HL Deb 23 March 1959 vol 215 cc158-75

3.0 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill is in four Parts, the first Part being concerned with lending money for house purchase; the second Part with improvement grants in England; the third Part with improvement grants in Scotland, and the fourth Part miscellaneous and general. The purpose of Part I of the Bill is to help people who want to buy their own homes but who have to borrow money in order to be able to do so. The two lending agencies which are affected by the Bill are the local authorities and the building societies. The local authorities already have power to lend money for house purchase, with a limit of 90 per cent. on the value of the house and also a limit of £5,000 on any advance which they may make in respect of any one house. Those two restrictions are not imposed on any other lending agency in the country. The Government feel that they are now an unnecessary restriction on the freedom of local authorities, and in Clause 3 of this Bill those restrictions are accordingly removed. If the Bill goes through, local authorities will be free to lend as much as they wish, and on what terms they wish, to finance house purchase without being limited either in the total amount of their advance or by any percentage of the value of the property.

The average amount of money advanced by local authorities for house purchase over the last three or four years has been about £60 million a year, and the annual number of houses purchased with the help of local authority advances has averaged about 50,000. Of course, that is not evenly spread over the whole country. Some local authorities go in a good deal for lending to help house purchase; others go in for it only a little, and some do not go in for it at all. That is a matter for the local authorities to decide. What the Bill does is to remove any restriction in the way of their doing so, and we hope that all local authorities will consider with favour the possibility of helping house purchase.

As for the building societies, whose main business is to lend money for house purchase, the average amount which they have been lending for that purpose over the last three years or so has been a little under £400 million a year; and the average number of houses the purchase of which they have financed by these loans have been a little under 300,000 a year. Four hundred million pounds sounds a lot of money, but it is not sufficient to satisfy the demands for these loans; and in spite of the fact that the present rate of interest charged by the building societies is a good deal higher than it usually is, the number of applications for loans to finance house purchase is much greater than the amount of cash which the building societies have at their disposal for that purpose. What the Government and the Bill propose is to make more cash available.

They will do this in two ways. The first is by conferring trustee status on those building societies which fulfil certain conditions, which are set forth in the White Paper on House Purchase issued last November (Comnd. 571), in Appendix II, "Proposed conditions on which the Chief Registrar shall have power to approve Building Societies for purposes of Trustee Status." It is expected by the building societies that those of them who get this trustee status will thereby be enabled substantially to increase their deposits, because a number of people who are responsible for trust funds will be able to invest those funds in building societies. The other way in which we propose to make more cash available is to make direct Treasury advances to the building societies which they, in their turn. will lend on certain conditions to finance house purchase.

Of course, building societies make advances on all kinds of houses, both new and old; and, generally speaking, new houses are better security from the building society's point of view than old ones, although, as many of your Lordships know, especially in Scotland, a good many of the older houses built before 1919 were built of much more durable materials than are now generally used, and if they can be satisfactorily modernised they will probably outlive by a very long time most of the houses which are now being built. Nevertheless, other things being equal, the newer the house, the better the security; and the Government are proposing to give direct assistance in respect of the oldest class of house, those built before January 1, 1919.

At the present moment, it is estimated that on these oldest classes of houses the building societies are advancing between £40 and £50 million a year. Of course, that does not mean that the Treasury advances are necessarily limited to that sum, because, as I have explained to your Lordships, the demand at present is greater than the amount of money available. Therefore, it may be found that the amount of money which the Government advance on these old houses is a great deal more than the building societies are able to provide, since they are compelled to ration all their clients quite severely because they have not enough money to do everything that is wanted. On these old houses the building societies have undertaken to advance to their clients who are credit-worthy loans to the amount of 95 per cent. That is substantially higher than the maximum percentage which they have hitherto been accustomed to loan.

We intend that these loans should be used indirectly to help the financing of the purchase of houses which are not so old as this—houses built between the two wars. As your Lordships will see from the White Paper, in the agreement which was arrived at between the Government and the building societies (although there is nothing in the Bill about this), the building societies have undertaken to make similar advances on similar terms—that is, 95 per cent. of the purchase price—to people who want to buy houses which have been built between the two wars. They think that they will be enabled to do this, first, because they will be relieved by the Government of the £40 million or £50 million which they are now spending on the older houses; and next, because their trustee status will enable them to get more money together.

LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE

My Lords, if the noble Earl would allow me to interrupt him, he says "95 per cent. of the purchase price". I suppose the building society make an independent valuation which justifies the purchase price—they make certain that the purchase price is not in excess of the real value of the house?

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

Yes. It is, I think, an ordinary matter in the business of building societies; they have to do that. They have, of course, to satisfy themselves, too, that the client is creditworthy.

The advances of money made by the Government under this Bill will be made only to those societies which fulfil the conditions entitling them to trustee status which are set down in Appendix II to the White Paper. Your Lordships have probably read it, and I do not suppose you will wish me to go through those conditions. The only one which I think has given rise to any criticism is the assets limit of half a million pounds: a society cannot qualify unless its assets exceed £500,000. Since there are a large number of small building societies, a great many of them very efficiently run, with good local reputations, whose assets are not so much as £500,000, it has naturally been suggested that there ought not to be this limit. Although we do not suggest that size is the same thing as reliability, the size of the assets of a concern is one element in its capacity of fulfilling without undue risk its position as a trustee stock.

The limit of £500,000 is lower than that which has sometimes been suggested on previous occasions. I feel it necessary that there should be some limit somewhere, and the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government is satisfied that there are enough building societies with assets of more than £500,000, and that their distribution over the country is sufficiently wide, to make it certain that a would-be purchaser wishing to acquire a house, in whatever locality, will not have any difficulty in finding either the head office or a local branch of some building society which qualifies under this White Paper from whom he can raise the necessary loan.

The interest which the Treasury will charge will ½ be per cent, below the current rate of interest charged by the building societies—whatever that may be at the time. That, of course, always depends on two things. The first is the rate at which the public are willing to invest in the building societies. If the societies try to put the rate too low the public will not invest, and the societies have to compete with National Savings Certificates and other forms of investment. Secondly, on the other hand, if the building societies put the rate too high, people who want to borrow money to buy a house will not do so. They will wait until interest rates come down. It is therefore one of the most constant preoccupations of building societies to consider the optimum rate of interest which will produce the greatest amount of business.

I do not want to take up your Lordships' time by going through every clause in Part II of the Bill, which makes certain alterations in the existing procedure for making improvement grants under previous Housing Acts, and perhaps your Lordships would prefer that I should try to give a short summary of the changes in the existing law which are made by Part II of the Bill. At the present time, as your Lordships will know, certain conditions apply to improvement grants. The maximum amount of grant which can be paid is either £400 or 50 per cent. of the actual expenditure on an approved scheme for reconditioning—whichever is the less. The dwelling, to qualify, must be used as a private house unless the local authority consent otherwise. The house must be lived in by the applicant or by members of his family, or by someone to whom it has passed on the applicant's death, or by an agricultural worker on a contract of service; or it must be let.

The rent chargeable shall not be more than the rent which could be charged if the house were a rent-controlled house—and if it is rent-controlled the rent is limited by the control—plus 8 per cent. on the amount of expenditure on improvements which expenditure is not reimbursed by the reconditioning grant. The house must be fit for human habitation. No premium may be charged for assigning a tenancy. All these conditions apply for twenty years from the time when the improvement works are completed. Until 1949 the only kind of house which could attract an improvement grant was an agricultural house. Although improvement grants were extended to urban houses by the Housing Act of 1949, in practice that Act was almost a "dead letter" until 1954, when my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, who was then Minister of Housing and Local Government, started a campaign in favour of more urban reconditioning. That campaign got off to quite a good start, but for the last three or four years it has remained more or less static, and Her Majesty's Government feel that things would move a great deal faster if the conditions were a little less restrictive and frustrating.

What Part II of this Bill does, therefore, is to make certain changes, the most important being to introduce a new grant which does not supersede, but which may be part of, the old maintenance grant, in respect of what are called "standard improvements". Such improvements are: the installation of a bath, wash-basin, hot water supply, water closet and satisfactory food store. A great many of the older type of houses are perfectly habitable but lack these things which are now considered essential to modern comfort and proper family life. Under Part II, therefore, provision is made that if only these five standard improvements are effected, not as part of a comprehensive reconditioning scheme but by themselves, a grant may be claimed from the local authority of either 50 per cent. of the cost or a maximum of £155, whichever is the less. This grant has to be paid provided that the local authority are satisfied that the house is fit for human habitation and is likely to have a life of at least fifteen years. There is then a statutory obligation on the local authority to pay the grant.

This provision also links up with the arrangements in Part I of the Bill for assisting the purchase, through the building societies, of pre-1919 houses, where 95 per cent. of the loan is derived from Government funds. If the purchaser wishes to put in these five standard improvements and gets from the local authority a grant of £155, and if his own costs, over and above that, have been £150 or £200, then the building society can lend him, as part of his building society loan, the amount of the expenditure he has incurred over and above the amount of the grant. We hope that this will facilitate the more rapid improvement of a large number of these older houses which are still perfectly fit and capable of having a long and useful life.

The other change which Part II makes in the conditions for an improvement grant is in respect of rent. If the house is controlled there is, of course, no change. The limit is the controlled rent plus 8 per cent. of the owner's share of the cost of the improvement. If the house is decontrolled, it is not at present possible to obtain a grant unless the rent is brought down to what would have been the controlled rent (had it been controlled) plus 8 per cent. Under Part II of the Bill it will be possible to appeal to the local authority to decide what they consider to be a fair rent, having regard to the rents of other free houses in the locality. These are the two principal changes.

A third change is that the conditions will apply for only ten years, instead of twenty. Also, at present the house must be lived in by the applicant or a member of his family, or someone to whom it has passed on the death of the applicant. A further change made by Part II of the Bill is that after three years from the date of the completion of the improvement works the house may be sold without any breach of the conditions and without the grant having to be repaid. It is hoped that these changes will speed up the process of reconditioning and encourage owners of houses to do a great deal more than is being done now under the previous Housing Acts.

With regard to part III, I think your Lordships will probably be relieved to hear that Part III does not create differences between Scotland and England which I should have to explain. On the contrary, it removes differences which previously existed and assimilates Scottish conditions to English conditions; and since I have just explained to your Lordships the English conditions it is unnecessary for me to say much about the application of these improvement grants for Scotland. Perhaps your Lordships will forgive me for just mentioning that an Amendment which. I, as a private Member, moved to the Scottish Housing and Town Development Bill in 1957, and which I withdrew on a promise of reconsideration by the Government, has, I find, been incorporated in this Bill. The Amendment was to abolish the necessity of having to repay an improvement grant if the owner of a house died and it was inherited by his son, which always seemed a little unnecessary.

Part III merely applies Part II of the Bill, concerning the provisions relating to improvement grants, to Scotland. Part I, relating to house purchase loans, applies to Scotland, anyhow; and I hope it will be made good use of in Scotland, because I am sorry to say that the proportion of owner-occupied houses in, Scotland is considerably less than it is in England. In England, out of 14 million houses, about 3¾ million are owner-occupied—that is, about 27 per cent; whereas in Scotland. out of 1,600,000 houses, only 300,000 are owner-occupied. That is under one fifth, compared with over one quarter in England. I, at least, and, I am sure, many other people, would like to see far more people in Scotland owning their own homes. One reason, I think, why Scotrish householders are less apt than English householders to be owner-occupiers is that rents in Scotland are so much lower; and if rents are lower the inducement to become the owner of one's house is not so strong. On the other hand, one should always remember that the lower the rent the more difficult it is for the owner to keep the house in good repair, and if the occupier is also the owner he can do what he likes about repairs. He can spend as much as he wants to on them. and probably do the work a great deal more economically. He can do work which he might be reluctant to do if the house belonged to someone else.

I hope very much that house occupiers, local authorities, building societies and everybody else in Scotland will make the best use they can of this Bill. Probably all your Lordships, whatever you may think about the Bill itself, are agreed in principle that it is a good thing for more people to own their own houses. That view is probably held by all political Parties, or by nearly everybody. There was a clergyman (I think it was Mr. Sidney Dark) who used to edit the Church Times between the wars; he was a very thoroughgoing Socialist who used to say that the only thing upon which he really insisted on being individualistic was his toothbrush, and he could not bear the idea of that being nationalised. I think that in many ways a house and a home is a much more personal and intimate thing than a toothbrush, and the advantages of owner-occupiership to a nation are very great indeed.

Those of your Lordships who have been to Canada and seen the industrial expansion there must, I think, envy the Canadians, because it is very uncommon in Canada for a married worker to live in a rented house. Nearly all married workers there own their own homes, and the advantages both to social happiness and to political stability are very great. Here in Great Britain, unfortunately, we have not quite so much room as the people in Canada have and it is possible that universal home ownership may never become practical, but the present proportion, I think we should all agree, is too low. To consider England and Scotland together, only about 4 million houses are owned by their occupiers out of a total of between 15 million and 16 million. That we would all agree is too low a proportion, and although it may be a very long way ahead, I hope that this Bill will do something to bring us a little nearer to the time when the ownership of houses by those who live in them may be the rule and not the exception.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Dundee.)

3.27 p.m.

LORD LATHAM

My Lords, I am sure that the House is much indebted to the noble Earl for the clear and brief way in which he has explained the salient features of this Bill. He has done it with his most acceptable and accustomed urbanity. At the start, I should perhaps declare an interest; I am an honorary Vice-President, among other of your Lordships and others, of the Building Societies' Association. This is a modest Bill and I cannot myself understand the kind of bravura with which it was introduced into another place by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, for the Bill makes no impact at all upon the housing problem, which is perhaps, after the question of full employment, the most grave social problem of our times. The Bill will not in operation add a single dwelling to the existing stock of dwellings. All it does is to facilitate by way of the provision of national funds, based on national credit, a change of ownership. That is all that it does.

Indeed, there are cases where the operation of the Bill, if it becomes an Act, could reduce the number of housing units in this wise; that a person might under the scheme get an advance from a building society to purchase a pre-1919 house which at the time of purchase was occupied by more than one family. Having bought the house, the purchaser may wish to live in it himself. If the house is decontrolled, as it might well be, the purchaser could evict the tenants, perhaps two families, and replace the two families by his own family; that is to say, he could thus reduce the total available housing units by one—and, in some circumstances, it might be, by more than one. It might well be argued that it is desirable that a house built for single family occupation should not be occupied by a number of families, as this would lead to overcrowding, and from overcrowding to slum conditions. That may be so: but if a local authority reduces the number of persons in any given housing accommodation, then the local authority is responsible for providing re-housing accommodation.

As the noble Earl said, and as the White Paper shows, the reasons for this Bill are, first, to increase the money available for house purchase, especially for the purchase of older houses; and secondly, to encourage home ownership. I will take the first reason first—namely, the alleged shortage of money. Would it be unfair to say that, very largely, this shortage of money arises from the Government's financial policy over the last two or three years, one result of that policy having been that local authorities had to cease making loans to intending purchasers of houses because the funds were not available, and, inasmuch as they were largely thrown upon the money market, they found it very difficult to raise funds for their normal activities?

In support of that submission I should like to read an extract from a statement made by the Deputy-Chairman of the Building Societies Association. It is a statement which was printed in the Building Societies' Gazette, and was referred to in another place on December 15 last year [OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), Vol.597 (No. 35), col. 865]. It said: After pointing out that the investments in building societies had fallen off during the years 1956 to 1958, he"— that is the Deputy-Chairman of the Building Societies Association— went on to say: 'During this same period a number of local authorities ceased lending altogether, because they could only do so at what they regarded as a penal rate of interest. Insurance companies cut down their lending in many cases in favour of other forms of investment. At the same time the banks were directed to cut down their lending, and trust funds could be better employed in the purchase of gilt-edged, with the prospect of substantial capital appreciation in due course. You will see that there has been a reduction in the flow of funds from every source available to the would-be house purchaser, because of the prevailing monetary conditions. In practice, therefore, during the past three years, the climate has been very discouraging….' As the noble Earl said, the building societies are already advancing between £40 million and £50 million a year for the purchase of older houses, including those built pre-1919, and this sum is out of a total annual lending of something in the order of £400 million. Now in the Bill there is a limit of £100 million to the sum which can be advanced within the scheme as provided by the Bill. That is only about two years' lending at the rate at which the building societies are advancing loans at the present. It is contended that building societies' funds available for newer houses have been reduced by the loans which they have made for the purchase of older houses. That may be the case; but it seems to me that no great or substantial additional facility will be available under the provisions of this Bill.

The next reason was home ownership, and the Minister of Housing and Local Government went into what I thought was almost a panegyric of home ownership. No one would wish to decry home ownership. My own first house I bought through a building society. But buying a house through a building society, or buying it otherwise on mortgage, is not always an unmixed blessing. It is nice, of course, to have the home, and that is one thing: but there is also the obligation of paying for it over a period of some twenty to twenty-five years; and, normally speaking, the terms are such, especially now, with the high rate of interest, that the resources of most people with an average income are greatly stretched, especially if there should he any alteration in the domestic circumstances of the borrower for instance, if a family should come along, or if sickness involving a loss of earnings should supervene. In those circumstances it frequently happens that the owner, the mortgagor, is compelled to take in lodgers, or, indeed, to take in a family, and that normally has a serious effect upon the condition of the house, which becomes overcrowded with two families having to use one set of offices: and it is not a long road between conditions of that kind and something approaching slumdom.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government, when introducing the Bill in another place on December 15, took as an example a pre-1919 house costing £1,800, to be bought on mortgage by a person with average earnings of £13 a week. He indicated that over a period of twenty years the monthly payment would be £12 15s. That means that one week in every month the whole earnings would have to go to make the mortgage payments. In addition, there are rates to be paid and repairs and decorations to be met, and on present rates of interest the transaction can become a very burdensome one. in 1951, for instance, when the rate of interest was 4 per cent., the monthly repayments over a period of 25 years would have been £10 15s. At 6 per cent., the prevailing rate of interest, they would be £13 Is. 8d., a difference of £2 6s. 8d.

Moreover, we cannot take the average earnings at £13 a week. According to figures given by the Minister of Pensions in another place on October 29 last, there are 3 million men in this country earning under £9 a week and 6¼ million earning between £9 and £15. While it may work out that the heavy earnings in certain special industries make the average spread over the whole of the working population £13 a week, it would be wrong to take that as the average income available from which a person could undertake heavy responsibilities for purchasing a house, whether it be old or new, with the interest rate running at some 6 per cent. Moreover, there is always the circumstance that there will be less overtime avilable and that bonus earnings will also diminish.

There is also the point to be made in connection with home ownership, which cannot be disregarded, that with the development of industry and new techniques and with the increased application of automation, it becomes increasingly necessary that labour should be mobile. Indeed, a few weeks ago, there was a discussion in your Lordships' House at the instance of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, in which the noble Lord, with the support of a number of noble Lords, advanced the notion that it should be a compulsory element in all pension schemes that pension rights should be transferable from factory to factory, in order that there might be mobility of labour. There is a good deal to be said for that without, of course, accepting the doctrine in any absolute sense. Surely one of the things which would discourage a person from moving to another job in another place would be the fact that he was buying his own house on mortgage and was unable to face up to what might be the difficulties resulting from his transfer to another place of work.

As the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, said, the limit of the amount to be advanced by building societies on any one property, not only pre-1919 property but also houses built between 1919 and 1940, is £2,500, except in the Metropolitan Police District and in the City of London, where the limit is £3,000. The interest rate is to be the normal rate of the building societies, less ½ per cent.— that is to say, the building societies are to get the money from the Government at 5½ per cent. No one would wish to object to that. In what I say, I hope I shall not be regarded as criticising the building societies. But if this rate, which is to provide ½ per cent. for management, is to be available to building societies, it is difficult to understand why it cannot also he available to local authorities. Local authorities have not a free access, not even at the present time, to the Public Works Loan Board. They are forced into the money market. They are borrowing, most of them, in small sums with almost repetitive commissions. Yet if they do borrow from the Public Works Loan Board, they have to pay 5⅞ per cent. for loans from one to fifteen years and 5¾ per cent. for thirty years. If they lend at 6 per cent., they have a margin of one eighth per cent., or at the most one quarter per cent., whereas the building societies are to get a margin of a half per cent. As regards loans by local authorities under the Small Dwellings Act, the margin is limited to one quarter per cent., which would bring the rate up to 6⅛ per cent.

Under the Housing Act financial provisions the margin is settled by the Minister, and the Minister has settled margins which go up to 1¼ per cent. Having regard to the fact that local authorities are to bear 25 per cent. of the standard improvement grants, which is a new obligation, a new financial burden, cast upon the local authorities—it is the case that they have to provide a similar percentage in respect of improvements under the 1954 Act, but this is a new financial obligation—if ratepayers are to be saddled with this further obligation, which operates for the benefit of selected persons (namely, those who have taken advantage of the grant provisions to carry out improvements), it is difficult to understand why local authorities should also be penalised by having to pay more for money which is applied for precisely the same purposes than the building societies have to pay. Why is there this discrimination? I am sure that we should all like to hear the noble Earl in explanation and. if possible, in justification of this unfair treatment of local authorities and, through them, of the ratepayers. After all, the local authorities have done a good job of work in making loans to house purchasers. It is true that the total of their advances is nothing like so much as the total advances of building societies, but they have advanced between one-sixth and one-seventh of the total advances made overall by the building societies and other institutions, including local authorities themselves.

There is another inequity, I think, towards the local authorities. As I understand it, under Clause 2 the building societies can repay any advances made by the Government, at the Minister's discretion, with the consent of the Treasury. The White Paper, however, says quite definitely, in Appendix I, that the building societies may repay whenever they wish; and the Minister made a similar statement on December 15 last when he said: [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 597 (No. 35), col. 796]: Flexibility will be afforded by the right, which we intend to allow the building society, to repay the whole or any part of the loan at any earlier time it chooses. The local authorities are not in that position. Up to October, 1953, a local authority could not repay in advance of the due period monies borrowed from the Public Works Loan Board, except under penalty. By a Treasury Minute of October, 1953, special repayments of monies advanced for house purchase could be made without penalty if the borrower himself or herself was repaying earlier than the due date. That is a limited easing of the situation, I agree. But the building societies can, without let or hindrance, repay all that they have borrowed, and can re-finance elsewhere, maybe on better terms than they are getting from the Government, whereas a local authority is in a position only to repay particular loans of which they have themselves agreed to accept earlier repayment. This seems to be another unfair discrimination against the local authorities.

The local authorities are to be permitted to grant loans up to 100 per cent., as against the former limit of 90 per cent. The argument, of course, has always been that it would be unwise to advance up to 100 per cent., because it is desirable that the borrower should have a stake in the property. Apparently that argument is not thought to apply when it is local government money, but it is when it is somebody's else's. However, the borrower has a stake in the property from the moment that he signs, as well as a personal liability; and his stake increases, although his liability diminishes, with every payment that he makes.

There is one matter that I should like the noble Earl to clear up, and that is whether loans under the scheme through a building society are limited to owner-occupier. There is a conflict of statement, I think, by the Minister of Housing and Local Government. On December 15 last he said [OFFICIAL REPORT. Commons, Vol. 597 (No. 35), col. 791]: Exchequer money will be available for financing all mortgages granted on houses falling within the age and value limits set out in Clause 2 … In Clause 2, so far as I can see, there is no reference to owner-occupation. There are a number of occasions when those words are used in the White Paper and in the brochure which was sent out by the Building Societies' Association; and it is the case that at column 788 of the OFFICIAL REPORT the Minister further said: Never before has it been possible for any credit-worthy person wishing to buy an old, sound house to be sure of getting a 95 per cent. mortgage on it. That is what this Bill achieves. There is no mention there of the advance being limited to owner-occupiers. Yet I am bound to say that in column 795 the Minister said: This is a scheme for enabling people to buy houses to live in themselves. There seems to be a confusion of statement by the Minister which in some respects is contrary to some of the statements made in the White Paper, and we should appreciate it if the noble Earl could clear that up.

Then we come to the question of grants, dealt with in Part II, which I believe was dubbed towards the end of the proceedings in another place as "the washbasin part", resulting from the fact that it was due to efforts made during the Committee stages of the Bill to include wash-hand basins in the standard amenities. These proposals, with the grant which accompanies them, seem to me to be an effort to rescue "Operation Rescue" of 1954, which has really been a lamentable failure; and even the noble Earl was forced to admit that within the last two or three years the measure of improvements which have been carried out under those provisions has been quite unimportant. It is now proposed, as it were, to increase the bribe to landlords to carry out and provide rudimentary, elementary amenities. They are to have additional facilities, and they are to be relieved of a number of the conditions. As the Manchester Guardian said: This appears to be the last chance for private landlords. As I have said, the Government propose to pay 50 per cent. and the local authorities have to carry the burden of 25 per cent.

This question of amenities is one of the most serious aspects of the housing problem, and these proposals do not touch the fringe of that problem, when we remember, as is the case, to our shame, that nearly half the families in this country are living in accommodation which is sub-standard and which lacks the most elementary conveniences and amenities. There are nearly 7 million dwellings in this country with no fixed bath of their own. There are 3 million who share or are entirely without a water closet; nearly 2 million who share or are without a kitchen sink, and over 1 million who share or are without a cooking stove. Those figures are taken from the Census of 1951, and the position has not very much improved, if it has improved at all, since then.

As the noble Earl said, Part III of the Bill concerns Scotland, and will follow his wise guidance and not go into the details of the provisions dealing with Scotland. There are a number of other miscellaneous provisions, including the grant to building societies of the status of trustee in respect of funds deposited with them. I think everyone will agree that this is a wise thing to have done, subject, of course, to the building societies being approved in accordance with the terms of the scheme set out in the White Paper. The building societies have for many years sought this objective, and I think we can all be reasonably pleased that they have now achieved their object, although it is perhaps a little unfortunate that it should be mixed up with the many other considerations involved in this Bill.

As I said at the start, this is not an important Bill in the context of the housing problem. It is part, as it were, of the patchwork of housing legislation in which the Government and their predecessors have indulged, but which has left the housing problem still one of the most acute social problems of our time. It is the case, though not, perhaps, in the sense that was indicated by the patron saint of the Tory Party, Disraeli, that there are in this country two nations—one nation enjoying decent housing accommodation, and the other living in conditions which are an affront to any sense of decency in any civilised country. It is that problem which needs to be tackled, and it cannot be dealt with on the basis of the proposals of a patchwork order such as are included within this Bill. We shall not oppose the Second Reading, because, although the Bill may enable a number of persons to acquire pre-1919 houses, and may result in a few houses, relatively speaking, being improved by the provision of the standard of amenities set out in the Bill, the real problem will, for the most part, remain untouched.