HC Deb 09 July 1924 vol 175 cc2253-4
77. Mr. MASTERMAN

asked the Minister of Health if he will issue a memorandum before the Committee stage of the Housing Bill stating which of the recommendations he intends to put into force which were proposed by the Building Committee and the Building Materials Committee, in Cmd. 2104?

Mr. WHEATLEY

I think that I have already dealt adequately with this matter in the full statements made to the House on the Financial Resolution and Second Reading of the Housing Bill.

Mr. MASTERMAN

In view of the fact that this Report contains perhaps 15 different recommendations, one of which he has stated he himself intends to repudiate and most of which he has not commented on at all, should he not in justice submit to the House what policy he proposes to adopt?

Mr. WHEATLEY

I have submitted to the House the advice I got from the building industry. I submitted the portions of that advice to which the Government intend to give effect. The remaining part of the Report was the fact that they were prepared to give us a certain number of houses in return for our obligation to accept them.

Mr. MASTERMAN

Is it not a fact that the conditions under which those houses should be given were embodied in a series of recommendations and we do not know to this day, and apparently we shall not know when we go into Committee, whether those conditions have been accepted by the Government or not?

Mr. WHEATLEY

The right hon. Gentleman can judge of what has been accepted by the Government by reading the terms of the Bill.

Sir K. WOOD

Are we to understand that all the recommendations in the Report except those contained in the Bill have been rejected by the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. WHEATLEY

The right hon. Gentleman must use his own discretion.

Mr. MASTERMAN

Will the right hon. Gentleman accept Amendments proposed in the House that those recommendations shall be included in the Bill unless he has any particular objection to any one of them?

Mr. WHEATLEY

I shall have to consider any Amendment that is submitted.

Mr. E. BROWN

Does the right hon. Gentleman propose in carrying out those recommendations to carry out one of the most vital ones, namely, to have a new national survey, as recommended in the Report? It is not mentioned in the Bill.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I do not intend to carry out under the auspices of the Bill anything that is not contained in the Bill.