Lords Sitting of 6 October 1976

Preamble
The House met at a quarter-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Blackburn.

LORD McCLUSKEY
John Herbert McCluskey, Esquire, having been created Baron McCluskey, of Churchill in the district of the City of Edinburgh, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe and the Lord Kirkhill.

HIJACKING AND AIRPORT SECURITY
2.32 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps have been taken in conjunction with other civilised nations to prevent the hijacking of aircraft and to ensure adequate security at all airports against the criminals who plan such acts of piracy.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, we are in close and continuous contact with British airlines and with other Governments to achieve effective security measures at all airports, which we regard as the most effective defence against the terrorist. Her Majesty's Government are firm supporters of the international conventions on aviation security and will continue to play a leading role in ICAO, ECAC, or any other international forum.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, while thanking my honourable and noble friend, may I ask him whether it is not time that there was some set-up to supervise what is happening at the various airports, with responsible people to see whether adequate protection is given there and to advise on methods which might be adopted?
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In view of the fact that terrorism has now become something used for terror itself, and that the 88 people who were captured in hijacking and airfield attacks have all been released, which does not include all those who were captured and are still under arrest in Israel, can something be done in order to air blockade those nations which are assisting the terrorists and the hijackers?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: As to the suggestion which my noble and honourable friend has made, I assure him that the necessary international framework to counter aviation terrorism already exists in The Hague Anti Hijacking Convention and the Montreal Convention. However, I will draw attention in the appropriate quarters to his suggestion, and indeed to the latter part of his question.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: My Lords, may I draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that the loudspeaker seems to have stopped working and that Back Benchers probably did not hear that last answer?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, there are some fortunate noble and learned Lords in this Assembly who do not need the aid of the loudspeaker.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, will the Government consider approaching IATA to propose that those countries which have national airlines and are members of IATA, and which harbour terrorists and hijackers, should be banned from visiting other airports?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords. I think that that suggestion also relates to the question of extradition. I am glad to assure the House once more that the Community Ministers of the Interior have been working on this question and I hope that progress is such that fairly soon we may be able to report to both Houses on those points.

SICKNESS BENEFIT
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS had given Notice of his intention:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they agree with the estimate

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that 20 per cent. of those drawing sickness benefit do so fraudulently and what checks are being undertaken to prevent the resulting waste of taxpayers' money.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in view of the very full discussion which we had on this topic at yesterday's Question Time, I shall not ask the Question standing in my name.

ELECTORAL REFORM
2.35 p.m.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the event of electoral reform not being included in the terms of reference of the forthcoming Speaker's Conference and in view of the evidence that a majority of the electorate favour the introduction of some form of proportional representation, the Government will submit the issue to a national referendum.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, the Government do not consider that this would be a suitable subject for a referendum.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he does not think that something like this, which is of great importance to the constitutional and democratic rights of the people—that is, the system by which they elect their Members to Parliament—is precisely something which should be referred by referendum to the people, and is the kind of subject for which the referendum process is ideal?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords, certainly this is an important question, but I am by no means convinced that a referendum is the appropriate way of dealing with it.
Lord BROWN: My Lords, if a referendum is not the correct method, have the Government any specific approach to a reconsideration of this problem?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, a number of suggestions have been made, and one is that the Speaker's Conference should consider this matter. But in fact it was considered by a previous Speaker's Conference which decided to recommend no change in the electoral system, and at present the Government have no plans for changing the present position.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, on the evidence so far available, may we take it that in no circumstances will this Government introduce a Bill supported by a majority of the electorate?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am not quite sure why the noble and learned Lord, whose laughter, despite the problems of the amplification system, can be measured on this side of the Chamber, joined in that burst of laughter, because I suppose that the same comment could be made about Bills by a number of Governments in the post-war period.
Lord BLYTON: My Lords, is the Minister aware that a system of proportional representation would give us the worst of all worlds?
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: Not yet.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, that is certainly the view of some people.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what was the date of the last Speaker's Conference, and whether he thinks that anything has changed since then?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, many things have changed since 1965 and 1968, which was the date of the last Speaker's Conference. But the Government do not take the view at the moment that a Speaker's Conference is the appropriate way of examining this problem. Indeed, I understand that some of those who favour a change in the electoral system in this country take exactly the same view, so far as the Speaker's Conference is concerned.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, while accepting that from the noble Lord, if a Speaker's

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Conference is not the right forum—and I agree with him—may I ask him once again what the Government have in mind as a method of dealing with this problem, which is becoming of widespread interest throughout the whole United Kingdom?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, there is undoubtedly widespread interest in this question at the moment. On that I entirely agree with the noble Lord. But saying that there is widespread interest is very different from saying that there should immediately be a change in the electoral system, and what I am saying this afternoon is that the Government do not consider that it is appropriate to change the electoral system at the present time.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, may we take it from the Minister's reply that the Government will not go for a referendum, because they know, or have every indication, that the decision of a referendum would be in favour of a change in the system and in favour of some form of electoral reform? In those circumstances, surely that is one of the reasons why the attitude of the leaderships in Parliament at the present time, particularly in the House of Commons, is causing so much concern and loss of confidence to the public at large.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: No,
my Lords, I believe that the noble Lord's assumption is wrong in that respect.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, can my noble friend remind me whether the Liberal Government, who were in power with a large majority many years ago, ever brought forward a Bill to introduce proportional representation?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am quite incapable of answering that question, but I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Byers, would be delighted to give an answer to it.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he remembers that I said in the debate only this week that this is no longer a matter for the minority Parties? It is no longer a matter for the Liberal Party. It is a matter of the democratic constitution of this country and if we do not change the electoral
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system we shall be at the mercy of some minorities.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I referred in my question to the period when the Liberal Party was the majority not the minority Party.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, I am not to know if the noble Lord does not understand the Questions and the Answers.
Lord VERNON: My Lords, is it not the essence of democracy that the will of the majority shall prevail? Is this not what we are insisting upon in Rhodesia at present and should not we insist upon it also in our own country where the will of the majority need not necessarily prevail and where it certainly does not prevail at present?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, this matter has certainly been debated for 50 years or more and the considerations which the noble Lord has just advanced have been argued as providing the reason why there should be a change in the electoral system. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, it is a serious matter and one upon which, quite reasonably, people take strongly conflicting views. However, I am saying today that the Government do not believe at this moment that this is the most appropriate way to deal with the matter. The Question that was put to me was whether there should be a referendum on this issue and the answer is, No, the Government do not think there should be a referendum.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, could the noble Lord be a little more constructive? If this is not the way to deal with the matter, could he suggest what is the correct way?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, this is a matter which will no doubt preoccupy the attention of those who are in favour of a change in the electoral system of this country. First, I have said that we do not think that a referendum is the way to deal with the problem and, secondly, that as a matter of substance the Government do not believe that the time has arrived when it would be appropriate to change the electoral system.

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION OFFICERS
2.42 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many public relations officers are currently employed by Government Departments and how the number compares with numbers similarly employed in October 1964.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, there were 1,473 members of the Information Officer Group in post throughout the United Kingdom on 1st April 1976 compared with 992 in January 1964.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. May I ask him why it has been necessary over these 12 years to increase the number of public relations officers by something like 30 per cent?
Lord PEART: My Lords, most of the duties imposed upon these officers have been the result of the legislation of successive Governments.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that the essence of public relations work is selection and, therefore, very often distortion? Would the noble Lord, therefore, say that this increase has been made necessary so that truth, like everything else, should be economised?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I cannot accept that. I do not believe that the very honourable men and women who are engaged in this work wish to distort. I speak as a former Departmental Minister. My information officers in the Ministry of Agriculture gave great service to the farming community on technical matters, matters of information, films, et cetera. I think that a slander of that kind is very wrong.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that, while this remark was not intended
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as a slander—noble Lords know that I never utter slander in this House but that sometimes I pull people's legs—the fact of the matter is that ever since Mr. Healey spoke during the Election of inflation running at the rate of 8½ per cent. the Government's credibility has declined and that that is why public relations officers are needed on this scale?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I cannot accept that. If the noble Lord looks at the matter impartially and objectively he will recognise that all Governments have had a staff of information officers whose job is not to protect Ministers but to help the public to understand what is happening.
Lord BROWN: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that one function, although not the main function, of public relations officers is to prevent distortion by the Press of Government announcements and communications? It may be unwitting distortion and sometimes it may be biased distortion. However, this is one of the problems that every Government have to face in attempting to obviate this distortion, and the public relations officers perform a very useful function in that respect.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. I hope noble Lords will accept that the staff who work in the Central Office of Information and devote their time to overseas information services provide our posts abroad with up-to-date information and do a valuable job from the point of view of the country.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his defence of the Central Office of Information, with which I gladly concur. It is important that we should reserve our criticism, not for the operations of the Central Office of Information but for excessive operations. Would not the noble Lord agree that the real trouble is that Ministerial Statements and Answers at Question Time are not always quite so informative as we could wish?
Lord PEART: My Lords, that is a matter of opinion. This applies to all Governments.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, does my noble friend think that the activities of these public relations officers lead to more open Government than otherwise we would have?
Lord PEART: Yes, my Lords. If one examines carefully and in detail the work that these officers are engaged upon—I have a list here of their duties with which I do not wish to weary the House, but they cover such activities as advertising campaigns, exhibitions, publications, photography, films, television, the promotion of British industry—one sees that they help people throughout a whole range of activities and that the work they do is of great benefit.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that if we had less legislation we should need fewer public relations officers?
Lord PEART: My Lords, that may well be. On the other hand, Parliament in general is responsible for imposing duties, whatever the Government of the day.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, would the noble Lord bear in mind that for eight out of the last 12 years there has been a Socialist Government and that there is every sign that bureaucracy grows whenever there is a Socialist Government in power?
Lord PEART: My Lords, there were increases in bureaucracy during Conservative Administrations. Bureaucracy is not peculiar to any Party.

EDUCATION BILL
2.47 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [The comprehensive principle]:
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, at beginning insert—
("Without prejudice to the general principle that pupils arc to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents as provided for in section 76 of the Education Act 1944 and subject to the duty of local education authorities to secure provision of secondary schools sufficient in number, character and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable in view of their different ages, abilities and aptitudes as provided for in section 8 of the Education Act 1944 and").
The noble Lord said: At the outset of the Committee stage of the Bill I want to make it abundantly clear that the quarrel we have with it is not a quarrel with the comprehensive principle as such but with the prospect of its blind, doctrinaire and universal enforcement. It is our view, and not ours alone, that the interests of children, or parents, and of elected local authorities should take precedence—and in that order—over the interests of those who wish to impose a uniform system of allocating places to pupils.
Different local authorities face different problems. They have different child populations, job opportunities, geographical distribution, transport requirements and social and ethnic structures. They have inherited different stocks of buildings and equipment, schools with different scholastic traditions, and teaching staffs with different experience, outlook and tradition as well. It would be foolish indeed, therefore, to look for one single solution to such a wide range of problems and I think that noble Lords will follow me there. However, the proferred solution to some of the problems—maybe the allocation of places without regard to aptitude or ability, as the Bill required—may perhaps be right. That we accept. Such a solution may be dictated in part by decisions already taken. That it may be the proper solution in the majority of cases we doubt, but that is the proper concern of the parents and the local authority in the area.
In our view, it is not merely unlikely but impossible that a non-selective answer to the problem shall be the right answer every time. For Parliament to say that good educational practice requires local education authorities to mix pupils of every ability into every school, regardless

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of its size, is to ignore a whole range of other considerations of great importance as if they were not there. It is the intention of this Amendment to see that in certain circumstances the considerations embodied in the Bill take second place.
We believe that the overriding concern of Parliament and, under Parliament, of the local authority, must be the welfare of the children. That concern must be related to their circumstances and informed by their parents. Both principles are alluded to and defended in our first Amendment. Where the parents and the authority are agreed that a comprehensive system offers the best solution to the local problem it would be manifestly wrong and even tyrannical to deny it, and I think that if noble Lords opposite agree with this they must, in all logic, accept the converse as well. If it is wrong tyrannically to impose selection it is equally wrong tyrannically to impose non-selection. It is also clear that the power of the LEA is a democratic one, vested in it by its electorate of which the parents are a part, and that an attempt by an executive to enforce a plan hatched by an authority which has since been swept aside, for instance, by its electorate would be, to use a term of some contemporary interest, unreasonable.
It is therefore the purpose of a number of our Amendments, and notably this one, to entrench in the Bill principles that were both implicit and stated in the 1944 Act. Two of them are clearly fundamental and closely related. They are, first, that wherever it is practicable to do so pupils—that is to say, children—are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents. This is so much a matter of natural justice that your Lordships might think it unnecessary to entrench it in an Act of Parliament, but recent events have shown that people in positions of political—and worse still of administrative—power can be perfectly prepared to put doctrinaire political convictions above both parental and intellectual wishes.
We intend therefore to state perfectly plainly at the beginning of this Bill that pupils are still to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents, as was laid down in the Act of 1944, Section 76 of which makes it binding upon both the Secretary of State and the local authority to do so. The passage is very
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short in Section 76 of the 1944 Act and I refer it to your Lordships:
"In the exercise and performance of all powers and duties conferred and imposed on them by this Act the Minister and local education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that, so far as is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure, pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents."
Children are individuals, and in leaving this subject of the wrongness of the mass solution to individual problems I ask your Lordships throughout the debates that are to follow to remember that it is about children that we are legislating, not childhood. Parents do not regard their children as small, malleable parts of a liquid mass of childhood to be poured into some sort of officially recognised mould complying to a general standard. They are precious individuals and they differ. We are human beings, not bees, and we are talking about schools, not bee-hives.
Noble Lords opposite may argue that there is no intention to use this Bill as an instrument to enforce an absolute uniformity of educational principle upon an unwilling parent population. That may indeed be the case, though some of us take leave to doubt it. But I would ask your Lordships to ignore in fact this case, no matter how honeyed the terms in which it is presented, for whether it is or is not the case now is a matter of little relevance so far as the Statute Book is concerned. The courts are no respecters of persons, nor do they read Hansard, nor are the successors of the present Minister bound by the undertakings or avowals of their predecessor or by his or her Government. No matter who is Secretary of State in five years' time, what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, said in the House tonight will by then be binding upon nobody but the noble Lord himself. Even if the Government are still in the deadening and, to my view, stultifying grip of his Party it will be a different Government. What of this, then, will have endured—apart, hopefully, from the noble Lord himself—will be an Act of Parliament that finally springs from this unlovely Bill and that will be the law: not Hansard, not The Times' Report, not our shared recollection of this crisis-ridden week, but the Statute Book: and that is why we must get it right.
The courts are bound only by the law; let the law therefore be clear on this one point, that nothing in this Bill shall prejudice the principle that parents must have a considerable voice in the—
Baroness BACON: Will the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Can he not say, in the middle of all this speech that he is making, whether or not when Tameside has changed back from a non-selective system to a selective system that all the children in Tameside are now being educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents?
Lord ELTON: It is rather a tall order to spring from the general to the particular, but certainly I think it is fair to say that the local authority under the direction of one political Party set wheels in motion which they did not wish to have stopped until they had accomplished the task set them, although in fact the time for its completion ran beyond their tenure of office. It is also fair to say that in the election campaign in which they were replaced it was made very clear that it was a principal object of the incoming authority to reverse that process, at the behest—among others—of the parents of the children then at the schools and the children who had been at the schools and the children who were going to be at the schools. If we are to expatiate, as indeed I would at another time be willing to do, upon the extraordinarily intricate, and I think not always edifying, manoeuvres which subsequently took place, that is another matter but I would not wish to hold up the Committee at this stage on that point. The noble Baroness has a perfect right to intervene in the debate in her own time and perhaps she will revert to the point when I have sat down.
Nothing in this Bill shall therefore prejudice the principle of parental interest and influence over their children's education. That is the first principle enshrined in the Amendment, and the second is found in Section 8 of the 1944 Act and is rather longer but of fundamental importance to this Bill. In fact the crucial words come at the end of subsection (1) and are brief:
"the schools available for an area shall not be deemed to be sufficient unless they are sufficient in number, character, and equipment to afford for all pupils"—
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please note—
"opportunities for education offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable in view of their different ages, abilities, and aptitudes, and of the different periods for which they may be expected to remain at school."
In other words, you may ignore ability and aptitude in selecting between schools, but you cannot ignore them when you are teaching a class or allocating children to classes. So if noble Lords opposite claim that the effect of this Bill is not to narrow the educational choice but merely to confine it within limits without reducing the number of choices, then of course they can find no objection to this Amendment.
They are in fact the touchstone on which we can gauge the good faith with which Her Majesty's Government will advance most of their propositions throughout the rest of the debates that follow, for we are all agreed that children differ from one another in age and hence we have primary, middle and secondary schools; in sex, and hence we have boys' schools, girls' schools, mixed schools; in academic achievement and in academic potential, both in respect of their capacity for learning and also in the direction of their learning. Therefore, the allocation to streams and courses is related not merely to their I.Q. or whatever other quotient one may care to consider but also to their bent and the future career which they may eventually hope to pursue. They differ also in parental circumstances, hence the need for meeting boarding requirements, medical conditions and so on. I think we do not, any of us, differ on this: we all recognise the very wide spectrum of academic needs and its many sectors.
Her Majesty's Government seek to say that the whole spectrum can be met in schools that cater in one building for all of them. We take leave to doubt whether this is true in all cases. If it is not then it follows inescapably that such a general principle—the comprehensive general principle as it is now called—is being imposed not for the benefit of the children but for some other motive. This is old ground; we have discussed the motives before, but if Her Majesty's Government resolutely maintain that under their system the LEA can provide a sufficiently wide spectrum of resources to meet the needs of the children let us lay down that that

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system shall only be imposed where it does so. Let us state again in this Bill what is the duty of the LEA. We believe that no system, no matter whether it is egalitarian or elitist in its origins and aims, can be permitted to take precedence over the welfare of the children.
I make no apology for making an extended speech on this subject because it is in fact the fundamental ground of the Bill. It is implicit in the first clause and we are seeking to preserve in our first Amendment those areas which must not be eroded by political choice. We believe therefore that the duty laid upon the local education authority in 1944 to provide schools of sufficient number, character and equipment to satisfy as far as possible the educational needs of all the children must stand—all the children, and not the average child. There is no such thing as "the average child" any more than there is the "average man". You see him in his bowler hat, I suppose, with his rolled umbrella, carved in half to represent 1,500 people. You cannot do that with children.
We believe that it follows that if the necessary resources are not to be distributed between different schools, then, if the children are not to suffer from the implementation of this principle, they must be found in every school. It follows, incidentally, that you would not have abolished selection at all, you would merely have taken it away from the local education authority and given it to the head and his heads of departments. If that criterion of preserving educational standards can be honestly met, if reorganisation can be shown to lead not to a decline in educational standards but to maintaining them, then we on this side would have little to object to in this Bill, except, of course, to the perfectly horrendous expenditure of money which is implicit in it.
What frightens us and our supporters is the belief that noble Lords opposite and their supporters wish to impose this universally for doctrinaire reasons, when that criterion cannot be met, at the expense of our children's education, and, be it noted at the expense of their own children's education. It is not enough for them to deny it. Let them, if their denial is genuine, put their denial into the Bill. Let them make the implementation of the principle of the Bill conditional on the
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discharge of the prior duty of the local education authority to provide a variety of education sufficient to meet the variety of needs it has to cater for.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord's speech, which seems more suitable for Brighton than for this place this week. I wonder whether he could tell us what choice parents have whose children failed the 11-plus examination. I think that goes to the nub of his argument, if he has one.
Lord ELTON: I think what we principally lack from Brighton is the bracing ozone which might hearten the noble Lord to listen more patiently to what I have to say. I have nearly concluded. Of course, there is a choice open to the child who has, as the noble Lord puts it, failed—and it is an unfortunate word because it should not be a question of succeeding and failing; it should be a question of matching children to resources. Assuming that he means the child who is not going to one sort of selective school but to another, and the one he has been allocated to is a non-academic school, the choice remaining is the choice of courses within the school.
We are saying that we do not want to lay down a universal principle, as this Bill does, but if noble Lords opposite insist on a universal principle then let it not take precedence over the welfare and future of the children. It is up to the local authority to decide on an 11-plus system—between failure and success, as the noble Lord puts it—under pressure from their local electorate and possibly the campaigning fervour of the noble Lord himself. But in this House we do not believe that we should impose on local authorities and parents choices which are not seen by them to be suitable in a free democratic society. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will see fit to support me in moving this Amendment.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I have no doubt that there will be other noble Lords who wish to speak, but before they do I should like to say about three sentences. The noble Lord played into my hands rather when he was responding to my noble friend Lady Bacon, when he said it was difficult to return from the general to the particular. My goodness, so it is! I am going to try

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to do that, because we have had a Second Reading speech of merit which is absolutely nothing to do with the Committee stage. I am not going to respond to Second Reading speeches, from wherever they come. I said this in my own Second Reading speech. I said, "This is the time for the philosophical discussion. When we get to the Committee I hope we shall not have them all over again". I say this as, I hope, a not offensive warning which most people will agree with. We are here to discuss specific Amendments.
If I may turn briefly to this first Amendment, this is not a wrecking Amendment, which some are, and which I shall oppose totally. This is a perfectly sensible Amendment. It happens to say what everybody in Government agrees with, and it is unnecessary in this Bill because the Bill already perfectly fairly affirms the point the noble Lord is trying to make. I shall speak again at the end of any discussion we have, but I thought it might be interesting to start the debate on this clause by making it perfectly clear that there is no difference between the Parties at all.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: I should like to support the Amendment. It seems to me that this Amendment, and indeed the first paragraph of this Bill, is really the pith of the whole Bill, to my mind a shockingly bad Bill. It really quite simply makes the Minister of Education a dictator. You may have good Ministers of Education or bad ones. I think the change we have had recently is excellent, and I have the greatest admiration for the present Minister of Education. Nevertheless, he is given far too much power. It abolishes the influence of the local authority in this matter, which should surely be pre-eminent. It abolishes the ratepayers' interests. There is an old saying that there should be no taxation without representation. Where the local authority has been cut out so the ratepayer has really been cut out.
Then there are the interests of the parents and, above all, of the children. I always think that children are rather like flowers, very varied, very different. They need different treatment to bring them to their fullest fruition. By compressing everybody into one educational system
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you are going to destroy this very variety which is such a joy in children. I do not advocate particularly my form of education. I went to six schools in five different countries, which certainly did not do me any harm and I think did me a lot of good; I had no time to get bored. I think one of the dangers of the comprehensive system, as advised universally, is that children go into a school and get into a groove: they get bored and want to leave much earlier than they should. I therefore feel very strongly that we should support this Amendment, which preserves the opportunities of variation for children. I am not interested in the question of selection by examination, I myself was never very good at passing exams. That did not do me any harm. I think there should be a variety of choice, for the sake of the children in the first place, and secondly for the rights of the parents.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, responded to this Amendment in the way he did. I was beginning to fear that we were going to start the debate on this first Amendment in such a way that the Amendment would be pressed for reasons far beyond its wording, and would be opposed for reasons which could not be justified except by rebuttal of the arguments put forward by the other side.
In itself I think this is an extremely good Amendment—not that it is necessary. If the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and noble Lords on the other side decide that they do not want it in because they think it is unnecessary, I should have thought it would be unwise of them. I should have thought that this is a moment when, if we put this in and say "yes," as those of us who believe in the comprehensive system do believe, we are supporting the comprehensive system, because it can produce exactly this kind of variety and possibility for all children.
Before I sit down I want to say a word about choice. Yes, again, of course, we want to affirm the possibility of parental choice. A great many of us who have been involved in this field over a period of time have had to try to think as hard as we can about how to give the maximum of parental choice, and it is not easy. Do not let us have

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any nonsense about the idea that there was more choice under selection than there is under the comprehensive system. The only changes I can see in moving to the comprehensive system, where choice has been effected, are two. One can say that because at one stage of the comprehensive idea it was considered right that there should be much larger schools, but that by making much larger schools one diminished the choice to a certain extent. This was balanced by the increased choice of courses and subjects that children had in those schools. In any case, the whole thing is irrelevant, because now the doctrine has changed and we are going back to smaller comprehensive schools.
The only other change was that under the old system if a child passed the 11-plus I suppose his parents had the freedom to say, "No, we will not take up our place in the grammar school, but will send him to the secondary modern". I doubt whether that was done very often; it stands to reason it would not be. Therefore, the change in the freedom is minuscule, if existent at all.
It is important that these truths should be made plain. On the whole, I think this is a good Amendment and would like to see it in the Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that in a way, it is a pledge of the bona fides, and the good intentions of the Government that they should be prepared to treat this Amendment with sympathy, and I for one hope they will actually accept it.
The Earl of ONSLOW: The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, said that he agreed with the Amendment, but that it was unnecessary. Surely there is nothing wrong in underlining a freedom and allowing it to be written into the Bill. I should like to take up two points made by my noble friend Lord Elton. I suppose I must declare an interest here in that I am a governor—why I simply do not know—of one of the highest quality academic schools in the South of England. This particular school has 90 pupils a year, ergo 90 leavers. Of those leavers, 79 got into the sixth form last year, and 74 went to a university or polytechnic equivalent, 15 of whom went to Oxford or Cambridge.
If this Bill is totally passed, one is worried—and I say this absolutely sincerely
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—genuinely worried, that, for want of a better word, you can either use "working class" or use a more modern and possibly slightly more hypocritical phrase like socioeconomic class D and C or C and D, or whatever it may be, and those children will be excluded from that school. I did not intend to speak, but I thought that what my noble friend Lord Elton said on the question of selection by heads—in other words, instead of having an examination set by the State, this means that the schools can set their own exam and children, or their parents, may then apply to sit for that exam—was an excellent idea. I feel very strongly over this, that if you have a centre of academic excellence it should not be confined to one class of society. It should be open to everybody; it should be allowed that everybody can have the benefit of this.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, is a highly civilised man. He is a highly sympathetic noble Lord, and I am sure that, having agreed with the spirit of the Amendment, he will see that we are not arguing over a doctrinaire point of view on this side of the Committee, but are genuinely trying to improve a Bill which perhaps in principle we do not like. We are trying to improve it. If the noble Lord listens on the point of selection by heads of schools, and if he listens to the spirit with which my noble friend Lord Elton moved this Amendment, having said he agrees with it, can he possibly ask your Lordships to reject it?
3.15 p.m.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: I would resist the implied chastisement directed at my noble friend by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge. If this Amendment is in order, and I take it it is because it is formally on the Order Paper, it is an Amendment which justified the type of introduction my noble friend Lord Elton gave to it. If the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, wishes to call that a Second Reading speech all over again, that is up to his judgment. This Amendment is in order; it is on the Order Paper, and it could not have been presented and have justice done to it without ranging over the field, at any rate to the extent my noble friend did. I should like to feel that, while one accepts chastisement when it is deserved, on this occasion it is not deserved.

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The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, accepted that the general impression given by this Amendment was one that he accepted. The noble Lord said it was already in the Bill, and he did not want to accept the Amendment because that was his view. I should like to impress upon the noble Lord that, while in strict terms what he said may be correct, he may be able to justify that what this Amendment calls for is already embodied in the Bill itself. On this particular topic on this particular Bill the disillusion and disturbance is so great in the minds of parents that this may be the occasion where reiteration would not only be right but be wise. It may well be that although it is wrong, the views that the Government have in mind are misunderstood, and if the inclusion of these words will reflect what the Government truly intend, then the fact that they are merely reiterating something already in the Bill is a price that it may be good sense to pay. It is in that sense that even now I should like to feel that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, having said he agrees that the terms embodied in the Amendment are not wrong, would be prepared, although it may be repeating it, to have it included in the Bill by accepting the Amendment.
Lord SOMERS: I cannot help feeling that the opposition of the Government to this Amendment is based not on logic but on a desire to consider that all children are exactly alike, which of course is an absolute fallacy. For example, if one looks round this Chamber can one pick on another noble Lord who is exactly similar to oneself?—mentally, of course, not physically. Of course, it is absolutely impossible, and it is equally impossible throughout the country and throughout the world. It is also impossible among children. Every child is an individual with his own individual talents, abilities, and his own individual problems. The way in which those problems will be solved is best known by his parents. Therefore, I think it is highly desirable that the parents should have some sort of say in what kind of education the child is to have.
I have the greatest admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. I think he is a sincere man. I am sure that if he really considers this point thoroughly
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he will agree that children cannot be cast into a single mould, that they are individuals and must be treated as individuals.
3.20 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: This Amendment raises a problem which we shall face all through the Committee stage, and it is this. If there were sufficient resources so that all secondary schools could be first-rate comprehensive schools—that is, that the whole range of ability within them could be matched with teachers who would bring the best out of the pupils—and in such cases, which would certainly occur, where this or that comprehensive school could not offer the full range of courses there would be adequate arrangement for pupils to spend part of their time in other schools, I would concede at once that it is all right if we could have a system of comprehensive schools which guaranteed to the very great majority, let us say 95 per cent. (you would never be able to deal with the last 5 per cent.) of the children of this country the kind of education we looked forward to in the 1944 Act. But the fact is that we have not got those resources, and that very serious errors have been made in the secondary schools in the last few years.
Therefore, we are dealing with a period—I should not like to say how long it will be, but I would think it will last at least a generation—during which it is necessary to make the best use of the resources we have; that is, of teachers, buildings and money. What we find wrong with this Bill is that instead of trying to approach what would be, and perhaps one day will be, a universal system of non-selective schools that give the best possible education to all children, instead of going for that gradually making as much progress as we can, the Bill promises a surgical operation which will further damage the parts of the education system which are by no means satisfactory today.
Having said that, I should like to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, that we should address ourselves to the Amendments. Clause 1 sets out the criteria which the Secretary of State will apply in using her powers under Clause 2. It is therefore very important to make sure that the principle laid down in

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Clause 1 shall he one which meets with the needs of the education system as they are going to be carried out under Clause 2. The Government, as I understand it, tend to say, "Well, there is no point in putting a reference to Sections 8 and 76 of the 1944 Act because we do not really intend to depart from them in any kind of way". If they do not intend to depart from them, they ought to put in this Amendment for symbolic reasons.
But the fact is that, if you look at Clauses 1 and 2 together, you can see that both Section 8 and Section 76 are bound to be whittled away by the administration of Clause 2. The express purpose of Clauses 1 and 2 is to increase the powers of the Secretary of State against both local authorities and parents who may wish to modify, or delay, the Secretary of State's plans to impose a universal system of wholly non-selective schools. That is a very great extension of the Secretary of State's present powers, and in my opinion is contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the 1944 Act.
The 1944 Act, which was a triumph of wisdom of a particularly British character, created a partnership between local authorities and the then Minister of Education. That partnership meant shared responsibility, and it meant flexibility between one area and another. But under this Bill the authorities are to he reduced from partners to agents of the Secretary of State's will. They must organise their schools as and when she wishes, however seriously those on the spot regard the effect of her directions upon the quality of education in their areas. They have no recourse.
When that threat hangs over our secondary schools, Section 8 of the principal Act becomes of very great importance, because Section 8, as my noble friend Lord Elton said, and he read out the relevant words, puts a duty on the local authorities to provide a sufficient number of schools of
"… character, and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable in view of their different ages, abilities, and aptitudes,…".
How can the Government say that that duty is not compromised by Clauses 1 and 2 of this Bill? Grammar schools and technical schools are to disappear. They are to be replaced by mini-comprehensives.
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Places in direct grant schools are no longer to be available, and places are not to be taken in independent schools.
That has only one and inevitable result; namely, that the variety of opportunity open to children must contract because the resources are not there to replace the education in the schools which are being eliminated inside the new comprehensives. So then one of two things must happen. Either Section 8 is maintained as it stands, in which case the manner, and particularly the timetable of changing over to a system of non-selective schools must conform to its provisions—that is, that local authorities must not be allowed to reduce the variety of schools available—or Section 8 must be overruled by the new principle in Clause 1 of the Bill when it conflicts, as it very often will, with the duty to provide the variety of education required to match the children's needs.
The Government of course insist on the second alternative. That is why they really do not like this Amendment. But I think they ought to put it in the Bill, because the Amendment has very great symbolic significance. If your Lordships will allow me a moment or two, I should like to talk about Section 76, which gives parents the right to be listened to, and subject to practical considerations to have their views acted upon. I know from long experience that this is an extremely difficult right to define and administer. At the time of the Bill it was agreed that Section 76 was to be taken in conjunction with the rest of the Act, and that is why Section 8 is relevant, because if you take the two sections together, subject to financial and other restrictions, parents have the right to ask that local authorities shall provide as wide a range of schools and educational opportunity as they can.
Of course all parents never did, as the noble Lord on the Back-Bench over there said, have a choice. But because all parents have not got the choice we should like them to have for their children's education, does not mean that no parents should have it. This is the doctrine that underlies the Bill. When the Bill goes into operation, of course the reverse will happen: the variety that now exists will be reduced, and Sections 76 and 78 will thereby be whittled away.
The confusion about parents' rights—and we shall hear a lot about it on Committee stage—arises in my opinion mainly

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because the parents of 1976 are not the same as the parents of 1944. When Lord Butler was preparing his Act—I helped him as much as I could— parents' wishes centred on the right to choose a school where their own religion was taught. That was the main purpose in those days. The anxiety of the parents about other school subjects, such as the three Rs, and still less about discipline in the schools, was not in evidence at all. In those days administrators, and not a few teachers, looked on parents as a nuisance. They said quite frankly that parents could only do harm when they interfered with the superior beings who were responsible for their children's education.
When I was Minister of Education I was strongly advised to have nothing to do with parent-teacher associations, because they said that such bodies would delay and hamper the admirable work that we were doing. Needless to say, I did not take that advice. A change has taken place and I remember warning my officials that the type of education which we were encouraging in the secondary schools would produce a generation of parents who would be keen and anxious to take quite a different interest in their children's education; and, of course, that has happened. The present generation of parents—and I must say that this is partly economic, because of course wages have risen so much—do not feel that they are of a lower social status than those who teach their children. They want, like everyone else, like those in industry, to have some chance to participate in those decisions which affect themselves and, in the case of this Bill, their children.
In the circumstances it really is remarkably foolish of the Government not to reaffirm the principle of Section 76. I think they know enough about the kind of manifestations from parents up and down the country today. It would be a pity if those manifestations got out of hand, and if the Government refuse this Amendment that really will be saying to the public at large, "We are not willing to reaffirm the interest of parents in education, which was set out in Section 76." I would say to the noble Lord the Minister that it would be good politics on his part to accept this Amendment.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: I should like to revert to the sentiment
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expressed by the mover of this Amendment, with which I am in wholehearted agreement. That is that we have to remember all the time that every child is an individual and that we are not trying to get some undiversified mass product. We are trying to remember the individual child. I do not know whether any noble Lords have had the experience that I have had of dealing with a child who, in the days of the 11-plus, passed the 11-plus and went to a grammar school; the child was prodded by parents, who were very proud that their child had gone to a grammar school, and helped in every possible way by the teachers, who also wanted the child to he a success in the grammar school, but the child obviously was not an academic one. That child obviously was going to be one of the craftsmen or artisans and had other types of gifts, and the end of the story was a complete mental breakdown because, of course, the more enlightened local authorities made it possible for a child from a secondary school to move to a grammar school at a later age.
But think of the dilemma of a child who has to go from a grammar school back to the old secondary modern. Your Lordships may say that is past history, that we abolished the 11-plus and that children will go on to comprehensive education. But the very essence of comprehensive education is that it must give all children parity of esteem. Children can he badly hurt. I am sure I am not by any means the only Member of your Lordships' Committee who has known families where one youngster has gone to the secondary modern in the old days and another to the grammar school, and that difficulties have occurred.
Surely the unanswerable case for the comprehensive is that we are seeking to give all our children parity of esteem, so that they can have the same uniform, the same playgrounds and the rest of it, and then it will begin to emerge that some are the academics of the future and special provisions must be made for them. There is nothing now given in a grammar school that cannot be given in a good comprehensive. That is the whole meaning of the idea. But, on the other hand, we have got to stop downgrading the child who is going to be the artisan or craftsman of the future. Even in our present economic situation there is still a hangover from the

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past in this country that one does not want little Johnny to be an engineer because he would have to come home in dirty dungarees. One would prefer him to go to another sort of training. We cannot live in the past like that, and just as there was very serious hurt done to the ego and the spirit of children by the old gradations between secondary modern and comprehensive, we can repeat this pattern if we find that in a locality some of the more academic children are syphoned away to a State-aided or a grammar school or a religious school of some kind. It is repeating the very thing from the past that we want to get rid of.
I am not saying that all comprehensives are perfect. We know well that the comprehensive reflects the atmosphere of the locality and that some have got support from parents and from the general environment which makes life easier for them than for others, but if this country has got to have a future it is going to have a future in which our children belong to one great family. I always thought that the wonderful thing about the old public school was that you did not say because Johnny was good at football he would go to one kind of school and if he was good at maths he would go to another. They had parity of esteem. I am saying that the unanswerable case for the comprehensive—
Lord SNOW: That is quite untrue.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: Did the noble Lord say it is not true?
Lord SNOW: There are all sorts of differences, I am sure.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: Where?
Several noble Lords: Order, Order!
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: I was talking about the traditional. I remember reading with great interest what Sir Winston Churchill had to say, and he never claimed he was a brilliant academic. But the great thing was that children went to the same school, they had parity of esteem. Some had one kind of gift and some another. That is all I am asking for. If we are going to have our children as one family,
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who are going to grow up to diversify their gifts and make their different contributions to society, do not let us make the mistakes of the past and brand our children quite unnecessarily. Those who are seeking to denigrate the comprehensive principle are doing just that.
Baroness BROOKE of YSTRADFELLTE: In supporting my noble friend's Amendment at the beginning of this Bill I should like to give just one small example of what is implied in the emphasis upon Section 76. I happen to have experience of a school of some 700 girls. At the moment there is a sixth form of 200 with an option of 22 subjects. The alternative scheme is that this school shall become a mini-comprehensive where the local education authority has agreed that the sixth form would drop to about 60 and the options to about 10. This is not the desire of the parents who sent their girls to that school and, because of that, I would strongly support the Amendment which seeks to lay emphasis upon Section 76.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTERHILL: I have spent my life devoted to avoiding taking any part in Party political disputes, and I fear that in the next three days this is what this Committee will suffer from, to the great detriment of the welfare of 9 million children. I hope the Minister will look very carefully at the wisdom of accepting this Amendment. After all, he has already said he thinks it is unnecessary because it is acceptable. Of course one does not dispute the Amendment, but there is a very special reason why I think it is desirable that it should be embodied in the Bill. As your Lordships know, I do not dissent from the very general principle of comprehensive education; on the contrary, I accept it, although I think it requires special organisation, to which I made reference in the Second Reading debate.
What we are discussing is really a very simple issue. On the one hand there arc those who say we require different schools to allow for the differences in ability and aptitudes of children and, on the other hand, those who say we can do it all within one school if it is properly organised. But we are all agreed that our function, purpose and duty is to secure the fullest educational opportunity for every child at every level of ability

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and every kind of aptitude. On this I think we arc agreed. My concern with. this clause is perhaps a little bit more detailed. I have always believed that there are only two ways in which one can educate children: either by individual tuition or by a homogeneous grouping or setting or whatever word might he used. In other words, you either deal with an individual child or you seek to get a limited group of children or young people together whose rate of learning, interests and capacities are nearly enough the same to enable you to make progress.
This Amendment would secure, as I understand it, that this principle should he heeded in the organisation of comprehensive schools. In other words, it would reject the principle of all-ability groupings, which I am bound to tell your Lordships I most firmly reject, which seems to me something to which I have devoted my life to getting away from, something which the Haddow Report, the Spence Report and every report has rejected. We would go back to the village schools of the last century. But there are those who take the view that all-ability has a certain virtue based, I fear, more on concern for avoiding the acceptance of individual differences, which they are reluctant to accept, than for the welfare of the children. I very much hope, therefore, that the Government accept the principles of the Amendment, the reasonableness of parental choice within limits which must he prescribed, the importance of recognising the differences in individual abilities, aptitudes, interests and so on.
I would accept Clause 1, the principle of comprehensive education, so long as it also accepts the principle of Section 8 and Section 36 in the Act. If we are agreed on that, I really cannot see a valid reason why this Amendment cannot he accepted. If it is not accepted I greatly fear that the pressures for the organisation within comprehensive schools will not have regard to the provisions of Section 8.
Lord BELSTEAD: Before the Minister comes to reply, would I be right in thinking that the brief intervention which he has put into the debate so far is that as this Amendment is not necessary, presumably the Government will be resisting it? I
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should be right in that. Well, I am no lawyer, but I have always understood that Section 76 of the Act was a general principle and that it can only be put into effect by way of other powers and duties in the Education Acts; and because it is not possible to assure every parent the education which he or she wants for their children, local authorities in having regard to Section 76 can have regard to other things besides, so Section 76 is an important but a fairly modest general principle. At the same time I have always understood from the case of Wood v. Ealing Borough Council that Section 76 did refer to the specific wishes of parents and included the wishes for certain curricula, religious education, whether a school has mixed-ability teaching, whether it is single sex, and that sort of thing.
When my noble friend Lord Eccles spoke, he certainly persuaded me that it really is not any good the Government's saying this afternoon that because there is not a repeal Schedule in this Bill therefore Section 76 will stand and therefore the Amendment is unnecessary. Clearly because, unlike with Section 76, in having regard to Clause 1 of this Bill authorities are going to have to obey the mandatory provisions of Clauses 2, 3 and 4, the result, as my noble friend pointed out, is that, whenever there is any doubt as between Clause 1 of this Bill and Section 76 of the Act, Clause 1 will always be held to prevail.
My noble friend talked about whittling away, but I would put it a little more strongly. I think it is a great pity that in drafting Clause 1 of the Bill the Government have not had the caution and the modesty shown by Lord Butler and Mr. Chuter Ede 30 years ago to draft a general principle which would give local authorities some direction.
Having listened to people who really do understand what the Education Acts are about, such as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, and my noble friend Lord Eccles and support for this from the Liberal Bench from Lord Beaumont, what Section 8 of the 1944 Act provides by laying a duty upon authorities to see that schools are available for age, ability and aptitude within the requirement of good standards is that they shall be able to provide that education with a certain discretion in different sorts of schools,

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and if the Government do not like that argument, with different sorts of organisations within those schools. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, was talking about.
I can assure the Government that it really is no part of the case for this Amendment that my noble friend Lord Elton has moved that all-ability schools cannot educate according to age, ability and aptitudes, But the question that arises, and will arise again and again on this Bill, is, what do you do if a pupil lives in an area where the available school clearly is not suitable for that pupil and no alternative is allowed to be provided?
May I give the noble Lord an example of what I mean? The noble Baroness, Lady Lee, and the noble Lord, Lord Somers, both spoke about the importance of parents. Let us consider how one would feel if one was the parent of a girl aged 14 who was just starting on 0-level courses, studying two languages, and doing another one also on the side. Then her parents have to move and their daughter is transferred to another school and it is the case perhaps, for reasons which my noble friend Lady Brooke gave, that at the school to which that girl would go there would be only one of those languages which she could study for 0-level, that she could not study the other one at all and that the third language also was not taught at that school. Is that school suitable to the ability and aptitude of that girl? At the moment the answer is perfectly clear: the authority has a duty to provide schools with such variety of instruction and training—Section 8—that a parent can at least try to exercise some choice. The authors of the 1944 Act believed that a diversity of schools would be necessary to achieve this.
The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Gravesend, said quite reasonably to my noble friend Lord Elton, "What if certain pupils can have no choice because they can only go to a school to which they are being sent because there has been in that area an 11-plus and they have not passed it?".
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: Is the noble Lord aware that we are bandying around words like "Section 76, Section 6, Section 8"? Let us see what Section 6 says. It talks about education authorities
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being established. Section 8, which the noble Lord has just quoted, simply lays down that primary and secondary education should be provided. Having experienced all branches of teaching, when a child moves she may be wanting to learn Russian and Greek in one school. You cannot guarantee that every school in Britain will have Greek and Russian together, and very often local education authorities or sixth form colleges are now providing for children who may move.
Lord BELSTEAD: May I come in a moment to what the noble Lord has said? Before I sit down I will return to that. First, I take up the point which the noble Lord, Lord Murray, made, which I will not go over again. May I give an example of what is happening in the next-door authority to where he lives just North of the Thames in Essex, which has been steadily, as the noble Lord will know, reorganising its schools from before even the time when Circular 1065 was issued, and has indeed, I understand, now reached the stage where 90 per cent. of its children are in comprehensive schools in what was the old Essex area before reorganisation of the authority. Apparently the authority has decided that it is going to try to work towards having 97 per cent. of its children in comprehensive schools but to leave, at least for the time being, 5 per cent. of the children with the option of being allowed to go to a grammar school, if the parents want the children to take an examination.
The ludicrous situation which will be perpetuated by this Bill is that that authority which, with the best will in the world, has been trying to reorganise is being called a rebel authority by the Government. That is neither fair nor sensible when it is put into legislation because it seems that the Government do not take any notice of the fact that authorities have to be concerned with what parents think.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: The noble Lord has not answered my point, which was that in those authorities which are trying to maintain a selective or 11-plus system, parents whose children fail, for all sorts of reasons, have very little choice indeed. In fact, in most cases parental choice is nil. What certain authorities, such as Essex, do does not alter the point I was making.
Lord BELSTEAD: My noble friend Lord Eccles answered the noble Lord's first point when he said that because some parents may not have as much choice as one would like, the noble Lord is arguing that no parents should have any choice at all. I have given another example, that of an authority which is trying to maintain some selection but where in the end there will be no children being sent to secondary modern schools but where there will be a mixed economy of comprehensives and a few grammar schools. Noble Lords opposite do not take enough account of the fact that authorities must take some notice of what parents say, and the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Gravesend, will know better than I of the situation in Southend, where the Essex authority sent out voting papers to see what the parents there would like. I understand that 27,000 voting papers were issued—one child, one vote—and that 65 per cent. was the level of the poll; 74 per cent. of those who voted said that they wanted some sort of selection retained and over 50 per cent. said squarely that they wanted the existing system retained. I do not think one can cast to one side, as the Bill is doing, the responsibility of an authority to take some notice of parents.
What in essence I am asking the Government on this Amendment is, first, for the Minister to say just what will be the effect of Clause 8 when it is taken in conjunction with Clause 1. This is the essential question. Does not Clause 8 become virtually inoperative because of Clause 1? If so—this is my second question—does that in essence not mean that Section 76 of the 1944 Act becomes a sham, because if there is a clash between Section 76 and Clause 1 the right of Clause 1 to prevail will be complete? I ask that question because since 1950 admissions to schools have been decided in the context of the 1944 Act interpreted by the Department of Education and Science's Manual of Guidance which was issued 25 years ago. Earlier this year the Department issued a draft reprint of the Manual and sent it to local authorities and the managers and governors of voluntary schools asking for comments by 30th June and saying that the new draft "reflects more recent legal advice". Embedded in that new circular is this passage on the subject of the unsuitability of a school:
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"Questions of a school's suitability to the ability and aptitude of a child are not expected to remain of practical significance for much longer as they should not normally arise in the case of admission to a comprehensive school."
Does that mean that there will not be any opportunity to help the difficult, gifted, artistic, highly academic or more vocationally inclined if they want to go to a particular school, be it a grammar, comprehensive or anything else? I trust that that is not the case and, to put the matter beyond doubt, I hope the Minister will accept the Amendment.
3.55 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: As the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and several others have referred to Section 76 of the Education Act, I must point out that it is the kind of section which we have used almost as a bible, but I suggest that noble Lords, particularly Lord Belstead, are being less than fair if they do not quote the whole of the section because it is a classic get-out that every Government have incorporated in every Act, whether it deals with education, health, pensions or anything else. With reference to educating children according to the wishes of their parents the section says:
"So far as is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure, pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents."
Those of us who have been involved in education know that very few parents who have exercised any sort of preference have ever been able to follow it through; reasons have always been given why it is impossible for the child to go to the school in question. As the Opposition are pressing very strongly that there should be cuts in public expenditure, it seems that the clause we are discussing gives ample opportunity for saying that children will not be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents. Section 76 is useful so far as it goes but it goes only a very limited way and to build up a whole argument based on Section 76 is to mislead those of us who have known exactly how it operates.
The Lord Bishop of BLACKBURN: It seems a pity that Section 76 is quoted as though parents were having a choice of school, whereas in fact the section simply says that the wishes of parents regarding

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the education of their children should be respected. I see the Amendment as a challenge to local authorities and to those of us in the voluntary system so to order our schools that they meet the wishes of parents. I should therefore like to see the Amendment accepted in principle, and the noble Lord said that the principle was not objected to. It does not say that the parents shall have the choice of school; it says that those of us who are responsible for the schools shall try to meet the wishes of the parents and try, under Section 8, to provide such variety of courses within the schools as will meet the various aptitudes and abilities of the children.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I made some rather catty remarks at the beginning about the making of Second Reading speeches. Now that we have had a series of rather good ones, perhaps I had better withdraw that remark because this has been a Second Reading debate with one or two notable short extracts about the Amendment. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, showed the greatest skill in making a Second Reading speech yet somehow managed to refer to the Amendment, so I will begin by making a Second Reading point. The objection to selection is that it makes proper comprehensive education impossible. Let there be absolutely no mistake about that. If we are wrong about that, we are wrong about everything. Has anybody ever been to a comprehensive school and said to the head teacher, or any teacher, "I do not suppose it matters, but there is up the road a grammar school with a better and higher standard of education than you have?" They are all absolutely clear that they cannot give the best so long as this goes on.
I was at a school the other day which has a 70 per cent. black population and therefore a very difficult situation indeed. The school had run into local problems because of the unevenness of its population; the boys were accused of doing things that they did not do, although sometimes they did, and the school had rather a bad reputation. Within two or three years the headmaster has raised its reputation by being, in my view, a brilliant headmaster. I will not say where the school is. Does he think that it is all right that there is a grammar school up
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the road? No, he does not. That has been our case from the beginning and nothing cart alter it. The general case has been decided in another place. I said on Second Reading that I was not going to discuss it in detail every time it came up. I shall not discuss the general principles and I shall not go into them any more than I have now.
The Earl of ONSLOW: The noble Lord says that this school of which he speaks has gone from being a bad school to being a very good school and that there is a local grammar school up the road. Surely, in this case the local grammar school has not lowered the standard of the comprehensive school; the comprehensive is now competing with the grammar school and people will want to go there because it is a good school.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: If I said "good", I withdraw. I meant "better". It has become a much better school than it was, but it is certainly not as good a school as it could be. The noble Earl's point is not a substantive one. Having made my Second Reading point, I want to make two points which concern the Amendment. The first is that Clause 12 already secures the objective of the Amendment by providing that the Bill shall be construed as one with the 1944 Act and the present clause emphasises in terms that local authorities, in the exercise and performance of their powers and duties in relation to secondary education, shall have regard to the comprehensive principle.
One cannot add a principle without altering a situation. Nobody thinks that is possible. Of course the meaning of Sections 8 and 76 will be different after the passing of this Bill because something has been added to it. What is said seems to me to be absolutely clear and it is also absolutely clear that, apart from adding something to these sections, there has been no diminution in their validity. The clause does not override the 1944 Act but complements it. It adds a third principle to the two that both noble Lords opposite and the Government wish to preserve. It makes a troika—liberty, equality and fraternity.
The Amendment is unnecessary and there have been a number of noble

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Lords opposite who have served in Government who have more or less said that it is perfectly all right to have unnecessary clauses in a Bill. There is not a single noble Lord who, if he were standing in my shoes, would accept that. The addition of unnecessary verbiage to Acts of Parliament is an unforgivable crime and it is one that Parliament tries to avoid and which Ministers are—quite correctly—chased and bullied by the draftsmen to avoid. I cannot believe that people who have held high positions in Government are really asking me—accepting as they did that it is unnecessary—to incorporate it into the Bill.
Having said that, I feel that I must say a word or two on the facts as they arise, as we have been having a very full debate on this subject. Let us look at the possibility of conflict between the duty of a local authority to have regard to the comprehensive principle and its duty to have regard to the principle of parents' wishes, as set out in Section 76. The scope for conflict between these two principles is really very slight. It has been held, as the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said, by Mr. Justice Goff in Wood v. Ealing London Borough Council, 1967, that the general principle specified in Section 76 does not refer to the size of the school or the conditions of entry. In other words, Section 76 does not refer to organisational matters whereas Clause 1(1) clearly does. More important, Mr. Justice Goff also ruled that the general principle in Section 76,
"is confined to the wishes of particular parents in respect of their own particular children and does not refer to the wishes of parents generally."
That is very reasonable; parents are a constantly fluctuating body, by the very nature of things, and the views of those involved in 1976 may not be the views of those who will be involved in 1986 or, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said, in 1944. Yet an authority's planning, involving as it often does substantial building programmes to last over the years, cannot be radically changed every few years.
It is therefore right and proper that Section 76 should not place a duty on authorities to have regard to parents' opinion polls such as the one carried out recently in Southend. The wishes of parents in general under our democratic
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system are expressed in elections and we certainly cannot accept that a local referendum taken at one moment in time could override a national policy endorsed by the electorate and shortly, 1 trust, to be enacted into law. Those who espouse the cause of the grammar schools often protest that the Government's policy restricts parental choice. I was most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, for his very clear refutation of this point. "Choice is a perfectly good concept, provided all have options between which they can realistically choose. A selective system of secondary education does not provide these options as only about 20 per cent. have any choice. It is simply not possible under a selective system for a parent to say, "I want my child to attend a grammar school" and to have that choice met. What happens is that either the local authority or the grammar schools themselves will decide whether the child obtains a place on the basis of tests, the fallibility of which has been clearly demonstrated. In a comprehensive system, the opportunity to study a wide range of courses will be open to all pupils; all parents will therefore be able to make choices within the school as well as, in many areas, between two or more comprehensive schools.
I should like here to say one word about what the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, said. We regard him as a formidable opponent and I hope that he will he a formidable adherent of what we are going to do, though it remains to be seen whether or not we can convince him. He spoke of his battle against mixed ability teaching. My experience, which is perhaps about one-fiftieth or one-seventieth of that of the noble Lord, but which is still not to be ignored, tells me that in comprehensive schools as a general rule—and I do not say in only one—children come in at 11 and are unmixed for one or two years while they are extremely carefully looked at, assessed and examined by their form, year or pastoral teacher. At the end of a year and half or two years—I think it is more usually two—they are streamed and usually "setted", if that is the past of "set", which I am not sure. I hope that this will make the noble Lord feel, in relation to the particular battle he has fought, that he has won. I think a year or two to look at the children and then

1325
a proper division within the school of the best form of teaching for them is as about as satisfactory as we can get.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: Before the noble Lord continues, would he elaborate upon one point about the unreality of parental choice under the present system? If the choice is as unreal as that, why does he regard the co-existence of grammar schools with comprehensive schools as so intolerable? Is it not simply that if they do co-exist, parents will, if they can get in, choose to send their children to the grammar schools? The noble Lord regards that as wrong and so abolishes the grammar schools. Is that or is it not a deprivation, a limitation of choice?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: It is perfectly obvious that the objection to a grammar school is that—by the choice of the parents—it selects the better academic performers and takes them away from the general body. The noble Lord need not get up again; I am giving him his point. Of course this is the exercise of choice. It is the exercise of choice which depends on selection by standards of the authority in one form or another, and not of the parent. But without the parents' choice of course it does not go, I agree. My view, my Government's view, and the view of a very large number of people in the country is that if one did not take away—cream off is the jargon—the top people from the comprehensive schools into the grammar schools, one would get a better education for everybody in the comprehensive school. That is what we stand for and we do not pretend to be standing for anything else.
Let me just finish; I shall not be long. If selective schools and comprehensive schools continue to coexist, not only would the comprehensive schools be denied the full range of abilities—the point which I have just been making—and hence parents denied the chance for their children to attend genuine comprehensive schools, but there would be true freedom of choice only if there were gross over-provision so that authorities would he able to cope with a 20 per cent. or an 80 per cent. demand for selective places. This would obviously be imcompatible with reasonable public expenditure.
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My new Secretary of State, who I am glad to say I have been able to see once since she was appointed, takes parental wishes very seriously, but she can only do so subject to the provisos in Section 76. As I have already stated the preservation of any real choice between selective and comprehensive schools is incompatible with those provisos.
We have had a good Second Reading debate, and I am quite unable to accept the Amendment, but the reason why I cannot accept it is the drafting one that it is unnecessary. It is not that I do not think that it is right and proper that the Bill before the Committee should and in fact does incorporate both Section 8 and Section 76. I must recommend the Committee to vote against the Amendment if it goes to the test.
Lord ELTON: The noble Lord has made his principal ground the fact that this Amendment is superfluous, and in this we cannot agree with him. We have tried to show that this is not an Amendment against the comprehensive solution. We have tried to show that it is an Amendment in favour of parental interest and the rights of the child, whether or not in a comprehensive school. It is not an Amendment in favour of the 11-plus. It is an Amendment in favour of selection within schools as well as between schools.
We do not propose that a grammar school education should inevitably and always be better than a comprehensive education. Indeed, soon the two will be found in the same building. Still, it is necessary to match the children to the correct course within the school, and still they need the protection of this principle. Admittedly, it is to be read under Clause 12 with the 1944 Act. But even in the same Bill it is necessary to have guidance as to which principle is to take precedence when they are in conflict, and the days are many when they still will be in conflict, and that must be clear to noble Lords.
The noble Lord mentioned the judgment of Mr. Justice Goff, who said that the section referred to particular parents of particular children. I certainly absolve the noble Lord from being catty, but I was at pains, in a speech which the noble Lord categorised as a Second Reading speech,

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to say that it was the individual child we wished to defend, and the individual parent. I think that we are on irrefutable ground here and I ask noble Lords to support me as I move the Amendment.
4.14 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 141: Not-Contents, 59.

CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Airedale, L.

Gage, V.

Moyne, L.

Aldenham, L.

Gisborough, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Alexander of Potterhill, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Nugent and Guildford, L.

Alport, L.

Goschen, V.

Nunburnholme, L.

Amherst, E.

Gough, V.

Onslow, E.

Amphthill, L.

Gray, L.

Porritt, L.

Amulree, L.

Grey, E.

Rathcavan, L.

Auckland, L.

Greenway, L.

Redesdale, L.

Banks, L.

Gridley, L.

Rochdale, V.

Barrington, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Runciman of Doxford, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Halisham of saint Marylebone, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Blestead, L.

Sackwille, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hampton, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller]

Birdwood, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

St. Davis, V.

Blackburn, Bp.

Harvington, L.

Sandford, L.

Brentford, V.

Hawke, L.

Sandys, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Hayter, L.

Savile, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Henley, L.

Selkirk, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hill of Luton, L.

Selsdon, L.

Byers, L.

Hives, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Shannon, E.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Howe, E.

Simon, V.

Carrington, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Cathcart, E.

Ilchester, E.

Somers, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

James of Rushholme, L.

Spens, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Kemsley, V.

Stamp, L.

Clwyd, L.

Killearn, E.

Strang, L.

Cole, L.

Kimberley, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Kings Norton, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Craigavon, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Cranbrook, E.

Kinnaird, L.

Sudeley, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Swansea, L.

Daventry, V.

Long, V.

Tenby, V.

Davidson, V.

Lothian, M.

Terrington, L.

Denham, L. [Teller]

Loudoun, C.

Teynham, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Tranmire, L.

Dudley, B.

Lyell, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Dundonald, E.

Malmesbury, E.

Trevelyan, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Mancroft, L.

Vaizey, L.

Eccles, V.

Margadale, L.

Vernon, L.

Effingham, E.

Marley, L.

Vickers, B.

Elton, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Vivian, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Merrivale, L.

Wade, L.

Erskine of Rerrick, L.

Mersey, V.

Wigoder, L.

Exeter, M.

Monck, V.

Windlesham, L.

Faithfull, B.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Wolverton, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mottistone, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Henderson, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal).

Aylestone, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Phillips, B.

Bacon, B.

Hughes, L.

Popplewell, L.

Birk, B.

Janner, L.

Rhodes, L.

Blyton, L.

Kaldor, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Rusholme, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Leatherland, L.

Shackleton, L.

Burntwood, L.

Lee of Asheridge, B.

Slater, L.

Champion, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Soper, L.

Collison, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Stedman, B.

Darwen, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Davies of Leek, L.

Maelor, L.

Stone, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Melchett, L.

Summerskill, B.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.(L. Chancellor.)

Northfield, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Oram, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.[Teller.]

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Williamson, L.

Hale, L.

Pargiter, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Parry, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
4.24 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 10, after ("pupils") insert ("of compulsory school age").
The noble Lord said: if I may recall your Lordships' attention from the Lobbies to Amendment No. 2, your Lordships will remember that one of the threats which worries us about the implementation of the comprehensive principle is that it is so often embodied in schools of a very large size, and I think there was general agreement that this could militate against efficiency and humanity in teaching. There was a general consensus in your Lordships' House on this, I think. We then turned our attention to ways in which this could be circumvented, one of which was the "topping off" of a comprehensive school by taking away the elder and more academic children from it, or possibly from a group of comprehensive schools, to supply or feed a sixth form college.
I sought to advance the view that this Bill as it stood would in some way inhibit this; and, if I may quote the noble Lord who intervened in column 1486, he said:
"My Lords, if I may just ask for clarification, I am absolutely lost in what the noble Lord is saying about selection for sixth form colleges, which seems to me to be what he was talking about. In so far as there are sixth form colleges, which is something entirely determined by the local authority, the selection is done fully on aptitude and ability. Can anybody suggest anything else?",
the noble Lord asked. He went on:
1330
"There is nothing in the Bill to suggest anything else. I have lost the noble Lord's argument".—[Official Report 29/7/76; col. 1486.]
I should like, if I can, to return it to him by saying this. It seems to me that a sixth form college provides a part of secondary education; it is a stipulation of this Bill that such education shall not be given to pupils except,
"…in schools where the arrangements for the admission of pupils are not based (wholly or partly) on selection by reference to ability or aptitude",
which the noble Lord says is the only sensible way in which they should be allocated to the sixth form college.
Now, if I am right in saying that these schools are not qualified to he part of the maintained system as the Bill stands—if I carry the noble Lord with me on that—then I think he will see that one possible way round this difficulty is to insert, as the Amendment suggests that we do, the words "of compulsory school age" after the word "pupils" on page 1, line 10, so that it says:
"…provided only in schools where the arrangements for the admission of pupils of compulsory school age are not based (wholly or partly) on selections by reference to ability or aptitude".
It occurs to me that one effect of ROSLA may be that the wording of this Amendment is already defective, and that we ought to substitute something to the effect of "pupils who have not attained their 15th birthday" but my object in tabling this Amendment is to turn the noble Lord's concentrated attention, and that of those who advise him, upon the real, or perhaps the imaginary, danger—and he will tell me

1331
which it is—that we shall not be able to have sixth form colleges, in favour of which he has, I think, by implication, pronounced himself, unless we do in fact in some way alter marginally the provisions of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I have, not for the first time, I think, simply to say that I was wrong in my intervention. This is the result, of course, of the noble Lord's education and my education: that, to me, "sixth form" has an academic meaning whereas it has not in secondary education now; nor should it have. So I cannot hope to defend what I said. It was quite wrong. It was said in the confusion of the moment—and of such moments I have a good number.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: That is what comes of your having an academic education.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: It all comes into it. I have to confess that that was not correct. Really, what we are talking about here is whether we want secondary education over the age of 16 to continue the comprehensive basis. I think this is the issue between us. If this Amendment were accepted, authorities would be under a duty to have regard to the comprehensive principle only in respect of the admission to secondary schools of pupils who were of compulsory school age—the point, I think, which the noble Lord made. Academic selection would be allowable for pupils over 16 who wanted to go on with their secondary education. The Government are perfectly clear that they want to eliminate selection at all stages of secondary education, and the Government—and, as their representative today, I am glad to state this in case there be any confusion about the past—see no reason to make an exception for sixth form education.
I think it important not to confuse sixth form institutions with sixth form courses. This Bill certainly seeks to outlaw selection for education to institutions, but not to courses within those institutions. It has always been the Government's view that the sole criterion for admission to a sixth form course should be the pupil's ability to profit from that course. I am sure we would all agree that schools should cater for
1332
all pupils of compulsory school age, whatever their ability, and we do not consider it right that pupils of lower ability should be prevented from continuing their secondary education after the age of 16 by a general test of academic ability—that is the sort of point which my noble friend Lady Lee was making in her very interesting speech. Sixth form institutions should be comprehensive in that they should offer a variety of A level, O level, CSE and other courses to cater for all pupils, whatever their ability.
Five or six years ago, the open sixth form was regarded as experimental, but the idea has rapidly gained ground. More and more sixth forms offer a variety of examination courses at all levels, both academic and vocational, as well as a growing number of non-examination courses. This is true of the sixth form colleges, only a few of which are still selective, and of the great majority of all-through comprehensive schools which are providing a wide range of courses at sixth form level. Some such schools receive pupils at 16 from neighbouring 11 to 16 schools; we would not expect selection procedures to be used for entry to a comprehensive school at 16 any more than at the normal age of entry. I hope the noble Lord will not find it necessary to press this Amendment. If he does, I am afraid we shall not be able to accept it.
Lord BELSTEAD: I had not intended to speak on this Amendment, but having listened to the noble Lord it seems to me that more things become evident—or perhaps they become more obscure. Perhaps the noble Lord could tell us why it was that in the 1970 Act which the Government of the day brought forward they excluded sixth form education. It seems to me that, when the noble Lord says that, the Government do not want to exclude for selection for courses but are determined to exclude for selection for institutions. I can understand that perfectly well, but this leads us to the extraordinary conclusion that a pupil can be selected for sixth form in the school without breaching the Act but cannot be selected for a sixth form college without breaching the Act. Having asked that question—
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Selected for a sixth form course.
Lord BELSTEAD: Then let me put another question to the noble Lord. I do not know whether the Government have consulted local authorities about this part of the Bill, but the way the Bill is drafted with regard to sixth form education means that any pupil, from just about ESN to very high ability, can demand (and cannot be refused) a place in a sixth form college for a course. Am I right in thinking that that would be the case?
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: Could I interrupt for a moment? I should like to apologise for pulling my noble friend's leg just now—well, he has got long legs! Before I got booted out of the other place by an ungrateful electorate, I sat for one of the two or three counties in Britain which took the view which the Minister now says was the right view—or at least Mrs. Williams now says is the right view—in other words, that we should not make our comprehensives (and we went comprehensive before most) vast emporiums or factories. One of the things we did in Derbyshire was to arrange that we did not need to have 2,000 pupils, or whatever, in order to have a satisfactory size of sixth form in the same school, but that we could afford to have smaller comprehensive schools because we could arrange to have a sixth form college elsewhere. Therefore, those who wanted to go on to the sixth form could do so in another building.
I should like to say this to the Minister: it does not seem to me to fit with what Mrs. Williams now says that she has changed her mind and was wrong to want such big schools in order to get a sufficient size of sixth form in the same school, if at the same time one passes a prohibition against selecting pupils for sixth form education in a place other than in that school. There must be confusion and contradiction in that argument. If Mrs. Williams is now right, then what we were doing in Derbyshire must have been right. They were also doing it in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. We were saying that those who wanted to continue sixth form education could do so somewhere else, in a different building. That must be right. What Mrs. Williams is now saying cannot be right, because it would mean that you will not have a school big enough to provide what she
1334
used to believe was right; that is, an adequate sixth form in that school.
I think that the Minister is trying—and I like him very much and I know how keen he is about this matter—to defend something which is indefensible, or perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that he is trying to postpone making the necessary consequential arrangements flowing from Mrs. Williams's new view—which happens to be my old view, and of course I am always glad to see colleagues from my old Party coming round to the views which I used to think were right.
4.37 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: If I may, I should like to deal first with what the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, has just said. My Secretary of State said that opinion was changing concerning the best size for a school. She did not say more than that. She said that increasingly education authorities were forming smaller schools and the Secretary of State preceding her had agreed to this. Quite separately from that, a number of local authorities have adopted the system of sixth form colleges. There are 64 at the moment, I think, and, curiously enough, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, only 14 of those 64 colleges now operate selective admission arrangements. Therefore, the Bill as it stands—without the Amendment of the noble Lord—will not alter anything very much. It will simply mean that those 14 will gradually cease to apply that particular criterion for entry.
Referring to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, there are two ways of having sixth form secondary education for children who have left at 16—which is what it is all about. One way is through the sixth form college, and the other is by having a comprehensive school which is of a size to support a sixth form and which the head of that school thinks is big enough to give a proper education. This is an opinion which varies, but at the moment there is no interference with size or numbers. The interference here is with the method of selection, and I hope we can probably pass on without altering that at this stage, since it applies to so very few of the existing sixth form colleges.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: I think something is omitted here, and I hope the Minister will look at the point. There are more ways than he suggests of educating children beyond the age of 16. There are colleges of further education and there are tertiary colleges. I believe there are 85 sixth form colleges and 15 tertiary colleges as at this date. But the difference is very important. The tertiary college accepts this principle of not selecting anybody who wishes to come, though indeed within the college the course one can take will depend on one's qualifications. The tertiary colleges in many cases operate under further education regulations, but the sixth form colleges operate in many cases under schools regulations, not further education regulations.
Therefore, to say that this principle must apply, so that any child at 16 can seek admission to such a sixth form college, creates a situation in which the sixth form college necessarily has to become a tertiary college; that is to say, it has to make available courses of education which normally it is not in a position to provide. It must provide for qualifications of the Technical Education Council, it must provide craft courses and so, which it is not geared to do. With the best will in the world, it simply is not qualified in either staff or equipment to do these things.
I am delighted if the Government are making complete my case for tertiary colleges, which I have been arguing for eight years now. But I think it would be wise to look at this a little carefully, to see whether we are virtually creating a situation in which sixth form colleges would not be able reasonably to comply with the requirements of the clause, because they simply could not provide for certain of the children who might seek admission, and whose proper place was in another institution which provided the courses they were seeking. I am trying only to clarify the situation.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: May I reply to the noble Lord in the form of a question? He knows much more about these matters than I do. It seems to me that this principle can be applied with whatever the sixth form college has to offer. The principle is that boys or girls are not chosen on their academic ability; not that they, or the
1336
teacher, do not select a college because of what it has to offer in the way of courses. So surely, from my point of view, the principle is perfectly all right, even though the sixth form college may teach nothing but Sanskrit and Greek.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: I fear that that is not so. Obviously if a child is going to take A-level he must have certain O-levels in order to pursue the course satisfactorily. But if he goes along and says, "I want to have the qualifications of the Technical Education Council" or "the craft course" all the college can say is, "We do not have such a course. Therefore, we are sorry but we cannot take you." So they could be accused of selecting on academic aptitude or on standards which were academic, when they were really doing nothing more than saying, "Here are the courses that we can offer. If you are able to pursue these you are welcome. But if you arc not qualified to pursue these we cannot have you." This is a genuine problem.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My own view is that the accusation would not stand, but that does not mean that we should not look at this. Though I do not want to look at the principle involved, I am quite prepared to look at the point the noble Lord has raised, which we can deal with, or otherwise, at a later stage.
Lord ELTON: I am most obliged to the noble Lord for his reply which is helpful, at least over 50 per cent. of the field. There are those who feel that sixth form colleges should be places of academic refuge—if that is the word; I think it is not and I prefer the word "resort"—and those who have taught are well aware of the enormous help it is to be able to teach in groups which are entirely dedicated to the pursuit of an academic career, and to the extent to which this is diluted so are their efforts made laborious to achieve the results, and the efforts not only of the staff but of the children. However, at least the noble Lord has taken cognisance, and I have been most ably helped by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, to whom I extend my thanks, who showed much more clearly than I could what appears to us to be a basic anomaly which requires some alteration to

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the wording of the Bill. In the light of what the noble Lord has said, that he will look at this before Report stage, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.45 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 11, leave out ("or partly ")
The noble Lord said: Clause 1(1) requires authorities to:
"…have regard to the general principle that such education is to be provided only in schools where the arrangements for the admission of pupils are not based (wholly or partly) on selection by reference to ability or aptitude."
The reason for putting down this Amendment is to try to find out what is the effect of the words "or partly". Do they mean that regardless of the kind of school—let us say, that in a non-selective school, by definition, you have a dyslexic child, or a very backward child, or a very gifted child, or a child who wants boarding education—they could be chosen for a particular school, or would they be breaching the terms of Clause 1(1), because they would be admitted, either wholly or partly, by reference to their ability or aptitude? A lot of noble Lords may have much which they are intending to say on this, but would like to hear first what the Minister has to say. Therefore, I shall sit down and hear the Government's view on this. I beg to move.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: We are opposed to any form of selection for admission to secondary education on the basis of ability or aptitude, by any method and to any degree. We have made this clear 100,000 times in the last 18 months. The words "wholly or partly" are included in this clause to make it absolutely clear and unambiguous that partially selective arrangements are not acceptable.
By removing the words "or partly", the clause will allow admission procedures,
"not based wholly on selection by references to ability or aptitude."
There cannot be a selective school in the country which bases its admission procedure wholly on selection by ability—geographical area, age, sex and all kinds
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of other factors must inevitably be involved as well. Therefore, all remaining selective schools would be able to claim that they were within this new so-called comprehensive principle if this Amendment were accepted. Clause 1, and consequently the whole Bill, would be wrecked and I must therefore urge noble Lords to reject this Amendment. But—I have not yet finished—I do not think, from the noble Lord's speech, that that was his intention. I do not think he was meaning to move a wrecking Amendment. I believe that he was trying to introduce flexibility into the system and I will now reply along those lines, though we believe that whether the motives be good or bad the effect on the Bill would be disastrous.
The argument against the Amendment is that if admission procedures were to be based partly on ability, one must consider on what else they would be based. For all the inaccuracy and inadequacy of the 11-plus procedure, it at least has the merit of a certain objectivity. Other forms of selection, such as teacher assessment or guided parental choice, may be more flexible but they are also more subjective and open to abuse. Flexibility, in this instance, would not result in a more fair or more just distribution of pupils between schools, but rather the reverse. We do not wish to discourage the practice of pupils attending other schools for part of their time, particularly where this leads to a more efficient use of resources in less popular subjects.
This gives a wider choice to pupils and avoids needless duplication of provision. But we would not support those able pupils transferring permanently to another school to the detriment of their original school, which could not hope to offer its remaining pupils the range of courses which would have been possible had it remained "uncreamed". Such a system would result in a new grammar/secondary modern division, albeit at a later age than 11, based on a highly dubious selection procedure and resulting in unequal educational opportunities for pupils in their later stages of secondary education.
Remembering the far-reaching effects of the Amendment which I quoted before and what I have just said, I feel that this Amendment could well be withdrawn by

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the Opposition. If they do not feel that they can withdraw it, I shall have to advise the Committee to oppose it.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I have a great deal of sympathy for the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge. As the Amendment stands and as it has now been explained to us, I think it is a wrecking Amendment, even though that is not the intention. Therefore we on these Benches would not like the Amendment to be passed. However, I do not believe that the problem which arises has yet been adequately dealt with. It may be that the answer is that we should go away again—and I speak for noble Lords on all sides of the House—and try to think of an Amendment to the Bill which would allow a little more flexibility.
Let us take, for example, the situation of a school which is very popular and which specialises, among other things, in the teaching of Sanskrit (I use Sanskrit as an example merely because it was used earlier in the debate) and let us suppose that it has on its staff some of the only teachers in the country who are capable of teaching Sanksrit to O- or A-level. I think that this point applies particularly at sixth form level, since the Government have more or less accepted the fact that they do not want there to be any selection at sixth form level, with which I agree. Nevertheless, in the sixth form where there is specialisation, the situation will arise that a certain number of pupils who want to read Sanskrit will be able to read it only at a certain school. If that is a very popular school it may be that it is oversubscribed. Does the Bill mean that that school will not then be allowed to keep a certain number of places or, indeed, all the places that it wants for those who wish to study Sanskrit and will it then be accused of operating selection by aptitude?
One answer, and it is an answer which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has deployed, is that children could move from the school of which they were a member to another school for special Sanskrit classes on certain days of the week and return to their own school for the normal curriculum. I do not think that this is necessarily a very good answer and there would be many cases where the system would not work. For
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instance, there might be a school three miles away from a boy's home which teaches Sanskrit but which he is not able to get into. If he wants to learn Sanskrit he has to go to a school which is three miles in the other direction, which means that then there would be six miles between the two schools and he would be expected to commute between them. That is only one example of the practical difficulties over time-tabling and everything else which might occur. It would occur particularly strongly in a sixth-form college where he would be expected to devote quite a large number of hours to the study of this subject. If we are to cultivate excellence in equality, which is what we want, we must find a way to provide flexibility so that any given school would not be offending against the Bill if it kept certain places for children with certain aptitudes who were studying certain subjects.
The noble Lord may have a perfectly good answer to the point and may say that under the Bill no school would be in such a difficulty. However, we have to ensure that this can happen. If it does not happen under the Bill, then we shall have to go away and find some form of words which, without wrecking the principle of the Bill, will allow it to happen.
Lord ELTON: The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, was most illuminating. It has succeeded in impaling the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, upon the horns of a dilemma which one has foreseen for some time, and I hope that he will take the opportunity to elucidate it. If I may eludicate the point in visual terms, it seems to me that the education system in any area is like a layer cake, with a layer for every year. Let us say that in every layer of, for example, a fruit cake there is candied peel and that there is candied peel of different kinds for every subject and specialism needed. This is distributed throughout the cake and every child must have access to it at each layer of its progress. One way to ensure this is simply to say that every child in a particular year shall go to one institution and there have its own fair share of the particular variety of candied peel that is appropriate to it. You could have one year schools, I suppose—which would limit their size—or two or three year

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schools. But we are faced with the situation where either you have to have an enormous school to make sure that every piece of candied peel—because there will not be many in the case of the smaller specialisms—is represented or you have to cut your cake into slices vertically, each slice being an individual school, some of which will be able to teach Greek, others technical drawing but not Greek, and others geography, while others will specialise in dead languagues. But you cannot expect the specialisms to be equally distributed throughout.
I should have thought that the Amendment that we are advancing would enable a local authority to take cognisance of the requirements of an individual child on the basis of the course he requires. It is plain that it will be argued that the child, pupil or young adult who is capable of taking A-level Greek or S-level German is academically more able and more apt than the child who will—I absolutely concede this point—be of at least as great and possibly greater service to society but who specialises in technical drawing or craftwork.
I take the point which has been made before that in our society we give insufficient stature to the people who make the money by which all of us live and that this is wrong and should be put right. However, I say that those people also require to have their aptitude for technical drawing, using a lathe, firing kilns and so on taken into account. It may not be an ability but it is an aptitude. The Bill precludes this, which means either that one has to have a dilute specialism in every school or else find a way around it. We have tabled an Amendment which we honestly think finds a way around it.
We are not trying to wreck the Bill. We set ourselves the duty not to wreck the Bill at the outset, and I said as much at Second Reading. We want to provide the best education we can afford for all our children—not merely for the academics but also for the practical. if that is the word, children whom noble Lords opposite are conditioned to think we hold in inferior regard compared with the academics. This is not so. I shall be interested to hear how the noble Lord gets off the horns of that dilemma.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: It seems to me that this is very much the same question as we were discussing with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. There is nothing offensive to the comprehensive principle in the choice of a course. What is offensive to the comprehensive principle is to say that of two children one is more deserving of this, because of his ability, than the other. I do not see any difficulty here. To take the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, if three places for Sanskrit are available in a school which is within reasonable reach of somebody who wants to learn Sanskrit, I cannot see that any question of selection in the form of being offensive to the comprehensive principle comes into the argument.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: From the point of view of organising a school, particularly a sixth form course, there are very great difficulties, for this reason. If we move away from Sanskrit to a subject which is more common but which presents greater difficulties—that is, mathematics—it presents greater difficulties because of the incredible shortage of mathematics teachers, a problem to which we shall refer in other contexts, I hope, in the debate. If a child wants to study A-level mathematics, you have to insist that that child has passed not only O-level mathematics but also additional mathematics at O-level; otherwise you are simply wasting the time of everybody and their resources by letting that pupil go to a sixth form and attempting to cope with advanced level mathematics. So presumably if you are to deploy these rare resources with a vital subject which we are fortunately going to discuss in detail later, you must in fact have academic selection.
I must not make a Second Reading speech although I am tempted to all the time because it is the only sort of speech I can make. But please do not let us prejudice the whole future of English education by this absolutely doctrinaire insistence on the fact that there is something morally wrong in selecting people because they have certain mental abilities. After all, if we select people for a football team because they have certain athletic qualities why can we not select them for mathematics, say, because they have certain intellectual abilities? Never mind—

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that is a Second Reading point and i must not be tempted. But this is a practical point and I assure the noble Lord, without wanting to wreck anything, that I have had experience in organising courses for sixth forms over a long period and this is impossible unless you have a certain standard to build on.
5 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: I should like to make a rather different point. When this Bill first came into the other place I think it was generally believed that the system of comprehensive schools at which it aimed would in fact he neighbourhood schools and therefore there would be no selection on aptitudes or abilities but it would be a matter of the catchment area where the child lived. Then a considerable row blew up, led by the ILEA who could hardly be said to be the strongest defenders of the Conservative notion of education. They say that if the clause is left as it is and there is to be no selection at all by ability, then in the middle class districts there will be comprehensive schools of one standard and there will be comprehensives of a totally different standard in the district where the home background is not so affluent. Therefore they say they would like to have the power to arrange the intake into the new comprehensives by three bands of ability. I really must ask the noble Lord how they will be able to do that if Clause 1 says that there may not be selection partly by ability. One is back again at the neighbourhood school intake which the ex-Secretary of State, as I understand it, had changed his mind about because he saw the force of the argument against the creation of a network of neighbourhood schools.
Unless a local authority is permitted partly to take into consideration the ability of the children how can one have children of A, B and C abilities to provide the balanced intake which I understand the mandarins of the comprehensive system now think they ought to have?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: The noble Viscount is a little unfair when he refers to "the mandarins of the comprehensive system". If I may say so, that is below his normal level. The people who believe in the comprehensive system are not mandarins; they
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are a very large number of teachers and educationists and others, and I do not think that should have been said. Subject to that, as always, the noble Viscount made a very interesting point. Banding is really an exact example of the transitional stages. My late Secretary of State said that he did not think it was possible to do away with banding immediately because he thought there would then be the kind of uneven balance in schools in certain areas which he wanted to avoid. So he altered the situation so that this would remain, but not for ever. That is all right so far as it goes.
The point that I think I must stick to here is the principle which the Bill stands for, which is that the course in one school can be attended by a boy from another school but the selection to the school or the college should not be on a basis of ability. This brings me straight up against the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, which I think is a very difficult one. I do not think it applies in relation to Sanskrit; I do not think it applies in relation to anything really except where there is a shortage of adequate teachers, and this brings it into the category of the banding situation—of a temporary situation which the noble Viscount was talking about.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: I hesitate to interrupt again, but can the noble Lord say why he thinks the shortage of good mathematics teachers is temporary? Is there any evidence whatever for saying that?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: That is quite a different point. It may be for ever, in which case one would have to think again on different lines. The general view is that this can be altered, and that view may be wrong.
Lord BOWDEN: It is getting worse, not better.
Lord ELTON: I wonder whether the noble Lord will allow me to come back on the point that I raised. I said that there was a need, not associated with a wrecking intention, to allow there to be some regard for ability and aptitude in apportioning children to resources. We should note that there are two criteria—ability and aptitude. His reply appeared to be that

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it was not necessary to consider ability in considering resources, and I think this was rather knocked on the head by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme; and he followed the other argument, saying that where courses were available in specialisms to which children were suited, which presumably means that they were apt to them, then they could be allocated to them without breach of the Bill. I do not think they can. I think the Bill says that there must be no consideration of ability or aptitude. In a later reply he said that they could be allocated to schools non-selectively but to courses—if I took him aright—outside the school if they did not exist inside the school, presumably on the basis of aptitude. This is selection.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I do not think that is on the basis of aptitude; it is on the basis of wishing to do it.
Lord ELTON: If somebody who has not mastered the art of reading wants to do higher logic, is that reasonable? What the noble Lord is advancing seems to me to be so unreasonable as to be unlikely. I took perhaps an extreme example. but there is a forceful argument that resources are scarce and they cannot be deployed willy-nilly against those who think there is a soft option because a particular teacher is funny and amusing in class and you do not have to work very hard; for instance, to pursue a subject in which they are not able to hold out prospects of making much progress. I followed the noble Lord's argument as meaning that there could be allocation outside the school, and he now says that it would be simply on inclination and not on aptitude.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: The choice of course.
Lord ELTON: The choice of course, upon inclination and not upon aptitude or ability. It is merely necessary to want to do something in order to be allowed to do it; to use scarce resources. Presumably it is tough luck on the chap who asks afterwards and who has got qualifications but did not think to ask sooner, because the other one wanted it badly enough to ask first. If this is the way in which we are going to deploy scarce resources, does the noble Lord really think it is the best way?
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: Again I think there is a lack of practical experience here. Let us see what we are talking about. In terms of this Bill I am thinking of getting rid of the only kind of education in the world such as we had before, but when a child enters we want that child to come into the comprehensive system. As somebody who has also looked at the sixth form levels in mathematics and geography working, say, in the school run by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, how we had a bunch of 16- and 17-yearolds, preparing them for the Oxford or any of the Cambridge scholarships. I am not talking about examinations. Tom Jones says, "I want to do maths, sir", and I know he has barely got his O-levels and I know without any examination, because of the experience as I have been teaching him, that whatever he does that lad will not get his A-levels and will not get through in maths. So I call in his parents.
In practical working teaching, this is what you do. It has nothing to do with exams. If he is doing Russian we see whether he has the aptitude and the kind of mind that manages languages. If he is doing geography, he needs enough of the maths, but not to such a high standard, to understand it. Do not let us split hairs. We are not asking for selection by examination at this pitch. We are dealing with mature students. If I am right in my talking here, we are dealing with them in the sixth form of the old-fashioned or comprehensive schools and they will go on to university. What are we talking about?
Baroness FAITH FULL: May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, for some help? If the words "or partly" are left in, what would happen to those children whose families seek comprehensive education and in principle, under Clause 1, are denied it, namely, the handicapped children? This subject will be dealt with again under Amendment No. 42 to be moved by the noble Baroness, Lady D'Arcy de Knayth. On the other hand, may I ask what is the position of children of disadvantaged families, where the child is in need of specialised counselling help in a specialised school, due to the fact that perhaps the family has broken up, there is divorce, widowhood, a single parent family, and the school in that area does not fit, so the

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child either needs to go to a smaller school elsewhere or to a boarding school? I ask this on behalf of the handicapped children who want to go to the comprehensive school, or alternatively the children with disadvantaged social circumstances who want to go elsewhere.
5.13 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I cannot see that the clause as it stands is in conflict with what the noble Baroness has said. If we may take the second case first, the child of a disadvantaged family, what is her worry? These children are in the same position whether we leave the word "partly" in the Bill or take it out. It seems to me that the thing about such children is that the sort of counselling and help they need they can get in a comprehensive school and grammar schools. I do not really quite follow the point of the noble Baroness.
Baroness FAITHFULL: I am sorry. My point is that if the comprehensive school does not suit the child because it is too big, or because emotionally the child needs to go somewhere else, what would the position then?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: The position then would be exactly the same, whether the word "partly" was in or out. One assumes that the child would complain to the parents, the parents would discuss the matter with the headmaster or whoever was concerned, and they would either agree or not agree with this position. If they agree that the child should be moved, then with the help of the local authority they would find somewhere else, but not on grounds which counteract the comprehensive principle. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, OK.
Viscount ECCLES: If I may return to the answer which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, gave to me, I found it unsatisfactory, because so far as I can gather from him, with the small exception in Clause 2(6) which says that schools at the time the Act is passed may continue for a little, it appears that if the words "or partly" were left in Clause 1, the intention of the Government
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is a system of neighbourhood comprehensive schools. The argument against that has nothing to do with politics, but it is a tremendous argument. Is it really true that that is what the Government are aiming at? I thought the speeches of Ministers in another place made it fairly clear they were not aiming at that. What is the fact?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I do not think that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, is right that that is what it means. I simply do not follow it.
Viscount ECCLES: It means it.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: The leaving out of the word "partly" means that a selective element can be introduced into the sending of a child to school. That is what it means, I suppose. I do not see what this has to do with geography or anything else. I do not follow the noble Viscount.
Viscount ECCLES: I am sorry, but the apprehension of a large number of people in this country, including members of the noble Lord's own Party, is that you might have comprehensives in one part of a city where every child, bar a very small proportion, was, if you like, below average, whereas in another part of the city you have a comprehensive school where the children are far above average because the parents can afford to live in that neighbourhood. In order to get some mixture going, it had been thought that when the comprehensive system was set up there would be a classification of children by the local authority into three bands of ability, and that the children would be more or less (it could not be exact) allocated to schools so that each school had its proportion of average children, of clever children, and of below average children. Is that all abandoned now?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: That was abandoned under Clause 2(6).
Viscount ECCLES: No, it is not. I do not see it.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Subsection (6) of Clause 2 says that this may continue, but that the Secretary of State has in mind in due course to stop it.
Lord BELSTEAD: I wish that the considerations on this Amendment were really as easy as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, appears to think. Such are the cogency and flow of his arguments that from time to time one is lulled into the impression that one is following him along the road of his argument, until someone like the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, gets up, and one realises there are some gaping holes in this extraordinary wording in Clause 1(1) of the Bill.
As I understood the noble Lord, what he is arguing is that this Amendment really is not necessary because the parents' choice of school in reality is a choice of course within the school, and therefore does not necessarily entail the school basing its admissions either wholly or partly by reference to ability or aptitude.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I must just say that that is not my understanding. That may be the case in specialised subjects but, generally speaking, it is certainly not the case, I should have thought.
Lord BELSTEAD: In that case, my argument becomes much easier. We are talking, then, of a choice of school because the parent wants to choose a school because the parent knows that that school suits the child. It may be because of a particular course or for other reasons. I have two observations to make about this general problem. My first observation is that if a pupil is going to be admitted to a school for any of those sorts of reasons, I should have thought it must breach the principle of the Bill, and I say that for this reason.
If parents choose a school because of a Sanskrit course or maths, or languages, or because they like the school, and because they feel it would suit the ability and aptitude of their child, then I should have thought the school is bound to know the parents' reasons. The Plowden Report encouraged the practice of admitting new pupils for a short time before those pupils came to the school
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so that the pupils could get to know the school, and the school could get to know the pupils. One hopes this practice will spread, and has spread, into secondary schools. Therefore, in talking about this Amendment, it is inconceivable that a headmaster is not going to know why it is that a parent has in fact chosen a particular school. He will realise in many cases that the admission is being made on grounds of ability or aptitude.
In case the noble Lord thinks that is too general and that I have not thought this out in concrete terms, may I give an example. Let us suppose that school A has got a full-time remedial teacher well-known in the locality for skill in bringing on backward pupils, and the parents of a slow-learning child are living in a catchment area not of that school but of another school which has no full-time remedial teacher. The parents apply for admission to the school with the full-time remedial teacher and they are refused. They appeal to the Secretary of State under Section 68 of the 1944 Act, and because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, reminded us, that school is not unsuitable in terms of efficient instruction and training, and because that school is not unsuitable because it does not happen to be full, the Secretary of State upholds the parents and not the local authority. Can it by any stretch of the imagination be said that that pupil is not going to be transferred from one school to the other on grounds of ability or aptitude? I shall be extremely interested to hear the noble Lord's reply to that.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I do not think I can be following the noble Lord. I would have thought it was on grounds of need that he needed remedial teaching. I am not with the noble Lord.
Lord BELSTEAD: He needs the remedial teaching because of his ability. We are not seeking to wreck the Bill. In the example I have given the pupil concerned has got a particular ability and the ability requires first-class remedial teaching. Because they do not find the remedial teaching in the school to which the child has been directed is as good as they had hoped, the parents, therefore choose another school. They are refused, they appeal and they are upheld. How

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can it be said then that that child is not being moved into the other school on grounds of ability?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I simply do not understand how something which requires remedial treatment can be described as "ability". It is a question of words.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: He is shifted because he has no ability.
Lord BELSTEAD: Well, in this case I should have thought the negative assumed the positive. The second observation I want to put to the noble Lord is that I fail to understand how boarding places are to be taken up in some cases under the present wording of Clause 1(1). We are going to come to boarding on another Amendment, but may I just remind the noble Lord of this. The needs for boarding were set out long ago in the Martin Report in 1960, when my noble friend Lord Eccles was the Minister; and the needs which the Martin Report set out for boarding education include as the last need:
"any case in which a special aptitude in the child requires special training which can be given only through boarding education".
That is one of the criteria only of boarding need, but it has been accepted, along with the others, by local education authorities for 15 years. Once again, are we to understand from the wording of the Bill that such a reason for boarding need is now going to be totally prohibited?
Noble Lords have risen in all parts of the Committee, from the Liberal Benches, my noble friend Lady Faithfull and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and have put the sort of concrete examples which I thought would be put to the noble Lord. My noble friend Lord Eccles has put the point, for the second time in this Committee, what is to happen in an authority's area if it is not going to be allowed to band children? if the noble Lord looks at Clause 2 (6) he will find that first of all it prohibits any further banding arrangements, and, secondly, if he refreshes his memory by looking at the Committee proceedings, he will remember that the Government made it pretty clear that banding was to be phased out in the next two years.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull, I thought, made, for the second time in the proceedings on this Bill, a very interesting
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intervention. When she spoke on Second Reading the noble Baroness reminded us of the many different needs of children which required different forms of teaching and care, but, of course, if you have special needs you may also have particular abilities or aptitudes. Our worry is as to whether, to put it in shorthand, a child can go to a small school or a large school or to a school with specialisms being offered, whether the wording prevents that.
May I give one more concrete example. Within the last ten days I have met the parents of a child whom they held was suffering from dyslexia; that is the way they described it. I know perfectly well that there are different views as to whether dyslexia is a condition which exists or not, but I would simply rest on the wording of the Tizard Committee, which is that there are particular problems of reading backwardness and these need tailor-made approaches to the particular needs of the individual child. The point in this case is that the local education authority either was not prepared to place the child in another school where his individual needs and difficulties could be met, or else they were not able to do so. Eventually, however, the story did and happily, because the child was sent to a school in another area. Once again I ask the noble Lord, was that child moved on grounds of ability or aptitude?
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I intervene once more in the hope that I may be able to offer a little help. We started off this Amendment with a desire to find out exactly what would happen if the words "or partly" were left out We got the very straightforward answer from the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, that this Amendment would prove to be a wrecking Amendment, and I for one certainly accept that. But we have got into a much wider field where we all of us have certain queries and certain worries about what would happen if this Bill was applied in its full rigour.
I am slightly surprised that the noble Lords on the Conservative Front Bench have not introduced into this argument their own Amendment No. 15. I think it might be for the benefit of the Committee if, without unduly widening the debate on this point, we looked at this for one moment, because it seems to me that that is not a wrecking Amendment and that is an Amendment which, if carried, would

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meet a number of the points which have been made all round the Committee. If it is not out of order we might invite the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to say whether or not he is sympathetic towards that Amendment, because if he is it seems to me that it meets many of the points we have made and we could move on rapidly from this morass, although an important morass, into which we seem to have embedded ourselves.
5.28 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I am afraid I can give no particular encouragement to that Amendment. I will not discuss it now; we shall have a chance to do it later on. I am afraid it would be misleading the Committee if I said, "Let us put it all behind us now and have a happy time, then". That is not the way it is going to work out.
We have had a good discussion on this. I must stick to my first and final answer to this Amendment, which is that with the removal of the words "or partly" the clause would allow admission procedures which are not based wholly on
selection by reference to ability or aptitude. There cannot be a selective school in the country which bases its admission procedure wholly on selection by ability; as I said before, it includes geographical area, age, sex and so on, which means therefore that every selective school would be able to claim that they are within this new so-called comprehensive principle. We must not forget that this is not only a debate on reason. It is also a light. We must not forget that we have active opposition of a very violent kind in certain pockets over the whole field of education, which has, in three quarters of its area, gone so smoothly the way we wanted it to go. I cannot afford to give any kind of hostage to fortune by weakening the power of the authorities to deal with deliberate attempts to evade the principles of Clause 1(1). Therefore, this Amendment, as it stands, would be a wrecking Amendment, and I cannot accept it.
5.31 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 112; Not-Contents, 75.

CONTENTS

Aldenham, L.

Gage, V.

Moyne, L.

Alport, L.

Gainford, L.

Onslow, E.

Atholl, D.

George-Brown, L.

Pender, L.

Auckland, L.

Gisborough, L.

Porritt, L.

Belstead, L.

Goschen, V.

Redesdale, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gough, V.

Roberthall, L.

Blackburn, Bp.

Gray, L.

Rochdale, V.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Gridley, L.

Runciman of Doxford, V.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Cairns, E.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller]

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hankey, L.

St. Davids, V.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Sandford, L.

Carrington, L.

Harvington, L.

Sandys, L.

Cathcart, E.

Hawke, L.

Savile, L.

Chelwood, L.

Hives, L.

Selbourne, E.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Selkirk, E.

Clitheroe, L.

Howe, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Ilchester, E.

Somers, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Inglewood, L.

Stamp, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Ironside, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

James of Rusholme, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Daventry, V.

Kemsley, V.

Sudeley, L.

Davidson, V.

Killearn, L.

Tenby, V.

de Clifford, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Terrington, L.

Denham, L. [Teller]

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Teviot, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lloyd, L.

Tranmire, L.

Dundonald, E.

Long, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Luke, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Eccles, V.

Lyell, L.

Vaizey, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Malmesbury, E.

Vernon, L.

Elton, L.

Mancroft, L.

Vickers, B.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Margadale, L.

Vivian, L.

Energlyn, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Exeter, M.

Merrivale, L.

Windlesham, L.

Faithfull, B.

Monck, V.

Wolfenden, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mottistone, L,

Wolverton, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Gordon, Walker, L.

Pannell, L.

Amherst, E.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Pargiter, L.

Ampthill, L.

Grey, E.

Parry, L.

Avebury, L.

Hale, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal)

Bacon, B.

Hampton, L.,

Phillips, B.

Banks. L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Henderson, L.

Platt, L.

Beswick, L.

Henley, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Birk, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Popplewell, L.

Blyton, L.

Hughes, L.

Rhodes, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kaldor, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Brockway, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Seear, B.

Byers, L.

Leatherland, L.

Slater, L.

Champion, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stedman, B.

Chorley, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Collison, L.

Longford, E.

Stone, L.

Darwen, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller]

Davies of Leek, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maelor, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Melchett, L.

Wade, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Meston, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller]

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Wigoder, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Northfield, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Garner, L.

Oram, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.39 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 16, after ("8(2)(c)") insert ("and section 33").
The noble Lord said: We turn now to something slightly more technical, which I think may detain your Lordships for rather a shorter time. Amendment No. 4 seeks to insert in line 16, Page 1, after "8(2)(c)" the words" and section 33". In working out the not always limpidly clear implications of the Bill, and in particular of subsection (2)(a) of Clause 1, it came to my notice that while Section 8(2)(c) of the 1944 Act, which is mentioned in paragraph (a), lays on the local education authority the duty of providing for pupils suffering from any disability of mind or body by providing either in special schools or otherwise special educational treatment, the Act does not appear to lay down what constitutes a disability either in this Section or in the interpretation section, which is Section 114 in the 1944 Act. ft also became clear that the definitions were to be found in regulations made by the Secretary of State under Section 33 of the Act; and further that the regulations governing the special schools set up to meet this need are made under that same subsection.
I refer your Lordships to the Handicapped Pupils and Special Schools Regulations for 1959, No. 365. This begins by saying:
"The Minister of Education in exercising the powers conferred upon him by Section 33 of the Education Act 1944 hereby makes the following regulations…"
I need not lead your Lordships into the intricacies of the regulations themselves. Many of your Lordships will share my deep suspicion of the narrower and more tortuous pahts through the thickets of the law, and I have put down this Amendment simply in order to enable the noble Baroness, as it proves to be, to step out the path and reassure us that the intention of the regulation, and, so far as one can see, of the Bill in this respect, with which we have no quarrel, shall not be frustrated in the future by some miserable and unforeseen test case. In other words, it is to see that the powers under which the regulations I refer to have been made, are reserved under the Act.
5.40 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: I do appreciate the desire of the noble Lords sponsoring the Amendment that there should be no misunderstanding of Clause 1(2)(a), but I do not think that the proposed Amendment is going to add anything of substance. It is true that Section 33 elaborates on the education of pupils requiring special education treatment, but the

1357
section is, I think, concerned more with the detailed administration. It provides, for example, for the making of regulations which define the several categories of handicapped pupils requiring special education and which prescribe the conditions for the approval of the special school by the Secretary of State. The section also refers to the arrangements made by a local education authority for special education which is to be in appropriate special schools where the children's disability is serious or in other kinds of school where that is impracticable or the disability is not serious. Reference to that kind of detail would not, in our view, contribute anything to the understanding of the clause excluding the provision of special education—whether in special schools or otherwise—from the comprehensive principle as set out in subsection 1.
I have no wish to burden your Lordships—we have a long way to go on this Bill—with a lot more detail, but I think it right to add that Section 33 of the 1944 Act has already been noted by my Department for review later, and this seems likely to be when the Warnock Committee of Inquiry into the education of handicapped children has reported and the provisions of the Act dealing with special education may have to be recast. In particular, the existing preference in Section 33(2) for special schools rather than ordinary schools needs to he re-examined, as it has long been the policy of the Department that handicapped children should attend ordinary schools where they can do so with profit to themselves and without detriment to others. I have already expressed the view that the proposed Amendment, in our view, is unnecessary and I hope, in view of what I have said, that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw it.
Lord ELTON: What the noble Baroness has said is very helpful. I do not wish to detain the Committee on strictly irrelevant points. I think she made one fascinating revelation, that the provisions of Section 33 were to be reviewed. If in saying that she was being relevant to what we are now discussing, of course we prick our ears up very much because this must be a question of a review of the relationship between that section and this Bill and the comprehensive system. May I ask her whether the plan for the review hears upon any integration of special schools with compre
1358
hensive schools, upon the reduction of the role to be played by special schools, or does it strike at a different area?
Baroness STEDMAN: At the moment the Warnock Committee are looking at the special needs of handicapped children—"handicapped" in the widest sense—and a decision will be made in the light of what they come out with. We expect to have the review in about 18 months time. We may feel in the light of the information they put before the Department that there will he need for recasting Section 33(2). We think it would be premature to try to recast part of it now when we may have to take a wider view of it at a later stage.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness. I reiterate the point that there is no question that the provisions at present in Section 33, from which the regulations spring, will be overset or in any way interfered with by the operation of this Bill when it is enacted. If the noble Baroness will confirm that, I shall be happy to withdraw.
Baroness STEDMAN: I can confirm that.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.48 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("or such other ability or aptitude as the Secretary of State may from time to time by order designate.")
The noble Lord said: It may be to the convenience of the Committee if, with Amendment No. 5, we discussed Amendment No. 16, which is certainly designed to go with it. I do not know whether noble Lords will want to discuss any of the intervening Amendments at the same time—I certainly would be agreeable—but these two in themselves hang together and go fairly wide. I should like to make one further preliminary remark. In view of the fact that we have carried Amendment No. 3 there may appear to be no point in moving this Amendment, or indeed probably any other on the Order Paper, but I think we must work on the assumption that, with any luck, the Government may come back with a new

1359
form of words at a later stage. If that fails, I am afraid we are probably faced with a situation where it is unlikely that another place would agree with this Amendment. In either case, I think it is important that we go forward with amending this Bill in other respects without necessarily paying all that much attention, except for the purely technical one, to the fact that Amendment No. 3 has been passed.
It is common ground, among at least the Front Benches and a number of other people, that we want the comprehensive system and that we are in favour of it. It is also common ground that there should be some exceptions; music and dancing in particular have been accepted by the Government as exceptions which we can include in the Bill. Others differ as to whether there should be exceptions for other subjects, other abilities and other aptitudes, and certain Amendments have been tabled about that. Most of them I do not agree with and on one or two of them I am open to persuasion and argument. I feel that education, above almost all subjects, is one which grows and evolves, and the opinion about a great many things in it changes from time to time. I believe that the comprehensive principle as such is a great, almost an eternal, truth and will not in itself change, but various forms of application of it and dealing with it may do so and, as I say, we have already had it accepted that here are two exceptions.
My Amendment seeks to make it possible without a new Act of Parliament for a Secretary of State in the future, in the course of growing knowledge, of deepened research and of a consensus by educationalists or throughout the country, to widen these exceptions if it should seem to him and to Parliament right to do so. I know we are open to the objection that this is a loophole of which advantage might be taken by a reactionary Secretary of State to put back every sort of selection, but we cannot stop that from happening whatever happens; if there is a majority in both Houses for such a Government and such a Secretary of State they would do it by passing a Bill.
I still think that it is necessary, for those of us who accept the general principle, that we allow for this flexibility,
1360
and as a certain safeguard for a Secretary of State slipping in something unnoticed—which is very unlikely considering the immense awareness in educational circles, particularly among teachers and politicians with educational interests—I have tabled Amendment No. 16 which says that no such extension of the exceptions to the first clause shall he made without it coming to Parliament. It seems to me that that is a sufficient safeguard because, as I say, if there is a majority in Parliament for such a change, it will happen anyway. We should admit this flexibility and we should admit that we are not infallible and that we are not laying down the details of this in such a way that it cannot be changed as knowledge grows and as people's opinions and theories, based on that knowledge, change. I sincerely hope that the Government will be able to see their way to accepting the Amendment, which I claim is in no way a wrecking one and which would in no way produce a major loophole in the Bill.
Baroness STEDMAN: I am perfectly happy to speak to the two Amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, referred, and as he suggested that it might be opportune to speak at the same time to the Amendments from No. 5 to No. 16, I am perfectly willing to do that also, although I think I see the noble Lord, Lord Elton, shaking his head in dissent.
Lord ELTON: If the noble Baroness thought fit, she could take No. 15 at the same time, but I think there are such disparate points on the others that it would cloud the issue and perhaps delay the proceedings if we took them together.
Baroness STEDMAN: It was worth trying; I thought it might help us on our way. Clause 1(2) of the Bill excludes from the operation of the comprehensive principle specialist schools for music and dancing. This exclusion was in-corporated into the Bill to safeguard the small amount of existing provision to meet the needs of the most highly promising future musicians and dancers. My noble friend Lord Vaizey on Second Reading was one of several who drew our attention to the complex issues involved in the treatment of the gifted in all fields, but it is generally accepted

1361
that vocationally specialised school education is justifiable and desirable for these two groups, music and dancing; justifiable because a particular talent in music or dancing can he identified at an early age and its development is in no way socially divisive, and desirable because otherwise the child's talent may not be fully developed. There is no similar consensus for any of the other abilities; so far as I know, there are no schools selecting purely or mainly by ability in a single academic subject or by ability in sport. We should seek to develop any physical and mental aptitudes that pupils may display, but not at the cost of distorting their more general social and academic education, which is what would almost certainly happen if we were to segregate pupils from their fellows in order to develop such aptitude.
Let me at this point remind noble Lords that Clause 1 refers only to admission to schools and will in no way affect any arrangements for the study of subjects within a school. One cannot expect all schools to develop specialised provision for all subjects; co-operation is essential if we are to avoid duplication of provision and extend the options available to pupils. One comprehensive school, for instance; might develop its specialist sixth form science provision, another similarly its provision in languages. It will be perfectly acceptable for pupils from the one establishment to attend specific courses at the other. Provided that the pupils have been admitted to their original schools without reference to their ability, their admission to particular courses may reasonably be governed by their ability to profit from those courses. This type of liaison between schools, and in some cases with further education colleges, will ensure that the needs of pupils with specific abilities are met without detriment to their general and social education.
Clause 1, as we see it, needs no further exemptions as regards existing specialised provision. So far as hypothetical future specialised provision is concerned, I have indicated why my Government would not wish to countenance selective procedures for new specialised schools. We consider that the educational disadvantages of such extreme specialisation are very grave and far outweigh any advantages. I must therefore ask noble Lords not to accept the Amendment, not only because
1362
we can see no possible relevance in the immediate future but, more fundamentally, because we believe it could seriously threaten the comprehensive ideal.
For something over 10 years the comprehensive movement has gained ground and indeed the discussion has gone on throughout the country for much longer than 10 years. If the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, were in his place I would remind him that way back in the fifties we had a public debate in his constituency of Peterborough where those who attended agreed that we should go comprehensive; Peterborough went comprehensive last month, so it took over 20 years to do it there. For over 10 years throughout the country the comprehensive movement has been gaining ground, and as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said, the movement has the consensus of public opinion behind it. One evidence of this is that during the period 1970–74 the number of comprehensive schools continued to increase steadily despite a lack of encouragement from central Government. We are now seeking to complete the process of reorganisation as soon as is economically feasible, because, as I and other Ministers have explained on many occasions, for education to be truly comprehensive it must be fully comprehensive; co-existence with grammar schools is not a real option.
I am certain we would all agree that it should not be possible easily to disrupt the education system every time there is a change of Government. Any major educational change should usually involve legislation and must be preceded by consultation and debate, not only in the country but in Parliament. Amendment No. 16 would enable a future Secretary of State of a different political persuasion virtually to repeal the Bill without recourse to new legislation. There would be no necessity for consultation and little opportunity for Parliamentary debate; the order would indeed be subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure, but this cannot be compared with the procedure for the passing of an Act. Therefore, for all the reasons I have outlined, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the Amendment; if not I must ask the Committee to reject it.
Baroness BROOKE of YSTRADFELLTE: May I ask the noble Baroness

1363
if I was right in inferring from what she said that to economise in options pupils at one comprehensive school could mean taking them up in another comprehensive school?
Baroness STEDMAN: There is a tendency, at least in the area from which I come, for the comprehensive schools to have their different specialities, as it were, and for pupils to be able to transfer to do their sixth form work from one comprehensive school to another. We have to bear in mind that it is not possible in the present economic climate, and will not be indeed for many years possibly, to provide all the options and all the staff necessary in every school. There has to be some rationalisation of sixth form work and there has to be proper use of resources and teachers. This can be achieved easily by transfers between schools, provided always that the child entered the comprehensive school on a purely comprehensive basis and not to do this particular subject.
Lord HAWKE: May I—
Baroness BROOKE of YSTRADFELLTE: May I just finish this point. While accepting the possibility of that in an urban area, what happens to a child in a country area where the next comprehensive school is 25 or 30 miles away? Are we going to have a system of taxis between the schools so that children who want other options than those offered in their own area have to go some considerable distance in order to take them up?
Baroness STEDMAN: That would be something which the local education authority would have to look at so as to decide how they could arrange transport and get pupils who wanted to do specific courses to the right place. That is a matter for the education authorities and not for this Committee to be writing into the Bill.
Lord BELSTEAD: What the noble Baroness is saying is that she is laying duties on local authorities which are going to cost more money and for somebody with her immense experience of local government this is an extraordinary thing to be saying at the present time.
Lord PARRY: Is it any more extraordinary that the noble Baroness should be saying what is the truth, and is it not in line with what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has argued throughout his contributions to this debate, that the logic of the situation as his side of the House sees it is one of matching ability to resources? Therefore local authorities have to discharge the same obligation, if that is the logic of his argument?
Lord ELTON: I am sorry to leap into this, but I am confused. We have two schools, not adjacent but close—say 20 minutes walk away—and a child is by random selection placed in one whereas all the options he wants to have in the sixth form are in the other. Is he to register every morning at one school, walk for 20 minutes through the rain, then come back, get his lunch and go back again? I do not think this is a trivial point, although I can see that some noble Lords feel that it is. It is a real point. It seems to me it is an absurdity and it becomes more absurd and more obvious when it is a question of the journey being made by taxi at public expense rather than using shoe leather, and in the rain.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I think that we have been led astray by the noble Baroness who, having been defeated in her theory that all these Amendments should be taken together, nevertheless started to speak to them together. This Amendment is a very narrow one. The subjects we have been discussing for the past five minutes or so will come up under Amendment No. 15 and maybe some of the ones taken in the meantime, but the one I am discussing at the moment—Amendment No. 5, with Amendment No. 16—deals with the relatively narrow point of the possible hypothetical discovery in the future that there is another aptitide of the same order as music and dancing which will need special treatment and which, because it is of the same order, does not raise the kind of objections which might possibly be made to other aptitudes and abilities. I think that, even though it may be true that at the moment we have nothing in mind—and it must be borne in mind that one or two things will be argued about; particular subjects will be argued about and maybe there is growing knowledge about a particular subject—the fact

1365
that we have not got a particular subject is no reason not to adopt this Amendment. In fact, if we had such a subject at the moment the thing would be to include it in the Bill.
What I am saying is that we should include in this education Bill as in all education Bills as much flexibility as possible regarding what is discovered, what is found, and the facts so that we submit ourselves to the intellectual rigours. If it is discovered over a period of time and agreed over a wide spectrum that there is another ability or aptitude that comes into the same field as music and dancing, I put it to noble Lords, with their knowledge of legislation, that it is not likely that a special education Bill would be produced for it. We know how difficult it is to get time in Parliament to pass legislation which Governments consider to be much more important than they obviously would consider that legislation.
It seems to me that there is a real need for flexibility and for the Secretary of State to use regulations. I am afraid that I do not accept the argument of the noble Baroness that this would make a gaping wide loophole for immense changes to turn the clock back. It is, of course, impossible to tell what will happen in the future, but it is noticeable and notable that the Front Benches are agreed on the comprehensive principle, and we are talking about the introduction of flexibility. As I say, it would have to come before Parliament and, if there were a Secretary of State who wanted to turn the clock back completely and he or she had a majority in both Houses, he or she would probably do it anyway and would not need this particular method.
We should not shy away from the ability to make regulations, properly approved by Parliament, because of the misuse there might hypothetically be in a very difficult and very unlikely situation. I think that, whatever our views about the next 12 or 13 Amendments, this one, without giving away anything at all of the Government's case, introduces a necessary flexibility, and I think we should pass it.
6.5 p.m.
Lord BOWDEN: The noble Lord has suggested that there may be other abilities which need special treatment. In fact, there is one which is very well known, and
1366
it is mathematics. Sir William Bragg, a Cavendish professor whom I knew well, used to say that this country, like many others, produces on average one good mathematician per million of the population per annum, which is a very small number indeed. The total number to be accommodated in a special school would he for this country perhaps of the order of 200 or 300—perhaps as many as or even less than the dancers or musicians.
In Russia they are aware of this fact and I have visited the great school for mathematicians in Novosibirsk, which has been specially built so that students can be selected from the whole of Siberia—Moscow is dealt with separately in another school. These students are selected by competitive examination. They are given the opportunity to meet the best mathematicians in Russia and the standards they achieve are quite extraordinary. Russians to whom I have spoken say that precocity in mathematics can be determined very much earlier than precocity in music. A really good mathematician is obviously good by the age of seven. They select for a few things, such as mathematics and a few allied disciplines like chess playing—Capablana was clearly a phenomenon at the age of 5, but I am dealing with mathematics. It is a discipline of enormous importance to the economy of this country, much more to intellectual development. It is of enormous importance to industry because some of the best engineers have been good mathematicians. It has been clear that in Russia since they introduced this scheme they have been able to select extremely able boys, give them a very good general education, such as we hope to give our musicians and so on, and give them mathematics tuition of a type no ordinary child could understand and no mathematician could be found to give.
So at least one other discipline already stands out as being as necessary as either of the other two, and there might well be others. The Russians have gone to enormous lengths to try to discover in which disciplines genius is apparent early and in which it is important that special tuition be given. They have discovered that a violinist who has not handled a violin by the age of 10 or 11 can never be of the top rank, any more than a dancer can. The same is true of mathematicians, and it may well be that there

1367
are other disciplines as well. So I hope very much that the Government will be able to accept this Amendment which allows an opportunity for the Secretary of State, if this sort of thing is discovered, if other disciplines are discovered, to make the necessary provision in the educational system.
Baroness PHILLIPS: I am sorry to disagree with my colleague behind me. The prospect of people specialising in mathematics in Siberia does not arouse any great enthusiasm in me. I feel that the Russians are possibly not a very good example. We have seen the way that they have trained people in sport and—and this is their phrase—"burnt them out" by the age of 14. It seems a system which would not necessarily be one that we should want too closely to follow.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, whether he would not agree that we are already suffering from sections in the original Education Act 1944 which are so widely drawn that people can read almost anything into them. I believe that our legislation suffers because it is not specific enough, and I hope that the Government will not change the present clause.
6.11 p.m.
Lord SNOW: My noble friend Lord Bowden has made my speech for me and I do not want to add much to it. I made it clear on Second Reading that, in principle, I accepted the consensus about comprehensive education, though with reserves and certainly without the hopes which appear to be entertained for this particular system. It is there, and one must make the best of it. However, it is absolutely imperative that we should have a certain flexibility in the things by which a society ultimately lives or dies. Both practically and creatively, one must make provision for the really talented.
As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, said about mathematics, this is not a matter of controversy, for it is perfectly clear. It is perfectly clear to anyone who has ever done it or who has ever known mathematicians. One must not think that the pedagogues or pedagogy are a reliable source of information on high talent. High talent is judged by the highly talented. If you want to know how great mathematicians grow up and how they
1368
should be trained, you must speak to real star mathematicians. It is well known that Dirac, the only living Englishman who is absolutely the top master in the world but who is in other respects not specially articulate, was talking about mathematics at the age of three, and that is not uncommon. My dear friend G. H. Hardy was inventing the concept of infinite numbers at about the same age. It is very rare for a mathematician not to be detectable before he is five and usually much earlier. This was said on Second Reading, and it is interesting that Ministers and officials clearly do not read documents because this argument was very clearly set out by both the noble Lord, Lord James, and myself.
Baroness STEDMAN: I hesitate to interrupt my noble friend, but we shall be discussing the mathematical side on Amendment No. 14. I feel that it might be helpful to the Committee if we stuck to the two Amendments that are before us at the moment. We can concentrate upon the matter of mathematical genius when we come to Amendment No. 14.
Lord SNOW: I do not accept that. This is a fair case of the kind of exception which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, was talking about. Precisely the same happened in Russia. For something like 30 years, the pedagogues had it all their own way and produced exactly the same solution as our pedagogues want to do here. In fact, the high academics rebelled and insisted on exceptions. This is the clearest case, though there are others. My own view is that languages are probably a similar exception, but mathematics certainly are. Two Soviet academics, Kalmagorov in Moscow and Lavrientiev in Siberia deliberately set out and made their own schools, believing that if the State system could not provide them they had to do it themselves. They produced dazzling triumphs. There is no problem about divisiveness, and no problem even that these children are different from others. If you look at these boys, as I have done, they are most impressive.
In this country, we are quite good at this. We have done this kind of highly professional specialised education for 150 years or more. It is utterly absurd that music and dancing should be tolerable as

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exceptions while mathematics are not. It is a pathology of the mind to think this. However, I presume that if the Government are as obdurate about this as about everything else in the Bill, something will be done. I am sure that the noble Baroness knows that the Government have solemnly subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by which independent schools are regarded as a right if parents want them. Independent schools will continue and there will be a good deal of deliberate attempt to get obviously talented people into the places where they can make the best use of their talents. That is exactly what the Government do not want. It will be taking the highest talent from the Government's own schools and, by necessity, seeing them educated elsewhere. That will be the final, beautiful triumph of this particular course of action.
Baroness BACON: I am not in favour of the Amendment because it extends subsection (2)(b). I am in a minority, even on my own side of the Committee, in not being in agreement with the subsection, but I do not think it a very good idea for the children themselves to specialise in a special school at too early an age, even in music and dancing. Why do we do this? Is it for the sake of the children or for that of the arts?
I know a well-known pianist who was recognised as brilliant at a very early age. However, he did not go to a special school but attended an ordinary school and wanted to be a doctor. At the age of 17, and because he was successful in a competition, people suggested that he ought to become a concert pianist. He sat down and thought about it and he was able to decide between going to the university to become a doctor and going on with his piano playing to become, as he eventually did, a very famous concert pianist. That was his decision at the age of 17. At the age of seven or eight, and if some people had had their way, he would probably have been in a special school for those very gifted in music, and he would not have been able to make the choice he did at the age of 17. I feel that to put children into special schools at a very early age may be a good thing for the arts but is not necessarily a very good thing for the children concerned, as it takes away
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from them the ability to make the decision about their future which they might want to make at a later stage in life.
The Earl of ONSLOW: I should like to go on from these extra special subjects of music and dancing and come down from the sublime heights of mathematics to what might almost be called the "dancing arts" of gymnastics and athletics. We saw what happened at the last Olympic Games to the Russian and Romanian girls who did so well, though I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, about taking the—for want of a better word—"Tsarist" tyranny in Russia for our educational inspiration. These children were obviously sent to special schools and were developed in special circumstances. The Americans, too, give athletic scholarships. I am not suggesting that we should do this, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, that, if there is a general move and a general surge of opinion that such schools should be set up and if the means are available, it would seem to me to be unnecessary to go through an Act of Parliament, with all the time that that requires, to enable this sort of selection to take place.
6.20 p.m.
Lord VAIZEY: I find this a very difficult Amendment about which to make up my mind. On the whole, I incline very strongly to the line of argument put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon. I mentioned on Second Reading that I have been concerned in the inquiries into the education of specially gifted children in music and in dance.
There is a very deep division of experience and opinion in this field. First, the number involved is exceptionally small; the number of children who are highly gifted in music is very small. I do not mean those who play the piano or violin beautifully; I am talking about really gifted people. It is a very small number, perhaps one or two a year in a county education authority of average size. That is what causes difficulty—because they are special cases. The argument for having them in special schools is that the demands of their temperaments and practice are so overwhelming that their school curriculum has to be organised around the special needs of those children. On the other

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hand, I think that the consensus of the educational advisers in music throughout the country is by and large that these gifts should be dealt with by additional help in the ordinary schools, by county music schools on Saturday mornings and similar arrangements.
I have put that choice as clearly as I can and as briefly as I can, because time is going on, and I do not want to deal with the issue of mathematics because that will come up for discussion on an Amendment to be moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. But I must say that off-hand I cannot think of the special gifts to which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, was referring. I am not wholly convinced about music and dance. I think that the position taken up by the Government is a wise one, because schools exist in this field; they are doing a very good job and presumably one would wish to encourage them to continue to do a very good job.
On the general point, on the whole I am inclined to the line which has been taken by the noble Baroness. Therefore, I hope that on this issue, without having regard to the mathematics debate which we shall have later, the Amendment will not be pressed. With regard to what my noble friend Lord Snow said, there is a difficulty here. Quite frankly, this is a matter of incredible difficulty and I find it very hard to make up my mind. But on the whole the gifts about which my noble friend Lord Snow is speaking are extremely highly correlated with general intelligence, and the issue before the House on the Second Reading debate was whether or not there should be segregation of the highly gifted and those of general intelligence. Another place has taken a decison and we have to abide by the decision along that line. Although I strongly sympathise with the line of argument of my noble friend Lord Snow, I do not on the whole think that it is a sustainable one.
Lord SOMERS: I do not want to prolong the argument at this stage, but I should like to say a few words. I should like to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, that the instance she quoted must be unique in the world of music. I have never heard of anybody who has risen to any heights in the profession if he did not start until he was 17 years of age.
Baroness BACON: I think the noble Lord misunderstood me. I did not say that the person I referred to started at 17. He started playing the piano at a very early age. What I am saying is that he did not go into a special school, specifically for people who were gifted musically. I do not want to mention his name, but it is internationally known. He was able to take the decision at the age of 17. He was able to take a decision consciously as to what he would do. Had he gone into a special school at an early age he would not have been able to take that decision.
Lord SOMERS: I quite accept that. For instance, students do not go to the Royal College of Music until they are about 18, but generally they have made up their minds to go there long before that. As to string players, they must start not later than the age of eight.
But that is not what I want to say. What I want to point out is this. On an earlier Amendment we heard about the need of special children—either rather low in intelligence or rather high in intelligence. I want to emphasise the fact that it occurs at both ends of the scale. Naturally, one wants those who are rather low in intelligence to get the best education that they are capable of taking. But they may be particularly brilliant at some other subject. There are not a great number of them, but there are some, and I think they should be considered. If they happen to be brilliant at, say, electrical engineering, languages, or medical science, or something like that, they need really expert teaching. For that reason, I would support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: This matter takes me back a very long way. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. I accept completely the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Snow. But I think that it is just as easy to identify an extraordinary high level of general intelligence as it is to identify a future brilliant mathematician. A tragedy of this country is that we extended the provision for grammar schools from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., then to 20 per cent., then to 25 per cent. and then to 30 per cent. If my memory is

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right, I think in Wales we got to about 40 per cent. There is an interesting reflection here concerning Bradford where, when 15 per cent. of the children were going to grammar schools 14·6 per cent. got school certificates. The provision was extended to 33 per cent. and 14·8 per cent of the age group got certificates.
I floated a 10 per cent. scheme; I floated a 5 per cent. scheme and I tried a 2 per cent. scheme, all of which were rejected because I was concerned with establishing an intellectual élite, whatever that may be. Certainly there are times when that is manifestly not an attribute. It seems to me that we are facing a simple issue here and that is why I personally could not accept the Amendment. I believe that the Amendment really destroys the Bill. If a Secretary of State can make an amending order which says that one can select if it is for mathematics, and the next one says, "I am an historian, you can select for history", then the whole concept of the Bill is gone. This is a simple issue.
I very much prefer that we should recognise the simple issue here. Either the Bill should be thrown out lock, stock and barrel, which I would favour, and a serious and major Bill introduced which would face the needs of education in the next 30 years or, alternatively, we must find a way of making the principle that the Bill proposes operate very much better than it does in almost any other country that has operated it. Do not let us underrate the point that the selective process to which the noble Lord referred was the result of the failure of a comprehensive system to produce what the nation needed.
Therefore I would not accept the Amendment, but I hope that we will look at this question much more seriously and find a more major approach to solving the problems of the education system over the next 30 years—not by this Bill, but by a much more important measure.
6.29 p.m.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: What I intended to say was almost exactly the same as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has said, and it comes from a fairly long experience of teaching able people. In fact I had determined not to
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speak on this Amendment because I am so associated with able people that it is sometimes thought that they are the only ones I care about, which is absolutely untrue. I would not vote for the Amendment because if one does it puts the whole question of the education of the very gifted on much too temporary and arbitrary a basis; and that will not do at all.
One has to consider the problem of the very gifted, and to some extent the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, is right in saying that this matter is associated with general intelligence. One has to consider the problems of the very gifted as a separate problem, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has been right for many years in trying to cut down the percentage we included in that definition; that would have saved us a great deal of trouble.
All I am saying at this moment in the debate is this—and this Amendment gives one a chance to say it. If you are going to keep this wretched Bill, can you introduce an element of flexibility which will enable you to pay special attention to the general group of very gifted, whether they are very gifted in dancing, music or history—and it is possible to be that; after all, Lord Macaulay was pretty bright as a child. Can we introduce enough flexibility for the general idea of very high ability and produce an educational system which will in fact deal with the oddity, whether they are the handicapped or the very bright, on which so much of our future depends?
I am urging it here, and making what the noble Lord will say is a Second Reading speech, in a particular context. There are those of us who have great misgivings about the comprehensive idea as such—and it is not restricted to only a few dyed-in-the-wool old reactionaries like me; it is very general throughout the country—but a number of our misgivings centre on this specific point: can the country afford to disregard high ability, particularly when it is associated with low social class and disadvantage, which will not have the chance to flourish and develop? Can it afford it? Of course, the answer is, "No". If you could say that with a general comprehensive system you would nevertheless find loopholes, as you do for the handicapped and as you do for

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dancers, for music or something, if you can say that this is an oddity and that in a democratic society we must give a chance to oddities as well as to most people, then I believe that your general comprehensive idea would get a much warmer welcome over a much wider area than is going to happen now.
Lord PARRY: Is it not a fact that it is also part of the situation that there is within the Act at present in operation, which the Bill seeks to amend, precisely this area of operation; that there is a recognition of the problem that educationalists—not simply those who have spoken in this debate, but educationalists who are working in the field in education at this present moment—are aware of the needs to study the problems of the particular education of the very bright; that there is a funded research study going on at this moment; and that attempts are being made to establish where the bright children are and how best they can be afforded, within the existing structure, opportunities to develop their especial talents? May I at the same time say that many of us are very concerned that there are also great gaps for the very special abilities of ordinary children within the system, too. The trouble with an anecdotal debate on what is in fact a specifically procedural attempt to amend a Bill is that we find ourselves opening up areas of massive interest to which each of us would like to contribute but in fact holding up the general progress towards what we wish to achieve.
Lord BELSTEAD: What the noble Lord, Lord Parry, says is absolutely true, and perhaps I could bring your Lordships back to the Amendment, because within the group is an Amendment in the names of my noble friends and myself, Amendment No. 15. I think the difficulty which we find ourselves in, arising from what the noble Lord has just said, is that I should have thought that anyone's reading of this Bill would be that particular abilities or aptitudes cannot be taken into account in admitting a pupil to a school. I have considerable difficulty with what the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, said about segregating children in schools, although I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Snow; but, of course, the wording of the Bill, as I understand it, will also
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prohibit a local education authority from being allowed to admit a child to an ordinary comprehensive school where there is a particularly good course in the school and everyone knows that the child is therefore being admitted on grounds of ability and aptitude.
All I should like to say is that I think, on grounds of both national need and local government partnership, there is a very great deal to be said for the case which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has made. Things are not as perhaps everybody would want in the schools. We know that only a fortnight ago Professor Steiner, of Geneva University, was reported in the newspapers as criticising us for our language teaching; we know that earlier this year Mr. Douglas Quadling, the chairman of the Schools Council, was voicing considerable reservations about mathematics teaching; and my noble friend Lord Eccles, in the debate on universities, was reminding the House that the University Grants Committee, in its recent report, had criticised the standards of some applicants for universities.
I must say that, while I think we in this country sometimes take criticism a very great deal too much to heart, can we be absolutely satisfied with the state of affairs at the moment? And what are the Government doing about these things? The reason why I ventured to interrupt the noble Baroness earlier on in the debate on this Amendment was that my apprehension is that, instead of concentrating on trying to improve education in particular schools and for certain subjects, the effect of this Bill is going to be to force a local education authority to spread its resources at a time when it can ill afford to do so.
I think I owe it to the Committee to give an indication of what I feel perhaps my colleagues on this Bench would do about this particular Amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. I am anxious to see whether the Government have any inclination whatsoever to designate any abilities or aptitudes as exceptions to this Bill; and I am bound to say that the replies which we have received from the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, so far, and from the noble Baroness on this Amendment, indicate that there are going to be

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no exceptions whatsoever made. This is my apprehension. I do not think, speaking for myself, that the general principle of a Bill can very readily he modified by regulations. Therefore, I am rather suspicious of the wording of this Amendment. A general principle, surely, can be put into effect only by way of a power or a duty to which the principle can he applied; and, clearly, the intention of the Government is to make the comprehensive principle of Clause 1 mandatory by way of the duties of Clauses 2, 3 and 4, with no room for exceptions.
I am bound to say, therefore, that I feel that we ought to try to go about this Bill with the intention of allowing local authorities some freedom of discretion. After all, the idea of partnership in education is well established, and was confirmed by the last Local Government Act. We, therefore, on our previous Amendment, No. 3, have tried to open up the way for the Government, if they do not like the Amendment which we have passed on the wording "wholly or partly", at least to bring back at the next stage of the Bill some alternative words to make better sense of a part of the Bill which has received criticism from all sides; and I am hoping very much that we may be able to persuade the Government to shift their position slightly, at least, on Clauses 2, 3 and 4, to which we shall come. We shall not be moving our Amendment No. 15; but my disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, is on method rather than objective, and it is for those reasons that I think, although I agree with everything that he said in moving his Amendment, it would be a pity if he pressed it to a Division at the present time.
Baroness STEDMAN: We have ranged rather wider than the two Amendments which were originally before us, and perhaps we may have some benefit from that, in time, at any rate, as the evening proceeds. But I really cannot give way on either of these Amendments. There was a long discussion in another place about this matter. They gave a lot of consideration to all sorts of special Amendments, all sorts of special exceptions. We really do not think, at this stage, that we have any grounds for making arrangements for any other exceptions to be added, and certainly not to be added by the draft of an order being laid before
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Parliament. Therefore, I regret I must ask the Committee to reject both Amendments.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: The gyrations of the Conservative Front Bench amaze me. Having, in introducing their Amendment No. 3, said that they had no wish to produce a wrecking Amendment, they then pressed an Amendment which was irrefutably shown to be wrecking by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and which they did not deny was in effect wrecking.
Lord ELTON: Indeed we did deny it.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I am sorry if I misunderstood. Ineffectively, certainly; and I understand that the object of the exercise is to ask the Government to bring back something different at a later stage. I happen to think it is most unfortunate that we have to go through the rest of this stage with a Bill which in fact has been wrecked at this stage.
I produce an Amendment which will in fact allow variations and developments of exactly the same kind of flexibility that the Conservative Party would like to see. I agree it is different from their Amendments, and I shall be interested to see what happens to some of the others. We are, of course, all open to argument on a number of them. I am very sad in fact that the Conservative Front Bench do not think that they will move Amendment No. 15. Although it is true that we have already debated a great deal of the ground and may probably debate it again later, it seems to me that we ought to consider putting this into the Bill and, if necessary, if or when the Government come back with new wording of the part amended by Amendment No. 3 at a later stage of the Bill, we can then sort out what we have got. I would certainly urge my noble friends to support Amendment No. 15, if the Conservative Front Bench move it, as I hope they will.
Meanwhile, I think that a case has been made out by a number of speakers from different parts of the Committee for allowing flexibility in the future as research and knowledge concerning various subjects develop either fairly soon or if not, in the admittedly hypothetical future. I cannot see that this Amendment can possibly do any harm whatever, unless

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you accept the argument that it allows a future Secretary of State to behave in a totally unbelievable way and allows Parliament to behave likewise. It seems to me that it could do a great deal of good in the future and at the same time it would introduce into the Bill a great deal
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
6.51 pm.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert (";or the visual arts").
The noble Lord said: When this Amendment was tabled, it was not possible to foresee the breadth and range of the discussion which we have just concluded, and I must say that it is impossible not to take a little pleasure in the result, even if one did not participate too actively
of flexibility. I am afraid I must ask the Committee to divide.
6.44 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 56; Not-Contents, 54.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Gisborough, L.

Margadale, L.

Alport, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Monck, V.

Amherst, E.

Gough, V.

Monson, L.

Amulree, L. [Teller.]

Gray, L.

Moyne, L.

Arran, L.

Grey, L.

Norfolk, D.

Avebury, L.

Gridley, L.

Norwich, V.

Banks, L.

Hampton, L. [Teller.]

Onslow, E.

Barrington, V.

Henley, L.

Pender, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hives, L.

Platt, L.

Byers, L.

Inglewood, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Cottesloe, L.

Ironside, L.

Savile, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Kemsley, V.

Seear, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Selkirk, E.

Dundonald, E.

Lloyd, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Tranmire, L.

Faithfull, B.

Luke, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Falmouth, V.

Lyell, L.

Wardington, L.

Ferrers, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Wigoder, L.

Gainford, L.

Mancroft, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Greenway, L.

Pannell, L.

Ampthill, L.

Hale, L.

Parry, L.

Bacon, B.

Henderson, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Birk, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Phillips, B.

Blyton, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Popplewell, L.

Brimelow, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Brown, L.

Leatherland, L.

Stedman, B.

Champion, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Darwen, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Stone, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maelor, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Melchett, L.

Vaizey, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Wall, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Wigg, L.

Garner, L.

Northfield, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Oram, L. [Teller.]

Winterbottom, L.

once oneself. At that time, I was anxious to find an opportunity to explore those areas in which a special aptitude or ability might require special treatment, because of the special kind of facility and resource which it was necessary to have in order to teach it well.
The visual arts seem to me to be, first, sufficiently akin to music and dancing and, secondly, sufficiently different from some of the more brutish and physical activities which go on in the name of education in some of our schools—I am being flippant—to merit a special inspection. Also, of course, it is true that not only

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are the teaching skills required in the visual arts different, and in some cases more akin to craft than art, but, in addition, the physical resources required are different, too. We are all familiar with the need for good studios with a satisfactory North light for the practising of painting. These are not available in every school—if I am not perhaps running against a certain philistine current that I detect opposite—and they are expensive to provide, both in money and in space. Then, again, you need a location where it is possible for students at the A-level stage to have access to adequate resources in the form of galleries and museums. These are not evenly distributed about the country or even about individual cities or areas.
Thirdly, the teaching staff itself has to be of a particular kind, very often remarkably different from those of the more academic and more practical streams. I think your Lordships will often have managed, quite without effort, to identify the art master and his assistants in any large school without being told who they were. Therefore, I feel that where there is a pretty thin spread of artistic ability among children, and a pretty thin spread of artistic teaching ability among our teachers, it makes sense, when in order to exploit them to the full you need expensive equipment, to bring them together in one place, at least in the A-level phase.
We come back to this question of whether or not it is proper to select students on ability or aptitude into a sixth form college. I know that we touched on this earlier. In a sense, what I am saying now reinforces the case that I advanced on an earlier Amendment to insert the words "of compulsory school age", but it reverts to this question of whether a child or a young person should be free to take a place at a sixth form college specialising in art, or whether the noble Lord feels that such courses should be presented only in colleges of further education or polytechnics. I think I have said enough to draw the noble Lord's views on this narrower area, which I do not feel it would be practicable to press too far. But I know that his sympathy is here engaged as it is not elsewhere in the Bill, and I look forward to the enlightenment that he will give us. I beg to move.
Lord VAIZEY: I think that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is arguing from first principles and not from evidence in this case. I think I am correct in saying that in the visual arts there is no serious school, in the primary or secondary sense, which exists for the training of people who will do the visual arts, nor can I think of any rational reason why there should be. Indeed, there is every case for saying that the expression of this kind of gift, which to a greater or lesser extent everybody possesses, should be developed in all the ordinary schools of the country; and, furthermore, that there is ample evidence, which is available to anybody who cares to go around any of our secondary schools, that there is extremely adequate provision for this kind of activity.
We are at the moment going through a great renaissance of the creative visual arts in this country, and I do not think a single person who is taking part in it has come from a special school. They actually require to go to special colleges. The art colleges, which have been much under attack in recent years, have been great forcing houses of talent, which is now so amply seen on the walls of our galleries, in the statues and in the various activities that are going on in the visual arts. So there is no serious problem there.
On the other point which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made, which is the A-level appreciation of arts, I think he is on even thinner ground. The case for specialising in, and the study of, fine arts is the case for the undergraduate or even the postgraduate level—certainly not at school. There is, of course, an A-level in the appreciation of the arts—and so there ought to be—but it is very much a specialist thing in a general curriculum. The appreciation of the visual arts could never be the main meat of a whole school. Indeed, it would be a very eccentric person who wished his child to follow such a course, since the appreciation of visual arts in that sense must depend upon a wide knowledge of history, modern languages and indeed of the other arts.
Therefore, if I may say so with great respect, I think that the noble Lord and his colleagues have been grabbing ideas from the air about a special gift which might be developed and the visual arts

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gift is different in kind from the special case of the music practitioner, where the gift requires many hours of practice in very special circumstances, and the gift of dance, though as I said on Second Reading I do have doubts about dance. Therefore, I would very strongly recommend the Minister to ask the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to withdraw this Amendment which would bring down ridicule upon your Lordships' House.
Lord ELTON: I think it would be proper for me to make two points clear. First, this Amendment was a vehicle not for establishing glittering new schools which concentrated almost exclusively upon the teaching of the arts and their appreciation, but for facilitating the funnelling of children who have a bent in that direction towards a school with a particular specialism in this area. Secondly, I hope I made it clear that it was a probing Amendment. I think that the fears of the noble Lord are groundless.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I accept that this is a probing Amendment, and I believe that it is probing a little because I have certain responsibilities of this kind about which I have to answer in your Lordships' House. It seems to me to be a fair enough approach, so I bear no ill will for that reason.
My noble friend Lord Vaizey has said all that I wanted to say. No specialist schools of this kind exist in the country for children up to the age of 16. Therefore it is quite different from either music or ballet, for which establishments exist and flourish. Secondly, as my noble friend has said, if you go around the schools—and increasingly I find myself doing this—what is provided is, as a rule, extremely good. I have not been around nearly so many of these schools as has the noble Lord, but I have not seen a single bad art department. The matter is being very well looked after. If you go to museums, which are my specific responsibility, you will find that schoolchildren are flocking there. The efforts of the museum staff to teach them and to teach the teachers are most encouraging.
I do not think that I need to say any more because I do not believe that the
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noble Lord is going to press his Amendment. Indeed, I think that the noble Lord would be unwise to do so. I believe also that the Committee in general feels that what is being done at the moment is sufficiently good to leave it as it is.
Lord ELTON: Although the noble Lord has reverted to specialist schools and has ignored the schools of those who are approaching the end of their compulsory education, I have at least given him an opportunity to ventilate his feelings regarding those areas which he felt needed to be ventilated. I believe that at seven o'clock we had it in mind to refresh the inner man, and unless any noble Lord wishes to prevent me from doing so in order that he may speak, I shall beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: I beg to move that this House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

PARLIAMENTARY AND OTHER PENSIONS AND SALARIES BILL
7.3 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The main purpose of the Bill is to give effect to the decision taken in another place on 22nd July last year that the pensions of Members of Parliament should be based on the full salary rate of £8,000 a year recommended by the Top Salaries Review Body.
In view of the serious economic situation it was decided that actual pay should only be increased to £5,750 a year but in order to avoid a permanent pension penalty for those who retired while this restriction on pay was in force it was resolved that the full recommended rate of £8,000 a year should be regarded as the proper salary rate for the job and the one to be used for pension purposes. The salary actually paid to Members of Parliament has since been increased by £312 a year which was the maximum

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permissible under the 1975–76 pay guidelines. The decision to use the full rate of £8,000 a year for pension purposes has required amendments to the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972, since the Act only permits pension to be based on salary actually paid.
Clause 1 of this Bill amends Section 3 of the 1972 Act so that pensionable salary may be higher than the salary in payment where the House of Commons makes a Resolution prescribing a higher rate for pension purposes. The clause is retrospective to 13th June 1975 when the salary of £5,750 came into payment. Clauses 2 and 5 similarly make provision for the pensions of Ministers and other office holders to be based on a salary higher than that actually in payment.
It is the normal superannuation practice to amend the rules of a pension scheme to cover all participants at the same time, and there is no good reason for leaving the provisions for Ministers and other office holders in a different form. I must emphasise that these clauses have no practical significance at present. They do no more than equip the pension scheme to deal with such a situation should it arise in the future, and they in no way prejudge future decisions which the Government may take on the recommendations for Ministerial salaries contained in the latest report of the Top Salaries Review Body. Moreover, they can only be activated if an Order in Council specifies higher rates of pensionable salary and the terms of the order will require prior approval by way of Parliamentary Resolution.
Clause 3 adds the office of Deputy Chairman of Committees in your Lordships' House to the list of those who may opt to participate in the special arrangements for officeholders. Provision is made for retrospection to 2nd May 1974 when the first paid incumbent took up office. Clause 4 remedies some minor technical defects in the provisions of the 1972 Act. Clause 6 provides for the salaries of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and the Comptroller and Auditor-General to be determined by a direct linkage with the Civil Service grade of Permanent Secretary.
This legislation was foreshadowed by my honourable friend the Minister of State to the Civil Service Department
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when he moved a Resolution in March last year in another place to increase these salaries in line with the increase for Permanent Secretaries implemented from 1st January 1975. The clause formalises a linkage which has long existed in the past and does no more than change the machinery for passing on the pay increases of Permanent Secretaries. There is also provision for the linkage to be changed by Resolution. The clause also provides for the full promulgated salary to be treated as the pensionable salary where payment of part of that salary is withheld in the national interest. This provision has been made retrospective to 1st January 1975 to cover the position of those who have retired since that date.
Clause 7 makes similar provisions for Health Service Commissioners. As your Lordships will be aware, there are at present no separate Health Service Commissioners, the duties being performed by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration; but against the possibility of separate appointments being made in the future the clause provides for an appropriate pay linkage to a Civil Service grade to be determined by Resolution. Few of the provisions contained in this Bill will directly affect your Lordships but they are essential to the wellbeing of those who serve in another place.
Before I finish, I should just add one point of detail. As your Lordships will be aware, this Bill, which came to us from the other place on 27th July, has been certified by Mr. Speaker to be a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911. The Bill should have been passed by this House in accordance with Section 1 of that Act, within one month of that date, but the House rose for the Summer Recess two days later.
A similar situation has arisen at least twice before: once in 1934 when the Land Settlement (Scotland) Bill was, by an oversight, passed one month and five days after it came to this House, and again in 1972 when the National Theatre and London Museum Bill came to this House one week before the Christmas Recess. On both occasions the other place passed a Resolution under Section 1(1) of the Parliament Act directing that this provision should not apply to the Bill. It is intended, if this Bill is given

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a Second Reading today and is subsequently passed, to follow what was done in 1934 and 1972. I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Peart.)
7.9 p.m.
Lord SAN DYS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Peart, for introducing this Bill and explaining in detail its provisions. Very largely it affects another place, although naturally it affects certain Members of your Lordships' House.
One comment that I should like to bring to the attention of the noble Lord has been made by us in the past; namely, that for the convenience of administration and also to avoid misunderstanding outside in its interpretation—very largely its interpretation in view of the problems concerned with taxation—it would be as well if the Bill included the net figures after deduction of income tax at the standard rate alongside the gross figures of increment.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I have noted that point, but this was the form in which we received it. I will certainly look at the matter, but I hope that we can proceed now.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, there is nothing we can do about this Bill, even if we wanted to—and I gather that we do not want to—because it is a Money Bill. The gesture which was made in not having the increase that was virtually sanctioned and advised was a gesture to face up to what is clearly a national emergency of some magnitude. It was a gesture that I think was properly made and it was a good thing to do it. In a way I am sorry that the gesture is being somewhat downgraded by preserving the increase in pensions. For what was involved in it I should have thought we could have left the legislation as it was; namely, so that the pension would be based on the full increase only when they get it, as eventually they will.
While there is nothing we can do—and even if we could I would not urge that we should—I think it is a pity that this
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gesture, which was at quite a high level, is mitigated by trying to give them the pension values just as though they had received the extra salary. I do not think it is in keeping with the spirit behind it. Heavens knows! I hope we shall not have national crises of a sort to make this necessary in the future, but if we are going to make a gesture, let it be a full gesture, not giving with one hand and taking three-quarters back with the other.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) BILL
7.11 p.m.
Lord TAYLOR of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Taylor of Mansfield.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

STOCK EXCHANGE (COMPLETION OF BARGAINS) BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until a quarter to eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.13 p.m. till 7.45 p.m.]

EDUCATION BILL
House again in Committee.
[The EARL CATHCART in the Chair.]
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("; or
(9) the provision of education in any school not being a school complying with the provisions of subsection (1) of this section which is one of a group of schools which together jointly comply with those provisions").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is intended to bring out into the open for closer scrutiny the position of the Government on the question of the allocation of children within a tightly co-ordinated group of schools. I gave notice of my intention to do this on the Second Reading debate. I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I recapitulate briefly the arguments I then advanced. I may add that they have since been reinforced by the economic recession.
It quite often happens that there are two schools, or perhaps a number of existing schools, on sites not close enough to be fully integrated but not too far apart to share some common identity. It also quite frequently happens that they are in relatively small buildings. Under the Bill, a local education authority faced with such a situation, has three choices: one is to lump them willy-nilly together as one school, and have staff, pupils, or probably both, trotting incessantly from one to the other which, in a summer term such as we have just enjoyed is pleasant enough, but is rather unpleasant in the sort of weather we have experienced in the last week or so. We, and I think the teaching profession as a whole, regard split sites as something of an abomination. The second is to divest themselves of all but one of the sites and add to that at a cost which, in view of our economic circumstances at the moment, and of the plant they would have to sell on a falling market to make way for it, would be unacceptable.
The third alternative is to scatter their teaching resources at random between schools, and scatter children equally at random between the schools on lines already deplored this evening. When the buildings are so close together, there is something to be said for treating them as one school for the purposes of the Act. How you define the distance apart that they can legitimately be is probably beyond me, but there is a point at which there is a temptation to treat a couple or more schools as one split
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site. That is administratively bad, academically bad, and probably bad on grounds of health as well.
This could be met by recognising that the closely contingent schools could have the same uniform, and might have the same headmaster. There would then be a deputy head for each set of buildings. So whereas for the purposes of the Bill they were one school, for the purposes of allocation of pupils to resources (which is what we are principally talking about tonight), they would be a number of schools. It is my hope—although I hold it without a great deal of confidence that it will be justified—that the noble Baroness will accept that this would not be selection in the sense of a process which would attract the odium and social stigma which she assures us, and which in part we agree, attaches to selection procedures at present existing. In other words, we wonder whether there is an area of compromise where buildings would lend themselves to a combination of good academic practice based upon the fitting of children into resources without breaching the principle of the Bill in such a way as to render it offensive to her. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: This Amendment appears innocent and, from the charming and courteous way in which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, moved it, somewhat attractive. But I must resist it because it would open in the Bill a loophole of indefinable dimensions. Many comprehensive schools are formed from an amalgamation of, say, a grammar school and a secondary modern school. In some cases, such an amalgamation would create a large school on a split site, which may, in some cases but not all, be undesirable.
I would remind your Lordships of the Creighton school described in Hunter Davies's book, to which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, referred on Second Reading. It is a large split site school, the product of an amalgamation, and yet both successful and exciting in the way in which it is operated. But to avoid the split site problem, some authorities choose to keep two or more schools organisationally separate but to run them, as it were, in tandem. This is happening in London and in Birmingham, and in a rather different way in Kenilworth

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and Banbury and in other places. The effect of this Amendment would be to enable authorities, in such an arrangement, to continue to select the most able pupils for the grammar school part of the group and send the less able pupils to the secondary modern part. That may sound entirely reasonable, but it must he, to a greater or lesser extent, a continuation of selection, with all its inherent evils. I say "to a greater or lesser extent" because it depends on the interpretation of that word "group" in the Amendment. That word is not defined, and we do not believe it can be defined in law. Does it mean a tightly knit "federation", as at Kenilworth? Even there—however closely the schools function as a single unit—there is an apparent separation between sheep and goats, with the able children registered at and associated with one institution, the less able at another. Or does it mean a looser "consortium" as in Birmingham, or even looser "cooperative arrangement" as in Inner London? In that case—apart from a little sharing of facilities between schools—selection and segregation would be all but absolute.
I do appreciate the point made by the noble Lord opposite, that, when resources are short, each school should concentrate on what it is equipped to do. I hope it is by now clear to your Lordships that the Secretary of State would not require an end to selection in cases where resources were as yet genuinely not available; the solution propounded by noble Lords opposite would be acceptable as a halfway house, but it would not be acceptable as an ultimate solution, and in such circumstances my right honourable friend must have the power to call for further progress when he deems the time is ripe. In many cases a fully acceptable solution can be found, without selection, on a federation or consortium basis. For most schools are equipped to cover most aspects of the curriculum; and, if sharing of facilities is required to meet certain needs, it should be arranged on a basis of nonselective intake into the schools. Selection within a school—streaming, or setting, within one institution, one shared community of learning—may be necessary and desirable; selection between schools, even schools in some way grouped together, is not. Therefore, I hope the
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noble Lord might consider withdrawing his Amendment.
Lord ELTON: The noble Baroness said one thing which I think should be remembered, that, when resources are short, each school should concentrate on the job which it is equipped to do. What else have I been saying, ad nauseam perhaps, this evening. We seem to be on ground that I think it is fruitful to examine a little longer, because there is a point at which a school on a split site is effectively two schools, a group of schools. There is an area in which we are both looking at the same process through a different pair of spectacles.
The noble Baroness is aware of the shortage of resources and she has quite clearly said that this should be recognised, at least during an interim period; in fact she said there might be a case for doing this for a while, as indeed the Bill already provides for banding to be pursued for a while, though I note that it has to be already in operation before it can be admitted in the Bill. That is something we will return to. If there is room for a transitional arrangement, and if the noble Baroness in the cold light of morning recognises that transition is a slow process—was it not she who said it had taken 20 years to introduce the comprehensive principle with agreement in one area?—by the nature of things and with the best will there is going to be a long period in which many generations of school children will go through the schools which we are now examining. So a transitional arrangement might not be any bad thing.
What the Amendment seeks to do, and what I think the noble Baroness suggests split sites can do if properly administered, is to avoid a transitional process where, in answer to a requirement of central Government that a particular principle should be observed, children trudge through the rain and sleet, and so do staff, time is wasted, tempers are lost, books are lost, children are lost. It is a very considerable contribution to the truancy factor, as we know from the recent researches in the inner London area. Split sites are not a good thing unless the children are effectively (I regret to use the word) selected into the part of the site which caters best for them. There may be transfers between

1393
them for shared facilities; they may go across once or twice a week, but what is a bad spectacle is to see zebra crossings continually occupied by children going from one class to another throughout the day.
It was the intention of this Amendment to get the noble Baroness to see whether there was not some means whereby this process, which cannot be profitable to anybody, could be avoided, and one way would he to treat each of these schools as a sub-school with a deputy head teacher, and a head teacher for the whole campus. There is no definition of "group of schools" in the Amendment; I accept that. The object is to make Her Majesty's Government think. After all, we are taking this Bill after the Commons, and we want them to give it thought before it returns to them, and we are up against the Report stage when we abandon this particular Amendment.
I wonder whether the noble Baroness could at least give us the solace of thinking that a little more precise thought will be given to this area, because I feel that even if the result is not an Amendment to the Bill it might possibly be a circular or some sort of helpful direction to the local authorities who are going to have to implement the Bill as it now stands. I think it does want much more thought than it has been given.
Baroness STEDMAN: I accept what the noble Lord has said, and I can see the point of it for an interim period but not necessarily for the ultimate objective. I take his point that some guidance might be given, and I will ask my officials and my right honourable friend to have a look at it before Report stage to see whether it is something that we feel we can pursue. I will get in touch with the noble Lord before Report stage.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness. If she could discover some device whereby whatever results from this gestation could be put into the Official Proceedings—in other words, if we could put something down, by collusion perhaps, even to be withdrawn subsequently—I should be most grateful, because I think this issue requires a little more airing than otherwise it would get. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.59 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("; or
( ) the provision of education in choir schools").
The noble Lord said: Perhaps I might repeat two passages from speeches made by the former Minister of State, Mr. Fowler, in Committee in another place. The first is in columns 414 and 415 of the Official Report of the House of Commons on 11th March 1976:
"With regard to local education authorities taking up places at independent choir schools, Clause 5 bites there. In general it is reasonable to assume that a Secretary of State would be prepared to approve arrangements whereby those places were taken up wholly or mainly on the basis of singing ability."
At column 420 the honourable gentleman said:
"There is a small amount of provision, which happens to be almost entirely in the independent sector, to meet the needs of the most promising future musicians and dancers. We accept that exceptional ability or aptitude in these vocational arts can be recognised at a very early age and may need a highly specialised curriculum and training."
I do not want to ask for an undertaking which the noble Baroness is either not prepared or not ready to give, but I am surprised that the honourable gentleman in another place used the expression "reasonable to assume". Mr. Fowler and his colleague on the Front Bench in another place in Committee had gone to considerable lengths to make it clear that choir schools would be included in the exception of music to Clause 1. If choir schools are an exception to Clause 1 then I should have thought that presumably places would be taken up in those schools. It is not that it would be reasonable to assume, but that it would be the fact that places would be taken up if local education authorities wished. I wonder, therefore, whether I might ask the noble Baroness this: Are choir schools an exception to Clause 1 of this Bill, or are they not?
8.1. p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: Clause 1(1) of this Bill requires local authorities to have regard to the general principle that secondary education is to be provided only in comprehensive schools, but Clause 1(2)(b) excepts from this provision schools where admission is based on
"selection wholly or mainly by reference to ability or aptitude for music or dancing."

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We have repeatedly said here and in another place that there can surely be no argument about it—that "music" includes singing. Selection wholly or mainly by reference to choral ability is therefore permissible under this legislation. There are no maintained schools which admit pupils mainly by reference to singing ability (although one or two have a minority of pupils selected on this basis) and, as far as we know, no authorities are planning to establish any such schools. But if an authority wished to establish a school of this kind, it would not be prevented from doing so by this legislation.
A number of independent schools, and direct grant schools which have not opted to enter the maintained system, admit a significant number of pupils by reference to their singing ability; these schools, which often have close cathedral associations, are the schools commonly termed "choir schools". Let me here make the point that while we may know what we mean by the term "choir school", it has no legal definition and therefore this Amendment must be resisted as it stands on this ground. If it were accepted, any selective school might then develop its musical side, call itself a choir school, and continue to admit its pupils on the basis of their academic, rather than choral, ability. However, I will restrict my remarks to the principle behind the Amendment.
Over the past few months, the Press have contained references to the supposed threat which this legislation poses for choir schools, but Ministers have repeatedly made it clear that this so called "threat" is totally unfounded. Selection by musical ability, and hence choral ability, is not outlawed by this Bill. It will be open to local authorities to propose to support the education of pupils at non-maintained choir schools provided that their criteria for doing so are not based on general academic ability or aptitude, but wholly or mainly on their musical ability. The Secretary of State would undoubtedly look favourably on such arrangements in exercising her powers under Clause 5. I would therefore ask noble Lords not to press this Amendment, first because its effect appears to be far too wide and indeterminate, and second, because in so far as it seeks to incorporate into the Bill a safeguard for choral education, that
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safeguard is totally unnecessary. It is covered by the Bill as it stands at the moment.
Lord SOMERS: I should like to take this opportunity of saying how grateful I am to the Government, and particularly to the noble Baroness, for having made that statement, because choir schools are absolutely invaluable as a musical start to a career. Would she think it possible to add the words, "including choir schools" after "music or dancing" so as to make it absolutely clear, and without a shadow of doubt, because many choir schools have been disappearing over the past few years and we should like to see it made quite certain that no more do so?
Lord BELSTEAD: I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness for the trouble she has taken in giving me the reply to this particular Amendment. It would not be honest of me if I did not admit that I have certain apprehensions that possibly the provisions of this Bill touch upon the admission to choir schools in the sense that admissions are on both choral ability and also at any rate a minimum ability level. But I believe that the Secretary of State intends, in the light of what was said in another place and what the noble Baroness has said this evening, to do nothing to jeopardise the entry of youngsters into schools which we call generally "choir schools". I think that should prefer to leave that Amendment in that way this evening.
Baroness STEDMAN: May I say in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Somers, that because it is impossible at the moment to define what a choir school is—we know it, but there is no legal definition for it—it is not possible to add it to the Bill, and I am quite sure it is quite unnecessary because choir schools, choral schools, are covered by the general term "music".
Lord BELSTEAD: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.6 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("; or
( ) the provision of boarding education").
The noble Lord said: We now come to the very important question of boarding

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education. I think at the outset it should be established that we are all aware on both sides of the Committee that there is continuing boarding need. We continue to have soldiers, sailors, and airmen who serve abroad, whose families are best educated at home, and they have to be educated with a boarding education. We have civil servants in a similar plight. We have businessmen, at a time when we are desperate to expand our exports, who have to serve for long periods abroad, who cannot take their children with them because their postings are peripatetic, and they must have the security and stability of continuing their education in one place. I do not think that there is any doubt about that.
At Second Reading on 29th July I brought to your Lordships' attention the fact that the recent and lamentable termination of the direct grant list by the Government had, entirely predictably, seen the results of the departure of a number of direct grant schools from the maintained system. Whether that was the intention or not of noble Lords opposite, the net result was that they took with them 7,156 boarding places. During that debate I mentioned that the fees that were then paid for those places amounted to £10 million, and doubtless amount to more now. I asked the noble Lord to tell the House in his reply to the debate how Her Majesty's Government intended to make good the loss of these places and the money. His answer in column 1595 was that it would not be necessary to make good the loss, at least for some considerable time, since it would take a number of years to complete the process of reorganisation, and, like Mr. Micawber, he need not make provision at this date, and indeed it might be necessary to continue finding places outside the maintained system for a while beyond that point.
But the noble Lord pointed out in column 1595 that the former Secretary of State had given an assurance in another place. He said:
"My right honourable friend the Secretary of State gave an assurance in another place when moving the Second Reading of the Bill that where a local authority can satisfy him that it cannot provide education of a type suitable for the age, ability and aptitude of some pupils without taking up places outside the maintained system, he will of course give approval for such arrangements.
"He added that he expected this to occur where there was a short term lack of maintained
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school provision or—and here I quote—' special needs such as boarding or denominational provision.' "
Under what powers will he satisfy the provisions of this Bill? Presumably under Section 9 of the 1944 Act and Section 6 of the 1953 Act, which give leave to pay for education of children who cannot be accommodated in the maintained sector outside it. But of course this takes place almost universally in schools to which the selection is wholly or partly, and usually the former, related to the aptitude and ability of the pupils, which is precisely the sort of school for which the Bill prevents the Minister from authorising local authorities to take up places. This, then, debars the local authorities from taking up places in virtually all schools in the independent sector including the 7,156 places I have just alluded to. This would only not be the case if the Bill specifically said that the provisions of Section 9 of the 1944 Act and Section 6 of the 1953 Act were not to be prejudiced by it.
Let us look at the place in the Bill where these sections are referred to. We find it in. Clause 5, to which we shall revert later, and the effect of what we find in Clause 5 is not to extend the powers of the Secretary of State to approve arrangements for the taking up of places in the independent sector but the reverse—to invest him with the power of revoking them. Taken together, the intention of Clauses 1 and 5 is perfectly clear. It is to reduce the number of places taken up by the local authorities in the non-maintained sector, whether for boarding or for other reasons, to vanishing point, and that is the avowed intention of the Bill.
So, whatever the intention of the Secretary of State may have been when he commissioned the drafting of these clauses, he is not the Secretary of State now and his successor may not remain in office very much longer. So once again the only criterion for legal action, as I have said earlier tonight, will be not Hansard but the Statute Book, and the Statute Book, unless we alter the Bill, will say quite clearly that the intention is to curtail progressively the taking up of places in the private sector by local education authorities.
I think when there is such a grim prospect of shortage of capital funds to

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find alternative accommodation within the maintained sector and to duplicate what is at present provided in what were the direct grant and are now the independent schools, it is really foolish to commit oneself to a Bill which, on the reading at least of a layman such as myself, makes it apparent that it will not for very long be permissible for local authorities to send their children to boarding schools when they need to. I should like to know what the noble Baroness sees as the solution to that problem.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: I should like to say a word in support of this very important Amendment. Boarding school education need not necessarily be labelled with aptitude and ability for the child who goes there. It may be by necessity. I myself was for six years vice-chairman of the education committee of the West Sussex County Council. It was shortly after the war and we foresaw the bulge in child educational necessities and we therefore built at least two new secondary schools. They were both built adjacent to our absolutely first-class grammar schools, which had boarding facilities. Those schools made a sort of campus. It was rather far-sighted and intelligent of the West Sussex County Council, if I may say so, and it has worked extraordinarily well, because the transfer of children from the one to another has been very easy. It has helped with boarding necessities we have had, but even then these facilities were not sufficient.
We have had to take outside accommodation in maintained schools, for the very good reason that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned, of people settling abroad and the disruption of families, children with special needs, and so on. I should like to be assured that those facilities will continue, because it is quite impossible, as I know from my own knowledge of local government, for any local government to provide at short notice any additional boarding facilities to replace what they have been taking in the past and the result is that children will suffer. I do hope that this Government have very much in mind the really great need in this direction.
Also, I think one should always bear in mind that now that we are a Member of
1400
the European Economic Community we should try and work together—indeed, I think there is a ministerial conference on the question of co-ordinating our educational facilities with the EEC educational standards and so on; and there is, of course, as your Lordships know, a Convention for the protection of human rights which says that it assumes in relation to education and to teaching that the State shall respect the rights of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions. I am pretty certain, from the careful reading I have done of this Bill, that it is not in conformity with the Convention of the EEC and that we are not following the lines that have been laid down by our colleagues.
There, again, I think the importance of boarding education comes into the question because there are certain children whose parents feel that boarding education is the only solution for them. We do not seem to have realised that or to have made any provision to keep on our places that we have taken in voluntary non-maintained schools. I have consulted my local West Sussex education experts this week and there is no recognition in the Bill of what a fee-paying boarding school is in the minds of Her Majesty's Government, and where in the Bill they can come in under proper arrangements for children who have to be sent to boarding school and for whom we have no facilities. I would be very glad to have elucidation on these points, because I am quite certain they are of very great importance.
8.15 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: I should like to support this Amendment as well. I do not like this Bill at all, but all the speeches I have heard from the Government side have said that this is going to be a Bill of great equality; that there is to be equal opportunity, equal this, equal that, and so on, and anybody who wants or would benefit from any special things are going to find it very difficult to get them. There are a certain number of children, quite ordinary children, who would be going to ordinary schools who would be very much hampered. Supposing, as someone suggested, their parents have to go abroad and they want to leave them at home for

1401
education and cannot afford to send them to private boarding school and therefore hope to send them to the ordinary school, but with the opportunity of boarding nearby or in the school as the case may be. There is nothing in this Bill to provide for that at all and it seems to me that that is very had luck on children whose parents, through conditions which might be quite out of their control, will be severely penalised.
There is another group for whom special education and boarding might be very valuable, and that is the children who are of low mentality or mentally handicapped in any way, for whom if you can give them some boarding education it will perhaps make all the difference to their becoming normal or being able to work ordinarily at the age of, say, 12, 13 or 14. Again, there is no provision—or there does not seem to be—in the Bill for anything of that nature. At the moment, of course, groups of that kind are very often financed by voluntary organisations.
There are far too many children, disadvantaged children, using the phrase in its widest sense, and far too few places for them; and even though voluntary organisations do their very best to provide such education they cannot do so because they have not enough money. It should in my opinion be part of an Education Bill such as this. If we are going to cater for everybody we must cater for the very gifted, for the handicapped, and so on. I hope very much that the Government will see their way to either accept this Amendment or, if they cannot accept it, explain what they are going to do to provide a fair deal for children whose conditions are out of their own control and for whom boarding education in the past was provided or made available in one form or another.
Baroness FAITHFULL: In speaking in support of the remarks of my noble friend, Lady Elliot of Harwood, I wish to bring forward the question of the prevention of delinquency and mental disturbance. The social services and education departments are working more closely together than ever before and that is a great asset for both the children and the parents. As Lady Elliot said, there are families who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own and, as I said in a previous debate, they have suffered the slings and arrows of
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outrageous fortune. These families do not want to be the clients of the social services departments. On the other hand, they know that they cannot manage their children. I refer particularly to widows, some of whom have to work and cannot cope with their children; separated families where the help that is required cannot always be given to the children; single parent families; and others where the parents are honest enough to say that they cannot cope with their children.
For these people it would be wrong if they had to apply to the social services departments, quite apart from which those departments' expenditures have been cut, and probably understandably so. While there is this wonderful and growing relationship between the social services and education to help the disadvantaged, it would be very difficult not to have some boarding school places. We all recognise that the right place for a child is in his or her own home in his or her neighbourhood with friends and relatives, but we must face the fact realistically that that is not always possible and that without boarding school education we shall have more delinquency and more mental breakdowns.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: I rise to support briefly what my noble friends Lady Faithfull and Lord Elton have said. Lady Faithfull was referring to widows, and I am the national president of the National Association of Widows. A number of our people arc in very grave trouble because they cannot be at home all the time to look after perhaps their one child. They cannot, because of escalating costs, afford to pay for boarding schools. It is important that this section of the community is helped to educate their children.
Baroness BACON: I agree with what has been said about the need for boarding education in special cases. In general, I do not like boarding schools and I believe that if possible children should be living at home and going out to day school. I appreciate that others hold different views on the subject, but that is my opinion. However, I agree that for some children it is important that there should be facilities for boarding, though where I part company with some of those who have spoken is the way in which this should be arranged.

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A few years ago I visited a comprehensive school in Devon which I thought was ideal. The school was of all—range ability and took children from a neaby maladjusted home, from a nearby reception centre and boys and girls who were going on to university. It had boarding pupils at the comprehensive school housed in two houses nearby, a legacy from the previous grammar school which had been incorporated into the comprehensive school. There were two big houses, one for girls and one for boys, and the boarders lived in them and went out each day to the comprehensive school.
Some of the boarders were the sons and daughters of people who were abroad and one of the advantages of the children going out every day to a comprehensive school instead of being in a special boarding school was that they made friends with the day girls and boys which meant that they were invited into their homes and so had a home life with their friends. This seemed to me an ideal arrangement and I hope that local authorities will he encouraged to follow that example. It does not mean that because one is a boarder one must go to a special boarding school; one can he a hoarder and yet attend the local comprehensive school, and in my view that is the very best solution to what is, I know, a difficult problem.
8.25 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: Authorities perform their duties and exercise their powers in respect of boarding education by providing or taking up places in maintained boarding schools—there are some 10,000 boarding places in 137 secondary schools—or by taking up or assisting with the cost of boarding places at non-maintained schools. Let me first emphasise that nothing in this legislation will prevent authorities from making these same arrangements in the future, though they will be subject to certain constraints.
I am sure we all agree that whether a pupil needs hoarding education is not related to his or her academic ability; the criteria for judging boarding need are quite different and are concerned mainly with social and domestic circumstances, such as parents living abroad or subject to frequent moves within the United Kingdom or the existence of a seriously prejudicial home background where the
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child would be better in the environment of a boarding school than in his or her own home. Their boarding need could thus be catered for within a totally comprehensive system, and this must be our aim. If the Amendment were accepted it would undermine the intention or Clause. 1(1) since it would seem to imply that boarding education could not of should not he provided for within the broad context of comprehensive secondary education. The Government do not accept this as a proposition.
We realise, of course, that our aim of fully comprehensive hoarding education will be achieved only in the longer term, but this is no reason for abandoning it as an aim. We accept that for many years authorities will not be able to provide for every pupil who needs boarding education within a comprehensive school; and the use of non-maintained school boarding places will have to continue as part of the necessary pattern of provision of this type of education. Ministers have made it clear in the past, and I repeat their assurances, that authorities will he given approval under Clause 5 to provide boarding education for pupils where it can be demonstrated that the pupils are in need of boarding education judged by the criteria I have mentioned on social or domestic circumstances.
The Government recognise that the demand for denominational hoarding education will continue. Authorities will no doubt continue to take account of denominational preferences as they have always done. The important thing is that considerations of academic ability should not enter into their decision about a particular child's need for hoarding education. If the authority concludes that such education is needed. then it is open to them to consider the denominational preference in the light of the criteria I mentioned earlier. We on the Government Benches agree with all that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said, and we recognise the very strong need for boarding education in the cases to which she and others have referred, and this Bill in no way hinders the ability of a local authority to provide that sort of education.
In the maintained sector there has been substantial progress towards reorganisation with over 60 of the 137 maintained schools providing boarding places already

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every year. We intend to press on in this direction while recognising the undoubted difficulties that some authorities will have in turning their boarding schools into viable comprehensive units.
The noble Baroness, Lady Emmet, raised the question of the European Convention on Human Rights. That guarantees the right of parents to send their children to independent schools; it does not give them the right to help with fees and nothing in the Bill conflicts with this part of the European Convention on Human Righst. Therefore I ask noble Lords opposite whether they would consider withdrawing this Amendment, for two reasons: first, because I hope that my assurances may have gone some way towards convincing them that it is totally unnecessary—children in need of boarding education will still receive it; and secondly, because we do not see any reason to exclude boarding education from the comprehensive principle in the long run.
8.32 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: The assurances of the noble Baroness as to what will happen under Clause 5 about the provision of boarding places, as has already been said from the Conservative Front Bench this evening, cannot bind her successors of whatever political complexion. Therefore, I do not think that they are very much to the point. I think it is extremely important that people should he able to take up boarding places where there is very real boarding need, and it is not considerations of academic ability in the receiving schools that are important; it is important that children should be allowed to he accepted by boarding schools even if those schools administer considerations of academic ability in their admittance to those schools.
Clause 5 is, I think, a very bad clause and if it goes, as I hope it does—and from our Benches we shall certainly see that it does, though judging by the velvet hand in the iron glove which the Conservative Front Benches are producing tonight it is very difficult to tell what they will do, but I hope they will see that it does—then I think we shall be quite happy if this Amendment is not passed. But if the Government really arc going to insist on Clause 5; if they really are going to put a
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clamp down from the Secretary of State on the admission of children to independent schools of whatever kind, even in a situation where there is no other suitable boarding school in the State system—and we must realise that with the present financial situation there may be many such cases—then I think that this Amendment ought to go through.
It is a very difficult situation because, although the noble Baroness was very persuasive about what Clause 5 would do, Clause 5 is in fact the bugbear: Clause 5 is the trouble. If we were quite certain that Clause 5 was not going to be applied rigorously—about which the noble Baroness who has tried to give assurances is incapable of giving assurances because no Ministers are capable of giving assurances beyond the term of their own Government—if those assurances were valid, then of course it would be possible for us not to pass this Amendment. If, on the other hand, Clause 5 is going to be passed, with the possibility that with future Governments the assurances given from the Front Bench will not be effective, then there is no inconsiderable reason for passing this Amendment. This is a very difficult situation and I should be delighted to know what the Conservative Front Bench is going to do about it.
Lord ELTON: That will be revealed shortly, but in the interim the noble Baroness gave us the interesting figure that there are 10,000 boarding places in 137 secondary maintained schools, and that they take up places also in non-maintained schools. I wonder whether her brief gives her the number of those places.
Baroness STEDMAN: It does not, but I think it is as many again. However, I will check and let the noble Lord know.
Lord ELTON: That is what I thought. I think some of our points have been wrongly taken. I should like to say what great pleasure it gives me to be supported by so many noble Baronesses and even halfway supported by the noble Baroness on the other Bench. To the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, I would say that there is nothing in our Amendment which conflicts with the solution which she observed with such approval in Devon, where one wonders how the local authority

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would have coped with the situation if the grammar school which provided the boarding education when it went in with the comprehensive school had been one of those numerous grammar schools that went independent. That is the problem because it is a question of money; the places have to be filled and paid for.
The point that I think the noble Baroness who leads for the Government on this has not quite taken is that the Bill says specifically—and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, alluded to this—not that the allocation may be made to a school where a child is selected on the basis of his need, but that the place may not be taken up, regardless of the grounds of the allocation of the place, in a school in which the admissions policy is based on ability or aptitude. Nothing she has said has altered that fact. If a child is either brilliant or cretinous and has an overwhelming boarding need, the Bill still says that he cannot be given a place in a school if that school selects on aptitude and ability. So her argument that there is no difficulty falls, because there is a difficulty which relates not to the child but to the school. I do not think, therefore, that she has made a very convincing case, but we are in the difficulty, as the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, with the customary barb in his velvet glove, has pointed out, that the merits of this Amendment are to some extent dependent on what becomes of Clause 5.
But perhaps before we broach that delicate ground the noble Baroness would say whether she has an answer to the point that we are making that all schools which select by ability or aptitude are debarred under the Bill regardless of any other provisions by Clause 1, and that therefore there will be an immediate need, if the Bill is not altered, for many thousands—and it appears to be between 10,000 and 11,000—of boarding places almost at once when the Bill becomes law.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: I must intervene here to say that it would be very helpful to those of us who take a very serious view of this subject if the noble Baroness would elucidate this particular point, because if the noble
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Lord, Lord Elton, is correct in thinking that all schools that select are debarred, it places us in an impossible position and we cannot accept what the noble Baroness has said will happen.
Baroness STEDMAN: So far as boarding education is concerned, the authorities will be given approval by the Secretary of State, where it can be demonstrated that pupils that are in need of boarding education are judged on the criteria I mentioned. We do not accept the selective principle that they go to a boarding school because they reach a necessary academic standard.
I think that there are problems here and I should like, with the permission of the House, to take this back and have another look at it and perhaps write to the noble Lord before Report stage, and see where we can go from there. He could then raise it again if he wishes when we have a little more information on this point.
Lord ELTON: That is extremely helpful and it is the way I was going to suggest, because by the time the noble Baroness embarks upon her correspondence we shall know the fate of Clause 5. Although I welcome correspondence and the goodwill it shows, I will beg leave at this point to put down a marker for the Report stage because this is of fundamental importance and of crucial concern to many parents who quite soon are going to have to make decisions based on what is said. Therefore, I think it should be said in the Chamber on the record at Report stage. So if it is your Lordships' wish I shall withdraw this Amendment with the strict expectation of coming back with something very similar at Report stage.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: Before the noble Lord is given leave to withdraw his Amendment, perhaps I may put forward the suggestion that, if there is to be correspondence—and no matter that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said that he would not welcome it—copies should be sent to all noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have participated in this part of the debate.
Lord ELTON: That is an eminently sensible suggestion. I do not dislike

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correspondence in itself but only if it is a substitute for debate. I now beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.41 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("; or
( ) the provision of education in any school where arrangements are made to meet the special needs of exceptionally gifted children").
The noble Lord said: Before the Government ask to whom the Amendment refers, may I try to explain what the Amendment does not seek to achieve? It does not attempt—although it may be possible for some of your Lordships to do so—to define exactly who are the exceptionally gifted. The Amendment does not seek to segregate all these children into separate schools. It simply aims to afford local education authorities the freedom to make the best arrangements possible for children who have gifts which are exceptional and which may not be developed fully in the school to which they are directed or to which they would be expected to go.
As to the problem of definition, your Lordships will remember that the Plowden Report recorded that as many as 6 per cent. of children have an IQ of over 140 but, if one is to confine the definition to IQ, it would appear that 2 per cent. or even less is the more usually recognised figure. However, IQ is of course not the only consideration. There are considerations of character and of the abilities that may be developed, and there may be some of these children who have creative talents. I hope that there is no difference of opinion between the two sides of the Committee as to the responsibility of the education service for discovering and developing very high ability. I trust that this is common ground. Our past and our present teach us that we need outstanding talents and that we have a responsibility to see that those talents can develop.
What I feel is not so generally understood is that outstanding ability is not always easily recognised. Many noble Lords here this evening will know a very great deal more about this than I do but, if a boy or girl does not show
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interested curiosity or creativity, his parents may not necessarily conclude that a child who seems difficult or isolated is thinking on a different plane from others. Again, if parents do discover that their child is very intelligent, is it necessarily the case that a suitable school is available?
I accept that the traditional idea of a very highly gifted person is not always necessarily the right one; they are not invariably absent-minded or short-sighted. But when one has, in the conventional world of children, a child who is very quick or full of questions, or impatient and perhaps rather superior in attitude, hostility can be attracted. It can happen that staff find such a child difficult to deal with, and it can even be that the class teacher does not come to terms with the child of outstanding ability. I noticed that in one of the reports on education issued several years ago by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools they made precisely this point.
Those are a few of the reasons why I put down the Amendment. For social, as well as academic reasons, one school may not be suitable to a very gifted child while another may. Some seven years ago, on a Motion of my noble friend Lord Carrington, there was a debate on the needs of gifted children. On that occasion, I heard for the first time the theory that if a child's abilities are not recognised, he or she may simply stop trying to achieve. Some four years later I learnt at first-hand of such a case. A pupil had been categorised as maladjusted and was sent to a special school. The parents appealed against the decision and it was then discovered that the boy had an IQ of over 140. I remember that case very well indeed.
There is a mass of research on this subject and I shall not mention any of it, for I am sure your Lordships are better acquainted with it than I am, but it adds up to the conclusion that the dangers of under-achievement for the exceptional child are very real. I am driven to the conclusion that, for such children, transfer to another school or choice of particular school may be necessary. It is for that reason that I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: This may look like a logical addition to the exceptions to the comprehensive principle listed in

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Clause 1(2). If exceptions are to be made for the handicapped and those with musical or dancing gifts, why not for the generally exceptionally gifted also? But the question is not so simple when one comes to examine it.
Clause 1(2) of the Bill excludes from the comprehensive principle the provision in special schools or otherwise of special educational treatment as defined in Section 8(2)(c) of the Education Act 1944 and specialist schools for music and dancing. In the case of special educational treatment, the needs of the pupils can be diagnosed and the treatment defined accordingly. For music and dancing, the exclusion was incorporated to safeguard the very small amount of existing provision which meets the needs of the most highly talented and promising of our future musicians and dancers. If their talents are not nurtured at an early age, they may be lost for ever. There is, however, no generally accepted definition of "exceptionally gifted" children which would enable them similarly to be identified and I can foresee, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, says, that if this Amendment were carried the effects might be to lead to the very segregation of pupils that the Bill aims to eliminate.
Let me just highlight the difficulty of identifying exceptionally gifted children by taking a very crude example. A distinction is often made between the very bright children who form the top 1 per cent. of our school population—we are talking here of about 6,000 11-yearolds in England and Wales—and the exceptionally gifted children who represent a very small proportion of this number. There can be no doubt that both these groups need to be fully stretched. Like others—for example, slow readers—their educational needs should be met in as individual a way as possible. Very bright children—those with an unusually high ability in a range of subjects—can be given the necessary encouragement and stimulation without a selective system. As regards the handful of exceptionally gifted children, with the exception of those gifted in music and dancing, it has been the custom until now also to deal with them in ordinary schools.
The Government do not consider it advisable to change this practice. That is
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not to say that we are complacent about their particular needs. I know that schools are very concerned to ensure that the exceptionally gifted child shall be suitably fostered and they are examining ways of doing this. In addition, of course, the National Association for Gifted Children runs short courses for these children and their families. However, the paucity of their numbers would suggest that any alternative full-time provision would involve boarding education; there are so few of them that they would have to be collected from all over the country to be given their special stimulus. Not only is there evidence to indicate that gifted pupils are frequently difficult to identify, but the National Association for Gifted Children has stated that the withdrawal and segregation of gifted children has in the past proved counter-productive. It is in the interests of these exceptional children—and in the interests of all children—that they should be educated within their normal school environment. That is the view of the Government and much thought and discussion in another place and in the Department has been given to it. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
8.50 p.m.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: I have seldom heard a more tendentious statement or one more based on misinformation. In fact, I really do not know where to begin on it. Perhaps we could talk about definition and go back to the classic work on this, Terman's work, defining gifted children as those with an IQ of over 145. It is much more than this tiny handful.
The noble Baroness said that we have had no experience of educating them. Of course she has heard of College at Eton or College at Winchester, or the great direct grant schools which in fact for years, before the National Association of Gifted Children, of which I have the honour to be vice-president, was heard of. They have been educating these children and knowing how to educate them; and the very schools which knew how to educate them, and know how to educate them—the direct grant schools in the cities—have been the very schools which have been massacred by the educational policy of this Government.

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The noble Baroness spoke as though these were very curious children indeed. She spoke about a total of 6,000 in the whole country. It is not a very great number, but they are not as curious as all that and they are educated in perfectly ordinary grammar schools in big cities, provided those grammar schools are allowed to be really selective. The problem is not nearly as esoteric as that. We know far more about it. The noble Baroness really must believe me when I say that what is said by the National Association of Gifted Children on this matter, dominated as it is by a very questionable American researcher, is something which I really cannot accept as comparable with the experience of teachers in English schools who have actually been doing this for years and years. I am sorry but I simply cannot accept what the noble Baroness has said as bearing very much relation to the practical experience of those of us who have done this job for a long time.
Lord PARRY: If the noble Lord will allow me to say so, this is really a question of picking certain items from what is a very complicated catalogue of figures which we have available and experience which we have available. Sitting in a prejudiced position behind the noble Baroness I am bound to say that I thought she chose her words very carefully in order to make it clear that she was talking about several different categories of brightness. When she talked about the tiny numbers of people she was talking about a particular category with an IQ range which could be so far in advance of what is considered to be normal that it is practically not measurable by the standards we have.
Whatever the experience of the noble Lord might be in the field of educating children of advanced excellence of this type, one of the difficulties is that in selecting the individual of this type our criteria for selection and matching are not yet provable as being adequate to the task we are asking them to carry through. It is a fact that some of the evidence available to us—anotated evidence—proves that such children might exist at a level of one in 100,000 or one in 200,000, and when one is talking at that level one is talking of a special and particular category.
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The noble Lord mentioned an IQ of 150 and this is a particular type of advanced excellence, but not the type which the noble Baroness was speaking of when she mentioned that particular category of brightness. We must make absolutely clear that we are talking of a range here which can be as wide in its way as the other ranges at the other end for which special provision is made. I thought that the very carefully chosen statement of the noble Baroness did more justice to the problems of educating the very bright pupil than perhaps did the words used by the noble Lord.
I do not want to go on much further, other than to say this. One of the problems is—and it is a measurable problem—that these young people recognise themselves to be so very bright that they sometimes deliberately underachieve in order to remain within that section that they understand and know. It is a known fact that the problem is complicated by the very intelligence of the individuals who are being tested in that they do not wish to be selected, to be moved out from the category, from the place which is familiar to them.
Lord SNOW: Here I am entirely in agreement with my noble friend Lord James of Rusholme. This country has been doing this for many years. We are extremely expert at it and we do not make freaks of these characters. A little research has been done on this matter. It has been shown that these highly selected clever children—clever boys—are normally stronger, healthier and heavier, curiously enough, than the normal range of the population. That is a fact—
Lord PARRY: Yes, agreed.
Lord SNOW: We really have to show a little sense. I agree indeed with my noble friend Lord Parry that the numbers are very small. Therefore these people will be caught up somehow. If they are not caught up by the State system they will certainly be caught up by the independent system. There is no question in this. We are all interested here. We all think that the country depends, at least in part, on cultivating this type of talent. This really is a faint distrust of intelligence altogether. But if that is so they will be brought up and educated very well in schools which already exist.

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I beg the Government to think hard about this. Like the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, this seems to me to be exactly the kind of official mumbo-jumbo with which we are normally confronted in this kind of reply.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: I should like to say just one more thing, as I have been sitting here tonight, un-Whipped I may say. May I urge the Ministers to read through this debate very carefully and just see where we are going on apparently quite irrelevant Amendments? They have said, "We can't accept this, because if this were accepted it might provide a way for intelligence to be a criteria. We have got to watch this". If they read what they have said they will see that they have been saying throughout the debate words to the effect, "We would willingly accept this, only you have got to be careful. The intelligent people will slip in if we are not careful". I really mean this. It is a facon de parler, if you like, but if we go on like this then I simply cannot over-estimate the effect not only on our national economic future but on our national culture. This has happened again and again. I believe that the Hansard report of this debate will make the most encouraging reading for our national enemies.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I must say just a few words here. The last two speakers have both suggested that the Government, who include some intellects at least as good as theirs, though not perhaps better, are actually trying to dodge improving the intellectual improvement of people in this country. I resent this totally and I cannot sit here and hear that said by a member who has been in my own Party and an expert from the other side.
Lord SNOW: I am afraid that I shall repeat it again and again. I have not the slightest doubt about it.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: Some members of the Government are more educated certainly than I am but not perhaps more than the noble Lord, Lord Snow. It would be interesting to see where they were educated. I had the misfortune to be educated within the
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State system—or perhaps it was good fortune. I am not for one moment saying that the Government are wilfully trying to avoid the full development of the intellect of this country. What I am saying is that they are adopting policies which are dominated by a fear of the recognition of human divergence, and in particular a fear of the recognition of intellectual excellence; and, as I say, if they go through this debate they will be alarmed at the implications of what I have said. That is all.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: Very briefly, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, queried whether the country thought that the standards of education were going to be lowered by this Bill. I think that most of the country think they will be lowered purely because there will be a lower common denominator down to which a great number of children will be dragged.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: With respect, I did not say that. What I was unable to accept was that the Government were deliberately doing this. This is what was suggested.
Lord SNOW: No, they did not say "deliberately". They were saying "in effect".
Lord BELSTEAD: I must say that I feel a sense of depression, having moved this Amendment and heard the Government's reply. Of course I accept that there is a problem of definition, although the noble Lord, Lord James, put it into perspective in saying exactly who the gifted children are, that they do not appear in existing legislation and that this would be a problem. But, having listened to the noble Lords, Lord James and Lord Snow, and to my noble friend Lady Macleod and others, there is no problem in accepting the second leg of the argument, that children who have outstanding abilities should be allowed to be placed in schools—existing schools, not necessarily special schools; that was not the point of my Amendment at all, but existing schools—which would be able to cater for them and able to cater for them best. I really had hoped that I had made that clear.
I cannot resist quoting to the Government from a speech in 1969 of the then

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Government spokesman, Lord Kennet, in the debate on Lord Carrington's Motion on May 14 of that year, when the noble Lord said:
"The very advanced child can be identified early in one or two subjects—for example, mathematics, music and dancing—and it is not too difficult to see, and I think that there is general assent, that there must be special provision either in special groups or in schools for these children; otherwise their talents would be wasted. Common sense suggests this and experience shows that it works pretty well."—[Official Report, 14/5/69; col. 135.]
All I can say is that common sense and experience have altered in the Labour Party in the last seven years. Really, we are in the most Gilbertian situation. Although under the Bill music and dancing are apparently to have special provision, now, seven years later, maths is to be excluded, and also any other ability, as the noble Lord, Lord James, showed so clearly when he intervened just now. When Ministers claim that they are legislating in the Bill a set of rules for comprehensive education which shall be full and complete, and that there must he no loophole in them, perhaps they will bear in mind that children's needs differ and that views about how those needs are to be met change as the years go by.
I think it is interesting to recall that in 1970 the Donnison Commission, which was not remarkable for its Right-Wing views, made the rather surprising recommendation that some super-selective schools might be formed. I wonder whether those views would be held by the members of the Donnison Commission today. At any rate, I had hoped, in moving this Amendment, that the Government would accept that at least there was this common ground—that we do not know enough about this subject. In Chapter 14 the Donnison Report said:
"Whatever system of education is adopted, however, we all agree that further research and experience is required to ensure that the talents of the most gifted are not wasted. Too little is known about these difficult questions."
It was to allow research to proceed and experience to be acquired, and some freedom of action for local education authorities and the parents of these children, that I put down this Amendment; and all I can say is that, with regret, I now withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.6 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("; or
( ) the power of any local education authority to provide secondary education under section 6 of the Education Act 1953").
The noble Lord said: This is really a similar point to the one made by my noble friend Lord Elton on boarding education, but it goes wider than that. Clause 5 provides that the powers of local authorities to take up places at non-maintained schools can be revoked by the Secretary of State, and that the Secretary of State may make regulations for the payment of fees and expenses for children placed at non-maintained schools. These wider powers than boarding education powers have of course been working for many years, and, by them, authorities are able to take up places for particular as well as for general reasons. When the Committee of this House has been debating, as we have been debating now for several hours, the able and the backward, those who need boarding education and other children, and those who have a particular social reason for placement, such as their home circumstances, many of these children are found to be placed most appropriately at independent schools. But schools in the non-maintained sector do not mainly conform with Clause 1 of this Bill; and this was the point made so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, and other noble Lords.
I will not go on about it. May I simply say that the point now is the same as the boarding point. You have the schools at which the children are being placed which do not conform with Clause 1 of the Bill, and therefore it is inconceivable that under Clause 5 the Secretary of State will do more than allow authorities to take up those places merely on sufferance. I wonder whether I have that right. If I have got it right, all I can say is that it is no way to treat a part of the education system, to tell schools that they may go on receiving children on sufferance. All you are doing is trying to condemn those schools, in the end, no longer to exist. There may also be a more practical point, which I know is worrying people in local authorities, as to whether, when arrangements for taking up places in independent schools are revoked, there is going to be any legal liability which might

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rest upon the local authorities concerned; but I think that point can possibly wait until we get to Clause 5. I beg to move.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: These Amendments belong properly to Clause 5, because if carried they would wreck Clause 5 and seriously weaken the whole Bill. I will explain briefly what underlies Clause 5 and show why it is a necessary feature of the Bill. I do that at this stage because the noble Lord has moved this Amendment, which I think makes it essential to discuss Clause 5 at this stage. By virtue of earlier legislation, LEAs have certain powers to support education at non-maintained schools; that is, independent and direct grant schools. Section 9(1) of the 1944 Act empowers them to assist such schools by way of grants. Section 6 of the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1953 empowers them to arrange for education—that is, to take places—at such schools, paying the full cost without reference to parents' means; and regulations made under Section 81 of the 1944 Act empower them to help parents, on a means-test basis, with the fees and charges payable at non-maintained schools. The original legislation provided, in each case, for the arrangements made by local education authorities in exercise of these powers to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. But for various reasons this control is no longer effective. Arrangements for giving assistance to schools under Section 9 (1) of the 1944 Act have not been made for many years, but it is uncertain what arrangements, approved many years ago, might still be extant and perhaps useable if authorities so wished. As regards arrangements made under the 1953 Act for taking places at full cost without regard to parents' means, blanket approval was given irrevocably in 1959 to any such arrangement which an authority wish to make. Finally, as regards means-tested assistance with fees, the original legislation unfortunately omitted to provide that an approval, once given, might be revoked; and there are also other features of a technically questionable nature in the 1944 provision.
The purpose of Clause 5 is to remedy the position and to restore to full effectiveness the control function which the Secretary of State was originally intended to exercise in this field. The control is
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necessary, in the Government's view, in order to secure the completion of comprehensive reorganisation as soon as is practicable. Without it, an authority might be tempted to use the powers to which I have referred in such a way as to pay, or help to pay, for the education of an academically selected élite in non-maintained schools.
I said earlier that there is an element of battle here, and this is something to prevent the sabotage of the objects of the Bill. To do this without regard to the comprehensive principle would be unlawful under Clause 1, but that clause does not in itself prevent authorities from using the non-maintained sector in a way which is not compatible with the speediest possible progress towards completely comprehensive education. I think this is something which is between us. I believe that noble Lords opposite would like this loophole to exist in order that the comprehensive principle can be undermined, whereas we are determined that it should not be.
After that lengthy explanation of the background, I turn now to the first Amendment in this group, No. 11. The Government fully recognise the real need for a number of authorities to use the powers given them by Section 6 of the Education Act 1953, either because there is a general shortage of suitable maintained school places which it is not practicable for them to rectify, or because, in certain cases, they see a need to make special provision for the exceptional requirements of particular pupils. We recognise indeed that certain authorities are at the moment dependent on the use of places at non-maintained schools to fulfil their statutory duty to provide suitable education to those children for whose education they are responsible. We have given assurances, both here and in another place, that when the Secretary of State comes to consider what arrangements she is prepared to continue to approve, all applications will be considered on their merits and authorities may expect approval to be given to arrangements needed to remedy a local shortage of places. In short, I do not think it is right to suggest for one moment that the Government, in controlling authorities' use of the powers to which this Amendment relates, will do so except where there is full justification; but we do see a real need to retain the relevant

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provision in Clause 5 of the Bill. For this reason, I must ask that this Amendment should be either withdrawn or rejected.
I must confess that it is not quite clear what effect the second Amendment would have, since Section 9(b) of the Education Act 1944 itself confers no power but expressly, and perhaps unnecessarily, extends to schools outside an authority's area the power conferred by Section 9(1) by which authorities may assist non-maintained schools. I understand, however, that the noble Lord wishes local education authorities to be able to continue to assist non-maintained schools—whether inside or outside their area—without the need to have regard to the comprehensive principle. The noble Lord will, of course, be aware that Clause 5(1) of the Bill restores to the Secretary of State the power to control any arrangements made under Section 9(1) by giving or withholding approval. We felt it was necessary to include this provision in the Bill, to ensure that any arrangements newly made, or already in existence, would not be incompatible with the speediest practical progress towards completely comprehensive education which, if I may say so, is the theme song of the clause.
I hope the noble Lord will accept that I do not, for one moment, believe that there will be any widespread attempt to make arrangements that would be incompatible with Clause 1 of the Bill. So far as we know, very little use has been made in recent years of the powers in Section 9(1), and we would see no reason why this position should change in the future; not least because of the economic pressures that all local education authorities are facing. At the same time, however, we feel that it is necessary for my right honourable friend to be in a position to assess the present position and, as I have said, this is not at the moment possible.
There is no intention on the Government's part to lessen the freedom which authorities have to give assistance, provided that such assistance is not inconsistent with the comprehensive principle. The Government have already given assurances that any application by a local education authority to give assistance under the provisions in this section will receive careful consideration on its merits.
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We therefore regard this Amendment as unnecessary and potentially undesirable, and for this reason I must ask the noble Lord to withdraw it.
I did not say this at the beginning, and nor did the noble Lord, but we are discussing three Amendments together. If the third Amendment were included in the Bill, authorities would be able to give income-related assistance with fees for pupils to attend non-maintained schools, without regard to the comprehensive principle. If the Amendment were accepted, therefore, such pupils could be selected on academic grounds and this would clearly run counter to the express intention of Clause 1. It is for this reason that Clause 5(2) affirms the Secretary of State's power to control, by means of regulations, the practice of authorities in giving income-related assistance with fees, and we regard it as essential for this control to be included in the Bill.
We are fully aware that concern has been expressed lest local education authorities should lose the present freedom which they have to render assistance where they consider it appropriate. I can give some reassurance here. While it is our firm intention that authorities should not he able to give assistance with fees at non-maintained schools to pupils solely on academic grounds, it is equally our intention to look flexibly and, wherever possible, sympathetically, on arrangements for assistance on other grounds. We have already given assurances, when discussing this matter in another place, that all applications will be considered on their merits provided, of course, that they have proper regard to the comprehensive principle and are compatible with the speediest practical progress towards completely comprehensive education. We have indeed gone further than this in order to give some indication of the type of situation in which my right honourable friend envisages that assistance with fees will be considered acceptable. Particular mention has been made of assistance, when the desirability of boarding education can be established on grounds unrelated to the ability and aptitude of the pupil involved. Mention has also been made of the sympathetic attitude my right honourable friend would expect to adopt to the giving of assistance with fees for particular denominational reasons, either

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where a boarding need had been established or, indeed, in circumstances where no overall shortage of suitable maintained places existed locally. I believe, therefore, that noble Lords can rest assured that the power restored to the Secretary of State by Clause 5 will be used only to ensure the speediest progress towards completely comprehensive education. Hence the Amendments are unacceptable and I must ask the Committee to reject them.
Lord BELSTEAD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that long statement, because it will help us in considering Clause 5. There are, however, some contradictions in what the noble Lord has said, but I think we will wait until that subsequent clause to debate them. With that brief observation, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.19 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES Viscount ECCLES moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert ("; or
( ) the provision of such instruction and training as may be desirable to secure a minimum standard of basic skills in mathematics; and

(i) the methods by which the minimum standard is defined, reached and tested shall be arrived at in consultation with the local education authority and the teachers in its area;

(ii) it shall be the duty of the local education authority to see that sufficient time is provided within the curriculum to teach the basic skills in mathematics to all pupils capable of mastering them;

(iii) it shall be the duty of the local education authority, within and between schools, to select pupils to match the number and capacity of the available mathematics teachers").

The noble Viscount said: This Amendment covers a much wider subject than those which we have been discussing in connection with the last few Amendments. It has already been referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Bowden, Lord James and Lord Snow, all three with great experience in education, pointing out that the teaching of maths today—one must say it with regret and alarm—shows a declining tendency. With advancing technology we need higher skills in maths than, say, 10 or 20 years ago and it would not be enough if the competence of school-leavers were the same as 10 or 20 years ago.
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Unfortunately, however, it can be shown only too clearly that in the last five or 10 years there has been a definite decline.
I do not wish to take up more of the time of the Committee than I can help, but I should like to give a few examples of what is happening, then turn to the cause, which must lie in the scarcity of qualified teachers and afterwards show how, unless my Amendment, or something like it, is accepted, the supply of qualified teachers, and afterwards show resulting inevitably in still lower levels of mathematical competence in school leavers.
First, I want to quote Mr. Paul Hodgkinson who belongs to the engineering industry's training board. He says:
"How many fairly bright, interested youngsters this year"—
that is 1975—
"have been refused their chance of first year basic training because, as many a charge hand and managing director alike have said, they can't count'."
Mr. Hodgkinson goes on to say:
"Employers state categorically that performance is poorer than 5–10 years ago. It is commonplace for remedial maths classes to occupy valuable, costly time in the first weeks or months of basic training. Technical college heads, often leading figures among the 'remedials', also swell the chorus of complaint."
Next I should like to quote what has been said by Mr. Paul Cornish who is the training co-ordinator at British Leyland. He says:
"It is sad that trainees now seem as good as their earlier counterparts in terms of intelligence, aptitude and their grades of examination but their progress is impaired by their inability to cope with basic number work … When one considers that the average school leaver entering industry nosy takes three times longer than expected on a basic and simple calculation then there must be concern that so much time is wasted at the expense of other vocational or educational training elements".
Finally, Mr. Philip Maylor, who comes from the Training Services Agency, said that
"the mathematical weaknesses of people applying for TOPS courses"—
that is the Training Opportunities Scheme—
"lay in the fields of multiplication tables, manipulation of vulgar fractions, multiplication and division of decimals, and the understanding of circles … 'They come to the unit in desperation because they say that numeracy is what employers really want and no one else can help them'."

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I am sorry to have to tell your Lordships that this is typical of what employers are saying. Furthermore, this view is supported, as we heard in our debate a few months ago on the universities, by the University Grants Committee and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Vice-Principals. It is no good blaming the children. If they were well taught they could master the basic skills as they did a generation ago. So what has gone wrong in the schools and why are there not enough competent maths teachers?
In passing, I must observe that as the number of competent or qualified maths teachers recedes so also does the number of hours in the curriculum devoted to maths, and here I will quote The Second Report on the Shortage of Teachers of Mathematics:
"There are two important aspects of the present serious shortage of teachers of mathematics. One is that the subject is taught by many teachers who have no qualifications whatsoever in mathematics, or who are required to teach to a level beyond that for which they could provide any evidence of knowledge of the subject. The second problem is that graduate mathematicians, or others with evidence of knowledge of mathematics of a comparable level, do not regard teaching as an attractive career."
It is also true, of course, that mathematics gets pushed out of the curriculum when the free choice of subjects allows people who have not got these skills to prefer other subjects.
I have done my best to find out what really is the condition of the schools where mathematics as a subject is taught by teachers who themselves have not even attained O-level in mathematics, and the best information I can get—I dare say there is a 5 per cent. error one way or the other—is that half the children in our primary and secondary schools are taught mathematics by teachers who have never themselves attained O-level.
Of course if mathematics has to be taught in a school and there are not any qualified teachers, there is nothing for it but to have an unqualified teacher. I think the definition of a qualified teacher of mathematics is one who has, himself or herself, studied mathematics beyond the level at which he or she is teaching it. That is to say, if you are teaching mathematics to O-level you must have done A-level in order to be able to put the subject properly to the children.
We all know that there is a real deficiency of mathematics teachers with A-level, so what are we to do about it? The situation calls, first, for the maximum use of the qualified teachers we have, so that through matching the mathematically inclined pupils to those qualified teachers the number of potential future teachers of mathematics may increase. Secondly, we have to make specialist mathematics teaching an attractive career.
What does the specialist teacher of mathematics want? I would say that the salary after the Houghton award is not unreasonable. It is the conditions which put the specialist off, and I think it can be shown that this is particularly true in the non-selective schools. That is because the specialist wants to teach in the areas of mathematics which interest him or her, and they want to teach children who are receptive of that level of teaching. If these conditions are not fulfilled they take their talents elsewhere. This is precisely what happens in weak, non-selective schools and I am afraid also in schools where the discipline is unsatisfactory.
I think it is also true that in the last 10 years or so society has come to put less value on accuracy than it used to. If you have ideas you are all right, but you need not be accurate. This is a very bad change for mathematics, and we must try to counter it. It makes mathematics teaching harder and it adds to the need for special measures such as there are in this Amendment. Unless we start immediately to get things right I think a real disaster is round the corner.
The solution demands the selection of pupils most likely to benefit from being taught by the at present highly inadequate number of qualified teachers up to A-level. This could not be done unless an exception for mathematics, as for music and dancing, is made to the general principle in Clause 1. When the A-level set in mathematics is diluted by turning a grammar school into a mini-comprehensive, some specialist teachers leave—that is already happening—and others, if they stay on, will have to teach children far below A-level. The result, therefore, is inevitable: the seed bed for future mathematics teachers is contracted at the very time when it is clearly in the national interest that it should he expanded.
I think there is an underlying weakness in mathematics teaching which has to be put right if a number of pupils capable of taking O- and A-level maths is to reflect the natural capacity of all our schoolchildren. Mathematics teaching for all must be improved. Therefore, in my Amendment—it may look a little curious in the Bill, but I put it in because it is the only way to get what we want, which is more qualified mathematics teachers—provision is made for a basic standard in mathematics to be set and monitored in our schools. If we do not do that, we shall never get mathematics properly taught in the colleges of education. That is the only way to do it, and in present circumstances the institution of such a standard in basic mathematics skills would require the selection of the more promising pupils for classes taught by qualified teachers in their own or in neighbouring schools.
The point to be rubbed in is that if there is better teaching in the basic skills, then there will be a larger pool in which higher mathematics can be taught. I recognise that under the Bill the important and the absolutely vital part of my Amendment is that which permits pupils—it is the last section of the Amendment—to be selected for O- and A-level teaching. This must continue to be done if the principle of non-selection is accepted. I quite understand the Government saying —and they would be right—that in some comprehensive schools mathematics are very well taught. I am sure that that is so. But what we have to deal with is a far greater number of schools in which at the moment mathematics are very badly taught. The root of that trouble will be cured only if the highly specialist teachers we already have are matched to the pupils who can make the best use of their capacities. I am not talking about mathematics across the whole child population. The noble Lords. Lord Snow and Lord James of Rusholme, know far more than I do about the very gifted mathematician. What concerns me is that our modern industry will suffer in comparison with the industries of our rivals abroad unless we have selection for this subject in our schools.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: If I may follow the speech made by the very distinguished
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noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who has had responsibility as a Minister, may I from my experience refer to his sub-paragraph (ii) where he says:
"It shall be the duty of the local education authority to see that sufficient time is provided within the curriculum to teach the basic skills in mathematics to all pupils capable of mastering them;".
With all due respect, I agree with the general contention of the noble Viscount, but we are beginning at the wrong place. May I give your Lordships a concrete example, having dealt in geography and mathematics. My wife dealt in advanced mathematics in a grammar school.
One of the big problems in the grammar schools is that if a pupil cannot do what we call LCMs and add up ordinary fractions, when the same person is up in the sixth and preparing for extra-mural scholarships to our universities there is no hope. It really begins in the primary schools, not the secondary schools. Instead of poor teachers being needed in the primary schools the best are needed.
Now I want to put a shiralee, to use an Australian phrase, on the backs of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools. I was nearly brought to tears once when the inspector said, "There is no need to teach them the tables from one to 15; give them a card with tables from one to 15". If I did not know my tables in a little Welsh country school in Cardigan at eleven years of age—the tables, not a calculator—I was drilled in it, it was sing-song. The modern HMI says, "You must not do this sing-song business". But it paid off. They did not know it was paying off while they were children.
Today you have this esoteric search in the primary schools for children who can dabble in French or dabble in German, dabble in a bit of esoteric Greek and Latin suffixes and prefixes. It is all loss unless we get numeracy and literacy between the ages of 5 and 11. That is where the basic work in mathematics begins. There are geniuses there, but they become frightened of it. Once they learn it, the joy they get in the mastery of figures is something inexplicable to the people who are blind to the philosophy of the theory of mathematics. May I, therefore, say en passant that it is important for any Government to impress upon HMI that down in the primary school we must for

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God's sake get back to the grind in the basic old-fashioned way. Do not talk about algebra and calculus at this stage; that comes later. There is no calculus, no algebra, if they cannot add up simple fractions. if they do not know their tables they are lost when they get into the beautiful mystery of algebra, calculus and trigonometry. For God's sake be realistic and know what you are talking about.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: That was a refreshing interlude. I must confess, I still think the multiplication tables are worth learning. The noble Viscount has raised a very important Amendment; let nobody think that I under-value its importance. What I am not clear about in my own mind is that it is relevant to this Bill. The fact he states, that we have a shortage of the higher level mathematical teachers, I think is accepted. I do not think that is going to be altered by what we are doing here. This is something we can discuss further. There is a certain confusion in people's minds over this. My noble friend Lord Bowden spoke of the Russians and the mathematical genius. I said to him, "What is that—one in 10,000?", and he replied, "It is one in a million I am speaking of." The present system of education which we have is totally incapable of dealing with this type of problem.
I honestly believe that if we could get on with this Bill, get the comprehensive system established, as it is in three-quarters of the country, we could work out ways of dealing with this extraordinarily important question. I give an undertaking—without the slightest authority from anybody, but this should not stop one and it should still be of some value—that when we have got a little further, when this Bill is law, one of the first things that will have to be examined will be this very point.
Should this one in a million be made a special sort of exception? After you have made it, what are you going to do with it? We have got 55 million people here, of whom half are not children. So you could expect to have perhaps 100 or 200 people of this kind. Is the best way to treat them to bring them into a special school with two or three very brilliant teachers and otherwise very ordinary teaching? Would the parents like it?
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It is a frightfully complicated problem. It is a problem, I believe, that our Government, or indeed your Government when the time comes, will be perfectly capable of applying their mind to and trying to deal with. I do not believe that the one in a million is a thing we ought to stop and worry about. I think that it is not being dealt with now, and under the system I am proposing here it is just as likely to be dealt with as under anything anybody else is proposing.
The second point I want to make is not to query the general point that employers are dissatisfied with the skill in numeracy of their new employees. I think this is probably true, but I think it is because the demands have become more complicated rather than because the standards have fallen. There are some facts of a not terribly dramatic kind which suggest that this is true. For example, in 1964 the O-level passes were 181,000 and in 1974 they were 196,000. The relevant age groups were smaller in 1974 than in 1964. The A-level passes were 37,000, and the A-level passes in 1974 were 47,000. They actually went up somewhat.
This is not to try to refute what the noble Viscount said. I think that we have to concentrate on further work on numeracy, on literacy and mathematics. I do not wish to make too strong a point on this, but it is worth mentioning that the evidence of decline is not reflected in those figures. Mathematics is an essential part of the school curriculum, and it always must be. Nobody can possibly deny that. We demand in employment in daily life a high standard, and the schools have to face up to this fact.
The starting point for any discussion about mathematical standards must be an assessment of the evidence about standards today. We often hear criticism, as I have said already, from employers, but the facts, the realities, are not clear. At the moment, there is no objective statistical evidence about national standards in numeracy—to compare, say, with the survey on literacy by the National Foundation for Educational Research which led to the setting up of the Bullock Inquiry. The statistical evidence, such as it is, does not support the conclusion that there has been a substantial fall in standards. One may very well agree with employers that standards of numeracy ought to rise.

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This is a different point. We must recognise, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said recently, that there are many fewer opportunities for unskilled youngsters than there were a generation or two ago. She said—and I think most of us would agree—that standards in mathematics, language and science need to be higher than they used to be. What we need now is not more subjective impressions about standards but careful monitoring to establish where the weaknesses lie so that the right remedies can be applied.
Here the Government have gone into action in a way which I think is quite satisfactory. The Department of Education and Science has established an Assessment of Performance Unit whose task is to develop methods of assessing and monitoring the achievement of children at school. The Unit is treating mathematics as one of its priority areas and is building on work already carried out for the Department of Education and Science in preparation for a monitoring system to cover mathematical skills. The Government hope that a start can be made on monitoring performance in mathematics in 1978.
Another important source of information will be the national survey of secondary schools by Her Majesty's Inspectorate. Among other things, this survey is expressly concerned with the development of numeracy in the last two years at secondary school. This major survey is based on a 10 per cent. sample of all maintained secondary schools and will last for about two and a half years. These investigations will give us the necessary background on which to form proper conclusions. To attempt to set minimum standards locally in advance of this process would be to put the cart before the horse. What we need here and now is a continuing effort to review the progress of each individual child as he or she goes through school and to identify and remedy any specific weakness at an early age.
Mathematics as a general standard is, I think, all very well, but when one is speaking of those people who, without being mathematical geniuses, are specially good, then there is something to worry us, because under the comprehensive system what should happen is that there
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should be in, say, each group above the second or third year, a setting by which the best boys and girls had the best teaching and were brought forward. But of course if the teachers are not there, then that will not happen. The point I am trying to make is that this is nothing to do with the comprehensive principle, which is what the Bill is about. This is something to do with a lack which has grow n up long before the comprehensive principle was established, which indeed it is not yet, for reasons we are not really clear about and which need remedying.
I maintain that there is nothing in the comprehensive principle which I am putting forward which makes it impossible to remedy or more difficult to remedy than under the present system. Thus, although the noble Viscount will see that I treat his Amendment extremely seriously, I must tell him that in my view there are elements in it which would prove a headache for us for a good many years, whether or not the Bill is passed.
I do not think the Amendment is exactly what we want at this stage; we have to wait for the setting of standards until we ger rather more evidence. There is also a more fundamental objection to it. The purpose is—or at least I think it is—the continued segregation into separate schools of those who are and those who not able to pass an undefined test in mathematics. We do not have the test and we do not quite know what that means, but I think the intention is segregation in different schools, and here we have the old bogey of selection, the rigmarole of tests—in effect an 11-plus in mathematics. The Government do not think it is necessary to segregate children to provide them with a satisfactory education in mathematics. In fact, the Government believe the opposite. We believe that, generally speaking, education should take place among one's fellows and not among a selected group of one's fellows. This proposed exception to the principle of the Bill, unlike the other exceptions for special schools and music and dancing—making mathematics an exception—would really turn the Bill inside out and make it largely worthless. I hope I have not skimped the Amendment, which I accept is important but which I think the noble Viscount did not expect me to recommend to the House.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: May I ask the Minister a technical question? He said that the number of highly qualified mathematics teachers—not to teach geniuses but to teach, say, calculus to the O-level—was very limited and he admitted that there was a problem which he did not quite know how to solve. The noble Lord went on to say that the comprehensive principle did not make it more difficult. I may be dull and I think he inferred that I may not be as well educated as members of the Government, but may I ask the noble Lord to explain why, if there is only a limited number of teachers of mathematics, the logical way to use them is not to concentrate the children who need their particular sort of teaching round those teachers by a process of selection? Is that not sheer arithmetic?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I can only say that I think it is sheer. The position—we might as well be clear about it—is that if the comprehensive system had been accepted by 100 per cent. instead of 75 per cent. of the schools in this country we could start chipping away at it in ways which seem satisfactory to produce certain results, but so long as there is a battle being waged about this—by people like the noble Lord, quite hard on one side, and by other pepple on the other side—I do not think we can compromise and start chipping away at the comprehensive system; that is, until we have got it.
My answer to the noble Lord will be, if we had it and it had been running for several years I think it would produce the kind of teaching for gifted children in this or that school through a setting which would produce exactly what the noble Lord is asking for. He shakes his head. He is perfectly entitled to.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: We will not go into that.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: No, let us not. But our whole philosophy, the noble Lord must realise, is that when you have a comprehensive system working properly the education is at least as good as, and we think in fact socially and in other ways probably better than, under the present system. So what the noble Lord is saying is, you have a shortage which has grown up under the present system, not under any other system.
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You are now going to try and dismantle, or at least make a cut at the under belly, if you like, of the comprehensive system in order to put right something which the existing system has failed to put right, and I cannot accept it.
Lord WOLVERTON: May I ask the Minister about salaries, because generally it is found that if you do not pay sufficient salaries for high skills you do not get them. I heard the other day that my old school, Eton College, was having to pay a very high salary for a good mathematics master, which it badly needed, because of the great shortage. If you do not pay the right salaries to teachers of course you will not get them. I agree with my noble friend Lord Eccles, it is absolutely necessary. I was a governor of a grammar school and a secondary modern school combined at Newmarket. The same board of governors ran the two schools. Teachers were getting very scarce then, but you have to get more teachers trained, as my noble friend Lord Eccles said, to a higher standard and I think it depends enormously on what you pay them. I know it is all governed by the Burnham Scale, but I should like to know the Government's ideas on that.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My noble friend Lord Houghton did a good deal to increase this situation not so very long ago. I am not briefed to discuss the salaries of teachers at the moment and I do not wish to bring that into this Bill, because it has nothing whatever to do with it. If the noble Lord likes to raise it by putting down a Question of a specific kind I will be very glad to give an answer, but I have not considered the salaries of teachers in the preparation of this Bill. Maybe I should have done, but I have not.
Baroness SEEAR: Would the noble Lord clarify a statement he made just before in answer to the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, because, speaking from Benches supporting the comprehensive idea, I did find his argument quite extraordinary. He said that we were not able to deal with this very urgent educational problem because only 75 per cent. of schools had gone comprehensive and that the Government, when they had got them all comprehensive, were going to

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get around to deal with the problem embodied in this Amendment. This seems to imply that it is the Government who are going to improve that. Surely in the 75 per cent of the schools which are already comprehensive it is the professional job of the professional teachers to get on with improving the teaching of mathematics? They are not waiting upon the Government to do it for them—at least I hope to goodness they arc not! If we are going to have the sort of educational system which depends on the Government's telling schools how to get better, why are they not getting better in the 75 per cent. of the system which is already comprehensive, the system which we support?
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: I do apologise and I hope my noble friend will not think I am being obstreperous, but the request is for basic skills and one is going to the wrong place for the basic skills. The noble Lord who is an ex-Minister of Education should go for a campaign to get HMIs impressing on primary schools the necessity of teaching basic arithmetic—forget that word "mathematics". I knew an uncertificated teacher in the school in which I had charge of certain elements who taught at all levels, taught from five years of age to nine, but there was not a child in that class who did not know his tables, do his basic numeracy questions and even add up fractions, multiply and divide, do long division and decimals. There are university students today who cannot do that because they missed the primary training.
I am on the ex-Minister's side here—I will not go into the Lobby with him because I want to cheer up my noble friend —but I want him to realise the concern on this side of the Committee. And in the United States of America, because I have been reading about it in the Sunday papers this week, there is the same problem —the lack of numeracy in the world, the trivialisation of education with television,et cetera.
Let us get down to basics. If we want to get back to basics I suggest that this Government or any other Government should wage a ruthless campaign in English, Welsh arid Scottish schools to get back to the old-fashioned basic
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learning, up to eight or nine years of age, of the basic rules of arithmetic. We shall get the mathematicians then because there will be a creative joy in conquering the little problems of a child's mind that will lead to greater and wider horizons in the philosophy of mathematics. I hope the noble Lord will not divide the Committee because we are all with him on this, but it does not begin in the comprehensive schools, it does not begin in Lord James's notable school; it begins before any of them get to that position.
9.57 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, has said. What I find difficult in this debate is this. I listened to Lord James and I agreed with every word he said; I listened to Lord Eccles and agreed with every word he said; I listened to Lord Davies and agreed with every word he said. But what the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has said and what my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord James, said had absolutely nothing to do with the comprehensive school. In every speech the noble Lord, the ex-Minister, goes back to the ridiculous refrain, "We cannot do anything because of the comprehensive school". It is so silly, so idiotic, because what we want is teaching for the children so that they will be able to compete in the world today.
Lord Davies and I are the same age so we probably had the same sort of basic training. It did not turn me into a mathematician, although I am not bad at accounts which is one of the basic things one has to do in one's own life. But what the Government are saying is that they cannot do anything about this until everything is comprehensive and then they will begin again. But they will not; they are missing the bus all down the line. They will not begin again; they have not started. They are putting everything off so that nobody is allowed to get any special teaching except—and I am delighted that this is so—the musicians and the dancers. I adore music and love dancers, so that is splendid. But why should not others have the same advantages? Because, the noble Lord says, we cannot do it because everything has to be comprehensive. I never heard such rubbish in my life.
9.58 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: There is no greater pleasure than having a strip torn off by my old friend the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, and I appreciated it very much. The noble Baroness has forgotten what we are here for—rather naturally, I think, in view of the conversations we have had. What we are here for is to pass a Bill about comprehensive schools. If we were here for some other purpose I should be talking about something else. As it is, whoever gets up I have to bring them back and say, "This is what I am here to talk about", and I am going to go on doing so until I have finished.
Lord ELTON: I really must intervene at this stage on a number of points, some of them peripheral and some of them tendentious of course, the Bill is largely concerned with the comprehensive principle. but it is a Bill to amend the law relating to education and we want to see it a Bill to make education better, whether or not with the comprehensive principle intact. We are concerned that education shall improve and, if it is done by comprehensive means, so be it. So long as it gets better, we are happy.
Secondly, there are fashions in education and they swing like a pendulum. We look at education as two different things: we look at it as a social tool and as a tool for training. I believe there is little doubt that, with the exception of the very old schools, when national education first came in we thought of it too much in terms of training, whereas we arc now looking at it too much in terms of a social machine. The point is that if we do not earn our living in this world we shall—as we are at last beginning to discover—starve to death. First, we are humiliated, then we starve. So we must equip our people at all levels of enterprise to compete in the world—not merely so that they can stand on their own feet but so that the country can stand on its own feet. That, it manifestly will not do, if it has not the means of manipulating the high technology which we are now developing. Therefore mathematics becomes a matter of prime importance at this time—perhaps more so than it has been since the Renaissance.
I said that there were pendulums, and it did my heart a great deal of good to
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hear what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, had to say, because I have taught in secondary schools where I have had to contend with children who had not been taught to learn nor to profit from the education in a secondary school. If we do not get education in the basic three R's right, no matter whether we have a comprehensive, an élitist or any other type of school, the children will come out of it only partially equipped for the life they have to live. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, now heaves a mighty sigh because he feels that he has to bring me back to the comprehensive system.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: The reason I heaved a mighty sigh is that teaching the three R's is not the kind of highly skilled mathematical teaching we have been talking about. It is equally important but they are not the same things.
Lord ELTON: I have two observations: one is that teaching the three R's is what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, has been talking about, and the other is that it is a prior necessity before one comes to the advanced skills. I say that we must get those basic skills right before we can take the next step. However, we cannot spend a lot of time on research in the future; we must do it now. The noble Lord made certain remarks about that which are modestly encouraging, but I commend the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Eccles to the Committee for very careful consideration, because it focuses our attention on an area where something is going very wrong in this country, and we shall all suffer for it.
As the older generation outnumbers the younger. as retirement age gets lower and the expectation of life increases, so a smaller proportion of the population will be paying the noble Lord's and my own pension, and it is very important that they should be able to do so efficiently. In a more serious vein, I ask the noble Lord to give very careful attention to what my noble friend Lord Eccles has said. It may not seem dramatic, in spite of the sparks that it has struck from this Chamber tonight, but it is dramatic, it is sinister and it may be tragic.
Lord PARRY: I apologise to my own Front Bench but I should like to make

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one correction in the tenor of the debate. I think it important that it should be understood that the teachers in the classrooms of the schools of the country will welcome some of the emphasis placed upon the need for a return to basic instruction as much as have some of your Lordships. It has been accidentally implied in the debate that teachers are not aware of or concerned about some of the difficulties which their pupils and they are facing. I just wanted to make that important correction.
In making it, may I also say that some of the difficulties in the allocation of the best mathematics teachers arc implicit in the system that occupies them in teaching at the highest level of selectivity within selective schools? There might be many adequate second-rate mathematicians who are being deprived of the teaching of the best mathematics teachers because they are in a C or a D stream. If any difficulty arises in the organisation of such a school, the allocation is of the better man to what is assumed to be the better group. That in itself is a contribution to the loss of top teaching talent to people who might be very adequate mathematicians.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: May I ask the noble Lord whether jobs have been found for all those who have recently left teacher training colleges with excellent qualifications in mathematics?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I have not the answer to that question. It seems a good question and I shall write to the noble Baroness.
Lord VAIZEY: The noble Viscount's Amendment seems highly attractive for two reasons—first, because it deals with a problem of overwhelming national significance and, secondly, because, unintentionally—or I suspect, knowing the noble Viscount a little, intentionally—it knocks the bottom out of the 1944 Act. I have thought for many years that the 1944 Act was one of those enactments which had long been due for torpedoeing and replacement with a proper Education Act.
Having said that, I very strongly agree that the noble Viscount has raised an issue of very great importance. I support
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my noble friend the Minister in this instance. With great respect to what the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, said, I do not think that the real problem in this country is the education of the exceptionally mathematically gifted. I do not think that there is very much evidence that they —
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: I should like to correct the noble Lord before he goes any further. That is one problem. I went on to emphasise that what we are dealing with is the goodish mathematician who could do calculuses, say up to O-level. I am not concerned with Lord Bowden's one in a million. I am concerned with the chap who can do calculus, can do some statistics, and can teach the teachers of Lord Davies of Leek's people. So I am not all that egotistic.
Lord VAIZEY: That is a very useful correction, because it makes the point that 1 was about to make myself. As usual, the Departmental brief which the Minister has is slightly inadequate, because there is a great deal of evidence in fact about mathematical attainment in this country. The International Educational Achievement Survey, which is perhaps the most important piece of educational research ever undertaken, under the direction of Professor Torsten Husén, the very distinguished Swedish expert on these matters, shows that Britain, of all the industrial nations, lags behind in mathematical attainment among precisely the groups to which the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, has just referred.
We do not lag behind at the very top level, but we lag behind at levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 as it were, compared with Japan, Germany and France. One has to ask oneself, what is the reason for this? I think it is fairly clear that the emphasis which we have had on selection in the United Kingdom has restricted the number of people who have been able to attain relatively high qualifications in mathematics, though not the very highest. There is fairly considerable evidence that those countries with a less selective system have been producing more average and above average mathematicians. I have in mind particularly Sweden and France in this context.

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Secondly, and much more important than this—and this is why I find the Amendment of the noble Viscount so incredibly attractive—we are the only country without a national curriculum. We have this absolutely dopey system of A-levels and a university structure, with the maths, sciences and engineering faculties half empty while people crowd into the interesting, thought not particularly helpful, faculties. I wish that my noble friend the Minister could apply his very considerable persuasive powers to his own Department to swing towards some conception of a national curriculum.
For donkey's years we have been talking about the reform of the A-level. It is unbelievable that we should be the only country in the Common Market where our children graduate at the age of 18 from the secondary school, having dropped mathematics years before. That is the basic cause; it is unforgivable—the higher specialisation in the sixth form. The higher specialisation in the sixth form has been justified because it has been the basis for the extraordinary selective system which has led up to the Oxford and Cambridge scholarships and so on, which has allegedly been the glory of our educational system. This marvellous highly selective system has accidentally ruined the country.
Viscount ECCLES: I must answer one or two points. First, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, that it is the basic skills in the primary schools that matter, that start the thing off. But one has to go behind that and ask what proportion of the teachers in the primary schools have the qualifications to teach even the basic skills and perhaps to go a little further.
I would say that those qualifications should be that they took O-level in maths when they were in school. As said before—and I have to repeat it—I tried hard to get the best information I could, and it is that half the teachers in the primary schools have not got O-level, and never took O-level; but if you come out of a college of education as a qualified teacher, you then have to teach in a primary school whatever the head teacher asks you to teach, and if there is no other mathematics teacher you have to teach mathematics although you have no skill
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I in it at all. The purpose of my Amendment, which I concede needs a little revision and rethinking, is really to increase the number of boys And girls in the secondary schools who would after-wards become teachers, either in primary schools or in secondary schools. Both are very important. That will not happen unless the teaching in secondary schools, now 75 per cent. comprehensive, gets very much better than it is at present.
When the noble Lord says—and I have heard it so often—that the number of O- and A-level passes in mathematics is much the same as it was ten years ago, he really has only to go to the universities and ask them what they think about the level of those passes. The university teachers will tell him as a man that the degree of maturity which gets an O-level today is very different from what it was. I have had a number of letters on this subject, and I will not weary the Committee by quoting them, but those who have to award places in higher education to those who come up with mathematics qualifications do say, it seems, that these qualifications are the same in number, but in quality they are much lower than they were. This is sad, and it is exactly what we must try to get right.
In the same context, may I also say that if noble Lords try to get from the chief education officer of whatever area they happen to he interested in how many qualified mathematics teachers they have in their schools, they will find it extremely difficult to get any information out of them at all, because they are in fact aware that the proportion of non-qualified teachers in mathematics is so great that if parents knew it there would be a most prodigious row. It is this that we have to get right.
Then the noble Lord said that nothing in the comprehensive schools makes it more difficult to recruit competent mathematics for either industry or teaching. I wish I thought that were true. I hope that one day it will be true. For example, I know several grammar schools in the London area where they had a large sixth form. I think the noble Baroness referred to one where, out of 700 children, there were 200 in the sixth form and where, when that grammar school goes mini-comprehensive, as it has to do, the sixth form will be reduced to 60 from 200. It really stands to reason that mathematics is not going to be taught so yell as it was

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before. Indeed, if you have anything to do with the independent schools, you will find that competent mathematics teachers are applying for jobs in the independent schools because they do not want to go on in the comprehensive system. This, again, I regret very much. but the only way to get over that is to assure the qualified teachers in a comprehensive school that their talents will be used to the full. This is not happening in a great many comprehensive schools, and it is that which causes me to feel that unless something is put on the Statute Book which really makes mathematics a core subject (because once that happens the colleges of education will have to take a different view about how they train teachers to teach mathematics) we are never going to get this right.
I was interested to hear from the noble Lord that the Department is carrying out one or more examinations into the state
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of mathematics teaching and the number of teachers. I should like to ask this: if it is found, when those reports come out, that it is really going to be impossible to increase the supply of mathematics teachers unless there is selection and unless the inadequate supply of fully-qualified teachers is matched by children who are deliberately selected, would it not be impossible to do that unless some selection is put into this Bill, either on the lines of the Amendment which was put down on behalf of the Liberal Party and which was so narrowly carried, or by another Amendment that we might move on Report stage? I have listened with great interest to all that has been said. This is a very wide and complicated subject. I should like to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, but also to bring it back again in what may perhaps be a more practical form at the next stage of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.17 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert—
("( ) Subsection (1) above shall not be construed as affecting the power of any local education authority to arrange for the admission of pupils with particular needs to the schools most suitable for them.")
The noble Lord said: It would appear that now that the Committee have agreed Amendment No. 3, this Amendment No. 15, is unnecessary. However, it refers to admissions for particular needs which fall outside the wording of Clause 1. Therefore I should like to ask the Government this simple question: Do they agree that this Amendment is acceptable but unnecessary, because Clause 1 does not mention "needs" at all and therefore the Amendment is misconceived? That is what I expect the Government to say. If they agree with that statement, I shall be perfectly content with that assurance.
Baroness STEDMAN: This Amendment is totally unacceptable to the Government. It would completely destroy the purpose of this clause and therefore impair the effectiveness of this legislation in achieving comprehensive reorganisation. It would allow authorities, first, to decide their own criteria for judging whether a pupil has particular needs and, secondly, to admit those pupils to the schools they judge most suitable. For certain groups of pupils this Amendment is quite unnecessary. Subsection (2) allows special arrangements to be made for those who are physically or mentally handicapped and those with musical or dancing ability. In addition, the Secretary of State's approval for arrangements under Clause 5 will undoubtedly be forthcoming if these arrangements are for pupils with particular needs such as boarding need.
The Bill therefore already expressly allows local authorities to make arrangements for pupils with special needs. Moreover, it does not prohibit arrangements, such as co-operation between schools, to meet any other special needs, academic or otherwise, provided that admission arrangements on the basis of ability are not at issue. The principle in Clause 1 is really quite narrowly drawn:
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all that it does not allow is the making of special arrangements for the admission of pupils on the basis of their academic ability. But this would be permissible under the Amendment and authorities who so wished could claim that pupils in the top 20 per cent. of the ability band had particular needs and should therefore be educated together in one school in an area. By this means, they would legally be able to retain their selective system, and the whole point of this legislation would be lost. I must therefore urge noble Lords either to drop this Amendment or to reject it.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I am most grateful to the Conservative Front Bench for having decided at last to move this Amendment. It would have been wrong if this very important Amendment had not been discussed tonight, merely because an Amendment which most of us think was a wrecking Amendment, even though it may not have been intended as such, was passed.
This goes to the absolute heart of the Bill in both ways, and I have considerable sympathy with the Government Front Bench because, as a supporter of the comprehensive principle, I see that it is possible that this opens a very large loophole. Nevertheless, we on these Benches have always said that this is a mistaken Bill and that there is no need for compulsion. We have always felt that it was unnecessary to have a compulsory Bill at this stage, when we arc moving very fast towards a completely comprehensive system. We have always felt that there is a strong division between the principles of comprehensive education. on the one hand, and devolution and local choice, on the other.
I am afraid that the reply from the Government Front Bench is completely unacceptable. It seems to say that the Government are not prepared to give local education authorities any kind of discretion. We believe that, within a very broad framework, one should give that kind of discretion and the local education authorities are the people who can make judgments and they should be allowed to do so. Of course, they should not be allowed to do so to the extent that they

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completely wreck the comprehensive system, but there is a little too much extremism in the appeals of the Government Front Bench. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said earlier that this is a fight. It is not a fight. There may be mistaken people; there may be people who are opposed to each other on this subject. But, on the whole, the great mass of people interested in education in this country are moving in the same way.
This seems to me the most sensible Amendment which is down on the Marshalled List from any Party, and I say that categorically. Obviously, at this stage, and with the situation which we have got into, I shall not urge the Conservative Front Bench to take one kind of action or another. But I am extremely glad that they have allowed to us discuss the Amendment and that at Report stage, as they have been saying, we will come back to discuss this or something similar. The Government keep on saying that they cannot allow discretion, that if they allow any loopholes, then, somehow, the whole comprehensive system will be blown open, apparently because there appears to be such immensely strong feeling against it, which I do not believe, having listened to the debate tonight and because of my experience over the last few years. But if there is such feeling against it, perhaps we should not be passing this Bill at all. If we want the comprehensive principle to survive, we must also at the same time allow a very great deal of local option and it seems to me that this Amendment is the right one.
As I said, given the situation in which we find ourselves tonight, I am not saying that the Conservative Front Bench should necessarily take this Amendment to a Division. But I am very glad that they have allowed us to discuss it, and I sincerely hope that we shall be allowed to vote on something exactly the same at a later stage and, if they do not, I will.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: I rise to support this Amendment, particularly because it refers to the powers of local education authorities. I was chairman of a local education authority for some eight or 10 years, and in Scotland
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we have a fairly widespread system of education. It is not comprehensive in the exact sense in which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, used the term, but it is widely disseminated and all the opportunities are open to all pupils who come to our schools. 1 can honestly say that during those eight or 10 years any gifted child of 15, or 16 as it is now, who wanted to go on to university, technical college or any further education establishment, could do so because we were prepared to pay all his or her expenses. There was no question at all of favouritism for any particular class or type of person. Anybody who wanted to go on to further education after the age of 15, now 16, was able to do so.
If somebody had come along and said to the education committee, "Oh, no, you have no authority to operate your education system like that. We tell you that you have got to do" A, B or C, there would have been a riot, and I think that there would be a riot today. It does away with the idea of democratic election to local authorities, democratic administration and so on if everything has to be controlled from the centre—whether from the Scottish Office in my case or from the education authority in this case.
It is terrible to say that you are not going to consider the individual abilities, desires, tastes or what you will of children because of the old refrain: "Everything has got to be comprehensive and everything has got to be equal". This is impossible; it simply is not so. You may say it over and over again. The noble Lord has said it over and over again and throughout the proceedings he will go on saying that everyting has got to be equal and that everything has got to be comprehensive; but it is not and you cannot make it so.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I have said that in due course I hope that everything will be comprehensive, but never in my life—certainly never in this House—have I said that I think everything ought to be equal.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: If one says that everything has got to be comprehensive, it means that all schools

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have got to be comprehensive, which means equal in the sense that one is not going to allow grammar schools, maintained schools or any variation. This is what I object to. If there is variation, you are able to meet the needs of individual children. After all, what is education? Is education simply a blueprint that everybody has got to do the same thing and have the same comprehensive education? Surely not. To try to make everything the same is the most—I was going to say degrading, but I do not want to use that word—depressing (that is a better word) form of education.
I think that the Amendment which has been supported by my noble friend Lord Beaumont of Whitley and which I support would at least introduce a certain variation into the system and would also leave us with an education authority which had the power to arrange for the admission of pupils with particular needs to the schools most suitable for them. That is democracy and that is what I support.
Lord BELSTEAD: I agree that this is a very sensible Amendment. It stands in my name and the names of my noble friends, so what else would anybody expect? I must admit, however, that my interpretation of what the noble Baroness said, although she sounded a little severe when she started, is that this Amendment is unnecessary and this, if I am right when I read her words tomorrow, I will certainly accept. At the end of her remarks the noble Baroness also said that the effects of the Amendment would go wider than perhaps I had admitted. It is mainly for that reason that I am not going to press the Amendment to a Division this evening.
However, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has spoken very strongly in support of the Amendment—and especially my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood. I think that it is the first time this evening that anybody has spoken really strongly about the powers of local education authorities and I am most grateful to my noble friend for having done so. Let us not forget that the partnership in education between local and central Government has existed for many years. It was part of the foundation of the 1944 Act and it was enshrined in the Local Government Act
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1973 when the Government of the day went out of their way to ensure that the statutory education committees were continued and the powers and duties of authorities were continued as Well.
Do not let us forget, either, that local government is the biggest local authority spender, and even if a local authority has established a totally comprehensive system, surely an education committee should be entrusted with the power of making the best use of available resources by trying to ensure that pupil attend the school where the needs of thy; individual will be looked after best.
That is my view, and I shall therefore look closely at what the noble Baroness has said, and if I feel that we can table another Amendment with a similar effect I shall certainly do so at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.31 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert—
("( ) No order shall be made under this section unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.")
The noble Lord said: By a small majority, but nevertheless in the teeth of both Front Benches, your Lordships quite rightly passed Amendment No. 5, for which I have no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, is extremely grateful, because if I under-stood him aright in a recent speech on mathematics he said that they would get round to dealing with the one-in-a-mill on mathematicians and actually consider whether they needed a special school. My Amendment makes it possible for him to do so, should they so decide, and no doubt he is suitably grateful.
However, this Amendment is in fact more or less consequential in that I believe that probably no-one in the Committee would not want my Amendment No. 5 to be governed by this necessary resort to Parliament before such regulations were laid. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
10.33 p.m.
Lord ELTON: I should like briefly to cast an eye over our collective shoulder at Clause 1 to remind your Lordships that we have incorporated a number of changes in the Bill, with or without acrimony. The first of these was to entrench principles already in the 1944 Act, which some of us believed and others doubted were already protected. We thought there should be no great difference about that. The second, which was moved by my noble friend Lord Belstead as Amendment No. 3, to leave out the words "or partly", has been stigmatised a number of times now as being a wrecking Amendment. I think it is now accepted that it is not wrecking in intention. If that is accepted then it is open to Her Majesty's Government to suggest ways in which it may be ameliorated so that it cannot become a wrecking Amendment but only a permissive Amendment, enabling the principles that ought to be safeguarded, and that we have agreed should be safeguarded, to be safeguarded.
This is one of the occasions when the Government have not said whether or not one may expect correspondence, and judging by their inexpressive countenances I would imagine that the postman will not be busy in that direction. However, I think it would be in their interests and in the interests of the Committee to get clarified, that it is not the intention of this Committee as a whole to wreck the Bill. It is the intention of this part of this House to see that the Bill goes forward, putting into pactice maybe a principle which we do not like, but putting it into practice none the less, and in so doing to protect the interests of those we feel it is our responsibility to protect, namely the children, the parents and the local authorities. I do not think it is beyond the wit of mortal man, and I am sure it is not beyond the wit of the noble Lord and the noble Baroness opposite, to arrive at something like this, and if they feel that consultation with us would be helpful, we should welcome it.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I will certainly have a look at that. I am not clear where it leaves us. We have had an 8-hour discussion on Clause 1 which is, of course, the most important part of the Bill, so I think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to have done.
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Every single Amendment has been an attempt to weaken Clause 1, and the Amendments noble Lords have passed have succeeded in doing so. This will have to be dealt with in the future, of course.
Having said that, we have had a useful discussion in which, although I have not given very much away, I have taken a certain amount away. There are a number of things I shall want to discuss with my colleagues not in relation to Clause 1, but in relation to educational policy in general, which is really the object of a debate of this kind. Though the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said I was wrong, I do think there is a battle. There is a very large number of members of the Tory Party who regard our approach to comprehensive schooling as actually damaging and rather evil. If I may say so, many of their better members do not think that: many accept comprehensive schooling as an entirely satisfactory thing, but there is a backlash of people who feel differently. We are trying to protect ourselves against this in this Bill. If we do no worse than we have done over Clause 1, we may end by not having ruined the Bill altogether.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Submission of proposals for giving effect to comprehensive principle]:
10.37 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 2, line 3, after second ("in") insert ("the county schools in")
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee, in speaking to Amendment No. 17, I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 25, 27, 28, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39 and 41. The effect of these Amendments would be to remove the voluntary schools from the effects of this Bill. Since the 1944 Education Act, voluntary schools have been an integral part of the education system. I cannot believe that there is a desire on their part to see these Amendments passed, provided some improvements can be made to the position in which they find themselves under the terms of this Bill.
I must remind the Government that the 1944 Act was a settlement which took

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years and not months to agree, was acceptable to all Parties at the time, and to the various educational interests. This Bill breaches that settlement in certain ways, and this group of Amendments will enable the Government to explain their position on various points which at best are obscure, and which may well be unacceptable to various people in your Lordships' Committee.
First, I should like to ask whether the Government have any figures to show the loss of denominational school places as a result of their educational policies. The destruction of the direct grant schools has already removed many schools with Christian tradition and teaching from the reach of many parents. How many voluntary-aided places and, indeed, voluntary controlled places, will go the same way, or have gone the same way, seeking independence from the demands of this Government, or else perforce may be closed under reorganisation. However, the majority of voluntary schools will determine to remain within the maintained system, and for them some fundamental questions arise.
Under Section 17(3)(b) of the 1944 Act, the articles of government of a school shall be the instrument under which any school is conducted. The articles of most voluntary-aided secondary schools allocate responsibility to the governors for the admission of pupils, provided the governors act in accordance with arrangements agreed with the local education authority. As the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, may well know, in recent years there have been disagreements between some authorities and schools concerning arrangements for the drawing of catchment areas. But any such disagreements are insignificant compared to the effect which this Bill will have upon admissions procedures to the voluntary schools. Will it not be the case that under this Bill the Secretary of State will be able to interfere with the articles of government, that an all-ability intake is virtually bound to alter the areas from which a voluntary school admits, and that there is nothing in Clause 2, which we are on at present, and Clause 3, except financial stringency, to prevent the Secretary of State from simply directing the voluntary school to change its character?
As I have already mentioned earlier in our debates, about four months ago the
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Department issued a new draft manual of guidance for admission of children to schools. In that entire draft, so far as can see, no mention has been made of the part played by religion in deciding admissions to voluntary schools. Was that an oversight or is the Government's intention that denominational places shall continue to be offered?
Finally, I would ask the Government to explain what a voluntary school is to do if a local education authority puts forward proposals under Clause 2 which are unacceptable to the school concerned. The noble Lord may say to me that, of course, the voluntary schools must be co-operative and must learn to fit in with the authority's plans, even though the 1944 Act specifically reserved for the governors the right to put forward proposals for reorganisation. Suppose the local authority's reorganisation proposals include a plan to reorganise a voluntary school out of existence. In June the Department published its latest projections of the future school population and they show a dramatic fall of sonic 1½ to 2 million pupils in the projected total school population over the next 10 years. It is an incredible figure.
It is more than likely that when reorganising secondary education the authority will wish to preserve its own county schools; it is natural. What safeguards exist in Clauses 2 or 3 to preserve the existence or the identity of a voluntary school? None that I can see. And, of course, under the 1974 Act the Secretary of State is already empowered to alter trust deeds and direct trust funds of a voluntary school once he has approved Section 13 proposals, and it never entered the head of the Government at that time that we would be having a Bill within three years to force voluntary schools to accept Section 13 proposals. Those are some of the questions which I think arise from the inclusion of the voluntary schools in this clause and in Clause 3. I hope the Government will be able to give some assurances on the points I have raised.
The Lord Bishop of BLACKBURN: I hope that this Amendment will riot be either pressed or passed in the last resort. It could become a wedge between the voluntary schools and the count) schools.

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In other words, it could wreck the dual system, a system which depends not so much on the 1944 Act but on the 1870 Act, a system in which we from the voluntary side have been partners with the local authorities and with the State in the provision of education. That partnership is, I believe, a unifying factor in society. From our angle it has also happened to be a unifying factor within the Churches. There was a time in the 1870s when the effect of that Act was to say that you were having Rome on the rates; that was in fact a common cry at the time. It is almost unbelievable that there are actually now Anglican-Roman schools. I know there are only two, but there are two. This is a unifying factor within the Churches, as it is within society.
Our voluntary schools—that is to say, our Church of England schools and my colleagues in the Roman Catholic Education Council, and I can to some extent speak for both, being Chairman of the Churches Joint Educational Policy Committee—comprise some 2 million children. Therefore, we are a considerable partnership. It is just short of 2 million. Half a million of those are in our secondary schools. But then all but 23, I. think it is, of those secondary schools have now either become, or are in the process of becoming, comprehensive.
To have an exemption, which we are not asking for, which to some extent could be regarded as an exclusion, would make us an alternative system rather than part of a dual system. I believe that in the dual system the strength of the bond is more important than the duality. It would be a pity to turn what we regard as the dual system into an alternative system. The alternative system is the independent system, as I would have seen it, and we have heard referred to as human rights, and other things, but there must be an independent sector to provide an alternative system. I believe that there would be a danger, if this Amendment No. 17 at any rate were accepted as it stands, of weakening the strength of the link between the voluntary schools, particularly the aided schools and the county schools. I like to feel that our aided Church schools in fact enhance the quality of the education within the total
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of the country, the total national education system.
We do not want to become competitors; we want to remain partners. Very recently across the way in Church House we had a debate in our Church of England General Synod and passed a resolution in which we strongly affirmed the belief in the rightness and value of partnership with the State and the local education authorities in the field of education expressed in the dual system. If this Amendment does not in any way weaken it, well and good, but we are not asking for the exemption and I do not believe that it would help us in our contribution to the system.
10.48 p.m.
Baroness BROOKE of YSTRADFELLTE: I speak on behalf of the non-denominational voluntary aided school which the local education authority suggested we might turn into a Church of England school away from our own site, losing our identity. I am speaking really about a school in the ILEA area, a girls' grammar school. The Minister has reiterated over and over again that 25 per cent. of the schools of this country are not comprehensive. I am speaking on behalf of one small portion of that 25 per cent. I have a feeling that we may yet prove to be the David to the Government's Goliath, and we all know what happened to him.
The Government are sacrificing the children of this country for a mess of comprehensive pottage. For 32 years the school of which I have the honour to be the chairman of the governors has been in the State system, and so far as I can make out our only error has been that we have selected our children by academic distinction. As a result, we have a considerable number of girls who have recently taken A-level in mathematics; 78 in all. That helps to strengthen the case that has been made that those places that have good mathematical teaching should he encouraged still further.
For three years the governors of this school have been negotiating with the local education authority. Three proposals were put up before us. None of them was acceptable to the school, the staff, or the parents, and at the end of the day the local education authority have asked the

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Secretary of State to allow them to serve a Section 13 notice on the school to cease to maintain the school. Why? Because we could not agree as to the future place of the school in the State system. It was not for want of trying. We have been on the most equable and friendly terms with the local education authority throughout. Their inspectors have done all they could to help us, but it was going to mean a tremendous drop in the standards of what we had worked out over the last 32 years and we could not see our way to signing away what we were doing.
What does this mean? The last entry of children maintained by the ILEAs—and we are not only working with ILEA but also with some of the nearer out-county boroughs—entered the school in September of this year. ILEA and Richmond, one of the out-county boroughs which sent a number of children to our school, have agreed to maintain those children who are already in the school under their auspices or who came into the school in September of this year until they have finished their education up to the stage of further education, and we are extremely grateful to ILEA and to Richmond for this generous interpretation of what they may be allowed to do. But, on the other hand, the same attitude has not been taken by some of the other out-county boroughs and it is because of this that I am venturing to raise the case of this school as an example of what may happen to other voluntary-aided schools which are forced into the independent sector by being unable to agree with their local education authorities.
Out of out-county boroughs, Hounslow have taken seven places in infant school and three into the sixth form for one year—that means until 1977—and they have indicated that they are then going to cease to maintain those children. Ealing have taken six places for one year. Merton have taken one place for one year and Hillingdon have done the same. This does not seem to me at all to show any moral obligation to the children whose parents have chosen to send their children to this voluntary-aided school which, through no fault of its own, is being forced into the independent sector and which will have to charge fees as from September of next year, 1977, for any children who then come in.
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Another voluntary-aided school affected in the same way is Emanuel. Its normal ILEA intake is 95 places for total education. This year it has not been as lucky as we have. ILEA have dropped their 95 places to 60. Richmond, on the other hand have kept to the 10 they normally take up. Out of the out-county boroughs affecting Emanuel, 14 places have been taken by Croydon for one year, four by Merton for one year, two by Hounslow and one by Kingston.
If I may just emphasise the point I am trying to make it is this. If it is going to be impossible in the future for some of the voluntary-aided schools which are becoming independent to maintain their place in the educations system, it is of the utmost importance that the Government should see that the attitude taken by ILEA and Richmond, one of the out-county boroughs, should be taken by all those other out-county boroughs. It seems to me dishonest for them to allow children from their boroughs to come for one year and then to say they are going to cease to maintain them altogether—in other words, Oat either they have to leave the school or their parents have to start paying fees.
The other question I am very anxious to ask the Government is this What I have been talking about has been happening over the last three years and came to a final arrangement this summer. Will the passing of the Bill affect any arrangements already made between the governors and LEA? I am speaking not only of our school but of any other schools affected in this way, because throughout the Bill it appears from time to time that the Minister will have retrospective control over what is already happening What I am so afraid of is that those of us who have been trying to assist the Government—by coming to decisions and not hanging fire; by deciding what our future is to be—will be penalised by the passing of the Bill and so undo all the arrangements that have already been made.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: The noble Baroness will not expect me to comment on the detailed cases she quoted, though we will of course examine them closely. I think it would be wrong before hearing both sides and the rest to say anything. I am endeavouring to obtain an answer to her

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last question. That answer not yet having arrived, I will write to her about whether an arrangement made between the LEA and the school could be affected by the Bill. My fear is that it may be, but I will write to her. I was pleased indeed at the response of the right reverend Prelate and it was extremely encouraging to me as a churchman to find that the Church schools, which are the majority of the voluntary schools, are so contented with the present arrangements. I had a speech prepared saying much the same kind of things as he said, so I will spare your Lordships a good deal of it.
The noble Lord, Lord Belstead, wants to pull the voluntary schools out of the system despite the fact that with the exception of 15 per cent. of the capital, they are entirely maintained by the State and the Government would never contemplate that, but we are much encouraged in our attitude by the fact that more than half of them do not want to go, and that is very satisfactory. I do not think I need go into much more detail about that; it was well covered by the right reverend Prelate.
The Bill provides that local education authorities shall seek to draw the voluntary schools into the local proposals for ending selection; that is in Clause 2(2). Then, if voluntary schools do not respond by making proposals for reorganisation—proposals which, under the Education Acts, they alone can make—the Secretary of State can require them to do so; that is in Clause 2(3). Their proposals may not necessarily fit in with the preferences of the local education authority, but whatever proposals for genuine reorganisation they put forward will be considered on their merits. Thus, voluntary school proposals will be considered—as the Churches, above all, have asked—on exactly the same footing as local education authority proposals and this applies whether the voluntary school proposals are submitted willingly and transmitted by the authority with their own proposals, whether they are submitted willingly but quite separately under Section 13, or whether they are submitted in response to a requirement under Clause 2(3). Moreover, Clause 3(2) ensures that these schools will not be required to do anything they genuinely cannot afford to do.
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The provisions which noble Lords opposite want to strike out are thus precisely the provisions which are intended to encourage voluntary school governors and local education authorities to find a place for these great voluntary schools within the comprehensive system. In view of what the right reverend Prelate has said and in view of what I have said, I shall be surprised if we cannot persuade the noble Lord to withdraw the Amendment. But if we cannot, then I must advise the Committee to reject it.
Lord BELSTEAD: I absolutely accept the view of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn that these Amendments could be a wedge if they were pressed to a Division and would endanger the dual system. I really must point out to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, that the tenor of my speech was in that sense and was not that I wished to de-gut the Bill so far as the voluntary schools were concerned. I made it clear that I was using this group of Amendments as a peg on which to hang a certain number of questions and although, as always, I was very grateful to the noble Lord for the full reply he gave to the last question I asked—a reply which was totally unsatisfactory—the noble Lord has given me no replies at all to about five or six of my first questions, and I am sure it would not be asking too much if I suggested that perhaps he should write to me before the next stage of the Bill.
Clearly the weak link concerning the omissions in the noble Lord's replies this evening is that, however the Government attempt to present it, the effect of the Bill is bound to be that the governors of the schools concerned are going to have no control over which children can attend their school. Even assuming that the school is going comprehensive the governors might want to have certain controls, although I assume that the denominational control continues to exist. I and my noble friends would like to look very carefully at the Bill between this stage and the next to see whether we cannot devise an Amendment which will continue to ensure at least some right to admit pupils as the school thinks best within, so far as possible, the comprehensive principle of Clause 1.
Before I sit down, may I thank my noble friend Lady Brooke for what I think

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was a most important speech which clearly showed the need to safeguard the position of voluntary aided schools in this sense. If the Bill is going to make it impossible for a voluntary school to preserve any academic selection, then in some cases the school will feel, maybe with a heavy heart, that it has no option but to go independent. In that event, it is essential for the pupils who are already in the school to be able to continue until their education is complete, and this is what our subsequent Amendments 40 and 47 are going to try to achieve. I hope that your Lordships will think that this has not been a waste of time but a useful debate. The position of the voluntary schools in this Bill is considerable, and in my view precarious, and in all seriousness if the noble Lord would reply to several of my questions which he did not have the time to reply to I should be most grateful.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I should like to reply to the noble Lord on one question to which I have the answer. He asked how many denominational school places have been lost as a result of this Bill. The answer is none in maintained schools, and the Roman Catholic and Church of England schools broadly support the comprehensive principle, so we suppose none there either.
Lord BELSTEAD: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.3 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 2, line 5, after ("him") insert ("after consultation with teachers, parents and governors and").
The noble Lord said: We are now caught up in the machinery which the Secretary of State intends to use in order to enforce the comprehensive principle of Clause 1. Before going any further into Clause 2, I think it is just worth stating the powers by which county or voluntary schools can be established or discontinued under Section 13 of the Education Act 1944.
First of all, proposals to establish a new school or to close, enlarge or significantly change the character of an existing school can only be made by a local education
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authority or the managers on governors of a voluntary school. Public notice must be given of any proposals in at least one newspaper, by posting the notice up at a conspicuous place in the area at or near to the main entrance to the school and in such other manner as appears desirable for giving publicity, and after his there is a period of two months for 10 or more local government electors or the managers or governors of the voluntary school to object to the proposals. This, to my mind, is a clearly understood democratic procedure for taking a step which may affect the education of generations of children; namely, altering the way in which the local schools of the area are reorganised.
Let us be clear that what Clause 2 is doing is destroying that democratic procedure, first, because the initiative to make proposals is taken away from the local authority or the voluntary schools and it will be the Secretary of State who will give an order requiring reorganisation proposals to be prepared and, secondly, because those proposals will hive to be made in accordance with the principle of Clause 1. Your Lordships will notice that we on this side of the Committee have tabled no Amendments on these two issues. We have not done so because we took the view that that would be to wreck the main objective of the Bill. What we have attempted to do, however, is to make the effects of Clause 1 more flexible.
Surely, however, the Government do not intend to abolish the means whereby local views on proposals may properly be taken into account. It is for that reason that the Amendment is tabled. I really hope that, on this occasion, the Government will be able to accept it, if not in letter at least in spirit. I beg to move.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I do not think that, by the time I have finished what I have to say, we shall be so far apart. We are absolutely clear on the importance of consultation and there is no intention of reducing it in any way, but we have a number of things which exist and which seem to me to provide what the noble Lord is asking for. First, Circular 4/74, outlining the Government's policy on secondary reorganisation, drew attention to this—in particular to the need for local education authorities to explain their

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proposals fully to the parents and teachers involved and to consider any views expressed by them while proposals are being formulated and before they are submitted. Nothing can be clearer than that. It is far better for proposals to be discussed locally before they are finalised and submitted, as this gives the opportunity for greater participation in the planning. Once proposals have been formally submitted, we have Section 13 procedures, and local government electors have the right to submit objections to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State within the specified two months period.
Lord BELSTEAD: Will the noble Lord tell me where in the Bill the Section 13 procedure is laid down?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I think it is in Clause 2 if it is not in Clause 3, but we can look that up as we go.
Lord ELTON: Clause 3 is optional, not mandatory, at the moment, so it can be avoided.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Can be avoided?
Lord ELTON: The word "may" is used. We have a debate pending on this—
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Perhaps we should wait until then, because we stand behind the Section 13 procedure as the means of consultation in all these things. We think it adequate and we believe that there is no better way of doing it. I consider that most local education authorities have carried out fairly full consultations before submitting responses to Circular 4/74. Not only do we study comments from the local education authority or governing body promoting the proposal, but we give particularly careful attention to any objections submitted.
Clause 2(2) requires local education authorities to consult the manager or governors of any voluntary aided schools affected by reorganisation proposals; I do not consider it practical to legislate to extend consultation to the parents and teachers also involved. I emphasise the
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word "legislate"; I have already shown that the Government recognise the importance of such consultation. It is the responsibility of the proposers to clear the ground locally for their proposals and it would not be appropriate for central Government to insist it was done in a particular way. We already take up with proposers any objections on the grounds of inadequate consultation; I do not think we can go further in this matter without removing local initiative. There is little virtue at present in trying to formalise the concept of consultations. There has been a growing acceptance by proposers that consultation is an integral part of any proposal, and I think that over a relatively short period of time this has become an automatic part of the system.
It is true that the 1970 Bill included specific provisions about consultation. But we have moved on from there, in two ways. First, as I have said, the need for consultation is more generally recognised, and I believe that LEAs and voluntary school governors have since taken to heart the need for consultation. Secondly—and this is an important difference between the 1970 Bill and this Bill—the 1970 Bill provided for the approval of reorganisation proposals in advance of the Section 13 procedure, although that procedure would still subsequently be necessary. That would have meant that plans could have been approved without the public—or even teachers—being aware of them, if a specific consultation provision had not been written in. This is not the case under this Bill. No statutory approval would have been given until the Section 13 procedure has been completed. So there is no need for any safeguard in the Bill to ensure that interested parties are given a chance to air their views. The Section 13 procedure itself provides that safeguard, and this Amendment is unnecessary.
The noble Lord has questioned whether this is in the Bill. I shall have to look through and find it for him, but this is the basis on which I rest my case.
My objection to the other Amendment, however, is different. It does not seek to legislate on a matter which is not appropriate for legislation, and hence it does not share the defects of the first Amendment. It merely presupposes that some consultation will have, and ought

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to have, taken place, and that my right honourable friend will take this into account in her consideration of the proposals. The Government share those presuppositions. My objection to the Amendment is that it is unnecessary and that it introduces into Clause 2 a certain imbalance of emphasis.
What I mean is this. Clause 2(5) already enables the Secretary of State to require authorities to submit proposals in such form as she may direct. My right honourable friend will undoubtedly require a good deal of background information about the proposals, and I am prepared to give an undertaking that one piece of information which she will require—and take into account, as appropriate to the circumstances of each case—will be the nature and extent of consultation undertaken, of the sort specified in this Amendment. But there are other factors—such as present and expected pupil numbers, patterns of provision existing and proposed, and resources available—which will be at least equally important. However vital the question of consultation may be—and I agree with noble Lords opposite that it is vital, and authorities in general would agree too—it seems unbalanced to single out this one aspect for a statutory requirement in the Bill.
I do not believe that there is much difference between us. We pay the greatest importance to consultation, and we reckon that the arrangements made are entirely adequate. I hope that in the light of these assurances noble Lords will not find it necessary to press the Amendment.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: In view of what the noble Lord has said in drawing our attention to Clause 2(5), which I personally regard as disastrous, in that it gives the Secretary of State almost autonomous powers over everything, and in view of the fact that the noble Lord said that the Government intend to consult, surely he cannot be against the Amendment proposed by my noble friend? All we want is more consultation at the right level. I would certainly back my noble friend when he asks for consultation with teachers, parents and governors.
We think that that is very important at all stages; certainly it is in view of
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what the noble Lord has said. I think that it is important that we should have this consultation written into the Bill. It is no good expecting people to do this because they have been doing it for so long; or for reasons of good will. This consultation should be written into the Bill, and so I support my noble friend.
11.15 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Macleod, because as she was speaking she reminded me that I had sought to put it in a moderate way in the sense that my last words were: "Even if not in the letter, I hope the Government will be able to accept what I have said in the spirit". I am going to be very short because we lave two Amendments, one from the Liberal Front Bench and one from our own Front Bench, which are on the same subject in the sense that they are dealing with time limits, and I think we can go to those rather quickly. But I must point out to your Lordships what I consider to be the implications of the noble Lori's reply. As I understand the reply which we have been given this evening, when you look under Clause 2(1) you see that the Secretary of State will require comprehensive proposals, and there is no requirement that there shall be consultations or any suggestion that any time limit should be given for them. Then, if the Secretary of State does not like those proposals, under Clause 2(4) he can go back to the local authority or to the managers or governors of the voluntary school, can spell out what it is that he or she wants and can say that those proposals must be put into effect within a certain time.
The noble Lord, as part of his answer, said, "But this is all right because eventually there will be the Section 13 procedure", which I sought to outline when I was moving this Amendment. "There will be that democratic procedure which everyone understands, including posting up notices and making objections". Where is that embedded? First of all, the Minister did not know, which is not a frightfully good start.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Clause 3(1).
Lord BELSTEAD: Very well; let us read the words. The words, in essence, say this:
"Where any of the proposals submitted to the Secretary of State…by a local education authority…or…by the managers or governors of a voluntary school…being proposals to be wholly or partly carried into effect within five years after the date on which they are submitted…, the Secretary of State may direct that those proposals (or any of them) shall be treated as if they had been submitted to him by the local education authority under"
Section 13. I do not know what that means. I hope that at this hour somebody else knows what it means. It certainly does not fill me with any confidence at all that at the end of this appalling procedure in Clause 2 there is going to be a Section 13 procedure.
In all seriousness, may I just point out, before we go on to the next Amendment, what it is we are doing at the beginning of Clause 2? What we are doing is saying that if there is no consultation at all at this early stage then it will be assumed by the Secretary of State that the proposals which have been put forward from the locality are acceptable. That may be far from the case, but how on earth is the Secretary of State to know if no local views are given? I must confess—this is my last word—that if the Section 13 procedure really does exist in Clause 3, I am deeply suspicious of it anyway, because by the time you get to Clause 3 it will be clear what it is that the Secretary of State wants. He is the arbiter, and the decision can reasonably be assumed to have been taken beforehand, without any consultation or any time at all for anyone to talk to anyone else.
I am not going to press this Amendment because I believe the Amendment which ought to be pressed is either the Liberal Amendment or our Amendment which follows it. They will give the time, and therefore within that time there should be the consultations. But I think this is the negation of democracy, and I really am appalled at the answer we have been given this evening.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I think I must defend myself here. The Section 13 procedure is an absolutely sound procedure. It has worked very well for many years. It involves the posting up of a scheme, and it involves an opportunity being given for
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everybody to make objections. The noble Lord is speaking as if this was some frightfully new fascist thing. I simply cannot understand it; it must be the lateness of the hour. It really is a most extraordinary statement. Here you have a very elaborate system of consultation written into the Bill and referred to in the Bill. Admittedly, I dropped my copy of the Bill when the noble Lord asked me so I could not give him the reference, but these things happen at the best regulated Boxes. Normally the noble Lord is extremely reasonable, polite and sensible, but this is not any of those things. Here you have an absolutely democratic procedure without which the Secretary of State can do nothing, and the noble Lord talks like that. He says he is appalled—I am appalled.
Lord BELSTEAD: May I ask where "consultation" is written into this Bill?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Consultation is written into the Bill under Section 13, where people make objections. It is assumed under Circular 4/54—I think that is the number—that consultation will take place. That is the normal practice which is going on today and has been going on for the last four or five years. Where proposals are made under this circular, consultations are made and local authorities are asked to make them. I said earlier that they have invariably referred to the consultations they have made in putting out their plans. That is the position today and it has not changed in any way whatever.
Lord BELSTEAD: In withdrawing this Amendment, I think I had better leave it to the Liberal Front Bench and my noble friend Lord Elton to take up the cudgels. But I must say that Circular 4/54 has nothing to do with what we are talking about this evening. That was to do with submission of plans of reorganisation by local authorities and voluntary schools. That freedom has been taken away by Clause 2. Circular 4/74 was also concerned with the procedure which the noble Lord referred to under Section 13. The thing he does not seem to have taken on board is that if Section 13 really does exist under Clause 3—and if he assures me that that is so I will accept it—by the time one gets

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there through Clause 2, the whole situation will have been made into a sham, because it will be clear what the Secretary of State wants. In fact the Section 13 procedure will be, if not null and void, at least of no real value. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Baroness BROOKE of YSTRADFELLTE: I have here a copy of a Section 13 notice that was served on a school in which I am interested. It has been said that consultation is always the order of the day. There is no mention in this Section 13 notice that was posted up in this particular school—nor, I imagine, in other schools—of "consultation". It merely says that objections to the proposals may be submitted to the Secretary of State. There is no mention of consultation. There is no mention anywhere in Section 13 of "consultation".
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: Is the noble Baroness suggesting that there was no consultation or just that the notice did not refer to it?— because Section 2(2) in the new Bill says:
"Before submitting any proposals under this section a local education authority shall consult the managers or governors, or persons representing the managers or governors, of every voluntary school (whether or not in their area) which is in the authority's opinion affected by the proposals;"…
Quite honestly, I am at a loss to understand what we are talking about.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.25 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 2, line 6, after ("may") insert ("reasonably").
The noble Lord said: I think the argument about this point has already been deployed to a very large extent, and I do not see that there is anything which really needs to be said—for which your Lordships will be extremely grateful, at this hour of the night. To produce the adverb "reasonably" in a situation like this seems totally unobjectionable. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, may say that it is unnecessary, and perhaps it is. But whereas the noble Lord may just have had some right on his side, when arguing earlier about a whole extra clause which he said was unreasonable, he surely
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should not object to one word which defines the powers which the Government have and which surely, if it does nothing else, will reassure the people concerned. I do not see that there is anything more to argue, particularly after what the Conservative Front Bench said on the previous Amendment. I beg to move.
Lord ELTON: It may be to the convenience of the Committee to consider with the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, our Amendment No. 20, which is a little longer, and which. I shall plead a little more extensively than he did his. Clause 1 sets out the direction in which the Bill is to move. Clause 2 determines the means and the rate of progress. Clause 1 is the steering wheel, as it were, and Clause 2 is the accelerator. Amendment No. 19 requires the Secretary of State "to drive with due care and attention''. Recent experience leads us to doubt whether Secretaries of State always know exactly what that phrase means, and we have therefore suggested a speed limit.
Different limits would normally apply to different circumstances, but one cannot legislate for every state of preparedness of every local authority. We are aware that, even if they have been considering 100 per cent. co-operation with the Government for a long time, the processes of consultation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, himself has already drawn our attention during the last heated exchange on subsection (2) of this clause, must take a considerable time. There are authorities which have exercised their perfectly democratic and independent rights in the past, and have hence been called by Her Majesty's Government "rebel authorities" which have not been giving their undivided attention to going 100 per cent. comprehensive in the near future, and of course they will need longer. The Secretary of State is already allowed —in line 35 on page 2, in a passage to which we have marked our grave exception —to send hack proposals for redrafting in his own terms, and we feel that the provisions of this clause are draconian and unacceptable. We must at the start, therefore, make sure that at least the elementary precautions of a democratic consultative process have been gone through, and that there has been time to do it.

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It is a fact of life that Secretaries of State are political animals, and it is no good noble Lords opposite pretending that it is only Tory Secretaries of State who are political animals, because manifestly, when in office, anybody is subject to political pressure. The fact is that all of us are politically motivated and our motivations colour our choices, however impartial we seek to be. The clause, as it stands, is an open invitation to a Minister of either Party to allow ample time for consultation when it is likely to reinforce the plans he favours and very little when it does not. We do not wish to tempt him or her, whatever their political colour, to proceed like this, and noble Lords will find that our view is shared by many who are responsible for administering the tangled and controversial laws of education that are growing up about us.
At this late hour I do not think that it is necessary to go on at much greater length than that. Noble Lords are aware of the temptations of office on all, whatever their Party, to play within the rules but to extend the chances of their view prevailing where they are supposed to be impartial. Let us not illustrate this closely. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, may not know to what I refer. I will not refer to it more closely. But I have made the point and I shall be interested to see whether it is necessary to expound it further.
Baroness STEDMAN: The aim of both these Amendments, I think, is to ensure that the Secretary of State specifies a reasonable time limit when she requires authorities to prepare and submit reorganisation proposals under Clause 2. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, seeks to do this by inserting the word "reasonably"; however, the drafting of Amendment No. 19 is defective in that the word "reasonably" has been so placed that it refers to the specification of the time limit, rather than the time limit itself—and it is the time limit, of course, which must be reasonable.
I do not wish to base the Government's case for rejecting the Amendment on a question of detail like that but rather on consideration of the principle behind it. It is settled law that a provision of the kind in Clause 2(1) must specify a reasonable time limit. As the clause stands at
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present any time limit specified by the Secretary of State could be challenged by proceedings in the High Court for a declaration on the grounds that the time given was unreasonable in all the circumstances. The insertion of the word "reasonably" adds nothing to this right of challenge. In fact it may even have a deleterious effect by casting doubt on the extent of the other duties imposed on the Secretary of State to which the duty to act reasonably is not expressly added. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, may feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
If we look at the other Amendment, we find an attempt to specify a minimum period of time—18 months—for the preparation and submission of initial proposals. I have indicated that the Bill as at present drafted contains sufficient safeguard against the Secretary of State's stipulating an unreasonably short time limit. No one—least of all she herself—would wish unreasonable time limits to be specified. Ministers have often expressed their distaste for ill-conceived, botched-up schemes of reorganisation; such schemes would certainly not gain the Secretary of State's approval. She would therefore have no reason to lay on authorities too harsh a timetable which might lead to the submission of just such proposals. But in the majority of cases, 18 months is a substantially longer period of time than should be necessary. I can assure noble Lords that it would be exceptional for the Secretary of State to give an authority less than about six months for this, because of course careful planning and consultation is necessary. In some areas, where planning needs to start from scratch, the Secretary of State might give up to 12 months, but she must have the power to decide according to the very different circumstances of each case.
It would be quite possible for an authority to use the need for planning and consultation as an excuse for delay; I hope none would do so, but they could, and this Amendment would simply encourage delays which were quite unwarranted. I should, however, like to add my own firm assurances to those already given by Ministers when this very subject was debated in another place. The Secretary of State will not expect unreasonably hasty action under Clause 2 and will proceed by agreement where this

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is possible. I would therefore ask noble Lords not to accept either of these Amendments.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: If I may deal with the three points which the noble Baroness has made about my Amendment, I am afraid that I do not accept the first point. I still think that the drafting is perfectly all right. However, as the arguments tonight about literacy and numeracy have been rather heated, I will take it away and look at it again. The second point made by the noble Baroness was that, if we put in "reasonably", it might cast doubt on anything else which the Secretary of State did. It might well do so, but I do not object. If it is your Lordships' wish, I will put down an Amendment to insert the word "reasonably" in front of every verb that concerns the Secretary of State, which would meet that objection.
The third point made by the noble Baroness has, I think, some substance; that is, that this would not apply unless the case went to the courts. The question whether or not it was reasonable would have to be challenged in the courts; it would be taken into account, anyway, by the courts without this particular word. I should like to take away this point in order to look at it again and consult various people. I am not certain that I think that it is right. To put the word "reasonably" into the Bill would possibly help the courts in their elucidation of any decision regarding this matter, and I reserve my position.
I still think, if I may say so with considerable humility to the Conservative Front Bench, that possibly "reasonably" is a better way to deal with the matter than to impose a minimum time limit. Minimum time limits may be totally inappropriate in certain situations. I should like to ask for your Lordships' leave to withdraw the Amendment on the understanding that I may feel the need, after consultation, to put it back at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.35 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 2, line 6, after ("specify") insert ("not being less than 18 months").
The noble Lord said: I have listened with great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has said, and he has endorsed what the noble Baroness has said in one sense; that is, that any protection which the Bill as drafted offers looks rather "leaky" to us and could only be proved watertight in the courts. The word in his Amendment would be understood by the courts to be there although it is not inserted, because every decision of the Secretary of State, for reasons which may escape us, is assumed to be reasonable unless proved otherwise.
We have had a case about the word, "reasonably" very recently, and it is a long, expensive and tedious business, and one which should be avoided. There is no doubt that there is an element of reason in "18 months". It has been suggested to me that we ought to have put down "two years". But we have been trying to find something so that Her Majesty's Government could demonstrate that they were not entirely stuck and bigoted and so that they would meet us an inch or so on the way; thus we cut it down to 18 months. We do not feel disposed to reduce it beyond that, and we find not a single gesture in our direction.
This is the only barrier we can I see that we can put into the Bill which will ensure that people shall be able to collect themselves and a proper assessment be made of a problem which the Secretary of State may throw into their laps at what she may think is reasonable notice, and sweep through before anybody has had the wit to take it to the courts—yet again, at expense. I have listened to a n amber of people who have been involved in this sort of case; that is, defending schools which are being peppered with grapeshot from Transport House, because that indeed would seem to be where the gun is laid from. The first consideration is the enormous cost of losing and the next is the considerable delay in winning.
We want this Amendment, and subject to anything which my noble friends may wish to say from behind me, I intend to press it. I beg to move.
11.38 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 20) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 59; Not-Contents, 22.

CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Falmouth, V.

Moyne, L.

Alport, L.

Ferrers, E.

Newall, L.

Barrington, V.

Gisborough, L.

Norfolk, D.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Gray, L.

Onslow, E.

Belstead, L.

Greenway, L.

Redesdale, L.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Harcourt, V.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Salisbury, M.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hives, L.

Sandford, L.

Campbell of Croy. L.

James of Rusholme, L.

Sandys, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Kemsley, V.

Savile, L.

Carrington, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Selkirk, E.

Cathcart, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Colville of Culross, V.

Long, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L

Craigmyle, L.

Lothian, M.

Sudeley, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lyell, L.

Tranmire, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vernon, L,

Drumalbyn, L.

Margadale, L.

Vivian, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mottistone, L.

Wardington, L.

Elton, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Wolverton, L.

Exeter, M.

Faithfull, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Birk, B.

Kirkhill, L.

Oram, L.

Blyton, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Parry, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Stedman, B.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Wall, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Melchett, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Janner, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

White, B.

Kaldor, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
11.45 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 2, line 10, leave out from ("governors") to ("of") in line 11.
The noble Lord said: On this Amendment I should just like to know the reason why consultation with voluntary schools can be entered into with persons representing the management or governors. These words were included in Section 11 of the 1944 Education Act when consultation is to take place over development plans, but I appreciate also that education committees need to be consulted, particularly when expenditure is involved. I must say for my own part I would have preferred the consultation with diocesan education committees in addition to consultation with individual schools written into the Bill, and I wondered whether there was any chance that the Government might consider a slight rewording at this particular place. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: If this Amendment were to be accepted, it would mean that where the Secretary of State has
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required a local education authority to submit plans to conform with the comprehensive principle, and where it is necessary for local authorities to consult voluntary schools, they would be unable to do this via the long-established diocesan education committees. Instead, they would have to consult the voluntary schools individually, which would be laborious and time-consuming in areas where the voluntary schools represent a significant element in the maintained provision.
Here, I am thinking of the large cities such as Liverpool and Manchester, where the initiatives taken by the diocesan education committees have been a highly significant factor in co-ordinating the efforts of the large number of voluntary schools in producing schemes for reorganisation. The local knowledge and expertise of the diocesan education committees is very valuable in this context, and they are able to take a strategic view of denominational provision in their area (which often extends beyond LEA boundaries) and assess the overall needs. They are also able to speak with one voice on behalf of their community to ensure that the needs of their schools are adequately represented.

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I am sure that the noble Lords who sponsored this Amendment do not wish to see the long established role of the diocesan education committees removed from the scene at this important point in the development of the education system. I should hasten to add that we are by no means attempting to restrict the role of managers and governors, as is shown by the fact that they remain the only body who can in the last resort submit statutory proposals to the Secretary of State. Therefore, in the light of this, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his Amendment.
Lord BELSTEAD: I accept absolutely the explanation which the noble Baroness has given, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.48 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 2, line 11, leave out ("voluntary").
The noble Lord said: Your Lordships might find it convenient to look at Amendment No. 24 with No. 23, because No. 23 means nothing by itself. I apologise for not tabling this Amendment in the form recommended by the Renton Committee; I should tell your Lordships that the effect of it would be to change the wording of the Bill to read:
"…the managers or governors, or persons representing the managers or governors, of every school in their area and every voluntary school not in their area".
The purpose of putting this down is to elicit from the Government any observations which they would want to make about the extent to which the governors or managers of county schools ought to be considered. I understand that the intention of the particular subsection relates to the voluntary schools, but it has always puzzled me slightly that the consultation procedure which we regard as important should be concentrated in this way on this particular group of schools. The hour is a great inducement to conciseness. I hope I have not been too concise in moving this Amendment.
Baroness STEDMAN: With the leave of the Committee, I will also reply to the two Amendments, which will help in the
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time-saving efforts. On Amendment No. 23, the effect of this Amendment would be to place on local education authorities a duty to consult the managers and governors of county schools affected by proposals to be submitted under Clause 2. This would be an addition to the duty already laid on them in the clause to consult the managers and governors of voluntary schools. I have some sympathy with this as a proposition but I would point out that there is a specific reason for referring in Clause 2(2) to voluntary schools as distinct from county schools. Only the governors of voluntary schools can make proposals for the reorganisation of those schools, whereas in the case of county schools the responsible body is the local education authority. So it is clear that where a local education authority's plans for reorganisation of an area include the reorganisation of voluntary schools, their co-operation in the statutory procedure must be sought. I think that perhaps there is some misconception about this, and I hope that the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
On Amendment No. 24 it appears—though it is not clearly drafted—to require local education authorities, before submitting proposals called for under Clause 2(1), to consult the managers and governors of all voluntary schools in their area, whether or not those schools are in their opinion affected by the proposals. Noble Lords opposite evidently fear that an authority might, through an omission, fail to consult a voluntary school which was in fact likely to be affected by the proposals, because in the authority's opinion it was not so affected. I doubt this very much; but, if it happened, the managers or governors of such a school would have a safeguard. The proposals could not be approved or put into effect without going through the public notice procedure under Section 13 of the 1944 Act; Clause 3 of this Bill provides for that. The managers or governors of the voluntary school would be sure to see the notice and would have the right to object.
That safeguard is, in the Government's view, adequate. The safeguard proposed by noble Lords opposite appears to us to be somewhat absurd. For it would mean that—to take an example —Essex, before submitting proposals for reorganisation in Southend, might have to consult

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the managers of an aided primary school in Saffron Walden some 50 miles away. That is the effect of this Amendment; and it is so self-evidently ludicrous that I am sure it is not what the noble Lords opposite intended, and I hope that they will not press it.
Lord ELTON: No, but it has served its purpose of eliciting one or two interesting points. The noble Baroness has rightly said that the local education authority is the initiating body where reorganisation schemes for county schools are concerned. I do not think that is any reason for not consulting the governors of them, and I detect from the noble Baroness's tone that she does not think it is either. Maybe she would like to write to me about this if she thinks I could usefully intervene at a later stage. I suspect that this is something to be done by circular or regulation and not by Statute, but if it is in fact customary to go over the heads of the governors without consulting them, which one would deplore, I think it ought to be put right. She also referred again to the protection offered under Clause 3 on anybody who wishes to object in Saffron Walden for one reason or another. I would draw to her attention a point which I thought had been taken already; that is, that in line 21 of page 3 we have the word "may" which enables the Secretary of State not to use Section 13 procedure. I thought that is what we were all getting so excited about. Perhaps we can look at that tomorrow.
Earlier this evening we were talking about the possibility of releasing children who had been randomly selected at one school for courses at another school to which they were more suited because that school offered a facility which they could not get in their home school. I can see occasions where the borderline between an area being re-organised and an area not being re-organised is being crossed by such pupils, possibly in some numbers. It would be useful to the managers, governors and indeed staff of schools in that position, when considering staffing questions for future years, to know whether this was a tide which was likely to continue or start to flow.
Thus, although I think the illustration which the noble Baroness legitimately introduced was absurd, I want her to
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accept that the principle behind the Amendment was not. I do not know whether she would like to say anything further about the question of consulting the governors of county schools, but if she did—and no doubt she would wish to refer to it briefly—that would be all I would expect to hear from her at this stage.
Baroness STEDMAN: The governors of county schools are, of course, normally consulted by the education authority before they submit any proposals. I do not know of any local authority which does not go round meeting the staff, patents, governors and managers of schools; they are normally consulted. I do not think I can offer the noble Lord any joy on this. We will look at it and, if we can, come back to him, but I do not think that will be so.
Lord ELTON: I am grateful to the noble Baroness and I am sure that if she comes across such an authority she will take steps to put matters right. In the light of her reply, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord STRABOLGI: This might be a good moment to halt the Committee. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS (FELIXSTOWE) BILL
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee (on recommitment) without amendment.