Education

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 July 1956.

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Photo of Sir John Hall Sir John Hall , Wycombe 12:00, 25 July 1956

I address the Commitee with some trepidation, surrounded as I am mainly by school teachers. I have no particular qualifications for talking on the subject, but I am heartened by a statement made by a well-known educationist who, in expounding the value of education, warned his readers to beware of school teachers. I can take some heart from that.

I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) will forgive me if I do not follow her in many of the points she made. Many of us will have sympathy with some of the things she said. One of the features of education debates is that there is general agreement on both sides of the Chamber about many of the things we are trying to do, but there is one matter on which I must join issue.

The hon. Lady was criticising my right hon. Friend for not getting on fast enough with building and for the cuts that it is said he has imposed. I wish to refer to a Ministry of Education circular which was sent out, and which started with this preamble: Local education authorities will be aware that the economic difficulties of the country have called for a close review of Government expenditure. That might be something similar to what has been sent out recently. The circular went on to impose a cut of 12 per cent. on the average school building costs and a 2 to 3 per cent. reduction in current expenditure. It stopped all new building for the school meals service, raised the cost of meals by 1d. and outlined a number of other small but nonetheless painful cuts of the kind to which the hon. Lady has referred. That circular was sent out on 28th October, 1949, by the Socialist Minister of Education, and for very good reasons.