HL Deb 24 June 1953 vol 182 cc1215-48

3.47 p.m.

Debate resumed.

LORD LAWSON

My Lords, it is no light matter to follow a speaker of Lord Silkin's calibre, speaking with such knowledge and experience of this subject, particularly since it was he who was responsible for the shaping and bringing to birth of the Act under which the new towns and their corporations are coming into being. The noble Lord has given a wide review of the situation which has compelled this nation finally to consider the creation of new and separate towns to meet separate problems. He has been particularly responsible for handling the problems arising out of a vast population such as we have in London, and he has shown, in very choice language, the needs which have compelled us to take this step. I think it is correct to say that, without any previous experience gathered from any other country, we are marking out a new road over which we should travel in dealing with our particular section of industrial civilisation.

I have noticed that there is a tendency for the population of the country to think of the new towns as communities which affect certain parts of the country but have little directly to do with them. One never knows, however, what changes will take place in any part of the country in consequence of the development of modern industry. Only last week I paid a visit to my own county where, lone ago, when I was a boy, a certain kind of mineral was worked. The works where that industry was carried on were closed down sixty years ago, and everyone thought that was the end of it. But modern science has now made it possible to make use of many elements in the mineral in question, and on such a scale that to-day vast works have grown up in the district. Of the possibility of one of these places being started, certainly no one would have dreamed half a century ago.

I mention these matters at the beginning of my speech, which will not be a long one, because I want to submit that what the new towns are doing is winning for Britain experience which may have to be used in almost any part of the country—sometimes without the citizens who live there in the least expecting it. I speak particularly for the areas where heavy industries are carried on. Heavy industry, as Lord Silkin has pointed out, has separate considerations of its own attaching to it. I think he described three different sections of such industry. When I was a very small boy I went from a little village to a part of the world largely devoted to heavy industry, and I well remember the profound impression which the change made upon me. Leaving, as I did, a place from which one had views of sea, mountains and open spaces on a vast scale, it was a great shock to see before me a great coal mining area, and I have never forgotten it. But that sort of experience is not peculiar to people living in Britain. Under modern industrial civilisation it is a common experience of mankind.

We are all familiar with Butler's Erewhon, and the works of various philosophers who have demonstrated the logic of modern industry. If I may, I should like to quote from a book that I wrote, published about 1932—that is some twenty years ago. These were the words I wrote after much pondering upon this problem, whilst performing my normal everyday tasks: if we rationalise the world in terms of modern industry, can we remain rational? … This submergence of the personality;"— which is a fact— this shutting out of Nature by iron and steel erections; this cutting off of men, women ad children from fields, woods and seas, affects the imagination, intellect, and spirit so keenly that it is questionable whether you can have a really rational outlook on life under a so-called rationalised industrial order. Your Lordships will remember that those words were written twenty years ago. I also wrote that: modern transport and new forms of power which give more scope for location should tend to 'naturalise' conditions, if the will and vision is there. It is a good thing for this country, I think, that the will and the vision have been there to deal with a matter of this kind.

I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and your Lordships generally, that in the early stages of the new towns project one was led to wonder whether anything in a really practical form was going to emerge from the idea. I know that there were many problems to face, but it was a long-term affair, involving, almost, the mapping out of the whole country. Lord Silkin has specially mentioned Peterlee. May I say that the man, Peter Lee, was a native of Durham, who rendered very great service to his fellow men and whose work had a profound influence for good in many ways. It improved the health of the community. He laid on pure water to old villages which for something like a century had been without it, and which, in consequence, had had their populations decimated by disease—particularly by illness affecting youngsters. If I were to tell your Lordships in statistical terms of all the changes which the great efforts of Peter Lee brought about, you would find the statistics almost incredible. He never spared himself, and he was always inspired by a passionate zeal for the public well-being, especially in his own county. It is good that the people have been sufficiently grateful to him to ask that a great new town should be named after him.

These new towns are now emerging, and I may tell your Lordships that within a short time—a fortnight at most—I shall have the honour of opening the one thousandth house in that new town of Peterlee. The bulk of the population in the county of Durham—whether in those parts where the industry is steel, or in those concerned with coal or shipbuilding—live within sight sometimes of slagheaps, sometimes of great industrial undertakings that almost overwhelm the vision. The new towns of Peterlee, Aycliffe, and similar towns in these heavy industrial areas, have their own particular problems, of course, but it is a good thing that the people are being removed 'from the old areas. Those of your Lordships who have not seen them would hardly believe that such streets and houses as those in some of these areas, which were built up in the early nineteenth century, could exist to-day.

In all these new towns the hard outlines will be softened by a warm neighbourly spirit, just as it was in the old towns. The problem will be to build up a corporate life similar to that which the people of the new towns left in their old towns and villages. I can imagine that there will be much heart-searching and longing for the old neighbourliness, and it seems to me that the great problem is to build up a corporate life that will satisfy the inward longings of those who have been born in the old neighbourly ways. Of course, those who go to the new towns will be living in open spaces, and in better houses, and will be free from much that was unsatisfactory in the old conditions—I am speaking particularly of the areas of heavy industry. They will take a pride in their new houses and in their new towns. It must not be forgotten that there is no greater measure of house-pride to be found in what we call the great houses than there is to be found among those who come to live in these new and improved houses. I think that the development of this corporate life is one of the main tests of these new towns, but we must always remember the slow rate at which it can be built up. I do not want to speak too long, because I have to leave to travel; but I repeat that this experiment is one that affects not only a corner here and there of the life of this country but the whole life of the community. Britain is honoured in leading the way once more in matters affecting industrial life, as she has led the rest of the world on more than one occasion. I trust that this great experiment will not only be successful but also will be understood by the people of this country.

My noble friend Lord Silkin dealt with the various items on which it would be necessary to spend money. I hope that the Minister and the Government understand that they will have to be generous in carrying out the ideal, if these new towns are to be a success. I trust that there is going to be no limitation in that respect. It is true, as my noble friend Lord Silkin said, that the question of rent will be a difficult problem for those who go to homes in the new towns, as I know from what I have seen in the two new towns in Durham. I trust that much thought and generous feeling will be given to the building up of the necessary light industries round about the new towns. A light industry is one thing and a heavy industry is another. I have seen some light industries down the Great West Road that looked to me like toys, compared with the establishments that I have been accustomed to calling industrial. I hope that very generous thought will be given to the establishment of the new trading estates to meet the needs of the new towns, and that the different Departments affected will co-operate to do a real job. In fifty years' time there may be a greater understanding of the effort that has been made, and of the facts that have compelled the British Government at last to face the logic of modern industrialism. To-day we wish well to the great efforts that are being made. There will have to be much patience and understanding of their object. Britain is once more leading the way. I believe that we are experimenting to try to solve the problem not only for ourselves but for industry in a great many other countries in the world.

4.8 p.m.

VISCOUNT HUDSON

My Lords, before I pass one or two comments on the speeches to which we have listened, I should like to make a preliminary observation. I wish to call your Lordships' attention to the conditions under which we are carrying on this debate. We have here a volume of 430 pages, and how the Department concerned expect busy men, as the bulk of your Lordships are, to read this through, passes my comprehension. In the old days the reports were published separately and mostly read locally. That was all right. Now they are published in a single volume, and it seems to me the negation of everything that public relations should be that we should be presented with this book, without any summary of its contents or conclusions, or any indication where anyone interested in education, for example, can find the relevant passages in the relevant reports. I venture to hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, will make a special point with the Department to see that in future they should mend their ways.

The other criticism I have to make of this report arises particularly out of what the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, has just said: that, taken as a whole, it conveys little information about what I, at all events, believe to be one of the most important matters connected with these towns—namely, the change in the personal relations of the people living there. I confess I have not a great deal of personal knowledge of these new towns, but it so happens that some two or three years ago, in another place, I was chairman of a Party committee on town and country planning. The then Minister of Town and Country Planning said that he wanted to have a debate on new towns. I thought it would be as well, before we had that debate, to acquaint myself with the conditions. I went down to Crawley; and I asked the other members of my committee to go and see other towns and report to the meeting, with a view, quite frankly, to "ragging" the then Minister, as, indeed, it was my duty to do as a member of the Opposition. I went down at that time to find cause for criticism, but came back with nothing but cause for praise with one exception. As I say, that was at Crawley.

I was particularly interested in the social side of the subject. I believe that the public at large would be equally interested to hear details of the sort about which I was told there: of the way in which factories in London were visited and the management were asked if they would like to move to Crawley; of a list of their employees being taken, and the employees being visited in their homes and taken down in charabancs to the new town; and of the wives being shown half-a-dozen different types of house which they might choose to occupy. Even more important than that, although the rents were substantially higher than they had been paying in London—they were of the order of £2 a week and over, as compared with 5s. and 7s. 6d. a week—the housewives were unanimous in saying that they were financially better off, without any increase in wages, than they were in London.

Inquiry on my part elicited—I take no credit for it; it was well known—first of all, that the cost of keeping their children well, quite apart from the National Health Service, was substantially less in Crawley than it had been in the slums in London; that their husbands did not have to pay large sums every week for transport to their work; that they did not have to pay for canteens, because they were within live minutes' bicycling distance and could go home for dinner every day; and, what was particularly interesting, that their husbands, instead of being so disgusted with their home conditions, having to live in one or two rooms, with a family, and therefore immediately they had had their dinner on Saturday inevitably going off to the British Legion or "what have you" and spending the rest of the day arid most of Sunday there, with the necessary concomitant of standing each other a drink, spent all their time in the garden, except that probably once during the week-end they went off to have a convivial glass of beer. The net result, as put forward by the housewives, was that they were infinitely better off, in spite of the rents making a much bigger hole in their income.

The final fact that interested me was that several of the manufacturers I spoke to said that, to their great astonishment, their shop stewards had come to them and asked if the men could work an extra hour; and when asked why it was, they said they were so much less tired working at Crawley than they were when working in the factory in London, with the amount of travelling that they then had to do, that they would like to work the extra time in order to earn overtime to enable them to pay the high rents. That is a remarkable picture of what these new towns can do in the way of alleviating overcrowded conditions. So far as I know, you can search these reports without finding a trace of what, in my view, is one of the real justifications for the expenditure of this large sum of money.

There were only two things I found which might be regarded with criticism. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, will be interested to know that the corporations responsible told me that they had only one serious criticism to make, which was that they were pinned down by the meticulous care with which proceedings were examined by the then Minister of Town and Country Planning, and the amount of red tape that was involved in getting the smallest possible deviation from any existing plan. The other criticism, which I think is far more serious from the costing and especially the agricultural point of view, is the frightful waste of land and money involved by putting schools in a central position, instead of on one corner. They put the schools and the playing fields in the centre of each block of the town, with the inevitable result that everything is spread out—the roads are longer, the drains are longer, and the water supply is longer. I have forgotten the exact figure, but the extra cost of developing Crawley, as the result of putting the schools in the centre rather than on one corner, ran into thousands of pounds per acre. That, of course, was shown in the rents that had to be paid. I feel that that is a matter which ought to be examined carefully.

A further point in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, on which I should like to comment is his apparent disregard for agriculture. I, on the contrary, as may well be imagined, take an intense interest in the question of agriculture. I was pleased to see that in the case of Bracknell agricultural considerations were taken into account and the location of the town was moved slightly, without, so far as I know, any deleterious effect on the development of the town. But what I think is more important is that although today we are talking about new towns specifically, the actual problem of rehousing the people is not limited to new towns. Unfortunately, the big corporations, like the London County Council, are building all over the Home Counties satellite towns with none of the amenities of the new towns, having selected in only too many cases perfectly good, first-class agricultural land.

There is one case in the east, which shall be nameless, which happened while I was Minister where some of the best remaining market garden land around London was taken. A mile or two away there was quite indifferent land, but, because the London County Council had set their eye on this particular site, they took it, despite my violent protests. I see that to-day they are building a new satellite town outside Slough, again on first-class agricultural land and, what is more important, first-class horticultural, market garden land, with the inevitable result that the cost of growing vegetables and horticultural products generally is bound to increase the price to the Londoner, because this good peripheral land, of market garden quality, is being built over for this satellite town. Therefore, I think it is a matter of great importance that the powers of the Ministry of Agriculture should be increased, rather than diminished.

There is a great deal in what the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said. He and I know a lot about mining areas—I had the honour of representing one for many years. It is the fact, as he so rightly said, that when you move people out of rows of houses, or even out of slums, into these better surroundings represented by twelve houses to the acre, it does destroy something of the social life that they have been used to living. Slums are the very devil, and terraced houses may be; but everyone who knows the conditions there knows that there is a great social convenience in being able to lean up against your doorpost and gossip with your immediate next door neighbour, instead of having to put on your best bib and tucker and walk down the garden and up another garden path. It is a very real problem to get re-established in these new towns the same communal spirit that used to exist in spite of all the drawbacks and difficulties of living together in a narrow space. Again, no reference is made to that in these reports. I am sure that is the sort of thing in which the public are interested, and we should be glad to know to what extent the corporations are overcoming some of these drawbacks.

My final comment is on the question of rents. It is obviously grossly unfair that corporations should be tied by the Rent Restrictions Acts when local authorities, in the same conditions, building the same sort of houses in satellite towns, are free from restriction. I think the time is long past when legislation should be introduced giving these corporations the same freedom as local authorities to raise the earlier rents, in order that the weight may be spread more evenly over the whole of the inhabitants of these new towns.

4.22 p.m.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

My Lords, let me at once join with the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, in making reference to this document. I have been perusing it now for days, and I should much prefer to have twelve separate documents dealing with each of the corporations separately. Moreover, it must be remembered that the cost of this document is 15s. That is a high price for certain individuals, especially if they do not want the whole document. They want separate parts of it, and I hope the noble Lord will make representations regarding future reports of these various corporations.

Let me say at once that it is a little unusual to hear an ex-Minister moving a Motion referring to what he did when he was a Minister. Not every Minister dare do that. Many ex-Ministers that I know are quite prepared to remain quiescent regarding the efforts they made. But not Lord Silkin. He is proud of what he did in 1946, and, if I may say so, rightly proud. If no one else was prepared to look at what he did, he was, and he placed the Motion on the Order Paper. I compliment him also on the speech he made in submitting the Motion. He covered a great deal of ground, not leaving much for anyone else. He dealt with almost every aspect of the problem in the masterful way of which we know he is capable on this question.

To me, the interesting feature of the reports is their similarity. Here we have twelve separate reports on townships separated by hundreds of miles; and yet they are similar. They differ in some things. I notice that in the list of contents one or two put housing before engineering services, and vice versa. But in the contents as a whole these reports are wonderfully similar. What is made clear is that the corporations were faced with similar problems and their experiences have also been similar in all the areas. When I look at certain aspects of these problems I find that the anticipation was remarkable. This House and another place, when dealing with the New Towns Bill, were able to anticipate what would happen when the Bill became an Act. What they anticipated has actually happened. They saw the difficulties referred to by my noble friend Lord Lawson and the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson. They knew that it was difficult to decide at what rate we should build houses, having regard to the need for shops, schools, churches, chapels, community centres and health centres.

The town I know best is Cwmbran, in South Wales. The development corporation there decided to divide the town into seven separate areas. They said, "We will build a town for roughly 35,000 population. We will have seven areas of 5,000 each, and in each we will have a shopping centre, churches, and community centres, et cetera. We are told that this was done in order to balance communities. I sometimes wonder what a "balanced community" is. Who decides? Do you decide on figures? Do you say, "So many in business, so many secretarial, so many managerial, so many workers, so many middle class and so many lower class?" How do you decide? It was vital that we should decide in order to solve the problem. If you decide in the Cwmbran case that you should have 5,000 houses for managerial and the lower-middle classes, and 30,000 for the ordinary artisan what is your position? You have to provide those houses for the ordinary artisan at a rent approaching what he can be expected to pay. I am fully aware of the differences between local authority houses and development corporation's houses: the tenants of the latter houses are not safeguarded, and they are not assisted in any way. When I find rents of £2 5s. 0d. a week being charged in Cwmbran for a corporation house and 27s. 6d. a week for local council houses, and men with the same wages and similar families living in each, I can well under- stand the grievances and discontent. The sum of 17s. 6d. is a big difference, and it is actually happening there. It is true that they are better houses, and it may be that we shall be obliged to consider how to get houses at a rent within the range of those for whom the houses were intended and, at the same time, get these balanced communities.

I find that there are criticisms in Cwmbran of a different character. Just before the House sat to-day I was able to bring to the notice of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, a reference in the South Wales Argus of Friday last, June 19. I was only able to show it to the noble Lord for a short time to glance at it in order to give him some idea of what I was going to raise. The headline says: Bricklayer would be ashamed to stand by new town houses. Those are the houses in this new town of Cwmbran. I have here the correspondence between the Pontypool Rural Council and the Director of the Cwmbran New Town Development Corporation. Let me read what the local council has to say regarding the houses being built by the new town corporation: … members had described the new houses as less satisfactory than those which were erected before the Rural Council came into existence in 1894. Let that be clearly understood—that the houses being built in 1952 were poorer than houses built before 1894. It goes on: The Council appreciate that attempts are being made to expedite the production of houses, but are of the opinion that quality has given way to quantity. They have been told that this type of house has been produced by your corporation, and in fact other housing authorities, under pressure from Government Departments, but are of the opinion that some stand should be made to protest. Proof of this policy has been provided by the Ministry itself, sending round inspectors to tell the local councils that the production of essential materials, such as bricks and cement, could not keep pace with the building programme, and advocating alternatives, which in the humble opinion of this Council, afford an unsatisfactory structure with a shorter life than the period of loans which is being kept up to assist in bringing rents within the power of the tenants to pay. Here is another aspect which the council criticise, and to which we need to have regard: Having regard to the fact that at no very distant date your corporation will be handing over these houses to the local councils, the latter have a direct financial interest, and press your corporation to take up the matter with the Government Departments concerned on the lines suggested above. I hope the Minister will be able to ask for this correspondence, and see the copies; and I hope also that he will have regard to the complaints made. After all, quantity is important—very important indeed. I agree that regard must be had to quantity as well as to quality; but in a case of this kind the quality should be such that the rents of the dwellings are within the capacity of those people who should be tenanting the houses.

I know that this question of new towns has been well covered, but I want us to be quite clear that this problem is of vital importance. Take the case of this one new town in Wales. I do not know how many of your Lordships have spent much time in South Wales, and in particular in these mining areas where there are these hundreds of thousands of miners huddled together on the hillsides and in the valleys. I was certainly sorry to hear Lord Silkin's hint that a decision had been made that no further towns would be started. I hope that the reasons for the starting of the fourteen towns that have been begun were good reasons: I am certain that there are equally good reasons for others to be started in the very near future. I remember that Lord Silkin, in his speech on the Third Reading of the New Towns Bill in another place, said that he approached his task with very great humility and very high hopes. I am not prepared to say that his hopes have been fully justified, but I am prepared to say that events have fully justified the venture made.

4.32 p.m.

LORD HADEN-GUEST

My Lords, we have been listening to a most interesting debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who in fact proposed that he would ask for a debate of this kind at a very much earlier date. There was a debate in your Lordships' House on May 27 last year, when Lord Silkin made a statement about the fourteen areas where the new towns were being built, and of the money which was being spent and which would be spent in the future. Now the programme is getting further and further from fulfilment, although such a large amount of money has been spent. This point is made in The Times of to-day. This is an interesting point of view which I think ought to be answered by the Minister to-day. Lord Silkin said that it would be helpful if at some time in the future we had this debate, and he has certainly redeemed his promise to-day. We now want the Minister to tell us how the Act is working as regards attracting industry to the new towns.

When one reads this rather cumbrously produced volume of reports of the development corporations (I say "cumbrously," because it does not give the information one would like to have in regard to the towns and is not conveniently arranged) one does not get a very clear picture of how the Act is working. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us his views on this matter of how the Act is working as regards attracting industry to the towns. Some of the new towns apparently have very little industry. Crawley, which was mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, is an exception: it has a considerable amount of industry; but others have not. How are the arrangements working as regards the provision of schools for the children now in the towns and for the children who will shortly be there when the population increases? What arrangements are being made with regard to medical and dental services for the people living in the towns now, and those who will live there in the future?

Most of the new towns, says The Times this morning, differ but little from housing estates. I wonder whether the Minister thinks that that is a true statement or not. I hope he will express his opinion on that matter. The Times also refers to "the diffuse architectural form" of the towns, due to their having only twelve houses to the acre. I must say, for my part, that I agree with Lord Hudson; I think that a town should be built not like a suburb but like a town—and a town does not have twelve houses to the acre, at any rate not inmost parts of the great cities of this country. A town should be built as a town, with playgrounds and playing fields round about it. It should not be built in a garden suburb kind of way. Take the question of children and the schools. I have, with some difficulty, extracted a good deal of information out of these reports of the development corporations on new towns. I find with regard to Aycliffe, in Durham, a statement that the younger children have to travel daily to schools in neighbouring towns and villages because there are not adequate schools in Aycliffe itself. In Harlow, which is one of the most successful of the towns, and which rates very highly as a successful project, the children are crowded in the schools, whilst others have to travel considerable distances from their homes in Harlow to school. In another place, Basildon, in Essex, the corporation is concerned lest school building will not keep pace with the growing population. I will not quote any more, but that is a fair sample of the views which are held by many of these corporations, and the difficulties which face them with regard to schools.

Now there is the question, how can this situation be remedied? One point which has not, to my knowledge, been mentioned in the present debate, is the fact that at the present time higher rates are being paid to builders for building houses than for building schools. It is part of the Government's programme, I think, to put up as many houses as possible, and apparently higher wages are being paid for house building than for school building. A witness of the Ministry of Education said with regard to this matter: If one were to pay the labour on schools the kind of bonuses and incentive payments which are paid on houses, the total cost of school building would be increased—but presumably there would be more schools. It is absolutely essential that in the new towns there should be not only industries but also schools, and, of course, medical services. I believe that in this matter there is need for closer co-ordination of policy between Government Departments than there has been up to the present. I should like to quote here Recommendation No. 1 of the Select Committee on Estimates, which bas been published in the last two or three days. This is what the Committee say: Closer consultation should take place in the future between the Ministry of Education on the one hand and the local education authorities or their representative body on the other, so that a more accurate estimate of the number of school places needed may be agreed upon"— and I want to emphasise the next words— by less haphazard methods. It is a fairly drastic condemnation of a Government Department to say that their methods are "haphazard."

I suggest that it is also necessary to approach the problem of the supply of medical and dental services in the new towns. You do not solve this problem by saying, "Build a medical centre." I have seen in the Report a photograph of the medical centre at Harlow, Essex, a place I know very well and through which I frequently go. This photograph looks very businesslike, but you do not get medical and dental facilities by putting up a medical centre: you get it by having the doctors. You have to be sure that you have them in the new towns. You have to be sure that in the new towns you have the medical, dental and other treatment that is necessary for the men, women and children who live there. A medical centre may be a very good thing in appropriate circumstances, but it is not the first thing. The first thing is the organisation of the doctors and the dentists. It is the doctors and the dentists who are essential. The places in which they work are secondary. I say this because it is necessary to see that medical and dental services are available; you should not await the erection of a medical building before you arrange for their work in the new towns. I do not think it is quite certain, from the reports which I have read, dealing with the new towns, that there is, in fact, a wholly adequate and satisfactory service in the new towns. I hope that that state of affairs will soon be improved. Consultations with the medical profession in those areas, through the British Medical Association, which is the recognised medium of consultation, would probably help considerably in getting better medical treatment. Similarly, consultation with the dental authorities would assist in getting better dental treatment.

In my view, the Government should also see to it that, as regards the setting up off industries, the provision of schools and the provision of medical services, the appropriate Departments are fully informed. I want to ask the Minister whether he can give us now a statement to the effect that the Government are taking steps to see that industries are attracted to the towns. I also hope that we can be assured that all those concerned in the question of the administration of the new towns or the helping of the new towns in any way, through one Government Department or another, are fully informed of what is going on, and that there is real co-operation, from the Ministerial level at the top—several Ministers are involved—to the skilled and unskilled labourers working on the sites of the new towns. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that the problem of industries and schools and the supply of doctors and dentists is being satisfactorily solved.

4.43 p.m.

LORD MANCROFT

My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for giving us the opportunity of debating this extremely interesting—to me at any rate—and extremely important subject this afternoon. I should also like to thank him for the most moderate and constructive way in which he phrased his remarks. He speaks with great authority: none greater. He probably regards the development of these new towns rather in the way of a proud father, a father quite willing to chastise if need be. I am glad also that he opened his remarks by pointing out that these twelve reports in this rather criticised volume are, of course, reports of varying degrees of advancement. They all differ; they are not reports about housing estates but they are reports about the building of towns, which is quite a different thing. They cover a very wide range of subjects: social, economic, industrial and financial. All these towns are at different stages in their career, and that may account, to a certain degree, for the bulk of the Report. I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, who is not here at the moment, found the actual size of the Report distasteful to him, as did the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest. The various reports always have been published together, not only for the sake of convenience but also for comparison and because it was slightly cheaper. There has been nothing in the past but praise for the convenience of having one volume. However, I note the criticism that has now crept in, probably because the Report has become a little unwieldy. I will certainly refer these criticisms to the proper quarters, and perhaps in future there may be both a consolidated Report and an unconsolidated report for the convenience of those who like their reading matter slightly lighter.

Before I go on to deal with the individual questions which the noble Lord has raised, I should like to make two general points. The first is this. Her Majesty's Government feel neither complacent nor apologetic about what has been achieved so far. We do not suggest for one moment that there have not been mistakes and that opportunities have not been missed, but equally we say, quite firmly, that a great deal has been achieved and there is very little indeed to be apologetic about. That does not alter the fact that we are perfectly prepared to listen to all reasonable criticism and, if at all possible, to act upon it.

My second point, of a general nature, is this. I think that it must be a matter of great satisfaction to everyone concerned—and I am certain it will be a matter of satisfaction to nobody more than to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—that some of the strong local feelings, even bitterness at times, which accompanied the setting up of these new towns has died down and, in many cases, completely disappeared. I cannot pretend for one moment that I have visited more than a very few of these new towns. I wish I had had the opportunity to visit more. Those I have visited in the London area have all impressed me greatly by the absence of ill will and by the determination of everybody engaged on the project or living in the towns to get along well together. I think that allays successfully some of the fears which many of us had when these towns were started, that a certain amount of acrimony and even a certain amount of, I am afraid, political backbiting, might stand in the way of their progress.

Now I turn to what I think has been the question uppermost in most noble Lords'minds—hardly any speaker failed to mention it—that is, the position of industry in relation to rival interests in these new towns. Of course, although industry is one of the most important aspects, it is only one of the fields of development in these new towns. Perhaps, therefore, I can summarise briefly what has been achieved by the corporations up to the end of last month—and your Lordships will, of course, remember that this Report does not go anything like as far as the end of last month. Up to the end of last month, as the noble Lord suggested, over 12,000 houses have been built and nearly 9,000 are under construction. Just over 200 shops have been completed or are under construction. One church has been completed and nine are under construction—I shall have a little more to say about that later. Seventeen community centres and halls have been completed or are under construction, and eight "pubs," I am glad to say, have either been completed or are under construction.

Here I should like to interrupt my remarks in order to refer to the leading article in this morning's Times newspaper, to which the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest referred, a leading article with which I am not able to find myself in agreement. This article says: Most of the new towns differ but little from housing estates"— that was the actual remark to which I think the noble Lord referred. It goes on: They are neither well enough equipped with industries to provide balanced employment locally nor with public buildings to allow them to be self-sufficient socially. I think your Lordships may agree that I have already said enough to show that this allegation is very wide of the mark. Over 2,500,000 square feet of factory space, nearly 10,000 square feet of offices, over 200 shops, 10 churches and 17 community centres and halls—all of these things are completed or are under construction. Surely that is something which goes very much beyond a housing estate. The last one I have seen is Hemel Hempstead. That is the only one of which I have recent personal experience. I would ask the writer of that article to go to Hemel Hempstead and comeback and say whether he still thinks that it has got no further than the category of a housing estate.

The writer goes on to suggest that there is not sufficient variety of industry in our new towns. In this regard there is some justice, I think, in his comment in respect of at least some of the new towns. The corporations and the Government Departments concerned are doing their best to correct this condition. Your Lordships will have noted the strict economic tests which until recently governed the issue of building licences in new towns, as elsewhere. Their strong emphasis on defence and export industries tended, of necessity, to produce this result. The position in this regard I hope will now become easier, and there is ground for believing that in the not too distant future it will be possible to redress the balance. The article goes on to say that none of the towns has got very far with its main town centre. That, I think, is true. But I should be very surprised if it were otherwise. The construction of a town centre at any time, let alone in these difficult days, could scarcely proceed as appreciably as the development of the main fields of housing and factory construction. But in point of fact, following a great deal of work on drawing boards in back rooms, proposals for town centres have been received and indeed a start on their actual construction has been made in many cases. I want to refer particularly to Hemel Hempstead, Corby, Welwyn, Crawley, Harlow and Peterlee. In each of those towns the necessary site works have begun, and in three of them buildings are actually going up.

The noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, in dealing with the Article in The Times, referred also to the question of low density planning. That same article refers to low density planning and speaks of a garden suburb policy. Her Majesty's Government, and indeed the corporations, readily agree that such a policy (if either wished to pursue it, which neither does) would involve a great waste of land, unnecessary expense in regard to services and drainage, to which the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, referred, and long trips for the housewife. The position to-clay is very different. The fact is that the corporations are working to densities which compare very favourably indeed with densities of modern urban development. Broadly speaking, the aim at the present moment is a density of at least 13 houses to the acre, and in the case of many current proposals this figure is being exceeded. Speaking generally, I should have thought that a figure of 12 houses to the acre would hardly produce a garden suburb.

I have deviated from my main argument to deal with those points that the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest raised from The Times. May I go back to the original question of industry, to which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, rightly devoted some attention? Not all the new towns will require the provision of additional industry under the ægis of the corporation. With regard to the others, the position is that up to the end of last month just over a million and a quarter square feet of factory space occupied by 56 firms had been completed in the new towns, and just over a million and a third square feet will be occupied by 28 firms and is under construction at the moment. I am not suggesting for a moment that this is all we need. We have had our successes—I think Crawley and Hemel Hempstead would meet with the noble Lord's approval—but I will not go so far as to say we have had failures in the others.

I am asked by one noble Lord what we are doing to increase the appeal for industry to go to the new towns. My Lords, the answer is everything possible; but it is obviously not enough. That appeal must be increased. I hope that this debate and what your Lordships have said, and any thing that I can now add to the appeal, will have some effect in encouraging industry to settle in these new towns. We need to encourage industry to do that. I am thinking particularly of the towns around London, and of Peterlee in County Durham. Industry and all types of employment have nothing to lose and everything to gain if their workers do not exhaust themselves by long journeys in crowded transport to and from their work. In the new towns they can be given good houses and decent living conditions. The industries and the workers who have gone there so far have not only contributed to the financial and social success of their towns but have themselves no cause whatever to regret it. All our evidence from all the towns points to that. It is vital in the interests of all concerned, employers, workers and Government, that these facts should be known and that the trend of industry towards the new towns should be increased.

I now come to the next subject which I think caused most discussion this afternoon—nearly all noble Lords referred to it—and that is the question of communal facilities, as I suppose they can be called in the jargon of to-day. No one would dispute for one moment that the provision of houses, factories, homes and working places in the new towns, though fundamental, is clearly not enough. There must be communal facilities where people can chat and lean over the garden fence, and engage in sport, recreation and worship. In easier times a great deal of these facilities would have been provided through voluntary bodies. There is, of course, still room for more work by them. Let me emphasise one or two points which might interest your Lordships in regard to what has been done so far from the communal aspect. Ten of the twelve new towns have started or will very soon start making provision for community centres or community halls. Nine centres or halls have already been completed and eight are under construction.

The provision of churches is of particular interest. I referred to that a few moments ago. One is already completed and nine are under construction. Those include Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Congregational churches, one for the Salvation Army and a Roman Catholic church under construction or at least being planned. In times when we read of churches being pulled down or burnt and religion being denied to those who would have it, there is some pride to be taken from the fact that we are busy building churches and providing facilities for people to worship as they wish. I emphasise that, because these new towns have produced the ingredients for what may be an encouraging future. There has been great co-operation between the various religious denominations. The planning and siting of churches and the general conduct of religious planning in the new towns has been conducted on a markedly friendly atmosphere.

I want to make one remark now which I think may be news to your Lordships and I hope will give encouragement to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. My right honourable friend has given this question of community buildings his personal attention for some time, and I am glad to say that, as a result, he has been able to conclude arrangements with the other Ministers concerned whereby licences for substantially more expenditure, of the order of £1½ million in the next eighteen months, will be allocated to churches, church halls and other community buildings in new housing projects, including those in new towns. I am certain that that will meet with the noble Lord's approval.

I mentioned the question of public houses, which was once a matter of fairly acute, I will not say "bitter," controversy in regard to tied or free houses. I have been into two of the licensed premises in the new towns. Speaking for myself, I must say that I found them remarkably uncosy; but I suppose it is better that they should be in keeping with modern architecture rather than with "Ye Olde Tudor House." There is one remarkable public house which is neither tied nor free, but is supplied by three rival breweries, and it will be interesting to see how that experiment finally works out.

These new towns offer a wonderful opportunity to the planners and architects, and I join with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in deploring any possibility of a standard type of new town architecture in the mass, just as we saw in the mass of flats which were put up in the bigger cities in the twenty or thirty years before the war. There is a wonderful opportunity in these towns for the local inhabitants and the local authorities to come forward as patrons of the arts. All the old towns, such as Bruges, Ravenna, Norwich and Winchester, were great patrons of the arts, which would not have flourished had the burghers and the rich and the poor of these great cities not patronised and fostered them. I very much hope that when they settle down the new towns will give some encouragement to sculptors and painters to come and beautify them. Harlow, one of the new towns, did, I think, buy Miss Barbara Hepworth's statue which stood outside the South Bank Exhibition. I think it was called Contrapuntal Forms," and in my view it is a perfectly horrible piece of work. That is a strictly personal opinion, and in putting it forward it may be that I am inspired by a somewhat smug pride as a citizen of the Borough of St. Marylebone, which has recently set up on a public site the statue of the Madonna and Child by Jacob Epstein which I—and I am glad to think many others also—regard as the finest piece of public sculpture which has been put up in London since the Charles I statue was erected at Charing Cross.

I turn now to the extremely interesting subject of mixed development. The last thing we want in connection with these new towns is to have one type of person making up the bulk of the population. Consider, for a moment, two old towns which are roughly of the same size—arid, as it happens, the size we are talking about—Exeter and Gloucester. I take them as examples because, as I say, they are about the same size, each having a population of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 67,000. Both have great and ancient histories. Both have seen great industrial developments of varying sizes. I think they may well be taken as not a bad parallel to our new towns. They have each a strong corporate sense which they owe as much as anything to the fact that the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the duke and the dustman have all lived alongside one another, drunk together at the same licensed premises, served on the same magisterial bench, and sat on the same borough council. If you did not have that you would have no soul in a town—on that we are ail agreed. But this corporate feeling is not so easy to achieve as all that. Lord Lawson talked about neighbourliness and corporate life, and Lord Hudson mentioned lack of any reference to this in the Report. I am bound to confess that I have not gone through the Report carefully enough to notice that. But I will certainly look at it again to see whether some suggestion can be put forward to ensure that a reference is included next year.

Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor talked about balance of the population. You cannot tot these things up mathematically, and say how many butchers, bakers and candlestick makers and so on you need in each particular town. But I think that, as a matter of fact, we are very near achieving a proper balance in this matter.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

By what method?

LORD MANCROFT

I was going to say that I think we are achieving it, but I do not know whether I can tell the noble Lord by what method. I have a suspicion that it may well be that there has been a considerable element of luck in this. I think, however, that the planning of the type of houses has also had its effect. It would be no use saying, first of all, that you want so many butchers and bakers, doctors and the rest of it. You have to put up houses, and houses of the proper sizes and types to meet the needs of industry, the needs of commerce, and the demand for doctors and so on. So I think that in the housing programme you have some means of keeping the balance of population roughly in the proportion you want—if you want a proportion, and I think you must have it. That, I am afraid, is the only answer which I can give the noble Lord upon that. It is not, I admit, a conclusive answer.

In connection with this question, however, I have some figures for one of the new towns, Crawley, which I think are interesting. These show that 17 per cent. of the male householders at Crawley consist of professional people, industrial directors and managers, people of the managerial classes generally, executives and public officials. Some 62 per cent. of the population consist of foremen, clerical workers and skilled craftsmen, and 21 per cent. of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Those are the figures for Crawley, and I am afraid that they are the only ones that I have in this connection. The interesting point about it is that those figures are almost exactly the same as the figures for the whole of the country, so it looks as though we are getting roughly the right answer. Let me hasten to add that I do not want to be complacent about this. I am not suggesting for one moment that we can afford to sit back and allow matters to take their course. I agree with noble Lords who have put this forward that if we are to keep this proportion as we want, we must not only seek to encourage industry to go to these towns, but must encourage our own friends, doctors and lawyers and so on, to live there, in order that the balance is kept right—that is, kept roughly as it is in Exeter and Gloucester which, after all, as I have said, are not bad parallels to these new towns. I repeat, I do not want to be complacent about this. I am not certain that we have found a proper answer to the problem, but I will look very carefully again at what the noble Lord has said about this matter. I will look at the figures and at our plans, with a view to seeing whether everything is being done that can be done.

LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR

Relating it to the rent?

LORD MANCROFT

I talked just now about the size of houses. I certainly agree that that should be related to the rent. The two matters are very closely related.

LORD GIFFORD

May I interrupt for the moment and put this to the noble Lord? The new town of Crawley is, perhaps, different from some of the other new towns because it is being built in and out of the existing town. It was a town which had a very large professional element in its population before the new town project was started, and an analysis at the present time might show a percentage which would give a false impression regarding the numbers of professional people who have gone there.

LORD MANCROFT

It might, of course. That is a perfectly valid point. I think each town varies a great deal. I took the case of Crawley because it is the one town in respect of which the figures chanced to be available. I do not suggest that there is any great satisfaction to be drawn from the fact that we have produced, apparently, what is roughly the correct proportion in this case. I entirely agree with noble Lords as to the necessity of getting this balance right. At the same time, I may perhaps go so far as to say that, while it would seem that we are on the right lines, I recognise the need for examining these matters very carefully.

I think the provision of more new towns was the next subject which was raised, and I will try to deal with that. I am afraid that I must, with apologies, give almost the same answer to Lord Silkin as I gave him when he put forward a request for more national parks when we discussed that topic a few weeks ago.

LORD SILKIN

I did not want any more national parks.

LORD MANCROFT

I must be mistaken—on second thoughts, I think it was Lord Chorley. I feel that for the time being we should try to make the existing new towns work really well. Here we see a very bold experiment—and all credit should be given to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for the part he took in it. Apart from the great extra cost which would be involved in embarking on new schemes, it must be remembered that we had not attempted for some 500 years such a task as this building of new towns, complete, whole towns, in particularly difficult conditions. We know that we have made some mistakes, and we can claim that we have met with some successes. But let us, in a sense, sit back for a bit. As I have said, these new towns cost a great deal. I am not advocating a policy of inaction, I am saying. "Let us be content with the scheme as it is for the time being." The time may come when we shall be able to see our way to further developments of this character; but let us now devote our energies to making these new towns work really well. In this connection, let us bear in mind that we have not entirely neglected old town development. I am not suggesting for one moment—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, perhaps pushed his case a little bit high on this point—that we want to go back and rebuild slums. But there is a happy medium. There are in the big cities re-housing schemes which are a compromise between the old slumdom and the new towns. It is a different aspect of the housing effort, and a different aspect of the social problem, and it is taking much of our energies at the moment. Therefore, I must answer this question about the possibility of more new towns fairly and categorically, and say that I can hold out no hope whatever, at the moment, of any further new towns being considered.

I was asked about the actual machinery of the New Towns Act, which we inherited from our predecessors. The question was raised whether we thought it was working efficiently. The fact remains, of course, that if it is not working efficiently it will require legislation to put it eight. I was asked whether I thought there was not some internecine strife between Government Departments. I do not suppose there has ever been a day in our Parliamentary Sessions when some Opposition spokesman has not cheerfully suggested that there is a suspicion of such strife and a Government spokesman has stoutly denied it. I would not cross my heart and say that one Department has not occasionally clashed its interest in this subject with that of another Department. But I can say that Her Majesty's Government are wholeheartedly behind this scheme. They inherited it; they have taken it on, and they are wholeheartedly supporting it. It is to their interest lo do everything they possibly can to see that it works. If there is internecine strife between Departments—which I do not for one moment admit—then I am sure that the noble Lord's words will have put a little conscience into some people—sufficient to make certain that the Government Departments which are concerned with this matter will go forward in future as one Department.

My Lords, I am afraid that I have been an unconscionably long time in replying to this debate. I have not answered the question which was put to me on the subject of Gatwick—and let me say at once that I am not going to attempt to tackle that question to-day. It is far too big a question to deal with in a debate like this; it involves too many considerations and, moreover, is a little outside the scope of this debate. I would, however, remind the House that this question of Gatwick in relation to these new towns is attracting the greatest consideration from the Government.

The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, read an extract from the South Wales Argus of June 19. He was good enough to give me a quick glance at it before we came into the House. I had heard about the article some days back, and was not vastly impressed by what was going on. I did not think a good case had been made out, but I will refresh my memory. I am given to understand that a deputation is coming from that part of the world to the Ministry, and I will certainly look at the correspondence again and read the article again, if the noble Lord will be good enough to lend it to me afterwards. I will make certain that if anything has gone wrong and can be put right, it shall be put right.

Schools are making good progress, but nothing to be complacent about. Altogether, eight schools have been built and seventeen are building. Medical services are adequate, but again, nothing to be complacent about. I suppose the answer is that, to a doctor like the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, there is no such thing as an adequate service, because he always wants perfection.

LORD HADEN-GUEST

I never asked for perfection. I am a realist.

LORD MANCROFT

The noble Lord wants the next best thing and we give him the best we can. In the same way, the educationist wants as many schools as possible. These are conflicting claims. As I have said, we are making pretty steady progress, but these two questions are uppermost in our minds.

I will not keep your Lordships much longer. This has been an interesting and most useful discussion, and I think that all the speeches made this afternoon have been extremely fair. The technical points that I have not been able to answer—and I am afraid there are many—I will certainly have looked at. I repeat what I said at the beginning of my remarks. We want to do everything we can and show every encouragement to people, to communities, to firms, to industries, to come to these new towns—of course, from London, and not from the middle of the country, where they can get a more desirable home: that would spoil the whole conception of the scheme. The Government are not complacent about this scheme, because much remains to be done, and the novelty of the enterprise necessarily raises great problems for local authorities, the corporations themselves, Government Departments and, indeed, for private individuals. I am not suggesting for one moment that we have solved them all. We shall not fail to grapple with them and I hope we shall not fail to solve them.

We are not apologetic, because I think no fair man could say that the machinery which we inherited has rusted in our hands. It is well geared up and has developed considerable, indeed formidable, and, in one or two cases, impressive, momentum. But, like everything else, its future depends on the security and solvency of the country. These two things are linked inextricably. We too often forget how close we ran to economic and financial collapse only eighteen months ago, and our progress must be attuned to that. I think that we can look over the last five years—and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin can look back with us, because he is as much in this as we are—and agree that what we have achieved and are going to achieve is something of which we have to be proud.

5.15 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, this has been a most satisfying debate from my point of view, and I believe from the point of view of the whole House, because every speaker, without exception, has completely supported the conception of the new towns. If ever this was a Party question—and I do not think it ever was to any considerable extent—it has now risen above Party. We are all proud of this country's achievement in new towns, and every single speaker spoke with the sole desire to make our achievements more successful than ever.

I should like to refer to one or two points that have been raised in the course of the debate. I was interested in, and delighted with, the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson. I should be less than human not to be gratified by the fact that after starting out with the idea of commencing a campaign against the mismanagement and waste of money involved in the new towns, he became, as the result of his investigations, one of their most ardent supporters. I agree with a great deal of what the noble Viscount said. It was useful that he should criticise the form of this report. That is one of those matters about which one might well become complacent. One starts off with an idea of what the report should be, and goes on year after year until shaken up by someone like the noble Viscount. I think he is right. I would remind him, however, that all these reports are not issued at the same time; they are issued from time to time, as they are ready. When I was Minister I thought it would be convenient to have them all published together, rather than have people go along to the Vote Office and ask if such-and-such a report was ready. Since then they have been multiplied in number and increased in size and I imagine that the next volume will be even more unwieldy than this one.

I would make three suggestions. The first is that the Minister should provide an introduction, drawing attention to some of the interesting and salient points in the reports. The second is that there should be an index. I believe that that would answer many of the noble Viscount's difficulties. If there were an index, he could read the pages dealing with that aspect of the new towns in which he is interested; and no others. My third suggestion is that, in addition to publishing the report in one volume, it should be possible for anyone who is interested in one particular town to buy the relevant report separately. There, is no reason why he should pay 15s. for a large volume when he is interested only in Basildon. The report on Basildon may cost only a 1s., and it ought to be possible to get it for that.

I did not speak about agriculture altogether in disparaging terms. I am a bit of an agriculturist myself, and the last thing I should do would be to speak in slighting terms about agriculture or its importance. It is true that the size of Bracknell had to be curtailed because of representations made on agriculture, but the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, may be aware that, since I left office, representations have been made by the corporation that the reduced size of the town is inadequate for its purpose, and they have now come forward with a fresh application for additional land. I hope that the noble Viscount will not assume that all land devoted to new towns is necessarily depriving agriculture of essential land that it requires. We have to face the fact that the population of these islands is increasing. As between the last census and the last census but one, there was an increase of 1,500,000 people, representing something like 400,000 families. They have got to be housed somewhere. We also have to face the fact that, generally speaking, our towns are overcrowded. The whole trend of modern re-development is (if I may use a most ugly word) to de-congest the towns, thin them out arid provide accommodation for the people outside. Both those operations require additional land; that is unavoidable. All we can do is to ensure that we do not take the best agricultural land. I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, that that should be our object, where we have a choice, even if it involves using slightly less desirable land for the purpose of new towns or housing. But that is a counsel of perfection.

In my view, the noble Viscount was also right in drawing attention to the fact that a great deal depends upon psychological factors. Nothing was said—although I believe it to be most important—about the importance of the relationship between the people who have been exported to the new towns and the original residents. I can quite understand the reluctance and suspicion, and even the hostility, of the people in the existing small towns to the idea of taking unknown people into the new towns—people about whom they know nothing in relation to their habits and ways of life, who are not acclimatised to the way of life of the small country town, and who have come from slum areas, and so on. One can also feel sympathy for those who have gone to live in those small towns because they want the peace and quiet of the small place and now find themselves about to be absorbed into a large town with 60,000 or 80,000 population.

It may well be that in the early stages the Ministry, and in particular the Minister, did not pay sufficient attention to the art of public relations. I want to admit quite freely that I made a great mistake in the handling of Stevenage; certainly it could have been done much better. It was just foolish to go to Stevenage—I can say this now, seven years after the event; it is Statute-barred—and try to persuade those people that it was a good thing for them to be bought out at 1939 values, when, if they wanted to acquire other premises, they would have to go out and buy them at the existing market value. Even my persuasiveness was not equal to convincing them that it was a good idea; and shortly after that we had to revise the conception of acquiring land at 1939 values, plus 60 per cent.

We have all learned a good deal in the intervening years about public relations. What has been happening is that the development corporations have taken the existing population into their confidence; they have brought them on to committees, and consulted them about the way in which things are done; they have even put members of the existing organisations on to their committees, and some have been put on to the corporation. The result is that there is a great deal of harmony, and some of those who had been most bitterly hostile to the idea of new towns are now proud of what is being achieved. In particular, the people of Stevenage are now proud of the achievements of the development corporation; and I have little doubt that if a census were taken now of the views of the people of Stevenage about new towns, as compared with what they were when the project there was first started, it would show a great difference. There is another thing of which we can all feel proud—namely, that our people have a genius for accepting a thing once it is a fait accompli. They may fight and argue and resist as much as they possibly can; but once it is an established fact, then they settle down and do their best to make it a success. That is what has happened in so many of the new towns that have been set up.

I have very little more to say. I may express one regret at the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft. I am sorry that he has had to say—I quite understand that those are the instructions he has been given—that there are to be no more new towns for the time being. As I said, and as my noble friend Lord Macdonald said also, the reasons for these new towns still exist. The case for new towns has not been met by the provision of fourteen new towns. I remember that when I introduced the New Towns Bill I was of the opinion that we should need something like twenty new towns to start with, and possibly some more in the next five or ten years. I think that that estimate is not far from the truth to-day. I did not suggest that the alternative was that Manchester would go back to slum-land. I do suggest that in providing new towns we are merely building in the right way and in the right places, as against the alternative of building the wrong way, in the wrong places. If you do not meet the Manchester problem, or the Leeds problem, and the problems of the other towns, by building new towns, or expanding existing towns, you are inevitably driven to building in the bad old way, and creating congestion—not slums, which is a different thing—by building in the wrong places, extending your towns unduly and causing what has been described in the famous Barlow Report as "social and economic problems."

I am grateful for the statement that £1,500,000 is going to be provided for churches and communal buildings.

LORD MANCROFT

For licences.

LORD SILKIN

Yes, for licences. I must qualify my gratitude, because I have to consider how far that amount will go among the fourteen new towns. But it is a gesture, and I am grateful for it. I am quite sure that the Minister, having given his approval in principle to the idea that the new towns need these things, if he should find that more of them are necessary, will not hesitate to press for more licences for the purpose. I am well aware of the disputes that arise between different Departments, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that there always have been, and always will be, disputes between Departments. What I was hoping was that, in the case of this great national project, of which we are all proud, and of which we all want to make a success, the Departments would subordinate their own distinctive points of view in the interests of the greater whole.

LORD MANCROFT

I am sure they will.

LORD SILKIN

I hope that they will, and I should like a definite assurance of it. I should like, for instance, a definite assurance from the Board of Trade that they really will go all out to provide the necessary industry. I appreciate that they have their own difficulties, but they have not always been forthcoming, either in giving the necessary certificate for industry in the new towns or in pressing for the necessary building licences. I do not wish to weary your Lordships, but I could quote a number of cases of quite considerable industries which have been anxious to go to the new towns but which have been unable to get the necessary licences and permissions. They could have got them if the Board of Trade had been really helpful. The problem of Gatwick is another point. I quite understand that it is a difficult subject, and I appreciate the noble Lord's reluctance to deal with it in this debate. But it must be settled, and in the meantime it is prejudicing at any rate the further success of one new town. I conclude by expressing my gratitude to all those who have spoken, and for the temperate spirit in which the speeches have been made. With that I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.