HL Deb 18 March 1943 vol 126 cc771-93

LORD BEAVER BROOK moved to resolve, That a total of 30,000 new cottages for agricultural labourers and their families is the immediate minimum number required for the efficient conduct of the farming industry of England and Wales and for the healthy housing of its workpeople. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I know that your Lordships do not like to sit too late, so I must try and make my case for the agricultural cottages in the shortest possible space of time. I can assure my noble friend, the Leader of the House, that publication in full will appear in one of the London newspapers to-morrow; in other newspapers only in part, and if you take an average over the London newspapers you will see that my speech will get less space than it merits. But my noble friend can read it just the same, if he does not care to stay to hear it, and, if he likes, I will ask to have it on the same page as his friend "Beachcomber."

The shortage of cottages is nothing new. It has been going on ever since I arrived in England some thirty-two years ago, and in the twenty-five years or so that I sat either on the Benches on that side of the House where I made my maiden speech, or on the Benches on this side of the House—in all that time I have heard this question raised again and again, and very little good has come from any speeches made by anybody. I do not know that much is going to come from my speech, although the case, I can assure you, is absolutely water-tight. In 1937 the Ministry of Health said in a published document that some labourers had been waiting ten years for their cottages, and I hoped that the most reverend Prelate, the Archbishop of York, would be here to-day and that he would say a word in support of the plea that I make. And I would remind him that Jacob only consented to wait seven years, but on a very intricate point made by the Lord Chancellor of the day, Jacob had to wait fourteen years all told. There has been a more serious difficulty, and that was the neglect of repairs and renewals. That was widespread all through the country, and in many parts of the country there were agricultural areas that were nothing more nor less than slums. I hoped that my noble friend Lord Horder would have been here to-day so that I might have raised that issue with him, for of course the agricultural slums all over the country are a serious question in relation to the health of the country. I But I would ask His Majesty's Govern- ment, of which I was for some little time a member: What have you done since the war began to increase the necessary supply of agricultural cottages? What have you done to give any attention to repairs and renewals? What have you built? Nothing. What have you repaired? Nothing. And that is the indictment of His Majesty's Government.

Now they bring forward a proposal for 3,000 cottages. But since the war began 6,000,000 acres of agricultural land have been brought under the plough. It is necessary to have two ploughmen for every additional 100 acres That means 120,000 additional strength in the agricultural industry. If we have 120,000 additional strength, then we require cottages, and we can only offer 3,000. What is proposed now is only one cottage to forty additional labourers; and that makes no provision for the pre-war shortage, and none for repairs and renewals. Here in this House we have one seat for every forty Peers, but unhappily there is a great deal of absenteeism, and the absenteeism gives as space to sit clown. If it were not for the absenteeism, we might find my noble friend Lord Nathan sitting on the knee of Lord Southwood. In Norfolk, a County where ninety cottages have been provided, there are in fact 1,500,000 acres under cultivation.

Having made this general statement about the shortage of cottages, and racing against time in circler to enable others to speak and my noble friend Lord Portal to make the official answer, I am asking for 30,000 cottages. You ask me how I justify that 30,000. By putting a naught after the 3,000—that is the way I came to the conclusion to ask for 30,000. But the Minister of Health, I am told, has asked for 300,000 cottages. I am told on very reliable authority that is the figure he demands. Surely the very fact that the Minister of Health has asked for 300,000 cottages justifies me in asking for one-tenth of his demand. And, of course, I ask at the same time for the reconditioning of the cottages that are in need of repair, and in particular for pipe water. For I assure you, being sprung from the ploughman class of the community myself, that pipe water is better than electric light. Pipe water above everything is what the agricultural labourer would like. And why not give us 30,000 cottages? What is the reason? Is it shortage of materials? There is no shortage of bricks.

THE MINISTER OF WORKS (LORD PORTAL)

I agree.

LORD BEAVERBROOK

There is no shortage of bricks, there is no shortage of cement. If we can build the cottages of bricks and cement, there is no reason why we should not build more than 3,000, for bottlenecks do not arise. There is a shortage of timber, but we all know that cottages can be built without timber except for the doors and possibly the windows; but even in the case of doors and windows we may not need to make use of timber. It is agreed, therefore, that there is no shortage of bricks, there is no shortage of cement, there is a shortage of timber, but timber is in very small requirement. There is no shortage of these materials at all. I shall come to the question of labour in a moment. That my noble friend will say is the bottleneck, but in any case, even if there was a shortage of materials and labour, should there not be a reconditioning of the cottages? Should there not be reconditioning, not on the plea my noble friend Lord Horder would make if he were here, but on the plea that these cottages are part of the whole machinery of agriculture?

It is upon the cottages that agricultural production is based. It is like a factory or industry. If I were to go to my noble friend Lord Portal and say, "Here I have a factory that is out of condition and requires some materials to put it in shape," he would say, "Take the materials away," and I would get them at once. Although the cottage is part of the system of agricultural production, there are no materials for the reconditioning of cottages. It is a policy that is misguided. It is a policy on which I have tried to bring the light of public opinion to bear for ever so long, and I hope that to-day one more step will be taken. Where it will lead to I do not know—I do not think very far.

Labour is the bottleneck, but there is ample building labour, not unemployed but idle, waiting for jobs, waiting for materials, waiting for orders, or waiting for architects' plans. There is idle building labour. There are too many airfields—far more airfields than there are aeroplanes for them. The service of airfields is in excess of the supply of aeroplanes—a very fortunate condition, but that happens to be the fact. As for munition works, they are going up all over the country—and hostels. My noble friend knows a lot about hostels. That word is written on his heart. But I am not urging my case for 30,000 cottages on the statement of idle building labour or on the statement of too many airfields or too many munition works building all over the country or too many hostels. I am urging it on the ground that You are taking away from the building industry far more labour than would supply the necessities for 30,000 cottages, and, You have no justification for doing so—none at all.

You have taken away in the last year—in fact in the last six months—25,000 from the building trade and civil engineering. In the first three months of this year you are taking away 28,000. You are to take 15,000 a month. These are for military service. In addition, on July 1, you are taking 35,000 who are unfit for military service and putting them on other jobs. Eighty-five per cent. represent building labour, the rest is civil engineering. In other words by July 1 you will already have taken 122,000 from the building trade for the Armed Services and for other jobs. It requires at least 3,000 mobile and 20,000 immobile labour for 3,000 cottages. Put on my naught and you get 30,000 mobile and 20,000 immobile—a total of 50,000 for my 30,000 cottages; and you are taking 122,000 away. If you applied all that great number of 122,000 to the production of agricultural cottages, you would solve the situation, and at last you would be able to accede to one of the few Resolutions I have brought forward in this House.

It is real folly on the part of the Government to take these men away for the Army and to deprive the system of food production of their services—real folly. You cannot use them as soldiers here unless there is an invasion, and it is not now Government policy to prepare to resist an invasion. I do not know; I cannot tell; perhaps not. You cannot send them abroad because the ships you might send them in are required to bring food. I do not say you could not send them abroad in other ships, but the ships bringing food to this country would otherwise be at the disposal of the Government. These ships bringing food from across the ocean are bringing it to feed these very building labourers you have taken away from their industry and put into the Army, thus putting an additional burden on ships bringing foodstuffs over the Atlantic when you might be relieving the burden of transport by applying that labour to building agricultural cottages here. Food production in the future as in the past demands an adequate supply of plant and equipment, and cottages are part of the plant. But even supposing you do set out on the programme of 3,000 cottages, the fact that my noble friend Lord Portal is connected with the project makes me think that something may be done. He is a man of great drive and energy, as I well know. But when will they be built? I can make a pretty good guess. "This year, next year, sometime, never." The child's rhyme just about describes the situation. The machinery of bureaucracy we have built up is a structure far stronger than the cottages themselves.

Mr. J. F. Wright, of Norfolk, one of the great agriculturists of Britain, a man who has not got a seat in the House of Commons and does not have a place in the House of Lords, but has got his two feet on the farm—he is one of the finest authorities on agriculture in the land, an authority who does not talk nonsense but real substantial common sense about the land, the sort of substantial common sense a descendant of a ploughman likes to hear—tells me there are eleven different authorities that have to be consulted, that have to be taken into consideration, before you launch on the building of ninety cottages they want in Norfolk. First of all, you have to go to the rural district council, then to the rural district council surveyor, then to the architect then to the county war agricultural executive committee; the Assistant Land Commissioner is the next visit, if you are not tired. Then you go to the senior regional architect, then you have to consult the Directorate of Land, then the district valuer, then the senior regional officer, then the allocation officer, and finally, if you have decided to build a cottage without a parlour, you have to go to Mr. A. Scott in Whitehall. Why when you want to build an agricultural cottage without a parlour you must go to Mr. A. Scott in Whitehall I do not know.

It sounds like "The House that Jack Built." It does indeed. Except that the "maiden all forlorn who milked the cow with the crumpled horn" will never marry the "man all tattered and torn" because they will have no cottage to go to if they do marry; so they will stay single. If they are so fortunate as to get a cottage in the by and by, what then? In rent and rates they will have to pay from 11s. 6d. to 13s. What an imposition on an agricultural labourer! What an imposition upon the ploughman of this country to make him pay 13s. a week on the wage you have set up for him by law! Deal with that section of the community decently, deal with them on a generous basis, give them the plant that is necessary to the production of the food that you so urgently need for the necessities of our country.

You have built no cottages by this beureaucratic structure. I do not criticize civil servants; I think they are a splendid body. I have nothing but praise for civil servants, particularly the men who have control of the Civil Service and manage and dominate it. They are fine public servants. That is not what I object to. What I object to is rule by Committee divorced from any control by the public, and that is what we have got at the present time—Committee rule completely divorced from any authority or responsibility of the public whatsoever. Unless Lord Maugham—I mention him because I heard him speaking so clearly discussing a legal subject in terms I could understand—and others take hold of the situation, then rest assured this system of control by Committee responsible to nobody will dominate every detail of our public and private life. We have to make a struggle against that irresponsible Committee control if we are to have a decent life in the community after the war is over, and indeed if we are to prosecute the war while it is or to the utmost extent with the intention of doing the greatest possible damage to enemy.

The farmer has to deal now with III rules and orders from the Agricultural Ministry. He needs a lawyer in his back-room or his front-roam in order to deal with those HI rules and orders. And he has also orders from the Food Ministry, from the Supply Ministry, from the Fuel Ministry and from the War Transport Ministry all rolling into him. Then, when he is least expecting it, there comes an order from the War Office or the Air Ministry. That may bring about either a terrible situation or a splendid situation; we cannot be sure which it will mean to the farmer. The order from the War Office or the Air Ministry will be for the taking over of his land altogether, and occasionally the farmer feels a happy release when he gets an order taking over his farm. He is done with filling up forms. He sometimes has as many as fifty forms waiting to be filled up. In nearly every case where he buys or where he sells he has to fill up a form. If he repairs a fence then he has to fill up a form in triplicate. He has to do that before he can repair his fence, and, meanwhile, his cattle may have strayed into his neighbour's field. I want to tell this to my noble friend for he can make the situation easier, particularly in regard to the supply of materials for repairing: fences, which is necessary for the farm. A proverb in New Brunswick, which also applies in Great Britain, says that good fences make good neighbours. A very good proverb that is, and I suggest to my noble friend that good fences here will make good neighbours. A farmer spends half his life book-keeping. Sometimes peasants are not good book-keepers. Accountants come from the city but ploughmen come from the countryside.

I want to say one further word, but I am anxious not to take up the time of the House much longer because I want to conform to the desire of your Lordships to go home at the hour you have selected among yourselves, without any wide consultation. I want to see you get home safely and well; therefore I will limit my remarks so that you can get home at a reasonable hour. I was going to say one word about county war agricultural committees. I hope they will come to an end when the war is over. These county war agricultural committees have cost this Government £10,000,000 a year at least; it may even turn out that £20,000,000 will be the cost of the war agricultural committees. The committees divide themselves often into twelve subcommittees. It is committees and subcommittees everywhere. The service which we are supposed to get from the county war agricultural committees is to turn bad farmers into good farmers, but you cannot turn bad farmers into good farmers by a committee meeting. It is not possible. You have to find some other method of dealing with that problem. I did intend to make some observations about the proposals of some noble Lords for agriculture in the future, but again for reasons of time I will say nothing further, except to hope that I have made my case for these cottages, and to suggest to your Lordships that we should not allow our farmers any longer to submit to be ruled by bankers and by brokers, by importers and by exporters, by middlemen and by milk combines. I return, therefore, to the Resolution which I submit to the consideration of your Lordships, and hope you will not be put off from supporting it by anything I have said about Committees. I know you are all members of many Committees, and I hope you will not be influenced adversely by anything I have said about such bodies, but will give your hearty support to the plea I make for 30,000 cottages for agricultural labourers. I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, That a total of 30,000 new cottages for agricultural labourers and their families is the immediate minimum number required for the efficient conduct of the farming industry of England and Wales and for the healthy housing of its workpeople.—(Lord Beaverbrook.)

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, it refreshes me exceedingly to hear the noble Lord's enthusiasm for this subject, because I happen to be one of those who have suffered much in this cause in the years that have passed. I remember very painfully that I did not always receive that consistent support from great organs of the Press which I really merited, but now I hope that those organs of the Press, which, as I think the noble Lord explained to us yesterday, he owns but does not control, will give consistent support from this time on to this cause.

LORD BEAVERBROOK

They always have; I was never faithless to the ploughman.

LORD ADDISON

We want to get houses built for the agricultural worker now. I asked the noble Lord before we came in why he did not put a naught at the end of the figure in his Motion and he gave me a very complete reply. He pointed out that in the Resolution there was the word "immediate," which of course governs everything to-day. I hope we shall hear from the noble Lord opposite what are the realities with regard to the difficulties of the provision of the necessary labour and materials. We shall certainly want 30,000 cottages a year for ten years. We should then begin only to approach the need, and should still be far from attaining what is really required. But I would like to say that I think we owe a real debt to the Ministry for the White Paper which provides for the large-scale organization of building labour after the war and for the training of it during the war. I hope we shall hear something about that this afternoon, because it has to be tackled at that end.

With the most profound respect for, shall I say almost fear of, the noble Lord who has just spoken, may I say that I am not quite sure he is so near realities as he would have us believe? He says he is a realist. Well, I am the Chairman of a county war agricultural executive committee and I do not recognize his description of those bodies. We have met in committee two or three times a week ever since the first week of the war, and I should like to assure the noble Lord that if he will only come along and let me be his host for one day, I will show him something of what we are really doing. I think he will see how extraordinarily imaginary is the picture he has painted of the work of the war agricultural executives. I will take this opportunity of giving the House one simple illustration. The small county where I have the honour to preside over the committee was much worse off than Norfolk. We only had fifty cottages allotted, but the notice of the allocation came in one week and within ten days of that welcome notification the Ministry had been informed of the complete agreement of all this medley of committees which the noble Lord has imagined. The Ministry was informed how many houses were wanted in the different districts, where the need was most urgent and precisely where they were to be placed in each village. The whole scheme was completed and sent back with our unanimous blessing within ten days. I do not think that the Daily Express could have been prompter than that. It was really express work.

I hope the noble Lord, if he has got that information from Mr. Wright, will have it carefully investigated, because I assure him that every one of the war agriculture executive committees welcome this suggestion even for a handful of cottages. It is a mere handful of cottages, but I believe the matter has been dealt with remarkably quickly. I would join heartily with the noble Lord in the hope that the effort will not be smothered by any of the machinery described, and I think we can trust the noble Lord opposite that this will not happen. If he can modify the call-up in the building trade so as to get nearer 30,000 than 3,000 cottages, that would be welcomed by all, and if that is done I think we shall feel immensely indebted to the noble Lord for bringing the matter forward.

Now I would like to add a word out of my painful experience on the subject with regard to the larger issue. It is true that 30,000 cottages would be an enormous help now. The survey to which the noble Lord alluded showed that an immense proportion of the cottages now occupied by agricultural workers are very dilapidated and very unsatisfactory. The housewife has not half a chance, and that is one of the main reasons why young men will not remain in the villages. It is not 30,000 cottages that are required in the interests of sound agriculture, nor even 300,000, but vastly more. I find that in this country 38,000 workers in the last year before the war drifted away from agriculture. Notwithstanding that, the number of people, including the occupiers of the smaller holdings, who were employed in the industry in England and Wales, was 959,000. The number of labourers who have left agriculture, the biggest industry in the country, is not less than a quarter of a million during the last generation. I am quite sure that the provision on a large scale of cottages in the country districts, with the amenities that the noble Lord talked about—with a decent water supply, so that the housewife can wash up without having to walk along the road to a pond to get water—will do more to keep men in the villages and their wives contented than almost anything else.

I remember only too painfully that after the last war I was urged to build houses. "Get on with it was shouted at me every day, not by the Press to which the noble Lord referred, but by other organs of the Press. I was allowed to make one great mistake. I agreed, although I should not have agreed, to pursue the endeavour without adequate control of material and prices. After this war build- ing enterprise will be enormously more urgent than after the last war, and I do entreat the noble Lord to represent to whoever is responsible for the job that the mistake that was made last time shall not be repeated. The job will have to be done by complete control for many years of prices and materials and of the whole organization in as striking a way as we now control the means of war production. Otherwise prices will soar to unholy heights, as they did last time, and whoever is in charge will be destroyed as I was. That was a mistake.

There is one other thing about which I think a warning should be given. Immediately after the war there will be an immense outcry for lots of things and the cry for houses will probably be the biggest. How many millions will be wanted I do not know, but the task will need all the mobilized labour that the Ministry can bring together. I hope that those who live to see that time will do whatever they can to prevent a recurrence of the betrayal of 1922. Some of us were parties to the promise of "homes for heroes"—I was one of them—and I have never ceased to be thankful that I went out when that promise was proposed to be broken. I have a great fear that after the enthusiasm of the war period there may come a reaction, and I hope that everyone of us will resolve that whoever is in charge shall be given complete power—even if it involves the establishment of a number of Committees—over all that is necessary to secure economic and rapid building, because if that is not done there will be sooner or later a reaction such as there was in 1922 and we may suffer similar disasters. I am delighted with the enthusiasm of the noble Lord on this subject, to which I have given faithful and suffering allegiance for more than a generation, and I sincerely hope that he will sustain it at all costs.

LORD PHILLIMORE

My Lords, it is a refreshing thought that the Addison cottage may be shortly followed by the Beaverbrook cottage, and I feel that all the agricultural world ought to be grateful to the noble Lord for bringing forward this Motion. I was surprised, if not shocked, at the moderation of this proposal. Thirty thousand cottages! They will go nowhere, as the noble Lord, Lord Addison, knows. I do not suppose it means three cottages in a parish. However, I rose not only to draw attention to the noble Lord's very conservative estimate, but to challenge him on a little of his knowledge about country life. Does the noble Lord appreciate that far more than 30,000 agricultural cottages already exist, but are unused by the agricultural population? The real truth of the matter is that during the depression the best cottages, the ones that would fetch the most money for the impoverished farmer, were let to people not engaged in agriculture. You cannot go to any village, at any rate in the South of England, without finding cottages which were normally occupied by agricultural workers when England was farmed as it is now farmed, now in other hands.

And if that is true, and it is true, it will be found, I think, that those cottages are best placed for the work of the farm. Naturally they were let with the farm to the farmer and they were so situated that the men concerned might get as easily as possible to their work. They were also the best of the cottages left to the farmer, for they were the ones that would fetch the higher rents. This to my mind is a very pregnant factor in the situation. Might it not be better to consider building new cottages for the people who are now in those cottages; that is to say, providing them with new homes, and handing over the older cottages to the agricultural labourers? Those older cottages, as I have said, are certainly placed where the labourers will most desire to be. It may be argued that a new cottage will be more attractive to the housewife than the old one, and no doubt that is partially true. But the rents of the old cottages may be much lower, and such buildings, after all, have many advantages that the new, quickly run-up dwellings which the noble Lord, Lord Portal, will be forced, I am afraid, to put up, will probably not possess. The older cottages will, I think, be more comfortable with their warmer walls, warmer roofs and greater number of outbuildings. They are, in fact, generally more fitting for the use to which they were intended to be put. I will not detain the House longer, but I do think that this is a very important point and one which should be borne in mind right throughout the campaign—which I hope will not be dropped—to provide the agricultural labourer with the sort of cottage he ought to have.

LORD PORTAL

My Lords, the Resolution which has been moved by my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook proposes, as we know, that a total of 30,000 new cottages for agricultural labourers and their families should be provided immediately. I have listened with great attention to his speech to-day and I gathered that he is of opinion that these cottages will not be built this year, next year, sometime or ever. I can only say that if the 3,000 which are now contemplated are not built, I imagine that his Lordship in the near future will again be having something to say in this House, for he has taken this matter up with all his accustomed fervour and zest. A great point which he stressed was that in his view no more men should be taken from the building trade, which he considers so important, to go into the Services or to work on munitions. Manpower is a very big question indeed and the people whose chief concern it is look at it from many different points of view. They have to consider all sorts of questions connected with priorities and allocations and they have to decide which needs are the most important.

I think it is only fair that I should say at the beginning of my remarks that the actual building comes under the Minister of Health, and both the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture would be only too glad if they could start immediately to build 30,000 homes for agricultural workers. And it is not only 30,000 that they have in mind. They visualize, as Lord Addison has suggested, a ten-year programme which will include putting up about 300,000 cottages for the agricultural workers. Most of your Lordships are aware that just before the war started the annual rate of building of new houses was nearly 350,000, of which 55,000.were in rural areas. I tried to get for your Lordships figures showing what proportion was for agricultural workers but I was unable to do so. But let us take the 55,000 as representing the annual number which was being built at that time in rural areas. As Lord Beaverbrook has already pointed out, what has happened since the war began is simply that the houses which were then in process of being built have been finished off. Then, as Lord Phillimore has said—and this is a matter which is in the minds of everyone—one of the most important problems to be faced now is that of maintenance. The maintenance of houses has fallen very much behind. But it is not only the maintenance of houses that has fallen behind. The maintenance of plants in industrial buildings is also falling back in a like ratio. Moreover, the completion of the houses which were under construction when the war began has been more than offset by the number of dwellings which have been destroyed or irreparably damaged by enemy action.

The Minister of Flealth envisages for the future a programme of building 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 houses and of that scheme the building of 300,000 cottages for agricultural workers will be a part. As I have said, we are suffering now from big arrears in the matter of maintenance. The Minister of Health has publicly drawn attention to these facts. A vast amount of work will be required to bring housing conditions once again up to the standard of 1939. A start has been made—as I think my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook mentioned—on the reconditioning of houses in rural areas. In this connexion I would like to refer to what I may call the bombed areas of this country. For some time before I went to my Ministry a figure of £150 was allowed for the reconditioning of houses irrespective of first-aid repairs. During the last two months that figure has been increased to approximately £300. The Ministry of Health and my Ministry are beginning to operate on the repair of 40,000 bombed houses. We are going to get them into a proper state of repair and the country will then gain to the extent of 40,000 more homes. The first and principal reason to which Lord Beaverbrock referred for not being able to deal with more than 3,000 agricultural cottages is labour. I think it was the Archbishop of York's Committee which went into the question of reconditioning rural houses. That question is now being considered and practical steps will undoubtedly be taken when the labour is available. That I think is something to go on with.

And now I want to tell the noble Lord that I would be very pleased to accept his Motion if it were not for the word "immediate." I know that he and I will not agree on that. He has maintained that labour should not be taken away as it is being taken from toe building trade. Before the war there were in England and Wales 1,200,000 people in the building and civil engineering trades. At the present time there are less than half that number in those trades, and programmes which are still being carried out for the Service Ministries, the Services themselves, and for other Ministries whose work is regarded as part of the war effort, absorb about two-thirds of that labour. Moreover, before the war approximately 300,000 men were employed on the maintenance of houses, factories and other buildings. That figure has now fallen to about 170,000, and in that figure of 170,000 are included 35,000 men who are dealing with bombed houses, first-aid repairs and so on. Our difficulty is, therefore, that we have a minus number of men available.

The question of priorities in regard to building has to depend at the present time on the war effort. The noble Lord has referred to the increase in the number of agricultural workers, due to the policy of ploughing-up land and so on, but the extra numbers who have come to help in carrying out the agricultural programme are, for the most part, temporary, and for them hostels can be provided. I do not think that I know any more about hostels than my noble friend did when he was Minister of Supply, but hostels are being built for these people, and over 400 hostels and camps have been provided. The camps are used for prisoners of war, and up to 700 are accommodated in each camp. The most popular type of hostel holds about 50, but the capacity of others varies from thirty to one hundred.

In addition to these 40,000 to 50,000 unskilled workers who have been brought into agriculture, we must have a nucleus of experienced workers, and these 3,000 houses are to be built for them. That is the intention of the Minister of Agriculture, and it is supported by the Minister of Health. They work together on these questions, and they have, as Lord Addison knows, asked the local authorities to find sites for these houses at once. They are to be advised by the agricultural war executive committee of each county, and the tenants will be chosen by the committee for the time being. I understand that most of the sites will be near villages, and so the provision of water—a point mentioned by my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook—will not be as difficult as it is in the case of some farms which are a long way from water supplies. The figures which I have given show that we have only half the labour which we used to have, and that two-thirds of that labour is being used for the Service and Supply Ministries, while 170,000 men are being used for maintenance work generally and the repair of bombed houses. We are therefore left with very few men.

Then we come to the question of material, and my noble friend Lord Beaverbrook asks what we have. He asks whether we have bricks, and the answer is that we have bricks. He asks whether we have cement, and the answer is that we have cement. The difficulty at the present time is timber. So far as these 3,000 houses are concerned, however, we have to get over that difficulty. I regard 3,000 as a token figure. This is our first piece of planning on a long-term programme. When we talk of hostels, there is always a feeling that they are not permanent, but with these houses it is different. We must make a success of them. I am certain that after the war there will be a shortage of timber. No one should know that better than I do, because when one is concerned with the allocation of these materials one obtains first-hand knowledge of the position regarding them. We are developing designs and methods of pitched-roof construction, therefore, which will avoid the necessity of using timber.

An interesting point to consider is the increase in the cost of building at the present time. For cottages it is about 80 per cent. With ordinary buildings about 33 per cent. of the costs is for material, and about 66 per cent. for labour. For camps and aerodromes the increase in cost is not as much as 80 per cent. One of our great difficulties, with the reduced amount of labour available to us, is that those men who remain in the industry are, for the most part, the older men. Although the mellow craftsman is worth a great deal, you also need youth. In the country areas at the present time we shall have to rely a great deal on the older men, because all the younger men are being taken from us gradually. When we get down to below half a million, we shall find a great proportion of them are older men.

We shall all agree that it is necessary to provide more cottages for agricultural workers, and we may well be asked what plans we are making for this purpose. My noble friend Lord Addison has warned us about what may happen after the war. If supply does not equal demand prices may go up rapidly. That is a reason why, as he says, controls are imposed, and we realize the importance, until supply and demand can be brought into a proper relation, of maintaining controls. On April 21, 1942, I made a few remarks in your Lordships' House on planning and future personnel, which I said was all-important. I said: There is a question which is closely allied or shall I say goes hand in hand with the question of planning, and one which is bound up with my Ministry of Works… Directly the war is over, it will be essential to have this industry organized so as to cope with the vast amount of work with which it will have to deal. Most of the material required is at hand in this country. A very large number of new houses will be required, as well as repairs to many thousands, and we shall require new schools and other buildings. A well-balanced programme will have to be planned. The men to carry out this work will have to be made available very quickly. We are already well advanced in considering what will be required. The question of apprentices being taken into the trade is being thought out, and that of getting the large number of men hack both from the Services, and the munition factories, is being gone into. The training of men on demobilization is also an essential factor. We must think out a long-term programme. Your Lordships will realize that this is no easy task, made no easier by the fact that the number of our building operatives is decreasing very fast as men are called up. The Government have now produced a White Paper which gives effect to what we were saying at that time. In this White Paper, we accept the principle of a planned building programme for ten or twelve years, with a labour force of 1,250,000. We accept the principle of regularity of employment, if the trade itself agrees as to the method. The White Paper recognizes that there will have to be a large expansion of the building industry at the end of the war. It provides for the special training of up to 200,000 men demobilized or coming out of munitions, which will be directed by the Ministry of Labour with the advice and co-operation of the Ministry of Works. It covers the training of men in the Forces before demobilization, both in this country and abroad. Apprenticeship is the normal way of entry into the industry, and arrangements are indicated for the maximum encouragement of such training within the industry, with the assistance of the Ministry of Works and other Departments concerned. It provides for the establishment by the Ministry of Works of an Apprenticeship and Training Council to cover the whole industry. Such arrangements will operate in the provinces and throughout the country. There is a section in my Ministry to-day which is working out the future building requirements of each Governrnent Department, of which housing will obviously, be one of the first priorities, and rural housing is a part of a good general housing programme. There are the requirements of the Post Office and other Government Departments which are now to be worked out with the number of men who are going to be introduced into the industry for the first time.

I served an apprenticeship myself in the question of providing employment in the Special Areas. The main thing one has striven for is that men should know what they are gong to have to work on from day to day, and they will be given a chance of this by the White Paper scheme. So when, after the war, a young man wants to serve an apprenticeship his father and mother will have a trade which they can be proud to see their boy enter, because he will have some continuity of work and prospect. I am in sympathy, and His Majesty's Government are in sympathy, with Lord Beaverbrook in his Resolution, but I think I have made it clear that at the present time 3,000 houses are all that can be built, with the labour and material available.

LORD BEAVERBROOK

My Lords, I take it that the Government reject my Motion. I listened with some interest to the story of what is going to be done after the war, but that is riot what I am asking. I am asking for 30,000 agricultural cottages now. That is the Motion. The fact that Saul is among the prophets and Portal among the planners does not affect this issue at all. I still want to know whether the Government are willing to increase the programme to 30,000 cottages. I am quite ready to discuss priorities of labour in this House. If the Government want to put off the issue to another day, when we can discuss priorities of labour, I will put it off to that time. But if I cannot get the assurance that the matter will be reconsidered on the basis of priorities of labour I must press my Motion to a Division. The issue as I put it to the House was that 122,000 men are being taken from the building industry now and that 40,000 would provide the cottages I am asking for. I ask that 40,000 of those men should be diverted to building agricultural cottages. My noble friend says "No." He goes into a discussion of the limitations of labour, but he does not answer about the 122,000 men that are being taken for the Services and for other industries. We contend that 40,000 should be directed to the building industry on account of the present need for 30,000 cottages.

The information I have given the House to-day can be got from other sources besides that very reliable farmer, J. F. Wright. It can be got from an article in The Times a week ago and elsewhere. My noble friend has made no attempt to deny the information I have given the House about the committees. My noble friend Lord Phillimore made a most valuable contribution, and I should have had something to say on the same subject if I had not cut my speech short. There are many other issues raised by my noble friend that I should have liked to discuss. He speaks about 40,000 houses that are subject to their being repaired, but these 40,000 houses are not agricultural cottages; they are for the gentry, not for the ploughmen.

LORD PORTAL

The 40,000 are in the bombed areas, in the East End and various other places.

LORD BEAVERBROOK

It is not much of an answer to my plea for 30,000 cottages to speak about bombed houses in the towns. I still submit that 30,000 cottages can be built. Even the shortage of timber can be met by the supply of beaverboard, and if beaverboard is not available it can be made here; it is only a matter of using certain machinery for the purpose. With regret, therefore, but none the less with confidence that I do my duty, I propose to go to a Division unless the proposal is accepted that we should discuss priorities of labour later on, with the intention of showing that priorities of labour are properly directed otherwise than to the building of agricultural cottages. There has been a case throughout for far more than 30,000 cottages, so surely I can hope for support from your Lordships for my modest demand for 30,000.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil)

My Lords, perhaps I might say one word if the noble Lord still feels inclined to go to a Division.

I must confess I think it would be unfortunate if there was a Division on this subject, and I do not think the noble Lord would be justified in forcing the House to a Division. What my noble friend has said is that the Government are in favour not only of the 30,000 cottages for which the noble Lord asks, but for 300,000 for which he might have asked if he had not been so moderate. The real difficulty at the present time is purely a man-power difficulty. I think the noble Lord recognizes that himself. I understand that he has not accepted the figures given by my noble friend, but I can assure noble Lords that the man-power situation, which is one of the utmost difficulty at the present time, has been examined and combed through again and again and again by His Majesty's Government. There is not a single man in this country now who is not doing work of essential importance. And therefore suddenly to suggest at the end of a debate that there are plenty of men for that purpose—

LORD BEAVERBROOK

The point is that I have shown that 122,000 men are being diverted from the building industry to the Services and to other industries, and I ask that out of that 122,000 a quota should be detached for building agricultural cottages, and my noble friend answers me by talking about the immense decline in building labour. He did not make any reply at all to my argument about the 122,000 men.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

But the clear and obvious reply is that the Cabinet, having considered priorities of labour in this very difficult situation, thought it was more necessary to divert those 122,000 men to the Armed Forces and to, the other industries of which he has spoken. It is not a thing that they have not considered. They have considered it with the utmost care. It seems to me that for the House to divide on a question of that kind at the present moment would not only create a very bad impression but would be perfectly unjustifiable. If the noble Lord wishes to press his Motion to a Division he can, but I hope every other noble Lord will come to the support of the Government.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, I share the hope that Lord Beaverbrook will not ask the House to put itself on record as censuring the Government for not providing an additional 30,000 agricultural cottages. It would be very easy to represent such a Division as a Division between those who are in favour of more adequate rural housing and those who are against it, but that would be a very wrong and unfair impression. I for my part have been interested in this cottage questian for many years before the date the noble Lord gave, some thirty years ago, when he first came to England, for I remember writing a pamphlet on this subject about fifty years ago when I was a young candidate for Parliament in an agricultural constituency.

When we are asked to vote for or against this Resolution, we naturally ask ourselves why we are requested to insist that the Government should build 30,000 cottages. Why 30,000? Has the noble Lord made a careful statistical survey of the requirements of the agricultural industry at the present time and of the actual shortage that prevails, and so built up from actual fact the statistic of 30,000? Not at all. He has taken 30,000 because it is ten times the 3,000 and one-tenth of 300,000; that figure of 3,000 being the number proposed by the Government, and the figure of 300,000 being the number the Ministry of Health have said will be ultimately necessary. Three thousand is obviously too little, and 300,000 is impracticable at the present time. Therefore, he says, "Let us plump for 30,000." On such statistical basis he asks the House of Lords to place on its records the opinion that we consider at the present time 30,000 is the figure of additional agricultural cottages necessary. As regards the priorities of labour, on which the whole matter turns, clearly that is a matter for the most careful investigation by the Government. In fact, it is one of the main tasks of any Cabinet conducting a war. If we are now to say, without any further evidence than that provided by the noble Lord's speech, that the Cabinet have been wrong in not providing labour for 30,000 cottages instead of 3,000, we are not supporting the Government in their conduct of the war. We should only withdraw our support on points such as this when we consider the evidence is clear and overwhelming. I have not been sparing in my criticisms of the Government on many occasions, and I should be quite ready to criticize them again, but I would not he prepared to support the noble Lord in the Lobby on the statis- tical evidence he has put forward in censuring the Government cut in their conduct of fie war for not providing sufficient labour in this particular priority.

LORD BEAVERBROOK

My Lords, I am going to ask leave to withdraw, but M doing so I would point out that the question has not been answered. It is idle for noble Lords to come to this House and present cases to the Government which are not answered. The point is that 122,000 building labourers are being diverted elsewhere. I have made a plea for cottages. That is the evidence which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, wants—this statement that 122,000 building labourers are being withdrawn. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion, but would point out that the Government have not answered the question I brought to this House, and very often that is because there is no answer.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.