HOUSING, BIRMINGHAM (Hansard, 2 May 1960)

§ Mr. Julius Silverman (Birmingham, Aston)

I apologise for detaining the House at such a late hour. I apologise also to the Minister. He has had an extremely arduous day in the housing debate, but I feel that the problem I am about to raise is so serious that even at this hour I must approach the Minister again and make my plea on behalf of the City of Birmingham.

The problem of Birmingham's overspill was dealt with briefly by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. V. Yates) on Friday. If I had been at all satisfied with the way in which the Minister dealt with the question and if he had held out any hope whatever that the Government were considering the question, I should not have proceeded with this Adjournment debate tonight, but I am afraid that the reply of the Minister was entirely sterile of any sort of hope whatever.

Birmingham has an active housing register of 65,000 families. Of these, more than 40,000, probably 45,000, are lodger applicant families and there is a hard core of very great hardship. In addition, there is the slum clearance problem. It is estimated that today and in the future the total number of areas which will have to be considered as slum clearance areas may embrace as many as 57,000 houses. At whatever density the people in those houses are rehoused, it is quite clear that that alone will demand an additional 10,000 to 20,000 houses, depending on the density at which rehousing takes place.

It can be fairly estimated that in the long run Birmingham will have to build about 40,000 to 50,000 outside the city. New housing land is already running short, and it is estimated that in all there is land for about 90,000 houses. That means that after the next four years there will be no new land to build on and building will therefore be confined entirely to slum clearance. The people on the ordinary housing register, the people who come to see my hon. Friends, myself and councillors with 845 cases of great hardship, will have little hope because there will be no fresh building whatever for them. The only way in which it will be possible to provide for them will be from the re-let houses. Even then, it can be said that if nothing is done, in the next few years the ordinary housing register will grind almost to a halt. That is an extremely serious human problem.

Let us consider what Birmingham has done to deal with the problem. First, it asked the Minister that the Government should provide a new town, either for Birmingham or for the West Midlands conurbation. The reply was that there was nothing doing and that if Birmingham wanted a new town it must say where it was to be, find the place for it and, in addition, provide the finance. Obviously, for a city the size of Birmingham, that is right outside the bounds of reason. No political party could dream of undertaking it. It is totally outside the means of the City of Birmingham to provide a new town that would begin to cope with its overspill.

Under the scheme of development of new towns, Birmingham then proceeded to approach local authorities, not merely nearby, but in Wales and as far away as Skegness, on the East Coast, to provide for its overspill. It has been suggested by the Minister that Birmingham has not been sufficiently vigorous in pursuing this course. In all, however, about 110 local authorities have been approached. There have been agreements with 43, but the net outcome of all this is that in the past few years less than 1,000 houses have been built under these arrangements. There seems to be little prospect of any development, although Birmingham is prepared to approach any local authority and do whatever it can.

Again, it has been said by the Minister that the offers which have been made by Birmingham to those authorities are not sufficiently attractive. Birmingham, however, has offered terms which the Minister himself suggested in his circular: that is to say, for every Birmingham tenant who is rehoused by one of those authorities, Birmingham will pay a sum of £8 over a period of ten years. That was the Minister's own suggestion. Even so, by the time that all these people are rehoused, by the time that Birmingham's overspill problem has been entirely 846 dealt with, although, admittedly, that is not a problem that can be dealt with in the near future, the total cost to the City of Birmingham would be no less than £4 million.

That is not a bill which Birmingham should meet. It is a national problem and should be dealt with primarily by the nation. Nor is there any indication concerning these proposed agreements that if there were any additional contribution by Birmingham, it would make a great difference. It is true that finance is involved, but if there is to be financial inducement on a scale to enable some of the more reluctant authorities to take Birmingham council tenants, they will want much more than Birmingham or any other local authority will offer. This is a question of an increased national contribution and an increased national subsidy. I cannot go into that further, however, because it involves new legislation and would be out of order. These are the matters that the Minister must consider before he meets Birmingham's representatives, which, I gather, he is doing on the 18th of this month.

There are various reasons why it is not possible to reach agreements. First, many of the surrounding authorities, some of them wealthy and including upper or middle-class people who earn their livelihood in Birmingham and go to live outside, do not want municipal tenants from Birmingham. They are all right. It is a question of "I'm all right, Jack". It is for these people that the green belt largely exists. I noticed that the Minister said that the green belt must be kept as an amenity for Birmingham. But in fact it is not for Birmingham so much as for the people of these surrounding areas who are resisting the incursions of Birmingham tenants.

Some of the other authorities would accept Birmingham tenants, but there is the problem of industry. Many of these people say that they are prepared to accept people from Birmingham provided that they get industry at the same time. It works the other way round, too. Municipal tenants in Birmingham are not prepared to go to these places which are far from Birmingham without some hope of a job. This, again, is a problem which only the Government can solve. It cannot be solved with the powers which are at present possessed 847 by Birmingham Corporation. Birmingham has done what it can to limit industry coming into the city and to encourage industrialists to go outside. So far, with the existing powers little has been done.

We want a Government plan. The Minister has got to consult his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to discuss the Government's policy on planning and on the issue of industrial development certificates. He should bear in mind that it is not merely for the areas where there is underemployment at present that these certificates should be granted. There must also be a balanced movement between industry and population.

I understand that the Minister is seized of this problem because he said, when he wrote to the Birmingham authority, that he believed that the right planning policy is to provide for the movement of people and industry out of the city clear of the land which ought to be preserved as a green belt. It is all very well the Government saying that, but what are the Government going to do about that? What are they going to do to facilitate this balanced movement of industry and people out of Birmingham into the overspill area?

Again, there is the financial problem. Many of these local authorities are perturbed about the question of interest which they would have to pay for many years on this new construction. They are waiting for the rate to come down, or because of the uncertainty about the rate of interest on borrowing they are not prepared to deal with this matter.

Birmingham said to the Minister, "Let us try another thing. Let us have an extension of the city boundary." This Wythall extension was proposed and there was to be an inquiry by the Minister. After the inquiry Birmingham was turned down flat. The Minister said that he accepted the council's contention that progress with town development schemes in the neighbouring counties had so far been disappointing, but he believed that given the good will of all the parties concerned this could be done. It was the usual Government sedative. He said that he for his part would be willing to discuss with these authorities any suggestions that any of them might have for assistance which he 848 could give in accelerating progress. He felt certain that renewed efforts ought to be made to solve the city's pressing problems by a genuine decentralisation before it was accepted that this was impracticable. He did not believe it was impracticable, although he did not minimise the difficulties.

What else does the Minister suggest that Birmingham should do? It has made all the approaches that it can make. If there is anything more that the Minister suggests that reasonably can be done, Birmingham is prepared to do it. So far it seems that in every effort to deal with the problem Birmingham has been frustrated by the Minister. I do not think that is too strong an expression to use.

It is true that in reply to my hon. Friend the Minister said that he has agreed that Birmingham should have the housing programme it desires year by year, and that there was complete agreement between the Ministry and the City Council as to the programme for the current year of 3,250 houses, with the possibility of discussion if, later, the Corporation should wish to increase it to 3,500. But that is merely a paper figure. It is not the slightest use the Minister saying to Birmingham, "This is the target to which I agree" if all possible obstacles are placed in the way of Birmingham achieving it.

I am, therefore, asking the Minister to consider this problem again. The shortage of land is not a distant problem, it is imminent. One cannot wait until every site is built on and then say to the Minister "What are you going to do about it?" It will only be four years before that happens. Nor is it true that this land shortage has no impact on Birmingham's present position. It is obvious that Birmingham is limited in physical capacity of extension by the fact that 80 per cent. of the dwellings it builds are in flats, some of four storeys and the great majority very high and very expensive.

One point is that the Corporation is limited in the number of building organisations it can approach. I have no doubt that if there was more land for building, many more houses could be built. It is also imposing an increasing burden year by year because it is estimated that each of these flats, allowing 849 for the national subsidy, the special subsidies for building high flats on expensive land and the local authority subsidy, still costs Birmingham Corporation at least £80 a year. That is an £80 loss to the Housing Department. Every time additional flats are put up it means a greater loss to the housing revenue account. Every year an additional loss of £160,000 is accruing to the Housing Department when it puts up an additional 2,000 flats.

How is this going to be mot? Already, recently, there have been substantial rent increases to municipal tenants. Can we go on doing that? It does not mean going to them once, but every year or every few years, and saying that there has been an increase in their rent not to meet additional costs on their own flats, or even the additional interest imposed by this Government, but because additional flats have been erected.

Therefore, the Corporation have three ways of dealing with this problem. It can say that the additional burden should be imposed upon the existing municipal tenants whenever more flats are built; it can say that it shall be borne by the ratepayers as a whole, which is politically not very popular and which the Minister, no doubt, knows his political friends would make very great use of in municipal elections; or it can say—and this is becoming more and more tempting—"We stop building, or restrict our building programme." That is the sort of problem which is affecting a good many local authorities at present.

This is a serious problem. It is not a distant problem. It is an immediate and a pressing problem, and it is a very great and serious youth problem, as those of us know who have to deal week after week with these very hard and tragic cases of the people Who come to our "surgeries", the people who, in many cases, for years and years have been waiting for houses, and who see no light Whatsoever. Such light as there was is now diminishing. I ask the Minister to look at this problem as a great human problem and to say it is not sufficient to use those sedative phrases, "I will look at the matter again", or "If there is good will everything will be all right."

We have been told, "Go to Coventry." There is a proposal that Birmingham 850 should try to send its tenants into the City of Coventry. That was turned down by the last Minister, the present Minister of Aviation, who said it was not a proposal which Should be taken seriously, for one reason, because though Birmingham's overspill went to Coventry, there was no provision under existing legislation for any financial assistance whatsoever. It has been said, "Go to Droitwich." The people of Droitwich have said, "We do not want you." I ask the Minister to give us a serious answer to these questions, and, whatever he says tonight, to contemplate them seriously before he meets the council representatives.

§ The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Henry Brooke)

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. J. Silverman) has occupied 20 of the 30 minutes available in raising the same questions which I answered on Friday, and I must say that I was rather tempted simply to refer the House to the speech I made on Friday afternoon; but I am not going to do that.

I am bound to say that at this hour of the night, after a long day, I am somewhat tempted to lose patience with the hon. Member when he insinuates that on Friday I held out no hope that the Government were even considering the serious question of Birmingham's housing. If he had properly read my speech, still more, if he had been present at that debate, he could not possibly have taken that view, and I find it rather nauseating to listen to that kind of allegation when I bear in mind the amount of thought that not only my Department but I personally have given to the whole question of Birmingham's housing recently in connection with the Wythall inquiry.

The hon. Member says that Birmingham's housing is bound to grind to a halt. That is exactly the thing which we are determined to help the Corporation to see that it does not do. I said and I accepted for my part on Friday that Birmingham has a grave housing problem. It has got a slum clearance problem that cannot be solved in any short term of years. We have all got to put our shoulders to the wheel to try to work out how solutions can be found.

851 What disturbs me is that, according to the hon. Member—it may not be a fact, but according to the hon. Member—Birmingham seems to be approaching all these housing difficulties less robustly than other cities. Manchester was anxious to go forward at its own expense with development on new town scale at Lymm. London County Council came to the Government and asked for approval in principle for its looking for a new site which it might develop as a new town, and the Government said, "Yes, in principle we agree." Liverpool has been entering successfully into arrangements with Lancashire and Cheshire. Among the big cities it seems that only Birmingham shies at the idea of the possibility of finding a solution for its own problems. I know there are difficulties, but I cannot put out of my mind that since I have been Minister I have visited various places with which the London County Council has successfully reached town expansion agreements, places like Bletchley, Haverhill, Thetford, where the friendliest relations have been established.

I cannot go into the reasons, but somehow or other Birmingham City Council in the similar efforts which it says it has made, has not managed to generate the same amount of good will. It may be that it is because it has offered only the minimum financial terms that it was required, whereas other cities have made a more generous approach to those authorities with which it was hoped they might reach agreement. I cannot tell, but let us hope that that is a chapter in the past that is closed. Certainly the Government are extremely anxious to meet Birmingham and work out with it how these things can be met.

I shall not make any forecast of the number of houses required outside the city boundaries. I do not accept the hon. Member's figure. My inspector who took the Wythall inquiry found that the situation was too uncertain for it to be said either that the 14,000 houses proposed at Wythall would solve the problem in the next twenty years or that as many as 14,000 houses would be needed. There is still uncertainty about that, but I am in no uncertainty whatever that a very substantial amount of building outside the city boundaries, 852 and I hope beyond the green belt, will have to be carried out in order to enable Birmingham to find good modern homes for all those citizens of its own whom it will not have room to house within its own boundaries.

Where should these people go? Where should the houses be, and to where should we seek to attract industries out of Birmingham? Those are precisely the questions which I now want to discuss not only with Birmingham Corporation but with the county councils round Birmingham. At the Wythall inquiry two county councils, and two only, were represented. They made certain suggestions which are mentioned in the inspector's report. I want to widen these discussions and bring in all the other neighbouring county councils and hear what they have to say. I cannot but believe that by conferences of that kind we shall not fail to be able to pin-point areas that would be suitable for Birmingham's overspill to go to.

The question of a new town has been raised. Frankly, in my study of the matter I do not at present see any clear site anywhere where a wholly new town could suitably be built. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that we are more likely to find a solution by way of expansion of a number of existing towns. This, first and foremost, is a planning question. We must examine the whole region round about and determine on planning grounds where development of this kind would be most likely to be successful. This is what I said in reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. V. Yates) on Friday.

When we have decided that, the next thing that will have to be considered is by what agency the building should be done. If it is to be the expansion of an existing town, I would say that it was a job for local government. It strikes me as a confession of failure on the part of local government if the two authorities together, the exporting and the receiving authority, with the help of the machinery of the Town Development Act, cannot make their own practical arrangements for getting the expansion built, even though it may be in some case or other an expansion so large as to be on new town scale.

But if the councils concerned believe it really would be beyond their powers, 853 I would not rule out of consideration the possibility of some kind of development corporation machinery, and I hope that the hon. Member will agree when I say that to impose anything of that sort upon an existing town which it is desired to expand might well create more difficulties than it would solve, unless we were certain beforehand that it would be acceptable to the town to be expanded as well as to the city which was to send its population there.

This is my approach to the matter. I assure the House once again, if it is needed, that the Government want to cooperate in working out a solution. I said this in regard to overspill towns in general in our debate earlier, and I repeat it now in regard to Birmingham. My idea had been to press forward as quickly as pos- 854 sible when the Wythall report was out with discussions first at officer level with Birmingham and neighbouring county councils. Birmingham City Council has intervened and said that it would like to see me personally first. That may hold up the rest of the programme, but I am very ready to see the Corporation and a meeting has been arranged for 18th May. All I ask is that the hon. Member should join with me in trying