HC Deb 14 December 1959 vol 615 cc1204-16

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

11.25 p.m.

Dr. Horace King (Southampton, Itchen)

I want to speak tonight about the disparity between the number of public schoolboys and State grammar schoolboys selected for officer-cadetships in the Services, a disparity more marked in the Navy than in the other two Services.

I am grateful to the Civil Lord for arranging my visit to H.M.S. "Sultan", where I sat in on an interviewing board for future cadets and also watched a similar board selecting ratings for promotion. I would thank Rear-Admiral Larken and the board on which he presides for receiving me in so generously kind a way. As Steele would have said, to be in the company of Admiral Larken is a liberal education. I also pay tribute to the board for the patient, painstaking and scrupulously fair way in which it sets about the formidable task of discovering which youngsters age 16 are worthy of being chosen for a course which eventually leads to a a much-coveted commission.

As I said when I first raised this question years ago, nobody who is disquieted by the results of that selection would charge the gentlemen who take part in it of conscious and deliberate class selection. Young candidates undergo examination for a whole day. There is an intelligence test; a practical test in initiative, common sense and leadership, which I found fascinating to watch; a psychological assessment by the Navy's psychologist; free discussion on selected topics among the candidates, a short speech from each, and a long, searching interview.

All this is observed and judged by each examiner, who then makes his personal assessment of the candidate's merit. Finally, the board, between them, reach an agreed mark after discussion. But against the obvious and eager desire of the board to select the ablest lads the simple facts are profoundly disquieting to one who believes as I do, first, that the Navy wants the best potential officers, and, secondly, that that potential is distributed amongst all our children and is not confined to one social group that is privately educated in our public schools.

The Montague Report gave the following figures for entry at 16 since it began in 1948: 1,132 candidates from independent schools sat the written examination and 352 passed, 2,557 from State grammar schools sat the written examination and 585 passed. But of the 352 public schoolboys who went to interview 240, or 68 per cent., were selected whereas of the 581 grammar schoolboys only 165, or 28 per cent., were selected. Moreover, since the Report, the position seems to be getting worse. In 1950, the Dartmouth intake was 70 per cent. from public schools and 30 per cent. from State schools, but recent Answers to Questions of mine gave the following figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 24th line, 1958: preliminary boards for naval scholarships, 81 boys from independent schools, 22 selected; 82 boys from State schools, but only three selected; Dartmouth entry, 22 from public schools, 17 selected; 10 from State schools, only four selected. According to the OFFICIAL REPORT for 18th November, 1959, 167 bays passed from independent schools, 80 selected on interview, 84 passed from State schools, but only 19 were selected on interview. I have studied at H.M.S. "Sultan" this year's list, which is incomplete, but is taking shape. Again, almost all the successful candidates will be from public schools. The number of grammar schools successes is declining.

The tendency is the other way in the Army and the R.A.F. The figures, according to the OFFICIAL REPORT for 18th November, 1959, are: Sandhurst, independent schoolboys, 429 passed the written examination and 219 were selected on interview; State schoolboys, 274 passed the written examination, 99 selected on interview—a much better figure. In the R.A.F., of 349 candidates 46 from independent schools were selected as compared with 73 from State schools—a very striking difference.

The Grigg Report of 1958 shows that over ten years Sandhurst drew 2,000 out of 6,000 cadets from 21 public schools and 1,000—one-sixth of its whole intake —from six public schools. The Grigg Report shows that the Committee's members share my concern about the disparity of which I am speaking. May I quote passages which support my case? In paragraph 84 we find: … the Services by tradition rely heavily on the better-known public schools, since they think that these produce the best officers. In paragraph 196, we find: …it does seem that the Army leans too heavily upon the product of the old 'Army Class' schools for its cadet entry. In paragraph 197, we find: … the selection machinery finds much more difficulty in assessing the quality of the boy from the North and the lad from the local grammar school. I have not time to speak about the North country accent, except to say that there is statistical evidence to support the Committee's contention. In paragraph 198, we find: … if the Services cannot make first-class officers out of the best boys from the grammar schools, then they must expect shortfalls of officers in terms of number and quality. And if the numbers of grammar school boys applying is comparatively small, it suggests that they do not consider themselves wanted. There are plenty of ambitious boys from that background entering other professions. As the House knows, to me equality of opportunity is a fundamental question. I do not believe that we can have it as long as we have a two-nation setup in our schools. The inequalities begin even in primary education with small classes in private schools and large classes in State schools. We are moving slowly towards parity with every new school we open and every new teacher we train. In the meantime, we must do everything we can to bridge the gap between the boys from the two arms of our educational system.

I realise that the Navy cannot dispense with the interview. In this technical age we need to recruit highly intelligent officers. The modern Navy needs scientists, technicians, humanists, and the written examination sorts out one kind of chaff. But an officer needs other qualities besides, and the interview seeks to recognise and measure those qualities. This is, indeed, a formidable task, and the process, no matter how fairly administered. is essentially a subjective process.

Two boys, one from a wealthy home and a good school and one from a poor home and a less-endowed school, are tested for their initiative, awareness, experience, savoir faire and the like at the interview. The former may have visited several foreign countries in vacations and enjoyed the conversation in his family group, and, indeed, in his school group, of cultured folk, seen good shows, heard good music and read good newspapers. He is compared with the other, whose fifth form at a State grammar school may be overcrowded, whose home cannot provide a room in which to study, and whose post-15 education will always be hampered by the economic anxieties so clearly set out in the Weaver Report, which the Government have so far not seen fit fully to implement.

One boy already speaks with ease the language of the upper and middle class and has already acquired in his public school the confidence and poise and, let me add, a quality of courtesy which set him well ahead, in an interview, of the comparatively gauche and even defensively aggressive youngster from the grammar school. It needs a board of Solomons to dive under the outer lad in this case to find whether the qualities it seeks are there. The board tries hard. Again, I emphasise its scrupulous fairness. But the disquieting disparity which I have mentioned remains.

In all this there is a vicious circle to be broken. Many grammar schools do not send candidates because they have no faith in the board. This is wrong. A group of headmasters said to the Montague Committee: The best publicity is the selection of good candidates; the worst publicity is their rejection If a first-class lad comes up from a grammar school and is rejected, the boys, and indeed the staff, of that school will think a long time before they send another. By the same token, I saw at the board evidence that where a grammar school has broken through, the example of that triumph encourages other youngsters to come from the same school.

I share the view expressed to me by some members of the board that the fault is, to some extent, with the State grammar school. They are not sending up their best boys. We need a recruiting campaign among local authorities and grammar school heads. The break- ing down of barriers must come from both sides. I plead with young, able and ambitious sea-loving lads, wherever they are, to apply for cadetships.

In the batch of candidates whom I watched for a whole day the boy from one good public school easily outshone the rest from lesser public schools and State schools in courtesy without servility, and courtesy is by no means a class perquisite. It was also clear that one State school stood out from others in the width and range of what was happening outside the classroom. To some extent a school is being tested when any one of its boys is being examined.

I would suggest that on the interview board there should be parity of number between naval and non-naval assessors, with the admiral no doubt having the casting vote; that the board should always include the head of a State grammar school—indeed, of a secondary modern school, too, as time goes on. It is of vital importance that some members of the board should have knowledge and experience of State school education and the social conditions under which most of our children live.

Scottish headmasters wrote to the Montague Committee: The procedure is fair, but it would appear that it gives a great advantage to the boy from a home where the parents are well educated … even more so to the boy whose parents have some knowledge of life in the Services.. and to the boy who has already been away from home and in attendance at a boarding school.… That, I believe, still to have some warrant. Indeed, the figures I have quoted seem to show we are receding, not advancing. It would appear that, as we move away further from the Second World War, we are doing what we did after the First World War—stepping back to an age where officers are largely drawn from one social group.

The Griggs Committee deplores that and I feel sure that all three Service Ministers and the Civil Lord, who is to reply to this debate, want the best officers, irrespective of their social origin. I would like to feel that a young lad in a village primary school, or town or country grammar school, carries in his schoolboy's satchel a marshal's baton or an admiral's flag. I want every ambitious lad to know that that is possible.

I speak tonight of the Navy with that affection and pride which all my fellow-countrymen share, and, may I interject a hope that this Government will give it a fairer crack of the whip than the last one did. In the long run, the problem I raise tonight is one to be tackled by Ministers of Education and Crowther Reports—the breaking down of barriers that still run vertically through our school system. But, in the short term. much can be done. It may be that the final solution is one entry into the Navy, with all promotions to cadetships being made from ratings along the excellent lines I saw at work on H.M.S. "Sultan." But, meanwhile, every grammar school, private or public, should encourage boys who have ability, character and a call to the sea to come forward for an interview which is itself an education, and should encourage the visits of naval officers to schools and of schoolboys to the Navy.

As for selection itself, I hope that both the Minister and the board will be self-critical. Recently, the first secondary modern schoolboy ever was awarded a cadetship. This seems to show that the door is open, if our boys will push hard enough.

There is nothing new in what I am saying tonight and I would end with the words, still incompletely realised, of an earlier Lord of the Admiralty, Dr. Macnamara, who said, on 18th March, 1914: … you are bound … frankly to admit and generously to provide for the claim that, no matter how humble or rude his extraction, the boy of parts shall have open to him the highest rank in his calling … If you do not admit that principle, or if you admit it too grudgingly, you will, as time goes on, increasingly deprive the State of valuable and, may be, brilliant service."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1914; Vol. LIX, c. 2121.] It is in that spirit that I open this brief debate.

11.40 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives)

I had the honour last year of doing my naval training with the Dartmouth Squadron, and was able to see all the naval cadets. visited all three ships in the squadron, and I must say that I would have been very hard put to it, except, possibly, in one or two cases, to tell which were the public school boys and which the grammar school boys.

As the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) has said, this selection is a formidable task, and I would like to take up two of his remarks and ask my hon. Friend to reply to them. The hon. Member mentioned the effect of the recruiting campaign. That is very important indeed. I would like to know what access officers have to these secondary schools so that they may be able to put the case, and the opportunities available, to suitable boys there.

I would also like to see greater encouragement for visits of young and first-class young naval officers; preferably, as in the case mentioned by the hon. Member, the boy who has made the grade, so to speak. That young officer should be able to go back to his school and dispel misconceptions there may be as to the future of such a boy when he gets with other boys, as I saw for myself last year and this summer. I therefore ask my hon. Friend: is he satisfied with the access to these various schools that is given to naval officers for this purpose? That access is very important.

11.41 p.m.

Brigadier Sir Otho Prior-Palmer (Worthing)

I am completely in sympathy with what has been said by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), but I think that when he reads his speech in HANSARD he will find that he is condemning out of his own mouth what he wished to praise—the way in which the selection boards operate. He quoted figures to show that the bias was in a certain direction, but he cannot have it both ways. Either the selection boards are wrong in the way they select, or the candidates from the grammar schools are not measuring up to those standards.

I had hoped that he would have suggested how the selection boards could be improved, so as to increase the numbers from the grammar schools. As I say, however, he cannot have it both ways. If the selection boards are right in the way in which they are doing their work and the result is that fewer boys from the grammar schools are selected, that is the fault of the grammar schools —not of the boys, but of the grammar schools.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman—I have fought in both world wars—that it is very, very difficulty to decide, when a boy is 16, what sort of leader he will make as a man; whether, when he is hungry and tired and "flogged" to the wide world he will produce that quality that holds on when nothing else does. I am certain that the hon. Gentleman would not for one moment suggest that the selection boards should be persuaded to weight in favour of the grammar school boys in spite of the fact that they were not coming up to measure. Nevertheless, if the pressure grows strong enough, the selection boards may say, "We will have to select so many grammar school boys, whether they are good or bad, to placate public opinion." I know that the hon. Member would never dream of suggesting that.

11.45 p.m.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing)

First, I should like to thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) for raising this subject tonight, for the very reasonable terms and spirit in which he has done so, and for the time and trouble that he has obviously taken in preparing his remarks. I would also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Sir O. Prior-Palmer) for their contributions to this short debate.

I must say that, in my post as Civil Lord, I was glad to hear once more that the procedure of the Admiralty Interview Board is objective and fair. During the last four years several Members of both Houses of Parliament have visited the board. Apart from the members of the board itself, 43 headmasters and directors of education have visited the board and not one person has come away dissatisfied with our procedure. I went last Friday and I would thoroughly endorse what the hon. Member said, that the procedure of the Admiralty Interview Board, if I may borrow his words, was patient, painstaking and scrupulously fair.

The Navy wants the best boys from every type of school. The Royal Navy today offers a career as satisfying and more varied than perhaps ever before in history. Moreover, since the war, the career structure, pay, allowances and pensions are all vastly improved, but we are not getting the cadets in the numbers that we want. We want more and better cadets from public schools, from the grammar schools and from every type of school.

The hon. Member for Itchen concentrated on how to get more and better boys from grammar schools, and it is only right that I should concentrate on that part of the subject. We are getting some excellent boys from grammar schools. The record here is rather better than the hon. Member suggested. I do not accept that there has been an increase from independent schools since 1950. The average from independent schools over the last five years is 65 per cent. I think that the hon. Member said, quite rightly, that in 1950 it was 70 per cent. In every competition we get some excellent boys from grammar schools. I looked at the state of play in one of our competitions, not yet completed, for this year, and I found that the top boy came from a maintained grammar school, the second from an independent school and the third from a grammar school. Four more boys from schools other than independent were amongst the first 12. So we are getting some good boys from that source.

The hon. Gentleman also questioned the balance of the Admiralty Interview Board and suggested that it might be differently composed. We already have parity. We have four naval members and four civilian members. The marking of the four civilian members—it is not done on a vote—has absolutely equal weight with the marking of the naval members. This is unique to Navy interview boards. The civilian members are a director of education from a local education authority, and I think that the hon. Member will agree that such a person is obviously well experienced in State schools; a civilian psychologist from the Admiralty; an administrative civil servant as the First Lord's personal representative; and there is a headmaster.

Over the last seven years—I checked these figures very carefully—more than two out of three of these headmasters have come from State schools. I do not think that we should have a lower percentage than that if we are to do justice to the independent schools. I do not believe that there could be a better balance on the board than this.

Why do boys from independent schools apply in much greater numbers—and this is a fact which I acknowledge? In 1959, 167 applied from independent schools, and only 84 from maintained grammar schools. Some of the reasons are these. Life at a boarding school shows some of he advantages in fellowship and companionship which are also common to Service life. A number of boarding, schools have a Service tradition, although applicants are not confined, as the hon. Member suggested in the Report that he quoted, to a few boarding schools.

In 1959, we drew our cadets from no less than 56 different independent schools. Perhaps the parents of public school boys, having paid considerable sums of money for the education of their children, may not always be in a position to pay further for a university education, and under the current regulations they may get little financial help with the university part of the education. So perhaps these parents do steer their boys towards the Services for the latter part of their education.

Why is it that all grammar schools do not support the Navy? I want to consider some of the factors which may be handicapping us from having as many good boys as we should like from grammar schools. I think that among parents and masters of State schoolboys, if not among the boys themselves, there is a tendency to look on the universities as the obvious goal of a bright boy. It is, I think, natural for boys who have started life with academic ability as their chief advantage to wish for a university education and a university degree as the fulfilment of their academic prowess.

Many headmasters, I think, measure the success of their schools by the number of places they secure at the universities. This is one of the reasons why we accepted the recommendation of Sir Keith Murray's Committee that all engineering and electrical officers should have the opportunity of reading for a degree. I hope that this move will attract the bright boy. The Sir Keith Murray Committee considered, also, raising our entry standards, thinking that this would be helpful in attracting the best boys from all types of school. This we are now doing, and I hope that it will help.

Lastly—I say this in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives— we have our school liaison officers, who have visited very many schools, but in the following seven counties we are unable to gain access to any of our State schools: Cardiganshire, Carmarthen-shire, Flintshire, Glamorganshire, Merionethshire, Monmouthshire, and Dunbartonshire. There are 25 Members of Parliament representing those counties, so I hope that we may hear their views in support of allowing our recruiting officers in. Nor are our liaison officers allowed to visit schools controlled by the following eight boroughs or county boroughs: Merthyr Tydfil, Swansea, Smethwick, West Bromwich, Dundee, Carlisle, City of Durham and Hartlepool. There are another 10 Members of Parliament representing those places who could help us in this problem.

Moreover, there are other authorities which impose restrictions, and these include Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, Denbighshire, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and the county of Perth and Kinross. Here, there are 21 Members of Parliament. In all, there are 56 members of Parliament representing those areas, and I very much hope that we can count on them to help in overcoming what I think every Member of the House will agree is an outdated prejudice.

What are we doing to set matters right? We have eight area schools liaison officers, and they are at work throughout the British Isles. They called at 600 out of the 1,200 maintained grammar schools in the last year. Arrangements have been made for headmasters, careers masters and youth employment officers to visit Dartmouth, Manadon and seven other training establishments, and also the Admiralty Interview Board. Three hundred and fifty are now making these visits every year.

We invite the same group to our annual "Shopwindow"—a very realistic and stimulating demonstration with an aircraft carrier and other ships at sea. Visits are arranged for school parties to Her Majesty's ships. We take a stand at any exhibition where we feel that maximum impact can be achieved on young people, and the Admiralty is co-operating in making the television series "War at Sea", consisting of 13 half-hour films. In every sphere, we wish to attract and educate grammar school headmasters and everyone else in the advantages of the Service life.

On the 30th of this month, the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten, will address the Incorporated Association of Headmasters, a body consisting mainly of headmasters from State grammar schools.

Those are some of the actions we are taking. We are not complacent, and we should be happy to receive any constructive ideas from whatever source. To sum up, the Navy wants the best boys. Our methods of cadet selection have been examined again and again and found to be, in the words of the hon. Member for Itchen, "scrupulously fair". This debate has afforded one more opportunity of telling the country not only of the excellent career which awaits officers in the Royal Navy, but of emphasising that we want boys with brains and with character from every and any type of school.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Twelve o'clock.