HC Deb 10 June 1952 vol 502 cc118-24
Mr. H. Macmillan

I beg to move, in page 9, line 39, after "may," to insert: in pursuance of undertakings in that behalf given by him. I think that it would be convenient, Mr. Hopkin Morris, to take at the same time the next and the last Amendments of the group. These Amendments are really consequential to the series of Amendments which we have made in Clause 2. Their effect with regard to these undertakings is to bring them into line with what we have already done in Clause 2.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 9, line 40, leave out "undertake to."

In page 9, line 42, after "incurred," insert "or to be incurred."—[Mr. H. Macmillan.]

Mr. H. Macmillan

I beg to move, in page 10, line 2, to leave out "and (e),"and to insert "(e)and (f)."

This Amendment is slightly different from the other group and is consequential to one which we had earlier. In Clause 2, we have enabled the importing authorities, where appropriate, to be eligible for the Exchequer grants in respect of payments made towards the cost of drainage. Now, it is necessary to make the same power for the participating authorities to be eligible for grants, just as the importing authorities were eligible under Clause 2.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 10, leave out lines 7 and 8.—[Mr. H. Macmillan.]

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

Mr. Sparks

I want to raise a point in connection with the Clause. It, too, has some connection with the provisions of Clause 2 (2), which gives a list of the kind of expenses which the Minister will make by way of Treasury grant to a receiving district.

Does the Minister propose to differentiate in the basis of making an Exchequer grant to a receiving authority, as distinct from a county district? The basis for making the financial contribution is not the same. In so far as there are two very important items of expenditure which the right hon. Gentleman takes into consideration for a receiving authority, the right hon. Gentleman proposes to omit county districts who undertake development in a receiving authority's area.

I am told that this is a matter of some consequence to an exporting county district, and there does not appear to be any reason why the Minister should make this differentiation between the two. It would be of some assistance if, before we part with the Clause, the Minister could say why he proposes to make this differentiation.

Mr. Donnelly

I do not know whether this is in order, but I think it is. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman what powers this Clause gives to his Ministry to make grants to local authorities for the purpose of industrial development, as opposed to housing development, in receiving areas to which people are being sent from areas of overcrowding or overspill. I want to impress upon him the extreme importance of some powers being taken for this purpose and to ask whether they exist in the Clause.

It is important that we should not have houses transplanted and populations shifted without provision being made for industrial development side by side with housing development. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, and as we have all agreed, both on this Bill and on the New Towns Bill, housing and industry must go side by side. I ask the right hon. Gentleman how far an Exchequer contribution can be made under Clause 10 to meet this point.

I do not wish to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman by suggesting that he has nothing to offer, but I want to know what he is going to do about it. I say this in all sincerity: we keep asking him questions but we never get an answer. We have been extremely kind to the right hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friends have not divided the Committee so far.

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Member began his speech with a correct observation.

Mr. Donnelly

I am grateful to you. Mr. Hopkin Morris, but I was only asking the right hon. Gentleman how far these powers exist and was seeking to impress upon him the urgency of giving an answer, because we have not divided the Committee so far and we have been extremely tolerant of the fact that nothing has come from the sphinx opposite. We want some answers. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would at least give an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) and myself on this point so that, after considerable trying, we can at least extract some information from him.

Mr. H. Macmillan

Two points have been raised. As hon. Gentlemen know, this is primarily a housing Bill and does not deal with industrial development. It would be a little complicated to go again through the whole structure of Clause 10, which we have debated at some length, and perhaps I may put it in this way. The exporting authority has laid upon it the statutory duty to house its people. The receiving authority has not the statutory duty to house somebody else's people. The whole plan of the Bill is to get them to take on that duty, and the Treasury grant or the contributions of county councils or exporting authorities provides a sweetener to get them to do something which is not really their job. Their job is to house their own people but not to house people from a great city 10 or 15 miles away.

Mr. Donnelly

Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down—and I did not interrupt him at the beginning, because he was dealing with a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks)—may I point this out to him? I appreciate that this is a housing Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, as I think he said on Second Reading—and I hope I am not wrong in my recollection—that it is important to use the Bill as a means of decentralisation in the same way as the New Towns Bill is used to decentralise, although in a slightly different form. The aim and object are the same, for, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the aim and object of the New Towns Bill is also to take industry and housing together.

Do any powers exist under this Clause to enable grants to be made to local authorities to facilitate industrial development? I do not mean that they should necessarily build factories, but what about the provision of roads, sewerage, and so on—all the things which are necessary for industrial development?

7.45 p.m.

Mr. H. Macmillan

Facilitation in that sense is different. The building of the houses, the moving of the people, the providing of the water supplies and sewerage—these are all powers which they have. But what one might call industrial development in its narrow sense is certainly not included in Clause 10.

Mr. Donnelly

I am sorry to keep pressing the point, but the question of the provision of water supplies for industries which need large supplies of water, or of other services, is the sort of question I am trying to put.

The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that chemical industries and other industries of the same nature need special provision of this kind. If one wanted to take a big chemical factory, to a town such as Basingstoke or Ashford or St. Albans, or any of the other places which the right hon. Gentleman's Department have in mind, one would need large supplies of water. Could the local authority make special provision under the terms of this Clause, with a grant to help to provide those services—and, of course, other things such as services to deal with effluents and sewage, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) reminds me.

Mr. Macmillan

As I have said, it would deal with the water which would be required—but we must not deal with the water too much or press the matter too much at this stage.

Mr. Hale

I have returned to the Chamber, after having left it for only ten minutes to take a small amount of refreshment in the Dining Room. I hurried back to hear the right hon. Gentleman reply to questions put by us on Clause 10. We are now dealing with Clause 10. This is the final Clause dealing, in the main, with the contribution from the Exchequer and with the approval of the Treasury. Are we not to have an answer?

The right hon. Gentleman complains that time is being consumed. But time would not be consumed if we were given an answer. No one wants to delay a non-controversial Bill or to use up time unnecessarily, but surely the Corporations and the Committee are entitled to some information. There is no point whatever in going through the motions of passing a Bill for the mere purpose of passing a Bill, of creating powers for the mere purpose of having powers if, at some future moment, the Minister decides to exercise them.

The Minister owes to the Committee a specific answer upon this Clause. I admit that on Second Reading debate the right hon. Gentleman said the Bill was somewhat obscure and the phraseology a little difficult—and I am quoting him from memory. He went on to say that that was becoming the modern practice, although why that should be I do not know. Clause 10 is a frightful Clause and it is so frightful that we ought to have a little elucidation and explanation of it.

Let us take subsection (2)—and I will read it as carefully as I can and in a manner which will try to make it clear where the pauses are, because if I did not read it in that way it would be incomprehensible. It says: Section three of this Act shall have effect in relation to contributions under the preceeding subsection with the substitution of references to the preceding subsection for references in the said section three to section two of this Act and of references to an authority participating for references in the said section three to such a council as is therein mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman is in the fortunate position of having Parliamentary draftsmen available to tell him what he thought that Clause was intended to mean when it was drafted and also to tell him what he thinks it means now, but I doubt whether anybody on either side of the Committee could get any reasonable meaning inside half an hour from that concatenation of words. This is all in one Bill—it goes through other Clauses, and the Clauses get more and more incomprehensible, until it is almost impossible to know for what purpose they were ever devised. If the right hon. Gentleman would allow it, I might undertake to draft the Bill in the course of some 50 words. Indeed, if someone were to offer a very small prize I would undertake to do it.

The powers which have previously been exercisable only by authorities in respect of building operations in their own area can now be exercised in respect of building in other areas, and agreement can be made to facilitate and give effect to this. As a result, we have had this long and I think, personally, rather dull debate. It has been made dull by the right hon. Gentleman's determination not to give away the secrets of the Treasury and not to make promises he cannot fulfil. I appreciate that; I appreciate that the lips of the noble Lord who coordinates the Ministries of Food and Agriculture are sealed, and it may be in the public interest that they are. But the lips of the right hon. Gentleman should not be sealed in respect of the Bill which is before the Committee.

It is the duty of the Committee to press him a little to say what he intends to do in this matter. All we have asked for time after time is a clear intimation to the Committee of the magnitude of the operations which the Government intend to try to see initiated, and intend to cooperate in effecting by the comprehensive provisions of this Bill.

Mr. H. Macmillan

I am sorry if the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) thinks me guilty of any discourtesy in replying. I reserved my reply on the minor point because I thought it would be much better given when we come to the Report stage. We had a full discussion in Committee, and this Bill has only been re-committed today to meet the technical requirements of the Amendments which I undertook to make, mainly at the request of hon. Members opposite. The Bill has been re-committed because those Amendments might increase the charge.

I thought, therefore, that the Committee would acquit me of discourtesy, the full Committee stage having already been taken, and the Bill only being back in Committee on re-committal because of this technicality connected with the Amendments which I was asked to move, and that I might perhaps be permitted not to go into the details into which one would enter in the ordinary Committee stage.

I will answer the points put by the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) and Oldham, West. I can only say again that under Clause 10 contributions can be made by the Minister to expenses to meet all the kind of things mentioned in Clause 2. Therefore, all that Clause 10 does is to say that all those matters which are set out in great detail in Clause 2 much to the annoyance of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), can be met.

The hon. Member for Oldham, West, read out subsection (2). I am bound to say that when one reads aloud like that provisions of Bills they always strike a rather queer note. What that subsection does is to apply the provisions of Clause 3, which is the Clause which empowers the Minister to make payments of Exchequer contributions subject to conditions, to contributions made under subsection (1) of this Clause.

Mr. Paget

The Minister has referred to me. There could be no better illustration than the whole of this Clause of the sort of evils against which I warned him in respect of Clause 2. When there is a vast surplusage in one Clause, one finds that surplusage spreading all over the rest of the Bill. That is what has happened here. If Clause 2 were simplified by cutting out what was unnecessary we should have a perfectly simple Clause 10. Clause 10 has become totally incomprehensible only because it has meandered after a totally incomprehensible Clause 2.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.