HL Deb 04 August 1924 vol 59 cc274-89

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

THE EARL OF MIDLETON had given Notice that he would move, That this House, before going into Committee, resolves that, having regard (1) to the great charge on public and municipal funds involved in the Bill; (2) to the deficiency of skilled labour and increasing cost of materials; (3) to the consequent delay and enhanced cost in erecting the necessary houses, an immediate inquiry should be set on foot by His Majesty's Government as to the possibility of building houses of other materials than brick, which could be erected more rapidly and at less cost.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, on the Second Reading of this Bill I indicated that we should feel, after the discussion which took place, that it was necessary to submit a concrete Motion to the House with regard to the very important modification of the Bill which had been put forward by, among others, Lord Weir.

I confess that the discussion on the Second Reading made it to my mind more important than at the time when the Bill reached this House that some such course should be taken. I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor, with all the preoccupation which he has had in the last few weeks, has been able to give anything like the attention to this Bill which would naturally be given by a Minister taking charge of it in this House. I hope he will not think it amiss if I say that neither in the speech in which he moved the Second Reading, nor in the speech in which ha closed the discussion, did he seem to be seised with the extraordinary importance and the far-reaching effect of the measure which he had brought forward.

We challenged in no respect the contention of the Government, which was also reinforced by the right rev. Prelate opposite (the Bishop of Southwark), that a necessity existed for some great and wide-spreading measure for the reform of housing. But we submitted three propositions which were not challenged, and were not dealt with during the debate. The first was that these houses would not be provided in the time, that there was no prospect, in the present condition of the building trade, of the houses being in any degree more rapidly constructed under this Bill than they were under the measure which was passed last year. With regard to that contention, the Lord Chancellor gave us an assurance which did not, I thought, go very far, that the building trade were confident that they would be able to take in some apprentices, but without any idea of the general dilution that is demanded, or the acceptance of less skilled men. After all, said the Lord Chancellor, if they do not provide the houses they will not get the work. That was practically his answer. Not one syllable was said to induce us to believe that this vast number of 2,500,000 houses could be built in the fifteen years, or that the immediate shortage, whether it is 300,000, 400,000 or 500,000, would be in any way accelerated by the passage of this Bill. That was the first point.

The second point was this. Lord Weir said that 500,000 houses ought to be provided in five years, and he showed your Lordships how that could be done. I ventured to put a further point to your Lordships as to another method which might be considered. All that resulted from that proposition was a compliment to Lord Weir for having considered the matter and a suggestion that he might come in under some clause of the Bill. But much more important was the contention that, although this measure was not going to produce a result commensurate with the enormous charge contemplated—such a charge as has never been put before this House within the memory of living men in connection with a measure—it would strangle the trade of the country. On that subject the members of the Government never said one syllable, and it is a most remarkable fact. It is true that your Lordships' House has no control over finance, but I submit that we have here a larger body of trained experts in finance, the heads of the great business houses in the country, not only than there ever has been in any period before but larger than has ever been the case in the House of Commons at any period of its history. Of those experts in the last few weeks, Lord Inchcape, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Emmott and others have given us solid warning that the trade of the country is now burdened beyond its capacity.

As the noble Viscount, Lord Grey of Fallodon, pointed out, a Budget has been introduced utilising all the available surplus, making no provision for those great charges which, as I showed your Lordships the other day, will amount in two years' time to something like £90,000,000, in addition to the present expense. All those subjects are lightly passed over by the Government. The Lord Chancellor merely pointed out that in the year 1941 this Bill alone would create a charge of £23,000,000 a year on the taxes and £11,000,000 or £12,000,000 on the rates. Whenever did we hear of our forefathers, except in the ease of a great war when it was vital to the existence of the country, burdening their successors twenty-seven years on with a charge of £23,000,000 a year to be continued annually for all time until 1970? That alone ought to make this House pause before passing the Bill.

I feel that the very fact that this Bill has attracted so much attention and the very fact of the moderation with which those who most disapprove of it have treated its provisions in this House, ought to secure for us a little more consideration than we have received from the Government for arguments which they cannot controvert. The Lord Chancellor said, in an airy way, the other night, that I had suggested this to your Lordships: "Why all this expense on housing? Why not something else?" and he predicted that the neglect of housing, if it did not produce revolution, would cause Parliament to receive the sharpest possible reminder from the country. I never made such a suggestion. What I said was this, and I say it again to-night. When you have depending upon you possible great expenditure for depreciation in trade, certain great expenditure for unemployment, the probability of other great social demands, apart altogether from the possibility that peace may not always be preserved, you ought to hesitate before the whole of the resources of the country are plunged into the maelstrom of this one question of housing.

Our position to-night is that we have the power in this House of reviewing the main provisions of the measure or even of arresting its progress. There are precedents for a Motion of the kind that I have placed on the Paper. Those precedents are of three sorts. There is a reasoned Amendment the effect of which, if carried, is to arrest the Bill, which I do not propose. There is a reasoned Amendment which rejects the Bill, which I still less propose. There are precedents for a reasoned Amendment which places in the clearest light the opinion of this House without arresting the progress of the Bill. I invite your Lordships to take the last-mentioned course this evening, and I do so with the more confidence because I am certain that we are best serving the purposes of the Bill by adopting such a course. I do not know that I need seek a precedent; but if one is desired I could remind the House of what took place on the Army Regulations Bill on an occasion of supreme emergency, when this House took a view which I, from having been connected with the War Office for a number of years, certainly would not have taken. This House took the view of arresting the abolition of purchase, but they were unwilling to reject the Bill. They passed a Resolution condemning the action of the Government for abolishing, by the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown, that which it had been sought to abolish by legislation. They passed that Resolution by 182 votes to 82. That protest produced a practical effect.

I wish to produce a practical effect, and in a few sentences I would suggest what is not only our right to demand but the bounden duty of the Government to carry out. The houses which are to be constructed are presumed to cost £475 each—a cost which is as far removed from fact at this moment as almost any figure which could be named. Since the Minister framed that estimate an immediate demand has been made, as we believed it would certainly be made, for a great increase in the wages of those concerned. That will always be the case when you have a close corporation like the bricklayers, who are 30,000 or 40,000 below the normal standard of ten years ago, are unwilling to accept dilution, and are determined to make certain that they shall at all hazards be employed, and who, consequently, have the power of arresting work and of using that power if their demands are not acceded to. I have no wish to discuss their demands, except to say that I think we have in this House to-night to regard the interests of all sections of labour, and if one section happens to have gained since the war a greater advantage than any other that is not the section on whose side we ought to throw ourselves, as we should do if we passed this measure.

Secondly, there has been a rapid rise in the price of materials, especially of bricks. We know that the Minister hopes to check that rise. If the Minister looks back he will find that an unsuccessful attempt was made to fix the price of commodities in this country in the reign of Edward III, and it has never been successful since. At no time was the failure greater than during the war. Therefore, I have not the smallest doubt that it will be found that these houses will cost probably thirty or forty per cent, more than was intended, and in any case they involve a burden which we could not bear. What is the alternative? You have Lord Weir's house which has excited, I believe, some interest already in Government circles This house may be produced, in Lord Weir's view, for less than £300 and produced by British workmen in trades which are not at present employed, using craftsmen who would not be employed on building brick houses. That is the first alternative.

The second alternative—and I invite His Majesty's Government to consider this point, on which not one word was said from the Bench opposite the other night—is the undoubted facilities in Canada, both in Nova Scotia and in British Columbia, for building wooden houses on a system that will not require the labour of carpenters in this country. These houses can be sent over here by the hundred thousand as quickly as we can put them up and can be provided, in the opinion of those who know, at from 20 to 30 per cent, less than a brick house. Those who make these houses have asked for specifications, and I think the first duty of the Government is to supply those specifications which will enable them at all events to show what they can do. The same remarks apply to Scandinavia whence we could get a large supply of wooden houses if we desire to do so. There are houses made of wood and concrete combined which can also be produced at 30 to 40 per cent, under the cost of a brick house.

All these questions have remained un-examined up to the present time, although I should have thought that it was the first duty of the Minister who had no alternative except to make such an enormous charge, to put before Parliament the alternatives by means of which we could get these houses. It is not merely a question of cost. A very important matter is that if you accept any of these alternative houses you can meet the emergency for three or four years, while there is no possibility under any provision that can be made by a Government scheme that that can be done with brick houses. The noble and learned Viscount, speaking on Lord Weir's proposal, said that 500,000 houses were of no use compared with the number required. The noble and learned Viscount surely could not have considered what he was saying. What Lord Weir said was that by using the type of house which he suggested the whole demand could be met in five years, and that that would not interfere with what might be done afterwards. In the meantime, all the available labour and material for brick houses could be absorbed in carrying on the building scheme of the 1923 Act.

Nobody pretends that this suggestion is to meet the whole demand for all time. What is intended is that we should meet our difficulty at a much lower cost by using men who at present require employment which we are not able to give them. Moreover, that could be done without increasing our difficulty for the future. At present we have only a limited number of craftsmen, and these would be employed as they are at present. Therefore, in these circumstances I do ask your Lordships to pass this Resolution, which, I should point out, means a little more than the actual words upon the Paper. It is quite possible for the Government to accept a Motion of this kind, and to say that the Minister will examine into the question. But that is absolutely useless. What we want is an assurance from the Government that they will appoint some small authoritative body—I do not care of whom composed, so long as we have an impartial inquiry by people qualified for conducting such an inquiry. We want them to examine into the question of providing these houses. That could be done within a few weeks, and the Report which they make should be before Parliament, and before every municipality, before deciding what work they will undertake under this Bill.

I believe that by far the best thing that could happen to the country would be that your Lordships should hold up this Bill while that inquiry was made, but, as I said the other day, that course might lead to misconception. I do not propose any holding up of the Bill, but I do ask that if the Government accept this Motion, as I hope they will, that they will give us in the clearest terms an undertaking that this question is not going to be set aside, that it is not going to be perfunctorily examined, but that when we meet again, or soon after we meet again, some Report shall be before us as to the best way of meeting this great emergency. I do ask the noble and learned Viscount to remember that we did not introduce this subject for the purpose either of discussion or of making difficulties for the Government. If I belonged to a Government which had produced a Budget that is so fertile of future trouble as the Budget which the present Government have passed, or to a Government which had refused to undertake such charges as they have refused to undertake—charges which are vital to our defence—on the ground that we could not afford them, or if I belonged to a Government which had entered into such commitments as the present Government have entered into to meet the social items in their programme, I confess that far from rejecting such a suggestion as that which I now make I should heartily welcome a proposal which is designed to meet the present great needs of the country, and which promises to meet those needs more promptly, more efficiently and much more cheaply than does the method which they propose.

Moved, That this House, before going into Committee, resolves that, having regard (1) to the great charge on public and municipal funds involved in the Bill; (2) to the deficiency of skilled labour and increasing cost of materials; (3) to the consequent delay and enhanced cost in erecting the necessary houses, an immediate inquiry should be set on foot by His Majesty's Government as to the possibility of building houses of other materials than brick, which could be erected more rapidly and at less cost.—(The Earl of Midleton.)

VISCOUNT NOVAR

My Lords, I would strongly support the Motion of the noble Earl, especially from the point of view of the building situation in Scotland. It has been proved by critics, from every point of view, that this Bill does not provide the means by which any additional number of houses can be provided within any reasonable period of time. The Chamberlain Act is hampered by shortage of labour alone. Under it 143,000 houses have been approved, 49,000 are built or building, and, had there been labour, 94,000 would have been built. With no adequate supply of labour we can do no more under this Bill than build the balance of houses under the 1923 Act. Fifty thousand houses a year occupies the building trade with nothing left for commercial building: and 30,000 men are needed to start this new scheme, which raises hopes by false premises.

The real fact is that no justification whatever has been shown for this Bill. The 1923 Act did all that could be done with the present restriction of labour, due mainly to trades union rules. To no part of the country do the considerations urged by the noble Earl apply with such weight as to Scotland. There, lack of skilled labour is most marked, cost of construction is highest, and pressure of rates most felt, owing to the provisions of the Poor Law having been so recently extended for the first time to the able-bodied unemployed. The need for guarantees that quotas will be delivered is greater, else Scotland will not get her proportion of houses, and will contribute, therefore, an undue proportion of the £1,000,000,000 of taxpayers' money involved in the scheme. It is, indeed, obvious that adequate housing can only be obtained in Scotland under some such scheme as that outlined by Lord Weir.

It was as evident two years ago as it is to-day that the only speedy solution of the housing problem lies in new methods of construction, employing unskilled labour, and dispensing with certain classes of skilled labour, classes for which there is wide scope for employment in construction other than that of working men's houses. Under the 1923 Act, and under the present methods of construction, the proportion of houses that fell to the share of Scotland should have been 26,000 in the first two years of that Act, but all we could calculate on was 17,000. There was no prospect of obtaining labour for more; nor is there now, treaty or no treaty. No increase of subsidy will give us more in the next two years. This may seem an extreme statement, but the Minister of Health himself spoke of the "leeway" that could not be made up for some years. How is it to be made up? There is no extra provision for labour in Scotland where it is most lacking, and without labour and output the leeway cannot be made up.

Moreover, this Bill is not designed to encourage private enterprise and initiative which alone can provide the additional houses required. The Scottish proportion of the 2,500,000 houses is over 300,000, but the Under-Secretary for Scotland, in an outburst of enthusiasm, aspired to half a million houses, which would probably mean a maximum of 90,000 houses in a year. The thing cannot be done. It is not parents who restrict the influx into the building trades, it is the unions, whether as regards the ex-Service men, for whom Field Marshal Earl Haig has issued another appeal this morning, or any others. They have discouraged output and promoted unnecessary extravagance. Plasterers insist on applying three coats of plaster in Scotland, which accounts for 33 per cent, of the shortage in that trade.

Not only the Rent Restriction Act, but the raging campaign conducted by members of the Government of the Clydebank spirit, the strike against rent, dictated the policy of the 1918 Act. Government spokesmen attacked it on the ground that the larger proportion of houses built under it are for sale. That was inevitable under the conditions. The builder, or owner, of house property is naturally unwilling to let houses to tenants who may refuse to pay rent, for the repair of which he can only charge a restricted increase, and of which he cannot resume possession. Every builder and owner seeks to divest himself of the risks and responsibilities of ownership. There is a loophole now under this Bill through which local authorities can dispose of their houses, and the same motive may operate. Experience shows that the Addison Act was most costly in Scotland where brick has not been a staple material. Supplies had to be drawn from the South, with heavy freight charges. In the Highland village by which I live two Addison houses were put up at a cost of £2,600 the pair. They are occupied by well-to-do pensioners from other districts, who bitterly complain of their extremely uneconomic rent. To have added an additional room to existing houses would have given all that is needed, but for this there is no encouragement given. In populous centres the one practical remedy is to build blocks of houses of concrete, steel or wood, or other standardised material, delivered in bulk and provided by other than the existing building trades.

The terms of the Financial Resolution made it impossible to discuss the Bill fully in another place. It provides an enormous subsidy of £1,300,000,000 in relief of rent. No more discouraging prospect for industry could be opened up. The one chance for this country and Empire is to make and save money to replace the losses of the war. This Bill will prove a far greater burden on industry than the scrapped Addison Act. It will run the same course, and the country will suffer from the failure of the Government to perceive that it is through the inventive genius of captains of industry that a solution can alone be achieved. It will be no advantage if, on the one hand, you provide the working class with houses and, on the other, deprive them of work. We plunge into this financial morass without the local authorities knowing what will be the increase to their debts if they build their full quotas. All that a Borough like Motherwell knows is that last year her debt was over £1,200,000. How is capital to be raised? And at what rate of interest? What will be the inevitable increase in costs, and in the rates? The taxpayer's burden of £1,000,000,000 was just touched upon by Viscount Inchcape, but the country does not grasp the scheme of a Government which lives in a world of delusion. Nor does it understand that not for years can more houses be built than under the Chamberlain Act. Therefore, as the desideratum is that more houses should be built as quickly as possible, we can but hope and demand that an inquiry be at once held into the new and cheaper methods of construction which promise something more practical and less ruinous than the Bill now before your Lordships' House.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, the noble Earl who moved this Motion began his speech by some kindly references to my own position and pointed out that the Lord Chancellor had other duties, and perhaps unusual duties, at the present time, and that it had not been possible for me to devote myself, in his view, sufficiently to this Bill. The noble Earl is not quite right. As a great man remarked once, " Time is infinitely long,'' and if you look about you you can find opportunity for nearly everything. I can assure the noble Earl that I have not spared myself in the endeavour to master the propositions which underlie this Bill or the details of the Bill itself. If I committed a sin it was that I compressed my speech in moving the Second Reading into forty minutes, but in looking back I think that into that forty minutes everything went that was necessary for the Motion for the Second Reading. It is quite true there are many things to be discussed and commented on—and I will turn to these in a moment—but they were outside the great question which arose on the Second Reading.

That became more apparent as I listened to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Novar, who followed Lord Midleton. Lord Novar's speech, if he will allow me to say so, had a slightly more Conservative ring about it, and, as I listened to his arguments, they seemed to me to be very nearly the arguments which might have led him to move, or at least to support, a Motion for the refusal of the Second Reading of this Bill. Why did he not do that? His colleagues did not do it because they knew that this Bill is as urgent as the necessity of entering into a war for the defence of our liberties. It is not a question of one side of the account only, but of two sides of the account, and it is a matter of such urgency, and is regarded by the country with such determination, that, even if we wanted to do so, we could not hold them back. In that condition of affairs I respectfully suggest to the noble Viscount, Lord Novar, that a good deal of that which he has said on the present occasion is hardly relevant to the Motion now before us, and would have been much more relevant to the Motion for the Second Reading last Tuesday. But Tuesday is past, and Lord Midleton, in his speech, took a much more cautious line. He did not object to the Housing Bill, but he merely said that we were perhaps making a little too much of housing, and that there were other matters of greater importance. But there is nothing that is at the moment pressing in the same way as is housing. There are other things that are very pressing, but not so pressing as housing, nor do they constitute so great a social problem.

That brings me to Lord Midleton's Motion, and I wish to say at once that I have been a little puzzled at the impression that seems to me to be general on that side of the House that the Government has any intention of doing anything except devoting its energies to making such inquiries as Lord Midleton suggests. My criticism of his Motion is that its terms do no go far enough. The other day, in the House of Commons, my right hon. friend Mr. Wheatley intimated to the House that, in order to stimulate investigation of the problems which had been raised in connection with the methods of building, he proposed to hold an exhibition of the building trade in order, if possible, to obtain more practical light upon these things. It is not merely a question of

"building houses of other materials than brick, which could be erected more rapidly and at less cost."

It is a wider question, and Mr. Wheatley intends to hold an inquiry—such an inquiry as the noble Earl proposes, but an inquiry the scope of which will be wider regarding points connected with production and economic distribution. So far as the Motion of the noble Earl goes, the Government not only have no objection to it but welcome it as part of their own policy. We accept the noble Earl's Motion, and offer no opposition at all to it. On the contrary, we propose to adopt it.

It is a great mistake to suppose that there will be any hard-and-fast way of building these houses. All such propositions as those which the noble Lord, Lord Weir, has made will come into consideration. Even the houses of wood from Canada and Scandinavia may be considered. I confess that I am not so enthusiastic about thorn as is the noble Earl. I have heard of such things before. But by all means let us inquire into them, and include them in the scope of our investigation; only I do not wish to commit myself to the practice embodied in the homely saying about refusing to buy " a pig in a poke." These wooden houses and other types of house are matters which we have to look into and inquire into before we can adopt them as part of this policy, though they come into this policy like anything else. Lord Weir's plans are open to' consideration, and so are the Canadian and Scandinavian houses, whether from British Columbia or Nova Scotia, or anywhere else. In fact, any proposition which will produce, or which claims to produce, houses quickly and cheaply will be looked at gladly. Municipalities have every interest, under the scheme of the Bill, in welcoming such propositions, and so has the Government. I do not think that I need detain your Lordships further. If the noble Earl moves his Motion, as I think he has done, I at once consent to it so far as I and my colleagues are concerned.

THE MABQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON

My Lords, when the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack lamented his undue moderation in having contracted his speech on the Second Reading within the space of forty minutes I had a momentary pang of apprehension that he was going to give us to-day that which he had spared us last week, but the noble and learned Viscount, recognising that we have important business before us, fortunately desisted, and I shall follow his example in confining myself exclusively to the subject-matter of the Motion upon the Paper. I think that your Lordships will be of the opinion that my noble friend Lord Midleton is warmly to be congratulated upon the success that has attended his endeavour.

Let me for a moment recall to your Lordships what has happened. This Bill, after a long and somewhat anxious career in another place, came to your Lordships' House, and, in the debate upon the Second Reading, we heard many speeches of great power and sincerity, mainly dealing with the question in its larger aspect—with the great deficiency of houses, the suffering entailed upon the working classes and the need of some large measure to cope with the difficulty. Upon those lines the debate had proceeded until, at a certain stage, the noble Lord, Lord Weir, arose. I venture to say that his speech struck an entirely novel note in our proceedings. It came like a breath of fresh air in an exhausted atmosphere, because here we had the spectacle of a noble Lord who seldom intrudes upon our debates but who, with a masterly knowledge of his subject and with extreme conciseness of speech, put before us a definite suggestion. That suggestion was taken up and followed by my noble friend Lord Midleton.

What is that suggestion? The suggestion is that, concurrently with their scheme, or rather in anticipation of their scheme, His Majesty's Government should not neglect the opportunity of conducting an immediate, practical and scientific inquiry into methods of production more rapid, less costly and more effective than those which, in their own Bill, they are going to pursue. My noble friend Lord Weir made, it seemed to me, an unanswerable case for that which he called standardised production. He showed how you would be able to refrain from employing many classes of labour which are required for the Government's scheme, how the great State monopoly of the building trade would be broken into and, above all, that some scope might be given for private enterprise. His scheme, if I remember right, was a scheme for building houses of timber and steel, and he showed me a specimen of the material which he proposes to employ.

But that is not all. The noble Earl, Lord Midleton, said the other day, and repeated to-day, that schemes were forthcoming for building timber houses on a large scale, and that our Dominions are prepared to satisfy, at a reasonable cost and with great rapidity, that demand. But even that does not exhaust the subject, and I imagine that one of the main objects of this inquiry—admitting the. desirability of using these materials if they are forthcoming—will be to see that they satisfy the needs of a working man's house in all particulars. For instance, will they be sufficiently cool in summer and sufficiently warm in winter, and will the timber house, if it be put up, be free from depredations by insects I All such matters are subjects which would be very pertinent to the inquiry.

I rejoiced to hear that the suggestion has been so completely accepted by the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack, but I should like to press him upon one point. He says that for his part he would like the inquiry to go further. I did not quite gather from him what are the additional subjects which Mr. Wheatley proposes to inquire into. He used language of studied vagueness, which might mean that the particular objects in which we are interested would be pushed into the background, while some larger and different ideas were inquired into. I am glad to see that the noble and learned Viscount shakes his head, and I gather, therefore, that the inquiry which is going to sit is one which will sit at once, and will be directed to inquire into the subject of the noble Earl's Question, and will investigate all these various possible suggestions for alternative houses, so that when we meet again the Report of the Committee may be before us, and the Government, if they derive from it the encouragement which we think they will, will be able to adopt alternatives for more rapid and cheaper production than is contemplated under the Bill. If that is so, nothing but good can have resulted from this debate, and I congratulate both the noble Earl upon having moved his Motion, and the Government upon having accepted it.

On Question, the Earl of Midleton's Motion agreed to.

On Question, Motion to go into Committee agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly: