NEW CLAUSE.—(Adjustment of rents.) (Hansard, 15 July 1930)

§ Mr. JOHNSTON
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This formidable looking new Clause deals with the question of the adjustment of rents and I think that I can explain, very briefly and succinctly, what it means. The position which it covers is one which must be well known to every hon. Member who has taken part in the work of local Government recently. Supposing 1130 that under the operations of this Bill a local authority had a slum family to rehouse and it had a vacant Addison house, or a vacant Wheatley house, or a house built under some previous scheme, obviously, in the interests of municipal economy, it would be desirable, if the house were suitable, that that family should be rehoused in the vacant house in the possession of the local authority. We are giving power to a, local authority by means of this Clause to transfer the family in question to the vacant Addison house and to ensure that the loss on the Addison scheme shall be debited to the new slum clearance scheme. It is very largely a matter of book-keeping on the part of the local authority. The Clause ensures that the loss on the Addison part of the scheme of the local authority shall be debited against the slum clearance scheme.

§ Mr. MACQUISTEN
Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that there was a considerable loss on the Addison scheme; there is a very heavy burden of debt?

§ Mr. JOHNSTON
It is only the difference between the loss on what we call the slum scheme and the loss on the Addison scheme which will be chargeable to the slum clearance scheme. We have gone into this matter very fully with representatives of the authorities, and we are satisfied that it is absolutely necessary not only for the proper working of our scheme but for the proper working of the various housing schemes to give the local authorities this power.

§ Major ELLIOT
This Amendment, as the Under-Secretary of State has said, is a long and very formidable one, but I think there is a good deal of ground for the case that he has made out. There is no doubt that one of the difficulties in the finances of local authorities is the extreme complication of housing schemes. There is the Addison scheme, the Chamberlain scheme, the Wheatley scheme, and now what we may call the Adamson scheme, with a few such things as the Scottish National Housing Trust scheme. There is the rural workers' scheme where the landlord may or may not have increased the rent by 2½ per cent. on a third of the charges borne in connection with the making of the houses habitable. In all these respects, simplication is desirable. I think that the 1131 Under-Secretary and the authorities will do well to consider the point raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten). He pointed out that the deficit in respect of the Addison houses is considerable. It is true, as the Under-Secretary says, that it is the difference which is being taken off. That runs very close to a double subsidy and entails a fresh application of book-keeping. If part of the loss is to be borne by the Addison scheme and part by the slum clearance scheme, you will get, I am afraid, a very long wrangle between the Treasury, which is responsible for the loss on the Addison houses, and the local authority who are desirous of saving their purses as much as possible under the slum clearance scheme. I think that the proposal is a step in advance, but it is only practice which will enable us to see how it works out. The Government assure us that they have gone carefully into the question with the local authorities, and I think that we can say that we trust them in this respect and are willing that this experiment should be made. But I am not at all sure that it really clears up the point in question. It is another example of the fearful complication into which the finances of local authorities will begin to fall by reason of this multiplicity of schemes and shows the need for the introduction at an early date of a consolidating scheme.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
I say, frankly, that I am not in a position either to oppose or support this Clause, because, when I read it this morning, I could not quite see what it meant. The Under-Secretary of State has given us a fairly adequate explanation, but I have looked in vain through the various Amendments which have been put down to find anything dealing with differential rents. I should have thought that this new Clause would have been the one in which they intended to cover the whole question of differential rents. I understand that that is not so. The Secretary of State will remember that the question of differential rents was raised in Committee upstairs, and that certain pledges were given. I should have thought that this Clause would have been the proper place in which to fulfil those pledges. For example, I asked a particular question. I took the case, not of a unit, but of 1132 the families of a certain class, and I asked the Under-Secretary of State at that time whether, supposing he were to house a certain class in a certain street, there would be any differentiation in the rents as between the individuals in that particular street. I was assured at that time that there would be no such differentiation and that, if any individual occupied the same sort of house as that occupied by a friend or neighbour in that street, whatever the circumstances might be, the rent would be the same for each house.

§ Mr. JOHNSTON
I do not want to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but we cannot possibly deal with that point on this particular Amendment. It arises later on. The sole point dealt with in this Amendment is whether the local authority should be given power to take a family from what we call a slum clearance house and put it into, say, a vacant Addison house in its possession and charge the slum clearance scheme with the difference.

§ Mr. MACPHERSON
I think that that point has been made abundantly clear. I am merely taking the precaution to find out from the Government now under which one of their Amendments they are going to deal with the point that I have been raising. They promised in Committee that they were going to deal with differential rents. I am within the recollection of hon. Members who sat on the Committee upstairs. A pledge was given that in the case to which I referred the Government would put down an Amendment to meet it. I have looked in vain through the Amendments on the Paper to find where the point is met, but, if the Under-Secretary says that the question of differential rents is to be raised in some form, I am perfectly content.