MINISTRY OF NATIONAL INSURANCE (OFFICE, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE) (Hansard, 23 February 1945)

§ Sir Waldron Smithers (Chislehurst)
It is difficult in these days to get the opportunity of raising a question on the Adjournment of the House, and I am sorry, indeed, to keep the House this Friday afternoon, and especially sorry to deprive the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury of the pleasure of hearing him to-night. But I ask the House to believe that I would not have raised the matter unless I believed it to be of the first importance. On 6th February I put a Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, asking him: By what authority has the expenditure for the headquarters of the Ministry of National Insurance at Newcastle-on-Tyne, estimated at £2,000,000, been sanctioned. In the course of a supplementary question, which was more to the point, I asked: Under what Financial Resolution of this House has my right hon. Friend power to authorise or suggest such extension? The answers I received to both Questions were unsatisfactory, and that is the reason 1201 I am raising this matter now. I have taken the best advice I could and, quite frankly, I own that I may be wrong, although I hope to show that there is a prima facie case for raising this question. It is a matter of principle which affects the House of Commons. I do not want to bring any criticism about the City of Newcastle or the merits or demerits of the insurance proposals but I have always been told it is our first duty to be guardians of the public purse. During the war Government Departments have become not a little drunk with power and we have to see that they do not get delirium tremens. The Chancellor in his reply said: The point of my answer is that plane involving such expenditure have not been formulated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1945; Vol. 407, c. 1881–1882.] I may have been misled but so have others, and in the report of a meeting, at which the Lord Mayor was present, in the "Newcastle Journal" on 1st February it is stated: It is understood that the official is coming north with certain proposals relating to the building of new headquarters and the housing of the staff. The Long Benton urban council passed a Motion welcoming the Government decision to set up a Ministry in Newcastle, and promising help to the civil servants. Of course they did. No doubt Newcastle wants this big industry brought there. I am advised that the financial expenditure authorised under the National Insurance Act is very limited. It includes salaries of £5,000 for the Minister, £1,500 for the Secretary and I presume a small staff. I submit that the Government in putting forward these extensive proposals, which I understand were officially announced involving about £2,000,000, have no mandate for that expenditure and I again ask, under what Financial Resolution this money was expended, or promised or hopes held out. It makes a difference if the Government make people think that large amounts of money are going to be spent, and it is important that when that is envisaged or promised the Government shall have some reasonable hopes that they can fulfil their promises. I think it is wrong of the Government either to spend money, to envisage expenditure, to raise hopes, or to create alarm and despondency among certain people. Of course they have raised hopes 1202 in Newcastle as the resolution of the local authority shows. When the details of national insurance come to be threshed out, it may easily be that we shall decide that Newcastle is not to be the place where the new headquarters should be set up. It is possible that Members representing other great cities in the North or the Midlands, may lay claim to this important office being set up in Manchester, Birmingham or Edinburgh. I am fully aware that an attempt is being made to take these Government offices to some distressed area, but there are other distressed areas, and Clydeside or Wigan may put in a claim. I do not see how the Government are in a position to say that they will spend this large amount of Money at Newcastle.
Alarm and despondency are being caused, for instance, among the large staffs at Acton and Kew. Hon. Members will have had letters from those staffs and there will be many new staffs conscripted. But what will be the position of the Government if they spend this money or make plans at Newcastle if the existing staff and officers refuse to go there? If they do not want to go I shall use any legitimate means that I have, to back up their reasonable request not to be disturbed in their homes and families. This is an instance of State control being envisaged before this House has had a chance to say whether it shall be carried out. It is premature action on the part of the Government. It means forced labour. It means putting on our people the very schackles that we are trying to take off people in the occupied countries of Europe. I do not see how these proposals can be carried into effect unless people can be compelled by force to go to Newcastle. I am also informed that the present offices and buildings are quite good, and that it will take a long time and much money to put up equally good buildings elsewhere. I ask for a categorical answer to my original Question—namely, under what Financial Resolution of this House was the money to be spent, authorised, so that my fears can be allayed, or my criticism justified.

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peake)
Perhaps I can, to some extent, relieve my hon. Friend's anxiety by saying, first of all, that the figure of £2,000,000 which he quoted is far in ex- 1203 cess of any expenditure which is in contemplation either at present or in the near future.

§ Sir W. Smithers
Why was £2,000,000 officially announced?

§ Mr. Peake
It was not officially announced. It is a figure which I think has been built up by a process of deduction based on a calculation of the eventual numbers of the staff. I think it will reassure my hon. Friend if I say that the figure that we have in mind for expenditure on temporary office accommodation at Newcastle in the immediate future is of the order of £300,000.
There are two questions bothering my hon. Friend. One is the question of the dispersal of Government offices from the metropolis and the other is the question of financial authority. As regards the first question, a good deal of discussion has, of course, taken place on the location of industry and the situation of Government offices. I would refer any one interested in the subject to the report of an unofficial committee of the National Council of Social Services presided over by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). That committee inquired into the advantages and disadvantages of the dispersal from London of business and other offices. It is a very interesting report and on the whole it comes down, on a large number of grounds, in favour of the policy of dispersal. But in coming to their decision the Government have not been moved by theoretical arguments. The decision has been forced upon them by purely practical considerations.
I must explain that there are roughly 125,000 headquarters staff in Government offices now in London, of whom no fewer than 45,000 are accommodated in requisitioned premises—hotels, offices, private houses, and so forth. The shortage of office accommodation in London at present is acute. Moreover, there are 60,000 civil servants connected with Government Departments as headquarters staff in the provinces, and they are located for the most part at seaside resorts where they occupy hotels, boarding houses, and so on, for which strong claims will be made in the early future that they shall be de-requisitioned. Some of those civil servants will, undoubtedly, 1204 have to return to London. Therefore, whether we like it or not, it is clear that the establishment of a new Ministry with a fairly numerous staff compels the Government to seek accommodation outside London. There is the additional reason that building labour in London is concentrated on the repair of blitzed houses. Building labour will, however, be more easily available in the provinces for the erection of temporary office accommodation.
I do not believe that this decision to establish the Ministry of National Insurance at Newcastle is, by any means, universally obnoxious. I think there is a growing appreciation of certain advantages which provincial life has over life in the suburbs of the metropolis. However, we have given more than one assurance that we will give careful consideration to individual cases where hardship might ensue through transfer to a provincial centre. And as far as the local population at Newcastle is concerned, I am informed that the decision has occasioned nothing but joy.
I come from the question of general location policy to the question of financial procedure. The Ministry of Works, by long prescription, has the duty of providing accommodation for Government Departments. Parliamentary authority for expenditure by the Ministry of Works, as for expenditure by other Government Departments, is obtained through the presentation to the House of the Ministry's Estimates. There is one factor which we cannot leave out of account. A Government Department like other people must make plans ahead—indeed we are often blamed for not planning ahead sufficiently. So it is inevitable that we should make plans as to the location of Government offices. At the same time, full Parliamentary control over expenditure is retained, because the Minister of Works cannot expend money except in accordance with the well-established procedure of presenting his Estimates to Parliament and getting approval of them.
Of course, during the war, much of the Ministry of Works' expenditure has been covered by Votes of Credit, but we are now in the process of returning to more normal procedure. In the Vote on Account presented to the House on 13th February, there is to be noted a big increase in Miscellaneous Works Services for 1945/46 1205 as compared with 1944/45 expenditure. The total Estimate for the year is £8,750,000, as against £400,000 for the current financial year. That increase is in large measure due to the resumption of the normal peace-time procedure of presenting detailed Estimates so far as is compatible with not giving information which would be useful to the enemy about what the Government are doing. Out of that £8,750,000 some £300,000 is included for the provision of this temporary office accommodation at Newcastle. The detailed Estimates of the Ministry of Works will be presented within a very short period and no doubt the Minister will find it necessary to come to the Committee of Supply to obtain approval for the expenditure of money at Newcastle, which is technically a new service and cannot therefore be covered by a Vote on Account.
I hope I have persuaded my hon. Friend that, as regards both policy and procedure, the Government have pursued the correct and proper course. I hope also that the fact that the expenditure is not of the order of magnitude which he had anticipated will give him comfort and reassurance.

§ Sir W. Smithers
Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that no money has been spent which has not been passed by the House? May I ask also whether the Vote which he mentioned has been 1206 before the House yet? With reference to the £300,000 which is included in the £8,750,000, how are Members to know that it was a new service?

§ Mr. Peake
The Vote on Account was presented and printed on 13th February. It has been available in the Vote Office for over a week, and it will be taken in the House, I think, on Friday next week. So far as I am aware, no money has yet been expended on this scheme. Building certainly has not yet begun.

§ Mr. Peake
If money has been improperly expended, which I do not believe to be the case, the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee will haul my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works over the coals.