HC Deb 29 June 1951 vol 489 cc1831-45

2.35 p.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed. "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Perkins (Stroud and Thornbury)

There are two points I want to ask the Minister, because I was unable to speak in the Second Reading debate, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give me a satisfactory answer. If today we give the Minister this extra £30 million to spend on rural water schemes, will he as a result be able to shorten the long, almost endless and unnecessary delays that take place whenever a water scheme is put up to his Department?

The whole Committee knows about the difficulty of obtaining pipes. I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman for that, but I do blame him for making the situation far worse, because there is in his Department a complete lack of the sense of urgency of the problem. I will give just one illustration of which the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. This concerns what is known, I believe, as the Aust scheme in the Berkeley Vale. On 29th August last the West Gloucester Water Company asked for permission for a great water scheme to water many villages and farms in the Berkeley Vale. Four months later, on 19th December, an inquiry took place, at which I was present.

The inquiry was conducted with perfect fairness, and could not have been a fairer inquiry. But after that, nothing happened until I asked a Question a fortnight ago, and then we got a promise that the matter would be finally agreed by 12th July. Ten and a half months after the scheme was put up to the right hon. Gentleman's Department, there is a sporting chance that we may get permission to go ahead. Of that 10½ months, six and a half months were needed to enable the right hon. Gentleman to make up his mind. He took six and a half months to give a simple answer to a simple question, and then only under pressure from the House.

A judge in the courts gives an answer more or less by return of post, but the Minister takes six and a half months to give an answer to a very simple proposal. I ask him whether he cannot do something to cut out these endless delays and to let the appropriate water authority get on with its job and supply the rural areas with water.

My second question concerns the whole problem of isolated cottages and hamlets which are too far from the main water supply ever to get water. I have in my constituency several very small hamlets which cannot get a water supply because the local water board will not take it to them; the distance is too great, and the work is expensive and uneconomic. What is the attitude of the Government to small local schemes for supplying water to a small hamlet or even a complete village? Are these schemes eligible for any of the £45 million, or is the whole of this sum to be allocated to the bigger schemes? I hope that the Minister will give a satisfactory answer.

Mr. Nugent (Guildford)

There are two points I should like to put to the Minister. The first is on almost the same lines as one of the questions which has been put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and Thornbury (Mr. Perkins). The Minister was unwise enough to invite us to give him concrete examples of delay. In the meantime, we have been able to think up a few instances for him. I find that in my constituency we have a classic example in the Cranleigh area, where the Cranleigh and Chiddingfold Company has been waiting for about two years to connect up with the Godalming supply.

There is a big scheme which has just been approved for amalgamating four or five individual supplies there, but the position is that in the Cranleigh area farmers and horticulturists have been short of water every summer for 10 or 15 years. [Interruption.] Every summer we suffer from lack of water pressure, and in the last few years our trouble has become greatly emphasised by the creation of the Dunsfold aerodrome, with its very heavy demand for water, so the Minister's aside about 10 or 15 years does not apply. The problem has become acute only with the arrival of the aerodrome in war-time.

It is acute now, and for a good many years we have been pressing that we should have a better supply. An improved supply depends on linking up these two companies, and that depends on getting a length of about one mile of pipeline to link them up. The real trouble is that up to now the Minister does not seem to have obtained sufficient priorities for these supplies of pipes. The point whether the Minister has given sufficient priority to this kind of work is one which was raised during the Second Reading.

There are two other cases of outstanding delay that have been brought to my attention, one in Nottinghamshire in the Bingham district. They tell me that it will take five years to complete that scheme. Perhaps the Minister will look at that example. Another example is in the Leicester district, at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, where they have been having most acute difficulties. On one dairy farm the water supply was cut off every afternoon last summer from 4.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. We know of the cuts under nationalised electricity. A scheme for nationalising water might result in water cuts in addition to electricity power cuts. I hope that the Minister will take that to heart and that if he still fancies a scheme of that kind he will be discouraged. I have to grant that in this case permission was given for a bore-hole after a very lengthy delay, and those people now have a supply. I should like to have an assurance, on this aspect, that the right hon. Gentleman will get a better priority than in the past for supplies for this development.

My other point is concerned with the question of the capital programme. In winding up the Second Reading debate, the Parliamentary Secretary was bold enough to tell us: I can give the right hon. and gallant Gentleman a guarantee that the £90 million will be spent during the next seven years provided, of course, there is no catastrophe such as war."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th June, 1951; Vol. 489, c. 1133.] I have done some arithmetic in the interim to see how this is possible. To start with the information contained in the Minister's statement, he told us that £9 million worth of schemes had been completed and that £24 million worth had been started or authorised, and that these all rank for grant. I assume that all this will have been in past years' capital programmes. He told us that final plans had been approved for £11 million worth, and these will presumably fall in the capital programmes of future years. He told us that £6,500,000 worth had been started without a grant and £8 million worth had been started with the grant of the Ministry of Agriculture. That made the total £58,500,000, which indicates, if one subtracts £11 million, a total of £47,500,000 over the last six years, an average rate of £8 million a year, with which he evidently intends to proceed.

2.45 p.m.

The Minister told us that he had agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that over the next three years the capital expenditure on this kind of development should be £25 million a year for water and sewerage, and approximately £8 million of that would be for rural development. So it appears that this expenditure will continue at approximately the same rate in the next three years as it has done up to now. If my calculations are correct, £11,500,000 worth of existing schemes are carried forward, and there is £90 million worth of work to be done under this Bill in the next seven years. That makes a total of £101 million, which would involve an annual rate of expenditure of £14 million a year.

The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the rate authorised for the next three years is only £8 million a year, and if the work proceeds at that rate for the next seven years it is evident that at the end of seven years there will still remain about £45 million worth of the work to be done. In the light of that calculation. I am waiting to hear the Parliamentary Secretary explain how he is to implement his guarantee. He may expect that he will not be sitting where he is now at the end of seven years, that somebody else will be there and that he will not be troubled with the matter; but it seems impossible, on the face of it, to complete the £90 million worth in the next seven years. I feel that the hon. Gentleman owes the House an explanation as to how he expects to do it.

Those are the points I wish to make at this moment, and if I am fortunate enough to catch Mr. Speaker's eye on Third Reading, I hope to make a further comment.

Mr. Braine (Billericay)

It seems appropriate to raise at this stage a point which did not receive adequate attention during the Second Reading, when I was unfortunately unsuccessful in catching Mr. Speaker's eye. What is the position under this Bill of urban districts which, while urban in status, are very largely rural in character? It is quite true that the Parliamentary Secretary did attempt to answer this question very briefly when he was winding up the debate, but it was perhaps a little unfair to have the question thrown at him at such a late stage in the debate. I rise now merely to ask if the Minister will now further elucidate the point.

There are a number of urban districts—four in my own constituency—which are in dire need of improved water supplies and sewerage facilities. Each of these four authorities—and I believe a large number of other urban districts of the character that I have in mind—have, since the passing of the 1944 Act, made applications for grants which have been rejected on the grounds that they are not rural localities within the meaning of the Act. That seems to me to be quite contrary not only to the spirit but to the letter of the 1944 Act.

That Act certainly empowered the Minister of Health to make contributions towards the expenses of local authorities in providing or improving water supplies in a rural locality. But for the purposes of the Act a local authority was defined in Clause 1 (6) as the council of any borough or urban or rural district; Indeed, the position was made quite clear by the then Minister, Mr. Willink, on Second Reading, when he said: We do not believe that any rigid rules as to the division or allocation or priority of this grant will be wise. … We believe we ought to have complete flexibility. He went on to say—and this has led me to raise this point—that boroughs and urban districts would be eligible for grants, for the simple common-sense reason that sometimes there are what the Bill describes as 'rural localities' in parts of urban districts."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th May, 1944; Vol. 400, c. 365 and 371.] It seems quite clear that the 1944 Act was never intended to make an arbitrary distinction between urban districts with a largely rural character and scattered development on the one side and rural districts on the other. Yet that is precisely what the Ministry appear to have done.

On the basis of what I have said, I cannot see how it is that urban districts of this character should have been excluded from grants. In order to illustrate the point, I will give the Committee some figures. I think I am right in saying that in a built-up urban district one can assume that there will be 500 or more—not less—persons per mile of water main; but in districts such as I have described there may be not more than 50, 60, 70, or 80 persons per mile of main. As an example, one urban district council carried out a review of its district and prepared the scheme for additional water mains.

They divided the scheme into two parts; first, in respect of areas which under town planning were open to further development, and secondly, in respect of areas where no development was expected, and here the object was to provide standpipes. In regard to the first scheme the number of premises was 585 and the miles of main were 13.8. In the second scheme the number of premises was 349 and the number of miles of main 5.6. Assuming—and this is on the generous side—a population density of 3.5 persons per occupied house, that gives an approximate density of 150 persons, no more, per mile of main. The scheme upon which this urban district is now embarking without a grant, for which it applied but did not obtain, is for 12 miles of main serving 532 premises. In other words, it will serve no more than 155 persons per mile of main.

I have gone to the trouble of finding out whether this position is general in the kind of urban district I have in mind, and I find that it is so. It is quite clear, therefore, that in urban districts of a rural character like this where there is a low density of population per mile of main, adequate water—and at a later stage, adequate sewerage facilities—can only be provided at a prohibitive cost to the ratepayers and refusal to give aid in these cases means either that schemes drawn up in the hope of attracting grants have to be abandoned altogether, or are proceeded with on a much reduced scale.

Although it is a narrow point, it is an important point, for a large part of the country as I know the Minister appreciates. The odd feature is that there are some rural district councils which apparently are eligible to receive grants under the method by which the 1944 Act has so far been administered with a higher rateable value per head of population than the urban districts of which I am speaking. There seems to be no rhyme or reason in this matter. I beg the Minister now that he has come to the House for more money—and rightly so—for this most worthy purpose, whether he can to give us a categorical assurance that he will now make more flexible use of his powers.

Mr. Heathcoat Amory (Tiverton)

This is exactly the kind of Bill I like, because I always find a Bill with more than two Clauses has a great many things in it that I do not understand. There are two questions I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman. In the part of the world from which I come, among the things for which we have to bless Providence is a reasonable supply of water scattered on our heads during the year, but we find that, in spite of the fact that the gentle dew descends on us from time to time, we have great difficulty in getting it into pipes in the places we want it and in the right quantities.

I think the 1944 Act is working out fairly well, but as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Hutchinson) said yesterday and my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent) said just now, this £8 million for rural water supplies will only go a little way. I should like to claim most of it for the part of the world from which I come.

On the question of how it can be speeded up, I have only one or two suggestions to offer. The first is, will the right hon. Gentleman do everything possible to encourage the availability and use of mechanical contrivances in carrying out these water schemes, because the difference that makes is terrific? These now instruments for digging trenches and so on make the difference of the job being done in a reasonable time or taking months.

The second point is in regard to delays. Such information as I have from my locality seems to show that the delays have not been unreasonable on the bigger schemes but in regard to some of the smaller schemes there seem to have been terrible delays, partly, perhaps, due to the number of bodies concerned—the local authorities, the county council, the water boards and the Ministry; but in the smaller schemes these delays are very hard to explain. One of the troubles seems to be the immense amount of detail required by the Ministry. I do not know whether anything can be done to cut down the amount of very detailed information and enable the work to go on faster.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will encourage the greatest possible amount of flexibility and will not allow his heart to harden in favour of very big schemes or very small ones, because there is a place for both. In the case of a very big scheme which in some cases is right and the most efficient in the long run, I hope he will do everything he can to encourage small schemes to go forward within the big scheme as sections which ultimately can be fitted in. I know of a great many cases where that is the right answer to the problem.

In these cases very often the best is the enemy of the good. It is cold comfort to a parish to know that perhaps in six or seven years a big scheme is coming but that nothing will happen in the meantime. Often a temporary scheme can be carried out quickly and ultimately very little expenditure will be wasted. I wrote the other day to the right hon. Gentleman to call his attention to a case of that kind.

My last question is about sewerage. There are many cases where sewerage is most important. Under Section 1 (1) of the Act of 1944 there are some restrictions on the grants that can be made for sewerage. The work has to be related to water supply improvements. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman not to make these restrictions more severe than is necessary. Often sewerage is more important than, or as important as, the piped water supply. That Section seems to mean that unless the sewerage work is related to work in connection with a new water supply, a grant cannot be made under that Act. It may be that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell me that a grant can be made under some other Act; but it appears that, if full advantage is to be taken of this Bill, it would help very much if the restrictions could be relaxed in the case of sewerage.

Finally, I wish this Bill a fair wind, and express the view that it is a practical Measure which will give encouragement to the countryside as far as it goes, and which will yield high dividends in increased happiness, health and efficiency in country districts.

3.0 p.m.

Major Sir Thomas Dugdale (Richmond, Yorks)

It must indeed be the dream of every Minister to introduce into the House of Commons a one-Clause Bill. All the points made in this short debate have been most important, and I am certain that the Committee will be grateful to my hon. Friends for mentioning specific instances for the assistance of the Minister.

I wish to refer briefly to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine). The point he raised was of great importance. There are many urban districts in different parts of the country which have a rural character about them, and it seems important that, by administrative flexibility, they should be brought within the confines of this Measure.

I also wish to discuss a point already mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent) about the capital investment programme. I, also, have been trying to do a little arithmetic since our discussion on Monday, and I should like to state the conclusions at which I have arrived. No doubt the Minister will be able to tell us the right answer. At the end of his speech on Monday, the Parliamentary Secretary told my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliott) that the £90 million would be spent during the next seven years.

From his statement, I have calculated that £8⅓ million will be scheduled to be spent on rural water and sewerage schemes in the next three years. That would be a spending of £25 million, which would leave £65 million to be spent during the last four years of the seven-year period. In other words, that means that to reach the total of £90 million, it would be the plan of the Minister, during the last four years of the seven-year period, to spend £16,250,000 a year. During those four years, double what it will be possible to spend under the agreement with the Chancellor during the first three years, will be spent.

Following that argument, it would appear that there will not be any speeding up of the effort to solve this problem until probably the fourth year after this. It appears to me that the Minister is taking on a tremendous work when he tells the Committee that, under his agreement with the Chancellor, over the next three years the expenditure will be confined to £8⅓ million a year, and that he will be able to reach an expenditure of £90 million on this work in the seven years. as stated in the Financial Memorandum. I hope that he will be able to tell us a little more in detail how he thinks that this will work out.

The Minister of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Dalton)

I am grateful to those who have contributed to this discussion which—since there is only one Clause of importance in the Bill—I hope hon. Members will be willing to treat as a Third Reading discussion.

The hon. Member for Stroud and Thornbury (Mr. Perkins) was kind enough to tell me of an instance of what he thought was delay. I am not worried about delay. I am not satisfied that there has been delay in my Ministry. In the many cases in which it was alleged there had been delay, very often I have found, since I have been in charge of the Ministry, that the delays have not occurred in the Ministry itself, but in the offices of the local authorities. I seek the very best relations with the local authorities, but, if I am accused of delays, and I find that the delay really rests with them and not with me, I must say so, and I have had innumerable cases where that is so. However, I will look into the particular case.

The local authorities are a very important element in the working of this scheme. Many of them are highly efficient and keen, but sometimes they meet rather infrequently and delays do occur. I will undertake to look at the case which has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Guildford, and I will undertake rather more than that. As soon as the Bill is through, I intend to call for a report and have a very close investigation in my Department.

I am not seeking to censure anybody, but to find out about the tempo of the whole thing, and to see if we can speed it up more than has been the case in the past. On the whole, in these matters, I am myself a speed merchant to the extent that the capital investment programme and other shackling things permit. However, I give that general undertaking to the House and to the country, and will try to speed up the process.

As to how soon we can spend the money, a good deal of this is hypothetical, of course. We do not know what will happen. We are in the beginning of a rearmament programme, and, but for that fact, the capital investment allocations for this project would be very much larger than it is. We cannot have armaments without giving up something else, and, in this particular field, some of the things we have to give up are pipes, and so on. There are longer delivery dates, because the metals required to make pipes are also required to make tanks, guns, and so on.

The three-year period covers last year, this year and next year, which is the period for which stabilisation has been agreed between my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and myself, and I would have thought that, in these days of economies, lowering ceilings and the like, I should have been congratulated upon having such harmonious relations with the Chancellor that I have been able to persuade him to give me stabilisation for those three years. Lots of other people will not have stabilisation, but their projects will be diminished. Relatively speaking, I think that those who are keen on this project, as I am, should be happy in the knowledge that this stabilisation over these three years has been achieved.

If our rearmament programme and those of our allies succeed, if the foreign policy of the Government, including arms policy and the Atlantic Pact policy, succeeds, we all hope that, having travelled up, we shall be able, in terms of annual expenditure, to travel down again, and, having established strength we shall be able to spend more on peaceful projects, of which this is an outstanding example.

I think the hon. Baronet wondered whether it was fanciful to think that, in the latter part of this period, we should be spending more than in the earlier part. I hope not. If our policy succeeds, we shall be on a rising curve in the latter part, and I hope that that is, substantially, the answer to his question. There is also much in the pipeline just now. It is quite true that there is only £9 million worth of work on rural water supplies and sewerage which has actually been completed and paid for, but there is £24 million worth actually in the pipeline which will be coming forward into completion in the next year or two.

There are also those schemes for which grants have already been promised, and there are others in respect of which applications for grants will be coming forward. We cannot, at this stage, in respect of the seven-year period, do more than express the hope—which I do express, and I should be disappointed if it were not so—that whoever is in charge at the end of the project will have been able to complete it.

The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) did not speak today of Basildon, but only of the more ancient community of Billericay. Very broadly, the position is this, as I think he recognised. The Act of 1944 uses the term "rural locality." It does not define it; it is all left rather at large. It is true that Mr. Willink said, when the Bill was going through, that he would give "rural locality" the widest possible interpretation. But when we come to the question of a grant, as I myself mentioned, I think, on Second Reading, we have to treat each of these cases on its merit. Not all these schemes are due for grants; indeed, a lot are going forward without grants.

As I then said, in determining what grant it is reasonable to pay on any particular scheme we have to take account particularly of the existing level of the rates in the area affected, including these urban district councils, and the higher the existing level of the rate the stronger the case for a grant. We have to consider what would be the burden if the scheme were carried out without a grant—on a loan basis, of course, not a revenue basis.

There is also a condition which is administratively applied, and which, I think, is quite reasonable. It is that there has got to be more than 3d. in the £ deficit—this is in terms of rates—before a grant is payable at all. That is a perfectly proper provision, and it rules out a certain number of areas. I was not aware that the hon. Member for Billericay was going to speak as, otherwise, I might have checked up on the position in Billericay, but the position there would be covered by this factor.

Mr. Braine

As the right hon. Gentleman is being so forthcoming, this seems to be an admirable opportunity for me to point out that I went into the figures and that I was not, of course, alluding only to Billericay, but to Benfleet, Canvey, Rayleigh, and, indeed, to the urban district represented in this House by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy). At today's prices, the provision of adequate water and sewerage schemes for, say, the Benfleet District Council would be equivalent to a 1s. rate. I am wondering whether on that basis the right hon. Gentleman would look into this matter again.

Mr. Dalton

I will look into anything again. I have a certain amount of money to spend, and I am anxious to spend it to the best advantage. As I have said, as soon as this Bill is through I will have a very careful study made of the distribution of the money, of the speedy distribution, and of the relevant factors, when, undoubtedly, the hon. Gentleman's case will be looked at along with others.

The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory) asked whether grants were payable in respect of small schemes in small and relatively isolated hamlets. The answer is most certainly, yes. He also said he thought there were some cases where there should be a big scheme and others where smaller schemes would be better. That is true. Very often the bigger schemes come through quicker because rather more high-powered people are engaged in preparing them than are engaged in preparing the small schemes. Speaking from my own experience, I know that some small schemes are prepared by the town clerk with no skilled assistance, and, therefore, go forward very slowly. They have to call in outside assistance.

I would not want that to be the general position; I would not want the smaller schemes to be set at the end of the queue, because they often meet a very genuine need which could be met more cheaply and more expeditiously than some of the rather larger ones, important though those are. In the study which I have undertaken to make I will certainly see whether we cannot speed up and encourage some of the smaller schemes and where rural district councils concerned have not the necessary skilled advice whether we can find some means of furnishing it to them more speedily.

3.15 p.m.

As for priority for pipes, everybody wants priority for everything and pipes are made of metal for the most part. I will do my best, but I am not going to pretend that we ought to set back the arms programme to facilitate this unduly. The fact that we are building guns and tanks means that my hon. Friend who appealed to me must wait for his spun iron pipes. As far as I can secure a reasonably swift delivery of material I will aim at doing that and will be very delighted if I get it.

I think I have dealt with all the points raised in the debate. I need only say, in conclusion, that the additional £30 million for which I am asking is designed to put me well in funds for some years we hope for seven. As the Committee understands, and as we have said several times, I am bound by the capital investment ceiling. But I think it is not a bad ceiling to work under in these hard and difficult times. I should like to get on with authorising as many good schemes, both large and small, as I can.

I think it is agreed in all parts of the Committee that this is one of the most important projects in rural development before us today. Anybody who moves about in rural areas is, on the one hand, very much shocked by the lack of facilities in some of the most charming hamlets inhabited by some of our very best citizens and, on the other, delighted with those places where a water supply scheme has gone through. I have seen places where they have had water supplies for the first time. The people are bright with smiles and other things are brighter too: and we shall press forward with these schemes.

Mr. Amory

May I ask whether restrictions on grants for sewerage will be the same under this Bill as they are under the 1944 Act?

Mr. Dalton

There is a provision in Section 1 (1) of the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, the effect of which is that grants for sewerage and sewage disposal ought not to be made unless the Minister is satisfied that … the need for making the provision is due to anything done or proposed to be done … to supply, or increase the supply of, water in pipes in that locality. Therefore, it is laid down in that Act that there must be a linkage between grant-aided sewerage and an increase in the water supply. I think that is and has been interpreted as reasonably as possible.

Although I do not think this is the exact point the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory) has in mind, we have had claims we have had to reject when people want full grants for the repair of existing installations. That cannot be done. The work has to be something new and additional; but provided that that is the case I think we can interpret the sewerage arrangements pretty broadly. Obviously, where there is a good water supply there is greater need for better water carriage and up-to-date sewerage arrangements. The one follows the other. It is not a good situation where one has a good water supply and the sewerage facilities are not improved.

Mr. Mitchison

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind cases where, as in Northamptonshire, a county joint water board has been set up and partly as a result of that and the result of energetic rural district councils and probably young and energetic clerks, there has been a very satisfactory and rapid extension of the water supply? When he is making his survey will he particularly see that in any areas like that the provision of sewerage is not falling behind?

Mr. Dalton

That is exactly the case I had in mind, where there is a strong case for a grant towards a sewerage scheme if the other conditions are satisfied. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.