Requirements as to Governing Bodies

Part of Orders of the Day — EDUCATION (No. 2) BILL – in the House of Commons at 7:45 pm on 12 February 1980.

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Photo of Sir David Price Sir David Price , Eastleigh 7:45, 12 February 1980

As the House will recognise this is the most formidable of parliamentary lobbies—the all-party disablement group—and I should like to support the amendments.

The first question which may be asked by hon. Members who do not follow these things as closely as others of us do is why we are concerned about non-maintained special schools in a Bill which on the whole deals with the public sector of education. The reason was given by my hon Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam). These non-maintained private schools are all private trust, charitable organizations, and although they get income from their various trusts and charities, the education of almost all the children who attend those schools is paid for by their respective education authorities. Therefore, from the financial point of view this is public sector education.

My hon. Friend quoted appropriately from the Warnock report, which said that such schools were part of the national system of education provision in a way that independent schools were not.

Some members of the Opposition may ask why they should be concerned about independent schools. The schools are not, in the classical sense, independent. They are part of the total system—the national system—of dealing with handicapped children.