HC Deb 16 February 1967 vol 741 cc792-3
Q2. Mr. Edward M. Taylor

asked the Prime Minister if he will appoint a Minister with the exclusive task of dealing with the housing problem in Scotland.

The Prime Minister

No, Sir.

Mr. Taylor

Is the Prime Minister aware that after two years of the present set-up, completions in Scotland are still below the total for 1964, and that the records being broken are in gluts of bricks and redundancies of building workers? If he will not reallocate the jobs in the Scottish Office, will he reallocate the Ministers, and give us a Secretary of State who will fight for Scotland?

The Prime Minister

The extent to which my right hon. Friend has fought is shown by the fact that in the 2¼ years we have been in office, 82,289 houses were completed compared with 67,622 in the previous Administration's last 2¼ years.

Mr. Carmichael

May I press my right hon. Friend even more on this point? Does he realise that in Scotland, particularly in the Glasgow area, we have well over 100 years of neglect to overcome, and that there are special requirements to give the people decent housing accommodation?

The Prime Minister

Yes, Sir. I am sure that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. M. Taylor) are only too aware of the gravity of the problem, which was recently highlighted again by the publication of a very new report. That is why special priority is being given to Scotland in the matter of housing.

Mr. Rippon

Will the Prime Minister agree that the poor rate of growth in housing, both in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, is due to the failure of policies rather than shortage of Ministers, and is he aware that he already has the largest Government in the world? Is he now satisfied that he requires no more Ministers in order to have a permanent majority of paid place-men in the Parliamentary Labour Party?

The Prime Minister

Now that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has had his fun, we might get back to the facts. Despite the big increase in our housing completions in Scotland, compared with those under the Government of which he was quite a senior member, we had to cope with a second problem—the fact that when that Government's election boom in Scottish housing was over there was a fall in public building starts from over 8,000 a quarter to only 5,000 a quarter in the third and fourth quarters of 1964; and there were only 4,000 approvals in the third quarter against averages of well over 8,000 before and since that time. We therefore had a double inheritance to deal with.

Mr. Woodburn

Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a quite unjustifiable attack on the building trade employers and workers in Scotland, and that although they have not been able to reach the target set by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, they have nevertheless been able to increase and improve on last year's figures?