HC Deb 16 November 1932 vol 270 cc1152-271
Mr. COVE

I beg to move, That this House reaffirms its belief in the principle of free secondary education and, being opposed to any policy calculated to arrest its development, condemns the Board of Education Circular No. 1421, which seeks to restore or raise secondary school fees, restrict the number of free places, and introduce a harsh means test. We are to-day debating a famous Circular which, I believe, will become historic. By an administrative Order, by, as it were, a stroke of the pen, without previous discussion in the House, there has been effected a revolutionary change in State policy as far as education is concerned. Since 1902, when we had the famous Balfour Act, the effort of the State has been directed, although in a slow and halting manner I agree and not so fast as many of us on this side would have it go, towards the co-ordination and unifying of all forms of education. The effort of the State and the efforts of many local education authorities up and down the country ever since that Act have been directed towards making the education system, from its very earliest beginnings until the child passes through it, one co-ordinated, unified system. We on this side of the House have always maintained that the distinction between elementary and secondary education has been an artificial one. We have always held that, not only the exceptional child, but the normal child has as much right to full and free secondary education as it has to full and free elementary education. We have held that view on many grounds. You cannot have fair play for the children in our schools unless you have that system, you cannot have the most effective education system unless you have free secondary education, and you cannot secure the best result, not only for the individual but for the State itself, unless the preliminary work begun in the elementary schools is completed in the secondary schools of the country.

The party to which I belong has for years held very tenaciously to the idea—indeed, it is more than an idea, for we took some steps when we were a Government to get this effected—that the normal child should have full and free access to secondary education. I would point out, in passing, that we have not, of course, said that every child shall have the same kind of secondary education. We have not said that every child, for instance, has a literary gift or bias. We have pleaded, not only for the unifying of the system, but also that the system shall be diversified and that it shall provide an opportunity for the growth and development of the particular capacity with which the normal child happens to be gifted. That has been our position. The State, since 1902, has very slowly put the emphasis more and more on ability to profit by the education given. More and more, as a matter of State policy, we have said that poverty shall be no bar and that the non-ability of the parent to pay fees shall not prevent the child having secondary education.

The Circular which we are discussing this afternoon cuts right across the whole trend of State policy as it has been carried out in this country since 1902. If we look back, we shall find that we have had, not only free places in our secondary schools, but also free secondary schools. The progressive authorities said: "We will allow all children to enter our secondary schools on the basis of their ability to profit by them." And we have about 74 or 78 absolutely free secondary schools. What does the Circular do as far as those schools are concerned? This is of vital importance from the point of view of State policy. It abolishes all those free secondary schools. After the application of the Circular, which will come into effect, I believe, next year, there can be no free secondary school. Every school will have to have fees. We believe that that is a retrograde step which will be injurious to the children of this country and will also result in injury to the best interests of the State and the nation.

Not only have we had the free secondary schools, but we have also had the extension of free places. Figures are somewhat difficult to get, but I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary will say that I am far wrong when I state that there are somewhere round about 200,000 free places in our secondary school system. In principle at least, and as a matter of State policy, all those 200,000 free places are to be wiped out by Circular 1421. As I see it, the Board of Education and the Government say: "We will attach a label to every place in every secondary school, and on that label there is to be a fee which at the normal figure is to be nine guineas." The Government have accepted as their policy that every place in the secondary schools in this country must carry with it normally a minimum fee of nine guineas per annum. That is a radical, and, I believe, I am correct in saying, revolutionary change in the secondary school system of this country.

What has happened hitherto? The local authorities, with the sanction of the Board, have said: "Here is an examination test." As a matter of fact, I thought of bringing some of the papers down to the House this afternoon. I believe I could have said without being disrespectful at all that not many of us could have passed the scholarship examinations for the free places without special preparation. The standard of many of them is absurdly high. Any child who has passed a scholarship test in order to obtain one of the free places must be a child of exceptional ability and capacity. The State has said: "Here are these places. If this exceptional child has the ability, then that exceptional ability of itself carries the right to a free place." That is now altered. Under Circular 1421—there are a good many circulars coming from the Board in these days, all meaning economy, of course—that is reversed, or rather, added to, and the State now says: "Before you can get a special place" —not a free place—"you"—the child—"must be exceptionally clever and your parents must be exceptionally, if not degradingly, poor." [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Anyone who studies this Circular is bound to realise that it brings into State practice not only the question of the ability of the child to profit but also the poverty of the parent. Before the child can get—I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary can deny this—the advantage of a special place, he has to be not only able but he has to have great capacity, and the parent has to be exceptionally poor. The income limit of £3 to £4 a week is an extremely low one. If the child is to get a special place there has to be an inquiry into the means of the parent, and the parent has to be proved to be exceptionally poor. The change of the word "free" place to "special" place has a tremendous social and political significance. The word "free" had a social and political significance, and I need not ask the Committee to accept my word for it. I will read from a document issued by the Board of Education, Educational Pamphlet No. 50. In a pamphlet, "Recent Development of Secondary Schools in England and Wales," the Board says about free places: While there were temporary difficulties which, in the main, have been removed by the passage of time, the beneficial effects of the free place system have proved permament and increasingly obvious. The political idea behind the Free Place regulations was that State-supported schools must be accessible, and not he "class" institutions. It was not thought expedient to abolish fees, though schools with high fees were looked at askance. Free places were required instead; it was emphasised that they must not be regarded as scholarships awarded for exceptional merit, but that they should be open to any public elementary school child who reached the ordinary standard of entry. Therefore, the growth of the free place system in this country is associated with a movement to break down class distinctions and class barriers inside the secondary system. The free place system is admitted by the board in its own document as being associated with a movement to make our secondary system a democratic one. It is associated with an effort to give equality of opportunity within the national system. The political idea between circular No. 1421 is entirely opposite from that. The political idea behind 1421 cuts right across the philosophy behind the free place movement in this country. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned we stand for a full, free secondary system, equality of opportunity for every child, and we resist and resent the iniquitous means test that is now going to be employed. We say quite definitely that through this circular the Government are inflicting an injury upon the children and doing great damage to the State itself.

Let us look at Circular 1421 in some little detail. I would direct attention to the first paragraph, (a): The system of admitting pupils free to secondary schools without any regard to the capacity of the parent to pay is needlessly wasteful of public funds and runs counter to the principle now generally accepted, that where educational awards are made by public or quasi-public bodies the amount of any assistance given should vary according to the circumstances of the successful candidate. It is perfectly clear in the first place that that statement in itself abolishes the free school and that it also abolishes the free places. It says that the existing system is wasteful. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us what he means by a wasteful system. Is it not a fact that from the point of view of the State the expenditure of public money upon the fee-payer is far more wasteful than the public money spent upon the free-placer, that the educational result from the free-placer, from the boy or girl who has won a free scholarship, are superior educationally to the results obtained from those who pay fees. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary would deny that. I think it can be proved by statistics and all the tests that we can apply that public money spent on those who have won scholarships and on boys and girls in free places has been far more economical to the State than the money spent upon those who have got their places by paying fees.

4.0 p. m.

The Committee has to make up its mind. The Liberal party in the past made up its mind on this point, and even the National Labour people, before they became supporters of the present Government, made up their mind. We have said, and I understand the Liberal party have said, that when we look at the education that we give to the children it is not so much from the point of view of the benefit to the individual child, not from the return the child may get in the sense of securing a job, not from the personal point of view, but from the point of view of the benefit to the nation and to the State as a whole. The nation has felt the need for intelligent and highly trained people and has said that from the point of view of good citizenship and social stability and from the point of view of the economic health of the nation, indeed from the trade and commerce point of view, it is the duty and obligation of the State to provide full education for those children who are fitted to profit by it. It has been a State obligation, and, from the point of view of the State, we have not been so much concerned with the boy wanting to get on in the world. The State has said in the past, "It is our duty, nay, it is our necessity, to provide secondary education for all those children who are fitted to profit by it." Is it not true to say that that outlook, that philosophy, that State tendency have now been given up in Circular 1421? All that has gone, and we say now that it is the responsibility of the parents. In the past we said that the State should see that brains and capacity should he developed, but now we are looking upon this as the asset of an individual, and, looking at it from that angle, we are saying, "If you, the parent, can afford to pay, in the words of this Circular you must pay, and if you do not pay there is a needless waste of public money." As a matter of fact, Circular 1421, with its means test and its imposition of fees, is a tax on the married man who happens to have clever children. If a man is a bachelor, or if a man has no children, he does not pay, but if a parent happens to have children who are able to pass the examination to go into a secondary school, the State comes along with this circular and says, "Here is a tax on the married man." [Laughter.] Yes, it is the married man with clever children who has to pay. If he has not clever children, they cannot enter the secondary schools.

I cannot understand the Government on this point, because it is not only the working man they are hitting now. They are hitting the lower middle class, and the upper artisan class, and, indeed, the Government already know, as is seen by the way that they have tried to smooth over the difficulties, that this Circular is extremely unpopular and resented among a section of the community to whom they usually look for political support. This is the state to which we have come—British capitalism driven to a means test for the unemployed, and driven to this miserable means test, which is calculated by the Government to save only £400,000 in a period of five years. That is the state to which the Government have been driven, and I am very much surprised that, for a trifling thing relatively to the enormous sums in the Budget, they should seek unpopularity among that section of the community which usually supports them.

I would like to look for a moment or two at paragraph (5), which says: the fees charged often hear hut a small proportion to the cost of the education provided, and are frequently not adequate having regard to what parents can afford to pay. The fees are not big enough; they do not pay the whole of the cost, says this Circular. It is perfectly correct. I believe it is calculated that the cost of educating a child in a secondary school is, on the average, about£35 and if you get a. fee of £15 the State has still to pay £20. I admit that, but why do not the Government follow up the logic of their own principles? Why do not the Government say, "We will make all the places special places. We will have examination on ability, and then apply a means test, and those who can afford to pay the whole cost of their education shall pay the whole cost"? Why do not the Government follow out the logic of their own principles and say, "The nation is in dire difficulty and you, the individual, with, say, £1,500 a year with one or two children, must pay the whole of that £35 "? Up to now the Government have refused to follow that up. Why 7 The Government are still tied—and I say this quite sincerely—to class distinctions and class privileges. They dare not open the whole of the places merely to ability. They would offend their own supporters, and, indeed, be untrue to their political philosophy.

The fact of the matter is that the fee which is being charged, and which is to continue to be charged at a higher rate, is only a means whereby the relatively—I want to emphasise that word—inferior pupil can get a State subsidy. The standard of ability demanded of the special placer, as we must now call the old free placer, has always been higher than the standard of admittance for the fee-payer, as anyone who has any practical knowledge of our educational system knows, but the Government say in this Circular, as I understand it, that they are still going to reserve 50 per cent. of the places for fee-payers, that is, half of the places are still to be reserved for class privileges, and are still to be given to pupils who are not so able and have not the capacity which the free placer has—all in the interest, I maintain, of class privilege and class distinction, and, as a matter of fact, all to the detriment of the proper educational organisation of the secondary schools of this country.

The Government will find that the number of those who are going to pay fees will drop. The parents have already had, in this crisis, a great increase in their Income Tax. If I remember rightly, the first Budget of the crisis put a tremendously increased burden in direct taxation on the backs of the married people. There was, I believe, an increase of from 200 to 300 per cent. in Income Tax. These people are subject to unemployment and to the depression, and now the Government come along and add another heavy form of taxation. The result will be seen in a lowered number who are paying fees in the secondary schools. Here is the subtle point that has not yet been grasped. I hope the Minister will note this; he is very keenly interested in education. The reduction in the number of fee-payers will automatically result in a reduction of the number of free placers, or as we shall have to call them in future, special placers. If by raising your fees you reduce the number of pupils who pay fees, automatically, as a result of that, you lower the number of those who will come in free. Why is that? I notice that some hon. Members seem to doubt that, but if they will read the Regulations they will find that the percentage of special placers depends upon the total number admitted in the previous year. It is a fraction of the total number; it is not a fixed number. It changes each year according to the number of students who came into the school in the previous year.

I would like the House to realise what happened after the Geddes Committee. In 1922 the Geddes Committee pointed out that up to July that year 500 secondary schools had raised their fees, and 270 had increases under consideration. The following year the number of fee-payers in the schools fell by 4,000 as the direct result of increasing the fees. The next year the number of fee-payers fell again by 2,000, and the year following the number went down another 1,000. That ground was lost after many years of steady expansion, and the remarkable thing is that the ground which was lost then has never been made up. There are to-day 3,000 fewer fee-paying pupils in our secondary schools than there were 10 years ago. That is a direct result of the raising of the fees.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us the figures with regard to the free placers?

Mr. COVE

According to the May Committee Minority Report, there is a not inconsiderable number of secondary school places unoccupied, or occupied by elementary pupils below the age of 11. The decline of 4,000 fee-payers in 1923—this is the point to which I want to direct the attention of the hon. Member—according to the statistics I have got out, resulted in the next year in a fall of 3,000 in the number of free places. That is, in 1923 there was a drop of 4,000 in fee-payers, and in 1924 that automatically resulted in a further drop of 3,000 free places. That is bound to happen because of the regulations admitting students to secondary schools.

I want to direct the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary—and I hope that he will be able to give us some consolation on this point—to another bad effect of this action. This will not only injure the students in the elementary schools by preventing them from passing into the secondary schools. It will also cause a great deal of unemployment among teachers. A couple of years ago I remember the Minister, then Sir Charles Trevelyan, asking the teachers' organisation to co-operate with him in securing increased admission into the training colleges and universities in view of the prospective raising of the school-age and in view, also of reorganisation, I understand. I am going to tell the Minister quite frankly that I was one of those who were very sceptical. We were rather chary of increasing the supply of teachers without a definite guarantee of employment.

The attitude taken by the National Union of Teachers was that we must have no regard to the political colour of the Government, whatever it may be. The President of the Board of Education has approached us, and we must meet him as a Minister of the Crown. He has asked us to co-operate with him. The organisation of the teachers agreed and the whole influence of the National Union of Teachers was used to help the Minister to solve the difficulties in regard to the raising of the school age. We, therefore, had these students in the colleges and I am afraid that this Circular, with its restrictions and curtailments, will have the result that there will be no posts for a number of these students when they come out. Has the President of the Board a crumb of comfort for these students It is the most extreme form of waste to spend public money and for students to spend their money and their time in getting fully qualified, and then to find that there are no jobs for them when they come out of college. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to reassure us on that point, and will say that there will be no form of restriction which will cause these teachers to be unemployed in the future.

To sum up, this Circular, far from being an enonomy circular, will produce waste. It will produce a waste of ability, because tens of thousands of pupils will not be able to remain in the secondary schools. The parents will not be able to pay the enhanced fees demanded. It is true that the Government say they are going to administer it very gently, to allow liberty here and there, but it is quite evident from the speeches of hon. Members opposite that the Government are out to save money at the expense of the parents of intelligent children. From the speeches of the President of the Board of Education and the Parliamentary Secretary one would think that no harm is going to be done, that the Government are going to be very gentle 'and allow a lot of liberty to local authorities, but one thing is certain, and that is that the Government are out to save money at the expense of intelligent children.

The Parliamentary Secretary seems to disagree with that statement. Let me draw his attention to a speech which is reported in the "Western Mail," by the head of the Welsh Department. I do not know whether I am allowed to mention this, but I am bound to do so. We greatly appreciate his services but I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that it would be a good thing to keep a civil servant out of the arena of social and political controversy. It should not, in my judgment, be the duty of a, permanent servant of the State to make speeches and argue the case for the Government. That is the Government's work; it is the work of the Parliamentary Secretary, who should go down to Wales and talk Welsh. He would then realise the educational zeal of Wales. But the head of the Welsh Department, as reported in the "Western Mail" of Tuesday, 18th October, said: We want £35,000 from Wales in fees. As examples he gave the following as the additional income which would be required from Wales: Cardiff, £3,425, Swansea, £2,436. Evidently, the Board of Education has already decided how much they are going to have out of each authority. There is to be a process of rationing. While the Government say they are not going to injure the child, nevertheless it is a process of robbing Peter to pay Paul; and if Peter and Paul are in the same school one will have to pay higher fees to let the other off. It will apply to the whole educational area in Glamorganshire. Is it the intention that a school in Penarth shall pay additional fees in order that a school in my Division shall pay a lower fee, or no fee at all? Evidently this is rationing at the expense of the clever and able children in our schools. Talk of economy! It is time for us to realise that savings not only consist in building up factories and workshops, not only in developing our capital assets, but that there is an equally real saving in building up and developing the mind and bodies of our children. That is sound economy.

The schools of our country will stand comparison with those of any other country. Our secondary system has been developing and those who are interested in our educational administration are proud of the contribution which is being made to education to-day by the secondary system in this country, and particularly by the secondary system of Wales, with its glorious history of struggle and sacrifice to build up its fine intermediate system. Now the Government say that we must have economy, economy in the sense of mere saving of money, economy in the sense that it is unproductive economy. One would imagine that money left in the pockets of the individual is going to fructify more than if it is spent by the State. That s not true. If you put a fee on the married man it may result in a saving of Income Tax to the bachelor, but does it necessarily follow that the bachelor is going to spend the money you save him in a, better manner than if it was spent by the State in the education of the married man's child? State expenditure in this respect is the highest form of economy. What are the Government going to do with the money that they may save? They are already saving more than they can accommodate; they have more money already than they can re-invest comfortably. There are millions lying idle; there is no productive investment for vast sums of money in this country, and here they come along and stop a productive investment in the secondary schools of our land.

It must not be forgotten that Circular 1421 is operating at a moment when the Government have already decided that not one single secondary school shall be built. There has been a complete stoppage of the building of secondary schools, and yet within that curtailed and restricted system the Government impose a greater burden. We definitely take our stand against this Circular. It is reactionary, and before it was issued Parliament should have had an opportunity of discussing it. From the evidence I have there is a large section of hon. Members behind the Government who are very uneasy with regard to it. It has been conveyed to me in the Lobbies and smoking rooms of this House that many hon. Members opposite are deeply perturbed as to its effects, as to its effects on their electoral prospects, and they are also concerned that the State should have stepped in and said that a child must not only have ability, exceptional ability, but exceptional poverty before State aid can be given to the fullest degree in our educational system.

Sir WILLIAM JENKINS

I beg to second the Motion.

One would have thought that a question like this would have been an issue at the last election, but not a word was said by the leaders of the present National Government or by any other party on the question of education. It was not an issue, and, therefore, no mandate was given to the Government to deal in this way with education. On the question of transitional payments Parliament was dealing with a temporary Measure, but in this case it is a permanent one which will take four or five years to fructify. It is a determined attempt by the Government to interfere with a policy which has been in existence in this country for a considerable time. The number of protests that I have received from Wales is enormous. Never during the whole of my experience have I had so many protests about any matter than on the question of doing away with free secondary education; protests from teachers, headmasters and headmistresses, from churches and various organisations throughout the length and breadth of Wales, who feel very disturbed by the step that has been taken by the Board of Education.

4.30 p. m.

There is no doubt that Circular 1421 abolishes absolutely free secondary education. Whatever may be said about special places, whatever may be argued in its favour, and whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may say, free secondary education is abolished. That is a policy and a, principle which we in Wales oppose. We fought tenaciously in this House for many years to extend the facilities for education in Wales. Let me refer to two reports on the subject. The first, known as the Bruce Red Report, urged us to develop education, to give greater facilities for it, to provide improved education for our boys and girls. We were asked to continue at this great work. But this proposal of the Government does away with the whole of it. The Circular of the Board interferes with the general principles laid down in the report. Then there was the Hadow Report. We have spent a considerable amount of time and money in trying to fit our general education into the recommendations of the Hadow Report; but this new Circular is going to impede our progress.

I would plead especially for the depressed areas of Wales. The House should realise that there are areas in Wales which are absolutely derelict. In our valleys we have our elementary and secondary schools. In many areas all the industries are practically closed down. But the people are still residing there, and there is no opening for them anywhere. The Government ask us to deprive the children in those areas of secondary education. For this Circular insists that a certain amount of money is to come from each area, and that money cannot be obtained. The Board of Education say definitely that a sum of £400,000 must be secured to the Treasury. They say to Wales, "You must provide £35,000." From the county of Glamorgan a sum of £8,000 is required. To raise that sum of money will be quite impossible, because of the depression. There are areas like the Rhondda Valley, Merthyr Tydvil, Ogmore, Maesteg and Bargoed where the industries are practically closed down. In effect, therefore, we are asked to take away the rights which the children have possessed in the past.

I would draw attention to a report issued as the result of an inquiry in the year 1898. It is a very interesting report on educational subjects, and I would refer to one or two passages. The report describes the distinctive characteristics of Wales, bearing upon its claim for special treatment in the matter of secondary and higher education. It lays stress on the sentiment of nationality. I do not want to argue about that, although I am an ardent Welshman and believe that Welsh should play a very prominent part in our schools. The report refers to the poverty of the country, taken as a whole, and particularly in respect of charitable endowments, in contrast with England. If we were poor in those days, we are poorer now. But the population has considerably increased. I wish to pay a tribute to one of my countrymen, the late Sir Hugh Owen, who did so much for education not only in Wales but in this country. I feel that this scheme of the Government does an injustice to those who have fought so nobly for us in the past. The number of pupils in secondary schools in Wales is 28,600. Of that total there were 9,222 in the County of Glamorgan in October of last year. We have seven free secondary schools, and 2,068 pupils who are paying no fees at all.

Mr. WALLHEAD

Do these figures include the boroughs?

Sir W. JENKINS

None of the boroughs, but only the administrative county of Glamorgan. Two other schools have been added, and in two years' time from now those two schools would have been completely free, which would have brought the total of free schools to nine. Those seven free schools were not given to us by any Labour Government, but are due to the fact that since 1920 we have made representations to the Board of Education. In 1921 we had a number of free secondary schools, and from that time onwards we have added to the number. There are 2,068 free places at present. In the other two schools I have mentioned there are 497 pupils, and in a very short time those also would be free schools. But now the Board of Education say that pupils must pay fees, that we must get a certain revenue from the county. There are 6,488 pupils in the intermediate schools. One-third of those pay fees, subject to a remission of fees if circumstances demand it. Under the regulations we cannot remit fees until the children have been in the schools for a certain period. Then they can send in an account of the income of the parents and there is power to grant a remission of fees. To what extent I do not know because it is not clear yet. The secondary school regulations issued in 1904 sanctioned a remission of fees. From that date up to the present time we have increased the number of remissions of fees every year. Originally we had 25 per cent. of free places. Then the percentage increased to 30, then from 30 to 40, and when we became more distressed it was increased to 50, and ultimately to 60, and there was a right to remit fees even up to 90 per cent. of the places. Now the Government are taking that power of remission from us. We shall be absolutely in the hands of the Board of Education, and if we cannot secure the revenue that is demanded we shall not be in a position to remit any fees at all. Our children will then be deprived of their education.

Here are some figures showing the number of pupils in secondary schools in the Glamorganshire administrative area. In 1920 we had 6,504, in 1923 the figure was 6,950, in 1926 it was 7,885, in 1929 it was 8,741 and in 1931 it had grown to 9,222. Those figures show a gradual increase in the number of pupils entering the secondary schools. Under this new scheme we shall not be permitted, without the board's approval, to give bursaries to intending teachers in training colleges. We have that power and right now, and we are not by any means extravagant in this kind of thing. The cases where help has been given have been cases that demanded some assistance, and the amount that we have given has been very small, varying from £1 to £25. But that right is taken away by these new regulations, unless we first secure the approval of the Board. That is an injustice. Since 1908 we have been able to assist poor pupils who are being trained in domestic science. That right has been taken away. In cases of that kind we have given grants varying from £10 to £40 per annum according to the circumstances of the pupils' parents.

The whole aim of this Circular and of the regulations is ultimately to deprive working-class parents of privileges and opportunities of education which they have enjoyed hitherto. I cannot understand any Government bringing forward such a scheme. Boys and girls leaving school at the age of 14 have no employment to go to in the depressed areas, and it is now said that they must be put on the road. Their parents may be very poor or unemployed, but the children are to be deprived of the opportunities of secondary education. A Noble Lord said in the House of Lords many years ago that the Government should be compelled to provide work for children at the age of 14 instead of allowing them to be put on the road. The Government should do that now. It is also suggested that the means test shall apply in such a way that children will be grouped in several classes in the schools. One grade will pay full fees. Then the first grade of paupers will pay half fees, the second grade quarter fees, and the full-blooded pauper no fee at all. It is most unfair and unreasonable.

The Board are trying to save a sum of £400,000. Let them look at the list of insanitary schools given by the Parliamentary Secretary in this House recently in reply to a question. There are such schools in Wales. The Government are making to provision for the abolition of those schools and the building of new schools. The hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) asked a question the other day about Bradford, and the reply proves my case. There, last September they had 793 entrants as compared with 1,034 in September of the year before, or a decline in the number of pupils of 241. I ask the House to realise that the amount of money in the Estimates this year for education is £52,000,000 and that in the same Budget, for Army and Air Force the amount is £106,000,000 or more than double what is provided for the education of the children of the country. The Education Estimates for 1932-33 have already been reduced by 10.8 per cent. and as a result of the cuts that have been made the Government have secured £5,000,000 in respect of education in this country. In the case of the Army, Air Force and Navy the reduction is only 4.7 per cent. Those figures show how inconsistent the Government are when asking for these economies. They also show other directions in which economies could be secured instead of at the expense of the education of the children of this country.

This view is strengthened when one notes the amounts that are paid in other special services. For instance in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, it costs £505 a year for the average cadet. In the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, the cost is £353 per head, whereas in the elementary schools the cost per pupil is £13 2s. 6d. and, in the State-aided secondary schools £29 to £30, or at the outside £35, is being charged for each pupil. If the Government are asking for a saving of £400,000, it could be secured in that direction instead of depriving children of their right to secondary education. I appeal to the Board and I put it to them, that the honourable and right thing to do would be to withdraw this Circular. They would be well advised to do so at the present moment. Let them go to the country upon it. Let it be an issue at the next General Election and I am cer- tain that the supporters will not be returned in such numbers as they were at the last Election.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham)

I am grateful and I think the House is grateful to the hon. Member who moved- this Motion because it gives me an opportunity of explaining and the House an opportunity of discussing a Circular which has caused a certain amount of misconception and misunderstanding. I do not complain in the least that the hon. Member who moved the Motion gave it the somewhat harsh and forbidding form of a Vote of Censure and I appreciate the manner in which he put his points, but, before I come to the Circular itself, I propose to make one or two observations upon the terms of that Motion. It asks the House to "reaffirm" the principle of free secondary education. I am not clear as to when the House ever affirmed that principle. It is possible that the hon. Member had some recollection of a private Member's Resolution, passed I think in 1925, which might he interpreted in some sense as endorsing a policy of that kind but to a very limited degree. Whether the House did or did not endorse the policy of free secondary education I think it is pertinent to inquire in passing what steps were taken by the Socialist party when they were in office—these stout advocates of free secondary education for all—during the two years from 1929 to 1931?

I think the hon. Member did refer to some steps which were taken at that time. To what did those steps amount? Simply to this; they increased the percentage of free places which could be awarded in secondary schools from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. But that increase was permissive and not mandatory, and, as a matter of fact, the actual increase attributable to that permission was in the neighbourhood of 5 per cent. Yet we are asked to-day to endorse a policy of free secondary education for all, when the very advocates of that policy, during their term of office, could not advance it by more than 5 per cent. It may interest the House if I recall the attitude of my predecessor in office, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones) when some of his colleagues prsesed him very hard to increase that 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. he definitely refused. He said: My right hon. Friend does not at present propose to increase the present normal maximum limit of 50 per cent. for free places in secondary schools."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1931; col. 1723, Vol. 254.]

Mr. MORGAN JONES

Can the hon. Gentleman give the date?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM

Yes, the date is very relevant indeed. It is 6th July, 1931, or within a, month of a very serious time for the hon. Gentleman and his friends—within a month of the approach of financial disaster. I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman, when he was asked to make that concession—trifling in cost compared with the £400,000, which I am told is a niggardly sum—resisted the efforts of his own party, in 1931, to increase the percentage from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. He heard the breakers. He knew that the ship was nearly on the rocks. But now that the hon. Member is safely on the beach his view has changed. He is calling out to us from the shore asking us to cram on all sail when he would not put on even the miserable little stitch to which I have referred. But I cannot dismiss the matter quite in that way, because, although this phrase in the Motion asks us to reaffirm a principle the House ought to bear in mind that, if hon. Members opposite confined themselves to the affirmation of a principle they would get into grave trouble with their party outside. My attention has been drawn to a meeting of the Labour Conference, I think at Leicester a short time ago, and I have here what I think is the authentic record of those proceedings in the report in the "Daily Herald." The ex-Minister of Education said: We ought to make it clear that we stand for free secondary education for all, immediately we get back into office. Free secondary education for all would, at a conservative estimate, cost between £50,000,000 and £60,000,000 per annum to rates and taxes. If that is to be the immediate policy of the party opposite when they get back to office, I suggest that they ought to be extremely careful in their choice of their next Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it may be that free secondary education for all is merely a suggestion—something to be included in "Labour and the Nation" as a policy to be carried out 500 years hence.

Mr. MORGAN JONES

Does the hon. Gentleman visualise compulsory secondary education for all? Is that the point?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM

Free secondary education for all, as I understand it, would involve compulsory secondary education. But to come down to a less ambitious programme which I think probably hon. Members opposite would desire to put in force if they could do so, there is the policy which may be described as that of free selective secondary education, that is the abolition of the fees now paid. That in itself would cost something like £3,000,000, and of course hon. Members know that that sum would be very difficult to raise even if it were desirable to take that step. But again I think we are entitled to ask, in passing, why for a relatively small sum like £3,000,000, a comparative bagatelle to hon. Members opposite, they did not take this step when they were in office instead of contenting themselves with the degree of alteration which I have already mentioned.

In any event such a course would, in my judgment, not be desirable. I would like at this stage to suggest that, after all, the parent has and ought to have very considerable responsibility for the upbringing of his children. The upbringing of the child involves the education of the child, and a policy which would put the child, as it were, on the State, would to my mind be a retrograde policy. The State's business is not to supplant the parent but to supplement the parent. Where the parents' resources are not adequate for the educational requirements of the child, it is for the State to intervene, but, so long as the parent has those resources, it is his business to look after his own child and to be responsible for it. It would be a disaster if we should go very far from that principle.

5.0 p. m.

Now I come to the Circular. In reviewing this question of admission to secondary schools and the fees which ought to be charged there were three possible policies-three possible things to do. The first was to leave things as they were and as we took them over from the Socialist Government. They were apparently content with things as they were and we could have gone on with things in that way. Perhaps I may remind hon. Members of the actual position when we took over. The schools maintained and aided by local education authorities affected by the Circular number 1,138 and of these 78 are and have been for some time free. The school population involved is 360,000 and the average cost per pupil is £35 including cost of loan charges and administration. There was and there is to-day a considerable lack of uniformity in the fees. They vary from three guineas in some areas to 30 guineas in others. About half the number of children are fee payers and the average fee paid is £10 17s. per fee-paying child. As a general rule they obtain admission to the school without competition and generally speaking on a lower level of attainment. There is another feature to which I draw attention. In regard to the free lacers, they obtain admission by competition—by examination—at the age of 11 years, and in about 100 out of 115 areas there is no income limit for the free placer. There are one or two criticisms of the existing situation which suggest themselves to hon. Members. First of all, as regards lack of uniformity, where fees vary so largely, the present system in effect produces a levy on the taxpayer in a high area in favour of the taxpayer in a low area. Secondly, in the case of fee payers, the fee paid is on the average less than one-third of the cost. If a child is not a scholarship winner, it is not in school as a result of competition with its fellows, but it nevertheless in effect gets a scholarship approximately of an average value of £25, and the test of admission to the school in the case of the fee payer, broadly speaking, is not only or entirely merit, but ability to pay a small fee. A third' criticism is that in the case of free places, these are scholarships. A free place is a scholarship, and a scholarship is meant for the poorer classes. For hundreds of years the meaning and intention of the scholarship system has been to provide free education for children whose parents have not had the resources to pay for them. That, as I understand it, is the meaning and intention of a scholarship.

If I may digress for a moment, it is interesting to see from the Board's regudations in 1907 the beginning of the free place system: The Board have also taken measures to secure that all secondary schools aided by grants shall be fully accessible to children of all classes. It is accordingly provided that in all such schools where a fee is charged a proportion of places shall he open without payment of fee to the scholars for public elementary schools applying for admission. In 1907, broadly speaking, membership of a public elementary school was a fairly good criterion of poverty. To-day, I am glad to say, it is not a good criterion of poverty, and a fair indication of that can be ascertained from the Board's last Estimates, where hon. Members will find that half the fee payers in the secondary schools, or rather over 100,000, come from the public elementary schools and that that figure of 100,100 has been pretty constant for the last 10 years. Therefore, it is not unfair to say that a system such as I have shown, which would substitute some rather more scientific basis for ascertaining the need for a scholarship than the original basis, instead of being condemned, should be commended, because at the moment, where there is no income limit in force, there is no guarantee whatever that the scholarship goes to the child who needs it. The parent may be well-to-do, he may be very well-to-do, or he may be well enough off not to need the whole scholarship, but to be able to do with half, and that is the whole purpose of the Circular.

The Circular has been called revolutionary, but, as a matter of fact, it carries out the educational policy that has been in existence for the last 10 years and is the present policy of His Majesty's Government. It is to be found in the Education Act, 1921, Section 14, and I would remind hon. Members of its words (4) In schemes under this part of this Act adequate provision shall he made in order to secure that children and young persons shall not be debarred from receiving the benefits of any form of education by which they are capable of profiting through inability to pay fees. There is no endorsement of free secondary education in that paragraph, otherwise the words "inability to pay fees" would be completely meaningless. The suggestion there is that there should be payment of fees by those who can afford it and non-payment of fees by those who cannot afford it. So far from saying that the Circular is revolutionary, it is in the direct line of existing policy and does not deviate from that Section in the Act by one hair's breadth.

What conclusions can we come to from the few criticisms which I have ventured to put forward on the existing system In my judgment, and I hope in the judgment of the House, the existing system is haphazard, confused and inequitable. It satisfied the Socialist Government, but that is no reason why it should satisfy the National Government. It is absolutely right that no child who is able to profit by secondary school education and who wins a free place in competition, a child whose parents are too poor to pay the school fee or any part of it, should be charged, and no such child will be charged. It is not equally right that a parent of a child, entered without competition, should on the average pay less than one-third of the cost of its education, nor does it seem to me to be absolutely right that the child of a parent admitted by competition, who is able to contribute the whole or part of the standard fee, in other words, able to dispense either with the whole scholarship or with part of it, should be exempt from fee. When the resources of the taxpayer and the ratepayer are so much reduced, subsidies, scholarships, public assistance—call it what you like—should be bestowed, as far as possible and consistently with financial considerations, where they are needed, and should not be diverted to those who can do without them. Therefore, the board took the view that it could not leave things where they were.

I said there were three possible policies or solutions. The second policy is this, that admission to secondary schools should be entirely by competition, 100 per cent. competition, that all places should be special places, and that when awarded an income test should be applied to the parents right down the scale, and contributions required from the parents appropriate to their capacity to pay. If there is no capacity to pay, then there should be no fee. Incidentally, it is suggested that the Circular abolishes free places. Nothing of the sort. There may in fact be a free school, as a result of the income test applied, and not one child, whose parents cannot afford to pay, will contribute 6d., and the school will therefore be as free as ever it was in the past. It is most misleading to suggest that where there is the abolition of a free school, you abolish the free place.

This second solution is, I frankly admit, an ideal solution, and if the House ask why it is not adopted, the frank answer is that we cannot afford it. If such an ideal were made mandatory and universal at this time, the financial effect over the country as a whole would be very uncertain, and it is impossible to take the risk. In certain areas, in many areas, it would undoubtedly cause an additional charge on the taxpayer and the ratepayer, and further charges are impossible at this time. In fact, a reduction of the present charges is imperative. On the other hand, if there are areas where what I call the ideal solution can be adopted, where the area of competition can be widened and extended and the area of the fee payer as such is correspondingly reduced, and where that can be done with satisfactory financial results, the Board is not likely to offer any opposition.

Mr. MORGAN JONES

What does the hon. Member mean by "with suitable financial results"?

Sir F. ACLAND

What does my hon. Friend mean by this second possible solution I do not think some of us quite understood what he meant it was.

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM

The hon. Member for Caerphilly has asked what I mean by satisfactory financial results. I do not think it is possible to arrive at a formula. It must depend on the local circumstances hut, broadly speaking, if the financial result is something which approximates to what would be the financial result by putting the Circular into operation as it is now, without disturbing the proportion of special places to fee payers, then I think that would go through.

Mr. COVE

But you must have your financial result?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM

Yes, on the whole we expect to have our financial result, and I hope we shall get it. I have pointed out to hon. Members the practical difficulty that stands in the way of making a scheme of this kind mandatory. Circular 1421 itself is admittedly a compromise, and it is not logical, but no compromise ever is logical. I claim, however, that it is a step in the right direction. Paragraph 5 of the Circular deals with the fee payer and states: The Board do not desire to lay down any uniform standard, but they consider that it would not be unreasonable to look for some increase where the fee is at present below 15 guineas a year; and while regard must necessarily be had to the fees at present charged, they will ordinarily hesitate in future to approve a fee of less than nine guineas. The word "ordinarily" must be a great comfort to hon. Members from Wales, because it enables the Board to give Wales separate and, I hope, tender treatment. The actual cost of the education is £35, and the average fee is £10 17s., but many fees are lower, and it does not seem to be unreasonable to ask for some increase, within the limits of between nine and 15 guineas, in view of the heavy cost and the low average. At any rate, it is quite reasonable to ask that the gap between those figures should he lessened.

A point has been made as to the reason for not making the maximum £35. It has been asked, why not get the whole cost from the fee payer if he is able to afford £35? There are three answers. The first is that very few—I doubt if there is 1 per cent.—of the fee payers could be called upon for such a sum. The second is that if you fixed your £35 maximum, you would inevitably have to grade your fees all the way down, and you would be faced by considerable administrative difficulties, the cost of which might well outweigh the additional receipts from fees. Thirdly, and most important of all, it would have a bad psychological effect, both on the schools and on the parents, because the £35 would tend to be regarded as the normal fee and would deter many of the parents from sending their children, although in point of fact the fees might be much lower. A rise from the average to £35 would be startling. Not many schools have in fact charged over £15.

It is said that too high a fee would deter people from sending their children to school. The Board and the local education authorities are vitally concerned to secure that schools are filled, because with a half empty school the overhead charges go on, and, if we lose fees, the result will be an extra charge upon the ratepayers and the taxpayers. I can assure hon. Members that the Board and the local education authorities are concerned to avoid that, and we shall take care to prevent fees being raised to such a point as definitely to deter parents from entering their children as fee payers. It has been said that this will fall hardly on the middle-class. In 46 out of 116 areas there is a means test for free places. In those areas a middle-class child might win a special place, and he might be toad, "Your parents' income is over the limit for a special place, and therefore you ought either to pay the full fee or not come in," and that would exclude him entirely. Under the circular, he will often be able to come in on a part fee. To that extent, the position of the middle-class parent is eased.

With regard to past results of raising fees, the hon. Member for Neath (Sir W. Jenkins) mentioned Bradford, and said that there was a falling off in the figures, which he attributed to the decision last summer to institute fees in what had hitherto been a free school. That is a case of the fallacy of post hoc, propter hoc. As long ago as January the Bradford authorities decided to reduce the number of secondary scholars, and it was not until four or five months later that they decided to institute the policy of charging graduated fees. The reduction the number of students and the charging of the fees, therefore, are not connected, because the one preceded the other by four or five months. There are many cases of the same kind. Paragraph 3 of the Circular deals with special places. I see nothing wrong in that term. Special places will continue to be filled by open competition as in the past, and there will be no reduction in numbers. The 25 per cent. minimum and the 50 per cent. normal maximum will remain. If the financial results warrant it, there may be an increase.

The special place holders will continue to be free except where the parents' circumstances enable the standard fee or a part of it to be paid. Therefore, if the parents' circumstances are such as to allow it, not a sixpence will be charged for special places. It depends on the parents' circumstances. Where he is able to pay the whole or part there is nothing wrong in requiring him to pay. The free places are scholarships and intended for poor scholars. There must, therefore, be a method of deciding whether parents are able to contribute. We cannot put parents' names into a hat and draw them out. We must have some standard of ascertaining the parents' ability to pay for their children's education. That being so, it is necessary to have scales, and paragraph 4 deals with that. The Circular contemplates for complete exemption from lees an income limit of £3 to £4 per week in the case of family with one child, plus an addition of 10s. for each additional child, or any alternative scheme having equivalent effect. These figures of £3 to £4 a week are guiding posts. They are rather like the direction posts which exist on a golf course: I believe that on certain courses you may go either side of the direction posts and still remain on the fairway. The Bradford authority of its own volition, before the Circular saw the light of day, decided to alter its free school into a fee-paying school, and it used these limits, which are operating now: up to £190 per annum, that is £3 14s. a week, a free place is granted. From £190 to £270, £3 3s. is charged; from £270 to £350, £6 6s. is charged; and over £350, the full standard school fee of £9 9s. is charged. I am not defending the Bradford position or otherwise but I am bound to say that knowing the conditions of Bradford, I am not sure that the figures of £3 to £4 as laid down in the Circular was such a bad shot after all.

Mr. COVE

Can the hon. Gentleman give us the London scheme which is now obtaining?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM

I do not know what it will be in London. All these matters are being discussed by the authorities concerned. It is impossible to have uniformity. London and the industrial areas may reasonably claim a higher limit than many rural areas would think of claiming.

Mr. COVE

I understand that in London a parent who earns £250 can get a maintenance grant and a free place for his child. I understand that under this Circular instead of having a maintenance grant and a free place, the person earning £250 a year will have to pay a fee. That is a complete change. Does it follow that the maintenance grant is swept away as well?

Mr. RAMSBOTHAM

I cannot give the London figures because I do not think any decision has been taken. Maintenance allowances will be retained, but before giving such allowances I imagine that authorities will first remit fees. A question was raised as to the income of the family. In very many cases, free places in secondary schools are subject to a means test already. In most of them, I believe, that they prefer a parental test. The Board in their Circular have laid down two tests, parental and family, and the authorities have a choice. Local authorities have great experience in dealing with the question of income limit. Practically all have operated maintenance grants and made the necessary inquiry into means, and nearly one-third have operated income limits in the award of free places. I suggest, that generally speaking, this Circular is a step in the right direction. I look forward to the time when the area of competition may be widened and the area of free places as such increased. For the moment, I suggest that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory. We have heard what Bradford has done. I have here the experience of the headmaster of a secondary school which he has communicated to the "Manchester Guardian." He states that he has worked under a scheme in a school such as that implied by the Circular for a number of years. He says: Seven years ago my governors introduced a scheme of graduated fees by which parents paid fees according to their means. At first, there were all sorts of objections—theoretical, of course—to this scheme. Letters appeared in the local Press and for a month or so there was something of a hullabaloo. I myself neither talked nor wrote, but settled down to work the scheme. It has been an unqualified success. May I suggest to hon. Members opposite that the present position is like that spoken of by this schoolmaster? We all know that there have been plenty of letters, and there has been something of a hullabaloo. Hon. Members have contributed to it. May I suggest that in future, as the schoolmaster hints, we talk and write a little less and sit down to make it a success?

5.30 p.m.

Sir PERCY HARRIS

I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education on having discharged a difficult task with skill and a measure of frankness. He has not attempted to camouflage the situation, and has placed his cards on the table. He did not defend the wording of the 'Circular, and I do not think anybody defends it. Even the President of the Board in the House of Lords, in an interesting speech, did not defend the wording, but gave a commentary on its interpretation. The hon. Gentleman said that the Circular is not logic, and admitted that it is liable to misconception and misunderstanding. I do not know what is the matter with the Board of Education. They should be extremely skilful in drafting circulars. I have had considerable experience with the circulars of the Board, and I remember particularly those of 1924 to 1929. The Noble Lord the right hon. Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) was an artist in sending out circulars; he sent them out with almost monthly regularity. They always led to Debate, and were always liable to two versions. I have to go by what is in the Circular. The position is the same as it is when Bills are before this House. In the last two or three days we had a long discussion over what a particular Bill meant, and the Minister in charge made long speeches explaining it, but, all the same, we have to go by what is in the Bill itself. It is not the Board of Education which will administer the Circular. The Board will guide, direct, check, penalise and fine, but the Circular will be administered by the local education authorities. The position is that there is a partnership between the State and the local authorities, with the Board acting as director and adviser. Its power conies in as the holder of the purse-strings.

I have said that the Parliamentary Secretary was frank, but there is one thing he did not tell us. It has been common talk as to what this Circular aimed at securing in the way of economy, but I do not think he even mentioned any figure. [interruption.] Oh, yes, £400,000. I think he might have dwelt more upon that point. What is behind this Circular? We must not mince words about it: there is a desire for economy. If there were not, does he really pretend that the Circular would ever have been issued? I have a shrewd suspicion that the great report on national expenditure known as the May Report has something to do with it. Paragraph 502 of that report says: Since the standard of education, elementary and secondary, that is being given to the child of poor parents is already in very many cases superior to that which the middle class parent is providing for his own child, we feel that it is time to pause in this policy of expansion to consolidate the ground gained, to endeavour to reduce the cost of holding it, and to reorganise the existing machine before making a general advance. Rightly or wrongly, educationists have been expecting a circular. They have been in fear and trembling in anticipation of some circular based on that paragraph. I am afraid that many local authorities, many teachers, people who have given their lives to education, have interpreted the paragraph—perhaps wrongly—as being at the bottom of the Circular. They have felt that the Circular was inspired not by the Board or by the President of the Board, but by the Treasury. It may sound strange—for I have not got a reputation for economy—but I do not believe in wasting money. I am all in favour of economy as long as it can be achieved without decreased efficiency. Then I notice that no reference has been made to the next paragraph in the report of the May Committee, paragraph 503: First among the changes that we consider necessary in the interests of efficient administration we would place the reduction in the number of authorities by the concentration of all educational functions, as far as local authorities are concerned, in the hands of the county and county borough councils. It is not for me to say that that proposal is a good one, but before we indulge in economy at the expense of educational efficiency we ought to see that the machine is made as economical as possible, and that there is no waste in that direction. Before the Board asks to cut down education—and this does mean a cut in education—the Government ought to have tackled that problem. If we cannot afford this multiplication of authorities and this division of responsibility, there should be an economy in that direction instead of the cutting down of facilities for education in our schools.

The Parliamentary Secretary tried to brush away the figure of £3 or £4 a week. I would like to know why those figures were chosen. I see no necessity to put in a figure. He spoke of Bradford. Bradford has been going through a kind of revolution in local government. There has been a swaying battle between the two parties, with at one time the success of Labour and at another time of the Tories. If they would only take the middle course of ordered progress we should not see violent changes backwards and forwards. I do not think we can pay too much attention to Bradford. There seems to be no particular reason for choosing £3 or £4. It is not surprising, when such a figure appears in a circular, and economy is aimed at, that it is taken by the local education authorities as a direction as to the figure which should provide the maximum. Someone asked a question about London. I happen to be able to tell the House something about London. London has a Conservative council. I have been on that council for 26 years. We have been dominated by a Conservative majority. Their inspiration was economy. They were originally elected to cut down the old "wastrel," extravagant system pursued by the previous majority. They have been very careful. They have been looking after the rates, they have a very efficient finance committee, a splendid organisation and competent and capable officers, and in the light of their experience they fixed the limit—which may be too high—at a figure of £450. It is a big drop from 2450 to somewhere about £200 a year.

If the Circular had dwelt on the necessity of more uniformity, of levelling up in some places and lowering in others, there would have been no great quarrel about it. There has been no proper survey of secondary education. It may come as a surprise to some to know that in London the number of free places actually provided has been very much below the average, but we have been concentrating more on the central schools than on the secondary schools. I think there is a case—I do not want to be merely destructive—for a complete survey of secondary education, for levelling up in some places and lowering in other places, but no really serious attempt to bring that about is made in this Circular. On the contrary, all the Minister has sought to do is to cut down, to say, in effect, "All we want is the money." When somebody challenged him about Wales he said, "We do not want to be severe on the poorer districts," I think he is shirking his responsibility. The Board must take a national instead of a local view. We ought to extend opportunities for education and make them suit the needs and requirements of the country, so that in future we may have a generation of competent and capable people able to run our highly organised industrial system.

I am going to make this statement, though I do not suppose it will be acceptable to hon. Members on the Labour benches. If it had been possible to carry the Bill of 1930, carry out the proposals in the Hadow Report and organise a complete system of senior classes—it was described as "the modern school"—dealing with children who were preparing to become manual workers and on the other hand Grammar schools for senior children who had a literary bent, the necessity for the expansion of our secondary schools would have been largely diminished; and it might have been practicable to economise on our secondary schools. But it is common knowledge that in many parts of the country there is no central school system, and, owing to the fact that the school age is not raised, it is not possible to have four-year courses. I have looked up the speeches of hon. Members of the Conservative party in the long discussions on the Bill of 1930 for raising the school age. All were loud in their professions in favour of giving greater opportunities to the child, of allowing every child whose parents desired it to continue his or her education, but they said that this must be voluntary, that there must he no compulsion. They said they would not allow money to stand in the way, but objected to forcing all children to stay on at school to the age of 15. Now that they are in office, and have the opportunity to carry out their policy, they are curtailing the facilities available to parents to whom it is unnecessary to apply compulsion, those who are prepared willingly to allow their children to continue at school.

Mention has been made of the free places. I attach great importance—perhaps it may be said that it is an exaggerated importance—to the retention of the words "free place." The phrase is a charter to the working classes. There is a growing feeling of class consciousness. Many people think that the children of the rich have better advan- tages than the children of the poor, and our answer to that view has always been "Free places," the educational ladder, the opportunity of a full and generous education for every competent, capable child. The removal of the phrase "free places" from our educational language is an unfortunate and a retrogade step. A right hon. Friend behind me was in Parliament when a former President of the Board of Education put forward the policy of requiring all aided schools to provide at least 25 per cent. free places. It was much objected to at the time. The democratisation of the aided schools would, we were assured, destroy them. I happened to look at a very interesting little book published in 1927 by the Board of Education when the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy) was the President. It pointed out a very remarkable thing. It said: The beneficial effects of the free place system have proved permanent and increasingly obvious. The political idea behind the Free Place regulations was that State-supported schools must be accessible and not class institutions.' It was not thought expedient to abolish fees though schools with high fees were looked at askance. Free places were required instead; it was emphasised that they must not be regarded as scholarships awarded for exceptional merit, but that they should be open to any Public Elementary School child who reached the ordinary standard of entry…There has been competition to get the places and the quality of the holders has been in general very good; in fact, though it was not so intended, free places have largely become scholarships. Finally it went on to say: At first many anticipated that the free place holders would he indifferent material and would leave school early. Many of us anticipated that. The contrary proved to be true; it is the common experience both that they stay longer at school than other pupils and that they form a large proportion of the other pupils, with the result that in the higher forms they tend to preponderate. I have another very interesting book. That one is rather old. I am going to read from a book of which the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings is the editor. It is a very fine new publication which I recommend all Members of the House to study. I am going to give him a free advertisement; he thoroughly deserves it. It is a standard book on educational matters not only in this country but in Europe and throughout the world. The book is the Education Year Book. There is a report of a headmaster on the subject of free places. The headmaster says that the obligation to provide free places came as something of a bombshell, but is now acknowledged to be in an indispensable part of the State system, an invaluable link between the primary and secondary school and, on the whole, a source of strength and stability to the secondary schools. That is by the headmaster of a school. I would like to quote from the Noble Lord himself. I am sorry to do so in his absence. I assumed that in an education Debate he would be here. I looked up what he said in his own article, in the introduction upon page 122. He said: Examination is severely competitive, and he goes on to say, Where there is only a single examination the candidates who come out highest in the list are awarded free places. The remaining fee-paying places available are awarded to the candidates next highest in the list, but it commonly happens that a number of these are unable to take advantage of the awards owing to inability to pay fees, so that the final awards are by no means necessarily given to the ablest candidates. I am afraid that in practice that is exactly what will happen. It is not merely a matter of Whether the parents can afford the fee. Unfortunately—and we have to be frank in the matter—it is very often a question of the willingness of the parent. We are providing the scholarship system not merely for the parent, in regard to whom it is a secondary consideration, but for the child. Unfortunately, through want of foresight, from meanness or from lack of understanding, only too often in England parents do not appreciate the advantages of secondary education. When they have to make a sacrifice in order to provide fees for the first time, they are not pre-pared to face the responsibility. In common justice to the parents, this is an unfortunate time to call upon them to make special sacrifices. The middle classes have their rights. I know that they have very few friends; they are not looked upon by political parties as important because they have not a large voting power. The small shopkeeper and the struggling professional man have a great struggle to make two ends meet. The black-coated workman is far more hit than many people realise. Very often he is outside the insurance system, and he has been very heavily taxed. His Income Tax has been increased, and in some cases he has been brought into the Income Tax system for the first time. Now you are asking him to pay this extra amount. That demand may have a very unfortunate effect.

It is a very remarkable thing that the Government should remain silent about Scotland. I should have expected to have seen the Secretary of State for Scotland here. Scotland is in advance in education. They have something very near a free system of education. Have they had a Circular 1421? Are they going to have a Circular 1421? If they do have the Circular, will they tolerate it? Will they accept it arid carry out the policy? Why should England, which is the richer part, be put in a worse position? I hear a good deal about Home Rule for Scotland. Under this proposal, Scotland is not going to be called upon to make a sacrifice such as is called for from England. There is a very old story, which has very often been told in Scotland, of a young Scotsman, fresh from a secondary-school course, coming to London to get a job. He was asked what he thought of the English people. He replied that he never saw them because he only saw the heads of departments. It is becoming too common that all the best jobs go to Scotsmen because they have had the advantage of a full, free system of education.

This Circular is unfortunate, to say the least of it, in its wording. I am going to ask the Government to withdraw it. If that is too much, and I suppose it is too much to ask the Government Department to admit that the wording of a Circular is unfortunate, let them issue another, Circular 1422, putting some of the wording of Circular 1421 right, and making it clear that the Government do not want to curtail the opportunity for education for the people of this country. Let them review the whole problem, in order to see if they can pick upon something more scientific that will provide England with a really national system of education worthy of the name, and equal to that provided in Scotland.

Sir ADRIAN BAILLIE

It is quite apparent that considerable apprehension has been aroused, in regard to the possible effects of Circular 1421. Although the Circular may not yet be applicable to Scotland, I can assure the House that considerable apprehension is felt, rightly or wrongly, in regard to it in Scotland, and for the reasons which were indicated to some extent by the hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris). As in Wales, so—only more so—in Scotland, we are particularly proud of our system of education. Since the time of the great preacher, John Knox, the people of Scotland were putting their available savings away for the education of their children, believing that that was the best possible form of family insurance. They are proud, and not without justification. They have been prominent—some hon. Members may consider too prominent—in the Government of this country and in the building up of our Empire. Hon. Members who have travelled a lot know that wherever you come across Scotsmen you find them in positions of prominence, and a credit to themselves and the country which gave them their education. It may be that the fears of my friends in Scotland are premature or unjustified, but I have had several representations from responsible bodies in my constituency asking me to look after their interests in this respect.

It is just possible that some of their apprehensions are misapprehensions, and that some of their fears are groundless, but I should like to have confirmation of that. A case in point reached me this morning from a very able man, and his case was that to-day the cleverest pupil in Broxburn left school, the eldest child of a family of six. The father is working seven days a week as a boiler fireman, with total wages of 42s. per week. The rent is 12s. The mother admitted that with 10s. more per week she could have managed to give the girl a university education. He asks whether the provisions of the circular are to be applicable in a case such as that. I take it that in that case there is some misapprehension, because the income limit, as I read the circular, is between £3 and £4 per week. The same cannot be said as to the application of the circular to the children of what are known as the middle-class or the lower middle-class families. I am speaking particularly about special merit places, one might almost say scholarship places. The same cannot be said about the limit put in the circular as it will be applied to the children of lower middle-class families, some of whom are artisans or shopkeepers, or, rather, higher-paid officials and the like.

It is the class whose vote apparently is not very much sought or considered, but unfortunately it is that class that is particularly hardly hit by the Snowden Budget and by the economies which have ensued. In those families, and they are admittedly thrifty as a class, they should, and probably do, provide for a heavy life insurance for the wage-earner and frequently they must pay for mortgages. They must provide for their own sickness and for the period when they are unemployed. Naturally they have a few additional costs such as providing a suitable background of books. At the end of the day, the week and the year there is-nothing to spare. It may be a platitude to say that the children of to-day will be the leaders of enterprise to-morrow, but it is true, and I ask the Government and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether they consider that it is right, in such a time as this, to diminish the ratio of the educated people of the country.

6.0 p. m.

I suggested just now that Scottish people in the past have put a great store by the insurance value of education. I set great store by education as a form of social insurance. If I may exemplify the point which I am trying to make, would only have to recall the attention of hon. Members to the reply of the country as a whole to the call of the subversive agencies in the General Strike of 1926, or I could go back only to August of last year, and remind hon. Members of that great manifestation of sanity which put the National Government where it belongs now. There is one more point. Take the position of Ireland. Take the tragedy of Ireland to-day. I would like to ask the Government whether they consider that that tragedy is due to over-education or to want of education. I could answer that question myself in one word: the tragedy of Ireland to-day is ignorance. I am therefore a little fearful that the operation of the instructions contained in this Circular, as regards free places to pupils, will aim a very terrible blow at those families in England and Wales—and also in Scotland, if the Circular is to apply to Scotland—who are striving to-day to better themselves. That is an instinct in Scotland. The problem of the hour is that of the family and of the individual who, through no fault of his own, has lost ambition, and, incidentally, has lost the willingness to help himself along. I am very fearful that certain parts of the instructions contained in this Circular may give rise to a tendency in that direction. I was very pleased to hear the Parliamentary Secretary say that the Government are vitally concerned that secondary schools should be filled, and should not be empty. In a message received yesterday from the Director of Education in West Lothian, he said—I quote from memory—that, if the instructions contained in this Circular are made applicable to West Lothian, it will mean that the secondary schools will have to close down. I am not suggesting that he may not be under some misapprehension, but at least the apprehension is there. It may be said that under the present system there are dull boys in the secondary schools. There are also dull bishops, and, indeed, there are dull Members of Parliament, but that does not mean that anyone would suggest that Parliament should be abolished, or that we shall all have to pay fees for our Parliamentary training here—[Interruption.]

I admit that many of the apprehensions which have reached me are without foundation, and I agree that, in the national stringency in which this country finds itself to-day, the principle of the Circular is a good one, namely, that those who can afford to pay must contribute towards the education of their children. My only fear, here again, is that the line of demarcation drawn in the Circular between families that are held to be able to afford to pay and those who cannot afford to pay has been drawn too low. If I support the Government to-night, as I propose to do after the, to some extent, comforting speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, I do so in the belief that the instructions which have been issued to local authorities will be considered by the Board of Education and the Government to be flexible, and that wide powers of discretion will be given to the local authorities. I shall support the Government in the hope, also, that they will pay special heed to the suggestion, originally made by Sir Michael Sadler, which was supported in another place by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and which was referred to, I think, by the hon. Baronet who spoke before me—namely, that the line of demarcation should be raised, and, in particular, that the limit of exemption in scholarship cases should be a family income of £5 a week, with an additional £1 for every child involved. With these hopes in my mind, I shall support the Government to-night.

Mr. PRICE

I rise to support the Motion. In doing so, I should like to compliment the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Sir A. Baillie) on the expression of his apprehension with regard to this Circular, and of his fear that it may ultimately be put into operation in Scotland. May I appeal to him, after that expression of his apprehension as to how it would affect Scotland, to support us here who are already affected in England and in Wales by a Circular which, as he himself recognises, although it comes from a Government which he says he will support, will prevent many children in this country from going forward with their normal education? The Circular will affect at least 200,000 children, and it seems rather strange that at this time of day we should be discussing a Circular the effect of which, however the Parliamentary Secretary may desire to brush it aside, will be to reduce the opportunities of education for working-class children in this country, when all the other countries of the world, with very rare exceptions, are preparing from their national point of view for advancements in facilities for education. While that is going on, we in England, the richest country in the world, are discussing a Circular that is going to rob thousands of children in the years to come of their opportunity of getting higher and secondary education.

This Circular, whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may say, cannot he detached from the general policy that has been pursued by the present Government ever since it took office. It is said that the Circular is an innocent thing in itself, and will not affect many hundreds of children, but we have to view it as attached to the general policy that has already been pursued by the Govern- ment, and we have to see how that general policy has affected our educational system in the country as a whole. I would call the attention of the House to the fact that in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the education authority is looked upon as a very progressive authority, the educational facilities, as a result of the Government's economy campaign, have been reduced in the case of the poorest children in the county who sit for our county minor scholarships. The number of those scholarships has been reduced by 511. In the West Riding, 17,000 children sat for the scholarship examination, and it was only possible to award 2,080 scholarships, or 511 fewer than in the previous year. Again, our bursaries—very important exhibitions given to intending teachers—were reduced by over 100 last year. The foundation scholarships, also, were reduced by 100, and our county major scholarships—the premier scholarships which have been given in the county for many years—were reduced from 58 to 45.

In addition to all this, the grants which for many years have enabled boys and girls from the poorer homes to proceed by way of the secondary schools to the universities and colleges have been discontinued, and, however poor a child may he, he or she now gets not a penny piece from the West Riding education committee. The policy which the Government are pursuing, and have pursued since they came into office, has robbed thousands of working men's children from the humblest homes in the country of the opportunity of going forward to our secondary schools. The allowances that have followed our secondary school maintenance grants have also been cut down, and meal allowances have been reduced. That is the case throughout the West Riding, and I am sure that many other parts of the country are similarly affected. The opportunities which a few years ago were enjoyed by children from poor homes, whose genius and capacity fitted them for secondary education, are now being withdrawn, and we violently protest that, in 1932, a National Government containing all the leading statesmen of the country should come forward and ask us to submit to further reductions in the educational facilities for working men's children

It is all nonsense to suggest that this Circular will not affect the general situation. I have had sent to me, with hundreds of protests, a circular that has been sent out, for the consideration of governors of secondary schools, by the West Riding Education Committee, and ft is apparent that the economies which they are endeavouring to exercise as the result of Circular 1421 do not stop at secondary schools, but are affecting also our technical schools and our art schools in Yorkshire. Our junior technical school at South Kirkby, which has been set up largely with money that we have contributed as miners through the Miners' Welfare Fund, is going to be affected, and also our senior technical mining colleges; and it is clear, from the report which has been before the West Riding Education Committee, and which they are sending out to the governors of secondary schools, that they intend to make some reduction in the travelling allowances and book allowances to the students at our technical colleges. There is no suggestion that these are middle-class or wealthy people; the great majority of the students who attend these colleges come from the poorest homes in the country—in many cases the homes of miners who are not working more than two or three days a week.

I freely confess that I myself only received a very meagre education, and for many years, ever since I felt able to take part in public life, I have devoted myself to assisting the development of education and the broadening of educational opportunities for the children of working men. During recent years I have watched with tremendous interest and pleasure the opening of that gap, and the results which it has had in bringing forward from the humblest homes in the West Riding of Yorkshire some of the best genius that the country now possesses. While from a material point of view the members of the National Government may possess a lot, let them always bear in mind the fact—and I thank God for it—that He has not given them all the brains and genius; and we are anxious that no child, whether from a poor or from a rich home, shall be debarred from coming forward to the full blossom of the best possible education that the universities can give.

The free places are bound to be affected by Circular 1421. It is delightful to know that last year 73 per cent. of the students who won scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge were boys and girls who had been filling free places in our secondary schools. If it is a question of having to cut down, there are other ways. The Circular is to effect an economy of £400,000, but you will do £400,000,000 of damage. If economy is going to be forced on the education committees, why not give attention to the tremendous number of children in secondary schools under 10 years of age and let them go into elementary schools? I remember in my early days as a member of the West Riding Education Committee finding 1,141 under 10 years of age in our secondary schools, at a cost of £35 per head per annum. My complaint is that at the age of 10 the child is not mentally or physically sufficiently developed to be in a secondary school. We found, and we can find now if we make investigations in the big residential towns, there is a tremendous number of children who belong to wealthy homes under 10 years of age in secondary schools, at very great cost. If there is going to be any economy, do not stand in the way of the miner's boy who is sitting for a scholarship for secondary education. Go in the direction of not taking children who ought to be in elementary schools.

I want to add my earnest appeal to that of other speakers that the Government withdraw the Circular at once and recognise that, if they desire to have a trained generation in the future, as other countries do, this is not the time for curtailment of educational opportunities, and a Government that claims to be acting in the national interest, both now and in the future, should be the very last to issue a Circular of this kind restraining our educational activities, which were never more needed than to-day. Education, learning and knowledge is the birthright of every child, and no Government has a right to deny it. This Circular will deny to thousands of children the birthright that is theirs, the privilege of further education, and I appeal to the Government to endeavour to economise it a different way. Look to the money you are spending on armaments in preparation for a future war rather than this. I am quite satisfied that, if the Circular is withdrawn, the nation as a whole will receive the decision with acclamation.

Duchess of ATHOLL

I am sure that everyone will sympathise with the hon. Member's desire that every child should get the opportunity of education to help him or her to develop his capacity to the utmost that is possible. I also think that the great majority of those who heard the very lucid speech of the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that, when the hon. Member has had time to read that speech and to reflect a little further on the explanation which it gave of the Circular, he will see that his fears are really groundless. He has, perhaps, omitted to notice that in paragraph (5) of the Circular the Board appears obviously anxious that space in the secondary schools should not be unnecessarily taken up by the younger children, because it is proposed that the fees for these children shall be higher than for the other children. I think, when he realises that the income limit that is suggested in the Circular as a rough guide has actually been in operation at Bradford, and that the experience of putting it into operation has been an increase of children in the secondary schools, he will be ready to give the Circular a trial over the country as a whole. It should not be forgotten that the income limit mentioned in the Circular is for a family in which there is only one child. If a family is taken of a more normal size, of three or four, the income limit becomes £6 a week, and it seems clear that in these circumstances the great majority of those whom we are accustomed to describe as the industrial classes will have their children admitted absolutely free to the secondary schools.

I am very glad to know that the principle of grading the fee according to the income of the parents has been adopted. It seems to me a very distinct advantage that there should be gradation and that it should not be merely a case of no fee or the whole fee, but that an attempt should be made to relate more nearly what is paid to the capacity of the parents to pay. I feel sure that there are many parents who will prize the education all the more if they can feel that they have contributed something, not necessarily the whole fee or half the fee but something, towards what I think most of them desire.

This principle of not giving the monetary value of a scholarship or free place to those who win it in the examination their circumstances render it unnecessary to receive that aid is no new principle. I know of it having been in operation 40 years ago in a college in this country. It was not resented. Those who were fortunate enough to win scholarships, and whose parents had no difficulty in paying the fee, might be asked to give up the value of a scholarship in order that some other student, who probably could not otherwise have continued his education in the college, should be able to do so. I understand that that system is now in operation and is generally recognised in our universities. I think it is a very just system, and, after all, those who gain the special place or the scholarship and who, if asked to do so, give up the money or are not awarded the value of the scholarship are still left with the honour of having won what is regarded as a distinction.

The wording of the Resolution goes beyond the Circular itself in enunciating and approving the principle of free secondary education. That is a policy which has never been deliberately adopted by any Government. It is a principle which has been acted upon, it seems to me, quite sporadically in certain areas in England and Wales and, of course, in Scotland. The first thing that occurs to me about it is that, particularly in England and Wales, where we have the percentage system of grants in operation, if one area, or a few areas adopt a policy of free secondary education, it is really putting a rather unfair burden on the taxpayers in comparison with other areas. It means that some are drawing more than others from the pool.

There is a great deal of difference of opinion as to what form of grant is best for education. I would say to those who are in favour of the percentage system of grants, the great merit of which in my opinion is that it only gives money where value is received in return, that they do not do it a service but a disservice if they allow such obvious differences in expenditure to exist in various areas as follow if some areas adopt free secondary education and others have a system of fee-paying secondary education. Therefore, I think the adoption of the principle of the Circular throughout the country would mean our financial resources would operate more fairly over the whole country, and I think that would be a great advantage from the financial point of view. Obviously, in these days we must make the money that we have go as far as possible, and as far as possible do equal justice to all areas.

6.30 p.m.

I cannot help feeling also that there are certain disadvantages from an educational standpoint in a system of free secondary education. If there is one principle which in recent years has come to be recognised as of paramount value among educationists all over the country, it is that, particularly at the adolescent stage, there is a great variety of capacity. Differences in capacity and types of capacity begin to show themselves at that age which do not show themselves in earlier years, and if education is really to develop the varying capacities of these pupils, you must have varied ty