HC Deb 26 September 1944 vol 403 cc184-95
Mr. Henderson Stewart (Fife, East)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 5, after "house," to insert: including prefabricated houses built of steel or other materials which comply with recognised housing standards. The hour is getting late and I will confine my remarks to a few words. The chief purpose of the Bill is to extend the classes of houses eligible for housing subsidy. I want to ensure by the Amendment that those houses shall include all the various types of prefabricated house which we have been discussing to-day, and that the houses concerned shall not be confined to brick houses but shall, if you like, include the Weir house and other houses now being experimented with. I fancy I am knocking at an open door, and that the Minister will give me an assurance on the matter.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston)

I am assured that the Amendment is unnecessary, since the words: any new house", mentioned in the Sub-section already embrace permanent and any number of houses of varying constructions, in steel, timber, concrete, brick or whatever it is. Moreover, the Amendment is open to the objection that it singles out prefabricated houses to the exclusion of other houses. I hope, with that assurance, that my hon. Friend will see his way to withdraw his Amendment.

Mr. Stewart

In view of the assurance, which I accept, I gladly ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Erskine-Hill (Edinburgh, North)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 18, at the end, to insert: and as if the expression 'working classes' meant any person or persons who depend solely or mainly for their livelihood upon their earnings. The object of the Amendment is to make sure that the interpretation of this Measure will not be limited, and will be wide enough to take in such people as insurance clerks, black-coated workers and others. There is no definition that I know of which is satisfactory on this phrase, although it has occurred in one or two previous Acts of Parliament relating to Scotland.

There is, in fact, a definition which is limited to the Schedule to the Act of 1925, with which I do not think at this stage of the discussion I need weary the Committee. In any event I will say, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate I think will agree with me, that that particular definition would not have allowed to come in for the benefits a lot of those people whom I am sure it is his wish, and the wish of the Secretary of State, to bring in. Never has there been a greater demand by all sections to be allowed in, and these particular types of people will be coming back from the Forces. I do not want to see them then met with the objection, "You are not, strictly speaking, working-class people. Therefore, you cannot get the benefit of the houses which are to be set up as a result of this Measure." I hope I have made my point clear to the Committee. I hope it may be possible to clarify the position, so that there may be no possibility of the non-inclusion of these types of people.

Commander Galbraith (Glasgow, Pollok)

I rise to speak in support of the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill). He has informed the Committee that so far as can be ascertained there is only one definition of what the words "working classes" mean. It is in the Fifth Schedule to the Scottish Housing Act of 1925, and it applies only to that Schedule. Nevertheless, as that is the only definition in existence, no doubt local authorities and others pay some attention to it, and may well be guided to a certain extent by it. I propose to base a certain amount of my argument on that definition. The definition speaks only of wage earners. I do not know whether wages and salaries are synonymous, but even then, under this definition, no man drawing a salary would receive any benefit under this Bill unless his income were not in excess of £3 a week.

Again, I do not know whether we can say that wages and the pay that is received in the Forces are synonymous. I want to know for certain that the Forces will get the benefits to be derived from this Bill. I can conceive of many cases of men serving in the Forces to-day who might not, on a strict interpretation of "the working classes," benefit by the Bill at all. For instance, take the case of a young man from a working class home who was serving an apprenticeship before joining the Forces, who has won a commission in the field and is desirous at the conclusion of hostilities of taking up an administrative post or of starting in business for himself and working on his own account. There will be many men like that who are married and have families who may not benefit from this Bill, and at the same time may not be able to afford an unsubsidised house. Apart altogether from those who are generally included in the term "working classes" there are all kinds and conditions of people in the country who require houses. Many of them, perhaps, are worse off than members of the working class. I feel that subsidised houses should be available for every one of them. I consider that the Amendment makes the position much clearer than it is at present. It would give the benefit of a subsidised house to anyone who earns his own livelihood and requires housing such as is envisaged under the Bill. We want houses for all, at rents which they can afford. On that consideration, I have very great pleasure in supporting the Amendment.

Major Lloyd (Renfrew, Eastern)

Members of the Committee may have noticed that I and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pollok (Commander Galbraith) have an Amendment to Clause 3 dealing with much the same issue, and it might just as well be dealt with now, because whatever reply the Secretary of State makes to this Amendment he will probably have to make to our Amendment. The issue is: who are the working class? Nobody, so far as I know, has been able to define them. They are easily recognised, but not easily defined.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams)

Does the hon. and gallant Member propose to make his speech on this Amendment, and not on his own Amendment later?

Major Lloyd

I would rather like, with your permission, Mr. Williams, to see how the Amendment goes.

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. and gallant Member cannot make the same speech on two Amendments.

Major Lloyd

I would like to make my speech now.

The Deputy-Chairman

It is usual, when a Member makes a suggestion of that sort, for the Committee to discuss the Amendments together.

Major Lloyd

Thank you, Mr. Williams. I was hoping that the Secretary of State would be able to give a definition of the working class. There are misgivings that a number of individuals who might not feel that they were members of the working class would be left out of this Bill. Many people coming back from the war might say, "I have never looked upon myself as a member of the working class, but I do not see why I should not have a chance, all the same, to get one of these houses." Is a hard-working young doctor, setting up, under the new State scheme, in a house, with his wife, a member of the working class? The expression is vague and unsatisfactory. I agree that we want to know where we stand. Local authorities, apparently, have the right to decide who are the working class. The local authorities are to allocate the houses. Some local authorities may define the term in one way, others in another way. What assurance have we that there will not be prejudices shown by certain local authorities on this issue—class prejudice perhaps, which I hope will not operate in Scotland, but may operate elsewhere? A phrase of this sort ought not to appear in an Act of Parliament. We want to safeguard people. It would be far better to have an income limit. That would be fair. It is because we want fair play for all that I strongly support this Amendment.

Mr. Johnston

In the first place the Amendment, as it stands, would defeat the objects of its promoters. For example, it would exclude old age pensioners and persons in receipt of Poor Law relief. Therefore, the Government could not possibly accept this Amendment. The Object of the Amendment is to get a statutory definition of the term "working classes."

Mr. Erskine-Hill

May I intervene for a moment? It is perfectly true to say that, on a strict reading, it would have that effect, but, surely, if the Secretary of State is willing to give effect to it, words could easily be found to carry out the meaning and intention of this Amendment.

Mr. Johnston

If my hon. and learned Friend will permit me, I propose to say a word about some other difficulties which are in the way of accepting this Amendment. To begin with, the term "housing of the working classes" is embedded in housing legislation and has been for half-a-century at least. My hon. and learned Friend was quite correct when he said that there is only one place where an attempt has been made to define "working classes" and that was in the Schedule to the Act of 1925, where it dealt with a very limited problem of the rehousing of persons in cases of displacement. How did Parliament at that time attempt to define it? It defined it this way: (e) 'Working class ' includes mechanics, artisans, labourers and others working for wages, hawkers, costermongers, persons not working for wages, but working at some trade or handicraft without employing others, except members of their own family, and persons other than domestic servants whose income in any case does not exceed an average of three pounds a week, and the families of any such persons who may be residing with them. Obviously, that attempt to define "working classes" excluded large numbers of persons who may be perfectly entitled to and deserving of consideration by local authorities in the letting of a house.

Mr. Mathers (Linlithgow)

Including the railway clerks, who have been denied houses because they were railway clerks.

Mr. Johnston

There was only one case and that was abandoned afterwards. In only one case of which I am aware in the history of housing administration in Scotland has that question ever been raised and that was the case of a railway clerk, and afterwards the local authority abandoned its contention and permitted the railway clerk to be called a member of the working classes.

Mr. McGovern (Glasgow, Shettleston)

Did the right hon. Gentleman define the term in his book "The History of the Working Classes"?

Mr. Johnston

I do not think I ever defined it, but most certainly I never defined it for the purpose of receiving a subsidy from public funds. Attempts have been made frequently to find a general definition, but Parliament has never accepted any of the proposed definitions as satisfactory. This was only a temporary one for a specific clause, but the difficulty of finding a satisfactory definition is indicated in the phraseology which my hon. Friends have produced for this Amendment, and I submit to them that it is beyond us, at this stage of legislation on this Bill, to define what are the working classes without doing a grave injustice to a possible large number of applicants, because every time we define we limit.

Now, if this had been a real grievance, as apart from a theoretical one, one could have understood it. I am assured that there has been only one case in all Scotland where the issue has ever been raised, and local authorities, to the best of my knowledge and belief, have interpreted the terms literally, liberally, and with common sense during all these years. I hesitate to offer any definition of my own, and certainly any definition should be made in the general body of housing legis lation and not confined to this Measure. am sure that no local authority in Scotland desires to exclude any bona fide applicant or any necessitous applicant—and by necessitous, I do not mean merely monetary circumstances but any applicant requiring a house and unable to get one. I am sure that no local authority in Scotland, at present conducting affairs, would seek to exclude any applicant. I, therefore, hope that, with that explanation, my hon. Friend will not seek to press the Amendment.

Mr. Erskine-Hill

I am impressed with what the Secretary of State has said, if the meaning of the word be taken literally. It is difficult at this stage to introduce a definition, but I would ask him carefully to see, when other legislation comes forward which may contain these terms, that some effort is made to meet the particular case, and if he can give that undertaking I shall ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Johnston

I will gladly consult my hon. and learned Friend on this matter, but I cannot give any promise of finding suitable and satisfactory words myself.

Mr. Erskine-Hill

In view of that statement, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Henderson Stewart

I beg to move, in page 2, line 8, at the end, to add: Provided however that any new letting regulations applied in respect of houses erected under the provisions of Sub-section (1) above shall apply to all houses at present owned or in the future to be built by local authorities. Again the point here is a small one, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give me a satisfactory reply. It is plain from the Explanatory Memorandum that Clause 1 provides that houses built with the aid of the subsidy shall not be subjected to the present restriced letting condition, namely, that local authorities reserve an appropriate number of houses for occupation by low wage earners or persons not in an economic position. At present local authorities provide houses, assisted by a subsidy, for those who have lived in slums and those who are agricultural workers. The purpose of the Bill is to make such houses supported by subsidy from this House available not to these three classes alone but to all classes. We welcome that proposal, but it raises some difficulties. Take an authority like the much maligned Fife County Council; it may possibly have deserved some strictures in the past but it has tackled this new trouble with a very progressive spirit. In the county of Fife, where new mines are being developed and where plans are laid down for the building of great new groups of houses, where populations will be invited to move, and where houses now occupied by the working classes will be left vacant, the local authority is going to be faced with the extraordinary anomaly that it may place in new houses under this Measure any person, but it can only place in evacuated houses one of three classes of the working class. That is a ridiculous anomaly. It makes a fool of the whole business, and I beg of the right hon. Gentleman to agree that it ought not to be maintained in this Bill. The purpose of the Amendment is to remove that anomaly.

Mr. Johnston

The purpose of Clause 1 Sub-section (2) in the Bill is to free houses provided for general needs under the Bill from a condition requiring authorities to preserve an equal number of houses for low wage earners or persons in a similar economic condition. It is clear, I think, that the use of the temporary power to provide houses for general needs—this Bill is a temporary Bill—would not be facilitated if local authorities were to be limited to the choice of tenants from amongst low wage earners and persons of a like economic condition, and in catering for general needs they will have to deal by-and-large with a representative cross-section of the working-classes. Because of this extension of open subsidy for general needs—taking away from purely slum clearance and overcrowding, as is the case now, and permitting us to provide houses for young couples who may not come under either categories of slum clearance and overcrowding—this restrictive condition in the other Housing Act is not to be applied to houses provided under this Bill. It does not follow, however, that we can go back and remove from houses already provided for slum clearance and relief of overcrowding these inhibitions—they are there—or, that it should be provided for this purpose specifically in the future. The matter is one which in any event—I admit that it is one not free from difficulties—it is hardly appropriate to consider in connection with a temporary Measure. We are providing here for houses for general needs, and it would be more appropriate to consider this question in connection with any legislation dealing with the permanent housing law. At any rate we cannot make this Act retrospective and deal with existing tenants. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will see his way not to press it further.

Mr. Henderson Stewart

I can see the points my right hon. Friend makes and the difficulty of meeting this problem in this particular Bill. I appreciate it is attended with some difficulty, although I think that might be overcome, and I do not want to press it unduly, but would my right hon. Friend give me this assurance? The operations of the local authorities in all these matters are very largely regulated by the attitude of the Department. Would my right hon. Friend instruct his Department, in view of the difficulties he himself admits, to allow the authorities very considerable discretion in these matters, and not to stick too rigidly to the law as it now is—in other words give an authority left with houses vacated by the same kind of people a fairly wide measure of discretion in filling these houses with tenants from the working classes? If my right hon. Friend can do that, I will gladly accept his own suggestion.

Mr. Johnston

I could not answer that very difficult legal issue, as to whether a house that had once received a subsidy under a slum clearance regulation under one Act of Parliament, once it is vacated, can be used by someone who is not of the like economic class. I do not know that, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the local authorities at this moment and for some time to come are at their wits' ends to find houses for tenants and not tenants for houses. As I have already said, the point will be examined when future legislation comes before the House.

Mr. Henderson Stewart

I do not know whether that is satisfactory but obviously I shall not get any further. However, having raised the point and got my right hon. Friend to agree that it will be considered in the future, I have no alternative but to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. McKinlay

What I do not understand about this matter is why there should be restrictions to two years of the allocation of houses for ordinary requirements. I wondered whether the Bill was a temporary Measure but it is to extend the making of financial contributions. Do the Government seriously contend that they can spike one prong of this three-pronged problem in two and a half years? The only way you can give houses to young married people with one or two children is the granting of the houses for ordinary requirements. Why the Government restrict to two and a half years is beyond me. At the rate of progress we are making at the moment they will not even be started two and a half years hence. Everybody outside the Government, since 1935, knew that the 1935 Act created a difficulty by preventing local authorities from dealing with the community and acting on the assumption that when an overcrowded house became vacant it would automatically be occupied by a young married couple. As one who has had considerable practical experience in the allocation of houses, that simply does not work and never did. Here, the Government suggest that in connection with houses built from the passing of this Bill until 1947 local authorities will be freed from the obligation of imposing overcrowding and slum clearance conditions. There is a more serious implication than that. Have the Government considered what effect this will have on the preparations of local authorities in regard to the ratio of three-apartment houses to four-apartment houses in their permanent development? The three-apartment house is useless for overcrowding purposes unless you are going to use the living-room as a sleeping room and when the Government say that between the specific period mentioned local authorities will be freed from the obligation of making tests of overcrowding, I think something should be done about it.

I cannot see why the date cannot be extended, or why the elasticity enjoyed by local authorities prior to the solution of the housing problem in 1932-33, when it was decided that the housing problem had been solved and the Wheatley Act subsidy was withdrawn, could not be restored. Is there any possibility of extending the period whereby local authorities will not have to impose conditions with regard to overcrowding and slum clearance?

Some authorities are under the impression that houses built under the earlier scheme, where conditions were settled, must now, if they become vacant, be allocated on the principle of over-crowding. That is not true. I am even willing to cross swords with the Department that local authorities can do what they like with houses built under the Wheatley Act and earlier Acts and, once they become vacant, they can let them to whoever they care so long as they satisfy the other conditions. I should like to have some explanation why this arbitrary date was fixed between the passing of the Act and October, 1947.

Mr. Johnston

My hon. Friend has raised two major issues. He asks what is the virtue in the date October, 1947. The date was first of all to synchronise with a reasonable period after the estimated conclusion of the European war. It was a temporary Measure. It does not pretend to tie up innumerable difficulties and points such as the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) has raised. It was a limited Measure intended to expedite building and letting powers up to the period of October, 1947. When long-term legislation is brought in, the permanency or otherwise of the right of local authorities to let houses to classes other than slum clearance or overcrowding will have to be considered. On the legal point, as to whether a house once let to a slum clearance tenant—

Mr. McKinlay

No. I said houses where the subsidy conditions have been fixed. I am referring to houses built under the 1923 and 1924 Acts, houses let for ordinary requirements. My complaint is that when these houses become vacant some authority superimposes on them that they can only be let to people living in overcrowded circumstances.

Mr. Johnston

My impression is that these houses are in the general pool and can be let by local authorities to any tenant they care. I am not giving that as a carefully considered official opinion but I will look into it and communicate with my hon. Friend.

Mr. MeKinlay

What is to be the attitude of the Department in approving layouts? Every local authority is confronted with this problem, which has three spearheads. We do not know anything about it. There are thousands of fellows coming back from the Forces who will get married. The number of married persons in Glasgow at the moment who have no accommodation, as far as the Corporation is aware, is 6,000. You could not provide for these people in the two years at your disposal and, if you lay out plans which comprise 25 per cent. three-apartment houses and 25 per cent. four-apartment houses, and for some districts you require 50 per cent. five-apartment houses, local authorities will say to themselves "If we are to allocate houses without the condition which has been imposed, we will increase the ratio of the three-apartment houses to the fours and fives." Before houses are ready for allocation, October, 1947, will have arrived, and what are you going to do about it? The number of three-apartment houses are useless to meet overcrowding. It will upset the considered plans of local authorities, and if the Government imagine that it will speed up delivery it cannot be done. The mere building of three-apartment houses will not give us any more building trade workers or material. It will not give us any more of anything. If the Government are only going to commit themselves up to the extent of what they think will be their term of office, I can understand it, but if the Government have something up their sleeve let us know about it.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.