§ 49. Mr. Bossomasked the Lord President of the Council if there was any time clause in the cost plus contracts made for the South Bank Festival of Britain Exhibition; and were any penalties to be imposed if the time schedules were not kept.
§ The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison)Only a very small part of the work on the South Bank Exhibition has a cost plus character. These cost plus contracts comprise about 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of the building work together with less than half a dozen small contracts not connected with the buildings. In general, there is no penalty clause in such contracts which are not large enough to have any significant effect on the progress of the whole job. The main building contracts, however, which are on a basis of a schedule of prices, contain a time clause, but a penalty clause was not acceptable to the general contractors.
§ Mr. BossomIf there is no penalty clause will the work be finished in time? The contractors do not like it. Is the work up to schedule at present?
§ Mr. MorrisonProgress is generally satisfactory, subject to one or two interruptions, for which I am very sorry. I am still feeling reasonably optimistic about it, but we cannot be quite certain. We are doing all we can to see that it will be all right.
§ Mr. PorterCan my right hon. Friend say whether these contracts subject to cost plus conditions were contracts for which the Association of Master Builders had refused to estimate?
§ Mr. MorrisonNo, Sir, I would not quite say that. It is not a thing upon which one can proceed on the rails. One must deviate a little bit this way and the other in order to get the thing done; but I do not think that was the case.