OFFICE OF WORKS AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS. (Hansard, 9 February 1937)

§ Mr. Lawson
I do not see the representative of the Office of Works.

§ Sir George Penny (Treasurer of the Household)
He is just coming.

§ Mr. Lawson
There is an item here on page 24 dealing with additional staff.

§ Mr. Ede
Move to report Progress.

§ Mr. Lawson
I do not know whether it is necessary to move the Adjournment. There is an item on page 24 dealing with an expenditure of £31,000 for the purpose of additional staff engaged in connection with work on War Office factories and overtime in the various drawing offices.

§ Mr. Ede
Where is the Minister?

§ Mr. Lawson
I expect the Minister's officers will be making notes on this matter. The hon. Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) will perceive that he is getting quite popular. I want to ask the Minister if he can tell us what this item is for and how many workers are involved. The Estimate says that the expenditure is for additional staff engaged for work in connection with War Office factories. Can he tell us how many additional staff there are and where the members of this staff are engaged? Where are these factories which are being established? It would be useful if the hon. Gentleman could tell us how many of these factories there are. I am not one of those who want to make a 295 special point that these factories should be built in the Special Areas. There are some who make that claim, but it would be of interest to know how many factories there are, how many additional workers there are engaged and what their rates of wages are. There is an item, too, dealing with overtime. Are the workers concerned technical workers? How many are there, and can this overtime be reasonably justified? Those of us who know anything about industry know that there are cases where you can justify overtime, where men who are extremely expert in technical matters are necessary; but they are very rare cases, and there are some industries as well as some professions in which the tendency is to fall back on overtime without any real justification. I think the House would be interested to know the class of workers concerned, the class of work they are engaged in, and what is the reason for this expenditure on overtime.

§ Mr. Maxton
There is an item on page 24 of casual savings. That strikes me as a new phrase in these Supplementary Estimates, but savings of this casual kind, amounting to £5,500, seem to be a very substantial amount to be saved in a casual way. I want to know exactly where these savings have been made. Does it mean that because additional expenditure has been involved in War Office extension that work in connection with the Post Office and in the building of Employment Exchanges has been cut down? Does it mean that a sum of £5,500 has been saved at the expense of developments which ought to have taken place if this special work had not been undertaken by the Department?

§ Mr. Ede
I should like to ask a question with regard to the arrangements which have been made for the recruitment by the Department of the additional labour for the drawing offices and the additional professional staff for work on these various buildings. It is a matter of complaint among local authorities that it is almost impossible for them to get the services of quantity surveyors and draughtsmen because their advisers say that their staffs have been taken by Government Departments. I have to go to the Board of Education in the course of 296 a few days in regard to an excess of expenditure which has been incurred by a local authority owing to a failure to get quantity surveyors in sufficient time to go into the tenders, whereby the estimate has been increased by 30 per cent. The allegation now is that where local authorities employ outside professional people to do this work it is being much delayed. Have the Government done anything to implement the promise made when the armaments campaign was started that costings would be carried out by the Department to prevent excessive prices being paid? My experience is that no effective steps have been taken, and I hope the Minister will assure us that this work is being so organised that while the Government get a sufficient amount of professional advice enough will be left over to enable the ordinary civil and business work to be carried on. It is quite wrong to take all the professional advice in this matter and leave local authorities stranded.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. R. S. Hudson)
I apologise to the Committee for not being in my place when the Estimates were called. I would point out that there are three items which are common to the various Estimates of the Office of Works: First, the new Defence programme, which in nearly all the Estimates causes a certain increase; secondly, the increased cost of fuel and, thirdly, the increased salaries which are being paid at the moment. As regards fuel, that increase is accounted for by the fact that when the Estimates were originally framed in 1935 we did not know that there was going to be an increased price, but when the tenders came in last year we found that we had to pay an increase of about 17.5 per cent, for fuel.

§ Mr. Lawson
Was that increase in coal or coke?

§ Mr. Hudson
I think in the majority of cases it was an increase in the price of coke. As regards salaries, some of the draughtsmen are now entitled to the increased salaries which were agreed to with the respective associations. Certain members of the parks staff also now enjoy higher salaries than when the Estimates were originally framed. For example, in the case of draughtsmen; Class I started at £373 and increased by £18 per year 297 to £515; now they start at £450 and increase by £18 per year to £550. Class II started at £277 and rose to £373; now, they start at £320 and rise to £420. Class III started at £202 and rose to £277; now they start at £210 and rise to £320. The Committee will realise that these increases represent a substantial portion of the increased amount for which I am asking the authority of the Committee. Then there is the Defence programme which inevitably involves a great dislocation in the work of the Office of Works, because they have acceded to the request of the War Office to act as their agents in the setting up of special ordnance filling factories which are to be erected at Chorley, Bridgend, Bishopton and Irvine. Naturally an increased staff is required for the preparation of the plans and the supervision of the work. Some of the staff had to be taken away from existing work, and we have had to get an increase of staff, which was not easy to find, and which possibly may have had some of the results referred to by the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) although I cannot think it could have had much effect because the increase of staff amounted to only 112. These three items account for the increase to which reference has been made. As I have said, the total number of new staff amounts to 112 and it includes architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and others.

§ Mr. Maxton
Are they all Government appointments?

§ Mr. Hudson
Not permanent. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) asked whether as a result of the Defence programme work which otherwise would have been done for the Post Office was left undone. I suppose it would be impossible to answer that in the negative, but he will be aware that every year, owing to unforeseen circumstances, some work fails to be completed or sometimes undertaken during the financial year, and I do not think there is anything special in this casual saving.

§ Mr. Morgan Jones
I am surprised to hear the Parliamentary Secretary say that certain work has had to be set aside. Some hon. Members are interested in a scheme which is long overdue, namely, the Whitehall Development Scheme. There are large numbers of offices in Whitehall where employés of the Govern- 298 ment are working under conditions which are exceedingly deleterious to health, and this means that for the sake of the armaments campaign work on the Whitehall scheme has to be put off altogether. This is rather serious. I should like to know whether we are to understand that this important scheme has to some extent been put off. The Minister spoke of fuel, but I do not think he was over-confident in his reply as to whether it was coal or oil. What is the position in Whitehall? Are they turning, as many other offices in our towns and cities are, towards oil fuel, or are they maintaining the old method of heating by coal? We shall be glad to know. We in South Wales are interested in coal not for the purpose of holding up any progress in the matter of heating our public buildings, but because it is of some moment to us in regard to unemployment. Our unemployment arises from the lack of orders for coal, and if the Government can give us an assurance that for the present coal remains the main source of heat in Government offices, we shall be encouraged thereby. I hope the Minister will reply on these points. I think an expenditure of about £2,000,000 is involved in the Whitehall scheme, and it is thus an important contribution to the absorption of any unemployed in the building trade.

§ Mr. Hudson
There is included in the Supplementary Estimate an item for part of new buildings which are to be devoted to an extension of Scotland Yard. We are asking in a later Vote for authority for that expenditure. There is nothing in this particular Vote dealing with the Whitehall scheme. In regard to the question of fuel, the bulk of the increase has been due to an increase in coke prices, which I believe have been from 3s. 6d. to 6s. per ton, and in the case of coal an increase of 2S. to 3s. per ton. It has meant an increase of 17.5 per cent. in the cost of fuel.

§ Mr. Lawson
Has the Office of Works any item showing on what this increase in the price of coke and coal is based? Miners had an increase during last year. They were given half what they asked for. They asked for an increase of something like 10 per cent., but they were only given 5 per cent., or 1s. in the pound, yet it would seem that in the case of nearly all increases in the 299 expenditure of public offices, wherever they take place, whether of local or municipal bodies or the Government, it is always given out that the increase in the miners' wages has had something to do with that increased expenditure.

§ Mr. Hudson
I never said that.

§ Mr. Lawson
No, and I know that the hon. Gentleman has too accurate a knowledge of these matters to make any such statement, but it is an extraordinary state of things. I think the hon. Gentleman said there had been an increase of 5s. or 6s. per ton paid for coke, and I should be interested to know what the items are that go to make up that increase. If the increase goes to the workers, the producers of the coal, there is no quarrel about it. I know it is difficult to ask the hon. Gentleman to give us, on the spur of the moment, an itemised bill of costs and comparisons, but I was startled by his statement that there had been an increase of 5s. or 6s. a ton—

§ The Temporary Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew)
I cannot see that this Vote has anything to do with coke.

§ Mr. Lawson
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that as one of the explanations for the increased expenditure, and it seems to me that it is important, on a Vote of this kind, that we should at least have some general indication as to the cause of that increase. May I ask the hon. Gentleman what increase there has been in the price of the contracts that the Office of Works has had to make with the various firms? The workers are the last people who want to see anyone exploited, and they are very anxious to see that the Office of Works is not exploited. Quite frankly, there is an opportunity for the Office of Works to render a public service by pointing out to people exactly what the increased contract prices have been. If the hon. Member could give us an item of that kind, it would be of no small importance to the public, and I can assure him that it would be of no small importance to the miners and other producers of these various by-products.

§ Mr. Hudson
I quite appreciate the desire of the hon. Member to obtain in- 300 formation of this sort, and I think everyone appreciates it. The only difficulty in which I find myself is that the question how that increase of price arises is really not the concern of the Department for which I happen to be answering. I foresaw that hon. Members opposite would ask a question of this nature in the course of the Debate, and I had a word with my hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary for Mines before the Debate started and asked him if he could account for this increase. He gave me some very interesting general information on the subject and the results to the miners.

§ The Temporary Chairman
I really cannot allow this discussion to continue.

§ Mr. Hudson
I am afraid, Sir Charles, that it is my fault, but before you came into the Chair I suggested that I might deal, at the beginning of these Estimates, with certain elements which ran through all of them, and those elements included fuel. But really it is not a matter for the Department which I am now representing to explain why these prices have risen. All that we do is to put our demands out to tender, and we accept the lowest satisfactory tenders. The reason for the price rising is a matter, I submit, for the Secretary for Mines and not for this Department.

§ Mr. Lawson
On a point of Order. Is not this a very general Estimate for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Works and Buildings, and does it not deal with the whole carrying-on of the Office?

§ The Temporary Chairman
The point that we have to deal with has reference to the additional staff engaged.

§ Mr. Maxton
On a point of Order. Is it your Ruling, Sir Charles, that while we can discuss the reasons for the increase in the price of fuel, it must be on Class VII, Vote 7, and not on Class VII, Vote 6?

§ The Temporary Chairman
That is so.

§ Mr. Hudson
I submit, with all respect, that to give the reasons for the increase in price would be out of order on the Office of Works Vote.

§ Mr. Maxton
If you pay too much for your coal, we have got to know why.

§ Mr. Viant
I am rather concerned with the question of overtime, which has been mentioned, because while I am not charging the Office of Works with working an undue amount of overtime, in view of what has happened and is happening in other Government Departments, I feel it desirable that the point should be raised now, in order that we might safeguard the position and, if possible, persuade the Office of Works to set a good example in this respect. One Government Department in the last 20 months worked no less than 4,000,000 hours overtime. It is true that it was the Post Office, but the Prime Minister within the last two years made an appeal to private employers in this country not to work their employés overtime, and I think it is high time that Government Departments should set a good example in this regard. When the subject of overtime is mentioned and we find that the Office of Works has admitted that some of the increased expenditure is due to overtime, I think we are justified in making an appeal to the hon. Gentleman to use his influence to see that overtime is not embarked upon while men are unemployed.
I am willing to admit that there is a possibility that some of the men required for the technical work in a draughtsman's office and such like may not be easily procured, but I am not persuaded that such men are not at present seeking employment, and I make an appeal to the hon. Gentleman to use his utmost power to see that this labour is secured and that no overtime is embarked upon until the available labour is exhausted. Every Government Department, I think, can and should set a good example in this regard to private employers. I hope we may have a favourable reply and that we may know exactly the extent to which overtime is being worked by this Department at present. It will then be possible to put down a question at a later stage, a month or two months hence, and to find out exactly whether the overtime is being restricted, extended, or removed altogether.

§ Mr. Hudson
The hon. Member for West Willesden (Mr. Viant) really cannot have listened to what his own colleague, the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said. That hon. Member complained 302 that, as a result of our recruiting extra staff, local authorities were being hindered in their work. I have already said that we have met with great difficulties in recruiting extra staff. Considering the difficulties of the situation, I think the Department for which I am speaking is to be congratulated on having worked so little overtime. A certain amount was obviously necessary in view of the delay in finding the necessary staff. We have recruited 112 extra people, and when I say that out of a total sum involved of £20,000,000 the total amount of overtime worked for which I am asking supplementary provision is only £15,000, I think hon. Members will agree that it is not a very big figure.

§ Mr. Ede
I should not have risen again but for the last sentences in the answer of the hon. Member to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson). It is not my idea of the duty of a Government or of any other Department when they get a tender merely to take the lowest and to pass no comment on it. I asked in my earlier remarks—and while the hon. Gentleman replied to the easy part of what I put to him, he left this part unanswered, because it was rather more difficult—Has this Department done anything to establish a costings department so as to make quite sure that the figures which they are asked to pay in respect of these munition and other buildings are reasonable? I asked that because the answer that is now being given to every local authority which complains of the rise in the cost of public buildings is that the Government are now in the market for such big building work that it is impossible to get the materials and that the prices have risen.
The instance that I gave in my earlier speech was that 12 months ago a technical institute was estimated to cost £107,000, and when the tenders were opened, towards the end of last month—there were 18 tenders from the biggest firms in the London neighbourhood—they ranged from £138,000 to £149,000, which I think is very good tendering, and when the architect was asked to account for the extraordinary discrepancy between those figures and the estimate, his answer was that the competition of Government Departments for building materials was leading to this rise in prices. We were assured last year by various Ministers that the 303 utmost efforts would be made by the Government to check rises in prices and to see that no unduly high prices were paid. Obviously, as far as these buildings are concerned, it is the duty of the Office of Works to see that a proper costings department is set up so that the prices they are asked to pay can be checked. I am sure that at the moment the Government are setting the pace for a general increase in the cost of public buildings by the prices they are prepared to pay. I would like to have an answer from the Parliamentary Secretary on that point.

§ Mr. Hudson
I can give the hon. Member an assurance that we have a costings arrangement with the War Office, and that full advantage is taken by the Office of Works, of it.