A matter has been raised of very considerable importance and no one would complain at the manner in which it has been dealt with from all sides of the House. It is something which is bound to appeal to everyone of us. These young lads have their educational opportunities interrupted, and the sooner we can get them back the better it will be for them and for the country. One accepts that. However I must remind the House that the principle of release is by age and length of service. That is the general principle to which this House has subscribed, and what we are being asked to do in this case is to extend a privilege for a certain section which is denied to the average man in the Forces. In extending privileges of this sort the House must be careful about what it is doing. It must not give to the student what it denies to the collier, it must not give the professional worker that which is denied to the manual worker. I think that ought to be uppermost in the mind of everyone who takes part in this Debate.

The present position has been correctly stated. It is that for students who are scholarship holders, or, in the opinion of the university, are highly promising, are given a Class B release, for the purpose of returning to the educational institution. This privilege which is given to them is denied to almost everyone else. We have a small scheme of Class B release for miners and for certain people in the electrical plant industry. For everyone else Class B release has been abolished. The conditions for Class B release in the case of scholarship holders and highly promising students is that they must be in groups 1 to 62. If they are within those groups they are entitled to be nominated by the university; are passed by the Ministry of Labour to the appropriate Service Departments, and if their nomination goes through, they will be brought back to this country in time to take up their studies. This assurance, which was asked for by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) can be given. "The undertaking is that they will be brought back in time to undertake their studies.

A point was also brought up in regard: to men who, in addition to not less than a year's military service, have done certain national service since the age of 18, and whose two periods combined was more than three years. They are also entitled to nomination for release in Class B, Those are the present arrangements. On the whole they are working very well. We arrived at the conclusion that we could not go beyond group 62 on the advice of the Vice-Chancellors of the Universities of this country, who, after all, are the people best qualified to know what is the capacity of the universities. We must not release in Class B above a number which would have the effect of keeping out men who had been released in Class A. That is the main consideration. We must not release, in Class B, a single man who would keep out of a university a man who has already been released in Class A and who is entitled to go to a university. I think that that will be accepted generally.

So we reach the position that groups 1 to 62 contain sufficient students who have scholarships or who are of a highly promising character to fill all the available vacancies in the universities. That is the advice we are given by people who, I presume, know what the university capacity is. If the argument is put forward that there is more capacity available even now, surely the answer is that there are already in this country men who have been released in Class A who so far have been unable to get into universities.