NEW TOWNS BILL (Hansard, 14 July 1953)

§ LORD MANCROFT
My Lords, I apologise for inflicting myself upon your Lordships again after such a short interval, but I can say that the measure to which I am now asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading is far less controversial than the previous Bill, and can be disposed of in a mere tithe of the time. The Bill deals with the financial aspect of the new towns programme. Your Lordships will remember that a few weeks ago, on June 24 to be exact, we had an interesting and full debate upon the whole subject of new towns, upon a Motion put on the Order Paper by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. We discussed the whole problem thoroughly and some of us touched upon this financial aspect of new towns development, because this Bill had already been published and had received its First Reading in another place.
The purpose of the Bill is to make further funds available to the development corporations to enable them to meet their capital expenditure. The present position is that the New Towns Act, 1946, provided £50 million for this purpose and this amount was increased to £100 million by the Act of 1952. The Bill before your Lordships this afternoon increases the amount by another £50 million to a total of £150 million. The need for the Bill at this moment arises from the accelerated house-building programme. Expenditure totalling £87½ million has been approved, mainly for housing, and the total will shortly reach £100 million. At the present rate of progress it is expected that the increase provided for in this Bill will be sufficient for one year.
I propose to say no more on the Bill than that. We discussed the whole subject thoroughly on Lord Silkin's Motion, and if I say any more I may possibly stray into fields of controversy and argument. I should like to keep my Second Reading speech as factual and uncontroversial as possible, for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and thereby, I hope, achieve the complete approval of the noble Lord. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ LORD SILKIN
My Lords, there is no need for me to say much. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, made his Second Reading speech on this Bill much more cheerfully than his last, and he is quite right; we had a full debate on the new towns and there is little to add. I do not know whether it would have been possible for this House to debate the new towns on this Bill, instead of on a separate Motion, but I felt that it was time to have such a debate. I had no knowledge that this Bill was coming forward. The noble Lord never told me anything about it. If I had known about the Bill, I should certainly have postponed my Motion. If we are in the same position next year as we are in to-day, would it not be possible, as was intended under the 1946 Act, to review the work of the new towns on the occasion of asking for more money, rather than by an ad hoc Motion? The purpose of the provision in the 1946 Act was that the work should come under review by Parliament from time to time, and that before we approved further expenditure we should have a discussion as to what the development corporations were doing with the money they had already been given. We have rather reversed the proceedings here, in that we have had our debate first and now the money is asked for. I hope that next year it may be possible to do the two things simultaneously. With that, we fully agree that the further money should be available.

§ LORD MANCROFT
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his attitude towards this Bill. I am sorry if I in any way misled him about the Bill with reference to his own interesting Motion. Nothing could have been further from my intentions. To tell the truth, I thought the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, had deliberately put his Motion down for that date in order to forestall a debate in another place and get his spoke in first. If I have misinterpreted his views, I apologise to him, and I assure him that he will have my full co-operation next year, if I have anything to do with it. If not, those who sit with me will have taken note of the suggestion, and I am certain that action will be taken upon it.