HOUSING LISTS (ELIGIBILITY) (Hansard, 22 October 1952)

§ Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing (Hendon, North)
I am glad to have the opportunity to draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to certain anomalies which arise in regard to people who are waiting for council houses, but who find that, through no fault of their own, they are unable to get on to the housing list of any council.
I have been balloting for the Adjournment Motion for a year-and-a-half and I am delighted to have succeeded on so excellent an occasion, when the progress of the housing programme is beginning to make itself felt throughout the country and when the problem may be a little less acute than it was a year ago. But I felt that it was worth while raising the matter because to some people it is one of very great importance. They find that they have no chance of ever getting a house. Perhaps, in his reply, the Parliamentary Secretary will explain what can be done in such cases.
It would be right to call these people "British displaced persons." Normally, they are displaced because they have lived for a long period—a qualifying period—in one area and then for some reason—it may be marriage, it may be an increase in the family, it may be a change of work—they have to move out of that area and into a new area. The new local authority cannot accept them on its list, while the old one feels that they are no longer its responsibility. All local authorities make their own rules, and most of them have a qualifying period which varies from one to 12 years during which the applicant must have resided in the local authority's area to stand a chance on the list.
I have two examples, and I should think that there is no hon. Member who has not met examples, perhaps a dozen or more. My first example is that of a family called Langley, and the second of a family called Thomas. The second case would serve as a typical example of what happens. The nearest to a parental authority was Harrow. The Thomas family resided there from 1940 to 1949, after which Mr. Thomas married 1230 and moved into a caravan in Edgware, in my constituency. Mrs. Thomas was taken very ill with a lung infection, and eventually one lung had to be removed.
This family had three children. They were still housed in a caravan, and one of the greatest chest doctors, Dr. Trenchard, of the Edgware General Hospital, wrote no fewer than eight letters to various Ministerial authorities and councils pointing out the desperate position in which the family was, unable without grave risk to the health of its members to stay in the caravan, and yet unable to get on to any local authority's list. Fortunately, in this instance commonsense eventually prevailed, and the Harrow Council re-housed the family in March this year. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will say what he has done to guide councils into accepting such cases on their lists, and what success he has had.
The second category of case, which is one which will become more and more important in the next few years is the ex-Regular Service man. Many of these joined in the early 40's and are coming to the end of their engagements. When such men come out of the Forces they find they are on no local authority's list. I am aware that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government sent out a Circular on 31st January strongly encouraging local authorities to treat such applicants with equal priority with others; but there is a difficulty in trying to do this. All local authorities try to house people according to the measure of hardship they are undergoing.
If an ex-Service man is accommodated in married quarters he is not in a great state of hardship, and it is only when he finishes his service and the married quarters have to be given up that he finds himself in hardship. It is just at that stage that he wants a new house. It is most important that after serving their country, often overseas, with loyalty and gallantry, they should have some way of being re-housed. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can explain how we can deal with the increasing number of Service people who come into this category and fall on to no local authority's list.
The third category is the caravanners. I realise that this is a problem almost insuperable in its complexity. At the 1231 edge of my constituency I have about 100 caravanners settled in the Green Belt on one farm. Most did not come from the borough of Hendon, and, therefore, it is difficult for Hendon to accept them on its lists, and certainly difficult to accept them ahead of 7,000 people waiting for houses on the lists. They have settled in the Green Belt against the planning authority's permission. From their own purses and on their own initiative they are trying to overcome a very difficult housing problem; and they should not suffer for the efforts they are making.
My fourth category is perhaps a special one—old people. In few cases are they on any list, but if we could find some way of housing them we should make available property now under-occupied. Many old couples, widows, or widowers are often housed beyond their needs and means, and often beyond their strength, and they would welcome a chance of moving into something much cheaper and easier to manage. That would make accommodation available for young families. The Parliamentary Secretary circulated local authorities on 12th February on this matter, and perhaps he would say what results he has achieved to get special accommodation built for old people.
There cannot be one Member who is not overjoyed at the progress the Minister of Housing has made in the last 10 months. It has certainly eased the problems to which I have drawn attention. It is no mean achievement to have successfully rehoused an extra 100 families for every day that the Parliamentary Secretary has held office. I hope he will go from strength to strength.

§ Mr. Hylton-Foster (York)
I wish to add one class of person to my hon. Friend's second category, and I know the Minister has already generously circularised local authorities about them. Her Majesty's prisons are outside the ambit of this discussion but prison officers are not. Prisons are by no means always situated in ideal places to live, and when after many years of public service prison officers retire they have grave difficulties, in certain instances that have come to my attention, in finding anywhere to go under the present local authority regulations.
1232 I have known a case where an ex-prison officer, after many years' service, was unable to go and live in his native city, because the local authority, in fairness to other applicants, enforce a points scheme with long periods of residence required. It must also be remembered that someone who has retired is mature and his children may live elsewhere, so that he loses that advantage under a points scheme.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing (Mr. Ernest Marples)
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing) has performed an important service, and I congratulate him on his tenacity in putting his name down on the Adjournment list. He raised four points. The first concerned a family called Thomas; the second concerned the question of caravanners; the third on which he dwelt the longest, concerned soldiers, and the fourth concerned old people.
Then my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Hylton-Foster) introduced prison officers who had difficulty in finding accommodation. For those who have not been able to get on a council housing list it is a matter of very great hardship. To the individual it is just as great as if it were a large number of people who were denied admission to the council housing lists.
I will deal first with the soldiers, because they are the largest category numerically. The real difficulty with them in the past has been that they have not fallen between two stools, but have fallen between six or seven stools. It has been difficult for them to get on any list at all.
My right hon. Friend agrees with what the hon. Member for Hendon, North has said in principle, and does not wish soldiers to be prejudiced merely because they are not resident in a particular area. They cannot help it because their job is to go with the service to any part of the world to which they are sent. If they did not go they might be charged under the Army Act. I can well imagine the feelings of a man who has been six years abroad—perhaps in Korea—when he is not allowed admission to any council list. As I was a regimental sergeant major myself, I can not only imagine his feelings but predict with reasonable accuracy 1233 his language—and his feelings of asperity would be justified.
The Minister wished to help them, and on 31st January he circularised all the local authorities. It would be as well if we examined what is the power of the Minister. First under the law—and satisfactory or not, it is the framework within which the Minister must work—we find that the Housing Act of 1936 governs this and it gives local authorities statutory responsibility for the management and control of their houses, including the selection of their tenants, and the selection methods they adopt are within their discretion except that under Section 85 of the 1936 Act they must give reasonable preference to those living in insanitary houses, to overcrowded families, large families, or those living under unsatisfactory housing conditions.
The Minister can only give them guidance. This is done first in a booklet called "Selection of tenants," issued by the old Ministry of Health and based upon a Report by the Central Housing Advisory Committee, which is a statutory body set up to advise the Minister many years ago. It consists largely of members of local authorities and has from time to time issued useful reports on various items such as living in flats, and the selection of tenants. I am firmly of the opinion that not enough use is made of this by local authorities, and I hope that the hon. Member for Hendon, North will call the attention of his own local authority to the paragraphs I shall mention.
For example, in paragraph 22 it says that in exceptional cases applications from persons being evicted from their present accommodation are sources of considerable anxiety to local authorities. However the general view, with which we concur, seems to be that it would be unreasonable for families who have enjoyed fairly reasonable accommodation until evicted to take precedence automatically over those who have endured unsatisfactory conditions for a long time and some local authorities therefore expect evicted families to find their own accommodation. On the other hand, special consideration might be given to families evicted from non-controlled dwellings through no fault of their own. This may sometimes be done by offering them accommodation in requisitioned property, or in temporary huts or camps from which the occupants could be gradually rehoused. I should imagine that if the Service man had a service tenancy of a house and was evicted he would come under that particular paragraph.
1234 In addition, Her Majesty's Government decided that the local authorities were not responding as they should to the service tenants and therefore on 31st January, as my hon. Friend said, they sent out a Circular, No. 8 of 1952, and paragraphs 2 and 4 particularly deal with the question of the service tenants. Paragraph 2 is well worth reading, so that it can go on record: Many of these serving men have no established association with any particular district. If, therefore, a rigid residential qualification is imposed by the local authority for the area in which they wish to settle after discharge they would, because of their service, be prejudiced in their applications for housing accommodation. The Minister is confident that this is a position which local authorities will be anxious to avoid and that they will agree that these applicants should be given equal priority with others for consideration on the basis of relative housing need. The first thing to consider is that my right hon. Friend does not have legal power to direct and, secondly, guidance in general was given under this particular pamphlet, and the third thing is that this was reinforced by a circular sent out at the beginning of this year. That briefly, but I hope emphatically, states the principle on which my right hon. Friend stands; but in practice it has been found that there are only a few local authorities which do not, at any rate, go a long way towards meeting my right hon. Friend's wishes, and to a large extent it is not the fault of the councils themselves—it may be perhaps what one would call an insensitive bureaucracy—and we have found from experience in the last six or nine months that we can get that general principle over in particular cases by intervention by the Ministry.
If my hon. Friend or any other hon. Member has a particular case where he thinks hardship is being caused to anyone and he will write to either my right hon. Friend or myself, we will go into that case and intervene. By intervening I would say that we have no authority and it would not be an intervention with all the weight of the Whitehall authority bearing down upon the innocent local authority. The intervention would rather be on what one might call the "old boy" basis, and it has in the past proved remarkably effective. Of all the cases that I have had anything to do with in these last six or nine months the local authority in every case has helped the Ministry 1235 and the individual concerned. Therefore, if there is a case which any hon. Member has I hope that he will write to us about it.
The next point concerned what I think my hon. Friend called the Thomas case. This, again, is covered by paragraph 21 of this pamphlet. It says: From time to time most local authorities encounter cases of great housing need arising from conditions other than those already referred to, and deal with them outside their ordinary selection schemes. We think this action should be taken in the most exceptional circumstances only One of the witnesses gave as an example of such a case a family in which a crippled child could attend a special school only if he lived in a different part of the county. All these cases have been dealt with but I would remind my hon. Friend that there is no points system which would really give justice with the precision we should like. It is difficult to devise a scheme which would take into account every particular case. I wish he had got hold of the Thomas case a little earlier and perhaps we could have helped.
The next point relates to caravanners. Here, again, they would come within that paragraph and if the hon. Gentleman has any difficulty in getting them on the council's list will he please write to us.
In the case of the old people we are up against a real problem. Circular 36 was issued on 8th May, 1951, and paragraphs 6 and 7 of this are the operative sections as far as old people are concerned. Although this circular sets out what weight local authorities shall give to the old people the difficulty the authorities are finding is a lack of suitable buildings in which to house them.
It is no use hiding the fact that we have not a sufficient number of dwellings in this country to accommodate the old people. They require a special sort of housing due to their age, and in some cases because of their infirmities. They do not want to climb stairs or to have too many rooms to clean. They want special planning.
Recently I toured the Continent to study housing conditions and to steal all 1236 ideas which we considered good. I was astonished to find that in certain schemes on the Continent for old people they have ideas which we have not yet adopted, and I am hopeful as a result of my visit we shall be able to introduce some of these excellent ideas. But until we do have the physical accommodation all the instructions in the world will not make the slightest difference.
I believe that for those in the autumn of life we must watch for two things: First, those who are able to look after themselves should carry on to the end of their days in a suitable building where they can be happy; secondly, if they are not able to look after themselves they should at any rate have some sort of accommodation entirely on their own, and, at the same time, have people looking after them. These are the two objects one has in mind.
Last year we exhibited at the Ideal Homes Exhibition a house for old people which attracted great attention. We had three exhibits, two of the "People's House," of which 70 per cent. of the houses now going to contract consist, and the other the "Old Person's Bungalow." It attracted a great deal of attention, but this type has not gone into production as fast as we would have liked. But I am hopeful after this visit to the Continent we shall get on.
As far as prison officers are concerned, I am glad to say that they are a small category in numbers, but still important, and if my hon. Friend has any cases in mind I hope he will let us know. I shall look at his remarks in HANSARD later, and will make a search in the Ministry to see what has been done. If it is not adequate I shall consult my right hon. Friend and perhaps include something in the next circular. In conclusion, I think the House will congratulate my hon. Friend for his diligence in bringing this important human aspect of housing before us tonight.