HC Deb 01 August 1947 vol 441 cc946-54

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

7.30 p.m.

Mr. E. P. Smith (Ashford)

When I chose the title for this short Debate, "The Strange Dilatoriness of the War Office in supplying main water to Dungeness," I used the word strange in the Pickwickian sense because, to speak of the strange dilatoriness of the War Office, under its present management, would, of course, be a contradiction in terms. For the understanding of the House, or what is left of it, I would point out that the village of Dungeness is divided into two parts. First of all, there is a large bungalow or sea coast village, which is provided with main water, electricity and sewerage; and there is also a fishing village, inhabited by the fishermen of that corner of the Kentish coast. It comprises a number of old, weather-boarded cottages, many of which date back to the early 18th century, and which have no main water, no electricity, and, as far as I can see, not very much sewerage. My complaint lies in regard to the latter—the fishing village.

The "Pluto" lines, the under-sea pipes conveying oil for the invasion of France, entered the channel at the village of Dungeness, and by means of them oil was pumped across the channel in 1944; and, on the success of the "Pluto" lines depended the success of our invasion of Europe. For some reason or other—whether it was an engineering fault, or not I do not know—these lines burst constantly round about the point where they entered the sea, and this resulted in the surrounding shingle, which stretches for miles inland, being flooded with oil. This oil, seeping through the shingle, contaminated all the wells in the fishing village of Dungeness; and it is interesting to note in this connection that the wells of Dungeness were famous for the purity and excellence of their water.

These wells were worked on a communal basis, and I am only sorry that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) is not present now. Every two, three or four houses clustered together contained a communal well. It was their common well, and they drew upon it for their water. When the con- tamination occurred the military were in occupation of Dungeness, and, therefore, the problem was a simple one for them to solve. They had caused the damage; they had to make it good. All they had to do was to erect, in the fishing village of Dungeness, a number of open iron troughs, rather like pig troughs, throughout that area of the village. They had only to supply a water wagon, and send it only a 100 yards or so to the mains in the bungalow village and bring the water to the troughs in the fishing village. Everyone was uncomfortable, but everyone was comparatively happy.

Then two things happened. First, the war ended, and the Army evacuated Dungeness. The second thing was that we had a General Election and a Socialist Government achieved office—a Government, as we know, of planners who had only to complete the jig-saw to make a perfect picture. Personally, I did not share that view, and, for that reason, I took especial pains substantially to increase my majority at the General Election. I realised that my wisdom in doing so was reflected in regard to the water at Dungeness. The Army had gone; the Socialist Government was in power, but the pig troughs remained. I would like to point out to the House that these pig troughs are open, so that the water they contain is tepid in summer and frozen hard in winter. They are the home of the algae, the cradle of the mosquito larvae; they are also susceptible to the occasional benisons from the seagulls flying above the village; and this is the water upon which the villagers depend for every sort of purpose. I put the Minister of Health to considerable expense in compelling him constantly to clean out the troughs, but the main thing about them is and was that they must be kept filled with water.

The Army, having evacuated Dungeness, sent an Army water wagon from Shorncliffe, eight or nine miles away, every day to fill up at the mains in the bungalow village and transport the water the 100 yards or so away and empty it into the pig troughs in the fishing village; and I ascertained by Question from the hon. Gentleman who is to reply that the cost of that service to the taxpayer has been £500 a year. This, in the course of my duties, came to my ears, and I threatened the War Office with further proceedings. The War Office took fright. They promised to, lay main water to the fishing village of Dungeness; and I passed my first calm night for some weeks. I had reckoned, however, without the lawyers. It appears that there are a good many lawyers on the pay-roll of the War Office; and these War Office lawyers soon found out a wonderful fact about the Dungeness water. It was this. Although these wells were communally shared, they happened to be individually owned. They belonged, in fact, to one householder out of the three, four or five households which they supplied. "Therefore," said the War Office lawyers, "if we supply that one householder with main water, honour and legality will be satisfied," and they proceeded to do it.

Now, Sir, another factor comes upon the scene—the Littlestone Water Company. As far as I can bake out, the Littlestone Water Company is also honeycombed with lawyers, and they had to have their say, and what they said, in effect, was this—"Yes, we will lay the water on to you as the householder who legally owns the well, but you must covenant under severe penalties never to share it with your neighbours." So, in fact, one house in four or so got the water and the other three did not. I cannot describe what I imagine to have been the enthusiasm of the lawyers at the War Office over this turn of events, but I am sure they said, "Good. We have silenced the hon. Member for Ashford, but only very few people will get the main water." The pig troughs will remain; the cost to the taxpayer will be in no way reduced. God's in His Heaven—all's right with the world! I rather suspect that they and the lawyers of the local water company foregathered, and had a champagne supper on the strength of it.

In those circumstances, what did I do? I went down to Dungeness, and I took the precaution of taking a witness with me. I took an hon. Member of this House, the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown), who happens to be a constituent of mine, and a near neighbour, and who frequently lends me his moral, if not his political support. I am authorised by him to say that be would have been here tonight to support me had he not had an important engagement in Eire. The facts were revealed to the hon. Member for Rugby and myself in all their ugly nakedness, and it was, indeed, a very ugly nakedness. We also discovered that the capital cost of laying on the water to the deprived cottages would be in the neighbourhood of £250, less than 50 per cent. of the annual cost to the taxpayer for conveying this water 100 yards from the bungalow village to the fishing village.

Having done that, we came back, and we interviewed the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. I must say that he was most obliging. He told me that the matter would be put right at once. He who had been for so many years the "Soldier's Friend" would never consent to being the civilian's enemy. That was just a year ago, and since then nothing has been done. Did I say nothing? There I am wrong. The week before last I put down a Question covering the matter. The moment my Question appear on the Order Paper, the War Office, through its agents, the military at Shorncliffe stopped sending the water wagon. They cut off these poor people from their one supply of water; the pig troughs were empty. The driver of the water wagon, who had made this journey daily for two years, began, unaccountably, to lose his way. Anxious telephone calls from Dungeness to Shorncliffe disclosed that he always started but never arrived; and the people of Dungeness were actually reduced to stealing the water company's water. That, of course, infuriated—and naturally—the water company, which threatened them with prosecution. In order to be fair to the hon. Gentleman who is going to reply, I should say that, on 28th July, 1947, he wrote to me as follows: I am extremely sorry the military arrangement for the inhabitants of Dungeness to receive a domestic water supply was interrupted on 9th, 10th and nth July owing to the water cart having broken down. That suggests to me two things; first, that the military at Shorncliffe have only one water cart, and, secondly, that that cart must have read my Question on the Order Paper. In fact, these poor fisher folk at Dungeness—the hon. Gentleman must let me develop my case; he does not want very long, I am sure, in which to reply—have been haunted by two gibbering, chattering skeletons acting in grisly unison —the War Office and the Littlestone water company—and, after two years of torture, even their sturdy spirit has been broken down. In fact, the letters which they write to me are so pitiful that I dare not leave them lying about. The Under-Secretary of State for War says that shortage of lead for pipes is the cause of the delay. Poppycock! Has he never heard of iron pipes? If he really believes his fatuous answer to my question, he' could not possibly pass an elementary examination in general knowledge. Does he realise that the mains are already laid on to the groups of cottages? Does he realise that all that is needed is to connect the already laid mains to the deprived cottages? It is a very small, almost a microscopic, operation. But it seems to be too difficult for the War Office or for the Littlestone water company. I think it was King George II who said of his military forces: I do not know what impression these fellows will make on the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me! I, too, am terrified by the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary. They have been proved unfaithful in the little things and so they may very well prove to be unfaithful in the great things.

I charge the War Office with gross incompetence in this matter, although that is nothing new; I charge them with scandalous and unnecessary waste of the taxpayers' money, although that is nothing new either. I charge them with bad faith and with having broken their word in this matter; and, finally, I charge them with a mean and sadistic action in estopping the water wagon from Shorncliffe to Dungeness the moment my Question appeared on the Order Paper

7.47 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Freeman)

The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. E. P. Smith) is well known and well liked in this House as the author of sensational tales.

Mr. E. P. Smith

Not tales.

Mr. Freeman

Sensational works of fiction, shall I say? While he confines himself to that role we shall give him our full support. Indeed, I regret the size of his audience tonight which, I hope, will not be a forerunner of anything that he may shortly expect in another field. I want to ask those loyal members of the public who have stayed with him as long as this to apply the analysis of fact to the story that he has told us. I start by saying, perfectly genuinely, that I deeply sympathise with the inhabitants of Dungeness in this matter. This is a hardship which I myself have actually experienced in Dungeness, and I know as well as the hon. Member does exactly what the situation is there.

Before going any further, I want to dismiss from this case the matter of the water cart. The hon. Gentleman was not serious, and I feel certain he would not stand by his absurd suggestion that there was any sort of deliberate policy in withholding the contents of the water cart from what he has referred to as the pig troughs in Dungeness. I have apologised to him for the fact that for three or four days during last month the supply of water was interrupted, and I have taken steps, which I hope will be effective, to make certain that that will not occur again. That is without prejudice to any of the bigger issues.

I do not quarrel substantially with the background facts of this case as he has stated them. The wells of the inhabitants of Dungeness were polluted by the effects of "Pluto," and we were all faced with the problem of what to do to maintain the supply of water. It is in no sense "passing the buck," but merely making a statement of fact, when I say that the War Department are under no legal liability to provide water for the inhabitants of Dungeness. We might or might not be under a legal liability to provide some form of compensation for any damage that we had done to their wells; but, in fact, we have never stood on that at all, and we have always said from the very beginning that since the people of Dungeness were asked, as part of their war effort, to suffer the pollution of their water supply, we would do our best to help them restore the situation.

So what did we do? In October, 1945—after the hon. Member had made representations unavailingly to Sir James Grigg in the Coalition Government to put this matter right, and, with more success, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. J. J. Lawson) in the present Government—we agreed to facilitate the laying of main water to the points where the wells had previously existed; that is to say, standpipes open to the public wherever there had been wells. Obviously, we were not going to do so ourselves. The water company agreed to do so, and we agreed to foot 90 per cent. of the bill. That arrangement appeared at that time, to everybody concerned, reasonably satisfactory.

So far as we were concerned, at that moment, the matter was closed. We had undertaken to pay the money, and the water company had agreed to do the work. Without our knowledge—and I emphasise this—the water company, instead of placing standpipes on the existing sites of the wells, for legal reasons which the hon. Member has developed, laid the pipes into the nearest individual cottages to the existing wells, and, having done that, enforced their legal-sanction that the water was for those cottages and those cottages only, and was not to be shared. We had no knowledge of that at all, until it was subsequently brought to our notice by renewed complaints. It was entirely the action and responsibility of the Littlestone Water Company, who were the agents in this matter. Naturally, further complaints did develop, and the hon. Member made further representations. I would point out that at all stages, until quite recently, the hon. Member acted with courtesy in the representations that he made. He has, in fact, gone out of his way to compliment my right hon. Friend on the forthcoming spirit with which he has dealt with this matter.

As a result of the further representations which he made, we held a further meeting between ourselves, the local military, the Littlestone Water Company and the local authority. It was agreed at that meeting that, whereas it was no legal responsibility at all of the War Office to do anything about this, the fact remained that it was owing to the operations of the military that this discomfort had been caused, and that, as the problem had not been satisfactorily solved before, we would see if we could do something more. Accordingly we arranged in October, 1946, to lay water on to the remaining cottages which had been served by the wells, and which were at that moment still deprived of water. Having made that arrangement we were unaware of the exact legal conditions in the locality, and we asked the local authority to provide us with a certificated list of the cottages which were eligible for that service. That was in October. October went by, and November, December and January. By January we were getting alarmed, because we were not making any further progress with this matter, the local authority having apparently taken no action.

The hon. Member for Ashford has made his view of the local authority plain to us on a number of occasions, and I agree with him. We finally found, after extensive prodding of the local authority, that they had been unable to get on with their part of the job because, in the meantime, both the borough engineer and his clerk, the two responsible people, had passed quietly into retirement, leaving the work incomplete. In the event, legal operations and the drawing up of the list of the cottages eligible to receive this water was done by one of my own officials in his spare time. He put the list to the local council, and it was approved by the local council, that being the only way we could make progress towards finding out who was eligible for this water. In February we asked the company to provide an estimate for carrying out the work, and at the end of April they did present us with an estimate. We sat on that estimate for three weeks—not I think, an unreasonable time. We had been waiting from October to the end of April to receive it, and we kept it three weeks examining it. At the end of three weeks we agreed that it was a fair estimate and to foot 90 per cent. of the Bill. We suggested to the water company that at that stage it would be appropriate for them to go ahead and relieve the inhabitants of Dungeness of their hardship.

The water company pondered that clarion call to action for a month, at the end of which time they replied that they were unable to get on because they had not got any of the necessary pipes and fittings. It was not we who said that; it was the water company who said it. And I have some sympathy with the hon. Member that they should have made that excuse. It was an excuse made by the Littlestone Water Company, his no doubt valued constituents.

Mr. E. P. Smith

And so are the fishermen.

Mr. Freeman

Well, they made that excuse. We were really anxious to help in this matter, because we like the hon. Member, and I personally like the inhabitants of Dungeness. So, refusing to be put off by this excuse, we wrote to the water company and said, in effect: "We have a large supply of stocks of various kinds ourselves, which are rather higgledy-piggledy, left over from the war. We believe we might be able to meet your needs in this matter. We will make available to you anything you want." They sent us a list of what they wanted, and we wrote and told them, first of all, that we had not got what they wanted according to exact specifications, but that we had materials which we thought would meet their needs, which we would make available to them. That was the situation two days ago.

I had hoped from that, that within the next two or three weeks the work would start. However, I was distressed this morning when the hon. Member's constituents—referring again to the water company—wrote to me and said that they were unable to accept the offer which I had made to them to provide these parts because—and this is the excuse they gave: … the parts we have been offered are black and ungalvanised. The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom), who understands these matters, is not here, and I am not apprised of the exact significance of that. All I can say is, that they are parts we have used habitually for similar work of this kind over a long period, and my engineers advise me that they would be suitable for the Littlestone Water Company. As far as we are concerned, the Littlestone Water Company is welcome to them.

I can do no more than that. The hon. Member has used a great deal of strong language for which—and I think perhaps he will understand what I mean—the topical word at the moment is "rubbish." I have given him a factual account of the situation, which I would suggest goes to show that at no time have we had any responsibility in this matter at all, but that we have been anxious the whole time to make good any incidental damage which we, in the course of the war, were responsible for causing. For this reason we have done our best all along to help him and to meet him, and it is up to him to stick pins into both the local authority and the local water company.

Adjourned accordingly at Two Minutes to Eight o'Clock.