41. Mr. SIMONasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of Professor Bowley's recent estimate that the rate of increase of the population of Great Britain will steadily become less during the next two decades, and that the population will actually become stationary about 1941; and whether he has taken any steps to investigate this estimate, which has so vital a bearing on the question of how many new houses will be needed during the next 15 years?
§ Mr. WHEATLEYPerhaps I may refer the hon. Member to the very carefully prepared statement by the Registrar-General's Department on the factors governing the growth of our population and the tendencies at present discernible, which is contained in Appendix V of the recently issued Report of the Overseas Settlement Committee—Command Paper 2107. The broad conclusions at which the Department arrive are, that we are at present too near the War and too much involved in the abnormalities resulting from it to attempt with confidence any estimate of the future movement of population, but that there is no safe ground for assuming that there has yet been any permanent departure from the conditions which during the last 50 years have resulted in a natural increase of approximately 400,000 per annum for Great Britain