HC Deb 14 October 1952 vol 505 cc29-30
52 and 53. Mr. Foot

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) if he will make a statement on the licences to be issued for reconstruction work in bombed cities during the remaining months of this year and for next year;

(2) to what extent steel is still the limiting factor on the number of licences to be issued for bombed cities.

Mr. H. Macmillan

The work carried out in the year 1951 in the blitzed cities generally was £3½ million. The work estimated to be carried out in 1952 amounts to about £4½ million. In the year 1953 there is likely to be about £2 million worth of work carried forward to be completed. I am not yet in a position to say what additional work will be authorised, or at the moment to authorise any new works, whether or not they require steel. Steel will, of course, continue to be a limiting factor so long as it is subject to allocation, but progress is being made in various forms of steel saving construction.

Mr. Foot

Is it not a fact that the money that has been spent in the blitzed cities this year was almost entirely money which was allocated under licences given by the late Government and not under licences given by this Government? Is it not a fact that we have been waiting ever since October and the blitzed cities have been asking for a statement on new licences to be issued this year and next year, and we have not had a statement from the Government for a year? When do they think they are going to give that statement?

Mr. Macmillan

It is not the giving of licences but making it possible to carry out the work that matters. In this year £1 million more work has been done in the blitzed cities than in 1951.

Mr. Foot

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that whereas in the period of the Labour Government there was never any unemployment in the building industry in these blitzed cities, today in most of these blitzed cities unemployment is growing? If the Minister does not issue licences very soon there is going to be serious unemployment among the building workers in those cities.

Mr. Macmillan

That is a very generalised statement and shows how dangerous it is to try to lump into the same category all these different places with quite different conditions of employment and other things.

Dr. King

Is the Minister aware that when Members representing the blitzed towns ask him to do something more for those towns, they are speaking on behalf of all the political parties in the blitzed towns? Is he also aware that public sympathy with the condition of blitzed towns has been expressed recently in the Press up and down the country, and can he not do something to meet that wide demand?

Mr. Macmillan

I have done all I can. I have got £1 million more for 1952 than for 1951. I have got the steel, the labour and the materials. I have got £2 million for 1953, which is a carry-forward, and which is two-thirds of the whole of 1951. I will make a statement later on what we shall do further than that.

Brigadier Clarke

Does the Minister appreciate that the rebuilding of the blitzed city of Portsmouth is going ahead twice as well now as it was under the Socialist Government?