HC Deb 01 March 1938 vol 332 cc1000-7

Motion made, and Question proposed: That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £81,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Works and Public Buildings.

7.54 p.m.

Mr. Viant

On this Estimate, Item A, Salaries, etc., there is a saving on vacant posts amounting to £16,700, but there is an item of £24,000 for overtime. We ought to have an explanation of those items. It is rather deplorable that there should be an expenditure of £24,000 for overtime when we have nearly 2,000,000 people unemployed. It should be the purpose and function of Government Departments, where work is available, to endeavour to spread the work out and to absorb as many of the unemployed as possible. I admit that there are occasions when that is almost impossible, but we are entitled to some explanation why there should be this enormous expenditure on overtime. When an ordinary individual is receiving his or her week's wages or salary, that should be sufficient to enable the recipient to live a reasonable life. No one should be expected to work overtime, and Government Departments ought to give a lead in the right direction. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give a satisfactory explanation of the reason for this vast expenditure on overtime.

7.55 p.m.

Sir P. Sassoon

I very much regret the necessity for overtime. I would far prefer that we should be able to engage the additional staff that we need, but this is a case of professional staff, architects, engineers and surveyors, and owing to the present great activity in those professions it is impossible for us to get the number of these people that we want. I hope that we shall be able to improve the situation in the course of this year, and the more we can improve it the more delighted I shall be. Overtime is very disagreeable and, naturally, one would like to avoid it, but in this particular case we have not been able to get all the staff we require. With regard to the vacant posts, the saving has arisen because we have not been able to engage the people we need for the posts. Therefore, the posts are vacant.

Mr. Viant

Is the right hon. Gentleman not able to give us a little more assurance. If he or I were engaged in ordinary commercial work and we were in charge of a department and we permitted this uneconomic expenditure to continue, I am inclined to think that the board of directors would ask whether it would not be better for us to seek another situation. Overtime is always uneconomic.

Sir P. Sassoon

Yes, but we cannot always help it.

Mr. Viant

Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to inform the Committee that his Department has already taken steps to ensure that this overtime will be reduced? His excuse is that there is a shortage of professional men. Can he tell us whether that shortage is going to continue or whether his Department already see ways and means whereby the overtime will be eliminated?

Sir P. Sassoon

It is not simple to answer that question. We have to take the whole situation into account. The hon. Member knows the tremendous pressure there is on this class of man, especially owing to the increased calls of the Defence services; but I will do everything I possibly can, and so will my Department, to get over the question of overtime and to engage as many people as we can who are capable and suitable for our work. I hope the matter will be very largely remedied soon. I cannot promise to abolish overtime, because it cannot be done at present, but I hope the situation will be largely remedied in the not far distant future.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. Benn

There is a very large item of £63,000 required for estimated deficiency in receipts in respect of salaries and expenses of staff engaged on recoverable services due to underspending during the year. Can the right hon. Gentleman give particulars of that item?

Sir P. Sassoon

It is in respect of work done for other Departments, for which we are the agents. We do not get the money back until the whole of the work has been completed. Before the work has been completed we have to incur considerable expenditure in respect of staff.

Mr. Benn

Can the right hon. Gentleman say what items are covered?

Sir P. Sassoon

Munition factories and other works for the Defence services.

Mr. Benn

Can the right hon. Gentleman give us details of the works which it has not been possible to complete and in respect of which payment is not yet due to his Department?

Sir P. Sassoon

Perhaps it is only natural that one should anticipate the happy day when payments for service one renders will be received, but it is obvious that over such a very large sphere of activity as that covered by the Office of Works, there are certain delays, and that a stage is reached when payment for our expenditure is slightly postponed. Anyone who is familiar with these transactions will realise that there is a certain amount of delay in the completion of very big building schemes.

Mr. Benn

From what the right hon. Gentleman has said, this point is of some substance. We are dealing here, I presume, with quite a small staff, a professional staff, and yet the outstanding amount is £63,000, which has not been recovered because the job has not been completed. They have done their part of the work but their wages and salaries are not repaid to the Department until the work as a whole has been completed. What is this work? It is work on munition factories. Therefore, the progress in the building of munition factories, which was contemplated by the Government at the beginning of the year for which they made provision in the Estimates, has not been achieved. I am not sure whether that is the responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman or not, but it is a very valuable point to have brought out in this Debate. It is a very serious thing, and I call the attention of the Committee to the fact that the building of these munition factories and the development of the Defence scheme—the policy for which is, of course, controlled by other Departments—is so far behind that the right hon. Gentleman is making an appropriation of £63,000 for professional work this year. That sum arises because the very elaborate and very considerable work of erecting these factories has not been completed by the time at which the Government thought it ought to be completed. Probably the First Commissioner would like to tell us in connection with which factories this delay is taking place. This is the time to ask such a question. We should not be entitled to ask it on any other Vote.

Sir P. Sassoon

I hope the Committee will not assume that there has been any considerable delay in this work. It is only natural, in large schemes of this kind, that there should be a considerable amount of lag in the making up of the accounts. When I am dealing with these large jobs I charge a percentage on actual expenditure, and, of course, the whole of my administrative expenditure is incurred long before the work has been completed, and is indeed incurred even before building operations begin. It must not be taken that there has been any undue delay in the work because I do not get my money until the work has been completed.

Mr. Benn

I do not wish unduly to press the First Commissioner but we have hit upon a point of real importance. The fact is that certain munition factories are still under construction which he thought would be finished in time to enable him to be recouped by 31st March. They are not finished, and that means that there has been delay.

Sir P. Sassoon

I hope they will be finished by the anticipated time.

Mr. Benn

But the Government programme arranged that they should be finished. The Estimates for the work were not framed on the First Commissioner's requirements but on some plan or programme. That programme allowed for the completion of the factories so that the First Commissioner could be recouped for this expenditure before the end of the financial year. They are not finished in time, and, therefore, there is a delay in the completion of this part of our national Defence programme. We are not dealing here with the cost of materials. That is a different thing altogether. We are dealing here with a sum of £63,000, which is simply for wages and is, I imagine, concerned with technical staff. A sum of £63,000 in wages of technical staff may represent hundreds of thousands of pounds in materials and other costs. Therefore, although I do not wish to press the right hon. Gentleman, I think the Committee ought to know in connection with which of the munition factories this unexpected delay has taken place.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. Kelly

Are we to understand that in the case of the great factory at Chorley, for instance, one of the largest in the country, the right hon. Gentleman has to wait until the work is completed for the payment of his technical staff? If so it would appear that he will not receive his money next year let alone this year. Are we to understand that in the case of all these large munition factories the money for the technical staff will not be paid until the buildings are finished?

8.6 p.m.

Sir P. Sassoon

The right hon. Gentleman asked me for the names of some of these factories. This is not only a case of munition factories, but of other works as well, including a new criminal lunatic asylum, the Admiralty training establishment at Rosyth and certain extensions of Scotland Yard. There are new factories at Bridgend and elsewhere which are not yet completed. In some of these cases there has been a certain amount of delay because of protracted negotiations in dealing with landowners and other matters of that kind. But I hope the Committee will not assume that there has been undue delay in the completion of the actual work.

Mr. Benson

Can the right hon. Gentleman give us some indication of the total amount represented by the work which is unfinished? This item refers only to technical staff. What is the gross total represented by the work in arrears?

Mr. Viant

Are we to understand that this item covers only architects, clerks of works, and other professional men, and that the charge ultimately will be upon the Departments for which the work is being done? Will the amount ultimately be collected from the responsible Department?

8.8 p.m.

Sir Isidore Salmon

It strikes me that hon. and right hon. Members opposite, instead of dealing with this matter from a business aspect, are trying to make party capital out of something which does not exist. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) stressed the point about munition factories not being finished. My right hon. Friend has just explained that there is bound to be a lag between the time at which the job is finished and the time at which the accounts are made out. The amount of £63,000 is infinitesimal compared with the amount of work which is probably already finished, but the accounts for which have not yet been dealt with departmentally, and I do not think it fair to assume that any undue delay is taking place in the actual work.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. Benn

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman, who so seldom contributes his illuminating remarks to our Debates, for his way of treating criticisms from this side of the Committee, which are only ordinary and proper criticisms on Votes in Supply. I have observed that on some other occasions the hon. Gentleman—who was undoubtedly out of order in imputing motives to us—when matters arose which touched himself—

The Deputy-Chairman

The right hon. Gentleman must not pass remarks of that kind. If those remarks were out of order on the part of the hon. Member for Harrow (Sir I. Salmon) they would also be out of order on the part of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Benn

If the remarks are out of order I will not pursue them, but I will draw your attention to the fact that instead of addressing himself to the point at issue, the hon. Member said that we were animated by party motives in putting these questions. Then, rather ill-advisedly, he took on the defence of the departments though he does not know anything about the details of the matter. He says that everybody ought to know that a small sum like this £63,000 might not be covered until next year. But this sum does not represent the case. This is a key amount. It is the payment made to the technical staff, and it may represent millions of pounds in actual bricks and mortar. Of course, there is an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to put himself right. I think he ought not to have plunged in, especially in the rather clumsy and offensive way in which h e did so, if he is not prepared to deal with the subject and does not know the details of the matter in hand. But I understand that the First Commissioner is willing to reply to our point. Here is a sum of £63,000 in respect of buildings which the Government programme provided should be finished by 31st March. That programme was not completed on 31st March, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the total sum represented by these works at Bridgend and elsewhere? How many millions of pounds or hundreds of thousands of pounds, are represented by the delayed programme?

Sir P. Sassoon

The programme was a £6,000,000 programme all over, in respect of which we ask for this £63,000 Appropriation-in-Aid.

Mr. Benson

Is £6,000,000 the sum originally proposed to be spent? The right hon. Gentleman has not told us how much has been spent and how much is in arrears.

Sir P. Sassoon

I am afraid I could not answer that question. The £6,000,000 covers the whole programme.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Sexton

May we get back to Subhead A? I wish to endorse what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for West Willesden (Mr. Viant) on the subject of overtime and of saving on vacant posts. It seems a great calamity that in these times we should be spending £24,000 on overtime while at the same time there are so many men out of work. This sum would provide 100 people with work for a year at salaries of £240 a year each. I also wish to know whether this overtime was paid at the usual rate or at an increased rate? I understand that these are professional men, and I do not think it likely that they work overtime for the ordinary rates. If so, is it businesslike to be paying a higher rate for overtime while leaving posts vacant?

Sir P. Sassoon

I do not think I can add to what I have already said on that point. We have had to employ these men on overtime because we were not able to recruit the number of professional men whom we wished to use. As I have already said, I hope that the position will be remedied in a short time and that we shall be able to get more of these architects and draftsmen.

Mr. Sexton

Were they paid the usual rate or the overtime rate?

Sir P. Sassoon

They were paid on the overtime rate.

Mr. Leslie

Had this item anything to do with the renovation of the dining-room in the House of Commons?

Resolved, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £81,000, be granted to His Majesty to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of His. Majesty's Works and Public Buildings.