asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the average age of leaving school in the Northern Region, and in England and Wales, respectively.

I do not have the information in this form, but, as a rough indication, at the end of 1962, about 73 per cent. of pupils in the Northern Region who became 15 during that year had left school. The corresponding proportion for England and Wales as a whole was about 65 per cent.

Does the Secretary of State not feel that this does indicate a difference between the sheer quantity of educational provision in different parts of the country? Does he feel, reflecting as it does the difference over many generations of occupational structure, housing provision, many other factors, that there is need for some more new measures to redress the inequalities in the educational provision as between different regions of the country?

I am not sure that I would accept the first premise of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. I am advised that this is a genuine difference in parental attitudes and social traditions rather than a question of quantitative provision, but it was, of course, precisely for this reason that we decided to raise the school-leaving age.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the judgment he has expressed is a subjective one and that we are faced with an objective fact, that there appear to be disparities between different regions of the country in the opportunity given in education? Is not this a matter on which we ought to have an immediate survey, so that we have the facts? Is it not a matter which ought to have the attention of the Government?

I do not agree that my judgment was entirely subjective. It was based upon inquiry, which the hon. Gentleman's original Question put me on: I naturally inquired as to the difference, and why it was assessed to be different. But I would agree that these are matters which require constant attention.

Does the Secretary of State not feel that parental attitude, which is certainly a factor, is in itself partly due to the lack of provision in former years, and that one way in which to make a change in this is by altering the provision today?

That is precisely why we are raising the school-leaving age.