§ 12. Major Mott-Radclyffeasked the Minister of Health what additional building labour has been employed on the Easthampstead Rural District Council housing sites at Skimped Hill and Binfield Road, Bracknell, during the last two months.
§ Mr. BevanThe number of men employed on the Binfield Road site rose to 34 on the 31st May and dropped to 25 on 30th June. The labour position at Skimped Hill remains difficult. The number of men employed rose from nine on 31st May to 22 on 30th June; 16 men are now employed.
§ Major Mott-RadclyffeIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that in actual fact, according to the progress report of the rural district council in question, no effective increase has been obtained at all, and that the average number of bricklayers employed on these two sites in particular, in the month of June, was four and three, respectively, in July, two and four and, up to 5th August, one on each site?
§ Mr. BevanThe difficulty in this area is that the labour is subject to attraction into the Metropolitan area and that it is extremely difficult to keep men on the site. That is a difficulty common to all local authorities on the periphery of the Metropolitan area. We shall do our very best in future to see that where houses, especially rural houses, are involved, we keep men on the sites.
§ Major Mott-RadclyffeMay I hope that the steps taken in the future will be more successful than those that have been taken in the past?
§ Mr. BevanThe answer is that we shall have to interfere with the free flow of private enterprise more effectively in the future than we have done in the past.