The extra provision included in this Supplementary Estimate is required in the main for grants to local education authorities. The Financial Memorandum to the Education Bill envisaged the payment of a main grant to each local education authority based on the combined standard percentage for the area, that is to say, the total grants to the authority for 1938–39 expressed as a percentage of the total expenditure of the authority on education in that year. This combined standard percentage was to be increased by two in the first year and by one in each of the three subsequent years. Over the country as a whole, this would have given an average main grant of about 52 per cent. in 1945–46, increasing to about 55 per cent. in 1948–49.

The proposals of the Burnham Committee for increased rates of salaries to teachers were circulated to the constituent associations of local authorities last December, but the decisions of all the associations upon them were not known until nearly the end of last February. Meantime, the Ministry had to settle their Estimates for 1945–46 in January of this year. with a view to their presentation at the normal date to Parliament. These Estimates took account of the estimated additional expenditure that would be incurred by local education authorities if the Burnham proposals were accepted by the authorities and approved by the Minister; but, as no decision on the proposals had at that time been reached by the authorities, they provided for grant on the expenditure of authorities, including the increased cost of teachers' salaries, at the rate envisaged in the financial memorandum, that is to say, combined standard percentage plus two.

When my predecessor decided in March to approve the new scales of salaries submitted to him by the Burnham Committee, it was also decided to relieve the increased financial burden thereby placed upon the authorities by increasing the rate of Exchequer grant over the whole range of the expenditure of the authorities, including salaries expenditure, to combined standard percentage plus five as from 1st April, 1945, when the new scales took effect. I hope I have made this clear, because under the Financial Memorandum this stage would not have been reached until 1948–49.

As this decision to increase the rate of grant was made subsequently to the presentation of the Ministry's Estimates to Parliament, no provision could be made for it in those Estimates. The increased provision made in the present Supplementary Estimate for grants to local education authorities is the estimated amount required to pay instalments amounting to 90 per cent. of the grant payable for the year, at the increased rate during the present financial year. We pay only 90 per cent. during the financial year, and 10 per cent. is carried forward as a balance for adjustment.

The extra provision provided for in the Supplementary Estimate under sub-head D. 1 is needed for direct grants by the Minister to bodies other than local education authorities and is required for two purposes. In the first place, it is required to enable the Minister to implement the settlement with the direct grant grammar schools. This settlement was not reached until after the presentation of the Ministry's Estimates for 1945–46 and could not, therefore, be reflected in them. The amount included for this purpose is £200,000, which represents the additional cost of paying the increased grants to the schools during the present financial year. Broadly speaking the effect of the settlement reached by my predecessor—and he will appreciate that this Supplementary Estimate is in the nature of a hang-over from his régime—was to substitute an inclusive capitation rate of £16 for a number of isolated grants, such as former capitation grant, Sixth Form grant, examination grant and meals grant, and at the same time to make some allowance for general increased costs of running the schools. The settlement also included provision for ensuring that no qualified pupil would be excluded from a place in these schools on account of inability of his parents to pay fees.

I really attach very great importance to this provision, and I have recently amended the scale as laid down by my predecessor for the remission of fees so as to secure education free of charge to all pupils whose parents' income is below £7 10s. a week where there is one child in the family, with graduation where there is more than one child. That is to say, instead of beginning the grading of incomes for fee-paying purposes at as low as £5 10s. a week, it starts at £7 10s. Below that income there is no question but that the child gets a free place. Therefore, that £200,000 will, I think, be accepted by the Committee as very well spent.

However, if the Committee will look at the figures, there is another £30,000 to be accounted for. This is required for the preliminary expenses of the College of Aeronautics which is being established as a new experiment by the Ministry. It is being set up as a result of the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee which sat under that great expert in air design, Sir Roy Fedden, and was appointed by my colleague the present President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps) when he was Minister of Aircraft Production in October, 1943. The Government accepted it in principle and announced that fact on 18th October, 1944. My predecessor took immediate steps to secure the appointment of a governing body, and Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, who has recently retired from the post of Inspector-General of the Royal Air Force, accepted the chairmanship. I have had a long talk with Sir Edgar; he is not only a brilliant air expert but a very keen educationist, and I think will be a remarkably energetic and vigorous driving force in this college. So keen is he that he has taken an aeroplane and gone round Germany collecting all the possible kinds of equipment he can find which will be useful to the college.

Perhaps some of it will be useful at Prestwick.

No doubt Prestwick will be able to use the results of the work Sir Edgar is doing. We have invited applications for the post of principal, and that is now being considered. Arrangements have been made with the Air Ministry to accommodate the college temporarily, so that we can get a start made early next year, at Cranfield. There is a Royal Air Force airfield there which will provide both residential and teaching facilities together with all the necessary facilities for flying. Certain preliminary expenses in connection with the establishment of the new college will accrue for payment during the present financial year. We have to pay the staff salaries, the rent of premises, and make some provision for equipment. We have included for this the very modest sum of £30,000. Next year when things are more settled we shall probably be able to use the more appropriate method of a grant-in-aid. I think that the experiment is very well worth while and justifies the money being expended upon it. It links up the universities, the Royal Air Force and the aviation industry, and we are looking forward to a great future in this post-graduate work in aviation. I am sure all of us here hope that its products will be used for civil aviation and not for another war.

I am sure that we on this side would like to support the Minister in general in her request for certain sums of money under the headings she has described. The subject of the Burnham Committee is one which I always approached with some anxiety, owing to past experience which was not always very happy. But in this case I notice a continuity of policy which the right hon. Lady is carrying out and which I think is quite right. It is important for the local authorities to realise that the extra amount which is now granted as a result of this decision is, in the total, very considerable. In fact if you look at the Supplementary Memorandum you will see, taking the total for the year, that is the full amounts estimated to be payable for the year excluding any balances of grant for previous years but including all balances of grant for the year payable after the end of the year, that the extra total for 1945 for elementary and higher education purposes amounts to an increase of no less than £23,169 over the 1944 total. I mention that figure because when I was responsible for these important matters I was always anxious that there should be enough money available to make the Act work.

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Act for which he was responsible eliminated elementary and higher education?

:That is quite right but I am using a technical term. Elementary and higher education is a phrase used in regard to Supplementary Grants and I am adhering to it for purposes of greater accuracy, but the hon. Member is quite right in saying that the words were abolished as regards the terms of the Act itself. That sum, over and above the 1944 total, is available to education authorities and I feel certain that it will be a very substantial aid to the authorities in carrying out the Act. I do not say that they will all be contented, and we on this side shall certainly do our best to help in any way we can to encourage the Government to provide as much money as possible to make the Act work. I think, however, that authorities ought to realise that this action on the part of the Minister will make it more easy for them to meet the liabilities they have to face, and in particular the liability for paying the extra on teachers' salaries which I consider is such a vital necessity in education today. I was very glad when I was able in March of this year to agree to the Burnham recommendations, because I feel certain that without well-paid teachers the meaning of education is very largely lost. I will not say any more on that main heading because it is a continuity of policy.

The Minister made some very important statements on the subject of the grant for secondary expenses. She referred to the revised capitation rate for the direct grant schools and spoke of my own action in regard to the amended scale for the remission of fees to parents. I should like to support the request the right hon. Lady makes, and I think a very important consequence flows from her words. She has made it crystal clear to the Committee not only that the secondary regulations are o framed that under them any child, no matter how poor his parents, can go to a direct grant school, but also that as a result of her own action it is even easier for any child of any parents to go to a direct grant school.

I therefore hope that that indicates a realisation on her part of the importance of direct grant schools in the educational system as a whole. She has herself taken a notable step in that direction and I feel sure it will be possible now to say that over the length and breadth of the country, as a result of the Minister's wise and far-seeing action, it will be possible for the child of any parent to go to a school of that character.

I do not hold any particular brief for direct grant schools as such, but I have always made a great point that in the educational system of this country there should be a variety of schools and into that variety of schools every variety of child should be able to go. I believe the action taken by the Minister, which she has described on the Supplementary Estimate to-night, will make it all the easier for children to go into this type of school, among other types of schools, so that we can get variety in the sorts of education provided for the children of this country. I should like to express our gratitude to her for the action she has taken.

On the subject of the College of Aeronautics, I am glad the Minister has had a conversation with Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt. I would like to say from this side of the Committee what confidence we feel in the choice of the man in regard to this College. I feel that if he takes charge of this matter some of the doubts and anxieties which naturally arose when this great experiment was suggested will be dissipated. I am interested to hear that the College is to be established at Cranfield. I would ask that on a future occasion we should have from the Government an estimate of the difference in expenditure under the Government's proposal from that originally set out in the Fedden Committee's Report. There was some anxiety when the Committee reported that the estimates were very high—which indeed they were—and there were some people who declared that these expensive experiments ought not to be indulged in during the immediate post-war period. I believe the method by which the Government are setting about the establishment of the College should dissipate anxieties.

I understand it is suggested that this expenditure should be undertaken by degrees and that experiments should be made, and that the Government will not set about the establishment of the final full scheme of the College until they have seen how it works in the preliminary stage. If that is the case, perhaps the right hon. Lady will say a word to indicate that I am correct. That would dissipate some of the anxieties expressed about setting up a costly experiment which might not work. In my view the method adopted under Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt is one which is likely to work. I think that doubling up with the R.A.F. at Cranfield and the use of the airfield is a much better scheme than some others that have been suggested. I visited an airfield near Plymouth and found it unsatisfactory. I think the suggestion of Cranfield is the best possible one.

I would like to ask the right hon. Lady a further question. Is it proposed to affiliate this College to a university in its original stage or at any stage? One advantage of the present site is that it would not be at an over great distance from a university and in the initial stage of the College it might be valuable to have some sort of affiliation. The experiment of putting an educational venture of this sort under a Government Department is one that we shall watch very closely. I was in favour of it myself, but it does mean putting a great responsibility upon the Government Department concerned. It is necessary, therefore, to take every possible step to keep in touch with the educational world as a whole, and particularly with the university world, so that the Department concerned may have their confidence. I feel that the steps taken so far will lead to that confidence being established.

I would like to endorse what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler) about this College, and particularly his last query. Earlier in the day we heard from the President of the Board of Trade that it was contemplated to set up a college in connection with watches and clocks. The only experience so far of the Ministry of Education running any college—the Royal College of Art—was not very successful. I think the warning given by my right hon. Friend about these colleges coming directly under Government Departments should be borne in mind. I am not sure what the right method would be, but I thing a governing body, preferably connected with the universities or higher technical institutes, would be very much better than their coming directly under a Government Department.

I want now to move from the less controversial to the more controversial. With regard to direct grants, I do not quarrel with the change which the right hon. Lady has made. I want simply to ask a question. I gather from a recent reply that 45 applications for direct grant status have been granted, that 31 have been rejected, that 16 have gone independent, and that there are 140 applications still open for consideration. I should be very grateful if the right hon. Lady would give me some idea of how the sum of £200,000 is arrived at. Is it a general figure? Is it based on what is to happen to the 140 applications still open for consideration?

I come now to a matter which I think is very serious. I was staggered to hear the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden. One would think he had learned absolutely nothing during the last few months. I was elected to this House partly because of the failure of the Burnham Committee to arrive at a proper scale for grammar schools. I have made speeches in 12 cities, including the university cities, and I can tell the right hon. Lady that there is deep concern, approaching disaffection, in the schools over this scale. If my right hon. Friend had got this scale put on to a proper basis he would have saved the situation, but at the present moment, for this reason and because of various other questions, which will be raised next Thursday, the grammar schools are in a very parlous condition.

If it is to be in Order to discuss the whole question of the Burnham Committee and my reasons for approving the scales, I must claim the indulgence of the Committee to give a full reply to the hon. Member. It would be necessary for me to explain fully the procedure I had in mind for making it possible to review certain of the anomalies in grammar school salaries, and it would be necessary for me to put questions to the Government. I am just as interested in this as the hon. Member is, but I do not think it arises on this Estimate. If it is discussed I shall make a full statement and answer the hon. Member.

I do not wish to say any more on the subject. We are now dealing with the Burnham Scale, and I am entitled to express a view which has been widely put to me. I have had hundreds of letters expressing the feeling I have stated. I will say no more, except that many of the hopes which were expressed about posts of special responsibility have not been lived up to by the local education authorities during the last six months. I do not feel that the right hon. Ladyis really responsible; I do not make any criticism of her, because I think she is quite helpless. All I ask is that as soon as possible she will make an inquiry into how these posts of special responsibility are in fact being allocated by local education authorities. I hope that the right hon. Lady will revise these scales—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden promised to revise them after three years—when a suitable opportunity occurs, which I think will be in the lifetime of this Government.

In conclusion, I congratulate the right hon. Lady on the setting up of the College of Aeronautics, subject to the one query about the method. I think the decision with regard to the £5 10s. and the £7 10s. is a wise one. I hope it also means that we are to have a decision about the remaining 140 direct grant schools. With regard to the grammar schools and Burnham Scales, I hope the right hon. Lady will look into this matter. Too much has been done for the Independent and primary schools from the point of view of the N.U.T., at the expense of the Grammar School.

The only schools that made it possible for poor children to go to the universities were the grammar schools, and 90 per cent. of those children went through those grammar schools. I shall continue with this fight until we get justice done. It is not on any other basis that I make this appeal, and I hope the right hon. Lady will make her tenure of office memorable by agreeing to a change in the whole approach to this problem.

I rise to ask the right hon. Lady, in connection with the provision of money for the payment of increased salaries to teachers in technical colleges, which has recently been recommended, whether she is in a position to give instructions for this to be done, or to give the necessary authority to local educational authorities for themselves to pass the necessary supplementary estimates for this purpose. We are somewhat held up in the process of that part of our work.

I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Kenneth Lindsay) has already thrown an apple of discord into what promised to become an agapemone between the right hon. Lady and her predecessor in office. It was high time to say what he said, and I am going to content myself with merely crossing the ťs and dotting the i's of what he has said, because, in spite of what my right hon. Friend the ex-Minister has said in protest, it is a fact that £4,000,000 of these Estimates go towards working the Burnham Scale. This is probably the last opportunity we shall have of discussing this notorious Award.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I am in rather a difficulty myself, and possibly I can clarify the position if I ask the Minister if the Burnham Scale has been approved by her since the original Act.

Yes, as a matter of fact it was approved yesterday.

:I would move the rejection of this item altogether but, of course, that would not meet with the pleasure of the Committee, because it would embarrass teachers and local authorities, who already have a very grave prospect in front of them, especially in the grammar schools. All the experts in education—and by experts I mean experts, people who have been connected with education, either as teachers, pupils or administrators all their lives—from the university down to the primary school, without exception, condemn this item of the Burnham Award. There is in the country a sense of frustration among teachers. There is a new kind of cynicism which I have not seen before in 40 years of experience, and a frank distrust of the promises made by any Minister of Education who may fill that office, but, coupled with that, there is always the hope that the present Minister of Education will be better than what they have feared.

I am not going to take up much time, but I would like to explain to the Committee that the most promising development in education during the last 30 years was the unprecedented and unexpected development of the secondary schools of this country. We hear a lot of discussion about public schools and the universities. Perhaps the Committee does not realise that, of all the Fellowships held in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, nearly 49 per cent. are carried by boys who passed through the free grammar schools of this country. This is the position the grammar schools came to before 1944. They were doing this service for the ordinary people, for you and me, for the working classes. Some day there will be a Socialist Government in this country, and when that Socialist Government comes, it will realise what a disservice the Burnham Award, and the alacrity with which the Minister of the time accepted that award, have done to secondary education in this country.

May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether, when he speaks of secondary schools, he means secondary schools, or just one particular kind of secondary school—the grammar school?

:I am speaking now of secondary schools, as defined by the Act of 1944, because I hope that the new secondary schools will become something like the old grammar schools and serve us in the same way as they did. But I do not think they will if they fall under the Burnham Award. I should like to remind the hon. Lady the Member for North-East Leeds (Miss Bacon) of the experiment in America when they tried to settle the colour question. They said: "Let us settle it by calling everybody white." Technical education is necessary, but technical education is not going to save this country, and it is not going to give the common people of this country what a humanistic education can give. A humanistic education can only be given through what is now called the grammar school. There must be a core of enlightenment in the country which can only come from a cultural education, and that enlightenment must inform the whole of our learning before any educational system can profit us.

I suppose that we must accept this recommendation to-night, but I, for one, accept it with the very greatest regret. I appeal to the right hon. Lady, who knows from her own experience what schools are, to consider very seriously what will be the repercussions of the acceptance of the Burnham Scale, not only on the grammar schools, but on all the schools in this country, and on the whole civilised life of Britain.

In view of the fact that the Committee has just listened to two speeches containing very extravagant and untrue references about the position of secondary education in this country, it is about time that somebody got up and made a protest about statements of this kind. I want to say this for the Burnham Award. Let us recognise the services it has rendered to education. It has established unity in the teaching profession for the first time because it has brought in a basic scale for all teachers. That is something which anybody who wants to see education in this country develop on proper lines should welcome. From lack of it in the past education has suffered, and it is very unfortunate that representatives of secondary teachers, who by no means speak for all secondary teachers, should try to undo some of the great work that has been done by the Burnham Award.

That is completely untrue. The secondary schools have always welcomed the increase to the £300 minimum in the primary schools and have not said anything to the contrary.

The burden of the criticism surely has been that the secondary school teachers have had a very raw deal under the Burnham Award because their basic scale is the same as it is in the primary schools. The whole point of the value of the Burnham Award is in recognising that there must be unity in education. You cannot differentiate between the quality of the teaching in one school and that in another, but where there are special responsibilities there will be certain increases in pay in consequence. It is wrong and harmful to education to try and create a division in education and in the teaching profession, which I think the Burnham Award has gone a long way to remove. It will cause a great deal of concern to parents with children at secondary schools to hear that secondary education in this country is in a parlous condition. Why should it be in a parlous condition? Is it because admission to those schools is to be based on the ability of the child to benefit from the type of education and not on the ability of the parent to pay? The teachers are likely to have more promising material with which to work, and why? Because the fees have been abolished in secondary schools, should that create a situation in which you could say that the education at secondary schools would be in a parlous state?

That is an absolute travesty of what we have said. I agree of course with every word which the hon. Member has said about fees.

It is not right to get up in this Committee and say, as was said by the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay), that the grammar schools of this country are in a parlous state. Those were his exact words. That is bound to cause concern among parents whose children are being educated there. There was nothing to justify that except that in his opinion some secondary teachers are not getting enough pay. They are getting more under the Burnham Award than they were getting before.

No.

I speak as a member of an education authority, and I know that we have to make increased provision under the Burnham Award for the salaries of secondary teachers as we have for teachers in primary schools. A great deal of harm is done by unwise talk of this kind and I hope that this is the last that we are likely to hear of it. I ask the Minister whether he believes, and is prepared to say, that no child is excluded from a direct grant school because of the financial position of the parent. I cannot see how that can possibly obtain, because there are only a limited number of places in any direct grant school available for those children who are not fee-payers. I understand that about 130 applications to become direct grant schools are still outstanding and I hope that every one of those applications will be turned down.

:I apologise to the Committee for speaking again. What researches I made before the Debate have convinced me that this was no occasion on which to review in general the whole of the Burnham Scale. As, however, discussion has taken place on the subject, it is necessary for me, quite extempore, to put some questions to the Minister before the hon. Lady replies. Many of us who were responsible with regard to the Burnham Scale of salaries had to take a very serious decision. The suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) that that decision was taken in a spirit of hurry or rush or without due thought is as much a travesty of the facts as are extraordinary and wild statements about secondary education in this country.

The word I used was "alacrity," and alacrity generally means eagerness.

This decision was taken after most sober thought and sober reflection.

:Is the right hon. Gentleman not responsible for the exact way in which these committees were constituted? These committees having been constituted as they were, was this not inevitable?

:We have had a Debate before in this House on this subject and I do not think it is suitable to have it again in Committee, though it would be permissible to do so.

It would be inadvisable and undesirable to discuss that matter.

:The matter has been fully debated here and any one who studies your Ruling will see that it is very sensible. In view of the turn that the Debate has taken and the very natural interest of those of us on this side of the Committee that all those things should work out for the best, I hope that the point in the Debate on the Burnham Scale in this House in the last Parliament will be examined by the right hon. Lady with a view to seeing whether she can keep an eye on the working out of the scale in practice. I will not go into these proposals in detail because they can be found in the columns of Hansard, but there was a point put by the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay), namely, the manner in which local education authorities allocate appointments of responsibility and the manner in which domination is given to headmasters and mistresses of the smaller grammar schools, who I consider under the formula of the Burnham Scale were likely to suffer. Very often the headmaster of the smaller grammar school did not get the increase he would have got if the scale had been in detail. If the hon. Lady will examine the proposals I made at the time, and at some future date give an assurance that she will do her best to watch the scale in the interest of graduate teachers, then we on this side of the Committee will feel that the interest of graduate teachers are being watched. Had I known that this subject would be raised I would have put it in my speech. I hope that the right hon. Lady will say that it is her desire that the interest of all types of teachers will be watched by the present Government.

Another matter that I did not expect would arise was the question permitted to be raised by the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities, and that was the question of the direct grant lists. I had not thought that this was a question on which to raise the whole conception of the direct grant list. If it is the occasion to raise that I want to make it clear that we on this side of the Committee attach the utmost importance to the direct grant list remaining substantially as before. It might be the case that certain schools feel that the aid and status afforded by the Act are so unsatisfactory that they desire to leave the direct grant list. There may be other schools, but I do not think there are many, who may desire, for a variety of reasons, to come on the direct grant list, but however it may be, we on this side of the Committee would view with consternation any policy which develops with the view to depriving the direct grant list of some of its most distinguished members. We regard them as having an important contribution to make to the educational system of this country and we would like an assurance from the right hon. Lady that it is no part of her policy to destroy the direct grant schools of this country. I couple that with the statement I made in my previous speech that it is surely reasonable, now that the Regulations have been made and the scales revised by the right hon. Lady, that, when they are so acceptable, they should be permitted to furnish that education which they can provide. I apologise to the Committee for having been obliged to speak again.

I would like to deal first with the points which have been raised and to deal with the speech of my predecessor the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler) at the end. I think that would be for the convenience of the Committee. With regard to the anxiety of the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Lindsay) about watches and clocks, it will not in any case mean a separate college, but is to be linked up with one of the existing polytechnics. With regard to the direct grant schools and how the figure of £200,000 was arrived at, I may say that it was reached on the basis that the number of pupils in direct grant grammar schools during the present financial year would be, roughly, the same as in the previous year, and that, whatever ultimate decision was readied, it could hardly affect the period of the Supplementary Estimate.

The hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) spoke of the growing cynicism among graduates because—and this is what it really amounts to—there is no promise that this class of teacher will be maintained at the level which they desire. I think that was one of the most cynical observations that could be made about any set of people engaged in such fine work, and I hope that, when he see sit in Hansard, he will see that—

When I read it in Hansard, I think I will find that I used, not the word "graduate", but the word "teacher."

No, it was not teachers the hon. Member was concerned about. Let us get it perfectly clearly; that is to say the teachers in what were previously known as secondary schools and are now known as grammar schools. What really has happened in the matter of these teachers is that we are no longer regarding teaching in primary schools as being done by an inferior kind of teacher. We think that as good, as fine and as highly-trained teachers should be given to the children in what were called elementary schools and are now called primary schools as to any schools. We are regarding education not as being separated into different boxes, but, now that we are trying to eliminate class distinction, at any rate, in State education, we are looking at all teachers as one body, whether teaching in primary, modern, technical or grammar schools, and, if any extra pay is to be given, it is to be made for a special responsibility.

I would like to remind hon. Gentlemen who are getting so indignant about the way the graduates are treated by the Burnham Scale that the graduates' associations have expressed appreciation and gratitude for the way in which Sir Frederick Mander, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, dealt with their case, and that, really, the actual amount arrived at by the Burnham Committee is very little different from the amount actually asked for by the graduates' associations. This is only a determination to keep up an artificial distinction between teachers, in which I myself have no interest at all.

Will the right hon. Lady tell us whether in her opinion there is no difference between a person with emergency training of one year who never passed the school certificate examination and the person with first-class honours?

Far be it from me, as the mere Minister of Education, to start lecturing a Professor of Logic. If the hon. Member is going to be beaten on argument and is going to drag in everything he can think of in order to try to bolster up a case, that is really not good, even for a representative of the primary schools, but, of course, the universities are a little different. I can assure him that we are really pursuing a very definite policy in this matter and that we are anxious that teachers should regard themselves as a whole, as a great united body, working for the good of the people, whether in nursery school or university, and, therefore, what I am concerned about is that we should consider, as we have done, our basic rates for our teachers and make provision for cases of special responsibility and special work. I want to make it clear that we are not regarding these Burnham Scales as "writ on tablets of stone." It is perfectly clear that, after such long consideration, with every kind of body being consulted that had a right to be consulted, you cannot be altering the Scales very often or you would never come to any finality at all, and that is the reason for the three-year limit with regard to the Burnham Scale. I will, however, tell the hon. Member for the English Universities and the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden, that I will keep this matter in mind because we are working on a new Act and dealing with a lot of new problems where the old ideas will not do, not necessarily because they were wrong, but because they have now to be fitted to a new situation. I will bear them in mind and have a look at the matter from time to time, and I can assure the hon. Members for the Universities that the teachers concerned always bring up such matters as they feel rather dissatisfied about, and, of course, it is always open to them to do so.

rose—

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to finish the point, and then he can ask what he likes. I want to make it perfectly clear that, having looked at the matter very carefully, I have come to the conclusion that it would not be right to sweep away direct grant schools altogether by the side-line of refusing to accept their applications and then, if they went independent, refusing to allow them to increase the fees which is the only way by which they could go independent—which I could do in my capacity as Commissioner for Educational Charities. I am very anxious to retain variety in education and room for experiment in education but, on the other hand, when this Parliament has decided that there should be as far as possible free, secondary education, then I regard it as my duty as Minister of Education to carry out that decision as far as is possible. I am aware—and I said it in my opening speech—that these direct grant schools are far more open to the children of the homes with smaller incomes than ever they have been.

I want to make it clear that under the Regulations 25 per cent. of the places are absolutely free, and 25 per cent. are available to the local education authority who can claim those places and pay the fees of the children. That is to say, 50 per cent. of the places in a direct grant school are absolutely free as far as the parents are concerned. With regard to the remaining 50 per cent. it is now not possible to buy a place in a direct grant school for a child who does not reach the required standard. Every place of those 50 per cent. fee-paying places must be given on merit by examination, and if the child of a man, however wealthy, fails to reach the required standard, then a place cannot be found for that child in that direct grant school. Therefore, because of the democratisation of these direct grant schools, I felt that a certain number of them should be retained in order to provide for that variety of education which we require.

In the case of schools of very oldtradition—cases of schools that have reached a very high standard in teaching technique and in schools that have various other claims to special consideration, I have been prepared to give direct grant status, but I see no reason whatever why many of the rest should not become free secondary schools under the local education authority.

May I ask one question? My right hon. Friend said that so far 156 cases had not been settled. I mentioned 140 while 16 have become Independent. Could she say whether that is so? Looking through the list published last week I see that in the first group that have been recognised there is a very large number of Roman Catholic schools. It may be an accident and I have no feeling about it one way or the other, but I want to know if it is the policy of the Government to recognise these denominational schools as direct grant in advance of some other principle.

There is no special action being taken with regard to denominational schools. As a matter of fact, one of the largest Catholic schools, when the income limit was raised from £5 10s. to £7 10s. for residuary places, has decided that there is no financial point in remaining on the direct grant list. With regard to the 16: they have elected to go independent. It still means that they are under consideration, because they cannot just go independent because they say they will. Many of these have an endowment, and as I am Commissioner for Educational Charities, I have to decide whether I will allow them to increase their fees sufficiently to get enough revenue to go independent. That is the reason for the difference in the figure.

With regard to the Burnham Technical Salaries Report, that has been before me during the last few days and I signified my acceptance yesterday. We are circulating this to local authorities immediately, and it will be in their hands within the next few days. With regard to the Aeronautical College, the right hon. Gentleman opposite expressed the position perfectly when he said we were regarding this expenditure as largely experimental. We have not provided for a vast sum to be laid out at once. Clearly, from every point of view, this is a very experimental project. We feel that this very modest grant at the beginning will give us experience for going further, when we shall probably ask Parliament for more money. With regard to the point of relationship of the estimate of the Roy Fedden Report, and the Government's own Estimate, that is one of the problems which we have before us, and on which I am keeping an eye.

The right hon. Lady has just made a serious statement about direct grant schools. We on this side take grave exception to the policy she has outlined, and I propose to take this opportunity of putting several further questions to her. The Opposition is not content to let the matter rest where she has stated it, and we shall take other occasions to raise the question more fully. When I was Minister of Education I received, in company with my colleagues of the Coalition Government, certain deputations of great weight and importance from the schools.

The points I want to put to the right hon. Lady are these. When I was Minister of Education I received in company with my colleagues of the Coalition Government certain deputations of great weight and importance from the schools concerned. I accept at once that the right hon. Lady is a free agent. We have had a General Election, and she is entitled to carry out what educational policy she likes. Two of these representative deputations of the Governing Bodies Association and others came to see me and certain undertakings were given by which I shall stand. These undertakings were that the direct grant list shall remain substantially as at present. That was accepted under the Coalition Government, and under the general aegis of the Act which I thought up to this moment would have general agreement.

I cannot say what a shock the right hon. Lady's statement has given me tonight, and what a very adverse impression that will make throughout the whole world of education. Here is the first example of departure from that confidence which I hoped we should have engendered. I am not going to get unduly heated, because she is entitled to carry out the policy which she thinks best—that is the law of the land—but can she tell me what are the conditions which she has laid down for these direct grant schools to fulfil? She has given a general state- merit to-night about them which I think is very unsatisfactory, because we, on this side of the House, cannot gain any impression of what the standards are which she is going to lay down. I think before we allow this Supplementary Estimate to go, I should like to have a statement of the conditions which these direct grant schools are expected to fulfil. Secondly, I should like to have an assurance that the remainder of the schools on this list which number some 150, whose fate has got to be decided, will be given the utmost consideration. It seems to me that the right hon. Lady is obsessed with the idea of the free nature of education. She should, in my view, adhere to what she has already said in her speech, that a variety of schools, provided that children of parents however poor may go to them, is in the interests of education in this country. The direct grant school has a very notable past and won a very great tradition. It is not a school designed to keep out children of the poor, and if she thinks that is the object of the direct grant school she is obsessed with an entirely wrong idea.

I, myself, when drafting the secondary school grant regulation took particular care to see that the children of parents however modest could go to these schools. The particular contribution of the direct grant school is that it gets its grant direct from the Ministry and is able to have a wider scope than the purely local school under the local education authority. There are many schools in this country which get the direct grant, the parents of whose children are just as modest as those of the aided schools, which rejoice in very ancient traditions which enable them to draw pupils from a wider scope than you could under the single education authority. These schools will envisage with dismay the statement made by the right hon. Lady to-night.

There is another feature of these schools to which the members of the Governing Bodies Association and others attach great importance, and that is that these schools form a link in the educational system of this country as between free and independent schools and the big boarding schools and the State system. If her policy is to result, as it is clearly tending to result, in some of these schools going independent, does she think she is going to achieve the linking up of types of education in this country, which has always been the ideal of us on this side of the House? It is not our idea to create a gulf between the educational system, between the dependent school, on the one hand, and the aided school on the other. Our idea is to have all schools linked up together so that there are not these great gulfs. I believe the result of the right hon. Lady's policy will 'be to create a gulf between one kind of school and another which will be a far greater social embarrassment to this country than the social embarrassment she, quite sincerely, is seeking to avoid.

I therefore ask her to think very carefully when she is reviewing the rest of this list, because I believe that in her policy lie greater seeds of social disruption and danger than in the policy of permitting direct grant schools to continue, and making it possible for them to take the children of parents however poor. We on this side of the Committee are far from satisfied with this surprising statement we have heard. I had no idea I was going to hear that to-night. We shall take another opportunity of raising the matter, and I hope that meanwhile the right hon. Lady will give us some reassurance in answer to the points I have made.

May I say one thing in answer to the right hon. Gentleman? I am still more astonished to have heard his latest speech. There is, as he said, a change in Government but I would like to remind him that the damage which has already been done to the grammar schools of England by the interpretation of this Act may be even worse than anything that may be done by changes in direct grant schools. There are Members of the Labour Party who will agree with me about the damage that has already been done through the administration of the Regulations of the Act for which my right hon. Friend was responsible. It is not the Act itself. It is in the day-to-day interpretation that we shall get differences. I am glad to see many of the approaches which my right hon. Friend is making to this problem. I do not think that by enlarging from £5 10s. to £7 10s. she is doing that damage. The moment that certain decisions were taken by the last Government it was inevitable that many direct grant schools would go independent, and the right hon. Gentleman cannot fasten on to the new Government something for which he was responsible. I prophesy that it will not be 16 but 26, 36, 46 which will go independent before we are finished. It is now legal in this country to pay anything from £50to £250 for a child's education, but impossible for people who wish to make a modest contribution to their children's education. The right hon. Gentleman cannot expect everything to go beautifully and smoothly as a result of the Act. We shall see some strange things happening, as the hon. Member for Devizes (Squadron-Leader Hollis) said in his brilliant maiden speech last night.

:I hope the Committee will forgive me if I do not continue the Debate. It is perfectly clear from what the right hon. Gentleman says that it is a fundamental difference with which we are faced. We cannot go on as if the old Government were still in being. While I would be willing to pay the right hon. Gentleman my tribute, and I do, for the 1944 Act, which will go down as a great Act, he has himself said that a great deal will depend on the spirit in which that Act is administered. I have given a general outline in very general terms because we were not expecting this particular Debate to go into these particular details. But I am perfectly prepared to face the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends opposite in any Debate, whenever they are prepared to raise the matter, and to discuss the whole question and defend my policy. I do not think that at this late hour, with so much still before the Committee, it is the moment to go into it.

I do not think I should trouble the Committee very long with the Estimate which is now before us. The position is that an additional provision of £212,000 is necessitated by the transfer as from 1st July this year of this expenditure on the Police War Reserve, etc., from full reimbursement to a grant-aided basis consequent upon the change of status of the Police War Reserve. The position in a nutshell is that as from 1st July this year we have reverted to the position whereby the State meets 50 per cent. of the total expenditure on police services. Hon. Members will be aware that at the outbreak of war the Government recognised that special defence services would have to be afforded by the police and so the Police War Reserve was set up, and the full cost of the Police War Reserve was met by the Exchequer. The reversion to the status quo as it was before the war necessitates this additional expenditure, but hon. Members will be comforted by the fact that this actually means a saving, as there will be a saving to the Exchequer in so far as they have not now got the expenditure they would have had upon the Police War Reserve.

I would like to put one question to the hon. Gentleman. He spoke of a saving in regard to the Exchequer, but in fact surely what happens here is that while the Exchequer saves the ratepayers in Scotland have to meet the other half of the cost. Perhaps I could have an answer to that.

Before we have a reply, I submit that the reimbursement is going to cost more. As a member of a local authority, I would like to know what consultations took place before this departure was agreed to. What I do know is that the Police War Reserve, which is much below the physical standard of the police force, has been parked on local authorities and local authorities have been asked to meet the cost. The position of the local authorities is that until such time as the necessity for the Police War Reserve has passed the Government ought to bear the whole cost. Hundreds of police who are serving in the Forces are having their wages supplemented by the local authorities, and this additional charge of £212,000, which when spread over all Scotland possibly does not come to very much, is a considerable burden in a city like Glasgow where the police force runs into thousands of men. We ought to get a little more information than just a mere statement that the Treasury are going to save and the local ratepayers are going to pay. That is no justification for putting the cost of the Police War Reserve on to the local authority, and I hope we shall get some information on that point.

:May I briefly put a question and also perhaps make an appeal? The Association of County Councils in Scotland approached the Government with, I submit, a very good case that this expenditure should not be transferred to their shoulders from the Imperial Exchequer. The Government said that there was no likelihood of their departing from that decision to transfer the cost of the Police War Reserve to the local authorities, subject to the 50 per cent. As the hon. Gentleman opposite has said, I think that at this stage, when the local authorities are making up the salaries of policemen serving in the Forces, local authorities are involved in a very considerable expense—admittedly a declining one, as the police return, but nevertheless very considerable, amounting to some thousands of pounds in Perthshire—which I do not think should be placed on their shoulders.

The hon. Gentleman on the Government Front Bench said that we had now reverted to the previous situation. That may be so from the point of view of the Government, but not from that of the county councils who are faced with this extra expenditure, which is not a reversion, as stated by the Government. I would ask most sincerely, and in no carping spirit, that the Government will relent and will allow his expenditure to remain with the Exchequer and not be put upon the local authority. It all comes out of the pockets of the people.

I do not know what sort of consultation took place, but I know that the Fife County Council have been continually making representations to the Government upon this point. Like other local authorities they have had to carry the burden of these war reserve policemen. Suddenly to be told that the Government payments are to be cut down by 50 per cent. without consultation does not seem to be good enough. I consider that while the war reserve policemen are retained the Government should meet the full cost. That is the view of the Fife County Council—I cannot say that all the members are in agreement—on the situation and on the demands that I make. Four of us were going to see the Scottish Office before the Recess, but it was put off until after the Recess.

Somehow or another it is rather difficult now, because this Estimate has come before us before they have had a chance of meeting at the Scottish Office to discuss the matter. The meeting is still in abeyance. Before we can meet at the Scottish Office we shall have to meet ourselves to come to an understanding; nevertheless, I am for the position of the county council. It is only right that, so long as they are burdened with the responsibility of maintaining the war reserve constables, the cost should be met by the Government. I do not know why the Government want to be so generous as to take off only 50 per cent. Let it be one thing or another. Either the local authorities pay, or the Government. We should hear some reason from the Government for this decision and why there had been no consultation before the decision was arrived at.

So that the Joint Under-Secretary should be under no misapprehension, let me say that I warmly support what has been said by my neighbour the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). There is an all-Scotland and all-party demand on this matter. We have heard from Perthshire, and the ancient Kingdom of Fife has joined in demanding from the Scottish Office reconsideration of this matter. There is a strong technical argument in favour of the local authorities' view. I do not propose to advance that argument—it is somewhat technical—but I would ask the Under-Secretary to bear in mind that there is a strong argument which could be advanced. I ask him, on behalf of my hon. Friends, to give an undertaking that he will invite the county councils to meet him, so that he and his officers may re-examine this matter. If he would give that assurance we would be temporarily satisfied, and the meeting to which my hon. Friend referred might not be necessary.

The Committee must be under the impression, after the speeches we have heard, that I have dropped a bombshell this evening. That is not so. The Government intimated in March this year to the police authorities in Scotland that the pre-war position would be reverted to at the end of hostilities in Europe. There were consultations, I understand, at that time, but it was agreed to postpone the date of reversion until July. We now come before the Committee to ask for some extra money for the Scottish Office to enable us to meet our new commitments for we have new commitments under this arrangement. Let us look at the position. Is it that we are insisting on the local authorities carrying police forces for which they have no need? Are we insisting on their carrying forces that are only required for war purposes? The position is that the police forces throughout Scotland are doing exactly the same job now as they did before the war. If there are some hon. Members who think that the Government ought to pay more than 50 per cent. of the cost of such services, there will be other occasions on which to make such an argument but we would not be in Order in discussing that now.

One would gather the impression this evening that some police authorities are carrying a force in excess of their needs. Let me give hon. Members an assurance that if any police authority in Scotland should make a submission to me that they are carrying numbers in excess of their needs, and ask permission to pay off part of their personnel, we will readily consider what can be done, and I think that, in all likelihood, we will be able to meet them. Coming back to the question of representation, since I took office no hon. Members and no local authority have asked to be allowed to state a case to me. In the circumstances, am I not entitled to assume that this reversion to the pre-war arrangements was generally acceptable, or, at least, that all opposition to it had more or less been got rid of in the consultations that took place during the life of the Coalition Government?

:Surely the hon. Gentleman does not deny that at least the Fife County Council approached him by correspondence on this matter with all the pungency which generally accompanies letters from that council?

I do not deny that we have from time to time had correspondents, and I have courteously replied to them and told them what the position was, but hon. Members have asked if I would consider delaying this matter until consultations have taken place. I say that I have had no request up to now for consultations. I very much doubt whether there is anything to be done under the circumstances. This reversion to the pre-war arrangements was carried through some time ago, and it is as a result of this reversion that the Scottish Home Department have to find some additional moneys to enable them to meet their new commitments. That is the only matter that is before the Committee at the present time, and I very much hope that the Committee will give me the £212,000 necessary.

:I am very sorry, but it is not as simple as that. I have always been suspicious of consultations. If the big chief in Edinburgh sends for local authorities, they can talk for hours or for weeks. My hon. Friend is making a mistake if he assumes that anyone suggested that police forces were over strength. Our complaint is that they are under strength and we are paying more money for them. That is the trouble. My point is that those who paid for the Police War Reserve should have paid for them until, the need for Police War Reserve strength was abolished altogether. That could only be when the policemen who are now on war service come back and bring the forces up to strength. Again I say I do not like the word "consultation." With a weaker police force local authorities are paying out more money. I admit that some areas are only rated to the extent of 18s. in the £ and that is nothing at all; it can go higher; but, of course, the tap will ran dry some time. They say we have returned to the status quo, but they are asking the local authorities to pay 50 per cent. for the services of a Police War Reserve below the standard.

I will tell the Committee something else. The regular policemen are dissatisfied because the Police War Reserve stepped in on conditions at which it had taken the regular policeman years to arrive. I am not saying that they should be in a worse position. Those who created the Police War Reserve should have kept them until such time as their services could be altogether dispensed with. I know it is only a question of £212,000, but these things have a habit of accumulating, and I feel that we must make our protest—not that it will have any effect. The local authorities would be much better served if active steps were taken to have regular policemen returned to police duties. The wave of crime sweeping through the country makes it essential that regular police forces should be brought up to strength at the earliest possible moment.

One other question arises out of the Supplementary Estimate. Why was no mention made of the women's police force? I understand that now the full-time members of the women's police force have been transferred to the local authorities. Hitherto the moneys paid on that account came direct from the State, but now they come partly from the local authorities and partly from the State, and I should have thought it should have been mentioned in this Supplementary Estimate.

This requirement is consequential, as hon. Members will be aware, upon additional provision required for grants to local education authorities and other bodies in England and Wales. Under Section 21 (1) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, a sum equal to 11/80ths of the amount of any such provision in England and Wales is payable to the Education (Scotland) Fund. As in England and Wales, our education costs in Scotland are on an ever-increasing scale. I am happy in the thought that I am unlikely to have all the controversy over teachers' salaries that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education had only a short time ago. We have a proposal increase in teachers' salaries coming along very soon. The Regulations have not been made and accepted by the House as yet, so there cannot be any argument about them, but the additional expenditure we estimate we will need to meet in connection with these increased scales will have to be found out of this sum. I do not think it is necessary at this late hour for me to go further into the matters for which we have to provide out of these moneys.

I rise to assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be no opposition whatever from this side in regard to this item. We welcome it very sincerely as affording some small measure of relief to the ratepayers of Scotland in regard to the very high costs of education. I would like to say to the hon. Gentleman that I hope he will see to it that the generosity of the Government goes even further in the future.

Can my hon. Friend give any indication of the date on which the new scales of salary become operative?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State mentioned that this sum is required to pay for various things in connection with education in Scotland. I am sure he has already had time to learn that in the constituency which I represent there are various educational difficulties on which the assistance of the State is required. I refer particularly to the question of grants-in-aid to local authorities to enable them to get children to school. In the remote areas which form so large a part of the county of Argyll, the question is becoming ever more impossible for the local authorities. Almost daily I receive letters from agricultural constituents explaining that they are unable to get their children to school, and when I approach the local authorities, they say they are very sorry they are unable to do anything, because the money is not available. I hope that as a result of this increased amount, the Scottish Office will be able to increase the grants to local authorities for this purpose.

My unfamiliarity with the intricacies of the procedure we are going through now may prompt me to put a question which should probably be put to the Under-Secretary at some other time. If so, I apologise in advance, but I want to know whether in the sums for which he is asking there is any provision made for the education of the blind. I am sure that the Under-secretary has received the same report of the committee inquiring into this matter—

I am afraid the hon. Member cannot go into that question at the moment.

I cannot find fault with the sum, but I do not understand the arithmetic of those who make the allocations to the local authorities. I have in front of me figures which show a percentage increase on the previous grants of 135 per cent., and in another county the percentage increase is 162 per cent. There is one with the startling percentage increase of 321 per cent., but for the county that I represent, Dumbartonshire, for some obscure reason, the increased grant amounts to only 44 per cent. As I say, I do not understand the arithmetic or the method adopted in making these allocations. In the county of Dumbartonshire we have an education rate of 5s. in the £, and it would appear that if a county were ahead in paying salary scales before it was compelled by law to do so, and rated its community for the purpose of paying scales which have now become the legal scales, prior, and long prior, to them becoming operative, when it comes to allocating the grant in aid, that county is not only not thanked for what it has done in the past, but suffers a reduction in the amount of money made available. Perhaps the Under-Secretary could give us some information as to how the allocations are made.

For instance, Stirlingshire's old grant amounted to £12,635, and it is to be increased by £17,145. The Dumbartonshire grant was £11,400, and it is to be increased by £5,122. That sort of arithmetic gets us all staggered, and, as I have said on many occasions, I would abolish algebra from the curriculum of Civil Servants because they get people into more trouble with the way they allocate money than enough. I am sure the Under-Secretary will have a complete answer to that. The county I represent wants an answer, and I am quite satisfied that, after to-night, a number of other authorities, having heard of this increase, will want an answer as well. I would suggest to the Under-Secretary that he gives us the fullest possible information as to the methods of allocation so that local authorities may be satisfied that no person is stealing a march on them.

I would like to ask the Under-Secretary if it is the intention of his Department to continue the somewhat invidious practice of paying two different scales to independent schools and to non-fee-paying schools. At the present time a non-fee-paying school is paid on a teacher-pupil basis, £125 for the teacher and £5 for each pupil. That means a grant of £325 in a class of 40 children, whereas in the independent schools the grant is a direct grant per pupil on the basis of £10 per head, which gives the independent school £400 for 40 pupils as against the £325 which the non-fee-paying school receives. Why do these independent schools get grants paid directly to them instead of receiving them through the local authority?

I want to raise the question further with the Minister, but before doing so I wish to say that it seems to be natural at a very late hour that Estimates affecting Scotland, and particularly affecting education, should come up. The Scottish Education Bill came on at a very late hour and consequently was not discussed. Now at this very late hour we get a Supplementary Scottish Estimate. There was much talk in an earlier discussion about the Burnham Committee and complaints were made by some of those who represent certain classes. The Burnham Committee has always kept an eye on the salaries of teachers, and a standard was laid down for English teachers, but in Scotland there is a very strong feeling amongst all sections of teachers at the lack of consideration and understanding of the position of teachers. We set up machinery to deal with the salaries of teachers in Scotland and we ought to have something more definite from the Minister as to how that machinery is to work and when to expect a decision as to the salaries of teachers. When I am in my constituency or any other part of Scotland I am continually approached by teachers who want to know when they are to get something like proper treatment. In Scotland we have always had a higher standard of education than is general in England, but in England the teachers, for a poorer quality of education, get a higher salary than the teachers in Scotland.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for raising the question of teachers' salaries. My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) asked about the date of the operation of the Act and said that teachers were getting a bit restive in Scotland. Hon. Members will be aware that the Scottish Education Bill only became an Act on 15th June and since then we have had a general election. I am happy to say that immediately after my right hon. Friend was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland he prepared a scale for teachers and submitted his draft proposals to education authorities. It is provided in the Act that we should do so and we are empowered to give them 40 days in which to make representations to us. That has been done, and we have had many representations, and I am hopeful that, very soon now, the Regulations will be laid before this House and will be accepted. When they are accepted, I am happy to say that it will be possible for us—and this is our intention—to make these scales retrospective to 1st April, 1945.

The hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) asked if, out of this sum I was asking for this evening, it would be possible for us to give additional assistance to such areas as Argyllshire. It is because we propose to give some additional assistance to areas such as Argyllshire that I have had other representations made to me by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire. I am sorry that I have not got all the figures which the hon. Member quoted, but the position is that the sum is apportioned, under the Education (Scotland) Grant Regulations, which have been laid and accepted, in accordance with a formula based on the numbers of pupils and teachers and the rateable value of the Education Authority's area. In this formula, we provide for giving adequate assistance to areas where we have a sparse population. It was not meeting their case merely to give them so much per teacher, and it is unfortunately true that, when the Secretary of State took the decision to give added assistance to those parts of the country where we have a sparse population and a very low rateable value, it had to be done at the expense of other areas. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire said his local authority is going to be very interested in this discrepancy, and in the difference in the amounts as apportioned, as compared with what was done under the general grant. The County Council of Dunbarton are as fully aware of the position as we can possibly make them. I myself had occasion the other day to write a very long letter to a Member of Parliament who had raised the matter on behalf of the Dunbartonshire County Council, and there I set out, in the greatest detail, the reasons for the formula that has been adopted under the grant regulations. In the circumstances, I do not think it is necessary for me to go into and explain them in any great detail this evening.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Gilzean) made what is, I believe, his maiden speech this evening and I have to congratulate him upon it. We listened to it with interest, and, as I know full well that he is by way of being an expert in educational matters, we shall look forward to hearing him very often in future. Unhappily, I cannot give him an explanation such as he sought in his very brief speech. I think he rather took us into the realm of the general grant than raised a matter with which I could appropriately deal in this Debate this evening. I am quite unable to give him the information he requires. I hope, however, that it will meet with his wishes if I forward this to him as soon as possible.

I do not think there were any other points raised this evening with which I could properly deal, and in the circumstances I hope I may now get the Estimate.

This Estimate arises from an Act passed last year. Older Members will remember that last year we passed an Act dealing with the re-distribution of industry and under which the Department of Health took over the obligations of the Commissioner for Special Areas (Scotland) under certain other Acts which were in force in Scotland. In the years before the war Scotland was, unfortunately, a distressed area and we had as the right hon. Gentleman who leads the Opposition will remember because he took some active part in it, what was called the Special Areas legislation. When the Distribution of Industry Act was passed this legisla- tion was wound up as the need for it had gone. Everybody was pleased, not with the war, but because it had brought to an end the old "special areas" as they were called. It was felt then that legislation ought to be passed, that this country ought to plan, if it could, to see that none of these things recurred, and so those charges were passed to be paid by the Department of Health. They were operated by the Scottish Special Housing Association in regard to housing. The first £80,000 is in regard to housing, and the second £75,000 is in regard to water supply. It is for those reasons that this Supplementary Estimate is required by us to-night.

The other Estimate is a comparatively small one of £2,000. Everyone on this Committee will agree, I am sure, that that is small. I would remind hon. Members who may be inclined to criticise that this Supplementary Estimate is required in part for girls who have been working during the war as V.A.D. nurses, or in factories as nurses, and who want to continue this profession, only in hospitals. It is not fair to the girls to knock down their salaries to practically nothing. This £2,000 is for the wages of the girls and for maintenance, and also to enable us to provide teaching staff at the hospitals, and I trust the Committee will approve the expenditure.

:I think all Members appreciate the short and lucid account which the hon. Gentleman has given to the Committee. I would like to ask a question about the Scottish Special Housing Association. What is that body doing now? I do not recollect the Under-secretary, when he was in Opposition, ever showing any particular enthusiasm for that body. But it may be that now, having entered the sombre portals of authority he has discovered something in this Association that may have escaped his notice before. I, too, have no special enthusiasm for this body, and it would be interesting to learn from the hon. Gentleman his impressions about it as he has now seen it from the inside. We gather that its purpose is to assist such local authorities as require assistance, to do such things as breaking builders'rings—an admirable purpose—but are they doing that? How many houses have they built during the last year, and what is their programme for this year?

:I rise with some trepidation to point out to the Joint Under-secretary that I do not think that the Estimate he is asking for is sufficient for the purpose for which he requires it. I want to give the Committee a few reasons why. I am not surprised that we have already spent this money. It is nothing to what is coming. The Association have built a number of houses, and they are presumed to be the persons responsible. Two hundred houses were built and occupied by new tenants. In one, new ceilings 8 feet 6 inches high were fitted in the living room and in a bedroom. Money had to be paid for these alterations, and I think it is a waste of money trying to make uninhabitable houses habitable. Cupboards were taken out in one bedroom and put into another, which meant losing space. These houses, which were to Ministry of Works design were approved by the last Government, in which we had some members of our own Party.

In another house, coal fires were installed, entailing breaking down the wall of a separate bedroom and an exterior wall. I know something about prices in the building industry. Half-inch boarding was fitted on an outside wall. Remember, these were new houses. [An Hon. Member: "Where are they?"] They are scattered all over Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire to Dundee. They were built by the Special Housing Association, to Ministry of Works' specification. In another, there was renewal of the piping system in the fireplace and the boiler, and the roof was covered with tar and felt. These houses were inhabited by the young married persons and homeless couples. They were new. There was an opening ceremony, if I remember correctly, and Press photographers were there. There has been an army of plumbers there ever since.

After the tenants had got in, it was discovered that red, rusty water was coming into the house. I could go on for some time enumerating these items. This sum of £80,000 is to meet the special expenses of that Association. Then they insulated the houses. Whoever heard of anyone insulating a floor at the top instead of the bottom. They waited until the damp came, and then they covered up with a bitumen solution. There is no item here making provision for compensation to people for furniture destroyed or to grant them remission in rents, because they have been paying rents for houses which they have been unable to occupy fully for over 18 months. This document from which I have been quoting is dated 26th June, 1945. I visited these houses last winter. The Under-Secretary visited them last winter as well, and he had to put rubber boots on inside the houses. This £80,000, I submit is wholly insufficient. I hope that the Under-Secretary is paying attention.

I am listening very intently.

:I am trying to be serious. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to assure us that the whole of that sum will not be absorbed by the Special Housing Association making these new houses habitable for the tenants, who have had to put up with all these things for the best part of a year.

:I wish to put one question, in connection with the grants for the training of nurses. The Under-secretary spoke very eloquently of the need of nurses in Scotland, and we are all very much aware how short we are of members of the nursing profession. Is this £2,000 merely a token figure, or is it supposed to be sufficient to meet the provision of additional nurses for the remainder of the present financial year?

A point which I want to raise with the Under-Secretary is with regard to this Special Housing Association. Is it to be the policy of the Scottish Office to force this association to do work in areas where the work could better be done by the people themselves? The case I have in mind is one in which, recently, the Joint Under-Secretary, along with members of the Glasgow Corporation, decided to build a number of houses in the Glasgow area. Everyone knows that before the Special Housing Association can build any houses in Glasgow, it has to compete with the corporation itself and the contractors, both for the local labour supply and for priorities in materials. If it is the purpose of the Special Housing Association to do work and help councils when they are having difficulty, why does the Scottish Office bring it into a city where the work can be done far better than the Association can do it?

In the Housing Vote reference is made to a grant of £2,000 to the Second Scottish National Housing Company. The Committee is not very well acquainted with that body. Perhaps the Joint Under-secretary would say a word on its constitution and what work it has undertaken.

If the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) is correct in assuming that the £80,000 is for the repair of these Association houses, is my hon. Friend satisfied that £80,000 is sufficient to repair these perfectly appalling houses, which have caused indescribable hardship and inconvenience to the tenants from the moment they were built until to-day, and whether he does not think that the only possible solution is to scrap these houses and build completely new houses for the tenants?

Since there is reference in the Vote to a grant in aid of the Highlands and Islands medical service, I would like to ask my hon. Friend what changes, if any—

That is not in my Estimate.

I can assure my hon. Friend it is in the Estimate. We are so accustomed to the Highlands and Islands being ignored, that I tend to agree with something which I can translate from the rugged English of the infantry as follows "I am not unduly perturbed by your difficulty, Jock." I am all right.

The item to which the hon. Member refers occurs under another Sub-head.

The Estimate refers to

"a grant in aid of the Highlands and Islands medical service."

My hon. Friend is reading from the heading. If he will turn to the next page, he will see that there is no Supplementary Estimate to cover that item. It does not relate to the particular headings under discussion.

This question I am raising came under the general heading—

The hon. Member is out of Order.

I am interested in the Scottish Special Housing Association. I hope the Joint Under-Secretary will bring his astute and original mind to bear on its history. I shall not attempt to blame the present Government for that Association. They did not inaugurate it; they have inherited it and also some lessons that go with it. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) indicated quite clearly some of the lessons. Perhaps I may be permitted to take the matter a little further. What is the Scottish Special Housing Association Ltd.? I can tell one or two things which are perhaps not within the knowledge of the Committee. I am told on the authority of the City Treasurer of Edinburgh that they built seven houses in Edinburgh, and that all these are occupied by officials of the Association—a practical contribution, no doubt, but a limited one, to the urgent housing needs of the city of Edinburgh.

I notice that when Government Departments want important officials to conduct their business, they have little respect for Governmental institutions. After much advertising for a secretary and manager for the Scottish Housing Association, they secured a very distinguished and able man. He did not remain with them for long. He did not have to go to the employment exchange for another job. He left to join the Association of Paint Manufacturers. This Committee is being asked to pay for an unfortunate experiment in State erection of houses. We have heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite how scandalous this experiment has been, and that it has produced houses, which although not three years old are untenantable—that the Under-Secretary has to use waterproof boots to enter them. It is a scandal arising out of the attempt by a collectivist organisation to build houses. The truth is that Governments cannot build houses, nor can local authorities; official associations cannot build houses. That is an unsuitable economic tool for the purpose you have got in mind. I want the Under-Secretary to bring to bear an original mind and a mind which is not likely to be overburdened by the fact that nine-tenths of the gentlemen with whom he sits are not Scotsmen. I hope he will assert that character which is his inalienable right, because Government and local authority have alike failed where they have tried. The shortage of houses is due to the fact that you are attempting to build houses with a device which is as useful for the purpose as a shovel would be to stir a cup of tea. This Vote is the first instalment of many proofs of that fact which this Committee will receive, if we continue to build by other than free enterprise.

May I refer to a point of Order, raised earlier, Major Milner? I would like, with your permission, to have some explanation of what is included under the Supplementary Estimate.

The heading to which the hon. Member has referred is the heading in the original Estimate, and the items in the Supplementary Estimate to the original Estimate are set out below. The subject of the Highlands and Islands is not among these items. The question, therefore, does not arise.

With respect, I would have thought that the question does arise. In the original Estimate no provision has been made for this matter.

That question does not arise here. The only matters before the Committee are the five items set out in the Supplementary Estimate.

It has been interesting to hear the hon. Gentleman condemn the attempt of the associations to build houses or to build anything else. I hope he will apply that condemnation to the companies who call themselves limited companies and the big monopoly companies, and get rid of them all, and then maybe the people will get a chance to obtain homes and happiness for themselves. The fact remains that the local authorities have the responsibility for putting right the harm that has been done, and the money should be given to the local authorities and not to the Government.

The point I wish to make is in connection with nursing. There is no question that is of greater moment to the people of Scotland from the point of view of health than nursing. We have in Scot- land the highest incidence of tuberculosis compared with any other part of the country, and I want to know if this Estimate of £2,000 covers a scheme of training which the Scottish Office introduced in connection with tuberculosis—a scheme of training that was to a large extent valueless. It was a voluntary nursing scheme whereby nurses went voluntarily into the sanatoria for three months, and at the end of that period they could either carry on or leave. In many of the sanatoria which I visited I found that when the nurses came in the small staff had the added work of training them and getting them to understand the job, and at the end of three months when they did understand the job they finished and went out. I do not suppose that scheme is still being carried on.

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, this £2,000 does not cover that. It covers a limited number of people who are known as sister tutors.

I understand that it has nothing to do with the whole field of nursing and that it is for a particular type of nursing. I know that otherwise the sum involved would be much greater. I would like to know whether the hon. Gentleman knows whether the scheme of three months in the sanatorium is still being carried on. Anything which will develop nursing in Scotland would be of the greatest value.

I would ask my hon. Friend whether before spending any money in trying to improve certain houses in Western Scotland, he would consider pulling them down and replacing them with some other houses.

Uninformed views have been expressed about the Scottish Housing Association. I want to speak on the rather intriguing point made by the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) who wanted to know why the Association found it necessary to do certain things. I would like to take that matter a little further, because the views behind the speech seemed to be that local authorities should place in their houses people who have the greatest need. I welcome that suggestion, and I hope it may be expanded to private house factors and others, so that in every case where a private concern has built houses it should submit the newly-built houses to be occupied by people with the greatest needs.

With regard to the remarks which have been bandied about as to the type of house built by the Scottish Housing Association, the houses were built over a period when there was great need for them and when people were taken from one part of the country to another to do vital work during the war. The material of which these houses were built was not up to the standard which the Association desired, but in view of the desirability of building the houses as quickly as possible the houses were allowed to go up.

Question.

The Association has a great contribution to make towards satisfying the housing needs of the people of Scotland, which wants something like 10,000 houses a year. I am surprised that hon. Members should not encourage this Association to go on to deal with this very vital problem and assist local authorities, where necessary and important to do so.

I have been asked a number of questions on this Estimate. I would like to deal first with the question originally raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith). This is a small payment for a very limited body of tutor nurses and of women who train as nurses at the end of their war work. A special need arose, and we felt that some maintenance grant as well as the training ought to be provided, and the Committee may take it that it in no way covers a very wide field. In answer to the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), this Estimate does not cover the question of tuberculosis. Perhaps the hon. Member will raise it with me privately, as I cannot be expected to cover every field of activity in my speech to-night. I depend a great deal on advice and help from hon. Members in this Committee and if the hon. Member feels that there is an issue here, I shall not be averse from examining that issue.

Can the Minister tell us how many nurses are to be paid for by the £2,000?

It is an augmentation, and, as I say, covers a very limited field.

If there are 10 nurses, that is £200 each—

Order.

My hon. Friend is a very active Member but he must learn to conduct himself in the same way as he would like a member of Edinburgh Town Council to conduct himself. I turn to the general question of the Housing Association. I anticipate it will be raised to-morrow when, I understand, we are to have a housing Debate. I think that in fairness to the critics it would be better to discuss it to-morrow. I do not want to burke the issue, and rather than deal with it in a limited manner, I would prefer to cover the whole ambit of it and face up to the criticisms then.

The hon. Member for Pollok and the hon. Member for West Fife raised the matter with me in very pungent letters and I think one of them, at least, may be fortunate enough to catch the Speaker's eye and raise the issue tomorrow and then I would deal with the whole question of the Housing Association.

What the Minister is really saying is that he proposes at the end of to-morrow's Debate to reply to criticism. What I did ask him to do to-night was to make some criticism.

The hon. Member is an adroit Parliamentarian and in my more simple days, I was indebted to him for much help and assistance, having regard to my lack of knowledge on these matters. So far as I am concerned, I am in rather an awkward position in regard to this matter of the Housing Association as I do not want to debate it on a Supplementary Estimate. To say that my relationship with the Association is altogether happy would be wrong, and to say that I am antagonistic to the body would be equally wrong. I have to face the facts. I will look at them to see how I can fit the Association in to the housing programme of Scotland and to the beliefs I have held all my life. To-morrow I intend to say a word about this.

The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay) asked why the Maycrete houses have been built. It would be very difficult to place the blame here or there, but I will give the facts as I see them. I had no responsibility for the building of these houses. One might have thought from the speeches that I had, but they had all been built when I took office. They were built in the middle of the war. Mr. Thomas Johnston was the Secretary for Scotland, and in fairness to him, I must say he has seen Scotland as I have seen it, and its need for houses. He had little material and little labour. These houses were offered to him as a way out of the dilemma, since he could build them with a minimum of labour and material. He being a reformer, he did what most of us would have done—he went in for the adventure. I would sooner see a Secretary of State for Scotland make a mistake in an adventure than not make any attempt at all. The right hon. Gentleman went into it and the Scottish Housing Association ought not to be allowed to take all the blame. They have done good work, and all along they said they were not the best of houses. On the other hand, we were anxious to improve the Scottish housing position, and we asked them to go ahead. There has also been some criticism about the Ministry of Works. They built some houses directly, and so far as I am aware there has been no real material complaint against them. I was not satisfied when I took office and I confess I have expressed my views about the matter in a forthright manner. But looking at the facts I confess I do not blame the late Secretary of State. He took a decision which in all the circumstances, I am sure I should have taken had I been in his position. It is a tragic story.

With reference to the position of the tenants I have examined this issue with a good deal of sympathy. Certain formulae have already been examined and discussions started. I am not quite satisfied that the tenants are being properly treated in all the matters concerned. It may well be that they were adequately treated in the matter of rent, but there are other questions. There may have been damage to furniture, the family might be forced to stay away, and for these reasons I have been looking at the question of compensation. Only to-day my officials discussed with Treasury officials whether something could be done. I hope in a few weeks' time if hon. Members will put questions, to be in a position not to announce a solution of this problem, which is beyond me and would require someone cleverer than I am, to solve, but to announce something that will partially satisfy the tenants. This Housing Association question will be considered in the light of future events. I propose to give it reconsideration and see how I can improve the Association. I do not intend to disband the Association, but I intend to improve it. It has had valuable experience, and a machine like that should not be smashed, but should be remodelled. I propose to try to fit it in with what I think are the national requirements. I make this last plea to Members. There has been the case of this unfortunate house which has been built. Do not let us stop in the adventure of house building because of that. It has been an unfortunate thing, but if Scotland is to solve its housing problem, a great and human problem, risks will have to be taken. I hope nobody will be blamed because he has the courage to take them.

May I ask why the hon. Gentleman does not reply to the question I asked him?

I will answer, though this really should come up to-morrow.

On a point of Order. It will not be in Order to discuss Scottish Office policy on the housing Debate to-morrow.

Oh, yes. Hon. Members will find I am replying to it to-morrow. For the guidance of hon. Members, the Motion to-morrow will be so wide—and quite fairly so—as not to limit anybody in saying anything on housing.

About Glasgow, let me say this. Again, this raises a danger of going outside this Estimate. It does not really come within the discussion of the estimate. I will try to keep within it as best I can.

Does it deal with this housing?

:Yes. I will do my best to keep in Order. The Housing Association cannot build houses in Edinburgh. I wish the hon. Gentleman, the Member for South Edinburgh, who is so distinguished a citizen, would know a little more about his city. These are the facts. The Housing Association cannot build houses in Edinburgh. But one of the purposes of the Association is to build demonstration houses. If you want to build demonstration houses you must have a site people can get to. Demonstration houses were built in Edinburgh because, taking Scotland as a whole, it was the most central site they could get for that purpose. That is the answer.

The Minister is unintentionally misleading the Committee. Those are not the facts.

The hon. Member is not entitled to interrupt unless the Minister gives way.

:The facts are that the Association cannot build a single house in Edinburgh. The Housing Association are limited to building to a definite form, and Edinburgh does not comply with that. The hon. Member condemns this Association—

No.

I thought the hon. Member did. I will not proceed with that if I took him up wrongly. About the position at Glasgow, the Association cannot build houses without the consent of the local authority in the district in which they wish to build. If Glasgow does not want this Association all Glasgow has to say is "No." In recent negotiations, Glasgow, which, whatever the faults there, is active in housing, discussed with this Housing Association another contract I should not be in order in discussing here, and are going to allow the building of houses in the city. The corporation have accepted that point of view. I hope the Association's relations with Glasgow will improve. I think they can be mutually helpful in solving the housing problem.

May I inquire about the Second Scottish National Housing Company and whether it is different from the Scottish Special Housing Association?

:Its functions are now finished and it now manages houses built under what we might call the Baldwin régime—steel houses. The Special Housing Association was formed at a later stage and I have given instructions to this Special Housing Association that the two associations ought at once to unite, because there is now no reason why two bodies should be functioning separately. Discussions are now going on to allow the two bodies to function together.

:The £96,000 we are asking for falls under several heads. We are asking for the sum of £50,000 to meet a proportion of the cost for the improvement of agricultural land by drainage. I make bold to say that a good job of work has been done during the war in the way of draining land for agricultural purposes and it is as a result of that that we need this extra sum of money. We also want a sum of £12,000 for the establishment and maintenance of an agricultural machinery station for the testing of agricultural machinery. I venture to suggest that the agricultural community will welcome this provision. We furthermore want £20,000 for a grant in aid to the Scottish Women's Land Army Welfare and Benevolent Fund. On 16th May last, I believe, the Government's intention to make this contribution was announced to the House. We further want a sum of £20,000, less £10, to meet the expense of managing and using land acquired by the Secretary of State under the Forestry Act of 1945 and not yet placed at the disposal of the Forestry Commissioners. A further sum of £5,000 is required for the re-settlement in agriculture and horticulture of persons released from the Services and for the re-settlement in agriculture and horticulture of persons disabled by war service. This seems to be a very creditable venture on our part.

I do not want to detain the Committee long. I welcome the large increase on the original Estimate, but I am a little concerned, looking ahead, in regard to the supply of suitable machinery to carry out land drainage. I wonder if the Under-Secretary, whom I congratulate on the way he has dealt with this matter to-night, can give us a little more information in regard to the acreage covered by this sum; and also if he can tell us what proportion is due to hill-drainage, and what proportion is due to arable land.

I would also like to ask him whether the Balfour Report will be turned into legislation and in order to carry it out will he acquire certain equipment, not easily obtainable, in the form of tractors for hill drainage? I am told that in Scotland the Canadian Forestry Corps has a large number of these particular machines, and they are going to waste. I wonder if the Under-Secretary can tell me whether, in the £50,000 referred to in the Estimate, any provision is made for the purchase of this type of tractor, which will be needed in the Western Highlands if we are to overcome the drainage problem there. I shall be glad if he can tell these people that this type of machinery, which is necessary to carry out hill-drainage, is going to be taken over by the Department of Agriculture from the Ministry of Supply; and, if any of the money in the estimate is earmarked for that part of the scheme.

:None of us wants to keep the Committee late, but owing to the congestion of business, it is very seldom that we Scottish Members have a chance of discussing Scottish affairs. We would be failing in our duty to our constituents if we did not take this opportunity of asking questions and extracting from the Government statements of interest to our country. I want to ask a question on Subheads "R" and "S." Subhead "R" refers to the new Forestry Act under which the Secretary of State for the first time becomes responsible for land for use for forestry in Scotland. How much land is involved here? The Estimate says it is land which is acquired by the Secretary of State and not placed at the disposal of the Forestry Commission. What land is it? How much is it? That is the problem.

As regards Sub-head "S" which relates to settlement grants, how many men or families are concerned here? The sum is only £5,000, and I cannot conceive that many families can have been settled with such a small figure as that. One knows from all the records that the demand for small holdings, agricultural and horticultural, is exceedingly great. It amounts to many thousands. On the records of the Scottish Office, thousands of people have put in demands and will the Secretary of State tell the country what is the position in regard to land settlement here.

I would like to press the Under-Secretary for a statement with regard to land settlement, as it seems to be that the release of men from the forces is out of all proportion to the increased sum provided under this Supplementary Estimate. I cannot imagine that it will meet the demands from the very large number of men requiring small holdings. This affects our part of Northern Scotland and the Islands very directly, and I would like the hon. Gentleman to do us the courtesy on this occasion of paying some attention to the claims and inquiries about our part of Scotland. There is one other point. I would like to know whether it is possible for him to give us an idea of what proportion of the Supplementary Estimate is to be spent in the Highlands and Islands area. Land drainage is very important from the point of view of the reclamation of land for the purpose of assisting us with the resettlement of these men coming back from the Forces who are referred to under Subhead S. If he can give us some guidance on these points I think the Highlands would be very grateful.

This is an opportunity which we Scottish Members must take, to try to obtain information about our own country. It has been, more or less, an unwritten law in this House that if English Members on these occasions do not like the subjects or speeches or are bored, they need not necessarily listen to them. I would like to ask the Joint Under-Secretary this question about operations under the Forestry Act. There is a £20,000 Supplementary Estimate for them and a £10 receipt he has mentioned for money coming back to the Government. Does that £10 represent all that is coming back to the Government for forestry land maintained as agricultural land under the Department of Agriculture? I know a farm in my own constituency bought in 1945 where surely the revenue is more than £10. Really, the West Highlands are becoming rather suspicious of these establishments run by the Department. We had a lamentable spectacle the other day of land sold at—

I ought to point out that the item to which the hon. and gallant Member refers comes under appropriations in aid.

I want to elicit whether this £10 is all that has been received as revenue from this type of land.

We always get these Estimates for Scotland introduced at the last minute. There are very important matters here for Scotland. When we consider the first item in the Estimate for land drainage, we are faced with the fact that all kinds of Sassenachs are coming and buying Scottish land. I want to know—it is a question which has been concerning Scottish people quite a lot, and if I talk about Scottish people I know what I am talking about—I want to know if some of this money is being spent on drainage for land for agricultural purposes and if the land is sold to some of the companies which are buying up Scottish land at the present time and using it for other purposes than agriculture. That is going on at present.

Where is that going on?

It has been going on quite a lot in Scotland. The original thief sells the land to a fellow conspirator South of the Border and it be- comes a legal transaction. The fact remains that the land was stolen. What I want to know from the Minister is that the money is spent for draining for agricultural purposes, and that the land so drained cannot be sold to these companies from the South for use for other purposes.

I must ask the hon. Member to keep his remarks relevant to the Vote before the Committee.

I have been relevant all along or if I have been irrelevant I wish you, Major Milner, could advise me. No one is more ready than I am to take advice from the Chair, and no one gives more attention to the Chair than I do. However, I want to ask the Minister also whether this grant is concerned with agricultural machinery and if that machinery will be available all over Scotland for supply to the farmers—

That question certainly does not appear to arise on the Vote.

There is also the important question of afforestation. It is one of the most important developments in the Highlands of Scotland. There are several schemes of afforestation and money could not be better spent than in repairing some of the terrible damage that has been done to the Highlands. Is any of this expenditure to be used to help families engaged in forestry work, and to give them amenities. They are tucked away in the Highlands far away from shopping centres. Is this money to be used to supply such amenities? The Minister must know as well as I do that many of these people in charge of afforestation have long distances to travel with very indifferent bus services.

The hon. Member has had a great deal of latitude. This is not really relevant to the question of managing and using land.

The Under-Secretary is not managing the land. He has somebody there managing it. What amenities is he supplying? How is he treating them? Is he giving them proper housing and the recognised proper conveniences? How are they getting on for clothing, food, and all the rest of it? That is important. It is unfortunate that only at this late hour, when everybody wants to get away, and I want to get away, we should have to discuss these questions about Scotland. We ought to have a chance of discussing the management of these areas, and the conditions under which those who are managing them are being employed. There are many more matters I could deal with, on these Estimates, but it is quite obvious I have worn out my welcome.

There is one point I wish to raise. In connection with the settlement grants for the re-settlement in agriculture and horticulture of men and women released from war service, I am rather perturbed in connection with this because I have some knowledge of what has happened to men given smallholdings in Scotland, and I would like some information as to how this money is to be spent. I would like to know whether any grant made to these men who are coming back from the Forces will give them a reasonable assurance of being able to make a real livelihood.

Several hon. Members have raised points and, of course, they are perfectly entitled to do so, and I will do my best to reply to them all, but I am afraid I shall not be able to give complete satisfaction to all hon. Members who have raised points. The question of drainage was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Perth (Mr. Snadden), who asked if I could tell him the relative acreage of hill land and arable land we want to drain with this money. I am afraid I cannot give him the figure for the hill land as against the arable land. I will do my best to get whatever information I can for him, but I, perhaps wrongly, had not foreseen I would be asked to supply this information this evening. He also asked me if we would be supplying the best kind of machinery for this job. As he is aware, the Department of Agriculture do provide machinery at the present moment of various types. We do supply many different implements at our various stations up and down the country. Of course the supply of machinery must, inevitably, be included, although I would call attention to the fact that this is rather a limited grant, and if I should allow myself to be drawn into discussion I might commit the error of saying that we were doing something that we do not propose to do at all. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) asked me if we were draining land and then selling it back to private interests to be used for purposes other than agriculture. The answer is in the negative. We are not doing any such thing. He also asked if we had machinery stations. Of course we have machinery stations up and down the country, but these are not provided for under the Estimate. That provides for a testing station. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) asked me some questions about forestry land.

I asked the hon. Gentleman whether he could give any idea of the area of the land concerned.

I am afraid I cannot give my hon. Friend that information this evening, but I will see that he gets the information as soon as I can have it looked up for him. He and several other hon. Members raised the question of resettlement grants and said this seemed altogether too small a sum to do very much in re-settling in agriculture and horticulture men who were coming back from the Services. Several hon. Members also mentioned smallholdings, but the present Government have not stated their policy so far as smallholdings are concerned. We have not said yet whether there is going to be a great extension of smallholdings or not, but in any case it will be appreciated that little or nothing can be done at the moment in the way of providing smallholdings. We have had I do not know how many applications for smallholdings. The point is that we are not asking for a sum of money this evening to permit of going forward with a bold scheme of land settlement. Nothing of the kind. We are asking only for the sum of £5,000 to enable us to assist in resettling in agriculture and horticulture men and women who are at the moment in His Majesty's Forces. Part of the money will be spent in training men and women to put them back into agriculture. Some of it will be necessary to enable us to re-settle them in holdings, but it is very seldom nowadays that a holding falls vacant. The cost of settling new smallholders in existing smallholdings is not considerable and we should not complain about that. This amount for which we are asking for Settlement Grants is a very limited thing. I ask hon. Members to bear in mind that we are not dealing with the broad general question of opening up small holdings in a planned settlement scheme.

What is this for?

:I have said we must have a certain amount of money to enable us to train workers—ex-Service men and ex-Service women—for resettlement in agriculture and horticulture.

:May I just put a question? Is it not the fact that this sum is to enable the Government to give a grant of £150 which is available to set up people in business, or people going into agriculture? Is not that the point? That was what was explained, I understand, previously, when the same item came up under the English Estimate.

:That is one of the ways in which we shall assist ex-Service men and women when they come back to agriculture and I am obliged to my hon. and gallant Friend for assisting me to clarify the matter.

:I am still rather vague with regard to this sum for training people to go back on the land. If it is the policy simply to replace someone who has left a smallholding I want to be clear about it. Does it mean that the Government are settling them on new smallholdings, or old smallholdings? What is it for?

I think I have said already that we have no new smallholdings.

What are they being trained for? What do the Government want the £50,000 for?

:We have no new smallholdings. Everyone knows what we are giving them the £150 for. Everyone knows why we are giving a blacksmith £150 when he comes out of the Services—to set him up in his own industry. We are doing the same thing in agriculture. It is, I think, a grateful thing for this or any other Government to do.

There were not many other points which were raised by hon. Members. The hon. Member for West Fife did ask me, with regard to forestry, if we were taking into consideration the needs of the forestry workers. Of course we are taking into consideration the needs of the forestry workers, but again we are not having a Debate this evening on forestry in general. We are just asking for this extra money which is required for the use and management of land we have acquired for forestry purposes and which has not been given up to the Forestry Commissioners. We are very much alive to the need for all possible amenities for these workers, but it is not particularly easy at this time to get houses built for forestry workers, just as it is not easy at this time to plan a very ambitious programme of house-building for any other workers. At least one can plan, but one cannot hope to be very successful in the course of a few months. This is only a supplementary grant that we are asking for to enable us to manage the land.

I hope my right hon. Friend who is in charge of this Estimate will be able to throw a little light on one item in it. Under Subhead A, relating to "New Works," Item 6 is "the acquisition of additional land adjoining the Embassy in Athens," which is going to cost us £39,000. This is the most expensive of all the items listed under this Subhead and comparison with the other items show that it is not for works to be done or buildings to be built or anything like that but simply for the acquisition of additional land. A sum of £39,000 seems to be quite a lot of money to pay for a bit of land in Athens at this moment. Somebody must be making quite a good thing out of it. We do not want unreasonably large sums of our public money to be poured into the pockets of Greek landowners and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works will be able to throw just a little light on this point.

I had hoped that on this, the last Vote to be taken to-night, I would have received the very modest amounts we are asking for, almost without question and answer. It is true that the amount asked for under Item 6, Subhead A, deals with the acquisition of additional land adjoining the Embassy in Athens. Our information is that it is necessary to acquire this land, in order that the amenities of the Embassy and the dignity of our station there may be upheld. It is true that the land appears to be dear, but there are other places where land acquired in order to maintain amenities is dear also. I can assure the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) that I have looked into this item carefully and if this land could be obtained for less money we would do so.

I hope the Minister is not going to complain if we comment a little on these figures, which show a very high increase on the original figure—something like 15 per cent. Personally, I welcome the increase very much and the only object I have in intervening is to say so. I welcome it with the more enthusiasm because I think I am responsible for a good deal of it myself, but not in regard to the land at Athens. I am conscious that the office buildings at Athens, as at many Embassies abroad, are quite inadequate by modern standards and if this sum is for construction of new offices in Athens, where they are at present underground, it is high time it was done. This work of the present Ministry and their predecessors is worthy and I hope they will maintain similar standards elsewhere. I hope some day to have the opportunity of saying the same thing about the Foreign Office itself.