EDUCATION BILL.

HL Deb 28 June 1944 vol 132 cc481-535

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

THE MINISTER OF ECONOMIC WARFARE (THE EARL OF SELBORNE)

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do resolve itself into Committee on the Education Bill. In doing so may I draw your attention to the problem that faces us in regard to time? It is hoped to take the Report stage on the 11th, 12th and 13th of July, but in order to be able to do that it is necessary to finish the Committee stage this week, and we have got only to the end of Clause 51 out of what is going to be, by the time we have finished with it, a Bill with nearly 120 clauses.

In these circumstances might I make an appeal to your Lordships to try to put forward your points as shortly as possible? I think, if I may say so, that we have had most valuable debates and the Bill is going to be considerably improved. It is a very big Bill and a great deal has to be said abort it, but it is necessary to get this Bill back to another place in time for them to deal with it before the adjournment. I hope therefore that your Lordships will express your points as shortly as you possibly can. May I also suggest to your Lordships that in order to expedite matters we should sit at an earlier hour than usual to-morrow and, if necessary, on Friday of this week.

Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Conimittee.—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The LORD STANMORE in the Chair.]

Clause 52:

Power to ensure cleanliness.

(3) A notice served under the last foregoing subsection shall inform the person upon whom it is served that unless within the period limited by the notice, not being less than twenty-four hours after the service thereof, the person and clothing of the pupil to whom the notice relates are cleansed to the satisfaction of such person as may be specified in the notice the cleansing thereof will be carried out under arrangements made by the local education authority; and if upon a report being made to him by that person at the expiration of that period a medical officer of the authority is not satisfied that the person and clothing of the pupil have been properly cleansed then, subject as hereafter provided, the medical officer may issue an order directing that the person and clothing of the pupil be cleansed under such arrangements:

Provided that, any such notice shall also inform the person upon whom it is served that he may within the period limited by the notice notify the head teacher of the school or college at which the pupil is in attendance that he objects to the cleansing being carried out under arrangements made by the local education authority, and if he does so such an order as aforesaid shall not be issued by the medical officer but an order to the like effect may, on the application of any officer of the authority, be made by a court of summary jurisdiction.

(6) Where an order has been made by a court of summary jurisdiction for the cleansing of the person or clothing of any pupil, then, if after the cleansing thereof has been carried out under this section his person or clothing is again found upon being examined under this section to be infested with vermin or in a foul condition at any time while he is in attendance at a school maintained by a local education authority or at a young people's college, the parent of the pupil, or in the case of a pupil in attendance at a young people's college, the pupil shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds.

LORD AMMON moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "such person as may be specified in the notice" and insert "a person authorized by the local education authority." The noble Lord said: I bear in mind the appeal made by the noble Earl just now. I would remind your Lordships that I called attention to this clause during the Second Reading, as the clause about which the Parliamentary Secretary in another place said the necessity of including such a clause constituted a terrible commentary on our civilization. The particular Amendment that I desire to make is to leave out the words "such person as may be specified in the notice" and insert "a person authorized by the local education authority." If the words at present in the clause are to remain, it will make it very difficult to work this part of the Bill and might nullify its effects. The persons who are appointed to do this unpleasant but very necessary work are all qualified people, and it is quite impossible for any public authority to be sure that the same person shall always deal with the same child. What is required is that the person responsible should be properly qualified, either as a nurse or as a medical officer, and that should be quite sufficient to ensure that what is necessary is done.

There are other reasons also which may be advanced in favour of this Amendment. It does happen that the people who have to do this unpleasant work sometimes come into conflict with parents and guardians, and if the same person is always there he or she is likely to receive a good deal of personal abuse, to have abusive letters, and that sort of thing. I know that that is not fanciful because I have had a good many years' association with schools in South-East London and have seen some of the epistles which these unfortunate persons have received from irate parents who object to the work they are doing, necessary as it is. Not only that, but it is impossible to know in advance which school nurse will be on duty or be available to make the necessary examinations. I submit to the noble Earl in charge of this Bill that what is required is to have one properly qualified person to carry out the duties specified and that that would be sufficient.

Amendment moved— Page 43, line 2, leave out ("such person as may be specified in the notice") and insert ("a person authorized by the local education authority.")—(Lord Ammon.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I am advised that it would be perfectly possible under the terms of the Bill to specify the school nurse and that the notice would constitute the authority that the person carrying out this instruction would possess. If my noble friend Lord Ammon looks at the matter in that light I think he will see that the words of the Bill, as at present drafted, do carry out that intention.

LORD AMMON

Does the noble Earl mean that a special nurse will be designated by name or that the term "school nurse" will be used?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

"School nurse". It is not necessary to designate the person by name. All that is necessary is that the notice should describe her function. "School nurse" would do perfectly well. That seems to me to meet the point of my noble friend.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD AMMON moved to leave out the proviso in subsection (3). The noble Lord said: in speaking of the clause in the other House, the Parliamentary Secretary called attention to the difficulties that arose when children who were afflicted with this unpleasantness were allowed to mix with other children. That makes it extremely difficult to understand why the Board of Education are continuing with the clause in its present form. Under the clause as drafted, the words that one now seeks to remove are intended to ensure that it should be possible to move quickly in dealing with a child suffering from the complaint in question. The Parliamentary Secretary said that one of the means adopted would be the exclusion of the child from school. That is the very thing one wishes to guard against. It would be quite possible, under the clause as now drafted, for the child to be kept away from school almost continuously for the whole of its school life.

Note the various processes that have got to be gone through—the notification of the parents, the sending in by them of objections, the reference to a court of summary jurisdiction and so on. All the time that these things are going on the child is mixing with other children travelling in public vehicles, going to cinemas and, thereby, spreading the infection. I am advised that local school education authorities and school managers throughout the country are very much concerned about this. They say that it will not be long before conditions are worse than those which were revealed in the first evacuation from the large towns to the safety areas. With the shortage of housing accommodation and the overcrowding that now exists, the trouble is accentuated, and probably other things may happen when the war ceases and people come over from the Continent. This will tend to make matters very considerably worse. For these reasons I move this Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 43, line 11, leave out lines 11 to 19—(Lord Ammon.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The point is simply this: that if a school medical officer suspects that a child is verminous he may have that child cleansed under the procedure laid down in this clause. My noble friend Lord Ammon wants him to be able to do this at once. The Bill lays it down that notice is to be served on the parents of the child, and the parents are given some opportunity of objecting. My noble friend says that that procedure is too dilatory, and may lead to the child infecting other children at the school. I think that my noble friend has overlooked subsection (7) of the clause which provides that the child can be immediately excluded from the school. If that is done then, of course, the possibility of infection does not arise. If you do that it seems to me to be right to give the parents some opportunity of making a protest if they think their child has wrongly been accused of being verminous.

LORD AMMON

Surely the noble Earl has got the position absolutely wrong. The parents under present conditions are first of all notified and given an opportunity to have the cleansing done themselves, and that is the very thing that the noble Earl now prays in aid. What one wants to guard against is the exclusion of the child from school. When you so exclude the child you increase the spread of the infection. The child plays with other children, travels in public vehicles, and goes to cinemas, while, over and above that, he is losing education all the time. Under the clause as drafted that can go on indefinitely. I have it on the authority of competent education officers that it could even extend over almost the whole of the child's school life. Surely the noble Earl has given the arguments against the continuance of the clause in its present form having regard, as I have said, to the bad housing. The overcrowding that is going on and being added to daily will make it worse than ever, because when the child is kept away from school it has a very much wider range over which it can spread the infection than when it is at school. I must insist on pressing this Amendment, because this matter is regarded very seriously by almost all the educational authorities and medical officers throughout the country.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I think the noble Lord has not examined the proviso to subsection (3), which reads: Provided that, any such notice shall also inform the person upon whom it is served that he may, within the period limited by the notice notify the head teacher of the school or college at which the pupil is in attendance that he objects to the cleansing being carried out under arrangements made by the local education authority, and if he does so such an order as aforesaid shall not be issued by the medical officer but an order to the like effect may, on the application of any officer of the authority, he made by a court of summary jurisdiction. That is the answer to the noble Lord's suggestion that this can go on indefinitely. It cannot. If the parent is unreasonable, he can be brought before a court of summary jurisdiction, which can make an order for the compulsory cleansing of the child. I do not think that my noble friend's fears in that respect are at all well founded. It would be tyrannical to take the child and cleanse it without giving the parents any right of appeal or protest.

LORD AMMON

This fails to do what the noble Earl suggests. At present the parent has notice, and it is possible to deal with the matter much more expeditiously. What does this clause say? First of all, the parent has to be informed, and then he has to notify the head teacher of the school or college that he objects to it. Arrangements have then to be made by the local authority, and if necessary the matter can come before a court of summary jurisdiction. From experience in these matters I know what can be done to delay action; there is a definite opportunity of delay at each stage here, and there may be a serious effect on the child's school life. The very words which the noble Earl prays in aid are the words which I think should be eliminated from the Bill.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

It seems to me that they are very proper words. My noble friend must remember that this Bill applies to secondary school children and to what are now to be known as county colleges. In the past this business of dealing with verminous children has been confined very largely to elementary schools.

LORD AMMON

This Bill deals with elementary schools.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

But this clause applies to secondary schools and to county colleges as well, and I do not think we can put it in an Act of Parliament that a medical officer can take a person and compulsorily cleanse him, however necessary that may be, without some opportunity being given to the parent of that person or to the person himself, if of the age of 16 or 17, to protest before a police court that it is unnecessary. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will not press his Amendment.

LORD ADDISON

Everybody who is familiar with this procedure is well aware of the abundant opportunities for delay to which this kind of operation can give rise in the case of difficult people, and it is in everybody's interest that a verminous child should be cleansed. That is why this provision is in the Bill. That being so, I suggest that the noble Earl might think again about what procedure could be devised which would be less obstructive than this, because there may be difficult people and these children ought to be cleansed. We ought to be able to secure that this is done. While we want to respect the rights of parents, I suggest that all this procedure is not necessary, and I hope that the noble Earl will think of some briefer method of achieving the end desired.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

I cannot help thinking that the noble Earl in charge of the Bill would be wise further to consider this, and perhaps take some steps at a later stage. Here we have a case where the medical officer has actually found vermin on a child, and then we have the elaborate procedure of going before a magistrate who is to decide whether the child is verminous or not. The medical officer will say that he has found vermin on the child; how is the magistrate to decide anything but that, in face of that fact, there should be an examination? It is true that some other method might be adopted which we can hardly discuss now, because we have not the time to do it; but I should have thought it would be quite enough if the parent were able to ask for some other medical authority to be called in, and that could be done without any recourse to the magistrate.

EARL STANHOPE

I think that the noble Lord has great justification for his Amendment. I do not know what happens in regard to notifiable diseases, but I understand that in the case of such diseases action can be taken straight away when the medical officer thinks it necessary, and I cannot see why in this case, where other children are liable to be infected, action should not be taken promptly. I am very much in favour of the freedom of the individual, but this is a case where, for the benefit of others, the medical officer should have power to take such action as is necessary without delay.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

In view of the representations made to me, I will reconsider the point, but noble Lords must not assume that the child is necessarily verminous—a mistake might have been made—and compulsory disinfection without a right of appeal to the court by the person who feels himself aggrieved is difficult. In answer to what fell from the noble Earl just now, I would remind him that the child, from the moment he is thought to be verminous, can be excluded from the school. But I will look into the matter again and confer with my noble friend between now and the Report stage.

LORD ADDISON

Do we understand that that is on the basis of accepting the Amendment and considering alternative methods?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

No, but if my noble friend will withdraw the Amendment I will examine the point between now and the Report stage and get in touch with my noble friend and see whether I cannot satisfy him. If not, I shall endeavour to meet him on the Report stage.

EARL DE LA WARR

We all appreciate the difficulties under which the noble Earl is labouring, in not being in charge of his own Bill, but it would be very much more satisfactory on a point like this, on which the Committee feels very strongly, if the noble Earl would accept the Amendment, and then, if he or the Department did not like the wording, it would be possible to have it altered on the Report stage.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I do not think that I can accept the Amendment. These are rather elaborate Amendments; there are three which all hang together, and I confess that I did not anticipate that your Lordships would not be jealous of the liberty of the subject in this matter.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

This is the liberty of the louse.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I thought that I should have more sympathy; but to accept three rather elaborate Amend- ments when the consequential Amendments, if any which would be necessary, have not been properly examined, would not, I think, be right. I give to noble Lords an undertaking that if we cannot meet otherwise the point which the House clearly has in mind, I will introduce an Amendment on the Report stage.

LORD AMMON

In view of the noble Lord's statement I beg leave to withdraw. In doing so I would point out that on a Bill like this it is out of place to talk about the liberty of a subject.

LORD ADDISON

I hope that unless the noble Earl satisfies us on this point my noble friend Lord Ammon will press the matter further on the Report stage; but I hope we shall be satisfied.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD AMMON

The next two Amendments on the Paper are consequential. I do not move.

LORD AMMON moved, in subsection (6), to leave out all words after "Where" down to and including "thereof" and insert "after the cleansing of the person or clothing of any pupil." The noble Lord said: The effect of this Amendment will be to retain the existing law, under which a fine can be imposed on parents who allow a child who has been certified as verminous again to become infected. Though that is the law at present, it does not follow that a fine is automatically imposed when a child is allowed to become infected again; but it brings the whole thing to nought and makes nonsense of an Act if you have no power of enforcing the law.

Amendment moved— Page 43 line 41, leave out from the beginning to ("has") in line 46 and insert ("after the cleansing of the person or clothing of any pupil").—(Lord Ammon.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I should be obliged if my noble friend would allow me to consider this Amendment in conjunction with the preceding ones. I admit this is a separate point, but it ought to be considered with the others.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 52 agreed to.

Clauses 53 to 60 agreed to.

Clause 61:

Exemption from building by-laws of buildings approved by the Minister.

61.—(1) Section seventy-one of the Public Health Act, 1936 (which provides for the exemption of certain buildings from building by-laws) shall have effect as if for paragraph (a) thereof there were substituted the following paragraph: (a) any buildings required for the purposes of any school or other educational establishment erected or to be erected according to plans which have been approved by the Minister of Education.

(2) Where plans for any building required for the purposes of any school or other educational establishment are approved by the Minister he may by order direct that any provision of any local Act or of any by-law made under such an Act shall not apply in relation to the building or shall apply in relation thereto with such modifications as may be specified in the order.

LORD AMMON moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "of" ["provision of any local Act"] and insert "relating to the construction of buildings contained in." The noble Lord said: This clause was inserted towards the close of the Committee stage in the House of Commons. It will take the place of Section 166 of the Education Act. It is considerably wider than the existing state of things. It would enable the Minister, when a plan relating to a school is made, to waive any provision of the London Building Act, and that of course would apply in other towns which have their special Acts. The clause would also apply to all independent schools, in addition to grant earning schools, and it is felt that it is not wise that the Minister should have power to override all these Acts, and that the power which already exists should be sufficient.

Amendment moved— Page 49, line 9, leave out ("of") and insert ("relating to the construction of buildings contained in").—(Lord Ammon.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment. The Bill, as drafted, enables the Minister to override local by-laws when new school buildings are going to be constructed. Now school buildings are designed for a particular purpose, and by-laws which are of general application may not in every case be suitable. Also I think we must face the fact that the by-laws of some local authorities are unnecessarily extravagant, and if the Minister of Education is to get through the tremendous building programme which lies ahead and have schools built in very large numbers in the most efficient way, he will also have to be economical where the health of the children would not be affected or where the suitability of the school as a teaching place would not be affected. Therefore the Minister asks for power to overrule the by-laws. The Minister of Education is not an irresponsible person, and if his building regulations did not meet with the approval of your Lordships you would have an opportunity of rejecting them since they would be laid before this House. The words of my noble friend's Amendment would restrict very considerably the liberty for which the Minister is asking. I hope he will not press his Amendment, and that he will not receive the support of your Lordships in this matter.

LORD AMMON

I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 61 agreed to.

Clause 62:

Exemption of auxiliary schools from rates.

62. No person shall be liable to pay, in respect of the school premises of any auxiliary school, any rate the proceeds of which are applicable to public local purposes, whether directly or by reason of any precept or otherwise, being a rate leviable on the basis of an assessment in respect of the yearly value of property.

EARL STANHOPE moved, after "school," where that word occurs for the second time, to insert "or of any school not conducted for profit in so far as such school shall relieve the local authority of the cost of education." The noble Earl said: The clause as it stands excludes auxiliary schools from having to pay rates. My Amendment brings in what are known as direct grant schools, so that they may also receive a similar benefit. I entirely agree with noble Lords on the Labour Benches that no child should be excluded from any school because its parents have not enough income to pay fees. I hope quite a number of these old grammar schools will be maintained and that by giving a large number of scholarships and other means they will enable children of all classes and in all ranges of income to go to these schools. Many of these direct grant schools are going to find themselves in great difficulty. I am told that in one case, if fees are abolished, it is going to mean an increase of something like 5d. in the rates. That will obviously make this change extremely unpopular, and it perhaps might also mean that the school would come to an end, with disadvantage not only to the fee-paying pupils, but to those who might also go under arrangements with the local authorities. For that reason I want to try to reduce the burden which lies on these schools as far as possible, and it seems to me reasonable that they should be put in the same category as auxiliary schools and relieved of having to pay rates. If that is done it relieves the local authority of heavy expenditure. It seems to me therefore that there is justification for asking that the so-called direct grant schools should receive the same advantage as auxiliary schools.

Amendment moved— Page 49, line 15, after the second ("school") insert the said words.—(Earl Stanhope.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON)

I venture to think that Lord Stanhope has drawn up this Amendment under some slight misapprehension of the existing position. It is not the object of this Bill in any way to alter further than can be helped the relation between rate-ability and different types of school in this country. At present a non-provided elementary school is exempt from rates. One of the changes made in this Bill is that there is a slight shifting of the boundary; whereas at present you have junior schools and senior schools both under the general heading of elementary schools, the boundary is now to be drawn at a different age, and the older children are moved into a new category.

The object of this clause is not to confer a new benefit upon any class of school, but to see that there is preserved in those schools to which the senior children are going the same exemption from rates as exists already. If you take my noble friend's suggestion it will be seen at once that it raises an almost insuperable difficulty. First of all, it is difficult to conceive of a school of any kind not conducted for private profit the existence of which does not reduce the duty on the local education authority to make educational provision. The children are in that school rather than in another school. If therefore the effect of this Amendment is—as it really is—to exempt from rates all the schools not conducted for private profit, you are going to make a very great change. I do not want to carry the thing to the point of absurdity, but in fact you would be exempting schools like Eton. Eton is a school not conducted for private profit, and there is no reason, under the words of this Amendment, why it should not be a case for exemption.

Nothing of the sort is intended by the Bill. The only case as far as I know in which there is an exemption from rates under the existing law is in the case of non-provided elementary schools. At least that is the principal case. The only new category of school exempted from rates are the auxiliary secondary schools of the grammar school type maintained by the local education authority; but that does not extend to grammar schools of another type—the ordinary country secondary school is not exempt. It is true that, since it is run by the municipality, rating it merely moves the product of the rate into another municipal account, and to that extent it is a case of taking it from one pocket and putting it in another. But a contribution from the rates has got to be made by every sort of public institution—libraries, for example—and there is no intention of changing that at all. I do not wish to say more because I hope I have made it plain to my noble friend, and I also want to follow the counsel of my noble friend Lord Selborne and do my best to limit discussion. I hope my noble friend Lord Stanhope will take it from me that I have looked at the matter, and have had the advantage of advice from the office he knows so well that it is impossible to accept this Amendment without conceding exemption to all sorts of schools.

EARL STANHOPE

I was aware there was no Extension of this to auxiliary schools. I was merely bringing in a county school that now becomes a secondary school. What I was really after was that those who do provide education in the very fine schools of the grammar school type should get an advantage when they give a large number of scholarships to those who are unable to pay fees. I realize there are difficulties and many things to be said against the proposal. I threw it out as a suggestion merely for the Government to consider what can be done. I think that they themselves feel that everything should be done for these direct grant schools, which are so valuable in the life of the nation. I am prepared to withdraw the Amendment now, and I hope my noble and learned friend will think about it and see whether something further cannot be done before the Bill passes.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I shall certainty see that the matter is brought to the attention of the Board and of the Minister, but I do not want to be misunderstood. I think I have been taught correctly the present position, and there are many people who would have to assent before you change one property which is now rateable into a property which is not rateable.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On Question, Clause 62 agreed to.

Clause 63 agreed to.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE moved to insert after Clause 63:

"Power of local education authorities to assist governors of aided secondary schools in respect of liabilities incurred before commencement of Part II. . A local education authority shall have power, so far as may be authorized by arrangements approved by the Minister, to make grants to the governors of any aided secondary school for the purpose of helping them to discharge any liability incurred, before the date of the commencement of this Part of this Act, by them or on their behalf or by or on behalf of any former managers or governors of the school or any trustees thereof, for the purposes of establishing or carrying on the school

The noble Earl said: This proposed new clause is really only a drafting Amendment, although it does not look like it. These exact words will be found in subsection (2) of Clause 76, and all I am asking is that we put them in the form of a new clause at this point, which is considered more suitable.

Amendment moved— After Clause 63, insert the said new clause.—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD AMMON moved, after Clause 63, to insert:

"Power of local education authorities to assist governors of auxiliary secondary schools to increase accommodation.

Where a local education authority are satisfied that the needs of their area require an increase in the accommodation at an auxiliary secondary school the authority may, with the approval of the Minister, make grants to the governors of the school for the purpose of helping them to discharge any liability incurred by them or on their behalf in increasing the accommodation at the school, regard being had to the manner in which the school has been conducted theretofore."

The noble Lord said: I feel I ought to apologize for rising so often. I move this proposed new clause to make good what seems a defect in the Bill—namely, that it is possible for governors or managers of schools to spend money in repairs and to maintain the fabric, but they cannot add to the accommodation. They cannot add a new laboratory or anything of that kind; they would have to build an entirely new school. That seems to be quite unnecessary and imposes a tremendous expense on the local education authorities. I have in mind one or two schools with which I am familiar, such as Wilson's Grammar School. It seems to me that if the Bill goes through as it stands at present it would be impossible under it to make the extensions which have been made to St. Martin's, the Tennyson, and Burlington. I move this Amendment in order to make good that defect because I am sure it is not the intention to cripple schools so that they cannot take any increase of pupils which may come along, but have to build a new building for the sake of adding another room to the laboratory or something of that kind.

Amendment moved— After Clause 63, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Ammon.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I should very much like to accept this Amendment, but I am advised that if it were embodied in the Bill it would fundamentally upset the balance that the President of the Board of Education has achieved in his structure. He has had to draw up a settlement weighing the different points of view of the Church of England, the Roman Catholics, the Free Churchmen, the teachers, and the local authorities and I am told that this Amendment would be a fundamental departure from that settlement. For that reason I am afraid I cannot accept it.

In answer to one point which my noble friend made, I should like to point out that the new clause I am moving after Clause 102 enables local authorities to tide over temporary difficulties caused by the "Blitz" or by having to bring the new arrangements into force rapidly. The cost of this would not fall on the denominations, but otherwise if it is a question of a new school, or of such an enlargement of an existing school as constitutes a new school, then it is part of the settlement my right honourable friend has achieved that that should be a school provided by the denomination. Therefore I am unable to accept the amendment.

LORD AMMON

I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clauses 64 and 65 agreed to.

LORD GORELL moved, after Clause 65, to insert the following new clause:

".—(1) There shall continue to be a registration council, constituted under the Teachers Registration Council Order, 1926, as amended by the Teachers Registration Council Amending Orders, 1937 and 1941, to whom shall be assigned the duty of forming and keeping a register of such teachers as satisfy the conditions of registration established by the council for the time being and who apply to be registered.

(2) The register shall contain the names and addresses of all registered teachers in alphabetical order in one column, together with the date of their registration, and such further statement as regards their attainments, training, and experience as the Council may from time to time determine that it is desirable to set forth.

(3) The Orders in Council constituting the Council may be revoked, altered, or added to by any subsequent Order."

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is of a slightly different character to most of those which have been moved in the Committee stage of your Lordships' house. This is an Amendment not to alter the existing law but to include in this Bill a statement of what is now the law. My submission to your Lordships is that it is not only necessary but absolutely vital to the Bill. It has struck me with astonishment that though we have had very long debates so few of your Lordships who have spoken have dwelt upon what all agree is really the fundamental necessity of the success of this Bill—namely, that there shall be an adequate supply of adequately qualified teachers. We have had a very great deal of discussion upon different forms of teaching. We have had quite a long debate upon the necessity for patriotic teaching. A great many speakers have spoken upon the importance of religious teaching. But, unless we can satisfy ourselves that we are going to have the right kind of teacher to give this teaching, patriotic teaching is dangerous and religious teaching is of no value. In my submission everything depends upon the character and status of the teacher.

I will be as brief as I possibly can, but this is a very important matter. The noble Earl in charge of the Bill stated yesterday in relation to one of the Amendments that a tremendous lot of new blood would be coming into teaching. I do not know upon what that statement rests. It is not a statement of fact. It is an assumption. It is a pious aspiration. One hopes that it will be so but I am perfectly convinced that it will not be so unless there is a change of attitude on the part of the authorities, both local education authorities and the Board of Education, towards the teaching staffs. Increases of pay will not do it. No doubt that will enable a very large number of people hereafter to come into teaching but that of itself will not ensure that they are the right kind of people. You will only get the right kind of teachers in sufficient numbers if you improve the status of the teacher. I have watched this movement now for thirty-three years. I have talked to teachers of every class and kind up and down the country and I can find no sign whatever in any of the statements or debates that have taken place that this fundamental aspect of the problem has been at all recognized.

I would like to say, however, that in moving this Amendment I have nothing personal whatever. I am not now connected with the Teachers' Registration Council. It will not make one penny of difference of any sort or kind to me whether this Amendment is accepted or rejected. I move it at the express request of the 90,000 teachers who are registered. On my Amendment on Clause 4 when I asked for the additional teachers to the Central Advisory Council to be chosen by themselves, the noble Earl graciously agreed with me when I said the Government would require the co-operation of the teachers to make a success of this Bill and he added that nobody feels that more strongly than does his right honourable friend, the present President of the Board of Education. That was said in a speech rejecting co- operation of the teachers and my difficulty in this is that, though I do not for one moment question the sincerity of the President, I can see no signs whatever of any action in offering co-operation. I say, without any fear of reasonable contradiction, that the Board of Education in this matter has a bad record and those who have held the office of President have often after ceasing to be President admitted that that was so. In fact one President having made no use of the registration movement whilst he was President, as soon as he ceased to be President became Chairman of the Teachers Registration Council and made some attempt to amend the omissions of the past. But ever since the establishment of this Council all the education authorities have cold-shouldered it and I say that is undignified, it is indefensible, and, in the present state of our progress towards educational reform, it is, I think, exceedingly unwise.

There is no chance whatever of obtaining the teachers who will be required of the right stamp unless you encourage their aspirations towards increasing their status. In this matter, for thirty-three years the Board of Education has had no policy whatever. I have tried on two occasions in the course of these debates, to obtain from the noble Earl some statement as to whether the Government were going to make any use of the machinery now in existence at a time when they are passing a Bill which is going to give them much greater powers. But I could not get any answer. I suggest that it is fitting that the Government should make up their minds upon this question. What is their policy in respect of the registration movement? It is said, I hope untruly, that the present President does not attach any importance to it. If that is so, it had much better be stated in public, because this movement is a responsibility of the Government. It has been one of the aspirations of teachers ever since 1860. The first Bill to bring it into existence was in 1869. I need not trouble your Lordships with all the aspirations and efforts in between but in 1911 no less a civil servant than Sir Robert Morant drew up a memorandum when Permanent Secretary of the Board on which the Teachers' Registration Council came into existence. My question is very simple—what use if any are the Government going to make of it? In the Committee on the supply of teachers presided over by Sir Arnold McNair there is laid down with great emphasis the need of qualifications of teachers.

What is to be the relation between the qualification of teachers under that Committee's Report and the registration of teachers? Is there going to be any? I think we are entitled to know whether the Government intend to use, to amend or to end the registration movement. They must do one of these three. At present they simply ignore it. I am not pleading in any way for the maintenance of the present conditions of registration. They may not be satisfactory. It may well be that before they could be generally accepted there should be a conference between the Board of Education, the local education authorities and the Teachers' Registration Council. They are not sacrosanct. They can be brought into line with existing rights. They can be altered as necessary. Similarly I am not suggesting that the present constitution of the Teachers Registration Council is necessarily the best that can be used. That body desires the co-operation of the Board of Education officials, but when we invited them to come they were not allowed to come. They should come and so should representatives of the local education authorities. My contention is that it is necessary for the Board of Education either to affirm or to deny the existence of this movement. Yesterday the noble Earl gave an undertaking that he would include in this Bill mention of such movements as youth organizations or community centres. Those are very desirable movements but of no comparable importance to the future of educational reform and progress.

I may be told that it would be bad drafting to insert this clause in the Bill because it is already in existence in the Act of 1907. But my point is that this is a great educational charter. We hope that this Bill will be looked to and used and quoted for a very long time to come. Nobody is going to look at the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act of 1907, most of which has been repealed, and it cannot be said to be bad drafting to insert in this Bill words which are in that Act so that in the Bill of 1944 there shall be a statement that there is in existence this machinery, rather than leave it—as appears to be the policy of the Government, in so far as they have a policy—embedded like a fly in amber and forgotten and ignored. I cannot believe that this omission is really intentional or that the Board wishes no notice to be brought to those concerned with education that there is this registration and that they are not going to use it. I think I am entitled to ask what they are going to do in this matter. There must be some body entitled to judge what are the necessary qualifications of teachers. Is that to be a sectional body, or is it to be one body which is representative of the teaching of the whole profession?

I am aware of the great prestige of such a body as the National Union of Teachers and I hope I shall never be thought to be inimical in any way to that body. Indeed I have the special distinction of being one of its few honorary members and I am very proud of that fact. But that body cannot represent the teaching profession as a whole. It does not represent the universities, it does not represent the specialists and it only very partially represents secondary teachers. Yet more and more power seems to be placed in its hands and less and less in the hands of the one body which represents teachers as a whole. There is, as far as I am aware, and I think I can speak with special knowledge of this, no instance whatever throughout the thirty-five years since this body came into existence of any encouragement at all having been given it by the Board of Education. There is no advantage to any teacher to become registered and when the noble Earl says the registration movement has not made as much progress in teaching as it has in other professions, that is clearly the answer. It is a very remarkable fact that in spite of no recognition whatever having been given to it, no fewer than 102,000 teachers have applied for registration and no fewer than 90,000 are on the register at the present time.

What I ask is that there shall be a new conception. We are engaged in a great educational enterprise to which there are three parties, the Board of Education, the local educational authorities and the teachers. It is no use continuing to regard the teachers as the unconsidered servants, and nothing else, of the local education authority. You must take them into partnership if you are going to make a success of this Bill. I plead most earnestly with the noble Earl to accept this Amendment. It changes nothing, but it is an affirmation that this body is in existence and it will be taken that, if it is in exisence, it will be used. If this Amendment is rejected, it will be assumed that no use whatever is to be made of it, and there can be no doubt that a body of this kind of which no use is made must cease gradually to exist. Ever since 1860 there have been efforts to bring it into being. If it fails then something else will have to be brought into existence. I am absolutely convinced that, unless some use is made of it, some status attached to it and some recognition given to the aspirations towards unity of the teaching profession, many of these provisions that we have been discussing so long will never be brought into operation. They cannot be without an adequate supply of adequately trained teachers. I suggest that there can be no possible reason for rejecting this Amendment, except the intention of the Government no longer to make any use whatever of this registration movement, which is the one movement which is concerned with the unity of the teaching profession, which is one body representative of all sections of the teaching profession, which has never been used but must be used in the future if this Bill is to be a success.

Amendment moved— After Clause 65, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Gorell.)

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

I should like to add a very few words in support of the general intention of my noble friend Lord Gorell if not of this particular form of Amendment. I do not quite appreciate the way in which this Amendment would fit in. The recruiting of teachers is a matter upon which the whole value of this Bill must largely depend. Recruiting is desperately hampered at present by lack of status of those working in the primary schools particularly and that will be true to some extent of the new secondary schools under the local education authority. If we are to secure all these new teachers who will be required they must be made to feel themselves to be colleagues in the same profession with university professors and the heads of great schools. If we can bring that about we shall have done something great to improve the teaching service. Whether this precise Amendment is the way to do it I am not able to form a judgment, but the aim of the noble Lord is, I am sure, of the greatest importance. Progress at present is very greatly hindered by the divisions which exist in the teaching profession which have been forced upon it by the present mode of organization which depends to a large extent upon considerations more of snobbishness than anything else.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gorell, on the pertinacity with which he espouses this cause and the eloquence with which he does it. This is the third time he has tried to induce me, on behalf of the Board of Education, to support the policy that he believes to be the right one in regard to the Teachers Registration Council. This Amendment, of course, should be read in conjunction with the Amendment which the noble Lord proposes should be made in the Tenth Schedule. The effect would be to repeal Section sixteen of the Education (Administration Provisions) Act, 1907, and replace it with a new clause in this Bill which, for all material purposes, is identical with it. In other words no useful purpose of reform is served. This Bill is not a consolidating Bill. The noble Lord spoke as if it were, but it is not and does not pretend to be a consolidating Bill. He is trying to induce me to agree on behalf of the Government to take a clause out of one Act of Parliament and put it into another, really in order to get the name of the Teachers Registration Council into this Bill. That is quite unnecessary. I have had to resist attempts which have been made from several quarters during these debates to fix flags on to different parts of this Bill. Noble Lords are interested in worthy causes which they are anxious to get into the Bill by one means or another. But that is not good legislation.

With regard to the main matter of my noble friend's speech, he criticised the administration of the President of the Board of Education and, I gather, of nearly all his predecessors. I have not been able to consult the President of the Board on this point but several of his predecessors are here present and the noble Lord should really address himself to them on this subject. The noble Lord thinks that the Board of Education has not given sufficient recognition to the Teachers Regis- tration Council. That view, of course, is not shared by the President or his advisers. It remains a matter of administrative policy on which possibly there is room for a difference of opinion, but it really has nothing to do with this Bill. This Bill carries out a series of educational reforms and the noble Lord is trying to drag in the Teachers Registration Council without making any alteration as to that position.

LORD GORELL

I was not asking the noble Earl to adopt a policy. I was asking him to declare what the policy of the Government was. He says that I am urging that insufficient recognition has been given to this movement. But that is not my point at all. My point is that no recognition whatever has been given, that no use of it has been made, and that the various measures and reforms of this Bill will not have any success unless there is obtained an adequate supply of properly qualified teachers. This supply will not be forthcoming if the one movement in existence for the unity of the teaching profession is coldly rejected.

It is quite true that I referred to the predecessors of the present President of the Board. But the responsibility remains. This is a statutory body and use should be made of it. If, as I gather is the intention of the Government, this Bill is to go forward without any mention whatever of registration it will be taken that no use is going to be made of this body. The most reverend Primate supported me in my principal aim—I am not concerned with the words, but only with the aim. I am sure this Bill is doomed to failure unless some recognition is given to the desire of the teaching world for unity. The Fisher Act had many provisions which were never brought into force, and my fear is that either this Bill will not be brought into force or that we shall see a very large number of teachers brought into the teaching world by offers of higher pay but without adequate qualifications. That is the only reason why I continue with what the noble Earl has called pertinacity to press this matter. It is not irrelevant. But I can quite see that the Government are adamant. In my view and in the view of vast numbers of teachers that is a short-sighted position to take up. A great obstacle is being placed against recruitment for the teaching pro- fession in that it will not be possible to hold out to men and women of good character and proper attainments that they are entering a profession with great advantages. But it is obviously useless for me to try to proceed with this Amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD RANKEILLOUR

I do not propose now to move the new clause which I had set down to follow Clause 65.

Clause 66:

Registration of independent schools.

(2) If the Minister is satisfied that he is in possession of sufficient information with respect to any independent school or any class of independent schools, and that registration of that school or the schools comprised in that class is unnecessary, the Minister may by order exempt that school or schools of that class from registration, and any school so exempted shall be deemed to be a registered school.

LORD AMMON moved to leave out subsection (2). The noble Lord said: The Amendment which I am now moving has been put down in order to elicit information. I know that there is a doubt whether under Clause 66 the private schools have all got to be registered. What I desire to know is whether such registration is compulsory or not. It looks as though some schools are in a very much more favoured position than others, and that is my primary reason for raising the matter. Under this Bill schools on List 6o will be deemed to be registered under subsection (2) of this clause. The procedure of making an order exempting schools seems to be unnecessary. I want to ask whether exemption from initial legislation extends to notifications of changes as required under subsection (4). There is a fear that exemption of a class of schools by special order may ensure a special and privileged position for some of them in relation to the register. A certain amount of suspicion has been aroused because under the registration of youth the Eton boys did not have to go to the Ministry of Labour but an official was sent to Eton. Is something like that to be extended to the registration of schools under this Bill? What I desire to ask the noble Earl is whether it is to be mandatory upon every school to register, or whether some schools are to be deemed to be registered and thus placed in a more favourable position with regard to registration than others. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 51, line 17, leave out subsection (2).—(Lord Ammon.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The object of this subsection is to save the Minister and the Department all the trouble of registering schools which they know all about. The subsection simply says: If the Minister is satisfied that he is in possession of sufficient information with respect to any independent school or any class of independent schools, and that registration of that school or the schools comprised in that class is unnecessary, the Minister may by order exempt that school or schools of that class from registration, and any school so exempted shall be deemed to be a registered school. It is simply to save the labour of going through all the procedure laid down in Part III of this Bill in regard to a number of well-known schools. I ask my noble friend to realize that the Ministry of Education will be overwhelmed with work in bringing this new Bill into law. Therefore, to introduce an Amendment of that character into this registration machinery would be a waste of the time and labour of everybody concerned. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend will not press this Amendment.

LORD ADDISON

I am sorry to intervene with a further question. None of us wish to make difficulties for a Minister or credit-worthy schools, but I have in mind that this relates to independent schools. The words used are "any class of independent schools." The noble Earl may remember that on the Second Reading or some other occasion I raised this point. A number of members of this House have spoken to me since in support of it. I was one of those who was in my youth sent to an independent school of an entirely unsuitable kind and I was there for some years. It was a waste of my parents' money. There are multitudes of schools of that sort.

I myself was even approached within the last fortnight by a member of His Majesty's Forces who wanted me to support his application to be released in order that he might resume the proprietorship of a school which he had conducted in a suburb to his personal advantage before the war. I said to him: "What qualifications have you got to be a teacher?" Well, he had not any. I said to him: "I am afraid you will have to go to someone else to find support." He had no qualifications for teaching at all. So far as I could make out he certainly had no academic qualifications; he had not even passed the London Matriculation. But he was a very nice-looking gentleman and he attracted the children of people resident in his neighbourhood and parents paid him fees presumably to teach their children. There are scores, nay hundreds, of these places, and I should like to know whether places of this kind are likely to be exempted from registration or inspection. I sincerely hope that they are not to be so exempted.

I am not impressed by the noble Earl's arguments about the saving of time. As I have said, there are multitudes of these places. So far as the category of schools which we all know about—like those mentioned, Eton, Harrow and Winchester—are concerned nobody raises any question about them. But it is these other places which are called schools that I am anxious about. They are places established in all sorts of districts, and parents are induced to send their children to them presumably to be taught. I am sure the Board of Education will have a lot of work to do inspecting them, for there is a vast number of them. I would like to be assured that they are not going to be exempted from inspection and registration.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I can give the noble Lord that assurance without any qualification at once. This part of the Bill is designed to deal with the evil to which he refers. All this subsection says is that where the Ministry already have sufficient information about the school they need not put this part of the Bill into force in respect of it. They are going to chase the schools, the bogus schools, to which the noble Lord refers. The schools everybody knows, about which the Ministry has sufficient information, this part of the Bill is not aimed at. Therefore, I suggest that the sensible thing is to give the Minister the power of exemption which this subsection provides.

LORD AMMON

I am almost amazed at the noble Earl's reference to bogus schools when I notice that amongst those which are not included in the list are Uppingham, Saint Paul's, Rossall and others. No doubt the noble Earl who knows something about these schools will be interested in that matter. I do not press the Amendment. At the same time it seems to me to be rather a pity that there should be allowed to remain any suspicion of favouritism in any way. This suspicion does mean that there will still be the possibility of certain schools being jeered at on the ground that they have a favoured position compared with others. I think the possibility of any feeling of that sort might now have been eliminated for good. However, as the noble Lord has catalogued the schools in different degrees to be dealt with under this Bill, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 66, agreed to.

Clauses 67 to 71 agreed to.

LORD RANKEILLOUR

I do not now move my Amendment to insert a new clause after Clause 71.

Clause 72:

Inspection of educational establishments.

(4) The duty of a person authorized to make an inspection of any school in pursuance of the foregoing provisions of this section shall not include the duty of inspecting any religious instruction given in the school other than instruction given in accordance with an agreed syllabus, and no person who is a minister of any religious denomination shall be authorized to inspect any religious instruction given in accordance with such a syllabus.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

This is a drafting Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 55, line 24, after ("institution") insert ("being a training college or institution").—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD BISHOP OF TRURO moved, in subsection (4), to leave out all words after "agreed syllabus." The right reverend Prelate said: This Amendment is a very simple one. It merely removes a hard and fast restriction. I propose to omit the last words of Clause 72 (4) which prohibit a minister of any religious denomination from inspecting any religious instruction given in accordance with an agreed syllabus. In another place it was stated that the intention of these words was to secure that the professional work of teachers should not be inspected by the members of another profession. But we all know instances in which the two professions have been very happily combined. In most types of school among many of the best of the masters there have been some who have been ordained ministers of religion. The one notable exception has been the public elementary school. The 1926 Code of Regulations for public elementary schools contains the following regulation in Section 14: No person who is a Clerk in Holy Orders or a regular minister of a congregation can be recognized as a teacher other than an occasional teacher. This prohibition does not occur in the Secondary Code and I very much hope that when the new Primary Code is laid on the table this prohibition will have disappeared from it.

But to return to the inspection. I entirely agree that teachers should be protected from incompetent inspection. But suppose one of His Majesty's most competent inspectors is a keen churchman who decides that it is less tedious to preach than to listen and takes the steps necessary for ordination without in any way neglecting his duties as an inspector. He desires to devote part of his free time to the work of the Ministry and, for example, to take services in church and preach on Sundays. Why should be not? Why should the Government stop him? Surely that would be interfering unduly with the liberty of the subject. The last four lines of this clause absolutely prohibit any minister of religion, however qualified he may be, however expert he may be in the subject, whatever experience he may have had as a teacher or examiner, from inspecting the religious instruction under an agreed syllabus. I gather that there is no intention to make it impossible for ordained scholars—and all the great denominations are furnished with ordained scholars—to give help in other ways through consultation, conference and so on. I agree that this may well be the usual help which they will be asked to give, but I do not want to exclude them from what is commonly called inspection, if in certain instances their help may prove desirable in that connexion.

I believe that with regard to school inspection ideas are changing. Inspection in the future will be more constructive, consultative and advisory than in the past. It is difficult at the moment to see exactly what the best kind of inspection of the teaching of the agreed syllabus may prove to be. It may prove desirable that such inspection should be of a rather different character from that of the other subjects of instruction. In one county of which I know, by local by-law the local education authority insists on every school being inspected in religious knowledge annually by inspectors of whom they approve. The managers have the right to invite such inspectors, and in some go per cent. of the schools of that county ministers of religion were the inspectors employed. I believe that the result has been eminently satisfactory to everybody, including the teachers. I am informed that similar arrangements have been in operation under other authorities. Why should such arrangements, now in successful operation, be stopped? The omission of this sentence will have the advantage of removing a difficulty in subsection (6). In many auxiliary schools the religious instruction will include both (a), instruction according to an agreed syllabus, and (b), instruction which goes beyond an agreed syllabus. It would surely be unreasonable to allow ministers of religion to inspect (b) but not (a) in those schools.

There are numbers of Christian people who are afraid that the provisions of this Bill will give rise to a form of State religion in this country which will be out of step with all the great Christian denominations and will be in danger of jettisoning some really valuable elements in our Christian heritage and tradition. I am confident that these fears are exaggerated, but the wording of a clause like this, with its very harsh reference to ordained ministers of all denominations, is, I submit, both disquieting and discouraging. The task which this fine Bill sets before us is so exacting that we want the assistance of all who can play a useful part. We certainly do not want to place an impassible barrier between ministers of religion and a field where they may sometimes, under certain conditions, render valuable service. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 56, line 12, leave out from ("syllabus") to the end of subsection (4).—(The Lord Bishop of Truro.)

LORD RANKEILLOUR

In a very few words I should like to support this Amendment. Personally, I am not concerned with an agreed syllabus, but those who have worked to bring it about ought to have the right and power to make the best of it, and they cannot do that if some of those who are most qualified to do so are debarred from inspecting the work done. This theory of the proscription of a particular class is an odious one, and it seems to me that in this connexion it is particularly so.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I know of no logical justification for the words which the right reverend Prelate desires to leave out. Under them my noble friend Lord Quickswood and my noble friend Lord Rankeillour could apply to be made inspectors of schools, and both would be eligible for the appointment, but the most reverend Primate and Dr. Scott Lidgett would be ineligible. I do not think, however, that the matter should be approached from that angle. As I have said before, my right honourable friend has built the great edifice of his Bill by trying to find what he judges to be a fair mean between the interests and fears of the great parties to it—the denominations, the teachers, the local authorities and others; and it is a fact that the teaching profession have particularly asked for this provision in the Bill and have attached immense importance to it.

I would remind the Committee that the official inspection of syllabus teaching is a now departure in our education law, and it is one which the teachers' representatives very strongly opposed, at any rate when it was first put forward. This has been one of the concessions which the teachers have been asked to make; and, in order to meet their objections to it, the Government have inserted these words in the Bill which prevent any minister of religion of any denomination from being appointed to inspect syllabus teaching. I am not sure what the objection of the teachers is, whether it is that they think that a minister of religion is labelled of one particular denomination to a greater extent than a layman, or whether they object to one profession being inspected by another. The fact remains that the teaching profession have made a great point about this.

For an inspection to be successful, two things are necessary. Not only is it requisite that the inspector should be competent, but it is also equally necessary that he should be acceptable to the teacher. No one realizes more than the most reverend Primate the necessity of carrying the teaching profession with us in this great educational reform, and there is no doubt that in this part of the Bill they have been asked to accept a feature to which they very strongly objected, but to which the denominations attached, and I think rightly attached, very great importance. Therefore, while I think that logic is entirely on the side of the right reverend Prelate, it does not seem to me to be expedient to force this against the urgent representations of the teachers. Confidence, after all, is a plant of slow growth, and if we want to bring about any increase of confidence and understanding between the denominations and the teachers, I venture to suggest that that ought to be allowed to grow. If we remove from the Bill words for which the teachers have asked it will not promote the growth of that understanding, and therefore it seems to me to be inexpedient.

LORD ROCHE

I am going to venture to make a suggestion which I think will carry out the expressed desire of the noble Earl to meet the views of the teachers, and yet remove what I regard as a most unfortunate expression in an Act of Parliament. I wonder what in five or ten years' time any intelligent foreigner or Englishman, reading those last few words, would think of us! It is like the Indian Criminal Code, which has a section relating to the police which almost indicates that their evidence should be received either not at all or with very great suspicion. That is always nicknamed "the statutory insult to the police." This is almost like that.

Cannot what is wanted be done in the following way? In subsection (4) leave out the word "not"—because the subsection starts with a negative provision which is not very good drafting—and make it read: The duty of a person authorized to make an inspection of any school … shall include the duty of inspecting any religious instruction given in the school in accordance with an agreed syllabus, and no other person shall be entitled to make such an inspection. That would do it, and do it exactly. What the teachers are afraid of I think I can tell the noble Earl—it is the local parson. That is what they are concerned about and my words would rule him out. If you want then to protect the inspector from having to inspect any other religious education do it in subsection (6) where you deal with that. Will the noble Earl consider my words? They would remove what I call a statutory insult and I think they would do the trick. Whether they would do all that the right reverend Prelate wants I do not know—that is for him to say. But at all events they would do everything that I want and I am sure they ought to satisfy the teachers.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I will certainly consider it. The noble and learned Lord will, I hope, excuse me from giving a definite answer at this moment.

LORD ROCHE

I do not desire it now.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I should like to study those words and be able to give very careful consideration to their import. If I can get them from him afterwards—he has not put them on the Amendment Paper—I could study them and nobody would be happier than I to see this subsection improved. But it would be a great mistake to alter it in the teeth of the opposition and, I feel, the resentment of the teaching profession.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

I am sure all of us deeply approve the line that has been taken by the noble Earl and the sympathy which he has shown with our contention. If my information is correct I think there is a little misunderstanding about what was the main concern of the teaching profession, as represented in the conference out of which I believe the formula in the Bill emerged. The point that, as I understand, was really objected to by the teachers was that (as it has been put) the teachers' professional work should be inspected by members of another profession. It would be wrong, I think, that any minister of religion not skilled in teaching and not himself a member of the teaching profession should be employed as an inspector, but to rule out as such a minister of religion altogether does seem in itself very invidious. I do not think that was really needed for what the teachers were primarily concerned about. Lord Roche has put his finger on the point, and there is need to protect the teachers from interference that has sometimes afflicted them.

What we should be concerned about is that the inspection should be only by His Majesty's inspectors, or properly accredited inspectors of the local education authority—not that one profession, the clerical profession, should be singled out for prohibition. What we should desire, if possible, is that clerical schoolmasters should not be debarred from appointment as inspectors, and what I expect is already permissible—I should be glad if it were quite clear—that the advice of competent clergy may be available to teachers as to the content and method of teaching on an agreed syllabus, when it is desired. That, I believe, is not ruled out. What is excluded is formal inspection and formal report, and nothing else. If it is possible for some words to be introduced which removes this slight (which I think it is) on the clerical profession many of us will be extremely grateful.

I cordially agree that we must be very careful not to take any action that will cause real irritation or antagonism in the teaching profession. I have mentioned that many times, and I have forborne to move many Amendments for that reason. I expect your Lordships are familiar with what is happening in a considerable number of cases, that is, that the local education authority appoint two inspectors for religious instruction, one usually a clergyman of the Church of England, the other a Free Church minister, and they go together. That should be a check on any possibility of any undue denominational bias, and I have not myself heard of any cases where it has been resented by the teachers. They have been appointed by the authority, they go with that permission, and they are selected because of their competence for the work. I am not sure whether there have been objections to that, but I know of many cases where it has worked most happily, and the visits have been welcomed by the teachers. I very much hope that some reconsideration of these lines may be possible, either by their omission now with a view to inserting other words later—for I agree that merely to omit them and put in nothing would not be satisfactory to the teaching profession—or by devising some formula. It would be a great relief to many of us if the words as they stand were removed.

THE LORD BISHOP OF TRURO

I think I must press the Amendment for removing the words as they stand. The suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Roche, could be considered afterwards. That suggestion does not in any way depend on those four lines. The noble and learned Lord's wording is not included in those four lines at all, and an attempt could be made to alter the previous wording if we could leave out here and now those last four lines. I am far from desiring that the local education authority should ever employ the local parson. I do not think that that is contemplated for one moment. It might be in a very rare case that the vicar of a parish was qualified to inspect other places, but I do not think he should inspect the local school. But I do ask that the whole thing should be left open. The Board of Education and the local authority should never invite any person who is not fully qualified and who is not likely to make a success of it; but the fact remains that successful inspections by ministers of religion, generally in pairs, are already very successful in many parts of the country and I think it would be a great mistake to jettison the good feeling that that work has already established in many parts of the country.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

With great respect to the right reverend Prelate I doubt whether his understanding of Lord Roche's suggested Amendment is quite right. It does not represent mine. He has just said that Lord Roche is not proposing to deal with the last four lines of the subsection. I did not so understand it. I thought it was an essential part of his proposal that in line 13 there should be inserted the word "other" ("no other person"). That, the right reverend Prelate will see, does interfere with the words to which he takes exception. I do not want now to discuss whether the ingenious proposal of my noble and learned friend would, as we all hope, meet the feeling that something invidious is being said. As at present advised—I am not expressing any final opinion—I rather question whether his proposal, ingenious as it is, does quite do that. What he proposed was that subsection (4) should run: The duty of a person authorized to make an inspection of any school in pursuance of the foregoing provision of this section shall"— then strike out "not"— include the duty of inspecting any religious instruction given in the school in accordance with an agreed syllabus, and no other person shall be appointed for the purpose. The difficulty, I think, is that that does not really express quite the same idea. There really is no desire on the part of the teaching profession to secure that nobody should be appointed because he belongs to the clerical profession, but that he should be qualified; he may belong to it or not, but he should be qualified otherwise. I think it is rather difficult to see how "no other person" should be construed, because one looks back to see what is the person referred to, and I do not think you will find that this conception is included in the description of the person referred to.

I would appeal, in these circumstances, to noble Lords to accept the assurance given by my noble friend Lord Selborne, and let this thing be looked at. The object is to try and get a form of words to which no possible exception could be taken on the ground that they strike out any particular class. I have known legislation in which it was provided that a man may be represented before a tribunal, but, whatever happens, his representative must not be a solicitor or barrister. That has never seemed to me a very intelligent piece of legislation. One would have thought a man would have wished to get the best representation he could get.

In the same way I would be entirely sympathetic to the view that the Bill should not contain anything that was resented. Surely the right way to proceed in your Lordships' House, when it is acknowledged so frankly by those responsible for the Bill, is to withdraw the Amendment at this stage. This clause will have to be, in some way, turned inside out in order to make the right arrangement, rather than take the other course which the right reverend Prelate has proposed.

THE LORD BISHOP OF TRURO

In view of what the noble and learned Lord Chancellor said, I beg to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 72 agreed to.

Clauses 73 to 75 agreed to.

Clause 76.

Power of local education authorities to give assistance by means of scholarships and otherwise.

76.—(1) Regulations shall be made by the Minister empowering local education authorities, for the purpose of enabling pupils to take advantage without hardship to themselves or their parents of any educational facilities available to them—

1. (a) to defray such expenses of children attending county schools, auxiliary schools, or special schools, as may be necessary to enable them to take part in any school activities:
2. (b) to pay the whole or any part of the fees and expenses payable in respect of children attending schools at which fees are payable:
3. (c) to grant scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries, and other allowances in respect of pupils over compulsory school age, including pupils undergoing training as teachers:
4. (d) to grant allowances in respect of any child in respect of whom any scholarship exhibition bursary or other allowance has been granted by a former authority before the date of the commencement of this Part of this Act.

(2) A local education authority shall have power, so far as may be authorized by arrangements approved by the Minister, to make grants to the governors of any aided secondary school for the purpose of helping them to discharge any liability incurred, before the date of the commencement of Part II of this Act, by them or on their behalf or by or on behalf of any former managers or governors of the school or any trustees thereof, for the purposes of establishing or carrying on the school.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM moved, in subsection (1), to add to paragraph (c): and in particular to grant to any pupil of exceptional ability and character scholarships calculated to enable him free of expense to himself or his parents to receive the full benefit of education and training at any school, college, university or other institution for learning (including scientific or technical training) which the local education authority may from time to time select as suitable for his case, and in addition to receive or to have due provision made for the expenses of suitable residence board and lodging and of travelling and other incidental expenses as may be thought fit whilst he shall be resident at any such school, college, university or institution, the benefits conferred by such scholarship being continued subject to such conditions and till such age as the local education authority shall from time to time think fit and the Minister shall approve.

The noble and learned Viscount said: I shall endeavour to put in potted form the case I was intending to present to your Lordships in some detail, having regard to the injunctions that have been laid upon us by the Minister. The Amendment, it will be seen, is permissive. It imposes no duty upon the Minister. It does not add to his powers. Nevertheless, for reasons I shall give, it is very important that the Amendment should be moved. Your Lordships are well aware that we are now making a revolution in education, and all children from the primary schools, if I may use the old nomenclature, are now to go to the secondary schools without examination. At present, only nine per cent. of those in the primary schools get to the secondary schools, and those who go there are examined. The result must necessarily be that the average intelligence of the children in the classes will be lower. You are going to have large schools which are of great importance to the country and which, unlike the public schools, the grammar schools, and the secondary schools themselves up to the present time, have not been selected in any way. The result must be a lower standard in these classes, and they will not be in my opinion the best places in which to give the best sort of education to the really clever boys and girls.

May I remind your Lordships of this which is something of which I have special knowledge, that there is an enormous difference in capacities between students? It is often hard to realize how great it is. The Tripos at Cambridge was one in which—and I believe is still—the people at the head gained ten thousand marks. Those who just scraped in, and got what used to be called the "wooden spoon," got three hundred marks, compared with ten thousand for the best. I give another example. The late Lord Moulton, who was a distinguished member of this House, was also Senior Wrangler, and it was well known in my time, and the fact has been published since, that Lord Moulton got twice as many marks in the Mathematical Tripos as the Second Wrangler. If you get boys or girls with powers approaching genius it is absolutely foolish to try and pass them through the ordinary mill. If you call pick them out you will be able, to give them special opportunities of getting the best possible education. It may be said that ordinary scholarships can be given. A good many are given now. As a matter of fact 360 were given in the year 1938 of £100 a year. One hundred pounds a year is no good for the sort of lads of whom I am thinking. If you are going to give them a life at the university.—and I am not only speaking of Oxford and Cambridge, I am speaking of the other universities where there is special instruction in various subjects—if they are worried by questions of money they will continually get the feeling that they are obtaining a supplement from their parents which their parents can ill afford.

I want the really able boys to be free from worry of any sort or kind with regard to money, under rules approved by the Minister of Education and, of course, provided they continue to behave themselves properly and to work. At present, the position is that when the parents of really clever boys want them to go on with their education at such a place as a university or another institution of that kind, the lads have to go to their parents for money, and they feel all the time they ought to stop that drain upon the resources of a very humble class of people. The result is that they want, as soon as they can, to earn their own living, and that is the thing that will largely prevent their taking advantage of the opportunities for education that now exist, and which are suitable to the boys and girls of great talents of whom I have been speaking. The scholarships I want should be as large and generous as the Rhodes Scholarships, which entitle people to education and maintenance at Oxford—the system gives them £450 a year. Unless that is done, nearly all the really able people who go to the universities from the secondary schools will want to get into the teaching profession at once to earn their living and to repay their parents for the sacrifices which have been made for them. That is the very thing I want to avoid.

There is this consideration which is worth pondering. There have been a number of books written in recent times about the history of science, the largest and most elaborate of them being the work by Sir William Dampier called The History of Inventions. I have been through it for the purpose of finding out whether the very poor ever make inventions or discoveries and, as far as I can make out, they never have. The son of a ploughman may be a poet or a writer, but the son of a ploughman or a person in really humble position will never get the chance of the education, surroundings, environment, what the French call the milieu, of the people who can attain great eminence in science and invention. You will not get from the poorer parents a Clerk-Maxwell, a J. J. Thomson, a Fleming, or a Rutherford or any people of that calibre. It is impossible. Still less will you get such men as those who have made marvellous discoveries in quite recent times in hygienic science. These men are worth countless sums to the country if you can get them. You will not get them, in my opinion, under the present system.

There is this to be considered. It is true there are very few who, even if they have the scholarships which I want provided for them, will attain the great eminence I am thinking of. I quite agree it will only be a proportion of them, but if it is only 5 per cent. it will be worth while our taking steps to find those people, to select them, to make them marked lads who go through universities (or wherever it is they go) with a knowledge that their parents are not going to have to put their hands in their pockets for a single penny. In a word, the intellectual diamonds are there in that great branch of our population which is the poorest branch, but we neglect to bring those diamonds to the surface at the present time, and I am afraid we may continue not to take the necessary steps to find them and make them of great use to the country.

It may be said that the Minister can do most of the things I want done by this Amendment without the Amendment being passed. I have considered that; I doubt it myself. I think it would be a very doubtful question. The sort of scholarship which is adumbrated in this Amendment is something quite new in regard to education. It does really refer only to education which deals with questions of psychology and the advantages of living in a particular class. These questions really are not merely education; they are something more. Whether I am right or wrong in thinking the Minister has not got the powers now, I am perfectly convinced that unless we get something of the sort—I am not wedded of course to this form of words—in the Bill, unless the clause is there in some form, there will be no encouragement to the Minister or his assistants to take the steps which I desire, and the great advantages which we may possibly gain from throwing open to the poorest class of the community the possibilities of obtaining a great position in science or invention will be lost. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 58, line 37, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Maugham.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Everybody must support the object of my noble and learned friend in desiring, especially in the case of the really clever boys and girls, that there should be no impediment to their receiving the best education of whatever type their aptitudes point to, but I submit that the object of my noble friend is entirely covered by Clause 76 (1) (c) to grant scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries and other allowances in respect of pupils over compulsory school age, including pupils undergoing training as teachers. I listened very carefully to my noble friend and I gathered that his real fear is that these bursaries and scholarships will not be of sufficient amount to enable the poorest young men to live at a residential university for the requisite period. I think he mentioned that the Rhodes scholarships were scholarships of £450 a year. I would remind your Lordships that the Rhodes scholars have to come from the other end of the earth and live in England during the vacation as well as during term-time, therefore their expenses are specially heavy. But there is nothing in this Bill to limit the amount of the scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries or other allowances. You could not possibly have wider words than those.

I think the noble and learned Viscount said that these scholarships had been limited in the past to sums of £100 a year. I do not know if he is entirely correct about that. No doubt he probably is, but even if that is so that is no reason why they should be limited to that amount in the future. I am informed that the Board and the local education authorities at present take full account of all the circumstances of the case, the financial resources of the pupil, and the cost of living at one university as opposed to another. Those circumstances are at present taken into account and can, under the Bill, be taken into account. The advice that I am given is that the words which the noble and learned Viscount desires to add to the Bill would not increase the power that the Bill already confers on local education authorities and the Minister, and that they are therefore unnecessary. But it is the desire of the Minister, and I believe also of the local education authorities, to carry out to the full the policy advocated so eloquently by my noble and learned friend.

VISCOUNT MAUGHAM

I rather anticipated that something of the sort would be said by the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, and it coincides with the general attitude of the Government not to have any Amendments on this Bill unless they can be shown to be absolutely necessary. My feeling is that it is doubtful whether the sort of scholarships I want given would be given purely and simply as an educational facility. The powers under subsection (1) (c) are limited to educational facilities which you find in Clause 4. Although the noble Earl's criticism about the Rhodes scholarships is quite sound, I only mentioned that as an instance of a really generous scholarship given to people to learn. It may be said that it is too generous. But I am not concerned with that; my point is that the scholarships given should be such that the boy should not have to go to his parents for a single penny, that he should be able to live, clothe himself and feed himself and do everything else without any recourse to his parents. That should continue so that he may get into the environment of the really clever and able people at the university and get the ideas and the notions of those who are doing so much for the world in respect of discovery and invention. However, if the noble Earl refuses to do anything, and inasmuch as this is only a permissive Amendment which throws no further duty on the Minister, I am afraid I must withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The next is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 58, line 41, leave out ("this Part") and insert ("Part II").—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

This is also a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 58, line 43, leave out subsection (2).—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 76, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 77 [Powers of local education authorities as to educational research]:

LORD GORELL moved to divide Clause 77 into two clauses consisting respectively of subsection (1) and subsection (2). The noble Lord said: This is a drafting Amendment, but I think it improves the Bill. It seems rather anomalous that two separate subjects, the conduct of research and the organization of conferences, should be put into one clause. My suggestion is that the clause should be divided into two.

Amendment moved— Page 59, divide Clause 77 into two clauses consisting respectively of subsection (1) and subsection (2).—(Lord Gorell.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I think the noble Lord is perfectly right. It is true that subsection (1) and subsection (2) of Clause 77 deal with really different points. I am very much obliged to him, and I have pleasure in accepting his Amendment.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 78 agreed to.

Clause 79 [Powers of local authorities to accept gifts for educational purposes]:

THE EARL or SELBORNE

The next is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 59, line 28, leave out ("this Part") and insert ("Part II").—(The Earl of Selborne).

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 79, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 80:

Extension of power to make schemes under the Endowed Schools Acts, and modifications of those Acts and of 4 & 5 Vict. c. 38.

(2) Where it appears to the Minister to be desirable that a scheme made under the Endowed Schools Acts, 1869 to 1908, in relation to any educational endowment should make provision for the sale of any land forming part of the endowment and the application of the proceeds of sale in accordance with the provisions of the scheme, but that such provision cannot be made by reason of the third proviso to Section two of the School Sites Act, 1841 (which provides that if any land granted in accordance with the provisions of that section ceases to be used for the purposes mentioned in that Act, the land shall revert to the grantor), he may by order direct that the said proviso shall not have effect in relation to the land:

Provided that no such direction shall be given in relation to any land unless the Minister is satisfied, either—

1. (a) that the person to whom the land would revert in accordance with the said proviso cannot after due inquiry be found; or
523
2. (b) that, if that person can be found, he has consented to relinquish his rights in relation to the land under the said proviso, and that, if he has consented so to do in consideration of the payment of a sum of money to him, adequate provision can be made for the payment to him of that sum out of the proceeds of sale of the land.

LORD GORELL moved, in proviso (a) of subsection (2), to leave out "due inquiry" and insert "such inquiry by advertisement or otherwise as the Minister may direct." The noble Lord said: I hardly know myself in the position of somebody who has had an Amendment accepted. I do not know whether the same fate will befall this Amendment, but it seems to me that the words "due inquiry" are a little ambiguous. Anybody might go to court and say there has not been due inquiry, and moreover the clause does not specify who is to make the inquiry.

Amendment moved— Page 6o, line 29, leave out ("due inquiry") and insert ("such inquiry by advertisement or otherwise as the Minister may direct").—(Lord Gorell.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I am advised that the words which the noble Lord wishes to put in would really have a restrictive effect and act in a contrary direction to that which he desires. We all want the same thing; we want a proper inquiry. This clause deals with the case where a school for some reason is given up and the trust deeds provide that in such a case the site and buildings revert to some third person. Sometimes it is the owner of a particular property, sometimes it is the lord of the manor. These cases are common. Once to my great astonishment I suddenly found myself possessed of a school in a neighbouring parish and I had not the slightest idea that such a thing was likely to happen. This clause deals with those circumstances and it provides that the Minister may alter the trust deeds but that before doing so he is to make due inquiry to find out who is the residuary legatee. Sometimes the residuary legatee is quite unknown. My noble friend is asking that the Minister should make such inquiry by advertisement or otherwise. Advertisement may sometimes be quite inappropriate. If you take the case of a local landowner to whom the property reverts, a man who is well known, it would be absurd to insert that advertisement in the local newspaper. The right course would be to approach him by letter. Therefore I submit that the words in the Bill really are wider than the words my noble friend wants to put in. I think they are quite adequate, and I hope he will not press his Amendment.

LORD GORELL

If the noble Earl is satisfied that the words are quite adequate I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 80 agreed to.

Clause 81:

Exemption of assurances of property for educational purposes from the Mortmain Acts.

(2) Every assurance of land or of personal estate to be laid out in the purchase of land, including every assurance of land to any local education authority, shall, if the land or the income thereof is to be used for educational purposes, be void unless the assurance or a copy thereof is sent to the Minister within six months after the date upon which the assurance takes effect:

Provided that the Minister may, either before or after the expiration thereof, extend the said period of six months in any particular case, and if the assurance or a copy thereof is sent to the Minister within the extended period the assurance shall not be void or shall be deemed not to have been avoided, as the case may be.

LORD GORELL moved to leave out subsection (2). The noble Lord had said: I am not quite happy about this subsection. It seems to apply to certain lands which are not really the concern of the Minister of Education, and as far as I understand the law of real property it introduces a novelty in holding up the title to the land until the Minister of Education has decided. I am not satisfied that the subsection is necessary, and so I move to delete it.

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 21, leave out subsection (2). —(Lord Gorell.)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I will endeavour to explain in a few sentences the reason for this clause, and I think I can satisfy my noble friend. The Mortmain and Charitable Uses Acts that are referred to in the first words of the clause are, as your Lordships know, Acts which impose restrictions upon transfers of land, assurances of land and personal estate to corporations because they last for ever, or to charitable uses for a rather different reason. The provisions of these Acts shall not have any effect in respect of the transfer of land for educational purposes. That being the existing law, you would leave it alone if it were not for two defects. The first defect is that, although the law is as I have stated, if land is transferred for educational purposes there is a doubt whether that also is true when it is the income of the land and not the land itself which is transferred. It is a purely technical point, but it is desirable to put it right. Everybody, I think, would agree that the same rule should apply in each case.

The other matter is a little more subtle. As your Lordships will observe there is a provision in subsection (2) that: Every assurance of land or of personal estate to be laid out in the purchase of land … shall, if the land or the income thereof is to be used for educational purposes, be void unless the assurance or a copy thereof is sent to the Minister within six months … That is not the present law. The present law is merely that there shall be sent to the Minister a copy of the documents. Of course it is not much use enacting that a thing shall be done unless you make some provision as to what is to happen if it is not done. That is particularly true when dealing with big bodies that have a great deal to do and occasionally fail to do what the law tells them to do. You must have some sort of penalty, and the form of the penalty is not one which is going really to interfere with educational projects. It is merely this; that they must, under this penalty, send to the Minister a copy of the deed, transfer or whatever it is, and if the Minister finds for any reason that they have failed to do so there is plenty of room for repentance. Nobody, of course, is going to deprive an educational institution of its trust, but there must then be a sending of the copy within an extended period which the Minister will always concede.

It does make a watertight scheme because it secures that the Minister will get the necessary documents sent to him—and it is very necessary that they should be sent to him. In the first place part of the duty of the Ministry of Education is to prepare records and statistics and it is essential that the Ministry should really know all the cases that there are of this sort. That can only be ensured by their getting the information under this clause. Then, again, cases have actually existed where the original transfer has been lost. Nobody can find it; it has been put into some safe and then forgotten. In such an event it is very important that the Ministry should have a record of it and be able to supply what is otherwise missing. These, I think, everybody will recognize as good reasons.

As for the matter being in line with what is already done, I may I think relieve anxiety on the part of my noble friend Lord Gorell when I tell him that if you had a case of a conveyance of land for non-educational charities then the law is now that if the donor does not send a copy of the assurance within six months to the Charity Commissioners the thing is void. The thing is in being as regards all sorts of charitable dispositions of land but, curiously enough, it has never been done in the case of educational charities. There is nothing more than that in this. I think that clears up the difficulty, and I believe my noble friend will agree that this is a matter that should be made plain.

LORD GORELL

I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Lord Chancellor for his most authoritative and clear statement, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER

Mine is a similar point to that of Lord Gorell. If I understand the noble and learned Viscount aright the provision in the Bill secures that educational land is treated on exactly the same footing as other land and that there is no penalizing of educational land as against other land. In those circumstances I do not desire to move my Amendment.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I must be sure that what I have said is quite correctly understood by the right reverend Prelate. At present, in cases of transfer for charitable purposes which are not educational the law is as in this clause. All we are doing is to apply that law to the case of land transferred for educational purposes.

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER

I am much obliged and I shall not move my Amendment.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The Amendment in the name of Lord Selborne is a purely drafting Amendment. The reference in line 42 to "this Part" is a mistake. The reference ought to be to "the date of the commencement of Part II of this Act."

Amendment moved— Page 61, line 42, leave out ("this Part") and insert ("Part II").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 81, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 82:

Appointment of chief education officers of local education authorities.

82. The duties of a local education authority with respect to the appointment of officers under the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1933, shall, without prejudice to the generality of those provisions, include the duty of appointing a fit person to be the chief education officer of the authority, but a local education authority shall not make such an appointment except after consultation with the Minister, and for the purposes of such consultation an authority proposing to make such an appointment shall send to the Minister particulars showing the name, previous experience, and qualifications, of the persons from whom they propose to make a selection. If the Minister is of opinion that any person whose name is so submitted to him is not a fit person to be chief education officer of the authority he may give directions prohibiting his appointment.

LORD SOULBURY moved to leave out all words after the second "authority." The noble Lord said: This Amendment concerns the appointment of a chief education officer, who is usually called the director of education, by the local education authority. When this Bill was under consideration in another place this section it appeared to me was even more drastic than it is now. The Parliamentary Secretary I think admitted it was heavy-handed, and the Government accepted an Amendment which leaves the clause in its present form, giving the President of the Board of Education power to prohibit the appointment of any director of education to whom he objects.

The Parliamentary Secretary defended the conferring of this power by comparing it with the power of other Government Departments over the appointing of county medical officers, county engineers and chief constables. He said that the powers now existing were far less than those exercised by other Government Departments in respect of the three appointments which I have just mentioned. With great respect to him I do not think it is quite accurate. I have looked up the appointment of a county medical officer which, I think, comes under the local Government Act of 1933. So far as I can interpret this, the Government Department cannot make the appointment of a county medical officer subject to their consent, still less can they prohibit it. The appointment of a chief constable is not under the control of a county council, but is made by a Standing Joint Committee. That Standing Joint Committee has a connexion with the county council, but that happens to be an historical accident and it does not make the appointment of a chief constable analogous with that of a director of education. Then take the case of the county engineer. The Local Government Act states that the county council or county borough council shall appoint a fit person, and under the Ministry of Transport Act of 1919 the Minister may by agreement with the local authority defray half the salary and establishment charges of engineers and surveyors to a local authority responsible for the maintenance of roads, subject to the condition that the appointment, retention and dismissal of the engineer or surveyor and the amount of the establishment charges are subject to the approval of the Minister. There again, the Minister only possesses that power if the local authority wants half the salary and charges paid. Similarly, in the case of the chief constable. But it does seem to me that these analogies are not really apposite to the present power which the Minister seeks to secure over the local education authority in the matter of the appointment of a chief education officer.

I am not very sanguine as to the result of this Amendment, but I do suggest to the noble Earl that here we have what may be a very undesirable and indeed dangerous precedent. The next step might be that the local education authority might be told to produce a short list setting out the offices of the clerk of the county council, the town clerk, the county treasurer, and so forth. It is a safeguard for local democracy that these appointments are in their own hands. I should be very sorry to see such a state of affairs that the Government could control—as I think this Bill tends to give them power to control—the appointment of officers of a local council. There are political dangers inherent in such a position. One could think of a case in which a Government or a Minister with certain strong political views might be inclined to pick out of his short list of local officials one holding views of a similar character. At present, in the majority of cases, that cannot be done, and that is why I ask your Lordships to consider that it is not altogether desirable that the local education authority should be so gravely circumscribed—for that is what will happen if I read this clause aright—in making the appointment of a local education officer.

Amendment moved— Page 62, line 3, leave out from the first ("authority") to end of the clause.—(Lord Soulbury).

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I think the principle to which my noble friend attaches such weight is certainly a very important one. England has never been governed from London in the same way that other countries have been governed from their capitals. It has always been a feature of our government that the local authorities should in many important respects be completely free of ministerial powers in London. There are, however, other considerations in this case to which I must draw the noble Lord's attention, because it is not only in education that the same sort of provision has been found necessary. Where the taxpayer is contributing a very large sum towards the expenses of the local authority, surely the taxpayers' representative, who is the Minister, has a right to some voice in key appointments. That principle is already embodied in the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919.

My noble friend cited another case, but he said that the Ministry of Transport Act did not give any precedent for what is done in this Bill, because in that case the taxpayer was making a 50 per cent. grant. If, however, you take the total grants made by the Board of Education to the local authorities, you will find that they come to over 50 per cent.; in fact, the overall average is something like 55 per cent. All that we are asking in this Bill is that the Minister should have the power of saying to the local education authority that he does not approve a particular name on the list from which they propose to select their chief education officer. We give the Minister that veto. There is no suggestion that the Minister should appoint the chief education officer; the appointment is to be by the local education authority; but if the contributions by the Ministry to the total bill for education amount to more than half, the Minister holds the view that he is entitled to be effectively consulted as to the appointment of these key officers.

LORD SOULBURY

I have expressed my caveat to my noble friend. It has not sufficiently terrified him as to the consequences, and I do not press the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 82 agreed to.

Clause 83:

Remuneration of teachers.

83. Regulations made by the Minister shall make such provision as appears to him to be desirable for the purpose of securing that the remuneration paid by local education authorities to teachers is in accordance with scales approved by him; and in approving any such scales the Minister shall have regard to any recommendations relating to the remuneration of teachers made by any body of persons constituted by the Minister which is representative of local education authorities and of teachers.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE moved, at the beginning of the clause, to leave out "Regulations made by the Minister shall" and insert: (1) The Minister shall secure that for the purpose of considering the remuneration of teachers there shall be one or more committees approved by him consisting of persons appointed by bodies representing local education authorities and teachers respectively, and it shall be the duty of any such committee to submit to the Minister, whenever they think fit or whenever they may be required by him so to do, such scales of remuneration for teachers as they consider suitable; and whenever a scale of remuneration so submitted is approved by the Minister he may by order

The noble Earl said: This Amendment deals with the famous clause which led to a certain incident in another place, where the President of the Board of Education had the experience which I had yesterday, of finding himself in a minority. What was carried in that atmosphere of some excitement was found, however, on reconsideration, not to be very satisfactory, and it was found that the clause was capable of improvement. I am therefore moving to leave out the word "Regulations made by the Minister shall" and to insert the words of the Amendment. The objection to the clause as at present drafted is that under it the ultimate responsibility for drawing up scales of salaries for teachers rests with the Minister. I hope that I shall have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Soulbury, on this, because I am suggesting that the Minister's powers have been made too great. Such an arrangement would be at variance with the present position, whereby the Burnham Committee frame the scales and the Board of Education accept or reject them for the purposes of their grant. The proposed new wording continues the principle that it is for the Burnham Committee to frame the scales and for the Minister to approve or to reject them, but it provides that in so far as he approves them he may by order make them mandatory. I hope your Lordships will agree to this Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 62, line 13, leave out ("Regulations made by the Minister shall") and insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE moved to leave out all words after "accordance" and insert: therewith. (2) The Minister shall nominate the person who is to be the chairman of any committee approved by him for the purposes of this section.

The noble Earl said: This maintains the practice whereby the Burnham Committee appoint as their Chairman a person nominated by the President of the Board.

Amendment moved— Page 62, line 16, leave out from ("accordance") to the end of the clause and insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 83, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 84 to 86 agreed to.

Clause 87:

Powers of Minister to direct local inquiries.

87. The Minister may cause a local inquiry to be held for the purpose of the exercise of any of his functions under this Act; and the provisions of subsections (2) (3) (4) and (5) of Section two hundred and ninety of the Local Government Act, 1933, shall have effect with respect to any such inquiry as if the Minister were a department for the purposes of that section.

LORD GORELL moved to leave out "local" and insert "public." The noble Lord said: It is not clear to me why we have a new clause dealing with inquiries, when we already have under the Act of 1921 a perfectly good section, Section 156, dealing with public inquiries, which would seem to be more suitable to an Education Bill than the reference to Section 290 of the Local Government Act, 1923. I have not, however, attempted to put back Section 156 of the Act of 1921, as the whole of that Act has been repealed; but I should like to change the word "local" to "public," because as at present printed the clause does not provide that the inquiry shall be in public, and it would enable the Minister, if he so desired, to make no public reference to the result, whereas it seems very desirable that the public should be informed.

Amendment moved— Page 63, line 32, leave out ("local") and insert ("public").—(Lord Gorell.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Clause 290 of the Local Government Act, 1933, lays down the procedure under which local inquiries are to be held, and that is why the phrase "local inquiry" is used in this clause. These local inquiries always are held in public, and, if that is the object which my noble friend wishes to achieve, I can assure him that this is already the universal practice.

LORD GORELL

I ask leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 87 agreed to.

Clauses 88 and 89 agreed to.

Clause 90 [Provisions consequential on cessation of functions of former authorities]:

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

This Amendment is merely drafting.

Amendment moved— Page 65, lines so and 11, leave out ("this Part") and insert ("Part II").—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The next is also drafting.

Amendment moved— Page 65, line 39, leave out ("this Part") and insert ("Part II").—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause go, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 91 [Modification of 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 94]:

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

This is drafting.

Amendment moved— Page line 7, leave out ("this Part") and insert ("Part II")—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 91, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 92:

Compensation of persons prejudicially affected by this Act.

92.—(1) if in consequence of the council of any county district ceasing to exercise functions under any enactment repealed by this Act any person who was an officer of that council suffers direct pecuniary loss by reason of the determination of his appointment …

THE EARL OF SELBORNE moved, at the beginning of the clause, to leave out "council of any county district ceasing to exercise functions under any enactment repealed by this Act any person who was an officer of that council," and insert "extinguishment or transfer by this Act of any functions exercisable by the council of any county district, or the transfer by this Act of any officers employed by any such council, any person who, immediately before the date of the commencement of Part II of this Act, was an officer employed by that council or by the council of the county in which the county district is situated."

The noble Earl said: The point of this Amendment is this. The existing provisions of Clause 92 enable compensation to be paid only to existing officers of county district councils, whose functions with respect to education will pass to county councils. It has been strongly represented to the Board that in fact the existing officers of county councils to whom the functions will be so transferred may also suffer loss by reason of the transfer of the functions. The local education authority may be taking into their organization a number of former officers of the district councils. Some of these officers may be abler men than the existing employees of the county council, and therefore the county council might wish to put the new employees from the district councils into positions previously occupied by their own employees, and this Amendment provides that officers so displaced would be entitled to compensation.

I want to take this opportunity to make an announcement on behalf of the Government. There is one class of officer, however, who may be affected who is not provided for by this Bill. It is not proposed in Clause 92 to provide for the compensation of persons who, although formerly officers of county district councils or county councils, are engaged on war service at the date of transference of powers, in so far as these officers are insufficiently covered by the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act, 1944. Any compensation due to the fact that they may be damnified by the Education Bill will be made in a special Bill, which the Government propose to introduce in the near future. The special Bill will apply not only to officers in the educational service of counties, but to those who are concerned with functions appropriate to the Food and Drugs (Milk and Dairies) Bill and the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. All these officers will be affected by roughly similar circumstances, that is to say, their functions will be affected by Statute while they are serving their country abroad, and therefore in so far as they are entitled to compensation—and it is admitted that some of them will be—the Government propose to deal with that matter in a special Bill. Subject to that, I think the Amendment I am now moving covers all the cases of compensation that might arise under this Bill.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 23, leave out from ("the") to ("suffers") in line 26 and insert the said new words.—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The next Amendment is consequential on the extension of compensation benefits, and the following Amendment is also consequential.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 37, leave out from the first ("the") to the first ("by") in line 38 and insert ("extinguishment or transfer had been effected").—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Amendment moved— Page 66, line 45, leave out from ("a") to the end of the subsection and insert "county or county district in connexion with any functions exercisable by that council under any enactment repealed or amended by this Act."—(The Earl of Selborne.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 92, as amended, agreed to.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil)

Before the House resumes I would like to have one further consultation with noble Lords about the progress of this Bill. As your Lordships know, we have taken a good deal longer with the Committee stage than we had originally expected. To-day, however, we have made extremely good progress, but there are still certain Amendments of substance to be taken and it is really essential that we should get through tomorrow. I therefore propose to the House—as has, I think, been already suggested—that we should meet to-morrow two hours earlier than the usual meeting time. It would then sit for an hour, adjourn for an hour for lunch, and then resume. I hope that that proposal will be agreeable to noble Lords, otherwise there is always a danger that we might have to sit very late, which I think would cause much greater inconvenience to the House than the method I propose. May I take it then that that is agreeable to the House? As no noble Lord rises, I will assume that that is so. I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved, That the House do now resume. —(Viscount Cranborne.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House resumed.