HC Deb 17 December 1952 vol 509 cc1583-92

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith.]

12.24 a.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will not be unfamiliar with the problem which I want to raise. She will recall that in March she met a deputation of Durham county councillors and Durham Members of Parliament, so that they might discuss with her the question of providing in the immediate future residential hostels at Jarrow, Stanley, and Durham City. She received that deputation with much courtesy, and expressed sympathy with it; but, unfortunately, she was unable to give a guarantee that the Durham County Council would be allowed to proceed with the three hostels. She spoke of the cut in capital investment, and the difficulty of supplying scarce and controlled materials, and emphasised that the acute shortage of steel made it impossible to sanction these buildings.

Those arguments may have been substantial in March, but I suggest that they are invalid now. The steel supply position is greatly improved, and firms are now not so much lacking steel as lacking orders on which to use it. Much the same applies to other building materials. I saw in the "Manchester Guardian" yesterday that Mr. T. Brockie, assistant secretary in the Ministry of Works Building Materials Division, expressed the opinion that this year has been the easiest year since the war for building materials.

Now, of course, we have the fact that the. Minister of Housing and Local Government has recently allowed the value of repairs which may be done without a licence to go up to £500, while the Minister of Works has likewise made a substantial increase in the amount of building work which may be undertaken by industry without having a licence. There is the further fact that yesterday the Minister of Housing and Local Government said that the sky was the limit from now on as far as house building is concerned. If the steel supply position has improved so that a principal officer in the Ministry of Works can say that building materials now are easier than they have been at any time since the war, and if the Minister of Housing and Local Government is so confident of the supply of building materials that he says the sky is the limit in house building, I suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary ought now to be prepared to review the question of the hostels in a favourable light.

I suggest to the hon. Lady that provision of the hostels is part and parcel of the housing programme, because evicted families must have somewhere to go. Homeless patients who are made fit in hospital must have shelter. The question of accommodation for people who are evicted and for those who are able to leave hospitals is, in my constituency, acute. So far as Jarrow is concerned, it should be borne in mind that it has not been possible for the county council to make any hostel provisions in this part of the county, either by erecting hostels or by acquiring buildings which could be adapted for that purpose.

In this respect, the problem of Jarrow is probably the greater because of its interwar experience. I do not want to re-open old sores, but it is true that because of the lean years through which the people of Jarrow passed we have more people incapable of looking after themselves and a population which, generally speaking, is much older in relation to the population of the rest of the country because in those years of mass unemployment young people left in thousands and did not return.

This is, after all, a human problem. These people are entitled to accommodation. The House of Commons has thrust upon the Durham County Council the responsibility for providing that accommodation, and without in any way being offensive, I must say that this Government have their priorities all wrong. We are to spend £50,000 on erecting an annexe across the road, for the purpose of the Coronation, a structure which will be used for only a few hours. It is a scandal, and a crying shame that building materials should be found for that annexe when the Durham County Council is denied the opportunity of erecting three hostels which are so urgently needed in the county.

Therefore, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, after she has listened both to my remarks and to those of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Grey), will go back to the Minister and use upon him her charm, personality and powers of persuasion, and will say that the time has come when Durham should be given permission to start these three hostels. They are necessary, they are required urgently, it is a great human need, and I hope that the appeal we are making tonight will not be made in vain.

12.33 a.m.

Mr. Charles Grey (Durham)

I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) for his brevity, because an opportunity is provided for me to stress the need for these three hostels in the county of Durham, in Durham City, Stanley and Jarrow.

I hold strongly that there are two ways of killing an Act of Parliament. We can either repeal it or use the more subtle way of not carrying out its intentions. It is elementary knowledge that if legislation is to be used for the benefit of the people, we must have a Government which intends to carry out those principles. The attitude of the Government towards the Durham County Council who are, after all, only seeking to carry out the National Assistance Act, 1948, places them in an atmosphere of suspicion. There is a general feeling that they have no desire to implement that Act.

The Parliamentary Secretary is aware that Section 21 of the Act imposes upon the Durham County Council the duty of providing residential accommodation for persons who, by reason of age, infirmity or any other circumstances, are in need of care or attention which is not otherwise available to them, and requires the County Council to make a scheme for exercising their functions under that Section.

Durham County Council set about this task with great energy and a scheme was prepared and approved by the Ministry of Health on 23rd June, 1949, for the use of certain institutions for this particular purpose. On top of this, the county council also prepared a scheme for the provision by 31st March, 1954, of 13 new hostels to provide accommodation for approximately 235 persons. I readily admit that of these 13 there are two in the course of erection, one at Billingham and one at Winlaton, and the county council are actively engaged in the provision of sites for further hostels and have already purchased, or are negotiating for the purchase of sites in certain parts of the county. No one can say that this scheme was very ambitious when one bears in mind that the county council have no accommodation at all available for these people. It is a very serious problem and one which should receive the serious attention of the Minister of Health.

I hope my hon. Friend and myself will enlist the sympathy of the Parliamentary Secretary on this matter. I believe it is imperative that the three hostels in question shall be proceeded with, thereby giving real effect to the great principal intention of the Act. If the Parliamentary Secretary—and I hope she does not —turns a deaf ear to our request, the whole scheme which the Durham County Council have in mind, which will terminate in 1954, will be thrown out of gear, and by 1954 there will be a complete bottleneck.

What will become of the persons for whom the hostels are intended is anyone's guess. The position today is that there are 117 persons on the waiting list. This figure is well worth noting, because it shows a very marked increase since March. The figure then was between 50 and 60. These are figures which no one can ignore, because, if the same rate of increase continues for the next 12 months, the Durham County Council will be in an intolerable position.

But quite apart from the 117, there are 53 patients occupying hospital beds in hospitals controlled by the regional hospital board. This makes a total of 170, but the important thing about the 53 patients is that they have sufficiently recovered to require residential accommodation. I would have thought the Minister would be only too anxious to free hospital beds quickly in view of the fact that there is a great waiting list for them. There is also the need to ensure that there is accommodation for families, so that separation of children from their families is reduced to the absolute minimum.

From these points alone I think the Parliamentary Secretary should give consideration to our request, particularly in regard to the hospitals. We have one at Durham that was originally contemplated for blind persons in need of residential accommodation. On 14th August, 1950, the Ministry expressed their readiness to consider proposals. Subsequently, a site was selected, approved by the Ministry and acquired. In May, 1951, plans were submitted. In November, the Ministry stated that their observations on the plans would be forthcoming but no building would be possible until 1953. In connection with Stanley, on 9th October, 1952, the Ministry stated that the plans were approved but could give no indication as to the date when erection of the hostel could begin. In connection with Jarrow, on 15th November, the Ministry stated that the plans were approved in principle but that there was no possibility of building until 1953.

When the Parliamentary Secretary met the deputation from the Durham County Council and the Northern group of Members of Parliament the only argument she used was about the continued restrictions on capital expenditure and the use of steel for this purpose. Because of these reasons, no assurance was given. I believe that she said that she was well aware of the acute position in Durham and would review the whole position towards the end of the year. We are near enough to the end of the year now. This may be the last speech which the hon. Lady may make in Parliament this year. If it is, I hope that it is a good speech and that she says that the review has now taken place and that the county council will get the go ahead signal to start work on these hostels at Durham, Stanley and Jarrow.

12.42 a.m.

Mr. W. Nally (Bilston)

I apologise to the Parliamentary Secretary for taking up time when she has been asked a number of questions and wants to reply. We have listened to a speech from the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Ferny-hough) which dealt with an area of the county where poverty, distress and hardship have existed for 25 or 30 years. We are dealing with an important problem affecting the future of literally thousands of people, and yet there are, including yourself Mr. Speaker, seven or eight of us in the House and the time is nearly 12.45 a.m.

The only reason I rose was to say that, in view of what the hon. Member for Jarrow has said and the sincerity with which he said it, it is incongruous that matters of this kind should be discussed at this hour on an Adjournment debate which, including the reply by the Parliamentary Secretary, has to be crammed into the space of half an hour at an absurd time of the day. Apart from the fact that I know something of the matter to which the hon. Members have referred, the only reason why I rose was to suggest that the House is behaving disgracefully in having so few of us present to listen to so able and sincere a speech as that made by the hon. Member for Jarrow.

I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that it is unjust to her and to the country that she should be compelled at this time to make a statement affecting so many people in a county that has contributed so much to this country's greatness and its industrial strength.

12.44 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith)

Hon. Members who have raised this problem tonight will be aware that the provision of this type of accommodation is one of several problems concerning accommodation with which this House is frequently occupied. They will be aware, for example, that I have before answered pleas put with equal sincerity, demand and firmness for money to be allocated to a specific part of the accommodation required by the National Health Service.

In all these matters we have an unfortunate task and responsibility. We must allocate as fairly as possible such capital and supplies as we have over the various priorities put before us. Hon. Members will be aware that the Government, as part of their financial policy, must control the investment of capital, particularly in fields for which the public authorities are responsible. As far as Durham County is concerned. there are between 660 and 700 people already in accommodation under the county council. Of these, 133 are in four small homes, which have been provided since 1948.

The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Grey) has given recent figures of the waiting lists. We regret their numbers, but we have to decide upon the allocation of resources to the various demands made for accommodation, whether it be for old people, for T.B. hospitals, or for the overriding, crying need of mental accommodation. I do not question the need for these homes in Durham County. That has been accepted by the Ministry for some time. The cost of the three homes would be about £100,000.

But it is not fair to infer that no progress is being made or that the Minister has put a halt and stop to any improvement of the accommodation for National Assistance services. As the hon. member pointed out, there are in course of building two homes, one at Billingham and one at Winlaton, both of which will be completed very early in the New Year and each of which will hold about 38 residents. Their completion will do much to relieve the strain on the accommodation. I do not think it fair to say my right hon. Friend is unsympathetic towards the needs, but he has the over-riding responsibility to allocate his priorities between the claims of the many calls on the Ministry of Health.

I would say to the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) that I do not think he was fair in his analogy with regard to housing. The Government have made no secret that they regard housing as a first priority. There is no change in the Government's declared policy of building 300,000 houses a year. The introduction of a new method mentioned yesterday cannot, I think, be interpreted as the "sky being the limit." The Minister of Housing and Local Government said no such thing in his statement yesterday. The announcement means there is to be a change in the method of issuing licences to make it easier to build houses privately.

The argument of the hon. Gentleman that this was a housing matter is not a strictly valid one. It is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Health to provide accommodation for the fit aged. It is only our responsibility to provide accommodation for old people who require care and attention. The argument that accommodation would be released and that larger houses would become available, if these people were found residential accommodation, does not hold water. If they were in a council house, it is the council's duty to move them from larger to smaller accommodation, but, if they are in private accommodation, there is no power to move them.

Mr. Fernyhough

Whose responsibility is it when they are turned out of hospitals?

Miss Hornsby-Smith

If they are really in need of care and attention, they come under the welfare authority. It is an invalid argument to suggest that this is closely linked with housing, and that one could, by providing these homes, improve the housing lists. There is a clear division between the old people who are our responsibility, and those fit and able. It is our desire that they should stay in their own homes as long as they can when they are fit and able. Then they are the responsibility of the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is making every effort to see that those capable of remaining in their own homes should do so.

It is, also, not feasible to suggest that the Minister, who has as one of his duties the care and provision for the old and handicapped, should single this out to be dealt with as a priority over and above all the other services provided under his Department that must command his attention. We cannot assess it on a different basis from the other calls now made on our capital expenditure.

So far as the problem of the homeless is concerned, our responsibility in that sphere does not go beyond temporary accommodation for the homeless. It is not our responsibility to provide permanent accommodation. The responsibility for permanent accommodation lies with the local housing authority. What the Minister can do, or what he can authorise local authorities to do, is conditioned by the Department's share of capital, after the needs of housing, of industry, and of defence have been met, and that position has always been made clear to this House.

Steel, I admit, has been short, but, as my right hon. Friend said in reply to a Question in the House on 16th October on the matter of an increased allocation of steel: Increased allocations of steel have made it possible to make a little more available for the building of old people's homes under the National Assistance Acts … but it is still impossible to satisfy all requirements."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th October, 1952; Vol. 505, c. 40.] The hon. Members who have spoken have spoken for one county only, but they will realise that all counties have asked for additional accommodation as well. There has been an improvement in steel allocations—that I admit—which we most sincerely hope will be progressive, and it is hoped to authorise from 10 to 12 new additional small homes for the old and infirm in 1953. That allocation must be made for the most needful priorities, covering the whole country, and we must distribute it as fairly as we can.

The first of these to be assigned to the North-Eastern area—Kenton Hall, at Newcastle—will be the first home to be built in that city. Quite frankly, we regard the priority there as greater than that of additional homes at this juncture for County Durham. It must have priority over the third home there and progress in that county, and the first goes to Newcastle.

We have, however, sympathy with the legitimate claims of the Members for County Durham, and we shall review in February the position as it then stands, and if we can see our way to fitting in a second home in the North-East, then our choice will go to Durham. I have no desire to raise false hopes. I have given hon. Members the best assurance I can, but I must assure them that every local authority and Members for all counties are pressing us likewise, and we have to balance those claims and fit them in with all the other schemes under the capital expenditure programme.

It would be for the county council to decide which of the three areas it should be allocated to, if it were decided to make the allocation. If in the spring we are able to see our way—and I most sincerely hope it will be possible—to authorise a second home towards the end of 1953, then we should certainly let the county council know, so that preliminary preparations might go ahead in anticipation of the starting date.

I cannot go further tonight beyond assuring hon. Members that there is no lack of sympathy with this problem and that my right hon. Friend is most careful to divide the limited means at his disposal between the many many claims upon the Health Service for all its purposes.

12.53 a.m.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

I want to intervene at this late hour to protest at the suggestion that because there are not so many Members in the Chamber hon. Members are not interested in this very important subject. Over the last month we have had discussions on many other problems, and the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Nally) has not been here—

Mr. Nally

On a point of order. The hon. Member came in precisely 12 minutes ago, and I really cannot tolerate the impertinence of the hon. Member in suggesting that I have not been regularly here.

Mr. Nicholls

We have had three debates like this over the past month and the hon. Member has not been present at one, but I would not suggest that because he was not present he was not interested in the subjects. I feel that it was not in keeping with the manner in which the matter has been raised for him to say what he did, and I think it was unkind and unworthy of him.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Six Minutes to One o'Clock, a.m.