HL Deb 04 July 1967 vol 284 cc490-2

2.43 p.m.

LORD ELTON

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they recall that, in a pamphlet published in November, 1965, the Lambeth Borough Council stated that several years previously to 1965 it had already represented to the Minister of Housing that "there is no hope of the Council being able adequately to house either present or future immigrants," and that "unless massive assistance is forthcoming at national level the problem remains insoluble"; whether they have noted that in March, 1967, Alderman Cotton of Lambeth again warned Her Majesty's Government that without "massive assistance" Lambeth could not house its 30,000 immigrants; whether they agree that a similar situation exists in many other areas; and whether, with the present net intake of over 50,000 immigrants per annum, they expect to be able to cope with it.]

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET)

My Lords, the Government are well aware of the position in Lambeth and other London boroughs with pressing housing problems. Massive assistance is being offered in the form of more generous subsidies and bigger house-building programmes than ever before, and also by help from overspill housing and from the Greater London Council. In addition, my right honourable friend the Minister is examining a wide range of issues bearing upon the rehabilitation of older houses and areas of housing stress, following the Denington Report on Standards of Housing Fitness.

LORD ELTON

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. May I ask whether he can say anything about the present state of the waiting list for houses in Lambeth, seeing that in 1965 13,500 families were on that list, that it was increasing at a rate of between 200 and 300 a month—and this despite the fact that the Council has recently found that in one of its very worst slum areas only 14 per cent. of the families had put their names down because of the apparent pointlessness of doing so?

LORD KENNET

My Lords, to the best of my information the Lambeth Council's waiting list is still about 13,000 families. As to the number who do not put themselves on the waiting list for any motive, that is a matter of conjecture.

LORD ELTON

My Lords, as the Lambeth Council first brought this state of affairs to the attention of the Government in January, 1955, nearly eleven years ago, and since waiting list seems to have gone down by only 500, does the noble Lord really envisage within the lifetime, say, of the youngest noble Lord present an end to a state of affairs, not only in Lambeth but in other towns, in which tens of thousands of immigrants and of our own native citizens are forced to live in early Victorian slum conditions?

LORD KENNET

My Lords, I think one can easily envisage that nobody will be living in early Victorian slum conditions, or indeed any other sort of early Victorian conditions, within the lifetime of most Members of this House.

LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR

My Lords could the noble Lord say something more about the effect of large numbers of immigrants on slum clearance? Is he aware that the problem is not so much the total number of immigrants in the country as their dense concentration in certain areas where housing has for a long time been bad? Is the noble Lord also aware that the sheer overcrowding caused by the concentration of a large number of immigrants becomes a very great danger to slum clearance because of the exceptionally large numbers who have to be re-housed?

LORD KENNET

My Lords, the Government are well aware of this problem, which is exceptionally grave in Lambeth, although Lambeth is by no means the only London borough where it is grave; nor is London the only English city where it is grave. One must make a distinction between a slum and an overcrowded house. An overcrowded house may be structurally perfectly sound and just have too many people in it. On the other hand, a slum may have fewer people in it than it should normally contain yet be a structurally unsound house which ought to be pulled down. These are complicated issues on which the Government are working hard.

LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR

My Lords, I am well aware of the distinction which the noble Lord has made, but does he appreciate that it makes slum clearance that much harder if the houses which are undoubtedly unfit create such an exceptionally large rehousing problem because, before they are pulled down, they have become overcrowded?

LORD KENNET

Yes, my Lords.