§ 4.16 p.m.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Cooper of Stockton Heath, but I think it would be more convenient, as I now have got clearance, if, with the permission of the House, I were now to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on infrastructure works. The Statement is as follows:
" The Government have decided to authorise increased capital expenditure on infrastructure works in the development and intermediate areas. This will give still further practical support for the improvement of the economic and social infrastructure of these areas and will help to alleviate unemployment, particularly in the construction industry.
" The winter works programmes of the previous Administration did not give local authorities and others involved the time and the scope needed to plan and execute works of lasting benefit. The work under these programmes had to be completed in the winter months—in the least favourable weather conditions for the construction industry as a whole.
" The provision we are making now will, therefore, allow the inclusion of more substantial schemes than was possible in the winter works programmes. The infrastructure works now to be undertaken will be those which can be substantially completed during this and the next financial year—that is, by the end of March, 1973.
" The Departments concerned will now discuss the implementation of the increase in expenditure with the local authorities and others concerned as a matter of urgency.
" We estimate that in England, Scotland and Wales the spending authorities should be able to incur total extra expenditure of about £100 million over 1971–72 and 1972–73. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland announced yesterday the main arrangement for Scotland and 380 my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for Wales is making a similar announcement.
" This £100 million will cover a wide range of projects such as trunk and principal roads, improvement and extention of educational buildings, minor capital works for hospitals and other health and personal social services. There will be provision also for infrastructure works selected by the local authorities within the field of locally determined capital expenditure. It certainly should be possible for a good deal of work to be done during the remainder of this financial year, with larger amounts to follow in 1972–73.
" This expenditure is wholly additional to the estimated £46 million that will be incurred over the next two years under the measures already announced for higher grants for the improvement of older houses in development and intermediate areas.
" These additional sums, totalling an estimated £146 million, should be seen within the framework of the Government's determination to help in bringing about a large improvement of the economic and social infrastructure of the development and intermediate areas. But they will also make their contribution to employment in these areas in the period immediately ahead ".
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
§ LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALEMy Lords, as always we are grateful to the noble Lord for repeating that Statement to us. While welcoming any help at all for the development and intermediate areas, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that what I regard as a rather timid hotchpotch of panic measures is no substitute for businesslike management of the economy? It will give little comfort to people who are adversely affected by the Government's economic policy, and it will not reassure those of us who apprehend that unemployment may well top the million mark before many months have passed.
Does the noble Lord therefore appreciate that in our view much more radical steps are needed? On the details that the noble Lord has announced, can he tell 381 your Lordships how much of this expenditure is really additional and not just brought forward in a way which will mean that subsequent allocations will be depleted? Can he tell us what proportion of this sum of money will actually be met by the local authorities and not by Her Majesty's Government? Can he further tell us what consultation his Department has had with the local authority associations? Or is this another case where there has been lack of consultation? Finally, having said that, may I express the hope that this, nevertheless, has been a triumph of the moderates in the Government over the doctrinaire"hard-liners ".
§ LORD BYERSMy Lords, the House will naturally welcome at this time any measure of reflation which the Government can bring forward, but is this the sum total of the measures which are going to be taken? If so, it is totally inadequate. In the hope that it is not the sum total, may I ask what other measures are being studied now, and when the Government will be in a position to make a statement on them?
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I am interested that the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, should describe as a"timid hotch potch"and noble Lord, Lord Byers, as"totally inadequate"a programme which is three times larger than the three programmes of the previous Administration put together, covers a greater geographical area, and is more comprehensive in range and longer in duration. Having dealt with that main point, I confirm that these programmes are additional and not transfers. It is not possible to be precise about the proportion of the expenditure that will he borne by the local authorities, because, as the noble Lord knows, expenditure on trunk roads, for instance, is borne entirely by central Government, but for principal roads 75 per cent. of the cost is met by central Government and 25 per cent. by local authorities. The same applies across the board in varying degrees. It is not possible to be precise because we are now, following this Statement to Parliament, embarking on detailed discussions with the local authorities as to the particular form in which this additional authorisation of expenditure should be taken up.
§ LORD BYERSMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he has not misunderstood 382 the criticisms which have been made from these Benches? The comparison is not how many times greater this expenditure is on winter works programmes, but whether this is the main measure of reflation of the economy. If it is, then it is totally inadequate. If it is merely a winter works programme, it is better than we have had in the past.
§ LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALEMy Lords, further to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Byers, when the Minister talks about expenditure being so many times higher, will he remember that unemployment is up by a quarter of a million since the last Government went out of office?
§ THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEMy Lords, would my noble friend say whether we are right in understanding that these public works, irrespective of the benefit resulting from them, are to be located only in development areas, or growth areas; and, secondly, whether, as they must be completed within a year, this excludes the possibility of estuarial land reclamation in areas such as the Tees, Severn-Side and South Wales, where it may help the unemployment situation as well as providing useful infrastructure for the future.
§ LORD BERNSTEINMy Lords, the noble Earl raised the point of where this money is to be spent, and how it is to be spent. Perhaps it is not a hotch-potch, although I think the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, is right—it is certainly a panic measure. We know that newspaper stories have been coming out for the past four weeks on this proposal; the Economist had an article about a month ago criticising the Government's proposals. It cannot be businesslike to have a sudden decision of this kind.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, also asked whether local authorities had been consulted. The answer was rather vague. Have the contractors, whose equipment will be required, been consulted? Can we know how much money is to be spent from September this year to March of next year? Can we have any idea of how many of the unemployed will be employed on these operations? It seems to me that unless we get that information it is a very unbusinesslike project, and I wonder whether this is the result of the famous"Think Tank " 383 which we hear is operating in the back rooms of No. 10 Downing Street.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I am answering questions on infrastructure works in the development and intermediate areas. Although I am speaking for the Government as a whole, I am not answering on matters of financial policy, or economics, covering the entire country. I do not think I can add anything more to the Statement in the way of precision, because, as I explained, consultations will now be started with the individual local authorities as to which particular parts of the work are to be undertaken, and until those consultations have proceeded much further, it is not possible to be more precise.
§ THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEMy Lords, is estuarial land reclamation excluded or included?
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, it is certainly not excluded. But I think the kind of work that my noble friend has in mind is too large in scale, and requires too much preliminary planning, to be embraced to any large extent within this programme.
§ LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALEMy Lords, further to the noble Earl's previous question, will the Government consider extending the boundaries of some of the intermediate areas to include places like Newton Abbot, which I understand is outside the intermediate area but which, nevertheless, has a very high level of unemployment at the present time?
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I am glad to take note of that point.
§ LORD DAVIES OF LEEKI should be a curmudgeon not to thank the noble Lord for his Statement. Nevertheless, in future may I ask the noble Lord not to grasp any figure that comes into his head, or is stuck on his paper by a"Think Tank "? He said that the expenditure is three times greater. Only the other day I drew a chart of a part of our expenditure in some of the areas which reached £1,016 million. Three times more than what? Winter help? We had no need of winter help because we had full em-employment.
§ LORD HANKEYMy Lords, would it be in order to press the Government to incorporate in these measures arrangements to include the infrastructure of approach roads to our ports with a view to decreasing the congestion which is now a great embarrassment to our exporters?
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, that is certainly the kind of scheme that can be considered.
§ LORD FERRIERMy Lords, in the light of the Minister's indication in a recent Statement of the importance of by-passing centres of population and historic towns, in his discussions with local authorities will he bear in mind that this is a very important and an accepted matter in the whole pattern of our road system for the future?
§ LORD SANDFORDYes, certainly, my Lords. But we must try to distinguish between this Statement, which is concerned with certain relatively minor works to be put in hand and accelerated in the development and intermediate areas within the next eighteen months, and the announcement relating to the next phase of the trunk road programme which was concerned with the whole country and spread over ten years.
§ LORD POPPLEWELLMy Lords, where local authorities are being asked to undertake this additional public work, would the noble Lord say whether the cost involved will be borne by the local ratepayers, or whether there will be an additional sum granted from the central Government to the local authorities in order to meet the cost involved?
§ LORD SANDFORDThe additional cost, in terms of loan charges, will be taken into account at the next biennial review of the rate support grant. There will be loan charges which have to be faced and taken into consideration. As the noble Lord will appreciate, the scheme runs to March, 1973, and the full cost of the capital programme does not have to be met until then; and so he will see that this burden is not all that large, although I agree with the noble Lord that it has to be reckoned with.
§ LORD BERNSTEINMy Lords, I dislike pressing the noble Earl but he has not answered the questions of my noble friend Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, 385 or even the questions I put to him. If his decision is not to answer to-day but to write his reply, I will accept that. Otherwise, I hope there will be an answer at some time to the questions which have been put to him, which no doubt he will be able to read to-morrow in Hansard.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, could the noble Lord say which part of his question I have not answered, and I would be happy to try to do so?
§ LORD BERNSTEINMy Lords, I will see whether I can read my own writing. One of the questions put was: What would be the expenditure from September until March? What effect will the expenditure have on the unemployment figures? What consultations have there been with the firms who will carry out the work? What consultation has taken place with local authorities? What additional expenditure would there be this winter over that of last winter? I think that those were the questions put co the noble Lord.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I am neither a prophet nor an Earl—only a Baron—and with limited powers of clairvoyance. I think I answered the question by explaining that, because we are only just embarking on consultations about the detailed form these programmes will take, it is not possible to answer that kind of question at this stage.
§ LORD PARGITERMy Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that it would have been better to have had some consultation with the local authority associations before this Statement, instead of going into consultation afterwards with a preconceived programme? The local authority associations might have brought forward much better ideas for spending this money than are put forward now.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, the details of the programme are not preconceived. We are embarking on consultation with local authorities with an open mind about which items should go to make up the programme.
§ LORD LEATHERLANDMy Lords, the noble Lord knows that I always like to be helpful. Does he not think it would be a good idea to bring forward the date for starting the construction of the Foulness 386 airport? Because that would give an enormous amount of employment to the very large number of people who are out of work in that area.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, that may be, but I think the date to bring forward now is that for reconsideration of the Industrial Relations Bill.