§ 3.30 p.m.
§ Mr. J. M. L. Prior (Lowestoft)I beg to move,
That this House, while recognising the great progress made by the construction industries in recent years, appreciates the immensity of the tasks they must now undertake in the modernisation of the nation's economy and the renewal of its social capital, and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to assist the industries to meet this challenge, by developing long-term public building programmes, stimulating basic and applied research, promoting new methods of building, and encouraging improved practices in all constructional activities.662 I am very much a layman in what I have to say this afternoon but, like most laymen, I always take a great interest in building construction. During the last three years, having walked up Victoria Street to the House, I have watched the growth of some of the biggest and best office developments which have taken place in the whole of London. Those of us who are privileged to be Members of the House of Commons in future years will also be able to watch the development of St. Thomas's Hospital just across the river. When one thinks of productivity, one can already see two enormous cranes which have been erected on the site and I hope that buildings will soon start to arise from those cranes.I do not think that there can be any doubt that the tasks facing the construction industry are enormous. If we are to achieve the sort of social and industrial targets which we have set ourselves over the next few years, whether in house construction, hospitals, old people's homes, roads, factories, or whatever it is to be, we have to recognise that an enormous task is facing the construction industry.
I should like to start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Minister for Public Building and Works and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary on the good start which they have made since last July in putting across to the public and the construction industry the need for a new approach to construction problems. I am delighted that the old Ministry of Works has now become a much bigger and more forceful Department of State and I think that this augurs well. They certainly have their work cut out, in conjunction with the industry, in the next few years.
The record of the industry is not bad, but its performance must obviously be improved. I am always worried about the inefficiencies which result from some firms. One sees the jokes which surround the plumber who always conies with his mate, but leaves his tools behind. If we are to look for greater productivity in the industry, we have to look to the bigger firms to lead the way.
If, as N.E.D.C. thinks, there has been a 14 per cent. increase in productivity over the last five years and we are to obtain 15 per cent. from 1961 to 1966, we have obviously to do a little better 663 than we have done before. I doubt whether 15 per cent. is a high enough a target to aim for. We ought to do better.
There are many ways in which we can improve. I have been impressed by the Stationery Office publication prepared for the Ministry of Works by Sir Harold Emerson. It is a very good and worthwhile document. It states quite plainly that while there is an acceptance of the need for getting on with the job, there are many deficiencies in the industry which badly need remedying. One of the main problems which the industry seems to have faced is the fear of a stop-go policy by the Government and by public authorities generally. I am glad to think that we are now planning ahead over a much longer period—in the case of the hospital building programme for ten years and in the case of items like roads for periods certainly of five years—rather than a hand-to-mouth existence.
I was interested to see in the N.E.D.C. Report that housing is to occupy a rather bigger place in these five years than it did in the period 1956–61. It is in housing, particularly small house building programmes, perhaps carried out by a rural district council or a small urban district council, that much of the bad production and bad productivity comes. I hope that the Ministry will examine the point carefully, because in my area we have some awful examples of six or eight council houses being built on a site and then with nothing to continue from that for the contractors who built them. The result is chaotic. They are badly built houses. They are also very costly.
One of the factors which I should like to pursue in the short time available is research. In examining the problems of the industry I have been appalled at the small amount of research being carried out. A very good article has appeared this week in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects by Professor Davies and Mr. Peter Cowan. They start with the very sound remark that the National Economic Development Council has pointed out that
the industries which are making the most rapid advance in productivity are those which are supporting a high level of research.664 They go on to say that the building industry spends a smaller proportion of its net output on research than any other industry. I am talking about the construction industries. The proportion of net output spent on research is only 0.16 per cent., whereas in agriculture it is 0.7 per cent., and as long ago as 1958 in manufacturing it was 2.6 per cent.Obviously, a good deal more research is necessary and more money will have to be spent on it. I cannot help feeling, as a layman, that more research is needed into the difficulties of building in wintry weather. I was pleased to note how well builders on the whole kept going for the first three weeks of the winter's bad weather, but by the last month a good many of them had to stop. Obviously, a great deal of research is necessary. H the industry is to expand and become more productive, this will have to be a joint effort by the Government and the industry.
As to the new methods of building, in today's Economist there is a good little article on the new development plan at Finchley on one of the main roads leading out of London. A whole area of 56 acres is being developed, partly for shops, partly for housing. When a big area like this is being developed all at once, it is apparently possible to have a precast concrete factory on the site. This factory will be in a position to precast three-storey prestressed sides for buildings on the site. This must mean that much greater productivity and much cheaper construction can result.
I urge that there should be an increase in chipboard manufacture in this country. I have received a letter on this subject. I represent an area which will go through a difficult time from redundancies in agriculture, possibly in fishing, and certainly on the railways. There are nine chipboard factories in this country whereas Germany, which has a population similar to ours, has 60 such factories. Our annual consumption of chipboard is about 1½ sq. ft. per head of the population. In Germany, it is 12 sq. ft.
If we could introduce more of these rural industries into our community it would help to sop up the surplus labour from the other industries I have mentioned and enable people who work in them to continue to play a part in the countryside and on the land. I do 665 not want to see in years to come nothing but farms of 1,000 acres, with huge barren tracks and no village or rural community life in the countryside. We must look more closely at the development of this type of industry so that people can be kept in the countryside, perhaps doing part-time jobs on the land.
For these reasons I have welcomed this opportunity to raise the difficulties of the chipboard industry because it has an obvious part to play in the construction industry generally, although this needs some official recognition from the Ministry. I hope that the Department will be helpful in this respect.
Time is short and I want to give my hon. Friend sufficient time in which to reply. I hope that in order to improve the practices which we are trying to inculcate into industry in general we will look closely at some of the draft building regulations. I am told that under the Health Act which was passed a couple of years ago some of the regulations can cause grave inconvenience to parts of the construction industry, particularly the fibreboard section of it, and also the chipboard side. I hope that we will give a chance for these new types of modern materials to progress in the way they should.
In the limited time that has been available to me I have tried to stress some of the problems which the industry must face. I hope that from now on we will get a good working relationship between the Government, on the one hand—who, after all, are responsible for nearly 50 per cent. of all construction—and the industry, on the other. If we can secure this co-operation we will achieve our targets and the industry will realise that it can expand and carry out research with greater confidence than has been the case in the last few years.
§ 3.44 p.m.
§ Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)I must, first, express a degree of compassion for the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), who has had to sit here all day to find himself with just half-an-hour in which to have a debate on a most practical subject, a subject which, I think, might have kept us far more usefully occupied all day than the rather mystical, if not esoteric, Motion which preceded it. If we have only a little time to spare, 666 and if the Parliamentary Secretary has little time in which to reply, he must address his reproaches, not to me but to his hon. Friend who took such an inordinate time to wind up a debate in which everyone seemed agreed.
I do not struggle now after difference of opinion. There is very little political content at all in this matter. Building is a very practical subject. I do not suppose that there is a great deal of party politics in it, except that we do not maintain full employment unless we have an economy viable enough to sustain it, and the building industry is one of the industries that has, over the years, been looked at in a very hard way.
Most of us can think of the time immediately following the war, in 1945, when the engineers thought that they were getting into the building industry and there was a great spurt of prefabrication that never quite came off. I hope that in looking at prefabricated housing we remember those who have to live in the houses and provide houses for them that are as comfortable as those of the traditional type. Most things in our life are a reflection of the sort of way we live and the sort of people we are, and that is also true of our housing.
Further, I hope that we will bear in mind not only the speed of building the houses, but the comfort of the workers on the job. I cannot think of a more depressing industry than the building industry in bad weather. At one time, of course, "wet time" was the curse of the industry, and made it very unattractive. There are many mining districts in the north of England where they think that the builder's labourer has almost a more uncomfortable time of it than has the miner himself.
We are now speaking of prefabrication. It has been suggested that speed increases the utilisation of capital, and brings earlier rents and subsidies because it enables the job to be done very much more quickly. One system of flat-building claims erection in one-third of the normal time, with substantial saving, but most people will agree—I am sure that the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) will—that prefabrication will achieve, not so much cheapness in building as speed of construction. It is not anticipated that, at least for a year or two, prefabrication will cut down costs.
667 In France and in Scandinavia it is claimed that 15 per cent. of all building is factory made. They appear to have gone ahead with it to a much greater extent than we have. In Russia, the claim is that 50 per cent. is now factory built. I can only say that, having seen some of the results, I hope that we do not achieve the same degree of uniformity and flatness.
If we go in for prefabrication, which really means bringing engineering into the building industry, we have to think in terms of long runs of production. Having been chairman of a local government finance committee for many years, I can say that someone has to get away from the usual idea of sanctions and consents for 30 or 40 houses at a time. The absolute bane of the local councillor is the degree of stop-go-start methods that seems to fall with a depressing thud on a local authority that originally had decided to go forward with a scheme for 300 houses, resulting in a consent for only 50 houses or 100 houses when anybody with commercial experience knows that a consent at the very beginning—bearing in mind that there is a district audit—would have meant a more satisfactory result.
I hope, therefore, that the Ministries themselves, and particularly the Ministry of Public Building and Works, which is now taking up functions previously enjoyed by the Ministry of Health, will look at this question and especially at giving local authorities long runs. They should do this bearing in mind that the Ministry of Public Building and Works, under a Conservative Government, has become almost the greatest employer of direct labour in the country. Local authorities need to plan five years ahead. Recently, when we were discussing Parliamentary procedure, I said that we here seemed to run our affairs like an agricultural society based on seed-time and harvest. We tend to trammel local authorities in the same way within the context of the annual budget. Local authorities need five-year loans and subsidies.
There should also be greater teamwork than we have had up to now. The architect should not be of necessity the enemy of the borough surveyor as one often finds he is in local government. All the specialists should get together somehow. The final result ought to be that we should pay some consideration to the landscape if monotony is to be avoided.
668 I hope that the co-operation of those who are engaged in the trade will be considered essential. It is curious that the hon. Member for Lowestoft, who is a rather kind man in these things and has no particular prejudice, should have referred to the plumber and his mate. This conjures up a picture. Why do we always conjure up pictures of demarcation lines in trade? Why not in the professions?
It should be remembered sometimes that a leader has to appear in court with a junior who must receive a fee equal to at least two-thirds of his. Why is it that we tend to gibe at demarcation lines in trade without bearing in mind that they are fairly well embedded in the professions? These demarcation lines are often born of rivalries and prejudices and of a period of unemployment where it was necessary for men to safeguard their jobs. I know that we say that we should get away from these things, but we are an old people in this country and we cannot easily get away from our history.
More must he done to guarantee to those who work in the industry a share in whatever benefit is obtained from prefabrication in cheapness of production and increased productivity. A considerable share should also go to the consumer, who is often the ratepayer in this context. If we are to get this traditional industry really moving there must be a great deal of consultation and people will have to feel that they are part of the industry. It is to the benefit of all of us that we should have a more soundly based and speeded-up building industry.
The rather disconnected remarks I have made are not the speech which I would have delivered if we had had a full-length debate on the subject. They have been made hurriedly to allow the Parliamentary Secretary to make no doubt a disconnected reply and to talk the subject out. I hope that at some future time we shall have a more leisured debate in which many hon. Members can make their contribution.
§ 3.54 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Public Building and Works (Mr. Richard Sharples)Without entering in any way into the merits of the previous debate today, I entirely agree 669 with the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) that it is a great pity that we have not had time for a full debate on this most interesting and important subject.
I should like particularly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) on having chosen this Motion for debate and on having given the House the benefit of such valuable and constructive ideas. I should also like to thank the hon. Member for Leeds, West for the way he made his speech and for the constructive and useful ideas which he put forward very briefly. We shall certainly study them carefully.
Both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Leeds, West spoke of the importance of good labour relations, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft particularly stressed the importance of good working conditions on sites. I should certainly, if I had time, have something to say about that, but I can assure both hon. Members that these matters are ones which we have particularly in mind in the Ministry.
My hon. Friend's Motion begins by recognising the great progress that has been made by the construction industry in recent years. I am glad that he put that into his Motion, because I think that we must recognise that, no matter what we say about how we can improve the construction industry at this time, the improvement in efficiency which has been made in recent years is by no means discreditable to this industry. This is so particularly when one recognises that a great part of the industry is made up of small firms, in many cases very small firms indeed, many of which are engaged in such things as repairs and minor improvements where it is difficult to gauge increased productivity and where, in fact, it is also difficult to get increased productivity.
We have now, as my hon. Friend recognised, reached a crucial stage in the affairs of this industry. First, I think that is because the resources of the industry are already overloaded; secondly, because the labour force in the industry is unlikely to increase to any significant degree; and, thirdly, because, as my hon. Friend said so very rightly, demands upon 670 the industry will increase greatly during the coming years.
Certainly, one can foresee the possibility that in the modernisation of our country, which is one of the greatest needs of the present time, the construction industries themselves could be a major bottleneck in that process. I think, too, that we must recognise, as did both hon. Members who have spoken, that the prospects of increased productivity by means of improving traditional methods of building are very limited. Therefore, if we are to get increased productivity in the industry, we have to look to the new methods for doing so. The hon. Member for Leeds, West was quite right when he said that the main objective in doing this must be to get increased productivity. It may be that in time we shall get reduced costs as well, but the foremost need must be to get increased productivity so as to expand the output of the industry as a whole.
My hon. Friend referred to the very much greater need for research and development and, very rightly, to the amount which is spent in the industry upon research as compared with the manufacturing industries. This is certainly something to which we give the very greatest importance and we shall be doing all that we can to encourage the industry to devote more of its resources to research and development as time goes on. If higher productivity is to be achieved, I believe that it has to be done by particular emphasis on two factors: first, I think, the emphasis upon new management techniques which the industry itself is to develop; and secondly, upon new methods of construction.
My time is rapidly running out, and I shall not be able to develop these two themes in the time which remains available to us. The thought that I want to leave with the House is that we believe that the industry—
It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.