§ Q5. Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the decline in the housing programme, he will take immediate action to co-ordinate the activities of the Ministers of Housing and Public Building and Works to ensure that top priority is once more given to building homes for the people.
§ Q8. Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister whether, in the light of his latest meeting with the National Economic Development Council, he will take steps to improve the co-ordination of Ministers concerned with housing and the building trade.
§ Q10. Mr. Hefferasked the Prime Minister if, following the drop in the number of houses and flats being built, he will take steps to co-ordinate the activities of the Ministers of Housing and Public Building and Works to improve the housing programme.
§ The Prime MinisterI would refer to my reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Speed) on Tuesday.—[Vol. 796, c. 95.]
§ Mrs. ShortDoes my right hon. Friend recall that the A.M.C. submitted written 592 evidence to a Committee of this House in which it indicated that by 1974 almost 80 of the larger housing authorities will have stopped building? Is my right hon. Friend aware that that does not include the rurals and urbans which have not started new programmes since they took over from their Labour predecessors? Is it not high time that my right hon. Friend brought together these two Ministries with a view to setting up a housing building corporation so that the housing programme can be retrieved and we can build houses for the millions of people who are looking for homes to rent?
§ The Prime MinisterI am aware of evidence referred to by my hon. Friend. We are well aware of some of the dangers to which she draws attention, and we intend to deal with them. There is a housing building corporation, as she has in mind, but certainly I do not believe that the answer would be to amalgamate the Ministries concerned. My right hon. Friends are very closely involved in all matters affecting the housing and construction industries.
§ Mr. MartenDoes the Prime Minister recall that in this House recently my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) reminded us of the Prime Minister's pre-election pledge that Labour would plan the bricks? In view of the chaotic state of affairs in the brick industry, can the Prime Minister say to what sort of planning he referred?
§ The Prime MinisterI am aware of the debate, when this matter was fully discussed and fully answered. The House is aware of the reasons why I and others are disappointed about progress in housing. However, I am more concerned at the fact that it is Conservative policy, if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite ever get in—[Interruption.] This is their declared policy—[Interruption.] While we are not satisfied, it appears to be their declared policy to cut back—[Interruption.] I know that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite do not want to hear it, but they are going to hear a lot of this—[Interruption.] It appears to be their declared policy—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We have only a quarter of an hour for Questions to the Prime Minister. Noise wastes a lot of time.
§ The Prime MinisterAs I was saying, it is their declared policy to cut back substantially on the present council house building programme. What that will mean for bricks as well as for people who are in need of homes, the House knows.
§ Mr. HefferWill my right hon. Friend look again at this question of amalgamating the construction side of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government with the Ministry of Public Building and Works so that we can develop a public building corporation so that local Tory councils which are holding back in their housing programmes can have their programmes augmented by Government action in order to meet the needs of the people?
§ The Prime MinisterAs my hon. Friend and I have neighbouring constituencies, I know what he has in mind. I have many times considered the amalgamation of two Departments—most recently last autumn, when I felt on broader grounds that it was right to have together the Ministries of Housing and Local Government and Transport. However, my right hon. Friends work closely together here. Any amount of Ministerial co-ordination will not deal with problems of original sin in Tory-controlled councils.
§ Mr. HeathIs the Prime Minister aware that the object of the policy of this side of the House is to concentrate local authority building on those who most need it, especially old people and those who are not able to pay the sort of rents that they would have to pay outside? That is the purpose of the policy—[Interruption.] He has no right to draw the conclusions that he has—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We must hear both sides.
§ Mr. HeathSecondly, when the Prime Minister says how disappointed he is at the failure of the Government's housing policy, may I ask whether the solemn pledge to build half a million houses by 1970 was based on the calculation of the number of houses needed or on the number which the Government said they could build?
§ The Prime MinisterOn the first part of the question, the right hon. Gentle- 594 man has said today what I heard and saw him say on television two or three weeks ago; namely, that they intend to concentrate council housing on the three—
§ Sir W. Bromley-DavenportIt was a very good programme.
§ The Prime Minister—the right hon. Gentleman obviously appealed to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, too—on the three categories that he mentioned. But since I understand that it is his policy to cut the council house subsidy by £100 million—that is, by about three-quarters of the present level—and since his spokesman on housing, whose statement he has been asked to repudiate, and he has not done so, has made very clear that there will be a sharp cut-back in council house building, I am not impressed by what he is trying to tell the House—[Interruption.] I will deal with the second part of the question in a moment.
When the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) said that he hoped that Conservative councils will take great care to resist the temptation to go on building council houses for all kinds of seemingly good purposes, and went on to chide Tory housing chairmen for trying to build more houses than Labour housing chairmen, I took that as Tory policy to cut council house building. If the right hon. Gentleman will repudiate that statement, I shall be ready to accept his repudiation. He has had many chances.
I answered the last part of the question when I announced the housing cuts following devaluation in January, 1968.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I want to hear the right hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. HeathI completely reject the Prime Minister's unjustifiable conclusion that in concentrating on the groups of people who need local authority housing we are thereby going to slash local authority building. It is essential that it should go to those groups who need it, not all kinds of other people whom the Prime Minister might think should have it.
§ The Prime MinisterIf the right hon. Gentleman is repudiating his hon. Friend's statement, which I have quoted, I hope he 595 will get up and say so. If not, we will take that statement as being official Conservative policy. If the right hon. Gentleman is repudiating his hon. Friend's statement and saying that there will be just as many or more council houses but concentrated on priority groups, he had better explain how he expects to get them if he is going to cut the council house subsidy from £130 million to £100 million.
§ Sir A. V. HarveyOn a point of order. You referred this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that we have only 15 minutes for Prime Minister's Questions. This is the third consecutive occasion when the Prime Minister has been confronted with questions which he does not like, on which he has started referring—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I must hear this interesting point of order.
§ Sir A. V. HarveyThe Prime Minister then refers to Conservative policy. Surely we need more protection in the few minutes available to get information from the Prime Minister. We never get it.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I have never known a Prime Minister in my 20 years in Parliament who was afraid of Question Time—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and who answered questions one way because he did not like to answer them the other way. This is, and always has been, a matter for the Prime Minister. It is not a real point of order. Mr. Price.
Mr. J. T. PriceDoes my right hon. Friend recollect that in 1957, when the then Conservative Government were forcing through this House the Rent Act which has been condemned by every responsible authority knowing anything about housing since that time, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), who was then acting as Man Friday Ito Mr. Henry Brooke, said that once a free market in housing was restored by the removal of control there would be no shortage of housing? That was 13 years ago. If we had taken notice of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West this country would be in deeper water than it is today—[Laughter.]
§ The Prime MinisterI can understand right hon. Gentlemen opposite wanting to 596 try to laugh away the Tory Rent Act. But I remember the circumstances mentioned by my hon. Friend. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about election pledges, but I remind them that they gave a firm pledge in 1955 that they would not alter the rules in the way that they did by the Tory Rent Act. However, they have another opportunity. In view of their declared belief in a free-for-all for housing, I have asked the Tory leadership to confirm that they will not reintroduce—if they ever get the chance—the Tory Rent Act of 1957, but will accept our repeal of it in 1964–65.
§ Mr. ThorpeIf it is not indelicate to return to the actual Question on the Order Paper and provided that I do not run any risk of starting my own election expenses, may I ask the Prime Minister whether, since local authority house building is accepted by most of us—or some of us—to be a social service, instead of juggling around Ministries, as has been suggested, he agrees that the best thing that he could do would be to relieve the building industry in this sector of the incidence of S.E.T.?
§ The Prime MinisterOn the question of S.E.T., I must give the right hon. Gentleman the same answer that I gave to Question No. 1: I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget Statement.
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has emphasised that amongst all civilised people housing is a social service; and housing, publicly owned and built, has been accepted by civilised people as such a social service since the days not only of Arthur Greenwood but also of John Wheatley. It is now clear that the Tories intend to go back before the days of Greenwood and Wheatley.