HL Deb 20 November 1963 vol 253 cc334-55

2.47 p.m.

Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved on Tuesday, November 12, by Lord Tweedsmuir—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

LORD SILKIN rose to move, as an Amendment, to add at the end of the proposed Address "but regret that Her Majesty's Government have failed adequately and satisfactorily to make provision for the social services, particularly in the field of housing, education and the care of the sick, elderly and less well-off members of the community." The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the fifth day on which we have been discussing the gracious Speech, and I must confess that in turning over in my mind what to say I found very little fresh that I could say which had not been said either in this place or in another place. But I should like to begin by doing something which I am sure has not been done at all, and that is to welcome the noble Lord who is going to follow me, the noble Viscount, Lord Blakenham. I do not know whether I can congratulate him yet—I must wait and see—but at least I welcome him to this House. I shall look forward with great interest as an old friend to what he has to say, and I need hardly say that we shall hope to hear often from him on future occasions.

My difficulty is lessened a little by the fact that this is by far the longest gracious Speech in living memory. I have looked up a number of them, and none of them is as long as this. In fact, I felt sorry for the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, when he read the Speech, because I felt at the end of it that he was almost exhausted. But it certainly also contains the largest number of promises that I can remember. When we were discussing the question of postponing the present Session of Parliament for a fortnight, I think it was the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, who pointed out that the gracious Speech as already prepared should have to be amended, and, I presume, added to. I can quite see that the fortnight's postponement has been used not only in revising the gracious Speech as originally prepared, but in adding to it a large number of additional promises.

I want to ask your Lordships to consider first how genuine are these promises. I think that we are put on notice. What prospect is there of these extensive promises and commitments being eventually fulfilled? We are bound to be suspicious of the sincerity of the Government when we remember the statement made by the Prime Minister to his Party on the occasion of his being elected Leader. My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth made great play last Wednesday with the statement that was made—and, I think, quite properly and effectively. I think the statement which the Prime Minister then made is worth repeating. What he said (it has already been quoted on a number of occasions) was: As from this moment on, the fact that there is a General Election ahead of us must never be out of our minds. Every act that we take, every attitude that we strike, every speech that we make, in Parliament or elsewhere, must have that in mind.

Now this is not a statement that I am making: this is the statement of the Prime Minister. It is therefore not surprising that one starts off with a certain amount of suspicion about what is contained in the gracious Speech. Is it not natural and right to infer from this statement that the gracious Speech was prepared with the one thought: that, "There is a General Election ahead of us. Therefore, what can we say and how much can we say which will best give us a chance of success, regardless of what is in the public interest and regardless, even, of whether we can in fact carry out what we say we will"? The Government must, however, have asked themselves whether the people would swallow such a vast new programme, which will inevitably, one day, but not immediately, cost a great deal of money. The electors are not so foolish as not to inquire why these proposals about modernisation and expansion were not introduced during the twelve years in which the Government have been in office. Why this sudden and dramatic change?

The Government have had at least one afterthought. They have linked all this up with the condition that the programme can be carried out only if there is an overall increase of 4 per cent. a year in national production or productivity. The Prime Minister, when he made the statement that I have quoted, was not quite sure whether he meant production or productivity, because in one sentence he said "production" and in the next sentence he said "productivity"; but we will assume the best of him, as an old friend, and assume that he meant productivity. But two days later the Chancellor of the Exchequer explained that a 4 per cent. growth needs only a 3.2 per cent. yearly increase in productivity, thus reducing the Prime Minister's 4 per cent. to 3.2 and the Prime Minister's 1 per cent. extra to something of a decimal point. The Chancellor then went on to explain that the N.E.D.C. Report states that between 1951 and 1961 the productivity rate of increase was 2 per cent., and that between 1955 and 1961 it was 2½ per cent. That is to say, during the whole of that period it had never reached anything like the figure that would be essential in order to enable the programme in the gracious Speech to be implemented. He said that to-day it was nearly 3 per cent. Even then, it had not reached the percentage that was required to enable the programme to be carried out.

On this flimsy record the Government are now saying that the gap between the best they have achieved, over a short period so far, in their twelve years of office and the 3.2 per cent. required can be closed. In doing this, while the Chancellor quoted the Report of N.E.D.C., he failed to tell the other place of the cautionary note struck by N.E.D.C. in paragraph 152 of their Report, when they said: This increase"— and they meant 3 per cent.— is not something which can be relied upon for an automatic and dramatic improvement in our situation".

My Lords, I have emphasised that what is of long-term importance in this vast election address is conditional, and, on present showing, will not be implemented. During the whole period of the Government's term of office, during the whole of the twelve years, they have never reached the rate of growth of productivity which will be required to carry out this programme. In these circumstances, what justification have they for assuming that they could carry it out; that the necessary rate of productivity will, in fact, increase to the point where it will be made possible? Or that the rate of productivity will continue on the level, as it has never done before during their twelve years of office, at the required point? So the Government are trying to create the impression of vast activity, even if belated, but safeguarding themselves by the condition of a required increase in productivity, and by not incurring any material expenditure in the current year. I remember a debate some two years ago when the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, referring to Mr. MacLeod, said that he was "too clever by half". I would apply the same terms to this gracious Speech. It is too clever by half. It is holding out expectations which the Government, on their past record, must know they will not be able to carry out, even if they have the chance.

But, my Lords, that is not the end of the story. Where expenditure might be incurred—that is, where immediate expenditure might be incurred—the Government have made no commitment. For instance, there is no mention in the gracious Speech of the social services. I must correct myself; there is a mention, but so vague that it is practically meaningless. In the gracious Speech there is a reference to "economic growth", and this to be "matched by social advance", whatever that may mean. But beyond those words there is no mention at all of the social services. No reference is made to the needs of old-age pensioners, sick persons or widows. There is no suggestion that the payments for medical prescriptions, and so on, which were introduced as an emergency measure at a time of great stress, can now be abolished, seeing that the emergency is at an end, so we are told, and that we are so affluent a society. I should like to ask the noble Viscount who is to reply (I presume in a non-contentious speech): What are the Government's intentions about this? I can assure him that this point will be developed by my noble friend Lady Summerskill when she speaks to-morrow, so he had better be careful what he says.

Again, what immediate hope is there for the large numbers of young people, particularly in the North-East, who left school in July and who are still without employment? Here I am on the noble Viscount's own ground. He will not be surprised to hear that in Chester-le-Street, for instance, 65 per cent. of the boys who left school last July—about 12,000 young people—are still unemployed and on National Assistance. They have never worked and are therefore ineligible for unemployment benefit. What is being done, or even said, in the present Session of Parliament for the 100,000 additional unemployed in the North-East area, as compared with a year ago? For there are 100,000 more unemployed than a year ago. There is, I admit, a White Paper on the North-East and it could be that one day, if we reach the requisite rate of growth laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there might be certain developments in the North-East. But what is being done about these people, hundreds of thousands of unemployed, to-day, in the present Session of Parliament? But, again I will not expand on this matter because my noble friend Lord Latham, in the course of his speech, will be dealing with this and kindred subjects.

My Lords, let us take education, about which the Government are priding themselves most. They have immediately accepted in principle the Robbins Report—twelve years too late—and they make it part of their Election programme. But this again is conditional on the 3.2 per cent. rate of growth. They plan for providing more places in universities and technological institutes up to 1974. I do not decry this; I realise that it is going to take time. But what help is it to the hundreds of thousands of young promising boys and girls who have pinned their hopes to going to university or to a technological institute and who find themselves frustrated and unable to obtain admission? It is no comfort to them to know that by 1974 there will be a large number of additional places available. What is being done now (to use the language of the Government White Paper on education) to meet the rapidly growing needs of the number of qualified students for university education which, they say, should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment?

After twelve years of Tory administration we are a very long way from being able to provide higher education for all those who are capable of benefiting by reason of their ability and attainment. As I have said, the Government have issued a White Paper on higher education. But why do they make no mention in the gracious Speech of the education of the ordinary boy and girl of average or less than average ability who, after all, are the foundation of our society, and upon whose education depend the advantages of the higher education? Unless there is a solid basis of secondary and elementary education, higher education is going to be of very little value. Why do the Government make no mention of the Newsom Report? What are they doing about that? The Newsom Report makes a number of most valuable recommendations, particularly on the question of the raising of the school-leaving age to 16 and the improvement in the quality of our education. Why do the Government not think it worth while to mention in the gracious Speech what they are doing about that?

I know that they have made promises. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, is here. I have heard him make statements in the past about raising the school-leaving age. I believe that he is to speak to-day; and we shall be interested to hear what he says now that he can speak with greater freedom. But there is a strong recommendation in the Newsom Report that the school-leaving age should be raised to 16 by 1965. What have the Government to say about this point, and why is there nothing about it in the gracious Speech? I see from the Press to-day that it is proposed to separate secondary education from university education and to appoint a fresh Minister. I do not know whether that is right, but I hope we can be told. In my view, it would be a disaster to appoint a separate Minister to deal with one section of education which we have always regarded as being continuous. Have we not always believed in the educational ladder from the primary school to the university? Now the Government are to split education into two and to set up additional bureaucracy. I await with interest the Government's reply; and also to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, has to say, since he can speak with much greater freedom to-day than he could a few years ago. I do not want to develop the theme of education because the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has a lot to say on the subject; and in fact I hope that I have not said too much for him already.

My Lords, the Government have now been in office for twelve years and they have consistently under-stated the size of the housing problem. They used to say that it was a problem of 250,000 or 300,000 houses a year. They pinned their faith to building 300,000 houses a year; and this programme they have not always carried out. I admit that in about 50 per cent. of the years they have achieved their aim; but in some of the years they have not. But now the Government themselves recognise that a figure of 300,000 houses a year is inadequate. We have warned them of this over and over again. Whenever I have spoken in this House I have pointed out—not only by stating a figure, but by analysing the needs—that a total of 300,000 houses a year was quite inadequate to meet our needs and that we should certainly be falling behind if we were unable to build that number.

Now the Government have come round to stating that they will build a higher number. They talk of 400,000 houses a year. Even that, my Lords, is not enough; it is not enough if we are to clear the slums within ten years, as they say they want to do. It is not enough to provide for the increased population; or to improve the quality of our houses, or to provide for the need for a higher standard of housing if we are to satisfy the needs of those who are supposed to be enjoying a higher standard of living. I would submit that the first essential of a higher standard of living is better housing; but the fact is that homes which are being built by local authorities to-day are of no higher standard than those put up before the war. I would challenge any noble Lord to refute that. They are smaller in size; they contain no greater amenities, and, generally speaking, they do not provide even the garage which is so necessary in a so-called affluent society and in many cases not even room for a perambulator.

I want to examine what this Government have done in the way of housing in the past twelve years, how they have met the real need and how far their present programme is likely to do so. Since 1953 the number of houses built by local authorities has actually declined; 1953 was the peak year for local authority housing. If we take England and Wales alone—I am sorry that I have not the figures readily available for Scotland, but I do not think that they will make any material difference to my case—there were 203,000 houses built by local authorities in that year. For the following years the average has been 100,000, so that the number of local authority houses has actually gone down by one half since 1953. Local authority houses are the houses that are most required for the majority of our people, who cannot afford to buy houses and who cannot get houses to rent.

On the other hand, the number of houses built by private enterprise has increased two and a half times and is now substantially greater than those built by local authorities.

A NOBLE LORD

Hear, hear!

LORD SILKIN

This coincides with the abolition of subsidies. I hear some noble Lord saying, "Hear, hear !", as if this were something upon which we can congratulate ourselves. I just want to point out what this means in practice. The houses that are being built by private enterprise are almost entirely for sale and range from the very expensive luxury fiat for the very rich, of which I am glad to say there are a large number available for any noble Lord who wishes to have a choice, down to the house or bungalow costing about £3,000, according to the district—a little lower in out-of-the-way districts, but in densely populated areas the average of £3,000 is about right. Actually, the price of houses has risen by 40 per cent. since 1956, largely due to rises in the cost of land.

The kind of people I am talking about, the people most in need of houses, will obviously need to get mortgages, and assuming that they are successful in getting mortgages, repayable over twenty years, then the outgoings, including rates, water rates, maintenance, insurance and the rest of it, will be of the order of £270 a year. Assuming that a family can pay about one quarter of its income in rent, that implies an income of £1,080 a year. The vast majority of families in this country have not that income. To-day the average income of a family is something like £16 a week, unless the wife is earning, but I am speaking of families where the wife is not able to earn, where there are young children, and these are the cases where the family is in most need of a home. Therefore, I submit to the House that in enabling private enterprise to build houses for sale at £3,000 or thereabouts we are not meeting the most pressing needs. I am not suggesting that this is not a good thing to do, but we are not meeting the most pressing needs, the needs of the average family with an average income and with young children. These are the people most hardly pressed by our present housing shortage and these are the people who find it most difficult to get accommodation.

I am glad that the Government are talking about encouraging housing associations to provide houses to rent, but of course housing associations will be in exactly the same position as others. They have to buy the land and build the houses, and it is going to cost them just as much. It has been stated that the rents they will charge will range up to £7 a week. That would imply a family income of £28 a week to enable them to pay the rent. Therefore, this is a useless policy unless the Government are prepared to subsidise the building of houses to rent in proper cases. And I should be glad to know—I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, is going to deal with this question—how in fact the Government propose to deal with those families who are unable to pay an economic rent, who are unable to get on to a local authority housing list, which is already greatly congested and the lengths of which is getting greater and greater, and who are badly in need of a home. Even so, this policy of housing associations would take a number of years to materialise. It is not going to help families this year or the next or the year after. It would take a minimum of three years before we actually saw dwellings erected and available for the people who need them.

I have referred to the high and increasing cost of land. To-day I would imagine, from information which I have available, that of the cost of £3,000 for the average house, the cost of land would be somewhere between £1,000 and £1,500—that is, in a number of cases half the cost of the house would be the cost of the land, and I would say that as a minimum the cost of the land would be about one-third of the total cost. If we could do something about the increasing cost of land we should be able to reduce the cost of housing and help the families who are most in need.

The Government have no policy for dealing with this problem. They recognise that it is a problem. They admit that land costs are rising. They attribute this to the shortage of land and to the laws of supply and demand. This is not much comfort to the people who are in need of houses and unable to pay the high cost. On Monday, in the debate on Housing in another place, the Minister of Housing and Local Government admitted that a large part of the increase in the cost of land is due to the efforts and costs expended by the community itself, but he was not prepared to consider any way of recovering for the community the expense incurred by the community. He was prepared to let land costs run riot and do nothing about it, except in the case of New Towns, where he was prepared to enable the local authorities and those responsible for developing New Towns to buy land in advance. That procedure, of course, was provided for by us in the New Towns Act, 1946, and the New Towns, to their great advantage, have been doing it ever since. That is why to-day every New Town is viable and showing a profit. It is one thing to talk of New Towns, but this problem extends throughout the country, and the Government have shown no indication that they are prepared to do anything about it.

The Government have made no reference, either, to the effects of decontrol of housing. I am not suggesting—and no one on this side has ever suggested—that the controlled rents should remain. What we have always insisted is that while there is a housing shortage—and this will go on for a long time—tenants ought to have security of tenure and should not be placed at the mercy of grasping landlords who can turn them out at short notice. As we know, one of the effects of decontrol has been that large numbers of families have been evicted, and particularly those with many children. Poor families have been put to great hardship in having to pay abnormally increased rents. There is no control at all on what a landlord can ask, once a house becomes decontrolled, and tenants are placed entirely at the mercy of these landlords. The Government have nothing to say on this evil. And it certainly is an evil, particularly in London, because, as we all know, the number of homeless people has been quadrupled since decontrol. The local authorities have been faced with a heavy burden of having to provide accommodation for people who are turned out by their landlords as a result of decontrol.

So far as slums are concerned, the Government have taken great credit for promising to clear the slums within ten years. Somehow, I think that this statement was made twelve years ago. But the slums are still with us and, in fact, are increasing in number, because the number of slums is growing more rapidly than the rate at which existing slums are being cleared. Every year numbers of houses which were built over 100 years ago and are not of very strong structure are becoming fit only to be demolished; and, as I say, these are greater than the number we are clearing each year. So that by the year 1970, in spite of the Government's alleged programme, we shall have more slum houses than we have to-day. What is the Government's proposal about that? Are they still content to say, as they have been saying for the last twelve years, that they are going to clear the slums in ten years? So my criticism of Government housing is that we are making little impression on the housing situation, either in numbers or in quality. Local authorities are supposed to provide for those most in need; but, in fact, the number of houses built by local authorities has been declining, while the housing lists have got longer and longer.

To sum up, I condemn the Queen's Speech as a grossly misleading and fictitious piece of electioneering; and I condemn the Government out of their own mouths of holding out promises which, on their past record, they cannot carry out. I condemn them for omitting to deal with some of the most urgent of our social problems, and particularly for not providing for those members of the community most in need of Government help. For these reasons, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.

Moved, as an Amendment, to add at the end of the proposed Address: "but regret that Her Majesty's Government have failed adequately and satisfactorily to make provision for the social services, particularly in the field of housing, education and the care of the sick, elderly and less well-off members of the community."—(Lord Silkin.)

3.26 p.m.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT BLAKENHAM)

My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, for the kind remarks he made, in introducing his speech, about myself. They were certainly more kindly than some of the things he said about the Government afterwards. The noble Lord is, as he said, an old friend of mine. I remember sitting with him on the L.C.C., and also in the other place, when he was Minister of Town and Country Planning for a number of years.

I hope that your Lordships will not think me presumptuous in making my maiden speech so soon after taking my seat in your Lordships' House. I can assure you that arrogance was not the reason. In fact, this afternoon I feel like somebody who has been thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool in the hope that he will learn to swim. I say this because I have listened to many debates in this House, and therefore I know something of the high standard which your Lordships set yourselves. Without wishing to be too disloyal to where I have just come from, I would say that the outstanding difference between this House and the other place is that here nobody speaks without great knowledge of the subject, whereas I am afraid that is not universally true elsewhere. Therefore, I am deeply conscious of the standards that your Lordships have set yourselves. I hope that, as a Member of the Cabinet, I shall have the opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, suggested, of addressing your Lordships on many occasions.

I should perhaps begin by asking your Lordships to be reasonably tolerant to a newcomer who cannot, through circumstance, be entirely uncontroversial in what he has to say. I shall, of course, be working under the stern and critical eye of my eldest brother, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who plays a prominent part in your Lordships' proceedings from the Benches opposite. Through the years he has made a major contribution to this House and is, I know, held in great esteem and affection by noble Lords on both sides. I must confess straight away that so far he has never quite persuaded me to agree with his political views, and, therefore, if we are locked in political debate I am sure that he will not be surprised if I still remain unconvinced of his arguments.

As I rather expected, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, in opening to-day's discussion, concentrated on particular fields; and I understand that the debate to-day will be concentrated chiefly on the subjects of housing and education. So perhaps I may first say something about these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, when talking about housing, is always listened to with respect. I have heard him speak on many occasions, and he has the supreme ability, if I may say so, of always making the best of what is not always a very good brief: because, surely, on housing the Opposition really are not on strong ground. I remember, as will the noble Lord and many noble Lords opposite, that when the Labour Party left office they genuinely thought that the Government were being far too optimistic in raising the output of new homes to 300,000 a year. They said this with absolute sincerity; they just did not believe that it could be done. But now the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is forgetting all this, and is saying that we have not succeeded even in building up to that figure which, in the opinion of many members of the Labour Party, was far above what the national economy could afford. We did, as I am sure the noble Lord will recognise, succeed in reaching the 300,000 homes very quickly; and although there have been ups and downs, we have sustained this figure as an average since we have been in office.

I am glad that we did not listen to the criticisms that were made at the time. I think it was Mr. Harold Wilson who warned us in 1957 that too great a strain was being placed on the economy by the amount of house-building we were doing. I am very glad that we did not listen to these criticisms. I am naturally glad that we are now in a position, having achieved what the Opposition perhaps thought, in their own heart of hearts, was the impossible, to raise our sights and so say with confidence that we believe that the rate of building of new homes can be increased. We may not quite hit the 350,000 figure next year, but, barring bad weather, we shall certainly do so in 1965; and thereafter within the next five years we shall further raise the figure to 400,000 homes per year.

I think there are two main reasons why we shall be able to do this. First, there is better forward planning and co-ordination of demand by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in co-operation—and this is very important—with the local authority groups and consortia. Secondly, as your Lordships know, both the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Public Building and Works are encouraging in every way possible modern methods and are stimulating research. Therefore, this extra output that I have talked about, the 350,000 new homes, rising to 400,000, should be available from a building industry not very much larger than the present one. I stress this point because it is very important. We all know what a heavy strain there will be on the building industry. We are thinking not only of houses in the public sector, but also of new hospitals, schools, universities and so on; and in the private sector we are, I am sure, going to see a considerable increase in the investment in factory buildings and other such items.

The noble Lord criticised us for not building enough local authority houses during the last twelve years. In fact we have completed 2 million local authority houses, an average of about 170,000 a year (I am taking the twelve-year and not the six-year figure which the noble Lord took), which is about the level which the Labour Party were building during their last two years. The difference, of course, as your Lordships will recognise, is that the Government have succeeded in creating conditions of confidence in which nearly 1¼ million houses have been built for owner-occupation. The present stock of council houses is now over 4½ million, so that many local authorities, apart from the big cities and certain special areas, do not need to build as many council houses as they did. They can meet much of the urgent social demand by re-letting their existing houses, so long as they adopt sensible rent policies to ensure that help goes to where it is most needed. Local authority housing is, therefore, being concentrated—and I do not think the noble Lord will quarrel with this—for the purpose for which it is most urgently required.

With regard to slum clearance, despite what the noble Lord indicated, I think he must recognise the fact that 500,000 slums have been cleared away in these last years. In addition to slum clearance, there is the relief of overcrowding, overspill and the housing of the elderly. The noble Lord asked what we were doing about slum clearance. For the purposes of slum clearance the Minister of Housing and Local Government has identified 38 authorities which are the worst affected and is taking special steps to speed up the rate of clearance. I admit quite frankly that a very big outstanding backlog remains. We have to clear something like 600,000 more slums, and this is what we intend to do.

The examples of the effect of our policy can be shown by the fact that, for instance, Liverpool and Manchester have doubled their rate of slum clearance compared with the average of the last three years, and towns like Halifax, Oldham, Smethwick, Leeds and Bolton have trebled theirs. I mentioned the increased output of houses for owner-occupation. Of course, this is evidence of national prosperity as a whole. Of the total housing stock 42 per cent. is now owner-occupied, and the proportion continues to rise. But we recognise, as the noble Lord recognised in his speech, that there are many people who may not be able to buy a house and yet do not want to become council tenants. We propose to help them by the promotion of cost rent and co-ownership housing schemes through the housing societies. The new £100 million Housing Corporation which we propose to establish will help to sustain and finance the housing societies. As the noble Lord knows, we are also proposing to step up the improvements to older houses and, of course, we are strengthening the law to deal with the Rachmans of this world.

The noble Lord, I think quite rightly, mentioned the problem of the cost of land. Land prices are a very real problem. They are high because of the shortage of land coming forward for development. But I think, with respect, he used rather exaggerated instances when he said that the cost of land was equal to half the average cost of the house. It is true that in certain places that may be so, but generally, although the cost of land is high, it is very much below the figure which the noble Lord has just given. He did not mention at all how he would solve this problem. I thought he would mention in his speech the fact that the Labour Party have put forward the idea of a Land Commission. I tried to look at their ideas on this, and it seems to me that, whatever they may say, this will be another name and another form for the nationalisation of land. As I see it, it will certainly create a great bureaucratic machine, dealing possibly with 100,000 separate land deals in a year; and I would submit to your Lordships that it would surely inevitably, whatever else it did, slow down the already scarce amount of land coming forward for development. Surely the effect of this is to go against what we all want. This must check the output of the production of new homes.

My right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government wishes to tackle this problem in, I think, a more practical way. The regional studies which the Government are now carrying out will estimate how much more land will be needed for development over the next twenty years, bearing in mind the growing population. These studies will bring out the need for some large-scale developments, more New Towns, expansion of existing towns. As the noble Lord said, adequate powers to acquire the necessary land for development of New Towns already exists, but, as we see it, they should be more widely used. It makes sense that the second generation of new and expanding towns resulting from these regional studies should be bought, if possible, well in advance, even though the development of much of this land may well be carried out by private enterprise. Land owners will receive a fair market value for their land as and when it is bought from them. This whole approach is entirely different from what the Labour Party have in mind. As I see it, their approach is quite simply nationalisation of all building land, and I cannot see how they can explain it in any other terms. I would submit that ours is a much simpler, much fairer and much more practical approach.

As I said earlier, your Lordships are also going to have a discussion on education, and I think the noble Earl, Lord Longford, is going to speak on the subject in a moment. I am certain that we are all agreed on the fact that the key to the future here at home depends on a successful education policy. That, of course, is why, in spite of what was said yesterday in another House, the Government have, in fact, allocated a rising share of our national resources to education during the last ten years. This has been particularly true of the present Parliament. The present percentage of the gross national product devoted to education rose from 3.2 per cent. to 4.1 per cent. during the last two Parliaments, and has risen from 4.1 per cent. to 4.9 per cent. since 1960. I think it is interesting that in the United Kingdom current and capital expenditure in 1962 was £1,199 million compared with £444 million in 1952, almost three times as much.

The two foremost needs in the drive to meet the demand created by a rising school population and by the imperative need for better standards are increased expenditure on school building and an improved supply of school teachers. I should like to say something first about the former. In the last twelve years the school population has risen by just on 1½ million, but we have provided 3 million new school places in Britain—very different from the sort of stagnation which I think the noble Lord indicated had happened, so far as our schools are concerned. I am glad to say that nearly half of our children will soon, in fact, be in post-war schools, most of which have been built under a Conservative Government.

The Government's White Paper of 1958 Secondary Education for All: A New Drive, represented a major effort by the Government to raise education standards. It aimed, as noble Lords will recall, at the expenditure of £300 million on school building over the period 1960 to 1965, and by the end of 1965 we shall, in fact, have started over £310 million of projects, and have a programme of several million more, and a large sum has been devoted to providing new school places to match new housing.

But, of course, since then a further advance has been made. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, will recall, my right honourable friend the Minister of Education announced on November 11 that school building would be increased by about one-third over current levels and the Government were authorising starts of £80 million for primary and secondary schools in both 1965–66 and 1966–67. So I think the impression which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, gave is nonsense, namely to claim that the Government have neglected schools while they make lavish promises to implement the Robbins Report. Your Lordships, I should have thought, would agree that the Robbins Report is a logical complement to the success of our policy in raising school standards. I am not going to go into the details of the Robbins recommendations, as I understand that we shall be discussing them in your Lordships' House fairly soon, but, again with respect, I hope that we do not fall into the trap that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, fell into, of trying to drive a wedge between the schools and higher education.

On the question of teacher supply, in ten years we have increased the teaching force by 65,000—more than sufficient to keep pace with the increase in the number of pupils in the schools. Over the same period we have raised the intake of teacher-training colleges from about 12,000 to over 21,000: this at a time when the length of the training course has been increased, as we know, from two years to three years, which is bound to improve the quality of education. Our current plans will raise this figure over the next five years to 27,500.

The prospects for the secondary schools are quite encouraging, but the primary schools still face serious staffing difficulties. The root cause of this is, of course, the rapid loss of young women teachers from schools. Last year, for example, nearly 19,000 women were recruited, but 17,000 left. They left for the perfectly obvious, sensible and reasonable reason, to marry and have their families. This is clearly something which no Government could stop. Indeed, if one leaves aside for a moment its effect on schools, the present tendency towards earlier marriage and larger families should be, welcomed by us all as a sign of the confidence which young people have in Britain to-day when embarking on adult life. Other countries have the same problem. I am reliably informed that "Miss France" was a mathematics teacher; and I do not suppose she will remain unmarried for very long.

The remedy was seen by the noble Lord, Lord Eccles, who I think is to speak later this afternoon. He realised more than two years ago that to attract women teachers back into the schools, so far as their family responsibilities allowed them, was the best and most sensible course that could be taken, and the campaign which he launched in 1961 has had very good results. In the first two years 10,000 married women returned to the schools, and that rate is being sustained.

In addition to education, I should like to mention that in another place this afternoon they are taking the Second Reading of a new Industrial Training Bill. I have a personal interest in this because, over the last year, much of my attention has been concentrated on how we can revolutionise our industrial training methods and at the same time build on all that is best in the present system. We propose to set up training boards industry by industry. The boards will be composed of employers, trade unionists and educationists and will receive Government financial support. They will be responsible to ensure that our training of apprentices is brought up to date; to see that young people other than apprentices are given suitable training, and to be responsible also for seeing that training facilities are provided to retrain adults who lose their jobs in declining industries and enter new and expanding ones. Here, in this concept, we are seeking a true partnership: a partnership between Government, employers and trade unions; a partnership which I believe will bear fruit and greatly benefit our economy in this new technical age. This, of course, is another form of education, but a form that I think is vital to our progress.

So I hope that, from what I have said, your Lordships realise that, so far as the Government are concerned, we certainly have no apologies to make about our performance or about our future plans. We are, indeed, proud of what we have succeeded in doing. From speeches I have listened to, and read about, it seems to me that Opposition members find themselves somewhat in a dilemma. Some of them say, on the one hand, that we are not doing enough (and this, I think, is one line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin), and others say, on the other hand—and the noble Lord tried to get the best of both worlds—that we were making Election promises we cannot possibly fulfil.

My Lords, I have tried to show, fairly rapidly and briefly, something about the extent of our achievements. Our future plans obviously represent a further, wider advance on what has already been done, but these proposals are not, as was suggested by the noble Lord, just a flash in the pan. These proposals are based on the sound expectation that, despite the noble Lord's doubts, we can achieve an overall expansion of 4 per cent. a year in our production. This really is not a wild vision. The members of "Neddy" have agreed that such a rate of advance, is entirely practicable. Employers, trade unions and Government are working together in that body—and I have been a member of it since it started so I do know what I am talking about—to advise our colleagues what obstacles there are against such a rate of growth. We believe that none of these obstacles appears for a moment to be insurmountable. I am certain that in a true partnership that can be achieved, and I believe that we are well on the way, because production is rising and the latest figures show that industrial production in the last three months is 3 per cent. up on the production of the previous three months.

In the third quarter of this year, exports were running at nearly £350 million a month—9 per cent. up on the second half of 1962. Prices have remained very stable. Our competitive position in the outside world is better than it has been for many years, and this has been largely due to the fact that during the last eighteen months the importance of an incomes policy (I am not saying there is agreement on the details) has become increasingly recognised by everybody. It is no use—and we all know this—incomes rising faster than productivity. All post-war Governments have learned, to their cost, that this merely leads to inflation, rising costs and rising prices.

Yesterday my noble friend Lord Carrington said, very rightly, that a sound foreign policy and sound defence policy can be based only on a sound economy, and of course this is just as true on the home front. Expansion in education, housing and other social services in the way in which every Member of this House wishes to see can be secured only by a continued increase in our national wealth. In the last twelve years we have laid the foundations for this. We have created the opportunities which our people can take, if they choose to make the best of their skills, their initiative and their genius as traders and producers of the things the world requires. In conclusion, I would say to your Lordships that I can only express surprise that the Opposition should think fit to move this Vote of Censure on a Government who have done so much to improve the lives of all who live in this country and whose future plans present a glittering opportunity for us to make full use of through the benefits that science and technology can bring to mankind.