§ 5.15 p.m.
§ Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved yesterday by toe Lord Archbishop of York—namely, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the steps taken by His Majesty's Government to provide the large number of houses urgently required for the health and happiness of the People.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SHEFFIELDMy Lords, at this late hour I feel more than ever that this is a subject for action rather than for speech. If all the speeches made on this subject in the last year could be transformed by a wave of the wand into bricks and mortar, how happy would the people of England be! I will be brief. We have heard a good deal in the course of this discussion of the various obstacles in local authorities and at the centre, which prevent things moving as fast as we should like. What an outsider asks—a great number of people ask this—is, if these obstacles do in fact exist, is it not possible, in view of the urgency of this subject, and of the fact that the need for houses cannot be exaggerated and that all Parties are agreed as to the urgency, for these obstacles to be removed, and for the whole matter to move forward more strictly to time-table than it usually does? After all, under the pressure of war, it was possible to have magnificent coordinated enterprises like "Mulberry," and things of that sort. Can we not really get these obstacles removed, so that we can go forward and get: our houses quickly and effectively?
926 I do not think the difficulty is entirely at the centre. There are also these obstacles in local authorities. If there could be some kind of combined pressure to get the whole thing moving as though it were on a sort of unseen conveyor belt from the first stage of site clearance to the last stage of the completed house, it would be a most desirable thing. Another point I want to make—I will not develop it at this late hour—is that in spite of this immense need for quick building and for many houses, I hope we shall not lose sight of the need for quality in building. After all, many of our badly built slums were constructed under pressure of rush building to meet an emergency. We should leave an unfortunate heritage to our successors if we allowed ourselves to be so influenced by the need for speed that we sacrificed wholly or too largely the need for quality in building. It ought to be possible to combine both quantity and quality. We were not wholly successful in doing that between the wars. I have lived and worked in areas where an immense amount of building was done in that period. Some of it was good and some of it was extremely bad. Much of it was ill-designed and poorly constructed. Surely, with the resources we have available, with good architects and so on, it ought to be possible, if the thing is well planned, not to sacrifice quality to quantity, either in town or in country. I leave that point there, although I could say a good deal more about it.
My next point refers to the way in which tenants are selected and accepted. I should like to put in a plea first of all for the newly married. I hope it may not be thought necessary or wise to insist that they should just take their places at the end of the waiting queue. People are concerned these days, and rightly, about the breakdown of home and family life. A risk of breakdown is there when you ask young people to start married life with no home of their own or possibly just an odd room or so. Another point I want to make with regard to the selection of tenants is one which was partly made yesterday. Several of your Lordships, speaking yesterday, said it was very important that in these new estates after the war we should not repeat the mistake made before the war and have estates which had no mixed population in them. Various phrases 927 were used to that effect. Any of us who have worked and lived in such places know how many of the estates built before the war lacked the ingredients of a true community and a good neighbourhood. It is very easy to say that we do not want to segregate classes and so on, but I have great sympathy with any local housing authority when it comes to the matter of selecting who in fact shall live on a new estate.
They may themselves realize that a good neighbourhood is in fact a mixed grill, that it must have upon it professional people, people of various wage levels and so forth, and also that it should have facilities for community life, both indoor and outdoor; but actually it is extraordinarily difficult for any local housing authority in a given locality to select on any other than a rather well-defined and obvious basis of selection. They are very open to charges of favouritism if they do not. If we believe it is most desirable in the interests of the social life of this. country that these new estates should be in fact cross-sections of the community, then it seems to me that the local housing authorities must have the very strong backing of some impartial and sympathetic central authority to enable them to face this obvious risk of criticism.
The last thing I want to say raises a very simple point, but it is, I think, important that from time to time we should remind ourselves of first principles. We would do well to remember that our anxiety to get good housing for the people is not purely a utilitarian one; it is not merely that we are all believers in good modern plumbing; but because basically we believe that good houses, good neighbourhoods, gardens and open spaces normally create the physical conditions necessary for good homes, good families and healthy children.
§ 5.23 p.m.
§ LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHMy Lords, in rising to support the Motion of my noble friend the most reverend Prelate I have only one matter to which I wish to refer, a matter which has not previously been referred to in this debate. Before passing to that I should like, if I may, to refer to the very excellent 928 speech which the right reverend Prelate has just delivered. If I may say so with great respect, I thought it was a very thoughtful and well-balanced contribution. I would like to support what he said about the need for estates being cross-sections of the community. I would also like, if I may, to support what he said about recently married couples. I would like to tell him that in the report referred to by my noble friend who spoke yesterday for the Government there is a recommendation, number seven, that a proportion of tenancies should be allotted to recently married couples without children. I hope that will please the right reverend Prelate.
The point to which I wish to direct attention is the present position of what are known as housing associations. I have given private notice to the noble Viscount who leads the House of my intention to ask the question, and I hope, therefore, he will be in a position, when he replies, to give us a definite answer. Housing associations are generally known as nonprofit-making bodies. They are registered, as a rule, under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, and sometimes under the ordinary Companies Act. Before the war there were as many as 250 of these associations, and they made, I think I may say, a substantial contribution to the solution of our housing difficulties. They dealt in rehousing of various kinds; they rehoused tenants from slum clearance schemes; they rehoused people to abate overcrowding; some of them specialized in the reconditioning of old property and others made a speciality of housing elderly people. All of them, however, concentrated on the poorest classes in the community and all of them, I think I can say, made a particular point of skilled management. In connexion with management, I would like to mention the name of Miss Octavia Hill, who, I think I may say, did a service in awakening the social conscience of the nation with regard to housing comparable with what was accomplished by Lord Shaftesbury in connexion with factory legislation.
These housing societies, or housing associations as they are now called, have always been subordinate to the local authorities, but I claim (and I do not think anybody will contradict me) that they have been a valuable ally to the local authorities in the task of providing 929 a pool of low-rented housing accommodation. In the 1936 Housing Act expression I was given to that by a provision mach for the creation of what is now tin National Federation of Housing Societies. The question I want to ask the noble Viscount is: What is going to be the future of this movement? Local authorities up and down the country are I can say wit: confidence, increasingly aware of the value of these housing associations. In all political Parties there are people who share the view, which I confess I hold, that the relationship of landlord and. tenant is not always very suitably combined with the relationship of local authority and ratepayer. That is a very big question. Of course we are committed to the plan that local authorities have I do the bulk of the rehousing of the poorer people, but nevertheless there are advantages in a less direct form of property ownership. Perhaps I may give as I simple example a case where a housing site overlaps the areas of two or more local authorities. In that case a very convenient method of administration is through the formation of a housing association.
This is the main point I want to bring to your Lordships' notice. These housing associations have been working away quietly during and since the war, preparing themselves for future activities have been given figures which show there are in existence to-day fifty more associations than there were before the war and that those associations have present programmes which will provide no less that 100,000 dwellings; that is 100,000 dwellings to be provided by those fifty new associations alone without counting any programmes which may be contemplated by the 250 old associations which existed before the war. These associations have funds available; they have access to funds provided by the Public Works Loans Board and other people. Many of them have sites actually ready; they have plans prepared; they have technical assistance ready to do the work; there are builders ready to enter into contracts as soon as it is permitted. The whole of this movement is in suspense and they want to know what is going to happen. That is the question which I am asking the noble Viscount to answer.
Up to the time of the change of Government, this movement was always sure e f a welcome at the Ministry of Health. 930 Since the change of Government we detect, we fear, a note of hesitation. I am hoping that as a result of the noble Viscount's remarks that hesitation will be dispelled. Whether it is a reproach or not, it cannot be said that this movement is whole-hearted private enterprise. It is not whole-hearted private enterprise, because private enterprise in the full sense of the word goes for the maximum profit.
§ LORD WOOLTONNo, no.
§ LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHThese societies are in many cases registered as charities and do not make a profit at all.
§ LORD WOOLTONI dissent from the statement that private enterprise goes for the full, maximum profit.
§ LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHWell, some forms of private enterprise go for the maximum profit. I am grateful to my noble friend for the correction. He is perfectly right. It would not be fair to say that private enterprise always goes for the maximum profit, but private enterprise does go for profit. Many of these societies are charities and do not make a profit at all, while others go for a limited profit. There is about the movement, however, a definite aroma of private enterprise, which to me at all events is a very agreeable one. I hope it is not the case, but I am wondering whether in the Socialist nostrils of the present Minister of Health that agreeable aroma is nothing less than a bad smell. I hope that that is not the case, but I do seek reassurance on that point.
I listened with great attention to what fell from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, yesterday, and I derived a good deal of reassurance from his remarks. I thought that his speech was redolent of sincerity and everything we could wish. He said that we in the United Kingdom have to bring private and public agencies into partnership in a common effort to help their fellow-men. In the full sense of those words, I hope we shall get reassurance on the point on which I ask for it tonight. I am not asking on behalf of this movement for a bored and indifferent toleration, which, indeed we are bound at the lowest to get, because we are enshrined in the Housing Acts. What I am asking for is enthusiastic co-operation, and the fullest possible assistance.
§ 5.33 p.m
THE EARL OF WEMYSSMy Lords, you have already heard several eloquent speeches on this most important subject of housing, and, inasmuch as I have never yet trespassed upon the time of your Lordships' House, it is not my intention now to take up more than a few minutes. There are, however, some things which cannot be said too often, and one of those is that the Government cannot at the present time afford to despise and neglect the help which private enterprise is willing and ought to be able to give. His Majesty's Government remind me very strongly of a man who has two hands and a great deal of work that he urgently needs to do, and yet who insists on doing it with one hand tied firmly behind his back, owing to some prejudice against using two that he was taught long ago.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, gave us some assurances and mentioned some small achievements. I fear, however, that he said very little that will give much reassurance to the men coming out of the Forces, or to other people who are seeking for houses in this country. In spite of what he told your Lordships, the fact remains that any private person at this time who wishes to do something towards alleviating the dreadful shortage of houses is so firmly tied that it is almost impossible for him to move. This, I know, is the experience of owners of land, of building contractors, and of the local authority itself in my own county, and I feel convinced that it is so in other districts as well. With us, this situation is inexcusable. It is very much more inexcusable in those areas where enemy action has made the shortage of houses a thousand times more acute than it is with us.
A would-be builder must first of all limit his over-all costs, including land and services, to £1,200 per house. That is the figure laid down in the instructions issued by the late Government last July. Those instructions had the great merit of allowing the local authority itself to sanction building without any reference to Government Departments. Hope that something would at last be done began to revive. There was, indeed, some doubt whether it would be possible to obtain permits for the timber and slates and other controlled materials required if a licence to build was in fact issued by the local authority.
932 So far as I am aware, that doubt still remains, but it is entirely academic, since the building licence itself remains tantalizingly beyond our grasp. In the first place, fully two months after the instructions to which I have referred were published in the newspapers, the local authorities had not received any of the necessary forms and documents required to enable them to give information to would-be builders or to do anything about it at all. No change of Government, I submit, can excuse this delay. In the second place, the outside limit of £1,200 has proved to be entirely inadequate, owing to the continuing rise in costs. Even by using a plan specially prepared to meet these very circumstances by a professional society, it has proved impossible for an honest contractor to reduce his estimates within the required limits. It looks very much as if these houses cannot be built, much to the disadvantage of everybody, including not least the local authority itself, who would be very glad to be relieved of some part of the large burden cast upon it.
This limit of £1,200 ought to be removed, and that quickly. Even a small rise would make all the difference. Though I hope that the limit may be made much higher, I am informed that even £1,500 would enable a large number of useful houses to be commenced at once. Admittedly many of these—not all—would be built by and for persons of a certain standard of wealth. What does this matter? The situation is so bad that any relief at any point can only help the housing position as a whole. Further, in this case it is possible to catch a large fish with a small bait. The case in favour of granting a reasonable subsidy for the building of rural houses is overwhelming if it is looked at from a practical angle. At a comparatively little cost to the Exchequer, a much larger number of houses could be built in rural areas. None of the present subsidies available really meets the case. The Housing (Rural Workers) Act, now, alas, expired, used to enable existing cottages to be reconditioned. So far so good; but the need of people who have no houses at all is much more acute than that of those who have houses with no bathrooms or sanitation. The Agricultural Population Act gives a subsidy for replacing houses for the agricultural population when these houses are worn out, not for building entirely new houses that replace nothing.
933 Let us have a simple, comprehensive and comprehensible subsidy scheme. That would enable those who are anxious to alleviate the housing situation to do their part. It may be said that all this will raise costs. My Lords, costs Lave already risen and very few houses have been built. His Majesty's Government have many times assured us of their determination to break price rings and monopolies and the expression of this determination has been loudly applauded. Surely there is enough experience in the Ministries and the Departments concerned in the handling of prices, controls and priorities. Let them use this experience for the good of the nation and they will receive the full support of a house-hungry people.
§ 5.42 p.m.
§ LORD QUIBELLMy Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will extend to me the usual consideration that is extended to a member speaking in this House for the first time. I do not apologize for saying a word or two on this occasion, for I suppose that I am, perhaps, the only builder and contractr who has had the honour of sitting in this House and also of receiving, as I have received here this afternoon, a good deal of advice as to how the members of our trade should carry on their business. I happen to have been a bricklayer, and I may say that I had expected that the poor old bricklayer would have come in again to-day for some criticism. Bat he has been left severely alone. I believe that housing and demobilization are the two most vital of the immediate problems confronting us at this moment They are vital because unless they are tackled with greater speed an energy than have been shown in dealing with them in the past, serious unrest is likely to be caused in this country.
The causes leading to the present unfortunate shortage of houses do not arise from the actions of this Government or from the war. When I have listened speeches delivered by noble Lords 41 criticism, shall I say, of the Government's so-called inaction, my memory has carried me back over the years to my boyhood days. I was brought up in the country and until I was seventeen years of age, living as I did in a village, I never had the pleasure of seeing a new house built.
934 A newly-built house was a very rate thing to find in those early days of housing in any of the villages in our County of Lincoln. And, indeed, on revisiting the village after an absence of twenty years, I could not discover that one new house had been put up in that area. Now to what was that due? It was due to the fact that the average labourer had been earning wages so low that he had been quite unable to pay an economic rent for any kind of new house that could be built. It was, in fact, the result of poverty, low wages, and low prices for local produce. The consequence was that, so far as the villages were concerned, no one could, or would, build new houses to let because they could not be let at an economic rent.
And what we are suffering from in this matter of housing is not the result of lack of action on the part of Socialists Governments. There have been successive Liberal and Conservative Governments in power almost continually since I can remember—and I have been active in politics for over forty years. When I first went to work I became a labourer—a hard carrier. Then I graduated as a bricklayer, and later I became a builder and contractor. I think I should be right in saying that there are few who have had a more varied experience than I of the building trade. I am afraid that in some of the villages the housing problem has arisen because of the attitude of the local councils. In many rural areas the political complexion of the rural district councils and the county councils has been overwhelmingly Tory. Let me describe one of the houses that I was in my early days. It was an absolute disgrace in those times, and it is still in existence. The accommodation consisted of one bedroom, a little parlour, and another living room, and I remember that the beam crossing the ceiling in this room was so low that when I was a full-grown man I had to lower my head in order to pass under it. There was no water supply and the sanitation was of the most primitive kind.
Now that sort of habitation exists in nearly every village, and the problem which is presented by such places can, in my view, be solved by only one means. I am not so enamoured of subsidies as some of your Lordships seem to be. I believe in the man who lives in the countryside being paid wages which will 935 enable him to pay an economic rent for decent houses, so that he will thereby be put on a footing of equality with other industrial workers in this country. I believe that there is no other solution. You may give the agricultural labourers cheap houses by getting the State to subsidize those houses, but ultimately the value of what you give has got to come from somewhere—from rates or from taxation. Ultimately the problem which you must face up to is putting a price level on commodities and giving to men working in country villages a wage that will enable them to pay an economic rent, equal to that which is paid by workers in our urban districts.
I remember those subsidies during the last war. I, as a builder, was supposed to be receiving them. What happened was what does happen—and I will defy Parliament to prevent it—when the clever man, the man who is intent to find some means of getting round the law, gets to work. I myself was the victim of one such person. I built a house for a certain man at a time when there was a subsidy of £150 for one class of dwelling and £100 for another. The poor old builder was supposed to get the subsidy and he had got to sell houses of the class of the one which I built at £550. A certain gentleman came over from—well, from Wallasey we will say—and he saw my partner. He acquired the house and he found a way of selling it as I could not have done. He put a few curtains up and a little bit of canvas on the floor and he sold the place as a furnished house at a profit of £400 or £500. It was "furnished" at a cost of not more than £5. All could do was to look on at him doing it. That is the kind of thing that occurred at that time. The clever man, the black marketeer, if you like, simply took the subsidy and there was nothing in the law as it existed to prevent him from doing it. So far as subsidies are concerned I consider that it is necessary to be very careful in fixing the amount of them. But, in passing, may I say that if a local authority is going to have a subsidy then for the life of me I cannot sec why a man with courage, the capacity, the energy and the will to build a house himself should not also have the same kind of assistance.
As to materials and the price of houses, several of your Lordships have already 936 expressed the need for the Government taking steps to control prices. Let me give an illustration of one commodity that the Government have controlled. It is timber. As your Lordships will remember, St. Petersburg timber cost fifteen guineas pre-war, and that is where the high cost of prices has come in. This is a matter which ought to be gone into. At the worst part of the war the increase was clue to the heavy rates of insurance on timber because of the tremendous shipping risks involved. That is an illustration of how nearly four times the amount of money was needed for timber for a house. Not so long ago consent was given to still another increase in the price of bricks. Increases in the price of materials have been enormous. It might be said that, if only there were a freer market, prices would automatically come down. I am not sure about that, but materials are at a price which is a wicked price and I cannot see that the Government or any other person can justify the cost of timber as it is at present—timber which is of an inferior quality compared with what it was before the war.
I hope that the Government will consider, so far as the prospective purchaser of a house is concerned, that local authorities will appoint men as building inspectors so that the man who invests his life's savings in a house can be assured that his house is free from damp and that it is one on which he can rely. During the war I have seen damp courses put in which were little better than the Order Paper on that Table. Nor have modern by-laws been introduced. The authorities should insist on an effective damp course and insist that the house is a certain height above ground level. So far as the Government are concerned, they will be blessed by every man in the country if they will see that proper and modern building inspection is carried out, particularly in the interests of the small man who wants to buy his own house.
There is the question of the type of house, too. I have seen very great differences in that direction and many of your Lordships must have noticed the same thing in some places. Some of the council houses have been drab and uninteresting. Every one of them has been alike, house after house, row after row, which makes one sick to think that a civic authority lacked civic pride so much as to allow them to be put up. At Flint 937 in North Wales, some houses have be m built which had civic pride in their making. I cannot understand why, if one authority can get the permission of the Ministry to build a decent house, another a few miles further away cannot get it but builds, as I think Carlyle would have described it, "a brick box with a slate lid on it." I echo the sentiments of previous speakers that we want quality as well as quantity. Some of the houses which are built by private enterprise are no credit to private enterprise, but we want to harness the good will of the builder and of the local authorities. As I have said in another place, the little builder in my home district has made a tremendous contribution towards the solution of the housing problem. What we ant in this business is the good will of the local authorities and the energy and drive of the Minister of Health and his Department. If, as has been mentioned, any of the red tape which has been said to be prevalent in the various Ministries could be cut out, let us cut it out and get on and try to solve this very vital problem of housing. It is a great human problem. I have had men come to me and what they have said makes me feel that we should get on with the job.
I am not enamoured of temporary houses; I do not like them as a matter of fact. I went to see one place and the Lord Privy Seal had to stoop down to get in. They were terrible places and in my view they will not stand up to the hard wear to be found in some of the great industrial centres of this country. The temporary house has got a place, but it is in the most remote places, where houses are required for agricultural or forest workers. In such places it would take months for houses to be erected, but the temporary house can be erected in the course of a week. It is the remote districts, between village and village, which would, in my view, require these houses which would help solve the housing problem in those districts. So far as the general housing problem is concerned, I believe it can be solved. I believe that some of the bricklayers can lay 260 bricks if there is no supervision. I know, because I employ some of them, but I can give you illustrations of where men have laid over 1,000 a day and they have done it during the last few months. So far as that is concerned, the people who are criticizing 938 are those who have never laid a brick in their lives. Some people are actually doing it and it is not long since I did that sort of work myself. When stood for Parliament I went back to work and laid bricks. Help can be given in an advisory capacity so that an even greater move can be made. Housing is a great human problem and let us harness all the great resources of this dear Old land of ours in a supreme effort to solve this vital, urgent, domestic problem.
§ 5.59 p.m.
LORD O'HAGANMy Lords, in rising to address the House I should certainly like to say, as one of the older members of the House, with what interest and pleasure we have listened to the last two speeches. I think the whole House appreciates the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Wemyss, and the excellent way in which he stated his case. With regard to the noble Lord sitting opposite, I am probably voicing the feelings of all your Lordships in saying how refreshing it is, and what an excellent thing it is, to have in this House what we have long wanted—practical people with an intimate knowledge of what they have dealt with who can make their voice heard in this House and give us the advantage of their experience and advice.
I am going to appeal, in a few words, to the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, to deal more particularly with the needs of housing in rural areas. Nobody, I think, knows more than he does the necessities of that case. It is an intensely practical question, and those of us who live—at any rate, latterly—more in the country than in the town, realize that many of the problems that exist in the town also exist in the countryside. We have still, I am sorry to say, slums in the countryside, but in these days, I venture to say, it is extremely necessary, at any rate for an appreciable length of time, that every use should be made of all accommodation available, so that people should remain and be able to have a roof over their heads.
I was very much impressed by what: the most reverend Primate said, and we all know—from experience of his speeches and from knowledge of his work with regard to housing—that what he says is said with knowledge and understanding, and should be listened to by all of us. "I would not ask for the destruc- 939 tion of a single slum house because I know there is nowhere else where people living in such a house could live That applies just as much to the countryside as to the towns, and it is on that account that I would appeal to the Government, not merely to enlarge on the construction of housing as indicated by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the other day, but to reconsider their decision to stop the work of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. There is room for both. It is essential that we should do everything to retain such buildings as exist in a fit state, and it is on that account that I have consistently supported the suggestion already made by various noble Lords that the whole subject of the demolition orders, made under previous Acts, should be reviewed, so that houses, where they can be restored—at any rate, as a temporary measure—should be available for housing purposes.
I do not want to say very much more because I know that the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, is fully aware of the position; but I would remind your Lordships that, with regard to the countryside, owing to the conditions that have existed in the building trade during and before the war, there is a most deplorable amount of repair work necessary, not merely to farmhouses and farm buildings, but, also, to houses themselves. The estimated sum needed for this mere repair work that is really necessary is colossal. I expect that the noble Lord who preceded me would probably bear out that statement. All the more reason, therefore, that we should get this housing problem in the countryside tackled wholeheartedly and bring in, as he suggested, not merely the municipal authorities but also the resources of private builders and other enterprises which can co-operate in re-establishing housing conditions on sound lines.
§ 6.5 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIRMy Lords, it is an unwritten custom, or rule, in your Lordships' House that its members do not speak except on subjects on which they are well equipped to speak. The reason why I wanted to say a few words in this debate is that I think few of your Lordships could claim. 27 years' continuous service on the Housing Committee of the London County 940 Council, and, in addition, 25 years' experience of management of an agricultural estate in Scotland. That happens to be my record, and I venture to say that there are not many matters connected with housing that I have not come up against in these two spheres of activity.
There is no question that housing is the bottom foundation stone of our social system. It is no use talking about family allowances and social services if people have not a house to live in, or a house which is tolerable to live in. Therefore, it seems to me that, in this crisis—for it is a crisis, so far as housing is concerned—we should give every possible assistance to all those willing to help in the problem. It was suggested yesterday that people who are accustomed, to repair houses in their district or to improve them, should be taken away to do what most houses require, but I venture to say, in common with the noble Lord who has just spoken, that the housing situation in rural areas is, in a sense, almost more critical than in the town, from one point of view—from the agricultural and food production point of view. It is essential, if you are going to have your food production, that you must have your farm workers content with their housing conditions. Otherwise, they will take the first opportunity of leaving their present employment, and farmers will be left without labour.
Therefore, I wish to press very hard indeed that the Scottish Housing (Rural Workers) Act should be re-enacted with certain alterations as regards limits on the value of houses which are allowed to come under that scheme. I think your Lordships will agree that a limit of £400 as the value of the house is absolutely absurd these days, and yet that is the limit laid down in the Act. Anything over £400 is washed out. Another important point, with regard to the Act, is that it is the county council which has been the medium for sanctioning the work and the grants. As I understand it, the Government policy is to use local authorities on every possible occasion in their housing programme; yet you cannot get the sanction from your county council at the present time until—I am talking about Scotland—they have been to Edinburgh, and the delay is something fantastic. The result is that not nearly so many houses 941 were put up or reconditioned as would have been if there had not been this awful delay.
To give an example of how successful the Scottish Act was, I came south the ether night with a man who has tremendous experience as a farmer, both as an owner and a tenant. He told me that under the Scottish Housing (Rural Workers) Act he had brought 44 cottages up to first-class condition. One man had done that. Surely an Act that allows that should be re-enacted with the additions and alterations required to-day. Only this morning I received an extraordinarily interesting letter, a portion of which would like to read to the House:
…The great point is that the from the country to the town will begin now if we do not provide first-class houses now With all the demand for building labour the cities, we are faced with a very great crisis the moment the restriction of labour conies off, and already every farm has al. empty cotter house or cotter houses.That is a very serious statement to make, but I can vouch for the fact that it is true. If we are going to fulfil our duty, not only as regard housing but also as regards agriculture and food production, it is up to the Government to give every facility possible for bringing these farm workers' houses into proper condition and to lay down as few red tape provisions as possible. Red tape is killing enterprise, whether private or Government. Even county councils cannot get things done. I do ask the Government most seriously to consider the re-enactment of the provisions of the Scottish Housing (Rural Workers) Act at no distant date, for the very simple reason that the Act was a great success and there is no reason why it should not he a success again. That will help the housing situation in a very important part of His Majesty's dominions.
§ 6.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVENMy Lords, in rising to address you at this time of the night, I ask your indulgence which is usually so generously afforded to a member who finally screws up courage to take the plunge. I listened with very great pleasure to the magnificent speech made by Lord Quibell. I cannot claim that my own experience is like his, but for the past sixteen years I have been a member of the civil engineering industry (including three years in a technical unit in the 942 Forces) and that has given me the courage to make a few remarks to your Lordships. Before one embarks in a debate of this sort, I think it should be said, and with great sincerity, that I appreciate the magnitude of the problem confronting His Majesty's Government, and they have my fullest sympathy. If any remarks I make seem to be critical, as they are bound to be, I plead that it is my lack of experience and the fact that in the civil engineering trade we are somewhat outspoken and a bit blunt.
Housing is a national problem and I deplore any Party element being brought into it. I am not saying that as a criticism of the noble Lord opposite. It is not so. He gave us a very fair resume of the conditions which exist and the reasons for them, and I find myself in almost entire agreement with him. I aired some of my views among a few eminent members of the building trade before addressing your Lordships, and ascertained that my views were closely in line with those prevailing in quite an influential section of the building trade. The building trade holds strong views on temporary housing, but I do not share those views. I would like to point out that during my war experience as a member of an engineering unit, we had training in erecting three hundred Uni-seco and another type of temporary houses at Connel Ferry. The technical Forces are ideally constituted to undertake that work. It can be undertaken as a drill. Why not, when you have large numbers of men sitting around doing nothing, as at the moment, put them on that work? They will do it. I do not intend to say any more on that point but I would like to recommend those of your Lordships who are interested to read, if you have not already done so, the Report of the Joint Council of the National Federation of Building Trades Employers and the National Federation of Registered House Builders. The members of those two organizations built 90 per cent. of the houses that were built in the period between the two wars. How much was good and how much was bad is a different matter, and I am not going to enter into it, but I do think that the views of those two bodies are well worth considering. The Report is called "Let the Builders Build" and is dated May of this year.
943 The field has been so extensively covered already that there is very little left for me to say, but I am going to try to make a few remarks on four points. The first thing that cannot be too strongly stated is that the key to the whole situation is a supply of balanced and free labour. I am coming to those two words later on. By "free labour" I mean labour that can work where it wants and for whom it wants. That is an important thing. Anybody who has had experience of the Essential Work Order will know—he may not say so but he will know—that that Order, necessary or not, never laid a brick. During the period it was in force one discontented man on a job demoralized all the others. Balanced labour is essential. May I amplify that point slightly? It is obviously useless to bring back a lot of building trade labour and suddenly to find you have not increased labour in the coal mines and the brick works and you have no bricks. There are, I believe, 733 brick works which normally employ 20,000 men out of operation at the moment, and if you suddenly flooded the country with bricklayers I think you will agree that in a very short space of time the 1,100,000,000 bricks which is, I am told, the present stock, would be used up, unless you brought on your brick works at the same rate as you brought on your building trade. I am sure His Majesty's Government are quite alive to all these points, but I think they are worth reiterating.
Another question, and an important one, is the type of brick. I believe we are short of facing bricks at the moment and of course you cannot use common bricks for the same purpose. One of the snags with labour—this is not very palatable and the noble Lord dodged it very skilfully, I think, by talking of timber and not of other building materials—is that it is the general opinion of most of the building trade that output—I am not talking of bricklayers particularly, and I am not going to say that a man should lay so many bricks in a certain time because I know nothing about it—has fallen to nearly half what it was before the war. I have examples here, but I am not going to quote them because they are very well known.
I want to be fair to the trade union delegates and the higher trade union 944 officials. At the beginning of the war I had cause to deal with those people and I always found them extremely fair. They have an unenviable job, but they do their utmost, and I think a great debt is due to them. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same thing—at any rate in my opinion—about the shop stewards. They are normally gift-of-the-gab orators and unfortunately they are the tails that wag the clogs. I think a lead from His Majesty's Government is necessary to back up the unions in their constitutional working, and then I am sure they will do a great job. In the early days of the war I found there was never any trouble, either in the quality or quantity or work, from union men when they were satisfied, and I think that will always be so. Building trade operatives are very sorely tried people. They have a lot to put up with. I know that, and most of your Lordships know it too. However, most of the troubles from which they have suffered have been of the Government's making. I do not mean this Government but the last Government. I am a sympathizer with the last Government but I still say they made those troubles. However, there was then a war on and now there is not and therefore I think that many of these narking, niggling, naggling restrictions which upset everybody should be removed.
I would like now to go on to raw materials. If you asked 90 per cent. or the people what the raw materials of the building trade were they would reply "Bricks and mortar." Well, they would be quite wrong. The brick is a prefabricated unit which is employed by the builder. It is quite interesting to note that prefabrication was current in Pharaoh's time. With very few minor exceptions building raw materials, excluding timber—and I will come to that later on; that was one thing the noble Lord picked on—are abundantly available in the ground at pre-war prices at this very moment. Building costs have risen. Why? Because, and only because, labour costs have risen. I entirely agree with the noble Lord that a reasonable wage is necessary, and in fact the higher the man's wage the. happier I am, provided it is equated to output. However, I think a high wage and low output is nothing more nor less than the very much bandied-about phrase of "inflation," or "inflationary tendencies." I do not know what the exact phrase is, but you know what I mean.
945 It does seem to me that if you got balanced labour back to the industry you could then free the industry of the bureaucratic strangulation from which it is now suffering.
Now I come to timber. The figures I have for timber are average figures. I think the average cost of timber has gone up by 176 per cent. per standard. However, you can, of course, pay what you like for timber, as the noble Lord has said. It is the opinion of the trade that were they given a free hand to deal with Sweden they could reduce the cost of timber considerably now. I think the present figure is £45 a standard as an average price and the trade think they could reduce that to about £38 per standard almost at one fell swoop if they were given a free hand, but they say they cannot do so with the timber control strangulation. I do not wish to throw mud at the members of the Timber Control. They have done a magnificent job and I think it should be recognized. However, they have got both hands tied behind their backs themselves and they cannot get away from their constitution. I could give instances to your Lordships of methods whereby, if you want timber, you have sometimes, with a small job, to apply to about four different people and to go through fifteen departments in order to get five or six different sizes of timber, which of course you require on a small job.
Of course, that is necessary for the working of the Timber Control because otherwise the Control would not work economically itself, but the control should, I think, be taken off. I agree, and I think everyone agrees, that price rings must be smashed and prices must be controlled. If you gave builders and contractors, timber merchants and furniture manufacturers (who were terrific stores of timber before the war) what they have already for home-grown timber—namely, a seasoning permit for imported timber—they could account for any timber they used against a building licence. It seems to me if you allowed those people to build up their stocks again so that they would have in their yards all the sizes and sections of timber they want, instead of having to run up and down London getting them in a lorry, which is the case now, you would not lose any form of control which is necessary at the moment.
946 The other point on timber is the question of German timber by way of reparations. Anyone who, like myself, has recently returned from Germany will know that there are available there large supplies of very adequate timber suitable for the building trade. Equally there is a large number of landing craft which cannot be described as being about their lawful occasions. Would not it be possible to utilize some of those landing craft of the larger type to fetch that timber here, utilizing personnel who are hanging about waiting for demobilization? We are told this is a national emergency. It is. Why not use national methods of dealing with it? I have detained your Lordships quite long enough and I think that, having made those two suggestions, I had better stop.
§ 6.29 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONMy Lords, I am sure I shall have all your Lordships with me when I say how much we have appreciated the series of maiden speeches to which we have listened this evening. I would like to pay tribute to the noble Lord who has just spoken for his suggestions and for the obviously close knowledge he has of many of the operations of the building industry. I did not quite follow what he said about how easily he could get timber here. I am afraid it is not quite as easy as it sounded from his speech. I understand that one of the big difficulties at the present time is that there is a great shortage of timber from these countries, some of which he mentioned, and that the reason for that shortage more than anything else is transport—ships to bring it here. I am afraid I should not expect (though it is not within my own particular knowledge) that he can reasonably anticipate much relaxation of the Timber Control whilst the present acute scarcity prevails. I am quite certain that every possible step that can possibly be taken, either in Germany or anywhere else, to get the supplies of timber we require should certainly be taken and I will pass on his suggestion to my friends.
I am sure everybody agrees that we are indebted to the most reverend Primate for his Motion. The number of Peers who have spoken in the debate and the fact that it has lasted two days is proof of the very wide interest it evokes, and of the very many-sided 947 matters that arise. There can be no question of any difference between any of the speakers as to the urgency of the problem, which is undoubted. I do not think that any member of the Government would fail to subscribe to the description which many noble Lords have given of the painful urgency of the subject.
Perhaps I may be permitted to say, however, that this debate reminds me very much of what I myself suffered twenty-five years ago; and I feel a somewhat selfish and narrow-minded relief that it is not my job this time! I was confronted then with local authorities who had never done any building at all; and I remember that after a year of struggle there were still many hundreds of local authorities who had not even acquired an acre of land. It was a heartbreaking business, and all the bricks were thrown at me! But I bear this in mind, that in 1922 the whole thing was brought to a sudden standstill because of the high cost, and the cost had at that time soared to about £1,000 a house. That was what brought it to a stop. We seem to be beginning now at £1,200! Where it will get to, I hesitate even to think. I noticed that one noble Lord in his maiden speech had the courage of his opinions and said that the present price was too low! I admire his courage, but I am quite sure that it is vital to success that the cost should be reduced. I am. sure that no Government—not even this Government, with its great majority in the House of Commons—could contemplate with equanimity the cost of houses rising in excess of £1,200 a house. I am glad to say that my right honourable friend the Minister of Health is as keen as anybody to use every possible endeavour, and to ask Parliament to give us the powers, if necessary, to get these costs down. I do not believe that they ought to be as high as they are. I am not going into the evidence, but we have to get the costs down, and we are fully seized of the necessity of doing so.
The noble Lord, Lord Woolton, was very anxious that we should name a time. Let me say a word about that. Thinking back 25 years, let me say a word about this question of a target. I am very glad that my right honourable friend the Minister of Health has refused to state a 948 target. He is quite right, and so far as I give him any advice he will stick to that idea. There are so many unknown factors at the present time—shortage of labour, difficulties about demobilization and so on. I wonder whether many noble Lords have realized that what has happened in Java has made a considerable difference to the rate of demobilization of the troops.
§ LORD WOOLTONI wonder whether the noble Viscount could tell us how many people have been delayed in their demobilization on that account?
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONI cannot, of course, give the number, but it has made a considerable difference in shipping movements, and demobilization at home is dependent on shipping, because you cannot demobilize men of a particular group at home unless at the same time you can demobilize men of the same group who are abroad. I am not speaking, of course, of exceptional cases, but you cannot demobilize men in material numbers at home while their fellows in the same group abroad are not demobilized. Otherwise, the men in the Services who are enduring the heat and burden of the day and all the unpleasantness of the jungle and so on will say "Why should these fellows at home have the first pick of the jobs?" You cannot justify that. You have therefore to take that into account when you arrange for your demobilization at home. It must be dependent, at any rate to a certain extent, on the shipping that enables you to bring men of the same class home who are still abroad. That is why I interjected that reference to what has happened in Java. All these things have a considerable effect upon the rate of demobilization.
§ LORD CHESHAMMay I remind the noble Viscount that there is a national emergency which has been admitted by everybody, and that the troops would take it?
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONWould they?
§ LORD CHESHAMYes.
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONAll I can tell you is that, on the best advice which we could obtain, the scheme of demobilization has been fashioned to take account of the kind of difficulty which I have mentioned. I am quite sure that that was good advice, and that, if the noble Lord had had to deal with the matter, he too 949 would have accepted that advice. We have to take all these things into account, but what I want to deal with is this question of a target. There are all manner of uncertainties which enter into the ascertainment of the amount of building labour which will be available at a certain date. It is one thing to release a man from the Colours who is a member of the building trade, and it is another to see that he lays bricks. You may release a considerable number of men who used to be in the building trade, but there are all kinds of other attractive positions available when the men come home, and I do not blame them for making use of them. We do not want to harass these men more than we can help, and it does not necessarily follow that if you release building workers of one kind or another they will be available to build houses. That is another uncertainty which must be taken into account.
Then there is the uncertainty of special staffs. For instance, we are taking special steps—and the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will, I am sure, applaud us for this—to get the skilled key-men who are necessary for drawing plans and specifications and so on out of the Services, sometimes in advance of the time when they would ordinarily come out, because local authorities cannot do anything at all until they have the necessary staff. That, however, is another uncertainty. Then there is the uncertainty of materials, which is very considerable. I am very glad that my right honourable friend has not stated a target and has not said how many houses he is going to build in the next twelve months. With the greatest possible respect, I think that the target which was mentioned in the Paper referred to by the noble Lord opposite, Lord Woolton, had no sufficient warrant. It was a paper target, and it will remain a paper target. I feel quite sure about that. I was induced to make a target in 1919 It was against my own advice, but I was foolish enough to give way, and I named a target. I did not attain it; it was physically impossible to attain it. And, therefore, so far as the target is concerned, we are completely unrepentant. We will do everything that we possibly can—if need be we will bring into use very considerable powers. That we will promise. But we will not say what that means in terms of numbers of houses twelve months hence. As I say, 950 we will do the best we can. I hope that my right honourable friend the Minister of Health will stick to that. If he takes my advice he will. We are quite unrepentant in the matter of the target.
§ LORD WOOLTONA very good election speech.
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONMy noble friend did say that the Minister proposes to give out targets to local authorities from time to time. That is to say he will do so as he finds out how they are getting on, how things are developing in the particular districts of the different authorities, and when it is clear that they can confidently look in a month's or three months' time to doing so and so, and so and so. That kind of target the Minister agrees to.
§ LORD WOOLTONThey will not be secret documents?
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONNot at all.
§ LORD WOOLTONWe may know the figures as well as the local authorities?
§ LORD WOOLTONI think that is admirable.
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONWhat the precise figures are going to be in those reports I cannot, of course, say in advance. He will make the reports as full and as informative as possible. We have nothing to hide, and we do not want to hide anything—not even our difficulties. Let that be clearly understood. I am not going to burke any difficulties. For instance, I have here before me a figure—it is a serviceable figure, and although it does not stir me very much, yet it certainly is a useful figure. I asked how many tenders were authorized in July. The answer was that to July 31 the number was 21,687. At October 31 the figure was 62,719. That is a respectable start; and that is all it is. It is quite a useful start for the three months.
Now, on this question of speed, we knew that this is a matter of urgency; of course it is. I remember I was asked to produce houses in 1919, and some people sec med to think that they were going to grow like mushrooms. Well, they do not grow like that. They did not do so then, 951 and they will not do so now. If my right honourable friend gets what I call a good move on in twelve months, he will have done exceedingly well. The figures from the noble Lord's paper leave me completely cold. I am speaking feelingly, as you notice. It is going to be a matter of getting plans ready, of having the people there to draw the plans, of getting the builders, the material, the tenders and all the rest. If the Minister succeeds in getting well into his stride in twelve months then he will have done exceedingly well. That is my honest opinion, as of one who has had to do the job. In 1922, when house building by local authorities was at its maximum after the last war—I am not talking about what it was later on—there were never more than 20 per cent. of the building operatives employed in house building. That may seem a surprising figure. Nevertheless it is true that the number of operatives who were employed in house building never amounted to more than 20 per cent. What were the others doing? For one thing they were building factories.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVENDoes that figure include those who were employed at that time by private enterprise which built three-quarters of the houses built during the same period?
§ VISCOUNT ADDISONYes, it includes the whole of the building trade at that time. Twenty per cent. was the maximum percentage of operatives employed on building houses at that time. It grew to be more later on, but your Lordships will understand that I am just trying to get the picture right. At that time there was enormous need for building factories, for extending works and so on. That kind of thing was extremely necessary then; imagine what it is like now, compared with what it was after the last war! The situation is ten times worse now, with all these factories and works to be repaired, shops to be built, extensions to be carried out, and so on. Those things absorb much more building labour than the building of houses, as any competent contractor can tell von. And this other work must be got on with. So, when we speak in terms of gross numbers of men employed in the building trade, do not let us imagine that they are all going to be employed in building houses. It would not be desirable in the national 952 interest that they should be. You have got to have factories and other places at which people can work and make a living, otherwise it is no good having houses for them to live in. I am trying to present what I am quite sure are the realities of the situation, and I am presenting them for the purpose of justifying my right honourable friend's refusal to state a target.
As to private building to which reference was made by my noble friend sitting behind me, I quite agree that the housing associations which did so much good work must be made use of. At the present time, it is true, the arrangements are not in train for making full use of them, and I do not expect that, with the best will in the world, they will be for some time. But the willingness to make use of these associations is there, and I am quite sure that in various ways before we are through with this business we shall have to make use of practically the whole power of the building trade, whoever employs it, in one form or another. I believe that we are confronted with an enterprise as great and as serious as that which confronted us when we had to produce war supplies. My right honourable friend is certainly right in approaching this matter through the local authorities with the instruction to build houses for people of small means—houses that they can rent. That is the right objective, I am sure. I do not think anyone would question that. But it is evident that, as time passes, we shall have to adopt expedients for making the fullest possible use of the building labour of the country. That again, I think, no one would question.
Mention has been made of the urgent needs of the rural areas, and, as noble Lords know, I heartily agree about that. I will, of course, refer to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland what the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen, said about the rural community in Scotland. I confess that I am not informed, at the moment, on that matter and I cannot give the answer which has been asked for. I was glad to find that the rural councils are evidently waking up and that there is beginning to be material improvement perceptible in the rural areas. I see that the number of tenders for rural areas in July was 3,662 which was very small, and in October it had 953 risen to 10,485. That is a very small increase, but it is promising. I am quite sure that nobody realizes more acutely than my right honourable friend the fleas-city, as we get the men and materials, for getting on with houses in the rural areas. There is another reason—I am not quite sure whether Lord O'Hagan mentioned it, but I think it was in his mind if he did not—that when we have got rid of prisoners of war, the provision of rural houses in the agricultural districts is essential if we are going to make a suitable contribution to our food supplies. No one realize:; that more acutely than we do, As to the many Departments of which the most reverend Primate complained that some local authorities have had to go through, I should like to say in the first place that if any noble Lord can give me or my right honourable friend particulars of cases where a local authority has had to consult: this multiplicity of Departments, the information will be very welcome. My right honourable friend is doing all he can to simplify the procedure, and I should like to give the most reverend Primate that assurance without qualification.
The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Sheffield, hoped that the time was coming when things would be moving in an even stream, as on a conveyor belt. I can only say that no one more heartily shares that wish than His Majesty's Government. I wish it could be so. I should like to say how much we agree with one thing which he said, and of which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh spoke—namely, that it is necessary that we should plan for communities. I sincerely hope that when the next generation comes to look upon the efforts of this one in that regard, they will speak better of them than we do of the efforts of those after the last war; that they will be better planned, of better quality and more mixed than was the case in times past. We have a better conception of planning for the future than we had then, and I sincerely hope we shall make good use of it. I have refrained, as your Lordships will have noticed, throughout, from making any promises. The only promise I make—and we will keep it, please God—is to do everything we possibly can to speed up housing.
§ 6.54 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy Lords, I am sure we all agree that we 954 have had a most interesting and valuable debate, and it would have been valuable and interesting alone for the three maiden speeches which we have heard. They were distinctive and most interesting. Each of the speakers made some valuable contribution to this particular subject which we are discussing. We hope we shall often hear them again addressing this House. The noble Lord who sits behind me made a contribution from, I think, quite unique experience, telling us that he had been through all the various stages of the building trade. That made me feel how valuable it would be if we had in this House some of those who work in the mines, the shipyards, the factories, in the fields and in other industries, and who could speak from their own personal experience.
I am grateful to the noble Lords who have replied for the Government. Their replies were very sympathetic. When they were in Opposition they always showed the deep interest in this subject which they are showing now that they are in a position of responsibility. The noble Viscount who has just spoken gave a very clear and definite refusal about stating a target. I am bound to say I prefer a stringent refusal to a soothing draught. There is no doubt whatsoever of what the noble Lord meant by his reply; and although I should have liked a target—and I am glad to know that there are to be targets for the localities—I do not really mind so much whether we have a target or not so long as the houses are produced.
I feel just the same about this controversy over houses being provided by public authorities or by private enterprise. So long as the houses are produced good and sound houses at a reasonable rent and in the right places, I do not really mind who produces them. I gathered from both the noble Lords who have spoken for the Government that they intend to call for the full co-operation of private enterprise and do not intend to rely solely on the local authorities. I am very glad to hear that the Minister, with his energy, is going to direct his attention to the various Ministries to which the local authorities have to appeal. Gradually there has grown up something like a gigantic Circumlocution Office, one which would have astonished even Charles Dickens. I have no doubt that each one of those 955 offices will deal with the matter promptly—at least I hope so—but when you have a combination of offices dealing with the same problem there is bound to be loss of time. I am very grateful to the various speakers and for the assurances, which I accept, that the Government are going to do everything within their power to build as many houses as they can within the shortest possible time. I ask permission therefore to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.