§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ifor Davies.]
§ 11.30 p.m.
§ Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)I welcome this opportunity to raise the subject of Glasgow's housing problem. It has been pursued by others and is well known as a problem of considerable concern not only to Glaswegians but also to all people who consider that it is the duty of the State to make it possible for every human being to live in a house of which he, his children, and his fellow-citizens can be proud.
The legacy which the Industrial Revolution bequeathed to my native city was a housing situation in which a high proportion of the dwellings were slums from the day they were built. The people who lived in them did not make these slums. The slums made the people. The slums formed, shaped, fashioned. conditioned, influenced, moulded and forced the occupants into a pattern. The responsibility for the resultant misery lies squarely upon the shoulders of the industrialists and speculators on whose behalf the dwellings were erected. Anything was thought good enough for the masses who were manning the factories and the workshops.
No wonder that for years, and indeed until quite recently in the case of tuberculosis, Glasgow had the highest tuberculosis rate and the highest incidence of rickets in the western world. Today there are 84,000 families on Glasgow's waiting list. Over the last 15 years building has been progressing at the rate of approximately 4,500 dwellings per year. I hasten to state that this compares very favourably with anywhere in Europe, but the number of demolitions, due to insanitary houses and conditions of the worst type, due to structures which have become dangerous, and due to redevelopment is running at the rate of about 2,500 dwellings per year. There are many houses which do not come into any of these categories but which nevertheless are totally unsatisfactory, and 2,000 per year, that is, the balance of the 4,500, are certainly not sufficient to solve this problem.
1121 Of the 320,000 occupied houses in the city—the exact number at Whitsun, 1964 was 320,316–128,036 are owned by the local authority. Most of these are in completely acceptable condition, but there are 115,145 one- and two-apartment houses in the city about two-thirds of which must be considered unfit by any standards. That is about 75,000 houses. Of the 128,000 local authority houses, all but a few hundred were built since 1919, and almost half of them were built in the last 15 years.
Difficulty as the present position is, the mind boggles at the thought of what it would have been if the building of houses for letting had been left largely in the hands of the private speculator. Speculative enterprise has contributed precious little to Glasgow's housing in the last 20 years, yet private landlords are ever ready to use their old tenements for buying and selling. It reminds one of the old wartime story of the case of sardines which was for buying and selling, but not for eating. The difference is that unfortunate people have to live in these houses.
Every large city has a housing problem, but I should like to show wherein Glasgow's problem differs considerably from that in other cities. Recently, a Glasgow newspaper article pointed out that
Greater London has one totally unfit or unimprovable house per 100 inhabitants: Glasgow has one for every 10. The Greater London report reveals that 20 per cent. of households are without a fixed bath, while the proportion in Glasgow is 50 per cent. Nineteen per cent. of London families share a W.C., 38 per cent, do in Glasgow. Comparing Milner Holland figures (1961) with Glasgow's survey report (1960), it is seen that Glasgow's total housing problem is many times worse than London's.The article goes on to point out that a quarter of a million citizens are living in these conditions.In my own constituency, the position is even worse. Sixty-two per cent. of the houses have no fixed bath, and in 43 per cent. families share a w.c. That is taking the constituency as a whole. If wards are taken separately, we find that in Anderston Ward only 14 per cent. provide exclusive use of a fixed bath, and in only a further 6 per cent. is there even a shared bath. Conditions in many parts of the city are even worse. In 11 wards, over 50 per cent. of the houses have a 1122 shared w.c., and in three wards the proportion is over 70 per cent. In four wards, over 90 per cent. of the houses have no fixed bath. These figures are taken directly from Glasgow's quinquennial review. As I have said, many wards are very much worse than the average for the city as a whole.
Again, to take my own area, in Anderston Ward, only 53.6 per cent. of houses provide exclusive use of the w.c. Forty-six per cent. share a w.c. In Exchange Ward, the position is even worse, and there are several other wards where the position is worse than those two. In the Gorbals and in Huchison Town, the difficulties are even greater than in the wards I have mentioned. In the category of shared use of w.c. in over 50 per cent. of households, there are 11 wards.
When it comes to the average occupancy rate per room we find that the London rate is 0.77 persons per room, while in Glasgow it is 1.27. Edinburgh is 0.94, Aberdeen, 1.04, Dundee, 1.13, Birmingham, 0.77, Liverpool, 0.83, and Manchester, 0.74. Liverpool is the worst English city in that respect, but it is still better off than Glasgow. In fact, in the houses in the proposed development areas in Glasgow the average occupancy rate is even higher—2.065 persons per room.
I have had discussions with Glasgow's housing convenor, with housing officials. with the convenor of the property management committee, and with the medical officer of health. They think that the prohibition of office building, for example, will release more labour and materials for housing; and with effective co-ordination of building resources, the use of more advanced methods of building, with co-operation between private builders and Glasgow Corporation's own direct-labour department the housing convenor thinks that between 8,000 and 10,000 houses a year could be built.
In a letter to me, the medical officer of health says:
I think Glasgow's major problem is lack of space. We have only 39,000 acres for a population of 1,018,582. This compares with 35,000 for Edinburgh's population of just less than a ½-million and 52,000 for Birmingham's population of over one million.He goes on to say:What we really need is an extension of the boundary in such a way as would give, say, 10,000-20,000 new acres, preferably connected 1123 to Glasgow by a neck of land. We would have to go into Renfrewshire or Ayrshire to find this land, but only Glasgow can meet Glasgow's problems with the speed that is necessary.There should be—and this is something that could be looked at, and something done about it—less delay in approvals of house building projects. The Department should trust in the good sense of the Glasgow Corporation, and not insist, for example, on the production of overall plans when a smaller project could be proceeded with immediately, and be dovetailed into the larger development later on.There should be less delay in the whole machinery of redevelopment, and the whole machinery of approval of redevelopment. I quote as an example the Anderson Cross comprehensive development plan approved by the Corporation on 25th June 1959, which took almost two years to be approved by the Secretary of State—not until 10th May, 1961. Only in the last two months has a start been made on this development.
Delays like this make the housing position much more difficult of solution. Another point is that better use could be made of existing privately-owned rented property. If the Corporation could be encouraged and assisted to purchase it there would be much greater flexibility and greater mobility. People on the waiting list who have relatively good houses would then have a better chance of obtaining Corporation houses, because their houses would not be sold when they moved but would be used by the Corporation to rehouse families from unfit property.
It may well be that another and bigger new town will be essential to help solve the problem. Forty per cent. of Glasgow's houses are municipally owned and the percentage increases each year. I ask the Department most sincerely to help Glasgow accelerate this development so that we can look forward to the day in the not too distant future when such a high percentage of rented homes are owned by the City that any family which wishes to have a house to let can have one.
§ Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll) rose——
1124§ 11.47 p.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Dr. J. Dickson Mabon)I am sorry that pressure of time is such that I should like to speak now. I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he will interrupt me on any particular point. I first want to take the opportunity to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) for initiating this debate. He knows this problem at first hand and I assure him that we fully realise the immense human problems involved in the situation.
I believe, however, that not enough tribute has been paid to Glasgow Corporation for what it has done, in the years after the war in particular. It is the only city in the country that has had to face such a formidable problem. Seventy thousand houses have been built, enough to provide new accommodation for about one-fifth of the city's population, and in the last 10 years the Corporation has demolished or closed over 25,000 slum houses. I do not quite accept all my hon. Friend's figures about the number of houses still to be demolished. It may be far higher than 75,000. It may be nearer 100,000. But this is a measure of what we still have to face in the city.
The greater part of the bad housing in the city lies in the 29 congested central areas which the Corporation is to redevelop comprehensively over the next 20 years. This will involve the clearance of nearly 100,000 houses and the crux of the problem is that, after redevelopment, it will be possible to rehouse only about half this number of families within the same area. The remainder will have to be accommodated outside the existing Glasgow boundaries.
I want to deal with the impact of planning on housing in the city. There are two respects in which planning as exercised by the Secretary of State may have seemed to delay the solving of the problem—first, the length and complexity of comprehensive development area procedures and, secondly, the tendency to restrict housing densities. The Government are reviewing planning procedures to make every possible practicable improvement. Changes in procedure cannot, however, alter the fact that comprehensive redevelopment is a very complex 1125 process. No procedural device can ever simplify comprehensive development to the point at which large-scale schemes can be conceived, planned and put into operation in a matter of a few months. Present legislation allows compulsory purchase orders to be submitted and considered simultaneously with the development plans with which they are associated. Glasgow, and it must be said to its credit, now takes advantage of this in submitting its detailed proposals for comprehensive development areas.
The Corporation has suffered by being a pioneer—and I emphasise this—in Great Britain in this respect and has had to face many difficult problems, as have all pioneers. The Anderson Cross C.D.A. was a notable case in point and I am glad that my hon. Friend mentioned it. The compulsory purchase orders for the commercial area had to go to the Court of Session before it was finally accepted by the objectors that they represented a proper use of planning powers. The Corporation had also to overcome the initial widespread reluctance on the part of those displaced or inconvenienced to face the inevitability of redevelopment.
In spite of all these difficulties, Glasgow's progress in redevelopment can stand as an example to most British cities. Areas amounting to almost one tenth of the city's total acreage have been defined for comprehensive development. Detailed proposals for five of these areas, totalling 675 acres, have been approved and two other areas, amounting to 370 acres, should shortly be approved by my Department. There are signs that initial troubles are being overcome and that we can expect faster progress in future.
The huge investment in the redevelopment of Glasgow can be justified only—and I am sure that we are all agreed on this—if the new city is equal to the best in these islands. It is not enough merely to provide jobs. People must want to live there as well as to be able to earn a living there. To achieve this, Glasgow must equal other cities, not only in the size and quality of its houses, but also in the standards of space it provides for education, traffic circulation, car parking, recreation and entertainment. The old densities of Glasgow were shockingly high and while the proposed new densities represent a better standard, there are doubts about whether even these may 1126 have to be lower still. It is to the credit of the Corporation that it recognises this.
This whole development is crystallised in the conflicting opinions about multistorey housing in Glasgow and the plans for the future. I have given an assurance on behalf of my right hon. Friend that we will not interfere with the time scale of the present development of the city. Nevertheless, we must examine this generally with the Corporation to see how far we can get in dealing with this problem. High rise housing by itself cannot accommodate an appreciably higher population per acre than other cities without cutting the allocations of land for the purposes which I have just mentioned. Because the city is short of land, as my hon. Friend said, decisions on density problems on a good many housing schemes have been very difficult, but, with the enthusiastic co-operation—and I emphasise that—of the Corporation, my Department has begun an urgent study of these problems. We met last month, and we will meet this month and we will meet next month, and I hope that shortly we will be able to come to some conclusions of use not only to Glasgow, but to the whole of Scotland.
The whole density situation is now being reviewed with the Corporation to decide whether the land within the present boundaries can house a population as much as that provided for in the present development plan. The results of this review will, of course, be taken into account in the plans for central Scotland generally and they will concern the Scottish Economic Planning Council—for this is not just a Glasgow problem, but a Scottish problem, a national problem generally.
Meanwhile, as I have said, simultaneously with the review of the population targets we are examining the shorter-term housing programme in order to ensure that land can be made available within the city over the next five years. This is to sustain the Corporation's laudable target of building 25,000 houses in five years while achieving densities compatible with modern living.
§ Mr. Edward M. Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart)Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Government are thinking about the possibility of reducing densities, and not increasing them?
§ Dr. MabonThat is so. The present position is that Glasgow is working to a development plan with an overall residential density of 66 persons to the acre and with new proposals it looks like running to 71 persons to the acre. Compared with comparable cities in the South, this is not good enough and it is to the credit of the Corporation that it has recognised this and it is to the credit of the Government that we are ready to help the Corporation to reach conclusions which are conclusions which only Glasgow can implement. The Government have to take a more active rôle in trying to help cities in Scotland to develop, especially when they are short of land.
§ Mr. NobleSurely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that this is a new idea from the Scottish Office. This has been under discussion for long before his Government came to power.
§ Dr. MabonThat is true. This has been under discussion. The right hon. Gentleman received excellent advice when he was Secretary of State for Scotland and we are receiving the same continuing advice, but we prefer to act upon it and to regard this as a matter of urgency. That is why we are having this exercise carried out with, I am glad to say, the enthusiastic co-operation of the Corporation. On behalf of my right hon. Friend, I met the Overspill, Housing and Planning Committees at a splendid meeting at St. Andrew's House. It was splendid from the point of view that we were agreed on the basic difficulties, and what we were seeking was the correct solutions.
As the House will recollect, the 1960 redevelopment plan for Glasgow aimed at trying to house at least 200,000 people outside Glasgow. That was the size of the problem. Glasgow has concluded overspill agreements involving 53 local authorities—again, that is to Glasgow's credit—covering the provision of nearly 11,000 houses. But many of those agreements are not implemented because jobs are not available for those Glasgow workers. The key to increased overspill is to create more jobs in reception areas and to fill as many as possible with workers from Glasgow. That is the theory of it.
1128 The progress in overspill from 1958 until the end of 1964 has been 12,604 houses. It is true that output has risen. In 1962, it was 1,020; in 1963, 2,614; and in 1964, 3,559. The new Government do not, however, regard that as adequate. The Livingston housing programme is now getting under way and within 12 months should be adding substantially to the combined output of Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Glenrothes.
The possibility of further new towns will be considered by the Scottish Economic Planning Council, and detailed studies are taking place in the Irvine area as to whether a further new town should be designated there. I hope that an announcement about that will be made reasonably soon. [Interruption.] All that the previous Government did was simply to say that Irvine might, or should, be selected as a new town, but the detailed studies were not done. As far as the detailed studies have gone, they concern not the old concept of a new town but, as my hon. Friend has said, a much grander scale of new town than was envisaged even by the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble).
The Glasgow housing situation is a national problem. The Government have made a further substantial contribution through the Scottish Special Housing Association, which has so far been authorised to build over 10,000 houses in Glasgow, with a capital investment contribution of £30 million by the Exchequer. Apart from the physical difficulties of slum clearance and redevelopment, there is the very real problem of financing a programme the size of Glasgow's. The Corporation is, naturally, concerned about its mounting housing deficit and has recently discussed the situation with my right hon. Friend. The Government are reviewing the whole field of housing finance and Glasgow has been assured that its special difficulties will be given full consideration in this review.
Glasgow, with one-fifth of the population of Scotland and with substantially more than one-fifth of the slums, must have a large share in Scotland's expanding housing programme. The Corporation is determined to build houses and the Government will give it all possible assistance.
1129 It would be wrong of me not to say a final word in praise of Glasgow, because too much criticism is directed against the City Corporation rather than the praise which it justly deserves. Glasgow, as the leader, under the late Baillie Gibson and the present housing convener, Councillor Clark, has not only demonstrated its willingness to solve its own problems but, through the S.L.A.S.H. organisation—the Scottish special local authority housing group—has tried to help the whole of Scotland to solve its problem, by forming the first consortium that we have seen in Scotland.
It is extraordinary that we in Scotland have been so far behind both our English and our Welsh friends in forming these consortia. It is to the credit of Glasgow that we must agree that the initiation was done in forming this consortium and seeing it launched. I am very pleased to say that while Glasgow has a great problem it is nevertheless making a great contribution to solving it.
§ 11.59 p.m.
§ Mr. Michael Noble (Argyll)I should like to join the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State in paying tribute to Glasgow Corporation. As I have said not only in this country but in Scotland 1130 and in America, it has made remarkable strides in the sort of redevelopment we have been thinking about. However, I think that the hon. Gentleman did not attempt to answer some of the points which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) I think very fairly made. He did not try to pretend that it was politically, one way or another, that the situation in Glasgow had arisen.
The hon. Gentleman said that speculator enterprise contributed very little. He is, I am certain, an honest observer, and he will recognise that speculator enterprise could not gain any sort of advantage in Glasgow when the rents, controlled by the Corporation, were at a level which was so low that they were ridiculous even to the rest of Scotland.
§ The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at Twelve o'clock.