Sir F. HALLasked the Lord Privy Seal when the new Education Act is to be brought into force and the total expenditure thereunder falling upon the National Exchequer to be incurred in the year 1920–21?
§ Mr. FISHERMy right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. There is no single appointed day for the coming into operation of the whole of the Education Act, 1918. The most important provisions which are not yet fully in operation are Sections 1–5, dealing with the preparation and submission of schemes, for which the Board have fixed the first day of August, 1919, as the appointed day, and Section 10, for which no appointed day has yet been fixed, though I have expressed the hope that it may be brought into operation in the autumn of 1921. The Board's Estimates for 1920–1921 will in due course be submitted to the Treasury and laid before Parliament, and the information asked for in the last part of the question will then become available. It would be premature to make any statement on the subject at the present stage.