HC Deb 28 July 1966 vol 732 cc1887-8
40. Mr. Armstrong

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has to assist local education authorities to organise secondary education on comprehensive lines where direct grant schools are refusing to co-operate.

Mr. Crosland

In Circular 10/65 I asked local education authorities to open discussions with the governors of direct grant schools in which they take places. I also asked them to include in the plans to be submitted to me a statement about their future intentions as to taking up places and about the extent to which direct grant schools were participating in their plans. I shall consider this whole question further when I have studied the information in the plans.

Mr. Armstrong

Will my right hon. Friend continue to bear in mind that there are many hon. Members on this side who would resent the continued expenditure of public money on schools which would perpetuate all the injustices of inequality?

Mr. Crosland

Yes, Sir. I think that the Government's policy is clear on this. We want to proceed by co-operation. This is why I want to allow a reasonable time for discussions between the schools and the authorities, but, in the last analysis, as my hon. Friend has said, the persistence of a wholly selective field of education like this would bring the future of the direct grant Regulations into question.

Mr. Hornby

Would the right hon. Gentleman now give an undertaking that his letter to the local education authorities is in no sense regarded as a threat to the future existence of the direct grant schools, which are very highly regarded in many parts of the country?

Mr. Crosland

There is no question of a threat. What I made perfectly clear in the circular, as the hon. Gentleman knows, was that we want discussions to occur at a local level between the schools and their authorities. I am very anxious that these discussions should go on in an amicable and co-operative frame of mind. But, of course, it must be made clear that, in the last analysis, we on this side of the House are against the 11-plus.