Mr Sydney Irving: I wish to deal with a section of our children who have for too long been neglected—the 10 per cent. who are classified in this country as handicapped. First, I want to welcome the very considerable emphasis given in the Report this year to the special services and the special educational treatment which have been developed for our handicapped children. There has been a minor revolution in...
Mr Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Education what representations have been made to his Department in recent years in regard to the need for a new policy in respect to the supply of school uniforms in schools under his control.
Mr Sydney Irving: The debate has been very interesting. The Motion has been drawn in very wide terms and most hon. Members have taken the fullest advantage of it, as I also hope to do. I ask the forgiveness of hon. Members if I pursue a slightly different course. The problem is to join the sympathies of authority on the one hand and individuals on the other. In our society today, the growth of public...
Mr Sydney Irving: I should like to say from this side of the Committee that we are very happy that our Birmingham friends have been able to secure some accommodation from the Chancellor. We certainly do not begrudge them that. Notwithstanding that concession which has been made, we must say at the outset that the limit which has been set upon the Chancellor's concession throughout is an arbitrary one, and one...
Mr Sydney Irving: The speech made by the hon. Member who has just spoken will aggravate the already existing fears of the Kent fruit growers that this is just a first step and that this duty may be extended in the future, although I do not think there is any chance of the hon. Member himself arriving at the Treasury to do so in the next twelve months, but neither the statement by the Minister nor the comments...
Mr Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware of the concern which has arisen as a consequence of his ruling that the members of the Dartford Rural District Council who are tenants of council houses were debarred from voting in connection with local council house rents when he gave approval to other members of the same council who are owner-occupiers to vote on the charges...
Mr Sydney Irving: Whilst thanking the hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask if he is aware that the degrees of difference in these cases are too subtle for ordinary people to determine, and that all that happens, it appears, is a capricious exercise of the discretion of the Minister, which can only cast doubt on his impartiality in this matter? Will the hon. Gentleman review the whole situation?
Mr Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Education (1) if he will give an estimate of the cost of the implementation, in their entirety, of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee's Report on maladjusted children; (2) what steps he proposes to take to secure the implementation of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee's Report on maladjusted children.
Mr Sydney Irving: While thanking the hon. Member for that Answer, may I ask him, in view of the fact that a number of the recommendations are already being implemented by progressive authorities, whether he will urge on less progressive authorities the adoption of these recommendations?
Mr Sydney Irving: I would first apologise to the House for taking up its time by further considering the matter already raised by the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk), but it is a measure of the intensity of the public feeling on the matter that I do so. The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the public conscience. The public conscience in north-west Kent has been so stirred that there is such an intensity...
Mr Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will now repeal Section 68 of the Local Government Act, 1929, in so far as it relates to derating.
Mr Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will make a statement on his discussions with the local authorities associations on the reform of local government.
Mr Sydney Irving: In making this, my first speech in the House, I ought to explain the perhaps unusual course I have adopted in applying for the Adjournment debate. It is because the best counsel I could secure could not assure me that there would be a debate on education before the House rises for the Summer Recess. As this subject of backward children is, I believe, a highly important and urgent one, I felt...
