Mr Charles Trevelyan: In one way the speech to which we have just listened has made my task comparatively simple. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education has used a great many kind generalities with which we can all agree, but he has not said that the economies which are in this Bill are not going to injure the education of the children from one end of England to the other. He has, it is...
Mr Charles Trevelyan: The contracts were accepted but not sealed; they have been stopped by the right hon. Gentleman's Department. I only wonder whether the secondary schools are going to be ready a year and a half hence. All I know is that from one end of the country to the other local authorities are stopping building. All the consolation that the right hon. Gentleman gives us is that there will not be a blind...
Mr Charles Trevelyan: The requisite efficiency is seen to because of the cuts which he requires them to make. So it will be efficiency. I feel that there is not a petty and unsubstantial difference as to quantity between the two sides of the Committee; the difference is in our main measure of things. Here is the cut in education—one of the greatest of cuts. There has never been agreement between us as to the...
Mr Charles Trevelyan: A few words about the cut in the teachers' salaries. Having made the monstrous and cruel proposition that there should be a 15 per cent. cut, and having received 250,000 post cards from the country, the Government hope to set things right by reducing the cut by 5 per cent. They talk as if it were a great concession from 15 per cent. to 10 per cent. I dare say it may save uneasiness in the...
Mr Charles Trevelyan: Except by normal processes. The State is here stepping in to do the work of the committee which, as in any great industry, settles the wages between the two sides.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I did not rote on the Second Reading of this Bill, but I have not the slightest hesitation in voting against the Third Reading. The argument that this is really intended as a Bill against abuses and anomalies has vanished. It has not that genesis at all. If it had, the Government would have shown willingness to accept Amendments designed to help the unemployed who were excluded by anomalies....
Mr Charles Trevelyan: No, I did not say that. What I said was that one of the reasons why I left the Government—one of the reasons—was the economy campaign announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I gave that as one of the reasons before the party meeting.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I am very much disappointed at the attitude which the Minister has taken up. This Bill gives, in effect, the power to make laws by Regulation. In effect, the Regulations to be made are to create an arbitrary change in the position of scores of thousands of the unemployed. The Bill gives to the House only an exceedingly clumsy method of intervention which we all thoroughly understand, which we...
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I have pointed out that these are Regulations which may affect the whole status of unemployed people. There may be many meticulous administrative details where prompt action may be desirable, but the question is what is going to be the main position of the unemployed people, and not what is going to be the particular Regulation that is going to affect them. I think that the House of Commons...
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I think we are perfectly justified in asking what this procedure means. Does it mean that the "report" is only going to be one report with no minority report, or that there will be two reports so that it may be known which way the individuals voted if there was a division in the committee?
Mr Charles Trevelyan: As the answer to this question includes a number of figures I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: The number of inspectors of schools of art employed by the Board of Education in 1920 was seven, including a chief inspector and an assistant inspector. There were four such inspectors employed in 1930. No staff inspector of art was appointed following the advertisement issued in 1924, but the question of appointing a chief or staff inspector of art is at present receiving my consideration.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I am not satisfied myself, and that is one of the reasons why I am taking these steps.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I am afraid that I have no information more recent than that contained in the answer which I gave the hon. Member on the 26th June last, as the complete returns for the year ended the 31st December, 1930, are not yet available.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: Not since the last answer was given, but I will give my hon. Friend the information as soon as I can get it.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: There is a progressive improvement.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table showing the numbers of schools in the various divisions of the Board's "black list"; but, as every local authority has been furnished with a list of the schools in its own area, I do not think that there is any occasion for publishing a list for the country as a whole.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I shall shortly be considering what will be the most appropriate date for the re-publication of the list to which the hon. Member refers. It used to be published annually before the War, but has been published only twice—namely for 1922 and 1927—since the end of the War, and I do not think that the expenditure involved in annual publication would be justified.
Mr Charles Trevelyan: I am quite prepared to consider it, but I do not think there is any occasion for publishing a list for the country as a whole.
