HC Deb 02 July 1964 vol 697 cc1515-7
1. Mr. Crossman

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will request the Plowden Committee to present an interim report on the issue of the age of transfer.

37. Mr. Dalyell

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in view of the evidence they have now received from the London County Council and other authorities, he will reconsider his decision not to request the Plowden Committee to present an interim report on the age of transfer.

The Lord President of the Council and Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Quintin Hogg)

I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave to a similar Question by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) on 18th June.

Mr. Crossman

Whilst appreciating that reply and also, I think, the further reasons which the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave in the debate last night, and which I have carefully read, may I put two supplementary questions to him? First of all, has he given due weight to the problem of those local authorities where the so-called experiment has been going on for some years and where there is a danger in two or three more years of its hardening into an irreversible fait accompli, as, for example, in Coventry? Secondly, has the right hon. and learned Gentleman given due weight to the powerful evidence of the National Union of Teachers given to the Plowden Committee, where it insists that some order must be introduced into the administrative chaos now developing?

Mr. Hogg

I have considered both points. The second one, I think, tells in favour of my Answer, that this is a matter for the Plowden Committee and I must be guided as to the possibility of separating this issue from the other issues involved.

Mr. Dalyell

Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that this is a matter of great urgency for those parents who move from one part of the country to another and who may well be confronted with sending a son or daughter, who has been at a secondary of the particular problem which my hon. Friend has in mind—school, back to a primary school, if schemes such as the West Riding one are put into effect?

Mr. Hogg

As I said last night, I agree that there is an element of urgency about it, but this is a fundamental question of educational organisation, and it is more important to give the right answer in due course rather than the wrong answer quickly.

Dame Irene Ward

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that with regard to transfers it quite often happens that people are transferred and then find that the educational arrangements of local authorities differ tremendously in the terms and grants given as between one local authority area and another? Has my right hon. and learned Friend ever had this examined so as to ensure that, by and large, people who are transferred get the same kind of treatment as that they started with?

Mr. Hogg

I am not absolutely sure

Dame Irene Ward

I will let my right hon. and learned Friend know.

Mr. Hogg

—but if she will make it plain to me, as I am sure she will, I will look into the question.