§ 29. Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he is aware that teachers attending courses of in-service training sponsored by his Department receive a grant for daily travel from their homes to the place of training but are not allowed as an alternative to receive the cost of one journey a week home when lodging near the place of training; and whether he will give authority for the less expensive alternative to be accepted for grant.
§ Mr. Goronwy RobertsI am aware that the rules are as the hon. Member has outlined. The alternative proposal would cost local authorities less for those comparatively few teachers able to travel daily to courses who opted to lodge near the place of training and travel home at weekends. The concession could hardly be limited, however, to teachers living within daily travel distance and its introduction would increase the total charges to public funds.
§ Sir J. Langford-HoltAre not the economics crazy in which the Ministry will pay for five journeys a week, in the case which I have in mind, from Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton, but when a teacher finds his own lodging near his place of learning and takes one journey in the reverse direction, no grant is payable?
§ Mr. RobertsI have a certain sympathy with the point made by the hon. Gentleman, but it is a matter of the totality of the extra charge. Comparatively few teachers on courses of this kind who live within travelling distance of the course itself would opt to do this, and by making this concession to these few people we would naturally have to make the larger concession to the very many more who are now in residence.