Commons Sitting of 16 July 1936

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Epsom and Walton Downs Regulation Bill [Lords],
Rochester Corporation Bill [Lords],
Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    STATISTICS.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Minister of Labour the number of persons who come under the Unemployment Assistance Board in the Whitehaven, Cleator Moor, Parton, Egremont, and Millom areas, respectively, the number receiving assistance under the regulations in each area, and those receiving transitional benefit under the standstill order for each area for the 12 months ended June, 1936?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Ernest Brown): As the reply includes a number of figures, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

    —

    Cleator Moor.

    Whitehaven.

    Millom.

    Payments made in the week ended 15th November, 1935:

    According to the Unemployment Assistance Regulations.

    756

    596

    165

    According to assumed transitional payments practice.

    747

    751

    176

    Payments made in the week ended 13th December, 1935:

    According to the Unemployment Assistance Regulations.

    724

    611

    172

    According to assumed transitional payments practice.

    778

    743

    179

    Payments made in the week ended 26th June, 1936:

    According to the Unemployment Assistance Regulations.

    762

    932

    154

    According to assumed transitional payments practice.

    683

    968

    150

    Following is the reply:
    The available figures relate to the areas of the Employment Exchanges in Cleator Moor, Whitehaven and Millom.
    The table below gives the number of applicants for unemployment allowances on the registers of these Exchanges at a date in each of the 12 months ended June, 1936.

    —

    Number of applicants for unemployment allowances.

    Cleator Moor.

    Whitehaven.

    Millom.

    22nd July, 1935

    1,485

    1,178

    304

    26th August, 1935

    1,526

    1,182

    323

    23rd September, 1935

    1,517

    1,260

    326

    21st October, 1935

    1,517

    1,346

    352

    25th November, 1935

    1,536

    1,355

    347

    16th December, 1935

    1,525

    1,377

    365

    20th January, 1936

    1,535

    1,386

    377

    24th February, 1936

    1,524

    1,377

    353

    23rd March, 1936

    1,500

    1,396

    359

    27th April, 1936

    1,499

    1,706

    356

    25th May, 1936

    1,443

    1,712

    342

    22nd June, 1936

    1,440

    1,841

    314

    As regards the number of persons receiving unemployment allowances according to the regulations and according to transitional payments practice, statistics are only available for the payments made in the following weeks:—
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Minister of Labour the number of persons sent to adult training centres during the 12 months ended June, 1936, from White-haven, Cleator Moor, Egremont, Parton, and Millom areas, respectively, showing the information for each centre separately?
    Mr. BROWN: As the reply includes a number of figures, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

    Centre to which men were sent for training.

    Number of men forward from—

    Total number of men sent for training.

    Whitehaven.

    Cleator Moor.

    Millom.

    (1)

    (2)

    (3)

    (4)

    (5)

    Government Training Centres.

    Slough

    …

    …

    …

    5

    15

    1

    21

    Letchworth

    …

    …

    …

    12

    10

    3

    25

    Park Royal

    …

    …

    …

    9

    8

    —

    17

    Waddon

    …

    …

    …

    10

    4

    —

    14

    Wallsend

    …

    …

    …

    10

    1

    —

    11

    Watford

    …

    …

    …

    7

    2

    —

    9

    Bristol

    …

    …

    …

    6

    2

    1

    9

    Birmingham

    …

    …

    …

    1

    2

    1

    4

    Totals

    …

    …

    …

    60

    44

    6

    110

    Instructional Centres.

    Bourne:

    Bourne, Lincolnshire

    …

    41

    9

    7

    57

    High Lodge:

    Nr. Brandon, Suffolk

    …

    3

    —

    —

    3

    Kershopefoot:

    Newcastleton, Roxburghshire

    22

    3

    —

    25

    Totals

    …

    …

    …

    66

    12

    7

    85

    Grand Totals

    …

    126

    56

    13

    195

    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Minister of Labour the number of persons and the amounts paid out during the 12 months ended June, 1936 (each month separately), for the areas of Whitehaven, Cleator Moor, Egremont, Parton, and Millom for standard benefit and for transitional benefit, respectively?
    Mr. BROWN: As the reply includes a table of figures, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The following statement shows the number of persons sent to adult training centres during the 12 months ended 30th June, 1936, from Whitehaven, Cleator Moor and Millom areas respectively. Separate figures for Egremont and Parton are not available; the figures for these areas are included with those for Cleator Moor and Whitehaven respectively.
    Following is the reply:
    The following table shows, for the Cleator Moor, Whitehaven and Millom Employment Exchanges, the numbers of separate weekly payments of unemployment benefit and of unemployment allowances, and the amounts paid, during periods of four or five weeks from 29th June, 1935, to 26th June, 1936. There is no Employment Exchange at Egremont or Parton, and separate statistics for those areas are not available.

    —

    Cleator Moor.

    Whitehaven.

    Millom.

    Unemployment Benefit.

    Unemployment Allowances.

    Unemployment Benefit.

    Unemployment Allowances.

    Unemployment Benefit.

    Unemployment Allowances.

    Number of payments.

    Amount paid.

    Number of payments.

    Amount paid.

    Number of payments.

    Amount paid.

    Number of payments.

    Amount paid.

    Number of payments.

    Amount paid.

    Number of payments.

    Amount paid.

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    29th June-26th July 1935 (4 weeks)

    1,138

    1,149

    5,964

    7,722

    1,739

    1,731

    4,956

    6,357

    725

    724

    1,199

    1,520

    27th July-30th August, 1935 (5 weeks)

    1,274

    1,346

    7,466

    9,739

    2,188

    2,175

    6,150

    7,834

    894

    921

    1,566

    1,976

    31st August-27th September, 1935 (4 weeks)

    1,156

    1,111

    6,042

    7,839

    1,684

    1,728

    4,989

    6,386

    710

    725

    1,309

    1,645

    28th September-25th October, 1935 (4 weeks)

    1,541

    1,423

    5,993

    7,903

    4,305

    4,191

    5,187

    6,635

    861

    866

    1,362

    1,730

    26th October-29th November, 1935 (5 weeks)

    1,959

    2,017

    7,617

    9,995

    11,734

    13,981

    6,721

    8,717

    1,194

    1,223

    1,746

    2,202

    30th November-27th December, 1935 (4 week)

    1,570

    1,668

    6,104

    8,127

    9,186

    11,074

    5,476

    7,132

    1,027

    1,035

    1,451

    1,840

    28th December, 1935-31st January, 1936 (5 weeks).

    1,931

    2,106

    7,644

    10,152

    11,634

    14,019

    7,071

    9,247

    1,291

    1,331

    1,833

    2,328

    1st February-28th February, 1936 (4 weeks)

    1,837

    1,854

    6,095

    8,139

    9,108

    10,878

    5,611

    7,415

    971

    984

    1,426

    1,818

    29th February -27th March, 1936 (4 weeks)

    1,650

    1,700

    6,078

    8,237

    8,753

    10,523

    5,606

    7,428

    886

    868

    1,419

    1,804

    28th March-24th April, 1936 (4 weeks)

    1,264

    1,383

    6,020

    8,149

    8,173

    9,755

    5,967

    7,746

    690

    645

    1,399

    1,787

    25th April-22nd May, 1936 (4 weeks)

    1,151

    1,253

    5,959

    8,116

    6,617

    8,251

    6,858

    8,688

    660

    621

    1,387

    1,746

    23rd May-26th June, 1936 (5 weeks)

    1,208

    1,323

    7,337

    10,022

    6,868

    8,141

    9,284

    11,817

    632

    607

    1,598

    1,939

    NOTE.—Comparisons of the amounts paid for periods before and after 31st October, 1935, are affected by the Increase of Benefit in Respect of Dependent Children Order, 1935, which took effect on that date.

    ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS.
    Mr. T. SMITHasked the Minister of Labour in respect of each administrative district of the Unemployment Assistance Board, the approximate number of payments of unemployment allowances under the Unemployment Assistance Regulations as being equal to or more favourable than according to transitional payments practice, and the number of payments made according to that practice, as being more favourable than under the Regulations?
    Mr. E. BROWN: These statistics are not available for the administrative districts of the board, since these are not coincident with the areas of the Ministry's offices at which the payments are made. I am circulating in the form of a White Paper, a return for the week ended 26th June last, giving these figures, and also the numbers in receipt of unemployment benefit at each of the Ministry's offices other than those at which the total number of payments did not exceed 100. Copies of this White Paper will be available to Members to-morrow morning.
    Mr. DALTONasked the Minister of Labour (1) what additional public expenditure would be incurred by the substitution of an individual means test for a household means test, the scales in the proposed new Regulations remaining otherwise unchanged;
    (2) what additional public expenditure would be incurred by the complete abolition of the means test, the scales in the proposed new Regulations remaining otherwise unchanged?
    Mr. BROWN: I regret that it is not possible to make any reliable estimates of the kind asked for. I would point out in the first place that for the purpose of such estimates it would be necessary to define with some precision what is meant by the vague phrase "an individual means test"; for example, whether or not the resources of dependants who are covered by the allowances are to be taken into account and, if so, according to what rules. Again, as regards any suggestion for the complete abolition of the means test it would be necessary to know for example whether the applicant's own earnings are to be disregarded and whether or not the Board's discretionary power to increase
    2204
    the scale allowances in special cases is also to be abolished seeing that it is essentially dependent on their appraisement of the applicant's needs in relation to the resources available to him. Apart from considerations such as these, such a wide relaxation of the existing system would result in applications being made by unemployed persons who at present, not being in need, do not claim allowances. The number of such persons, though certainly very large, is necessarily unknown; similarly no particulars of their circumstances are available, though it may be assumed that they possess appreciable resources.
    Mr. DALTON: Am I to understand that these new Regulations which are to be debated next week have been framed without the Ministry being in a position to estimate the cost that would be involved in making either of these changes?
    Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member must make no such assumption. These questions depend entirely upon the estimates made. I am pointing out that if I am to be asked precise questions, I must know according to what rules they are to be framed and the assumptions upon which they are based.
    Mr. THORNE: Is it not a fact that when a man is out of employment, he is entitled to receive unemployment pay without regard to other sources of income?
    Mr. BROWN: The answer is, Certainly not. It would appear that the hon. Member wishes to abolish the means test without attempting to think of even the meaning of what the cost would be.
    Mr. THORNE: Do I understand from that answer that if a man has paid his ordinary contributions and is out of work, he is not entitled to unemployment benefit because he has some other source of income?
    Mr. SHINWELL: Is not the right hon. Gentleman in a position to say what the estimated cost would be if unemployed persons under the supervision of the Unemployment Assistance Board were treated precisely as those who come under the scope of insurance?
    Mr. BROWN: I would like to see that question on the Paper, because I would want to know whether, in doing that, the

    2205
    hon. Member would have regard to the large number of persons who would be cut by that procedure.
    Mr. GALLACHER: Is it not a fact that a general pledge was given by hon. Members opposite at the General Election to remove the family means test?
    Mr. BROWN: There was no such pledge given. The pledge given is kept in the new Regulations in the letter and in the spirit.
    Mr. BATEY: That is not true.
    Mr. POTTSasked the Minister of Labour whether, in a case where a person in receipt of unemployment assistance allowance dies and prior to death has, say, three or four days due, it is his intention under the regulations that his relatives shall be paid such days due toward meeting the man's weekly liabilities?
    Mr. BROWN: This is a matter which depends on the provisions of the Act and is not directly affected by the terms of the draft Regulations. I am informed that the board have the matter under consideration with a view to making such payments to the fullest extent which their statutory powers permit.
    Mr. POTTS: May I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that I have in my hand a report from the area officer himself declining payment, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the point of this case is that a man in receipt of benefit under the board had four days' benefit due to him; he died on the fifth day, and the board declined to pay four days for his lodgings? I want to know whether the Minister believes that the money ought to be paid to the people who represent this man?
    Mr. BROWN: There are some statutory difficulties, but this very case and one or two similar ones, are at the moment under the consideration of the board. I will let the hon. Member know as soon as the board comes to a decision.
    Mr. TINKER: Seeing that this is a very important question, would the right hon. Gentleman, through the channels of the OFFICIAL REPORT, make the decision known, as everybody is affected by it?
    Mr. BROWN: I would not say everybody, but there have been a few cases,
    2206
    and they are all under the consideration of the board. They vary very greatly in their application. I shall be very glad to do as the hon. Member suggests.
    Mr. R. J. TAYLOR: Would the Minister agree that it is the case at the present time that if a man dies on the day on which his benefit is due, his widow receives the week's benefit; and would he further agree that where it is a case of having three or four days' benefit to draw it is just a question of degree?
    Mr. BROWN: I could not accept it in that form. If the hon. Member wants a precise answer about the details and puts down a question to that effect, I will try to give him the exact legal position, which is a very difficult and complicated one.
    Mr. POTTS: Further arising out of the Minister's answer, may I ask—
    Mr. SPEAKER: I must ask hon. Members to consider the number of questions on the Paper.
    Later:
    Mr. POTTS: On a point of Order. I want to give notice that I will raise the subject of Question 18 at a date convenient to you, Mr. Speaker, if the matter is not settled in the meantime.
    Mr. BATEYasked the Minister o Labour the amount by which a man and wife entitled to 24s. per week under the new Regulations will have their allowance reduced when paying 4s. per week rent, and also where they occupy a free house?
    Mr. BROWN: Under the draft Regulations the question of the reduction on account of rent in any class of case in any area is a matter on which the Advisory Committee is asked to make recommendations. It is clearly impossible in advance of these recommendations to say precisely what the result will be in a hypothetical case in any area. I would, however, call the attention of the hon. Member to paragraph 16 of the Board's Explanatory Memorandum (Cmd. 5229) and also to my answer of 14th June to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) of which I am sending him a copy and in which it is pointed out that in general the basic figure for a man and wife without available resources is 26s.
    Mr. BATEY: Does the Minister suggest that the Regulations are so complicated that it is not possible to give a direct answer to the question on the Paper? Can he not say how much money will be received by a man and wife who are entitled to 24s. a week—because the amount of 26s. mentioned by the Minister is not correct—if they are paying 4s. rent?
    Mr. BROWN: I have pointed out that it depends entirely on the advice of the local committee.
    Mr. BATEY: The Minister cannot get out of it that way.
    Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member has asked me a question, and I am answering it according to the facts. It is easy to frame hypothetical questions and to press for definite answers to them which cannot be given in the form which the hon. Member would desire.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Has the board not power under the Regulations, in the case of a man and wife with no dependent children and entitled to 24s., to make it 26s., no matter what the rent may be?
    Mr. BROWN: That is not so. Under the Regulations there is a guarantee in the case of a householder with a dependant or dependants and no resources. In that particular class of case—normally cases of man and wife—there is a guarantee

    Division.

    28th January, 1935.

    22nd June, 1936.

    Decrease between 28th January, 1935, and 22nd June, 1936.

    London

    …

    …

    39,148

    30,935

    8,213

    South Eastern

    …

    …

    13,938

    12,759

    1,179

    South Western

    …

    …

    30,793

    21,027

    9,766

    Midlands

    …

    …

    72,287

    56,544

    15,743

    North Eastern

    …

    …

    193,910

    154,672

    39,238

    North Western

    …

    …

    149,541

    133,743

    15,798

    Scotland

    …

    …

    129,044

    104,301

    24,743

    Wales and Monmouth

    …

    …

    106,515

    102,141

    4,374

    Great Britain

    …

    …

    735,176

    616,122

    119,054

    Mr. GEORGE HALLasked the Minister of Labour the number of local advisory committees set up in South Wales, under Sub-section (3) of Section 35 of the Unemployment Act, 1934; and the name of the chairman and members of each committee?
    of the benefit level which, for man and wife, is 26s.
    Mr. BATEY: May I ask—
    Mr. SPEAKER: We have already had a number of supplementary questions on this point.
    Mr. BATEY: This is most important. The Minister is misleading the House.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Why not pay the 26s.?
    Mr. BATEYasked the Minister of Labour the districts where the chief reductions have taken place of the persons under the Unemployment Assistance Board when on 28th January, 1935, there were 784,242 and the recent estimate of 620,000?
    Mr. BROWN: As the reply includes a table of figures I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The figure of 784,242 for 28th January, 1935, relates to the total number of applicants for transitional payments or unemployment allowances, while that of 620,000 relates to the number of weekly payments at the end of June, 1936. The numbers of persons with applications authorised for payment at 28th January, 1935, and 22nd June, 1936, in each administrative division, were as shown below:
    Mr. BROWN: Nine local advisory committees are being set up by the board in South Wales. With the hon. Member's permission I will circulate the names of the chairmen of these committees in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The appointment of members to these committees is still pro-

    2209
    ceeding and at this stage it would not be proper to publish lists which would only be incomplete.
    Following are the names:
    Chairmen of Advisory Committees in South Wales.
    Committee and Chairman.
    Cardiff and district.—G. Leighton Seager, C.B.E., J.P.
    Merthyr Tydfil and district.—Hon. John H. Bruce.
    Pontypridd and the Rhondda.—Ivor W. Thomas, J.P.
    Newport and district.—Alderman John Moxon, O.B.E.
    Bargoed and Caerphilly districts.—G. D. Inkin.
    Ebbw Vale and district.—Sir Thomas Allen.
    Swansea and district.—Alderman E. Harris, J.P.
    Mid - Glamorgan.—Alderman John Thomas, J.P.
    Counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen and Pembroke.—Lord Merthyr.

    PROPOSED TRADING ESTATE, NORTH-EAST OF ENGLAND.
    Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Labour the reasons for the delay in the acquisition of the proposed trading estate in the north-east of England?
    Mr. E. BROWN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 9th July to the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), of which I am sending him a copy.
    Mr. SHINWELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the answer he gave to me was a purely negative one, and when will he be in a position to state what progress is being made with a scheme for which the Government take credit?
    Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member is in error in saying that my answer was a negative one. I pointed out some of the difficulties, and I also pointed out, in answer to other questions, that some of the keenest persons in favour of this idea are to be found among those on the directorates. Questions of this kind cannot help them in the work they are trying to bring to a successful conclusion.
    Mr. SHINWELL: What is the use of their keenness if nothing is to be done, and will the right hon. Gentleman say
    2210
    how questions in this House are going to prevent these keen persons from proceeding with a scheme for which the Government take all the credit?
    Mr. BROWN: The answer is that to suggest that nothing will be done does not help them. Something will be done.
    HON. MEMBERS: When?
    Mr. EDE: Shall I be able to get any definite answer if I put this question down again before the Recess?
    Mr. BROWN: I am not sure about that. The hon. Member may be assured that as soon as I am in a position to give a definite answer, I shall be very glad to let the House know.

    BENEFIT AND ASSISTANCE, SOUTH WALES.
    Mr. JAMES GRIFFITHSasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the maternal mortality rate in the industrial districts of South Wales is substantially in excess of the average maternal mortality rate for the country as a whole, and that this high rate is attributed by the medical officers of health in those districts to the impoverishment imposed by the existing low rates of unemployment benefit and assistance; and whether he will take steps to increase the rates of benefit and assistance and so prevent this loss of life due to poverty?
    Mr. E. BROWN: I am not aware of any statement made by medical officers of health in South Wales attributing the higher maternal mortality rate in industrial districts in South Wales to impoverishment due to the rates of unemployment benefit and assistance. The last part of the question does not therefore arise.
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the high maternal mortality rate in those districts is due to the poverty caused by the low unemployment benefits, and will he reconsider the matter if I supply him with evidence?
    Mr. BROWN: If the hon. Member will read his question, he will see that it says:
    "attributed by the medical officers of health in those districts to the impoverishment imposed by the existing low rates of unemployment benefit and assistance."
    I say that I have no evidence of that.
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter if I supply him with evidence?
    Mr. BROWN: I shall always be glad, as the hon. Member knows, to receive any information.

    MID-GLAMORGAN SEWERAGE SCHEME.
    Mr. E. J. WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Labour (1) whether the Government's decision to embark upon the construction of works at Bridgend was taken into consideration by the Special Areas Commissioner prior to making his decision on the Mid-Glamorganshire sewage scheme; and whether he is aware that this scheme is the unanimous demand of the local authorities;
    (2) whether he will advise the Special Areas Commissioner for England and Wales to reconsider his decision on the main trunk sewage scheme for Mid-Glamorgan, particularly in view of the heavy maintenance charges which will fall on these depressed local authorities under his proposals of isolated action?
    Mr. E. BROWN: I am informed that, although the maintenance cost of a combined Mid-Glamorgan sewerage scheme would be slightly less than the corresponding cost for separate schemes for the four local authorities concerned, the extra capital cost of such a scheme would far outweigh any saving on maintenance cost. When the commissioner for the Special Areas decided in principle to reject a combined scheme in favour of separate schemes, no announcement had been made regarding a War Department establishment at Bridgend. The effect of such an establishment has not been overlooked, but in view of the wide margin of cost between the two alternatives and the location of the new factory it is most unlikely that the higher cost of a combined scheme can be justified.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: In reply to previous questions, we were told that the difference was £90,000, and as the four local authorities believe that the maintenance charges will involve a substantially increased cost, may I ask the Minister to reconsider the matter, particularly in view of the unanimous decision by the authorities?
    Mr. BROWN: I will look into what the hon. Member has said.

    MANUAL WORKERS (HOLIDAYS WITH PAY).
    Mr. TINKERasked the Minister of Labour how many manual workers are given holidays with pay; and will he ascertain what the cost would be if all workers were given two weeks' holiday with pay in each year?
    Mr. E. BROWN: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the replies which I gave on 18th June and 9th July to the hon. Members for East Islington (Miss Cazalet), Eccles (Mr. Cary) and Dewsbury (Mr. Riley). I am sending him copies of those replies. As regards the second part of the question, I regret that the available information is insufficient to enable me to calculate the cost of granting holidays with pay to all manual workers.
    Mr. TINKER: Seeing that this is important to manual workers, who are expecting that something will be done in this direction, would it not be as well if the right hon. Gentleman tried to get all the information he can, so that subsequent discussion can take place?
    Mr. BROWN: We have got information. I do not know exactly how I am to get further information, but I will consider the matter.
    Mr. ELLIS SMITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider issuing a recommendation to employers that, in the opinion of the Cabinet, the time has arrived when this should be done?
    Mr. BROWN: While we may fully sympathise with the desire for something of this kind, we must have regard to practical possibilities.
    Mr. PALING: Is it not a fact that the example is being set by other countries, and will the right hon. Gentleman not follow it?
    Mr. BROWN: It is true that we lead in many cases in which other countries are 50 years behind the time.
    Mr. PALING: Now that they are in front of us, ought we not to try to catch up with them?
    Mr. BROWN: Some of them are in front of us only on paper.

    ESCAPED CONVICT (POSTER).
    Mr. GALLACHERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the display of a poster outside Nine Elms, London, police station concerning an escaped convict, which poster offers a reward for his recapture and gives the name and address of the man's mother and of certain of his associates; and whether, in view of the humiliation this practice inflicts on innocent people, he will cause it to be discontinued?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Simon): I am obliged to the hon. Member for drawing attention to this matter which had not previously come to my notice. Instructions have been given that the names and addresses of relatives or associates are not to be included in any future notices of this kind which it may be necessary to issue.
    Mr. GALLACHER: In view of the fact that the man did not live with his mother, and that the mother has suffered very considerably as a result of the publication, would the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a message of some kind to be sent to her by the responsible people?
    Sir J. SIMON: I will look into that. I understand entirely the good feeling behind that suggestion and would like to do it, but I ought to explain that while the police assist in displaying these notices, the police do not draw them up. They are drawn up by the prison authorities, but, whoever it is, the matter must be dealt with.

  SCOTLAND.

    CERTIFYING FACTORY SURGEON, DUNFERMLINE.
    Mr. CASSELLSasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that Dr. Alan Tuke, Dunfermline, a certifying surgeon appointed under the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, for the district of Dunfermline, is also a medical adviser to the Scottish Mineowners' Defence and Mutual Insurance Association, Limited, Dunfermline; and what steps he intends to take in connection with the matter?
    Sir J. SIMON: I understand on inquiry that while Dr. Tuke reports on particular cases for the association from
    2214
    time to time, he does not hold any appointment as their adviser. He has been certifying factory surgeon for 25 years without, apparently, any complaint as to his not being impartial in the performance of his duties, and it is most desirable that certifying surgeons should be men of wide experience.
    Mr. CASSELLS: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest having regard to the circumstances related by him, that Dr. Tuke is sufficiently unbiased to hold the responsible office of certifying surgeon?
    Sir J. SIMON: My own feeling, and I think the hon. Member will share it, is that it is very important that a certifying surgeon should be both an honest and an experienced medical man. Of course, it would be wrong for him to act as it were on both sides in the same matter, and I am sure he does not do so, but I would add that the general question of the position and functions of certifying surgeons under the Workmen's Compensation Act is now being reviewed by the Departmental Committee on Workmen's Compensation. I feel sure that this matter is one which they would consider.
    Mr. ROWSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that if this doctor has certified anybody in his district to be suffering from an industrial disease, steps are taken to prevent him examining on behalf of the employers any man suffering from any of these diseases?
    Sir J. SIMON: That proposition is perfectly right. I have already made inquiries, and I am assured that this doctor does not do so, but I certainly will make further inquiries, and I quite agree with what the hon. Gentleman says.

    ROAD ACCIDENTS (POLICE STATEMENTS).
    Mr. CASSELLSasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that under Circular No. 2644, dated 25th May, 1932, police officers on precognition are not allowed to divulge statements made to them by the drivers of vehicles involved in collision; and whether, where such evidence is relevant and material in civil or criminal proceedings, he will order that in future such officers on precognition may divulge the extent and character of such statements?
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. T. M. Cooper): Statements or precognitions of

    2215
    drivers of vehicles taken by the police for the information of their superior officers or the Crown Authorities would not normally be competent evidence in a Scottish Court. The Circular in question contains a recommendation that copies of such statements should not in general be supplied. My right hon. Friend does not propose to recommend any change in this practice. There is nothing in the Circular to suggest that police officers, when precognosced for the purposes of subsequent proceedings, should withhold information of anything which they have personally observed or heard, and of which evidence could competently be given by them in a court of law; but particulars obtained through the exercise by the police of specific statutory powers cannot as a rule be divulged—and in cases where criminal proceedings are pending or contemplated information in the possession of the police must be treated as confidential.
    Mr. CASSELLS: Is it not a fact that such evidence is permitted in a court of law, and that being so, does not the Lord Advocate agree that if this evidence were rendered available in the first instance much litigation would be avoided?
    The LORD ADVOCATE: No, Sir. Evidence of the type to which I refer in my original answer would not, apart from highly exceptional circumstances, be admitted.

    ARGYLLSHIRE POLICE FORCE.
    Mr. CASSELLSasked the Secretary of State for Scotland, having regard to the alleged deliberate breach of Section 27 (1) (c) of the Police (Scotland) Regulations by the chief constable for the county of Argyll in appointing James Alexander Thomson to be inspector in the said county, and in view of the serious effect that such contravention of regulations by superior police officers has on the discipline of the police force generally, what disciplinary or other measures he proposes to take or to advise in this case?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Lieut.-Colonel Colville): My right hon. Friend has asked the county council of Argyll who are the disciplinary authority in relation to the chief constable to investigate this allegation, and meantime I am not in a position to make any statement on the subject.
    Mr. CASSELLS: I beg to thank the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for that reply.

    ILLEGAL FISHING, FIRTH OF FORTH.
    Mr. HENDERSON STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether his attention has been called to the recent case before the sheriff court at Cupar, where evidence was given of a sharp conflict which took place on 14th July, off Kincraig Point, in the Firth of Forth, between Cockenzie and Pittenweem fishing boats; whether he is aware that this is one of many similar incidents which have taken place in the last year; and whether he will introduce more effective measures to prevent illegal fishing off the Fife coast and the possibility of further incidents?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. So far as I am aware, there have not been many similar incidents in the last year, and no complaints of illegal fishing in the Firth of Forth have reached the Fishery Board since January last. The new fishery cruiser "Fidra" which was put into commission in February last, has, according to my information, been successful in checking illegal fishing and conflicts between fishermen in this area and the present measures appear to be adequate.
    Mr. STEWART: Is it not the fact that the state of affairs described in the question is certainly not exceptional?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: As I have said, since the cruiser "Fidra" came on duty, the trouble seems to be virtually at an end.
    Captain McEWEN: Will not the most effectual measure of protection be the use of the by-law which is at present awaiting confirmation?
    Mr. STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether in considering any possible extension of the seine-net fishing area in the Firth of Forth, he will bear in mind the many conflicts which are now occurring between poaching craft domiciled on the South side of the Firth of Forth and fishing boats operating legally off the North coast; and whether he is aware that, in the opinion of the great majority of fishermen operating in the Firth of Forth, any

    2217
    extension of the area in question will lead to further illegal fishing and consequent serious conflicts between the fishermen?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: In considering the by-law which the Fishery Board for Scotland have made and submitted for confirmation, my right hon. Friend will take into account all relevant considerations which may be put before him for and against confirmation.
    Mr. STEWART: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman remember in that connection that the line fishermen on both sides of the Firth of Forth are unanimously opposed to this proposed extension of the area?
    Captain McEWEN: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman also remember the proportion of line fishermen on the one side and on the other?
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: As there is a conflict between the two methods of fishing, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman take into account that the most up-to-date method must in the end prevail?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: My right hon. Friend will bear those points in mind.

    SLAUGHTER-HOUSES, INVERKEITHING.
    Mr. WATSONasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether his attention has been called to the position and condition of two slaughter-houses in the burgh of Inverkeithing; whether he is aware that the buildings are old and defective; that householders nearby complain of the noises coming from the slaughter-houses; that the door of one must be left open as that is the only means of lighting the place, while children witness the slaughtering of the animals through the open door; and will he cause a special inspection to be made with a view to remedying this state of affairs?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I am informed that the slaughter-houses in question are private slaughter-houses carried on under licences issued by the local authority. If these slaughter-houses constitute a nuisance a complaint may be lodged with the town council under the Public Health Acts. Objection may also be raised by any person interested against the renewal of the licences by the local
    2218
    authority. My right hon. Friend has instructed a special inspection to be made of these premises and of the conditions under which animals are slaughtered.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider introducing legislation abolishing private slaughter-houses altogether?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: That is another matter.

    HOUSING, TERREGLES.
    Mr. McKIEasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he can make any statement with regard to the delay of the Department of Agriculture for Scotland in providing more houses to replace the defective houses on the estate of the department at Terregles, Kirkcudbrightshire?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Arrangements for the erection of three additional houses at Terregles are in progress. The examination of tenders and the completion of other arrangements must precede the commencement of building operations, but no avoidable delay will occur.
    Mr. McKIE: In view of the inordinate length of time taken, will my right hon. and gallant Friend, through the Scottish Office, impress on the Department of Agriculture for Scotland the urgency of this matter?
    Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I will do all in my power to see that the matter is expedited.

    AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS.
    Mr. HILLSasked the Home Secretary whether he can make a statement on the present state of the arrangements for the protection of the population from air raids; and whether all local authorities have been advised to take such precautions as his Department deems necessary?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The hon. Member will appreciate that it is difficult to give an adequate description of the present position in a reply to a Parliamentary Question, but I may say that all local authorities have been asked to co-operate in matters of air raid precautions, and the great majority are doing so. Local

    2219
    schemes of air raid precautions are in course of preparation, and the Government are making the necessary arrangements for the publication of further information giving guidance to local authorities and others, and for the production of the stocks of protective equipment which it has undertaken to supply.

    POLICE (RACE MEETING, EPSOM).
    Mr. DAYasked the Home Secretary the number of police officers employed at Epsom during the race meeting held there in May last; what part of the expenses for the use of this force fell upon the Metropolitan Police Fund; and will he give particulars?
    Sir J. SIMON: The number of police employed varied from day to day, the maximum on any day being 318. Their cost was borne wholly by the racecourse authorities, no part of it falling on the Metropolitan Police Fund. The figure I have given does not include police engaged in regulating traffic to and from the race meeting.
    Mr. DAY: Has any special allowance been made to these men for the time during which they were on this duty?
    HON. MEMBERS: Another day?
    Sir J. SIMON: I can assure the hon. Member that my previous answer was intended to be complete. Whatever cost there is, is borne solely by the racecourse authorities.
    Mr. THORNE: On a point of Order. Do you take notice, Mr. Speaker, that every day when my hon. Friend the Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Day) rises to put supplementary questions, some Members start growling like monkeys?

    INDUSTRIAL DISEASES (FIBROSIS OF THE LUNGS).
    Mr. J. GRIFFITHSasked the Home Secretary whether he is now prepared to so amend the provisions of the Various Industries (Silicosis) Scheme, 1934, as to bring within its scope the large number of coal miners, both underground and surface workers, who are disabled by fibrosis of the lungs, due to inhalation of dust in the course of their
    2220
    employment, and who are prevented from becoming certified by the medical board and from claiming compensation by the restrictive character of the existing silicosis schemes?
    Mr. LLOYD: I am afraid that is not possible in the present state of medical knowledge to take action on the lines suggested. Fibrosis of the lungs is a not uncommon condition which arises from a variety of causes, not necessarily occupational at all, and I am advised that the position at present reached is that while fibrosis due to inhalation of silica or asbestos dust can be distinguished by expert examination, it is not possible in other cases to say whether the fibrosis is due to the effects of dust inhaled in the course of employment. The problem is an extremely complicated one but it is being actively investigated by the Industrial Pulmonary Diseases Committee of the Medical Research Council, who are fully alive to its importance and urgency and who, I understand, visited South Wales last month and obtained information from the hon. Member himself, a number of local doctors and others. All I can say now is that if, and when, that committee is able to report that there are other forms of occupational fibrosis which can be distinguished as such, my right hon. Friend will be prepared to consider at once the steps necessary, whether by legislation or otherwise, to bring them within the scope of the Act.
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: While thanking my hon. Friend for his reply, will he in view of the urgency of the matter, press upon the committee to make their report as soon as possible?
    Mr. LLOYD: Yes, Sir. As the hon. Member knows, I did that once before, with good results. As a matter of fact the committee are meeting this afternoon.

    ANTI-JEWISH MANIFESTATIONS.
    Mr. VYVYAN ADAMSasked the Home Secretary what measures are in contemplation to prevent further anti-Jewish manifestations on the part of members of the British Union of Fascists?
    Sir J. SIMON: In the Debate last which are being taken, and I am in com-Friday, I described various measures

    2221
    munication with the Commissioner of Police on the subject.
    Mr. ADAMS: As this aspect of the matter could not be raised last Friday, does not my right hon. Friend think that banning all political uniforms might quickly bring to an end this sadistic nuisance?
    Sir J. SIMON: That, of course, is a proposal which would involve legislation, but it is a proposal which has by no means been overlooked.
    Mr. GALLACHER: If the right hon. Gentleman will look up the evidence in the case of the 12 Communists who were prosecuted in 1925, he will see that on the basis of that case he has an ironclad case against the Fascists.

    REX v. BRYANT
    Mr. PRITTasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that in the case of Rex v. Bryant evidence was given by a Home Office expert to the effect that the presence of 149 parts in 1,000,000 of arsenic in coal ash was inexplicable except upon the hypothesis that arsenic had been burned in the fire in question; that the learned judge directed the jury that that evidence constituted corroboration of the principal witness for the prosecution, who alone deposed to arsenic being to the knowledge of the prisoner present in the house; that the said expert evidence was admittedly incorrect and mistaken and that the Court of Criminal Appeal apparently felt itself bound by precedent to refuse to investigate whether the said evidence was mistaken; and whether he will consider the introduction of amending legislation to secure that verdicts founded on mistaken evidence shall be subject to inquiry on appeal?
    Sir J. SIMON: In the course of investigating this matter, I ascertained from the Lord Chief Justice that he and the other Judges sitting in the Court of Criminal Appeal, for the purpose of deciding the appeal, proceeded on the assumption that this item of evidence was mistaken. There was ample evidence of corroboration quite apart from this challenged detail. Neither the trial Judge (whom I also personally inter-
    2222
    viewed) nor the Court of Criminal Appeal were able to regard the matter referred to as affecting the conclusion reached, and after the most careful examination of all the circumstances, I reached the same view. As regards the last part of the question, no such legislation is required as, of course, an allegation of mistaken evidence can be considered on appeal and, as I have said, it was in fact considered and fully allowed for in the present case.

    HIS MAJESTY'S CORONATION.
    Mr. W. A. ROBINSONasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider recommending as part of the Coronation programme the remission of sentences imposed upon persons in prisons who have earned good-conduct marks?
    Sir J. SIMON: There is a regular system by which prisoners earn remission by good conduct and industry, and proposals involving special clemency to persons who happen to be serving sentences of imprisonment on a particular date are open to obvious objection.
    Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKEasked the Prime Minister (1) whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to invite the Dominion and Colonial Governments to send representative military units to participate in the various ceremonies connected with the Coronation;
    (2) whether, in view of the fact that next year the Coronation will provide an unique occasion for a representative gathering of the British Empire's League of Nations, the Government will, beside extending invitations to the Services, see that encouragement is given for ex-service men and youth organisations from oversea to participate in the celebrations?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I am not in a position to make any announcement regarding the details of the Coronation arrangements, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the suggestions made by him will be borne in mind. As has been stated in the Press, arrangements are under discussion for the participation of the Dominions in the Coronation preparations.

    MR. PAKENHAM (FASCIST MEETING, OXFORD).
    Mr. DALTONasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that on 25th May last the Honourable Frank Pakenham, fellow and tutor of Christ Church, Oxford, was violently assaulted and injured by a number of Fascist stewards at a public meeting and received no assistance, either at the time of the assault or afterwards, from the police; and whether he will introduce legislation to give greater control to the Home Office over the provincial police in these and similar cases?
    Sir J. SIMON: I received from Mr. Pakenham an account of his experiences at the meeting in question, but he particularly asked that his statement should be treated as confidential. I am communicating with Mr. Pakenham, and if he no longer desires that the statements he sent me should be so treated, I shall at once submit them to the Chief Constable of the Oxford City Police and ask for his observations. As regards the second part of the question, the essential feature of the police service of this country is that it is and always has been organised on a local basis, and any proposal tending to centralise that control in the executive government would be greatly resented by the responsible local authorities and could be justified only on the strongest grounds of public policy. Allegations against the conduct of the provincial police fall to be dealt with by the local disciplinary authority, which in a city or borough is the watch committee. I should not feel justified in proposing so far reaching an amendment of the existing law as is suggested.
    Mr. DALTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware—I am sure he is—that the victim of this cowardly assault has published an account of his experiences in the "Times," and does that not furnish sufficient prima facie evidence for an inquiry into the conduct of the Chief Constable of Oxford?
    Sir J. SIMON: I saw the letter from Mr. Pakenham, which was a most proper letter, but he gave me a much more detailed account, and naturally I paid great attention to it, and I should like to ascertain whether in the circumstances he would like me to communicate with the Oxford police. If so, of course, I
    2224
    will do so and ask for their observations, but I must point out that the Home Secretary has not got the function of making inquiries about police incidents all over the country. I am not shirking any responsibility, but I must have regard to my position, my well understood position, in reference to the Metropolitan Police. My powers in relation to the county and borough police are different from my powers in relation to the Metropolitan Police.

    CORONERS' COURTS.
    Mr. A. EDWARDSasked the Home Secretary whether it is proposed to introduce a Coroners Amendment Bill following the publication of the report of the Departmental Committee which inquired into the law and practice regarding coroners?
    Sir J. SIMON: I cannot at present add anything to the reply which I gave on 5th March to a similar question by the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor).

    MILK (SCHOOLCHILDREN).
    Miss CAZALETasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has yet been able to confer with the Minister of Agriculture with regard to the possibility of continuing the provision of milk to schoolchildren in holiday time; and, if so, what arrangements have been made?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Oliver Stanley): As stated in the reply which I gave on 6th July to my hon. Friend, the Member for Bradford East (Mr. Hepworth), it is expressly provided in the milk-in-schools scheme that it may operate throughout the holidays. The main difficulty is that the experiments which have been conducted in certain areas show that the great majority of children, who take milk on payment during term time, are unwilling to attend schools or centres for the purpose during the holidays. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and I are considering this difficulty but up to the present it has not been found possible to devise any method of overcoming it.
    Miss CAZALET: Will my right hon. Friend ask the many local authorities responsible to make experiments in this matter during the coming summer holidays?
    Mr. T. JOHNSTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman mind importing the Secretary of State for Scotland into the negotiations?
    Mr. STANLEY: I should not like to assume any responsibility for Scotland.
    Mr. JOHNSTON: Why should these provisions be operated, or be attempted to be operated, in England and Wales alone?

  PUBLIC HEALTH.

    RIVERS POLLUTION.
    Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVEasked the Minister of Health what steps he proposes to take in order to prevent the pollution of rivers and streams by the effluent from factories which are not in a sewerage system?
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): Under the River Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, the pollution of rivers and streams by effluents from factories is already an offence in respect of which proceedings may be taken by the sanitary authority or the county council.
    Lieut.-Colonel WINDSOR-CLIVE: If I send my right hon. Friend information showing that the existing legislation is not effective, will he consider it?
    Sir K. WOOD: If my hon. and gallant Friend will let me have particulars, I will look into the matter.

    VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS (NURSES' HOURS OF WORK.)
    Miss CAZALETasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the fact that nurses still work as many as 70 hours a week in some of the voluntary hospitals (including some of the great London hospitals), he will consider introducing legislation to limit these hours?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am advised that in recent years there has been a considerable improvement in this matter and that it
    2226
    is quite exceptional for nurses to be required to work so many hours as stated by my hon. Friend, and in these circumstances I do not think legislation is necessary.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Will the right hon. Gentleman do what he can to encourage the reduction of the hours of work of these nurses?
    Sir K. WOOD: If the hon. Gentleman will send me particulars of any cases, I will look into them.

    MENTAL HOSPITALS.
    Mr. GALLACHERasked the Minister of Health whether he will consider recommending to local authorities that they should alter the name of "asylums" and "mental hospitals" to "hospitals for nervous diseases" or some similar name, in view of the hardship caused to persons treated for short periods for nervous ailments who, nevertheless, are branded as lunatics for the rest of their lives?
    Sir K. WOOD: The Mental Treatment Act, 1930, prescribed that in England and Wales the term "mental hospital" should be substituted for "asylum." I do not think that it is necessary to modify the term "mental hospital." The large and increasing proportion of persons now applying voluntarily for treatment at these institutions suggests that the idea is rapidly disappearing that any stigma may be supposed to attach to treatment in them.
    Mr. GALLACHER: Is the Minister aware that there are young men and women who have unfortunately had to go into these institutions, and, when they apply for employment and it is known they have been in asylums, it completely handicaps them in getting work; and will he take steps to get the term "asylum" removed?
    Sir K. WOOD: I do not think the hon. Gentleman heard my answer, which was to the effect that the term "mental hospital" is now being used instead of "asylum."

    MATERNAL MORTALITY.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Health whether he will consider the advisability of taking steps to require that an inquest be held on every death of a mother in childbirth with a view to

    2227
    having exhaustive inquiries made into each case in an effort to lower the maternal mortality figures?
    Sir K. WOOD: This suggestion was considered by the Departmental Committee on Maternal Mortality and Morbidity, who did not advocate its adoption. The committee advised that local authorities should be urged to continue the arrangements by which medical officers of health make inquiries into maternal deaths and furnish confidential reports to the Chief Medical Officer of my Department. Arrangements have been made accordingly and these reports are received periodically from most of the medical officers of health.

  HOUSING.

    SOUTH SHIELDS.
    Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Health the reason no houses have been commenced for the County Borough of South Shields by the Housing Association; and whether he will press the association to commence building forthwith?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am informed that a tender for the erection of 468 houses in South Shields was accepted, but that on further consideration the contractors asked to be released from the contract and that this has occasioned some delay.
    Mr. EDE: Is the right hon. Gentleman confident that no undue delay will occur, in view of the urgent need of houses?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am sure that the association will do all they can in the matter.
    Miss WARD: Have the Socialist party now withdrawn their opposition to using the advantages offered by the North-East Coast Housing Association?

    CHILDREN (RENT ALLOWANCE).
    Mr. DAYasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that there are more children living under unsatisfactory conditions at the present time than there were 20 years ago; will he consider whether some form of rent allowance can be conceded to the parents in order to allow them to remove the children into
    2228
    more healthy conditions with better accommodation and houses; and will he make a statement of the Government's suggestions for the solution of this problem?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am not aware of any authority for the statement contained in the first part of the question: a definite programme has been adopted for the removal of unfit houses and overcrowding, and generous subsidies are available to enable the new houses which are being built to be let at low rents. In selecting their tenants local authorities are required by the Act of 1935 to give a reasonable preference to those who have large families or are living under unsatisfactory housing conditions and are authorised to make such rebates from rent as they may think fit.
    Mr. DAY: Has the Minister seen the medical officers' reports on these conditions, especially in some of the districts in London?
    Sir K. WOOD: There are many hundreds of medical officers' reports, and if the hon. Member has any particular report in mind, perhaps he will draw my attention to it?
    Miss RATHBONE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give some further instructions to the local authorities to adopt the system of rebate of rent, and is he aware that only about 40 or 50 local authorities are adopting the system?
    Sir K. WOOD: The question is not without difficulty, but it is a matter for the local authorities to determine for themselves.
    Mr. THURTLE: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied with the present position of the housing problem?
    Sir K. WOOD: No, Sir, but I am saying more about that this afternoon.

    STEEL FRAME-WORK.
    Mr. T. HENDERSONasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the existence of a ring of steel-erecting firms which has led to serious increases in quotations for the erection of steel frame-work of housing flats and other buildings that it is impossible to get an erector to quote from outside the ring because British makers

    2229
    stop home supplies; and whether he will take the necessary action to protect the interests of users of steel for these purposes?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am making inquiries into the matter.

    DURHAM COUNTY.
    Mr. WHITELEYasked the Minister of Health the number of aged workers' cottages built by local authorities in the administrative county of Durham and by borough councils since 1st January, 1935?
    Sir K. WOOD: In the period 1st January, 1935, to 31st May, 1936, the local authorities mentioned commenced the building of 456 non-parlour houses with one bedroom. Information is not available in regard to the number of such houses completed in that period.
    Mr. WHITELEYasked the Minister of Health (1) the number of houses built by the borough councils in the county of Durham to replace slum property and relieve overcrowding since 1st January, 1935;
    (2) the number of houses built by local authorities in the administrative county of Durham to replace slum property and relieve overcrowding since 1st January, 1935?
    Sir K. WOOD: The number of houses built by the county borough councils of Darlington, Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland and West Hartlepool for the purposes mentioned between 1st January, 1935, and 31st May, 1936, was 1,614, and the number of houses built by the local authorities in the administrative county of Durham in the same period was 2,920.

    CONSOLIDATION BILL.
    Mr. DAVID ADAMSasked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the question of consolidating the provisions of the various Housing Acts in one Statute; and, if so, whether he has reached any conclusion in the matter?
    Sir K. WOOD: A consolidating Measure is before Parliament at this moment, and if passed will operate from 1st January next.

    RE-DEVELOPMENT AREAS.
    Mr. DAVID ADAMSasked the Minister of Health the names of any local authorities in England and Wales who have passed resolutions declaring areas
    2230
    to be proposed re-development areas under the provisions of Section 13 of the Housing Act, 1935?
    Sir K. WOOD: Resolutions declaring areas to be proposed re-development areas have been passed by the borough councils of Liverpool, Norwich, Bangor, and Lowestoft and by the urban district council of Brierley Hill.

    CENTRAL HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
    Mr. DAVID ADAMSasked the Minister of Health whether he is in a position to give the House any information as to the matters of general concern arising in connection with the execution of housing enactments upon which the Central Housing Advisory Committee have advised him?
    Sir K. WOOD: The Central Housing Advisory Committee has appointed three standing sub-committees to consider respectively rural housing, house management and housing associations, and general and technical housing questions. I have received advice on certain matters of general interest, e.g. on the scheme of the Federation of Building Trade Employers for the registration of house-builders, and I am expecting further information from the sub-committees on various matters within their purview.
    Mr. ADAMS: Is there any prospect of that information being published for the use of the House?
    Sir K. WOOD: No, this committee advises me as Minister.

    OPEN SPACES, LONDON.
    Mr. DAYasked the Minister of Health whether it is his intention to introduce legislation for the purpose of preserving open spaces, London squares, and enclosures for the public of London?
    Sir K. WOOD: No such legislation is at present contemplated by the Government.
    Mr. DAY: Do the Government know that this has been under consideration for the past two years?

    OLD AGE AND CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS.
    Mr. MANDERasked the Minister of Health whether he will consider the

    2231
    advisability if taking steps to make small manufacturers eligible for admission to the voluntary scheme of pensions insurance, which the Government propose to introduce, in addition to small shopkeepers and farmers?
    Sir K. WOOD: The announcement made by the Government with regard to the introduction of a new scheme of voluntary insurance for pensions indicated that there is no intention of discriminating between persons engaged in different occupations as regards eligibility for admission to the scheme.
    Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Health whether, when a recipient of an old age pension enters a rate-aided institution after having previously resided with his or her elder son, the public assistance committee is authorised by his Department to claim the pension as a contribution towards the cost of maintenance of the patient notwithstanding the objection of the son, and even in a case where an officer of the public assistance committee persuades the sick patient to allow him to guide her or his hand to make the cross of authority to draw the pension?
    Sir K. WOOD: No, Sir. A public assistance authority cannot be authorised by me to claim a pension on behalf of an old age pensioner. Where, however, the pensioner has means available for his maintenance derived fro a pension or otherwise the authority can properly take steps to recover the cost of his relief.
    Mr. LECKIEasked the Minister of Health the number of contributory pensioners who have reached the age of 65 who were married to their present wives before the pensions Act was passed, and who are now receiving a single pension of 10s. because the wife has not reached that age?
    Sir K. WOOD: I am afraid that the information asked for by my hon. Friend is not available.

  DEFENCE.

    REARMAMENT PROGRAMME.
    Mr. A. HENDERSONasked the Prime Minister when and in what form
    2232
    the rearmament programme of His Majesty's Government has been approved by the present French Government?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave yesterday in reply to a question which the hon. Member addressed to me.
    Mr. HENDERSON: Is the Prime Minister aware that the First Lord of the Admiralty on Saturday last stated that the present Socialist Government in France had applauded the rearmament programme of His Majesty's Government and were praying that that programme should be carried out as swiftly as possible; and is it desirable for Ministers to make statements which are untrue and calculated to deceive the public on matters of very great importance?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, I did not notice that particular statement. It does seem to me that any strengthening of the forces of collective security will be welcomed by those who believe in it.
    Mr. HENDERSON: Are we to understand that it is the policy of the Government to compromise the Socialist Government in France with public opinion in this country?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Oh, no.

    LOANS (SMALL INVESTORS).
    Mr. CARYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in issuing any future loan or series of loans for the purpose of financing programmes of defence, the small investor or persons with small savings will be given every opportunity to subscribe should they so desire; and whether the terms of any prospectus which may be issued will aim at securing as large a number of stockholders of small amounts rather than large block holdings?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): The question referred to by my hon. Friend does not at present arise, but his suggestion has been noted.
    Mr. PETHERICK: If it comes to the issue of a loan, will my right hon. Friend consider—
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is a hypothetical question.

    MANDATED TERRITORIES.
    Captain McEWENasked the Prime Minister whether His Majesty's Government in their consultations with the South African Minister of Defence, during his recent visit to this country, officially discussed the question of Germany's claim to territories in Africa; and whether they gave him any reason to believe that the putting forward of such claims would be sympathetically entertained by His Majesty's Government?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think that my hon. Friend's question is based on a misapprehension. I understand that, in the interview with the Press on his return to South Africa, Mr. Pirow himself made it clear that the impressions which he was then giving were "the result of personal observation, of talks with individuals and groups, and were not the outcome of specific discussions with members of the British Government." So far as the attitude of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom is concerned, I have nothing to add to the previous statements which have been made in this House on their behalf.
    Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that there are likely to be further complications and misunderstandings unless some explicit assurance can be given on behalf of the Government? Is it not desirable, in view of the agitation in Germany, that at an early date there should be something more tangible.
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think that the statements of the Government were perfectly clear. I myself regret, of course, Press interviews on matters that are of some considerable delicacy, but I have little jurisdiction in this country and none in South Africa. I would just add this, and I am quite sure my hon. and gallant Friend will agree with me, that conversations with Dominion Ministers who come over here are naturally extremely confidential, and I should never reveal anything that took place, but it must be remembered that Mr. Pirow came over as Minister of Defence on some specific work. When he was dealing with other matters than that he was expressing, as I understand it, his personal opinion. He had no authority that I am aware of for expressing the opinion of the Government of South Africa, and
    2234
    whatever views he may have expressed in this interview—and we have been at some pains to get all the particulars we can of it—they do represent entirely his personal views and not necessarily the views of the South African Government. What relation his views may bear to those of the South African Government is not for me but is a matter for that Government.
    Mr. CHURCHILL: While thanking the Prime Minister for his answer, may I ask him whether he could not reply to the question of my hon. and gallant Friend and choose some occasion for making it perfectly clear that there is no question at the present moment of any transfer of our Mandated Territories?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think that the answer which has been given by the Government is perfectly specific, and my answer to the latter part of the question
    "whether they gave him any reason to believe that the putting forward of such claims would be sympathetically entertained by His Majesty's Government"
    is in the negative.
    Mr. SANDYS: Is the Prime Minister aware that the statement to which he refers which was made by the Government differs very materially from the previous statements made last year by the Government, particularly by the Home Secretary in Berlin, and will he not make it quite clear at an early date where the Government stand?

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    FISHING INDUSTRY.
    Mr. LOFTUSasked the Minister of Agriculture what were the total earnings during 1935 of the steam-drifter herring-boats belonging to the following ports: Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Buckie, Fraserburgh and Peterhead?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I am informed that the gross earnings of the steam drifters of Lowestoft and Yarmouth, respectively, in 1935 during the summer and autumn herring fishings were approximately £405,000 and £198,000. I regret that figures for the whole year are not readily available. For information regarding the Scottish ports mentioned by my hon. Friend, I would refer him to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

    JAPANESE KNITTED UNDERWEAR.
    Mr. LYONSasked the President of the Board of Trade the quantities of knitted underwear imported into the United Kingdom from Japan for the three months ended 30th June, 1936, or nearest convenient date, and the sterling value thereof?
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): During the three months ended June, 1936, the imports into the United Kingdom of knitted underwear consigned from Japan amounted to 226,000 dozen, value at £48,000.
    Mr. LYONS: In view of the effect of this importation of Japanese goods on the industries concerned, particularly in Leicester, will my hon. and gallant Friend say whether the attention of the Import Duties Advisory Committee has been directed to it?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I could not say that without notice.

    CANADA.
    Mr. DONNERasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has considered the representations made to him by agricultural interests with reference to the revision of the trade agreement with Canada; and whether he will give an undertaking to consult these interests before the new trade agreements with foreign or Dominion countries are concluded?

    The following table shows the total declared value of merchandise imported into and exported from the United Kingdom in the trade with the Soviet Union, as registered during the undermentioned periods, together with the proportion of re-exports to total exports.

    Period.

    Imports into the United Kingdom consigned from the Soviet Union.

    Exports from the United Kingdom consigned to the Soviet Union.

    Produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom.

    Imported Merchandise.

    Total Exports.

    Exports of Imported Merchandise as a proportion of total Exports.

    £'000.

    £'000.

    £'000.

    £'000.

    Per cent.

    Year:

    1934

    17,327

    3,640

    3,905

    7,546

    52

    1935

    21,734

    3,505

    6,206

    9,711

    64

    January-May, 1936.

    4,487

    1,309

    4,675

    5,984

    78

    Captain CROOKSHANK: My right hon. Friend has received and considered certain representations from agricultural interests concerning trade with Canada. As to the second part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Major Dorman-Smith) on 30th June, and to the reply given on 10th February last to the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall) by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture.
    Mr. DONNER: Will an undertaking be given to consult agricultural interests, particularly as industrial and financial interests are consulted before signing any new trade agreements?

    RUSSIA.
    Captain CAZALETasked the President of the Board of Trade the figures for trade between this country and Soviet Russia for the year 1934–35 and the latest figures for the present year; and how much of the exports, expressed in percentage of total value, to Russia from this country were re-exports?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: As the answer involves a table of figures, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    Captain CAZALET: In view of the unsatisfactory state of the present trade arrangement with Russia, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consider negotiating a new trade agreement in which due attention shall be paid to the needs of British shipping?
    Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: Is it not a fact that this House was told that this was only a temporary agreement, and is this long-standing temporary arrangement to be terminated?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I will bring my hon. and gallant Friend's remarks to the notice of the President of the Board of Trade.

    BRITISH CINEMAS (AMERICAN CONTROL).
    Brigadier-General SPEARSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that American interests have purchased the share control of Gaumont-British, Limited, which owns, directly or indirectly, approximately 350 picture theatres, constituting the largest circuit of theatres in this country; and whether he proposes, in the national interest, to take steps to prevent this powerful means of propaganda remaining in foreign control?
    Mr. CREECH JONESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that proposals have been made that 300 of the principal cinemas in Britain are about to pass under the control of foreign interests; and whether he will consider some steps to safeguard the national interests in such development?
    Captain CROOKSHANK: I have no official information on the subject, but I have seen reports in the Press as to possible changes in the control of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. My right hon. Friend has noted the hon. Members' suggestions.

    WAR PENSIONERS (SAVINGS INVESTMENT).
    Mr. GUYasked the Minister of Pensions whether, in view of the interest which was displayed on the occasion of the annual conference of the British Legion (Scotland) in a scheme to make it easy for war pensioners to save out
    2238
    of their pensions with a view to securing, by means of an annuity or otherwise, an increased income in their later years, he will take steps to see whether any such scheme can be put in operation?
    The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. R. S. Hudson): Yes, Sir. With the assistance of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I have been able to make arrangements by which any disability pensioner may, if he wishes, instruct my Department to reserve a small portion of his pension each week and invest it for him, according to his own choice, in National Savings Certificates, or in the Post Office Savings Bank, or in a Trustee Savings Bank. The average age of war pensioners at the present time is not more than 47, and a saving which is thus automatically effected without trouble to the pensioner will, if continued, yield him, at the age of 60 or 65, a capital sum which can be used to purchase an annuity for himself or his wife or otherwise add to his income when he may most need it. With the improving state of employment generally, and particularly the favourable position in this respect enjoyed by pensioners, of whom only 8 per cent. are known to be unemployed, it has seemed to me that a favourable opportunity presents itself to assist pensioners, who may not require, while in work, to spend the whole of their pensions, to invest a portion of them in order to make additional provision for their later years.
    Captain GUNSTON: May I ask whether the Ministry will retain control of the sum reserved under the scheme and, if so, what guarantee the pensioner will have that his savings are being invested to his advantage?
    Mr. HUDSON: The Ministry will not retain control of the sums directed to be reserved out of pension, which remain the man's own property, but will invest them in the pensioner's name and the Ministry will be in the position of the pensioner's agent for this purpose. It is my intention to set up a small board of supervision to include representative persons of standing, outside the Ministry, among whom I hope to include a representative of the British Legion. The board will be a guarantee that the handling of the reserved portion of each pension is carried out in accordance with the pensioner's wishes.

    SOUTH AFRICAN TERRITORIES.
    Mr. DAVID GRENFELLasked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can now make any statement as to the communications between the acting High Commissioner in South Africa and the Prime Minister of the Union with regard to the Prime Minister's pronouncement on the South African protectorates?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): The Acting High Commissioner for Basutoland, the Bechuanaland Protectorate and Swaziland has been in communication with the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa regarding the recent statements made by General Hertzog in the Union House of Assembly in connection with the question of the transfer of these Territories to the Union. General Hertzog states that he stands by the terms of the aide memoire of last year, and confirms that it is a full statement of the agreement reached between him and my predecessor. He has explained that his recent statements are to be read as an expression of his personal hope that, if the policy agreed to in the aide memoire is loyally carried out by both Governments, a position would, within a few years, be created which would permit the transfer of the Territories to the Union with the good will of their populations. He agrees, however, with the view of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom that it is essential to the success of the policy of co-operation that it should not be hurried, and that until that policy has had a fair trial any predictions as to the period within which such a policy might be expected to succeed in bringing about the situation which the two Governments had in mind when the aide memoire was issued, must necessarily be in the nature of conjecture. I should like to take this opportunity to make it clear that there is no agreement or understanding between the Governments that the transfer of the Territories or of any one of them should take place within any specified time.
    His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom welcomed the recent generous offer of the Union Government to share in the cost of certain development schemes in the Territories as being
    2240
    in the spirit of the agreement embodied in the aide memoire, and they accordingly advised the native authorities to co-operate. It was made clear to the native authorities that the acceptance of this offer could not impair the pledges already given by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to consult the inhabitants of the Territories before any decision is reached as to transfer, and that such acceptance would not be regarded as in any way committing the chiefs on the point. In view, however, of the uneasiness which, it is understood, is still felt by the native authorities on the subject, His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom have now come to the conclusion that it would be preferable for the proposal for such financial assistance on the part of the Union Government to remain in obeyance for the present. General Hertzog has stated that he is entirely willing to agree to this course.
    Mr. GRENFELL: Are we to understand that the financial assistance offered by the Union is now to be withdrawn, and the matter remains in abeyance, and in the meantime His Majesty's Government will make the necessary advance to carry out the intentions of that offer? Further, am I to understand that the withdrawal of the financial assistance and the suspension of the discussions leaves the position of the Protectorates as it was, without prejudice to their future?
    Mr. MacDONALD: In regard to the latter part of the question, the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards transfer remains exactly as it was stated in the aide memoire and other pronouncements made on behalf of His Majesty's Government. As regards the question of financial assistance, the union's offer remains in abeyance, and the question of making up the assistance from United Kingdom funds is now receiving very careful consideration, and part of it is already being considered by the Colonial Development Funds Committee.
    Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Will the Minister be able to assure us that the schemes that he and his predecessor have had in contemplation, for improving the health conditions and general welfare of the people, will not be in any way interfered with, but will go forward?
    Mr. MacDONALD: We are making progress, and we hope to make further progress.
    Mr. DONNER: May the House understand that the Government not only stand by the Aide Mémoire of May, 1935, but also by the dispatch sent by the Dominions Office to General Smuts in July, 1933, which more specifically declares that account must be taken of the wishes of the inhabitants?
    Mr. MacDONALD: We stand by all the official pronouncements which have been made, and which are perfectly reconcilable one with the other.
    Mr. DONNER: Does General Hertzog agree to these pronouncements, and will he stand by them?
    Lieut.-Commander FLETCHER: May we take it as certain that the wishes of the populations concerned will be the governing factor in this question of the transfer of these populations?
    Mr. MacDONALD: The Government stand by the pledge which they have given to the inhabitants of the Territories with regard to that matter.

    HIS MAJESTY THE KING (CONSTITUTION HILL INCIDENT).
    Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask whether the Home Secretary can make any statement as to the incident which occurred to-day, during the return of His Majesty the King, from the presentation of the Colours?
    Sir J. SIMON: The House will be deeply moved to learn that during the return journey of the Royal Procession from the Presentation of the Colours to the Brigade of Guards in Hyde Park this morning a man pushed his way to the front of the crowd near the Wellington Arch in Constitution Hill. Exactly what followed has not yet been precisely ascertained, but a revolver fell in the roadway between the King and the troops following him. The man was immediately arrested and taken to Hyde Park police station. No shot was fired, but the revolver was found to be loaded in four of its five chambers. The man will appear at Bow Street this afternoon, when it is probable that a remand will be applied for. The whole House will be profoundly thankful that the risk to which His
    2242
    Majesty was exposed was so promptly averted.
    HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Prime Minister the business for next week, and the business it is proposed to take tonight, in the event of the Motion for the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule being carried?
The PRIME MINISTER: The business for next week will be as follows:
Monday.—Supply; Committee (18th allotted day), Supplementary Estimate for the Treasury, which includes the salary of the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, and Supplementary Estimates for the Navy, Army and Air Services. I am informed through the usual channels that there is a desire for a general Debate to take place on the Government's Defence programme.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.—Motions to approve the Draft Unemployment Assistance Regulations, and the Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1935, Termination Order.
The business to be taken on Friday will be announced later.
During the week it will be necessary to conclude the final stages of the Cattle Industry Bill, and make progress with other Orders.
To-day, the 17th Allotted Supply Day, the Ministry of Health Vote is being considered in Committee. We desire to obtain also the Second Reading of the Public Health Bill from another place and the Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, as well as Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the Weights and Measures Bill. We are suspending the Eleven o'Clock Rule for this purpose. I may say, in regard to the Public Health Bill, that it is, in the main, a consolidating Bill, and it has been considered by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.
Mr. BATEY: When the new regulations are discussed next week, will the Prime Minister and the Lord President of the Council take part in the Debate and explain the statements they made during the General Election?
The PRIME MINISTER: The order of Debate will be found when it takes place,

2243
and I have no doubt that there will be no difficulty, whoever speaks, in making a reply.
Mr. BATEY: There was a precedent not long ago, when, on the question of Foreign Affairs, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill)—
Mr. SPEAKER rose—
Mr. BATEY: On a point of Order. There is a precedent for asking the Prime Minister whether he will take part
in the Debate. I am simply asking him, will he and the Lord President face the music next week and take part in the Debate?
Motion made, and Question put,
"That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before. Eleven of the clock, and that the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 242; Noes, 96.

Division No. 290.]

AYES.

[3.52 p.m.

Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

Davison, Sir W. H.

Jackson, Sir H.

Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

James, Wing-Commander A. W.

Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

De Chair, S. S.

Joel, D. J. B.

Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

De la Bère, R.

Keeling, E. H.

Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.

Denville, Alfred

Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

Donner, P. W.

Kimball, L.

Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

Kirkpatrick, W. M.

Apsley, Lord

Drewe, C.

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

Assheton, R.

Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)

Latham, Sir P.

Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)

Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

Dugdale, Major T. L.

Leckie, J. A.

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

Duggan, H. J.

Leighton, Major B. E. P.

Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

Duncan, J. A. L.

Levy, T.

Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.

Dunglass, Lord

Lindsay, K. M.

Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

Ellis, Sir G.

Lloyd, G. W.

Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

Emery, J. F.

Loftus, P. C.

Belt, Sir A. L.

Emmott, C. E. G. C.

Lumley, Capt. L. R.

Bernays, R. H.

Emrys-Evans, P. V.

Lyons, A. M.

Birchall, Sir J. D.

Entwistle, C. F.

M'Connell, Sir J.

Blindell, Sir J.

Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

MacDonald, Rt. Hn. J. R. (Scot. U.)

Bossom, A. C.

Everard, W. L.

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

Boulton, W. W.

Fildes, Sir H.

Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

Brass, Sir W.

Fleming, E. L.

McEwen, Capt. H. J. F.

Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

Foot, D. M.

McKie, J. H.

Brocklebank, C. E. R.

Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

Maclay, Hon. J. P

Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

Fremantle, Sir F. E.

Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

Furness, S. N.

Mander, G. le M.

Bull, B. B.

Ganzoni, Sir J.

Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

Bullock, Capt. M.

Gibson, C. G.

Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

Burton, Col. H. W.

Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Markham, S. F.

Butler, R. A.

Goldie, N. B.

Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.

Campbell, Sir E. T.

Goodman, Col. A. W.

Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J

Cartland, J. R. H.

Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

Cary, R. A.

Granville, E. L.

Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

Castlereagh, Viscount

Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.

Mills, Sir F. (Layton, E.)

Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)

Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

Gridley, Sir A. B.

Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

Grigg, Sir E. W. M.

Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

Grimston, R. V.

Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)

Gritten, W. G. Howard

Moreing, A. C.

Channon, H.

Guest,Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll,N.W.)

Morgan, R. H.

Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

Gunston, Capt. D. W.

Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H.

Christie, J. A.

Guy, J. C. M.

Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.

Morrison, W. S. (Cirencester)

Clarry, Sir Reginald

Harris, Sir P. A.

Munro, P.

Colfax, Major W. P.

Hartington, Marquess of

Nall, Sir J.

Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.

Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

Halsam, Sir J. (Bolton)

Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. G.

Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff(W'st'r S.G'gs)

Herbert, Capt. Sir S. (Abbey)

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh,W.)

Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

Patrick, C. M.

Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.

Cranborne, Viscount

Hopkinson, A.

Peters, Dr. S. J.

Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page

Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon, L.

Petherick, M.

Crooke, J. S.

Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir R. S.

Pilkington, R.

Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

Crowder, J. F. E.

Hulbert, N. J.

Pownall, Sir Assheton

Culverwell, C. T.

Hume, Sir G. H.

Raikes, H. V. A. M.

Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

Hunter, T.

Ramsbotham, H.

Ramsden, Sir E.

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)

Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

Rayner, Major R. H.

Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

Turton, R. H.

Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

Wakefield, W. W.

Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)

Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.

Walker-Smith, Sir J.

Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

Spears, Brig.-Gen E. L.

Ward, Irene (Wallsend)

Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

Spender-Clay, Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H.

Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

Ropner, Colonel L.

Spens, W. P.

Warrender, Sir V.

Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'I'd)

Waterhouse, Captain C.

Rowlands, G.

Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

Wedderburn, H. J. S.

Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

Storey, S.

Wells, S. R.

Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)

Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

Salmon, Sir I.

Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

Sandys, E. D.

Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.

Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

Savory, Servington

Sutcliffe, H.

Wise, A. R.

Scott, Lord William

Tasker, Sir R. I.

Womersley, Sir W. J.

Seely, Sir H. M.

Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)

Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

Salley, H. R.

Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

Shakespeare, G. H.

Touche, G. C.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)

Tree, A. R. L. F.

Sir George Penny and Lieut.-

Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward.

NOES.

Adams, D. (Consett)

Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

Quibell, D. J. K.

Adamson, W. M.

Hardle, G. D.

Ritson, J.

Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'Isbr.)

Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

Rowson, G.

Batey, J.

Hicks, E. G.

Sexton, T. M.

Bellenger, F.

Hills, A. (Pontefract)

Shinwell, E.

Benson, G

Hollins, A.

Short, A.

Bevan, A.

Hopkin, D.

Silkin, L.

Broad, F. A.

Jagger, J.

Silverman, S. S.

Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)

Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

Buchanan, G.

Kelly, W. T.

Smith, E. (Stoke)

Cape, T.

Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)

Cassells, T.

Lawson, J. J.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Charleton, H. C.

Lee, F.

Sorensen, R. W.

Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

Leonard, W.

Stephen, C.

Cocks, F. S.

Logan, D. G.

Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

Cove, W. G.

Lunn, W.

Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

Day, H.

McEntee, V. La T.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Dobbie, W.

McGhee, H. G.

Thorne, W.

Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

MacLaren, A.

Thurtle, E.

Ede, J. C.

Maclean, N.

Tinker, J. J.

Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

Markiew, E.

Walkden, A. G.

Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

Marshall, F.

Watson, W. McL.

Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

Maxton, J.

Welsh, J. C.

Frankel, D.

Messer, F.

Whiteley, W.

Gallacher, W.

Montague, F.

Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

Green, W. H. (Deptford)

Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

Williams, T. (Don Valley)

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

Noel-Baker, P. J.

Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

Grenfell, D. R.

Paling, W.

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

Potts, J.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

Pritt, D. N.

Mr. Groves and Mr. John.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [17TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1936.
  CLASS V.

    MINISTRY OF HEALTH.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £15,628,150, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Health; including Grants, a Grant in Aid, and other Expenses in connection with Housing, certain Grants to Local Authorities, etc., Grants in Aid in respect of Benefits, etc., under the National Health Insurance Acts, certain Expenses in connection with the Widows', Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, and other Services." [Note.—£6,000,000 has been voted on account.]
    4.2 p.m.
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): The Estimates for my Department, which amount to some £21,000,000, show a net increase of some £1,200,000 over those of 1935. The increases arise mainly from increased provisions for housing, improved rural water supplies and health insurance, but the Committee will know that since the introduction of the block grant system the Estimate does not reflect the increase in Exchequer assistance for public health services generally. The additional money included in the block grant for the first period was £5,000,000 a year, and there was an increase of a further £350,000 a year for the second grant period. The growth of expenditure during the period which ends on 31st March next, will also involve a substantial increase in the grants for next year, much of which will be attributable to the development of the public health services.
    I think I can say that no country is making such provisions for its social services. During the present year our expenditure on all such services, including the amount raised by local rates, will reach the considerable figure of £420,000,000. I am glad to think that at
    2280
    least some 30,000,000 men, women and children will benefit by one or more of these services. In addition to such expenditure we also have to note a further provision which is being made and which is also playing its part in our national efforts to promote good health and better conditions. There has recently been a considerable expansion in public works. Last year the total amount sanctioned rose from £26,000,000 to practically £36,000,000, a figure which has been exceeded only twice since the War, and then under exceptional conditions. These works include large sums for hospitals, improved drainage, street lighting, public baths, open spaces and water works, and so far as the last-named is concerned the figure is much higher than in any previous year.
    Therefore, I can say that much money is being spent, and I believe the nation will not grudge it. But I think it right that we should emphasise the need for careful spending and good administration and the importance of obtaining adequate value for such a vast expenditure. We should not forget that the great purpose of all this expenditure, apart from securing healthier and happier lives for the people, is to increase the number of men and women who can stand on their own feet and shape their own lives with a minimum of dependence on others. I ask this question this afternoon: Is all this expenditure worth while? Are we getting a good return for the money that is being spent? Are our people benefiting? I think I can reply in this way: That better sanitation, better housing, our efforts to improve methods of prevention and methods of diagnosis and treatment of disease, and especially the diffusion of knowledge and a growing interest in the principles of health, have borne good fruit.
    As I stated in the course of the Debate last week, the improvement in the health of the nation continne3 and it does not come by accident. There were two significant sign-posts last yeas. We measure length of life by death and we measure communal mortality by the death rate per 1,000 living. The first significant sign is contained in the latest figures furnished by the Registrar-General, which show a death rate for 1935 of 11.7 per thousand of the population. The expectation of life at birth has increased by seven years in the last 20 years. The second

    2281
    sign of the times is to be found in the facts relating to infantile mortality. Last year the figure per 1,000 live births was 57, the lowest on record in this country and one which is satisfactory when compared with even so recent a date as 1929, when it was 74. At last also the maternal mortality rate showed a slight decrease compared with previous years. I wish to remind the Committee that the significance in the decline of the death rate can be better appreciated if we analyse it in terms of persons living in each age group. Of persons living in each quinquennium, from five years of age upwards to 45, the number dying is less than half what it was 50 years ago, and in the age group under five it is less than one-third. There are other interesting figures. At all ages women have the advantage over men. An average woman can count on outliving an average man by between 12 months and four years. The mortality of widows is heavier than that of either single or married women, and at all ages from 25 to 60 the rates of mortality for married women are lighter than those of spinsters. It is not revealed whether a married man has a similar prospect in relation to a bachelor.
    Last year the principal infectious diseases showed no unusual or disquieting features. Influenza gave rise to no anxiety; we were entirely free from smallpox. At the same time our knowledge of certain of these diseases has been widely extended. A great deal of light has been thrown on the causation of scarlet fever and its relationship to other infective conditions, such as tonsilitis and erysipelas; and even influenza, the most illusive and deadly of the infections, has been made to yield up some of its secrets, as is shown by the progress of the researches conducted by the Medical Research Council and the Ministry. Unlike scarlet fever, diphtheria has not shown a progressive loss of virulence, but against it we have the aid of anti-toxin and immunisation. Anti-toxin, given early enough and amply enough, has already saved many young lives, and it is now possible by the artificial immunisation of children of the pre-school age to reduce very considerably the danger of contracting the disease in the most susceptible years of life.
    So far as enteric fever is concerned, it has been the experience of every sanitary
    2282
    district that the number of cases of this disease has fallen step by step with gratifying precision as the facilities for a proper water supply, proper sewerage and sewage disposal have been increased. But infectious disease is still the cause of many deaths and much disablement in early youth. It is responsible for over 60 per cent. of all deaths from the ages of one to 15 years. But at the same time there has been a remarkable decline in the mortality from infectious diseases during these age periods. Death rates at ages under 15 per 1,000,000 living have declined, in respect of measles from 750 in 1910 to 201 in 1933, in scarlet fever from 200 to 63, in diphtheria from 384 to 261, and in whooping-cough from 798 to 237.
    It has been found even possible to turn an infectious disease to a beneficial purpose. Malaria, the greatest scourge of the tropical world, is now recognised as the most efficacious, and indeed the only treatment for general paralysis of the insane; and with a view of making this treatment generally available, the Ministry, in collaboration with the London County Council, maintain a laboratory where mosquitoes are bred and infected with pure strains of malaria for the practice of malaria therapy. During 1935 the laboratory complied with 318 requests for this material, which was received from 118 hospitals in England and Wales, three in Ireland, and one in Scotland. Certain other institutions were also supplied and mosquitoes with benign tertian malaria were sent by air mail to directors of clinics in Austria, Germany, and Rumania.
    There is, of course, another side to the health balance sheet. Tuberculosis and cancer, for instance, still take their deadly toll. Nearly 30,000 persons were certified to have died from tuberculosis in England and Wales last year. There has been much advance here also. It is 11,000 fewer than 10 years ago. Cancer is, unfortunately, still one of the chief killing diseases. Deaths from this cause are over 60,000 every year—twice the number dying from tuberculosis. But cancer should not be regarded as a hopeless disease. Although its cause still remains obscure, there are to-day means of treating it such as there have never been before. Only a few years ago the word "tuberculosis" was taboo. People were afraid to mention it. They put off

    2283
    consulting their doctors long after they suspected that they had the disease, for they dreaded to have their convictions confirmed. That attitude to tuberculosis is almost entirely a thing of the past and in most cases it can be cured if advice is taken in time. The same in a large measure is true of cancer. We shall have made a great step towards solving the problem of early and timely diagnosis if we can banish unreasoning fear in the minds of our people. Here, I suggest, is a field in which the local authorities can render great assistance by judicious propaganda as part of their health educational work.
    There is another disease which affects many, and which not so many years ago was treated more like a criminal offence than anything else. I should like to say a word or two about our mental deficiency service. In no branch of our public health service has there been such a striking change as has been effected in recent years, both with regard to national outlook and our methods of treatment. We all remember the question, "Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased?" We can answer that question with more confidence and hope to-day. Much is now being done which has not only transformed the whole atmosphere and outlook of mental treatment but is designed to give better and healthier conditions of living to those who are mentally afflicted. There is the increasingly important part which occupational therapy and recreation are playing in the treatment of mental disorders. There is greater organisation of outdoor games and dancing, and we are told that, for an improving patient in particular, a good hair cut and shampoo have a real tonic value, particularly in the case of young women. The end of 1935 completed the first five years of the Mental Treatment Act which has produced one result so striking and far reaching that it deserves our special attention. It enabled voluntary patients to be received in any public mental asylum, which meant that for the first time rate-aided persons generally could be treated on a voluntary basis. These provisions have had remarkable results. In the first year of the operation of the Act, 1931, voluntary admissions represented 7.1 per cent. of the total admissions and certified admissions 91.1 per
    2284
    cent. The voluntary admissions have steadily increased and in 1935 they rose to 24 per cent. while certified admissions fell to 70.7 per cent. Nearly a quarter of the admissions to public mental hospitals are now on a voluntary basis. I am sometimes told that the mental deficiency service is a costly one, but, from the point of view of finance alone, if we did not provide proper and humane provisions for the defectives, we might well have to pay a bigger bill in all the social and other consequences which would ensue if we failed to undertake this work. I am glad to think that there are higher and better motives which animate us all and advance in this service is bringing control and self-respect to many sufferers.
    We should not forget that the Cure and prevention of disease is, after all, a negative policy unless it is aided by schemes to promote health. Much also can be done by the self help of each individual citizen. The nation is undoubtedly becoming more health minded. We see it particularly in the younger generation in their growing appreciation of the importance of keeping fit, and in the increasing value that they place on physical recreation and the open-air life. But there is one aspect of health affairs which provokes some attention and cannot be regarded with the same satisfaction. Our unquenchable medicinal thirst still continues, and it is suggested with some truth that we are rapidly becoming a nation of confirmed medicine drinkers. In Scotland doctors generally have never adopted the custom of dispensing medicine for their patients, and the patients have not been induced to consider a bottle of medicine a necessary corollary of a visit to a doctor. In England, on the contrary, for generations past doctors have themselves, with few exceptions, dispensed medicines and their patients have come to regard a visit to a doctor as synonymous with the receipt of medicine. In the result the cost of providing medicine per head of the insured population in England regularly exceeds that in Scotland by approximately 50 per cent. There are no known facts connected with the incidence of disease in the two countries to account for this wide divergence in the cost of medicine, and no one will suggest that the standard of treatment of the Scottish practitioner is lower than that of his English colleague

    2285
    or that his results are less satisfactory. In fact—these are rather remarkable figures—there were no fewer than 57,000,000 prescriptions issued in 1934 under the Health Insurance Acts. Of course, drugs are necessary, but medication by drugs is not enough, or perhaps is too much.
    I have spoken of our health efforts. Let me now speak of what we are doing in co-operation with other nations. Those who may have doubts about certain aspects of the League of Nations should have none with reference to the value and importance of the League's medical work. Our own representatives there have played a considerable and distinguished part not only in the periodic statistical reports on international hygienic co-operation but in the cordial co-operation between the medical men of the different nations of the world in which good work has been and is being done. One of our leading medical journals put it like this:
    "It is in the habit of quiet serious cooperation of men and women of different nations, having in common a medical training and a desire to solve some scientific problem, that the Health Organisation has carried out its best work."
    Good health is bound up with good housing and I want to say a word about that. There has been an unprecedented output of houses since the War. It has played an important part in the national recovery and in the increased employment that it has provided. Last week I made a quotation from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston). I will make another, because it is equally satisfactory to me. He said a few weeks ago:
    "I should say our generation has made its big contribution to housing reform. We have certainly done more in the last 15 years to provide decent homes for the people than any previous generation ever did. The slums are going. Ten years more and the foul, sanitationless human death traps from which capitalist investments reaped profit will have gone."
    I think that is a very fair statement so far as the health aspect is concerned. Well over 3,000,000 houses have been erected since the Armistice, and a gratifying feature in recent building activity has been the increasing proportion of houses built for people of moderate means. Out of 323,926 houses built last year, 271,389 were built by private enterprise without assistance,
    2286
    and 90 per cent. of that total were houses up to £26 rateable value. It is remarkable how these figures have risen, because in 1926 the proportion was 70 per cent., in 1930 it had risen to 74 per cent., and it is now 90 per cent. Only in the last two years have statistics been obtained by my Department which enable us to distinguish houses built for letting and houses of a rateable value not exceeding £13. During that two years unassisted private enterprise has been building small houses not exceeding £13 rateable value at the rate of 100,000 a year, and a third of these have been built to let. The returns so far as local authority building is concerned are equally satisfactory. I want to encourage both. The last half year was the best building half year that we have ever had, no fewer than 174,000 houses having been built for the half year ending 31st March, 1936, the best previous one being 168,000 in the half year ended 31st March, 1935. The output of houses by all agencies shows how substantial has been the addition to the supply of working-class accommodation in this country. I will refer to three records because they are most remarkable and encouraging. The real and greatest housing needs at the present time are small houses and houses to let, and for the half year ended March, 1936, local authorities and private enterprise—this is for six months only—provided no fewer than 80,000 small houses, easily a record for the country. As far as houses to let are concerned they are now being built, I am glad to say, at the rate of 100,000 a year, which is another record.
    Mr. ELLIS SMITH: What about the rents?
    Sir K. WOOD: I find that at the Department there is no record of rents, but I have thought that it would be advisable for the Departments to have some information about rents and I am asking local authorities to supply it to me.
    Mr. WHITELEY: For the purposes of having a correct comparison, is the right hon. Gentleman able to say exactly how many of these houses have been built by local authorities and how many by private enterprise?
    Sir K. WOOD: I will ascertain the exact proportion and let the hon. Member know during the Debate, but it is

    2287
    one of the most encouraging signs of the times—and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me—that private enterprise is now beginning to build small houses and also houses to let.
    Mr. QUIBELL: Very few.
    Sir K. WOOD: My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary thinks that it is about half and half, about 50 per cent., but I will find out the exact figure. I am glad to say that slums are going. Successful progress is being made and already some 400,000 slum dwellers have obtained new and better housing accommodation and at this period slum dwellers are going to new and better homes at the rate of about 6,000 every week. There is every reason to believe that, except for a few large towns, the programmes of local authorities will be well completed within the five-year period. For the benefit of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), because he will be interested in these figures, I should like to make an addition to what I said about housing in my observations last week. In my speech in this House last week I gave some interesting figures from Manchester to dispel the suggestion which is sometimes made that health has not improved by transference from the slum to a new housing estate.
    I said that I was obtaining similar figures from other towns. I wanted to have something for the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon with special interest to him, and I have now the figures from Wakefield. They cover a smaller population than the Manchester figures, but they are no less striking. The figures which I will give for Wakefield relate to two slum areas with a population of about 1,150, and a new estate with a population of 2,500. I will give the death rates for the whole city, the two slum areas and the new estate. The crude death rate for the whole city is 13.3, but in the slums it is 17.3, and on the new estate 8.8. The infantile mortality rate in the city is 64, in the slums 147, and on the new estate 43. I could give a number of other figures of the same character, but Wakefield—and I know that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me for he has never supported any other suggestion—certainly confirms the view that slum clearance is worth while.
    2288
    I want to say a few words about overcrowding. It is now possible to say that the great proportion of local authorities will soon be proceeding with the actual abatement of overcrowding itself. The Housing Act of 1935 set up a statutory universal standard by which overcrowding was to be measured, and machinery to ensure that at the earliest possible date no family in this country should have less than the minimum accommodation provided in accordance with the statutory standard. The standard adopted, in my judgment, is a beginning. It represents the minimum amount of accommodation capable of early enforcement, and I hope and believe that the standard will no doubt be improved as progress is made in our present housing efforts. It should not be forgotten that in the meantime overcrowded families who are rehoused by the local authorities will be rehoused on the basis of standards laid down in Section 37 of the 1930 Act as appropriate to the rehousing operations of local authorities. I am glad to say that the appropriate surveys have, for the most part, been made.
    Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: The right hon. Gentleman says that the local authorities must rehouse on the basis of the standard in Section 37 of the 1930 Act. Have private owners to do the same?
    Sir K. WOOD: No. I was telling the Committee that the appropriate surveys have for the most part been made, and that for at least three-quarters of the authorities in the country and for at least three-quarters of the area, 1st January will be the appointed day for bringing the overcrowding code into operation in this country. I have fixed 1st August as the date by which all local authorities are to submit their general proposals for the provision of rehousing shown to be necessary by the overcrowding survey. I will say—again I think with general agreement—that the execution of these two programmes, slum clearance and overcrowding, will provide a substantial building programme for local authorities, but it is a programme which, in my judgment, is well within their powers, and it is not outside their capacity, and I do not think that it competes with the maintenance of activity by the building industry itself.
    I would now like to refer to one or two what may be called subsidiary matters

    2289
    in connection with housing, although I would not like so to describe these matters. Undoubtedly many problems arise from the great exodus which is taking place, and to many people who go to the new estates it is not a small matter to uproot the family and transplant them in strange surroundings, often removed from former neighbours and friends. I am glad to think that there has been a great response by large numbers to the better conditions in which they now find themselves, and that there is a real pride taken in their new homes. But many miss the old stir and the scenes and attractions of the city and the town, and I believe that there is a great need for providing for their social interest, clubs and institutions. Leisure for many is increasing, and I attach great importance—and I have myself called the attention of local authorities to it—to the need for community centres and matters of that kind. The local authorities possess the necessary statutory powers, and many are already doing something in this connection. In all these cases, or, at any rate, in the great majority of cases of large aggregations of people, some provision of this kind is very necessary and right. I hope and believe that it will be forthcoming. What is, perhaps, almost as necessary as these community centres is that we should secure the right type of leaders and organisers among men and women who can make these things thoroughly successful. I believe that a great deal can be done in that particular connection.
    I would also say that in housing—and the Committee, again, will agree with me—quality as well as quantity is important. It is useless for us to replace old and unfit houses with houses which fail to provide conditions conducive to health, amenity and comfort. It is not only important that our standards of construction should be high, but that the type of house built should be suitable both to the needs of those to be housed and for the character of the district. I have recently communicated a number of suggestions to the local authorities as to the type of house to be built under the 1935 Act, emphasising that the execution of their schemes should be entrusted to persons of experience capable not only of producing well-built houses but houses of architectural merit. It is possible for a new house to be healthy and comfortable,
    2290
    and at the same time unpleasing to the eye of the beholder, and it is also possible for an old cottage to be picturesque to the eye and a source of discomfort and ill-health to the occupant. I suggest that in our new houses there is no reason why we should not combine the virtues and avoid the vices.
    The enforcement of local by-laws play an important part in the control of building standards, but they deal only with a certain part of the building structure, and the administration of by-laws cannot take the place of full specifications and proper and continuous technical supervision. I was very glad indeed to note the assurance, as I daresay did the right hon. Gentleman, recently given by Sir Harold Bellman on behalf of the building societies, that they would do all they could to co-operate in this matter, and I believe that they can do a great deal. Many private purchasers of small houses have to buy their houses ready built. They are often not in a position to employ an architect and to have the building carried out to specification, and a number of complaints have been made in this connection that houses have proved to be defective. I am very glad to bring to the attention of the Committee this afternoon the fact that in order to meet the needs of these people the National Federation of Building Trades Employers have advanced a scheme for the future establishment of good house building standards, and the essential of the scheme is that builders should undertake to conform to a full specification and give a guarantee to that effect to the purchaser. The house itself would be certified by a central body set up by the federation. I have referred the matter to the Central Housing Advisory Committee to consider and report. Certain difficulties undoubtedly may yet have to be overcome and certain adjustments may be necessary, but I welcome the proposal as an earnest endeavour on the part of the building industry to help to eliminate the jerrybuilder from our midst.
    It has been conveyed to me that the hon. Gentleman opposite would like me to say a few words about planning. It is in the nature of planning that the results are for the most part in the future, but here also I am glad to know that much progress has been made. At the close of August, 1931, over

    2291
    7,000,000 acres of land were under planning control. County councils were only just beginning to interest themselves in the work and few effective measures had been taken for the preservation of the countryside, but I am glad to say that there was much agreement among all parties on the importance of planning and even of the methods by which it should be carried out. The National Government took over from their political opponents the Bill which became the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932. I will give a few of the results that have come about as a result of that Act. There are two main matters of note, speaking generally in connection with planning, to which I should like to refer. What has been very necessary has certainly come about, and that is the co-operation which landlords, both great and small, have willingly extended to the planning authorities, which has shown that there is genuine support for planning in all classes of the community.
    In the second place, in regional planning local authorities are, for the most part, co-operating well, and much is owed to the county councils who have availed themselves of the Act of 1932 with enthusiasm and determination, for which no praise can be too high. The result has been that on 31st March, 1933, there were over 9,000,000 acres of land being planned. In the past three and a-quarter years the figure has more than doubled, and is now nearly 20,000,000 acres, or more than half the total acreage of the country. The half of the country under control is the half where building development is going on, or where some particularly fine stretch was threatened with spoliation.
    As far as regional planning is concerned, there are 122 executive joint committees in existence, many of them operating over wide areas. Much, I am glad to say, has also been done by way of interim development control. I would suggest that the results of planning are already manifest in many parts of the country. For instance, by the efforts of the two Sussex county councils and the help of landowners the South Downs have been saved from sporadic building. Surrey is doing the same for the North Downs, and schemes for preservation are making good progress in the Lake
    2292
    District, on the Norfolk Broads, in the Peak District and Dovedale, and large areas are annually being reserved by planning authorities for public open spaces. So far as housing is concerned I am under a considerable debt to the Housing Advisory Committee, which I had the honour of setting up some time ago, and upon which several hon. Members of this House have been most helpful in all their work. I can report to the Committee that the Housing Advisory Committee is doing good and useful work and is a very valuable adjunct to the Ministry.
    As to maternity and child welfare work, I do not think there is much need for me to refer to it in detail, because on the introduction of the Midwives Bill I gave a report of the continued progress that is being made in the provisions generally for the mother and the Child. I should, however, like to say that further steps have recently been formulated through local authorities with a view to securing systematic and periodical health visiting for all children under the age of five who do not attend school, as part of our policy of making provision for those gaps which at present exist in the services.
    Miss WARD: Is that to be compulsory?
    Sir K. WOOD: It is a matter for the local authorities, but I have communicated with them and I have no reason to suppose for a moment that they will not do all they can in connection with this matter. I have also endeavoured to give every encouragement to day nurseries for young children whose mothers go out to work or whose conditions are such that their health would benefit by the daily supervision that can be obtained through a day nursery.
    Let me say a few words about water supply, in case the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield may say that I have forgotten it. The authority for water supplies is my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who is a water diviner. In the urban areas the position generally is satisfactory in that supplies are adequate to meet present needs and any demands likely to arise in the near future. As far as rural areas are concerned, with the aid of the £1,000,000 grant there is no doubt that the back of the rural water problem has been broken. Schemes, with the aid of the grant, have been undertaken in 2,350

    2293
    parishes, at a total estimated cost of £7,000,000. In addition, since March, 1934, loans have been sanctioned totalling £1,340,000 for schemes in 400 parishes. Regional advisory water committees have been established in eight areas for a population of 14,000,000. I am now awaiting the report of the Joint Select Committee of the two Houses who are considering the better conservation and organisation of the water supplies and resources of the country. When I receive their report I hope that it may be possible for me to take further action in regard to it.
    I am much indebted to the Committee for listening to me so long and patiently. I hope they will not think that I have unduly trespassed on their time, but we do not have many opportunities of going into these matters, which are of considerable moment to millions of our people. While we spend, of necessity, much time on other matters, I do think it is well for us to spend, at any rate, one day in considering matters so vital to our fellow-men and women. I hope the Committee will feel that so far as my colleague and I are concerned, although we of necessity have had to recount progress that has been made during the year, I have indicated sufficient to assure them that complacency and self-satisfaction can play no real part in our work, because there is still very much to be done.
    I think the claim can be legitimately made that steady and continuous progress is being made in the building up of the health of the nation. That is in the main due to those vast numbers of men and women, for the most part unknown, who serve on our local authorities or in connection with our fine voluntary organisations. It is also due to our general practitioners and other doctors, to the nurses and the men who spend long days and nights in laborious research, and not least to the devoted officers and servants of the State and the municipalities. It is through these agencies, aided by an enlightened public opinion and generous public aid, that we are surely securing the purpose for which the Ministry of Health was instituted, namely, to improve the health and happiness of our people throughout the land.
    4.55 p.m.
    Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: I cannot understand the unusual modesty of the right hon. Gentleman. I have never regarded modesty as one of his major qualities, and I see no reason why he should have apologised for keeping the Committee in the performance of his duty and informing them of the activities of his Department. I have learned a new phrase this afternoon. I have learned a description of the right hon. Gentleman for which I have been searching for years. When I sat on the Front Government Bench and the right hon. Gentleman sat over here I wondered how to describe him. Now, I have got the proper description—"a benign mosquito." I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his perfect self-description.
    Sir K. WOOD: It is excellent for the treatment of the insane.
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am drawing no conclusions from the right hon. Gentleman's description. Now that he sits there he is no longer a benign mosquito. He is a sort of benevolent uncle. I think there must have been some transmigration of soul. Perhaps at some future time, when political fortunes change, the right hon. Gentleman may really become a benevolent uncle announcing the Children's Hour at the B.B.C. He has made a speech which one anticipated in which, by implication, he attributed the whole of the nation's progress for the last 50 or 60 years to the actions of the National Government. But I am glad to think that, also by implication, he at least paid some tribute to Acts of Parliament which were put on the Statute Book when we occupied opposite places in this House His references to the operations of the Mental Treatment Act and the Housing Act, 1930, are to be welcomed on this side of the Committee.
    The right hon. Gentleman occupies a post of very great importance, and I am certain that he feels proud of the position, because he realises individually, if not collectively, that it is far better to heal the sores of an imperfect social system than to pave the way to war, that clinics are far better than bombing aeroplanes and that maternity centres and hospitals are infinitely superior to casualty clearing stations. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is going to look very closely to the interests of the social

    2295
    services which he administers and supervises, and which it is part of his duty to inspire. I regard our social services, which have been built up by all political parties in the State for three or four generations, as one of our greatest national achievements. They have been built up clumsily, it is true. They have not been conceived as a perfectly coordinated system. They have, in the curious British fashion, been moulded to meet insistent social evils as they have imprinted themselves on the public mind, but without our social services this country would be infinitely weaker and poorer than it is to-day.
    One of my chief criticisms of the last five years is that the National Government thought it necessary in what they regarded as the national interest—I am trying to be as unprovocative as possible to-day, which is rather a new role for me to play in this House—and in their wisdom, to put a break on the big social services and to damp down the greater progress that might have been made. I cannot believe that even in a financial crisis that was wise national policy. Money can be saved, but health, life, vigour and vitality once they have gone can very rarely be restored. We look forward to the right hon. Gentleman taking off the brake and giving the signal for full-speed ahead. I should like to ask him to try to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has also occupied the office of Minister of Health on more than one occasion, to loosen his purse-strings for the constructive social services, and to show the same generosity there that he has shown to the rearmament programme of the Government. Again, I am not trying to be provocative; I am restraining myself, but it is unfortunate that while the Chancellor of the Exchequer has declared how sorry he is that he can find no money for the social services, the three fighting Services find in him an openhearted friend. In the view of the Labour party the social services of this country are absolutely fundamental to national well-being, and we look to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, as the standard-bearer of our cause, going out to do battle with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    I have had some little experience of Chancellors of the Exchequer and they all seem to be equally parsimonious. No
    2296
    Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever rushed into another Department offering promissory notes. To get money out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is like getting butter out of a dog's mouth. But the Minister of Health has this advantage, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is an ex-Minister of Health and has boasted on many occasions that as a result of his mighty efforts as Chancellor of the Exchequer in successive Budgets, he has rescued the country from national ruin and put it on a basis of prosperity. If that be true, the social services should share in the prosperity. The right hon. Gentleman's Estimates do not show that this is happening. His Estimates this year are increased because of perfectly automatic increases, which would have taken place altogether apart from any alterations in legislation. I would do everything I could to help the right hon. Gentleman to carry on his work. There is one suggestion I want to make. I could not carry it out myself, because I do not possess the art of advertisement, which is one of the qualities of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mrs. TATE: Perhaps you have nothing to advertise.
    Mr. GREENWOOD: I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman has very much to advertise. I do not want to be drawn into making a provocative speech. I am only saying that the right hon. Gentleman when he was Postmaster-General did put the Post Office on the map. He did that by advertising. Why should he not advertise health? He was made the chief propaganda officer of the National Government because of his great capacity for advertisement, which I acknowledged fully, and entrusted with the enormous responsibility of trying to advertise a decaying National Government, a task which he did with a certain amount of success—I admit that, too. Having these great qualities, which I do not possess myself, I hope he will use them to the advantage of the public health services of the country and, in an American phrase, advise the people to buy health. I am sure he could do it admirably, because his experience as Postmaster-General has proved it. We all desire to see a development of the health services, and now that there is a return to prosperity I hope the right hon. Gentleman will do something actively and

    2297
    vigorously to promote the health services.
    I am not going to discuss the question of malnutrition as it affects the right hon. Gentleman's Department. He wound up his speech by saying that neither he nor the Parliamentary Secretary found any reasons for complacency. I agree. There is no reason why anybody should be complacent about the situation in the country in regard to the health of the people, but I think the right hon. Gentleman was inclined to be a little complacent as to the question of malnutrition. He has it in his power by moral pressure and lofty appeals to do something in the matter of the nutrition of our people, by means of the provision of milk and meals for expectant and nursing mothers, and for infants and young people under school age. A considerable number of local authorities do provide for expectant mothers, and many of them for nursing mothers, milk or meals. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to carry out a great advertising campaign, because he is par excellence the real advertiser of the Government, and do something to get local authorities to do rather more than they are doing now in the way of the provision of nutrition for expectant and nursing mothers. I am not denying that a good deal has been done, and what information is available goes to show that the provision is of great social value. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that if all mothers could be assured of proper nutrition we might make some impression on the problem of maternal mortality, and we should certainly make a considerable impression on the standard of physique among our people.
    I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he intends to do something for the toddlers between one year and five years. It is unfortunate that the drive which took place up to 1931 for better provision for children under school age was stopped, and that the progress which has taken place since, compared with the previous development, has been negligible, but I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is now taking this question into his consideration. He has put on the Statute Book this Session a Midwives Act. I told him my views of the Measure on the Second Reading. It is a good Measure as far as it goes, but it does not go very far. I hope the
    2298
    right hon. Gentleman who has made this contribution to the solution of the problem of maternal mortality, in which Members on all sides are interested, will back up the Act by a co-ordinated campaign to bring pressure on local authorities to develop other powers which already exist to deal with this problem, the development of ante-natal services, increasing the provision of maternity homes and hospitals, and urging upon the people the tremendous importance of the provision of home helps. He has the power not to command but to charm, the influence to attract local authorities to extend their activities in these directions.
    The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the progress of town and country planning, and I am glad to think that the Town and Country Planning Act is making progress. I realise the difficulties and delays which are inherent in a problem of this character, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will leave no stone unturned and will press on as rapidly as possible. It is true that certain progressive and far-sighted local authorities in the country, as well as other bodies and also large landowners, have cooperated with a view of saving some of the finest stretches of our country. I hope this will continue, but it is, nevertheless, also true that London and the great provincial towns still go sprawling out into the country in a most disorderly, untidy and irregular way. Every week on every road outside every big town in this country you will find this nasty bungaloid growth extending into the heart of the countryside. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his friend the Minister of Transport about this. It was a little unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor allowed another Minister to steal his thunder.
    I am not concerned with ribbon development merely from the point of view of speeding on the roads, but as a problem of social organisation. All that kind of growth is socially inefficient. All the provisions that have to be made, whether it is water, gas, electricity or other social services, are infinitely more costly if they have to be provided for these long ribbons of houses than if they had to be provided for properly organised houses set back from the main roads. Even now this thing, which is offending the conscience

    2299
    of all intelligent people, is being permitted in spite of the legislation in the Town and Country Planning Act and the legislation passed by the Minister of Transport. The London-Cambridge arterial road is a case in point. Day after day the dreadful stretch of new buildings continues. The right hon. Gentleman really ought to do something about it in conjunction with his colleague the Minister of Transport, now that they have a joint responsibility in the matter. It is important that every atom of intelligent public opinion and public spirit in the country should be mobilised behind a movement to save what is left. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will do all he can to prevent this untidy, unscientific and ugly development on the outskirts of our great towns.
    The right hon. Gentleman referred to the housing position and drew what comfort he could from the building of houses. We must not close our eyes to the hard facts of the situation. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of houses which are being built to-day are houses built for sale. That is a fact which cannot be denied. Moreover, I grieve to say that a very large number of those houses are of a quality of which the right hon. Gentleman could not possibly approve. That is the case on the outskirts of our towns, and on the outskirts of London I have seen many hundreds of houses which violate any decent standard of building regulations. They are being built purely for profit by people who are exploiting, as it were, the needs of a very large number of people for housing accommodation. People are being driven to purchase houses, and unfortunately they will very shortly find themselves compelled to make considerable expenditure because of the bad quality of the houses that are being built. But the building of houses for the middle classes is not the real problem although, as long as we have the middle classes, I admit that they are entitled to housing accommodation like everybody else. The real problem has never been the housing of the middle classes, because private enterprise has always been prepared to satisfy that need.
    The problem which faces us to-day is the building of houses to let to working class families at a rent within the compass of the ordinary working-class in-
    2300
    come. That problem has been stated from every bench in the House for years past. What is disappointing in recent figures is the number of houses built to let. The greatest contribution made since the War to the building of working-class houses was the Labour Government's Act of 1924. No one before or since has made anything like as large a contribution to the solution of this problem as was made in the Wheatley Act of 1924. Unfortunately, that Act has gone; it was massacred in the great massacre of 1931. At that time I also was one of the massacred. In place of that Act, we had the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933, which was passed during the period of office of the late Minister of Health. That Act has been a dismal failure. In place of the Wheatley Act, under which it was possible to build thousands of houses per year, we had the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933, by which local authorities were, in fact, discouraged from carrying on this work and private enterprise was to be encouraged to carry it on by means of guarantees. We were assured from that Box that that was the way in which to solve the problem of working-class housing. Up to 31st March of this year—nearly three years after the coming into operation of the Act—the total number of houses for which guarantees were given was 10,000. That is what was brought forward to fill the gap caused by the destruction of the Wheatley Act of 1924. The right hon. Gentleman did not refer to that Act, and I am not surprised, for it was not to his interest or credit to do so.
    The only Housing Act which is effectively operating at the present time is the Act of 1930, with which I had a little to do, although I have noticed that it is never admitted on the other side of the House. There, of course, progress has been made, although it has not been nearly as rapid as one would wish. Let me analyse the figures. I hope my figures and those of the right hon. Gentleman will tally, because I did not understand some of the figures he quoted this afternoon; I do not say they were wrong, because obviously they were right. I would like to refer to the number of houses built by private enterprise, and let hon. Members remember that it is private enterprise which is to-day left in

    2301
    control of the field, apart from the problem of slum clearance and something which is called overcrowding, which I fail to understand as a special problem. During the half year ended 31st March, 1936, in the case of houses having a rateable value not exceeding £13, or £20 in London, the total number built by private enterprise was 52,735. Of those houses, the number occupied by persons other than the owners—that is to say, those which were let—was 18,793; in other words, only one-quarter of the smallest type of houses were built to let.
    If one takes houses having a rateable value exceeding £13 but not exceeding £26, or in London £21 to £35, 74,299 houses were built during the same half-year, but of that number only 14,753 were occupied by people other than the owners, which means that only one-fifth of them were built to let. The whole problem is the building of houses to let, and in that respect private enterprise is clearly not filling the bill. Under the restrictive legislation, which I cannot argue this afternoon, the local authorities are building far less than they could build and far less than they used to build, and they are building on a scale which is not commensurate with the need of the working classes for houses. The time will very shortly come when this boom in speculative building will come to an end. The market is slowly but fairly definitely becoming saturated. We shall then be left with a vast building trade in this country hungering for something to do.
    There is still left the problem which has been attacked by Government after Government and which has only been partially solved, and that is the provision of an adequate supply of modern, well-equipped houses, capable of standing for two generations, for the masses of the peope of this country. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise his responsibilities and I hope that if he lives long enough—I mean politically until next Session—he will find it in his heart to do something more in the matter of housing legislation than was done by the right hon. Gentleman who preceded him. The Overcrowding Act is only at its beginning, and I wish the right hon. Gentleman well in the administration of that Act, although in its case I am bound to make the same prophecy that I made
    2302
    with regard to the Act of 1933—which has been proved right three years afterwards—and to say that the Overcrowding Act will not be a staggering success. I think that, like the Act of 1933, it is likely to prove a failure. If the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health will brave the anger of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will go out—as he suggested this afternoon he wished to do—as a bold crusader, nobody will like it more than hon. Members on these benches. We are glad to think that the right hon. Gentleman takes a joy in the improvement of the health of the people in my constituency, but let me say that that does not disprove the case made on these benches. I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman did not quote the case of Manchester, although he said he had the figures; but perhaps that is only because we are both going there next week, and he is saving his speech for that time. We rejoice to think that the right hon. Gentleman takes pleasure in these achievements. We wish any Minister of Health well in his work. No Department of State has better friends than my hon. Friends on these benches when the Ministry is doing the work for which it exists.
    We have never taken part in Debates such as this in any bitter partisan spirit, although if ever I open my mouth at this Box somebody on the opposite side is sure to interrupt me within three minutes, even if I try to coo like a dove, which I admit is difficult for me. On these benches we have never been bitterly hostile to any Minister of Health who tried to carry out his responsibility in a generous spirit. We are hoping that the right hon. Gentleman will do that, and will live up to our views about him. I can say in his presence that he is the best Minister of Health I have known since 1931, and so long as this Government continues, I hope he will continue to hold his office. It is one which he understands, one with which he is familiar, one which he adorns now, one with which he has been associated in the past and one in which I am perfectly sure he finds his deepest interests. I wish him well in his work, and I hope he will do better in the future than he has done in the past. I hope he will be the bold dragon who will frighten the old lady, the Treasury, who is so

    2303
    diffident about providing him with the resources which he needs to carry on his work.
    5.28 p.m.
    Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: I would like to refer to some of the matters with which the Minister dealt in his very interesting speech, and perhaps to one or two other matters as well. I will begin by saying a few words about housing. I think it will be generally agreed that the progress which has been made, whether under Acts passed by one side or the other, in the great task which amounts almost to the rehousing of the nation, is very remarkable indeed. I think all hon. Members were glad to hear the figures which the Minister was able to give this afternoon, and I would like to join in congratulating the Minister, the Under-Secretary and the very over-worked civil servants in the Department who deal with housing matters. They are undoubtedly now trying to press forward as much as they can to get local authorities actively to work in this very important matter.
    I will not repeat the point made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood)—although I entirely agree with him—about the lack of small houses to let. In his dovelike speech, the right hon. Gentleman truly said that that matter had been sufficiently dealt with, and I will pass on to something which I think is also important. We know that the Ministry will concentrate, as far as new work is concerned, for some years to come largely on seeing that the overcrowding which is now being reported by local authorities is thoroughly tackled and new houses provided to replace those which are overcrowded. But there is one point which ought not to be forgotten and which relates particularly to the rural districts. It is that the standard of an overcrowded building was put so high in the recent Act, on which the authorities are now working, that it leaves the normal village practically untouched. That had to be done in order to present a task which would be within the competence of authorities in places like London where there are still terrible conditions of families living in one or two rooms.
    That being so, I was glad to hear the Minister use such words as "minimum"
    2304
    and "beginning" in connection with this work. The standard of reasonable floor space which was set up in that Act, allowing two adults and four children under 10 for each room, means that the normal five-roomed country cottage may contain not one but two families of father, mother, and six children, without being declared to be overcrowded. Thank goodness, people do not live in that way in the villages and though the Minister will find from the reports which, no doubt, have been coming in during the last few months, that there is a sprinkling of cases of overcrowding in some of the rural district council areas, I think on analysis it will be found that most of them come from the back courts of the old-fashioned country towns, rather than from the rural villages. Yet though we have not technical overcrowding there, those of us who know our villages could give the Minister cases of young men and women of the best country stock, who are waiting to get married but who cannot do so because they are unable to find decent cottages in which to live. As a result, they tend to drift to the towns where the prospects of permanent employment are not so good and those are just the people who ought to be staying in the country.
    We have not really got to grips with this problem. The cure depends partly on matters beyond the range of our discussion to-day but a certain amount could be done by administration. I believe that one way is the more active administration of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. That Act does not normally produce fresh houses but buildings which have not previously been used as dwelling houses can be converted into dwelling houses in some cases, and houses which are dark, damp, leaky, and insanitary and likely to become unfit for human habitation if left alone can be made into houses which the younger people are glad to live in, as the older people pass away. That is one of the things which we want to see.
    I have not seen the recent figures, and I should be glad if we could get some of them in the course of the Debate, but I believe that the county of Devon still keeps very well ahead of others in this respect, and that one of the divisions of Suffolk has done very good work. I could wish that the county from which I come was not so easily ahead, and that other counties were finding the benefits

    2305
    of active administration of that Act while it is still on the Statute Book. There is one other point concerning housing, on which the Minister touched. It is that the new houses which we hope are to be built by local authorities should be built to plans properly drawn by architects. The Minister referred to persons of experience but did not specify their qualifications. I am not sure whether the Ministry are aware of how many authorities are in the habit of employing architects and how many leave it to their sanitary inspectors to design these houses, which is generally a most vicious, and, in the long run, uneconomical and wasteful thing to do. I hope the Minister will do all he can to see that the new houses are seemly, and that they fit in with the rural surroundings in which they are so often built.
    Another point arises out of the very interesting facts and figures given by the Minister in connection with the state of public health. It has become almost a commonplace in these Debates that we should congratulate ourselves as a nation on the great advance which has been made in the last generation in public health. It is remarkable how we have been learning the art of right living and, as the Minister said, steadily becoming more health-minded. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned an added expectation of life of seven years in the last 20 years, and an added expectation of something like nine years in the last generation. I believe that a male child born now can expect to live almost to the age of 60 which is very remarkable. I do not wish to depreciate the wonderful work which has been and is still being done, but I would draw attention to something which seems to me to be very important. I think that the science of sanitation and practical methods of preventive medicine have been developing faster than our mastery of the principles on which disease can be cured, but there are some definite and positive advances in the curing of disease. The Minister referred to one or two of them. There is the treatment of diphtheria by therapeutic immunisation which is a very remarkable development. That method has not been extended as widely as it might have been. In the case of heart disease we find that the deaths in 1926 were 69,000 and had increased in 1933, the last year for which I have the figures, to 120,000. I think it
    2306
    was Sir George Newman who once stated that a large proportion of these deaths were of people under the age of 25.
    When one considers things of that kind, one realises that while doctors may be taught, and undoubtedly are taught, a great deal about anatomy and pathology and the mechanism of circulation yet they know very little about how to cure heart disease. Though a layman I have some ground for saying that if more study were given, in training and in practice, by the medical profession to the method of therapeutic immunisation, that sort of thing could be improved. I do not want to dilate on this subject, but I have reached the conclusion that the time has come when the Minister might, in Conjunction with the Privy Council Office, cause the question of the medical curriculum to be reconsidered? If that is to be done, it is not much use having it done mainly by persons who have themselves been trained on a particular curriculum 40 years ago and have been training other people most of the time since then, on nearly the same curriculum, and who are pretty well wedded to the present system. I believe that an intelligent layman who was willing to keep an open mind might be of real use to the Minister in examining that matter—quite as useful as some of the heads of the medical profession whose minds in my experience are apt to be as inelastic as the arteries of their elderly patients.
    Sir ERNEST GRAHAM-LITTLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the medical curriculum has been recast at least 10 times in the last 20 years, and that a special committee of the Medical Council has been considering it for the last six or eight months?
    Sir F. ACLAND: Yes, I am in close touch with all that and I know that modifications have been made in the last 20 years but the general impression produced on my mind is that the more it changes the more it tends to remain the same thing.
    I would next refer to the subject of water supplies. I understand that the sum of £1,000,000 set apart for rural water supplies has been expended but, in spite of that fact, I hope there will not be any slacking off in the work of developing these rural water supplies. I

    2307
    hope we shall not find our local authorities acting in the same way as the legendary persons who lived on opposite sides of a stream which at times became a torrent, and who desired some permanent means of communicating with each other. When the torrent was rushing down they said they could not build a bridge, and when the torrent dried up they said there was no need for a bridge. I have heard that some local authorities are suggesting that as we have been through a few years of drought, we are not now likely to have any more drought, because of some sun spots or something of the kind. I think that is a mistake and that there is as much need to proceed with this work now, although there has been plenty of water during the past winter, and indeed during this summer, as there was some time ago when water was scarce. In the work of administering the Housing (Rural Workers) Act we are constantly having cases in which we are not able to make grants for putting houses in proper order, because there is no water supply within a reasonable distance and there cannot be such a supply until some district scheme has been carried into operation. Therefore, we have to suspend the payment of grants until a district scheme comes along. These district schemes are rather slow in coming and I wish there were more of them.
    I am afraid I am skidding about rather a lot, but I wish to refer to the administration of the Dentists Act. As chairman of the Dental Board I have tried to do what I could to develop what has been called dental health propaganda. It takes the form of bringing the importance of better dental health to the notice of the children in the schools and their teachers. This is done by means of travelling exhibits, by good advice to those who are leaving school, by the distribution of books, and other things which are outside the range of this Debate. There has been a definite and steady improvement in the provision of school dentists but that again is a matter which we cannot discuss on this occasion. It is after the children leave school—and more and more of them are leaving school now with their teeth in fairly good condition—that the bad period comes. It is true that they get into dental benefit under national health insurance later on and I
    2308
    know that over £20,000,000 has been spent on dental benefit alone, which is a very good thing but what has been borne in upon me in the course of 10 years' experience is that there is a sufficient lapse of time between the school-leaving period and the realisation of the desirability of getting proper dental treatment, to allow nearly all the advantages of the school dental service to pass away.
    If a boy or girl leaves school at the age of 14 and goes into industry, the earliest age for joining an approved society is 16 and it will not be until the age of 18½ that he or she will be able to get any dental benefit. There are 4½ years during which they do not come across any of the propaganda of the Dental Board; neither can they get any help as regards having their teeth kept in order. That is too long. The work done in the schools is undone, and yet two things are certain, first, that those particular years of adolescence are extraordinarily important in building up a permanent basis of health, which depends a great deal on the soundness of the mouth, and, secondly, that if a young man or a young woman gets accustomed to neglect of the teeth and waits until the time when they get so bad that they can all come out and he or she can have artificial dentures substituted, it is a bad thing for the general health. In the report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health two years ago, he said that diseases of the teeth and the surrounding tissues in the adolescent were an important factor in causing several diseases, and it is, I think, very largely because of disease which enters through a defect of the teeth that we find, as we all do as we go about the country, so many people saying they enjoy bad health, as if they really did, and making very little real attempt to get it benefited. This gap after the school age is a thing which we should be glad to have tackled if we could.
    I want to bring next to the attention of the Minister the present position in the matter of the voluntary sterilisation of the unfit. We shall all agree, I think, as was pointed out in the Brock report which was published more than four years ago, first, that the incidence of over 250,000 mental defectives and a far larger number of persons who without being certifiably defective, are mentally subnormal causes, to use their own words,

    2309
    "a dead weight of social inefficiency and individual misery" which we should all be glad to deal with. Secondly, we have to realise that fully to carry out the recommendations of the Brock report would involve legislation, which we cannot go into now, but I think I may draw attention to the extent to which the reasonable requirements of the Minister of Health's predecessor have been met. When a deputation went to him last year to represent the matter to him, he congratulated them and attached great weight to the unanimity of view which had been expressed on behalf of the bodies which composed that deputation, like the County Councils' Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, and the Mental Hospitals Association, and he said that the people interested ought to go on with the good work of getting more public support, which was perfectly reasonable, for it is rather a prickly subject to tackle.
    That has been done, and the position may now, I think, fairly be stated like this, that whereas when we began it was difficult to find public bodies which were in favour of the projected changes, now the difficulty is to find any public or representative bodies which are in any way opposed to the recommendations in that report. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) may be making a fuller statement about that later, but I would only now urge on the Minister the importance of giving his practical attention to it, and I can assure him at any rate of this, that when he said last year in winding up the Debate in the House on a similar occasion, that he wanted the guidance of public opinion on the matter, that has been steadily worked at and public opinion is now much more active and much more ready and willing to back up any effort that he or the Government might make.
    I am coming now to my last subject, and that is the question of allotments, which, to some extent, fall into the work which the Ministry does, though there are naturally many public Departments concerned. One thing has been happening lately to which I hope the Minister might be willing to give some attention, and that is the continued loss by the allotment holders when land has to be taken away for building purposes. It
    2310
    is almost a rule that when anybody says he wants a bit of land for building, it is the allotments which are first taken, and it makes the hearts of the allotment holders sick within them. It is extraordinarily difficult to get men to take up allotment land, although, as we know, allotment cultivation is the best occupation for a man in employment and the best relief for a man who is out of employment that can be found anywhere; and things are getting worse in that matter rather than better, because the discouragement is so great.
    In the National Allotment movement we have been trying to get attention paid to the amenities. We have been trying to get proper fencing substituted for the old bedsteads which are almost the standard fencing for allotments in some places. We are trying to get proper, tidy, community huts, with creepers and roses over them, instead of the ramshackle tool-sheds all over the place which we too often see. We are in a vicious circle. The allotments are untidy, and that means that the local authority does not take much trouble about them and does not use much effort to get their tenure better. The tenants naturally say, "What is the good of trying to make them more tidy, while our tenure is so insecure and when we may be losing them within the next 18 months or the next year?" So we go on for the want of a little more attention to the importance of this allotment movement in the country. Town planning, which has been suggested, is a broken reed. Land gets earmarked for allotments, and allotment holders depend on that. They see it nicely marked on a plan hung up at the town hall, and in nine cases out of 10 when the time comes that gets blocked up with something else, and the allotment holders lose their holdings. I do not want to go into that more fully, because if I did, I should take much too long. I have, I am afraid, touched upon at least five subjects, but I have tried to do so without controversy and certainly without political bias, and I hope the Minister at a later stage may be able to give us good news on some, at any rate, of the matters which I have ventured to bring forward.
    5.53 p.m.
    Sir JOHN GANZONI: The Minister took credit for the progress of slum clearance, and I do not suppose anybody,

    2311
    inside this House or outside it, wishes slum clearance well more than I do, seeing that I have been for a great many years the representative of a densely populated and very big industrial constituency. But these slum clearance schemes can have certain repercussions which are very hard indeed upon individual people. Perhaps I should not say "repercussions," because there are quite direct results, and I suppose that "repercussions" mean something indirect and probably unexpected. I want to illustrate for a very few minutes these results from a slum clearance scheme which is in operation now in Ipswich and about which an order was made by the Ministry in November last. As proposed by the county borough council is originally affected some 900 houses and shops. Objections were taken, and the Ministry sent their inspector down to hold a local public inquiry. I should like to say at once, and most emphatically, that the inspection appeared to be very thorough, very painstaking, and most genuine in every respect. We were told beforehand that the inspector would visit every single one of the premises affected, and it appears that he actually did so, and not one of the victims of this scheme, with one single exception, has a word to say against the inspector or his methods. They were treated with every consideration. The matter was gone into deeply, but nevertheless the most unfortunate results have occurred.
    It will be present to the minds of the Committee that there are various classes of houses affected by these schemes under the Acts of 1930 and 1935. There was a slight improvement for the owner and occupier given by the National Government Act of 1935, but it is still possible for very considerable hardship to be suffered. I take it that all slum clearance schemes have two objects, one being obviously to clear what is definitely decided after inquiry to be a slum and to re-house the population in fresh, suitable, and healthy surroundings, and the other and equally worthy object is to put an end, once and for all, if possible, to the class of person who buys up large quantities of property at even worse than a knock-out price—groups of houses of fifties or hundreds, at £20, £50, and less—lets them at rack rents to the unfortunate people who must live near their work
    2312
    and who cannot choose where they will live, and then lets those houses get worse and worse, partly perhaps from sheer unwillingness to improve them, partly, in the case of the smaller owners, from inability, and partly also, of course, because they always have hanging over them the probability, if not the certainty, that they will be condemned and demolished under some Act or other, and, therefore, they very naturally are not going to spend anything more than they can possibly help upon keeping them in good order.
    As far as I know, that class of owner, who is to be found elsewhere, is entirely unknown in Ipswich, and of course, if he does exist, he would be the last person to have approached or written to me or attracted attention to himself in public at protest meetings held in the borough; but the class of owner and occupier of whom I am speaking is the small man who has bought either a house or a house and shop to live in and carry on the shop, or who has bought, I would say at the most, two or three of these small cottages in the area out of his life savings, generally a man of 60 years of age or onwards, often an ex-Service man, wounded, and in many cases the original purchaser or mortgagor has died and his widow owns the property. It is their only source of income, and they now find, under slum clearance schemes, that the houses for which they have paid a substantial sum, and in the case of Ipswich very recently, are now being demolished under an order, and they are only being awarded the site value under the Act.
    I have here a sheet covered with individual cases following the description that I have just given to the Committee, and the remarkable thing about them is that, with exceptions, they are all houses that have been purchased in 1931 or 1932. It is not a ease of people who have bought old property 30 years ago and let things get worse and worse; they are houses that have been quite recently purchased, for sums varying from about £200 for each of these cottages up to £470. I will give only one individual case, because bad cases do not make good law. It is the case of the wife of a Mr. Harry Smith, who is himself an unemployed man, unable to work, and whose source of income is 5s. from a benefit society pension. His wife has a small amount of property of this kind. In this case I have not got

    2313
    a note of the purchase price, but the purchase of this house, 28, Rope Walk, was in 1931, and that is the point about it. When he bought it in 1931 the net assessment was £8 5s. The gross was, I believe, £11. It remained at that, and last year, the year that the council promoted their scheme, he received a notice that his house was included in the area, that it must be demolished, and that he would get site value for it.
    He went to the town hall full of indignation to try and see someone personally on the subject. When he got back to his house in the evening, he found a notice from the Income Tax authorities that his assessment for 1936–37 would be raised to £18 net and £25 10s. gross. It was such a good house that it was raised well over 100 per cent., but it was such a bad house that it must be demolished forthwith as being unfit for human habitation, and only bare site value was to be awarded. That is an extraordinary case, and is the only one I have troubled to bring forward on the grounds of assessment, but a large number of the cases of which I have records in my hand had the assessments raised by £1 per house in 1934. These are houses that have been marked for demolition with only payment for bare site value. Obviously, the Ministry does not wish that, and Parliament did not intend it when they passed either Act, but these results have flowed directly from these two Acts. I understand that there is to be another slum clearance inquiry in Ipswich on the 22nd of this month, and, as there may be other schemes in other parts of the country which come more closely home to other hon. Members, I am taking the opportunity on this Vote to bring the matter up.
    Mr AMMON: I think that the hon. Gentleman is a little mistaken. The Income Tax authorities have nothing to do with assessment. That is set by the local rating authority merely on the rent which the property could command, whether it is a slum house or any other kind of house. Slum houses do sometimes command a higher rent because of the crowded conditions.
    Sir J. GANZONI: That coincides very closely with the reply given to me by the Parliamentary Secretary in March.
    2314
    It is true, and I have not gainsaid it for a moment. I have not pursued the point any further, but I mention it to-day as an anomalous thing which it is impossible to explain away to an unfortunate owner. Naturally there remains a sense of grievance. The Ipswich Council are doing what they can and have appointed an ad hoc committee to inquire into cases of hardship, by which they mean cases where the people affected by the slum clearance scheme are thereby placed in straitened circumstances or made destitute. This committee issued an advertisement for people who considered that they were suffering hardship to apply to them, and they received only 117 applications. They decided not to take action in 39 of these cases owing to the applicants' circumstances, as they had other sources of income, although that does not affect the justice of the case. Thirty-eight of the cases were obviously cases where what the people wanted was compensation for disturbance, which they will now get. That left 40 further cases which the committee are referring to the public health committee of the council to see what can be done after the compensation payable under the Act is definitely ascertained. No matter how good the intentions of the council are, they cannot, out of the rates or out of the loan raised for the purpose of slum clearance, pay additional compensation beyond what the Act provides to any of these people.
    I think that I have said enough to make it clear that, although the council were right in originally asking that a considerable proportion of these houses should be demolished, although the inquiry was held with the greatest care, very great injustice has been done. If I worried the Committee with the cases of which I have records I should reveal case after case of elderly people, ex-service men who cannot work on account of their wounds, crippled women, widows and others who bought houses within the last 11 years and who have done their best to keep them up. They have in many cases paid only a small deposit down and are now in the middle of paying off the capital and interest to building societies. One case has only paid 1½ years and has 12 years to run. Other cases have paid six years and have five years to run, and are now in the position of having their security taken away while keeping the

    2315
    legal liability for the debt. In many cases they have nothing out of which they can meet the liabilities, and the loss will probably fall on two local building societies and, to a lesser extent, on one or two of the larger building societies outside, whose operations on the whole are entirely to the benefit of the people who wish to buy small property. I do not think that anything more that I could say would make the point clearer or give any more emphasis to it. I am glad that I have had the opportunity on this Vote to call attention to some of the dangers that may flow directly from slum clearance schemes as they have to be administered by the Ministry of Health, and as they have to be first conceived and finally carried out by the local authorities.
    6.8 p.m.
    Mrs. TATE: I think that every one who listened to the Minister's speech must have been grateful to him for the very wide range which it covered, and that we must all feel that the Ministry of Health is a terribly overloaded Ministry. It has to deal with housing, water, ribbon development, allotments and drought, and for that reason I do not think that it has been in the past sufficiently a Ministry which is equipped to fight and prevent disease. I believe that under the present Minister we may really have something done to raise the standard of health of the nation. The Minister gave a picture which led us to believe that the health of the nation had improved, as it undoubtedly has, but as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) pointed out, that improvement in health has been far more due to better sanitation and to better education with regard to housing and cleanliness than to constructive medical work. I do not think that there has been anything like the improvement in public health that we have a right to expect if all the knowledge available to the medical profession, but not, unfortunately, used by them, had been employed. I feel that there ought to be an extra Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Health or an extra Department, which could co-relate all the information available in order that the medical profession might be able to do more than they have done for the improvement of the health of the people. There is no question that a very large
    2316
    part of the improvement in the health of the people is not due to medical men. In fact, our greatest debt is undoubtedly due to Louis Pasteur, about whom there is a film being shown in London now. It is a magnificent film, and it happens to be a true film. It does not inspire one with any great confidence that forward steps in the eradication of disease are always likely to be backed by the medical profession.
    There is one department of health in particular in which I could riot quite join with the Minister in his satisfaction. I feel that it is because, with the enormous number of subjects over which he has to preside, it has not been possible for him to give to that subject the attention it deserves. I refer to mental illness. I agree that the improvement in the care of mental defectives is extraordinary, but I do not think the same thing applies to the care of the insane, who are an entirely different problem. The insane, as far as any curative treatment is concerned, are very much where they were many years ago. Comparatively speaking, nothing is being done to find out the causes of insanity. The under-staffing of mental hospitals is one of the scandals of the age. I read the other day that at the eighteenth annual meeting of the Mental Hospitals Association, Sir Laurence Brock, Chairman of the Board of Control, said that the number of patients under care on 1st January, 1936, was 127,813, an increase on the previous year of 1,711. He went on to say that that increase was quite normal and need cause no alarm, and that an increase must be expected for a good many years because the admission rate was related to the birth rate.
    Are we really going to be satisfied, as apparently the Chairman of the Board of Control is, because the mental trouble of the country increases when there is an increase in the population? Are we to expect no improvement? I venture to suggest that there will be no improvement in regard to insanity unless a great deal more than is being done at the present time is done to find out the cause.
    Wing-Commander JAMES: If the hon. Lady will permit me, I think she is most unfair to Sir Laurence Brock. Nobody who knows him would suggest for a

    2317
    moment that he is complacent. Did he not, as Chairman of the Committee that bears his name, make a very practical suggestion directed towards reducing the incidence of mental troubles?
    Mrs. TATE: I agree that the recommendations of the Brock Committee might have been given closer study, but I do not think that it is certain that sterilisation is satisfactory in countries where it has been put into practice. I emphatically say that sterilisation is not a cure. Even if we admit that it is right, which I do not think has yet been proved, it is not a cure. It may be a method of prevention of spreading mental disease, but it is not in any way a prevention of the cause of the disease. We shall never find out the cause of the disease unless there is far greater research into the glands of the human body. Anyone who has had anything to do with certifying the insane, as I have as a magistrate, must be struck by the enormous amount of insanity which occurs in both sexes at adolescence and again in later age. I think that that points to insanity being closely connected with the glandular system of the body. That is where greater research is needed. How can there be research when we have in our mental hospitals sometimes 700 or 800 patients with only two doctors? I know that we are very proud of the research which is being done in Maudsley Hospital. How much money is being spent on research there to-day? It is about £4,000 a year, of which £3,000 is provided by the Rockefeller Institute of America. That money is largely spent on investigation into past family history. That is very valuable and ncessary, but it is not investigating the medical cause of the disease. It is making no effective research into the cause.
    The Minister said how splendid it was that we had so much improved occupational and recreational centres in these hospitals. I cannot agree that in that respect we are advancing as we should. I went over the Maudsley Hospital the other day and with immense pride I was shown the room for occupational and recreational pastimes. I said, "What a miserable little room." The doctor replied, "Mrs. Tate, don't you know it is the largest in the whole country." There are a great many mental hospitals which have been completed in the last
    2318
    five years and have not had a room built in them which was designed for occupational or recreational work, although it has been proved in America to be one of the most curative treatments. In this country we still have the padded cell. Do you mean to tell me that the padded cell is a method of cure? It is wholly out of date; it is not allowed in Scotland; it is not allowed any longer on the Continent. While there are 300 to 400 insane people under the care of one doctor, of course some of them have to be put in a padded cell, but that is not the right way to treat them. It is hiding them away and preventing their being a nuisance and in a manner, salving our conscience, but it is not doing anything to find out the causes of the disease or how to cure them. I think it is time we insisted that money was spent on. research and that proper salaries were paid to those engaged in research work.
    I turn to another subject. It is under the Ministry of Health that inspection of nursing homes is compulsory. I do not think there is a medical man in this House who will not say that conditions in many private nursing homes in London and throughout the country are an absolute scandal. Louis Pasteur taught us the reality of the spread of disease by germs. If you believe in that you must believe that in a great many instances disease is being spread by the London nursing homes. You can walk into London nursing homes and in many of them you will find carpets far from clean on the floor, curtains at the windows, covers on the sofas which are never sterilised. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that cancer was still increasing. There are engaged in cancer research to-day a large number of people who are beginning to hold the view that cancer is due to a germ, and that possibly it is contagious. I know that is the view of one school of thought only, but there is that school of thought, and it may prove to be right. If that is so, one can only come to the conclusion that in many cases it is not very safe to enter a London nursing home. There is no regulation which ensures that rooms are sterilised after each patient has occupied them. The carpets and the curtains are still there, full of the germs of the last patient.
    That kind of thing should not be allowed to continue. At the Pasteur

    2319
    Institute as long ago as 1890 rooms were built which are a model of what rooms in a nursing home should be. Before a nurse goes in to see a patient she has to put on the overall which she wears for that patient. In those rooms you have curved corners, you have everything for the prevention of the spread of disease, but in this country many of the London nursing homes must be a cause of the spread of disease. I should like to know who inspects those nursing homes and what they are asked to look for when they do inspect them. And why do we allow this state of affairs to continue after what Pasteur taught us?
    There is only one other matter on which I wish to touch, and that is the subject of vaccination. The Minister said to-day there had not been a single case of smallpox in this country in the last year. As hon. Members know, in this country vaccination is still legally compulsory, but that compulsion is an absolute farce. I am thankful to say that at the present time not more than 40 per cent. of the children born are vaccinated against smallpox. I say that I am thankful for this reason. I am a believer in vaccination, and I do not think there is any question whatever that smallpox was stamped out originally by vaccination, but I do not think that hon. Members or the country are aware that the vaccine lymph used in this country today has very little if any relation to the lymph which stamped out smallpox, and I believe that it is a cause of very grave danger to the community. Any bacteriologist—I have worked in a laboratory—will admit if he is honest that if you change a lymph from one animal to a completely different animal you entirely change its character. Calf lymph is the lymph with which children have to be vaccinated according to the law, but they are not being vaccinated with calf lymph, although people do not know it. What they are being vaccinated with is rabbit lymph.
    It is only since 1902 that the Government began to make experiments with rabbit lymph, and I think it was in 1905 that that lymph began to be used for the public. It was in 1912 that the first case of encephalitis, following vaccination, was notified in this country, and it was treated at the London Hospital. It is
    2320
    known that there have been over 1,000 cases of deaths from encephalitis following vaccination, and I believe that the actual number is enormously in excess of that, and I speak from what I know, because I had charge of a child who had encephalitis following vaccination. I called in. four very expert medical men to treat that child in the early stages of the illness. The case was diagnosed first as typhoid, then as paratyphoid, then as influenza and then as gastric chill. It was not until the patient was brought to London, and when the symptoms of almost complete paralysis were present, that the case was diagnosed as what it was, one of poliomyelitis and following vaccination. [An HON. MEMBER: "Caused by vaccination?"]
    The rabbit is known to have encephalitis. I know that the Minister will be told by his Department that the encephalitis of the rabbit has no relation to the encephalitis of the human being. How do they know? Another thing. I do not think it is generally known that other diseases can be super-imposed. It was because a child of five died from syphilis after being vaccinated with human lymph from a grown man that human-being-to-human-being vaccination was forbidden in this country. It was because lymph which was taken to America caused the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in America in 1908 that America passed a law forbidding the importation. of foreign lymph. We are to-day using rabbit lymph, though the Ministry have tried to assert that that is not the case. In December, 1922, in answer to a question asked in this House, the then Minister of Health said:
    "The lymph at present used at the Government lymph establishment is a strain of lymph obtained many years ago which has been carried on by repeated transference from calf to calf."—{OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th December, 1922, col. 2968. Vol. 159.]
    That may be a very satisfactory answer, but does not happen to be the truth. If hon. Members will turn to the Ministry of Health Vaccination Report published in 1928, they will find, on page 15, under the heading of "Procedure at Government Lymph Establishments," the statement:
    "The seed lymph used is derived from calf lymph received from Cologne in 1907. Its quality has been maintained by cutaneous passage through the rabbit."

    2321
    It is obtained by cutaneous passage through the rabbit, it is not lymph obtained by passage from calf to calf. I do not know whether the House is aware that glycerinated calf lymph, the only calf lymph which should be used, will not pass the Ministry's test to-day because the lymph submitted is diluted by one in a thousand and tried on a rabbit, and glycerinated calf lymph, if diluted by one in a thousand and tried on a rabbit, will bring forth no reaction and cannot pass the test. The only stuff that will pass the test is the very dangerous lymph from the rabbit, which works with rapidity because it is obtained from the rabbit. I hope that the Minister will now either see that we have glycerinated calf lymph or wipe away the nonsensical provision that people shall be compulsorily vaccinated, in view of the fact that smallpox is not prevalent and no one has proved whether the extraordinary lymph used to-day is really a safeguard against smallpox.
    I know that smallpox was stamped out in the 1924 epidemic in Edinburgh by vaccination, but the lymph used there was not the Government lymph. The Ministry of Health was written to urgently for supplies and sent supplies sufficient for three days, with a letter saying that to send further supplies would unduly deplete their resources. The Edinburgh authorities then wrote to a doctor in London and got a million doses of glycerinated calf lymph, which proved entirely satisfactory. Since then glycerinated calf lymph has not been used in this country, because it will not pass the Ministry's test. I believe that in the present Minister of Health we have a man who really will do something to see that use is made of the existing medical knowledge. I believe that under him we may have something really original done to get a move on to the medical profession. I congratulate him on his speech to-day and would like to renew my expressions of confidence in him. I think we could have no better proof of the work which the Ministry of Health has done than the curiously weak speech of the spokesman for the Opposition.
    6.28 p.m.
    Mr. E. SMITH: The Minister, when introducing the report which we have before us, painted a beautiful picture of his administration. In this report are
    2322
    figures which certainly indicate a great improvement during the past few years, but in the picture which he has painted there are some very dark spots. It is true that in the south in particular, and in places like Eastbourne, Bournemouth and Harrogate, the picture is beautiful and that ideal conditions exist, but I wish to draw attention to the darker part of the picture represented in particular by the industrial north, and parts of it like North Staffordshire and Lancashire. His report certainly indicates an improvement, but had there been time one could have shown by an analysis of this report that the improvement is not proportionately such as we should have a right to expect in the year 1936.
    I want to deal with an area which is experiencing the results of a legacy and an endowment from the industrial revolution. In this area you will find fine women, as good as any women living in the country, and as good as the so-called ladies that we see hanging around such a centre as this, when we are assembling here. [Laughter.] These women are having to struggle week after week in order to make ends meet. They are living in a terrible environment which is disgraceful to this House. Although hon. Members sitting over there may laugh, if they were living in similar conditions they would not be so pleased, or so ready to laugh at someone who is attempting to represent people who have not been represented to the extent to which they will be represented in the very near future. These conditions have been handed down; jerrybuilt houses, slum conditions, poor environment, and disgraceful conditions. The hon. Member who sits over there, and who was laughing, has a beautiful flower in his coat. Probably that rose has been grown in ideal conditions, in an environment that lends itself to bringing the best out of rose trees, but if that rose tree had been growing in the part of the country for which I am speaking, not among the class represented on that side of the Committee, but the class to which we are proud to belong, you would not have got a beautiful rose like that which the hon. Member is now wearing in his coat.
    Mrs. TATE: It depends upon the soil.
    Mr. SMITH: Quite true, but the soil that is in the South is not the same soil as in the North, for which I am speaking. What applies to vegetables and to roses applies equally to men, women and children. It is for those people that I am speaking. It states in the report that there has been a great improvement in housing. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that, in the area for which I am speaking, 59,424 houses were inspected, out of a total of 64,200, and that the result of that inspection shows that 1,267 new houses are required. The medical officer says—I have his report here—that the standard that has been laid down by the Ministry is altogether too low. He states in his report:
    "The census of overcrowding in the city is given in the body of the report, but in my opinion gives no idea of the true picture, and the houses to be provided are quite inadequate to abate the overcrowding of the city."
    Then he goes on to say:
    "Owing to the Minister's standard being so low, instead of only 1,227 houses being required at least 5,000 houses are required in this city.
    He states that the survey standard is altogether too low, and that there are at least 8,637 houses overcrowded, not included in the survey under the Act. In 737 cases there were three, four, five, six, or seven families living in one small house, not included as overcrowded under the Act. I wonder how hon. Members, and particularly the hon. Member wearing the rose, would like to live under conditions like that.
    Sir EDWARD CAMPBELL: I do not complain of the hon. Member for attacking me, but why should he attack my poor, innocent little rose?
    Mr. GALLACHER: It is in bad company.
    Mr. SMITH: I am not attacking the rose, but I am certainly attacking the individual that is wearing it, and who laughed when I was speaking about the conditions in my part of the country. If he were living under those conditions, he would not be so ready to laugh.
    Sir E. CAMPBELL: We must have a sense of humour.
    Mr. SMITH: It is all right having a sense of humour when you are well-fed,
    2324
    well-clothed and living in ideal conditions, but do not let us forget that there are thousands of people in this country on whose backs you are living and who are not laughing, under the conditions in which they live. According to the report, 12 per cent. of the families require additional accommodation and at least 5,000 houses, owing to the 8,637 houses not being included, under the low standard of the Act. If houses are built, no subsidies are allowed, and that would mean the fixing of a high rent. The local authority will not be able, therefore, to build their own houses. I want to ask the Minister whether he has read the latest report of the Unemployment Assistance Board, in which it states that, in the area which I am proud to represent, there are houses where it is common for from 15 to 30 rats to be found. I am not saying that, but the Unemployment Assistance Board. I have here a statement from the "Daily Express" of 8th July, in which it appears that they sent a special correspondent to the houses. It is an indication of the terrible conditions about. which I am speaking. The "Times" of 1st July, in an article entitled "Hidden Needs," states:
    "In the Hanley area, cases have been found deserving attention of 32 people living in a two-bedroomed house and of 17 people living in one room. Many houses are infested with vermin, rats and crickets."
    The "Times," the most authoritative journal published daily in this country, described the conditions which I am attempting to reflect in this Committee. It is not a Socialist saying that, but the orthodox "Times." I am trying to refrain from speaking with political bias and am attempting only to reflect those conditions, in order that the Minister may give his personal attention to them, as he did when he was at the Post Office. He then showed, by his energy, his spirit and his initiative, that, having taken over that great Post Office service, how he had improved it. It is now a credit to this nation. I am only trying to represent, without political bias, these poor women, men and children who are living under those conditions, in order that the same energy and spirit may be devoted to remedying those conditions.
    Now perhaps the hon. Gentleman with the rose will listen. The right hon.

    2325
    Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Sir A. Chamberlain), speaking on 15th December, 1932, made a remarkable statement. He is always to be found in his place when some question of defence, or some international question, is being discussed, but I have watched those benches carefully these last few days, arid the right hon. Gentleman and other right hon. Gentlemen are not in their places when questions such as we are debating to-day are being considered.
    Mr. CARTLAND: Their hearts may be in the right place.
    Mr. SMITH: I readily accept that, but I want to see that feeling reflected in legislation, in order that the conditions which I am describing may be changed.
    Mr. CARTLAND: So do the right hon. Gentlemen.
    Mr. SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham used on that occasion these words:
    "Why should anybody who lives in the conditions which I see there vote for me or the causes for which I stand? … If I lived in such conditions … I should feel that the circumstances to which I was condemned were intolerable, that there was something rotten in a State which had permitted them to exist so long… You cannot see those conditions and not feel your blood boil."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1932; col. 577, Vol. 273.]
    We heartily agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said on that occasion. I would go further, and point out that his attitude was supported by Sir Benjamin Dawson, chairman of the Bradford Central Divisional Conservative Association, a few months ago, who spoke in exactly the same way.
    I have been analysing the Ministry's report, and on page 113 I find the infantile mortality rate in England and Wales, showing that the number of deaths of infants under one year of age per thousand births fell to a record low figure of 59 in 1934. I believe in giving credit where it is due. There have certainly been improvements nationally, but I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the area which I represent. I have here the report of the medical officer for Stoke-on-Trent, and he has analysed—
    Whereupon the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod being come with a Message, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair.
    Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

    ROYAL ASSENT.
    Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
    The House went; and, having returned, Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to

    1. Finance Act, 1936.

    2. Solicitors Act, 1936.

    3. Pilotage Authorities (Limitation of Liability) Act, 1936.

    4. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Lancaster) Act, 1936.

    5. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Ramsey and Saint Ives Joint Water District) Act, 1936.

    6. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Tees Valley Water Board) Act, 1936.

    7. Tring Gas Act, 1936.

    8. Rochester Corporation Act, 1936.

    SUPPLY.
    Again considered in Committee.
    [Major MILNER in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1936.
  CLASS V.

    MINISTRY OF HEALTH.
    Question again proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £15,628,150, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Health; including Grants, a Grant in Aid, and other Expenses in connection with Housing, certain Grants to Local Authorities, etc., Grants in Aid in respect of Benefits, etc., under the National Health Insurance Acts, certain Expenses in connection with the Widows' Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, and other Services."
    6.52 p.m.
    Mr. E. SMITH: I was saying that the infantile mortality rate in England and Wales in the year 1930 was 59 per 1,000 births and that I believe in giving credit where it is due. There has been a great improvement in that respect. But I want to draw the Minister's attention to the particular area which I represent, and which, I think, needs his attention. The

    2327
    local medical officer, in his report, gives an analysis of the figures for 121 large towns. He finds that in those large towns, which are similar to the towns of which I am speaking, the infantile mortality per 1,000 births is 62; but, taking the area from which I come, the rate in Tunstall is 86, in Burslem 112, in Hanley 100, in Stoke itself 64, in Fenton 75, and in Longton 70. The medical officer goes on to state that great work is being done by the voluntary organisations. I admit that there is a great deal of voluntary effort in this country in connection with such work, but voluntary work, in the age in which we are living, is only like scratching the surface of the problem. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to display the same spirit, energy and initiative that he displayed when he was at the Post Office, in tackling this problem. It is a legacy from the industrial revolution, which is responsible for conditions under which people ought not to be expected to live in the year 1936.
    On page 80 of his report the medical officer deals with nutrition, and had there been time, had there not bee so many others who desire to speak, I should certainly have contrasted the national position as set out in the Minister's Report with the conditions in the area. of which I am speaking. The medical officer states in his report that:
    "There can be no doubt that a marked degree of nutritional anaemia is present in too many expectant mothers. All the mothers suffering from anaemia have been treated with some iron preparation, and every endeavour has been made to improve their standard, but the following specimen diet illustrates how inadequataely some of the mothers are fed."
    He goes on to give typical cases of expectant mothers suffering from anaemia; and it must be remembered that, if the mother is suffering from anaemia, it is bound to reflect itself in the physical condition and health of the child. He states that many mothers have no milk, that they have eggs only occasionally, and fish only once a week; that they live on margarine, and have no fruit or vegetables; and he goes on to say:
    "It would seem that a diet deficiency affecting maternal health is too prevalent and calls for further investigation. It is probably too much to say that this can be expected to be done by local treatment alone."
    2328
    Therefore, I want the Minister to pay special attention to these industrial areas, because the people living in the South have no idea of the conditions under which the people in the North are living. I have discussed this question with men and women who are just as sincere in their outlook on life as any of us on this side, and who, after having visited the North, have had to admit that they had no idea of the terrible conditions under which the people were living there. Therefore, I ask the Minister to consider during the next 12 months the possibility of a further survey by the local authorities, so that he can prepare a bold housing policy in the same way in which he handled the Post Office when he was responsible for that Department.
    I also want to call attention to the commitments which the Minister made to the local authorities when the De-rating Act was passed. The general Exchequer grant which is now made was never intended to cover the discontinued grants. The grants have been discontinued as a result of de-rating, and now only a general Exchequer grant is made; and this reflects itself in the very serious financial position of the local authorities. If I may give one typical example, it is costing, for public assistance alone, in the area of which I am speaking, 6s. in the pound on the rates. This is having a serious effect on the rates, on the rents of the people, and on the production costs of local manufacturing firms. Since 1920, wages have been reduced by 50 per cent. in most cases, and I think it is time the Minister paid heed to the suggestion of the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. W. Astor) that it is time that the Rent Restrictions Act was again considered with a view to taking off the 40 per cent. increase. I appeal to the Minister to pay special attention to the area about which I have been speaking, because I believe the conditions there are relatively worse than in any other area. He has only to read the Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board. I believe that, after an examination of that report, he would be prepared to give his special attention to the matter.
    7.0 p.m.
    Major OSCAR GUEST: The hon. Gentleman in the earlier part of his speech drew a picture of conditions in some slum

    2329
    areas, and I was very much in sympathy with what he said. It was interesting to hear in the Minister's speech of the great advances which have been made in building throughout the country, but these new houses going up so quickly have created problems of their own. Great numbers of families have been moved into them from other districts. They have been put into better houses, and are living in better conditions than those from which they came; work has improved owing to the increased trade, and they have a better opportunity of finding work; but they are completely divorced from all the social life which they knew. They are brought into a new district where they know nobody, and they have no possibility of any social life. The result is a certain degree of discontent. This is a phase of the housing development which should be tackled. Compared with the cost of building these estates, the money which would be needed to assist some form of social life on them would be small. The authorities are already empowered to assist local settlement work, and there is a general desire among them that this work should be encouraged, but they need urging to carry it out, and some advice. On only one estate in this country is there anything of a social nature in operation, with proper premises. This is a new problem which is the result of great numbers of people being displaced from one district to another in a short time.
    In parts of South London with which I am acquainted there are a number of block dwellings where up to 1,000 families have been moved during the last few years. The people do not know anybody in that locality, they hardly know each other, and they have a great desire to get together for social purposes. There are two things requisite before they can do so. They must have some building where they can meet; it need not be expensive or elaborate, and I would urge the Ministry to encourage local authorities to assist them in that way. The second thing required is a certain amount of supervision. On the larger estates there might be a full-time supervisor appointed by the local authority, and on the smaller ones it might be a part-time appointment. The National Council of Social Service have made a study of this question, and are working hard, but it needs some initial assistance from local
    2330
    authorities to get this social life started. The people on these estates would carry on once it had been started. This is not a sentimental cause to urge, because it is not enough to put people into better surroundings where they can be more healthy, or even to find them more work. There is such a thing as the time when you are not at work. In these new buildings the classes are being very much segregated, the working classes being put into large blocks of buildings together—rather a bad thing—and it is important to provide some sort of social life for them. Sometimes when I see these large block estates in South London I wonder whether it would not have been possible to build them more after the example of towns, accommodating different classes of people.
    A great deal might be achieved if more effort was taken to help the social life of these new segregations of families. If it could be started by local authorities the movement would grow spontaneously, and we should mitigate to a large degree that feeling of isolation which exists in these new communities, who feel they are cut off from the rest of the town in which they live. They arc in newer houses; sometimes the rent is rather more, sometimes the distance to work is rather greater, which balances the more convenient accommodation; but they have no social life, and it is important to the nation that their social life should be wisely directed. People with a happy social life make the best community.
    7.8 p.m.
    Mr. QUIBELL: The hon. Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) endeavoured to press on the Minister the necessity for a closer investigation of nursing homes and for a higher standard of equipment. I had an unfortunate experience a few years ago, when I was in a nursing home for nearly 20 weeks. The hon. Lady described in detail the room which I occupied and for which I paid very dearly—just an ordinary bedroom at the corner of a street, transformed into one of the rooms in that nursing home. I was unfortunate enough, after having five operations to the brain, to suffer from a septic condition in the head as a consequence of being in a room like that. I agree with the hon. Lady that if nursing homes are equipped in the same manner as that one was, the Ministry should give attention to a stricter supervision of them.

    2331
    The Minister in his speech, with which he seemed well satisfied, reported that 323,000 houses have been built last year, large numbers of them by private enterprise. I am inclined to think he is right. Many of them are of an inferior quality, and some of the people who have been so unfortunate as to put their little savings into a house, and are left with a building society mortgage which imposes on them the responsibility of finding each week interest and redemption charges amounting to 15s., plus rates, after borrowing £500 know very well what private enterprise has done for housing. Those who represent business in this House should realise that they are not serving the best interests of business by advocating a solution of the housing problem in this way. In the town in which I live they are building council houses now that are let at 8s. 6d. and 9s. per week inclusive. If we could supply the whole of the people in that district who want houses there would be in each family a balance of 6s. that they could spend in the shops of the town, and the tradesmen would benefit considerably because of that tremendous saving.
    Mr. MAITLAND: Is the hon. Member having no regard to the prices ruling when these houses were built, and conditions very different? Is it not within his knowledge that, in consequence of the improved conditions of to-day, houses are being built by private enterprise at a cost permitting them to be let at 9s. and sometimes less.
    Mr. QDUIBELL: I am a builder and contractor, and I tell the hon. Member that houses are being sold by private enterprise at about £550 on which the purchaser has to pay £50 deposit. He has to borrow the remainder, £500, at not less than 5 per cent. in most cases, and the repayment of interest and capital is not less than 3s. per £100, which leaves them with a rental of 15s., plus rates. Many people who cannot afford such a house are allowed to go into it without even paying a deposit. So far from solving the housing difficulty, you are creating a difficulty, because as soon as the purchaser gets behind with his payments the society claims the house and he goes to the council to ask them to solve a difficulty that ought to have been solved
    2332
    before he accepted a liability that he cannot discharge.
    The Minister was very proud that building trade employers were co-operating with his Department in order that specifications should be agreed upon and approved by some committee in order to safeguard the purchaser of houses and to secure some improvement in the condition of houses built and sold by private enterprise. I commend him for that, because some of the conditions that obtain will be within the knowledge of members who are not associated with the trade. It is commonly said that in 10 years the houses that are being built in some districts will have become slums. I suggest to the Ministry that, in places where this tremendous building spurt is taking place, the local authorities should be instructed to appoint officers to inspect the buildings in course of erection in order to protect those who purchase them. I would issue a standard by-law or specification and insist in some cases on more stringent application of the by-laws, and in others on a strengthening of the by-laws.
    I know a town where they might as well put brown paper into the damp courses of the houses they have built as the stuff that is being put in. Some standard damp course ought to be incorporated in the by-laws, but the local authority has no power at present. There is not enough supervision and inspection in the matter of foundations. I know a street of 60 bungalows in which most of the internal partitions are lath and plaster, a thing that ought to be discouraged instead of encouraged. Like everything else that this Government have encouraged, these bungalows are not only cheap but they are very nasty. I have built council houses by contract, but I do not want to build any more. I was disgusted with the standard of cheapness insisted upon by the Ministry. There was not even a bit of plaster in the pantry. I had to paint the brickwork and limewash it. Some of these houses I consider a disgrace. I should be ashamed to have anything to do with them.
    I hope the Minister will pay some attention to rural housing. In my division little has been done to remedy the grievances of the countryside, and I should like to know what the Department intends to do to solve some of the

    2333
    difficulties. It is certain that, if the only houses that can be built are houses to let at 9s. a week, you are not solving the agricultural labourer's difficulty. In my constituency nearly every house that the rural district council has built is occupied by a railwayman or someone engaged in another occupation. I do not know of one agricultural labourer living in a house in this so-called rural area. The reason is that they cannot afford it. There are special rates for drainage, water and street lighting, in addition to the general district rate. In some cases the rates are higher than in the town in which I live. This is not fiction but fact.
    If you expect that you Are going to make any inroad into the difficulties of the countryside, you are only deceiving yourselves. You are not deceiving anyone in the countryside, They cannot afford the rent and the rates. The liability is too big for the agricultural labourer and nothing has been done to solve his difficulties. I am, however, pleased with the progress that has been made in solving the water difficulty in the countryside. I only wish the Ministry would make more speed. The faster they go the better we shall like them. But many people are going to have considerable difficulty in paying for the water supply. The problem of sewage disposal is also involved. There must be sewerage schemes to replace the present primitive arrangements, and that will need assistance from Parliament. The operation of the De-rating Act has left some local authorities without any rateable value at all, and some of these schemes will be a dead letter unless financial support is forthcoming from the Ministry.
    An hon. Member below me referred to allotments. He went to my division and made a speech. He was induced to go there largely to meet the council and give them a good talking to and put them in their place because they had taken allotments for houses. But some authorities are in a difficulty. They have to choose between houses and the preservation of allotments. I have said to allotment authorities who have complained, "Tell us where to go and I will move Heaven and earth to preserve your allotments and also to secure a housing site." We did not know how to solve the
    2334
    difficulty. There are no means of transport. A local authority must have regard to the general convenience, and I considered housing infinitely more important than the preservation of a field of allotments.
    The Minister stressed small houses. I do not know how many times I have known working men coming to look at a house and saying, "Plenty good enough for a working man." They have that complex. I am astonished at the number of times that remark has been made to me. As far as council houses are concerned, the policy of the Minister has been unfortunate. Take his policy in regard to the original houses. He allowed builders to put in concrete floors. I do not think that there is a man or woman in this House who for a moment thinks that it was appropriate to put down concrete floors in some of the rooms of those houses. They are most unhealthy. My own council have asked the Ministry to allow them to do away with the unhealthy conditions which obtain as a consequence of this sort of thing, but we have had great difficulty in getting them to consent so that we might remedy this grievance. There are scores of these rooms, which, owing to condensation and dampness, cannot be used at any time in the year. You have parlour houses with parlours which cannot be used, and this sort of thing happens in my own town of Scunthorpe.
    Heaven knows that they ought to encourage a better type of house. The money that is allowed to be used for the purpose of repairs is almost entirely exhausted. If we were to carry out to the full replacements, improvements, and renewals in connection with the original houses, it would take nearly half the rents at present charged in order to put them into a proper condition. This must be a common experience of Members of this House. The rents that are charged for the original Addison houses are abominable. We have tried to induce the Ministry to allow us to reduce them, but "No." Why? Simply because if we reduce the rents the Ministry would have to make up the loss between the high rents that are now charged and the reduced rents. In order that we can continue the payment of interest on loans,

    2335
    borrowed at 6½ or 6¼ per cent., the Ministry insist upon the charging of high rents to a man living, say, in one street, as against a rent of 9s. to a man living in another street. If the Ministry want to help us in that respect they should consent to a revaluation as far as the rent is concerned, and fix it at the normal level of the rents which operate in the district, instead of penalising occupants who have been in these houses for 10 or 12 years. It would be an act of justice to them if either there could be a reduction in the rates of interest on loans to enable the rents to be reduced, or if the Ministry could consent to meet the loss consequent upon a reduction in rents.
    7.33 p.m.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: I suppose that this will be the last Debate to be conducted upon the present health legislation, because we are promised in the near future an Act to amend the Public Health Acts dating from 1839, the consolidation of which is long overdue. I propose to take the subjects which are discussed in the survey which precedes the current report of the Ministry of Health and which appears over the signature of the Minister himself. It is an extremely interesting survey, and no doubt the subjects dealt with are what the Minister himself considers to be the most important parts of public administration during the last 25 years. It is a survey produced in celebration of the Jubilee in July, 1935. Taking the survey in its sequence, it is highly satisfactory that the death rate from tuberculosis, both of the lung and other organs, has diminished by a little more than a third of what it was. It is a little unfortunate that there is no general scheme emanating from the Ministry itself for dealing with tuberculosis, and that the schemes which are in operation are the result of local invention and local control. Perhaps more might be done if there was a little more central control.
    It is not altogether satisfactory that, in view of the figures of maternal mortality, which are stationary, if not increasing, provision for maternity homes is not increasing at a more rapid rate. According to the survey there were 7,513 beds in 1933 and only 7,909 in 1934, an increase of under 400. I would like to pay a very special tribute in respect of
    2336
    the provision of institutional treatment, and I do that the more cordially because I, as a hospital physician, was very doubtful of the possibility of really getting cooperation between the voluntary hospitals and the municipal hospitals. Much of the credit for that result is clue to the principal medical officer of the London County Council. The work which he has done in that respect is beyond praise. The number of institutions which he controls in that way would probably be a surprise to hon. Members who are not conversant with the position. There are 30,000 beds under the control of the London County Council, as compared with 56,000 beds over the whole country.
    I should like to examine much more fully the subject of mental treatment. In the 15 pages of the survey, a whole page is given to that subject. This is one of the departments of medicine in which progress is not being made in anything like a measure commensurate with the progress in other branches, and the actual positions of the incidence of mental disorder in this country is one of grave disquiet. There are at the present time, according to authentic reports, over 1 per cent. of the whole population of this country affected with insanity or mental deficiency.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain Bourne): Surely this matter comes under the Board of Control?
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: It is in the Estimates of the Ministry.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Vote of the Board of Control is not before the Committee.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: May I therefore continue with the suggestion that more attention should be paid to the provision of mental hospitals?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that all questions concerned with mental deficiency come under the Vote of the Board of Control. That Vote is not before the Committee, and he cannot discuss it.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: I am sorry to trespass upon the Rules of Order, but reference was made to that particular subject earlier in the Debate.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think the fact that this is a report signed by

    2337
    the Minister is not material to a consideration whether this matter is in order in Committee of Supply.
    Mr. AMMON: Is it not the fact that the Minister dealt with it at some considerable length, and that the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) devoted nearly the whole of her speech to dealing with that subject?
    Mrs. TATE: No, half of it.
    Mr. AMMON: It is putting other hon. Members in rather a difficult position.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Of course, I was not fortunate enough to bear the speech of the Minister. I am only following the invariable rule in Committee of Supply that when there is a separate Estimate, you must discuss the appropriate subject upon that Estimate, and the Vote of the Board of Control is not before the Committee.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: Perhaps I shall be in order in discussing another subject which is part of the survey of the Minister of Health, and that is the provision of medical education in this country. The Minister in his opening speech quite properly too well deserved credit for the improvement that has taken place in that education as a result of measures taken by the Ministry of Health. May I give a description of what has been, done in that respect? Possibly the Minister himself may not be aware of the extent to which that education is now available. In consequence of representations that postgraduate medical study should be improved, two schools were established upon the initiation of the Ministry of Health. They are both schools of the University of London. The first school that of tropical medicine and hygiene was opened in 1929 as a result of a grant from the Government and a large grant from the University of London. Two thousand students have passed through that school in the years since 1929, and it is very interesting to note the kind of students who come. One hundred and twenty-six were from Government services, 618 from Colonial services, 910 from the British Isles and foreign countries and 147 from missions. It is a very interesting fact that missions are taking advantage of the education given by the School of Tropical Medicine.
    2338
    During the past week there has been a congress of the Universities of Empire meeting at Cambridge—they meet every five years—and the subject of postgraduate education by the universities in this country and in the Empire was discussed very thoroughly on the second day. It was at once agreed by all the representatives—there were over 200—that post-graduate study not only in medical matters, but in general matters, was a proper object of a university at the present time, and medical studies were insisted upon as being the most important of all. It was agreed that London must be the centre of those studies because of the provision of so many medical institutions in London. That is not surprising, because there are something like 30 institutions concerned with medical science in the University of London alone. The medical-student body of London University is nearly half of the whole of the medical population of the schools of this country.
    A more recent and perhaps an even more important school was opened only at the beginning of this year—the postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith. That school is under very interesting and curious management. It is under the control of the London County Council, the Ministry of Health, and the University of London. The London County Council have supplied the school with a very finely equipped hospital with over 500 beds, which was opened in 1934 by the King and Queen, and which began its active operations at the beginning of this year. In a very short time from the opening of the school, between January and June this year, 205 students have gone through the school. That number is particularly interesting because it has been largely British. The number of British students was 117, overseas and Dominion students 75, and foreign country students 14. It is obvious that while London must be the principal centre of that instruction, it is useful and desirable that we should have some provincial centres, and during the congress at Cambridge the interesting announcement was made that Cambridge University for the first time is proposing to have a department of clinical medicine, which will be opened in the coming session and will give admission to all post-graduate students in other universities.

    2339
    It is unfortunate that while so much money is being spent in meeting the demand for an improvement in medical education there should be such a multiplication of irregular schools, founded by irregular practitioners who pretend to give an adequate medical tuition, but who are, perfectly obviously, unable to do so. I received a letter this morning containing a prospectus in which a certain grandiloquent association pretends to give a complete education in medicine and surgery by postal tuition in the short period of nine months. It is that type of school which is well worth the attention of the Ministry of Health, because it is difficult to distinguish the product of those schools from the product of properly constituted medical schools, and the public undoubtedly finds a difficulty in distinguishing that counterfeit coin from the currency minted officially, which is safer to employ.
    Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Surely my hon. Friend must recognise that a distinction is made in the examination. There is every difference between the product of such a school and the production of decent schools, such as those which have had instruction from my hon. Friend.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: The difficulty is that diplomas are issued as a result of that education, and the successful candidates are declared entitled to put a large number of letters of the alphabet after their names.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: But they are not registered diplomas.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: There is one other question to which I should like to refer. Every hon. Member has been disturbed by the real evidence of malnutrition existing in our midst. I do not think there is any doubt that malnutrition does very largely exist, but very much more might be done towards remedying that condition by the proper instruction of people in the relative values of food. On that subject there has been a recent advance in medicine, and it is a very important one. It would be very useful if instruction could be given to those persons who are mostly in need of it, persons for example who are in receipt of unemployment assistance, where there is a very meagre sum given
    2340
    to them for subsistence, much of which is woefully wasted by ignorance on the part of those who have to pay the weekly bill. That sort of ignorance is, unfortunately, much more common in our country than in some other countries. One who has lived a good deal abroad knows the way in which, for instance, French peasants can make an appetising meal out of practically nothing. That is an illustration of what might be done here, and. I think more instruction might be given on that subject. I am pleased to note that lately a very important committee has been founded for the study of the subject of nutrition, but much more could be and should be done. The principles of dietetics are very easy to apprehend.
    Those of us who have been in charge of hospital departments will be familiar with the very admirable series of leaflets issued by the Ministry of Health on the subject of venereal disease and its prevention. Those leaflets were a very important cause in reducing the incidence of and the mortality from that disease. Certain figures have been given which show that the incidence of syphilis and the nervous diseases which follow from it has been reduced to something like one-fourth of what it was in 1910. The figures for 1936 are about one-fourth of those for 1910. A great deal might be done by the issue of leaflets of that kind in regard to nutrition. I think also that the B.B.C. might be very properly used in broadcasting information and instruction of that nature. It is in these simple ways that the record of the Ministry of Health might be very greatly improved.
    I do not wish to sit down without paying a very sincere tribute to the present Minister of Health. Comments have been made about the ability that he showed at the Post Office, very high compliments, and I hope that he will show something of the same methods in spreading the knowledge of medical science which is at his disposal, the value of which I am sure he appreciates. I do not know of any Minister in my memory who has been so successful or a Minister so much appreciated by the medical profession as the present Minister of Health.
    7.53 p.m.
    Mr. WHITELEY: In the review which the Minister of Health gave us of the

    2341
    work of his Department, housing occupied a very large part, and necessarily so because it is so important a matter in connection with the lives of the people of this country. On looking through the Estimates I find that there has been a very small increase of money devoted to housing, namely, £422,000. On such an important matter that is an infinitesimal increase, when one realises what the effects of a real housing policy have been in the past and its value for the future. It is no use trying to convince ourselves that we are making good progress when we are still receiving letters—I receive letters constantly—complaining that people cannot get decent accommodation in their particular locality. One of the things that is responsible for housing having gone back, as it were, is the fact that the Government in their quest for economy have discarded the subsidising of local authorities, who were making excellent progress with housing when the subsidies were in operation. Instead of the local authorities receiving the subsidies which they had in the past for the purpose of building working-class homes, subsidies are now granted for beet sugar the wheat quota, the cattle industry, the shipping industry and so on. Millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money are being devoted to all these special interests, but not one penny is being granted at present for the erection of working-class houses, so that there might be the necessary accommodation provided.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare)indicated dissent.
    Mr. WHITELEY: The Parliamentary Secretary disagrees with that statement. The Government are granting subsidies for aged workers' homes, for slum clearance schemes and for schemes in connection with overcrowding, but for the actual building of houses to meet the requirements of people who are to-day living under overcrowded conditions, where the local authorities have nowhere to put them, there is no subsidy of any kind.
    I want to turn to the Special Areas, one of the divisions of which in the north-east I have the honour to represent. One of the difficulties we have is that the waiting lists for houses is so long that there is no possibility of
    2342
    saying to the people with any certainty that they can have a house at any particular time. All that is being done or that can be done is to replace those people who are removed from the slums and to make provision for those people who are living with other people under overcrowded conditions, but for the additional population that is growing up all the time no proper provision is being made or can be made by the local authorities. I am particularly referring to the cases where you have local authorities in areas like ours on the north-east coast who have no available resources. The Government have taken away the great incentive from local councillors in our areas to put their real energies into housing programmes. The Minister will be able to say that a Housing Association has been established on the northeast coast for the purpose of giving rate relief to the local authorities in those areas that are penalised because they have not the resources, but what is the effect of a scheme of that kind on those local authorities which are composed of councillors who were full of enthusiasm for their housing schemes in the past, because when they were completed they could see something that was their own?
    The Government are saying to those local councillors: "Your work in the future is to see to it that you prepare plans and arrange schemes, in order that some outside authority may have an opportunity of building those schemes, and when the houses are completed they will be the property of that outside authority and not the property of the local authority." How can you expect to have enthusiasm for housing if you are to develop a situation of that kind? Therefore, I say to the Minister that in the Special Areas, in the colliery districts, there ought to be more power given to the local authorities. What has been happening in the areas populated by miners in past days? They have lived in the dismal, drab, colliery cottages, with no outlook for those who occupy them, and when the local authority is asked to put the Streets Act into operation or to provide sewerage and a proper water system, they have been told by the colliery owner or manager that if such expense was forced on them the colliery would close down. That is why in colliery districts there

    2343
    has been so little progress made in the past. There ought to be better housing provisions.
    The Minister of Health said to-day that tuberculosis had not been reduced to the extent that he would have liked to see. Take our area, Durham County. In 1920 we spent £42,000 on the treatment of tuberculosis. Five years later it had risen to £62,000, and five years later again, in 1930, to £77,000. In 1935 we spent £82,000. The Minister of Health said that there were 30,000 deaths from tuberculosis last year. That is a monstrous state of things, but in the County of Durham, where we spent £82,000 last year on the treatment of tuberculosis, the only thing we can do after we had got the people into something like a fit condition is to bring them back to the place where they contracted the complaint. That is not a good thing; and that is where the value of housing comes in. Local authorities should be assisted to build houses that will meet the requirements not of slum clearance or of overcrowding, but of these people. It would help tremendously in the treatment of tuberculosis.
    The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the importance of some communal efforts for recreation and sport. In the mining areas the finest things are the miners' welfare centres and the aged miners' cottages, built by the aged Miners' Association. This week we have had three Supply days for the Scottish Department, the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Health. The three Ministers have made excellent speeches congratulating themselves on the excellent work they have done during the year. I rather suspect that they made these speeches in order to relieve the depression of their supporters. But, quite frankly, it is not well for us to congratulate ourselves. My hon. Friend has referred to the speech made by Sir Benjamin Dawson, who, after pointing out that he lives in the best country in the world, went on to say:
    "The other day I saw the following advertisement in the 'Yorkshire Post':
    'Coals for the poor and aged.—In hundreds of homes of the poor in the slums of Leeds there are little children and sick and aged people suffering from cold and hunger. We are very grateful to readers who help us to minister to the most needy of these, and further gifts of money, clothing, bedding, coals, etc., will be thankfully acknowledged.'
    2344
    I made an appointment with one of the staff of the society responsible for the advertisement, a society which is doing a wonderful work amongst the poor, and I spent half a day visiting numerous dwellings. When I had finished my tour I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative party. The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than most of the people I saw that day."
    That is one of the things upon which the Minister of Health must concentrate and see that in the future there is an opportunity for local authorities to build extra accommodation, not only for slum clearance and overcrowding, but accommodation which will enable a full development of the people.
    8.7 p.m.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: I want to deal with a few special points on the subject of housing and health, although there are many other questions upon which, however, we can feel that great progress is being made by the Government. We had a good example set up in the Scottish Debate two days ago, when they imposed a self-denying ordinance and limited their speeches to 10 minutes. I will try to see how near I can get to that ideal. There are one or two points I want to add with regard to housing. It is interesting to recognise the reaction between private enterprise and municipal efforts in this matte. The future of private enterprise in the larger towns is coming to be more closely connected with the necessary work of erecting houses for the lower middle class, the artisan population and the black-coated worker, who are able to provide houses for themselves and, therefore, are not fit subjects for the public relief works of housing authorities. Housing authorities are going ahead, especially under the overcrowding Act, and they will find that a number of persons will have to be combed out of municipal houses, because they are able to afford a higher rental, and ought to be asked to provide houses for themselves. That is the case for private enterprise, and I hope that those who take too rigid a line against private enterprise will recognise that there is a need for every help on every side of this problem, for private enterprise as well as for municipal schemes.
    Reference has been made to bad housing. It is not only private enterprise

    2345
    that is responsible. Bad houses have been put up by local authorities, and in many cases local authorities get the work clone by the same contractors as private enterprise. But there is no doubt that there is a great deal of jerry-building going on at the present time. Of course, the reply is that it is in the hands of local authorities who have their own bylaws, but I cannot understand how it is that this bad housing is allowed to go on. It means that local authorities must vary a good deal in the supervision they exercise over the work, or over their officers. If anyone goes about new housing estates after the tremendous rainy seasons we have had they will hear of leakages, windows not fitting, wood warping, and doors not shutting, which will all mean great expense later. I wish there was some means of getting the more backward local authorities to see that every house that is being put up is properly supervised.
    We have heard about the efflux from the big towns into the country, but yesterday I had evidence of the contrary, and there is no doubt a considerable movement, a reflux, of people back to the towns. When people get into the country on big suburban estates they find that they have to spend an hour, or an hour and a-half, every day travelling; and in the case of London they are coming back because it is not so bad, they say, being in London. I do not know what the future will bring, but it only emphasises the plea that has been made that the _Minister of Transport should be brought in when dealing with housing. There has been a considerable correspondence lately in the "Times" on the subject of satellite towns. That is the ideal towards which we must work, and I do not think we are doing so at the moment. The mistake which has been made in the garden city movement is that they emphasised too much the idea that they were aiming at a new complete town, like Letchworth and Welwyn, but they have not applied their principle to the actual moods and necessities of the times.
    I feel that the basis of a satisfactory disposal of the population is the factory. People do not want to live round a factory, but the basis of any large movement of population must be the factory, or a series of factories like you have along the Great West Road. But it is most important that in the very early stages you should apply your principle to
    2346
    the disposal of residences and shops. This must be done in the early stages. Each of the garden cities 1 have mentioned was started with a clean slate. They began with residences. They wanted to get the people there at any cost, and then after the population had been brought together they wanted to bring the factories there. Naturally the factories did not want to come; they wanted to go where they were certain of a large labour population. That has been the real difficulty of Letchworth and Welwyn; the difficulty of getting factories on a large scale to come in.
    I maintain that there is a real danger here, which arises from that fact that we have not visualised the essential connection between the decentralisation of residence and the decentralisation of industry. Both are going on to a considerable extent, but the decentralisation of industry should be the nucleus of the scheme, combined with the development of transport. You have three Departments interested—the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Health—and unless you have these three Departments working under a combined scheme you are not going to get any solution of the question of decentralisation. All the good work that has been done by each of those Departments for years and years will be ruined if this decentralisation continues in different directions. It is scandalous the way in which we are getting all these square miles of small houses and mean streets—even though they arc very much better than they used to be, they are nevertheless mean streets—quite independent of the amenities and work of the people.
    I would like now to refer to the question of cancer, which has been dealt with to a certain extent during this Debate. I wish to endorse the real hopefulness of the present situation. Only within the last month I was reading the farewell lecture delivered by Sir Charles Gordon-Watson, the senior surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in which he gave a review of the position with regard to cancer. I have worked with Sir Charles in the British Empire Cancer Campaign during the last 14 years. He quoted Dr. McKillip's statement that:
    "The idea is rapidly gaining ground that the cause of cancer is no mystery at all, as the disease is, in all probability, the biological penalty to be paid by a tissue

    2347
    for being deviated from its normal physiological duty by one or more influences. The vicious circle of fatalism regarding the disease, which is shared alike by rich and poor, by the educated and by the ignorant, is based upon a false assumption that cancer is an incurable disease."
    He went on to say:
    "Because of this belief a large proportion of sufferers fail to seek advice early, and because they dread a mutilating operation which they are convinced cannot cure. So the vicious circle grows."
    Then he made this statement:
    "There is only one way to break this vicious circle. Let the public know with no uncertain voice that localised cancer is easily curable by the means which we have at our command, and that thousands of cured cases are living healthy lives, and let them know that only if cancer is neglected does it spread beyond the reach of cure."
    That is a hopeful message. But what does it mean? It means that we have to spread knowledge of the position among the people through the health authorities, the education authorities, the insurance committees and all the voluntary associations. We have to spread among the people the knowledge that they must not be afraid of the disease, and that when they know that there is a chance of something which they have developing into that dreaded disease, they must at the earliest possible stage have it examined and dealt with, and that if that is done, they can be cured; but that if they leave it and hush it up, as many do when they are foolish women or still more foolish men, as is often the case, there is the danger that it will have gone too far, and there will be disaster. We must drive that knowledge home, and in that connection I would point out the necessity, especially after middle age, of having occasional medical overhauls. An occasional overhaul, not necessarily every year, but every now and again, is one of the best ways of perserving one's life, especially so far as malignant disease or heart disease is concerned.
    There is one other point with which I would like to deal. We have heard a good deal lately about maternal mortality, and I wish again to press upon the Committee the lesson of what is known as the Rochdale experiment. The medical officer of health at Rochdale and three medical men from London, independent of him, asked themselves what could be hone to lessen the terrible maternal
    2348
    mortality in Rochdale by making the most of the means at their disposal at the present time. The three medical men from London, one of them a general practitioner in the East End and the other two consultants, said, "The town which would be the best to take for an experiment would be one with a sufficiently large, but not too large population, where it is possible to get the actual facts and where the people can be persuaded to fall in with the experiment."
    They got into touch with the medical officer of health of Rochdale, Dr. Topping, now on the staff of the London County Council, and the local authority of Rochdale agreed that there should be a big campaign to see what could be done. There was a maternal mortality in Rochdale, not of four, five or six per 1,000, but 10 per 1,000. What could he done by getting everybody to help, by making the utmost use of the facilities existing, by getting the medical men to help, and the medical officer of health particularly, by getting the school teachers and all the local private voluntary associations to help? First of all, they took the records of the previous three years for comparison. Then they started a tremendous campaign, helped by the local authorities. I will give the Committee the striking results for the next three years: The deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth in the three years preceding the experiment were 37; in the three years during the experiment, they were down to 13. The deathrate was cut down from 10 to below 4 per 1,000. The deaths due to intercurrent disease fell from six to three. That is not simply a total figure, but if one takes each set of causes in turn, one finds that the reduction is the same with puerperal causes, nutrition causes and heart causes, and the different conditions into which maternal mortality is divided up.
    That is a lesson which needs to be driven home throughout the whole of our public health administration. A very large amount of improvement can be brought about if only one gets keenness and enthusiasm in the carrying out of things under present conditions. By all means go ahead and improve things where that is possible, but there is far too great a tendency for it to be said that it is a matter of pouring out more money and of getting extra help from outside. That

    2349
    is one of the dangers. In our personal lives, if we can get help or money from outside, it tends to sap away our independence and initiative; and the same applies in matters of public health. Medical officers of health tell us again and again that if people are enthusiastic and keen in carrying out what we have already, we can bring about an enormous advance. I hope that on all sides of the House, as well as in the Ministry itself, everything possible will be done to get both the voluntary associations and the local authorities, which, after all, also represent voluntary work to a large extent, to do all they can in the way I have suggested, and if they do that I believe that more than half the battle will be won. At the same time we must try to get fresh powers for further improvement from the point of view of administration by that most admirable Department, the Ministry of Health, under its present most admirable Minister.
    8.25 p.m.
    Mr. SILKIN: I propose to discuss the question of housing mainly from the administrative point of view. It is generally recognised that the Minister of Health is really anxious that the work of housing, of rehousing the people displaced from the slums and of dealing with overcrowding should be proceeded with as rapidly and as energetically as possible. It will also be agreed that the figures quoted by the Minister, showing the results so far achieved, represent the efforts of a large number of individual local authorities and that a large measure of the credit for that achievement is due to those local authorities. The Minister has it in his power to help or to impede the progress of local authorities, and I suggest that he could improve the progress of housing work in certain directions by the appointment of additional staff.
    I have a certain amount of experience in the administration of a department of a, large local authority, and I have asked officials of that department to inform me of the average time taken by the Ministry in dealing with local inquiries. I find that, on the average, a period of about three months elapses from the date when a, slum clearance proposal is put before the Minister and the date of the official inquiry, while from the date of the inquiry to the date of the confirma-
    2350
    tion of the order, a further period of between three and four months elapses. Thus there is a period, roughly, of seven months, on the average, from the date when a scheme is put before the Minister to the date when the local authority is finally informed of the Minister's approval. In one case which the Minister probably knows about, the official inquiry was held on 1st October last and the Minister's final decision has not yet been notified to the authority. That is a period of nine and a-half months. That case may be a special one, and I appreciate the possibility that the Minister may have found certain difficulties in it.
    I am content, however, to rest my contention on the average normal amount of delay, and I think the Minister will agree that seven months is far too long a period for the formalities of an inquiry. I suggest that he might consider increasing the inspectorial and other staffs with a view to expediting the consideration of these schemes. The delay is a great inconvenience to local authorities because it is impossible for a local authority to time its activities properly unless it is pretty certain that the procedure will be conducted rapidly. I have given seven months as an average period, but in a large number of cases the period is considerably longer. Moreover, it is an inconvenience to the owner who is uncertain of what is going to happen to his property, and while I do not express too much sympathy with the owner of slum property, he is often faced with the position that once the tenants realise that clearance schemes are about to be put into operation on the property, they refuse to pay their rent and the owner has considerable difficulty in recovering it. In some cases real hardship may be inflicted on the owner.
    One consequence of the 1935 Housing Act has been that the preparatory period for local authorities has of necessity been extended, because they are now under an obligation which they were not under before, to give the owner of the property affected considerable details as to the respects in which his property is alleged to be defective. That all takes time, and when an authority is dealing with an area comprising 100 or 200 houses it will be realised that that factor alone is bound

    2351
    to cause delay. But that delay is inevitable, whereas the delay in connection with the official inquiries is, in my submission, capable of being remedied. Since the passing of the 1935 Act local authorities have been involved in considerably increased expense in the acquisition of property which has been declared to be slum property. The Minister may be interested to know the extent of that increase. The abolition of the reduction factor has had a serious effect in many cases in increasing the price of land. In one case where the London County Council had agreed to acquire land for—10,000 prior to the passing of the 1935 Act, the agreement was suspended in view of the passing of the Act, and eventually the council had to pay £19,000 or an increase of nearly 100 per cent.
    In many cases the effect of the abolition of reduction factor has been that the owner of slum property is actually receiving more for his property than it would fetch if it were sold in the open market, because he is treated as the owner of a cleared site—with the local authority taking the financial responsibility for the clearance of the site. There are instances all over London where fortunate people are being compensated for being owners of slum property. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Sir J. Ganzoni) spoke of the hardships of owners of slum property. I would refer him to the large number of cases in which people are actually getting premiums for owning such property. Under the 1935 Act the class of person who is described as an owner-occupier had his compensation specially increased. In my view the increased compensation adequately meets the case.
    Reference was made by the Minister and by the hon. and gallant Member for North-West Camberwell (Major Guest) to the question of community centres. I agree that there is a great need for community centres where large masses of population have been transferred from cities into what are practically new towns in which all social services and social amenities have to be created. But I think the hon. and gallant Member for North-West Camberwell would go further and have community centres established on all estates provided by local authorities even inside the cities. I have some doubt as
    2352
    to the wisdom of isolating a section of the working-class community inside our towns and in the provision of special community centres for local authority tenants there is danger of such isolation. I feel that tenants of local authorities, inside the cities, ought to have the advantage of all the amenities of those cities. There should be no distinction between municipal tenants and other tenants. The amenities of the cities should be made available to all and municipal tenants should not be encouraged to regard themselves as belonging to a separate class. In places like Becontree it may be necessary to encourage the establishment of community centres. If the Minister is anxious that local authorities should add to their burdens by the provision of these centres, he might perhaps consider the possibility of giving them some further assistance in that connection.
    The 1935 Housing Act has now been in operation for nearly a year, and it is possible to arrive at certain conclusions in regard to its working. Under it there is a separation made between the sheep and the goats. There is a, favoured class of tenements set up, namely, the flat dwelling, which receives in certain cases a large contribution from the Exchequer, and there is the cottage, which as a general rule, particularly in the case of large cities, will attract no subsidy. The Minister shakes his head, and I hope he really believes that a subsidy will be attracted for cottages, but on the wording of the 1935 Act, much as I would desire that a subsidy should be attracted to cottages—and, indeed, I am not giving up the battle, and T. am perhaps going to make application to the Minister in due course—I think he will find himself in some difficulty in giving that subsidy in the case of large towns with a large rateable value and so on. To any case, the subsidy for cottages is quite small in comparison with the subsidy for flats, but the result is that the local authorities have a financial inducement to build flats as against cottages, and I submit that this question of building flats as against cottages ought to be considered entirely on the merits of each particular case.
    I do not think it is right that local authorities should have a financial inducement to build a class of dwellings which they might, if there were no question of finance, consider to be entirely wrong. Local authorities are only human; they

    2353
    have to have regard to rates and to take into account such considerations as State subsidies, and one of the consequences is bound to be that there will be a bias, in the case of a large number of cities and towns, in the direction of flats, where flats might, on the merits of the case, be entirely wrong. Moreover, there is a direct incentive given to the erection of high buildings of flats—four and five storeys or even more—because the subsidy under the 1935 Act is given in respect of the cost of the land, and the more flats you can put on a particular piece of land, the better off the local authority is. There is, therefore, a direct inducement to build high dwellings on land, irrespective of the merits of the case, because of the way in which the Exchequer subsidy is being provided.
    Then there is the further point that there are two different subsidies being provided, one under the 1930 Act and one under the 1935 Act, and, if I may let the Minister into some of the secrets of a local authority, in the case of every scheme inevitably consideration is given as to which particular Act it pays the authority to build under. In certain cases it pays them to treat a scheme as a slum clearance scheme, and in other cases it pays them financially to treat it as an overcrowding scheme. I submit that that is all wrong and that there should be no financial inducement of that sort. Every scheme should be permitted to be treated entirely on its merits, and one way of doing that would be that there should be one subsidy only for all types of houses. I hope the Minister may find it possible to give consideration to that suggestion.
    In some of the large cities probably the only way of dealing with the overcrowding problem is by utilising Section 13 of the 1935 Housing Act, which deals with re-development. All progressively minded local authorities would, I am sure, wish to take the fullest advantage of the redevelopment portion of the 1935 Act, and indeed I, personally, regard that section as perhaps the most valuable in the Act, because it does enable a large local authority to re-develop large portions of its area which could not be dealt with except by way of a large re-development. Unfortunately, the procedure laid down under the 1935 Act for dealing with redevelopment is long, cumbersome, and difficult, and already many problems have arisen which may have to be settled by
    2354
    reference to the courts. At the best, the procedure will take something like two years, and during the whole of that period it is open to owners inside a re-development area to deal with their property, to develop it in any way they please, subject, of course, to town planning, and, consequently to force up the price of that property against the local authority. I would have hoped that some much more expeditious method would have been found for dealing with redevelopment, which would have prevented what may very well become an abuse and may indeed make this particular provision very difficult to carry into effect.
    Moreover, there is a further difficulty in connection with re-development. Under the Act it is necessary for the local authority to make a map of the area with which it proposes to deal. It, so to speak, puts a ring round that area, and then, under the Act, the local authority may be forced to acquire the whole of the property within that area, whether it wishes to do so or not. I do not want to weary the Committee by drawing particular attention to that Section, but I think the Minister will agree on reading it—and indeed that is the advice of his own officials—that the local authority may be compelled to acquire the whole of the land within that area, whether it is necessary to do so or not for the purpose of re-development. Some of that land may be very expensive indeed, and no doubt it will be the more expensive portions of the land which owners will force the local authority to acquire, and in that way these particular Sections may very well become nugatory, and not only may re-development become inordinately expensive, but local authorities may be faced with very large and unknown expenditure at the time of making a redevelopment order, and only the most courageous and the most wealthy of them will be prepared to face up to it.
    There is one other point in connection with the 1935 Act to which I would like to refer, and that is that the definition of an unfit house in a re-development area is different from the definition of an unfit house in the 1930 Act. That gives rise to considerable confusion, not only in the minds of local authorities, but also in the minds of the public. In one case a house has to be unfit for human habitation and injurious to health

    2355
    —and local authorities have become accustomed to the working of Section 1 of the 1930 Housing Act and know exactly where they are—but in the redevelopment Sections, in order to get your third, you have to find houses which are unfit for human habitation and not capable of being rendered fit at a reasonable expense. That gives rise to a tremendous amount of controversy as to what is a reasonable expense in dealing with a re-development area, and it seems to me a pity that the same definition should not apply to the re-development Sections as applies to Section 1 of the 1930 Housing Act.
    A further subject on which I should like to touch is the overcrowding survey. In some parts of the country the survey has been completed. The results are in the hands of the Minister and most local authorities are proceeding to investigate the total number of dwellings that will be required to alleviate overcrowding. In London these figures are ready. Prior to making the survey, a preliminary estimate was obtained as to the number of dwellings that would be required in London to deal with overcrowding, and the figure was found to be 39,000. The actual result, however, shows that only 23,000 will be required. I suggest that it is a great pity in these circumstances that the standard of overcrowding was fixed so low. It would have been possible to deal expeditiously—and I think the same applies to most places in the country—with a somewhat higher standard. Indeed, in the case of the London survey there are almost as many families living on the verge of overcrowding, but not officially overcrowded. as were found to be actually overcrowded. The fact that 80 per cent. of the local authorities have found it possible to fix the appointed day under the 1935 Act 1st January next indicates that they would have been prepared to deal with an even bigger problem than that with which they appear to be faced as a result of the overcrowding standard which was fixed. I suggest, therefore, that it might be possible at an early date to fix a somewhat higher standard, because I am sure that neither the Minister nor any hon. Member really regards the standard as at present fixed as an entirely satisfactory one. I have attempted to deal with some of the
    2356
    difficulties which arise in actual practice, and I hope that I may be forgiven if I have kept the Committee too long.
    8.48 p.m.
    Sir RICHARD MELLER: I would like to endorse the appeal that has been made by the hon. and gallant Member for North West Camberwell (Major Guest) and the hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) with regard to the large housing estates. We have had to gain our experience as we have gone along and I think that one of the points which have come out of the large housing estates is the fact that regard has not been had for the amenities of the people. In my constituency there is the large estate of St. Helier, which has been placed there by the London County Council. From the point of view of the estate there can be no complaint about the layout, but the people have been brought from crowded areas, from shopping centres much cheaper than the shopping centre in which they find themselves; and they were much closer to their work, and the young people were within easy reach of places of entertainment. There are these vast areas of wide streets and well spread houses, with some communication, it is true, with a main road, but in the centre of them there is no place of meeting except one or two church halls, and the people feel that there is a sort of penalty placed upon them because they have been brought outside. It will take a good many years for these people to get used to the, new position, but many years will have to go by before the young, people can appreciate that they must walk a mile, or two, or three miles for that innocent entertainment which they used to obtain on their doorsteps.
    I want to turn to a subject which forms an important part of the Minister's Department, namely, National Health Insurance. Just over a year ago we were dealing with a Measure which had been introduced by the Minister to try and overcome some of the real difficulties that had arisen for the insured person by reason of long periods of unemployment, and to meet what was a real fear that many of them would pass out of insurance and be deprived of its benefits. The Minister introduced a scheme which provided for a prolongation of insurance,

    2357
    but that prolongation necessitated very complex regulations to be administered by the societies. The administration of National Health Insurance has never been an easy matter, but when you have to deal with the complexities of the arrears regulations, you will find the complexities greater than are experienced in any other form of clerical work. It has been suggested to me that the Act has very much complicated the work of officials of societies, and I should like to ask the Minister whether the societies have expressed any views, not so much upon the principles—because the principles embodied in the 1935 Act are highly appreciated by them—but whether any real objection has been raised or any complaint made with regard to the complexity of the arrears regulations.
    There is another point about which I should like to ask the Minister, because it affects very largely the question of distributable surpluses. Hon. Members have spoken to-day of the advantages to be obtained from dental treatment, ophthalmic treatment and other treatments and special benefits, which are obtained by the possession of large distributable surpluses accruing at the end of the period of valuation. The arrears regulations which were made under the Act of 1935 will have some effect upon the financial results of the approved societies, and I would like to ask whether, in fact, the regulations, and the extent to which they are applied to those persons who have suffered long periods of unemployment, have had a material effect upon the possible disposable surpluses or the finances of approved societies generally. I was glad to find that, as a result of the 1935 Act, large numbers of unemployed persons have been reinstated in benefit. Can the Minister give any idea of the proportion of the persons who under the former conditions would have had to suffer termination of insurance but have benefited under the provisions of the Act of 1935?
    Cases were brought to my notice of unemployed persons who, fearing the loss of benefits through long unemployment, have been persuaded to pay contributions as voluntary contributors. The number of cases brought forward at the time rather startled the Minister and the House, but the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that provision would
    2358
    be made for those persons who had continued their insurance as voluntary contributors to go back into the employed class. Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say whether the undertaking which he gave in respect of those persons has been kept? Then there is the question, which I believe is of interest to Members of the Opposition and to insured persons generally, of the effect of the Act upon the persons whose insurance would have terminated but for the Act of 1935. Further, if there are persons whose insurance was terminated during the course of the year, are they being provided with full information as to their rights to continue as voluntary contributors? Not only should the information be supplied in a simple form, but every person entitled to that information ought to have it. I hope the Minister will make arrangements so that no person can hereafter complain that he lost the valuable benefits under the National Health Insurance, including his right to pension, through not having been informed of his rights uder the various Acts.
    The only other question I wish to put to the Minister concerns the report which was presented to him by the joint committee which has been considering optical benefits. That committee was formed of representatives of the approved societies and of the opticians. It was appointed to deal more particularly with ophthalmic benefits—providing ophthalmic treatment at a reasonable rate, seeing that the provision of glasses was not too costly, and that, generally, the most experienced opticians were brought into the field of National Health Insurance. There has been a great deal of co-operation between the two bodies, and there has been a preliminary, an interim and a final report. The final report has now been in the hands of the Minister for some months, and those who have been engaged on this work for three years are rather anxious to know what is to happen as an outcome of that report. Some observations were made by a member of the right hon. Gentleman's Department at a conference, but I think that we in this House are entitled to know the Minister's view of the subject and what he proposes to do on that report. I do not wish to say anything more, but I have put forward these points because they deal with

    2359
    matters which very much disturbed some Members of the House when the 1935 Act was under consideration.
    8.58 p.m.
    Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: I shall not throw any bouquets to the Minister, because he has been almost smothered with them since four o'clock this afternoon. I should like to offer a reply to the speech of the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little), though not to deal in any sense with what he said when he was giving us a lecture on medical science. I want to cross swords with him on his malnutrition theory. He said, when dealing with malnutrition, that a lot more instruction should be given to people. I want to tell him that in the industrial areas, in the depressed areas, and in the semi-depressed areas, it is not instruction they want but money to enable them to buy food, so that they can cook it. If they can get hold of the money it is not much instruction they will require. We have some of the best cooks in the world in those distressed areas. The hon. Member also said there was a lot of food wilfully wasted. I want to refute that statement entirely.
    Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: I said that in the choice of foods money was often not wisely spent.
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: If the hon. Member, before he eats his breakfast tomorrow morning, will read what he said he will find that he did make the statement that there was a lot of food wilfully wasted. There may be a lot of food wilfully wasted by the class among whom he lives, but there is not a lot of food wilfully wasted so far as we are concerned.
    Wing-Commander JAMES: May I ask whether it is in order to discuss nutrition on this Vote?
    The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Sir Robert Young): I understand that the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) has raised the question, and I cannot stand in the way of the hon. Member giving an answer.
    Mr. KELLY: There is an item in the Estimate dealing with nutrition.
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: If the hon. and gallant Member had not risen to a point of Order he would have found that I was coming to the effect of nutrition on tuberculosis. I will leave the speech of the hon. Member for London University, but nobody on these benches could allow the statement which he made to pass. Another point I wish to raise is that on this 16th July, 1936, we are still waiting for the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health of the Ministry of Health for 1935. 1 hope that in future when we are discussing the Ministry of Health Vote we shall be able to have that report for the preceding year. The Minister of Health stated—and he skipped over this pretty freely—that 30,000 people died of tuberculosis last year, and that in the previous year the total was 33,255. A figure like that does not seem high, seeing that in this House we are talking in millions every day, but it means that something like 95 men and women, boys and girls, die in this country every day from tuberculosis; and the most alarming feature is that 54 per cent. of them are under the age of 35. They are the young life, the life that we require. Another statement was that 34 per cent. of those who die of tuberculosis in England and Wales, leaving out Scotland, are between the ages of 15 and 25. The Minister spent only about two and a-half minutes to-day on this most vital subject. I know that we are doing better than we did 25 years ago, when some 50,000 a year were dying, but the Minister did not tell us that last year there were 66,000 new cases of tuberulosis reported in this country.
    Although the Ministry have given a certain amount of consideration to this question I must ask them to give further consideration. I make bold to say—although I know my view has been refuted I have a few figures here which I shall quote—that this disease is largely a disease of poverty, of overcrowding and of bad housing. During two years Dr. Bradbury conducted an investigation in Jarrow and in Blaydon. He was in that area for two full years and he traced tuberculosis all over the town. He has published his report, which is a most enlightening one. The Minister may have read it, but if he has not I suggest that it would be a good thing for his

    2361
    education on this question of tuberculosis to read it. Dr. Bradbury distinctly states that the chief cause of tuberculosis is bad housing and overcrowding—forcible overcrowding in some cases, because of low wages. There were two and in some cases three families living in one house because one family could not afford to pay the rent of the whole house. They had to join in payment of the rent. In this house, they found that tuberculosis was very prevalent.
    I know that some people say that tuberculosis is not largely due to poverty, but I have a set of figures from which I want to quote. They are not from the Labour Research Department and not from Mary Sutherland's Nutrition Department, but from Mrs. Baldwin's own committee—the committee of the Prime Minister's wife. Hon. Members will not say that the figures are biased from the Socialist side of the case. I am very pleased that the Prime Minister's wife is so active and so interested in the question of infantile and maternal mortality. She, and other women, have set up different committees, and these are the comparison figures that they have found out between the North of England depressed areas and London and Middlesex. The figures of infant deaths are for the seven years 1927 to 1933, and the maternal deaths are for the seven years 1928 to 1934. They comprise a population of 6,148,000, and include five coal-mine counties, Durham, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Northumberland and Yorkshire—the West Riding—and seven ports representing depressed areas, namely, Birkenhead, Cardiff, Hull, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland and Swansea. In those areas the infantile deaths were 64,052. The population in London and Middlesex was the same, to within one or two thousands, and the deaths there were 38,629; or, there were 25,423 more infant deaths in the seven years in the northern areas than there were in the latter two areas which had the same population.
    Take the maternity deaths. In the seven depressed areas which I have cited they were 3,965, but in London and Middlesex they were 2,206. That is to say, although the population in the depressed and semi-depressed areas was the same as in London and Middlesex, there were 1,795 more deaths, proving
    2362
    that if the people in the North, in Wales and in the ports had the same facilities arid were fed exactly similarly, there would have been a lower maternal death rate by 1,795. Yet people get up and tell us that it is not a matter of poverty, arid that you have to give people instruction. so that they know how to cook, etc. What we say is: It is not instruction they want, but food to eat.
    During the General Election, I was delivering pamphlets from door to door in my own constituency. I knocked at a door. In our constituency you generally say "Hallo," and walk in. I walked in, and in that room downstairs there was a young lady lying in bed. She was as thin as a lath. She was not as fat as an envelope edgeways on. I said to the mother, "What is the matter with this young lady?" She told me what had happened. Anybody could see that the young lady was dying. The mother said that the girl had given birth to her first baby a fortnight ago. I said, "Why don't you seek some help?" She said: "Because her husband has worked two days a week, he cannot get any help at all." I said: "You have to have some help as quickly as possible." They gave that young woman 5s. to help her. The mother said to me: "The cause of this, Mr. Griffiths, is that this girl came from Durham. Her father had not been working for six years before we came down here." She was starved to death before she was married. She had not had sufficient strength for years. and when she had to face the throes of death she had not the strength to go through with it. That is a case of malnutrition, and not the effect of not knowing how to cook. That is the case with a lot of people. I mean that.
    I want to touch on a point that I know something about. I shall ask the Under-Secretary to reply to one or two questions affecting 200,000 people in our population who are smitten with the disease of diabetes. One out of every 250 people suffers from diabetes, and yet the Ministry of Health never says one word about it. In 1924, when the late Mr. John Wheatley was Minister of Health, there was an Order in Council that every State-insured person in this country should have insulin free. The statement was also made that anybody who could not afford insulin should be enabled to

    2363
    get it through the public assistance committee—the guardians, as they then were. I appeal for this population of 200,000. I ask the Minister of Health to give the matter further and better consideration than has been given to it for the last three years. He has stated that if the people were not National Health Insurance persons suffering from diabetes, they would be unable to get insulin treatment. Although insulin treatment is not a perfect cure for diabetes, it is the greatest palliative that has ever been discovered. It helps to put life and vigour into the man who has diabetes. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, or the Minister, when replying to-night to state that anybody who has diabetes in this country, including working-class people and their wives, shall be enabled to get insulin.
    I want to give him three cases, although I could talk about this matter all night. Before I give those three cases, I would just mention, to show how prevalent diabetes is to-day, that 2,000 diabetics attend King's College Hospital, and that 800 diabetic patients are attending the London Hospital, in the East End They are not all getting insulin. During the last 12 months, since the Minister gave the reply, I have been finding cases, and I have three to put across the Floor of this Committee. One case is that of an old lady who has gone blind. She has to have two injections of insulin every day, 40 units daily. She is living with her son-in-law. Her husband was living with them and was past work, but because the woman was living with her son-in-law and the son-in-law was in regular work, she could not get her insulin free. Those 40 units a day, multiplied by seven, mean that she has to have 280 units a week. If she gets the best insulin, at 1s. 10½d.—I am not speaking about the shilling bottle now but about the best insulin—she must have three bottles, costing 5s. 7½d. per week. Because she was living with her son-in-law, she could not get insulin, as was the intention when the Order in Council was issued.
    I will give another case. I visited last Saturday afternoon, when I was in my division, a young woman 38 years of age. Her husband is working regularly, and is getting about £2 15s. a week. This woman has to have 45 units a day, and
    2364
    she is suffering at the moment also from running gangrene. I said to her, "Cannot you get your insulin?" and she replied, "No, I cannot. It costs me 6s. a week. I had to pay 6d. for a needle yesterday, and I have to find my own iodine, methylated spirit and wadding." It costs altogether no less than 6s. 9½d. a week. Moreover, she said, "I have to have a special diet, besides our Jack having his." He has his own diet, and she has to have a special diet; and yet they cannot get any insulin. I want the Minister to stir these folks up and let them know, perhaps by circular, that they can get it.
    I have one other case, and I am not sure that it is not even more distressing than the other two. It is a case where a woman is living with her husband in one of our old-age cottages in my own township in Yorkshire. Her husband has a pension of 10s. She is not old enough for a pension, but they are getting 15s. a week from the public assistance committee, which makes a total for them both together of 25s. a week, and they pay 5s. 6d. a week rent. This woman has to have insulin, but the price of the insulin has to be taken out of the 15s. that they get from the public assistance committee. My contention is that, if that circular is properly applied, she should, on the top of that 15s. from the public assistance committee, have her insulin and all the incidental necessities, so that she may have a chance to live.
    Mr. FLEMING: Does the hon. Member know whether this particular woman has ever applied to the public assistance committee for the extra cost of the insulin?
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: I do know; that is what I am stating. I would not state the case if I did not know.
    Mr. FLEMING: Was she refused?
    Mr. GRIFFITHS: The only money she could have was the 15s. inclusive. [An HON. MEMBER.: "That is the scale."] My hon. Friend says that that is the scale, but it is only the scale, in my locality, for people who are well. This is an exceptional circumstance, and should be considered exceptionally, and I say that, if the Minister will issue a circular to the local authorities pointing out these things again, I am satisfied that they will be able to get something. I wanted to put that point to the Minister, and I

    2365
    hope that the 200,000 diabetics in the country—and their number appears to be increasing—if they require insulin, will be able to get it. Almost invariably, however, if the husband is working, the relieving officer will turn them down and tell them they have no right to apply. That happens almost without exception, irrespective of the amount they may be getting. We have some people who are working only two days a week, but, because they are working, if they make an application to the relieving officer, he says: "You cannot have any, because you are working." I say that even if a man is working, if his wife is suffering from this dread disease, the public assistance committee have a right to consider the case of that woman and give her sufficient insulin to keep her alive until she passes away naturally, and not through diabetes.
    9.21 p.m.
    Mr. LEVY: I have listened to this Debate with great interest since four o'clock, and, although the supply of water is one of the most important services in the country, it has only been mentioned en passant by one or two speakers. I rise with some diffidence to-night to speak on the subject of the water supply, because it is well known that we have had quite a lot of water lately, but that sort of water is only haphazard. A farmer said to me the other day that he was "fed up" with the way in which he has to obtain his water supply—that what he would like would be an adequate drainage system when we get these floods, and a properly conserved and distributed water supply when the drought came. Of course, such conditions would be what I should describe as a farmer's paradise. I think every Member of the House will admit that the rural areas have waited far too long between the hell of floods and the hell of droughts.
    A number of tributes have been paid to-night to my right hon. Friend, and I want to pay him a high tribute for what he has done in this important matter of water supply. It is well known in the House that I have been pursuing this subject for several years, in the last Parliament and in this Parliament, but it was not until my right hon. Friend went to the Ministry of Health that I felt satisfied that some attention would be paid to it. I have every reason to believe that he will give to this important
    2366
    problem the same care and assiduity that he gives to the other varied aspects of the work of the Ministry of Health. As a result of his efforts, some impression has been made on this primary problem of rural water supplies, and, if my right hon. Friend can hold out any hope to the rural community that they will soon be delivered from these two purgatories, he will have done them and the whole country a service, and will equal, if not eclipse, the fine work that we all admit he has done in the Post Office and in the general field of public health service in which water supply plays so important a part.
    It is true that the grant of £1,000,000 which was provided by the Exchequer has already been provisionally allocated, and it is also true that schemes have been undertaken, with the help of that grant, in 2,350 parishes, at a total estimated cost of £7,000,000. I understand, too, that since March, 1934, loans totalling £1,340,000 have been sanctioned for schemes in another 400 parishes, but those 400 parishes do not get any grant, although in some cases assistance is forthcoming from county and rural district councils. All that is to the good and to the credit of the Minister of Health. But I want to press on the attention of the Department the extra importance of developing the principle of these regional water committees with scope to coordinate the sources of supply and to plan ahead. There have been eight committees set up in large areas, and in all they deal with a population of 14.000,000. One of the biggest difficulties of this water problem is the confusion of interests, the overlapping of water authorities in their areas and the existence of monopoly rights which hinder the freer distribution of water where it is so urgently needed.
    It is only by large-scale planning that this problem can be tackled. These regional committees are a step in the right direction, although I want to see regional committees set up in every region throughout this country, having regard to the physical geography of the country, and I want to see these committees with statutory powers dealing with the water supplies within their areas. They necessarily work at present under a grave handicap. They can investigate, survey and recommend, but they can do no more

    2367
    than recommend. They have no authority to carry out any regional schemes. That is their weakness. Vested interests and monopolies are not likely to accept mere advice if they consider that the acceptance of that advice does not further their interests.
    The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I am not quite sure whether what the hon. Member is suggesting would require legislation. Is that so?
    Mr. LEVY: I am not suggesting that we should increase their power. I appreciate that if I say anything in this Debate which necessitates legislation you will very properly rule me out of order, but what I am doing is to explain the powers which they have. The vested interests and the monopolies are not likely to accept mere advice if that advice does not further their interests. It is for the Minister to say whether he is going to bring in any legislation to give them power. I know that the report of the Joint Select Committee on water supply which is considering the measures required for the better conservation and organisation of supplies has not yet been presented, And I have every confidence that when that report is presented the Minister will give it his sympathetic consideration. I hope very much that their powers and responsibilities will be enlarged, and if they are that will be a step in the right direction to the solution of this problem. If that takes place the rural districts will in time, we hope, be free from these dual torments. If this improvement through the energy of the Minister of Health takes place, may I be allowed with humility to say that he will receive my gratitude for vindicating the campaign I have been waging for so many years in this House?
    9.31 p.m.
    Mr. DAVID ADAMS: Whatever charges we may have against the Government or the Minister of Health there can be no charge that the Minister himself is not a master of his Department. He has lived in the atmosphere of public health for years. He has had experience for some years on the London County Council—not, of course, experience of the kind he might have obtained if he had been associated with one of the great municipalities on Tyneside. Nevertheless,
    2368
    he is in every sense equipped for the great tasks which fall to him in this, one of the highest offices of the Cabinet. One feels that with his ability and geniality, if one had any complaint to make against the Department one would almost require to say it with flowers, or with music. Nevertheless, it is an obligation on me to-night, in spite of the fact that the Minister is the complete Minister of Health, to declare that we are in a relatively backward condition as far as housing, for instance, is concerned, and I begin with the proposition that the National Government have arrested housing progress by reducing the standards and subsidies, and that overcrowding is not being adequately detected under the 1935 Act. Under that Act, in spite of the protestations in Committee of hon. Members on this side of the House, the living room is looked on as a bedroom, and it is not therefore surprising that as a result of the national inquiry into overcrowding we have merely some 330 cases of overcrowding throughout the entire country. The hon. Member who spoke recently on this side might well declare that as far as London is concerned, in his judgment—and he spoke in an official position—about 50 per cent. of the actual overcrowding had been overlooked under the 1935 Act.
    I asked the Minister on 28th May how many local authorities under this Act had applied for subsidy for the building of houses other than flats upon expensive sites, and he advised me that the figure was £1,014 per annum for 20 years in respect of only 217 houses. When you examine that statement you have this remarkable fact. The Minister has power under the Act to grant a maximum of £5 for a period of 20 years. But the average amount that the Minister had allowed on these houses was only £3 10s. per annum for 20 years. I want to know why the local authorities who applied are not receiving the full amount. I have been to conferences where great discontent was expressed that they should not have the money that the Act permits the Minister to grant and, when we are told that there might be some choice to local authorities in dealing with overcrowding, if there are better grants under the 1930 Act than under the 1935 Act, the local authority will select whichever Act will give the largest amount of subsidy, that is a complete fallacy.

    2369
    There is no such choice given. No local authority that is re-housing its people under the 1935 Act will be permitted to use the 1930 Act. That is to say, the maximum amount that any local authority will receive under the 1935 Act will be £5 for 20 years, as against the average of £11 5s. for 40 years under the Slum Clearance (1930) Act. The Minister nodded assent to a proposition made from these benches that we might look upon the present arrangement as a temporary one, and I hope he will bear that in mind, and will not have a return to the not too adequate subsidy under the 1930 Act.
    The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor lowered the standard of municipal housing by steadily reducing the square foot area to 760. The result of that has been very interesting. In the North of England certainly, and I suppose throughout the country generally, even under the low standard of the 1935 Act we have a considerable number of the houses built by local authorities declared to be overcrowded because the then Minister determined that local authorities should only build houses of those diminutive proportions. I have a grievance with the right hon. Gentleman to this extent that, while he saw the folly of that restriction and empowered local authorities to build up to an area of 1,130 square feet, he only relaxed the old regulation in May last. We ought to know why we were compelled to continue building to these diminutive proportions which were a great disability to many local authorities, particularly in the north of England. Many houses even under the 1935 Act will continue to be immorally and indecently overcrowded. Two bedrooms up, one down, and a kitchen can be occupied by seven and a-half units, that is, seven adults and a child of from one to ten years of age. You can have this result—a man arid wife, a girl of 18, and a boy of 16 and relatives or sub-tenants consisting of a man arid wife with a girl of 19 and a boy of nine or ten in what is really a three-bedroom house. However placid people may be in this part of the world, we have declared in the north of England that under the Act of 1935 we are not dealing with the gross overcrowding that prevails and that we ought to have fresh legislation. A population of five adults and three children, or seven adults and one child, in that
    2370
    small three-bedroom house is a scandal when one considers the new age in which we are supposed to be living.
    There is another matter to which I should like to call attention and express the hope that the Minister may take some action. The whole aim of the monumental Local Government Act of 1925 was to abolish the Poor Law taint. We in Newcastle took very swift action under it. Our hospitals were transferred to the local authority and the name of the Poor Law institution was changed. We went so far as to abolish pauper funerals of the ordinary sort. It was decided that private enterprise should be called in to bury those who ended their days in a Poor Law institution. But we went further than that. Under the Poor Law, those who have lost their National Health Insurance and come to the Poor Law for medical relief are in the main attended by district medical or Poor Law doctors. I think an examination of the position of these doctors throughout the country will reveal what was discovered with us, that the remuneration was altogether too small. In Newcastle it was 6½d., in addition to which the doctor had to find dressings. It is obvious that he could not, and in fact did not, give adequate attention. We, therefore, did what I hope the Minister may see his way to make obligatory. We set up a panel of doctors remunerated upon a proper scale, and we give now a domiciliary medical service to those under the Poor Law as good as can be obtained under National Health Insurance. I wonder whether the Minister can see his way to make it obligatory upon all authorities to set up such a panel of doctors, so that an adequate domiciliary medical service may prevail throughout the country. Until he does that, it is certain that those people will not have the medical attention to which they are entitled.
    As far as the maternity and child welfare problem is concerned, undoubtedly the local authorities will be grateful for the determination of the Minister to close the gap between the children who are in attendance up to the first or second year of age and the school age. Many of the authorities—I suppose most of them—are taking very active steps to give the necessary attention during those very formative years up to school age. Is it beyond the possibility of the Government and the Minister to

    2371
    make it compulsory upon local authorities to give help to expectant and nursing mothers, the standard of income of whose husbands is merely equal to that of the unemployed? It is pretty common knowledge in the North that that is being done, but should it not be made compulsory throughout the country? It is useless to expect the standard of health to rise with rapidity unless steps are taken to eliminate the nutritional defects which prevail in all great centres of population. While we have many medical officers of health declaring that 50 per cent. of the sickness is due to the low physical standard in large measure caused by nutritional defects among the population, the matter ought to, and indeed must be dealt with without the passage of much time. The problem is a grave one. The remedy is an expensive one, but it is necessary, and if we are to raise the standard of our people to the height which the Minister desires, we shall have to act promptly upon such lines as these.
    9.48 p.m.
    Mr. BOULTON: During the course of this Debate the question of housing from diffierent points of view has been much discussed. I want to take this opportunity of referring to the Slum Clearance Act, and more particularly to the administration of that Act by certain local authorities. I do not think that it is necessary for me to assure my right hon. Friend how wholeheartedly I am in sympathy with him in his great efforts to clear away the slums and to try to obliterate the overcrowding which is such a curse in many of our great centres. I should like to congratulate him upon the rapid progress that has been made in slum clearance since he took over his most difficult office. I cannot help but feel that if he had been responsible for the Act at the time, it would not have been drawn quite in the same way as it was. I make no apology for drawing attention to the administration of the Slum Clearance Act, for it is still a burning question in many of our great centres. From the experience which I have had, I consider that it demands a further—I was almost going to say, immediate—review by my right hon. Friend in the light of the experience that we have now gained.
    2372
    In previous Debates in this House, particularly in the late Parliament, many cases of what were considered cases of hardship and injustice were quoted. I, myself, brought numerous cases to the attention of the Ministry, showing, in my view, in what a merciless manner the administration of the Act was working in respect to many cases. I am not going to weary the Committee to-night by giving any further examples, but if my right hon. Friend would prefer me to give him some—I am sure that he would not, as he knows too many of them—I could litter his desk with cases that go far to confirm what I have said. I complain of the way in which some local authorities are taking advantage of—I would almost say in some cases abusing—the powers that have been vested in them under the Act. We are all familiar with the procedure with regard to clearance orders, how the medical officer of health, who, in some cases, appears to assume almost dictatorial powers, advises the local authority to clear an area, how the clearance order is issued for the particular area, and how the people are taken out perhaps to one of the large new estates being built round our cities. I do not complain of that, but how does this clearance and removal of some of these people affect certain classes of people?
    I want to draw attention to-night particularly—I have drawn attention to it before in this House—to the question of the small shopkeeper. What is his position? If he is the owner of the house and shop he occupies, he is ordered to demolish the premises at his own expense. It is true that where he is the owner or the tenant he receives compensation for loss of business, which in most cases is the loss of his livelihood. The average amount, that he would be likely to get would be something like £30. But what if he wishes to make a fresh start or follow his customers to one of these new estates? What does he find? He is debarred from renting a shop. Why? Because the authorities will not build shops to rent for these small shopkeepers. The only alternative the shopkeeper has is to build at a cost of not less than £1,000 which, of course, is quite prohibitive. What is the consequence? These small shopkeepers who have been deprived of their living are, in many cases, to my own

    2373
    knowledge, forced to fall back upon the public assistance.
    The trade in those centres which are becoming large townships goes to the co-operative societies and the multiple shops which have unlimited capital and can take up sites and build shops themselves. That is an intolerable position. I want to ask my right hon. Friend particularly this question. Is any local authority which is receiving large grants of money for providing accommodation for these people who are being removed from the slums, justified and within its rights in refusing to provide shopkeepers with shops at reasonable rents, or at any rate for a proportion of the shopkeepers who have been deprived by the local authority of their livelihood? Was this intended? If not, cannot the right hon. Gentleman do something? This is a very serious matter. There are many distressing cases which ought to be looked into. The whole question ought to be investigated from the point of view that I have presented.
    There are other cases, with which I will not trouble the Committee at length. There is the case of the owner of property situated in slum areas. I hold no brief for the owner of bad property in a slum area who has extorted rent from poor people, but I do hold a brief for the men and women, and there are many of them, very small people, who put their savings into houses and have kept them in reasonable order, and who, under clearance orders, have been compelled to demolish the property, without the right to recondition it. I have had surveys of many of these properties which have confirmed me that I was right before I put cases to the Minister of Health, and the surveyors have assured me that the houses were in good order and could be reconditioned at small cost. But those houses have been demolished along with the rest. I attribute the reason for this to be the temptation to local authorities too often to demolish the good with the bad under clearance orders, and to avoid the compulsory purchase Clause which the Act provides in respect to the better property. That is the cause of a good deal of trouble. As far as I understand the Act, it provides for such cases and lays a, solemn obligation on local authorities to administer the Act
    2374
    with fairness and justice. I cannot imagine a more solemn obligation or trust that affects the lives of so many of our poor people than that which has been placed on the shoulders of local authorities.
    I am well aware that in any big reform of this kind we are bound to have blots. There is the border-line case which is always difficult and cannot always be provided for, but there are many cases that I have come across and have been called upon to investigate which ought to be dealt with, and which compel me to come to the conclusion that the Act is not being administered in all cases as Parliament intended. On the contrary, it is too often being ruthlessly administered, disregarding the spirit and intentions of the Act and of this House. I have no hope now that my right hon. Friend will modify the question of the appeals which are made to the Minister of Health. I have always contended that appeals on the question of clearance orders should be to an independent body. I have not much hope of that being altered now, but I believe that it has been at the root of much of the trouble from which we are suffering.
    With regard to the management of the great estates which are being built around our great cities, I should like to see the management transferred to a housing commissioner or a corporation, which is provided for in the Act, and I would have it made compulsory. Unless something of this sort is done I view the position with great misgiving, and I would ask my right hon. Friend to consider this point. I do not want to create difficulties for my right hon. Friend, and I know full well the difficulties that confront the local authorities, but I literally shudder sometimes when I think of the distressing cases that I have had to investigate, which could have been avoided and for which there seems to be no redress. I hope that my right hon. Friend will still be able to do something to remedy the cases which I have mentioned. The ultimate responsibility is with the Government, and I am confident that unless some of these local authorities are called upon and if necessary compelled to act with a greater sense of responsibility towards the trust that has been placed upon them, one day the

    2375
    methods which they are adopting, and in which it may be said that we have acquiesced, will come back like a boomerang round our heads. I want to see what I believe to be a blot on this great reform wiped out, so that it can never be said that Parliament has allowed its will to be disregarded, or that in carrying out this great reform we have been a party to sacrificing many of those who have proved to be good and useful citizens in the past.
    10.2 p.m.
    Mr. AMMON: I am sorry if I am the means of blocking out some speakers, but I have promised that the Minister shall have the greater part of the time remaining. A large number of views have been expressed and grievances ventilated with respect to the Vote under consideration. In reply to the hon. Member who has just spoken I would say that so far as I am aware there is no objection to people obtaining shops on new housing estates; they are certainly built, but the difficulty is that they do not rank for grant. That is what makes the difficulty for people in limited circumstances. On the large housing estates they have shopping centres of a considerable size.
    Mr. BOULTON: Speaking of the areas which I know best, I may say there are no shops at all to let. There are only spaces which they have to take and on which they can build.
    Mr. AMMON: Then I should say that the local authorities concerned are doing their duty very badly in seeing to the planning of the housing estates. The Minister has heard encomiums from all quarters for his industry and the manner in which he has kept his Department up to the mark in regard to many things with which we are intimately concerned. But I think he was a little less than generous in his acknowledgment of some of the foundations which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) laid, particularly with regard to the Mental Treatment Act and the Slum Clearance Act. The right hon. Gentleman might have made some acknowledgment of the fact that he entered into an inheritance which was to a very large extent prepared for him by the work of my right hon. Friend. Perhaps I know less than many hon.
    2376
    Members of the work that the right hon. Gentleman has done in his Department, but there are one or two things that I should like to raise, without any frills.
    I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what has been done with respect to the Hadow Committee's Report on the qualifications, recruitment training and promotion of local government officers. The Committee was appointed in December, 1930, it reported in January, 1934, and the report was issued last year. It contained proposals as to the notification of vacancies, the selection of officers, the security of tenure, the qualifications of candidates and the establishment of a central advisory committee to deal with a common standard of recruitment. The London County Council in March, 1935, intimated their readiness to enter into a discussion on this report, and it will be interesting to know what steps have been taken, or are intended to be taken, on the report, or whether it is going to be shelved.
    The question of the inspection of our milk supply has not been raised in the Debate so far. I am aware that the supply of milk is not a concern of the Minister of Health, but the inspection of milk is a matter which is under his direction, and I want to bring to his notice a rather grave position of affairs regarding the purity of milk and the danger of infection which arises. Many hon. Members have received a copy of the report of the People's League of Health which, judging from the imposing list of names at the end, is an organisation of some standing and influence. In their report they say:
    "It is an unfortunate fact that milk is a medium through which disease can be conveyed to man …Milk can be rendered safe for consumption by suitable heat treatment, such as efficient pasteurisation or boiling."
    They point out that no less than 357,990 children at least are consuming milk which by no admitted standards can be classed as safe from the risk of conveying disease. They say:
    "Let the nutritive values of milk be emphasised by all means. But certainly of not less importance is the demand that milk shall not be allowed to be the medium for the distribution of tuberculosis and of other diseases."
    We cannot ignore these statements. They further say:

    2377
    "About 2,000 children die annually from tuberculous infection of bovine origin, while many others suffer disabling and deforming illnesses…These disasters are due mainly if not entirely to the infection of children through the milk supply."
    This certainly indicates that there is considerable room for further investigation and inspection on the part of the Department. The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, aware of the serious outbreak of scarlet fever in Denham last year, which arose directly out of the milk supply. No less than 85 persons were infected. Two of them died, one from complicated bronchial pneumonia; the other made a good recovery but later contracted appendicitis and (lied from the operation. These cases of scarlet fever were directly attributable to the milk supply. I want to read to the Committee a rather unpleasant extract from the report of a medical officer of health of one of the London Metropolitan boroughs. This is what he says:
    "As the result of a complaint, observation was kept upon a stable yard situated in this borough. An employé of a large firm engaged in the retail sale of pasteurised milk was seen to take a quart bottle and fill it with water from a large tub standing in the stable yard from which horses were watered. The tub was old and slimy, the water being partly covered with chaff, and at least one bloodworm was seen therein. A bottle of milk nearly full, with the cardboard disc therein partly dislodged and bearing the words "pasteurised milk," was on the van. The bottle of milk was purchased for analysis. During the process of division the roundsman stated that he had added water from the tub to the contents of the bottle. The sample was found to contain 38 per cent. of added water, and gnat larvae were also discovered in the milk."
    That is in one of our Metropolitan boroughs and unfortunately one cannot believe that it is an isolated case. It certainly indicates that there is a necessity for closer inspection in regard to the distribution and retail sale of our milk supply. In the same report the medical officer calls attention to the increasing consumption, as an article of food, of ice cream amongst adults and children, and he points out, what I did not know, that at present there is no bacteriological standard for ice cream and that ice cream constitutes a favourable medium for the growth of bacteria, including disease-producing germs. In this case also there is a necessity for a greater measure of control and inspection in order to ensure purity as in the case of milk.
    2378
    Another point which I desire to bring to the notice of the Minister is a question which arose in Croydon quite recently regarding some controlled houses in the possession of a company known as the General London and Urban Properties, Limited. This case came to my notice because some of the persons who are the victims of this outrage, as I think the House will agree it is, are members of the Union of Post Office Workers. The majority of these persons have been residents on this property since pre-war days, so that there can be no question of their being controlled houses. They were served with this notice:
    "We hereby give you notice to quit and deliver up possession of the house or flat you occupy… on Monday, the 6th of July, 1936. In the alternative please take notice that if you do not leave the house or flat the rent as from Monday the 6th July will be 16s. per week. Signed, G. B. Ashton."
    Many of the people were not to be intimidated by that notice, because they could go to people who could give them expert advice. But many of them were intimidated. In spite of the advance of education there are still a number of people who are scared by a printed form, particularly if it bears the imprimatur of the Government. At least one old lady was taken seriously ill as the result. They took expert advice and were told to offer the normal rent and get a receipt; and to take no notice. But the persecution still goes on. That is why I am calling the attention of the Minister to it. On Monday last my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Jenkins) asked the Minister of Health whether his attention had been drawn to a recent judgment in the Court of Appeal which placed on the tenants of controlled dwellings the onus of proof of such control, and in the course of his reply the Minister said:
    "The Acts impose substantial penalties on a landlord who knowingly makes a false claim that a house is decontrolled."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th July, 1936; col. 1663, Vol. 314.]
    I submit that there ought to be very substantial penalties on persons who know that a house is not decontrolled and seek, by means such as those to which I have referred, and by false representations, to get possession of the properties and to scare people in the way they have done. I hope the Minister will look into this question very seriously

    2379
    and make these people understand that this sort of thing must stop.
    There is another side of the question that has arisen recently with regard to intimidation and pressure brought to bear upon poor people in connection with houses. Many hon. Members, particularly those representing London constituencies, will be aware that certain syndicates have been buying freehold poor properties in the city and then serving notices of dilapidation on the tenants, who are often working people who have struggled all their lives to get the properties. Those notices have been such that it has been impossible for the people to meet them, and the result has been that many have been forced to forfeit their houses, and the gang has recouped itself by selling them at a very much higher price.
    It seems to me that if any powers are to be given to the Minister of Health to deal with this matter, the sooner they are given the better. This is not something which happens only here and there. I gather that other hon. Members have experienced it. When I was acting as chairman of the assessment appeals committee in the Borough of Camberwell I had before me a postman who had taken his pension. As hon Members know, when a postman has completed 40 years' service, he goes on to a pension and receives a lump sum as well. The postman in question had used his lump sum in buying a house, and that house was in a group which was bought up by the gang to which I have referred. He was served with a notice of dilapidation which was far beyond anything which he had in his possession, and indeed was more than he had given for the house. Unfortunately, he sought advice too late, as often these people do, and came to me after he had lost his property and his gratuity. These cases are not uncommon, and the practice is a growing one. I hope that the Minister will give considerable attention to the matter.
    There is a general point I would like to raise with regard to the housing question. It is a point to which reference has already been made in some measure by the hon. and gallant Member for North-West Camberwell (Major Guest). I make no reflection either on the local authorities or the Government if I say that to
    2380
    a large extent our efforts to solve the housing problem have been pursued along muddled and unscientific lines. We have been anxious that housing accommodation should be provided for the people, but instead of working out a scientific and planned scheme, houses have been put up in such a manner that they will constitute a tremendous store of social trouble for future generations. For instance, the constituency which I represent is one of the most densely crowded districts of London, and in some parts of it there are 1,100 people to the acre. These people are at least two miles from the nearest open space. We have a tremendous slum problem and we are being forced, under certain Measures adopted, to solve that problem by erecting huge blocks of flats. The result is that density of population is increasing and that process is going on throughout London. The people are far removed from open spaces, it is difficult for the children to find places in which to play, and I know of one borough where it is said that the public-houses are doing increased business because there are no gardens to which the men can turn in the evenings for recreation. A tremendous problem is being created in that way; and there is also the problem of the extra time and money spent by people in travelling if they go outside the district.
    I do not know whether it is too late to do something in this matter. I believe that something could be done administratively, and I suggest to the Minister that he has the energy and enthusiasm to do something even yet. It might be possible to have a plan on the lines of satellite towns, but in such a case industry would have to be planned also. Industries should be induced to go there, and the population could then go out to those towns. That would prevent the difficulty of people having to travel continually and prevent congestion of population such as we find at the present moment. Existing conditions add tremendously both to present difficulties and contribute to those which are bound to arise later. If we were to be involved in another war—and I pray that that may never happen—and if bombs were dropped in some of these crowded places which are now being built up, the imagination boggles at the consequences.

    2381
    The time is not too late, though it will soon be too late, to deal with this matter and to prevent these housing schemes straggling out as they are doing at present. It would be necessary to go out about 30 miles now in order to establish any scheme worth while on the lines that I have suggested.
    Take, for instance, such a scheme as that at Becontree. As a member of the London County Council at the time, I know that when that scheme was first mooted it was intended that there should be a satellite town, that industries should go there, and that there should be all the necessary amenities. Now look at it. Long, dreary, heart-breaking lines of streets of uniform houses, the only advantage of which one imagines is that they encourage temperance because a man would not be able to know his own house from the other houses if he had imbibed too freely. Those are some of the problems which are already beginning to show themselves. I ask the Minister to give particular attention to them and to see whether it does not lie in his power even yet to evolve some scheme and add to what he has done already by making a bold stand for a Government-planned scheme of housing on self-contained lines which will give us something better than the dreary miles of uniform buildings which we are now getting, and give a proper sense of communal life to these new communities which are growing up around us.
    10.24 p.m.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: We have had a very interesting and constructive Debate and on this, I think the fourth occasion on which I have wound up the annual Debate on the Ministry of Health Vote, I should like to record the fact that the note of controversy seems to be growing less and less strong. Considering the great variety of controversial subjects dealt with by the Department including housing, insurance, local government, water supplies, drought, floods, rabbits, and all the rest, considering that we administer something like £130,000,000 every year, I think I am right in claiming that the benevolent purpose of the Ministry under the aegis of my right hon. Friend and the speed with which we are carrying out certain reforms of a humane character in administration, are more and more appreciated in all quarters of the
    2382
    country. I think next year the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and who has made such an interesting speech will wind up on behalf of the Government—
    Mr. AMMON: Are you resigning?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I mean, on behalf of the Opposition, by moving a vote of thanks to the Government. I have a large number of rather technical questions to answer, and I will try to do justice to the main questions, but if any hon. Member is not answered, he will receive a letter either from my right hon. Friend or myself on the point. I will gather together some of the stray matters in connection with general policy. First of all, the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) referred to the Hadow Report on the Qualifications, Recruitment, Training, and Promotion of Local Government Officers. He will realise that this is primarily a matter for the local authorities concerned. Many of the recommendations have been approved by the great associations of local authorities, and in December of last year model standing orders were issued by the Minister, embodying many of the recommendations of the Committee with the result that they are now in force under quite a large number of local authorities.
    His next point was with regard to the milk supply, a question of very great importance, but I am glad that the only case he could give of an infected milk supply which caused an outbreak of scarlet fever did not occur in the year in respect of which the Estimates are now issued. As a matter of fact, that scarlet fever infection, if I remember rightly, was in the Eton rural district. Immediately steps were taken by the medical officer of health to pasteurise the milk, and no case has subsequently occurred, as far as I know. But the question is one of very great importance. A very great proportion of London milk is pasteurised—well over 90 per cent. of the London supply—and I think London has the safest supply of clean milk in the world.
    Mr. AMMON: The hon. Gentleman will remember that the incident I mentioned was a London matter.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I think the hon. Member will agree that the medical officer in a particular borough would have

    2383
    a very difficult task in supervising every glass and every bottle of milk, and he will not dissent from my general proposition that the supply is a very clean supply. He raised the question of the firm that acquired houses in Croydon and immediately served notices and put up the rents. This came to the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams), who got into touch with the Minister of Health and with the company and pointed out that he was going to ask a question in the House, and as a result the notices as regards controlled houses were immediately withdrawn. I am glad the hon. Gentleman raised this matter, because as he pointed out and as my right hon. Friend pointed out, there are severe penalties in the Rent Restrictions Act of 1932. I have riot got the Act by me, but I believe it is under Section 2 that any landlord who knowingly makes a statement in respect of a controlled house, that it is decontrolled, is subject to very heavy penalties, and it is just as well that the owners of property should know it.
    Several hon. Members have referred to the question of the sterilisation of the unfit. To attempt to introduce so far-reaching a change so soon after the issue of the report would not be in accordance with the usual practice.
    Sir F. ACLAND: It is over four years.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: In my experience in the House it has been discussed for only one hour on a Private Member's motion and only casually referred to on another occasion. If you are introducing a reform which so much touches religious susceptibilities, you must pause a good deal until there is a widespread demand for it.
    The hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) raised the question of nursing homes. The local authority, whether it be the county or the county borough, is responsible for the supervision of nursing homes, and I will consult with my right hon. Friend, in view of the complaints made, to see whether anything can be done to strengthen the degree of supervision. The question of contracting encephalitis from the lymph of rabbits is a medical question on which I, like the hon. Lady, am not competent to speak.
    Mrs. TATE: In due deference, I was quoting a medical man with every form of qualification after his name.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Then I will quote the opinion of a medical man equally well known, of international reputation, who is our own Chief Medical Officer of Health. In his view, and in the view of our advisers, encephalitis in rabbits is quite different from postvaccinal encephalitis in the human being. The hon. Member for Mitcham (Sir R. Meller) asked several technical questions touching the operation of the Insurance Act of last year. One was whether it had simplified the insurance scheme. I think that the evidence of those associated with approved societies is that it has simplified the administration. The changeover was naturally difficult, but as that period comes to a close I am sure that the approved societies appreciate the simplification made as a result of the new Act. He also asked what has been the effect on the finances of the approved societies owing to the contributions they are required to make to the unemployment arrears fund. The amount of levy on the contributions is at a very low rate, about one thirty-sixth and the increased revenue of the bulk of the approved societies as the result of increased employment has more than offset the levy made. The hon. Member asked about the men who were falling out of pension rights on account of long unemployment and whether they had been reinstated. The answer is that 95 per cent. of these men are now back in full pension rights owing to that Act. They number 200,000 persons. and come particularly from the distressed areas.
    Mr. G. GRIFFITHS: How many are left out?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: They consist largely of young men under 30 with small insurance records. Ninety-five per cent. of the total are back in full pension rights, The hon. Member also asked what happened to those who, fearing their pension rights were going, took the precaution of becoming voluntary contributors. The answer is that we have made regulations reinstating those men in their full pension rights and given them the opportunity to cancel their voluntary insurance. Finally, he asked that persons might have notice when their employment closes that they have a right to

    2385
    become voluntary contributors. We have been in touch with the approved societies, and issued a model form of notice in as simple language as we can, so that in such an event an employed contributor can know his or her rights. Then came my hon. Friend the Member for Elland (Mr. Levy) on the subject of water. When I heard his familiar voice it made me quite thirsty. I shall not reply to him in detail, because we have had so many little "scraps" in the past, except to say that I am not ashamed of the water supply record in the last few years. The total of the loans sanctioned for water supply in rural areas down to 1933, including the years when the unemployment grant was available, averaged just over £400,000 a year. The loans sanctioned last year totalled well over £2,000,000; in other words, the National Government has sanctioned five times the average loan totals of previous years for water supplies in the rural areas. The trouble with the National Government is we set such a level of achievement that our friends sometimes become impatient because we cannot always go at that speed.
    Then came my hon. Friend the Member for Central Sheffield (Mr. Boulton) with the question of the hardships of shopkeepers in areas where slum clearance schemes are carried out. I am sure that he knows the feelings of both my right hon. Friend and myself on this matter, and anything we can do to help by administration we will. We altered the law in favour of the shopkeeper in the Act of 1935, partly as a result of the long conversations which I or the then Minister had with him on this matter. I agree with him that it is the hardest of all cases—if the hon. Member will bring any case to our notice we will immediately take it up—because the shopkeeper not only loses the house but loses his living. We have again and again urged upon local authorities that they cannot proceed with this great national crusade if any vestige of injustice is associatd with it, and compensation in generous measure is due and is being given by the great bulk of local authorities to those disturbed by slum clearance.
    Now I turn to the main criticism against the Government on matters of general policy associated with housing. For the benefit of those hon. Members who did not go through the long debates on housing, stretching over
    2386
    three or four years, when the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) was the great protagonist, let me set out as concisely as I can the reasons why we altered the whole policy of housing and have embarked on what I think is a successful policy. At the end of 1932, when we surveyed the housing position, we found, that, although what is called the Wheatley subsidy had been utilised by local authorities, comparing the census figures for 1930 with those for 1920, and in spite of the outpouring of subsidy money, the number of overcrowded families remained constant. For some reason which I have never understood the payment of £13,000,000 or £14,000,000 a year in Wheatley and Addison subsidies had had very little effect in abating overcrowding. Moreover, slum clearance had not been touched, in spite of the good Act of the right hon. Gentleman. It was like a car lying in a garage without any petrol, without any dynamo and without anyone to drive it, and there it would have remained but for the National Government.
    Private enterprise was not competing against subsidised municipal houses. We were getting the worst out of private enterprise and the worst out of the local authority, and neither the slum tenant nor the overcrowded person was getting help from the State. The then Minister of Health said: "For 12 years there has been a subsidy to rehouse persons alleged to be in need. Let private enterprise come in to deal with the problem for those who can afford to pay, and let local authorities clear the slums, make a direct scientific attack upon overcrowding, and provide really cheap-rented houses, which are the need of the hour." I claim, with great humility, that no Member of the Opposition can stand on any platform in this country and say that any aspect of our housing policy has failed. If he goes down to any constituency in the land, a miners' constituency or any other, and stands on a platform and says that the national housing crusade has failed, he will be laughed to scorn.
    Mr. BATEY: Come to mine.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: That is true in any constituency in England or Wales.
    Mr. JOHN: Come to the Rhondda Valley.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Let me reaffirm the figures given by my right hon. Friend. In the 45 years to 1919, as regards slum clearance, the average number of people who left the slums was 2,000 a year. As regards the 10 years from 1920 to 1930, the average was 5,000 a year. Then came the 1930 Act. Before we started the crusade, in the two and a-half years from 1930 to March, 1933, the average number of people rehoused from the slums was at the rate of 15,000 a year. To summarise; the average was 2,000 in the 45 years before 1919, 5,000 in the decade afterwards, and 15,000 in the two and a-half years after 1930. Then came the crusade, and in the three and a-quarter years since April, 1933, we have given rehousing approval for 700,000 persons, of whom 400,000 are now living in new, modern homes, and as regards 250,000 the houses are in various stages of erection and the people are waiting to go in. That is a total of 117,000 persons a year dealt with under the National Government. Let any one go round the country and say: "You, the local authorities, have done it all, and the National Government stood in the way." No local authority would believe any Member who said that.
    My right hon. Friend has given figures as regards private enterprise. Let me add that not only have houses been found for a record number of persons but these houses, in the course of time, have become owned, owing to the building societies. Nothing gives greater stability than a large number of persons owning their own homes. Let me take up a point made by the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Whiteley) who made a very reasonable speech. I know his great interest in this subject, and I know how great is the housing problem in Durham. Let me assure him that if the general subsidy had remained, overcrowding and slums would not have been touched. As regards slum clearance and overcrowding, Durham has a very heavy seven or ten years before it, and I know we can rely on the hon. Gentleman's co-operation. It may be that he would like to do it in one way, that he looks with some suspicion on the North-East Coast Housing Association; but I know his interest in housing, and I know that he wants to get the men whom he serves rehoused, and that he
    2388
    will co-operate with the Durham County Council to see that that is done.
    The next contribution came from the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin), who is chairman of the Housing Committee of the London County Council. To anything that he says as a local government administrator we should naturally give serious attention, but when he talks as a politician I claim the right to answer him in his own coin. He said that the standard of the 1935 Act was too low. But who has ever claimed that it was a high standard? All that we say, as practical administrators, is that if overcrowding is to be attacked the best way to do it is to fix a standard, even if it be a low standard, and make a determined attack on that basis. If the standard fixed is one that nobody can enforce, it discourages local authorities who try to carry it out. Surely, the figure in London, namely, 7 per cent., or some 70,000 overcrowded families, shows that the standard is not too low. In the case of the London County Council housing estates, 10 per cent. of them are overcrowded on our standard. I say to the hon. Gentleman—I do not want him to admit it here to-night—that London will be busy on its slum clearance and its overcrowding programme for the next 10 years, low as the standard may be; and when London has completed that task, and when other local authorities have done likewise, from what I know of my right hon. Friend—[An HON. MEMBER: "He will be dead"]—he will be very much alive—we can then consider tightening up the standard. But I suggest to any practical housing administrator that you must choose a standard which can be enforced.
    The hon. Member referred to the reduction factor, and here again he was talking politics and not housing. The speed of slum clearance has not been affected one whit by the change with regard to the reduction factor. Indeed, the figures I have here—it may be due to the hon. Gentleman's administration—show that the speed is increasing. The same criticism applies with regard to the suggestion he made as to the time schemes take in the Ministry of Health. We are anxious to speed up as much as possible, and, if the London County Council will

    2389
    do what some local authorities do, and submit a year in advance the number of orders that they are going to send in, we can make a schedule and save a good deal of time. I know that the hon. Gentleman, like ourselves, is anxious to remove every obstacle which means that slum tenants have to live a day longer in their miserable hovels than is necessary. He referred to the technical question of the redevelopment areas, which, as anyone who knows the housing problem in London will agree, will do a great deal for the redevelopment of big tracts of London—I am thinking of the East End. There is a difficult point in administration which is so technical that I will not go into it to-night except to say this. The local authority, if anyone stands out from the re-development plan, must purchase, but the local authority can relet or even sell, so that there is no reason to anticipate any loss to the local authority if any owner is recalcitrant.
    Let me answer a request of several Members, including the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) and the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell), and give a short summary of the progress in rural areas. As regards the slum problem in the rural areas rural authorities have informed us that in five years they have 38,000 slum houses to deal with. It is interesting to compare that total with the overcrowding total which is now coming in. The total of overcrowded houses in rural districts is something in the neighbourhood of 43,000 for England and Wales, and hon. Members will agree that if you have to deal with 38,000 slum houses and 43,000 overcrowded houses, in respect of which subsidy is available, it will take the rural districts all their time to overcome these bad housing conditions within the next five years.
    Let me say a word about the 1926 Act. Progress in respect of this Act for some reason or other has not gone nearly as well in England and Wales as in Scotland. Scotland has reconditioned some 23,000 houses and England and Wales only some 11,500 houses. Devon County Council, which takes pride of place, has reconditioned 1,400 houses. Then come East Suffolk and Essex. Of rural district councils Liskeard in Cornwall, Atcham in Shropshire and Durham are the three best.
    2390
    More use can be made of this Act. By putting on a new roof or installing a bathroom a picturesque cottage can be made fit for human habitation with, at most, a slight increase of rent. The landlord cannot increase the rent except on the lines laid down in the Statute. The Minister has referred the operation of this Act to the strong advisory committee which is advising him on all these matters, and we hope that as a result of their advice, which I expect will be on the lines of giving increased publicity, which is the essence of this business, to what can be done under the Act, we shall see further progress in the next few years. The question of community centres was raised in a charming speech by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell (Major Guest). Nothing is quite so deadly as a housing estate with no recreational or community interests. What always strikes me about foreign housing estates—I am thinking of Vienna—is that, in the Karl Marx block, for instance, some of the houses are allocated to members of the professional classes, doctors, lawyers and so on, and you get a difference of type and leadership under those conditions.
    I am sure the work that is being done by the National Council of Social Service is a very great work, bringing about a sense of civic responsibility and developing social instincts. My right hon. Friend has sent out a circular to local authorities pointing out that we shall always encourage the provision of these community centres. Since we have consolidated all the housing accounts together, the maintenance of these community centres becomes a part of the housing account and, where there is a surplus in the housing account, owing to the generous subsidies available to the local authorities, it may be utilised for the maintenance of such centres. Moreover, if it is a juvenile centre, there is a 50 per cent. grant from the Board of Education. With this provision, and the encouragement that my right hon. Friend has promised to give, we hope that, with the co-operation of local authorities, in these new housing estates that are growing up all over the country and in those now existing there will be facilities for communal activity, recreation and leadership.
    The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths) asked what are the rights

    2391
    of a diabetic who through poverty cannot obtain insulin, or perhaps a diabetic who is the wife of a man in work. Can she go to public assistance or is she disqualified by the fact that the husband is in work? If a diabetic is insured, of course he gets insulin free, but there is a provision in Section 133 of the Public Health Act, 1875, by which local authorities, on getting the sanction of the Ministry of Health, can issue medicines free to poor persons, and that would cover the wife of a miner working three or four shifts a week and getting, say, 30s. who could not afford five or six shillings a week for insulin. If the hon. Member has any case in mind and will notify us, we will immediately take it up with the local authority. A poor person can go to the public assistance authority and get insulin free over and above any allowance he or she is entitled to as a poor person. I hope that meets the hon. Member's point.
    10.59 p.m.
    Mr. SEXTON: It seems a great anomaly, living as I do amidst the hills, where there is plenty of water, that many rural villages have to go without water. We in the western part of Durham provide water for the towns in the east, but for the villages themselves there is practically no supply. I believe the hon. Gentleman is a water diviner. We do not need his help in Durham. We need not water, but money spent by the Special Commissioner or the Ministry to bring water to the houses in the rural villages. We must all realise the value of a good water supply. When we compare the supply in the towns with ours the towns are to be envied.
    It being Eleven of the Clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

    PUBLIC HEALTH BILL [Lords].
    Order for Second Reading read.
    11.2 p.m.
    Sir K. WOOD: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
    I would like the House to realise that this is an important Bill, which, I think,
    2392
    will be of great benefit to administrators up and down the country. It represents a further important stage in the task which successive Ministers of Health have set themselves of consolidating and bringing up to date the statute law of the administration of the Ministries for which their Department is responsible. This Bill represents the work of the Departmental Committee set up in 1930 by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood). The committee first sat under the chairmanship of the late Lord Chelmsford, and when the Local Government Act reached the Statute Book, the committee was reconstituted under the chairmanship of Lord Addington. Upon the committee which considered this Bill were three Members of this House the hon. and gallant Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner), my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Captain A. Evans), and my hon. Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Petherick), and there were also on the committee representatives of the four principal associations of local authorities. The Bill applies to the whole of England and Wales with minor exceptions, but it does not include the County of London. A further Bill promoted by the London County Council is now before the House, and deals with the public health law of London.
    This Bill represents the first instalment of the public health law and covers a large proportion, and perhaps the most important sections of that branch of the law. I will not at this late hour do more than ask hon. Members to look at the contents of this Bill in order to see the vast extent of its operations. It was introduced into another place, and was referred to a Joint Select Committee of both Houses. Evidence was given, and as a result of their examination a number of Amendments were made. The Bill is not technically a consolidation Bill. The Committee have made a number of drafting and other Amendments in order to reduce to a uniform and intelligible code the collection of Sections scattered over some 55 Acts of Parliament dating back to the Public Health Act, 1875. They have also introduced a certain number of provisions which Parliament has regularly approved in local legislation. The explanations are to be found in detail in the report of the Departmental

    2393
    Committee. I will give two points by way of illustration. One is that opportunity is taken to clear up long-standing doubts and difficulties with regard to public sewers—on all these matters and others it has only been possible to do this where substantial agreement has been reached—and also in regard to some of the provisions for by-law-making powers which should prove of great value to owners and builders. The Bill is not put forward as an ideal code of public health law but rather as the foundation on which future amendments should be solidly built.
    In conclusion, I should like to express my indebtedness, particularly to the Members of this House, who sat many days and did great work in connection with the Measure. I am much indebted also to the local authorities, the various classes of statutory undertakers, and the representatives of property and industry who have helped and co-operated in order to make this a substantially agreed Measure. It has been a great effort, compressing into 356 Sections 600 Sections of the existing law, and I think it will be agreed by anyone who is versed in these matters that it will mean great simplification and clarification of the law, and will prove of value alike to those concerned with public health administration and to owners and their advisers, and the general public.
    Mr. R. C. MORRISON: In the event of the Bill being passed this Session, when will it come into force?
    Sir K. WOOD: Immediately, I think.
    11.7 p.m.
    Major MILNER: As one of those who for some five years has had the somewhat laborious task of sitting on the committee which made recommendations resulting in the Local Government Act and made recommendations which have resulted in the present Bill, I should like to say a few words to commend the Measure to the House. It is the second Bill of a somewhat similar kind which has resulted from the action referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, namely, the instruction or request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), when he was Minister of Health in 1930, for the setting up of the committee which has made these recommendations. It must be a source of
    2394
    great gratification to my right hon. Friend that another of the many craft which he launched in those difficult times has almost reached port. In saying that, I do not reflect in the least on the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister of Health, whose interest in this Bill has been as great as that of my right hon. Friend.
    There are three observations that I should like to make. The first is, that the House will appreciate that the Bill does not purport to deal with the whole of public health. If hon. Members will turn to the somewhat voluminous report of the Committee they will see that the Bill refers in particular to those provisions of a strictly public health character which relate to the prevention and treatment of disease. Such matters as environment, drains and sewers, buildings, water supply, the abatement of nuisances, personal hygiene, the provision of hospitals, maternity centres, etc. There is still a great deal of ground to be covered in regard to public health before a complete consolidation of the provisions in the various Public Health and analogous Acts has been brought about. There is still a great deal of work for that particular Committee to do.
    My second observation is, that the Bill is not purely a consolidation Bill, because the first instruction given to the Committee was that they should recommend
    "what Amendments of the existing law are desirable for facilitating consolidation and securing simplicity, uniformity and conciseness."
    Within those limits the Committee have thought it right to make a number of minor suggestions by way of bringing about uniformity, for example, between the powers of different authorities, which is so very desirable. To me it was remarkable how many differences had grown up during many years in the methods and powers of various classes of local authorities, and a useful piece of work has been done in bringing uniformity into these matters. Then again a number of adoptive Acts had been incorporated in the general law by the provisions of the Bill, but that has only been done where it was thought right to make them of general application. It will serve a useful purpose and result in a simplication of what was somewhat complicated law in regard to the different powers of various classes of authorities. Another useful piece of work is that

    2395
    hitherto, in these Public Health Acts, penalties in regard to various offences have ranged from £50 to 20s., and, except in the case of very serious offences, the Committee have recommended, and there are provisions in the Bill, that the penalties should be a maximum of £5. That, I am sure, will commend itself to hon. Members. As a member of the Committee I regret, and I am sure other members of the Committee regret, that it has not been possible to make Amendments of a more substantial character; but the Committee thought it right to adhere strictly to the limit which was laid down by the right hon. Member for Wakefield.
    I should like to pay a tribute to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health for what he has done, and also to the officials of the Department—the Committee appreciate what the officials have done to simplify their work—and lastly to the Parliamentary draftsman, who has consolidated many complicated provisions into the simple text of the Bill. Let me also pay a tribute to the representatives of local authorities, urban and rural associations, who sat on the Committee and greatly assisted in the work. I heartily commend the Bill to the House.
    11.14 p.m.
    Sir F. ACLAND: I should like to add a few words in support of the Bill. I only came into the proceedings of the Committee at a late stage but I entirely endorse what has been said. The Bill will be of great assistance to local authorities and other persons concerned with Private Bill legislation before this House, and that is one of the main reasons for passing the Measure as soon as we can. The spirit in which the different parties who composed the Committee approached their task was that although we were, as has been indicated, tempted to make further Amendments than actually were made, we felt that if any suggested Amendment would be likely to meet with opposition in any quarter of the House, it ought not to be made. We felt that the Bill would act as a basis for further amendment as time and opportunity offers, but that we must keep our amending ardour within bounds. There was one thing we did which I thought was unwise. We made measles a notifiable disease, and that is the only
    2396
    thing that is on my conscience, and which I think we did wrongly. It is not a very usual process to consolidate and amend, and it may be a little suspected when it does happen; but I am certain that in this instance it has been useful in small matters. Things that had got a little out-of-date were brought up-to-date by the amendments, and it was possible to adopt some of the best practices of local authorities as part of the general law. I think the result is a very useful one, and I hope the House will consider it favourably and pass the Bill to-night.
    11.17 p.m.
    Mr. CROOM-JOHNSON: Any member of my profession welcomes consolidation of Statutes, and I desire to join with hon. and right hon. Members who have laid emphasis on the value that this particular Bill will have, when it has arrived on the Statute Book, to those who have to administer the Acts and particularly to those who have to advise those who administer them. I wish to take this opportunity of calling attention to the fact that it is nearly 12 years—I believe it was in 1925—since the last general Act amending the Public Health Act was passed in this House. There is no doubt that there is a considerable lag between what the law dealing with these matters ought to be and what it is as it will be declared by this Act, and there is no doubt also that one of the reasons there are so many provisions put into the Private Bill legislation with which this House is burdened is that the Statutes have not been brought up to date and that a great many of the problems which have arisen in the last 11 years are not dealt with, or are not dealt with sufficiently and in an up-to-date way, in the law as it stands.
    Now that this Bill is to become an Act of Parliament, it will be possible for us to see clearly in one Statute how serious that lag is between the law as it is and the law as a great many of us think it ought to be, or as we should like it to be; and instead of having to hunt through all sorts of Sections and Statutes we shall be able to see exactly what is the position by consulting the 200 odd Sections of this particular Act. I hope we shall have the opportunity before very long of having a general Bill amending the law as it stands. Perhaps I may be permitted to remind the House that it so happens that the last Statute which

    2397
    amended the Public Health Act was the result of a Private Member's Bill, and although I do not hope that I and my friends who have been taking an active part in looking after Private Bill legislation in this House will have the time or the energy to introduce such a Bill, I hope nevertheless we shall see one at a very early date.
    11.20 p.m.
    Mr. TINKER: All the hon. Members who have spoken have commended the Bill, and I do not intend to stand in the way of its being passed to-night, but on an occasion such as this, I wish to put one or two questions to the Minister of Health based on a question I put in the House and on which I received assurance from him. In April last I put a question regarding the conditions in certain parts of the country where there are derelict buildings and old mines, and places where water has lodged. I asked him what powers local authorities had to deal with those matters and he told me that Clauses 57 and 259 of the Bill which was then being dealt with in another place had some bearing on the subject. In the latest copy of the Measure I find that the former Clause 57 which is now Clause 58 has some reference to the question and so has Clause 259 but they do not go all the way, or at any rate not as far as I would like in dealing with it. One of the questions which I put to the right hon. Gentleman was as to what would happen if local authorities reclaimed this land and made it useful by destroying the derelict buildings and removing debris and pit heaps. Could the owner of the land—which had been of no use to him before the local authorities reconditioned it—then come along and claim it? There is nothing in the Measure to deal with that point, and I would like the Minister to explain the position.
    This is not a purely consolidating Measure. There are certain minor Amendments of the existing law which take it outside the category of consolidating Measures and in regard to Section 91 of the old Act of 1875, which is being continued by Clause 92 of the Bill, I would like to ask the Minister what are the powers of local authorities to deal with burning pit-heaps and whether any amendment of the law is being made in respect of that matter. I have pressed this question on the
    2398
    Minister's attention several times and I have been referred to Section 91 of the old Act. I wish to know whether any of the minor changes which are now being made by this Bill cover that point. The old Act did not give that power to local authorities to deal with that menace which one would desire and the Minister should tell us whether anything is being done in this comprehensive Measure to end the evil. In the five years during which we have been pressing this question on the notice of the Government something might have been done. Only a slight amendment of the law is required and I would like to know from the Minister whether it is not possible to do something in connection with this Bill.
    We all realise the difficulty of this kind of thing, and it was only last week that the medical officer of health for the Wigan area was calling attention to the trouble that arises, and he could not see how it could be dealt with under the existing Act. I would not like to think we are taking a comprehensive Measure like this and patting ourselves on the backs about the wonderful progress we have made, and the agreement between my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner) and the hon. Members opposite, and yet not dealing with this particular question. There is always danger when we find so much common agreement on all sides. I might be tempted to give a meed of praise to the right hon. Gentleman if he would satisfy me on this point, and I hope he will because I am diffident of giving praise to anybody. I have pressed this matter so often in this House, I have sat here for two Sessions week after week, every Tuesday night, appealing to hon. Members opposite to give way to my little Bill, and I have had to say "next Tuesday," but I am taking this opportunity of asking the right hon. Gentleman, before the Committee stage comes along, to assist me in my desire to put in some Amendment, if it is not already in, bearing on this terrible evil.
    11.27 p.m.
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: As one of those who served on the Joint Select Committee, perhaps I may also say that I think this is a good Bill. The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) knows that

    2399
    I have a considerable measure of sympathy with him on the point he has raised, because he and I have discussed it outside the Chamber. The more Consolidation Bills we get, the better I am pleased. The right hon. Gentleman this Session has, I think, five altogether going through. In addition to being a Consolidation Bill, this is what I might call a tidying-up Bill, which is quite important, and it is not only consolidating the general public law, but it is regarding as bringing into the general public law those Sections of private Acts which have been passed very frequently, and they are now given to those few municipalities that do not possess them. It therefore represents a substantial advance. On the other hand, the Bill, quite properly, does not attempt to do what may be called any general amendment of the law, because that is not its purpose.
    There is one feature of the Bill about which I am very pleased. On two occasions, in conjunction with hon. Friends of mine, I have helped to bring about the defeat of a Bill known as the Offices Regulation Bill on the ground that the existing law was adequate. I rejoice that the re-definitions which are contained in this Bill make clear what are the duties of the sanitary authorities with regard to nuisances arising in connection with offices, and I honestly believe that this Bill, when it becomes law, will deal with all the grievances which have existed in the past and which have led to the agitation for the Offices Regulation Bill. I warmly congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the fact that in all probability this Bill will shortly be an Act of Parliament
    11.29 p.m.
    Mr. R. J. TAYLOR: I desire to associate myself with my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) in urging upon the Minister of Health to give some encouragement to the local authorities that they will have the necessary powers to deal with the terrible nuisance and the awful danger that exists in our mining areas. I feel it to be my duty, although it is not my purpose to keep the House long, to say a word or two on this matter. I have been pressed in my division time and again to raise this matter in the House, and during the
    2400
    short time I have been here I have endeavoured to put their point of view. Recently I had a communication which leads me to believe that the County Councils' Association has been pressing the Minister of Health, evidently with the knowledge that this question was coming before the House, to do something to strengthen the Act in a way that would give county councils power to deal with burning pit-heaps.
    I am quite alive to the difficulties of the problem, but this evil is not an old one; it is continually recurring. If the Department have looked around this question and have endeavoured to deal with it in a practical way, and have found that the difficulties of dealing with existing heaps are such that they have not been able to solve the problem, well and good, but new heaps are continually being commenced. I have in mind at the moment one that was commenced not more than 15 months ago. There are thousands of tons of stuff in that heap—stone mixed with coal—and it is now smouldering, and in a short time will be a raging mass. Within 100 yards of that heap are the houses of the people. If nothing can be done with the existing heaps, cannot something he done to prevent a repetition of this nuisance in our mining districts? I drew attention some time ago to the serious danger of these flaming heaps at night, and it has been taken up in other parts of the country, especially on the North-East Coast. I do not want to go into that, but I urge the Minister to hold out some hope that local authorities will have the necessary power and the necessary cash to do the job.
    11.34 p.m.
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I appreciate the tribute which has been paid by the hon. and gallant Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner) to the work done by the staff of the Ministy on this Bill in the last four or five years; it has been intensely arduous work. May I also pay a tribute to the hon. and gallant Member, to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), to the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams), and others who have been doing this work? There has been no glory attached to it, and we are very grateful to them.
    As regards measles, we shall have a suggestion to make in Committee which,

    2401
    I hope, will ease the conscience of the right hon. gentleman. The operative date of the Act is fixed in the Bill as 1st April, 1937, but there again, a suggestion will be made in Committee. With reference to burning slag heaps, if ever there is a chance of getting anything done the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) is himself like a burning slag heap. I wish I could assure him that this Bill, which is primarily a consolidation measure, would do that for which he has been pressing, but it is a rule of this House that in a consolidation Bill dealing with health matters you are not entitled to insert wide powers relating to amenities. However I have his point in mind.
    Mr. TINKER: But as to the power to deal with old buildings?
    Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Under Clauses 58 and 92 the powers are set forth, and I shall be pleased to consult with the hon. Member to see whether we can do anything to stop what has occurred. If health is involved the powers are there, but that is not so if it is a case of amenities.
    Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow.—[Captain Margesson.]

    PUBLIC HEALTH [EXPENSES]
    Considered in Committee, under Standing Order No. 69.
    [Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]
    Motion made, and Question proposed.
    "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to consolidate with amendments certain enactments relating to public health, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister of Health under the said Act in exercising any powers of a council, port, health authority, or joint board subject, however, to the recovery of those expenses from the council, authority, or board in question in manner provided by the said Act." [King's Recommendation signified.]—[Sir K. Wood.]
    11.38 p.m.
    Sir K. WOOD: This is a small matter. For the reasons stated in the Financial Memorandum, this Financial Resolution is little more than a formality. It is required for the purpose of Clause 324,
    2402
    which enables the Minister to default a local authority. The only difference between the Clause and the existing law is that the Clause, following more modern practice, states in terms that expenditure incurred by the Minister in exercising these powers is to be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament pending its recovery from the local authority. This is to enable me to act immediately where I have to take action in default of the local authority, and to proceed afterwards for the recovery of any costs that may have been incurred. But I doubt whether such a case is ever likely to arise, because generally an intimation from the Minister is sufficient.
    Mr. KELLY: Is the Minister taking more powers to recover the money than has been the practice in the past?
    Sir K. WOOD: No, Sir.
    Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

    WEIGHTS AND MEASURES BILL.
    Order for Consideration of Lords Amendments read.
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered," put, and agreed to.—[Captain Margesson.]
    Lords Amendments considered accordingly.

    CLAUSE 4.—(Conveyance notes in respect of sand or ballast.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 6, line 11, at the beginning, insert,
    "Subject to the provisions of the next following subsection."
    11.42 p.m.
    The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    The Amendments, of which this forms the first, are rather more than drafting Amendments, but they are such that I hope the House will agree with them all. I think I might give a word of explanation in moving the acceptance of this one. The Amendments, except the last, are to Clause 4. During the passage of the Bill, in this House and in Committee,

    2403
    certain fears were expressed with regard to drivers of vehicles, and hon. Members in different parts of the House thought that the Bill dealt rather hardly with them. All these Amendments which have been inserted in another place are meant to safeguard still further the position of drivers of such vehicles.
    The Amendments fall into three groups. The first is in regard to inspectors of weights and measures. The new Amendment makes it necessary that, when he examines a vehicle or calls for the production of a conveyance note, he should produce some paper or card to show that he is an inspector. Therefore, the driver is now safeguarded from interference by unauthorised persons. The second group of Amendments deals with the carriage of small quantities. In the earlier stages of the Bill, the Clause related the offence to the driver, who had to show that the transaction was outside the Act. Under the Amendment, it is simply provided that the offence shall not apply where small quantities are being carried. That again assists the driver. The third group of Amendments deals with deficiencies in weight. When we last saw the Bill, it was provided that it should be a defence for the driver to show that the deficiency was either due to consolidation or to drainage, or that he had not previously known of the deficiency and could not, by the exercise of reasonable care, have previously discovered it. In other words, it left the onus of proof upon the driver. The other place has turned that round by putting the onus of proof on the prosecution, while, at the same time, it requires the driver to see that the proper amount was in the vehicle before he started. The total effect of the three groups is to assist the position of the driver, which was a matter of some concern to this House.
    11.44 p.m.
    Mr. EDE: When the Bill was last before the House it was championed on
    2404
    behalf of the Government by the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, with the great courtesy and detailed knowledge which we all associate with him. We are all, I am sure, very sorry that he is unable to be here to-night. That does not make us any less pleased to see the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary for Mines, in a less controversial role than that in which he usually appears, in this House. The groups of Amendments lose nothing from the way in which he has explained them to the House.
    As one who took some share in the discussion of the Bill. I think the Amendments make, on the whole, for the smooth working of the Measure. They will probably make it easier to enforce by the local authorities. Should a case have to come before a court of summary jurisdiction, the issue to be dealt with will probably be simplified, and the result will be that the person convicted will really be the one who had guilty knowledge of the offence that had been committed. As far as I, and, I hope, those who have been associated with me in regard to the Bill, are concerned, I do not think it is necessary to oppose the Amendments that have been made in another place.
    Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to.
    The remaining Orders were read and postponed.
    It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at Twelve Minutes before Twelve o'Clock.