HC Deb 21 February 1956 vol 549 cc183-4
34. Mr. Hunter

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the adverse effect that the amount of new office building now taking place, some of which is of a speculative character, is having on the economic and financial resources of the country; and whether he will take steps to check this speculative building and guide our resources into buildings of a productive character.

Mr. H. Macmillan

I have already told the House that I do not propose to reintroduce a direct control of building. I do not agree that office building is necessarily undesirable or unproductive: offices are needed to strengthen our merchanting and export trades.

Mr. Hunter

Is the Chancellor aware that in November the then Minister of Works told me that £20 million worth of office building was going on in London alone? Is he aware that a large amount of this office building is financial speculation? Is he aware that if he goes round London he will see large boards on these buildings asking for tenants? Apart from the fact that it takes labour from housing and hospitals, is it common sense and in the interests of the nation to allow this office building to proceed solely in the interests of financial speculators?

Mr. Macmillan

If many of these buildings have notices asking for tenants, and if those notices remain on the buildings for very long, I should think that that would be one of the main methods by which the building of fresh offices would be discouraged. I cannot regard it as wrong that, fifteen years after the war, there should be some attempt to rebuild the City of London. Of that £20 million, as I know very well, because I had to deal with it when I was Minister, a very large proportion is concentrated within the confines of the City of London itself.

Mr. H. Wilson

Does the Chancellor still not appreciate that while some offices are highly essential for the export trade, many offices now being built are not essential at all, and that by the use of building licences he could distinguish between them? Does he not also feel with equal passion that, fifteen years after the war, it is utterly wrong to have a virtual embargo on almost all local government expenditure?

Mr. Macmillan

No, Sir. We have argued about building controls, and we will argue them further. My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will have something to say about them and will reply to some of the figures which the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) gave yesterday, many of which were completely incorrect. They will be answered; hon. Members must wait for it. I still believe that the method we have adopted is, on the whole, the wisest, and that the other method would not achieve its results rapidly or effectively.