Lords Sitting of 13 March 1980

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

AIRCRAFT OPERATORS' STANDARDS
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any problems are being posed by so-called "cowboy" aircraft.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, there is no evidence to indicate that the operation of so-called "cowboy "aircraft is a widespread problem in the United Kingdom. The Question derives, I believe, from the occasion at Bristol Airport on 11th October 1979 when a Boeing 707 struck a hedge and a number of approach lights as it took off. The aircraft continued its flight to Kuwait without further incident. It arrived in the United Kingdom on 15th August, 1979 American-owned and registered, and during its stay in this country was leased to a Liechtenstein based company and reregistered under a Zaire registration, although there is some doubt as to the latter. I am assured by the Civil Aviation Authority, which has the matter under investigation, that it is an isolated incident and that it is not aware of any other such incident so far as the United Kingdom is concerned.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord. Is it a problem of any magnitude outside the United Kingdom? If I understand the noble Lord aright, these are aeroplanes flying under flags of convenience, with registration of convenience, and with maintenance of convenience. Do they present a hazard to aircraft outside the United Kingdom, even if not allowed inside the United Kingdom'?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I cannot of course answer for the policing of the regulations by other States. But I can say that we have no evidence to support the suggestion that this is a widespread hazard.

SOUTH EAST ASIAN REFUGEES: RESIDENCE
3.9 p.m.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many countries have granted permanent residence to refugees from South and East Asia.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, according to the latest available information, 29 countries have granted permanent residence to 50 or more refugees from South East Asia since 1975. A further 21 countries have accepted smaller numbers.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, may I ask whether any of the countries which have accepted refugees for resettlement are governed by the political philosophy of communism? May I ask further whether the present situation is fair to Hong Kong? Would the noble Lord agree that no country has shown more humanity, with all that that means in money, than both the people and the Government of Hong Kong? And yet today there are more refugees in Hong Kong than in any other country, and the percentage of these refugees who have been found asylum is smaller than that percentage in any other country.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I cannot see from the list in front of me any country—except the People's Republic of China, which has accepted far more than any other country—which has a communist régime. I might want to consider that more carefully, but I cannot see any from the list. As for the position of Hong Kong, it is certainly true that they have played a quite remarkable role in this matter. The latest figures I have are

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that 9,330 refugees have been accepted for permanent settlement in Hong Kong, which of course is a number way in excess of any they might be expected to take on purely numerical considerations.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, would the Minister agree that his remarks about Hong Kong and the extraordinary efforts which the governor, the Government, and the people of Hong Kong have made to help in this appallingly difficult problem, would be greatly appreciated in the Colony? We on this side of the House would like to associate ourselves very markedly with what he and the noble Earl have said about the contribution of Hong Kong to at least a partial amelioration of this immense human tragedy in this part of the world.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, that intervention is, as always, most helpful.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask whether anything can be done to help Belize? They have offered to take 1,000 of these refugees and they cannot get sufficient money to do it. They have approached Geneva and, I gather, also this Government. Is there any chance of getting it? It is a very underpopulated country, and they would be very welcome.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am not aware of the particular matter which my noble friend raises. Perhaps I can look into it and get in touch with my noble friend.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that the acceptance of a refugee involves a moral obligation to protect him? Would the noble Lord remind the United States of America and Mexico of that fact?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think I would want to consider the implications of that supplementary.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, am I correct in thinking that there are something like 50,000 refugees still in Hong Kong, and according to the noble Lord's figures less than 10 per cent. have been found permanent asylum? Is that not quite a lot less than the percentage in
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almost every other country in South East Asia?
Lord TREFGARNE: No, my Lords; the noble Earl has misunderstood what I said. There are 50,000 or so refugees in Hong Kong presently who are slowly but surely being found permament places around the world; but the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that Hong Kong has accepted nearly 10,000 refugees for permanent settlement is very satisfactory indeed.

AGRICULTURAL FERTILISERS: VAT COLLECTION COSTS
Lord ALLERTON: 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 any saving in administrative costs would be made if agricultural fertilisers were exempt from value added tax.
The MINISTER of STATE, TREASURY (Lord Cockfield): No, my Lords. Neither exemption nor zero rating of agricultural fertilisers would save administrative costs and might indeed increase them. This is because most manufacturers of fertiliser would become partially exempt traders, with all the additional complications which that involves. Nor would exemption he in the interests of the farmer himself because it would mean that some tax would be included in the cost of fertilisers and could not he reclaimed against output tax.
Lord ALLERTON: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does it not seem curious to pay one lot of people to collect the tax and another lot to pay it back? Does that not add to the cost?
Lord COCKFIELD: No, my Lords, it does not work like that. If agricultural fertilisers were exempt from VAT it would be necessary for the manufacturers to distinguish between their exempt and their chargeable output, as most manufacturers of fertilisers also manufacture other chemicals. That would result in a considerable increase in the burden of administration and create considerable problems.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, is it not a fact that it would be administratively impossible to distinguish between the use to which fertilisers were going to be put at the point of sale? Therefore, far from reducing the possible costs, if the advice in the Question were followed it would increase them and make a complete muddle of the whole operation of VAT in the fertiliser industry.
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, my noble friend has a very valid point and what he says is entirely true.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the only free gift a farmer ever gets from the Government is that occasionally he gets the VAT back before he pays the supplier of the fertiliser? Will the noble Lord see that this excellent practice is not put a stop to?
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, I am glad to hear the noble Lord so much appreciates the efforts of the Government in this direction.

PARAPLEGIC OLYMPIC GAMES
Baroness VICKERS: 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 they will state where the Paraplegic Olympic Games are being held this year.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, the 1980 Olympic Games for the Disabled, which includes the paraplegics, will be held at Arnhem in Holland.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask whether it is not the usual custom for the host country of the main Olympics to allow paraplegics to hold theirs in that country, and may we be told why that is not being done on this occasion? I realise that it did not
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happen in Mexico because the climate there is not very good for paraplegics. Can my noble friend say whether the Russians will he sending people to these games?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, it has been the practice in the past that that is so, but my information is that the Russians were approached but showed no interest in staging these games on this occasion. Whether they will be participating I am not sure, but my information at present is that they will not be participating.

NORTHERN IRELAND ORDERS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships to know that dinner will be available tonight. It is proposed that the Committee stage of the Education Bill be adjourned for about an hour at about 7 o'clock this evening, and two Northern Ireland orders will be taken in the intervening time.
CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a.

EDUCATION (No. 2) BILL
3.18 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Baroness Young): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—Baroness) Young.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 23 [Transport: England and Wales]:
Lord MORRIS Lord MORRIS had given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 238A:
Page 21, line 15, leave out ("they consider") and insert ("are").
The noble Lord said: I am grateful to my noble friends on the Government Front Bench and to Her Majesty's loyal Opposition for the expeditious way in which they have handled previous clauses to the Bill and for so arranging our affairs that this most puzzling, unhappy and contentious clause may be considered by your Lordships while you are your normal, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed selves. I believe it would be a great mistake if I or any of your Lordships were to make a rod for the back of one's cause by speaking to the general principles of the clause rather than speaking specifically to one's amendment. I shall try to resist speaking to the general principles of the clause until we come to the amendment of my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk, which reads, "Leave out Clause 23". However, should my noble friends on the Front Bench feel it right and proper to enlighten the Committee at this stage with any proposal that they might have in mind, then perhaps much intellectual and lingual energy might be saved. Failing that, I hope that my noble friends agree that my respectful suggestion meets with their approval.
Baroness YOUNG: Perhaps it will be the wish of your Lordships today to debate the principle of Clause 23, and I should like to suggest to my noble friend Lord Morris that at this time he should not press his amendment, and that other noble Lords might agree not to move their amendments in detail this afternoon, but of course to speak to them, and then we can move immediately to the principle of Clause 23, and take this on the "clause stand part "debate.
With regard to my own amendments, both those of principle and those that are necessary as paving amendments, should like to do the same: that is to say, not to move them this afternoon but to write them into the Bill at Report stage, for which I shall put down identical amendments. If, as I hope and confidently expect, Clause 23 is agreed to, I
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would reintroduce the amendments on Report. If that is convenient to your Lordships' Committee, I suggest that we move to the "clause stand part "debate.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): I understand that Amendments Nos. 238A to 260Z are not moved.
[Amendments Nos. 238A to 260Z not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 23 shall stand part of the Bill?
3.22 p.m.
The Duke of NORFOLK: I hope that all noble Lords are quite clear about what is happening. This arrangement has been agreed upon by the noble Baroness and by the Opposition Whips. The only thing that I have been unable to do is to tell the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, exactly what is happening, which think he understands, and I hope that he will speak very soon after I have done so.
I believe that Clause 23 should not be part of the Bill. I am the first person to agree that there should be great economies, much retrenchment and reform, and that education should take its share. We all know that our country is at present in need of some very serious measures to cut what we spend, and in no way do I feel that we should not look at every detail. However, I think it is quite wrong that v e should think of saving in the way proposed £20 million to £30 million, which is about¼per cent. of what is spent on the education Vote of £8 billion. I say £20 million to £30 million; it was £32 million, but I believe that to implement some of the matters to which the Government have agreed will cost quite a lot of money, and in terms of what the Government are now proposing I do not believe that the saving will be much more than £20 million. The attempt of the Government is to suggest that we should charge for transport, and that means that they are to break promises that have been made to two groups of people; they are to revoke promises made to people in general of free transport beyond the three miles walking distance—I want to he quite clear about that—and there are two groups which I believe will suffer quite unjustly because of this.

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The first group is the people who live in the rural communities; and many of them live beyond the three miles distance. Many village schools have recently been closed down on the express promise that there will be free transport for children to the next village. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who cannot be here at the moment because today he is ordaining some of his curates, but who will be coming later, has told me that a third of the schools in Norfolk are Church schools, and he is most distressed that the promises made in connection with the closing down of these schools will now be completely ignored.
I say to the Government that if they persist in this proposal, they will find it very hard to get agreement on closing down any more village schools. The villagers of England have written to me and to all your Lordships, and they have in no uncertain terms explained how they agreed to closures on the express understanding regarding transport, and they cannot believe it possible that we should straightaway allow the promises made to them to be ignored. Once bitten, twice shy; they will not allow any more schools to he closed down.
The second group which is to suffer so much is the denominational schools. These schools came into being on a statutory basis under the great Butler Act of 1944, and naturally they have very wide catchment areas. In many cases they were sited so as to be most convenient for the local population who are members of the particular religion, and by no means were they sited on the basis that there would not be free transport. In many cases a single school, designed to serve three or four towns, has been built in, say, a small village because it was a convenient place to which to bus the pupils. If the situation had been otherwise perhaps three schools would have been built, but only one school has been built, for the reason I have given. At first, in 1944, the denominations paid 50 per cent. of the capital cost. Then, as your Lordships well know, it was reduced to 20 per cent., and it is now 15 per cent.; and naturally the denominations who built these Church schools built as few schools as they could and relied upon bussing to them.
Naturally, I am speaking for the
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Roman Catholic denominational schools; the bishops and the cardinal have asked me to speak explicitly on them. However, I have had many letters from, and many conversations with, the bishops of denominations other than my own, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Soper, will be speaking later about schools of his denomination. To my mind the most excellent of the denominational schools that I know of are those that are now called Christian schools, and already I have heard about four or five of them. There is one at Redhill, which is shared by the Church of England and the Church of Rome; it is a joint Christian denominational school. Another one is at Richmond, and another one is at Torbay. There is one at Monk's Kirby, and there is one in Wales at—I hesitate to pronounce the name of the place—Llanelly; I see the noble Lord nodding some approval for my Yorkshire attempt to speak this language. Anyhow, that is a thriving inter-denominational school. If I might revert to the language of the barrack room, where I have spent 30 years of my life: roll on these Christian denominational schools; and I should like to see them perhaps later become a way of school life in the Province of Northern Ireland.
I am making these points to try to show to your Lordships that in no way am I speaking for a selfish, sectarian Roman Catholic attitude. I am speaking about Church schools, which serve a great proportion of the country, and which give extra support to family life, on which I believe our nation depends for so much of its own integrity.
The Government have made many moves to try to ameliorate the situation, and I am very grateful for those moves. I am very grateful that straightaway, before any stage of this Bill, it was announced that any family on family incomes supplement or on supplementary benefit would automatically have free transport over the three-mile limit of walking distance. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness that, in the middle of the debate on this Bill, she has given the assurance that a flat rate will be charged by the county councils: that there should not be a rate dependent upon the distance; there should instead be a flat rate in general. Then, of course, we all know

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that it is up to each county council to decide, when the powers are transferred to them, how much they should charge. At the moment, some county councils say they are going to charge nothing, but how long is that going to be so? Other county councils are going to charge £1; and notably Kent—and I have had an immense correspondence from Kent—are going to charge £2.50 per pupil per week; that is, £5 for the two children who are going to have to pay.
The third thing that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has done from the Government Benches is to say that the first two child pupils will have to pay but the third and others will be able to travel free of charge. I should like just to look at this in more detail, and see what it really means. If you take a family of Tom, Dick and Harry, that means to say that Tom and Dick will have to pay, and Harry will go free. But what happens when Tom finishes schooling? Harry then has to pay. What happens when Dick has a bicycle accident, say, and is unable to go to school for six months? Harry will have to pay. What happens if Tom gets a scholarship on the assisted places scheme? Again, Harry will have to pay. And what happens to the fourth son, Alexander, as I shall call him for the sake of this example? By the time he gets to school Tom will certainly have left and Dick might have left, so Alexander will have to pay. I do not believe this concession of paying for only two is all that very much. I believe it is rather a shallow concession, in fact.
It will certainly be an absolute heaven for the bureaucrats. Can you imagine working out whether or not Harry is going to get his travel free, and working out whether or not the family goes on to supplementary benefit? Can you imagine how the bureaucrats will collect the money from the children at the bus stops? I see them, as I drive up to London, waiting at their collecting points. Can you imagine how it is all going to be collected? I do not believe this is a very sensible concession.
I have received—I have written down "hundreds of letters ", but it is thousands. I have received letters from all over the kingdom. I have received over 2,000 or 3,000 signatures. Every letter I have
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received, except for three, say how much behind me they are in what I am doing. One of the three came from an old lady in Cumbria—and I notice the noble Lord, Lord Peart, paying great attention at the mention of Cumbria. She said that when she was a child she had to walk four miles to school, and she thinks it would be much better for the modern youth to walk six and not be so wet. Another letter said that if less money was spent on the children and more money was spent on beating them, there would be less trouble at football matches. I am simply showing that there are only three out of (shall I say?) 3,000 people who have sent their signatures in to me who have said that they are in agreement with the Government's proposals.
I know that many noble Lords want to speak and that it is going to be a heavy evening. I am moving that we reject Clause 23, which imposes the charge for transport; and I would remind your Lordships (which is perhaps impertinent of me, being a very new Member here) that this is a revising Chamber. Its essential duty now in our constitutional set-up is to revise; to give the country and the other place a chance to think again. What happened when Clause 23 was made part of the Bill in the other place? The Government had a majority of only 23. There were 13 Conservatives who voted against it and 16 Conservatives who abstained. I move that we allow the other place to have another look at it, and that we delete this clause from the Bill.
Baroness YOUNG: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervene at this point to explain at the start of this debate the Government's proposals on transport, and the reasons for them. As there are many of your Lordships in the Committee today who were not in the Chamber when we had a debate on the Bill at Second Reading, I will briefly set out the present position on school transport. Under the present law, a local education authority in effect need provide transport only between home and school for a pupil of compulsory school age who attends the nearest available school and whose journey exceeds the statutory walking distance, defined as two miles for the child under 8 years of age and three miles for the older child. It is a

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requirement of the present law that when such transport is provided it must be provided free.
May I therefore particularly draw your Lordships' attention to two aspects of this. The first is the question of the denominational schools, and it will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that there is no mention of them. The denominational schools are referred to in what is the manual of guidance, and it may therefore be helpful to the Committee if I now quote from that. On transport, the manual says in paragraph 22 that the Minister would regard it as reasonable if authorities adopted working rules which, in the generality of cases, limited their liabilities as regards the provision of transport to journeys not exceeding five or six miles for primary pupils and about ten miles for secondary pupils. Local education authorities were, however, free to adopt lower limits. The guidance related to upper limits that would be regarded as reasonable, and it was recognised that in sparsely populated areas, or where the relevant population (for example, denominational cases) was scattered, the reasonable upper limits might be higher; but the manual does not say that they should be.
Secondly, I am sure it will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that there is no mention of special schools. The Committee may be interested to know that in fact children travelling to special schools are transported free, and that in 1978–1979, out of the £125 million spent on transport, local education authorities spent £30 million transporting children to special schools. It is true that should an authority fail in its duty, the Secretary of State has a power of direction to a local authority under Section 55 of the 1944 Education Act if he considers that an authority is acting unreasonably. In fact, this power has been used on only four occasions: in 1946, 1947, 1950 and 1951. I make these points to illustrate that the record of the local education authorities in relation to school transport since 1944 is a good one.
Why, therefore, did the Government consider charging for transport at all? I will not at this stage go into the important economic arguments because I have no doubt that in the course of this debate other noble Lords will do so. I will
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only say that the Government decided that savings must be made in the education budget and decided that the savings must come from the non-educational part of that budget; namely, meals, milk and transport. The Government wished to preserve the basic fabric of the education system and, in particular, the teacher numbers; for we believe that good teachers are central to the maintenance of educational standards in our schools. It was the Association of County Councils who asked us to give the local education authorities a power to charge for home-to-school transport if we wished them to make the kind of economies for which we asked.
This was not altogether surprising, as the cost of free transport is an open-ended subsidy paid for by taxpayers and by ratepayers. The cost of school transport has doubled between 1969–70 and 1978–79 from £67.7 million to £128.4 million. We know the reason for this: it is the ever-rising world price of crude oil. But, translated into local education authority terms, your Lordships may be interested to know that in Kent—and I have no doubt that we shall hear a great deal about Kent before the afternoon is out—the transport costs are now £140 per annum per child receiving free transport; and the authority estimate that next year the average gross cost will be £150 per annum per child. In Gloucestershire, the local eduation authority estimate that they spend £145 per annum per child on school transport. Whether we like it or not, these are the facts of the 1980s.
The third reason why the Government considered charging for transport is that the present system is inequitable. The difference is that those living on the far side of the three-mile limit have free transport for their children while those living just within the three-mile limit must pay the full economic cost. Those living just within the three-mile limit may include many Anglican families, many Roman Catholic families, many Jewish families and many families from ethnic minorities, many of whom are poor and disadvantaged and at present receive no help at all from the transport subsidy because they happen to live within the arbitrary three-mile limit.
The question of charging for free transport is not something which has

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recently arisen. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister, when she was Secretary of State for Education, considered the question in 1972. Your Lordships will be interested to know that the last Labour Administration considered the position and, in October 1975, put out a consultative document to local authorities in which they proposed:
" to empower local education authorities to arrange transport to and from school wherever in their view circumstances or needs warranted it at a uniform charge fixed according to prescribed principles".
The object of this proposal was twofold. The last Labour Administration felt (as we have discovered) that the present system was inequitable and that if there was to be a subsidy it could be better distributed. Secondly, they thought that they should hold the total amount of subsidy level, because (quoting again from the document):
" authorities' expenditure on school transport is increasing at an annual rate of 20 per cent. to 25 per cent.".
They discovered that, of course, we have an open-ended subsidy on free school transport.
Furthermore, the former Minister, Miss Margaret Jackson, answering a question in another place on 20th June 1978 said:
" I accept that entirely; and it is our hope that the proposals which we shall put before the House will contain the basis of a scheme which will enable all children to travel to school for a reasonable sum and perhaps even for the same sum".
The last Administration never brought in this scheme. It is not the same as that which we are proposing. The point to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention is this: the last Administration proposed the scheme because they recognised that there was an open-ended subsidy and recognised the inequitable distribution of the subsidy as it is—two points which I think all noble Lords will recognise this afternoon.
I turn now to my amendment. Because of the great concern expressed in another place when the Bill was in Committee, my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State moved an amendment to the effect that the charge to be levied could he only a flat-rate charge. This means that the charge cannot be related to the distance travelled—and this is designed particularly to help those
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in rural areas who may have to travel 10 or more miles—nor to the type of school the child attends; and this is designed particularly for those children at denominational schools, whether Anglican, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Free Church or any other. Because of the great concern expressed in this House at Second Reading, we are bringing in a further amendment, which I have tabled for your Lordships to see and which I have undertaken to re-table on Report, to limit the charge to two children only in a family.
To summarise the position, this means that the local education authorities still have a duty to make arrangements for the provision of transport, or otherwise, as they consider appropriate. They cannot make a charge for families on supplementary benefit or on the family incomes supplement: that is, the poorest families, whether in work or out of work. The local education authorities can make only a flat-rate charge not related to distance and not related to the type of school that the child attends. If my amendment is accepted, they may make a charge to only two children in the family. Furthermore, all discretionary powers to remit charges for children attending special schools. for any particular family reasons that the local authority may know of, remain. And, as I indicated at the beginning of my remarks, the record of the local authorities in this regard is a very good one.
Finally, I ask your Lordships to consider very carefully life in the 1980s and the problems with which we are confronted today. I ask your Lordships to realise that what we are suggesting is, we believe, fair; is of help to families and is of help to the denominational schools—and noble Lords must weigh very carefully whether they feel that those interests will best be served by supporting today the exclusion of this clause—and, we believe, will make a more equitable distribution between those who live in the towns and those who live in the country.
May I therefore re-emphasise that under the Government's proposals no family is going to pay an economic charge for transport nor indeed a full cost charge. All that is being asked for is a contribution to the charge of being transported from home to school. A large national subsidy still remains. In 1980–81

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this will be £100 million in total. The Government estimate that 80 per cent. of this total will go on subsidies to the shire counties and that, as a generalisation, this works out at £100 per child receiving free school transport.
There will thus be no question of this being in any sense against those living in the country. But the Government must consider three important facts. They must consider, first, all the people and their duty in their overall economic policies to revitalise the economy, for unless we are collectively better off as a country, no individual will be better off as a person, We must recognise the needs of all our people—those who live in towns and those who contribute directly by their taxes to the rate support grant, and all those who contribute through their rates to the cost of rural transport. They must look after those in the rural areas. This we propose to do by retaining a subsidy for transport with safeguards for families. I hope, therefore, that the Committee will consider carefully what I say and will recognise that in doing this we believe that for the education system it will be seen to be fair and will preserve and enhance our educational standards in our schools.
3.52 p.m.
Lord BUTLER of SAFFRON WALDEN: Before taking part in the debates on the Education (No.2) Bill, I went to visit the Secretary of State, the noble Baroness, their leading officials and draftsmen, together with my old friend Lord Geoffrey-Lloyd who was once Minister of Education. I went to do that partly out of what I supposed was good manners; but I went also in order to indicate to my friends—if I may call them so—that my objective in taking part in these debates was not, so to speak, to attack the Conservative Government. When I said that, I saw a faint smile cross the serene face of the noble Baroness. I believe that gave a moderate degree of satisfaction. May I say, in passing, that we all admire the way that the noble Baroness has stood up to the long hours and the way that she has dealt with her very complicated problems. We admire her conduct in our House very much.
Baroness YOUNG: I thank the noble Lord.
Lord BUTLER of SAFFRON WALDEN: What reason have I to oppose the Government? Only recently the leader of the party to which I have belonged for about 60 years had a great success in France. The French have discovered for the first time since Joan of Arc that it was possible to be a woman and a statesman. I notice that none of the French Press—not even Le Canard Enehainé, to which I am a subscriber—made this allusion, so I hope that they will take this copy from me in the House of Lords. The right honourable lady also made a very good speech in England. She has had a very difficult time.
I also support the Government's foreign policy which my close friend Lord Carrington has carried so far to such triumphant success. I also shall be having to support—whether I like it or not—the Government's economic policy which is shortly to be put before us in a Budget and which is so ably defended by my noble friend Lord Cockfield in your Lordships' House.
Let us just get rid of this: there is no question of my doing this for small political reasons. I am doing it because I am convinced, after a lifetime of service to education, that this is the only course that I can pursue. As the Committee will hear as I proceed with my speech, it is the only advice that I can give the Committee. I told the noble Baroness that I was not going to attend most of the Committee stage—and I was jolly lucky !—because I did not want to oppose her other clauses; but I said I would speak and oppose this clause. Later, when we get to the very difficult question of nursery education, although I may speak, I shall not vote against the Government motion.
The position therefore at present is that we are faced with a demand by the Government for economies. The first problem I have to face, and the first decision I have to take, is whether I can honestly disband and remove the whole of the meals and milk service to which I attached so much importance nearly 36 years ago, and which I introduced. I decided to vote in favour of the Government's economic measures for a saving of no less than £200 million, against my own will and to indicate that I was trying to help the Government with economies. That was not fully recognised at the time; and, since that date, I have had endless

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insulting letters. I have even had letters from catering firms who stem more annoyed than the children. At any rate, I have voted for the Government and I have supported £200 million worth of economies. I do not think that that is bad.
Now we come to the question of between £20 million and £30 million. I made the audacious suggestion that perhaps we could postpone the assisted places scheme, which is to cost about that amount, and spend the money here on transport; but I am sorry to say that that view of mine was misconstrued in certain of our more public journals. It has not been accepted by the Government, and so that goes; the Government have not accepted it, and I did not oppose their assisted places scheme. However, when we come to this £20 million or so, I have not only had letters, as my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk has had, from mothers and fathers; I have had letters from education officers; I have had many letters from education authorities (which is important) and I have answered and cross-questioned many of those education authorities up and down the country.
I have come to the conclusion—and I am backed by several papers that I have with me—that there is going to be grave extravagance and waste of money if we accept the Government's amendment which the noble Baroness moved. One authority told me that they are going to have to employ 200 more people; another authority informed me that they were going to have to employ 400 more people. Another authority said that they would have to learn to use a computer. Although I come from Cambridge University, I do not understand computers.
The result is that the expenses—and I have checked this with some of my predecessors in office—are going to be very great. I doubt, after all this excitement of trying to hive off the two eldest children and get the right ones out of the family, especially in view of the complications suggested by my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk, that we are really going to save all this money. When I come to the more important part of my remarks about the principles that lie behind my speech, the Committee will see that I doubt whether on
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economic grounds this proposal is going to be worthwhile.
My objective is what? It is not political. It is to retain the continuity of national policy regarding education throughout the greater part of this century. When I spoke on Second Reading I was able to say that the vital clauses reserving to the Secretary of State powers—particularly Section 99 of the 1944 Act, to which the noble Baroness referred, and the other section to which she referred—have seldom been used. But they illustrate that the pillars of the settlement of 1944 have been preserved by this Act. The noble Baroness has already acknowledged this.
It seems very peculiar, but this question of transport was, if not an integral part—as I said in my Second Reading speech—at any rate a vital part of the concordat or settlement of 1944. Why was that? It simply was that the denominations and all those partners involved in that settlement were given that assurance that their children would be taken to school. I agree with some things that the noble Baroness said. The three-mile limit derives from 1870 and the Act of Mr. Foster. If I were summoned to a conference one day to look at it I would not mind taking part, provided my noble friends on the other side of the House and the denominations and local authorities were brought into it. But at present it is the law of the land, although it dates from 1870. These extra charges are going to upset not just the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, who might perhaps be held to represent the Roman Catholics, but also the Anglican community, the Free Church Federal Council and the National Union of Teachers.
With all those people I made a settlement—some were laymen and some Were churchmen—and the fact is that this was agreed. I would not disagree with the noble Baroness when she says that we must live in 1980. I would not disagree if it were not for a further fact; and that fact is that she referred to the guidance paper in 1950, which I have fortunately taken the trouble to have with me. She referred to the reorganisation; and it was exactly in that period of reorganisation after my settlement—some years after—that extra promises or undertakings were given by the local authorities that fares would be paid. I have that here in writing on boundless

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pieces of paper. I also have it in endless letters from local authorities. There is, therefore, a double pledge; if you say that the first one is a bit old-fashioned, you still cannot get away from the second one.
The noble Baroness referred to the manual of guidance. It so happened that the local authorities behaved so well after its publication that it was never called into evidence or ever used. I must say here that the local education authorities, on the whole, have behaved with extraordinary gallantry towards denominational schools and towards the conduct of their affairs. It is this reorganisation about which, for example, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lancaster has written to me saying that he only agreed to the reorganisation in Lancashire, provided that the right of transport remained. That is only 10 years or so ago; and so there is no doubt that there is before your Lordships, and certainly before my own conscience, what amounts really to a double pledge.
The noble Duke said that he had received many letters. I spent many years in another place and for six unhappy years I was leader of the House of Commons. We were never allowed to bring in our suitcases, bags or trunks, but if I had brought in all the letters I had received I should have had to bring in a cabin trunk and I was told at the door that was out of order. Therefore, I cannot read to you what I might call the more "juicy portions "of the the letters I have received; but the letters are all from mothers and fathers except for one, the very serious letter that I have referred to from the local authorities. They come from Northamp-tonshire and endlessly from Kent. The villages around Romney Marsh, which I happen to know, and the villages round Ashford, have sent me declarations signed sometimes by 800 parents. In one case in Kent there was one signed by 8,000 parents, and the whole place is inundated with disorder.
What I want particularly to mention, so that it cannot be said that I am talking from a denominational point of view, are the village colleges of Cambridgeshire. I was a great supporter of Morris, the brilliant education architect of Cambridgeshire, and I have the honour of being the only person living who has had to make speeches at the opening of two
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different Cambridgeshire village colleges. I do not mind telling your Lordships that it was by visiting one that I first got the idea of the Education Bill.
Those colleges are in a state of great disarray. They were arranged for by Morris and it was obvious that children had to be brought into them from the surrounding small villages and transport, in cases of above three miles, had to be provided, with the result that there was a "let-down "feeling and a feeling—not at all denominational but a lay feeling—that this charge of the Government's is wrong. I have had letters also from Leicestershire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Devon and Gwent, and I could go on indefinitely describing the extraordinary national feeling of uprising against this clause.
I remember only two instances in my 50 years or so of public life—36 years in another place and 15 years here—when I have had so many letters: one was concerned with the Hoare-Laval pact and the other was the Suez expedition. In neither case did I have to fill a cabin trunk but only perhaps a small valise. It just shows the state of disarray in the country on this occasion. I will say to the noble Baroness that it may be wrong, but the fact is that, though she made really an excellent intellectual speech, this is not entirely an intellectual matter. Politics is not all intellect; politics is largely a matter of the heart, and people are feeling this deeply all over the country. One reason why that is so is that the rural areas are feeling neglected. They are losing their shops and post offices; they are having to drive to a town to get the ordinary necessities of life. And the sad thing is that rural villages—somebody said Nonsense ", but I have lived in a village in various parts of England during the whole of my life, in Gloucestershire, Essex and in another county, and I know this to be true. It is very regrettable but it is true.
I want to say now what I think is the really important thing. That was said in the article in The Times today—that my settlement in 1944 is not a chapter of history that it would be to anyone's advantage to reopen. It really would not, and I will tell your Lordships why. The real problems of education were stressed in the debates in 1902. Those

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debates were so venomous that Balfour, as Prime Minister, had to push out his Education Minister and take the Bill himself. Even then he only just got it through and lost the Conservatives so many votes that they did not return to office for many years afterwards. That was before the settlement was made.
Winston reminded me of it and said, "You are going to push me back to 1902." He said, "I loved it—the dogfight was splendid; the best I ever had." Then he said: "But I don't want that when I am Prime Minister, and I am going to confront you with two friends—or I think they are enemies—and I want you to come in in the evening and have a drink." I happened that evening to be at Eltham Palace negotiating with the apostolic delegates some of the details and I trundled in in the black-out in my tiny little car and arrived feeling very frightened as to whom I should meet. When I got into the room, Winston said: "Those are your enemies; there is Lord Salisbury and there is Lord Selborne." He asked them: "Do you agree with Rab? "and Lord Salisbury said with his inevitable lisp, "Wab is wight, and he has saved our Church schools." Do you know why? I had negotiated with William Temple—I suppose, up to this stage, one of the great Archbishops of the century and a man whose book Mens Creatrix, in our schoolday language of divinity, is certainly the most beautiful I have ever read. He told me he had 2,200 Church schools that he could not pay for and he had to take a few aided schools from me and send the rest of his pupils quite happily into the ordinary school system.
Our negotiation was succesful and Lord Salisbury, who led your Lordships' House in a way I had never seen it led before and who spoke, I think, better than any man I have ever heard in this House, immediately said that I was right. Lord Selborne was so pleased that he offered to take my Bill through your Lordships' House. Winston was desperately disappointed and he saw he would have to accept it. I believe that Lord Salisbury's son may be with us today and, if so, I hope he will speak.
I have not really very much more to say. I cannot match every detail and
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every point of the noble Baroness: perhaps I could if I took up all these papers but I do not want to take up too much of your Lordships' time. I have tried to tell people that the study of education demands just a little bit of intellect and a great deal of hard work. It is excessively complicated; really it is one of the most complicated subjects I have ever tried to handle. But when your Lordships make up your minds I would say to those of you who are Cross-Benchers that you do not want to take a step this afternoon by retaining this clause which will create or maintain any bitterness in the settlement which we created between the Churches and the State. I ask you to think of that.
And to noble Lords who sit loyally, as I have done for so many years, to support the Government, I would say that the Conservative Party has always been strongest when it supported the rural areas. It had terrible disasters after the Repeal period and the Corn Laws. Disraeli made himself into a country squire and bought Hughenden, and they all believed that he really was a country squire. As Prime Minister, the great Lord Salisbury was a purely rural leader. We come with a great jump to Baldwin and Mary Webb, and all that he talked about the country and his magnificent speech on England at the St. George's Day dinner—
" the clutch fires at night, when the forager comes home".
That was true Conservative rural policy and philosophy. I believe that we should not accept this clause. I feel, I am sorry to say, like Martin Luther: "Ich Kann nicht anders." I can do no other. I ask noble Lords to do no other.
4.11 p.m.
Baroness DAVID: We on these Benches will be supporting the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler in opposing this clause. Before I actually get down to the clause, I should like to clear up one or two things the Minister said about the last Government. She said that they, too, were anxious about the costs of transport in the country and the present situation. I think everyone has thought for some time that it was rather ridiculous to have the two-mile limit and the three-mile limit. It is perfectly possible to make

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some adjustment to that but this Government have not done that in this Bill.
The last Government sent out a consultative document, but as a result of that they did not take any action. They put forward a Bill in 1978, but there was not a clause like this in it. They realised that it would certainly not he right to take any step such as this Government have taken, that is, to charge some people to get to school and not others.
Now to get down to this clause. Since the passing of the 1944 Act it has been the right of every family in the country, whether they live in the heart of a city or in a village in the dales—I have an interest in this as I have a grand-daughter who has to go from Dentdale to Kirkby Lonsdale to get to school—to have their children educated entirely free, whatever their income. This clause demolishes that right. Not only does it do that. If this Bill is passed, the Government will be guilty of a breach of faith, in fact several breaches of faith, as regards the agreement which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has talked about between the State and the voluntary schools and also the agreements with local authorities which he mentioned. It is also a breach of faith towards a great many parents who have had to put up with the closing of their village schools. Whether or not it was put in writing, the understanding was, I am quite sure, that if their village school went their children would be taken free to the school to which they had to go.
Inevitably, there will be the general destruction of village life and rural communities which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, mentioned. I, too, have had hundreds of letters and I had one yesterday which put the point extremely well. It said:
" Such a clause, concocted by people with little foresight, and no contact with the reality of the situation, nor any consideration of the implications of such action, is so obviously very unfair to those living in country communities and could well be a contributing factor towards the general depopulation of the English village—a sad loss".
Now, about hardship. After April 1st, 400,000 children will no longer have the free meals which they had before. This is particularly had for families who are just about at the supplementary benefit level. Some of the amendments which were put
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down to the previous clause, No. 22, and to this clause, tried to improve the situation and no doubt we shall come to those at the Report stage. The Government have already made a saving of £200 million or so on meals and milk. That is a very big saving. Now they are going on and they want so much more—a saving of £20 million. As other people have said, what will be the cost of administering this extraordinarily complicated affair? A very great many people are going to be upset, not just the poor, but those who are in a higher income bracket. I have had letters from people who are clearly quite well off as well as letters from those who are very poor indeed. A great many of them say that a little tiny bit on the income tax would have prevented this having to be done.
I am also particularly anxious about the 16 year-olds. They have not been talked of a great deal, but we want 16 year-olds to continue their education. Almost inevitably they will have to travel some distance to get to a further education college or a technical college; or they may want to join a sixth form college or a sixth form in an 11 to 18 school. They will probably have to travel quite long distances—l2 or 15 miles or more—and I am quite sure that they really are going to be put off and that their families are going to be put off if they have to pay. We are going to lose a tremendous potential for the future if a large number of 16 year-olds decide not to continue their education. That will be an inevitable consequence if this clause is passed.
Then there are the practical difficulties. What is going to happen when a child arrives with no pass and no money? What instructions are going to be given to the bus drivers? And what about the families who just do not have the money to hand out that day? I had another letter on this theme a few days ago. It states:
"—agreed we all have to cut back etc, etc, but where oh where is one supposed to find extra money for this new astounding piece of government decree. And what is more important what happens when we just cannot find it? Will it be an offence resulting in prison sentences if the charges are not paid?".
People are extremely worried about what is going to happen if they do not have the money to pay. I understand that already 12 counties are not going to charge. Eight counties have not made their decision,

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unless this has happened in the last day or two, so this saving of £20 million is going to be even less, presumably. About one-third of the counties are not going to charge, so it seems most unfair that the remaining ones should do so. If they decide they have got to charge to make the savings it will be a great shame. Owing to the feeling of people who are appalled by the Government's actions in bringing forward this clause I wish the Government had decided to think again and to with-draw it. Very strong feelings—really rebellious feelings—have been expressed all over the country, I should say, judging from the letters that I have received. The noble Baroness said that this was a fair scheme. I should say that that was what it demonstrably was not. Some families are going to have to pay to get their education and some are not, and that is not fair.
Baroness YOUNG: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Would she not agree that that is precisely the position as it is now? Children living in towns within the 3-mile limit have in some cases to pay 70 or 80 pence a day to get to school, whereas others go free.
Baroness DAVID: The parents may choose to pay. One can get three miles. On a bicycle it is very easy to get three miles although it is very dangerous. That is one of the troubles about the charges. The children will probably be forced more on to bikes and to walking in order to save money, and I believe the traffic dangers are going to he considerable. This was not the case, of course, some time ago when there was very much less traffic. In fact. there was very little indeed in 1944, because petrol rationing was still going on, but what is going to happen as a result of this clause will he appalling.
Again, I say that feeling is very strong throughout the country. I have received some very moving letters and I want to finish with a short quotation from one of them. This is a letter in which the spelling is not very good, but the care that the writer clearly feels for the children and her longing for them to have a good education show clearly, as does her outrage at the fact that they are going to have to pay for two children. She finishes:
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" You and your fellow peers, Lords and Ladies. are our last hope. so. please, for the sake of our children and therefore the future of this country, HELP US.".
I hope that noble Lords will help people like that woman and a great many other families in this country by voting against this clause.
Viscount SIMON: After the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, those of us who believe that this clause should be eliminated from the Bill have very little left that we need say. But I want to refer to one or two points. I listened with great care to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and I want to mention some matters briefly. When she introduced the Second Reading the noble Baroness said that the Bill did not radically change any of the main principles of the Act. I should have thought that the provision of free transport was very much a main principle of the Act. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, made this point clear. He put it in his usual very fair way when he said it was not an integral part of the settlement but it was a vital part. I am not quite sure what the difference is, but anyway it is clearly a basic principle of the Act.
To that extent, I feel that the noble Baroness was quite unintentionally misleading us when she said at the beginning of her Second Reading speech that the Bill did not affect any of the vital principles of the Act. Today she gave us a much fuller argument in favour of the clause than she did earlier. On Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Butler, specifically asked her to give her comments on the points he had raised, and most especially about the position in rural areas. The noble Baroness began her speech by making a few short references to this subject and then she went into something of a tirade against what the Labour Government had done when they were in power. As I reread her speech I thought that at the end she would surely come hack to rural transport. but she did not come back at all and I felt she was really avoiding the issue. However. I cannot say that to her today because she gave us a very full speech about the Government's feelings.
I found it curious that the noble Baroness several times talked about an open-ended subsidy. Is this a subsidy? It is part of the cost of education. One

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cannot educate children unless one gets them to school. Then the noble Baroness said that the present arrangement was inequitable as between certain parents. I agree about that. It is true that if the parent lives within the walking distance, as it is called, of the school, he has to pay any cost there is in getting the child to school. I have had letters from people who said that it would only be fair if those who lived outside the walking distance paid at least a proportion of the cost up to where the walking distance began, but I think your Lordships will agree that administratively that would he quite impossible.
The noble Baroness said she did not feel that there was much inequity between town and country. I confess that I have looked at this Bill rather particularly from the point of view of the rural areas, where this clause is going to bite so terribly heavily. In the conurbations the schools are not, generally speaking, so far away. I cannot but think that there is really a degree of inequity.
Baroness YOUNG: This is such an important matter of principle that perhaps your Lordships will forgive me for raising it again. The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, says that there is not much inequity in towns and that the schools are quite close—that there are many schools in towns and it is not very far to go. The fact is that an enormous number of children living in towns today have to travel two miles or more and the full economic cost of town transport is very great. It can be 50p, 60p or 70p a day for a two-mile journey.
Viscount SIMON: The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has made a good point. My reaction to that is, let us remove the walking limits and pay for everybody. The point has already been mentioned and it has been brought to my notice that the administrative costs of what is proposed in this clause are like to be very considerable. I have had information from two counties, both of which suggest very substantial increases in cost. I am sure this has been taken into account by the noble Baroness but I think it is a point that your Lordships should bear in mind in voting on this issue.
Baroness YOUNG: I did not like to
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interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Butler, when he quoted those authorities who were going to employ up to 300 people, but I hope that before the debate is over he will name those authorities, as I hope the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, will name the authorities to which he is referring.
Lord PARRY: Since the noble Viscount Lord Simon, has been interrupted I should like to ask him whether he would not agree, or to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Young, whether she would not agree that one substantial difference between the conurbations and the rural areas is that, though the service may be expensive, it exists. In many rural areas there is no alternative to get a child to school.
Viscount SIMON: I am sure we shall return to this subject. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asks me to give her some particulars. I am not going to quote figures. I have not got any figures and if I had them I should need to check them. I have not had time to do that. If she wants to know the two counties whose problems have been brought to my notice I will tell her that one is Kent and the other is Cumbria, but I have no reason to suppose that they are unique in that respect.
We have some amendments down, and in facing this problem I differ from the noble Baroness, Lady David, only in that she expressed either the hope or the expectation—I am not quite sure which it was—that we should have an opportunity to discuss these amendments later. I very much hope that we shall not have an opportunity of discussing these amendment later, because the object of this discussion is to lead to a vote which will eliminate this clause from the Bill. I hope many noble Lords in all parts of the Committee will support that view.
4.29 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: I trust that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, will not think that those of us who are critical of this clause offer our criticisms in any carping spirit. For many of us it is a deep matter of conscience. We greatly admire the skill, expertise and knowledge with which the noble Baroness has steered this Bill during the long hours of the Committee stage. Many

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of us share the Government's desire to cut down public expenditure as much as possible and to eliminate waste. We recognise that the Government have done their best to meet some of the criticisms of this particular clause, both in stating the requirement of the flat rate and also making it that there shall be payment for the first two children only. All this we recognise. I should also like to thank the noble Duke for what he said, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who has spoken to us with such immense authority in these matters. They have mentioned the element of the voluntary aided schools of the Churches and their concern over this matter.
I should want this point to be approached in rather a different way. At any rate, from the point of view of the Church of England schools, we do not claim any particular privileges in this respect. On the other hand, we recognise that the 1944 Act was a concordat, an agreement, between all the parties that were concerned with education, especially in the dual system. And as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has told us, it was part of that concordat and understanding that children should be got to the schools where they wished to receive their education, if outside the three-mile limit, without payment.
The noble Baroness, with a rather dark and threatening look towards these Benches, asked whether we thought that it would really be to the advantage of the so-called denominational schools if this clause were to be rejected. We do not look at it in those terms. We look at it in the terms that the 1944 Act was a concordat, an agreement, and we ask that the conditions of that agreement should be observed.
For myself, I see two profound issues involved in this clause. One is the issue of justice. Is it right that, because children happen to live a rather long way from a school, their parents should have to carry what may be a very considerable expense in getting them to school? The noble Baroness has said that the present system is illogical, because if you live within the three-mile limit you have to pay, whereas if you live outside the three-mile limit you do not have to pay. It seems to me a rather strange use of logic to say that
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therefore justice shall be restored by everybody having to pay. I should much prefer, as the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said, that logic should be restored by none of the parents having to pay for children to go to school.
My other fundamental anxiety about this is one that has already been mentioned. I have always understood that it was one of the great prides of this country that, for those parents who wish their children to be educated free, that education shall be freely available to all of them. I cannot believe that it is credible to say that, if you happen to live outside the three-mile limit, therefore you should get free education so long as you pay for your children to go to school. That seems to me to be a complete negation of the vital principle that, if parents desire for their children free education, they shall have it. It is therefore with great sorrow that I shall have to vote against this clause, simply because I believe that it offends all the elements of one's conscientious approach towards education in this country.
4.34 p.m.
Lord THORNEYCROFT: May I perhaps express a slightly different view from some of the speeches which have been delivered so far? The whole House must have listened to the speeches of the noble, Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler, with respect, with understanding and with sympathy. The noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, speaks with a wide knowledge of the problems of Catholic schools, and also a deep understanding of the countryside. With the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I shared office, defeats and triumphs over many years, and, I think like everybody else, I always listen to him—particularly, perhaps, on this subject—with deep respect. 1 hope that the House will, however, listen to me with a little sympathy, too.
I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Butler, would agree with me, but, as I reflect over the years, it has always seemed to me that this great country of ours has consistently failed to achieve great things through its timidity in facing small ones. I remember that 20 years ago I was in a Cabinet with the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and I resigned then over what was contemptuously described as a matter of £50 million. My colleagues explained

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to me, with the eloquence and the sympathy that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, used today—he was just as good 20 years ago as he is today how small the sum, how grave the injury. It brought tears to one's eyes to listen to him saying how we should face these things. But I did not accept his view then and, rightly or wrongly, I left that Government and colleagues, whom I held in respect and affection. Five years later, the sum had grown from £50 million to £500 million. That was the gap that they were arguing about five years later, after my resignation. Today, the figure is £5 billion. I accept the point of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about the importance of continuity of policy, but I am bound to say that the noughts are joining on very fast as we proceed along our way. We have continuity, but it has been a downhill progress.
That is why, today, I should like to speak about a little of the backcloth—I hope that the House will forgive me and I shall not talk for long against which these arguments are being conducted. That is why we are talking about these things at all. That is why we have a nation deeply in debt—so deeply in debt that the interest on the debt alone would pay for the whole of the education service. That is the measure of our failure so far. That is why we are faced with inflation soaring upwards, and interest rates at desperately high figures. I think that we ought, therefore, to face the realities.
Of course, arguments such as this are not just about money. They are about children, they are about parents and they are about families. Of course they are. But if you ask where the damage is being done to children, to families and to homes today, it is not in the transport to schools. It is in the bitter impact of inflation on that scale; it is in the prices that go soaring upwards; it is in the mortgage rates that face young families.
Let us have a certain sense of proportion as to where the real damage is being done. And that damage does not affect just Catholics; it affects everybody. It is not confined to the rural areas; it is right across the country at the present time. So it is against that background that the Government have to contain expenditure. I think it is important to say that and to agree with it.
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There is no alternative course open to Her Majesty's Government, save to embark upon a desperately difficult and controversial exercise to contain expenditure. It is simple for noble Lords opposite, who do not believe it, but I shall not embark upon what they might do. They left us with expenditure commitments of £4 billion and no money there to pay for them. That is the background to what we arc engaged in. Whatever noble Lords opposite may think, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, knows that and agrees with it. He supports, and says that he supports, the Government in that policy. I have not the slightest doubt that the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, would also share completely the view of general policy which I am taking. Therefore the Government have to cut. If they are looking at expenditure, one enormous field is local government expenditure—an enormous field, about one-third.
The local government authorities say, "Yes, of course we must participate in that exercise, but would it not be possible that we ourselves should be allowed a little choice as to where we cut and what we do? "That is not so amazing or unreasonable a proposition. Not the whole of this country is exactly the same. Devonshire is not the same as Tyne and Wear; Gloucestershire differs from Cumbria. The noble Baroness said that some authorities would not cut at all. They will not, my Lords; but are they to be given no choice in matters of that kind? Is it wholly unreasonable to give the locally elected education authorities some capacity to decide what the interests of their constituents really demand? So they are given not a directive but an option.
Viscount SIMON: May I—
Lord THORNEYCROFT: No, I would rather not give way because I possibly could not face the cross-examination. Well, if the noble Viscount really wants to—
Viscount SIMON: Could the noble Lord, because of what he was saying, extend it in his mind to local authorities' having discretion to break a promise that had been given by the Government?
Lord THORNEYCROFT: They have a discretion, within guidelines clearly laid down. They cannot charge anything; the terms are clearly laid down as described by the noble Baroness from the Front Bench. But it is nevertheless a discretion. I, too, have had letters, and I have had letters like those of the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Like him I will not read them, but they are from local authorities who say, "Please do not turn this discretion away. In our particular area we believe it better to make a modest charge in this field than to attack the quality of education". That is a perfectly fair view to take. If you do it this way, giving the option to local authorities, then I think it may better serve the interests of the children and the families in those areas.
The difficulty about cuts has always been the same. Almost everybody, faced with the situation that confronts us now, will agree in broad principle with the cuts, but they will oppose the individual cuts concerned. The noble Lord, Lord Home and I, Lord Butler, Lord Eccles, Lord Boyd-Carpenter—we have all seen it. We have all been through it, probably most of us on both sides, both in spending departments and in the Treasury. This is the universal case. In principle everybody agrees: in general the individual person or group says, "Cut us out; let others make the sacrifice".
I would say this to my Lord Bishop: I am not very happy at the Anglican Church saying, "Cut us out". It is all right; there are matters of conscience involved; but many times in this world and certainly in the Anglican Church people have occasionally made a little sacrifice in order to fulfil the duty of conscience. This is not a wrong thing to do; it is not a wrong thing to say to people that, however worthy the cause, we have moved into a world where people will have to subscribe a little more for what they want it to do.
I believe they do accept it, and as I look hack over the long years that I have watched in this country it is not the people I am afraid of, it is their leaders. The causes of decline are not in the audiences we address; they arc on the public platforms. They are not in the congregation: they are in the pulpit. It is we who have to make the decision as
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to whether we have the courage to say to people, "You will all have rather less than you desire, or think that you deserve." It takes courage to say that. And yet, if we fail to say those things the alternative is clear: we continue to drift slowly downwards. For Heaven's sake, let us find some courage to say that all of us will have to have rather less than we hoped for. If we have that courage we may end this continual retreat.
4.47 p.m.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: I hope we shall return to discuss Clause 23. If I believed, as apparently the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, believes, that this clause would cure inflation, I would support it most wholeheartedly, but I do not think it will. I do not think we are discussing merely the problem of the voluntary schools. I do not think we are even discussing merely the problems of education. I believe we are discussing the future of rural England.
Let me start with the question of integrity, of undertakings. When the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, became Minister of Education, I well remember the first decision he made, which I regarded then and which I still regard as the most important single decision made in the making of the 1944 Education Act a reality. I refer to Circular 283, if my memory is right: the question of rural reorganisation which had been provided by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, hut which we had not found it possible to implement until that stage.
I, among many others, worked very hard in selling rural reorganisation. I wonder whether, if this clause had been operative then, we should have been going to parents in the rural areas and saying, "These all-age schools arc not really good enough; we are going to build you a nice secondary school. Of course, if you have two children going there it will cost you, in Kent, £5 a week". I wonder whether the parents would so readily have supported rural reorganisation. For myself, if this clause goes through I shall feel that we sold rural reorganisation on a false prospectus; I shall feel a sense of guilt.
However, I go beyond that. My concern is with the future of the villages. School numbers will fall by a million

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and perhaps more in the next five or six years. Inevitably, the pressure on the closure of village schools will be very great in any event. This is inevitable. But let us speak of the young couple who are getting married now. If they are planning a family, will they set up home in the village, in the knowledge that in due course they may have to pay £4 or £5 a week to send their children to school? Or will they try to find a place nearer the said school, the secondary school? I should have thought they would be wise to do so. What they saved on transport would enable them to pay their mortgage.
This means that in due course, as the years pass, there will be no children in the village; the closure of the village school will be inevitable. This is the reality. I hope, therefore, that we shall not look, as was suggested, at this merely in terms of voluntary schools; we should look at it in terms of all schools. We should also look at it in terms of the integrity of the Government and the integrity of those of us who some 20 to 30 years ago "sold to the country rural reorganisation. Furthermore, we should look at it in terms of the future of rural England. I hope that the Government will not think that it is a sign of weakness to give up this clause; it will be a sign of courage—of courage to recognise that they have made a misjudgment. I hope that they will show that courage.
Baroness TRUMPINGTON: My Lords, there has been great talk of courage this afternoon. Believe me, it takes a lot of courage for me to stand here, five weeks after I was introduced to your Lordships with my two supporters, the Lord Butler on the one side and the Lord Thorneycroft on the other. Little did I then think I would so soon have to make a choice between the two! The reason I have stood up is to put a question. Local authorities have been asked to cut their departments from a manpower point of view, and indeed they have done so. It is my experience that when you create new measures you create new departments. I should be grateful if my noble friend Lady Young would explain to me how she envisages the collection of these charges to be made without increasing the manpower of local authorities. If she can do so it will make my task—which of my noble friends to support
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when eventually I go into the Division Lobby—much easier.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, if I bring to your Lordships' House the authority of the Free Church Council and share it with Lord Taylor of Blackburn, it is not because I regard this as an ecclesiastical issue. I hope that we shall not be deluded into thinking that this is a question as to whether it is proper for schools to be voluntary or State supported, or whether they should be ecclesiastical schools. There are those in your Lordships' House who approve of the one system while there are many who disapprove of it. The reason why I believe it would be totally improper to retain this clause in the Bill is on other grounds.
I will not rehearse the points which have been made so aptly already—the breach of faith whereby many people have been seduced into the comfortable belief that for any time within the recog-nisable future their children will be bussed or transported to school free. There has been a breach of that faith. Although it is of no particular consequence, I do not remember a time when I have received so many letters from ordinary people, particularly rural people, who feel that this is a breach of confidence and something which should not be undertaken by a reputable Government.
Secondly, I believe that this is an impoverishment of true education. There is nothing so disastrous as to consume the seed corn. That is a terminal condition, and we are not in such a condition of desperation as to move to such terminal requirements. One thing which has not been said but which I believe needs to be said in clear tones is that there is at the moment a poverty trap. This point was referred to by my noble friend the Baroness when she was talking from the Front Bench. I do not know how many, but we know that there are 2,300,000 families which are only just above the level which would entitle them to supplementary benefit. The simple and unassailable point is that if they are required to make the kind of extensive and very large payments that are envisaged, the result will be that they will be brought within that poverty level but will not be eligible for the receipt of those benefits which other people enjoy.

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There are two other matters to which I should like to refer. I will be very brief. I believe that there will be a general impoverishment of the education service, on the ground that the co-operation of parents and others in the curriculum outside the ordinary four- and five-day week will be seriously impaired. There are many people who now can just about pay the amount of fares required in rural areas to give to their children not only the opportunity of free education but those embellishments which belong to extra-curricula activities and which are of very great worth in the general education process. They will be very seriously impaired. I have had letters—I can quote them almost by the dozen—from people who say that they will be no longer able to sustain that increase in expenditure, in view of the proposed Clause 23.
May I say one other thing before I sit down? What has not been mentioned in your Lordships' House this afternoon is the question of truancy. It runs now in some areas at about 24 per cent., I believe, and I am quite confident from such evidence as comes to my notice that it will be vastly increased if this clause goes through. You cannot expect people to be educated if they are not there. It will he an added incentive to truancy which now runs at a very considerable rate.
This is a bad clause. It offends my conscience such as it is, and it offends the sense of propriety and decency among people who have trusted in an Education Act but who now find it traduced. If it is carried through, I believe that far from saving money—which is the primary consideration—it will impair the service. Far greater benefits are to be discovered in a better education than can be culled immediately from a reduction of public expenditure. Therefore, quite apart from the question of the denominational school, I hope your Lordships will regard this as a had clause and will toss it out.
4.57 p.m.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, in considering this clause I put to your Lordships the premise that if one looks to the language one will find the truth. I believe that my noble friend Lady Young has seriously misled herself or, rather, has seriously been misled, in that she said in her earlier remarks that the local education authorities still have a duty to provide
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transport as is appropriate. I understood her to say that this was a duty under the provisions of the great Butler Act of 1944. That is not so.
If one looks at that Act and the relevant provision, which is Section 55, one finds that the test has been completely changed. The wording is precisely the same, except that the test is not as they—not the Secretary of State, but only the local education authority—consider appropriate. The test under the great Butler Act of 1944 is the test of necessity—what they consider necessary. This has to be read in conjunction with Section 39 of the Butler Act where there is a different test in the case of parents who do not send their children regularly to school. The test there is "… no suitable arrangements have been made… to and from school". This clarifies Clause 23 because it was quite clearly decided in the case of Surrey County Council v. the Minister of Education that the test was under Section 39(2) of the 1944 Act.
What I want to be made absolutely clear is this: under the new Bill, will that test be precisely the same? Will it be the test of necessity? Will it be the test of suitable arrangements—which, by the way, is a statutory defence? And the test of that is whether the parent, not the local authority, thinks the arrangements for transport to and from school are suitable. I make this point because I believe that it is very important.
My noble friend Lord Thorneycroft stated very clearly that the discretions within guidelines are still there in the new Bill but he failed to mention that these guidelines have been changed and that under this Bill the test for the provision of future transport has been changed. I beseech your Lordships to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler—and indeed, my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk who opened this debate so eloquently—through the Lobby.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: I only wish to make two remarks in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft. The first is that the letters which have been referred to and have been received by my noble friend Lord Soper and by the noble Baroness, Lady David, and also by the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk. were not written from the pulpit, they were written from the congregation.

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The other thing I wish to say is that it ill becomes a Government to say that everybody must do with a tiny bit less when in their first Budget they gave back to people with over £10,000 a year gross £1,560 million in income tax.
Lord REDCLIFFE-MAUD: I wish to intervene, with possibly the shortest speech that will be made this afternoon, to say that what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, said seems to me to be conclusive and it was endorsed by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. I wish just to add my endorsement for one not very good reason; just as Lord Alexander had a very great deal to do with the local authority response to the compact made in the 1944 Education Act I had a very small part to play because for seven years I was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, from 1945 to 1952. I will not trouble your Lordships with any detail. But it seems to me absolutely true that there is the danger of a breach of faith, not with the people who are alive today but with the people who in those years first agreed round the table with the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and Chuter Ede and William Temple and people that we have now lost, and with the education authorities without whose collaboration in the following seven years we should not be where we are today.
It is a fact that, as an old Permanent Secretary, I thought that the Act meant what it said and that in fact schools that did reorganise, and local education authorities that took the trouble to go to reorganisation, were doing it on the basis of a compact which would last as long as the 1944 Act, and that was that transport (within certain limits) was free. I have no doubt at all that some people would think that they had negotiated and acted under a false prospectus if what is proposed is done today—in all good faith and for reasons that I for one, at any rate, deeply applaud—and if this Bill is not amended by the deletion at this stage of Clause 23, with the consequence that we shall have time to think, and the Government will have time to think, of what they will put in its place.
5.3 p.m.
Viscount RIDLEY: I rise to support the Government and I apologise for the
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fact that I was unable to take part in thus most important debate on Second Reading. There have been one or two misconceptions which were referred to in that debate and I should like briefly to refer to them again today. First, as we all know, the less well-off arc protected in this Bill and I think it is absolutely right and proper, but we must be reminded of it. Secondly, many people seem to think that this Bill will make charging for school transport compulsory. There is no question of that. It is making it possible for local education authorities to make such charges if they want to. I speak as president of the Association of County Councils, which position I have the great honour to hold and I am much fortified by the presence of my noble predecessor Viscount Amory to support me.
What local authorities want to have is the freedom to decide in which areas economies may have to be made which will do the least harm to the service of education which they have built up and of which they arc so very proud. We have heard a great deal this week about the freedom of local government. That is the freedom which we are seeking in the Bill. There are indeed wide variations in the decisions so far of county councils as to whether or not to make charges. If a council makes an unpopular decision, then the electors will make it quite clear to them in the 1981 county council election what they think about it. I noted in the Second Reading debate that the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, said he had voted Tory. If he voted Tory in a general election, I think he was breaking the law; if he votes Tory in the county council elections next year, then I can assure him that we shall need his vote because we want every one we can possibly get.
I find it ironic because here we have today the Labour Party up in arms about free transport; in my own authority the Labour Opposition have made repeated efforts—they have fought and fought again —to get such charges introduced. They think it is more egalitarian to do so and preferable to some of the other economies which we are forced to make. The next misconception is this: that transport is now free for everybody. That is not so. The parents of a child of secondary school age who lives a fraction under three miles from the school is now paying very heavily

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for the full economic cost of transport. It is not possible always to walk 2.99 miles to school. I do not think many people would find the advice given by the noble Baroness, Lady David, to get a bicycle very acceptable on dark, foggy nights and crossing a motorway. I think there is a better way. There are people now who are much worse off than they would be if Clause 23 were passed. Local authorities have powers to negotiate with transport undertakings certain bus routes and so forth, and that is one of the things which I think could be done if we retain Clause 23.
Arrangements could be made for a flat charge for every child of secondary school age who attended school, no matter how far away he lived. That would get rid of the arbitrary three-mile distance, which I think the whole Committee agrees is a nonsense in this day and age. It is only possible, however, if we can arrange for the charge to be spread over as many people as possible and thus it can be acceptable to the majority. I should have thought that I was advocating the very finest socialist principles and that I might have the support of the other side of the Committee when I suggested that. My own authority have started to explore this, but they feel that without Clause 23 we cannot really go very much further.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, referred to the concern for rural areas, and indeed I think we should all echo that concern. Many people have come here specifically to do so today. I come from the county which is the least heavily populated in the whole of England and therefore we know very well what it is like, but I think the problem of transport in rural areas is much more important than what we are talking about now. Your Lordships debated this subject a short time ago in a very interesting debate. What we need in the rural areas is not subsidies for school children but subsidies of a major nature for everybody in rural areas—old people, young people, middle-aged people, everybody. That is more important than a subsidy for a small percentage of school children, who certainly must be helped along with everybody else; but that is a subject that I will not go on with.
This afternoon we have had mention
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of denominational and Catholic schools. Of course, we know that the distance which a Catholic child may travel is longer on average than that which the Protestant child may have to travel, so that the Protestant children have to some extent been subsidising the Catholic children for all this time. We thought it was since 1944, but the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, now says that it is 10 years. It must be so; if we are all paying equal rates, then some people are getting their transport cheaper than others. I am not objecting to this subsidy; I am only saying that it should be recorded as a fact, in the same way that the urban child whose parents are paying rates and not paying anything for transport is paying to sub-sidise the rural children and this cannot be wrong.
I want only to make one more point. The whole debate, which has been a marvellous one, has been about the question of free transport. There is nothing in this world that is totally free and there is no such thing as free transport. I missed the Second Reading debate because I happened to be in one of the Third World countries and met a chap there who said he was chairman of a parent/teacher association. He said, "We've just got a marvellous new arrangement. The Government will provide the teachers if the parents provide the buildings and all the other accessories which education needs". I wonder if we are quite so badly off in this country as we might have thought we were. I beg to support the Government.
5.1 I p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: What we are debating applies equally to Scotland as to England and Wales. In actual fact, I want to save some time and trouble for your Lordships because I am prepared to accept the decision we take on this clause as applicable to a later Scottish clause. I feel myself very privileged indeed to take part in a debate on education, and to do so after the noble Lord, Lord Butler. I was not fortunate enough to be in the House in 1944, but no man has played a greater part in the reorganisation and progress of education in England and incidentally, on overspill, in Scotland as well.
I think we should be very ill-advised just to brush aside—as a result of some

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question about people in the towns who are just under the two-mile or three-mile limit having to walk—or throw away this whole principle. It just is not good enough. I am part of a continuity of 20 years of educational supervision in this House. It started with Viscount Muirshiel, Lord Glenkinglas and went on to Lord Campbell of Croy, and myself. From 1956 until 1976 we were the Secretaries of State for Scotland.
The reorganisation of secondary schools, the changes in respect of primary schools were made by us. I wonder how many rural schools we closed down amongst the four of us in all that time. In every school we closed down, the pledge was given about free transport to the next village. It is still being given by the present Secretary of State, I am perfectly sure. If the Government are concerned about saving money, surely they appreclate that, if this is taken away or is likely to be taken away, then the closure that would save them very much more money in respect of certain schools will not take place.
The other point I am concerned about is this. The last rural school that was closed in my area was closed when I was not Secretary of State, but I was there and I took an interest in it. I heard what all the officials said, I received reports of what the Government had said. The school was also the community centre for the village and when it closed part of the village died, but the closure went through and the pledge was given that there would be free transport.
That guarantee is no longer there, and it applies equally to secondary schools. We reorganised secondary schools and, to take an instance, we built the urban valley which consists of the old lace-. making towns of Darvel, Newmilns and Galston. Instead of having three schools they decided to have one. You can imagine what local jealousies there were as to where that school would be sited. It was sited at Galston on the Loudoun Estate in the country, but it meant that the people from Darvel had to travel, the people from Galston and the people from other villages around, from Fenwick and elsewhere, had to travel.
The whole concept of the siting of these secondary stools was based upon
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free transport and was only acceptable on the basis of free transport. I spoke about another school the other night, and the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, seemed to think I was talking about the Highlands. I was talking about Ayrshire, Auchinleck. He surely knows where Dr. Johnson's very great friend, Boswell, came from: Auchinleck. The buses collect the children from all the mining villages and all the rural villages in the area, and I could name them all. Without free transport that very fine secondary school will just have no life, or if it has life then there will he impoverishment for a considerable number of families all around. Farming children and the children of miners, are just the right mix you want in a secondary school. The idea was right; education of this kind of case depends entirely on free transport. The people of Scotland feel that way.
I do not know whether the noble Earl has appreciated just exactly how things have changed since early February when they were discussing this in Committee in another place. The Minister gave us the information that there would be no change in central Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, the Grampians, Highland, Lothian and Strathclyde, which decided that they would not put on a charge. But Tayside, Orkney and Shetland were undecided. Then he said that the Borders looked like having 10 pence per journey, that is £1 a week. He will know by now that Tayside, Orkney and Shetland are no longer undecided, having refused to charge. The Borders have also refused to charge, and on the day when the Borders were considering this they were also considering the closure of, I think, another six country schools.
Things are tied up, the life of the countryside is tied up, in this. I was very glad when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Butler, talking about negotiations in respect of voluntary schools. You know we are a puritan lot and a Presbyterian lot in Scotland, hut we solved this problem in 1918 when all these voluntary schools became ordinary public schools with certain guarantees to the Anglican and Roman Catholic communities. But this means that, even in a city or a town where there are not the same number of secondary schools—there may be only one in Kilmarnock—the Roman Catholics have to travel great distances to get there.

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So it would certainly be a breach of faith to them in respect of this if we suddenly decided that we were going to charge and make their life much more expensive.
The more we examine the kind of amendments that have been put down to try to assuage us, the more difficult this becomes. The noble Baroness was quite right in the question she asked. The figure I have for Strathclyde is that the administration will add about 5 per cent. to the cost of the transport—and that is not calculating the latest changes in respect of the division of the family, the first two paying and the rest going for nothing.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft was wrong when he resigned and he was equally wrong today. He told us that we as a nation have great problems to face. We agree with him. This nation must face these problems, but it will do so best when we get leadership that presents us with something that unites us. It is obvious that this divides us and will divide the nation. There is no feeling of unity arising from what is happening here. This is the kind of thing we should not be faced with at the present time, so let us forget it and get down to the task of finding something that unifies the nation in order to face the difficulties before us.
5.19 p.m.
Viscount AMORY: I intend to compete with the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, in making a short speech in the debate this afternoon and I think I can sum up my attitude to this difficult problem in half a dozen sentences. It is not a decision I have found easy to reach. I am in favour of giving local authorities this discretion because I believe that if local government is really to be local government, the democratically elected members should have this kind of responsibility. If there is a criticism that it will lead to lack of uniformity, I agree that is likely, but that is a price I am personally well prepared to have to pay. Having said that, I think that to make a charge is a major change of policy, not I believe a breach of faith, because very few Acts of Parliament can remain unamended in changing circumstances for ever. But it is a change of policy that I do not find I am keen on.
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I remember 40 years ago, when I was a member of a local education authority, we were carrying out a policy of closing village schools, and I remember that at that time we were able to assure parents that their children would be brought in from the villages at the expense of public funds.
So this proposal does involve a major change of policy, in the light of changed circumstances and the absolute necessity of economies. If, therefore, the authorities are to be given this power, I would hope that they would be allowed to look at every possible alternative economy and if they can find some alternative way of saving the money they would then be free to make no charge at all or, which I would much prefer, the absolute minimum that is practicable. Personally, though I can see some merit in the assisted places scheme, which we have approved, on financial grounds I would rather forgo that for a few years than impose any severe additional burden on parents living in rural areas, when such parents already have to accept reduced public services owing to remoteness. So my decision to support this clause this evening is because I want democratically elected local authorities to have the widest possible discretion for decisions in local matters.
5.23 p.m.
Lord JANNER: I want to say just a few words with regard to one of the minority religious sects in this country. I need not declare an interest; I think everybody knows precisely whom I am talking about. Let me say at once that it would be a tragic thing for the denominational schools in the Jewish community, as indeed has been pointed out in regard to the other denominational schools, if a clause of this description were accepted. On the advice and the understanding which has been in existence for so many years these schools are being built in places to enable attendance by as many as possible of the people who believe sincerely and without any hesitation in their children being trained in a religious school. If this clause were to come into force it would negate so much which has been done on the clear understanding that this is important. It is on that understanding that the necessary arrangements have been made. This clause is something which it is impossible to understand.

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It is not a question only of finance; finance in this respect is a minor question compared with the other expenses. I see this as a question of principle which involves religious people to whatever denomination they may belong. The training of children in their particular religious morals and ethics is something which is of tremendous benefit to the world as it stands at present. I have said here once before, and I think it is well worth repeating, that the difficulties we are facing, with violence and attacks upon religious and moral ethics are something which we ought to take into consideration when we are dealing with the subject of education in our own country.
I earnestly appeal to the noble Baroness, and I have a great admiraion for her; I think she really does not appreciate what a serious thing it would be if these schools had to be closed. With regard to the other denominational schools and the general situation, of course I entirely agree with those who have spoken against the clause, and I do not propose to repeat the well founded arguments which have been used on both sides of the Committee. But I am earnestly asking her: please do not give any trouble or difficulties to those who believe in the ethics of religion, because its violation is one of the most important things against which we have to fight at present.
5.25 p.m.
Lord WINSTANLE: I rise to say a very few words in the briefest possible manner. I say them not only on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches but also personally. I must declare an interest as chairman of the Countryside Commission, a body charged with the duty of doing what it can to preserve our countryside and its natural beauty. I am much concerned about the plight of rural economies in many areas. I believe that there can be no viable and attractive countryside unless the economies upon which the people who live in the countryside depend are thriving and vigorous.
Secondly, I am concerned with the increasing number of problems which our nation's most important industry, agriculture, has to face. I also believe there can be no attractive countryside unless there is viable and profitable agriculture.
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In the light of that it really does seem to me to be desperately unwise to make it very difficult for some agricultural workers to get their children to school, particularly bearing in mind that if some of those agricultural workers become unemployed they will get not only free school meals and free school transport but a lot of other things as well. What this clause would do, I believe, in the long run could be very damaging to a resource for which there is an ever-increasing demand and which is in ever reducing supply—namely, the countryside.
5.28 p.m.
Lord HUNT: We have heard some memorable speeches this afternoon from people with much greater authority and experience in education than myself. We have heard mention of various points of principle and we have heard points of down to earth facts or probabilities. On the points of principle, we have heard of the discretion which noble Lords have insisted must be left with the local education authorities, and I would not dissent from that as a general principle. We have also heard during this debate, today and last Monday and Tuesday, about the question of equity, and equity is at the level of the children. If there has to be a choice, and I believe in this case there has to be, between discretion and freedom of choice of local education authorities to interpret this clause in the way they will—some one way and some another—and equity, making certain that no children suffer as a result of the inability or unwillingness of their parents to pay, or their decision to send them on their feet to school, give me equity every time.
The second point of generality I would mention is this. I have had nothing like so many letters as my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk or the noble Lord, Lord Butler, but I have contacts with many secondary schools all over the country and I have had quite a lot of correspondence from them. In regard to some of those schools the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, is very apt and apposite. The schools I have in mind—and I could furnish the noble Baroness with the details if she wishes—are schools serving housing estates on the fringe of urban areas, in the context of industrial development. Those are schools which still have a considerable

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residual element of rural children. They are serving also, therefore, villages at distances of anything up to seven or eight miles from the schools. The pride of those schools is that they are beginning to produce a unity between the urban children, particularly those displaced from such places as London, and the really rural children. The opinion of the headmasters in three of those schools is that the effect of this clause, if it passes into law, will cause disunity because there will be inequity between one group of parents and another, which will be accentuated at the focus of the individual school.
My third point is small but nevertheless important because it affects individual children. The noble Lord. Lord Soper. referred to truancy. Headmasters have emphasised this point to me. They have spoken to me of their concern about control. Children will be leaving from their villages to go to school, many will arrive late, and some will not arrive at all. In bad weather children will arrive wet. Obviously there is the consideration of children's health. All these considerations operate to the detriment of education and of individual children, and they are important points. I have nothing else to say, except to point out that, as will be obvious to all your Lordships, I intend to vote with the noble Duke for the deletion of this clause.
5.32 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield): My contribution is in no sense of the word a summing up or winding up of the debate. It is just another small Scottish input which probably would have been more appropriate after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ross, but for a short while I was deflected from intervening. It is not perhaps inappropriate that I should intervene at this juncture because noble Lords from Scotland will appreciate that part of my ministerial responsibility embraces the Highlands and Islands. There is no part of the United Kingdom which more enjoys, if that is the right word, a more fragile economy than that beautiful, comparatively unspoilt, but sad part of the United Kingdom. At the same time there is no part of the United Kingdom which does not merit more greatly, and which in fact enjoys, the Government's concern
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and aid in seeking to preserve its way of life.
I rise with diffidence and a little trepidation in face of the immense experience and distinction of such speakers as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, of whom I have been an ardent fan, unknown to him, since his younger son and I shared a dormitory at school. I particularly remember an occasion when the great man came down to the school. Incidentally, that younger son is also a member of the present Government.
I wish to deal with the subject of the countryside. I do not question the bona fides or motives of those who have written saying how worried they are about the effect of this provision on the countryside and its welfare. Nevertheless, there has been, and still remains, considerable misunderstanding about how these proposals might affect the scale of provision of school transport. For example, I understand that the National Farmers' Union circulated a brief to certain members of this House drawing attention to the effect on rural families of the possible withdrawal of transport. Even perhaps among your Lordships there may be some misunderstanding. However, I do not know whether that applies to the noble Lords, Lord Parry and Lord Simon.
The duty to make arrangements for the provision of transport is no narrower under these proposals than it now is. The only change of substance is the power to charge. Where no public transport is available, a local education authority will be under just as strong an incentive to provide transport as it is now by virtue of Section 39(2)(c) of the 1944 Act. There is virtually no change in the relevant provision. The only change of substance is that, instead of having to provide the transport free, the proposals would allow the authority to charge for doing so.
A great deal has been said about the fact that at moments when rural schools have been closed undertakings may have been given about school transport thereafter. The noble Lord, Lord Ross made much of this point. There is nothing in the Bill —and this applies to both countries—to force authorities to renege on undertakings given to provide free transport. It will be at their discretion to continue to provide free transport. Indeed, in

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Scotland—as Lord Ross got round to saying, in a slightly convoluted way—all 12 regional authorities have decided to provide free transport. In the exercise of their discretion—a discretion which I venture to suggest is a good one—they have decided to make savings, because savings will have to be made. In effect, they have adjusted the priorities in their spending programmes. They have determined that free transport is sufficiently important to justify its continued provision, and in the case of Scotland the £2 million savings will be found elsewhere. I hope that disposes of the argument that in certain places there will be less transport.
Lord GALPERN: Why, then, do the Government still persist in putting forward Clause 25? Why not drop it if it will have no effect?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: If the noble Lord, Lord Galpern, does not understand why there is need for economy in this country, far be it from me to turn this into an economic debate. Of course, there will be economies made, and in a moment I shall come to the scale of them.
Lord GALPERN: We are now dealing with transport.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: The noble Lord has made an intervention. He will have the right to speak in a few minutes and no doubt will do so and tear me to pieces. The next matter relates to the difference in the dependence of rural families on school transport in comparison with their counterparts in the urban areas. Again, there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding. On Friday, my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk spoke on the radio programme "Today day when normally I have the sod of Scotland under my feet, but because I was working this Bill was unable to do so. The noble Duke said, in effect, that urban people do not have to pay anything at all. Many speakers in this debate have exposed the fallacy of that point of view. In some cases they may have to pay very much more than the urban dweller. Therefore, the reality is rather different.
As regards charges, although in England and Wales about 750,000 secondary pupils travel free because they live beyond the three-mile limit, it should be pointed
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out that another 500,000 live in the two-to-three mile band and have to pay. National travel survey data for 1975–76 suggested that half the children who live two to three miles from school travel by bus. Thus, a significant number of children in the urban areas will have a substantial fare to pay—generally speaking, more than the charges envisaged by local education authorities. That is the fallacy of the thought that in some way as a result of this clause rural children will of necessity be worse off than their urban counterparts. If there is equality of sacrifice I suggest that it is in this clause. There is another "smallish "matter with which I should like to deal and which perhaps my noble friend would prefer to leave alone when she comes to wind up. It is a matter which I know the noble Baroness, Lady David, and a number of other noble Lords, raised. I am referring to what happens if the child loses his money and therefore cannot board the bus. That remark gives rise to a number of matters.
At present, of course, children already travel on public transport and pay fares. They use season tickets and it will, by no means, be something new for the majority, at least, of the children in our population to have to travel by public transport. I understand that in the rural areas a substantial part of the school transport will be provided in the form of a school bus, or perhaps a hired car or some such vehicle if the numbers are small. It will inevitably be a vehicle hired by the authority and operated by one person. In those cases I suggest that it will be virtually certain that no money will pass, on at any rate a daily basis, and that the child will have in his posession a pass which will have been purchased or bought from the local education authority. The driver will surely recognise the child—this is a purely practical point—and if the child has lost his pass I cannot conceive that any such operator of the vehicle in those conditions would say, "You cannot come aboard. "
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: Is the noble Earl aware that in Scotland, under another fiddling Act. the driver of the bus is also responsible for the child's mother, who may be carrying a bottle of whisky? This is an absurd brief!
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Unless they arc travelling to a designated football ground, I do not think that whisky comes into the matter. We have had quite enough of that. Whisky or no, I do not believe, especially in a rural community, and in the rural community that I inhabit, that a harsh and unconscionable view will be taken of a child who does not have his money or his pass. My noble friend Lord Ridley spoke, I was about to say, from the grassroots of the local authorities, but to say that would be very rude: he spoke from the pinnacle of the local authorities. The local authorities will no doubt give guidance to the operators on how such matters arc to be dealt with, and I should have thought we could have left that to their good sense.
The final matter that I should like to deal with has been touched upon by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, who, from his own experience in his own locality, spoke about the children of such persons as agricultural workers and miners who, if a charge were to be imposed—which it is not contemplated in Scotland might be badly off. I do not think that the children of miners are likely to be in the very worst financial position. I do not say that in any pejorative sense, but they are not too far from the top of the earnings league.
However, as regards farmworkers, I have looked into the matter and I hasten to say that I am talking at this stage on an English basis. If one looks at the 1979 new earnings survey, updated from its April 1979 base to a November 1979 base which was occasioned by an earnings increase, one sees that the average earnings of the average farmworker came to just below £70 per week. That lies beyond the family incomes supplement range of £55 to £65. On that basis the vast majority of farmworkers would be beyond or outside the safety net which applies to families in that particular situation so far as family income supplement is concerned and the benefits which are available. About 17 per cent. earn less than £55 and, if they are married and with children, are eligible for family income supplement and therefore would benefit. I do not say this in any other sense than that the spectre, if that is not too strong a word, of a large number of the rural inhabitants
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not being able to afford even what are contemplated to be fairly modest sums which would be demanded by the local education authorities for transport in these circumstances, is pushing the matter a little far.
The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, who has immense experience of these matters —holding the position that he does—slightly gave one cause to think that this might be something which was over-onerous on a sector of the population which we are all agreed is by no means well off. I hope that my remarks have shown that, in fact, it would not have the effect which some, at least, have said.
As I said at the beginning of this intervention—which has gone on for longer than I had originally intended—my noble friend will sum up. However, I would ask noble Lords, especially those who have the welfare of the countryside at heart—and a great many arguments this afternoon have been based on that—to consider the options which are open to the Government and the way that the matter has been put. Savings must be made and they must be made somewhere, and I suggest that this is the least painful and probably the most appropriate method of so doing.
5.47 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER: The only excuse for a second speech from these Benches is if one does not speak for the Church of England, but for those whom it seeks to serve. I am concerned with this matter as a community and social matter rather than as a denominational issue. I am concerned about the burden that will be placed upon those who are just above the family income supplement qualification and from whom I feel I have no right to demand the sacrifice that the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, expects of me.
The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, referred specifically to Kent where the proposed charges are to be among the highest in the country. In the neighbouring diocese of Canterbury, where the Archbishop has yet to arrive, the Synod passed an emergency resolution on Saturday referring to this matter, and especially to the discriminating effects of any such charges upon rural communities and upon families with low income.

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Your Lordships will notice that there was no reference to Church schools at all, but to the effect upon rural communities and indirectly to the divisive consequences of introducing these charges.
A new school was built 10 years ago in one part of Kent. The site was deliberately chosen away from a centre of population and the assurance was given that transport would be provided. There are 950 children attending that school and 800 of those 950 are "bussed "every day. In a school in my own diocese for which there is considerable competition for places, 568 children out of 930 are "bussed "every day and the headmistress is concerned about the divisive effect which these transport charges will have. She says that undoubtedly there will be parents who will be able to pay them, but the school will become more and more like the rest of the Church of England and just middle-class. That is what she is concerned about.
I cannot believe that it is the firm intention of this Government to alienate deliberately not only the rural communities of England but the religious communities—Anglican, Roman Catholic and Free Church. I hope that even at the eleventh hour the noble Baroness will be prepared to admit that the Government have misjudged this issue and will think again.
5.50 p.m.
Lord STEWART of FULHAM: I have listened carefully to the arguments that have been advanced during this debate in favour of the Government's clause. It seems to me that they can be summarised under three heads with the resounding slogan—equity, liberty and economy.
I come to equity. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, spoke of the inequities of the present arrangement, but the only way in which she proposes to remedy those inequities is by imposing disadvantages on sections of the population who at present do not suffer from them, in order to preserve equity between those and other sections. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London pointed out, justice is hardly done by imposing further trouble on those who are not yet suffering the full injustice.
As to the inequity imposed by the
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present rule about walking distance from schools, that, of course, is preserved in subsection (6) and in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Without considerable administrative difficulty, I doubt whether we could get away from it completely. However, it cannot be said that this clause really improves equity. To some extent it imposes a disadvantage on people who are not already suffering any disadvantage, and that is all we can say.
Then there is the argument for liberty, with the Government saying that they will give local authorities freedom to charge or not to charge. The question of how much freedom local authorities ought to have is always arguable. In education we have taken the view that local authorities ought not to have freedom as regard the essentials. For example, we do not allow them to decide for themselves what the school-leaving age is to be. However, what we are discussing now is the physical possibility of children getting to school without the danger of increased truancy, danger to health and ceaseless worry on the part of parents as to whether the money can be found. I do not think that that is an educational area where one ought to accept that each local authority can please itself. I am afraid that those who will come off worst will be the poorer inhabitants of countieswhere the majority are quite well off; the majority will be quite happy to save the rates and not to bother about the poorer minority living in their area. That, generally, is the result that we shall achieve. I do not regard it as a result to be dignified by the name of liberty. This point was very powerfully argued by my noble friend Lord Hunt.
I come to economy. The noble Lord, Lord Thorneycorft, made a clarion call to us all to realise the grave state of the nation, and said that it was imperative that we do something about it. My noble friend Lord Ross of Marnock pointed out that the amount of economy may not be as great as one imagines by the time it has resulted in preventing the closure of schools and by the time some of the administrative difficulties imposed by this clause have been met. I accept that if one dislikes a particular cut in Government expenditure, one is under some obligation to suggest alternatives. I am indebted to

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the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, for suggesting that at the very least we could postpone the assisted places scheme before we start on this economy.
The noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, spoke of the bureaucracy of local government. There is another bureacuracy as a field for economies more wise than this, and that is the gigantic bureaucracy in the National Health Service which was built up by a previous Conservative Government. The Government ought to have a bash at that before they take steps not simply to cut away bureaucracy, but to deprive a great many people of a real and necessary service.
I think that we could all accept that when the Government are searching for economies they ought to preserve a reasonable balance between the different services that the Government provide. The Government have already had their own way over an economy of £220 million for England, Scotland and Wales on milk and meals. In addition to that, do they want to bash education again? That is not a reasonable way to plan Government economies.
The noble Lord, Lord Thornyecroft, spoke passionately of courage and sacrifice. I shall say no more on that part of his speech than that I did not find particularly convincing or impressive the picture of the inflexible courage with which he would vote to impose sacrifices on people of extremely modest means. I deliberately use the phrase "extremely modest means "because the very poorest are, of course, protected in the Bill, though, again, that involves more bureaucracy and something which the Government have usually said they dislike bitterly: narrowing the gap between the standard of life of people who are in work and those who are receiving supplementary benefit. That will be the effect here. The Government are producing another example of the poverty trap.
It seems to me that the arguments for the clause under the headings "Equity", Liberty" and "Economy" do not get us very far. They do not get us far enough to justify the meanness of this clause and the damage that it will do in areas immediately outside education. People who have much better knowledge of the
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countryside than I have spoken of the damage the clause will do to the countryside. My attention has been drawn to one particular point. There are a number of small rural bus services which survive because they can build their finances on the school bussing contract. If people start living nearer schools in order to cut costs, some of those services will go out of business. However, as I have said, there are many noble Lords who know the countryside better than I, and they have made the case very plainly about the damage that this will do to rural life. In addition they have drawn attention to the breach of faith towards those who consented to reorganise on the clear understanding that transport would be available.
The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said "Of course, we are not telling local authorities that they must break faith; we are merely allowing them to do so". We may fairly ask, "What do the Government want them to do?" Are the Government really coming to us and saying, "We think that we shall save £20 million by not spending on school transport hut, of course, if the local authorities decide to go on spending on free transport after all, nobody will be more delighted than the Government". Is that really the Government's position?—because that is what followed from the noble Earl's argument. Therefore, the arguments advanced in this debate to justify the clause do not outweigh the injustice and meanness and the injury to the countryside and to our national life which this clause will involve.
Viscount MONCKTON of BRENCHLEY: In rising to speak I shall be brief and to the point. The only justification that I have for speaking is that I am here, elected by some higher body than the other place, and because in the history of this place it has always been the hereditary Peers who are more in touch with the feeling in the country than those in the other Chamber. Those of us in this position are absolutely clear about the feeling of the vast majority of the people of this country, and it is against this clause. I come from Kent and all these letters and telegrams that I am holding are from Kent. Kent—the worst county of all in this respect—plans to charge £2· 50 for each secondary school child,

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for the first two children only. I have listened to what Members high up in my party have said, and I have never heard a better way of losing votes than by giving support to this clause. I intend to support my noble friend the Duke and I hope that many of your Lordships will do the same.
5.59 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: I am in some difficulty over this clause. Four years ago my village school —a Church of England primary school—was shut down against the wishes of the whole village. We received verbal assurances that the children would travel free to Ludgershall, and I expect the Wiltshire County Council to remember that. The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has said that when I had the duty to push the reorganisation of elementary schools in rural areas as fast as I could, we gave some assurances to the rural areas that as the new schools were built transport to them, on the three-mile limit basis, would be free. I do not remember doing that, but it is quite likely that we did so. I doubt whether it could be found written down anywhere, but it is quite likely that local authorities gave that sort of assurance.
Having said that, noble Lords might think that I am bound to vote against the clause. However, I think that there is something to be saved out of this clause. In the first place there are real anomalies and unfairnesses in the way in which the transport system works today. How can we give local authorities a chance to smooth those out? The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who knows much more about it than I do as chairman of the County Councils Association, said what I am sure is true, that there are some beneficial reforms that could be carried out if the freedom was given to local authorities.
Then I would go on to say that I do not believe that the local authorities, or many of them, are going to charge under this clause. I think the savings would be insignificant so far as money is concerned. But that then gives us another reason for having the clause—or rather, it removes a disadvantage to the clause; it is that we have to find other economies. The £200 million from milk is something, but it is not enough. I must ask your Lordships to glance at the education
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budget. Ten years ago Government expenditure on education was £2.· billion. In 1978–79 it was £8· 9 billion taking England, Wales and Scotland together. Out of that £8· 9 billion about £7 billion, or perhaps a little more, is spent in partnership with the local authorities
Partnership with the local authorities is the cornerstone of the 1944 Act When the local authorities were consulted—and we would not get many economies if they were not consulted they said that they could do something under transport I now believe that with the opposition that your Lordships are showing—and which I believe will mean that the clause will be severely defeated, but I hope not—they will take notice of that, and they will feel that if this economy cannot be obtained, where else do they go? They must go somewhere else, and it is our responsibility
We are not looking at this clause in isolation I agree with my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft that we must look at it against the background of our national finances; with a borrowing requirement month by month, huge sums, enormous rates of interest, it is impossible to defeat inflation If we cannot defeat inflation, no more advances in any social services will be possible for years Therefore, we really must look at their budget
When one looks at their budget—I am talking now of the £7 billion—what is the outstanding item there? It is teachers' salaries It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, on Second Reading said that we ought to look at the teacher pupil ratio. He said that the ratio had improved every year for 10 years, the quality of education had not improved, and now the school rolls were falling. He went on to say:
" … a marginal adjustment in that ratio would save much more money than will be saved under the terms of this Bill and would not necessarily do any harm to the education service "—[Official Report, col. 1097; 25/2/80.]
Coming from that powerful quarter we ought to take notice of that advice.
Teachers' salaries in 10 years have gone up from 37· 7 per cent. to 46· 1 per cent. of the total expenditure. In money they have risen front £700 million to £3,500 million. It cannot go on. If they have this year, for instance, a 15 per cent. increase in salaries, £525 million, that is

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four times the total cost of transport. These are the magnitudes that your Lordships must look at.
Here is the real predicament of the country. If wages and salaries in the public sector go on up as they are now, then there is no hope whatever of stopping a decline in the fall of money and a decline in the quality of our education service. The right thing to do—I hope the Secretary of State might consider it, although the noble Baroness says that he will not—is to consult with the local authorities to cut 10 per cent. off the teachers' salaries bill—that is, £350 million—and then to spend £100 million of that on training and recruiting highly qualified teachers, which is what the schools really want. If you do that operation we should be improving education and we should be talking about figures that made sense.
6.5 p.m.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: I should like to say a few words, as I had an amendment down to this clause. I should like to speak first on a few points on rural England which have not been mentioned. The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, said that if this clause was deleted children from rural areas would be better off. Has the noble Earl ever ridden in a school bus early in the morning on the Dales of Yorkshire or on the hills of Perthshire? The children very often come to school feeling sick.
It is no advantage bringing up children in a rural area. They do not benefit from after-school activities. They have to go home at 3· 45. They cannot go back. They cannot use the school libraries. They cannot play games on Saturdays. It is very expensive to take them to the town so that they can go to art galleries, and galleries for further education. The rural areas, as has been said, need help and support.
I am a Roman Catholic, and I should like to say—and I have no fear in saying it—that we in the rural areas are worried. We have very few priests. If the Christian churches cannot recruit children from the schools who are taught Christian beliefs, then we shall have no priests for our children. As it is, we have a priest who has to come 40 miles to visit our local church.
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The rural areas have many problems. I should just like to mention the handicapped children. There is no safeguard for them in Clauses 23 and 25. The noble Baroness mentioned children who were handicapped and who went to special schools, but the modern way of thinking is that where possible they go to normal schools. There is no safeguard; and, as many noble Lords have said, maybe local authorities will not put a charge on now, but what about the position in five years' time? I shall say no more, but for such a small saving of money it seems ridiculous to encourage so much bitterness which this clause will engender throughout the country.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: May I—
Several Noble Lords: Vote!
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES and FOOD (Earl Ferrers): I think we are getting somewhat out of order. The noble Lord did stand up to speak and it is the usual courtesy to hear a noble Lord if he wishes to speak.
The Earl of LONGFORD: May I suggest to the acting Leader of the House that it is quite often the custom in this House for noble Lords to show in a mild, gentlemanly sort of way when a moment has been reached when everybody seems to want to have a vote. They simply call "vote ", and there is nothing wrong in that.
Earl FERRERS: I would not dispute that at all, but from the noise that was emanating it was not at all clear what was being expressed.
6.9 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: As unfortunately I was not able to take part in the Second Reading, may I make one suggestion. This follows the statement that this country has been fortunate since 1944 to have the Butler Education Act. However, since then we have had the Welfare State, and a great many other alterations in the whole way that society and our children are brought up today. I support the Government's suggestions

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in Clause 23 because I want to make it more equitable for all the children in this country—and that is children living in the towns and in the country. As we know from the clause, there will he a flat rate wherever you live; to go to school, each child will pay the same. I suggest that that flat rate should apply not only in the country but in the towns as well. We have heard that some parents have to pay 70p per time to get their children to school in the towns, and I know that that is correct. I suggest that there should be a flat rate not only in the country, but that the Government should establish the ceiling at which that flat rate should apply. In other words, we should not be led astray by the red herring from Kent, where they tell us the county is to apply fares which will cost £140 per child. If the Government laid down 20p per fare, for two children that would be only L2 a week, £1 for each child, and if they did that for the town areas as well, then all children would have the same advantage and, some noble Lords will think, disadvantage.
6.10 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: We have had a long and very important debate this afternoon and I wish to say at the outset how greatly I have appreciated the sincerity of everybody who has spoken, particularly my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk and the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, and I accept, too, that others feel very deeply about this matter. I will deal immediately with two points. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Trumping-ton, asked me whether, if there are transport charges, that will lead to more administrators. Clearly, if transport charges are imposed there will have to be somebody to administer them, but we should keep the facts straight. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, has not told me from where he got the figure of 300, but we have no evidence of any local education authority contemplating employing that number of people. If it was Cumbria, which was referred to in the Guardian newspaper, they are proposing to employ three full-time staff with some extra part-time hours in secretarial assistance; that hardly makes 300. Kent, I gather, are going to employ two extra full-time staff in each of their 14 divisional offices.
Several Noble Lords: Twenty-eight?
Baroness YOUNG: Yes, 28. I am saying that by the time the local authorities have paid the extra administrative charges, which I accept, they will still make a saving, and I believe one must accept that.
Secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, to whom I always listen with the greatest respect for her knowledge about the handicapped, asked what would happen to the handicapped. Not one local education authority which is contemplating charges intends to make a charge for taking handicapped children to school. They never have done and I have no reason for supposing they will alter their policies in this regard; and, believe me, they can, and I am referring to handicapped children going to special schools.
Several Noble Lords: Oh?
Baroness YOUNG: Yes, to special schools, because they have a discretion and they can be trusted to use that discretion, which they have always used. There is nothing whatever in the 1944 Act which compels them to take children to special schools, except over the three-mile limit, and they have always done so and I have no reason for thinking they will not do so in future.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: Ordinary schools, too?
Baroness YOUNG: I imagine they would take handicapped children to ordinary schools as well.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: And assisted places?
Baroness YOUNG: We are now getting rather wide of the mark; I really just wanted to talk about handicapped children. I would commend to your Lordships the very important speeches made by my noble friend Lord Ridley and the noble Viscount, Lord Amory. All that the local authorities have asked for is power to make a charge if they believe, in their local area, that this is the right place in which to make the savings. That is what we are talking about. It is not a duty to charge; it is giving local authorities the option to charge if they believe it is the right thing to do in their authority.

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I turn to the major question of a breach of faith. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said about the concordat in 1944 and what the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, said about what I think he described as a concordat in the 1950s, when secondary all-age schools were reorganised into comprehensive schools for those living in rural areas. But—and I am quite certain that the representatives of the Churches here today would be the first to agree with this—the Churches have not always regarded this as something completely unalterable. They, for example, asked first of all if Governments would increase the proportion that they would pay of the capital costs of the schools. In 1944 the Churches paid 50 per cent. of the capital costs; later, that was decreased to 25 per cent. and today it is 15 per cent. of the capital costs. They felt it was all right to look at the proportions between the Church and the State and nobody has grumbled about it, and every Member of your Lordships' House should know that at every denominational school the whole of the running costs are paid by the ratepayers and taxpayers and 85 per cent. of the capital costs are paid by the ratepayers and taxpayers. It is right; I support it and I am not questioning it. That is our part of the bargain which we have kept and continue to keep, and I hope the Churches recognise that.
Time and again during the discussion on the Bill on Tuesday night I and my colleagues argued for the denominational schools, argued through and through on small details, because we are keeping our side of the bargain. And I must say, it is not very helpful to accuse us of a major breach of faith, because I do not believe that that is the case. Indeed, I say to the right reverend Prelates, the Lord Bishop of London and the Lord Bishop of Rochester: I listened very carefully to what you had to say and I accept that the Churches have a point they wish to make. But may I tell you I am disappointed that your representatives did not make this point when I met them in July?
I had meetings with the Churches—with the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church—and, to be perfectly fair to the Roman Catholics, at that time they made the point that they were worried about transport charges. At no stage, however,
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have the Anglican Churches raised this point. They may not have liked it, but at least they acquiesced in it; and in the way one conducts public business one assumes that that is what they thought. At no time have the right reverend Prelates written to me about the subject. At no time did they offer to come and see me, despite the fact that I know my right honourable and learned friend offered to see them. I suppose that once we are in this sort of position it is good to bring up the case now, but it is not a matter which was raised in another place, and I must say it is now being raised as a last gasp.
I come to the speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham. They recognised that when the Labour Government were in power as the last Administration they looked at the question of flat rate charging for transport. That would have meant, had they carried it out, a charge for everybody, fixed at a flat rate, whether they were in the country or in the town. So I say to them: do not talk to me about charging for rural people. You did not put it into the 1978 Act because you knew the General Election was coming and it might be unpopular—
Several noble Lords: Rubbish!
Baroness YOUNG:—so you left it out. Yes, you may well laugh now. You criticised me at Second Reading, and said how much the country had had to save on education under the Conservatives, and I was able to show—
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: May I—
Baroness YOUNG: No, you may not at the moment—and I was able to show that the Labour Government cut far more in 1975–76 than the Conservative Government are contemplating doing in the two years between 1978 and 1980. We are back again. I say to noble Lords opposite: You may vote against us, because that is your political decision, but do not pretend to us that it is because you are supporting the rural lobbies or the Churches. When you were in power you would have done it, had you had the courage, but you lacked the courage; and it is always the case when the chips are down—you will fight us when we are left to clear up the mess.

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I have not finished yet, because I am not afraid to say what I think to be right, nor to speak the truth as I sec it. A number of noble Lords—notably the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, and I believe the noble Lord, Lord Redeliffe-Maud—spoke from their long experience, and said "Oh, we mustn't save on transport. When I was in the Department of Education and Science between 1945 and 1952, and when I ran the AEC for so many years and reorganised local schools in the 1950s, I gave a promise on school transport." I am sure that they did, and I am sure that they mean every word of it. Probably—and both of them have said so at different times —they believe in economies. How nice for them! They will walk through the Division Lobbies against me tonight, and as they go back to their retirement homes I hope that they will think of the Minister who has been left to clear up the mess—
Several noble Lords: Oh, oh!
Baroness YOUNG: Goodness me! I have upset the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek—because the truth of the matter is that no one has an alternative policy to this.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, was very honest. He said, "I agree that it is wrong to charge for transport. We shouldn't actually charge for transport for anybody." The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London said the same. That is their policy; and good—at least they have stated what it is. Of course it would enormously increase the cost. Nevertheless that is their policy, and they would rather have increased subsidies over transport than anything else.
The noble Lord, Lord Butler, and I think the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, said that they would abolish the assisted places scheme. Actually if we abolish it, it would save £3 million in 1981, and we are asking for a saving of £20 million. So it is hardly going to cover the cost—
Lord BUTLER of SAFFRON WALDEN: Will the noble Baroness please quote me correctly? I said in my Second Reading speech that the amount would gradually rise, and that the original proposal of the Government was for £50 million. It was greatly to my surprise to find that in a Bill involving economies
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—about which the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, has spoken so nobly—there should be an inclusion of £50 million reduced from £55 million; otherwise let us leave the assisted places scheme alone.
Baroness YOUNG: I quite agree; I shall take the noble Lord's advice and leave it alone, except in this context: it would not reach £55 million for five or six years; and it would not even reach that—it could be brought in by order of the Secretary of State. We would not get the savings that we are looking for in 1980–81—which is what we are discussing—by abolishing the assisted places scheme. Another noble Lord—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham—said that we would do better to save on the National Health Service. As he probably knows, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is in fact expecting to reorganise it to get rid of one tier. So the savings will be made. However, we are not in any event discussing that budget, but rather the education budget.
Time marches on, and I should like to say to my noble friend Lord Thorneycroft how much I appreciated his wise words. I should like to couple them with something that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said to me. He said, "Have you got a heart; because you need a heart in politics?" I have a heart as big as Lord Butler's heart. I have a heart as big as Lord Alexander's, and even as big as Lord Soper's. I care very much indeed about this country—and I shall tell the noble Lord why I care so much. When his great Act of Parliament was going through I was only 17, and I did not take a great deal of interest in politics, but I was old enough to be thankful that I was one of the survivors of the Second World War, because a good many of my friends had died in it. I became interested in politics because I wanted to do something for my country. I thought perhaps that it was something I should interest myself in. I believe very much in making this country strong again; because in 1944, despite the terrible deprivations of the war, we were still one of the greatest and most powerful countries in the world.
I find depressing the state we are in now, and I should like to cap it by a small anecdote of my own. When one of my

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daughters while out shopping in London saw a Japanese girl mop up with a pound note the ice-cream that she had spilt, I realised that our country has fallen a terribly long way. I believe that in this Government we are trying to put the country on its feet again, and in so doing we must take painful decisions which I personally do not very much like doing.
And I have a heart. I have a head, too—and you need both in politics, and you need both for the good of the country.
6.26 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 23 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 112; Not-Contents, 216.

CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Elton, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Merrivale, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Exeter, M.

Middleton, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Faithfull, B.

Milverton, L.

Amory, V.

Ferrers, E.

Mottistone, L.

Armstrong, L.

Gainford, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Avon, E.

Galloway, E.

Northchurch, B.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Gisborough, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Barnby, L.

Glendevon, L.

Orkney, E.

Bellwin, L.

Gowrie, E.

Redmayne, L.

Belstead, L.

Greenway, L.

Renton, L.

Bessborough, E.

Gridley, L.

Ridley, V.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Romney, E.

Brooke of Cumnor, L.

Sandford, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hatherton, L.

Selkirk, E.

Burton, L.

Hill of Luton, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Cairns, E.

Hives, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Holderness, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Cathcart, E.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Chesham, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Strathspey, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Inglewood, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Cockfield, L.

James of Rusholme, L.

Suffield, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Kimberley, E.

Swansea, L.

Craigavon, V.

Kinloss, Ly.

Thorneycroft, L.

Craigton, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Torphichen, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Kinnoull, L.

Tranmire, L.

Croft, L.

Long, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Loudoun, C.

Trenchard, V.

Daventry, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Trumpington, B.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Luke, L.

Vaizey, L.

Derwent, L.

Lyell, L.

Vickers, B.

Digby, L.

McFadzean, L.

Vivian, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Dudley, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Westbury, L.

Dulverton, L.

Mancroft, L.

Wolverton, L.

Eccles, V.

Mansfield, E.

Young, B.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Margadale, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Alexander of Potterhill, L.

Bowden, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Boyle of Handsworth, L.

D'Arcy de Knayth, B.

Alport, L.

Bradford, E.

David, B.

Amherst, E.

Braye, L.

Davidson, V.

Ampthill, L.

Brockway, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Ardwick, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Auckland, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

de Clifford, L.

Avebury, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Denington, B.

Aylestone, L.

Butler of Saffron Walden, L.

Derby, Bp.

Bacon, B.

Byers, L.

Diamond, L.

Balogh, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Barrington, V.

Chitnis, L.

Donnet of Balgay, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Chorley, L.

Dormer, L.

Birk, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Dowding, L.

Blease, L.

Clwyd, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Collison, L.

Esher, V.

Blyton, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Boothby, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Falkland, V.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

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

Rochester, L.

Foot, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Fortescue, E.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Rugby, L.

Gage, V.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Ryder of Warsaw, B.

Gainsborough, E.

London, Bp.

Sainsbury, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Longford, E.

St. Davids, V.

Galpern, L.

Lothian, M.

St. Just. L.

Gardiner, L.

Lovell-Davies, L.

Savile, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

McCarthy, L.

Seear, B.

Gore-Booth, L.

McGregor of Durris, L.

Seebohm, L.

Gormanston, V.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

McNair, L.

Segal, L.

Gosford, E.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Semphill, Ly.

Granville of Eye, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Shackleton, L.

Gray, L.

Meston, L.

Shinwell, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Mishcon, L.

Sidmouth, V.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Simon, V.

Gregson, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Snow, L.

Grey, E.

Monson, L.

Soper, L.

Haig, E.

Morris, L.

Spens, L.

Hale, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Stamp, L.

Halsbury, E.

Moyne, L.

Stedman, B.

Hampton, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Hanworth, V.

Newall, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Harvington, L.

Noel-Baker, L.

Stone, L.

Hayter, L.

Norfolk, D.

Strabolgi, L.

Headfort, M.

Ogmore, L.

Strauss, L.

Henderson, L.

Onslow, E.

Swaythling, L.

Henley, L.

Oram, L.

Swinton, E.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Oxford and Asquith, E.

Tanlaw, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hunt, L.

Parry, L.

Teviot, L.

Hylton, L.

Peart, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Pender, L.

Tweeddale, M.

Iddesleigh, E.

Perth, E.

Underhill, L.

Ilchester, E.

Peterborough, Bp.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Ingleby, V.

Petre, L.

Vernon, L.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Phillips, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Jacobson, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Weidenfeld, L.

Jacques, L.

Plant, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Janner, L.

Plowden, L.

Whaddon, L.

Jeger, B.

Polwarth, L.

White, B.

Kahn, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Wigg, L.

Kaldor, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Wigoder, L.

Killearn, L.

Rea, L.

Willis, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Redcliffe-Maude, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Kirkhill, L.

Reilly, L.

Winstanley, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Rhodes, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Leatherland, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Wise, L.

Lee of Asheridge, B.

Robbins, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Lee of Newton, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Wynford, L.

Lever of Manchester, L.

Rochdale, V.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Listowel, E.

Rochester, Bp.

Young of Dartington, L.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the negative, and Clause 23 disagreed to accordingly.
6.40 p.m.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: May I ask the Government what their intention is in regard to the Scottish clause?
Lord PEART: Could we ask about the Scottish clause now? What is going to happen? Scotland is especially anxious, and my noble friend is asking the question.
Baroness YOUNG: Is not the correct procedure now for the Deputy Chairman to put the next amendment?
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): Amendment No. 260A, to insert the new clause after Clause 23—or after Clause 22 as it is now.
Several noble Lords: No.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: I am told that the next one is Amendment No. 279. I had not heard the intervening amendments withdrawn. Are they withdrawn?
Baroness YOUNG: May I repeat the decisions that were taken at the beginning

1275
of these Committee proceedings? It was agreed that all the amendments would not be moved and that we would debate on the question, Whether the clause shall stand part? We have now taken a decision on that. The other amendments, therefore, are not considered at all because the clause has fallen. We now move to the next amendment.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: That was my impression. The next amendment after Clause 23 is 260A. I call Amendment No. 260A, which I had originally called—the Duke of Norfolk.
6.41 p.m.
The Duke of NORFOLK The Duke of NORFOLK moved Amendment No. 260A:
Insert the following new clause—
"Amendment of s. 551(of Education Act 1944
(. After section 55(1) of the Education Act 1944 (Provision of transport and other facilities) there shall be inserted the following words—
" Provided that such arrangements shall ensure that transport is provided to enable pupils to attend at schools at which the authority are satisfied that parents by reason of religious or other convictions reasonably desire such pupils to attend because of the religious instruction given or not given therein and provided also that no school within walking distance fulfils these requirements and that the schools are within a reasonable distance".").
The noble Duke said: May I say, before I move this amendment, that I am very conscious of what happens to Dukes of Norfolk who oppose the Government. I sincerely hope that when I get out at the Monument station they do not take me on to Tower Hill, as they did my ancestors. Amendment 206A is the amendment which I wish to move and it requires a little technical explanation. Up to now, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has said, there was ministerial direction in the Manual of Guidance on Choice of Schools, which was issued in 1950 and which made it certain that there was free transport for denominational and other schools; and it was not a statutory declaration in the Bill of 1944. The amendment I now move seeks to make this a statutory obligation on the county councils, put there by a statute of this Parliament, to make them provide transport to the denominational schools. That is the sole purpose of my amendment. It was never a bone of contention because,
1276
owing to the fact that the ministerial directive was always honoured and agreed, there was never any problem. Now that this Education Bill before the Committee is handing so much down to the county councils and, so to speak, ending ministerial authority in so many ways, I want this amendment to be added on to, your Lordships will notice, the 1944 Act. I beg to move this amendment to be added on to the 1944 Act.
Baroness YOUNG: I ought to make it clear that the Government cannot accept this amendment. What the noble Duke is proposing goes far beyond what the 1944 Education Act says is required. He is also committing the Government to further expenditure which, for the reasons I have already enumerated, we are unlikely to acquiesce in—nor could we do so. The terms of the noble Duke's amendment include the words:
"… to enable pupils to attend at schools at which the authority are satisfied that parents by reason of religious "—
which is understood—
" or other convictions… "
What does he mean by "or other convictions "? Does this include people who want to send their children to single-sex schools? Does it include the Muslim minority in our midst? If so, what does it mean for them? Clearly, if this is going to be included in statute form he would have to define all of this. Simply as it stands, it is not acceptable.
Furthermore, as I have already indicated, it goes much further than the 1944 Education Act. Whatever one may or may not think about the discussion that we have just had, I hope that, having taken the decision, we will decide to go back to what the 1944 Education Act said—no more, no less. I, for one, am prepared to accept that in that spirit; but I cannot, for the Government, accept that amendment.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTERHILL: One of the virtues of sitting on the Cross-Benches is the capacity to vote with the Government and against the Government from time to time as one may feel it reasonable. I strongly supported the noble Duke on his previous proposition. I could not support him on this because I simply do not believe that it is necessary.

1277
I believe that the local education authorities will honour the obligations they undertook in 1944 and, therefore, that this amendment is unnecessary. Indeed, I think it might be almost undesirable as tending to provoke a particular issue rather than to leave it as it has always been administered, and as I believe it will continue to be administered, to the satisfaction of the voluntary schools.
The Earl of SWINTON: I put my name down to this amendment, but may I counsel my noble friend the Duke of Norfolk not to press it? I put my name to it because I did not want it to be thought that it was a purely Roman Catholic affair. I do not see a plethora of reverend Prelates in the Committee to support it; so I do not think my Church is entirely behind it. I have one slight objection to what my noble friend, Lady Young, has said in reply on the question of expenses. Much was made of expense on the last debate, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft. It is my view that this Bill is nothing but expense, a lot of it unnecessary. That is why I voted against the Government, and I am not ashamed to say so. I spent long hours of the night before last on this beastly appeal procedure which puts enormous expense on the local authorities. Therefore, to be coerced into coming here to support the Government in order to keep expense down seems to me to be unnecessary. This Bill is so expensive in many ways—I am not referring to just the assisted places scheme—that the Government ought not to stress this particular point. I ask my noble friend not to press the amendment.
The Earl of LONGFORD: I supported the noble Duke on the last amendment, and I am in favour of this one. May I suggest to the noble Duke that he withdraws this amendment today and if by the Report stage it seems desirable, after further discussion, he can bring the amendment forward again. I should have thought that one victory against the Government in one afternoon was almost sufficient.
The Duke of NORFOLK: It is clearly the wish of the Committee that I should withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 24 agreed to.
Clause 25 [Transport: Scotland]:
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): Amendment 261, Viscount Simon.
Viscount SIMON: Before I move this amendment, is it in order to ask the Government what they propose to do about Clause 25?—
The Earl of MANSFIELD: If I may interrupt the noble Viscount, it will be appreciated that because of the intervening amendment I could not rise to my feet. It had to be dealt with. The Committee have clearly come to a decision as to what they consider to be right and proper so far as the last clause dealing with the question of school transport was concerned. In the circumstances—and one rejoices, if one may, that the House of Lords is able to take an independent view of the Government of the day—the Government do not think that it would be either profitable or proper to continue the debate on that part of the Bill which applies to Scotland. I suggest therefore that the matter is now put. Perhaps the noble Viscount and others who had given notice of their intention to move amendments would not do so. We can then come to the end of the clause.
[Amendments Nos. 261 to 273A not moved.]
Clause 25 disagreed to.
Baroness YOUNG: If it would be for the convenience of the Committee, as it is now five minutes to seven o'clock, before we start on another subject perhaps the House might be resumed during the Committee's dinner break. I beg to move.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to: House resumed.

APPROPRIATION (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1980
6.55 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Elton): My

1279
Lords, in a brief entr'acte in the high drama of this evening, I beg to move that the draft Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1980 be approved. This order serves two main purposes. The first of these is to authorise the issue out of the Northern Ireland consolidated fund of the additional money required by Northern Ireland departments for the current financial year, and the second is to authorise the issue, out of the same fund, of the sum required "on account for 1980–81.
In view of the late hour to which the House will in any case be sitting, and of the custom of dealing only in general terms with money matters, over which this House does not have power, I will deal only briefly with this item in my introductory remarks. If your Lordships then wish to raise any matters, I shall, of course, do my best to satisfy them either directly, in my reply to the debate, or, in writing, thereafter. I am sure the House will understand that, while I have no wish whatever to limit the observations that noble Lords' may wish to make, I am right to remind them that in making them as concisely as possible they will be doing a service to the House by freeing the Floor of the House for the resumption of the Committee on the Education Bill which still has a great deal of work to do.
The order provides for a further sum of just over £93 million for 1979–80, and this would bring the total Estimates provision for the Northern Ireland departmental services during the current year to some £1,768 million, which is an increase of £246 million over the total for 1978–79.
Part 1 of the Schedule to the order lists the services for which extra provision is being sought, and further information is contained in the Northern Ireland Spring Supplementary Estimates volume, copies of which are available in the Library. Of the additional provision of £93 million, some £51 million is needed for approved public sector pay increases, which is a matter of some interest. The three major groups of staff involved are teachers, for whom £11 million is included; health service staff, for whom £29 million is being sought; and civil servants, for whom £4½ million is required. It will perhaps help to put the extra £51 million required for pay awards in perspective, if it is
1280
compared with the cost of around £30 million for the new hospital in Antrim which is under construction.
About £11 million is included in the Estimates for general support to industry, to allow the Government's industrial development drive to be sustained. Some £16 million is being sought for housing, largely to permit an increase in the revenue grant payable to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Noble Lords will recall that in the latter part of 1979 the Housing Executive launched a programme of house sales to tenants. Some 160,000 tenants have been offered the opportunity to purchase their homes with the benefit of generous discounts off market values, depending on the length of tenancies. Over 20,000 tenants have expressed an interest in the scheme and the Housing Executive is now processing the applications.
The second purpose of the draft order now before your Lordships is, as I have already said, to authorise the issue out of the Northern Ireland consolidated fund of the sum required "on account "for 1980–81. The provision sought, some £770 million, is needed to provide Northern Ireland departments with funds until the Main Estimates for that year have been considered both here and in another place. The sum being sought on account has, as usual, been calculated on the basis of 45 per cent. of the total Voted provision for the current year. This order will shortly be considered in another place. I commend the draft order to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 3rd March 1980, be approved —(Lord Elton.)
7 p.m.
Lord BLEASE: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his explanatory outline of this order. In my opinion, the order is a very important one in the context of the social and economic affairs of Northern Ireland and concerning the Government's proposals for the requisite financial provisions. This order is being debated today, as the Minister said in another place, so perhaps under the Vote for Class XI—that is a Northern Ireland Assembly, page 8 of the order—it may be an appropriate time for me to say that I very

1281
much regret that these important financial measures and their implications are not being considered by elected representatives in a Northern Ireland Assembly. It appears to me that however earnestly and however responsibly we in both Houses at Westminster may attempt to deal with these Northern Ireland social and economic issues, it can only be a second best. We require a suitably devolved executive and administrative assembly, directly accountable for and responsive to the wishes in the Province.
There are a number of matters I could have wished to deal with today but, in view of the time allocated for this debate and the fact that other noble Lords may wish to take part in it, I shall restrict my remarks to the bare essentials. Under the Class I vote, I wish to draw attention to the Government's decision to axe the Northern Ireland Agricultural Trust. The Minister will know the concern expressed by trade unionists and agriculturalists about this action, and especially about the future for the marketing and the commercial development of agricultural production as undertaken by the trusts. I should like to ask the Minister what consultations have been undertaken by the Government with the Ulster Farmers' Union to transfer back to the Ulster Farmers' Investment Company properties and projects which, as understand it, are deemed to be partly owned by the Ulster farmers.
Again, under the Class I heading, I should like to raise the question of decision on lay-offs. I refer to lay-offs of 130 forestry workers and 40 drainage workers in the South Armagh area. I quote from a Mr. Jim Murphy, who is apparently a spokesman for some of these workers. He said:
" The only real employment for the people in South Armagh is that provided by the Department of Agriculture forestry and drainage sections. Some of the men would be better off on the dole but they prefer to work, they are the type of men who want to work instead of being idle. It seems strange to have lay-offs when other countries are forging ahead with plantations on unproductive land "
He went on to say that the reason could not be economic because the difference in cost and what would be paid out on the dole would not show a saving.
Looking through the debates on Northren Ireland appropriation orders for
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the past three years, I find there has been one issue which features very much in both Government and Opposition speeches: that issue is unemployment. I do not wish to go through a litany about the continuing job crisis and the consequential social problems, distress and human suffering. The Trades Union Congress Economic Review for 1980, published a few days ago, lists on page 55 under the heading of "A Catalogue of Decline "some 5,000 Northern Ireland jobs lost to manufacturing industry between June 1979 and 14th February 1980. In January this year, Cooper and Lybrand, the internationally well-known firm of management consultants, published a survey entitled The Northern Ireland Economy: The Current Economic Situation and Prospects for 1980. One part of this report indicated that some 90,000, or over 15 per cent. of the labour force, could be unemployed by the end of this year. Already some areas in Northern Ireland have 30 per cent. male unemployment. That could mean that male unemployment in such areas could rise to 60 per cent.; at any rate that is the prediction.
The Minister himself recently spoke very movingly at a teachers' conference about the terrible problems of unemployment, especially among the young. Surely the Government must have some knowledge about the present state of the Northern Ireland economy and its immediate prospects. May I ask the Minister if he will refute this predicted rise in unemployment? Some people have said that the 90,000 will have gone beyond 100,000 by the end of the year. May I ask the noble Lord what are the Government's remedial measures to cope with the present high rate of unemployment that is being experienced in all sectors of the Northern Ireland economy? May I also ask when we are likely to have the predicted upturn in industrial employment, and what are the strategies of policies that the Government have to retain and improve a trained and skilled labour force for future employment in the Province?
There is another matter which recurs in these debates and which I must raise again today. I refer to the question of energy and the supplies of coal, gas, electricity and other fuel in the Province. It appears to me, and to others who are concerned about Northern Ireland, that while the

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Government are tackling the need for short term and perhaps longer term policies to meet the energy needs in Great Britain, Northern Ireland is literally, and indeed strategically, left in the cold. May I ask the Minister that the Northern Ireland Office be invited to publish a comprehensive and up-to-date statement of the energy strategy for Northern Ireland as soon as possible? That may enable industry and the community to pursue desirable social and economic objectives without undue anxiety.
The Class VI vote concerns expenditure of the Department of the Environment on certain aspects of water and sewerage. I understand the new university of Ulster has undertaken some valuable research into pollution control in connection with Lough Neagh. Could the noble Lord undertake to encourage this research and have introduced the positive and beneficial results of this research?
In a brief telephone conversation I had this morning with the noble Lord's personal assistant I mentioned some matters which I should like to have had considered here this evening. Among them were the use of school facilities, a programme for the development of a brighter Belfast, about which the Minister will know something has been published already, and the appointment by the Government of a co-ordinating committee representing the engineering industry in Northern Ireland along the lines of the Finniston Report on the future of the engineering industry. I believe that would have tremendous beneficial effects for all in Northern Ireland. I do not mean that it should be a Quango; it should be a body directed and designed to cope with the present and future needs of the engineering industry in Northern Ireland. It would be keeping abreast of possible developments in Britain and throughout the United Kingdom. I know the noble Lord the Minister has already initiated at school level some studies into micro-chip processing and some training and educational processes in connection with computers and computer use and development throughout the Province. I think this type of co-ordinating committee could very well supplement this type of work.
I should also like to indicate my support for the excellent work undertaken by the
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Outset group, an agency which has been set up in co-operation with the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services. This group is studying the necessary and effective action to help the disabled and the handicapped in the Province. I do not expect the noble Lord to be in a position to give answers to these matters this evening, but perhaps we can have a discussion outside your Lordships' House.
I would be failing if I did not mention the great energy and enthusiasm which the Minister is giving to Northern Ireland affairs especially to educational matters which, of course, are his special remit. I, and some members of my family who are connected with teaching, liked very much the statements which the noble Lord made recently at a teachers' conference when he said that teachers are the guardians of the flickering light of civilisation. That was welcomed. He went on to say that classrooms provide areas of calm and normality in a troubled community. I do not know whether that would have gone down just as well. Certainly, classrooms can be a haven, provided we get teachers of dedication, which we have in Northern Ireland; but perhaps they are not always places of calm and normality.
Naturally, the noble Lord will not expect me to agree entirely with everything he says, proposes and does. I respect and applaud the way in which he has endeavoured to meet and discuss with people in the Province matters directly concerning their whole way of life. He does not have an easy task, nor indeed do his other ministerial colleagues, but I am sure that getting to know and consult with the people of Northern Ireland will be mutually beneficial to the work of the noble Lord and his ministerial friends. I support the order.
7.14 p.m.
The Duke of ABERCORN: My Lords, my intervention will be brief but I trust relevant to this order. In view of the current negotiations and problems in regard to Britain's contribution, in fact, overpayment, to the Community's budget, I should like to put forward a proposal for consideration by the Government. It is universally recognised that one of the main problems affecting industry is not only the current damaging level of the

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minimum lending rate, but the erratic movement of base rate even over a brief period of time. For instance, in January 1978, the rate was 61½ per cent., while, as the noble Lord is only too aware, in January 1980 the rate was 17 per cent. Therefore a stabilising effect on interest rates is essential, particularly in attracting new industrial development, in spite of the benefits of possible interest relief grants.
Like other peripheral areas of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is experiencing appalling economic problems —mounting unemployment, 14 per cent. among the male population and almost weekly announcements of textile plant closures. However, there is one distinct ray of hope amidst all the gloom, namely, the steady build-up of new American industrial development. Some of these firms could be described as having a risk element, but in my opinion the Government are totally justified in supporting these projects.
Although the Department of Commerce and the Northern Ireland Development Agency provide the majority of finance for these projects, I believe that the European Investment Bank could and should play an active role in accelerating further the build-up of new industrial development in Northern Ireland. The main objective of the European Investment Bank—and I quote from Article 3 of the Treaty establishing the Community—
" is to facilitate economic expansion of the Community by opening up fresh resources".
The bank is an independent public institution within the Community, of impeccable standing; it operates on a non-profit-making basis, offering long-term loans on fixed equipment at most advantageous rates.
Moreover, the bank could well be described as a clearing bank with a social conscience but without the philosophy, indeed the powers, of risk-taking. In fact, it has never incurred a loss during its 20 years' activity. Article 20 of its statute, paragraph 2, states:
" It shall neither acquire any interest in an undertaking, nor assume any responsibility in its management unless this is required to safeguard the rights of the bank in ensuring recovery of funds lent.".
I believe that the Government should consider proposing an amendment to this
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statute to include the provision of risk capital and possibly an interest subsidy for future investment, since this would be most advantageous to Northern Ireland, as it would to other regions of the United Kingdom. Again, it would appear that Article 9, paragraph 2, provides a potential adjustment to the present somewhat rigid approach of positively assisting the less prosperous areas of the Community, since it states:
" The board of governors shall lay down general directives for the credit policy of the bank with particular reference to the objectives to be pursued as progress is made in the attainment of the Common Market.".
This amendment would not in fact create a total precedent since in the context of the European Investment Bank, operations under the Lome Convention, risk capital is forthcoming:
" In order to foster co-operation between the Community and the ACP countries, "—
in other words, African, Caribbean and Pacific countries—
" and to promote bank operations in the industrial, mining and tourism sectors where its main responsibility lies, the Bank was given the task, under the Lome Convention, of acting on behalf of the Community, and at the Community's risk, in providing a relatively new type of financial aid, known as risk capital assistance, particularly suited to financing projects in these sectors.".
Therefore I trust that the Government will seriously consider this proposal, and if an amendment to the bank's statute could be achieved then the Government would be prepared to provide the necessary exchange risk cover in this new field of risk investment by the European Investment Bank.
7.17 p.m.
Lord ELTON: I am obliged to both the noble Lords who have contributed to this debate for the restraint which they used in their remarks, which means that we also may get some dinner tonight. I am not sure of the order of the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blease, but he asked me about redundancies and unemployment. There are a number of pieces of information which I can give him about the Government's tactics and strategy on this subject which he may find of interest.
As was recently announced, the temporary short time working compensation scheme will continue to be available in Northern Ireland in the year commencing

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1980. Decisions on special employment measures for 1980–81 were recently announced. He may have seen these. The temporary short time working compensation scheme will be indentical to the Great Britain scheme and reimburses employers for wages paid to employees, plus any short time working as an alternative to redundancy. The job release scheme will continue to be available for another year, although in an amended form. It is identical to the Great Britain scheme. As in Great Britain, the youth opportunities programme will be extended and will next year offer 7,500 places, an increase of 25 per cent. compared to the original target for the programme. Over half of these places will provide opportunities for young people to learn a skilled trade either in a Government training centre or recruited as apprentices by employers.
While it is true that there have been a large number of redundancies announced in Northern Ireland in recent months, I am nevertheless encouraged by the fact that in the first 10 weeks of this year over 3,000 new jobs have been announced in the Province. The latest example was the decision by the Post Office to establish a high technology system softwear engineering centre which will provide up to 400 new jobs. Sometimes we tend to concentrate a little overmuch on the bad news and we should have some of the good news in mind at the same time. This does not mean, of course, that the situation is not a worrying one, and certainly the Government will not turn their attention from it.
The noble Lord, Lord Blease, referred to the household survey of the handicapped. The survey was undertaken by the Outset Organisation. It will cover all the households in Northern Ireland and will produce for the first time comprehensive information on the numbers and needs of handicapped people. It is well under way and the field work should be completed this year. The noble Lord asked for further information about that and I have not given it to him. On reading Hansard I will supply what is missing.
The noble Lord also referred to the agricultural trust. I understand that it is said that there was no consultation before its conclusion. Both the Northern Ireland
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Agricultural Trust and the Ulster Farmers' Union had an opportunity to discuss the rundown of the trust with my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State before the announcement was made. The decision was taken in the light of the Government's commitment to reduce public expenditure. The more important elements of the trust's activities will be continued by existing departments. The Ulster Farmers' Union has had consultations about some farmer-controlled organisations purchasing some of the assets of the trust. Companies owned by the trust will be sold as a going concern at market value to any purchaser, and farmers' companies will have an opportunity to purchase.
The noble Lord also made reference to the diminishing scope for jobs in forestry and particularly in drainage. With this diminishing scope for worthwhile schemes, some 1,300 temporary jobs provided by the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland in minor drainage works and forestry and fishing, amenities under the urban and rural improvement campaign will be phased out by March, 1981. These are temporary jobs. There has been full consultation in this matter with the trade unions concerned. There are no other proposals at present relating to the industrial labour force, although the search for greater economy and efficiency in the Northern Ireland Civil Service will necessarily continue.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reference to my own contribution—I think it is a very modest one—to the work of Government in the Province, and particularly for picking up a central theme in my own thoughts about the conditions in which we live in the Province at the moment. I do think the properly conducted classroom is an island of calm and normality. Of course, it depends whose classroom it is as well as who the pupils are. I remember the first occasion when I was going to sit in before starting teaching in a particular school. I was sent to a classroom conducted by a model teacher, as I was led to suppose. As I approached it, the first thing I saw was a gumboot sailing past the window. That was no island of calm.
I recognise that there are some educational institutions which are experiencing different difficulties in the

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Province, as they are in Great Britain, in the matter of preserving the calm which is necessary to education without inhibiting the feeling of some freedom of action on the part of pupils, which is also necessary to their sense of wellbeing. I am aware of these matters, as is my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education over here, and I am giving it my close and personal attention.
We then come to the very interesting and constructive observations of my noble friend the Duke of A bercorn on the matter of the European Investment Bank. There are areas, of course, in which this bank is already involved in risk. The Exchange Risk Guarantee Scheme which provides cover for private sector borrowers against the exchange risk on loans made by the EIB in foreign currencies was recently extended for a further two years. As a result of the recent publicity given to this announcement numerous inquiries have been received by the Department of Commerce and it is hoped that a number of projects can be successfully processed.
I would mention, however, that the availability of the EIB loan assistance is by no means automatic in every case, as projects from certain industrial sectors such as textiles and clothing may not be acceptable to the bank. I was most interested in what the noble Lord said about the possible extension of the activities of the European Investment Bank into the venture and working capital fields, involving a modification of the charter. He will understand that in respect of Northern Ireland this is a matter which lies within the area of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary responsible for industry, and I am bringing this to his attention. But, as the noble Lord's proposal also has implications for the whole of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland Ministers will probably wish to discuss the proposal with their United Kingdom counterparts. I thank the noble Lord for his interest in this matter. It is a constructive suggestion and a very interesting one,
That covers the extent of the remarks of which I had notice and which I can immediately draw, as it were, out of the hat. I shall read Hansard with care and
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if I have omitted anything I will write to the noble Lords concerned. I think, however, the major matters of policy, which ought to be on the record of the House and not in the post box, have been covered. I repeat that I am grateful to the noble Lords for their constructive approach on this occasion both to the policies in the Province and to our own menu this evening.

COUNTY COURTS (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1980
7.26 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, this order consolidates the law relating to county courts. It does not make any changes of substance in the existing law but it brings it together in one order.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 26th February, be approved. —(Lord Elton.)
Lord BLEASE: My Lords, this is a consolidating measure. I think it is appropriate that I should mention that there has been a tremendous improvement in the general court procedures in Northern Ireland. This has generally helped in the smoother and more efficient running of the courts, and I have pleasure in supporting the order.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his observations. This is a useful contribution in improving the atmosphere of the Province as a whole, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing it to our attention.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8 p.m.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.28 p.m. until 8 p.m.]

EDUCATION (NO. 2) BILL
House again in Committee.
Clause 26 [Nursery education: England and Wales]:
8 p.m.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 274:
Page 25, line 37, leave out ("have power to").
The noble Baroness said: This is the third time in the course of this Committee that I have had to move an amendment which I was expecting someone else to move, so I am at a slight disadvantage. However, I know exactly the principle which we wish to establish about this clause. We wish to keep the whole principle that it is the duty of an LEA to provide nursery education. We are well aware of the financial situation at the moment, and that we cannot expect local authorities to start many new nursery schools, though we feel that a great many nursery classes could be started in the empty rooms in primary schools. We do not think that the really splended aspiration of having nursery schools provided by local authorities throughout the length and breadth of the land should be lost, and I am quite sure that the people of the country would not support legislation against authorities which were providing nursery schools in every town—and every little bit of every town.
I think it would be a disaster if this duty were taken away from local authorities, and even if the general public are not aware that this duty exists—and even some local education authorities may be unaware of it—I think we should accept that it is something we should all aspire to. I hope very much that the Government will accept this amendment and will change their minds. The first amendment, to leave out "have power to "will leave the words:
" a local education authority shall establish nursery schools, to maintain such schools established by them or a former authority and to assist any such school which is not so established".
Really, this goes to the heart of the matter and I would have hoped that the Government would have felt that the country is against them on this. Just as I had hundreds of letters about transport, not only from Kent but from all over the country, so I have had letters about nursery education and it is quite clear that the people of this country feel just as strongly about this as they do about transport. I beg to move.
Baroness FAITHFULL: Strange as it may seem, I wish to speak against this amendment. I say "strange "because I am the President of the National Association of Nursery Matrons and as such I absolutely approve of nursery education and of course I want to sponsor it as far as possible. But, despite the fact that all of us have had an enormous number of letters from all over the country, I have equally had letters from people—and a good many of them teachers and parents and I have here an article out of the AMMA's magazine—not speaking against nurseries, but not recommending this amendment.
I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady David, will say that if nurseries are provided people do not have to send their children to them, but my experience is that if the nurseries are there and a lot of women do not want to send their children to them the feeling will gradually grow that they ought to send them although they do not really want to. A number of women have written to me—mostly from rural areas—to say that they would much rather keep their children at home with them. Other parents have written to tell me that they much prefer to support the pre-school play group movement which is the movement to look after children, with parents looking after the children, but they have said that of course they would welcome professional advice.
A number of parents have written to me asking whether they could not use empty school rooms and run the nurseries and pre-school play groups themselves, but at the same time have the advice of a teacher with regard to equipment and books and play equipment, and so on. I think if we do have nurseries, to which admittedly people would not have to send their children, nevertheless the feeling that they ought to send them would grow up. I should also like to say that nursery schools do not meet the needs of the unmarried mother and the single parent family, because the hours do not fit and day nurseries meet that kind of need.
Of course, there is—and I hardly dare say this although the noble Baroness has already referred to it—the question of cost. I asked the Office of Population Censuses what the figures were and I find that in 1978 in England and Wales there were 1,247,000· 2 children aged three and

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four. If it gradually grows and more and more people want to send their children to nurseries, this will be very expensive.
When it comes to the wellbeing of children I think that nothing should count; but I am not convinced that the nursery school is really necessary for the wellbeing of children. It is a very good facility, but it is not the only one. There are other facilities, and I think that parents looking after their own children and organising their own pre-school playgroups is a very good facility. Therefore, despite the fact that I approve of nursery schools and support them, I would not support this amendment.
In conclusion, I should like to say that I have tried to look up the research, and I find that there has been a piece of research done which shows that after the age of eight it is impossible to tell whether or not a child went to nursery school. It is perfectly true that, on admission to primary school, certainly for the first year a child who has been to nursery school does better than a child who has not, at an academic and intellectual level. But there are many children, particularly in the country areas, who stay at home with their parents and have a relationship with their parents, who are emotionally as well-balanced—if not better—than those who go to nursery schools. Therefore, I oppose this amendment.
8.9 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: I should like to support this amendment. I know that the noble Baroness the Minister has very great sympathy with the whole issue of nursery schools; in many ways, she would like to see the present position maintained. Of course, it is true that we are nowhere near carrying out what is embodied in the existing legislation, which this amendment hopes to maintain. But surely the Bill would be seen to remove the requirement for local authorities to provide nursery schools. It will be seen in the country as a sign that the support for the whole idea of nursery schools is waning and it will give an even lower priority to the provision of nursery school education than it has at the present time.
Now I think we should all agree with the noble Lady, Lady Faithfull, when she says that some parents prefer—and it must be their judgment—to stay at home
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and be with their children. For many this is obviously the right thing to do. One wants the choice to be there; but the fact of the matter is, as your Lordships know, that the choice is not there in the vast majority of cases in this country, because this country compares very unfavourably in this regard with both France and the Scandinavian countries. We have such a small provision of nursery education that there is not the faintest danger that many people will feel that public pressure is forcing them to put their children into nursery education when they do not want to. The chance of there being that number of places is in reality so small that I really cannot think that this issue will arise.
I agree that from the point of view of employment the day nursery, rather than the nursery school, meets the needs of the mother who wishes to work. On the other hand, for a great many women who want to keep in contact with the labour market in this country there is a lot of part-time work, and for the people doing part-time work the nursery school can provide what is needed in the way of looking after the children.
I think it is generally agreed that for many women and it has to be the choice of the woman and her husband—parttime work: while the children are still small is what they really prefer, but they are unable to do it because there is inadequate provision of nursery education. So from the point of view of the woman who wants to continue working but does not want to do it on a full-time basis because she wants to spread her time between children and job, it is very important that this provision should be there. One last word for that woman who wants to continue on a part-time basis. All we know about mothers coming hack into the labour market tells us that the longer they are completely out of touch with the labour market the more difficult it is for them satisfactorily to come back, and a period of part-time employment is of the greatest help in facilitating their return. For them, the nursery school is a very great help indeed. I strongly support the amendment.
Baroness FAITHFULL: Before the noble Baroness sits down, may I make one comment? Although there are nursery schools in France, the French prefer their

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children to stay at home. In fact, mothers are paid the equivalent of a teacher's salary if they stay at home with their children under five.
Baroness SEEAR: I do not wish to enter into a discussion on this subject but I would have considerable doubt about whether that is in fact absolutely accurate. I hesitate to cross swords with the noble Baroness on this matter. I can only say that the mothers working in France are on a very large scale, larger than in this country.
Lord MONSON: It might help the Committee in its deliberations on Amendment 274 if 1 point out that if this amendment were to be carried it would be necessary to make consequential amendments to lines 38 and 39; otherwise the subsection will make no sense at all.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I am grateful for that advice; we are never too proud to take it. We have the opportunity of making alterations of this kind on Report. I only want to say this. I was not in any sense in charge of education, but I had a position within the department and several times I had to answer in this House on this question. The answer was always the same: we believe strongly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has said, that nursery education should be available much more widely than it is. We were aware that with the pressures we were putting on local authorities to spend less money it was difficult to push them any further, but we were happy that the mandatory obligation should remain there and we stood by that always.
The other thing I invariably said, and I should think it is still true, is that if you looked at the league of local authority behaviour, in this case the Tories came out fearfully badly and the Labour Party rather well. It is a pleasure for me to be able to announce that. But, my Lords, I think the serious thing here—and it is serious—is when you have something which so many people think is very valuable and certain other people do not want for themselves. I do not feel the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, thinks that this is a bad thing; she thinks it may not be something every parent will want to use.
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Of course, the parents are free not to do so. But if you then take away the mandatory position which has existed in a situation where the expansion has been much slower than we wanted, and I think much slower than the noble Baroness wants, you are doing something actually depressing to the \\ hole movement for nursery education. The movement for nursery and under-five education applies equally to the play school group and to the day nursery. The whole thing is really one.
My own belief and my experience from 11 grandchildren is that it is very healthy for children to get away from their parents, but even more healthy for parents to be relieved for some of the time of their children. This may be a personal point of view and I know that not everybody thinks it. I believe it is the greatest possible pity in a Bill of this kind, which has a number of very questionable things in it that the Tory Party feel they have to include, to do anything which is quite as unnecessary as this. It would have been perfectly easy just to have left it and said, as we have always said, "We want to see more, we realise we will not necessarily get it at the moment, but we repeat that we wish to leave the mandatory obligation here in position.".
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, may I quickly say, commenting on what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has just said, that if his criterion of what local authorities were doing in relation to nursery education is based upon the figures of spending, then I am quite sure he is right as regards what the Labour authorities were doing. If, however, the assessment, the measurement, were to be in terms of provisional achievement, I suggest that the picture might be rather different.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I accept the suggestion with total scepticism.
Baroness DAVID: May I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull I am rather surprised by what she said—whether she agrees with the present Prime Minister's desire which she expressed in Framework for Expansion, her 1972 document, that there should be nursery provision for 90 per cent. of four to five year olds, and

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50 per cent. of three to four year olds? It seems to me that that is something to aim for, and I do not think that parents are quite so stupid as to feel that they have got to fit in that if other parents are sending their children to nursery schools they have got to do the same. After all, there is a lot you can do in broadcasting and in general in the media, the newspapers and so on; if you want to influence public opinion you can do it in that way. I certainly was glad to get rid of my children for a couple of hours in the morning, and I think I was a much better mother when I came fresh to them for the rest of the day. I believe that is the situation with a great many people.
Day nurseries, of course, are essential for single parent families. They need to work and to be relieved of the responsibility for long hours. But the vast majority of mothers are left with their children for many hours during the day, and small children are very tiring. I think that nursery education is extremely important. Some people are very calm by temperament and can manage their children all day. They are all right, but many other people are not and they need this relief. Another point is that a great many nursery schools have many disadvantaged children in them. They have the deprived children, children from single parent families and so on. It is important that there should be a mixture in nursery schools. Many children are from families that are not disadvantaged, so there is a proper mix in every way. For these reasons I am very sad that I do not have the noble Baroness's support on this matter. I really thought that I should.
Baroness GAITSKELL: May I make a very short intervention on this point? Going way back to the beginning of the century, I myself decided that whatever happened to me, after I was married and had children, I should always want to do something outside the home as well as something in the home. I think it is not only important for the woman. I did not want not to have the children at home, but it is very good for the children. They start having a social life in a way that they rarely do, particularly since we have so many working mothers at the moment. It is for those women. There is really nothing against having nursery
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schools; no one can come up and say there is something against having nursery schools. I simply do not accept that from the noble Baroness, Lady Faithful!. I am rather surprised that she put it if women wanted to get rid of their children. It is not wanting to get rid of their children; it is wanting to have something to do for oneself, and also it is very good for children to have a social life at a very early age.
Baroness FAITHFULL: If I may reply, I have worked in a nursery school, and of course I agree with nursery education. I have run a nursery school, I have worked in a nursery school and I have seen what it can do for parents. What I am saying is that this is not the time, when the financial situation is as it is, for every local authority to have a mandatory duty to run nurseries. I know that at the moment there are many women, particularly on some of the big housing estates, who are enjoying running preschool play groups, getting the time away from their children, organising the play groups themselves, getting professional help. These are women who, if there were nursery schools provided by the local authority, would feel a kind of inferiority complex and they would have to send their children there. The nursery schools would have to grow at a very great rate. I do agree that, given the money, it would be a good thing in time to come for us to have mandatory powers given to the local authorities, but I do not think that this is the time, particularly as there are so many women who are prepared to organise pre-school play groups. In any case, I think I am right in saying that it is a permissive power, and if in any local authority area it is necessary to run nurseries and there is a big lobby for it, particularly in the towns, then the local authority has a permissive power to do it.
Baroness DAVID: I have listened to the noble Baroness with great interest. I am going to divide the Committee on this, but I presume that if I lose this I will have her support on my amendment to Clause 28, where there will be extra help for the play groups and day nurseries.
Lord GRIDLEY: I should like to oppose this amendment. I am wondering whether anybody who has spoken here

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has considered what the cost might be for a start. The amendment intends to take the decision away from the local authority as to whether they shall have nursery schools or not, and I would suggest that it is much better in the present circumstances to leave that discretion with them.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: I simply want to say that I think we should reject this. The idea of putting a statutory duty on local authorities—
Baroness DAVID: If I may intervene, the duty is there; it is not putting it on them.
Lord JAMES of RUSHOLME: It is taking it off. Our hearts have been much wrung tonight about rural communities. I live in one. The idea of continuing to make it a statutory duty to have a full-blown nursery school in our villages up Wensleydale is most unrealistic. In fact we have a jolly good little local play group and that is the sort of thing we want to build on. I certainly hope that the noble Baroness gets ahead with her support for play groups. But to go on with this charade of statutory nursery schools is, I am sure, a mistake.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: I am worried about this amendment, because I do not think I can support it, much as I support nursery education. This amendment imposes the duty to provide nursery schools. I think the future development of nursery education will lie not in the provision of nursery schools but in the provision of nursery classes attached to infants' schools. As the school rolls drop—and we know they will drop and in fact have started dropping —accommodation will become available in all the infants' schools in the country, where provision could be made for a nursery class at very much less cost, which I think would do a perfectly good job. Unless I misunderstand the position, this amendment would make the statutory duty the provision of nursery schools, not nursery classes.
Baroness DAVID: I shall look forward to hearing what the Minister says in reply. I had thought that a nursery school could be established in the premises of primary schools. I now have an interes-
1300
ting thought; if I lose on this Division I can put up something new at Report stage.
8.26 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: I must first of all apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady David, for not being in my place when she began her opening remarks on this amendment. The purpose of her amendment is to oppose changing the current duty on local authorities to provide nursery education into a power to do so. Let me say at the start that I am one who believes very firmly in nursery education. I have myself brought up three children and they all went to nursery schools, and I believe they all benefited from it. I believe in nursery education from the point of view of education, not because mothers need to go to work. It stands or falls on the educational issue, and, to be perfectly frank, I think those who argue that we need nursery schools to allow women to go out to work have not always benefited the cause of nursery education. Indeed, my record will show that when I was in local government—I cannot remember whether it was 11 or 12 years on an education committee—that authority provided six purpose-built nursery schools which admitted rising-fives and which did a great deal for the under-five provision. So I hope that my record, both as an individual, as a mother and as a local councillor, will show that I am someone who believes in nursery education.
However, I shall not go over all that has happened this afternoon. I am, above all, a realist about everything. I must say quite frankly to the noble Baroness, Lady David, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that as a result of the activities of this House today there is likely to be less nursery provision than there was. I deeply regret it, because I happen to think that it matters. But I am sensible enough to see that at the end of the day two and two make four, and you simply cannot, at half-past six in the afternoon, say, "We are not going to have charges for transport ", and then get up an hour later and say, "On the other hand, we shall ask local authorities to spend a whole lot more on something else". It really does not add up. Everybody who voted in the last amendment will have to realise that on nurseries, on teachers, on adult education, on that extremely im-

1301
portant area of education for the post-16s there will be less money to spend.
Let us look at the record of the last Labour Government. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said how much he believes in nursery education, and I do not doubt for one moment that that is absolutely true. It was my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, when she was Secretary of State for Education, who published the White Paper in which she said there should be nursery education for all those whose parents want it, and she very much supported play groups. Indeed, in 1974–75 the nursery education building programme was £25· 1 million. We then, alas, fell from grace and the noble Lords opposite came into office. By 1975–76 the nursery education building programme had fallen to £17· 2 million and by 1977–78 the nursery education building programme had fallen to £2· 7 million.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: Perhaps I may clarify this. My recollection although, as I say, I was not in charge of these things—is that these figures were allowed to go down because they were not being used by the local authorities.
Baroness YOUNG: They were not being used by the local authority because of the economic situation in the country. The reality of the situation was that they went down. Let me give the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, some comfort in this respect. In 1978–79 they actually went up to £4 million. In the course of the last year, 1979–80, money for 4,000 new nursery school places has been provided and 2,000 are expected to be provided in the year 1980–81.
It is encouraging that the current nursery school building programme has been over-subscribed by local authorities, which I welcome. I am pleased to know that the available money will be taken up. This is a good thing. But let nobody be under any illusion. Many local authorities who have decided to take up this money will now, as a result of tonight's vote, decide not to take it up because they will have to find the savings from somewhere else. That is what we have done, and I deeply regret it.
Baroness SEEAR: The Minister is trying to tell us that the choice has to be
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between the cost of transport and the cost of day nursery schools. I do not accept that, and I shall not accept it until I have had a satisfactory answer—which so far I have not had—as to what has happened in the administrative structures in Whitehall and local government. How many of the bureaucrats have gone? Why cannot the Government take the money from a saving in that direction and not from the transport services?
Lord PARRY: The Minister has been interrupted, and one appreciates the fact that over supper she has had to adjust to the result of the Division. I have in my hand a letter which I received from a nursery school organization—
Lord TREFGARNE: The noble Lord is supposed to be making an intervention. If he wants to make a speech, perhaps he should wait his turn.
Lord PARRY: Very well, I shall seek to do so.
Baroness YOUNG: I always enjoy the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Parry, and I hope that he will show me the letter after the debate. The answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, is not that I believe there is an alternative—namely, transport or nursery schools—but that local education authorities will now have to reexamine all their budgets. Many authorities which have hovered over the question of nursery education will decide that this is an area, because it is outside compulsory school ages, in which they can economise. I deeply regret that. That is one reason why I have fought over these painful decisions. However, I accept the will of the Committee; the matter has been decided. But I am merely saying that having decided such a thing, it is no use thinking that one can ask for a great deal more expenditure.
I wonder what an ex-Treasury Minister, such as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, makes of all this discussion. I am not as grand as that; I have never been in the Treasury, and, as a Member of this House, obviously I cannot be. But I like to think that I have some common sense and know where we are going. This amendment is against the conversion of this duty into a power. The interesting thing

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about the duty is that in the course of the time I have been Minister of State I have met a number of deputations. Each deputation said to me, starting from last May, "We wish the Government would lay a duty on local authorities so that they would have to provide nursery education." So unclear was the law, that they were unaware that it was a duty and always has been. Even Lady Plowden in her report never made the point that it was a duty. That was the case, oddly enough—at least I could not find it in the report.
When we came to examine the subject we took a great deal of legal advice to make sure that it was a duty. The reason why the position has been unclear is that it is no use laying a duty on a local education authority unless one provides it with the wherewithal to carry it out. That must be logical. The fact is that the country, because of the rising child population, has had to concentrate its money on the compulsory school years between five and 16. With the growth of further and university education, all of which I greatly welcome, the country has spent money on those items and has had less to spend on the under-fives.
The Government are converting the duty into a power so that local authorities can still implement this provision, but this is an acknowledgement of the reality of the situation. This conversion into a power must be read in relation to what the Government have said in Clause 12 about the new procedures for closure. For the first time ever in England and Wales closures of nursery schools will be subject to all the procedures. Authorities will have to publish notices; there will be opportunities for parents and anybody else to object, and the matter will be settled, as in the closure of a school, by the Secretary of State. This is a safeguard that has not existed before.
I was asked on Second Reading what difference I thought a change would make. I can assure the Committee that one authority which was proposing to close its nursery schools has had second thoughts because of the new proposals which we introduced on nursery school closures. What we are doing in this provision is putting back the situation to what everybody thought it was. In fact, they were wrong. But we will still have a
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power to provide nursery schools. Everybody can still fight for them and work for them, and I hope that they will. We have a stronger safeguard about the closure of nursery schools, which is of benefit. I believe in nursery schools, and I hope that the Opposition and others will join in trying to make the best use of resources.
Perhaps I may express a personal opinion and not speak as a Minister. I think that in face of falling school rolls and empty primary school classrooms, there are many opportunities to bring about more nursery classes, with the goodwill of the head teacher and some volunteers, particularly parents. I commend to the Committee a striking example of a nursery school in an Inner London borough—not a rich area—which had been built by the parents. As a result of that the Inner London Education Authority has taken on the running costs. it succeeded because the headmaster, the parents and the community wanted it. It goes to prove the old adage that where there is a will there is a way. One can achieve more even under difficult circumstances.
I suggest that if we want to think positively on this subject—and I for one do—there are golden opportunities at the present time for us to grasp if all who are involved will do so. I suggest that that is the way forward—not to convert a duty without providing any money, because that would be an empty way of proceeding. We must think positively how we can get together all those who are interested in nursery education to improve the situation.
Viscount SIMON: Some of us share the fear of my noble friend Lady Seear that the act of turning a duty into a power will have a psychological effect on this movement. Would it not be possible to defeat that effect by leaving the position as it was—namely, by accepting this Amendment, and then postponing its operation, which the Secretary of State can do? He can bring it into operation at any time he likes. It would mean that at some time this will be a duty.
Baroness YOUNG: I see the point which has been put to me, but the fact is that it has been a duty since 1944. It has not operated in that way because

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there is not any money. One can take the view that perhaps it is a good idea to have measures on the statute book that are inoperable. Frankly, we believe that it is undesirable to have provisions on the statute book for which we know there will not be the resources which we should all like to have in the immediate future. We hope that as resources improve authorities will provide more nursery education. There is, as everybody has said, a great demand for such education. When we come on to discuss the Warnock proposals, we shall see that one major proposal in that report is that handicapped children should be helped by going to nursery classes. But why confer a duty on local authorities when we know that we do not have the money to support it? I could not do that because I should feel that it was being dishonest to them—that is why.
Baroness BACON: If my noble friend's amendment is accepted, is not the noble Baroness assuming that it will be the duty of local education authorities to provide nursery schools or classes for all children who wish to attend? Whereas, if my noble friend's amendment is accepted, it will simply say:
" A local education authority shall establish nursery schools, to maintain such schools "
and so on. In other words, it will ensure that all local education authorities have at least some nursery schools. However, if we do not make this amendment it will give the green light, as it were, to those who now have nursery schools to cease to have such nursery schools. It would be totally unrealistic to say that over the next few years local education authorities could provide so many nursery places for every child who wishes to attend a nursery school or a nursery class. However, if the amendment is accepted, the clause will say that local authorities at any rate must provide some nursery education.
Baroness YOUNG: Yes, but if I may say so the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, has missed the point. The proposals under Clause 26 must be read in conjunction with our proposals under Clause 12. Under our proposals, local authorities cannot just close nursery schools. They can no more close nursery schools—and we have passed Clause 12, so I hope we are all agreed that it is in the Bill—than they
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can close a primary school or a secondary school. I believe that that is a great step forward, because it means that, if an authority wishes to close one of its established nursery schools, it must go through all the procedures with which the noble Baroness will be familiar so I do not need to go into them in detail. The two go together. That must signal to any local education authority that the Government are not in favour of the wholesale abandonment of nursery education. But the power is a recognition of the realities of our economic position, because we are saying, "We are not, unfortunately, able to provide you with the overall power to borrow a lot more money and so fulfil your duty "—the Government have never provided local education authorities with the money; they simply allow them to borrow. That must surely be the right stance at this moment.
Lord DONALDSON of K I NGS BRIDGE: I should like to make one further comment. I think that there is really very little between us. The noble Baroness made a very useful speech about how we could all get together and have more nursery schools, which is exactly what we are saying and it is, I think, what all people of goodwill here want. If we were saying, "There is no duty; we think that you ought to put one on ", there would be some substance in the noble Baroness's attitude. However, we are not saying that. We are saying that this duty has existed since 1944 and there has never been enough money to enforce it properly. We said again and again during the period of Labour Government that we were trying to squeeze more, but that we would not push it further than we could, which is exactly the same point as that made by the noble Baroness. To take it out may be very realistic, but it is being totally and absolutely misunderstood by most of the people concerned, which is a very great pity. I do not think that it is more serious than that. However, the impression has been given, which I do not believe to be true, that the noble Baroness and her colleagues are not interested in this subject.
Baroness YOUNG: I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, that the position has been misunderstood. Everyone outside has assumed that we now think that nursery

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education does not matter. That is not a statement that has ever been made by myself or any of my colleagues, and I hope that I have said enough to the Committee to indicate my own personal commitment. As I am the Minister with departmental responsibilities for nursery schools, noble Lords may take that as my personal commitment on this subject. I do not wish to labour the point, but we are trying not to say to local authorities: "Do something for which we shall not provide the money". The key to the duty is resources, and because of that lam afraid I cannot accept the amendment. We have said that at the same time as we are changing the duty into a power, we are introducing the new Section 12 procedures to stop the wholesale closure of nursery schools.
I should love to pursue this debate, but time marches on. I really believe that that is the way forward and I am very pleased to have the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to this matter. I believe that we could have more nursery education in the present circumstances if we really set our hearts and minds to it. I hope that, at some stage, we shall have an opportunity to discuss the positive aspects of this matter.
Baroness DAVID: I am absolutely delighted about some of the things that the noble Baroness has said. I am with her on experiment, innovation, the opportunities that there will be with empty rooms in primary schools and so on. I am glad that she reminded me of the Warnock Report because, of course, she has said
that she accepts the Warnock Report and nearly all its recommendations, one of which is that there should be nursery schools for not only the handicapped, if I can refer to them in that way although I know that we shall have different definitions, but as Warnock says, it is particularly important to have nursery education for a great many children, because that will increase and improve the nursery education for those in need of special education.
I am totally against the noble Baroness as regards what she said about from where will come the £20 million that they are not going to get for transport. There is absolutely no reason why any local authority must take it out of nursery education. There are a great many other things that it could come out of; and I would remind her, now that the Government have been defeated on that clause, that the Budget will appear in a fortnight's time or thereabouts. The most minute amount on the income tax would produce that £20 million. The tiniest little bit would produce it. I cannot tell your Lordships the figure because I do not have that sort of mind. However, I have received letter after letter saying that it would be very much fairer to put a minute amount on the income tax for everybody, than to charge certain people for transport to school and stop the free education. I wish to divide the Committee.
8.48 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 274) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 59; Not-Contents, 116.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Hale, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrcde, L. [Teller.]

Ardwick, L.

Ingleby, V.

Bacon, B.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Jacobson, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Blease, L.

Jacques, L.

Rochester, L.

Blyton, L.

Jeger, B.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kahn, L.

Seear, B.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Kaldor, L.

Simon, V.

Collison, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Cudlipp, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

David, B.

Longford, E.

Stone, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

McCarthy, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Denington, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Diamond, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Underhill, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mishcon, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L. [Teller.]

Gaitskell, B.

Ogmore, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Galpern, L.

Parry, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Gardiner, L.

Peart, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Gregson, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Gormanston, V.

Monson, L.

Abinger, L.

Gowrie, E.

Morris, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Gray, L.

Mottistone, L.

Alexander of Potterhill, L.

Greenway, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Gridley, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Ampthill, L.

Haig, E.

Moyne, L.

Auckland, L.

Halisham of Saint Marylebone, L.(Chancellor.)

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Bellwin, L.

Newall, L.

Belstead, L.

Hanworth, V.

Negent of Guildford, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Harvington, V.

Onslow, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hatherton, L.

Pender, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Henley, L.

Redmayne, L.

Cathcart, E.

Hill of Luton, L.

Renton, L.

Chesham, L.

Hives, L.

Ridley, V.

Cockfield, L.

Holderness, L.

Rochdale, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

St. Davids, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Hornsby-Foster, B.

St. Just, L.

Craigavon, V.

Hylton, L.

Sandys, L.[Teller.]

Craigmyle, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Savile, L.

Craigton, L.

James of Rusholme, L.

Semphill, Ly.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Kilmornock, L.

Spens, L.

Davidson, V.

Kimberley, E.

Stamp, L.

de Clifford, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathcarron, L.

De Freyne, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Denham, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Suffield, L.

Digby, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Swansea, L.

Drumalbyn, L. Eccles, V.

Long, V.

Swinfen, L.

Eccles, V.

Lothian, M.

Swinton, E.

Exeter, M.

Loudoun, C.

Thorneycroft, L.

Faithful], B.

Lyell, L.

Torphichen, L.

Falkland, V.

Mackay of Clashfcrn, L.

Tranmire, L.

Ferrers, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trefgarne, L. [Teller.]

Fortescue, E.

Mancroft, L.

Trenchard, V.

Gage, V.

Mansfield, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Gainford, L.

Margadale, L.

Vernon, L.

Galloway, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Vickers, B.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Glendevon, L.

Milverton, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Glenkinglas, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Young, B.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Nugent of Guildford): The next amendment, No. 274A, is marshalled in the wrong order so I shall call Amendment No. 275 first.
[Amendment No. 275 not moved.]
8.56 p.m.
Lord MORRIS Lord MORRIS moved Amendment No. 274A:
Page 25, line 42, after ("section 8") insert (1)(a)").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is of such hideous minutiae that I feel rather ashamed to move it. Noble Lords may recall that during the discussion of Clause 23 there was mention of a reference in the clause to Section 39 of the 1944 Act. This I looked at closely and, as a result, discovered that it was a reference to a definition and that it was not Section 39,
1310
but Section 39(5). This amendment is nothing other than worshipping at the altar of precision and clarity, because the reference to the "duty "to provide in actual fact is Section 8(1)(a) rather than Section 8 itself. I have looked at this quite carefully. The precedent is within the Bill itself because there are precisely 82 references to previous enactments and in the vast majority of cases, other than where the whole section applies or it is a single clause section, the subsections and paragraphs are specifically referred to. In the interests of precision and clarity, therefore, I move this amendment.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): As I understand it, my noble friend is absolutely right, and the reference ought to be to Section 8(l)(a). However, from a drafting point of view I am not quite sure whether it is right, as my noble friend contends, that that is how it should be printed, or whether the way in which it is printed at

1311
the moment in the Bill, as simply "Section 8 ", should be the correct way. Perhaps the Government could take it away and look at it. If my noble friend is right in his drafting, we shall certainly ask him to table the amendment again on Report and then accept it; but I think that we should have one further look at it before it is actually written in the Bill in the way he wishes.
Lord MORRIS: I am most grateful to my noble friend and, as a result, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD moved Amendment No. 276:
Page 26, line 5, at end insert—
("(3) In the definition of "pupil "in section 114(1) of the said Act of 1944 (which defines pupils as those for whom education is required to be provided under that Act) there shall be added at the end the words "but includes a junior pupil who has not attained the age of five years.".").
The noble Lord said: This is a technical amendment to secure that children under the age of five are not excluded from the definition of "pupil "in Section 114(1) of the Education Act 1944 as a side effect of Clause 26.
A "pupil "is at present defined in Section 114(1) of the Education Act 1944 as:
" a person of any age for whom education is required to be provided".
To change the nursery duty to a power would, therefore, exclude children below compulsory school age from that definition, which applies throughout the provisions of the Education Acts of 1944 and later years—the provisions in existing Acts and this Bill as regards school meals and transport are examples. So if the amendment which I put to your Lordships were not made, local education authorities would have no powers or duties in respect, for instance, of meals or transport for such children. In view of the important amendment which the Committee has approved earlier this afternoon, I am sure your Lordships would not want that. The amendment merely ensures that pupils under the age of five will continue to fall within the
1312
definition of pupil as hitherto. I beg to move.
9.1 p.m.
Baroness DAVID Baroness DAVID moved Amendment No. 277:
Page 26, line 5, at end insert—
("(3) A local education authority shall not charge for any education in nursery schools or nursery classes.").
The noble Baroness said: The Minister, who is not here at the moment, gave an assurance at some moment in this Chamber that there will be no charges for any education in nursery schools or nursery classes. The purpose of this amendment is to get that assurance again.
Lord BELSTEAD: The amendment is not necessary. Section 61 of the Education Act 1944 already prohibits charging in respect of admission to any school maintained by a local education authority and in respect of the education provided in such a school. Therefore, it would not be possible for a drafting reason to write it into the Bill.
Lord HYLTON: What would the effect be on a nursery class in a voluntary aided school?
Lord BELSTEAD: I have no idea.
Baroness DAVID: I want to get this clear. Section 61 may say that. I think that was the section that the noble Lord mentioned. What I want to know is that the Government have no intention of altering the law and bringing in anything in the future that will enable charges to be made.
Lord BELSTEAD: Perhaps I had better first say that I have thought of the answer to my noble friend. The answer, subject to any correction, is that it would not have any effect upon charges in a voluntary aided school. Perhaps I rather live in the past so far as this is concerned. It occurred to me when I was looking at this amendment before your Lordships met this evening, that when in the 1960s the Plowden Report was published the noble Baroness will remember that there was in that report a minority report on the possibilities of charging for nursery education.

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I do not think it would come as any surprise to the Front Bench opposite that when the White Paper, to which the noble Baroness referred earlier this evening, was published in 1972 the Government of that time looked, as they had every reason to look, at the Plowden Report and at the minority report. One of the things that were particularly persuasive—quite apart from the principle of the matter—on practical grounds was that it would be exceedingly difficult and disruptive to charge for nursery education if only because of the considerable number of nursery-age children, for instance rising fives, who are to be found in ordinary primary classes.
On that ground alone, if for no other, if my memory serves me rightly, in 1972 the idea of charges was discarded. I am afraid that that is the best answer I can give, because I must admit that I am not privy to the plans of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Department of Education. If that indication to the noble Baroness is helpful, I think that that should indicate to her that that would be the way in which the mind of the Government is working. If indeed an assurance to that effect has been given on the Floor of either House, may I say that it does not surprise me one bit. I was full of hope that a message which has arrived would give me an absolute answer to the noble Baroness but unfortunately all it does is to bear out the answer I gave to my noble friend Lord Hylton.
Baroness DAVID: I cannot say that I am entirely satisfied. What I am prepared to do is to withdraw the amendment for now, but give notice, if this is something that I can do, that as I have not had a satisfactory answer I shall bring it back on Report.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 278 not moved.]
9.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 26 shall stand part of the Bill?
Baroness DAVID: I feel that the debate we had on Amendment No. 274 really covered the whole issue, and I think it would be unnecessary to have it again and to divide, as I should have liked to do.
1314
Although we are against the clause, we shall not divide the Committee on it.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27 [Nursery Education: Scotland]:
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK Lord ROSS of MARNOCK moved Amendment No. 279:
Page 26, line 6, leave out ("have power to").
The noble Lord said: We trail along behind England again, dealing with exactly the same subject. I give due warning that we are not going to divide the Committee on these amendments because, as I said on transport, we accepted the will of the Committee. We have had the will of the Committee in respect of the main part of this particular clause. I was moved and touched by part of the speech of the noble Baroness the Minister when she proclaimed her faith in nursery schools. I agreed with every word. My own belief and experience as a parent was exactly the same as hers.
I had a small daughter and we had a new baby in the house, and she was accepted in a nursery school in North London. It did wonders for discipline as a result of the kind of social training that children, are prepared to accept from others and in consequence of being with other children and it increased her general preparedness for education. The only bad thing was that she went there with a decided Scottish accent and completely lost it, and when we went back home to Ayr she was known as the "little Cockney". However, within a a fortnight she was broad Scots again. What we propose here would have the effect of returning the position to what it is at the present time.
There never has been any doubt in Scotland about what the law says; it is in Section 2 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1962. I heard a cry from the heart from the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, the other night because he was hoping that somebody would define "nursery classes." I can tell him that the definition is in that Act. It was laid on local authorities to provide this form of education—
" methods in schools and classes (hereinafter referred to as nursery schools ' and nursery classes ') "—
activities of a kind suitable in the ordinary sense for pupils under school age. So there it is, and if it is of any help to English draftsmen, let them have a look at Scottish legislation occasionally.
There has, of course, always been pressure in regard to finance, and I am sure the Minister appreciates that it is easy for Secretaries of State to control developments in education; they can control progress—stop it, push it ahead and start it—with their powers of borrowing consent, and that is what we did in Scotland. We should have liked to go faster. In certain areas—Glasgow and Lanarkshire, for instance—where we felt there was special need, we went faster than in other places. There were other local authorities which were not anxious to take these steps probably because they felt there was a lack of demand. I believe that the provision was inserted in the Act in advance of demand from parents, and I agree with the noble Baroness the Minister that it should be there for educational purposes, not just because parents want to get rid of their children for an hour or two.
Baroness YOUNG: Perhaps I may return the compliment; I am pleased the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, feels I have some redeeming features.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: That is only the first of them; but I shall not list them tonight. If we had not had that duty, I do not think our progress would have been as good as it has been. The provision in the Act has been there for a long time, and there has never been any dubiety in Scotland about the fact that the duty was there and, as I say, the Act mentions not only nursery schools but nursery classes, so there need not be any difficulty over defining what we are talking about.
I feel that we are here taking the pressure away from local authorities, making it easier for them, by only empowering them. After all, I trust we shall not always be without the cash. I see the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, smiling at that, but I would remind him that when we in Scotland got a windfall of a sum of money from the Treasury—when they were feeling soft-hearted about the trials and tribulations of, say, the
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central area—often we used that to further nursery education within the central area, considerably to the advantage of that area. It is, of course, a matter of priorities. If we take away the duty and leave it as only a power, we shall not make the progress we have made and I fear we shall stultify progress in future.
The Lord Bishop of NORWICH: I listened with the greatest care to the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, because I have always had a feeling that Scottish education had a great deal to teach English education, and it is proper that we should get well north of the Border for a short period in this debate. I well remember that fine Scotsman who was minister of Saint George's, Troon, Tom Allen. When, after nursery education, he took his five-year-old child to school and introduced the little Scottish boy to the schoolmistress, the child began to cry. His father was not sure whether that meant he did not like education. In fact, the little boy stood there with tears pouring down his face and said to the schoolmistress, it being his first day at school, "There is just one thing you should know; I can neither read nor write ", which he imagined were things one should be able to do before starting school. I therefore listened with care to what the noble Lord had to say.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Since the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, has intimated that he does not intend to divide the Committee on this matter, I can leave out of my speech some of the more ebullient remarks to which I might have given vent—but they will come again; they will keep. I confirm what the noble Lord has said: in Scotland the law has been widely understood, and perfectly appreciated, by the local authorities, and I believe that the figures speak for themselves in this matter as to the seriousness with which they have considered and sought to carry out their role in this direction.
I can illustrate the matter in the following way. In September 1974 the number of children in full-time (so to speak) nursery education was 2,833. In September 1979 it was 3,740. With regard to children in part-time nursery education, in September 1974 the total was 17,629,

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but by September 1979 it had risen to 28,058. So the totals for the two are 20,462 and 31,798. Given as a percentage of the three-and four-year-old population, in September 1974 12 per cent., or just over, were receiving nursery education, and by September 1979 it was 23· 9 per cent., which is of course a very large increase, but one must remember that there have been population changes, which slightly distort that percentage figure. I am quite sure that education authorities will continue to act responsibility in the future so far as the provision of nursery education is concerned.
There is one final matter which I should perhaps mention to the Committee, in view of the matters to which my noble friend has already referred in relation to the closure of schools. Noble Lords will already have divined that Clause 12 does not apply to Scotland. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, will know from his experience that it did not need to, because under the Education (Scotland) Act 1962 education authorities are already required to seek the approval of the Secretary of State for Scotland before they can discontinue nursery schools and classes. I suggest that in the circumstances the situation in Scotland, though one can never be smug about it, is by no means unsatisfactory.
Lord ROSS of MARNOCK: That would be one good reason for leaving the proposal out of this Bill altogether.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendments Nos. 280 to 281A not moved.]
Clause 27 agreed to.
House resumed.

EDWARD BERRY AND DORIS EILLEEN WARD (MARRIAGE ENABLING) BILL [H.L.]
Bill (in the form approved by the Personal Bills Committee) presented, and read la.