PUBLIC HEALTH BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 7 July 1936)

VISCOUNT GAGE
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a Third time.

LORD STRABOLGI
My Lords, I have been in communication with the noble Viscount with regard to this Bill because there are certain points which are desired to be raised in order to get certain assurances which I understand will be, at any rate in part, forthcoming from the noble Viscount, on matters which exercise the minds of three very important bodies in the country, the Building Industries National Council, the British Steelwork Association and the Institute of Structural Engineers. This matter affects very great industries and very great numbers of workpeople and employers in the country. It should have been taken up on Third Reading by the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, but the noble Earl is detained abroad, and I have been asked to take the matter up. I shall explain very briefly what the three points are. Your Lordships will be aware that this Bill, which ran the gaunlet of the Select Committee, is practically all consolidation, but there is a little new matter, and that gives the opportunity for these three points to be raised. The noble Viscount has been previously advised of them.
The first is that where building specifications, such as those prepared by competent bodies like the British Standards Institution, are in existence, and where local by-laws are inappropriate, is the 530 Minister prepared to take the initiative in recommending that such model bylaws be adopted? The second point has reference to the revision of obsolete bylaws. Can the Minister state anything with regard to the intentions of the Government as to existing obsolete building by-laws in certain parts of the country. The third point relates to the codification of building legislation. The building industry has long been pressing for some simplification and codification of the chaotic conditions of legislation affecting the design and erection of buildings. Part II of the Bill, they consider, goes some way in the direction required, but many of the existing by-laws and codes remain, and are considered quite obsolete, and they vary between district and district, so that they are a constant source of annoyance and expense to architects and builders. What I am asked to suggest to the noble Viscount is that the Government should appoint a small Departmental Committee to review the whole position and to see whether something can be done to clear away all this dead wood of obsolete legislation and free the hands of the building industry generally and those engaged in constructional work throughout the country, who are much hampered by the obsolete regulations and by-laws to which I have referred.

VISCOUNT GAGE
My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for having given notice of his intention to raise these points. I will take them in the order in which he suggested them. I can assure him that the Government sympathise with his desire for a reasonable uniformity in building practice throughout the country For several years local authorities have been encouraged by the Ministry of Health to accept national codes of practice where they exist, and the model by-laws issued by the Department have contained a suggestion that authorities should print as footnotes to their by-laws a statement that they will be guided by the requirements of such codes. Thus the specification of the British Standards Institute for the use of structural steel in building is recommended in this manner; and, similarly, the Report of the Reinforced Concrete Structures Committee of the Building Research Board is recommended as a guide for the proper thickness of reinforced concrete walls. The Bill itself, 531 by slightly widening the language of the old Acts, will enable this process to be carried somewhat further. Moreover, I can assure the noble Lord that in drafting the revised model by-laws, which the Bill will necessitate, the Department will consider giving fuller effect to the object which is at heart by replacing the present footnotes to the by-laws by an express provision binding the local authority to accept as satisfactory any form of construction which complies with a specified national code.
I think the second suggestion made by the noble Lord is, as I understand it, connected with Clause 313. That clause enables the Minister by order to amend a local Act in so far as its provisions are inconsistent with those of the Bill or have become redundant in consequence of the passing of the Bill; but such an order can only be made on the application of the local authority concerned. I understand that the bodies for whom the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, speaks would have been glad if the clause could have been extended in two respects: (1) by enabling the Minister to make an order of his own motion and without any application by the local authority; and (2) so as to permit of orders repealing local Act provisions which deal with matters with respect to which by-laws might be made under the Bill. As your Lordships will see, these Amendments would in effect make it possible to modify all local Acts containing provisions on matters which are usually the subject of by-laws. Amendments on those lines were suggested to the Joint Select Committee, over which the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, presided, and were strenuously opposed by the representatives of local authorities. After full consideration the Committee came without hesitation to the conclusion that it would be improper to make the Amendments on the ground that they would go far beyond existing law and represented a constitutional innovation of a highly controversial character.
The Government feel no doubt that the decision of the Joint Committee on this point is right and should be accepted. After all, this is a Consolidation Bill; it is not a Bill to amend the law farther than is necessary for the purpose of clarifying it. But I desire to make it clear that the Government fully share the 532 object which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has in mind of simplifying and clarifying the law affecting buildings. I may perhaps be permitted to remind the noble Lord how great an advance the Bill itself makes in this respect. Probably the most important change is the provision that existing building by-laws must be reviewed within three years from the passing of the Bill and subsequently at ten-yearly intervals. This will go far to ensure keeping the by-laws up to date and to secure reasonable uniformity. Moreover, the Bill itself represents a valuable codification of the building clauses (including the by-law-making powers) of the Public Health Acts of 1875, 1890, 1907 and 1935. For the first time these various provisions, which have grown piecemeal out of local legislation, have been sorted out, assimilated in language, and brought within the compass of a single Act. Again the Bill contains a provision, in Clause 70, under which for the first time a local authority will be required to print with its by-laws any provisions of its local Acts relating to matters with respect to which building by-laws can be made. The Bill at least makes a good start on the road which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, and his associates wish to pursue.
The third point is a somewhat more ambitious one. It is, as I understand the suggestion of the noble Lord, that there should be a general review and co-ordination in a single Act of provisions relating to building. This is a matter which does not strictly arise out of the present Bill, and therefore the noble Lord will not expect me to make any detailed pronouncement on the subject on the present occasion. But here again, the Bill itself, which represents the first codification of public health law attempted since 1875, is a practical expression of the Government's sympathy with the noble Lord's proposal. By far the greatest immediate advance that could be made in the direction desired will be the speedy passage of the Bill to the Statute Book. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with the assurances I have been able to give.

LORD STRABOLGI
My Lords, by leave of the House, may I thank the noble Viscount as far as I am concerned? On this complicated subject his reply 533 will give, I am sure, great satisfaction to the people concerned, and I am very much obliged.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)
My Lords, my noble friend has explained the reason why the Committee did not find themselves able to go further than has been done in the Bill now under consideration. As my noble friend has said, it is a codification and consolidation of the law with the minimum of amendment necessary to produce that codification in a current and useful form. I do not think that any member of the Committee—and my noble friend opposite will, I am sure, agree with me—thought that the present codification of the public health law is perfect. We all thought it capable of amendment, possibly of considerable amendment, to bring it up to date. I trust that will be done now that the Government have this codification of the law in one Act—as the noble Viscount said, the first since 1875—on which they can build.
As regards the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Strabolgi that they should consider this particular point of buildings, I have on more than one occasion suggested that it would be very desirable if we had a Standing Committee, or at any rate a Committee sitting frequently, to consider amendments of the public health law such as have been suggested and tried out in Private Bills, add them to the general law, and make them part and parcel of the law of the land. This Bill is a move in that direction. This Bill tends to make compulsory what was formerly adoptive, and as public health law develops I hope we shall see further amendments in the same direction. I am sure my colleagues on the Committee would not wish it to be thought that we were entirely satisfied with the public health law as it stands. We could all 534 see useful amendments that might be made, but we confined our work to making no more amendment of the general law than was absolutely necessary to produce a good body of codified law on which future Governments—and I hope the present Government—may be able to build.

§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND)
My Lords, having regard to Clause 341 of the Bill—["Power to apply provisions of Act to Crown property"]—I have it in command from His Majesty to signify to the House that His Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Public Health Bill, gives his consent as far as His Majesty's interest is concerned, that the House may do therein as they shall think fit.