Orders of the Day — Selective Employment Payments Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 21 July 1966.

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Photo of Sir Edward Boyle Sir Edward Boyle , Birmingham Handsworth 12:00, 21 July 1966

We are obviously operating under severe difficulties because of the Guillotine and I want to leave a few minutes to the Minister to reply. I will, therefore, make my remarks a good deal briefer than I would have wished after listening to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) and the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). I hope that the hon. Member for York will forgive me when I say that, although I have no children either at independent schools or at maintained schools, I do not think that it can be said against me that I have not tried to obtain a rising share of the national wealth for the maintained system.

Seeing the Chamber so full for this debate on public schools, I hope that we can get something like equal support from hon. Members opposite when we raise the particular case of direct grant schools, which include many children, particularly in the North of England, who would be at public schools if they lived in the South and which also contain able children for whom fees are not paid because they come from poorer families.