As the House is aware, the Chairman of Ways and Means is primarily responsible for the conduct of Private Bill legislation. The Standing Orders dealing with Private Business make a formidable code of some 160 pages. While there have been piecemeal additions and alterations from time to time, including some substantial changes in the time of my predecessor, now Lord Hemingford, there has actually been no thorough revision for nearly 70 years. The desirability of such a revision was made clear to me at a very early date in my occupancy of the office.

There were two courses open to me. One was to ask the House to appoint a Select Committee to undertake the necessary revision. The other was to ask a number of officials and experts to do the somewhat laborious preliminary work, for subsequent submission to a Select Committee. Upon inquiry, I found that the circumstances were particularly favourable to the second course being adopted. It appeared that Mr. O. C. Williams, Principal Clerk in the Committee and Private Bill Office, had, as a result of many years' research, just completed a detailed history of every one of the Standing Orders in question, and further that we could have the great advantage of the services of Sir Frederick Liddell, the former Counsel to Mr. Speaker, and a man of encyclopaedic knowledge on the subject, and that we could at the same time avail ourselves of the services of Sir Cecil Carr, the present Counsel to Mr. Speaker, with his very wide experience. It also seemed to me that this valuable piece of work could best be done at a time when not many Private Bills were coming before the House.

I ventured, therefore, with the approval of Mr. Speaker, to ask a small committee of officials and experts to make a systematic review of the whole code, Order by Order—the most extensive examination it has ever undergone—as a preliminary to the submission of the matter to a Select Committee if the House so ordered. That committee of officials consisted of Mr. O. C. Williams, Sir Frederick Liddell and Sir Cecil Carr. I also invited Mr. C. E. C. Browne, acting Honorary Secretary of the Society of Parliamentary Agents, to join in the work, on the understanding that his inclusion would not commit that important body of practitioners to any final decisions but so that he might represent their views and interests in a general if informal way. Finally, as it is obviously desirable that the Standing Orders of the two Houses should bear some general relationship to each other, two officials from another place were present as friendly observers, by agreement with the Lord Chairman, who has similar responsibilities to mine in another place. The committee's work took some 10 months and the committee eventually reported to me. The House then set up a Select Committee to revise the Standing Orders relating to Private Business. I was elected Chairman, and I then laid before the Select Committee the report of the informal committee which the Select Committee adopted as the basis for their revision.

I am now asking the House, in effect, to approve the Report of that Select Committee. I ought, perhaps, to make it clear that the object we have all had in mind has not been to introduce any novelties of principle or practice but solely to cut out obsolete and duplicated provisions, to put the Orders into a more logical sequence, to harmonise the language and generally to tidy the whole thing up. Not having been revised for so long, the present code inevitably contains a lot of dead wood. If I may, for one moment, take up the time of the House I would like to give just one or two illustrations. Two of the Standing Orders are devoted to Bills for reviving lapsed patents. They have been quite superfluous since 1907, when Parliament enacted a much simpler procedure in place of a Private Bill for the purpose. Several Standing Orders relate to Railway Bills. They date back to the railway boom of a century ago, when the House had to check promoters, some of whose proposals for fresh railway lines were merely intended to bring pressure to bear upon existing companies to buy them out. All those Orders have been obsolete for years, and certainly since the Railways Act of 1921. There were also a number of Orders about Inclosure Bills, and they were even more antiquated, as most of them dated from 1801 and were superseded long ago by a simpler form of procedure.

All those Orders have been cleared out of the way and with them the Orders relating to the deposit of money, technically known as Parliamentary Deposits, which the promoters of certain classes of Bills have hitherto been required to make. All the Ministries and Government Departments have been consulted. The Report of the Select Committee was unanimous. It contains, as the House will have seen, a complete re-draft of the whole code, with a double index and with sufficient explanation and notes to show how and why any existing Order has been omitted, altered, re-stated or re-grouped. One result is to cut the existing code down by about one-sixth, reducing it by some 27 pages and 43 Orders.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, it might be convenient if I said one word with regard to the consequential Amendments to the Standing Orders relating to Public Business which, I understand, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House will shortly move, as they arise out of the Report of the Select Committee. The first Amendment is a mere transference from the Private Bill Standing Orders of a paragraph which should clearly belong to the Public Bill Standing Orders. It is fully explained on page 17 of the Report. I do not think I need go into any further detail. The second and third Amendments of the Standing Orders relating to Public Business which the Committee recommended are consequential on Amendments to the Private Bill Standing Orders, and remove a difficulty as to the setting down of Motions contingent upon opposed Private Business which has been deferred—" de- ferred" is the right word and not "postponed"—by the direction of the Chairman. I think I have now dealt in substance with all the questions before the House.

All the steps which have been taken are in accordance with ancient precedent and I have reason to believe that, as has always happened in the past, parallel action will be taken in another place. If so, while I cannot promise that all the technicalities of the Standing Orders relating to Private Business will be translated into words of one syllable, we shall, at any rate, have done our best to help our Private Bills, which are likely greatly to increase when the war is over, to go forward under a code of provisions which are simpler and a good deal shorter than those in use at present.

In conclusion, I should like to pay tribute—as did the Select Committee and as I am sure the House would wish me to do—to the members of the informal committee for the arduous and valuable preparatory work which they did, work which I am confident will redound to the credit of the House and will be even more greatly appreciated when its results are seen.

In supporting the Motion which, in effect, approves this very excellent Report, I would like to say that having perused it carefully, and having had something to do with Private Bills from time to time for a good many years, I feel that it is a very good piece of work. The Chairman of Ways and Means and his helpers have performed a very good job of work, and I would like to express our appreciation of their labours. This is a very important matter both to the public at large, and to this House. It is true, as the Chairman of Ways and Means has said, that we have not had many Private Bills recently, but in normal times I have known as many as 80 in one Session, working through their course, quietly and nicely as a rule. Undoubtedly, such Bills will come again. Probably we shall have as many as 100 when we are again free to carry on the work of the nation unhindered by war circumstances.

These Orders are very elaborate but I would not say that any of them are unnecessary. On the contrary, I think they are all necessary. Needless to say they are in lovely, limpid, legal language. I like legal language; it runs so well and if one has plenty of time and patience and also an opportunity of reading it carefully is nice and easy to understand. But we on these benches feel that something more should be done to assist public authorities to get the necessary permission from Parliament, without this elaborate procedure. If an authority wants to promote a new enterprise, it has to come to this House for a Private Bill and spend a lot of time and money, to get permission to do something which is legitimate, and which other public authorities have probably already done. In order to minimise the heavy labours of this House and of public authorities who are doing so much useful work throughout the country further simplification should take place. I think we must endeavour to devise some expedient by which a Minister, say the Minister of Health, may give any public authority a certificate or permit to proceed with same proper enterprise which it wishes to undertake, provided there is a good precedent for it. For example, Birmingham has an excellent municipal savings bank, which is of great benefit to the citizens. No other municipality can have such an institution without coming here for a Private Bill, and going through all these Orders to get the authority to do so. One would like to see that method simplified.

I make a further, and perhaps larger, suggestion that it would be a good thing for this House to carry a great enabling Bill, under which local authorities could proceed with enterprises scheduled in that Bill and, by the House as being proper for public authorities to undertake, thus diminishing the number of these Bills, and reducing the labours of this House and the people upstairs. I submit that for general consideration. I hope we shall have it in our minds as time goes on, and see, as opportunity arises, what we can do to help in that direction. There is an example in this present Session of the same kind of thing. Permission has been given to the Minister of Health to hold inquiries, through a Commission, into boundary questions. Boundary disputes involve a lot of time and trouble if they have to pass through the Parliamentary mill. There may be much strife and trouble on these premises about boundary questions, arising hundreds of miles away, in that part of the Kingdom known as Scotland. The Minister can now require his Commissioners to hold local inquiries into these boundary questions, and I believe that these inquiries can pretty well settle the thing on the spot, and the Minister can authorise any extension that is recommended. I speak rather warmly about that because Bristol wants to expand. All its centre has been blown away by those people who, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes)—he is not here this morning—ought not themselves to be bombed. Bristol does not want to fill up that centre but to make a great park, but the authority cannot carry out their plan within their own boundaries. They must go outside to provide homes for their people. I hope that the Boundary Commission will help in that regard.

It is most interesting to look through this Report and note how many new Ministries have come into existence in our time. All the Ministers concerned must get copies of these Bills to which I refer so that they know what is proposed, and are able to see whether it affects their powers and prerogatives. There is the Air Ministry, which is new, the Ministry of Labour is also a new one, and the Ministry of Town and Country Planning is the newest. I think it is brought in specially. Then, there is the Ministry of Fuel and Power, another new one, and the Forestry Commissioners, I am not quite sure whether they are continuing or not. But this shows how wonderfully our country has expanded in social and industrial activity. The fact that we are becoming a stronger and finer country is brought out in this very interesting book.

I cannot help noticing that these Standing Orders affect many enterprises which are really public services, but are carried on by private companies and corporations who come to this House for permission for their activities. I am very pleased to know from paragraph 174 that there appears to be no tendency whatever under these Orders, to impinge upon the ancient right of this House to discuss the affairs of any promoters who come here for further powers. Any promoter who has an enterprise in the nature of a monopoly and a public service, who comes here for further powers, is not to be immune from the traditional right of criticism which we have always exercised That is an ancient Parliamentary right and is also in accordance with modern policy. There are all manner of these enterprises, and they are increasing. Some new ones of a most interesting character have been brought into existence. I cite one, the London Passenger Transport Board, rather a peculiar body. The seven directors constituting the Board are not appointed by this House or by Ministers, but by queer bodies which have nothing to do with London Transport, people like the accountants and the lawyers and the Bank of England, I believe. Certainly the London County Council has some concern in the matter. But this Transport Board does not have to report to this House. While the Minister of Transport is good enough to answer Questions about it he has no authority over it, and we cannot discuss here what it is doing and not doing. That is strange; I think it is wrong. The Board should be associated with the Ministry of Transport, and it should be open to us to consider its operation. The only opportunity which arises for that is when it comes here seeking further powers. It is proper that we should have an opportunity of raising any points that are considered unsatisfactory.

That applies equally to a water company, to the Manchester Ship Canal Company or the Port of London Authority. All these numerous bodies have grown up in our English way, empirically, inconsistently, illogically. But they work. Parliament should however have an opportunity of surveying their activities when the appropriate occasion arises. I hope that all these considerations will be borne in mind. Even if the work has to be done in the old archaic way, under the Standing Orders, instead of in greater freedom under an enabling Bill, we should maintain an intelligent and lively interest in the enterprises represented by these Private Bills.

I should like to say a word about this matter, as I happened to serve on the Select Committee. I should mention incidentally that no person now living was engaged in the making of the draft of 1874. Our Committee had a very good chairman, and our task was a relatively light one, because of the admirable work done by the informal committee. But I would like to say one cautionary word about what we have just heard. The hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) said that these things go through quietly. Some of us take steps sometimes to see that they do not go through too quietly. When the Glasgow Corporation came here for a savings bank, we threw the Bill out. The hon. Member wants to make these things easier, but I do not know whether he would like it very much if the Gloucester County Council wished to appropriate Bristol, instead of the traffic being in the reverse direction. This Session the Metropolitan Water Board is promoting a Bill, for a very good purpose—to provide three new reservoirs. When I want to water my garden now they say that I may not do so. Thus, apparently, three new reservoirs would be a good idea. Yet there are on the Order Paper no fewer than 30 petitions against that Bill. If Ministers had the right to say, "This is a good Bill, and it is all finished," that would be most undesirable.

The hon. Member suggested that it was right that we should preserve our powers to examine these petitions, but that Bristol alone should be exempt. They are to have a free run, but everybody else is to come under the harrow. It is vital that this House should preserve its tradition as an independent, impartial tribunal, and the Committees upstairs on which our colleagues serve are regarded as the most impartial tribunals anybody could have. I have heard tribute after tribute paid to them by people, connected both with municipalities and with public utility companies, and these people say that they always get a square deal upstairs. The hon. Member was suggesting that that judicial process should come to an end, and that the matter should be settled in a hole-and-corner way by some Minister. I hope that he will not hold those views for very long, because if he does, I can only tell him that Bristol must be moving in the direction of Fascism.

There is one point with which I should like the Chairman of Ways and Means to deal. He has told us that the Committee have recommended the abolition of certain Parliamentary deposits, in the case of certain Parliamentary Bills, so lessening the expenditure in the case of those Bills. But the Appendix to the Report which gives the table of fees still contains a number of fees that seem to be unnecessarily high for formal processes of Bills. It surely is the object of the House to facilitate local authorities and public services getting through necessary private legislation in not only the most expeditious, but the least expensive, way. It seems a pity that we should still maintain such charges as those given on page 122. On the First Reading of a Bill there is a charge of £15; on the Second Reading of the Bill there is a charge of £15; on the Report from the Committee on the Bill there is a charge of £5; and on the Third Reading of the Bill there is a charge of £15. If the sum involved is considerable, these charges may be doubled, trebled, or quadrupled; or in the case of very large sums, they may be made six times as high. This is an unnecessary imposition on local authorities for absolutely essential work. I hope that, if the Committee have not gone into this particular point in the course of their very useful labours, there may be some assurance from the Chairman of Ways and Means that at some future date, not too distant, it will be looked into and steps taken to lessen the burdens on local authorities and public services, and to facilitate necessary legislation of this kind.

I do not pretend that I have looked through the whole of this Report, but on a casual reading I found one thing which appealed to me very much. In paragraph 120 there is a declaration to be signed by Members of Committees. One of the things a Member has to certify is that he

"will never vote on any question which may arise without having duly heard and attended to the evidence relating thereto."

This seems to me a most excellent provision, and it might well be applied to proceedings in this House. On the rare occasions when I vote for the Government, I am usually asked by some Member in the Lobby, "What are we voting for?" It would be a good thing if this rule were applied to our proceedings here.

The Report which we are now considering shows that the number of persons, eligible to attend here, who served on this Committee was II. I have looked round the House this morning and, while this is not perhaps the most convenient time for Members to attend, I must point out that I failed to find more than three Members of this Committee present. That certainly is not exemplary. I wonder whether Members should not be reminded that, when a Report of such importance as this is presented, they should have made an effort to be present.

In reply to the point raised by the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey), the Committee did not have within its terms of reference the question of fees. That would appear to be a matter of general policy. The matter of deposits was one of procedure. Those deposits were exacted in ancient times as in effect security for costs, to ensure that the objector or the promoter went further with the matter. But the matter of fees at present chargeable was not considered by the Committee.

Would it not be fair to those of my colleagues who are not present, to point out that they were not aware that this business was coining up this morning? It is not on the general Order Paper, but only on a small slip dealing with Private Business.

I am not going to intervene in the discussion between my hon. Friends the Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) and the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), except to make this observation. A Minister, in that capacity, is a transient being. It is sometimes hoped that, as a Member of Parliament, his life may be longer. But a Minister, equally with any other Member of Parliament, should be chary of taking any step which in any way decreases the power of Parliament over the Executive. I know that my hon. Friend shares that view. I do not think that anything he said this morning, apart from a certain amount of local patriotism, could be otherwise interpreted.

The House is deeply indebted to the Chairman of Ways and Means, to the informal committee, and to the Members of this House who served on the Select Committee, and whose names are immortalised on page 2 of this Report. They have undertaken a very arduous and very necessary task. Private Bill legislation is a separate, but very important, part of our work. The war has, as my hon. Friend said, diminished it temporarily; but, I have no doubt, only temporarily. I have no doubt that after the war there is certain to be a substantial increase in the number of petitions for Private Bills. It will be a great advantage to those who take part to have a revised and simpler code to guide them. I hope the House will express its gratitude for this Report and will approve it.

With the permission of the House, I should like to make a statement. Since my right hon. Friend made his statement last Thursday the following progress has been made with the distribution of supplies from Switzerland for prisoners of war in Germany.

Thanks to the good offices of the Swiss Government and the International Red Cross Committee, on Tuesday afternoon a train of 50 wagons carrying mainly food but also some medical supplies, crossed the Swiss/German frontier bound for the neighbourhood of Moosburg, some distance North of Munich. This train has a safe conduct from the German Government and so has a convoy of 25 lorries painted white and marked with the Red Cross which crossed the Swiss/German frontier on Wednesday morning. Nineteen of these lorries were carrying food destined for the Carlsbad and Marienbad area, where we understand there is a large concentration of prisoners moved from camps in areas over-run by the Soviet forces. The other six hope to reach Lubeck with petrol and oil for two large lorries already in use by the International Red Cross Committee; they will also carry some medical supplies. Some supplies are being distributed already from Lubeck by a few railway wagons, but I have no details at present regarding the destination of these supplies.

The House will be glad to know that, at any rate during the early days of the march from the East through Northern Germany, the International Red Cross Committee were able to get food parcels distributed to some thousands of the prisoners on the march. The Government, in co-operation with the other Governments of the British Commonwealth and the Government of the United States, together with all the National Red Cross Societies concerned, will continue to lend all aid in their power to the efforts being made by the Supreme Commander and the International Red Cross Committee to bring relief to those prisoners who need it.

Arising out of that very satisfactory statement, can the Financial Secretary tell us whether any further consideration has been given to the use of aeroplanes for carrying these supplies, in view of the disorganisation of rail and road transport? This was mentioned in the original Question.

I am sorry, but I am afraid I am not in a position to answer that question.

I am sure that every one will be delighted to hear the good news which the House has just received. May I ask the Financial Secretary whether there is in mind any arrangements for sending further lorries? Thirty lorries is not very much, considering the great need of our people now in the hands of the Germans, and if more could be sent, we should be still more pleased.

The position is that there are three more convoys of 25 lorries each, ready to move in the event of the first convoy being successful.

Can the Financial Secretary say how soon he expects to be able to give the House any information about the 2,600 prisoners who were on their way to Odessa, and whether he has any further information about them?

No further information has been received since my right hon. Friend made this statement about the 460 who had actually reached the transit camp in Odessa.

Will the Minister say whether these supplies will benefit those people who are other than military or Armed Forces prisoners of war? Will they benefit civilian internees in Germany?

The supplies are sent primarily for the benefit of those classified as prisoners of war.

Could the Financial Secretary say if food supplies cannot be sent to Copenhagen from the North, where the railways are not so damaged?

I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that all the aspects of the problem are under consideration.

After the speed with which we have disposed of £6,944,108, I am optimistic that the right hon. Lady who is going to reply may come some distance to meet me, since the maximum sum with which I am concerned is some £2,500,000. For the benefit of hon. Members who may not have followed the discussion of this matter, let me explain that on 22nd November the Ministry of Health issued a circular to local authorities which ruled that training courses should be termed "reserve courses" and would be ended as from 1st January this year, and predicted that there would be a closure of what have been called war-time nurseries. In response to a Question which I put to the Minister on 21st December the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the purpose of the war-time nurseries had been to enable women with young children to help in the war effort, and where those facilities were no longer required their continuance for that purpose at the cost of the Exchequer could not be justified. He also suggested that where suitable they might be handed over to local authorities for the purpose of nursery schools. That is a separate usage, which does not meet the case—but perhaps I may discuss that point a little more fully, since apparently the right hon. Lady does not agree.

It is true that the war-time day nurseries were set up partly at the demand of the Ministry of Labour because there was a need to mobilise married women, and a consequent need to take care of their children. Some 1,500 of these were created in England. The Treasury guaranteed the full cost of erection and, with one qualification, the full cost of running. The qualification is that the mothers, who had of course to be in wartime employment, made a contribution of 1s. per head per day. Of course, these are not completely new features. Some people imagine that they are a war-time growth. but that is not so. Nor is it true that the Treasury made no contribution towards this matter before the enactment relating to war-time nurseries. I find that provision was made in the block grant for the running of some of these day nurseries, which provide for children up to the age of two years, as distinct from the nursery school which takes children from the ages of two to five.

Strictly, on the careful wording to which the Minister confined himself in replying to me, there is a case for saying that since these day nurseries have exhausted their war-time usefulness they should not continue to exist upon an Exchequer grant. I have, however, been quite surprised by the amount of support which I have had from many sections in this House, from local councils and from individuals who have written to me since I first raised this matter. If my understanding of the view of the Ministry is correct, they say that these institutions are exclusively a war-time feature. I suggest to the right hon. Lady that there are a number of war-time features which come within the competence of her Ministry or are associated with it which I am certain she would not wish to see disappear. The feeding of children, industrial feeding, the development of radiography, the pulmonary tuberculosis grant, the compulsory treatment of venereal disease—these are war-time expediences, but I am quite certain the right hon. Lady will exert herself to maintain them in peace time, because they have proved their usefulness. I hope she will extend that kind of argument towards the day nursery.

Secondly, the Minister inferred in his reply that the justification for the grant could only be found in the number of women made available for war-time pro duction by care being taken of their children. We already see quite definite byproducts of the feeding and the care instituted in these day nurseries. I do not wish to bore the House, but there was a particularly good letter, which I feel sure the right hon. Lady will have seen, in the "Medical Officer" from Dr. Paul of Smethwick, who has had experience of these day nurseries. He pointed to the remarkable development, not of the semi-neglected child, but the average child in these nurseries. Moreover, while I am delighted, as is everyone in the House, to see that we are to have some university chairs in the subject of child health, I am sure that while we are on the brink of knowledge about child health, and while I am certain that these chairs will make a most important contribution, the pivot of child health, for a long time, must be the instructed and the educated mother. There is no place of practical demonstration in these matters except in clinics, where attendance is of a very limited type, and, outside very limited periods before and after birth, only occurs when a child is unwell.

There is no opportunity far instruction comparable with that provided by these day nurseries. Indeed, although I know that everybody may not completely approve what I am about to say, I am not certain that there is not a cast-iron case for saying that every schoolgirl should, as part of her curriculum, have an opportunity of attending in such places as day nurseries to be instructed in mothercraft. Even more controversial is the argument for insisting that every schoolboy should also take some part of his curriculum at these nurseries. If these day nurseries disappear there is, as I say, no centre where mothercraft can be taught. Moreover, though a case can be made that such features as day nurseries are not the best way of tackling the care of the child and the maintenance of the family, there is not the remotest hope that the present or any other Government will, in the near future, be able to produce the houses which are the basis of responsible, healthy family life. I, therefore, argue most strongly that, at any rate until housing has attained adequate dimensions in this country, any Government must be concerned with providing supplementation to such housing as they can provide.

I have great sympathy for people who are worried about whether what I am advocating will pander to the irresponsible parent. I clearly see their viewpoint but I also see that as long as we have cramped, sub-let houses and overcrowded homes, which are now the experience of most industrial districts, parents, whether responsible or irresponsible, will not have the opportunity either of providing for their infants and children as they would wish, or of providing for themselves as they would wish. I would like to know how many separations and divorces could be traced, particularly among young married couples in the war years, to the birth of the first child. Take the case of a young couple who dance together and go to the pictures together. I cannot see anything harmful in that. They live in a room in a sub-let house, and then, most properly, along comes an infant, and the girl is tied there night and day. The husband will not, and cannot, sit with her all the time and their companionship is destroyed. He goes off to pubs or politics—one is as bad as the other if it splits the home. The provision of day nurseries to meet that kind of condition is, I am inclined to argue, essential until such time as we have reasonable homes, with the development of trained homeminders.

I am not of the opinion that after this war there will be, under any reasonable organisation, difficulty in providing work; there will be, for a number of years, great difficulty in providing workers. Therefore I anticipate that there will be a demand for women to continue to work, and at any rate there is a substantial and unfortunately growing class of women—widows—who will have to work. Unless we make reasonable provision for their children, we are asking them to carry an additional burden on top of that of widowhood. I know that we shall have a reasonable answer from the Ministry. I agree there is a section of the community, careful and just people, who arc concerned about this question of responsibility. I have two things to say on that. I can see no evidence that it is the irresponsible parent who is systematically using these day nurseries. In fact, I would be inclined to submit that the argument is the other way round. It is the people who have answered the country's plea, who have discharged an obligation which the country wished them to take on. But even if there is, as there is almost bound to be, a small proportion of irresponsible mothers who are perhaps even abusing these day nurseries, if they are irresponsible, if they are living in the conditions of bad housing which are almost typical in our industrial areas just now, then the punishment falls on the children, whether we provide day nurseries or not, and the day nurseries will in some cases mitigate the penalties inflicted on the infant.

I am prepared to listen to a great deal of criticism. I am prepared to admit that there are clearly two sides to this case, but I get extremely angry at the slight correspondence I have seen from what I hope I shall not be misunderstood in describing as the leisured classes of this country. They have been able, and I am not for a moment criticising it, to employ trained personnel to assist in the nursing and maintenance of their children. I am only asking that similar facilities, in a communal way, should be extended to other sections of the community. I plead most earnestly that the Ministry will at any rate reconsider their attitude in this matter.

I am very sorry that what I consider to be this very important matter has come up on a Friday, when very few Members are present. I know that Members of all parties feel very deeply about this great work which, if he will allow me to say so, we associated with my right hon. Friend, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he was Minister of Health. We pressed him very hard, and he responded, and I know that he took a tremendous interest in the matter. I have been associated with the day nursery movement now for the last 20 or 30 years. In Bethnal Green during the last war, a day nursery was organised on a temporary basis in a school yard. It was found that mothers had to go out to work and could not look after their children, and just as in the case of the present organisation it was organised to deal with an emergency. This little nursery, which was the work of voluntary effort and voluntary subscriptions, backed by an organisation, continued right down to the present war, when, like so many nurseries, it was evacuated to the country.

I am going to make a statement that perhaps some people will challenge. It revolutionised the neighbourhood, a very poor and overcrowded neighbourhood known as the Brady Street area of Bethnal Green. The mothers came from that neighbourhood. Children were taken from birth to three years of age, and from the age of three they sometimes stayed until they went to the ordinary infants' school at the age of five. Its use and value went far beyond the question of helping women to go out to work. I agree with the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) on the educational value to mothers and to neighbours. People talk as if mothers knew exactly, when a child is born, how to feed it, clothe it, wash it, and take care of it. That is a pure delusion; it is an old wives' tale. The art has to be learned, usually from the grandmother, neighbours or the doctor. It is not a thing that can be learned by instinct. I remember a time, long since gone, when in the East End, mothers used to keep their babies quiet by giving them sips of gin. It was well meant. But that little nursery school changed the attitude of the ordinary East End mother.

It did more. One could go into the infants' department of the school and almost pick out the children who had had the advantage of being brought up and trained in our little nursery, because of their better physique and better manners. My right hon. Friend will remember Miss Robbins, a very famous teacher who organised the scheme—this particular nursery was almost entirely run by teachers with the aid of a trained matron. She would say that although these children came from the poorest of poor homes they were the best mannered and the best trained infants. I am a fanatic on this subject. I would like to see in almost every street, middle-class as well as working-class, a day nursery. My hon. Friend said, with some reason, that some people say, "Children should be at home." With middle-class people, in the past, there was not only the nurse and the nursery, but a nursemaid. That kind of thing has gone. It is not allowed now by the Minister of Labour, and I doubt if in future it will again be possible for people to have housemaids and nurses. We want people from all classes of the community to use these nurseries.

Looking after children is a job for 24 hours a day, going on by night as well as by day, and it is very difficult to expect a professional woman to give so much time to the care of a child. The result is that she does not have children, or has only one. That is our population problem. Yesterday we passed a Bill to give 5s. a week for each child, as an inducement to people to have children. I have said to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir W. Beveridge) that day nurseries in every neighbourhood would do more to increase the birth rate than even the excellent Bill which we discussed yesterday. I hope that my right hon. Friend who I am sure is sympathetic will make it clear that the Government do not intend to discourage day nurseries. I think that the day nursery is even more important than the nursery school. I shall get into trouble for saying that; but when a child gets to the age of three it can go to the infants' school: the difficulty is during the first three years of the child's life. I beg my right hon. Friend to let these splendid people, who are giving their time and enthusiasm to the day nurseries, know that they will be encouraged to continue their work after the war is over.

I should like to join in what has been said, very eloquently, by the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) and the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris). I am not merely speaking for myself; several Members of the Conservative Party have asked to be associated with what I am going to say and the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) in particular has asked me to associate him with what I am about to say. We very much appreciate the great work done by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in instituting the war nurseries. But I rather think that the Minister took too narrow a view when he said that the nurseries were started to help the war effort, but many things during our history have been started for one purpose, and, because they have proved so valuable, have been developed for another purpose. I suggest that nothing has been more valuable than the work done by the day nurseries. They have given wonderful skilled care to young children. I think that the Minister is wrong to suggest that these services may be taken over by the local authorities in nursery schools. The nursery school does not take a child under two. So that would mean abolishing all the creche services for children under two, which would be the most retrograde step any Government could take. I know the views of the right hon. Lady, and I hope she will be able to satisfy us on the matter.

Some people take the view that the place for a child under two is in the home, with the mother looking after it. That is all very well if there is a home, but in many of our cities, which have been blitzed, four or five families are living in one house. It is intolerable that the mother should have nowhere to put the child during the day, when she goes out with her husband or for some other recreation. She may want to have another child, and it would be very difficult for her to do so if she had to look after the child under two for 24 hours a day. If the Ministry of Education are going to take over these services, it should be realised that the nursery school is open only in school time. That means that there will be no place for the child during the holidays, which form quite a large proportion of the year. The Government must really think again.

I am sorry that the matter has had to be brought up on the Adjournment Motion, because it is worthy of a full Debate in this House, since it affects the whole future of our children. I am rather surprised at the suggestion that has been made—not in this Debate—that it is necessary to take this step to save money. I believe that the total cost of this service is £2,500,000. I cannot imagine a greater extravagance than to save £2,500,000 on a service like this. I have never suggested that the war-time nursery is the last word in perfection, but we ought to be careful before we abolish it. Eventually, that service ought to be developed to work in connection with the infant welfare service. Do not abolish it now, so that you cannot build on it. It ought to be possible for the Minister of Health to say that he will keep on these days nurseries until the local authorities are ready to take them over into the nursery school system, always provided that there will be some method of dealing with children under two. The Educational Supplement of "The Times" made a rather good suggestion on 24th February. It said:

"Would it not be possible for the war-time nurseries to remain open under the Ministry of Health until the local education authorities are ready to put into operation their schemes for nursery schools?"

I have had a letter which I think summarises the views that have been put today. It is from the Teddington and Hampton Women Citizens' Association, and it says:

"Nurseries for young children, far from being closed down, should be made a widespread social service. It is surely inconsistent, when the Government is stressing the importance of at least arresting a decline in the population, to refuse to take steps, which are ready at hand, to give parents the means of providing happy and not over-burdened homes for their children, and to endow the children with increased capacity for safe and healthy parenthood."

We shall not get that if we abolish wartime nurseries. I would agree with what the hon. Member said about training. I understand that the training class, for young students of 15 plus who go into these nursery schools, is to be stopped in 1946. That seems a very retrograde step. I put this to the Minister of Education. Nursery schools often get their staffs from girls who have been trained in these day nurseries. These girls are very valuable. If that system is cut down, the nursery schools are bound to suffer. I have painted a very gloomy picture, because that seems to me to be the picture presented by the Minister. I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to allay our fears, and give us an assurance that there will be some scheme by which the war-time nurseries will be continued, and advantage taken of the great service they have given.

I join with other Members who have spoken in the plea that further consideration should be given to this problem by the Government. I am of course not competent to speak with real authority about this problem, but I have observed to a large extent the beneficial results which have followed from the institution of day nurseries during the war. I think that has been one of the most interesting, and certainly one of the most socially beneficial, experiments tried during the war. I recognise that experiments were made long before the war, and that what we have seen in the war period is merely an extension of the system tried out in earlier days, Because of the excellent results in the building up of good habits, in the training provided, in the improvement of the health of children going to these nurseries, it seems to me that here is a very interesting social service, which ought to be maintained. It would be unfortunate if the discussion were confused by too much reference to the nursery classes and nursery schools. What we are pressing for is provision from the time of birth to the age of two or three, and it is perfectly clear that, in the days to come, increasing need for such nurseries will be felt by the masses of the people. I will not amplify the case which has already been made by my hon. Friend who raised the matter, but I think it is clear that just this sort of provision ought to be made for the harassed housewife during periods of illness, and, often for the widower, who has no alternative in respect of his children. There should be, too, facilities, particularly in a period of full employment, for the mother to follow her occupation. For all these reasons it is important that this kind of provision should be maintained. It may be urged that the experiment during the war period has been costly. That is true, though there are a large number of reasons which account for that rather excessive cost; but now that, in so many districts, the buildings are there, the workers have been trained and the results have been so excellent, it would be a thousand pities if this work were now abandoned.

Therefore, I urge that the Government should reconsider their attitude. Already considerable disappointment has been expressed by local authorities who have not been permitted to go ahead, and certainly by local authorities in areas where these nurseries are now closing down, and in the circumstances, because of the valuable service for health and the general facilities for the public, it would be a great pity if the scheme were now abandoned. There are areas where generations of working women have been obliged to go out to work and to make the most scanty, inadequate and almost distressing arrangements while they were at work in mills and factories, and I suggest that to make provision whereby the child has its health built up and attended to, and is given proper attention is the way to encourage mothers rather than discourage them. I hope the Government will reconsider its attitude and will see that this experiment, which has been so successful during the war period, shall be continued into the peace years.

I find myself in entire disagreement with every speaker whom I have heard in this Debate, not because I do not take an equal interest with them in the welfare of the child. I have, for many long years, been a wholehearted supporter of nursery schools on the lines on which they were founded by that very remarkable woman Margaret Macmillan, but these nursery schools take children from the age of two until they are five, and they have people trained to look after little children in both a physical and mental capacity. The moment we changed that school and took in children from nought to five—[Hon. Members: "No one wants to."] Well, nought to two. I think I am right in saying that they take children from infancy, and one hon. Member said that they take children from nought to two.

In day nurseries?

Yes, day nurseries. We have been spending vast sums of money to try to educate women to realise the advantages of nursing their own children. We poison the milk of the country, so far as we are able to do, by pasteurising it—

What about some figures?

—and now we are going to take children from their mothers and homes. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] if a child from nought to two is in a day nursery it is difficult to know how the mother is going to nurse it. In time of war these nurseries have met a tremendous need of those women, and there is no praise too great for them, who, in addition to doing a very hard day's war work, have done a very hard day's work in their own homes. They have been completely exhausted after their tremendous, and often unrecognised, contribution to the war effort. I say that there is a tremendous need in this country for nursery schools for children from two to five. The Government are committed to the policy of nursery schools, but the staff for these schools will not be easy to find. The pay is by no means large and the training is not such as appeals to every woman. It is not every woman, contrary to the general belief, whose ideal is looking after little children, and there will be a shortage of staff for the nursery schools to which the Government is already committed. For Heaven's sake, let us see that we get the nursery schools, for which there is such a tremendous need, at the earliest possible moment; but if we press for a continuation of war-time nurseries we shall inevitably postpone the date on which we shall see nursery schools. In the interests of the children—and all of us have only one aim, the interests and welfare of the children and their parents—we ought to bear this in mind.

I sincerely hope that the number of women who go out to work after the war, in addition to doing their own housework, will be very much less than at present. I am strongly in favour of a woman being able to follow her career after marriage, if she and her husband both think fit, but I am certainly not in favour of women having to augment the family income in order to be able to subsist. Yesterday we discussed the Family Allowances Bill, which I hope will make it very much easier for a woman to look after her children in her own home than it was in the past. I know that housing conditions are appalling, and it is largely because of these conditions that there will be such a crying need. I beg hon. Members not to lose something which we can have, and to which the Government is committed, for the sake of a dream. I believe that if we continue war-time nurseries we postpone the date when we shall get nursery schools, simply because there will not be the staffs for both for a very long time to come. I want to refer to some of the arguments used by hon. Members. The hon. and gallant Member for Thornbury (Sir D. Gunston) said that we want to increase the birth-rate. In my opinion you will not do that by encouraging women to put their babies in schools and continue to work. It may be your idea, but it is not mine.

The hon. Lady must not hold me responsible for these enormities. She keeps using the pronoun "you."

I do apologise. I appreciate that you, Sir, are responsible for nothing that is not good, and, in the interests of seeing the right kind of nursery school—

Nobody is talking about nursery schools.

Well, I am. The hon. Member is in favour of free speech, and I am most certainly talking about nursery schools, and, if he does not take care, I shall go on talking about them for a considerable time. Nursery schools are everything that we need for young children, but I have never been in favour of schools for taking them from nought to five years of age for this reason: Where we take children from nought to five, we are obliged to have a trained hospital nurse at the head of the school. The training of a hospital nurse is not such as to make her, in my opinion, ideal as the head of a nursery school, because her training, and the better trained she is the more emphasis there will be on it, has been in the prevention and treatment of illness, and not in the development of all the latent capacity of a healthy child. Different training is needed for the two specialised jobs. I want to see a tremendous extension of nursery schools, but I believe that, if we continue the war-time nurseries, we shall postpone the date when we shall get them.

I want strongly to support the arguments which my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) has brought before the House to-day. I want the continuation of the day nursery schools, and I would—I hope very respectfully—remind the hon. Lady who has just spoken, that she knows nothing—at least, she gave me that impression from her speech—about working class life and working class homes. I will take her to one. I urge that these nurseries should not merely be war-time nurseries, but that they should be peacetime institutions as well. I was born the eldest of 12 children in a terrace house. If the hon. Lady will listen for a minute, I may be able to convince her of the necessity for these day nurseries. There are thousands of houses like that now—one parlour, a kitchen, a pantry, but no scullery, and three bedrooms, for father and mother and 12 children. This was in the Rhondda Valley. It so happens that the rainfall there is pretty high, and we had the washing day every Monday. I used to help to wash in the old tub. Where was the washing done? In the kitchen, full of steam and moisture, with the young babies in the cradle in the corner. As the children came along I and my mother used to buy a drug called "Poppies" to put into the milk bottle of the child in order to stop it crying and send it to sleep.

The point I am trying to make is that the bigger the family in the working class home, the greater the necessity for the care of the children between nought and two, and the greater the need, on behalf of the woman and the health of the child, for taking that burden out of the hands of the mother. I beg the hon. Lady to remember that, at least in the mining industry and in the textile industry, it is the mother who has borne the heat and burden of the industrial revolution in this country. When the boys became older, they went to work at 12 years of age.

What happened? I am willing to give her my own experience because it is typical. Father might go to work on the morning shift, another brother might go to work on the afternoon shift, and another on the evening shift. All the time the children were coming along. There was never any leisure for the working class mother and never any hope of being free from the care of the children. Can one wonder that food was always on the table? More often than not the feeding time of the men coming home from work did not coincide with the dinner time of children coming home from school. Tens of thousands of mothers in South Wales, of whom I am speaking more particularly, and in other areas never had a chance of leisure and decency. There were frayed tempers on the part of the older children and certanliy on the part of the mother. It is a great injustice upon the mother. It is a very bad thing for the children, particularly in large families with the young ones coming along, to be a burden on working class mothers.

There is a nursery school in my area. I have written about it to the Minister. In the Penybont rural area of my constituency there is one of these schools. Whatever arguments one may use for and against it, there is in my area a keen and live demand that the day nursery school should be continued. It was put there for war workers but the miners' wives and the miners now are saying, "Keep this day nursery school open. It is a great thing for the children and it is far better for them to be there, particularly if you have a big family, because they will be better cared for." How many times have I stuffed the "dummy" into the mouth of a crying brother or sister? The "dummy" has not yet gone out of date entirely, though things are much better than they were. Child upbringing has been improved, I agree, owing to a large extent to the pioneer work of Margaret Macmillan and others. I once went down with Margaret Macmillan herself to the grand oasis at Deptford. A great contribution has been made and children are better brought up now.

We do not lessen parental responsibility by making it possible for the mother to have rest and a chance to enter into social life and cultural pursuits. We do not destroy parental responsibility by making children more welcome in the home by relieving the burden of the mother. I plead for this not merely from the point of view of the health and well-being, physically, mentally and spiritually, of the child and of the well-being of the parents and the easing of the life of the mother, but from the point of view of its being an essential national policy to arrest the decline in our population. I do not want to say anything further except to reiterate and to say definitely that in hundreds of thousands of working class homes this institution is demanded and will be increasingly demanded. I cannot for the life of me see why such a provision should curtail the extension of nursery schools. It can only be prevented if the Government themselves decide to prevent it. In any case I would appeal to the Minister to allow these day nursery schools to continue throughout the working class areas not merely as a war-time necessity but as a necessity for social life and social good in peace-time.

I intervene only because I wish to refer to a Question which I put down to the Minister of Health on this matter about a week ago, but before I do that I would like to comment upon what the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) said. Her theme was that it was wrong and anti-social that provision should be made for these mothers who desired their children to go to a war-time nursery from the age of nought to two.

The hon. Member really must not try to put words into my mouth which I did not utter. I did not insist that it was wrong or anti-social. I said that it would postpone the day when we had an adequate number of nursery schools which the Government promised. I did not say it was anti-social, and I hope that if the hon. Member tries to quote me he will at least quote me correctly.

Does the hon. Lady approve of the principle of nurseries?

There is not a human being in very congested areas who, while the housing conditions are as they are, would not approve of the provision of nurseries. I merely say that they are not nearly as important as nursery schools, and it would postpone the day when there can be nursery schools to insist on the continuance of this war-time measure. In many areas it is only a war-time measure.

I apologise to the hon. Lady if I put words into her mouth, but I understood her to object to the plea that has been made for the continuation of war-time nurseries on two grounds. One was that it would postpone the setting up of nursery schools. That argument does not arise, because the case put forward is that existing war-time nurseries should continue. But I also gathered—and I do not want to be unfair—that on general grounds she thought it was bad that children between the ages of nought and two should be cared for in any other way except in the home by the mother.

I do not care to have them mixed from nought to five in a nursery school.

I am sure I am right in saying that what the hon. Lady said was that it was bad that the mother should be able to get rid of the child at the age of naught, because she thought it was right that the mother should feed the child. All I want to do is to point out that nurseries for children from the age of nought to two touch working class mothers who desire that their children—there is not to be any compulsion at all—should be provided with facilities which have been open for a long time to the more fortunate sections of the community. I should imagine, if one could find the statistics required, that the majority of ambassadors, bishops, prime ministers and cabinet ministers have been from the age of nought to two looked after not by their mothers but by "nannies" and persons of one sort or another. If they have made this a great country in the past I do not think it would have any unfortunate effect on the ordinary sections of the population to allow them this opportunity, and, as I say, there is to be no compulsion.

I now come to a more particular point, and have to offer an apology to the right hon. Lady who is to reply. I refer to a Question which I put down to the Minister of Health on 8th February. I have not given the right hon. Lady notice that I proposed to raise the matter because it was impossible to tell whether this Debate would take a long time, and I did not know that I should be able to raise it. I asked:

"How many children who had been attending the Amersham War-time Nursery have now been prevented from attending on the grounds that their parents are not war workers; what is the present number of vacant places in this nursery; and if he will give instructions that any places not required for the children of war workers will be allocated to other children who would benefit by attendance at this nursery."

The point of the Question is that children had been turned out of this nursery on the ground that their mothers were not war workers. The main substance of the Minister's reply is as follows:

"I am informed that there have been six refusals of children on the ground that their mothers were not working. From the latest figures supplied at the end of December, 40 children are on the register of this nursery, which has 40 places. The average attendance in December was 31. Three of the 40 children had been admitted on compassionate grounds; 37 were the children of working mothers."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1945; Vol.407, c. 2242.]

He went on to say that it was not the policy to take in children who were not the children of war workers. I am not expecting the right hon. Lady to give me a detailed reply to what I am going to say but I give this as an illustration of the problem involved. The Minister's information was that there were 40 children on the register and that there were 40 places. My information, which I believe to be fairly accurate, was that in this particular nursery there are 48 places, that in November there were 48 children on the register, that the number had fallen on 1st January to 40, and on 12th February had gone down as low as 36. There were 12 vacant places in this wartime nursery. Some of the vacancies have been caused because children, whose home conditions really made it very desirable that they should be in this war-time nursery, had been turned out under the ruling the Minister of Health. The plea I am making is that we should use all the available places in our existing war-time nurseries, giving first priority to the children of war workers, and then using any surplus places for other children whose home conditions made it desirable that they should be allowed to attend. In this particular instance the Minister's reply admitted that six children had been refused on this ground. In the middle of February there were 12 vacancies out of 48, which is a very high proportion. If that proportion is general in the country, it shows a very bad state of affairs.

What are the arguments which may be put up for the Minister's case that these nurseries should be only used for children of war workers? It may be that there is an argument of cost, but I do not think that that argument arises, because the overhead expenses of the nursery go on just the same, whether there are 48 children on the register or 36. I believe I am right in saying that the cost of food which is consumed by children in the nursery is borne by the parents concerned. In any case, even if that is not so, the extra cost cannot be very great. It seems a retrograde policy to be closing these war-time nurseries. If the ruling which has been used to expel these children is applied, it will mean that before the end of the war all these war-time nurseries will have been closed down. Some people have told me that they fear that one of the reasons which has influenced the Government in closing these nurseries is that they see in it a means of solving the unemployment crisis, which I am not at all sure is not looming quite near.

We cannot escape the conclusion that there may easily be, within the next couple of years, a first-class unemployment crisis. Therefore, any Government will be interested in getting as many people off the register of unemployed as quickly as possible. One of the effects of closing war-time nurseries, I believe, will be to make it less possible for women to be available for work. It will, therefore, help to reduce unemployment figures, but will do so in a very wrong way, and I do not want to feel that that is happening. So I add my plea to those of other hon. Members who have asked that these nurseries should not be cut down. We cannot, at the moment, ask that they should be increased in number and in size, but at least the existing facilities should be maintained under the Ministry of Health until such time as they can be merged into the larger scheme. I am sure the support which has come from both sides of the House to this idea to-day, should weigh strongly with the Government; I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to give us some assurance that these nurseries will go on and that, when the right time comes, they will be increased.

I have listened with great care and interest to the various arguments that have been put forward in this Debate. The main point I want to make is that there is no question of closing war-time nurseries where these are being attended. I can give facts and figures about several war-time nurseries where there is the staff, but where there are very few clients, if one might use that term. I am sure hon. Members will agree that it would be quite impossible to continue to keep open those where there are perhaps two, three, four or five children only, and where in a great many cases, the mothers of those children are not on war work. There are, quite definitely, cases of that sort, and the arrangement is simply that where the nurseries are not attended, over a period, and where it is seen that they are not required, those nurseries should be closed.

I think hon. Members know well the work which we have done, at the Ministry of Health in looking after small children, and my own particular interest over a number of years in this question, and I can assure them without the slightest hesitation that our interest is not decreasing but is increasing in this problem of finding the best way of looking after children under five.

I was very interested to hear the praise given to our wartime nurseries. With my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and my right hon. and learned Friend the present Minister of Health, I have had a great deal to do with these nurseries, with the difficulties of setting them up, and of getting them going, and I am very glad now to hear a good mead of praise, when we did not at first always have the help that we might have expected. It was a difficult job. I think we now have to face the fact that we are not doing anybody any good by keeping open at the present moment a nursery that is not being attended, and it is completely unfair to take in girls to train as probationers if they have not the children to look after.

The hon. Gentleman referred to a cirular on the subject of training. I am very glad he raised this point because there has been misunderstanding upon it. The point about the trainee is this: The training is generally a two years' course for a diploma under the National Nurseries Association. I think it would be wrong, where a nursery may be closing, to say that particular two years' course would be given for certain. That we want to go on training girls in this work is very clear. Perhaps hon. Members are not aware of this—we are setting up a nursery nurses board, a national board to give a national diploma for girls leaving school and taking training in nursery nursing. Even if they do not go on with nursery nursing, I agree with the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. McNeil) that they will have learned something which will be useful in their own homes. I mention this now because we want more girls to take up this training; but in certain cases it would be wrong at the present moment, where there are few children in the nursery and the numbers are falling off, to take girls into such nurseries to train for a particular certificate that takes two years.

I think the main argument put up by the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate)—I know it very well because she has discussed it with me many times—is that while she wants care for children under five, she wants care for the child between two and five to be in the nursery school and not in the nursery—she wants it in a separate building from that where children below the age of two are being taken. I think that throughout this House there is complete agreement that we want care for children under five.

The hon. Member for Greenock said that after all this was not a completely new war-time scheme, that there had been similar schemes before and that the local authority and the welfare authority had a right to set up nurseries. So they will in future. We are not taking away any right whatever; the Government had to step in with a war-time nursery scheme with a 100 per cent. grant, in order that full provision should be made for children under five. The problem was discussed whether there should be nursery schools, or what might be called "the care of the child under five," and it was agreed that during war-time the scheme should be under the Ministry of Health and that we should call them "war-time nurseries"—which were neither the day nursery of the local authority before the war nor the nursery school, but hybrids. In this "war-time nursery" there would be teachers as well as nurses, but where there were children under two, there would have to be a State registered nurse. Some nurseries have children under two, and others only take children between the ages of two and five. The present wartime nursery is really something between the nursery school and the nursery—although I personally wonder sometimes if we are not labouring this title too much, since it is the proper care for the child under five that we want.

As hon. Members know, the Government's policy has been announced for nursery schools for children from two to five, and I am glad to say that in many cases we hope it will be possible to take over the present war-time nursery, in its present building—in some cases the buildings have been requisitioned and so cannot be taken over—and with its present staff. I want to make this perfectly clear, that those who are working as assistants or nursery nurses in these war-time nurseries—which when taken over will be called nursery schools—will be kept on, at the same pay, but the training in future may be slightly different. All the staff will remain except the State registered nurse who has been looking after the children under two. So in a great many cases this war-time nursery experiment has helped forward the nursery school. We have not the same gap as we might have had because already in some cases these war-time nurseries have suitable equipment and staff, and after the turnover they will be called nursery schools and will come under the aegis of the Minister of Education. I can see no reason why these children will not be as well looked after in this scheme of nur- sery schools as they have been under the old title of war-time nurseries, and I want to see the Ministry of Education taking over these war-time nurseries as nursery schools as soon as possible. Some of our nurseries cater only for children from two to five. I think the numbers are, roughly, about 1,600 nurseries and about 1,200 of these taking children under two as well as from two to five. There were about 18,000 places for children under two out of a total of about 70,000 places for children under five. I must, however, make it quite clear to the House that a great many of those places for children under two were not taken up.

I must also point out that the war-time nursery with a war-time grant of 100 per cent, is being used to care for children whose mothers are working, but not necessarily on war work. They were started for mothers who were doing war work but very soon this was extended. I think every hon. Member will agree that it would be quite stupid for one local authority to have a nursery for children from two to five and, as a sort of opposition, a nursery school. Therefore, the arrangement is for the war-time nursery for children from two to five to become the future nursery school.

In a great many places these war-time nurseries are not being used to capacity. I have notes of several, but I will not take up the time of the House with too many of them. As I say, we have no intention of closing war-time nurseries that are being used but there are cases such as the following. We were pressed to open a war-time nursery in a particular area and it was, in fact, opened in May, 1944. At no time have there been more than five children there, although we were told, of course, at the beginning that this nursery would be wanted for any amount of children. The authority asked if they could close the nursery in August of 1944 but we opened it again in October, because we thought that in harvest time there might be more people needing it. It is in a country district. We then had ten mothers who were going to do part-time work and then only for a short time. So it was quite clear that in that area the nursery was not wanted. In another area the nursery was used by only six mothers doing whole-time work, so we decided to close it. We then received a petition against the closure signed by what we believed to be 50 mothers who claimed to use the nursery. We discovered that only 12 in all had been using the nursery, and six of those were part-time workers. When we examined the petition we found that it was signed by people who thought there ought to be a nursery but were not using it themselves; some of the signatures were those of people who had no children at all.

The hon. Member for Skipton (Mr. H. Lawson) referred to the nursery at Amersham, and to the number of vacancies there. However the point we have to remember is that, quite naturally, from time to time there are vacancies through illness, and it is not always possible to fill in gaps when children are away for a short time. In fact, very often we put on the register a larger number of children than we would want in the nursery because, with these small chidlren, so often there are a few away. However, we have looked into the circumstances of that particular nursery and it is well used by children whose mothers are working; there have been a certain number of compassionate cases taken as well.

As I have already pointed out, no power has been taken away from local authorities to run nurseries or to look after children. The war-time nurseries were set up particularly to look after the children of mothers who were going out to work during the war as they were doing in greater numbers than they had ever done before. Hon. Members may say: "What is to be done for the children under two? What of the future? What is to happen to the children under two?" We are examining at the present time, and discussing, a great many different schemes, but the problem is not as easy to solve as some hon. Members may think. I want to tell the hon. Member for Greenock that we have lately set up a committee to go into the whole matter of the teaching of parentcraft. A good deal of work of that kind can, I think, be done after the war through the maternity and child welfare centres. Attached to many of these centres are rooms in which the children can play while the mothers attend lectures and discussion groups—an important feature which, I think, should be extended.

I read a newspaper article the other day which stated that my right hon. and learned Friend was not in favour of having nurseries to which children of a few days old could be taken. I am sure there is not one Member of the House who wants that. We have, of course, made arrangements through welfare authorities for those unfortunate children who are orphaned or who are deprived of their mother's care through sickness, or for some other exceptional cause, but we do not want any idea of nurseries for children who are only a few days old. There is, however, the problem of children under two who are in need of care because, for one reason or another, they cannot be looked after by their mothers. As I said, the welfare authorities have power to have nurseries. That power has not been taken away, but where my anxiety comes in is that I do not think that that will meet all the needs. If a nursery is to be of real use it must be near the home. The mother cannot go two miles to the nursery to leave her baby, and then go another two miles to work. The number of children under two for whom nursery care would be wanted would be so small in each area that the mother would be bound to have a long distance to travel. If I may Ilse the expression, the "catchment area" for the babies would have to be so wide that the mothers, in a great many cases, would have to go a long distance to reach that nursery.

But we are looking into the whole matter of the welfare of small children. In Birmingham, the welfare authorities have a good scheme in which they employ certain people, who are registered, to look after small children. These people are paid by the authority and, in turn, the authority is paid by the mothers. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) said that looking after children was a 24 hour a day job, and the hon. Member for Greenock also said that it was a day and night job, and that in a good many cases married life broke down because young people could not go out together as the wife was completely tied. I do not think the hon. Member would mind the wife being tied for the first few months.

No.

One suggestion which was made was that mothers' clubs should be formed and that trained people, such as those belonging to the Red Cross organisation, could go to a house one evening a month to look after children while the mother went out.

Where there is a house.

The hon. Member said that a mother could not leave her children and go out. Another suggestion was that a mother should be able to take her child one day, or half a day, each week or month to a room at a welfare clinic where they could be looked after while she went out for the afternoon. We are trying to see what are the best means of solving the problem, but I am convinced that there is no one scheme that will suit all needs. As I have said, we shall keep the wartime nurseries going where they are wanted, but it is not right to keep a large staff in a building to attend to only one or two children.

Where there is a desire on the part of the parents for their child or children to attend a war-time nursery, and there are vacancies, will they be allowed to attend, irrespective of whether the mother is working or not?

The difficulty is that the money for war-time nurseries comes from a war grant. It has been clearly laid down that these nurseries are for the children of mothers who are working. We have, in addition, arrangements for bringing in children on compassionate grounds; but the time is coming when there will be the nursery schools which will cater for children from two to five; we want to turn over to that stage as soon as we can. I had a case brought to my notice where only one of the mothers was working and the others said: "We are not working, but could we send our children there as well?" But I do not feel that we ought to keep such nurseries open if there is no need for them. What we want to see is the nursery school for the children of two to five to which the children can go whether the mother is working or not.

I do not want to damp the right hon. Lady's optimism, but may I tell her about a case in my area? We had a war-time nursery and it was closed, although there has been a demand for it from the wives of miners who, in an area like that, are really war-time workers. They are performing a war-time service under the conditions which exist in that area, and I gather that they have been turned down.

No local authority which has asked to keep a nursery open has been turned down. The hon. Gentleman said that I was being optimistic, but I hope that through what we have learned we shall be able to do something even better for mothers and fathers and small children in future, than we have been doing in the past.