EDUCATION (INSTITUTION CHILDREN) BILL. (Hansard, 26 July 1923)

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

My Lords, this is a very small measure of reform which I think will be found to be generally acceptable. It has really nothing to do with education quâ education. Its object is merely to distribute its cost more fairly. There are local authorities who have in their area large workhouses or charitable institutions and who have complained, not unnaturally, that the ratepayers of their districts should be called upon to meet the cost of the education of Poor Law and charitable children because the institutions which house those children happen to be situated within their borders. Until a short time ago, I think it was in 1918, the practice when children were sent outside the area of the union for education was for the board of guardians to pay the cost to the local education authority. But in 1918 there was a decision of the Supreme Court which laid it down that boards of guardians had the right to have their children educated without fees. After that, the cost fell upon the ratepayers of the district in which the school lay.

We are now trying to remedy this by placing the charge upon the local education authority and not the board of guardians of the area in which the child's place of settlement is situated. That is, as regards Poor Law children. The place of settlement is not difficult to ascertain because every Poor Law child has to have one. A place of settlement has to be fixed for other purposes than those contained in this Bill, and we have adopted that as the criterion of the authority who shall be responsible for the payment to the local education authority. I do not mean to say that it is not sometimes a difficult matter to settle what a child's place of settlement is; but that has to be done in any case, and this seems to be the most convenient means to adopt.

When we come to charitably educated children we are faced with considerable difficulty. It is really very difficult to ascertain to what area these children actually belong. I do not know for the moment that they belong to any area; many of them, for example, are foundlings, and many of them are the 1425 children of gipsies, tinkers and nomads, and it is very difficult, if not almost impossible, to ascertain what really is their place of origin. So we have to do the best we can, and we offer three alternatives. The first and most convenient, if it is possible, is, I think, to take the last place of continuous residence for six months in England and Wales. If that cannot be ascertained, then we take the birth place, and if we can get neither at the place of birth or any place of continuous residence for six months, then we leave the question to the Board of Education for final decision. I cannot say how they will decide, because it seems to me that they will have very little ground to go upon, but I do not sec that any other course could be adopted.

With reference to charitable institutions, we do not want to include very small homes into which, perhaps, one or two children are taken; so we have adopted a definition that a charitable institution shall be a place where children are maintained from charitable motives and which contains at least twelve children between the ages of five and fourteen. That is to say, it must be an institution of respectable size. We do not oblige the education authorities to claim, but if they do claim the authority on whom the claim is made must pay; that is to say, if a claim is made within two years of the attendance for which it is made. The Bill is retrospective. It operates, from the beginning of the financial year.

Now I come to Clause 2 of the Bill which deals with the children who are included in Part V of the Education Act. Part V of that Act is devoted to dealing with blind, deaf, defective, and epileptic children. We do not propose that the authorities should be made responsible for providing boarding accommodation in special schools for these defective children, unless, of course, a child belongs to their own area. So we draw a distinction between day attendance and schools in which the children board. Obviously, the reason is that it is very expensive to provide boarding accommodation and it is quite a different thing to provide day school accommodation. Of course, I should say that an arrangement could be made between the authority whence a child comes and the local education authority at whose charge the child is maintained. But if such arrangement is 1426 not made, then no obligation is imposed upon the local education authority to receive these extraneous children as boarders.

The Bill, as your Lordships will observe, is entirely financial in character. It has been agreed to on all sides, and, if I may say so, it is a very technical matter. If your Lordships are content to accept it, it will remove what has been a source of grievance and friction in many cases. The local authorities who have complained had some reason to think it imposed an unjust burden upon the ratepayers, and I trust your Lordships will give a Second Reading to the Bill. I beg to move.