I want to express my thanks for at any rate the greater portion of the statement made by the Minister. I realise the value of the analogy between what he is setting out to do and the great public schools, but I hope that he will not carry that analogy too far. I am not sure that on this side of the House we are all capable of appreciating aright schools which we have not had the advantage of attending, but I am thinking in terms of the school population, with which we can deal in this way in relation to the whole. While I realise that the principal value of this experiment is the retention of the school entity, yet I want at the same time to prevent a whole area of dissatisfaction being created as a consequence of one entity having been retained while another section of the community is broken up. In no circumstances could we provide for all our children in this way. I realise the value of taking children over a given age, particularly in the circumstances of the war; but I would impress upon the Minister this fact —it is a fact, gained from experience at our camp schools organised under different circumstances and with less haste—that while they have been of great advantage to the younger children who are suffering from some physical defects, in the main the value of these schools lay in the retention of the entity of the school. To the extent that they can be used for, say, a central school, not necessarily a selective central school, when the children are approaching the critical age in their education, to the extent to which they can be retained as an entity, and their education can continue even in these difficult times, these camps will be a blessing in disguise for that section of the school population.

I hope also that there will be cooperation with the Board of Education, and that the Minister will not take offence at my suggestion that these camps are being organised under the wrong Department. I am not suggesting that the Minister is not doing his best but that the camps ought to be under the Board of Education. I believe it is their job. I know that the moving of the schools from the danger zones into reception areas was the job of the Minister of Health, but he has done that job; now the organisation of the school camps is a job for the education authority and ought, in my judgment, to be under the President of the Board of Education. Educational facilities ought to be the first consideration because, included in them, is the health of the school child.

One cannot, at this time of night, develop this subject, to show the valuable use to which these camps could be put, but I want to express thanks to the Minister for the explanation which he has given to the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander). Many of us who are interested in this aspect of the subject will look for its further development with as much interest as the right hon. Gentleman himself has. Whatever we can say to encourage the settlement of these children in the camps will be said, and every encouragement will be given to them.