HC Deb 23 February 1951 vol 484 cc1707-15

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

4.9 p.m.

Mr. Fort (Clitheroe)

This House has just acted in a way which should increase the road transport facilities of this country. What I wish to put before it now are proposals to increase the number of houses of good quality both in our countryside and in our towns. By circular 108/50 the local authorities have been limited by the former Ministry of Health, the present Ministry of Local Government and Planning, to grant licences for repairs, extensions and reconditioning of houses up to a limit of 80 per cent. by value of the amount which they were granting in 1949, thereby continuing the limitation which was imposed in 1950.

The House will be aware that the reason for this limitation was the restriction upon capital expenditure which the Government enforced in the autumn of 1949. Since that time, of course, the rising costs of labour and buildings means that the actual amount of building which can be done under these licences is rather less—noticeably less—than 80 per cent. of what was done in 1949. Furthermore, the grants which may be made under Section 20 of the Housing Act, 1949, are included in the limitation to which I have already referred.

The results of this strict limitation of building licences which can be granted by the local authorities are two-fold. First, many houses cannot be put in good order although they are at present almost or entirely uninhabitable until they are reconditioned, or which, although in a very bad state, are being lived in at present. The second result is that the reconditioning under Section 20 of the 1949 Housing Act is, for all practical purposes, a dead letter. It is not, therefore, surprising that the former Minister of Health in Written Answers on 19th October and 24th October last year, showed that a total of rather fewer than 400 houses had received grants under the 1949 Act.

The result of this overall limitation, which affects urban as well as rural districts, is very dramatic indeed. In my own constituency, for example, is a man who wrote to me about the matter. He lives in a house which has two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. He has a daughter of sixteen and a half and a boy of thirteen and a half living in a bedroom eight feet by nine feet. The daughter is in none too good health, and she has to have special attention and even nursing. He wishes to extend the house, at a cost of £500, by building on another bedroom, but, owing to the limitation in this particular rural district, he has been unable to get permission to do so.

In another part of the same rural district are two cottages, at present unfit for habitation, which could be reconditioned and put into good order at a cost of £750 and £250. In yet another part, there is a large house which the owner wishes to turn into two flats at a cost of £500. The council cannot give him the licence to do so because of this limitation. In the same area there are 96 houses graded Class 4 under the 1949 Act. That is to say, they are appropriate for reconditioning. Many of them could be reconditioned under that Act but no progress can be made on them owing to the limitation. Another case I have before me concerning agricultural houses is of five sub-standard houses, three of which cannot be lived in, all of which could be put in good order for the comparatively modest sum of £2,400. I am informed by this authority that at 1st January they had 14 outstanding applications to a total value of £8,191, whereas the total amount they could grant in licences was £3,758 at a rate of £939 10s. a quarter, although I am bound to say that the Ministry has recently increased that limit to £4,500 for the whole year, a little over £1,000 for each quarter. That is in a large area of 50 square miles, with 32 parishes and a population of just under 9,000. I have no doubt that other hon. Members could give similar examples from their urban and rural districts crying out for small extra sums of money with which to put a large number of additional houses in good order so that they could be lived in.

Towards the end of last year the Rural District Councils' Association discussed this problem with the former Minister of Health. He turned them down flat, saying that nothing more could be done for them because the result of giving them more money would be to use labour and materials which could be more properly and better used for building new houses in town and country. That is not so. He really misunderstood the situation, and that is why I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to indicate some easing of the limitation by the present Minister. These houses could be put into good order at much less cost than building new houses in the countryside.

In country districts, especially, much of the work could be done by the ordinary estate staffs fitting it in with their work round the estate, or by small builders who are unable to undertake large housing endeavours such as estates of 30 or 35 houses; they are beyond the capacity of these small builders who could, however, undertake this repair and reconditioning work, of which they have a great deal of experience. The larger housing estates for which the local authorities are responsible could be, and indeed are at the present time, as I think is the experience of many hon. Members, being, built by large contractors, who are very much better equipped to do it than the small builders.

I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us whether or not he would be prepared to reconsider this limit, and, in particular, whether he would ask the Minister to exclude the grants under Section 20 of the 1949 Act, which would undoubtedly greatly ease the problem in country districts, and, no doubt, in urban districts as well. If he would do that I am sure it would quickly increase the number of good houses, which we must have in England, and at much less cost than building new houses in place of those which have to be reconditioned if they are to be lived in.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Assheton (Blackburn, West)

I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Fort) upon raising this most important subject. I can confirm from my own experience that what he has said is correct. We all know of the shortage of houses in the country and of the efforts being made to meet it with new building, but it must be remembered that a certain number of old houses are at the same time falling into disrepair. It may be suggested that some are not worth repairing but a very great number of houses could, by the spending of a few hundred pounds, be brought up to date and made adequate and welcome additions to our stock of houses.

The figures which one can give in regard to this matter show a ludicrous state of affairs. In a rural district we may find a limit of less than £1,000 on what may be spent in any one quarter of the year on the repair of houses in that district, where there are probably a couple of thousand houses to be considered. The proposition is not very sensible. I can give as an illustration a case where one property owner alone is prepared to spend, and is in the habit of spending, more money in any quarter than the total allocation under this system for the whole rural district. The allocation for repairs to boroughs is also totally inadequate.

I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us the basis for this very strange policy. There are houses out of commission simply because a licence cannot be obtained to do the necessary repairs. A house that I know of is out of commission because the roof cannot be put on. Other examples are just as extraordinary. They raise a question to which insufficient attention has been given, because the system has not been going on for very long. It only started in July last year and is only now beginning to be fully understood.

I do not propose to pursue the matter with further examples. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has acquainted himself with the subject and I hope that he will be able to tell us that the Government will revise their plans in this matter and that we are to have a more reasonable administration for the future in regard to licences for the repair of houses.

4.23 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Lindgren)

I will deal, first of all, with the point made by the right hon. Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton). I think that unwittingly he has forgotten that licence-free work up to £100 is going on all the time. The works to which he has referred are works of major importance.

Mr. Assheton

Not at all. It costs £300 to put a new roof on a cottage in the part of the world where I live. We cannot call that a work of major importance but it is necessary, in order to keep the house going at all.

Mr. Lindgren

If that is the condition of the house it must have been getting into that condition for a long while. That point is a matter for the local authority and I will show why in a moment. In 1949, the general economic situation of the country was such that all quarters of this House agreed that there would have to be some general restriction in the national investment programme.

In the light of that programme, the Government decided that works of repair and maintenance should be reduced by 20 per cent. so that the amount of capital allocation was 80 per cent. of the 1949 figure. I do not want to make this a party issue because the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman who have spoken have done so in the best and mildest of manners, but the Government were criticised for not being really serious about the economic situation of the country and for not cutting the capital expediture programme much more drastically. What is being said is that we ought not to have a restriction on the work of repair and maintenance or improvement—

Mr. Assheton

Repair, yes.

Mr. Lindgren

I will say, quite bluntly and plainly, that every effort will be maintained—on the programme of 200,000 houses mentioned in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement recently and on the defence programme—and with 80 per cent. of the 1949 allocation. The three things together—the repair, maintenance and improvement works, the housing programme, and a defence programme which, it is estimated, will take a tenth of the general output of the building industry—might be managed—it will be a very difficult squeeze—but if we had an unlimited allowance for repair and improvement works, one of the other sections, either the 200,000 new houses or the defence programme, would have to go by the board.

Mr. Fort

The point I put to the hon. Gentleman was that repairs under Section 20 should be included. I did not say that there should be no limiting of repairs at present, but merely asked if he would consider excluding repairs under Section 20 and limiting others.

Mr. Lindgren

We cannot do that inside the present programme unless another part of the programme is affected.

Mr. Fort

indicated dissent.

Mr. Lindgren

I see that the hon. Member shakes his head, but everyone would agree that there is a limit on the labour and the material available within the industry and that we cannot use either material or labour twice. Therefore, if we use labour and materials to a greater extent than we are now doing on repair works and improvements of a major character, either the new housing programme or the defence programme has to go by the board. This is the point in regard to the rural district of the hon. Member for Clitheroe. Last year it did not reach its quota for new house building, but it had a very high programme indeed of conversion and repairs. It had nearly double the allocation. I am looking at it from a distance and it is not an unfair interpretation to say that if there had not been that very extensive work—double what was going on in most parts of the country—more labour would have been available for the normal new house building programme.

Mr. Fort

I would remind the hon. Gentleman, as I mentioned in my speech, that the major building in this rural district, and in others, is done by outside contractors, who alone can take on the large number of houses involved. The repair is done by estate staffs or by one or two people in small local building firms who cannot take on house building. It is a much better use of labour and materials to get houses by means of repair than by trying, as the hon. Gentleman is doing, to get new houses.

Mr. Lindgren

I did not want to quote figures, but the hon. Gentleman's rural district has been very favourably treated. Its works last year amounted to almost £8,000. That was sanctioned by the Ministry. If this work was being done, it shows that a certain amount of labour and materials was being used.

I will deal with the matter from this point of view. The hon. Member quite rightly raised a number of special instances. I have here a list of the applications by the rural district. There are 14. Eleven of those 14 applications can be done within the limits now allowed. Surely it is a matter for the rural district council to decide which of those projects is the most urgent in the light of their local knowledge and the effect upon the community. One of them, as the hon. Gentleman quite rightly said, although I do not agree with his figure, is the question of the five cottages. According to my list that figure is £2,400. Therefore, it is left to the local authority to decide whether to use the sum of £2,400 for a single group of five cottages or to use it for 10 where the individual amount to be expended is only just over £200 or £300.

In the general sequence of events I do not think it would be right, or that it would be expected, that a selection of the work to be done should be made from Whitehall. All one can do, in the light of the national investment programme, is to select the best work for the money available. This is evidenced by the generosity of the Ministry to this district council last year. I do not want to infer by my earlier remarks that the work they did in excess of the normal allocation was not really vital work. It was the conversion of a house to flats for which, in the light of the local circumstances, the then Minister of Health felt it was justifiable to double their allocation. So there is a slight flexibility in the quotas available, but it has to be on the basis of individual allocations.

While we look at everything with a view to being as liberal as we can in the light of local circumstances, I cannot, in view of the present national situation and the defence programme, give any hope that there will be an increase in these quotas. We shall make every endeavour to deal with the two items—the building programme and the new defence programme.

I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour would like to make a statement to the House. Therefore, having made a general statement which, while it does not give full satisfaction, answers most of the points raised by the hon. Member for Clitheroe, I think the House would wish me now to give way to my right hon. Friend.