§ 27. Mr. Osborneasked the Minister of Works how much steel is licensed annually in building construction; in view of the shortage of steel, what experiments he is making with reinforced concrete; and how far he estimates this could replace steel structures and so save great quantities of valuable steel.
§ The Minister of Works (Mr. Hugh Molson)Steel for building is no longer licensed, but a very rough estimate of the 791 amount of steel used in building last year is 1¼ million tons. Reinforced concrete, which is a well established method of construction, is now generally adopted for Government buildings unless there is some good reason to the contrary. During the year ended June, 1956, some 160 framed buildings of all types were designed by my Department, and of these no less than 110 were in reinforced concrete framing.
I have no means of estimating the extent to which structural steel could be replaced in building generally by reinforced concrete.
§ Mr. OsborneCan my right hon. Friend use his influence to see that reinforced concrete is used and a great deal of this 1¼ million tons of steel is saved for export? Many responsible architects feel that it is being wastefully buried in new buildings.
§ Mr. MolsonThe figures I have given, showing to what extent the Ministry of Works uses reinforced concrete will, I hope, have the effect that my hon. Friend has in mind. In the case of the second half of the Whitehall Gardens building, we have chosen to use reinforced concrete instead of structural steel, and as a result we are saving £130,000.