asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has considered the extent to which under-used facilities in small schools of the kind referred to in her recent guidance note could be made available to the under-fives, either by the addition of a nursery class to the school or by admitting children between the ages of four and five years to existing reception classes.

My Department has on a number of occasions drawn local education authorities' attention to the possibility of providing facilities for nursery education relatively cheaply by the adaptation of spare primary school accommodation, although this advice has not been given solely with reference to small schools.While the Government hope to provide resources for a modest increase in nursery education provision, their present policy is that the total number of under-fives in education should remain constant. Local education authorities have therefore been advised that in general no more under-fives should be admitted to primary schools except for rising fives where the call on resources is minimal.