HC Deb 28 January 1963 vol 670 cc709-26

10.2 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson (Dundee, East)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 16, at the end to add: and at the end of subsection (3) (which prescribes the composition of the Commission) there shall be added the words 'and shall include a person highly qualified in the field of adult education, and a person highly qualified in the field of women's education'. This Amendment is moved as the result of a theme, which was repeated frequently during our Second Reading debate on the present Bill, and which, indeed, if the Minister looks up the record he will find recurring in all the early discussions which we had on the general topic of Commonwealth educational co-operation.

A number of hon. Members on this side of the Committee and one or two on the other side felt that in this matter of Commonwealth educational co-operation it was extremely necessary to take special recognition of the fact that the emerging newer Commonwealth countries had a very great legacy of educational poverty and that, therefore, in making educational arrangements it was very necessary to have flexible arrangements which would make particular allowance for the person of middle age in these new communities who was seeking an education beyond the normal time at which one does so.

There has been this recurring demand that the Commission in this country charged with choosing scholars under this Measure should have power to go beyond the field of the formal and conventional university graduate and that the scheme, to which everybody pays tribute as a great and imaginative scheme, ought to have adequate provision in it for people from overseas countries, particularly the newer countries of the Commonwealth, to enjoy educational facilities for adult education at some of our excellent colleges of adult education.

I say that as a preliminary. In this Amendment we are proposing that the Commission in this country charged with the duty of selecting candidates should have amongst its members someone of high educational standing, whose particular experience and authority has lain within the field of adult education in this country to ensure that an adequate number of the kind of candidates I have been describing are, in fact, selected. It is a great pity that although this matter has been raised a number of times over a number of years, the Government have not so far done anything about it. I hope that the opportunity of the Amendment may lead to more adequate action by the Government in this respect.

From the Minister's answers on Second Reading, many of us felt that when it came to the question of introducing other than post-graduate specialists into the scheme, the present weight of opinion on the Commission was highly academically orthodox and that reception was not very favourable for the idea, which has been pressed from both sides' of the House of Commons, that men and women who have not had the benefit of a formal education in their own countries should still have the opportunity to take advantage of the great provisions of the scheme. It is for this reason that we propose in the Amendment that the membership of the Commission should include a person highly qualified in adult education.

We have also suggested in the Amendment that there should be on the Commission someone highly qualified in women's education. There is already a very distinguished woman serving on the Commission and I am sure that all of us would like to pay tribute to that lady and the work she does. It seemed to us, however, that in view of the importance of always having on the Commission a woman of experience in women's education, because of the great importance of ensuring that good women students are brought here from other countries of the Commonwealth, the Bill would be a good chance to make sure that there is statutory provision to that end. I hope that with these few words, we will hear from the Minister that he gives a sympathetic response to both these requests.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. John Tilney)

I am sure that the Committee has much sympathy—as, indeed, I have—-with the ideas expressed by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) as underlying the Amendment. I believe, however, that those ideas have already been met and that if the Amendment were accepted the scope of choice for members of the Commission would be reduced, because the Amendment would make mandatory that there should be representatives on the Commission of adult education and women's education.

Apart from the four academic administrators, the 1959 Act does not specify the fields from which the members of the Commission should be drawn. When the Commission was set up, much thought was given to its composition. It was eventually decided that representation should be divided as follows, some of the members of the Commission covering two or more interests either in their present or their past jobs.

From the universities, there were to be four representatives, including one to represent Scotland. From technical colleges, two. From local education authorities, one. From the British Council, one. From Wales, including industry as well, one. I am glad that the hon. Member referred to the women's representative, Lady Ogilvie, the Principal of St. Anne's College, Oxford. Should she ever decide to retire, which, I hope, will not be for a long time, I assure the Committee that as far as one can see, she would be replaced by some other lady representing women's education. Then, from industry, one; from science, one; from the Trades Union Congress, one. At the start, one remained unallocated, and this place was later filled by Professor Philips, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, as it was thought that he would stimulate interest in taking up awards offered by India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and African countries.

The Committee would, I believe, like to know that as well as the actual members of the Commission there is a panel of academic advisers, and one will find a list of their names on page 41 of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission Report for the year ending 31st December, 1962. On that panel is Professor Niblett, who is Professor of Education in London University, and as such has considerable knowledge of adult education as well.

On 4th May, 1961, the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson) asked the Secretary of State whether he would appoint a representative from the field of adult education to the Selection Committee of Commonwealth Scholarships and Visiting Fellowships, the same idea as that behind this Amendment, and my right hon. Friend said that the question of appointing someone possessing special qualifications in adult education needed to be weighed against the claims of other interests for representation, for instance, industry and science. He pointed out that the possibility of appointing an expert in adult education would continue to be borne in mind as vacancies on the Commission occurred.

The hon. Member will say that that was rather a long time ago but there have since that time been only three vacancies. The first was the one I have already referred to and the appointment of Professor Philips. Sir Alfred Roberts has replaced Lord Geddes of Epsom as trade union representative, and Professor Harris has replaced Sir Cyril Hinshel-wood as representative of science. There has, therefore, not been a chance of putting on an expert in adult education, but I would assure the Committee that, though the 14 places are now filled, if a vacancy should occur the hon. Member's suggestions will receive every consideration. I hope he will therefore possibly think fit to withdraw his Amendment on that assurance.

Mrs. Eirene White (Flint, East)

I must confess that I am a little disappointed by the reply of the hon. Gentleman. Had this been a Second Reading debate of course one might well have understood it, because however assiduous one is in one's duty as a Minister—and no one, I am sure, could be more so than the hon. Gentleman—it is nevertheless the case that one may not be fully informed on all aspects of a particular matter; but, after all, in the Second Reading debate we paid very considerable attention to this matter of adult education and speeches were made from this side on this very matter and, therefore, I must confess that I hoped that by tonight, having had time to digest the subject, the hon. Gentleman would have come forward with some rather more positive comments.

I am a little concerned as to the attention which has been paid to this modest but important Bill. I was pleased and honoured to have a letter brought to me by hand this evening from the Secretary for Technical Co-operation. It reached me at 7.10 tonight with a tag on it, "Immediate". I gather that one or two other hon. Members have been similarly favoured. But it does not really give one perhaps the best possible impression of the urgency with which this matter has been considered. The debate was on 19th November and it is a matter of only a couple of hours before this debate that one's replies to questions posed in that debate are delivered.

However, be that as it may—and this is not, I grant, the responsibility of the hon. Gentleman—I feel we really did last time make some very strong representations on this whole matter of adult education, and adult education, it may be pointed out, is not the same as education in a department of a university. It is concerned precisely with those who, because of their early personal history, have not qualified for university places and need to be catered for in a different way. Adult education is a quite different conception.

10.15 p.m.

The Minister said that those concerned were very sympathetic and knew that Questions were asked about this matter long before the Second Reading debate, and that their difficulty is that they are limited by the 1959 Act with regard to the number of persons on the Commission, and they regret it but they have not had room for anybody to speak for adult education—although they managed to find room for other people concerned with industry and so on. I am sorry that Wales has had to double its part in the representations through Sir Julian Pode.

Be that as it may, if the Ministry were in earnest about having someone concerned with adult education and there was not room for him at present, there was nothing to prevent the hon. Gentleman from adding a Clause to the Bill to increase the number of places on the Commission. That would have been very simple. We have the Bill before the House, and no special legislation would have been needed. If we were told why the "magic" number of 14 should be extended to 15, we should have been happy to accept it. What the Minister has said is not a valid reason—that someone to speak for adult education would have displaced someone else because there was not room. This was a perfect opportunity to make more room.

Therefore, I cannot feel in the least happy about this continued failure to appreciate the importance to many of the developing countries of the kind of mature student with which those of us who know the work of Ruskin, Hillcroft, Fircroft and Coleg Harlech are familiar. I looked at the Report of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission issued in December shortly after the Second Reading debate. One finds that of the 188 students who have arrived in this country, only one is at Ruskin. We do not in the least belittle the importance of the postgraduate student, but the others are equally valuable and should have places. One in 188 is out of proportion to the need. I take, for example, Uganda as a case in point. Out of a respectable bunch of applicants there, only one person actually landed with a university place. That is the kind of country to which a couple of scholarships of the other kind, for mature students for adult education, might be invaluable.

It is not a question of people being without ability. It is simply that in many of these countries until recently, and in many of them even now, whether or not one was able to obtain secondary education even, let alone university education, depended on the very chancy condition of where one happened to be born and what provision was made there. We all know that many able persons missed out from the pattern of formal education in such countries merely because schools did not exist. Therefore, we should be especially on the watch for the person of maturity and personality who could benefit from precisely this sort of education, which is not easy to find in most of those countries and has to be sought elsewhere.

I can only repeat that I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has presumably been too busy with other matters fully to appreciate even now the real importance of this type of education for students of mature age from many of the countries with which we are particularly concerned in the Bill.

I was happy that my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) thought fit to mention women's education. I am not sure, however, that I particularly appreciate the general attitude one finds in making appointments to these committees, summed up in the phrase "and one woman." If one can provide a woman who is a multiple personality, so much the better—that is the normal attitude. It happens so often. No one, however, could be better than Lady Ogilvy, for whom I have the greatest regard. I am not quite convinced that I appreciate the making of provision by Statute for the membership of one certain section of the community. I am sure, however, that the Under-Secretary of State meant well, and perhaps this is not the time or the place to argue the philosophy of feminism, or, indeed, the best approach to it.

Having said that, however, I regret that of 188 students in the present list only thirty-five—I believe that is the correct figure—are women. That again is not a very high proportion. On the other hand, I do not feel quite so strongly about this because one knows that even in this country the proportion of women taking post-graduate education is not as large as it might be.

I would very much welcome more women obtaining these awards, but I do not feel quite so passionately about that as I do about adult education, for which there is a real but hitherto largely un-recognised need. We were justified in putting down this Amendment. I realise, as the Under-Secretary of State pointed out, that to have on the committee a member specially for adult education would not necessarily ensure more students coming in, but nevertheless we believe that more publicity would thereby be given to adult education and that greater concern for it would be shown by the committee.

The only caveat, which was also mentioned on Second Reading, is, of course, the shortage of places in adult education colleges. However, if the Under-Secretary of State would agree to increase his knowledge, I suggest that he should read the recent report of the National Institute of Adult Education recommending the Government to spend no less than £3 million on improving facilities for adult education.

The Chairman

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but she is surely getting a little wide of the Amendment.

Mrs. White

It all hangs perfectly and logically together, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because it is no good encouraging the provision of further awards for adult education when one has not the places for the students. However, I appreciate that this is not the time or the place to go very fully into that argument. I merely suggest that the force of our Amendment would be even greater if we could be assured that there would be more provision for additional places in these colleges, which are so badly needed. What we are most concerned about is that adult education should be properly recognised in this otherwise admirable scheme.

Miss Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)

I thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for replying to me in person on a number of points, and also my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Technical Co-operation, who sent me a letter this evening, for I am very interested in adult education. It is depressing to hear that when one person retires there is only a place for another person in the same category on this committee. Thus I do not see how, unless we enlarge it, we are to get among its members a person particularly interested in adult education.

Perhaps the representative of the local authorities might be chosen as a person particularly interested in this question, which is one of the most important aspects in helping the people of the developing countries. I myself have been able to arrange, with the co-operation of my local authority, for certain people to come from overseas to take specialist courses in adult education, particularly at the School of Housecraft, which has been very accommodating in arranging terms. It has allowed people to attend free for one term. But this should not be left to private individuals alone. I mention this simply because I think that the thirst for adult education is growing, and nothing can do more to help particularly the women to gain more knowledge of subjects such as housecraft and the other subjects run by adult education authorities.

I hope that my hon. Friend will decrease the number of academic members by one, or suggest that the local authority representative should be one who is particularly interested in adult education, because it is the local authorities who will help to provide this type of education. I am not so much interested in the question of women's education, because that comes into the wider subject. However, the subject of adult education should be pressed and perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to reconsider what he has just said and have appointed to the Commission someone with a specific interest in this subject.

Mr. Tilney

I was interested in the slight division of opinion on the benches opposite. I find myself in agreement with the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) in that I think that it is a pity in a Statutory Instrument to make it mandatory that a particular type of person should be on a commission. I am sure that it is a bad thing to limit the scope of the choice, because at one time there may be a particularly brilliant man or woman who is available but who is not an expert in adult education, and yet there may be only one vacancy. The hon. Lady suggested that we should extend the numbers on the Commission from 14 to 15 or 16, with the idea of making certain that there was an expert on adult education, but it is my experience of these bodies that it is often the case that the bigger a committee, the less effective it can be, and one does not want to get it too large. If there is a representative for adult education, there are 1,001 other interests which might also claim to be represented. We have to keep this question in its proper perspective.

There have been no applicants from this country for adult education overseas, and there have been only three nominations from overseas Commonwealth countries for an adult education course in this country, and only two have been taken up. This is a very small number and it is not up to Her Majesty's Government, or anyone else in this country, to tell any Commonwealth country whether to send post-graduates or those who want some adult education course. It must be left to the people concerned and to the Commonwealth country concerned. We cannot lay it down.

The Committee may be interested in the second paragraph of a pamphlet dealing with Commonwealth scholarships in the United Kingdom in 1963 which has gone round to all Commonwealth countries. The second paragraph says: The scholarships aim at providing opportunities for Commonwealth students normally resident in other countries to pursue advanced courses or undertake research in the United Kingdom. They are intended for persons of high intellectual promise who may be expected to make a significant contribution to life in their own countries on their return from study abroad. That was a joint decision of all Commonwealth countries at the original conference. They are primarily available for postgraduate study or research at universities and at colleges of technology, but in special circumstances may be held for undergraduate study or for courses at other institutions, e.g., in the fields of adult, social or rural education, of fine arts, or of industrial design. It has been made plain that those overseas who want to come for adult education courses in this country can apply.

10.30 p.m.

The hon. Lady might like to know the numbers of female Commonwealth scholarship nominees. In 1960, out of 41 nominated, 22 were offered awards; in 1961, out of 51 nominated, 26 were offered awards, and in 1962, out of 57 nominated, 31 were offered awards. She will also know that a substantial sum of money is being applied by this country in improving and building new hostels. There is a very good brochure dealing with the welfare of Commonwealth students which has gone out from the Ministry of Education. I will see that she receives a copy if she has not yet seen it.

The Government are fully aware of the problem, but the public purse is not bottomless. I once again promise that if there is a vacancy in the near future someone who is an expert in adult education will be considered.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

On the Minister's last point—the Government may be quite good at publishing excellent brochures on hostels, but they do not seem so good at getting the hostels provided for these overseas students. I understand that the very limited amount of money made available has not been taken up as quickly as it ought to have been. Perhaps the Minister will look at that point in due course.

Some of the Minister's points will be better taken up on the next Amendment, in order to save the time of the Committee. I only suggest that the Minister should not take too much advantage of the trouble I got into from my hon. Friend for that part of the Amendment which deals with statutory provision being made for a women's representative. I am in agreement with my hon. Friend in principle, that if women are treated on their merits in these appointments they will have their fair share of posts on commissions like this. But one distinguished lady out of 15 members seems a very modest contribution from women.

In view of the difficulties that arise out of that part of my Amendment dealing with statutory provision for someone highly qualified in the field of women's education, and the rather qualified assurance which the Minister has given about seeking to get a representative in respect of adult education as soon as there is a suitable vacancy, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, with a warning to the Minister that if he does not do something about this fairly quickly it will not be another two years before he finds some Questions on the Order Paper about it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

I beg to move, in page 1, line 16, at the end to add: (2) To section 1 of the Commonwealth Scholarships Act 1959 there shall be added the following subsection:— (10) The persons to be selected in pursuance of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section shall include non-graduates of mature age who are held by the Commission to be capable of benefiting from a period of study at an adult education college or other appropriate establishment". This Amendment carries the discussion we have been having a stage further. It seeks to lay down as a statutory provision that the Commission, in selecting Commonwealth scholars in this country should seek to include non-graduates of mature age who are held by the Commission to be capable of benefiting from a period of study at an adult education college or other appropriate establishment". Perhaps I should offer an apology to the Committee for the fact that, owing to my bad writing in originally drafting the Amendment, it appeared on the Order Paper in an inaccurate form, and this may have caused some confusion. This mistake was entirely due to the illegibility of my writing.

The purpose of the Amendment is very important in relation to our plans for Commonwealth educational cooperation. Our Commonwealth educational plans have two main purposes. One is to knit the Commonwealth more closely together as a worth-while community, and the other is to give educational aid from the richer and better-off nations of the Commonwealth to the newer, developing Commonwealth nations. I think it important to keep all these aims in mind when one is dealing with these Commonwealth scholarships coming to post graduates with a period of distinguished, or at least a promising academic career, behind them. This is something which relates primarily to the older countries of the Commonwealth and to the purpose of providing a closer link between the various Commonwealth countries.

When one comes to the other aspect of this scheme, the giving of aid by the better off countries like ourselves to the newer emergent countries, one has to face the fact that in all of these new countries, and in one of the two coming towards independence, there is a desperate shortage of university graduates. There are few people in these nations qualified to take advantage of the post graduate features of this scheme. The fact that there are very few of them makes it more difficult for any to get the necessary leave of absence at the conclusion of their non-graduate studies to go ahead with this kind of scholarship.

If the scheme is left with its present emphasis, the benefits will be unfairly distributed between one part of the Commonwealth and another and those areas where the need for educational aid is most desperate will receive the least aid from the scheme. For these reasons we feel that it is important to include in the scholarships a reasonably substantial number to go to non-graduates.

A few moments ago the Minister read the phrases used in the information about the Commonwealth Scholarships Scheme. He said—I am paraphrasing, but I think reasonably accurately—they were meant for people with high intellectual promise who could be expected to make a significant contribution to the life of their country after the period of scholarship. The information goes on to say that although they are primarily intended for post graduates, there may in some cases be scholarships for non graduates. As my hon. Friend has said, when one looks clown the list the number of non graduates is pitiably small. Apart from the one adult education scholarship at Ruskin, they are for vocational education such as nursing. This is a real gap in the present scheme.

To take a particular example, some hon. Members will have known the late Mr. Dunduza Chisiza who was deputy Minister of Finance in Nyasaland. All who knew him regarded him as one of the most promising of the younger African political leaders. Mr. Chisiza was a student of politics and economics and gained his first educational experience at Fircroft College in this country. From the educational training which he received there he went on to make a great and significant contribution to the life of his country which was, alas, cut short.

Out of the colleges which were mentioned by my hon. Friend have come students from overseas and they have gone back, after an all too brief period of adult education, to take positions of great responsibility in their own communities. The only trouble is that these adult colleges, anxious to make a contribution in this way, find it difficult to get students from overseas because of the lack of funds being directed to what is still regarded far too much by the education establishment of this country as something not properly regarded as edu cation We feel strongly that here is something which needs to be put right in the Commonwealth scholarship scheme.

I fully concede that a statutory provision of the kind which I put on the Order Paper is perhaps not the best way of persuading the Commission to have a different emphasis in the distribution of these scholarships, but I am deeply convinced that if the Commonwealth scholarship scheme is not only to provide a means of linking the Commonwealth as a community but is to pay an effective part in the distribution of educational aid from this country to the newer countries of the Commonwealth, it is very important that a reasonable number of these scholarships should go to the young men and women of Africa and of Asia and of other new Commonwealth countries, such as Mr. Dunduza Chisiza.

Apart from the Commonwealth scholarship scheme itself, there is also the associated scheme of Commonwealth bursaries in teacher-training colleges up and down the country. The hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) pointed to the need for teaching teachers of adult education, and I agree with her that it is often a very important gap in the educational provision in new countries of the Commonwealth. It is only now in, for example, Kenya—and I saw one recently at Ghana—that there is growing up the Ruskin type of adult college. I think that it would be a useful contribution if a number of these Commonwealth bursaries could be given to train teachers in this country in the techniques of adult education, apart from the more normal types of education in the schools of their countries.

I hope that we shall have a sympathetic response from the Minister to the Amendment and that in due course the Commission, with a specialist in adult education among its membership, will take some account of the views repeatedly expressed on this subject from both sides of the House.

Mr. Tilney

Again, I have considerable sympathy with the ideas behind the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson). But one has to remember what were the original objects of this scholarship scheme and what was decided by all the Commonwealth countries. I should like to read from page 19 of the Report of the Commonwealth Education Conference, Cmnd. 841, August, 1959, which is the foundation document of the whole scheme: Commonwealth Scholarships. Scholarships should be provided under the Plan—

  1. (i)to students who have already graduated
    1. (a)for post-graduate study for a higher degree or a diploma;
    2. (b)for study at equivalent levels;
    3. (c)for study for another First Degree;
  2. (ii) to students at the under-graduate level only when university or comparable institutions are non-existent in the sending country, or do not offer courses in the subjects desired;
  3. (iii) in certain cases, to junior members of teaching staffs in universities and comparable institutions, who might go to receiving countries not for purposes of formal study but to teach, thus both assisting higher education in those countries and acquiring experience which would be valuable to their own countries."
There is nothing in that prospectus, which was agreed by all Commonwealth countries, mentioning adult education, although on page 20 under paragraph (5)"Eligibility", we read: Some awards might be made to persons who play an important role in the life of the community, such as senior administrators in the public or private sectors, provided that there is some attachment during the period of their study or research to a university or comparable institution. The hon. Member may recall that on Second Reading I referred to a letter written by the former Chairman of the Commission who wrote: We shall be departing to some extent from the high purpose entrusted to the Commission and we shall run a risk of losing some of the interest which universities have hitherto taken in the plan."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th Nov. 1962; Vol. 667, c. 874.] He was referring to the possible watering down of the intellectual calibre of those being nominated.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

In order to make our purpose here clear, would the Minister take it that it was precisely that passage that made me make my references to the educational establishment of this country having a complete lack of imaginative sympathy with the kind of purposes we have in mind?

Mrs. White

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree also that in fact in the passage to which he has referred, which is echoed in paragraph 4 of the latest Report, the suggestion was that we might in some way affect the general standing of the scheme because we might through financial stringency have to put a bar to the level to which our post graduates might go by limiting their time? This was a completely different argument in an entirely different sphere of adult education.

Mr. Tilney

The hon. Lady will agree that this was a foundation document. It was an agreed scheme, not only by the United Kingdom but by all the Commonwealth countries.

Mrs. White

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but having been to the Oxford Conference I am not entirely convinced that the members of the delegations themselves adequately represented adult education interests. That might account for the decisions at which they arrived.

Mr. Tilney

I was not lucky enough to go to the Oxford Conference. In any case, I think the hon. Lady will agree that it is up to the Commonwealth countries concerned to nominate either postgraduates for adult education or whoever they wish for these courses. They are then looked at over here. The hon. Lady may like to know that it is expressly provided in the directions issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the Commission— this was laid down on 4th March, 1960, that: Awards tenable at residential colleges of adult education which provide one-year or two-year residential courses may also be considered. These would be especially suitable for students of maturer age who have not attended a university. It is down there as a directive. Therefore, non-graduates can be nominated, but it is up to the overseas countries to nominate them. We cannot force them to do so. I believe the Committee would regard it as a mistake to try to force them to do so. No doubt those interested overseas will have taken note of what has been said tonight, and I hope that more will be nominated. We must remember that if they fail on this particular form of scholarship there are other scholarships available. Their own countries can give them scholarships. There are also scholarships from the British Council.

Mr. G. M. Thomson

I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for the extract that he read from the Secretary of State's directive. I am very pleased about it. I only wish that that form of words from the directive had been inserted in the leaflet from which the Under-Secretary quoted earlier which is the information which is circulated to the overseas Governments and to the prospective applicants. I do not accept this recurrent alibi that is used in Government matters, that Her Majesty's Government have to rely absolutely on what the other Commonwealth Governments themselves decide. Nobody suggests for a moment that we ought to dictate to Commonwealth Governments whom they are to propose.

What we suggest is that Her Majesty's Government should decide what seems wise from their point of view about distributing these scholarships, should convey the maximum amount of information about them to Commonwealth Governments, and should use the facilities available to Her Majesty's Government to encourage the kind of nominations that we seek. That is perfectly reasonable.

This picture of Commonwealth educational co-operation being one of a passive British Government making the places available and then leaving it entirely to the other Commonwealth Governments to decide whom they are to send is not a real one. I am sure that if there is a desire to carry into actual effect the purposes of that directive, action can be taken through our High Commissioners in the Commonwealth countries and we can see some effective results. I am glad that we have been able to get the directive from the Secretary of State on the record. I hope it will be followed up and, in the light of it, I beg leave to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

Forward to