HC Deb 09 November 1948 vol 457 cc1480-6

Considered in Committee. (King's Recommendation signified.)

[Mr. BOWLES in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law with respect to rating and charging for water supplies in Scotland; to amend Part V of the Local Government Act, 1948, with respect to the ascertainment of the standard amounts there under in Scotland; to increase the financial assistance that may be given to local authorities in Scotland under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944; and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorize the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  1. (a) any expenditure attributable to any provision of the said Act of the present Session increasing to twenty million pounds the aggregate amount which the Secretary of State may expend in making under section one, as read with section seven, of the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, contributions towards the expenses of local authorities for rural water supplies and sewerage; and
  2. (b) any increase in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under Part II of the Local Government Act, 1948, attributable to the said Act of the present Session."—[Mr. Woodburn.]

8.37 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

We now come to the stage at which we can continue the examination of the point which I tried to elicit from the Under-Secretary and on which he gave us some interesting figures. Clearly, however, there is more information to be obtained. The hon. Gentleman, in the first place, gave us the figure of the Government sum of £20 million, which, he said, would elicit from the local authorities another sum of £20 million. That seemed to me to indicate something more like a 50 per cent. grant than the figure of which I was previously thinking, The hon. Gentleman went on to translate that into terms of a wages bill.

I repeat again the points which I put to him on Second Reading. At what figure is the expenditure running at present? When will the existing £6,375,000 be expended; that is to say, at what time will we begin to draw upon the moneys which the House is now being asked to vote? I was most interested in the figures of the labour force which he gave. He said that the sums mentioned here would require for their expenditure 6,000 workers for 20 years or 12,000 workers for 10 years. Can he say what is the labour force engaged upon these schemes at present? Is it 6,000, 4,000, or 3,000? That would give us an indication, from the figure of the labour force employed, of the rate at which these schemes are running now.

I am merely taking the figures which the hon. Gentleman himself gave us, and they were most interesting; but I should be surprised to hear that there are 6,000 men employed on these schemes in Scotland. There may be, however, and I am merely asking him for information which obviously is of great interest to the Committee and which would give us a very valuable indication of the rate of actual consumption of these grants at present. Those are really the main points in which the House was interested in discussing the Bill on Second Reading, and it would help us considerably if either the Under-Secretary or the right hon. Gentleman himself could give us more information on them.

8.40 p.m.

Mr. Woodburn

I think that in his speech the right hon. and gallant Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) recognised quite clearly that, so far as going ahead with schemes is concerned—especially after his own experience—it is one of the most difficult things to calculate when a thing will be finished. We have the utmost difficulty to find moulders to make the moulds for the pipes required for housing schemes. There is no way by which we can improve the employment in the moulding industry. When we come to these pipes we come to a bottleneck, and the industry cannot expand very quickly. It is a matter of pure guesswork as to when these firms will be free to expand their production on any considerable scale. I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree that it would be extremely difficult to separate this Debate from a Debate on the housing into which the water is going. When a housing Debate takes place, it will be no excuse to say that we are taking the pipes away for the water scheme.

Apart from that, the local authorities have not yet reached that point, because quite clearly any schemes of this sort require adequate surveying, and require the draughtsmen and all the technicians of the local authorities to spend a great deal of time on preparatory work before one sod is dug. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is well aware of these points, and I am quite sure appreciates them from his own experience. He asked how much was actually being spent at the moment. The local authorities have grants of £3 million. For the reasons stated, they have not yet taken these up. There are provisionally approved schemes to the extent of £17 million, in addition to the £3 million. Out of that there will be £8 million or £9 million of grants.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman also raised the question of the proportion of the grant. That varies from place to place. In the Highlands it is as much as 85 per cent. for these water schemes, and Inverness-shire and other counties know perfectly well where they stand in this matter. They will go ahead as quickly as possible. As to the labour force available, the 6,000 people are not yet available. It was in order to convey to the House the problem of spending £20 million on this that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State gave the figures in terms of labour. But a great deal of this kind of labour force available in Scotland is at present already engaged in spending another £40 million in hydro-electric schemes, and so forth. Exactly the same kind of labour will be required for building these reservoirs. Therefore, it will be a question of the contractors switching over from such schemes to these great water schemes of the local authorities. We and the local authorities have no control over the contractors. All that the local authorities can do is to invite tenders, but the contractors and their men are so occupied just now that it will be a matter of considerable art to dovetail in this water scheme.

I can assure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the local authorities are desperately anxious to proceed as quickly as possible, and that no time will be lost. I am not casting any reflection on anybody. I think that one or two of the speeches made this afternoon have been rather unfortunate in their reflection on the local authorities for taking so long to spend the money. It is not their fault at all. They have been handicapped by their technicians having been away at the war. I can assure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the local authorities and the Government are working as hard as possible on this, and that, as time goes on, the spending of the money will proceed at an accelerated pace, as and when labour and material become available.

8.45 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

I think it is necessary that these points should be cleared up when the Minister comes before the House and asks for a considerable sum—in this case £20 million—to be voted, and when he himself has stated that these schemes have not yet been begun, though they have been running for some time. We are now considering a running expenditure, which was one of the points made, and the House was very glad to hear that these schemes were already in progress. I do not think the Committee is asking too much when it asks the Minister the order of the labour force engaged upon them at the present moment. It was the Under-Secretary's own formula that we were working on. He said that the expenditure of this money would require 6,000 workers a year for 20 years. We want to know at what rate it is running just now. Is it running at that rate, at half that rate, or at a quarter of it?

Mr. Scollan

What is the point?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

The point, if I may say so to the hon. Member for West Renfrew (Mr. Scollan), is that which the whole House has discussed at some length—whether this Vote is going to be employed immediately, in the near future, or only in the distant future. That was the point which was raised from all quarters of the House. As I understood the Secretary of State just now, he indicated that only a relatively small labour force is at present engaged because of the great calls on it for such schemes as the hydro-electric schemes and others. But this is merely saying in other language what hon. Members in other parts of the House have said, that the money we are now being asked to vote will not be brought into play for a very considerable time. That, as I understand it, is the Secretary of State's own point.

Mr. Scollan

When I said "What is the point?" I meant the long point, not the short point, of what the Under-Secretary of State said. The point that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is trying to make, if I understand him orrectly——

The Deputy-Chairman

Is the hon. Gentleman asking the right hon. and gallant Gentleman a question, or is he making a speech?

Mr. Scollan

I am asking him to clear up a speech. The point as I see it is that, if there is a shortage of labour today, is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman measuring the whole term of the scheme by the amount of labour available today, or is he admitting that periods are bound to come when 10 times the amount of labour available today will be available for the scheme?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

But this is the Financial Resolution. The Government come before the Committee tonight and ask us to vote £20 million. The Committee ask the Government to explain how they are going to use the money for which they are asking. Surely, that is the procedure of Parliament. It is in that way that Parliament has asserted its power throughout the centuries. These are the only occasions on which Parliament can speak to the Executive. When the Executive comes for money, Parliament says, "Tell us what you want the money for." I am asking the Minister what he wants the money for; and when he thinks he will need it. The Minister has explained that, at present, he will need very little of it because the labour which could be employed by the money is not available owing to the fact that it is engaged on other schemes. That was the point that was brought up by one or two Members, and with which the right hon. Gentleman dealt with some acerbity in his remarks. We return to the question of whether the right hon. Gentleman can say now, or at some later stage, something to give a clearer indication of the rate at which he is drawing on the credit already entrusted to him by the House, and the rate at which he expects in the near future to draw on the further credit with which he is now asking the Committee to entrust to him.

Mr. Woodburn

I apologise if I did not make the matter clear. The point is not that the local authorities want to draw cash from the bank out of this £20 million, but that no local authority in Scotland can proceed with an expensive water scheme without knowing that the State will help in the long run. The first thing the local authorities want to know is whether or not Parliament has granted the right to give them assistance, and they want to know that before embarking on any scheme. I am not pretending that these schemes are now in operation, although Lanarkshire and other local authorities have already got started. Many of these schemes are in their embryo stage. The local authorities cannot move until they know that they are to have help from the State, and therefore all they can do up to now is the preparatory work. The preparatory work will not use a great deal of labour, but by the time the schemes are put forward and the civil engineers have their preparations ready, I have no doubt that the labour will be coming in and the schemes will go on at an accelerated rate.

It was pointed out that there were 15 years during which this money might be spent. It may be that £1 million a year will be spent at the beginning. It will start in a small way, but as the labour becomes available the work will go on at an accelerated rate. I am sorry that this tone, which seems to depreciate the value of the £20 million to the local authorities, has been introduced into the Debate. The local authorities appreciate this as being a great step forward -for their water schemes, and I hope that they will receive every encouragement to go ahead so that we can see a speedy completion of this work as soon as labour and materials are available.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

We accept the view that the local authorities want to be sure credits are available, but the right hon. Gentleman will not minimise the importance of the request he is making. We do not propose to divide the Committee, but I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we want to know at what rate these reforms are likely to proceed. That is the point into which we who represent the citizens of Scotland have a right to inquire as the Bill proceeds. I am merely indicating to the right hon. Gentleman that Members in all parts of the House will, I am sure, wish to have further information on this point.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.