§ 17. Mr. Peter Walkerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action he is taking to see that all children are educated in schools compatible with the prosperity of their homes and the social status of their friends.
§ Mr. WalkerIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be general relief that he has completely repudiated the attitude of his hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology? Will he assure the House that when he considers the future of education in technology he will not in any way be influenced by the Parliamentary Secretary to that Ministry?
§ Mr. CroslandI welcome that supplementary question very much. So far as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology is concerned he was expressing a purely personal view as a parent. This is a free country and he is fully entitled to do so, but it was a purely personal view. I may add that I am surprised to hear the hon. Member's strong interest and that of other hon. Members opposite in parents sending their children to State schools. If one takes the State and direct grant schools together, one finds that some 17 per cent. of Conservative Members of Parliament send their children there; some 78 per cent. of Labour Members of Parliament, and 0 per cent. of Liberal Members of Parliament. [Interruption]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Various things are happening of which I am not entirely seized. What happened was that I called No. 18 and heard the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) ask it. The Minister was making noises as though he had answered it. If so, I missed it. I beg his pardon.
§ Mr. CroslandI did not hear what was said in the confusion, Mr. Speaker. I was hoping that a Liberal hon. Member would have an opportunity to put a supplementary question.
§ Later—
§ Mr. LubbockOn a point of order. I understand that the Secretary of State has just alleged that none of the children of Liberal hon. Members—[Interruption]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. It is no good the House treating me like this if it wants me to get on with supplementary questions. To be quite frank with the House, I thought that those personal matters were best passed on from. I 1462 would have allowed a Liberal supplementary question at the time, but the individual hon. Members concerned—the hon. Member was not here—were a little slow off the mark.
§ Mr. LubbockFurther to that point of order, is it not out of order to make allegations which are totally incorrect in my absence and should the Secretary of State not now withdraw them?
§ Mr. SpeakerI want the House to understand that hon. Members sometimes make, or are said to make, horrible misstatements as to fact. I cannot, on points of order, make requests for them to be corrected. I was making no assumption about the fact one way or the other.