which I feel the Government have placed us.
    Mr. Speaker: I should be very willing to do anything I could to help the House in this matter, but I cannot accept a new Clause on the Report stage by way of a manuscript Amendment.
    Mr. Blackburn: Do I understand that the two previous new Clauses—one in the name of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman) and the other in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Ilford, North (Sir G. Hutchinson) have also been withdrawn, Sir?
    Mr. Speaker: The first one was not selected and the second one is out of order. Miss Horsbrugh.
    Mr. Michael Stewart: In view of the difficulty in which we are placed, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, "That further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be adjourned." We have been placed in a very considerable difficulty by the action of the Government. I do not dispute that the Minister was placed in a serious difficulty, and that she was anxious to deal with the matter of the new Clause—which she is not now moving—in whatever way would be most convenient to the House and would assist the promotion of the Bill.
    We do not wish to criticise the Minister for having withdrawn the Clause, but we rather regret that the knowledge of her intention was not made available to us until so very shortly before the proceedings opened this afternoon. That may have been unavoidable.
    Mr. Kenneth Thompson: On a point of order.
    Hon. Members: We are on a point of order.
    Mr. Speaker: What point of order? It is not a point of order we are discussing. A Motion is being moved. Mr. Thompson.
    Mr. Thompson: Is it in order, after you, Mr. Speaker, have called the Minister of Education, for an hon. Gentleman to move the adjournment of the debate?
    Mr. Speaker: I am afraid it is not. I was listening to what the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) had to say, but I have heard enough now to know what his case is. The difficulty arises because the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) was not in his place. I have called the Minister of Education to move an Amendment. We cannot discuss the proposed new Clauses.
    Mr. Sydney Silvennan: Surely, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, you must have known whom you had called. Surely the question of whom you had called is a matter which must have been known to the Chair some considerable time ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) had moved his Motion and was half way through his speech in support of his Motion. Was it not a little late at that time of day, on a point of order, to revert to a point then long past?
    Mr. Speaker: I was waiting to gather what the reasons for the Motion were before I interrupted the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart). I now find that it refers to matters which had passed, because I called the Minister of Education to move her Amendment, and so we are at that stage now. I think it was only courteous that I should have listened to what the hon. Member for Fulham, East had to say. After all, his point might have been a quite different one.
    Mr. William Keenan: May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? There was a new Clause which the Minister has withdrawn. She proposes to have it moved into the Bill in another place. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) has a new Clause, and because of his inability to attend here he was not able to move it. Will he have an opportunity of doing what the Minister can do, and have it moved in another place? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that we were in great difficulty over another Bill recently
    1424
    because new Clauses and other Amendments to that Bill were made in another place. Apparently the same machinery is to be used on this occasion, and we shall be denied opportunity to discuss these things.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member will not be heard in another place, any more than a Member of another place would be heard here, but if he can interest a Member of another place in his view I have no doubt he could secure a discussion of it there.
    Mr. R. J. Mellish: I should like to ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. You have appreciated the difficulties we are in on this side of the House and you have learned how they have come about. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) could not move his new Clause because he was at a meeting upstairs. Could he move it at a later stage? I ask because it seems to me that we are put in these difficulties because the Government did not notify us they were not going to proceed with a new Clause of their own.
    Mr. Speaker: The answer to that, I am afraid, must be in the negative.
    Mr. M. Stewart: I should like your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on this point. I understood you to say that you were ruling out of order my Motion that further consideration of the Bill should be adjourned on the ground that you had already called the Minister of Education. I would very respectfully submit to you that the only reason I did not rise half a moment earlier was that immediately before calling the Minister of Education you were engaged in giving guidance on points of order. Unless I committed the discourtesy of rising while you were on your feet, Mr. Speaker, it was not possible for me to rise earlier. Immediately on your disposing of the point of order of my hon. Friend, you said, "The Minister of Education." So it was literally impossible for me to make sooner what would otherwise have been a quite valid point. I would most respectfully submit, therefore, that if the only objection to my Motion is that you had already called the Minister of Education, that you reconsider calling the Amendment of the Minister of Education now. My hon. Friend the Member for

    1425
    Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) is now here and it may be agreeable to all parties in the House and, I trust, to yourself if he be allowed now to move his new Clause first.
    Mr. Speaker: It would be very agreeable to me, but I am afraid I cannot allow it.
    Mr. R. R. Stokes: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I understood you to say, in answering a point of order, that you had called my right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) to hear his argument as to why further consideration of the Bill should be postponed. You did say that. If that was your reason for calling him, surely you cannot now say that you consider him to be out of order for something that was in order at the time?
    Mr. Speaker: I listened to the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) long enough to discover that his speech referred to past matters. That was the position. I am sorry that the House is in these difficulties, but it is no fault of mine.
    Mr. Stokes: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, my hon. Friend did not finish his speech. You called him, but he was prevented from going on because an hon. Gentleman opposite rose to a rather clever point of order. I submit to you that you really ought to reconsider the matter and allow my hon. Friend to state his case.
    Mr. Speaker: I could not allow that. I heard enough of what the hon. Member had to say in suggesting that further consideration be postponed.
    The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): I came in only in the middle of all this, but I understand that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) was prevented from being here to move his new Clause by other business of the House in another part of the building. We really ought to try to find a way out of this tangle if we can. Actually, the Minister of Education had not used any words to move her Amendment. Perhaps, then, Mr. Speaker, you would hold that that Amendment is not yet before the House. On the other hand, you may hold that it is technically
    1426
    impossible. I should be very glad, if it is possible and necessary, to move a Motion to enable us to debate the new Clause, if one can be devised.
    Mr. W. T. Proctor: I understood, Mr. Speaker, that when you called the Minister of Education she did not say anything. I was anticipating that she would make some explanation to the House about the withdrawal of her new Clause. Had she done so, we should not have got on to any other business.
    Mr. Speaker: That was not the reason in my mind at all. I am as anxious as hon. Members are to find a way out of the difficulty, but hon. Members will realise that I am bound as strictly by the rules of order as they. A possibility that occurs to me is that after we have finished with the Report stage of the Bill there might be a Motion to recommit the Bill on the new Clause of the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman). The whole thing could be done today if that is agreeable.
    Mr. Frank Bowles: Why not do it now? Surely, it is rather unusual, after the Report stage to go back to Committee. Why cannot the Leader of the House move that the Bill be recommitted to a Committee of the whole House to consider the new Clause?
    Mr. Speaker: There has to be recommittal if the new Clause is to be considered.
    Mr. Bowles: Now, surely,
    Mr. Ede: I hope that we shall be able to come to some arangement on the lines suggested by the Leader of the House. I am quite sure that no hon. Member of the House would desire that we should strangle ourselves with our own Standing Orders, which is quite an easy thing to do if we intend to commit suicide. I would have thought that it might be possible to forget that the right hon. Lady rose, and that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) might be allowed to move his Clause, because he was out of the House on the business of the House. Everybody, I think, was taken by surprise by the fact that a new Clause which we expected to take some time had, in fact, disappeared from the Order Paper.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. Speaker: We are in a great difficulty here. I understand that if we dispose of the Minister's Amendment which I have called her to move, and if a Motion is put down to recommit the Bill in respect of the new Clause of the hon. Member, that could be done. If that is done, I am agreeable to it.
    Mr. Crookshank: I am only trying to be helpful, Sir. I understand that if the two Amendments of my right hon. Friend are cleared off there will then be a Motion to recommit the Bill in respect of the new Clause of the hon. Gentleman and nothing else. That, I think, would get us out of the difficulty because a decision would be taken then in Committee instead of on Report. The Clause would be recommitted to a Committee of the whole House and, therefore, would be discussed in Committee and disposed of one way or another. It would not have to come up subsequently, and the Bill would be reported. If, Mr. Speaker, you are giving us that advice, I will at once draft the necessary Amendment.
    Mr. Speaker: That is the only way I can see out of this difficult situation. Miss Horsbrugh.

    Clause 1.—(EXTENSION OF DEFINITION OF "DISPLACED PUPILS" FOR PURPOSES OF S. 104 OF PRINCIPAL ACT.)
    Miss Horsbrugh: I beg to move, in page 1, line 16, to leave out from the first "school," to "include," in line 17.
    I want to begin by explaining the background to this Amendment. I do so in order to try to clear up certain misunderstandings and to tell the House how I think the views expressed during the Committee stage by hon. Members on both sides can be met.
    I start with two points on which there is no disagreement. The proposals of the Government in this matter were clearly stated in a memorandum circulated confidentially to the interested parties on 30th January, 1952. I also sent a copy to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede).
    Mr. Ede: And to Mr. Tomlinson.
    Miss Horsbrugh: Yes, to my predecessor. They were:
    "to amend the definition of ' displaced pupils' so as to include pupils who have attended, or would in the opinion of the Minister of
    1428
    Education have attended, an existing aided or special agreement school if that school had not ceased to be available for them in consequence of their having ceased to reside in the area served by the school, as a result of the movement, voluntarily or compulsorily, of population in any way consequent upon the action taken, or proposed to be taken, under the enactments relating to housing or town and country planning."
    That is the first point.
    These proposals, together with others, were discussed with the interested parties and it was made abundantly clear throughout that the amended definition of "displaced pupils" would not be retrospective and was so understood. I have had it very clearly from many of the bodies, and I quote a letter from the Chairman of the Catholic Education Council of 4th December:
    "We have now had an opportunity of giving careful consideration to the text of the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1952. In the first place I would like to tell you how much we welcome the main provisions of this Bill and how grateful we are to you for having gone so far to meet us."
    It then refers to Clause 1, and continues:
    "We appreciate that, when you received the delegation … on 12th February, 1952, you said that you found it impossible to make this Clause retrospective."
    The Chairman then goes on to say:
    "On examination, however, it has been found that there are a few cases where considerable hardship will be suffered if this Clause does not have retrospective effect."
    We who are interested in this problem all know that the Roman Catholics have been anxious the whole time to have retrospection. They have been anxious ever since the time they first asked that the definition of displaced pupils should be amended. In each case which has been brought up they have asked also for retrospection, and in each case retrospection has not been given for a very clear reason, that that would lead us into further Amendments of the Bill. In general, my proposals were welcomed.
    Mr. Blackburn: Will the right hon. Lady explain that a little more fully.
    Miss Horsbrugh: I will if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to go on. I think that during the Committee stage we were all guilty of interrupting each other too much, which makes it difficult to get anything clear, and I agree that I was one of the offenders.

    1429
    In general, my proposals were welcomed by the Roman Catholics, and, indeed, were described by them as generous. The other interested parties agreed and some expressed themselves ready not to oppose the proposals put before them.
    The memorandum setting out the Government's proposal for amending legislation was discussed with representatives of the Roman Catholic hierarchy on 12th February, 1952. Now we come to the misunderstanding. At this interview which was to consider proposals for legislation the question of retrospection was raised, and the following reply was given:
    "The new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grants on completed projects could be reassessed: grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
    I would emphasise that retrospection on completed projects was clearly ruled out. The phrase "building accounts" which appeared later was not used. The type of case which I had in mind and which the Bill as introduced enables me to meet, is first, a school which is in process of building when the Bill becomes an Act, and secondly, the school which has been completed but is not yet occupied.
    To give an example, supposing at the end of July this Bill becomes law, at that time there may be schools in the process of building. These are still proposed schools. It is a building that has not become a school. They are eligible if they have qualified for grant, and then they would have to prove they had displaced pupils. Then there is the school that is entirely and absolutely completed, as it may be at the end of July, but not yet occupied.
    We may have a case at that time of a school which is completely ready but the children, because of the holidays, would not be going in until September. We get a gap between the school being completely finished and the time when it becomes established and maintained, and at that time it would still be eligible for. grant if it qualified under the displaced pupils scheme.
    I would remind the House that under Section 104 of the Education Act, 1944, I have only power to make grants in
    1430
    relation to proposed schools. I will be absolutely frank with the House. We learned later that the Roman Catholics thought the words used referred to building accounts. As I have said, the words used referred to the grant. Although I have already stated that they agreed that retrospection was impossible, I would say with all sincerity to the House that I very much regret that this misunderstanding took place.
    Now I come to the crucial question of how I can meet the wishes expressed by hon. Members on both sides during the Committee stage when we were discussing this point. The Roman Catholics had said there were a few cases—I have already read out something on that point—of schools not being included which caused considerable hardship. The House will remember that during the Second Reading the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) stated that the issue was not quite as large as it seemed because probably only three or four schools were concerned. In Committee we discussed the possibility of five schools being included. I was pressed by my hon. Friends and by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to find some means of bringing the five schools in.
    I must tell the House that since the Committee stage the list which was given to us by the Roman Catholics has been added to and the number of schools has now gone up to 12. It went from five to six—I am not saying there is any bad faith in this; I believe the Roman Catholics had not surveyed the whole scene—next, there were eight, and then there were 12. I am now giving the House the whole of the facts.
    I told the Committee that I could not give any undertaking about five schools but that it should not be thought that all the schools would be ruled out. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields said in the Standing Committee:
    "I agree with the Minister that I do not want the difficulties of"—
    I think that what he really said was "the definition of"—
    "a proposed school widened except in so far as it may be necessary to bring in the five schools within the Minister's statement this morning. I do not think anybody in the Committee, as far as I have heard, has suggested

    1431
    that anything more can be done."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 29th January, 1953; c. 82.]
    Now at least I am glad to inform the House that four schools can be included in the definition of proposed schools. I wish I could have included five, but at any rate we are including four. These are from the list received from the Catholic Education Council.
    This is how I have been able to do it. In two cases the whole school is not yet established and being maintained by the local education authority. In two other cases—hon. Members will see how I really have tried to meet their points, because I do regret the misunderstanding —although the infants departments are established and being maintained, the infants being in, the junior schools are not, and so they are proposed schools and will be eligible for grant if they qualify under the definition of "displaced pupils" and if the Bill becomes law without delay.
    I hope the House will see that I have done my very best to meet the points put to me during the Committee stage and which the right hon. Member for South Shields put clearly in the sentences which I have quoted. I have gone through the grant—after all our difficulties I had better not say "accounts"—arrangements for each of the Roman Catholic schools which has been built and is in the building programme. I have checked the whole lot. Before I pass from this point, it is only right that I should tell the House that I have received letters from several of the bodies, with whom I had the original discussions, protesting against any change in the agreement entered into.
    To come to the actual Amendment, hon. Members will know that I described the addition of these words as unworkable, and I gave the reasons for that. Perhaps "unworkable" is not a very legal term, but I knew what it meant and I think hon. Members in the Committee did so too.
    Mr. Ede: It is a term of abuse.
    4.15 p.m.
    Miss Horsbrugh: It was not meant in that way. I gave my reasons then. I certainly did not want to use an abusive term. If hon. Members will read Clause 1 in conjunction with Section 104 of the
    1432
    principal Act, which it amends, they will see that it is unworkable, for the Section lays down clearly that the Minister is empowered to give grants only to proposed schools, and that provision still remains.
    Putting down the Amendment has given us a means of discussing the difficulty and me an opportunity of telling the House that at least four proposed schools can be included. Since using the word "unworkable," which the right hon. Gentleman says is abusive, I have consulted the Law Officers as to the effect of the words. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not think that anything which they said was abusive. I am advised by the Law Officers that the words which were inserted during the Committee stage, and which I now seek to delete, have no operative effect whatsoever.
    Mr. Hale: Then why take them out?
    Miss Horsbrugh: I thought that might be asked. I will explain why. I am told that with these words in the Bill I cannot make any grants which I could not make under the Bill as originally presented to the House. I suppose that, strictly, I need not have moved the Amendment, but I have done so because I did not think it would be fair to the House or entirely honest if I did not create an opportunity, by moving it, of telling the House what would be the result of leaving the words in. If I had not moved the Amendment a great many people might have been under the erroneous impression that the Bill does something which it does not do. As the words have no effect and are misleading, I hope the House will agree to their deletion.
    Mr. Blackburn: Before the right hon. Lady sits down, will she clear up the point which I put to her before? She said that the difficulty about retrospection was that considerable alteration would be required to the 1944 Act. What alteration would be necessary except to Section 104 which contains power to make grants to proposed schools?
    Miss Horsbrugh: I will try to make it clear again. There is difficulty when one has a compromise agreement. We set out with one intention only, and that was to amend the definition of "displaced pupils."
    Mr. Blackburn: I appreciate that.
    Miss Horsbrugh: Thus, we should be going much wider in amending the method of giving grants. I have referred to letters which I have received, and hon. Members will perhaps realise that to amend the 1944 Act in a way which we have not previously suggested and have not put to all the other interested bodies would be to go completely outside our agreement.
    I might perhaps read to the House a quotation from letters I have received. These letters came after Second Reading when it was suggested that it should be retrospective. I had a letter from the Association of Education Committees saying that this had not been agreed and they ventured to hope, therefore,
    "that the Minister will stick to the terms which were agreed when these consultations took place."
    Again I received from the Association of Education Committees the following:
    "The Executive Committee instructed me to urge in the strongest possible terms on the Minister that the words which have been added to the provisions of Clause 1 of the Bill should be deleted from the Clause. It is our view that unless these words are deleted Clause 1 of the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill is incompatible with the provisions of Section 104 of the Act of 1944. Any suggestion that Section 104 should itself be amended we would oppose most strongly. We must add that the Clause with these words included is not in accordance with the discussions which took place with this Association on the understanding arrived at when the Bill was first proposed. On both of these grounds, therefore, we would urge that the words included while the Bill was in Committee should be deleted at the Report stage."
    Mr. Blackburn: Am I correct in saying that it is Section 104 that would have to be amended?
    Miss Horsbrugh: What I know quite clearly is that Section 104 would have to be amended, and that Amendment would be outside those which we agreed that we would do nothing except—
    Mr. Blackburn: I am only trying to get the position clear. I am not coming down on one side or the other.
    Miss Horsbrugh: My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General will deal with that legal point a later stage in the debate, but I should like to say that what we agreed was that we should
    1434
    amend the definition of "displaced pupils." If we go beyond that it is not included in any agreement.
    Mr. David Logan: Am I to understand from the right hon. Lady that had the Government draftsman been able to form words so as to answer the point that she desires she would have been prepared to make the concession?
    Sir Sidney Marshall: She has made the concession.
    Mr. Logan: The Minister has suggested that she was in a difficulty to find words, and I should like to know if it is a fact that had someone in the Government found the necessary words she would be prepared to give the concession?
    Miss Horsbrugh: I think I can make it clear. It is an intricate subject. What I wanted and what I took the chance to do at the earliest possible moment after I became Minister of Education was to amend the definition of "displaced pupils." Those words we have got. The Parliamentary draftsman has supplied them and we are all agreed upon them. Now the hon. Gentleman asks whether the Parliamentary draftsman was not able to make another Amendment.
    Mr. Logan: The right hon. Lady is the first lady I have found who cannot change her mind.
    Miss Horsbrugh: I might reply that I am the first Minister of Education who has brought in this Amendment. Others might have done it perhaps before, but I am the first. I am trying to explain it to hon. Members. What is suggested is an entirely different Amendment outside everything we have discussed, and because of that I would suggest that hon. Members might consider it from the point of view of every party. If we can get the Amendment on displaced pupils we have something of great value. It is not all that some people want; it is rather more than some other people would like.
    Mr. Ede: I must say that the more the right hon. Lady tries to explain matters the more confused becomes the situation. Let us be quite clear as to what the point at issue was. On 12th February, 1952, the right hon. Lady met

    1435
    a deputation, and in the document which her own Department prepared and circulated after that deputation had been received these words were included:
    "The new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grant on completed projects could be reassessed: grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed…."
    The right hon. Lady was the person who introduced the word "accounts." She said that somehow or other there is a difference between accounts and building accounts, which is really too rich for words, because when a school is being built the word "account" refers only to the building account. What other accounts could the builders be thinking of?
    The words of Section 104, in dealing with this matter, say:
    "… expended in the construction of the school…."
    The account for money expended in the construction of the school is largely a building account. What else can it be? To say that when my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) introduced the word "building," we had gone right outside anything that the right hon. Lady had discussed is just nonsense. The circular to which I have referred and from which I have already quoted goes on:
    "… for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
    That was what the right hon. Lady said on 12th February.
    The Minister then saw everybody else connected with these negotiations. She did not mention to any of them the promise she had made to these people. That is where she got herself into difficulties. When she met my friends of the Free Churches and the local education committee; if they are concerned—I am coming back to that point later—she should have said, "When I saw the deputation from the Catholic hierarchy they did raise with me the question of retrospection, and I told them I could not meet that but I did say that grants claimed on schemes in progress or for which the accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
    That is where the right hon. Lady went wrong. As a matter of fact, she thought
    1436
    she would be able to do this by administration without telling anybody. What she told us in Committee was this:
    "I want to say quite frankly to hon. Members that not until this was looked into just before Second Reading was it found that the Amendment we were suggesting would not include schools defined as those whose accounts had not been closed."
    All the time that the Bill was in preparation and after the First Reading down to a few days before the Second Reading, the right hon. Lady thought that these words were in the Bill:
    "… schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed."
    Later, she said:
    "Would it help if I said that I agree that it is not my words that will be concerned? That is where I went wrong. I thought of the words that I would like and the terms in which I would like this administered. I confess that it was then that there was legal advice that that could not be so, and that the statute has to be administered according to the words. Where I was wrong was in thinking that we could administer the matter like that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 29th January, 1953; c. 61–68.]
    It is quite clear that the right hon. Lady meant the words to have this effect. She thought either that the Bill as drafted did it, or that, if they did not, after the Bill was passed, she could, by administration, carry out the promise she had given to the people she met on 12th February.
    4.30 p.m.
    Mr. S. Silvennan: Does she still think so?
    Mr. Ede: I am not quite sure. That was a wangle that is characteristic of the right hon. Lady's type of mind.
    Colonel L. E. Crosthwaite-Eyre: Most offensive!
    Mr. Ede: I have shown the way in which the right hon. Lady's mind worked all through the preparation of this Bill right down to the time when this Amendment was moved, and I am not going to withdraw anything that I have said. As the right hon. Lady said just now, she took a chance. She said so when she was reading the letters to us just now.
    Now we come to the question of the intervention of the A.E.C. If the right hon. Lady had inquired of her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    1437
    she would have found that on this point the education authorities are excluded from negotiations because of the protests that were made at the time of the passing of the 1944 Act by both the Church of England and the Roman Catholics, that they did not want in connection with these matters to have any dealings with local authorities. There are some local authorities who would not have a single denominational school if they could help it. In fact, the late Mr. George Tomlinson got into serious trouble because he sanctioned the building of a Roman Catholic school in Colwyn Bay and the local authority said that they only wanted council schools.
    This arrangement is one by which the money does not pass through the local education authorities but goes direct from the right hon. Lady to the denomination concerned. Therefore, so far as protests from local education authorities or their associations are concerned, everyone who has followed this matter from its beginning knows very well that local education authorities have no voice in the matter at all.
    I now come to the question of what is a proposed school. I know when a school starts to be proposed. My difficulty—and I think it is the difficulty of the right hon. Lady—is to know when it ceases to be proposed. I considered whether it might be helpful if, instead of the Amendment which we now have, we inserted an Amendment which would define what a proposed school was and when it ceased to be a proposed school. We are dealing with a very peculiar type of school and pupil here. When the right hon. Lady tries to dissociate "displaced pupils" from the word "school," it should be remembered that in England and Wales a pupil is somebody who goes to a school, and, therefore, one cannot get out of it by saying, "Well, now we are trying to alter something else; we are trying to introduce a fresh type of pupil." We are not. They are exactly the same children.
    Let us consider a proposal to establish a school which will come within the definition of Section 104 of the 1944 Act. This is a school in an area to which children have been brought by the operation either of the Housing Acts or of the Town and Country Planning Acts. Nobody is quite sure where they are all
    1438
    coming from. The school is built and it is opened. I hope that it will be opened well ahead of the time that all the children get there, because there is nothing more disheartening on a new housing estate than to have children wandering about for the first six or eight months without a school to which they can go.
    The grant is to be calculated in the end of the proportion of children who are displaced of the total number. The two other types of school that rank for grant are the transferred school and the substituted school. One just picks up a school from one place and moves it somewhere else and amalgamates two or three schools, and the new school becomes a substituted school. There, of course, everybody knows that the whole of the cost is to rank for grant.
    But in this case I defy anyone to calculate the amount of the grant due on the day when the school opens. The right hon. Lady cannot say that on the day when the school opens, when it is established and maintained, she will be able to assess the amount of grant. Even if, owing to her policy, the building of the school has been delayed so that it is filled on the first day, there will have to be a considerable amount of inquiry as to whether a certain pupil is, in fact, a displaced pupil or not.
    If the pupil's parents have moved out into the district voluntarily—not owing to the Housing Acts or the Town and Country Planning Acts—no grant will be payable in respect of that pupil, no matter how many miles he may have come. Therefore, it is not possible, on the day when the school becomes established and maintained, to say that in this case the school has reached such a stage as to enable the right hon. Lady to make the calculations that will enable the grant to be determined. That is a difficulty which she never faced during the Committee stage.
    I suggest that what the right hon. Lady has put in front of us today does not provide any real working arrangement for carrying out what she wanted to do, or what she thought she had done, or what she thought, if she had not done, she could do by administrative action. How that can be done under the Bill un-amended, I do not know.

    1439
    Let us see what happened in Committee. We debated this Amendment for a day and a half. I know that Governments take refuge in sending a Bill upstairs to a Committee, and that if there is a snap vote up there or if, owing to somebody being absent for a moment, the Government are defeated, they bring it downstairs and have the matter put right. What happened on this Amendment? Every hon. Member of this Committee was present, except my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Scotland (Mr. Logan)—who was away ill in bed with influenza. If the right hon. Lady thinks she would have got his vote had he been there, I would advise her to think again. It was the nearest approach to a free vote that I have ever seen in the history of the House of Commons.
    The first name to be called was that of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton), the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He voted against the right hon. Lady. He had spoken against her. When the sum total was added up, there voted against the right hon. Lady one Liberal, eight Conservatives and 17 Labour Members—26. There voted with her three of her Ministerial colleagues, who, including herself, made four, three Labour Members and 11 back bench Members on her own side, including her own Parliamentary Private Secretary, who could hardly desert her—26 to 18, after a discussion of a day and a half.
    The right hon. Lady objected to our form of words in practically every way she could. First, she said that we had put a date in, which made it retrospective. We struck out the date. Then she thought we had in one "not" too many. We struck that out. Then the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis)—who is, unfortunately, at Strasbourg and, therefore, cannot repeat here the speech he made in Committee, as I have no doubt he would—altered the word "had" to "have" or the other way round, I forget which.
    It had been agreed during this discussion that we were voting not so much on the words as on the meaning; as to whether a Minister, having given a promise—of course, I know it is leap year and that the right hon. Lady said at one stage that it was not a promise, it was
    1440
    a proposal. She was perfectly entitled to make proposals, although to a cardinal and a couple of bishops I should have thought that was a rash thing to do. She said that grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts have not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition. If that is a proposal, will she consult the Law Officers to find out if she is not liable for a breach of promise action?
    I do not want to quote further from what the right hon. Lady said in Committee, but it is clear that she thought, and the people she met at the time thought, these words were to be implemented, and I cannot see why they should not be. If this meant that there would be a great additional number of denominational school places provided, I could see that the right hon. Lady might have to think it over, but not one extra school place will be provided for the denominational schools if the spirit of the Amendment were inserted in the Bill and implemented by the right hon. Lady.
    Take what the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey) said in Committee:
    "It has been generally agreed that the Roman Catholic negotiators were under the impression that this would be part of the final agreement and that an attempt would be made to bring this in. I would like to know if, when it was found impossible, the Roman Catholic negotiators were told that it would not be possible, or did they proceed on the assumption that it was going to be done? "— [OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 27th January, 1953; c. 42.]
    The right hon. Lady knows that they proceeded on that assumption because the Archbishop of Shrewsbury wrote her a very eulogistic letter with regard to two schools in his diocese not very far from her constituency.
    4.45 p.m.
    I took a very active part—I do not think that is using any word that can be said to be out of place—in the promotion of the 1944 Act. The one thing I learned from those negotiations under the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was that if you make a promise, you must stick to it; and if you make a promise to one party to these negotiations, you must tell all the other parties as soon as possible after you have made it; for if you do not do that, you get involved in receiving the kind of letter which the right hon. Lady quoted this afternoon.

    1441
    Our education system in England and Wales has as its chief glory its diversification. I said during the passing of the 1944 Act, on the instructions of the right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we would not see the denominational schools administered out of existence. There is a pledge from both sides of the House—I believe from every party in the House—that the denominational schools are an integral part of our education system.
    As far as I am concerned, everything I want is met by the county school agreed syllabus, but I object, as a Nonconformist, to the Act of Uniformity. I must not attempt to impose uniformity on other people. Therefore, I have always been in favour of maintaining in the highest possible state of efficiency the denominational schools and of accepting them as equal partners in the general education service of the country.
    Anyone who heard or read what the right hon. Lady said on 12th February can have no doubt as to what was her intention at that moment. She has never withdrawn from it though she has tried today to suggest that the word "building" somehow alters all of it. Section 104 deals only with building and I do not accept as any concession what she tells us about the three schools—[An HON. MEMBER: "Four."]. I only managed to get details of three. Did the right hon. Lady give details of a fourth? There were the two schools in which the infants' department is finished and the juniors is not yet maintained and established. There was one other—
    Miss Horsbrugh: Two.
    Mr. Ede: Two others? I am bound to tell the right hon. Lady that this is something which was always in the Bill and is not affected by the Amendment. She is not doing anything at all through that. Obviously, if she was doing more than was in the Bill originally, she would have to amend the Bill, but she is not amending the Bill.
    I suggest that a school which is being built up with its human personnel as opposed to the mere bricks and mortar is still in a state of being a proposed school. There is nothing in the Education Act, nor in any Act, which says when a school ceases to be a proposed
    1442
    school. It is quite clear as to when it starts. In regard to schools which take displaced pupils, it is clear that until the human personnel is completely filled up no one can say on what percentage of the accounts the right hon. Lady will be able to pay grant. Therefore, these schools which are being built and filled parallel with the passing of the Bill—not after the passing of the Bill—to my mind, and I think to the mind of anyone who reads carefully what the right hon. Lady said to the deputation on 12th February, rank for some recognition by the right hon. Lady if she is to redeem the pledge.
    Eight hon. Members opposite voted against the right hon. Lady in Committee. It is not for me to say what they will do today, but not one of them can deceive himself with the view that anything the right hon. Lady has said today has given the slightest realisation to what they spoke for and what they voted for. Let me remind them, also, that every Conservative Member who spoke on this Amendment spoke against the right hon. Lady, although not all of them voted against her. If the Committee proceedings of this House are really to be at all worth while, what occurred on this particular Amendment ought to be accepted by the Government as a free expression of the views of the Committee, symptomatic of what the House itself would feel if it had the opportunity.
    I therefore regret that the right hon. Lady, instead of accepting the decision of the Committee and making such Amendments in the Clause as were necessary, has seen fit to adopt the line she has adopted this afternoon and has tried to persuade us that she has given us a concession when she strikes the Amendment out and says that there will be four schools, which, somehow or other, will manage to get through.
    That is no concession at all; it must be something which she does under the Clause as originally worded. I sincerely hope that the House will reject the Amendment moved by the right hon. Lady and leave the Bill as it left the Committee. I understood the right hon. Lady to interpret the Solicitor-General as saying that these words would be inoperative. In another place, if they are to deal with the question of a school bus which was withdrawn at a very late

    1443
    moment, they can still deal with the question of making these words into something which is workable.
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller)indicated dissent.
    Mr. Ede: I see the hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head. I put a far higher appraisal on his legal ability than to think that if he wanted to meet what was wanted by his hon. Friends in the Committee he could not do it.
    The Solicitor-General: I am not in the House of Lords.
    Mr. Ede: But the Lord Chancellorship will become vacant some day. At any rate, the hon. and learned Gentleman could provide his noble and learned Friends in another place with the necessary words to effect this purpose.
    This is really a quite simple issue. I think the right hon. Lady will agree that upstairs we discussed in a reasonably friendly, if somewhat diffuse, atmosphere the principle behind the Amendment, and the Committee voted overwhelmingly in favour. Those of us who voted in Committee in that way have the right to expect that the Government will implement what we wanted.
    Mr. Hubert Ashton: The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has been good enough to refer to me. I do not think any different facts are available here than there were on 29th January, when this whole subject was discussed in Committee upstairs. He has indeed deployed some rather different arguments. I want to make perfectly clear why I voted as I did and why, in fact, I feel that the Minister has met my wishes and, I believe most sincerely, the wishes of many hon. Members who sat on the opposite side of the Committee.
    Mention has also been made of the regrettable absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis). On Second Reading he used these words, and I am sure that he would not mind my quoting what he said:
    "Then we have heard a great deal about the vexed question of retrospection. I will not detain the House by repeating what right hon. Gentlemen have said, but I should like to be clear on the following point. Is the definition of a school which can qualify for the grant one whose account has not yet been closed? If that is
    1444
    the turning point it seems to me that in practice whatever the theoretical merits, the issue is not quite as large as it seems because there are probably only three or four schools concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th December, 1952; Vol. 509, c. 133.]
    During the whole of this discussion upstairs the figures moved from three to four and five. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has quoted from the words of the right hon. Member for South Shields he had in mind five schools which we were discussing. I repeat that I have the impression that if it had been possible earlier in the discussion for my right hon. Friend to have said quite definitely that four schools would come under this provision I believe the discussion would have been much shorter than it was.
    Mr. Mellish: Will the hon. Member—
    Mr. Ashton: I will give way in a moment.
    When the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" was put I used these words:
    "One of our problems today is that the various Christian denominations cannot get closer together. I do not want to apportion blame in any shape or form. We have these four or five schools; I do not know whether they are Jewish, Church of England, or Roman Catholic, and I do not want to know. If they are on the side of getting a little more help for Church schools I say good luck to them. It is against that background that I voted for this Amendment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 29th January, 1953; c. 95.]
    The whole time in the Committee we were concerned with two, three, four or five schools and the suggestion that this would go beyond that never arose. As the right hon. Member for South Shields said, I voted for the Amendment and, therefore, against my right hon. Friend. But there were others on the side of the right hon. Member who spoke very bitterly against any widening of this concession and it seemed to me, listening carefully as I did all the time, that we could not possibly go beyond five schools. I believe that in granting four, as has been said this afternoon, my right hon. Friend has met the views of hon. Members opposite at the time we discussed this on 29th January.
    Mr. Mellish: Is the hon. Member really saying to the House that he is not concerned with the principle of the thing and whether it is right or wrong? So

    1445
    long as it is only four schools he agrees, but if it happened to be eight schools he would disagree?
    Mr. Ashton: To go back to the fateful conversation of 12th February, if people were not there it would be very difficult indeed to know exactly what passed, and I am not in a position to say. I still maintain that no new features have emerged since the Committee stage; and, actually, during that Committee stage the points now made by the right hon. Gentleman did not embrace much more than four or five schools though today he was not specific on that point. We were concerned, in the Committee, with being quite generous to a small section of schools which fell between two stools.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I think the hon. Member is rather cutting across the point put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). By what process of reasoning does he arrive at the conclusion that it is wrong to do for eight schools what it would be right to do for four? It is as simple as that.
    Mr. Ashton: It is a matter of principle I agree and I will accept that. But hon. Members opposite are not saying, "We have looked at this again. We have further information and, therefore, we are prepared to widen the whole issue." Those arguments have not been adduced. I repeat, I am satisfied that on these five schools had it been possible for my right hon. Friend in the Committee to go so far as she has over the four schools today the position would have been acceptable. That is the impression I carried away from the Committee. It was against that whole background, and as one who is extremely interested in Church schools and has done a certain amount for them, that I thought it right and proper to vote as I did. I think my right hon. Friend has met the position fairly this afternoon.
    Dr. Horace King: Hon. Members who sat in the Committee will be deeply disappointed at the speech of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton). I hope it will not be followed by similar speeches from other hon. Members opposite.
    Those of us who followed this Bill through the Committee know how very narrow is the issue with which we are
    1446
    dealing. I think it the duty of those on both sides of the House who supported the majority decision on the Committee to do what they can, not only to persuade other hon. Members, but to persuade the Minister to withdraw her opposition to the Committee's Amendment. I hope we shall confine ourselves now to the exact issue of the Amendment and not become involved in any discussion about the broader question of denominational education. Anyone who would seek to bring in any issue which divides the various denominations in the country would be doing a real disservice to education.
    In 1944 we reached a certain compromise which pleased no one with strong convictions. All intelligent people stand by that compromise. What we are now discussing is merely the interpretation of the compromise reached in the 1944 Act and certain slight modifications which Clause 1 makes in the definition which gives practical application to what we decided in 1944. Everyone agrees that whatever we do, regarding Clause 1. with or without the Amendment, there will still be a burden left on the Catholic community. With or without the Amendment, Clause 1 merely gives to the Catholic community a little more financial aid. In the Committee we understood that the Minister had given certain assurances to the Catholic hierarchy, and nothing has happened since to change our minds. These assurances bring in a small group of schools which may have been structurally complete before the Bill receives the Royal Assent and becomes an Act.
    Nothing that the Minister has said, either in Committee or this afternoon, has shaken us in the view we took of what she told us in the Committee; that she hoped to bring in the schools for which the Catholics were pleading by some kind of generous interpretation of Clause 1; and she had led the Roman Catholics to believe that by so interpreting Clause 1 she would be able to give them aid for those schools. Again and again in Committee we came back to the Ministerial Minute of the interview between herself and the Catholic hierarchy which took place in February. That contains two important sentences. The first was:
    "The new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grants on complete projects could be reassessed."

    1447
    Most of us in the House agree with that. The principle of retrospection was rejected on Second Reading. An Amendment to make the provisions of Clause 1 retrospective was ruled out of order in the Committee on the ground that the Money Resolution did not permit of that kind of Amendment. So there is no argument or disagreement between hon. Members on this side of the House and the Minister on the general question of whether Clause 1 should be generally retrospective. If the Amendment which we carried in Committee had sought to make Clause 1 completely retrospective then I, and I am sure many of my hon. Friends, would have voted against it. The Ministerial Minute went on:
    "Grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
    This was the Minister's own positive suggestion to the Catholic hierarchy. It did not come from them, it came in the first place from the Minister. I say, quite seriously, that I am sorry for the Minister. She took that to mean one thing and it seems that the Catholics took it to mean another thing. She took it to mean that she would try to get out of Clause 1, by a liberal interpretation of it, as much as she could for the benefit of the Catholic community. At the time she probably thought she could get out far more than eventually she found that she could. It would seem she thought that there was no need to tell any of the other interested bodies anything about it. To the Roman Catholics—this is my interpretation of it, and I am not a Roman Catholic—the undertaking or the suggestion that she made at the conference meant a pledge that the schools for which accounts had not been closed would be included and that, if necessary, Clause 1 would be amended to achieve this.
    The majority of the Committee took the view that since such an undertaking was given it should be adhered to. I hope the House will support the Committee in that decision. The amount involved is comparatively small. It must be, to come within the terms of the Money Resolution. The number of schools must be known. It is hardly correct to say that we discussed it in Committee on the assumption that there were exactly five schools. We spoke of five or
    1448
    six schools, but the actual number has not even yet been given.
    It ought to be possible to name the schools involved. If there is any uneasiness that, having granted the concession for a number of schools, some new kind of interpretation will bring along a chain of other Catholic schools, it would seem to me that the Minister should adopt one of the many helpful suggestions made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), that if we cannot do it any other way we should put a Schedule in the Bill listing the schools about which we are concerned. No one likes legislating by Schedule, but where any ambiguity might lead to further trouble—and many of us regret that there has been any trouble about this at all— a Schedule of the Catholic schools involved could easily be drawn up, and there would be no doubt about it.
    I cannot understand the latest argument of the Minister that she had objections to our Amendment from representatives of bodies outside, on the ground that it violates the spirit of the 1944 Act, and that it is a concession to the Catholics; and then in the same speech she argues that the Amendment means nothing at all and cannot be carried. One of those two arguments surely cannot hold water.
    I know that the Catholics would like much more than anything which is given them by the 1944 Act or the Clause or the Amendment which we carried. I know that they will always be seeking to get more from the State in the way of financial support for their schools. I do not blame them for trying, but I think it is true to say that the bulk of the House holds the view that we stand firm by the compromise of 1944 and that all we are discussing today is a generous interpretation of the question of where we are drawing the line about Clause 1. I thought the Minister, having been defeated in Committee, would have left things as they were amended.
    If the objections to the Amendment which we have made are technical, legalistic or from a drafting point of view, then by all means let the Minister amend it in any way to secure what the Committee understood we were securing by our Amendment. By all means let us improve the Amendment. But we ask the Minister this afternoon to honour the pledge

    1449
    or the promise which was made to the Catholics, whether we like that pledge or not. If the undertaking which they felt they had obtained from the conversations with the Minister are not honoured by the House, then the Catholic community will feel that they have been deceived.
    It seems to me that there has been a misunderstanding in this matter somewhere. It is too late to hold an inquest, but obviously the Amendment which we carried in Committee is consonant with the Money Resolution which binds the whole of the Bill. Obviously it does what the Minister and the Roman Catholics wanted to be done and what the Minister thought could be done by administrative means within the Clause. I believe we could end the debate almost at once if the Minister said she accepted the majority decision of the Standing Committee and withdrew her opposition to the Amendment, or at least undertook to implement the spirit and the principle of what was decided upstairs.
    5.15 p.m.
    The Solicitor-General: The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. King) said he thought there had been a misunderstanding, and a misunderstanding which was to be regretted. I am sure the whole House will agree that if there has been a misunderstanding it is to be regretted. If I may say so, I much preferred the approach of the hon. Gentleman to what happened on 12th February to the approach of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who I thought spoiled an otherwise notable speech by suggesting that my right hon. Friend had been guilty of a wangle characteristic of her type of mind. Those were his words, and I think they were completely unjustified and unwarranted, and it is a pity that they were uttered.
    Mr. Ede: What I said was that what the right hon. Lady had brought forward this afternoon with regard to the four schools was a wangle, not what occurred on 12th February.
    The Solicitor-General: Whether it was in relation to what my right hon. Friend said today or in relation to 12th February —and I thought it was in relation to 12th February that the right hon. Gentleman made that observation—I still think it was a very deplorable observation. The
    1450
    right hon. Gentleman delivered to us a lecture on the Education Act, 1944, and I must admit that I did not feel very much the better for it. The right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) said we always feel better after lectures, and I am glad it has that effect on him, but I certainly do not desire in any way myself to indulge in a lecture upon this matter. It is a serious matter and I ask the House to consider it with as little heat and as little emotion as possible.
    We know what were the proposals embodied in Section 104 of the 1944 Act. It is common ground that the Minister under that Section has power to make a grant only in relation to a proposed school which is to accommodate displaced pupils within the meaning of the definition contained in that Section. This is common ground. The right hon. Member for South Shields has said—and I do not think he dissents from it today —that he is not in favour of making this Clause retrospective. That has been said many times.
    What is meant by saying that these proposals should not be retrospective? It must be—and I think we are on common ground here—that the wish on both sides of the House is that these proposals should not be applied to schools which are already established, because if they are already established they cannot be proposed schools. We are therefore faced with this: the right hon. Gentleman's view and my right hon. Friend's view, and the view of the majority of hon. Members, is that this Clause, whatever else it does, must not be retrospective—that is to say, it must not take into its scope established schools.
    Mr. Logan: The hon. and learned Member speaks about retrospection. He must be fully aware that it was out of consideration for the concessions which were promised that this matter was dropped. We came to no agreement, but the Committee and the Members of the body who were in the House were of the firm opinion that concessions were likely to be granted and that, therefore, instead of widening the issue we should drop the question of retrospection. I was opposed to that decision and am still opposed to it. I believe the word should have been inserted. We should not then have had the difficulty. The hierarchy

    1451
    were fully agreed not to have it in the Bill so as to avoid controversy and, by agreement, to get the Measure through; but the right hon. Lady has not made the concessions.
    The Solicitor-General: That was more in the nature of a speech than a question which I should answer, but I hope to be able to deal with the point during my speech. One thing at least is clear —that my right hon. Friend made it abundantly clear from the beginning that her proposals did not involve making this Clause retrospective in the sense of applying to established schools. I do not think the right hon. Member for South Shields would suggest that the contrary was ever said by her. That was the governing phrase of the memorandum to which he referred.
    Mr. Ede: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman give a definition of what he regards as an established school, because there is no definition in the law.
    The Solicitor-General: I will try to deal with all those points in due course.
    Mr. L. M. Lever: Nor is there any reference to established schools.
    The Solicitor-General: We cannot all speak at once. I am trying to present an argument to which I hope the hon. Member will pay some attention. This Clause is based on Section 104 of the 1944 Act which relates only to schools which are proposed to be established, whatever that may mean. It certainly does not mean a school which is already established, a school which is already functioning as a school. Therefore, I am glad to carry the House with me.
    Then, we come to the proposal as it came before the Committee. The Clause of the Bill as originally drafted merely expanded the definition of "displaced pupils" so as to enable my right hon. Friend to make grants in cases where, under the 1944 Act, she would not have had the power to do so. Anyone reading Clause 1 as it was originally introduced would see that that was the sole effect of that Clause, and the Clause was so drafted as to contain the words
    "the expression 'displaced pupils' shall, in relation to a proposed school, include pupils"—
    1452
    and so on. Those words "in relation to a proposed school" come straight from and refer back to Section 104 of the 1944 Act, and there is nothing in Section 104 which relates to any other type of school than a proposed school.
    I want to bring the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to this point. Whether the words of this Amendment are left out or remain in the Bill, in my view, and in the view of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, it would not be possible, if the Clause is left in its present form, for my right hon. Friend to make grants in respect of any school to which she could not make grants under the Clause as it was originally presented.
    Mr. Hale: The quotation from the Minister, in the statement to the Catholic hierarchy, opens with these words:
    "Grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
    That either means something or it does not, and precisely those words are the words we put in the Bill. Could we be told if the Minister meant what she said, and if these same words now in the Bill do not now mean what she then meant?
    The Solicitor-General: I wish the hon. Gentleman would allow me to make my own speech, instead of trying to induce me to make another speech, which he probably thinks he could do better. I am dealing with what this Clause, as it now stands, does or does not do.
    The inclusion of the words now in the Bill, which were inserted in the Standing Committee, adds nothing to the effect of the Bill, and the deletion of those words takes nothing away from the effect of the Bill; that is to say, they are completely inoperative. It would not have been necessary for my right hon. Friend to move this Amendment at all, and she said that. The right hon. Gentleman seemed at one part of his speech very much to doubt that, but I am sure the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) will agree with me that it was right that the Government should inform the House that, in fact, these words are inoperative, because many people, on reading this Bill alone and not in relation to the 1944 Act, might well have got a completely erroneous impression as a result.
    Mr. Mellish rose—
    The Solicitor-General: I should like to be able to finish my speech, because I have given way a good deal, and I shall probably give way again in future. I want to stress this point. As far as the operative effect of the Amendment is concerned, leaving these words in or taking them out will not affect the operation of the Bill. At the same time, I hope I can carry the hon. Member for Oldham, West with me in saying that we do take some pride in securing that we shall not send out Bills from this House containing words that are meaningless—
    Mr. Stokes: We do not always achieve that object.
    The Solicitor-General: It may be that we do not always achieve our object, but we do try to make our Bills convey their meaning clearly.
    On those grounds, I suggest to the House that it would be right and proper to delete these particular words which were inserted during the Committee stage. The right hon. Gentleman made great play with the five schools or the four schools, and the hon. Gentleman behind him said, "If four, why not eight?" Of course, one is faced with this proposition. If we are all agreed that retrospection must not take place, then we cannot enlarge the operation of this Clause so as, in fact, to achieve retrospective effect. As I understand it, from a reading of the right hon. Gentleman's observations in the Committee, and despite what he has said today, he did say then that there was very little between him and my right hon. Friend, and he confined his observations to the five schools.
    I understood that, during the Committee proceedings, there was doubt whether certain schools on the border line would come within the scope of this Bill or not, and five schools were mentioned. My right hon. Friend has gone into the matter, and she has said today —and I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman should regard it as in no way a concession—that she is satisfied that the four schools will come within the scope of this Bill as it stands and without the words which the Amendment put in.
    Mr. Stokes: Not the same schools.
    The Solicitor-General: These words are completely inoperative, but what was not known at the time of the Committee stage was whether these schools come in or not, and that position has been made quite clear.
    Mr. Ede: I am very much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman. What happened was that I put a Question to the right hon. Lady—a Question for non-oral answer, which appeared in the OFFICIAL REPORT—and in the answer the names of the schools were specifically mentioned. I asked the right hon. Lady how many there were, and she gave me the number and also the names.
    The Solicitor-General: My right hon. Friend has gone into the details, and it will be a matter for her, rather than for me. No doubt she will deal with it when she comes to wind up the debate, and the right hon. Gentleman himself will be able to put a question to her, if he so wishes.
    The point I am making, and I do stress it, is that this Amendment made in the Committee has absolutely nothing to do with achieving the object which, judging from his speech today, the right hon. Gentleman had in mind. It would need an Amendment of the definition of proposed schools so as to extend that definition to apply to an established school. It would mean giving to the words "proposed school" a retrospective effect which the right hon. Gentleman himself has said is not what he desires. The right hon. Gentleman really cannot have it both ways. If the right hon. Gentleman wants the Clause to be so amended to include schools in respect of which all the building accounts have not been paid, all I can tell him is that it will mean and must mean an alteration of the meaning of "proposed school" to make it apply to schools which are already established because building accounts may come in a long time after the school is functioning. That would mean that he would achieve retrospective effect which, I gather from him, is the last thing he desires.
    In conclusion, I would point out that my right hon. Friend, as her speech has shown, has given most careful consideration to all the views expressed during the Committee stage, particularly in relation to this small number of six which was

    1455
    mentioned at that time. She has said what, in her view, is the meaning that should be attached to the phrase "proposed school." In resisting the further extension, she is merely carrying out what she said originally and what was agreed, that this Amendment to Section 104 should not have retrospective effect. It is for those reasons that I invite the House, when it reaches its ultimate decision, to accept this Amendment and thereby improve the drafting of this Bill by taking out all unnecessary and inoperative words.

ROYAL ASSENT
5.31 p.m.
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went; and, having returned—
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:
1. Iron and Steel Act, 1953.

EDUCATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL
As amended (in the Standing Committee), again considered.
EDUCATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL

  Clause 1.—(EXTENSION OF DEFINITION OF "DISPLACED PUPILS" FOR PURPOSES OF S. 104 OF PRINCIPAL ACT.)
  Amendment proposed: In page 1, line 16, leave out from first "school," to "include," in line 17.—[Miss Horsbrugh.]
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  5.41 p.m.
  Mr. Logan: I do not want to go into past questions in dealing with the Bill because I am anxious for a settlement in conformity with the views of the Committee appointed to deal with the matter. If the word of the House of Commons is worth anything, some notice should be taken of decisions arrived at by the Committee which was appointed by the Government to consider the matter, particularly when the Government have power to ensure that the Committee is weighted with their own Members.
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  Pressure was brought upon me to go into the Whips Office of the Tory Party to change an Amendment that we had down, and to accept a Tory Amendment, in order to have their support on the Scurr Amendment. That night the Government were defeated by 33. We do not want anything of that kind again, but hon. Members on the Government side cannot get away from their responsibility. As we threw harsh words at the Labour Party for their handling of the education question at one time, we must throw hard remarks at Government supporters now if we do not get attention from them. This is not a game of shillyshally but an earnest business. There is a dual system in existence in England. Hon. Members may be anti-Catholic, anti-Church of England or anti-Jewish, but that does not matter. The dual system is the law of the land and we are entitled, as loyal citizens to receive the fullest attention.
  We do not come here to apologise. We come here with equal rights to demand things that are really ours. We know that the jury of the House of Commons will give attention to what is fair and honest, and I dare to appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the House to end this discussion. I have read that when the Tory Party got into office they were going to do everything possible to get us out of this difficulty. They stated their point of view. "Retrospective" they did not want, and "substantial" the Party Secretary was not able to interpret. Now we hear that the Minister who herself introduced the Bill, did not know what she was doing. It has remained for the Solicitor-General to come along and put the matter right.
  If we were outside, as playboys, and not in the British House of Commons, I could understand that these difficulties might arise. I have known the Solicitor-General for many years, and I know that it is not beyond his capacity to get the Minister out of her dilemma; but surely it is possible to redraft the wording that is in question. We are told that it concerns five schools, but the agitation was not over five schools but on the question of the millions of pounds that had to be found. We accepted what we thought was a reasonable concession, though it came along late in the day from all who are concerned in this matter in the House of Commons.

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  5.45 p.m.
  I know what religious intolerance means. One could not live in the City of Liverpool without knowing what it means. In the House of Commons during the last 20-odd years I have found much more tolerance. There ought to be a spirit of equality, because we are only demanding justice. We do not want any more than other people are getting. We want fair play. We claim the right as citizens to come to the House of Commons and get a square, honest deal.
  The Government are getting off very easily. We could not have a "Sunderland" miracle but we could upset this country if we wanted agitation. We depend upon a reasonable spirit in this House, and we hope that the "and" feeling will disappear. We ought not to be begging in the House of Commons in regard to legislation. Scotland has free education and that system would be good enough for us. We are not asking for that, but just for a small measure. I appeal to the Solicitor-General to say that the Minister made a mistake out of the goodness of her heart because she was anxious to solve a difficulty, but she put herself in a hole. Why do we have legal men? Surely when anyone is in a hole he or she goes to the legal authority and the lawyer gets them out of any hole.
  I ask the Solicitor-General for the sake of concord and amity and the promises made, and for the sake of hon. Members opposite who voted in the Committee upstairs in favour of the point which I am putting, to take this Clause back and have it redrafted in consonance with the views of the House and to let us have an agreed Measure that will bring gladness to the hearts of the people in this Coronation year.
  Mr. Ian Horobin: I was one of the hon. Members of the Committee that dealt with this Bill, and one of those who voted against the Minister. In a matter as important as this, I cannot feel that one has any right to change one's expressed opinion after long and careful debate unless one is satisfied that some new point or some new argument justifies it; otherwise our operations upstairs are a waste of time. I am not a Roman Catholic, but so far from that making it less important to me to treat
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  this matter with the care that it deserves, it makes it more important, because to some extent those of us who are keen on Anglican Church schools can look at this matter a little more impartially than can our Roman Catholic friends, who feel so passionately about it, as we have heard in the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Scotland (Mr. Logan).
  So far, I find myself in an extremely difficult position. I hope that this will not sound unfair or impertinent on my part, but I do not see how anyone can feel that this matter has been handled with all the skill and circumspection with which such delicate negotiations should have been handled. There surely must be something wrong if a very large number of loyal members of the Conservative Party, after long discussions upstairs, should feel that they are not quite satisfied that the Minister has done what— perhaps mistakenly but in obvious good faith—such a responsible body of men as the Roman Catholic hierarchy thought that she was going to do and thought they had been told that she was going to do.
  Perhaps it might restore the party balance if I told hon. Members opposite that none of this difficulty would have arisen if they had taken the opportunity to introduce a Measure of this kind whilst they were in power, because it all dates back to the Selborne Amendment in another place, which had an effect which nobody at the time thought that it would have. I go no further than to say that if this Measure had been introduced when the party opposite were in power none of these difficulties would have arisen; I have to say that because we must preserve a sense of proportion.
  It is necessary to be a little precise in the difficulty with which we are faced, and, oddly enough, some of the remarks of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) seemed to me to tell against the arguments which he was presenting to the House. The crucial point is whether the Minister—and nobody thinks it was in bad faith—misled the hierarchy. It is not disputed that she asserted to them that grant claims on schemes in progress or in respect of which accounts are still open should qualify, and similar words were used by an official of the Ministry regarding "schools for which accounts had not been formally closed."

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  As I understand the Minister's case today on this point, it is that, in Ministry parlance "accounts" have nothing to do with building accounts at all. The Ministry are not concerned with building accounts, which are paid by the managers and the trustees to the contractors. Therefore, when the Ministry talk about "accounts being closed" those words, in Ministry parlance, are convertible with "grant negotiations being settled."
  I would remind the House that that was not the case put to us upstairs. One of the difficulties in this matter is that we seem to get a different presentation every time somebody gets up to make it clearer. I submit that this case for this Clause was not the case that was put upstairs. That, of course, does not prevent it from being a valid case. I hope that whoever winds up the debate for the Government will be able to help those hon. Members who have not made up their minds whether they can honestly reverse their vote upstairs. The spokesman for the Government can help by informing us whether the Government can give evidence to justify the statement now made for the first time—which appears to outsiders to be odd—that the Ministry use the words "closing the account" as a matter of course to mean settling the final amount of grant to be paid.
  Some remarks made by the right hon. Member for South Shields, strangely enough, lent some support to that view, because he seemed to be arguing at considerable length that one would have to keep the settlement of grant open for a surprisingly long time because one would not know how many children were to come to the school and whether they would come in circumstances which would enable a grant to be paid in respect of them. He suggested that that state of affairs would exist for a long time before the amount of grant was settled. Therefore, a considerable part of what the right hon. Gentleman said seemed to lend some support to the Minister's contention that there is, as it were, a grant account which some day has to be closed, and that what the Minister was talking about all the time was a grant account and had nothing to do with the buildings.
  If we can be shown that that is a fair statement of the Ministry's practice, I feel
  1460
  that there is something new which has been said today which disposes of at least the point that the hierarchy were completely misled; because if that is a fair statement of the case, the Minister has done or is in process of doing all that she ever promised or suggested that she would do. We need not go into the formal point of whether it was a promise or a suggestion, because if that is the case the Bill as drafted is doing all that she suggested, and all schools whose accounts have not been closed, in the sense that they were grant accounts, will in fact benefit.
  I hope that it is not an unreasonable request that we be given some support for the view that this is normal Ministry practice and that, therefore, there has been a genuine misunderstanding.
  Dr. King: Would the hon. Member agree that it would be extremely important that the Catholic hierarchy, as well as the Ministry, should know what meaning they were giving to terms which they were talking about?
  Mr. Horobin: I entirely agree, and I said that I could not feel that these negotiations had been handled as satisfactorily as they should have been. At least we have discovered a new argument, put forward for the first time today, which might weigh with some of those Members who had not been convinced by the arguments which we heard upstairs.
  6.0 p.m.
  There is one further point which, I am afraid, appears to be rather unfortunate for a Member on this side of the House to have to make against his own Minister. I have the greatest regard for her, but I find it extremely difficult to know exactly upon what the Ministry found their case in objecting to the Amendment as it stands, because we have heard three entirely different objections to it. First, we heard that it is unworkable. If that is true, at this stage it is a sufficient ground for asking us not to accept the Amendment, but it has not been explained why it is unworkable, and the main argument which was advanced upstairs has been almost completely thrown over today.
  The second objection was that it is inoperative and will not have any effect one way or the other. Using that argument—and I think she should carry

  1461
  reasonable Members on both sides of the House with her—the Minister said that it would not be honest of her to say nothing and have the Bill passed with a completely inoperative form of words which would make her treatment of the hierarchy even worse than it was before. They would say, "First you leave us in confusion about the meaning of the word 'accounts'; then you accept an Amendment, passed over your head, and you tell us afterwards that it does not mean anything."
  Most people would agree that it would have been unfair of her to accept the Amendment if she were founding her case on the ground that it was inoperative. She has warned us that in her opinion it does not do what the hierarchy think it would, and she has relieved her conscience. If it is a fact that it is inoperative I cannot see why those of us who voted in favour of it upstairs should be put in an awkward position by voting the opposite way.
  The third ground of objection was put upstairs and also in conversations which we have all had with the Minister. We were told that so far from it being unworkable or inoperative it would be so retrospective that it would bring in all the schools that had been built by the Catholics since 1944. It has been said, "We are willing to try to squeeze in three or four schools if we can, but we are so afraid that both the education authorities and people who are not interested in schools will make this a casus belli that we must not pass it in its present form because it will be strongly objected to by people who hate all retrospection."
  I wish the retrospection had been complete. I think it is a pity that all these schools did not receive a grant from the time they were built, but that is not the view of everybody, and any reasonable Member would think it disastrous to get into a sectarian squabble on this issue. It has been strongly represented to some of us that the real objection to this Clause is that practically none of the schools has closed its building accounts and. therefore, if every school whose building accounts are not closed was to get the grant, practically all the schools built since 1944 would be eligible and there would be a violent objection from other interests.
  1462
  We have had all these quite different grounds of objection to the Clause as it now stands, and if I am so confused on the matter I can quite understand why the Catholic hierarchy might be a little confused about what happened at meetings when I was not present. I find it very difficult to know how I can justify to myself altering the decision I made upstairs. I want to do so; no reasonable party man wants to continue to oppose a Ministry; but I am not yet satisfied that ordinary people would have thought that references to "accounts" were to be converted to the sense of closing grant negotiations. This is the first time that that has been suggested.
  Secondly, I am very puzzled why the Minister so dislikes these words, in view of the fact that we have had three entirely different reasons advanced against them. I have not made up my mind about this matter. I hope I can support the Minister, but so far I feel that the case has not been sufficiently made out to allow me to reverse the decision which I took upstairs.
  Mr. Mellish: The whole House will probably agree that the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Horobin) has made a very fine speech. It takes some courage to stand up and tell one's own Minister that one is not satisfied with her explanation. The hon. Member said it in a very nice way, but what he meant was thai he thought the Minister of Education was incompetent—and it appears to me that she is, because the whole argument put forward by the hon. Member for Oldham, East shows quite clearly the complete confusion into which we have been thrown, both upstairs in Committee and on the Floor of the House today.
  I am glad that the Leader of the House was here while the hon. Member for Oldham, East was speaking on this matter. The trouble arose upstairs in connection with an Amendment which I moved. I moved it in a friendly and amicable way. I was desperately anxious that this Amendment should not give rise to any religious feelings and I wanted to avoid all political and religious controversy. I appealed to the Minister to accept the Amendment, but at the very last moment she put forward an argument which resulted in the whole Committee getting mixed up.

  1463
  First, she said that the wording of the Amendment was no good. I then begged her to find words which would be suitable, and offered to withdraw the Amendment if she would undertake to do so. Then she said that the words would involve retrospection. We had a discussion about that and it looks as if we shall have to go over that again. I have tried to convince her that the Catholic hierarchy never considered any question of retrospection.
  She now tells us, at this late stage, that it was not building accounts that she had in mind but other accounts. We have had no intimation of any kind that on the 12th February, 1952, when the Minister said:
  "… grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition,"
  the Catholic hierarchy understood that she was not referring to building accounts. This seems to be a last minute discovery by the Minister.
  She seems to be saying, "This is the way out; this is how I can get out of the difficulty, by trying to cloud the issue." My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was justified when he said that there had been some form of wangle about this, because this latest argument is a wangle, and it has confused us all. It is most unfair that it should be produced now.
  I want to deal with the question of retrospection, and what that word is understood to mean by those who are attached to the Catholic faith. I could argue the case for retrospection back to 1944, because this Bill is amending the Act of 1944, and what we describe as an anomaly in that Act. This Bill alters the definition—and we are grateful for the action which the Minister has taken in that respect—but we have never asked that all schools built since 1945 should qualify for the grant. That has never been suggested by the hierarchy. We should have liked it, but it has never been suggested.
  We are asking her to include those schools whose accounts were not closed at the time of the drafting of this Bill. She has put them in tremendous difficulties. All through the proceedings on this Bill they have been completely non-
  1464
  political, as they have had every right to be. The question of this definition of accounts and of the closing down of the accounts did not arise until after Second Reading, because they believed, quite rightly, that the Minister was going to keep her word.
  She put the Parliamentary Secretary up to make a speech. What a bright speech that was. He got us all completely confused, except on one point. The one thing he was quite clear about was that the assurances given on 12th February to the hierarchy were not going to be carried out. On that, they had no alternative but to write to the Minister and ask her whether she meant to keep what they regarded as the pledge of 12th February, 1952. In effect she told them, no, she could not do it. So they had no alternative but to contact hon. Members on both sides of the House, in equal numbers on both sides, to tell them what the position was. That was why, during the Committee stage, we introduced the Amendment.
  There has been no competence shown here. The least we can charge the Minister with is incompetence. After all, whose job is it to get the schools? Whose job is it to find out about the schools? It is the Minister's job to send her minions out to get the information for her. I think, and I think my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields will agree, that the Minister forgot what she said on that 12th February. I think she forgot what she had said and was bewildered when she got the correspondence afterwards reminding her of what she had said. Then she had to justify herself, and she made a hopeless mess of it. She made about five speeches on the subject, in every one giving different reasons.
  As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oldham, East has said, we were all so confused by the Minister that there was no alternative for us but to put down the Amendment. This made the position of those handling the case for the Catholic schools an extremely difficult one. They were accused of bad faith by certain people, whereas, of course, it is the Minister who has been responsible for the whole of this trouble. Had she handled the matter aright, on Second Reading, instead of putting up the Parliamentary Secretary, she would have

  1465
  said what it was she proposed to do, and what it was she could not agree to do, and she would have had negotiations, and the thing would have been settled. But she did not do that. She ran away from it. She got frightened, and she confused everybody, including herself. That is why we are in the position in which we are today.
  We are all desperately anxious to avoid religious recrimination. We do not want to drag in the background of yesterday. We want tolerance. We do not want to go into the question of how much the Catholics ought to have. That was settled in 1944. All parties agreed to that, and all paid tribute to the Catholics for what they did. They all pay tribute to the Catholics at Election time. I do not know why. I suppose it is because they think there is such a thing as the Catholic vote. One cannot blame the Catholic Church for seeking this assistance because it has incurred tremendous liabilities, and even this small concession would mean a tremendous difference, and lighten the burden which the Catholics are bearing. Every diocese today has had to impose a penalty on every Catholic for the building of new schools. Every diocese today is asking Catholics to make a contribution, and a bigger contribution, for the school funds.
  6.15 p.m.
  We are told that if we were ever to attempt to come to this House to interfere with the 1944 Act we should arouse religious feeling and upset everybody. If justice requires to be done to the Catholics or to any denomination they have a right to come to the House and ask for that justice to be done, no matter what feelings that may arouse. It is a shocking thing to be told, "You may be right, but you must not do or say anything or you will cause trouble and arouse feelings." If there is justice to be done it should be done, whether it is for the Catholics, the coalminers or anyone else.
  Now we are told that the Amendment would be unworkable and inoperable It was the Minister's duty, knowing it was unworkable and inoperable, to put down an Amendment that would be workable and operable. She did not do it. She had no intention of doing it. She rides off on the fact that four schools will qualify for grant. She brings up the Solicitor-General to help get her out of the trouble, but he
  1466
  made no practical contribution, because he fell back on the argument of retrospection, which is quite irrelevant because it does not arise.
  The Minister failed to carry out the spirit of what she said she would do. She gave an assurance to the hierarchy and failed to negotiate with the other bodies, and having failed to negotiate with the other bodies she lacked the courage, on the Committee stage, to say that what she had proposed was right and that she would do it. She was afraid of arousing antagonism.
  It is not retrospection back to 1945 for which we are asking. We are not asking that every school which did not get grant shall get it now. The feelings aroused on Second Reading were aroused because it was thought it was that for which we were asking, and it was about that that the Parliamentary Secretary made so much play. All we are asking for is that those schools whose accounts, at the time of the passing of this Bill, have not been closed, although they may be established and maintained by local authorities, shall qualify for this grant. I do not think that the Free Churches or anyone else will say that that is unfair.
  The Minister is incompetent. She has failed to redeem a legitimate pledge. She stands condemned. The Committee upstairs spent two full mornings discussing this matter. The Minister has said nothing to alter the facts. I ask the House to confirm what the Committee said, and to make sure that the Minister now shall make the necessary Amendment, or arrange for it to be made in another place.
  Mr. Philip Bell: Whenever education is debated in this House, all over the House pop up a lot of Catholics like so many Oliver Twists, elderly Olivers sometimes, and sometimes rather excited Olivers, who feel very anxious for tolerance except when it comes to saying something about the Minister, and they all want more. It is difficult to blame them. The reason for this Amendment in the Committee was that they wanted to get a little more. They thought they would get a little more grant for a few more schools.
  Indeed, the whole point of this Bill is to get more money. If this Bill is not passed a great number of schools will not

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  get the benefit which they were meant to get under the 1944 Act. That is where the trouble starts. It did not start in the Committee upstairs. It started because in 1944 this House dealt with the question of displaced pupils in an ordinary, sensible way. Indeed, it was an Amendment brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that set the standard of how to test who was a displaced pupil.
  He was so glib and critical of its draftsmanship when the Bill came back from the House of Lords. He did not then say that he did not understand why they had altered it. He sent it on with his blessing. Now if the right hon. Lady makes a mistake he is very critical. But a bigger mistake was made by the right hon. Gentleman in 1944, and if it had been discovered then we should not have had all this sound and fury now.
  Mr. Hale: The hon. and learned Gentleman opened his speech by suggesting that the Catholics were always asking for money. There were 45 Members on the Committee and only one Member on each side who belonged to the Roman Catholic faith. Does he not think that it was a little unfair to say that?
  Mr. Bell: I said that there were some who were asking for money, and they were expressing the Catholic point of view.
  There has been a lot of talk about retrospection. I am in favour of retrospection. I do not understand all this business about retrospection because in this case it does not touch the 1944 Act as it was meant to be. Of course it touches it as it has turned out to be. That was because no one discovered the effect of that Amendment in the Lords. This retrospection has to go back to the re-settlement of 1944.
  The then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, after careful consultation with the bodies concerned, put forward an Amendment in 1944. Was that not agreed by all denominational representatives? Did they not all accept that displaced pupils should be on that basis? If they accepted it in 1944, is it suggested now that they are going to repudiate their words?
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  Is it said now that, "It is true that in 1944 we agreed to that, but by a mistake you did not get what was intended with regard to displaced pupils, and we will never let you get back to 1944. We will keep to our legal rights as they existed in the 1944 Act and we will not allow you what you should have got in the 1944 Act"?
  Then there is the other objection about the administrative possibilities. It is said that it is impossible to go in for retrospection because of our difficulty. I do not understand that. It is said that there are difficulties about it. At St. Osmond's School in Bolton, which was finished in 1951, I am told by the headmaster that of 263 pupils 218 of them qualified under the old Bill as displaced pupils. They did not all come from one place but they all came from one area. It is said that there cannot be retrospection in that case. I do not know why it cannot be done. It could, indeed, have been done in 1951 or possibly in 1950.
  When we consider these things we should not talk as if the whole world is quite as simple as we imagine. It was in 1922 that this House passed, without dissent, a Motion which was proposed by the late Mr. T. P. O'Connor and seconded by the late Mr. Sydney Webb, as he then was. This House then resolved that the present system of imposing on the Catholics in England the burden of building their own schools was contrary to religious and economic freedom. It is, however, one thing to pass a Resolution and another to include it in a Bill. It took some time to satisfy people that some capital grants should be made to church schools.
  After 1922, the income position was more or less just and fair, but with regard to the capital position the country would not stand for it. Look at the other side of the picture—the black side of the penny. A memorandum issued by the Trade Union Congress in 1936 said:
  "They should be incorporated in the State system except in so far as denominations themselves may be able and willing to bear the whole cost of their separate institutions."
  In 1946, for the first time, in a limited sense, a capital payment was allowed. In view of that record, the Minister, in 1944, in considering the 1944 Act, had to tread very carefully. People were still demanding that no capital grant should be made

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  to the church schools. The extensions made in the Act were small, they were qualified, and they were not easy to understand. That was the position with which the Minister had to deal.
  A lot has been said today about what the Minister might do and a good deal less has been said about what the Opposition might have done. What we are discussing is a particular Amendment and the particular wording of that Amendment in the Bill which is before the House. It must be difficult for hon. Members, even when they are not making their own private jokes, to know what this is all about without a copy of the 1944 Act. No one seems to have looked at Section 104, although many hon. Members have been talking about it. When we consider the words to be inserted in the new Bill we must refer back to Section 104.
  It is very important to look at that Section. The Section, as the Solicitor-General said, contains the words dealing with the power to make grants:
  "… if the Minister is satisfied that although the proposed school will not be in substitution for one or more discontinued schools, yet the establishment thereof is wholly or partially due to the need of providing education for a substantial number of displaced pupils, he may by order certify as expenses …"
  The only words there are "proposed school." There is no Amendment before the House having anything to do with the "proposed school." I wish there were. I wish we were re-defining the "proposed school" to bring in all the church schools which have been built since 1944. It is no good wishing these things; they are not before the House.
  6.30 p.m.
  The words which have been inserted make complete nonsense. I am not blaming anybody for that. Hon. Members tried to do the best they could in the Committee to get more grants for more schools. The Bill says:
  "… the expression 'displaced pupils' shall, in relation to a proposed school or a school other than a school for which the accounts for building have been closed …"
  The words "accounts for building have been closed" do not appear in Section 104, and so we are referring to something which does not exist to be referred to.
  I am a Roman Catholic. I dissociate myself entirely from personal attacks. If we cannot make our case without sneers
  1470
  and jibes and lack of the charity which we are so ready to preach, let us not make a case. I do not think the situation was handled quite as well as it might have been handled or as well as the 1944 situation might have been handled, but that is not for us to criticise now. What we have to do now is to pass an intelligent Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Old-ham, East (Mr. Horobin) raised several difficulties. Although I respect his opinion and admire his observations, the points which he raised are simply answered. He referred to the use of "unworkable" and alternative words which meant the same thing. Inserting such words will have no legislative effect. He also referred to the matter of the extra schools, and seemed to think that some benefit to four schools would be lost if the words proposed were struck out. I do not believe that that comes into the argument. The sole point is that the words which have been referred to mean nonsense. I am sorry. I want what my hon. Friends want—I want retrospection—but we do not get it by putting in nonsense.
  Mr. Mellish: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman say what he thinks of a Minister who has allowed these words to remain in the Bill although she knew the intentions of the Committee, and did not herself put down words to make certain that the Clause meant what the Committee wanted it to mean?
  Mr. Bell: It would be improper for me to express an opinion, at large and not to the issue, and that would reflect little credit upon us. Let us deal with this matter as men and not as children. Let us deal with it as legislators. If we are asked to leave these words in the Bill we should try to satisfy ourselves that they mean something. If they mean nothing, do not let hon. Members disgrace their profession by saying, like spoilt children, that because they have not got what they want they will vote for nonsense.
  Although I am in favour of retrospection and would have every school given a grant, I will not misuse language or my judgment by voting for words to remain in a Clause when they mean nonsense. I shall certainly not acquiesce in nonsensical words remaining in a Bill.
  Mr. L. M. Lever: I am afraid that the discussion this afternoon has increased the confusion about this all-important matter. The issue at this stage is clear. It is whether a Minister who makes a promise should be held to that promise. It is not a matter of Catholics, Protestants. Jews or any particular denomination or section of the community. It is not a question of retrospection or non-retrospection. It is a matter of the Minister adhering tenaciously to the promise which she has made and by which she has bound the Government. If a Minister makes a promise to a responsible authority about a certain matter coming within her Department, it is something to which she should be held.
  Many of those who have taken part in the discussion have had very little experience of what is involved and have shown that they know very little about it. It seems to me, however, that the issue is clear. The Minister gave a certain assurance to the hierarchy in February, 1952. If the words which it is now sought to delete were allowed to remain in the Clause, it would not be merely Roman Catholics who would be the sole beneficiaries in regard to displaced pupils; the provision would apply also to Protestants and to any other denomination having displaced pupils at a school whose account had not been closed. There seems to have been some confusion about the effect of its application; the application would be to all denominations.
  The fact is that the promise was made to the Catholic hierarchy. It was made to them presumably in good faith, and received by them in good faith, but the fact that the Minister did not refer the question back to the other parties with whom she was in negotiation is not the fault of the hierarchy. The fact that she did not complete the round of discussions can in no way be put at their door.
  The pledge was given to the hierarchy at a meeting with the Minister in February, 1952, and it was repeated in a letter dated 19th June, 1952, when an official from the Ministry of Education who was present at that meeting wrote to the Secretary of the Catholic Education Council in these terms:
  "I think what Mr. Leadbetter intended to suggest was that there is clearly a distinction between the Minister's assurance that the pro-
  1472
  posed new legislation would apply to schools for which the accounts had not been formally closed, and any suggestion that the accounts of a school for displaced pupils should be kept indefinitely in suspense solely in order to qualify for the benefits of the new legislation."
  The matter of "accounts being closed" is a technical term well known to the Ministry of Education. It is nothing which would allow of any confusion in anyone's mind. Here we have a definite pledge given in those terms.
  There is no suggestion of retrospection. I should have liked to see the Bill give full retrospection in order to put the denominational schools in the position they would have enjoyed if the Lords Amendments in 1944 had not been accepted. There seems to have been greater readiness in those days to receive Lords Amendments than there is today. There is confusion in the minds of hon. Members about what retrospection means. It means putting the financial position of the denominational schools in regard to displaced pupils in the position they would have been in if the provision had been included in the 1944 Act which came into operation on 1st April, 1945.
  When the question of retrospection came up before the Committee it was ruled out of order. We were told that retrospection was outside the terms of the Money Resolution, but that the question of displaced pupils at schools, the accounts of which had not been closed, and which were in line with the assurance given by the Minister to the hierarchy, were within the terms of the Money Resolution. The gap was narrowed to include those schools whose accounts had not been closed although I should have liked to see full retrospection given in this regard.
  Therefore, it is not a question of retrospection but the question of including those schools that were built between the 1st April, 1945—and not all of them— and the coming into operation of this Measure, but whose accounts had not been closed. I feel that the Minister is doing less than justice to herself in not accepting what she must have known, and what the hierarchy felt that the Minister must have known to be within the terms of the proposals. After all, when we are elected to this House we cannot be so ignorant or lacking in knowledge that we do not know what our words mean. When we come to this House, and particularly when we assume Ministerial

  1473
  responsibility, we should know what our words mean.
  I believe the Minister knew what the words meant when she gave that assurance to the hierarchy. I do not think the situation is one which calls for abuse. I think it is one in which an appeal should be made. I want to appeal to the Minister to adhere to the words she spoke to the hierarchy in February, 1952, and which were referred to in the letter from Mr. Leadbetter to the Secretary of the Catholic Education Council. All we are asking her to do is to keep in the Bill the words passed in Committee, not to give retrospection, much as we should like it, but to make the new definition of "displaced pupils "applicable to those schools whose accounts had not been closed.
  I feel that the words sought to be deleted are obviously operative words, because if they were not the Minister would not have sought to delete them. I think that the hon. Member for Chelms-ford (Mr. Ashton) is trying to ride two horses at the same time. He says, in the first place, that he is prepared to accept four or five schools whose accounts have not been closed, while at the same time once this provision is deleted he could not even get that. The only way in which we can deal with the firm assurance given by the Minister is by leaving in those words which were approved by all parties in Committee upstairs.
  I feel that we should be doing a very great disservice, not only to the Roman Catholic denominational schools but to all denominational schools if we deleted these words, because all the denominational schools which have displaced pupils would suffer in consequence. I appeal to the Minister to withdraw her Amendment which she has moved today. She happens to be one of the Members representing the city of Manchester in this House. We from Manchester know what we mean and mean what we say. I think we can be said to be very "jannock." I am sure that the Minister was "jannock" when she gave the assurance in 1952, and we want her to be "jannock'" today.
  6.45 p.m.
  I do not wish to accuse the right hon. Lady of bad faith, but I feel that she is greatly confused about the situation, which to a large extent she herself has
  1474
  produced. I hope that none of us will approach this matter in a spirit of bad blood. What we want her to say is, "Very well, if that is what I was understood to say I shall be a woman of honour and a Minister of honour. I shall do nothing in any way to let down my side and I shall withdraw the Amendment which I have put down and allow the Clause to remain as it was when it was approved by all parties in Committee." I hope it is not too late even at this hour to appeal to the right hon. Lady. I am sure she wants to do her best to keep her assurances. This is a question which has been fraught with a certain amount of controversy throughout the whole of our educational history—in my view needlessly if the approach had been to give justice to the non-provided schools.
  It is not too late for her to reply favourably to this appeal, by the right hon. Lady saying to herself, "I have heard what was in the mind of hon. Members opposite I have heard what the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Horobin) has said. I know what the hierarchy took my words to be. I am prepared to be a woman and a Minister who will stake her bond, and thereby enable the Government to allow the Clause to go forward in the way in which it was approved in Committee."
  Mr. Angus Maude: It seems to me that this is one of the least happy debates to which I have listened in this House, and I hesitated for some time before intervening in it, because I have the uncomfortable feeling that the more we discuss this question in the way in which we have been discussing it, the more damage we may well do to the cause of religious education in this country, which nearly all of us have very warmly at heart. There seem to me to be two or three strands woven together in this discussion. There is obviously the religious strand, obviously the political one, and there is at the same time the very detailed and technical question of what would be the result of leaving this Clause, as amended, in Committee, as it is, or of accepting the Amendment which reverses the Amendment moved in Committee.
  The hon. Member for Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever) was clearly in some confusion on the last point, because it makes no difference whatever whether

  1475
  my right hon. Friend is keeping her word, whether she is carrying out her alleged undertaking to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, or whether the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) insists on dividing the House on the present Amendment; for, as my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General said, the words as they are are inoperative. They add nothing and their removal will take nothing away. As I remember it, this point was clearly recognised in Committee, as I think those who were in Committee with me will agree.
  Mr. Hale: Certainly not.
  Mr. Maude: The hon. Member disagrees, but I do not think he could have been attending very closely to our debates at the time. As I understood it—and I was there throughout every minute of our discussion and I spoke—the Amendment was put forward by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) in order to get on record some form of words which would leave the question open and enable a drafting discussion later to take place which would secure a form of words which would be operative. That implication is very clear, I think, if we read the words of the right hon. Member for South Shields when he was speaking on the Motion "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." There really is no question whether we believe that the Clause as amended in Committee does what it is sought to do. It does not. We can surely start from that and then see whether or not anything else could have been done.
  It has been said, I think by the hon. Member for Bermondsey—I am sorry he is not here, because I thought that his was one of the least happy contributions to the debate on this rather delicate subject that I could imagine—that it is not the duty of anybody else, of any private Member or of the leaders of the Opposition, to produce a form of words which will do this thing. He said that it is the duty of the Government, of the Minister, her advisers and the Law Officers to produce the form of words which will cover it. That is only partly true.
  I would have said that that raises very much the same sort of difficulty, with which we are all familiar, in the case of
  1476
  the grievance of the retailers over reductions in Purchase Tax and the Report of the Hutton Committee. The Government have said in that case, "We know of no way by which we can do what it is sought to do. If anybody produces a suggestion, we will consider it and discuss it, and if it is technically possible we will bring it into law."
  Mr. Hale: Are the Government saying that now? It can be done in another place.
  Mr. S. Silverman: That is not what they are saying now.
  Mr. Maude: So far, I do not understand that it is the view of the Government or of anyone else that a form of words has been suggested and produced which will cover this limited point without going back to full retrospection, which we are clearly agreed is impossible. When it was sought in Committee upstairs to move an Amendment which would introduce full retrospection, it was quite clearly ruled by the Chair that that was out of order as not being within the terms of the Money Resolution. I cannot for the life of me see how we can be in order in discussing the merits or otherwise of full retrospection on this limited Amendment on the Report stage. So we leave that out.
  The point is: Can we find some form of words which will cover a number of schools, which at first it was thought might be two or three, then three or four, then five or six, and now perhaps 12 or 15, without altering the definition of a proposed school, not only thus altering the meaning of Section 104 of the 1944 Act but also, as I understand it, making consequential and associated changes in other Sections of the 1944 Act? The answer which I have gathered to that is, no, we cannot. I have not yet heard any hon. Member on either side of the House suggest that that can be done.
  Mr. N. H. Lever: Would the hon. Member help those of us who are not so familiar with the details of this Bill as he is? Where does he get the impression that he has just indicated to the House, that it is impossible to provide a form of words which would bring about the object desired by the Committee, on the merits which we have been discussing this afternoon?
  Mr. Maude: So far nobody has suggested any form of words which are possible in the context which we are discussing, and certainly I understand from my right hon. Friends in the Government that this is not possible.
  Mr. Hale: Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me interrupting—
  Mr. Maude: No, with respect.
  Mr. Hale: Very well, if the hon. Gentleman refuses.
  Mr. Maude: I am not refusing; I will give way to the hon. Gentleman later, but I must be allowed to develop this argument because it is a somewhat complicated matter. No doubt, the hon. Gentleman will get a chance to speak again later.
  It is clear to me, and I would have thought to most hon. Members, that it is quite out of the question to go beyond the original arrangements, beyond the original purpose of this Bill, and to amend the definition of a proposed school in Section 104 of the 1944 Act.
  My right hon. Friend was accused by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Horobin) of having confused the minds of the Committee—not quite of having misled the Committee, but very nearly so. Hon. Members opposite and those who represent, as they are rightly entitled to, the interests of the Roman Catholic Church, should consider this factor: I would have thought that the difficulty in which my right hon. Friend now finds herself is due in very large measure to the lengths to which she has gone throughout this business in order to try to find a method by which this concession could be made.
  As I say, I was present through the sittings of the Committee and I have heard nearly all the debate today. I feel that if, at the outset, when this proposition was made that these extra schools should be taken in, my right hon. Friend had said "No, I will not do it. I do not want to do it. I would regard that as something which fell outside the understanding that I have with all the religious bodies," and had then advised her hon. Friends on this side of the House to vote against the proposition in Committee, I am perfectly certain that the Amendment would have been defeated and, in fact, nobody on this side of the
  1478
  House would have supported the Amendment.
  What she has consistently said throughout is that she was anxious, if possible, to find a method by which this could be done, and she has tried to keep this matter open for as long as possible. I give full credit to her good faith in this matter. I think that she has tried very hard to do it. No solution, so far as I understand it, has been found. Therefore, let us come to the quite limited point at which we now find ourselves. Are we going to leave in this Bill as amended in Committee a form of words which means nothing and which can add nothing to the original Bill, or are we going to leave it out?
  Mr. N. H. Lever: Irrespective of the merits of the proposition which we discussed in Committee?
  Mr. Maude: If I understand the purport of the sedentary remarks of the hon. Gentleman, they are not really relevant. Of course, a form of words which means nothing, means nothing irrespective of the merits of any proposition at all. If words mean nothing, the merits of the proposition which they may have originally purported to implement are quite irrelevant.
  Mr. N. H. Lever rose—
  Mr. Maude: I think I can save the hon. Gentleman an interjection. I think that what he is really trying to say—and I was coming on to this point, because it is really the key point of this matter as I see it—is that supposing we vote in favour of my right hon. Friend's Amendment and we strike these meaningless words out of the Bill, ought we then to try something further to get it done? It is perfectly clear that a majority—I would go so far as to say quite a large majority —of the Members of Standing Committee "C" who discussed this matter were of the opinion that something should be done, though I would add—and this to me is not unimportant—that it is not irrelevant how many schools are involved in it. The suggestion that while it may be right to do a thing for five schools, it is wrong to do it for 15, is not quite such an unreasonable proposition as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. Stokes: That is the housemaid's argument.
  Mr. Maude: No doubt the right hon. Gentleman is extremely familiar with the arguments of housemaids, but I cannot follow him. It is a relevant argument. Quite apart from the fact that there is obviously an important financial consideration involved, there are two others. The further we go, the more schools we bring within it, of course the further we go towards the limit of complete retrospection which we have from the beginning ruled out.
  The last point I want to make, which I want earnestly and sincerely to impress upon the House, brings me back to the sentences with which I opened my speech. I have always thought that we are now coming to a point where we may look forward with some confidence to an increasing toleration throughout the country among all sections, religious or non-religious, for the principle of religious education.
  When we look back over the history of this matter, starting from 1870 and coming, as it were, to the boil in 1902, the 1944 settlement was not a bad one. It was almost certainly the best that the voluntary schools could have hoped to achieve at that time. Now the situation has eased a little. Hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House, belonging to all churches or to none, can take some credit for having helped to bring about that state of affairs. There is a greater atmosphere of toleration, but I do not think that the events connected with Clause 1 of this Bill have helped to give us any hope that this atmosphere will continue.
  Mr. Hale: Why not?
  Mr. Maude: Because there has always been a feeling among those who are, let us say, opposed to the claims of the Roman Catholics or of the Church of England, that if they made a concession they could never be certain that it was the limit of what would be claimed in the immediate dispute at issue. In my view it is foolish to ignore the psychological atmosphere in a dispute of that kind, to ignore the feeling which arises in the minds of Nonconformists and of various other people who may be members of no church at all.
  When I spoke in Committee on the Motion "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," I ventured to say that while I thought it was fantastic to argue that, if
  1480
  we gave way on five schools the whole basis of the agreement between the religious bodies would be destroyed, it was equally fantastic to argue that if we could not find a method of getting these few schools within the ambit of the Bill, it was worthless. Do, for goodness' sake, let us try to realise what a great gain this Bill, if it goes through even without this concession, will be to the voluntary schools. It will make an enormous difference now and in the future. It will be a great gain.
  Listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields, I thought the political element was dominant in his mind. If, for largely political reasons, we try to force an issue and bring about a division among us here, everybody who has the interests of the voluntary schools and of religious education at heart may live bitterly to regret this day.
  Mr. Morley: I rise to support the Amendment moved by the Minister this afternoon. Clause 1 of this Bill, as originally drafted, was in almost complete agreement with the suggestions put forward by the late George Tomlinson for the improvement of Section 104 of the principal Act which dealt with displaced children. If Clause 1 had remained as it was originally drafted, there would have been no controversy over the Clause. Everybody would have agreed to it and it would have been adopted without any Division being taken, because Clause 1 as originally drafted contained the suggestions made in the first place by the late George Tomlinson and those suggestions were agreed to by all the interested parties—by the Roman Catholics, by the Church of England and by the Free Churches, by the local education authorities and by the teachers.
  In his speech during the Second Reading debate on this Bill the Parliamentary Secretary said on more than one occasion that the concessions given in Clause 1 could not and would not apply to schools that had been established and maintained; they could only apply to proposed schools. He said that at least six times, with a considerable degree of emphasis. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Parliamentary Secretary is popular on this side of the House, but at least we can say that we do not believe the hon. Gentleman would indulge in

  1481
  deliberate misstatements. So that when he said that Clause 1 of this Bill would not apply to schools which had been established and maintained, he means every word he said.
  During the discussions on the Committee stage the Minister emphasised time and time again that the proposals for the increase in financial aid to certain classes of denominational schools were not to be considered as retrospective. The right hon. Lady emphasised the word "retrospective" on more than one occasion and also said that she had told all the interested parties whom she had interviewed on the matter most emphatically that she could not agree to anything retrospective in the Bill. She also said that the interested parties had agreed to that point of view.
  During the Committee stage an Amendment was adopted by the Committee, partly owing to the eloquence and sincerity of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), and partly owing to the fact that no less than eight of the Conservative Members of that Committee deserted their Minister. That was neither chivalrous to a lady nor loyalty to the Minister who was leading them on that occasion.
  The Amendment extended the concessions to denominational schools to schools whose accounts had not been closed. If the wording of that sentence "schools whose accounts have not been closed" could have been framed in words which would have made it operative, that would have been distinctly retrospective. It would have been retrospective to 1944 because there are many schools whose accounts are not closed until some years after they have become established and maintained. I have it on very good authority that there are some schools built before the war of 1939–45 whose accounts are not yet closed. So the purpose of the words "whose accounts are not yet closed" was definitely to make Clause 1 very highly retrospective.
  There has been some dispute as to how many schools would be included if the words, "accounts are not yet closed" were added to the Clause. During the Committee stage the number of five was suggested. This afternoon we have heard the Minister say that it may be 12. I
  1482
  was speaking to someone who holds a very high, responsible, post in the administrative world of education who gave it as his opinion that it might be as many as 50. For the moment, I am not concerned whether it might be five, 12, or 50, but that we should make no further concession to the denominational schools unless those concessions were agreed to by all the parties concerned— that is to say unless those concessions were agreed to by the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Free Churches and, if possible, the local authorities.
  This proposal to apply the Clause to schools whose accounts are not yet closed was only put before the Roman Catholic Church. It was put before the Roman Catholic Church, I am afraid, by the Minister herself. In fact, in that instance, she was promising more than she could perform. I think she had some idea that she could do it by administrative methods without actually putting the wording in the Bill. On taking further advice, she found that she could not do it by administration but only by substantial amendment of Section 104 of the original Act, which probably would have reawakened the whole of the religious controversy we had in 1944.
  This proposal regarding schools whose accounts are not yet closed was not put to the Church of England. It was not put to the Free Churches and was not put to the local authorities. I cannot agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that we should take no account of the opinion of the local authorities in this matter. After all, the local authorities are largely responsible for the administration of this Measure and. through their rates, have to find a not inconsiderable proportion of the cost of running these schools.
  I should have thought all general moves forward in the way of making further concessions to the denominational schools would be more likely to be successful and happy in their operation if they had the approval of the local authorities as well as the approval of the church authorities. But all-round approval has not been gained for this suggestion that the concession should include schools whose accounts arc not yet closed.

  1483
  7.15 p.m.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey said, they did not agree to it because they had not been asked about it. He rather thought that if the Free Churches and the Church of England had this additional concession put before them they probably would have agreed to it. I do not think that is correct. Correspondence I have received rather strengthens my opinion that they would not have agreed to it because they told the Minister, very firmly, that they would not agree to any concession which would have an element of retrospection in it. Yesterday I received a letter from the Church Society. The President of the Church Society is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power and the Treasurer is Lord Caldecote, a name not unknown on the other side of the House. The letter states:
  "When the interests of a number of denominational groups have to be consulted, it is only possible for satisfactory progress to be made on the basis of agreement after consultation with all the groups concerned. Clause 1, as originally drafted, was the result of such consultation by the Minister. One outcome of this all-round consultation was a pledge from the Minister that there would be no retrospection where this Clause was concerned.
  The Amendment to Clause 1 is the result mainly of the persistent pressure of one particular group, and this unremitting pressure flies in the face of the agreement previously reached with them and the other religious groups. If, after and despite consultation, sectional interests are to be permitted to prevail, then agreed Measures are doomed to suffer sabotage….
  It is unsound both in principle and practice to accord special favour to one pressure group where an agreed Measure is involved….
  The 1944 Education Act has rightly been regarded as a notable achievement, and it will be deplorable if that settlement is now shaken, and a serious setback to the cause of education in our land if religious controversy is given an occasion for making a reappearance in this field. It may be fairly said that Anglicans and Free Churchmen consider the provisions of the 1944 Act to be satisfactory and indeed generous."
  Mr. Mellish: For the sake of the record, and the argument I was trying to make earlier, that is the view of one body. Evidently they would have opposed the proposals made by the Minister. Does not my hon. Friend agree however that it was the duty of the Minister when she made the proposals to
  1484
  the hierarchy to inform the others? Is it not unfair to say that this came from sectional interests when the suggestion came from the Minister herself?
  Mr. Morley: I think there is a great deal of truth in what my hon. Friend has said. I agree that the Minister ought to have made the suggestion about schools whose accounts are not yet closed to the other bodies. I believe that if she had made such a suggestion the other bodies would not have agreed to that suggestion and that is what I am arguing. If the House will permit me, I have one further quotation from "Education" which is the organ of the Association of Educational Authorities. In their leading article of 26th February they say:
  "We venture to hope that when the Bill is presented again to the House of Commons the original drafting will be restored so that the undertakings which the Minister made in the discussions which preceded the presentation of the Bill are fulfilled."
  That is the authentic voice of the local authorities. That is the reason why I support the Amendment, because I do not think we ought to make this further advance, involving a considerable degree of retrospection, without getting a very large amount of common agreement between all the interests concerned.
  It appears to me that hon. Members on both sides of the House have been playing politics in this matter. We have been trying to out-bid each other for the Catholic vote, and I do not think such manoeuvres are likely to succeed. The leaders of the Catholic Church are very able men. They have the age-long secular wisdom of the Catholic Church behind them. They take a long view of any subject with which they have to deal. They always think "sub specie aeterna-tatis." I do not think for one moment that the leaders of the Catholic Church are likely to put the Catholic vote up for auction. They will endeavour to act as best they can in the long-term interests of the Catholic Church, which would not be beneficially affected by political manoeuvres from either side of this House designed to secure the Catholic vote.
  We have been told today by the Solicitor-General, and by the Minister, that even if the original Amendment dealing with schools where accounts had not been closed were inserted in Clause 1, it would

  1485
  make no difference because it would be inoperable. If that is so, what are we fighting about? Why does my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields wish to press this matter to a Division? Is it merely because he wishes to have a cut at the Minister of Education? I think, on the whole, that is a worthy object, but I imagine we shall find much better opportunities of doing that than by dividing this afternoon.
  We have had a long debate on this matter, both in the Committee and in the House, and honours are comparatively even. My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey presented his case in Committee with eloquence and moderation. He was ably assisted by the rapid and torrential eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and by the massive support of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever), who professes and practices a much older faith than that of the Catholic Church. But throughout these discussions, doubtless for the highest possible moral reasons, he has shown enthusiasm amounting to ebullience for the cause of the Catholic Church sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey. I think that now we might call it a day. I do not think there is any need to press this to a Division, but we might let the Minister have her Amendment.
  Mr. Ian Harvey: I scarcely think it is the intention of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that honours should be even. As he has referred to the part I played in the Committee perhaps I may be allowed to say a word regarding my present position in this matter. First I would say that this is a very good Bill. It confers many advantages upon our educational system, and for that the Minister must take considerable credit. I am sorry to see she is leaving the Chamber because this is the first compliment she has been paid this afternoon.
  I was particularly sorry, therefore, that in the Committee stage I had to oppose her. I did so because of her answer to the question to which the right hon. Member for South Shields referred. I said then that I should like to know if, when it was found impossible, the Catholic negotiators were told it was not possible, or whether they proceeded on
  1486
  the assumption that it was to be done. The right hon. Lady did not frankly give me an answer to that question. From what she has said subsequently I am satisfied that the negotiators were told the facts. But the debate this afternoon and the discussions in Committee have made it perfectly clear that a lot of people thought very differently about what were the facts.
  Now we are confronted by the situation which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Maude) has so very clearly defined; the very serious danger of a prolonged and provocative struggle which would not be in the interests of religious education. The right hon. Member for South Shields referred to my question and I would like to refer to a statement he made in Committee. He said:
  "The right hon. Lady tells us that only five schools are involved. We do not ask for any Amendment going beyond those five schools." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 28th January, 1953; c. 69.]
  It would seem to me that in the arguments which he deployed this afternoon the right hon. Gentleman has gone a very long way beyond that point—
  Mr. Ede indicated dissent.
  Mr. Harvey: Oh yes—and for the political reason which the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchin (Mr. Morley) has already outlined.
  Mr. Ede: No.
  Mr. Harvey: Yes, indeed.
  The only point I wish to make to the Minister is that if, by some subsequent Amendment in another place, it were possible to include the whole range of the schools involved that would obviously be a desirable thing to do. It has been made clear that it would involve a bitter struggle about retrospection. If my right hon. Friend has involved herself in difficulties she has done so because she carried out separate negotiations and encouraged both sides to believe that too much would be forthcoming. Today both sides are brought together in the Bill. There would be equal dissatisfaction from other quarters if the principle of retrospection was in fact accepted—
  Mr. Stokes indicated dissent.
  Mr. Harvey: The right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) shakes his head vehemently. But we are trying to solve this matter impartially. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is inspired more by religious motives and perhaps by the political motives which animate some of his hon. Friends—
  Mr. Stokes: I shook my head because that is not the issue at all. The simple issue is whether the Minister has carried out a promise or not.
  Mr. Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman is himself very simple if he thinks that that is the issue—
  Mr. Stokes: Well, it is.
  Mr. Harvey: If it were as simple as that, does the right hon. Gentleman honestly think that so many hon. Members on both sides of the House would have been so seriously engaged for so long on this matter? If he thinks that, then he underestimates the intelligence of some of his hon. Friends.
  I am satisfied from the speech of my right hon. Friend, and from what has been said by the Solicitor-General, that this Amendment is meaningless in the practical issue with which we are confronted, and it is pointless—
  Mr. Mellish: On the question of the Amendment being meaningless, would the hon. Member explain why the principle is wrong on the Floor of the House of Commons if it is right upstairs in Committee?
  Mr. Harvey: I made it clear that I voted upstairs in Committee in order that it could be made clear that the Roman Catholic hierarchy did not fully understand what was intended.
  7.30 p.m.
  It is now quite clear that the misunderstanding has been admitted which the Minister did not admit in her speech upstairs. She has fully and frankly admitted that position now. What we are concerned with is not a post-mortem on what the Minister and other people believed but with the present position, and how we can find a solution which will be acceptable not only to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who were not the only party to the negotiations, but to all other parties to this agreement. It would be
  1488
  disastrous if this good Bill were completely wrecked on that point.
  Mr. Stokes: Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises the situation. He says the Roman Catholic hierarchy are not the only party, and I agree with him, but they were the only people to whom a promise was made.
  Mr. Harvey: The Minister has quite clearly and very generously admitted that there was a misunderstanding in the interpretation.
  Mr. S. Silverman: I was not a member of the Committee and have no personal or political interest in the matter, but as I understand it, the hon. Member thought upstairs that a small, limited injustice could be remedied, and he has now decided that the Amendment carried upstairs either goes too far or does not remedy it at all. Suppossing we could devise a list including the schools which ought to get the benefit of this Amendment, and supposing the Amendment were limited to them, by putting the names in a Schedule and making the provision not apply to any others, would he be in favour of that?
  Mr. Harvey: We have already discussed that upstairs. It is quite clear from what the Minister said that if certain schools are included, beyond the four which have been mentioned, we should involve ourselves in the principle of retrospection. I have already said that if it were possible to make such an Amendment in another place without involving the question of retrospection, then I should be very glad to see it done, but from everything said in the debate it is quite clear that that would be extremely difficult.
  Mr. Silverman: Why should it be difficult for people who have engaged in the controversy all the time to put on a sheet of paper a list of the schools to which the benefits are to apply? What on earth is difficult about that? If the benefit is limited to them, why does that open any general question of retrospection?
  Mr. Harvey: Because conditions which apply to the other schools beyond the four mentioned would, by the very nature of those conditions, involve both precedent and retrospection. I think that the

  1489
  Parliamentary Secretary will confirm that. I am quite satisfied that under the circumstances the Minister has fully admitted the misunderstanding which occurred in the negotiations. I have never agreed that a final undertaking was given because I think the Minister cannot give a final undertaking until this House has been consulted. Now this House is being consulted, and I am prepared to abide by the decision which is reached.
  Mr. Hale: We have had one of the most remarkable debates to which I have ever listened. It has been complicated a little by the appearance from time to time of people who have not troubled to familiarise themselves with the facts at all but who have felt urged to make an observation or two. There was the remarkable intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell), who apparently had not read the Committee Reports and had not read the correspondence, who had no knowledge of the facts but who spoke for a very considerable time. I hope it is not a breach of order to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) and I were discussing throughout his speech on which side he was going to come down, and it was not until his concluding three words that we found that he was supporting the Minister.
  We also had a surprising speech by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton) who said nothing had changed except his mind.
  Mr. Ashton: I do not think my mind has changed at all. I still maintain that there were differences of opinion in Committee on certain schools. As far as I am aware, no further facts have been adduced to make me alter my mind. I agree that the arguments from the other side of the House have changed.
  Mr. Hale: I am obliged. The only thing which the hon. Member has changed is his vote, and he justifies it by saying that the Minister has indicated that there are some schools which have been in the Bill before, which will still be in the Bill and which always were in the Bill, but which have not been specified or indicated in any way; and he thinks, on the whole, that it is rather a good thing that there are some schools in the Bill which always were there. The
  1490
  hon. Member is more associated with drives through the covers than with glides to leg.
  Mr. Ashton: I stand on the record of what I said in Committee and on the Floor of the House.
  Mr. Hale: The most famous, perhaps, of all Lord Justices, Lord Mansfield, was once called upon to advise an aspirant for a colonial judgeship, and he gave a piece of advice which is of very great value indeed to anyone holding judicial office: never give your reasons for anything; give your verdict but never explain it.
  Sir Geoffrey Hutchinson rose—
  Mr. Hale: I nearly always give way, but I hardly think an anecdote is of sufficient importance to warrant my giving way now. If the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to say that it was not Lord Mansfield, I should still say it was.
  Sir G. Hutchinson: Is the hon. Gentleman quite sure that he has got the anecdote right?
  Mr. Hale: As I have not yet completed it, perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will have an opportunity to see whether I have it right. The colonial judge exercised this method for some 10 years to everyone's satisfaction, and then he got conceited, and the time came when he gave his reasons. There was an appeal, he was dismissed and his career was ended. He had finally learned his lesson. That has a parallel in these circumstances.
  It seems to me a bit thick that the Solicitor-General should get up and say that these words are meaningless. I know of no decision of any appellate court in this country which has ever said that words are meaningless. It has been said on occasion that they are mere superfluxes, that they do not give greater effect or qualify what has been there before. But is it to be said that the Lord Chief Justice of England and a couple of Appeal Court judges, deciding on this Clause, would say that the words,
  "at schools in respect of which the accounts have not been closed"
  have no meaning? Would they say, "We do not know which accounts"? Or would they exercise their duty and say, "It is clear that the accounts referred to were the building accounts and that is the meaning of the Clause"?

  1491
  The Solicitor-General took a leaf out of the book of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education—not, I think, a noteable book from which to take a leaf—when he kept telling us that he would give the reasons later if we did not interrupt him, and then sat down without giving any reasons at all. That is precisely what has happened throughout the debate. We have been trying since December to find out what this Clause was intended to mean. We had an incredible series of observations by the Parliamentary Secretary during the Second Reading debate when, from time to time, he tried to explain the Clause. We had a whole series more from the Minister of Education upstairs. We have had something quite different today.
  I do not want to introduce polemics into this matter, and we have never tried to do so, but I should like, if I may, to remind the House of what has happened in this connection. This issue, as far as I was concerned, was first raised in the 1950 debate. Until then, I do not think it had been raised. Until then, the interpretation of this Section had not been made in such a way as to call the attention of the denominational schools' associations to the fact that the words that were introduced by the House of Lords in 1944 were bound to have a very severe effect on the schools where population was being gathered from various centres.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Itchen (Mr. Morley) rather disarms me by referring to my own observations in Committee upstairs, and has thereby saved himself from some of the denunciation that would otherwise inevitably have fallen upon his head. We have had an extraordinary series of observations from time to time about the tremendous pressure exercised and about the buying or selling of votes. My hon. Friend said that the Catholic vote was not for sale, but that all were trying to buy it.
  I should like to tell the House what happened in Oldham. I had a printed questionnaire dealing with this matter, and I wrote back to the people who sent it saying that I did not know anything about it, that I did not understand what it was all about, but that, when I got back to the House of Commons, I would look it up, see if there was anything in
  1492
  it and then see what could be done. That was the end of that, and that was my only experience in the whole course of the Election. It was represented to me that I should have a chat with Canon Fitzgerald, who is the most distinguished Catholic in Oldham, and one of the town's great and famous men, whom everyone respects and loves. So I rang him up and said, "Would you like me to come to see you?" He said, "No, you are having an Election, and you and I are busy men." So that was the end of that.
  We came to this House, and the House will remember that there was a majority of four or five and, in those circumstances, it was impossible to have all-party committees. I got in touch with the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), who has behaved most honourably throughout, and we agreed that we would try to keep this matter out of the sphere of polemics and try to agree on a reasonable suggestion, and that is what we are trying to do—to rectify a gross injustice—because the plain fact is that these words were inserted in the House of Lords by an Amendment by Lord Selborne who said that they were merely a drafting Amendment, which merely clarified without altering the Clause. It is all very well for hon. Members to talk about Catholics going round with the begging bowl and asking for subscriptions, but Lord Selborne pinched the money off them when he proposed that Amendment in those terms, which was clearly a matter which had to be put right, and clearly a matter on which we should be absolutely justified in asking that it should be put right.
  I am really sorry about this matter, because I thought that this was one of those things to be settled happily, and which it is my hope may still be settled happily. I just do not know why we have had four hours of argument about a matter on which the Minister could have graciously given way at any stage of the proceedings, and could have pleased the Tories in doing it, although they have had some case for jubilation today without that.
  The Minister of Education made the most extraordinary statement—the most extraordinary of all the extraordinary ones she has made. First, she said that these words were meaningless, and that

  1493
  it did not make the slightest difference whether they stayed in the Bill or came out. That, one would have thought, might have ended the matter, but then the right hon. Lady told us, "We have got to have them out, because they will lead to confusion." I do not know whether it was only Lobby gossip and rumour, but she said, "If they do not come out, we might lose the Bill," so that they could not be so meaningless. It is a very extraordinary position to take up.
  I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Ilford, North (Sir G. Hutchinson) will not interrupt again if I quote another anecdote concerning Judge Parry and the honest witness in the case of the Manila Bills. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman wish to intervene?
  Sir G. Hutchinson: I am only refraining from intervening, as the hon. Gentleman invited me to do.
  Mr. Hale: But the hon. and learned Gentleman cannot refrain from intervening by intervening.
  7.45 p.m.
  Judge Parry was concerned in a huge commercial case over Manila Bills. I do not know what Manila Bills are, but it was a very important case, and in it there was one witness who knew all about them and who was the only one who did, and he was a very honest witness. So they put him in the witness box and asked him to give the facts, and he gave the facts, and he went on giving the facts, and every time he gave them honestly, but differently. A junior barrister in the case pointed out that the honest witness had given 47 different explanations, not one of which bore any material resemblance to any other, and they had to decide what to do about it.
  It was, of course, a very difficult situation, because it really is not the job of counsel in a case to indicate which piece of evidence is most likely to be believed by a jury. The very broad-minded judge said, "Let him tell the lot." So he went on and he gave the 47 explanations, and the result of it was that a verdict was given for the side for which he appeared. We really have had about 47 explanations of this matter from the Parliamentary Secretary, not one of which agrees with any other, and, I firmly believe, not one
  1494
  of which has anything to do with the Clause. He was very good to give way on this matter, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) put to him an exceedingly important point arising precisely on the issues which we are now discussing.
  My right hon. Friend said:
  "Will he say whether this Clause also covers the case—which is very common in many constituencies—of a family who moved in 1947, for example, where the older children have attended the old school and a child is born in 1949 in the new housing estate area and goes to school in 1954? Would the hon. Gentleman refer to that? It is of some importance."
  And this was the answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary:
  "I cannot give authoritative rulings on rather complicated and hypothetical questions. On the face of it, I should say that a child born in Pimlico cannot, so long as it continues to reside in Pimlico, be called a displaced child—at least not without the risk of a quarrel with its mother."
  There seems to be some sort of reference there to the necessity for passports for Pimlico.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) then said:
  "Before he leaves Clause 1, as he probably knows, there are about eight Catholic schools which have been built since 1944 and which it is believed, under this Bill in its present form, will not get any grant. We want to know whether it is the intention of the Government to include schools that have been built since 1944 in those covered by this Bill. Can we have a straight 'yes' or 'no'?"
  I should have thought that was a fair question to put, because it puts the whole thing quite succinctly and fairly.
  The Parliamentary Secretary said:
  "The hon. Member cannot have a straight 'yes' or 'no' because I cannot remember the exact form of the question. I have explained as simply as I can what is meant by ' retrospection.' … I am not a lawyer, but, as I understand it, there is no retrospection in this Clause."
  I think that, on an earlier occasion, the hon. Gentleman said that there was an element of retrospection, but it was rather difficult to say just what it was.
  Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) then intervened, and said:
  "The hon. Gentleman said there was."
  The Parliamentary Secretary replied:
  "The benefit of the Clause is, however, claimable in respect of schools which, although

  1495
  already projected or carried to a further stage, are not yet established and maintained."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th December, 1952; Vol. 509, c. 110–111.]
  That was the only clear thing which the hon. Gentleman said in the whole course of the debate, and it really is the case for this Amendment, so far as we are concerned, because it does exactly what we seek to put in.
  I should like to say, because it is material to what happened in 1950, that the Minister of Education was a little ungenerous in something which she said today. That Parliament was very difficult, and, unfortunately, after some months of helpful, hopeful and useful negotiations, the then right hon. Member for Farnworth, the late Mr. George Tomlinson, developed the illness which deprived this House of a very highly-respected Member. The result was that there was a hold-up for a quite limited period. But, notwithstanding that, matters proceeded and a statement was submitted to the hierarchy from the Ministry of Education while my right hon. Friend was ill in bed.
  I had the honour, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey to meet the hierarchy on this matter because the letter itself was even more involved and cumbersome and less clear than the Bill. The whole question was whether the word "or" meant "and," and after some investigation we came to the conclusion that it did not. If it did not, then the thing was quite meaningless. It was at that stage that we turned to the then Leader of the House because the Minister was ill and the Parliamentary Secretary was away, and I had no right to communicate with civil servants.
  I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) had this subject in mind because he was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education at the time it was discussed. The scheme now proposed is what my right hon. Friend proposed in 1944. It is perfectly clear that when my right hon. Friend, I think in August, 1951, had an interview with representatives of the hierarchy, nothing was said about making it retrospective. No one disputes that. It was not discussed, and no one has ever sought to go back on it.
  1496
  We have this rather curious tendency to be rude about bishops just as we are always rude about lords. There is something in the British character which makes us like that. But no one could have been more helpful than the Bishop of Brentwood, who was one of the most outstanding men of his day, and a man of absolute integrity. Certainly this theory that someone has been trying to do a bit of bargaining or trying to get an extra halfpenny is not borne out by the facts. All this was in August, 1951, and there was an Election shortly afterwards, with lamentable results to the country. [An HON. MEMBER: "There was another one yesterday."] So I understand.
  I believe, subject to correction by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford, North, that it was Edmund Burke who used to have a sparring partner appearing on the platform with him whose solitary speech was, "I say ditto to Mr. Burke." The fact is that the Tory hierarchy said ditto to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, and said it at rather a late stage in the Election. But it was said. We have always tried to get a settlement, and I am perfectly sincere when I say that this Amendment which was put down on the Committee stage was really the only controversial Amendment in the whole Bill. It does not involve much in terms of money, and we confidently believed that it would be accepted after what had been said by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary.
  We are now pushed into the position of having to have this unhappy argument over the matter because the Minister has hardened her heart and said "No." Agreement was come to in 1951 to the effect that even if it were not going to be retrospective it would be part of the agreement at least that reasonable legislative speed should be made to get the Bill through, so that it could be passed in the Session of 1951–52. But it was not. I must point out that the Government had the choice of bringing in a Bill to deal with pubs which had not been built or of bringing in a Bill to deal with schools which had been built, and they chose pubs. Twelve months go by and then the people concerned are told, "You will not get any money for that 12 months."
  Mr. Stephen McAdden: The hon. Gentleman is criticising the Government for, as he says, preferring pubs to Catholic schools. He will remember that a little while ago he was justifying his own Government's failure to do something about this after the 1950 Election because of their small majority. But their majority was still large enough to carry into effect the Iron and Steel Bill.
  Mr. Hale: I did not talk about the small majority except in connection with not having an all-party committee. What I said was that there had to be negotiations, but that we arrived at the terms and a settlement. The work was all done, but then the Minister comes along and says that she was the one who introduced it. She found the settlement in the pigeonhole when she went to the Ministry.
  I say quite honestly to the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey), for whom I have a genuine respect, because he always speaks, I think, with honesty and sincerity, that someone on the benches opposite ought to do something about this. I do not know whether these are the most suitable words. I am not a Parliamentary draftsman or a Parliamentary counsel. I do not know whether the matter could be dealt with more happily in some other way, but I do know that there is not the slightest difficulty in drafting the sort of Amendment that would cover the point so long as the Minister of Education is behind it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) very properly said, one can put in a Schedule and name the schools. There would be no argument about that.
  We have never had the facts. This discussion started in December and it is now May. During all that time the Minister has never once said which are the schools which might be affected. Never has she said how she decides it, and so on. There was a stage when she said that it could be handled Ministerially and in that way she thought that she could give the benefit to more schools, but later she thought she could not. From start to finish we have not had a clear statement from the Minister or the slightest sign of any desire on her part to meet the legitimate points which we made. There was resistance to an Amendment, which was moved with moderation and
  1498
  supported by a large number of Members, some from the Government side of the House, and which, in a Committee of 45 Members, received 26 votes. Eighteen of my hon. Friends were there and voted, and eight hon. Members on the Government side also voted for it.
  8.0 p.m.
  Now the Minister comes back and says that the words are meaningless. I do not think she has ever said that before. On 12th February, 1952, we had a memorandum, which is the Minister's own memorandum, and not something suddenly suggested as to how it should be done. It states:
  "The new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grant on completed projects could be reassessed; grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
  Many things were promised and were agreed in the interview with the representatives of the hierarchy, who thought that they now knew what the proposals would be, and how they would be framed and presented to the House. What did the Minister say about them? Within my recollection she has never said what those words meant, how they were to be assessed and whether she had decided to repudiate them. In a matter of that kind I should think that the honour of the Minister is involved.
  If a Minister issues a statement of that kind, which is the basis of a bargain, a contract or an agreement, there is no going back; but the Minister does not explain. She does not extenuate. She does not even mitigate. If she got up and said that she had not used those words or that she did not mean to use those words, or that after thinking them over, or after some conference with the Treasury on the matter, she was going back on those words, was going to repudiate them, I could understand it.
  The object of the Amendment is merely to put into the Bill the Minister's own words, and the Minister is seeking to reject her own words. That is the situation, but it is a much more serious situation from the point of view of the right hon. Lady than she seems to think. In this House where we usually vote for our party, we have sometimes to decide whether to vote for something we believe in against our party. It is the sort of dilemma that all of us have to face. It

  1499
  is just not good enough; we are not satisfied with the Minister's explanation. The hon. Member for Harrow, East said that if we wished him to name the schools we should start an argument about it, but we have been arguing for four and a half hours on this Amendment.
  Mr. Ian Harvey: I did not say that it would involve us in an argument but that it would re-open the religious argument, which would be detrimental to the whole cause of religious education.
  Mr. Hale: This is really a simple issue of whether the Catholic schools are to pay for the Minister's delay and whether the Minister is to carry out her bargain or not. It does not involve any large sum of public money and does not make the slightest difference to the future, except for a limited transitional period and a limited number of buildings. It is nonsense to say that the Amendment cannot be dealt with now. [An HON. MEMBER: "They have not said it."] That is fair. The other side have not said it.
  It is unfair to leave the House in this fashion. I ask the right hon. Lady to think the matter over again, even at this late stage. This House is very generous in recognising last-minute expressions of penitence, alterations or Amendments, and will accept very generously from the right hon. Lady any indication that she did try to meet us.
  Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: I always listen to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) with pleasure, sometimes, I must admit, mingled with irritation. I have never heard him in better form than he was this evening. When he appears in a non-party rôle it is a little hard to swallow; but anyhow it was great fun. But I want to associate myself, not with his remarks but with the remarks of his "twin," my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Horobin).
  Mr. M. Stewart: Would the hon. Member describe them as fraternal twins or identical twins?
  Mr. Maclean: I might almost describe them as Siamese twins. Like the hon. Member for Oldham, East, I speak not as a Roman Catholic but as a member of the Church of England. We have to remember that we also have our Church
  1500
  schools, which makes it all the more important that we should do everything in our power to ensure scrupulously fair treatment of other people's Church schools.
  What worries me is the way in which the whole problem has been handled, both here and in the Committee upstairs, and even before that. I do not think it is possible to deny that an assurance was given by the Minister, or at any rate on behalf of the Minister—and in that case she is responsible for it—to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. I do not for a moment accuse my right hon. Friend of ill-faith. I am sure she has acted from the highest motives, but I think she has probably been trying to please too many people at the same time with the result that she has not succeeded in pleasing anybody. She has certainly not succeeded in pleasing me.
  It may be argued that what my right hon. Friend promised was impracticable. That is what we are now told. It may be that she did not quite understand what she was promising; that there was a misunderstanding. That is quite possible, but if so it is not very reassuring. One cannot help wondering, if that is so, why such an assurance was given in the first place. Why did not the right hon. Lady find out precisely what was involved and whether it was practicable? I have listened very carefully, though not as an expert in these matters, to the explanations which have been given both here and in the Committee upstairs, and I must say they have done nothing to clear my mind on the subject.
  But however that may be; whatever the merits of this specific issue, and whatever the value of the Amendment or of the Clause as it now stands, the fact remains that it does not appear to be the Minister's intention to honour the assurance which she gave. That is why, much to my regret, I find it impossible, on present form, to support her in the Lobby tonight. But, before I sit down, I would like to urge her, even at this late stage, to give an undertaking to reopen this whole question, to look into it again, and to see if she cannot do something to meet the point of view of hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken in the same sense as I have.
  Mr. M. Stewart: We all listened with interest and respect to the hon. and

  1501
  gallant Member for Lancaster (Mr. F. Maclean). I hope that the right hon. Lady will be willing to take the advice that he and the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Horobin) and many of my hon. Friends have tendered to her. We have had a long debate on an important but narrow issue. We are not here discussing the whole question of denominational education. We are discussing the extent to which a particular Clause in this Bill shall operate.
  Among the tangle of different versions of fact and the tangle of argument which we have had throughout this afternoon and evening, certain things are definitely agreed. It is certainly agreed that the intention and effect of Clause 1 is to widen the definition of the term "displaced pupil" so that certain schools will receive grants which otherwise would not have done so. That is generally agreed, and of course it is a reason for welcoming this Bill as a whole with or without the Amendment which the Minister is now trying to make in it. It is also agreed that it would not be proper to accept in this Bill the principle of retrospection. Whatever view we take—and there are different views in the House—as to whether retrospection in itself is desirable, I think that it is agreed that it would not be reasonable to ask the Government to introduce that principle in this Bill.
  What the argument has been about is what exactly is meant when one applies the principle of no retrospection to the working of Clause 1. In one extreme it is quite clear that a school which has come fully into use and whose accounts have been closed would not be eligible under this Bill. If it were, that would be retrospection and such a school is certainly not eligible. At the other extreme, a school which has not been brought fully into use clearly is eligible for benefit under this Bill, for no retrospection would be involved. What concerns us here is the school which is in between those two precise and definite examples, that is to say, schools which have become fully into use but the accounts of which have not yet been closed. The whole issue is whether those schools are to be eligible for benefit under this Bill or not.
  What has been the Minister's answer to that question? Only quite recently it
  1502
  was, "Yes, such schools ought to be eligible for the benefits of this Bill and there would not be any infringement of the principle of no retrospection if they were." It has been charged against those of us who take the view that I am now taking that we are trying to introduce retrospection into this Bill. The case that I make is that to urge that, schools which are fully in use but whose accounts are not yet closed should be eligible for benefit under this Bill is not in fact to urge retrospection, and that that was a view which the Minister herself took for a long period until very recently.
  I do not wish to burden the House unduly with quotations, but I must refer to one or two. In the first place the Minister evidently took the view that I have just described in February, 1952, when, at the meeting at the Ministry to which such frequent reference has been made, she said:
  "The new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grant on completed projects could be reassessed; grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
  Therefore, that for which we have been pressing was not regarded as infringing the principle of no retrospection when she dealt with this matter in February of last year.
  8.15 p.m.
  More recently, in June of last year, there went out from the right hon. Lady's Department a letter which referred quite definitely to her assurance that the proposed new legislation would apply to schools for which the accounts had not been formally closed. As recently as June last year, the right hon. Lady felt that these schools could benefit from the Bill without any infringement of the principle of no retrospection. I stress this point, because practically the whole of the argument addressed to the House by the Solicitor-General was to say that we must strike this Amendment which the Committee made out of the Bill, because otherwise we offend against the principle of no retrospection.
  If the Solicitor-General really holds that view he is making nonsense of what the Minister said in February and what the letter from her Department said in June. If there is any truth in the Solicitor-General's argument then the "proposal"—I think that that was the right

  1503
  hon. Lady's own word—which the Minister made in 1952 was a contradiction in terms, and the reference to it in the letter from her Ministry in June was similarly, to say the very least, very misleading.
  Furthermore, recently the right hon. Lady was quite satisfied that if schools of this kind were enabled to benefit from this Bill there would be no retrospection. In Committee upstairs I raised this exact point, and I said:
  "Am I right in thinking that it is possible for a school to be established and maintained in the sense that the Minister has just defined, but for its accounts not yet to be closed, and that such a school would not benefit under the Bill?"
  The Minister replied:
  "The hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) asks whether there might be schools which have reached that stage but whose accounts would not be closed, so that if that aspect could be embraced a few more schools might qualify for grant."
  She went on to say:
  "I am perfectly willing to look into that and to see whether there is anything in it. That is what I have always meant."—OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 27th January, 1953; c. 35–6.]
  The right hon. Lady was quite clear there that there was no infringement of no retrospection if she enabled that to be done. Apparently between then and now the Solicitor-General has found that all that the right hon. Lady argued from February, 1952, until she made that statement before the Committee in January of this year made nonsense.
  A little later on, in the same debate, the same point was brought out. At that moment we were discussing an Amendment of a slightly different form to that which went into the Bill. That Amendment contained a date, 14th November, 1952, and the Minister objected to it with, I am bound to admit, some reason. She said:
  "To get this clear, let me say that the retrospection part is the putting in of the date, 14th November, 1952."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 27th January, 1953; c. 38.]
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and his hon. Friends—as one Conservative Member put it—leaning backwards to avoid a Division if at all possible, removed that date from the Amendment. That was the very thing which the Minister said introduced retrospection, and they therefore
  1504
  made the Bill, by her own argument, quite unobjectionable on that ground. So let us have no more argument that the Amendment made in Committee offends against no retrospection.
  It is an argument which the right hon. Lady has destroyed recently, repeatedly, and over a period of some 18 months. It is also clear that when she made this undertaking to the Catholic hierarchy the right hon. Lady did not consider that she was making any gigantic departure from the general principle on which this whole Clause has been based; for I am sure that if she had felt she was making some major, grave departure she would have immediately consulted the parties other than the Catholic hierarchy who are interested in this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Morley) referred to her failure to do so. Indeed, the greater part of his argument was a very severe criticism of the right hon. Lady for not having done so. However, the fact that she did not do so shows that she regarded this as a matter of definition. Granted that there is to be no retrospection, where exactly does one draw the line beyond which is retrospection and on this side of which is no retrospection?
  It is quite clear that an undertaking was given that schools which were fully in use but whose accounts had not yet been closed would be enabled to benefit from the Bill. Then, when the Bill was actually published—and not until then —it became apparent to the Catholic heirarchy that the undertaking was not going to be fulfilled. The Committee very carefully considered this narrative of evidence. They saw that the Minister had been faced with difficulties but, having heard the evidence and weighed up the matter very carefully, after a lengthy discussion, on what was in effect a free vote and not a party vote, by a proportion of three to two they decided that the Bill ought to be so amended as to enable those schools to be eligible for benefit.
  That is the position with which we are now faced on the Report stage. In the face of those facts and in the face of the Committee's decision, what has been the reaction of the Minister? First, she tried to allay opposition by referring to four schools which, she told us with pride, were going to benefit under the Bill, but

  1505
  when we looked into the matter we found that they were schools which were perfectly entitled to benefit under the Bill, Amendment or no Amendment, and they have no relevance to the matter we are discussing.
  In Committee the Minister took the view that there were some five schools in question. I do not object to that. None of us assumed that that number was precisely accurate, but she thought that there were some five schools in question. She now speaks of four schools which will benefit under the Bill. Are those four schools four out of the five about which she was talking in Committee? If the right hon. Lady could tell us that now it would help.
  Miss Horsbrugh: If I may speak again with the leave of the House, I should like to reply to two or three questions after the hon. Gentleman has finished.
  Mr. Stewart: Very well. I am rather sorry that the right hon. Lady cannot answer that question at the moment. It is a pure question of fact. Five schools were mentioned in Committee and the Minister has mentioned four now. The answer is either "yes" or "no." However, if the hon. Lady will not answer now I shall have to take a little longer to consider what follows from either of the two possible answers.
  Let us suppose the answer is "yes," and that the four schools referred to today are four out of the five about which the right hon. Lady was talking in Committee. It now appears from what she has also told us that there are another half dozen or so schools which would not benefit from the Bill. It would appear that four of the five schools we were talking about are safe over the border. They are not borderline cases and therefore benefit from the Bill, Amendment or no Amendment.
  From what the right hon. Lady has told us today, however, when she spoke of possibly 12 schools, it appears that there is a group of some six or eight schools which do not benefit under the Bill, but which would benefit if the Bill were amended to bring in the point about the accounts not yet having been closed.
  The other possible answer is that the four schools referred to today are quite different from the five we were discussing on Committee. If that is so, I would
  1506
  commend the matter to the attention of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Ashton)—if he were here—because his reasons for coming round full circle from his view on Committee was that in Committee he was championing the cause of those five schools, and it was because the Minister would not be helpful over those five that he voted against her then. He has now decided to vote for her, but he does not know whether the five schools we were talking about then are to be helped, and we have to wait until we hear the speech of the right hon. Lady before any of us will know.
  Even if they are to be benefited there are some six or eight other schools in exactly the same position in which we believed those five schools to be and which will not benefit under the Bill. The hon. Member for Chelmsford is therefore in the position of saying, "I voted against my party and the Minister in Committee for the sake of five schools which were in a particular position. There are now a different group, of some half a dozen schools, and although they are different schools they are in the same position as we supposed the five were previously, but as those schools have different names, I will vote the other way on this occasion."
  I have laboured the argument of the hon. Member for Chelmsford because I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that none of her hon. Friends were happy about the line she was inviting them to take on this Amendment. What arguments have we had from the hon. Members who have supported the Minister throughout this debate? As I heard one after another of those hon. Members who had opposed her in Committee I was reminded of the title of a play or film which is now showing—"They have their exits." Some of them—especially that of the hon. Member for Chelmsford—are not very convincing exits from the position they had previously taken up.
  What does the rest of the argument amount to? It is that the Amendment made in Committee and which we are now being asked to delete adds nothing whatever to the Bill. It is said that the words are inoperative and have no effect. The whole argument of the hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) and the hon. Member for

  1507
  Ealing, South (Mr. Maude) rested solely on that one point. It is true that the hon. Member for Ealing, South told us at considerable length that he did not like the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey or the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). Those speeches were not made with the intention that he should like them but, apart from that irrelevancy, the whole of his argument was simply that one could not vote against the Minister for a form of words which will add nothing to the Bill.
  8.30 p.m.
  What substance is there in that argument? First, how do we know that these words would add nothing to the Bill? The Solicitor-General has told us so, but none of us, whatever denominational views he may hold, believes in the infallibility of Solicitors-General. It is quite conceivable that he may be mistaken. It may even be that these words have a very drastic effect on the Bill, that they are not so much inoperative as making the Bill unworkable, in which case it would be the business of the right hon. Lady to straighten the matter out.
  When we have a firm decision of a Committee of the House that it wants a particular thing done, and that it wants it done by a certain form of words, and the Government come forward and say that that form of words will not do it, then it is up to the Government to join in the search for the form of words that will do it, and to that they have made no contribution whatever. I think that the Solicitor-General would have been better employed in trying to find ways of enabling the Minister of Education to implement her pledge than in rather undignified ways of trying to get her out of it. There have not been lacking suggestions from this side of the House as to how it might be done.
  After all, the purpose of this Clause is to define the term "displaced pupils," and to define it differently from the way it is defined in the principal Act. Is it so absolutely impossible to take the term "proposed schools" and to define it in this Bill as the term "displaced pupils" is defined? There is nothing in the long Title to preclude a proposition of that type. Another solution offered is that we may do it by actually naming the schools and putting the names in a Schedule to
  1508
  the Bill. I am not as a matter of form very much enamoured of that solution. It is a rather untidy way of doing it, but I would rather see an untidy Bill than a broken pledge.
  What is significant is that both of those suggestions were made before the Solicitor-General got up, and yet he did not devote any of his argument to demonstrating that they were unworkable. I dare say, now that they have been put again, he could get up and, even at this short notice, produce arguments to show that they are. One of the startling things about this debate has been the way that the Government, even at short notice, have been able to suggest propositions that have not been advanced before and which no normal person would regard as credible.
  The object which those of us in all parties on the Committee and in the House had in supporting the Amendment that was made in Committee, and which we are now asked to delete, was a perfectly reasonable object. No injustice is done to anyone, no real danger is risked to the general harmony of the settlement about the denominational schools, by deciding on what is clearly a matter of definition, that the schools that shall benefit by this Bill shall be schools whose accounts have not been closed. It was a form of definition that was looked on with great favour for a considerable time by the Ministry itself. It is not an unreasonable proposition.
  Second, as I have shown, I am afraid to the weariness of the House, it does not offend against the principle of no retrospection. Third, if the wording of the Bill now as amended in Committee does not give workable expression to what we had in mind, a form of words that would give workable expression to it could be found if there were the will to find it. Fourth, we are asking that the House should follow a decision taken after great thought and care and on a non-party vote and by a decisive majority in the Committee; and no substantial change has occurred in the facts or the weight of argument between the date when the Committee reached that decision and the present time.
  I hope, therefore, first that the right hon. Lady will herself be willing to find the way out that will be acceptable both to those who press this matter and, in

  1509
  their heart of hearts, to most of her hon. and right hon. Friends. Failing that, I can only hope that we shall be supported in the Lobby not only by my hon. Friends on this side of the House but by those hon. Gentlemen who so strongly supported this point of view in the Committee and their hon. and right hon. Friends on the other side of the House as well.
  Miss Horsbrugh: By leave of the House, perhaps I could very shortly reply—
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: On a point of order. May we have an assurance from the right hon. Lady that if the House accords leave to speak a second time neither she nor the right hon. Gentleman will take steps that will cut short the debate?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): The right hon. Lady does not require the leave of the House to reply.
  Miss Horsbrugh: As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) has put one or two questions to me, and as other hon. Members have, too, I thought it would be convenient if I were to intervene now. As far as I can see, all this comes down to a very few points. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham, East says that the Solicitor-General said that it makes no difference if these words are left in or taken out. If the words were left in it would still not empower the Minister to pay grants to schools other than proposed schools. Hon. Members have said, "Why could no other scheme have been found if that is the case?" I should have thought that if that was in their minds they might have put down an Amendment, because I made it clear in Committee that, although I used the word "unworkable," no one had found a way of finding words suitable to carry out that meaning.
  I think that I can tell hon. Members exactly where the difficulty is, and no doubt they realise it themselves. Again we are all in agreement—at least hon. Members one after another have said so— that we do not want to have complete retrospection. Parts of this document have been quoted. I again point out that the new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grants on completed projects could be re-assessed.
  1510
  We do not want complete retrospection. The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) agreed that they were not asking for complete retrospection. I know that they would like it. I know that they feel that schools which have been built since 1945 should have the grant. It is not the fault of this Government that they do not have the grant. If the party opposite had brought in a Bill they could have had the grant.
  I have tried very carefully not to get into party strife over this. But do let us see what the problem is. Those schools which were built and opened, some of them in January, 1951, would have got the grant if this legislation had been brought in by anybody. We are all agreed on that. Secondly, they have not had the grant and they have been functioning, some of them, for over two years. We are all agreed on that. I think that no one can suggest by any stretch of the imagination that if a school has been functioning for over two years it can be called a proposed school.
  Let me give hon. Members the actual figures. The hon. Member for Itchen (Mr. Morley) has said several times. "What is the line? Why do we say four, five, eight or 12 schools? Where is the line drawn?" The line is drawn —and it is drawn legally—on whether a school is a proposed school or has become a school. If it has become a school and is functioning, to go back would be retrospective. Let me give the figures. Hon. Members say, "Ah, so you are picking out a few of these." Since 1945 the Roman Catholics have built or have schools in building programmes to the number of 76. Of those, 49 have had grant or will have grant under the 1944 Act as it stands. Sixteen schools are at the stage of being proposed schools. I think that hon. Members will see, when they have done their arithmetic, that there are 11 schools left which have not had grants.
  I said earlier that the Catholic Education Council had sent in the names of schools which they thought ought to be considered as hard cases. At the beginning we had not got the names; we got them at the end of the Committee stage. During the Committee stage the hon. Member for Devizes said that there were three or four, and there was no mention then of names. The Catholic Education

  1511
  Council said that it thought certain schools ought to be included. It was three or four, then five, six, eight and finally 12, with the proviso—I am not objecting to this—that there might be more. From our calculations the number of schools might be 15.
  Out of the 12 schools named by the Catholic Education Council, four can count as proposed schools. Four from 15 leaves 11, unless my arithmetic is wrong. At least one or two of the 11 would not anyhow, as far as I can see at the moment without going into all the details, rank for grant. There is no talk of displaced pupils grant for them. Therefore, with all the schools named by the Catholic Education Council, we get absolute, complete 100 per cent. retrospection right back to 1945. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
  Then where are the schools which have not got it? I have already said that there are 76 of these schools, and I would remind hon. Members that not all schools are proposed schools. We have now accounted for all the 76 schools which have been built or are in present building programmes. This represents complete retrospection. I see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) shaking his head. That arithmetic—
  Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central): What about the 34 which have already got grant under the 1944 Act?
  Miss Horsbrugh: It is not 34; it is 49. Shall I go through it all once more? I feel that there ought to be a blackboard here. Perhaps it would have been better if I had given the numbers originally. As questions have been put so frequently during the debate, perhaps it would be better if I started again.
  The number of schools which the Roman Catholics have built or schools which are now in building programmes total 76. The number that have had grant or will have grant under the 1944 Act as it stands is 49. Sixteen are at the stage of proposed schools, and if they qualify under the displaced pupils definition they will get the grant provided that the Bill passes in time. Therefore, there are 11 left. I imagine we are all agreed on that point. After the
  1512
  Committee stage the Catholic Education Council sent me the names of 12—this is a new set of figures, so I hope hon. Members will not muddle it with the last—but they said there might be more. On examining the matter, we think that there are probably 15. Out of the 15 names we found that four could be classed as proposed schools; and that still leaves 11.
  Mr. Blackburn rose—
  Miss Horsbrugh: I must get on. If we were to give grants to those under the terms of a "building account"— words I never used—it would mean complete retrospection. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, and there would not be a single school left.
  Mr. Short rose—
  8.45 p.m.
  Miss Horsbrugh: If the hon. Member looks at it he will see those figures. I think it is quite clear it would be retrospection.
  Mr. Ede: No.
  Miss Horsbrugh: If the right hon. Gentleman disagrees, I cannot help him. I have tried to set out the figures.
  I have been asked why should we bother to take these words out of the Bill if they are of no use. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General has told the House that in his opinion and in the opinion of his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General they had no significance whatever, and that if they remain in the Bill they do not empower the Minister to give grants for those schools. We can leave them in or take them out; it does not matter. But then hon. Members have said—and this is the last point with which I will trouble the House—to me that I should insert words which would carry out the intention which they have in mind. Again we look back and find that we are faced with retrospection. If we amend in order that all the schools whose building accounts were not closed would get grants, then that would be tantamount To complete retrospection.
  Those are the facts and I can only give the House facts. The issues comes down to this, that hon. Members must say that they want retrospection—some of them would like it, but most of them say they do not want retrospection—or they must

  1513
  agree with the Amendment which the Government are proposing. We cannot change the words which are in the Bill because it would give retrospection, and we have to decide whether we should take out words in the Bill which have no significance and make absolutely no difference.
  Mr. Ede: Before the right hon. Lady sits down, I wonder whether she could help me about the 76 schools. Does she say that there are 76 schools which would rank for displaced pupil grant? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I thought that was the policy that the right hon. Lady was leading us into. How many of the 76 schools will rank for displaced pupil grant, and how many of the 49 rank for it, because that may completely alter the whole question?
  Miss Horsbrugh: The grant is 50 per cent. for displaced pupils as the right hon. Gentleman knows. Whether he is trying to say that they would get more grant if they did not get the displaced pupils grant I—
  Mr. Ede: I am trying to find out what the actual facts are.
  Miss Horsbrugh: I will try again, but I will not repeat the whole facts. The 49 schools have had grant or will have grant under the 1944 Act. I think 14 of them —I would not like to be sure—were approved subsequently for displaced pupils grants and they had the grant. There were 76 built or in the building programme. There were 16 at the stage of being proposed schools and therefore would rank for grant if they had the displaced pupils. Therefore the only ones that are left, as I have said, are 11.
  Mr. Logan: Did I understand the right hon. Lady aright, that she is withdrawing the Amendment?
  Miss Horsbrugh: No.
  Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I thought that after 11 days in the Standing Committee I should no longer be surprised by any intervention from the right hon. Lady, but tonight it seems to me that she has reached a new peak of confusion which she did not achieve even during the lengthy debates in the Standing Committee.
  Before I come to some of the points she has made perhaps I could refer to the
  1514
  speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) who made an admirable contribution to our discussion. I was glad that he took up the criticism that hon. Members on both sides of the House were playing politics because nobody has done more than my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, and a number of us on both sides of the House, to ensure that the issue of the denominational schools shall not be made the subject of party controversy. If it has become so, the responsibility lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Minister.
  I do not believe that anybody is playing party politics. In the first place I do not believe that there is such a thing as the Catholic vote. Secondly, if there is, I believe that the wrong way to go about getting it would be to set out to do so, because anybody who sets out to get the support of one denomination is almost certainly bound to lose the support of others. The only thing that an hon. Member can hope to do is to be loyal to the principles of his own denomination and to convince the people of the constituency that he is prepared to help any minority in it who believe themselves to have a just grievance against the law as it stands. That is the principle on which many of us have worked during the long discussions on this Bill.
  It seemed to me that the right hon. Lady made no real effort to deal with a number of the criticisms made. During our debates one of two things has emerged clearly. Either the officials in her Department are inefficient, which I am reluctant to accept, or the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are incompetent.
  We have had a lengthy explanation from the right hon. Lady about the number of schools, and I cannot see why we could not have had that information in the Standing Committee. It is the responsibility of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary and their officials to see that information of this kind is readily available. Every week, at Question time, Questions are put to the Minister for information of this kind and she never seems at a loss to provide figures in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler). It is no use having a Ministry of Education if it does not know where the schools are, what stage they have

  1515
  reached, what is the composition of the pupils going there, what the local education authorities are doing, and what the various diocesan authorities who are responsible for education have under contemplation.
  It is not good enough that when a figure of five is mentioned to the Standing Committee, the right hon. Lady should not be able to destroy that figure on that occasion but has to wait for nearly four months before coming to this House and telling us that the figure in question is held by some people to be 12 and that she personally believes it to be 15. That information ought to have been available to the right hon. Lady when she was giving us information in the Standing Committee discussions. There seems to me to have been an equal vagueness about the correspondence and the minutes for which the right hon. Lady has been responsible. A number of hon. Members on this side of the House, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), have put, most cogently, a number of points in the correspondence and the minutes which seem most important.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East quoted one sentence from a minute of the interview of 12th February, but I should like to read the previous sentence, because I think it most germane to this subject:
  "The two suggestions made by Bishop Beck would widen the scope of the suggested amendment in a way that would make the justification more difficult to explain to other interested parties. She would prefer not to tamper with the wording of the memorandum, which had now been sent to all the interests which she had to consult."
  The minute goes on:
  "The new definition would not be retrospective in the sense that grant on completed projects could be reassessed: grant claims on schemes in progress or for which accounts had not been closed would be eligible for review in the light of the new definition."
  It is perfectly apparent from the previous two sentences that, although the Minister regarded part of the proposals as a breach of the 1944 Act, this proposal under discussion tonight was not considered a breach of the memorandum sent to the other denominations. In her second speech the Minister has refused to deal with the points put to her on this subject, and it is quite clear from the rest
  1516
  of the correspondence on which the right hon. Lady embarked that the Ministry and she were treating that matter the whole time as a firm assurance.
  I do not want to read some of the correspondence which other hon. Members have read, but to come back to the point that if the Minister did change her mind in the course of these negotiations she ought to have informed the other denominations that that had been done. I find myself unable to resist the conclusion that throughout the negotiations the right hon. Lady has been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. In the Standing Committee on a number of occasions we gave her the opportunity to tell us at what stage she had changed her mind and was departing from the assurance.
  In c. 73 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee it is reported that I put this very simple point to the Minister after I had been criticised by an hon. Friend, who said that I put the wrong construction upon the discussions which had taken place with the denominations. I replied that it was extremely difficult to know exactly what had taken place in the discussions which the Minister had had, and said:
  " We naturally assumed that when she had put this proposal to the Roman Catholics she should also put it to the other denominations. The difficulty is that we still do not know whether the Minister told the Roman Catholics that the other denominations could not agree to the suggestion she had made. If the Minister would be frank and tell us at what stage of the negotiations she indicated her change of attitude to the Roman Catholic church, we should all find the position a good deal easier."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 29th January, 1953; c. 73.]
  Although the right hon. Lady got up in one of her 14 interventions in that discussion to make what she regarded as a reply, she certainly did not give an answer to the question I had put to her, and we still do not know whether the proposal she made to the Roman Catholic hierarchy was communicated to the other denominations and, if she found it was not acceptable to the other denominations, at what stage she communicated her change of mind to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. I do not think she did because it seems perfectly clear that the first intimation they had of the change of view was when the Parliamentary Secretary made such an

  1517
  admirably clear and lucid statement of the position on Second Reading.
  I do not think that the right hon. Lady has a record of which she is entitled to be proud on this subject. I think that the matter is a great deal bigger than some hon. Members have said. The hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) talked about Roman Catholics going round trying to get a little more for their denomination. That is not an interpretation which appeals to hon. Members on either side of the House. The point is that if a responsible Minister takes part in discussions with denominations or other important and responsible bodies we must see that they are entitled to rely on the good faith of the Minister and the Government she represents. It is because I am not convinced that the Minister has acted in this way that I shall have no hesitation in following my right hon. Friend into the Lobby against the Government tonight.
  9.0 p.m.
  Sir G. Hutchinson: I wish to detain the House for a few moments only and I shall certainly not follow the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) in the somewhat controversial and, in some respects, unfair observations he has made about my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Old-ham, West (Mr. Hale) that this has been a remarkable debate. It has lasted for five-and-a-half hours, and now it appears tolerably certain that words introduced into this Bill will have no effect whatever if they are allowed to remain there. That being so, it would seem that, whatever may be our views on the merits of this controversy, we are bound to take out those words.
  There has been some criticism of my right hon. Friend because the words proposed to be inserted in the Bill were not effective to achieve their purpose. It was said that it was in some way her duty to find a form of words which would effect that purpose. I find it difficult to follow that argument. The right hon. Lady does not want the words in the Bill. She is satisfied with the Bill as it stands, and it is not right to say that there is some obligation on her, or upon the Solicitor-General, to come to the assistance of those who have failed
  1518
  to find words to express their own purpose.
  This debate seems to have revolved round a very narrow point. We are all agreed that complete retrospection is not what is desired by any hon. Member. But there is a strong feeling on both sides of the House that my right hon. Friend does not go so far in the matter as the House would desire. She has taken her stand on the ground that there is to be no retrospection; but that was not always her position. I will not refer again to the minute of the interview which she had with the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. But it is clear—and I think the right hon. Lady would accept it—that at that stage of the proceedings she was prepared to concede there should be some recession from the principle of no retrospection.
  Clearly what remains to be done is a simple business. We must find some point at which retrospection may begin. I do not think it is impossible to find some acceptable form which would fix the point where retrospection would begin. Various proposals have been made. Hon. Members who sponsored this Amendment in Committee have proposed that those schools in respect of which building accounts are still open should be the point from which retrospection should start. That is not acceptable to the right hon. Lady. She says it is not acceptable to the other parties with whom she negotiated.
  Then the right hon. Lady has just told the House that there are 11 schools— as I understood her figures—whose position is uncertain. She is prepared to accept for the purpose of the revised grant four schools which I understand are already established as schools or at least are partly established. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If they are not established schools I should have thought it was clear that the revised grant applied to them in any case. In some way they stand in a sort of half-way position between a proposed school and an establish school.
  At any rate the right hon. Lady is prepared to bring them in for the revised grant. I should have thought that that in itself would have involved some amendment of Section 104. If Section 104 is to be amended in order to bring in those four additional schools, then

  1519
  surely before any such Amendment is moved at a later stage in the Bill it would be a good thing for us to see whether we cannot find some point at which retrospection can be deemed to begin with the assent of all parties who are interested in this somewhat complex topic.
  I am unwilling to suggest to my right hon. Friend that she should go back to the parties with whom she originally negotiated, for negotiations of that character take a very long time, and there is a stage when outside bodies must be regarded as having had an opportunity of expressing their opinions and when we cannot expect the Minister to continue to negotiate with them to an unlimited extent. The House of Commons must decide.
  My recollection goes back to the Act of 1944, as does the recollection of many other hon. Members. There were times during the passage of that Act through the House when critical situations seemed to arise, as has been the case with this Bill, and there were occasions when the Minister in charge of the Bill met hon. Members who represented different points of view in the House and endeavoured to obtain, with their assistance, some measure of agreement which, although not wholly acceptable to those parties for whom they claimed to speak, was at least acceptable to the House of Commons.
  I do not expect my right hon. Friend to make any reply to this point tonight; it would not be fair to invite her to do so at this stage in the debate. But I do ask her to give this matter consideration, and to see whether she can, by consultation with hon. Members in different parts of the House who have expressed different points of view, try to bring about some measure of agreement on this comparatively narrow question and send this Bill forward with the good will of all those hon. Members who have expressed these varying points of view in this debate.
  Mr. Proctor: I still think that the House has not had fair play from the Minister of Education in connection with the Bill. To reach this stage and then —and not until then—to give us the figures of the schools with which we are dealing is the wrong way in which to proceed. The right hon. Lady said there
  1520
  were 76 schools either built or to be built, of which 49 would rank for grant, 16 would be proposed schools under the Bill, leaving 11. I can understand those figures. Then she said that the hierarchy had given her the information that there were 12, but she did not explain where the other one had come from; and she said, "We think there are 15, but of those 15, four would rank for grant." That leaves 11.
  I say that that would not qualify anyone for a scholarship in any of our schools. It is most extraordinary that the right hon. Lady should give us these figures at this time, because the one argument put forward by the Solicitor-General, and emphasised by the Minister herself, was that it was the responsibility of the Opposition and those of us who sponsored this Amendment to find a form of words to carry out our intentions.
  I want to deal with that argument, because it is a vital one. I say that it is the responsibility of the Government to find a form of words that will put into proper legislative order the desires of the Committee upstairs, and I well remember that my first lesson in this matter came from the present Home Secretary. We were dealing with the first Transport Act, and there had been a proposal that short-distance transport was to be excluded from the Transport Commission's operations. I immediately saw that, if that was carried out, the Railway Executive—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This is rather remote from the Education Bill.
  Mr. Proctor: I think I can connect it up.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I dare say that a number of things might be connected with it, but they should not be connected.
  Mr. Proctor: This point is one which clearly illustrates my argument. I saw that that would prevent anyone from collecting or delivering a parcel, so far as the railways were concerned.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must ask the hon. Member not to pursue that analogy.
  Mr. Proctor: I have always understood that, when a Committee decides the principle, it is for the Government to find the form of words with which to carry it into effect. The Government should have announced their decision on

  1521
  the matter, but we have had no decision from the Minister until today, when she has told us that she was taking this action of removing these words from the Bill.
  The question is: Did the right hon. Lady make a firm promise to the hierarchy when dealing with the proposals in this Bill? During the Committee stage, we went very carefully into this matter, and the words used by representatives of her own Department were
  "to include schools for which the accounts have not been closed."
  I was very anxious to know whether or not the hierarchy themselves had understood these words to be a firm promise, because it is a very important matter. If, on 12th February, 1952, they understood that all the schools of which the accounts had not been closed were to be included in this Bill, there was no great hurry for this Bill, and the delay in bringing it forward would not have mattered, provided that it had been a firm promise.
  I asked Bishop Beck if he would give me the private notes which he had made of the interview, because I was anxious to know whether or not the hierarchy understood it as such. He sent me the private notes which he had made, and here, in the notes made of this interview by representatives of the hierarchy, there is a clear statement that this promise was made and that it was a firm promise. I say that the Minister should carry out that promise, and deal with this matter in the way which we have suggested. No business can be carried on, so far as this House and the Government of the country are concerned, unless the firm promises of Ministers can be regarded as sacred by the people with whom they are negotiated.
  Mr. Anthony Fell rose—
  Hon. Members: Divide.
  9.15 p.m.
  Mr. Fell: I do not intend to take up the time of the House for many minutes, but I do intend to say what I have to say. I rise to my feet perhaps for the reason that I am a young enough back bencher still to believe in miracles. Throughout the debate today there has been almost complete agreement on the objects which we all wish to achieve by this Bill. There is no argument about the need to give the grants to these schools. Hon. Members on both sides of
  1522
  the House want that to be done. The only thing that has caused a division of opinion is that there is some doubt as to the interpretation of certain words and some doubt regarding whether the Minister has or has not broken faith with some of the parties concerned.
  Let me say at once that if it comes to a vote I shall support the Minister, for the simple reason that I must accept the explanation of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General that the words which my right hon. Friend seeks to delete are immaterial and mean nothing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Perhaps hon. Members opposite would have been a little happier if one of their senior legal advisers had been present during this debate and had been able to contradict my hon. and learned Friend. It might have strengthened our case, and might even have persuaded some of us on this side of the House that we were wrong in agreeing with my hon. and learned Friend, in whom we have great confidence.
  The miracle in which I believe is that, as we are all agreed on the ends for which we are striving in this Bill, it may be possible, even at this late stage, to avoid a Division. It is deplorable that we should have come to such a pass on what I should have thought was a reasonably small matter, and that we should give the impression to the world outside that we are prepared to carry the matter to a Division when, in fact, there is no real division between us.
  I believe that if my right hon. Friend the Minister could make some concession, even at this late stage, the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who is leading the Opposition in this debate, might agree not to divide the House on this matter, because I believe that he is as staunch a supporter of unanimity on the policy adopted towards denominational education as anybody in this House.
  I appeal to my right hon. Friend—as did my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Sir G. Hutchinson), though he said he did not expect her to do it at once—to have a further look at the question of these 11 schools, in view of the feelings that have been expressed so strongly today, some of them, I think, too strongly, by hon. Members on all sides of the House, and

  1523
  to see whether there is anything that can be done or can be put into the Bill and dealt with by some form of Amendment in the Lords. Is it possible for her, at the last minute, to consider doing something of that nature in order to avoid a Division which would cause nothing but concern to some hon. Members?
  Mr. Keenan rose—
  Hon. Members: Divide.
  Mr. Keenan: I do not intend to speak for very long. I am not like some hon. Members who have not been near the place all this time and who say that we should not divide. The one thing that the other side want to avoid is a Division. Most of the subject matter has been well discussed, but there is one point that I want to put to the Minister or to the Parliamentary Secretary.
  If the Amendment which the Minister now seeks to eliminate from the Bill remained as those who moved it originally intended it to be, what would it cost if it were given effect to? The figures have varied from time to time. The number of schools affected has also been mentioned, and I think the Minister said the Clause would be retrospective. I do not think it would. The intention of the Amendment in the Committee was that the period should start from the time the Bill was introduced and that would have excluded some of the schools that the Minister has included in her 11 or 15. Has any attempt been made to find out what the cost would be if the Amendment remained in the Bill?
  I should like to know why the Minister could not have left this matter alone. If the words do not mean a thing, why our six-hour debate? I have listened to most of the speeches and heard a lot of wishful expressions about "the debate is not on party lines," and the rest of it. I have been dismayed and concerned to find that the majority of those who spoke, and particularly those who were concerned that this matter might cost the educational machine a few thousand pounds more, approached the matter not as educationalists but as either political or religious partisans. That has been the expression, and we are divided.
  What will the Division tonight be on this Amendment, which is undoing the
  1524
  attempt made to reach an arrangement on a difficult financial problem for the school authorities concerned? A financial obligation that was only about £5 million or £6 million in 1944 is now £30 million or more, which is impossible for those concerned. There has not been a great deal of expression here today of the true educational spirit of seeing that the children get what some parents have ceased to provide. This is the first educational debate that has shown up the different protagonists on both sides.
  Hon. Members: Divide.
  Mr. McAdden: I have sat in the Chamber for the greater part of the day, listening to speeches on both sides. I am sorry, but, whether it offends or pleases, I feel that if I have a view on this matter it is right that I should put it before the House. I am considerably worried by the fact that a great many of us are exercised in our minds whether we shall secure the object which most of us wish to secure by voting either one way or the other.
  If I understand correctly what has transpired, whether we vote for or against the Amendment will not have the slightest effect in the sense that most of us desire, that is in remedying an injustice where it has been committed or is likely to be committed. If that is the case, it seems to me that we ought to have some assistance in making up our minds whether we vote at all or which way we should vote, and that before coming to a decision we should try to elicit some further information.
  The crux of the matter, as I understand it, is that there are some 15 schools at the moment not in receipt, or likely to be in receipt, of a grant of any kind, and that if this Clause is passed as it stands, or even as amended, four schools will receive benefit but 11 schools will still be outside. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is as I understand it but, whether I have stated the matter correctly or not, it is undoubtedly true that there is considerable feeling about whether these 11 schools should or should not receive the benefit which some of us think that they should have.
  I suggest that there is a way to get out of this difficulty. I understand that the reason for the objections which have been advanced against giving the full

  1525
  benefit to these 11 schools is the fact that it would mean the reopening of negotiations with other interested bodies, and possibly reviving all the difficulties and disagreements which were resolved only with great difficulty in 1944. I can understand that nobody would want to find himself in the difficulty of trying to arrive at an agreement which was so hard to achieve in 1944 but, so far, I am not convinced that that is impossible.
  I should have thought that if this problem concerns only 11 schools it would be possible, between now and the later stage of the Bill, for the Minister to negotiate with the other interested parties to see if
  they had any objection to the benefits of this Clause going to these 11 schools. If that were done it might be possible to surmount these difficulties. Can the Minister tell us if she is prepared to enter discussions with the other interested parties to see whether their objections to these 11 schools are as substantial as we are led to believe? If they are not, it might be possible to arrive at a solution which would please both sides.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
  The House divided: Ayes, 167: Noes, 183.

  Division No. 172.]

  AYES

  [9.30 p.m.

  Adams, Richard

  Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)

  Palmer, A. M. F

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Pannell, Charles

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Hannan, W.

  Pargiter, G. A

  Baird, J.

  Hargreaves, A.

  Pearson, A.

  Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.

  Hastings, S.

  Porter, G.

  Bartley, P.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)

  Benn, Hon. Wedgwood

  Herbison, Mils M.

  Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  Benson, G.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Proctor, W. T

  Bing, G. H. C

  Holman, P.

  Pryde, D. J.

  Blackburn, F.

  Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H.

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Houghton, Douglas

  Richards, R.

  Boardman, H.

  Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Brockway, A. F.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Brook, Dryden (Halifax)

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Royle, C.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)

  Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)

  Shackleton, E. A. A

  Callaghan L. J.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Short, E. W.

  Carmichael, J.

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Jeger. Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S.)

  Simmons, C. J. Brierley Hill

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Champion, A. J.

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke-on-Trent)

  Clunie, J.

  Jones, David (Hartlepool)

  Slater, J. (Durham, Sedgefield)

  Coldrick, W.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Collick, P. H.

  Keenan, W.

  Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)

  Corbet, Mrs Freda

  Kenyon, C.

  Snow, J. W.

  Cove, W. G.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Sparks, J. A.

  Daines, P.

  Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)

  Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

  Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Logan, D. G.

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

  Deer, G.

  MacColl, J. E.

  Stross, Dr. Barnett

  Delargy, H. J.

  McGovern, J.

  Swingler, S. T.

  Dodds, N. N.

  McInnes, J.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Donnelly, D. L.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  McLeavy, F.

  Thomas, David (Aberdare)

  Edwards, John (Brighouse)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)

  Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W)

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Thornton, E.

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Manuel, A. C.

  Tomney, F.

  Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mason, Roy

  Viant, S. P.

  Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)

  Mayhew, C. P.

  Wallace, H. W.

  Foot, M. M.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Forman, J. C.

  Messer, F.

  Wells, William (Walsall)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Mikardo, Ian

  West, D. G.

  Freeman, John (Watford)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Monslow, W.

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon W.

  Gibson, C. W.

  Moody, A. S.

  Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  Glanville, James

  Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Moyle, A.

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Gordon, Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Mulley, F. W.

  Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)

  Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)

  Murray, J. D.

  Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)

  Grey, C. F.

  Nally, W.

  Yates, V. F.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Grimond, J.

  Oliver, G. H.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Hale, Leslie

  Oswald, T.

  Mr. Popplewell and Mr. Arthur Allen.

  Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Paget, R. T.

  NOES

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Nugent, G. R. H

  Alpert, C. J. M.

  Gridley, Sir Arnold

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Arbuthnot, John

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  O'Neill, Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N)

  Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-super-Mars)

  Astor, Hon. J. J.

  Hare, Hon. J. H.

  Osborne, C.

  Baldock, L.-Cmdr. J. M.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)

  Partridge, E.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Harrison, Cat. J. H. (Eye)

  Peake, Rt. Hon. O

  Bank., Col. C.

  Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Barber, Anthony

  Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

  Pete, Brig. C. H. M.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Heath, Edward

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Baxter, A. B.

  Higgs, J. M. C.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Beach, Maj. Hicks

  Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)

  Bennett, Or. Reginald (Gosport)

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Birch, Nigel

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Profumo, J. D.

  Bishop, F. P.

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence

  Raikes, Sir Victor

  Black, C. W.

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Rayner, Brig. R

  Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Redmayne, M.

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)

  Renton, D. L. M

  Braine, B. R.

  Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)

  Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)

  Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.

  Robson-Brown, W.

  Bromley Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Browne, Jack (Govan)

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Russell, R. S.

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

  Keeling, Sir Edward

  Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

  Bullard, D. G.

  Kerr, H. W.

  Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W.

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Scott, R. Donald

  Campbell, Sir David

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)

  Channon, H.

  Lindsay, Martin

  Snadden, W. McN.

  Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)

  Linstead, H. N.

  Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth. W)

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Cole, Norman

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.

  Stevens, G. P.

  Colgate, W. A.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Steward, W. A. (Woolwich W.)

  Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Stoddart-Scott, Col M.

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  McAdden, S. J.

  Storey, S.

  Craddook, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.

  Studholme, H. G.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Summers, G. S.

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. G.

  Mackeson, Brig. H. R.

  Sutcliffe, Sir Harold

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  McKibbin, A. J.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Crouch, R. F.

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)

  Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)

  Macleod, Rt. Hon. lain (Enfield, W.)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn Peter (Monmouth)

  Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

  Touche, Sir Gordon

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Turner, H. F. L.

  Deedes, W. F.

  Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Markham, Major S. F.

  Vosper, D. F.

  Duncan, Capt. J A. L.

  Marples, A. E.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. Marylebone)

  Fell, A.

  Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Maude, Angus

  Wellwood, W.

  Ford; Mrs Patricia

  Maudling, R.

  Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)

  Fort, R.

  Medlicott, Brig. F.

  Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)

  Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe & Lonsdale)

  Mellor, Sir John

  Williams, R Dudley (Exeter)

  Galbraith, Rt. Hon. T D. (Pollok)

  Molson, A. H. E.

  Wills, G.

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Godber, J. B

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

  Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Nield, Basil (Chester)

  Mr. Drewe and Mr. Kaberry.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Clause 10.—(AMENDMENTS OF PROCEDURE FOR MAKING SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ORDERS.)
  Mr. Pickthorn: I beg to move, in page 8, line 45, leave out "seven," and insert "fourteen."
  Mr. Ede: This represents another completely non-party approach to a very difficult subject in the Bill. The Clause originally put into the Bill by the Minister has disappeared. This Amendment really makes the resulting Clause a composite one, composed between both sides of the House, and I should like to thank the
  1528
  right hon. Lady for the way in which she met us on this matter. I am quite certain that by preserving intact the right of the parent in this Clause she has done a great deal to preserve one of the most important parts of the Act of 1944. No one desires that a parent who is trying to dodge giving his child a sound education should be assisted, but he certainly has the right to be consulted as to which school his child should attend, and this Amendment is one of the ways in which both those objects are achieved.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill recommitted to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the new Clause standing on the Order Paper in the name of Mr. Hayman.—[Miss Horsbrugh.]
  Bill immediately considered in Committee.

  New Clause.—(ZONING SCHEMES.)
  A local education authority proposing to delimit the district from which a school shall receive pupils shall give public notice in the area of their intention and the managers of any school affected by the proposal, or any ten or more local government electors for the area, may within two months of the first publication of the notice submit objections to the local education authority which shall then hold a public inquiry into the objections and give reasonable consideration to them and take such action thereon as appears to them to be appropriate.—[Mr. Hayman.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Mr. F. H. Hayman: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
  I am very grateful to the House, particularly to the Leader of the House and to the Minister, for their great kindness in moving a Motion to permit me to ask the House to consider my new Clause. I apologise that I was not in my place, and that I was elsewhere within the precincts of the House on the business of the House, when the Clause standing in my name was unexpectedly called.
  On the Committee stage of the Bill I did sponsor a Clause somewhat similar but rather more comprehensive, and that it was withdrawn on the promise of the Parliamentary Secretary to look into, first, the advisability and, second, the possibility of some form of public notice being given when a local authority proposed to introduce a zoning scheme. As no Amendment has been tabled by the Minister, I have tabled this one.
  I do not wish to detain the House for any length of time. The zoning scheme is an arrangement made by a local education authority when a school is full or likely to be overfull and the authority wishes to delimit the area from which the scholars are to be drawn. There has always been this difficulty but it has been accentuated in post-war years, owing to the lack of building of houses during the war, damage to houses during the war and destruction of houses during the war,
  1530
  and for other reasons which are well known to Members.
  In 1950, the Ministry issued a manual of guidance to govern the application of zoning schemes and the transference of children from one school to another. They said that there was
  "no justification for prohibiting transfers generally."
  I should like to emphasise that phrase in the manual of guidance because there are so many people in the educational sphere who feel that when a parent makes an application for the transfer of a child from one school to another it is something capricious. I do not wish to support the capricious transfer of any child, but I feel that we ought to make perfectly clear as a House that parents are entitled to apply for the transfer of children from one school to another if the circumstances seem to warrant it, and the manual of guidance supports that view.
  Section 76 of the Education Act says that
  "pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents."
  There are some reservations to that phrase but that is the principal phrase of the Section. I think that it is one of the items which governed the minds of all Members when the Education Act, 1944, was before the House—the right of parents to have their child educated in accordance with the parents' wishes.
  9.45 p.m.
  Section 68 of the Act gives power to the Minister to prevent unreasonable exercise of the functions of a local education authority on complaint by any person or otherwise. We are here concerned with something of real importance to the people. The individual citizen should be protected from oppression of any kind. The House has conferred on local authorities such immense powers that at times we scarcely realise that there is the possibility of oppression by a local authority.
  A local authority has immense financial resources at its disposal. A parent may object to a decision by a local education authority, particularly in the case of transfer or the zoning of an area. The local education authority could summon the parent and the parent would have to go to the Court of Appeal

  1531
  to reverse any decision against him at the lower court, and perhaps even to the House of Lords. If it is a point on which it wants the decision, the local education authority can put the whole of its financial resources against the parent.
  I asked the Minister in a letter if there was any legal precedent or authority in this respect to back up the manual of guidance. I gathered from the letter that, although an eminent lawyer supported the view of the Ministry, a case has never been decided in the courts, and until a case has been so decided none of us can be very sure about the real application of the law or the principles enunciated in the manual of guidance.
  I am not suggesting that a local education authority would be deliberately oppressive, but local education authorities tend to carry on the bulk of their administration in committee and behind closed doors, so that the general public have little realisation of what is going on. Many local education authorities have general meetings only four or six times a year, and at each meeting there may be 70 or 80 pages of printed matter to be disposed of. The members of a committee of a council are often unaware of what is happening in another committee. A local education authority may decide to zone an area for a certain school and most of the members of the local authority who are not on the committee itself may not know what is going on. The proposal may then be passed and the public may never know anything about it because it is unlikely that the matter would be deemed worthy of notice by the Press at the quarterly meeting.
  The new Clause would require local education authorities to give public notice of their intention. Local authorities have to give public notice of their intentions in other matters, and this would merely be one more; but the Clause would afford a protection for the parents, for there would be a period of two months in which objections could be lodged to the proposals of the local education authority, and if objections were lodged it would be necessary for the local authority to hold a public inquiry.
  I wish to mention a case which occurred in the constituency of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson), where it was sought to introduce a zoning scheme of
  1532
  which there was no public notice. In the end parents appealed to the Minister. Seven children were involved, and the Minister decided that three of them would be permitted to go to the school from which they were debarred, but that the other four could not enter the school. I mention this case because it is a recent instance of the kind of thing I have in mind.
  I should also like to say how important it is, and how that was emphasised only yesterday when upstairs in a Committee on a Private Bill I found that a Clause had been inserted by the promoting authority giving it powers to make agreements with penalties in the case of children leaving secondary schools in certain circumstances. We have had two Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Acts since 1944, and this is the third Bill of this kind before the Committee. Even now, in this Bill, the Minister has not thought it desirable to give local authorities those powers in a general way. They are seeking to obtain them by means of Private Bills, which I think is rather objectionable. There the position stands.
  It shows how necessary it is for us in this House to do all we can to preserve the freedom of the individual. After all, we pride ourselves that the long history of Parliament has been in the main concerned with that object. We are all agreed that there should be no oppression of any kind if it can be avoided. On that matter the Clause seeks to require the local education authorities to give public notice of their intention, to allow a period for objections to be lodged and then to hold a public inquiry if such objections are lodged.
  Mr. Blackburn: I shall not detain the House for more than a minute, but I should like to support the new Clause which has been moved by my hon. Friend. This is not likely to give rise to the same sort of debate as that which has just concluded, but it includes an important principle. Both sides of the Committee are indebted to the Leader of the House for his intervention which made this debate possible. If more of the same spirit of co-operation were shown at other times the business of the House would proceed more smoothly. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hay-man) is keenly interested in the liberty

  1533
  of the individual. He has put forward his case and I do not think any good purpose would be served if I repeated the arguments which he has advanced. I only rise to support this new Clause.
  Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: I do not intend either to detain the House for very long, but the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) mentioned a case which arose in my constituency, and I strongly suspect that that was the real reason why the new Clause was moved.
  Mr. Hayman: No, I based it on other experience besides that.
  Mr. Wilson: The particular case happened in my division and I took it up on behalf of my constituents. I had every sympathy with them, but I never had any suspicion that they were suffering from any form of injustice at the hands of the local education authority, because the particular case really arose from the difference in popularity between two schools.
  The parents, for a number of reasons, wanted their children to go to one school rather than the other. It was a matter of convenience and of the safety of access to one of the schools and also, perhaps, because the head teacher of the more popular school was a sister of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). I could not help suspecting that quite a number in my constituency who are not my supporters wanted their children to go to the school for reasons unconnected with education but connected with prestige. The teacher in question is a lady whom I have met on a number of occasions. She is no doubt very competent, but it was not a question of deliberate injustice on the part of the local education authority and I do not think an inquiry would have made a difference. It was merely that a large number of parents wanted to send their children to the one school and they could not all get in.
  Mr. Picktborn: I do not think it my cue at this stage to spend any unnecessary time upon, and still less to enter into, the civil war in a neighbouring duchy. We are grateful to the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) for the moderation with which he has made his proposal and for his
  1534
  account of what zoning is and of how it comes to arise at this stage. The hon. Gentleman introduced a Clause at an earlier stage and I then said that my right hon. Friend would look into the advisability and possibility of some form of notice.
  I think I may take it as generally agreed that zoning is sometimes necessary and, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, it is rather particularly so just now, with the distribution of the school population as it is. We have taken the trouble to inquire about this matter since the Committee stage: my information is that local education authorities in general take steps to inform parents, sometimes by meetings, sometimes by sending somebody round to knock at doors, sometimes by letters, occasionally in the local Press. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will not think we are being unreasonable or stick-in-the-mud if I say that we have not been able to convince ourselves of the necessity for legislation in this matter.
  If individual parents feel that they have a valid grievance, they can appeal to the Minister. I do not think they have difficulty in knowing that they can appeal as, indeed, was shown by the instance given by the hon. Gentleman. This is a matter in its essence as local as it could be, and it is also highly temporary. I do not think L.E.A.'s do it as a rule if they can avoid it. A procedure which would be formal and would take at least two months—in cases where there was difficulty it would take longer—is plainly to be avoided unless it is really necessary.
  We have not been able to persuade ourselves that it is necessary and we hope that the hon. Gentleman may believe that our inquiries into this matter have been fair-minded and effective. We will undertake to issue a circular to local education authorities reminding them of what I have been saying, and of their duty to make sure that any such proposition is publicly understood, and drawing their attention to Sections 68, 76 and 100 of the principal Act, the Regulations under it, and to the Manual of Guidance. The speech of the hon. Gentleman will also draw their attention to this point.
  We believe that to do more would be to take a rather large steam hammer to crack a not enormous nut—although I would not belittle its importance. We

  1535
  hope that the hon. Gentleman will believe that our intentions in that matter are right and that our judgment should be trusted so far.
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: I wish to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the full answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman). This is a matter which does from time to time excite very considerable interest in a particular locality. Let us be quite certain that, keen as may be the rivalry between, say, Eton and Harrow, it is nothing to the difference in status between two rate-aided schools in a particular locality. When zoning takes place and the line is drawn so that it excludes the children of some family from going into the school which is regarded generally as the "posh" school—I think that is the term generally used—very great local grievances do arise.
  I have had experience of it, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not mind me saying that I know from conversation I have had with him that he has had experience of it. He knows from a practical point of view the kind of difficulty that arises. I am glad to hear that the Ministry propose to re-circularise local education authorities on this point. I wish it were more clearly understood sometimes that Section 68 exists because there are occasions when local education authorities and school managers do exercise their powers in matters of this kind in ways that sometimes appear to inflict social distinction and injustice. It can never be too clearly understood that if there is a vacant place in a school for any child of the appropriate age for whom the vacancy exists and that child is presented at the door of the school and the parent resides in the area of the local education authority that child cannot legally be refused.
  My hon. Friend has done a service by raising this matter again. I would suggest to him that he might find it possible, in view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, not to proceed further with this Clause as we accept the word of the Parliamentary Secretary that local education authorities will be reminded of the responsibilities which fall on them in this matter.
  Mr. Hayman: I wish to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the way in which he has received my proposed new Clause and for the promise he has made. My chief aim was to draw attention to the matter because I felt very keenly about it. I have known cases in my constituency as well as the case which occurred in a neighbouring constituency. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  Bill reported, without Amendment.
  10.4 p.m.
  Mr. Pickthorn: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  I do not think there is a Third Reading speech left to be made—not that I am suggesting for a moment that we should have had the Third Reading earlier, as that would be impertinent to my colleagues and disorderly to you, Sir.
  Mr. Ede: That discussion was all on a subject left out of the Bill and, therefore, could not be discussed on Third Reading.
  Mr. Pickthorn: Exactly, that is what I meant. I think that whatever disagreement there may have been about Clause 1 there were very few disagreements about any other Clause. I think we are almost unanimous in believing that all the Clauses will do good, and I think we are unanimous that Clause 1, even if some of us think it might have been better, is nevertheless a distinct improvement on conditions as they stand. In these circumstances, I think we may all hope that we have not wasted each other's time.
  Since I was rebuked on one occasion during the Second Reading for appearing rather lukewarm, because I said there was no great system, or scheme, or principle in the Bill, I may point out that I did not mean to be lukewarm, but that it is a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill— something in the way of a rag bag—and could not be presented as a single matter of great principle or systematic arrangement. I have much more understanding, I hope, of the Bill now, and I think it is a useful Measure. I commend it to the House and hope they will not think me perfunctory if I do not make a more argumentative speech.
  10.5 p.m.
  Mr. Edward Shackleton: The passage of this Bill has been, I think a humanising experience for the Parliamentary Secretary. We found the warmth of his last remarks very acceptable, more acceptable than his remarks at an earlier stage. I would correct him on one point. He said that we had had a lot of Third Reading speeches earlier. Of course, they were essentially Second Reading speeches, because they referred to something which was omitted and to which unfortunately I cannot refer to now. We have emerged from what has been a fairly stormy passage, and I am sure that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will welcome the comparative calm of the Third Reading harbour, if the Parliamentary Secretary will permit me to use such a flight of fancy.
  The House welcomes this Bill, which does some real good. It is instructive to us to observe how an important Measure like the 1944 Act, which so often unfortunately has been called the 1944 settlement, reveals, at a later stage, matters which have not worked out as it was originally intended that they should. There has been a tendency on the part of Ministers of both parties not to upset what they believe to be a settlement. That attitude of mind tends to become dangerous, and it is very important that in future we should not talk about this Measure as the 1953 settlement. I hope it will give general satisfaction to many people who are actively concerned and whose needs have been met. I congratulate the Government on having seen it through the House and wish success to its effect.
  10.7 p.m.
  Mr. James MacColl: I think I should express my appreciation to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for the inclusion of Clause 11 in the Bill. It deals with the enforcement of school attendance and originally arose on the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Act introduced by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole). During the discussion on that Act the Parliamentary Secretary promised he would endeavour to introduce an appropriate Clause into this Bill. I have not previously dared to make any comment, because this rather storm-tossed ship might have foundered, and I was anxious it should not do so.
  1538
  I would, therefore, take the opportunity now to thank the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for the complete and handsome way in which they have met my point, and to express my pleasure that they have been able to include this Clause. I am convinced it will facilitate the enforcement of school attendance, and prevent a great deal of suffering to young children who have got out of hand and become maladjusted.
  10.9 p.m.
  Mr. Mellish: Earlier in the debate I said some harsh things about the Minister, and I wish to take the opportunity now to say some nice things about her. We are grateful that the Bill will become an Act in the near future. I hope it will receive speedy approval in another place. It will confer great and well deserved benefit on a certain section of the community. We know, too, that this is a Bill to correct an anomaly and an injustice which no one had intended.
  I should like to place it on record that this is not a final settlement. This is not the last time we shall hear of the denominational school problem. It would not be fair on the denominational schools to say that this means the end of the argument. I would make this plain on their behalf: if they have a just claim, they have a right to come to this House and ask for justice. To be told, as they have been told by certain people throughout this debate, that every time they ask for justice they will arouse certain antagonisms, is unfair. Speaking purely for myself, I will say that, irrespective of antagonism, we shall come forward when we think the time is opportune and ask for what we think is right for our people.
  In the meantime, we are grateful to the Government for giving us the Bill. I should like, too, to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) for the part which he has played. Had we been the Government of the day we should have had the Bill and, with great respect, I think we should have had it much earlier.
  10.11 p.m.
  Mr. M. Stewart: I should like to concur in the Parliamentary Secretary's description of the Bill, and express the pleasure which we all feel that at last it has reached its Third Reading. As

  1539
  will now be apparent to hon. Members. in view of the length of the debate, there is one matter at any rate in respect of which many would have wished to see the Bill improved, but even without that improvement we feel that it is a valuable piece of work. It makes an alteration the necessity for which has long been recognised, and on which the late Mr. Tomlinson had set his heart.
  We are grateful to the Government for the facilities they have provided for the Bill. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) that it would be idle to talk of a settlement. We trust that we shall have reached a balance which is better than the balance we have had.
  I do not think we should forget that, besides dealing with that matter, there are other Clauses in the Bill to which we have given very little time today, naturally enough, but which are none the less very useful and valuable. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) referred to Clause 11 because I have a special affection for that Clause. Indeed, I urged the Government to raise it in status from a Schedule to the dignity of a Clause. I am grateful to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for acceding to my request.
  I believe that in the immediate and more distant future there are a great many ways in which parents, children and local education authorities will feel the benefits which will accrue from this perhaps only medium-sized but none the less valuable and useful Bill.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  BIRTHS AND DEATHS REGISTRATION BILL [Lords]
  Considered in Committee.

  Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair
  The Chairman: This is a consolidation Bill, and it may perhaps be for the convenience of the Committee if I put blocks of Clauses together.
  Clauses 1 to 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 38.—(PROSECUTION OF OFFENCES AND APPLICATION OF FINES.)
  10.15 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I beg to move, in page 20, line 7, to leave out subsection (2), and to insert:
  "(2) Any sum paid to the Secretary of State in pursuance of section twenty-seven of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949, in respect of a fine recovered under this Act shall be deemed to be Exchequer moneys within the meaning of that section and shall be paid by the Secretary of State into the Exchequer."
  This Amendment is necessary because of the provisions of Section 27 of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949. That Section makes provision for the payment of all fines imposed by courts of summary jurisdiction to the Secretary of State, and for the fines paid to the Secretary of State to be Exchequer moneys going into a pool for distribution to the responsible authorities. The Exchequer moneys are defined in that Act in such a way as to apply the moneys which are to be paid into the Exchequer by any Government Department or person on behalf of Her Majesty subject to the special provisions given by or under any Act, and the difficulty which arises here is due to the fact that the Justices of the Peace Act has reached the Statute Book before this Bill, and therefore, unless this Amendment is made, this Act could not come within the definition of "any Act" in Section 27 of the 1949 Act, and, therefore, the moneys would not go as it is desired they should go under this Bill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clauses 39 to 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 44.—(SHORT TITLE, EXTENT AND COMMENCEMENT.)
  The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, in page 23, line 21, to leave out "first day of July," and to insert "thirtieth day of September."
  This Amendment alters the date of the commencement of the Bill to 30th September, and the reason for the alteration is to enable this Bill to come into force very close to the time when it is hoped that another consolidation Bill will also reach the Statute Book, because it will be very inconvenient if a very long time elapses between the commencement of the one and the commencement of the other.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  First Schedule.—(CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS OF OTHER ENACTMENTS.)
  Amendment made: In page 24, line 24, leave out from "and," to end of line 29. and insert:
  "any sum paid to the Secretary of State in pursuance of section twenty-seven of the Justices of the Peace Act, 1949, in respect of a fine recovered under this paragraph shall be deemed to be Exchequer moneys within the meaning of that section and shall be paid by the Secretary of State into the Exchequer." —[The Solicitor-General.]
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  Second Schedule agreed to.
  Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

ROAD HAULAGE EMPLOYEES (COMPENSATION)
10.19 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite): I beg to move,
That the Draft Transferred Undertakings (Compensation to Employees) (Amendment) Regulations, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 26th March, be approved.
I am hopeful that we shall also have some harmony in the matter which I am now about to lay before the House. The point is a simple one.
Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas: The hon. Gentleman has not got lawyers dealing with this one.
Mr. Braithwaite: I hope we shall surmount the problem in the absence of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
Section 101 of the Transport Act, 1947, lays upon the Minister the duty of making Regulations which require the British Transport Commission to pay, in such cases and to such extent as may be specified in the Regulations, compensation to employees of undertakings transferred to the Commission who suffer loss of employment or loss or diminution of emoluments or pension rights or whose position is worsened, in consequence of nationalisation. It seems to be a little bit behind the time, but it does deal with that previous statute, and such Regulations have to be laid in draft and approved by affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament.
It was under Section 101 that Regulations were made by our predecessors in 1950 which prescribed the terms and conditions for the payment of compensation to employees of nationalised road haulage undertakings. The object of the present draft Regulations is to amend those passed in 1950 in one single particular, and only in one, in order to rectify an anomaly which has since come to light.
Those Regulations laid down, among other things, that before a person could be eligible for compensation he must have been an employee of an acquired undertaking at the time of its acquisition by the Commission, and, in addition, he must have been engaged as an employee in A or B licence work since 1st January, 1940. This requirement was in accordance with the general principle followed in similar compensation Regulations which had gone before, that a man must have been employed in the industry for a certain time in order to be eligible for compensation.
I now come to the anomaly which we seek to put right tonight. In thus speaking only of employment, those Regulations of 1950 failed to take into account a circumstance which was peculiar to the road haulage industry. It is a circumstance which has not been found in any of the other cases for which compensation has had to be provided in recent years.
It has emerged that among employees of road haulage undertakings acquired by the Commission there were some who, although long-distance road haulage had

1543
been their occupation for the whole of the qualifying period, or indeed longer, had not been employees for the whole of that time because for part of it they had been in business on their own account as owners or as partners.
If I may give the House a typical case, it is that of the man who founded and built up a business and then at some time between 1st January, 1940, and its acquisition by the Commission in 1948 or later, turned it into a limited company of which he became a managing director. But the cases are not necessarily confined to that type. Various circumstances may have made it necessary for a man to give up his own road haulage business and, instead, to become an employee in the industry. Such a man may have suffered loss of employment or reduction of earnings when the concern with which he took employment was taken over by the Commission, but because of the wording of the existing Regulations he is debarred from obtaining any compensation.
The Commission have told us that they know of 65 cases in which claims for compensation have had to be refused solely on this technical point. Of course, there may be other persons who are in similar circumstances and who for this reason have made no claim. It will therefore, I am sure, be generally agreed that it is quite unfair that such persons should be disqualified solely on account of this circumstance, which I think was almost certainly not envisaged when the present Regulations were drafted.
These employees clearly satisfied the intention lying behind the qualifying period, that only those who were well established in the industry should be eligible for compensation, since in one capacity or another they had been engaged in it throughout the qualifying period.
To put the matter right, it is proposed by Regulation 2 of the draft Regulations which I am now asking the House to affirm, to amend the definition of "whole time service" to include a period of engagement in A or B licence work as the owner or part-owner of an undertaking. This will have the effect that a period of ownership on or after 1st January, 1940, will count towards the qualifying period of service.
1544
The amendment will have one other result also. Under the 1950 Regulations, the amount and extent of the compensation payment may, in certain circumstances, depends upon a person's length of service in the industry. For example, a person entitled to short-term compensation who is over the age of 45, can get an additional week's payment over the minimum of 13 weeks, for each year's service after 45. At present, he can only count whole-time service as an employee, but under the amendment he will be able to count the period spent on A or B licence work as owner, including any period before 1st January, 1940.
Regulation 3 provides that a claim for compensation, or for the review of an award of compensation already made, arising by reason of the amendment, must be made within 13 weeks of the coming into operation of the amending Regulations, if the House gives them approval. The Commission tell us that they will be able to inform persons who have already made a claim that they can make a fresh application under the amending Regulations.
In the debate on the 1950 Regulations, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, and my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. H. Nicholls) drew attention to the defect which is now to be remedied by the amending Regulations. The point was considered immediately after the debate by the right hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes), who was then the Minister. The conclusion was reached that an amendment would be needed.
It must surely have occurred to hon. Members that a long period has elapsed since the defect was pointed out, but the chief reason why the amendment has not been made earlier is that at the same time consideration was given to another defect to which attention was drawn by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton). Whether action needed to be taken on the second point was uncertain, because it depended upon another point under the 1947 Act, which was about to be decided on appeal to the courts. It was therefore decided to defer action on both points until the test case had been decided. Unfortunately, this has taken a long time. It was only recently that the test case was

1545
finally settled by a decision of the House of Lords, and settled in such a way that no action was necessary on the second point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn. West.
Therefore, these Regulations will put right an injustice which arose, I am sure unwittingly, under the original Regulations. I think the House will agree that in complicated Regulations of this kind it is not surprising that a point of this sort is occasionally overlooked at first. It is only right that once the oversight is discovered it should be remedied. It is for these reasons that I commend the Regulations to the House.
10.28 p.m.
Mr. Ernest Davies: I do not propose to delay the House for more than a very few minutes because, as the Parliamentary Secretary has pointed out with his usual clarity, the reason for these Regulations is to amend the Regulations originally proposed by the predecessor Government. He has explained the anomaly which was discovered, and why it has not been possible to go ahead with it before. Obviously we support these Regulations
I must say, however, that when I first looked at them I had a little suspicion. They are coming now from a transport stable which does not always run the best horses, and I was a little worried whether these Regulations were not opening the door a little wide to enable certain persons to obtain compensation for loss of employment who had been forced out of the industry on nationalisation, and although they had already been over-generously compensated they might now be in a position to receive compensation for loss of employment. If the Parliamentary Secretary will give me an assurance that that is not the case I shall be grateful.
There seems a possibility that under the new Regulations persons who have been part of the time, prior to the 1947 Act, themselves owners of road haulage undertakings, will be able to count that period for compensation for loss of employment. There might have been cases where these persons were interested in the businesses which were acquired and therefore would be receiving extra generous treatment.
The second point is that I notice that paragraph 3 (2) provides for a review of
1546
any further cases. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary or the Commission have any idea how many such cases are likely to arise, in addition to the 65 to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. It would appear that only those who had made a claim before the coming into operation of these Regulations would be affected, and so I trust that there will not be a large number of new cases.
I should like to know whether the trade unions have been consulted with regard to these amending Regulations. The original Regulations were made in full consultation with the trade unions. I assume that there has been consultation in this case and that the trade unions have agreed to this amendment. I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary can give me that assurance. The hon. Gentleman said that we were going back in this case to nationalisation in 1947, which was now rather out of date.
I would point out to him that in the 1947 Act we provided for these Regulations right from the beginning and that they were produced in due course. But when the present Government produced a White Paper on transport policy the Minister failed to pay any attention to the interests of the workers affected and it was only after pressure from this side of the House that Clauses were introduced into the Transport Bill which finally provided for compensation for those likely to suffer under the new Act. Having said that, I must add that we certainly do not intend to oppose these Regulations.
10.33 p.m.
Mr. Braithwaite: By leave of the House, I should like to reply to the points made by the hon. Member for Enfield. East (Mr. Ernest Davies), whilst resisting the temptation contained in the concluding words of his speech to enter again into the long debates which we had in connection with the new Transport Act.
On the hon. Member's first point, these Regulations were framed, having regard to the situation. I have to say that after consultation with the Commission it was felt that the best definition was to say that a man must have been employed at the time of the acquisition and therefore could not obtain compensation for acquisition as well as compensation as an employee. The hon. Member also asked if we knew how many cases there were

1547
likely to be in addition to the 65 which I mentioned. I am afraid that we do not know but we believe the number to be very small.
On the question of consultation with the trade unions, I must answer that the trade unions were not consulted on the draft of the Regulations, which, of course, did not touch either the basis or the extent of the compensation but dealt with the definition of eligibility. The trade unions have made no adverse comment. The Regulations have been before the trade unions, as they have been before the rest of us, since 26th March, and I can assure the hon. Member that the trade unions are satisfied.
Mr. Ernest Davies: Were the trade unions invited to comment on the Regulations? Were copies sent to them?
Mr. Braithwaite: The Regulations have been available to them since 26th March, as to everyone else, and a copy was sent to them by my Department. There have been no adverse comments and I think that the hon. Member can be assured that the trade unions are satisfied.
Resolved:
That the Draft Transferred Undertakings (Compensation to Employees) (Amendment) Regulations, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 26th March, be approved.

MINERALS (PLANNING CONTROL)
10.35 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): I beg to move,
That the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Regulations, 1953, dated 14th April, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th April, be approved.
These Regulations make a few small amendments to the existing Regulations which deal with planning control over quarrying and other work. The existing Regulations apply the general principles of the Town and Country Planning Act to the special case of minerals. They were introduced in the summer of 1948, and experience has shown that some amendments were desirable to those Regulations. With the exception of one, these
1548
amendments are on points of detail and machinery, and they are reasonably well explained in the Explanatory Note at the end of the Statutory Instrument. Unfortunately it is not easy to reconcile the Explanatory Note with the Regulations, but the Explanatory Note is comprehensive if not easily reconcilable.
The one exception to the minor amendments is Regulation 5, which is on page 2 of the Statutory Instrument. This slightly extends the field for claiming compensation for loss which has been suffered on a refusal of permission to re-open or extend an existing mine or quarry. To make this point clear, perhaps I can give an example. If a man in 1938 had a 70-year lease to extract minerals and had installed the necessary machinery for that extraction, and then, during the war, he was stopped by a Defence Regulation from extracting the minerals, and after the war, when he came to restart he was not allowed to do so on planning grounds —perhaps the man was in the Cotswolds and he could not restart because it was thought undesirable that the Cotswolds should be disfigured—
Mr. G. R. Mitchison: A more aesthetic Government.
Mr. Marples: I am glad that the hon. and learned Member supports the Government in this light-hearted way, and I am most gTateful for his support— if the man were stopped during the war by a Defence Regulation, he could, under the existing Regulations, get compensation for abortive expenditure on plant and machinery and the necessary installations to extract the minerals.
If a man were making bricks he could get compensation for abortive expenditure on his plant and machinery, provided that he was stopped by a Defence Regulation. But if he had to stop during the war because all his men were conscripted, and not because of any Defence Regulation, he would, under the existing Regulations, not be able, when he came to restart, to get any compensation for abortive expenditure.
It was the tight wording of the existing Regulations which was responsible for this situation. One or two cases came to the notice of the Ministry in which it was clearly unjust to exclude compensation, but as they did not fall precisely within the wording of the

1549
previous Regulations no claim could be made. These revised Regulations remedy that injustice. Compensation is granted for abortive expenditure on plant and machinery—kilns or whatever it may be —where the man is prevented from doing something by the operation of the Town and Country Planning Act. He is not paid compensation for any losses suffered during the war through not being able to work his property.
It was asked in another place how much money would be involved. It is only a very small amount, according to the number of cases which have come to the knowledge of the Department. There may be other claims made if and when this Statutory Instrument becomes law, but it is not expected that they will amount to very much. The cost will be quite infinitesimal as compared with the general scope of the Act.
Another point I wish to make is that those parts of the 1948 Regulations which deal with development charges, claims on the £300 million fund and allied matters will have to be reviewed later in connection with the Government's proposals for the general amendment of the financial provisions of the 1947 Act. These present Regulations, therefore, do not touch on any of this. Their sole purpose is to make a number of minor amendments which experience over the last four or five years has shown to be desirable. The Regulations are limited in scope, impose very little charge upon the Exchequer but, I hope hon. Members will agree, give a great measure of justice; therefore, I hope that the House will now agree to them.
10.41 p.m.
Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I must say that these are very complicated Regulations. In general, I think that all my hon. Friends welcome them, despite their complexity. We welcome the point which, incidentally, the Parliamentary Secretary did not mention, and which seems to be something of considerable importance, namely, that the disposal of mining refuse is, for the first time—I believe that is so—regarded as a "change of use" and is, therefore, subject to planning control. In areas such as my own constituency that would seem to be a matter of importance or, at any rate, a matter capable of being of importance. We welcome the extension of the enforce-
1550
ment provisions, which appear to be incomplete in this regard. That is a small change, but a useful one.
I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he could let us know something about two points? First, there is a provision for the continuance of mining if begun without permission, or with only a limited permission, and for the imposition of conditions on that continuance. I can understand the need for that kind of provision; but I cannot understand what is the change which has called the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to it now, and, therefore, made these new Regulations necessary?
Second, we were told by the hon. Gentleman that they were intended to cover what are called some "hard" cases, where abortive expenditure has been incurred and cannot be met under the existing laws. So far as I can see, however, the change is simply to abolish two time limits—particularly that as regards the application to resume or continue. That was originally limited to, I think, a comparatively short period after the appointed day, and now the door appears to be opened completely. I have no doubt that there is some good reason for opening it, but I do not quite understand the type of hardship which the hon. Gentleman has in mind.
I hope that I have made my two points clear, and that neither is unduly complicated. In general, the Regulations appear to represent a reasonable tightening up and, in other respects, a reasonable alteration; and are, therefore, acceptable.
10.44 p.m.
Mr. Marples: If I might speak again, with the leave of the House, I would first say that I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. and learned Member has just said about the complexity of the Regulations. They are quite the most complicated that I have come across in my Department, and anybody who can thoroughly master them really deserves a medal. I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for approving and even welcoming certain aspects of the Regulations.
The disposal of refuse is development, and, I think, rightly so. It is not only the extraction of minerals, which is important from the point of view of town and country planning, but also the re-

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placement of the top soil and putting the land back into position.
The hon. and learned Gentleman asked why by paragraph (3), Section 18 (1) and (2), are made retrospective. The reason is that under the Town and Country Planning Act the position is that if one put in an application to erect a building which had already been started without permission, one might in certain circumstances get permission, and conditions would be attached to it. Under the Regulations which these Regulations amend, minerals were dealt with on a different basis, for no particular reason. The Regulations did not give the same treatment to mineral workings as the Act gave to buildings put up under the general Act.
Under the old Regulations, if one worked minerals for two years, there was no possibility of retrospective permission. The man who worked them could not put himself right although he might have started working the minerals without knowing that he ought not to do so. There was no method in law by which he could put himself right. The Regulations did not apply to minerals the feature of the Act which was applied to ordinary building operations. Under the new Regulations there is given to minerals what is already given to other forms of development. I do not see why it should not be so. If the person who has been working the minerals for some time past, against the law as it were, applies for permission, he can be given permission, but the Ministry or planning authority can attach conditions to the permission and make sure that the conditions are enforced.
Mr. Mitchison: If I understand the hon. Gentleman rightly, he is legalising what he regards as a pardonable illegality.
Mr. Marples: And in some cases a desirable illegality. This is legalising something which under the present Regulations could never be put right.
With regard to Regulation 5, the hon. and learned Gentleman said that the time limit had been altered in two respects. He argued that mineral undertakers had been treated more generously than those who were prevented from completing other forms of development. He was referring to Section 79 of the 1947 Act, which applied only to cases where an application for planning permission is
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made within six months of the appointed day; whereas Regulation 5 applies not to six months but to any time at which an application is made under Part III of the Act. I think that was his point.
Mr. Mitchison: It is near enough.
Mr. Marples: The main point is that this is not a new departure since Regulation 10 (1, b) of the 1948 regulations also dispensed with any time limit for the making of the relevant application; and for the reason that there was no time limit in the 1948 Regulations it would be inequitable to introduce one now, as it would disqualify undertakers covered by Regulation 10 (1, b); that is, those whose operations were temporarily suspended when the 1947 Act came into force. The hon. and learned Gentleman's grasp of these matters is so great that I have no doubt that he will understand the point readily.
Therefore, it is right that the mineral undertaker should be allowed this extension of time, particularly because in the case of mineral workings it must be remembered that there is continuous operation. One has to apply for permission in respect of the extraction of the minerals and, as one goes along, one also has to put the ground back into position, and one sometimes has to use for that the same machinery as one used for the extraction of the minerals. The London Brick Company at Stewartby use the same machinery for replacing the overburden which they take up before they come to the clay as they do for the clay which they use for making bricks.
Mr. Mitchison: Is that Corby?
Mr. Marples: I am talking about Stewartby, which is not so important as Corby in some respects but is more important industrially.
Therefore, I would say to the hon. and learned Gentleman that mineral undertakers are in quite a different category from the point of view of the time limit due to the technical nature of their operations. In view of that explanation, which I hope he will consider lucid, I trust that the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree with the Motion.
Resolved,
That the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Regulations, 1953, dated 14th April, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th April, be approved.
10.51 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Commander T. D. Galbraith): I beg to move:
That the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) (Scotland) Regulations, 1953, dated 14th April, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th April, be approved.
These Regulations are similar to those which have just been approved by the House in regard to England except in two minor respects, the first of which is the omission of the provisions in the English Regulations regarding enforcement notices. The reason is that this is already provided for by Section 21 (1) of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1947. The other respect in which they differ is that they contain a special provision covering the position arising from the fact that the Lands Tribunal Act, 1949, has not yet been brought into force in Scotland, and that is because there is not sufficient work for a tribunal of that nature to do at the present time. Meantime we are proceeding under the old system of procedure in these particular matters. These are the only differences in the Scottish Regulations, and I hope that the House will approve them.
10.52 p.m.
Mr, Thomas Fraser: When I got my copy of the Scottish Regulations and discovered that they were not quite the same as the English Regulations, I looked at the Explanatory Note. I found that the Note in the English Regulations ran to about six inches and that in the Scottish Regulations to about two and a half inches, so I assumed there must be more in the English than in the Scottish Regulations. On looking at the Regulations closely I discovered the difference about the enforcement and also that about the Lands Tribunal.
I wonder, however, if the Joint Undersecretary would help me to understand these Regulations a little better. If they are complicated to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), they are equally complicated to me. The Regulations contain many adaptations and repetitions of what was contained in the 1948 Regulations, except that Regulation 3 (b) contains an addition, namely, the inclusion of Section 16 (1 and 2) and of Section 73. I wonder if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman
1554
could tell me precisely what these additions do, why they are necessary and why this change is being made.
Secondly, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in explaining the English Regulations, said a little about Regulation 5, which is Regulation 4 of the Scottish Regulations, and it seemed to me to be a great change. Section 76 of the Act which is here being amended provides, of course, that compensation for expenses will be paid if planning permission is sought within six months of the passage of the Bill, and is refused. The adaptation made here provides that compensation may be paid if planning permission is sought and refused, not within six months but at any time. Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us what kind of works in Scotland he or his right hon. Friend have in mind in making this change in the law?
Can he tell us whether I am right in thinking that a person who laid down plant and machinery some time before the passage of the Town and Country Planning Act and failed to make application for planning permission to carry out certain further work within six months of the passing of the Act but now, or in five or 10 years time does so and is then refused, will be entitled to compensation for abortive expenditure? In other words, just how far does the insertion of the words "at any time" in place of "six months from the passage of the Act" take us? What kind of case is intended to be covered by this; what kind of cases have arisen, if any, in Scotland; and is it possible to say whether this is likely to involve any considerable sum of money in compensation?
I know that these matters are complicated and perhaps my incompetence makes it impossible for me to make myself more plain to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman but, if he has followed me, I shall be indebted to him if he can help me to understand the position.
10.57 p.m.
Commander Galbraith: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will try to answer the questions put to me by the hon. Gentleman.
As he is aware, Regulation 3 replaces Regulation 3 (1) of the 1948 Regulations. It was designed to ensure that the term

1555
"use" of land in the 1947 Act includes mining operations only for certain purposes. The present Regulation widens the context in which mining operations can be regarded as a use, so that permission can be granted under Section 16 of the Act for mining operations already begun, and so that conditions relating to such operations may be enforced under Section 73 of the Act. The hon. Gentleman said that it was somewhat complicated, and I agree. The Regulation also makes it clear that Section 10 (3, b) of the Act, which provides that the deposit of waste involves a material change in the use of land, applies to waste tipping which is part of the mining operations.
The hon. Gentleman asked me exactly what was covered under Regulation 4. I would remind him that the 1948 Regulations covered abortive expenditure in respect of buildings, plant and machinery required for the winning and working of minerals. The Regulation now before us covers also such abortive expenditure in respect of buildings, plant and machinery required for processing minerals. Compensation in respect of work not authorised under current planning legislation has been excluded. The hon. Gentleman also asked what sums were involved in relation to this compensation, and I have to tell him that, so far as can be foreseen, any compensation will be very small indeed.
Mr. Fraser: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell me of any case—for instance of brickworks or quarries? If someone laid down plant for the processing of stone in a quarry, and made application for permission before 1955 or 1965, to extend his extraction of minerals to be processed by the plant installed before the passage of the Act, and was refused permission to extract additional minerals, would he be entitled to compensation for abortive expenditure due to the provision of the machinery or plant for processing minerals?
Commander Galbraith: The answer to the last part of the question is, yes. We have no knowledge of actual cases that would be covered by the new Regulation; in fact none has arisen on which the old Regulation would "bite." The new Regulation was made to cover possible cases which might arise.
11.0 p.m.
Mr. James Mclnnes: The Minister cannot say "yes" to my hon. Friend's question because the Lands Tribunal would consider it as a separate item for compensation and would determine later whether it would be entertained.
Mr. Galbraith: The hon. Member will understand that the Lands Tribunal is not in question here. We are dealing with the arbiter appointed for this purpose.
Resolved,
That the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) (Scotland) Regulations, 1953, dated 14th April, 1953, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th April, be approved.

ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION (FLUORINE)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Redmayne.]
11.1 p.m.
Dr. Barnett Stross: My purpose tonight in bringing before the House this problem of environmental fluorosis is in order to ask the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister to instigate a piece of medical research in my own division or some other part of Stoke-on-Trent where my division is located. Such a piece of research is long overdue and would benefit possibly very many parts of the world wherever certain types of industries are involved. I hope at the end of this debate that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to assent.
This House has heard again and again the question of fluoride poisoning as it affects cattle raised with the Minister of Agriculture, and with the Minister of Labour where the health of the workers is involved. I am asking whether or not the time has not arrived when an investigation should be specifically made into the hazards which are run by people who live near factories and industrial undertakings which, as by-products of their activity, produce fluoride gas or fluoride compounds into the atmosphere.
In Lincolnshire some few years ago an examination was made of the open calcining of iron ore which contained

1557
1,200 parts per million of fluorine. It was noted in the neighbourhood that farm windows were etched and the occupants complained of the following symptoms: stiff joints, or stiff back, or stomach trouble or a cough. As early as 1937 in a factory where cryolite was being worked in Copenhagen an investigation by Roholm found that workers engaged in the process showed marked boney changes, including increased density of bones. X-rays showed that there was osteosclerosis and marked exostoses of the bones, jutting out of fragments from the shin-bone. More recently, the experimental work of A. M. Bond and Professor Murray on rats has shown that long before there are boney changes the ingestion of fluorine compound beyond what can be safely taken or excreted brings harmful changes to the kidneys.
I remember that in my own constituency, during the war, when I examined many youngsters entering the Cadet Force, I noticed changes in the teeth of an appreciable number. They had the fluoride spots of which many hon. Members have heard. At that time, and until recently, in certain parts of Hanley and Fenton in Stoke-on-Trent there was appreciable etching of the windows of houses near certain installations. Certain steps have been taken which I will mention in a moment and which have given us some remedy in this matter. It is fair to say that it is thought that there is no etching of the teeth of schoolchildren today in Stoke-on-Trent. I have had this last observation from the chief education officer, but I do not agree with it, for last week I saw a case in a child of 10—quite a typical case. I believe, therefore, that some is still being caused.
An investigation with schoolchildren such as I am asking for human beings generally who live near certain installations where we know this trouble has certainly existed until recently, and I am sure still exists, could very easily be carried out. It would have to be under the guidance of someone who is conversant with the research technique in this matter. Whoever was in charge— appointed, of course, by the Minister-would make use of the medical officer of health of the city, who is interested in and conversant with this problem, our school medical officers, our school dental
1558
officers, our radiological department, which is first class, and our health visitors.
I can state simply in a sentence or two the technique which I think would be used. The Minister would arrange that certain specimens collected by this team —specimens of drinking water, of certain dusts, of urine from human beings who were examined—would have to be analysed at Weybridge. At Weybridge is the laboratory which is attached to the Ministry, and therefore there would be no problem and no difficulty. In fact, the Parliamentary Secretary is probably aware that my colleague, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) brought up this matter with reference to cattle in his division which are sick and diseased, with broken, brittle or worn out teeth, staring coats and inability to eat, and which die prematurely; and tests are being carried out at Weybridge in connection with that investigation. But that is for animals, and I want tests for human beings, because we have the greater problem; cattle can be moved from pastures which are contaminated by dusts of this kind, but we must live there.
I hope the Minister will recognise that there can be no serious difficulty about these investigations. The sources of fluorine are, of course, water, tea. fish and fish products, and some drinking water contains more fluorine than other drinking water. I hope the Minister would never agree to the fluoridation of any drinking water in this country unless very careful investigation had first been made of the fluorine content of the surrounding atmosphere.
May I briefly give some of the sources from which this fluoride contamination reaches or may reach human beings. First of all, there is firing in tunnel ovens of pottery ware, while it is in a biscuit state, which means the first firing. In the body of the ware there is often Cornish stone and sometimes fluorspar, which is Derbyshire spar. We estimate that about 300 tons of Cornish stone are used in the industry a month. This would mean, say, each month about 20 to 25 tons of fluorine compounds in the atmosphere. That is about 300 tons a year of pure fluorine compounds. Therefore, that is one potent source.
Secondly, of course, there is the use of coal, mostly in domestic grates as well as in industrial installations, and many

1559
coals contain 100 parts of a million of fluorine. We estimate that perhaps 150,000 to 250,000 tons of coal are burnt each month in Stoke-on-Trent. That would give five to eight tons of fluorine, a very much smaller amount, of course, than we get from the 300 tons of Cornish stone.
To get as much fluorine from coal burnt either in domestic grates or furnaces as from Cornish stone, we would have to use about I million tons of coal. I would remark in passing that although coal is not so guilty as the other substance I mentioned which is used in pottery, this coal emits each month into the atmosphere some 3,000 to 5,000 tons of sulphur gas, which is a very unpleasant thing. We have many amenities, of course, in Stoke-on-Trent, but we do not boast that we are exactly a spa, and it must be apparent that like other industrial centres we have difficulties.
The third, and I think a smaller industry, but much more likely to be guilty, is where fluorides are manufactured for the vitreous enamel industry for making enamel which is later applied to metal. There cryolite is used, which is sodium aluminium fluoride, and this is probably the most potent localised source of giving a neighbourhood risk.
Fourthly and lastly, we have a great steel works in my constituency and we know that in recent years fluorspar is being used more and more as a flux for combining different types of metal together. I do not think, for my small researches, that there is much of this being used in this particular iron and steel industry, but some, of course, is used, and that would not be denied.
We in Stoke-on-Trent are not in a panic about this. We are too tough to be afraid of this sort of thing, particularly in view of the fact that a few years ago it was worse. There is less etching of glass now. I am told that glass which was taken out a few years ago, or recently, because people could not see through it and which has been replaced by new glass has not etched greatly. On the other hand, workers have told me that in a certain factory they cannot see out of the windows although the factory is a fairly new one.
Our industrialists have taken action in some cases, and in many cases they have
1560
dispersed the contamination by putting in high chimneys. Other have put in plant for washing these exhaust gases, so that we have at least some remedy.
As I said earlier, our school dentists do not think there is much mottling of teeth, although I can vouch for what I saw in the very rooms I occupy in my constituency in a boy of 10. I have a fragment of glass from a green-house and the contamination on it, which will not wash off with sugar soap, is only of a year's duration, because last year I saw it cleaned with an acid, which is the only thing that will clean it off.
We are dealing, I think, with a localised problem, and it may be that it is not a serious one. But I am assured by those who know much more about it than I do—and perhaps more than anyone here—that it is most desirable that a fragment of work should be done on human beings, and that it should be done in my constituency, or in South Stoke. No one in the world has done it, and it would be valuable for many other countries.
We want to know, not whether there is very marked exacerbations of serious poisoning, but whether there is an earlier stage, such as early kidney disease. It would not be at all difficult, as I have informed the hon. Lady. A fortnight's survey would do it, and with the results of this survey we would then know whether there is a problem, how serious it is, if at all, and if we see there is a problem we can then bend our minds towards some remedy. The Ministry must be deeply concerned with possibilities of illness from new industrial processes. We can take difficulties in our stride if we know the magnitude of the problem. If there is no problem we shall be delighted, and it may well be, with some of the difficulties we have suffered in the past, I have the right to ask for this particular favour.
11.16 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising a matter which is of particular interest to his constituency. His general suggestion that it might be a danger to the public must necessarily be of interest to the Ministry because we are naturally very concerned

1561
with anything which can be considered a danger to public health.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Medical Research Council are constantly following up such lines of investigation, but they obviously cannot call for any inquiry unless they are satisfied that there is not only some but sufficient evidence to justify a full-scale and detailed inquiry. When I say a full-scale and detailed inquiry it is fair to say that no superficial inquiry could have behind it the authority of the Medical Research Council, and, therefore, if an inquiry was called for it would have to be indeed a thoroughly detailed one, thorough in all its aspects, and one upon which a really firm decision by the Council could be taken.
As far as fluorine compounds are concerned, it is agreed that they proceed from various industrial processes, and are discharged into the air, particularly in the various processes which the hon. Gentleman quoted. But we are assured, and we have investigated the local evidence available in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, that there is no concrete clinical evidence to suggest that they constitute a risk in themselves to the general health of the public.
In 1949 there was an inquiry by the Medical Research Council in the report of the Fluorosis Committee, which specifically went into an area where there were factories manufacturing aluminium, one of the industries the hon. Gentleman mentioned as a particularly bad one in this respect. The inquiry was conducted in Inverness-shire, and it was done in a thoroughly detailed fashion. Clinical, biochemical and radiological examinations were made of groups of workers in the factories where it was known the discharge was at its highest. The people living' in the surrounding area were also examined.
The result of that most detailed and thorough investigation was—whilst it was established that a large amount of fluorine was liberated from the factories, with all the workers near and closely exposed to these discharges—that the effects were absolutely minimal on their general health, and none of those examined were suffering from any clinical disability. In the whole survey, of those affected at all, there were three or four who showed definite evidence of fluorine,
1562
and they had been exposed to the discharge for over 50 years. The percentages of the report included all radiological abnormalities which were not otherwise explained, and even those which were not necessarily fluorosis of the bone. There was no sign of injury to the health of residents in the surrounding neighbourhood.
Dr. Srross: Has the hon. Lady forgotten the fact that out of 373 women and children in the area who were examined, 21 had mottled teeth?
Miss Hornsby-Smith: I am coming to the teeth.
Sheep and cattle are not the responsibility of my Department, but I accept that there is more danger in their case, in that animals are more exposed. The situation is admittedly more serious in that animals eat grass impregnated with fluorine discharge, and the amount that they consume in a short time would take a human being a lifetime to breathe from the atmosphere.
Mr. Thomas Oswald: May I point out that in the report of the Medical Research Council there is a photograph of one worker employed in an area other than Fort William. Inverness-shire where most of the research work was done, that there was deterioration of the lumbar vertebrae and that the locum tenens was treating him primarily for lumbago and arthritis, whereas he was suffering from fluorosis from deposits from the factory?
Miss Hornsby-Smith: I said that four cases were established. In a detailed survey that was by no means an abnormal number or as many as those who did the investigation expected to find.
As for the general allusion to industrial processes, there are two inquiries under way which will have some bearing on this topic. Firstly, my right hon. Friend has established an inquiry into the fog deaths in London, and, secondly, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government are carrying out an investigation into air pollution over the whole country, and particularly in industrial towns. Quite obviously, the incidence of cases and evidence on fluorine will be featured in the inquiries, particularly in the one on pollution in industrial towns.

1563
We have been in contact with the Medical Officer of Health for Stoke-on-Trent, but he and the school dental officers claim that they have no evidence whatsoever of a case of mottling of teeth due to fluorine. As to windows, although etching of the glass was reported to be bad in one factory and present in neighbouring houses, new washing plant has been installed there and the windows which have been replaced have not shown any deterioration since.
Investigations of this kind, made on medical grounds, are made on the recommendation of the Medical Research Council to my right hon. Friend. If the Council regarded any danger as sufficient to warrant an investigation, I am sure that there would be no hesitation on the part of my right hon. Friend in endorsing that recommendation. As to the question whether Stoke-on-Trent might be considered as a centre for investigation, if it were thought desirable and necessary to have an inquiry, I must say that the scale of investigation suggested by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) would be grossly inadequate to produce reports sufficiently extensive and reliable for the Medical Research Council to come to a decision upon them.
He did mention a report, but I am sure that, with his great medical knowledge, even he will agree that the investigation was not sufficiently deep and detailed as
1564
would certainly justify an inquiry by the Medical Research Council. He mentioned stiff joints and stiff limbs. Some of us have them at the end of an all-night Sitting, but we cannot lay the blame on fluorine. While I am sure that the suggestion was put forward in all good faith, I think the hon. Member will realise that if it were necessary to carry out such an inquiry it would be a much bigger job than could be done in the fortnight he suggests.
I can assure him that all the evidence we have does not lead us or the Medical Research Council to believe that an inquiry in that area is essential, but the wider problem of fluorine will quite obviously have to be one of the items covered in the wider investigations now being undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government into air pollution, as particularly applied to industrial areas.
With regard to the question of fluorine in water supplies, the hon. Member knows that there has been a British mission to North America inquiring into this. Their report will be published at the end of the month and, pending a full study of that report, I would not wish to add anything on that particular topic this evening.
Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-six Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.