§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ COLONEL LEGGE (St. George's,) Hanover Squaresaid that he intended not to oppose this Bill but merely to offer a few remarks and to ask for a little information upon it before it went to its Second Reading. The London County Council, t was true, were extremely badly housed it present as regards the buildings in which they carry on the business of the Council and which they had acquired for he use of the staff. When he was a member of the County Council he supported a scheme for the acquisition of a site in Spring Gardens, and since then other sites had been brought forward, the Parliament Street site, the Adelphisite and the site which they proposed to acquire under this Bill. The resent site had much to recommend it, but he was exceedingly doubtful whether his was an opportune time to incur the expenditure in view of the present and future commitments of the County Council. He agreed that they should have buildings worthy of the work they had to carry on, and certainly should have better municipal buildings than they had in Spring Gardens. This Bill asked for a sum of £655,000, for, he understood, the site on which it was proposed to erect a building or the conduct of the business of the bounty Council and the necessary embankment. That sum did not include the cost of the buildings, which, he understood, would be something like £1,500,000 more. The County Council debt in 1889 was £17,500,000, in 1899 it was £21,500,000, and in 1905, when the County Council lad assumed the control of education in London, it was £33,000,000. He did not desire to oppose the Bill, but he should like to obtain from the hon. Member in charge of it some assurance that this enormous expenditure would in some way or another eventually bring about a saving in the expense to which the Council was at present put in respect of buildings, and that the Council were acting, in the words of Lord Welby, the chairman of its Finance Committee, "prudently, soundly, and in a businesslike way."
§ SIR EDWIN CORNWALL (Bethnal Green N.E.)said that this was a Bill to enable the London County Council to acquire under the Land Clauses Consolidation Act certain lands upon which it was desired to erect buildings suitable for the work which the London County Council had to carry on. Under the powers given to the London County Council under the Local Government Act of 1888, they had already arranged to purchase two-thirds of the property upon which it was proposed to erect these buildings, and it was only when they came to the House for powers to acquire the other one-third that his hon. friend desired to know whether they had considered if this was an opportune time for the work to be taken in hand. The hon. Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, based his question on what he described as the debt of the Council in 1889 and the debt of the Council at the present time. His hon. friend had rather misled the House; he should, when stating the debt of the Council in 1889 and the increase at the present time, have taken into consideration the debt of the old School Board in 1889. He would then have found that the total increase in the debt of the London County Council during the last ten years had not exceeded £800,000, which included the cost of the great street from Holborn to the Strand, and also the improvements in Westminster, both of which were expected to work out in the future at a profit, so that there would be no charge upon the rates. There was another debt of £3,500,000 upon the tramways, but that also was a remunerative expenditure. Therefore if the hon. Member had looked carefully into this matter he would have seen that there was no ground for alarm. He did not hold that either Parliament or any other public body should be careless of its debt, and he ventured to draw the attention of the House to the debt of London in March as compared with that of other municipalities in relation to the rateable value. London's total debt in March was 155 per cent. on the rateable value; Liverpool, 300.00; Manchester, 595.3; Birmingham, 546.05 Leeds, 577.90; Sheffield, 519.76; Bradford, 490.02; Salford, 361.04; Cardiff, 328.67; Preston, 498.81; Huddersfield, 730.23. A good deal had been said about the rates in London, but, 1191 apart from education, the total increase in the County Council rates in the last ten years, after allowing for the falling off of the Exchequer contribution in net relief of rates, did not exceed 2d. in the pound, so that when there was an outcry about the enormous increase of rates, it would be worth while to look to some other cause of the increase than the Council. The Bill was not one to enable the Council to erect buildings; that power was already given by Parliament. It only authorised the purchase of a site. The cost of the site which had been selected would be about £600,000, and the probable cost of the buildings would be £1,056,000. It was necessary in the public interest that the County Council should not continue to carry on its enormous responsibilities and duties in the present unsuitable premises. It was essential in the public interests that the County Council should provide itself with a proper office to carry out its business. Parliament had devolved upon it tremendous responsibilities involving in maintenance alone £10,000,000 a year. No talk of extravagance or economy would materially alter that figure and make it less or more, and, if they went into the question of the grants which had to be made to various local authorities, the annual amount arose to some £15,000,000 or £16,000,000. He reminded the House not only of the deplorable conditions under which the County Council staff had to work, but of the fact that great public inconvenience arose from the existing state of things. The staff of the Council at the central offices numbered approximately 1,950, of whom 525 were located in the main building, and 1,425 in twenty-five separate buildings at various distances away from the main building, the education offices being as far as 1,530 yards away. There were twenty departments, and some of them were housed in several separate buildings. The architects' department occupied seven buildings, while parts of three more buildings were used to house the architect (education). The Department of the Clerk of the Council was housed in five buildings, the comptroller in four and the engineers in four. For all these scattered premises rent or the equivalent of rent was being paid to the amount of £38,765 per annum, and that sum was an increasing item. During the 1192 life of the Metropolitan Board of Works they had been considering sites and ever since. During the last ten years they had considered sites varying in cost from £2,000,000 for two acres down to the cost of the present site of £600,000 for five acres. He thought, indeed, that his hon. friend, instead of asking for further information, ought to have congratulated them on having found so good and cheap a property. For his part he did not know, if they did not secure this, where they were to go and get a site at anywhere near this price. The present site was the best and cheapest which the Council had had before it. It would occupy about 800 feet, facing the river, and would be about two-thirds of the length of St. Thomas's Hospital. It would be a great improvement to that part of London and would be of great public utility. Under the present conditions it was not only the enormous and increasing staff that suffered, but the public itself.
§ SIR EDWARD CLARKE (City of London)said he desired that the London County Council, which was discharging an enormous public work, should be fitly and economically housed. He quite recognised that the conditions under which it did its work at present were not consistent with economy, and certainly had not the dignity which ought to belong to such a body. The site now chosen appeared to him to be one which would not only give adequate room for the establishment of the Council, but would also be as economical as possible. At present over £30,000 a year was spent by the County Council in rental, and after spending that sum it was housed in a haphazard and inconvenient fashion, the departments being scattered about in different places and working under onerous and difficult conditions. The figure represented something more than interest on the sum it was proposed to the spend upon the building and site. He was not sure, however, that the ultimate expenditure would be within the limits at present indicated by the figures which had been given; but, at all events, it was desirable that in a great place like London—something between a city and a province—with its variety of interests and enormous responsibilities, a great public body discharging public functions should be properly housed. He cordially 1193 accepted and supported the Bill before the House.
Second Reading agreed to.