HC Deb 18 November 1955 vol 546 cc1006-16

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Godber.]

4.0 p.m.

Mrs. Joyce Butler (Wood Green)

As the matter I want to raise is a detailed and complicated one, perhaps I may refer to the circular which inaugurated the industrial selection scheme. On 6th May, 1953, the Minister of Housing and Local Government sent this circular to local authorities in the Greater London area and in it he referred to the fact that as more houses were being built in the new towns he was concerned about the arrangements for making them available as far as possible to the people most in need. He went on to say that he was reviewing the arrangements that had been made so that exporting authorities could have the opportunity of getting some relief for their housing needs in the new towns.

The Minister then referred to two of the difficulties about linking exporting authorities in the Greater London area with the new towns. The first was that it is desirable that people moving to the new towns should also work there, and I think there is general agreement that this is desirable. The second was that in the Greater London area there are 87 housing authorities, that it is a very congested area, and that most of these housing authorities are short of land on which to build within their own areas.

I want to draw attention to the particular difficulties in this respect of the boroughs in parts of Middlesex and some of the other Home Counties outside the L.C.C. area. My own constituency covers the Borough of Wood Green and part of the Borough of Tottenham which are involved in this congestion, and while the over-population is as great there as in many of the London boroughs, they suffer also from the fact that Middlesex is not a housing authority. Therefore, the people in the Middlesex boroughs have to rely entirely on the borough council to find them housing accommodation, whereas in the London area the population has the benefit of the L.C.C. housing schemes as well as those of their own borough councils. The Minister then suggested that an industrial selection scheme should be worked out and that local authorities in the Greater London area who wish to export their populations on the housing waiting list to new towns should participate in the scheme.

The suggestion fell under two heads. In the first place, it was suggested that the Ministry of Labour would send to local authorities who wished to participate in the scheme a list of vacancies in the new towns. The local authorities who wished to export to the new towns would select from their housing waiting lists those families who were willing to go to a new town, would put them into categories of jobs they were able to fill, and would notify those people of these vacancies in the hope that they would get the job and get a house in the new town.

The second part of the scheme links exporting authorities with some of the expanded towns by a direct arrangement if that can be agreed. It has worked out so that exporting authorities can make arrangements with expanded towns by which they pay a rate contribution in respect of people from their housing waiting lists who secure jobs in expanded towns and are housed by the authorities of the expanded towns.

I shall refer only in passing to this second part of the scheme concerning the linkage with expanded towns, because it is not that with which I am mainly concerned. I would, however, just say that in the case of Wood Green and Tottenham—they are the two boroughs about which I can speak with most authority, but it is true of all the boroughs in the area—the scheme has not worked as the Minister anticipated it would. That can be said quite definitely.

It has been discovered that a number of the expanded towns, when approached, are not prepared to make agreements with the exporting authorities. In some cases they have decided that they do not wish to develop in this way. Sometimes they find that they want to use for their own purposes any houses or land available to them. In some cases it has not been possible to agree upon financial arrangements.

The only expanded town with which Wood Green has been able to make a satisfactory arrangement is Bletchley, which has an urban district expanded town scheme, and only five people from the Wood Green housing waiting list have been accomodated as a result of the agreement. Tottenham has been more successful. Most of the 88 people going from Tottenham have been sent to Swindon. My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) is here to support me. The successful agreement between Tottenham and Swindon is largely due to the fact that there are very happy arrangements between the Swindon and Tottenham local authorities.

I should like to deal with the first part of the industrial selection scheme—the arrangement by which vacancies are notified to exporting authorities and filled by people on their waiting lists. The Minister sent a further letter in September, 1953, informing local authorities that The Ministry of Labour will advise men when engaged by transferring employers to obtain certificates from their exporting authorities that they are on the registers set up under this scheme; and they will tell them that these certificates must be produced to development corporations before a house is allocated to them. The Minister went on to set out the form of certificate which has to be filled in by the exporting authority and signed on its behalf. It was clearly envisaged by the Minister at that time that vacancies in the new towns would be filled in this way, by people on the housing waiting lists of exporting authorities obtaining work in the new towns and the local authority providing certificates.

The reason I am raising the subject is that the scheme seems to have broken down completely. I do not think that the Minister is happy about it. I know that the Ministry is very much concerned about the problem of exporting people from congested areas to new towns. Just before I put a Question to the Minister in July, I obtained figures from Wood Green which showed that, although Wood Green had nominated tenants for 400 vacancies, only 1 per cent. had succeeded in obtaining jobs and houses in new towns. I thought that the position might have improved since then, and so I obtained further figures today. They show that since mid-June Wood Green has nominated tenants for 106 vacancies, but none has been accepted.

The Minister himself, in answer to my Question, on 26th July, said that out of four thousand Middlesex families who have obtained accommodation in the new towns 400, that is, 10 per cent., have received that accommodation through the industrial selection scheme. This may seem a technical point which is not of great importance, but the importance is that the families with the greatest housing need are on the waiting lists of the local authorities. There may be very rare exceptions where someone in great need has not been able to get on the waiting list, but in the main it is true that unless one is on a waiting list one is not in the greatest need.

What is happening today is that men are going to the new towns and there getting work quite independent of their local authority—they are not on the housing waiting list of the local authority—and then they are going to the new town corporation and are getting a new house. There is a time lag and sometimes they have to wait up to twelve months before they get a house, but they are almost certain that if they get a job they will get a house after a period of several months, so they are by-passing the industrial selection scheme.

This is of the greatest importance, because these greater London boroughs—as the Minister himself admits—are very largely built up and have no land available for expansion within their own borders and they must rely on the new towns for relieving congestion. It is vitally important that the scheme should be effective. As only 10 per cent. of these new town houses are being occupied through the industrial selection scheme—that is to say, from the waiting lists of local authorities—it is clear that the scheme is not working as the Minister intended and I am asking him whether he will look at the scheme again both from the aspect of the linkage with the expanded towns and particularly from that of the individual getting a job in the new town, to see whether he cannot tighten it up so that more vacancies in the new towns can be filled by people, with the right qualifications, on the housing waiting lists of the local authorities in the exporting areas.

4.12 p.m.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker (Swindon)

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) and to the Parliamentary Secretary for the very few moments that I shall intervene in the debate. I will do so extremely briefly, because I know that the Parliamentary Secretary must have some interesting things to say and I do so only because this subject is of major importance to my constituents.

As the Parliamentary Secretary will know, Swindon is an expanded town, and a very rapidly expanding town which has already made a major contribution to relieving the pressure of population from North London, the Borough of Tottenham and other areas like it, and we have very big and ambitious plans for the future. I hope that I shall not offend my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green if I say that as the Member of Parliament for Swindon we hope that exporting authorities will not take too narrow or legalistic a view of the scheme. It must also be looked at from the industrial point of view.

Of course, we have the greatest sympathy with those on the housing lists. We have done all we can to help exporting authorities, but we think it would be very much to their advantage to send workers to our factories and new industries in Swindon, whatever position they might occupy on the housing lists, or even if they are not on the lists at all, because if they leave a council house or requisitioned property that leaves that council house or requisitioned house for families in greater need, who can be taken off the housing list.

I also wanted to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether, in fact, there has been any change in the Government's attitude towards expanded towns. We have been a little worried lately—although we understand the reasons for it—by the preoccupation of his Department and the Board of Trade, first with the needs of the Development Areas, with which, of course, we have great sympathy, and, secondly, with the needs of the new towns. I should be grateful if he could find time, during his reply, to assure us that the Government has in no way modified its interest in recent months, or because of recent economic developments, in the importance of the work of expanded towns such as Swindon.

4.15 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes)

This is an important subject and, in a way, I am sorry that the orbit of our debate is restricted by reason of the fact that certain aspects of this matter are being dealt with in a Measure which we are precluded from referring to. I stress that because it has some bearing on the long-term implications of what the hon. Lady has said.

The second comment I should like to make is that we are not altogether satisfied with the working of the scheme, and I assure the hon. Lady that we are not in the least complacent about it. I think it needs simplifying, but we are no less determined than she that it shall work and that it shall be a success, because on its working will depend the smooth operation of what my right hon. Friend has got very much at heart—the acceleration of this process of getting the populations of the congested cities into the new and expanding towns a little more rapidly than we have managed up to now.

I am not surprised that the hon. Lady is concerned about the record of Wood Green. I have figures which, though not quite the same as hers, indicate that she has cause for discontent. Up to the middle of this year, according to my record, Wood Green sent 222 families to the new towns, 19 of them through the industrial selection scheme, and four to expanded towns through the scheme. One difficulty they have in operating the scheme is that they find it difficult to find people with the necessary qualifications for the jobs in the reception areas and who are willing to move when a vacancy is offered to them.

I ask the hon. Lady two questions. Does the local authority go far enough down the waiting lists in searching for people with the requisite qualifications, and does it approve people already in council houses or in requisitioned property? I would stress the point made by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker). We must take a rather wider view of the organisation of this scheme than perhaps many have felt inclined to take so far.

Mrs. Butler

I should like to reply to the hon. Gentleman. We include the tenants of council houses and requisitioned properties over the re-letting of which we have control. We are concerned about people coming from other properties, the re-letting of which is not in our hands.

Mr. Deedes

That is an important point, because although the working of the scheme is intended primarily for those in housing need, it goes without saying that if anyone goes who is already in possession of a council house, that house becomes vacant for occupation in the congested area by those who are in need of it.

I should like to say something about the working of the scheme. The hon. Lady gave a history of its origin. I do not want to go over that again, but I stress that its object is to secure that the movement of workpeople to the new and expanded towns brings the maximum benefit to the overspill areas—that is the exporting authorities. It applies, so far, only to schemes which deal with overspill from Greater London, because they are the only ones in operation where the problem arises of marrying the housing need and the industrial experience of a migrant. In the Greater London area, we are seeking a relief of congestion and the easing of housing need through the operation of these new and expanded town schemes.

I should stress that the relief of congestion means of necessity that firms move out of London to the reception areas, because if employment does not move out then fresh people will be drawn into the London area to fill the jobs left vacant, and the congestion will simply be perpetuated. Moreover, some employment must be provided in the new towns so that when the firms move out some of their workpeople will move with them. But in all probability a firm will also desire to recruit fresh staff in the period immediately before its move, as well as afterwards, to replace the staff who do not move. The aim of the Industrial Selection Scheme is to provide a pool of workers, chosen from the housing waiting lists of the local authorities and classified according to industrial skill, from which employers in the reception areas may choose the people needed to top up their staff. I will explain the way in which it is operated, not so much for the benefit of the hon. Lady, who is familiar with its work, but because it is not sufficiently widely understood; and this debate gives an opportunity to make it more widely known both in the exporting and the receiving areas.

First, an exporting authority makes a decision to enter the scheme. It is worth noting that within the Greater London area 76 of the 87 local authorities have signified a willingness to enter the scheme. Secondly, it circularises those in urgent housing need to find out who is willing to live in a new or expanded town. Those who are willing to do so are asked to give brief particulars of their industrial experience and qualifications. The third step is that a local authority forwards a selection of those names to the Ministry of Labour for the industrial qualifications to be codified according to the Ministry system. The resulting tabulated lists are kept by the local authorities and constitute their industrial selection scheme register.

That means that when industrialists in a new town wish to recruit more staff, application is made to the local Ministry office in the usual way. The application is forwarded to London and an inquiry is made of the local authorities whether their registers contain the names of anyone with the industrial qualifications required. The names of suitable applicants are sent back to the inquiring employers who make arrangements for the applicants to be interviewed and engaged.

I admit that the system appears complicated, but we have not been able to devise a simpler way of marrying housing needs and employment capacity, which is not an easy thing to do. Once the preliminary sorting of qualifications has been carried out, and that is the most difficult part, it is not particularly difficult to operate the scheme. I must say nothing of what we propose to do under another head in the future, but I should like to say about the working of this scheme that, in the two years since it came into operation, about 3,000 families have been found jobs and homes in receiving areas direct from the London housing lists.

Mrs. Butler

Does that include the London County Council list as well?

Mr. Deedes

That is from the London area, yes.

We believe that the scheme could make a considerably greater contribution if local authorities operated it wholeheartedly. The first thing we desire to see is every local authority within the overspill area in the scheme; a great many are, but not all of them. We should like them to nominate to their register everyone on the housing waiting list willing to move out to a reception area. From the replies received when the authorities signified their willingness to enter the scheme we know that some of them take a far too restricted view of the numbers they are prepared to sponsor, which underlines the point made by the hon. Member for Swindon, who was, as it were, speaking for the reception areas.

Clearly, the larger the numbers nominated to the registers, the larger the pool from which employers can choose, and the greater the chance of success in getting round pegs into round holes. We know that some authorities have nominated a large proportion of their waiting list, but we urge every housing authority in the London overspill area to extend their participation in the scheme, and to see whether they are satisfied that they are, in fact, giving those in housing need in their area the maximum opportunity of being considered for a job and a house in the reception area. We should also like to see them nominate those in requisitioned premises or in council houses, because the movement of these people, as I stressed in my first remarks, eases the housing position of others in the area.

There are other people besides the exporting authorities, that is, the London authorities, who are involved in the movement of industry and population from the congested areas. There is no doubt that a considerable incentive is given to people moving from the exporting areas if they can be assured that both a job and a house are waiting for them in the receiving area. In practice, it is not always possible to phase the house-building programme so that houses are always available for workers who move into the receiving areas. We are anxious to do all we can to cut down the waiting period to a minimum and, eventually, if we can, to abolish it altogether.

We are also considering what can be done to bring home to employers moving out of Greater London the desirability of recruiting the extra labour which they need through the Industrial Selection Scheme. Employers have a great part to play in the more efficient working of the Scheme, and we recognise that. I should add that we have taken steps to bring this point to the special attention of the chairmen of the New Towns Corporations.

We recognise the vital part that these arrangements must play in securing the orderly relief of housing need in London. There are many interests and many authorities involved, and we should always welcome suggestions for improving the efficiency of the machinery. This is an ambitious and a rather complicated social project which, perhaps, has no previous example from which we can draw experience in the industrial life in this country. As the hon. Lady said, it has been operating for two years only, and I would stress that fact.

For our part, we are considering what can be done to improve the working of the scheme, but we would urge upon all concerned, the exporting authorities and employers alike, the desirability, in the widest possible interest, of using the scheme to its maximum extent.

In conclusion, I wish to say that I think that the hon. Lady has done a service in enabling us to bring to perhaps wider attention than up to now the provisions of the Scheme and the use to which it can be put.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker

Can the Minister give an assurance, as I am sure he can, that Government policy has not been modified in the sense that it takes less interest than it did, owing to recent events, in the expanding and new towns?

Mr. Deedes

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's point, but it arises in another Measure which we are precluded from discussing.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.