§ 3.39 p.m.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As the House knows, I have something of a special interest in the new towns in that, until I took on my present appointment, I was a member of the board of the Peterborough Development Corporation and had the privilege of being closely involved with its work.
The purpose of this Bill is to increase the limit which is set from time to time in Acts of this kind on the amount of money which may be borrowed by new town development corporations and the Commission for New Towns. The current limit of £2,250 million was set in May last year by the New Towns (Limit on Borrowing) Order 1976 following the last piece of legislation of this kind, the New Towns Act 1975. That limit encompasses the total of all outstanding debt by new towns since they were first established by the farsighted legislation of 1946. The existing limit is expected to be reached by September or October of this year and this Bill accordingly provides for further borrowing to be made available by raising the limit to £2,750 million, with provision for it to be raised by a further £500 million by an order to be made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. Any such order will require Parliamentary approval by way of an Affirmative Resolution in another place.
When this Bill was debated in another place the Opposition repeatedly claimed that no explanation had been given for the large sums of money which new towns were being authorised by the Bill to borrow. That claim was coupled with the suggestion that the need for the Bill could be largely avoided if private investment funds were brought into the new towns, either by financing joint developments or by selling existing new town assets to finance further development. Even though these criticisms of this Bill were misguided, as my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary clearly demonstrated, they were twice pressed to a Division, despite the very serious consequences which would have followed had the Opposition been successful in denying the new towns these funds.
In view of what has gone before, I take 466 this opportunity to answer yet again the criticisms of this Bill in another place—and perhaps forestall some which might otherwise be made here—by explaining in some detail why this money is needed and why the Government believe there is not at the present time any alternative to this Bill for providing it.
In one sense the purposes to which this money will be put are obvious. It will be used for the provision of houses, factories and shops, for roads and sewers and for the many amenities and facilities necessary to turn the towns into living and working communities. Three-quarters of the money in this Bill is required for capital investment in the physical fabric of our new towns. The expenditure was foreshadowed in the Government's expenditure plans which were published in the recent White Paper, Cmnd. 6721. These plans provide for about £300 million of new investment annually during the next three years. This figure requires further explanation. Perhaps some of the earlier confusion stems from the fact that the White Paper identifies only housing investment of £143 million in 1978–79 and £175 million in 1979–80 as separate items. The figure for new investment in all the other things I have mentioned is not separately identified but is aggregated with similar expenditure by local authorities. But allowance must he made for investment in these other aspects of new town development, since it all counts against the borrowing limit.
Moreover, these expenditure figures are set in the 1976 PESC survey prices and the new towns borrowing limit is not. No matter how helpful it would be for new towns to continue to pay for their activities at the prices which obtained in November 1975 they will, like all of us, have to continue to pay cash. The figures which are derived from the White Paper have, therefore, to be adjusted to take account of the expected increase in costs, particularly in construction costs. These changes are very difficult to predict but our best estimate at present is, as I said earlier, that new town investment will on average be about £300 million in cash terms for the next three years.
On top of this new investment must be added borrowing of about £100 million each year, again in cash terms, to meet revenue deficits which arise principally in 467 the second and third generation towns which at this early stage of their development are not able to meet their debt charges from their rent income.
Thus I think that it will be clear how we have arrived at our estimate, that the proposed increase in the borrowing limit will last for some two and a half years—expiring during the second half of the financial year 1979–80—on the basis of the programme of expenditure which has already been announced. But it is difficult to be precise about how long the money will last, since much depends on future movements in interest rates and costs and on how quickly programmes can be implemented.
I should like to turn now to the suggestion that the need for this Bill could be largely avoided by seeking other sources of finance in the private investment market. One untapped source of funds, it is claimed, lies in projects of joint development financed by institutional funds on what we have come to call lease and lease-back arrangements. But there is nothing new about this suggestion, nor have the Government any objection to it. Indeed, it is already happening. Between 1969, when a previous Labour Government first gave approval for investment of this kind and established the Advisory Panel on Institutional Finance in New Towns, and May 1977, some 27 separate schemes for lease and lease-back arrangements were entered into in the new towns, involving sums of £55.2 million. I am delighted to tell the House that the Peterborough Development Corporation have just agreed lease and lease-back arrangements with Norwich Union Insurance who will advance £24 million towards the cost of a new shopping centre there. These are obviously useful additions to the funds available to our new towns, but it must be admitted that it does not seem likely that the contributions from these sources could be quickly expanded so that they substantially reduce the amount of borrowing that will be necessary during the lifetime of this Bill.
A more difficult aspect of the question of bringing institutional funds to the new towns arises in considering whether existing new town assets should be "rolled over" to finance further develop- 468 ments. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, when he spoke during the Third Reading debate in another place, explained what would be involved in order to be able to adopt such a policy in an effective and businesslike manner. I should like, with the forbearance of the House, to repeat what my honourable friend said:
It is absolutely vital that the complexity of the background to the creation of the assets since the new town programme began is fully understood. The structure of the holdings in terms of the leasehold interests which attach to them, the rates of return and the existence or otherwise of the opportunities of review of rentals have to be taken into account. A fundamental analysis of these interests would have to be undertaken so that a realistic assessment could be made not only of the likely market value of those assets which might be selected for disposal but also to form some assessment of the financial loss which might be incurred by premature disposal, and at the heart of the exercise is the identification of the precise kind of interest which might be disposed of, for there is little doubt that outright disposal of freeholds which are, for instance, subject to long leaseholds at low annual rentals without review clauses—which was certainly the acceptable thing in the early days of the new towns—could be an irresponsible short-term activity".—[Official Report, Commons; 20/6/77; col. 1024.]Thus on practical rather than ideological grounds, to determine the merits of such a policy will require a great deal of time and consideration. Managing a marketing exercise of the size and sophistication involved would likewise require much skilful preparation.My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has agreed to consider the issues involved and he is now doing so. But it is clear that a programme of disposals on a scale sufficient to affect substantially the need for further borrowing in new towns during the two to two and a half year life of this Bill could not be undertaken in a way which was consistent with the proper management of public assets. I hope I have explained the need for this Bill and the way in which it relates to previously announced spending programmes. I hope, too, that I have been able to satisfy your Lordships that while our minds are certainly not closed to the use of other sources of funds for the new towns, those proposed do not offer an alternative to this Bill.
My Lords, I apologise for speaking at some length on the need for this Bill in the light of the points made in another place and I shall therefore be sparing in 469 my general remarks on the virtues of the new towns and the value they offer, in social and ultimately in financial terms, for the substantial public investment in them. I think it is unnecessary in any event to dwell on this. There is general agreement here, in the country at large and internationally that our new towns have been outstandingly successful. That success has stemmed partly from the imaginative Act of 1946 and partly from the effort and dedication of the new town staff in using the money which has been provided over the years, not only to build houses and factories but to translate that hare provision into real communities providing improved living conditions and security for those who live and work there.
It is no reflection on the success of the new towns that my right honourable friend has recently proposed lower population targets for the third generation towns. Those revised targets have stemmed primarily from the very substantial reduction in the forecasts of population growth in the country as a whole. Lower population growth in the towns will, of course, eventually be reflected in the size of the continuing investment programme, and some savings which will allow some £10 million next year and £20 million the year after will be redeployed for other uses and are already in prospect. But since it is intended substantially to maintain the momentum of development in the third generation towns, it is not expected that larger savings will accrue until these towns begin to approach their revised population targets. Those savings will therefore be meat for discussion during a future new towns Money Bill. In the meantime, this Bill is necessary to allow the new towns to proceed with their still much needed work. There is, in the short term at least, no feasible alternative to this Bill and I have no hesitation in commending it to your Lordships. It is of course a Money Bill, but that does not inhibit discussion on it in your Lordships' House. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a,—(Baroness Stedman.)
§ 3.53 p.m.
§ Baroness YOUNGMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady 470 Stedman, for introducing this Bill to us this afternoon. I do not always find myself in agreement with her, but, as she knows, I very much admire her knowledge of new towns and the way she has put out her case. I think that, from her point of view, she has made a very good case indeed for this Bill. It is of course a very important matter. It presents us with an opportunity to discuss new towns as a whole and new town policies and I think it is disappointing that so few have taken this opportunity to take part in the debate today.
I was particularly glad to hear her explanation as to how long this large sum of money is expected to last. This question was raised on several occasions in another place, and it is helpful to know that it is expected to last for approximately two and a half to three years. Then, presumably, we shall have a similar debate all over again. I do not intend to repeat the arguments which have already been set out fully in another place, but I should like to raise three main points. As the noble Baroness has said, the effect of this Bill is to allow new towns to borrow £1,000 million to last, as we now know, for the next two and a half years. It is of course an enormous sum of money, and, although it has all been set out in the Government expenditure White Papers, nevertheless anyone in local government always looks with a certain degree of scepticism nowadays when very large sums of money are going to be given to one part of local government.
After all, we know, and I can quite understand, why the Government have thought it necessary to give so much money to the inner cities. But anyone in local government knows that every time the Government give something to the inner cities they actually take away money that they were going to give to the shire counties, and that in fact there is not an increased amount of money for local government as a whole but it is a reshuffling of the pack between different parts of it. In this particular case it would be helpful to know whether by giving—or more accurately by allowing the new town corporations to borrow—this large sum of money, other sections of local government, notably the counties, the districts and the inner city areas, will be deprived of any money that they would otherwise 471 have had. This is a very important point, which I know greatly concerns local authorities.
The second point I should like to make is one that the noble Baroness herself raised about the demographic projections. I do not think that anyone who takes an interest in environmental, educational or social service matters can have failed to read the report by the Central Policy Review Staff on population and the social services, and to try to understand the very important matters which it has set out.
What we do know from it is that the population projections over the last few years have all had to be revised down and the fall in the birthrate is startling, as also is the increase in the number of old people in the population, and in particular the enormous increase in the numbers of those over the age of 75. I think this cannot have other than a major bearing on new town policy, and rather than talking just about the houses I think it is worth considering the complexities of managing this large number of houses that have already been built in new towns and no doubt others that are to be built with the money that we are talking about this afternoon.
What is revealed from this review on population is that, although we have a situation in which there are at the moment more households than houses, and although we have a situation in the country as a whole in which the birthrate is falling, the growth of headship of families or the numbers of households of single persons is very much on the increase. Young people are moving away from their families and setting up home on their own; widows and widowers and elderly relatives, instead of living with their families are living alone and consequently there has been a tremendous growth in the number of single person households. Anyone who has looked at new towns, visited them or studied them will know that there is very little single person accommodation in them and I wonder whether spending yet more money on the development of houses is the right course of action, or whether we ought not to be thinking of a policy of converting a great many of the three-bedroomed houses into flats suitable for single people so that we are actually making a much more effective use of the housing stock.
472 What occurred was a large build-up of young couples in new towns, and, as that rate is not going to continue, socially it would be far better to devise ways of encouraging older people to go into new towns. I myself feel that we make a great mistake in all our policies by not looking at the family as a whole, encouraging the family to stay together and to help one another. One of the defects of housing policy which has been brought home to me time and again, whether by one parent families, by the elderly, or by couples waiting to get houses, is that often, for example, by moving out into new towns they uproot themselves from all their relatives and they are cut off. Therefore, I consider that in new town expenditure it is necessary to see how the type of housing is being developed, and whether it is housing of the kind that keeps families together—particularly elderly relatives—so that in a real sense we have a community, and not a vast town with almost everybody in one age group.
I should like to return to the point about buying new town houses. I appreciate that this is ground over which we have trodden many times before, and I do not intend to elaborate this afternoon all the arguments for encouraging people to buy a new town house, nor, as I should like to see, for new town corporations selling their houses to their tenants whenever they would like to have them. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, spoke about the problems of financing new towns, and indeed that is what the Bill is all about. It seems to me that you create a much better community or town, call it what you will, if people own their own property or, at least, if a large proportion of people own their own property, and if businesses can buy the freeholds in the town.
If I took down her words correctly, the noble Baroness spoke about two methods of financing, one of which was the special scheme of leasing and lease back. She quoted the fact that there were 27 such schemes, and I entirely agree that they are extremely valuable. However, many small businesses want the right to buy a freehold in the middle of a town. I suspect that it was the combination of small businesses and houses that made the cities what they were. The fact that these have all been broken up and disbanded is 473 one of the reasons why we have the present problems of the inner city. Therefore, I believe that the new towns would become better places if there were more people who owned their houses and more businesses privately owned on land that they owned themselves, because all those people would have identified with the place by actually putting their own money into the place where they lived.
The third matter to which I wish to draw attention is the relationship of new town policy with inner cities. It was not so long ago that your Lordships' House had an extremely interesting and important debate on the problems of inner cities. Indeed, the Government have issued a great many very interesting publications on the problems of inner cities, the studies that have been done and the amount of money that is required to revive the centres of towns. The figures indicating the depopulation of the cities of Liverpool, Manchester and London are well known and need no further repetition. Anyone who visits those places cannot help but be struck by the acres of empty and derelict land and the vandalism that is everywhere in the huge open ugly spaces. Therefore, we need to be very careful that we have the balance right in encouraging another £1,000 million of expenditure in new towns.
New towns have their contribution to make but, in developing the new we do not want to break up and ruin the old. There is a moral for us when looking at the empty old inner cities and the new centres in the new towns. It is essential as a matter of public policy that we get the balance right. As the noble Baroness Lady Stedman, has said, this is a Money Bill. It is not one to which we shall return in Committee or other stages. I am not someone who will condemn the new town policy. In my view some very interesting ideas have been tried out in them. However, they have not achieved quite the measure of success that we should have wished in many cases, because it is very difficult to create a new town and the community that lives in it. If one studies the history of towns one sees that they are places that grew organically. People wanted to go to live in them not because they were obliged to do so but because they were places where there were jobs. It is extremely difficult to create artificially something which has grown in other parts of the country naturally.
474 Therefore, when we are short of money and in difficult economic circumstances, we must be careful that the money we put into new towns will not be taken away from other places that need it very badly. We ought to allow new towns a period to develop and grow naturally rather than force extra expansion upon them.
§ 4.5 p.m.
§ Lord RAGLANMy Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to a most important factor as regards the development of new towns. The yardstick previously favoured the building of three-bedroomed houses, but now new towns are being encouraged to build far more single-person dwellings. The single, biggest factor to stagger or surprise our policies on planning in the past 10 or 15 years has been the reduction of the occupation rate of houses which has dropped from about 4.1 per house to 2.9 per house. This has meant that a quarter more people are looking for houses than otherwise would have been the case, and this is one of the main reasons we continue to be short of housing.
I have been chairman of a new town for seven years and therefore I am interested in the purpose of the Bill. Our new town is awaiting the decision of the Secretary of State as to whether to go ahead with a small expansion. Therefore, if all goes well, I suppose that some of the money concerned in the Bill may come our way. We must wait and see, and waiting is a difficult business for all concerned.
Having declared what might be described as my interest, I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to certain matters relating to the management of new towns which I consider pertinent to raise during the passage of the Bill. In the long-term management of their affairs, new towns have enjoyed one great advantage and suffered from one disadvantage. The advantage is that, although new towns are a nationalised industry, they have not encountered the ambivalence of attitude which has made the effective and efficient running of our other nationalised industries so difficult. They were pioneered by a deeply imaginative feat of private enterprise, but the legatees of these pioneers were happy that under the 1947 475 Act the Government had espoused their cause. There was no ideological clash, there was no history of bitterness and there were no undertones or overtones of confiscation.
Therefore, successive Governments have continued to back new towns and put money into them. Although the towns went through a period when they received a great deal of criticism, and much of that criticism may have derived from the fact that the relations between them and the local authorities were sometimes strained, it is now widely accepted all over the world that they have been extremely successful. Recently they passed a severe examination, and it has been shown that they are not in competition with the inner cities but have been responsible for providing a planned environment for about 10 per cent. of those who have voluntarily chosen to leave our city centres. All this is good and goes some way to explain why the new towns are run by well-adjusted characters who believe in what they are doing and are pleased and proud to do it.
The disadvantage, from which I believe they suffer, stems from their being under direct Parliamentary control, or rather under the relevant Minister via the Department of the Environment. Apart from some inevitable ups and downs, the liaison between the Department of the Environment's New Towns Department and the new towns themselves, is a good and constructive one. However, as a result of coming directly under a Minister, we feel the passing of every and any breeze which is stirred up during the airing of policy views, whether by the Government or by the Opposition. We are exposed to the personal opinions of each Minister who is put in charge of us.
Some of the towns are now over 25 years old. They represent by their nature a very long-term investment, demanding, one would think, a long-term policy of a kind. There can be in that long term many changes of Government. However, in the shortest term it takes, as has been recognised in the recent housing Green Paper, an average of four years from beginning to acquire the land until the time when the houses begin to be occupied. 476 Yet in those four years there can be two changes of Government and/or three changes of Minister in charge. I submit that no commercial undertaking would sensibly be subjected to or be liable to so many changes in top management and changes of policy or threats of changes in policy. Furthermore, to add to the difficulties, each fresh Minister comes into the job with ideas and prejudices—he would not be human if he did not—but, when faced with actuality, he almost certainly has a change of mind, he modifies his views. Therefore, every change of Minister is likely to bring two changes of policy directly affecting new towns.
If one puts this kind of uncertainty alongside the need to which everyone is exposed, that is, to cater for the tap inevitably being turned on and off due to changes in the economic climate, it seems to me that a better way should be found of running the new towns programme. I suggest that perhaps this could be done by putting them under a State holding company of a kind, and a possible framework to build this on exists in the shape of the New Towns Commission. I have not thought through all the difficulties which might accompany such an operation. I am just looking for a way in which the policy direction on new towns could be taken somewhat further away from the influences which inevitably flow from having them under direct Ministerial control. I must add that nothing that I have said is intended to reflect in any way at all upon the intelligence or competence of any individual. It is just that I strongly believe that this aspect of our system of government is detrimental to the good running of the new towns. May I also add that I speak for no other person or organisation, and that the opinions are my own.
My Lords, I thought it might be helpful if I made a very short comment about the assets of new towns. I have seen it suggested that they should be valued, and, speaking for my own town, I do not think it would be a difficult operation to do some sort of valuation, although it would take some time. The historical costs are documented and the present day value of property can be guessed at, although it would be very hard indeed to apportion the general development expenses. But may I put in a word of caution. Running a new town is not a 477 strictly commercial operation. Sacrifices in potential returns have to be made in the interests of improving community life. For instance, we had to yield the rent from a store in order to obtain a cinema which we knew would not be viable on its own. Incidentally, I believe that the Coal Board Pension Fund were involved somewhere in that deal, and that was long before the Norwich Union got involved in Peterborough.
We are not in the least a monolithically Government owned concern, and it is a myth that new towns are wholly Government owned; but we do retain the freehold if we can. My advice to anyone who consulted me—I am offering the service free this afternoon, of course—would be that retention of the freehold is a very important tool, both of planning and of management; and in the case of our town centre, which must be treated as a whole, it is an essential tool. However strong planning powers appear to be, possession is still nine-tenths of the law. In the interests of managing the assets of new towns on behalf of the community, I think upon examination it will be seen how necessary it is for the corporations to retain the freehold, if possible. We have sold freeholds on a matter of judgment, but, unless I was shown a very good reason indeed why I should sell, I would not do so as a matter of policy.
My Lords, I greatly welcome the informed debate which has been taking place in the last few months on policy towards new towns. Particularly I welcome the increasing reference which has been made to the desirability of using bodies of their structure to help in the renovation of old city areas. I believe that much good could come of that, but at the moment that is another matter.
§ 4.17 p.m.
§ Lord SHINWELLMy Lords, it is very difficult to enter into competition with experts on this subject, and certainly I would not attempt to emulate the expertise to which we have just listened. But if I had my way, and could ensure a respectable vote in your Lordships' House, I would throw a spanner into the works, with what courage I possess, to ensure that not a single penny further should be spent on the new towns without a reappraisal of what has happened since 478 1946, including looking at the vast sums of money that have been spent, and in particular whether we have gained the advantage which is justified from that expenditure and endeavour. Nothing that I say can detract from my congratulations to my noble friend who presented the case with such clarity, but I am bound to say that, in this thin House, with these wide open spaces, to be discussing the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds in the next few years, including vast borrowing facilities from whatever source can be found, is just a little too much.
I recall as a member of the Cabinet in 1946, when this concept was initiated, that there was considerable enthusiasm when the venture was exposed for the first time. The intention then was to escape from the squalor, sometimes the filth, and almost one could describe it as the inhumanity of existence in various parts of the country; I can recall in particular the county of Durham. However, we decided to embark on this alleged solution of the problem, only to create a vast number of others, because in creating the new towns we simultaneously created a number of ghost towns in the surrounding neigh-bourhoods. In fact if we had expended all the endeavour, all the industry, all the intelligence, and in particular all the finance that has gone into the new towns since 1946, in order to rehabilitate the old towns, we should have made a far better job of it.
I am not complaining about the advantage of a new town as compared with a derelict area which is blotched with slums and the like. Many of the new towns are admirable—probably every one of them can be regarded as admirable. I have not seen them all, but I have seen some. However, I would remind Members of your Lordships' House of the original idea, which was not merely to build houses, although that was essential and a prerequisite of the advent of industry because people had to have accommodation. The original idea was to promote industry in those areas and it was thought and argued very eloquently and intelligently by the experts from all sides of industry that new industries would be encouraged to go to the new towns.
That is far from being the case. Of course, many new industries have gone to the new towns and have then found 479 themselves to be in a bankrupt condition. Many have discovered that it was possible to survive only with aid from the Government. Every kind of Government since 1946 has had to come to their aid. If that aid had been provided for some of the towns I have in mind—the villages and townships in the county of Durham, in the North-West and elsewhere—we should not now he faced with the derelict conditions that are to be found in those areas. At the time, it was not foreseen, particularly in the mining areas, that the mining industry would suffer pit closures on a vast scale and that hundreds of pits would close down in areas where the new towns were to be built—that is, not in the townships themselves but in areas contiguous to those townships.
I wonder whether the time has not arrived when the Government should embark on an independent examination. I do not mean the setting up of a Royal Commission. I do not like Royal Commissions; they never really do any good. They talk a lot and come to conclusions only to find that there have been more errors of judgment at the end of the day than at the beginning. There should be an examination of the problem by an unbiassed, independent board. That board should not comprise—and I say this with great respect—those who are members of the boards of new towns, who are naturally enthusiastic about their associations.
I mean no disrespect to my noble friend Lord Raglan, but I have had experience of being canvassed over and over again to see whether it was possible to use my influence—not that I ever had any at any time—in order to ensure the appointment of certain people either as chairman of a new board or corporation as it was called, or as members of a committee; or to exert pressure on a member of a committee of one of these corporations to the effect that it was now time to make room for someone else. I am not suggesting that any Member of your Lordships' House would be in that situation, but that sort of thing has happened One becomes a member of a committee or a board and immediately becomes enthusiastic and fascinated by its transactions and hopes for the best; naturally, one says the best one can on 480 behalf of the project. It is now time to put an end to all that.
§ Lord RAGLANMy Lords, perhaps I may offer my noble friend a seat on my board!
§ Lord SHINWELLMy Lords, I cannot recall ever having been offered a seat on any board. If I may say so, this matter is somewhat irrelevant, although I never object to interruptions, having been accustomed to them all my life. I can simply say that no Government have ever asked me to be a member of any board. I have never been a member of a board where there was anything gainful. I certainly mean nothing offensive when I say that there are at least 40 or 50 Members of your Lordships' House who have Government appointments. I have gone through the list. Some of them even have two salaries and many have part-time jobs with the appropriate salaries. During my whole existence in political life in this country I have never once been offered an appointment of that kind. I cannot say whether I should have accepted it, had I been offered one. However, that has nothing to do with the subject under discussion.
I suggest that there should be some examination of this problem—for it is a problem—before we spend too much money. I do not like the idea of investment and obtaining money from sources outside the Government. My noble friend Lord Raglan suggested that one of the problems facing the new towns is that they are under Ministerial control. I believe that the trouble lies in the fact that they are not under Ministerial control; they are a form of private enterprise and do pretty much as they like. I cannot understand why they cannot be transferred to the local authority in the area, as was the idea many years ago. Local authorities are elected bodies and there is no reason why we should not inject democracy into the new towns. At present, there is none.
The mere fact that my noble friend Lord Raglan is chairman of a board does not mean that he acts in a democratic fashion. As far as I know he never consults electors in the area about what the board should do. Of course not. It is a kind of private enterprise. It is accepted. A person is appointed as chairman and it is beside the point to ask whether he is an expert. He 481 may be a politician, a would-be politician, a journalist, a retired businessman or a retired member of the Forces. Usually he is the latter and I do not object to such people getting a job at the end of their period of service in the Forces.
But what are the results? They carry on in the same old-fashioned way—in a form of private enterprise. No! The whole thing should be transferred to the local authorities, and the sooner the better. If I had the chance and if I could find anyone to support me, I would vote against any further finance being provided for these bodies. To begin with, it was an excellent and wonderful idea, an admirable concept. We expected much of it. On the whole, we have gained very little from it. We have not had the industries that we expected. A great many problems have been thrown into the situation. It is about time that we reversed the position and asked for a reappraisal of the whole situation, at any rate before spending vast sums of money.
§ 4.30 p.m.
§ Lord LEATHERLANDMy Lords, I wholeheartedly agree with so many of the views of my noble friend Lord Shinwell that I hesitate to stand up and say that I disagree with practically everything that he has said about new towns. Probably he knows more about them than I do. He says that he was a Member of the Cabinet which inaugurated the new town system. I was not a member of that Cabinet—but that is probably the country's loss, and I will not pursue the point.
My noble friend has mentioned the difficulty which industry finds when it sets up its factories in new towns. He perhaps has been speaking of Durham where they have had Peterlee, which has not been among the most successful of the new towns, I will agree; but in my county of Essex we have two new towns and our experience there with regard to industry is diametrically opposed to that which my noble friend suggests.
We have two new towns, Harlow and Basildon. Harlow, I had nothing to do with its establishment. Basildon, I had very much to do with its establishment; I was one of its progenitors. I was the finance committee chairman of the local council in whose area my late noble friend Lord Silkin proposed to put a new town. We discussed whether the 482 new town would be a financial advantage to the local authority. We analysed all the figures and found that the existing rated value of every hereditament in the district was £10 a year; so if you imposed a rate of 10s. in the pound, that brought you in the sum of £5.
We sat down and considered the matter. We said, "Well, if Mr. Silkin"—as he then was—"puts the new town in the middle of the four townships which constitute our urban district area then, as the years go by, this town will grow and grow and take in these four little townships where there are many unmade roads, where there is no street lighting, where there is no water supply in many cases, and certainly no sewerage supply". Then I said, "We will, with Government money, get a whole face cleaning operation put into operation in this part of Essex", and so it has worked out.
My noble friend suggested that the factories had great difficulty in running themselves successfully in these new towns. In Basildon, with the formation of which, as I said, I had very much to do, I had Mr. Silkin down at my country house night after night, and we went round the whole district urging upon the people the many advantages the new town would bring. It was necessary to do that because many of them, living in their ugly, insanitary little shacks around the fields, did not want to move. They have altered their minds since then.
The question of factories is one that has been a huge success in these two Essex New Towns. My noble friend suggested that it was desirable to have new industries. Well, at Basildon, we have a huge factory by Marconi; we have another one by the Ilford Film Company; we have another one, Yardleys the perfumiers, who I suppose can be regarded as a useful kind of institution, and we have a huge dairy factory that has established itself and has turned out hundreds of thousands of cartons of yoghurt every day. Those are new industries involved in the production of new products.
As for the degree to which these industries prosper, we set aside in Basildon a particular area for what we called nursery factories, where the little businessman could go, have a little factory of his own which he would rent from us, and then we would watch and see him develop it. 483 Time after time the little businessmen who set up their businesses and got them going in these nursery factories have come to us and said, "Please let us have a bigger factory. We have increased our turnover tenfold during the last two or three years".
I know something about Basildon not only because I played, I say it modestly, such an active part in its foundation, but because later on in years the then Minister asked me to join its board, and for four years I sat on its board. Of course I was immediately removed when the Labour Government were defeated and a Conservative Government came into Office. That is one of the little passages in my life about which I am very sorry indeed. We were doing something constructive.
What is more—we have not heard a great deal about this in the debate today—these new towns have brought a great sum in human happiness to many thousands of people. I have mentioned the people who were living in little, insanitary shacks around the fields between the four little townships in our Essex area. Many of those people have now been accommodated in fine homes. They are very happy. Their children are going to first class new schools, and their husbands are able to cycle, or walk, to the factory where they want to work, instead of having to spend £2 or £3 and many hours a week travelling up to London, sometimes in the very early hours of the morning.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said something about these new towns growing up naturally. They are growing up naturally because people are acting naturally. People are having babies. These babies then become young people of 16 and 20, and, again acting naturally, the second generation gets married and they, in turn, again act naturally and have babies. So you get applications sometimes for new houses from those second and third generations, and we are able to accommodate them in the new towns. Therefore, the family is being kept together instead of being disintegrated, as the noble Baroness mentioned. There are disintegrations, I quite agree, when grandma stays in Stepney and the younger members of the family go out into the country.
One of the criticisms that was made of new towns in the early days was that 484 there was no community spirit; people had emigrated to the new towns from this place and that place and the other place, and they did not know each other. But I know that in Basildon—and it is the same in Harlow—there are scores and scores of social societies which have grown up: music societies; operatic societies; billiard clubs; bowling clubs; local Labour parties, and all kinds of other worthy institutions, and there is a community spirit growing up in these places.
The noble Baroness rather hinted at the suggestion that these towns were becoming rather one class communities. She did not use the words directly, but she suggested that there should be more opportunity for people to purchase their houses. I agree with that. But in Basildon we foresaw this and set out what we called a middle class area—although we did not use such an old fashioned term as that. This was an area of superior houses which would be occupied by managers of the local factories and people of that ilk—not, I may say, by county councillors.
There is one thing that must be said about the financial aspect of this matter. The noble Baroness suggested, and my noble friend suggested, that it might be better to build and rebuild on some of the vacant plots in our rather deserted big cities. Well, if the new town corporation had to buy up land in those places the prices would be enormous and it would be absolutely impossible to build houses that could be let at anything like a reasonable rent. Another aspect of the financial question I must mention before I sit down, although I have been standing much longer than I expected to. In the early days of these new towns, when the county council had to provide clinics, schools, all kinds of other institutions, fire brigades and police forces, we found that the rateable revenue which we received from the new towns was less than what these facilities were costing. But now that the towns have grown up to a reasonable size the rateable revenue received is showing a surplus over the expenditure that the county council had had to incur. I suppose complaints can be made, and faults can be found about new towns; but to my mind, in terms of human happiness, in terms of human convenience, the establishment of the 485 new towns has been one of the finest things that we have seen in this generation, and so I commend the Bill.
§ 4.40 p.m.
§ The Lord Bishop of BIRMINGHAMMy Lords, I hesitate to rise to speak in this debate, not having put my name to the list of speakers, but as I once worked as a young parson in a parish in a new town, and later, on moving to Lancashire, had a fair amount to do, on the periphery, so to speak, with the development of the new town of Skelmersdale, I feel impelled to utter a word, first in support of what has been said about the problems of maintaining full employment and indeed of engendering sufficient employment in new towns. This is clearly a problem which has not yet been resolved and which poses very great difficulties. However, I am sure it is a matter of which Her Majesty's Government will never lose sight; it must be very disappointing indeed for people who move with their family to a new town, with all the hopes of job opportunity, only to find that those hopes are not realised.
There is a point which may seem trivial to some noble Lords but which, from my point of view, is not be be so regarded. It is the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, to the importance of retaining the freehold in new towns, especially in new town centres. I can admit the force of this but I hope it will not be exclusive, not least so far as the Churches are concerned, and I mean not only the Established Church and the other historic Churches of a Christian tradition in this land, but of other faiths which are taking their place in the pattern of the community and which, because they have at least a national background to them, can be regarded to be making a permanent contribution to the future religious structure of the country. To deny the freehold where Churches such as I have described wish to build themselves into the situation would, I believe, be a considerable impediment and I hope that no hard and fast line will be taken in that regard.
I welcome the fact that in supporting the provision of a very large amount of additional money for the new towns, we can know that this will in present 486 circumstances help to forward the reclamation of the inner city areas in the old towns. I speak as Bishop of Birmingham and with particular regard to the report about the Small Heath area, one of a number in that city, and of course there are many others which could be cited. The sooner we see evidence of progress on that front the happier we shall be in the older cities and towns in this country, as I hope there will be continuing happiness on the part of those who are directly concerned with the progress of new towns in the other areas.
§ 4.42 p.m.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, this debate has ranged much wider, with many more participants, than we originally anticipated, but I am delighted at the interest that has been shown in it. I wish also to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young., for her rather guarded welcome to the Bill and for her acceptance of the need for the new towns to have this facility to continue with their borrowing and with their work. Lady Young expressed concern over whether, in allowing new towns to borrow this large amount of money, it would mean that other sections of local government would be deprived of money which they thought they were going to get. I have seen no statements or papers of any kind implying that any other local government service will lose out because we are voting this afternoon in support of a Bill to enable the new towns to continue with their borrowing.
Indeed, the Government, through the new towns, are giving help to others, particularly the shire counties, where, as the noble Baroness will know, I have been concerned, both before becoming a Member of the Front Bench and since, about the effect of new towns within shirecounties and the effect of the cost of services in providing the facilities for the people coming in, in advance of getting any return in rateable value from them. I am sure the noble Baroness knows that there are now provisions whereby, if the rate burden in the shire counties proves to be too much because of the inclusion of a new town within their boundaries, the new town development corporations have power to help out the shire counties. Indeed, from the figures I have with me I see that the amounts that are being handed over— 487 the contribution towards the burden—vary from £70,000 plus to over £1 million in some cases, to enable them to meet their obligations to the newcomers. We are, therefore, trying to let the new towns' money also be available to help with the local authority services that are needed for those people who go into the new towns.
The noble Baroness also referred to the sale of new town housing. I recall the debate we had when there was a suggestion of the handing over of the housing in the first generation of new towns and the question of the sale of new town housing arose, and it was my privilege in that debate to give the criteria by which the then Minister for Planning would consider applications from the new towns for permission to sell their new housing. In fact, we announced last May that we were considering the resumption of the sale of new town houses and that applications to do so were being considered from individual towns where the waiting list was less than three months for the main category of people housed in that town and where the new town development corporation had had the necessary consultation with the local authorities in the area. So far, nine of the corporations in England and five of the Scottish new towns have all been given permission to sell their houses and the sales are going ahead; and in addition the Commission for New Towns has made an application in respect of four of their towns. Thus, I hope Lady Young will be satisfied that, so far as the new towns are concerned at any rate, the Government's object of allowing people to own their own homes, as well as to provide the necessary rented accommodation, is being achieved.
The freehold question is of course a knotty one. It is a matter on which we must accept that on both sides of the House we shall not get absolute agreement. There are certain problems. There are the problems of timing and of management, to which my noble friend Lord Raglan referred. And I know that some of the new town corporations have sold freeholds in very special cases. I am sure that if there were very special cases the Department would still be willing to consider applications from the new town corporations.
Lord Raglan referred to the fact that we need more houses because we now have smaller households. This is something 488 we have been finding in the new town in my own district. We find we require nothing like the number of school places that we thought would be needed seven or eight years ago when the new town houses were beginning to be occupied, because smaller families are moving in and smaller families are growing up in the town.
Lord Raglan also referred to the disadvantages of being under a Department of the Environment Minister and to the constant changes of Governments and Ministers, which meant that they had many more problems to deal with than perhaps an ordinary business organisation would have in regard to top management. I could suggest that the moral might be not to change the Government and, if one has a good Minister, not to change the Minister, but perhaps that is looking rather too far ahead.
He also made the extremely interesting suggestion—he admitted that he had not thought it through, and I am sure it is not something he would expect me to take on board without consideration—of some sort of State holding company to control the new towns, which he thought might perhaps be better and which would take them completely out of the local government field. I can see dangers there as well; we would have Ministers saying in Parliament, "This is not the responsibility of the Government but the responsibility of the board", and we should then run into trouble with noble Lords in this House if, as they thought, we evaded questions in that way.
I confess that my noble friend Lord Shinwell rather shook me. I remember, though he probably will not, that some 25 years ago, as a young housewife active in the Labour Party, I marched with my noble friend, in his constituency of Easington, behind his miners' banner in one of their famous miners' marches. I spoke on the same platform with him and was proud to do so. I also stayed with friends in one of the mining villages and they took me to see Peterlee, which was just starting. I must say that, as a young housewife, I would have preferred to live and bring up a family in the houses that were being offered in Peterlee than in the very close back-to back houses in the mining district, although I would accept that perhaps Peterlee did not have the same warm community spirit that one finds in the mining villages.
489 The noble Lord asked whether we could have some reappraisal of new towns. That, my Lords, is what we have had. We have had a reappraisal of new towns in connection with inner cities. We have given new targets to the second and third generation new towns in order to make more money available to do just the kind of refurbishing which noble Lords have been asking us to do in our inner cities, to try to make them a much better place in which to live than they have become over the past 20 years.
But there are still many people who will look to the new towns for their homes and for their jobs, and who are just as enthusiastic today as were their original counterparts in 1946. They have a chance of a home, they have a chance of a job. They have all the amenities that go with a new district. They can have these things at rents which they can afford to pay, or at prices at which they can afford to buy their houses. In addition to that, we are now able to give money to the inner cities to help refurbish them.
All new town development boards are under very close scrutiny from their locals. They are not working as a thing apart. Many of the second and third generation new towns have, as of right, representatives of their local authorities on their hoards. From my own knowledge of new towns around my own area, and of the one with which I was involved, I know that there is very close liaison at all levels covering all kinds of amenities that are provided in the old town and the new. There is liaison between the existing authorities and the new town corporation, and it is at member and at officer level. They are certainly under very close scrutiny from the local people.
We hope that we will have more investment of the kind we have talked about, from the pension funds, from Norwich Union and institutions like them, who will help us; but this is not something on which we can depend completely to meet all our demands. Therefore, we must have this Bill to give the new town corporations the opportunity of borrowing the money if they cannot get it from other sources.
490 The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, confirmed my view of the new towns' abilities to attract industry and to provide the homes and the necessary amenities for families, as well as the very great human happiness that they can bring about. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, who spoke of new towns being a thing apart in the early days and not having the same kind of community spirit as older towns. I do not know what other new towns do, but in my own new town our existing city council, our district council, has been under tremendous pressure to do things for the older part of the city. The older residents point to the new residents and tell their city councillors of the kind of amenities and facilities which the new residents have, and to which they think they also are entitled.
The coming of a new town corporation, grafted on, as mine is, to an existing city, has been a tremendous advantage in terms of amenities for people in the older city where, before the advent of the new town, we had no community centres. Now almost every one of the wards in our city has a community centre because it is the practice of the development corporation to provide these facilities within each neighbourhood and each area as it builds it. Therefore the development corporation has also stimulated local demand for these things.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham, referred to his doubts about the freehold situation as it applies to the Churches. This is a matter which we would have to look at before we could give a blanket assurance that freeholds would always be available for people who wanted to extend their church activities. Again I apologise for drawing on my own experience, but I should like to say that we have a rather super, one-off project within the new town of Peterborough, the Cresset, to which the Churches and all the voluntary organisations have contributed. The Churches are to use the buildings of the Cresset for their services, and the youth clubs and the old people will also use the premises. Surely this is one way in which the ratepayers and the development corporation can help the Church to get established within new areas.
My Lords, I think that, by and large, 491 the Members of this House have accepted the need for the Bill, have accepted that our new town corporations are doing a good job, and that they are doing the job which we gave them to do. I am delighted that this Bill is being given a Second Reading, so enabling them to carry on doing that job.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.