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.