CLAUSE 3.—(Special conditions.)

HC Deb 17 July 1924 vol 176 cc615-748

Mr. PRINGLE

I beg to move, in page 3, line 34, to leave out from the word "undertake" to the word "that" in line 35.

The effect of the Amendment would be that the special conditions which are laid down in this Clause would be accepted by the local authority, and the intervention of the Minister would not be required for the purpose of laying down the method by which the undertaking should be given. There is a further Amendment on the Paper to leave out the same words and to insert instead thereof the words in accordance with rules made by the Minister and approved by the Treasury. That Amendment is in the name of the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. S. Roberts). The object of my Amendment is to diminish central control. So far as I understand the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member opposite, its object is rather to increase central control. The reason I suggest that the Committee should omit these words, first of all, is that the conditions as laid down in the Clause are perfectly clear, and it is altogether unnecessary for the Minister to intervene in the matter at all. What the local authorities are required to do in the terms of the Statute is so clearly laid down that the intervention of the Minister seems to me to be quite gratuitous. Furthermore, if hon. Members will look at the conditions, it will be observed that there is provision in at least three of the conditions for the intervention of the Minister himself. First of all, in paragraph (c), which deals with restrictions upon sale, there is a provision for the consent of the Minister, which may be absolute or subject to such special considerations as the Minister may think proper. Then, in paragraph (d), there is, in relation to the Fair Wages Clause, a reference to a form prescribed by the Minister; and, to take paragraph (e), there is a phrase, At the appropriate normal rents which is interpreted in Sub-section (3), and in Sub-section (3), again, there is a reference to rules prescribed by the Minister. It seems to me, therefore, that if you take the four special conditions with the Sub-section, interpreting the third one, the Minister has sufficient control without these words at all, and it is because I regard the intervention of the Minister, under these circumstances, as unnecessary, that I move the Amendment.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Wheatley)

I am sure that the hon. Member will agree with me that in dealing with large sums of money it is very important that we should observe the rules of careful consideration, and I can contemplate the speech which he would have delivered had the Clause not contained the words which we propose.

Mr. PRINGLE

I will now have to make another speech.

Mr. WHEATLEY

The object of the control by the Minister is not to enhance the status of that personality, but to obtain something in the nature of uniformity in administration. Here we have stated that we want to know what is the undertaking, and we want something in the, nature of uniformity. The local authority will want to know the nature of the undertaking which the Minister expects them to give. The control of the Minister would be unnecessary if he were not responsible for the fund, but I am afraid, so long as you are spending large sums of public money, you will require something in the nature of control. The next Amendment goes in exactly the opposite direction. It wants to establish even further control, and, although it seeks to control the Department for which I am now responsible, I think it is not altogether unreasonable, and I have no serious objection to it, because, where public money is concerned, it is perfectly reasonable that the Treasury should have the right to approve the rules that are laid down. Therefore, if the hon. Member can favour the Committee by not pressing his Amendment, I will accept the next Amendment if that will satisfy the Committee.

Mr. PRINGLE

I really want to know what the Minister contemplates. The words as they stood were in such manner as the Minister may require. I want to know what was contemplated when these words were put into the Clause. As the Clause stands, there are certain conditions perfectly clearly laid down. The local authority either accepts these conditions or it does not. If it accepts them, then the form in which it accepts them is a matter of indifference, and 1 do not see what rules the right hon. Gentleman could lay down to strengthen the matter. I prefer to have these matters in the Statute and not to leave them to departmental action. These conditions are either adequate or inadequate. If the right hon. Gentleman requires some further protection for the public purse, that protection should be contained in the Statute and should not be left to departmental action. I would therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman, now that he is going to accept the words suggested by the hon. Member for Hereford, to indicate what is the nature of the rules which he has in view. What rules does he conceive to be necessary in order, first, to lay down what the undertaking shall be, and, secondly, to hold the local authorities to their bargain? In my view, if you take the Clause as it stands without these words, you have clearly the conditions and a means on the part of the Minister of enforcing the undertaking. I should like to know in what respect either the form of the Bill or the alternative form which he now accepts is going to strengthen it.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I was not thinking so much of the rules as the form of the undertaking.

Mr. PRINGLE

What is the undertaking?

Mr. WHEATLEY

One thing which has occurred to my mind is that we shall want to have some particulars of the houses.

Mr. PRINGLE

Let us take Clause 2— Where in pursuance of proposals approved by the Minister. These proposals undoubtedly are intended to contain particulars of the houses. Before the right hon. Gentleman approves of the proposals, he must know what the houses are. Here we are dealing almost exclusively with the conditions of the tenure and the rents of the houses, and it seems to me quite unnecessary, as he has in the original proposal the detail of the houses, to put this further in the rules which he has in view.

Mr. S. ROBERTS

If I say a few words on this Amendment, it will be unnecessary for me to say anything on the Amendment which follows. I feel, from the point of view of the local authority as well as the point of view of the Minister, that they will want to know definitely what sort of agreement they will have to enter into, and they will certainly want an undertaking which goes into much more detail than the Sub-section. Therefore, it will be incumbent upon the Minister to prepare some rules which will ensure a common form of agreement which all local authorities will be able to see, and so that they will know exactly what that form of agreement will be. We have not asked the Minister to lay his rules on the Table of the House, because we say the general lines are set out in the Bill. It is a question of working out the details which the local authorities will desire to know. We have in our Amendment put in the provision that these agreements shall be supervised by the Treasury. That is why, so far as I am concerned, I shall oppose the Amendment of the hon. Member, on the understanding that the Minister will accept the Amendment in my name.

Mr. PRINGLE

As the hon. Member is responsible for this Amendment, can he suggest any provision which would be contained in the rules that he contemplates under his Amendment?

Mr. ROBERTS

I have not a sufficiently fertile brain immediately to think of one, but I am perfectly certain the local authorities will want a definite agreement.

Sir PHILIP PILDITCH

I think that what the hon. Member is really aiming at will be attained if the Minister accept the next Amendment. The objection that I have to the Bill, as it stands, is that it seems to me that it is overloaded with an immense mass of detail. Whenever a case arose either under this or another Clause in which the local authority wanted to act in a certain way then special appli- cation would have to be sent in by that local authority to the Ministry, and if there is anything likely to overburden a Housing Act it is that spirit of bureaucracy of which complaint has so often been made in connection with past Acts. I think the insertion of these words would enable the Minister to draw up a form under which the local authorities might make their applications. It would be easy to lay down a specific form for such applications and then if the application is made on that form and contains all the necessary particulars the Minister would be able to accept it out of hand without going into further details.

Mr. PRINGLE

Is there anything more required than to ask the local authority if it accepts the conditions laid down in Section 3? If not, then nothing more need be put into the form.

Amendment made: In page 3, line 34, leave out the words "such manner as the Minister may require," and insert instead thereof the words "accordance with rules made by the Minister and approved by the Treasury."—[Mr. S. Roberts.]

The CHAIRMAN

The next Amendment I propose to call is that standing in the name of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson), dealing with the purchase of materials for the construction of houses.

Mr. T. THOMSON

But what about my earlier Amendment with regard to the number of houses to be built per acre?

The CHAIRMAN

I understood the Minister to say on a previous Amendment that he would deal with that matter on Report.

Mr. BLACK

I was present yesterday, and I understood the Minister to say that he would favourably consider the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. T. Thomson) which is now on the Paper, when it was reached. We had no argument on this at all.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I said that I accepted the principle and I am going to deal with the subject in a New Clause on the Report stage.

Mr. HARCOURT JOHNSTONE

I beg to move, in page 3, line 36, at the end, to insert the words (a) that the materials required for the construction of such houses may be purchased in the cheapest market wherever situate. I am urged to move this Amendment by the fact that the Report of the Building Trade Committee, on which this Bill is largely founded, lays it down that, in the opinion of the Committee, it is extremely desirable, in the national interest, that no foreign manufactured goods should be used on houses built under a Government subsidy. There is not an hon. Member of this House who is not perfectly well aware that previous housing schemes have broken down very largely because of the rise in prices of materials required for the carrying out of the schemes. It is essential, if a scheme is to be a success, that there should be an adequate provision of cheap material, and that is impossible if the building trade of this country is to be granted a complete monopoly of the supply of building materials. I am aware that the Minister, while he has not agreed with this proposal, has not very strongly condemned it, but I should be more happy in my own mind if there were inserted in the Bill itself a provision that materials should be brought from any place where they can be purchased at the cheapest rate, provided they are suitable materials. I recollect last year making a speech on this particular subject. I Was looking at it only to-day, and I was struck with surprise at the large amount of common sense contained in the remarks which I addressed to the late Minister of Health. I cannot say that I found a very sympathetic hearing at that time, but I have great hope that the present Minister of Health may look upon my proposal with a kindlier eye. It is evident, if we are to have an adequate supply of houses, that there must be an adequate supply of cheap material.

Viscount WOLMER

And cheap labour, too.

Mr. JOHNSTONE

If the Noble Lord will inquire, he will find that cheap labour does not always go with cheap material. If hon. Members will look at the Report of the Committee on Trusts, which sat some years ago, they will find on two or three pages of that Report a definite statement that foreign competition goes a considerable distance towards warding off and preventing the evil effects of trade competition. I think that statement will be found particularly in the Minority Report. It will also be found in a Report submitted for the consideration of the Committee by Mr. John Hilton, who declared that there was ample evidence to show that foreign competition acted as a check against combinations in a trade to raise prices unduly.

That there are combinations dealing with building materials, no one will deny. Later on in the same Report will be found a long list of materials used in building, some of which are uncontrolled, some being partially controlled and some entirely controlled. Among the entirely controlled will be found earthenware pipes, sanitary earthenware and lead pipes, Portland cement and wrought iron tubes and boilers, and as a result of the control there is an absolute monopoly given to the building material manufacturers of this country in these articles which are required for building houses under this scheme. However much hon. Members opposite may be in favour of a protective tariff, I think they would be unwilling to grant a monopoly which can only have the effect of ruining the housing scheme which they have said they are anxious to assist to the best of their ability. I very much fear that with this paragraph in the Report of the Building Trade Committee on the scheme they have in their mind's eye a beautiful vision of years of monopoly for themselves in these materials. Although, as I say, I have no doubt whatever that the Minister will do whatever he can to counter that plan, I should be very much happier, and I am sure all those on this side would be, if there were some provision—not necessarily the provision I and my Friends recommend in this Amendment—made by the Minister of Health in the Bill to allow of materials coming from abroad, and not restrict them to monopolies of manufacturers.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I wish to assure the hon. Member that I am in perfect and whole-hearted sympathy with the object of this Amendment. As, however, the Amendment, as it appears on the Order Paper, will require some redrafting, 1 do not propose to accept it, but if the hon. Gentleman will withdraw it, and allow the subject to be discussed on a new Clause, which stands in the name of the right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman), I will consider this point on that new Clause, which, I think, will be more comprehensive.

Mr. JOHNSTONE

I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir BEDDOE REES

I beg to move, in page 4, line 1, after the word "thereof," to insert the words "or carry on any trade or business therein."

I think the Minister might accept this Amendment. The whole object is to prevent cottages erected under this Bill being used for ordinary trade purposes. Possibly I can explain what I want by giving an illustration. I recently had occasion to take an interest; in s. large block of houses, and, some time after the houses were built, to our amazement we found at least 50 of them were being used as small shop premises, doing considerable damage to legitimate tradesmen in the vicinity. We have heard a large amount of argument in favour of parlour houses. Surely, if parlours are erected, they should be used for domestic purposes rather than be turned into small shops. I think some words of this sort ought to be put in the Bill to prevent parlours being turned into small shop premises, to the detriment of the people living in those cottages, to the detriment, I think, of the housing scheme, and, certainly, to the detriment of the tradespeople in the vicinity.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I am sure the Committee will not expect me, after my emphatic declaration in favour of the principles of Free Trade, to veer right round and adopt Protection. I cannot accept this Amendment, because I am afraid—at any rate, I hope—that for some years to come the Ministry of Health will be wholly engaged, and will not have time to look after all the women who are selling ginger-beer and Woodbines in the houses erected by the local authorities. I hope my hon. Friend will not ask me to violate my economic conscience by accepting this Amendment.

Mr. PRINGLE

It seems to me there is a little more in the Amendment than this. This is a question as to whether you are going to allow people to carry on business in subsidised houses. I think that if people are to carry on business in competition with others, they are not entitled to carry on that business in a house rented under State subsidised conditions. It is unfair to other people. If it were not a question of State subsidy, I would agree with the Free Trade principle, but we are dealing with subsidised houses, and while the whole case for the Bill is that there are a certain number of people too poor to pay an economic rent for a decent house, there should not so any case for allowing them to carry on business in a house subsidised by the State. It is unfair to other people whose houses are not so subsidised, and I submit that the right hon. Gentleman has not considered all the implications of the Amendment.

Sir WILLIAM JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. Member has raised an important point. Consider for a moment the difficult position of one of these tenants in an agricultural cottage with a large piece of land attached, if he had to eat all the produce he grew. He could not keep ducks. He could not even keep a patient ox if he wanted to. I live in a country district where many of the cottages are partly used for trade. There are the local cobbler, the local wheelwright, and so forth, and to put a provision of this sort in a Bill of this nature—

Mr. PRINGLE

If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the Clause he will see the words except with the consent in writing of the local authority or some person authorised by them in that behalf.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

That is just what I do not want—to put people under the local authority. I am a little more in favour of freedom than hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are everlastingly trying in this and other Bills to fasten restrictions on people. If we are going to have a Bill of this kind, and spend a large amount of money in providing houses for the people at a cheap rent, do let us have as few restrictions as possible. Let the tenants live in their houses, and carry on their little businesses, and do their best to earn a decent living.

Mr. LINFIELD

There is another point of view. In many of these small towns, as well as in agricultural districts, you will find a dressmaker, usually poor, carrying on her work. Are we going to forbid that necessary work to be done? Then, shoe-making is often carried on in cottages, and if this Amendment be accepted, it will be within the power of local authorities and landlords to prevent that kind of thing being done. I sincerely hope the Committee will not agree to this Amendment.

Mr. PRINGLE

I am very sorry to intervene again, but I wish to point out that the London County Council, which is at present controlled by the party of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, lays this down as a condition in the housing estates at the present moment. I know of a casein the last few days of a window cleaner who was keeping a ladder in his house, and was prevented from doing so by the Conservative party in the London County Council.

Sir B. REES

I wanted to bring the local authority under the same Regulation as the public utility society. Whenever the Public Works Loans Board issue a loan to any public utility society, they put in the condition that the cottage shall be used for domestic purposes only. The local authority will have power to grant permission in certain cases, and I fail to see any hardship whatever.

Amendment negatived.

Sir P. PILDITCH

I beg to move, in page 4, line 3, at the end, to insert the words, provided that such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld. What my hon. Friend the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), on whose behalf I move this Amendment, proposes to do is simply to bring the relations of landlord and tenant, where the landlord is the local authority, and the tenant is a tenant under this Bin, on the same lines as an ordinary landlord and an ordinary tenant. In practically every lease or agreement of tenancy—in fact, I am not sure it is not compulsory now under the new property law—this Clause is now to be found, that consent for under-letting, not only the whole of the house, but part of it, is not to be unreasonably withheld. It simply provides that, in a case where the local authority are thought to have taken rather a hard view of the circumstances, it would come to be a question as to whether or not they had been reasonable or unreasonable in exercising their authority. I would point out that this does not take the matter out of the purview of the rest of the Bill. The rest of the Bill would govern the conditions of letting. It would simply be that in the case of a mere question of letting or subletting, even a room in a house, the tenant might have the safeguard of the local authority being required to act reasonably in giving their decision on the point.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Arthur Greenwood)

The conditions suggested by the hon. Member are not quite the same. If this Amendment were accepted, any person could challenge the local authority and say that consent had been unreasonably withheld, and could take the matter to the Courts. I cannot think that, under the circumstances for which we are providing by this Act, it is desirable that we should put in anything which would encourage litigation. On the contrary, I am quite sure that this House would desire to keep the arrangements as simple as possible and to put this matter in the hands of the local authority. It is difficult to conceive that the local authority would unreasonably withhold consent. It would not be in their real interest to do so. I suggest that the Clause would be much better without the addition of the words suggested.

Lord EUSTACE PERCY

I am very sorry that the hon. Member has not seen his way to accept this Amendment. Why is the Minister trying to put in this paragraph (b)? The Clause does not represent anything more than is the usual practice of any local authority, in so far as it is their duty to sec that their housing is not overcrowded. By putting in the paragraph (b), you are putting an extra obligation on the local authority to tighten up its rules so as to prevent any family living in the house of a local authority from letting any rooms to lodgers, or doing anything with a spare room of the house which might put the tenant in a better position to pay his rent. What we want in matters like this is flexibility. We do not want the housing which is done by local authorities to be more tied up with landlords' restrictions than the housing provided by a private landlord. Take the case of London. Over the greater part of London, in regard to every house that is being let by a private landlord, there is the implied understanding that lodgers may be taken in, and lodgers are being taken in everywhere. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are!"]

Mr. WIGNALL

In many ways.

Lord E. PERCY

That has, I admit, produced a good deal of undesirable consequences. There has been overcrowding. What is wanted is a rather tighter hand kept over the number of lodgers taken in in relation to the space; But to go to the other extreme and to tell local authorities that they must try, as far as they possibly can, to prevent their tenants from taking in lodgers, is most unreasonable. Flexibility is desired, and I hope the Committee will endeavour to give the greatest amount of flexibility by accepting this Amendment.

Major MOULTON

I urge the Minister to accept this Amendment. Speaking from my own experience, I do not think that it is at all safe to say that local authorities will not be unreasonable. My experience is that you very soon get into a state of affairs where they say, "We never do this," or "We never do that." It is most important that the tenant should be able to have resort to the aid of the County Court Judge, if necessary. I am not in the least impressed with the remark that we do not want to create litigation. In one sense every Act of Parliament, every method of stopping abuse, is encouraging litigation, because you have to go to the Courts to enforce it. I do see a really serious danger of certain local authorities acting unreasonably. Some local authorities get a strong political tendency one way or another. You might have one local authority objecting to aristocrats as lodgers, or you might have another which would fear that the lodgers that were going to be taken in would be Communists. In the general interests the Minister ought to accept this very reasonable Amendment.

Mr. MASTERMAN

There is only one point in this Amendment, and it has nothing to do with taking in pr not taking in lodgers. It is the sort of Amendment which, as an old hand, I have had to resist in seven or eight Acts of Parliament for which I have been more or less responsible. This does not alter the reasonable-ness or unreasonableness of the local authority. I do not think that a Communist would have very much chance in any Court if he said he wanted the house for the purpose of Communism. I have always protested against legislation which adds unnecessarily to litigation and increases the fees which are obtainable by lawyers. If you cannot trust to the reasonableness of the local authority in dealing with this matter, then you had better throw the Bill away altogether. If we can trust the local authorities and the Ministry of Health we ought to do so. I urge the Minister not to accept the Amendment.

Dr. CHAPPLE

I think that the consent of the Minister of Health to this reasonable Amendment has been unreasonably withheld. If we adopt this Amendment, the local authorities will know that the person to whom the Clause refers has redress, and they will not be so unreasonable as they might be if they knew that the person has no redress. I can imagine a large amount of spite and pettiness coming into this matter, but if the local authority knew that in such circumstances their action might be shown to be an unreasonable refusal, and that the person concerned has the right of redress, the chances are that the local authority will not be unreasonable. This is a preventive Amendment. If the Amendment is in the Bill, the chance is that less injustice will be done than if the- Amendment is not there. As a rule where a discretion is allowed as a kind of final judgment, there ought to be some saving Clause like this.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE

The argument really in favour of this Amendment was the speech of the right hon. Member for Rusholme, (Mr. Masterman). If I may say so, he lives in the dark ages when he was a Minister, and now he comes forward as an apostle of bureaucracy of the narrowest kind. These houses are usually let by some official. We all know what happens. This Amendment is intended to get at the officials of the local authority. It is not the wise, elected representatives of the people who settle this matter; it is the officials of the local authority, and unless we have words of this kind, which are words of warning, we shall get all kinds of back-stair influence brought to play. In the interests of freedom and in the interests of fair play, it is only right that the private citizen should be able to take the great and almighty local authority into the Court. Why should the local authority always be immune? I hope that my hon. Friend will go to a Division on this Amendment, and that it will get considerable support.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Patrick Hastings)

I hope that the Committee will not desire to vote upon this Amendment, because there is a real objection to it which hitherto has not been mentioned. The whole object of this Bill is that these houses should be let to the working classes at very low rents. This expression, "such consent shall not be reasonably withheld,' is very well known in law, and it would be of necessity enforced by the Courts. A person might enter into an agreement with a local authority to take a house at a perfectly proper rent, the sort of rent that is anticipated in the Art, and once he got into possession, he might, next day, under the old rule, be able to sublet the house at a rent which is entirely opposed to the whole principle of the Act, taking a tenant who would pay him an exorbitant rent—the very thin a which this Bill was devised to prevent. Fie would then be able to go to the Court, and say, "I have a tenant who is eminently desirable. He is a person who will pay three or four times the rent that I am paying." And the Court would have no option. The Court would have to say, "There is no reason why this tenant should not be accepted. He is a responsible tenant: he is paying a much better rent—and is able to pay a much better rent."

There might be all sorts of things that would arise, under which the Court would have no option except to prevent the operation of this Act in its real intention. If it was merely a question of flexibility I would raise no objection, but the real objection is much greater. If this phrase which is thoroughly well known in the Courts is accepted, every Judge will know that it is binding upon him, and there will be nothing in the world to prevent a person going to a local authority, taking one of these houses at the moderate, rent which the Bill is intended to ensure, and the very next day sub-letting it to another person, avoiding all responsibility under the Bill, and then saying to the local authority, "It is the decision of the Court that I can sub-let. You cannot withhold consent. This tenant is in every way satisfactory." If this Amendment were accepted it would go a long way to defeat the whole object of the Bill, which is that these houses shall go to the working classes at reasonable rents. I trust that the Committee will not feel that this Amendment is intended merely to give flexibility. It is most important and most vital that the Committee should not pass this Amendment under the idea that it is of small importance. None of the observations made in support of the Amendment has really touched the question at issue, which is one of great importance.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL

Surely in such an extreme case as that quoted by the Attorney-General, would it not be open to the local authority to get rid of that tenant?

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL

That goes to the whole root of the matter. Directly the local authority have made the arrangement of tenancy with such a tenant, they cannot get rid of him because he wants to sub-let. The next day he may say, "It is true I am your tenant, but I have an offer to sub-let, and I come to you for your permission, and you do not give it to me, which is unreasonable. I can go to the Court and say that I have a very suitable tenant. You cannot refuse me."

Mr. LINFIELD

Would the Court not be justified in saying that the authorities had very good reason to withhold their consent if a man was to get an exorbitant rent or to extort key money or a fine from some poor person?

5.0 P.M.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

A fallacy lies at the root of the opposition to the Amendment. These are not long tenancies, but weekly tenancies. You cannot let a weekly tenancy on a premium, or sub-let it. As these are weekly tenancies, the local authority can terminate them at the end of a week. Unless the Minister says that he intends to create long tenancies, to grant leases, the speech of the learned Attorney-General has no relevance to the Bill. There is nothing whatever in the Bill about it. Ordinary working-class houses have been let on weekly tenancies from time immemorial, and they will continue to be so let. We move this Amendment in order to give greater elasticity and in order to deal with the question logically. The Attorney-General has referred to the tenant who would get a large amount of key money or a large additional rent. Why, there will be 2,500,000 of these tenants if the Bill is the success that the Minister hopes it to be! There will be lots of houses to let. We wish to raise the question whether a man is to be prevented by the autocracy of any local authority from having any lodgers in his house.

Anyone who knows the conditions throughout the country knows that in an enormous number of working-class houses lodgers are taken. Many working-class families prefer to have a lodger. They get a fair rent from him and often almost as much rent as they pay for the whole house. The wife of the house gives a certain amount of help in looking after, say, a young man lodger. If the young men of the country are not able to get these lodgings where else are they to live? The Minister does not intend to provide houses for all the single men of the country. This Bill will give an autocracy to the local authority to make all kinds of rules, which will prevent the tenant of one of these houses from letting, not merely the house, but a single room in it. It happens that when I was Minister of Health, I found that certain local authorities had, in regard to houses built with public money, made orders forbidding any of the tenants from taking in lodgers. The consequence was that many elderly people without children were unable to avail themselves of the houses, because they would have been able to pay the rent only by subletting a surplus room or surplus rooms.

Mr. SUNLIGHT

What about overcrowding?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a great authority on housing in Manchester, but I ask him to realise this: I went over many of these houses which had three bedrooms. Unless there was a family of children the tenant could nearly always provide one bedroom as accommodation for a lodger. Why should he not do so? Such a tenant is often obliged to let a room or rooms in order to pay the rent. He confers a public benefit on the community by finding room where these young men can live. This is not merely the legal question that the Attorney-General seems to suggest. I agree with him that it is an important question. A suggestion was made the other day that the Minister of Health should leave certain questions to the free vote of the House. In spite of the speech made by the Minister yesterday, I cannot imagine that if this Amendment were carried against him he would fling the whole country into the turmoil of a General Election. I do not think that we can have a General Election on the question whether the local authorities should act reasonably or unreasonably. That being so, every hon. Member opposite can vote according to his conscience and be satisfied that his action will not have any disastrous effect. In any event, we propose to ask the House to express its views on this Amendment.

Mr. J. P. GARDNER

I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment. As a, member of a local authority, and as one who has sat on a Housing Sub-Committee to consider applications for sub-tenancies, my experience teaches me that it is a great advantage for the local authority to have control. There are many considerations with which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) has not dealt. In the building of State houses the Ministry only allows 15 per cent. of the net rent for repairs, and, if the houses are let out in a manner not intended by their design, the question of repairs and maintenance allowance by the Ministry becomes a great consideration for local authorities. Therefore, each local authority, in considering the question of tenancies, has to take into consideration several things which are of importance in regard to the subsidy scheme. There is another consideration which the right hon. Gentleman has forgotten. There is still a scarcity of houses, and if the local authority has not discretion to determine whether a sub-tenant shall go in or not, and on what terms he shall go in, we shall have inflated rents. In our experience we have them already. We have cases of people tenanting a house of five rooms at 25s. a week, and subletting one room at 22s. 6d. a week. If the Amendment were carried, the local authority would not have the right to prevent such a thing being done. There are to-day many people occupying upstair apartments which are not designed for such occupation. In such cases there is a danger that repairs and renewals will far exceed the sum allocated for the purpose by the Ministry. My experience is that it is essential that the Housing Committee in each district should have absolute authority over the terms of tenancy, and that failing that, there is a danger of the whole scheme being ruined.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I hope that this question will not create even a division in the Committee. If the right hon. Gentleman's sole desire is to protect the liberty of a family to take in a lodger in suitable circumstances, I do not think that the Government have the slightest objection. But surely, in order to preserve that liberty, we are not going to throw the door open to all the abuses that might be associated with the acceptance of this Amendment. If it will satisfy the Committee to protect the liberty of the tenant, to give reasonable treatment to the tenant to the extent desired by the right hon. Gentleman, I can promise to take steps on the Report stage to give that protection to that extent.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I think that the Minister has met us to a very large extent. The object in view might be accomplished by leaving out of the Clause the words "or any parts thereof." There are several other questions being left over for the Report stage, but I am prepared to ask my hon. Friend to withdraw this Amendment in order that the matter may be fully considered on Report, on the understanding that the Minister will endeavour so to frame the Clause as to meet the case of the man who wants to let one or more rooms to a lodger without the necessity of that man having to go to the local authority.

Sir P. PILDITCH

In the circumstances I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. S. ROBERTS

I beg to move, in page 4, line 4, to leave out paragraph (c).

This Amendment has rather an interesting history. It was put down originally by the right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman), supported by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson). Their names remained attached to it for many days. A few days ago I and some of my friends attached our names to the Amendment. Forthwith the names of the original Members disappeared.

Mr. PRINGLE

Obviously there was something wrong.

Mr. ROBERTS

We shall be very interested to hear an explanation of the disappearance, if the right hon. Member for Rusholme deigns to give it. The main purpose in moving this Amendment is to secure a general discussion at the outset before we deal in detail with this very important Sub-section, with regard to which there are many Amendments on the Paper. We wish to discuss, first of all, the general principle. An Amendment to leave out the paragraph, I assume, will allow us to travel rather wide in our discussion. First, I ask the Minister to be good enough to explain to us exactly what his idea is with regard to the position of the owner-occupier. Some of us look upon it as a matter of very great importance that the owner-occupier should be encouraged. I will give one reason why we look with apprehension at the idea of 2,500,000 houses belonging to local authorities being let by those local authorities to tenants direct. From those 2,500,000 houses there would be a tremendous lot of political pressure and influence that could be brought by the tenants upon their landlords, the local authorities. That would bring a very undesirable aspect into municipal life. On this paragraph there are several other Amendments to be moved. I have tried to browse among the Amendments, but I have found it very difficult to ascertain exactly what is proposed by the Members whose names are attached to the Amendments.

As far as I can see, the intention of the Minister in this part of the Bill is that there shall be a general bias against sales by local authorities. I think that possibly a general discussion upon the Sub-section may throw some light upon the views of all sections of the Committee upon this very important question, and probably save a great deal of time in discussing detailed Amendments afterwards. It is with that object of getting a general discussion, rather than with the object of pressing this Amendment, that I beg to move the Amendment.

Mr. MASTERMAN

I can assure the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. S. Roberts) that we do not object when he adds his name to our good Amendments, nor do we object, but we welcome his support in the Lobby when we go into the Lobby to carry these Amendments—[HON. MEMBERS: "When?"]—as we have done frequently during this Session. If he will devote his conspicuous intelligence to a more complete study of the subject, on which he has very rightly raised a general discussion, he will see that we have put down Amendments which do make possible the idea which we have both in common and which may commend themselves to the whole of this Committee. If the Amendment of the hon. Member were carried, then, under the terms of the Bill as it stands, there would be no conceivable possibility in any circumstances of ever selling one of these municipal houses. All the conditions would be covered entirely by paragraphs (a), (b) and (d), none of which permit the sale of houses, and though paragraph (c), in its present form, does not meet the desire of the majority of the Committee, or even, I believe, of the Minister himself, yet, as it stands, it does allow at least a loophole, and there is a possibility, with a friendly Minister of Health in charge, of a municipal authority getting some of these houses sold to the occupier. Omit paragraph (c), and that possibility would disappear. Therefore, without consequential Amendments this Amendment would be an absurd proposition.

I do suggest two points. The first is that I do not believe that there is any conspicuous party in the Committee who wish to prevent the municipal authorities from soiling these houses in a certain proportion, especially to the occupier, and we wish to have it put into the Bill, as it were, in a way opposite to that in which it is put in paragraph (c) so that municipal authorities would be able to sell these houses under regulations. On the other hand everyone, I think, will agree that it will be a profound mistake merely to say that the municipal authorities shall sell these houses as they please without regulation. The result would be a renewal of something like what was known as "the ramp" which followed the Addison scheme of 1919. The municipal authorities could sell houses at a profit, after getting a State subsidy, to people who could buy them and then sell them to other people at a profit, and so there was a kind of extraction of money from the whole community, giving great advantage to speculative persons and profiteers who had no right to such advantage at all.

Therefore in our reasoned Amendment we realise that the Minister of Health must have some control as to the regulations under which such houses shall be sold. Therefore we have in our Amendment put down the conditions under which we think local authorities should be compelled to sell houses, and also the conditions under which the Minister of Health should sanction them. We are not committed to the actual words but this is the general system which we want to call to the attention of the Committee and the Minister of Health: That the local authority shall be empowered to sell the houses subject to such stipulations as the Minister thinks fit "— and then it goes on the words of the Clause including if the Minister thinks fit stipulations for the reduction of the amount for the curtailment of the duration of any contribution payable by the Minister in respect of the house, or for both reduction and curtailment.

To that we add an Amendment which has been very much pressed for by the municipal corporations and which stands in the name of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) to add the words but so nevertheless that the contribution in respect of any house sold before the expiration of a period of twenty years from the date when that contribution first became payable shall not be reduced below an amount of six pounds payable annually for the remainder of that period. That is to maintain the principle of the Chamberlain Act of last year as far as sale is concerned. If, in substance, these two things are put into the Bill local authorities will be able to sell houses under conditions, as I hope in the main if not exclusively, to the occupying tenants. I have had the experience, which I suppose is that of every Mem- ber of the Committee who has taken any active part in this matter, of receiving, if not thousands, at least hundreds, of letters from men all over the country asking that an Amendment shall be put into the Bill enabling them to buy the houses on conditions. None of them are in love with being municipal tenants, and many municipal authorities are not in love with being landlords, and if municipal authorities can have houses built, and sell them on conditions which should be workable to tenants, to the extent of from 20,000 to 40,000 a year, it will be doing an incredible good to the people of this country and making the Bill much more popular in the country. This is one of the vital questions on which the unpopularity of the Bill at present is most apparent.

On the other hand, I do not want to decide, and it would be impossible in the discussion of this subject to decide, in the Bill what should be the conditions which the Minister of Health should lay down. We must trust whoever is Minister of Health with those conditions, and that he would hold the balance between the local authorities and would-be purchasers. The Minister of Health would, of course, be challengeable in the House of Commons, and I know of no better safeguard. By such means as, that we should preserve the scheme of last year of making men owner-occupiers. We should enable municipal authorities that do not want to take charge of a large number of houses as landlords to pass those houses on to occuying owners without loss to the State, as I think, and without the ramp of 1919, and we should be permitting a very large number of people, who at present have saved up small amounts of money or are enabled to obtain, as many of the tenants are, collateral security for their repayment, to do what they desire to do above all other things, that is not to become municipal tenants but to own the houses in which they live. I am sorry to have detained the Committee on this subject, but as a result of discussing this Clause and disposing of it as a whole, as my right hon. Friend opposite has said, I hope very much that something will come from the Government side of the House, supporting us in the, idea that this will be a benefit.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I entirely concur with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. I think that one of the main blots on the Bill is that it practically does away with the possibility of private ownership. The Bill sets out quite frankly to create a huge mass of municipal tenants. I cannot blame the right hon. Gentleman for framing the Bill in that form, as it is according to the tenets of his political faith, except that in one unguarded moment he made a speech in this House in favour of occupying ownership. Though it is not in accordance with the political views of the right hon. Gentleman that a large extension of occupying ownership should take place, there is a very large demand throughout the country for the possibility of men being able to own their own houses. If you are going to build a largo number of houses for the purposes of letting them at uneconomical rents to occupying tenants, as this Bill proposes to do, surely the other class of the community, those, who desire to own their houses, are entitled to similar consideration at the hands of the Government.

I am assuming that there is a large number of people, say a million or so, who would prefer to be the tenants of a municipal authority rather than own their houses, but I am certain that even hon. Members opposite will agree with me when I say that there is an equally large number of men who would prefer, if they could get the assistance of the State, to be the owners of their houses rather than the tenants of the municipal authorities. It is that spirit, that desire for ownership, which has led to the formation and the growth and the wonderful success of the building societies throughout this land. Those building societies arose from the desire of the people of this country to own their own houses. If that is so, why should we, when we are going to spend this enormous sum of money, running to hundreds of millions sterling, put the whole of it into the pockets of tenants of the country and allow no benefit at all under the provisions of this Act to the men who desire to own houses?

The Minister of Health said, either on the Second Heading or in one of the previous Debates, that he did not in any way penalise house ownership under the provisions of this Bill. Technically that is correct. He does not alter the provisions, I think I am right in saying, of the Act of 1923. But surely everybody will see that it would be very difficult, and very unfair, to expect a man to build his own house on a subsidy of £75, when others are building on a subsidy of £240, which is roughly the capital value of the subsidy given under this Bill. There are in Lancashire—of which I had some political knowledge—thousands of houses which have been built by working men with the assistance of building societies, some of them with the assistance of public money advanced under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act, which are not now occupied, and could not be occupied, by the owner. There are many such men, and it is a very fine thing in the history of this country that there should be so great an incentive to thrift in the hands of many of our people. It is a form of investment which many of the working classes prefer even to Consols. Many of them own one, two, three or four houses which they have built themselves. In one of them they live, and the other one, two, or three they let to tenants. Why should the Committee object to that? Why should the Government not encourage industry and thrift of that kind? It makes the basis of a contented country.

Mr. EGAN

Therefore we should all do it.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Quite frankly I would like, if it were possible, to transform this Bill into a large measure for the assistance of owner-occupiers throughout the country, but it is impossible to do so within the terms of the Financial Resolution. The Bill is so drawn that I cannot make those alterations which I should like to make. On the other hand, I see no objection at all—unless the right hon. Gentleman himself says it is impossible—to the Minister's reconsideration of this very grave and definite decision in the Bill not to permit of any of these houses ever being sold. We want to encourage local authorities to sell. There is another reason in the finance of the Bill. The local authorities, if the Bill is a success, will have to borrow from £80,000,000 to £100,000,000 a year in order to get these houses built within 15 years. Instead of locking up all that public money in municipally-owned houses, would it not be better to turn some of it over: to sell some of the houses, year by year, and so economise enormously on the financial position, ease the situation for the local authorities, and add to the number of owner-occupiers throughout the land. There is only one other point to which I call the attention of the Committee. Under the Act of last year private enterprise, which, roughly speaking, is the building of houses by owner-occupiers or by owners for the purpose of sale to another occupier—as distinct from the municipality which builds for the purpose of letting only—is responsible for two-thirds of the houses built up to the present. What does that mean? The figures up to date of the applications approved by the Minister under that Act show, for private ownership, 96,685 houses. I do not want on this Amendment to insist on the success of the scheme of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain), but I give that figure to the Committee as showing conclusively that there is in this country a great demand for houses to be built for purposes other than letting by municipal authorities.

I do not say that they are all occupier-owners. There are, of course, many built for occupying ownership and some for private landlords to own and to let. But that is where I think the future of this housing question can best be provided for, namely, by encouraging that form of private enterprise and to get the houses built, partly for owner occupation and partly for the owner to let. I do not believe in this vast extension of municipally-owned houses. I have come to the conclusion, very largely for reasons given by one of the hon. Members opposite, that you are putting quite an improper power in the hands of 2,500,000 tenants in this country as against their landlords, who will be the municipal authorities. I do not wish to make any suggestion, but one does know that in a large town with 20,000 or 30,000, or, in the case of London, many more thousands of houses in the hands of one municipal authority, certain situations may arise. We know the past of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister himself in regard to this matter. Supposing a rent strike were to be started in one of the great municipalities—in Glasgow, if you like—and supposing the right hon. Gentleman was out of a job, was no longer Minister of Health, and he went up to Glasgow, I will not say to ferment, but to organise that strike. It would be much more serious if there were 50,000 houses belonging to the municipality than if they were houses spread over different ownerships, and it is to be o remembered that all these houses would be occupied by the voters-—the electors of that particular municipality.

Mr. PRINGLE

Then they do not need to strike at all. They only need to vote.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. Member suggests that the Minister's occupation would then be gone as there would be no reason for a rent strike. But those same tenants would be able quite improperly to exercise an influence in regard to the management and control of these houses, and hon. Members opposite, in their hearts, do not think that is a right position for a municipal authority to occupy. My hon. Friend who moved the omission of Clause 3 said he did so in order to obtain the views of the Minister on the whole question of house ownership. I have said what I have to say on the subject. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to give us such encouragement as he can, and to tell us his views. If he can, in any way, encraft on to his Bill a better scheme of house ownership, such a scheme will go a long way towards making the Bill more acceptable to the whole country.

Mr. WHEATLEY

. I am always sorry to have to use this platform for party purposes, but the right hon. Baronet seems to find it one of the joys of life to keep putting me into a corner. He has drawn a picture of the dreadful state of society which might exist if local authorities were the owners of the houses of the electors. Somehow or other he seems to think that the people of this country only want a reasonable opportunity in order to become scoundrels, and that if you put them in a position where they can avoid their moral obligations, they will take advantage of it immediately and show what rascals they are. I do not know why they do not exercise those instincts in the case of gas, or water, or trams, or electricity, or the various things which they obtain from the municipalities to-day. Why do they not go and strike against payment for those services?

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

Because the services would be cut off.

Mr. WHEATLEY

They might be cut off, but if we remember all the people who use electricity and the fact that there are only a few officials to cut off the supply, then I suggest that if all the people were such scoundrels as the right hon. Baronet would seem to indicate, it might be some other things that would be cut off. Perhaps I had better use this platform for educational instead of propaganda purposes because I find a complete misunderstanding of the public objects of those of us who claim to be Socialists. Can the right hon. Baronet or anyone else in this Committee tell me of any responsible Socialist in this country who has laid it down as a violation of his ideal of society that a man should own the house he occupies? Think of the state of society contemplated by the right hon. Baronet As was remarked by an hon. Member behind me it was one in which everyone would own a house and have three houses to let.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Then there would be no housing shortage.

Mr. WHEATLEY

The right hon. Baronet seems to think that we ought to direct our public policy towards that end. We have no objection to the occupier of a house owning a house, but we have an objection to the profit-making ownership of a house occupied by another person, and if you produce a large section of the community unable to own the houses they occupy, then we prefer collective ownership through the municipality or non-profit making ownership through the building society or the public utility society to the form of ownership contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman under which a person will have three or four houses by means of which he can exploit the necessities of his poorer brother. I do not see that anyone in the Committee, who is not out to protect exploitation, can have any objection to that policy. Therefore I have no objection at all to making in my Bill the fullest reasonable provision that I can make for the occupier of a "house becoming the owner of that house. Indeed, I think it is not only a matter of having no objection, but I would be prepared to go further than many Members on the other side of the Committee in providing facilities, financial and other- wise, whereby people would have opportunities if they so desired of owning the houses which they occupy, instead of occupying houses owned for profit-making purposes by other people.

The higher subsidy in this case is given for the benefit of those who have to rent houses. The right hon. Baronet asks why should a man who has to occupy a rented house have a subsidy of roughly £240 while the man who has to own his house only receives a subsidy of £100. For exactly the same reason as that by which a man receives £100 and another man receives nothing at all. We have drifted into a state of society in which it is necessary, in the interests of public health, to assist millions of our people to get out of conditions of slumdom. That and that only is the justification for the subsidy. If the Committee thinks we have not in the Bill provided for the municipality passing on a house to an occupier who wishes to own it, then I am prepared to make certain Amendments in the Bill. As I think I have said before, I do not want to say a word against the private builder who is building for sale, but I have also said before that I think the probable purchaser of a house, the man who has probably through years of strenuous saving accumulated a few hundreds, would be safer in the hands of the municipality in buying his house than in buying it from the profit-making speculator. I do not think any one suggests that while we are getting houses for what I shall call the Chamberlain subsidy of £6 for 20 years that we should offer to pay a larger subsidy on the houses sold to occupiers by local authorities. I am quite sure that if hon. Members opposite would examine that, they would say that if you adopted that course, apart from the other objections to it, you would make it quite impossible for the other people to sell the house at all. Therefore, the Amendment I propose to insert is this, or words to this effect, and I think myself it meets the whole case: (c) that if the local authority sell or (save by such lettings as aforesaid) otherwise dispose of the houses, the sale or disposal shall not be completed except upon and subject to such stipulations as the Minister thinks proper, including, if the Minister thinks fit, stipulations for the reduction of the amount or the curtailment of the duration of any contribution payable by the Minister in respect of the house, or for both reduc- tion and curtailment; but so nevertheless that the contribution in respect of any house sold before the expiration of a period of 20 years from the date when that contribution first became payable shall not be reduced below the amount of the contribution (if any) which would be payable if the house had not been subject to special conditions. That means in essence that facilities will be provided for the sale of the house, but on terms that will not be any better financially than if the occupier had purchased his house as he would purchase it now under the 1923 Act. I think that meets the views that have been expressed from all parts of the House, and I can assure the Committee again that it is in complete harmony with the Government's policy.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

Of course, the words which the right hon. Gentleman has read out are not such as we can express a final opinion upon, when we have only just heard them for the first time, and I am afraid that, even if I were to have them in front of me, I could not give a considered judgment upon them, without considering them a little further. But I welcome very heartily the effort which I believe the right hon. Gentleman is making to meet the views of those, forming, I am quite sure, the great majority of this House, who believe in owner-occupiership, and desire to see it established as a general principle in dealing with the housing question. I remember that on a previous occasion, when I was quoting some figures of the operations of the Birmingham Municipal Bank in advancing money to the people who desired to buy houses for their own use and occupation, the right hon. Gentleman rather pooh-poohed my figures. He said they had a waiting list of something like 19,000 people, and that what I had brought forward as evidence of what was going on was but a drop in the bucket, and no contribution to the question. I have taken the trouble just recently to make some further inquiries as to what is going on, and I would like to tell the Committee what the result is, because I think it is extremely encouraging from the point of view of those of us who believe, as my right hon. Friend says, that it is in the extension of this system that we shall make most progress in dealing with the housing problem.

The number of people who have, through the operations of this savings bank, bought their own houses in Birmingham must not be compared with the number who have made applications for houses, but it must be compared with the number of houses that have actually been disposed of, whether by selling or by letting, on the part of the municipal corporation. Out of a total of about 1,800 houses that they have had through their hands, nearly 25 per cent. have actually been sold through the operations of this bank, and it is a very interesting fact that, under the system there employed, under which the purchaser has to put down £50 of his own money for a £300 house, the remaining £250 being advanced to him by the bank and the corporation, of these people it is found that they are nearly all real working men; that is to say, that the black-coated man—the clerk, who has to observe a higher standard of living—has never been able to save enough to put up the £50 required, but the working man, the artizan, is the man who is able, apparently, to find the necessary £50, and who forms the great bulk of those who have hitherto been able to buy their houses in this way. If anything like that proportion could be kept up, if you could get something like 22½ per cent. of the people who occupy these houses purchasing them, it is obvious that it would be making a great contribution to the subject, and not by any means the negligible one which the right hon. Gentleman rather seemed to suggest. It appears to me that in trying to insert provisions for the sale of houses into a Bill constructed upon the principles of the one we are now debating, we will have to take very great care that we are not using this very largely increased subsidy, which the right hon. Gentleman is proposing for a particular purpose, to enable part even of that increased subsidy to go into the pockets either of the person who buys the house or of the local authority.

If there were a free opportunity for a purchaser to buy a house at the capital cost of the house less the capital equivalent of the increased subsidy, that is to say, less the £240, he would be buying that house far below its actual value, and if he were able to sell it to somebody else, he could make a profit which might amount to a very considerable sum. If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, as from the date of the purchase the contribution from the Exchequer shall be reduced, even that would still give an advantage to this house as compared with the house Which has only received a subsidy under the Act of last year from the very beginning, and I think that some attention will have to be given to the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment to make quite certain that he is not creating here a class of house which can be sold at a cheaper rate than the houses that were built under the Act of last year, at the expense of the taxpayers, because it is not necessary to give this big subsidy for the purpose of obtaining purchasers for these houses. It may be necessary to give it for houses to be let, but not for houses which are going to be sold, and, therefore, it is very necessary, in trying to put this new idea into this Bill, which has been framed with such very different ideas, that we should examine that particular point with the utmost care. That, of course, we shall have an opportunity of doing when we see the right hon. Gentleman's words on the Paper, and we shall no doubt be able to deal with them on the Report stage if we feel then that it is necessary to amend them.

Mr. W. E. ROBINSON

I would draw attention to the Amendment as read out by the Minister of Health, which seems to be absolutely colourless, and I should imagine that when an Amendment of that character gets down to the local authorities, it will be difficult for them to appreciate it. As far as I can understand, it contains no really practical policy on the part of the Ministry as to providing for the owner-occupier, and I want to suggest that this question of making a contribution to the owner-occupier is a question of the utmost importance. The right hon. Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) has quoted the experience of Birmingham, but I venture to suggest that there are very few working men who can provide £50 or the £100 referred to by the Minister, and I do not hesitate to make the statement that the percentage of working men to-day who have £50 or £100 for this purpose is really a negligible quantity. I have tried in my constituency to take some interest in this matter, and I called a meeting in order to place before our people the question of owner-tenancy, and to see how far it would be possible under the 1923 Act to put them in a position to own their own houses. It was a very large and a very enthusiastic meeting, but the proportion of men who could put down even £50 was not 10 per cent. of those who were present.

6.0 P.M.

It seems to me that, having regard to the general acceptance of the view that it is a most desirable thing, from the social standpoint, to do everything possible to provide for the tenant the ownership of his house, and having regard to the fact that the financial proposals of this Bill are exceptional in every respect, some exceptional measures should be provided in order that facilities of the easiest possible character should be given to a man to become the owner of his house. I want to suggest to the Committee that, if you have got a man of good character, a thrifty man, he should be given every encouragement, and if you could, by some exceptional help in the way, say, of a sinking fund, enable him to buy his house, you would be doing a good thing. Suppose the rent of a house is ten shillings, and you have a thrifty man, of good character, who says, "Give me the opportunity by a sinking fund, a small amount added to the rent, of purchasing the house ultimately," I think that man should be encouraged. The effect on that man would be to make him a better citizen and that he would take a greater pride in his home than if he was simply a tenant of the State or of the local authority. Is that a bad thing or is it a good thing? Is it or is it not desirable for the Minister of Health, with the great possibilities that he has under this Bill, when Parliament and the country are disposed to be generous, to be prepared to so a long way to see the people well housed and contented? If you establish ownership of that character, what happens? You stimulate trade. As soon as a man is secure in his ownership the fear of being turned out by the landlord is gone. He takes a greater interest in his home, and he turns and says to his wife: "Mary, we must begin to make the house nice. This is our house; we must have some new furniture; we have got to get it." They are going to take care of the house. A man will sacrifice a great deal in order to keep his house. I do want to suggest that this is a matter the final details of which it ought not to be beyond the wit of man to devise. I say, if hon. Members in all parts of the Committee would really look upon this with sympathy—and I am sure there is sympathy—that there is no hope they can give which is more likely to carry through a great scheme of social reform than this.

Viscount WOLMER

The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health has told the Committee that he is going to do what he can to facilitate the acquisition of houses by owner-occupiers, and that he is going to prevent houses being purchased by wicked people, who desire to let them to someone else. The right hon. Gentleman rebuked us for regarding the inhabitants of this country as potential scoundrels. I myself have never been able to understand why he should regard a certain section of those who are able to save a little as potential scoundrels. However, the question I have risen to ask is this: How, on earth, if he is going to do the one can he avoid doing the other? If he is going to give facilities to enable men to buy houses in which they can live—I presume he means that these men should be entitled to buy and own a house and to have sole possession of it—he cannot prevent them letting their houses to somebody else. What guarantee against that has the Minister got? What guarantee can he have that the man who buys his house this year may not be obliged to go to another locality next year, and, therefore, have to let his house? Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for the Minister to confine this right of purchase to the owner-occupier.

What he is really doing by the concession he is making—if it amounts to anything at all—is to scrap the principle of the Bill, which was municipal ownership—not to let the houses be purchased: the people were to live in them themselves, and not let to other people. I am perfectly confident that once the situation is realised in the country, the people who build houses under his Act will very soon get rid of them, and I think the Minister will probably make a financial loss. The municipalities which built houses under the Addison scheme are now, in a great many cases anxious to get rid of them, and I think are only deterred by fear that heavy financial loss would be shown in the transaction. I have listened to the words of the right hon. Gentleman, but I have not been able to discover anything in them which would prevent—this is the point I am trying to make—what I say. I trust the point will be considered by the right hon. Gentleman. I shall be glad if he can tell us any means by which he is going to prevent people who have bought houses to live in themselves letting them to other people.

Mr. T. THOMSON

So far as I can follow the new paragraph foreshadowed by the Minister, it appears very closely to correspond with the series of Amendments down in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman) and other hon. Members on this side. Perhaps it is desirable that we should see the whole of the words in the Bill itself before expressing a final opinion; but I should like to ask the Minister whether he proposes to move them as an Amendment? Will not the Motion before the Committee have to be negatived, so that they can be embodied in the Clause.

Mr. PRINGLE

Leave out paragraph (c).

Mr. THOMSON

And then substitute for paragraph (c) the words that the right hon. Gentleman has suggested, in order that we may see them embodied in the Bill as it will leave the Committee. Two or three hon. Gentlemen who have recently spoken suggest by their speeches that the Amendment of the Minister of Health is a reversal of the policy foreshadowed in the Bill. I submit, with great respect 1o the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer), that already, in paragraph (c) as it stands, there is a right to sell, and the chief alteration the Minister, as I understand it, is making, is that instead of putting that right in a negative sense he is putting it now in a positive sense. To that extent, I think it is a considerable advantage. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) that the conditions and stipulations which the Minister is making to prevent that ramp of profiteering in house property, which undoubtedly took place in 1918, are very essential. Therefore, it is that, whilst this permission is given, restrictions and safeguards should be put in which will prevent a ramp taking place such as ha-s taken place before.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

My hon. Friend, I am sure, will be willing to withdraw this Amendment, so that the proposed Clause may be inserted in the Bill in order that we may have ample time to consider it between now and Report. Whilst we accept the principle of the Amendment, we must have time to consider it in detail, reserving to ourselves the right to put down any Amendments on the Report stage.

The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN (Mr. Entwistle)

The particular Amendment now before the House will have to be withdrawn before the one proposed by the Minister can be dealt with.

Mr. ROBERTS

In view of what has been said, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Sir B. REES

May I say one word, for I want to call attention to one point? It seems to me that the conditions we are now discussing will not only apply to local authorities, but in this Sub-section, as in Sub-section (2) of the Clause, they are made to apply to houses built by public utility societies, body of trustees, or companies. If so, I think the Minister will have to be very careful in the amount that is to be given; otherwise, you are going to spike the very foundation of the public utility societies and other bodies who are doing very useful work. Voluntary societies, building societies, and other corporations are doing very excellent work, and, if the right hon. Gentleman is going to limit their power considerably, it will be impossible to carry on in future. 1 should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General to make it quite clear that the words proposed for the new paragraph will not have the effect of interfering with the right of public utility societies which they now have under this Bill.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I understand that it is the desire of the Committee that paragraph (c) in its present form shall disappear and shall be replaced by a new paragraph which has been suggested by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, and which he has read out to the Committee. I should be glad if the new words could be inserted at once, but that cannot be done. It is desirable that Members of the Committee should have the opportunity of examining the proposed new paragraph.

Mr. PRINGLE

Before leave to withdraw is given, I desire to call the attention of the Attorney-General to the inconsistency between this paragraph and paragraph (a). If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will look at paragraph (a) he will see that the first condition says quite specifically "that the houses shall be let." In paragraph (c) it is provided that they may be sold. Something should be done to make the two paragraphs consistent.

Mr. EDMUND HARVEY

I should like to ask the Attorney-General, for the convenience of the Committee, and in order to make the provision clearer, to read the proposed new paragraph out again, and slowly, so that Members can lake it down.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

It is as follows: (c) That if the local authority sell or (save by such lettings as aforesaid) otherwise dispose of the houses the sale or disposal shall not be completed except upon and subject to such stipulations as the Minister thinks proper, including if the Minister thinks fit stipulations for the reduction of the amount or the curtailment of the duration of any contribution payable by the Minister in respect of the house, or for both reduction and curtailment; but so nevertheless that the contribution in respect of any house sold before the expiration of a period of 20 years from the date when that contribution first became payable shall not for reduced below the amount of the contribution (if any) which would be payable if the house had not been subject to special conditions.

Captain ELLIOT

May I ask the Minister to say how the terms and facilities provided here for the sale of houses will compare with the Act of 1923? The Minister said they would be "not better" than the conditions under that Act. The Amendment says they are to be "not worse."

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Attention has been called to that point, and the Committee have heard what the Minister has stated. Care will be taken to see that the words carry out his intention.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

It is for the Committee to say whether leave will be given to withdraw the Amendment. I warn the Committee that if leave be refused the words proposed by the Minister cannot be inserted. The Amendment will have to be put and negatived.

Sir P. PILDITCH

rose—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I cannot permit any further discussion. Either the Amendment must be withdrawn or not. Is it the pleasure of the Committee that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Roberts) be withdrawn?

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I beg to move, in page 4, line 4, after the word "that," to insert the word "if."

Sir B. REES

I do not think the word "if" is strong enough, and it should read that the local authority shall or may. I think that makes it much more definite.

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL

The reason we are dealing with this Clause piecemeal is to enable hon. Members to be able to see what the Amendment means and then discuss it. We cannot discuss it word by word, and it can best be done; by leaving it to the Report stage. I hope hon. Members will assist the Minister as far as they can in this matter.

Sir P. PILDITCH

I understand that we shall have an opportunity of discussing this proposal before the Report stage.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I said there, would be an opportunity of considering it before the Report stage and discussing it afterwards.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: In page 4, line 4, leave out the words " shall not."

In page 4, lines 6 and V, leave out the words "except with the consent of the Minister, which may be absolute or," and insert instead thereof the words " the sale or disposal shall not be completed except upon and."—[The Attorney-General.]

Mr. T. THOMSON

I beg to move, in page 4, line 13, at the end to insert the words but so nevertheless that the contribution in respect of any house sold before the expiration of a period of twenty years from the date when that contribution first became payable shall not be reduced below an amount of six pounds payable annually for the remainder of that period. These words are quite in keeping with the proposal which has been made by the Minister.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words an amount of six pounds payable annually for the remainder of that period, and to insert instead thereof the words the amount of the contribution (if any) which would be payable if the house had not been subject to special conditions.

Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to.

Proposed words, as amended, there inserted.

Mr. S. ROBERTS

I beg to move, in page 4, lines 14 and 15, to leave out the words "a form prescribed by the Minister," and to insert instead thereof the words the form for the time being prescribed for Government contract by Resolution of the House of Commons. This Amendment is a very simple and a short one, and it deals with the Fair Wages Clause. As proposed in the Bill, the Minister is the sole arbiter as to what the Fair Wages Clause means in any contracts entered into by the local authorities for the building of these houses. I think the Minister will be likely to accept this Amendment, or adopt some other words whereby the form of this Fair Wages Clause should be settled beforehand, and it should be taken out of the hands of the Minister to draft the Clause according to the views of the particular Minister for the time being. I think it should be in the form of Government contracts settled some lime ago by this House. If there be any objection to that, it might be advisable between now and the Report stage for the Government to prepare the draft of a Fair Wages Clause and put it in the Schedule. I think the House will agree that this is a matter of considerable importance, and possibly the Minister will be glad to have this temptation taken from him.

Mr. A. GREENWOOD

We are prepared to accept the contention of the hon. Member, but the actual words he proposes will need alteration, because no form of contract is prescribed by Resolution of the House of Commons. I think his purpose will be met if we leave out the words "in accordance with a form prescribed by the Minister."

Mr. SUNLIGHT

This is a most important Amendment, and I want to propose an Amendment to it because I think it is a most dangerous thing to provide for bringing this question of the Fair Wages Clause before the House of Commons. I would like the words " all contracts by local authorities" inserted in order to avoid discussions in the House about the Fair Wages Clause.

Mr. ROBERTS

I am prepared to be satisfied with the explanation of the Minister, and I am willing to withdraw my Amendment and accept his.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. A. GREENWOOD

I beg to move, in page 5, lines 14 and 15, to leave out the words "in accordance with a form prescribed by the Minister" and to insert instead thereof the words which complies with the requirements of any Resolution of the House of Commons applicable to the contracts of Government Departments and for the time being in force.

Mr. SUNLIGHT

I must persist in asking the Committee not to accept any arrangement whereby this question will always be under consideration on the Floor of the House. I am the last person to quarrel about a Fair Wages Clause, but we ought to keep it out of this House, and, if we limit it to contracts given out by local authorities, I think it would be much better, and 1 should like to move to limit this Amendment by inserting the words "in all contracts by local authorities."

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has not handed me his Amendment, and I do not know where it comes in.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. VIVIAN

I beg to move, in page 4, line 17, at the end, to insert the words that the cost shall not exceed ten shillings and sixpence per foot super of contained area unless otherwise provided by an Order made by the Minister and the Scottish Board of Health under this Act. I am confident that the objective of this Amendment has the approval of all parties in the House. It is to prevent this scheme from being frustrated in all its best features by inflation, and it limits, therefore, the houses upon which the subsidy proposed in the Bill might be given to those the cost of which does not exceed 10s. 6d. per foot super. With regard to the principle of the Bill, I feel certain that the Minister appreciates as keenly as I do the importance of restraining increase in cost if his Bill is to produce good results. I have here the opinion of a very eminent authority in regard to the possible effects of inflation. That authority says: But if all difficulties are successfully overcome, there will still remain the problem of stabilising prices. The housing scheme of the Government is based upon the assumption that prices will remain at their present level. If they rise, and the cost of houses is thereby increased, considerably, the financial basis of the scheme will be upset, and it will probably collapse, with terrible consequences. That is the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman's colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I desire to help the right hon. Gentleman in preventing prices from rising to such a degree as to bring about those terrible consequences. The right hon. Gentleman, perhaps, may say that it can be left to him to deal with this matter by administration. I suggest that it would help him much more to say quite clearly in advance to all the interests concerned that we will not permit the hundreds of millions of money involved in this Measure to be so handled as to lead to a permanent burden, and a very heavy burden at that, upon the whole community. This proposal brings in all interests from the start, and gives notice in advance of the intention of the House of Commons. It is rather comparable with the new form of brake for motor-cars. I think you have one brake on each wheel, and it brings it up sharp. I desire to bring about the same effect in regard to all the interests concerned in building. There is, first of all, the architect. He will know in advance, if he is called upon to produce a scheme for 100 or 200 houses for a council, that it is no use his bringing before that council a scheme which does not comply with this maximum in regard to cost, and, therefore, from the very beginning you impress upon the architect the importance of studying economy in design.

Then you go on to the tender. Every builder will know, when he is invited to tender for these houses for a municipality or any public authority, that, if his tender exceeds this amount, it will be futile, for it will take the houses out of the Act. The operatives will be conscious of the same thing. If they are thinking of demanding a substantial share of this generosity of the House, they will appreciate that demanding an extravagant payment in the shape of wages on such houses as are involved in this scheme will result in taking the houses out of the scheme itself, and that, therefore, their demand in regard to those houses will be futile. It will be the same with merchants or manufacturers of materials. I think it is wise, and I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it is wise, to give notice of this in advance, because, already, the prospect of the distribution of these hundreds of millions has had a bad effect upon the prices of materials and labour. Already a rise has begun. I suggest that we should let it be known at the earliest possible moment that the House of Commons does not intend this money to be used under such inflationary conditions.

Further, I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that such a principle throws upon the industry as a whole the importance of thinking out ways of economy within its limits. There is nothing more detrimental to any industry than to feel that it can achieve its object at the public expense without having serious regard for economy within itself. I believe the way that I suggest, of putting a maximum beyond which we will not permit the costs to go, will be of great value to the right hon. Gentleman in carrying out his scheme. In this connection I want to say quite plainly that the building trade is one of the great trades in the country that has not yet applied itself seriously to giving back to the public, in return for the increasing payments made to it, real value for those payments. As the House knows, in that industry what is called payment by results, or anything approaching payment by results, has been fought for quite a number of years, until for a great part of the industry it is excluded. I regard a system of employment which goes on giving increased money payments regardless of the return to the community for those payments as a bad system, and one which, in the long run, leads to the deterioration of the industry itself.

I am conscious of all the objections. I know the question from both sides The first strike in which. I came out in London, now over 30 years ago, was n, perfectly justifiable strike, because the employers were trying to beat down piece-work rates, owing to the fact that the men were earning what they thought to be too large an income. [Interruption.]. Surely, hon. Members will allow me to proceed. This is the only place where these things can be said with effect, and it is time we said it to the building industry as a whole. An hon. Member says. "They always do it." May I remind him that in most of the great industries of the country payment by results has been accepted? You have it in the shoe trade, in the cotton trade, and, I believe, in the mining industry. What we have to enforce is that, if this goes on in a great industry like that, it is the other industries that have to pay the piper. It is a mistake to assume that the real employers are these so-called associations of men who call themselves employers. The real employers, finally, are you and I. We employ each other. That is the plain English of it, and this inflation of cost, regardless of what it brings back to the community as a whole, is, in my view, wrong.

I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that my proposal will help him in facing the industry and calling upon them to consider the matter particularly in connection with this scheme. I can quite understand the sentimental objection to doing this for ordinary capitalistic enterprises. I can quite understand their saying. "We are not going out of our way to add to the profits of the ordinary capitalist." But when the right hon. Gentleman is engaged in trying to provide 2,500,000 houses, most of which will be required for the poorest in the land, for those who are living in slums, for those who are badly ho used, I say that an industry, whether on the workmen's or on the employers' side, that will not coma forward and abandon every policy and every part of its policy that leads to restriction of production of that commodity, is anti-social in the worst sense of the word. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has a great opportunity of using this limitation to approach them and ask them in the correct spirit to see whether they cannot take a step of that kind. With regard to the figure itself, I would urge, first of all, that that figure has been arrived at as a result of practical experience, and also as a result of the Memorandum put forward in the Report submitted to the right hon. Gentleman by the Association of Builders and the Association of Operativies—the Report that we all know so well. It will be remembered that the paragraph at the bottom of page 9 of that Report says: The Committee has given careful consideration to cost, and, as a result of careful examination, is of opinion that houses are being built to-day at the lowest possible cost. In its judgment, taking the costs of labour and material as current on 1st March last, houses from 850 to 950 feet super of contained area, based on the Schedule as supplied by the Ministry of Health, should, under normal circumstances, not exceed in cost from x to y per square foot. Ten shillings and sixpence per foot super, for 950 feet, is £498, or £2 short of the £500 house about which the right hon. Gentleman is frequently talking.

Lord E. PERCY

Is that all in?

Mr. VIVIAN

This includes paths, fences and house drains, but not sewers, street pavings, roads or land. It is the net cost of the house.

Lord E. PERCY

Is £498 your figure?

Mr. VIVIAN

Yes, at 10s. 6d. per foot for the 950-foot house. There is a note at the bottom of this document stating that x and y indicate information conveyed confidentially to the Minister of Health, and the Minister has not seen his way yet to give the House those figures, I do not desire to press him; I want to help him on this. If he feels that some public interests might be placed in jeopardy by presenting any figures to this House, by all means let him withhold them. I have done the best I can in the circumstances. I conclude that this means 10s. 6d., and I know from experience that that figure is not far wrong. I have here a communication which has been passed on to me only within the last few days from one of the biggest authorities in this country, who is putting up a large number of houses under various schemes, and he tells me this: In confirmation of our conversation on Wednesday last, I send you the following particulars. The latest contracts give the following figures: A.3, 820 square feet, 10s. 5d. per square foot. B.3, 950 square feet, 10s. per square foot. It will be seen, therefore, that I am hovering on the right figure within a trifle, as far as these facts are concerned. My correspondent goes on to say: I am sure that on to-day's prices these figures would be increased by sit least 5 per cent. That would mean that the 10s. on the 950-foot house would become my figure of 10s. 6d. I do not, however, press the right hon. Gentleman to limit himself absolutely to my figure of 10s, 6d. What I do desire him to do is to tell us in what better way he can prevent this wild inflation from taking place, for I assure him from my own knowledge of the industry that it has already begun. Some hon. Members may say "profiteering." A good deal of this is quite impersonal and beyond personal control. If hon. Members were in the enterprise themselves they would know that it is not due to any special degree of original sin on the part of the individuals that this thing happens. It happens through the play of quite impersonal forces. I can show you things that happen day by day of that character, and if by my Amendment you prevent the free play of those forces which will inflate prices, you give notice to all concerned that inflation will not be tolerated and from this moment onwards the whole industry, the architects, merchants, builders and the operatives, will know that beyond a certain point it will not be tolerated, and when your brickmaker comes into the office to make a deal on bricks, or the tile maker to make a deal with tiles, he knows that he is restricted within this limit. If he is not restricted I defy the right hon. Gentleman by all the profiteering committees he sets up from one end of Great Britain to the other, to stop the free play of these prices. If you have five or six builders running after a- particular brick, bidding for it, offering high prices for it, there is no profiteering committee you can appoint that is going to restrain the increase of the price.

Mr. WALLHEAD

Is not that antisocial?

Mr. VIVIAN

That applies to labour as well. If I were a bricklayer, and employers were on my doorstep day by day begging me to work for them, one offering 1s. an hour, another 1s. 6d., and a third 2s., would you suggest that I was antisocial because I took the 2s. in preference to the 1s.?

Mr. CLIMIE

When the hon. Member was discussing the position of the worker with regard to piecework, he said he was not honest and not fair.

Mr. VIVIAN

The hon. Member is not entitled to make that observation. I have said these things are very largely impersonal, and very often the result of forces beyond individual control. May I ask the hon. Member what I said and when I said it that bears that out?

Mr. CLIMIE

I do not want to be unfair, and I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member, but he clearly said the time has arrived when the piece-workers in the building trade had got to come into this work.

Mr. VIVIAN

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for speaking what is in his mind. I certainly never intended to say anything of the sort. What I said was that this was one industry and so far as its method of administration was concerned in relation to industry as a whole, it had not yet put itself into line in regard to organisation so that the remuneration that it drew for the services it rendered was not measured, as it was in most industries, by the product it handed over. I went on to say that the industries employed each other, and when you are giving the workers in a particular industry money tokens what you are really giving them is a lien on some portion of the national production in goods and services—clothing, food, and things of that sort. It is wrong in principle to continue with a particular industry giving them a lien on the sum total of national services and goods without putting them on a basis of remuneration, like coal, cotton, and other industries, and insure that they bring to the common stock something proportionate to the stock they take away. The industry is not on that basis at present. In the long run it is the less well organised, the woman with inadequate means, the worker with a small wage and a big family who is not able to be here in this House or to exercise power and pressure in politics or in economics, who will pay for any violent inflation that takes place.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I am in the heartiest agreement with the object aimed at by the Mover of the Amendment. I am fully conscious of the fact that there can be no possible success for the housing scheme which is being promoted by this Bill if anything like the rise in prices occurs that took place under the Addison scheme. If I thought for a moment that the Amendment would assist me in the slightest, I would gladly embrace it, but I am afraid it will have exactly the opposite effect. The hon. Member told us that a 950-foot house, at 10s. 6d., would cost £498, without including the land or the development. Is anyone with a knowledge of the building industry and the class of houses for which we are here asking prepared to say that these houses are worth that money?

Mr. VIVIAN

I did not say that. I was quoting from documents.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I am putting a question to the House and to the country. The idea that these houses cannot be produced for less than £550 is most absurd. If the building industry were organised, as it has now an opportunity of organising itself, with an assured market for manufacturers, for builders, and with guaranteed employment to the workers, it ought to be able to produce these houses—I will not put a figure on it, but for substantially less, than £500. To suggest to the building industry that any figure in that neighbourhood is justified after we have given them the guarantee and the assistance provided for in the Bill would, I think, be unfair to the country, because whether you agree with the policy of the Bill or not, whether you believe in its success or not, all our forces in the country should be directed to bringing down the cost of house building to a reasonable level. To allow a higher price to be paid for the building of a house would not be the moans of producing one house more. You do not get any more houses because you allow the price of the houses to go up, and if you suggest that this 10s. 6d. is a reasonable price, indeed that the Minister might go beyond it, that will be putting a most dangerous suggestion in the minds of these people. As a matter of fact, you cannot get uniformity in house-building prices. The cost of building a house in one district to-day differs sometimes by £100 from the cost of building the same house in a different neighbourhood. I cannot always ascertain the cause of the discrepancy, but the discrepancy is there. Everyone who has had any experience in the administration of the Ministry of Health knows it perfectly well. Even to-day, when I am sorry to admit prices are much higher than anyone in the House thinks they should be, we are getting houses built at less than the price mentioned.

The hon. Member himself quoted figures down to 10s., and I am sure if I went into the books of the Ministry of Health I should be able to produce much lower figures If you put 10s. 6d. into the Bill, what will happen? If we set the building industry going, as we must do with the shortage of labour and of materials at the outset, under the most favourable circumstances of this scheme we shall have local contractors whose hands are full of work, and they will be asked to quote for an additional job. It is true the architect will tell the contractors they are not to exceed 10s. 6d. without the approval of the Minister of Health, but that will convey to them, even though their hands are full doing 9s. 6d. work, that they may, not only legitimately, but quite reasonably, and in accordance with the views of the House of Commons, quote 10s. 6d. for the other job which they do not care whether they get or not at that particular moment. They can afford to wait. Their men and their plant are all employed. They will say, "Let us put in 10s. 6d. If we get the job well and good, it can wait, and it will be a nice handsome profit when we reach it. If we do not get it, it is all the same. We can get on with the work we have." I want to say to the building industry and the country that while I am at the Ministry of Health, I am not going to pass schemes where the price is put up. We are not going to have these high prices, and I am prepared to stake the chances of my scheme on that. I do not say that, in certain circumstances, we would not exceed 10s. 6d., but take London, where costs are always high. It is doubtful at any time whether you can get houses for this figure.

Lieut. - Colonel JOHN WARD

Of course, for as many pence as there are shillings in that Resolution.

Mr. WHEATLEY

If the hon. and gallant Gentleman says you can gee them for 10d.—

Lieut.-Colonel WARD

You asked whether houses could ever be got at that price in London. The old jerry builder from 1906 up to 1914 would have produced good houses for the number of pence that you have shillings in this Resolution.

7.0 P.M.

Mr. WHEATLEY

If the houses that a-re now occupied in London were erected between 1906 and 1914 for 10½d. a foot, someone must be making a huge profit out of the rents that are now charged. I want the Committee to treat this matter seriously. I am not looking at it from the point of view of the Bill at all. The last thing the House of Commons should do is to try to regulate prices to suit rising costs We want to turn our attention to bringing these costs down. You could by this Amendment stop building in London altogether, and at the same time put up the general price of building by the passing of this Amendment alone. You cannot direct local authorities that 10s. 6d. would not be an unreasonable- cost. I hope that the Committee will take it from me that, while I am at the Ministry of Health, prices will not be allowed to rise. People will be told to wait until the prices come down. If we make that perfectly clear to the building industry, I think it will do more to keep down prices than by putting in the figure of 10s. 6d.

Viscount WOLMER

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has given any answer at all to my hon. Friend. What does his answer amount to? It amounts to this, that the figure of 10s. 6d. is higher than he thinks is reasonable. That can be very easily put right by putting in a lower figure in this Amendment. All that the hon. Gentleman and those who support this Amendment are saying is that Parliament should fix a figure beyond which the cost of houses should not be allowed to go without the sanction of the Minister of Health. We are arming the Minister of Health with additional powers. We are strengthening his hand. We are trying to set up a limit which cannot be exceeded except by a special procedure—still a perfectly feasible procedure. I am very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that £500 for the houses contemplated in this Bill is a ridi- culous sum. I heartily agree with him. I know of houses at the present moment as good as those contemplated in this Bill being built for a very much less sum than that—for between £350 and £400. I am perfectly certain that the cost could be brought down. It could be easily done by the acceptance of this Amendment. Why does not the right hon. Gentleman put in 9s. 6d. instead of 10s. 6d.? Why does he not put in 8s. 6d.? He says he wants to keep costs down, but he refuses to take the powers given to him by this Amendment. The Amendment would strengthen his hand enormously.

The right hon. Gentleman says he is not going to sanction schemes if he considers the cost is too high. I am very glad to have that assurance, but I think it is up to the right hon. Gentleman to give the House of Commons some sort of indication as to what he considers is the right cost of houses. It is no good for him to say, "Give me a blank cheque; give me a free hand; I will look after the taxpayers' money" I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has given us any reason why we should have that confidence in him or his administration. On the contrary, he has taken power to expend £1,000,000,000 of the taxpayers' money in subsidising the building industry—because that is what this Bill is, nothing more or less.

I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that we were not going to get more houses that way. We are not going to get more houses by paying more money for them. The only thing that can bring more houses is more men and more materials. Therefore, we are assisting the production of houses if we can keep costs down. I regard this Amendment as the touchstone of the right hon. Gentleman's sincerity. If he is really out to get cheap houses for the people and to prevent a building ramp, he will accept this Amendment, with such lower figure as he, with his experience and his knowledge of the Ministry of Health, is prepared to put before the Committee. It is perfectly certain that the Committee would not object, in fact would welcome, a lower figure than that advanced by the hon. Member. The Amendment proposed may require alteration. There is no reason why the Order contemplated by it should not be confined to London or to some district where particular conditions prevail. What we do ask is that Parliament should declare that a limit must be put to the building ramp; otherwise, what happened under the Addison scheme will happen to this scheme. In fact, it has already happened. It commenced on the day the right hon. Gentleman took office. Prices have been rising, the difficulties of providing cheap houses have been increasing, and the solution of the housing problem is further off to-day than it was when the right hon. Gentleman went to the Ministry of Health. What the hon. Member (Mr. Vivian) who moved this Amendment said is perfectly true. It is the poorest people in the country who are going to suffer from this unrestricted price of houses.

Mr. WALLHEAD

That is nothing fresh!

Viscount WOLMER

No, it is nothing fresh.

Mr. WALLHEAD

They always suffer.

Viscount WOLMER

Yes, they always suffer, and they will suffer a good deal from the result of the legislation of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Tim hon. Gentleman will find that out perhaps. It is very unjust and unfair that agricultural labourers, whose wages are 25s. a week or even less, should be taxed in order that the building industry may draw wages of £4 a week and more, and in order that the building employers or building materials merchants should make great profits. The poorest classes of the community make their contributions to the taxation of this country, and taxation falls heavier on them than on anyone. Everyone is going to be taxed to find, directly or indirectly, this £1,000,000,000. We in the House of Commons offer the Minister a weapon, the only weapon, by which he can keep prices down, and he refuses it.

Mr. H. H. SPENCER

I want to speak for a very few minutes on this Amendment, and to congratulate the Minister on his brave words about prices. Unfortunately, my Observation on the question has been that since the Minister came into office his only activities seem to have resulted in a quick rise of prices and a total stoppage of any schemes for building houses. When we find, as the hon. Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) has stated, a weapon has been put into his hands, he gives us fair words, but he refuses to take and use the weapon.

Mr. CLIMIE

What schemes have been stopped?

Mr. SPENCER

I say there has been a total stoppage of new schemes for building houses. Since the Minister came before the country with this scheme for huge subsidies and doles for the building trade, there has been a total stoppage of the, new schemes that were being produced under the 1923 Housing Act. I want, if I may, in considering this Amendment, to recommend to the Minister the very wise words of one of the greatest statesmen that this country ever produced, a statesman who did, without doles or extravagance for the people of Egypt, something that I should like to think that Members of the present Government would do for our people in England. He based his statemanship, from his own writings, upon two things. He said: "There are hundreds of schemes put before me for the benefit of the people of Egypt. No doubt a great majority of them would have done the people of Egypt good. "But," he asked first, "what will they cost?" and, secondly, "Where is the money to come from? These two great principles of statesmanship seem totally absent from the purview of the present Government and, particularly, from that of the present Minister of Health. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name!"] It was Lord Cromer. I thought all my Friends on the left would have known.

I do not propose to trespass on the time of the Committee again, but I would like to remind the Committee, if I may, and if my hon. Friends on my left are able ever to give a fair hearing, that the Minister sometimes seems to have a very delightful and charming habit of thinking aloud. When he thinks aloud, he tells us what is in his mind. I remember that he thought aloud and told us that if he had his way he would delete the last penny of interest from the people who lend money for building houses. I want very seriously to bring before him this fact, that in my own town we are not going to need anything like as many houses as are assumed, the reason being that our own working people have £23,000,000 in the three great building societies which work in Bradford.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

Will the hon. Member please keep within the terms of this Amendment?

Mr. SPENCER

I am sorry, Sir, if I went a little astray. I was only appealing to the- Minister on his plea for economy in building prices. I wanted to try and prove that the only road to economy was a, very different thing from giving huge doles to any particular trade. The road to economy is, I think, that the working people themselves should own their own houses. The Minister, on another occasion when he was thinking aloud, told us that the huge charges of this Housing Bill are only going to cost the nation 10 per cent. of the drink bill. I am quoting the Minister's own word. If that statement of the Minister be true, surely it would be a sounder policy, instead of having to put forward Amendments like this, to reduce the prices which should be paid for building houses, for the Minister to get people who want houses to take the very good advice which he and his Friends so often give. [HON. MEMBERS: "To stop drinking?"] Only 10 per cent. less. Do not say that my proposal compels the working man never to have a glass of beer!

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I would remind the hon. Member that I have already asked him to keep within the terms of the Amendment now before the Committee.

Mr. SPENCER

I am sorry, Sir, if I have trespassed. I will not go on any longer. I do not make this speech with the intention of obstructing the Bill, and I am sorry if I have wandered outside the terms of the Amendment. I would1 like to make one prophecy before I sit down, and that is this: This Bill, even with the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Vivian) will be a failure. Without the Amendment, it will be a, disastrous failure, and, when it has failed, as we all know it will fail, we and the public generally will not call the Members on these benches patient oxen any more. I do not like bending my neck to the yoke of the patient oxen. But they will think about this House more in the terms of those animals who rushed to destruction in the old biblical days.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD

I interjected during the right hon. Gentleman's speech some remarks as to the cost of houses before a certain period, and I think the Minister will find that, excluding the land and developments in the process of building which have been referred to, my statement is correct.

Mr. VIVIAN

Yes, that is so.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD

I think I can point out a plan by which houses could be built much more cheaply than they are at the present time. Since subsidies have been given, and since these great schemes have been undertaken by municipalities, there has been a rigid exclusion of the old cottage builder throughout the country. That man gets no facilities at the present time, although he is the man who really knows how to build these cottages. The municipalities put great schemes before the Minister, who either accepts or rejects them. If they are accepted then contracts are asked for, and inasmuch as the contractor usually has to give huge security before the municipality will enter into a contract with him, the work falls into the hands of big capitalist combines. These are the only type of contractors you now have for Government subsidy houses under present conditions. You have not the man who really understands cottage building. The difference between cottage building and the building of ordinary business premises is very considerable, and the man who may be an expert in the one may know absolutely nothing about the other. Then again yon have not the type of employer who is accustomed to this class of building. The big contractor does not employ the old cottage builder, the actual workman, the bricklayer or plasterer who has always done that class of work, but he engages men used to putting up huge buildings, and who know nothing whatever of this class of building. There is not the slightest doubt that if we would give facilities to the actual workmen who in the past built these cottages, and made them weekly payments to cover the wages of the men they employ, the municipality taking care to see that the work is done correctly and that the proper materials are used—if only you could get back to those conditions and give these workmen a chance of erecting the houses necessary for the working classes you would instantly save hundred of thousands of pounds of the amount you are now pro- posing to spend. Unfortunately the whole business is now concentrated in a few hands. If there were opportunities for the old builder of cottage property to come into his own again—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I do not think the hon. Gentleman is in order on this Amendment in discussing any suggestion as to the way in which houses might be built. The only point is whether there should or should not be a certain limitation of cost.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD

I say there should be no limitation whatever. I believe that if the plan I have suggested were adopted, it would be stupid to put 10s. 6d. into the Bill when it is quite possible that it would be easy to reduce that amount very considerably.

Mr. WALLHEAD

The Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) in arguing in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Vivian) was also arguing in favour of a fixed price for the building of these houses. But yesterday we had from the same bench arguments in favour of utilising every scientific method possible for the purpose of bringing down the cost of houses, and it was suggested that that cost might be brought down by utilising scientific methods of building.

Viscount WOLMER

It was not a question of a fixed price. It was a question of a fixed limit.

Mr. WALLHEAD

The danger is always that the maximum will become the minimum. 1 think the* Minister is quite right in refusing to accept the Amendment in the form in which it has been put. We are now defiling with the prices of houses, and it is a remarkable thing that the prices should be as they are at the present time. I should like hon. Members to compare the prices to-day with those which obtained under the Addison scheme or the Chamberlain scheme. I remember the time 20 years ago, when I was connected with the building industry as an employer. I know a little bit about the methods adopted and the prices that were then being paid. We could then get cottages built at 5d. per cubic foot. I do not think to-day you would get the same type of cottage and the same quality of work and material for less than 15d. per cubic foot. It cannot be suggested that wages have increased in that time cent. per cent., and certainly if you take the case of a brick the price of the raw material for that is the same as it was before the War. The hon. Gentleman who spoke just now talked of anti-social forces making for high prices against the welfare of the community. I agree with him that such forces ought to be scotched and killed. But in the present organisation of industry the anti-social force would be totally foreign to the whole conception on which modern history is based to-day.

The Noble Lord opposite talked of the burden that was going to be placed on the poorest of the poor by the amount of money to be raised for building these houses. The poor always do bear the burden. They always have done so. If there are any patient oxen in this country it is the poor. There is a good deal of sympathy expressed by hon. Members opposite with regard to the poorest of the poor having to meet the charges entailed by these houses. Might not a good deal of that sympathy be extended to them in regard to the burdens they have to bear in connection with our enormous national debt?

Lieut.-Colonel WARD

I think it is necessary that the Chairman should listen to this discussion. The hon. Member is now discussing the National Debt. I never got as far as that.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

My attention was distracted for the moment, but I may remind the hon. Member that what we are now discussing is whether any limit shall be placed in the Bill, and I cannot permit any discussion outside that.

Mr. WALLHEAD

I simply wished to illustrate the burden which the worker is called on to bear. I hope the right

hon. Gentleman will not yield to the blandishments of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, but that he will be prepared to take advantage of all the powers he can get from this Committee for the purpose of dealing with profiteering in that drastic way which our experience during the War showed it can be dealt with.

Mr. VIVIAN

In view of the extremely sympathetic reply of the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBEKS: "Oh!"]—I am quite prepared to be a patient ox if I can be of use. I may say I was agreeably surprised to hear from my right hon. Friend that he really hopes and believes that, apart from the special situation of London, which I appreciate—I think he is perfectly right—and in view of the definite pledge he gave to the Committee that he would devote himself to securing that the cost shall not only not rise, but shall decrease, and the possibility that this maximum may tend to become a minimum in some quarters, and in view of the recorded words of the right hon. Gentleman on the Floor of this House, and that we have a declaration of his policy—I say that in no unfriendly spirit—I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

Mr. SUNLIGHT

The Committee will remember that the Minister of Health said, on the Second Reading of this Bill, that he intended to supplement this Bill by another Measure controlling the price of material, and I think we ought to have a Clause that the cost shall not exceed the average price for similar cottages ruling in January, 1924.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 111; Noes, 236.

Division No. 162.]	AYES.	[7.35 p.m.
Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.	Calne, Gordon Hall	Deans, Richard Storry
Ballour, George (Hampstead)	Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Duckworth, John
Beckett, Sir Gervase	Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt.R. (Prtsmth.S)	Edmondson, Major A. J.
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Elveden, Viscount
Betterton, Henry B.	Clarry, Reginald George	England, Colonel A.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Cobb, Sir Cyril	Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Ferguson, H.
Blundell, F. N.	Cope, Major William	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
Briscoe, Captain Richard George	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Greene, W. P. Crawford
Brittain, Sir Harry	Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Gretton, Colonel John
Buckingham, Sir H.	Curzon, Captain Viscount	Gwynne, Rupert S.
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James	Davidson Major-General Sir J. H.	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Bullock, Captain M.	Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Hall, Lieut-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Burman, J. B.	Dawson, Sir Philip	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Harland, A.	Mansel, Sir Courtenay	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)
Hartington, Marquess of	Meller, R. J.	Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)	Stanley, Lord
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)	Steel, Samuel Strang
Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel	Nail, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Hood, Sir Joseph	Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert	Sutcliffe, T.
Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, North)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis	Pennefather, Sir John	Thomson, Sir W.Mitchell-(Croydon,S.)
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.	Perkins, Colonel E. K.	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Philipson, Mabel	Warrender, Sir Victor
Jephcott, A. R.	Ralne, W.	Wells, S. R.
Kindersley, Major G. M.	Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel	Wheler, Lieut.-Col. Granville C. H.
King, Captain Henry Douglas	Reid, D, D. (County Down)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Lamb, J. Q.	Remer, J. R.	Wise, Sir Fredric
Lane-Fox, George R.	Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)	Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L.
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Roundell, Colonel R. F.	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)	Savery, S. S.
Lord, Walter Greaves-	Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Lynn, Sir R. J.	Shepperson, E, W.	Viscount Wolmer and Marquess of Titchfield.
MacDonald, R.	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
NOES.
Ackroyd, T. R.	Gillett, George M.	Lunn, William
Acland, Rt, Hon. Francis Dyke	Gorman, William	McCrae, Sir George
Adamson, Rt. Hon. William	Gosling, Harry	McEntee, V. L.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)	Macfadyen, E.
Alden, Percy	Greenall, T.	Mackinder, W.
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Alstead, R.	Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Ammon, Charles George	Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Maden, H.
Aske, Sir Robert William	Groves, T.	March, S.
Astor, Viscountess	Grundy, T. W.	Marley, James
Ayles, W. H.	Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)	Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.
Baker, Walter	Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)	Maxton, James
Banton, G.	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.
Barclay, R. Noton	Harbison, Thomas James S.	Middleton, G.
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)	Harbord, Arthur	Millar, J. D.
Barnes, A.	Hardie, George D.	Mitchell, R. M.(Perth & Kinross,Perth)
Batey, Joseph	Harris, John (Hackney, North)	Montague, Frederick
Black, J. W.	Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	Morris, R. H.
Bondfield, Margaret	Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)
Bonwick, A.	Hastings, Somerville (Reading)	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Haycock, A. W.	Morse, W. E.
Briant, Frank	Hayday, Arthur	Moulton Major Fletcher
Broad, F. A.	Hayes, John Henry	Muir, John W.
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)	Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Murray, Robert
Buchanan, G.	Henderson, W. W.(Middlesex,Enfield)	Murrell, Frank
Buckle, J.	Hillary, A. E.	Naylor, T. E.
Cape, Thomas	Hindle, F.	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Chapple, Dr. William A.	Hobhouse, A. L.	Nichol, Robert
Church, Major A. G.	Hodge, Lieut. Col. J. P. (Preston)	Nixon, H.
Clarke, A.	Hoffman, P. C.	O'Grady, Captain James
Climie, R.	Hogbin, Henry Cairns	Oliver, George Harold
Cluse, W. S.	Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)	Owen, Major G.
Cove, W. G.	Hudson, J. H.	Paling, W.
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)	Isaacs, G. A.	Palmer, E, T.
Crittall, V. G.	Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Darbishire, C. W.	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)	Perry. S. F.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Jewson, Dorothea	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W,
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Phillipps, Vivian
Dickie, Captain J, P.	Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)	Potts, John S.
Dickson, T.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Pringle, W. M. R.
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Purcell, A. A.
Dukes, C.	Jowitt, w. A. (The Hartlepools)	Raffan, P. W.
Duncan, C.	Keens, T.	Raffety. F. W.
Dunn, J. Freeman	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Ramage. Captain Cecil Beresford
Dunnico, H.	Kenyon, Barnet	Raynes, W. R.
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Kirkwood, D.	Rea, W. Russell
Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)	Lansbury, George	Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Edwards, John H. (Accrington)	Laverack, F. J.	Rees, sir Beddoe
Falconer, J.	Law, A.	Remnant, Sir James
Franklin, L. B.	Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)	Richardson, R, (Houghton-le-Spring)
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Lawson, John James	Ritson, J.
Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)	Leach, W.	Roberts, Rt Hon. F. O. (W.Bromwich)
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)	Lessing, E.	Robertson, T. A.
Gates, Percy	Linfield, F. C.	Robinson. S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Gavan-Duffy, Thomas	Livingstone, A. M.	Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)
George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)	Lowth, T.	Romeril, H, G.

Ropner, Major L,	Stewart J. (St. Rollox)	Welsh, J. C.
Royle, C.	Sturrock, J. Leng	Westwood, J.
Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)	Sullivan, J.	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Scrymgeour, E.	Sutton, J. E.	White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)
Scurr, John	Tattersall, J. L.	Whiteley, W.
Seely, H. M. (Norfolk, Eastern)	Terrington, Lady	Wignall, James
Sexton, James	Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W)	Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
Sherwood, George Henry	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)	Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)	Thornton, Maxwell R.	Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kennington)
Simon, E. D.(Manchester,Withington)	Thurtle, E.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Simpson, J. Hope	Tinker, John Joseph	Willison, H.
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)	Tout, W. J.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Smillie, Robert	Turner, Ben	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Smith, T. (Pontefract)	Turner-Samuels, M.	Windsor, Walter
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)	Varley, Frank B.	Wintringham. Margaret
Snell, Harry	Viant, S. P.	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)
Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.	Vivian, H.	Wright, W.
Spence, R.	Wallhead, Richard C.	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)	Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Spero, Dr. G. E.	Warne, G. H.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Starmer, Sir Charles	Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)	Mr Frederick Hall and Mr. John Robertson.
Stephen, Campbell	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)

Mr. SUNLIGHT

I beg to move, in page 4, line 17, at the end, to insert the words (e) that the dimensions of all bricks used in building the houses shall be nine inches by four and a half inches by three and a half inches in size. The Committee will remember that I obtained leave, by the unique majority of one, to bring in a Bill to standardise bricks used in houses subsidised by the State, and I hope the Committee will support me in carrying this Amendment. I venture to claim, that so long as we have a housing problem, we shall have a brick problem; and sooner or later, if Parliament continues to subsidise house building, it will have to begin—I do not say it is going to stop at bricks—standardising material for the sake of economy, and, although I could offer a good many suggestions for standardising other things, I do feel perfectly convinced we are quite safe in standardising bricks.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT

May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he has any intention of pressing this Amendment to a Division, because, otherwise, I would like to go home?

Mr. SUNLIGHT

Yes, and I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend will do his best to whip up his friends to support this Amendment. At the present time, 90 per cent. of the bricks used in house building are what are commonly known as common clay-fired wire-cut bricks. I am the last person to want to interfere with private manufacture, and I do not want to interfere with the dimensions of channel stock brick, but I am concerned with the 90 per cent. of common clay-fired wire-cut bricks. This Amendment would not in any way affect brick-making plant for wire-cut bricks, which are made by simply setting certain wires a certain distance apart, so that they can be cut either 3½, 3 or 2¾ inches thick. There will be no alteration needed in regard to machinery. Before the War, these common bricks were made all over the country 3 inches to 3⅛ inches thick. It has been found in practice that the 3-inch brick is the handiest brick that any man can handle. The price of these bricks before the War was one-third or one-fourth their present price. In those days the brickmakers made the brick 3⅛ inches thick, for this reason, that the architects had a clause in their specification that certain things such as bricks, timber, etc., should be of certain size. Therefore, the brickmakers made the bricks an eighth of an inch thicker than the 3-inch brick in order to be able to come within the terms of the specification. The bricks were therefore always 3⅛ inch thick.

One thousand of these bricks always produced 11 yards square of 9-inch wall, with the result that architects or builders in preparing their estimates of cost knew exactly how many square yards of brickwork they were going to get out of 1,000 bricks, and they fixed their prices accordingly at certain definite figures. During the War the brickmakers, like other tradesmen, formed themselves into a ring or combine, and raised the price of the goods they supplied, with the result that bricks that cost 25s. per Thousand before the War were raised to as high as five guineas per thousand in 1919. In addition to raising the pries, they reduced the size from 4½ inches wide to 4¼ inches and from 3⅛ inches to 2¾ inches thick, with the result that the cost of brick- work, both in material and labour, was increased. The bricklayers did not lay more bricks because they were reduced in size.

I should like to give my own personal experience. In 1919–20 I was the architect for the erection of 20 factories in Manchester, the one-storey weaving shed type of factory, and brickwork was the chief thing. After fixing the contract with the builders at a certain scheduled rate of price for brickwork, labour and material, this alteration in the size of bricks meant that my clients immediately became liable for 15 per cent. more increase in cost. [An HON. MEMBER: "All the better for you!"] It ought to be reckoned in my favour that I am now proposing something which would tell against my own interests. The result was, that the cost of the brickwork through the action of the combine became very heavy. I do not want to interfere with private enterprise and private business, but so long as Parliament is committing itself to a programme of house building and is responsible for such a heavy percentage of cost spread over 40 years, it is right to say that if we cannot control prices we intend to see that no such thing occurs again in regard to the size of bricks, if the programme under this Bill is put into operation.

I hope that hon. Members will appreciate the fact that because of the experience I had in 1919 I want to warn the Committee that as soon as this Housing Bill becomes law and contracts are given out for hundreds of thousands of cottages all over the country brick-makers will immediately reduce the size of bricks. The Minister is to attempt to control prices by a subsequent Bill, and if he does not control the dimensions of bricks and other materials, but particularly bricks, the manufacturers will immediately reduce the size, and in that way inflate the cost. Not that they would gain very much for themselves, but simply because they are, determined to sell as many thousand bricks per cottage as possible and to make as many pound notes as possible. I hope that the Minister will give me some assurance that he will accept the Amendment. If he thinks fit, I would be prepared to reduce the sizes if he thinks the sizes in my Amendment too big. What I want is a standard of dimensions. Many thousands of millions of bricks will be required for these cottages and my Amendment would mean a very considerable saving. Indeed, this is the first Amendment which if it be carried will save the State some money.

Mr. WHEATLEY

It has been part of my policy all through this Bill to protect private enterprise, and the House has treated me so kindly, I might almost say generously, that it would be most unjust if I were to depart from that policy now. Even if I were inclined to do so, and if I could see some merit in the Amendment I would draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that it would be quite unworkable. We are dealing with the conditions that the local authority has to undertake. What does he ask the local authorities to undertake? He asks them to undertake that the dimensions of bricks used in building the houses shall be 9 inches by 4½ inches by 3½ inches. It would be totally impracticable for, say, Shrewsbury, to guarantee the size of bricks that would be used by a local authority in Monmouth.

Mr. PRINGLE

It is just as easy as the Fair Wages Clause.

Mr. WHEATLEY

For the reason alone that I have stated, I should have to reject the Amendment. I cannot see anything in the merits of the Amendment that would justify me in making such a revolutionary interference with private business.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. E. D. SIMON

I beg to move, in page 4, line 19, to leave out from the word "not" to the word "houses" in line 23, and to insert instead thereof the words exceed the rents, generally paid for the time being in the area of the local authority for houses of similar size, type and amenity. This Amendment raises an exceedingly vital principle. Hitherto, in building these municipal houses there has been general agreement as to the level of rents at which they should be let. The principle has been that the rents should be, as far as possible, the same as the rents of pre-War houses of equivalent accommodation, so that any tenant who is prepared to pay a certain amount of rent will get the same kind of accommodation, whether he gets a pre-War house, an Addison house, or a. Chamberlain house. That is the principle that has been universally accepted. It is just possible that it has not been completely carried out, because for what is called "amenity" in many districts too large a charge has been made. In some districts the rents of these houses are higher than the rents of equivalent pre-War houses, on account of more being charged for amenity and more being charged for rates. Apart from that, the principle has been accepted of one level of accommodation, one level of rent.

In this Bill that principle has been completely departed from. The Minister of Health has said several times that what he is aiming at is to let better houses at the rent of smaller houses. That is a totally new principle, and it is expressed in words which are extremely difficult to understand— That the rents charged in respect of the houses shall not in the aggregate exceed the total amount of the rents that would be payable if the houses were let at the appropriate normal rents charged in respect of working-class houses erected prior to the third day of August, nineteen hundred and fourteen. That does not say in respect of what working-class houses.

Mr. PRINGLE

Nor what are working-class houses.

Mr. SIMON

Nor what are working-class houses. If what the right hon. Gentleman says, and what was said in the negotiations with the local authorities, is, that the intention is that these houses shall be let at the rent average of working-class houses in any given locality before the War, what is the position? Take the case of Manchester. Some 75 per cent. of the pre-War houses in Manchester were only of the two-bedroom type. In order to right that, the Manchester local authority is building almost exclusively three-bedroomed houses. If this Clause passes, it means that these three-bedroomed houses are to be let at, approximately, the vents of the pre-War two-bedroomed houses. That is, giving a better house for the rent of the worse pre-War house. The right hon. Gentleman has said so often in his speeches that he wants to let these houses to the poorest section of the community, and this Clause, no doubt, is drafted for that purpose, but the striking thing about the right hon. Gentleman's speeches on this matter is that he never refers to figures.

What are the rents of these houses going to be? It seems to me absolutely essential if we are to understand what this Clause means that we should consider at what rent the subsidy allowed in this Bill will enable these houses to be let. It is agreed that the cost is to be £500, although in the great cities you cannot build an A3 house for £500 at the present time. Assuming that you build the house for £500, the economic rent of that house, without any subsidy, works out at 13s., calculating interest at 5 per cent. The subsidy allowed under the 1923 Act is equivalent to 3s. a week, enabling us to let that type of house at 10s. per week net. The extra subsidy allowed in this Bill is equivalent to 1s. 6d. a week, bringing the rent down to 8s. 6d. net. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will deny those figures. That means that 8s. 6d. per week is the lowest net rent at which a £500 house can be let with the full subsidy under this Bill. To that you must, of course, add rates. The rates on this house in Manchester amount approximately to 5s., so that the gross rent is 15s. We are letting these houses at 15s. Under the right hon. Gentleman's Bill we shall be able to let them at 13s. 6d. per week.

8.0 P.M.

That is what this Bill in fact enables us to do with the £500 house. My figures may be wrong. They are wrong in one sense, because I do not think that we can build for £500. They are based, moreover, on 5 per cent. interest, and the local authorities are going to have such enormous sums to borrow in the next 15 years that the rate of interest is more likely to go up than down. So that the rent is likely to ho 13s. 6d. My figures are also based on a sum for repairs, agreed by the City Treasurers, of £6 per annum per house. 8s. 6d. per week, plus rates, making 13s. 6d., is the lowest rent at which these houses can be let. What does that mean in Manchester? We are building Chamberlain houses, and we shall continue to build exactly the same houses on the same estate. We are now letting at 15s. a week to people of the artisan classes. According to the recent census 96 per cent. of our tenants are artisans and clerks, members, I presume, of the working class, but the richest members of the working class. The houses are let to them, and, so far as we can tell, there is an unlimited demand for similar houses at the present rent of 15s. from members of the same class. The right hon. Gentleman proposes that we shall go on building similar houses on the same estate, to let, not at 15s., but at 13s. 6d. The new houses may be next door to those already built or on the other side of the same street.

The first question that arises is, what will the tenants of the Chamberlain houses say when they find that similar houses are being let at 1s. 6d. a week less? That is an impossible situation. The local authorities in their negotiations with the Minister laid great stress on this, and said, "If you are going to give us this extra subsidy, which we welcome, we shall be forced to reduce the rents of the Addison and Chamberlain houses. Will you meet us on that point and bear the cost?" Hitherto the right hon. Gentleman has not given any answer to that question. If he is going to force local authorities to let these new houses at a lower rent, it seems only fair to ask that he should help the local authorities, to bring down the rents of the other houses to the same level. That is assuming that he does not accept the Amendment. If my figures are correct, it is fairly clear that when the right hon. Gentleman talks about the 1923 Act having housed the rich and of his being about to house the poorer section—when you realise that that means that under the old Act we let houses at 15s. and under his Act we are to let them at 13s. 6d.—it is really rather an exaggeration to say that in the one case it is the housing of the rich and in the other the housing of the poorest section of the community. The only people who can afford these houses with the full subsidy are the richest sections of the working class, those whose incomes are between £200 and £300 a year. If it is the case that the rents of working class houses are too high, the natural thing is to give a subsidy to all working class houses and bring the rents down. To reduce the rents by 1s. a week would mean £20,000,000 a year. I presume that if the right hon. Gentleman has considered that, he has found the Chancellor of the Exchequer not very sympathetic.

If it is out of the question financially, which it obviously is, surely the next thing to do is to say, "If we are to subsidise and give a dole to certain sections of the working classes, which are the classes which need it most?" Surely it ought to be given to the classes that need it most, and I should have thought that they were the poorest—those now living in slums. There would be a good case for giving some extra subsidy to them. There is another class which deserves help, the tenants who have large families of dependent children. The artisan with a large family requires practically the whole of his income for food and clothing and can afford only a very moderate rent. Just at the time when he needs a large house most he cannot afford it. Those are the two classes amongst the working class in regard to whom there is a strong ca6e for giving some extra subsidy. But what does the right hon. Gentleman do? He does nothing for the slum dweller and nothing for the parents with large numbers of dependent children, for they are just the people who cannot afford these expensive houses. What he does is to say: "I will take the tenant who can afford a 15s. house, and I will give him a dole of 1s. 6d. That 1s. 6d. shall be partly on the taxes and partly on the rates."

Every single householder throughout the country will have to pay more in order to help the specially privileged tenants to be created under this Bill. That includes, not only the rich, who pay their share, but the Blum-dweller and the casual labourer. Every slum-dweller will have to pay a little bit extra in order that these artisans shall get a dole of 1s. 6d. on their rents. That is most extraordinary. It is a deliberate creation of a privileged class. It is a deliberate creation of inequality and injustice, and a deliberate taxation of the whole community, including the poorest, in order to create this privileged class. The original proposal of the right hon. Gentleman or of the Prime Minister was that he wanted to build these £500 houses and let them at 9s. a week, including rates. That was the proposal first made to the municipalities. The proposal was that the rents should average 9s. To average 9s. would mean, not a total of £34,000,000 on the rates and taxes, but exactly double that amount, namely, £68,000,000. In view of that fact, no doubt the right hon. Gentleman abandoned his idea. But if you can let these houses at 9s. would not the absurdity of letting houses, as they are now let, at 15s., and of suddenly building a number of similar houses to be let at 9s., be more patent than ever? How are you to select the particular tenants for these privileged houses? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not think that I have spoken strongly about this scheme. May I quote what was said in one of our leading newspapers the other day about the selection of these tenants? They referred to "this publicly-financed lottery," This fundamentally corrupt vote-catching and demoralising subsidy. That was not in the "Morning Post," but in a leading morning newspaper which has supported hon. Members above the Gangway more than any other paper. I refer to the; "Manchester Guardian." Those are stronger words than I would have been inclined to use. If my Amendment wore adopted, it would bring the Clause back practically to the Clause that we have had in previous Acts except that it gives the local authorities full power to use the whole of the subsidy. It does not reduce the subsidy or necessarily the amount to be paid by the local authorities. They can let the houses at the lowest possible rents they can afford. But it does not force them to let the houses at lower rents than similar houses already existing. I have an Amendment later on, suggesting that any surplus subsidy might very usefully be given, not indiscriminately to every tenant, but to those particular tenants who have large families of dependent children. In that way this subsidy, instead of creating a privileged class of tenant, selected in a way that no one has yet been able to suggest, would do some real good to the children of the next generation, that is, those of the largest families who particularly need this subsidy.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I do not for a moment doubt the strong feeling and honest motive which actuate the hon. Member, because I have noticed for some time in the Press that he has been very energetically propagating this idea. But I want to make it quite clear to the House that the Amendment would strike a blow at the very heart of the Bill. I want to reason with the House on this matter, and to show how essential this scheme of rents is to the success of the Bill. It is important from two points of view. I have noticed in the discussions on the Bill that many hon. Members, instead of taking a comprehensive view of the scheme and trying to understand how one portion fits into another, are apt to deal with it partially and in sections, and to be honestly misled and to mislead their hearers. An instance of that occurred yesterday, when the right hon. Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain), who is probably the greatest authority on this subject in the House, told us in so many words that he saw no connection between the anticipated advent of new materials and big business men into the building industry and the launching of this scheme. If the hon. Member will consider the question from my point of view, he will see that the one is the natural result of the other. What was the position that I had to deal with when I set out to find a way out of the present housing situation? I had first of all to find a market for the houses. Before> you can find a producer of the houses you have to find a market for the houses; there must be some evidence when the houses are being produced that there are people prepared to take them.

I want hon. Members to do me the favour of trying to follow this closely. I want them to accept this as a fact. However many people you have in this country who can afford to buy, you have a large number who cannot afford to buy. That is not putting it too high. There is no use finding a manufacturer who can produce houses unless you find means by which these people can take houses. In the old days the means employed was to get an investor of capital who would take the houses from the builders and let them, if possible, at a profit to the people who require them. In other words you had to get an investor in houses, not merely a producer of houses, not merely a manufacturer of buildings, but a class of people who would sink their capital in the letting of houses. Everyone will agree that that type of man has gone We may disagree as to why. Hon. Members opposite might say that socialist agitators drove him away. We might say that the increase in the cost of production and various economic causes have driven him away, but whatever the cause of his going, there is almost unanimous agreement that he has gone.

Nor can I find any section of the community who hopes for his early return. I have put it, as I have said already in this House, to every deputation of local authorities in connection with houses that came to the Ministry of Health, including the municipal corporations, as to whether there was any sign in their locality of the investor of money for houses for letting purposes, for profit, returning, and in every case they said that there was not the slightest sign of his coming back. The very first thing I had to do was to find a market for the houses to be occupied by these people. If the investor has gone the only alternative I could find, apart from the State, which I think was out of the question, was the local authority. I had to get the local authority to take the place of the old investor in working-class houses, to get the local authority to be a party to the finance terms with which we had to deal. When I met them I found a reluctance, natural when we remember that at the moment we are in the course of a transition from one order of society to another. It is going on too slowly some of us think, but undoubtedly it is going on, and the general hope in this country is that it can be expedited sufficiently to keep pace with the developments of our industry, and to prevent anything like a violent disturbance. That is the hope of all of us.

Most of these local authority representatives find themselves dominated by ideas from the generation from which we are emerging, so naturally they had a reluctance to take over the place of the old investor. Many of them still say, perhaps not the authorities, but members of the authorities, "This is not the business of a local authority. The State should not interfere; the local authority should not interfere. It should be left to the operation of private enterprise." But the local authorities as a whole do not take that view. As I said yesterday, and I am always pleased to say it, my experience from the first day I entered public life goes in the direction of enabling me to say—and people who have had to deal from practical experience with public representatives on local authorities will bear me out—that whatever may be their party political views, they become, from sheer experience in their handling of this problem, enthusiastic housing reformers. But when I spoke to them in connection with this Bill they said in effect, "We are not prepared to take over all housing, but we are prepared to take over some housing." That, at any rate, helped to give me my market. Here was the local authority who would take over the housing of a certain section of the community, here was private enterprise still to deal with another section of the community.

But my market was essential for two reasons. The first mason was to attract to the building industry, if I might respectfully say so to those who are in it to-day, a bigger type of mind, a bigger conception of industrial organising. It was necessary to give some hope of getting to the newer methods of construction to which the right hon. Member referred yesterday, and it is the natural result of our having guaranteed a market, for those materials and products that, as is well known, you have today, as you had not even three months ago, a large number of the best business men in this country turning their attention to the cheap production of working-class houses. It was necessary to get that market, to widen the circle of people who would have access to the houses. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment has pointed out that under the Addison scheme in particular and under the Chamberlain scheme to some extent you had these houses let at fairly high rents. I think that he will agree that they are let at rents which a large number of the working classes of this country cannot afford to pay. I do not want to say anything that will be disputed, but it will not be disputed that they are beyond the reach of the working classes.

Many members of local authorities, my own local authority among others, have said, "We would not mind taking up the housing of the artisan class, but we do object to being saddled with the housing of people who could well afford to look after themselves. The people who can afford to pay a high rent, or to purchase their houses themselves." To get my market I have to widen my circle. I have to bring into my circle as many as possible of those people who cannot afford to pay high rents or to purchase their houses. So I set out, for this reason, to get my first subsidy in order to make the houses accessible to a larger section of the community. It may be that I have not widened the circle sufficiently, but I have widened it as far as hon. Members will permit me, and as far as the country in its present frame of mind would tolerate my doing.

I confess frankly to hon. Members, I have frequently said in my speeches, particularly on this question, that I do not come to you with prepared speeches to throw off to conceal my thoughts. I think aloud, and why should I not do so? I honestly tell you that, if I had the power, I would bring the whole of the people within my circle, in order to widen the circle, in order to make the market for the people which it is essential to get to bring now ideas into the industry and to give me the houses at a lower price. I wanted to widen the circle for another reason—a better reason, a nobler reason, and a reason which appeals more to my heart. I wanted to bring healthy housing within reach of a larger number of people, I shudder at the very conception of society which says that housing conditions, so essential in the life of a child, are to be, determined by the accumulations of wealth of the parents or the guardians of the child. I would like to make healthy housing conditions the inheritance of every child born in Britain. Just think that if a man is a successful burglar or a successful brothel-keeper, then the children of that man, because of his having accumulated some wealth, inherit healthy conditions, but if he is a man who has served his country well by giving useful industrial service, he only receives, because of the economic methods by which we fix incomes, 40s., 50s., or 60s. a week in return for those services. [HON. MEMBERS: "Or 30s.!"] I am reminded that he may receive even as low as 30s., and the children of that useful man are to be denied access to those healthy houses; are to be crippled physically and mentally, and are to be condemned by economic conditions to be wastrels, and to go through this world deprived of all the joys of life. On the other hand, the children of the successful brothel-keeper or the successful burglar are entitled by the laws of society to the higher things in life.

I wanted to end all that as far as I possibly could so I said to the local authorities: "I am prepared to give you the higher rate of subsidy but the condition of giving you that subsidy is that you will spend it as far as it will go in the furtherence of the objects I have in view." If the Committee were to carry this Amendment they would be making a gift to the local authorities. If we are simply going back, as this Amendment proposes to go back, to the practice of giving whatever houses may be available to the people who have the most wealth, then the local authorities in my belief can get in the market to-day a rent for these houses which would not require a subsidy at all. There is no doubt about that, and why we should give them the larger subsidy, designed for special purposes, and then proceed in the course of the Bill to relieve them of the obligation of performing the purposes which we ask them to perform I Cannot understand and I think to do so would not be justifiable.

May I come now to one or two of the statements made by the hon. Member in regard to the manner of fixing rents. No doubt the words may be somewhat ambiguous to the lay mind, but lawyers, in framing words, particularly those dealing with a scheme like this, have to aim at the utmost exactitude and not at the comfort of the reader of the words. If you have, as the hon. Member pointed out, to take as your objective the rents being paid to-day by working-class tenants in particular localities, in some places where the conditions are good, the wages high, the houses good and the rents high, the benefit, will not be so great. In other districts where the conditions are bad and where the rents have in the past been low, the benefit will be greater. In other words, the poorer districts will benefit more than the richer districts. The Bill lays it down that the local authority may charge different rents for different sizes of houses—say, the parlour houses and the non-parlour houses—but in addition to that, they may charge different rents for houses of the same type in different localities within the same area. In London, for example, there are some districts where the non-parlour houses would justify a higher rent than the parlour houses would be expected to bring in another part of London.

The hon. Member spoke about 5 per cent. interest. I do not know about the administration of Manchester, but if Manchester has been paying 5 per cent. then I should say that it is not financially the best administered corporation in the country, because the rate of interest over the whole country is substantially less than 5 per cent. The hon. Member referred to the rents which might be charged. I have never been able to follow the hon. Member's figures. I may be wrong, but I have seen many financial statements on housing from him, and I say, with all deference and with all humility, I have never been able to follow him. I have asked my advisers at the Ministry, who have probably access to as much information as any set of people in this country, what would be the average rent, rates inclusive, in England and Wales, of a house costing £475 all in. I think it will be admitted that £475 is enough, and I think it is more than enough, to pay for these houses. They tell me that the inclusive rent—the average over the whole country—of a £475 house would be 9s. 5d.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL

Does that include repairs and insurance?

Mr. WHEATLEY

It includes everything. It makes the usual allowance for repairs.

Mr. SIMON

What rate of interest

Mr. WHEATLEY

I am not quite sure. It is a varying rate of interest.

Mr. REMER

Does it include anything for depreciation?

Mr. WHEATLEY

It includes every charge which is put on houses.

Mr. SAMUEL

rose—

Mr. WHEATLEY

I cannot give way. I am giving the information for what it is worth. The figures are not mine, but are given me by my officials, who will compare with any other set of officials.

Mr. SAMUEL

Will the right hon. Gentleman dissect the figures?

Mr. WHEATLEY

They have given me these figures, and hon. Members can take them for what they are worth. Some places are relatively higher, and some places probably lower.

Mr. SIMON

Will the right hon. Gentleman publish details of these figures?

Mr. WHEATLEY

There were certain other questions put to me. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"] I cannot give hon. Members any more than the information at my disposal. I have nothing to conceal in the matter, and if the rents are higher, I have nothing to be ashamed of. If the rents were 20s. a week, or if I could bring them down by the figure put by the hon. Member of 1s. 6d. a week, it would only show that was the best I could do, and if anyone else can do better, then I will help him to do it. There is no reason why anyone should say that, because I cannot do everything, therefore I should not do anything.

Mr. SAMUEL

The 9s. a week is a mathematical impossibility.

Mr. WHEATLEY

Probably I have not the same financial experience as the hon. Member.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

In order to clear this matter up, may I ask is not the figure of 9s. 5d. which the right hon. Gentleman gave just now the figure of the rent after deducting the subsidy?

Mr. WHEATLEY

Oh, yes. Let me take another point, and I think a very pertinent point, raised by the hon. Member who preceded me. He said that under the 1923 Act we had erected a certain number of houses for which the local authority had only the smallest subsidy. He says if these houses are to compete with the new houses the rents will have to be brought down and the local authority will lose and then, asks the hon. Member, what are you going to do with the local authority? He is quite right in saying that the local authorities did raise that point when they interviewed me. I told them that when the loss was proved I would be very pleased to do anything that was in my power to help them, but may I show how little it can possibly be? This Bill is retrospective for houses, the contracts for which were placed on and after 1st February, and this problem applies only to houses built for letting purposes. I suppose I should not be putting it too low if I said that the total number of houses that would be affected by this consideration would not exceed 10,000 for the whole country, and we are thinking of a scheme of 2,500,000 houses! Let me deal, in almost my last word, with the argument that we are creating a privileged few. Surely that argument comes late in the day, and comes, surprisingly, from benches occupied by people who have been reformers in this country. Can you tell me of a single reform—I do not know that there is one—which has not benefited a certain section of the people at the expense of another section? We have free elementary education in this country. We tax our bachelors to educate the children.

Viscountess ASTOR

We do not.

Mr. WHEATLEY

Yes, we tax our bachelors to educate the children of the country, and, indeed, the whole principle on which we carry on social reform in this country must in its very essence begin, unless you begin by giving it to everybody, by giving it to all the people to whom you can afford to give it. While it is perfectly true, here, again, that we cannot build these houses at lower rents for everyone who needs them, surely that is not a conclusive argument why we should not begin to give them to all the people to whom we can afford to give them. My hon. Friend, if he has proved anything, has proved that I have not gone far enough. I assure him that I would like to go further, and I hope the day is not far distant when this country, even from a business point of view, if not from a humanitarian point of view, and if not from a patriotic point of view, will see that it is good, sound business to give healthy housing accommodation to every child born into this land.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

I am sure the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. E. Simon), who moved this Amendment, must feel himself rewarded for having done so, if only for the sake of the speech to which we have just listened from the Minister of Health. I confess that I like the right hon. Gentleman best when he is thinking aloud, when he gives us, as he did just now, a picture of the way in which his mind has worked. It is a picture, I think he will allow me to say, of an honest but a misguided mind, the mind of a man who has sincere ideals and a most earnest desire to put right evils which he clearly sees, as all of us do, of course, to be around us, but who has not seen the problem in all its aspects, and who has missed out of his purview, as I think, some important and vital parts of it. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman is living largely in a world of delusion. He has a delusion about the effect of the proposals he is making. He suggested that I was quite beside the mark when I failed to see any connection between his proposals and the turning of mechanical and commercial minds to the problem of producing a cheap house. He imagines that the one is the direct result of the other, but I can assure him he is entirely mistaken about that. What is really turning the mind of people to the problem of producing a cheap house is the conviction, which has been growing on them for some time, but which has now become firmly established after seeing the right hon. Gentleman's proposals, that it is impossible to get sufficient skilled labour, and to get that labour applied to the problem of producing houses, a/t any reasonable cost whatever. I now come to the particular Amendment before us

Mr. G. SPENCER

Hear, hear!

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I was answering the right hon. Gentleman's argument.

Mr. SPENCER

Yes; both the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister have been speaking outside the Amendment.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I only wish to say that, as far as I am concerned, I do not think it is reasonable of hon. Members to suggest that I was taking up time in going outside the Amendment, when I was merely answering the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment had, I thought, put his finger upon some very serious difficulties, and I am bound to say that the Minister in his reply, interesting and charming as it was in many respects, gave no answer to, and found no solution of, the difficulties to which the hon. Member alluded. I am not going to make any calculations as to what would be the particular rents which would be appropriate to the figures which are named as the cost. I accept the right hon. Gentleman's figures. He says that under the paragraph, which is, I think, paragraph (e), dealing with the way in which the rents are to be fixed— and I am bound to say it is very difficult to follow the wording of that paragraph—the rents are to be the ordinary rents that the tenants are now paying, whom he would expect to get the now houses. The local authorities are, then, under these proposals, to be allowed to charge different rents for different classes of houses, and even different rents for the same class of houses in the same locality. [An HON. MEMBER: "NO!"] That is what I understood him to say.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I did not mean that under this provision local authorities would be entitled to charge different rents for the same class of houses in the same locality, but in different localities within the area.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

Within the area. But they have one thing in common that is, they will be let at rents which will be lower than the houses of the same type and size in the same locality, namely, those already erected under the Act of last year or before. The effect of that must be, as the hon. Member pointed out, that the rent of the older houses is going to come down. I desire to press the right hon. Gentleman a little bit further on this point. He said that he had made a calculation, and that not more than 10,000 houses at the outset would be affected. That excludes the Addison houses. I am certainly glad to hear him say so definitely that, if the rent of the Addison houses came down, the loss would not fall upon the local authority. I thought that insufficiency of rent charged was one of the causes which would cause the loss to fall upon the local authority. I am rather surprised to hear the interpretation which the right hon. Gentleman has given. In spite of this, however, I feel some doubt in my mind as to its correctness—whether, if the rents of the Addison houses come down, the loss would not fall upon the local authorities.

Apart from that, however, there are the 10,000 houses. The right hon. Gentleman asked: "What are they compared with the two and a half millions?" But the 10,000 houses are on the ground. The two and a half millions are in the air! The 10,000 houses have been let, and the local authorities who have built them are receiving rents from them. Take the case of the small district councils who have built a limited number of houses in their district, and who have still got another small number to build. It may be only a few houses. They mean a lot to those district councils where, perhaps, it may be, a penny rate is only worth a few hundreds per year. They do want to have a very much more definite assurance from the right hon. Gentleman than they have had to-night as to any loss accruing. He may perhaps say that before he can say anything on this point he has to overcome the scruples of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am informed that the scruples of the Chancellor are exceedingly difficult to get over. The right hon. Gentleman, I am sure, knows that the Association of Municipal Corporations did not take a light view of this matter, for they went on to say, at one of their gatherings, that they must insist on an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he would make up to them any loss they might suffer owing to his scheme.

If you are going to build houses of the same type and size, in a particular district, or on a particular site, and if you are going to charge very different rents for them, and are going to put very different classes of people into them, then you are going to have trouble—trouble with the people who are already in the existing houses and who will resent the intrusion of people of a very different standard to themselves. They will resist having to live alongside of them, and, as they would say, lover the tone of the district, I am not saving this in any unkindly spirit, but any hon. Member opposite, who know? human nature, will know that I am speaking the perfect truth. I could give a case not very far from here where a Labour council protested against precisely that type of house proposed to be put up by the London County Council in their neighbourhood, the suggestion being that people would come from the East End of London to live in the houses.

These are practical difficulties that are likely to trip up this scheme, and the local authorities are going to be faced by serious difficulties when they put the scheme into operation. I confess I should have liked to hear from the right hon. Gentleman something not so picturesque but much more concrete as to exactly how the scheme was going to work. I should like to have heard from him as to the sort of differences he anticipates are going to exist between the new houses and the old when they are placed side by side, and how he thinks he is going to get over the difficulties that I have pointed out. That, to my mind, would have been more satisfactory, because it would have shown that he had really thought out the genuine difficulties and obstacles of his scheme, and which are likely to wreck it, despite any amount of good will on the part of the local authorities or anybody else.

I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this Amendment, if it were carried, would wreck the Bill. I think it would go to the whole root principle of the Bill. But I think the principle of the Bill is wrong. I voted against the Bill on Second Reading. I dare say I shall vote against it on Third Reading. But I am not going to try to kill the Bill by voting for an Amendment, or by a side wind under the guise of an Amendment, which would kill the whole thing. If it is impossible to fix the rents of these houses at the rents of the houses which are being built under the Act of last year then you do not want a subsidy. You cannot mix up the two things in that sort of way. Either you must have a smaller subsidy as before, or the larger subsidy and bring the rent down to the appropriate figure.

Mr. SIMON

Or build for larger families.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Some local authorities do already build for large families. It does seem to me that the hon. Gentleman's Amendment is inopportune; nevertheless, I personally am grateful to him for having given us the opportunity of having a very interesting discussion.

Mr. FRANKLIN

I am sorry to find myself in entire disagreement with the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon). I think his Amendment will, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ladywood (Mr. Chamberlain) says, have the effect of practically killing the Bill. What is it we are all striving to do? What is it we all have in our minds to achieve? Is it not this, gradually to bring down the rent of the houses of the working classes somehow or other even to pre-War rents. We have at the present time by our Rent Restrictions Act fixed a limit upon the rent going beyond a certain figure. Are we Liberals to ask that a limit, a minimum rate, shall be fixed in order that certain localities may prevent for all time to fall in rents. Is that to be the policy of my hon. Friends below the Gangway? If that is their policy then I disassociate myself from it, and this Amendment tends in that direction. To be consistent we should have to prevent any house being built at a lower price than £500, and we should have to prevent anything in the nature of a reduction in the rates. We all have knowledge that there will have to be some sacrifices, and sacrifices will be made by the wealthier classes of investors when such a large amount of money is required for these houses.

For as the rate of interest goes up, the capital value of your investment falls, and your fortune is reduced in value, but people will be glad to make sacrifices if they can once do away with what has been a grievance and trouble in regard to this problem. We have by some means or another to reach a point when we have sufficient houses at rents which can be paid based on economic principles to enable us to do without the Rent Restrictions Act altogether. I feel definitely that an Amendment of this kind will have the effect of preventing the tenants getting the benefit of lower or cheaper houses. The number of houses, let by the municipal authorities at higher rents, and I take the figures given by the Minister, may not be very large even then but if we can substantially reduce rents it will set the standard for a new state of things, and we shall come somewhere near pre-War economic rents. It is for that reason that I would urge my hon. Friend, after having made his protest, and after having shown the grievance of one side, to consider the other side, and withdraw his Amendment.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. PRINGLE

I regret that my hon. Friend who has just spoken has thought fit to condemn the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Withington (Mr. Simon). If the hon. Member for Central Hackney (Mr. Franklin) had understood this question exactly as it stands, I do not think he would have made the criticisms which he has made. We want to ascertain exactly how the rents are to be fixed. I have read this Clause again and again, and I say candidly that I do not understand what it means. The Minister of Health spoke about the difficulties experienced by the lay mind. I confess that I have given some time to legal interpretation in my life time, but I do not know what the definition is of "appropriate normal rent." I am quite prepared to say that there is no other hon. Member of the Committee who knows what that means. If there is any hon. Member who knows, I shall be glad if he will stand up and explain it to the Committee. Certainly, the Minister of Health has not done so, and I notice that the Attorney-General is not here. I want to find out a little about it, and that is why this Amendment has been put down. What my hon. Friend has proposed in this Amendment provides a definite standard whereby houses are to be rented, and the Clause puts forward no standard at all. This Clause says, "the rent normally charged in the area of the local authority in the case of working-class houses erected prior to the third day of August, 1914." What are working-class houses? There is no definition of what is a working-class house. What is it? We have had Bills for the housing of the working classes, but in none of them have we had a definition of a working-class house. Is it to be the rent now charged for those houses, or is it to be the rent charged at the" time the new houses are built? If it is to be the rent charged now, and that is to go on during the period of the duration of this Act, then we are simply stereotyping the 40 per cent. increase provided for under the Rent Restrictions Act. The rent now charged for working-class houses is based upon the standard of rents in 1914 plus 40 per cent. Consequently, I find the Minister of Health in a strange position. If this is to be stereotyped for 40 years, I find him now, in conjunction with his colleagues representing Glasgow, stereotyping an increase of rent which he promised at the last General Election to have removed.

I would remind the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and his colleagues in the representation of Glasgow that they promised at the last General Election that they were going to put an end to the 40 per cent. increase under the Rent Restrictions Act, and we know that a Bill was introduced for that purpose. Now we find the Minister of Health and the hon. Member for Bridge-ton supporting a Clause which will stereotype this 40 per cent. increase for a period of 40 years. That is what the Bill does. [HON. MEMBERS: "No! "] If hon. Members can get the Attorney-General to say that I am wrong I shall be pleased. [Interruption.] Hon. Members cannot stand anything being said that they do not like. Either my interpretation is a right one or it is not, and if any hon. Member who interrupts me can show it is wrong I am quite prepared to withdraw anything I have said. My hon. Friend the Member for Withington asked the Minister of Health to say what his proposal means While the right hon. Gentleman indulged in a great deal of noble sentiment about the poor of this country, he could say nothing about the meaning of his own Clause. He did not say whether his Clause meant that the 40 per cent. was to be stereotyped under this Bill. That would not have been so good for his constituents as the noble sentiments which he expressed.

We have really a clear issue here, namely, whether this Bill is going to be a statutory stereotyping of the 40 per cent. increase under the Rent Restrictions Act. It is as well that the electors of Glasgow should know whether it is or not. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or Penistone!"] Yes or Penistone, although it was not an issue there. If it becomes an issue there I shall be prepared to face it. The hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. J. Stewart) is on the Front Bench, and perhaps he will be able to give an interpretation on this point, but if he is not, I hope the Attorney-General, before we part from this Clause, will tell us exactly what is the Government view. In my view, the rent normally charged in the area of a local authority for these working-class houses erected prior to the 3rd August, 1914, means now the rent charged under the Rent Restrictions Act. That rent is normally charged now by law. [Interruption.] It is normal at the time of the Act being passed. If the hon. Member would hold his tongues he would not expose his ignorance. The Bill as it stands says is normally charged. That means the usual charge at the present time for a working-class house. "Normal" means "usual," and the word "is" refers to the present time. Consequently, the meaning is that the standard is the standard in the Rent Restrictions Act, and if that be the case, the next question that arises is, is this going to be the standard continuously throughout the whole period during which houses are to be built under this Bill. This Clause makes no provision for that. We have to deal with the Clause as it stands, and in the circumstances I maintain that the only meaning is that not only have the houses now being built to be rented at these rents, but also that all the houses built in the 15 years during which houses are to be built are to be rented at the same rent. There is no provision for altering it. If the Minister wants to provide for periodical alterations, it is not provided for in this Clause as it stands.

The break of three years does not deal with rent at all, but affects the continuance of the building scheme. We are dealing here with the definition of the appropriate normal rent, and there is no provision for altering this standard. The standard is laid down as the rent normally charged for pre-War working-class houses. If I am wrong, it will be quite possible for the hon. Gentleman to tell me whether he contemplates the continuance of those Acts. If he does not, we might have an alteration; we might have these houses let on an economic basis before the end of the period; but there is no indication, in the Clause as it stands, that the idea of my hon. Friend who spoke last is to be fulfilled, that we are going to return to the normal economic rent. This Clause anticipates the fixing of the rents during the whole period of the operation of the Bill on an arbitrary basis on this principle, in accordance with rules laid down by the Minister. In these circumstances, I suggest that it is an unfortunate basis, and I hope that before the Bill goes through we shall have a more satisfactory standard.

Lord E. PERCY

I rise for the purpose of making one correction in something that the Minister has said, in order to make the matter quite clear, and also for the purpose of making one remark on another point that has not yet been raised. The Minister said that at the moment the number of houses, other than Addison houses, on which the local authority would stand to lose by a reduction of rents consequent upon this Clause, was 10,000. That, I suppose, means that the Minister is under the impression that he had only approved 10,000 houses under the Chamberlain Act before the 1st February last. It is those houses which are now built that are not to be entitled to the new subsidy. He had done, however, nothing of the kind. He had approved, on paper, over 90,000 by that date; but as I suppose it is not the ones approved on paper that are to be taken for the purposes of this Bill, but the ones approved and definitely arranged for, which have been contracted for, and for which undertakings have been given by the local authorities; but they were not 10,000, but 51,000. I really think the Committee has a right to expect that Ministers will be rather more accurate than that in their figures, when they are dealing with such a very important point as my right hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood has shown this to be.

That is by way of correction. Then there is one phrase in this curious paragraph which has not been mentioned—the phrase "in the aggregate." What does "in the aggregate" mean? Does it mean that the local authority at any time is to lump together all the houses it has built, and say that, as long as the aggregate rent of all those houses, divided by the number of houses, comes out at the average normal rent, whatever that may be, then it does not matter what is the rent of a particular house—that within that aggregate you may have one house at as high a rent as 25s. and another as low as 6s.; that, as long as they are in the aggregate, or, as ordinary people would say, on the average, the normal rent of the surrounding houses, then any rent may be charged for any particular house? If that be so—I am merely asking for information—then what houses are the local authority in the aggregate to lump together? Is it to hump in simply the houses built under this Act—the houses under special conditions—or is it to lump in all the municipal houses built in its area and strike an average of the whole?

Does "aggregate" mean one of these things or is it the latest legal way of naming a rent inclusive of rates? Does it mean that the rent inclusive of rates is to be the average normal rent of the surrounding houses? It is no use the Minister telling us that the best lawyers have been on the job, and that, therefore, it is really all right. As the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) has said, we do not want only noble sentiments. We want to know what this Clause means. Up to date the impression left upon my mind is that the Minister knows as little what this Clause means as we do, and I am quite sure the Parliamentary Secretary knows as little as I do what the words "in the aggregate" mean.

Mr. CLIMIE

If one looks at this Amendment, one finds that the name of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) is attached to it, but his speech and the speech of the Mover were entirely different. I rather gathered that the hon. Member for Penistone was running away from the attitude taken up by the Mover of the Amendment. Undoubtedly, the Mover of the Amendment wants the rents of the 1924 houses, to be built under the new Act, to be exactly the same as those of the 1923 and the 1919 houses.

Mr. SIMON

May I just explain? The Amendment is that the local authority, while not being free to charge higher rents, shall be free to charge rents as much lower as they like, and to distribute the money either on all the houses or in any other way.

Mr. CLIMIE

I think it was suggested that the only practicable way was to make the rents similar. The hon. Member for Penistone runs away from that, and wants to argue that in this Bill the Minister ought to have included an Amendment to the Rent Restrictions Act. That, however, as I understand it, is not the intention of the Bill. The intention of the Bill is to get, houses and let them to the working classes in they districts where they are built, and if it is carried more or less in its present form it will have that effect.

I want to get back to the speech of the Mover of the Amendment. He said that in Manchester the only saving in this extra subsidy would be 1s. 6d. per week. The Minister has pointed out that he never can follow any figures the hon. Member uses when he is discussing the housing scheme. I am in a somewhat similar position. I think he is wrong, and I think I can prove him to be wrong. I have here an actual estate which is being built at present under the Chamberlain scheme. The number of houses is 30, of which 18 are four-roomed and 12 three-roomed houses. The average cost works out at £440 all in. The town chamberlain of the town has worked out the charges on the basis of 60 years' repayment. He has worked out the interest for 60 years. He has worked out the feu duties. We are not buying the houses. We are paying an annual feu duty. He has worked out the owners' rates. He has worked out the repairs at 15 per cent. on the rent, bringing out a total expenditure of £970 13s. 4d. That is the total annual rent for the houses. The present rent is, on the average, £25 all in. The rates are 8s. in the £, making a rent of £35. Under the scheme of the Bill the houses could be rented, not at £25, but at £19 on the average. Thirty houses at £19 gives £575. The grant of £9 per house under the scheme gives you £270. The local authority grant of £4 10s. gives £135, bringing out an interest of £980, as against £970 13s. 4d. The rents are £19 on the average. If you add the rates, £19 added to £7 12s. gives you a total rent of £26 12s. all in, or roughly 10s. a week. The rent and rates just now for the houses are 13s. 7d. a week. Under the Bill it would be 10s., giving you a saving per week, not of 1s. 6d. but of 3s. 7d. There is a concrete ease that I put before the Committee, and in my view the Minister is more or less carrying out the promise made by the Prime Minister at the opening of Parliament.

Mr. RAMSAY MUIR

There is one aspect of this Clause, and the Amendment to it, to which I think we ought to direct our attention a little more closely than we have done. This Clause is drafted as an instruction to local authorities as to the principles on which they are to fix the rents of houses. It is not only an instruction. It is a condition of their receiving any subsidies that they shall fix the rent in accordance with this. We feel that it is really indispensable that a Clause so important and so vital to the working of the whole housing scheme should be framed in such terms that it shall be unmistakably clear and that everyone shall understand what are intended to be the principles upon which the rents of houses are fixed under this Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are you going to vote for the Amendment?"] The main purpose of the Amendment, in favour of which I shall vote if it goes to a Division, is primarily to elicit some clear definition as to what the right hon. Gentleman has described as the very heart of the Bill. We submit that the Bill is intolerable as it stands, and unintelligible. The standard laid down by the local authorities is to be the standard normal rent of working-class houses. What local authority can possibly decide what is meant by a working-class house? Furthermore, the principle that underlies this Amendment is not necessarily that we should stick to the rents in vogue at the present moment, but that whatever we do, we should do our best to get uniformity of rents. I think there is no escape from the validity of the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Withington as to the sense of injustice that will be created by the giving of the special privilege of lower rents to a class which, after all, is already well enough off to pay a reasonable rent. It is not the poorest class that can or will be helped by such a rent as this. The main conclusion to which I come is, that this central and vital Clause is so drafted that it will set every local authority in the country at loggerheads among themselves and with one another, and with the Minister of Health, and that it will produce among the various classes of the working community a resentment, intense and growing, as the number of the privileged persons to whom these houses are granted is increased.

Mr. GREAVES-LORD

The hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) cited a Clause in this Bill which may have a very extraordinary effect. The idea of it apparently is not to judge house by house, but to judge group by groups, and, therefore, if this Clause were passed in the way in which it is framed, you will have to take 50 houses built under this Bill as compared with 50 houses let at a rent which was normal before the 3rd August, 1914, and the rents which will be payable if the houses were let at the "appropriate normal rent." Therefore, if you have 50 houses which were erected before the 3rd August, 1914, which were let at rentals that in the aggregate came to £650 at 10s. a week, then you are to let the houses under this scheme at and about an aggregate which will come to £650. You could get that perfectly easily by letting five houses purposing to charge £100 for five of them, £18 a year for one of them, and £3 a year for 44 of them. In that way you would get £650 for the 50 houses, and would be acting within the letter of the Clause, if you did it.

You might not easily get £100 for the first-named houses, but you would get any number of people to compete for the 44 houses to be let at £3 a year, and the result is that the Minister of Health will achieve his purpose of subsidising those people at the expense of the rest of the community. [Interruption.] I should have thought that what the Minister of Health really wanted to do was to see that these houses were let at a reasonable and normal rent, and if he wants to do that, then the Amendment which has been moved will achieve that end. Under those circumstances, quite apart from the interests of justice, and in the interests of trying to get a Clause into the Act of Parliament which will be reasonable, I think it is far better to vote for the Amendment than for the Clause as it stands.

Mr. T. THOMSON

I submit that the origin of this Clause arises in the practical difficulties that have arisen in many local authorities, especially in industrial areas, to get the rents from their tenants of the houses which were put up under the 1919 and 1923 Acts. The experience of many local authorities is that the amount charged the community of the subsidised houses has been altogether out of proportion to the actual cost arising through the larger space or the additional rooms, and I submit that out of those difficulties the Clause as arisen in the present Bill to enable local authorities to let houses under the 1924 Act at a lesser figure than the pre-War rentals would otherwise have justified. I submit the difficulty has arisen in the differentiation which, apparently, arises between the rent to be charged under the Addison houses and the rents to be charged under the 1923 Act houses. I want to put to the Minister the necessity of meeting the request of the Association of Municipal Corporations, that if there is a loss through the necessity of making these rents of smaller houses of the same level, he should take steps to put into his Bill the necessary Clause in order to relieve the authorities of this extra charge. That would do away with the main difficulties raised by the hon. Member for Withington, who objects to the creation of a privileged class. It is foreign to the ideas of justice, and I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, when the time comes, to look with favour and accept the Amendment put down as a new Clause on behalf of the Municipal Corporations Association which makes it clear the reduction in rent which would follow from making the rent the same for the class of house. Therefore I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to make it quite clear that as far as a reduction in rent has to take place in order to equalise the rent charges for various classes of houses the locality will not be penalised, as it otherwise would be, as regards the 1923 houses. I submit whether the figure is £10,000 or £80,000 it is only right that the Minister should relieve the local authorities of the loss which otherwise they would sustain in the reduction of rents which is bound to take place. You cannot have a privileged class. You must have the same level for all rents for the same class of houses. I hope the Minister will be able to meet us on that point. With regard to the question of subsidies for rent it is too late in the day to quarrel with that. We have been paying these subsidies for some years and we have found that the poorest of the poor, although they need it most, have not been getting the advantage of the State money voted for that purpose. It is only right that in the Bill care should be taken that those whose need is the greatest should get their fair share of the assistance granted from the public purse.

Mr. A. GREENWOOD

I wish to deal with one point which was constantly reiterated in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle). The greater part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech was a statement to the effect that Section (3) of Clause 3 really amounted to a stereotyping of rents on the basis of existing rents under the Rent Restriction Act. There is nothing in the Clause that would lead a layman to believe that that was the case The rent to be charged is the appropriate normal rent; it is the rent normally charged in the area for working-class houses at the time. The hon. and learned Gentleman emphasised the word "is," which he informed the Committee referred to the present year, and he said that next year if the appropriate normal rent is not the same as it is to-day because of an alteration in the Rent Restriction Act, then that will be the rent to which the local authorities will have to have regard when determining what, for the purposes of this Act, will be the appropriate normal rent.

The appropriate normal rent at any time will be the average working-class rent at that time for pre-war houses. I now propose to deal with the question raised by the Noble Lord the Member for Hastings (Lord E. Percy). The Noble Lord attempted a correction. I am sorry he is not here, because I want to correct his correction. When my right hon. Friend referred to 10,000 houses provided for before 1st February last he was referring to houses being built by local authorities which would come within the operation of this Bill. It is perfectly true, as the Noble Lord stated, that 51,000 houses had been arranged for, but the vast majority of those houses were houses to be built by private builders for sale, and they therefore would not come within the scope of the present Bill.

The Noble Lord asked for an explanation of the term "in the aggregate." I do not think that should present any special difficulty. Let the hon. Member assume that a town has a scheme for building 200 houses. The meaning of the phrase is that the total rent charged for the 200 houses shall not be more than the rent charged for 200 working-class houses before the War. Clearly in a scheme of that sort you will have houses of different sizes, and different rents will have to be charged. There is no attempt here to lay down a standard rent dependent upon whether the house is of three bedrooms, or with or without a parlour. You have to get at a rough approximation the equivalent of the existing rent for pre-War houses, and therefore it is necessary to take the estate as a whole, and to compare the total rents from that estate.

Mr. GREENE

If there is a larger demand for the more expensive houses, will not building in that area automatically come to an end as soon as the demand for the cheaper type of houses is satisfied?

Mr. BLUNDELL

Why does the hon. Gentleman assume that in a block of 200 houses the houses will be of different sizes?

Mr. GREENWOOD

Anybody who is familiar with the subject knows there would be different classes of houses. There may be an alteration in the demand for different houses, but that does not affect my argument. If it be that there are 200 houses of the larger size, then, the aggregate rent will still have to be no more than the aggregate rent of 200 working-houses built before the War.

Mr. GREAVES-LORD

May I ask—[Interruption.]

The CHAIRMAN

The Minister has given way to the hon. Member. [Interruption.] Mr. Greaves-Lord is in possession of the Committee.

Mr. GREAVES-LORD

Take the illustration of 200 houses, let at 10s. per week. The aggregate rents from them would be £5,200 a year. What is to prevent the landlord saying, "I will for one house charge £5,001 per year"—

Mr. SULLIVAN

Is the hon. Gentleman entitled to make another speech?

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is asking a question of the Minister.

Mr. GREAVES-LORD

Assuming that the aggregate rents of the 200 houses is £5,200 a year, what is there to prevent the authority saying we will charge £5,001 a, year for one house—which, of course, they will never get—and for the other 199 houses we will only charge £1? The aggregate will still be £5,200.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Chiefly common sense. [An HON. MEMBER: "Let us have a proper answer!"] You cannot give a reasonable answer to an unreasonable question. I should like to say a word or two about the speech of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. R. Muir) and his reference to privileged persons. [Interruption.]

The CHAIRMAN

It is very much out of order to interrupt.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I am not going to sit down.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member can only speak if he rises to a point of Order.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I am rising to a point of Order, and I protest against—[Interruption.]

Mr. MAXTON

My point of Order is, to ask whether there is one kind of etiquette for the other side of the House and another kind for this?

The CHAIRMAN

So far as I am concerned, I see no difference in the etiquette of one side of the House from the other.

Viscount WOLMER

On that point of Order. Is it not within the right of an hon. Member who has possession of the Floor to give way or refuse to give way to another hon. Member who wishes to make an interjection, and it is not a breach of courtesy for an hon. Member to exercise that right?

The CHAIRMAN

In the one case the hon. Gentleman, so far as I saw, did not give way, and I did not insist that he should. In the other case, the Minister did give way. Therefore the hon. and learned Member for Norwood is in order.

Mr. FERGUSON

On a point of Order I would like if you would try to keep those lambs in order.

Mr. GREENWOOD

The hon. Member for Rochdale several times referred to privileged persons. That, I think, is not a fair way of putting what we have in view in this Bill When the Act of last year was passed enabling persons to purchase houses with the assistance of a Government subsidy, there was never any argument used that they were privileged persons. In this Bill we are dealing in the aggregate, over 15 years, with a programme for 2,500,000 houses. It is preposterous to regard the people who will occupy those houses as a small group of privileged persons. What we are attempting to do is to fill a gap that has never been filled before, and to do it in a way that is reasonable. Because a large number of working people have to pay too high rents for very poor houses is no reason why, under a housing scheme, assisted by public money, those who occupy the houses should be fined, so to speak because of the misfortune of their fellows. I ask the hon. Member for Rochdale to believe that, if it were within our power to give all people in this country decent houses to live in at reasonable rents, we should be glad to do so. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) pressed with great sincerity the claims of his Amendment. That hardly arises here, but should be dealt with on Clause 5, and I hope he will wait until the discussion on that Clause takes place, when my right hon. Friend will give it careful consideration. As the Debate has been going on a good long time, and we have not made as yet very substantial progress, I hope I may ask the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon) whether he is prepared to withdraw his Amendment.

Mr. PRINGLE

The hon. Member, in reply to a question which I put twice to him during the course of his speech, said he would answer later on. I put the question to him whether, in contemplation of Sub-section (3), the appropriate normal rent was to be revised every year.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Not every year, but it will be revised as the rents change. That may not be in a year; it may be three years. I cannot say.

Mr. SIMON

I want to make an appeal to the Minister of Health. He has characterised my Amendment as a vital or wrecking Amendment—I forget the exact words—and I want to say that it is not intended to be anything o£ the sort. I am, and I believe everyone on these benches is, just as anxious as he is to get houses built for every single child born in this country to have a chance of growing up in the best possible surroundings. I venture to think I Have devoted as much time to work on housing in the last four years as anyone here. This is an Amendment honestly moved, because I believe it is the best way of working towards the object we all, I believe, have in common. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that, under my Amendment, part of the subsidy might not be necessary, and might be pocketed by the local authorities. That is the last thing I desire. Every penny of the subsidy available ought to go to the tenant, but not necessarily to every tenant. My only object is to give the local authorities freedom to use the money available under this Bill in such a way as to be of the greatest advantage to those for whom they build houses. If the object can be better secured by other words, will the right hon. Gentleman see if he can produce another form of words by the Report stage?

Viscount CURZON

Right through the discussion we have seen the same attitude taken up by hon. Members opposite. On practically every Amendment the first two or three speakers opposite breathe fire and thunder. Then one or two try to find a loophole for the Minister, and finally withdraw every Amendment. I do not know why they put the Amendments on the Paper. The point to which I should like to address myself is the point put by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Greaves Lord). He put a reasonable question to the Minister, and the Parliamentary Secretary in reply said that it was an unreasonable question. It is not unreasonable; it is a perfectly reasonable question. An exorbitant figure might be put upon some houses and a ridiculous figure put upon some; other houses. I want to get a reply from the Minister or from the Parliamentary Secretary, if he will condescend to address himself seriously to the point, as to what there is in the Bill to prevent such a thing happening. That is a serious and legitimate question, to which he has failed to give a reply. He said that he wants to provide a decent house at a decent rent. Every hon. Member wants to do that, but when my hon. and learned Friend puts a serious question he is unable to get an answer. As the Parliamentary Secretary has failed to answer, I would ask the Minister to give an answer.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I rise to acknowledge the spirit displayed in the remarks of the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon). I appreciate the spirit that prompted him to move the Amendment, but I can assure him and my assurance has been confirmed by the right hon. Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain), that whatever be his intention in moving the Amendment it undoubtedly strikes a fatal blow at the Bill. He does not want to do that. If any other way can be found to achieve the object he has in view, without interfering in this way with the method of fixing rent, I should be very pleased if we can find it. Under the circumstances, I hope that he will not press his Amendment.

Viscount CURZON

Can you not answer the point we have put?

Mr. REMER

rose—

Mr. WHEATLEY

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee divided. Ayes, 242; Noes, 113.

Division No. 163.]	AYES.	[9.59 p.m.
Ackroyd, T. R.	Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	O'Grady, Captain James
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	Oliver, George Harold
Alden, Percy	Hastings, Sir Patrick	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Haycock, A. W.	Owen, Major G.
Alstead, R.	Hayday, Arthur	Paling, W.
Amman, Charles George	Hayes, John Henry	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Aske, Sir Robert William	Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)	Perry, S. F.
Astor, Viscountess	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Ayles, W. H.	Henderson, W, W. (Middlesex, Enfld.)	Phillipps, Vivian
Baker, Walter	Hillary, A. E.	Potts, John S.
Banton, G.	Hindle, F.	Pringle, W. M. R.
Barclay, R. Noton	Hobhouse, A. L.	Raffan, P. W.
Barnes, A.	Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)	Raffety, F. W.
Batey, Joseph	Hoffman, P. C.	Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford
Black, J. W.	Hogbin, Henry Cairns	Raynes, W. R.
Bondfield, Margaret	Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie	Rea, W. Russell
Bonwick, A.	Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)	Rees, Sir Beddoe
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Hudson, J. H.	Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Briant, Frank	Isaacs, G. A.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Broad, F. A.	Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)	Ritson, J.
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W.Bromwich)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Jewson, Dorothea	Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Buchanan, G.	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Robertson, T. A.
Buckie, J.	Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)	Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Cape, Thomas	Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool,W.Derby)	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Charleton. H. C.	Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)	Romeril, H. G.
Church, Major A. G.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Rose, Frank H.
Clarke, A.	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Royle, C.
Climie, R.	Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)	Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)
Cluse, W. S.	Kay, Sir R. Newbald	Scrymgeour, E.
Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)	Keens, T.	Scurr, John
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Sexton, James
Cove, W. G.	Kenyon, Barnet	Sherwood, George Henry
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)	Kirkwood, D.	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington,N.)	Lansbury, George	Simon, E. D.(Manchester,Withington)
Crittall, V. G.	Laverack, F. J.	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Darbishire, C. W.	Law, A.	Smillie, Robert
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)	Smith, T. (Pontefract)
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)	Lawson, John James	Smith, W. R. (Norwich)
Dickie, Captain J. P.	Leach, W.	Snell. Harry
Dickson, T.	Lessing, E.	Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.
Dodds, S. R.	Linfield, P. C.	Spence, R.
Duckworth, John	Livingstone, A. M.	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Lowth, T.	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)
Dukes, C.	Lunn, William	Spero, Dr. G. E.
Duncan, C.	McCrae, Sir George	Starmer, Sir Charles
Dunn, J. Freeman	Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Stephen, Campbell
Dunnico, H.	McEntee, V. L.	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Mackinder, W.	Stewart, Maj. R. S. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)	Stranger, Innes Harold
Edwards, John H. (Accrington)	Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.	Sturrock, J. Leng
England, Colonel A.	Maden, H.	Sullivan, J.
Fletcher, Lieut.-Com. R. T. H.	Mansel, Sir Courtenay	Sunlight, J.
Franklin, L. B.	March, S.	Sutton, J. E.
Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)	Marley, James	Tattersall, J. L.
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)	Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)	Terrington, Lady
Gavan-Duffy, Thomas	Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)	Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.	Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro. W.)
Gibbins, Joseph	Maxton, James	Thornton, Maxwell R.
Gillett. George M.	Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.	Thurtle, E.
Gorman, William	Middleton, G.	Tinker, John Joseph
Gosling, Harry	Millar, J. D.	Tout, W. J.
Greenall, T.	Mills, J. E.	Turner, Ben
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Montague, Frederick	Turner-Samuels, M.
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Morris, R. H.	Varley, Frank B.
Griffith, Rt. Hon. Sir Ellis	Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)	Viant, S. P.
Groves, T.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Vivian, H.
Grundy, T. W.	Morse, W. E.	Wallhead, Richard C.
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)	Moulton, Major Fletcher	Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Muir, John W.	Ward, Col. J. (Stoke upon Trent)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Harbison, Thomas James S.	Murray, Robert	Welsh, J. C.
Harbord, Arthur	Murrell, Frank	Westwood, J.
Hardle, George D.	Naylor, T. E.	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Harris, John (Hackney, North)	Nichol, Robert	White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)
Harris, Percy A.	Nixon, H.	Whiteley, W.

Wignall, James	Willison, H.	Wright, W.
Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)	Windsor, Walter	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kennington)	Wintringham, Margaret	Mr. T. Griffiths and Mr. Warne.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)
NOES.
Ainsworth, Captain Charles	Gates. Percy	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas.C.)	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Atholl, Duchess of	Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John	Philipson, Mabel
Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Pielou, D. P.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.	Rankin, James S.
Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel
Beamish, Captain T. P. H.	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Remer, J. R.
Betterton, Henry B.	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Harland, A.	Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)	Ropner, Major L.
Blundell, F. N.	Henn, Sir Sydney H.	Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Bourne, Robert Croft	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart	Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Buckingham, Sir H.	Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Savery, S. S.
Burman, J. B.	Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, North)	Shepperson, E. W.
Butt, Sir Alfred	Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Calne, Gordon Hall	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Jephcott, A. R.	Steel, Samuel Strang
Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt.R. (Prtsmth.S)	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Kindersley, Major G. M.	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	King, Captain Henry Douglas	Sutcliffe, T.
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Lamb, J. Q.	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Collox, Major Wm. Phillips	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Cope, Major William	Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen. South)
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Lord, Walter Greaves-	Thomson, Sir W.Mitchell-(Croydon,S.)
Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert	Lumley, L. R.	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.	Lynn, Sir R. J.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Davies, Maj. Geo.F.(Somerset,Yeovil)	Mac Donald, R.	Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-	Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)
Dawson, Sir Philip	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Wells, S. R.
Deans, Richard Storry	Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Doyle, Sir N. Grattan	Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.	Wise, Sir Fredric
Elliot, Walter E.	Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)	Wolmer, Viscount
Elveden, Viscount	Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray	Oman, Sir Charles William C.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Ferguson, H.	Pennefather, Sir John	Captain Viscount Curzon and Sir Kingsley Wood.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Penny, Frederick George

Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 216; Noes, 116.

Division No. 164.]	AYES.	[10.8 p.m.
Ackroyd, T. R.	Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)	Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Cove, W. G.	Groves, T.
Alden, Percy	Crittall, V. G.	Grundy, T. W.
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Darbishire, Charles W.	Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Alstead, R.	Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Ammon, Charles George	Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Aske, Sir Robert William	Dickie, Captain J. P.	Harbison, Thomas James S.
Ayles, W. H.	Dickson, T.	Harbord, Arthur
Baker, Walter	Dodds, S. R.	Hardie, George D.
Banton, G.	Dukes, C.	Harms worth Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Barclay, R. Noton	Duncan, C.	Harris, Percy A.
Barnes, A.	Dunnico, H.	Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Batey, Joseph	Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Hastings, Sir Patrick
Black, J. W.	Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)	Haycock, A. W.
Bondfield, Margaret	Edwards, John H. (Accrington)	Hayday, Arthur
Bonwick, A.	Fletcher, Lieut. Com. R. T. H.	Hayes, John Henry
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Franklin, L. B.	Henderson. A. (Cardiff, South)
Briant, Frank	Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Broad, F. A.	Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)	Henderson. W. W. (Middlesex, Enfld.)
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Gavan- Duffy, Thomas	Hillary, A. E.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)	Hobhouse, A. L.
Buchanan, G.	Gibbins, Joseph	Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)
Buckle, J.	Gillett, George M.	Hoffman, P. C,
Cape, Thomas	Gorman, William	Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)
Charleton, H. C.	Gosling, Harry	Hudson, J. H.
Church, Major A. G.	Greenall, T.	Isaacs, G. A.
Clarke, A.	Greenwood, A, (Nelson and Colne)	Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)
Climie, R.	Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Cluse, W. S.	Griffith, Rt. Hon. Sir Ellis	Jewson, Dorothea
John, William (Rhondda, West)	Murrell, Frank	Sullivan, J.
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)	Naylor, T. E.	Sunlight, J.
Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool,W. Derby)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Sutton, J. E.
Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)	Nichol, Robert	Tattersall, J. L.
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Nixon, H.	Terrington, Lady
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	O'Grady, Captain James	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Keens, T.	Oliver, George Harold	Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Owen, Major G.	Thornton, Maxwell R.
Kenyon, Barnet	Paling, W.	Thurtle, E.
Kirkwood, D.	Perry, S. F.	Tinker, John Joseph
Lansbury, George	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Tout, W. J.
Laverack, F. J.	Phillipps, Vivian	Turner, Ben
Law, A.	Potts, John S.	Turner-Samuels, M.
Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)	Raffan, P. W.	Varley, Frank B.
Lawson, John James	Raffety, F. W.	Viant, S. P.
Leach, W.	Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford	Vivian, H.
Lessing, E.	Raynes, W. R.	Wallhead, Richard C.
Linfield, F C.	Rea, W. Russell	Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)
Livingstone, A. M.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Lowth, T.	Ritson, J.	Warne, G. H.
Lunn, William	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W.Bromwich)	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
McCrae, Sir George	Robertson, T. A.	Welsh, J. C.
McEntee, V. L.	Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)	Westwood, J.
Mackinder, W.	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)	Romeril, H. G.	White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)
Maden, H.	Rose, Frank H.	Whiteley, W.
Mansel, Sir Courtenay	Royle, C.	Wignall, James
March, S.	Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)	Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)
Marley, James	Scrymgeour, E.	Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)	Scurr, John	Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)	Sexton, James	Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kenningtn)
Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.	Sherwood, George Henry	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Maxton, James	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)	Willison, H.
Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.	Smillie, Robert	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Middleton, G.	Smith, T. (Pontefract)	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Millar, J. D.	Smith, W. R. (Norwich)	Windsor, Walter
Mills, J. E.	Snell, Harry	Wintringham, Margaret
Montague, Frederick	Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)
Morris, R. H.	Spence, R.	Wright, W.
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Spero, Dr. G. E.
Morse, W. E.	Stephen, Campbell	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Moulton, Major Fletcher	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)	Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. John
Muir, John W.	Stranger, Innes Harold	Robertson.
Murray, Robert	Sturrock, J. Leng
NOES.
Alnsworth, Captain Charles	Ferguson, H.	Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)
Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W.(Glas.C)	Forestier-Walker, L.	Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)
Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Gates, Percy	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)
Beamish, Captain T. P. H.	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.	Pennefather, Sir John
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Penny, Frederick George
Bowater, Sir T. Vanslttart	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Pielou, D. P.
Briscoe, Captain Richard George	Harland, A.	Rankin, James S.
Buckingham, Sir H.	Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel
Bullock, Captain M.	Henn, Sir Sydney H.	Rees, Sir Beddoe
Burman, J. B.	Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel	Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Butt, Sir Alfred	Hogbin, Henry Cairns	Remer, J. R.
Calne, Gordon Hall	Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie	Ropner, Major L.
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)	Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, North)	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Jephcott, A. R.	Savery, S. S.
Cope, Major William	Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)	Shepperson, E. W.
Cowan, Sir Win. Henry (Islington,N.)	Kay, Sir R. Newbald	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Kindersley, Major G. M.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert	Lamb, J. O.	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
Davies, Maj. Geo.F.(Somerset,Yeovil)	Lord, Walter Greaves-	Starmer, Sir Charles
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Lumley, L. R.	Steel, Samuel Strang
Dawson, Sir Philip	Lynn, Sir R. J.	Stewart, Maj. R. S. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Deans, Richard Storry	Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Doyle, Sir N. Grattan	MacDonald, R.	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Duckworth, John	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Sutcliffe, T.
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Elvedon, Viscount	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
England, Colonel A.	Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Fade, Major Sir Bertram Godfray	Meller, R. J.	Thomson, Sir W.Mitchell-(Croydon,S.)

Tichfield, Major the Marquess of	Wells, S. R.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George	Captain Viscount Curzon and Lieut.-
Ward, Lt. Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)	Wise, Sir Fredric	Colonel Sir Joseph Nall.
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.

Mr. A. GREENWOOD

I beg to move in page 4, line 25, to leave out the words "the expenses," and to insert instead thereof the words "the estimated annual expenses to be."

This Amendment will, I think, cover the points raised by later Amendments, and it will cover the points referred to in the next two Amendments. As this Amendment is in the nature of a drafting Amendment intended to make the meaning of the Bill clearer than it was, I hope that the Committee will accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. GREENWOOD

I beg to move in page 4, line 26, to leave out the words "the provision of."

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I think the Committee should know why these words are being left out. I can understand the words "the provision of the houses." There might be expenses in connection with houses, but not expenses relating to building. I do not object to the Amendment, but I think we should know why the change is being made.

Mr. GREENWOOD

The first Amendment was framed in order to cover all those expenses to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. This Amendment relates only to the words "the provision of."

Mr. REMER

I think that the Committee should receive a fuller explanation of these points. The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary should come here with a properly prepared brief in order to explain what these Amendments mean, and, in the absence of a proper explanation, I think this matter should be left over to be dealt with on the Report stage.

Amendment agreed to.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I beg to move, in page 4, line 29, to leave out the words "not less than."

We desire to leave out these words for this comparatively simple reason. We desire to fix the period at 40 years, and, therefore, these words will have to be eliminated. We desire the period to be neither more nor less than 40 years, but just 40 years.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. T. THOMSON

I beg to move, in page 4, line 30, to leave out the words "and then", and to insert instead thereof the words or in the case of houses affected by any Order made by the Minister and the Scottish Board of Health which decreases the amount of the contributions payable or curtails the period for which such contributions are to be payable an amount equivalent to such proportion of the four pounds ten shillings a year payable for a period of forty years as the amount find period of the contributions when so decreased or curtailed bears to the amount and period of the contributions as fixed by this Act, and then in either case. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that when, as a result of the triennial re-estimates of the expenses incurred in connection with these schemes, the sum of £9 is reduced, there shall be a proportionate reduction in the amount of £4 10s. provided by the local authority. Obviously it is only fair that where there is a reduction in the tot al sum contributed out of public funds that, reduction should be equally divided as between the amount from the rates and the amount from the taxes. I move this Amendment on behalf of the Municipal Corporations Association.

Mr. GREENWOOD

I should like to suggest to the hon. Member that this Amendment has been put down in the wrong place. This Clause merely deals with the question of special conditions, and any question relating to the financial aspect of the Bill and the revision of contributions ought really to come on Clause 5.

Mr. THOMSON

I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for the guidance he has offered, and I give notice that I shall endeavour to move this Amendment on Clause 5. I will now withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. E. SIMON

I beg to move, in page 4, line 31, at the end, to insert a new paragraph— (f) that, subject to the limitations laid down in paragraph (e) as to the rent chargeable in the aggregate, the local authority shall where practicable discriminate between the rental charged to occupiers having children living with and dependent on thorn and those without such dependent children in such a way as to lower the rent charged to occupiers with such children, in proportion to their number. The object of this Amendment is to direct local authorities, where practicable, in administering the subsidy given under this Bill, to give a preference to those cases where there are large numbers of children dependent on the parents. The right hem. Gentleman said the other day that he wanted, if possible, these houses to be left to the people who built them, which was not possible for the best kind of houses under the 1923 Act. I think he is wrong in that. If you take a bricklayer who has no children, he is perfectly able to afford to live in one of the 15s. houses to which I refer. As soon as he has three or four dependent children, he comes to the time when it becomes important to have a three-bedroomed house, and he suddenly finds he cannot afford it. The paradox of the housing situation in this country is that the parents of young children, just those who most need a good-sized, well-situated and, if possible, well-planned house with garden, are the very ones who cannot afford it. May I illustrate that by looking at the position in Manchester? Manchester we hove a great majority of only two-bedroomed houses, and for that reason we are building nothing but three-bedroomed houses now, and I think every local authority in the country is doing the same. Every local authority begins by passing resolutions, saying that they will let these houses and give preference to tenants with large families, but I believe every local authority has had the experience that there is any number of applicants with large families, but that when it comes to paying the rent they are just those who cannot afford it. The result is that three-bed roomed houses are being-occupied by people with no children, and those with large families are still crowded in the pre-War two-bedroomed houses, a situation which everyone will admit is absurd, and which we ought to remedy, if we can.

In Manchester, so anxious were we to afford proper accommodation for large families, that we built a number of houses with four bedrooms, but we were incapable of finding working-class people with large families who could live in them, so that there are more than half of them occupied now by families who could house their children perfectly well in two-bedroomed houses. That is what is happening under the present system. Hon. Members who are members of housing committees or anyone who has had experience of the kind can state that that is what is happening all over the country.

The Minister of Health has proposed increased subsidies, which as I tried to show, amount to 1s. 6d. per week per house. I did my best to follow the figures given by an hon. Member below the gangway, but I regret that I could not. The figures, however, are perfectly simple. The present value of the increased subsidy given by the right hon. Gentleman, £80, means, in effect, £4 a year, which is 1s. 6d. a week. That spread over the weekly tenants is going to do very little for them, but if you leave the matter to the local authority, as proposed by my resolution, for the money to be given where the need is greatest, to families of three, four and five children, then you would be doing something for the next generation. You would be taking a step to give these children a fair chance of growing up in good houses, rather than crowding them into two-roomed houses. I appeal to the House to give a serious consideration to this Amendment, and to pass it.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I am sorry to oppose this Amendment. One of the strongest criticisms against the private house owner to-day is because of his indisposition to provide housing accommodation for a family, especially where there is a large family. While I cannot, for several reasons, accept the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Withington, one of which is that it would involve such an amount of investigation that I rim satisfied no local authority would operate the provision—and I question whether the hon. Gentleman himself would like to pursue all the investigation suggested by his Amendment—while, I say that, I may add that there is an Amendment on the Paper lower down which I think, with some alteration, will make it that reasonable preference will be given to large families.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. NALL

On a point of Order. Is an hon. Member in order in moving an Amendment which he does not intend to press? [HON. MEMBER: "Oh, Oh! "and Interruption.]

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I hope hon. Members will allow me to listen to the point of Order.

Sir J. NALL

I put this point of Order for this reason: On the last Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Withington he ran away when it came to a Division. I acted as a Teller, and hon. Members having spoken one way, voted another. It is for that reason that I put the question whether it is in order for hon. Members to continue to move Amendments which they do not intend to press?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

It is not unusual for hon. Members to move Amendments, and then, after discussion, to ask leave to withdraw them.

Mr. SIMON

I do not quite understand the right hon. Gentleman. It is not only that reasonable preference should be given in the case of large families, but that they should be given some other preference. That is the object of the Amendment—to enable the local authority, if it thinks well, to discriminate in the rent. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept that.

Mr. BLUNDELL

I ask the hon. Member who moved this Amendment not to withdraw it, because I think it raises a point of great importance and substance. The Amendment the Minister has proposed means nothing whatever, and merely expresses a pious opinion, while the proposal before the Committee not only expresses a pious wish, but lays down some means of carrying it into effect. Therefore, I appeal to the hon. Member opposite to carry his Amendment to a Division, and I feel certain in all parts of the Committee there will be found a large number of hon. Members in sympathy with his proposal.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY

For once in a way I find myself in some measure of agreement with hon. Gentlemen opposite. The words which the Minister of Health wishes to substitute for this Amendment are very vague in another direction. The right hon. Gentleman talks now about a preference being given to those with large families. They might all be children or grown up. [Laughter.] My hon. Friends opposite, of course, are the children of somebody, but I sometimes doubt if they are all grown up. I think all sections of the Committee are anxious to give preference to the families of young children. [Laughter.] I mean families consisting of young children. I know the House can only understand language of the simplest character, but may I make it plain by saying we wish to give a preference to families consisting of young children of school age and younger.

I think the Amendment, which has been moved is somewhat vague, but it is certainly an improvement on the words suggested by the Minister. This is an attempt to adjust rents according to the ability of the heads of families to pay, a principle with which I am in complete sympathy, but which, nevertheless, is undiluted Socialism. This is a Socialist Bill, and I do not think this Amendment is out of harmony with the declared intentions of the Minister of Health, and for these reasons I ask him to reconsider the advisability of accepting it. It may need clarifying, but that can be done by introducing certain words on Report. For these reasons I shall vote for this Amendment.

Mr. S. ROBERTS

I do hope the Committee will not, in any moment of hasty excitement, rush into the Lobby in support of the hon. Member for Withington (Mr. Simon). This Amendment opens up an enormously large question. If we are once going to consider the size of families in dealing with rents, where are we going to stop? We know that many earnest social reformers advocate that wages should be regulated by the size of families, and we know that hon. Members opposite—I think quite rightly—are opposed to that proposal. I think the Minister of Health is perfectly right in saying that the administrative difficulties o in the way of this proposal would be enormous, and that the local authorities would not willingly accept this task and although this Amendment may appeal to many sentimentalists, yet, from the point of view of reasonable practical politics, it is quite impossible, and certainly is not an Amendment that should be dealt with in a discussion of half an hour late in the evening.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

It is on the same principle as the Income Tax.

Mr. ROBERTS

If the Minister of Health resists the Amendment, I certainly, and I hope many others who agree with me, will support him in the Lobby.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR

I support this Amendment, which I think is on very good lines. We know that there has been a great deal of discrimination in the past so far as the proprietors of houses are concerned, in actually giving preference to those who are without families, and complaints have been made about that stipulation many a time. The point raised by this Amendment is one that ought to be very heartily supported from the Labour Benches. The objection that is taken with regard to investigation is not at all a serious one, because, as matters stand now, an adjudication does proceed on the part of house proprietors who investigate the circumstances of those who desire to come into these new houses, and all sorts of questions are asked of those who apply for them. If we cannot see our way to meet a case of this kind, it seems to me that we are losing a very valuable opportunity of helping those struggling people with families whom the Minister of Health would naturally have in view. We need not worry at all about the question of discrimination, because that process is going on at present. This is a far more substantial Amendment than it might be thought to be, and, in spite of any little difficulties that there may be in regard to it, I feel that the Minister ought to accept it, whatever variations may be suggested in its wording.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I cannot think that the Committee has really appreciated what this Amendment means. I can understand that some of my hon. Friends are carried away by a desire, which we all have, to see the population of the country well and adequately housed, but let us really think what this Amendment means. It is an Amendment which, surely, ought to receive very grave consideration, as it would involve an extreme alteration of our whole economic system. Such an alteration may come some day, or it; may not, but really at present it is an impossible suggestion. Consider for a moment what it means. The Bill itself creates a privileged class of work-people who will get these houses provided under the Bill, which are to be let at privileged rents to those who are fortunate enough to obtain them. This Amendment goes further, and says that, under certain circumstances, certain members of the working classes who have larger families than others are to have a still higher privilege against all the rest of the working classes, apart altogether from other sections of the operation. These subsidy houses will not be in great numbers within the first few years. The right hon. Gentleman's suggestion is 150,000 the first year and 250,000 spread over the country in the next few years. The great bulk of the population will continue to be housed for many years in non-subsidy houses whether they have large or small families, and you are going to ask that we should order the whole of our economic system to give a certain privileged rent, whatever it may be. I do not think the hon. Member would even suggest the amount of the rent, but proposed to leave it to the local authorities. If the second Amendment is carried the local authority will be requested by Parliament to give a privilege and a preference to people with large families, but the first Amendment suggested by the hon. Member for Withington merely says they may be at liberty to charge a less rent. Some local authorities may do it and some may not. You will have the greatest confusion all over the country. You will have authority A pauperising a man with a large family, and authority B saying, "No, we are not bound to carry the Section out, and we are not going to." It would really not be for the welfare of the working classes themselves that such an invidious distinction should be placed upon them. I hope the Committee will be governed by sanity rather than by sentiment.

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL

The Minister has asked the Committee—and I am sure they sympathise with his view—to take this Amendment seriously. It really is a remarkable thing that in all the Housing Bills which have been introduced, many of them by hon. Members opposite and some at least by a Minister from hon. Members below the Gangway, such a suggestion as this has never even been contemplated. Now we have an Amendment moved by an hon. Member below the Gangway and supported by Members opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "No" and "Yes."] Think what it means. We may be pardoned for thinking that at least some hon. Members opposite support it in the hope that it may cause some difficuty to the Minister. I invite the Committee seriously to consider what sort of investigation would necessarily follow this if it was put into the Bill. Here is a family of comparatively poor people who desire to have a house and the local authority would be permitted to discriminate, having regard to the number of the members of the family and whether they were dependent or not. Think what it would mean. Presumably they would be inspectors having to go round and ask whether or not there was in fact an increase in the family. It has already been pointed out that these tenancies would vary, in many cases, from week to week, and inquiries would be made as to whether children continued to be dependent. [Interruption.] The hon. and gailant Member for Central Hull has said that would only arise once. It would arise at every

moment when the new letting may arise, and in the case of a weekly tenancy it would arise every Monday morning. There can be no end to inquiries. I am convinced the Committee cannot afford to pass an Amendment of this kind. I do really and sincerely suggest that the Bill would be stultified by putting in such an ill-digested Amendment.

Several hon. Members having rised—

Mr. WHEATLEY

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee proceeded to a Division.

Viscountess ASTOR (seated and covered)

On a point of Order. I really have been seated in this House for five hours waiting to speak on this Amendment, and I think it to little hard that a Division should be called without giving me a chance.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

That is not a point of Order.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 210; Noes, 159.

Division No. 165.]	AYES.	[10.54 p.m.
Ackroyd, T. R.	Dickson, T.	Hayes, John Henry
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Duckworth, John	Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W.(Glas.C.)	Dukes, C.	Henderson, W. W. (Middlesex. Enfld.)
Alstead, R.	Duncan, C.	Hillary, A. E.
Ammon, Charles George	Dunn, J. Freeman	Hindle, F.
Aske, Sir Robert William	Dunnico, H.	Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)
Ayles, W. H.	Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Hoffman, P. C.
Baker, Walter	Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)	Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)
Banton, G.	Edwards, John H. (Accrington)	Hudson, J. H.
Barnes, A.	England, Colonel A.	Isaacs, G. A.
Batey, Joseph	Fletcher, Lieut.-Com. R. T. H.	Jackson, R. F (Ipswich)
Black, J. W.	Franklin, L. B.	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Bondfield, Margaret	Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)	Jewson, Dorothea
Bonwick, A.	Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)	John, William (Rhondda, West)
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Gates, Percy	Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Briant, Frank	Gavan-Duffy. Thomas	Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool.W. Derby)
Broad, F. A.	George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)	Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Gibbins, Joseph	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Gillett, George M.	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Buchanan, G.	Gosling, Harry	Jowitt, W. A (The Hartlepools)
Buckle, J.	Greenall, T.	Kenworthy Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph W.
Chapple, Dr. William A.	Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Kirkwood, D.
Charleton, H. C.	Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Lansbury, George
Church, Major A. G.	Groves, T.	Laverack, F. J.
Clarke, A.	Grundy, T. W.	Law, A.
Climie, R.	Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)	Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)
Cluse, W. S.	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Lawson, John James
Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)	Harbison, Thomas James S.	Leach, W.
Costello, L. W. J.	Harbord, Arthur	Lessing. E.
Cove, W. G.	Hardie, George D.	Lunn, William
Crittall, V. G.	Harris, Percy A.	McCrae, Sir George
Darbishire, Charles W.	Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	MacDonald, R.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Hastings, Sir Patrick	McEntee, V. L.
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)	Haycock, A. W.	Mackinder, W.
Dickie, Captain J. P.	Hayday, Arthur	Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Macpherson, Ht. Hon. James I.	Rees, Sir Beddoe	Thornton, Maxwell R.
March, S.	Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)	Thurtle, E.
Marley, James	Richardson, R, (Houghton-le-Spring)	Tillett, Benjamin
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)	Ritson, J.	Tinker, John Joseph
Masterman, Fit. Hon. C. F. G.	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W.Bromwich)	Tout, W. J.
Maxton, James	Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)	Turner, Ben
Meller, R. J.	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)	Turner-Samuels, M.
Middleton, G.	Romeril, H. G.	Varley, Frank B.
Millar, J. D.	Rose, Frank H.	Viant, S. P.
Mills, J. E.	Royle, C.	Wallhead, Richard C.
Mitchell, R. M.(Perth & Kinross,Perth)	Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)	Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)
Montague, Frederick	Scurr, John	Warne, G. H.
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)	Sexton, James	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Sherwood, George Henry	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Morse, W. E.	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)	Welsh, J. C.
Moulton, Major Fletcher	Smillie, Robert	Westwood, J.
Muir, John W.	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Murray, Robert	Smith, T. (Pontefract)	White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)
Murrell, Frank	Smith, W. R. (Norwich)	Whiteley, W.
Naylor, T. E.	Snell, Harry	Wignall, James
Nichol, Robert	Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.	Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)
Nixon, H.	Spence, R.	Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
O'Grady, Captain James	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)	Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kenningtn.)
Oliver, George Harold	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Owen, Major G.	Spero, Dr. G. E.	Willison, H.
Paling, W.	Stephen, Campbell	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Perry, S. F.	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Stewart, Maj. R. S. (Stockton-on-Tees)	Windsor, Walter
Phillipps, Vivian	Stranger, Innes Harold	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)
Ponsonby, Arthur	Sturrock, J. Leng	Wright, W.
Potts, John S.	Sullivan, J.	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Purcell, A. A.	Sunlight, J.
Raffety, F. W.	Sutton, J. E.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)	Mr. Frederick Hall and Mr. Allen
Raynes, W. R.	Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)	Parkinson.
Rea, W. Russell
NOES.
Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke	Dodds, S. R.	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)
Ainsworth, Captain Charles	Doyle, Sir N. Grattan	Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip
Astor, Viscountess	Elliot, Walter E.	Lumley, L. R.
Atholl, Duchess of	Elveden, Viscount	Lynn, Sir R. J.
Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.	Eyrts Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. W.	Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Barclay, R. Noton	Ferguson, H.	Maden, H.
Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Forestier-Walker, L.	Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Beamish, Captain T. P. H.	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Mansel, Sir Courtenay
Becker, Harry	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Betterton, Henry B.	Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John	Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Gorman, William	Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Greene, W. P. Crawford	Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.
Blundell, F. N.	Gretton, Colonel John	Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)
Bourne, Robert Croft	Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.	Morris, R. H.
Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart	Gwynne, Rupert S.	Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)
Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Nail, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph
Brittain, Sir Harry	Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Buckingham, Sir H.	Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Burman, J. B.	Harland, A.	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)	Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Butt, Sir Alfred	Harris, John (Hackney, North)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Calne, Gordon Hall	Hartington, Marquess of	Pennefather, Sir John
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	Penny, Frederick George
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Henn, Sir Sydney H.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel	Philipson, Mabel
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	Hobhouse, A. L.	Pielou, D, P.
Clarry, Reginald George	Hogbin, Henry Cairns	Pringle, W. M. R.
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Raffan, P. W.
Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.	Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie	Rathbone, Hugh H.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Howard, Hon. D.(Cumberland,North)	Remer, J. R.
Cope, Major William	Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)	Iliffe, Sir Edward M.	Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn. N.)	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Robertson, T. A.
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Jephcott, A. R.	Ropner, Major L.
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Dalkeith, Earl of	Kay, Sir R. Newbald	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.	Keens, T.	Savery, S. S.
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)	Kindersley, Major G. M.	Scrymgeour, E.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F.(Somerset,Yeovil)	King, Captain Henry Douglas	Shepperson, E. W.
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Lamb, J. O.	Simon, E. D.(Manchester,Withington)
Dawson, Sir Philip	Linfield, F. C.	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Deans, Richard Storry	Livingstone, A. M.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Col. Herbert H.	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)	Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Stanley, Lord	Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell-(Croydon, S.)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Starmer, Sir Charles	Tichfield, Major the Marquess of	Wintringham, Margaret
Steel, Samuel Strang	Vivian, H.	Wise, Sir Fredric
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)	Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser	Warrender, Sir Victor
Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.	Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Tattersall, J. L.	Wells, S. R.	Captain Viscount Curzon and Sir
Terrington, Lady	Wheler, Lieut.-Col. Granville C. H.	Kingsley Wood.
Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)

Question put accordingly, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 50; Noes, 317.

Division No. 166.]	AYES.	[11.4 p.m.
Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke	Kay, Sir R. Newbald	Remer, J. R.
Beamish, Captain T. P. H.	Keens, T.	Robertson, T. A.
Blundell, F. N.	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Ropner, Major L.
Calne, Gordon Hall	Linfield, F. C.	Scrymgeour, E.
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Livingstone, A. M.	Simon, E. D.(Manchester, Withington)
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)	Lumley, L. R.	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, South)
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Maden, H.	Spero, Dr. G. E.
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)	Mansel, Sir Courtenay	Starmer, Sir Charles
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Millar, J. D.	Terrington, Lady
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfrey	Mills, J. E.	Varley, Frank B.
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Mitchell, R. M.(Perth & Kinross, Perth)	Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Morris, R. H.	White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)
Harris, John (Hackney, North)	Muir, Ramsay (Rochdale)	Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	Murrell, Frank	Wintringham, Margaret
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Hobhouse, A. L.	Pringle, W. M. R.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie	Raffan, P. W.	Viscountess Astor and Mr. Hayday.
Jephcott, A. R.	Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
NOES.
Ackroyd, T. R.	Charleton, H. C.	Franklin, L. B.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Church, Major A. G.	Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Ainsworth, Captain Charles	Clarke, A.	Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Clarry, Reginald George	Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)
Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W.(Glas, C)	Climie, R.	Gates, Percy
Alstead, R.	Cluse, W. S.	Gavan-Duffy, Thomas
Ammen, Charles George	Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.	George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)
Aske, Sir Robert William	Cobb, Sir Cyril	Gibbins, Joseph
Atholl, Duchess of	Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.	Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham
Ayles, W. H.	Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Gillett, George M.
Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.	Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)	Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Cope, Major William	Gorman, William
Banton, G.	Costello, L. W. J.	Gosling, Harry
Barclay, R. Noton	Cove, W. G.	Greene, W. P. Crawford
Barnes, A.	Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn, N.)	Greenall, T.
Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Crittall, V. G.	Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Batey, Joseph	Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.	Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Becker, Harry	Curzon, Captain Viscount	Gretton, Colonel John
Betterton, Henry B.	Dalkeith, Earl of	Groves, T.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Darbishire, C. W.	Grundy, T. W.
Black, J. W.	Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.	Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)
Blades, Sir George Rowland	Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Guinness, Lieut. Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Bondfield, Margaret	Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Gwynne, Rupert S.
Bonwick, A.	Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)	Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Bourne, Robert Croft	Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)	Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart	Dawson, Sir Philip	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.	Deans, Richard Storry	Harbison, Thomas James S.
Bowyer, Captain G. E. W.	Dickie, Captain J. P.	Harbord, Arthur
Briant, Frank	Dickson, T.	Hardie, George D.
Brittain, Sir Harry	Dodds, S. R.	Harland, A.
Broad, F. A.	Doyle Sir N. Grattan	Harmsworth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Duckworth, John	Harris, Percy A.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Dukes, C.	Hartington, Marquess of
Buchanan, G.	Duncan, C.	Hartshorn, Rt Hon. Vernon
Buckingham, Sir H.	Dunn, J. Freeman	Hastings, Sir Patrick
Buckie, J.	Dunnice, H.	Haycock, A. W.
Burman, J. B.	Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Hayes, John Henry
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)	Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Butt, Sir Alfred	Edwards, John H. (Accrington)	Henderson, W. W. (Middlesex, Enfld.)
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Elveden, Viscount	Henn, Sir Sydney H.
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	England, Colonel A.	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)	Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Hillary, A. E.
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Ferguson, H.	Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	Fletcher, Lieut.-Com. R. T. H.	Hindle, F.
Chapple, Dr. William A.	Forestier-Walker, L.	Hodge, Lieut. Col. J. P. (Preston)
Hoffman, P. C.	Moulton, Major Fletcher	Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Col. Herbert H.
Hogbin, Henry Cairns	Muir, John W.	Stanley, Lord
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy	Nall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Joseph	Steel, Samuel Strang
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Naylor, T. E.	Stephen, Campbell
Howard, Hon. D.(Cumberland, North)	Nichol, Robert	Stewart, J, (St. Rollox)
Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Stewart, Maj. R. S.(Stockton-on-Tees)
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.	Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)	Stranger, Innes Harold
Hudson, J. H.	Nixon, H.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Iliffe, Sir Edward M.	O'Grady, Captain James	Sturrock, J. Long
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Oliver, George Harold	Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser
Isaacs, G. A.	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)	Sullivan, J.
Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)	Oman, Sir Charles William C.	Sunlight, J.
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William	Sutton, J. E.
Jewson, Dorothea	Owen, Major G.	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
John, William (Rhondda, West)	Paling, W.	Tattersall, J. L.
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)	Pennefather, Sir John	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W. Derby)	Penny, Frederick George	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)	Perkins, Colonel E. K.	Thompson, Piers G. (Torquay)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Perry, S. F.	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)
Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. (Bradford, E.)	Phillipps, Vivian	Thomson, Sir W.Mitchell-(Croydon, S.)
Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)	Pielou, D. P.	Thornton, Maxwell R.
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Ponsonby, Arthur	Thurtle, E.
Kindersley, Major G. M.	Potts, John S.	Tillett, Benjamin
King, Captain Henry Douglas	Purcell, A. A.	Tinker, John Joseph
Kirkwood, D.	Raffety, F. W.	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Lamb, J. Q.	Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford	Tout, W. J.
Lansbury, George	Rathbone, Hugh R.	Turner, Ben
Laverack, F. J.	Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. John Fredk. Peel	Turner-Samuels, M.
Law, A.	Raynes, W. R.	Viant, S. P.
Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)	Rea, W. Russell	Vivian, H.
Lawson, John James	Rees, Sir Beddoe	Wallhead, Richard C.
Leach, W.	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.	Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)
Lessing, E.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Warrender, Sir Victor
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Ritson, J.	Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W. Bromwich)	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Lunn, William.	Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Lynn, Sir R. J.	Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)	Wells, S. R.
McCrae, Sir George	Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)	Welsh, J. C.
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)	Westwood J.
MacDonald, R.	Romeril, H. G.	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
McEntee, V. L.	Rose, Frank H.	Whiteley, W.
Mackinder, W.	Roundell, Colonel R. F.	Wignall, James
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)	Royle, C.	Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)
Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)	Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.	Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)	Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B. (Kenningtn.)
Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel	Savery, S. S.	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
March, S.	Scurr, John	Willison, H.
Marley, James	Sexton, James	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Shepperson, E. W.	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)	Sherwood, George Henry	Windsor, Walter
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)	Short, Alfred (Wednesday)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K.	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)	Wise, Sir Fredric
Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.	Smillie, Robert	Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)
Maxton, James	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)
Meller, R. J.	Smith, T. (Pontefract)	Wright, W.
Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.	Smith, W. R. (Norwich)	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Middleton, G.	Snell, Harry	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Montague, Frederick	Spears, Brig.-Gen. E. L.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)	Spence, R.	Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. Warne.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Morse, W. E.

Mr. E. SIMON

I beg to move, in page 4, line 31, at the end, to insert the words (f) that reasonable preference shall be given to large families in letting the houses. These are the words suggested by the Minister of Health.

Viscountess ASTOR

It is all very well for the Minister of Health to accept the Amendment, but he knows that the local authorities can get round it. In Liverpool they provided that the 6,000 houses erected under the Addison scheme were not to be let to families with fewer than three children and preference was to be given to large families, but the greater number of houses have been let to married couples with one child. What I object to is that the Minister has not faced the two pressing problems of slum clearances and houses for large families. It is not right to say that workmen are not in the Chamberlain houses. They are, but they are workmen with small families. Some hon. Members have said that the last Amendment would do away with the whole economic system of the country, but if you do not do something about the slum areas and the large families you will do away more quickly still with the whole economic system of the country. I am certain that the Minister wants to solve the housing question. I am not saying that he is not interested in large families. I am certain that he is. He has spoken eloquently on this subject. He has made our hearts ache and drawn tears from our eyes and yet he does not face the problem of trying to get houses for the workers with large families. He has spoken of private enterprise. Private enterprise is not going to produce houses for workers with large families. Men who have worked hard all their lives and put their money into houses cannot be expected to let them to families of eight. It is not reasonable to expect them. They cannot face the repairs. We all know that an enormous number of the houses which will not be let to large families are owned by working people. In my own constituency there are many labouring men owning small houses. We all know that human nature is very much the same in all classes, and you cannot expect these people to let their houses to large families. This is a problem which we have to face. I am willing to do anything to get these children out of the appalling conditions in which they live. I am disappointed that the Minister has not taken advantage of his opportunity. He has a majority if he would use it, but the Attorney-General points out that the rents would have to be collected weekly and that—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Entwistle)

I think the Noble Lady is trying now to make the speech which she would like to have made on the previous Amendment.

Viscountess ASTOR

I do not wish to dispute the ruling of the Chair, but you know perfectly well how this Debate has rambled—

The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN

The Noble Lady should not make that observation.

Viscountess ASTOR

I protest. Everybody in the Committee has been saying that it was the Minister of Health—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

If the Noble Lady persists in her statement, I shall have to ask her to resume her seat.

Viscountess ASTOR

I do not question the ruling of the Chair. I will not get on to the last Amendment, but I submit that this Amendment, though it may sound well, is not going to do anything. In spite of the fact that we belong to what is called the "reactionary" party, there are hon. Members on this side who would do anything to get these families into houses, but this Amendment is not going to do it. I stand here as a protest against the Minister's failure to face the problems of slum clearance and housing for large families. I am willing to admit that private enterprise has failed in these things, but it has not failed so lamentably as the Minister of Health and Socialism. I ask the Minister of Health when he goes to the country, to tell the people honestly that he could not do any more than he has done, not because of the Opposition in the House of Commons but because—[HON. Members: "Order!"]

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

I think the Noble Lady had better resume her seat.

Mr. PRINGLE

On a point of Order. Is the Noble Lady not entitled to show that the present Bill does not deal with these matters.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

The Noble Lady is not in Order in continuing to argue that the Minister of Health should have accepted an Amendment on which the Committee has already passed its decision.

Captain ELLIOT

Surely the Noble Lady is entitled to show that the present Amendment does not go far enough.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

If the Noble Lady was speaking on that point, she was quite in Order, and I did not call her to Order on that point at all.

Viscountess ASTOR

On a point of Order. I was trying to speak to this Amendment. I was really trying to do so.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

The Noble Lady may have been trying to do so, but I called her to Order, and warned her.

Lieut-Commander KENWORTHY

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the word "reasonable."

I put it to the Committee that the word "reasonable" is not the kind of word which should appear in a Bill of this sort. It should simply state that a preference is to be given to large families, [f the word "reasonable" is allowed to pass this Committee, any local authority that does not wish to give preference to large families has a large loophole through which to escape its obligations. If the word "reasonable" is in, I think it will be impossible to interpret it, and it depends on the local committee as to what their interpretation of the word "reasonable" will be. If the word is left out, a preference must be given, and that surely is what we want.

Mr. HAYDAY

I plead that the Amendment to the proposed Amendment should be accepted. It is a well-known fact that even local authorities in their lettings of their property under a housing scheme carefully select tenants, and when one knows, as I do, of instances of two families with, between them, a sum total of over 30 persons. [HON. Members: "Hear, hear!"] Where there are people with families of proportions like my own, that figure, of course, would be quite insignificant—but where one knows of such families residing in slum areas, that is poor housing accommodation. I know that local authorities and private owners are very often troubled with the fear that children will be more destructive to the property than adults, and in consequence many who seek tenancies are told there is no tenancy open for them if there is a family of children, while in other cases they limit the number; to one or two dependent children. It is a crying shame, and we are not giving even handicap chances to those with large families, but we are adversely handicapping them in the possibility of rearing their children under fairly decent, healthy surroundings, and I would like the word "reasonable" taken out, so that the Bill should give an instruction that large families should have a preference in this matter of house accommodation.

Mr. WHEATLEY

This is a proposal to take from the local authorities the power

to select their own tenants, and to lay down as one of the conditions of the subsidy that they must give the preference suggested to the Amendment. If hon. Members wish to leave the local authorities any power—as I hope they do—in the selection of their tenants they should indicate to them that in the opinion of the Committee, wherever it can be reasonably done they shall give preference to large families; I hope the Committee will not go beyond that.

Viscount CURZON

I desire to look at this matter from a different angle. The Noble Lady the Member for Sutton (Viscountess Astor) has accused her party of being reactionary. I strongly resent that. I stand here to-night to say—If nobody else comes to say it—that those who have not large families also have rights. Whichever way you have it, and whether this Amendment is carried with reasonable preference or with preference only—if this Amendment be carried with or without the word "reasonable" it is likely to do the greatest possible injustice—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is not in order in pursuing his remarks as he is until we get rid of the Amendment to the Amendment as to the word "reasonable."

Mr. PRINGLE

The Committee is engaged in what are called special conditions in relation to these houses. The Minister is now proposing that amongst those conditions shall be one that a "reasonable" preference shall he given a certain class of tenant. I believe it would be a condition if you say that preference is to be granted, but immediately you introduce the word "reasonable" you introduce a discretion and it ceases to be a special condition.

Question put, "That the word 'reasonable' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 293; Noes, 49.

Division No. 167.]	AYES.	[11.35 p.m.
Ackroyd, T. R.	Ayles, W. H.	Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke	Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.	Black, J. W.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Banton, G.	Blades, Sir George Rowland
Ainsworth, Captain Charles	Barclay, R. Noton	Bondfield, Margaret
Alexander, Brg.-Gen. Sir W.(Glas. C)	Barnes, A.	Bonwick, A.
Alstead, R.	Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Bourne, Robert Croft
Amman, Charles George	Batey, Joseph	Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Atholl, Duchess of	Betterton, Henry B.	Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Brittain, Sir Harry	Hastings, Sir Patrick	Pennefather, Sir John
Broad, F. A.	Haycock, A. W.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)	Hayes, John Henry	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)	Perry, S. F.
Buchanan, G.	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Buckingham, Sir H.	Henderson, W. W.(Middlesex, Enfield)	Philipson, Mabel
Buckle, J.	Hena, Sir Sydney H.	Phillipps, Vivian
Burman, J. B.	Hennessy, Major J. R. G.	Pielou, D. P.
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Hillary, A. E.	Ponsonby, Arthur
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel	Potts, John S.
Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton	Hindle, F.	Purcell, A. A.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm, W.)	Hobhouse, A. L.	Raffety, F. W.
Charleton, H. C.	Hoffman, P. C.	Rea, W. Russell
Church, Major A. G.	Hogbin, Henry Cairns	Rees, Capt. J. T. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Clarke, A.	Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.	Rees, Sir Beddoe
Climie, R.	Howard, Hon. D.(Cumberland, North)	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Cluse, W. S.	Howard, Hon. G. (Bedford, Luton)	Richardson, H. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.	Hudson, J. H.	Ritson, J.
Cobb, Sir Cyril	Iliffe, Sir Edward M.	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.	Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Collins, Patrick (Walsall)	Isaacs, G. A.	Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Cope, Major William	Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)	Robertson, T. A.
Costello, L. W. J.	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)	Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Cove, W. G.	Jewson, Dorothea	Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Dalkeith, Earl of	John, William (Rhondda, West)	Romeril, H. G.
Darbishire, C. W.	Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)	Ropner, Major L.
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)	Jones, C. Sydney (Liverpool, W.Derby)	Rose, Frank H.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)	Roundell, Colonel R, F.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Royle, C.
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)
Dawson, Sir Philip	Jowett, Rt, Hon. F. W. (Bradford, E.)	Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)
Dickie, Captain J. P.	Jowitt, W. A.	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Dickson, T.	Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Savery, S. S.
Dodds, S. R.	Kay, Sir R. Newbald	Scurr, John
Duckworth, John	Keens, T.	Sexton, James
Dudgeon, Major C. R.	Kindersley, Major G. M.	Shepperson, E. W.
Dukes, C.	King, Captain Henry Douglas	Sherwood, George Henry
Duncan, C.	Kirkwood, D.	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Dunn, J. Freeman	Lamb, J. Q.	Simon, E. D.(Manchester,Withington)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Lansbury, George	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)	Laverack, F. J.	Smith, T. (Pontefract)
Egan, W. H.	Law, A.	Smith, W. R. (Norwich)
Elliot, Walter E.	Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Elveden, Viscount	Lawson, John James	Spence, R.
England, Colonel A.	Leach, W.	Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Lessing, E.	Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, S.)
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray	Livingstone, A. M.	Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
	Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Stanley, Lord
Ferguson, H.	Lumley, L. R.	Steel, Samuel Strang
Fletcher, Lieut.-Com. R. T. H.	Lunn, William	Stephen, Campbell
Forestier-Walker, L.	McCrae, Sir George	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Franklin, L. B.	Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)	Stranger, Innes Harold
Framantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	MacDonald, R.	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)	McEntee, V. L.	Sullivan, J.
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)	Macfadyen, E.	Sunlight, J.
Gates, Percy	Mackinder, W.	Sutton, J. E.
Gavan-Duffy, Thomas	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)	Terrington, Lady
George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	March, S.	Thompson, Like (Sunderland)
Gillett, George M.	Martey, James	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Gilrnour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Thomson, Trevelyan (Middlesbro, W.)
Gorman, William	Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kincardine, E.)	Thomson, Sir W, Mitchell-(Croydon, S.)
Gosling, Harry	Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.	Thornton, Maxwell R.
Greenall, Thomas	Maxton, James	Thurtle, E.
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Meyler, Lieut.-Colonel H. M.	Tillett, Benjamin
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Middleton, G.	Tinker, John Joseph
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Millar, J. D.	Tout, W. J.
Grentell, Edward C. (City of London)	Mitchell, R.M.(Perth & Kinross, Perth)	Turner, Ben
Gretton, Colonel John	Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)	Turner-Samuels, M.
Groves, T.	Montague, Frederick	Varley, Frank B.
Grundy, T. W.	Morris, R. H.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Guest, J. (York, Hemsworth)	Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)	Viant, S. P.
Gwynne, Rupert S.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Vivian, H.
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.	Morse, W. E.	Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)	Moulton, Major Fletcher	Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)	Naylor, T. E.	Warrender, Sir Victor
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Nicholson, O. (Westminster)	Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)
Harbison, Thomas James S.	Nixon, H.	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Harbord, Arthur	O'Grady, Captain James	Wells, S. R.
Hardie, George D.	Oliver, George Harold	Welsh, J. C.
Harland, A.	Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)	Westwood, J.
Harmswarth, Hon. E. C. (Kent)	Oman, Sir Charles William C.	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Harris, Percy A.	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William	Wheler, Lieut.-Cot. Granville C. H.
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	Owen, Major G.	White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)	Paling, W.	Whiteley, W.

Williams, A. (York, W. R., Sowerby)	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)	Wright, W.
Williams, Dr. J. H. (Llanelly)	Windsor, Walter	Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George	Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)
Williams, Lt.-Col. T.S.B.(Kennington)	Wise, Sir Fredric
Willison, H.	Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)	Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)	Mr. Warne and Mr. Parkinson.
NOES.
Aske, Sir Robert William	Harney, E. A.	Rathbone, Hugh H.
Astor, Viscountess	Harris, John (Hackney, North)	Remer, J. R.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Hartington, Marquess of	Scrymgeour, E.
Beamish, Captain T. P. H.	Hayday, Arthur	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Becker, Harry	Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)	Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.
Blundell, F. N.	Hore-Bslisha, Major Leslie	Spero, Dr. G. E.
Briant, Frank	Jephcott, A. R.	Starmer, Sir Charles
Butt, Sir Alfred	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Stewart, Maj. R. S.(Stockton-on-Tees)
Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt.R.(Prtsmth.S.)	Lynn, Sir R. J.	Tattersall, J. L.
Clarry, Reginald George	Maden, H.	Thompson, Piers G. (Torquay)
Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.	Mansel, Sir Courtenay	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Comyns-Carr, A. S.	Murrell, Frank	Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)	Nall, Lieut.-Colonel sir Joseph	Wintringham, Margaret
Crittall, V. G.	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Pringle, W. M, R.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Dunnico, H.	Raffan, P. W.	Dr. Chapple and Mr. Linfield.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

Viscount CURZON

I am very far from agreeing with this Amendment. One of the saddest problems we have to face in connection with housing is undoubtedly where you get two young people who are married, or who want to marry, or who when married are not able to live in the same house owing to the appalling state into which housing has got. You get a young woman with perhaps one child in one house and her husband in another, and you are going by this Amendment possibly to tell the local authority under certain conditions if the local authority wishes that those two people are never to be able to get a house. I know of cases of ex-service men and their wives. Very often they have not got more than one or two children and the Noble Lady who has so eloquently supported the Amendment is the fortunate possessor of a larger family. It cannot be expected that she can altogether share the hopeless despair of barren and childless woman. Do not in Heaven's name let us do an injustice to people who at the same time have rights. Let us remember that those people who have not got larger families are very often amongst the most miserable people on earth. Hon. Members may think it is a subject for jest, but when they come from brass tacks and really go into it they do not look at it in that way. Let us remember that those who have not got children have rights also. The Minister should think twice about the Amendment. I have the greatest possible sympathy with the spirit of it but I do not regard it as practical and I shall oppose it.

Mr. REMER

This is a matter that should be left entirely to the local people who know the local circumstances. There may be cases where there should be a preference given to young people who are about to be married and who have had perhaps to delay their marriage. They may be delayed still further under the Bill. My Noble Friend has convinced me on both Amendments and it would be a mistake if these words were included in the Bill.

Mrs. PHILIPSON

I did not intend to take part in the Debate, but I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman behind me. I hope that hon. Members will support the Amendment, because I think there is great need for it. There are hundreds of men and women in the country who are ashamed that their families, boys and girls, are huddled together in the same room, not under decent conditions, and it is those people who want help. I do think now that the Minister of Health has put in the words providing that reasonable preference will be given that the Amendment should be passed. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman behind me, although I have sincere sympathy with the other people, men and women, who want to bring up their families decently. It is not right that they should be living together in the same room with their parents.

SEVERAL HON. MEMBERS

having risen—

Mr. WHEATLEY

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but the CHAIRMAN withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

I want to make an appeal to the Committee to come to a decision on this subject, and not to divide on this Amendment. I do not think the proceedings of the last hour have conduced to the dignity of the Government, and it is time we got to serious business. By this Amendment preference is already given to people with large families. I do not think it would be possible that that should be the only consideration in the minds of a local authority in allocating their houses, when putting in the word "reasonable" you are giving them as much discretion as is necessary.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I do not wish to move the motion I had risen to move, because I want to join in the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman. I rise for the purpose of making an appeal to the Committee to think about the rate at which we are getting through this Bill. I am not one of those who believe it is in accordance with the dignity of this House to sit here more or less frivolously. I am not going to ask the Committee, although we have made very little progress, to sit late to make up lost time. I am going to appeal to the Committee to let us pass Clause 3. There is very little contentious matter in it, and I leave it to the Leader of the House or whoever is responsible to try to impress on the House on a future occasion the necessity for making more progress with the Bill.

Sir J. PENNEFATHER

I beg to move, in page 4, line 31, at the end, to insert the words (f) that if the local authority can provide or borrow the money required for building the houses either free of interest or at a less rate than four and a-half per cent. per annum any such saving of interest shall be applied by the authority to reducing the rents of the houses proportionately. I do not see how the right hon. Gentleman can do otherwise than accept this Amendment in view of his recent utter- ances on this subject. It will be in the memory of hon. Members that, speaking on the 3rd June, the Minister of Health made some interesting remarks re the effect of interest on the rents of houses, and he emphasised what he said to the House in an interview which later on he gave to the representative of a paper called the "New Leader." In order that the Committee may understand this Amendment, it is, I think, necessary that I should read a short quotation from the report of that interview. The first question which the interviewer put to the right hon. Gentleman was, "What about finance?" and the reply of the Minister was that that was quite an easy matter; there was a simple way of getting at that. He continued: Take your pencil and put down this figure. Say that the cost, of a house is £500; that includes the charges for land, labour and building materials, &c. The payment is spread over 60 years, so you divide the £500 by 60, which gives you £S 6s. 8d. per year. Then you divide the £8 6s. 8d. by 52 and the result works out at 3s. 3d. per week, which is the all-in cost of the items that go to the building of the house except interest. Of course, I must admit that that calculation is correct as far as it goes. It simply means that the right hon. Gentleman said that the first cost of the £500 house was £500. But the first cost, he added, was not the last cost, and the deductions which the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to put forward were, although I desire to agree with him as far as I can, were deductions which I for one could not agree with.

It is quite true that if those who provided the land, the labour and building materials were willing to accept payment for the same in 3,120 weekly instalments, spread over 60 years, the right hon. Gentleman's calculation of 3s. 3d. per week would be quite correct, but it so happens that the people who supply the materials, and the workmen who supply the labour, cannot afford to be paid in that way, and that is where the difficulty comes in. The financing of the operation has to be calculated, and interest becomes a very important factor of the situation. The right hon. Gentleman dealt with that point in the course of the same interview with the representative of the "New Leader" on the 4th of this month. He said that 5 per cent. interest, calculated on the annuity system for a loan period of 58 years, was £1,037. He divided that by 58, producing a result of £17 17s. 7d., which he divided again by 52, giving a charge of 6s. 8d. per week as interest alone. He said: This in an aspect of the housing question which has been overlooked. And he concluded his review of that point by adding that it was a glaring example of Capitalism at its worst. 12 M.

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not expect me to agree with those words, although I am trying to agree with him as far as I can. Those concluding words are not very wise; they are mischievous at a time like this, when the right hon. Gentleman is encouraging local authorities to appeal for money with which to build houses.

My Amendment will give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of correcting any erroneous impressions that may be drawn from his rather injudicious words. The difficulty is that it is impossible to build houses without money. Spot cash is required. Before a single house can be built the local authority must raise money, and the difficulty is that people of all sorts in this country, not even excluding Scotland, have a rooted prejudice in favour of getting interest on the money they invest. It is very difficult to get them to rid themselves of that prejudice. But the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out that if interest can be reduced, or if money can be got free of interest, it would enable the local authorities to provide cheaper houses for the working classes. My Amendment gives the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of putting in the Bill an instruction to the local authority that if it prove practicable to carry out his view; if they can raise money at a cheap rate of interest, they shall use the saving of interest so obtained for no purpose other than that of reducing proportionately the rents of the houses of the working classes. I confidently expect that the right hon. Gentleman will accept this Amendment with both hands.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I hope that the hon. Member, having dealt with me in so eloquent a manner, will not press his Amendment. I stand rebuked.

Viscount CURZON

Are we to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's attitude that that is all he is going to say with regard to the Amendment? What is his view of the Amendment on its merits? Is it his object to get houses cheaply, and to charge low rents for them I Surely my hon. Friend is entitled to a reasoned answer on the arguments put forward?

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL

Does the right hon. Gentleman still stand by the statement he made, which has been quoted by my hon. Friend? That statement has been very misleading throughout the country. When you borrow money you have to pay a reasonable rate of interest. It is unfair to give the impression that money for the construction of these houses can be obtained without the payment of interest to those who are prepared to lend the money. Would any hon. Member opposite be prepared to find money for building these houses without receiving any interest?

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is now going beyond the Amendment.

Sir F. HALL

I do not wish to do that, but I think the right hon. Gentleman owes it to the House to reply to the reasonable criticism offered by my hon. Friend.

Colonel GRETTON

Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman accepts the Amendment. He has assured my hon. Friend that he stands rebuked. This Amendment deals with a question of which the right hon. Gentleman complained. If the Amendment is not to be accepted, some reason should be given why it cannot be accepted.

If the Amendment is wrong, and if it is contrary to the Bill or is going to injure the Bill, we wish to be assured of that fact. I understand the finance of the Bill is based on an interest of 5 per cent. If the Minister, owing to the management of the national finances by the Government or some favourable turn in the circumstances of trade and commerce, finds that the Government are in a position to raise money at 4½ per cent., surely it is right and proper that the rents of the houses constructed under this Bill should be revised accordingly. If the Government are able to finance their schemes in such a way as to be able to borrow the money without interest at all, the rents ought not to be charged as though they were paying 5 per cent. Surely the right hon. Gentle- man should give some reasoned reply to my hon. Friend.

Major COLFOX

Surely we should have a reply from the Minister. If he refuses to reply, there can be but two interpretations put upon his refusal, either that he cannot answer the criticism or that he will not. I cannot myself feel that it is right to rate the intelligence and ability of the Minister so low as to imagine that he cannot answer, and therefore one is driven to the supposition that his refusal is because he will not answer, because he knows that he has put about in the country a story which is entirely false.

Mr. MONTAGUE

On a point of Order. Is the hon. and gallant Member in Order in discussing this subject, and if so, can anyone on this side have a chance of replying?

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. and gallant Member should confine himself to the question before the Committee.

Major COLFOX

I am sure we do not wish to shirk any discussion on this point, and I am convinced that this story about the finance of the Bill is completely baseless and without foundation. Take one point only. The Minister has told the country—

The CHAIRMAN

I think the hon. and gallant Member is going outside the scope of the Amendment.

Major COLFOX

I was under the impression that the Amendment was for the purpose of bringing up the finance of the Bill, which is based, as I understand it, upon a 5 per cent. return for the capital which has been borrowed. This Amendment suggests that if capital is forthcoming for the purpose of building these houses at a cheaper rate, advantage should be taken of that cheaper rate, and I was proceeding on that supposition to question the basis on which the calculation of the right hon. Gentleman had been made. Therefore, I submit that I was strictly in order in so doing, because the basis on which the Minister has made his calculation, as I understand it, is a 5 per cent. basis, and he has told the, country that one-half of the rent which is to be charged for these houses is represented by the return upon the capital invested in the building. He goes on by inference to suggest that if the wicked capitalist had not required so large a rate of interest on his money it would have been possible very considerably to reduce the rents which are to be charged for these houses. I would submit that the charge which he puts down as the rate of capital is nothing of the sort, because it is remuneration for the wage earners, both those who actually build the houses and those who are employed in the provision of the building materials. Everyone knows that a wage earner could not possibly exist if he were required to draw his wages in driblets over 60 years.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has not read the Amendment. It deals with rates of interest.

Major COLFOX

Yes, and the rate of interest, as I understand it, which has been taken into account for the purpose of making these calculations, is 5 per cent., and that rate of interest produces weekly rentals of, I think, 6s. 6d. The rental on capital is 6s. 6d. according to the table which has been circulated throughout the country by the Minister of Health. My point is this that this money, which has been calculated on the 5 per cent. basis is not—

The CHAIRMAN

I think I will have to read the Amendment again to the hon. Member. The Amendment says money is to be lent at a certain rate of interest.

Sir J. PENNEFATHER

I would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, but cannot do so for two reasons, the first being the statement made in the Press by a Member of the Cabinet for which the Government must bear collective responsibility. The question is what is the Government position in regard to this. There is a separate reason. That is that these figures which were given by the right hon. Gentleman on the Financial Resolution on the 3rd of June were included in a peculiar form at the back of a reprint of his speech which has been circulated by the million by his party throughout the country. It is put in tabulated form in this way. Where the rent goes: Land, per week. 1½d Materials and profits, per week, 1s. 10½d.

Mr. TURNER-SAMUELS

On a point of Order—

The CHAIRMAN

I think that the hon. Member is now himself transgressing his own Amendment, which proposes that where there is a lower rate of interest or no rate of interest there should be a proportionate reduction.

Sir J. PENNEFATHER

On the understanding that I put this down again on the Report stage, and that the Minister will reply, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN

I beg to move, in page 4, line 40, to leave out from the word "undertake," to the end of Subsection (2), and to insert instead thereof the words: in accordance with rules made by the Minister and approved by the Treasury, that the following conditions will be complied with in relation to the house:

1. (a) that the houses shall either be occupied by the owners or let by the owners to tenants who intend to reside therein:
2. (b) that it shall be a term of every such letting that the tenant shall not assign, sub-let, or otherwise part with the possession of the house, or any part thereof, except with the consent in writing of the society, body of trustees, or company in the case of the houses provided by them, or of the local authority or some person authorised by them in that behalf in the case of the other houses, provided that such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld.
3. (c) that the owner shall not sell or (save by such lettings as aforesaid) otherwise dispose of the houses except with the consent of the Minister, which may be absolute or subject to such stipulations as the Minister thinks proper, including, if the Minister thinks fit, stipulations for the reduction of the amount or the curtailment of the duration of any contribution payable by the Minister in respect of the house, or for both reduction and curtailment;
4. (d) that a fair wage clause in accordance with the form for the time being prescribed for Government contracts by resolution of the House of Commons shall be inserted in all contracts for the construction of houses; and
5. (e) that the rents charged in respect of the houses shall not exceed the rents which could be charged by the local authority had the houses been provided by the local authority themselves."

The subject of this Amendment is the houses subject to special conditions, but provided either by private enterprise or public utility societies. Under Sub-section (4) of this Clause it is provided that the Minister may stop or reduce the contributions if he is of opinion that the special conditions have not been complied with. Therefore, it seems to me that those special conditions ought to be set forth so that no public utility society and no person engaged in private enterprise might fall into an error and thus sustain a loss if the contributions were stopped when the houses were erected. Accordingly, instead of taking the words which lay down that the conditions are to be conditions corresponding as closely as circumstances permit to the conditions set out in paragraphs (a) to (d) of the last Sub-section we propose that the conditions applicable to these particular cases should be clearly set out in the Bill, and I have set out here conditions in which, as the Committee will see, I have not attempted except in one small particular to alter the conditions proposed by the Minister himself, but I have merely set forth the same conditions over again, only making them applicable to these particular kinds of houses.

The one exception is in the first condition in which I have included a phrase about occupier owners. I was quite aware, in putting down these conditions in my Amendment, that the conditions laid down in the Bill possibly might themselves be altered in the course of the Committee discussions, and if that were the case these conditions which I have proposed would also have to be altered so as to bring them into conformity. Now that those alterations have taken place it will be necessary to alter the conditions which I have put down here even if the Minister accepts my Amendment. All I want to suggest, for the convenience of the Committee, is that, if the Minister is prepared to accept the principle that the conditions for public utility societies and for private enterprise in respect of houses subject to special conditions should be set out in the Bill, he should accept my Amendment in the form in which I have moved it, and then on Report stage he can put down Amendments to those conditions so as to bring them into conformity with the conditions laid down for the houses provided by the local authorities themselves.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I agree to accept this Amendment, subject to the necessary alterations referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, which will be provided for on the Report stage.

Amendment agreed to.

Captain BOURNE

I beg to move in page 5, line 10, after the second word "rent" to insert the words "exclusive of rates."

I wish to make it quite plain that this Amendment is intended merely to clear up what I believe to be an ambiguity in drafting.

In this Clause the definition used by the Minister is very similar to that given in the Rent Restrictions Acts from 1917 onwards. It has been found necessary, however, in all those Acts to insert a provision that the standard rent shall be exclusive of any rents that may be payable in cases where the rates are compounded. Hon. Members are no doubt aware that it is the custom in certain districts, particularly in regard to working-class houses for the landlord to compound the rates and they may even be required so to do by the local authority. In other cases the occupiers pay the rates themselves. Unless it is made quite clear that a normal rent does not include any amount that may be chargeable in respect of rates anomalies will arise in different parts of the country and you will, in effect, subsidise certain occupiers at the expense of their neighbours whose rents have been raised under the Rents' Restrictions Acts to meet increases in rating. The highest rise in rates I have been able to discover between 1913–1914 and 1920–1921 is an increase of 272.2 per cent., but in many cases I have found increases of 100 per cent. and over. This is a point of real importance, more especially as in two recent law cases, the Courts have decided that where a landlord lets premises, charging a sum to cover rates which the landlord undertakes to pay, the amount of the rates is not deductible for the purpose of ascertaining the standard rent.

Mr. WHEATLEY

I wish to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member on an excellent speech, and to say that I will accept his Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. GWYNNE

I beg to move, in page 5, line 11, to leave out the word "prescribed," and to insert instead thereof the word "made."

The few remarks which I desire to make on this Amendment apply also to the Amendment following it on the Paper. I do not desire at this hour to say more than that the two Amendments represent what is considered to be a necessary precaution in connection with the making of the rules provided for in Clause 3. These rules are to be made by the Minister, and we want to have an opportunity for them to be laid on the Table of the House, as is the case under the Addison Act of 1919. As I understand that the Minister is willing to accept this Amendment and the subsequent Amendment, I will not detain the Committee any longer.

Mr. A. GREENWOOD

The Government accept this Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 5, line 18, at the end, insert the words Every rule so made shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after it is made, and if an address is presented by either House within twenty-one days on which that House has sat next after any such rule is laid before it praying that the rule may be annulled His Majesty in Council may annul the rule, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder."—[Mr. Gwynne.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again," put, and agreed to.—[Mr. Wheatley.]

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next (21st July).

The remaining Government Orders were read, and postponed.