§ Mr. E. G. PRETYMANmoved for leave to bring in a Bill" to enable local authorities and private individuals to co-operate in the provision of dwellings suitable for occupation by aged persons where no suitable houses are available."
I ask indulgence of the House for a very few minutes on a very different subject from the last. May I preface my observations by saying that I bring in the Bill on my own responsibility, and that it is in no sense on behalf of the Opposition. The Bill is one to enable local authorities and private individuals to cooperate, particularly in rural districts, to provide dwellings for aged persons who are unable otherwise to obtain them. It is, I think, generally recognised that the housing question in rural districts is one of special difficulty, and that it is so from the very obvious reason that the cost of providing houses is greater in most cases than the agricultural labourer who lives in rural parishes can afford to recoup by the payment of rent. The thing comes with particular hardness upon the aged poor, because a large proportion of the houses which exist in rural parishes are houses which are provided by the owners of the land in order to provide for the working of the farms which form part of their property. These houses are occupied by able-bodied labourers, and when the labourers, who have worked for many years upon the same farm and who are in the closest personal touch both with the owner of the land and the occupier of the land who has employed them, get old and past work, all three parties concerned find themselves in a very serious difficulty. The owner of the land cannot afford to build extra cottages for old people. In some cases it is done with excellent results. But there are many cases where it cannot be done. The occupier of the land cannot work his farm unless he has the cottages, and, on the other hand, it is an extreme hardship on all the parties concerned that the old people should be obliged to end their days away from the people and the parish where they have spent the whole of their lives. This problem has come under my personal notice for many years, and I have in this Bill suggested a method 404 whereby in many cases it may be practically solved.
What I propose is to make every parish responsible for its own aged poor. I wish for a moment to emphasise that, because the present authority for dealing with housing is a local authority which covers the larger area, and the whole point which affects the lives of these old people is that they should not be removed from the parishes to which they belong.
The present powers which exist for providing houses are two in number. The guardians have the power to provide cottage homes, but these are only for paupers; and, therefore, not applicable to these cases, because the people intended to be provided for in this case are not paupers, and far less than before since the passage of the Old Age Pensions Act. This Act greatly facilitates this particular measure. It is in some sense a supplement to the Old Age Pensions Act. The second method, by which houses can be provided, is by the local authorities constructing houses and charging an economic rent for them. Neither method is suitable or available for these aged people, because they cannot pay the full economic rent of a house constructed on that principle, nor would the houses be regarded as houses for the working classes, because these people are past work. The way in which I think this difficulty can be met, and the way suggested in this Bill, is that any parish council, or urban or borough council for the matter of that, may constitute itself—it is an optional measure— a cottage homes authority. Having constituted itself a cottages homes authority, it will have power to erect, out of money borrowed on the rates, small houses, which in no case are to cost more than £120 each —for which, I believe, a good two-roomed house can be erected—and they will be entitled to charge a rental for those houses not exceeding 2s. per week, and not less than 1s. a week. That rent will practically cover the cost of the borrowed money, and leave only trivial expenses to fall upon the rates. With regard to the site, the authorities are not entitled under this Bill to purchase sites, nor to spend money upon sites. I consider that in practice either the owner of the land, the joint owners of the land, the owners of land adjoining, or the occupiers, or all together would be capable, either individually or collectively—and would be glad to do so—of providing, free of cost, the necessary site in any 405 parish where it was required. In that way you would have co-operation between the owners and occupiers of the land, and the local authorities in providing what would amount to a small farmhouse, so that when the old people can no longer satisfactorily remain in the houses required by the able-bodied people who are working the land, they will be able to remove into this smaller house, and to remain in their parishes. There are other minor provisions, but I will not trouble the House by going into them, because it is provided that the Bill should be printed, and we have other important business before us. I believe this is a practical proposal. It is a proposal which has been ventilated in Lincolnshire, Suffolk, and Essex amongst all the classes concerned, both owners and occupiers of land, the tenant farmers and the labourers, and I have not hitherto found one individual of any class who, having had the principle of the Bill laid before him, has not strongly approved of it. They think it to the interest of all parties that this Bill should become an Act, so that each parish should have the power to provide for its own aged poor, especially those to whom pensions have been granted. I bring in this Bill believing it will enable many people of a most deserving class, who are now in their old age, to live amongst those with whom they have spent their lives, and to finish their lives in greater happiness and under greater conditions of comfort and better supervision in every respect.
Leave given; Bill presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time 19th July.