Sitting of 21 March 1944

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL
  As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BRITISH ARMY

    Transferred Officers (Corps Pay)
    Major C. S. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for War whether, when officers are transferred compulsorily from the R.A.S.C., Royal Corps of Signals or R.A.O.C. to the infantry, they lose the corps pay to which they were entitled before transfer.
    The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): My hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that every effort is made to avoid such transfers, if only because a trained officer in one of the corps mentioned has to be re-trained before he can be posted to an infantry unit. When it is necessary for military reasons to carry them out the officers concerned lose the corps pay which they previously earned on account of the employment of their specialist knowledge in the Corps. I regret this but any other course would clearly be unfair to other infantry officers.
    Major Taylor: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that it is a hardship on those officers who have made themselves efficient in one arm, to be transferred against their will to another arm, where the pay is not the same?
    Sir J. Grigg: I certainly think that every possible course has its disadvantages and difficulties. I hope that the course that we have taken is the one which creates the least anomalies.
    Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Is the Minister aware that when anti-aircraft officers were
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    transferred from the Royal Engineers to the Royal Artillery they continued to draw their Engineers Corps pay?
    Sir J. Grigg: Yes, Sir.

    Officer Casualties (Kit Thefts)
    General Sir George Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the many complaints of the rifling of the kits of dead officers in the Mediterranean theatre of war when these kits have been packed for consignment to their relatives at home; and who is responsible for the care of such kits up to the time of their being loaded on board ship.
    Sir J. Grigg: Yes, Sir. I am aware that such complaints have been made. The military authorities in the Mediterranean theatre are investigating the position.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Will the Minister urge upon the military authorities to take more drastic steps? Will he ask them to investigate the position and to deal effectively with those responsible?
    Sir J. Grigg: Yes, Sir. I was aware of some of the steps which the military authorities were taking when I was out there. The real trouble in this matter is that there are not enough troops to provide the guards and police in the number necessary to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen.

    Intestacy (Next-of-Kin)
    Mrs. Tateasked the Secretary of State for War why the medals won by the late Sergeant A. J. Taber, of the 11th Hussars, have been sent to his father, whom he had not seen since the age of eight years, instead of to his mother who cared for and supported him and whose name he gave as his next-of-kin.
    Sir J. Grigg: Medals and decorations are part of the estate of deceased soldiers. This soldier died intestate and in such cases the father, under the Regimental Debts Act, takes precedence of the mother as the person entitled to the estate. This legal position is not altered by the fact that the soldier gave his mother's name as that of his next-of-kin.
    Mrs. Tate: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that, where the parents are separated and one parent has had sole charge of the child since early youth, that

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    parent should be regarded as the natural kin, especially in view of the very prevalent rumour that mothers do make some substantial contribution to the production of the child?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am sure the hon. Lady would not have me break the law, and, without breaking the law, I do not know of anything that I can do about it.
    Mr. Bellenger: Would the position have been altered if the soldier made his will in Army Book 64?
    Sir J. Grigg: That was intended to be the sense of my answer. This trouble has arisen because the soldier died intestate.
    Miss Rathbone: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, if the law is as he says, it is inconsistent with the spirit of the law as applied to civilians, because, under the Custody of Infants Act, 1925, it is laid down that, where there is a quarrel between husband and wife, in all cases affecting the children, the matter should not be regarded as one between husband and wife, but should be settled solely with regard to the interests of the children?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am very grateful for that information, but the law as regards the soldier is as I have stated it.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: Will it be possible for the notice of the soldier to be called to the law, so that in similar cases soldiers can take action?
    Sir J. Grigg: We have repeatedly sent round instructions that the attention of soldiers proceeding overseas should be called to the extreme desirability of making a will in Army Book 64.

    Occupied Italy (Food Prices)
    Mr. John Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for War what steps it is proposed to take to control prices of food produced in occupied Italy and Sicily; and on what date the controls will start to operate.
    Sir J. Grigg: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) on 23rd November. The necessary proclamations were made shortly after our forces had landed. There is, however, an extensive black market and my hon. Friend will appreciate how difficult it is to enforce such controls in communities
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    which for years have preferred to buy and sell in black markets to having recourse to tribunals and police to enforce their rights.
    Mr. Dugdale: Will the Minister not institute proceedings to point out to our co-belligerents that we regard these practices as peculiarly nauseating?
    Sir J. Grigg: I will do everything within the limits of what is possible.

    Vaccination
    Mr. R. C. Morrisonasked the Secretary of State for War whether recent divisional instructions that personnel whose inoculations or vaccination have not been, completed will not be granted leave, includes soldiers who have refused vaccination in accordance with Section 18, note 5, of the Army Act.
    Sir J. Grigg: It may happen—particularly overseas—that smallpox has broken out in the parts of the country where troops spend their leave and, in the interests of the health of the others, it may then be necessary to stop men who have not been vaccinated, and who are therefore more liable to contract smallpox, from visiting those areas. But if my hon. Friend will send me particulars of where the instructions he refers to were issued I will have the matter investigated.

    Malaria, Upper Egypt
    Mr. de Rothschildasked the Secretary of State for War whether the epidemic of malarial fever in Upper Egypt has spread to any troops stationed there; and what prophylactic measures it has been possible to take to deal with this.
    Sir J. Grigg: The measures taken by the Army against malaria have on the whole proved successful and the recent epidemics have been confined to the civil population. The Army is helping the Egyptian Government in a number of ways.
    Mr. Graham White: Can the Minister say whether an investigation is to be made into the reasons for this severe and unusual epidemic, and the means of preventing it arising again?
    Sir J. Grigg: I do not think that question falls to me. It is for the Egyptian Government to investigate those causes. If the hon. Member wants to know something of those causes, he should put a Question to the Foreign Secretary.

    Pay and Allowances
    Major Nieldasked the Secretary of State for War, if, in view of the increase in the cost of living, he will now consider the grant of pre-natal allowances to the wives of junior officers, as in the case of the wives of other ranks.
    Sir J. Grigg: This question will no doubt be raised in the discussions now proceeding on Service pay and allowances.
    Major Nield: Would the Minister say how such anomalies are to be brought to the notice of that committee?
    Sir J. Grigg: Is not the hon. and gallant Member one of the panel which is discussing the matter?—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
    Captain Longhurstasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider instituting a uniform rate of pay for cadets, commensurate with their standing and responsibilities as future officers.
    Sir J. Grigg: This question is now under consideration.

    Home Guard (Women)
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Secretary of State for War how many women offered their services to the Home Guard up to 31st December, 1943; and how many have resigned since that date.
    Sir J. Grigg: It would be contrary to the usual practice in such cases to give figures but there were three times as many women nominated for service with the Home Guard at the end of December as at the end of June, 1943, and the number has continued to increase. I regret that the figures asked for by my hon. and gallant Friend in the second part of his Question are not available.
    Sir T. Moore: Is the Minister aware that, if the War Office took more sympathetic action towards these women, and provided them with adequate uniform and a better status, the volunteers would be greater and the resignations fewer?
    Sir J. Grigg: I cannot believe that the absence of a uniform is the dominant consideration, when it is a question of these women giving of their best.
    Mr. McEntee: Is it against the law for women in the Home Guard to wear uniform, because, if so, many are doing it?
    Sir J. Grigg: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that Question down.

    Bands ("Salute the Soldier" Week)
    Sir T. Mooreasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in order to secure the success of the "Salute the Soldier" Week, he will authorise military bands to escort marching troops throughout those cities and towns where the demonstrations are taking place.
    Sir J. Grigg: Yes, Sir. A special instruction has been issued that bands shall give the calls of the "Salute the Soldier" campaign priority over their other engagements.
    Sir T. Moore: Is the Minister aware of the pleasurable shock which I have received on getting that sympathetic reply?
    Sir J. Grigg: It shows, if I may say so without offence, how extremely unobservant the hon, and gallant Member is.
    Mr. Shinwell: Do we understand that we are to march troops up and down, through the streets, and parade them, and do all that sort of thing, without consulting the men? Have they not enough duties imposed on them as it is? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]. Hon. Members may say "Oh" as much as they like, but that is the case.
    Sir J. Grigg: This refers to regimental bands.
    Mr. McGovern: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, more important than bands, would be a substantial increase in the soldiers' allowances?

    Relatives (Travel Warrants)
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will authorise the grant of two free travel warrants to enable near relations to visit sick or wounded soldier relatives who, although not dangerously ill, are likely to be retained in hospital for an extended period after having returned from long periods of service overseas.
    Sir J. Grigg: Wounded and sick soldiers from abroad are sent to hospitals as near their homes as possible. If they are dangerously ill their relatives are given free

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    travel warrants to visit them. Otherwise the relatives pay single fare for a return ticket. These rules apply in the three Services and I regret that I am not in a position to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.
    Mr. Bellenger: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these soldiers, because of their service overseas, have not had the same opportunity of getting free travel warrants and leave as others serving at home; and, in view of their extended detention in hospitals over here, could he not stretch a point and give relatives an opportunity of travelling to see their sick or wounded men, free of cost?
    Sir J. Grigg: If the soldiers are dangerously ill, free warrants are issued and If they are not dangerously ill, concession warrants are given. I should think that that is not bad treatment.
    Sir Herbert Williams: Can my right hon. Friend arrange to give tickets instead of warrants, in order to eliminate the queues at booking offices?

    Contractor Cinemas, Egypt
    Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that in the Middle East contractor cinemas often exhibit to the troops very undesirable films; that they charge higher admission fees than is necessary and though rebates are made this makes the troops pay for their own welfare; and will he consider buying out the contractor cinemas and placing the whole of the film distribution for the troops in the hands of E.N.S.A.
    Sir J. Grigg: The cinema shows given by the contractors in Egypt are undoubtedly inferior in quality to the shows given by E.N.S.A. though there is no evidence that they are otherwise undesirable. The prices charged for them are higher than E.N.S.A.'s. The possibility of acquiring the circuit of the principal contractor has been considered, but it is unlikely that he will sell at a price which could be called reasonable.
    Miss Ward: Will my right hon. Friend negotiate with the Treasury in the interests of the soldiers?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am not going to ask anyone to pay blackmail to a cinema proprietor in Cairo.

    Travel Vouchers (Luxor)
    Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for War why it is not permitted for soldiers to use their free-travel vouchers to visit Luxor when members of the R.A.F. are so permitted; and will he take steps to abolish this anomaly.
    Sir J. Grigg: My hon. Friend is, I think, misinformed. The free vouchers are granted for a journey to the nearest suitable leave centre and soldiers may go to Luxor if this is the nearest centre. I understand that similar rules apply to members of the R.A.F.
    Miss Wand: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when I was there that was not so?
    Sir J. Grigg: This is not the first time that I have had a dispute with the hon. Lady on a question of fact.
    Miss Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is not the first time that I have been right and he has been wrong?
    Sir J. Grigg: That is an additional cause for disagreement.
    Mr. R. J. Taylor: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow the hon. Lady to have the last word?
    Commander Sir Archibald Southby: At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman has had the last word.

    Uniform (Collar and Tie)
    Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in the future, soldiers will be allowed to wear a collar and tie in order to place them on terms of equality with the airmen.
    Sir J. Grigg: Whatever the merits of a change of this kind may be, I do not think that this is a suitable time to consider it.
    Miss Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a very real grievance?
    Sir J. Grigg: I am aware of a lot of other considerations in connection with the immediate future.

    Troops from Overseas (Accommodation)
    Mr. Wakefieldasked the Secretary of State for War what steps he is taking to ensure that, when troops return from hot climates overseas, during the cold weather period, they are placed in billets rather than under canvas.
    Sir J. Grigg: Instructions have already been issued to ensure that, wherever possible, troops who have just returned from overseas should be put into winter accommodation rather than into tents, and I am glad to say that in most cases it has been possible to avoid accommodating them in tents.
    Mr. Wakefield: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that reply will give considerable satisfaction in the many quarters where people, who have recently returned from hot climates, have been put under canvas?
    Sir J. Grigg: I think I told my hon. Friend, in reply to a previous question, that the number of people concerned is only 1 per cent, of the whole, and moreover, some of these people who have returned from hot climates, have returned by way of the snow-clad mountains of Italy.

    Demobilised Women (Clothing Grants)
    Mrs. Cazalet Keirasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider providing a choice of civilian clothing for women, as well as for men, on demobilisation from the Services; and if he will arrange an exhibition of the sample clothing.
    Sir J. Grigg: The women in the Services present a somewhat different problem from that of the men. It is considered to be impossible, to provide an appropriate range of women's clothing of sufficient variety to satisfy feminine taste, and it has, accordingly, been decided in their case, to make an issue of coupons and cash, the cash grant to be based upon & fair retail price of a suitable outfit on the same general lines as that provided for the men.
    Mrs. Cazalet Keir: Is the Minister aware that it would be of great help to thousands of Service women, if some well-designed clothes could be ready for them to choose from at the end of the war?

  SCOTLAND

    Fishing Industry, Shetland
    Mr. Leslieasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the proposals of the Lerwick Harbour Trust for the reconstruction of the fishing industry and the proposals sent to him from the local Labour Party for the rural reconstruction of Shetland; and what
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    action he intends taking to deal with these reports.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): The proposals of the harbour trustees have been referred to the Council on Industry, and are presently being considered by the Council's two Committees on Canning and on the White Fish Industry in Scotland, the further proposals to which my hon. Friend refers have not yet reached me, although I have seen references to them in the Press.

    Infant Mortality (Inquiry)
    Major Markhamasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the composition of the special inquiry being made by the Scientific Advisory Committee into neo-natal mortality; whether the personnel conducting this inquiry will include scientists other than medical officers; whether it will have facilities to visit places in the British Isles and elsewhere; and whether it will be instructed to take into consideration latest developments into the U.S.A. and comparable areas with low infant mortality rates.
    Mr. Johnston: I have asked the Scientific Advisory Committee
    "to consider the factors specially responsible for that part of infant mortality attributable to infections, with particular reference to the first month of life, and to suggest means for reducing mortality from this cause."
    The personnel making this inquiry and the manner in which it should be conducted are for the Committee to decide, but I have no doubt that all relevant information, including experience and developments elsewhere, will be carefully weighed.
    Major Markham: In view of the fact that the committee selected for the last inquiry into infant mortality was restricted to medical officers, will my right hon. Friend see to it that the next inquiry embraces a much wider field?
    Mr. Johnston: It is not quite correct to say that the previous inquiry was restricted to medical officers alone.
    Dr. Russell Thomas: In view of the fact that asphyxia is one of the commonest causes of neo-natal deaths and is frequently brought on by chloroform and "twilight sleep," would the right hon. Gentleman impress upon his Advisory Committee that child birth, normally, is a natural phenomenon, and not an artificial condition or disease?
    Mr. Johnston: I should like to see that Question on the Paper.
    Viscountess Astor: Could not the right hon. Gentleman see to it that there are on that Committee wise, sensible and intelligent women, and not medical men, who do not know what well people look like?
    Mr. Johnston: The Noble Lady has, no doubt, been misinformed. There were several well qualified women on the Committee.
    Viscountess Astor: There were very few, comparatively.

    Housing (Design)
    Mr. Hubbardasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he proposes to publish the report on the design and layout of houses in Scotland.
    Mr. Johnston: This Report by the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee is being published by the Stationery Office on 24th March.
    Mr. Mathers: Could my right hon. Friend give us some indication of the kind of report it will be, and whether there is to be any Press or other publicity to popularise its sale?

  COAL INDUSTRY

    Wages Negotiations
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1), if his Department indicated to the national coal-owners representatives, prior to district negotiations on the Porter anomalies, that the Government would not provide the money to meet any increase in wages above the Porter Award; and the dates and forms of such intimations;
    (2), if any special steps were taken to inform any of the district coalowners that the Government would not provide the money for any offers of wages increases above the Porter Award after 7th February; and, if so, what was the nature of such steps.
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): I would invite my hon. Friend's attention to the reply I gave on 7th March to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate). On 3rd February, 1944, a deputation representing the Min-
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    ing Association was informed by my officials that no undertaking could be given that the cost of adjusting the so-called "anomalies" arising out of the Porter Award would be paid from the Coal Charges Account and on the morning of 4th February, 1944, I confirmed this statement to the President and Director of the Mining Association. I understand that district negotiations on these so-called "anomalies" took place after 4th February, 1944. The results of these negotiations were not communicated to me directly but reports as to their extent reached my Department and on the morning of 10th February a further intimation of the Government's attitude was made verbally by my officials to the Director of the Mining Association. I am informed that some district negotiations took place subsequently thereto. It is not customary to make direct communications to district colliery owners on matters which are considered between the Ministry and the national body acting on their behalf and no such communication was made on this occasion.
    Mr. Edwards: While thanking the Minister for that clarification, may I ask whether he is not aware that the coalowners, in negotiating their generous offers in the districts, at the expense of the Government, actually led the miners up the path and were responsible for the position which arose in South Wales last week?
    Mr. James Griffiths: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware of the fact that the offer made by the coalowners and put before the men, and then withdrawn, is very largely responsible for the unfortunate position in South Wales now; and what steps does he propose to take to avoid any such action being taken by coalowners in the future?
    Mr. R. J. Taylor: Is the Minister aware that this does not apply only to South Wales and that negotiations and offers were made in other parts of the coalfields?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Daggarasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he has any estimate of the annual cost of the offer made by the coalowners in the districts to increase wages above the Porter minimum on the condition that the Government would allow the charge to fall upon the Coal Charges Fund.
    Major Lloyd George: I have not received particulars of all the offers made and therefore have no means of estimating the cost accurately. Such particulars as reached -me made it clear that the probable cost would have substantially exceeded the cost of implementing the minimum wage award, which is estimated to be about £5,000,000 per annum.
    Mr. Daggar: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that statements have been made that the South Wales coal-owners offered an increased percentage in the region of 15 per cent., subject to the money being obtained from the Coal Charges Fund?
    Major Lloyd George: I did hear that, and if my hon. Friend will look at the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), he will see what information I got. I repeat, and much more clearly, that the Government could not be responsible for this. It was on a statement of that character that that remark was made. I could not say what the figure would be, but it would be very considerably in excess of £5,000,000.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: In that connection, what was the extent of the offer in Northumberland on the negotiations which took place, after the Minister's information to the Press?
    Major Lloyd George: Those figures have not been forwarded to me yet.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is it not remarkable that the Ministry has no knowledge of what is actually going on as regards these negotiations? In reply to Questions the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has, more than once, said that these negotiations proceed, and that sometimes his Department gets information but cannot enforce it. Surely he ought to have the power to enforce it.
    Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend ought to be well aware that my Ministry does not take part in wages negotiations, and that unless I get information from either side or both sides, I have no accurate information.
    Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Are we to understand from that reply, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is to keep a close watch on any future frame-ups between the Miners' Federation and the Mine-workers' Association?
    Mr. James Griffiths: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the offer' made by the coalowners to the men was on those conditions? Do I understand clearly that the owners were told well beforehand that the money could not be recovered from the Coal Charges Fund?
    Major Lloyd George: The actual position was that the Government were asked to guarantee that any arrangements come to would be met out of the Coal Charges Fund, and I took the view that neither this Government, nor any other Government, could guarantee payments on an arrangement which they had not seen. I made it perfectly plain that under no circumstances could I possibly give any such guarantee.

    Necessitous Undertakings (Control)
    Mr. Fosterasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will consider the advisability of taking over full control of those undertakings in the mining industry which have become necessitous under the Coal Charges Fund Order, 1942, in the national interest and for the maximum production of coal.
    Major Lloyd George: No, Sir, but the Group Production Directors who are now being appointed under my scheme for improved operational control, are being instructed to pay special attention to undertakings which receive financial assistance under the Necessitous Pits Scheme.
    Mr. Foster: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not aware that there are 84 necessitous undertakings in the industry being subsidised by public money from the Coal Charges Fund? Is he not also aware that when a colliery becomes a necessitous undertaking, the incentive to produce the maximum amount of coal ceases to exist? In view of the fact that the man at the face is being offered a bonus, or an increase in piece Tate to produce the maximum amount of coal, should not something be done with the coalowners? What does the Minister propose to do?
    Major Lloyd George: I have indicated that the most important thing in any necessitous undertaking is supervision, and that, I hope, will be greatly improved and strengthened by the proposals now operating.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: In view of the policy of appointing new Group Production Directors, which was announced three months ago, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman explain why it has not been put into operation?
    Major Lloyd George: That is not so. In some areas, of course, the proposals are not in operation but I have to get the best available people. There is no reservoir, as my hon. Friend knows, from which we can draw.
    Sir H. Williams: If the industry were nationalised, would they not all become necessitous undertakings?

    Volunteer Miner, County Durham
    Mr. Murrayasked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he is aware that Mr. Alfred Hall, a coalcutter, who worked at Roddymoor Colliery, County Durham, until owing to eye trouble he became unable to continue his employment, was later certified fit for light work but unable to get it; that he then became an air-raid warden, later joining the Navy and serving for three years; that the Admiralty have granted Mr. Hall his release to return to the mines, passing him Grade I, that the colliery say they have no pit room for him after 16 years of good service; and will he take steps to enable this man to produce coal which the country so much needs.
    Major Lloyd George: I am making inquiries and I will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

    Piece-Rate Workers
    Mr. Tinkerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power the figures showing the percentage of piece-rate workers on coal as compared to other underground workers; and will he give separate figures for Lancashire.
    Major Lloyd George: I regret that this information is not at present available.
    Mr. Tinker: Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman try to get that in view of the increase?
    Major Lloyd George: I am already taking steps to get it. We have got rough information; I am taking steps to get the most detailed information possible.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not aware that the Regional Controllers issue a statement each month giving this information? Now the Minister says he has not got it.
    Major Lloyd George: My hon. Friend will appreciate that I can tell him now, approximately, what the figures are. For instance, we know that face workers approximate to pieceworkers, but there are some face workers who are not pieceworkers, and there are some pieceworkers who are not face workers.
    Mr. Foster: Is it not a fact that the percentage of workers on piece rates is, approximately, about 25 per cent, of the total personnel?
    Mr. Tinker: If I repeat the Question again, soon, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman try to reply to it?
    Major Lloyd George: I believe one-third of the workers on the face are pieceworkers, but that is only approximate.
    Mr. Foster: But they are not on piece rates.

    Oil from Coal (Report)
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Fuel and Power upon what basis the Government's policy for the erection of plant for producing oil from coal and synthetic fuel was settled; and will be issue a White Paper giving the full facts and a report of the consultations and negotiations that took place.
    Major Lloyd George: I would refer my hon. Friend to the Report of the Falmouth Committee, issued in 1938, which was an important element in determining the Government's pre-war policy in these matters. During the war the production and use of liquid products from coal carbonisation have been developed to the fullest possible extent.
    Mr. Smith: On that important issue, has it not been proved that I.C.I, and I.G. Germany, and several other oil companies, arrived at an agreement with a view to allocating world markets? If so, can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether any representatives of the I.C.I, will be responsible for advising the Government in connection with this matter?
    Major Lloyd George: I could not reply to that question without notice.

  PETROL ALLOCATION (BRITISH AND ALLIED FORCES)
  Sir T. Mooreasked the Minister of Fuel and Power what was the consumption of petrol by the ground Forces of our Allies and by our own ground Forces, respectively, within Great Britain during the month of January.
  Major Lloyd George: It would not be in the public interest to give the information for which my hon. and gallant Friend asks.
  Sir T. Moore: In this allocation of petrol to the Armed Forces of the Crown and to our Allies, will my right hon. and gallant Friend take a sympathetic view of the needs of the civilian community? They have few rights now, but they still have needs.
  Major Lloyd George: I certainly will.
  Sir A. Southby: Is it not a fact that our Allies import and pay for their own petrol, and is not the way they use it their business and not ours?
  Mr. Molson: Are the Allies required to exercise the same economy as our Forces?
  Major Lloyd George: The question of economy applies equally to both but, of course, how it is exercised in the case of our Allies, must be a matter for the Allies.
  Earl Winterton: Has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman no right of making application to the appropriate authorities of His Majesty's Government if he thinks there is an undue waste of petrol?
  Major Lloyd George: Certainly, and I have done so on more than one occasion.

  CIVIL AVIATION (EMPIRE POLICY)
  Mr. Granvilleasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs if he will propose to the coming conference of Dominion Prime Ministers the setting up of an Empire Air Board to supervise the development of civil air routes throughout the British Commonwealth of Nations.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans): The hon. Member's suggestion will be borne in mind, but it is not possible to forecast the course which discussions at the Prime Ministers' meeting will take.
  Mr. Granville: Can the hon. Gentleman say if this suggestion was discussed at the recent Empire Conference on Civil Aviation in London; and has the suggestion been received by the Dominion Governments as well?
  Mr. Emrys-Evans: I cannot answer that without notice.

  BECHUANALAND (LAND DEVELOPMENT)
  Mr. Edmund Harveyasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can give particulars of the progress of the land development scheme in Bechuanaland.
  Mr. Emrys Evans: I am not sure what particular scheme in the Bechuanaland Protectorate the hon. Member has in mind, but, as regards the question of the general development of this territory, I would refer to the reply given to the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) on 1st February.

  EIRE (BRITISH COMMONWEALTH)
  Mr. Granvilleasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what advantages of membership of the Commonwealth of British Nations Eire now enjoys; and if she subscribes to the conditions of consultation under the Statute of Westminster.
  Mr. Emrys-Evans: As the Prime Minister has said in reply to Questions on 14th March, the position of Eire at the present time is anomalous. Broadly, Eire is treated by us as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, but she is, of course, excluded from the benefits of all special war-time arrangements. As regards the second part of the Question, the Statute of Westminster does not prescribe conditions of consultation.
  Mr. Granville: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether we are represented in Dublin by a Minister or a High Commissioner, and by what method the Government maintain contact with public opinion in Eire?
  Mr. Emrys-Evans: Sir John Maffey is the United Kingdom representative in Dublin.
  Professor Savory: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he is not well aware that citizens of Eire enjoy far greater privileges

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  as British subjects in this country than the citizens of all the other Dominions, especially with regard to military service and the practice of medicine?

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Retailers' Licences (Ex-Service Men)
    Mr. Manderasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps are being taken to ensure that those independent traders who are now in the Forces shall be given a fair chance of re-entry into the retail trade on demobilisation.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): As I have previously stated, licences will be granted, as a matter of course, to ex-Servicemen on the Board of Trade's Register for Retail Traders, who wish to re-establish themselves in their former businesses after the war. As I have also stated, special steps have been taken, at my request, to bring the Register to the notice of men serving in His Majesty's Forces, both at home and overseas.
    Mr. Mander: But can my right hon. Friend say whether these steps have been successful? All the persons concerned know their rights.
    Mr. Dalton: It is not my fault; I have taken every step open to me and I have no reason to doubt that the register is widely known.
    Mr. Levy: Is there any discrimination between ex-Servicemen and small traders whose shops have been closed and who have been directed to munitions work? Why should they not have the same privileges as ex-Servicemen?
    Mr. Dalton: The Question I was asked had to do with men returning after demobilisation. It relates to ex-Servicemen but facilities are extended, under the register, to other small traders who have withdrawn during the war. There is no discrimination.
    Mr. Levy: Would not demobilisation apply equally to those who have had their shops closed and who have been directed to other work under the Essential Work Order?
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir, but there is no such discrimination as my hon. Friend apprehends. I have tried to make that clear in previous statements to the House.
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    This register is for the benefit of all traders who have withdrawn owing to war conditions.
    Mr. Shinwell: Will licences be granted exclusively under the supervision of the Board of Trade or will there be an independent body of experts and people of understanding which will be consulted?
    Mr. Dalton: We already have a system of committees, and my hon. Friend will no doubt be familiar with it. In general, these things are handled by the local price regulation committees, on which sit many people of understanding. It is not intended to disturb this arrangement.
    Mr. Shinwell: Will my right hon. Friend do everything possible to assure, whether by machinery or by the spirit fortifying his conduct in this matter, to see that independent persons who wish to resume trade, whatever our views may be about that, should have the right to do so irrespective of the existence of the monopolistic undertakings?
    Mr. Dalton: Certainly. This plan is not designed to protect the monopolists at all. As I have already said, persons on this register, which has been drawn up by the Board of Trade, will be entitled to have licences as of course and as of right when they come back from the Forces.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that frequently there are on the local price regulation committees people who will be competing with those who want to resume trade? These people are not always the fairest-minded and will my right hon. Friend consider the appointment of an independent body rather than this system of one trader against another?
    Mr. Dalton: I cannot accept the statement that the local price regulation committees are not well-manned. They are doing their work exceedingly well. If you have persons drawn from various sections of the community a number will have a bias but I hope that one bias will balance another.
    Mr. Hammersley: Are these committees empowered to refuse licences without assigning a reason?
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir, they always assign reasons.

    Enemy-Owned Patents (Royalties)
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will publish a White Paper giving the number of pre-war German patents that we are using in this war and giving a full report of the consultations and negotiations that took place over the British loan to facilitate trade in 1937, 1938 and 1939.
    Mr. Dalton: In addition to enemy-owned patents now being used by Government Departments, licences have been granted, during the war, in respect of more than 1,000 German-owned patents for commercial purposes, and more than 1,000 others are probably toeing worked here under pre-war licences. I am not clear what my hon. Friend has in mind in the second part of his Question.
    Mr. Smith: In regard to German patents, is it the Government's policy to see that not a penny should be allowed to go to German interests after this war? In view of the indictment which has been built up against the powerful interests connected with this matter is it the Government's intention to have a full public inquiry?
    Mr. Dalton: The payment of royalties is very simple. No royalties are being paid in respect of any enemy-owned patent being operated by the Government. With regard to private interests payments are made to the Custodian of Enemy Property and the disposition of these moneys will be determined in the peace treaties.
    Mr. Smith: Will my right hon. Friend give an unequivocal answer to my Question? Is it the intention of the Government to allow one penny piece to be paid to any German or subsidiary interests after this war?
    Mr. Dalton: The Government have taken no decision which would lead to any such payments being made.
    Mr. Smith: Will my right hon. Friend consult with the responsible authorities in the Cabinet in order that an unequivocal statement can be made with regard to this matter?

    Company Balance Sheets (Reserves)
    Sir Irving Alberyasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take the necessary steps to ensure that all public companies shall show in their published annual balance sheets, separ-
    664
    ately, all payments and amounts reserved on account of taxation, including Excess Profits Tax.
    Mr. Dalton: I will bring this suggestion to the notice of Mr. Justice Cohen's Committee on Company Law Amendment.
    Sir I. Albery: In the meantime cannot the right hon. Gentleman ensure that public companies shall show these figures in their annual balance sheets?
    Mr. Dalton: I have no powers to prescribe any additional information being given. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have appointed a committee under a judge of the High Court. They are investigating the whole matter and I do not want to begin butting in until I get their Report. As I have said, I will draw then-attention to the suggestion.

    Second-hand Furniture (Control)
    Sir I. Alberyasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the present regulations governing dealings in second-hand furniture tend to encourage an undue increase in the selling price of such goods at a time when they are in urgent demand; and if he will consider suitable amendment.
    Mr. Dalton: I hope soon to announce new arrangements for the control of these prices.

    Laundry Industry
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the widespread public dissatisfaction with the laundry industry and delays in deliveries causing hardships to housewives and their families; and what steps he proposes to remedy this state of affairs.
    Mr. Dalton: With a much reduced labour force, the laundries have to handle a greatly increased volume of work from the civilians and from the Fighting Services. In these circumstances, I regret that delays in deliveries are inevitable, but I am doing all I can, by spreading the Forces' work over as wide an area as possible, to maintain a satisfactory laundry service.
    Mr. Shinwell: Could my right hon. Friend use his good offices with the laundries of this country in order to prevent our shirts being torn to pieces?
    Major Lloyd: Is the light hon. Gentleman aware that the laundry industry is being crippled by the call-up?
    Mr. Dalton: If it were not for the call-up the war effort would be crippled.

    Utility Apparel (Order)
    Lieut.-Colonel Dawerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Corrigendum to the Emergency Powers (Defence) Apparel and Textiles (Utility Apparel-Overalls) Order, S.R. & O., No. 157, of 1944, represents a new decision or corrects a clerical error; and, if the latter, will he give an undertaking that there shall be no proceedings instituted in respect of alleged offences committed between 24th February, when the Order was placed in the Library of this House, and 8th March, when the Corrigendum slip was placed in the Library, so far as the particular item is concerned that was altered.
    Mr. Dalton: I am glad to be able to give my hon. and gallant Friend the assurance for which he asks. There is no new decision and the correct price is six and threepence.

    Service Personnel (Clothing Coupons)
    Major Nieldasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will consider allowing a reasonable number of clothing coupons to other ranks of the armed forces returning home after a substantial period of service overseas in order to enable them to replace garments, additional to service issue, which have been lost or become worn out during such service abroad.
    Mr. Dalton: I have made arrangements to enable members of the Forces to replace, up to a reasonable standard, civilian clothing which has been lost or destroyed. These arrangements apply to members of the Forces returning from overseas.
    Mr. Bellenger: Would the concession include coupons to replace pyjamas?
    Mr. Dalton: No, Sir.

  BRITISH SUBJECTS (BROADCASTS FROM ENEMY COUNTRIES)
  Major Lloydasked the Prime Minister whether note is being taken of those British subjects who are assisting the enemy by broadcasting from enemy or enemy-occupied countries; and whether such individuals will be included in the category of war criminals and ultimately brought to trial.
  The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. These individuals will not be included in the category of war criminals. They will be charged with offences against British law and brought to trial in the appropriate British court.
  Major Lloyd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the anger and contempt with which the public are listening to the broadcasts from these traitors and that they demand that some definite action should be taken after the war to bring these people to justice?
  Mr. Attlee: They will be very satisfied with my reply.
  Mr. Leach: Are not these broadcasters useful public entertainers?
  Professor Savory: Does the right hon. Gentleman's answer include citizens of Eire, such as "Lord Haw-Haw "— William Joyce?

  EUROPEAN ADVISORY COMMISSION
  Mr. Granvilleasked the Prime Minister, which Allied Nations are represented upon the European Advisory Commission; whether the scope of its work has been widened as a result of the decisions taken at the Teheran Conference; and whether frequent meetings have been held.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): The European Advisory Commission is composed of representatives of the Governments of the United States, of the Soviet Union and of the United Kingdom. As stated in the communiqué issued after the Moscow Conference when the Commission was established, its object is to ensure the closest co-operation between the three Governments in the examination of European questions arising as the war develops. The scope of the Commission is thus sufficiently wide and there was no need to extend it as a result of decisions taken at the Teheran Conference. The Commission is hard at work upon questions referred to it by the three Governments and meets as frequently as its work requires.
  Mr. Granville: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the scope of this

  667
  Commission will be wide enough to deal with such post-war questions as the future of Finland and Rumania?
  Mr. Eden: I think the definition is pretty clear on that point. It was stated at the Moscow Conference:
  "in the examination of European questions arising as the war develops."

  SCIENTISTS AND TECHNICIANS (SURVEY)
  Mr. Saltasked the Lord President of the Council to what extent the Hankey Committee is surveying the post-war requirements of scientific and technological man-power in this country; and by what? date he anticipates he will have the Report.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. G. Tomlin-son): I have been asked to reply. The Committee on Further Education and Training is engaged upon a comprehensive survey of the probable future requirements for men and women with higher qualifications, including scientific and technical qualifications. I understand that the Committee may make a progress report to the Ministers concerned before long.
  Mr. Levy: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that there is a good deal of confusion on this very important subject? Could he arrange to ask his right hon. Friend to make a comprehensive statement, in simple form, so that we can understand what is the real policy of the Government in this matter?

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Motor Vehicles (Taxation)
    Colonel Greenwellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the fact that bodies for motor-lorries must now be made of such kinds of wood as are available rather than suitable and as this often results in a total weight of vehicle carrying an additional annual tax which continues for the life of the vehicle, he will consider levying taxation on such vehicles on a basis of maximum pay-load rather than on total unladen weight.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Anderson): The taxation of goods vehicles by reference to carrying capacity gives rise to serious practical difficulties,
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    and I fear that it would not be possible, at any rate in present conditions, to give effect to my hon. Friend's proposal.
    Colonel Greenwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the fact that wood suitable for body construction is not available necessarily entails using much heavier quantities of wood, and that is imposing hardship on those who build bodies for new lorries?
    Sir J. Anderson: I believe the hon. and gallant Member is perfectly right in what he says about the effect of using alternative materials, but there would be very serious practical difficulties in making a change.
    Major Lyons: May we take it that the right hon. Gentleman himself is giving his attention to the matter?
    Sir J. Anderson: Yes, I have been giving it personal attention.

    Patent Royalties (Taxation)
    Major Lyonsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider setting up an inter-departmental committee, under independent chairmanship, to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the administration and practice of existing patent laws and the effect of taxation on royalties in retarding the inventive activities and expenditure on research, both by individuals and groups; to arrange in certain directions of national importance, for war and peace,, some State aid and encouragement for stimulating further industrial research; and to hear the suggestions of interested persons.
    Sir J. Anderson: With regard to the first part of the Question, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) on 14th March. With regard to taxation, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Etherton) on 2nd November last. From these replies it will be seen that these matters are under consideration, as is also the general question of State aid and encouragement for research and invention.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Is it also intended to have a full inquiry into the pre-war arrangements and ramifications of the whole of the big monopolies of the country?
    Sir J. Anderson: Perhaps that question should be put to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

    Defence Bonds (Tax Deduction)
    Sir F. Sandersonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the policy of tax deduction under Pay-as-you-Earn, it is proposed to continue the issue of 3 per cent. Defence Bonds, third issue, upon which the interest is payable half-yearly without deduction of tax.
    Sir J. Anderson: Yes, Sir. The introduction of the "Pay-as-you-Earn" scheme does not call for any alteration in the arrangement whereby interest on 3 per cent. Defence Bonds is payable without deduction of tax.

    Insurance Benefits (Income Tax Assessment)
    Sir Stanley Reedasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, when disability benefits are received by a tax payer for a continuous period, exceeding 12 months under an insurance policy taken out to cover sickness or accident, it is the practice of the Inland Revenue Department to raise income tax assessments after that period, in full, and with out any deduction for expenses necessarily incurred by reason of the disability.
    Sir J. Anderson: Continuing benefit paid under an insurance policy during disablement through accident or sickness is assessable to Income Tax without deduction for expenses incurred by reason of the disability. With regard to the expenses I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply of 1st February to the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Bartlett) of which I am sending him a copy.
    Sir S. Reed: Seeing that payments for wound disability benefits paid out of public money are exempt from tax, is it equitable to penalise those who make provision for disability by thrift and foresight?
    Sir J. Anderson: The House has thought fit to make special provision in that regard for the victims of war injuries. For Income Tax purposes a broad distinction has always been made between expenses necessarily incurred in earning the income and expenses to which the income, when earned, is applied.
    Sir H. Williams: Surely, if the income resulting from an insurance policy is taxed, the premiums ought to be exempt from taxation. Will my right hon. Friend give the proper concession to make the arrangement a fair one?
    Sir J. Anderson: I agree that there is a point in that question.

  UNEMPLOYMENT FUND (BALANCE)
  Sir Frank Sandersonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the amount standing to the credit of the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the use to which it is at present being put.
  Mr. Tomlinson: I have been asked to reply. At 18th March, 1944, the balance of the Unemployment Fund was about £248,700,000, and is invested in Government securities by the National Debt Commissioners.

  PRICE REGULATION, NORTH MIDLAND REGION
  Major Lyonsasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the chairman of the Price Regulation Committee for the North Midland Region has announced that departmental instructions have been issued to prevent the publication of the observations by the Committee on the refusal to control the price of spirits; whether he can make a statement thereon; and whether he will now publish the matter in question.
  Mr. Dalton: No such departmental instructions have been issued. But the chairman of the Central Price Regulations Committees has asked the chairmen of the local Price Regulation Committees to convey direct to him, and not through the Press, any representations they wish to make on price control questions. The control of the prices of wines and spirits is, in any case, not for me, but for my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food. On receiving a communication on this subject from the chairman of the North Midland Committee on 21st February, I wrote to him, saying that I had forwarded it to the Ministry of Food, for their consideration, and that, in these circumstances, I must ask him to refrain from publication.
  Major Lyons: In the case of this chairman was some special instruction given not to send to the Press observations of the Committee?
  Mr. Dalton: No special instruction was given. This particular chairman is apt to run to the Press more often than all the other chairmen put together [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] The others do their work very quietly and effectively.
  Major Lyons: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this gentleman is looked upon with much respect and appreciation by the people over whom he presides?
  Viscountess Astor: Is the right hon. Gentleman against publicising anything to do with drink? Why should that not come out in the Press as well as other things?
  Colonel Arthur Evans: Is it not true to say that, if local officials of Price Regulation Committees persist in using the columns of the Press, instead of the accepted channels in communicating with the national chairman, it not only makes efficient administration practically impossible, but the position of the national chairman himself most difficult?
  Mr. Dalton: That is quite true. The chairman of the Central Price Regulation Committee is always very glad to hear from local chairmen any matters which they wish to bring before him, and he holds periodical conferences which they attend. In fact all the local chairmen, with one exception, work through these channels without continually sending to the Press material which ought in the first place to be referred to the chairman of the Central Price Regulation Committee.
  Mr. Shephardasked the Minister of Food if his attention has been drawn to the notice issued by the North Midland Region Price Regulation Committee calling attention to, and exposing profiteering by, certain hotel and boarding-house proprietors in Nottingham; and what action does he propose to take in the matter.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): My right hon. Friend has not seen the notice to which my hon. Friend refers but a letter has been received from the Secretary of the Committee with which he forwarded a number of extracts from
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  letters complaining of excessive charges for accommodation and meals. This communication is being considered.
  Mr. Shephard: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that as much as 25s. is being charged for inferior accommodation and breakfast per night to men serving not only in our Forces but in those of our Allies? Can he not put a stop to this exploitation?
  Mr. Mabane: I should be very glad to have evidence of that, because we want to pursue inquiries, which we cannot do until we get evidence. Will the hon. Member be so kind as to give me the evidence?
  Major Markham: Did not Sir Douglas McCraith, North Midland Regional Price Regulation Chairman, circulate actual examples?
  Mr. Mabane: I am aware that a document was sent with anonymous complaints, without date, and relating to no specific place. I want specific evidence.
  Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Is it not well known to enforcement officers that all the tricks and forms of cheating under the Order are clearly established in every part of the country? It is not time to revise the whole Order regarding billeting, boarding and hotel catering?
  Mr. Mabane: It is no Order of ours, Let us have the evidence so that we can get at it.
  Major Markhamasked the Minister of Food whether -he has considered representations from the Nottingham Price Regulation Committee relating to profiteering in sales of wines and spirits; and whether he has any statement to make.
  Mr. Mabane: The reply to the first part of the Question is "Yes, Sir." In reply to the last part of the Question I have nothing to add to the answer which my right hon. and gallant Friend gave to the hon. and gallant Member for East Leicester (Major Lyons) on 9th February.
  Major Markham: Is the Minister aware the answer permits the continuance of profiteering in wines and spirits, and does not he think the time has come when the Ministry should take some action to prevent it?
  Mr. Mabane: I have nothing to add to the statement made by my right hon. and gallant Friend on 9th February, when he gave the reasons.

  BOOK SALVAGE DRIVE
  Mr. Bowlesasked the Minister of Supply what safeguards he has proposed to ensure that books collected during the current book salvage drive will not be sold but will really go to the Services or to the repulping factories.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Sandys): The disposal of books collected during salvage drives is undertaken by the local authorities. There are two main safeguards against improper use. The first is that all books collected are sorted by special scrutiny committees. The second is that books which are to be used for repulping are as far as possible sent only to authorised waste paper merchants.
  Mr. Bowles: Is my hon. Friend aware that I wrote to his Ministry about the resale of two anthracite stoves, it having been discovered that they had been resold by merchants similar to those mentioned in the answer? What arrangements are made to render unusable all articles before they are sold for scrap; and what steps are taken to see that the merchants he has mentioned do not resell in Charing Cross Road or other places books that are intended for salvage?
  Mr. Sandys: My hon. Friend asked about books and I did not bring any information about stoves. With regard to the general issue, there can be no guarantee against the theft of these books any more than anything else, but 81,000,000 books have been dealt with, and no evidence has come into our possession which would justify a prosecution.

  PERIODICALS (PAPER ALLOCATION)
  Mrs. Tateasked the Minister of Production on what grounds there has been a recent increase of 7½ per cent, in the paper allocation for periodicals.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Production (Mr. Garro Jones): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend on 17th March to the hon. Member for Stratford (Mr. Groves). I will send my hon. Friend a copy.
  Mrs. Tate: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that it would have been better to direct the additional allocation
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  for the publication of works of educational value, in view of the grave shortage of books in the schools?
  Mr. Garro Jones: I think that if my hon. Friend will read the answer to which I have referred, she will find that books have not fared quite so badly after all. We are not quite able to understand what is the 7½ per cent, referred to, because there has not been any such increase in the case of periodicals.
  Colonel Green well: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the opinion of the. general public an enormous quantity of these periodicals on sale at the bookstalls are absolute rubbish?

  DEMOBILISATION PLANS
  Major Nieldasked the Minister of Labour if he is able to make any statement as to the intentions of the Government as regards adopting a points scheme for demobilisation.
  Lady Apsleyasked the Minister of Labour whether the Government have now reached a decision to demobilise the Forces by points, based on age and length of service, family, and pre-war responsibilities; and whether he can yet make any statement as to the details of the scheme.
  Mr. Tomlinson: My right hon. Friend regrets that he is not, at this moment, in a position to make a further statement on the Government's plans.
  Major Nield: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether the report in the Press that the Parliamentary Secretary is presiding over a committee dealing with the matter is correct, and, if so, who is on the Committee?
  Mr. Tomlinson: I cannot say at the moment whether it is correct.

  REQUISITIONED HOUSES (LONDON)
  Mr. R. C. Morrisonasked the Minister of Health how many local authorities in the Metropolitan area have requisitioned houses for which tenants are paying rent but not occupying; and the total number of houses affected.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): I am unable to give the information asked

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  for. The returns furnished to my right hon. and learned Friend do not distinguish between dwellings for which tenants were paying rents and other dwellings.

  TRAVEL PERMITS, NORTHERN IRELAND
  Sir Hugh O'Neill(By Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that as a result of the recent alteration in permit regulations, Ulster students in colleges and schools in Great Britain and other perfectly innocent people are being refused permits and are unable to get home; and will he investigate these cases with a view to establishing the bona fides of such persons and allowing them to travel?
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The suggestion that the refusal of a permit is a reflection on the innocence or bona fides of the applicant is entirely misconceived. As was made clear in the Press statement, the scheme is to place for the time being a general ban on travel to Ireland subject to certain closely limited exceptions. One of the exceptions is for boys and girls at boarding schools in Great Britain, whose homes are in Ireland, and who cannot arrange to spend their Easter holidays here. As regards older students who have left school but are attending colleges in this country, it would not be right to make a general exception since, during the short Easter holiday, there should, generally speaking, be little difficulty in their making arrangements to remain and do some useful work in this country. Applications, however, will be considered in any individual case where a refusal of a permit would involve hardship of an urgent and compelling character.
  Sir H. O'Neill: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the cases which has been brought to my notice is that of a lady whose son was killed in the Anzio Beachhead a short time ago and came to London to visit her widowed daughter-in-law and small baby and to take them home, and that now she is refused a permit to go back to her home in Northern Ireland?
  Mr. Morrison: I am not aware of that case, but if my right hon. Friend will let me have particulars I will look into it.
  Sir H. O'Neill: Will my right hon. Friend agree to receive a deputation of Members representing Northern Ireland seats to go into this matter with him and try to come to some arrangement?
  Mr. Morrison: Certainly, sir; but I would like to make this general observation, that it is only a week since the House and the country received, as far as I could see with unanimous and definite approval, the ban on travel to Ireland, and if already we are going to have a strong push to make big exceptions, the purpose of the ban will be ineffective.
  Sir H. O'Neill: Is not Northern Ireland, which is in the United Kingdom and in the war with us, in an entirely different category from that of Southern Ireland?
  Mr. Morrison: With great respect, for this purpose it cannot be in a separate category. In the nature of the circumstances I must deal with Great Britain as a whole on the one hand, and with Ireland as a whole on the other. There is no reflection on Northern Ireland whatever.
  Professor Savory: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it unfair that Northern Ireland should be compelled to do penance for the sins of Eire?
  Mr. Morrison: I quite understand my (hon. Friend's point, but I am up against geographical facts, and that cannot be helped.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have agreed to—
Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill,
Public Works Loans Bill, without Amendment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered:
"That the Proceedings on the Education Bill be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Eden.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  EDUCATION BILL
  Considered in Committee [Progress, 10th March].
  (Major MILNER in the Chair.)

  EDUCATION BILL
    CLAUSE 27.—(Special provisions as to religious education in aided schools and in special agreement schools.)
    Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

    CLAUSE 28.—(Saving as to position of teachers.)
    The Chairman: Mr. Cove.
    Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare: On a point of Order. May I point out, Major Milner, that when the Debate was adjourned I was on my feet with the intention of making a short speech to put one point to the President of the Board of Education, and that I should like to be allowed to continue it?
    The Chairman: I am sorry, but we have now agreed to the Clause on which the hon. Baronet was speaking.
    Mr. Cove (Aberavon): I beg to move, in page 23, line 28, at the end, to insert:
    "or by reason of his religious opinions or of his attending or omitting to attend religious worship."
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Ede): The words proposed by my hon. Friend give effect to the Government's intentions in drafting the Clause, and are, therefore, an improvement on the words in the Bill. I have much pleasure in accepting the Amendment.
    Mr. Cove: I thank the Parliamentary Secretary very much.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 29.—(Transitional provisions as to the separation of primary and secondary schools.)
    Mr. Walter Edwards: I beg to move, in page 24, line 16, at the end, to add:
    "Provided also that no such direction shall be given as respects an auxiliary school unless there is available in the area of the local education authority sufficient accommodation of the appropriate denomination and grade for the education of the pupils who would cease to be accommodated at that school in consequence of the direction."
    I want to draw the attention of the Committee to what we consider a rather important matter connected with the Clause. It is true that the Clause deals only with the transitional period, but the effect of it may be that what was stated by the Minister to be the Government's intention with regard to the wishes of the parents may not be allowed, if our Amendment is not accepted. The Clause would make it possible for children now receiving secondary education, in a non-provided school which also provides primary education, to be transferred from that school to one where they cannot continue to have their religious education. Hon. Members will know that Catholics are very concerned about the position of religious education. We desire the insertion of these words to make it certain that, should the Minister or the local education authority desire to bring about a change of tune, or a direction of children from one school to another, that direction shall not take effect unless there is sufficient accommodation in the school in the area, with regard to this particular Clause.
    Mr. Ede: I suggest to my hon. Friend that the words are not necessary in this Clause. We are dealing with a transitional period. I understand his fear to be that a local education authority may pull what is called "a quick one" on the denomination, by descending on them rapidly and saying: "Now you must"—as we say in the educational world—"decapitate this school," and perhaps send the senior children off to a secondary school. The hon. Member may rest assured that any such proposal by a local education authority during the transitional period would not receive the assent of the Board, whose consent to such an arrangement would be necessary. We are anxious that the denominations should have every opportunity of putting into the development plan the secondary schools which

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    they propose to establish, and we shall take great care that nothing is done to impair their rights in the matter during the transitional period, which we hope, will be short.
    Just as we do not desire that the local education authority should "pull a fast one" on the denominations, so we do not desire that the denominations should put a slow one across on the local education authority, and it may be necessary, after the transitional period, that the local education authority or the Minister should be in a position to say, that in certain cases, decapitation should take place. We should not like to establish a precedent here, which might secure immunity for slow-moving managers or governors, after the transitional period has expired. I suggest that the words are not necessary for the transitional period, and that my hon. Friend can rest assured that no local education authority would be allowed to do what he fears.
    Mr. Stokes: I fully sympathise with the point of view expressed by my hon. Friend with regard to not permitting any denominational governor to "pull a slow one" on the authorities. What we are seeking to do in the Clause is to deal with rather a different type of school from that to which he has referred. I understand that my hon. Friend was talking of a school in an area where a special agreement school is contemplated.
    Mr. Ede: While it is true that the Amendment might help the small schools, I do not think this is the right place to do it; nor is the Amendment properly designed to secure it.
    Mr. W. Edwards: In view of the assurance given by the Parliamentary Secretary that the fears which I expressed are unfounded, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 31.—(Education of pupils requiring special educational treatment.)
    Dr. Howitt: I beg to move, in page 25, line 18, to leave out Sub-section (2), and to insert:
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    "(2) The local education authority shall make arrangements by the provision of special schools for the special educational treatment of pupils of any such category or, where the provision of such special schools is impracticable, shall provide for the giving of such education in any school maintained or assisted by the local education authority."
    The idea of the alteration proposed in these words is to change the expression "serious disability" to "disability." There are cases of serious disability which do not require special education. As it stands, the Clause would fail to include education in the specialist classes for children who require, for example, open-air treatment.
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I have seen these words only since the other Amendments were put down, but I would like to emphasise the need for changing the language and making the Clause much more generous, for much the same reason as was put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt). The Clause, as I understand it, is meant to deal not only with the blind, the deaf and the crippled, but with the children who need special educational treatment, in other words, the maladjusted. The word "serious" I am told can be dangerous. "As far as practicable" will give such a loop-hole for local education authorities not to develop these schools that I think it is very dangerous to leave the words in.
    There are many other reasons which make me support this wider interpretation, one of them is that, during the period of evacuation, new light has been shed on the difficult child. In many cases, hostels were set up where children went for two or three weeks, or two or three months, to open-air schools, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading has already mentioned. May I mention, in particular, epileptics? They are still regarded too easily in this country as people who have a fit, when many of them are perfectly curable and educable. Another group, a very large number, who fare very much better in the United States than in this country, are children suffering from cerebral palsy. There is a great group of children, some of them epileptics, some of them cripples, some of them blind whom we know about, but there are also a large number on the borderline, I should like to refer to the amazing experiment which Mr. Duncan has made at Lankhills just outside Winchester in which he has proved

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    that a large number of children whom the world thought mentally defective were not so at all. These children were B or C stream for the senior schools and were responsive to the same treatment as children in C stream in senior schools. We are not dealing with a few children but probably with 200,000 children, and, to put it at its lowest, we cannot afford to let them lose the opportunity of having the best possible treatment. Whether my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary accepts this Amendment or the Amendments put down by my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer), who has made such a study of this question, I beg of him to give the broadest latitude to local education authorities, so that many experiments can take place, with far more research, which is badly needed. That can be done by enlightened local education authorities on the lines of the work that London is doing in connection with cerebral palsy and that Tottenham is doing with its open-air schools.
    The Chairman: I think the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) and other Members who have raised other points in connection with this matter in their Amendments might deal with them on this Amendment, because all their points seem to be covered by it.
    Mr. Messer: There are some points of difference between our Amendments and this one, but I do not think they matter very much, because what we desire is to put our view to the Minister in the expectation that he will say that he sees the sweet reasonableness of our claims and will do as much as he possibly can to meet us. Everybody who has studied this Bill will concede that it is the biggest step forward in education generally that this generation has been privileged to witness, but whilst there is to be a development of ordinary education those who are specially interested in the handicapped child see weaknesses in the Bill in reference to what one may call the disabled class. The wording of this Clause is so loose that local education authorities can easily avoid their obligation, and one of the objects of the series of Amendments which we have put down is to ensure some degree of security. With the words "so far as is practicable" in the Clause anybody who wants to find a reason for not doing something can easily find it. Who
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    will determine what is practicable? One authority would consider that if there were only a few children of the disabled class there was no obligation upon them to provide special education. Naturally we are not suggesting that in scattered areas, where the population does not justify it, the local education authorities should provide and equip special schools for disabled children, hut the problem ought to be looked at in a national way and not merely from the petty, parochial point of view or the county point of view. The child is not the responsibility so much of man as of mankind, and a disabled child in a village is as much a responsibility of the nation as a child in a congested urban population. It would be unfair to such a child to permit the possibility of an evasion of what is the nation's responsibility.
    We suggest in these Amendments that the position should be made more secure. There is one Amendment, which I know you are not going to call, Major Milner, which perhaps would render anything else unnecessary. It calls for the setting up of a special body by the Minister charged with the responsibility of overlooking this type of special education. I am not sure whether the real difficulties of this problem are apparent, except to those who have been close up against it. It is not just instruction that is needed, but instruction and training of a type which takes into consideration the particular deficiencies of the child, and such deficiencies are obviously not all of one type. With some children it may be a physical disability. A child possessed of a brilliant brain may be denied the opportunity of developing its faculties because it is physically crippled, and because the local education authority says that it is not practicable to provide special facilities. Then there may be a child who has no physical disability but in whose case there are mental difficulties, though perhaps not being subnormal mentally. I am thinking now of epileptics and of different types of mental difficulties which do not necessarily amount to mental deficiencies.
    One can deal with children who are suffering from purely medical troubles. Within an hour's journey of this House there is a tuberculosis sanatorium in which a large number of children of school-age are being educated. I know some of the arguments which will be used against these Amendments. One is that

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    children will in some cases need to be transported from their homes, probably into residential schools. I do not fear that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) is a member of a local education authority which is proud of what it calls its "sun-trap school" in Hayling Island. Children from his constituency and my constituency were not deprived of the opportunity of ordinary elementary education because they are weak and suffering. They were sent to that sun-trap school, where they were educated. I do not know who would be responsible for these children when this Bill comes into operation, and I do not want to see an experiment like that discontinued because a local education authority can take advantage of a weak term like "in so far as practicable." Another form of words in the Clause which is relative is "degree of seriousness." Who will decide that? It is loose phrasing such as that which, we feel, provides an opportunity for evasion. If I were pleading for myself I would not have detained the Committee, but I am thinking of the child who is condemned to be just an onlooker in the game of life. I am thinking of the child who needs our special care and attention. I am thinking of the child who has been denied the joy and the very light of life, who is condemned to a night of eternal darkness. Such a child is our responsibility and I plead with the Minister on behalf of those who call for our special sympathy and help to make up to them all that they lack.
    Earl Winterton: I think we have all listened with the greatest sympathy and respect to the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer). He could not have put his case better. I should like to say a word on the subject as one who is interested—if I may use a rather pompous phrase as a layman—in the question of therapeutic treatment. I do not wish to enlarge upon the points made by the hon. Member, because I do not feel that is necessary, but I have one or two other points to put forward. As any hon. Member who belongs to the medical profession will agree, almost every month now, and certainly every year, during the war new means are found of restoring the abnormal child, whether physically
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    or mentally abnormal, nearer to normality, though we are a long way from reaching finality. In the next three or four years, probably before the Bill comes into operation, science will unquestionably find new methods for creating or restoring normality. From that point of view, I do not think that this Clause alone is sufficient to deal with the situation, because I feel that even where there are only two or three children in a particular authority's area who require this special treatment they ought to have it. Knowing the views of the hon. Member's party regarding residential schools I specially welcome his statement that he was quite prepared to get over the difficulty of the children having to go to residential schools. There is really a certain irony in the fact that we are discussing an Education Bill when we remember that one of the greatest dangers with which the country is faced—I must not enlarge on this and I say it only by way of parenthesis—is whether there will be sufficient children of sound physique to educate, in view of the birth rate. It is the duty of the Government and the Education Department to see to it that such children as we have can be restored to or given normality, and I would add my plea to that of the hon. Member that the Government should give the most sympathetic consideration, as I am sure they will, to the suggestions made for revising this Clause, because I am sure that reflects an almost unanimous consensus of opinion in the Committee.
    Sir G. Shakespeare: I should like to support the plea made by the noble Lord and my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer), whose sympathetic speech has made such an impression on the Committee. I added my name to his Amendments because I feel there is no field of education which so much requires overhaul as that of the treatment of children suffering from special disabilities. It is a most difficult and baffling problem. If you say that a local authority out of its own resources must provide the kind of school that we all require to see, we must bear in mind that it is often too much for that particular local authority to do and I, personally, would favour some scheme whereby, within reason, first-class residential schools are set up for children of all ages, with all the latest improvements which can be applied over a wide scale. I know, of

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    course, the difficulty is that the children are removed from parental care, which is pathetic. I know that the parents wish to be as near as possible to these children. Nevertheless, I think if they were offered the chance of sending their children to schools with an almost national reputation they would avail themselves of it. I do not want to say any more except that I should like to see these schools put under a special council It may be that the Minister will appoint to his advisory council the very best experts he can find with experience of this very difficult disability question. If he does that, it may well be that in the next ten years we shall really make progress in clearing up what is, in some parts of the country I am afraid, a scandal. I certainly support the Amendment of my hon. Friend.
    Mr. R. C. Morrison: I hope the Minister will, first, leave out the words "so far as is practicable," because they will constitute a back door which will be used extensively by backward local authorities. There have been cases which, as the hon. Member for Norwich (Sir G. Shakespeare) has just said, are a scandal. There have been cases of children who are stone deaf sitting in a class-room, not able to hear a single thing that was being taught. If a six-pounder gun were fired in the room they would not hear it; yet they sit there and the local authorities say that this arrangement cannot be avoided because, in many cases, the child happens to be the only child in the district suffering from that disability. We want to avoid that. The proper teaching of such children has always been looked upon as a tremendously expensive matter. I speak with some slight knowledge of this subject because I was a teacher before I came to this House and therefore I know a little about it. My experience was that children usually referred to as dull, backward and mentally deficient, were frequently found to be defective in one sense, but almost abnormally acute in another. It is known that a blind child has more acute hearing than an ordinary child. The fact that their Maker has deprived them of one faculty seems to have been made up for in another direction. I have known mentally defective children who could easily win scholarships in certain subjects.
    I hope that the Minister will see that something is done about setting up an
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    advisory council in regard to the multitude of special problems arising out of this. It is no good having somebody on the Board of Education to deal with this matter as a kind of side line. You have not necessarily to appeal only to doctors, but to a lot of other people. There is another problem about which I think a council of this sort could give invaluable advice to the Minister. There are more blind school places in the country than blind children and the same state of affairs, I rather think, applies to deaf and dumb children also. Many of these schools have been established by charitable bequests and the conditions of these bequests make it impossible for them to be used for any other purpose. But there are not enough defective children to fill these schools and, therefore, we shall be glad of the services of an advisory council of the kind suggested to consider what can be done. I am told that at present there are 90 schools for deaf and dumb children, all of which are operating individually and without trying to work to some considered plan—just going on in their own way. If they have an enterprising staff they do well, but if they have an old-fashioned staff, they just go on in the old way. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will look sympathetically at a later Amendment which, I gather, may not be called, and that something will be done to have this problem tackled by people whose business it is to have knowledge of it.
    Captain Cobb: My hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) has mentioned the schools for the deaf and dumb. The Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) has told us—I think quite rightly—that local education authorities may feel that the small numbers of these specially defective children would make it difficult to justify special accommodation for them within those local education authorities' areas. I do feel very strongly that it is not a local authority responsibility. I think it was the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) who said it was a national question and not a local authority question.
    I am told that the deaf and dumb children in England and Wales number less than 4,000 and it is obvious, therefore, that they must be divided up into

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    such small packets that it would not be reasonable to expect each education authority to make adequate provision for them. I am told that the accommodation in these schools varies from 20 to 200 children, whose ages range from two to 16 and who include children who were born deaf, those who have gone deaf and those who are partially deaf—intelligent Children and children who are less intelligent. I hope that the President does intend to take up this question of provision for such children more seriously than has been done in the past and to ensure that they are given the best possible opportunities to enable them to pull their weight.
    Viscountess Astor: I want to back up what has been said by previous speakers. This question of backward children has been handled by non-medical people and non-experts with great success. For instance, we have had children, who were supposed to be a little backward, put into nursery schools when they were two years old. We had one case of a child of this sort who was placed among normal children and in a short while she developed beyond all description. I feel that if this matter were gone into by a really up-to-date group of people, a great deal could be done. I think it is bad, particularly for the very young children, to put them all together. They ought to be spaced out and not thrown into each others' company. I hope the Minister will consult nursery schools about taking in some of these children and mixing them with normal children. A great deal which could be done will not be done until we have a good committee, and the matter is taken up nationally. A great many of these children are not really mental defectives at all. A woman in Middlesbrough brought along a child of three and a half years and said that it was in such a state of nerves that she thought she would have to have it put away. The child was placed with other children and within six weeks was quite normal and playing happily with the others. Had that child gone on without proper care, it would have been considered a mental case. I hope the Minister will consider this matter from the widest possible point of view.
    Mr. R. Morgan: I rise only for a very few moments to support the Amendment. I make no apology for doing so. I have visited many of these schools and, incidentally, I would not like it to go from this Committee that there were no enlightened authorities tackling this job. While some people are dealing with this matter very well indeed, there are others who are not taking the necessary trouble—I would not put it stronger than that—to find out what the exact causes are. As one speaker has already said, I have been in a school and listened to a teacher giving lessons when it was obvious that some of the children were utterly unable to take advantage of what was being put before them because they were defective, but unclassified. There are many schools—and I dare say no one knows this better than the Parliamentary Secretary—where they are trying to classify such children and to arrange a class of backward children. They say these children are backward from the age of eight to that of 14. All that is very wrong and if we could get some authority like that suggested in a later Amendment, I should certainly give it my backing. This is a national Bill and we cannot leave out those unfortunate children. They may be unfortunate only for the time being, and, as one speaker has already said, children who have one defect, are often quicker in another way. It is very true now, and always has been throughout the ages, that God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. I do not know what reply the Minister is going to make to this, but if there is an opportunity of setting up some such central directive body as that suggested earlier, L would give it my heartiest support.
    Mr. Ede: My right hon. Friend and I are grateful to the Committee for the interest they have shown in this particular problem, and I would like to say that we are particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) for the very moving speech in which he pointed out the magnitude of the problem with which we are engaged. One of the difficulties that confronts us in dealing with many of these children is the fact that, at the moment, the accommodation is so unevenly distributed about the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Sir G. Shakespeare) pointed out the difficulty

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    which one has, on occasion, in persuading the parents to allow the child to leave the home to attend the appropriate School. The very disabilities of these children endear them to the parents. They have lavished on them a very great amount of parental affection and they do feel the wrench, very keenly indeed, of parting with them to some place where they will be unable to visit them even once a year, and that, very often, has led to an obstinacy in allowing the children to get the appropriate treatment—an obstinacy which we all deplore. It is quite clear that if we are going to do anything for these children on a national basis, the distribution of the facilities for their education will have to be a great deal better than it is now. I know of several cases where parents would quite willingly have agreed to a child going to a school if the parents could have felt that they could visit the child, say once a month or every six weeks; but when faced with a journey of 200 or 300 miles to a different part of the country, they really felt that they were parting with the child on far too permanent a basis.
    Mr. R. Morgan: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman is ruling out the possibility of day centres and is thinking only of residential centres?
    Mr. Ede: I am not ruling out anything at the moment, but we have had a very wide and general discussion, and I was endeavouring to deal with each point as I came to it. We may differ as to the relative importance we place on particular aspects, and I was not trying to overemphasise one particular side of it but to deal with one point which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Norwich (Sir G. Shakespeare). I was then going on to other points as my speech developed. It is, at the moment, very difficult even to ensure that the child shall get appropriate treatment, unless one has to face a very considerable amount of hostility in the home in which the child is living. The suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) that there should be a national survey and an attempt at national organisation of these facilities is therefore one that we quite readily accept.
    The term "advisory council" has a technical meaning under this Bill, and we have already had a Debate on that and have decided that there shall be
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    only two Advisory Councils. What my right hon. Friend is willing to do is to establish an advisory committee inside the Board, representative of all the people in the country who are interested in this matter, which will advise us from time to time on the various issues that arise with regard to these children and the making of adequate provision for them. It is true that the machinery will not be quite the same as in the case of the advisory councils, but it will, dealing with this limited range of problem, probably be able to give us quickly and effectively the advice that will enable appropriate provision to be made, not merely in one part of the country but throughout the country, and also enable us to deal with some of these problems to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison), with his practical knowledge made special reference, such things as the fact that there is at the moment a surplus of some kinds of accommodation, although often it is a surplus in one area only, and a surplus that cannot be used by an authority elsewhere because it is so far away and because parents are unwilling to part with their children when they have to go such a long distance away. All that would come from time to time before this advisory committee, and would form the subject of reports by them to the Board.
    Mr. Edmund Harvey: Would the Committee have power of initiative and advice or only the power of advice on matters specifically referred to them?
    Mr. Lindsay: Would it be a standing committee?
    Mr. Ede: We would have to consult the various people concerned in building up the Committee. We intend that it shall be a body capable of giving us the kind of advice which the necessities of the case make it desirable for us to receive. While I would not like to pledge myself, at the moment, that it shall be a standing committee, it is our intention that it shall be established and that we shall get the benefit of its advice. As far as I am concerned, I do not regard a Committee that cannot initiate, on a matter like this, some advice of its own, as very much worth while, but I have no doubt that when my right hon. Friend

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    appoints the committee, its terms of reference will be made available, and the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Harvey) will be able to express his views at that time.
    Mr. R. C. Morrison: Is it proposed, at any stage of the Bill, to insert words to give effect to what my hon. Friend has told the Committee?
    Mr. Lindsay: May I press the word "standing"? There is a difference, and a very important one, between advisory committees, which come and go, and a standing committee, which really has status. I think that if the hon. Gentleman would go a little further it would give that Committee the place which I am sure we all wish to see it have.
    Mr. Ede: My right hon. Friend has heard the discussion to-day. I hope that what I have said indicates that we are in thorough sympathy with the views of the Committee on this matter, and we will bear in mind those remarks which the hon. Member has made. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) will remember that in resisting an Amendment on the Advisory Council Clause of the Bill we did indicate that there would be a number of this type of advisory committee set up. It was not our intention to allude to them in the Bill, but in view of the interest taken in this matter, my right hon. Friend will consider, between now and the Report stage, whether it is necessary to do anything further with regard to this particular subject.
    I now come to the point made both by the Noble Lady the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) and the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Mr. Morgan). In this Clause we are, of course, going a great deal further in giving statutory recognition to the problem of these children than has ever been the case before, and we have rather emphasised in the Clause our desire that a number of these children should be treated in as normal a way as possible inside the ordinary framework of education. I hope that I have indicated in my previous remarks that we have very much in our minds the problem of the children who ought, for their own sakes, to be educated in special establishments for children suffering from that type of dis-
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    ability. One of the things we hope to secure by this Clause is that as few children as are absolutely necessary shall be described as special children. We desire to avoid as much as possible any form of certification which may cling to them long after the time when the necessity for it has been removed. We therefore desire to see a wide extention of faculties of the kind to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge alluded, the day time facilities, and the arrangements inside the ordinary school for affording some kind of assistance to these children that shall not take them out of the normal run of school life. After all the last thing we want to do with many of these children is to make them sorry for themselves.
    We desire therefore that in the ordinary school a child whose disability in not serious shall be allowed to continue in the school, subject to his receiving appropriate treatment. One way in which that will be made easy, is by any scheme which extends nursery schools for children under five and lowers the size of classes in the primary schols, where in the large classes a child that has some slight disability is very often apt to be regarded perhaps as dull or as refractory, when he is, in fact, neither dull nor refractory but has not the opportunity of participating in the life of the class. I hope that what I have said will indicate to hon. Members that in framing this Clause my right hon. Friend had in mind a wide picture of this type of difficulty which we have to confront, and that he has endeavoured to arrange for more attention to be given to these children than hitherto.
    As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) pointed out, we are for the first time really able to deal with the maladjusted child under this Clause. The degree of maladjustment varies enormously. There are some people so badly adjusted to their environment that clearly they ought to be dealt with in some special school or institution. There are others who only need some careful watching and assistance by a teacher who knows of their disability to enable them to remain in the ordinary school and to participate in the normal life of a child. We attach particular importance to the wording we have in this Bill and we prefer our own subsection (2) to the subsection (2) which the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) has suggested. I realise that the real difficulty

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    is in those words, "so far as is practicable." At the moment we would like to retain them but, between now and the Report stage, we will agree to re-examine the Clause in the light of to-day's discussions to see if it is possible to remove or improve those words. But may I say that we have in Clauses 8 and 10, laid on the local education authority duties which I think are almost adequate in their scope. In Clause 8 we impose on the local education authority the duty of having regard
    "to the need for securing that provision is made for pupils who suffer from any disability of mind or body by providing, either in special schools or otherwise, special educational treatment …"
    Clearly that duty will in a good many cases have to be exercised co-operatively with adjoining local authorities, and one of the tasks of the advisory committee will be to see that appropriate areas have a sufficiency of this provision, and that local education authorities are either making that provision, or contributing towards it, or arranging for the children in their area suffering from that disability to profit from the provision made by voluntary agencies.
    I hope that the hon. Member for Reading will feel that we have given this matter very considerable attention, that in the spirit of his Amendment we are fully with him, and with regard to the four or five words to which he takes most particular objection, we will give them a careful examination before the Report stage. May I say that we do not want to insert in the Bill words which will make it appear that the normal way to deal with a child who suffers from any of these disabilities is to put him in a special school where he will be segregated. While we desire to see adequate provision of special schools we also desire to see as many children as possible retained in the normal stream of school life.
    Mr. Clement Davies: May I thank the hon. Member for what he has said on this Amendment, to which my name is attached? Amongst other things, I am chairman of the Finance Committee of that wonderful organisation, the National Institution for the Blind. We have been deeply concerned about this matter. I understand that between now and the Report stage, this Clause will be very carefully considered, to see
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    whether these words, to which my hon. Friend so strongly objects, can be either omitted or amended in a satisfactory manner, and to consider what words will be necessary to make it possible or probable that the Minister will appoint an Advisory Committee. May I suggest that, if that Committee is appointed, it should be a statutory Committee, and that the words should be inserted in the Bill, for two reasons? One is that it will not then depend upon the good will of the Minister, but on the Statute; and the other is that it will then be a Committee with statutory responsibility to this House.
    Dr. Howitt: In view of the very sympathetic and understanding attitude of the Minister, for which I thank him very much, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 32.—(Duty of local education authorities to ascertain what children require special educational treatment.)
    Captain Cobb: I beg to move, in page 26, line 7, to leave out "two," and to insert "five."
    I move this Amendment in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Key). I feel very strongly that the powers given to local education authorities under tins Clause should apply only to children of compulsory school age. It seems to me that this power, given to local authorities, would be a gross abuse of the rights of parents. It surely is quite unnecessary to give to local education authorities power to demand that parents shall produce their children at a certain place to undergo a medical examination. I do not know, in the first place, how the authority are going to have the information to lead them to think that a child needs this special provision. My hon. Friend said—and I agree with him fully—that the parents of these afflicted children are, as a rule, infinitely more tender towards them and anxious to do everything they can for them, than is the case with normal children. The power which is given to local authorities under this Clause puts all parents into the same position as the very small class of irresponsible parents who neglect their defective

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    children. I urge the Minister, therefore, to agree that these very wide powers to local authorities should apply only to children of compulsory school age.
    Dr. Russell Thomas: I would like to support what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Preston (Captain Cobb) has said. This Clause gives remarkable power to the local authorities. Although I am supporting the Amendment, I am not sure whether I would wish to support the insertion of the word "five," although I am prepared to do so for the sake of my argument. The power that is given in the Clause is a very broad power. If a child of two is supposed to be ill from some complaint, the local education authority has power to send its medical officer to examine that child. It is the business of the local authority to find out whether or not a child is suffering from a defect—mental or physical. How is the education authority to find out? The person who eventually will visit the household must be an official of the authority. That official must find out on hearsay. Some busybody may inform the headmaster of the school, and the local education authority then sends its health officer and so on. The child may have no disability of any kind, yet this examination is forced upon the parents; and, even if the child, say, has some mental disability, it does not matter very much if the child is still under parental control—as it were, still in its mother's arms. The average parent of this country considers with loving care the health of his or her children. There is no need to force parents in any way at all. If there is a suspected disability, parents normally seek medical advice. In cases of neglect, there is ample provision in the criminal law, and that excellent society, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, deals with these cases repeatedly; but those are exceptions.
    The rights of parenthood, in my opinion, are encroached upon by the State. The normal responsibility which rests on the parents is removed to the local education authorities. Family responsibilities are the basis of our national life. Marriage and family life are the sound foundation on which ordered society is built. I am surprised that the churches have not taken
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    more interest in this Clause, which is a most important Clause, because it strikes at the root of these things. It is amazing to me that the churches have not attacked this Clause with the same energy as they have attacked those Clauses which concern the monetary aspects of the Bill. Whether a child at such an early stage will be removed from its parents or not, remains to be seen—there is, under a later Clause, such a possibility. If the local education authority act on the result of this examination of a child of the age of two and remove the child as it may well do, not only does the Clause offend against parental responsibility, but it would wreak cruel havoc with family love and affection. I cannot emphasise too strongly that the principle of this Clause is the surrender of the responsibility of the parent to the local education authority, acting under the Minister—in other words, to the bureaucrat. If this Amendment had not been moved I should have spoken against this matter on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." I object to the Clause, on the ground that it is another step in the direction of Authoritarianism, which I called on Friday the New Fascism. It ruthlessly tramples underfoot the dignity of the individual in its anxiety to worship at the shrine of planned economy and statistics. I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for having moved this Amendment, which I have great pleasure in supporting.
    Mr. McEntee: I had no intention of speaking on this Amendment, but the speech of the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas) leads me to appeal to the Minister not to take his advice. It is sheer nonsense to talk about the responsibility of parents in the way he has done. As a State, to-day we interfere with parents in regard to their children from the very hour the children are born. We compel them to have their children vaccinated, or to make a statutory declaration that they have conscientious objections against vaccination. Nobody has raised this, question in regard to vaccination. Children have to be registered at birth, and in every other way—
    Dr. Thomas: Is the hon. Member aware that more than half the people of this country will not be vaccinated, because they resent State compulsion?
    Mr. McEntee: I am well aware that there are people who have a conscientious objection to vaccination, because in my

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    own household I see such people every day; but I know they are not a majority, but a very small minority. I happen to be one of the minority myself, but that does not alter my conviction on this matter. What does the Clause say? It says that the education authorities have a public health duty in regard to children. The only surprise to me is that it is the education authority, instead of the public health authority, which has this duty. Children are admitted into nursery schools at the age of two.
    Captain Cobb: Not compulsorily.
    Mr. McEntee: I know; but they are admitted at the age of two. If it is right that a child who enters a nursery school, though not compulsorily, at the age of two shall be examined, and its health looked after, it is equally right that children whose parents do not desire to send them to nursery schools should also be looked after. The child who does not attend a nursery school might become a danger to those who do, to other children in the same household, or to adults in the same household. There is no need to work oneself up into a frenzy because the Government have an interest in the children of the State and desire that they should grow up healthy, and because they give parents an opportunity of having them examined. The parents may not know that the child is suffering from a specific complaint. Not all the parents are qualified medical or Surgical practitioners, or have knowledge which would enable them to judge whether their children need such examination or not. I think that 999 out of every 1,000 people in this country would be very glad to have the opportunity of getting their children properly examined in early life, and treated in such a way as to prevent diseases from spreading or developing in later life.
    Mr. Ede: I am quite sure that when my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Key) reads in the OFFICIAL REPORT the speech which was made in moving the Amendment which he placed on the Order Paper, and the other speech made in support of it, he will be filled with surprise that his object in putting the Amendment on the Paper should be so completely misunderstood. He put it on the Paper to ensure that these examinations should be carried out, not by
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    the local education authority, but by the maternity and child welfare authorities. He did not intend that the child should escape examination. He was in conflict with the Clause, on behalf of the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee, only because we proposed that these examinations should be made by the local education authorities. One reason for suggesting that they should be made by local education authorities has been given by the hon. Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee)—that children in future will be eligible to attend nursery schools from the age of two. Certainly, as far as these children are concerned, the local education authority will be able to get their medical inspection in the nursery schools and get a pretty good idea of any disabilities of the children so attending.
    It is very necessary that we should know at as early a date as possible the disabilities from which certain children suffer. For instance, if we take blind children and deaf children and children in need of orthopaedic treatment they can all be saved much suffering. A cure, rather than something merely ameliorative, is far more likely if that special disability can be tackled at as early a stage in its development as possible. These are the children whom we desire to have the opportunity of examining. I venture to say that, in view of the discussion we had on the last Clause, and the recognition then of the extent to which these children suffer in later childhood through neglect in these early years before school age, it is very desirable that the local education authority should have the power that we suggest here. I hope that the Committee will feel that, in asking for this, we are not actuated by any of the totalitarian desires which so readily spring to the mind of the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas). We are solely concerned with the desire to ensure that child suffering should be reduced as much as possible, and that opportunities for giving children who have, for some reason or another, suffered from these disabilities as normal a life as possible shall be realised. There is nothing more sinister in this word "two" than that, and I sincerely hope that the Committee can feel that they can allow the word to stand part of the Clause.
    Captain Cobb: It seems to me that the great burden of my hon. Friend's argument has been to this effect, that the local education authority knows a great deal better than the parent what is good for the children. That is a thesis with which I cannot find myself in agreement. The average parent, as an hon. Member has stated on an earlier Clause, is almost invariably extremely anxious to do everything he or she possibly can for the child, and I think that this assumption that the education authority knows better, or that the parent is either negligent or ignorant, is completely false, and I find myself completely unconvinced by the arguments of my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Magnay: I heard the speech of the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas) and, although I did not agree with most of it, I still think there is a great deal in what the hon. Member said. Sub-section (2) shows that it is taken for granted that the parents may be quite unreasonable. It is stated that the authority shall comply with the request of parents unless in their opinion it is unreasonable. It is never assumed that the local education authority could be unreasonable, and that is the whole point, as I see it, of the objection to this Amendment. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary would never accept anything of the kind. I think it is an affront to the parents that they should be assumed to be unreasonable—it says so in exact terms—and that there cannot be anything wrong with the standpoint of the local authority. Might I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should put them on all fours, and that something should be added to Sub-section (1) of this Clause, to the effect that the parents shall not be expected to obey the directions if in their opinion they are unreasonable? Surely someone has the deciding voice in the matter. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to reconsider the point.
    Mr. Messer: I speak as one who lives in a borough where we have two nursery schools, of which we are very proud, and many nursery classes. If what the hon. Member suggests happens they will have no right to examine the children.
    Dr. Russell Thomas: I listened to the Minister very carefully but he has not convinced me in the slightest. Nor was I convinced when he said that I was not
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    supporting the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb) in many of the points that he had in mind.
    Captain Cobb: May I explain that what the hon. Member said was that the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. W. Edwards) was inadvertently supporting the Amendment.
    Dr. Thomas: I thank my hon. and gallant Friend. There is another point with which I would like to deal. The hon. Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee) talked about the dangers of infectious diseases among children in nursery schools. I do not think that is the point which this Clause is getting at at all. There are schools where children would be examined automatically—and a Clause can be put in the Bill, if need be—and children suspected would be picked out in the normal way, and no one would object. The Parliamentary Secretary spoke of the great benefit to children needing orthopaedic treatment or blind children. But would not the mother and father of that child come to that conclusion and seek medical advice if they are reasonable parents, which most parents are? They would naturally send for their own doctor when they saw some disability in the child. The other point is that there is no appeal against the decision of the medical officer, and I believe that there was a suggestion earlier that a general medical practitioner should be called in instead, if so desired. However, as they will all soon be officials of the State, it does not really seem to me to matter any way. But there is no appeal against the decision at all. The parents might undergo a penalty, and, if they still disobeyed the order, the penalty may be repeated, and then repeated again. There should be some appeal at least if a Clause like this is put into the Bill. I do not think there is anything to add, except to say that I still deplore this Clause and consider it an attack on personal liberty. I am only taking the attitude of the ordinary Englishman of objecting against authority put upon him from above.
    The Temporary Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): We are discussing only the Amendment, not the Clause.
    Dr. Thomas: The Parliamentary Secretary made a special point of my attitude on these matters, so I think, with respect, I should be allowed to defend myself. I

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    think it happened, Sir Charles, before you came into the Chair. He specially picked me out as being highly sensitive on that score. I do not think I have an exaggerated view, but I do not accept that the State should take charge of me from the time I am born to the time I die. I much prefer that I should take charge of myself.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Ede: I beg to move, in page 27, line 5, after "cancelled" to insert "by the Minister or."
    This Amendment gives the parent the right to appeal to the Minister against the local education authority's decision to give his child special educational treatment. If the Minister upholds the appeal he is empowered by this Amendment to cancel the certificate, so that, in the case with which the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. R. Thomas) has been dealing, if the education authority had acted unreasonably and its medical officer certified a child unnecessarily, the parent, under this Amendment, has the right of appeal to the Minister and the certificate can be cancelled.
    Mr. Messer: I take it from what the Parliamentary Secretary has said that now there will not remain the position that a special medical certificate will be required to withdraw a child from school? Is that the meaning of what the Minister has just said?
    Mr. Ede: That is one of the implications.
    Mr. Messer: If that is so, I would like to take the opportunity of thanking my hon. Friend for the way he has dealt in this and the previous Amendment with the points we raised and for meeting us in such a generous manner.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. Ede: I beg to move, in page 27, line 6, at the end, to add:
    "and upon the cancellation of such a certificate the local education authority shall cease to provide special educational treatment for the child with respect to whom the certificate was issued and shall notify the parent accordingly."
    These words cover the point raised by the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt). In page 27, line 6, at end, to add:
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    "and notice of any such cancellation shall forthwith be communicated by him to the parents of the child."
    They ensure that, if the certificate is cancelled, not only does the special education come to an end but the parent gets a notification to that effect. I think that these words round off the Clause and deal with the point which the hon. Member for Reading had in mind—that parents might not know that it was considered that a child no longer needed that particular form of education—and I hope he will feel that we have met the point he raised.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 33.—(Compulsory School Age.)
    Mrs. Cazalet Keir: I beg to move, in page 27, line 15, to leave out from the first "that" to the end of the Clause, and to add:
    "the upper limit of the compulsory school age shall be raised to sixteen years at the expiration of twelve months after this Part of this Act comes into operation or at such later date not exceeding three years thereafter to which the raising of the age may be postponed from time to time for a period not exceeding twelve months by Order in Council the draft of which shall be laid before Parliament by the Minister and which shall come into effect when approved by both Houses of Parliament."
    We hear a great deal to-day about the advantages of multilateral schools. I think this Amendment can certainly be called multilateral, coming as it does from all sides of the House, but with one object and one alone—the desire to make the whole of this Bill a reality for the children of this country at the earliest possible date which, in the Government's favourite words, "is both reasonable and practicable." We are certain that one of the best ways of accomplishing this would be to have inserted in this Measure an appointed day for raising the age to 16, and that is the object of our Amendment. There is no need to argue this Amendment on educational grounds. It is admitted in the Bill, and universally accepted. I would only say this. All parents who can afford it do, in fact, keep their children at school full time until 16 and even later.
    Let me examine the reasons which my right hon. Friend, in his Second Reading speech, has given against the case for inserting a date in this Bill for raising the

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    age to 16. First, he said that we must complete reorganisation, we must reduce the size of classes and that we must have more teachers and better buildings—all admirable reasons, with, which everyone of us will agree. But surely, all these reasons are equally applicable to raising the age to 15, and this, my right hon. Friend thinks, can be done on 1st April next year—perhaps rather an unfortunate date. I hope I shall not be thought a pessimist in saying that, war or no war, many of us doubt whether this date is either possible or practicable. In fact, I will willingly bet my right hon. Friend—a new hat, if he likes—that Tie will be obliged to make use of Sub-section (3) of Clause 99. Why? For the very reasons that he has himself advanced for putting in a date for 16. We think that it should be possible to raise the age to 15, and raise it effectively, by 1947, and possibly by 1946.
    Surely it is only reasonable and right to ask that, not more than four years after that date—that is, in 1951—the school age should be 16 for all; especially as my right hon. Friend clearly indicated in his Second Reading speech, that local education authorities, in making their development plans, must remember that 16 is the target and not 15. Even then, we do well to remember that only children who are to-day under nine will benefit from these reforms. We all know that, with the certainty of an appointed day, plans for different types of secondary education could be prepared much more effectively given the extra year, and with the possibility of a break between primary and secondary education at 12 rather than 11, which many of us think would be best. The longer that you wait to raise the age to 16, the longer you will perpetuate the difference in the status in various types of secondary schools. I am sure that local education authorities would prefer a definite time rather than some shadowy date.
    But to get down to the reality of this matter, it is obvious that the buildings required for the children of 15 will be exactly the same as those required for children of 16, except that you will need an extra classroom or two and an extra teacher or two. All the main general amenities and provisions, such as halls, canteens, playing fields, gyms, practical
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    instruction rooms, will be there for the 15-year olds ready and waiting to receive the extra age group. If, as the President of the Board says, it is impossible to insert an actual date for raising the age to 16, then surely it is equally impossible to insert a date for raising it to 15, certainly as early as next year. I recognise that my right hon. Friend is worried and really concerned about the supply of teachers; so are we all. He has told us something about the emergency scheme, but we have yet to know what recommendations the McNair Committee will bring forward. Most of us expect that they will recommend a three-year training course rather than the present two-year course, and that is one of the main reasons why we have, in our Amendment, given my right hon. Friend the wide margin of a possible four years. Of course, we would like to see the age raised to 16 before 1951, but being eminently reasonable people, we feel that some latitude must be granted to the President of the Board, who will know all the facts and can come down each year to the House and tell us how the position stands. But we cannot wait indefinitely, and the children of this country must not wait indefinitely. That is why an actual date is essential, otherwise there will always be good reasons given for postponement, and none of us wants to see another demi-semi-implemented Fisher Act on the Statute Book.
    It is much better to assist local education authorities and the Board to find reasons for having to raise the age to 16 rather than for them to find reasons against, doing so, especially in view of the pressure there will inevitably be for other national priorities, such as housing and health. I consider that it is our duty as Members of Parliament to do everything we can to make it as difficult as possible for this Government, or any other Government, not to have to implement the whole of this Measure when it gets on to the Statute Book. Presidents of the Board of Education come and go, and even Ministers have been known to do likewise, but, seeing that my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary both believe in the whole of this Measure, and that they have even included raising the age to 16 in their ultimate financial estimate, I do implore them to accept this Amendment and thereby give a

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    greater sense of urgency and reality to this great Bill.
    Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I am glad to be associated with this Amendment, and the Committee, in its first approach to this major Amendment, will be encouraged to realise that in the course of to-day a considerable part of the argument upon which it is based has already been conceded by the President of the Board and the Parliamentary Secretary. One of the fundamental weaknesses of the proposal in the Bill is that it is left to the President of the Board—the Minister, as he is called in the Bill—to bring forward the raising of the school age to 16 when he is satisfied that it has become practicable. Earlier to-day an Amendment was moved criticising the very words that left it within the power of local authorities to decide to deal with special schools; grave objections were raised against the proposal that they should only set them up as far as they were practicable. It was said that it provided an excuse and a back door, and the President of the Board has accepted that those words have that weakness. If local authorities can find back doors in order to get out of providing special schools, we may find that Presidents of the Board will be able to find, not back doors, but back gangways in order to get out of raising the school-leaving age to 16. The President of the Board has promised to take that provision back in order to find better words, and I ask him now to consider, at any rate, the part of the Amendment which does not leave it to the discretion of the Board to say whether it has become practicable or not.
    It does not lie only with the President of the Board to decide whether it has become practicable. He may be satisfied, he may think that the time has come and that he should do it, but he may be the kind of President who cannot convince his colleagues of that fact. He may not be able to satisfy his fellow members in the Government. Much will depend, when the time comes, upon whether he has the material with which to build the schools, or the men and the women with which to staff them, and he may find himself beaten by the people who will take the material first and those who will take the men and women first. We have had experience within recent years of where it has not even lain in the hands of the
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    Government to decide whether things were practicable. They were over-ridden by means of the Geddes axe and by the May Committee. We may find a Geddes or a May Committee and a Government ready to hand over to them the right to over-ride what Parliament, a little while before, had decided was desirable; to over-ride even what the President of the Board agreed was the right thing to do by education, and what he himself was satisfied had become practicable. That is one reason why this Bill should contain a specific provision for a date which could only be defeated by coming to this House and getting an Act of Parliament to repeal it. It is insufficient to have this word "practicable." It is also inconsistent with the whole scheme of the Bill.
    I agree with the hon. Lady who moved the Amendment, that it is no longer necessary to argue the desirability of the age of 16. That has been conceded, and I desire to join with her in emphasising the sweet reasonableness of our Amendment. We might very well have gone further. I do not think it would have been out of place to have made the age 17. We have been sweetly reasonable. We have given ample and generous time for the change, but we insist that a date should be there, because if it is not there, it makes complete inconsistency of the Bill.
    In his speech on the Second Reading the right hon. Gentleman said that the local education authorities ought to have regard to their duties to provide eventually for the 15's to 16's. Here is an Amendment which may carry the date to 1951. If the President refuses it it means it is going to be possible after 1951, if a local education authority comes before him with a development plan which only provides for those up to 15, for him to reject it. Suppose he does. The local education authority will reply, "How can you tell me that my development plan is defective, and fails to comply with the statutory requirements, when I am giving you something satisfactory now to get on with? When we get into 1951 we will amend it." I do not suppose any of the President's advisers would tell him that the local education authority in such case would be wrong in limiting its plan to that extent.
    There are other duties imposed on local education authorities by the Bill with which this provision for a vague 16 some

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    time in the future inconsistent, but I will defer to other hon. Members who desire to speak, and will not labour it. I may be told by the right hon. Gentleman, "Well, we will allow a local education authority to provide for the 15's and later expand to the 16's." That is an impossible situation. If you are building secondary schools you must, as the hon. Lady said, build for the 16's at once if it is to be practicable. In other words, you cannot prepare efficiently for the 15's without preparing for the 16's as well, which makes nonsense of any argument about a gap of any extent between the two dates. I am quite prepared to concede to the right hon. Gentleman that there may be much to be said for postponing the date of this scheme, but there is nothing at all to be said for a wide gap between 15 and 16. Once you have built effectively and properly for the 15's you have provided for the 16's, unless the right hon. Gentleman imagines that we can build schools on the concertina or piano-accordian principle, and, when two or three years have passed, stretch them out a bit for the 16's. You cannot do it. If this plan for the school-leaving age of 15 is to be really effective, it must include within itself provision for raising that age to 16; otherwise the whole scheme of the Bill is inconsistent. I have wondered how on earth these inconsistencies crept into the Bill, and I can only imagine that the provision with which we are now dealing in Clause 33 is presented to the Committee as a pretence at a kind of compromise.
    There are two points of view, both agreeing that it is desirable to raise the school leaving age to 15 or 16. The one point of view says, "In order to do that let us have a date for 15 and a date for 16," and the other point of view says, "Look at the difficulties, look at all the trouble—material, teachers, and the rest of it. Let us put 15 in the Bill as a desirable objective when the Minister is satisfied, and 16 as a further objective when the Minister is satisfied." I do not know where this conflict has gone on; it may have gone on inside the Government, it may have gone on inside the Board of Education, it may have gone on even in the President's own mind. Wherever this conflict has occurred, at any rate it has been resolved with this proposal in Clause 33, a proposal which may pretend to be
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    a compromise but which I say is no compromise whatever.
    There is one other aspect of the Amendment on which I would like to say a few words. The Amendment not only provides a definite date before which the school-leaving age must be raised, but it provides that the Minister must come to Parliament from year to year in order to get that extension. That is not intended to be anything in the nature of a formality, it is not something to be achieved by adding another line to the Schedule of the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. It is there in order to compel the Minister not only to ask the House for a further year's extension, but to compel him to come to the House to say what he has done in order to achieve the objective, and how far he thinks he will be able to go within the year for which he seeks further permission. It is to keep the matter within the control of this House, not to allow it to linger administratively to the last minute, but to compel the Minister to come from year to year and tell the House how he is getting on with the job which Parliament will have placed upon his shoulders. As it stands in the Bill, the objective of 16 is a Mount Everest which may or may not ever be scaled. The purpose of the Amendment is to turn it into a good Welsh mountain like Snowdon which we know can be climbed if only people put their minds to it.
    Professor Gruffydd: I am sorry to say that I have to disagree, not so much with the arguments put forward by the hon. Lady who moved the Amendment or by the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes) but with the implication underlying the Amendment. In disagreeing with them, I hope I shall not be misunderstood. I am as much in favour as they are of raising the school-leaving age to 16, but wishing, I am afraid, is no guarantee of fact, and the relevant fact in this case is that under present conditions any one who has studied the set up of education in this country at present knows that it is quite impossible to raise the school-leaving age to 16, within any time that it would be profitable to mention by Statute in a Bill. No doubt if my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education were a director of Government policy or a dictator of Government policy, it might be

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    done, but he is as powerless as the meanest Member of the farthest Back Bench to modify the present policy of the Minister of Labour towards teachers and to make the necessary provision for the raising of the school-leaving age even in the near future.
    Mrs. Cazalet Keir: May I ask my hon. Friend whether he is against putting a date in the Bill for the 15s too?
    Professor Gruffydd: Yes, I am against it. The teachers necessary for all the boys and girls in schools between 14 and 16 are simply not in existence, and they will not be in existence for a considerable time after the war. A vast number of them, as a matter of fact, are now engaged in peeling potatoes and cleaning lavatories in the Services.
    Captain Longhurst: May I ask the hon. Member if he has any possible grounds for such an assertion?
    Professor Gruffydd: My answer is that I should not make that assertion if I had no grounds. The grounds I have are very many letters from my own constituents who are teachers. Even in prewar days when there was no hindrance to compulsory education up to the age of 15, I have seen the disastrous effects of trying to put that Regulation into effect on paper.
    Viscountess Astor: But we had the school-leaving age raised to 15 at Plymouth and it was a great success. The thing that stopped it was not the teachers or the equipment but the reaction of the people who got in and put it back. So it is possible.
    Professor Gruffydd: In answer to the noble Lady, my experience of raising the school-leaving age when no provision has been made for it by the local education authority is that it has been disastrous. It is possible to put it down on paper that we raise the school-leaving age and make no provision whatsoever to carry it out. It may have been done in Plymouth but there are parts of the country where it could not be done. I have seen the disastrous effect of putting this Regulation into effect on paper so as to get a reputation for being a go-ahead authority, when the provision was inadequate for even beginning anything like the education of the adolescent—for children between 14 and 16 are adolescents I have been in scores
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    of elementary schools where the big boys and girls, young people whose minds were ready for adventure and expansion, were simply wasting their time because the teachers were not able to deal with them either on account of scarcity of number, or inadequacy of training, or both. It was pathetic to see these young people fumbling their way without guidance through tattered old class books which they had read time and time again, and having no assistance whatever from the teachers, because the teachers had no time to devote to them. "The hungry sheep looked up and were not fed." The school-leaving age under the authorities where these schools were situated had been raised in order to be popular with educational opinion, which in Wales is really very advanced and does demand the raising of the school-leaving age. And county councillors and directors of education smirked with self-satisfaction and self-approval because they had made the right gesture, because they had uttered the right educational noises, but the children themselves were pining away in neglect.
    I say, with a full sense of my responsibility as a teacher and as a life-long student of our educational system, that it would have been better for them, a hundred times, if they had entered into some decent occupation where the problems of adolescence would have had at least a partial solution. We must not only be certain that there shall be teachers in the next few years for these senior pupils, but we must also make certain that these teachers will be properly trained, because we are now talking of the 15's to 16's who require teachers as good as they should be for university students. I do not think that the real facts about the standard of teaching which is required for children between 15 and 16 have been completely realised. There must be more adequate training and, for the secondary schools—primary, technical and modern—there must be a proper provision of libraries, laboratories and workshops. Until we are absolutely and definitely aware of this certainty, it is just a cruel political game to pretend to raise the school leaving age. If there is one blow by which we can kill this Bill it is by passing a law which would make it not only a dead letter but a dead hand. I appeal to the good sense of the Committee and the decency of hon. Members not to make the children

    719
    of Britain pawns in a political game for popularity. That is precisely what they would be if we were to raise expectations which we know we could not fulfil.
    Mr. R. Morgan: I support the Amendment. The hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) and I have very much the same views on educational matters generally, but I was rather surprised to hear him proclaim the doctrine that although he blessed the White Paper and this Bill he did not envisage raising the school-Leaving age to 16 within the next six years. In my Second Reading speech on the White Paper I counselled the Minister to go slowly, and I am still of that opinion, because I realise that a certain amount of reorganisation under the old Hadow Scheme has not yet taken place and that very much has to be done to raise the school-leaving age to 15. It is impossible, in the scheme as it is outlined in the Bill, to carry out primary and secondary education unless the age is raised to 16, because there is not the necessary four years' programme for the one or the other. If the President says "I had no fixed date for raising the school-leaving age; I can take my time over this," he is really fooling with the question. I want the Committee to say what the date shall be for raising the school-leaving age to 16. If it is said that the Ministry of Labour will step in I say that it is time the Board of Education stepped in. Further, it is the responsibility of Members of this House and the question before us is: Is there any Member who does not desire his or her child to have education up to the age of 16? The Minister has made excellent speeches in various parts of the country and has said it was his wish to raise the school-leaving age to 16.
    The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): I have never promised a date for that. If my hon. Friend wants to quote me I hope he will quote me correctly.
    Mr. Morgan: I should be sorry to quote my right hon. Friend incorrectly, because I have a great admiration for what he has done, but my memory would be playing me very severe tricks if I said that I had not heard him say that he wanted to raise the school-leaving age to 16 in a short time. What is a short time? That is the question at issue.
    Mr. Colegate: I feel that part of the consideration which has been put before the Committee on this matter is not entirely relevant to the alternative which is facing the Committee. By this Amendment—which I feel bound to oppose—we are not asked to say that we are more in favour of raising the school-leaving age to 16 than we are in favour of Clause 33 as it stands. We are asked to do something entirely different. It is not a question of the desirability of 16 being the school-leaving age; it is a question of which is the better machinery. We are all agreed that the school-leaving age cannot be raised to 16 straight away. There are no buildings or teachers, and the hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) clearly put before the Committee the danger of starting under a sort of facade that you are raising the school-leaving age to 16 when, in fact, you are doing nothing of the kind.
    Mrs. Cazalet Keir: Is my hon. Friend also against inserting a date for the raising of the school age to 15?
    Mr. Colegate: I am discussing the alternative pieces of machinery which the Committee has before it, the machinery under Clause 33 and the machinery set forth in the hon. Lady's Amendment. We are all in favour of raising the school-leaving age to 16 at the earliest possible date. The only question we have to decide is whether the administrative machinery set out in this Amendment is better than the machinery set out in the Clause. Surely that is the question. If that is so, let us consider what the Clause asks us to do. It does not ask us from time to time to bring Orders in Council before the House postponing the date for raising the school-leaving age to 16. On the contrary, it says in effect that the school-leaving age is to be raised to 16 as soon as is practicable and that the moment it is practicable an Order in Council is to come before the House so that it may be put into operation. Personally, I prefer that piece of machinery, for this reason, among others: I am sufficiently optimistic to believe that not only all those who are interested in education but practically every Member of this House will wish to maintain a keen interest in educational matters when this Bill becomes law. There will be a far greater awareness about education than we have had before—
    Viscountess Astor: I hope so.
    Mr. Colegate: I am sure that my Noble Friend's hopes will be fulfilled. If that is the case, there will be strong pressure from outside organisations, as well as from Members, to see that the draft of an Order in Council is laid before Parliament at the earliest practicable moment. I should have thought that that was the quickest, simplest and most desirable form of machinery, instead of that which is proposed under this Amendment, which is actually less precise. First of all, the Amendment says that the school-leaving age shall be raised at the expiration of 12 months after this part of the Bill comes into operation. The supporters of the Amendment recognise, like the author of the Bill, that that is an impracticable proposal and they go on to say:
    "Or at such later date not exceeding three years thereafter to which the raising of the age may be postponed from time to time for a period not exceeding twelve months by Order in Council.…"
    In the Clause it says definitely that as soon as practicable the Minister shall bring before Parliament an Order in Council raising the school-leaving age to 16. For these reasons I ask the Committee and the Minister not to accept the Amendment. It is not a question of the desirability of raising the school-leaving age—we are all agreed upon that. We are agreed that it shall not be raised until we have the buildings and teachers, by means of which we can do the job as handsomely as I want to see it done. When we can prove that we have the teachers and machinery to bring about this much needed blessing we can press every week, if we like, to have an Order in Council laid before us.
    Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) gets very impassioned about the Clause as it stands in the Bill and is anxious to impress upon us that "as soon as practicable" means something quite definite. Well, if the hon. Member sees that he has second sight. If we could be sure that the present Minister would continue his labours we might place a certain amount of faith in the belief that at an early date the school-leaving age would be raised to 16—
    Whereupon THE YEOMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD being come with a Message from the Lords, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair.
    Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

  ROYAL ASSENT
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went; and, having returned—
  Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

  1. Naval Forces (Extension of Service) Act, 1944.

  2. India (Attachment of States) Act, 1944.

  3. Reinstatement in Civil Employment Act, 1944.

  4. Public Works Loans Act, 1944.

  And to the following Measure passed under the provisions of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919:
  Reorganization Areas Measure, 1944.

  EDUCATION BILL
  Again considered in Committee.
  [Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

  EDUCATION BILL

    CLAUSE 33.—(Compulsory school age.)
    Amendment proposed:
    In page 27, line 15, to leave out from the first "that," to the end of the Clause, and to add:
    "the upper limit of the compulsory school age shall be raised to sixteen years at the expiration of twelve months after this Part of this Act comes into operation or at such later date not exceeding three years thereafter to which the raising of the age may be postponed from time to time for a period not exceeding twelve months by Order in Council the draft of which shall be laid before Parliament by the Minister and which shall come into effect when approved by both Houses of Parliament."
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    Mr. Gallacher: I was saying that, if we could be certain that the Minister was going to carry on his labours indefinitely, we should have some faith in the belief that "as far as practicable" would mean to bring in the Order referred to in the Clause in a very reasonable time, but it conveys different meanings to different individuals and, from what I have seen of the slow motion character of the hon. Member who spoke last, I should say that there is a century of difference between himself and the Minister. It would be very undesirable to leave such a term to be the determining factor in view of the

    723
    possibility which might arise of changes in the control and direction of the educational facilities of the country.
    Mr. Colegate: Does the hon. Member ask us to understand that every other party except the Conservatives are likely to be less progressive in educational matters?
    Mr. Gallacher: I am quite certain that, if the hon. Member, through some mischance of fortune, got into the position at present occupied by the Minister, "as far as practicable" would not come into operation this side of eternity. The hon. Member for the Welsh Universities (Professor Gruffydd), in putting up an argument against fixing a date owing to the possibility of lack of teachers, said that rather than have children between 15 and 16 in such a position, he would have them in decent employment, and some hon. Members opposite greeted that with a hearty "Hear, hear." I can see hon. Members opposite getting their children from 15 to 16 into decent employment. I wonder what the hon. Member for the Welsh Universities considers to be decent employment. I saw in the "Telegraph" the other day a letter from a gentleman who considers that naval cadets should not be balloted for the mines and that such an ignoble occupation should be confined to the children of miners. The general idea is that a whole lot of occupations should be confined to particular classes, and it is easy for Members who have not had experience of these occupations, to talk about sending children from school to such occupations. I was in an occupation when I was nine years of age. Many people thought it a very decent occupation, but I had a different idea, and I am certain it is the same with the children between 15 and 16.
    I consider the Amendment a very reasonable one. It presents to us the question, Have we the will and the spirit to carry out the intentions of the Clause and what I believe are the actual intentions of the Minister? If we are determined to get the teachers and the schools, I am certain that by 1948 they can be available; but if we leave it in an indefinite form we shall find that, althrough there are organisations anxious to have the children educated, there are powerful influences in this country, and
    724
    some in this House, who are not so much concerned about having the children educated as having them exploited for profit. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It is no use groaning; it is the children who should groan. That is the experience we have had all along. On another occasion I drew attention to the fact that this is the first time we have had a real approach to education of a non-utilitarian character, and one of the decisive tests whether we are in earnest or not is in this question of the raising of the school age and of taking children up to 16 entirely out of the labour market and away from the exploitation that goes on. I therefore appeal to the Minister, who is responsible for a splendid piece of work in the better features of this Bill, to accept the Amendment and lay down a definite period when 16 shall become the age.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: I have listened to this short Debate with increasing surprise, because, as far as I can see, the Amendment is based on certain hypothetical assumptions. It is based on the assumptions that we shall have sufficient labourers to build the schools, that we shall have sufficient schools to accommodate the pupils, and that we shall have sufficient teachers released from the Forces properly educated and equipped for their functions. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) said, we are all agreed that we want the age raised to 16 at the earliest possible moment. There is no one who does not want to see all children having the same opportunity to fit themselves for the battle of life, but it is no use following this will-o'-the-wisp, for that is what it is. We want to face realities when it comes to passing legislation. It is a natural human desire to hitch one's wagon to a star. That is what I feel this Amendment is doing; it is hitching your wagon to a star which it will be impossible at the moment, or for some time, to reach. We had better leave that great enterprise to the Minister of Education than seek to secure it for him. We shall not know to what extent other priorities will be competing when the war is over. There will obviously be the priority of finding homes for the bodies of our children in addition to finding homes for their minds. My right hon. Friend should not commit himself to one priority more than another. While I and other Members who have spoken are in favour of the ideal of rais-

    725
    ing the school-leaving age at the earliest possible moment, I hope that my right hon. Friend will stick to the words of the Bill.
    Sir Percy Harris: There is general agreement that the right age for children leaving school should be 16 and not 15. That is clear from both those who support the Amendment and those who oppose it. The discussion is simplified to the question whether we should put a date to it or leave it vague and indefinite. I am in favour of a date and of having a clear target to which the local authorities and the Board of Education should work. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) rightly said that there will be great competition, not only for buildings, but for finance. If it is left indefinite and to chance circumstances, and if it depends on who is at the head of the Board, there will be no incentive to local authorities to make the necessary arrangements. My hon. Friend the Member for the Welsh University (Professor Gruffydd) put up the sound thesis that it is no use raising the school age unless we have the teachers and buildings.
    That is obviously commonsense, but I maintain that unless, as the Amendment suggests, a time factor is provided, we shall not have the buildings or the teachers. We had some experience between the wars, when, with the prospect of an extension of education, great numbers of men and women went through training colleges and entered the teaching profession. There was a large amount of unemployment in the profession owing to a drop in demand because there was not the extension in education that was expected. If we are to get the right kind of men and women to select teaching as their occupation and to go through the training, there must be some security that, when they are ready, jobs will be available. If the raising of the age is left indefinite, we shall not get what is the first necessity for an extension in education, trained men and women to do the work.
    That is an unanswerable argument for putting some kind of date to the raising of the age in the Bill. It applies equally to buildings. If we are to justify an extension in education obviously we must have proper school buildings. If we are
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    to have a building programme on a large scale, not merely for London but for the provinces, and not merely for urban areas but for the country areas, we must plan ahead. We cannot suddenly run up schools when we decide to raise the leaving age. If this machinery is to work and be effective, if it is to bring about the result we all desire in real secondary education for all with a proper division between technical and ordinary secondary grammar school education, if we are to have variety of schools, the right size of classes and up-to-date buildings with competent teachers, it is right that there should be a target to aim for and some definite date as is suggested in the Amendment.
    Viscountess Astor: The Liberal Party are again speaking with two voices. The hon. Member for the Welsh University—
    Sir P. Harris: Have I heard the Noble Lady aright? Are not she and the hon. Lady who moved the Amendment speaking with two voices?
    Viscountess Astor: I have travelled up from Plymouth especially to back up the hon. Lady. I mean business when it comes to the raising of the school age. I am not one of those people who think that education is popular. I do not agree with the hon. Member for the Welsh University (Professor Gruffydd) that this is a political stunt and that it is popular. It is no political stunt and education is not popular. If it had been popular we should have had the Fisher Act, which was one of the best Acts in the world. We did not get it because it was not popular with any party. I am one of those who believe in education, irrespective of any party.
    Sir Herbert Williams: May I ask the Noble Lady a question?
    Viscountess Astor: I do not want to talk to the hon. Member either in the House or outside.
    Sir H. Williams: On a point of personal explanation. I did not quite gather what the Noble Lady said, but I think it was that she did not desire to speak to me inside the House or out. On the last occasion on which she spoke to me, it was to ask that I might render her a favour. If she cannot learn good manners, it is not my fault.
    Viscountess Astor: I apologise to the hon. Member, but I have sat so long with him, and have seen that he is one of the most die-hard Tories the world has ever seen—
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think we had better leave these personal matters.
    Viscountess Astor: I think we had better. Education is not popular in the Tory Party or in the Labour Party. At trade union conferences they used to put it so low on the agenda that they never got to it.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Let us get to the Amendment and leave the question of the position of education on any programme.
    Viscountess Astor: This is a Debate and I want to deal with the arguments. The hon. Member for the Welsh University said education is popular. It is not. If I thought it was popular, I would be happy to leave it as it is. There are many people in the country who do not want the age raised even to 15, and there are some of them in this House. They have been here for years and I know them. This is not a question of the Minister of Education; it is a national question. I am certain that if the Minister had his way he would put in a time. If he had his way, he would control the Minister of Labour, and if he is having any difficulty about getting teachers out of the Services, he should go to the Cabinet and say, "This is national policy and we are going to get it through." We had a magnificent Measure, in the Fisher Act. We knew we were going to have the problems of unemployment and yet Members of not only one party but most parties wanted that Act. Mrs. Wintringham, who was then a member of the Liberal Party, myself and others, went to see Mr. Trevelyan, as he was, the then Minister of Education. We said: "We have a majority in this House for the raising of the school-leaving age." He said it was unpopular. Heavens, I knew it was unpopular. I nearly lost an election on it. It is not popular, but it is absolutely necessary. We talk about the future of democracy being in the hands of youth—but not an uneducated youth. If the Government were as keen about this as they ought to be, they could get it done. I do not say that we are going to get perfect buildings or teachers but there will be thousands of people coming out
    728
    of the Army, and you will be able to get your teachers. The Government should make this a question of a real national push. We could get it, and the House of Commons could see that we got it. I have seen our children getting education up to 15, in Plymouth. Then there was no juvenile unemployment and everything was working in nicely. People were pleased, then the reaction took place. I saw the experiment in Rugby—
    Sir H. Williams: Plymouth was no better than anywhere else.
    Viscountess Astor: It raised the school age.
    Sir H. Williams: Only subject to conditions.
    Viscountess Astor: I do not consider that the hon. Member knows sufficient about Plymouth.
    Sir H. Williams: Yes, I do. I have looked up the figures.
    Viscountess Astor: I saw the Rugby experiment, and I know that it is possible. It could be done on a national scale.
    Mr. Butler: Has not the Rugby scheme to do with adolescent education, and not with raising the school age?
    Viscountess Astor: The school age at Rugby was raised to 15 while other parts of the country remained at 14, and it was a great success. I saw what the effect was in Plymouth. I know it is going to be difficult. It was difficult at the beginning of the war to start building aeroplanes or making tanks, yet we did it. Education is going to be as vital in the peace as aeroplanes and tanks are in the war. We are going to be up against a mechanised world, a new kind of world, and the young people have to be educated. One hon. Member said he would rather see children in blind-alley jobs than doing nothing in the schools, but I am not at all certain that I would. If my boy had either to go into a blind-alley job or to hang about in schools, I would rather see him hanging around in the school. One of the tragedies of this country is that children were forced into blind-alley jobs. I know it is going to be more difficult after the war than it was after the last war, because of the machinery set up.

    729
    I beg the Government not to talk about the future being in the hands of the young, if we are going to allow our boys and girls out of the schools at 15 years of age. Everybody knows that the ages from 14 to 16 are the most difficult in a child's life. Is there any Member of this Committee who would force his child to leave school at 14? We do not ask for perfect schools, but we pray God that we shall never have those great stone buildings which we have had up to now. Why, Margaret Macmillan started the best schools in the whole of this country, in sheds, and did better than all the other people were doing in the finest school buildings built with bricks and mortar. We may not have to start it in such a very sketchy way, but at least I can see a future of great promise if we let the country know that, on a certain date, the school-leaving age will be raised.
    I ask hon. Members on 'this side of the Committee not to think that we are asking for the impossible—although you never get anything unless you do ask for it. Hon. Members must not sit down and say this thing is difficult. I have no patience with that sort of thing. I do not want to say a word against the Minister of Education. We are all deeply grateful to him. He has been absolutely magnificent, but I do not believe the Government or the Cabinet have been magnificent. This ought to be a Cabinet matter. What is the Minister of Reconstruction going to reconstruct if all the young people are to be turned out at 15—and this after all the tosh that is being talked about youth? We put forward this simple proposal that the Government should name the date on which the school-leaving age is to be raised.
    About the teachers; thousands of people will be coming back after the war. Ask for volunteers to come in for two or three years—people who have certain abilities. I have heard some of the best teachers, talking about this matter, and they are sure that if there is a real will and desire in this House of Commons, as well as in the country, we can get the teachers. We can also get the buildings. Let us take this matter to a Division. Let this Committee do it now; we shall not be able to tell what the next House of Commons will do. I have watched people come to this House full of zeal and
    730
    enthusiasm to get things done; I have watched others come in on a sort of political tide, and they did not know where they were or how they got here.
    We have a definite duty to the country to see that the Government allow nothing to stand in the way of raising the school age to 16 at a definite time. I pray that it will be raised even further. I believe that democracy depends for its progress upon educated people and that we have a great future before us. Our education teaches people not what to think but how to think. We shall have to think hard if this country is to keep its place in the future world. We must be willing to face things that seem difficult in the future, in the same way as we face war problems, and with the same courage. Education is a very difficult problem, but it is full of hope and promise.
    Mr. Cove: The speech of the Noble Lady has taken me back to my childhood. Here we are, in the heart of the education proposals of the Bill. The Clause provides the substance of education. Up till now, we have been discussing, not education in the ordinary sense of the term but, as a matter of fact, the claims of various religious parties on the schools of this country. In Clause 33, we face what education is going to be to the children of the country. The speech of the Noble Lady has taken me back to my childhood. I never expected to have to recount in the House of Commons this small episode, which I am now going to relate.
    I was born the eldest of a baker's dozen in a miner's family, and in a terrace house. At 12 years of age, I faced what was called the old labour exam. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was at 11½."] That is right. Well, I did it. The labour exam was a magnificent thing; if you had brains enough to pass it, you went to work. If you failed, you stayed in school. I remember very well going down to the centre where the exam was to be held, and thinking to myself: "Shall I try to pass, or shall I try to fail?" I knew, even then, that if I passed I had to go in the pit and that if I failed I should be kept in school. It so happened that the shame of failing seemed awful, and I tried to pass. I was the only one to pass. The result of it was that my pals remained in school and I went to work in the pit. I say quite deliberately,

    731
    as the result of my experience in the pit, and not from theory, although I have read a lot of psychological and pedagogical books since then, that the pit, the factory and the workshop are no places for growing adolescents. Therefore I want the school age to be raised, in order to give to the children of the working classes a chance of free development. I am not saying this in any class way. Hon. Members opposite, intelligently and elementarily, give that chance to their children, and what the best parent wants for his child society should want for all. That is the issue on this Amendment. I ask hon. Members not to be frightened about the number of teachers and the number of school buildings. So far as buildings are concerned, definitely and unequivocally, the answer is that they can be provided.
    I have already referred to what the Prime Minister said in his book on the last war. He said that in 1914–1918 the nation was united for victory and then united for the new world that was to be. We could command labour in quantity and quality. We could shift it wherever it was wanted. We could build 300,000 houses and if we wanted 1,000,000 shells we could get them. So prodigious is the productive power of modern society that no physical impediment need stand in the way. So with school building. We could get on with school building if there was the Bill to raise the school age.
    I said of the teachers that there has been some compromise, but, quite frankly, I am not on the side of the planners. I am on the side of the improvisers. We have improvised for evacuation and have done miracles in evacuation. We have accomplished the impossible in evacuation and if we had not we would have been done by now. Why not apply the same temper, tone, will and power to the postwar period? We can, if the Government are willing to do it. It is not an incredible thought. You cannot have a democracy unless you get this raising of the school age to 16. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will pardon me—but, frankly, I am bound to speak my heart to-day—when I say that this Bill as far as equality of opportunity is concerned is a farce unless the school age is raised to 16 or there is a definite promise to this effect. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to do this. Within the terms of this Bill it is possible
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    to get all the money necessary for reconditioning the Church schools and providing denominational teaching without raising the school age by a single day for a single child. That is the issue which lies at the back of this.
    We have heard of balances in this Bill, balances of interest within the Church and denominational fields. The right hon. Gentleman has accomplished very much in that way. He has provided money for Church schools and compromises have been made. I ask the right hon. Gentleman where, on the other side of the balance, is the educational content of the Bill? Where is it? I know he is faced completely with this proposition and this difficulty which he cannot escape. I admit that, but the first problem in dealing with the raising of the school age is to reorganise our educational system. You cannot reorganise the schools unless you deal, of course, with Church schools, and particularly, if I may say so without offence, with the Church of England schools. Reorganisation is the first step in all this business, but reorganisation merely as reorganisation means providing State money for Church and denominational schools.
    Sir H. Williams: On a point of Order. Are we engaged on the Second Reading of this Debate or discussing an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for East Islington (Mrs. Cazalet Keir)?
    The Deputy-Chairman: This, of course, is an Amendment, but discussion has been fairly wide. At the same time I think it would be to the advantage of the whole Committee if hon. Members kept their speeches rather more closely to the Amendment under discussion.
    Mr. Cove: I am sorry if I have transgressed, but I am profoundly moved about this matter. This is really the crux of the whole educational content of the Bill as I envisage it. I say quite frankly that I do not mind compromises having been made, or further compromises being made, in the Bill to Church schools, provided that the school age is raised and provided that there is a real educational content in this Bill. But I say quite definitely that as the Bill is now framed that guarantee is not there. It is all very well to change the name of the schools for children beyond the age of 11 plus and call them secondary. You can change the name, but the

    733
    reality will be the same—a mere veneer. There is no educational equality of opportunity if some children leave at 16 and 18 and others leave at 14. The schools that can only keep their children till the age of 14 or 14 plus, or even 15, are inevitably of a lower status than those that keep them till 16 and 18. It may be platitudinous to say so, but the whole purpose and character of the school depend upon the length of the school life. You cannot plan the curriculum of schools catering for children of 14 for the same purpose as you can plan the curriculum of the schools catering for the 16's and 18's.
    As a matter of fact the right hon. Gentleman has watered down the content of the standard of education prevailing hitherto. At this moment the official definition of secondary education is schooling of various types till the age of 16. The fundamental fact as to whether a school is secondary or not is whether the children are there till the age of 16 plus. That is the fundamental position at the moment. In this Bill all that has gone. There is no standard length of school life embodied in the Bill, and, unless we get this, I hope my hon. Friends on this side will join with those of us who say quite definitely and seriously that this must not only be a Bill that will strengthen and aid the dual system in this country, but that it must be a Bill that will provide some modicum, as it were, of educational equality in our educational system. Unless we get that, I hope my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee will go relentlessly into the Lobby and say to the Commons that there must be a definite promise to raise the school age. This Amendment gives us the chance to bring it back to the House of Commons and gives the House control over the situation.
    Sir H. Williams: I am a little disappointed that those who are so enthusiastic about education should show such an incredible capacity for being irrelevant. It would have been helpful if they had displayed more of the advantages of education in their own cases than they appear to have done up to now. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) has been a schoolmaster for a considerable number of years but that is no reason for the fact that he has not helped this Committee by his erudition.
    Mr. Cove: That is not true.
    Sir H. Williams: We were told by the Noble Lady that as a result of raising the school age in Plymouth, juvenile unemployment had largely been eliminated. Some years ago I thought it would be interesting to look at the facts. I think three local education authorities had taken advantage of the Act of 1918 passed by Mr. Fisher, whereby a local authority could, if it wished, raise the compulsory school age to 15. One of these was Plymouth and I thought I would compare what happened in Plymouth with what happened elsewhere. There was not an unconditional raising of the school age in Plymouth. It was a raising subject to exemptions. I thought I would find out what was the result of the exemptions. [Interruption.] There were exemptions in Plymouth.
    Viscountess Astor: Not at first.
    Sir H. Williams: That is so but there were afterwards, because the people would not stand for it. Ultimately, we find that the net effect of the raising of the school age was virtually to leave Plymouth in the same position as the general average for the country. The proportion of children in Plymouth who remained at school over the age of 14 plus was no higher in Plymouth than anywhere else. I do not think the Noble Lady would deny that.
    Viscountess Astor: I do.
    Sir H. Williams: The number of children in Croydon—which is represented by me—who stay on voluntarily is higher than the number in Plymouth, which is represented by the Noble Lady. In other words, we do not talk so much about it but we do rather more. I am quite aware that the Noble Lady does not like it. She likes to be rude but not for anyone to be rude to her.
    Mr. Gallacher: Could not these two very rude persons go out and have their quarrel outside?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think this controversy has gone far enough. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would get back to the Amendment.
    Sir H. Williams: I am quite willing to come back to the Amendment, but I think that in Debate one is entitled to answer a point made by a previous speaker who was not ruled out of Order. That is the only privilege I am claiming.
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is why I gave the hon. Member a good deal of latitude.
    Sir H. Williams: I quite agree. Let us face the issue. The proposal to raise the school age to 16 on a particular date is a proposal to increase the number of children in the schools by approximately 20 per cent. There is also a proposal, which I think is far more important, that the size of the school classes should be reduced. That is infinitely more important. I happen to have been brought up in an educational atmosphere. My father was a schoolmaster, my late brother was a schoolmaster, another brother older than I am was a schoolmaster. I did a little teaching in my time. Therefore, I do not bring vague general aspirations to this discussion but some consideration of the problem, and I know that the most vital reform is a reduction in the size of the classes. It exceeds all these other things.
    Anyone who is a truthful realist knows that the raising of the compulsory school age above 14 will be a most incredible waste of the time of great masses of children. Any honest teacher, when not on the platform, will admit that to you. If anyone thinks that we shall get reality in education, unless parents and children are willing to make a sacrifice, he does not understand what education means. Some of us do make some sacrifice in order that our children may have what we regard as an appropriate education for their attainments. Nobody thinks that all should have the same income, and therefore we do not all spend the same amounts, but to say that we must all spend the same amount on cultural things like education, means that we are only going to spend extra on less worthy objects. Anyone who says that I am to be denied spending more on cultural things than other people seems to me to deny every good principle. I am willing, and always have been willing, to devote more to cultural interests than to other interests, and unless there is a measure of sacrifice on the part of parents there is no reality in education. The idea that it can be handed out as a free gift has no relation to true education.
    Mr. Quintin Hogg: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Gentleman in Order in describing on this Amendment the amount of money he is spending on educating his own children? He has given
    736
    us a lecture on irrelevance. May I know the relevance of this?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I conclude that the hon. Member is giving illustrations but I think his illustrations are getting rather wide.
    Sir H. Williams: I think I can satisfy you, Mr. Williams, and the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) that this is very relevant. What is the proposal? It is that Everybody shall have free education up to 16. I think it is entirely relevant to point out that it may be better—
    Mr. Hogg: As I understand the Amendment before the Committee it does not raise that point at all. It is a question as to whether a definite date before the age of 16 shall be introduced or whether it shall be left to the Minister. Whether it shall be raised to 16 or not is not in the question.
    Mr. Gallacher: Further to that point of Order. Every Member of this Committee understands that the question of raising the school age to 16 is accepted and is not in question. The only question is whether, as the hon. Member for Oxford says, a particular date or no date shall be inserted when it shall come into operation. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) is simply coming into this Debate to talk a lot of twaddle.
    The Deputy-Chairman: As both hon. Members who have interrupted have indicated, this Amendment really is narrower than the argument of the hon. Member for South Croydon would seem to indicate. Therefore, I would ask him, as he has now covered that particular point, to come much more closely to the actual Amendment.
    Sir H. Williams: It might be just as well if we read the Amendment. It says:
    "In page 27, line 15, leave but from the first "that" to end of Clause, and add
    'the upper limit of the compulsory school age shall be raised to sixteen years at the expiration of twelve months after this Part of this Act comes into operation or at such later date not exceeding three years thereafter to which the raising of the age may be postponed from time to time for a period not exceeding twelve months by Order in Council the draft of which shall be laid before Parliament by the Minister and which shall come into effect when approved by both Houses of Parliament.'"

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    It is rather wordy, and the latter part is not too easy to understand, but the fundamental essence of it is that the compulsory age of 16 for free education shall come into operation on a definite date. That is the sole purpose of this Amendment. I am glad that the hon. Member who moves it interprets it in that way. Surely if the object is to bring free education into operation on a date which is defined, with a considerable measure of accuracy, at a not too remote period, we are not out of Order in discussing the financial implications of that. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) put a point of Order which had no bearing—
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think this is a matter of timing, rather than the very wide subject of the whole question of raising the age to 16.
    Sir H. Williams: We have not yet decided that the school-leaving age shall be raised to 16 at any time whatsoever. Surely, until it is decided, it is in Order to discuss all its implications? That is all I am seeking to do.
    Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. Is it not clear that if the hon. Member had wanted a discussion on the principle, he should have put down ah Amendment objecting to the principle? There is no Amendment down of any kind relating to the principle. The only Amendment is one relating to the time.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Of course this Amendment proposes very clearly to leave out certain words, which would fix the age at 16. We are having a widish discussion on the principle of raising the age to 16, and the Amendment relates much more particularly to the date. I would suggest to the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) that we have already widened the discussion a good deal, and that it would not be to the advantage of the Committee at this stage of the Bill to go on at great length on this Amendment into the whole question of raising the school age to 16.
    Sir H. Williams: I should have finished my speech at least 10 minutes ago if hon. Members who did not like what I was saying had not sought to stop my saying it by raising points of Order. I have come to the end of what I wanted to say, but I would, if I may, suggest that those
    738
    hon. Members who are keen about certain aspects of the Bill, in a way which I am not—I will be quite frank about that—would be much wiser, if they want to help their Bill, not to make so much fuss when others express views which they do not quite like. I think that this Amendment is misguided. The best way to prove how misguided it is would be to carry it. Nothing would cause greater consternation among the supporters of this Amendment than that it should be carried.
    Mrs. Cazalet Keir: As the hon. Member is so definitely against this Amendment, is he totally opposed to what is already in the Bill—a date for raising the school-leaving age to 16?
    The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Gentleman would not be able to answer that question. It is a pity that hon. Members should ask questions which widen the Debate when we are trying to get on with the Bill.
    Sir H. Williams: I was trying to show some of the implications when I was interrupted some little time ago. If this Amendment is carried we shall have to find, at a very early date, roughly speaking, 20 per cent. more, teachers. If we are going, at the same time, to reduce the size of classes we shall need far more than 20 per cent, more class rooms. That is a problem of great complexity. I know that the Noble Lady would solve the problem by directing masses of uncertificated people from somewhere, and telling them to teach children of 14 to 16.
    Viscountess Astor: I did not say that.
    Sir H. Williams: She did say that. She said, "Get them out of the Army, or somewhere else—people with no training at all—to act as teachers."
    Viscountess Astor: That is a complete misrepresentation. I said that many people would not mind volunteering for this work. People would not volunteer for it unless they had some qualifications.
    Sir H. Williams: This idea—[Interruption.] I hope that the Noble Lady will listen. I gave way at once to her. She says that people will volunteer. In other words she is going to fill the schools with uncertificated teachers in order to raise the school-leaving age to 16. These will be volunteers, with no qualifications at

    739
    all. That is her conception of how these children of 14 to 16 ought to be educated.
    Mr. Lipson: On a point of Order. Is my hon. Friend aware that the overwhelming majority of teachers in secondary schools to-day are uncertificated, and that a very large number are untrained?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I wish hon. Members would not prolong the Debate by putting so-called points of Order which are not points of Order.
    Sir H. Williams: Not only was that not a point of Order, but it was a point of complete inaccuracy. If the hon. Member will go into the Library, and get the Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, he will find the number of uncertificated teachers for the United Kingdom, and he will learn that his interruption had no relation to the facts. I wish some of these educational experts would study the subject a little more before they talk. I was just trying to do a little arithmetic, but nobody wants me to do any arithmetic, judging from the interruptions. This proposal means that, in a very limited time, we shall have to increase the number of teachers by at least 20 per cent.; and we are very short of teachers now. Also, we shall have to increase the number of classrooms by far more than 20 per cent. If this Amendment is carried it will be of no consequence, because, in due course, a future Parliament—and remember that one Parliament does not bind another—will have to take the necessary steps to repudiate this, by passing an amending Act or, by Order in Council, preventing it from operating. But these hon. Members who support it think that they are going to get cheap glory by saying, "Look how progressive we are: we have voted for something." [Interruption.] The hon. Member is not one of the outstanding examples of great educational progress, so far as I have been able to find out. They are merely supporting this as something which will impress people outside. This is going to be unpopular once the parents find out all the consequences. The Noble Lady knows that. She deplores the unpopularity of education, but education is not unpopular. The raising of the school-leaving age, under the Fisher Act, could not be carried out. The Noble Lady, who does not believe in democracy, wants to
    740
    force this on parents while they are unconscious of its effects. I have said all I wanted to say—
    Viscountess Astor: The hon. Member has been very long-winded.
    Sir H. Williams: I am never long-winded if I am left alone, but I have been interrupted, perhaps, more than most hon. Members are interrupted, and I had to have your protection, Mr. Williams. Others, of course, have sought your protection against me. If the enthusiasts for this Bill want to get it through quickly, they must show a more tolerant attitude.
    Mr. Butler: We have had a longish Debate on this very important subject, and I beg the Committee to believe that, in placing my arguments before them, I speak not as one who is unprogressive or reactionary but as one responsible for bringing before this Committee a major Measure of education reform, couched in terms which are, I believe, in the interests of the children, and in the interests of the country as a whole. I have had no more difficult task than that of trying to deal with the welter of unfulfilled policy which I found on my desk when I went to the Board. I shall attempt to compress my remarks, but I must put before the Committee some idea of the heavy responsibilities which lie on our shoulders in deciding what the future priorities of educational reform are to be. When I put before the Committee some of the weighty considerations that I have in mind, I hope it will lead them to the belief that the Clause, as drafted, will enable Parliament to control this vital matter of the raising of the school age to 16.
    I will take the opportunity to suggest various ways in which the Bill may be tightened up, in my view, so that the Committee may approach its task in a more practical manner. I will, as is my wont, try to meet the difficulties we are facing, perhaps not in the way my hon. Friends who proposed this Amendment expected, but in a way which I think is in the interests of the nation as a whole.
    The hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) is correct in saying that here we are dealing with an educational matter. Thank God for that. We have had many discussions on this Bill, but we have had none which go quite so much to the root

    741
    of educational progress, which is what this Committee desires. Let me say a few words about that. In the first place, I am quite sure that we are all agreed that the Bill is drafted to envisage an educational system which will enable children to remain at school until they are 16. That is why the Bill is drafted in this manner and a definite duty is laid upon the Minister to lay before Parliament an Order raising the age to 16, so there should be no difference of opinion on that matter. The only question which causes a difference is whether a definite date should be placed in the Statute for the raising of the age to 16. Let me stress the value of raising the age to 16. There is no doubt that any of us who have been round the new senior schools realise that the course there is far too short. Children enter at 11 plus, and are often turned out into the world at 14, which makes it impossible for them to get the full benefit of the training given.
    Sir H. Williams: They are free to stay on. Only in certain cases referred to—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] Surely it is a point, and it is important. Surely, I understand that the school doors are open to any child—voluntarily open to any child. Whether they are compelled or not, every child who has the desire to stay after 14 is free to do so.
    Mr. Butler: That is technically possible, the hon. Gentleman is quite right, but it does not alter the general tenor of my observations that the normal practice is to leave the senior school at 14. In fact, well over 90 per cent, of them leave at 14. What I was saying was that it was very difficult to get a sufficiently long course in the senior schools provided by us if the school-leaving age remains at 14 or even if it is raised to 15. There are great advantages in raising it to 16 in giving a long course in senior schools. That is all the more important, in view of the provisions of the Bill that there should be free secondary education for all. And the advantage of free secondary education for all is that it shall offer equivalent secondary opportunities to all children, and it is much easier to secure that if the schools at which it is offered have an equivalent leaving age. As has been stated in the Debate, it would be better all round, from the educational point of view, if we could have an equivalent leaving age at all the different types of secondary schools. I
    742
    said that to indicate to the Committee that, from the point of view of the educational expert, there is really not much difference between us. The point before us is that a certain leeway has to be made up in our educational administration, and how that change may come about if we enforce the leaving age of 16 in the Bill on a certain date.
    In the first place, the Committee will realise that, in the Bill, we have deliberately accelerated the date at which the leaving age of 15 shall be introduced, and it will be remembered that, in order that the country should not be deluded and local authorities should understand the difficulties, we deliberately included this phrase in the White Paper:
    "It will be understood that, if this step were taken within a short period after the end of the war before re-organisation is completed, with the primary object pf taking children of 14 and T5 off the labour market, the arrangements for their education would necessarily be of an improvised and makeshift character."
    It is on account of the fact that raising the age will involve some improvisation that we have deliberately not put a date in the Bill for raising the age, and we have done that because we believe Parliament has been playing about with this question long enough. It started in 1936 and it has been going on ever since. It is time Parliament decided that the age should be raised to 15. In the passage I have quoted from the White Paper, we included the words "before reorganisation is completed" and we stressed the fact that to raise the age to 15 might mean improvisation.
    The point is to understand what those words—"before re-organisation is completed"—means. It seems to me that the whole crux of raising the age to 15 turns to the question of re-organising the schools into secondary and primary, and that when the hon. Member for Aberavon was called to order for mentioning Church schools, he was not really so far from the mark, because only 16 per cent. of the voluntary schools are at present re-organised into senior or junior, or secondary or primary, and it is vital to tackle this in this Bill. What is the figure of re-organisation in council schools? The figure, as between secondary and primary, is that only 62 per cent, of the council school children have the advantage of a re-organised secondary education. It

    743
    may surprise the Committee to have the further figure of the difference in reorganisation between the country districts and the towns. The position in the country districts is that only 20 per cent, of the schools there are re-organised into secondary schools.
    Despite these diffculties, and this is the answer to the hon. Lady who moved the Amendment, we are going to raise the age to 15 very shortly, and I beg the Committee to keep that before them before they insist on a date for raising the age to 16 before re-organisation is completed. What would it mean? It would mean this. In the country districts, only 20 per cent, of our schools are organised for senior children, which means that advanced opportunities of education would be available for only 20 per cent. of the children remaining at school. I do not think it is possible here and now to give an advance date by which re-organisation will be completed. Therefore, if the Committee insist on a date being put into the Bill, it will mean that many of our senior children in the country districts will be obliged to stay in all-age schools, of which there are at present 80 per cent, with perhaps two or three teachers grappling with an age group from 5 to 16 in one school. That means age groups ranging over four and five years in the top class. I maintain that to ask parents, or to oblige parents by this Bill, to keep their children at school until 16 is, in these circumstances, not wise national policy.
    So what shall we do? We have to consider how to improve the situation for these children and secure the introduction of 16 as soon as possible. The first step is to press ahead with the re-organisation of schools into secondary and primary departments. In order to do that, I have to try and give the Committee some examples of the extraordinary efforts that will be needed in order to provide secondary education for the senior children. The hon. Lady the Member for East Islington (Mrs. Cazalet Keir), who moved the Amendment, has, in various interventions in this Debate, made out, quite honestly and sincerely, that there is very little difference between raising the age to 15 and raising the age to 16. Quite apart from the question of improvisation in raising the age from 15 to 16 and putting the sixteens into all-age schools, I am
    744
    advised that no less than a further 406,000 places are necessary to raise the age to. 16, which is the age put into the Amendment. As it is, we have to find 391,000 extra school places to raise the age to 15 alone, and the figure of 406,000 is over and above that number.
    It is a most formidable task, when we realise that school building has ceased during the war, except for temporary construction, and that many children are housed in huts already. The Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), with her sporting instincts, suggested that we should follow the example of Margaret Macmillan and put the children into huts or anywhere else. The answer is that they are in huts already, and also that Margaret Macmillan, although attempting her own individual experiment, was not responsible for national policy, as I am to-day. I estimate not only that that number of school places will be required for raising the age to 15 and the extra number for raising the age to 16, but that we have lost 150,000 school places owing to war conditions. These have to be replaced and the schools rebuilt.
    I said at the opening of my remarks that there was an unfulfilled welter of policy in my desk, and these are some of the causes of the leeway which has to be made up, and in all these matters various Members from different sides of the Committee are interested. I have to try and achieve, from many different angles, educational advance. Take the Noble Lady herself. I have been asked by her and her friends to introduce a new and up-to-date system of educational nursery schools throughout the country. This is one job to be done. I have also to rebuild and re-equip many of the old schools, and I have to bring up to date that vast range of auxiliary schools which we have been considering in the course of our Committee Debates. What is perhaps most important, we have to remodel and reconstruct a vast number of primary and infant schools, which are nearly almost forgotten in our Debates. We have also to try to bring into the educational framework of this country a really adequate system of technical education to suit our industrial needs. Moreover, there are some letters in the newspapers on the subject of my inefficiency in invading the field of adult education. All

    745
    these measures are expected to be put into force very soon after the war and will all involve schools and a building programme. In the circumstances, the approach to the vital question of raising the age to 16 in the Bill is a wiser one, but I think it is wiser still when I consider the question of teachers.
    The question of limiting the size of classes to 30 is probably, as was said by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), one of the most important reforms of all. I calculate that the retention of children between 15 and 16 in all types of secondary school in classes of 30 will call for anything between 40,000 and 50,000 more teachers than there are in the service to-day. That does not take account of the teachers who will resign after the war and those married women who will not wish to take advantage of my most estimable acceptance of the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman from the benches behind, and of the many teachers who will leave the service; and it does not take account of the teachers needed for continuing education at young peoples' colleges or anywhere else. That is simply for that particular reform. Of these I attribute at least 14,000 to the need of raising the age to 16.
    In view of the conditions in regard to buildings and to teachers, I really think we must now see whether we cannot approach this matter in the most practical spirit possible. So what are we to do? On educational grounds the most desirable thing would be to have the age raised from 14 to 16 and the introduction at one and the same time of a system of continuing education. I have not mentioned continuing education, but that has been on the Statute Book since 1918. It has been introduced in one or two places only, and it is absolutely essential, in my view, to see that the purview of the educational system covers the age range right up to 18, if only to look after the health and well-being of the adolescent. What shall we do, then? It would be unwise to insist on giving raising-the-age-to-16 priority over young peoples' colleges until we have got further with the re-organisation of the schools. When we have our schools re-organised so that the older children can get the education that they want, then 16 would do them well, but prior to that date it seems desirable to adopt some
    746
    policy which will look after the adolescent child. If I were to leave the Bill, as it is, in the air and not to give a definite date for the age of 16, I would not be doing anything to look after those between the ages of 15 and 16, and 15 and 18. Therefore, the Government have decided, as I indicated in my Second Reading speech, that authorities should plan for a period of continuing education, in the first place, from the age of 15 to 18, and, thereafter when the leaving age is raised to 16, from 16 to 18. The advantage of this course will be that children of 15 waiting for the schools to be re-organised will be able to be looked after in the young peoples colleges, both as to their health and as to their continuing education. Therefore, we shall leave no gap in the provision for them.
    I propose to tighten up the Bill by laying an injunction on the Minister to come to the House with an Order, under Clause 41, Sub-section (1), within three years after the raising of the age to 15. This Order will lay a duty on authorities to establish a system of young people's colleges. This carries out what I said in my Second Reading speech, and it enables us, first, to raise the age to 15, and then to introduce a system of young people's colleges. The Government desire to give this lead to the authorities both in the interests of the young people and in the interests of the country as a whole. For the certainty, which hon. Members desire to see, of raising the age to 16 I presume that they do not want to wait 25 years for continuing education or another 17 years for the completion of re-organisation such as we think we need now, or an indefinite period for the raising of the age. I therefore propose that the Minister shall undertake to report annually to Parliament on the progress of re-organisation and on the number of teachers which shall be available for carrying out the raising of the age to 16. I am ready to adopt whatever method the Committee think the wisest for that purpose, because then the Committee will have before them the two sets of facts which will enable them to decide when it is sensible to raise the age to 16.
    Sir P. Harris: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose definitely to make it an obligation to report to Parliament each year?
    Mr. Butler: What I have had in mind is to place this matter in the report to Parliament which is included in Clause 5, and if that is included Parliament will then have before it the number of teachers and the extent of reorganisation so that it can then decide when it is practicable to raise the age to 16. By that method, through the ordinary pressure which it can exercise, it will be possible for Parliament to be in a position to decide to raise the age to 16 when Members think it wise. That, I believe, is the best course for the Committee to adopt. I do not believe, in view of the building conditions, or the teaching conditions, or the leeway in policy with the young people's colleges and the variation over Departments of policy, that it would be right or even honourable for me to name a definite date, because I do not think it would be possible to carry it out for certain.
    Therefore, rather than take a course which would tie my successor in such a way that he might not be able to carry out the policy, I prefer to come to the Committee and tell them definitely that annually a report will be presented to Parliament stating the number of teachers who are ready and trained, stating the extent to which reorganisation has been carried out, and that then Parliament will be able to operate the powers contained in the Bill because there is no doubt no new amending legislation is necessary. Under the proviso to Clause 33 it will be possible for the Minister to lay an Order and, in fact, the duty is laid upon him to lay an Order. When that Order is laid the age can be raised, and when Parliament has the information before it which I suggest it will be able to exert pressure upon the Minister to introduce the age of 16 when the facts and circumstances to which I have referred make it wise and proper for him to do so.
    Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, may I ask one question? I understand it is the intention to introduce a provision laying a duty upon the Minister and the local education authorities to provide young people's colleges within three years after the school-leaving age has been raised to 15. Is it the intention that it should be a specific three years, or such date as the Minister may think practicable?
    Mr. Butler: No, we shall be discussing that Clause, I hope, later on, and
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    I propose instead of the opening words of Clause 41, Sub-section (1), the following:
    "The Minister shall have a duty laid upon him to start the authorities upon the task of opening young people's colleges within three years after the raising of the age to 15."
    Mr. Arthur Greenwood: I really have done my best for my right hon. Friend about this Bill, but I am bound to say his speech makes me feel very disappointed. He has, in fact, admitted the case for the raising of the school-leaving age to 16 but I can see, if the Bill remains, as it is now, that we are still going to have—and I think I spoke on this in the House on an earlier occasion—two types of education. We are going to have the grammar school type, where 16 is the minimum school-leaving age, and 15 as the school-leaving age for the rest. I submit to the Committee that that is committing an injustice to those people who are not fortunate enough, as I was not, to be able to go to a school of the grammar school type. It may be true, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) said, that people can stay, but the point is, unless it is made possible for them to stay, economic circumstances make it impossible for them to continue their education. I think it is admitted—at least I hope it is admitted—by the vast majority of Members of this House, that children should enjoy full-time education up to the age of 16. There may be those who have not disclosed their views yet who are against it but, unless I am challenged, I am assuming that it is regarded now as in the national interest that there should be a compulsory minimum school-leaving age of 16. I believe that is right. I do not believe that 11 to 15 is right and my right hon. Friend has admitted as much. It should be 11 to 16. I submit two reasons for that, and for the proposal to bring it into operation as early as possible.
    The first is that in the days to come the intelligence and the spirit of the younger generation will be the governing factor in our success, morally, spiritually, intellectually, industrially, and commercially. My second point, which is connected with that, is, that we are becoming an older population and, when the National Health Service is fully developed, that tendency will continue. Length of life increases and, as time goes on, the younger generation are going to have to carry more passengers.

    749
    I do not say that in any bad sense at all but, in fact, we are going to have a population with a reduced proportion of workers. I would like to see the juvenile worker kept out of industry as long as possible, so that by his training, his intellectual development, his skill and so on, he can be of the maximum advantage to a nation over-weighted with old people. I think, therefore, that the matter is one of urgency. One wants to know whether the Government really mean business on this matter, whether they are prepared to give hostages to fortune.
    My right hon. Friend does not want to commit his successor. I am afraid that he is opening a door of escape for his successor in not being a little firmer on this matter. Now, if it be the will of Parliament that we have a definite school-leaving age of 15, if it be that my right hon. Friend is prepared to establish a three-year period for part-time education from 15 to 18 within three years, why should not the Government make up their minds now on some sort of plan about a school-leaving age of 16? My right hon. Friend said we have been playing about for long enough with 15. Of course we have, and I very much suspect that unless Clause 33 is tightened up there will be a lot of playing about for many years with 16. Now I admit all the difficulties. Indeed I think my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench opposite would admit at once that I always recognise difficulties, but I do not recognise the fact that difficulties are always insuperable. It is undoubtedly true, as my right hon. Friend says, that there will be a formidable task lying ahead in regard to building. I said earlier in a Debate, either on the White Paper or on this Bill, that I did not regard the building problem as the crux of the difficulty. I think the major problem is that of personnel, of teaching manpower and woman-power, and that I think is a matter that can be dealt with.
    My right hon. Friend wants local authorities to be thinking about young people's colleges within three years after raising the school-leaving age to 15. 1s it not equally important that local authorities should have a target for raising the school-leaving age? The Minister ought to go further. I knew Margaret Macmillan when I was a young man, 40 years ago, when she made a great experiment in Bradford, and I am sure that her spirit
    750
    was worth a great deal more than many of the magnificent buildings which have been built. I do not think we need worry too much about structures. I would hate to see our children schooled in the slums, but I would rather see them in temporary buildings than struggling in the labour market before they are properly prepared to meet their heavy responsibilities. My right hon. Friend referred to the Act of 1918. My views on that have been known for a very long time. I never thought much of the Fisher Act; it was a "dud" Act. Here my right hon. Friend is trying to do a good job but it seems that he has become suddenly nervous and afraid. He said that we should have a report to Parliament each year on reorganisation and the number of teachers. That is giving us nothing. On his Estimates we can challenge him every year on that matter and a number of other matters.
    What is being asked for in this Amendment is that this special problem should come before the House each year. If my right hon. Friend, or his successor, comes here and says that the buildings are not there and that there are not enough teachers he might get away with it, but when his desire is to raise the school-leaving age to 16 he ought to be prepared to come to the House each year and face the music and say, "Much as I want it, I do not think I can get it." His proposal seems to me to be completely inadequate. The last thing I like to do is to create any kind of trouble in the House—I regard myself as a soothing influence, on occasions—but I would ask him to think again. The Amendment is not a narrow parry Amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for East Islington (Mrs. Cazalet Keir) is not a member of my own party. Although I like to think of her as a personal friend we are political opponents. I see the names of other political opponents who are supporting the Amendment. There is a large body of opinion in the Committee which believes in 16 as a right school-leaving age, which wishes to pin this House of Commons and, in honour, any succeeding House of Commons, to the carrying out of that plan at the earliest opportunity. That is the purpose of this Amendment, and unless my right hon. Friend can show a little more sympathy to the wishes of Members of all parties I see no alternative but take all those who agree with

    751
    me into the Division Lobby against the Government.
    Hon. Members: Divide‡
    Sir G. Shakespeare: I have not wasted much of the time of the Committee—I have spoken only once so far—but I want to say that I am one of the most impatient men in the House when it comes to educational reform in that I am extremely critical of the deficiencies in our educational system. Nevertheless, I am completely satisfied with the Minister's answer. [HON. MEMBERS: "We knew you would be."] The real opponents of reform are those idealists who are always—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] If the Government fix a date for raising the school-leaving age to 16 then they are doing a definite disservice to the cause of educational reform, because we all know perfectly well that such a thing would not be popular. When we go to our constituencies and tell parents that the school age will be raised to 16 they will not support us. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]
    The Chairman: I would ask hon. Members kindly to keep Order.
    Sir G. Shakespeare: It is just as well to hear both sides. I remember that in my constituency, even when I suggested raising the age to 15, there was extreme opposition. I am sure that if we were to raise the age to 16 before facilities for education up to that age were ready a great disservice would be done to the cause of education. There would be a popular reaction against keeping children at school until that date and the very thing we want to avoid would come about. I for one, and I think, my hon. Friends too, are satisfied with the Minister's statement and hope that he will stick to the framework already in the Bill.
    Hon. Members: Divide‡
    Major Sir Derrick Gunston: I rarely speak, but I think I am entitled to reply to the statement made by the hon. Member for Norwich (Sir G. Shakespeare), that if the Government fixed a date they would do a great disservice to education. I appreciate that my right hon. Friend is in a difficult position, and I acknowledge the efforts he has made to meet us, but I cannot help feeling that the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) is right. This Amendment
    752
    puts an obligation on the Government. There is no doubt that in this present House of Commons there is an overwhelming majority who want to see the school-leaving age raised to 16. We do not know whether that would apply to the next House of Commons or not, but we hope it would. Why do we want the date to be fixed? When I used to visit young soldiers' battalions I was horrified to see a number of youths who had left school at the age of 14 and who had been out of work until the war started. We do not want a repetition of that experience, but we shall get it unless we put into the Bill a target date.
    My right hon. Friend has pointed out the difficulties. We all appreciate them. Our target date might be too short. It might want not more than three or it might want five years. If you put a target, I am quite prepared to advance it if you put it in and every year you have to explain why you have not raised it, you are insuring, once and for all, that the age will be raised to 16. If you leave it in the present position, you will have no guarantee. I appeal to my right hon. Friend, even at the last moment, to try to meet us.
    Mrs. Cazalet Keir: I have listened very carefully to the President of the Board of Education and I say at once that I only wish I could agree with him on this occasion, because I think he is one of the best Ministers of Education we have had for a very long time. But, unfortunately, I feel that this Amendment is a matter of principle and I must ask my hon. Friends to go into the Lobby in support of it.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    The Chairman: I think the sense of the Committee is that the discussion should now terminate.
    Mr. Lindsay: I rise only because I have an Amendment on the Paper and I have sat through the whole Debate and have not yet spoken. I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman's speech and I think there is a way out for him while still carrying the sense of the Committee with him. He has put before us absolutely unanswerable arguments about buildings, about teachers and about school-places. I imagine that these figures were known to the hon. Lady before she moved the Amendment. One reason why I am going

    753
    to support the Government is this. We had an earlier Debate which revealed that a large number of children who are in classes of 50 are so-called defectives but are very largely not defective at all. There are classes to-day going up to 60 and 70. I am not interested in this for the first time on this occasion and I will not be any party to the school-leaving age being raised to 16 at the expense of younger children being in classes of 40 and 50. That is no service to education. It may be popular—I do not think it is—but, apart from that, unless there is a maintenance grant till 16, or unless there are children's allowances, neither of which we have in the Bill, it is impossible to raise the age to 16.
    I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to see whether there is not a way of putting a positive rather than a negative statement in the Bill because almost everyone here wishes to see every child in the country going to school till 16. It is the price you pay for it, and it is an absurd price to pay that little children in infant and junior schools should be in classes of 40 and 50. I have been living with this problem of the 14's to 18's for 25 years. The right hon. Gentleman has made it quite clear that the essence of the proposal is continuity, and from the date the school-leaving age is raised to 15 those children will go straight into young people's colleges, or whatever they are going to be, for one day a week. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who spoke last talked about young soldiers. We are not talking of children leaving at 14 and being out of work for four years. We are talking of children leaving school at 15 and being under educational supervision until they are 18, which is an entirely different thing. For these reasons and many others, I propose to support the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Astor: May I suggest that the President of the Board of Education should give us a way out of the clash that has arisen? We are all agreed that the school-age should be raised to 16 at the earliest practicable moment. We are all agreed that the limiting factor of the date is the training of the necessary number of teachers. The President must be able to estimate the capacity of the training colleges which exist now, and which he may have after the war, and on that output he must be able to have some
    754
    idea as to when the production of teachers is going to reach the stage when there will be sufficient numbers for this purpose. The right hon. Gentleman must have those figures somewhere in his Department and must be able to see when the output of teachers will be sufficient. It may be that a time limit of three years is not practicable, but can the right hon. Gentleman not give us what he thinks is a practical time limit? It may be four or five years. If he could consider this, and give an undertaking that he will put in some time, whatever it is, it would meet the general wishes of the Committee. We do not ask him to do something impracticable, but we want a definite date in the Bill. I would ask him, before this goes to a Division, to meet the Committee on those lines.
    Mr. Butler: I always respond to an invitation to do my best. On this occasion I have stated quite clearly that there are certain definite problems with which the Government and local authorities have to deal. I have attempted to accelerate the time-table of the Bill in regard to looking after the adolescent child by providing for a definite date in Clause 41, to which no reference was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) or in any other speech. That is a definite acceleration of the progress of the Bill and an attempt to deal with young people. I have said quite clearly that in my view, the raising of the age to 16 depends on the provision of teachers and the completion of re-organisation, but I am unable to give an exact date because there will be an overlap between the many aspects of the educational programme and the recruiting of teachers from the Forces, their training and the allocation of teachers, as between different branches of the educational service. If I could give a date I would do so, and I shall continue to think of any manner in which the Bill can be improved between this stage and the next. But I never wish to avoid an issue which seems to have been clearly sought from the opposite side.
    There has been no ill-will in the Debate and I have nothing to complain of in the speeches, but the issue is divided as between different parties. If I undertake to do my best to examine the matter, it does not mean that I am going to depart from the phrases or the sentiments of my

    755
    speech. If hon. Members wish to put it to the vote, I am ready to accept that, and it is not a matter of someone on one side disagreeing with an educational reform and someone else being in favour of it but of some of us being rather more enthusiastic than others. If I have to be practicable, I am practicable as one who has attempted to be an educational reformer. I am sorry that hon. Members opposite have not been able to accept the

    Division No. 8.

    AYES.

    Acland-Treyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

    George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G. Lloyd (P'b'ke)

    Petherick, Major M.

    Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)

    Gibson, Sir C. G.

    Peto, Major B. A. J.

    Albery, Sir Irving

    Goldie, N. B.

    Pickthorn, K. W. M.

    Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.

    Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

    Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

    Baillie, Major Sir A. W. M.

    Greenwell, Colonel T. G.

    Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton

    Balfour, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. H.

    Gretton, J. F.

    Prescott, W. R. S.

    Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.

    Gridley, Sir A. B.

    Pym, L. R.

    Beattie, F. (Cathcart)

    Groves, T. E.

    Raikes, Flight-Lieut. H. V. A. M.

    Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

    Rankin, Sir R.

    Beaumont, Major Hn. R. E. B. (P't'th)

    Henderson, J. J. Craik (Leeds, N. E.)

    Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)

    Beech, Major F. W.

    Heneage, Lt.-Col. A. P.

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)

    Hepburn, Major P. G. T. Buchan

    Robertson, D. (Streatham)

    Berry, Hon. G. L. (Buckingham)

    Hepworth, J.

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. Sir M. A. (M'ham)

    Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsworth, C.)

    Hewlett, T. H.

    Ross Taylor, W.

    Blair, Sir R.

    Holdsworth, Sir H.

    Russell, Sir A. (Tynemouth)

    Blaker, Sir R.

    Horsbrugh, Florence

    Salt, E. W

    Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C.

    Howitt, Dr. A. B.

    Sanderson, Sir F. B.

    Boston, W. W.

    Hudson, Sir A. (Hackney, N.)

    Savory, Professor D. L.

    Bower, Comdr. R. T. (Cleveland)

    Hutchinson, G. C. (Ilford)

    Schuster, Sir G. E.

    Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.

    James, Wing-Com. A. (Well'borough)

    Scott, Lord William (Ro'b'h & Selk'k)

    Brooke, H. (Lewisham)

    James, Admiral Sir W. (Ports'th, N.)

    Selley, Sir H. R.

    Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

    Jarvis, Sir J. J.

    Shakespeare, Sir G. H.

    Bull, B. B

    Jeffreys, Gen. Sir G. D.

    Shephard, S.

    Bullock, Capt. M.

    Jewson, P. W.

    Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A.

    Burton, Col. H. W.

    Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k Newington)

    Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W. D.

    Butcher, H. W.

    Joynson Hicks, Lt.-Comdr. Hon. L. W.

    Smith, T. (Normanton)

    Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A.

    Keatinge, Major E. M.

    Somervell, Rt. Hon. Sir D. B.

    Cadogan, Major Sir E.

    Keeling, E. H.

    Southby, Comdr. Sir A. R. J.

    Campbell, Dermot (Antrim)

    King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley)

    Lamb, Sir J. Q.

    Stanley, Col. Rt. Hon. Oliver

    Cary, R. A.

    Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

    Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

    Castlereagh, Viscount

    Leach, W.

    Strickland, Capt. W. F.

    Channon, H.

    Leighton, Major B. E. P.

    Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

    Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

    Levy, T.

    Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

    Cobb, Captain E. C.

    Liddall, W. S.

    Suirdale, Viscount

    Colegate, W. A.

    Lindsay, K. M.

    Sykes, Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. Sir F. H.

    Colman, N. C. D.

    Little, Dr. J. (Down)

    Taylor, Major C. S. (Eastbourne)

    Conant, Major R. J. E.

    Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)

    Thomas, Dr. W. S. Russell (S'th'm'tn)

    Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

    Loftus, P. C.

    Tomlinson, G.

    Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.

    Lyle, Sir C. E. Leonard

    Touche, G. C.

    Culverwell, C. T.

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Oliver.

    Turton, R. H.

    Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

    Mabane, Rt. Hon. W.

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Denman, Hon. R. D.

    MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

    Ward, Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)

    Denville, Alfred

    McKinlay, A. S.

    Watt, Brig. G. S. Harvie (Richmond)

    Donner, Squadron-Leader P. W.

    Magnay, T

    Wayland, Sir W. A.

    Drewe, C.

    Makins, Brig.-Gen. Sir E.

    Webbe, Sir W. Harold

    Dugdale, Major T. L. (Richmond)

    Mander, G. le M.

    Wells, Sir S. Richard

    Duncan, Rt. Hon. Sir A. R. (C. Ldn.)

    Manningham-Buller, Major R. E.

    Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)

    Ede, J. C.

    Markham, Major S. F.

    Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

    Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Wilkinson, Ellen

    Edmondson, Major Sir J.

    Mellor, Sir J. S. P.

    Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

    Ellis, Sir G.

    Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R.

    Womersley, Rt. Hon. Sir W.

    Emmett, C. E. G. C.

    Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Universities)

    Woolley, Major W. E.

    Erskine-Hill, A. G.

    Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)

    Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

    Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)

    Morrison, Major J. G. (Salisbury)

    Fermoy, Lord

    Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—

    Fox, Squadron-Leader Sir G. W. G.

    Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.

    Captain McEwen and Mr. Beechman.

    Fyfe, Major Sir D. P. M.

    Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

    Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.

    O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

    letter and the spirit of all I have said, because I believe my method is the best one of achieving the reform that is desired.
    Mr. Lipson rose—
    Hon. Members: Divide‡
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 172; Noes, 137.

    NOES.

    Acland, Sir R. T. D.

    Granville, E. L.

    Parker, J.

    Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

    Pearson, A.

    Apsley, Lady

    Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

    Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.

    Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Grenfell, D. R.

    Price, M. P.

    Barnes, A. J.

    Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

    Pritt, D. N.

    Barr, J.

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

    Quibell, D. J. K.

    Barstow, P. G.

    Gunston, Major Sir D. W.

    Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)

    Bartlett, C. V. O.

    Guy, W. H.

    Riley, B.

    Beaumont, Hubert (Batley)

    Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)

    Rothschild, J. A. de

    Benson, G.

    Hardie, Agnes

    Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey, W.)

    Bower, Norman (Harrow)

    Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.

    Shinwell, E.

    Bowles, F. G.

    Harvey, T. E.

    Silkin, L.

    Brown, T. J. (Ince)

    Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

    Silverman, S. S.

    Brown, W. J. (Rugby)

    Hinchingbrcoke, Viscount

    Sloan, A.

    Buchanan, G.

    Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Burden, T. W.

    Hollins, J. H. (Silvertown)

    Smith, E. P. (Ashford)

    Burke, W. A.

    Hynd, J. B.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Cape, T.

    Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

    Stokes, R. R.

    Charleton, H. C.

    Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

    Storey, S.

    Chater, D.

    Kendall, W. D.

    Tate, Mrs. Mavis C.

    Cluse, W. S.

    Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

    Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

    Cocks, F. S.

    Key, C. W.

    Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

    Cove, W. G.

    Kirby, B. V.

    Teeling, Flight-Lieut. W.

    Daggar, G.

    Kirkwood, D.

    Thomas, I. (Keighley)

    Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)

    Lawson, H. M. (Skipton)

    Thorneycroft, Major G. E. P. (Stafford)

    Davies, Clement (Montgomery)

    Lawson, J. J. (Chester-le-Street)

    Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)

    Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

    Leslie, J. R.

    Tinker, J J.

    Dobbie, W.

    Linstead, H. N.

    Tree, A. R. L. F.

    Driberg, T. E. N.

    Lipson, D. L.

    Viant, S. P.

    Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)

    Logan, D. G.

    Walkden, A. G. (Bristol, S.)

    Dugdale, John (W. Bromwich)

    Loverseed, J. E.

    Walkden, E. (Doncaster)

    Dunn, E.

    McEntee, V. La T.

    Walker, J.

    Eccles, D. M.

    Mack, J. D.

    Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

    Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough, E.)

    Maclean, N. (Govan)

    Watson, W. McL.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Mainwaring, W. H.

    White, H. (Derby, N. E.)

    Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

    Martin, J. H.

    White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)

    Edwards, Walter J. (Whitechapel)

    Mathers, G.

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

    Entwistle, Sir C. F.

    Maxton, J.

    Windsor, W.

    Foster, W.

    Messer, F.

    Woodburn, A.

    Frankel, D

    Montague, F.

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

    Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)

    Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)

    Gallacher, W.

    Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

    Wright, Group Capt. J. (Erdington)

    Gales, Major E. E.

    Mort, D. L.

    York, Major C.

    George. Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

    Murray, J. D. (Spennymoor)

    Gibbins, J.

    Naylor, T. E.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—

    Glanville, J. E.

    Oldfield, W. H.

    Mrs. Cazalet Keir and Mr. Moelwyn Hughes.

    Grant-Ferris, Wing-Commander R.

    Oliver, G. H.

    Sir Joseph Lamb: I beg to move, in page 27, line 30, at the end, to add:
    "(2) Until the compulsory school age is raised to sixteen years, it shall be lawful for a local education authority to enter into an agreement with a parent of a pupil at any secondary school for the purpose of securing the attendance of the pupil at such school until the age of sixteen years, and upon the execution of such an agreement the age of sixteen shall, in relation to that pupil and for the purpose of the provisions of this Act relating to compulsory attendance, be deemed to be the upper limit of the compulsory school age unless the authority otherwise decide in any particular case."
    We have just had a long discussion upon whether the school-leaving age should foe 16. It may foe unnecessary to remind hon. Members that a very large number of children now attend school to the age of 16, with the consent of their parents. I was very glad to hear the President say what an advantage it was to children to be able to continue their education till
    758
    a later age. Unfortunately, it is not always, although they have given their consent, that parents can allow their children to remain in school to the age of 16. Education committees are very desirous that this Amendment should be carried so that it might be made compulsory for parents of such children to allow the children to remain to the full age of 16, until, that is to say, the completion of the course which the education committee in question have prepared for the children.
    It is the practice for local education authorities to come to an agreement with parents under which the parents are liable, or were thought to be liable, to a penalty, if the children left school without reasonable cause before the age in the agreement. Unfortunately, that arrangement has not proved very satisfactory. The House of Commons has agreed in the past to the principle which I am now asking should be put into the

    759
    Bill. Under 30 private Acts of Parliament a similar provision has been included, under which certain authorities have been given power to take the action which I am now asking should be put within the power of all the authorities under the Bill. It is difficult to assess the damage that is done to the educational system in consequence of children leaving at the earlier age than 16, and that is how difficulty arose, in cases which were taken to court, in connection with getting damages assessed. It is one of the reasons why the existing arrangement does not work satisfactorily. It is the desire of local education authorities that they should have this power, and I believe the Clause makes it clear how it could be worked. I ask the Minister to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Lindsay: I support the Amendment. Every three or four months the hon. Member for Devizes (Sir P. Hurd) has been asking a question, alternately of the Postmaster-General and the President of the Board of Education, about how it was that, despite a solemn contract for a child to stay at school till 16, the Post Office was poaching them away at 15. I say that, only to illustrate the argument which lies behind the Amendment.
    Mr. Ede: The Amendment does not carry out the arrangement with regard to the school-life undertaking, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) refers. That undertaking is usually in the form that the pupil shall remain at school until the end of the school year in which he or she attains the age of 16. It is designed that the pupil shall stay long enough to take the school certificate examination. The Amendment does not secure that object. It secures only that the pupil shall stay at school until the end of the term in which he or she is 16. We should, therefore, have some children under the old school-leaving arrangement staying at school while others would be exempt under the proposal of the Amendment. It is not clear how the Amendment would fit in with Clause 37 of the Bill. It is customary for the local education authority to reserve the right to release a child if the circumstances of the child or of the home make it desirable that the child should be released before the time specified in the undertaking.
    760
    For those reasons it would not be possible for the Government to accept the Amendment itself, but we are as anxious as the hon. Member that school life should be as long as possible, and we will do all we can so that children remain at school. It is not possible, in the altered circumstances, for the Amendment in this form to fit in with the general scheme of the Bill, but if my hon. Friend feels that the Amendment should be put in some form more acceptable, and if he will have a conversation with me between now and the next stage of the Bill, I will see if it is possible to meet the point which he desires should be met.
    Sir J. Lamb: I thank the Minister for what he has said, and I am sorry that the words of the Amendment are not, in his opinion, suitable. They are words which were given to me by the local authorities, and I had hoped that they would be suitable. Perhaps at another time and in another part of the Bill it will be possible to include an Amendment of this character. I beg, therefore, to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. G. Griffiths rose—
    Major Milner: Is it the pleasure of the Committee that the Amendment be withdrawn?
    Mr. Griffiths: No, it is not the pleasure of the Committee that the Amendment be withdrawn. This Amendment gives the authority the opportunity, if they so desire, to agree that a child shall remain there until he is 16. That is the kernel of the Amendment. The Parliamentary Secretary says "No, we cannot accept this," stating quite definitely that the child must leave at 15. That is what it means. The Amendment states very clearly that a parent can, if he so desires, make an agreement with the new secondary school, that is the secondary school which is to be set up in the Bill, that his child shall stay at school until 16. The Parliamentary Secretary says "We cannot accept that; they must leave; they have to leave when they are 15 because we have decided that they cannot stay until they are 16." [Interruption.] I am sorry if I am dull on this. I did not think I had fallen off a Christmas tree. I feel certain that if this Amendment is not accepted, the boy cannot stay in the school until he is 16.
    Mr. Ede: No one will accuse my hon. Friend of being dull, but there is no law in the country, certainly nothing in this Bill, which compels a parent to take his child away from school the moment he is 15. The child can stay in the school, within reason, as long as the parent chooses to keep him there. Children can srtay at the existing elementary schools until they are 16 although the compulsory school-leaving age is only 14. This Amendment deals with a form of contract entered into between the parents and the local education authorities in the case of the existing secondary schools under the present regulations. It was very difficult to work, except by those authorities who took the precaution of getting a special Clause into a local Act providing that they did not have to prove damage, and, even then, there were difficulties, on occasion, in enforcing it. It has nothing to do with the Amendment on which the Committee has just divided. It deals with a particular and limited class. I hope, in view of what has been said, the Commitee will now agree that we can move on.
    Sir J. Lamb: I think the Parliamentary Secretary did indicate that he would discuss the matter with us.
    Mr. Ede: I did say we would discuss it to see whether we can meet the legitimate point which the hon. Member has in mind.
    Amendment negatived.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 34.—(Duty of parents to secure the education of their children.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Hugh Lawson: I had an Amendment down on this Clause—
    "In page 27, leave out line 34, and add:
    'by regular attendance between the ages of seven and twelve at a school maintained by the local education authority and during the remainder of the time that the child is of compulsory school age by regular attendance at a school or otherwise'"—
    but as it is not being called, I feel I must speak to the Motion which has been put before us, and try to persuade the Committee to reject this Clause. I may be misunderstood in asking that we should reject it, but it is the only way in which I feel I can protest against a principle
    762
    contained in the Clause which is very bad indeed. The Clause says that parents must see that their children get efficient full-time education
    "either by regular attendance at school or otherwise."
    I think there is a very bad principle contained there, and by urging the rejection of the Clause I am giving the Minister an opportunity of putting in a different Clause, which, I hope, will have a different principle. I think, therefore, I may be in order to indicating why I think it contains a bad principle and why we should reject the Clause. It contains a bad principle because it still leaves the two systems of education which we have in this country to-day, the free system, the State system to which ordinary folk can go, and the limited system, which is there for the benefit and advantage of those who can pay for it. We talk about the dual system but this is the real thing which is wrong in this Bill.
    The Bill is a step forward, but it still leaves this principle of education for the ordinary folk and education for the privileged, and it is something against which I wish to protest very strongly indeed, this fact of the two systems of education, which divides the community into two classes. I do not think any hon. Members will disagree with me when I say that that is a fact which cannot be got over. Therefore, because I want to see a society in which there is more communal spirit, a classless society if you like, I wish to start having a classless system of education. I do not intend to waste a lot of time elaborating this point. I think it is well known to most Members of this Committee. We have to decide whether we are to regard education as a commodity, something to be sold to the highest bidder—because that is how this Clause leaves it—or whether we are to regard education as a public service available to all, in accordance with their need. If I might remind the Minister of some advice John Wesley once gave to his itinerant preachers, I would say, "Go not only to those who need you, but to those who need you most." I think that that is the principle on which we should distribute such educational facilities as we have.
    A great deal has been made throughout the Committee stage of this Bill of the fact that we have not enough teachers, enough

    763
    buildings, that there is a scarcity of educational facilities. In circumstances like these I think it absolutely essential that there should be really fair and equitable distribution of those facilities to all members of the community. While we still have this principle that some can buy a larger share, we have not got that fair distribution. So I am asking this Committee to reject this Clause. I know that many hon. Members will not agree with what I have said. It really does not depend on small arguments. It depends on a fundamental conception of what you think society ought to be. I would put it in a very few words in this way. Those Members who want to see the continuation of a society based on class privilege will support this Clause; to those who want a different system, those who want to see the abolition of class privilege, I shall give a chance of showing that they disagree with this Clause.
    Viscountess Astor: Could I ask the hon. Member to define class privilege?
    Mr. Lawson: As the Noble Lady has asked me, in this particular case, referring to education, I would say that class privilege is—
    Viscountess Astor: I did not mean education, I meant in society.
    Mr. Lawson: If I answered that question I think I should be ruled out of Order. I hope I may have an opportunity at some future date of answering the Noble Lady's question. Class privilege with regard to education is this: if you wish to find those who have got the best education, you have only to look at the number of people, for instance, who get university degrees. In the main, the people who get the best education are those who start by going through a school where they pay. I think the facts and figures prove that. You have, therefore, two ladders, and in the case of the class privilege ladder, because you are paying for it, you are getting better value. You are starting a couple of rungs up. I do not think anyone will deny that our present educational system does give great advantages to those who are able to buy a better education, and I am only asking the Committee to reject this principle and to say that education is not a saleable commodity and that everyone is going through the same door.
    Mr. Messer: There are only two things I wish to say. The hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. H. Lawson) would lead the Committee to believe that you cannot get good education under a public authority. I do not agree. The implication of all that he has said is that rich people, who can afford to pay for education, have their children better educated than poor people. It is not true that you cannot get as good education under the public authorities. I agree that you can get a lot of other very exciting things by paying money—you can, for instance, get the old school tie. My second point is that I do not want the hon. Member to be under the impression that he is the only one who believes in a classless society, or in the abolition of class privilege. But the rejection of this Clause will not secure that. What the rejection of the Clause, or even acceptance of the hon. Member's own Amendment, would secure is that the sort of child we have been speaking about earlier would not get education. Every child should be made to go to school. If we are to abolish private schools, that is another matter; but it cannot be done in this way. I agree with the aims of the hon. Member, but not with his methods.
    Mr. Barstow: I am in the same difficulty as my hon. Friend, in wishing to oppose the Clause without supporting the Amendment on the Paper. The last two words in the Clause are "or otherwise." Although we are discussing the educational system of the future, we are not even concerned with whether the parent sends his child into a school, or keeps him at home under private tuition. We are going to continue the pernicious system of allowing one child to go to a village school, or a council school, and allowing another to go to a preparatory school. There is something peculiar which prevents us bringing all types of schools into this discussion. Under this Bill we cannot discuss the public schools, and we cannot discuss the private schools. I would ask the Committee to realise that democracy, obviously, should mean every child having an equal opportunity. This Bill does not give that, and the Bill is not designed to give it. This Bill does not matter two straws.
    The Chairman: The hon. Member cannot discuss the Bill as a whole. The question is, that this particular Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Barstow: That, of course, is the difficulty. I am in a very great difficulty, because I cannot, under this Bill, discuss something that is entirely wrong. I would give warning, however, to the Government that we are not living in 1938. We may, in this House, voice our own opinions. Here we have a lot of elderly people discussing the welfare of children, but there is a volume of people outside who will sweep away all these inhibitions by which this Bill is restricted. I am sorry that I cannot make all the points I want to make, but I shall not delay the Committee any longer.
    Mr. Logan: I cannot for the life of me understand what differentiation there is in regard to classes in connection with this Amendment.
    Mr. Butler: It has nothing whatever to do with it.
    Mr. Logan: Quite so. I should imagine that education is really a matter for the parents, and I do not see anything in this Clause with which one could disagree. If I had a child of tender years, and I thought that, from a moral point of view, it would be better for that child to have tuition in private, or at home, I would arrange such tuition. It can be done at home, and it used to be done in the Middle Ages. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] And it was done remarkably well. I have not found anything better to-day in our public schools than some of the speeches for children which I have been able to read, which were produced some generations ago. Therefore, when I read about the duty of parents to secure the education of their children, I ask, If a child is up to the school standard, what more is required? Going to school does not make an educated child. I would consider, among the responsibilities of parents, that of bringing a tutor into the home.
    If that tutor could be brought in, time might be found, and I am not unaware that, in the theatrical profession, this would hit very hardly against some people. I suppose it would mean that a penalty would be inflicted on the parents if the child did not go to school, and that, in, every town in which its parents might be situated, the child would have to go to school. Now that would interfere very largely with many travelling bodies that are giving public entertainment and I am
    766
    convinced that tuition up to a certain age would be well met. I imply, of course, that every ordinary child should get the best education possible in a public school by the best teachers, but I do not want anything—
    The Chairman: Hon. Members are not entitled to expatiate at length upon this matter. The fact is that this Bill has already decided that there should be different types of schools, and it is not open to hon. Members to have long discussions on some points.
    Mr. Logan: With respect to that Ruling, Major Milner, what does "or otherwise" mean, then?
    The Chairman: The hon. Member is not only dealing with the question of "or otherwise."
    Sir Richard Acland: Two hon. Members have attempted to amend this Clause. The intention of their Amendment was to prevent rich parents from being allowed to send their children to paid schools. I am sorry that neither of the hon. Members succeeded in putting an Amendment which is in Order. This Clause says the Bill leaves it open for parents—
    The Chairman: I think I ought to say that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. Hugh Lawson) was really too late, and inconsistent with what has already been decided by the Bill.
    Sir R. Acland: It seems to me that this has been the only point at which we can bring a challenge against the whole conception of their being paid schools for rich people alongside different kinds of free schools—county council schools, Church of England and denominational schools. I agree that that has been decided upon, but where in the Bill has it been decided that you can have private paid schools for rich parents to send their children to? I know the thing has not come into the Bill very prominently at any point, and it seems to me that it is a rather ingenious point about it.
    I think I pointed it out in the discussion on the White Paper, and with some vigour, if I remember rightly. I suggested that this is a complete blot on the educational reform which the Minister is introducing, in that it preserves this bought education for the rich. Various people, on various matters, have said that

    767
    the people feel very strongly. I have never detected that the public feel very strongly on any of the matters upon which other hon. Members have said the people feel strongly, but I have, detected that they feel very strongly about this. I think this is the only educational matter on which you could raise any great enthusiasm among the ordinary privates in the British Army. You would raise a very great enthusiasm among such people, and, in a modest way, I claim to have done so from time to time by the plain, straight statement that all children should be given their education at one or other of the free schools, and that their progress from school to school should depend solely on the ability and the needs of the child, and in no way at all on the purse or position of the parents. What I am saying allows different kinds of schools. The parents can choose between all the different kinds of free schools. The thing I am objecting to is the little snob "prep" school. These snob schools which deny—
    Viscountess Astor rose—
    Sir R. Acland: This business of separating the children of the rich from the ordinary children of our country and fitting them into different schools is the beginning of the poison in the class system of this country, and I am quite prepared—although I have not worked it out in detail—to give a definition of class. A class system arises when there exists in any country one group of people who regard themselves as being a different kind of animal from the rest of the people, and that is what you have got now, and the noble Lady is a marvellous example of it.
    Viscountess Astor: I am certainly a different animal from the hon. Member.
    Sir R. Acland: I said a different species, and may I say—
    The Chairman: I think we must avoid these personal references. I hope the hon. Member will keep to the point.
    Mr. Reakes: And will the noble Lady behave herself?
    Sir R. Acland: In the Debate on the White Paper, when I raised this matter, I tried to point out that this business of sending one small lot of children, perhaps 5 or 10 per cent, of the whole, to one sort
    768
    of school—the paid, "prep" school—while the rest go to the county council, denominational or free schools, begins at the age of 5 or 6, segregating our children and putting into their heads subconsciously, and very certainly into the heads of the 5 per cent., the idea "You are different because you are superior to the rest," and into the heads of the 95 per cent., "You are different, because you are inferior." The Parliamentary Secretary in replying to me in the White Paper discussion, said he was one of the 95 per cent, and that he had watched the 5 per cent, going to their privileged schools, and that he and his comrades despised this privileged 5 per cent.
    Mr. Ede Mr. Ede indicated dissent.
    Sir R. Acland: I was one of the 5 per cent.
    Mr. Logan: One of the superior?
    Sir R. Acland: Certainly not. I have been given the kind of education which it is extraordinarily difficult for me to escape from, and I want more and more—
    Sir Patrick Hannon: On a point of Order. The Clause we are discussing deals with the duty of sending children to school. What in the world has this to do with it?
    Sir R. Acland: Certainly, I remember that the 5 per cent, were thoroughly despised by the 95 per cent. I remember, for example, that they could throw stones better than we could. Do not let us have any doubt about it. It is an important point. Whether we were looking down on them, or they on us, we and they were being taught that we were different kinds of children and that is the poison. That the hon. Member will not deny. This is the most absolute "Alice in Wonderland" situation. If we were to defeat the the Clause now and force the Minister to get busy and put in some new Clause which would end this rottenness of the private, paid, bought schools for the rich, then we would show educational progress in this country. Why is it that the Minister can come here and frighten us with the conception that 80 per cent, of the country's schools have not been reorganised, when, if anybody cared about them, you could reorganise that 80 per cent, in a couple of years? Nobody does care about them.
    The Chairman: Reorganisation does not really come into this question. The hon. Baronet should keep to the point and deal with Clause 34.
    Sir R. Acland: I am trying to point out how much the Minister could do for education, if the argument for which I am contending was accepted, by knocking out this Clause and putting in a different Clause at a later stage. How many Ministers have sent their own children to the schools which I am talking about? How many of the top people in education send their children to these free schools? How many chairmen and secretaries of county education committees send their children to the county schools which they control? Pretty few. They are all buying privileged education for their own children while pretending that the education they offer for other people's children is good enough. How many county councillors in the rural areas send their children to the school for which they have some responsibility? Very few.
    They go on buying some privilege for their own children, and it is because of that that there is so little steam put behind it. If this Clause could be knocked out, and you could put in a Clause, which resulted in every gentleman's son going to the ordinary county free school; if every company director's son and every big landlord's son and every rich man's son had to go to the ordinary county free school, and if that persisted for five years, then you would get some steam behind education. Then some influential people would really begin to agree.
    As long as you are all talking about a perfectly marvellous and adequate system of education for the ordinary people of this country, while 95 per cent, of the hon. Members on both sides of this Committee are seeing to it that their children and their grandchildren do not go to any of the schools that we are talking about to-day, we in this Committee, particularly hon. Members opposite, will not give half an hour per week or even half a day per year of real thought and anxiety about how well these schools are managed. Once our own children can go to the schools for which we are responsible, and to those schools only, then hon. Members will agree about them, and you will get a concerted drive from this House, and you will get the teachers. It is all fiddlesticks
    770
    to pretend that you cannot train any number of teachers in three years.
    It is the same with regard to reorganisation. You can build thousands of acres of aerodromes, and all the rest of it in a year or two, because you put drive into it. If you put the same drive into education, you could do these things. The reason why you have no determination, is because you leave people to go on to the county council with the cry "Save the rates." This Clause, which allows parents to buy privileged tickets, is the supreme blot on this Bill. I propose to divide the Committee on it, and then we shall see who is in favour of one kind of education for the rich and who is in favour of a system of universal education for rich and poor alike.
    Mr. Ede: I am sure that the Committee would not desire me to stand very long-between it and the Division which the hon. Baronet has promised us. He and his hon. Friend the Member for Skipton (Mr. Lawson) are themselves at variance on this matter because the hon. Member for Skipton does not support the regular attendance of children until they are seven years of age.
    Sir R. Acland: Surely, the hon. Member is not discussing the Amendment which has not been called.
    Mr. Ede: I am drawing attention to the views of the hon. Member for Skipton, which, fortunately, we have in front of us in writing.
    Sir R. Acland: But which we are not discussing now.
    Mr. Ede: I am pointing out the reference to seven years.
    Sir R. Acland: If the hon. Member is going to criticise an Amendment which you have not called, Major Milner, we must have the right to defend that Amendment, which we worded in such a way as to provoke as little opposition as possible. It was not called, and if the Minister goes on criticising that Amendment, we must defend it at length.
    The Chairman: I understand that the hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. Lawson) was making the point he had wished to make on the Amendment, on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." If that is so, the Minister is entitled to reply.
    Mr. Ede: Let us realise that what the hon. Members are asking is a State monopoly of education. Surely we have seen enough in Europe during the last few years to indicate the danger of that.
    Mr. Barstow: Does that remark apply to the Soviet?
    Mr. Ede: I was making a clear statement. I do not believe, and the Government do not believe, that they have the right to prescribe the only form of education that shall be given in this country.
    Sir R. Acland: They do for the ordinary working class.
    Mr. Ede: If the hon. Member lived in a London suburb for a few weeks, he would know that nowhere is the problem of class education more acute than in the areas almost entirely populated by the working classes, where there is the small private school conducted in the front room of a suburban villa. This is a far greater evil in the education system than all the schools to which the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir R. Acland) has alluded.
    Mr. H. Lawson: That is just the sort of school with which my Amendment was dealing.
    Mr. Ede: I listened to the hon. Member and did not interrupt him at all, and I think I might be allowed now to proceed with the answer to the arguments that have been addressed to us. We have taken powers in the Bill—for the first time—in Part III in order to deal with the problem of the independent schools. The Departmental Committee reported n years ago on this subject and we have now taken the trouble to deal with it. The parents in this, country who can give an efficient education to their children at home should still be allowed to do so. Parents who desire that their children should receive a particular form of education that is demonstrably efficient should be allowed to give it to them, even if it is not inside the State system. What we are determined is that they shall not make those wishes a cloak for giving a child an insufficient education in an insanitary room, in circumstances that make education very difficult. In Part III of the Bill we take steps to protect the children in the future against parents and teachers who give education in these circumstances. We have been appealed to throughout the discus-
    772
    sions on the Bill to recognise the rights of the parents. We have in this Clause altered the duty of parents from a narrow one to a very wide one, to give efficient full-time instruction according to the age, ability and aptitude of the child, instead of the present very narrow provision that it shall be efficient elementary education in reading, writing and arithmetic only. I hope that the Committee will feel that we have endeavoured, simultaneously, to strengthen the efficiency of our education service, to secure the rights of the child to an efficient full-time education and to preserve the right of the parent to give the child education in accordance with his wishes, so long as it is efficient.
    Mr. Martin: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary a sincere question? Where a parent has a child at a school—it may be a village where there is only one school—which he does not think efficient, what, under this Clause, is the proper course for him to pursue in order to give his child an efficient education?
    Mr. Ede: If the allegation is that the school is inefficient, he should draw the attention of the Board of Education and the local education authority to it, so that it can be inspected and put right. If the dislike of the school arises from religious or other feeling, my hon. Friend will find that in Clause 53 and elsewhere in the Bill we are taking steps to ensure that the parent's wishes shall be met.
    Mr. Martin: I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he might draw the attention of parents to their rights and duties in that respect, because I think very few parents, in the ordinary way, would think of approaching the Board of Education.
    Mr. Ede: Our correspondence does not indicate that. We frequently receive such letters and, as an ex-chairman of an education authority, I know that very considerable interest is taken by parents in communicating with the local education authority to make complaints, some of which turn out to be legitimate, with regard to the education of their children.
    Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 216, Noes, 4.

    Division No. 9.

    AYES.

    Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)

    Glanville, J. E.

    Parker, J.

    Albery, Sir Irving

    Glyn, Sir R. G. C.

    Pearson, A.

    Anderson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. (So'h. Univ.)

    Goldie, N. B.

    Petherick, Major M.

    Apsley, Lady

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

    Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.

    Astor, Viscountess (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Greene, W P. C. (Worcester)

    Pickthorn, K. W. M.

    Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham E.)

    Greenwell, Colonel T. G.

    Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

    Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

    Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

    Prescott, W. R. S.

    Balfour, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. H.

    Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

    Price, M. P.

    Barr, J.

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

    Pritt, D. N.

    Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.

    Gruffydd, W. J.

    Quibell, D. J. K.

    Beanie, F. (Cathcart)

    Gunston, Major Sir D. W.

    Raikes, Flight-Lieut. H. V. A. M.

    Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

    Guy, W. H.

    Rankin, Sir R.

    Beaumont, Hubert (Batley)

    Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)

    Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)

    Beaumont, Maj. Hn. R. E. B. (P'ts'h)

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Beech, Major F. W.

    Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.

    Roberts, W.

    Beechman, N, A.

    Harvey, T. E.

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. Sir M. A. (M'ham)

    Beit, Sir A. L.

    Henderson, J, J. Craik (Leeds, N. E.)

    Rothschild, J. A. de

    Bennett, Sir P. F. B. (Edgbaston)

    Heneage, Lt.-Col. A. P.

    Russell, Sir A. (Tynemouth)

    Benson, G.

    Hepburn, Major P. G. T. Buchan

    Salt, E. W.

    Bernays, R. H.

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Sanderson, Sir F. B.

    Berry, Hon. G. L. (Buckingham)

    Hogg, Hon. Q. McG.

    Savory, Professor D. L.

    Boulton, W. W.

    Holdsworth, Sir H.

    Schuster, Sir G. E.

    Bower, Norman (Harrow)

    Hollins, J. H. (Silvertown)

    Scott, Lord William (Ro'b'h & Selk'k)

    Brocklebank, Sir C. E. R.

    Hopkinson, A.

    Shephard, S.

    Brooke, H. (Lewisham)

    Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

    Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W. D.

    Brown, T. J. (Ince)

    Hudson, Sir A. (Hackney, N.)

    Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

    Bull, B. B.

    Hulbert, Wing Commander N. J.

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Bullock, Capt. M.

    Hutchinson, G. C. (Ilford)

    Smith, E. P. (Ashford)

    Burden, T. W.

    James, Wing-Com. A. (Well'borough)

    Somervell, Rt. Hon. Sir D. B.

    Burke, W. A.

    Jeffreys, Gen. Sir G. D.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Burton, Col. H. W.

    Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

    Southby, Comdr. Sir A. R. J.

    Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A.

    Jewson, P. W.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Campbell, Sir E. T. (Bromley)

    Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Comdr. Hn. L. W.

    Stokes, R. R.

    Campbell, Dermot (Antrim)

    Keir, Mrs. Cazalet

    Storey, S.

    Cape, T.

    Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

    Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

    Cary, R. A.

    Key, C. W.

    Strickland, Capt. W. F.

    Chater, D.

    King-Hall, Commander W. S. R.

    Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

    Cobb, Captain E. C.

    Kirby, B. V.

    Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

    Colegate, W. A.

    Lamb, Sir J. Q.

    Suirdale, Viscount

    Conant, Major R. J. E.

    Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

    Sutcliffe, H.

    Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

    Leighton, Major B. E. P.

    Taylor, Major C. S. (Eastbourne)

    Crowder, Capt. J. F. E.

    Leslie, J. R.

    Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

    Culverwell, C. T.

    Linstead, H. N.

    Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

    Davies, Clement (Montgomery)

    Lipson, D. L.

    Teeling, Flight-Lieut. W.

    Denman, Hon. R. D.

    Little, Dr. J. (Down)

    Thomas, I. (Keighley)

    Denville, Alfred

    Lloyd, C. E. (Dudley)

    Thomas, Dr. W. S. Russell (S'th'm'tn)

    Dobbie, W.

    Lloyd, Major E. G. R. (Renfrew, E.)

    Thorneycroft, Major G. E. P. (Stafford)

    Douglas, F. C. R.

    Loftus, P. C.

    Thorneycroft, H. (Clayton)

    Drewe, C.

    Logan, D. G.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Bribers, T. E. N.

    Longhurst, Captain H. C.

    Tree, A. R. L. F.

    Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)

    MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.

    Turton, R. H.

    Dugdale, John (W. Bromwich)

    Mack, J. D.

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Dugdale, Major T. L. (Richmond)

    Magnay, T.

    Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

    Dunn, E.

    Makins, Brig,-Gen. Sir E.

    Watson, W. McL.

    Eccles, D. M.

    Mander, G. le M.

    Walt, Brig. G. S. Harvie (Richmond)

    Ede, J. C.

    Manningham-Buller, Major R. E.

    Wayland, Sir W. A.

    Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

    Markham, Major S. F.

    Webbe, Sir W. Harold

    Edmondson, Major Sir J.

    Mathers, G.

    White, H. (Derby, N.E.)

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    White, H. Graham (Birkenhead, E.)

    Edwards, Walter J. (Whitechapel)

    Mellor, Sir J. S. P.

    Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. (Blaydon)

    Ellis, Sir G.

    Molson, A. H. E.

    Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

    Emmott, C. E. G. C.

    Morgan, Dr. H. B. W. (Rochdale)

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

    Entwistle, Sir C. F.

    Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)

    Williams, Sir H. G. (Croydon, S.)

    Erskins-Hill, A. G.

    Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)

    Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

    Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)

    Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Universities)

    Woodburn, A.

    Fermoy, Lord

    Morrison, Major J. G. (Salisbury)

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Foster, W.

    Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)

    Woolley, Major W. E.

    Fox, Squadron-Leader Sir G. W. G.

    Mort, D. L.

    Wright, Mrs. Beatrice F. (Bodmin)

    Frankel, D.

    Murray, J. D. (Spennymoor)

    Wright, Group Capt. J. (Erdington)

    Galbraith, Comdr. T. D.

    Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.

    York, Major C.

    Gates, Major E. E.

    Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

    Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

    Gibbins, J.

    Oldfield, W. H.

    Gibson, Sir C. G.

    Oliver, G. H.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—

    Capt. McEwen and Mr. Pym.

    NOES.

    Buchanan, G.

    Maxton, J.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—

    McGovern, J.

    Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)

    Sir R. Acland and Mr. Hugh Lawson.

    CLAUSE 35.—(School attendance orders.)
    The Chairman: There are several Amendments on this Clause dealing with the same point, and perhaps hon. Members who have put their names to those Amendments, will be good enough to discuss them on the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) which I now call.
    Sir P. Hannon: I beg to move, in page 28, to leave out lines 12 to 16, and to insert:
    "provided that before selecting the school to be named in the order the authority shall consider any representations the parent may make and if the parent is dissatisfied with the selection made by the authority he may appeal to the Minister whose decision shall prevail."
    We want to secure that in this Bill the right of the parent should have the fullest possible protection. This Amendment proposes that before selecting a school the authority should consider any representation a parent may make, and if the parent is dissatisfied with the selection made he may appeal to the Minister, whose decision shall prevail. Some local authorities may not give sympathetic consideration to the case put forward by a parent and that being so the parent ought to be able to appeal to the Minister himself. Under this Clause we are dealing with orders made by local authorities in relation to schools and we want to do everything we possibly can to preserve the right of the parent and to ensure that the parent should have the last word in regard to the education of his children. A few minutes ago an hon. Member opposite asked what was to happen to a child whose parents said that its school was inefficient. The Parliamentary Secretary replied that the parent could appeal to the local authority. But suppose the local authority agree with the persons responsible for the management of the school, and not with the parent. Where would an appeal lie? How would the parent be able to get satisfaction? On that ground alone, I feel that it should be clearly defined precisely where the parent stands with regard to the education of the child. The Amendment speaks for itself and I hope it will be largely supported.
    Mr. Stokes: I should like to say a word or two in support of the Amendment, especially in view of the demonstration that we had a few minutes ago—
    The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams): We must not go backwards.
    Mr. Stokes: I will not slip again, but the Education Bill seems to make strange bedfellows. The Minister has promised that he will keep the rights of parents to the fore in the Bill. I support what the hon. Member opposite has said, that those rights should be inserted wherever possible, and this seems a suitable point to insert them.
    Sir J. Lamb: I have Amendments on the Paper which you, Mr. Williams, or your predecessor said could be considered with this Amendent. I should like to support what my hon. Friend has said because I do not think any of us would deny the right of the parents to have the ultimate decision in their hands of the school to which the child shall go. Unfortunately there are many parents perhaps not quite in the same position as the local authority and the teachers of the school where the child has been receiving its education, to say where it will receive the greatest benefit. It should be the duty of the local education authority to make an order suggesting the school, but the parents should have the right of making their representations. The only qualification I would put to it is that, if the parents' recommendations are not accepted by the local authority, they should have the right to appeal to the Minister and the Minister should have the opportunity of deciding, I think it is something that we can ask for, and I hope the Minister will accept it.
    Mr. Ede: I do not think my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) can really have read the words which it is proposed to omit, because they give the parents a greater right than the words the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) proposes to substitute for them. It is true that my hon. Friend is accustomed to going to bed with the hon. Member for Moseley on certain aspects of this Bill, but this is an occasion when they should, at least, have twin beds, if not separate bedrooms. We propose that, when the education order is made, the parent shall have the right of selecting the school and, if the local authority object, he may appeal to the Minister. The proposal of the Amendment is precisely the reverse. The local authority, in fact, select the school, and the parent has to appeal. I think our way of doing this is the right

    777
    way, because it is easier for a local education authority to appeal to the Minister than for an individual parent in some village or back street who, even if he knows of his right does not know the way in which he can exercise it. If we desire to preserve the right of the parent to select the school, the way we have arranged for it is to ensure that he shall have the first voice and that it will only be in cases where he exercises some ludicrous choice, that there is likely to be an appeal by the local education authority. I hope the Committee will agree that the Clause shall stand as worded.
    Mr. Colegate: I am in sympathy with the Parliamentary Secretary's exposition of the case, but would he not consider the possibility at a later stage of leaving out the words "where practicable"? These seem to me to throw some doubt on the right of the parents, which doubt would be removed, if those words were removed. Moreover, the wording does not seem quite grammatical. I think the word "practicable" applies to the selection, but surely, if the words were left out, the hon. Member's doubts might be to some extent resolved.
    Mr. Silkin: I have a great deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend has said, but in many cases the parent is not in a position to know what schools are available. He might select one because an older brother was going to a certain school, and he might want the younger brother to go to the same school. But the older brother will be going on to a secondary school, to which the younger one will not be able to go. Or he may choose on the basis that a particular school is near his home, regardless of the type of school. In an urban area, that is likely to happen a great deal with the multiplicity of different types of schools It seems to me, therefore, that it would be wiser to let the local authority name the school after consultation with the parents. They would be informed of the ground on which a particular school is chosen and they would know that, if they are not satisfied, they have the right of appeal. I think, if it is made a condition that the local authority should make the choice after consultation with the parents, the parents' position is safeguarded and the right hon. Gentleman will have fewer appeals than he would otherwise have where the parent makes
    778
    the decision. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the matter.
    Captain Cobb: I think the Parliamentary Secretary is perfectly right. The wording in the Bill is far better than that in the Amendment. I feel that the parents ought to have the right to say what kind of education the child should have and to what sort of school he should go. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) is tending more and more to treat the parent as if he was a sort of half wit who wants a nurse to lead him across the road. I want parents to take a more intelligent interest in the education of their children and I think they ought to be encouraged to take it. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will resist the Amendment.
    Sir P. Hannon: I am not entirely satisfied with the hon. Gentleman's answer because it does not credit the ordinary parent with the intelligence to make an appeal. I think most parents will be able to make an appeal, or get someone to advise them how to make one. The ordinary man is not so bereft of intelligence as not to be able to do this. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) that the words "where practicable" ought to be removed and, if that is done, I shall be glad to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Mr. Ede: The cases we are dealing with are, on occasion, quite difficult. For instance, a child may have no parent or guardian who can readily be traced. Clearly someone in that case will have to make a school attendance order, but it would not be practicable to consult with the parents. It is for that kind of reason that these words are inserted.
    Sir J. Lamb: In that case, on whom would you serve the order?
    Mr. Ede: You would probably have to find the present custodian. I ask hon. Members to realise that it is sometimes a matter of great difficulty for the parent to realise what are his exact rights. An appeal to a Government Department appears to some person in a small rural cottage, or in a back street in a town, a far more tremendous operation than it is. I have no doubt that a local education authority desiring to make an order will draw the attention of the parent to the nature of the alternative schools that may

    779
    be available and, if he indicated that he was going to ask for one which was unsuitable, would point out the unsuitability. If, in spite of that, the parent insisted, the local education authority would appeal and would be in a great deal better position to exercise the rights conferred on them than the individual parent.
    Sir P. Hannon: In view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, and realising that the Ministry is fully alive to the importance of safeguarding the interests of parents, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Denville: I beg to move, in page 28, line 16, after "directs", to insert:
    "regard being had to the religious beliefs of the parents."
    So much has been said about the rights of parents in connection with the Bill that one finds it difficult to add anything, because the right hon. Gentleman on more than one occasion has said he is going to look after their rights. In this case a child might not be properly educated by its parents or by a tutor, and the education authority might say, "This child must go to a school under our authority," and they would compel it to attend. We ask that in a case like that the parents should have a right to say that they will send the child to a school where it will be taught the religion of its parentsֵ The same thing arises later in the Bill. If an authority wishes to divert the child from one school to another, it should not have the power to do it, unless it complies with the religious beliefs of the parents.
    Mr. Ede: In view of the fact that the last Amendment has been withdrawn, the parent has got the right of selecting the school. Therefore, the issue can only arise if there is an appeal to the Minister by the local education authority. Early in the discussions in Committee, my right hon. Friend accepted an Amendment which compelled the local education authority to have regard to the wishes of the parents as to religious instruction of their children, and he indicated that that would cover many subsequent Clauses. We are advised that this Amendment is unnecessary, because it will be for the Minister, in considering
    780
    this matter, to have regard to the wishes of the parents.
    Captain Prescott: To what Clause was the Amendment made to which the hon. Gentleman refers?
    Mr. Ede: Clause 8 (2).
    Mr. Denville: Having heard what my hon. Friend has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I beg to move, in page 28, line 45, to leave out from "section," to the end of the Subsection.
    This is the Clause which endeavours to secure that the parent carries out the duty imposed on him in Clause 34 to see that the child receives education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude. He is given the opportunity of doing that by sending the child to school or by having him educated otherwise. Obviously, in working out how this duty was to be enforced, the framers of the Bill had to have in mind some method by which the education offered otherwise than at school was to be tested for its efficacy and suitability to the age, ability and aptitude of the child. The manner by which that is sought to be achieved is first that there must appear to the local education authority to be a prima facie case that the education which the parent is providing is not suitable. That is the first examination of the efficiency of the education. Then the local education authority must serve upon the parent a notice requiring him to satisfy the authority that the education of the child is efficient. The parent has the opportunity, under the next Sub-section, of satisfying the authority that the education is efficient and is such as carries out the duty imposed on the parent by Clause 34. The authority, through its expert educationists and advisers, will examine the question of the efficiency of the education tendered by the parent and the reasons given by the parent for it, and will decide whether ii is good enough. If it decides it is not good enough it will issue an order directing the parent to send the child to school. The parent is given the power of selecting the school and of appealing to the Minister if his choice is not accepted. The order to the parent implies that the parent's choice of education otherwise than at school is

    781
    not efficient. If the parent does not desire to comply with the order he is entitled to apply to the education authority requesting that the order be revoked on the ground that the arrangements he has made for the child to receive efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude otherwise than at school are good enough.
    If the authority refuses to revoke the order the parent has a right of appeal to the Minister. I imagine that when the appeal goes to the Minister he will be advised by people competent to judge these matters. For the second time, therefore, this matter receives competent adjudication. We have got to the stage where the competent advisers of the local education authority and the Minister and his advisers have adjudged the education to be not good enough. There then faces the parent an order directing him to send the child to school. If he does not comply with the order the consequences appear in Sub-section (5). A summons is then issued for non-compliance with the order, and the parent is able to go before a bench of magistrates, which is the final, ultimate court of appeal in judging whether the education of a child Otherwise than at school is good enough for the child. Are they equipped? Are they as competent and as knowledgeable in matters of education as the advisers of the right hon. Gentleman or of the competent local authority? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] Lay magistrates? I am not surprised to hear that reply from Members on the other side of the Committee. This is the loophole for the private tutor. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] There is no objection to a private tutor provided that he is good enough to satisfy the local authority or the advisers of the Minister that he is competent to give the proper kind of instruction, but if any private tutor is good enough, he will certainly be able to satisfy one or the other. I say that the proper judge between on kind of education and another—
    Mr. Magnay: Does not the hon. and learned Member believe in the jury system?
    Mr. Hughes: Perhaps I may just inform the hon. Member that no jury is seen in a magistrate's court.
    The Deputy-Chairman: It is going rather beyond the scope of the Amendment to discuss the jury system.
    Mr. Hughes: I agree. The jury is completely irrelevant to the point which I am making. The whole purpose of the Amendment is to secure that the judge whether education is efficient or not and of the relative merits of two types of education, is that already comprehended within the Clause. One of the worst possible ultimate tribunals of appeal in this matter is a bench of lay magistrates. Are we to make a bench of lay magistrates into a House of Lords, to adjudicate on the comparative merits of two systems of education? As a tribunal, they are not competent to judge in this matter. I have not proposed the Amendment without having regard to consequential Amendments. I desire to keep open to the parent any other defences which may be valid to him, other than those which I have mentioned.
    Mr. Pickthorn: It has been very entertaining to hear this chivalrous attack upon the right of the free-born Englishman to have one of his hereditary properties, the property of managing his own children, defended in the courts of law. I should have thought it was an essential part of liberty. It is entertaining, but not very convincing, to hear that right attacked by an eminent professional of the law. It really almost makes one doubt whether Henry VIII did not fall into error when he assimilated Wales with England. I hope that whichever Minister is in charge of the Clause, he does not mean to let this go.
    Mr. Silverman: I am astonished at my hon. and learned Friend who moved the Amendment, and I would like to ask him what he thinks ought to be the position of a parent who has had a school attendance order served upon him, and who really can prove what the words of the Clause provide, namely, that the child is already receiving adequate education. My hon. and learned Friend is advising the Committee to adopt an Amendment which would deprive such a parent of any defence in the court, and make him automatically guilty of an offence under the Clause, even though he could prove that the child was receiving adequate education. That would be a very strange position for people on this side of the Committee to adopt and I do not think that very many of us do, in fact, adopt it.

    783
    My hon. and learned Friend is seeking to institute, for third-party judgment on a question that might very well be capable of two opinions, the opinion of the authority and the expert. I am surprised at an hon. Member of such legal eminence reposing such overweening confidence in experts. I have heard a lot of expert witnesses in my time, and I have seen them called on both sides of what looked to me, as a layman, a perfectly plain case. Our judicial system, which enables a lay tribunal to hear all the evidence that can be called on both sides, to weigh one lot of expert evidence against the other and then decide whether the requirements of the Section has been fulfilled, is an eminently just and workable system.
    I know the hon. and learned Gentleman says that this matter has been inquired into several times and that there have been two adjudications on it already. I suggest to him that there have been nothing of the kind. There has been no adjudication upon it. An adjudication means third-party adjudication. The adjudication to which he refers is not third-party, but is judgment by the local authority, or the education committee, in its own case. I am not saying that, in the overwhelming number of cases, it is not very likely that the local education authority is right. In those cases they will have no difficulty whatever in proving it to the satisfaction of the court. I do not think that the reference to a jury was quite so much out of order, because the functions that would be exercised by lay magistrates in this matter would be very like those of a jury deciding between one lot of expert evidence and another.
    Suppose that the local authority or Ministry in a particular case had been acting unreasonably. Suppose that, in looking into a question, they had omitted, to take into consideration things that ought to have been taken into consideration. Suppose an order had been made when, in justice, it ought not to have been made. My hon. and learned Friend would deprive the parent of any remedy at all, or else he would drive the matter further into the much more expensive and protracted litigation of the High Court, to have the order of the local authority or the Ministry quashed, as not having taken into account things which ought to have
    784
    been taken into account. That is a much more costly and complicated procedure, which many parents would not be able to adopt as easily as they can go to one of our courts. There they can state their case and leave the local authority to state its case, and let the court judge, as it is right it should, when the individual quarrels with the community. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not accept this Amendment.
    Mr. Butler: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) has put the case for the Government most ably and I was very grateful that towards the end of a long Sitting he should introduce this influence in the Debate. The position is that the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hughes) has spotted, as is usual with him, an interesting feature in the Bill which is an alteration in some respects from the present position. Under the existing law there are two different methods of enforcing school attendance. Either a parent can be prosecuted under a school attendance by-law, or application can be made in a court of summary jurisdiction for an attendance order. In this case subsection (5) provides that a person who fails to comply with a school attendance order shall be guilty of an offence unless he proves to the court that he is causing the child to receive efficient full-time education. As the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne has said, surely that is the best method of dealing with this matter, because it meets the interests of the public and this Committee. There is some local tribunal before which a parent can be arraigned in order to satisfy the court that the type of education is satisfactory. If we go either above or below that procedure it seems to me that we get into trouble. If we go below that, a statement by the tutor will not be good enough. If we go above and carry the matter into the realm of the High Court we are surely exaggerating the situation and also carrying the offence out of the locality, in which the circumstances may be understood, into a sphere where the local circumstances may not be properly understood.
    Therefore, short of further consideration which I shall certainly give to the matter, I do not see any method better than this proposed to see that a parent who chooses to use the method of tutor is giving the child satisfactory education. It has come up in the course of our educational discussion that the "beaks," as

    785
    they are called, are not suitable people for adjudicating on the type of education given. Surely this is a fairly simple matter. The parent will be able to give evidence, the matter will come out in public, it can be reported on and I should have thought that in the individual case of the parent who is employing a tutor it is the fairest method for the public to rely upon. I failed to find any other local machinery I could adopt. If in the next stage the hon. and learned Member could suggest any positive method I will look at it.
    Mr. Woodburn: Have you rights of inspection?
    Mr. Butler: Yes.
    Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: Far be it from me to deprive the free-born Englishman of a right, evidently very precious to many, and particularly precious to the hon. Member for my University—the right, which so many have exercised throughout the years, to hire a tutor for his children. I am not going to deprive millions of that right. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 29, line 16, at the end, to add:
    "(8) A local education authority may authorise an officer of the authority to exercise on their behalf any of the powers conferred on them by this section."
    I put this Amendment forward as a simplification in administration. If this Amendment is not carried then the function of carrying out this Clause will devolve upon the local education authority, and possibly a sub-committee of that authority. The task will be a pretty onerous one, and it is felt that it is one which could suitably be left under proper control, in many cases, to an officer of the authority. This Amendment is designed to secure that.
    Mr. Butler: I think it is possible there may be at the back of the hon. Member's mind the possible conduct of local proceedings, in which case we are advised that Section 207 of the Local Government Act, 1933, a copy of which I could send him, covers the point I have in mind. Short of that particular difficulty we do not feel that the hon. Member's apprehensions need necessarily be aroused toy the Clause as drafted. I feel that the Clause
    786
    had better stand as it is, subject to the hon. Member studying, perhaps, the Local Government Act, of which I will be glad to furnish him with a copy.
    Mr. Silkin: I am not satisfied, but I do not want to detain the Committee. Perhaps I could have a word with the right hon. Gentleman. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I desire to draw the attention of the Committee to what I believe to be an omission in Sub-section (7) of the Clause. Sub-section (7) provides for the order to continue in force so long as a child is of compulsory school age. The previous parts of the Clause make provision for orders to be made, otherwise than by the local authority. The school named in an order may be a school named by the local authority or may be a school directed by the Minister. That direction will not appear in the order made by the local authority and it ought to be enforceable. I can give another example. At the end of Sub-section (4) it is provided that a parent aggrieved by a refusal of the authority to comply with the request altering the school can refer the question to the Minister
    "who shall give such direction thereon as he thinks fit."
    That is to say he issues his own order. He gives his own direction and there is no provision for giving these directions issued by the Minister the same validity and duration as is given in the terms in Sub-section (7) to the orders of the local education authority.
    Mr. Silkin: I should like my right hon. Friend's view on whether it is possible, under this Clause, in the case of a child requiring special educational treatment in a special school, for the local education authority to require that it should go to a boarding school. There is an Amendment on the Paper which was not called, I understand, because there is a view that such a power is already inherent in the Clause. I should like to have the Minister's assurance that that is the case.
    Mr. Woodburn: With regard to that point I do not think it is inherent in the Clause at all. It says:

    787
    "a school attendance order may."
    That applies to any attendance order made. The hon. Member's Amendment refers to a proviso subject to any Amendment which may be made by the local education authority and I do not quite understand where the principle comes in with regard to that Amendment.
    Mr. Butler: I have noted the points made. I am advised that the point made by the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) can be met under the Bill. Regarding the points of the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes), as they have a legal significance I would rather not give an answer, here and now. I will study them and see if they have a significance to which I ought to pay attention.
    Mr. Silkin: Could the right hon. Gentleman be a little more explicit on the point I raised?
    Mr. Butler: Will the hon. Member draw attention to the particular Amendment he had in mind?
    Mr. Silkin: In page 28, line 25, at the end, to insert:
    "(4) If, in the case of a child requiring special educational treatment in a special school, the local education authority, or on an application to him under the last preceding subsection the Minister is satisfied that such treatment can best be secured by the child's attendance at a boarding-school the school attendance order, may require his attendance at such a school."
    Mr. Butler: That Amendment was not called, but I have now before me a note on this matter, and I am advised that the hon. Gentleman's object is covered, and that it would be quite unnecessary to raise the matter of the Clause.
    Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

    CLAUSE 36.—(Additional provisions as to compulsory attendance at special schools.)
    Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 29, line 19, after "school," to insert:
    "or whose disability is such as to render him liable to attend at a special school."
    Sub-section (1) of this Clause provides that children attending special schools should remain until they attain the age of 16. I want to extend that provision to children whose disability is such as to
    788
    render them liable to attend a special school. My right hon. Friend will remember that in Clause 31 there is a provision that
    "the arrangements made by a local education authority for the special educational treatment of pupils of any such category shall, so far as is practicable, provide for the education of pupils in whose case the disability is serious in special schools appropriate for that category,"
    but where that is impracticable, they may attend an ordinary school. There will be a number of children who ought to be at special schools but will be attending ordinary schools. Merely because they cannot attend special schools is no reason why they should not be required to attend until they reach the age of 16. It may be that, after they attain the age of 15, provision may be made for them to attend special schools. Underlying Clause 36 is the assumption that it is good for children attending special schools to remain at school until the age of 16. All I am asking is that the same provision should apply to other children who, because of circumstances, are not attending special schools but ought to be. I think my right hon. Friend could very well accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Butler: The hon. Member's point is quite clear. The difficulty arises from the fact that we have not enough special schools. They are very deficient in number. That is another of the educational policies and programmes which the Committee must add to the growing sum that I have outlined to-day. I hope the authorities will concentrate on building more special schools. Pending the production of special schools, either from voluntary sources or by authorities, it may be necessary, as the hon. Gentleman says, to send some children to ordinary schools, even though they require special schooling. What the hon. Gentleman desires is to see that children stay until the age of 16, as children would in special schools. I have taken what advice I can on this matter, and I am advised that to keep a child on at school until the age of 16 for special reasons—to use the technical interpretation of the word "special"—would tend to single out that child, and to put a stigma on that child. I am also advised that our attempts would not be well received if the normal leaving age at the school is 15. An additional year might be of advantage to some children,

    789
    who are very dull and backward at their lessons, but I would rather that they should be kept there voluntarily than through compulsion. Another reason why I am not keen on accepting the Amendment is that it might give laggard authorities a chance to say, "If we accept special children and send them to ordinary schools for another year, there is no reason for us to press forward with special schools." For those reasons, which are both human and administrative, I hope the hon. Member will not press his Amendment, and that he will see that it would be better to arrange this system voluntarily than to put it in the Bill.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Butler: I beg to move, in page 29, line 23, to leave out "is," and to insert:
    "has under arrangements made by a local education authority become."
    There has been a certain amount of criticism of the drafting of Sub-section (2). The chief objection is that an authority in whose area a voluntary residential school was situated was brought into the picture to give the consent required by the Sub-section. In the case of many such schools, the authority of the area in which the school is situated has nothing to do with the school. The object of the Amendment is to cut out the consent of the authority for the area in which the school is situated, and merely to secure the consent of the authority to whose special school the child is sent. It is only a matter of clarification, and I hope that the Committee will accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Messer: The Minister has gone a long way to meet the points which were made on an Amendment which we put down. His Amendment completely meets the situation, and I want to express my satisfaction.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In line 25, leave out from beginning to end of line 27, and insert "that authority."—[Mr. Butler.]
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
    Major Conant: I want to ask my right hon. Friend if he would consider this point. Under this Clause, we are establishing a compulsory school age of 16 for all children at special schools. In
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    practically all cases that must be definitely to the advantage of such children, but there are occasionally children who would obviously gain by leaving school at an earlier age. There ought to be some provision by which an authority, on medical advice, when a suitable provision is found, perhaps in the country, would be able to allow such a child to leave school before the age of 16. At present all children at special schools are compelled to stay there, whether they are gaining any advantage or not. I think that this is rather too stereotyped, and that there ought to be a little more elasticity. I would ask my right hon. Friend to see whether, with suitable safeguards, an authority could not be allowed to permit children to leave before reaching that age.
    Mr. Butler: I must approach this matter with considerable caution, because we do not want discretion given by legislation to result in any detriment to the child, and I can imagine conditions in which advantage might be taken of children in such schools, particularly if we included less general powers in the Bill. I am sure that those are not the motives of my hon. and gallant Friend, and if fie can give me particulars of any instances of hardship, I will certainly look into them. Subject to that, I would like to get the Bill as it stands.
    Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

    CLAUSE 37.—(Duty of parents to secure regular attendance of registered pupils.)
    Mr. Butler: I beg to move, in page 30, line 5, after "therefrom", to insert "with leave or."
    These small Government Amendments are put down with a view to dealing with the case of a child who is a weekly boarder at a boarding school and whose particular circumstances were not covered. The three Amendments on the Order Paper deal with that point.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In page 30, line 38, after "therefrom", insert "without leave."
    In line 40, at the end, add:
    "(5) In this section the expression 'leave' in relation to any school means leave granted by any person authorised in that behalf by the managers, governors or proprietor of the school."—[Mr. Butler.]
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 38 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 39.—(General duties of local education authorities with respect to further education.)
    Mr. Butler: I beg to move, in page 31, line 45, to leave out "colleges."
    This Amendment is intended to correct a drafting error.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. C. Davies: I beg to move, in page 32, line 1, after "in," to insert "professional."
    In the absence of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) I beg to move this Amendment, because "technical, commercial and art" may not cover all the subjects that ought to be taught.
    Mr. Lindsay: I should like to support the Amendment. Later on in the Bill, when we come to the provisions for local authorities to make grants to aid various things, a number of Amendments put down will deal with that provision. I will not enlarge on it now, but it is a question which should be discussed very fully on that Clause.
    Mr. Edmond Harvey: I hope the President will accept this Amendment. It is surely desirable that the widest opportunity of education should be given in these schools. As it is drafted, the Clause is soewhat narrow, and it would be a great pity if local authorities were confined to the narrowest of activities. We want to have the widest opportunities and I hope very much that this revision may be accepted.
    Mr. Woodburn: When the Minister replies would he explain why it is desired to limit them, by the specific mention of three subjects, excluding others?
    Mr. Ede: I do not think it is desirable to do that at all, and may I say that in regard to the use of the word "professional," I understand that the point of view that animates my hon. and gallant Friend who moved it, I should have thought myself that it was covered by the present wording, and it is a fact that professional education of this type is at
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    present given in a great many technological colleges and similar places with success. I should not have thought that it was necessary to add the word. May I say that we have had representations from the Law Society that they would desire that some such word as this should be included? Personally, I am not anxious to increase the linguistic difficulties betwen the trades and professions in this country, because the borderline is very narrow. I do not know whether the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) would regard the Clause, as drawn, as applicable to the Pharmaceutical Society's examination, as being technical or professional. Personally, I should have thought it should be regarded as professional, although I may not carry all the doctors with me on that. This examination has been taken with great success for many years in these technical colleges. We will examine the wording of this Sub-section to see if it would be used in the exclusive sense that my hon. and learned Friend fears, and if so we will take the necessary steps to correct it on the next stage.
    Mr. E. Harvey: Before the hon. Member withdraws the Amendment, if he is going to do so, will the Minister go a little further and consider the possibility of a rather wider scope? It is rather a pity that technical colleges should be limited in any way, and it is desirable that some humane subject should be added to the technical subjects to make a really satisfactory course, and the Clause, as worded, would appear to exclude that.
    Mr. Ede: May I say that the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Harvey) as he so often does, expressed very clearly what the Government have in mind? We should deplore anything which will confine these institutions to the purely technical and professional aspects of education. We would desire that those people studying a long and very narrow course, and compelled by circumstances to do that, should have opportunities of participating, inside the same institution, in the broad cultural education, and it would be our desire that that should be done. We will very carefully examine the Clause and make sure that these words will not exclude that. I am sure the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities, who knows the work that is being done by

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    some of the technical colleges, for instance, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, at the moment, will agree that they do give a very broad general education in addition to the technical education they provide.
    Mr. Linstead: The Parliamentary Secretary has referred to the examination of the Pharmaceutical Society and indicated that, in his view, it would be classified as professional, with which opinion I respectfully agree. Would he give me an assurance, which I think was implied in what he said, though I am not quite clear, that he does regard it as a case of the duty of the local education authorities to provide full-time education for those taking this examination?
    Mr. Woodburn: May I suggest to the Minister that the specification should be left out and that it should be full-time and part-time education for persons above the compulsory school age of the widest scope?
    Mr. C. Davies: I hope that the intention of the Government was expressed in the second speech of the Parliamentary Secretary; and may I commend for his consideration paragraph (c), because that really refers to the very humanities which the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. E. Harvey) had in mind. It is expressed this way:
    "(c) leisure-time occupation, in such organized cultural training and recreative activities as are suited to their requirements," etc.
    Why be so specific? I ought to add "professional," because I do not know at the moment what is the definition of a profession, nor do I know what is the definition of "technical" or "commercial." I remember that in my own little town, where I was brought up and received such education as I have, there was a local barber who came into the town, and after he had been barbering for some time, I went one day for a haircut. He said "I want you to congratulate me. I have just been appointed a collector for the Prudential Insurance Company, so that I have now both a profession and a trade." I asked him which was which, and on that point he would not say, so that I have not really been able to know what is the definition of a profession and of a trade. However, I know that it is the desire of the Government to make
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    this as wide as possible and with that assurance I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The Deputy-Chairman: The next Amendment which I call is that standing in the name of the hon. Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe), and I would point out that his Amendment covers the point raised later in the Amendment of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate)—Clause 41, page 33, line 23, leave out "young people's," and insert "county."
    Sir Harold Webbe: I beg to move, in page 32, line 12, to leave out "young people's colleges," and to insert:
    "national, colleges for part-time education as provided in paragraph (a) hereof."
    The purpose of this Amendment and of consequential Amendments which I have put down is to get rid of that completely odious term "young people's." I appreciate the great difficulty of finding a suitable name for a new institution, and particularly for one of such importance as these new colleges are to be. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend has given a great deal of thought to this before making his choice, but I submit that the choice which he has actually made is just about as bad as it could possibly be. The phrase "young people" is such as must infuriate any boy or girl who has just left school. It is patronising and, what is worse, it is sanctimonious, and in the mind of almost everybody it is associated with the worst type of pale young curate with strong glasses and a weak chin, a receding forehead and a prominent Adam's apple. In the name of common decency I say that this detestable phrase should be withdrawn.
    I want, however, to give some serious reasons why this name is quite inappropriate and very unfortunate. These new continuation colleges will not be easy places to run. We shall be making a great mistake if we think that all the boys and girls who leave school and are obliged to attend them will welcome the opportunity and will be keen to do their work in them-The teachers will have a difficult time, and any success they may have will depend very largely on how far they can persuade their pupils that the work they

    795
    are doing in these continuation colleges is part of their entry into manhood and not a continuation of their schooldays. It is a psychological fact that after boys and girls leave school, for the first couple of years at any rate, the one thing they want above all others is to be regarded as grown-ups and they resent bitterly any suggestion that they are still children. For that reason it is most unfortunate that we should give to these part-time colleges the title "young people's," which definitely marks them as having something to do with childhood rather than with manhood.
    There is another reason. It is my hope personally, as I said in the Debate on the, White Paper, that these part-time continuation colleges will become the centres round which the great developments of adult education may take place. The premises themselves will be built and equipped for full-size people. They will be eminently suitable for the use for which they are required by those between 16 and 18, as establishments for adult education and I hope they will be so used. Obviously, the title "young people's colleges" is entirely inappropriate, and, from the psychological point of view, it is most important that the boys and girls who attend these schools under compulsion should see their elders—their fathers and mothers, their uncles and aunts—attending the same places voluntarily because they think them worth while. Experience in the Cambridge village colleges has shown that there is a tremendous psychological value in the association of the adolescent and the adult not only in their education but also in social activities. I hope, therefore, that we can get rid of the word "young" or of any word in the title of these institutions which connotes childhood rather than manhood.
    When one asks to have any title erased one is obviously in duty bound to suggest an alternative. I would be willing to drop the word "young" and call these institutions "people's colleges." It is dignified, it is English and it is simple. I shall be told by certain people that the word "people's" in this connection might be held to imply some kind of social inferiority. Why it should I do not know, but I would be content if they were called people's colleges. I have also considered the suggestion which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) that they should be called
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    county colleges. My only criticism of that name is that there are already established and well-known county schools, and I want to get away, if I can, from anything which implies that these are schools in the sense in which the young people have always known them. I suggest they should be called national colleges. There are two possible objections. One is that there still exist a certain number of national schools founded by the old National Society. Thirty years ago, when I was inspector at the Board, there were a very few schools known locally as national schools, and there will presumably be less now. They are mostly known as Church schools. Therefore, I do not think that that is a valid addition to the suggestion I have made. The other objection is as to whether national colleges is rather a too noble and too dignified a title. If they are to remain simply part-time schools for boys and girls between 16 and 18, that might be true, but I hope that they will develop into institutions which will also be very largely concerned with adult education. It is for these reasons that I move the Amendment, and I ask the President of the Board to consider whether he cannot find some title which will be free from the objection which I have tried to make.
    Mr. Colegate: I support my hon. Friend in his abjections to the title "young people's colleges" which this new Bill sets up. We differ slightly but not very seriously about the new name. In a moment I will give my reasons for liking the term "county colleges" but I would very seriously urge that the name "young people's colleges" will not help to give these institutions the send-off we want them to have. If we are to be successful with adult education, we have to attach prestige to the institution in which it is carried out, and I am looking at if from many points of view. May; give one instance? Many people coming from these young people's colleges will be applying for employment and will be able to say, "I got my school certificate at so and so, and then I got another certificate for some technical or professional subject at the so-and-so college." Now to suggest it is a "young people's college" in that respect, is rather lessening the value which the education given there ought to receive, because, if we are to be successful in this, the youth schools are going to be only a beginning. We want

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    to see them developed into institutions which give a wide, broad, cultural education as well as the merely specific technical or professional instruction which is set out in the Clause. Particularly I think it urgent that these colleges should give, in every case, whatever the subject taught, a course in English in addition, because there is no doubt that a good knowledge of English is one of the things most urgently required by the people who are going to use these colleges.
    As to the actual phrase to be used, I do not like "national" because, to start with, it is not sufficiently local and would imply people coming from any part of the United Kingdom. Just as we like our county cricket teams so, in the same way, if you want to build up loyalty and prestige for these colleges, you have to associate them geographically with the counties in which they are situated. A man may be proud of his school, and he will be proud of the fact that he went to the Shropshire county college, or the Yorkshire, or the West Riding county college. I believe in that way you would build up the kind of prestige which we must get if we are to make a success of these colleges. I think the objection to "county" because there are county schools is not a serious one. There is a Bedford School and a Bedford College, which I think has a very considerable reputation and, in the same way, I believe that if you attach the name county—or joint counties as they may be in certain cases—to these schools you will encourage an enormous amount of local interest, which we want. I hope these county colleges will very often run football and cricket teams and, although I cannot support the Amendment fully, I support the reason of my hon. Friend. I hope the word "county" may be substituted for "national."
    Mr. James Griffiths: My only reason for intervening is that for years I have been chairman of a Welsh Youth Advisory Committee and have worked with young people. I am very glad the word "school" has been kept out of the name, because young people object to going back to school. The old evening school from the beginning was found to fail because a young fellow hates to go back. Here is a new institution, and one in which the name is important. If
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    in the minds of the young people we make a wrong choice we shall make a fatal mistake from the beginning. I have worked with the youth movement and I am beginning to sense a revolt against it, because it has become associated with what old people want to do for the young. I think it is very important that this shall be an institution in which the young people do the ruling themselves. That is very important psychologically, and I am therefore going to make a suggestion. I reject the word "national" because it is associated, in so many places, with the national school, and it would be fatal for these institutions to be associated with the school to which the boy has gone and to which he hopes never to have to go back. I reject "county" too.
    What are we doing under this Bill? We are removing them from local educational committees. For example, as far as I know, subject to what happens in the Bill later on, my own town ceases to have an educational committee and the name "Llanelly" goes out. I think there is something very vital in local patriotism which is very often the most enduring and the finest type, and which I would like to see preserved in education. I have discovered that in 1842 a minister from my town, giving evidence before a Commission discussing the employment of young people, suggested then that the school-leaving age should be raised to 15. I am glad to say that this Government in 1944 is willing to do what was suggested in 1842. What about the title, "community college"? That keeps the terms "young," "national," and "county" out. The one place in the world where this experiment has been most successful is in Denmark, where they have the Danish High Volk School. I think there is something in the word "Volk"; the sustaining and the building up of real democratic culture. I would suggest, therefore, "community college." There is a word I am going to suggest to my own people in Wales—it is much better in Welsh—"Coleg Gwerin." I support the idea, and I think there is much to be said for keeping the word "young" out of it anyhow.
    Mr. Lindsay: I have given this matter a lot of thought and I have come to the conclusion that the title "young people's" is hopeless. I have asked

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    scores of people in the last three or four weeks and I cannot find anyone who really likes it. When we were starting youth committees, we had to reject "juvenile," "adolescent" and all the other words. We did not like "youth" but it was short. These colleges are primarily for those between 15 and 18. I agree they ought to look upwards, and I throw out the suggestion which is contained in the Scottish Report and which I think is pretty sensible, and that is, not to call them anything at all, but to use the name of the place. In other words, it becomes the "something college." This is part of further education and the only differentiating factor from the rest of further education, is that it is compulsory and in the day time. Someone suggested "junior colleges," but 15 to 18 is the senior part of technical work, and that would not do. Somebody suggested "junior technical schools," and that would not do. Somebody else suggested "day college." That seems to me rather dull. However, I can see that "Windsor College" would be a great challenge to rival institutions there, and gradually, all over the country, the word "college" which is a good ancient word, would come to be synonymous with this particular field. I entirely agree with the hon. Member who said that it must be more like what Mr. Kitchen at Rugby has conclusively proved in his book, part of the community and not just segregation of youth. It is only a name, but the more it is part of the community, and obviously not a return to school, the better. Therefore, I suggest we give it the name of the place and let people have a little responsibility themselves.
    Mr. Butler: It is quite clear that the Government could not accept the Amendment, because if we included the word "national" we should alienate the majority of the Committee. I am sorry that the hon. Member who has had such experience of education should not be able to have his way, but he has done a service in clearing the air. I cannot accept his definition of some members of the Established Church, which he described so eloquently. I think the general feeling of the Committee is that we cannot use the word "school," and that therefore we come down on the side of "college." We will not hurry to decide a name but those who have framed this Bill have been all through this discussion before, and no
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    idea I have heard put forward to-day has been an idea that we have not considered ourselves. We think that "community" may get mixed up with community centres, which are new organisations with which the Board will be intimately connected and that that might lead to confusion. I would like to pay a tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), for the work he has done in the past, especially in connection with the Welsh Youth Advisory Council. I will pay attention to what he has said. I only wish that our expressions in English were as beautiful as some of the Welsh expressions. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Lindsay) is right: many of these colleges, when they are set up, will be called by the names of their own localities. But what we want is a working name for the purpose of this Bill. It is difficult to accept any of the suggestions which have been put forward—"national," because it is associated with past words, "community," for the reason I have given and, "county," because it has a certain snob significance, which might perhaps lead the colleges not to have the right tone.
    Mr. Magnay: Why not Butler schools?
    Mr. Butler: I do not have the same objection to the word "young" as some hon. Members. Youth is the most priceless possession of the inmates of these colleges and we have no violent objection to this name. I originally gave a prize to my advisers for the best name for these colleges and this is the name which won that prize. I now offer a prize to the Committee. If anybody can suggest a better name before the Report stage we will accept it. At present, the prize I have given to one of my advisers holds the field.
    Mr. Tinker: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not think of changing the name "young people's colleges." It seems that everyone wants the name of his own choice and, therefore, we cannot come to agreement. What is this Bill for? It is for young people. Objection is raised to the term "young people" being used. But is this Bill for old people? No, it is to help to build up the young mind and unless somebody can bring forward a better name—which I think is impossible—I hope the Minister will stick to the name in the Bill.
    Mr. Pickthorn: This Debate is great fun and I see no reason why it should not go on for ever. There is high authority for the view that the strictest and highest test of literary ability is to christen a kitten. I have always found it very difficult myself. It is a great test of literary ability to be able to name these educational institutions. The whole attention of the Committee has been directed to half the proposed name and I draw attention to that fact and to this other fact: that the second half of the name, to which no attention has been paid, is the using of the word in a sense which it does not bear. It seems to be rather a dismal reflection upon our educational progress, and the situation we have now reached, that one of our favourite ways of making things better is by baptising them with the name of something which is supposed to be slightly superior and at the same time laying hands upon our hearts and saying, "Of course, the evil is snobbery." So long as that is to be the procedure of this Assembly on these matters it seems a little difficult to see how we are to get on.
    My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) said he was concerned about conferring prestige upon these institutions. Well, with all respect to him I should have thought that a properly educated man would have said that prestige is one of the few things which cannot be conferred. You can confer a title, a coronet, or a medal, but you really cannot confer prestige. My hon. Friend the Member for the Abbey Division of Westminster (Sir H. Webbe) told us that he foresaw two objections to the name "national colleges." I have forgotten what they were, but they were not the two objections which I expected—first, that they were not national and, second, that they were not colleges. These are not colleges. "College" is a technical term: it means a corporate body and the name is used particularly in connection with the corporate bodies which endeavour to confer higher education, and most particularly in connection with those bodies which are independent of the Government, and, so to speak, their own customers, because they are in their own right sufficiently well off to be able not to give a damn for either. These proposed institutions have none of these characteristics at all. I do not mind a bit if the Board of Education, the House
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    of Commons and everyone else thinks that the best thing to do is to call these institutions by a name which has hitherto been used for other purposes. That is O.K. by me, but do let us all know what we are all at. Let us all call each other "right hon. Gentlemen," or "learned," or "gallant," or anything you please, but if we are to discuss the names of these institutions we ought to pay attention not only to the epithets but also to the substantive which, beyond dispute, is inappropriate.
    Mr. Maxton: I should have thought that the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pick-thorn) would have given more thought to this matter before he delivered that speech. He is objecting to these young people's establishments because already the name, "college," has been adopted as a bit of private property by a certain institution with which he is associated.
    Mr. Pickthorn: Not at all.
    Mr. Maxton: I will not attempt to meet the hon. Gentleman on his own ground of history, but I rather imagine his institution pinched the name from the Romans. The hon. Member's predecessors saw the honour and prestige that attached to the colleges of the cardinals and said, "There is prestige to be got from Rome by the use of the term, 'college.' We will take it, plank it down in Cambridge and retain it as our own private property."
    Mr. Driberg: If I may waste a moment or two more of the time of the Commitee, I would like to say that if these institutions are not to be called "colleges" I suppose they will have to be called "academies." Then they will become known as "Mr. Butler's Select Academies for Young People." But, seriously, the only suggestion the right hon. Gentleman did not deal with was the one made incidentally by one hon. Member, of dropping the word "young" and simply referring to them as "People's colleges." I do not think there is the valid objection to that which the hon. Member thought there was. Although it is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) said, that "young people's'" is perfectly descriptive of the contents of the Bill and the work of the colleges, at the same time I think it is also true that young people themselves would

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    find the phrase a little patronising and condescending. It is not a nice phrase to them.
    Sir Stanley Reed: As my right hon. Friend has thrown this open to competition, will he make the reward ample, in view of the approach of Income Tax time? They cannot take the name of Butler's Colleges because it would mix them up with. Butlin's camps. It is hoped to make these new institutions places where English is taught. I have hoped all my life to see that done. I have lived a good many years hoping that a little English might be taught in our public schools. But I have never found it. I pin 'my faith to these new institutions.
    Sir H. Webbe: I should like to enter a new horse for the competition my right hon. Friend has initiated, and to scrap my previous entry by asking leave to withdraw my Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The Chairman (Major Milner): I am a little doubtful whether the next Amendment is in the right place, or is in Order. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) will move it and we will see how we get on.
    Mr. Maxton: I beg to move, in page 32, line 13, at the end, to add:
    "Provided that the Minister shall be directly responsible for the provision of facilities for, and for stimulating interest in, general cultural education among the adult population, in conjunction with universities, technical colleges, music and art institutions, and voluntary organisations interested in education."
    This is my one ewe lamb and I hope the wind will be tempered to it. The point that I am trying to make is that, in the Bill, we are imposing duties on local authorities to carry on educational work at every stage, with the Minister having a general supervision over what the local authorities are going to do. When we get to the branch of adult education, I want the Minister to have direct responsibility imposed upon him, because I do not think you can, or want to, impose on every county in England the duty of making provision for adult education on a large scale. I think the Ministry of Education itself should take direct responsibility for stimulating interest in adult education and
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    for providing certain facilities. I do not think they should be asked to do the teaching. I do not think they should be asked to lay down the curriculum. I do not suggest that they should be asked to provide the teachers, but I do suggest that they should see that, in certain areas, there are establishments to which adults can go from all corners of the country, for a limited period of time and that in placing everything on to the county, even up to the highest range of education, you are being parochial. People in Glamorgan will always associate with people from Glamorgan, and people in Yorkshire with Yorkshire people. I am sure that in councils, trade unions and organisations of one kind or another a whole lot of the difficulties that arise in getting common decisions arise, not because of differences in the general approach but are due to differences arising out of local characteristics. Scotsmen fighting Welshmen, and Welshmen fighting Yorkshire men and, of all, Lancastrians are the most difficult people to deal with because they have always been so self-contained and so self-satisfied—generally speaking, with good reason for being self-satisfied.
    I have a very keen interest in adult education. It is the only education about which I really get enthusiastic. Up to 19 or 20, people get drilled, trained and messed about. It is only at the 19 and 20 and 21 stage that the average person really knows what he is interested in. It is only then that he begins to want to know something. Before that he may have wanted to get an education, or be trained for some profession, business or trade, but when he is about 21 years of age a man begins to find that he has an interest in something. Generally it is just at that age, when he is trying to establish himself in some way of earning a living, that he has the greatest difficulty in getting access to the means of education in the thing in which he has found he is really interested. In a locality there are frequently far too few people to make the running of a local class in certain things a worth-while proposition. I can recall my own home town in Scotland where there were two men whom I knew, both manual workers, one a tin smith and the other a marble cutter. One was an enthusiastic, and very well informed geologist. His literary education was of a most indifferent kind but his knowledge of geology was on a high level.

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    The other was interested in biology, botany, zoology and the flora and fauna of the district. These men had not any one with whom to exchange ideas. Everybody is keen on something periodically, whether it is fishing or golf or playing the fiddle, and he wants to meet like and interested people and to exchange experiences. If you scoured the whole county you would not have got a better zoologist and geologist than those two men. They came to me because they thought I was a little better educated than they were, just to talk about their subjects. I am thinking of ways and means by which men of that kind, who are interested in a limited field, can get among people who are similarly enthusiastic.
    I have a strong feeling on this subject. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) referred to education as something we do for the younger folk. When a person has reached my age, he is reckoned to be all that he is going to be; he is fixed for life. Somebody defined education as what is left to a man after he has forgotten all he learned. It is true that education makes the essential man, but that essential man is always capable of modification throughout an extended life. It is the duty of the community to give fairly easy access to adults for opportunities to improve their mental contacts or their cultural interests. I do not know that there is anyone on a lower level than the Minister, who can take full responsibility for that. The most interesting and notable bit of educational work I ever did was to teach in an evening continuation school some 20 adults who were absolutely illiterate when I got them. They were all older than me, their ages ranging from 25 to 49. I had to start on the level of the infants' room. They were not mentally deficient but illiterate. They had come from the West of Ireland, and had escaped ordinary educational training. It was an eye-opener to me to find it was possible to give a man of 49 the equipment to enable him to read the newspaper and to write a simple letter. That experience always made me indignant at the view that, if you do not learn things young you do not learn them at all.
    Sir P. Harmon: Is not that a tribute to the inborn faculty of the Irish intelligence?
    Mr. Maxton: When Irish intelligence is set going toy Scottish guidance, you cannot
    806
    get a finer combination. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me. Perhaps I am riding a hobby-horse, but I think the Committee may be interested in my experiences. For over 30 years, under the auspices of my party, for admittedly party ends in view, we have carried on summer schools in the first fortnight of August in various parts of the country which were congenial holiday neighbourhoods. We have had schools of students from all parts of the country, ranging up to 200, and in pre-war days we attracted students from various parts of the Continent. I have seen Germans, Czechs, Frenchmen, and so on. I see you looking at me, Major Milner,
    The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman is getting rather wide.
    Mr. Maxton: I am trying to make my point that the things I want done by this Amendment are things that we cannot rightly ask local authorities to do, but that we can, rightly, ask the Minister himself to do. Similar work has been done by the Co-operative Society, the Fabian Society, and the National Council of Labour Colleges. I understand that the Conservative Party does something on these lines. There is also the work of Workers' Educational Association. I have been amazed at the results that have been achieved by even a fortnight's school, any people from the extreme ends of these Islands getting together and living together. The results that have come from rubbing shoulders against one another and bringing their minds into contact with each other, and by hearing lectures and speaking to people whose names they have heard about in one national connection and another, are tremendous.
    The Minister can do two things. We have always been dependent on the good will of some boarding school or college that was prepared to let their place during their holiday period. We have to find a person who is willing to let a school at a certain rent, and to leave their domestic staff working when they wanted to be on holiday. I am suggesting that the Minister should, in, say, half a dozen places, experimentally set apart establishments of that sort to meet the needs of adults. He should be little more than a landlord, letting these places to these bodies that carry on adult education.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: May I point out to my hon. Friend that in many areas there will

    807
    be available to the nation large numbers of buildings, built for war purposes, but admirably suited for the very thing he is suggesting.
    Mr. Maxton: I am prepared to accept that as a valuable idea for a temporary' period, but I do not want anything secondhand. I want places designed from the start by an architect, who is told what the idea is, and what is required in the way of grounds, outdoor recreation, and indoor facilities like lecture rooms, concert rooms, music room, laboratory, etc.
    Mr. Magnay: Do not shut out the possibilities of liners.
    Mr. Maxton: The point is that I want the Minister to be responsible, and not the local education authority. The Minister can have a list available of qualified persons, or people running such a school may come forward. I would ask the Minister to take the matter upon his own shoulders, perhaps working in the. friendliest co-operation with national organisations like the Workers' Educational Association. That is the one that comes to the tip of my tongue, although I do not want the idea to be dominated by one organisation. It is a well-established institution which has shown real enthusiasm, and I suggest the Minister should stimulate it.
    So far as colleges are concerned, for about two months in the year that sort of thing may be reasonably successful in July and August, when people normally get their holidays, and it would be uneconomic to build colleges that are convenient only for a couple of months. In the years immediately succeeding the war, a lot of work will have to be done which is not exactly educational and certain Government Departments can get their civil servants in to cope with the work. I know there are business organisations who may call in their own people from different parts of the country to train them. One can hardly call that education, but it adds to the total volume in improving the general efficiency of the nation. I should think that full-time use could be made of residential colleges for 12 months in the year, if the Minister were prepared to take the responsibility.
    If the Minister says that he cannot be responsible for that sort of thing, I shall reply that there are wonderful schools in
    808
    the country being run by another Government Department, the Home Office. The schools start with the great disadvantage of being approved schools for delinquents, and have a nasty mark on them to begin with, but they are run by a local department which is not primarily a local education authority, and I am told that some of them are doing wonderful work. If the Home Office can do educational things without passing them over to the local authority, the President of the Board of Education can do it also. I thank the Committee, you Major Milner, and the Minister for being very patient with me. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me a favourable reply.
    Mr. Butler: I am sure that the Committee will have been very much impressed by the sincerity of the hon. Member. I have profited, in the course of the preparation of the Bill, by frequent conversations with him in this—House, in which he is one of the best-known Members. I am sure that we are obliged to him for his observations, but I think we shall have some little difficulty in having a Debate on this Amendment, because I shall find myself in a difficulty with you, Major Milner, since the Clause relates solely to the general duties of local education authorities. Therefore, I am in some difficulty about giving a full reply to the hon. Member. If he really wishes to have a more detailed reply than I shall give in a few minutes, I would point out that the grant provisions, Clause 93 (1, b) are those under which the Minister can give grants to persons
    "other than local education authorities…in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred for the purposes of educational services provided by them or on their behalf or under their management or for the purposes of educational research."
    So there is power in the Bill, under a Clause to which we have yet to come, which would give us all the necessary power for carrying out what the hon. Member has in' mind. From the point of view of further Government statement, his position is therefore saved. The other occasion when I would be right in describing what the Minister can do directly would be on Clause 1 of the Bill.
    Mr. Maxton: Would the Minister allow me? Clause 1 gives the education authority general duties, but there is no provision, as I see it, for the general powers of the Bill to be applied to the Minister un-

    809
    less he tells me that he can do all these things implicitly, by, reason of his position.
    Mr. Butler: I was just coming to that.
    Mr. Maxton: I cannot find in the financial part of the Bill instructions as to whom he can pay money directly on education matters.
    Mr. Lindsay: He can do so "to assist a body."
    Mr. Butler: The powers referred to in Clause 93, are in relation to persons other than local education authorities, and I think that would mean an organisation to which the Minister paid grants was under his control. The hon. Gentleman is really looking more for a college or school directly in the Minister's control. I will certainly examine the financial implications of that suggestion, but there is no doubt that Clause 1 is so widely drawn that the Minister, under his powers
    "to promote the education of the people of England and Wales and the progressive development of institutions devoted to that purpose,"
    has not got his wings clipped. That is the reason why Clause 1 was drawn so much more broadly than any previous Clauses have been drawn in an Education Bill.
    The main answer to the hon. Gentleman, however, is that our idea, when we come to consider Clause 40, is that further education shall be organised in collaboration with various institutions. Again, this would be easier for me to discuss on another Clause, for instance, on Sub-section (5) of Clause 40, where definite allusion is made to
    "universities, educational associations, and other bodies."
    I believe that the point put by the hon. Member would best be met by collaboration between various bodies, and not solely by the direct impact of the State upon an organisation. Clause 40 gives ample opportunity for variations of combinations of different agencies in adult education.
    I will give an example. There is an organisation in North Staffordshire, where there is an association between the University, the local education authority, and a variety of local authorities whose work impinges on the area. The Minister there comes in as a deus ex machina for arranging the general co-ordination and approving the scheme. I believe the hon. Mem-
    810
    ber will find that direct Ministerial influence alone, is not enough and that the Minister will either have to work with the bodies which are non-educational, referred to in Clause 93, or some organisation like the Workers' Educational Association, or some other adult body, or university, or, as I hope, the local authority, and it is very seldom he will work absolutely alone. It would be rather a sad idea if he were to send down simply some representative of his own office to start up some local effort.
    Mr. Lindsay: He could form some corporation like the Camps Corporation to assist the authority.
    Mr. Butler: Under Clause 1 he could assist new forms of organisation to further the educational effort. Therefore nothing of that sort is ruled out. The hon. Member who has spoken so movingly about education for grown-ups, will find that the Minister has to collaborate with somebody, and one of these combinations will be possible under Clause 1, Clause 39 or Clause 93. If he wants the Minister to have purely departmental control of education, that would be rather a major departure from the principles of British education, because British education has always run in partnership between the Board and the local authority. I am no dictator. I have to work with the local authorities and with voluntary bodies, with the churches and many other agencies. In the same way I believe that education would be better developed of we retained a certain amount of partnership. If he will concede me that, I will give him this—that it is high time the Minister and his office became more keen on taking the educational initiative themselves. I will give two examples of how we are trying to do that. The first relates to power of research. Up to the introduction of this Bill, the President of the Board of Education had no power to promote research at all. That is included in this Bill. Similarly we have not at the centre any council such as we are setting up under this Bill, to advise us on the content of education. I hope that in these two ways we are becoming more educationally-minded than before. I will examine the implications of the Amendment with pleasure on the understanding that it would be out of place to put it in this Clause which relates only to local authorities. I will examine how the hon. Member's worthy ideas can be paid attention to by the Government, and I

    811
    hope that he will study the various Clauses to which I have referred.
    The Chairman: I hope the Committee will not pursue the discussion. I expressed doubt as to whether the Amendment was in Order and the Minister has made clear that it is in the wrong place. I hope hon. Members will permit it to be withdrawn, and perhaps it can be discussed on the other occasion referred to by the Minister.
    Sir George Schuster: The Minister told us that his wings were not clipped. I think it is pretty clear from the Bill that his wings are by no means clipped. If I understand my hon. Friend's Amendment, he wants to make sure that the Minister, with those unclipped wings, will fly in a particular direction. I would like to ask the Minister whether, in considering these Clauses in relation to which he has told us this question has been brought up, he thinks it will be possible to incorporate in them some expression of the opinion of this Committee that they attach immense importance to adult education.
    The Chairman: That is a question that can be discussed on other occasions.
    Mr. Edmund Harvey: I do not want to delay the Committee but I want to ask whether the President, in view of his most sympathetic reply, would not be willing to consider the possibility of introducing a new Clause covering the ground of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). It is of immense importance and it would be of the greatest help if in the Bill we could have guidance given. Could my right hon. Friend promise he would be willing to consider that? I do not ask him for a definite assurance now as I think that Members on all sides who are deeply interested in adult education have heard him with very great satisfaction.
    Mr. Butler: The idea certainly crossed my mind, but I was advised that Clause 1 was so drawn that it would be a pity to put any gloss on it, and that it would be better if I could give to the hon. Member and those interested, an indication of the powers implicit in Clause 1, which would indicate that no other Clause was necessary. They could then decide whether it was necessary to ask for anything further.
    The Chairman: Hon. Members will put the Chair in a difficulty if they persist in this discussion on this occasion.
    Mr. Maxton: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Rear-Admiral Beamish: I beg to move, in page 32, line 13, at the end, to add:
    "(2) In fulfilling their duties under this Section every local education authority shall secure that part-time education is provided for all male persons over compulsory school age in the essential work and duty of the Armed Forces of the Crown and the Civil Defence services."
    I regret to have to do so after such a long Sitting but that does not happen to be any fault of mine. It is on the subject of further education, and if I may say so, it deals with a very important point, because, as I understand it, Clause 39, when we have passed it, will bear the meaning assigned to it under the Interpretation Clause 103, which says that further education is defined in Clause 39. Therefore, I am anxious to define it with as much precision as possible, and the fundamental rights and duties of citizenship in relation to the State. I, therefore, want to try to do what I can on this possibly controversial subject to direct my remarks on to the highest possible plane of national well-being because I believe it is only on those lines that the Minister or the Government can accept the idea. I would ask, Can it truly be said that further education, as we understand it, can ever be provided or be complete, without at least some elementary knowledge of the subjects mentioned in the Amendment?
    I would ask the Committee to cast their minds back, to think of the present and foresee the future, because all these things to my mind have a close relationship with the Bill and with the future of our country and the training of its youth. So I move this Amendment with a deep sense of responsibility and without any ulterior motives of militarism or Fascism or any of the other unpleasant things which are so closely concerned with aggression. I think that something of this kind is a simple test of national duty and citizenship, and I think I am in order in reminding the Committee that in the Bill we have the words concerning young people and others:
    "prepare them the responsibilities of citizenship."

    813
    I say that is of supreme significance. I say that the lack of such further education as we are now in process of defining in this Clause, is certainly a potent cause of the calculated aggression, from which at the moment the world is suffering, and I cannot help thinking that if our further education, as I am now hoping to define it in the Clause, makes it clear to the world that we are as much determined to resist aggression as we are determined not to inflict it, we shall be safe. I think many lives, much misery, much treasure, and also humiliation, will be saved if we pursue such a policy. I have mentioned, at the end of the Amendment, the Civil Defence Services. They are put in deliberately, because I cannot help feeling that we now find ourselves in a position when it is difficult to look forward to any time when it will be safe to dispense with some, and never perhaps all, of the Civil Defence services which we now have. I would mention the National Fire Service and Air Raid Precautions; several others must spring to the minds of Members. I feel it would be wholly wrong to relieve the education authorities of responsibility for providing part-time training in citizenship. I have tried to indicate, in the Amendment, the elementary lines of such training. I have no idea of marching bands of boys, musketry practice, and things of that kind. It is perfectly possible to provide the necessary training without going on those lines. I would like to quote from a pamphlet, which I think is relevant. Before I am challenged, I had better say that it is a Board of Education pamphlet, of June, 1940:
    "It is upon local genius and local patriotism that the foundations of democracy rest. Opportunities for service must, therefore, be offered to young people, as well as opportunities to equip themselves for that service. At a time like the present, when the nation is fighting for its life, the preparation of our youth for their full participation in the life of the nation, assumes a new significance. In the days which lie immediately before us the demands on our energies to deal with other tasks will be very insistent, yet we cannot afford to negelct the youth for whose future the struggle is being waged."
    If we can introduce something of this kind, with the compulsion, perhaps, which is necessary for other forms of education, as quite clearly laid down in the Bill, we shall produce a better youth than we have ever produced in the past, which reminds me of what was said long ago:
    814
    "He stopped the fliers, and, by his rare example, made the coward turn terror into sport."
    Mr. Butler: This is an important point. It is the last Amendment on Clause 39. The Government will be satisfied if we can get this Clause to-day, and that we can then move to report Progress. We are much obliged for the patience which hon. Members have shown to-day. We shall be very near our programme, and it is creditable that we have got so far on a voluntary basis. I do not think it can be said that the discussion has been in any way curtailed. We have now a further request made to the Government, on a perfectly legitimate point, in order that we shall, if the country again faces an emergency, find our young people fully prepared for the defence of our country and the civil defence of our shores. That is a perfectly legitimate request, but I am certain it is not a suitable matter to put in this Clause. I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend realises that nobody wishes to impugn his motives, because, heaven knows, there was quite enough lack of preparation on the last occasion, and we must be fully prepared if there is another.
    What is the way to achieve the aim which my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind? The best way is to continue on the voluntary basis of associating boys in out-of-school hours with cadet corps and such organisations. I use the term "school hours" in the proper sense—I mean a college hours. I have been to schools, colleges, and other places, which have their contingents of the A.T.C. or whatever it may be, in war-time, and, provided that my right hon. Friends the Service Ministers take a sensible view about training in peace-time, I trust that there will be, under the general aegis and atmosphere of these colleges, opportunities outside hours for proper training in the service of the country. But I think it would be wrong, and not in the sense which the Committee desire, to make training compulsory within hours. If we are to do that, we shall be asking industry and the general occupations of life to release young people to be trained actually within college hours. I think that that would be impossible. But it would not be impossible to say that these young people shall be banded together, and that, in their spare time, with guidance from older people and with proper

    815
    authority, so that there is no abuse, they shall learn to serve their country. If my hon. and gallant Friend will accept my reply in the spirit in which I approach his Amendment, he will not press to have such training included in the Bill, in the way he suggests.
    Amendment negatived.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Ordered,
    "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[Mr. Beechman.]
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

  HOSPITAL (PATIENT'S DISCHARGE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]
  Mr. Driberg: I am very glad that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, after her arduous and, if I may say so, successful last two Sitting Days, has been good enough to come down to the House at this late hour to deal with a comparatively limited point. It has taken us rather a long time, I am afraid, to raise this matter on the Adjournment. The incident to which I am referring took place last November, and I raised it at Question Time in January. I do not think, however, that that matters very much, because it was not something which required urgent administrative attention—although there are one or two points of principle arising out of it which I think may be of some slight interest.
  First, I must explain that I am raising the case of a soldier who was discharged from a hospital, as we maintain, before he was really fit so to be discharged. In fact, he was taken quite seriously ill soon after his discharge, and it is a very fortunate thing indeed that he recovered, because he was not a strong man and had a bad health history from early youth, and if he had, by any tragic misfortune, succumbed, a great deal more would have been heard of the case and it would have been very unfortunate for all concerned. When one remembers the fuss that arose out of the tragic episode of Rifleman Clayton, one can only be thankful that nothing like that occurred in this case—although I do not suggest for a moment
  816
  that there is anything comparable in this case as regards deliberate cruelty, or anything like it.
  My second point is the nature of the reply of the Minister of Health when I raised this matter at Question Time. The chief intention of his reply, as it seems to me, was to cast doubt on the facts stated in my Question. Before putting the Question down in the first instance, I had, of course, checked my facts, but, when such general doubt was cast on them in the Ministerial reply, I naturally hastened to re-check them: I re-checked them with the man concerned, his family, the doctors who have attended him and also with the local branch of a highly reputable ex-Servicemen's organisation which happened to be fully cognisant of the man's home circumstances and all the facts of the case.
  My re-checking, I am afraid, showed completely that the facts originally given in my Question were correct, and that the Minister's reply, although ingenious, was also rather disingenuous. It was, in fact, a collection of half-truths, omissions and evasions; and although, of course, it referred only to a special local point, it was in effect, therefore, misleading to the House as well as to the public generally and to my constituents in particular. It would be Utopian to expect the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a Departmental reply; but I do feel that the general sense of what is put out at Question Time from that despatch-box must be substantially accurate and not misleading to the House. I fully realise, incidentally, that the Minister is not personally responsible for the brief prepared for him by his Department.
  My Question on 27th January, which gives the facts of the case, as I still maintain, as briefly as possible, was this. I asked the Minister of Health:
  "Whether he is aware that Craftsman Staines, R.E.M.E., was discharged from a hospital, of the identity of which he has been informed, instructed to rejoin his unit several hundred miles away, and obliged to walk four miles to the nearest town, although he had been in bed for ten days with acute bronchitis and complained that he was still unfit; that on arrival at the town he was taken seriously ill and found to be suffering from pleurisy; and if he will take steps to ensure adequate inspection of all patients in this hospital before discharge."
  To which the Minister replied:
  "I have obtained a report on this case which does not bear out the facts stated in the

  817
  Question, and I will, with permission, circulate a summary of it in the OFFICIAL REPORT."
  As a supplementary, I asked:
  "Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not disputed that, within an hour or so of being discharged as fit, although he complained that he was still unfit, this man collapsed with pleurisy?"
  To which the Minister replied:
  "I think my hon. Friend had better wait until he sees the facts as I understand them to be."
  The summary that was circulated in HANSARD is quite a brief summary—about 20 lines or so—but in the course of it occur no fewer than six, or possibly seven, statements which, on re-checking my facts, I found to be obviously deliberate suppressions or evasions or mis-statements of the truth. I will run through it briefly, pick out these points, and analyse them for the benefit of the hon. Lady. The whole tenor of the summary, I should explain, was to cast doubt on the facts as stated in my question. I do not think there is any positive untruth in the summary, but there is a great deal of false suggestion by omission and by half-truth. The summary goes like this:
  "The Report shows that, although the patient was in hospital for ten days, he was not at any time during that period more than slightly ill;"
  First suppression of fact—because this man, before he went into hospital for 10 days, had been in bed at home for four days, and his own doctor said that he was well on the way to recovery when admitted to hospital. It goes on:
  "—that for several days before discharge he had been up all day; that on the day when he was to be discharged to his unit he asked and was granted leave to visit his home in the neighbouring town—"
  To put it like that in this context is to imply that he wanted to leave hospital and is, therefore, to blame for the consequences. In fact, he only asked that he might go to his home in the neighbouring town—where, by the way, he was taken ill originally while on leave—when he realised that otherwise he would have to travel straight to Scotland. That might, in the condition in which he felt himself to be, have had very much more serious consequences than did actually transpire. The summary goes on:
  "…his home in the neighbouring town, two and a half miles away"—
  A point which is obviously inserted to suggest that my Question was inaccurate,
  818
  because I said that he was obliged to walk four miles to the nearest town. In fact, the centre of the town is two and a half miles away and the man's home is one and a half miles beyond the centre of the town, so that he was obliged to walk four miles to his home in the neighbouring town. I am sorry to go into these rather fiddling little details, but I am analysing this summary to show that it is generally undependable.
  "…to which there is a bus service"—
  another dig at my Question, because I had said that he had been obliged to walk to the town. Although it is true that there is a bus service to the town, no buses pass the hospital between 8.48 a.m. and 12.33 P m. Craftsman Staines was discharged about 10 or 11 a.m., when no bus was available, and, as he has told me since, he did have to walk all the way to the town; no bus passed him, and he was not lucky enough to get a lift.
  "When leaving the hospital he complained of a sore throat but he had no temperature, and was not seen by a medical officer, having been seen by medical officers on the two previous days."
  At this point there is a discrepancy in the evidence, because the man himself and his mother, who had been visiting him in the hospital, insist that he was not seen by the medical officer on the two previous days but only on one of them. This perhaps is not a point of special importance; but they claim that he was seen on the Monday but not on the Tuesday. The important thing is that he was not seen on the Wednesday morning, before his discharge, although he complained of feeling ill. It goes on:
  "…that on the day after he arrived home he was reported to be unwell, and was at once re-admitted to hospital."
  That is obviously intended, again, to cast doubt on the facts as stated, because I had said that,
  "…on arrival at the town he was taken seriously ill"
  and so on. Again it is completely misleading to say that on the day after he arrived home he was reported to be unwell and was at once re-admitted to hospital, because what actually happened was that he definitely reported sick within an hour or two of arriving home, went to see his own doctor, and was admitted to another hospital on the same day and transferred to the original hospital on the following day—which I think the hon.

  819
  Lady will agree is not quite fairly put by the wording of this summary.
  "…he was found to have some rise of temperature and a sore throat, but no pleurisy as alleged."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th January, 1944; col. 851, Vol. 396.]
  And then the summary goes on to say that he rapidly got better. Well, "no pleurisy as alleged" is a very difficult matter for me to deal with. I am not a medical man and I do not know exactly what the technical medical definition of pleurisy is. Possibly it is a condition about which two doctors might differ in their diagnosis; it may even be that it is a condition which rapidly changes and is ameliorated, and two doctors might honestly give different opinions about it within a day or so of each other; but I do know that I have checked again with the man's own doctor, and there is no question at all that the doctor diagnosed pleurisy and has, since my question and the Minister's answer, definitely confirmed his diagnosis of pleurisy.
  What actually happened in the original hospital in the few hours before the man was discharged was this. During the night he complained of a cough and was given frequent doses of medicine and advised to tell the ward sister in the morning. Before he could do this, however, he was sent for by another sister and told that he would be discharged that day. He protested that he was still feeling very unwell and that his throat was bad. Remember, he had been ill for ten days or a fortnight with bronchial catarrh or bronchitis; but the sister, although she did not actually accuse him of it, rather hinted that he was "swinging the lead," as they say, and insisted that he was fit to return to his unit. It was only then, when he realised that he would have to leave hospital, that he asked for permission to visit his home before returning to his unit, and when he went home he was quite obviously ill. He called at the police station to ask what he should" do about going back to his unit. Here he was: he had been turned out of this hospital and was feeling wretched. They advised him to see his own doctor, which he did, and both his own doctor and his partner saw him at various times, sent him to another hospital on that day, and now confirm again that he had pleurisy. As I say, however, I am not laying too much stress on the name of the condition from which
  820
  he was suffering; it simply seems to me to be fully established that he was much too ill to have been discharged from hospital that morning. That is the main point.
  I am sorry to have detained the House so long, but I do hope that I have said enough to emphasise the extreme importance of as careful a check-up as possible of all patients before their discharge from any hospital. Particularly if they complain that they are unwell, they should, at least, be allowed to see a doctor—although one realises how busy doctors are—and this is especially desirable, I think, when it is a service patient who is going straight back to his unit. The hon. Lady will appreciate, I am sure, that I am making no general accusation against hospitals, or against this hospital in particular. This hospital, I know, like all other hospitals, does magnificent work under extremely difficult war-time conditions. Whether one goes to hospital as a visitor or as a patient—and I have been both in the last few months—one is astonished by the wonderful and tireless work of the staff, the doctors, the nurses, all of them. Really, what I want to do by raising this matter is to encourage such staffs to feel that the most meticulous attention to detail is never wasted. However difficult the conditions, however intensive the rush of war-time—and I know how difficult it is—it is never safe to trust to luck where the health of a soldier or a civilian may be endangered by haste or negligence. That is my main point. My secondary point is once more to impress upon departmental staffs, if I can, not to trifle with facts when they are preparing them for presentation to this honourable House.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): I was glad that the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) referred to the good work which has been done by hospitals and said he did not wish to criticise them in any way. I agree that the greatest care should be taken, whether the patient is a soldier or civilian, before he is discharged. Perhaps the House will bear with me if I give the details of this case, which I have carefully checked and about which I have all the documents referring to temperature and so on. This man was admitted to hospital on 30th October, on the last day of his leave. He was suffering from a mild infection of the upper respiratory passages. His chest was X-rayed on 2nd

  821
  November and there was no evidence of pleurisy or anything being wrong.
  Mr. Driberg: He had been ill before.
  Miss Horsbrugh: I am giving the facts when he reached hospital. There was no rise in temperature during the whole of the time the man was in hospital. He then began to get up for part of the day and by 8th November was up all day. Generally, in these cases a patient takes exercise outside as well as inside the hospital, but we have not been able to get definite evidence that this man actually went out. That we cannot check. The resident physician examined him on 8th November and passed him fit for discharge. The assistant medical officer entered on the man's case paper, on 9th November, that he was fit for discharge, and he told the ward sister. On 10th November the man told the ward sister that he was not feeling well and she took his temperature, but found he had no temperature, although his throat was slightly red on one side. This man went to the military registrar, but he did not say that he was feeling unwell. His conversation with him was entirely taken up with pointing out that he was on the last day of his leave before he entered hospital and was very anxious to have that day. The military registrar, when asked if he could not make up that time, arranged with this man that he could go home and travel to his unit by night.
  If this man had been feeling really unwell I would have thought that he would have told the military registrar, and that he did not want to travel by night. Now we come to the fact that the hon. Member said that this man was obliged to walk. As the hon. Member said, a bus did pass, but not until 12.33, and this man was discharged at 10.30 a.m. I think that the House will agree that there was no thought of turning the man into the road at 10.30. The bus passing the hospital gates, and going to the town in which the man lived, could have been taken. He had to wait only a short time. But on his own initiative he walked to the town. There is also a railway station about one mile away, but one would have thought that this man, if he had been feeling unwell, would have taken that bus. Anyhow, on his own initiative he walked and did not take the bus.
  The next we heard of him was that when he was at home he felt unwell. I
  822
  am told that his family doctor was absent, but he saw another doctor. He said he was suffering by that time from a pain in the left side of his chest and back. His temperature was taken. It was 100.2 and the doctor said he detected a slight pleural rub in the neighbourhood of the pain. He admitted him to another hospital and prescribed treatment. He was reported on the next day to the hospital that he had left, and he was at once transferred back. That was on nth November. He was X-rayed on that day and no trace of pleurisy was found, but on a clinical examination it was found that he was suffering from tonsillitis. A bacteriological examination showed that it was of a simple type. The temperature settled down within 48 hours, and I think the hon. Member will realise that in some cases, when there has been a rise of temperature, pains in the back may be associated with it. But the doctor who admitted him to hospital did not see him again. When he came back he was X-rayed, there was no pleurisy but slight tonsillitis, the temperature was normal within 48 hours, and stayed normal, and he was discharged to a convalescent depot on 30th November.
  As to general treatment in hospital, it is the practice, when there is any long stay of the soldier, when the military registrar says he is to be discharged, to go to an auxiliary hospital of the Red Cross or St. John or the Army Convalescent de pots. He had only been in hospital for a short time. He had no temperature at all while there and had only had a mild infection of the upper respiratory passage. It was not thought necessary then to send him to a depot. He was anxious to have a day's leave. He did not suffer from pleurisy before or afterwards. When these facts are known, I think it will be seen that the hospital did its duty. The military registrar who arranged for him to go home did so because the man asked for it, and made arrangements for him to travel by night. A bus was passing the gates within two hours, but he chose to walk, I do not think it can be said that the hospital in any way neglected its patient. He came back the next day and was again X-rayed and received proper treatment for the slight tonsillitis. On these facts I think the hon. Member will agree that the hospital discharged its duty and that the man

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  did not in any way suffer from the treatment he received. The tonsillitis which he had developed by that time was not of long duration and he was able to be fully restored to health.
  Mr. Driberg: If, on the hon. Lady's own showing, there was slight redness of the throat before the man's discharge, and if he complained of feeling unwell, does she not think that he should have been allowed to see a doctor before he came out?
  Miss Horsbrugh: I should have thought that when he went to the military registrar he would have said, "I do not think I am fit for discharge; may I see a doctor?" What he said was, "May I go home, because I have missed a day's leave?"
  Mr. Driberg: I tried to interrupt before on that point, because there is a conflict of evidence. My recollection is that the man says he told the military registrar he felt ill, but that he said he was not concerned with the medical side.
  Miss Horsbrugh: We checked that carefully. We are told that he said that to one of the R.A.M.C. people, but when it came to the point of dealing with the registrar, the one topic the man talked of was that he had come into hospital on the last day of his leave, and could he go home and make that one day up? The registrar said that he could if he would travel at night. The man did not complain at all.
  Mr. Driberg: But he said something to one of the R.A.M.C. men?
  Miss Horsbrugh: What he said to the military registrar was that he had missed a day's leave in coming to hospital and he wanted to go home. It was arranged that he should go home for the day and travel at night to his unit. If the man had been feeling ill he ought to have staved in bed and not asked the registrar for a day.
  Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

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