§ *THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH rose to call attention to a correspondence between the managers of the Llanbradach non-provided school and the Board of Education; and to ask His Majesty's Government for an explanation of the delay.
544§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, in calling attention to the case of the Llanbradach non-provided school, I am glad to be able to assure your Lordships that the correspondence to which I shall he obliged to refer is not a lengthy one, but as the whole of it affects this question very directly I think I must deal with each letter. The correspondence in regard to this matter commenced on June 21, 1911. A letter was then written by Mr. Edwards, the correspondent of the school, complaining that the four certificated teachers at the Llanbradach non-provided school are paid salaries lower than those paid by the local education letter that the managers had already made several applications to the local education authority in vain, and that they now felt it their duty formally to appeal to the Board of Education under Section 7 of the Act of 1902. To that letter the only reply received from the Board of Education was a bare acknowledgment upon a postcard.
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Mr. Edwards made a second application. He wrote again on December 1, 1911. To that application the official reply was again a bare acknowledgment upon a postcard. Then Mr. Edwards made a third application. He wrote the following letter on January 9 of this year to the Secretary of the Board of Education—
The managers desire the decision of the Board of Education upon an appeal dated June 21 last year regarding the salaries of certificated teachers. We cannot understand this long delay. Meanwhile our teachers are leaving us for posts in provided schools.
That is a rather remarkable correspondence on the part of the Board of Education—certainly most economical both in courtesy and in the extent of any information at all. When this was brought to my notice I took a great deal of trouble to ascertain how the matter stood as regards the efficiency of this particular school, and I find, upon careful investigation, that this is not an inefficient or what may be called a small or trumpery school. The average attendance of children during the last year was 360, the school has always earned the highest grants, and the reports of His Majesty's inspector have been satisfactory. I do not wish to trouble your Lordships by quoting all the reports of recent years, but I will read an extract from the last report—
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namely, the report for 1910. This is what His Majesty's inspector says—
The general management is marked by much intelligence, and die head teacher deserves credit for his success in maintaining the efficiency of the school in difficult circumstances.
The circumstances are certainly very difficult, when it appears that it has been the policy of the local education authority, more or less connived at by the Board of Education, to refuse to give the teachers in this school their proper salaries.
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As I say, the school has earned the highest grants, and the reports of His Majesty's inspector have been satisfactory. I have also ascertained that the school authorities have carried out all the improvements and repairs that the Board of Education desired, and that they are not in any default at all. I am not open to the charge that I am in any way ecclesiastically minded, but it does seem to me that in regard to the treatment of this school fair and equitable administration and consideration by the local education authority should be maintained. The first letter written by Mr. Edwards to the Board of Education was dated June, 1911. On April 6, 1911, the Swansea judgment was given. That judgment was unanimous. I do not desire to trespass upon your Lordships' indulgence by reading that judgment at any length, but it bears so very much upon the peculiarities of this particular case that I should like to read part of the judgment. The Lord Chancellor, in the Swansea judgment, made use of this language—
In some of the judgments in the Courts below it is affirmed, as a matter of law, that under this Act a local authority is not entitled to differentiate between schools in regard to the scale of salaries or the standard of efficiency in the absence of special circumstances appropriate to the differentiation. If a local authority does differentiate without such circumstances, it would be cogent evidence of an intention to starve the less favoured school, but it would he no more than evidence of such an intention all the more cogent if the discrimination were due to political or to sectarian prepossessions. I do not find anything, however, in the Statute itself which prohibits the local authority front doing for some schools more than it does for others even if the circumstances are indistinguishable.
But the noble and learned Earl went on to say—
At the same time, I must observe that such treatment is a strong circumstance which the Board of Education are bound to scrutinise, in order to satisfy themselves that the discrimination does not involve any lowering of the proper standard of efficiency in the schools for which less is done.
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It is perfectly clear, therefore, that in the Swansea judgment three things are maintained as self-evident—that is to say, the local education authority must act impartially, its discrimination must not be due to political or to sectarian prepossessions, and its discrimination must not involve the lowering of the proper standard of efficiency in the school. Those are the Lord Chancellor's own words; and my noble and learned friend Lord Shaw, who also was one of the Law Lords adjudicating upon this matter, said—
I do not doubt that the local education authority must act impartially.
§ The facts which have come to my notice, and which I have ventured to bring before your Lordships this afternoon, certainly convey to me, and I think will convey to all impartial minds, the feeling that in regard to this matter the local education authority must have been actuated by political and sectarian prepossessions, and that the result of their action—I confess it seems to me a very mean and shabby action—in not granting adequate salaries to the teachers in this school does and must involve the lowering of the proper standard of efficiency in the school. I have stated the facts as they are. What is the official explanation? The President of the Board of Education wrote a letter to The Times on February 28 in which lie made an apology in regard to this matter. He said that the great pressure of work consequent on his appointment, and the fact that his attention had not been directed to this matter until the last day of the autumn session, had prevented him from being able to give a definite reply in regard to it, and he expressed the opinion that before he could adjudicate upon the matter he must ascertain the facts, and that for this purpose it might be necessary to hold a public inquiry or series of public inquiries. That is a very good apology as regards the present President of the Board, but in making a good case for himself he entirely gave away the case of his predecessor. I admit that so far as the present President of the Board of Education is concerned he made a good case, but the Education Office must be a most extraordinary public Department if questions affecting schools are hung up for an indefinite time in this way, and do not receive any consideration or courtesy at all.
§ All the applications made by Mr. Edwards were merely acknowledged upon a postcard. 547 No reason was given, and it really is a monstrous thing that schools of this or of any kind should be left indefinitely in this position. That is the case of this particular school, and I wish to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will give us, not only an explanation as to why there has been this extraordinary delay on the part of the Board of Education in treating this matter seriously or in considering it in a business way, but some assurance that this matter is not going to be delayed any longer. The delay, to my mind, has been a gross scandal, and has resulted in a grave injustice as regards the particular teachers in this school.
§ THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP)My Lords, I am glad to think that in this matter the chief facts, as enumerated by the noble Earl opposite, are not in dispute between us. The Board of Education recognise fully the efficiency of the school to which the noble Earl has referred, and neither with regard to that nor with regard to the principle is there really any serious difference between the two sides of the House. It is really more a matter of Departmental administration. The noble Earl somewhat cursorily, but accurately, referred to the fact that there have been changes in the Board of Education within the last few months. Your Lordships know that there was a new President appointed. This, of course, involved some delays in matters brought before the head of the Department. Then after the new President came into office there was a change with regard to the Permanent Secretary of the Board, because Sir Robert Morant accepted a position under the National Insurance Act. Soon afterwards, or at the same time, another important official of the Department accepted a post outside the Education Office; and these three changes, as any of your Lordships who have had experience of Departmental administration will recognise, led to considerable dislocation of business inside the Office.
As the noble Earl informed your Lordships, the matter was brought seriously before the attention of the President of the Board at the end, of the last session of Parliament. The President considered the matter during the recess. Orders were given at the end of January that informal communication should be opened up with the 548 authorities concerned, and on February 5 and 13 the letters of complaint which had been received from the managers were forwarded to the authorities. The President has been informed within the course of the last month by the Glamorganshire Local Education Committee, in whose area this particular school lies, that they are fully prepared in respect of two of the non-provided schools—subject to the teachers entering into agreements with the Council—to comply so far as the Act and their own agreements allow with the conditions of service in these schools, and to settle the salaries of the teachers in accordance with the standard observed in the provided schools. With reference to this particular school, the sub-committee in charge of the matter recommended, at their meeting on Thursday last, that the Board of Education should be informed that the committee would be prepared to deal on the merits with applications for increases of salary subject to reasonable improvements in the premises being carried out by the managers, the committee to take into consideration whether the managers will allow the teachers to agree to observe and comply with the committee's regulations. This communication has been referred to the Board, who are now taking legal advice on the position created by that decision.
The President of the Board wishes me to say that he hopes that satisfactory arrangements may be arrived at without its becoming necessary either to hold an inquiry or to take any further steps. I feel that there is no necessity to assure your Lordships that the Government are as anxious as any noble Lords opposite to see that the law is observed, and if there is proved to be any breach of the law steps will be immediately taken to enforce it. I hope that this recital of the events which have happened so recently will satisfy the noble Earl that, although there has been some delay, which we regret, owing to the changes in the Office which I have already described, the matter is now seriously taken in hand by the President of the Board; and if the results of his action are not thought to be satisfactory to the noble Earl, I trust that he will raise the Question again at a later date, when the results of the action which has so recently been taken by the local education authority will be fully available for the information of your Lordships, and you will then be in possession of the full facts of the case.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I should like to say a single word about this matter. I should be sorry to comment unfairly upon the fact of the delay alluded to by the noble Earl who brought forward this subject, in view of the apologia that has been offered on the ground first of all that the offices of President of the Board of Education and then of Chief Permanent Secretary had passed to different hands during the intervening months. If this case stood entirely alone and that was the explanation offered we should desire, hard as it is upon the individuals affected, to give the kindliest possible licence to the Department. But, my Lords, it is not an isolated case.
What we have to complain of in these matters, not in this case alone but in others, is that there is an apparent disregard of the immense practical and tangible harm that is being done to poor teachers by the long delay which arises in the settlement of these matters, in which, it is true, only a few pounds are at issue, but those few pounds are of vital importance to the persons concerned. In this particular case the head teacher of the infants' school has, I believe, a salary of£70 a year, whereas the corresponding teacher in the Council school in the same neighbourhood receives£120 a year. The attention of the local education authority was called to this last spring. The local education authority did not meet the representations which had been made, and the Board of Education then had their attention called to the matter on June 21 of last year. We are now at the end of March, and, to take a single example out of several, the lady who receives a salary of£70 a year as compared with the corresponding salary of£120 in the Council school has been suffering that loss during the whole of these intervening months. It is urged upon us by way of explanation that that particular grievance could not be set right because the Presidency of the Board of Education and then the Permanent Secretaryship changed hands. It strikes me as somewhat startling in the case of a great Department like the Board of Education if that really is the explanation.
I do not underrate for a moment the difficulties of the Board of Education, in present circumstances, in Wales and perhaps elsewhere with regard to troubles of this kind. But the question is not a new one. It did not require to be thought out for the first time. It is a matter which has been before the Board before, which was 550 thoroughly threshed out in the Swansea case, and which was familiar to the whole of the staff at the Board. I do venture to hope that if we accept now as adequate the explanation that has been given—that the changes that have taken place in the Board are the real reason why this matter has not been attended to before—principles will as soon as possible be laid down which can be rather more speedily put into operation in the future so that such delays as this may not occur. To some members of this House the evil and loss incurred may seem insignificant, but they are wrongs of a formidable kind to the humbler individuals who are practically affected, and who look to this House for the relief which is required.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords, I am bound to say, if the most rev. Primate will allow me, that he has taken a very generous and lenient view of the action of the Board of Education in this matter. He has told us that to a certain extent he accepts the explanation given by the noble Earl—namely, that there had been changes in the Board. I myself was President of the Board a Education and many changes took place in the first few months that I was there, but I should never have ignored for Party purposes any matter that came before me or have made such an excuse as has been made to-day for delay. There can be no question that one of the reasons for the delay in this matter was the fact that one of the Ministers who represent the Board of Education had no friendly feeling towards this school at Llanbradach.
Although the fact that the present President of the Board is new to his duties may be taken as an excuse for so many months having been allowed to go by without the letters in connection with this school having been answered, I should like the noble Earl to tell me what Mr. Runciman was doing from the month of June last year, when the first application was made to him, till the end of October when he left the Department. He cannot deny that he was approached on this matter. The noble Earl has read the letters. Therefore I should like to hear from the noble Lord who will reply to me what was Mr. Runciman's reason for taking no notice whatever of the letters of the board of managers on this matter. As a result hardship has been brought to bear on the teachers of this school, whose salaries have for so long been kept below the level of those in the Council schools.
I notice that correspondence took place 551 only a short time ago between the Board of Education and the managers of the Llanbradach school, and I find that Mr. Trevelyan, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board, in March, in defending the Department's inaction, said that the Board had something else to do with the local authorities than to quarrel with them over religion. I venture to say that a statement such as that is unworthy of a Minister representing the Board of Education, and I should be glad to hear from whoever follows me how he can justify such a sentence as that. This I venture to think explains the partisan character of the action of the Board of Education in connection with this school. The dispute in question is not over any matter of religion. It is over the question of the salaries of the teachers. Those teachers have to carry out the instructions given them by the managers, and if they did not do so they would not be retained in their places. Therefore to deal with these teachers in this manner is most unfair and unjustifiable. I must say that when listening to the speech of the noble Earl in which he endeavoured to account for the delay that had taken place I could not help contrasting the hurry of the Government at the present moment to establish a minimum wage for coal miners with their unwillingness to secure a minimum wage to teachers in denominational schools. I hope this matter will be inquired into, and I trust that we shall not in the future have an example of such partisan action brought before the attention of your Lordships.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HALDANE)My Lords, the noble Marquess speaks as though it were a simple and easy matter to get over the difficulties which have arisen and which do arise in cases like this. No one knows better than himself, from his own experience when he presided over the Board of Education, what those difficulties are in Wales and in other parts of the country—difficulties which arise from causes into which I need not enter now. I have only to say that the Board of Education are anxious to see that the law is complied with, that they are using the means in their power which they think most likely to lead to a speedy settlement of the matter in dispute, that to resort to more hurried and violent means would probably defeat the purpose they have in view, and that they are endeavouring as rapidly as they can to get rid of a very difficult situation, as to which they have good hope that the difficulties will shortly be surmounted.