§ Major HILLSasked the President of the Board of Education whether, seeing that most of the children suffering from non-pulmonary tuberculosis under good treatment in an open-air hospital are capable of profiting from education and that they often have to remain in hospital for several years, he will say what educational provision is being made for them?
§ Lord E. PERCYIn all open-air hospitals or schools with which either the Board or the Ministry of Health are concerned, and in which there are enough children of school age suffering from non-pulmonary tuberculosis to make it practicable to provide instruction, it is the practice both of the Board and of the Ministry to require suitable instruction to be provided.
§ Major HILLSasked the Minister of Health whether Sir George Newman, in his estimates of the number of 41,733 children crippled and suffering from non- 657W pulmonary tuberculosis in England and Wales, included children under the Poor Law; do the schemes for the treatment and education of physically defective children include provision for children under the Poor Law; and, if not, what is the future of these crippled children?
§ Lord E. PERCYI have been asked to reply. The number 41,733 mentioned in the chief medical officer's report is the number of children crippled and suffering from non-pulmonary tuberculosis returned by local education authorities during the year 1923. The number purports to include only those children for whom local education authorities are responsible, and it is quite likely that it does not include a certain number of children who are in the care of guardians. As regards the applicability of the arrangements to Poor Law children, I understand that the practice of local education authorities varies, and that, so far as these children do not come within the arrangements, the guardians have power to make provision for them.