HL Deb 12 December 1938 vol 111 cc469-96

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL)

My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I should I think point out to your Lordships that its main purpose is to make further financial provision to enable local authorities to build houses for the replacement of unfit houses and for the relief of overcrowding. It also proposes that special Exchequer contributions should be paid to the Scottish Special Areas Housing Association, which is to be reconstituted to enable it to extend its programme within the Special Areas and to build demonstration housing schemes outside the Special Areas. As your Lordships know, the housing position in Scotland to-day is serious. Not far short of a quarter of a million working-class houses are still required. The Secretary of State is anxious that the most rapid progress possible should be made with the building of new houses, and he has introduced this Bill to provide the funds and the machinery necessary to ensure an accelerated rate of building. The new rates of Exchequer contributions in the Bill will take effect from January 1, 1939. All houses completed between that date and September 30, 1942, will qualify for the new subsidy rates.

At present the rates of Exchequer contributions differ according to the purpose for which the house is built. For houses built for the replacement of unfit houses there is a subsidy of £2 10s. per person—£2 15s. in rural areas—and the present overcrowding subsidy is £6 15s. per new house. The proposals in the Bill are that there should be one consolidated subsidy for those two purposes. Provision has, however, been made to ensure that the larger houses will attract a larger subsidy. The proposed new Exchequer contributions are as follows:£10 10s. for a three-roomed house; £11 15s. for a four-roomed house; and £13 for a five-roomed house. I feel sure that your Lordships will regard these proposals as a generous contribution by the Exchequer to the solution of the housing problem. The new subsidy rates represent a considerable increase on the subsidy rates at present payable. It has been estimated that if the present Acts had been continued, the average subsidy payable for the period from January 1, 1939, to September 30, 1942, would have been about £8 per house.

Exchequer contributions for housing inevitably involve a contribution from local rates. The rate contributions under the Bill are: £4 10s. for a three-roomed house; £4 15s. for a four-roomed house; and £5 for a five-roomed house. These contributions mean a slight increase in the rate contributions payable at present, but as the cost of building has risen so much in recent years some part of the increase must be borne by the local authorities. In fact, about 75 per cent. of the increased contributions will be borne by the Exchequer contribution and about 25 per cent. by the rate contribution. The Bill proposes increased Exchequer contributions for hostels provided for the housing of single persons. The Exchequer contribution will be £5 10s. for every part of the hostel designed to house a single person and the rate contribution will be £2 15s. The Bill also contains provision for payment of additional Exchequer contributions in certain special circumstances. Broadly, the additional Exchequer contribution is to compensate local authorities for the extra expense they sometimes have to incur in purchasing fit properties in clearance or redevelopment areas or in building tenements on expensive central sites. The additional contribution for clearance or redevelopment areas takes the place, with some modifications, of provisions in the 1930 and 1935 Acts. The additional contribution for the building of tenements on expensive central sites is new to Scottish housing legislation and will apply only in large burghs.

The additional Exchequer contribution will be a variable one depending on local circumstances and will be subject to a maximum of £15 per house—additional of course to the normal contributions that I have already mentioned. The additional contribution will be payable where a local authority can show that, because of the special expense incurred for the purposes I have mentioned, their loss on their housing operations as a whole is likely to be substantially greater than the normal loss. In other words, if the special expenses incurred in clearance areas or redevelopment areas or in building tenements on expensive central sites in large burghs would require the local authority, over all their housing operations, to provide from the rates an annual sum substantially higher than the statutory rate contributions, they will be entitled to such additional Exchequer contribution up to a maximum of £15 as seems to the Department to be just and reasonable. I should mention that the present maximum additional contribution for clearance areas is 15s. per person—roughly £3 10s. to £4 per house—and for redevelopment areas is £4 per house. Your Lordships will therefore see that the new maximum of £15 is a marked improvement on the present position.

Now with regard to these additional contributions, the Bill makes two extensions in the scope of the existing provisions. In future, the additional Exchequer contribution for clearance areas will apply not only to the expense incurred in purchasing or paying compensation for fit properties in the clearance area itself, but will also apply to expense of that nature in adjacent areas which are dealt with in order to make the whole area a suitable shape for new development. In regard to redevelopment areas, the additional contribution applies at present only to large burghs; it will apply in future to all authorities. Where an additional Exchequer contribution is payable in the circumstances which I have just described, there will be an additional rate contribution equal to one-half of the additional Exchequer contribution. The existing provision for payment of additional Exchequer contributions where necessary for houses built in remote areas is continued by this Bill, but it will apply in future to houses built for slum clearance as well as to those built for the relief of overcrowding. In respect of this additional contribution no additional rate contribution is expected of the local authorities.

To turn to another main feature of the Bill, your Lordships are aware that about a year ago the Scottish Special Areas Housing Association was set up to build houses by alternative methods of construction within the Special Areas. That Association is now being reconstituted to enable it to accelerate its programme within the Special Areas and to build demonstration housing schemes outside the Special Areas. Clause 2 of the Bill contains provision for the payment of special contributions by the Exchequer for the houses to be built outside the Special Areas. The effect of the payment of those special contributions is that the houses will be built without any cost to the local authorities. For the houses to be built within the Special Areas, the funds corresponding to those special contributions will be provided, as at present, out of the Special Areas Fund. It is estimated that, in the period up to 30th September, 1942, the Association will build about 18,000 houses within the Special Areas and about 7,500 outside those Areas. Your Lordships will therefore see that this contribution, at the cost of the State, to Scotland's housing needs is to be a substantial one. In view of the present shortage of skilled workers in certain of the building trades, particularly the bricklaying trade, the houses to be built by the Association will be by alternative methods of construction—methods such as concrete and timber, that make the minimum demand on the kind of labour which is short and will afford employment to types of labour that are at present unemployed. The Secretary of State expects the new Association to experiment freely in new methods and new materials, and in the organisation of building work.

The Bill contains certain provisions relating to housing associations. In the first place, the powers of housing associations to build houses by arrangement with local authorities and to obtain the Exchequer subsidy from the authorities is being extended to cover the building of houses for the agricultural population under the Housing (Agricultural Population) (Scotland) Act passed last Session. In the second place, housing associations are being put in substantially the same position as local authorities in respect of the gross annual value to be placed for valuation and rating purposes on houses built for letting with the aid of Exchequer subsidies. This provision restores a protection that housing associations formerly had before the Act of 1935.

I commend the Bill, therefore, to your Lordships. It has been generally accepted by the associations of local authorities as a marked improvement on the existing subsidy position. That improvement, taken with the steps that are being taken to increase building by the Special Housing Association, should enable the attack on Scotland's deplorable housing conditions to be maintained with increased vigour. The Bill is somewhat complicated and I have had to go into some detail in describing it. Should your Lordships wish to question me on any point, I will do my best to answer. I hope, however, that your Lordships will share with me the desire to get on with this measure and, as far as we can, with the necessary improvements in housing conditions in Scotland. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.)

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, I want to assure the noble Lord that we wish to do nothing on this side to delay the passage of the Bill into law. At the same time, I think it is right that we should look this gift horse in the mouth a little more closely than we might perhaps have been disposed to do from the friendly description of it given by the noble Lord. As to the deplorable conditions of housing in Scotland, I am sure he did not exaggerate the situation. I believe there are in fact at the present time no fewer than 300,000 houses, in the burghs of Scotland alone, without separate lavatory accommodation, and if we were to extend this analysis to the smaller places in the country districts the figure would be infinitely more deplorable. I believe that the overcrowding statistics represent a state of affairs something like six times worse than it is in the corresponding built-up areas in England. It always fills me, as an Englishman, with wonder how it is that our progressive neighbours over the Border, who can do so much for us when they come down south, have left their own country in this deplorably backward condition. However, that question is for them to answer.

So far as assistance is concerned, the figure of the Treasury contribution is raised, taking the ordinary three-roomed house, from £6 15s. to £10 10s. Since 1935, however, when that measure of assistance was determined upon, the cost of building of this class of house has increased by about £147 per house, so that the £3 15s. per house which is given in addition will barely provide the interest on the additional building plant, and will make no contribution towards the sinking-fund, charges at all. If these houses cost so much more than they did in 1935, the local authorities will not in fact be better off; they will be worse off. Moreover, in the Bill as it stands, as the noble Lord told us, the contribution of the local authority is raised from £3 5s., for the same three-apartment dwellings of which I have been speaking, to £4 10s. If you add these two sums together, the increased cost of building the house and the increased contribution required from the local authority, I am afraid I am not very hopeful—I wish I could be—that under this Bill we shall get the large increase in the provision of houses that the Secretary of State is so anxious to bring about. He ought to go back to the Treasury and tell them that they must do substantially more if they are to get the rapid provision of houses which is looked for.

Then, if we come to look at the provisions of the Bill so far as the rural areas are concerned, it is even less promising. I welcome the alteration of the position of the Housing Association; that is all to the good. I do, however, hope that the Department will not place too narrow an interpretation upon the duty of the Association to provide houses for experimental or demonstration purposes. There are all kinds of methods of building houses that are successful, well-established and well-known. In the rural areas, where this Association will no doubt operate to the best advantage, they want not so much experiments in concrete or wood, or whatever it may be—though I would not say a word in depreciation of these—but some decent houses built, even by approved methods. In assessing the contribution that the local authority will be required to make, I have taken the yield of a penny rate in a number of small places where I imagine the Association would be likely to operate. If I take, for instance, New Galloway as a case in point, I find that a penny rate there yields £11 a year. That means a local authority contribution for two or three houses! Those are the areas in which the Association should operate most actively, because it is quite clear that the local authorities in those areas where the yield of the rates is so trivial will not themselves be able to take advantage of the provisions of the Act. I hope, therefore, that the Department will visualise the sphere of work of the Housing Association as something much more than the provision of a few houses of some new type or other, and will place so liberal an interpretation upon these terms that they will in fact give real assistance to these rural areas which otherwise would be quite unable to make any use of the provisions of the Bill.

There is one point on which I hope the noble Lord will give us some assurance, perhaps in Committee; but it is an important point. It was raised in the other House. I will not take advantage of our debate the other day to quote ipsissima verba, but it was raised; and I gather that there is some sort of assurance—and perhaps the noble Lord will be able to give it us in very explicit terms—that after 1942, when these arrangements provisionally come to an end, the contributions of the local authorities will not be increased. As the Bill stands, they might be, and I think an assurance was given to the effect that it was not anticipated that they would be. It is very necessary to the local authorities that there should be a definite assurance that their contributions would not be increased. There is one other small point not covered by the Bill, which I think we might raise in Committee, and that is that the local authorities should be given power to acquire and recondition good properties, and receive the grant in aid as well as others. That would be a very important provision, if it were granted, and it would mean that in certain rural areas, or semi-rural areas, it would be possible to provide substantial additions to the housing accommodation by this means, without as much expense as would otherwise be incurred. The inquisitions into this gift, as I have said, make one disposed to think that it is not perhaps quite so generous on the part of the Treasury as it might appear to be at first glance, but for all that, so far as my noble friends are concerned we shall do everything we can to expedite the Bill.

LORD ALNESS

My Lords, as one who happened to be responsible for six years for Scottish housing, and who in that capacity had the honour of co-operating on this side of the Border with my noble friend who has just sat down, I desire to add a few words, first, about the form of the Bill, and secondly about its substance. As regards its form, I would congratulate, if I may, the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading upon the success with which he threaded his way through the mazes of this measure, and on the clarity of his exposition of its various provisions. For myself, I confess that I have had the greatest possible difficulty in understanding the Bill. If your Lordships will look at Clauses 4, 6 and 7 you will find that they are simply masterpieces of obscurity. They provide an excellent example of legislation by reference run mad. In the course of the Bill reference is made to five other Acts of Parliament. Many of the sections in those Acts are referred to, they are added to, subtracted from, qualified and in some cases omitted, and one has the very greatest difficulty in knowing what the net result is. I am far from blaming the draftsman of the measure. No doubt he carried out his instructions, and did so very thoroughly. But I confess that I do not envy the lot of the legal advisers of the local authorities in Scotland, who will have first to understand the Bill and then to advise as to its administration. Still less do I envy the position of the Scottish layman, who may be interested in housing and desire to know what is afoot. All I can say is that he will find great difficulty in arriving at a sound conclusion in that matter.

The practical suggestion which I would like to make to my noble friend is this. It is to ask him to consider seriously whether the time has not arrived for the consolidation of the law relating to housing in Scotland. If that cannot be done, then I would suggest that the course should be followed which was taken in the Census of Production Bill, 1938, which I have beside me, and that in a Schedule or Schedules the various sections of the former Acts which have been altered or amended, should be set out and the alterations and/or amendments printed in leaded type. I tremble to think what the next Housing Bill will contain by way of modification and alteration, and I suggest to my noble friend that before that time comes he should seriously consider whether a Consolidation Act, embracing all the various Housing Acts, of which there are a great number now, and rendering them intelligible to the legal and lay mind alike, might not be contemplated and carried through.

Having said so much about the form of the measure, I desire to say a word or two about its substance. Here, I confess, on matters of principle which are appropriate to Second Reading one has nothing but praise and gratitude to offer to my noble friend. It is a distinct achievement, on which the Government are to be congratulated, that they have succeeded in getting the co-operation of nearly all the local authorities with regard to this measure. Not only so, but the Bill passed through another place with the substantial agreement of members of all Parties, and the Third Reading was carried without a Division. The intendment of the Bill is obvious. It is to reaffirm the principle that local housing is, after all, a national concern, and with that in view the Government offer assistance which I think, despite what my noble friend Lord Addison has said, is of a generous character. It is higher, if I am not mistaken, than that which is given in England, and it is done with a view to stimulating both local authorities and housing associations to build good houses and to raze bad houses to the ground.

It is a commonplace to say that bad houses breed Bolshevism, and that good houses make for peace and contentment in the State. Nevertheless it is true; and being a little more sanguine with regard to the future of this Bill than my noble friend opposite, I venture to hope that it will result in an early and substantial speeding up of the Scottish housing programme. If that be so, then perchance the defects in its form may be forgiven, even if they are not forgotten. Subject to Committee alterations which are deemed to be proper, I have the greatest pleasure in giving my cordial support to the Second Reading of the Bill.

THE EARL OF LEVEN AND MELVILLE

My Lords, I would like, if I may, to add my humble congratulations to the noble Lord who introduced the Bill, for the very lucid way in which he has explained it to the House this afternoon. The Bill, as Lord Alness has just said, is obviously designed to increase Government aid, and so enable the authorities in Scotland to erect more good houses. I should be the last to object to that principle, since like everybody else I am more than anxious to see the standard of housing in Scotland very much improved and increased. At the same time I am a little doubtful whether there is not a great deal of truth in the remarks which the noble Lord, Lord Addison, made, when he said that he was not so sure that this Bill was going to involve any material increase in the grant to local authorities as a whole. The time which local authorities have been given to consider this Bill has been very short, and to that I propose, if your Lordships will allow me, to refer again in a moment; but so far as I have been able to gather I know already of certainly one county, and possibly two counties, in Scotland who consider that so far from being in a better position under the grant as here laid down in this Bill, they may possibly suffer and be in a financially less good position than they were in the old situation under the Housing Acts of 1930 and 1935. One county feels pretty confident that this is the case.

In view of what has fallen from the lips of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Alness, your Lordships will, I am sure, agree that this Bill is a very complicated one, far from easy apparently even for a lawyer, and certainly most difficult for a layman, to understand. I do not assume that when a county council, with this very short notice, says, "We shall be worse off under this Bill than we were under the old Act," that county council must necessarily be correct, because my attitude is that they have not had time in which to make the necessary very complicated calculations, extending far into future years. But what I would beg the Government to do is this: If there is even one county council which honestly thinks that it will be worse off under this Bill than it was before, can the Government not give some assurance that they will see that any county council which finds itself in that position will be recouped?

It is perfectly clear that though a county council or local authority of any kind may possibly benefit under one part of the Bill and lose under another, or vice versa, it is impossible to judge the grants which the local authority may obtain under one single housing scheme without taking into account the benefit it may enjoy or the loss which it may suffer under schemes in the future. Would it not be possible to consider this Bill as covering the first period, ending on September 30, 1942, and for the Government to give to all local authorities a definite assurance—because nothing less than a definite one would satisfy them—that if at the end of this first period a local authority can show that under the terms of this Bill its total grants have been less than they would have been under the Acts of 1930 and 1935, then they should be recouped to the extent of the difference between the two figures? I trust very much that the noble Lord, when replying, may not think that suggestion unreasonable.

I turn now to the matter to which I have already briefly referred, and that is the lack of time allowed to local authorities to consider this Bill before it came before Parliament. The Government, as I understand, take the view that they have been in consultation with the local authorities for many, many months. I should like to put this matter in some detail from the point of view of the Association of County Councils in Scotland and of the local county councils individually. Briefly what happened was this. About a year ago a small committee, I think of four people, was appointed as representing the Association of all the county councils in Scotland, who entered into negotiations with the Government with regard to the terms of this Bill, together with, I think, representatives of the councils of cities and burghs and so on. It was made quite clear from the start by the Association of County Councils that this small committee could not commit the Association. The committee continued their work in connection with the negotiations and, somewhere about October 10 last, attended a meeting at which they were told the general terms of this Bill, but they were also informed that the information was confidential, and that they were not to pass on what they had learnt to their individual county councils or to the Association. Consequently, the Association of County Councils and the individual county councils knew nothing whatever of the terms of this Bill until about November 10, and I want to try to point out to your Lordships the position in which the Association and the individual county councils then found themselves.

On November 10, I think, the Bill was made public in the Press. Members of the Association serving on the appropriate committee which had to do with housing within a few days found themselves receiving notice of a meeting of that committee of the Association of County Councils to meet in Edinburgh on November 17, to consider the terms of this Bill, to put forward the representations and views of the county councils which they individually represented, and to prepare any comments and objections in time for the Second Reading of this Bill in another place, which was fixed for November 22. I want to stress the point that the county councils and the Association of County Councils knew nothing of the terms of this Bill until November 10. On November 17 they had to meet to consider the whole of this very complicated measure. That left for the individual county councils six clear days, during which they had to obtain copies of the Bill, to call a meeting of the county council or of the appropriate committee, to hold a meeting to consider fully this quite long and very complicated Bill, and to be ready to send their representatives to Edinburgh to report their views.

The Association or its committee, then, had to consider this matter on the 17th and had to be prepared to put forward their point of view, their comments and their criticisms on the whole of the clauses of the Bill by November 22. I put it to your Lordships as to whether it is really reasonable that the Government should expect the local authorities or the Association representing them to consider a Bill of this kind in so short a time. It has been represented to me from a responsible quarter that very close touch should be maintained as between the individual county councils and the Association of County Councils. That, I think, is done; but it is difficult to see, if the Government insist on hurling legislation at our heads at this very short notice, how we can be expected to give the Association of County Councils full powers to represent us as individual councils when we have not had time to come before them and to consider and give our views.

I turn to my third point. I speak particularly for that part of Scotland from which I come, the northern counties of Scotland, a very thinly populated rural area, where the conditions are entirely different from those of the southern and more thickly populated counties. This Bill is designed, as I understand it, to increase the Government grants for building new houses owing to the increase in the cost of building. If the costs of building new houses have risen, I do not know if the Government are prepared to tell me whether they think that the costs of building for reconditioning houses have not increased in like proportion. If that is the case, then why is it that the grants under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, which has now been on the Statute Book for some years and has been in many parts of Scotland, and particularly in the thinly populated areas where I come from, a most useful measure—far more useful in fact than any other Act which we have so far had—are not increased in the same way as the grants under the Acts for building new houses? This Housing (Rural Workers) Act has been made more and more difficult. From January 1 last year it has been necessary for every county council, instead of having the power to pass an application for a grant under this Act, to forward each individual case to the Department of Health to be approved or turned down. The delay and the difficulties caused by that system have done much to slow up the work under this Act. Whereas, as I say, the increased cost of building new houses is recognised, the increased cost of reconditioning a house is not recognised, and, if I may respectfully do so, I would put to the noble Lord the question whether the Government are in fact endeavouring to kill this Housing (Rural Workers) Act.

Now I come to my fourth point. If the cost of a house is—let me take a rough and round figure—£500, you may subtract from that the amount of the Government grant and the amount of the ratepayers' money which under the Act the local authority is forced to produce from the rates. You therefore get a figure of £500, less the two grants, which I will term x pounds. If this system of building and of maintaining houses is to be on an economic basis, as I suppose it must be, it seems clear that the tenant to inhabit the house must be able to pay fair and economic interest or rent on this sum of x pounds. In the area from which I come, and I think in almost all the other areas in Scotland where the population is thin on the ground, experience goes to prove that a tenant cannot pay that economic interest or rent, and consequently cannot go into the house. I have individual cases from many parts of Scotland where that has been found to be the case. So far as I know, the only solution of this produced by the Government Department concerned has been that in the event of a tenant entering a local authority house, and being able to prove that he cannot pay the economic rent, he must then be granted a rebate, the rent being reduced to such a sum as he, in view of his income, can afford.

If this system of local authorities building houses for the whole of our population is to continue on this basis, the position which will arise in not a few areas will be that everybody will be living in local authority-owned houses, and all will be straining their utmost to pay the rents and rates which other people cannot pay for the very simple reason that the other people, and they themselves, cannot afford the rent and rates for the houses which they inhabit. There is the gap which this Bill in my estimation will certainly fail to fill—the gap between the economic rent which must be charged on the house unless somebody else is to pay it, and the rent which the average tenant can, in fact, afford to pay. I have heard of too many cases where unfortunate working men have been placed in houses of this type and have been forced, in order to retain their houses, to stint themselves of other things which they should undoubtedly have—even food and clothing for their children—in order that they may pay their rents and rates and so avoid being turned out of their houses.

I turn for one moment again to the question of these thinly-populated areas. It seems to me a curious thing, if a new house has to be built, that it is essential, and we as local authorities are forced, to build all over the country the same type of house. A man living in or on the edge of a town in a mild climate, working all day in a shop or a confined space has, necessarily, under this centralised system to have exactly the same type of house as a man working all day in the open air in a cold climate, with his house on an exposed hillside, say, in the Highlands of Scotland. Both these two types of men are forced under the system from which we now suffer to inhabit the same type of house. If a little more elasticity could be introduced into this housing legislation I believe, with some certainty, that local authorities in the thinly-populated areas could house their people better, far more suitably, and at far less expense by following the course which experience has taught them to be the wise one. As it is, that alternative is not open to them, and they are compelled to do what they are told, thereby, as they see it, wasting public and private money and acting in a manner which they believe to be unwise and against their better judgment. I have no desire to embarrass the Government in the passing of this Bill, but I have put four points before them which I trust the noble Lord who has moved the Second Reading may find it possible to answer.

LORD KINNAIRD

My Lords, I also should like to add my congratulations to the Secretary of State for Scotland—and to the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, who moved the Second Reading—I was going to say for the rapidity with which he has introduced it so soon after coming into office, but as I agree with all Lord Leven said on the subject of rushing important measures through your Lordships' House, I shall say nothing about the rapidity with which this important measure has been produced. I feel it will need a united effort on the part of everybody who is interested in this housing problem if we are going to improve the position in Scotland. We are all one in our desire to do so. When one studies the debate which they had in another place, and when one studies the history of the housing question, one is driven to the conclusion that time has defeated every effort to make progress. The noble Marquess, Lord Dufferin, told us last Thursday that time was the essence of modern politics. That remark is very true with regard to the housing problem. The older one gets the more one realises how short time is. A family begins with a newly-married couple, who have children, and in the short space of twenty-one years you have another family. The increase of the population thus beats the increase in housing all the time. The Secretary of State for Scotland, as the noble Lord reminded us, has said that there are 250,000 houses to be built in Scotland. That is roughly one-fifth of the whole housing of Scotland. Miss Florence Horsbrugh, one of the members for Dundee, said that in Dundee they reckon it will take thirty years to tackle this problem. Her estimate, she said, taking the most hopeful view, was that it would take twenty-five or thirty years. If that is all we can do, time is going to beat us all the way. We must make a greater effort to get ahead in this race against time if we are going to improve our housing conditions. So one is driven to ask oneself: Is there anything left out of this Bill which could help in the solution of this problem?

I would like to submit that State grants should be given to assist the reconditioning of working-class property by local authorities and by private individuals. I think the noble Lord, Lord Addison, mentioned reconditioning, and I understood him to suggest that power should be given in this Bill to the local authorities to buy suitable properties for the purpose of reconditioning them. I do not know that he would exclude the giving of power to private individuals also to recondition, because all have to take their share if progress is to be made, and I can see no reason for saying that only local authorities are to have the advantage of financial assistance for reconditioning. Surely, every private individual should have the same advantage. The Secretary of State for Scotland said in another place that he had not by any means closed his mind to the idea that at a more opportune time this should be done, and the Under-Secretary, in reply to the debate, said that a strong case had been made in its favour. I hope, if we urge the matter from this House, that steps will yet be taken to include in the Bill such assistance for private owners.

Some of your Lordships may say that it is better to scrap the old houses and build new ones. Certainly, where it is better to scrap them let us scrap the old houses, but there are in the country an enormous number of houses that are not going to be scrapped, houses that are good and will be good for twenty or thirty years to come. Are the people who live in these houses not to be given the advantage of modern improvements? Are they to see their neighbours who are being turned out of condemned houses and put into new houses having all the benefits of modern improvements, while they, in these old houses, remain at a disadvantage as compared with their neighbours? Is it fair to the occupants of those houses, and is it fair to their owners? You are bound to create a lot of ill-will when you have all the occupants of these old houses saying to their owners: "Why can't you do anything for me; am I not to have any modern improvements?" I cannot think that we should allow the position to arise in which these old and good houses are to be left without the aid of the State grant.

What are the difficulties of reconditioning that are suggested? Two main difficulties are mentioned. The first one is a shortage of labour. The argument used is that for reconditioning you require a greater number of skilled men than you do for building new houses, and, therefore, if reconditioning is undertaken on anything like a large scale, to that extent the building of new houses will be deprived of the labour that is used on the reconditioning. That is apparently so, but I doubt if it is altogether true in practice. Most of the labour that will be used in reconditioning is plumbing. I think it will be admitted that the conditions which people want to improve are those concerning water, water-closets, bathrooms and so on. Such work, of course, means plumbing. Your Lordships know what a lot of work there is to be done before a plumber is called in, when you start building houses. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, mentioned that there was a great shortage of bricklayers, but the bricklayers have to do their job, the masons have to do their job, and all the other trades have to do their jobs to bring the property into an advanced stage towards completion before the plumber has to be called in. I cannot but think that while these other operations are taking place the plumber can often be available for carrying out the improvements required in the privately-owned houses that require reconditioning.

I think it is true to say that if you allow reconditioning and new building to go on, the two can be worked together simultaneously in a perfectly smooth way, and without any clashing as regards labour. Your Lordships will remember that before a private owner can get a grant for reconditioning he has to get the consent and the approval of the local authority. That will give the local authority the opportunity of talking this matter over with the private owner so that they may be able to arrange together to prevent the work of one clashing with that of the other. I do not think there is any real difficulty in regard to one kind of work taking away labour from the other.

The second difficulty that is mentioned is this. In town and urban properties if you want to put a bathroom in a house you cannot build the bathroom on to the existing house as you do in rural districts. The result is that, in the case for instance of a tenement house, in order to provide a bathroom you will very often have to take a dwelling room and convert it into a bathroom. Obviously if this is done on a large scale the number of dwelling rooms will be reduced. One must admit that that would be the case in certain tenement houses, but it does not apply to a very large number of houses, and we know that there are a great many houses that could be improved by reconditioning without reducing the accommodation in those houses as a consequence of the reconditioning. If, as I have said, we are going to make progress we have to take advantage of every opportunity that arises. I feel that the point that I made about the hardship that would be entailed on the occupiers and the owners of these houses that are waiting to be reconditioned is greater than any difficulty that will arise from the causes I have mentioned. Therefore I would urge the Government to consider adding a clause to this Bill that will give grants to private owners as well as to local authorities for reconditioning. I feel that the National Government should not take the responsibility of doing anything that will delay in the slightest degree this improvement which we are all seeking.

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, like the other noble Lords who have just spoken, I would commence by saying that I am very anxious not to do anything that will stand in the way of the Government passing this measure into law, but there are one or two points on which other noble Lords have touched on which I would add something. First of all there is the question of cost. Not very long ago—about four years ago—in the part of the country in which I live, a four-roomed cottage could be built for about £400. Since then grants have been increased and building costs have increased, and now I do not think a four-roomed cottage can be built for less than £600. To-day we have another Bill before us to increase the grants to meet these increased costs. As far as I can find out, the men who build the houses are not getting any more. The houses that are being put up by local authorities and by private individuals are being built as cheaply as they can be built. I think that the increase is the result of the increased cost of materials, and that the money is going into the pockets of those people who make the materials and those who draw dividends from the manufacture of those materials. What I am wondering is whether the Government are quite sure that these additional grants will not be followed by a new increase in building costs, because if they are going to enter upon a contest in which the other side draws a profit from every effort they make, they will be in a very difficult position. I think that, perhaps, an attack should be made on the supply side.

My noble friend Lord Strathcona indicated that most of the county councils in Scotland were in favour of this Bill. I do not think that the county council which govern my area are hostile to this measure at all, but I think they share the fear, so ably expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Addison, that in 1942 the cost to them will increase. I have had a letter from the Clerk to the County Council suggesting that in Clause 5 they would like the proviso to subsection (3) altered. I think that is the point, but unfortunately the time has been very short and they have not sent me their brief, so I do not exactly know the point to which they refer. But I imagine it to be that point.

Now I would like to refer to what the noble Earl, Lord Leven, said about the question of time. If your Lordships will recall the facts in regard to the Fire Brigades Bill, which was considered in this House last summer, you will find exactly the same facts here. A few people were consulted; they were in touch with the Department and were told that the matter was in confidence. On that occasion the noble Lord told me that while the matter was in confidence, those people were not precluded from consulting their constituent associations and the county councils, and that the representatives of the Convention of Burghs had in fact done so. To that, if he should make a similar defence to-day, I have to say that when any person or body of persons tells you anything and says it is in confidence, nobody can possibly blame you if you do not divulge that confidential matter to a soul. The word "confidence" has only one meaning, and that is that it is not to be communicated. Probably there is only a misunderstanding—but it is a misunderstanding that has arisen more than once—and what I think we want is a definition. If I am told something in confidence and I tell my wife, I am taking a very grave responsibility, and I believe in point of fact that in doing so I am doing something which I ought not to do. That point does require clearing up and it should be settled once for all, because it is quite evident that what occurred over the Fire Brigades Bill is occurring again, and it may go on and on.

I would like now to make a gentle attack on the Party for which the noble Lord, Lord Addison, spoke, very much in the sense of what my noble friend Lord Kinnaird has just said. This matter of housing, we all agree, is an essential one and it is one in which we want to get the best progress in the shortest possible space of time. All over Scotland there are landed proprietors who would very willingly do everything they can to improve housing conditions on the land they own and which they are unable to sell, if they are only given a chance. The situation is so serious that in many parts of the country at the present time—

LORD ADDISON

May I interrupt the noble Lord for a moment? I understood that they had that power now. Landowners have in England. I admit that I am not very conversant with Scottish law, but I thought that that power was open to them now, that they could receive grants in aid of reconditioning.

LORD SALTOUN

If the noble Lord will allow me to make my point, I was going to say that one of the great difficulties is that the run on the building trade is so great now that if a slate comes off your house you can only get it repaired as a matter of favour. The difficulty of effecting repairs in some country districts is so great that only repairs which are absolutely essential are being done. Consequently the houses that do exist are falling into disrepair and going down much more quickly than they would otherwise. I think that with the increased cost of building, as my noble friend Lord Kinnaird said, bigger grants and more encouragement are essential. The objection I have heard made in another place by members of the noble Lord's party is that that would be helping to improve property for a landed proprietor. If anybody builds a house under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, passed last summer, he can get a grant of as much, I think, as £200 on a house which probably cost him £600. Therefore he has to find £400 out of his own pocket. There must be very few landed proprietors whose credit is good enough to enable them to borrow money at less than 4 per cent. You therefore have an expenditure upon interest alone of £16, without taking any account of the cost of repairs. The Agricultural Wages Board fix the rent of these houses at £8. That is all that a farmer is allowed to charge in his wage bill for such houses. I know very well that a great many farm servants feel that they are unable to afford that £8 and that it is a high price to pay for a house.

Therefore, whatever grant a private individual gets from the State to enable him to build houses, he is not improving his property in any way that will enable him to draw a larger income from it, because he can only get the value placed on the house by the Agricultural Wages Board. I do not know what rents are in other parts of the country, but in my district the figure is £8. I would feel that a great step forwards had been made if we could get members of the Party at present in Opposition to help us and to withdraw that kind of objection to the improvement of a proprietor's property. If we could get that objection out of their minds, I am sure that we could all work together. We all want the same thing. That is all I have to say on this measure, but I should much like to hear what the noble Lord has to say in reply.

LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, I am grateful to those of your Lordships who have given this Bill a welcome, and I sympathise with those who, like myself, regret the shortage of time which we have had in which to consider this matter; but perhaps I may say a word about that later on. I will deal as faithfully as I can with those criticisms which have been made, and I must begin with those of the noble Lord, Lord Addison. He was not hopeful that the Bill would really help housing progress, and of course that is an issue which must always be to a certain extent in doubt. The provisions now embodied in this Bill have, however, been the subject of long negotiation with local authorities, who have on the whole welcomed the proposals which it contains. Taking the country as a whole, the new subsidy will on the average be greater than the subsidies which would have been payable under the existing Acts of 1930 and 1935. Judging from the reception which the Bill has enjoyed from the local authorities, there is every reason to hope that it will lead to increased housing activity, which, of course, is our main object. The noble Lord referred in passing to the case of New Galloway, and stated the fact, which he had looked up, that a penny rate would only produce £11 and that therefore new rates contributions would impose a heavy burden. But he may be comforted when I inform him that, according to the latest information, this is a burgh in which at the moment no additional houses are required. Of course, we all realise the difficulty of devising a proportionate and proper scale between the central and the local contributions.

With regard to local contributions after 1942, I would point out that the Bill has already been amended on Report in another place to give effect to the assurance for which the noble Lord asked. Clause 5 (3), as now amended, provides in effect that contributions will not be increased automatically, as they might have been under the Bill as originally introduced, but only as a result of further legislation. That is, I am afraid, the only assurance that I am in a position to give the noble Lord on this subject. Then the noble Lord, like many others who have spoken to-day, went on to deal with the question of reconditioning. The noble Lord, Lord Kinnaird, went into it in great detail, and he will not, I hope, expect me at this stage to follow him through all that detail. I am, however, well aware that this question of reconditioning has been mooted outside your Lordships' House as well as inside, and it is so important that I want to give, if I may, a carefully-worded and detailed answer to his point.

The question of making financial assistance available for purposes of reconditioning existing working-class houses was discussed during the Second Reading debate on this Bill in another place. At that time the Secretary of State made a statement defining the Government's attitude. He indicated that he was aware of the feeling which existed both in Parliament and in Scotland in favour of legislation providing for State grants to assist the reconditioning of working-class property. He welcomed the representations which had been made on this subject, as indicating the general resolve that Scottish housing conditions should be improved with the greatest possible speed. He did not seek to minimise the case for reconditioning, but he regretted that he could not at present make any promise to introduce legislation on the subject. The Government have submitted in the present Bill generous proposals for assisting new contributions by local authorities and by the Special Housing Association both, as I explained to your Lordships, by normal and by alternative methods.

Last Session legislation relating to rural housing was passed which is no less generous in its terms, and the Government believe that the result will be the putting into effect at an early date of programmes of new construction which will fully tax the available resources of the building industry. They believe that in present circumstances the best that they can do for the improvement of Scottish housing is to push ahead with these programmes as rapidly as they possibly can. Having said that, however, my right honourable friend gave the assurance that he did not by any means close his mind to the idea of reconditioning at a more opportune time.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Alness, while giving a general support to the Bill, pointed out to your Lordships that it was extremely complicated and succeeded a great many other Housing Acts, and asked for a Consolidating Act. He, of course, will be as well aware as your Lordships are that I am not in a position to give your Lordships any pledge on that matter. I assure him, however, that I share his distaste for these continual and complicated measures, and I will pass on to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland his suggestion that, now or in the near future, advantage might be taken of any occasion that may arise to produce a Consolidating Act.

The noble Earl, Lord Leven, raised a number of points, most of which he had been good enough to indicate to me privately in the short time that was available before this Bill reached your Lordships' House. There again, however, I am not in a position to go into any detail in answering all his points, and I hope that he will be content with the short answers that I will endeavour to give him. His first and most important point was, I think, his plea for a definite assurance that if any local authority should find in September, 1942, that the grants that they had received under this Bill were less in total than those which they would have got under existing arrangements, they would have the difference refunded to them. Much as I should like to do so, I am sure the noble Lord is aware that it is not possible for me to give him any such assurance. It is, and I think always has been, an essential feature of legislation on housing subsidies that each subsidy period should stand by itself. In a matter of this kind it is necessary to make arrangements that suit the conditions in the country as a whole, and, as I have already stated, the proposals in the present Bill have been welcomed by local authorities generally.

It is not anticipated that, taking local authorities' operations over the whole country, any local authority will find itself in a worse position under this Bill for the whole of the subsidy period than under the present arrangements. Only two cases have come to my notice, and I do not propose to deal with them in detail this afternoon. One is the case of the noble Earl's own County of Nairn, but according to the estimates made by the Secretary of State there is a strong probability, at any rate, that in both the cases of these local authorities they will gain eventually during the next subsidy period, taking their operations as a whole, and the case of the County of Nairn in particular, and allowing for the operation of the Agricultural Population Act.

Then the noble Earl dealt with the question of reconditioning, to which I have already given your Lordships my answer. On the question of rents the statutory position is that in fixing the rents of their houses the local authorities must take into consideration the rents of working-class houses in the locality, and they have power to give any tenant whose financial circumstances so warrant a rebate from the rent to enable him to occupy the accommodation which he requires. I understand that by the Act of 1935 the housing finances of local authorities were consolidated to facilitate the fixing of standard rents on the basis mentioned, and the granting of rebates from rent where these are necessary.

The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, raised a question of whether we should not find that as the cost of building materials went up the effect of these subsidies would merely be to place money in the wrong hands. I cannot give him any assurance on that point, but he will realise, as I do, that it is the job of the Department and of the local authorities concerned to see that that does not occur. I must ask him to place sufficient confidence in the Department to see that a result so undesirable and absurd as that does not take place.

LORD SALTOUN

I beg the noble Lord's pardon for interrupting him, but I must have put my point badly. My point was that subsidies were followed by an increase in costs, and that as subsidies were increased so costs increased, and was there any possible connection between the two?

LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL

I am sorry I misunderstood the noble Lord's point, but he must, I think, for the time being, take my assurance that it is the opinion of the Department of Health that that will not be the case. Then he went on to complain, as also did Lord Leven in particular, about the rushing of this Bill. I understand that this Bill has been the subject of discussion for over a year or more with the local authorities concerned, and it is, I believe, a fact that no definite agreement was come to until October. Your Lordships will be aware, having been already told I think, that the Secretary of State gave a pledge that if it were possible legislation would be enacted whereby the subsidies could be payable from January 1 1939. That is why we have had to ask your Lordships to give this Bill your consideration at such short notice.

As far as local authorities are concerned, Lord Saltoun raised a question which came up on a previous Bill, as to whether papers coming down from above to local authorities and others, marked "Confidential," can be discussed among themselves. I have not had time to take advice, legal or otherwise, on this point, but I understand that on a previous Bill it was a recognised fact that papers so marked were useful for discussion and consultation among the interest concerned. Of course in that case I think I am right in saying that the word "Confidential" means "Not for the Press." I think the noble Lord is confusing two aspects of the marking of official correspondence—namely, that which is "Confidential" and that which is "Secret," and I believe I am right in saying that the practice is that documents emanating from a Department, when so marked, dealing with a subject like this Bill, can be discussed among the particular interest concerned. Otherwise there would be no means by which the Department concerned could get the advice which they so badly need.

A great number of points have been raised by your Lordships with which I am aware I have not dealt as fully as I should like this afternoon, but we are to have a Committee stage next Thursday, as your Lordships were told by the Acting Leader of the House, Lord Zetland, last week, and if I have failed to give adequate replies on any point raised this afternoon I will do my best to deal with them individually then. I have also been asked to inform your Lordships that in view of that possibility it is suggested that the House should meet at three o'clock that day. I hope that, short though the time is, we shall then have the opportunity of getting down to discussing any points which I have left over this afternoon. With that understanding I hope your Lordships will be prepared now to give this Bill a Second Reading.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH

My Lords, I am sure we must be very grateful to the noble Lord for the detailed manner in which he has replied to the points raised by your Lordships and gone through the various objections which noble Lords have made. At this stage of the debate I do not intend to raise new points. I would, however, like to reecho one thing that fell from my noble friend Lord Leven and Melville, when he suggested that what was wanted in this matter of housing was a greater degree of elasticity. I am bound to say that, having listened to this debate and to the noble Lord's reply, I am afraid my anticipations of the results of this Bill coincide rather with those of the noble Lord opposite, Lord Addison, than with those of the noble and learned Lord on this side, Lord Alness. We have been told that the subsidies have been fixed after long negotiations with the local authorities, and they are satisfied. I have no knowledge whatever of the negotiations between the Department and the local authorities, but I am bound to say that I do not think that the subsidies are going to prove large enough to enable houses to be let at sufficiently low rents, and particularly in the rural areas.

I think really in this matter of housing the best is the enemy of the good. I think too high standards are insisted upon, and in particular in the matter of water supply. We all know what happened. The great English Housing Act of 1930 led the way. That is when the Battle of the Baths was fought and won, and it was a battle which had to be won in the interests of housing. But it is a pity to drive the baths beyond the logical conclusion. Where there is no water it is no use insisting on people having baths, and that matter is going to hold up housing in Scotland, and particularly in rural areas. I heard of something the other day which is possibly not entirely relevant to this Bill, which deals with local authorities, but it does bear on the same question, and your Lordships may permit me perhaps to refer to it. A proprietor in Scotland—I dare say it was under the Rural Housing Act—wanted a grant, and could not get it unless a bath was put into the house. The proprietor pointed out that there was no adequate water supply and therefore it was no use—in fact impossible—to put a bath in. "Not at all" was the reply, "put the bath in and you will get the grant. It does not matter whether the water runs into it, as long as there is a drain for the water to run out. That is sufficient to get the grant." The idea I believe is that this is educational, but it really is carrying the bath question beyond the point where it is sensible.

May I add a word on the subject of reconditioning? There again I think possibly the reluctance of the Treasury to allow a grant may be due to the fear that if such a grant is made in Scotland it will be used, so to speak, in evidence against them in England and in the big towns. Circumstances in Scotland are entirely different owing to the stone construction, and one of the arguments used in another place against reconditioning seems to me entirely fallacious. The first argument was the one about skilled labour, and of course if the supply of skilled labour is insufficient to do more work than is done at present, then that is goodbye to any hope of quicker progress whatever you do, be it by reconditioning, be it by greater subsidies or anything else. That is an argument with which I am not competent to deal.

The other argument was that reconditioning was not valuable because it decreased the supply of houses, that you might for instance have to throw three houses into two, and therefore, that reconditioning reduced the supply of houses. That seems to me to overlook the fact that suitable grants for reconditioning, far from diminishing the supply of housing, would greatly increase it, because it would preserve houses which otherwise are being condemned. That fact, combined with the fact that houses in Scotland are built of stone, does differentiate reconditioning in Scotland from reconditioning elsewhere, and I hope that we have not heard the last on the question of reconditioning because, with the particular circumstances in Scotland, there is real scope for it. I cannot pretend that I am optimistic about a quick solution of the housing problem in Scotland. I think it is unfortunate that the Treasury has not been a little bit more generous, because I do not think it is going to be possible for the local authorities to build and let at suitable rents the large number of houses which we should like to see.

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, has said that, I would like to add that my speech this afternoon was with reference to the general question; but the Government's present insistence on the conditions with respect to water supply have absolutely killed rural housing in the part of the world to which I belong. I have given that up as hopeless.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at three minutes before six o'clock.

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