Commons Sitting of 4 February 1960

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

    Monckton Commission
    Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what protection will be afforded to African witnesses from Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia before the Monckton Commission against civil or criminal proceedings arising out of their evidence.
    The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): I would refer the hon. Member to my statement in the House on 26th January.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that that statement is quite unsatisfactory and does he not think it is quite wrong that the protection of witnesses before the Monckton Commission should depend upon assurances from the very executive arm which those witnesses may wish to criticise and have no statutory authority at all? Is not that the sort of procedure about which we complained in totalitarian States, and will the hon. Gentleman, therefore, take steps to amend the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry Ordnance so that it may extend to both the witnesses before and the members of the Monckton Commission the statutory provisions of that Ordnance?
    Mr. Alport: I think that the assurances which have been given by the Attorneys-General of both these Territories should carry the full confidence not only of all Members of this House but also of all those who wish to give evidence before the Commission in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia.
    Mr. Marquand: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the assurances given by
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    the Colonial Secretary on Tuesday in respect of the inquiry into the Blantyre riots were entirely acceptable? They were full and uncompromising. Could he now not give a similar assurance on this particular issue?
    Mr. Alport: I think that if the right hon. Gentleman refers to a statement made by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor in another place on 2nd February, he will find it covers further ground in regard to this particular subject, and, combined, I am quite certain they constitute complete protection for witnesses.
    Mrs. Castle: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the second part of my supplementary question?
    Mr. Alport: Yes, if the hon. Lady will remind me what it was.
    Mrs. Castle: It was whether he will take steps to amend the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry Ordnance so as to give statutory authority to this protection, without which it is not really valid.
    Mr. Alport: That is a matter which should be referred to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what representations he has made to the Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland requesting them to grant official facilities to all members of the Monckton Commission.
    Mr. Alport: I am sure that all the Governments in the Federation will grant members of the Commission all appropriate courtesies and facilities.
    Mr. Stonehouse: But are those facilities to be available to all the United Kingdom members of the Commission? Is the Minister aware that both the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and the Federal Prime Minister have engaged in attacks on Lord Shawcross? May we have the hon. Gentleman's categorical assurance that Lord Shaw-cross will not be made a prohibited immigrant?
    Mr. Alport: These facilities will be available to all members of the Commission; not only to the United Kingdom members but to those coming from other Territories as well.
    Mrs. Castle: May we have the Minister's assurance that Her Majesty's Government will give better protection to a member of another place than they gave to an hon. Member of this House in similar circumstances?
    Mr. Alport: I was not aware that the hon. Gentleman to whom the hon. Lady refers was at that time a member of a Royal Commission.
    Sir L. Ungoed-Thomasasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations whether the hearings of the Monckton Commission will be held in public.
    Mr. Alport: It will be for the Commission itself to decide its procedure.
    Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Do I gather from that Answer that the evidence may be given in public? Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, whilst he has been driven to provide some relief from the criminal law of Nyasaland and Southern Rhodesia to those giving evidence, no relief at all has been provided for newspapers that report that evidence? Does he realise that if a newspaper in the Federation dares to publish any evidence that can be regarded, in the very wide phrasing of the enactments of those Territories, as likely, among other things, to undermine confidence in the Federal Government, it is liable to criminal prosecution?
    Does he appreciate that that more or less covers all the evidence that may be given against the Federation, and that this will tend to completely one-sided reports in the newspapers? What does the hon. Gentleman propose to do to prevent this muzzling and distortion of the reports of the Commission's proceedings, and will he not now amend the enactments that provide for this criminal procedure?
    Mr. Alport: I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to study the Answer given by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor in another place on 2nd February, when my noble Friend referred specifically to the position of newspapers in relation to the reporting of evidence before this Commission.
    Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Will the Minister of State repeat that statement in this House? I have, of course, studied
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    the statement, but does the hon. Gentleman realise that in that statement there is no guarantee of any kind against prosecution in accordance with these objectionable enactments?
    Mr. Alport: If it were in order to do so I would, of course, be only too willing to repeat the statement, but it is, I think, well publicised in the normal way. I would only say that my noble Friend drew attention to the legal position, with which I should think the hon. and learned Gentleman is much more familiar than I am, which relates to the defence of qualified privilege.
    Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: But does not the Minister realise that that does not apply at all to procedures under these enactments? He really must come to the House better briefed than he is at present.
    Mr. Dugdale: The Minister of State suggests that this is a matter for the Commission, but have the Government no views; and would the hon. Gentleman today express in this House the view that it is very much better that these proceedings should be heard in public?
    Mr. Alport: I think that it is a matter that should very properly be left to the very distinguished members of the Commission to decide for themselves. In the circumstances, I believe that the House would be well advised to leave it to them.

    Constitution (Review)
    Mr. Marquandasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what official information he has received from the Government of Southern Rhodesia regarding the conditions under which it is prepared to co-operate in this year's review of the constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
    Mr. Alport: I have not received any official communication from the Government of Southern Rhodesia in this sense.
    Mr. Marquand: Is the right hon Gentleman aware that, according to a report in The Times on 29th January, in Salisbury Sir Edgar Whitehead announced three conditions on which he would be

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    prepared to co-operate in the constitutional review this year? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of those conditions was the removal from the Southern Rhodesian constitution of all the remaining reservations which give power to this Parliament to protect the interests of Africans in Southern Rhodesia, and that the other two conditions, taken together, amount to an insistence upon white domination, not only of Southern Rhodesia, but throughout the Federation? Does not a declaration of this kind by the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia amount to a mockery of the Monckton Commission even before it has started its work and a condemnation in advance of anything it may find?
    Mr. Alport: No, I do not think that is at all the case. The points of view of the various Governments which are to form part of the 1960 Conference is a matter which no doubt they will express at that Conference. In the meantime, presumably there can be no obstacle to any leader of opinion putting forward views beforehand if he wishes to do so.
    Mr. Marquand: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this statement by the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia was elicited in response to reports of what our Prime Minister said in Nigeria as a direct consequence of our Prime Minister's action? Will the right hon. Gentleman draw the attention of all the members of the Cabinet to the very serious impasse which now seems to be developing?

    Dr. Banda
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what newspapers and books are now allowed to Dr. Banda.
    Mr. Alport: This is a matter within the responsibility of the Federal Government.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister really know anything about it? Can he enlighten us? Can he assure us that British newspapers of today's date, carrying a speech by the Prime Minister made in Africa, are freely available to Dr. Banda? Is the right hon. Gentleman afraid that Dr. Banda might think that the Minister responsible for
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    Commonwealth Relations and the Prime Minister are in different Governments?
    Mr. Alport: I would assure the hon. Member that there are virtually no restrictions upon material of this sort which is available to Dr. Banda other than those advocating, or which may appear to advocate, violence or subversion. I am quite certain the hon. Member, who knows my right hon. Friend very well, would not regard anything he has said as advocating either.
    Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Is not Dr. Banda a British-protected person of Nyasaland? Therefore, is not the Colonial Secretary responsible for him? Will not the right hon. Gentleman see that Dr. Banda obtains what books are required instead of handing it over to Sir Roy Welensky to decide these matters?
    Mr. Alport: It is not a question of my right hon. Friend handing anything over at all. This relates to Item 60, Part II of the Second Schedule of the Federal Constitution—the concurrent list—in which responsibility for prisons is that of the Federation, and in these circumstances this is not a question of any administrative arrangement between any particular Governments but a question of the Federal Constitution.

  BASUTOLAND

    Constitution (Changes)
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what constitutional changes are taking place in Basutoland; and what proportion of the members of the new assembly will be directly elected.
    Mr. Alport: Constitutional instruments have been approved which give effect to the proposals agreed with the Basutoland delegation at the end of 1958 and laid before Parliament in Cmnd. No.637. The elected members of the Basutoland National Council will number forty and will constitute one half of the membership. They will be elected by the disstrict councils, which will serve as electoral colleges for this purpose. The remainder will consist of 22 chiefs, 14 persons nominated by the Paramount Chief, and 4 officials.
    Mr. de Freitas: Since this by any standard represents an important constitutional advance in the part of Africa where there is very little political advance a all, what do the Government propose to do to draw public attention to the fact that in Basutoland there is this small but highly important development?
    Mr. Alport: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his reference to what is an important constitutional advance in one of the High Commission Territories. We have already published the full details of the constitutional proposals and the decisions which were made and the Order in Council and other instruments relative to this. Of course, when the time comes for the Basutoland National Council to have its first meeting, that would be an appropriate time to draw attention to this significant advance in the political development of a High Commission Territory.

    Travellers (Freedom of Movement)
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what efforts he is making to secure freedom of movement for travellers to and from Basutoland.
    Mr. Alport: Entry into Basutoland is governed by the Entry and Residence Proclamation, 1958, as amended. Entry into the Union of South Africa from Basutoland is governed by the law of the Union. I am not aware that any difficulty has arisen.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Minister of State aware that the last point in his Answer is the crucial one; that distinguished people like Mr. Tom Mboya have been prevented from going to this British Protectorate by the Pretoria Administration? What does he intend to do to prevent this discrimination?
    Mr. Alport: I understand from the Press that the Union Secretary of the Interior has said that the Administration did not refuse Mr. Mboya permission to land, since no permission was sought.

  CANADA

    Letters from United Kingdom
    Lieut.-Colonel Cordeauxasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, in view of the possible detrimental effect on United Kingdom trade
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    with Canada, whether he will make representations to the Canadian Government to exempt letters from the United Kingdom from the effects of Canadian legislation with regard to non-transmissible mail; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Alport: The Canadian postal authorities have power to stop postal facilities for individuals or firms which have been guilty of using them for such purposes as the transmission of immoral seditious or libellous letters. the running of a lottery or a fraudulent scheme, or for various other purposes which are of an undesirable character. I do not think that, in these circumstances, representations to the Canadian Government would be appropriate.
    Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: Whilst quite appreciating the fact that the Canadian Government may wish to take certain steps against such firms, may I ask whether my hon. Friend would agree that it is really quite fantastic that reputable people in this country should not be allowed to write a letter to any person or firm in Canada except at the whim of the Canadian Government, whereas one can write a letter perfectly freely to any convicted criminal in prison? If my hon. Friend agrees with that, would he consider making a tactful suggestion to the Canadian Government that it would really be better to prosecute the firms concerned for misuse of the mail, rather than to penalise perfectly innocent people by depriving them of their right to communicate with these people and not even refunding their postage?
    Mr. Alport: I fully appreciate the doggedness with which my hon. and gallant Friend has pursued this question, but all postal authorities throughout the world take the steps they think practical and proper to safeguard their postal services from abuse. The manner in which the Canadian Government have decided to safeguard their own postal services is entirely a matter for the Government and the postal authorities of that country.

  UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA

    Defence Policy
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations what consultations he has had with the Government of the Union of South Africa

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    regarding mutual questions of defence policy.
    Mr. Alport: Discussions on defence matters of interest to the Union of South Africa and the United Kingdom were held in 1955, 1957, 1958 and 1959.
    Mr. Rankin: Apart altogether from the agreement on the use of Simonstown, can the Minister of State tell us exactly what Commonwealth defence obligations rest on South Africa? Has she any—or is she too busy pursuing policies of apartheid to bother about the Commonwealth at all?
    Mr. Alport: We have no formal defence pact with the Union of South Africa. If the hon. Gentleman has any specific aspect of the defence discussions on which he wishes to ask a Question, perhaps he will put it down.
    Mr. Rankin: In view of that invitation, will the hon. Gentleman tell us something about the discussion?
    Mr. Alport: If the hon. Gentleman will be kind enough to put down a Question. I shall be very glad to do so.

  MALDIVE ISLANDS

    Defence Facilities (Agreement)
    Mr. Smithersasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will make a statement about the outcome of recent negotiations with the Maldivian Government regarding the use of Addu Atoll by the Royal Air Force.
    Mr. Dugdaleasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations whether agreement has been reached with the Maldives Government on the terms under which the United Kingdom is to use a runway on the Island of Gan or the period during which it shall be so used.
    Mr. Alport: An Agreement was initialed in Colombo on 1st February under the terms of which the Maldivian Government are to make a free gift to the United Kingdom Government of the use of Gan Island and certain other defence facilities in Addu Atoll for a period of thirty years.
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    The Agreement also redefines relations between the two Governments and re-affirms the obligations assumed by the United Kingdom Government for the defence of the Maldive Islands. It allows for the conduct by the Maldivian Government of their own external relations in the economic and cultural fields. The Maldivian Government have agreed to receive a United Kingdom representative in Male.
    The United Kingdom Government on their part are making available to the Maldivian Government a total sum of £850,000, of which £100,000 will be in the form of an immediate payment and £750,000 spread over a period of years will be in the form of economic aid and devoted to specific projects.
    The Maldivian Government have also welcomed the United Kingdom Government's offer of good offices for the restoration of the Maldivian Government's authority in Addu Atoll, and both Governments are agreed that this must be a gradual and peaceful process.
    At the invitation of the Maldivian Government I am hoping to visit Male on 14th February for the signature of the Agreement.
    I am sure that both sides of the House will join in welcoming this Agreement which we hope foreshadows a long period of peaceful co-operation between the United Kingdom and the Government of His Highness the Sultan.
    Mr. Smithers: Will my right hon. Friend thank our High Commissioner in Ceylon and Mr. Clark for the patience and skill they have exhibited in arriving at this Agreement? Can my right hon. Friend say something which will make clear to the House what may be the position of the Maldivian population of Addu Atoll in the light of the Agreement?
    Mr. Alport: I shall willingly convey the kind words of my hon. Friend with regard to the patient and sustained negotiations which these two officials have undertaken and brought to a successful conclusion. As to the Maldivian inhabitants of Addu Atoll, the Maldivian Government have accepted our offer of good offices and at the same time we have an assurance that they will not seek the return of their officials to the atoll

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    unless we and the Maldivian Government agree that it can be peacefully accomplished.
    Mr. Dugdale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House are not only delighted that agreement has been reached between the two Governments, but that agreement has also been reached between different Ministers in our Government, whose differences were referred to in a leading article in The Times recently?
    Mr. Alport: I am not aware of any differences existing.
    Mr. Marquand: While adding officially, on behalf of the Opposition, congratulations to the Government on having made an Agreement at long last, may I ask the hon. Gentleman if he will as soon as possible circulate a White Paper so that we may study it in detail?
    Mr. Alport: We hope to do so as soon as we can.

  EDUCATION

    U.N.E.S.C.O. (Workers' Study Tours)
    Mr. Pavittasked the Minister of Education if he is aware that in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation draft programme and budget for 1961–62 the item concerning workers' study tours in Europe, included in previous programmes, has been eliminated; and if he will take appropriate action to secure its inclusion.
    The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles): I have received a number of representations about this proposed change in the programme and budget of the Organisation. When the comments of the United Kingdom are conveyed to U.N.E.S.C.O. our view will be that this recommendation about study tours should be reconsidered.
    Mr. Pavitt: While thanking the Minister for his favourable consideration, may I ask if he is aware that this is the only item in the U.N.E.S.C.O. budget—less than a fraction of 1 per cent.—applied to industrial workers, peasants and housewives? Is he aware that this expenditure meets only the
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    fares of people travelling and that hospitality has to be arranged in cooperation with comparable voluntary organisations abroad? In view of the fact that this plays a considerable part in both education and international understanding at its grass roots, will not the Minister take a great deal of interest in the April meeting and persuade our representatives on the executive to push with all the force at their command for the extension of this service?
    Sir D. Eccles: Yes; our representatives will be briefed in that sense.

    School Dental Service
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Education if, in order to ascertain at first hand the seriousness of the situation with regard to the condition of school children's teeth, he will visit school clinics in areas that may have been agreed between the British Dental Association and his Department as presenting typical pictures of this problem.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): Mr. right hon. Friend receives direct information on the School Dental Service from his medical and dental staff who constantly visit school clinics. In addition, local education authorities, who provide the Service, report to him each year. He is always glad however to receive views of other interested bodies.
    Mr. Dodds: Will the Parliamentary Secretary state why the Minister did not answer this Question himself, as it is directed to the Minister? May I take it that there is still a hope that, if he gets representations from this very reputable body which ought to know about the problem, the Minister will take advantage of it and follow it up with some of these schools to show that he has a very deep interest in this important matter?
    Mr. Thompson: Both my right hon. Friend and I frequently visit schools and this, of course, is one of the things we look at when we do so.
    Mr. Dodds: I am asking about the Minister. not the Parliamentary Secretary.

    Teachers
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Education if he is aware of the estimate of the Crowther Committee that the

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    number of additional teachers required to raise the school leaving age to 16 years was between 15,600 and 21,300; and if he will immediately take steps to increase the number of training college places still further.
    Sir D. Eccles: I am considering the recommendations of the Crowther Report, including the supply and training of teachers, and hope to give the Government's views upon them soon.
    Mr. Boyden: Does the Minister think that within his present programme he can train an additional 70,000 teachers for 1966?
    Sir D. Eccles: No, Sir.
    Mr. Boyden: Does that mean either that he is not going to accept 1966 as the date for raising the school leaving age to 16, or that he is to maintain the already overcrowded classes in schools?
    Sir D. Eccles: The hon. Member is looking into the future. Perhaps he will wait until we have our debate.
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Education if, in view of the overcrowding of classes and the small number of newly-trained teachers likely to be available in 1962, he will widen the field of teacher recruitment by increasing the number of training colleges with day training facilities and two-year courses for mature students; if he will institute short refresher courses for married women teachers who have left the profession but are considering returning to teaching; and if he will undertake a publicity campaign for recruiting these categories of teachers.
    Sir D. Eccles: A good deal has been done already on the lines of these proposals and I am considering further action.
    Mr. Boyden: Does the Minister intend to convene immediately the National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers?
    Sir D. Eccles: I have already done that.
    Mrs. White: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what action he is taking to improve the terms and conditions of employment of married women particularly, so as to attract the large numbers
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    needed? What publicity is he giving to the special course for mature students? I have recently visited a number of schools and found that very little is known about it.
    Sir D. Eccles: On both points we are envisaging further action. I agree with the hon. Lady that we have to see how to get more of these married women back into the service. The trouble is that we do not know where a lot of them are.

    Proposed School, Blackburn
    Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of Education why he has refused permission to the Blackburn education authority to proceed with the building of a new technical and grammar school as proposed in its building programme for 1960–62.
    Sir D. Eccles: I sympathise with the hon. Lady's wish to replace this school, but am unable to include the project in a building programme before 1962–63 because others are more urgent.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that his own inspectors reported very strongly on the inadequacy of the premises of this school as long ago as 1956, and that the local education authority has been pressing ever since for the inclusion of a new building in its school building programme? Is he aware that Blackburn, which is facing problems of transition from one type of industry to another, cannot meet the challenge of the second industrial revolution without first-class technical education? As the council has plans already for the new school, will the Minister authorise inclusion of those plans in next year's programme so that further delay may be avoided?
    Sir D. Eccles: I wish I could. I can say that it is very likely to come in the 1962–63 programme.
    Mrs. Castle: Is not the Minister aware that the education committee is totally dissatisfied with having to wait yet another period? This is the whole basis of the argument. The committee has been pressing for this permission for years, and it is asking for immediate action. The committee also points out that county boroughs of similar size in the area are receiving far higher allocations for their school building programme for the next two years and that Blackburn is being discriminated against unfairly.
    Sir D. Eccles: I cannot accept that Blackburn is being discriminated against unfairly. If the hon. Lady wishes, I will send her a list of the new schools which have been authorised in the last two years.
    Mrs. Castle: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Aswan High Dam (Temple, Abu Simbel)
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Education what contribution he is prepared to make to assist the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in measures being undertaken to safeguard the great temple at Abu Simbel when the Aswan High Dam is built.
    Sir D. Eccles: The Government are not contemplating any contribution from public funds for this purpose, but no doubt there will be opportunities for voluntary contributions to the preservation of these historic monuments.
    Captain Pilkington: Will my right hon. Friend think about this matter again? From an international point of view this monument is one of the greatest monuments in the world. Surely, from the point of view of the history of mankind, it ought to be preserved.
    Sir D. Eccles: I agree, but it is not only this monument which is involved. There are many other archaeological objects which are of great value. But I do not think that this is a case in which a Government contribution is required.
    Mr. Greenwood: Will the righ hon. Gentleman consider addressing an appeal to industrialists to raise a fund for this and similar purposes?

    Primary Schools
    Mr. Hollandasked the Minister of Education how many maintained primary schools are co-educational, for boys only, and for girls only; and how many of the boys' primary schools are fully staffed with masters.
    Sir D. Eccles: In January, 1959, there were 558 boys', 595 girls', and 22,462 mixed primary departments in England
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    and Wales. In the boys' departments three-quarters of the teachers were men.
    Mr. Holland: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, may I ask whether he agrees that every effort should be made to maintain some freedom of choice for parents between, on the one hand, co-educational schools and, on the other hand, separate schools for boys and girls? Does he not also agree that boys should be taught by masters even at the primary stage?
    Sir D. Eccles: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that the number of men teaching in junior schools is increasing. In fact it has risen by 9,300 in the last ten years, and the percentage of men teachers in the junior schools is slightly higher than it was ten years ago.

    Clacton-on-Sea (School Dental Officer)
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Minister of Education what steps are being taken to bring a school dental officer to Clacton-on-Sea.
    Mr. K. Thompson: The distribution of school dentists in Essex is a matter for the local education authority, which, I understand, is making every effort to fill the vacant post at Clacton-on-Sea.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is my hon. Friend aware that, although the local authority is making valiant attempts to obtain more school dentists, the solution to this problem, until more dentists are available, is to pay school dentists more? What steps are being taken to bring this about, and by whom?
    Mr. Thompson: The remuneration of school dentists is a matter for negotiation by Whitley Council machinery. Any moves in that matter do not lie with my Department.

    Building Programme (1962–63)
    Mr. Fitchasked the Minister of Education when he expects to announce the education building programme for the years 1962–63 and 1963–64; and by what amount he estimates the total available for each of these years will exceed the amount available for educational building during the current year.
    Sir D. Eccles: I have just invited local education authorities to make proposals

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    for the 1962–63 school building programme. I hope to announce the programme in the summer. In accordance with the White Paper of December, 1958, the total available for the three years 1962–65 will be £185 million in comparison with £115 million for the two preceding years.
    Mr. Fitch: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask whether he recalls that last December he sent a letter to the Mayor of Wigan asking him to support the speeding up of the school building programme? Does he not agree that if local authorities are to plan effectively for the next four or five years they must know how much money they can spend? Letter-writing to the mayor may be a pleasant occupation but money would be far more effective.
    Sir D. Eccles: I saw the representatives of the local authorities' associations yesterday as a result of the letter to which the hon. Member referred. I told them that I was quite ready for them to discuss with me the main projects which they want for 1963–64. They will, therefore, get the best part of three years' notice if this procedure is adopted.
    Mr. Greenwood: Will these programmes include buildings for Youth Service purposes on the lines envisaged by the Albemarle Report?
    Sir D. Eccles: No. This Answer refers only to school building.

    Television
    Sir L. Plummerasked the Minister of Education what action he is taking in the appointment of a committee of educationalists, industrialists, and other interested persons, to investigate and make recommendations on the use of television in schools.
    Sir D. Eccles: It seems to me too soon to appoint such a Committee, but I will keep the suggestion in mind.
    Sir L. Plummer: Is the Minister aware that television has been with us for quite a while and looks as though it will continue to be with us for quite a while? Does he not agree that it is wrong that the educational possibilities of television should be in the hands only of the
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    B.B.C. and one or two programme companies? Is it not now necessary for the Ministry of Education to harness this instrument in the interests of its work?
    Sir D. Eccles: We are very keenly interested in the use of television in schools, and I can assure the hon. Member that, as soon as I think we have enough experience to warrant an inquiry, we will consider it seriously.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Is the Minister satisfied with the developments which have taken place in school broadcasting?
    Sir D. Eccles: This month I shall look at both B.B.C. and independent television programmes, and perhaps I shall be better informed in a few weeks' time.

    Monmouthshire (Building Programme)
    Mr. Abseasked the Minister of Education whether he will review the cuts made by his Department in the school-building programme for 1960 to 1962 of the Monmouthshire County Council; and whether he is aware that the proposed cuts will result in there being no places in 1963 for more than 500 children of primary school age in Cwmbran New Town.
    Sir D. Eccles: I am prepared to consider the inclusion of two additional projects in the major school building programme of the Monmouthshire Local Education Authority, when the proposals reach tender stage, in order to meet any possible deficiency of primary school accommodation in the Cwmbran new town area.
    Mr. Abse: Does not the Minister realise that delaying the matter for the time which he has suggested inevitably means that the council is unable to plan effectively? In view of the fact that it is intended to build 1,500 houses in this area of Cwmbran in the next three years, does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the situation will be desperate unless a firm decision is taken now?
    Sir D. Eccles: I thought that I had given the hon. Member a very generous Answer. I said that as soon as these proposals reach tender stage I will consider putting them in the programme.

    Schools, Cheshire (Water Supply)
    Mr. Grant-Ferrisasked the Minister of Education how many primary schools in Cheshire are still without a piped-water supply and a water-carriage system for the lavatories; by what date it is hoped that all may be so served; and whether he will consider making the local authority an increased minor capital allowance to expedite this work.
    Sir D. Eccles: Two primary schools are without piped water; they will be connected as soon as water mains are available. Fifty-eight schools are without flush lavatories; the authority hopes to install a water-carriage system at most of them within the next two years. I cannot increase the authority's already substantial allocation for minor capital works in 1960–61.
    Mr. Grant-Ferris: Does my right hon. Fiend realise that there are many people who think that the provision of proper sanitation is every bit as important as, if not more important than, other matters, including raising the school-leaving age?
    Sir D. Eccles: I agree with my hon. Friend. In most of these cases the trouble is that the authorities are expecting sewerage facilities to be provided, and so they wait for main drainage before making the change.
    Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that many rural authorities have made a great drive, as the result of the campaign to get rid of bad sanitation in rural schools which he initiated when he was formerly Minister of Education five years ago? Will the right hon. Gentleman put pressure on those authorities which have not completed such plans?
    Sir D. Eccles: I shall be glad to see the last of earth closets.

    Picardy Girls Secondary School, Erith
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Education in view of the concern arising from the teaching of young girls in the depressing and antiquated surroundings of the Picardy Girls Secondary School, Erith, and the desire of the Kent Education Committee, as a matter of urgency, to replace the school with new buildings, why he has turned down the application
    1210
    of the Kent Education Committee to do so.
    Mr. K. Thompson: Projects submitted by the Kent and other local education authorities for the 1960–62 building programmes had stronger claims than this school, replacement of which my right hon. Friend will consider sympathetically for the 1962–63 programme.
    Mr. Dodds: I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the most sympathetic reply which I have had for some time. Is he aware that Her Majesty's Inspector has stated that this is the worst secondary school in Kent? Does not it make nonsense of the Government White Paper relating to secondary schools if, the Kent Education Committee having asked for this as a matter of urgency, it is knocked out of the programme? I do not wish to provoke the hon. Gentleman too far, but is he aware that I am pleased to hear that there is a likelihood that it will he accepted in the new programme?
    Mr. Thompson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. 1 reminded him during an Adjournment debate a few days ago that we are carrying out a five-year programme, and we are doing our best to get the urgent projects out of the way as soon as we can.

  SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

    Printing and Textile Machinery and Shipbuilding
    Mr. Albuasked the Minister of Education, as representing the Minister for Science, (1) whether he will ask the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to undertake an inquiry into the printing-machine industry on the lines of that made into the machine-tool industry;
    (2) what further consideration has been given by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to inquiries into the textile-machinery industry and shipbuilding industries on the lines of that made into the machine-tool industry.
    Sir D. Eccles: The research needs of the printing machinery, textile machinery and shipbuilding industries are among

    1211
    those being considered for special study by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
    Mr. Albu: Is the Minister aware that in the opinion of many informed persons there are many sections of the mechanical engineering industries of this country which are still in the steam railway age? They do far too little scientific research and development and employ far too few scientific staff and qualified engineers. Does not the Minister think it time that the whole of this industry was looked at and that the Government took steps to deal with a situation which may become increasingly serious for us, particularly when the present boom in motor-car exports declines?
    Sir D. Eccles: My noble Friend has in mind that such a situation may exist. That is why this procedure has been adopted.
    Mr. G. Brown: If it is decided to look into the industry as suggested, along the lines of the inquiry into the machine-tool industry, will the Minister arrange for the report to be published and not hidden, as the report on the machine-tool industry has been hidden?
    Sir D. Eccles: I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that we cannot have a satisfactory inquiry without the full co-operation of the firms concerned and that it is more likely that my noble Friend will get that co-operation if the inquiries are on a confidential basis.
    Mr. G. Brown: In that case, what is the use of an inquiry, if nobody knows what it finds?
    Sir D. Eccles: The report is afterwards discussed by the industry and steps are taken to remedy the defects.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Fowl Pest
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the fowl pest epidemic in the country in general and in Lincolnshire and the adjoining counties in particular.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Hare): I am glad to report that the fowl pest position in the Midlands is much better and the remaining restrictions there are confined to the County of Nottingham. There were 45 outbreaks of fowl pest in Lincolnshire in the last quarter of 1959 and there have been 4 in the county so far this year. The situation in East Anglia is still serious despite the great efforts being made to destroy all the affected flocks and to stop the further spread of infection, but I am pleased to announce that infected area restrictions will be withdrawn from Cambridgeshire, the Isle of Ely and Huntingdonshire after tomorrow. Further outbreaks of fowl pest have recently occurred in East Sussex, which has been declared an infected area.
    Mr. de Freitas: Is the Minister aware that there is a widespread feeling in the community concerned with this matter that not enough energy and resources are being devoted to studying methods for the prevention and cure of this disease? Further, is he aware that there is a feeling that in this matter his Ministry is not as lively and as quick as it should be regarding research into methods of prevention and cure?
    Mr. Hare: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to detract from the immense energy which has been put into the job of eradication by my Ministry. Regarding the other part of his supplementary question, he will remember that he has another Question on the Order Paper.
    Mr. de Freitas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I was not referring to the energy displayed by the Ministry regarding eradication? It is methods of prevention and cure to which I am referring.
    Mr. Hare: It is certainly a difficult matter. A great deal of research is going on into the whole question of virus diseases.
    Mr. Hilton: Is the Minister aware that Norfolk has been badly hit by fowl pest in the past few months and that recently there have been more outbreaks of this disease? Would not he agree that rather than pay large sums in compensation to farmers and other poultry keepers who

    1213
    have suffered as a result of this disease, it would he better to spend more money on research into the prevention and cure of fowl pest?
    Mr. Hare: I will certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman has said. Both his County of Norfolk and my County of Suffolk, as he knows, have suffered particularly as a result of this disease. But, in our opinion, our policy is still the best which can be pursued. On the other hand, it would be quite wrong to shut our minds to considering whether any alternative methods would be better.

    Pigs
    Mr. Sydney Irvingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what reply has been given to the request made to him by the National Council of the British Association of Pig Producers for a review of agricultural policy.
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has considered the resolution of the National Council of the British Association of Pig Producers, a copy of which has been sent to him, expressing their lack of confidence in Her Majesty's Government's pig policy; and what reply he has sent.
    Mr. John Hare: The Association was informed that the terms of its resolution on the Government's pig policy, which had been sent to the Prime Minister, had been noted. The position of the pig industry will of course come up for reconsideration at the Annual Review which will begin next week.
    Mr. Irving: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the December figures show the pig population to be down by 3 per cent., and by 10 per cent. on the figures for a year ago, and that the deep concern that has led the National Council of the British Association of Pig Producers to move a motion of no confidence in the Government means that unless the Government do something very quickly there will be permanent damage to the industry? Will the Minister bear that in mind in the weeks to come?
    Mr. Hare: Yes. As I have told the hon. Gentleman, this matter will certainly be considered at the Price Review. I hope that he will note one encouraging
    1214
    fact about the pig returns, which is that the numbers of gilts in pig were up by 7,000 compared with September.
    Mr. Dodds: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it a reflection on his Ministry that this body should bypass the Minister and go to the Prime Minister to ask that action should be taken? Does not he appreciate that the complacency which he has shown for such a long time has exhausted the patience of these persons, and that it is hoped that he will do something before long?
    Mr. Hare: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I have never shown any complacency. I am sure he would agree that this is a free country and that people may send representations to anyone.
    Mr. Willey: While not expecting the right hon. Gentleman to anticipate his Price Review statement, may I ask whether we may assume that he will endeavour during the next few weeks to extract himself from the awful muddle which is now disturbing pig producers?
    Mr. Hare: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means. There is no muddle. I have said that I shall consider this matter at the Price Review.
    Mr. Grant-Ferrisasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give urgent consideration to the possibility of paying the quality premium on pigs in the form of a production grant.
    Mr. John Hare: I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that this proposal has been put forward by the National Farmers' Union and is a matter for the forthcoming Annual Review. I cannot comment further at this stage.
    Mr. Grant-Ferris: Whilst appreciating that my right hon. Friend cannot say very much at the moment, may I ask if he realises that the disincentive of 2s. a score has done much to reduce the national herd and that we must pay much more attention to quality if we want to maintain our standards?
    Mr. Hare: I will certainly note what my hon. Friend has said.

    Transactions in Seeds (Committee Report)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a further statement on the Report of the Committee on Transactions in Seeds.
    Mr. John Hare: Following the statement I made on 7th December last as to the need for revision of existing seed control arrangements in the light of this Report, revised Regulations under the Seeds Act are in preparation and the proposed changes will shortly be discussed with representatives of the interests concerned.
    Mr. Willey: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to the recent report of the Consumer Advisory Council which, after all, is a Government-subsidised body, and has he also seen the report of the official seed testing station at Cambridge? In view of this, would he agree that some immediate action is required to control the bad practices of some of the salesmen?
    Mr. Hare: I am taking action. Some action will be taken this year and some next year. I am awaiting the plant breeders' report.
    Mr. Paton: On a point of order. May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether you will ensure that the confidences being exchanged across the Table may be enjoyed by other hon. Members in the House?
    Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Member complaining about not being able to hear?
    Hon. Members: Yes.
    Mr. Speaker: These exchanges are very delightful, but they are better one at a time. Perhaps it would be better if the House preserved more silence.

    Insecticides
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further action he proposes to take to ensure the safer use of insecticides.
    Mr. John Hare: The existing arrangements whereby all insecticides that may present a toxic hazard are examined by
    1216
    the Advisory Committee on Poisonous Substances used in Agriculture and Food Storage, together with the measures recently announced, should provide adequate protection.
    Mr. Willey: In view of one or two cases which have been given publicity recently, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that he ought to exercise the present powers a little more widely, and that there is a case for the extended use of those powers without waiting for a further report?
    Mr. Hare: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have taken action on these arsenic haulm destroyers. I have announced the setting up of a special research body together with my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Science and other Ministers. We are expecting a report from that body. The matter is being carefully considered.

    National Stud
    Sir J. Lucasasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, with a view to maintaining the efficiency of the National Stud, he will take steps to import from Eire a supply of suitable horses.
    Mr. John Hare: I am not aware of any recommendations that importation of horses from Ireland is needed to maintain the efficiency of the National Stud.
    Sir J. Lucas: Is the Minister aware that I had to ask him that Question in order to put this supplementary question? In view of the recent statement by the Government of the Republic of Ireland, will he approach his opposite number with a view to co-ordinating the minimum value of live horses exported from both countries, remembering that insurance value is not proper value?
    Mr. Hare: I rather wondered why my hon. Friend had tabled the Question. I will certainly consider his supplementary question.

    Cattle, Bodmin Moor (Subsidies)
    Mr. Marshallasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the amount paid, and for what number of cattle, in respect of Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, under the Hill Subsidy Act in 1954, 1955, and 1956; and what was the amount paid in 1958.
    Mr. John Hare: I regret that these figures could not be made available without undue expenditure of time and labour.
    Mr. Marshall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his Department appears to be considering a different approach to these laws and that this is neither understood nor liked? How can he come to a reasonable decision without having the figures available?
    Mr. Hare: I am considering the possibility of a new basis, because there have been complaints about the method of paying the subsidy. We are considering whether it is possible to relate the number of cows on which subsidy is paid to the carrying capacity of the applicant's enclosed land. I am pursuing my studies on that.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Will the Minister resist the continual appeals from his hon. Friends for more public money to be given to farmers?
    Mr. Hare: My hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Marshall) generally puts a very good case and I always listen to it very carefully.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    3½ per cent. War Stock
    Mr. Hendryasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will instruct the Estate Duty Office to accept in settlement of death duties 3½ per cent. War Stock held continuously by the deceased since 1948.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): No, Sir. I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to my right hon. Friend's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) on 2nd February.
    Mr. Hendry: Since this stock was almost certainly acquired at or above par, will not my hon. Friend agree that to accept repayment at its face value would merely be to give credit after death for an act of patriotism during life?
    Mr. Barber: The terms of issue of any stock of this kind are a fundamental condition, and I do not think that it
    1218
    would be right for those to be altered. Further, if we were to do as my hon. Friend suggests it would be a discrimination between various holders, which I think would act unfairly.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Does not this Question and the volumes of correspondence hon. Gentlemen are receiving on this subject indicate the monstrous fall in the standing of gilt-edged securities since the present Government took office?

    British Railways (Area Board Members)
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why Command Paper No.911, presented in December, does not list the members of British Railways Area Boards with other members of public boards of a commercial character.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): Because the members of the British Railways Area Boards are not appointed by a Minister.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Will not the hon. Gentleman agree that, although there may be a technical difference, the public is as entitled to information about the membership of these area boards and their remuneration as it is to information about members of area boards of other nationalised industries? Will he at least undertake to use his good offices with the Ministry of Transport and the British Transport Commission to make this information generally available, as it is of very considerable public interest?
    Sir E. Boyle: I will bear the hon. Gentleman's point in mind, but the criteria we have adopted in deciding which public boards the White Paper should include have always been, first, whether or not the members are appointed by a Minister and, secondly, whether the organisation concerned is primarily engaged in trading operations. That has been the procedure under successive Governments and I think that we should think carefully before altering it.
    Sir G. Nicholson: Whether or not we know the names and remuneration of these ladies and gentlemen, may we be told whether they are doing anything at all that is useful?
    Sir E. Boyle: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

    Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will arrange for the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries to publish an annual report in future.
    Sir E. Boyle: This is a matter for the Standing Commission. I am wholly content with its present practice of publishing quinquennial reports; but it is, of course, free to present supplementary reports if it wishes.
    Mr. Robinson: Many of us were very glad to see the strengthening of this body. Would it not be appropriate to its enhanced status if it were required to report annually? Will the hon. Gentleman think about giving it a little more staff to enable it to do this?
    Sir E. Boyle: I will consider both those points, though I am rather doubtful about requiring it to produce annual reports. There is something to be said for flexibility, but I know that the Standing Commission is at present thinking of publishing reports more frequently.

  NYASALAND (MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  Mr. Stonehouseasked the Prime Minister if the speech of the Secretary of State for the Colonies at the opening of a Commonwealth Exhibition in Leeds on 7th January, 1960, relating to the emergency in Nyasaland, represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
  Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Stonehouse: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we fully applaud the sentiments expressed in the speech of the Colonial Secretary; but is he aware that words are not enough and that on the day following the Colonial Secretary's speech the Governor of Nyasaland repudiated the speech by say-
  1220
  ing that the state of emergency in Nyasaland must go on? Has not the time arrived for clearing up the instructions to be sent to our men in Zomba?
  Mr. Butler: Her Majesty's Government's policy is as expressed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies and his word is the word to which importance should be attached.
  Mr. Gaitskell: As the Secretary of State spoke of an accelerated rate of release of those who were detained and made his speech nearly a month ago, can the right hon. Gentleman say exactly how many people have been released since then?
  Mr. Butler: The latest information I have is that on 13th January there were still approximately 407 Africans detained. In regard to the general statement of my right hon. Friend, the further releases, including the references he made in his speech, which I have here, to individuals, depend upon the security situation.
  Mr. Gaitskell: The Secretary of State made this speech nearly a month ago, and it appears from the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman that there have been practically no fresh releases since then. How does the right hon. Gentleman explain this discrepancy?
  Mr. Butler: There is no discrepancy. This is a gradual process depending upon the security situation, and what my right hon. Friend said represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government in this regard.

  CENTRAL EUROPE (ARMAMENTS)
  Mr. Healeyasked the Prime Minister what proposals he will make at the forthcoming Summit Conference concerning the limitation and control of armaments in Central Europe.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  We shall be discussing with our allies in the coming months what proposals can be made at the Summit Conference in this connection, or, indeed, on any other subject. The hon. Gentleman will, however, be aware that the Western proposals on Germany and European

  1221
  security put forward at Geneva last May contained provisions for controlling armaments in an agreed area of Europe.
  Mr. Healey: I trust that the Home Secretary is aware also that those proposals in the so-called package plan are dependent on a large number of political pre-conditions which are most unlikely to be realised. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Government are seriously considering putting forward proposals for the limitation of armaments which are not so conditioned?
  Mr. Butler: The second part of the hon. Member's statement raises a wider question, but I can give the assurance that every aspect of importance will be discussed with our allies, as I said in the early part of my Answer.

  OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS (DISCLOSURE)
  Mr. Bellengerasked the Prime Minister to what extent the rules relating to disclosure of official documents in private publications by ex-civil or military servants of the Crown differ from the rules relating to ex-Ministers; and whether he will put in the form of a White Paper the general conditions governing such privileges.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  All persons who have held office under the Crown share the same obligation to obtain permission from the Government of the day for the disclosure of any information which they obtained by virtue of their official position. It is for the Government to decide each application on its merits.
  I should like to give further study to the specific suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Bellenger: Will the right hon. Gentleman at the same time give consideration to this point, that in a recent publication documents were used which obviously must have been the subject of Cabinet discussion? Is it not the fact that discussions in Cabinet are secret at all times? Further, there is the Official Secrets Act. Any information the right hon. Gentleman can give the House about the rules governing all these matters will
  1222
  enable hon. Gentlemen to make up their minds on this subject.
  Mr. Butler: Yes. Nothing irregular happened in respect of the memoirs to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Sir Anthony Eden did not quote textually from the minutes of Cabinet meetings. In so far as documents were used, it had to be with the approval of my right hon. Friend. The treatment accorded was approximately similar to that given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) under the Government of hon. Gentlemen opposite. What I think is valuable in the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion is his last point that this might all be brought together for future guidance. I have undertaken that this shall be considered and discussed when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister returns.
  Mr. Gaitskell: While welcoming what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, may I ask whether he is aware that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations expressed himself in another place as extremely disturbed about statements appearing in memoirs relating to what had been said in Cabinet? Will he pay particular attention to this point in considering whether a new statement should be made about the circumstances in which permission is given? Is lie aware that there is a general feeling that in recent years the rule has been administered far too loosely and that what was permitted to the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) in very exceptional circumstances in the case of his war memoirs should not necessarily be permitted to everybody else?
  Mr. Butler: I am aware that there is a certain doubt on these matters, particularly in relation to Cabinet proceedings and, for example, memoranda submitted to the Cabinet. In these last two categories, it is normal for the Sovereign's permission to be sought. That remains the constitutional position. I think what I have said is all covered by the statement I made, and I think it is reasonable to anwer the right hon. Gentleman by saying that this matter should be discussed with my right hon. Friend and that any future doubts and anxieties should be cleared up.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Quite apart from the rule in relation to documents and

  1223
  Cabinet minutes, will the right hon. Gentleman say what is the position in relation to views attributed to Ministers in the course of crises? Is he aware, for instance, that in these extracts in The Times there are some animadversions on the present Prime Minister when Chancellor of the Exchequer and the effect of the drain on the dollar situation in reversing his attitude on belligerency in Suez? Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it was necessary for Sir Anthony Eden to obtain the permission of the present Prime Minister to disclose such an unfortunate state of affairs?
  Mr. Butler: I have already covered that in the answers which I gave last week by saying that these memoirs are the private memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden, for which the Government do not accept responsibility. A private person is still entitled in a free country, which I trust this still is, to say what he likes about himself or about anybody else. I think that that is entirely different.
  Mr. Wilson: But is it right for a retiring Prime Minister to say what one particular Minister, in this case the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, felt successively about the need first to invade and then to retreat from Suez? If it is right for him, whether he is now a private person or not, to disclose the attitude of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, is it right that he should fail to disclose the rather more consistent attitude of the Leader of the House?
  Mr. Butler: I think we should await the total book. I have so far had only the privilege of reading with my breakfast the instalments of the memoirs which are now coming to hand. I have not read the complete volume. Until we have read the total volume, I think we cannot say how we all come off.
  Mr. Gaitskell: Further to that, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in view of what he has just said, whether it would not be best if all concerned—that is the Leader of the House and every other member of that Cabinet—were now to publish their memoirs?
  Mr. Butler: As I have said before to the right hon. Gentleman, I really have too much to do.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Mr. F. Noel-Baker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance on a matter which arises from answers given to me and to the hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury? I put down a Question to ask about the members of the area boards of British Railways. I was told by the Financial Secretary that, as this was a matter for the British Transport Commission and not for the Minister, he could not furnish the information. The hon. Member for Farnham then rose to ask a supplementary question and was referred to the Minister of Transport.
This is a clear example of the difficulty which hon. Members face in seeking information about some of the nationalised industries. Would it be possible for you, Sir, to give us some guidance about how we may obtain information on topics of this kind?
Mr. Speaker: As the hon. Gentleman knows, this is and has been for some time a plaguing problem. I should not like to have a shot at some sort of Ruling impromptu at this moment. I will consider, if I may, whether it is possible to do anything, as from the Chair, to improve present circumstances. I am not, however, hopeful of being able suddenly to find a solution to a problem which has baffled my predecessors for some time.
Mr. Mellish: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was hoping to catch your eye to ask the Leader of the House my usual question on this matter.
Mr. Snow: Further to that rather mysterious supplementary point, Mr. Speaker, may I ask your guidance on another matter? This relates to questions to the Prime Minister about the higher direction of the nationalised industries. For instance, there is my Question No.51 today. It is becoming increasingly difficult to receive Oral Answers from the Prime Minister. I make no point against the Prime Minister about that, naturally, but already one has had to postpone Questions several times. Would it be possible to arrange that Questions to the Prime Minister should come on earlier, or that more provision should be made for Questions to him?
Mr. Speaker: I am not committing myself to seeing the hon. Member—that would he highly embarrassing all round—but there will be a debate on that and kindred subjects, so I understand, on Monday.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 8TH FEBRUARY—As already announced, a general debate will take place on Procedure on the Motion which is on the Order Paper to implement certain of the Recommendations of the Select Committee.
TUESDAY, 9TH FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Mental Health (Scotland) Bill and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
WEDNESDAY, 1OTH FEBRUARY—Supply [1st Allotted Day]: Committee.
At the request of the Opposition it is proposed to take Supply formally, and afterwards a debate on FOREIGN AFFAIRS will take place on an Opposition Motion.
THURSDAY, 11TH FEBRUARY—The debate on FOREIGN AFFAIRS will be resumed and concluded.
FRIDAY, 12TH FEBRUARY—Consideration of private Members' Motions.
MONDAY, 15TH FEBRUARY—The proposed business will be the Second Reading of the European Free Trade Association Bill and consideration of the necessary Money Resolution, which it is hoped to obtain by about 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, consideration of the Motion to approve the National Insurance (Earnings) Regulations.
Perhaps I may say, Mr. Speaker, on Monday's debate on procedure, that we have endeavoured to meet the wishes of the House not only to debate the various issues covered by the proposed Amendments to Standing Orders, but to allow for a general debate. Perhaps it would be possible, with your permission, for
1226
the various points covered by the Amendments to the Government Motion to be debated during the general debate until, say, about 9 o'clock and afterwards the Amendments could be moved formally and the decision of the House taken if this is thought desirable.
Mr. Gaitskell: I still have some misgivings about Monday's business. We have a series of Government Motions to alter the Standing Orders. Already, we have 13 Amendments on the Order Paper. I do not disagree with what the right hon. Gentleman has suggested, subject to this, that where an hon. Member has his name to an Amendment and he is not called in the general debate, I should have thought that he must be allowed to make the case for the Amendment he is putting forward and there should be some debate on it.
In the light of that, I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that it might be desirable and, perhaps, possible to end the general debate a little earlier to give rather more time for the specific Amendments.
Mr. Butler: I think that we could, perhaps, work this out as we go along. Perhaps I may confer with you, Mr. Speaker, and with the right hon. Gentleman about how we conduct this matter to the satisfaction of the House.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: May I put again my plea for a general debate on economic and fiscal questions? Is my right hon. Friend aware that if we are to be called upon to support the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget proposals it might be useful for him to hear beforehand some the considerations upon which that support is likely to be forthcoming?
Mr. Butler: I feel sure that my right hon. Friend can have absolute reliance upon my noble Friend, but I think that it would be wise for me to acquaint my right hon. Friend of my noble Friend's intention.
Mr. Blackburn: Reverting to Monday's business, does the Leader of the House think that it will be possible to give an opportunity in one day to all the Members who would like to speak in the procedure debate? Is it the intention of the Government to suspend the rule on Monday? Further, is it to

1227
be a House of Commons matter and a House of Commons decision, or will the Whips be on?
Mr. Butler: Our submission will be supported by the strength of the Administration, which is a polite way of saying that the Whips will be on. But, of course, the hon. Gentleman does not know whether we might be gracious enough to accept some of the Amendments. I can assure him that the spirit in which we approach these matters will be a House of Commons spirit. We shall, if it is so desired generally, give a little more time. I will pay attention to what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Major Legge-Bourke: On a point of order. May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? A few moments ago, the Leader of the Opposition propounded a theory which, I thought, was somewhat revolutionary. He suggested that any hon. Member who tabled an Amendment which was not called during the debate on Monday would automatically have the right to be called in the general discussion. I think that you, Mr. Speaker, would agree that it might set a very dangerous precedent if the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion were adopted.
Mr. Speaker: I did not understand the right hon. Gentleman to be saying that. I understood him to say that if an hon. Member whose name was put to an Amendment was not called in the general discussion, then it would be right to allow him to be called to move his Amendment. I do not wish to discuss this matter further, because we may get the Order Paper littered with Amendments.
Mr. Gaitskell: Further to that point of order. I should like to point out that it was because of the Leader of the House's suggestion that Amendments should be taken purely formally at the end of the general debate that I put in a plea for any hon. Member who had not been called in the general debate to be allowed to speak after it.
Mr. Marlowe: Has my right hon. Friend observed the Motion on the Order Paper in the name of myself and about 100 of my hon. Friends relating to the availability of National Health Service
1228
drugs for private patients? Can he say when time will be given to debate this Motion, in view of the fact that it conforms with what has been Conservative policy since 1949? Does not my right hon. Friend think that it is time that we discussed this matter? If it is not ventilated, some of us may become a little restive.
[That this House, noting that the number of doctors in private practice is rapidly diminishing, is of the opinion that the patients of such doctors should be enabled to obtain their medicines and drugs and have their prescriptions made up on the same terms as apply to National Health Service patients; and urges Her Majesty's Government to introduce the necessary legislation to achieve this.]
Mr. Butler: I find it hard to recognise my hon. and learned Friend under that description, but this is certainly a very important matter. I have the Motion before me with the signatories to it. I cannot at present offer any time for debate. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend would like to discuss the matter with me.
Mr. G. Thomas: As two very important statements on education have been issued in recent days, can the Leader of the House say when we shall have an opportunity of discussing the Albemarle Report and the Crowther Report at some length?
Mr. Butler: We are now entering the period of the year when we have Supply Days, which are at the discretion of the Opposition. I do not doubt that the hon. Member's observation will have fallen upon listening ears.
Mrs. White: Surely the right hon. Gentleman, as a former Minister of Education, realises that the Crowther Report is a major document on education and that it is the Government's business to give time to discuss it.
Mr. Butler: That may be, but it is a question of finding time. I am flattered and pleased to note the manner in which the Report vindicates the Education Act, 1944.
Mr. Mellish: Can the Leader of the House say what is the position concerning the possibility of Questions on the

1229
nationalised industries being asked. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman this question every week. Would the right hon. Gentleman also tell my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) that there is nothing mysterious about this matter?
Mr. Butler: I will so inform the hon. Member's hon. Friend. As has been apparent since we resumed after the Recess, this must be a matter primarily for the decision of Her Majesty's Ministers and not primarily a matter for you, Mr. Speaker. The responsibility falls on the Government.
I have discussed the matter with my right hon. Friends principally involved. I am not in a position to make a statement yet, but I should like a further chance of consulting the Opposition through the usual channels. If we can find some reasonable or understandable enlargement, I hope that we may be a able to do so without offending hon. Members on either side of the House. There are feelings on both sides in this matter.
Mr. F. Noel-Baker: While the right hon. Gentleman is considering ways in which the House of Commons may be more fully kept informed by Ministers, will he look into the parallel question of urging nationalised boards to provide more information to the general public? For example, there is no reason why the membership and remuneration of the area boards of British Railways should be shrouded in mystery. This is a matter of general public interest.
Mr. Speaker: We are confined to business at the moment.
Mr. Albu: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider giving time to discuss the extremely important Report of the Select Committee on the Atomic Energy Authority, particularly in view of the recent announcements about the development of marine power?
Mr. Butler: I will discuss the matter with my noble Friend principally concerned.
Mr. Chetwynd: On Monday's business, will the right hon. Gentleman note that some of us who have put our names to Amendments do not wish to take part in the general debate, but wish to direct
1230
attention to specific Amendments, and that we should resent it very much if we were deprived of the opportunity of speaking to those Amendments?
Mr. Butler: It all depends how much opportunity there will be of the hon. Member's own point being properly considered. That is, I gather, what he would wish.
Mr. C. Osborne: Further to the question of my noble Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), will my right hon. Friend ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that the Economic Survey and other sources of economic information are given to us as soon as possible, so that my noble Friend can make up his mind in the proper manner?
Mr. Butler: I think that that would be the wish of my right hon. Friend. I had that in mind when my noble Friend put his question.
Mrs. Castle: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information about the date of the promised debate on accommodation in the House?
Mr. Butler: Before the Recess, we offered half a day, which the Opposition found not sufficient. Therefore, this would be a matter for discussion. We should certainly be ready for a debate when time is available.
Mr. Monslow: Does the Government's consideration of Questions about nationalised industries include day-to-day administration within those industries? If so, do they think that that is really practicable?
Mr. Butler: No, Sir. There has been this considerable caution and some delay, for the very good reason that detailed discussion would not, I think, please either side of the House. That is why we have approached the matter very carefully. What we want to be sure of is that the House of Commons is able to exercise a proper and reasonable survey of and interest in the affairs of these industries. That is why the subject has perplexed my predecessor and myself.
Mr. Gordon Walker: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider giving time for a debate on the Report about the disturbances at the Carlton House Approved School? While it would be stupid to

1231
have a debate every time that there was trouble of this sort, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that some matters of general principle and administration are raised by this Report?
Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. I think that it would be better if such a debate were, so to speak, on the peg of this Report, but was able to range rather wider to cover matters concerning juvenile delinquents and others. It will certainly be a source of great interest.
Dr. King: While the House understands that the Government cannot commit themselves without much thought about a Report like the Crowther Report, which has such vast implications, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that a general discussion on the Report would not only be of value to the Government in their consideration, but would be of great value to the country in getting a broad picture of this extremely revolutionary document?
Mr. Butler: It is because the Government are so keen to surge forward with their educational plans that we should certainly not wish to avoid the opportunity of a discussion. I think that the Crowther Report, as the hon. Member says, is particularly important. Therefore, I would not wish to be rushed, but, also, I would not wish to underestimate our desire to make clear our general views on this subject.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings of the Committee on Requisitioned Houses [Money] and the Proceedings on the Water Officers Compensation Bill [Lords] exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No.1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  REQUISITIONED HOUSES BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.49 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This is a Bill with a definite and limited object, designed to wind up the long process of derequisitioning, which, under the 1955 Act, is due to end on 31st March next. By then, over 98 per cent. of the total task of derequisitioning will have been completed. The Government now seek power to allow limited extra time to those few local authorities where the job is not quite over.
  The Government, naturally, intend to deal as fairly as possible with all the interests concerned, that is, with the owners, who counted on getting their properties back at the end of March, with the families, who, if nothing were done, would be left as trespassers on their accommodation at the end of March, and with the local authorities, both the vast majority who have faithfully fulfilled the task set upon them by Parliament and the very few who have not yet quite finished the job.
  Requisitioning has a long history starting in August, 1939, when unused accommodation began to be made available for the evacuees and soon after for the bombed-out. The requisitioning powers were extended during the war in 1943 and again in 1946 to provide accommodation for those who were inadequately housed as well as for evacuees and the bombed-out.
  The number of properties under requisition came to a peak in 1948, when no fewer than 98,000 properties were providing homes for over 150,000 families. After the war, a number of properties began to be released and as the pace of new building quickened so also did the pace of release of requisitioned property. By early 1955, the number of properties had fallen to 62,000 and it then became possible to prepare the orderly winding up of the whole system to restore properties to owners as soon as possible without any hardship to tenants
  That was the purpose of the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, which set 31st March

  1233
  this year as the terminal date. Since the passage of that Act, the process of derequisitioning has gone steadily on so that it seems, on local authority figures, as if by the end of March between 98 and 99 per cent. of the entire job will have been completed.
  An enormous task has been carried out, because since 1955 no fewer than 50,000 properties have been released and 76,000 families resettled. This is a tremendous achievement and reflects the greatest credit on all concerned, because it has been carried out in conditions of decreasing although, in some parts, intense housing stringency. I should like to pay tribute to the local authorities who have carried it out and also a tribute to the owners who, involuntarily or not, have made their property available to the nation, and particularly to owners who have co-operated by taking licensees as statutory tenants under Section 4 of the 1955 Act.
  The House may like to know that of the 76,000 dwellings released since 1955, over 80 per cent. will have been handed back to private owners. Of that 80 per cent., however, 28,000 dwellings now house licensees who, by the acceptance of owners under Section 4 of the 1955 Act, were turned into statutory tenants. In 34,000 cases, full vacant possession was restored to the owners and in 14,000 cases, the local authorities either leased or bought the property from the owners.
  Mrs. E. M. Braddock (Liverpool, Exchange): Has the hon. Gentleman any information about the number of derequisitioned houses still standing empty?
  Sir K. Joseph: No, I have not. If the hon. Lady would like to put down a Question, I would certainly like to look into that.
  Proportionately, the job still to be done is minute. That is to say, by the end of March we predict that there will be an extremely small number of houses still under requisition. We have the end-1959 figure as a guide. At that time, 7,608 properties were still requisitioned by 156 local authorities. Although this seems a relatively large number, over 61 of those local authorities had only one or two properties still under requisition and 43 more had fewer than twenty each. The core of the problem, therefore, was in the areas of 52 local authorities,
  1234
  of whom all but seven are in Greater London.
  Since 31st December, 1959, all these 156 different local authorities have been busily pursuing their derequisitioning task and the position is changing daily. For a forecast of the position at the end of March, we can only depend on the local authorities' estimates of what they think they will still be holding under requisition at that time. The best estimate we can build up on their own forecasts is that by that date about 1,500 properties with probably not more than 2,000 dwellings in them will be held by ten or eleven local authorities, nearly all in London. This constitutes about 1½ per cent. of the total number of properties or dwellings requisitioned.
  Those authorities who have solved the problem, or will solve it, by the end of March, have used admirable vigour and energy. Those who will need a little more time are not all those with necessarily the worst problems, although they are certainly among those with the most difficulties to solve. Whatever the problems, they will know that when March ends, the overwhelming majority of the other authorities, some of them with just as bad difficulties as their own, will have succeeded in the time set by Parliament.
  It will be seen by hon. Members that the Bill has to be read in conjunction with the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955. In Clause 1, subsection (1) gives the Minister power to authorise by order for a limited time, not more than twelve months in any case, the retention by local authorities of properties still under requisition at the end of March.
  Subsection (2) lays down that the order can be applied to all or to some of the properties in any local authority area that are held at the end of March and lays down, further, that the properties retained can be varied by a subsequent order by the Minister at any time during the period of twelve months. This is, therefore, not in any way a blank cheque. Each property that is retained much be identified and justified to the Minister's satisfaction.
  Subsection (3) of Clause 1 sets out that the orders must be made by Statutory Instrument and instructs local authorities, authorised by an order, to

  1235
  give written notice to each owner of property retained setting out the time for which the property is authorised to be retained.
  Clause 2 deals with the financial arrangements and in subsection (1) it permits an increase of 50 per cent. in the rental compensation, but not, of course, in the rates and repairs or other service charges paid to owners. This is some recognition, on an admittedly rough and ready basis, of the deferment on the part of the owner of legitimate expectations.
  If I am asked why owners were not permitted to draw a market rent for the limited period of retention by the local authority, I would remind hon. Members that these owners are the very small residue of the large number of owners whose property has been under requisition and that we must be fair to those many thousands of owners who, by co-operating during the period of requisition and accepting licensees as statutory tenants, have found their rent limited to twice the gross value. There must be fairness to all concerned.
  Mr. Albert Evans: Will that mean that, in effect, the rents of these houses will be at the level of three times the gross value?
  Sir K. Joseph: The rents of these individual houses are nothing to do with the Bill. They are entirely at the discretion of the local authorities. I am saying that the owner of a house which is retained by order of my right hon. Friend will receive 50 per cent. in addition to the rental compensation which he now receives. The rental compensation which he receives bears some relation to gross value, certainly, but I cannot in any way reconcile what the hon. Member has said—namely, three times gross value—with the rental compensation now received plus 50 per cent. The hon. Member must have got his sums wrong. I would say, if I were asked, that on the average the owners now are getting on average about 11/6th of gross value. If 50 per cent. is added to this, then the average will come out at something just under twice gross value, but certainly not three times gross value.
  Clause 2(2) deals with contributions of the Exchequer to the cost of running property still remaining in requisition
  1236
  after the end of March and it reduces the Exchequer contribution from 75 per cent. of the deficit to 25 per cent. of the deficit. Here again, while judging that local authorities with a problem still to solve deserve some help from the Exchequer, we have had to bear in mind that the vast majority of local authorities have had an extremely hard struggle to finish the job at the end of that period and it would not be fair to them if those who did not complete were to continue to get the same help as though none had completed.
  Sir Leslie Plummer: Has consideration been given to the fact that some local authorities, particularly in London, have had geographical limitations which they could not escape and which have made it utterly impossible for them to complete at the end of March? Why are they being fined for something over which they have no control?
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman will have noted, I hope, that no word that I have used reflected any moral blame in any way on them, but the fact is that Parliament has set down a date, and I think that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that there would be a tinge of unfairness if 99 per cent. of the local authorities were to find that, despite all their efforts, they might just as well not have bothered, because those who did not succeed would get the same treatment.
  Clause 2(3) deals with the Exchequer contribution to the cost of purchasing or leasing property after the end of March to provide accommodation on a secure basis for any family now in requisitioned property, and here the Bill reduces the Exchequer contribution from 75 per cent. to 25 per cent., but my right hon. Friend is not expecting much additional buying or leasing to be necessary after 31st March since most local authorities, even those with the very last few requisitioned properties, will have dealt with this by then to the extent that no further property is needed.
  Clause 2(4) removes the power of my right hon. Friend which still exists under the 1955 Act to make a discretionary grant, where there was special reason, to any local authority.
  Mr. Herbert Butler: Under Section 10(2) of the 1955

  1237
  Act the Minister had power to make a supplementary grant. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that some local authorities could receive up to fifteen-sixteenths of their deficit under those proposals and that under these proposals they will receive 25 per cent., roughly 5s. instead of 18s. 9d. in the £ of their deficit?
  Sir K. Joseph: Yes, but the fact is that my right hon. Friend in considering the discretionary grant under Section 10(2) of the 1955 Act has always made it dependent upon his satisfaction with the progress achieved by the local authority. Therefore, it would be most out of keeping to maintain it in this Bill.
  Clause 3 applies to properties retained after 31st March the provisions of the 1955 Act, subject to the modifications set out in the Schedule. I must apologise to the House for the time I shall take to take the House through the Schedule, which makes a number of detailed alterations to the 1955 Act. If I may, I will now direct the attention of the House to the Schedule.
  The first part varies Section 2 of the 1955 Act so as to preserve the power to hold requisitioned land for the three extra months needed between the end of December, 1960, when they lapse, to the end of March. 1961, when, the extra period of retention ends. That, therefore, is a consequential amendment of the extra time being given in some cases.
  Section 3 of the 1955 Act is a fairly long Section and a number of alterations are made in it. Subsection (1) covers automatic releases of property after the lapse of a licence. The Schedule sets out that this must occur in 14 days and not four weeks after a licence lapses, but not so as to oblige the owner to take back part of the property of which the local authority retains the rest. Subsections (2), (3, a), (3, c), (4), (6) and (7), the Schedule sets down, shall no longer apply. These gave various powers to the local authorities to grant fresh licences and are conveniently summed up in subsection (5), which is amended consequentially. As a result of all these changes the local authorities are no longer, after the end of March, entitled to grant fresh licences on the Minister's authority under subsection (2), to a former licensee under subsection
  1238
  (3, a/), under subsection (3, c) in pursuance of an arrangement for an exchange, and under subsection (4) to the same licensee within three months of the end of the licence, when the licence is needed either to carry out repairs or because of his failing to pay his rent.
  As a result of all these changes the only element in Section 3(5) of the 1955 Act which is left unaffected is the local authority's power under subsection (3, b) to grant a fresh licence to a statutory successor to the licensee on his death. Subsection (6) falls out completely because authorisations under subsection (2) which it forbids while court proceedings are on have themselves been abolished. Subsection (7) ceases to apply. The Schedule says that Section 4 shall no longer apply. This ends the special inducement to owners to which I have referred, by way of payment of compensation for loss of vacant possession, as some return for taking licensees as statutory tenants. Owners have had ample chance to do this and have done so in very large numbers.
  Section 5 is excluded except where an application is made before 31st March, 1960, and Section 6, as modified, replaces the power of the owner to apply to the county court for release of his property in the case of hardship, by giving the Minister power to order the local authority, in cases of severe hardship, to release property with vacant possession but without the option to purchase given by the 1955 Act.
  Finally, under the Schedule, the Schedule abolishes the power in Section 7 of the 1955 Act since it is no longer required.
  The Bill provides for that small residue of cases where property will still be held under requisition at the end of March, and for a short extension of time to be justified individually by each local authority, only for such part of its requisitioned property as may be necessary and only for sufficiently long to ensure proper arrangements for licensees who would otherwise, after 31st March, become trespassers. Twelve months is the absolute limit.
  The Bill seeks to raise the rent compensation to owners as some consolation for further delay in restoring their

  1239
  property. It continues some Exchequer support towards the costs of local authorities concerned, though not on the same scale as was given during the five years which sufficed for the vast bulk of local authorities to dispose of requisitioning. It is a short, sharp, mopping up operation to deal with the small outstanding problem and to bring to an end a vast emergency system. My right hon. Friend will be writing to the local authorities which still hold requisitioned property to explain the Bill.
  It is essential that local authorities should realise that the Bill is the signal for a final spurt, so that the country may be finally rid of a service which was essential in war time and in the post-war transition but is no longer appropriate.
  Mrs. Joyce Butler: Will the Bill apply to houses on which local authorities have already made a compulsory purchase order but on which, through the delays of the Department, the transactions may not be completed by 31st March.
  Sir K. Joseph: I think that it would be better if the hon. Lady were to write to me, when I will answer in detail about a particular case.
  4.10 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: It would be even better, perhaps, with reference to the last remark of the Parliamentary Secretary, if the Minister replied later in the debate to the point just made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler).
  The Parliamentary Secretary made it clear very early in his speech why the Bill is necessary. It is necessary because if it is not passed there are bound to be a number of people who will be legally trespassers; and if they are they will be liable to be evicted. That, of course, was exactly the point which a great number of my hon. Friends made with vigour and emphasis when the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, was passed. They said that that Act would have the result of making a number of people liable to eviction in March, 1960.
  At the time, that proposition was strenuously denied by the right hon.
  1240
  Gentleman the Minister for Aviation, who was then Minister of Housing and Local Government, and also by a number of his hon. Friends. But this is now established and, consequently, the Government, having at least heeded under the pressure of the facts the warnings which were not heeded when the 1955 Act was passed, have been obliged to introduce this amending Measure.
  I should like to make it clear that we have no quarrel with the idea of extending the time available to local authorities. Indeed, it would not be much use our quarrelling with it because hon. Members on either side of the House who have studied this matter knows its absolute necessity. The only difference is that we on this side have known it rather longer than hon. Members opposite.
  I was, therefore, pleased to hear the Parliamentary Secretary say that the local authorities had worked hard at this problem. I was hurriedly jotting down and trying to keep pace with him as he added one encomium after another to the work of the local authorities. "They deserve the greatest credit." "They have behaved with admirable vigour and energy", and so on. I wondered how one reconciles those phrases with some of the financial provisions in the Bill. I wondered, too, how one reconciles them with something which the Parliamentary Secretary said about the Order to be made under Clause 1.
  It is important to notice that this is not a Bill that simply extends requisitioning for another twelve months. It could do it. Its maximum power extends requisitioning for another twelve months to houses still requisitioned on 31st March this year, but it could do very much less than that. It could make the extension for a much shorter period and could restrict it to certain categories of houses. But from something that the Parliamentary Secretary said I had the impression that local authorities would have to be prepared to justify to the Minister each individual house. The hon. Gentleman said that the Minister would circularise local authorities explaining the effects of the Bill.
  Will that mean that in each case the local authority will have to say to him of every property it holds: "Here is a property and this is the reason why we

  1241
  wish to retain it", and that we shall then have an Order including or excluding such property according to the judgment which the Minister makes? If that is to be done, it seems to me to be imposing a great deal of paper work on what could be a much simpler matter if we had had a straightforward extension for what is admittedly a small number of properties which will be still held on 31st March, 1960.
  Let us, however, take the question of how hard the local authorities have worked. The Parliamentary Secretary gave certain figures. I understand that it comes down to this—that in December, 1954. there were approximately 90,000 families living in requisitioned properties. I shall use statistics of families rather than of properties, because it is the number of families that determines the size of the local authority problem. By December. 1959, that number had shrunk to 13,500. The local authorities had worked hard to the extent of solving the problem in the case of 76,500 families during those five years.
  How had they done it? We are told that 28,000 were dealt with by agreement with landlords and 14,000 by leases or purchase of property. It is interesting to find how this fact illustrates in a limited field a point which we in the Labour Party have been making in the general field—that if one wants to solve the housing problem at all one must have a greater measure of municipal ownership of house property of this kind. Indeed, in this field we have had the curious spectacle of a Conservative Minister in some cases encouraging the local authorities and being willing and eager to sanction more purchases and leases of property than they were willing to undertake.
  This is one indication, of which we could find many more if we were examining the housing problem generally, that local authorities cannot deal with the housing problem today unless they can extend the number of properties over which they exercise the rights of ownership. There have been 28,000 agreements and 14,000 leases or purchases. They make a total of 42,000, but, in addition, during the last five years local authorities, somehow or other, have managed to find accommodation for the remaining 35,000 families.
  1242
  Some of these problems no doubt may have been solved by the death of the licensee or by his moving to another district, but when we consider the whole figure of 35,000 there is no doubt at all that many of these people must have been accommodated out of the whole pool of council properties at the expense of people on the ordinary waiting lists.
  This has been a very heavy burden and a difficult task for the local authorities concerned, because sometimes people in requisitioned property were adequately accommodated; but under the pressure of derequisitioning legislation the local authority had to move them into its own council houses and flats, sometimes over the heads of people who were bitterly ill-accommodated.
  There were some arguments during the 1955 debates as to whether that occurred or not. Once again the present Minister of Aviation, then Minister for Housing and Local Government, was quite confident that the local authorities would not need to do this and that there would be no rehousing at the expense of people on the housing lists. But the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), who was then the Parliamentary Secretary, with that engaging candour which makes him so attractive a Member of the House and perhaps so unsuitable as a Parliamentary Secretary, spoke of
  "… normal provisions now being made to allocate part of every waiting list to a number of people in requisitioned houses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1955; Vol.537, c.202.]
  He knew that people in requisitioned houses formed part of the demand on housing accommodation assigned to people on the housing lists. During those years the local authorities have achieved the success on which the Parliamentary Secretary congratulates them and they have had to achieve it, often against their will, at the expense of people on the ordinary housing lists whose need in some cases was bitter and intense.
  I have looked at the list with which the Minister provided us in answer to a Parliamentary Question of mine and at the names of the local authorities which still have or still had last December a considerable number of families living in requisitioned properties. I have compared that in some instances with what I know of the number of families on the waiting lists in those areas. One

  1243
  authority still has 600 families in requisitioned properties and an ordinary general waiting list in its housing department of 8,000 families. It has been able to get its figure of families in requisitioned properties down to 600 or so only at the expense of a long waiting list containing some very urgent cases. If it were suitable on this occasion one could find examples of that in the case of every authority that has had a serious requisitioning problem.
  I have been making these points for the reason that whilst we welcome the extension of time in the Bill, we consider it most unsuitable that it should also contain what are in effect penalties on those local authorities which still have families living in requisitioned houses. The Parliamentary Secretary was not quite happy on this point. He said that if we did not impose financial and other penalties on local authorities which still have houses on requisition after March this year, it would be unfair to those local authorities who have completed the job. I really cannot accept that argument.
  If we took, as an example, in 1954, two authorities which at that time had the same number of families living in requisitioned property, we could not possibly conclude that because they had the same number of families their problems were equally difficult. Also, one could not conclude that because one of them had disposed of all such families by March this year, and the other had not, any blame attached to the latter. Indeed, at one stage the hon. Gentleman said, "I do not wish to attach a word of moral blame to anyone in this matter". If no word of moral blame attaches to any authority which has families still living in requisitioned properties, why is it to be subjected to penalties? That was the question which the Parliamentary Secretary did not answer, and, on the basis of his own comment about the excellent work of the local authorities, could not answer.
  We know why local authorities still have families living in requisitioned properties. It is not because they like it. It is not an attractive way of solving the housing problem. It involves legal and administrative difficulties. If they still have families living in requisitioned properties now it is because it has been literally impossible for them to do anything
  1244
  else. We should remember all the time that this problem springs from a national disaster.
  The disaster hit some parts of the country in this respect worse than others, but it was a national disaster, and any costs arising from it should properly be shared over the nation. It is not right, even at this stage, to put a part of the burden on to those parts of the country where the enemy hit hardest, which is, in effect, what we are doing by the financial section and by certain other sections of this Bill.
  What are the penalties? Let us look first at the penalties other than the financial ones. I call them penalties, because the Minister is saying in the Bill, "I will let you keep some of the houses for a bit longer, but just to make it difficult for you I shall add certain conditions and take away certain advantages which belonged previously to requisitioning."
  What are they? First, local authorities will not be able, if they are left with any requisitioned houses after March this year, to solve any part of the problem by making agreements with the landlords of the kind made under the 1955 Act. Why not? I concede that probably the number of landlords who would wish to make such agreements would be small, since the powers are to end in 1961. Yet if it were only one landlord who wanted to do it, why should it not be done in that fashion? I cannot see why a method of dealing with this problem, which has accounted for 28,000 families, should be arbitrarily cut off at this stage.
  Secondly, the local authority has to clear out of properties that fall vacant within 14 instead of 28 days. Why? The Parliamentary Secretary told us most carefully and accurately what was in Section 3 of the 1955 Act and the Schedule to this Bill. If I may say so, we were aware of that before the debate began. What he did not tell us but what we hoped he would tell us, was why the Government are proposing these changes in the law. Why this little extra difficulty over the time the local authorities are to have after premises fall vacant?
  Next, they cannot vary the terms of the licence. Occasions have arisen in which it has been desirable to do so,

  1245
  and which they have done legally, I understand, by ending the existing licence and immediately making a new one. Apparently, that cannot be done any longer. A local authority cannot make exchanges for the benefit of tenants in requisitioned properties. Why not? The power to make exchanges is an important one in the hands of local authorities which are trying to make the best use of all the housing accommodation at their disposal.
  Then again, if the licensee simply fails to pay the rent, and the arrangement comes to an end for that reason, the local authority is to lose control of the property. That is a most unfair provision. I see the Parliamentary Secretary looking worried, but if he will look again at the Schedule to the Bill and at Section 3 of the original Act of 1955, I think he will see that it is so. He will see that during the period from 1960 on, if premises fall vacant because the licensee has failed to pay the rent and has been turned out, the requisitioning power will end there and then under this Bill. This means that the local authority will have its difficulties increased by something over which it has no control. Although this is only a small point, it seems to me to be a wholly unnecessary and vexatious restriction.
  Before I come to the financial penalties, mainly involved in Clause 2, there is one special financial point to which I draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister. The Minister will know that local authorities sometimes engage on repair work of houses which they have leased or purchased to accommodate tenants from requisitioned property, and that if they do so they get from his Ministry a grant for such repairs. It is quite a generous grant but it is given on the condition that the repair work must be complete by 31st March, 1961. In some cases it is not easy to arrange that. I wish that the Minister would look at the point again to see if, independently of the Bill, he can make a more generous arrangement with the local authority in that regard.
  Turning now to the financial penalties, I was particularly struck with one phrase used by the Parliamentary Secretary. After telling us about the admirable vigour of the local authorities, the hon. Gentleman said he wished to pay a
  1246
  tribute to them. Actually, what he is doing in Clause 2 is to exact a tribute from them rather than pay a tribute to them. The Minister is doing it in the first place by requiring that the rental compensation shall be increased by 50 per cent.
  I do not regard that in itself as by any means an unreasonable arrangement. I concede that the owner of the property could fairly say, "I was given, and have been given for the last five years, a reasonable expectation that I should have my property by 31st March, 1960, or earlier. That reasonable expectation is now being upset". One could not reasonably object to some compensation being put in for that. What I can concerned with is why an increasing proportion of it should come from local rather than from central Government sources.
  That increase of 50 per cent. in rental compensation means that the expenses of management of requisitioned properties are so much the greater, and of this expense of management, the local authority, which previously had to meet only 25 per cent., now has to meet 75 per cent., while the provision in the 1955 Act, whereby the Minister could give further help if in special cases an unreasonable burden was imposed on local rates, now disappears altogether.
  Further, when a local authority, struggling to meet the problem by buying or leasing houses, incurs expenditure on that head, it will in future have to meet 75 per cent., not 25 per cent., of that expenditure out of its own pocket. The old ratio of 75 per cent. from the central Government and 25 per cent. from the local authority was justified by the hon. Member for Ashford, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry, in 1955, when he said:
  "The House will have observed that this and other financial arrangements are based upon the present housing ratio of three to one—that is to say, three parts by the Exchequer and one part by the local authority."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1955 Vol.537, c.196.]
  The Government apparently then regarded that as a quite reasonable arrangement. I fail to see—and I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary gave us any reason—why we should depart from that ratio now.
  How big a burden is it likely to be? If we measure it in the total number of

  1247
  pounds, it does not seem very great, compared with the numbers of pounds that we often vote in this House, but it is, of course, concentrated on a very limited number of local authorities. It will be a real burden to them, and it will only come down to the figures mentioned in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill on the assumption that nine-tenths of the housing still requisitioned at the end of last year are derequisitioned by 31st March this year. That will not be easy if the Minister is not co-operative over the compulsory purchase of houses where necessary.
  It has been brought to my attention recently that the Minister has refused to confirm such an order in the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich, involving, I believe, one block of 37 properties and about a dozen properties elsewhere. This has upset very considerably the hopes of the Greenwich Borough Council of being able to deal with this problem. If local authorities are expected to deal with the problem so quickly that the total burden for the Exchequer is only £11,000, plus the other £12,500 mentioned in the Memorandum, it will be necessary for the Ministry to be extremely co-operative in matters of that kind. One must regard this as yet one more addition to the general difficulties for local housing authorities created by the whole trend of Government policy over a number of years. I do not propose to rehearse all those difficulties now. Other opportunities will no doubt arise on which we can do that.
  I believe that the general picture of housing—and this is particularly true of the greater conurbations—is this. For some years now, the Government have been steadily discouraging the provision of houses by local authorities. It has been done, presumably, in the belief that the activities of private enterprise could solve the housing problem, and as each year has gone by, it has become more and more apparent that that belief will not be borne out by the facts.
  In the light of that, the Government ought now in their housing policy to be considering how they can reverse what they have previously done, and how they can lighten the burden on the local authorities. Instead of which, the Government have taken the opportunity
  1248
  of a Measure to extend derequisitioning, the necessity for which has been forced upon them, to add—not very much, but not an inconsiderable amount—to the burdens of the local authorities, without whose efforts it will be absolutely impossible to solve the housing problem.
  4.35 p.m.
  Sir Wavell Wakefield: I should like to join with the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) in saying how glad I am that the Parliamentary Secretary paid a tribute to the energy which so many local authorities have shown in recent years in derequisitioning properties which they had under their control.
  If I understand correctly the position as described to the House by the Parliamentary Secretary, only about 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of houses that were requisitioned have still to be derequisitioned, and there are 156 local authorities which have only one or two houses still to be derequisitioned. I understand that that leaves ten or eleven local authorities with special problems to handle. Could we be told which these local authorities are, because, as the hon. Member for Fulham said, it might well be that, because of the effect of the war, some local authorities have worked perhaps even harder at derequisitioning properties than others have done.
  The House ought to know whether, indeed, that is the case. It may well be that these local authorities have not perhaps pushed on as hard as they might have done with derequisitioning. I would not know, but the hon. Member for Fulham may be quite right in what he says. Equally, it may be that what he says is not borne out by the facts of the case. It would be helpful if the House could have from the Minister later in the debate further information about this position.
  Mr. H. Butler: Before the hon. Member goes on with that supposition, may I tell him that if he looks in HANSARD for 2nd February he will see there all the figures that he requires?
  Sir W. Wakefield: I am much obliged; I have not seen them. If they have already been before the House, and I have missed them, it is unfortunate.
  The point that the hon. Member for Fulham made was that he did not see

  1249
  why there should be penalties in the Bill for those local authorities Which have not carried out the necessary derequisitioning. Surely, when Parliament lays down requirements for local authorities to carry out, they ought to carry them out. If they do not it seems to me to be only right that they should be penalised. Quite frankly, I do not see why the taxpayers should have to subsidise local authorities which may have been inefficient, or slow, or which may not have pursued the policy of derequisitioning as energetically as other local authorities.
  I do not see why there should be any need for the Bill. I know that if it is not passed people in requisitioned houses will be legal trespassers, but that is the consequence of the local authorities concerned not having acted with sufficient speed and energy to carry out the duties laid upon them by Parliament in 1955. After all, there have been a good many years, after the war and more recently, when they could have got on with this business of derequisitioning.
  The Bill creates a dangerous precedent. If, in future, local authorities do not carry out the requirements of a Statute they can say, "It does not matter. Another Bill can be brought in to extend the facilities for us." That is not good. If a requisitioned house is burnt down, the local authority has to take emergency action to rehouse the displaced residents. Emergency action ought to have been taken, and could have been taken, had the determination to do so been there, to derequisition the mere 1,500 houses that, we are told, are still controlled by the local authorities—
  Mr. A. Evans: Is the hon. Member quite sure that the St. Marylebone Borough Council is in a position to rehouse the 150 families at present living in requisitioned property in the borough?
  Sir W. Wakefield: It may not be in a position to do so at the moment, but I say that it should get busy, and see to it that, somewhere or somehow, those people are rehoused. As I say, if those houses were burnt down the local authority would have to rehouse those people.
  Mr. Evans: According to the figures given in the OFFICIAL REPORT, at the end of last year there were 195 families living
  1250
  in requisitioned houses in St. Marylebone. Let us say that there are now 150 such families. Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that if his own borough council is not in a position to rehouse them, those people will be thrown out on the streets—his own constituents?
  Sir W. Wakefield: It is the responsibility of the local authority to find places—that is my point. The council must get busy and find them places, just as it would have to do if the property were burned down. Emergency action is necessary. That is the essence of what I say.
  I welcome very much the provisions in the Bill for putting extra financial responsibility on those boroughs that have not taken action quickly enough to have carried out the requirements of the 1955 Act—
  Mr. Marcus Lipton: Including St. Marylebone?
  Sir W. Wakefield: The council has been busy in St. Marylebone, but not busy enough.
  I hope that the Minister will not exercise the powers given to him by Clause 2(3) to make contributions for houses leased or purchased, and that he will assure us that in no circumstances will there be any extension of the Bill beyond the prescribed maximum period of twelve months. If we could have that assurance, some of the danger of the precedent that I see being created by the Bill might be removed. In carrying out the provisions of this Measure, I hope that the Minister will think very carefully indeed before he uses his discretionary powers.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. David Weitzman: I am in the unfortunate position of being a constituent of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) and, having listened to him, I feel particularly unfortunate. My objection to the Bill—and I welcome it, so far as it goes—is that it is introduced in this way, at this late stage, without a single word of apology from the Minister. That is disgraceful. If we look at the history of this matter, the Minister's conduct stands condemned in no uncertain way.

  1251
  In the main, this is a London problem. I feel very bitter about it. As a London Member, I know some of the real facts behind the scenes. In introducing the Bill now, the Minister, like his predecessor in office, has shown a complete lack of foresight, and I suggest that his conduct is of a piece with the way in which he dealt with the Rent Act. The House will recall that, having brought in the Rent Act, and having been forced to recognise the justice of the criticisms from this side, he was compelled to bring in the Landlord and Tenant (Temporary Provisions) Act in 1958 to mitigate some of the consequences of his Rent Act.
  The right hon. Gentleman now does much the same thing. I would remind the House that when the 1955 Act was brought in we warned the Government and the Minister, again and again, that the task of derequisitioning could not possibly be accomplished by 31st March, 1960. Again and again. the Minister refused to take that advice. In 1955, he said:
  "I wish to make clear that my opinion, which remains unchanged, is that no extension of any kind is necessary. It should be perfectly possible, without undue strain upon the staffs of local authorities, to complete the necessary procedure for leases and purchases within the five-year period laid down in the Bill—and probably long before that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th March, 1955; Vol.539, c.422.]
  The right hon. Gentleman also said that he thought that the pool of derequisitioned houses would disappear long before 31st March, 1960—
  Mr. Robert Jenkins: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman make it clear that his reference there to the Minister is not to the present Minister of Housing and Local Government, but to his predecessor?
  Mr. Weitzman: I believe that I said that the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor introduced that Measure. It was his predecessor who, in introducing it, said that he thought that the pool of derequisitioned houses would have gone long before 31st March, 1960.
  The right hon. Gentleman was clearly wrong in that, but not because of any lack of efficiency on the part of the local authorities, as has been alleged by the hon. Member for St. Marylebone. A
  1252
  wonderful tribute has been paid to the work of the local authorities. Indeed, on 15th December, 1958, the Minister said:
  "If local authorities take this matter seriously, as the great majority are doing, they will be able to comply with the law by 31st March, 1960."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1958; Vol.597, c.939]
  It has not been suggested that the local authorities have not taken the matter seriously. They have taken all the action possible and, in a moment, I shall show that they have not only done that, but have taken it to their own great loss and discomfort. What has been exasperating, and what has caused great hardship, has been the obdurate attitude of the present Minister.
  On 13th February, 1959, almost a year ago, the Minister said:
  "There is a little over a year in which those remaining 28,000 must be derequisitioned. It must be done. I have no power to extend that final date of 31st March, 1960. Indeed, I am at this moment considering issuing a circular to local authorities which still have dwellings under requisition urging them to review their programmes afresh and to make absolutely certain that they are taking the necessary action so that they will have the whole of the derequisitioning process completed by that date."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1959, Vol.599, c.1615.]
  The Minister's attitude at that time was, "no extension whatever."
  The Bill is a complete surprise to local authorities. They never anticipated this step.
  Mrs. Braddock: Liverpool told the right hon. Gentleman on 22nd July, 1959.
  Mr. Weitzman: Local authorities have strained every nerve to solve the problem by 31st March, 1960. on the understanding that the Minister's attitude was "no more time." So much for the criticism made by the hon. Member for St. Marylebone.
  Because of the Minister's attitude local authorities had to adopt what I would call panic measures. Let me give an example of what happened in Stoke Newington, which is part of my constituency. The borough council worked on the basis that there would be no further extension of time. I hope that the hon. Member for St. Marylebone will pay attention to this, because it shows the way in which the borough council tried

  1253
  to deal with this problem. It tried to get landlords to accept Licensees as statutory tenants. It succeeded to some extent. The council inspected requisitioned properties with the intention of purchasing them. Many of the properties were seventy to eighty years old. Some of them were a hundred years old.
  Some of the houses were in bad condition, but to solve the problem the council had to buy them. In the ordinary course of events it would never have done so. When the Minister told the council that it had to complete the programme by 31st March, 1960. it was in the position of having to purchase property which it would never have dreamt of buying under ordinary circumstances.
  The borough council spent large sums of money on purchasing houses and on repairing and converting old houses. The cost of maintaining these properties in future—and I hope that the Minister will remember this, because this will remain as a blot on his administration for a considerable time—will be colossal. Because of the Minister's attitude the council now has a headache which will last for many years. The cost of repairs will prove to be a constant drain on the resources. The repair fund built up to deal mainly with the maintenance of council properties will suffer considerably from the need to maintain these old houses. In addition, the council has had to go into the market to buy properties from private individuals. We all know how difficult that can be. The council has to depend on the sum allowed by the district valuer.
  The council also had to put licensees into accommodation that was inadequate. Some of those who required four-bed-roomed houses were put in three-bed-roomed houses. Others who required three-bed-roomed houses were put into houses with only two bedrooms. In some cases licensees had to be put in accommodation that was quite inadequate.
  The council has also had difficulties with its housing list. Because of the need to complete the programme by 31st March, 1960, the rehousing of applicants on the housing list came to a stop. In Stoke Newington, the housing list has been static for several months. The council had to supply all the accommodation that became available to licensees instead of to people on the ordinary waiting list. When the council
  1254
  houses somebody it likes to give the new tenant satisfaction. It likes to give him some choice of selection. It has been impossible to do that because it has been a case of compulsory removal.
  At a council meeting last December the chairman of the Housing Committee of the Stoke Newington Borough Council summarised the position. He said, "Vast sums of public money are being spent on converted properties and the future financial burden will be vast. We have been driven into a corner and we have no other course of action. It is greatly to be regretted."
  Those are the circumstances in the borough today. The Bill has been introduced by the Minister without a word of apology. If the Minister had not been so obdurate and had acted reasonably, if he had not up to the last minute continued saying, "No extension, get on with the job", if he had given even six months' grace, we might have had a chance of doing something in an orderly way. The local authorities might have been able to introduce plans to achieve the programme more effectively.
  If the Minister had dealt with this reasonably there would have been no need for panic measures. Unnecessary expenditure of large sums of public money could have been avoided. In addition, many licensees would have been spared considerable personal hardship and suffering. The council acted on the assumption that the Minister meant what he said. Licensees will now learn that he did not mean what he said, and I suppose they will blame the council for taking precipitate action.
  There is a particular difficulty which occurs in the Borough of Stoke Newington, and it may occur in other boroughs. To protect itself, and in the belief that the Minister would grant no extension, notices to quit were served on licensees who could not be accommodated by 31st March of this year. Unless special arrangements are made those licensees will have no subsisting licences on 31st March and, therefore, an order cannot be made in their favour. Licensees can be granted a new licence but the Minister may take the view that he is powerless to do that before the notice expires, and after it has expired his power may have gone. I hope that the Minister will look into that.

  1255
  Why is there an extension for only one year? Why are the financial provisions so ungenerous? We have had one answer from one hon. Member on the other side, that this is a penal Measure devised deliberately to punish local authorities. If that is so, I hope that the Minister will say so explicitly and we will know where we are.
  The grant has been reduced by two-thirds and at the same time the deficit has been substantially increased by raising the rental compensation by half. It appears that the Minister is inflicting a punitive Measure on those local authorities who, despite every effort, have found it impossible to complete the task in time. The provisions in the Bill which deal with the reduction of the grant and the financial measures run counter to the offer made by his predecessor on 30th March, 1955.
  I would remind the right hon. Gentlemman that his predecessor then offered to extend the period by two years, in cases of difficulty. He said that as far as expenses beyond 1960 were concerned he would give the Committee an assurance that they would be dealt with in a proper and generous way. I hope that the Minister will remember that promise made by his predecessor. I know that it was conditional upon whether we were good enough—or bad enough—to vote on Third Reading. But if the Minister could give an assurance in those terms in 1955—when he was saying that all the difficulties would have disappeared by 31st March, 1960—now that the Government recognise the justice of the case made against that argument and the truth of the Opposition's case, surely they will at least honour the promise made in 1955 and extend the period as well as being generous with regard to the financial provisions.
  By the time the Bill becomes law we shall be very near 31st March. Local authorities have enough difficulty in planning when they definitely know what is intended. It is important that they should be told at the earliest upon what principles the Minister will act. They have very little time to obtain information and to make applications. I am glad that the Minister has relented to some extent, but I regret that he has done so so belatedly that councils and licensees
  1256
  are placed in a very difficult position. I hope that the Bill will be amended in Committee so that the much more generous treatment promised years ago will be forthcoming.
  5.2 p.m.
  Sir Leslie Plummer: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) said that he suffered from a disability in that he was a constituent of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield), who had some harsh things to say about the activities of councils, although I am sure that he spoke out of ignorance and not from malice. I suffer from the disability of being represented by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, although I contribute my small share to try to rectify that position at each succeeding General Election. It is as a constituent as well as a Member representing a constituency which is one of the 10 or 11 which have not completed their task that I ask him why he is being so harsh. Why has he been so unreasonable in the past, when on many occasions statistics were provided for him making it quite clear that the task imposed upon local authorities was in some cases impossible of achievement?
  In the early part of last year it was obvious that several London boroughs, mine included, had not the resources to dispose of all their requisitioned property by 31st March of this year. Those of my hon. Friends who represent London constituencies are only too familiar with what I have called the geographical limitations placed upon constituencies which are already over-built, where no vacant sites are available and it is impossible to tear down properties to provide replacement sites.
  On 23rd March of last year the Minister received a deputation from the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee, which produced statistics showing the impossibility of the task that he had imposed. He was implacable in his refusal to extend the period after 31st March, 1960. On 20th November last year officers from the same Joint Standing Committee interviewed the Minister's officers, producing statistics once again to show the impossibility of the task, and once again, the request for an extension was refused. They were told that there was no possibility of an extension.

  1257
  Let me tell the House what happened in my constituency last year. In that year 142 requisitioned properties were released, the number of families occupying those properties amounting to 216. I should like to know what progress was made by the St. Marylebone Borough Council. Deptford Borough Council went out of its way to try to fulfil its obligations. The result was that last year practically nobody on the housing list was accommodated in the new houses and flats built in Deptford.
  People come to me, as they come to other hon. Members, saying, "I have been on the waiting list for ten or twelve years. I am living in rotten conditions, or overcrowded conditions. I fought for my country in the war. My wife has nerves." We all receive pathetic letters to the same effect. But in reply we have to say, "You don't stand a chance, chum. There is no hope at all for you, because what we have to do is find accommodation for people living in requisitioned property, even though they may be living in conditions far superior to yours, and even though you have been on the waiting list far longer than they." We have to give that answer over and over again. We could not even get on with the job of slum clearance because of the incubus put upon us by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor.
  Now, simply because its geographical position is such that no significant accommodation is available, Deptford must pay the penalty for being unable to complete the task it was set, without its acquiescence and without any consultation. This has meant that people living in rotten conditions have not been able to get better accommodation, because people living in sometimes superior requisitioned properties have had to be dealt with first. Now, if the rent of such tenants is not increased by the addition of 50 per cent. of the present payment to the owner the charge will have to be borne on the rates, so that by reason of the imposition of this 50 per cent. the licensees must pay their share of the extra rates, although their prospects of being rehoused are not improved.
  The Parliamentary Secretary has said that he does not place any moral blame on anybody. If that is so, why should a borough like Deptford be called upon
  1258
  to find more money after making the best contribution it could towards dealing with this problem? The Minister knew that this situation would arise. If he had listened to what was said last March and had moved swiftly, the situation would have not become so aggravated. There would have been fewer worries for councillors, licensees and landlords.
  The hon. Member for St. Marylebone hoped the Minister would make it quite clear that this was his final word and that there was no possibility of a further extension. The Parliamentary Secretary made it quite clear that this was as far as the Government were prepared to go. I am advised by the town clerk of the Deptford Borough Council that even now it is questionable whether the extension of one year will provide sufficient time even to be able to rehouse all the people that we are called upon to rehouse. What will happen? In those circumstances, people will have to be evicted, which is exactly what we told the Minister previously. He is once again evading this question. I beg him not to close his mind to the possibility that because of unique and particular circumstances it may still be necessary to make exceptions in the case of local authorities who have been placed in a situation similar to that of Deptford.
  I want to make a few observations about inequitable treatment. If London boroughs had not answered the Government's call to requisition houses during and after the war; if they had been impervious to the demands imposed upon them by the national emergency, this situation would not have arisen. But local councils did answer the Government's call, because they had to look after their citizens who had been bombed out of their homes. The Minister is equating their problems with those of local authorities in safe areas. Indeed, he is saying, "Because you did not do it as well as areas from which people left to go back to London and other great cities, we are now going to penalise you under the financial provisions of this Bill."
  I must make two comments on Clause 2(3) of the Bill—the proposals to reduce the 25 per cent. contribution towards the deficit incurred in respect of requisitioned and other properties purchased to house licensee families. The

  1259
  Minister must know very well that the requisitioning of property is a prolonged business, especially in cases where the district valuer has difficulty in reaching agreement upon the terms of purchase with the owner. Furthermore, the majority of the properties in the Borough of Deptford are leasehold, and this entails the acquisition of two, and in many cases three, separate interests where the unexpired term of the lease is less than twenty years. I am advised that it seems most unreasonable that a local authority should be penalised in so far as it may not be able to enter into formal commitments to purchase properties before 31st March, 1960.
  As for Clause 3(1), it will impede progress in getting rid of requisitioned houses to some extent if Section 4 of the Act of 1955 is no longer to apply. At the end of March this year we shall have 185 properties providing homes for 297 families. Have 185 separate applications to be made to the Ministry so that each one of these cases shall have his separate and particular consideration? Does it really mean that? Is the council to be engaged day after day in the laborious process of making applications to the Minister, of filling up the application forms, of interviews, answering questions and the rest of it? Is that what is meant by getting rid of form filling and generally setting the people free?
  The Minister in producing the Bill in this form is really dealing a blow to the local authority which has done its best to meet the requirements of the Act and which is in a particular position of difficulty, which should be recognised by the Minister. I suggest to him that it would be much better if he would give blanket permission to councils such as mine to derequisition what they can between now and March of next year and not close his mind to the possibility that they may well have to come back to him next fall and ask for yet a further extension of time in which to complete the job.
  5.13 p.m.
  Mrs. E. M. Braddock: I indicated during the comments made by the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) that Liverpool had some interest in this matter. Liverpool is one of the local
  1260
  authorities which has a very difficult problem in relation to housing. It has on its ordinary housing register, irrespective of those houses which are still requisitioned, over 40,000 applicants. Approximately 3,500 of those applicants for housing accommodation are in what we know as Category I, which means that they require houses as soon as possible. Many of those applicants have medical certificates and are living in shocking conditions.
  We in Liverpool have repeatedly been in touch with the Ministry about the date for the final derequisitioning of houses and we have been informed on every occasion that there was no possibility of the date being altered from 31st March, 1960.
  The Minister was in Liverpool recently. The Liverpool housing department, by a resolution, had written to the Minister stating the very grave difficulties that it would have in connection with the derequisitioning of houses by 1960. It was asked specifically in that letter that the local authority should be given some guarantee that if it could not complete the derequisitioning of the houses by that date, in view of the extensive ordinary housing list, the time should be extended.
  Peculiarly enough, the reply to the town clerk's request was received in a letter dated 22nd July, 1959, which happened to be the day on which the Minister of Housing and Local Government visited Liverpool to see for himself the progress being made in slum clearance. I am certain that, after seeing what he did, he must have been ashamed of the political party to which he belongs and which had allowed such a state to exist and continue in Liverpool during the many years when it had control there.
  A reply was received on that day. The chairman of the housing committee was told in reply to the council's resolution asking the Minister to introduce legislation to extend the period of possession:
  "I am to say that he is convinced that, given one final and determined effort, it is well within their capacity to end requisition once and for all by the date set by Parliament. I am therefore to ask the Council to review their resources with that purpose in mind and to act on the suggestions made in this letter."

  1261
  That was on 22nd July, 1959. The chairman of the housing committee, when the Minister was in Liverpool, gave him the full facts and showed him the list of housing accommodation required on the ordinary housing register. The leader of the Liverpool City Council told him in no uncertain terms and in language which he quite obviously understood what the situation was in Liverpool and the difficulties he would create there unless some alteration were made on the date on which derequisitioning took place.
  Many times in my office in the centre of the city people have come to me in desperation because they had been told in the housing department that they could not have accommodation by the date they were supposed to get it because the Minister of Housing and Local Government had said that the first thing to be done was to get all houses derequisitioned. The peculiar position is that when houses are derequisitioned they very often stand empty for a long time before anyone occupies them. People say that this accommodation which they have left in order to go into local authority accommodation is in many instances a thousand times better than the accommodation in which people are living who are in Group I on the register. They have to wait in order that the private owners may have the benefit of selling their houses, when they are empty, and make a profit out of them.
  We have done our best to deal with this problem in Liverpool, and we have even put up with the grumbles against a Labour local authority, when the responsibility has been that of the Tory Government. We are still in the position that we have 122 families to be accommodated from requisitioned houses, and if the Minister had refused to change his mind they would have had to be accommodated by March, 1960.
  I am glad that Liverpool, at any rate, has a Labour local authority which has been able to put its foot down and make the Minister change his mind in relation to the date. I am entitled to say that what was said to him in Liverpool seems to have convinced him that Liverpool and some ten or eleven other local authorities which are in exactly the same position of very great hardship have been having to buy property which it should not have been possible for them
  1262
  to buy at all and which they should not have been allowed to purchase. Even with the extension of the twelve months, the situation is still going to be very difficult. Many people in Group I on the housing register who would normally be entitled to be housed right away will have to wait still longer because in Liverpool we still have 122 families living in 114 requisitioned houses.
  The comments of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone show his complete lack of knowledge of the situation and of what a limited number of local authorities have been trying to do, and, indeed, have had to do. Liverpool has got on with the job as fast as possible. We have already bought 67 houses. At the moment there are 40 houses in the process of being looked at to see whether negotiations to purchase them can commence. We have purchased seven houses completely outside of requisitioning them in order to try to find accommodation for families still in requisitioned properties so as to carry out the Minister's requirement by 31st March.
  Because Liverpool has done all this and because it intends to go on trying to do it, it is to be penalised financially. It seems to me that the Minister still thinks that the only possible way to get anything done is by placing monetary penalties on people if they do not carry out what he wants. I certainly believe that some very grave comments will be made by the Liverpool Housing Committee. I am not speaking on behalf of that committee because I am not a member of it, but I am a member of the Liverpool City Council and represent a constituency which has some of the worst slums in the country. Many people in Liverpool have been waiting a long time for housing accommodation, but they are now being made to wait even longer because of the Ministry's insistence that derequisitioning should take place on a certain date.
  I hope that the comments made by my hon. Friends, some of them on the Opposition Front Bench, with reference to the financial position will be studied very carefully indeed. Liverpool will attempt to do the job, but we do not think it possible to do it even with the extended time. We know that it is not possible at the present time.
  I hope that when the Money Resolution is discussed it will be drawn widely

  1263
  enough to allow for some Amendments to be made so that the financial restriction being placed upon local authorities can be altered. On the other hand, I am glad that Liverpool has been able to convince the Minister that he is wrong. I am certain that if he ever comes to Liverpool again we will take definite steps to prove that he is wrong with, I hope, the same results that we have obtained this evening.
  5.24 p.m.
  Mr. Herbert Butler: It would be extremely churlish not to say to the Minister that we are very glad he has introduced this Bill. We have been pressing for this extension of the date. In the debate on 25th June last, when housing conditions in London were discussed, the Minister was asked to consider an extension because of the conditions then operating.
  It is very curious that even if at times the Tory Party does the right thing it has to go through the motions of leaving people in a state of anxiety and with the threat of eviction hanging over them. The Minister has been trying to kid himself in the face of the facts that it would be possible for local authorities to deal with the problem. I am not going to deny that many local authorities have been able to deal with it, and we were not suggesting to the Minister, even in the debate of June last year, that every local authority would find itself in difficulty. All we said was that he should really consider whether he could do something for those local authorities who were bound to find themselves in difficulty.
  I do not wish to traverse the ground so effectively and thoroughly gone over when the 1955 Requisitioned Houses Bill was being debated. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) says, it is true that local authorities who themselves suffered to a great exent, but who were in the position to act as hosts to other people who had suffered and who took in people from Poplar, Stepney and South London are being burdened with excessive financial expenditure because of a national situation. We pointed out to the Minister at that time, and earlier to his predecessor, that it would be unfair to saddle these local authorities with that responsibility. That situation has gone and the Bill has become an Act.
  1264
  Had the hon. Member for St. Marylebone studied c. 106 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 2nd February, be would have seen how many properties were still requisitioned at the end of December, 1959. As far as the Borough of Hackney is concerned, the situation is very much like that of the borough which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) represents. At the end of December, 1959, we were left with 693 properties—1,314 dwellings.
  The local authority, of which I am still a member, is very proud of its record with regard to its social activities. It has done so well that almost since 1934 the electors have decided that a 100 per cent. Labour council was what they desired. I am not claiming that that is necessarily a true indication of the council's activities, but I would say that as far as housing is concerned its record is one of which anyone can be proud.
  We in Hackney have found it very galling indeed, with a housing list at the moment of nearly 7,000 people, 2,000 of whom are in category A and, therefore, in urgent need, to have to take people out of requisitioned properties and house them before people who are living in exceedingly bad conditions, just because we have been ordered to dispose of these requisitioned properties.
  In spite of all our activities—I have said this in the House before—and whatever the political complexion of the Government may be, we are concerned with meeting the requirements of the citizens in our borough. It is computed that on 1st February—it is difficult to give figures up to 31st March because we are weekly taking steps to mitigate the terrible circumstances under which some of our people are living—we shall have 648 premises, accommodating approximately 1,098 families, still requisitioned.
  As I have intimated before, many of these properties are part requisitioned. Some of the accommodation may be over shops and in parts of houses which have remained requisitioned and which it is impossible for the local authority to purchase. Many of them are not suitable for purchase because their price is too high and because the cost of adapting them would be too great for the local authority to undertake. On top of

  1265
  all that. this Bill now takes away Section 4 releases.
  I felt sorry for the Parliamentary Secretary, because, quite obviously, he was reading his brief and getting over it as quickly as he possibly could. I do not blame him for that. He will have to see and live in such properties if he wants to understand what the situation is. One has to face these problems week by week. One has to go into the local pub and meet the boy who knows the situation firsthand or into the chapel and hear the hard-luck stories before one appreciates the difficulties.
  The Parliamentary Secretary paid tribute to local authorities and said that they had done a wonderful job. In return for having done that wonderful job, they are to have their grants reduced by two-thirds and, as the deficit is increased. compensation is to he raised by one half. Local authorities have been receiving 75 per cent. of the deficit plus special grants under Section 10, making about 18s. 9d. of each £ deficit, but the Bill will reduce that amount to 5s. in the £. That is not the way to treat local authorities who have done what they could to remedy the difficulties under which their people have suffered.
  I understand that the Minister is to circularise local authorities to give them some indication of what the procedure is to be. The problem for local authorities will he made more difficult if they do not have guidance before the Bill passes through its various stages, even taking advantage of the twelve months' extension. I hope that the Minister will circularise local authorities giving them guidance on what the procedure is to be.
  I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that this matter has caused much heart burning and great difficulty. Notices have been sent out calling public meetings and drawing attention to what are called "the forgotten families". If we can get some direct information from the right hon. Gentleman, we will be able to tell him that we are thankful for the Bill and that we shall do our best to free requisitioned property under our control, but that we hope that the financial assistance which he gives local authorities—a matter which we should like to discuss with them—will be such that they will at last receive proper recognition of the work they have done.
  5.34 p.m.
  Mr. Albert Evans: We have waited for some years for this Bill to appear. Although the Minister wrote to Liverpool Corporation last July to say that such a Bill would not be required, we have known ever since the 1955 legislation that an extension Bill was inevitable. We knew, and I suspect that the Minister knew, that some authorities would find it impossible to complete derequisitioning by 31st March this year. When the right hon. Gentleman introduced the 1955 Measure, we told him that he was placing an impossible task on local authorities within the time limit. This Bill proves quite clearly that all the Minister's protestations were unfounded, that what we predicted was correct and that the time was insufficient for many authorities. We were also told in 1955 that derequisitioning would not block the chances of those on the ordinary housing waiting lists, but we are now told that that has proved to be inaccurate.
  The Parliamentary Secretary gave us some helpful figures about the size of the problem. He said that in 1955, when the original derequisitioning legislation was passed, 62,000 properties, 90,000 lettings, were under requisition. Of those 90,000 lettings, 75,000 were in London, where there was the bulk of requisitioned property. The hon. Gentleman agrees that over the last five years local authorities have done a splendid job. They have implemented the wishes of the Government with vigour and have not let the Government down.
  After all, the Government thrust the problem on local authorities. It was originally the Government who were responsible for requisitioned properties, but in 1955, the then Minister of Housing and Local Government kindly thrust the problem on local authorities. Both sides of the House admit that local authorities have undertaken the work very well, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman admitted that they deserve praise for their efforts. Perhaps the Minister will add his thanks to them for having done this difficult and thankless task.
  The main method used by the Government to push local authorities in this business has been financial pressure, and they have unquestionably applied financial pressure to local authorities since 1955. The Bill now makes that financial

  1267
  pressure even more severe. We are told that local authorities must accept that and that it is the normal financial relationship between local and central government that central government grants should flow most easily to those authorities which implement the policy of the Government.
  However, in a matter which is peculiarly a national responsibility, some other financial yardstick should have been used and local authorities should not have had placed upon them the financial pressure which the Government have exerted over the last five years and which they are now increasing. In a matter of this kind, one would have thought that the Government would not have placed the heaviest financial burden on those authorities where bombing was most severe, yet that is what the Bill amounts to.
  There remains a sense of unfairness in the minds of some local councils about the way in which they have been treated. There may be only a dozen, or perhaps ten or eleven, authorities which will carry on with this requisitioning problem beyond the end of March, but I can assure the Minister that some local authorities feel a sense of grievance. They feel that financially they have been very hard done by. In Islington, part of which I represent, we have done extremely well. I hope the Minister will send a special letter of thanks to my local authority. The council of that borough hopes that by the end of March all the requisitioned properties will have been cleared. Then the council will have carried out fully to the letter the requirements of the Minister and the Government.
  My council has been hard put to it to do this. It has not been an easy task, and it has been forced to put aside other housing questions in order to complete derequisitioning. Although Islington, in which I live and part of which I represent, has completed its task and fulfilled its responsibilities under the Act, that does not mean that I am not concerned about other boroughs where the task is more difficult and where the financial hardship will fall more heavily. Any injustice to any local authority is an injustice to the whole of local government. Therefore, whether it be a Conservative
  1268
  or a Labour council, if it is treated unfairly financially by the Government I protest, even though my local authority will not suffer so much as others.
  I reject the philosophy of "I'm all right, Jack, and your concern is nothing to do with me." If a single local authority suffers financial injustice under the Bill we must protest, because we must regard it not only as injustice inflicted on that authority but on the whole of local government. I know of a particular Metropolitan borough council, which happens to be controlled by the supporters of the Minister, which will find its task will not be completed by the end of March. That council will not receive justice from the Government supported by the councillors. Although it is a Conservative council, I think it wrong that it should have to suffer financially because of its derequisitioning problems.
  The point is that the conditions vary considerably in each locality. We cannot apply the same yardstick to all localities. The bomb damage was different in amount. Some places suffered more destruction than others and, in addition, the conditions in the localities vary. The Conservative authority which I have mentioned has difficult conditions. It has requisitioned property in flats, middle class property of a kind for which the landlord will not agree to accept the licensee as tenant and which the local council could not acquire and maintain.
  In that area some of the requisitioned properties are old shops of a kind that a local authority cannot acquire. There is unfairness because of the local conditions over which a local council has no control. It is regrettable that the Government are to become even more severe in their financial penalisation than they have been in the past. If a local council has got behind in its programme that is not its fault. It is unfair that boroughs like Wandsworth, Hackney and Clapham should have to bear more of the burden than places such as Oxford and Bath. In the administration of the Bill, when it becomes an Act, I hope the Minister will make up for the financial injustice which results.
  Many councils have had to purchase numbers of requisitioned properties. In many cases the owners would not agree

  1269
  that the licensees should become tenants. The local authority is then obliged to operate under that Section of the Act which permits it to purchase. As a result of that process of requisitioning and purchasing property, the municipalisation of rented houses has been pushed forward by the Government. We know that in some circumstances that policy is inevitable. We know it must come, but we did not want enforced municipalisation arising from derequisitioning. My council has acquired 595 of these houses. Many of them are below the standard which a local authority accepts and they are scattered all over the area. As a result, they are costly to maintain. The policy of the Government on requisitioning has pushed forward municipalisation of rented houses—certainly in the London area. We do not welcome it, although we know that that policy in the circumstances of housing in large towns is inevitable.
  The most serious thing about the policy of the Government and the most serious consequence of derequisitioning is the setback in the opportunities of those on the waiting lists. We were told by the then Minister of Housing and Local Government in 1955 that those on the waiting lists would not have to wait any longer because of derequisitioning We now see that he was quite wrong.
  It is a common experience of any council which has had to tackle the problem that because it has to concentrate on derequisitioning it has to put back people on the ordinary waiting list. We were told by another Minister in 1956, when the Rent Act was going through the House, that there would be considerable opportunities of obtaining empty properties for rent in London as a result of that Act. We were given to understand that that might help us to solve our derequisitioning problems. We were told by the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, on 21st November, 1956:
  "In London alone, as I have informed the hon. Member, 190,000 houses will he decontrolled at once. In addition, there will be a number of houses which will have come into possession since,—indeed. before the publication of the Bill—which will all be on the letting market at the same time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st November, 1956; Vol. 560, c. 1770.]
  1270
  All that proved to be nonsense. Instead of the Rent Act helping councils with their derequisitioning problem, in fact it made their general housing task more difficult. The housing position in London as a result of derequisitioning, which is almost complete, is very serious indeed. Now that he has seen the end of derequisitioning, the Minister should turn his attention to the housing position which now results in the great cities and conurbations.
  In my borough there are 1,400 people on the waiting list. We have had to stop helping those people while we have been doing the Minister's bidding and derequisitioning property. These 1,400 people know that for years their chance of accommodation is exceedingly slim. The London County Council has reduced its housing list and brought it down from about 120,000 to a net figure of 54,000 people, most of whom represent pressing cases waiting to be rehoused immediately. The L.C.C. has stated publicly that of the 54,000 persons on the reduced waiting list, only 3,000 can expect to be rehoused within the next three years. At that rate of progress it will take half a century for the L.C.C. to meet the needs of the people on its reduced housing list.
  The Minister knows about the over-crowding in the London area. He has admitted to the House that the over-crowding problem in the London area is severe. On 25th June he said:
  "We must all give very serious thought to how we can tackle, as soon as we can, the problem of overcrowding in London, because it is this, I believe, which is at the root of the housing problem."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th June, 1959; Vol. 607, c. 1523.]
  That was said by the Minister who now sits on the Front Bench.
  Now that requisitioning is coming to an end, will he acknowledge the statement which he made that overcrowding and the general housing position in London and the other great cities need careful thought? Will he go one step further and tell us his intentions, because the problem of housing in the great cities and conurbations rests upon his shoulders?
  5.53 p.m.
  Mr. G. W. Reynolds: The fact that I follow my hon.

  1271
  Friend the Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. A. Evans) only serves to emphasise that we have a ghastly housing problem in the Borough of Islington. We have not been helped in it in any way in the last few years by the action of the Minister in insisting on the derequisitioning of property. I will come back to that in a moment.
  First, I must completely disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), who claimed that her authority took a great deal of the credit for putting the Minister in this position. Only three weeks ago the Acton Borough Council, of which I am a member, passed a resolution asking the Minister to introduce legislation on this subject. We think that he has reacted very promptly to our request. Having said that, I must make it plain that the borough council will not be very pleased with the legislation which the Minister has introduced, although the speed with which the Minister has acted after receiving our request has surprised us. I think that we can take some of the credit, too.
  As other hon. Members have said, this is the second time in a comparatively short period that the Government have reversed their policy on housing. We have been reminded of the Rent Act, which we said would result in a large number of people being homeless and which was later amended to avert that catastrophe. About the derequisitioning procedure, we said that on 31st March a large number of people would be homeless, and, again, after many protests, the Minister proposes to amend one of his own Acts to avert what would otherwise be a disaster for many people.
  The speech which has surprised me most this afternoon is the only speech that we have had from a back bench Member on the Government side of the House. I might add, in passing, that the Parliamentary Secretary and, presumably, the Minister will be the only two people who have unreservedly supported the Bill. We on this side of the House have criticised it considerably, particularly the financial aspects. The only hon. Member from the Government back benches who has spoken has asked virtually for the Bill to be withdrawn and for local authorities to be told to
  1272
  get on with the job. I do not know where the Minister is deriving his support for the Bill. Only the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have had the courage to stand up in the House and give unanimous support to this piece of legislation.
  I agree with the idea behind the Bill of giving the local authorities longer time to do the job, but I cannot accept that the financial provisions in it are necessary. I am glad that the Minister praised local authorities in the work which they have done, and I wholeheartedly agree with him in that. At the same time—and I make this remark particularly with reference to the speech of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield), who is no longer in the Chamber—local authorities have been operating under considerable difficulties imposed upon them by the Minister working the 1955 Act. They have had to bear 25 per cent. of the cost of derequisitioning.
  It was not felt desirable at the beginning of the derequisitioning programme to offer the "sweetener" to landlords, where the amount would run into several hundred pounds, as an inducement to them to accept licensees as their own tenants. In the first couple of years of derequisitioning the Minister, generally speaking, was not prepared to allow local authorities to purchase requisitioned houses unless the financial loss on them would be exceedingly small. He was not too keen on their leasing houses. In the first two years of the period in which they were trying to derequisition property the local authorities were hampered because they were not given anything like full co-operation by the Minister.
  It was only when it became apparent to the Minister that it would be very difficult to deal with the problem within the time limit set in the Bill that there were two upgradings in the amount of the financial loss on the purchase of requisitioned property or of property in lieu of requisitioned property. The Minister was then prepared to accept a higher financial loss limit. The limit which the Minister first laid down was impossibly low and did not allow local authorities to purchase. There was at first a small increase and later a considerable increase.

  1273
  I think I am right in saying—and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—that the majority of the 14,000 premises which have been purchased by local authorities in order to cease requisitioning were purchased during the last eighteen months and not during the earlier years of the derequisitioning procedure, because it was only during the last twelve months, or less, that the financial formula, on which the calculation of the permissible loss on such properties was made, was at a level which made it economically possible for local authorities to purchase property in lieu of derequisitioning.
  The Minister has hampered local authorities, particularly those local authorities with a large number of properties requisitioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South-West mentioned that by a superhuman effort the Islington Borough Council hopes—and I will put it no higher than that at the moment—to have solved the problem by 31st March of this year. The Acton Borough Council, of which I am a member, has undertaken a great deal of activity in the last eight or nine months since the financial limit was raised, and it also hopes to be able to solve the problem by 31st March.
  In so doing, both these authorities have distorted their normal housing programmes and disrupted their administrative activities. They have incurred considerable expense, a substantial proportion of which will have to be borne on the rates. The hon. Member for St. Marylebone felt that local authorities which had not been able to do this job by the end of March should not expect further financial assistance from the nation and that financial assistance should not be provided to those authorities which have been unable to derequisition these properties. I suggest that the total amount of financial assistance which the nation has had to provide to help those local authorities which have been successful in derequisitioning property is very substantial. Very often sums of £300, £400 and even £600 have been paid, 75 per cent. of it from the Exchequer and 25 per cent. of it from the rates, as an inducement to landlords to accept the former licensees as their tenants. Very substantial sums of money have been spent.
  1274
  The formula for the permissible loss on requisitioned premises acquired or premises acquired in lieu of derequisitioning permits an annual loss of up to £150, a large proportion of which for the next twenty years will be borne by the Exchequer. The hon. Member for St. Marylebone ought to be aware that those local authorities which have derequisitioned their property by purchase, by a "sweetener" or by other means will probably put a very much greater financial strain on the nation than the more unfortunate authorities which are being dealt with in the Bill. I hope that in Committee it will be possible for us to do something about the financial allowances which are being made.
  I was interested to hear the figures given by the Parliamentary Secretary and to note that 14,000 requisitioned houses have been acquired by local authorities. The hon. Gentleman went through his figures rather quickly and I was not able to take them down as fully as I should have liked. I understood that 14,000 requisitioned properties had been purchased by local authorities. I wonder whether the Minister could give us the number of other properties which have been purchased by local authorities in lieu of requisitioned properties. The figure must be quite substantial. It may be included in the 14,000, I do not know, but I got the impression that the 14,000 were houses which were requisitioned and which are now owned by the local authorities.
  Some 35,000 people have been rehoused in some way or other out of requisitioned property. Obviously, some of them have become owner-occupiers. Others have probably suited themselves in some way and many thousands have gone into local authority accommodation over the heads of more deserving cases waiting for accommodation. A number have been rehoused by local authorities in properties purchased specifically for the purpose of dealing with requisitioning, so that I imagine there are hundreds of other properties which have become municipally owned as a result of requisition in addition to the 14,000 mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary.
  On the whole, and especially during the last few months, the financial arrangements made to assist local

  1275
  authorities to acquire this property and, what is perhaps more important, to improve it, have been fairly reasonable. The Borough of Acton is fairly satisfied with the current financial arrangements and is purchasing property and carrying out improvements and conversions to much of it.
  I wish to ask the Minister one thing. He knows that it is not contained in this Bill, but it is germane to it. At the moment, work on property acquired against requisitioned property or property acquired in lieu has, if it is to qualify for grant from the Ministry to cover the cost of essential repairs and improvements, to be carried out by 31st March, 1961.
  The majority of this property has been purchased during the last eight or nine months—at least that is my assumption and it applies to authorities of which I have fairly detailed knowledge. These authorities are not equipped suddenly to deal with the preparation of plans, the surveying work and the mass of other administrative and legal work which is involved in carrying out major improvements or conversions to the houses which they have purchased. Suddenly, these local authorities have not one or two properties to convert, but hundreds. The work must be done in a period of about eighteen months in order to qualify for a grant, and that grant will make a big difference to the financial position of the housing revenue accounts of the authorities.
  In my view, the Minister and his Ministry have been pretty helpful in dealing with this problem. The amount of detail which it is expected local authorities shall submit has, I know, been scaled down to the minimum. This information must be submitted before prior approval is secured for the carrying out of the improvement and repair work. The Minister has gone a long way to meet the difficulties of the authorities in this respect, but I suggest to him that as this problem applies only to houses purchased up to 31st March of this year, in all of those cases he will have achieved his main purpose of getting them out of the requisitioned class and into the ownership of the local authorities. Therefore, if he could see his way clear—in consultation with the
  1276
  Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, I understand, is also concerned in this—to make the grants available provided that the property is converted or repaired within the next two or three years, that would be a great benefit to local authorities. These authorities are particularly hard pressed to find the technical staff needed to do this kind of work.
  So far as I can see, such an arrangement would involve no extra charge on the Exchequer. It would simply mean that instead of paying the money out in twelve months it would be spread over a period of two years. That would ease the burden on many local authorities faced with a tremendous amount of conversion work of this nature. I hope the Minister will be able to do something about that during the next few weeks so that the administrative burden may be eased and local authorities enabled to get the work done without dislocating other work which must be carried on at the same time.
  My main complaint about what has been done in the past, and what has still to be done in the future, is the effect it will have on the general housing waiting lists. We were told by the Parliamentary Secretary that 35,000 families have been rehoused in some way or other. A large number have been rehoused in local authority accommodation which would otherwise have gone to people on the normal waiting lists for houses. That fact is undeniable.
  In common with most other hon. Members who represent constituencies in London, I have had a large number of constituents coming to me with their housing problems during the last three or four weeks. May I quote one example, that of a husband and wife with four children, two boys aged 9 and 5 and two girls, aged 3 and 6 months? They are living in two rooms, one 10 ft. square, and the other 13 ft. square, They have a water supply and a gas stove in an outside lean-to through which 14 other people who live in the house have to pass in order to use an outside toilet. Those are the sort of conditions in which many families in my constituency have to live.
  I have details of another case of a husband and wife with a girl aged 8½ and a boy aged 2½ who live in two rooms.

  1277
  One of the rooms measures 9 ft. by 8 ft. and the other is 12 ft. square. They have to share an outside lavatory with two other families in the house. I could mention a number of other examples, but I will not weary the House with them. During the last few weeks the families which I have mentioned, and another half dozen of which I have particulars, have received a letter from the London County Council telling them that there is no hope of their being rehoused within the next two years. They are on the borough council housing list, but the council can do little for them because of the work of derequisitioning which it has to undertake and other matters of that kind.
  Only one family has received a letter saying that it will be rehoused during the next three years. The family consists of a husband and wife and two boys, aged 7 and 3, who live in one room which is 13 ft. square. Those are the sort of conditions in which a family has to live in order to stand a chance of being offered council accommodation. The borough council is hampered by shortage of land and financial difficulties, and the same thing applies to the London County Council.
  In view of the existence of such conditions, I am surprised that the Minister is still pressing some of these unfortunate councils, such as the Hackney Council, to reduce still further the pool of local authority dwellings. This is delaying for an even longer period the possibility of such families as I have mentioned getting decent accommodation.
  There is one other matter I wish to mention. It is a problem which affects a few local authorities, but it will add to the burden imposed upon them by derequisitioning. I hope that the Minister may be able to do something about it. There are a number of local authorities which still have temporary dwellings—"prefabs" we call them—on public open spaces. In some cases the legislation permitting the authorities to leave these dwellings there comes to an end in a few months. My own council, which has the problem of dealing with the derequisitioning of houses, hopes to have solved it by he end of March, but at the same time it should demolish and remove a number of "prefabs", and will be faced with the problem of rehousing the families which
  1278
  occupy them. I hope that during the next few months the Minister will be able to do something about that matter. Some of these "prefabs" are in a much better condition than a large number of privately-owned dwellings in the Greater London area.
  6.9 p.m.
  Mr. B. T. Parkin: It is only fair to remind oneself on an occasion like this that the Minister has been carrying on a policy which he did not initiate. I frequently have to take myself aside when faced with the exasperating and frustrating situation familiar to London Members of Parliament in relation to constituency housing and assure myself that the Minister must know the real facts of the housing situation in London. He has been told often enough, and he must have gone to see for himself. Therefore, he must be sustained not only by a dogged loyalty to those who have given him the duty of carrying out the job, but also by a faith that he has an alternative policy which will work itself out in due course.
  The right hon. Gentleman was told today, as he was told in the days when the original requisitioning Bill was being discussed, of the dangers and difficulties. He has been told of the appalling effect upon the people on the general waiting lists in the boroughs. I hope that he realises that it was an error of judgment, to put it no higher, to insist on so large a proportion of the general list of dwellings belonging to local authorities being allocated to the people from requisitioned dwellings. He has been told again and again how boroughs have rehoused no one while the 1955 Act is being implemented.
  The majority party on the Paddington Borough Council was a little indignant when it was said that it had rehoused no one from the general waiting list. After careful research, the council was able to establish that it had rehoused two families over the period. That conceals the very high price which has been paid for the success of this administrative move of the Minister.
  It is fair to say, however, that the difficulties have been greatly increased by the fact that the Government have been trying to implement at the same time their policy of refusing leave for council building for general needs. If the two

  1279
  programmes had not coincided, the result might not have been so disastrous in terms of human misery. Councils have been left with no room for manoeuvre for the emergency priority cases. If it had been only a question of changing a policy—a change to which we on this side should in any case have been bitterly opposed—and saying that councils were not in future to be encouraged or permitted to build for general needs but only for slum clearance, there would have been a little delay before the effects were generally felt. In that case, councils would have had a little more room for manoeuvre in respect of the priority cases. They have now lost that, because they have had to fill up all their vacancies with tenants from requisitioned properties. That is the situation which has produced such an enormous number of individual cases of hardship.
  Those on the waiting list divide themselves into two classes. The first class represents those who are not adequately housed by any civilian standards. They are overcrowded. They have not the amenities or the sanitary arrangements. They are well able to afford better accommodation if it was available for them. There is that very large section, on the one hand.
  The second class contains the recurring individual cases which happen every day of every week. I refer to cases where some kind of family calamity has made it urgently desirable that the family should be rehoused. Such cases frequently come to the notice of Members of Parliament. One instance is where there is a child at home, being cured of poliomyelitis, who has to be carried up and down the stairs, but the mother has an ailment which makes it impossible for her to carry the child, so that the child is a virtual prisoner at the top of the house. Another instance is where there is a twin pram for which accommodation cannot be found.
  Another and very distressing instance is when a man has come home having had treatment for tuberculosis with a certificate that he is cured. He has to return to the damp and overcrowded accommodation. Every time he coughs in the winter there is the awful fear that the other lung is going. They are conditions which any humane council, irrespective of general issues of policy or
  1280
  who controls it, would wish to deal with as part of the ordinary administration of its housing department. Councils have had no chance to deal with such cases in these years.
  I have considered it worth while repeating this to the Minister at this stage only because I have a hope that he will have come to some conclusions about it and will be aware that he can administratively do much to help councils get out of this difficulty. I also have a fear that we shall all find ourselves in similar or greater trouble as the slum clearance campaign gains momentum. That presents the problem that more people must be moved than can be rehoused on the same sites. The people in slum properties, some of which have not yet been acquired, are increasing by the ordinary process of marrying and having children. The problem is becoming worse. We have had a taste of the difficulty where councils have found themselves in the very detestable position of having to impose a type of rule or formula about rehousing, as they have had to do in the case of rehousing people from requisitioned properties. The councils have made rules about this.
  The Paddington Borough Council has made a rule that it will not rehouse married children. I hope that that is not a rule which any council would wish to apply if it has elbow room in its general housing accommodation. I will not develop that from the human point of view, because it must be clear to everyone. Sometimes the application of such a formula has landed the council's officials in a bureaucratic and ridiculous situation. It is always difficult to give examples in detail, because I would not wish families to be identified. However, I recollect a case in my constituency where the married daughter, who was the housekeeper, was refused accommodation to go with her widowed father. Therefore, the widower and two unmarried children were rehoused in a flat, with the warning that should they attempt to take the married daughter and her husband with them they would be evicted.
  Everyone, including the council's officials, knew that the two unmarried children intended to leave within six months, one to be married and live elsewhere and the other to take a job in

  1281
  another part of the country. There the council was obeying its own rules and giving a flat which would be under-occupied in a matter of months. It was, at the same time, evicting the married daughter who had lived at home all her life, apart from her fortnight's honeymoon. It was not a question of coming back to cheat the waiting list and establish her qualifications. That is one example which happened under the working of the Act.
  We have had recent and rather distressing examples where the council has been trying to rehouse people from properties which are to be pulled down under a slum clearance scheme. The same formula has been applied where married children are not rehoused. They are people who were born in the houses concerned and grew up, married and had their children there. Because they have married without the permission of the council, because they were not given a separate rent book, and sometimes by the accident that they did not marry just before the council acquired the properties years ago, they find themselves deprived of any entitlement to rehousing on anybody's list or under anybody's scheme.
  This is not the first time that I have recited these cases, but I hope that it will he the last. I do so in the hope that the Minister will be able to say that he has watched this with his heart working as well as his head, that he has to come to certain conclusions, that there were, perhaps, certain errors of judgment in the combination of the two policies of ending derequisitioning and stopping building for general needs at the same time, which produced more hardships than had been expected, and that he hopes to be able to encourage local authorities to use the existing powers to continue to acquire properties and give themselves that room for manoeuvre which they so desperately need if they are to deal with the emergency priority and hardship cases which at present can be met only with a monotonously repeated negative.
  I hope that we shall soon be glimpsing a new constructive approach in the Ministry. The present Ministers have had a very heavy burden in carrying out the policies of their predecessors, but we must hone that soon we shall have a glimpse of new thinking on the problem
  1282
  of London housing and where people are to be put when they have to live in London because their work demands it and they work for a modest wage. Let us hope that we shall soon have indications of what the Ministers think about high building, about density ratios and about mixed user.
  Let us hope that soon we shall hear that we are to have applied the imaginative notion of partnership between the local authorities and developers, the sort of thing which has been very profitably and successfully done, I think, in partnership between the Church Commissioners and certain property developers. Why should not local authorities have a share in a development scheme which enables one to provide shops and offices on the lower floors of buildings which produce a substantial income as a result of which the site for housing, for the high towers of flats which one may wish to build, costs nothing?
  These ideas are tossed about from time to time. I am sure that somewhere in the Ministry someone is getting down to brass tacks and that we shall soon have a hint from the Minister that he is formulating a policy. I hope that we shall find ourselves at the end of the purely negative and we shall move towards a positive policy, a policy which we on this side of the House may not entirely agree with, but a policy, at least, through which the Minister will be able to look for co-operation in working out any new ideas which offer promise for the future.
  6.22 p.m.
  Mr. Marcus Lipton: It is unprofitable at this stage of the debate on the Bill to say, "I told you so," but the fact remains that every estimate of what would happen in the future which was made by the present Minister of Housing and Local Government and his predecessors has been proved wrong in the event. We told the Minister in the House many times that it would be quite impossible to conclude derequisitioning by 31st March, 1960. I myself have on more than one occasion said so, but the Minister and his predecessor were adamant in the mistaken belief that the problem of derequisitioning would have been solved by that date.
  In March last year, the Ministry was pleading with local authorities to get on

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  with the job of derequisitioning. One of the requests it put to local authorities at that time was that they should give licensees the benefit of generous allocation in council lettings. That was one of the problems facing Metropolitan borough councils which had long waiting lists of deserving cases. As a matter of fact, it has been impossible to say what the practice of councils generally has been in giving licensees council tenancies. The practice, has, no doubt, varied greatly. Several authorities had even stopped taking people from their waiting lists for years and had used new buildings for licensees. Other authorities had given nothing from their own resources. There was no uniformity of action in the matter.
  The Ministry was in such a panic about the situation in Wandsworth that it virtually had to bulldoze and blackmail the Wandsworth Borough Council into embarking upon a very expensive programme of buying houses to deal with the problem and enable derequisitioning to come to an end by 31st March, 1960. We had the ironic spectacle of a Tory Minister of Housing and Local Government almost threatening a Tory local authority, saying, "Get on with this business at almost any cost and finish by 31st March, 1960, the derequisitioning of properties." As a result, the Tory councillors of Wandsworth, in the pathetic belief that Tory policy was to encourage private enterprise and private building, found themselves in a position of having to embark on a most expansive and expensive programme of municipalisation.
  This happened in other Metropolitan boroughs, also. The Borough of Lambeth, with which I am best acquainted, was faced with the task of finding alternative accommodation for about 3,400 licensees who originally occupied requisitioned properties. The published figures show that the Borough of Lambeth has responded reasonably well to the Government's request and, at 31st December, there were only 330 dwellings still requisitioned.
  The carrying out of this programme has been effected only at very considerable cost. I am disappointed that the Parliamentary Secretary did not tell the House how much this business of de-
  1284
  requisitioning has cost. All I do know is that in the Borough of Lambeth, which is only one of 28 Metropolitan boroughs—I exclude for the moment the other local authorities in the outer London area—the cost of making available accommodation to occupiers of requisitioned property who otherwise would, legally, have been trespassers on 31st March has been about £2½ million.
  That is expenditure incurred by one Metropolitan borough. I know that the council is entitled to claim assistance under Section 11 of the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, but, whether the money is found by the local authority or by the Exchequer, it has to come from public funds. The House is entitled to know not only how much extra expenditure will be incurred by agreeing to this Bill now but how much the operation has cost since the 1955 Act reached the Statute Book. It will be found to be staggering.
  I am quite sure that, if the Borough of Lambeth had been authorised to spend £2½ million on providing new accommodation we should have had very much better value for money than we have had in buying a lot of property, some of which is very sub-standard and will have to be converted. In Lambeth, the average cost of converting property into self-contained units is about £1,000 a unit. Where property is held only on a short lease which would not justify expenditure for a full conversion improvements have been carried out at a lower cost, but we have not been able to provide tenants in such property with self-contained accommodation. In some cases, the Borough of Lambeth had to buy short leases—as short as two or three years—and then try to acquire the freehold simply to satisfy the Minister's requirement that all property should be derequisitioned by 31st March, 1960.
  We are not absolutely certain, although Lambeth's record is fairly good, that by 31st March all the people living in requisitioned houses will be provided with alternative accommodation. On existing information, it is possible that there may be about 150 families for whom no alternative accommodation may be provided by the end of March, although every effort was being made to persuade the owners to carry on for a little longer

  1285
  before we knew that it was proposed to place the Bill before the House.
  As a result of all this activity having to be concentrated on the problem of derequisitioning, what has happened in Lambeth has happened in many other Metropolitan boroughs. The increase in the number of urgent cases on local authority housing lists has been a marked feature of the past year. In Lambeth, there are at present 5,400 families on the waiting list, 2,000 of whom are extremely urgent cases. Another 1.500 cases are classified as being in varying degrees of need. All these people have had to wait because they have been told that there is no possibility whatsoever of their cases being dealt with until the problem of derequisitioning is out of the way.
  That problem will not be disposed of by 31st March, because there will be a period of another year, if not longer, during which conversion and acquisition will be still going on. This means that housing for general need will be delayed even further than it is at the moment as a result of Government policy and consultation on the slum clearance programme.
  When the Rent Act was forced on to the Statute Book, we were told that within twelve months or so the difference between the need for new houses or additional accommodation and the supply of additional accommodation would be met. The Government soon realised that in Lambeth that would not be the case. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that, in many respects, the housing problem in London is as bad now as it has ever been, if not worse. Responsibility must lie to a very considerable extent with the Minister of Housing and Local Government and his predecessors. It is an ironical thought that the boroughs in London and local authorities in other parts of the country which suffered the heaviest punishment during the war are suffering the heaviest punishment now. That cannot be just.
  The Bill represents a belated concession to the inevitable facts of the situation, about which we warned the right hon. Gentleman on so many previous occasions. We are faced with the problem of derequisitioning. We have still the problem of prefabricated houses which were never intended to last for
  1286
  more than ten years. They have been up for fifteen years and some of them are in a most unsatisfactory condition. There is not the slightest prospect of the people who have put up with prefabricated houses for so many years being found alternative accommodation.
  That is the price many thousands of decent people are having to pay, have had to pay for so many years and will continue to have to pay in areas like London because the Government will not realise that housing must be regarded as a social service in the same way as other social services for which they must accept responsibility.
  It is no use saying that by allowing private enterprise a freer hand we shall solve the housing problem in London. The only extent to which private enterprise is solving it is the provision of bigger and better opportunities for takeover bid merchants and for the letting of flats at anything between £300 and £500 a year and over. Such rents, of course, are quite beyond the pockets of ordinary people who have to live in London on present rates of wages.
  The time has come, I think, for the Government to think again about the problem of housing in London, which is quite different in so many respects from the problem in other parts of the country. I know that there is a shortage of sites, but I think that, even within the present limitations, very much more could be done if we had a Government really determined to make housing the urgent priority in the Metropolitan area which it should be.
  6.38 p.m.
  Mr. Percy Holman: My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. H. Butler) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) have admirably put the case for the Hackney Borough Council and their local needs. 1 can only say that I endorse every word that they said about the southern part of Hackney, which comes within my constituency.
  In the Borough of Bethnal Green the problem of requisitioned houses is not quite so serious. There are odd ones here and there still to be dealt with, and there is one difficult patch on the borders of Stepney, where the Ministry is to hold

  1287
  an inquiry this month in connection with slum clearance. We were in a bit of a quandary to know what to do, because the inquiry may not be completed and the result known before 31st March. For that reason, I welcome the Bill. It will give us a breathing space. I trust that the Minister will ask the borough councils for the necessary information even before this Bill reaches the Statute Book so that the councils may know the position with regard to the remaining requisitioned properties. The problem is not great in the Borough of Bethnal Green, because it has been given priority over what are known as normal housing requirements.
  In my post only this afternoon I had a letter from a man who has a wife and six children. They have been on the housing waiting list for many years. They have one bedroom, a living room, a box room, a kitchenette and no amenities. They had notice to quit from the landlord. Three times they have been before the court and they have to be out by 10th February. The local authorities can do nothing for them. What can the London County Council do? It is even necessary to have a printed pamphlet to drive home the fact that in the County of London only cases involving urgent medical need, at the rate of about 1,000 a year, can be rehoused under existing conditions when slum clearance takes absolute priority.
  Under the Tory free-for-all as applied to housing, what is happening when rack rents are being demanded for any vacant premises? The worst case to come to my notice within the last fortnight in Bethnal Green is that of a 12-roomed house condemned by the council as unfit for human habitation but let out in one-room lettings to families. Over 40 people are living in the 12 rooms. The landlord is taking between £27 and £30 a week for rooms which are unfit for human habitation, unfurnished and have no amenities. There are two toilets in this condemned property. That is rack renting as we see it in the area of London. The rehousing of our local people has had a setback as a result of the efforts that have been made to derequisition houses and to purchase all possible houses whose price was not too unreasonable from the district valuer's point of view.
  1288
  I ask the Minister to adopt that human attitude towards this problem which has not been manifested in the only two speeches made this afternoon from the Tory benches. I listened with astonishment to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary. Perhaps his look of triumph and his gay appearance was due to the fact that he was pressing ahead so rapidly that some of my hon. Friends could hardly take note of his statistics. Possibly that was the cause of his animation. Or was it because additional financial obligations are being imposed upon those authorities which have the biggest proportion of working-class population in London and, therefore, the most difficult problem of derequisitioning is being imposed upon them in the next twelve months?
  Then we had what I regarded as the sad speech of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield). Even he rapped his own council over the knuckles and said that, although it had been doing a good job in derequisitioning, it had not done enough, it had not done it quickly enough and it ought to have done more. The hon. Member hoped, therefore, that the Minister would withhold from St. Marylebone, and, I presume, London in general, some of the benefits of the Bill.
  As a visitor in the old days, I looked down upon this Chamber occasionally in 1918 and 1919, the Chamber of hard-faced men. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for St. Marylebone are not within that category and I hope that when we reach Committee the Minister will be forthcoming in regard to the financial provisions and will give local authorities more reasonable time to put into good order the many old houses that they have purchased lately to help them out with derequisitioning I make this appeal to him and, at the same time, I ask him to begin the necessary process with local authorities even before the Bill goes through the House.
  6.46 p.m.
  Mr. James MacColl: It is becoming a quite familiar occasion for us to be somewhat mournful spectators at the great word-eating celebrations of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. We had the Rent Act and the dogged determination which ended in

  1289
  retreat with the amending Bill. Last Session, we had his painful burial of the Prime Minister's Town and Country Planning Act. Now we have the Minister of Aviation's Requisitioned Houses a id Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, being again retreated from and substantially amended.
  Our attitude must have been clear from the debate. In so far as the Bill extends the period for requisition, we welcome it. In so far as it proposes increased rental compensation, we are suspicious of it. We would like to know a little bit about what is involved and in particular, we would like a more accurate reply from the Minister than the explanation which the Parliamentary Secretary was able to give of how rental compensation with the 50 per cent. increase under the Bill will compare with rental compensation being paid under leases and other agreements which local authorities have already made with owners of requisitioned property.
  If the right hon. Gentleman cannot give us a disquisition on that tonight, I hope that at least, in Committee, he will he able to put before us substantial and detailed information of the kind of calculations that are involved and what multiple of the gross value the new proposal in general amounts to.
  The third question—the reduction of the Exchequer contribution—is one which we strongly oppose and it will be our intention in Committee to move Amendments. I would, however, like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, if not, perhaps, in his capacity as Minister of Housing and Local Government, at least in his capacity as "shadow" Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whether, in his opinion—I appreciate that the decision is not his—Amendments designed to propose increases in the Exchequer contribution up to the amounts laid down in the existing Act will come within the terms of the Money Resolution.
  When we look at the main proposal of the Bill—the extension of time—our complaints are fairly clear. They are twofold. Our first complaint is that in so far as the problem of derequisitioning has been solved at all under the existing Act, it has been solved at a terrible price, a price which the House never intended to be paid and which never should have been paid.
  1290
  The second point is that to secure something like a solution of the problem, the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor have bluffed the councils into carrying out a policy in which most people did not believe without any regard to the cost at which that policy would be carried out. They have bluffed and bullied the councils into carrying it out. They have treated them up to the very last moment as if they would be faced with the appalling situation of having large numbers of licensees as trespassers in requisitioned property.
  In spite of all the deputations which have been to see him, in spite of all the pressure which has been put upon him, only at the last moment has the right hon. Gentleman come forward with the Bill. For anyone who stands in the position that he does in relation to the local authorities, the position of their confidential adviser, of the Minister in whom they expect to be able to have confidence and trust, I think that it is a shocking way to treat them.
  I want to come to what I think is the gross misrepresentation which was made in order to get the 1955 Bill through the House in the first place. I think that there are two things which everybody agrees with about requisitioning. The first is that requisitioning was essential to solve the desperate post-war problem, and, secondly, that in the long run requisitioning is expensive and is and has been a very great burden on the Exchequer. I do not think that anybody would deny that. I think that undoubtedly there is a difference of interest, a conflict of interest, between the local authorities, which valued requisitioned properties which they were using for housing, and the Treasury which was paying 100 per cent. grant on them. I do not think that that was disputed when the Bill of 1955 was discussed.
  What was disputed was the timing of the Bill and the length of time which was to be allowed for the operation. It was said that the effect of the Bill, if it was to solve the problem at all, would be that its solution would be done at the expense of the general waiting list. That was the point which was made again and again on Second Reading and also in Committee on the Bill. On that, the right hon. Gentleman the

  1291
  Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), now Minister for Aviation, really could not have been more definite and specific than he was in dealing with that criticism.
  This is what the right hon. Gentleman said, and I quote from the OFFICIAL REPORT of the proceedings in Standing Committee:
  "It is quite incorrect for hon. Members to suggest that the Bill will result in lengthening housing lists. The hon. Member for Clapham and others said that if we proceeded with this and did not extend the period for another five years, housing lists would be longer in 1960 than they are now. I assume that he meant that would be so, because people now living in requisitioned houses would be given priority in the allocation of new council houses. Because I recognise the problem which confronts local authorities, particularly in the Greater London area, I have been very careful in any remarks I have made not to put any additional pressure upon them to allocate more council houses than they are doing at the moment. There are authorities which might be able to allocate an increased number of new council houses for the rehousing of families who are now living in requisitioned houses.
  MR. BUTLER: Where?
  MR. KEY: Which are they?
  MR. LEWIS: Name them.
  MR. SANDYS: Might I finish? …"
  Then he went on:
  "I should like to make it quite clear that the Bill does not rest round the date of 1960. It does not rest upon the assumption that there will be any great increase in the allocation of new council houses for the purpose of rehousing the occupants of requisitioned dwellings. That is not the basis of the Bill. Therefore, all this talk about blocking slum clearance and lengthening the housing lists, and all these objections are entirely beside the point. They have no relevance to the Bill or to discussion of the date of 1960."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 3rd March. 1955; c. 43–4.]
  That is what the right hon. Gentleman said.
  As soon as the Act was through pressure began on local authorities from the right hon. Gentleman's Department to get a move on in carrying out the Act, and nothing was ever said to the local authorities about the pledge given by the Minister that it was not to be done at the expense of the general waiting list and that it was not to be done at the expense of slum clearance.
  I tried—and I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you will sympathise with me—to
  1292
  table a Question on this, because I knew what was going on behind the scenes, and I had considerable difficulty in finding a Question which would get past the Table, because the responsibility of allocating housing accommodation was a responsibility of the local authorities, and, therefore, to ask the Minister about it was out of order. Behind the scenes, of course, the Minister and his advisers, on the telephone, were putting all the pressure they could on the local authorities to use up their permanent new house building.
  Eventually, I did manage to get one down, and on the general principle that one can always get into a supplementary what has been ruled out of order in the Question of which one has given notice, I asked, in the supplementary:
  "When the Minister is considering these applications, will he make certain that no local authority is compelled to use for rehousing licensees new building which ought to be used for slum clearance and other purposes, and will he make sure that local authorities clearly understand his undertaking when the Bill was being considered that this would not happen?"
  This is what the right hon. Gentleman, now the Minister of Aviation, replied:
  "The hon. Gentleman, who took an active part in the debates on the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Bill, must know as well as I do that the Act provides a number of methods. It does not rely primarily upon new construction for winding up requisitioning."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th July, 1955; Vol. 544. c. 964.]
  All this afternoon we have been listening to speeches being made from this side of the House pointing out the price which has been paid in terms of the waiting list. If, in some cases, the waiting list today is not as high at it was, it is not because it should not be high: it is because the local authorities have closed the waiting list in desperation. It is not that people have been rehoused.
  I was very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) took part in the debate, because she gave a reminder to us all, and particularly to me, a Lancashire Member, that this is not just a London problem but is a substantial problem in other parts of the country. The problem in London is more concentrated than it is anywhere else in the country. and the people who are mainly aware of the problem are bound to be on the whole people with experience of London conditions.

  1293
  That is why, in all charity, I forgive the Parliamentary Secretary. I thought, when he had to get up and read out that brief, full of happy little pleasantries about how nice everybody had been and how well the problem had been tackled and how everything was going so smoothly, that if he were to compare that with what has really been happening in terms of human tragedy, he would have been ashamed of what he had to say. But I do not think that he knows. I do not imagine that he has had to face at first hand these problems. But other people have had to face them.
  For instance, in Hampstead. Hampstead has not done so very well. Hampstead, according to the Minister's answer, has still 273 families in requisitioned property. Hampstead has not been able to get them rehoused. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham has direct knowledge of what is going on at Wandsworth. That is probably why he was so insistent that we should not cut into the waiting list. Wandsworth has got 861 licensees in requisitioned properties. Lewisham has 612. I thought, as I listened today, what a speech Mr. Niall MacDermot would have made if he had been still in the House, what a devastating analysis he would have given us of the desperate situation there is in Lewisham at present.
  Mr. H. Butler: What about the hon. Members for Lewisham?
  Mr. MacColl: Unfortunately, we were not honoured by them.
  I do not think that any Member needs to apologise for using constituency information and arguments on this subject, because it is when we have a general debate on broad, general principles that the right hon. Gentleman can get away with it, and it is when he is pinned down to individual cases that the complete hollowness and the real tragedy of his policy comes out.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) cited some of the problems which have faced Paddington Borough Council, and I make no apology, as a member of that body, for dotting one or two of his "i's" and crossing one or two of his "t's." The situation in Paddington is an interesting one, because most of the requisitioning was done by a Labour council and all
  1294
  the derequisitioning has been done by a Conservative council, so that the policy carried out there is a policy of which the Minister must approve.
  I thought that the hardest cut made against local authorities was made by the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield), who scolded them for not having been keen enough on derequisitioning. I thought that that was very hard indeed, because my criticism of local authorities, and I have made it on my own, is that they should have been much tougher with the Minister and should have refused to be bluffed. If they had said, "We shall not carry out a policy in breach of the pledges given by your predecessor" the right hon. Gentleman would not have been able to stand up to it and he would have had to bring in a Bill giving a further extension of time.
  I should like to recall what happened in Paddington, which has a large waiting list. It is densely populated and heavily overcrowded, but a comparatively typical Metropolitan borough. After the Bill was passed, in 1956 in the first year before the right hon. Gentleman's Department got going, off the general waiting list Paddington rehoused 34 people. Those were all that were rehoused up to the middle of 1959. Since then a few have been rehoused. One could count them on the fingers of one's hand. No rehousing was done at all for general needs in the borough and that has been typical of other councils.
  That point has been explained and deployed throughout this debate, but the position is worse because during that period the council built 296 permanent dwellings and used post-war flats for accommodating 313 licensees. In other words, not only was the council not taking people off the waiting list, but it was biting into the existing stock of postwar houses. It was using more postwar houses for accommodating licensees than it was replacing with its housing programme, and, as a result of the operation of requisitioning alone, 17 houses were lost on the transaction.
  On top of all this, there are slum clearance and redevelopment schemes, and so on. The result of it all is—and this is typical of London—that following the Minister's policy and the Act which we are now discussing there has been within

  1295
  London practically no accommodation at all available for overcrowded families and for the young family, the people who have just got married. In other words, the people who have the impertinence to get married without the permission of the housing department of the borough council. As I said in a council debate, it seems to me that the only way in which one can carry out this policy is to have a kind of municipal chastity belt which would be applied to all the daughters of licensees and the key kept in the town clerk's safe. If one did that, one might be able to keep the needs of the licensees within the terms of the housing accommodation available.
  The Bill must go through because the need for postponement of derequisitioning is desperate, but it is a shocking thing that the House should have been played with in the way it has. If the House had been told quite honestly and plainly in 1955—before the 1955 election it is worth pointing out—that the derequisitioning policy would stop all building for general housing needs and would stop the removal of people from the waiting list, the House would have had great reservation and reluctance in passing the Bill. But the House was given a positive and definite assurance from the Minister of the day that the Bill would not be used to make local authorities go beyond the accommodation they were already using for rehousing licensees.
  The whole of this policy, of which the Parliamentary Secretary has been so proud, has been carried out regardless of the human suffering which it has been causing, regardless of the absolutely desperate housing situation which it has created in London, and in direct disregard and in breach of promises given again and again by the present Minister of Aviation. Therefore, although we shall pass the Bill, we do so, I hope, registering our disgust at the way the policy was carried out and our utter disrespect for the way in which the right hon. Gentleman has treated the local authorities.
  7.5 p.m.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Henry Brooke)I have listened to every word of the debate, and, in so far as it has helped to bring home
  1296
  to people living in more comfortable parts of the country the acuteness of the housing shortage that still exists in parts of London and the severe overcrowding which is the curse of a large number of houses in multi-occupation, it will have done good. But there is no need to exaggerate the situation or to use extravagant language. I must warn the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) that if he thinks he will be able to persuade the British people that the Labour Government would have handled housing better he is eight years too late.
  The difficulty we had here was to carry out the programme of derequisitioning when most of the problem was in the Greater London area, that being one of the big cities where the housing situation was most difficult. As hon. Members may know, out of 90,000 families who were still licensees in requisitioned property in 1955, no fewer than 75,000 were in the Greater London area. My quarrel with the Opposition in its criticism today is that it has shown far too little appreciation of what I would have said was the fundamental principle—that this wartime expedient of requisitioning should be brought to an end as soon as possible.
  Hard words like "disgust" and "shame" have been uttered in the Chamber today, but I have not heard from the Opposition any practical indication of the steps that hon. and right hon. Members opposite would have taken in the last five years, except to leave requisitioning to drag on and on. I cannot really believe that that would have been their wish, and I do not suppose that they think that Parliament could have acquiesced in wartime devices such as requisitioning and rationing continuing indefinitely. Yet if they were not to continue, action had to be taken to end them, and the 1955 Act was an attempt to do that.
  I am familiar enough with the problem, because in 1955 the borough of Hampstead, which I represent, had over 1,300 families in requisitioned property and I was still at that time a member of the borough council. I can say that that borough council has its plans made for complete derequisitioning before 31st March, in common with a great majority of other local authorities. We are legislating now for that handful of local authorities who did not look ahead sufficiently early—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

  1297
  —and did not make their plans sufficiently quickly in order to fulfil by 31st March, 1960, the obligation placed upon them by Parliament.
  Mr. MacColl: Surely those are the authorities who took the present Minister of Aviation at his word, because if one took him at his word and believed what he said one could not solve the problem in that time.
  Mr. Brooke: I should like to deal with that point. My right lion. Friend the present Minister of Aviation said that derequisitioning could be completed by 31st March, 1960, and so it could have been. The evidence of that is that 98 per cent. of the dwellings then under requisitioning will have been released by 31st March, 1960. The argument of the Opposition is that somehow there was a barrier against coping with the last 2 per cent., and that it is the 2 per cent. which presents difficulties of a magnitude not comparable elsewhere.
  Let us examine this point. I will take three Labour-controlled boroughs in London in order not to bring in any political argument. By 31st December last year the borough of Islington, two of whose representatives have spoken in this debate, had succeeded in derequisitioning 88 per cent. of all the dwellings they had under requisition at the time of the 1955 Act. The borough of Battersea is represented in this House by the two opposing political parties, but there is a large Labour majority on the council which had by that date derequisitioned 93 per cent. of all the dwellings it had under requisition in 1955.
  I was called on to name those boroughs which would fail. I am reluctant to give a list because clearly there is an element of uncertainty here since there are still some weeks to go and a number of boroughs cannot yet be sure if they will have finished this work. However, it seems to me that 10 or 12 out of the large number which have requisitioned property may not succeed in wholly derequisitioning it by that date.
  I will name one of them because the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart), who opened the debate for the Opposition with a forceful speech, represents a borough which I should have
  1298
  thought would have no greater difficulties than Battersea and Islington. Certainly in 1955 it had a smaller number of dwellings under requisition. Yet by 31st December it had derequisitioned less than 60 per cent. of the total, as against 88 per cent. in Islington and 93 per cent. in Battersea. There must be some local explanation of this fact. It must relate somehow to the policy which the respective borough councils have carried on, and that is, of course, the truth. In the case of Fulham it has been largely because not until May, 1958, despite more than twelve months of pressure from my Department, did it even submit proposals for leasing or purchasing property which it was clear it would have to do.
  Mr. A. Evans: Does it not occur to the right hon. Gentleman that, apart from policy, the type of property and other conditions may be quite different in one borough from what they are in another?
  Mr. Brooke: Yes, the hon. Gentleman and I have both served on the London County Council and we are well aware of that. Certainly I will not underestimate the severity of the housing problems of Islington, even if the hon. Gentleman argues that they are less than those of Fulham.
  The hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) also spoke in the debate. Deptford acted earlier than Fulham. It was in November, 1957, that Deptford submitted a plan, and in that month I authorised the borough council to lease or purchase up to 350 properties which it might need to complete its derequisitioning. So the borough council has had that authority for more than two years, and two years later it was exercised only to the point of acquiring eighteen. This must be due to some view that the Deptford Borough Council took, unlike the view taken by a number of other London and Greater London authorities, Socialist controlled as well as Conservative-controlled, who set themselves seriously to finish the job.
  Sir L. Plummer: Has the Minister considered that there are not only geographical differences in London boroughs but also differences resulting from the age of the property? Deptford happens to be a borough which was one of the first to be developed at the

  1299
  beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Many of the houses are totally inadequate and are of sub-standard quality. The Deptford Borough Council was loth to spend money on acquiring property which would not be in existence much longer.
  Mr. Brooke: The Deptford Borough Council may have applied a higher standard in this matter, but I cannot help thinking that it was gambling on the Government taking action to defer the terminal date. That I was reluctant to do, though I have had most reluctantly to introduce this Bill in order to ensure that nobody shall be a trespasser and liable to eviction on 1st April.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) intervened in our debate. If I may say so, I think it is a good thing that there was someone contributing who was not a London Member—
  Mr. M. Stewart: Oh.
  Mr. Brooke: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I was not thinking of contributions from the Front Bench opposite. The Liverpool City Council started its task of derequisitioning slowly, but I believe it will be found by 31st March that I was right when I said on my visit to Liverpool last summer that, given one final and determined effort, it would finish the job. That remains to be seen, but I am prepared to test my statement in the light of after events.
  Mrs. Braddock: The bombing created a very bad situation.
  Mr. Brooke: I know there are problems. I said at the beginning of my speech that the task of derequisitioning has been particularly difficult because most of the requisitioned houses were in those towns which had been bombed or had otherwise suffered during the war and, therefore, it was one more burden piled on all the other burdens. Yet I submit to the House that something had to be done about it. We could not let requisitioning drift on indefinitely. This task could never be easy. It demanded determination if it was to be carried out, but the alternative was to let that wartime emergency measure continue endlessly.
  1300
  In the three years I have been at the Ministry, by circulars, by speeches and by replies to a number of deputations I have received, I have sought to maintain the pressure on local authorities to fulfil the duty Parliament had laid upon them of completing the task of derequisitioning by 31st March. I sent out a circular in April, 1957. I sent out a further one in October, 1957. May I say that it was as long ago as October, 1957, that I made clear in the circular what would be the grant arrangements for authorities which were proposing to purchase or lease properties. So they have had more than two years. In that circular I also mentioned specifically the possible necessity of making compulsory purchase orders if it were not possible to complete the task of acquiring by agreement the property that was needed.
  Finally, in March last year I sent out another circular indicating that only twelve months were left, that a number of local authorities had much to do, and I urged them—as I urged a little later in Liverpool—that they should make one final effort and finish the job.
  A number of questions have been put to me about compulsory purchase orders. I am sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) is not in her place because she put a question at the end of the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. The answer to her question is that requisitioned houses which are included in a compulsory purchase order, on which a decision may not have been given by the Minister before 31st March, will be included in an Order under Clause 1 of this Bill.
  In that last circular of March, 1959, I urged local authorities, if they thought it would be necessary to exercise powers of compulsory purchase, to make and submit those orders not later than July, 1959. That left eight months—none too long if there was a rush of orders. The fact is that almost every compulsory purchase order submitted to me, not by the end of July but by the end of October last, has now been settled. In fact, they have been confirmed in respect of, broadly, five out of six of all the houses contained in them.
  We are now dealing as expeditiously as we possibly can with the compulsory purchase orders which local authorities

  1301
  chose to submit more than three months later than the date which, by circular, I asked them to do so. Ever since that first circular of mine went out I have been watching the position very carefully. I knew that it might be very tight at the end. I could not judge, and no one could judge, what individual authorities would do in the last year or so. As I have explained to the House, so much depended on the attitude and the degree of determination which individual authorities showed.
  May I, in passing, answer a question put to me by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) about the 14,000 houses which have been acquired. The answer to his question is that approximately 12,000 of these were houses that were under requisition before, and the remaining 2,000 were non-requisitioned houses purchased in order to move licensees into them.
  I said that I have had to watch the situation carefully. Had I held out last year expectations of an extension of time beyond March the determination of local authorities would have flagged, because it is a hard job, and anything which I had then said to lead them to think that the Government were going to give them a general extension beyond that date would, I tell the House, have resulted in not as many houses being derequisitioned by the end of 1959 as have actually been derequisitioned. I waited until it became quite clear that a few councils—a handful of councils—would not finish the job, and then I introduced this Bill to make sure that the pledge that my predecessor gave that nobody should be left either a trespasser or homeless would be fulfilled.
  The details of the Bill will be gone into in Committee. There has been no serious criticism of the proposal to increase the rental compensation by 50 per cent., but the hon. Member for Widnes asked me to justify it further. The information we have is that the existing rental compensation is equivalent to 1⅓ times the gross value, and 50 per cent. will bring it up to something under twice gross value. I think that those people who have not been willing to accept licensees as statutory tenants should be treated a little less well than those who have cooperated by doing so.
  1302
  The hon. Member for Fulham asked me about certain points on the Schedule, and he will agree that they were mainly Committee points, but the general explanation is that this is a small, tapering off problem that we are now tackling with this Bill. There is no case now for continuing to offer special inducement to owners to accept licensees as statutory tenants when they have had five years in which to accept them and have not responded.
  I was also asked whether local authorities would have to justify each individual house of the 100 or 200 houses which they still held. Emphatically no. I have nothing of that kind in mind, though there may be marginal cases. In general, if there is a house that will not have been derequistioned by 31st March an order will be made to cover it for some time beyond that date. There will be exceptions, no doubt, and the power is here to make exceptions if there is a case of hardship. If it comes to light, for instance, that an owner had entered into a binding contract to sell with vacant possession on 31st March, there will be provision for that, and we shall be able to deal with all these things successfully.
  I agree thoroughly with the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. H. Butler) about the need to give early guidance to local authorities. I will see to it, as far as I can, because this is a difficult task—the final tapering-off—which may be as difficult as any. Local authorities are entitled to as early guidance as possible, just as I want to see that all owners who are affected are informed by the local authorities that their houses may be retained and for how long they will be retained.
  The main clash in Committee seems likely to be about the reduction of the grant from 75 to 25 per cent., and, in reply to questions asked by the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange and others, perhaps I may say that the Money Resolution is so drafted that Amendments can be freely moved to that figure in Committee. I must demur to the suggestion that local authorities had to adopt panic measures in this matter. I think the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) used that phrase, and it was true that

  1303
  the local authorities which did start in good time to fulfil their obligations had to tackle substantial difficulties and to do a variety of things which, but for the need to derequisition, they would never have wanted to do. It would be unfair if those authorities which worked so hard to fulfil the duty laid on them by Parliament were to find that those who had not made an equivalent effort and had not worked so hard to do that could now use the extra time they are gaining by this Bill on just the same financial terms as the rest. That is the case for the reduction.
  Mr. Weitzman: How does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that a borough council could have avoided the purchase of old houses, involving a tremendous amount of money being spent on repairs, which in ordinary circumstances it would not have contemplated buying?
  Mr. Brooke: I am addressing myself to the reduction in the grant. If a local authority had completed its purchase in good time, there is no reason why it should not get the full grant settled under the 1955 Act. This view has not been expressed in the debate today, but there are those who take the view that the Councils which have failed to complete derequisitioning by 31st March should get nothing by way of Exchequer grant thereafter. The Government have not taken that austere view, but every local authority that even now presses on and in the remaining weeks completes the job by 31st March will avoid suffering any reduction of the Exchequer grant. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said, those local authorities which will have finished derequisitioning by 31st March will have done well indeed. We have to provide only for the very small minority which may not just have finished, and it is to that purpose and that purpose alone that this Bill is directed.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

  REQUISITIONED HOUSES [MONEY]
  [Queen's Recommendation signified.]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees.)
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to enable the Minister of Housing and Local Government to extend the period for which possession of requisitioned houses may be retained by local authorities under the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any increase in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under the said Act of 1955 or under the enactments relating to local government which is attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session for continuing after the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and sixty, the right of local authorities to retain possession of requisitioned houses under the said Act of 1955, and for amending or extending, in respect of houses of which possession is retained after that date. the provisions of that Act with respect to the compensation to be paid by local authorities and the contributions which may be made by the said Minister to such authorities in respect of houses leased or purchased for the accommodation of persons occupying requisitioned houses;

  (b) any sums required by the said Minister for the payment of contributions under the said Act of the present Session to local authorities in respect of any deficit incurred by those authorities (as assessed by the said Minister) in connection with requisitioned houses of which they are for the time being in possession thereunder;

  and the payment into the Exchequer of any sums so payable by virtue of the said Act of 1955 as amended by the said Act of the present Session.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]
  Resolution to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow.

  WATER OFFICERS COMPENSATION BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  7.29 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This Bill is introduced to remove an anomally in water legislation to which attention was drawn by a Standing Committee of the House during last Session. The House will of course realise that the Government's frequently declared policy of achieving the regrouping of water undertakings in fewer and stronger units must lead to a number of mergers and amalgamations, which inevitably affect, to a certain extent, the position of some of the officers and servants of those undertakings.
  As is well known, those mergers are often achieved by Order under Section 9 of the Water Act, 1945, or by a Bill. The amalgamations which result must in some cases mean changes of jobs, sometimes leading to promotion and sometimes leading to a worsening of the position of an individual. Most often similar employment is received by each individual in the new undertaking, but there has to be provision for those people who suffer in some way.
  Section 44 of the Water Act, 1945, provides that in such cases compensation shall be paid on the code of the Local Government Act, 1933, but since 1945 Parliament has approved a more up-to-date compensation code in the Local Government (Compensation) Regulations, 1948, and Bills for regrouping have generally used that modern code. As a result, there are two different scales and systems of compensation, so that Orders under the Water Act, 1945, apply the 1933 Code, while Bills generally apply the 1948 Code, though sometimes the 1933 Code.
  It was to this anomaly that a Standing Committee drew attention in the last Session and recommended that my right hon. Friend should put before Parliament a uniform code of compensation. That recommendation was accepted by the Government and my right hon. Friend announced at the same time that,
  1306
  as the legal position in Scotland was similar, the proposed legislation would also apply in Scotland. The Bill is the result. It gives the Ministers power to make regulations which will embody a code of compensation.
  However, as it is also possible that persons in water undertakings may be affected not only by Orders under the 1945 Water Act, not only by Bills, but also by regrouping under local government reorganisation, it is sensible to reconcile the code for compensation provided in this Bill with the code of compensation which will emerge from local government reorganisation schemes. It is my right hon. Friend's intention, when the Bill is passed, to model regulations under it based on those being made under the Local Government Act, 1958. I assure the House that both those codes will be the subject of consultation with all the interests concerned. I am empowered to add that in Scotland the Regulations under the Bill will follow a similar pattern and will also be the subject of consultation with the appropriate interests there.
  I will now turn to the Bill. Clause 1 gives the Minister power to make regulations and to lay down who pays the compensation. It prescribes that such regulations shall be used where cases for compensation result from Orders made under the Water Act, 1945 or the Water (Scotland) Act, 1946. Any Bills dealing with water amalgamation schemes would, of course, use the same compensation code. Clause 1 goes on to permit the regulations to set out to whom compensation is to be paid, the procedure for claiming and the means of determining questions which may arise.
  The House will note that Clause 1 (2) gives a very limited power of retrospection to the regulations. This provision provides for a situation where regulations have already been made and new regulations are under discussion. In those circumstances, there might be considable advantage in being able to give an assurance that amounts soon to be paid in the current code would be made retrospective to a suitable date. The House will also note that the provision for retrospection is narrowly drawn and it will not be possible to make any claimant for compensation worse off as a result.

  1307
  Clause 1 (5) lays down that regulations are to be made by Statutory Instrument and Clause 1 (6) repeals Section 44 of the Water Act, 1945, which referred compensation claims resulting from orders to the 1933 Code. It also repeals Section 66 of the Water (Scotland) Act.
  Clause 2 provides for bringing the Act into operation by Order. The reason for that is that the Bill may well be passed before it is possible to complete the negotiations and discussions on the proposed regulations. The provision will enable the existing codes to apply until those regulations can be made.
  I should like to give the House a short description of the differences between the two codes, the 1933 and the 1948 codes, to give some idea of what the code made under these regulations may be like. Under the old code, no regard is required to be had to the availability of alternative employment, either in determining entitlement to or the amount of compensation. Compensation when awarded is payable for life and no adjustment may be made if, for example, after a few months a man gets another job, unless that job is in the public service. Nor is account taken of the fact that a reduction in income could follow retirement in the normal course. Further, the amount of compensation is on a flat rate scale dependent only on years of service, and pays insufficient regard to a man's age when he loses his job. We regard the 1933 Act as being out of tune with contemporary thought and circumstances
  The post-war code, which removed these difficulties, was designed to meet present-day conditions, including developments in superannuation arrangements. It ensures that availability of other suitable employment, whether inside or outside the public service, is properly explored and taken into account when determining compensation. The scale of compensation after the normal retiring age is related to accrued pension up to the date of loss of office and both this scale and that applicable up to normal retiring age include provision to supplement compensation according to age at the date employment is lost. Provision is also made for payments to widows and other
  1308
  death benefits related to superannuation rights accrued at the date of loss.
  I must not conceal from the House that in many circumstances the post-war code is less favourable to the individual than the old code was, primarily just because it does take into account the employability of the officer, but it tends to be more generous than the former code to older employees who would find it difficult to find another job. Examples of the post-war code, if hon. Members like to consult them in the code's detailed application, may be found in the Local Government (Compensation) Regulations, 1948, and the Town and Country Planning (Transfer of Property and Officers' and Compensation to Officers') Regulations, 1948. As has been said, the interests involved will be consulted before the regulations are made. I commend the Bill to the House.
  7.37 p.m.
  Mr. James MacColl: I came into this story through some quite odd ways and coincidences. It so happens that when I was a very young Member, I was trapped by my friend, Arthur Blenkinsop, and encouraged to move an Amendment to the South Shields Extension Bill, which dealt with precisely this point.
  As I understand it, the position is this: the Local Government Act, 1933, which is the great constitutional bulwark of local government, provided a system of compensation. After the war, the Labour Government decided that the methods of paying compensation under the 1933 Act could profitably be revised along the lines outlined by the Parliamentary Secretary. I think that the matter first arose on the National Health Service Act. At any rate, the changes were approved by the House in a number of cases and were finally included in the Clauses which one normally gets in private Bills.
  When the South Shields Extension Bill, one of the earliest extension Bills dealing with local government boundary provisions, reached Committee—I think that the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) was the Chairman—the Committee was very upset when it found that there was no clear indication of what should be the basis of compensation. The Committee reported on the matter to the House and I moved an Amendment to include in that Bill the

  1309
  proposals contained in the 1948 regulations, proposals which had been used in almost all the current local government measures.
  I thought that that was the end of the matter, but, to my astonishment, in the last Parliament I found myself on a Standing Committee dealing with a Water Bill. "Bill" is putting it rather mildly, because I think that we broke the world record, the British all-comers record and the British native record in the time taken to deal with those Bills in a Standing Committee.
  Major H. Legge Bourke: The hon. Member means a Select Committee.
  Mr. MacColl: Yes, I meant a Select Committee. The Parliamentary Secretary used the term "Standing Committee" and I did not want to let him down.
  The Select Committee, as we were, discovered that although this row took place as long ago as 1950, on the South Shields Bill there was still no clear provision that the arrangements being made by Private Bills in the House, following the South Shields Extension Bill, were in conformity with those being made by the Minister in Provisional Orders. That was an absurd provision, because it led to one getting a different code of compensation according to the method of grouping. Whatever one may feel about the two codes, there was nothing to be said for that. On this point the Select Committee reported to the House and as a result of that we have had these proposals.
  The difficulty is that this is one of the worst bits of delegated legislation that one could find. It is impossible to tell from the Bill what will be the terms of the proposals, whether they will follow the 1948 Regulations, or how they will vary. The House is being asked to rubber stamp whatever the Minister decides to agree, subject, of course, to Prayer.
  I say to my hon. Friends that in view of our past record in the Labour Party we should be the last people in the world to complain, because it is clear that we started the 1948 scheme and we must accept that that is the right scheme generally to apply for compensation.
  There is one point here on which I hope the hon. and gallant Member for
  1310
  the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) will help us. It is my recollection that one of the points made to us in our discussions in Committee was that water officers were in a different position from most local government officers. If one is a local government officer one can move from one council to another without much difficulty. Therefore, regulations which emphasise the importance of keeping employment are not too much of a burden. Water officers are specialist officers and as groups amalgamate the opportunities for employment are ex hypothesi, less and less.
  It may be that by these regulations they will be put in an awkward position. They may have to move a long way to get a comparable job. They may be involved in removal expenses. There is, therefore, a case for saying that water officers cannot be treated for the purpose of compensation in precisely the same way as other local government officers. That is a point which the Parliamentary Secretary ought to look at in his discussions with the representatives of the interested bodies before finally presenting the regulations.
  In general, I would advise my hon. Friends that this is a Bill which we ought to support because it is designed to remove an anomaly and to bring into operation a principle and a policy which has been accepted for officers in other branches of local government service and comparable services.
  I have pleasure in supporting the Bill.
  7.43 p.m.
  Major H. Legge-Bourke: I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) for the help he gave us on the Select Committee on the four group Water Bills in the last Parliament. He was particularly helpful to me in making up my mind about what was the right position in the case of those four Bills.
  We there had local authorities and water companies involved. As the law stands, the water companies are bound to apply the code of compensation under the 1933 Act. I think we all agreed that it would be palpably absurd to differentiate between water companies and local authorities in the case of those four Bills. For that reason, we

  1311
  felt that we should not make the offer of the companies less generous and we decided to give uniform compensation based on the 1933 code
  I think we were all at one in saying that it was absurd that merely because water amalgamations took place as the result of the promotion of an Order by the Minister as distinct from the promotion of a Private Bill, the code should be different. I think that we are at one in the House today in saying that the principle of unifying the form of compensation is absolutely right.
  There is, however, a slightly different qualification that I would make in the case that the hon. Member for Widnes put forward. He is right in saying that water officers sometimes cannot be automatically employed after an amalgamation has taken place. It is not quite so easy as in the case of the extention of boundaries. That is true, and I support him on that point, but I would take it a stage further. It is sometimes easier for the employee of a local authority to be re-employed by the same authority than it is to re-employ employees of former water companies which have disappeared. The officer may have to go to the other side of the country to find another job.
  I am not asking the Minister to give an undertaking that the old code of 1933 should apply in those cases. What I am saying is that when the negotiations are carried out with the various bodies who will obviously be most interested in this recognition should be given by those carrying out negotiations on behalf of the Ministry to the difference between a former water company employee and a former local government employee. My feeling is that there is a strong case for saying that the water company employee might be justified in having slightly more generous terms, though not necessarily as generous as the 1933 code. The 1933 code was open to considerable objections, and I think that the 1948 code is a sounder one, but there is a special case for water company employees.
  There is one inaccuracy in the Parliamentary Secretary's speech which I am sure he did not intend. He said that all regrouping Bills had adopted the 1948 code. That is not so. The incidence of the 1948 code has been shown almost entirely in local authority extension Bills.
  1312
  but only on two occasions has it been shown in the case of Water Bills up to now. One was the Kemp Water Bill, the other was the Barnsley Bill, which included water Measures in its provisions. That was an unopposed Bill, and it was never argued before the Select Committee of the House. In the Select Committee on the four group Bills in the last Session, we all agreed that this was a matter which we would have been wrong in trying to decide in one Select Committee for all time to cover all Water Bills for the future. For that reason, we made the special recommendations that we did from the Committee, that this was a matter which the Minister ought to implement as soon as possible in accordance with the wishes of Parliament as a whole.
  I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary on having taken action so quickly on this matter. I realise that we were not the originators of the pressure, but I think that we did carry it a little bit further. It is nice to feel that from time to time a recommendation of a Select Committee can have an effect on general legislation as well.
  That is really all I want to say beyond saying that my own belief is that we ought to recognise that water officers carry out a considerable public service. They do not serve merely the company for which they work. They serve the public good. Because of the importance of water in the lives of the community as a whole, I think we ought to be prepared to stretch a point in their favour if a case can be made in the course of the negotiations which are to follow.
  7.50 p.m.
  Mr. G. W. Reynolds: I welcome the Bill and the detailed explanation which has been given by various hon. Members. My remarks will be brief, because I am sure that many hon. Members will wish to speak upon the subject of cork stoppers.
  I hope, now that this legislation has been codified and drawn together, we shall see reductions in the staffs of water undertakings when amalgamations take place. My fear is that there may be a continuation of what has happened recently, when, although there has been a reduction in the technical staff, there has been a considerable net increase in

  1313
  that total number of staff because of the administrative overheads which have built up upon amalgamation.
  When a water undertaking has amalgamated with various local authorities, and where that water undertaking has been collecting its own rate and the local authorities have been collecting a water rate as part of their general rate, there has been a tendency to set up a board of about 50 members to look after the new water undertaking, and every authority which had even the smallest interest in the supply of water before amalgamation has required to be represented on the board. If an authority with a population of 10,000 has had one representative, another local authority with a population of 20,000 has felt that it must have two representatives.
  This has meant the setting up of very large boards to run the combined water undertaking, and this, in turn, has necessitated the employment of large numbers of clerical and administrative staffs, so that, despite the fact that some technical staff have become redundant and have received compensation, extra administrative staff has had to be taken on, with no improvement in the water supply in the area.
  Further, where a private company has been collecting its own water rate and a number of local authorities have been collecting their own rates, separate rate collecting organisations have usually continued in operation. This situation exists in London at present. There are 29 separate receiving offices in the Metropolitan Water Board area, collecting water rate at about £2 per house, and in the adjacent streets in each borough there are the town halls collecting a general rate at an average of £30 per house. It is obvious that the expenses incurred by the water board in respect of each pound collected are very much higher than those of local authorities.
  I hope that now that the matter has been codified the Minister will use his influence with the promoters of Water Bills to get rid of the existing water rate collecting services—provided that adequate compensation is paid—when future water boards are set up, making them precepting authorities rather than separate rate collectors. I estimate that in the area of the Metropolitan Water Board ratepayers are paying about
  1314
  £250,000 a year to provide a separate water rate collection. Now that the schemes are being brought together I hope that we can persuade undertakings, when amalgamated, to discharge at least those officers who are concerned with the water rate collection—with suitable compensation—so that we do not continue the principle, which has operated for some years, of setting up excessively large administrative units to run comparatively small water undertakings.
  7.53 p.m.
  Sir K. Joseph: With the permission of the House, I should like to deal with the points that have been made. First, I apologise to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) for referring to the body of which he was Chairman as a Standing Committee. It was a Select Committee, and it gave valuable service on that and many other occasions. It is pleasant to find unanimity upon the value of this small Measure. I am glad that the hon. Member for Islington North (Mr. Reynolds) has made such valuable comments upon the purpose of my right hon. Friend's regrouping policy, namely, to improve the efficiency of water undertakings and the service of water to the public. It is sad to find that Parkinson's Law applies to water undertakings, just as it applies elsewhere, but I am sure that the hon. Member's comments will be useful in drawing the attention of hon. Members and the public—for whom the water services are provided—to the discrepancies and organisational indulgencies that exist.
  On the point of substance, I agree that in practice it may be easier for employees of local authorities than for those of water companies to find other employment if they cannot be absorbed into the new combined undertaking. As my hon. and gallant Friend said, local authorities have other departments in which displaced officers may be employed. But we must not think that all the officers in water undertakings are highly technical specialists. There are many ordinary general officers who will find local employment with no difficulty.
  I would like to reassure hon. Members on both sides of the House that in any case this point will be best discussed during the talks which will take place with the interests involved, and

  1315
  the emphasis which has been placed upon the point by hon. Members will ensure that the matter is not forgotten by my right hon. Friend.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time. Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

  IMPORT DUTIES (CORK STOPPERS)
  Import duties (General) (No. 11) Order, 1959 (S.I., 1959, No. 2133), dated 15th December, 1959 [copy laid before the House, 18th December], approved.—[Mr. Erroll.]

  POST OFFICE (SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEMS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed.
  That the Agreements, dated 11th December, 1959, between Her Majesty's Postmaster-General and the Eastern Telegraph Company Limited (a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable and Wireless Limited) and between Her Majesty's Postmaster-General and the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation, for the provision and maintenance of a submarine telecommunication cable system between the United Kingdom and Canada, copies of which were laid before this House on 15th December, be approved.—[Miss Pike.]
  7.57 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: The Assistant Postmaster-General will note that paragraph 8 of the second Agreement contains the words:
  "In the event of the cable and/or repeaters being manufactured in the United Kingdom …"
  whereas, the Treasury Minute, on page 2 says that
  "The cable, repeaters and equipment will be provided by British companies."
  I should like an explanation of that apparent discrepancy.
  7.58 p.m.
  The Assistant Postmaster-General (Miss Mervyn Pike): Perhaps I can simplify the matter by explaining to the hon. Member that this cable is part of a round-the-world cable, of which the United Kingdom has a share. In relation to the Agreements, we hope
  1316
  that all the repeaters and equipment will be manufactured in this country, and we have reason to believe that that will be so with this cable. The repeaters used in the first leg of the cable—the CANTAT cable—from this country to Canada will be manufactured in Great Britain, and the laying of the cable will be carried out by the United Kingdom.
  This is part of a very large scheme. We hope and believe that the entire manufacture of these repeaters will be carried out in the United Kingdom, but the scheme will be operated in conjunction with three other Commonwealth countries, and as it goes forward it could happen that some equipment is made in other parts of the Commonwealth.
  Mr. Bence: Will the hon. Lady do her best to see that the cable ship which is to be built to lay the cable, together with as much equipment as possible, is provided by Scotland?
  Miss Pike: We shall certainly do our best to continue to give Scotland a very large share in the manufacture of this equipment. We are very proud of the fact that the end of the cable is in Oban, and that all the most valuable terminal equipment is in Scotland at present.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: May I remind the hon. Lady that there are also capable shipbuilders on the Tyne, and that their state of employment should not be ignored, even by this Government?
  Question put and agreed to.

  LEGAL AID [MONEY]
  Resolution reported
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to relax the financial conditions for legal aid under Part I of the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, and under the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act, 1949, and to make further provision for the remuneration of counsel and solicitors in connection with such legal aid or with applications for it, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the sums required to meet any increased charge falling on the Legal Aid Fund or on the Legal Aid (Scotland) Fund by reason of any such amendments of those Acts as are mentioned below, that is to say—

  (a) any amendment relaxing the financial conditions for legal aid by altering the present limits on disposable income or disposable capital, or the maximum amount of

  1317
  the contribution to the Fund (including amendments applying any alteration in the maximum contribution in respect of income to cases where a legal aid certificate is issued before the Act passes); and

  (b) any amendment providing for increased remuneration to persons giving legal aid, where their remuneration is now limited to eighty-five per cent. of the amount allowed on a taxation or assessment of the costs; and

  (c) any amendment providing for the remuneration of solicitors who act for an applicant for legal aid in Scotland in cases where the applicant is found entitled to legal aid subject to the issue and acceptance of a legal aid certificate, notwithstanding that such a certificate is not issued and accepted.

  Resolution agreed to.

  POPULATION (STATISTICS) [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make permanent the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such expenses as may be occasioned by any provision of the said Act of the present Session amending or giving permanent effect to the said Act of 1938.
  Resolution agreed to.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS)
  Mr. Richard Winterbottom discharged from the Select Committee; Mr. Oswald added.—[Mr. Legh.]
  ESTIMATES
  Mr. Roy Mason and Mr. Mellish discharged from the Select Committee; Mr. Gourlay and Mr. Owen added.—[Mr. Legh.]

  COUNCIL HOUSES, STOURBRIDGE (SALE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]
  8.1 p.m.
  Mr. George Wigg: Fortune is with me. I thought that I had half an hour for this debate, but I have two-and-a-half hours and I propose to take advantage of this fact.
  The subject which I bring before the House is one which, in my judgment, is worthy of a major debate. It concerns the sale of council houses by local authorities. I have a story to tell which I feared I should have to compress into half an hour, but I can now go into it in some detail.
  At the end of the last Session the House had before it a Bill which subsequently became the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959. I do not pose as an expert upon town and country planning or upon local government, but it was apparent to me that when that Bill became law it would alter the situation in which local authorities could dispose of houses under the authority of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. In 1952, the then Minister of Housing and Local Government published Circular No. 64/52 in which he gave general consent to the sale of houses, whereas, in the past, local authorities had been required to get specific authority.
  Concerning the sale of pre-war houses, under Clause 8 (1, a) the Minister gave authority, in the case of a house completed on or before 8th May, 1945, for sale on twenty years' purchase of the net annual rent, exclusive of rates and water rates and ignoring any rebate or other similar adjustment. That circular had been in existence for some seven years, but it has not resulted in the sale of many council houses. In some parts of the country it has not worked well. For example, in the Borough of Stourbridge, in my constituency, the present mayor, a Conservative, had himself moved a resolution in 1957 rescinding the previous decision of the Stourbridge Council to sell council houses as he thought as representing a majority on the council that it was unwise to proceed.

  1319
  In another part of my constituency, the County Borough of Dudley, it has not been found necessary to rescind the policy, but the authority has proceeded with caution and no great difficulty had arisen.
  When the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, was about to become law I endeavoured to put Questions on the Notice Paper asking the Minister what would happen to Circular 64/52 when the Town and Country Planning Bill became law. I was not absolutely certain because the Town and Country Planning Bill, if I may say so very gently, was not an easy document to understand.
  I tried to understand and get such advice as was open to me, and I sought to put down a Question. I ran into difficulty. The Table refused to accept my Question until the Bill had become law on the ground that to ask a Minister what he intended to do until the Bill became an Act was hypothetical. I make no complaint that I had to wait until 21st July, 1959. I then asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs
  "to what extent the conditions of Circular No. 64/52 relating to the sale of pre-war houses on which Exchequer subsidy is payable will continue to apply after the enactment of the Town and Country Planning Act; and whether he will make a statement."
  The Minister replied:
  "I am considering this matter and intend to give guidance on it to local authorities in the near future."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st July, 1959; Vol. 609, c. 104.]
  That was on 21st July, and I was sure that the Town and Country Planning Act created a new situation and that Circular 64/52 would have to be withdrawn. I pressed the Minister and asked other Questions, to which I shall refer later, on other aspects of the same problem, but I did not get very far with them.
  On 12th September I wrote a letter to the Minister saying:
  "On the 21st July I asked you in a Written Question: to what extent the conditions of Circular No. 64/52, relating to the sale of pre-war houses on which Exchequer subsidy is payable would continue to apply after the enactment of the Town and Country Planning Act; and whether you would make a statement. You were kind enough to reply—'I am considering this matter and intend to give guidance on it to local authorities in the near future'.
  1320
  As six weeks have passed, I wonder if you will be good enough to tell me at your very early convenience when you will publish the new circular so that local authorities understand the position which arises now that the Town and Country Planning Act has become law."
  The Minister was kind enough to reply and to say that he hoped to give guidance in the not too distant future.
  My first act when I came back to the House after the General Election was to ask the Minister on 3rd November:
  "When he intends to give guidance to local authorities regarding the sale of pre-war council houses; and when he proposes to withdraw Circular 64 of 1952."
  The reply that I received was:
  "I shall be issuing a new Circular shortly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd November, 1959; Vol. 612, c. 29.]
  I came back to the House, partly effective, before Christmas, and I felt that this matter was of such urgent importance that I wrote to Mr. Speaker asking for time on the Adjournment debate for the Christmas Recess. Unfortunately, more important matters came to Mr. Speaker's notice and I was not granted an Adjournment. As soon as I came back after the Christmas Recess I telephoned to the Minister of Housing and Local Government to inquire when the Circular was coming out, and I was told that it would be out shortly.
  Last week I made further supplications to both the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Mr. Speaker for an Adjournment debate, and on Thursday I was told by Mr. Speaker's Secretary that I had been granted an Adjournment debate for today. On Friday morning, by one of those astonishing coincidences in British public administration at which I never cease to wonder, I received a letter from the Minister telling me that the circular would be issued very shortly. [Laughter.] It had been sent to the printers.
  I can understand hon. Members being a little amused by this, but there is a serious side to it. In my constituency, the election was largely centred on the question of the sale of council houses. The Conservatives have a majority in Stourbridge, albeit a very narrow majority. They appointed a subcommittee, wholly composed of Conservatives, to consider this mater. I make no complaint about that. The chairman of it was the deputy-mayor,

  1321
  Councillor Guest. My friends who have seen the minutes tell me that proposals came before the Stourbridge Council that circulars should be issued at the time the Election was on, giving details about the sale of council houses, both pre-war and post-war, in Stourbridge, on the basis of the old circular 64/52.
  I would ask the House to believe me when I say that I am not raising the subject from a party political point of view, because I do not care very much about party politics when it takes on this form of exploiting people's basic need for houses. I try to clear such things up in the interest of good government. In a democracy, in which we have our differences, we should define what our differences are in order that people may understand what they are all about. It was perfectly clear and had been established to the satisfaction of the House on 21st July—and it was clear to the Minister—that Circular No. 64/52 was dead.
  I asked the Minister to withdraw it, and he declined to withdraw it. On 27th July, I asked him specifically whether he would withdraw it pending the production of a new circular. I put a Question on the Order Paper as follows:
  "… whether, in view of the confusion which now exists amongst local authorities regarding the sale of houses on which Exchequer subsidy is payable, he will immediately withdraw Circular No. 64 of 1952 pending the issue of the further guidance which he has promised to give to local authorities in the near future."
  I submit to hon. Members in all quarters of the House that, in view of the Minister's answer on 21st July, this was a reasonable request. Did the Minister accede to it? No, he did not. His answer was:
  "No. There has been no confusion among local authorities of which I am aware. But nothing could cause more confusion than to withdraw the present Circular without putting anything in its place."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1959; Vol. 610, c. 25.]
  That was left to the judgment of hon. Members.
  Not only did I try to make it clear to the people of Stourbridge that they were being hopelessly confused if they were offered houses for sale under Circular 64/52 after the Minister had said that it would eventually be withdrawn, but by putting Questions on the
  1322
  Order Paper and by writing to the town clerk of Stourbridge I tried to establish what the consequences would be to the citizens of Stourbridge if this proposal went through. The proposal was to sell all the pre-war council houses, 2,331 of them, at the 1952 price plus £156.
  The Minister was kind enough to tell me that if all the pre-war houses were sold then, in his own words,
  "after making some allowance for variations which occur in the amount of subsidy paid for houses provided under the 1919 Housing Act",
  Approximately £335,000 would be lost to Stourbridge. The town clerk, on the advice of the borough treasurer, does not completely accept that figure. He wrote to me on 17th July to say that, taking into account the total loss of subsidy for houses under the 1919 scheme, the loss to Stourbidge of Exchequer subsidy would be £378,000. The House may take the Minister's figure of £335,000 with adjustments or the town clerk's figure of £378,000, and they may assume for the purposes of discussion that there will be a loss of £350,000.
  The argument has been advanced time after time in Stourbridge, and indeed in the Midlands generally, that it does not make any difference that Stourbridge is to lose this Exchequer subsidy. The argument is that it is the public who will get the money back. No argument could be more dishonest or more fallacious than that, because those who will be assisted by the Exchequer being relieved of paying £378,000 are very different kinds of people, with very different kinds of income, from those who occupy prewar council houses which are being offered for sale at present.
  This is not the only thing which will happen in Stourbridge as a result of this transaction. As in many places, the rents of pre-war dwellings have been placed in a housing pool, which has been relieved by the contribution from pre-war dwellings and the fact that Exchequer subsidy was payable on them to the extent of £16,000 a year. If I may quote the words of the town clerk in a letter to me on 16th July,
  "This represents an average of 2s. 11d. per week on 2,204 post-war dwellings."
  If the scheme as proposed by Stourbridge, the conditions of which have been circulated to the occupant of every

  1323
  pre-war council house in Stourbridge, were implemented, the effect would be the loss of £350,000 of Exchequer Revenue, and the loss would fall, to an average of 2s. 11d. a week, on the 2,204 families who live in post-war council houses. I understand, indeed, that the proposal is to force this scheme through.
  It is perfectly clear that there must be some explanation of the delay from 21st July until this week-end when the Minister was kind enough to tell me that the issue of a new circular was imminent. If it is to be produced very shortly, that must mean in the next week or two.
  The Conservative majority on the Stourbridge Council is very narrow but, because of the working of our local government democracy, which means that those of my colleagues, the Labour members, who live in council houses, have not been allowed to vote on this issue, there is a permanent majority for this scheme. It is quite impossible, under the ordinary workings of majorities, for it to be defeated. Nevertheless, it is perfectly clear that there are at least a number of Conservatives who are opposed to the scheme. I have referred, for example, to the deputy-mayor, Councillor Guest. He was the chairman of the subcommittee. He resigned, and he publicly described the scheme to dispose of these houses, as announced, as frivolous.
  I understand that there are one or two other members on the Conservative side of the council who, behind the scenes, are quite free in their adverse comment on the scheme. It seems to be the Conservative way, however, before the vote to be very free with your comments but never to come quite up to scratch when it is time to hold up your hand. Given the fact that a number of my Labour friends live in council houses and, although being allowed to speak in the debate are not allowed to vote in it, and given the political situation, which prevents those members of the Conservative Party from putting their public duty before their private political inclinations, we are landed with this scheme.
  What astonished me, when the scheme came before the Stourbridge Council at the end of December, was to learn that it was being forced through on the basis of telephone conversations which had taken place between the deputy town
  1324
  clerk of Stourbridge and Mr. Hannigan, an official in the Ministry of Housing. I wrote rather sharply to the Minister pointing out, not that I regard myself as a very important person—because I do not—but that as a Member of Parliament I thought it a "bit hot", to say the least, that the information which he would not give to me was being passed, it was said, by one of his officials to a local government official. Because it is perfectly clear from the letter which the Minister wrote to me on 28th January that such conversations took place. It states:
  "It is correct that there was a telephone conversation between one of my officers and the Deputy Town Clerk of Stourbridge, but the latter was not told what the terms of the new circular were to be and there never has been any question of giving the Council a special consent."
  That is as it may be, but it is the fact that certain Conservative members of the council, not publicly but behind the scenes, have said over and over again that they had private information of what the policy was to be. And the circular which they wanted to publish and which in fact they did publish in Stourbridge, is based on private information given to them. I do not say it was given by officials of the Ministry. It would be wrong to use the privilege of this House to impugn them. I think there was a channel of communication because the Minister so far forgot his public duty as to forget to bear in mind constantly that he was a Minister of the Crown and that his party political interests should come second to that consideration. In other words, to put it bluntly and in plain English, from about last July when the election was imminent, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, not to his credit, played politics with this policy and with the sale of council houses. That is my first assertion—
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a non sequitur here. He is seeking to suggest that Stourbridge had special information, which he is entitled to suggest. He is then linking this with some behaviour by my right hon. Friend in purely general terms, and I very much hope that if he is not going to withdraw that he will substantiate it. But I hope that he will withdraw it.
  Mr. Wigg: I may be guilty of a non sequitur, and if so, that is an error of logic for which I pray to be forgiven. But let us go over it again. Six months have gone by—
  Sir K. Joseph: I am not for a moment at this stage defending the delay. Delay is one thing, but a certain sinister motive crept into what up until then was an entertaining, interesting and valuable speech. I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw that sinister motive.
  Mr. Wigg: It is the first time I have heard it is sinister to further the interests of the Conservative Party. This is what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I think there are limits. This is my view. It may be that t have a higher sense of public duty than the Minister. In view of what I think has happened, I hope that I have. I am not saying that there is anything sinister about it. I have other comments to make which may sound even more sinister.
  There is no allegation that the Minister was guilty of personal dishonourable conduct. If I thought that I should have written to him and said so, because I am not mealy-mouthed about these things. I say that an explanation is required of why, from 21st July, we have still not had a circular. There is an explanation required of why information not given to me was communicated to an official of the Stourbridge Council. I went out of my way to exonerate any local government official or member of the Civil Service, because they cannot answer. The Minister can and is doing so through his Parliamentary Secretary.
  What I am saying I can base only on the evidence available to me. It is freely said—I have in my hand a letter from a member of the Stourbridge Council who says that it has been said over and over again—that what has driven the Conservative group on that council into what, I think, is quite an absurd and illogical position is that members of the group have been saying that the Minister has communicated with them not through Departmental but through political channels, and this would make sense.
  I was going to say how it made sense. I suppose that on the even of the election, from the Conservative point of view, nothing was more desirable to illustrate the workings of Conservative democracy
  1326
  than to say that anybody who wanted to buy council houses could do so at knock-down prices. Or if one could issue a circular, or could get candidates—who do not always perhaps understand the finer shades of political in-fighting—to go round the countryside and talk with conviction about disposing houses at give-away prices, even if the Minister never intended to do anything of the kind. The Minister is responsible for his actions and for the consequences. I think that is what happened. If the Parliamentary Secretary thinks that is sinister, as I say, I have more sinister things to say.
  I have traced the history of the earlier proceedings up to the present time, and I have told the House that I wrote to the Minister after the council meeting at the end of December and expressed my disquiet and the Minister replied. The Minister has not only replied to me, I understand, as he said in his letter, he also sent a circular to the Stourbridge Council. Other authorities may or may not have been similarly favoured. But he told it the policy, and if hon. Members do not know what is that policy, I will tell them.
  The letter is dated 28th January, and it told me for the first time that the circular was imminent and what the policy would be. Perhaps I had better read all the letter:
  "It is correct that there was a telephone conversation between one of my officers and the Deputy Town Clerk of Stourbridge, but the latter was not told what the terms of the new circular were to be and there never has been any question of giving the Council a special consent. Until Circular 64/52 is withdrawn the general consent contained in it remains effective, though it would be open to me to require any local authority to get a specific consent if they were proposing something to which I took objection. The Deputy Town Clerk was reminded that his Council, if they were to go ahead, would be doing so under the existing general consent and was told that from what was known of their proposals there would be no objection to their doing so. I will see that you are sent a copy of the circular as soon as it is available."
  Perhaps I may ask the Parliamentary Secretary to thank the Minister personally for that very kind concession.
  "This should be very soon indeed, but it may be helpful for you to know its main tenor now, for the policy is decided and I am simply waiting for the printer; I am sending similar information to Stourbridge Borough Council. In the case of post-war houses I do not propose to alter the basis that the sale

  1327
  price should not be less than the all-in cost of providing the house. For pre-war houses, the basis is to be changed so as to make the minimum permitted sale price twenty times the net annual rent charged for the house immediately prior to the sale ignoring any rebate."
  The Minister went on:
  "I should emphasise, however, that the minimum price is meant to be the minimum, especially in the case of pre-war houses, and should not be regarded as a norm. The proper level of prices must always be a matter of judgment in the light of the circumstances of the particular local authority concerned, but I should point out that gross value for rating purposes will often be a better guide than the current rent and that a price of thirty-five to forty times the gross value would in general seem appropriate."
  When the Minister wrote to me on 24th September he said:
  "I am concerned to give fresh guidance to local authorities as soon as possible, but this is an important and difficult question which requires careful consideration. I am trying to find a basis of disposal which will safeguard the housing finances of the local authority while giving a reasonable encouragement to home ownership, and is at the same time both simple to apply and adapted to the varying circumstances of different authorities. From your knowledge of the matter, I am sure you will appreciate that it is not easy to find an answer to satisfy all these desiderata. I shall, however, lose no time in publishing a circular when I have completed my examination of the problem."
  I say to the Parliamentary Secretary what I have said publicly. I accept that as a basis of policy. It is a perfectly fair policy. It would be mealy-mouthed and hypocritical to argue against it. I live in my own house, and why should I deny that privilege to anyone else? Any man has a right to live in his own house, and anything done to facilitate home ownership, particularly among young people, is a perfectly sound policy and has the support of both sides of the House.
  I remind the hon. Gentleman that I support equally the other part of the proposition. The Minister says:
  "I am trying to find a basis of disposal which will safeguard the housing finances of the local authority".
  We are here considering the interests of those who want houses but cannot afford to buy them. I support the Minister's statement. I said during the General Election, and repeat, that it has my wholehearted support.
  Now let us look at the Minister's letter in the light of what he says there. First, he does not change the policy, so
  1328
  what was holding it up for six months? What was the difficult situation in September? The policy is just the same except for one point. I think it would be a great public service, not only to Stourbridge but to other parts of the country, if the Parliamentary Secretary will explain what is meant by:
  "I shall emphasise, however, that the minimum price is meant to be a minimum, especially in the case of pre-war houses, and should not be regarded as a norm".
  Not the same words and not with the same force, but similar words were used in Circular 64/52, and in Stourbridge the minimum was regarded as being the norm. In the circular, which I hold in my hand, which was sent out in January of this year by the town clerk of Stourbridge under the authority of the Conservative majority, narrow though it is, there is an offer to sell non-parlour type houses of two bedrooms for £467; three-bedroomed houses from £492 to £609, four-bedroomed houses for £646 and five-bedroomed houses for £542 to £596. Parlour type three-bedroomed houses are offered for sale from £596 to £713 and four-bedroomed houses for £725. To be fair, the circular continues:
  "These prices would be increased in appropriate cases where additional facilities now exist in the house, by the following amounts: (a) For back boiler hot water installations: £67 or £75. (b) For hot water geyser installations: £54 or £63. (c) For electricity installations (part or whole): £8 to £42"
  I ask the House to look at the Minister's new policy and see if it is to bear the same interpretation as the previous one, that is to say, if local authorities are to be free to regard the minimum as the minimum if they so wish. Let us see how it affects housing at Stourbridge and in the Midlands generally. If this is Conservative policy, let us see how it works. Stourbridge is a delightful Worcestershire town. It has some Black Country black spots which date back to the Industrial Revolution. That is not the fault of the people. That is one of the legacies of history. Houses have to be pulled down. Lye in Stourbridge has a development plan which has been a source of controversy and houses have to be acquired under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, which altered values. It destroyed the basic link on which sound legislation will be based—the link between betterment and compensation.

  1329
  Now let me give publicly the prices being paid by Stourbridge for houses which they must have in the public interest, many of which are to be bought only to be pulled down. The local inhabitants of Lye in Stourbridge will know the areas and will know what they are worth. Nos. 2 and 5, Summer Street, Lye, have been acquired recently for £940. No. 135, Cemetery Road has been acquired for £2,606. No. 54, Belmont Road has been acquired for £2,082. No. 39, Crabbe Street has been acquired for £828, No. 55, Hillbank for £1,000, 10/10A, Cross Walks Road for £260, 40, Cross Walks Road for £530, 48, Hillbank for £240, 14, Hillbank for £440, 44, Hillbank for £490, 60a, Hillbank for £825, 60b. Hillbank for £750 and 8, Pope Street for £115.
  A total of £11,106 has been spent by Stourbridge in acquiring houses, some of them very old houses, for the purposes of a development scheme. Yet if this policy means what is says, or it means what the Conservatives take it to mean, we should be selling 2,300 houses at an entirely different figure. Those in High Park Avenue will be sold for £600, yet their estimated value on a conservative basis is £1,500 to £2,000.
  The general view now, the circular having already gone out—if the minimum can be regarded as the norm by the local authority—is that the houses now being offered for sale are being disposed of at half their value, while the houses we are buying are being bought at twice their value.
  There has already been a reference to something sinister. I come now to something else. It is not sinister, and I do not impugn the honour of the person concerned. This is something which happened in Dudley which I should like explained so that people in the Midlands and the Black Country may understand this circular and how town and country planning is working. The local authority of Dudley wanted to acquire a certain house, the property of Mr. H. L. Preedy, the President of the Dudley and Stourbridge Conservative Association. I am sure that the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) will know him. Mr. Preedy is to receive £10,000 for his house. "Ashleigh", Ednam Road, Dudley, is being disposed of, or it is with the Ministry for sanction, at £10,000.
  1330
  I have taken the trouble to make inquiries from an authoritative source, and I am told that, before the passing of the 1959 Act, the compensation would not have been more than £6,000. I make no imputations against the honesty of Mr. Preedy. He has a perfect right to take advantage of an Act which enables him to obtain the full value of his house not as a dwelling, though it is a house in Dudley, but as a house if it were converted into offices. He is to receive £10,000 and, I presume, he will be leaving Dudley. I hope very much that he will go and live in Kidderminster, but I hope that he and the Conservative Association will remember sometimes that the purchase of his house in Dudley cost a 3d. rate.
  In Dudley there is some very bad housing. There are people there struggling to live respectable and decent lives in appalling housing conditions. Yet every one of them will make a contribution of at least 1d. or 1½d. in the £ towards Mr. Preedy's £10,000.
  My friends in Stourbridge have fought against this proposal and tried to educate the public. So far as I have any influence, I am always a democrat. I believe that if the people decide that they want to live under a Conservative Administration, national or local, they should be free to do so. I wish them the best of luck. I hope my fears will prove groundless. But my job is to educate them, if I may use that word without presumption, in the consequences of having a Conservative Administration. This is what my friends in Stourbridge are trying to do, too.
  They have, of course, put forward alternative proposals. I should have thought that these proposals would commend themselves to the Minister. They suggest that if we have to buy property on the basis of what the district valuer says we should be able to sell it on the same basis. But I must not push that too far, I suppose, because it would require legislation. However, it certainly seems to be a perfectly fair, straight forward and honest view.
  Of course, these things work out in the oddest way. The Minister has urged local authorities to have housing pools. In Dudley rents of pre-war houses have risen by 77 per cent. since

  1331
  1952, while in Stourbridge they have gone up by only 10 per cent. That is why, with a Conservative council more concerned with a doctrinaire policy of getting rid of all council houses irrespective of the social consequences, we have such ludicrous proposals as the selling of public property worth £1,500 for £600. This accounts for the difference in price for a similar kind of house in Dudley and Stourbridge.
  There is also the town planning point. What will happen in these places as the years go by if this policy catches on, if a house is bought here and another one there and if later a local authority wants to do something about a road or to build a new school or even to make a footpath? It seems to me that ultimately the whole basis of planning will be destroyed.
  I am still fortunate enough to have time at my disposal, but I do not want to weary the House. It may be that I have aroused interest in other hon. Members who may like to make a contribution to this subject which has an importance far beyond Dudley and Stourbridge. When the new circular comes along, I hope that my hon. Friends with special responsibilities for housing will consider its implications over the whole country and will, if necessary, seek to raise a debate on the subject.
  I want to consider another aspect. It was proposed in January this year by the Stourbridge Council to make a review of the housing repairs fund. It was falling into arrear. It was proposed to increase the charge by 1s. a week from 1st April. Then it was decided to put back the increase to 1st June. Here I should like to quote from the Express and Star of 15th December which contains a report of a Stourbridge Council meeting. The report reads:
  "A rent review, which was planned in an effort to sort out rent anomalies, has been deferred for six months so it will not interfere with house sales."
  I should have thought that that is a categorical statement. The hon. Gentleman will draw his own conclusions, and equally I can draw mine, from the deferment of this proposal until 1st June. I suggest that this is an effort to keep down the rent in order to conform with the Minister's policy and to dispose of one
  1332
  of Stourbridge's main assets, its pre-war houses, of which there are 2,300, at the lowest possible price.
  I disagree with this policy, but I hope that I have been fair in what I have said. In Stourbridge there is, at the latest date for which I can get figures, a waiting list of 1,000 people wanting houses. If all the pre-war houses, which are the cheapest, are disposed of, what will happen to the Minister's slum clearance policy? The rents of post-war houses are very high, and it is perfectly clear that there is a considerable number of people on that waiting list whose economic conditions are such that they must have a house at the lowest possible rent. If all the pre-war houses are sold, what is to happen to these people? Taking the Minister's policy in his letter to me of last September and accepting it and then trying to see how it works out in Stourbridge, it seems to me that nonsense is made of everything that the Minister has said or is trying to do.
  We are now probably near the end of the story. The publication of the circular cannot be very much longer delayed. We know that, presumably, when it is published if the interpretation which is placed on it locally is the correct one and that Stourbridge Council is free to dispose of its houses at the lowest possible price, the citizens of Stourbridge will be faced with the economic consequences. I should be obliged if the Parliamentary Secretary would spell that out.
  I hope very much that the hon. Gentleman will also spell out the meaning of the fourth paragraph of the Minister's letter, to which I have referred, concerning the meaning of a "norm". Clearly—this would be a rational explanation—it could be a minimum for the authority to apply to the least desirable kind of house, leaving the Minister's other standard of 35–40 times the gross value to be applied to the more desirable kind of house, or, if necessary, perhaps the houses which are known to be extremely desirable could be left for the district valuer's standard of value. Or it could mean that the varying local authorities, in the light of local conditions, could apply the minimum price as a norm and that it would be a norm only for those authorities which cared to do it. That seems jumbly, but that is how it seems to me.

  1333
  The latter part of the Minister's policy, stating
  "I shall point out that gross value for rating purposes will often be a better guide than the current rent and that a price of 35 to 40 times the gross value would in general seem appropriate"
  commands my support, because it seems to me to be logical. If one takes the 1939 values as now being about double, if the Minister applies twenty times the annual rent where that is applicable and if the rents are now double in terms of 1939, 40 times the gross value would just about put it right.
  If that were applied, it would have another desirable consequence. I think that Stourbridge, if allowed to do this, will be an exception. Most local authorities would tend to regard their handling of public property as a trust, even in the case of majorities of one's and two's. The fact that people cannot vote on the council is not an excuse for slick political action simply to get one's way. Members of local authorities, like those of us in this House, must be conscious that people come after them and they are not free to liquidate or dispose of assets in accordance with the political needs of the moment.
  If local authorities like Stourbridge were to do this on a wide scale, what would happen to the credit of local authorities? Already, borough treasurers are finding themselves in difficulties. They find it difficult to raise money on long term and they have to get money expensively on short term. No business man in his senses would adopt a policy of buying dear and selling cheap. He would be bankrupt if he did. If this is allowed to be done for political purposes on a wide scale, local government finance, which the Minister mentioned in his letter of 12th September, will get a bit of a rough handling. That is why it seems difficult to believe that the interpretation placed upon it in Stourbridge is correct.
  The Minister doubtless has seen the circulars sent out by Stourbridge. It has sent out circulars on pre-war housing inviting applications on the basis of the prices I have given. Already, however, the Minister's proposals make nonsense of that, for even if twenty times the net annual rent for a house immediately prior to sale is applied, the value should bear relation to the rent at the moment
  1334
  of selling. Even though there is evidence of the rents being deliberately kept down to further the policy, it is difficult to believe that all these 2,000 houses can be disposed of before June. By June, prices would have gone up and the terms of the circular would be out of date. Each case would have to be dealt with on its merits.
  That leads to another point to which, I hope, the Minister will give attention, though not necessarily tonight. This will create a difficult administrative problem. What will be the cost in terms of administration if all the pre-war houses come up for sale and each one is decided on merit and repayments have to be collected weekly or monthly? The administrative costs will be very great.
  Of course, in this proposal, too, is the suggestion that the council will ask the prospective purchaser to pay £1. Prewar houses at Stourbridge are not only to be given away at half their price, but the occupants of the houses can get them for £1 each. This is too much for the deputy-mayor of Stourbridge, Councillor Guest, who resigned the chairmanship of the Housing Committee, but who could not bring himself to overcome his party scruples to vote against it. I must not say hard words about that record it just as a fact.
  What a door this leaves open. The property market has been rigged pretty substantially in London. Attempts are being made to rig it in the Midlands. Already feelers are being put out by companies which have very recently been formed to acquire properties for the purpose of development. But what about the more shady property company which comes along and encourages the people to acquire the houses? This sort of system of finance is almost an invitation to the shady gentlemen to come along and put up the money at quite onerous rates of interest for people to acquire houses. What a picking for them five years later. They help people to acquire houses at Stourbridge at half their value. Some of them are worth three times the amount. In five years they will belong not to the public, not to the citizens of Stourhridge, but to some shady finance company out for a quick penny. This is the take-over bid carried to what I think is the logical conclusion—certainly carried to a conclusion which I wholly deplore.

  1335
  I have always had a high opinion of the Minister of Housing and Local Government, dating to days long before he became a Minister. He shared the friendship of the late Master of Balliol, Lord Lindsay, who had a great influence on my own life and who often used to speak in approving terms, not of the right hon. Gentleman's politics but of the right hon. Gentleman as a man. I carried those views with me. I found when I raised constituency matters with him when he was Financial Secretary that he was perfectly fair and always helpful. I am sure that in this matter he cannot be aware of what is going on.
  We must be charitable. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will acquit me of any idea of being sinister. I do not operate that way. Anything I have to say I say openly, and I give notice of it if I am going to criticise anyone. I think highly of the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that, perhaps under the influence of a General Election, he forgot his high office and put his finger in the political scales. It would have been better not to have done so.
  I am quite sure that the situation in Stourbridge is one with which he is not familiar, that it has arisen, not because of his weakness but from sheer local enthusiastic stupidity, and that he cannot be aware of what the consequences must be to all the people of Stourbridge if this policy is carried through. The opposition of my friends on the Stourbridge Council has, perhaps, exacerbated the natural enthusiastic stupidity of the people on the other side.
  I have been fortunate in having had a fairly long time to speak on this matter tonight. I hope that in view of what I have said the Minister will do his best to clear up some of the doubts. If they are not cleared up, I earnestly appeal to my hon. Friends not to let the matter rest at this Adjournment debate, but to raise it again in wider, stricter and harsher terms than I can use on this occasion.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. John E. Talbot: I think that I should begin by saying how pleased we are to see the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) back in his place after his serious illness. It is evident
  1336
  that he is fully recovered and is in good form. On a personal note, I should like to say to him that something was said during his election campaign which ought not to have been said. Many of his friends in the Midlands who disagree with him politically are sorry for that and hope that by now he will have forgotten it with his usual generosity.
  It will be strange if I did not know a little about what the hon. Member has been talking about because to pass from one part of his two-borough constituency to the other he has to pass through mine, and we then experience seismic disturbance in the Black Country. It would be wrong if I were not to defend the lamb which has broken away from the fold, namely, the Borough of Stourbridge. I know many of the people to whom the hon. Member has referred and a good many others who have taken a leading part in this acute political controversy. In my opinion, the quality of administration in Stourbridge has vastly improved since there has been a change of political control of that town.
  As to the question of housing, we want to bring the debate back to the simplest possible level by saying that in the light of the law as it now exists the Borough of Stourbridge has not done anything whatever which is either contrary to law or unbusinesslike in the execution of that law. There is, as we all know, a wide gulf between the Socialist and Conservative parties on the question whether council houses should be sold or not. That is a principle which I do not doubt will be debated on many occasions, but Stourbridge having decided to offer for sale its council houses, surely the question of what is paid under quite different schemes or what is being paid in the loyal half of my hon. Friend's constituency on a private deal to an individual is utterly irrelevant to the question before the House. I am bound to say with sorrow, and perhaps out of turn as a new Member, that it is extremely undesirable to publicise in Parliament private sales of property from which no public point of interest can be adduced, merely because it seems to have the effect of attacking a political opponent.
  In the matter of the disposal of council houses, the advice in the circular

  1337
  from the Ministry which is now about to be withdrawn and amended is perfectly sound. The advice in the further circular of which we have had some little notice in the debate tonight is also sound. Let us reflect for a moment that many of these pre-war council houses have now enjoyed a life of forty years and the 60-year loans by which they were erected are substantially repaid. Therefore, it may be, and often is, an economic advantage to a council in the position of the Stourbridge Council to liquidate property of that age which is bound to require ever-increasing repairs in order to get cash into borough funds from which the erection of newer houses can be financed.
  I do not know the figures in this case, but I have had seven years' experience as chairman of a finance committee not far away and it was considered a perfectly sound principle of finance that one sold an ageing asset in order to obtain cash to purchase an improved asset. From an economic point of view that policy on the part of Stourbridge Conservatives is perfectly sound.
  It is rather nice to have the attention of the entire world focused in this Mother of Parliaments on an obscure corner of the Midlands. Those who take upon themselves to do that owe a duty to this place to see that what they say is balanced and fair, just to a community of 40,000 people, a corporate borough, that is not here to reply for itself.
  In conclusion, may I say how gravely the hon. Gentleman's speech, for all its charm and force, will be regarded in the constituency which he seeks to serve?
  9.1 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: I cannot regard Stourbridge and the neighbourhood as an obscure corner of the Midlands. No part of the United Kingdom which has been represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) could possibly be obscure. Although my hon. Friend has raised what is, to begin with, a constituency matter, it has much wider implications and for that reason I venture to take up the time of the House for a few minutes
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) also said that what Stourbridge had done was in no way illegal and not unbusinesslike. It
  1338
  was not suggested by my hon Friend this was illegal. Indeed, if I understood him aright, a great part of the substance of his complaint was that this kind of thing can be done under the present law and under its administration by the Ministry. It is completely misconceived criticism of my hon. Friend's speech to say that what Stourbidge was proposing to do was not illegal.
  The hon. Gentleman also said that it was not unbusinesslike. That depends on the definition of "business". We have seen a number of instances recently of what is commonly called business. It consists in shifting wealth from one pocket to another, with no gain in the total wealth of the community. In certain circles that kind of thing is considered to be the essence of a businesslike transaction. If that is what one means by businesslike, it can certainly be said that what was proposed to be done in Stourbridge was very businesslike indeed, but what is in issue is whether that kind of business is good business for the community generally.
  It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary has a fair amount to answer here and I only want to underline two points that seem to me of general significance. One is that apparently under the circular which is just about to be superseded, and, equally, under the one that is to be introduced, it will be possible to sell council property at what would appear to be surprisingly low prices. I do not understand the sentence at the end of the letter of 28th January, which states that the minimum is meant to be a minimum and should not be regarded as a norm. We shall want to know, when the circular is before us, what is to prevent a local authority from turning the minimum into a norm, which appears to be exactly what Stourbridge is doing.
  If council houses can be sold at prices that are obviously below their full value, it is a matter of considerable public interest. We all want to encourage owner-occupation of houses, but to encourage it legitimately is one thing. To suggest to certain people that they can become owner-occupiers on terms and conditions, which means that they are heavily subsidised at the expense of their fellow citizens, who either cannot or, for legitimate reasons, do not wish to buy their own houses but to remain as

  1339
  council tenants, is very different thing and an undesirable state of affairs. Yet it appears from what my hon. Friend has said that this is happening in Stourbridge and it is the responsibility of the Ministry to do something about it.
  The other point of general importance is the one made by my hon. Friend that members of the Stourbridge Council were aware of the nature of the new policy which the Minister is about to introduce at a time when it had not been disclosed to the House and had not been disclosed to my hon. Friend despite his repeated inquiries. If that has happened through any channel—political, official or otherwise—the Minister is responsible for it happening, because it is his business to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen.
  The Parliamentary Secretary may remember that some months ago this Ministry was under criticism because material and facilities, information and addresses that were in its possession had been made available to a political organisation for political purposes. It was what was known as the "sticky labels" case, and it was fashionable in the party opposite, and in the Press which supports it, to suggest that we were making a great deal of fuss about nothing. In fact, what we were making a fuss about was the handing over of information which ought not to have been handed over to a partisan organisation for political purposes.
  To regard that as a slight matter is a derogation from the standard of political behaviour that one thought we had established in this country in this century, but which might have been more appropriate in the eighteenth century. It may be said that that was only a little thing and that this prior information getting to the Stourbridge Council was only another kind of little thing. How often is this kind of thing to happen? That seems to me to be one of the questions which face the Parliamentary Secretary tonight.
  9.6 p.m.
  Mr. John Wells: I can lay only a very small claim to any interest in this desirable and in no way obscure area of the West Midlands through having had connections with Smethwick some years ago.
  1340
  The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), at the beginning of his speech, was making implications of rigging, and so on, by various recently established finance companies. Companies must be allowed to come and go, and one cannot make implications about a company because it is newly established. It is a pity to attack a new business institution merely on the grounds of novelty.
  Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands me. It is not because they come, but because they go.
  Mr. Wells: The hon. Gentleman did say that it was a new company, which seems to me to be an unfortunate turn of phrase. Again, he used the phrase "illegal and unbusinesslike" about these goings on. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) said, it is neither illegal nor unbusinesslike. My hon. Friend made the point extremely well that it is desirable to sell a wasting asset and reinvest the money in an up-to-date asset, and that surely is the policy of every wise finance committee of a local authority.
  There is, however, one broader matter which I should like to bring to the attention of my hon. Friend on this matter of the sale of council houses. Some councils have verbally offered houses for sale to their tenants and have then had second thoughts about it. I go a long way with the hon. Member for Dudley in thinking that a council should either sell houses or not sell houses, but once they have decided to sell and make an offer to the tenants, even if it is only a verbal one, I think that the council should maintain its word. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to draw the attention of his right hon. Friend to this situation in which some councils apparently change their minds half-way.
  9.8 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Edwards: I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has performed a very useful service to local government and to democratic institutions in this country by raising this matter in the way he has done. He made a very careful speech and no doubt he could have hit the headlines with some of the material in his possession, but his speech was modest and logical. At no stage did he suggest that the action of the Stourbridge

  1341
  Council was illegal, although it has been suggested in the two speeches from the other side of the House that my hon. Friend implied that these sales were illegal.
  My hon. Friend spent a good deal of his time in explaining the difficulties that we get into when we legalise matters of this nature, and this legality can become a grave disservice to the community. Hon. Members opposite have stressed the idea that it is good business for a council to sell what they have referred to repeatedly as declining assets. It is news to me, and I am sure that it will be news to many local authorities, that houses only forty years old are declining assets.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: The property-owners do not think so.
  Mr. Edwards: No, they do not. They think that houses 100 years old are now very good assets. Some of the houses which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley mentioned were sold for double the sums for which 40-year-old houses are being sold and are very much older than those houses. Details were given of the payment of £11,000 for one small area bought by a local council for slum clearance purposes.
  Mr. J. Wells: It was said earlier today by a number of hon. Members opposite, when we debated requisitioned houses, that houses about forty years old were definitely wasting assets and were deteriorating. Hon. Members opposite spoke of older houses being a liability. How can the hon. Member now say that a 40-year-old house is in its prime?
  Mr. Edwards: I will proceed to explain, if the hon. Member will listen, the point at issue.
  Parliament grants local authorities subsidies for building houses for slum clearance purposes. A council with a waiting list of 1,000 persons—and in my constituency there are urban areas with far more than 1,000 people waiting for houses—has to house many people who cannot pay the kind of rent which we have to charge for new houses—because of the cost of labour, the increased cost of building materials, interest charges, and so on.
  1342
  However, young couples get tenancies of municipal houses by exchanges. The lower-priced older houses, forty and fifty years old, are exchanged by older families, whose incomes have risen over the years, for new houses occupied by younger people, who go to the older house where they can pay a lower rent. If that possibility of interchange of tenancy is wiped out, serious new problems will be created for local authorities and for young people who just cannot pay high rents and whose only hope of getting a council house is to take over an older house by that exchange system.
  That was the point being made. That is why emphasis has been laid on the importance of giving this matter further consideration. It was suggested by the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) that my hon. Friend was doing an unparliamentary thing by daring to say that the chairman of the local Conservative Party had sold to a local council for £10,000 a house that was more than forty years old. Public money was paid for that old house, public money to the tune of £10,000.
  Why should these things be discussed in secret? It is not a disservice to bring these things into the light of day. It is a great public service to the good people in the Black Country to let them know how much they have to pay for declining assets for one purpose and how little they get for declining assets for another purpose. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will consider in detail the points that have been put forward by my hon. Friend. They are basic points which are of great importance to our whole system of local government.
  9.17 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I have a relatively short House of Commons memory, but it goes back long enough to remember the occasion when the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) entertained the House with a graphic speech in the vocabulary of Damon Runyon. It was a memorable speech both for content and delivery, but this is the first time that I have heard a long and scintillating speech in the vocabulary of Aesop because, with all respect to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), it seemed to me that he gave us

  1343
  a moral tale hung tenuously on a very slender thread of definite fact and on an entertaining and slightly off-beat series of generalisations based, first, on a local and then on a national phantasy. I will take each part of what he said in detail.
  First, I am on weak ground because the new circular has taken a long time to prepare. That is not an offence. It is a complex matter and a lot of time and thought has to be given to it. It is slightly disconcerting to be reminded of the timetable which reaches back to the Question in July, the letter in September, the confrontation of these two formidable opposites, my right hon. Friend considering a new circular and the hon. Member for Dudley finding out what is to be in it, or trying to do so, the confrontation being interrupted by two serious interventions, one in which I rejoice, the election, the other of which pains me, the illness of the hon. Gentleman, the confrontation taken up by Questions in November and still the hon. Member preoccupied over the Christmas Recess by the problem of the circular only to find that when we return here, and still in February that the circular is to emerge shortly. I assure the hon. Member that it will emerge very shortly.
  In answer to the legitimate complaints of the hon. Gentleman I can only say that it has taken a long time. We are not ashamed of it, but we apologise for the delay. We are sorry for the delay, but there has been a good deal of work to do in my right hon Friend's Department and we have been faced with a complex but relatively small matter which has needed a great deal of thought.
  Mr. Wigg: What happened before the Bill became an Act? The Minister knew that when it became law Circular 64/52 would lapse, but he never told the House that in the course of the proceedings on the Bill. The Parliamentary Secretary cannot ride away with it like that. It is six months since the Bill became an Act, but there was a long period before that in which this circular could have been issued. He knew that the policy was to be changed.
  Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member forgets that legislation leads to many consequential and desirable alterations,
  1344
  and that not everything can be done at once. The intervention of the election caused an understandable delay in policy-making, which accounted for a few months of this delay.
  I now come to the "Stourbridge Initiative", if I may so call the next chapter in this story. I reject wholeheartedly any suggestion of special information either to Stourbridge, through the Ministry, or on a party net. Besides, it is quite unnecessary to explain what happened by invoking such suggestions. The fact is that Stourbridge evidently contemplated the sale of houses at about the same time that my right hon. Friend was contemplating a revised circular. Stourbridge certainly consulted my right hon. Friend's Department, and was told—as the hon. Member was informed in a letter from my right hon. Friend—that Circular 64/52 was still alive and that the council was, therefore, legally free to do anything that the circular permitted it to do in this matter.
  I now come to the substance of the question, namely, the Stourbridge proposals. We are told that Stourbridge proposed to sell all its houses. I find this suggestion a little disingenuous. If some buyers are interested in any market operation, there are many other buyers who are not, but who have to be informed of the operation. The fact that the Stourbridge Corporation thought fit to circulate all its tenants does not mean that it expected, contemplated or was prepared, for 100 per cent. of the tenants to buy. I do not know what proportion of council tenants take up the offer to buy council houses, but I would wager that it is a small proportion, and this proportion was almost certainly known to the officers and members of Stourbridge Corporation.
  I am sure that the hon. Member for Dudley has sometimes received catalogues from people who wanted him to buy articles, but did not expect him to buy, merely counting on a small proportion of all the people to whom they sent catalogues wishing to buy the articles offered.
  Mr. Wigg: Disingenuous no; ingenuous, yes. I believed that the Conservative members of the council meant what they said.
  Sir K. Joseph: I do not think that the hon. Member and I are too far apart in this matter. They meant what they said. I agree. They wanted to sell some council houses, but they never expected that all the council houses would be bought.
  I now come to the next chapter, which I regard as by far the most important, namely, the price for sale of council houses. Here I come to that part of Aesop's tale where the moral lies. What has been said by the hon. Member for Dudley, my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) and the two hon. Members opposite who intervened, can be most valuable in reflecting the facts of housing life to any part of the public, or any local authorities who do not appreciate them, but I must assert that the view of my party is that whatever we may think, local authorities have power, within a certain defined sphere in housing—within the power set out in Circular 64/52—to act on their own judgment, subject only to the views of their electors, which is a powerful sanction.
  In my opinion, however, sales of prewar houses can easily be conducted both on too large a scale and at too cheap a price for the health either of the tenants of the local authority or the ratepayers. I repeat, however, that the general consent given by my right hon. Friend in Circular 64/52 gives local authorities power to take action above a certain minimum.
  This brings me to the definition of "minimum", not the norm, which my right hon. Friend emphasised. If rents are held disproportionately low and the sale price is based upon so many years' purchase of those rents, the house could be sold at an unreasonably low price, thus injuring other tenants and the ratepayers, and reducing the assets that belong to the public in that area through the local authority.
  It is a relevant comment which my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Talbot) has made, that a council can legitimately take into account the maintenance expenses of old houses. This is most important, and one assumes that councils do take this into account. But also, when considering the sale of any of their assets, they should not conduct it entirely on x years' purchase of rent basis, without checking that the rent
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  reflects current values in some way such as my right hon. Friend has suggested—against gross values which are to some extent a yardstick of current value.
  I was asked by the hon. Member for Dudley to spell out what the consequences will be if they do not do this, and I should like to take the opportunity to do so. If councils were to dispose too cheaply or in too large quantities of all their relatively cheaply built pre-war houses, they would achieve a very great disservice to the general population whom they serve, because it is these cheaply built pre-war houses which can, without hardship to any individual tenant, particularly if the rebate scheme is effective in the area, be offered at a price which more than serves the capital locked up in those houses, and, therefore, help to reduce the rents that have to be paid for the more expensively built post-war houses.
  That is the reason why local authorities must be careful to take current values when considering the sale of council houses. If they were to sell either too cheaply or in too large quantities this could be a very serious drain on the ratepayers, who would have to find the difference which, up to then, had been found by charging higher rents than needed to serve the capital in these more cheaply built houses.
  I find the comparison by the hon. Member for Dudley between the increase of rent which has taken place in Dudley and that which has taken place in Stourbridge since the war very instructive. I must remind myself, before I am reminded, that there are different circumstances in each area. I am not commenting in detail on those areas, but the fact that two local authorities so close to each other have raised their rents by such different margins over the same period at least puts one on inquiry. Of course, one does not know from what level of rent the comparison began.
  I hope that I have taken the main point of the debate by trying to explain what my right hon. Friend means when he stresses the importance of the yardstick which he lays down in the circular as being a minimum and not a norm. I hope that I have explained clearly the penalties which a local authority might impose on its tenants and ratepayers if

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  it sold too many houses at too cheap a price.
  I come to something about which I cannot be quite so much in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. The next chapter is headed, "Comparison between the buying and selling prices of houses."
  I maintain that there is nothing whatever incompatible between, on the one hand, buying a property at market value as laid down by the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, and, on the other hand, selling a property at below market value to a sitting tenant with a five-year condition against resale or the right of pre-emption of the local authority. It is normal practice in the well-conducted management of property to offer a sitting tenant the property which he occupies at a lower price than that at which a stranger would buy it.
  That is all that this local authority is doing. Whether it is offering the property at too big a margin below market price is a matter on which I am not called to comment here, because, provided the authority keeps above the minimum, for the rest it is its own affair, with the sanction of the local electorate behind it, if it gets it wrong. I would emphasise that the bogies which the hon. Member has waved in front of us about the higher value on purchase and the low value on sale ignores the fact that the sale was to a sitting tenant.
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  I should also like to dispose of his comment, in passing, that the sale of council houses could be serious from the planning point of view. I accept that it is more inconvenient, when we want to widen a road, if the houses fronting that road are owned by a large number of different people rather than by one landlord, but I am glad to say that that is what we are finding in ever-increasing areas of the country where houses are in the multiple occupation of owner-occupiers. This is no worse a difficulty than in that case and must be accepted if the objective of owner-occupation to a substantial extent is to be achieved.
  There is a serious element in the matter which the hon. Member has raised, but he is going too far in treating the sale of all council houses as a serious possibility in any area of the country. When he turns to the national scale and talks about financial disaster facing the taxpayer because of these sales, he is indulging in hyperbole.
  It is not for me to judge the conduct of the Stourbridge Council. These are matters for its own discretion, subject to its conforming to my right hon. Friend's circulars. The current circular, still alive, is No. 64 of 1952, although I very much hope that the circular which has been so eagerly sought and fought for by the hon. Member for Dudley will soon be in front of us all.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned at twenty-eight minutes to Ten o'clock.