§ 17. Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he has now completed his inquiries into the letting of municipally-built council houses at Middleton, Lancashire, and into the allegation that Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited have offered to prospective employees a house tied to the job and have obtained the signatures of such workers to a tenancy agreement stating that the house is so tied.
§ Mr. H. MacmillanI wrote to the hon. Member about this on 15th April.
§ Mr. HaleIs the Minister aware that he did not do anything of the kind? He wrote to me about a quite different matter, quite irrelevant to the Question I have put? Can he say, after four months' investigation, whether it is not a fact that Messrs. A. V. Roe and Company Limited are offering council houses to their workers, stipulating that they are tied to the job and that the workers must sign a contract for the council houses? Does he approve of that? Is the Minister going to do anything about it?
§ Mr. MacmillanI am satisfied that the lettings to the company's key workers cannot be called "tied" in any sense of the word.
§ Mr. HaleOwing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.