HOUSING, SCOTLAND (Hansard, 16 March 1948)

§ Mrs. Jean Mann (Coatbridge)
I do not wish to detain the House long at this very late hour, and shall say what I wish to say as quickly as possible. I would refer hon. Members to the figures in the last published account of completed houses for Scotland, England and Wales. It would appear that the number of new permanent houses completed to date is 213,351. The number completed in Scotland is 19,052. I do not wish to make any particular plea for Scotland. I remember how well and how nobly England stood up to the blitz and England ought to have her blitz rehousing attended to, so I exclude the figure of repairs to unoccupied war-damaged dwellings of 106,564, which does not appear in the Scottish figures. I confine myself to new permanent houses.
In proportion to the population, we do not seem to be getting a fair share.
2052 Many times the Goschen formula has been referred to in this House. The Goschen formula is eleven-eightieths, and that would give us approximately 26,670 houses whereas we have only reached 19,052; or if we took one-ninth, the amount would be 23,700, whereas we are still only at 19,052. If we take the month of January, the figures for which have aroused a certain amount of apprehension, we find that the total for Great Britain is 15,400 and for Scotland, 1,024.
Scotland has many reasons for getting a preference. One is that the country is so largely agricultural and therefore the Government, in their own interest, might study agriculture further by encouraging a greater building of houses in the Scottish agricultural areas. Secondly, Scotland carries an unfair proportion of the unemployment of the United Kingdom. That proportion is largely found in agriculture and even in afforestation. In other words, we could give employment to thousands if we had the houses to offer. If the houses were there, a great number of our unemployed would take up afforestation and would also be attracted to agriculture.
2053 I am afraid there is something else I must point out. Many people in England are very worried about the figure of tuberculosis in Germany, because it is so much higher than the figure in England, but we in Scotland are bearing in our cities an incidence of tuberculosis higher still than that of the British-occupied German cities. I think that while we hear of shortages of glass, cement and sanitary ware, these shortages are not being proportionately borne throughout the United Kingdom. I do not want to make any special plea for Scotland, though I would draw the attention of the Government Front Bench to the fact that Scotland always did have her special needs recognised and from previous Governments there was always an increased subsidy to Scotland because of her peculiar position.
When houses are scarce, naturally there are subterfuges and rackets. The racket in Scotland is the extortionate prices being asked for houses with vacant possession. I quote from no less an authority than the "Daily Herald," which starts a column with, Can anything be done about the racket in the sale of houses? It grows steadily worse. It has grown so bad in Scotland with the bungalows and semi-detached cottages that we now have landlords selling small room-and-kitchen houses, selling single apartments; and worse still, it is within the knowledge of some of us that these very houses are in areas scheduled for demolition. That is evidently known only to the medical officer of health and to a number of the local councillors, but nevertheless those houses are in areas scheduled for demolition.
The only thing apart from legislation—and I must not ask for legislation on the Adjournment Motion—is to operate requisitioning powers. The two burghs Airdrie and Coatbridge have sent me long lists of empty houses which are evidently awaiting buyers. In both burghs, the local authorities want to requisition a large number of empty houses within the borough. There does not seem to be any recognised formula for applying the requisitioning order. For instance, Coat-bridge inform me that they give a landlord reasonable time in which to sell a house. They make their own interpretation of what is "a reasonable time." I draw my hon. Friend's attention to that.
2054 One burgh thinks that a reasonable period might be a month; another thinks it might be two months; another thinks it ought to be a fortnight. I have in my constituency burghs with conflicting views on how long a period should elapse before they ask for requisitioning powers; but both are completely in agreement that there are far too many houses standing empty for too long a period. I ask my hon. Friend to give the local authorities some guide on how they should operate in this respect rather than that each local authority should find a formula for itself.
Now I come to the last part of my plea tonight. It is with great apprehension that many of us noticed the huge increases in rent being placed on council house tenants. It might be reasonably argued that an increase could be borne by council house tenants; but I have one example from Elgin where houses of £17 were raised to £30 last year. The county council was not content with that. It has raised them this year to £40. My right hon. Friend has replied: As you are aware, the statutory provisions under which local authorities fix rent are contained in Section 47 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1935, and Subsection (6) of that Section places an obligation on the local authorities to review rents from time to time, and to make changes either of rents generally or of particular rents as circumstances may require. I should like to point out that while that Section has conferred that obligation upon local authorities, there is a far greater obligation which it has imposed on local authorities though I am afraid that the greater obligation is being sacrificed to the lesser. I refer to the obligation specifically imposed on the local authorities under the 1924 Act, the 1935 Act and even under the 1930 Act that their houses must be at rents within the capacity of the working classes to pay. In the 1935 Act, in Section 45, they are specifically directed to seek out the lower wage earners. This increase from £17 to £40 is not at all in keeping with the spirit of the Act.
I ask my hon. Friend to look into this matter and see whether there is not some ceiling above which local authorities cannot go. He may find it very difficult, because I believe that the Scottish Special Housing Association are playing the same game. In my constituency both the 2055 burghs are having the utmost difficulty and trouble with their tenants, because the Scottish Special Housing Association houses are rented at £35 and the local authority houses—which are superior, I believe—are only £23. I am telling the Joint Under-Secretary of State what he has been told time and time again. There have been conferences held in connection with the question, on which various memoranda have been addressed to the Secretary of State. It is most surprising that in a reply to the local authorities on this question, my right hon. Friend excused the position of the Scottish Special Housing Association by pointing out that reduced scales of rent would result in a substantial deficit on the Housing Association's revenue account; that unlike local authorities the Association has not a reservoir of pre-war houses against which a deficit can be charged and unlike local authorities, the Association is bound by the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts.
Local authorities all over Scotland pointed out that this would happen, and they could not understand a predecessor of my right hon. Friend in a previous Government saying to them, "If you will only allow the Scottish Special Housing Association to build houses for you, they will build them without any subsidy and you will be relieved altogether from giving either a local subsidy or a national subsidy." Not being able to understand it, local authorities were reluctant to accept this gift horse, and ultimately deputations had to be sent from the Department to persuade Glasgow to build 2,000 houses and to persuade Coatbridge and Aidrie to permit houses to be built.
When the houses were built, of course, there was no local authority subsidy. The tenants had to pay. That is why we find the rents of those houses are £35, whereas the local authority houses are rented at £23. I suggest that local authorities can do this job better and more cheaply than the Scottish Special Housing Association. I agree that there is a place for the Association. There are reactionary local authorities who will not build at all, and a great many who need assistance. There are many who cannot get contractors so easily as in my own constituency, but the whole question of these rents has to 2056 be settled and in fairness to the local authorities, the Scottish Office ought to see that a further grant is made from the Treasury. Otherwise, the promise to the local authorities will be broken.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. J. Robertson)
I wish that I had had a little more time to deal more exhaustively than I shall be able to do with the points which my hon. Friend has raised tonight. I shall endeavour, however, to deal as adequately as I can with them. I share with the hon. Lady the disappointment we all feel at the Scottish Office—the Secretary of State, and all those who are concerned with these matters—at the drop in the number of completed houses in Scotland during January; but there were causes—and I am not trying to make excuses—over which we had no control. First, whereas the figures for December were taken over five weeks, in January they were for only four weeks. Furthermore, one has to remember that Scotland still chooses the right to have holidays at the new year rather than at Christmas-time, so there was a period when there was not the same intensive building as at other times of the year. That is not the whole reason for the drop.
Among other reasons were the shortage of glass and certain essential materials. Glass was particularly short, and that was in some part due to the fact that we had used rather more glass than we had expected during December. There was also a shortage of hard wall plaster. I am glad to be able to inform the hon. Lady that we have taken steps to see that this will not occur again, and she will find that the allowance of glass has been considerably increased. The difficulty we experienced in these materials for the finishing trades is largely because almost everything is in the pipeline running to the housing sites, very often from considerable distances. I would refer particularly to cement, which has to be brought from the South of England. There we have difficulties in transport.
All these matters have tended to make it very difficult to get a steady stream of houses erected as quickly as we would like. We are, however, taking steps, and the Ministries of Works and Supply and 2057 the Department of Health for Scotland are co-operating extremely well. There is a progressing and steady flow of materials so essential to the completion of houses. I am glad to inform the House, though perhaps it would be a little premature to give exact figures, that the total for February shows a gratifying increase over those of the previous month. With the arrangements I have referred to in operation I would prophesy that the increase which has been manifested during February will be maintained.
I would like to turn to the other points in the speech of my hon. Friend which related to the requisitioning of vacant properties. I find that while the number of properties which are available for requisitioning is diminishing we have very little difference between the figure for the last quarter of last year, and that for the last quarter of the previous year. The problem is one on which we must have the co-operation and assistance of local authorities. We should also have the cooperation of people who have knowledge of empty properties which ought to be requisitioned. I would mention the example of Glasgow, where the local authority carefully watches the advertising columns of the newspapers for properties which are vacant or "for sale." When they discover that some of these are available for a long period they take steps to requisition them. If the hon. Lady knows of any case in her constituency and is kind enough to let us know, we will take steps to see that action is taken.

§ Mrs. Mann
Would my hon. Friend say what is regarded as a reasonable period to give an owner before applying for powers to requisition?

§ Mr. Robertson
It is very difficult to say, but when the local authority takes action the owner is given a fortnight to make representations, which may refer to having the house occupied or disposed of in another way. It is difficult for a local authority to dictate how long a house should be in the market for sale. I hope local authorities will realise their responsibilities in this matter and not let houses be available for sale for too long a period. If, however, the hon. Member has any knowledge of houses which have been vacant for a long period, I hope she will either get in touch with the local authority or bring the matter to the notice of the 2058 Scottish Office. We have, however, no evidence of any recent cases of a number of small houses being offered for sale.
I want to turn to the other question of increased rents, and I would like to concentrate my remarks upon the questions raised with regard to the Scottish Special Housing Association. It is perfectly true that the association has rents which are somewhat in excess of those of the rents of local authority houses. There are reasons for that. We appreciate this anomaly and understand that. We are made aware of it from time to time by local authorities bringing it to our notice. The average rents, however, throughout Scotland for the rural areas is from £29 to £35, and slightly higher for the urban areas. It is very difficult to find a solution to this question, or to decide on the necessary action which might bring them into line with the local authority rents. There are, however, certain benefits which, I hope, will not be lost sight of, in having the Scottish Special Housing Association operating in Scotland. We have, for example, a short-term programme under the association for the building of 10,000 houses and a longterm programme for the building of 100,000 houses.
What does this represent to Scotland as a whole? I hope local authorities will bear in mind that these houses are provided for the local authority without any cost whatsoever. I was looking into the example of Coatbridge, to discover how they would benefit. I discovered that the benefit is considerable. They have a programme of 514 four-apartment houses and I find that the revenue which Coatbridge will be likely to get from these houses in rates after they have been completed, amounts to something in the region of about £11,000 per annum. That is a considerable sum in the way of income without any expenditure, or very little expenditure, for services on the part of the local authority, so that there is considerable gain to the local authority.

§ Mrs. Mann
Is the Minister aware that if the local authority increased its own houses to the rents of the Scottish Special Housing Association, there would be a still further considerable gain?

§ Mr. Robertson
I have only half a minute to reply. It is not easy to get over 2059 this difficulty unless we act on the suggestion of the hon. Member to go to the Treasury to ask for an additional grant in order to equate the rents of the local authorities and the Scottish Special Housing Association, and at this juncture in our 2060 national misfortunes we feel that we cannot possibly do that.