HOUSING (Hansard, 9 May 1950)

§ Mr. Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)
After some hours of highly technical argument it is with some relief that I turn to a subject which lends itself to more coherent discussion, and I have no doubt that that will meet with favour in all parts of the House. There can be little doubt that one of the greatest social evils of today is the present housing shortage, and we cannot refer to it too often. Everyone in this House could produce his own evidence, as I can from Peterborough, of the numerous occasions upon which young people are prevented from getting married, or others whose marriages are of only a few months' duration are being broken up because of it. Two women in one kitchen never will work, yet the first choice of any young couple is to decide with which mother-in-law they are going to live, and whichever is chosen it is wrong, not only for the young people but for the old ones as well.
I think that everybody with any experience as a local councillor has had the situation where he is met at the top of the High Street by the young wife who pleads, "Can you help me get a house? My husband is good, but he cannot get on too well with my mother and things are becoming impossible." Then two minutes later at the bottom of the same High Street one meets the mother with her plea, "Can you help my daughter and her family get a house? I have got grandchildren, I have blood pressure and I know that I am sometimes irritable," and the whole thing is completely upset. It is not only one side that suffers. The young are thwarted and the old are not having the tranquillity that they deserve Far too often this is not the end.
I sit as a justice of the peace in an industrial area, and week after week in the domestic courts we have these sad, sordid stories where a man and wife are seeking separation and families are being divided. Nine out of ten such cases arise clearly from the housing shortage. I have often thought as I sat there that if we could calculate all the hours that 333 these young husbands spend away from work, hanging around the courts, waiting their turn, and could calculate the hours of lost production, we should find that they would amount to a few standards of timber in actual loss of production.
It does not end in court because the damage is still there. No man can give of his best if he leaves domestic discord in the morning and goes home from work at night knowing that the same atmosphere is still there. I am suggesting that we must not view this problem only as a temporary shortage of dwellings, inconvenient for the time being for certain people, because it is hitting at family life itself which, I believe, is the main prop of Christian civilisation.
In the face of such urgency, a new approach is essential. It is criminal, in my view, to continue with the policy: the mixture as before. The housing policy of the last four-and-a-half years has clearly failed. It has failed in merit to meet the need.

§ Mr. Porter (Leeds, Central)
What about before the war?

§ Brigadier Prior-Palmer (Worthing)
Let us get up to date.

§ Mr. Nicholls
Two blacks do not make a white, and I am confining myself to the clear policy of the last four-and-a-half years. The Government have failed on their own record of two years ago. Then they were able to produce 228,000 houses and now they are down to 200,000 or 175,000. They have failed even with the few that have been erected, as the high cost of building is causing such high rents that the most deserving cases are having to think twice before they accept their turn because of the high rents. Speaking as a member of a firm of surveyors with some knowledge of estate development and, in addition, with 12 years as a councillor and a member of a housing committee, I say that it is madness to make the local authority the only instrument for house building. As a general rule, not only is the local authority not the best medium but in a period of emergency I should say that it is the worst possible medium for getting houses erected quickly.
It is bad enough for the practical builder to have to overcome the strictures 334 of control from the centre, but when, in addition, as a contractor to the local authority he has the added obstacles of standing orders as well, and the inconvenience of the dates of committee meetings when he wants a quick decision, then the handicap to speedy building is unquestionably colossal. From the time the decision is taken to build, it would take a private builder not more than five or six weeks to make a start on the actual building after obtaining the ordinary local planning permission.
A council could not start the same job in under six or seven months because of the routine which is essential in local government work of obtaining Ministry loan sanction, advertising for tenders, obtaining approval of tenders and then settling the contracts. In the case of a rural area, the time of starting would be more likely 12 months. Once a building has been commenced, the private builder will erect a house ready for occupation in six or seven months, but working by rigid contract terms and specifications, with all the delays whenever the inevitable variation of specifications is required, the local authority is lucky if it can get the house built in less than 12 months. This extra time is bound to reflect itself in higher costs, and eventually in higher rents.
I should like to make it clear that I am not criticising local councils or council officials. They have to adhere to the committee timetable and deal with other questions as well as the housing problems we all have. They have to bear in mind their standing orders and their statutory obligations. In many cases where they have tried to bypass any of these in the interests of speed, they have had to face the investigation of the district auditor who, above all else, must keep the integrity of local authorities above the slightest risk of blemish.
I do not blame the local councillors or council officials, and it is for this reason that I deplore the attitude of Members opposite, both in this House and in their constituencies, who out of some form of perverted loyalty to party try to excuse their own failure at the centre by blaming the local authorities. Blaming the local authority, whatever its political complexion, is clearly cheating. It is not the Socialist council or the Conservative council that is at fault, but the system they are forced to work to, with its 335 restrictions and controls at the centre added to the delays inherent in the committee procedure of the council, all so intermixed and tied together that the magician Merlin himself would not be able to produce the houses speedily enough.
That is the background, and I have initiated this Adjournment Debate to try once again to draw the Minister's attention to these vital facts, so well known to everyone in the building trade or technical departments of the local authorities. I should like to put forward two constructive suggestions. My first is that local authorities should be encouraged to make far more use of the Ministry's Circular 9246, under which a house can be built by a private builder to his own approved design and afterwards sold to the local authority who decide the tenants. This idea was suggested by the National Federation of Building Trades and the Federation of Registered Housebuilders, and it was incorporated in this circular.
I would suggest that its effectiveness was blunted at once because of the intermixture in the same circular of other schemes to do with small buildings, and by a general lack of enthusiasm by the Minister and his regional officials in giving effect to it. It was blunted even more by the anti-private enterprise councillors who at that time controlled many of the local authorities. In cases where it was made use of it was undoubtedly a success, and I should like to quote two cases, one in 1946 and the other in 1949, to show how over the whole period, if it had worked effectively, it would have allowed more houses to have been produced more quickly and at the cheapest possible price.
I should like to give my example in the form of a table. The two headings I would suggest are: (a) the private firms building on their own land to their own approved designs who afterwards sell to a local authority, and (b) the building contractors building on council land to council specifications and under council supervision. Both of these schemes were started at the same time in 1946.
A, the private builder, built 37 houses, and B under contract to the local authority built 22 houses. The time the builder took to build the 37 on his own land was 13 months while for the local 336 authority it was 15 months, that is 11 days per house for a private builder on his own land and 20 days per house for a builder building under local authority supervision. The cost by the private builder was £1,150 per house and for the local authority it was £1,450 per house. The private builder's rent was 14s. 7d. per week and the other was 18s. 1d. per week. The size of the private builder's house was 905 superficial square feet and the local authority's house 1,088 square feet. Before leaving the example I should explain that the size of A's house, whilst it was smaller than the size of B's, showed that the private builder building on his own land and selling to the local authority was £60 per house cheaper and the building was more than 25 per cent. quicker. That was in 1946 and the same state of affairs can be seen today.
In my own constituency I have the evidence of a builder who developed his own land under his own specification for selling to the local authority. The houses are 1,000 superficial square feet and including the cost of the site, legal costs and services, he is able to sell them under £1,300. In the same area, builders under contract to the local authority with all the rigid strait-jacket central and local controls to which I have referred are taking 11 to 12 months as against six to seven months, and the cost of £1,500 to £1,600 as against £1,300. So my first suggestion is to popularise the scheme for building firms both large and small. The circular refers to small and big firms, and we should popularise the scheme for all of them to build on their own land to their own specification to sell to the local authority afterwards. This was approved of by the independent Felix Pole Report of 1944, a report which to my mind has not had anything like the attention it deserves.
My second suggestion is that the number of houses allocated to the local authority areas should be by value rather than by the number of dwellings. At the present time many authorities build a standard type of house usually with three bedrooms, regardless of the housing lists and in many cases these houses are not fully occupied. The object of tying local authorities down to a financial allocation is to ensure some control of the available labour and materials. But labour plus materials can best be 337 expressed by value rather than by housing units. Local authorities receiving an allocation on value basis would be inclined to try and get the maximum number of houses out of the valuation, and would, therefore, be more inclined to look scientifically into their housing needs in an effort to build for the actual requirements of the area.
With the money which local authorities may have expended since the war in building 500 houses, they would have got 600 houses for the same amount of money had they had the chance two or three years ago of building smaller houses with a more suitable design. Bearing in mind that rents really must be cut down, because that is the problem next to the shortage itself——

§ Mr. Nicholls
Bearing that in mind, I would recommend that local authorities should be encouraged to build more two-bedroomed houses so that these can be exchanged for the existing three-bedroomed or four-bedroomed types when families have grown up and no longer need the extra accommodation. I know that these suggestions would still leave us only on the fringe of overcoming the housing famine. I admit that last week, in giving greater latitude to local authorities in the ratio of house building for sale, the Minister of Health has taken a step—a very small one—in the right direction. But even there he has not gone nearly far enough. The new decision, taken so late in the day, will result in some increase in the number of new houses built privately, but even now the private builder has nothing like the freedom he must have if he is to make a full contribution to reducing the cost of house building, as we must if we are to relieve this great housing tragedy that surrounds us.
I therefore ask the Minister to think again, to abolish the ratio altogether, and to give favourable consideration to the propositions that I have put to him tonight, which have the benefit of being recommended by the most practical men in the building trade. We must have 338 houses, and the dangers from the neglect of that matter are so very real and the human suffering is so great as a consequence that we ought to take housing out of the cockpit of party dispute and dogma and treat it as a national problem.

§ Mr. L. M. Lever (Manchester, Ardwick)
The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. H. Nicholls) has raised a matter which is of national importance, and one upon which we ought to concentrate our attention. I speak as a member of a local authority for the past 19 years in the great City of Manchester. I have been brought, as so many other members of local authorities have, face to face with this dire problem of housing. I would say to the hon. Member who introduced this Adjournment Debate, and to hon. Members opposite, that this is no question for making party capital. The Opposition, however, ever since I have been in this House, have been endeavouring to make party capital out of the serious housing position. When one compares the record of this Labour Government during the past five years with the very sorry position of housing between the two wars, when there was ample labour and material, one remembers that millions of the citizens of this country, particularly in the industrial areas, were doomed to live under the most terrible conditions.

§ Lieut.-ColoneI Elliot (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)
We built 377,000 houses.

Hon. Members
In which year?

§ Mr. Lever
The housing position in our industrial areas is a standing disgrace and a testimony to the gross neglect of the Opposition in regard to this matter, between the two wars and before. In our industrial areas thousands of families are doomed to live and bring up their children in houses where there are no baths, and where no facilities for washing were made available by the friends of Members of the Opposition.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
They have no baths today.

§ Mr. Lever
May I say, as one who is interested in this housing question, as we all are on this side of the House——

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Build some houses, then.

§ Mr. Lever
We welcome the building of houses by local authorities and every other source which will help to meet this problem. The whole burden of the speech of the hon. Member for Peterborough was simply concerned with trying to get more opportunity for building houses by private builders for profit. He wants more private building and less local authority building—[An HON. MEMBER: "He wants more houses."]—when it is notoriously the fact that houses built by local authorities by direct labour are let at rents which are much lower than the rents of houses built by private builders. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] The hon. Member spoke about the building of houses by private builders and he says that those houses should be sold to the local authorities. At what prices does he suggest private builders would sell to local authorities?

§ Mr. H. Nicholls
Will the hon. Member give way?

§ Mr. Lever
Are private builders going to hold local authorities to ransom in the same way as the landowners held municipal authorities to ransom in regard to the price of land before the Town and Country Planning Act was passed? [Laughter.] It is all very well to laugh, but in the city of Manchester we were for years prevented from building houses for people in our central areas simply because of the very high price of land demanded by landowners.
The Opposition ask for lower house rents. Is that simply with the idea of making political capital? It is notoriously the fact that it was hon. Members opposite and their friends who, when the Ridley Committee considered the question of house rents, advocated that landowners should have a free market in increasing rents? In 1943, when the Ridley Committee was set up, landowners and estate organisations advocated that they should be given the opportunity of increasing their rents by 20 per cent.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
The local authorities do more than that today.

§ Mr. Lever
How can hon. Members opposite suggest that rents should be lowered when I have found throughout the years, in my experience as a professional man in the City of Manchester——

§ Mr. Manuel (Ayrshire, Central)
My hon. Friend is not an estate agent.

§ Mr. Lever
As a solicitor in the City of Manchester who has assisted poor tenants for many years I know perfectly well that people have been——

§ Mr. G. B. Craddock (Spelthorne)
rose—

§ Mr. Lever
I can only conclude that the subject to which I am referring is unpalatable to hon. Members opposite.

§ Mr. Craddock
Which Government introduced the Rent Restriction Acts?

§ Mr. Lever
Ever since the Rent Restriction Acts were introduced it has been part of the policy of the Tory Party to whittle away their effect. Had it not been that public opinion was strongly against it, they would have sought to abolish those Acts so that the tenants would have had to pay whatever increases in rent the landowners wished them to pay. I want the country to know that during the past five years the Labour Party has provided 1,135,000 homes for the people——

§ Mr. H. Nicholls
How many?

§ Mr. Lever
Over one million homes for the people. We are building now to the tune of 200,000 houses during the current year, and I am sure that the country knows that if it were possible to build more houses this Government would build them. [Laughter.] Oh, yes, they would. After all is said and done, it was not hon. Members on this side of the House who condemned the poorest of the poor to be herded together in the working-class industrial areas of our cities.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
The Government are doing it now.

§ Mr. Lever
The reason why there is a housing shortage today is because the people, thanks to the new outlook which this Labour Government have given them, feel that they ought to have homes of their own whereas in days gone by we found, in our industrial areas, three and four families living in one room. Often when I used to go around canvassing my electorate, they said with a sense of pride—but it reflected a terrible situation—"We have 16 votes in our house to give you, Mr. Lever." That in itself is a commentary on the miserable conditions to which hon. Members of the Conservative Party condemn the masses of 341 our people. The Minister of Health, who knows the needs of the people, has done a splendid job. I congratulate him warmly on the initiative he has taken, on the opportunities he has given the people of this country to live happier and fuller lives, and I hope that the good work of this Government in the field of housing will continue.

§ Squadron-Leader A. E. Cooper (Ilford, South)
I should not have intervened in this Debate had it not been for what I might describe as the somewhat pathetic speech to which we have just listened. I think we should congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. H. Nicholls) on initiating this Debate tonight, and I am sure we cannot have too many of these Debates on housing, if only to force upon the Minister the realisation that notwithstanding the ingrowing self-satisfaction which appears to pervade right hon. and hon. Members opposite about everything concerning the Socialist Government, the broad mass of the people are not so favourably disposed towards their housing policy.
I wondered, as I listened to the hon. Member for Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever) whether he and his colleagues, except during the period of the election, have bothered their heads much about what is happening regarding housing up and down the country.

§ Mr. Lever
We have.

§ Squadron-Leader Cooper
So far as the number of houses built since the end of the war is concerned, I doubt whether they have succeeded in equalling the number that were destroyed during the war. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is a fact that there are still hundreds of thousands of people who are living in conditions which are an appalling and dreadful commentary upon the policy of His Majesty's Government.

§ Mr. Fernyhough (Jarrow)
It has been like that for 50 years.

§ Squadron-Leader Cooper
During the inter-war years the average number of houses built by successive Governments was well over the 300,000 mark——

Hon Members
Rubbish.

§ Mr. Snow (Lichfield and Tamworth)
Will the hon. and gallant Member allow me——

Hon. Members
Do not give way.

§ Squadron-Leader Cooper
That building was done without any assistance from the central Government. Houses were built in large numbers and of a type and at a price which hundreds of thousands of people could afford to buy.

§ Mr. Fernyhough
Those who live in them cannot shut the doors or open the windows.

§ Squadron-Leader Cooper
They could not afford to buy them today even if they were available. Many of those houses which are criticised by hon. Members opposite stood up to the bombing effectively. It is doubtful whether many of the traps put up today at substantially higher prices could do the same. What is happening today? With magnificent central planing, with control from the centre restricting the local authorities as they have never been restricted before, the Minister stands in the way of house construction when the local authorities want to do their job properly.
Last year we did not succeed in building 200,000—about 185,000 was the figure, somewhat less than half of what was done before the war. What a triumph for Socialist planning. What a measure of success for hon. Members opposite to laud themselves in congratulatory phrases. They stand for ever condemned before the people of this country for a disgraceful policy on housing, and the electors at the last election showed their displeasure of this in no mean manner.

§ Mr. Manuel
But we are still here.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop)
I am sorry that the Opposition should have indulged in a little pre-local election campaign here this evening. It is unfortunate that very often when hon. Members raise this serious subject of housing it appears to hon. Members opposite to be a matter for general mirth rather than for serious constructive proposals. In this case I welcome the two suggestions which were put forward by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. H. Nicholls), who raised the subject here tonight. He 343 attempted in the later part of his speech to bring rather a new spirit to this subject in making one or two constructive proposals. I was rather interested in hearing his proposals and I should be glad to know whether the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), would support them officially on behalf of his party.
The hon. Member for Peterborough said quite clearly that he would abolish altogether the ratio of private buildings for sale as against local authority building. I would be very interested to know——

§ Mr. H. Nicholls
I would abolish it and leave the decision to the local authority. They know their needs. Let them decide whether it shall be one in four, one in two, or any other figure. Let them make their decision.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
Presumably, therefore, some local authorities, who in the inter-war years carried out practically no local authority housing at all to meet the very real and urgent needs of their areas, would be allowed, if they so desired, not to provide any now. The misfortune would be to those living in the district who, on that basis, could make no claim. I would be very glad indeed to hear whether this proposal of the hon. Member for Peterborough has the official support of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. We have been trying to secure some information from hon. Members opposite as to their policy on housing, and this seems a suitable opportunity to try to find whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would care to give support to the hon. Member for Peterborough on this occasion. Apparently not——

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Give me time and I will——

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
I was merely wanting a straight answer——

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
The hon. Member should give me time—he has challenged me.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
—whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is prepared to give his support to the clear proposal put forward by his hon. Friend behind him to abolish the ratio altogether.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Give me time.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
I can tell that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would only do a little more general word-spinning, of which he is a past master, and he is certainly not prepared to give a clear answer. If he were——

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
The hon. Gentleman has resumed his seat. Has he concluded his speech?

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
Not at all.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Let him resume his seat and halve the time with me, and I will tell him all he wants to know.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
The right and gallant Gentleman is a wily bird in debate in this House.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
Give me five minutes.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
What is quite clear is that he is not prepared to commit himself to support for his hon. Friend behind him. I did not think that he would be.
The hon. Member for Peterborough, in opening the Debate, called attention to the general tragedy of lack of housing which affects very many people. All of us are equally concerned in that tragedy. No one party, no one group of people, is, presumably, more concerned than another. It is certainly not a temporary shortage of dwellings. It is a shortage that has been experienced by my own constituents and many other constituents for very many years. The hon. Member called attention to the tragedy of those who have to live with in-laws on either side. It must be within his knowledge, as it is within mine, that before the war it was a very rare thing for a newly-married couple, in the average working class home, to have a chance of starting in a new house at all. That was certainly so in the industrial areas from which I come and it makes quite clear that this problem is no new one.
While we certainly appreciate its seriousness, we know also that it is a problem which has afflicted us for very many years. Today, for the first time, many of these people are having an opportunity of getting a new house, of which they were never able to take advantage in the old days because they had not the income available. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is perfectly true and 345 hon. Members are sticking their heads in the sand if they do not appreciate it.
Of course there is this method of solving the housing problem, which, no doubt hon. Members opposite might adopt. They would soon cut down the housing lists if unemployment were to rise again. We are not prepared to solve the housing problem in that way. The main contention of the hon. Member for Peterborough was that the local authority is the worst medium for housing building. Now it depends upon what sort of houses we want and for what section of the community we want to provide houses. If we are concerned merely in building houses for those who can afford to pay large prices, unquestionably the private speculative building, of which we saw so much in the interwar years, would meet that need.
We have been concerned and, I believe, properly concerned, with devoting the whole of our attention to the major needs of the people. If that is the desire, then the local authority as the democratic locally elected body is the only authority that should have the power of deciding who shall have houses and who shall not.

§ Mr. Nicholls
I never questioned in this Debate the allocation of the houses; it is the erection of the houses. The allocation of the houses would still be in the hands of the local authority after they had bought them from the private builder.

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
I understood from the hon. Member that he would abolish the ratio of private licensing. If he were to abolish the ratio of private licensing in many cases he would provide that no houses should be made available for local authority allocation at all. He must make his position on that quite clear.
The hon. Member also seemed to suggest that there should be no check or control on the work of the private builder. His main objection to the local authority as a medium for house building is that the local authorities apply very strict controls and checks upon the method of building, the standards and the full specifications of house building. That that is necessary, is proved over and over again by the disastrous results of private speculative building throughout the interwar years. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] Hon. Members do not need to go far from 346 this House to see plenty of examples of distressing speculative building—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] On the outskirts of this very city.
The hon. Member who introduced the subject put forward two constructive suggestions and I am very glad we had them. First, he said it ought to be possible to use the Minister's Circular 92/46 more fully. A great deal of use has been made of this circular, particularly by the small builder who has not the staff to carry out the detailed specification work which is normally required. Provided that the small builder has a good reputation in that district and is known to have done good work in the past, there is no reason why he should not be employed by the local authority. I am glad to say that a large number of houses have been built in this way.

§ Mr. Nicholls
How many?

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
I was about to give the hon. Member the figures. Up to 31st March this year, more than 15,000 houses had been completed by private builders, small builders, on land owned by local authorities under the scheme which releases them from specifications which would otherwise be required, and a further 15,000 houses have been completed on land owned by builders, again with a simplification of procedure. We are very willing to approve any proposals which local authorities put forward under those schemes outlined in Circular 92/46, and I am glad to say that many authorities are taking advantage of them, including some not far from the hon. Member's constituency.
I have here an example which has just been provided at very short notice. I only knew a matter of a few hours ago that the hon. Member intended to raise this point. I was able to find that the one scheme operated in his own constituency was perhaps not very successful so far as time was concerned. The hon. Member made a great deal of the fact that private house building could be done, provided there were no checks by the local authority, much more quickly. In this one case where there was a great reduction in the number of checks by the local authority, the time taken was exceptionally long. This was a small scheme by a small builder which was started in September, 1946, and was not finished until June, 1948.
347 It is wrong to build up too much on an individual case just as it is to do so on one or two cases which the hon. Member put before the House, but it is certainly not true that overall there is necessarily a longer time taken on local authority contracts as against private contracts. There is no real evidence of that, and neither is there any evidence of private enterprise being able to build houses more cheaply than local authorities or their contractors. That is the wording of the Girdwood Report itself.

§ Mr. Nicholls
Does the Minister consider the Girdwood Report good or bad evidence?

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
Here is the Girdwood Report stating: We are not in a position to state that private enterprise has been able to build houses more cheaply than local authorities or their contractors.

§ Mr. Nicholls
What about the speed?

§ Mr. Blenkinsop
The whole point made by the hon. Member was that by building more rapidly they claimed they were building more cheaply. It was a cheapness of building to which the hon. Member was referring.
The hon. Member raised the issue of whether it would not be possible to make allocations to local authorities in money terms rather than in units. I do not know 348 that there would be any advantage in that. The allocations in units are not so restrictive as the hon. Members appears to imagine. We are always prepared to consider the needs of the area when proposals are submitted by the local authorities, and we have already—last year—circularised local authorities asking them to pay special attention to the needs of smaller houses. That was done some time ago. We appreciate the point, and it has in fact been well covered.
While we are very willing to hear constructive proposals from the other side of the House, as to means by which we can improve the speed of house building, the tragedy in so many of the housing Debates that we have had is that so rarely have we managed to get any official statement from the Opposition as to precisely what they in their turn would do. I fear that, as on other occasions, that is the position tonight.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
I can only say that it was well said of old by Pilate, "What is truth?" and he did not stop for an answer. I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary——