Vote 8. Works and Lands (Hansard, 10 March 1959)

§ Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas (Lincoln)
A number of Royal Air Force stations surround my constituency, and I wish to 1205 refer to the station at Hemswell. Subhead G refers to rents of accommodation hired for use as married quarters, and I should like to know what is the position at Hemswell, where there is a serious shortage of married quarters both for officers and airmen. One of the ways of solving the problem is by building, but that question comes under another Vote.
While these quarters are being built, can anything be done to help by renting accommodation for use as married quarters? I know that this would not be easy in a scattered country area, but I should like an assurance that this matter will be examined again to see whether something can be done to help those officers and airmen who are on the waiting list for quarters.

§ Mr. Ross
This Vote shows a decrease of nearly £1 million. I am interested in what is promised about married quarters and accommodation for personnel. If we are to keep the new Regulars, especially the unmarried men, we must pay particular attention to accommodation for them and also to the question of accommodation when they become married. We are told that we shall start new construction of married quarters which will cost over £7 million and accommodation for personnel amounting to £10 million, which looks wonderful until we examine what has already happened.
I wish to know whether it was because of a change in policy, or whether other aspects of policy caused an interference with the plans for last year. Then we were told that we should start new schemes for married quarters costing £6½ million. We started new schemes costing £2½ million. We were proposing in the first year to spend £1,300,000 on this and we actually spent only £600,000. That does not augur well for what is promised in the Estimates this year and in the Explanatory Statement.
It is difficult—in fact, looking at the Estimates as they are now presented—at Subhead A, "New works, Additions and Alterations"—it is impossible to see that we shall spend nearly £26 million compared with the figure of £30 million for last year. When we look at what has happened in the revised Estimate we realise that the performance did not 1206 reach the proposed standard. I hope that we shall not be told that we had a wet summer after a hard spring, because the weather does not make all that difference. Our performance amounted to only 50 per cent. If the same thing happens this year—I do not suppose that we shall have any better summer than last year; it is unwise to bank on it—it would be unwise to suggest that the weather be advanced as an alibi for failing to live up to expectations. In any case, the Air Ministry is responsible for the Meteorological Service. I stress this matter because it is important.
As the Estimates are presented to the Committee we get no indication that we have failed so lamentably. For workshops and technical buildings there is a total estimate of £14 million for new services started. We are to spend £2 million on that new work, which would seem to reveal that there is more urgency about the provision of workshops and technical buildings than what is proposed for married quarters. Of the £7 million which is the total estimate of the value of the work we are to start, we are to spend £500,000 in the coming year. It will take a long time to finish if the progress is not any better than it was last year.
I think that the scrutiny of these Estimates is hampered by their form. We are given this year the total estimate of what these works will cost by the time they are finished, which is £7 million, but next year that will be lost sight of. We shall have no indication of the progress that is being made, or whether or not a change in policy has scrapped half of that. We shall be given only the sum that is to be voted in respect of works that were started earlier.
I suggest that we ought to have an aggregate total estimate of work started in previous years and still under construction and that we should have notes of any revised total estimates on these works, because it is amazing how total estimates have a habit of rising and in this particular form of Estimates we have no form of presenting it at all. Then we get the Comptroller and Auditor General breaking it to us completely unexpectedly regarding certain Departments. But let us give the Air Ministry the benefit of the doubt and say that we are surprised when a mistake of a substantial nature is made. The House 1207 should be kept informed of what is happening, what has been completed and what is still to be done.
I am sure that the Under-Secretary will say that he cannot give us details about the works which are going on in connection with the Air Ministry and Royal Air Force because of defence considerations. But surely that does not apply to married quarters. We should be given much more information about them. We should be told what the total estimate is, what Vote is required in the current year, and the estimate that will be required for future years. We shall then get an idea of what work is in progress and what work has been completed. If the hon. Gentleman can tell us about the works that are proposed and have been abandoned he may help us to get over certain difficulties in dealing with the Supplementary Estimates.
Vote 1 refers to the construction and use of houses by the United States military forces in the United Kingdom. I should like to know exactly how much is included in new works started and in payment for works already started that is applicable to this particular item.
I notice that in appropriations-in-aid £1¼ million is being paid back in relation to what has already been provided. I think that to get proper Estimates of what is being done in respect of our own forces we should have that information. From the point of view of the morale and spirit of the Service, this is where we can best spend money and spend it urgently. I certainly hope that the failure of last year will have goaded the Ministry to have achieved something much better this year. We cannot be complacent about what happened last year and it was not the first year in which this accomplishment was not quite up to expectations. If we can have a better idea of what is to happen this year the Committee will be more likely to look with favour upon the present Estimates.
Under Subhead F of Vote 8, I notice that we have "Purchases of Land and Buildings", exactly the same as last year —£500,000. Are we to get a Supplementary Estimate for this? The Under-Secretary should be made aware of the fact that there is going through the House at present a Bill relating to this very matter, which will increase the cost of buildings in relation to compensation 1208 when they are required for this purpose. It might well be that there should have been intelligent anticipation here. We might be told now whether there is to be an increase in respect of this matter.

§ Mr. F. H. Hayman (Falmouth and Camborne)
I fear that any reply which my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) gets will be hardly worth the paper it is written on, so to speak. It is not that I distrust the integrity of the Under-Secretary of State for Air but that I have no respect for the calculations of his Ministry.
I base that statement on the fact that four or five years ago the Ministry was anxious to build 230 houses near St. Mawgan Aerodrome in Cornwall. The houses would have been miles from anywhere and would have created confusion in the transport of children to school because some were outside the limit of free transport and some were within it. The county planning authority and the local education authority objected. The Newquay Urban District Council objected also, but the Ministry said, "No, we must go on." Fortunately for us in Cornwall, there came one of the financial crises that have happened under this Government, and the job was postponed.
The Ministry is now able to house all the staff of St. Mawgan at the adjoining aerodrome at St. Eval, which has now been abandoned. A school which was built at St. Eval by the local education authority at great cost to house the children of the personnel at St. Eval will now be used for the children of the men serving at St. Mawgan. This may seem confusing to the Committee and it has certainly been confusing to us in Cornwall. It means that we distrust anything that the Minister says about housing by the Air Ministry. We were able to delay the Ministry long enough by our protests to prevent it making a very big mistake.

§ Mr. Neave
We attach great importance to this question of married quarters and to building generally. Let me deal with the point of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) about the form of the Estimate for Vote 8. This form applies equally to the works Votes of all the Service Departments and it would be desirable to maintain common form for these Estimates. That is 1209 not to say that there is not something in what the hon. Gentleman says, so I will look into the matter and see whether any improvement in presentation is possible. I will consult my right hon. Friends about it.
It is difficult to answer in very great detail the hon. Gentleman's comments on the position that arose last year. The reason for the under-spending was mainly changes in deployment arising from the introduction of weapons, delays in building projects, and particularly the political difficulties which occurred in Cyprus and in the Middle East. They were reasons why the building programme did not proceed. It is our intention to do as much building as we can afford and as quickly as possible. I do not think the lion. Gentleman should altogether ignore the fact, whatever the responsibility of my right hon. Friend may be for the Meteorological Office, that last year there was bad weather which affected the building programme.

§ Mr. Ross
Is there a better weather forecast with these Estimates?

§ The Deputy-Chairman
rose—

§ Mr. Neave
I beg your pardon, Sir Gordon. I was interrupted at that point upon a matter of weather forecasts. I should not like to sit down without answering the point about his constituency mentioned by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas). He mentioned a station in his constituency, or just outside it. I cannot go into much detail about the married quarters programme, for this station, but I can say that we have already rather more than one-third of the married quarters which are likely to be needed in the long-term. During the next two years, new building and conversion of existing buildings should increase the proportion to at least two-thirds and we shall take as many hirings as we can in the vicinity of this station until the number of married quarters is sufficient for our needs.