BOARD OF EDUCATION.

HL Deb 17 February 1926 vol 63 cc145-73

LORD GORELL rose to move to resolve, That in the opinion of this House it is expedient, in order to establish that continuity in national education which is essential to its efficiency, that there shall be duly constituted a small Council, to be known as the Board of Education, whose function shall be to advise the President thereof, and upon which, in addition to the administrative heads of the principal departments of the present so-called Board, there shall sit elected representatives both of the local education authorities and of members of the teaching profession.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion for which I have the honour to ask your favourable consideration this afternoon is not one of merely departmental importance, but is one which concerns the whole future of this country. I desire to say at once that in raising it I shall, so far as possible, place it on the broadest basis of national interest. I hope I may be given the benefit of sincerity in that matter, since I have on frequent occasions, on political and on non-political platforms, pleaded that education should be regarded as above Party politics. My justification for raising the issue at this moment is the dismay and despondency noticeable throughout the whole country at the present and prospective state of national education. It is surprising that any one so much wedded to verbal exactitude as the Chancellor of the Exchequer should refer to that despondency in a recent speech as a sectional opposition. It would be difficult to find any epithet so ill-chosen. Any one who has studied educational events of the last two and a half months must be aware that from men of all sections of society, from men holding political opinions of every sort and kind and, above all, from those organs of the Press which normally support the Government, there has been an almost undeviating opposition to the proposals now put forward by His Majesty's Government.

However that may be, I do not wish to raise this question from the point of view of Party politics. I have the honour to be too closely connected with a variety of educational movements to do that, and it is my duty constantly to speak on non-political platforms on behalf of the teaching profession as a whole. I should like to assure the Government that this Motion is not aimed specifically at those who are at present in power, but rather at the system of government now administered by them; it applies to all Governments alike in the past of whatever persuasion they may have been. Nevertheless, as it happens to be a Conservative Government in power to-day, I can hardly hope to make my argument intelligible without reference to their acts as they are recent and current events, and it is difficult, however much one may desire, entirely to avoid controversy in this matter.

I ask you to consider the present state of national education, and what it was. At the end of 1924, during the last General Election, all three Parties committed themselves in their Election manifestoes to the development and progress of our national system of education. From everyone who was at all interested in it there went up a sigh of relief that there was at last some hope that education would be removed from the political battleground; everyone felt and hoped that whichever Party was returned to power educational progress, at any rate, was fairly safe. A Conservative Government was returned and it is not too much to say that when it took office it entered upon a period, educationally speaking, in which the atmosphere was more serene than it had been at any time since the present Education Department was formed. The great onslaught upon educational progress which had been launched under cover of the Report of the Geddes Committee had spent its course. The question of salaries which had troubled educationists for a long time past was in progress of being settled and was, in fact, settled in the middle of last summer. Well might the President of the Board have looked forward to a period of harmonious and steady progress.

I remember being present at a dinner, in January of last year, at which the President of the Board was the principal speaker. In the presence of a great number of representative persons from local authorities and directors of education, he made a speech which was universally applauded by everybody in the room, saying that he hoped that now that we had entered upon this more settled period educational authorities would plan a five years' programme. He dwelt in a manner that was very encouraging upon the vital necessity of looking ahead in that way if there was any hope of programmes being conceived efficiently, adding that we had to recognise that continuity in education vas the greatest need of all. Upon that oasis, since that time until December of last year, the President of the Board made speech after speech up and down the country advocating progress. I would even go so far as to say that during the whole of the first ten months of office he never ceased to urge upon local authorities and others responsible for education the need of progress and development.

The happy augury of that which I have tried briefly to detail was further confirmed by the words uttered in the summer of last year by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They were quoted in the debate in your Lordships' House on December 15 last year by my noble and learned friend Viscount Haldane. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that economy, but not in education, was the policy of the Government. He added that this nation could not afford economy in education and that the Government had no intention of economising in education. No attempt whatever has been made, either by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or by any Minister or anybody speaking on behalf of the Government, to reconcile that policy with the present policy of the Government or with the present utterances of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now from every Ministerial mouth we hear the cry of economy—economy in education as in every other Department—and the noble Marquess the Leader of the House puts the epithet "ruthless" in front.

It is hardly any wonder that the people of this country, being confronted with these two entirely conflicting positions, are extremely puzzled. Further, the documents that have been issued by the Department of Education have gradually made bewilderment more dark than it was before. There have been three such documents in the last two and a half months: the now notorious Circular 1371, followed by an explanatory Memorandum from the Department of Education and followed again by what is termed Administrative Memorandum 44. There have been debates in your Lordships' House and in another place on these documents and I do not wish to traverse any old ground that can be avoided. It will be enough to say that as each of these three documents was issued all the influential organs of the Press, and more especially those which habitually support the Government, denounced them all and called for the immediate withdrawal of one after another of them. They used very harsh terms. They said that these documents were chaotic and unintelligible. That is not altogether surprising since the President of the Board has said that they do not mean what they say. Circular 1371 had very few friends indeed among any people who had any knowledge of or interest in education. I can think of just six people in this country who found something not altogether bad in that circular. Administrative Memorandum 44 has not, so far as I am aware, had one defender anywhere. In fact, one of the editors who had thought Circular 1371 not wholly bad has said of Administrative Memorandum 44 that it is an "uncouth and fearsome document."

As for the second of the three documents, the explanatory Memorandum issued officially by the Department of Education, it contains a very surprising sentence which runs as follows:— The general policy embodied in the circular is based on educational grounds rather than on grounds of economy. I should not like to go so far as to say that this statement is wholly untrue, but I will say that there is not a shred of evidence in support of it. The circular itself contains nothing whatever about educational efficiency. From first to last it is based upon grounds of economy, and one cannot understand how such a statement could have been made. It is satisfactory, at any rate, to know that in Administrative Memorandum 44 that argument has been entirely discarded. It has never carried any weight with any person who knows anything whatever about our educational system.

It is interesting to recall that Circular 1371 was the subject of a debate in another place and received what I can only describe as the support of a purely Party vote. I say that because, although it received a fairly substantial majority, it was suspended the very next day. Nevertheless, it is not dead. It has been used as a threat over the heads of local education authorities, and, since then, the estimates submitted by local education authorities have been returned to them for the purpose of being drastically reduced, and any pretence that this is for the progress of education has been dropped. Up and down the country no one who is at all concerned with education can possibly have helped hearing the charge of breach of faith very definitely made against the Government. The programme on which the Government was launched—and it has been re-affirmed quite recently—was one of instituting smaller classes and of sweeping away and remedying unsatisfactory and insanitary buildings. We are told that the programme still stands and the charge of breach of faith has been answered in this manner: Both the President of the Board of Education and the Prime Minister, in two fairly recent speeches, have referred to this charge of breach of faith, and they said that it could not be substantiated because the classes are now smaller and to some extent insanitary buildings are being swept away. I submit that this does not meet the case or the charge in the slightest degree because this is a reference to the state of affairs at the moment. It is not a reference to the state of affairs that must ensue if the present programme of the Government is carried out.

As a matter of fact, if the present proposals are carried out, the progress that has taken place in the last ten months must not only be brought to an end, but it must be reversed. I think I can establish that. It is well known that expenditure on salaries of teachers takes up roughly 75 per cent. of the expenditure on education. If you are going to reduce the annual expenditure upon education and not reduce the salaries—and there has been a very definite pledge that salaries shall not be reduced—it follows that the remainder will be very much less, and there will be much less to spend upon the development of the buildings and the sweeping away of unsatisfactory and insanitary premises. If, on the other hand, you seek to reduce the expenditure on salaries without reducing salaries, there are only two ways in which it can be done. The first is to reduce the number of teachers which inevitably leads to larger classes, and the other is to substitute for the qualified teacher the unqualified teacher with pay at a lower rate. There is some indication that that is the policy which is to be pursued. It is lowering the status of education, and by no stretch of imagination can it be called progress. I cannot see that there is any way out of the dilemma that if these proposals are carried out there will be a definite halt in educational progress, which is the exact contrary of that to which the Government pledged themselves when they came into office. If there is a way out, at all events no one has attempted to deal with it.

It may be said that these utterances are the utterances of men who were insincere. Certainly I should be sorry to bring such a charge against the Prime Minister, but there is this dilemma: that either those utterances must be insincere or else those who make them have not realised the effects and implications of the policy that they are recommending. I feel that the latter explanation is the right one, because otherwise, apart from challenging the sincerity of Ministers, you would not have constant statements by Ministers completely conflicting one with another. Let me give an example. In Circular 1371 there was not only what one might call a hotch-potch of ideas, since the greater part of it was directed to giving greater authority to local educational authorities and then ended with details which were clearly within the province of any authority responsible for its own expenditure, but the Circular in a most definite way cut down the grant for the admission to schools of children under five years of age from 36s. to 6s. Yet the President of the Board of Education indignantly denies that that is discouragement.

On the occasion of the debate in this House on December 15 the then spokesman for the Government was Lord Somers. I am sorry he is not present to-day and also for the cause of his absence, which I understand is ill health. In replying for the Government on that occasion, he said, with regard to the question of the admission of children under five, that the President considers that it should be discouraged to a great extent as being of little value to the child except in very special localities. Yet, two days later, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education specifically repudiated the idea that it was discouragement. That leaves one in a state of bewilderment. Lord Somers could not have made that statement without having received authority for so doing from the Government and it is not to the credit of the Government that their accredited representative should be contradicted. Lord Somers went on to explain that this was the "deliberate opinion" of the President and of the Government, and that it was better to devote money rather to higher education. He stated that it was the Government's idea that it was very much better to devote money to higher education rather than to spend it upon elementary education, and to show that it was not the statement of any irresponsible spokesman this view was confirmed by the Leader of the House, Lord Salisbury, The noble Marquess said:— …we look to progress in education more in the development of secondary than elementary education.

I do not wish to seem to arraign this Government only. I am sorry to take illustrations from this Government, but they are the recent ones. Other Governments have made educational mistakes and, no doubt, future Governments will do so if the present system of government is continued. The last statements which I have quoted show clearly that the Government, in coming to this decision, are running counter to the whole of informed educational opinion. If any of your Lordships would care to turn up any report of any meeting of those concerned with either teaching or local administration you will find that this view, which is expressed by members of the Government, is not supported by any single one of them. It is a policy of taking away from the trunk in order to feed the branches. It is further a policy of taking from the many in order to give to the few. That is not only bad democracy but it is unquestionably unsound educational administration.

I am aware that in the Administrative Memorandum No. 44 the question of the admission of children under five has been dropped, but the bias of the Government's policy still remains and I will try to give what I conceive to be the reason. I may appear to be blaming the Government only. I am really blaming the system of government under which these decisions are arrived at, and I say that the statement I quoted of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, shows that he and those from whom he derived that opinion have not had the expert advice to which, as a Government, they are entitled. I am sure that in making that pronouncement of policy the noble Marquess had no idea that it was running counter to the whole of the informed educational opinion on the subject. Then again in that explanatory Memorandum from the Department off Education it is stated— It is believed that, in general, when authorities have had time to examine their position they will find little cause for complaint. Any Government Department which issues a statement of that kind shows that it is out of touch with realities.

If the President really believes that, he cannot know in the least what the local authorities are thinking. That, however, is not surprising. This policy was arrived at and announced without consultation with anybody who really knew about the subject. There was no consultation with any of the local education authorities until after the policy had been decided upon. There was no consultation whatever with any of the leading educational associations. That, I think, is absolutely unquestioned. At any rate, no authoritative advice has ever been advanced at all, and the local authorities have been the first to say that they were not consulted. I think I can say with certitude that none of the great educational associations have been consulted.

It has been said that the circular was only a basis for discussion. In that case there is no meaning in the English language, because the circular is throughout positive in tone, and if one wants further proof the speech of Lord Somers was quite definite. He said that "The President insists on the change of system"; and "it is the deliberate opinion of the Government." Further, the Government sent on the circular to Scotland and said it was their carefully considered opinion. These changes in policy are, as the Government themselves admit and as they said in their circular, "changes of a far-reaching character." By whom has the Government been advised to make them? With whom has it consulted?

If you take the question of the block grant, that decision was come to before the Report of the Meston Committee has been issued. The only evidence that we have about it is a Report in favour of retaining the present basis. I do not want to go into the details of whether the block grant or any other grant is the better. The President of the Board says that that is the only real question at issue. I venture to think that there is a far deeper and more important question at issue than that, and that is whether the time has not come when a Minister should not make pronouncements of policy on education without having had in front of him definitely and officially the best possible advice upon the subject. It is too vital. After all, the President of the Board is in no sense an autocrat, he is merely the senior partner of a number of people concerned in education, and in common courtesy it should be a matter of course that the senior partner should consult with the other partners. It is impossible to carry on a system of government when the decision precedes the consultation, and that is the arrangement to which the present system lends itself.

Who are the present advisers of the President of the Board of Education? He has, so far as I know, no advisers except the, staff of the Department of Education. Far be it from me to make, or even seem to make, the slightest attack upon the Civil Service, certainly not upon the civil servants who form the staff of the Board of Education, many of them my close personal friends and, I am quite sure, extremely devoted and admirable public servants. But, except by pure chance, none of them are teachers, and any experience they may have had of local administration must, if they are senior civil servants, of necessity have been a very long time ago. The Board of Education—a phrase which is constantly used—is, as everybody knows, a misnomer: the Board does not exist except in name. I know that there is a Board, and that the members of it are members of the Cabinet. They are not in any sense experts in education, and they would be the first to say so; and, so far as I know, the Board of Education has never met since it was constituted. The President presides over himself in his own room. That is to treat education as if anybody could understand it. It is a highly technical subject, one to which people, either in administration or teaching, give the whole of their lives to studying its principles and its application. Under our present system the President, with the assistance of his civil servants, is expected to know it all by the light of nature.

Consider the contrast which the Department of Education presents with such another Department as, say, the War Office. Can you imagine the Secretary of State for War issuing an Army Order which is going to bring about what he himself admits to be changes of a faro reaching character in the Army without having consulted one single soldier? That is the position in which the President of the Board of Education must necessarily find himself. Take the Admiralty. Would anybody attempt. to change the principles that govern naval warfare without consulting the sailors? But there is no teacher who is in constant communication with the President of the Board of Education. Or take another Ministry more closely allied, the Ministry of Health. The Minister of Health has a definitely appointed Chief Medical Officer, a doctor. The President of the Board of Education has his Permanent Secretary, who is not a teacher at all, and therefore cannot speak with real educational knowledge.

I know it will be said that the President of the Board of Education has a Consultative Committee, to whom he may refer questions. Well, nobody knows that better than I, because I am the only member of your Lordships' House who is a member of it and has been a member for a very long time. The Consultative Committee, which is as old as the Board, is formed for purposes totally different from the purpose of giving constant advice to the President of the Board. It consists of a large number of people, mainly teachers, with one or two local administrators, and it has referred to it questions of great importance, but none of them of immediate instance. It is now considering one, and has been for the last two years taking evidence upon it. Presently it will produce a Report, which I hope will be valuable, and I hope will be read. But it has never had these changes before it, it has never been consulted about them in any way whatever. Nor could it really form the Council, or the Board of Education, which I have in mind at all. It is far too large. It consists of people who are very busy, who are all of them engaged actively now in teaching or in local administration, who meet on two days in ten months of the year.

I should like to make it clear to the noble Earl who will reply on behalf of the Government that my proposition is one of a wholly different nature. I am not proposing a nebulous advisory body. I know quite well that the President could, and does for any special questions, call together a Committee. For instance, he constituted an Adult Education Committee on which I sat for a number of years until I came to the conclusion that it was not fulfilling any practical purpose. He has no one on hand whose daily duty it is to speak with first hand knowledge either of the point of view of local authorities or of the teaching profession. I have seen it suggested that the Motion which I have the honour to raise this afternoon is not broad enough, in that it does not make provision for other interests which are naturally affected by national education, such as commercial interests, or possibly the interests of parents. To include those would, of course, make it into a large nebulous advisory body, which could not possibly be formed as part of our administrative machinery.

My proposal is a much simpler one. I suggest that within the machinery of the Board there should be set up a small body of whole-time advisers. It is quite obvious that the executive power must remain in the hands of the President—nobody seeks to challenge that. These members should be appointed for a fixed term of years, and they should be elected, some of them from local education authorities, and some from the teaching profession as a whole. There is no difficulty whatever from a practical point of view in putting that recommendation into force. And they would come fresh from actual contact with realities, and those who are teachers would have actual experience of the science and principles of education. The analogy between that and the soldiers at the War Office will be quite close.

I venture to suggest that, looked at in the proper way, this is in no sense a limitation of the powers of the President, but would enormously strengthen his position. I am perfectly certain that, had there been in the past such a body, many errors, not only in the life of this Government but of other Governments, would have been obviated. It is asking too much of anybody who must be an amateur to avoid the many pitfalls in a highly technical subject. We have only had in the life of the Board of Education one Minister who spoke with profound personal knowledge of his subject, just as we have only had one Secretary of State for War who himself was a great soldier. It is not our theory of Government at all that the Minister himself should be an expert, but that he should be surrounded by a body of experts, from whom he can take advice and on whose opinion he can decide.

The question of drastic economy in education is, of course, regarded as a highly controversial one. It may or it may not be necessary; it may or it may not prove to be real economy. That, I know, is a question -in dispute. But no one with the slightest knowledge of our educational system, no one who has been concerned in its administration or has studied it in any way, can possibly deny the paralysing effect of changes, fluctuations and reversals of educational policy. No one knows where he is from year to year. No one can prepare ahead. No one even knows where he is from month to month. The one thing that all educationists demand is that there shall really be a continuity of educational ideals even if there is not a continuity of educational expenditure. It is perfectly hopeless to expect such a continuity if the educational ideals and goals of various Governments are to be different. I cannot help thinking that there is a vital need of some stabilising influence, some small body appointed irrespective of polities who shall be able to exercise a steady and continuous influence of thought upon the educational problem viewed as an educational and not as a political problem. In other words, we need at least to convert the so called nominal Board of Education into a real Board of Education.

I must apologise for having taken so much of your Lordships' time. It is not often that I take up much of it on this particular subject, but this is really a matter of vital concern to the whole future of the children of this country and, therefore, to the country at large. I do not know for certain whether the Government are prepared to accept this Motion or whether they are going to oppose it. If the latter, I would ask them seriously and specifically to answer these questions: Who is the educational adviser of the President of the Board? With whom has he been in consultation who can really speak with educational knowledge? With whom has he been in consultation before the issue of his orders who can really speak with first-hand knowledge of administrative and local machinery? The inspectorate of the Board are very admirable, but all their views are necessarily second-hand. Why not have first-hand views? If the changes and the policy which some of us find reason to criticise are really the product of the unguided intelligence of the Government, may we be told specifically whether it is their intention that this system is to continue indefinitely? I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House it is expedient, in order to establish that continuity in national education which is essential to its efficiency, that there shall be duly constituted a small Council, to be known as the Board of Education, whose function shall be to advise the President thereof, and upon which, in addition to the administrative heads of the principal departments of the present so-called Board, there shall sit elected representatives both of the local education authorities and of members of the teaching profession.—(Lord Gorell.)

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)

My Lords, the terms of the Motion which has just been read to your Lordships show that in placing it on the Paper my noble friend Lord Gorell had a specific object in view. In his speech I think he travelled somewhat outside the specific terms of his Motion, and into various matters connected with the whole system of the rule and government of education in this country. I will endeavour, as he did, to deal with the question on rather broader lines than I was, perhaps, prepared to do when I came down to your Lordships' House this afternoon. In the first place, I entirely and cordially agree with him, as I am sure your Lordships will, that education should be a non-Party question. It is not a political question at all. It is a question which affects the lives of every one of us and of all our children. Therefore, I think we should entirely agree that it ought not to be treated as a political or Party question. Then my noble friend paid a tribute to those of my colleagues in the Government who are responsible for the administration of the Board of Education. He said that he did not challenge their sincerity, and he mentioned the fact that my right hon. friend the President of the Board has been making speeches up and down the country urging progress and development. I am glad to see that my noble friend recognised that in addressing your Lordships upon his Motion.

The next point of importance that he raised, in illustration, perhaps, of the theory which he put forward, was the policy of the Government in regard to the block grant. He said there was no consultation with the local education authorities before this particular policy of the block grant was decided upon. Let me recapitulate exactly what occurred in regard to the issue of Circular 1371, the document to which, of course, my noble friend referred. That circular was issued to give local education authorities as early notice as possible of what was in the mind of the Government in view of the likelihood of the introduction of the block grant system in the financial year 1926–7. The circular, which I hold in my hand, was issued, I think, at the beginning of December. Shortly after that the President and the authorities of the Board of Education met the local authorities and asked them to revise their estimates with a view of cutting out everything which was not essential.

Then, after that meeting had taken place, Administrative Memorandum No. 44, to which my noble friend made several references, was issued for the guidance of local authorities as to what was in the mind of the Board and what they suggested should be in the minds of local authorities in carrying out the revision. The local authorities are now sending in their revised estimates, in the light of which the Board is considering the financial arrangements to be made in 1926–7. I ought to say early in my observations that all the revised estimates have not yet been received. In the meantime, the Board is discussing with the local education authorities the question of the method and basis on which the future grant system shall be administered subsequent to 1926–7. That is the whole history of the issue of the circular and the memorandum.

I will deal with one or two other specific points at a later stage, and I will answer now the main points raised by my noble friend. Although he explained them in great detail, it is a little difficult to see what practical difference the constitution of such a body as he suggests would make. He referred, of course, to the present Board of Education and said with great truth that it is a Board which does not meet. It consists of certain members of the Government, heads of great Departments, who are not necessarily professional educationists. But there is this to be said about the Board as it stands, that all those who are technically members of the Board are also members of the Cabinet and any question of alteration or change in educational policy is bound to come before them in the ordinary constitutional manner. Therefore, in that way the Board of Education as it is, or the members of it, at any rate, are consulted in their capacity as experienced Ministers. That, of course, is not really what my noble friend desires. He suggests having a permanent technical Board which shall advise the Minister in regard to educational subjects; and that the Board shall consist of representatives of teachers and local education authorities, and also heads of the departments dealing with primary and secondary education. It would not be such a very small body. I do not know quite how many members were in the mind of the noble Lord, but the body would be of very fair size even under his scheme.

LORD GORELL

I do not think it would be necessary that it should be larger than twelve at the outside.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

I will deal now with the point mentioned by the noble Lord regarding the existing Statutory Committee of which he was a very distinguished member. That Committee was formed for the purpose for which my noble friend wishes to constitute his hoard. It was to advise the Ministers in charge of the Board of Education in regard to educational matters. I will also point out that that Statutory Committee contains representatives both of the teaching profession and of local authorities, so that it is not quite accurate to say, as I think my noble friend did say, that the Minister has no other advisers beyond the heads of departments in his own office, and that if these were teachers or members of the local education authorities that was a fortuitous circumstance. I remember very well when I was at the Board that we had the advantage of the advice of the Statutory Committee. I think my noble friend himself was a member of it, and he was rather too modest, I think, in expressing views as to its value. We had the great advantage of the advice of that Committee, and that advice was very valuable and useful and of the greatest assistance in the administration of the Department.

There is another point to which I should like to draw your Lordship' attention. My noble friend's scheme would contain, as he just now indicated, about twelve gentlemen. It would be, I imagine, a statutory body. We should be unable to change or to enlarge it, or to alter its constitution. The present Committee has this advantage, or at least what I venture to consider is an advantage, over a hard and fast arrangement, that it can be varied in any way that the circumstances of the day may indicate to be desirable. The representation upon it can be extended, and the subjects with which it deals can be increased in number. It is a body that it is open to the Minister to consult upon any subject, or any variety of subjects, in regard to which he may deem it necessary or desirable to consult them. That is the present Statutory Committee, but, as my noble friend very kindly observed, there are other Committees.

One of them is the Adult Education Committee, of which also, I think, he was a member. That Committee consists of technical advisers of the Minister, who can call them into consultation whenever he desires to do so. There is also a juvenile Organisation Committee, a body that gives advice in regard to juvenile education. Those who sit on this Committee representatives of boy scouts, of the elementary school teachers, and of boys' and girls' clubs. Therefore, so far as the machinery for consultation with experts is concerned, it seems to me that there is already ample to meet the points that were emphasised by my noble friend. I do not think there is any branch of education in regard to which it is not open to the Minister or the Board or its officials to have an immediate consultation with people who are experts.

I think that the point to which my noble friend was drawing your Lordships' attention, if I did not misunderstand him, was that the scope of the present Advisory Committees is distinctly limited, that they have not, perhaps, that power or influence he would desire that they should have and which he thinks it advisable that they should have. If that be the case, I would reply that the powers and usefulness of existing organisations are bound to be limited by the existing circumstances. I do not think that changing the name, or the composition, or the size of an advisory body would really change its powers. The fact remains that the Minister in charge of the Board of Education is not an autocrat, as my noble friend rightly and properly pointed out, but he is responsible to Parliament for the expenditure of public money. He, and he alone, is responsible to Parliament, and you cannot put that responsibility upon an advisory board or a committee or any one else. Parliament entrusts the Minister with certain sums of money and he has to answer to Parliament on his own responsibility for the expenditure of such money.

Obviously, therefore, the advice which any outside body that is not responsible to Parliament could give must have some limitation. This must be an outside body, however competent it may be, and its advice and powers must be circumscribed in view of the fact that in existing circumstances the Minister is solely responsible for the expenditure of the money entrusted to his Department. Obviously, the Minister must be able to act in an independent capacity. Supposing he thinks something could be done, then, even if his advisers are against him, he must have the power to do that thing. It seems to me, therefore, as so much of the work of the Board of Education is concerned with the control of money voted by Parliament, that the question of financial control is one of paramount importance.

I am, however, very far from suggesting that the advice of experts is not of the very greatest possible importance to the Minister and to the Board of Education. May I give one or two instances showing how that advice is received and acted upon? As your Lordships are aware, many of the duties of the Board of Education are at the present time concerned with detailed administration. So long as they are so much concerned with detailed administration, the Minister, or the Board, must seek advice, and they do seek advice from local education authorities. Local education authorities, as my noble friend pointed out, are intimately concerned with administration, and I should like to assure my noble friend and your Lordships' House that in point of fact the various organisations are continually appointing representatives to confer with the Board of Education upon points of policy as they arise. Sometimes, indeed, the initiative comes from the local education authorities themselves. I remember many cases when I was at the Board of Education when that occurred.

Furthermore, the Minister frequently invites the representatives of local education authorities to come into consultation with him on various matters. I will give my noble friend an illustration of that by saying that the President of the Board has asked local education authorities to set up a committee, and that committee was meeting this very afternoon to confer with the Board on the question of block grants. Clearly, therefore, the Board is not so divorced from the local authorities, and from the teachers and other persons of practical experience in education, as might be inferred from what has been said here this afternoon. I myself was at the Board for some months—not long perhaps, but long enough to know that scarcely a day passes without a consultation with one or other of these representatives of practical education.

I will come now to another point. Criticism has been levelled at the Board on the ground that it is too much concerned with the work of detailed administration, and that, being so much concerned with the work of detailed administration, it is disabled to a certain extent from devoting as much attention as it ought to do to questions of educational policy. Speaking from my own personal experience I am rather disposed to think that that is perhaps the case. I am glad to say that both the noble Lord, the President of the Board, and the noble lady, the Duchess of Atholl, who is the Parliamentary Secretary—the two Ministers who are responsible for the policy of the Board—have indicated that they are in agreement with this view. The programme of the Conservative Party at the last General Election, which I think all your Lordships will agree was of a progressive nature, indicated that we intended to follow a progressive educational policy. In order to do that less stress will gradually be laid upon questions of detailed administration and more stress will be laid on the consideration and execution of general educational standards. If these developments are followed by the Board of Education and by the President of the Board, that Department will gradually become, broadly speaking, less of an administrative and more of an educational body, and the scope for advisory bodies will obviously increase.

Let me now come to a question on which probably my noble friend will disagree with me entirely. I suggest to your Lordships that the institution of the block grant system will certainly tend to develop this aspect of the work of the Board of Education, for by the system of block grants a definite endowment will be given by the Government for certain specific purposes and the carrying out of these purposes will only be subject to the attainment and maintenance by local education authorities of general standards of educational efficiency. The institution of such a system will be of great educational advantage, and it will assist in, the change of the duties of the Board from details of administration and details of control to the consideration of questions of general educational policy. Therefore, by that change, a much larger scope will be given to those who have to advise and confer with the Board, to the great body of teachers as well as to local education authorities.

Having dealt with the main point put forward by my noble friend, I turn to one or two questions of detail on which he suggested certain questions with regard to the outcome of the policy of the Board. I may be wrong but he seemed to express some doubt as to whether the economy proposals of the Government would allow us to do two particular things: First, to carry out our pledges to enable local education authorities to pay salaries in accordance with the awards of the Committee presided over by Lord Burnham, and secondly, whether the economy proposals would allow the reduction in the size of the classes to proceed. I will deal with those two points, and I can deal with the first one very briefly. On February 2 last a Regulation was issued by the Board of Education making the payment of the scales of the Burnham Committee compulsory. Obviously, if the Government issues a Regulation of that kind, it would not do so unless it was intended to provide the wherewithal to pay for them. I may add that there are only three authorities at present who have not accepted the scales, and negotiations are continuing with them. I trust the matter will be settled satisfactorily very shortly.

On the second point my noble friend went into more specific detail. When I was at the Board of Education this question of the reduction of the size of classes was one which we all had very much at heart. In fact, this reduction is not a political or a Party question at all. It was equally in the minds of our successors, who were members of the Labour Government. Your Lordships will remember that at the last General Election one of the first conditions laid down by the Prime Minister in his Election address, when dealing with the question of educational policy, related to this matter of the reduction of the size of classes, and I can say with considerable satisfaction that since the Government took office there has been a progressive decrease in the size of classes, especially in these classes containing over fifty pupils.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

Did you say increase or decrease?

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

I think I said decrease. I hope I did not say increase.

LORD GORELL

I do not challenge that at all. I think it is undoubted; it is a statistical fact. What I said was that this reduction could not continue if these proposals were put into force.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

All I can say is that it is the policy of the Government to further this reduction in every possible way. It is not so easy a matter as it looks; there are difficulties in the way. For instance, you cannot reduce the size of classes simply by increasing the amount of money granted in respect of teachers' salaries. You have to see that the distribution of the money is properly made and that the larger portion of it goes to the areas which are most crowded. Again, you cannot reduce classes simply by increasing the number of teachers. You must also increase the amount of accommodation available; you must have more rooms. This, in fact, was another point upon which stress was laid by the Prime Minister in his Election address, and I should like to say that a considerable amount has already been achieved by the present Government, or rather by local authorities in conjunction with the Government, in the construction of new premises and the reorganisation of schools. The latest figures, which came in only this morning, show that 134 new elementary schools have been sanctioned for building and the enlargement of 39 more has been approved. To explain my reference just now, when I said I hoped that this programme would be pressed forward, let me draw the attention of your Lordships to Memorandum 44, from which it will be seen that the need of a building programme has been specifically recognised. That building programme is one which will draw children from the old schools in the centre of towns to new schools with smaller classrooms and smaller classes; it will draw children from the old schools to the newer schools on the outskirts of big towns.

I can assure the noble Lord and the House that the Government adhere to the educational programme they laid down at the last General Election. I have tried to show that no inconsiderable progress has been made in carrying out this programme, but it is impossible to express any definite opinion as to an educational policy beyond the commitments which have already been dealt with until the Government have had an opportunity of considering the revised estimates of local education authorities for the ensuing year. These estimates, as I have said already, have not all been received. A large number have been received, and they are constantly coming in, but until the Board of Education are in a position to consider these revised estimates the Government are unable to decide upon the details of their policy for 1926–27. That, I think, shows that the Government are in close touch with local education authorities and are consulting them with the greatest freedom before they settle on a policy.

As the noble Lord has said, we are faced to-day, as everyone is aware, by a demand for economy in all directions, and while the Government are firmly determined to carry out the programme it has laid down in regard to educational reform, it cannot allow itself to drift into vague commitments without consideration of the cost and without considering and exploring any economy which it is desirable to make in the existing services. I cannot, I am afraid, elaborate or give your Lordships any information of the future educational policy for those reasons, but, as I have said, the replies from the various educational authorities will shortly be at hand, they will be considered by the Government and, when that has been done, we shall be in a position to give your Lordships further information on this subject.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

My Lords, I listened to the speech of the noble Earl with the keenest attention. He gets up his facts so carefully and accurately that I felt sure that, whatever there was to be said, he would say it. Having listened, I have now to confess that I have listened with the deepest disappointment. My noble friend Lord Gorell put down a Motion the purpose of which was to bring out his view that the Government had embarked upon their present policy without sufficient investigation and knowledge. He gave reasons for taking that view, and he suggested a remedy. The course of the discussion has directed attention lo the state of things rather than to the remedy. We have not got so far as the remedy.

The noble Earl began his speech by giving us an account of the genesis of the famous documents, Circular 1371 and Memorandum 44, and then he told us with great candour that the Government had pledged themselves—as, indeed, they did—at the Election of 1924 to a progressive educational policy. That was absolutely right. Education is one of those things on which we dare not economise. On it depends the future of this country, on it depends our skill, our ability to hold our own, our home markets and our foreign markets equally, and the general condition of the race and of society, and therefore it was not surprising that the Government gave to the country a very warm pledge that in education at least they would go forward and would not go back.

Then the noble Earl told us how that pledge had been carried out. He described the two circulars, and then he proceeded to suggest to us that they had been a good deal misinterpreted and misunderstood. We put, from this side of the House, a very different construction on the matter. Our case against the Government is that they made a cardinal mistake in connection with this question of education. You cannot reduce expenditure on education—at least, not materially—because you are constantly faced with the necessity of increasing it. You can no more reduce the expenditure on this than you can on the Air Force, which is at present, or has been, below what is required for the safety of the country. But in the case of education, what was essential was that the Minister, in fashioning his policy, should bring to bear the best knowledge that it was possible for him to obtain before he formulated his propositions.

The noble Earl told us that it was a great mistake to suppose that there were not plenty of advisers at the elbow of the Minister of Education. There was the Adult Education Committee, and we all know that this was a brilliant Committee which reported under the Chairmanship of the late Master of Balliol. Then there have been other committees. There was the Statutory Committee of which the noble Earl spoke and of which, I think, my noble friend Lord Gorell was an active member. Then there are other committees, there are the local education authorities, and there is an abundance of people to advise. But what the noble Earl did not tell us was of any case in which any of these Committees had advised the Minister to put before Parliament the policy which he is now adopting of intimating reductions. What is the use of Committees if you do not pay any attention to them? It is all very well to collect information and to use what is convenient to you, but if you are going to neglect the points that are vital, how are we to get on?

I know from a speech made and, I think, reported in yesterday's newspapers, that the Minister of Education has told us that he is doing something for adult education. I am very glad to hear of it, but what is he doing for the other things? Let me take them specifically. There is the arrangement as regards teachers' salaries in respect of which we owe so much to the noble Viscount, Lord Burnham, for the guidance that he gave and for getting over a difficulty which I, for one, thought almost insuperable until by his diplomatic skill he brought all the parties together. We have settled the salaries of the teachers and the noble Earl says that this arrangement is going to be carried out and that the Government have given their sanction. That is all very well, but at the same moment you tell the local education authority which has to pay these salaries that it is in danger of having its money cut down. Is that the way to make it happy, to improve the progress of education in this country and to encourage people to take part in that movement for progress to which you yourselves are committed and pledged by the most solemn of all pledges? It is idle to talk in that way. But it does not stop there, because the noble Earl went on to speak of the size of the classes. I was for a moment shocked because I thought he spoke of increase, but that, I think, must have been a slip of the tongue.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

I may have said it, but, if so, I should like to correct it.

VISCOUNT HALDANE

I am sure the noble Earl did not mean to say it. But if you are going to diminish the money of these local authorities, do you think that they are going to embark on a policy of diminishing their classes? And, even if you are not going actually to diminish their money, you have been talking in a way which has led them to think so. There is not a local authority in the length and breadth of the land that is not in a state of high nervousness at this moment. Why? Because of the way in which it is obvious that the Minister has approached the question. It is not very difficult for anybody who has had experience of how things are managed in Cabinets to see what happened. No doubt it is quite true, as the noble Earl said, that these questions ultimately come before Cabinets, but Cabinets are vastly congested debating societies—too congested for the purpose for which they exist. If it were a Cabinet of two or three, or even of five or six, a Cabinet in which the Minister of Education could work out his case and insist, with the threat of resignation if necessary, on the policy that he had thought out, that would be one thing, but we know what busy bodies Cabinets are and how difficult it is for them to give adequate attention to the whole of their business.

What happens? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, a very important person, comes and says that he must have economy all round. We agree, but what we blame the Government for is not discriminating. If there are to be things in respect of which you cannot have economy, such as the national expenditure on the improvement of the training of the race, that ought to be laid down and definitely decided and borne in mind in connection with the demands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But here we have had speeches from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who did say very emphatically that we must not economise on education. Then, when these proposals are brought into the open, what follows? The Minister of Education at once launches a proposal to the local authorities that there should be an economy in education which must mean a cutting down of their resources. Naturally these local education authorities are alarmed. Naturally you have men like Sir Percy Jackson, who is known all over the country, almost in tears at the prospect in Yorkshire. If you conduct your business in that way you will have the natural consequences, and the natural consequences will be such as have developed themselves in the present instance. I am entirely at one with Lord Gorell in his view that educational policy must he based upon the closest investigation and the closest knowledge. That is so in other departments, but education is a very admirable illustration—almost as much as the defence forces, if not quite as much.

What used to be the case? In the old days you had memorable reports by Sir Michael Sadler upon the educational systems of other countries and Sir Robert Morant pressing these things forward. It is true that they did not always agree, but these things were discussed and brought forward, and the public knew something about them. To-day it is all very well to talk of the Education Minister having sources of information at his elbow, but we should like to know how far he used them. Will the noble Earl get up and say that the present policy embodies recognition of any body of expert opinion? Not one. I do not think he can quote one local authority on the side of the Minister of Education, and I do not think he quoted a single expert. The truth is that this thing has not been gone into. It is not that there is no room for economy in education, but that you have not laid things down and said, "This is necessary, and that is not necessary." These things have not been looked into. There was a Committee appointed to inquire into these matters—Lord Meston's Committee. What is it doing? We do not hear anything of its Reports, or of its recommendations to Ministers. But it is not only that. We have not anything to satisfy us that the Minister, in shaping his policy, has been in consultation with people, inside his office and outside his office, to the extent of determining what is practicable consistently with the plan of developing education and not letting it go back.

I have taken two points—the noble Earl, himself, spoke of teachers' salaries and the size of classes—and in both I think I have shown that the policy of the Government in its uncertainty is causing great embarrassment throughout the country. It does not, however, stop there. The noble Earl at the end of his speech said that the policy of the Board of Education in the future would be rather to concentrate on educational things and less upon administrative things. I can only tell him that I am delighted to hear it; but I would like to have a little more than a rather vague promise, and some indication of how it is proposed to go about it. It is not necessary to set up a department, as suggested, to control the policy of the Minister. We all know that the Minister, and the Minister alone, is responsible to Parliament, and that he has got to defend everything he does in Parliament, but there are other ways of setting about the matter.

I remember that when we were discussing the Education Act, 1918, when the Bill came before this House, and it was suggested—indeed, I myself raised a debate about it—that steps should be taken to enable the Board of Education to devolve in a way that it does not devolve at the present time, the Government was so far friendly that the then Minister, Mr. Fisher, put a clause into the Bill enabling that to be done. Not a step has been taken to that effect. I will tell your Lordships what I mean. If you took England you could divide it into seven educational provinces, each about as large as the whole of Scotland. Suppose you did that, what would you get? In Scotland we know exactly what the Minister is doing with regard to education. We have got education authorities all over the country who look very closely into these things and advise us at every turn. All the educational critics are freely able to come to Edinburgh on deputations and go in detail into what the Scottish Minister proposes. We have the whole educational system in a small compassable unit, and we get on.

Why should you not take Lancashire or Yorkshire, or even the West Riding of Yorkshire, and deal with them individually in the same manner? Why not devolve on them the administration of their own money and your grant under their supervision? Why not detail to them inspectors, so that the inspectors might become their officers for this purpose? There would then be a chance of the Board of Education confining itself to first principles and to the study of education, and to doing it effectively?

How is it to-day? A set of regulations are issued by the Board and they apply equally to Northumberland and to Cornwall. They stretch all over the country, as if the country was uniform in respect of education, and it is not uniform. In the North you have far more educational activity than in the South, and the relations between secondary, elementary and University education are possible and are taken advantage of, with the result that there is greater development in the North than is apparent in the South. I want to see every locality free to use its own talent and energy for the discharge of educational duties, and I believe you will save a great deal of money in that way. At present you have a big rigid code, which may suit one part and not another. That is a subject which I have entered upon not for the first time in this House. It is not enough for the noble Earl to say that the Board of Education is proposing to devote itself to principles and to leave to others the details of administration, unless he tells us how it is going to be done, because until he tells us that, whether it be by some such method as Lord Gorell suggested, or as I suggested, or by some other method, we cannot form a judgment.

It is of no use giving to us the kind of speech which the noble Earl, with the very best intentions, has given to us to-day. I know that he faithfully set himself to say the best he could for the Department. It is a lame Department at this moment. It is somewhat discredited, and I have to-night tried to draw your Lordships' attention to the real reasons why it has been discredited. It has been discredited because it did not think before it acted, and did not provide itself with the material and organisation which it ought to have had, before embarking upon a policy like this, which has created unrest among authorities throughout the country. Unless there is a change of this kind there will be growing dissatisfaction with the education organisation of the country, and the Government will be forced to take steps of a much larger description than they have taken at the present time.

It is not what the Government have done. I do not know what they have done. It is not what they are going to do. I do not know what they are going to do. But they have put terror into the souls of the unfortunate people who have to administer the educational system, and they have done it because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has—I will not say laid down, for he disclaimed anything of the kind in his speech to his own constituents at Woodford some time ago—but he has put before Parliament a general demand for economy, without discrimination as to the urgency of services, which entails uncertainty on the part of those who have to carry out our educational system, and has led to the most mischievous situation in which we stand at the present moment.

On Question, Motion negatived.