HC Deb 09 July 1924 vol 175 cc2251-3
67. Mr. SIMON

asked the Minister of Health whether the treaty he has made with the building trade as to the augmentation of labour is embodied in any other documents beyond the Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill; if not, whether the building trade and the several trade unions concerned have explicitly accepted the Bill as constituting a guarantee in return for which they are prepared to undertake that there shall be one apprentice to three craftsmen in the various branches of the trade; if so, what period is covered by this undertaking; and will he submit to the House copies of any documents signed on behalf of the building trade or the trade unions in this matter?

Mr. WHEATLEY

The Report of the National House Building Committee has already been submitted to the House, and there are no further documents signed on behalf of the building industry dealing with the matter referred to.

Mr. SIMON

What guarantee is there, in that case, when this treaty is embodied only in the Housing Bill, and if the Housing Bill has not been explicitly accepted by the trade unions, that, if we pass that Bill, it may not be repudiated by one or more trade unions who may refuse to give the extra apprentices and labour which form part of the bargain they have agreed to fulfil?

Mr. WHEATLEY

The only guarantee that one body of honourable men gives to another.

Sir K. WOOD

Would the right hon. Gentleman kindly reply to the second part of the question, as to whether the building trade and the several trade unions concerned have explicitly accepted the Bill as a guarantee?

Mr. SIMON

Is it not the case that honourable bodies of men can only be bound by something to which they have agreed? Have they agreed?

Mr. WHEATLEY

They have agreed to deliver so many houses per annum for a given number of years on condition that the State and the local authorities order them. They have given that guarantee in the Building Trade Report. No other guarantee is of very much importance.

Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN

Would the right hon. Gentleman say what was the written guarantee to which he referred, and which he stated he had given to the building industry, in his speech on the Second Reading of the Housing Bill?

Mr. WHEATLEY

The only guarantee, whatever I may have said—I am not sure as to the phraseology; I think I used the term "written guarantee," but I meant "printed guarantee"—is contained in the Report of the Building Trade Committee to which I referred in making my speech.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Does not the right hon. Gentleman remember that he spoke of a guarantee given by him to the building industry?

Mr. WHEATLEY

The Building Committee's Report contains the guarantee given by the building industry to me. The Housing Bill contains the guarantee given by me to the building industry.

Mr CHAMBERLAIN

Are we to take it that the written guarantee to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was the Housing Bill?

Mr. WHEATLEY

I was thinking of both sides of the agreement.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE

Is it not a fact that the building trade employés are to-day on strike—[HON. MEMBERS: "Lock-out?"]—strike, not lock-out—and is the guarantee one of the conditions the bricklayers made when they accepted that statement?