Sitting of 18 July 1934

Preamble
The House nest at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Tyne Improvement Bill [Lords].
To be read the Third time To-morrow, at half-past Seven of the Clock.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE (AIR SUB-COMMITTEE).
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when the Air Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission is to meet, and who will be the British representative?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): As regards the first part of the question it is for the chairman of the committee or the officers of the conference to take the initiative in summoning the committee and I understand that no date has yet been fixed. As regards the second part of the question my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Air has been nominated to represent His Majesty's Government on the committee.
  Mr. MANDER: Are the Government hopeful of useful results from the sittings of this committee?
  Sir J. SIMON: I cannot say at present. The committee has been called together, and we are hoping that it may contribute very useful results.
  Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: Is it intended that the committee shall consist mainly of representatives of the Air Forces of the different Powers, or is it intended that other Ministers not directly concerned with these forces should attend?
  Sir J. SIMON: No, Sir, the composition of a committee to deal with a number of technical matters naturally would in-
  1082
  clude, and does in fact include, the representatives of the Air Ministries of a number of Powers, but there are representatives of various kinds.
  Mr. MANDER: Would it not be desirous to send some Minister who is interested in disarmament?

  GERMANY (BRITISH JOURNALISTS).
  Mr. MANDER: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the official statement by Dr. Goebbels, the German minister of propaganda, in his national broadcast, that British journalists in Germany have been guilty of methods of deliberate and systematic poisoning of public opinion, he will make representations on the subject to the German Government and inquire what is referred to in this grave reflection on British subjects?
  Sir J. SIMON: I consider that the reputation of British journalists stands sufficiently high for it to be superfluous to make representations to the German Government on this matter.
  Mr. MANDER: Is not the real truth that they have told the facts only too clearly and truthfully
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir ARNOLD WILSON: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the views of Dr. Goebbels are to some extent shared by many responsible Englishmen long resident in Germany?
  Mr. MANDER: Is he aware that there are very few in this country?

  PASSPORTS AND VISAS (HUNGARY).
  Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that a Hungarian visa is no longer required for the passports of British tourists visiting that country; and whether the British Government is extending reciprocal treatment to Hungarian visitors to Great Britain?
  Sir J. SIMON: His Majesty's Government have been informed by the Hungarian Government that for the period 1st May-30th September this year the visa obligation would be suspended in

  1083
  favour of British subjects from the United Kingdom proceeding to Hungary. While His Majesty's Government much appreciate the action of the Hungarian Government in this matter, they regret that they are unable at present to reciprocate as, for financial reasons, it is not possible to conclude any further visa abolition agreements in present circumstances.
  Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Would my right hon. Friend consider, in the interests of tourist traffic to this country, giving this temporary respite in regard to British visas?
  Sir J. SIMON: I really do not think that the matter to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers interferes with tourist traffic with Hungary, which, I am glad to say, is substantial. It is a purely temporary arrangement made from the 1st May last to 30th September. I think that any suggestion in the middle of July that we should make some other arrangement is not practicable.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    OIL FUEL.
    Mr. LAMBERTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what proportion of oil fuel for the Navy is stored on the South-Eastern and Southern Coast; and whether steps have been taken to prevent any paralysis of the Navy if any considerable proportion of such storage was destroyed by air or other attack?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Sir Bolton Eyres Monsell): It is not in the public interest to give the information asked for in the first part of the question. My right hon. Friend may rest assured that the Admiralty is fully alive to the possibility of attacks from the air or otherwise, and that measures of defence are under constant consideration.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Is it possible to defend these areas from hostile air attack?
    Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: I think my right hon. Friend will agree that that is an impossible question to discuss at Question Time.

    OFFICERS' RETIRED PAY.
    Mr. JOHN (for Mr. EDWARDS)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will furnish a return showing the number of ex-naval officers in receipt of pensions other than War pensions; the average amount of pension per head; and the number of such pensioners who are in paid employment while in receipt of their pensions?
    Sir B. EYRES MONSELL: I would refer the hon. Member to pages 272 to 277 of the current Navy Estimates, upon which will be found information as to the numbers of retired Naval and Marine Officers in receipt of retired pay from Navy Votes, and the provision made for their retired pay for 1934. The average rate of retired pay per head is about £308 a year. I regret that no information is available which would enable the last part of the question to be answered.

  AVIATION.

    HEAVY-OIL ENGINES.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether any application of heavy-oil aero-engines has been or is immediately contemplated for large flying boats to enable, by reason of their higher economy, the possibility of longer flights being made?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): Yes, Sir; a test is being arranged.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will consider special attention being given to the use of high-economy heavy-oil aero-engines, using fuel of low cost, to civil mail aeroplanes to enable the postal air-service to be greatly and economically increased?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Special attention is being given to the development of such engines; their application to mail carrying aircraft will no doubt follow when their efficiency, reliability and economy in operation have been proved.
    Mr. CHORLTON: When are we to receive a little more detailed information of the progress which is being made?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The hon. Gentleman knows that progress is very slow.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of types of aero-engines using heavy oil as a fuel that are now available for installation or already in use in the Royal Air Force or civil aircraft?
    Sir P. SASSOON: The answer is that two such types of aero-engines are available, but they must still be regarded as being in the experimental stage.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    SERVICE PENSIONS.
    Mr. T. SMITHasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will furnish a statement showing the number of ex-Air Force officers in receipt of pension other than war pensions; the average amount of pension per head; and the number of such pensioners who are in paid employment while in receipt of their pensions?
    Sir P. SASSOON: In answer to the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the Air Estimates, 1934, pages 181 and 182, in which he will find the required information. The answer to the second part is £260 a year. I regret that the information asked for in the last part of the question is not available.

    NEW AERODROMES.
    Rear - Admiral Sir MURRAY SUETER(for Captain HAROLD BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the approximate time taken by the Air Ministry from the selection of a site for a new aerodrome to the date when a station is sufficiently completed for occupation by personnel and aircraft under the normal rate of peacetime expansion?
    Sir P. SASSOON: It is difficult to give a general figure, there being necessarily considerable variation in the periods taken to complete new stations. I am advised, however, that the period would normally be not less than four years.

    DOMINION AIR FORCES (INTERCHANGE OF OFFICERS).
    Sir M. SUETER(for Captain BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of Royal Air Force officers attached to Dominion air
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    forces throughout the Empire; the total number of officers of Dominion air forces attached to the Royal Air Force; and if it is planned to extend this interchange in numbers and range of duties?
    Sir P. SASSOON: Three officers of the Royal Air Force are at present serving with Dominion air forces on interchange with officers of those forces. A further such interchange has been arranged and will take effect in the near future. In addition, three Royal Air Force officers are serving on special duty with 'the Indian Air Force. Apart from interchanges, four officers of Dominion air forces are undergoing the course at the Royal Air Force Staff College, Andover, five Dominion officers are undergoing courses of instruction at Royal Air Force units, and three. Dominion liaison officers are attached to the Air Ministry. My hon. and gallant Friend may rest assured that advantage will be taken of every suitable opportunity of extending the system of co-operation.

    REGULATIONS (OFFICERS ON LEAVE).
    Sir M. SUETER(for Captain BALFOUR): asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is aware that Royal Air Force officers on leave are being engaged on certain civil air-lines as unpaid pilots; that these officers transport fare-paying passengers; and if, in view of the fact that this practice must deprive civilian pilots of opportunities for remunerative employment and that it is not a purpose for which leave is granted, he will take steps to have this practice prohibited forthwith?
    Sir P. SASSOON: I am not aware of the practice to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers; if he will furnish me with particulars of any case which he has in mind, I will consider whether the regulations require any strengthening.

  TRANSPORT.

    ONE-WAY TRAFFIC.
    Major BEAUMONT THOMASasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the successful establishment of one-way traffic in Berkeley Square, he will take steps to establish one-way traffic in other squares in Loudon where the traffic is equally heavy?
    Sir WALTER WOMERSLEY (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. The question of introducing roundabout working in London squares is kept constantly under review by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee in the light of traffic developments. The system is established in cases where it is considered that it will effect some definite improvement in traffic conditions.
    Major THOMAS: Is my hon. Friend aware that this body to which he has referred moves extraordinarily slowly?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: Yes, and I am also aware that my hon. Friend is doing his best to expedite matters as much as possible.

    PARKING REGULATIONS.
    Major THOMASasked the Minister of Transport whether he will take the necessary steps to ensure that vehicles parking in streets shall only park on one side of the road, as is the custom in many Continental towns?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: The Councils of counties and the larger towns are empowered to make Orders for unilateral parking subject to confirmation and many such orders have in fact been made.

    ROAD PASSENGER VEHICLES.
    Major THOMASasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the risks run by persons descending from passenger vehicles in the middle of the road, he will issue instructions that in future all passenger vehicles, such as tramcars and omnibuses, shall be fitted with some form of gate which will prevent persons getting on and off except at the authorised stopping places?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: My hon. Friend, the Minister of Transport, has carefully reviewed the figures of fatal accidents in which have been involved passengers boarding or alighting from tramcars and other vehicles in motion. While he is most anxious to reduce the total of road accidents, to whatever cause they may be attributed, he does not consider that the facts at present before him would justify him in imposing a general requirement of the character indicated.
    Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: Will my hon. Friend represent to the Minister how necessary it is that some special observation should be made upon this
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    source of danger to the travelling public, which is very serious in London?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: My hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has given very great consideration to this matter. He has had a report presented to him which shows that ill 1933 three persons were killed alighting from, or trying to board, motor vehicles. He is certainly giving the matter serious consideration.
    Mr. KNIGHT: Along with that matter, will my hon. Friend represent that there should be a special inquiry into the case of Gray's Inn Road, especially at the terminus where the trams draw up, in view of the extreme danger to the public caused by alighting from the trams there?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: No doubt my hon. Friend will see into that matter.
    Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is it a fact that only three persons were killed while either alighting from or getting upon tramcars last year?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: That is according to the report which the Minister has received from his advisers.
    Major THOMAS: How many were injured?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: I cannot say, but, if my hon. and gallant Friend will put down a question, I am sure that my hon. Friend will do his best to answer it.

    ROYAL PARKS (SPEED LIMIT).
    Lieut.-Colonel MOOREasked the First Commissioner of Works the total numbers of offences and convictions for exceeding the speed limit in the Royal parks for the first, six months of this year in comparison with the first six months of 1933?
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): During the first six months of 1933 the number of motorists prosecuted for exceeding the speed limit in the Royal parks in the Metropolitan Police area was 1,288, of whom 1,287 were convicted. During the corresponding period of 1934, there were 1,115 prosecutions and 1,069 convictions.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the existing administration with regard to this question is proceeding satisfactorily?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Broadly speaking, I think that it is satisfactory. Certainly the number of convictions in comparison with the number of prosecutions shows that they have not been undertaken without good cause.

    EDUCATION (SIZE OF CLASSES).
    Mr. RHYS DAVIESasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is now in a position to publish a statement showing, at the latest available date, the number of classes with over 50 pupils on the roll in public elementary schools in each county, county borough, and urban district in England and Wales?
    Sir W. WOMERSLEY: I have been asked to reply. My Noble Friend hopes that the statement promised in the reply given to the hon. Member on the 31st May last will be ready for publication in the early autumn.

  SCOTLAND.

    SHERIFF COURT HOUSE, EDINBURGH.
    Sir SAMUEL CHAPMANasked the First Commissioner of Works if the plans for the new Sheriff Court House, Edinburgh, have been examined by the Fine Arts Commission for Scotland and the Sheriffs Court Commissioners; and if he has approved of the same?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: The final plans and elevations of the new Sheriff Court House, Edinburgh, have been submitted to the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland and to the Sheriff Court House Commissioners, and were approved by these bodies on Monday. They will be published forthwith.

    EDUCATION GRANTS.
    Mr. LEONARDasked the Secretary of State for Scotland the percentage which the grants payable in each case under the Education. Grant Regulations at present lying upon the Table of the House bear to the net estimated expenditure for the year 1933–34 in each education area in Scotland?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): As the answer is in the nature of a tabular state-
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    merit, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:

    Education Area and Grants* under the Regulations for 1934–35
    expressed as a percentage of estimated net expenditure† for the year 1933–34.

    Percentage.

    Aberdeen (County)

    73.1

    Angus

    59.7

    Argyll

    62.7

    Ayr

    52.7

    Banff

    74.3

    Berwick

    59.7

    Bute

    57.0

    Caithness

    74.0

    Clackmannan

    52.4

    Dumfries

    58.7

    Dunbarton

    51.3

    East Lothian

    51.1

    Fife

    53.6

    Inverness

    74.9

    Kincardine

    65.5

    Kirkcudbright

    57.1

    Lanark

    56.7

    Midlothian

    54.4

    Moray and Nairn

    69.2

    Orkney

    80.5

    Peebles

    57.9

    Perth and Kinross

    56.0

    Renfrew

    55.7

    Ross and Cr marty

    77.1

    Roxburgh

    56.5

    Selkirk

    58.4

    Stirling

    54.3

    Sutherland

    74.9

    West Lothian

    56.7

    Wigtown

    66.1

    Zetland

    88.1

    Burghs.

    Aberdeen

    56.1

    Dundee

    58.2

    Edinburgh

    46.1

    Glasgow

    46.2

    * Estimated grants payable under the Education Authorities (Scotland) Grant Regulations, 1934, as amended by the Education Authorities (Scotland) Grant Amendment Regulations, 1934.

    † Estimated Net Expenditure from revenue account met by grants from the Education (Scotland) Fund and by rates (including derating grants). Expenditure on "Approved Schools" (Reformatory and Industrial Schools) it is included.

    Scottish Education Department, Wednesday, 18th July, 1934.

    HOUSING SUBSIDY.
    Mr. NEIL MACLEANasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware that the Corporation of Sheffield was granted the subsidy on 472 houses after it had been decided that no more subsidy was to be paid under

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    the 1924 Act, and that this was the result of representations made by the Sheffield Estates Committee through the town clerk; and whether, in view of this precedent, he will reconsider his decision not to extend the period of the subsidy to include the houses in Scotland which owing to a trade dispute could not be completed within the higher subsidy period?
    Mr. SKELTON: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is informed that the houses referred to were not approved for subsidy after the date when it was decided that no more subsidy was to be paid under the 1924 Act. With regard to the second part of the question my right hon. Friend is informed that no subsidy will be paid in respect of any of the Sheffield houses if completed after 30th June, 1934. The instance referred to in the question is accordingly not a precedent for extending the date after Which the £9 subsidy can be earned in Scotland beyond 30th June, 1934.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Is the hon. Member not aware that members of the Sheffield Corporation have admitted that they were being refused a subsidy, but that, after representations had been made to the Department of Health, the subsidy was extended to cover the extra period required to build the houses?
    Mr. SKELTON: The point which is of importance is that the subsidy will not be paid on houses completed after 30th June, 1934. I have given the hon. Member the information at my command, and I would recommend him to ask the Minister of Health if he wants further details.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Are we to understand that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland considers that Scotland is a separate entity in this House, and, that there is to be no communication between the Department of Health for Scotland and the Department of Health for England? In other words, is he under the impression that Scotland has got Home Rule?
    Mr. SKELTON: That seems to be rather a large deduction. I am merely referring to the ordinary practice that Ministers should be responsible for matters connected with their own Department.

    REGENT'S PARK
    Mr. BURNETTasked the First Commissioner of Works whether he is yet able to announce his decision respecting St. John's Lodge, Regent's Park, in view of the fact that this matter has awaited the decision of his Department for seven years and the fabric of the building detracts from the amenities of the park?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: As my hon. Friend was informed, in reply to his question of the 10th July, there are several schemes under consideration for using St. John's Lodge, and I am not yet in a position to make any further statement on the subject.
    Mr. BURNETT: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that in its present condition it looks rather like a derelict lodging-house, and cannot he arrange for some paint to be put on the outside of it?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I have already answered that question in the negative.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he has under consideration any alterations to Clarence Gate, Regent's Park; and, if so, will he indicate their scope?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Owing to the congestion of pedestrian traffic at Clarence Gate, I have under consideration a. proposal to widen the eastern footgate immediately, after which, when funds are available, a larger scheme for the general improvement of the traffic conditions at this place will be undertaken.
    Mr. MACQUISTENasked the First Commissioner of Works whether his attention has been called to the absence of adequate washing and lavatory conveniences in the botanical gardens of Regent's Park or elsewhere in the vicinity and if he will take steps to have these provided forthwith?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Yes, Sir, and I have recently approved a scheme for the provision of additional lavatory accommodation in the Inner Circle Gardens, about 80 yards from the Chester Gate entrance, and the work will be carried out this autumn.

    BRITISH ARMY (MUNITIONS).
    Mr. CLARRY: asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office, whether, in view of the recommendation of the special industrial commissioner for South Wales, it is proposed to establish a permanent and extensive heavy munition works in that area; and, in that event, will he give consideration to the claims of Newport in regard to transport and other necessary large scale production activities?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Douglas Hacking): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given yesterday to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Captain A. Evans), to which I am unable to add.
    Mr. CLARRY: May I assume that the Special Industrial Commissioner has reported, or is reporting, on the lines indicated, that is to say, with the object of transferring large munition works to South Wales?
    Mr. HACKING: As I said yesterday, I have no knowledge whatever of a report that has been made by the Commissioner in South Wales.
    Mr. THORNE: Is the Minister aware that there is a place called West Ham on the map?

    HOUSING (EGHAM).
    Mr. THORNEasked the Minister of Health whether he can give the House any information about the type of working-class dwelling houses that have been designed and erected by the engineer and surveyor to the urban district council of Egham, Surrey; and if he can state the number of houses to the acre, the floor space per house, and the total cost per type, including sewers, road works, administrative expenses, and every other known charge?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): I will, with permission, send the hon. Member a statement giving the particulars he desires.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    MERCHANDISE MARIN (CARTRIDGE CASES).
    Sir GIFFORD FOXasked the President of the Board of Trade whether
    1094
    he is aware that foreign cartridge makers are now sending cartridge cases into this country unprinted and that special machines are printing foreign on the cases after arrival; also that British firms filling these cases are actually receiving duty drawbacks when exporting, with the result that firms which manufacture solely British cartridges are being undercut in the Colonial markets; and whether he will investigate these facts with the object of introducing a change in the Merchandise Marks Act?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the Merchandise Marks Act I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend on 10th April to the hon. and gallant Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland).
    Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: Is it the case that these unprinted blank cartridges come here without any marking to indicate the country of origin?
    Dr. BURGIN: I think that is so.
    Mr. GRENFELL: Is that in accordance with the Merchandise Marks Act? Why should they be allowed to come in?
    Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL:
    Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some of these cartridges are printed with English words which may give the impression that they are of English make?
    Dr. BURGIN: I am aware of the fact in regard to these cartridge cases, but under Merchandise Marks Act there is certain procedure which has to be followed. There has to be an application by a majority of manufacturers concerned, for an Order. Until that procedure is followed, I am powerless.
    Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: Is it not the case that where an article bears the name of a British firm on it and does not bear an indication that it is of foreign origin, an offence arises under the Act, and is not the Board of Trade free to initiate a prosecution?
    Dr. BURGIN: Perhaps the hon. Member will put all that on the Order Paper.
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Is there not a misleading implication in the fact that

    1095
    there are English words on the base of the cartridge case, which gives the idea that they are English made?
    Lieut.-Commander AGNEW: Does he Minister consider this an example of fair trade?
    Mr. CAPORN: Would it be open to the manufacturers concerned to approach the Import Duties Advisory Committee and ask them to give protection?
    Dr. BURGIN: The question and the whole of the supplementaries are directed to the Merchandise Marks Act. I was not considering import duties at all. Under the Merchandise Marks Act there is a recognised procedure, whether applicable to cartridge blanks or anything else, and until that procedure is followed the Board of Trade has no power in the matter.
    Mr. THORNE: Is there not a moral obligation on the sportsmen who buy these cartridges to see that they get English instead of Japanese?

    NEW ZEALAND (TARIFF REDUCTION).
    Sir ROBERT HAMILTON (for Mr. MANDER): asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether, in view of the recent reduction of tariffs by the New Zealand Government on British goods, he will take the opportunity of negotiating for a free exchange of commodities between this country and New Zealand?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. J. H. Thomas): The Government are sensible of the advantages which, as they hope, will arise from the reduction of tariffs on imports from this country which was recently announced in New Zealand, and very much appreciate the spirit of cooperation which they indicate. They do not feel, however, that the general considerations bearing on this question, which I put before the House in the course of the Debate on 7th May, are affected by these changes.
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the full details will be published?
    Mr. THOMAS: I think the usual practice will be followed.

  AGRICULTURE.

    MEAT ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the National Livestock Committee have submitted any reports to him; and, if so, whether such reports are available for hon. Members?
    Dr. BURGIN: I understand the hon. Member to refer to the Meat Advisory Committee appointed in December, 1932, under the chairmanship of Lord Linlithgow. It has not been necessary for the committee to submit any informal reports.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Was not this committee appointed to examine the distribution side of meat, and were not reports issued by it to the Department?
    Dr. BURGIN: The Department is in very frequent touch with this committee, but ray hon. Friend must not misunderstand the nature of the committee. It is a trade committee, not a consumers' committee. It is a committee to deal with different sections of the trade, under regulations and restrictions. So far as I know, when the committee require any information they communicate with the Department, but that has been formal and not in the nature of a report.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: In the course of the inquiries by the committee were not some discoveries made and some submissions made to the Department, and may I ask whether such submissions can be made available for Members of the House?
    Dr. BURGIN: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to look into that matter, because it goes a good deal further than his question. I should like to consider whether I can in any way assist the hon. Member.

    SOFT FRUIT (IMPORT DUTY).
    Viscount ELMLEY: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can give an assurance that there will be no alteration in the amount or incidence of the duty on soft fruits during the month of August or subsequently during this year?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Duff Cooper): No, Sir.

    1097
    My Noble Friend will appreciate that the Government cannot give advance undertakings in regard to these or any other commodities as it is impossible to foresee all the contingencies which might arise.

    POLICE (UNIFORMS).
    Mrs. COPELANDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the weather experts' prophecy of another five years of hot summers, he will consider putting the police into light-weight cool uniforms during the hot weather, especially when on point
    duty?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on Monday to the hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Daggar).
    Sir ASSHETON POWNALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise the importance of those engaged in public duties being suitably dressed during heat waves?
    Mr. KNIGHT: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiry in the city of Nottingham where police officers on point duty are allowed to dispense with their tunics but are required to wear white gloves?

    GOLD IMPORTS.
    Mr. POTTERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total value of gold imported into this country from foreign countries during the past year to the most convenient date and the comparative figures for the two previous years; and whether the deposit of such gold here is having any prejudicial effect upon the Exchange Equalisation
    Fund?
    Mr. COOPER:My hon. Friend will find full particulars of the imports and exports of gold coin and bullion during the:first six months of the years 1932, 1933 and 1934 respectively,,in the trade accounts of the United Kingdom for June, 1934. For reasons with which the House is familiar, I am unable to answer questions relating to the Exchange Equalisation Account.

    INCOME TAX.
    Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when the report of the Income Tax Simplification Committee will be published?
    Mr. COOPER: The committee hope to complete the preparation of the draft of a Bill in the course of the present year. When the Bill is complete they will immediately proceed with the compilation of their report.
    Mr. MACQUISTEN: Will the hon. Member consider suspending the payment of Income Tax until it has reported?

    NAVAL CONFERENCE.
    Lieut.-Commander TUFNELLasked the Lord President of the Council whether it is proposed to arrange for any preliminary conference between representatives of the Dominions and Colonies in order to obtain agreement with regard to Imperial policy prior to the forthcoming Naval Conference?
    The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Baldwin): Communications with other parts of the British Commonwealth with regard to the forthcoming Naval Conference are proceeding through the normal channels; in addition my hon. and gallant Friend may be assured that His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom will take any suitable opportunity that may offer prior to the conference, to supplement these communications by personal discussion with representatives of His Majesty's other Governments. The interests of the Colonies will of course be borne in mind by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.

    SALARIES AND WAGES.
    Mr. CRAVEN-ELLISasked the Prime Minister whether he will make a public appeal to firms and companies who followed the lead of the Government when they reduced the pay of civil servants, the police, and the fighting services, etc., to again follow the lead of the Government and restore the cuts which they made in the wages of their employés, and so help to improve the purchasing power of the people?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The reductions which have been made in salaries and wages in

    1099
    industry in 1931 and subsequently were necessitated by the differing requirements of individual industries. I have no doubt that those responsible for the regulation of salaries and wages in each industry are fully aware of the restoration which the Government has made in respect of the reductions in the remuneration of State servants and other classes and of the circumstances in which that restoration has been rendered possible. Whether similar circumstances apply in any particular industry is a matter for those responsible for that industry to consider and, as circumstances vary very widely between one industry and another, I do not think a public appeal by the 'Government would be appropriate.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I should like to ask the Lord President of the Council whether, as there are so many firms now doing Government work, it is not in the interest of all concerned that the Government should use its influence with these firms to see that the cuts are restored; that they should follow the economy policy of the Government and give back what was taken off?
    Mr. BALDWIN: I do not think that I can add anything to the reply.
    Mr. LOUIS SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in many parts of the country a considerable number of firms have already restored the cuts?

  PALESTINE.

    IMMIGRATION.
    Mr. JANNER (for Captain STRICKLAND)asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the 500 skilled workers to be admitted into Palestine in the near future for certain specified trades or crafts will be in excess of the quota of certificates previously decided upon for the half year?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): The 500 skilled persons concerned do not come within the category of labour immigrants and do not therefore affect the half-yearly quota of labour immigration certificates.

    UNEMPLOYMENT STATISTICS.
    Mr. JANNER(for Captain STRICKLAND)asked the Secretary of
    1100
    State for the Colonies whether he is satisfied with the procedure adopted in collecting unemployment statistics among the Arabs in Palestine, in view of the statements in the report of the Department of Agriculture for June, 1934, on crop prospects that there is a shortage of labour, especially in the villages of the central plain and foothills, and that in the typically Arab Gaza-Majdal district there is a shortage of labour in this district notwithstanding the influx of Bedouin from Sinai?
    Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I have not received the report to which my hon. Friend refers, but I should not regard a shortage of Arab labour in a particular village or district as being in itself an indication of unreliability in the unemployment statistics for Palestine as a whole, which showed at the end of April 14,000 Arabs unemployed. Various measures have been taken in recent years to improve the system of collecting these statistics, and provision has now been made for the establishment of a central statistical bureau, by means of which it is hoped, in course of time, to obtain statistics of greater accuracy with regard to unemployment and many other matters.
    Mr. JANNER: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to ascertain whether the report which has been issued is correct? As I understand, it refers to employment over a very wide area.
    Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The hon. Member knows that the High Commissioner has constantly under review the conditions of labour in Palestine, and I do not think it is in the least necessary to make a special inquiry. Some months ago I made some inquiries about an allegation that foreign labour was being employed, and the High Commissioner made exhaustive inquiries and reported that the allegation was wholly unfounded.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. ATTLEE: Can the Lord President of the Council. now tell the House what business will be taken before the Summer Recess?
Mr. BALDWIN: The measures with which the Government propose to pro-

1101
ceed and pass before the Summer Recess are as follow:
All stages of the Cattle Industry (Emergency Provisions) Bill and of the County Courts Bill, which is mainly consolidation of the law, and is yet to come from another place.
Committee and remaining stages of the Whaling Industry (Regulation) Bill [Lords], and of the necessary financial resolutions.
Report and Third Reading of the Administration of Justice (Appeals) Bill [Lords]; Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill [Lords]; and Solicitors Bill [Lords].
Two and a-half allotted Supply days remain to be disposed of after to-day. Certain Civil Supplementary Estimates have been presented, and the usual Resolutions will be required relating to surpluses and deficits on Navy, Army and Air Estimates for 1932 and, on the conclusion of the Business of Supply, the Appropriation Bill must be passed through all its stages.
It may be necessary to consider Lords Amendments to Bills which have already passed this House, and Motions to approve Orders made under the Imports Duties Act, 1932. Any other Business will be brought forward which it is found necessary to pass before the Summer Recess.
I hope that arrangements can be made to dispose of outstanding Business in time to allow the Motion for the Summer Adjournment to be taken on Tuesday, 31st July. I am not yet in a position to state the date of reassembly in the Autumn.
The following Bills will be postponed and dealt with in the Autumn:
All stages of the Electricity Supply Bill [Lords]; Merchandise Marks (Trade Descriptions) Bill; Sea Fisheries (Regulation) Bill [Lords]; and Dindings Agreement (Approval) Bill [Lords] now in another place.
Report and Third Reading of the Betting and Lotteries Bill [Lords], and of the Diseases of Fish Bill [Lords], now before Standing Committees. A Money Resolution in respect of the Diseases of Fish Bill is also outstanding.
1102
The House will notice that no provision has been made for the concluding stages of the Incitement to Disaffection Bill. The Government have decided, in view of the heavy legislative programme which has been completed this Session, not to ask the House to take the remaining stages of the Bill before the Summer Recess. The Incitement to Disaffection Bill will, however, be one of the first Measures to be dealt with when the House resumes in the Autumn.
Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Will any statement be made in connection with the Air Force before the House rises?
Mr. BALDWIN: I have promised that repeatedly.

DURHAM COUNTY WATER BOARD BILL [Lords].
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
Report from the Joint Committee, in respect of the County Courts Bill [Lords] (pending in the Lords), with Minutes of Evidence, and Special Report brought up, and read;
Report and Special Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—
Glasgow Corporation Order Confirmation Bill.
London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendment.
Amendment to—
Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (South Middlesex and Richmond Joint Hospital District) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
Amendments to—
Ministry of Health Provision Order Confirmation (Herriard and District Water) Bill [Lords].
Torquay Corporation Bill [Lords].
Sunderland and South Shields Water Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [18TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1934.
  CLASS V.

    DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH FOR SCOTLAND.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £1,919,120 (including a Supplementary sum of £36,700) be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Health for Scotland; including Grants and other Expenses in connection with Housing, certain Grants to Local Authorities, &c., Grant in Aid of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service, Grants in Aid of Benefits and Expenses of Administration under the National Health Insurance Acts; certain Expenses in connection with the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Acts, and other Services." [Note.—£1,100,000 has been voted on account.]
    3.22 p.m.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): From the mere recital of the Estimate the Committee will see the large number of topics to which I might direct attention, but I think I shall be reflecting the wishes of the Committee if I address myself mainly to the question of housing. I am satisfied that if I can initiate a discussion of value on the topic of housing in Scotland I shall be dealing with a topic which the Committee deems to be the most important.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Before the Under-Secretary initiates any further, I would ask him what he means by simply dealing with housing. Were we not to embrace health with housing?
    Mr. SKELTON: Even on my first sentence the hon. Member asks me a question. The main topic which I propose to deal with to-day is housing, but if any hon. Member desires to raise other questions I shall, of course, do my best to deal with them in reply, but I am satisfied that in the whole area of
    1112
    activity of the Department the question of housing is the most vital before it. There are, however, one or two other matters about which I desire to say a few words before I turn to housing. First let me say that the total amount of the Estimate shows an increase of £150,000. That £150,000 represents an increased expenditure upon housing. The estimated expenditure has increased by £156,000, but certain reductions have reduced the increase to £150,000.
    The two topics I want to say a few words about before I turn to housing, are, first of all, questions connected with public health, and some connected with water supply. On both these topics I shall be very brief. The record of public health as tested, first by infant mortality, and secondly by maternal mortality, shows for 1933 a small but definite improvement. I do not say that we can draw any general deduction from an improvement extending over 12 months only, but I think the Committee will be glad to know, with regard to infant mortality, that the figure has fallen from 86 per 1,000 in 1932 to 81 per 1,000 in 1933—a very definite fall. With regard to maternal mortality,.Which I dealt with at some length last year on this day, I can also report a small reduction. In 1932 the mortality was 6.3 per 1,000, and this year it has fallen to 5.9 per 1,000. It is in fact as low a figure as we have had since 1924. Least of all on that topic do I seek to draw any general deduction.
    The Department has a very elaborate and scientific investigation in progress on. maternal mortality, and it is much more important that the cases should be most closely examined and sound deductions drawn than that we should seek to hasten the production of the report. I am sure the whole Committee look forward to reading with great interest the results of the scrutiny, which is more detailed and more widely extended than any other scrutiny on this important topic conducted elsewhere.
    Let me turn to the subject of water, which South of the Tweed is a very urgent matter. Fortunately we are most definitely better off in Scotland. Last December we were in considerable anxiety, but the resources of the Scottish climate came to our aid, and the months particularly of January, April and May did more than their average work with

    1113
    regard to rainfall. April produced a. rainfall which was 82 per cent, above the average of the last 35 years. May gave 20 per cent, and January 17 per cent. That has very much improved the situation. There are a few places where it is necessary to cut off the water within certain hours, and there are other districts and places where it has been necessary to issue warning notices; but, speaking generally, while we are watching the situation with very great care, it may be said that the existing provisions for water supply are functioning according to their ability. I use that phrase because it brings me to the other topic I want to deal with—the existing provisions. The next thing is to improve the existing provisions.
    As the Committee know, an Act was passed this year which gave, for the assistance of rural water supply in England, £1,000,000, and in Scotland the sum of £137,000. Following that Act, the Department asked for applications for schemes to be put before it by 15th June. These applications are now in. They are 176 in number and they cover schemes representing a total expenditure of £1,095,000. Our grant of £137,000, if distributed by way of a flat rate system, would amount to some 12 per cent. of that total; but the Committee know that we do not think that in this matter a mere flat rate assistance is the proper way to proceed. Therefore we propose to allocate that grant in order of need. I mention that only to show that the considerations which will be before us in determining which application shall receive a grant and what amount it shall be, are (1) the requirements of public health; (2) the requirements of housing; and (3) the financial needs of the area from which the application comes. That is all I can say on that topic for the moment.
    I now turn to the question of housing in Scotland, and I am glad to say that I am able to submit an account of work achieved which I think the Committee will regard as satisfactory. Before I deal with the general work of the construction of new houses and the operation of the 1933 Act and all those interesting topics, let me clear out of the way the question of the extent to which the reconditioning of rural cottages in Scotland has proceeded during the last year. The number of rural cottages reconditioned under the Acts of 1926 and 1931,
    1114
    during the year 1933, was 2,815, which, if not the highest figure ever reached in any one year, is a very high figure. That brings the total number of cottages reconditioned to 14,012. That the work is still going on is shown by the fact that applications for grants for reconditioning during 1933 were also up to a good standard. They numbered 2,800 as against 2,600 in the previous year. Without developing the subject further, I think I may say that these Acts, for which Members on both sides of the Committee are responsible—the Conservative party having passed the original Act and the Labour party the amending Act—are, so far as Scotland is concerned, functioning constantly and effectively for the reconditioning of houses mainly in the rural areas.
    I now come to the main question of the work which has been achieved in the rehousing of the people since last the Department's Estimates were considered in Committee of Supply. Let me say at once that, as regards the number of houses completed with State assistance, 1933 was a record year. The number of houses completed under all the Acts was 20,915, the previous highest figure having been in 1927 when the number completed was 20,158. The past year's achievement thus wins by almost 800 houses over the previous best. But that is not everything. The figure which I have just given is the figure up to 31st December, 1933, but for the first six months of 1934 we have again a record. The number of houses completed with State assistance during those six months was 11,850. The previous highest figure for a six months period was in the year before and the figure in that case was 9,051. The Committee may ask whether the total for the present year will reach or surpass the record of last year. I cannot make an estimate but I can say that with 2,600 houses in hand at the end of the first six months, it looks as if the figures for 1934 would certainly bear comparison with those for 1933. For the rest we had better await the event.
    Mr. KENNETH LINDSAY: Can the hon. Gentleman say under which Act these 11,850 houses were
    built?
    Mr. SKELTON: Under all the Acts. The year 1933 with which we are mainly dealing is interesting in this respect as being the year in which the Housing Act

    1115
    passed by this Parliament began to function. The Committee will I am sure desire me to give a full account of the functioning of the Act. I shall endeavour to give not only a full but I hope a clear and impartial account of what has been done under that Measure. I would first recall to the Committee that the objective of the 1933 Act was to concentrate State assistance and local activity upon slum clearance. We brought to an end the £9 subsidy under the 1924 Act and we attempted to concentrate the attention of local authorities on the major problem of slum clearance and I submit that it is by its effect upon slum clearance that the 1933 Act must be judged. That is the test. Slum clearance began as a result of the 1923 Act and was carried on by the 1930 Act. The 1923 Act began to operate in 1924 and in the nine years from 1924 to 1932, the total number of slum clearance houses completed was 19,699. That figure represented the work of nine years. In the 18 months including 1933 and the first half of 1934 the total number of slum clearance houses completed has been 11,647. That is 11,647 for 18 months as against 19,700 for nine years—a very striking advance to which I particularly direct the attention of the Committee.
    We were not content with attempting to concentrate the attention of local authorities upon slum clearance merely by legislating. We have attempted, not without success, to institute a real drive in administration and in every other way possible towards the development of slum clearance programmes and the acceleration of the work. It will be recalled that on 31st December, 1933, the time had come for local authorities to send in returns of their requirements and their estimated programmes for the ensuing five year period. The estimated number of uninhabitable houses in Scotland was set down at 61,200 and the local authorities programmes—for the most part fixed but in some proportion still rovisional—propose for the period to secure the building of 56,394 houses, that is to say just over 92 per cent. of the total number of houses recognised as uninhabitable houses in Scotland at present. It may be asked why have only a 92 per cent. programme? Why the margin of 8 percent.? Some small proportion of these 61,000 houses may be capable of
    1116
    being reconditioned. I do not think it will exceed the 8 per cent., but my impression is that the programmes promised by the local authorities, fixedly or provisionally, will amount to very nearly 100 per cent. of the requirements, so far as slum clearance is concerned.
    The real drive in housing does not consist merely in stimulating local authorities to put forward good programmes. It consists also in giving them every assistance to carry out these programmes that the central Department can give, and it is for that reason that I draw particular attention to new administrative assistance which, within the last few months, we are giving to the local authorities. We have named it the "Flying Squad," but it consists of experts who go round to the local authorities giving them every kind of assistance, which, without going into too great detail falls into two classes; first, assistance in pointing out to them the full resources of the existing legislation; and, secondly and more important, the best technical assistance on structural and other practical questions. That new branch of the Department came into existence last May. Already it has assisted 125 housing authorities out of a total of 228 in Scotland, and, without going into details, I can assure the Committee that the work it is doing is extremely valuable and that it is well worth its institution.
    The institution of this most valuable administrative assistance was, if I may say so in his presence, directly the result of the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, and it is only another example of his insight and foresight in every practical administrative problem, with regard to which, as we say in Scotland, a poor lawyer buddy can only stand and admire. It is the essence of the idea that we should have this constant touch on their own ground with the local authorities, and I hope the local authorities will agree that the work already done in helping them is of real value. First of all, it has already helped to increase the programmes that the local authorities have put forward, but also it is helping to accelerate their completion.
    Let me deal now with the further progress of slum clearance as a result of this drive: I gave the Committee the figures of the completions in the last 18 months, as against those for the previous nine

    1117
    years, but that is not the end of it. The best test of the way in which the momentum in slum clearance is gathering is the number of tenders which have been approved for the construction of new houses, and I will give one or two figures which I think are very illuminating. The tenders which were approved in the year 1931 numbered 5,500; in the year 1932 they numbered 8,191; in 1933 that figure had increased to 8,643; but, if we are to test how things are getting on up to the actual moment, we must see bow the tenders for the first six months of this year compare. The tenders for the first six months of 1933 were 4,807, and for the first six months of this year they were 6,738; that is to say, an increase of Almost 2,000. It does not end there. Taking it up almost to to-day, the tenders approved for the first fortnight of July of this year numbered 822, whereas the tenders approved for the whole month of July last year numbered only 880, and it looks as if in July we shall get 100 per cent increase. I think I am not overstating it when I say that there is a constantly increasing momentum and intensity in the work of getting on with the new slum clearance houses, and I am satisfied that, returning again to the functioning of the 1933 Act, we could not have got that result, and the even better results that we hope to get in the months ahead of us, unless we had concentrated the attention of the local authorities in the first place on the slum clearance problem.
    The Committee will expect me to say one word on the other provisions of the 1933 Act. It was intended that private enterprise should do the main work of building houses to let for the working classes, and that for that purpose they should receive the assistance of building society loans for a particularly high percentage guaranteed by the State. Let me be perfectly frank. Under that particular provision very little has been done, and only one scheme, of 260 houses, has been approved. That was in Edinburgh; but that does not end the activities of private enterprise. I think the most remarkable new phenomenon in housing in Scotland is the greatly increased activity of private enterprise in building houses of five apartments or under, mainly, of course, to sell. I am not saying that these houses are necessarily working-class houses—I do not make that point—but I do say that the addition of the
    1118
    figures which I am going to give to the total supply of new houses in Scotland must have a very considerable effect. I am not going to dogmatise, but I will say that we are watching what the effect will be with the very greatest possible interest.
    I think it was the year 1927 when the Department first got information as to the number of houses completed by private enterprise. That was, at all events, the first year of accurate statistics. In that year private enterprise completed houses of five apartments and under—I disregard the others—to the number of 1,502; in 1928 it rose to 1,703; and after that, between 1928 and 1932, the figures were lower. In 1932 the number of this class of house completed by unassisted private enterprise was actually 1,456. Now what happened in 1933? That figure of 1,456 rose at a bound to 5,202—very remarkable—and, as far as we can see, that new level of private enterprise construction of houses of five apartments and under is being to a very considerable extent maintained, because in the first six months of this year 1,724 have been completed, which is a higher number for six months than for any whole year before 1933. I said that I was not going to dogmatise, and I have not the material for doing so, but it is a fact that some of these houses approach the capacity of the better paid wage-earning class.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Do they rank for subsidy?
    Mr. SKELTON: No. They are unassisted private enterprise houses. The supply of these houses for the better paid wage-earners will, I believe, have very important results. It is a striking thing that this new level of private enterprise building has been reached and that it has occurred after the introduction of the 1933 Act.
    Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: Is the Under-Secretary trying to draw a moral from the jump in the figures in the last 18 months? Can he make any statement of the rent that is being charged or are the houses only for sale?
    Mr. SKELTON: They are to an enormous extent for sale only. There are a few examples for letting—only 28, I think, for the first quarter of this year. I have scrutinised the rents that are

    1119
    payable for this small proportion, and I find that some of them are approaching working-class levels. I will not say more than that.
    Sir ROBERT SMITH: Would it be possible to give the average price of these houses?
    Mr. SKELTON: It would not be possible now because I have not the figures, but, if any one wishes to pursue this question in subsequent speeches, I will give any details that I can in my reply. I do not want to draw any definite moral. I merely say it is an interesting phenomenon which, I think, will have some relation to the general question of housing.
    Mr. DAVID MASON: Does the Under-Secretary attribute the large increase to the lower cost of materials?
    Mr. SKELTON: I am not going to draw any general deduction. There is a variety of causes, but there is nothing worse than trying to give premature explanations of a phenomenon. Even a scientist would not do that. Let me turn to another feature of the 1933 Act, the £3 subsidy which was for houses to rent to low-paid wage earners living in overcrowded conditions. Here, again, I frankly admit that the results in figures have been disappointing. We have now 1,253 of these houses completed, under construction, or approved. We know that every one of these houses will pull their weight, that the right people will go into them, and that State money is being applied to what we want to apply it to, namely, the assistance of low-paid wage earners whose economic situation compels them to live in overcrowded conditions. We have undertakings from the local authorities that they will select only the low-paid wage earners and people living in overcrowded conditions for these houses, and we shall see when the time comes for paying the subsidies that these undertakings are carried out.
    Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: Will the unemployed be excluded?
    Mr. SKELTON: I do not think so. This is the nearest approach that has been made directly to cater for the re-housing of people who are unemployed. We have never before by legislation fixed a rent at all or fixed a rent at such a low figure. These are the comments I
    1120
    wish to make on the 1933 Act, and that is the situation as I think it can be impartially put before the Committee—this great extension of activity against slum clearance, this extraordinary phenomenon of the increase of unassisted private enterprise building, and the building of the smaller class of house for workers from overcrowded districts under the £3 subsidy. Let me complete this by saying that we have had almost universal expressions of opinion from local authorities that in their experience the £3 subsidy was not high enough.
    I cannot go into the question of future legislation, but I can say that the next stage of our programme is to deal drastically, thoroughly, completely, and we hope finally, with the questions of over-crowding. I cannot deal with the actual provisions because they will have to be in legislative form, but I would say in regard to the £3 subsidy that it has blazed a fresh trail in housing. It has laid down by Statute a maximum limit of rent, and it has laid down that State assistance Should be given to people of low wage-earning capacity and that the people who most need re-housing are those living in over-crowded conditions. Those provisions which surround the £3 subsidy will dominate the considerations of future State assistance to cure over-crowding, and ensure that the assistance of the State will be most wisely applied to the low-paid wage earner. My right hon. Friend and the Department of Health and all connected with Scottish administration, either local or central, are convinced that the problem of over-crowding is peculiarly Scottish, peculiarly dangerous, and one which, as a famous figure said at this Box, brooks no delay.
    In Scotland almost 15 per cent. of our people are living three to a room. The English figure, which I think is worked out on equivalent data, is only some 15 per cent. Therefore, we have here a special Scottish problem. My right hon. Friend and I have said again and again that we are determined next Session to grapple with this problem. I cannot deal with the method which we shall adopt, but I can say that the £3 subsidy of the 1933 Act, which local authorities have pointed out is not in itself sufficient, has blazed the trail along which we must go, and that we must concentrate upon the low wage earner and on seeing that the rent he pays for the house that is built

    1121
    is one which he can afford. We must concentrate on the over-crowded areas in Scotland and clean them out and spread out the people who are living in them. That is the fundamental problem of the social life of Scotland. It is for the purpose of putting the position clearly that I have attempted to deal mainly with housing, and I hope the Committee will feel that the upshot of it all is that, mainly thanks to my right hon. Friend, we have got such a drive in slum clearance as we have never had before, and that no effort of energy or intelligence will be spared to deal effectively next Session with the problem of over-crowding.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. M. MACLEANI think that the Committee will be quite prepared to congratulate the Secretary of State for Scotland and his Under-Secretary on what they consider to be a great impetus in the building of houses in Scotland, and, in their opinion, the building of houses for those who are overcrowded, or are living in overcrowded districts. I think that the Committee will also agree, that while they are to be congratulated on the steps which they have taken, the results are not yet sufficiently complete, or, I should say, sufficiently far advanced to enable us to put forward any really considered opinion as to their value in diminishing the slum conditions of Scotland.
    Although the speech of the Under-Secretary was mainly concerned with housing, I do not think that other questions should be excluded. There are certain other matters which, though not definitely in the category of housing, may be considered to be so closely related to it as to enable the Committee, while discussing the problem put forward by the Under-Secretary, to bring them under review. I think that the Department of Health for Scotland must also be congratulated on the fact that in three different categories of disease there has been a very marked diminution in the number of deaths. Considering the large amount of depression there has been in Scotland, the reduced incomes of the household, and, consequently, the reduced vitality of large numbers of those who are living in overcrowded conditions particularly in working-class areas, the fact that from tuberculosis, for instance, there has been such a marked decline in
    1122
    the death rate is, I think, at least something upon which we can congratulate ourselves. At the same time the increase in deaths from such a complaint as influenza may be considered as due in part to the lowered vitality of the people owing to reduced incomes in households in working-class areas.
    The figures which the Under-Secretary has given us with regard to housing are most interesting. They show, as he has said, a very definite and marked increase within recent years. But may I be permitted to point out that the large numbers of houses which have been built by private enterprise must not be considered as in any marked degree—I will not say "in any way "—affecting the housing conditions of those who form the working classes of Scotland. The five-apartment and four-apartment houses which are being built by private enterprise are not the houses which are being occupied by what one would classify as the working classes of Scotland. As a matter of fact, if one goes through what used to be called the middle-class districts of Glasgow—districts such as Pollokshields, Ibrox, Dowanhill and Dennistoun—you find houses with five, four and three apartments, with boards out inviting intending house occupants to view them with a view to becoming tenants. I think that those of us who represent divisions of Glasgow will at once agree with the statement that those who have been previously resident in that type of house are the individuals who want to occupy the five-apartment and four-apartment houses, mainly of the bungalow type, which have been built in the last two or three years by the private builder in Scotland.
    Therefore, this type of building is really not affecting in any marked degree the overcrowded conditions of the people of Scotland, because it has not yet got down to the working-class districts, where you will still find, as the hon. Member was good enough to admit, 15 per cent. of our population living three to a room, whereas in England the percentage is very markedly lower, namely, two. I think that in itself indicates, that while we can flatter ourselves upon the re-entry, as one might say, of private enterprise into house building, at the same time we cannot flatter ourselves that private enterprise is entering into it in a manner

    1123
    which is going to affect the housing of that particular class of person for which the Housing Acts which we have been passing here since 1919 were intended. They are not building houses for the working classes, and, consequently, in any discussion of the housing problem the houses of that type which are being built by the private builder ought not to be taken into consideration. If the private builder alone continued building, and no other houses were built under the £3 subsidy or by local authorities to meet the needs of the working-class population, the conditions in the working-class districts would remain practically the same, and, as the houses became worse, would become even more intensified.
    Consequently, I cannot agree with the hon. Member if he considers that these houses built by private enterprise are something upon which we can flatter ourselves as indicating in some way a marked increase in the number of houses which are being built for the convenience of those who most require them in Glasgow. I am certain that those who represent divisions of cities like Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen will find that the same problem has arisen in their divisions as we now have in Glasgow. Those who own tenements are complaining bitterly against the local authority being given the subsidy to build working-class houses, when, as a matter of fact, they ought to be complaining against the private builders who are building houses that are attracting tenants from the four-apartment or five-apartment tenement houses to the bungalow type with a garage thrown in.
    There are other matters to be discussed in the Debate, and I do not, therefore, want to take up too much time, because a Scottish day is different from an English day on housing, as practically every Scottish Member wants to take part in the Debate, and in the limited time we have to impose upon ourselves the self-denying ordinance which we used to impose upon ourselves in other days, namely, to make our speeches brief, and so enable as many Scottish Members to speak as can be squeezed into the time at our disposal for the two Debates to-day. Therefore, I leave out other matters upon which I might have spoken, and will put one or two pertinent questions to the Under-Secretary.
    1124
    In a question to-day I brought up once more the matter of the refusal to extend the period during which the old subsidy should be paid to the Glasgow Corporation for a certain number of houses which could not be completed in the stipulated time owing to a trade dispute between the contractors and a section of their employés, namely, the plasterers. On several occasions questions have been put to the right hon. Gentleman, and on each time some reply has been given. I asked last week if it had not been the case that a precedent had already been established for going beyond the period in England. I have here a letter which has been sent on the instructions of a member of the Sheffield Corporation, to the convener of the housing committee of the Glasgow Corporation, which shows the position to be almost identical, as far as I can make out from the letter, with the circumstances which are prevalent in Glasgow with regard to houses which have been left uncompleted. If I may be allowed to do so, I will read the text of the letter:
    "Town Hall, Sheffield.
    21st June, 1934.
    Alderman Gascoigne has asked me to give you some information with reference to a number of houses which the Minister of Health decided should rank for subsidy after the 1924 Act lapsed. The number of houses in question was 472. The Corporation had purchased a large estate to accommodate about 4,500 houses, and when it was decided that no more subsidy should he paid under the 1924 Act, land sufficient to accommodate 358 houses was left over. The street and sewer works had already been completed. and unless the Corporation was able to sell the land or build houses upon it, it would have to be regarded as a heavy loss. After a good deal of pressure by the Estates Committee through the Town Clerk, the Minister eventually decided to allow the subsidy in respect of 472 houses as above stated, leaving 86 to be completed at the Corporation's own expense. It was pointed out by the Minister that a certain sum of money for additional subsidy had been allocated to the whole country,"—
    this is the point to which I would draw the attention of the Under-Secretary —
    "and Sheffield's share would he the amount as represented by the subsidy on the 472 houses. It is the Corporation's intention to build the additional 86 houses to complete the estate. and sanction has already been obtained."
    I submit that, in face of a letter containing such information, it is surely justifiable on the part of the housing committee of Glasgow and the Members of

    1125
    Parliament who represent Glasgow, to press for a clearer explanation as to why, in a dispute such as we have had in Glasgow, where a large number of houses have been left uncompleted, and no fault is attached to, or laid upon the shoulders of, the Glasgow Corporation, they should be made to suffer and lose what I am informed is a capital value of practically £280,000, spread over the years, taking the number of years for which the subsidy for each house would have to be paid. I suggest that this letter shows that a precedent has been established for continuing the subsidy, and I suggest that the case I have raised might be looked into in order to see whether or not these uncompleted houses in Glasgow might not also rank for subsidy—the houses which were affected by the recent plasterers' dispute.
    Mr. ALBERT RUSSELL: Does the hon. Member know what additional rate will have to be imposed on the City of Glasgow if it does not get this subsidy?
    Mr. MACLEAN: I am informed that the entire loss will amount to £2280,0100 if it does not get this subsidy. I think I gave that figure. Another matter on which I would like the Minister to give us some information arises out of the report of the Public Accounts Committee and concerns the houses at Rosyth and the steel houses which benefited by grants and subsidies from the Government in the past. According to the report of the Public Accounts Committee certain matters come up again, and I would like to know whether there has been any report made upon this class of house, and whether any further statement can be made with regard to any other class of steel houses, in order that we may clear up satisfactorily the position in regard to these houses.
    Mr. SKELTON: I will answer that question by letter to-morrow, so that the hon. Member may have the information before the Debate is resumed—that is, with regard to the Rosyth houses.
    Mr. MACLEAN: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I have only to add that I hope that in the new Bill which the Minister has visualised we shall have something which will give a greater incentive to local authorities to go ahead with houses and not leave the position as it seems to have been left since the
    1126
    slum clearance proposals. I am certain that everyone is satisfied with the way in which the local authorities all over Scotland have worked in with the desires of the Scottish Office, and if the hon. Gentleman could send round a flying squad, send round some members of the Treasury to increase the subsidy and enable the Scottish local authorities to build more houses, both in the towns and in the rural areas, I feel sure that within the lifetime of everyone here the slum problem as we know it, and the housing problem as we have known it for so many years. would entirely disappear.
    4.20 p.m.
    Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR:
    I am sure we all hope that the Under-Secretary will take heed of the hint thrown out by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean). In the War there was a famous and gallant officer who rode round among the Arab tribes with his saddle-bags filled with gold and induced them to rise and fight on our side, and I am sure that if the Under-Secretary of State rode round with promises of large subsidies to the local authorities we should get the housing problem quickly solved. But I am afraid he would find it a difficult task to get a commission from the higher authorities, and, therefore, we must discuss the housing problem within the limits of the situation, financial and legislative, as we have it. I agree with the two hon. Members who have preceded me that the housing problem is not only a vital question, but that it is, of all the questions dealt with in the Annual Report for 1933 of the Department of Health, the most urgent at the present time, and before they spoke I had intended to concentrate my remarks on that topic, with, however, this one exception, that wished to refer briefly to the question of water supplies, which is a matter of great urgency in the part of the country which I represent.
    Not only was there a drought last year but, after a wet spring, we now have another dry summer, and the situation is really serious in the Highlands of Scotland. We have had a Bill to deal with rural water supplies, but I hope the Secretary of State, when considering the claims of the large number of hungry, or, rather, I should say, thirsty clients for the aid which he is able to dispense,

    1127
    will remember that in these Highland counties there are people who are actually drinking water from peat bogs and carting it long distances, and their case ought to have special attention. I am speaking not only for my own counties; all Highland Members will agree that the claims of these scattered communities, living in homes of low rateable value, ought to have both urgent and sympathetic consideration.
    I will pass now to the question with which I intend to deal this afternoon, the housing question. I remarked when I rose that it was a particularly urgent problem, and it is urgent for a great many reasons, some of which were dealt with by the two hon. Gentlemen who have preceded me, but a new factor has emerged since we discussed the subject last year. The problem is now seen to be one of even greater magnitude than we believed when considering the report of the Department for 1932. In that report there was a careful analysis of the problem as it then appeared, and it was estimated that 6,100 houses were required annually to replace houses which were gradually becoming unfit and to meet the normal growth of population. That would be 30,500 houses in five years. In addition, it was estimated that there was an actual shortage of 53,000 houses. Adding those two figures together, that meant that over a period of five years, we should require 83,500 houses. That was the size of the problem last year. Since then the local authorities have, with five exceptions—five out of 228—submitted plans of their housing requirements for the years 1934-38, and the total number of houses required is no less than 127,540, which is 50 per cent. more than the figure we discussed last year.
    What progress are we making in dealing with this problem? A housing Measure was passed last year which was to deal with the problem both of slum clearance and overcrowding in Scotland, and I wish to know whether it has really increased the number of houses built and the rate at which they are being built. The Department of Health say in their report this year, and it was repeated by the Under-Secretary, that housing continued at an accelerated rate in 1933 and that the output of houses was a record for any year since the national housing effort began in 1919. That re-
    1128
    port is dated December, 1933, though it only reaches our hands in the middle of 1934. I venture to say, and I am glad the Under-Secretary has come back to hear me say it, that that statement which, as I say, he repeated at the Box this afternoon, does not give a true reflection of the trend of house building in Scotland at the present time. In making that assertion, I base myself on answers given to Parliamentary questions, and I would say how grateful I am to the Under-Secretary and to the officials of the Department for the extraordinary courtesy with which they have provided me with a vast number of detailed figures.
    The statement which the Under-Secretary made this afternoon is true, but the statement I am going to make now is also true. While as a result of the concerted action of the local authorities and the Department the number of houses under construction increased all through 1932, and reached the peak figure in April, 1933, when 24,269 houses were under construction, the total number has since then steadily declined. I am not now dealing with slum clearance. The Under-Secretary referred to the flying squadron, and I would pay a tribute to the work of that flying squadron of experts sent out to advise local authorities. I agree that it was a good idea, and the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary deserve our congratulations. But when the Under-Secretary tells us that it is helping to enlarge and to accelerate programmes I can only say that his statement is not reflected in the returns as they are furnished to us in this House. Let me take the number of assisted houses under construction at the end of each month. The peak month was April, 1933; that was the end of the great effort which started in January, 1932, and the figure reached in April, 1933, was 24,269. Since then there has been a steady decline, and at the end of June of this year the figure was 13,515. That is a decline of over 10,000 houses, or of more than 45 per cent. in the number of assisted houses.
    Mr. SKELTON: In quoting those figures, as the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly justified in doing, he should recollect that the slum clearance programme only began to materialise in January, and that it is only now that its

    1129
    effects are being reproduced. I believe that we shall very soon approach another peak.
    Sir A. SINCLAIR: I am obliged to the Under-Secretary. The very last thing I would do is to misrepresent him or be unfair to him in argument, and I hope, if he thinks I am, that he will intervene again and stop me. I am coming to the slum clearance figures in a moment, and I agree with the Under-Secretary that there is a more healthy turn to the slum clearance figures in more recent months, but I am now dealing with the actual output of houses since April, 1933, and I say that at a time when the reports of the local authorities show that the need for houses is 50 per cent. greater than it was last year, the output of houses is 45 per cent. smaller.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is that when the right hon. Gentleman was the Secretary of State?
    Sir A. SINCLAIR: I hope the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) will not try to make this into a personal controversy. If he wants to challenge my administration, I shall be delighted to defend it, but I cannot believe that that would be interesting to the Committee, at this stage. I particularly want to avoid going into that, and of taking a personal view. I am sorry if the hon. Member wishes to force me into taking a personal view of this problem.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Be sure your sins will find you out, that's all.
    Sir A. SINCLAIR: I was dealing with the number of houses constructed last month, and comparing that with the situation in April last year.
    Mr. K. LINDSAY: Am Ito understand that the right hon. Gentleman is saying that there is a diminution under the Act of 1924?
    Sir A. SINCLAIR: I am giving the total number of houses constructed in Scotland under all Acts, and I am saying that when the need for houses is 50 per cent. more, the total number of houses being constructed in Scotland under all Housing Acts is 45 per cent. less. My statement is as true as that of the Department, but it is more significant, because it shows for the whole range of
    1130
    housebuilding what is the trend of the Government's policy under the 1933 Act.
    Let me break up the problem and turn to one or two of the particular aspects of it, and first to rural houses. As regards reconditioning of those houses, the policy of the right hon. Gentleman is doing well. The number of houses which are being reconditioned is being kept up, and I would like to pay a tribute to the right hon. Gentleman in regard to that. As regards the replacement of uninhabitable houses, the rate of progress is too slow and too patchy, and. the speed at which the work is going on is tending to slacken. It improved about a year ago, and 1933 was a good year, but unfortunately the latest figures, which I received in answer to a Parliamentary question, show that it is falling off.
    When the 1933 Act was passing through this House we were very much concerned about rural houses, and we asked particularly that the Government should ensure that effective measures would be taken to deal with the large number of uninhabitable houses in rural areas. The Under-Secretary of State himself described the replacement of uninhabitable houses as the major problem in the rural districts of Scotland, and he gave it as his impression that the county authorities were making adequate use of the Act. The total which I have here shows that out of 33 county authorities, 16 have made no use of the Act in the past year, and of those 16, the majority are Highland and thoroughly rural counties. I am now dealing with the 1930 Act. The counties which are not making progress are those in which the need for the replacement of uninhabitable houses is greatest. I might add that another five counties have only had one scheme each in the last year, and in some cases that scheme covers only four houses—in more than one case, at any rate. It is not surprising, therefore, that the number of houses constructed to replace uninhabitable houses in county areas has declined from 647 to 518, a decline of 130 houses as compared with last year, for the last quarter for which figures are available, that is, March, April and May. I therefore urge that greater use should be made of the powers available to deal with this problem.
    I come to the question of the cost of houses. Speaking on 10th April last year, the Under-Secretary told us that the

    1131
    three-apartment houses in Glasgow were costing £231 and that in Edinburgh the figure was more striking, £243, for a three-apartment house. He told us that there was a progressive decline in house construction, and he asserted that he was satisfied that the fall in housing costs was by no means at an end. We took the opposite view and said that the more successful the Act was the more certain it was to raise housing costs. We are not surprised that the cost is now up in Glasgow to £248 and in Edinburgh to £262. I cannot help thinking that if housing is accelerated, as we hope it is to be, we face the certainty that housing costs will rise. That is one of the reasons why we said that the £3 subsidy would prove to be wholly inadequate to provide the houses required. I have no doubt that this upward trend is one reason why local authorities are so reluctant to use the £3 subsidy. There were two main clauses in the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, in one of which a guarantee was given to enable building corporations to build houses by private enterprise, and under the other, the £3 subsidy was given to local authorities. I would ask the Secretary of State what is the position with regard to the guarantee. The Under-Secretary of State said to-day, and I was informed in answer to a question on 26th June:
    "One scheme, comprising 260 houses, has been approved for guarantee purposes under Section 3 of the Act of 1933. Of these houses, which were approved in April last, 20 have been completed, approximately 180 are under construction, and the remainder have not been begun."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th June, 1934; col. 973, Vol. 291.]
    To-day am informed that the number of houses completed with the help of the guarantee was 20 and the number then approved—that was on 30th June of last year—for guarantee purposes, but not begun, was nil. What has happened to the remaining 240 houses? Is there some reason why they are not being proceeded with?
    The private enterprise Clause of the 1933 Act has been of no effect. The Under-Secretary of State tells us that without any guarantee or any assistance of any sort or kind, the very large and notable number of private enterprise houses built has been 5,200. I agree that that is a very good thing. It must be a good thing to have houses being built all
    1132
    over the country, because the filtering up process must be going on to some extent. Some of us may have put too much weight upon the filtering up process in the past, but that process must be operating to some extent. Other houses must be being cleared for people who cannot afford to have those houses, and that will take some people off the housing market and allow others to filter in to the better houses. Not that this development is remarkable as the Under-Secretary of State tried to persuade us this afternoon. I remember that this time last year, when we were discusisng this very Estimate, the Under-Secretary of State told us that 14 corporations had been formed and that an output of 4,000 houses was expected from them. As there had been 1,456 houses the previous year, it was not unnatural that we should expect something in the order of 5,600 this year. This is no criticism of the hon. Gentleman. I think last year he rightly appreciated the prospect. The guarantee part of the 1933 Act has not been used. The houses are being built by private enterprise as a result of the fall of prices.
    I come to the other Clause in regard to the £3 subsidy. The Under-Secretary says that that Clause blazed a trail; am not quite sure what trail it blazed, but in so far as the idea was to concentrate the subsidy assistance upon the lower-paid wage earner—that was the idea which, as he well knows, was in our minds for some time before the introduction of the 1933 Act—it was a sound and a good idea and it received a notable promotion in that Act from the acceptance by the Government of an Amendment put down by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) to restrict the subsidy to houses the rent of which did not exceed 6s. per week. The Government went much farther than that last year. They told us that this subsidy was ample to enable houses to be built to meet the needs of the lower-paid wage earners. I am afraid that that has not proved to be the case. I need not quote the Report of the Department of Health, because the Under-Secretary himself has said that the local authorities are now demanding that greater help should be given to them in their attempt to solve their statutory problem of making provision for the housing of the working classes. This part of the Act has been described by Sir William Whyte as a dead letter, and I

    1133
    am afraid that that is not an exaggerated description. The Under-Secretary has said that 1,253 houses have been built or are under construction under this Act, but of course that is only as many as were sometimes completed in a month under the regime before the Act of 1933 came into operation. Those 1,253 houses are the total since the Act came into force. Indeed, in 1933 the total decline in the number of tenders approved each month was nearly 30 per cent., or at any rate more than 25 per cent., as compared with 1932.
    I come now to the question of slum clearance. We asserted last year that the idea that you can switch off ordinary housing, and concentrate all your resources on slum clearance, was unsound, and I am very glad to find that the Government are coming to that view and are going to deal with overcrowding under new proposals, because I think it is generally admitted that it is no use concentrating on slum clearance if, while you are dealing with slum clearance you leave new slums constantly being created in your rear by overcrowding. I agree with the statement in the Report of the Department of Health that great advantages are obtained where slum clearance and overcrowding are dealt with by a co-ordinated effort, and it was the necessity for that co-ordinated effort that we on these benches urged when the Bill of 1933 was under discussion in the House last year.
    I have quoted figures dealing with the falling off in the amount of ordinary housing done in Scotland, and I come now to the figures of slum clearance. It is true that the total number of slum clearance houses under construction in June, 1934, showed an increase, as compared with June, 1933, of exactly 900. That is an increase of about one-ninth, but it is by no means the greatest increase that has been shown, for a comparison as between June, 1932, when the number under construction was 5,867, and June, 1933, when the number was 8,899, shows an increase, not of one-ninth, but of 50 per cent. I agree, however, with the statement of the Under-Secretary, that there are signs that the curve, having sagged, is now beginning to rise, and I hope that that tendency will,continue. I am sure that, if there is anything that any hon. Member in any quarter of the House can do to help in that direction,
    1134
    it will be very gladly done. At the same time, however, we not only want to see a concentration on slum clearance, but are eagerly awaiting the proposals which are to be forthcoming in the autumn, and which we said last year ought to have been forthcoming then, under the Measure of 1933, to deal with the problem of overcrowding.
    I would only say in conclusion that the magnitude of the problem is, as I have said, greater than any of us realised last year, and greater than the Department of Health itself realised; that the urgency is very great from the standpoint both of the health and of the social contentment of the people; that there is here a great opportunity for a real stimulus to industrial revival in Scotland; and that this is the right way to do it, by increasing the purchasing power of the people, by giving them work to do—work of real national importance, for it is going to help, not merely the building and all the allied industries, but every trade in the country, including agriculture, if purchasing power is increased in that way. I hope that the Government will go forward whole-heartedly with the solution of this problem, and assure them that we shall await with keen expectation the proposals which the Under-Secretary tells us will be introduced in the autumn.
    4.51 p.m.
    Sir SAMUEL CHAPMAN: I desire to go a little further than my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), and really, not half-heartedly, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and his most able Under-Secretary on the report which they are able to present to the House this afternoon. The Secretary of State, if I may presume to say so, is going about things in the right way. He has here an able Under-Secretary, who has been taking his place, and he is getting about and seeing for himself what is going on and what; is wanted. I know enough of the political history of Greenock to know that there was a former Member for Greenock whom his friends designated as the Member for Scotland. That may be news to some of my friends here. His name was Mr. Dunlop. I have thought many times, as I have seen my right hon. Friend's activities reported in the Press, that it can now again be said that we have a Member for Greenock who is also Member for Scotland.

    1135
    I must say a ward also about my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. Nobody in the House has known him for as long a time as I have. I have known him ever since he was a boy at school at Glen-almond, and have watched his rise. He has come on wonderfully well. He has the right spirit. As we are a little family party here this afternoon, I will tell the Committee that my hon. Friend's father was a great friend of a statesman who once said that to improve the social conditions of the people should be the first object of a statesman. I will not say who that was, but anyone who is acquainted with political history will know. I am delighted at the confidence and determination which my hon. Friend has expressed this afternoon that, so far as he can, and so far as the Secretary of State can, they will root out the slums, and thus bring about one of the greatest social reforms for which we have all been longing. My hon. Friend is there to do the job, and he will have the support of Members from all parts of Scotland.
    The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who is sitting near me, and who was first elected to the House at the same time as I was, represents a very different constituency from mine. I do not think there are any two Scottish constituencies that are more dissimilar than South Edinburgh and Gorbals. I have said before in the House, and I have told my constituents time after time, that it is the duty of constituencies like my own always to remember that their first duty is to try to ameliorate the condition of those parts of Scotland where the people are less happily housed than we are in South Edinburgh. South Edinburgh is a garden city. Gorbals is anything but a garden city, but South Edinburgh can help Gorbals, and, indeed, the whole of Scotland can help to root out those black spots which we know to exist in various parts of our country.
    They have existed even in South Edinburgh itself. Edinburgh is an old city, where the houses in the past were built more like castles, and it takes a long time to root out these old slums. But the Town Council of Edinburgh have been acting with great foresight and doing their part in this greatest of all social reforms—the clearing out of slums and the provision of decent accommodation for those who are living under less
    1136
    fortunate conditions than their neighbours. The city now covers the largest area of any town in Scotland. I daresay that may be news to my friends from the west. Its area is even larger than that of Glasgow, namely, 32,000 acres. During the last 13 years, the town council have carried out many new housing schemes, including five slum improvement schemes, on land under their jurisdiction. They have expended no less than £6,000,000 in erecting 12,000 new houses for some 48,000 people, and in one year, 1933, they have spent no less than £750,000. Since 1923 they have been engaged in slum clearances, and in Edinburgh alone over 5,000 families have been removed from slums and put into decent houses. The slum improvement schemes are progressing at a rapid rate, and, in addition, it is intended, during each of the next five years, to re-house 1,000 families from insanitary and overcrowded houses. It can safely be said that in a few years Edinburgh, which is famed for its magnificent outward appearance, will also be famed when one goes more minutely into details—that the slums of Edinburgh will be cleared, and the inhabitants of the city will be decently housed, as becomes the majestic and romantic capital that it is.
    I remember walking round the slums of London with Lord Shaftesbury more than half-a-century ago, and hearing him speak in the same spirit in which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary spoke just now, and I am delighted to be here this afternoon to hear my hon. Friend say that the Government are going to put their whole heart into this matter. I, for one, heartily congratulate them on the determination which they have shown. During the last 50 years the face of Scotland has been changed; during the last 10 years the face of Edinburgh has been changed; and we shall go on doing the good work to which we have set our hands, because, as Samuel Johnson said, it is the first test of a civilised nation that there should be decent treatment of the poor. That is a phrase that has worked into all our minds. We are not only social reformers because it is the right thing that we should have social reform and place those in less fortunate circumstances than ourselves in decent conditions; it is the highest statesmanship that we should not have these black spots up and down the land and our people should

    1137
    be what they have always been, people of good natured character on which the great prosperity and soundness of our country rests.
    5.1 p.m.
    Mr. BURNETT: It is very gratifying that the Secretary of State is able to present such a record of advance in the matter of slum clearance as we have in this report. At a time when the cost of materials is low and money is cheap it is doubly satisfactory to know that we have had a record year and that the output of houses completed nearly tops 21,000, a figure considerably in excess of the peak year before. It must have meant a great deal of staff work on the part of the Health Department, on which they are to be congratulated. But when we go on to the next paragraph in the Housing Report dealing with the output by private enterprise, there is distinctly room for disappointment. It may be a record, but we should like to see a very much larger record. In England 266,000 houses were built, 208,000 without State assistance. That is nearly 40 times what has been done in Scotland. Of the English houses, 77,000 were C class houses for the lower-paid workers. We in Scotland have not been able to get these houses, which are most required, by private enterprise. I hope before long this will be possible, but certainly so Far it seems to me that the reduction of the subsidies has not met with the corresponding answer from private enterprise that we should like. This is acknowledged to a certain extent in the introductory remarks to the report, which refer to the difficulties in the way of a substantial contribution from private enterprise. I hope the further methods that are visualised in the report will mean that before long we shall have this adequate supply of houses at rents which the lower-paid wage earners can afford.
    There is no doubt that in certain of the large cities this overcrowding is the biggest question of all, and I feel some agreement with the statement that I heard a Chief Medical Officer of Health make that he considered that the tackling of overcrowding was the most important thing now, because overcrowding had the most disastrous results on the community in general. To overcrowding can be traced very largely the cases of sexual offences, incest and
    1138
    offences against morality. Its effect is likely to be serious on the physical and moral well-being of the next generation. It is certainly a very big problem. We have to deal with this drift from the country to the towns that is going on to a very large extent. It is due partly, no doubt, to agriculture depression and partly also to educational facilities in the cities, but one very large cause is the larger relief allowance that is given in the cities than in the surrounding country. We can see this reflected in the school roll during last year. In my constituency we had within a school year an addition to the city school roll of something like 800 children of school age who have been transferred from schools in one of the surrounding counties. That would mean 300 or 400 families who have come into the town leaving out of account families with no children of school age.
    Provision for this big influx is certainly a serious matter. We see it also in the waiting list for council houses. At the end of 1932, 1,090 of those on the council list were overcrowding cases. At the end of 1933 there were 1,340 overcrowding cases among those on the roll. These overcrowding cases vary from half an adult overcrowded to six arid a-half adults overcrowded, and there are 625 cases in which there was no proper segregation of sexes. These figures have been checked and are up-to-date, and they reveal the very serious problem that we are up against. It is a very difficult question because 260 on the list have incomes of less than 30s., which means that they have no prospect of paying the rent that is charged for council houses.
    I have a long list of overcrowding cases. I will take one—husband and wife and seven sons, aged 26, 23, 19, 17, 15, 11, 10 and two daughters aged 14 and nine, a total of 11 persons, or the equivalent of 10£, adults, in two rooms in which there is accommodation for four adults only. That is a typical case, but I prefer rather to speak of cases with which I personally come into touch. A large number of those who have come to me for help in connection with housing are not so much cases of difficulty in connection with slum conditions as cases of difficulty in connection with overcrowding. I should like to quote one case of a father with four children sleeping in one large bed, mother and infant on the

    1139
    sofa, and one boy who does night work sleeping during the day. This family was too large to be put into a three-roomed house, but the income was too small for a four-roomed house. They have had to stay in that one-roomed house because they could not get a three-roomed houses. They have been moved recently, one member of the family being boarded out. That is a typical case of difficulty. I should like to mention a rather similar difficulty showing the need for two-roomed houses. I know it is said that two-roomed houses are apt to develop into slums, and the report of the Royal Commission speaks of slum areas being due to the building of two-roomed houses, but there are a certain number who only require two-roomed houses and who cannot afford a big rent.
    There is the large question of sub-lets. Many young married people have gone into single sub-let rooms, they have been unable to get any other accommodation, and the family has gradually increased. They may not be sufficiently overcrowded to be given a three-roomed house. For them it would be a great improvement to get a two-roomed house, but the number of two-roomed houses is strictly limited. The Department as a rule does not sanction more than 20 per cent. The housing committee at a recent council meeting recommended 16 per cent., and there was one amendment for 25 per cent. and another for 50 per cent. It was stated that it was more expensive for the council to build two-roomed houses than three-roomed houses, because the State contribution was only £7 I0s. instead of £12 10s., and in each house a scullery, wash-house and bathroom had to be put in, so that the loss of £5 in the subsidy more than counterbalanced the saving on one bedroom. It did not make it an economic proposition to charge less for a two-roomed house than for a three-roomed house. A certain amount of latitude might be allowed. We see the possibility of the two-roomed house coming down to a slum, but we want to help the large number of applicants for whom a two-roomed house would mean improved conditions. The sub-lets numbered 2,500 in 1925 and now they are more than double that.
    I think we should be chary as to demolition until we are certain that we have
    1140
    the amount of accommodation that we require to deal with this overcrowding. During last year Aberdeen built 578 houses, and in February scheduled 316 for demolition. That means an increase of 252 houses on the year, which will certainly not meet the increase in overcrowding. Certainly some shelter is better than none. We have the tent dwellers to deal with. At the end of last summer they were a terrible problem. Some of them no doubt came from sublets from Which they had been turned out for arrears of rent. When winter came on no provision could be made for them. All the accommodation was fully taxed. If severe weather had come on early, there would have been fatalities. As it was there were cases of illness through exposure. This year the problem is likely to be worse still. Last year it was met simply through the fact that a large jute works happened to close shortly before. Temporary accommodation was made available, arid 47 families were put up there. That will not happen this year. I think the Department should be very careful how it sanctions demolition in cities where overcrowding is exceedingly rife, as it is with us. These are points which do not detract from the congratulations due to the Secretary of State for the satisfactory progress that is being made in housing. I hope that he will be able to increase our building capacity as the years go on and that before long we may see a different picture from what is presented to-day.
    5.15 p.m.
    Mr. McGOVERN: I am rather sorry to be the first to strike a discordant note, with perhaps the exception of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean), after the speeches which have been made congratulating the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary in connection with the progress which has been made in relation to housing. Hon. Members can find means for congratulation if they are anxious to overlook the facts which exist in our midst and to take part in a sort of pleasant Sunday afternoon meeting where they pat one another on the back and tell each other how well they are doing, and then, on going outside, realise that they have been acting the hypocrite inside the assembly and saying that which is not true. I refuse to accept the point of view which is always maintained in this House when a Minister gets up at

    1141
    that Box and attempts to contrast the figures of the previous year with those of the present year. He says, "We have surpassed the figure of last year by 200," and then proceeds to congratulate himself and his Government on what has been achieved. If hon. Members were only brought into direct touch and relationship with the houses which are tolerated in our midst, they would not congratulate Ministers in this House and express satisfaction at the progress which has been made. I make that statement with regard to any Government. No satisfactory progress has been made in connection with housing. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman) said that 50 years ago he heard an eminent statesman speak in the same spirit as has been in evidence at that Box to-day. If progress in the next 50 years be as rapid as that during the 50 years of which he spoke, I am sure that people living 50 years hence will have no reason to congratulate themselves upon the progress made.
    The attitude of mind of the people in this country is amazing. I have never been able to understand it. The whole nation just now has been aroused by what is called a trunk murder. A man has committed a "trunk murder." He has destroyed a human life, and the whole nation is roused to a spirit of frenzy and passion, and, I believe, rightly so. I do not attempt to say that that is a wrong thing. When you contrast the fact that an individual is being pursued with the whole power and authority of the law and the nation, with the power of the Press of the country offering large monetary inducements to people to divulge information which may lead to the arrest or conviction of the person responsible for that murder, with the fact that we are allowing to exist slums which are destroying the lives of children by tens of thousands, and allowing people to draw money from those slums instead of prosecuting them, I cannot understand the attitude of mind and the self-satisfaction which exist in this country.
    When we require. money for the Air Force, as we shall do shortly, we get it without question because of the overwhelming number of Government supporters in this House. When we want money for military and naval escapades, we get it, because it is for the purpose of defending the selfish bondholding
    1142
    interests of the ruling classes of the country. The Noble Lord the Member for Perth (Lord Scone) smiles. He has a good stake in the country and can afford to smile. When money is required to defend the interests of these people it is readily forthcoming. But when money is wanted in order to defend the life and limb of the people who have contributed their all and have helped to create the wealth which others enjoy, it is given in a niggardly, cheeseparing fashion. Every penny is scrutinised and examined and put under a miscroscope before it is allowed to go through.
    The way to deal with the housing problem is to appoint a Minister and to say to him, "Your job, without any restrictions by the slum landlords or landowners, is to re-house the overcrowded population and the slum dwellers of the country, irrespective of the cost or the inconvenience. If in five or ten years you cannot show us that you have re-housed the whole of the overcrowded and slum population of this country, you will be led out and placed against a wall to face a firing squad. You will pay the penalty because of your lack of ability in that direction." That is the way to deal with the housing problem. You should not give Ministers the opportunity of going down and meeting local authorities, and having luncheon or tea with the Lord Provost and a nice round-table talk about what they are prepared to do. I am not saying this of the present Secretary of State, but of all people in these positions. They go down generally to meet the people who are anxious to draw money from slums, or who have bonds in slums or some special selfish interest in the continuance of slums in our cities. I would not allow local authorities or the sanitary and health departments to have the last word with regard to the houses which require to be destroyed. The hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett) came direct to the point when he said that we should not schedule houses for demolition before we bad provided the houses in which to re-house the people. That is exactly the condition that has kept us where we are to-day. If we had said to the local authority, "Your duty is to provide 30,000 houses in five years' time, and if you do not do it we will put up the houses and charge you with the cost in your area," we should have got further than we have done to-day.

    1143
    The hon. Gentleman mentioned flying squads rushing round the country seeing to the erection of houses. What is wanted to work in co-operation with a flying squad is a bombing squad—that is where the Air Force is required—to go round and, after warning tenants in the slum areas, bomb those areas and destroy them as being a danger to the life of the people of the country. would appoint a medical man who under the supervision of the Scottish Office, should go round independently of local authorities and schedule for demolition houses in which it is not fit for human beings to live. We find that the health department of the local authority acts in conjunction and co-operation with the housing committee. A responsible man in Glasgow said to me, "We cannot condemn. We agree that a large number of the houses are not fit for human habitation, but we cannot condemn them because there are no houses in which to accommodate the people."
    Certain interests in the local authorities are anxious that no houses should be built at all because they would compete with the slum type of house in which they are interested. There are two sections even in the Tory party on the local administrative authority. There are the contracting elements who want houses built so long as they obtain the contract for the building of them, and there are those who own the slums and do not want new houses because the people would then leave their slums and go into better houses. There is a tug-of-war between these sections. It used to be a joke in Glasgow that the convenor on the Housing Committee was a building contractor, and that there was a. master plumber, a master glazier, a master joiner, a master painter, and somebody else representing paints and oils, and slates, and, in fact every type of thing one could mention. They were people, if one cared to say it, who were more anxious to direct attention to their selfish interests than they were to the interests of the community.
    The Under-Secretary has said that the number of houses scheduled for demolition as unfit for habitation was 61,000 for the whole of Scotland. I could almost find that number in Glasgow alone. could show the Secretary of State individual houses, and say to him, "What
    1144
    do you think of that?" and I believe that he would say without hesitation, "It ought not to be tolerated in a civilised community." It is simply throwing dust in the eyes of the Committee when the Department attempts to make us believe that 61,000 houses are all that are required. I have sent a. letter to-day to the housing department in Glasgow dealing with a case of overcrowding in which there are 14 people living in a two-roomed house. The man in question has had his application before the authorities for a considerable period, but overcrowding has not been dealt with. It is no good the Minister standing at that Box and saying, "We had an Act last year, but it has failed, and we think that something else will have to be done in the Autumn or next Summer."
    I do not care what kind of Government tackles this question. No Government in recent times has had greater authority than the present Government to deal with these problems because they have the greatest majority ever experienced by any Government. Their supporters are prepared with lamblike docility to accept anything if the Government only say that it is a proper and necessary thing for the good of the nation. If the work were entrusted to me, and I was told, "You have 10 years in which to do the job, and we will give you complete liberty to go ahead with the rehousing of the whole of the overcrowded and slum population," I would stake my life on the completion of the task. It can be carried through, but it cannot be carried through merely by saying that something is being done year after year to meet the problem. I have only been in this House four years, but year after year I have heard the same type of speeches, with hon. Members always getting up and patting the Minister on the back and telling him that he is a good fellow and is doing a great work.
    The hon. Member for North Aberdeen spoke of the offences which occur in society, of which nobody knows better than the legal Members of this House. The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. J. Reid) and the hon. and learned Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stevenson) and others attend the courts more regularly than ever I can hope to do, but I have been a sufficient number of times to be convinced that a great deal of the immorality in society to-day arises

    1145
    from the fact that there is no separate accommodation for the male members of the household. I know of one case where five people slept in one bed, all of them adults. The stepdaughter gave birth to a child. All these people had to sleep in one bed. It is not the father who is responsible but society that is responsible for what is going on, and you are tolerating it. You have the power and the authority. These helpless people cannot help themselves. They are living under these terrible conditions. You have been given the authority and the power to deal with the housing problem, but each successive Government has failed to deal with it in a proper manner.
    I would ask hon. Members to recollect the great drive that there was during the War to destroy life. If only 50 per cent. of that drive were put into the saving of human life, we should accomplish something in our day and generation. I urge the Minister not to be carried away by the statement that there has been a great work accomplished. You have not touched the fringe of the problem. The 1913 houses are now 21 years old. There is a continual increase in the population which has to be dealt with. Overcrowding and the slums have to be dealt with. The Government come along and say, "We have built something like 20,000 houses, and we congratulate ourselves that we are doing a great job." I do not think that they are doing a great job. It is no satisfaction to me to hear the Minister say that they have built 250 more houses this year than last year. I have never been able to get any satisfaction out of compliments of that kind. Each successive Minister "Should be tested, just as a tradesman is tested by an ordinary employer. The tradesman is expected to do his best in his job. If he is not an efficient tradesman, he is thrown out, without consideration of the consequences. I would apply the same test to the Minister who is responsible for housing. I would give the Minister power, or I would give some man authority to deal with housing. I would say: "It is your job to rehouse the slum population and the overcrowded population. I will give you 10 years, if you like." The penalty on that housing director if he failed to accomplish the job would be the firing squad.
    I could comment on many other things in the report, but I agree that the
    1146
    housing problem is of the most tremendous importance to the people. I am not prepared to argue that those who are providing houses, 5,000 or 6,000 houses, for selling, are not meeting a certain demand; they are. I give them credit for everything that is being accomplished. We were criticised during the Kilmarnock election. It was said that the Independent Labour party members had the rents fixed too low and that no houses would be built. Our answer is not that the rent was fixed too low but that the subsidy was too low. If the subsidy had been higher we could have given to many thousands of people the satisfaction and guarantee of a home. Mankind requires a home. It is all very well for the hon. Member for North Aberdeen to talk about tents. Those who have built mansions and palaces for the rich to live in cannot to-day get houses to live in. They create wealth. We talk in this House about doing something for the poorer classes. I say to hon. Members, the poorer classes have housed you. Surely, they are entitled to be housed themselves.
    I appeal to the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary, who have shown initiative and drive, to apply their minds to the housing problem and to remember that there are tens of thousands of children who are being destroyed every year for lack of a decent house to live in, for lack of sun and air. Children go to school with their minds dulled, unable to do the task allotted to them because they have not had proper rest and sleep in a foul, deadly-laden atmosphere. I ask the Minister to remember that he has the power, and if he has the drive he can provide houses for people. Scotland is looking to the Scottish Office to get a drive on, to arise from its lethargy and to recognise that they have a public conscience behind them. For 20 or 30 years the job was to arouse the spirit of the nation to a conscious interest in housing. That spirit has been aroused and Ministers have only to get into harness and to get on with the job. I appeal to them to get on with the work of rehousing the population and giving some comfort to the miserable thousands who to-day are living under conditions which are not fit for the brute beasts of the field.
    5.37 p.m.
    Miss H0RSBRUGH: I thoroughly agree with the remark of the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) when he said that Scotland is looking to the Secretary of State to deal as it has never been dealt with before with the housing problem of Scotland. From all parts of the House men and women of all parties are anxious to see this problem dealt with and are realising the appalling conditions in which so many of our fellow citizens live to-day. The difficulty is not merely the realisation of that fact but the method by which the problem is to be solved. The hon. Member for Shettleston suggested that it might be done in 10 years. I do not believe that it is necessary to have a firing squad at the end of 10 years, because I do not believe that any firing squad could give more energy and more desire to cope with the problem than we have realised exists in the hearts and minds of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary.
    The Under-Secretary mentioned certain figures concerning the general health of Scotland. I would stress those figures, because we have to take into account the general health of the people when we are discussing the housing problem. The Under-Secretary pointed out that there were certain definite improvements. It ought to be known what improvements have taken place, because it is sometimes said, by those who either have not carefully studied the question or are not very careful in the statements they make, that during the years of stress and economic difficulties the health of the people has been neglected. The figures that we have before us show that that is not the case. Maternal mortality has decreased to 5.9 per 1,000 and infant mortality has gone down to 81 per 1,000. We want to see those figures reduced, but we are thankful to reach the present figures. I am, however, sorry to see that the figure for infant mortality in Dundee is 98 per 1,000, but I would point out that that figure when stated in the Department of Health Report is linked up with a statement that there were a great many cases in the early part of the year of peumonia and bronchitis. More and more we have to realise that if we are to tackle this health problem and this problem of the death of young children under one year from pneumonia,
    1148
    bronchitis and such diseases, we cannot tackle it if we allow them to remain in slum dwellings, which are underground in a great many cases.
    In regard to the mortality figures relating to children from one to five years of age there has been an improvement. It is interesting also to note that the figures for those below average nutrition are rather better than they were in the years 1928, 1929 and 1930. Therefore, it cannot be said in future that during the economic stress the health of the people of Scotland has been neglected. Of course, we should like to see it better, but we should be encouraged, and I think the Department of Health should be congratulated because of the way in which these difficulties have been dealt with. Here I should like to pay a tribute to the work of the health visitors and the work done by the maternity and child welfare clinics. Eighty-six per cent. of the babies born have been visited in their homes by health visitors. I note also that children are being brought to the child welfare centres earlier than used to be the case, and I am glad to see—having quoted something from the report that was not to the advantage of Dundee —that in Dundee 55 per cent. of the children are brought to the centres before they are two months old. This work is beginning to show itself in the health of our people. I would point out, however, that the workers at these centres are battling against fearful odds which I am afraid they will have to battle against so long as the people of Scotland are housed as they are. Forty per cent. of the deaths of the children over one month and under one year are from such diseases as pneumonia and bronchitis. I know of cases in Dundee and other cities where these unfortunate children are brought up in damp surroundings. If we can only get the people into decent houses we shall help more than can be done in any other way to give the children of Scotland the chance that they have the right to demand of growing up strong and healthy citizens. It is because of that fact that I welcome the figures that have been quoted.
    We have been hearing to-day of the start of a great housing push. I am thankful that the Government began their scheme by asking for a definite programme for slum clearance before they

    1149
    asked for overcrowding estimates. I say that, because I believe that no local authority will as willingly undertake the work of demolition as well as building at the same time as they will of simply building new houses. It is far easier for the local authority to build new houses only than it is to demolish and build. If we do not get the demolition ahead in our big cities we are going to waste some of the best sites that we have to-day. Hon. Members who know our great cities in Scotland will agree that sometimes right in the centre of our cities we have terrible slums, close behind close and back lands, where the light is hardly ever seen. These places have to be razed to the ground and decent tenements substituted with playgrounds for children and other up-to-date amenities which will help another generation to grow up in entirely different surroundings from the' scandalous conditions which prevail to-day.
    Without blaming in any way any local authority for hesitation in dealing with the difficulties that we are up against I do feel anxious as to the amount of progress that is being made and is going to be made even with slum clearance. I realise what an enormous task we are tackling. We are tackling something that has never been tackled in this country before. We have to look to the future ready with new schemes, new types of houses, new plans and I am not at all sure if we are realising what an enormous project we are starting upon. I am not sure that it is going to be for the welfare of the people and of our local authorities if each local authority is to become the biggest landlord of the city. I am not at all sure if the elected body will not find great difficulty in regard to the pressure that will be brought upon them if the power of letting is to rest with the local authorities. I visualise that it may be necessary more and more to draw in other societies and other individuals in order to help in dealing with this problem.
    We have heard to-day that slum clearance schemes have been suggested dealing with about 92 per cent. of the slums. Many of us have been anxious about these slum clearance programmes, and I hope are to be dissipated. May I give some figures of the town I know best, Dundee. The number of houses condemned was 3,603, and the number of houses to deal
    1150
    with overcrowding and the growth in population was estimated to be 1,500, to be built in five years. When the programme was put in I did not see 3,603 houses as the number to be built to make up the number of condemned houses. Anyone who knows Dundee knows that there is an immense amount of property which is entirely unifit for human habitation. I found that the figure put in the programme was 2,000 houses and that it was also intended to build 500 of what they called superior houses for those now living in overcrowded conditions. A change in the figures may have been made during the last few months, but I should like the Under-Secretary to tell us whether in the programme for Dundee the figure of 3,603 has been reached or if they are being content with 2,000 houses.
    My difficulty is that many local authorities say that they are building at present up to their full capacity. When I approached the local authorities in Dundee on the subject of 2,500 houses as against 3,603, I was told that this figure was put in because more than that number could not be built in the city during five years. I was told that they could not build more than 500 houses in a year, but last year we reached 606, and in 1927 that figure was passed. I am rather anxious on this matter. Even when we have got slum clearance programmes in which will really clear the slums we have then to find out how the houses are to be built for those in overcrowded areas and to meet the actual growth in population. If local authorities are now building to their full capacity how does the Secretary of State intend that they shall build also to deal with overcrowding, and the growth of the population? Are other schemes going to be suggested to local authorities? Are they going to be told to organise their building, to organise building labour, so that the question may be tackled as it should be tackled. I want to see everybody who can build houses, private enterprise, public utility societies, and everybody else, getting all the possible help that the Government can give. We should encourage everybody to come in.
    I want to know whether there are schemes for organising the operatives in the building trade, because if we are to be told that local authorities are building to capacity and then see at Employ-

    1151
    ment Exchanges men in the building trade unemployed and drawing their allowances, it is a situation which calls for really drastic action. It may be said by some critics, it may be the answer from the Secretary of State, to those who are pressing for more building and quicker building, why such a hurry. From a financial point of view the quicker we build the better, money is cheap, and local authorities in their slum clearance schemes get 80 per cent. of their loss paid by the Exchequer. But I would suggest that we should try to get a larger number of houses built each year because we are not tackling a problem which can be put off, it is a most urgent problem, it has to do with the lives of human beings.
    May I remind the Secretary of State of the visit which he paid to Dundee last September. He did not merely meet those who are owners of property or those who have to do with the building trade, he went from house to house, through some of the worst slums, talked with the people and saw their conditions. I do not think I need remind him of those conditions. I remember pointing out to him in a particularly dark hovel, I can call it nothing else, in Dalfield Walk, miserable white-faced children, one child had been bitten by a rat the day before. Those were the conditions which the Secretary of State saw for himself last September, and I tell him that these people are living there to-day, and I fear they may be living there next year or even the year after unless we can accelerate the building of houses by ensuring that local authorities shall get every possible assistance, and by organising the building trade, bringing in more people to help in building. This is a problem which cannot be delayed.
    I was glad to hear the Under-Secretary say that overcrowding is going to be dealt with. The provisions of the 1930 Act with regard to improvement areas might have been used with good effect, but the fact remains that they have not been so used, therefore, other schemes to deal with overcrowding must be brought in. The overcrowded conditions in some of our cities and towns are well known, and perhaps it may be unnecessary to give more statistics after what the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Burnett) has said, but these facts and figures ought to
    1152
    be known because many people who talk about housing difficulties have not seen them for themselves and do not realise the position. If they did they would no longer stand outside but would come in and give every possible support to the present Government in its programme and the initiation of a movement the like of which we have never before known in Scotland. I know a case of a two-roomed house in which are living mother and father, five sons, aged 15, 16, 14, 10, and eight, and four daughters, aged 23, 12 and 11. This case was brought to my notice by the mother coming to see me and urging that something should be done, because another son was coming home shortly on leave from the Army and she did not know where to put him. I could give case after case.
    In the report of the sanitary inspector for Dundee of December, 1933, there was the case of a one-roomed house occupied by husband and wife, twin sons, aged 8, and four daughters, aged 13, 12, 10, 7. In another case a one-roomed house was occupied by husband and wife, husband's mother, four sons aged 10, 9, 7 and 2 and one daughter aged 4. There was the case of a two-roomed house occupied by husband and wife, five sons aged 18, 14, 9, 6 and 4, and five daughters aged 21, 16, 12, 10 and one year. Is this a state of affairs which can be tolerated any longer in Scotland? I suggest that in every possible way we should accelerate the programme of building put forward by the Government. Much more remains to be done in the organisation of building.
    A good deal of the difficulty in overcrowding has come from what I may call a rigid tenancy of houses. Owing to the control which was necessary after the War, people moved from one house to another much less frequently, but the idea is quite wrong that people should remain all their lives in the same place. We must try, with a greater number of houses, to see that families change from house to house as their needs and requirements increase. I am told by a friend that in the old days when it came to 28th May or the 28th November the conversation was, "Are you flitting or sitting?" They had some place to flit to. We want houses of all sizes, small and large, the more families can interchange the better. For some time I was much alarmed because in Dundee there

    1153
    were so many people on the slum clearance areas, small families or single people, who could not be accommodated in the new three-roomed house. A request was made to the Under-Secretary for a greater number of two-roomed houses, the type of house which these people wanted, and which would be adequate for their requirements. But we discovered in Dundee that there were 9,000 or 10,000 two-roomed houses, about 8,000 of them are overcrowded. I believe that much more could be done by voluntary associations to help people to find out when smaller houses and the larger houses are being vacated, and get a better interchange.
    The situation in Dundee was such that I was told that in March of this year there were 135 of the Corporation houses ready and unoccupied as there were no suitable tenants from the slums to go into them. I am happy to say that I have received a telegram to-day from Dundee saying that only 15 of these three- roomed houses are now unoccupied. It seemed to me that this must be due to lack in organisation. If there are in Dundee over 3,000 condemned houses, there is all the more necessity for careful organisation so that people should be moved into the new houses at the earliest opportunity. The fact that the houses are to remain controlled under a rental of £26 5s. will help people to change their houses. I should like to say something with regard to the Rural Workers Act of 1926 and the houses which have been reconditioned under it. The Under- Secretary pointed out that this has been of great advantage in Scotland, especially during last year. As we are hoping that we shall have a greater scheme of re- conditioning in the towns as well, may f point out what a real success the scheme of reconditioning has been in the country. Real good work has been done, houses have been saved and made good houses by the subsidies which have been given, and I hope that this fact will be borne in mind when legislation is introduced to deal with reconditioning in the towns.
    In congratulating the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary on the start they have made I have endeavoured to stress the necessity for greater acceleration in the building of houses. The matter is far more urgent than many people realise. The types of houses
    1154
    should be given more consideration. The fact that smaller three-roomed houses can be built at very little more than the cost of two-roomed houses should also be borne in mind by local authorities. We ought to see when we have demolished the slums that a better type of flat or tenement is built in the centre of our towns and cities. I know that these higher flats or tenement houses may not be considered the better scheme from a financial point of view, but I would point out that the tenant in these houses would be closer to his work and that the greater cost of transport which they may have to add to their weekly rent would not have to be faced, as it would be if they are sent far out. In smaller towns this is not a difficulty, but in the bigger cities it has to be faced if we are to visualise a real start in the provision of these much needed houses. We must see that we build up as well as build out. Otherwise, the workers will find that they have to face not only the expense of rent but the expense of transport.
    We want more imagination in our building and more experiments. We have a wonderful chance of doing something that will really mark a new era for the people of Scotland. We have been told of all the difficulties and evils of overcrowding. It is well that we should sometimes look to the future and not think only of the evils of the present—think of what a glorious Scotland could be built for the future. The hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) said that the compliments paid to-day to the Secretary of State reminded him of a pleasant Sunday afternoon and that it seemed to him sheer hypocrisy. I do not agree that those compliments were hypocrisy. I think it is a pleasant Wednesday afternoon to come here and hear that statement of the Under-Secretary of State, because I believe we are starting on a campaign for the better housing of the people of Scotland which will go down to history as the greatest achievement perhaps of a great National Government.
    6.2 p.m.
    Mr. KIRKWO0D: I have sat throughout the Debate and listened to all the speeches. One and all of the speakers have been anxious to pay a tribute to the Secretary of State and to the Under-Secretary for the way in which they are

    1155
    trying to face the difficult problems in Scotland at the moment; but even the junior Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) and the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett), to say nothing of the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern), had to show the changed conditions under which the people of Scotland live, move and have their being. The hon. Member for Dundee gave us evidence that children were being bitten by rats. Imagine human beings to-day, with all our enlightenment, living under conditions such as those, with parents remaining awake all night to keep off the rats. They are shocking conditions. But before I sit down I shall show the Committee that we really have made some advance, and that all the money that is being spent on social services is of tremendous value to everyone concerned, and that Scotland to-day is giving a good account of itself along those lines.
    Let me say a few words in reference to the speech of the right hon. Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair). I can never forget that it is not so long ago that he was Secretary of State for Scotland. Immediately he started on that job he attacked the problem of housing and went all over Scotland, backed by the present Under-Secretary, and carried out a tearing and raging campaign to arouse the local authorities out of their apathy, and to get them to build houses. In the midst of that campaign Clydebank Town Council petitioned the right hon. Gentleman to be allowed to go on with the building of houses because of overcrowding. Clydebank Town Council by no stretch of imagination could have been called a Socialist town council, and it unanimously passed a resolution in favour of the building of houses as a means of dealing with overcrowding. The right hon. Member for Caithness, in the midst of all his platitudes and his anxiety about housing, turned that petition down.
    Mr. SK ELTON: I must not be dissociated from responsibility for that.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: It was turned down, but in their anxiety the Clydebank Town Council came up here and interviewed the Secretary of State. The individuals who organised against these houses being built were the same individuals who are responsible for the awful housing conditions in Scotland to-day. The factors
    1156
    were the individuals who were responsible. But the whole of the people of Clydebank were anxious, and I did all I could, used all the pressure and influence I could, in this House. But the right hon. Member for Caithness was adamant and would not consent. Probably all the reasons that he gave against the proposal then are now done away with, because we have 9,000 more people employed in Clydebank than we had at that time.
    Sir A. SINCLAIR: I make no complaint of the hon. Member referring to this subject, but he did not give me notice that he intended to do so, and I cannot claim therefore that I have looked up the papers and refreshed my memory of this incident, which took place two years or more ago. I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for saying that he is not dissociated from responsibility, but I accept the ultimate responsibility for the decision which was given. It is true that I resisted this demand, and it is true that the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) pressed it; and there is no hon. Member who is more difficult to resist. But the proposal that was put before us was not a proposal to build houses in order to deal with the problem of overcrowding. The proposal which was put before us was a general proposal for building houses in Clydebank, which we did not think was justified in the circumstances of Clydebank. We made it clear to the people %ciao came to us that if they would submit a proposal to deal with overcrowding it would receive our most careful and sympathetic consideration.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I would thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words, because they will give me more power to go to the Scottish Office and see that we get this concession. The junior Member for Dundee said that there were certain people who could not get into the house: of three apartments. The reason was that they could not pay the rent. Therefore, they required to get smaller houses. That is the argument that has been put up to us in Scotland.
    Miss HORSBRUGH: I do not think I even mentioned rent. There were certain people, such as a couple or a person living alone, who were the very people we ought to get into the two-roomed

    1157
    houses, and then remove the overcrowded people into the three-roomed houses.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: That is a matte: which I took up with the Dundee Town Council before the junior Member for Dundee came into this House. Dundee has always clamoured for houses at rents which people could pay. Even the town council appealed for two-apartment houses. When we came here in 1920 and appealed to the then Government to see to it that the smallest house that could be built in Scotland was a three-apartment house with all modern conveniences, Dundee was up against us because it said that the people could not afford these houses. We must build houses and see to it that people get wages which enable them to pay the rents. It is possible under the present regime at the Scottish Office to get round the problem of housing. The town of Kilsyth has done it. Kilsyth at the moment is building five-apartment houses, and some of them are occupied. They are let at 5s. 9d. a week, taxes included. Four-apartment houses are 4s. 6d. a week, and three-apartment houses 3s. 6d. a week. They are houses with all modern conveniences. The council put a wooden bedstead into each room, and each house was supplied with a wringing machine. They are doing all that in Kilsyth at the moment, not in Russia or Germany. If this were being done in some other place it would he broadcast all over the world as something wonderful. We can do it in Scotland and we are doing it.
    I want the Secretary of State to let all Scotland know what is being done in Kilsyth, because it can be done elsewhere under the 1930 Act. They get £17 10s. a year subsidy under the 1930 Act for a five-apartment house, and for three- and four-apartment houses they get £12 10s. a year subsidy. I am satisfied that if more of the people of Scotland knew what it is possible to do, they would see that their local authorities put the Act into operation as Kilsyth has done. Kilsyth has faced the problem of re-housing the people in a very intelligent way. It is realised what is the great difficulty of re-housing in the west of Scotland. When people are taken out of the slums and from bad housing conditions to new houses, the new houses call for a higher rent than the people have paid hitherto. Apart from that higher rent, there are innumerable things
    1158
    required that the folk cannot buy because they have not the money to buy them. They have been accustomed to one-apartment houses, and in those single apartments has been all their gear. When they go to a three-apartment house they have to get new furniture but have not the money to buy it. We have contended in this House time and time again that that was one of the difficulties, that when we take these very poor people out of the slums we only aggravate their condition, because they starve themselves and do without food in order to pay the rent.
    Again Kilsyth has got over that difficulty. It has a municipal bank. We are doing all we can to do away with private enterprise, for if ever there was a case in which private enterprise beyond a shadow of doubt has been a failure, it is in the housing of the people. Nothing came of the Bill on which so much valuable time was spent by this House last year, because that Bill left the work to private enterprise and private enterprise cannot do it. Through the municipal bank the people of Kilsyth arrange to pay the rent, and the bank supplies them with bed and bedding. The people are now getting decent beds and bedsteads, such as they never had before, because formerly they had to be content with the cast-off articles of other people. Now they are getting new articles.
    I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary will let all the local authorities in Scotland know what is being done in Kilsyth, because what is being done there can be done elsewhere. As a result of this re-housing scheme, there has been a remarkable improvement in the standard of health in the community. I was among these people for an afternoon. I addressed about 4,000 or 5,000 of them, and practically the whole town turned out, and I never saw healthier children anywhere. We have to remember that this is one of the towns on which unemployment has lain like a blight. It is in one of the mining areas, but, as a result of the problem being handled in an intelligent fashion, they are working through their difficulties, and they have achieved results which are a credit to all concerned.
    With regard to the wider aspect of housing, I am able to carry my memory back for 50 years. I can recall the awful

    1159
    housing conditions in which the working class of Scotland lived 50 years. ago. We have changed all that to-day. We are now building what I always advocated, namely, houses outside the towns. We are building new towns. We are building a New Jerusalem, and leaving the landlords their old houses. They are moving heaven and earth to support this idea of reconditioning, but the people of to-day desire a better type of house than they were content with 30, 40, or 50 years ago. They want a higher standard of life, and a higher standard of life is attainable by the people of Scotland to-day, even making due allowance for unemployment and poverty and everything else. The people of Scotland never were as well-looking or as healthy as they are to-day. There never was a better type of man and woman in Scotland than there is today, morally, mentally and in every other way.
    Sir WILFRID SUGDEN: Capitalism!
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: It is in spite of capitalism. I have spent some time at the commencement of my speech in order to show what has been done in a little township with no capitalists in it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Not in the general sense of the term. It is a mining community governed largely by miners who work in the pits throughout the day—when they get the chance—and administer the laws of their country at night. Their council meetings 'are held at night, and I have described what they are doing, in spite of private enterprise. They have had those difficulties to overcome. If we regard the condition of public health in Scotland to-day from the point of view of an observer of the conditions which prevailed 50 years ago, we are bound to regard the progress which has been made in that period as little short of a miracle. Fifty years ago terrible diseases which the people did not understand were described as the vengeance of the Almighty. Many of those diseases we have now eradicated. It is not very long ago since ministers of the Gospel were asking the Government of the time to declare a fasting day because there was an epidemic of 'smallpox. When the "middens" were cleared away, smallpox was cleared away in the process.
    Public health services have had a very severe test during the past few years,
    1160
    and they have come through that test with remarkable success. I find in the case of my own city that in spite of the depression, economic and mental, of the past few years, the disease of phthisis continues to decline and that the non-pulmonary type of tuberculosis has declined in proportion. During the past year there has been a definite drop in both. We are now reaping the beneficent results of early restrictive and progressive measures. Tuberculosis has declined as the public health administration has improved. The establishment of welfare centres and clinics with facilities for tuition and training, with the provision of advice and nourishment, has produced a general improvement in the public health while the change in the housing conditions, although yet very incomplete, has already had its effect. When the "backlands" were swept away, a mortal blow was aimed at Glasgow's scourge—rickets—and when rickets disappeared the virulence of other diseases diminished, because the people affected were better able to resist those diseases. Scarlet fever, though still prevalent, has become so mild during the past 20 years that the mortality rate is now less than 1 per cent.
    The disease of measles, which in former days was frequently fatal, has also become mild and, more remarkable still, is the fact that whereas in the old days this disease was a scourge particularly to infant children, nowadays, though it still affects infant children in the congested tenement areas, it does not affect them to the same extent in the new housing areas, and is largely confined to children of school age. This is demonstrated by the fact that the death rate among children between the ages of one and five has dropped like a plummet. I am not exaggerating when I say that for every death among children between the ages of one and five to-day there were five deaths 50 years ago. Moreover some of the diseases which produced the effects of blindness and lameness are now almost eradicated. It is not possible to compute the number of people who became blind formerly as a result of the disease known as ophthalmia neonatorum. Twenty years ago it was estimated at that time that 100 people became blind every year in Glasgow from that disease. During the past 10 years, as a result of early treatment by public health authori-

    1161
    ties, the fear of blindness from that cause has been completely removed.
    The importance of this change m public health conditions ought to be realised by those who consider that we are going too far in the provision of social services. We have a declining birth rate, but by means of our social services we are reducing the death rate in a ratio greater than the decline in the birth rate. The time may come when industry itself will be grateful for the public health services and, apart from industry altogether, it is a notable thing, and a cause for pride, that the health and stature of the children of to-day should be so much improved compared with former years. We are developing a race which is better able to withstand the onslaught of disease, and, at the same time, we are taking measures to wipe out the diseases themselves. It happens to be my lot often to stand at the gates of some of our big factories and to watch thousands of workers coming from work. When I stand at Singers' works and see the young women coming out—and the young men, too—1 cannot help recalling the words:
    "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."
    I cannot help contrasting the workers of to-day with the workers of 50 years ago. When I was a young apprentice engineer I saw them in the old days, when young women went to work in the mills with practically nothing but coats and shawls on them. They had not then. reached the length of having dresses, never mind hats, and they presented a melancholy appearance as they went to and from their daily work. Now the scene is changed. The workers of to-day, both men and women, are a credit to our country, and that change has been 'brought about largely as a result of the money which we have spent on social services and on education. We have produced a different type. A great revolution has taken place, and it has taken place without the shedding of blood. We ought to be proud of the rate at which we have travelled on the road of progress and of what we have accomplished. The money spent on education and social services has been well spent. Those who can remember what the working class people of Scotland were like 50 years ago, have only to take a walk through one of our great industrial centres to-day
    1162
    in order to be impressed with the great change for the better which has occurred.
    I want on this occasion to urge the Secretary of State for Scotland to go ahead with that good work. Expenditure on social services pays in the long run. What does it matter about the money? We are always being told that these reforms cost so much. There are people here who ate against subsidies of any description, but it is all a ease of subsidy. Unemployment insurance is a subsidy. Everything of this kind that we get is a subsidy. We are subsidising the provision of houses. Expenditure for these purposes is the 'safest investment which the country can make. In return for all this expenditure, we are producing a better type of citizen. It is only 100 years since the first grant was given by Parliament for education. That grant was opposed as tenaciously in 1833 as a matter of millions would be opposed to-day and the amount was only £20,000. It was predicted that such a grant would bankrupt the country, and at that time 75 per cent. of the boys and girls in England and Wales, up to 14 years of age, could neither read nor write. Just think of the change that has taken place as a result of what we have been trying to do. We are to-day mopping up the mess of generations, and the reward of the past 50 years is adequate proof to the Government that money spent on housing and health services is the best investment, as far as national resources are concerned.
    6.30 p.m.
    Mr. KENNETH LINDSAY: I do not wish to detain the Committee long, as many other hon. Members wish to speak, and I believe I air the junior Member from Scotland present. We have had a welter of congratulations of the Government from the Opposition benches, and it has been very pleasant to get the kind of perspective that the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) has given us of the last 100 years. The hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) did not, however, put forward a single constructive suggestion during the whole of his speech, and the most critical speech has come from this side, from the junior Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh), who is not now present. I was particularly interested in her speech, because it seemed to me that every now

    1163
    and then she was getting down to what I consider the root of this question. I think we ought to be frank about it. The 1933 Act has not worked, either on one side or the other. I believe the Under-Secretary of State gave the number of 1,200 houses under the £3 subsidy, and about one-eighth of those are in Kilmarnock, but we are not going to build any more, for a variety of reasons. First of all, although there were 1,200 applications for these houses, 800 of them had to be refused, because the incomes were in excess of the statutory amount. Secondly, the income test has been found extremely difficult to apply in practice, and the large families, with three, four or five children, very often come just over the £3, which again makes it difficult. I am not sure whether 6s., plus 2s. 3d. for occupier's rates, is not too much for families with an income of between £2 and £3 a week. The loss to the authority works out at about £3 5s. per house. The other part of the Act, we have already been told, has produced 260 houses.
    It is very difficult to have this Debate to-day, because the most valuable report, which we have all read, is waiting to be implemented in the new proposals. The right hon. and gallant Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), who spoke from the Liberal benches, gave an entirely wrong impression. He said that because there were temporarily, as I agree, a smaller number of houses being produced during these last months, therefore the Government's policy was all wrong. I think their policy is perfectly sound. I did some arithmetic while the Under-Secretary of State was speaking. He said that 5,000 houses had been built under the 1930 Act during the last six months, and if that be so, that is very nearly getting up to the figure for the whole of last year, which means that the 1930 Act is working cumulatively, and it is bound to do so; but the accusation was that the 1924 Act, the Wheatley Act, ought to have been kept. I daresay the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) would agree, and I quite understand that point of view, though I do not agree with it. The policy of the Government, it seems to me, is perfectly sound in concentrating the whole resources of the local authorities on slum clearance, and in leaving to private enterprise what pri-
    1164
    vate enterprise can best do. What is going to happen in between? The fact is that there is a rental—it is very hard to get at, but it may be 7s. or 8s. a week—which cannot by any means be built to by private enterprise.
    There are a great many schemes about. I have with me here the report which has been prepared by Lord Amulree and a committee of business men. I have myself been concerned with another report, produced in the last two or three months. These reports are flying about, some of them from better sources, some from less good sources, but they are composed by hard business men; and I look upon the Secretary of State for Scotland not only as the Secretary of State, but as the chairman of a vast housing concern, and I congratulate him on the business steps that he has taken, the intimate touch of going around and seeing the localities, and the putting in of this "flying squad." If it were a business concern, we should perhaps not make such a fuss about it, but we should put on a few extra men and say that we were wanting to get on with the job. I share with the junior Member for Dundee some doubts about the extent of the Government machinery in tackling this new part of the problem. There is a certain portion of housing that can be done, at a figure. You have only to look around London and all parts of England and Scotland to see it.
    It is no good the hon. Members for Dumbarton Burghs and Shettleston saying that money does not matter. I might agree with them that we ought to spend more—I do—but it is money that is settling the question. It is the difference in money that has produced the economies. It is money first and money last, and a number of us are asking ourselves to-day, when we in this country are giving subsidies of £3,000,000 here and £4,000,000 there, By what criterion do you test the amount of subsidy to be given to one industry or another? I do not want to recite the evils of the slums; anyone can do that, and the hon. Member for Dundee has done it very eloquently. We are all agreed on that, but if this awful situation is likely to go on for many years, it might pay, from a purely business point of view to set up some, I do not say parallel organisation with the local authorities, but some fresh scheme to implement their work, if as a fact they are working up to full capacity

    1165
    already. I think a parallel authority would be a highly dangerous business. You have the old local machinery working, and there are many other reasons which could involve an inflation of prices unless you had some sort of control.
    My last point is this: Some 25 per cent. of the persons in Scotland to-day are unemployed-320,090 odd—and that includes some of those who are able-bodied and under the Poor Law. It is very difficult to tell how many are counted twice, but a tertian number are. You have in Scotland at present not so much a dereliction as a general depression, but one of the things which is making this housing problem in Scotland so doubly difficult is that you must have a lower rent because of a lower wage or absence of wage. In England there is 14.8 per rent. of unemployment which is a very different figure. I sincerely congratulate the right hon. Gentleman because, whatever one says about the past, one must admit that this is a much bigger drive than has ever been made before, and the local authorities, at any rate the good ones, are doing a lot. My own authority is working up to its capacity, and when you have got in one place a maternal mortality rate of 2.6, it shows what is possible. I am sure chat that must be one of the lowest in the whole of Scotland. Therefore, in congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on the initiative that he has given to the slum clearance programme in Scotland, I would ask him, when he comes to this intermediate problem of building houses in overcrowded areas for the smallest wage-earner, to be equally bold. Beyond that I suppose it is impossible to go, because one would have to talk about fresh legislation, but because of the general depression in Scotland and the lower wage, as compared with England, whatever meaures are taken in England we shall have to take probably even bolder measures in Scotland in future.
    6.41 p.m.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. K. Lindsay) complained that my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) had not made any constructive suggestions, but I waited in vain for any practical proposals by the hon. Member himself, and I must confess that all we got was that we could not quite discuss anything and that things were not ready. May I remind him that
    1166
    to-day we are discussing administration, and that practical proposals are more or less the subject of Bills? Consequently, if certain hon. Members have failed to give detailed, concrete proposals, it is not their fault, but it is due to the fact that they have had to be concerned with the realities of administration in the past. I thought the hon. Member might have told us exactly what he thought was right and wrong, but he failed to do that. I cannot congratulate the Government on their achievements. They passed an Act quite recently, and their object in doing so was that they thought it would help the housing situation in Scotland. If they did not think there was no need for it, they had no right to pass the Act, but after taking official advice the Government came to the conclusion that they should pass the Act. Nobody forced it on them or demanded it, but they did pass an Act, and to-day, on the admission of the Under-Secretary of State, whatever other drive has been made, whatever other good figures can be shown, their Act has lamentably failed.
    Here you are with a situation in Scotland that cannot call forth congratulation, a situation where slumdom is rife, where overcrowding makes decent men and women aghast, where the housing conditions are awful. In these circumstances the Government pass an Act, and in 12 months it is proved that the Act, for the purpose of grappling with these problems, has completely failed. What has this Act done to solve the great problems in the cities and in the rural towns? We were told when the Act was passed that private enterprise would tackle a portion of the problem, to put it no higher than that. Private enterprise has not looked at it; it has not got near the problem. Every local authority, whether dominated by Labour as in Glasgow, or by Conservatives as in Aberdeen, or mixed in their politics, every local authority, whatever be their politics, is agreed that the £3 subsidy is hopeless for the purpose of enabling them to grapple with the housing problem. Let me say a word about the problem of rent. I was the Mover of the Amendment which fixed the rent and which the Government ultimately accepted.
    Mr. SKELTON: I do not want to deprive the hon. Member of any kudos to

    1167
    which he is entitled, but the whole point was whether the sum, having been fixed, should be a minimum.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: I agree, but I moved the Amendment and the Government accepted it. The Labour party issued a, leaflet attacking me for doing it. I do not see why fixing low rents should be the subject of an attack. My view is that the rent is not too low, and that for a man with £2 10s. or £3 a week, 6s. is enough for rent. If the Labour people believe in making it a higher rent, let them say so. The question, however, is not that the rent is too low, but that the subsidy is too low. For the workers in many industries 6s. 6d. is not too low. How can a man in a shipyard earning 39s. or £2 a week afford it? His wage is not even that, because it is based on a 52-week year which he never gets. I am not complaining so much about the rent, however. The challenge I make to the Government is that they deliberately introduced a Bill designed to improve the health and well-being of the community which was an insult and totally inadequate for the purpose.
    One approaches this problem with feelings of anger, particularly when we have at the Scottish Office two Ministers who must know the problem and have mixed with the problem. While they may not live in slums, they cannot be impervious to what they see as they go about. Surely men cannot walk up and down the streets of cities and towns like Greenock and Perth without seeing the horrible places in which people live. Yet, knowing those conditions, they have deliberately cut down the subsidy introduced by the late John Wheatley, and they do that at a time when the Government are embarking on every form of subsidy. The Government have embarked on a subsidy policy to shovel out millions of pounds to the Cunarder, to tramp ships, beef, Palestine, Newfoundland and beet sugar. At the time they are doing this they are taking the housing subsidy from the people of Scotland who are living in the most shocking conditions. That is not a subject of congratulation, but a subject of the utmost condemnation. The two men in charge of the Scottish Office are guilty of conduct for which they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
    The Under-Secretary said they were driving on with slum clearance. I admit
    1168
    his figures show an improvement. The slum problem is only part of the housing problem. It is a moot point as to what is a slum. There are slum districts which are definitely scheduled as such, but there are other parts which are slums, too, but, because they do not happen to be in an area which is scheduled for a clearance scheme, they are not regarded as slums. The Glasgow City Council say they cannot give a house to a man who is living in shocking conditions in a slum because he is not living in an area scheduled for slum clearance. We have that kind of case every day. I am glad when I see a house built, no matter if it has five or six rooms, because I would rather see a new house than a hew battleship. It represents human life in some form and useful social labour for those who built it. I do not detract from the number of houses that have been built, but I say that the great housing problems in our cities are not being faced and tackled at all. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock will say, "What is your constructive suggestion?" Our proposals need no reiteration. We think that the subsidy ought to be restored to at least its amount when John Wheatley left it. We think that there should be control of prices and that nobody should be allowed to profiteer out of the well-being of the community. We think a housing board should he set up, and that if local authorities do not build, the Government should tackle the problem.
    We are faced to-dab with a position in which human life is at stake. A Government faced with that position in time of war would take the most drastic measures. We say that human life is at stake in times of peace and that the Government should take as drastic steps as they would in time of war. I agree with the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) and the hon. Member for Shettleston that to the extent to which we solve the housing problem we gain social advantages in other directions. Many problems arise from overcrowding and shocking housing conditions. A judge recently said in a case involving a sex offence in one of the Scottish courts that the conditions in which the crime was committed were in themselves criminal. The position to-day leaves no room for complacency or congratulation. The Ministers in charge of the Scottish Office have been too easy.

    1169
    They introduced a Bill and it has been proved wrong, and instead of coming to the House and saying, "We are wrong; we are going to devote the next two days"—not at some time in the future— "righting what is wrong," the Under-Secretary says that new proposals are ahead. They have no right to be ahead; they should be here and now. Instead of talking of the beef subsidy to-morrow, we should be considering the Government's housing proposals for Scotland now. They should retract as honest men now, and not wait while helpless people are suffering in shocking conditions. We shall divide against the Government to-day, small as our numbers are, because we shall wish to recall with satisfaction our protest against the Government's miserable and contemptible tackling of the housing conditions of the people.
    6.57 p.m.
    Captain ARCHIBALD RAMSAY: I do not want to follow what was said by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), but I think he was a little unkind to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. K. Lindsay), who had said that the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) had made no constructive suggestions, for he went on to prove that in his speech by making constructive suggestions himself. No doubt there are many of us who sympathise to some extent with the hon. Member in his remarks, but I think he was a little ungenerous to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in passing over the fact that, although we had been able to secure a subsidy of only £3 for Scotland, we had been able to get a. subsidy at the time when England secured no subsidy at all. That should have been borne in mind when the hon. Member for Gorbals made his speech. I would ask the Under-Secretary's attention to three points which are of importance locally, of which he may have some knowledge, and in which he should have some official knowledge here. He opened his spech on the subject of water supply and told us that the water schemes submitted to date were of such dimensions that if he gave to all he would only be able to distribute at a flat rate of 12½ per cent. He was, therefore, classifying them in the order of their importance as regards public welfare and housing conditions.
    Mr. SKELTON: And financial needs.
    Captain RAMSAY: I thank my hon. Friend for that reminder. May I recall to him that there is under the attention of his Department a case of a water scheme at Penecuik which satisfies the two essential conditions which he first mentioned. The housing scheme there is definitely being held up until this fresh water supply can be given, and if the water supply is not augmented and the drought continues, there may be serious water shortage for all persons concerned.
    The second point concerns the type of house which is at present being built. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Secretary for Overseas Trade is not in the House, because I know that, as the Member for North Midlothian, he would bear me out in dealing with the request made to the hon. Member to use his influence in the matter of two-roomed houses. This is no idle statement; my hon. Friend and I have received numerous representations from burghs in Midlothian, and the contention which they put forward for two-roomed houses is roughly as follows. They say that if you divide the housing problem—which, I understand, my right hon. Friend does —into two parts, namely slum clearance and over-crowding, it is essential while you are obviating one problem not to exacerbate the other. I could produce quite a number of cases to prove to my hon. Friend that this is, in fact, what is being done when four-roomed houses are being built regardless of special requirements. In a great many cases, as the hon. Member for Gorbals will confirm, where four-roomed houses are required, it is easy to take out an old couple or a young couple newly-married who can be moved away to a smaller house. In neither of these cases is it convenient or right to put those two persons into a four-roomed house. They cannot afford to furnish it; they cannot afford the rent. What happens? If they are moved into a four- or five-roomed house, the first thing they do is to take lodgers, and within a few weeks you have overcrowding in a new house.
    I know that the position is very difficult. We have made representations, and I beg my hon. Friend to use his influence and develop this subject a little more. I believe that a little more consideration by the county council for the local authority is all that is needed. Local authorities, after all, bear the burden and

    1171
    heat of the day in this matter. They go into these questions and make personal inquiries and lists of special requirements. It is a little hard on them to have their proposals turned down when they send them in, and to be put on a flat rate for four-roomed houses. I beg my hon. Friend to give his attention to this matter.
    I wish to speak of another point, no less important, in which I ask the assistance of my hon. Friend. It greatly discounts the good work that he and the Government are doing in re-housing and improving the conditions of the people if we allow private enterprise to let its standards fall below what the Government are setting themselves as the housing standard. It would afford good ground to some of our hon. Friends opposite for pointing to the failure and attributing it to the capitalist system. We who are quite certain that private enterprise, given sufficient attention and good will, is still by far the best and most superior system that mankind has found for his social economy, must make it our duty to see that private enterprise fulfils its task even outside the scope of Government action.
    I ask my right hon. Friend to give attention to the state of affairs in a certain mining village in Midlothian by the name of Cousland. In that village there are two blocks of new houses, one containing 10 houses in a single building. These houses have been relying solely on one pump in the street for their water supply, and when there is anything more than slight frost the water in this pump becomes frozen and you have the picture of a crowd of persons standing in the street lighting a bonfire in front of the pump before any one of them can get water. Frequent representations have been made on this subject but nothing has been done. This year the situation has been further aggravated by the fact that, a drain in one of the nearby fields having got out of order, the water has been seeping into the middens and dry closets at the back of the houses. I went round these houses as recently as 10 days ago, and I can assure my right hon. Friend that they are, for the reason I have stated, in no fit condition for persons in this country to live in. I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend to this matter, and to ask him
    1172
    whether or not he could send down a representative from the Department in Edinburgh to report on these houses; and whether, when he is considering further legislation, he will bear in mind the possibility of taking power to bring their shortcomings to the notice of persons who have failed to carry out their housing duties. Secondly, I ask him to consider taking power to compel such people to conform to the housing standard of which he and my right hon. Friend are setting this country and the world so good an example. I beg to thank him for his speech, and to congratulate him on an energetic and enlightened policy.
    7.6 p.m.
    Mr. LEONARD: I should like to say a word or two about certain activities of the Department to which the Under-Secretary—I know, out of a desire to save time—did not refer. I refer to the part of the report which deals with the food supplies of this country, and especially with milk. There is no gainsaying the fact that this Government has made the problem of milk a national question. I noticed in the report of the Department a very important admission, to which I should like to refer in order to obtain assurances from the Under-Secretary that something is being done in the matter. I am speaking of the question of better veterinary inspection of dairy cattle. I read in the
    report:
    "The Department have continued to press local authorities in suitable areas to replace part-time veterinary inspectors by veterinary inspectors not engaged in private practice in the area of the authority. This policy is now being followed by the majority of county authorities."
    I know that the policy is being followed, but I should like to put on record what has already been said by a part-time veterinary person functioning on behalf of a local authority. He states:
    "'One point that arises in connection with the inspection is that most of the visits are made when the cows are not in lactation or are drying off. The season for milk production is practically from March to September or October, and as that is when there is most private professional work to be done, it is impossible to do as much dairy inspection as is desirable, although I do examine a herd whenever it is possible in the course of private practice. It is unfortunate that most of the sickness occurs when the inspection is most required.'"
    I submit that that is a very important statement to be made by a person who is

    1173
    endeavouring to do his best, under part-time conditions. I am pleased to see that the matter is being raised and that the public are taking cognisance of this question, because of the campaign that is now about to be waged for a further consumption of milk in this country. It is also rather perturbing to note from the same report the limited number of county councils at the present day who have arranged to carry out the minimum number of three inspections in a year.
    Mr. SKELTON: The minimum is one.
    Mr. LEONARD: I read from the report in order to be correct:
    "The number of county councils who have arranged to carry out the increased minimum frequency of three times a year in landward areas and four times a year in burghs is now 18, but it is to be regretted that several important dairying counties have not yet appointed sufficient staff to attain this minimum frequency of inspection. The annual reports of veterinary inspectors have again indicated the valuable results achieved by the three inspections in the year. Educative work among the milk producers has been greatly facilitated by the more frequent inspections."
    The report goes on to give details:
    "In one area several cottagers' cows were found to he suffering from clinical tuberculosis."
    The report then points out that there is great danger lest, owing to the likelihood of mass infection, such cases will cause human cases of bovine tuberculosis. Therefore, I trust that the Department will see to-day that, if the powers they have are not deemed to be adequate to deal with this most important matter of inspection, further power is taken at the earliest possible moment. I feel that if there are at the present time 18 counties already carrying out the increased minimum, it can be further extended by the Department. I hope that modification will take place in the proper direction with regard to this question of the food supply.
    With regard to housing, I do not propose to indulge in a general throwing of bouquets concerning what the Government are doing to better the situation. I look upon the money spent on this work as money spent in a productive form. Already the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has related instances of the meagre sums which are spent on housing in contrast to other activities of the Government. When we
    1174
    look at the problem and when the Government look at it, we are entitled to demand that they shall look at it from the point of view of the general well-being of the community. If that attitude is taken, I cannot see how the Government, or anyone else, can expect congratulations anywhere, when we look upon the awful conditions of thousands of people in this country.
    I am admitting that things are going in the right direction, but, even so, I am positively of the opinion that they are not going quickly enough. I see a tendency of the same kind in the comments that have been made, especially those of a character congratulatory to the Government—including also the Under-Secretary—on the great work that has been done in slum clearance. I am prepared to admit that, so far as Glasgow is concerned, the problem is being considerably ameliorated. It has been improved by two things: first of all there has been a decline in the birth-rate, which is of some assistance; and, secondly, there has been increased activity in building. That, however, is not the whole problem of Glasgow, and, in my opinion, the whole, problem is that which deals with the smaller type of house. There is admittedly overcrowding in the one-apartment house—very bad overcrowding—and no less than 50 per cent. of the one-apartment houses are overcrowded to-day. If that is not a proper picture to hold in the mind, it will be made more complete when I say that in Glasgow to-day we have 38,000 one-apartment houses and that over 50 per cent. of them are overcrowded.
    This is apart from the slum clearance problem. This is the problem of settling the type of house that will be adequate to allow ordinary, decent people to have all the advantages that we should have because of our enlightened civilisation. Reference has been made once or twice to a difficulty that if you build that smaller type of house you are spreading your city, and people will have great difficulty in getting to their work. I do not think that is a great difficulty at all. It is a very grave thing that we, in this great civilised State, are unable to allow our workpeople to go out for fresh air after they have been working for many hours in the factories. I look upon this as one of the most important factors of the future. I am not inclined to do any-

    1175
    thing that keeps them segregated within the four corners of a tenement dwelling. If the Government cannot go the whole way with regard to this matter, there is a mid-way.
    I should like to speak of one or two details with regard to the Whitson report, about which there has been no mention to-day. The framers of the Whitson report appear to think that by a little tinkering with the houses which in the opinion of their advisers are capable of being reconditioned, they will considerably relieve matters. I am not of that opinion. Most of the houses pointed out to me as houses which would suffice with a little tinkering, the addition of a water closet or something like that, are houses which in my opinion ought to be done away with altogether. They will only create a problem in the future, and it would be more courageous to deal with the situation on the lines of providing new houses, and catering for the future with vision.
    As to the flying squad, I do not like to put a damper upon anyone who is trying to do good work, but hope the squad will confine their attention to explaining to the local authorities what legislation permits them to do and giving them technical guidance. I hope they will not be cheeseparing. From what I have seen of tenements in Glasgow, their construction has suffered in great measure from economies on the part of the Government which I think are a disgrace. Some have fireplaces made of concrete which would be a disgrace to an apprentice. They have put into the living rooms, in which the people spend most of their time, the most awful constructions of concrete that I have ever seen, all to save a few shillings on decent tiles.
    Mr. SKELTON: To what district does the hon. Member refer?
    Mr. LEONARD: To the district of Germiston. With regard to overcrowding, taking the census figures as a guide and on a standard of more than three persons per room, 29,371 houses were overcrowded, but of that total 28,000 were of the one and two apartment types. On a standard of two persons per room there are no less than 74,398 families who are overcrowded. This matter calls for much more urgent action. An hon. Member opposite made a reference to some de-
    1176
    fects in Cousland Park, Dalkeith. It was something to do with the water. I can tell the hon. Member that that matter has been outstanding for a long time, I believe since November, 1927, but from information which I have received repairs were started in February of this year. On a previous occasion I incurred the displeasure of some Members who represent northern constituencies by referring to the conditions on certain farms there, and while I do not like to make anyone feel angry I would point out that hon. Members on this side of the House sometimes receive complaints regarding these constituencies which are not sent to hon. Members opposite. I want to touch on some of these complaints which, in my opinion, indicate that there has been a total lack of action on the part of the local authorities. Not only are they not discharging their duties but, when that is pointed out to them. they act in the strangest manner that I have ever known in the case of authorities charged with looking after the interests of the people. In the first place there is no systematic inspection at all. Such inspections as do take place are only incidental to other inspections. An official is sent to investigate a case of infectious disease, and if it is remembered that something has been said about some house in the vicinity he is asked to look into that at the same time, but when his report is submitted no action is taken.
    According to the representations submitted to me, large numbers of houses in these areas require attention, and I think the Department ought to take action to inspect them independently of the local authority. The Farm Workers' Union is an organisation of working-class people and these farm workers are entitled to look to that organisation to safeguard their interests, especially in view of the fact that the worker in a rural area, particularly if he lives in a house connected with a, farm, is living in a social environment totally different from that which prevails in a town. He is in an environment where the owner of the property has a more intimate connection with the members of the local authority than is the case in the cities, and the people who live in the houses are under the influence of fear. They are afraid to make complaints. The local authorities ought to introduce a more efficient system of inspection and be more active

    1177
    in seeing that the statutory requirements are fulfilled.
    According to Section 5 of the Act of 1925 and Section 14 of the Act, of 1930 a local authority has power to compel proprietors to put their houses in a state fit for human habitation, and Section 5 of the Act of 1925 imposes upon a local authority the duty of making a systematic inspection of all houses in its area. According to Section 40 of the Act of 1919 it is the duty of a local authority other than the local authority of a borough to require an owner to obtain a proper supply of wholesome water and to introduce it into the house if it is reasonably practicable to do so, and, if not, to provide such a supply immediately out- side the house or as near thereto as is reasonably practicable. It is within the knowledge of the Under-Secretary that the Department agreed to make a test inspection in Berwickshire and Ross and Cromarty. I am informed that a test inspection was carried out in five or six parishes in Berwickshire, and that in no case was a complaint reported to be ill- founded. I would like to know whether the rest of Berwickshire has been inspected in the same way as the six parishes. A promise was also given to attend to Ross and Cromarty, and I wish to know whether anything has been done there, and whether there has been any Improvement in conditions following the long-standing complaints sent to the Department. May I give the House an example of the astounding attitude adopted by authorities up there? It shows that they are capable of exercising a great deal of intimidation over the People. The Public Health Committee of the county of Ross and Cromarty have a stereotyped reply which is sent to all who make complaints with regard to the lack of water supply to their houses:
    "The Public Health Committee were of the opinion that it was not reasonably practicable to introduce water into the houses or to provide sufficient water closet accommodation therefor, mainly on the ground of expense, and that there will be no hardship when the water has been brought to within a reasonable distance."
    There is no effort to investigate the matter, and no action is taken. It will astonish hon. Members to learn that they have actually passed a resolution on the matter:
    "Regarding the foregoing complaints and others of a like nature, it was agreed to
    1178
    inform the Department of Health that the committee do not favour the methods by which, in the first instance, complaints are not brought to the notice of the proprietors of houses; that ordinary courtesy demands that complaints should be so brought by the parties complaining before asking the council to exercise their statutory powers; and it was considered that this method would result in remedial measures being taken more expeditiously and without engendering unnecessary irritation."
    That is an excuse for not carrying out the duty of making an inspection:
    "It was further agreed to intimate to the Department with regard to future complaints that the committee will only take notice of complaints made by people actually interested and affected by the subject of the complaint, as they can recognise no responsibility resting upon them to investigate complaints made by outside parties, however well intentioned they may appear to be."
    That is an astounding attitude for any local authority to adopt, and I hope that in future the Minister will make them face up to their duties. I heard of a case of one local proprietor who would do nothing in the matter of water supply until he found out that the local authority were prepared to pay two-thirds of the cost. Then all the difficulties of getting water vanished, Officers of the Department made a three days' inspection of certain portions of the country in the north, and assert that the complaints made were proved to be well founded. Again I say that I would like some assurances as to what the Department will do to insist that local authorities do not in future wait until complaints are brought to their notice, because of the special conditions in country places to which I have referred, but themselves take the initiative in seeing that the requisite provisions are made in their district. I have been informed that some time ago the Department were considering the advisability of testing the question of whether they are entitled to insist on water being introduced into houses by taking a case to court. I am sure the Under-Secretary will agree that water is one of the prerequisites of a decent house, 'and I should like to know whether the Department still intend to take a test case into court.
    7.28 p.m.
    Sir ADRIAN BAILLlE: In spite of the somewhat fiery utterances of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and the rather Hitlerite attitude of the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern)

    1179
    I should like to pay my meed of tribute to what the Department has done in the matter of slums in the year that has gone by. The hon. Member for Shettleston is not the only one who takes occasion to visit slum areas and go into the houses. In the past months I have also had occasion to discuss housing matters with the local authorities concerned, and I may say that for the most part they are satisfied with the unit grants given to slum clearance houses, though not entirely. In one area, which will be familiar to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, where they propose to build 200 houses under the Slum Clearance Act of 1930, they found that, even with the provisions of that Act the scheme would be unprofitable and. a burden on the ratepayers. They are already paying 14s. 6d. in the £, and there are hundreds of them every week asking to be exempted from paying those rates. But, generally speaking, that scheme seems to be working satisfactorily, and we can only hope that when the terms come up for revision they will not be reduced.
    I will come to the serious question of the day which has been mentioned by nearly every speaker in this Debate, and that is overcrowding. I can only endorse what has been said by almost every speaker that the local authority cannot afford to build houses to let at a low rental with only a £3 subsidy. It was at first claimed that £3, a year ago, was equivalent to £9 in 1924. I think the Under-Secretary would not regard that as correct now. He must know as well as I do that the cost of house building in England is far lower than in Scotland. We were told, when the subsidy was introduced last year, that it was to encourage private enterprise by literally discouraging local authorities to build houses, except in cases of absolute emergency where private enterprise could not come in. I know that the Secretary of State does not claim that the building of houses under private enterprise has been any more than exiguous. Private enterprise has not even given us the "once over."
    The problem of overcrowding in my constituency is as real and urgent as anywhere in Scotland. I have been told that if the unit grant were extended for the purpose of meeting the overcrowding
    1180
    problem, it might go a long way towards that end, but, unless some such extension of unit grant be made, or unless the subsidy be increased, the local authorities in West Lothian will not put their hands to the building of one house in any shape or form. Reference was made by the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard) to the "tinkering up" of houses. I would be delighted to subscribe to his view, in many such cases, but I was examining a row of houses the other day about which there was some difference of opinion. My own opinion was that the houses should be scrapped, but there are other houses which could be reconditioned. There is no grant in regard to reconditioning, hut, if such a grant were made to local authorities, considerable economies, both local and national, might be made. The local authorities in my constituency are doing their very best, but they have not the wherewithal to tackle the problem of overcrowding. Reckoning outstanding loans and the deficit on current expenditure, they are out by something over £1,000,000. About 10 per cent. of the population are in receipt of public relief, and 'West Lothian is one of the two counties in Scotland described as distressed areas. In far too many cases, the housing conditions in West Lothian are deplorable. The problem is further complicated in certain areas by the fact that we cannot look with any degree of optimism for re-employment of men, especially in the shale mining areas.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: The proposals of the Government provide for them.
    Sir A. BAILLIE: We have not yet heard what the Government proposals are to be. To provide employment in that area you would have to employ men to build houses for themselves or for other poor people, and there would still be no opportunity of re-employment for those who are still out of employment.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: I understood that the Government had made proposals to put the shale oil industry on its feet, and that they were not just going to let it die.
    Sir A. BAILLIE: The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right, but he is speaking of the past and I am speaking of the future. The measures which the Government have already taken have stabilised the in-

    1181
    dustry to the extent of re-employing one thousand men, and the total employed is about 4,000. The industry at one time employed 12,000 men, so that there must still be a solid wedge of shale miners there who are without an opportunity of re-employment. I was very much relieved to hear what the Under-Secretary had to tell UP about housing and the way In which he said it. I am not like the hon. Member for Gorbals, always jobbing backwards. I agree that the Measure last year was, from some points of view, a mistake, but I am glad that the Measures which are now to be taken by the Department will be drastic, thorough, complete and final. The matter brooks no delay, and I look, not with anxiety but with keenness, to the early disclosure of the Measures which the Department have in mind.
    7.37 p.m.
    Mr. STEVENSON: Hon Members on this side of the House have congratulated the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary on the work done in connection with health during last year, but I think it is a mistake to accept the suggestions put forward by some of them, that we look with favour on the conditions of housing. I congratulate the Secretary of State and his Department on the drives which they are making with the object of clearing the slums. The statistics which he has produced as to the houses built by private enterprise are satisfactory. I put that forward with two qualifications, one of which is that the houses built under private enterprise are a very small proportion of the number of wage-earners in this country who can afford to pay the rents. I have also certain reservations to make on the congratulations which I offer to the Minister in regard to slum clearance. He tells us that we can now expect that 92 per cent. of the slum clearance houses in Scotland will be removed under schemes at present put forward. Those of us who are familiar with the densely populated areas in our industrial towns realise that a very fine distinction is sometimes drawn between houses which are condemned and those which are allowed to remain.
    Slums cannot be cured by demolishing condemned houses. The condemned house is only a symptom of the trouble. If we are to clear our cities of slums we must go a step further. We must look at the
    1182
    cause of the disease and tackle it wholeheartedly. The cause of the slum area is two-fold. Some people suggest that slums are due to overcrowding only, but there is another reason, which depends to a very large extent on the condition in which the houses or tenements are maintained. The external appearance of a house or tenement may be very good, but if sufficient be not spent in maintaining the house and keeping it continually in as modern a condition as possible, the house immediately goes down in character. I regret that the Scottish Office have not insisted upon local authorities drawing up rules, regulations and bylaws, as they are entitled to do under the Housing Acts, the Public Health Acts and Local Government Acts, setting forth the minimum conditions, with reference to the maintenance and sanitation of houses, below which houses shall not be occupied. That is one of the first things to do in trying to cure a slum area.
    Many advantages will be derived from that. We are all familiar with the type of tenement which requires a considerable amount of work to be done upon it to make it habitable. It is impossible to recondition certain tenement houses, but all depends upon the state at which the tenement house has arrived. There are many that could be put into reasonable condition with reasonable expense, perhaps by enlarging the size of the house, turning a two-roomed house into a three-roomed house or taking one room out of the house and seeing that the space is divided up and the house provided with proper lavatory and bathroom accommodation, and with scullery and wash-house. The Secretary of State should consider whether at as early a date as possible he can lay down some reasonable standard as to the sanitary condition of houses, using powers which are in existence or acquiring other powers in order to see that houses are maintained to that standard. If that be not done, it will not matter how many slum houses we clear, because other slum houses will come into existence.
    I feel a great deal of disappointment in regard to the small provision which is made for the reduction of overcrowding. It does not matter very much what type of house people live in while they are in overcrowded conditions. Such conditions are bound to lead to a reduction in

    1183
    health and, in very many cases, in general conduct and morality. I mean by morality not only sex morality but the general mental and physical strength of the people residing in those conditions. The more people there are in a room the less chance there is of individual development or of any attempt at home life. People are driven outside in all conditions of weather and stress, and the temptations which are put before them in our cities in such circumstances are often deplorable. I hope that in the near future there will be as strong and enthusiastic a drive by the Secretary of State to reduce overcrowding as that which he appears to be making to reduce the amount of actual slum property. He has told us that he has representatives of his Department visiting the various localities and giving advice as to what the locality can do under the existing law, and also on matters connected with the structure of houses. I should like him, if he has this staff available—and I suggest that, if he has not, he should acquire the staff—to go one stage further than that. A large number of slum clearance and other houses are being dealt with by municipalities at present, but in rather a spasmodic way, without any plans. In some areas of our cities, houses are being pulled down while other similar houses escape.
    I should like to see, even in the centre of our towns, some system of planning adopted for rehousing or the rebuilding of houses there, and I am particularly anxious also that, in the very densely populated parts of our cities, provision should if possible to made, not only for leaving open spaces where houses are pulled down, but for making those open spaces attractive and congenial to the people who live round about them. Often we see in our cities a blank space where the ground is not even level enough for children to play on, and where there has been no attempt at growing trees, or laying out grass, or anything of that sort. I feel that as much provision as possible should be made for open spaces where the people in the locality can sit or walk, and derive some benefit in addition to fresh air. I cannot help thinking that the fact that people living in a crowded area are able to see trees and grass growing, to realise that, while there is a time when the trees are bare,
    1184
    yet a time also comes later on, in the spring of the year, when they begin to show forth their leaves and flowers, must give to the people themselves a feeling that they have an opportunity of getting into better surroundings, and that, where they are able to do so by putting forth, as is almost invariably the case, some little additional effort in their work, they will have prospects of flourishing as the trees do. I think that that does as much good as anything else in helping to raise the morale of the people, and I am sure we must realise that persons who have been moved from the slums to more open surroundings, where they have their own gardens and a different atmosphere, derive as much benefit from that as they do from the advantages of reasonably good and well equipped houses. While I congratulate the Secretary of State on the drive that he has made in the past towards reducing and clearing our slums, I hope that in the future he will use as much, and if possible more, effort in trying to remove the various defects of our housing system which are the cause of the slums. Otherwise, we shall never get rid of them.
    7.49 p.m.
    Mr. JAMES REID: At this late hour I do not propose to do anything more than suggest those steps which I think ought to be taken immediately, before the comprehensive Bill of which we have heard is brought in. At the present moment there is, so to speak, a breathing space. Building under the Acts of 1923 and 1924, and under the slum clearance provisions, cannot take up the whole energy of the building trade in Scotland, and, clearly, the Act of last year cannot produce any reasonable number of houses. No one ever expected that it would. The purpose of that Act was really to bring to an end the subsidy provisions which were not satisfactory, and to release the whole energy of house-building for the purposes of slum clearance, with the certainty that within a year or two a further and more comprehensive Measure would be necessary.
    Before that further Measure can be drafted one must envisage the problem as a whole. The problem of the slums is a severe, but limited, problem. Overcrowding is just as severe, and much more widespread. But even that does not end the problem. What is required is an accurate survey of the capabilities,

    1185
    potentialities, and requirements of each area, and the object at which we must all aim is one habitable house per family. I do not suggest that there should be one new house per family, because that is unattainable within a generation. My quarrel with those hon. Members who pooh-pooh reconstruction is that, if reconstruction be ruled out, it is not possible for the building trade to produce enough houses within the next 15, 20 or 25 years, and, therefore, we should be condemning a very large number of people to remain in their present almost uninhabitable houses.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Would the hon. Member be in favour of reconditioning the houses at the expense of the owners, without subsidy from the Government? Otherwise, the expense is going to fall on the Government and the municipality.
    Mr. REID: The first thing about which one has to make up one's mind is the work that has to be done in a particular area, and the next thing is by whom the work is to be done and on what financial terms. If it is possible to make the owner do the work without expense to the State, nobody will be better pleased than I, as I have more objection to spending the State's money than the hon. Member opposite has. But, if it turns out that it is not possible to make the owner do it—if he goes bankrupt or something of that kind before he does it—the job nevertheless has to be done, and in such circumstances the State's money will have to be applied to the purpose.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but this is very important. In the event of the owner going bankrupt, would the hon. Member say that the municipality or the local authority should take over the houses?
    Mr. REID: I confess that I object, speaking for myself alone, to the local authorities taking over more houses than they have already, because there are many reasons why local authorities should not own houses; but I have no objection in principle to a national housing board taking over such houses. If the hon. Member thinks that that is Socialism, I give it to him. Personally, I am perfectly indifferent whether a proposal is called Socialism, or Capitalism, or any other "ism," so long as it works. My
    1186
    own personal view is that in this case there is room for a national housing board to take over a number of these houses and recondition them. I am quite willing to be told that other people have other views, but it seems to me that the main thing is to get the work done. How it is done and who does it are to me rather secondary considerations.
    I assume, therefore, to begin with, that what we are out to do is to produce, within, say, the next 10 years, one habitable house for each family, and I think there ought to be a comprehensive survey of each area with a view to discovering how that is to be done in that particular area. We have to start with what is in the area at the moment—the number of reasonably satisfactory houses that do not need to be touched; and I should very much like to see all houses which are at present owned by local authorities thrown into one pool, and no longer earmarked as 1923, 1924 or 1930 houses, because I am sure that in many cases local authorities are thereby handicapped. I would like to see all existing houses, whether owned by local authorities or by private enterprise, catalogued. The second point would be as to the number of houses which are not quite satisfactory, but which can be reconditioned. We ought to have an idea of how many of these there are in each area, roughly; it could not be attained accurately without a long investigation. Thirdly, it should be ascertained how many there are which, within the next 10 years, ought to be demolished. The number would be much larger than the number of houses already condemned for slum clearance purposes, because it would include all the decay that is going to take place in the next 10 years. It has been recommended that no houses should be reconstructed unless they have 20 years' useful life. If a house has only 10 years' useful life, but is not yet a slum clearance house, it ought to be put in my third category of houses which would have to be demolished before we attain the result at which we are aiming.
    Then it would be necessary to ascertain the requirements of the area within the next 10 years, and that could not be done merely by counting heads or counting houses. We are aiming, not at one house for so many individuals, but at one house per family, and we know that the number of individuals per family is de-

    1187
    creasing year by year. Moreover, there may be a larger rate of increase of population in one area than in another, and, in order to ascertain the housing requirements of any area, one must consider the general trend of trade and the general trend of population in the area. It sounds complicated, but I do not believe that, in the hands of skilled people, it would be found to be so complicated as it sounds. Assuming that it is found that there is a certain shortage to be made up within the next 10 years, then comes the really important point—where the houses are to be built. It is no good planting even a new Jerusalem if it is planted at the end of a car-line three or four miles away. Although you may have whole rows of new houses standing empty in the outskirts, you will still have overcrowding at the centre unless you provide there, or within a short distance, sufficient accommodation for those who require to live there, and, indeed, for those who desire to live there.
    A great deal of the present overcrowding is probably caused, not by lack of houses taken broad and large, but by lack of decent houses at the place where they are wanted, and I venture to think that no plan will succeed unless it contains very specific provisions for the construction of decent houses in those parts of our large cities where they are specially required by the population. Therefore, the plan would have to deal with the number of houses to be cleared in the course of 10 years, or whatever the period may be; the number to be reconditioned; the number to be built at the centre; and the number to be built on the outskirts, as is done under the present system. It may be found that in certain cases the present system of building has about reached its useful limit, and that we shall have to adopt a different system in order to meet what is now an unsatisfied demand. I hope that in that way the Government will be able to see, before they introduce their new Measure, exactly what is required in the larger and more important areas.
    I do not think it would be possible in the time to make a comprehensive survey of the whole of Scotland, but the right hon. Gentleman's flying squad might select one or two, or perhaps six or seven, typical areas of an urban
    1188
    character, and similarly of a rural character, and they might make a comprehensive survey of them. Those surveys ought not to be made by the local authorities but by the Department in consultation with the local authorities. We have been told by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) that the local authorities last year estimated one sum and that today they estimate quite a different sum. That is inevitable. Local authorities cannot possibly all work on the same lines. They cannot have the same ideas. In order to see the problem as a whole we want someone to work throughout the whole of Scotland with the same ideas in the same way. Who is going to do the work at the end of the day is another and more controversial story, but the man to make the census and to present the problem to us ought to be a servant of the Department and not of the local authority. I hope, before the final details of the Bill are settled, the right hon. Gentleman will have adequate assistance from his own officials in the shape of some such survey of selected areas as I have suggested.
    There are arguments in favour of local authorities doing the whole of the work and there is a very obvious argument against it, namely, that the local authorities have their hands full with slum clearance. am not at all sure that, if you put on the local authorities' shoulders the additional task of reconditioning, of building up a new type of tenement it may be in the centre of the city, and other activities of that kind, you will not fail to achieve your object even more lamentably than failures have taken place in the past. Private enterprise can undoubtedly be stimulated. I have no objection to private enterprise receiving subsidies under control if it turns out that they produce the goods which the Government want at a lower cost than they could be produced in any other way. It may be also that some national supervision, or indeed national control, of building or reconditioning may be necessary. It may be that two or more of these methods will have to run concurrently, but whatever the ultimate decision, we have, first of all, to envisage the problem fully and as a whole, we have then to spread the work, it may be, over different kinds of organisations if no one organisation can tackle the

    1189
    whole thing, and we have undoubtedly to spend a great deal of money, because the thing cannot be done without it. Provided we know we have a workable scheme which is going to put the housing system right for another 10 years, I do not think anyone will object to a pretty large expenditure of public money on the ground that, if not from a mere accountancy point of view, certainly from the point of view of the health and happiness of the country, it will be returned to us many times over.
    8.5 p.m.
    Lord SCONE: I wish to refer for a few minutes to the Rural Housing (Scotland) Act. That Act has undoubtedly been of the very greatest benefit, and it has enabled many houses whose only fault was that they were somewhat out of date to be put into a condition to house our rural workers in modern conditions. It may be asked why a rural landlord should have a subsidy in respect of these houses. There are several very good reasons. First of all, rents have come down very much, with a by no means corresponding decrease in the cost of repairs and administration, and few landlords, unless provided with a large independent income, are able to keep up their workers' houses in the way that they would like. Only a few days ago a case was brought to my notice of a farm that was re-let at a rent of only 57 per cent. of what it was some three years ago. Next it has to be remembered that, even if the Exchequer contribution is as high as two-thirds, there still has to be one-third paid by the landlord which may amount to a very large sum, if many houses are involved. Thirdly, and most important of all, in almost every case these are houses which are part of the emoluments of those who occupy them. No rent is every received from them, and therefore the owner receives not a penny back for his expenditure. All he gets is the satisfaction of knowing that his work-people are living in really up-to-date houses, and in every case that is a sufficient recompense.
    One danger to the expansion of this scheme to which I should like to draw attention is the question of the shortage of water. Not merely are many districts ill-provided with water as far as their present requirements are concerned, but as those requiements increase with the introduction of water into many more
    1190
    houses, so will their supplies prove even more inadequate. In Dumfriesshire on a property belonging to my family we are beginning a large scheme of reconstruction of cottages. Unfortunately this area is very badly provided with water. It is a special water district, and the supply is outwith the parish. Last year it was not very far short of failure. At the moment it is adequate, but it is likely that it will run very short as the autumn proceeds. If we are to introduec water into a large number of houses, it, means that we are going to increase the consumption by anything up to 25 gallons a clay, which is the usual figure taken. Suppose it is only 20 gallons and assume that each house contains five occupants. If we put 20 houses in order, we are going to throw an additional burden of 2,000 gallons a day on to a supply which already in dry years is hardly adequate. We are, therefore, faced with the unpleasant alternative either of leaving the houses in their present state or taking the risk of bringing them up to date and very likely throwing on to the local water supply a burden which it is totally impossible for it to carry. The district can only get an adequate water supply by means of a very large scheme. For reasons best known, to itself the Dumfries County Council has not made any application for a grant for this district. It is regrettable in view of the fact that the whole area along the coast from Dumfries to Annan is badly supplied with water. This instance is typical of many areas. As far as my own constituency is concerned, I read to-day the annual report of the county medical officer of health. Throughout the county, in places too numerous to mention, there is a water shortage. Again, the problem is going to be brought very forcibly before landlords, who will either have to leave the houses as they are or take the risk of causing a universal shortage of water.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is the Noble Lord aware that I asked the Secretary of State in how many places there was a shortage of water and the reply was that there was only one place in Scotland, and that was the Brig of Turk.
    Lord SCONE: I do not know the date of the question.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: A month ago.
    Lord SCONE: A month ago is not to-day. I also put a question a month ago, and at that time the situation was as the hon. Member has stated. To-day it is very considerably worse. The only way in which these small districts can hope to get an adequate water supply is by assistance from Government grants. The county council of Perth is very up to date, and it has applied for many grants, but, to use a commercial expression, the issue of £137,500 made by the Government has already been heavily over subscribed, and there is no chance that the county council will get anything like probably a quarter of the sum necessary. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will do his best to extract from a flinty-hearted Treasury at least £250,000 for water in his next Estimates.
    All Scotland is grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the drive that he is making to clear up the slums, and all Scotland will be equally grateful for the drive that he is going to make to reduce overcrowding. I am glad to say that the Perth Town Council are showing themselves to be very progressive indeed. They hope that within two years there will be neither slums nor overcrowding. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) said one might see unpleasant sights in the way of housing in Perth. That was the case up to a few years ago, but it has now very nearly disappeared, and I trust that in the near future it will be impossible for anyone to see houses in Perth which will not be a credit to the city. I know the town council are doing their best in that connection. There is one point in regard to compensation for slum property. A case was brought to my notice of a constituent, an old woman whose sole income is derived from the rents of some eight small houses. She is doing her best to keep them in decent condition as far as her means allow her. As the income that she derives from them is barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, it is hardly surprising that they have got into a state which can hardly be described as fit for human habitation. If she is forcibly deprived of her property and is only to be given the site value, an injustice will be done and she will be forced to the alternative of starvation or the poor house. It may be very difficult to draw a distinction between cases where an old person is entirely dependent
    1192
    on rents and others where a person owns a large amount of property and can well afford to put it in order, but I hope the right hen. Gentleman will make some effort to do something for these poor people who are faced with the loss of the small income on which they entirely depend. With almost every one else who has spoken, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and the Under-Secretary on the efforts that they are making to improve housing and at the same time to better the water supply, but a very great deal more has to be done, and, if they bring forward a really energetic scheme which will put Scottish housing into a very different condition in the next ten years, Scotland will be grateful to them for evermore.
    8.15 p.m.
    Mr. D. GRAHAM: It is rather difficult for one to take part in this Debate and to express any feeling contrary to that of good will towards the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary. There are some things upon which we can all agree. Both the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary have been as competent and capable as any holders of their respective offices during the 16 years that I have been a Member of this House. But most loyal supporters of the Government have made it plain that the Bill which they passed through this House has proved to be a failure.
    There have been so-called constructive speeches by supporters of the Government in regard to the slum problem. I do not know whether a suggestion which I desire to make to deal with the question of slums and overcrowding will be regarded as constructive, but I propose to put it forward with the utmost sincerity as one deserving of consideration by the Department. The members of the Department and their families should be compelled to live in a one or a two-roomed house for six or 12 months, and then they would get to know what a one or a two-apartment house really means. I believe that it would have the effect of quickening the rate of progress as far as the clearing away of slums is concerned. I would not be at all annoyed if some Members of the Government, and particularly representatives of the Treasury, were dumped down into some of the houses in my constituency where the occupiers have to sit up all night

    1193
    to prevent their children from being eaten by rats and have to go to work the following day and are generally expected by their employers to perform a good day's work. The people who know best the conditions of the slums are not the intellectuals. The people who are appointed on various commissions to make recommendations to deal with the question usually know absolutely nothing about it, and, in very many cases, lack sympathy.
    The slum problem is a pretty severe one. It is not new so far as Scotland is concerned, and Scotland is not worse than England. There are as rotten slums in England as there are in Scotland. Slums are due to low wages. One-apart went houses may become overcrowded owing to the inability of the occupiers to pay for more adequate accommodation. I dare say that the character of those people is as good as that of the best of us. It is not a question of character or of willingness to work or being able to work, or being capable workers, but of not having sufficient income in order to pay a sufficient rent to enable either private or public enterprise to provide them with adequate housing accommodation. It is all very well to talk about private enterprise failing to supply houses. Public enterprise has also failed. None of the public utility societies and none of the local authorities in Scotland are building houses for the men who are unemployed.
    There are large numbers of persons in my constituency, and in every constituency in the West of Scotland, living in overcrowded conditions and in rotten slums. Families are separated, the mother living in one house and the rest of the family in another. They have lived all their lives in the locality, and the municipality cannot or will not provide them with houses. If they are unemployed or dependent upon public relief and they go to the town or county council and ask for a house, they have to produce rent receipts to show that they are clear in their rent. I appreciate the point of view of the local authorities. They do not want to let a house to a tenant who is unable to pay the rent. They have any amount of sympathy with the applicant, but they say, "No, we cannot give you a house because you are unable to pay the rent."
    This brings me to a point which was raised by one or two hon. Members. It
    1194
    was mentioned in the first instance by the Under-Secretary who rather prided himself on the fact that the money to be devoted to the provision of water supplies is to be distributed in areas where there is a water scarcity. That is all to the good from many points of view, but I would like to draw the attention of the Department and the Minister to the fact that although we are not suffering from lack of water as far as our area is concerned, we have to pay towards the provision of water for Caithness or Dumfries. Are Dumfries and Caithness prepared to contribute to the maintenance of the people who are in bad circumstances in my area, seeing that we have to pay towards the provision of water? I have lived long enough to know that there has been too much coddling in certain areas at the expense of industrial areas, and it must be remembered that the poverty of our country is in the industrial areas, where the wealth has been created. It makes people not merely Socialists, but Communists, and even worse than Communists very often, because of the experience they have to undergo in regard to this matter. There is only one way of settling it. and that is by the State becoming responsible for the provision of houses. The State is as entitled to do that as it is to provide work. It would be not merely a paying proposition from the economic standpoint, but it would be a paying proposition from every point of view, if we look at it free of prejudice. I am not opposed to private enterprise merely because it is private enterprise. I am not a believer in Socialism merely because capitalism is bad, but because Socialism is a means by which it will be possible to produce conditions that will make life much more comfortable for every member of the community. If it did not do that, I should not believe in it and I do not know any Socialist who would.
    I believe that the State should be responsible for the provision of houses. It is a health question and an economic question. A man who has full rest in his house, a workman who has a bed to himself and who gets fully rested after his day's work is an infinitely better workman the next day than the man who has to lie in bed along with five or six others. The child who goes to school out of a crowded home and a crowded bed is under very considerable disadvantages compared

    1195
    with the children of parents who are in somewhat better circumstances. There will be no possibility of our giving commendation to this Government or to the next Government, even if it should be a Labour Government, or a Socialist Government, unless they are going to deal in a really thorough manner with the question of housing, and that can only be done by providing not one or two-apartment houses for families but a sufficient number of houses to separate the sexes.
    There are several questions that I wish to ask. I have been invited to attend a conference, at which I understand there will be a representative attendance of Members of this House. We are summoned to meet in Lanarkshire House, and the subject to be discussed is the subsidy. I do not propose to cross the t's or dot the i's of what has been said by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), but I agree with him that if we can spend millions of pounds in subsidising various industries we should be prepared to give sufficient payment to the local authority to enable them to carry out the instructions they get from the flying squad or any other squad appointed by the Scottish Department. In Glasgow, Paisley and Hamilton there is a considerable number of houses in respect of which the local authority will not get the subsidy, because of the dispute that took place in the building trade in which the plasterers were involved, which meant that they were unable to complete the houses within the time specified. Those authorities have had an intimation from the Department that they will not be entitled to the subsidy. If I were a member of a town council and I felt that we were being treated in that fashion by the Department, I should endeavour to get round any instructions that they sent. It is natural for the local authorities to be against the Department if the Department take up the position that, because, for some reason over which they had absolutely no control, the local authorities were prevented from carrying out a certain duty laid, they and the people they represent are to be mulcted in a considerable addition to their rates.
    I have the figures from the Ministry of Health Report of the payments made under the Poor Law in respect of the able-bodied unemployed, and I find that
    1196
    in Hamilton the rates of payments for destitute able-bodied unemployed have increased by 183 per cent. since 1931. In Clydebank the increase is 106 per cent., in Motherwell 450 per cent., in Dumbarton 184 per cent., and in Greenock, the Secretary of State's own constituency, 204 per cent. In Hamilton, Clydebank, Dumbarton, Glasgow, Port Glasgow, Greenock, Rutherglen, Airdrie, Coatbridge, Motherwell and Paisley, all industrial areas, where they have much overcrowding, slums, low wages and unemployment, the local authorities are unable to meet the calls that are being made upon them by the Government. To ask them now to submit to the indignity of being refused the continuance of the subsidy because of failure to complete houses that could not be erected because of a dispute over which they had no control, is not merely unreasonable but is an absolute scandal. I ask the Department to approach the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or anybody who can be brought into the matter, with a view to endeavouring to get them to give us the same privileges that have been given by the Ministry of Health to an English town, to which case my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) called attention to-day.
    There is another question in Lanarkshire which is of great importance, and that is drainage. The Department will have representations made to them from Lanarkshire in regard to that matter. The drainage question is somewhat serious in certain parts of Lanarkshire. Lanarkshire is one of the worst distressed areas in the whole of Great Britain, and the rates have increased by nearly 200 per cent., therefore I appeal to the Government to pay some regard to the representations made from that county in regard to this matter and to give them the assistance that will be necessary to enable them to put the drainage conditions in various villages in Lanarkshire in a more healthy state than they are in at the present time.
    There is one other question I want to bring to the notice of the Secretary of State. My friends and I met him in regard to a difficulty which has arisen in Dundee over the redistribution of the wards. The right hon. Gentleman agreed that there should be an inquiry, and he appointed Sheriff Blades to hold the in-

    1197
    quiry. The local people are satisfied with the action taken by the Scottish Office, but, unfortunately, the date of the inquiry has been fixed for the Dundee trade holiday week. Obviously, if the inquiry is to be held during that week it will be impossible for some of those who have been protesting against the proposal to attend, and I am asking the Secretary of State to give favourable consideration to the application I now make, that the inquiry should be adjourned to a later date in order to give them an opportunity of appearing. In our remarks there is no personal reflection upon the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary of State. Our experience is that while we may not get much, we always get civility, and occasionally the one thing above all others which we want, not merely promises but performances. As far as we are concerned I can promise on behalf of my colleagues that we will give the fullest support to the Government in this matter. If they give us evidence that they really are in earnest they can rest assured that it will be a national effort, there will be no division of parties, but unless we do get something more than promises there will be something in the nature of 'an explosion a year hence when Scottish Estimates come before us.
    8.38 p.m.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): I am sure that no Member of the Government will take exception to the closing words of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Graham). All we ask of hon. Members is that they will judge us by our performances, after we have had sufficient time to see that our plans are put into operation. The hon. Member has touched on difficulties which have arisen in certain areas; they were also referred to by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) in regard to the housing subsidy. I have had an opportunity since the hon. Member spoke of discussing this matter again. I have been in touch with the Housing Committee of the Glasgow Corporation, and am anxious to remove 'any doubt or suspicion which may have arisen, and which may still exist, in their minds, more especially as the Glasgow Corporation are bending all their energies to the utmost to deal with their slum areas. I ask hon. Members opposite, as I ask the corporation of Glasgow, to believe me
    1198
    when I say that I have been definitely assured by the Minister of Health that not one of the Sheffield houses referred to will earn any State subsidy unless they have been completed by the 30th June, 1934. The conditions of approval of the erection of these houses do not affect that fact. That is a definite statement which I make on behalf of the Minister of Health.
    Mr. D. GRAHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to receive a deputation on that matter from the localities affected?
    Sir G. COLLINS: Most decidedly. I was asked to receive a deputation from the Glasgow Corporation last Thursday, and I replied that I would meet them on Monday last. That date was not convenient to the corporation, but I am prepared to meet them on any date which is most convenient to them.
    Mr. MACLEAN: The right hon. Gentleman was present when I read a letter received by the convener of the housing committee of the corporation, and he will agree that it was evident from that letter that members of the Sheffield Corporation were under the impression that a concession had been granted by an extension of the period within which the subsidy could be earned. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will state, or if the Minister of Health will state, that no such extension of the period is to be given to the Sheffield Corporation for earning the £9 subsidy, and that consequently the statement contained in the letter sent by a member of the Sheffield Corporation to Glasgow must be founded on a misconception or upon error?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I am glad that the hon. Member has raised that matter again, because it is my desire that it should be definitely cleared up. I have no doubt that the person who wrote that letter to the individual in Glasgow was of the opinion that some of the Sheffield houses would earn the subsidy although they may have been completed after the date of the 30th June, 1934. But say here very definitely that not one of the Sheffield houses will earn any State subsidy unless they have been completed by the 30th June, 1934. The condition of approval, and this may be where the misunderstanding has arisen, of the erection of these houses does not affect that

    1199
    matter. In England, as in Scotland, no £9 subsidy is payable on any house under the 1924 Act after the 30th June, 1934. May I carry the matter one stage further in order to remove a sense of unfairness which exists in the minds of some members of the Glasgow Corporation that they have been treated differently from the treatment of Sheffield. They feel sore, I have no doubt, but I ask them to view this matter with a sense of proportion. About 20,000 houses have been completed in Glasgow by the 30th June with the aid of the £9 subsidy under the 1924 Act; a total annual subsidy, therefore, of £180,000 for 40 years. The number of 1924 Act houses uncompleted at the 30th June, 1934, in Glasgow was 1,474. The corporation will get £3 in respect of these houses if they are completed by the 31st March next. Their incompletion by the 30th June this year means that the corporation will lose £6 per house; that is a sum of £8,844 per annum. My hon. Friend has mentioned more than once that the" corporation should transfer those 1,474 houses, or some of them, to the 1930 Act, and so obviate or lessen materially the loss to be sustained. I think that that is a fair statement.
    Mr. MACLEAN: But are not the conditions under the 1930 Act considerably different from the conditions under the 1924 Act?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I am not denying that at all, but, if the houses do conform to the 1930 Act, they will get a very good subsidy, several pounds per house, as the hon. Member knows. I hope that that explanation may satisfy the Corporation of Glasgow. I do not want to blunt their edge, and I hope that they will press forward as now with slum clearance in that great city. I am sure that the Committee is grateful to the hon. Member for enabling us to discuss the problem of housing for most of the day. He has raised, as other hon. Members have raised, several problems with which shall hope to deal in my general observations after I have dealt with some of the specific points put to me. My right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) quoted figures relating to the number of houses; but he will remember that when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary quoted figures they related to the number of houses completed. The right hon. Member for Caithness spoke at
    1200
    times of the number of houses under construction. Since he spoke I have had prepared some statistics showing the number of State-assisted house completed during each of the last four years. The total for 1931 was 10,600; for 1932 it was 15,800; for 1933 it was 20,900; and the estimate for this year is 21,000, the actual figures for the first six months having been some 12,000 houses.
    From those figures of houses completed there has been no setback. My right hon. Friend referred to the difficulties in rural areas, especially the Highlands, and he pressed upon us that the Department should endeavour to deal with uninhabitable houses in the Highland country. I admit that much has to be done, and I can. assure him that the officials of the Department are presently attending to that problem. I hope that before the next Vote comes forward, we shall be able to give my right hon. Friend an account of some satisfactory work in the Highland areas. My right hon. Friend spoke of the cost of building. The figures for the last two years have been showing a slight decline. The year 1934 shows a slight decline over 1933.
    Sir A. SINCLAIR: I quoted figures which were given to us by the Under-Secretary of State in the Debate on the Report stage of the 1933 Bill, and quoted also the figures which were given to me only last week, and they certainly show a rise for exactly the same class of house.
    Sir G. COLLINS: The figures I have had given me show a decline, but will withdraw them for a moment and make further inquiries and inform my right hon. Friend of the exact cost, the comparable cost with the figures referred to on page 18 of the annual report. From my present information, the 1934 figure does show a slight decrease. The right hon. Gentleman and many other hon. Members have referred to the water supply in their several areas. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in his opening statement mentioned the four factors which would guide the Department when allocating the sum set aside by Parliament for the purpose. It will not be an easy job to sit in judgment and to allocate this comparatively small sum of money, in view of the vast applications which have been pressed forward by the different counties and areas, but on the

    1201
    guiding rules which have been enunciated to the Committee the money will be applied to the best possible use.
    The hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) made a very powerful speech in favour of dealing in a large and comprehensive way with overcrowding. He asked, what has the State done? I fear that at times the hon. Member is rather apt to overlook the very large effort which the State has made for housing since the War. I do not stand here in any spirit of complacency; far be it from me to do that. I know full well the terrible overcrowding conditions which exist in our towns in Scotland, but I must remind the hon. Member that since 1919 176,000 State-assisted houses have been built with Exchequer money, at a cost to the Exchequer of £17,500,000 already and a larger sum for the future. As the hon. Member drew his picture this afternoon I could not help saying to myself—and I am inclined to think that he will agree with me—that although the conditions are indeed bad in our cities, yet no country has ever made greater efforts for her people than Great Britain has made in the last 15 years.
    The hon. Member said that someone should be given power to deal with this matter, to cope with the problem of overcrowding and slum clearance in 10 years. During the last few months we have endeavoured to tackle the problem of slum clearance. If we could be judged and criticised this afternoon for failure to deal with overcrowding, I would stand here in a, white sheet. But I submit to the Committee that if the Government of the day in Scotland were to try to drive forward with all the energy at their command to cope with the two great evils which have existed in Scotland for so long—the problems of slum clearance and overcrowding—they would indeed fail. We felt it was far better to ask the public authorities in Scotland during this year to concentrate first, with all the forces at their command, on getting slum clearance under way, before asking the local authorities to bend their energies in future years to deal with overcrowding.
    Many hon. Members have touched on that point. The junior Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) spoke with truth of the bad housing conditions in Dundee and of the sights which I saw
    1202
    there with her and other hon. Members. The picture which she drew was, alas, an accurate one and I am glad to think that at a recent meeting between the Dundee Corporation and the, Department's officials the Lord Provost of Dundee on behalf of the corporation gave an assurance that they would build to the full extent of their capacity and that they hoped during this year and next to complete about 1,500 houses to replace these slum houses. I can only say that Dundee would honour itself if it would abolish these slums at a very early date. The junior Member for Dundee also referred to the different types of houses and it is interesting to note that under the slum clearance formula yin the 1930 Act the burden on local authorities in respect of the erection of three-roomed houses, is less than that involved in the erection of two-roomed houses. In other words, local authorities who erect three-roomed houses instead of two-roomed houses under the 1930 Act, have a smaller sum to pay. That wise provision is now in operation and I am glad to do justice to it because it is a direct encouragement to local authorities to build three-roomed houses rather than two-roomed houses.
    The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) displayed that spirit which we know so well both here and in the Scottish Standing Committee. He spoke as a true Scot when he said he was proud to know the rate at which Scotland had travelled on the road of progress and the change for the better in the past 50 years. We all agree with him that further progress can and must be made, but it must have been gratifying to the hon. Member's colleagues from Scotland to hear his direct testimony to the vast improvement which has taken place among the Scottish people during the past 30 to 50 years. The hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard) raised a variety of questions about local authorities and rural housing conditions which I may deal with as follows. The test case to which he referred is I understand going on. With regard to the local authorities inspection, a considerable amount has already been done and we shall certainly consider what steps can be taken to accelerate the completion of that inspection. Several hon. Members have touched on the question of water supplies and various other topics and if

    1203
    I do not endeavour to deal with those matters as fully as those hon. Members would desire, that is not through any lack of courtesy on my part but through lack of time.
    Before concluding I should like to make one or two general observations about the Debate. It has indeed been a very remarkable Debate. Hon. Members from all parts of Scotland have been unanimous in the view that the problem of overcrowding must be tackled with earnestness and a determination to succeed. Government supporters, no less than Members of the Opposition, have this afternoon pressed that case upon the attention of the Government. One hon. Member after another has addressed the Committee, with knowledge, on the conditions existing in their various constituencies. They have, as I have already said, drawn a picture which is only too true of the tragedy of overcrowding in many areas. It is in no spirit of complacency that I stand here responsible with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for the housing-policy to deal with these conditions. We have endeavoured this year to deal with slum clearance. In February last the local authorities met us and put forward proposals for dealing with 70 per cent. of the slum areas under their control. In July, I am proud to think, the local authorities in Scotland showed themselves so much alive to their duty and so keen to wipe out this problem from their midst, that they submitted proposals under which 92 per cent. of the slums in Scotland will, if their plans mature, be wiped out within five years. This Debate has shown a burning desire on the part of hon. Members that the Government of the day should interpret the mind of Parliament by dealing with overcrowding next year. That is the object of the Government—to interpret the mind of Parliament on these all-important subjects—but I must ask the Committee to wait until next year, until our plans have matured.
    Mr. BUCHANAN: Why wait?
    Sir G. COLLINS: For the very obvious reason that if we asked these local authorities to press forward with overcrowding as well as slum clearance this year, the whole machinery would become clogged. My experience in these matters shows that it is better to do one thing at a time. Surveyors and architects have to
    1204
    be consulted and much work has to be done and by attempting too much at once we might cause the whole machinery to break down. At any rate, for good or ill, we took the decision some time ago that the attention of the local authorities might well be directed to the slum clearance problem this year. It may be that we were wrong but I submit that if we had tried to press forward both matters we might not have had those excellent figures dealing with slum clearance which the Under-Secretary was able to give to the Committee to-day. As I say we made our decision and I am prepared to submit it to the judgment of the Committee. But we realise the determination of hon. Members to force the problem of overcrowding on the attention of the Government. If we did not interpret the minds of our colleagues from Scotland and the mind of our people upon this subject, then, indeed, we should be sensible of having neglected in our day an opportunity of dealing with a great need of the people of Scotland. In view of all that has been said, I now ask the Committee to allow us to pass from this to the next Vote which is down for consideration, and, with that object in view, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  CLASS IV.

    PUBLIC EDUCATION, SCOTLAND.
    Motion made, and Question proposed:
    "That a sum, not exceeding S.:4,313,185 (including a Supplementary snm of £206,250)be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, for Public Education in Scotland; and for the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh; including sundry Grants in Aid."—[NOTE: £2,600,000 has been voted on account.]
    9.4 p.m.
    Sir G. COLLINS: I now ask the Committee to turn from the subject of housing to the subject of education. The Vote before the Committee is for a sum of £6,706,935, which is £12,675 less than the Vote for the previous year. As a result of the partial restoration of the cuts in teachers' salaries, there is a Supplementary Estimate for £206,250. Since last year I have had time to meet teachers, inspectors, and representatives of education authorities throughout Scotland, and also to visit many schools.

    1205
    One's mind went back 30 or 40 years ago to one's own educational days, and what a painful process it was, at any rate for me, in more way than one. How different is the position to-clay. In the first place, our new buildings are a great advance on those of even 20 years ago. We seek for these buildings large open spaces, structures spread out so that air and sunshine may get as much access to the classrooms as possible.
    Then, as to staff, the number of teachers is 28,000, as compared with 22,000 in 1914, while the number of pupils is to-day about the same as it was then, some 800,000. The average number of pupils per teacher to-day in primary and secondary schools is 35 and 25 respectively. All teachers in Scotland are certificated, 36 per cent. of them are graduates, and 14 per cent. honours graduates. Thus a reasonably adequate provision is secured of the material conditions and the living personnel. What about the curriculum? This, along with the teacher's personality, on which too great stress cannot be laid, is the crux of the educational system. The object of education, as I see it, is to help our young people to lead useful and enjoyable lives, to equip them for private leisure and life, citizenship, and occupation. Is not that the natural desire and ambition of all parents for their children?
    Our commercial, technical, and domestic courses for those between 12 and 15 years of age have been during the last three years made more practical. We have tried to bend the leaving certificate courses away from the academic for those whose interests and abilities are not of that nature, so that the certificate shall meet the needs of those going into the workshop and not be merely a passport to the universities, as it has been too much in the past. Our continuation class system offers an immense variety of suitable practical subjects for those who are already in work; and our technical, commercial, art, domestic, and agricultural colleges meet the needs of the more advanced students. It is sometimes said that the curriculum is too rigid. Is not the curriculum rather a piece of machinery to be used, adapted, and bent to meet the needs of boys and girls? We are constantly scrutinising and improving the programme of subjects and the methods by which they are taught.
    1206
    I would now like to touch on two aspects of school work—the training for citizenship and the training for physical health. As to the first point, I do not think good citizenship any more than good conduct can be taught as an isolated subject. Information can, of course, be given as to civic and national government, but the real thing is a matter of atmosphere and example. The whole of the school activity should help to create and inculcate a feeling of civic responsibility, a habit of observing accurately and weighing evidence, a sense of fairness, a conviction that, though the State is a corporate body, it is enlivened by individual thought and action. Is not education one of the most difficult problems in a democratic country? When compulsory public education was started in 1870, the sphere of State action in public affairs was relatively limited. How different, as our Debate this afternoon has shown, is the position to-day. There are few sides of human activity in which the life of the individual is untouched by the State, and many of the questions arising perplex and divide even the most gifted minds. Yet if electors are not fitted to give a rough but generally fair judgment on these matters, how shall democratic government be conserved against the claims of those who sigh for a dictatorship either from the right or from the left? As we are reminded by the poster advertising the Pageant of Parliament:
    "What touches all should have the consent of all."
    As to the second point, the nation is deeply concerned with the physical condition of the children. The figures of expenditure on our school medical service are interesting. The expenditure on medical inspection and treatment for the years 1914, 1922 and 1933 were, respectively, £44,000, £121,000 and £172,000—a steady increase during those years. These figures show that, whatever economies have been made in other directions, the health and physical welfare of the children have received increasing attention, and I think the Committee will agree with me in applauding our local education authorities for taking, in a time of great difficulty, this generous view of their responsibilities to the children.
    On the physical side of education generally, I think undoubtedly great progress has been made. More time now is given to physical instruction, and the

    1207
    facilities in the way of gymnasia and playing fields are being steadily increased and improved. The aim, I think, should be the development of a well-grown and healthy race, a matter in which nutrition plays an important part. Although the reports of the school medical officers and medical officers of health have conveyed no signs that malnutrition among school children is increasing, one cannot ignore the fact that malnutrition does exist. I am advised, however, that defective nutrition is not merely a question of lack of food, but may be largely due to the use of foodstuffs which do not produce good bodily structure and resistance to disease. If that be so, as my advisers tell me, consideration may have to be given to the question of instructing our people in regard to what, for lack of a better term, I might describe as "the elements of nutrition." If the people's diet be wrong, steps should be taken in our schools to correct it. Surely it is better to build up healthy children capable of resisting disease than to have to spend money on the treatment of diseases which could be prevented by the use of a proper diet.
    I now turn to a matter which has exercised the mind of Scotland during the last few years—the operations of the Endowments Commission. There has been dissatisfaction and criticism. Part of that has been, I am convinced, beside the mark, and I would like at this point to pay my tribute to the energy and ability which the Commissioners, many of them busy men, have brought to bear upon what may have been a thankless task. The present Commission was specifically directed by Parliament to examine, to reorganise, to amalgamate, to modernise. With such a remit how could the Commission fail to cause trouble? Its predecessor of 1882 caused similar trouble, but who, making a calm review of its work, would deny that it brought benefit to Scottish education and gave new opportunity to the clever children? There has been much criticism directed against the bursary policy of the present Commission. But I would point out that, irrespective of the operations of the Commission, the aid afforded by bursaries is now such as was undreamt of in the 19th century. We have to-day the endowment bursaries amounting to 270,000 a year, the rate bursaries amount-
    1208
    ing to £200,000 a year, and the Carnegie bursaries amounting to £57,000 a year where formerly we had only the first of these.
    On the other hand, we must see that the sons of the middle-classes—those who come from the manse, the schoolhouse and the country surgery, of whom we have notable examples in this House—are not denied the aid which may carry them to positions of influence and power for good in this country. I regret that it would be out of order for me to make any reference to the future of the Commission, as that is a question which involves legislation. I would, however, like the Committee to realise that I am fully aware of the situation, and I hope to be able to make some statement on the subject at a very early date.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Will that statement be made before the House adjourns?
    Sir G. COLLINS: I hope so.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I have received a letter on this question, and I have several questions which I want to put to the Minister. Is there any truth in the statement that the little shopkeeper and the boarding-house keeper and people in that class of life are trying to make Marr College into another dollar institution, where the children of the semi-middle class will go and get the benefits of a fund which was left for the benefit of the poor of Troop who are capable of accepting the education
    provided?
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Before the right hon. Gentleman endeavours to answer that question, may I ask him to leave it to me, because I am in close touch with the situation through the present trustee for the scheme governing the Marr Trust.
    Sir G. COLLINS: I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I left the Under-Secretary to reply to any question which may be put. We expect that direct questions will be put to the Government in the Debate as to work of the Endowments Commission, and my hon. Friend will answer them. Passing from the Endowments Commission, I want to go back to the question of education. In education, as in other callings in life, competition from other countries is more strenuous to-day than formerly. Other countries are challenging us in the race, and in order that Scotland shall maintain her position it is essential that

    1209
    all concerned—central administration, local authority members and officials and, last but not least, teachers—shall watch the interests of the children with zeal and determination, and continue to give constant attention to all aspects of the modern problem of public education.
    The provision of primary and secondary education is one of the greatest of the public services—inevitably and rightly. In extent and universality it has almost assumed the proportions of a monopoly. Monopolies have drawbacks and I sometimes wonder what would be the result if such education were under a competitive system—if supply had to respond to a demand that was widespread and active, enlightened and critical. While such a picture is merely imaginary, and I am not even dreaming of the competition of private venture schools such as once were common in this country, I wonder whether the proper monopoly in education has not something to learn from the outside competitive world. s there not room in our educational system for self-criticism, consideration of the needs of the modern world in the country as well as in the town, close sympathy between our teachers and educationists on the one hand and those taking part in the manifold activities outside on the other? Fortunately the opportunities for this have been greatly increased by the administrative changes made in 1930 in accordance with the Local Government (Scotland) Act of that year.
    It is sometimes said by Englishmen that Scotsmen have a good conceit of themselves, and although there is value in this outlook there is also a risk that we may become too complacent and set in our views and fail to adapt ourselves quickly enough to new conditions. I confidently appeal to all engaged in the great work of education to bring continuous and tenacious attention to the maintenance and improvement of the high standard which has been attained. The modern world, especially the youth of to-day, questions old methods and demands an active outlook and a fresh spirit in education as well as in other walks of life. Every morning the mothers, rising early, send off to school the 800,000 children. With pride and confidence they send them clean and neatly dressed. There is little nowadays of the "creeping like snails unwillingly to school." The
    1210
    parents surrender their children confidently to the care of our 28,000 carefully selected and highly qualified teachers. It is a great trust, a great opportunity. The youth of Scotland s committed to their care during its most impressionable years.
    Finally, let us note that the estimated expenditure from rates and taxes for education in Scotland this year is nearly £13,000,000. In 1914 it was about £5,000,000. The increase is remarkable, judged by any standard one might apply. It is a striking testimony that the public conscience demands the highest standard of education. It is a tangible sign of the sacrifice made by the taxpayer and ratepayer in a good cause; enforced, it is true, but, I believe, contributed on the whole with good will and confidence in the public administration. It is easy to criticise the teaching profession, but the high calling of the teacher is indeed a difficult and arduous one. Not only is infinite patience required but, amid the daily routine, a mind and heart to keep ever in view the ultimate object of fashioning and equipping the children for life. That is the spirit and outlook which animates, I am proud to say, our teachers in Scotland, and it is with that outlook that I beg to present this Estimate.
    9.27 p.m.
    Mr. N. MACLEAN: In the statement made by the Secretary of State for Scotland, he took advantage—to use the phrase with no harsh meaning—of the shortness of the time that we have at our disposal to discuss this Vote, to leave out any mention of the somewhat obscure situation that has arisen in Scotland over the Endowments Commission. The Committee would have liked very much indeed to hear some clear statement on what the situation in Scotland actually is, to enable them to be prepared, as is customary, in a proper manner.
    Sir G. COLLINS: I carefully avoided making any reference to the Endowments Commission. As hon. Members already know, the commission comes to an end at the close of this year, and fresh legislation is required. I thought that if I made any reference to legislation I should not only be distinctly out of order, but the Debate might be led into channels which would not be satisfactory.
    Mr. MACLEAN: I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but the point I was endeavouring to make was that if

    1211
    we had received a statement of things done by the Endowments Commission we might have been able to discuss that matter without in any way projecting ourselves into the future of education in Scotland if the Endowments Commission were to fall into disuse owing to the lapse of time.
    Regarding the report which we have before us, one peculiar situation arises. With a great deal of this report hon. Members will be in entire agreement, but there are curious features in it which spring at once to the minds of hon. Members who represent Scotland, and which suggest that everything is not well in the schools of Scotland nor yet among the people who send their children to the schools. In the middle of page 25 of the report of the Committee of Council on Public Education in Scotland, in paragraph 20, there is a table: "Provision of meals and clothing to school children." The figures contained in that statement for three years bring to mind at once the circumstances which prevail in Scotland, and prove beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt—at least to my mind—that notwithstanding all the quantity of praise that is being bestowed upon the National Government, the situation in Scotland is undoubtedly worse to-day than it was previously, and that consequently we have not very much to brag about. The only thing upon which we can congratulate ourselves is that we in Scotland have at least taken it upon ourselves to look more closely after the children and to see to it that, whatever fault there may be in the conditions of the society in which they are growing up, they shall not suffer anything which can be prevented by the schools, but shall be fed and clothed, and so enabled to take the fullest possible advantage of the education we are giving them.
    In order to justify the statement I have made, it is necessary for me to read the figures for 1931 and for 1933. In 1931, the number of children provided with meals was 28,801, and in 1933 the number was 35,382, an increase of 6,581 children. When we come to the provision of clothing, there is an even more startling increase in the two years, for we find that while in 1931 the number of children who had to be provided with clothing was 68,943, in 1933 the number was 110,350, an increase of 41,407 children receiving
    1212
    clothing. The number of meals provided to the children in 1931 amounted to 4,465,300, and in 1933 the number was 6,310,000, an increase of 1,845,000 in the two years.
    I submit that these figures alone are a sufficient indication of what has been put before this House time and again by Scottish Members, and that they give the amplest justification for the very strong attitude adopted by most Scottish Members in endeavouring to insist that greater attention should be paid to Scotland because of the peculiar circumstances in which it finds itself owing to the fact that so many of its industries have been, in the phrase that is used in the Press, "Drifting South." In my opinion they have not been drifting South, but have been dragged South. If some of our business men in Scotland had that degree of patriotism which one considers they ought to possess and which, when they attend Burns' suppers and the Bannockburn celebrations they profess to feel, I am confident that the remarkable patriotism which hovers over them on those two wonderful days in Scottish history would prevent such a tale from having to be revealed in the report of our Scottish Education Department as to the poverty which prevails at the present time, and which is undoubtedly increasing in Scotland.
    Regarding the statement made by the Secretary of State as to bursaries given to enable young people of ability to go to the university, there to accomplish what may be the ambition of themselves or of their parents, I want, here on the Floor of the House, to take up his observation that "young people from the middle-class must not be denied the assistance of these bursaries." I would not deny them to the children of any class. I would not confine them to the working-class or the middle-class, because I consider that children of all classes are entitled to the fullest education that it is possible for us to provide. The better educated its children are the greater will this nation—or any other nation—be, provided that that education is put to the best use, not used merely in the interests of the individual who acquires it, but for the nation which has provided it. What I want to point out is that in Scotland to-day certain children are being denied bursaries because it has been stated by the education authorities

    1213
    that their parents are too poor to allow their children to go to a university even with the assistance of a bursary, as it would entail too great a sacrifice by the parents.
    Lord SCONE: What authorities say that?
    Mr. MACLEAN: The Glasgow education authority is one. I have letters which passed between the Glasgow Corporation and myself when I raised the question with them in one case. At first they refused to give me any reason for their action, but when I pressed the matter and it was remitted by the education committee to the sub-committee dealing with bursaries the whole matter came out. I was informed by one of the education committee that the reason for their action was that the parents were too poor. Somehow or other the Press got information from inside of what was happening. The case was reported in the Glasgow Press and my name was associated with it, because my name had been brought up at the subcommittee and the general committee by reason of the letter I had sent. I had thought that the case I put forward was an exceptional case, but its publication in the Glasgow newspapers brought to me a dozen letters from other people reporting cases in which clever children at school had been refused bursaries because their parents were too poor. If there be a scandal—and I do not say there is—involved in the Marr Trust and in Troon, it is a mere flea-bite of a scandal compared, with the fact that children who show outstanding ability at school are to have the doors of the university slammed in their faces because they happen to he unfortunate enough to be born into a household where the father is either unemployed or is earning too low a wage to provide the necessary clothing and other things which are required, even when a bursary has been granted, to enable the boy or girl—because some of these cases concern girls—to go to a university.
    I know that the Under-Secretary made the statement in the Scottish Standing Commitee that, although there was no bursary, education authorities had the right under the Education Act to make a grant. Here is my experience of how a local authority exercises its rights under
    1214
    that Act. When the matter was being fought out with the Glasgow Education Committee in the one case which I was making a test case, I was approached by several members of the committee. May I say openly, on the Floor of the House of Commons, that I have not yet received from the Town Clerk or the Director of Public Education in Glasgow any official statement as to their intentions or decision in that test case, but I received information from members of the committee whom I know, who came to me. Their statement to me verbally is that they admit that they made a mistake, that they ought not to have come to this decision. Then I put it to them, "Here is a boy who shows outstanding ability and you have barred the door of the university against him for one year. What are you going to do to enable that boy to retain his interest in his studies? Cannot you give him a grant of some kind, so that he can continue attending classes and be prepared to enter the university when the next term begins, in order to receive education for the particular line or profession that he wishes to enter?" I was informed by a member of the committee, when I appealed to them to make a grant out of the corporation's funds, that they could not do that as it was against the law.
    Sir R. SMITH: Will the hon. Member tell me what the profession is that the young man wanted to take up?
    Mr. MACLEAN: I do not think that is necessary.
    Sir R. SMITH: 'But you did refer to it.
    Mr. MACLEAN: There are a number of cases concerning young women and young men. If I give the names of two or three of them who want to enter different professions, people will identify the individuals. If any hon. Member doubts me—and I do not say the hon. Member who interrupted me is doubting me—I can produce the letters from the parents and copies of my own letters to the education authority and of the letters from the education authority to me.
    Sir R. SMITH: I am not challenging the statement of the hon. Member in any way, but he referred to the boy wanting to enter a profession, and I asked what that profession was.
    Mr. MACLEAN: What does it matter? It is not a question of the profession he desires to enter. Their action has prevented him from entering any profession. It is not as though the question had arisen of some profession being overcrowded and his having been told by the adviser of studies "The particular profession you are thinking of entering is overcrowded and with your particular bent I think you should enter this other profession." If that advice had then been refused I could see some point in it. The bursary was not refused because the lad desired to enter any particular profession, but merely because his parents were too poor. That is the point which we have to consider.
    Mr. SKELTON: I understand that the merit of the children in question to receive the bursary was not in doubt.
    Mr. MACLEAN: That is so. In this case, the lad's ability to enter the university and sit for any degrees which he sought to take for the profession was never a matter of doubt. The whole point was that the household was too poor, and that caused the Committee to say that too severe a sacrifice would be imposed upon the rest of the family if they had to maintain the boy at the university, as an addition to the amount that he was receiving as a bursary. The Under-Secretary made it perfectly clear that the powers which the education authority said that they did not possess are actually possessed by them. I accept his word have repeated that statement to some members of the corporation whom I have since met, and they expressed surprise, because they were unaware of the facts.
    Will the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary be good enough to issue a circular through the Department to the educational authorities in Scotland drawing their attention to that Section of the Act? We have now reached what might be looked upon as the holiday period, when the prizes have been presented and the children are on holiday. We shall soon come to the time when the universities open for a fresh term. The idea seems to be prevalent in the minds of elected members of education authorities —I do not mean merely the officials—that they have no power to make a grant in such circumstances. I ask for the issue of a circular so that it may be said in future that Scotland still remains the
    1216
    place where the lad or the lass o'pairts, despite the household circumstances, may always find open to them the avenue of learning, and that success in the sciences or in the arts which they believe the universities can provide for them. I ask the Secretary of State to see to it that those conditions are open, and that in the future local authorities shall not deny admission to universities to the capable child in the belief that they have not the power to make a grant.
    9.49 p.m.
    Mr. BUCHAN: Education is a subject with which I have long been connected, both because of the nature of my constituency and of my own interests. I should like to pay a tribute to the Secretary of State for Scotland for his most interesting and comprehensive speech. Education is an extraordinary subject about which to talk. The counters have been so handed about and so rubbed in the handling that they have almost no impression left. Educational Debates are apt to be like the mediaeval debates upon metaphysics where, within the rules of logic, you used counters which had practically no meaning. Nothing is needed so much as fresh, clear thinking and simple speaking upon this subject of education. A great deal of nonsense is talked and written about it. I have been a pretty bad sinner in that respect in the past. I have been speaking a good deal upon the subject in recent years, and I long ago said all the things that I believed to be true about education and a good many things which I knew to be untrue. So I have mercifully become silent.
    The Secretary of State spoke simply and freshly upon the subject. Perhaps that is because his mind is not staled by speaking upon it too often. I specially liked his emphasis upon the importance of personality in the teacher. I thoroughly agree with every word of his tribute to our Scottish teachers. They have been a remarkable group of men ever since the days of John Knox, and to-day they have a very high average of academic attainment and of character. In the difficult matter of the cuts in 1931, they behaved with great dignity and public spirit. It is unfortunately true that the teaching profession has always been unpopular. In the mind of the ordinary, unthinking man there is always a certain prejudice against it and a, certain sus-

    1217
    picion of it, and it is therefore highly important that those who are associated with it should dignify the teachers' calling. Anything which detracts from the dignity of that calling and makes it more difficult to get the best men into it, is a very real national danger. Before the War, when I was a candidate for my own border county, I was once asked by a heckler if I knew who was the greatest danger in the country. I said that I did not, and I asked him what he thought it was. He replied--the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) will understand the language—that the "dominies were gettin' ower crouse," which means, if I may translate it into a much inferior tongue, that the schoolmasters were getting above themselves. The dominies can well be "ower crouse" in the right sense of the term. They should exalt their profession, and we should enable them to exalt it.
    The danger of the teaching profession being in a position where it must always be the object of a good deal of popular suspicion is that it may get into an enclave, or group by itself. It may become like the clerks in the Middle Ages who demanded the benefit of clergy, and who maintained that they were not quite like other men. That would be a very great tragedy. The power of the teacher must lie in his being a good citizen. There was a good deal of talk in the Debate last night about the teaching of so-called civics. I do not like the word, and I do not much care for the subject. I agree entirely with the Secretary of State for Scotland that you cannot teach as an isolated subject the duty and the privileges of citizenship, because they must run through the whole curriculum from beginning to end. The best way of making boys good citizens is to give them teachers who are themselves good citizens. I always rejoice when I find members of the teaching profession taking an interest in public life outside their own line. One of the best ways of getting rid of the inevitable popular prejudice and suspicion is to teach the ordinary man that the teacher has just as much common sense as himself.
    Another way of doing that is by making people understand the immense importance of education on the practical side. By "practical" I do not mean a narrow practicality. You must get out of the mind of the ordinary man the idea
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    that education is regarded as an end in itself, a kind of wonderful picture which we have constructed, and to which we may be allowed to put a few finishing touches. We must make it clear that education is highly practical, and that its only business is to enable people to live a full, a happy, a worthy and a useful life. We shall very soon have to face the problem of extending the school age. I understand that I am not allowed by the Rules of the House to deal with that subject except inferentially—a blessed word. Inferentially speaking, I would suggest that, if we are going to make a success of any such extension, we must be very clear that the right subjects are embodied in the curriculum in the latest stages of this extended education. We must make it clear to the world that this final instruction is directed to the larger uses of life, and to the interests of that wider world which must be faced after leaving school. In framing our curriculum we must remember that, and we must make it clear to the ordinary man, who is to pay the bill.
    9.57 p.m.
    Mr. MAXTON: I am sorry that the discussion on the Health Vote has left such a very limited time for discussion of the subject of education, not because I think that education is any more important than health, but because it is obvious that there is a large number of Members who are anxious to say a word on education—Members with varied experience and varied political outlooks. It is unfortunate that the House of Commons can only afford one day in the year, or a few hours of a day in the year, to discuss the question of education, which has always been of such very great interest to a large proportion of the Scottish people. It is particularly regettable because to-day we are discussing the Scottish Estimates, and we have just had two very fine speeches, one by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the other by my hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan), who have reached very high levels of educational oratory, but in doing so have got very far away from the Scottish Estimates. That was sound tactics on the part of the Secretary of State, and it was good party loyalty on the part of the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities; but those who sit on the Opposition Benches are more con-

    1219
    cerned to get at the details of the administration of Scottish education by the Government during the 12 months that have just passed.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities knows, I followed him, in perhaps the greatest school in Britain, as a junior boy, while he was at Oxford covering himself and his old school with many academic distinctions; and he was always pointed out to those of us who were his juniors as the example that we should all follow. Indeed, this was said to me so often by the various masters that I began to detest the name of John Buchan with a deep detestation, which I never overcame until we were sitting together in this House. Just as I regretted having to follow him in the school, so I regret having to follow him to-night, because no one in this Committee is more easily tempted than I am to get on to exactly the same type of theorising as has been indulged in by the Secretary of State and by the hon. Member. But I am resisting that, and I am going to deal with the administration of education in Scotland by the present Government, as represented by the present Secretary of State and his Under-Secretary, and I am going to enter caveats against the paeans of praise which the Secretary of State for Scotland showered on himself.
    I want to suggest that education in Scotland during the year that has gone has not been on the high level which it could very easily have reached. My hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) raised one section of the problem, namely, the granting of bursaries for higher education in Scotland. If he turns to the appropriate paragraph in the report of the Committee on Education for Scotland, he will find that, during the financial year ending the 15th May, 1933, the total sum expended on bursaries by the education authorities was in round figures £207,000, as compared with £244,000 in the previous year; and the report states:
    "The decline points to a somewhat exacting standard in the educational qualifications required in a bursary holder, a change for which there is much to be said."
    I regard that as untrue. The fall in the expenditure on bursaries was not because there was a limited number of pupils coming forward in Scotland with the
    1220
    necessary educational qualifications, because, if the right hon. Gentleman will examine his own report, he will see that a larger number of leaving certificates—the hallmark of the successful accomplishment of a secondary education in Scotland—were granted by his own Department to the pupils coming out of the secondary schools; and yet, under his administration, the amount spent on bursaries to permit of higher education was reduced to a very substantial extent.
    The right hon. Gentleman saw fit to introduce into his speech on education homilies to housewives as to how they should feed their children—an argument to which I profoundly object. He argued that, if the mothers of Scotland spent the money that they had on the right kind of food, then the physical condition of the youngsters would be better. I believe that the average mother in Scotland knows just as well how to feed her youngsters intelligently as I know how to feed myself intelligently; and, frankly, I must confess to a very great depth of ignorance on the matter.
    When I go into the dining-room of the House of Commons, I look down the menu and choose, not necessarily the cheapest things; but, having chosen what I regard as a meal that will satisfy me, I have not the faintest idea, when I have consumed it and paid for it, how it stands in the order of calories and vitamins and matters of that kind. I see great big, husky men in this House who eat even less intelligent meals than I do, and show an infinitely higher percentage of physical quantity, at any rate, than I do for my expenditure. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that, before he starts to tell the housewives of Scotland—the mothers of Scotland—how to spend their limited resources in the feeding of their children, he should find out first of all what intelligent feeding is, and that is not known. He is subsidising at the moment a very fine research about the nutrition of animals; he is doing tremendous work at. the Rowett Institute, in the north of Scotland, to find out how to develop the best pigs, sheep, or cows; but he is doing absolutely nothing to find out anything about human nutrition. Research on animal nutrition, yes. Give us the big cow, the big pig and the big sheep. When it comes to the nutrition of human beings, he contents himself with a general homily to the housewives of Scotland.

    1221
    He himself, as head of the Scottish education system, was responsible for providing 6,000,000 meals during 1933. He is the biggest mother in Scotland. I do not mean that in any offensive sense, but he is responsible for feeding the biggest family. I want to ask him, as man to man, or as father to father, if he has spent two minutes of his period of office examining the menus that are provided in the various school feeding centres, and if, in particular, he has consulted high medical opinion as to whether the meals provided for those 6,000,000 cases are of the highest nutritive value, with the other qualities that ought to go with a meal, because it ought to be a meal that provides not merely physical efficiency but pleasure to the youngster who is eating it.
    In addition to being the head of the educational service, he is head of the prison service. The prison dietary is absolutely perfect from a nutrition point of view. The medical experts years ago decided that that was so. Twelve ounces of oatmeal made into porridge in the morning, eight ounces of oatmeal made into porridge in the evening along with half-a-pint of sour milk to help to dispose of it, a point of soup in the middle of a day, and eight ounces of bread—they decided that that was a perfect meal. So it is theoretically. The right hon. Gentleman has freedom of access to all Government buildings. I ask him to go into the newest and most up-to-date prison in Scotland, the one on the outskirts of Edinburgh, not on a casual visit but to have a week's incarceration and see what he thinks of the perfect dietary at the end of a week.
    I direct his attention to that and turn to another point in his statement. He talked to-day again about the necessity of bringing manual trade training more into the educational service. Last year he talked about that when he had newly assumed office. He told us he was proposing to send two of his officials to the Continent to study trade schools there. I said I had no objection to officials of his Department having a trip on the Continent. I have never interfered with any man's or woman's pleasure in my life. If it brightened the somewhat monotonous life of a civil servant to have a trip on the Continent, who was I to object to him having it? But I expected that when they came back they
    1222
    would have some report to present to us, perhaps in tabloid form. I do not want to pry into the whole story of their visit —all work and no play—but so far as they were on the Continent and saw something of trade schools, I think we are entitled to know exactly what they learnt and to what extent what they learnt has been applied during the year that the right hon. Gentleman has kept in office.
    I notice that there has been an increase in the number of mentally and physically defective children. That should not be. We have now had a dozen years of school medical inspection and treatment. We have not an increasing school population to deal with. The educational problem during the last dozen years has been tremendously simplified by the fact that the Scottish population has remained to all intents and purposes stationary for a dozen years. There may have been variations of 10,000 or 20,000 in 4,000,000, but that is trivial, and yet there is an increase in the number of mental and physical defectives. I want to make certain that it is not a case of certifying as mentally or physically deficient boys and girls who formerly would have been regarded as suitable for ordinary schools. There is always this tendency that, when you set a particular social service going, there is a tremendous impetus to keep it going and to keep it filled. If you have prisons, you must have prisoners. If you have mental and physical defective schools, you must have pupils in them. I want the Secretary of State to direct his inspectors to be very vigilant and to see that no pupils are being sent into these special schools who could, without harm to themselves, be kept among their normal fellows.
    While I appreciate the work that the teachers are doing among the mental defectives in particular and appreciate the benefit to real mental defectives of the special kind of education and the special kind of school provided for them, it is a horrible thing for a child who is very nearly normal to be segregated with those who are mentally defective. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that in this matter he should issue an instruction to his officers similar to the one issued by the Ministry of Pensions in dealing with disabled soldiers always to give the man the benefit of the doubt. In this question of mental deficiency, if there be a doubt, give the youngster the

    1223
    benefit of the doubt and keep him among his normal fellows rather than segregate him and mark him as daft, because, if that attaches to him, it remains with him through life if he remains in the same community.
    We passed an Act a year ago or more about the treatment of juvenile offenders. Under that Measure the old reformatory industrial school system was to go. The general intention of the House when it passed that Measure was to get rid of the punitive idea with regard to juvenile offenders and substitute the educational idea. I presume that the change over is taking place. I am glad to note that the number of inmates in the industrial and reformatory schools is diminishing. Now that the Education Department has a very direct responsibility for the running of those schools, I hope that, in this period of change over from the old reformatory and industrial school system which had a penal conception behind it, to one which is to be guided by educational ideas and objectives, the right hon. Gentleman and his responsible officials will keep a very watchful eye and see that the intentions of Parliament are given effect to in the day-to-day working of these places, and that the inmates of these institutions shall not be regarded as junior convicts being provided for graduation, but as young citizens being prepared for a useful place in society.
    10.20 p.m.
    Mr. G. A. MORRISON: The subjects upon which I should most have liked to speak are, I am afraid, ruled out in this Debate. I should have liked to refer to the disappointment which many of us feel at the turn things have taken in connection with the raising of the school-leaving age, in view of the statement in another place the other day. The other question with which I should have liked to deal is the undeserved hardship which many teachers who have done Icing and good service are being made to suffer through the cuts in pension having become permanent. I am glad to think that something may be done by and by with regard to that matter. The present Debate happens to coincide with the issue of one of His Majesty's Chief Inspector's periodical reports. I have had very little time to examine it, but it gives a very interesting account of the work of Scottish education during the
    1224
    period of emergency. I have seen enough of it to be able to say that, considering the difficulties under which work has been carried on, due to the contraction in expenditure, and the hardships caused by long and continued unemployment in many homes, it is gratifying to know that standards have been surprisingly well maintained, and that there has been a less check than might have been expected to the improvement which was in progress before the crisis. All concerned have honestly tried to see that in these difficult times the children should not suffer.
    The right hon. Gentleman visited Scotland a little time ago and conferred with members of education committees, teachers and various associations, and I am sure that everyone would be very glad if he would come back again, and come not merely to Edinburgh, but to other parts of Scotland. There are a great many people who are anxious to see him and to talk to him. I am not mentioning this fact as a threat, but as a welcome. The right hon. Gentleman laid stress on two very important things, on the connection between the school and the home, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, between school and industry and commerce. With regard to the first, co-operation between school and the home, it is not a new thing, and, as the Department rightly say in their report, more and more attention has been given to it during the past 18 months. As a teacher, I have never had so many parents consulting me at any time of my career as consulted me during that time. In many instances, these were cases of urgent necessity, the purpose being to see what could be done for the young person leaving school.
    With regard to the other case, that of co-operation between schools and industry and commerce, it is a question of increased interest being taken on both sides. Each ought to know something of what the other is doing and what the other requires. While I agree with much that has been urged upon the right hon. Gentleman in that respect, I would ask him to scrutinise very carefully the advice that he gets. The expression "dead wood" is used very often. One is interested to read in the reports the testimony of inspectors that there is less dead wood in the school curriculum than is generally supposed. If our main

    1225
    object is to turn Out pupils trained to think, trained to understand and effectively to use their own language, to size up evidence and estimate the validity of an argument, then the schools must hold fast to the subjects that have proved their usefulness in training for those purposes. I will mention a case which came to my notice a good many years ago. The headmaster of a school well known to me arranged a commercial course in the days when that was not so common in secondary schools. The Scottish Education Department sent two members of the local chamber of commerce to inspect the students who were following that course. They made a report, which was sent by the Department to the school as part of the school report for the year. In that report were these words:
    "This course provides for two hours per week to be given to history. Why is this? There is no money to be made out of history."
    That is an extreme example, but it is the kind of thing that I have in mind when I ask my right hon. Friend to scrutinise very carefully the advice that he gets from some sources. I agree with my distinguished colleague the Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) as regards a narrow curriculum of what is known as practical work. We must never forget that the pupil has to receive some training for leisure as well as for work. I agree also that a little more elasticity might be brought into the curriculum of the higher schools. That process is going on and has been going on for some time, and more and more alternatives are being provided to secure the elasticity of which I speak. It is said that self-criticism ought to be the duty of those engaged in education. Scotland has been the first country in the world, so far as I know, to set up a National Research Council on which there are represented not only people actually engaged in the work of teaching, but administrators, school medical officers, representatives of uniersities, training centres, and so forth. I have no doubt that the old country will be paid the compliment of imitation in this respect before long.
    There is a brief reference in the report to the question of nursery schools. This is a matter in which I have taken an interest since my instantaneous conversion about 15 years ago when I visited Miss Macmillan's school at
    1226
    Deptford. One hopes there will be a great expansion of that service in Scotland. I learn that there are 19 nursery schools, only two of which are provided by public authorities, with some 611 pupils in attendance; there ought to be many thousands. These nursery schools have beneficial effects socially in the formation of good habits, and we have the testimony of those concerned in infant and elementary schools as to the marked and rapid progress which pupils who have been in nursery schools make when they go to the ordinary schools. Expenditure in that direction would be remunerative; it would give a return far beyond what many people expect.
    One of the problems of the immediate future in our elementary schools is how to extend something of the joy which we have managed to bring into our infant schools into our elementary schools. This is due largely to the introduction of improved and enlightened methods, and there are some signs in the report that these newer methods are being spread upwards in the schools. Undoubtedly there has been a great improvement in the spirit of education in our elementary and secondary schools, due partly to the fact that teachers have taken a wider conception of their social duties. One has only to mention such things as school journeys, school clubs, musical societies, scout clubs; and 1934 is going to be memorable for the establishment of a hostel in Scotland for school children, where children with their teachers can spend, and are spending, happy and healthful week-ends. It is due also in some measure to an improvement in the relations between inspectors and teachers. The inspector is now often welcomed as a consultant and co-worker, not dreaded as an inquisitor. All this is welcome. If the teacher is to do his best he must be free—and the best teachers regard it as a great privilege—to use his awn subject, any subject, in order to foster in his pupils an interest in the things of the mind, to provide them with interests which will be a possession for ever and a lasting joy, to supply them with ideas which will enable them to lead useful, full and happy lives.
    It is one of the most pleasant experiences of teachers to find long after pupils have left school, some of them recalling little things that he has said or done which have set some of them going

    1227
    on fruitful paths. Like bread cast upon the waters, it comes back after many days. A previous speaker has referred to the personality of the teacher. Someone has been unkind enough to say that that phrase is well on the way to becoming a catchword. I hope, however, that is not going to prevent us from speaking about it, because it is the one thing of importance. We talk about the environment of young people in schools, about equipment and apparatus, about methods and text books, but we must never forget that for many pupils the teacher is the environment. It is vitally important that he should be able to retain his humanity. When the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) was speaking on this subject I could not help thinking of the terrible remark made by a headmaster in one of Mr. Kipling's novels:
    "Never again will I forget that a schoolmaster is not a man."
    The teacher has to strive to retain his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm cannot be created by legislative or administrative action, although much can be done by these means to ensure that the capacity, the energy and the devotion of teachers and pupils shall have the most fruitful and beneficent outcome that is possible. n that connection should like to offer a suggestion to the Secretary of State. One thing that seems to me most likely to bring about improvement in education, realising as I do the importance of the teacher, would be to secure peace and stability in the matter of salaries, some freedom from the irritation of constant salary changes. When was going round Scotland four years ago found in one area that there had been no fewer than four salary cuts in about four years. That kind of thing is not calculated to feed the undying fire. It might be considered whether the time has not come to set up some national negotiating body on the lines of the Burnham Committee in England, composed of teachers and education committee members, with a neutral chairman. I should be glad if the Under-Secretary, who is to reply, could find it in his heart to say that that could be done.
    I am encouraged to mention one of the newer developments in education referred to in the report. I do so because within the last month no fewer than three hon.
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    Members have asked what is being done in the way of broadcasting in the schools of Scotland. I have been asked these questions: Can you get anything like good reception? Otherwise broadcasting is no good. Another question is: Do the British Broadcasting Corporation take educationists with them in this matter, or have they just thrust themselves into the schools? I wish to say, as one closely connected with school broadcasting from the outset, that the National Sub-Council contains representatives of the Scottish Education Department, teachers, administrators, directors of education, and others. The separate subject committees contain many teachers and inspectors. These committees prepare courses and pamphlets, which are issued at the beginning of the season, and more recently synopses of separate lessons have been available. There is no intention of superseding the teacher; everything is done to obtain the co-operation of the teachers so that these lessons may have the best possible effect. I am not so well acquainted with the use of the cinema, which is also mentioned in the report, but it seems to me that both these things have proved their claim to further experimentation, so that we may see what can be got, what contribution these newer methods can be made to make, to the work of education.
    10.35 p.m.
    Mrs. SHAW: The period of the last two years has been a trying time for education but the report presented to us to-night, like the report presented last year, reveals the fact that in spite of the reduction in the grant the fabric of education remains unimpaired. Unlike the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) who suggested that the Secretary of State ought to go to prison, I am going to ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept my congratulations on the statement which he has given to the Committee. It shows the steady progress of education in Scotland. One of the features of that report is the fact that the attendance has reached what we may call the high-water mark, which would indicate, at any rate, that the health of the children has been good. In this connection I should like to pay a, tribute to the teachers. For many years it has been my privilege to know intimately many of the teachers in Lanarkshire and

    1229
    I can speak in the highest terms of the great interest which they take in ail aspects of their pupils' lives and of the assistance which they are able to render to the medical officers in connection with the inspections of the schools. The teachers have come to realise that a knowledge of the home conditions of the children is helpful to them in their work. Many teachers keep in close touch with the parents of the children and visit their homes regularly and the knowledge thus gained is an enormous help to them in their school work. It also guides them as to the extent and character of the tasks which are given to the children to be done at home.
    I do not propose at this late hour when others wish to speak to go into the pros and cons of the question of home lessons but, if we are agreed, as I think most of us are, that a certain amount of homework is necessary to encourage and develop self-reliance and concentration, we must also be agreed, that unless there are suitable conditions in the home for doing the homework, its value must be greatly decreased. I have for many years made a close study of this question. My interest in it arises from a, personal experience which, with the permission of the Committee, I will relate. When visiting a demolition area I came across a child of 13 doing exercises in the home where she lived with her father and mother and several other young children. The child had cleared one end of a table, which was littered with all sorts of stuff and with the light of a paraffin lamp was doing her homework. A gramophone was playing in the house next door and outside on the pavement there was a man playing a melodeon. The child was trying to do an algebra exercise. Reflecting on that scene I asked myself what is the meaning of the word "education." It is difficult to define, but my idea of education is that which is left to us when our schooldays are over, and when, possibly, we have forgotten a great deal of what we learned at school. It is the foundation which should remain to us on which to build in after life.
    I venture to suggest that under the conditions I have described, algebra would not provide a, good foundation on which that child could build afterwards. I would be the last to suggest that the child should be denied instruction in algebra but I submit that that child, and
    1230
    many similar children, could more profitably devote their time to learning domestic science. I know the difficulties and I know that to develop the teaching of domestic science may cause expenditure. I am not advocating high expenditure on centres, but merely the replacement of itinerant teachers by permanent teachers of domestic science. Many domestic science centres are taxed to their fullest capacity, but, on the other hand, there are some of them which are only used one day a week, because of itinerant teachers, and I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he might make the suggestion to local authorities that the itinerant teachers in these cases be replaced by permanent teachers and so allow of the centres being used, not one day a week, but every day. The benefits from further practical instruction would far outweigh any expenditure involved. We should inculcate in the minds of these potential mothers of the country the idea that the real centre of women's activity is the home. We should instil in their minds that the guiding and guarding of the infant steps of the children is woman's prerogative in the State.
    I want now to turn to pages 31 and 32 of the report, to the question of mechanical aids to learning, which has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. G. A. Morrison). I am not denying the fact that music, art, it may even be speech or voice production, may have a cultural effect on the pupils, but I believe that, if wireless has a contribution to offer, so has the listener, and in that connection I say that for adult education broadcasting can serve a very useful purpose, where discussion groups may be formed and study circles established, and where a listener, being stimulated by the talk to which he has listened, goes to a, library, as the soldier would go to the armoury for his weapon, and there pulls out a book of reference relative to the talk he has heard, and goes back to his study circle and discusses it with the group. That, I would say, is the real educational value of broadcasting, but with an already overcrowded curriculum in the schools I cannot convince myself that it is of real educational value. I am not condemning it, and I will await with interest next year's report of the real educational value of this service.

    1231
    One final word on the visual aids to learning. There, I think, we shall have a great deal more help, and I hope the day will come in the near future when we shall have a development of films of motion study of the workers at their work, operating in factories, it may be at the benches or in the workshops, and have screen and projector showing these things in the schools. should also like to see committees of teachers, parents, and industrialists, meeting together and pooling their ideas, industrialists getting to know better the work of the schools and teachers better to appreciate the needs of industry. A community can only hold together with the co-operation of all its members, and so only by the pooling of ideas and co-operation shall we build a sound foundation for our educational system.
    10.43 p.m.
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: There are so many facets of this great question and there have been so many considerations advanced in the fascinating and very thought provoking analysis by the Secretary of State, that one could talk on this subject for hours, but there is no time to-night, and I must confine myself to two of the most vital sides of the discussion; but before doing so I would like to recall to the Under-Secretary of State this matter of "cuts." As we know, Parliament decided in its wisdom to restore 50 per cent. of the cuts in the teachers pay, but this has not been carried out in some counties in Scotland, and trust that the influence of the right hon. Gentleman and the Under-Secretary of State will be devoted towards inducing education authorities and county councils to put that matter right without delay.
    There are two other subjects that I wish to mention, and one is the question of the Marr Trust, which has already been referred to. I congratulate the Under-Secretary on the settlement of that difficult problem. For three and a half years that great school has remained open, completely equipped and ready in every way but without pupils. We all know the reason why it has remained empty of pupils, because of the intervention—the no doubt well-intentioned in tervention—of the Educational Endowments Commission. Owing to the tact and ability of the Under-Secretary and
    1232
    the right hon. Gentleman, the matter is now settled. The Marr Trust has been restored to the control of the people whom Mr. Marr intended should control it, and the facilities of the school have been made available to the children of Troon for whom Mr. Marr intended they should be available.
    Three things will happen now. The poor children of Troon will get a free education from the secondary stage up to the university stage. The other children resident in the neighbourhood who may be handed over by the County Council Education Authority to the Marr College will get a free education from the elementary stage to the university stage. The outsiders who are non-residents will pay. That was the intention of Mr. Marr and that is the intention that will be carried out. With regard to the future of the Educational Endowments Commission am not going to suggest any legislation, for it is not in order in this discussion, but will throw out a couple of suggestions to my hon. Friend as to how this matter should be treated. I do not believe that there is any desire in Scotland that this Educational Endowments Commission should be brought to an end at the end of this year, but I believe there is a feeling that its activities and powers should be somewhat restricted. Marr College has been an unfortunate example of the intervention of the Educational Endowments Commission, and I believe it to be the general feeling of Scotland that something should be done slightly to curb or restrict its power or to give to the Secretary of State or to some other authority an overriding influence or power against the decisions of the commission. I have heard it suggested that it should he continued in an advisory capacity. I do not agree with that, for it would be a slap in the face for a body of distinguished gentleman who have rendered great service to Scotland and to education in Scotland.
    I suggest therefore that it should be retained in its present capacity, with possibly an appeal against its decisions by either the Education Department or the aggrieved body, whoever it may be, to say, the quarter sessions. That would convince the people of Scotland that, whatever the Educational Endowments Commission might decide, there would still be the right of appeal against decisions which in their opinion might be

    1233
    hostile to the interests of the children of Scotland. At present the Educational Endowments Commissioners can intervene in any will made after 1920. That is too recent. It has been suggested that the period should be put back to 1910. I do not think there is any peculiar benefit about 1910, but I think there is a period after which their activities might be stopped. That is from the period when the War started in 1914. The whole of the mentality of the country was changed by the advent of the War. We started to live in a different age after the War, and therefore I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that in the future discussions on this problem of the future of the commission he should consider restricting its powers to all wills drawn up after 1914, and that he should also give a right of appeal from their decisions.
    10.49 p.m.
    Mr. SKELTON: Before I deal with the points that have been raised, I would say that I propose to continue this Estimate on Friday, and if I rise now it is because I am not certain how long the other two Estimates may take. If there is time after further discussion on the Education Estimates and any questions of moment are raised in the continued Debate, I will ask for a moment or two in which to answer them then. I think it will be convenient if I spend the few minutes at our disposal now to answer the points that have been raised, although I know I am cutting out more than one Member who has, I am sure, some interesting points to contribute to the Debate.
    The hon. Member opposite raised again, most properly, the question of the local authority which does not use its power to give a meritorious scholar a bursary on account of the poverty of his parents. I say now, at the end of the Debate, what I said on a less relevant occasion, that as far as the advice and counsel I receive go, the Education Act, 1918, gives local authorities full powers to render whatever assistance is necessary, and that the assistance is to be given under special consideration of the circumstances, not only of the scholar, but also of the parent. I hope that this statement, made authoritatively in this place, will be sufficient information to education authorities of their powers, if indeed any are in ignorance of them. I will
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    consider whether it is necessary to supplement what I now say by a circular, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not hesitate to issue a circular if it seems that there are still any dark places so far as knowledge is concerned. That was the main question raised by the hon. Gentleman, although he dealt with some other points. I will not say anything about the speech of my colleague in the representation of the Scottish Universities except to say that I greatly admired his speech and thought that his admonition against the tendency, which I believe we all have, to talk nonsense when we talk about education is one which, as Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, is ever present in my mind. There is no topic upon which it is more difficult to make any generalisation of any value at all than the topic of education.
    It is not, however, my task at the moment to make generalisations, but to deal with the comments of hon. Members. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), whose contribution to the Debate delighted us all as usual, drew the attention of my right hon. Friend to the fact that the report showed that the amount expended on bursaries and scholarships had fallen from £440,000 to £407,000. The decision to give bursaries and the actual amount spent on them is entirely a matter for the education authority.
    Mr. MAXTON: The local education authority has during the last two years been facing this question of bursaries as it has had to face every other.
    Mr. SKELTON: It is perfectly true that the education grant for Scotland, like the money available for all public services since 1931, has been conditioned by the state of the national finances. I entirely agree with the hon. Member. But the actual use of the money put at the disposal of the education authority is in the matter of bursaries one entirely for themselves. The hon. Member then raised extremely interesting questions on two points, the first of which concerned the old reformatory and other schools which are now called approved schools. He is afraid that some penal quality may still cling to them. My information is that this is not the case. I was nevertheless much interested in what he said, and I propose to make separate investigations as to exactly what is the atmosphere and

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    quality of these schools. We are in complete agreement with him as to the undesirability of that penal quality, and I trust that, as my information leads me to believe, it is now entirely gone.
    With regard to the question of defective children, he spoke of the increasing number of them and suggested, with my full agreement, that nothing could be more lamentable if it indicated an increase in the number of marginal cases taken into special schools. According to my information, however, there is nothing to lead one to suppose that the increase in the number means that more marginal cases are being taken into the special schools. It may be, rather, that there is a more careful and scrupulous analysis of the nature of the defects; and on the general proposition I would suggest that where there is any real defectiveness it is all to the advantage of the child to have special school treatment. I would not accept it as a general proposition that it is all to the bad for a child to be sent to a special school, although I agree with what was said about the marginal cases. The hon. Member also raised an interesting point with reference to meals for school children. On the whole we are satisfied with the menu of the meals, which, I understand, is supervised mainly by the medical officers of the local authorities, but I agree that the point is a most interesting one and I shall look into it further at the earliest possible opportunity.
    My other colleague in the representation of the Scottish Universities made an interesting speech and one which, I am sure, convinced the House of the value of the contributions he will make to our education Debates. He raised one specific point of great importance. As I understand it, he threw out the suggestion that the education authorities and the teachers should come together for the purpose of framing some general scale of payments of teachers in Scotland and invited me to express our view upon that suggestion. Our view is that if the education authorities and the teachers come to some common decision on that matter we shall regard it as of great interest; but he will recollect that in Scotland the only function of the Department with regard to salaries is the statutory one of seeing
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    that the national minimum scale is being paid in each case. Still it would be a most interesting thing if the education authorities and the teachers came together and discussed this question and could come to some agreement about salaries.
    My experience of the study of the subject of education in Scotland since I have been in my present post leads me to suppose that the fresh air of thought is constantly being applied to it. A great deal has to be done. As I see it, we are really in the early stages of applying a new method of education and I would crystallise that method in this sentence: it is a method by which education seeks to open doors and not to close them, to develop character, to develop powers, to stimulate the natural eagerness and curiosity of the mind of the young and not to put it in the strait waistcoat of an orthodox and sterotyped method of learning and subjects of learning. I see on all sides a loosening of the bands of the rigid outlook; and that is all to the good and the results are interesting. I think it is already clear that the people of Scotland are becoming not a less educated nation but a more educated nation. Had I time I would draw attention to the remarkable figures in the last report as to the increase of the use of school life, and all that kind of thing, but I hear the clock strike and other questions must be deferred to the next occasion.
    Mr. MACLEANrose—
    Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Is it possible for Members who have spoken before—
    The CHAIRMAN: Order.
    It being Eleven of the Clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

    ADJOURNMENT.
    Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]
    Adjourned accordingly at Two Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.

TRANSPORT
  PEDESTRIAN CROSSING PLACES.
  PEDESTRIAN CROSSING PLACES.
  PASSENGER TRAIN SERVICE, THORNTON HEATH.
  PASSENGER TRAIN SERVICE, THORNTON HEATH.
SCOTLAND.
  HOUSING.
  HOUSING.
  PRISON SERVICE (WARDERS).
  PRISON SERVICE (WARDERS).
  COMMUTED DEATH SENTENCES.
  COMMUTED DEATH SENTENCES.
  PRISON AND BORSTAL INSTITUTION SERVICE.
  PRISON AND BORSTAL INSTITUTION SERVICE.
  DUMMY CARTRIDGE CASES (IMPORT).
  DUMMY CARTRIDGE CASES (IMPORT).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS ("S" CLASS CLERKS).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS ("S" CLASS CLERKS).
  ROYAL NAVY (VISITS, PALESTINE PORTS).
  ROYAL NAVY (VISITS, PALESTINE PORTS).
  SPAIN (BRITISH SUBJECT'S ARREST.)
  SPAIN (BRITISH SUBJECT'S ARREST.)
  NAVAL CONFERENCE.
  NAVAL CONFERENCE.
  UNEMPLOYMENT (STRATFORD AND CANNING TOWN).
  UNEMPLOYMENT (STRATFORD AND CANNING TOWN).
Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
ARCHITECTS (REGISTRATION) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
CLYDE VALLEY ELECTRICAL POWER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Considered on Report (according to Order).
GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EARL STANHOPE): My Lords, seventy-eight years ago, on March 4, 1856, my grandfather moved the following Resolution in your Lordships' House:
" That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to take into Her Royal consideration the expediency of forming a gallery of the portraits of the most eminent persons in British history."
That Resolution was accepted by the House and the Government, and so the National Portrait Gallery was brought into existence and a gap in the national collections began to be filled. To-day it is my privilege to bring before your Lordships the National Maritime Museum Bill, which is designed to fill another gap—a museum to illustrate our great history at sea by the actions of the

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Navy, the mercantile marine and our great sea explorers. It is a curious fact that while France, Holland, Sweden, Spain, Belgium and Russia all have had their National Marine Museums, and Italy, Denmark, and the United States are now organising National Museums, England, whose Empire is founded upon the Seven Seas, and whose long history has been inextricably bound up with the ocean, has never had a National Maritime Museum.
It was only in 1924 that the Society for Nautical Research began to draw attention to the question, and early in 1927 their Chairman, Admiral Sir George Hope, wrote a letter to the Admiralty on the matter. It came before me as Civil Lord, and naturally I became enthusiastic about it. I am glad to say that the Board of Admiralty and the First Lord, Lord Bridgeman, recommended the matter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Society for Nautical Research was authorised then to make a statement saying that in due course of time a National Maritime Museum would be instituted. That statement was made not a moment too soon. Already many objects of great national and historic interest had passed to foreign lands, never to return. As a result of that announcement that a national collection would be formed, Sir James Caird, who had already given £65,000 to the restoration of the "Victory" and £15,000 towards the restoration of the "Implacable," bought the Macpherson collection of naval prints, the greatest collection of naval prints in the world, and then went on to buy the collection known as the Mercury ship models. If this Bill becomes law the Mercury models, together with those now in the small naval museum in the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, will form the finest collection of ship models in the world.
Sir James Caird's purchases did not end there. I need not go into that at any length because your Lordships will find that he has been good enough to give the catalogue of his collections to your Lordships' Library, and your Lordships will be able to see four massive volumes there. They are indeed only a catalogue compiled for insurance purposes, and therefore extremely brief, but none the less they fill four large volumes.
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He and other donors have presented pictures, busts, grisailles, engravings, atlases, charts, navigational instruments, medals, scale models, signal books, and relics of all kinds, and there must be now, I think, more than 500 drawings and paintings by the two Van de Veldes, and I do not suppose any museum in the world has got more than 200 to 250. There are works by Hogarth, Samuel Scott, Monamy, Luny, Reynolds, Allan Ramsay, Lely and many other distinguished artists, and busts by Chantrey and Nollekens. Your Lordships will realise that the collections which Sir James Caird is offering to the nation, and those objects which have already been given by other people, form a very wonderful collection.
It is constantly said that history never quite repeats itself, and therefore, when I made allusion to my grandfather instituting the National Portrait Gallery, I can say that, at any rate in this respect, this Museum which I am proposing to your Lordships to-day is in a more favourable position. The National Portrait Gallery started with no pictures at all, and no place of permanent residence, and it was many years before it eventually found a gallery in which to establish the treasures which began to pour in; in this case we start with a very large collection, and also adequate buildings in which to display them to the public. At this moment there is nowhere in this country where the public can learn of our naval history by studying periods, as it is hoped to display them at Greenwich. We hope to be able to display a picture of a great naval commander, with perhaps, below, a picture of the action in which he fought, and, close by, a model of a ship which took part in that action. Similarly in regard to the mercantile marine, which I for one am very anxious to see developed in its history to the fullest possible extent. I believe that many bills of lading and other documents of that character may reveal how we have gradually developed our Empire, and how the flag has followed trade rather than trade following the flag. Further, there is no place where students can engage in serious study, nor is there any place to which knowledge already in the hands of individuals can be sent in order that it may be kept and made available for those who require it at a later date.

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I was told only a, few days ago by one of the officers of your Lordships' House who is an expert on the matter, that there are no fewer than 200 small types of coastal craft in this country. I am one of those who feel that the internal combustion engine has brought far more in the shape of disadvantage than of advantage, and at any rate one of the disadvantages which the internal combustion engine has brought is the abolition of boats propelled by sail or oars. In many cases they have become obsolete, in many cases they have been rattled to pieces by the motor engines which have been installed. It is only a question of years, and a very short period of years, before such boats as the Thames barge will cease to exist. I believe there are practically no specimens whatever of boats known as Margate hoys, Yarmouth drifters and Humber sailing trawlers. Unless ships' lines, drawn by an expert, are produced in the next few years and sail plans with constructional details collected, we shall know r o more about these ships which have sailed our waters for many generations than we now know about the Greek trireme. All that, we hope, will gradually flow into the National Maritime Museum.
Your Lordships may ask me why it is going to be placed at Greenwich. I admit that personally I have some family interest in Greenwich, because it was from Rotherhithe, close by that another ancestor of mine launched a vessel of 200 tons in 1792 which became the first steamboat in the possession of His Majesty's Navy. But, apart from that, in the first place buildings are available. The Queen's House, built in 1635 for Queen Henrietta Maria by Inigo Jones, has been handed over to the care of the; Commissioner of Works as an historic building. I have been over that building recently. It has been in the occupation of naval officers in charge of Greenwich Hospital School for a number of years, with the result that all sorts of alterations have been made in it and a great deal of rubbish has had to be pulled out. When that is restored to its original condition, as is in course of being done now, your Lordships will see one of the finest houses in England, with a succession of beautiful ceilings, and a house such as will gladden the eye of every visitor. Further, the school buildings which were inhabited by the Royal Naval School at Greenwich
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were built between 1807 and 1816, and they are quite sound, but unsuitable for a modern school. Thanks to the generosity of a Mr. Reade, who presented a property at Holbrook in Suffolk, the school moved out to new buildings last year, and therefore the school buildings at Greenwich are now empty.
Sir James Caird once more came forward and offered to the Government to pay the cost of altering the buildings in order to fit them for the National Maritime Museum at an estimated cost of £29,000. In all, his gifts to the Museum amount, with that reconditioning, to a sum of just over £351,000, and I think your Lordships will wish me to express on your behalf the thanks of the country for his great generosity.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
EARL STANHOPE: Your Lordships may say Greenwich is a long way off. I think I can take your Lordships there by car in probably not more than ten minutes longer than it would take you to get to South Kensington and, after all, not the whole of London lives in May-fair or Belgravia. A great many live south of the river, and I do not see why our museums should be all concentrated on one spot, especially when we have a spot so accessible as Greenwich by tram, omnibus and train, and, indeed, by river, as we hope may eventuate shortly. Apart from that, this Museum, if your Lordships approve of this Bill, will be in wonderful surroundings. As I say, it is round the Queen's House built by Inigo Jones, and it is alongside the Royal Naval College built by Wren. It was at Woolwich and Deptford close by that Henry VIII set up his new naval yards. It is rumoured—of course it is perhaps only a fable—that it was at the Queen's House that Sir Walter Raleigh laid down his cloak for Queen Elizabeth to escape the mud. The Queen's House, as your Lordships may know, is built as a sort of saddle across the main road that at that time ran straight through the middle of it between London and Chatham, and roads in those days were more seas of mud than the tarred and macadamised surfaces of to-day. Therefore it is quite possible that this is indeed the site of the incident of Sir Walter Raleigh and his cloak.
The Museum will contain, amongst many other things, a commission of Sir

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Walter Raleigh's dated 1616, and also a picture of him, a picture of Queen Elizabeth by Marc Gheerardts the Younger and others of many of the commanders of that time. It was at Greenwich again that Elizabeth knighted Sir Francis Drake on the deck of the "Golden Hind," and there your Lordships will find, if you approve of this Museum, a picture of him by Marc Gheerardts the Elder dated 1591. It was in the Painted Hall just across the road that Nelson lay in state before his funeral up the river, and your Lordships will find in the Museum relics of Nelson presented by Her Majesty the Queen to the new Museum, and also Nelson's diamond aigrette, presented to him by the Sultan for his victory at the Battle of the Nile. Lastly, and perhaps most important of all, Greenwich lies just below the Royal Observatory, and I wonder how many of your Lordships quite realise what that means. It is from Greenwich that tile maps of the world take their longitude. Greenwich is at nought. It is from Greenwich that the whole world takes its time. Every nation is one or more hours before or after Greenwich time, and that is due to nothing else but to the fact of the seamanship, the exploration, and the work done by our seamen in days gone by.
As regards this Bill I need only deal with it very briefly, and I apologise for having taken up so much time already, but it is a subject I am rather keen about. Clause 1 establishes the Museum, and adds eleven and a-half acres of land to the Royal Park of Greenwich. It is hoped eventually that that will be turned into grass and flowers instead of being a tarred playground as at present. Of course it will be of enormous advantage to the people of that area. Clause 2 establishes a Board of Trustees. They are as follows: Mr. R. C. Anderson, who is a great collector himself, perhaps our greatest authority on ships models in this country, Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, Sir William Berry, Sir James Caird, to whom I have referred as our great donor, Captain H. F. David, who is very well known in the mercantile marine and is on the Court of Master Mariners, Admiral Sir George Hope, the Earl of Ilchester, Sir Frederick
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Kenyon, Sir Percy Mackinnon, Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Mr. Walter Runciman and myself.
The first Director is to be Professor Geoffrey Callender, Professor of History at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. I have no hesitation in saying that those who know the work of the Society for Nautical Research, who brought this matter forward, will agree that Professor Callender is the originator of this idea, and it is due to his enthusiasm and knowledge that the matter has got to the state in which it is to-day. His knowledge and enthusiasm have discovered objects of value, both historical and artistic, and he has encouraged donors to come forward and present them to the nation. Therefore I think your Lordships will agree that we are fortunate in having prevailed on him to be the first Director of the new Museum. It is a herculean task that faces the Board of Trustees and the Director. As I have told your Lordships there are already a large number of pictures and other objects waiting to be installed, and we have a very long and difficult task in front of us.
I may say in passing that the Office of Works have been quite admirable in the assistance they have given in drawing up estimates, and bringing the matter to the stage of practical possibility with an estimate of what the cost will be. There is no cost to the State in the inauguration of this Museum, because Sir James Caird is proposing to meet that expense, but there will of course be the recurring cost of the salaries of the Director and staff and the maintenance of the buildings, which is estimated to amount to £15,000 a year. I think the other clauses of the Bill explain themselves quite simply and, indeed, are clear from the marginal descriptions of them, and I need not say anything further about them. I hope I have said enough to persuade your Lordships that this Museum will be of real interest and value to the nation, and that in receiving these gifts from those who have been good enough to give them to the State we are acquiring matters of historical and artistic interest which will be an asset and a joy for many generations to come. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl Stanhove.)
LORD MARLEY: My Lords, I am glad to have the privilege of saying a word in support of this Bill, because my Party strongly favours the establishment of this type of national institution, and for personal reasons because I suppose few of your Lordships did what I did. I spent two years in the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, and I remember well the significance of the Park and the remarkable buildings which surround the Naval College and the centre of our astronomical research. I hope very much that in the organisation of this Museum it may be possible to include the illustration of models of the internal fittings of these ships. I have seen in other countries models, one or two of full size and others smaller, of the fittings of the cabins of our mercantile ships and our ships of war, and I believe these models form an admirable method of bringing home to our present-day people the discomforts, sufferings and hardships which surrounded the lives of those who sailed our ships in the past. I hope very much that the noble Earl may be able to bring that forward to the Board of which he is to be a member. We on this side of the House strongly support this measure.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed.

HOUSING.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH had the following Notice on the Paper: To move to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the provision of one million houses to be let at a weekly rental, inclusive of rates, of 10s. and under, in addition to the slum clearance proposals of the Government, is an urgent national need, and to request the Government to consider the desirability of setting up forthwith, under the authority of the Minister of Health, a Housing Commission armed with all necessary powers, and charged with the specific duty of securing the erection of such houses by local authorities and public utility societies on a national plan and with the minimum of delay.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion on the Paper in my name before your Lordships to-day may be divided into two parts. The first part deals with the necessity, as I see it, for the provision of a large number of houses to let at low weekly rents, and the second part asks the consideration of the Gov-
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ernment for the setting up of what I have called a Housing Commission as the necessary means for securing that object. I admit I cherish some hopes that the Government may see fit to accept this Motion. I feel quite confident that the general principle is one which your Lordships' House is prepared to accept at all events so far as the provision of the housing is concerned. The debates initiated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, and only a month or two ago by the most reverend Primate, have shown quite clearly that there is really no dissentient voice in your Lordships' House on the subject of the urgent need for radically improving the housing conditions of the poorer wage earners. The Minister of Health, whose zeal and enthusiasm in this matter we all of us admire to the full, has expressed himself on the matter on numerous occasions with the greatest possible eloquence and conviction. He has referred to the "necessity of ridding our social organism of the radiating centres of depravity and disease," and I take this early opportunity of assuring your Lordships and the Government that this Motion is not brought forward in the faintest degree in any hostility to or hostilely critical spirit of the Government, but solely with the intention of, if it may be, elucidating some of the difficulties which lie in the way to recovery and of making some constructive suggestions which may possibly have in them the germ of usefulness.
The intention and the desires of the Government are excellent, but as I see it—and perhaps I speak in the rôle of the candid friend—there is a danger of the failure of the Government's programme through lack of a coherent plan. We know of the plan for slum clearance. We have been told there is coming a, plan for overcrowding. We have not yet been told of any plan for additional new houses to let at low rents, and, as I see it, the Government have tackled this problem form the wrong end. I think if they were asked what was the origin of their housing programme they would have to answer like Topsy. When Miss Ophelia asked her about herself she said: "I 'spect I grow'd;" and I think the Government's housing problem has just grown instead of having been conceived on a wider and more comprehensive plan. The object of my Resolution

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is to put before your Lordships a conscious aim, and the suggestion that there is need not only for a conscious aim and object, but a conscious direction of the national effort to secure that object.
What should be our conscious aim? I think it is now admitted as a principle—I think the Government are almost prepared to say—that the provision of a certain standard of housing accommodation for every family at a rent within the family capacity to pay must, as an ultimate aim, be accepted as a national duty and a public responsibility. Housing is by far the most important of the social services. It comes first in my opinion, before any other social service, education, the feeding of school children, anything you like, though perhaps the feeding of school children goes with it. But the provision of decent homes in my opinion is fundamentally the most important social service. If we accept that end, the question is whether it can be expressed in the form of a definite task, the definite task being the provision of the necessary houses to overtake the shortage. Given the desideratum of a decent home for every family within its means, the figure of the definite task is a component of two factors. It is a component of the physical deficiency in the number of houses and of the capacity to pay of the classes whom we have to rehouse. In my Motion I have put it down as a million houses at 10s. a week and under. That is a guess. I frankly say to your Lordships that it is a guess. But what a commentary on the situation!
We have had eight Ministers of Health since we faced this task after the War, and still we have not found out what the task is with which we are faced and have to accomplish. In itself that seems to me to be one of the strongest arguments for the establishment of the Housing Commission of which I am asking your Lordships to approve. There has recently been published the report of a Committee which has sat under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Amulree, and copies of it are on the Table available for such of your Lordships as may care to look at it. I refer to it because the points which I am trying to make to your Lordships this afternoon are there elaborated in much greater detail than is possible to me in the time I may per-
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mit myself to have, and if I go rather lightly over some of the points it is because I would ask your Lordships to refer for more detail to that report which is on the Table of the House.
In the provision of a million houses there are certain factors to be taken into account. You have first of all the excess of families for the number of available houses. That excess of families has increased in the last census period and is now over a million. I know that is subject to qualification. There is also the degree of overcrowding. The Registrar-General's figures, I think, give us 2,600,000 people living more than two to a room—admittedly an excessively high standard. More houses are needed for them. Then there is the estimated future increase in the number of families. The economists tell us that it will amount to 600,000 more families in the next ten years. Then there is the progressive deterioration and wearing out of the houses. Many houses are now reaching the end of their useful career. I take a million houses at 10s. a week and I know that that is a figure like any other. But I regard it as a conservative one. I do not think I am likely to be contradicted on that point. If the stated object is accepted, if I carry your Lordships with me so far and if we ought to aim at providing a million new houses at these low rents, then I think we ought to adopt, and the Government will have to adopt, a totally new point of view. I think we want a new attitude. We can no longer go muddling along hoping that things will turn out all right. We have to make a plan and get the advantage of long-scale planning.
If we are going to have a million houses, where are they to be put? You have got movement of population and industry going on all the time. It is not safe to leave that to happen as it may. You want a long-term plan for that alone. Then you have the problem of derelict areas. What are you going to do with them? There is this further point: assuming that we want one million new houses, it may be perfectly safe to let local authorities go ahead with building now because of the universal shortage; but postulate that half the problem has been; dealt with and that need for half a million houses remains. Those half million houses will have to be put in

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places where they ought to be put, and not in places where through the movement of population or industry they may fall out of use and be wasted. In this matter also we have to plan ahead. Private enterprise left to itself must build where land is most easily available and where circumstances most easily admit of the profit necessary. That seems to me to require to be regulated and planned.
Again, if we have an admitted national aim our outlook on finance must be altered. If houses cannot be built—and they cannot—at an economic rent, we have two alternative?—namely, between subsidy and guarantee. It must be remembered that the lower the rent the greater the number of people who can afford to pay it without subsidy. That seems to me a highly important consideration. To that you must add that the cost of the money is one of the most important factors in the weekly rent. Your Lordships will realise that if a house costs £350 and money is raised at 3 per cent, the interest charge per annum is £10 10s. If the house is built at a time when money costs 6 per cent, the interest charge will be £21. It boils down to this, that 1 per cent, on the cost of the money means somewhere between Is. and 1s. 6d. a week on the rent—a very large proportion of the whole weekly rent when you are dealing with these low rents. It seems; to me that the Treasury point of view has always been to prefer the limited but certain liability of a subsidy to the possibly much larger unlimited liability of a guarantee. If you turn to the Treasury and say it is a necessity that we provide these houses; it is not a passing phase that we have to subsidise them but it is a thing we have to meet; and if you ask the Treasury what is the cheapest way to do it, the answer must be What the cheapest way is through a guarantee, only using the method of subsidy when you must in specific cases for specific reasons.
We advocate in that report the issue of national housing stock. It is perfectly true that the larger local authorities will say they can borrow as cheaply as the Treasury. I know they can. But we are thinking of a much larger body of finance than, has yet been provided for housing. If a million houses are to be provided it will be at the cost of £350,000,000 or
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£400,000,000 spread over the necessary period. I am not afraid of that. Any one who knows the gilt-edged market knows that at the moment money can be easily raised by the Government at about 3 per cent. I am taking £400,000,000 in order to allow for a possible rise in interest rates in the next year or two. Assuming that stock to be guaranteed, the risk seems to me to be very small. Even if nobody paid a penny rent the risk would be only the interest on the money, at most £16,000,000 a year, very little more than is being paid in subsidies now. But of course the whole principle of the thing is that rent must be paid even by those with the lowest incomes. None of your Lordships want to see them sitting rent free. Such an hypothesis is absurd. That is the point, that there should be a guarantee to provide cheap money inasmuch as that is far cheaper than a subsidy.
If the Government's policy on that point is open to criticism, I am afraid I must say that it is open to criticism also on another point—that is, on their attitude towards private enterprise. It is common ground that private enterprise now cannot provide houses of the required standard to let fit 10s. a week. I am afraid I should say private enterprise never has satisfactorily housed the main body of the lower paid working classes. Those of us who support private enterprise, as I do, have to remember that slums are the product of private enterprise. Whether private enterprise has worked satisfactorily in the past or not, I think it is quite certain that with modern standards, the standards which public opinion now demands, and in my opinion rightly demands, private enterprise cannot possibly meet the need. Private enterprise can provide a better class of house, and of course is doing so, and I hope will always continue to do so. My criticism is that the Government are relying on private enterprise beyond the point at which it can succeed.
Private enterprise has always been associated with houses for sale and not with houses for letting. Your Lordships know very well how it works. The small speculative builder is usually a man without capital. He has to borrow capital and he borrows as a, rule from lawyers. The lawyers advance money on certificates. If the houses are not sold quickly,

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they take mortgages, and the builder is loaded with high interest costs. As a commercial matter there are three ways by which he can make profit—out of the land, out of interest, and out of building costs. And of course it is out of building costs that the speculative builder does make his profit. That is putting a premium on scamped work, because that is how profit can be made. What I want is to get rid of the speculative profit, which I do not think is a good one, and substitute for it in the building trade the legitimate profit which would be got in building on a contract for the local authorities and public utility societies. That will enable private enterprise to get a different kind of profit and one which to my mind is better. The one profit may be high because it is a speculative one; the other will be small because it is a certain profit.
The Minister of Health has told us that there is a boom in house building at the moment. I agree. I think the results of house building in the last six months are remarkable. But I am afraid I must add that I think it is a process which is being overdone. The production of houses for sale is very shortly going to exceed the demand. I think the result will be that there will be a fall in prices. I think it will involve the owners of those houses in loss. I think some of the speculative builders will be involved in bankruptcy, and I think the process will tend to come to an end. But be it a success or be it a failure, in no circumstances, as I see it, can it produce houses to let at rents which the poorer paid wage earners can afford.
Take another aspect of the same mutter, the question of the owner-occupier with which the noble Lord, Lord Moyne's Committee dealt fully. That Committee made out a convincing case, which I need not repeat, for the ownership of property of that class by either public or quasi-public authorities. The pathetic thing about it all is that there is nothing new about it. I have recently been doing some digging and exploration into some old Parliamentary papers in the form of the Report of the Select Committee on Town Holdings which sat from 1886 to 1892. Although the Moyne Committee referred to a number of previous Reports to support its conclusions, it did not mention that one. I should think probably the friend who directed my attention to these papers and myself are the only people
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who have looked at them during the last twenty-five years. I am reminded of a sentence from the mutual friend of all of us, "Mr. Punch," who said three weeks ago:
" It'll go on and on. Everybody will debate everything and find no remedy.…Nothing will ever happen again. Things will only be about to happen. Committees will sit upon them, and Committees will sit upon those Committees and ossify."
What really is pathetic is that in the proceedings of that Committee of fifty years ago, which was concerned with leasehold enfranchisement, you have all the evidence set forth on the question of the working man buying his house and becoming the owner of it, and the arguments are conclusive against it. There is only one strong argument in favour and that is that it would give him a stake in the country and that it would be an encouragement of thrift. In those days there were not savings certificates, and it was not at all easy for a man to be a small investor.
I think it must be clear that it is far better for a man with a little bit of capital to own Government securities than to own and occupy a house which he is going to find it very difficult to keep in proper repair. That Committee emphasised the advantage of what they called dwellings companies and associations, and emphasised that the more poorly paid wage earner was much better off sitting as the weekly tenant of a good and public-spirited landlord than he would be if he owned his own house. I am speaking of the more poorly paid wage earner who has no resources to fall back upon. The disadvantages of his ownership are obvious to your Lordships. His employment may fail owing to economic depression or to failure of his employer, and if he is not able to move he is in a very difficult position. He cannot afford to keep the house in proper repair; he may be forced to take in as lodgers undesirable tenants; and ultimately he may sell to some profiteer. That Report of 1889, to which I have alluded, referred in terms to speculators who squeeze the tenants and spend as little as may be on repairs. It is a fact which cannot be denied that the slums in many of our big towns are very often made up of small freehold houses which have not had the advantage of mass management by either a local authority or a benevolent landlord such as one of the great landowners

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might be. For all these reasons I venture to say to your Lordships that the policy of the Ministry, which is to encourage the building of small weekly property, is going to lead to trouble.
In place of it I want to try to offer a more constructive plan. If the Housing Commission is set up, what is it going to do? The first task is to measure the plan—to find out what the need is and then make a plan to meet it. It would have to settle a policy and then carry it out. What we want is continuity in housing policy. Take the question of subsidies, and just recall the history of housing subsidies in the last fourteen years. We have had during that time eight Ministers of Health. Seven of them had subsidies. Everyone of them has reversed the policy of his predecessor, and I do not think they all have been wrong. I think they were all admirable people, all struggling with difficulties which were beyond their control because they had not set about the job in the right way.
First of all there was Sir Auckland Geddes in 1918, with no subsidy. Then there was Dr. Addison, with a very large subsidy, and an immense increase in the cost of building because there was no attempt made to do what the Housing Commission would do, that is, to organise the building trade, organise the supply of material and organise labour. After Dr. Addison there was Sir Alfred Mond, who said he would stop the subsidy. So he did. He stopped building, too. Then there was Mr. Neville Chamberlain; he put the subsidy on again. Then there was Mr. Wheatley; he put on a bigger one. Then Mr. Chamberlain had another one, smaller than Mr. Wheatley's. Then there was Mr. Greenwood, with a bigger one again. Then there was the present Minister, who started with the idea that we must have a subsidy to rehouse a person out of a crowded slum house but that there was no need for a subsidy to rehouse a person out of an overcrowded house which was not a slum house. It would be a farce if it were not a tragedy. It is a tragedy, because you have people in the shims waiting all the time for relief which is very slow to come. Now there is the new plan of the Minister. We do not know what it is, bat it concerns subsidies in connection with the cost of building on land where site values are high. I confess that I regard what I have heard about it with some apprehension.
If I may refer once again to the Amulree report, which is on the Table, there your Lordships will find a case made out that with a guarantee of a national housing stock to reduce the rate of interest to the neighbourhood of 3 per cent., subsidies would be necessary only in these exceptional cases: firstly, where it is really necessary to build on land of high site value; secondly, where rates are high; and thirdly, where you are dealing with a population such as the agricultural population which really cannot pay anything like an economic rent. The standard which we have taken is the standard of a house with three bedrooms and a living room, of the non-parlour type, of about 760 square feet, known as the Tudor Walters house. We reckon the cost at about £350. That includes about £60 for the roads and sewers. We have taken about 2s. 6d. for rates. I admit that that may be too small. A couple of years ago the Minister took 2s. for rates, and I think that we must admit that that was too small. I think it may be that the right figure for the average of rates will be 3s. 6d. If that is so, it will make our rent 11s. instead of 10s. Even if we could get a million houses at lls. per week, it would be a very substantial contribution to the solution of the problem.
We want continuity. We want not only continuity in subsidies but continuity of plan, so that the building trade of the country will know where it is. We want organisation of the supply of material. We want the makers of all sorts of building materials to know that they can plan a long way ahead. So we shall get, I hope, a reduction in price. We want to avoid competition between local authorities for building materials. I believe that only recently two local authorities in the North of England found the price put up against them because they both wanted building materials and sufficient was not available. Then there is the provision of land ahead. To buy land by the acre or by the few acres is like building houses one at a time. We want a purchase of land for the whole job, not for part of the job. We want to know what the job is, and then purchase the land to see it through. Again, we want to spread the task over the period which it will take to build. The Amulree Committee said ten years. It may be more, but let us know what it is, so that when the task

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is half done it may be eased off towards the end. You do not want to have large numbers of labourers thrown on the market when the plan is finished; you want to ease it out and make it fit in with the economic life of the country.
Then there is research. The Ministry of Health is already doing admirable research, and there is the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research doing similar work. There are private Committees such as that of the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, doing work which is full of utility. The Housing Commission would see that the fullest use was made of such results and would stimulate research in other directions. I will not weary your Lordships by describing them, but there are many directions in which research can usefully be carried out, both towards a reduction of cost and towards all the other factors which enter into a long range of housing policy. Then there is the public utility society. I would like to see the Housing Commission have as one of its departments a department charged with the stimulation of the public utility society movement exactly as described in the Moyne Committee's Report. I believe that the public utility societies have done so little hitherto because they have been stunted in the matter of finance. If you had the proceeds of a national housing stock which could be lent also to public utility societies you would get a very useful adjunct to the work of the local authorities. Then there is reconditioning, and the Housing Commission could do much to make the standard of reconditioning level all over the country and so perform a very useful function. Local authorities have no experience of reconditioning and will want all the help they can get.
If I may refer once again to the report the subject is so large that I think only a perusal of the report can do justice to what I am trying to tell your Lordships. I would like to give one quotation from The Times. I have not found in the past that The Times is apt to be too lavish in its praise of this sort of proposal and rightly it is a very strong supporter of the Government. The Times said about the report:
" The report considers that these arrangements would result in the provision during the next ten years of one million houses to let at under 10s. a week without a subsidy, except where rates are exceptionally high or
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land exceptionally expensive. It seems a feasible plan and a reasonable ambition. It interferes with nothing which the Government have done or had in contemplation in their forthcoming Bill to deal with overcrowding. It gives an answer to the vital question what more a Housing Commission could do than could be done under the existing organisation of housing policy."
Of course objections will be offered. I do not deal with the objection that the Housing Commission will itself build. Of course the Housing Commission will not build. It has got to work through the local authorities and public utility societies. There may be some local authorities who will feel that the Housing Commission will be a fifth wheel to the coach. I think the coach is lumbering now and that what we want to put into it is a motor engine to enable it to get over difficulties, and that, I think, the Housing Commission would do.
It could do much more than the Ministry of Health could do. The Ministry of Health is the Local Government Board and its function is supervision, to control and check the local authorities. It is not the function of the Ministry to have the initiation of a great plan of this kind. So far as the Ministry of Health is concerned there would have to be a division of functions, the Housing Commission having the technical functions while the quasi-judicial functions would remain with the Ministry of Health. Some friends have said that this is not the moment. I agree that this is not the moment. The moment was 1919, and I do not think it can be denied that if a Housing Commission had been set up in 1919 some of the mistakes of the past years would have been avoided and that if it be set up now mistakes which would otherwise be made will in turn be avoided. What I am suggesting is not a colossal bureaucracy but a central constructive organising brain to view the whole thing from a national point of view. It would be a change at the centre without a substantial change at the circumference, beyond correlation of long range organisation of the efforts of local authorities and public utility societies.
To sum up what is wanted are new houses at low rents which are only to be got through the local authorities and the public utility societies. The task must be measured and planned to get all the advantages of large-scale planning. Slum clearance plus overcrowding plus

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reconditioning taken one by one are progressively making the task more difficult. That is to grope, to improvise, and to complicate. To measure to plan and to simplify is ultimately to accomplish. I sincerely regret if I seem unduly critical of the Government. The whole possibility of this plan is based on the success of the Government in getting the national finances into order. That was the first task which they had to accomplish. That done, there can be no greater task for a National Government than the provision of decent homes in which their people can live honest and happy lives. Your Lordships know the importance of the asset to be gained in decent citizenship. With the world in the state it is to-day the necessity testability and citizenship is obvious. The Government that succeeds, and no Government in this country has yet succeeded, in providing decent homes for the poorer wage earners will earn their affection and gratitude. The Government which fails will have a heavy responsibility to face.
Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of tills House the provision of one million houses to be let at a weekly rental, inclusive of rates, of 10s. and under, in addition to the slum clearance proposals of the Government, is an urgent national nerd.—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I am sure you will agree that the housing problem is one of the most important problems in social reform. The Motion on the Paper calls for a million houses. When one speaks of a million houses one might be inclined to infer that building in this country has been small. On the contrary building has been very substantial. Since 1919 there have been built 2,300,000 houses, and of that number 1,160,000 have been assisted by subsidy and 1,150,000 unassisted by subsidy. The unassisted houses are those of an annual rateable value of £105 in the Metropolitan area and £75 outside the Metropolitan area, and of the unassisted houses 738,000 have been built by local authorities, and 421,446 by private individuals. In addition, there have been about 31,000 built under various acts. So that since 1919 you have had a very large number of houses built. At the same time Parliament has not hesitated to grant money by way of subsidy for house building. The total
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annual burden by way of subsidy upon the Exchequer is about £13,000,000, made up by various subsidies granted. These will continue to be paid for many years. In addition, there was another smaller subsidy of £1,500,000 paid by local, authorities from local rates under the Wheatley Act.
Although all that money has been expended and although all those houses have been built, these various schemes have made little or no provision for the lower paid worker, fie is still left in the slums and overcrowded houses. If every family, according to the report prepared by the Committee of which I was a member, is to be provided with a house within its means there is at the present moment a shortage of houses of very considerable dimensions. As a matter of fact, I endeavoured to arrive at the amount of the shortage of houses, but there are no published figures, and one has to select them from various sources as best one can. I have gone to the census figures, and got a certain amount of assistance there. The census of 1931 for England and Wales shows that, while the increase of population was slight during the preceding ten years, the increase in the number of families was great, the increase in the population was a little over 2,000,000, while the increase in the number of families was about 1,500,000, or 17 per cent. This was, it is true, accompanied by a fall in the average size of the family from 4.5 to 3.0 persons. The increase in the number of families was greater between 1921 and 1931 than the increase in the number of inhabited houses. The increase in the number of inhabited houses was 16.7 per cent.
There has always been an excess in the number of families enumerated over the number of inhabited houses. The excess has been much greater since the War than formerly, and in 1931 reached the formidable figure of 1,110,000. This is some measure of the overcrowding. The increase in the number of families between 1921 and 1931, relative to the number of inhabited houses, shows that notwithstanding the number of houses built between 1919 and 1931, overcrowding was as bad in 1931 as it was in 1891, the figures being in each case an average of 1.12 families per house, and overcrowding is generally found in houses occupied by the lower paid workers.

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The real measure of overcrowding is to be ascertained on the basis of living accommodation per person. Two persons to a room is a low standard. The minimum standard is generally regarded as an average of one and a-half persons to a room. The London County Council on its building estates observes a standard of one and a-quarter persons per room. If you take an average of one and a-half persons to a room you find some very striking results. According to the census of 1931, 2,630,000 persons lived more than two to a room. The additional accommodation required to re-house them at one and a-half persons to a room may be estimated at a further 1,000,000 rooms, or 250,000 houses—probably 300,000 houses if you allow for the segregation of the sexes. Competent observers consider that the number of families may be expected to increase at an enhanced rate compared with the increase of population. The Economist, for example, has estimated that the next census will show an increase in the number of families in England and Wales of 668,000, as compared with 1931. Therefore, 668,000 houses will be required to house them separately.
Further, many of the present houses are gradually wearing out. If the average life of such houses as were built in the early part of the nineteenth century be assumed to be between ninety and 100 years, this would represent a considerable wastage, probably about 30,000 per annum, and, according to information I have received, this is likely to go on for the next fifteen or twenty years. If you take all these and other factors into account it is estimated that 1,900,000 houses must be provided during the next ten years to house families separately, and at least 1,000,000 of these must be provided at inclusive rentals of 10s. a week and under to supply the needs of the lower paid workers.
How is this shortage to be supplied? Private enterprise has been associated with building for sale rather than for letting. Where private enterprise has built houses for letting the houses have been of the more expensive kind. The Housing Act of 1933 has proved unsuccessful in substantially increasing the supply of houses to let. The Act
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arranges for building societies to increase their loans on mortgage from 70 per cent, to 90 per cent, of the value of the houses, one-third of the extra advance being guaranteed by the local authority and one-third by the Exchequer. The building societies also agree to lend under the Act for a period of thirty years at rates of interest 1 per cent, below normal rates. The normal rate in London and the Southern counties is 4 per cent., and elsewhere 4 per cent. In March, 1934, guarantees were given in respect of 1,631 houses, and by May 14 negotiations were in progress or guarantees promised for 8,400 more. This is in contrast with 100,000 a year. Few of these houses are let at inclusive rentals of 10s. per week and under. This number may be increased to a limited extent, but that will do little towards cheapening houses on a scale necessary to overcome the overcrowding problem. If the houses are let at 10s. a week or less, inclusive of rates and other outgoings, the return will not leave a margin, large enough to cover interest payments when money has not been raised under trustee conditions.
It would seem, therefore, that private enterprise could not supply houses at that rental. There must be organised action. House building under present conditions is, necessarily piecemeal in character. There is little or no organisation for a nation-wide co-ordinated house production. What is required is a scheme planned for the erection of 1,000,000 houses at 10s. a week or under within the next ten years. The planning involves carrying through a large building programme organised on a nationally co-ordinated basis. The scheme should effect the assembling of all the programmes for the interior of towns, suburban developments, and satellite towns into one systematic whole. A survey of local needs to eliminate overcrowding and slums would be prepared, and then an accurate and workable estimate of the materials and mechanics prepared in each area from one end of the country to the other.
Long term, nation-wide agreements would be entered into with the suppliers of building materials and with the labour organisations in, the industry. These agreements would ensure continuity of employment, factories and workshops

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working to full capacity, building operatives having continuous employment, ensuring the minimum overheads, and a consequent reduction in prices. A scheme thus worked out and effecting a reduction in prices would not involve any reduction in wages. Under, the scheme all the needs of materials and mechanics would be tabulated and the quantities of each available in each area. This would be compared with the requirements of each part of the country, so apportioning one to the other as to prevent unnecessary competition, which proved so fatal to the efforts under Dr. Addison's administration. The scheme would insist on the use of standardised fittings which could be purchased on a large scale, and it would insist also on the adoption of modernised regulations which would authorise the use of proved new processes and materials once they had been approved by the Government's building research station.
Next the pace of the programme should be controlled. It may be necessary to regulate the programme in the light of fluctuations in general business and in particular of fluctuations in building activity other than that connected with the programme. It is important that the programme should act as a stabilising and not as a disturbing influence on the general volume of employment. I have already mentioned the surveys of local needs. It would be necessary to see that local surveys are on a comparable basis and that full allowance is made for any probable change in the economic and social structure of the population. Attention would have to be paid to the distribution of families between different parts of the country in accordance with economic tendencies. Spasmodic and un-co-ordinated buying, as in several instances in the past, must be avoided, for, if not, it will, as in the past, result in a higher general levy of prices, which is waste. For this nation-wide undertaking a special board such as a Housing Commission is necessary. It is really a business job and not work for a Government Department.
The Ministry of Health is already overburdened with a multitude of duties, and should not, if the work is to be carried out effectively and efficiently, be required to carry out an undertaking of such a highly technical nature. At present the
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Ministry has to exercise a large number of quasi-judicial powers in housing matters. The exercise of these quasi-judicial powers is incompatible with the exercise of administrative powers which are at present entrusted to the Ministry. An undesirable position will arise if, while engaged in stimulating local authorities and public utility societies to build a million houses, at the same time it were to judge of the fairness of the proposals as they affect different parties. The Commission would not supersede local authorities, but would assist them as well as public utility societies. Certain powers now exercised by the Minister would be transferred to the Commission. The Minister would retain general control over the borrowings of local authorities and would retain his quasi-judicial functions, such as the confirmation or rejection of slum clearance orders, compulsory purchase orders, and by-laws. He would be responsible for housing legislation, and would reply in Parliament to questions on housing matters. The Commission would be vested with the powers to approve location of sites and their co-ordination with town planning schemes, and thus could definitely prevent ribbon development. It would approve the purchase price of land, the cost of building, and the type of houses to be erected, and would act in the place of a local authority which had been declared in default.
My noble friend pointed out that the Housing Commission would make for continuity of policy. It is almost impossible to have continuity of policy under the present system. There have been seven or eight changes of Minister since 1919, and it is safe to say there have been seven or eight policies. The Commission should be in a position to carry out its functions as independently as possible of changes of Minister or Government. It would not own houses. A continuity of policy, based on a co-ordinated regional and national plan, will eliminate sudden changes in demand for materials, and the stability resulting from the fact that future demand is known should result in lower costs. Problems of local shortage of labour could be dealt with on the basis of the needs of the country as a whole, and provision could be made for continuity of employment both as regards general activity and seasonal fluctuations.

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Everyone must feel sympathy for the building trade operative during recent years as well as for the building contractor. Great schemes have been undertaken resulting in intense activity for a short time, and then there has been a slacking off resulting in unemployment. If a scheme such as has been outlined by my noble friend is accepted it has been calculated that it will represent the employment of something like 50 per cent. of the building trade operatives during the next ten years. The other 50 per cent, will be engaged on building operations of a private nature and on works carried out by public bodies. The economic effect of a long-term period of employment in the building industry would beneficially affect the other staple industries of the country. The number of employees directly and indirectly dependent on the building industry is well over two millions, and a scheme such as is contemplated would tend to give a greater degree of constant employment, and thus relieve the widespread charges falling on the nation due to unemployment. The expenses of the Commission should not be heavy, having regard to the fact that many of its functions will be such as are already paid for out of public money. By setting up a Housing Commission as is proposed, there will be no introduction of divided control. There should be no sudden change from the Ministry of Health to the Commission. The Commission will take up its duties in a gradual and orderly way, and such duties as are proposed to be transferred would likewise be handed over. This would involve little interference with work in hand or with schemes already going through. Instead of divided action as at present, with some eighteen hundred local authorities going their several ways, there would, under the assistance and guidance of the Commission, be effective co-ordination between these bodies.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, it is my first duty, speaking on behalf of my colleagues on these Benches, and echoing, I am convinced, the general sense of your Lordships' House, to congratulate with the greatest possible warmth the two noble Lords and their collaborators on a very remarkable contribution to a final solution of the great social problem of housing. Their little book is indeed a remarkable document
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and, not having been myself a member of the Committee, I am able to do something which neither of the two previous speakers were in a position to do owing to their natural modesty—namely, to recommend this document to any of your Lordships who have not yet had occasion to read it and, if I may do so, to extend my recommendation to all those in any part of the country who are at this moment gravely concerned by the state of housing accommodation in our great towns. I should like to add that this report comes at a quite extraordinarily opportune moment. We all know that the Government is now considering the second part of its housing campaign and that it is preparing a scheme which it intends to launch in the autumn. The Amulree Committee seems to be striking while the iron is red hot. Its proposals reach the Government at a time when the Government's mind is not already made up, and I should like to urge that they should consider its suggestions as thoroughly and as seriously as they are able, and that, without adopting an independent report of this kind, they should at least embody in their own Bill certain of its outstanding features.
The Party which I have the honour to represent in your Lordships' House has itself a policy to deal with the problem of housing, and I am entitled to say that we entirely concur with the suggestions outlined in the Amulree report so far as they go. In general, our only difference from the noble Lord and his collaborators, all of whom are strong supporters of the present Government, is that our ambitions for the housing of the people fly even higher. I should like, if I might detain your Lordships for a moment, to state the main features of the report which has just been discussed in so far as they agree with the policy of the Opposition in this House, and afterwards to suggest very briefly how this policy is to some extent divergent and aims at an even higher standard of housing accommodation. We agree fundamentally with the first principle which the Amulree Committee states at the outset of its report, and it is on the acceptance of this principle that logically the whole of the rest of the report hangs, because it is an attempt to provide housing accommodation, not for profit or as a result of the operation of the forces of supply and demand, but out of a sense

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of duty owed to the citizens of our country, and out of an acknowledgment of their right to decent homes and to that environment which can alone give them a full life.
Because this principle seems to be so essential, I would like to trouble your Lordships for a moment by reading a short extract from the very opening of the report:
" One fundamental principle lies behind all our discussions. The provision of housing accommodation, not below a minimum standard, for every family in the United Kingdom at a rent within the family capacity to pay, should be accepted as a public responsibility and a national service."
That is the basis for the uneconomic housing of the poorest paid section of the working class. It is the basis that we accept, and it is founded on a belief that individuals have the same right to decent homes and decent housing accommodation as they have to a minimum of education or to the protection of the law. It follows, inevitably, from this that as private enterprise has been unable to furnish these houses at a low rent for the poorest; section of the working class, the State and the local authorities have to step in and do what the business man has been unable to perform.
We entirely agree with what the two noble Lords who have just spoken have told us—namely, that the proper sphere for private enterprise has been, and is indeed likely to remain, the provision of houses for sale; and though even occasionally private builders can erect houses that are to be let, the rent they will charge is too high for the agricultural labourer and for the lower-paid artisans to be able, possibly, to afford without stinting themselves of the absolute necessities of life. A National Housing Commission or a National Housing Board or a National Housing Corporation, whatever title yon like to give it, has been much canvassed during past years, in fact ever since this Government came into office. We agree entirely that an organisation of this kind is essential for the practical fulfilment of any scheme of national housing. We are also of opinion that its functions should be limited and restricted to the planning of a survey on a national scale, to the raising of a large housing loan supported by Government guarantee, to the arrangement of facilities for building, for the purchase
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of land and for the employment of the operatives in the building industry over a considerable period of years. This means that other, functions, such as the ownership of these houses, the management of these houses, the building of these houses, would not fall upon the shoulders of a body of this kind. So far the general outline of the Amulree report is one that appeals to us fundamentally.
There is one other matter mentioned in the report, not referred to by either of the previous speakers, which I should like to stress, if I might, for a moment. We believe, as indeed the authors of the report seem to do, one of whom was a director of the Bank of England, that this is the moment when a bold scheme of public works of this kind would give the best possible stimulus to trade recovery, and that its effect would be greatly to increase the pace at which unemployment is diminishing, both directly by increasing employment in the building trade, and indirectly by increasing employment in all those trades that produce goods which the wage-earner, now employed or receiving a higher wage, will be able to afford. At the same time any expense that the Exchequer would incur owing to the payment of subsidies, which, of course, are catered for on a very sensible scale in the report, or owing to the necessity for the payment of interest on a loan which would naturally not be immediately remunerative, would be amply set off by the return to the Exchequer in the form of a higher yield from Income Tax and in the greatly diminished expenditure of the Government on unemployment benefit and of local authorities on the administration of the Poor Law.
So far our sympathy has been complete. Now we diverge to a certain extent and our divergence is really because we accept, if you like, a higher standard of living as being desirable and indeed practicable. The noble Lord pointed out that his report was based on the Tudor Walters standard house as being the minimum of comfort and efficiency required by the working classes. I feel, reading between the lines, that his Committee was not satisfied by the standard and I should like, with your Lordships' permission, to read one sentence:

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" We accept the figure ot 760 square feet as a fair estimate, though we are quite prepared to admit that the figure may have to be raised if the general standard of living rises."
In view of the fact that the standard has been rising for the last 100 years it is not likely that it will remain stationary or fall. It seems to follow from the Committee's own proposals that they do not consider the Tudor Walters standard really adequate. We should like to see a parlour in every house as well as a living room, so that there would be a certain space reserved for leisure and for the development of cultural interests without any unhappy proximity to culinary enterprise. We believe that a room of that kind would be of the greatest value to the average working-class family and enable it to reach, a higher standard of life spiritually as well as physically.
My next point is that we maintain that a greater number of houses will be required in the next ten years than the number mentioned by the noble Lord and the number set out in this report. I will not trouble your Lordships with the basis on which our calculation is made, but the calculation is that over a period of twenty years at least 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 new houses will be required for the working classes—that is, that over a period of ten years 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 new houses should be built. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and his supporters aim only at building 1,000,000 houses in ten years. While believing that their estimates have probably been cut down by the considerations of what can be done at the moment, nevertheless we would urge them to consider, if they are continuing their fine work, how far it would be possible for the Government to encourage and support a plan for a greater number of houses over the period they envisage.
There is one other point which I think is of material interest. They make no mention of any necessity for the control of prices during the period in which the national building scheme would be operative. I think it is very doubtful whether a scheme of this magnitude could possibly be carried through without some sort of public control over the price of materials and the price of land such as was exercised by the Government in the public interest during the years of the War. That is a suggestion which we should
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like to offer to those responsible for this report, and it is something which would certainly be incorporated in any building scheme on a really large scale sponsored by the Party I represent.
In conclusion, I would like to ask one or two questions of the noble Viscount who I gather will reply on behalf of the Government. The first of these questions is, I think, justified by the statement of the Minister of Health which appeared last month in a very interesting periodical called Church and Slum in which he said that "the necessary legislation will be introduced in the autumn." He was referring, of course, to the second part of the Government's housing campaign. Autumn is approaching and I think I am entitled to assume that the general outlines of the Government's programme must be already matured. My first question is whether the Government have decided to encourage building on the periphery of our great towns as well as in the centre. At present we are not at all certain whether the proposals of the Government are not restricted to the acquisition of sites in the centres of large towns and the erection of tenements there. We should regret it very much if that were the case, because, except where towns are so large that the means of communication do not permit the provision of accommodation for workers on the periphery, the suburban cottage is infinitely preferable.
My second question is: How soon do the Government intend to ask local authorities for a complete national survey of overcrowded areas? They have already taken preliminary steps in their campaign against the slums and we very much hope that they are contemplating this further step at a very proximate date. My third question—I am afraid it may sound a note of pessimism—is: Do the Government still intend to build 50,000 to 60,000 houses a year under its original scheme for the clearance of the slums? My reason for asking that somewhat pessimistic question is that figures available to the most recent date seem to show that unless the rate of building is enormously increased the Government programme cannot possibly be adhered to. It appears that to the end of the six months ended March last the number of houses amounted to about 5,600, and that over the year would only mean about 11,000; as they are aiming at 50,000

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or 60,000 houses a year the pace of building would have to be accelerated to about five times the present rate. We are most anxious to know whether the Government intend to take any special steps in order to oblige local authorities to build at a much greater speed under their Housing Act of 1933 than the speed at which they have hitherto been building.
I think that I should only like to say in conclusion that we are indebted very greatly indeed to the framers of a report which combines certain qualities which in combination are almost unique. It combines shrewd common sense with something finer than common sense, and this combination is so rarely met with that I feel certain that it will appeal strongly to all the members of your Lordships' House. I wish to urge upon the Government as heartily as I can that it is a report which on those grounds deserves very serious consideration, and to add that anything which they achieve on the lines of this report, or more indirectly under the stimulation of this report, will be received by us with the most complete approval, and that we shall be the first, if I may so express it, to shake them by the hand.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, it cannot be doubted that your Lordships' House has throughout shown the greatest interest in national housing. In my recollection there is not any subject of public interest which has been more often debated or more sympathetically considered in your Lordships' House than this housing question. I desire to associate myself with what has already been said, particularly by the noble Earl who has just spoken, who expressed it, if he will permit me to say so, very well indeed—namely, that the thanks of your Lordships are due to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, for the opportunity he has afforded us of having this debate to-day and also for the speech he made.
One cannot read the literature or listen to a debate in this House on this subject without being quite convinced that all classes and all Parties in the country are agreed that there is an essential need for housing to be provided for the working classes at low rentals, that is to say, at rentals of 10s. or about that figure, inclusive of rates and of course of interest and so forth, so that the
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rent to be paid by the working man who has to live in the house will not exceed 10s. We are entitled to claim also that the subject we are considering is in truth national in the best sense of the word. If anyone doubted it I would refer him to the report just published, made by a Committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Amulree. If he reads that report he will assuredly be satisfied that those who have devoted their time to the consideration and investigation of the subject have done so out of public interest and from a really fine desire to stimulate the Government to carry out a bolder and wider programme than has hitherto been indicated by them. I am certain also that any member of your Lordships' House or the public who takes the trouble to study that report, as certainly I have done myself, will be very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for the report which he and his associates have published and have presented to the public and your Lordships, just as we are indebted to the noble Lord for his speech to-day, full as it was of information and suggestion.
What impresses me about the matter is that we have discussed this subject in this House again and again, and generally speaking, there has been agreement by the members of your Lordships' House that it is necessary to have something broader and bolder than the Government have hitherto indicated. In every debate I can recall that has been the view presented, and there has been scarcly a doubting voice raised upon it. If there has been a doubt, it has merely been as to the particular remedy prescribed. I start with this assumption, speaking on this Motion, that there is no necessity to-day in this House, whatever there may be outside, to emphasise the essential need of providing, and of providing by a national effort, for the cheaper housing of the working classes by the provision of houses at the rent already mentioned of 10s. per week, including rates, etc.
I am not proposing to trouble your Lordships with the figures of what has been done in the past, because they have already been given by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, apart altogether from the information which has been given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Bur-

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leigh. We have discussed them again and again. I remember the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Winchester, giving them to your Lordships on various occasions, and I remember also a debate which I think was initiated by the most reverend Primate in which we had a discussion upon the very same subject. Wherever you look, to whichever side of the House you may turn, you will find this unanimity of desire, that something shall be done far greater than has yet been, I will not say accomplished, but even foreshadowed by the Government in any of the plans which they have made. I wish also to make it perfectly plain that in any observations which I may make, which will be very brief, I have no intention whatever of attacking the Government. If anything that I say may seem critical, it is said merely for the purpose of striving, by the support which I hope the views put before your Lordships will obtain in this House, to encourage the Government to be, I will not say only a little more but very much more courageous than they have hitherto been in their housing programme.
The final observation which I would desire to make upon this part of the matter is that whether you look to the Labour Party, whose views have been expressed by the noble Earl in the discussion upon the report recently issued by them and all that has been recommended, or whether you look to the Party with which I am associated, you will find everywhere the same view and the same desire that there should be a great national effort. I am not for the moment discussing the number of houses. I assume that that really is not a matter of controversy, and that whether it is a million, whether it is more than a million or whether it is several millions, as the noble Earl has said, really does not matter upon this part of the argument, because if you start with the lowest figure of a million, the one thing which seems to emerge from it quite conclusively is that you can never meet a demand such as that by a national effort unless you have some new system of organisation introduced throughout the country for the purpose of housing.
I wish only to say in this respect that I have been impressed again and again with the unanimity you find in reading, as I have read, what has taken place
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for example in discussions in Church conferences and the views which have been expressed, and in writings which have emerged from them, and equally in reading the views expressed by many members of the Party whom I will call for the moment the Party supporting the National Government. Everywhere you have the same view, and yet really nothing sufficient is being done to meet the demand. I do not know what is going to be said with regard to it to-day. I do hope that the noble Viscount who will reply for the Government will give us some encouragement, and some hope that this subject is now going to be tackled in a much bolder spirit than hitherto.
May I say a few words only in regard to the National Housing Commission? I care little whether it is called a Board or a Corporation or a Commission. What we do care about is that there should be some executive body under the authority of the Minister, which should thus be armed with the powers really to give effect to the programme instead of merely having discussions which take up much too much time before anything is achieved. Also to my mind it would enable the Government to make the kind of survey that can be made, if you have a Commission of this character. I am not going into the various arguments which have been put forward. They are admirably put in the report issued by Lord Amulree and his associates, and also in documents issued by Mr. Rees and Mr. Nicholson who are enthusiastic, in support of this scheme and have done valuable work. It has enabled us to understand the programme, and to see what is being aimed at.
Take for a moment these considerations. In the first place you cannot have a true survey of the situation unless you have some executive authority, under the Minister, entrusted with the powers of making this survey and getting all the information necessary. No private body or association of individuals can possibly compass this task. It is essential you should have that survey in order to make your plan for the future. The next point which I think we must always bear in mind is finance. That requires very little argument from one point of view. That is to say, if we can get Government assistance in finance, and a Government

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guarantee on national housing lines, the result must be that money will be raised at a very much cheaper rate than otherwise, and every one per cent, of interest saved makes a difference of at least one shilling per week in the rent which would have to be required in order to put the proposition on a sound business footing. Of course it would not be building for a profit, but merely to make payment for the money invested, and, if you can get a saving of 3 per cent., as you easily may by a Government loan, the result would be a saving of three shillings a week or more in the rent, a very considerable figure.
What is the objection of the Government to this? I have never been able to fathom their real objection to it. Of course, a guarantee is an obligation on the Government, but whether it is worth incurring or not depends upon the value of the benefit you thereby obtain. We are assuming the building of a million houses, costing somewhere about £350,000,000. At once you have got a figure which a Government is quite capable of taking upon its shoulders as a matter of guarantee. Supposing the whole amount is lost, the figure per annum is a comparatively small one, but nobody for a moment thinks that this would take place. I do not say it is an absolute certainty that there would be no loss of any kind, or that the Government might not be called upon to pay something on its guarantee in the years to come, but I doubt it very much. At all events you must take these things into account. Supposing you guarantee £350,000,000 or £400,000,000 over a period of years, you must take into account what that would mean in the reduction of unemployment and in the increase of trade, directly or indirectly. The results of such expenditure would be stupendous. It would mean increased purchasing power throughout the country, and every one would be greatly benefited.
One thing I will not hesitate to say, and that is that the Government certainly would not be losers by the guarantee, even if they were called upon at the end to pay some small amount under their guarantee, because so much would be gained from the benefits which would ensue, leaving entirely out of consideration the enormous benefits in the shape of healthier conditions generally and the better nutrition of the working
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classes. It seems to me quite impossible to say that this is a proposition which no Government could undertake because of fear of the loss which would ensue. The noble Viscount is going to reply. I shall be very glad to know what objection the Government can have to giving a guarantee of this character, and what reason there can be for refusing to reduce the cost, as they would reduce it immensely, by lowering the rate of interest, consequent upon a Government guarantee. I would press upon the Government this fact, which cannot be disputed. However interested you may get the speculative builder in housing you will never get him to put his money into this kind of building, because there is no profit in it. The whole point of constructing these houses is to let them and not sell them, which is a disadvantage from the point of view of the speculative builder. Therefore one must assume that these houses will not be built by private enterprise. The fact that the demand has been growing proves conclusively that the speculative builder will not put his money into work of this character, and that the only way to get support for it is by the assistance of Government finance.
There are other matters into which I do not enter but which nevertheless ought to be considered, such as planning ahead, purchases of land, town planning and questions of that character. They must all come into consideration. There is also the taking into account of the organisation of purchases of supplies which will be necessary. The things I have mentioned are only a few of the advantages which will be gained by the proposal before the House, and I have never been able to understand the objection to such an organisation. It has been said that it would estrange the local authorities, or that it would in some way interfere with the control of the local authorities by the Minister of Health. Again, it is said the matter in so complicated that you have a number of local authorities who have questions such as gas, and water, and electricity to deal with in the local areas, and if you have a National Housing Board or Commission, their task would become more difficult than it is at present. I really do not understand why, because certainly the idea of this Commission is not to interfere with the local authorities, not to supersede the

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local authorities, but rather to help and encourage them. And the only occasion upon which I can imagine that a Housing Commission of this character would require powers of interference would be if the local authorities refused to put forward a plan to meet the needs of the locality. But all that would be under the Minister, who is himself the Minister in control of the local authority, so that really no change would be made, because the Minister would always retain control.
I do hope that we shall hear from the Government something to-day which will give us a little more encouragement than we have had hitherto. I would myself very much have liked, had it been possible—as it may be, for all I know—if this question could be determined, assuming that there was resistance to it by the Government, by the views of your Lordships, expressed in the ordinary way. From what I have heard I believe that that is not likely to occur. The only reason why I am suggesting it is, not because I want to attack the Government—on the contrary, I want to support them—but because what we do want is to encourage the Government to take action. I cannot but think that really in this House, if we could get the views of your Lordships expressed recording your own ideas of what should be done, it would be apparent to the public that, whatever criticisms may be directed against your Lordships' House, they are by no means less sympathetic to the needs of the working classes in matters of this kind than any other body.
I would in conclusion make an earnest appeal to the noble Viscount who will reply for the Government that, assuming that he is not able to accept the Motion as it stands, he will at least not meet it with a pure negative, that he will give us some idea of what the Government intend to do, and also some hope. The very fact that the noble Viscount will reply, and that he is the Minister of Education and holds views which are well known to all of us, really makes me more hopeful almost than anything that has happened that we shall get some assistance from him, and that we shall hear that the Government are prepared to give a fuller consideration to this matter than has hitherto been given.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, my deep concern in this matter leads me to offer
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a few observations to your Lordships even although the ground has been so well covered by previous speakers. I associate myself with what has been so admirably said by the noble Earl and the noble Marquess opposite about the gratitude we owe to the noble Lords, Lord Balfour and Lord Amulree, and their Committee for the report which they have prepared and for the way in which they put it before this House. They have rightly called attention to the one supreme necessity of this problem, which is, of course, the provision of a class of houses which can be let to the lower paid workers at a comparatively low rate of rent. But they have done a further service, they have taken in hand this question of a National Housing Corporation or Board or Commission, and given it, after careful thought, a full, considered and definite description. They have also enabled the Government to make use of the opportunity, which I hope they will take to the full, to let this House and the country know precisely what their attitude is to a proposal which has been so long considered and has at last been presented in so complete a form.
With regard to the noble Lord's Motion which is before us, with the first part of it, I need scarcely say, I am in the most entire agreement. I am not satisfied that private enterprise, or building societies, or public utility societies can possibly meet the need upon which the first part of this Motion insists. It is when I come to the second part of the noble Lord's Motion that I confess that I have some difficulties, which I feel bound frankly to express. I shall await with the greatest possible interest what the Government may say on the question of a National Housing Commission, and my attitude towards the noble Lord's Motion will be largely dependent upon what the Government may say. But, speaking shortly, the first difficulty is administration. The Minister of Health is already responsible for many matters essential to the housing of the people, such as questions of public health, the provision of water, drains, light and the rest, and I am not quite satisfied, even after what the noble Marquess has just said, that the administrative difficulty is a slight one of entrusting to one body one branch of housing administration, and retaining another branch equally import-

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ant in a Department in which that other body does not have an integral and responsible place.
But I do not dwell upon that because I pass to my second difficulty, which I fear is more fundamental. I have always been attracted by this scheme of a National Housing Commission. I wish it had been introduced in 1919. I think it would have saved us a great deal of vacillation, uncertainty, and failure in carrying out a proper housing policy throughout the country. But I ask myself whether it is opportune now to introduce this new method of dealing with this national problem. There are, thanks to the energy of the Ministry of Health, schemes now being undertaken by local authorities. There are other schemes which they will be encouraged to undertake very shortly when the second part of the Government's plan is definitely laid before them. I understand from the Ministry of Health that they are encouraged by the readiness and willingness which local authorities have shown, under the impulse of the Ministry of Health, to undertake these schemes, and that there is very good hope that they may be carried into effect. I dare say there is room for a great deal of further encouragement and pressure, but, so far as I know, the local authorities throughout the country are addressing themselves with a real sense of public responsibility to this problem.
Now I ask myself, that being so, will it not mean a dislocation of existing effort, an arresting of existing schemes, if the local authorities throughout the country are suddenly called upon to undergo the supervision and control of a totally new body, a risk of dislocation and arrest at the very time when it is of urgent importance that these schemes, already undertaken, should be carried through with persistence and energy? At the same time I share the apprehensions which have been expressed that it may be beyond the power of any mere Department to carry through a task of this magnitude, one of the very greatest, most complicated, and most far-reaching that any Department of Government has ever had to undertake. Is it not beyond even the power and energy of the Minister of Health and those who assist him to carry out? Here I ask the one specific question I wish to put before the Government; I do so with some diffidence. The
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question is this: Is it not possible to create within the Department, not apart from it, and in a manner fully responsible to the Minister of Health, what I shall venture to call a Departmental Council of Housing, consisting not merely of the leading officials of the Department charged with this special work, but of experts drawn from outside, either paid or unpaid—some possibly paid, some possibly unpaid—who, under the direction of the Minister of Health and as part of his responsible administration, may undertake many of the functions which this more ambitious National Housing Commission desires to perform?
Would it not be possible to have such a body to supervise the whole work of housing, continuing, I hope, like other departmental officials even if there were changes of Government and personnel, to survey plans, watch the changes of prices, arrange those matters of finance to which the noble Marquess has rightly called attention, and, above all, to exercise pressure upon the local authorities to see that they not only frame but implement their schemes? The noble Lord rightly told us that what we need is a central brain. All I ask is, is it necessary to organise that central brain outside the Department? Can it not be organised perhaps by a new method of Departmental administration within the Department itself! In particular, I would hope that such a Departmental Council would undertake those functions in the way of advising and assisting public utility societies to which the valuable Report of Lord Moyne's Committee attached great importance. These suggestions are modest in comparison with those that have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and I do not suppose they would satisfy the noble Earl on the other side, but, if they were practicable, I think they could do something, without disturbing or dislocating all that is now being undertaken, to contribute to that concentration and driving force necessary to the carrying out of a national housing policy.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, I think we are very grateful to the noble Lord who moved this Resolution for giving your Lordships another opportunity of debating this pressing problem and bringing to a head this much-discussed question of a Housing Commission, and inviting the Government to disclose to

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us this afternoon their own policy with regard to the abatement of overcrowding and telling us something of their financial problem. I should like also to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and their colleagues on the very excellent report which has just been issued. I think, if they will allow me to say so, that report makes a very excellent political and financial half-section to the more technical document issued by the Council for Research on Housing Construction, which recently issued its first report and over which I had the honour to preside. The only thing about it I deplore is the costly precedent of laying these handsome volumes on the Table of your Lordships' House.
We have already heard in previous debates something of the Government's programme of slum clearance. The overcrowding programme is analogous to slum clearance. We all agree that there is a considerable housing requirement in this respect, and that to some extent it will also require a subsidy. I hope the noble Viscount who represents the Ministry will tell us something about what is proposed in this direction, because overcrowding is in desperate need of attention and, like slum clearance, it can only be dealt with by large scale replanning both in and outside our cities. What is the volume of these requirements? The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, estimates it at one million houses, and I do not dispute that figure, but he admits that it is entirely guess-work and not based on an accurate assessment. The Council for Research on Housing Construction recommends that a really effective survey, as I think does Lord Balfour's report, should be carried out to estimate carefully not only the volume of overcrowding but the rent-paying capacity of the families who now contribute to it. The noble Lord, from the terms of his Resolution, estimates the rent-paying capacity at 10s. a week or under, but we know perfectly well that in many cases it is well above that and, of course, in a great many cases far below it.
It seems to me that a survey is an essential background for any long-term policy, and only by this means shall we be able to clear the ground of guesswork and uncertainty and apply ourselves to an ascertained task. I hope the
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Government will give us some idea today of what statistics they have available and how they propose to make further ascertainments in this direction. I am sure your Lordships will approve and endorse the Government's approach to the housing problem so far, which lays down, firstly, the scale and treatment of slum clearance; secondly, the abatement of overcrowding; and, thirdly, the residual problem which obviously can largely be dealt with by private enterprise and is in natural sequence to the filtering-up process which will ensue from the Government's programme for the abatement of overcrowding.
The chief criticism I have to make, in common with the noble Marquess and with many of your Lordships, is that although the necessary machinery is already available for the Government and needs little alteration, it requires a good deal of what the mechanically minded would call "revving-up," and I agree with Lord Balfour of Burleigh that some new body is essential in order to supply the necessary lubricating and generating element. Where I disagree with him and with the report issued by his Committee is in regard to the statutory powers which he proposes to vest in the Housing Commission and the division of responsibility between the Minister and that body. I, like the most reverend Primate, want an advisory council. The noble Lord wants an" executive one. That is the difference between us, and it is a difference of considerable importance. The Council for Research on Housing Construction feels that to create a new independent body with executive powers would throw the whole present machinery out of gear, especially before the essential facts are known. It would be less powerful than the Minister and, therefore, less effective, and it would tend to cause chaos and confusion amongst public authorities who still have to do the building, would retard instead of accelerating their housing programme, and would dry up the present flow of building by private enterprise. Its declared policy must necessarily take some time. It would most probably act as a drag on the financial facilities which are now available. Local authorities would be under the guidance of two directors, and the position would be an intolerable one for them.

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I am sure that the majority of your Lordships will agrees that the prime responsibility must remain vested in the Minister and that the local authorities must remain the proper bodies to carry out subsidised building programmes in their own areas under his direction. They are the elected representatives of the people whose money they are spending, and the Minister is directly responsible to Parliament for the allocation of that money. What control does the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, propose that Parliament should have over the Chairman of his Housing Commission? It is proposed that the Commission should be entirely immune from any political winds that may blow, and I agree that it is most desirable, wherever possible, to divorce housing from politics, but so long as housing remains the great problem that it is, so long as it is necessary, as we agree it is now necessary, to assist it in some way by State subsidy, then so long will it remain in the forefront on every political platform.
I am rather surprised that the Labour Party, in the pamphlet recently issued, assented to this idea of an executive Housing Commission. What is going to be the position of the next Labour Minister of Health? Is he going to allow himself to be divested of his powers and responsibilities by a body of gentlemen the majority of whom do not see eye to eye with him politically? Of course he is not. It is true that they have very carefully left themselves a loophole to dismiss the lot on the grounds of misbehaviour or incapacity. On the other hand, a permanent advisory council under the Minister would be able to perform very valuable functions even without statutory power. It could collate all the experience and technical data necessary for the large housing grant, and its investigations and recommendations would cover the whole range of housing activity.
I am not going to weary your Lordships by enumerating the functions which we feel such an advisory body should perform. They are very similar indeed to those which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, recommend in their report, the difference being that they are purely advisory under the Minister, whereas the Amulree report recommends that a great many of the Minister's powers should be
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transferred to that body. The gaps to be filled up in the present policy, such, for instance, as the operations of public utility societies in the common task and their relationship with local authorities, must be more clearly defined, and that is a question upon which we feel such a body could well advise. We propose also that it should investigate the question of the co-operation and the grouping of the smaller local authorities in order that no economy or efficiency may be sacrificed by virtue of their necessarily smaller experience, and that they should be at no disadvantage as compared with their bigger brothers when it comes to a question of raising a loan at the cheapest possible rate. It could do all this without interfering in any way with the Public Works Loans Board, the Department of the Ministry, or the larger local authorities against whom I am sure the majority of your Lordships feel that no criticism can be levelled.
In regard to the financial proposals made by the noble Lord's Committee, with the Housing Commission that is proposed, I cannot help feeling that these are mainly unnecessary. I cannot see how a Government guaranteed housing loan is really going to help matters. After all, under present conditions—I believe I am right in saying this—the larger local authorities can raise their loans just as easily and as cheaply as the Government can. And do not let us forget the fact that the problem we are discussing, with the exception of a very small percentage, lies under the jurisdiction of a number of local authorities which your Lordships can count on the fingers of two hands. Then, again, to separate pure housing finance from the finance of all the various public services that go with it is to court dangerous confusion and might very possibly lead to gross extravagance. At any rate, it is safe to say that the partial transference of the work of the Public Loans Board to the Housing Commission, which the noble Lord's Report proposes, would not lead to any economies, and it is difficult to see where any advantages would ensue.
All recent investigations—and there have been many—tend to show that the difficulties facing slum clearance and overcrowding are not so much financial as physical. The subsidy under the 1930 Act

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was a most generous one, and appears to us to be quite sufficient. It is equal, I believe, to a reduction in rent of 7s. a week on tenements and 5s. a week on cottages. To secure financial facilities by Government guarantee below the rate obtainable would amount to a further subsidy which, in our opinion, is an unnecessary addition to the present subsidy. If it is found that the best method of subsidising housing is by means of a national loan then we have no quarrel with that method, but in that case I feel that it should be at a very low rate of interest, that it should be clearly denned In its scope in order not to hinder the vast amount of building which is now being done by private enterprise, and it must, above all, lead to a review of the present and contemplated subsidies. It would be quite unnecessary to have the present subsidies, or the further subsidies contemplated under the overcrowding policy, as well as the hidden subsidy which you get by a national loan at a low rate of interest. I understand that a low interest form of subsidy is in operation in France and Germany. But that is the only form of Government subsidy there.
The physical difficulties to which I have already referred are very great, and chief among them are the difficulties of finding unbuilt-on sites in central areas and a lack of vision in planning. The finance and the building technique are easily dealt with, but I hope that we shall hear from the noble Viscount who represents the Minister this afternoon that something really progressive is being done to tackle this side of the question and that the imagination of local authorities is being stimulated for large-scale re-planning in order to provide the amenities of life, full of beauty, space and light, for the poorest of our people which, with the proper mobilisation of our resources, is, I am sure your Lordships will agree, easy to achieve immediately and is no mere flight of fancy.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, like other speakers I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, on the way in which he has presented his case and on the very interesting report which he and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, have brought before the public. My chief reason for intervening in this debate is that I have had considerable experience of housing. It was my privilege to be at the Ministry of Health
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for a time and to administer housing matters. In another place I helped to pilot the 1919 Housing Act, I have helped to build a housing estate in the country, and for many years I have been a governor of one of the big housing trusts in London. It is common ground between us that the present situation can be improved upon, that there is overcrowding, that there are slums. I am not going to take up time by going over all that ground. I only want to mention one point. I have recently been connected with a survey of social conditions in a large city in the provinces. The report has not yet been published but when it is published it will show that one fifth of the population are living in what are called overcrowded conditions and that 25 per cent, of the income of the low-paid wage earners goes in rent. That is an additional reason why we must realise the vital importance of housing.
I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and other speakers feel that there has not been sufficiently rapid progress in dealing with housing because of the delays associated with our form of democratic government. Where houses are concerned we have to deal with Parliament, with the Minister and his Department, and we have also to deal with the local authorities. That is to say we have two democratic popularly-elected bodies that have to deal with housing. I know perfectly well how irritating it is to reformers when these popularly elected bodies do not seem to be going ahead as quickly as one would like. I remember being in a most unfortunate situation at the Ministry of Health. It looked as if we might have to put one local authority in default and it happened to be in my own constituency. I was expected to fight the battle of my constituency against the bureaucrats in Whitehall, but in Whitehall I felt that my constituency was not as rapid in dealing with housing as it might have been. Therefore I can fully appreciate the irritation of reformers.
As I understand the proposal of the noble Lord and his colleagues, it is that we should put housing in the hands of a Housing Commission. That is their main new contribution towards the solution of this problem. In the few minutes which I shall address your Lordships I should like to examine some particular proposals

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which have not been touched upon in detail. The report suggests that the Housing Commission should take over certain housing powers from the Ministry. The Minister of Health would, of course, they say, "remain fully informed." The report contemplates that he should be informed but not actually responsible. It is very important that we should realise that. Then the report goes on to suggest that
" ….the Commission would be vested with the power to approve (a) location of sites.…(b) purchase price of land, (c) cost of building and (d) type of houses to be erected … The Minister would make an order transferring the powers [in the matter of housing] of the local authority to the Commission."
That is to say, the Commission is not only to supersede the Minister of Health, but in certain—
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: May I be allowed to interrupt? Only in cases of default.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I was coming to that. In certain cases of default it would supersede, through the utility society, the local authority. The report goes on to suggest that "the Commission should be in a position to carry out its functions as independently as possible of changes of Minister or of Government." I take that to mean that in fact this Commission would be independent of Cabinet control, independent of Ministerial control, independent of Parliamentary control. The report says the Minister "will be responsible for housing legislation," but I gather he will not be responsible for administration of housing. The report says also that the Minister "will reply in Parliament to questions who housing matters." The noble Viscount who will reply to-day for the Government realises the difference between being a mouthpiece for a. Department and being the head of a Department. He is at the lead of the Department that deals with education and as such he controls and influences the development of education. To-day, as he may do on other occasions, he will merely reply for the Ministry of Health on housing and he would not claim that he has the same power or the same facility for influencing housing legislation.
It seems to me that if these proposals were adopted we should find the Minister of Health in that same, as I think, unfortunate position. There is to be a
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full-time independent Chairman, and this Chairman is to have the right of direct access to the Prime Minister and to the Cabinet. That is to say, he is apparently to have the right of going over the head of the Minister of Health, who is responsible for housing and for contact with and stimulation of the local authorities who have to deal with housing. There is also, apparently, to be a measure of independence of the Treasury in finance. The local public utility societies may be endowed with such of the housing powers and duties of the local authority as may be necessary. That is to say, in certain cases the noble Lord contemplates that the local authority may be put on one side and another body may act. But the local authority is still responsible for dealing with water, light, gas, drainage, rates, and I cannot help thinking there would be a degree of overlapping and of irritation which I am afraid would very much impede the course of housing development. The real power in fact, as I understand it, would be taken from the Minister now responsible to Parliament and would be given to this Commission.
I am afraid that at the centre there would inevitably be divided responsibility between this independent Chairman who would have access to the Cabinet and the Minister of Health. If the Chairman of the Housing Commission was not in Parliament there would not be full Parliamentary control. Further, as I understand it, there would be duplication at the periphery and that duplication would, I am afraid, be accompanied by dislocation. One or two speakers have indicated to-day their opinion that the Minister of Health does not stimulate local authorities, help local authorities or plan for local authorities. My impression is that the Minister of Health tries to do all those things. If he does not do them energetically enough or fast enough then let us bring pressure to bear upon him; and of course as he is responsible to Parliament it is possible for Parliament to bring pressure to bear upon him in a way that would not be possible with the Chairman of a totally independent Commission not responsible to Parliament.
We have built up the whole of our local government, the administration of our national services of housing, health and education, by developing powers on

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the local elected bodies and making them responsible. The system has its weaknesses, but it also has elements of great strength. It tends to create a healthy educated local opinion. You get housing administration and education administration carried out by people with local knowledge. It develops our civic sense. It trains future Members of Parliament, through participation in the municipal council or the county council. I am interested to notice that the noble Earl who spoke from the Labour Benches expressed mistrust of democratic local elected bodies. As I understood him, he had no confidence in their willingness or ability to deal with housing with sufficient rapidity.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I do not know on what part of my speech the noble Viscount, bases that statement. I thought that I made it clear that our policy is to give local authorities enormous authority and enormous powers, which they certainly are not exercising at the moment, and that the building of houses and house-ownership and management would be entirely in the hands of people on the spot.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: If the noble Earl has followed my speech he will have realised that I tried to indicate that a Commission, with its new local bodies, would in fact override and act independently of the elected body. That is the point that I was trying to make. I should hesitate before supporting a proposal to scrap entirely our existing machinery, which is what I believe this suggestion would in fact come to. Let us try to accelerate it. Like all social reformers I am not satisfied with the rate of progress made, but I do not believe that critics of the Government to-day have given sufficient credit for what has actually been done. Last year all records of housing were broken, and I understand that if things go right last year's record is going to be broken this year. I understand that already this year we have built more than twice as many houses as were ever built before the War in the best year.
Let us be dissatisfied with the rate of progress, but let us at all events acknowledge that a great deal has been done. If we are keen, as I am sure most of your Lordships are, on housing progress, let us be very careful lest we do any-
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thing to discourage local authorities or to remove from them the sense of responsibility for dealing with housing which they now have. I see a real risk in taking away from them the sense of responsibility which they have to their constituents to deal with housing. I see a very great danger in creating what would be in effect new machinery unrepresentative and not based on our elected Government. Our progress, which I believe has been really substantial, has been based on a conscious effort and on the people's will expressed through our democratically-elected bodies, and I think it would be very unwise to endanger the progress which has already been made by substituting this entirely new body.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh talked about spending £400,000,000 on a million new houses, and doing it with a minimum of delay. Before so ambitious a programme is adopted I should like for a few minutes, if I may, to enquire into the success of the recent building of new houses in London. I do not exaggerate in saying that to-day in London there are scores of thousands of new houses which are a perfect curse to their inhabitants owing to the infestation of vermin. I am speaking of new houses, and I am going to talk for a few minutes, if you will allow me, about the bed-bug, Cimex lectularius, the terror by night; and that is, as I say, in thousands upon thousands of new houses in London, a real fundamental housing problem. That is the real health problem in these thousands of houses.
Our new housing areas are full of them. It has spread rapidly to every corner of London. One group of students of this subject, qualified in many ways to form an estimate, committed themselves to the view that 2,000,000 of the inhabitants of London are within this area of infestation. Others place it at a very much higher figure. It is really time that the facts of this horrible curse should be faced. It is unfashionable. At the County Hall it is not considered genteel to talk about bugs; it is not "refeened," so it is suppressed. Do you hear them talking about it in the House of Commons? Never, Or in the Press? Very seldom. This House is about the only tribunal in the country where you can get a nasty and at the same time

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practical problem submitted to public opinion. I ask your permission to refer to this subject for a few minutes.
People do not realise the extent of this pest. They think that it occurs in Lime-house or Lambeth, here or there; but I should be very sorry to guarantee Park Lane or Portman Square against it, so great has been the growth of infestation. As I say, it is extending, and rapidly extending—in one way most rapidly extending—upon the newest of the new housing schemes. Flats two, three or four years old are to-day almost uninhabitable. The bug is a most dangerous creature. It is the most offensive of human parasites. The cruelty of the bug—this blood-sucking creature—to children is difficult to define, but there are very few medical men who work in these areas who will not agree upon this, that it produces a restlessness and a troubled form of sleep, and when those conditions go on day after day, week after week, and month after month—and it is only a very small proportion of people, even of children, who become innoculated against the bite of the bug—that produces a debility and a weakness which is the source of listlessness and ill-health.
Now what is the result of this? I take an ordinary block of new houses put up two or three years ago. That gets bug-infested. The man and woman who live in one of these cottages, if they can afford to move, do so as quickly as they can. The property immediately deteriorates, and the result is that the class of occupants of these houses will steadily fall. Unless we awaken to these facts and have the courage to tackle them, blocks of these new houses and housing flats are doomed to become new slums, respectable externally but in all that matters slums internally. I would remind your Lordships that the great landlords and the owners of these blocks of infested property are now the sanitary authorities. It is no good scolding the wicked slum-owner landlord; these new slums are going to be the property and under the jurisdiction of the sanitary authorities.
I ask for your Lordships' help in publicity upon this matter and I urge that the problem will be solved only by active and whole-hearted co-operation on the part of all those concerned, because although we laugh, or pretend to laugh,
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about this pest—I do not know why we should, but we do—the danger, the physiological danger, of this animal is exceptionally great. To begin with he can live for six months without food; it is pretty certain that he lives for five years; it has been proved that he can get through the party wall of an average badly-built, new residential house, and he can take advantage, and does, of every nook and cranny, and oversight on the part of the builder. Above all things he thrives in the urban area, where his depredations are most serious. I am going just in two or three moments to suggest what we ought to do. In the first place do not let us rush our building programme unless we have some tolerable assurance that the new houses in a year or two will not be infested with this infernal curse. Secondly, do not immediately begin to rebuild upon a cleared slum area.
I will refer now to a Report on this subject—a Report on the eradication of the bed-bug, issued by the Ministry of Health just before Christmas, a very remarkable and important document, which has received singularly little attention from the public. On page 10, speaking about the use of old materials for other purposes, the Committee say:
" Under this heading the most likely source of bed-bug infestation is the sale of old timber as firewood. In investigations made by Mr. McKenny Hughes "—
this is a Committee of experts, and Mr. McKenny Hughes is a civil servant at the Entomological Department of the British Museum, of which I happen to be a Trustee. The Report goes on to say that in his investigations
" in Woolwich and Stepney it was found that wood from demolished cottages was removed to house-breakers' yards and sold for firewood. In this way wood from an infested source might carry bed-bugs into a large number of houses."
That is a point which really ought to be made the subject of consideration by the Ministry of Health itself. These new houses are often wretchedly built from this point of view of sanitation. Their ceilings are often constructed in such a way as to be a positive invitation to these pests. I have seen them fitted with cupboards, jammed into recesses, with long impenetrable fissures into which the animal creeps, and in some cases it is impossible to get them out, unless care is taken in the initial stages. Finally, the bug is moved about not on the human

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person but chiefly, I imagine, in old furniture, and in old portmanteaux in which there may be some pasted paper.
We do not know the whole life history of this animal yet, and in this Report a number of subjects, as for instance the whole history of its migration, are stated to be still inadequately explored. These gentlemen, under the chairmanship of Dr. Monier-Williams, give a list of things on which they think further information is necessary, but they say:
"It is obvious that it would not be possible, without a large expenditure of time and labour, to complete such a programme of research in its entirety. We think, however, that research on these lines will produce results of great practical value to local authorities in their efforts to deal with bed-bugs."
Lord Balfour of Burleigh in speaking just now mentioned spending £14,000,000 a year. To carry out continued investigations by these experts £2,000, or perhaps £3,000 a year, or even less, would be sufficient, but with this document before you, unfamiliar as it must be to your Lordships owing to the fact that the subject is neither fashionable nor genteel, I suggest that it is the duty of the Ministry to take this matter up and to ensure that in carrying out these large and ambitious schemes we shall not continue to produce this gross and ever-growing scandal.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I think we must all have been interested in the speech to which we have just listened, but I do not quite see what it has to do with the Motion on the Paper, which was so eloquently moved by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, unless it is intended to add a rider that this new Housing Commission should have charge of this question as well as the question of building. I, personally, had never heard of this great invasion of London. I think it must have occurred since the Party of my noble friend opposite gained victory at the recent London County Council elections. This Motion of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh has been very ably discussed this afternoon. I should like to say a very few words about it, but I must preface my remarks by thanking the noble Lord for having brought forward the question, and also by praising Lord Amulree and his colleagues for the earnest work they have done in sitting on this Committee and laying the facts before the House. I think we must agree
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that anything which stimulates the question of housing is most valuable and important.
I was surprised in a way by the action of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, because he is a member of a very important local authority in London and Chairman of the Housing Committee of the Royal Borough of Kensington, and of a public utility body in that borough which has done most useful work. I am very much surprised that he, with his experience, should advocate taking away powers from local authorities and putting them in the hands of a more or less statutory Commission. I can only conclude that he has been dissatisfied, as an ardent reformer, with not getting that backing from his local authority which he might have expected. I am not at all surprised at the attitude of the Labour Party on this question, because from speeches that I have heard made, and especially one by Major Attlee, it seems the declared policy of that Party, when they come into power, which I hope will be long distant, to supersede the local authorities and put in boards to take over these duties. I could not understand the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, agreeing. It would surprise me if he is not aware of the great work that is being done by the local authorities throughout the country and the work that is being done by the Ministry of Health, and of the fact that all these questions have been carefully surveyed—questions of areas and programmes and questions of finance—day by day by the constant work of the Ministry of Health.
It has been charged that we have had eight different Ministers and eight different policies. So long as we are a democratic country and ruled by a democratic Government—and I hope we are not going to change that—policies have to alter according to the times. Public opinion has been rightly aroused on this question of housing, especially of housing the lower paid portion of the community, but I do not think sufficient credit has been given to the Minister of Health and his assistants for the enormous progress that has been made within the last year or two. No Minister in recent times has done so much as the present Minister, assisted by his Under-Secretary. They have gone down to town after town, persuading the local authorities to do this and to do that, a great many of the

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obstacles that existed before have been removed, and everything has been speeded up. When the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, speaks about these million houses in ten years, well, I think the figures will show that, according to the present rate of progress, the Ministry will have outstripped that in about seven years. With that record, I think it is a pity that an attempt should be made to provide a fifth wheel to the coach. It is going to upset the local authorities, it may hinder even the progress that has been made, because some local authorities may make this an excuse for delay.
I should like to refer to the question of building supplies and co-ordination of materials. There, I think, is a very fruitful ground for consideration. The advice of an expert board in such a matter is most desirable. I should like to go perhaps a step further. I think that the local authorities themselves—and they have some very powerful central organisations—might call in the aid of these experts and set up committees to go thoroughly into that question. One word about this very able report. It seems to indicate that there is an enormous mass of workers in this country who are working for less than 50s. a week. I think those statistics are taken from the reports of the Ministry of Labour, and if you refer to those reports I think you will find included under the heading of male workers not only adults but boys. Therefore that is not a fair use to make of the figure. I think that if you look on page 66, where the number of males in certain industries is referred to with average earnings below given amounts in 1931, you will see that it is not the case that there is a majority of workers receiving under 50s. per week, because it is only one-ninth of the total of 2,700,000 who are earning under 50s. Therefore, that seems to me most misleading.
Much play has been made with the word "family." To the ordinary person a family means a father, a mother and children, and when you talk about overcrowding in that connection you picture to yourself a family of five or six persons; but, according to the census returns, a family can be a single person. I do not want your Lordships to be led away and to think that things are worse than they are. I am not surprised at the Labour Party trying to get rid of local authori-
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ties, but I am rather surprised that the Leader of the Liberal Party in this House approves of this Board, because by this means he would be undoing a great amount of magnificent work which has been, and is being done, by the local authorities, and he would make confusion worse confounded.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: My Lords, the noble Lord at the commencement of his speech expressed considerable surprise at the speech which had just been made by the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, and he told us that he had not heard from the sanitary inspectors in London of the presence of bugs. All I can say is that for years past they have been a real problem in the poorer parts. I have known cases of children sitting out late at night on hot summer days because their parents knew they met with so much discomfort in the long nights, and I have known of cases where houses have been reconditioned and afterwards closed because it had been found impossible to exterminate the bugs. Therefore I would endorse all that has been said by Lord Crawford in his appeal to the Minister of Health.
I think this is one of the most important debates we have had on housing for a long time, for we have in front of us a definite policy expressed in the. Motion and also in the admirable report, for which many noble Lords have expressed their gratitude. I find myself in almost entire agreement with the Motion and with the speeches made in support of it. In regard to one point I feel a certain amount of hesitation. But let me quite briefly give the reasons why I am in agreement with the Motion as a whole. The Motion assumes that it is not sufficient merely to deal with the slums; you must also deal with the problem of overcrowding. There are many more poor people living in overcrowded conditions than there probably are in the slums. If you deal only with slums and leave overcrowding untouched, by the time you have abolished a large number of the slums new slums will have come into existence through the deterioration caused by overcrowding. Then I agree with the Motion when it calls for houses at 'a rent of not more than 10s. a week. The noble Lord who has just spoken, I think, minimised the importance of this.
LORD JESSEL: NO, I did not. I said there were not so many men as one was led to believe receiving less than 50s. a week.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: The figures given in the report which has been quoted show that something like 1,400,000 males are earning under 55s. a week.
LORD JESSEL: Forgive my interrupting. If the right reverend Prelate will look at the figures in the first part of the report he will see that it is only one-third of the number who are earning under 50s. a week.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER: There are a very large number of people who are receiving much less than that; for instance, in parts of London it is undoubtedly true that the total earnings of the household in many cases are not more than 42s. a week. If the noble Lord will look at that most valuable and authoritative report which has been drawn up under the title of the New Survey of London he will find that in a very large number of cases people are earning less than 50s. a week. If that is the case it is quite impossible to expect these people to occupy houses which have a rental of more than 10s. a week. It is all very well to point out that a large number of houses have been built which are quite excellent in their way, but they are out of the reach of those who are unable to pay more than 10s. a week. A large number of those who are living in overcrowded and slum conditions are paying 6s. or 7s. a week as rent, and it would be with very great difficulty that they could pay even the extra 3s. a week required for a 10s. rental.
I agree with the Resolution that a million houses are needed. Of course, it is simply a guess, but it is an estimate on the moderate side. The Architects' Journal, in a very interesting survey carried out last year on the basis of the census figures, calculated that 1,400,000 new houses were required including those which were to replace the abolished slums; but one of the difficulties we have always been in, and which has been brought up in this House time after time, is that the Ministry of Health has never been able to give us an estimate of the number of houses required. We are told a very large number of houses are needed to solve the housing problem, but we can-
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not get a definite figure. I do not know it the noble Viscount who is going to reply for the Government can tell us how many houses the Ministry estimates to be necessary if the housing problem is to be solved. I agree with the speakers who supported the Resolution when they expressed considerable doubt and anxiety about the way in which the million houses are to be provided.
I agree with everything that has been said in connection with the slum clearance programme of the Ministry. I think that programme has been a very fine one. It has been carried through with very great energy, and the latest reports in connection with it are most satisfactory. But when you have dealt with slum clearance there remains a far larger number of people who are living in overcrowded conditions. Where are the houses to come from for them? Private enterprise, quite plainly, is not building these houses. The Ministry of Health has given us a number of most striking figures showing how private enterprise has built a record number of houses in the last year, but when we go on to ask how many of these houses can be occupied at a rent of under 10s. a week we cannot get an answer. We are told there are 77,000 Class C houses which are now available for letting, but in London, as your Lordships know, the rent of these houses may be up to 16s. a week, and up to 11s. 6d. a week elsewhere. I want to know how many of these 77,000 houses can be let at under 10s. a week.
I should be very grateful if the noble Viscount who is replying for the Government could give us some information on this matter. It is really a vital matter, for it is only by the answer to this question that we can estimate the success of the Government's policy in dealing with those now living in overcrowded conditions. Local authorities are not now building houses which have no subsidy or, if they are building them, they are doing so in very small numbers indeed, and therefore we are driven back for these houses upon the policy which has been promised by the Ministry of Health. That policy as outlined by the Minister is an excellent one, and I understand the Minister will introduce a Bill early next Session. It is really on the comprehensiveness of that Bill that the possibility of supplying the necessary houses rests.

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I do not suppose it is possible for the noble Viscount who is replying to tell us how many houses it is thought that Bill will provide for. But on the answer to that question depends largely our answer regarding a Housing Commission.
It is here that I have a certain amount of hesitation. In principle I am entirely in favour of a Central Housing Commission. Like others, I wish it had been introduced years ago. It would have saved a great deal of waste of time and energy; but I am doubtful whether it is wise to set up such a body at the present moment while the Ministry are carrying through a campaign for 300,000 houses for slum-dwellers and when they have in view a Bill which may provide a sufficient number of houses for those who are living in overcrowded conditions. If, however, the Ministry have not a sufficiently large programme for new houses which are to be let at a small rent, then, I think, it should be considered whether this Commission ought not to be set up. I agree entirely with the Resolution in asking the Government to consider this matter. That is all it does.
It could have been said some time ago that the matter had already been considered in the Moyne Report, but there is one very important difference. When the Moyne Report was issued it was assumed, I think, that private enterprise could provide these houses at a low rent. Now it is admitted by the Minister of Health that you cannot expect private enterprise to provide these houses, and I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Shakespeare, said in another place only a few days ago:
"Private enterprise can never eater for the really poorly-paid worker, and it has never been stated from this box that it can."
I feel that that does make a big difference in the position. We see that private enterprise cannot provide these houses, and I think there is a real case for the Government considering afresh this proposal for a Central Housing Commission, though I am not at the moment convinced that this is the time to set it up.
There are two other observations I wish to make quite briefly. If I am doubtful about setting up a National Housing Commission for the whole country, I feel there is a very strong case for setting one up in London. In London a great housing programme has been carried out. Houses
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have sprung up in all directions. They have been, I believe, well built, well planned, and well administered, but these houses nave not been for the poorest classes of the community. The authorities in London have failed to meet the needs of these poorer classes. I recognise that the difficulties are quite exceptional. The size of the population, the extent of the Metropolis, and, above all, the various conflicting local authorities, 113 in number, make the problem of Greater London quite peculiar and special. As long ago as 1920 Mr. Neville Chamberlain, as Chairman of the Departmental Committee on Housing, recommended that some Central Commission should be set up to deal with the London housing problem. I feel there is a very strong case for the establishment of a central body to deal with the special problem of London, which so far has not been solved.
The second observation I wish to make is in connection with continuity of policy. Several speakers have pointed out how serious is the way in which Minister of Health after Minister of Health has changed the policy of his predecessor, and one of the most attractive features of the proposed Housing Commission is that it would secure a certain amount of continuity. Unless you have continuity in policy you cannot plan many years ahead. There is unsettlement and uncertainty when you do not know whether the subsidy will be continued a year or two years hence, whether one Government will lay everything on private enterprise and another practically avoid it. This matter ought never to come into the region of Party polities. It is a matter so important that it ought to stand right above Party politics. As a rule in our country we have managed to keep foreign affairs out of the ordinary ruck of Party strife. Is it not possible to do the same with a matter of this kind? Is it not possible for the Leaders of Parties to confer together, to have a kind of round-table conference to settle in general the broad lines of housing policy which, whether they are in power or whether they are in opposition, they will carry out, say, in ten years' time.
They need not commit themselves to that period definitely, but at any rate they might commit themselves for a sufficiently long period so that a long-term pro-

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gramme could be settled upon and carried out. Many of us who are deeply concerned in the housing problem have really no interest in the controversy which goes on about building by private enterprise or by public authorities. We want the houses and we really do not mind who supplies those houses. We do not mind whether they are supplied by private enterprise or by public authorities, provided that the houses are well built, that they are sufficient in number, and that they can be let at a rent within the reach of the poorest citizens of this country.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: My Lords, I do not desire to trouble your Lordships with any of the general considerations which have been so admirably put forward, especially by the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down, but, in reference to his appeal, I should like to bring before your Lordships one consideration which has not found a place even in the recommendations of Lord Moyne's Committee. The noble Lord who introduced this debate to-night contemplates an expenditure of something like £400,000,000. The right reverend Prelate stressed throughout his speech the great, and indeed the paramount importance of these houses when they are built being brought within the compass of the incomes of those who are to inhabit them. One of the worst symptoms in some of our towns has been brought about in this way: Persons have been moved out to these more expensive houses, obtaining far better accommodation and far better surroundings, and after a few months' experience the fact that they are paying more than they were paying before has driven them back to the districts they formerly inhabited, and has accentuated in some cases the overcrowding in the very districts which they had left.
There is one other thing which has not yet been touched upon, and that is how the cost of production can be brought down. Directly after the War an arrangement was made with the trade unions which, as those of us who in any capacity had to deal with the question of construction ourselves discovered, led to a very considerable reduction in the cost of producing houses, and that without any deterioration from any point of view in the houses built. I have had some experience of building as a trustee
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of various estates and I believe I am right in saying that but for trade union rules—and I am not going to challenge them at this particular moment—you could in almost every case where you have got an expert bricklayer, carpenter, or plumber, to a large extent supplement their labour by the labour of a labourer paid as a labourer. But that is not generally the system of trade unions. I made inquiry from authorities on the subject and I learned that a few months ago there were still 25 per cent, or thereabouts of those scheduled as trade union men in the building trade who were not employed. A large number of those men have now been assimilated.
What I put to your Lordships, and especially to the Government, is that when those men have been absorbed, even if not before, it ought to be made a matter of bargain with the trade unions that unemployed men may be brought in for all the work for which they are fit. By that means the cost of producing these houses, if this enormous programme is to be undertaken, would be substantially reduced. I have gone into the figures, and I believe the figures of the Ministry of Health will support those I am going to give. The payment for experts in the building industry is, speaking in round figures, something like 65s. a week; for labourers, speaking roundly, about 49s. a week, and, without troubling your Lordships with other figures, I may say that allowing 50 per cent, of the cost of the house for material, 45 per cent, for labour and 5 per cent, for overhead charges, there is a gain for the whole house of something like one-twentieth of the cost by adopting the system which was adopted for a period and which I think should be renewed under this great scheme. The right reverend Prelate will bear me out when I say that if the 10s. a week can be reduced to 9s. 6d. or 9s. it makes a substantial difference, a difference which, I venture again to point out, inclines people to remain in these houses and prevents them rushing back and crushing themselves into the old houses.
We have been appealed to in respect of sanitary conditions. My noble friend Lord Crawford has made our flesh creep with the account which he has given of the conditions in some of these new houses. I have no acquaintance with this subject, but a noble Lord who is a

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much greater authority on bed-bugs than I am has asked me to suggest that the Report, issued by the Ministry of Health in 1934 should be re-issued as a Command Paper. I must say, after the serious indictment of our arrangements that my noble friend Lord Crawford, has given us to-night, that that is a very important thing to have before us. We all apparently desire—I think almost unanimously in your Lordships' House—that there should be a great scheme. Whether it should be carried out entirely by the Ministry of Health, or how it should be carried out, has been a matter of long debate, but the desire of the whole House is that we should give these people houses at rents which they can pay. For that reason I earnestly hope that in considering this question the Government will not, as Lord Moyne's Committee did, omit to consider whether in a very large scheme going on, say, for five or seven years we cannot produce houses at a rather less cost and, therefore, let them at a cost more within the means of the population thin we have done up till now.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): My Lords, the fact that this debate is, I think, the fifth debate upon this subject that your Lordships have had within the last seven months is significant evidence, if that were required, as to the importance that your Lordships attach to the topic which we have had under discussion. We certainly cannot complain of any lack of material on which to inform our judgment. We have long enjoyed the assistance of Blue-books. We have now been afforded the assistance of books black and books green and booklets white. Out of all these we may surely cull much wisdom. I should, I am sure, be speaking for my right honourable friend whom I to-day represent if I were to say that we, for our part, have nothing but feelings of gratitude to the noble Lord who introduced the subject. I certainly should be the last person to complain of the putting forward of constructive suggestions, even if, as he himself admitted, from time to time constructive suggestions become candid criticisms. It is only indeed, as I think, by pooling the ideas of those in all parts of the House who have pondered these problems that we can derive the maximum of advantage from our discussion.
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Before I pass to the general discussion may I say one word in reply to my noble friend the Earl of Crawford who, in his speech, went somewhat outside the four corners of this Motion? To him I would only say that the subject to which he addressed himself is not one of course that is or can be absent from the mind of the Ministry of Health, but I shall take steps to see that the concrete proposals he made in regard to it are brought, as will be of course all others made in the debate, to my right honourable friend's notice.
THE EARL OF MIDLETON: May I ask whether the Paper he referred to can be issued?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I will make inquiries and see what can be done. The Motion makes two proposals. The first is that your Lordships should support the view that the provision of 1,000,000 houses to let at a rent of 10s. or less a week is a national need, and in the second place the Motion discusses the machinery by which that could be done and suggests that the right means of meeting it is a Housing Commission. The establishment of a Housing Commission is a proposal that in recent months has been very widely advocated and those who advocate it to-day will forgive me when I say that it has not always in the past been easy to consider the proposal with the care that the position of those who advocate it would seem to claim because this proposal has too often been vague and not very closely defined. That has to-day been largely removed by the fact that we have before us the report of the Committee, to which such frequent reference has been made, of which my noble friend Lord Amulree was Chairman. We also have before us the report of the Committee presided over by my noble friend the Earl of Dudley, whose conclusions on this point showed material differences from those reached by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree's Committee.
I propose to confine myself in the main to the proposals of Lord Amulree's Committee. With your Lordships' permission I will deal first with the question of machinery, because it is, I think, fundamental to the whole of housing policy. It is proposed, as I read the Motion, that we should in the first place scrap part of our existing machinery and substitute

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new machinery for it. That is a proposal, I need hardly say, that, emanating from whatever quarter, the Government will approach in a spirit of complete realism. If it could be demonstrated that a National Housing Commission of whatever kind would in fact be more efficient than the existing machinery the proposals would certainly enjoy Government support, but I am constrained to observe that throughout this debate no suggestion has been made even by those who advocate the Commission that the Ministry of Health does not in fact perform its functions with efficiency, and I hope I shall be able to adduce reasons to convince your Lordships that the existing machinery is, in fact, more efficient for the execution of any given policy than the substituted machinery would be.
There have been, at different times, three different types of Housing Commission proposed. It has been suggested in the first place that a Commission should be established in addition to local authorities to undertake the actual business of house building. There is a suggestion in my noble friend Lord Amulree's Committee's report, in the second place, that a Commission should take over part of the job of the Ministry of Health. There is in the third place a suggestion that a Commission should be set up to systematise the supply of building materials and the like, to perform, in fact, many of the duties that my noble friend Lord Amulree contemplates as part of the duties of the Commission he would wish to see.
I will deal quite shortly with the first proposal that a Housing Commission should carry out building operations. That, I readily recognise, is not what my friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh has in mind. Nor has it, I think, been in the mind of any of those who spoke this afternoon except it were in some degree present to the noble and learned Marquess, Lord Reading's thoughts when he used words that I thought were capable of some such interpretation when he said the Commission should be armed with powers to give effect to the programme. Those words seem to me to come dangerously close to this first type of Commission. I am only concerned to say that I think any machinery of that kind would be quite disastrous to housing progress, because if local authorities had any reason to suppose that a Commission sup-
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ported by Government money and Government guarantee was in a position to relieve them of their local housing responsibilities, the finance committees of those authorities, human nature being what it is, would approach the question of rate responsibility in a very different attitude from that which now happily generally prevails.
It is the second type of Housing Commission that is presumably the proposal we are invited to approve in the present Motion—that is, a Housing Commission largely or partly to supersede the Ministry of Health. In the report that we have before us it is indeed recommended that the housing functions of the Ministry of Health—I think my noble friend in his speech accepted the proposal—so far as those refer to technical problems of execution, should be vested in the Commission, the supervisory and the quasi-judicial functions of the Ministry of Health and supervision of general policy remaining with the Minister. I am bound to say I find myself in complete agreement with those who have said, for reasons adduced, that they regard that proposal as adding a fifth wheel to the coach. I find it very hard indeed to believe that the rapid execution of a housing policy would in fact be facilitated by interposing a new body between the Minister and local authorities, upon whose intimate, close, rapid and cordial co-operation all our housing policy must ultimately and entirely depend. Such a body, I think, can hardly fail to be a barrier between the local authorities, who are immediately responsible, and the driving force of the Minister and the Ministry, to which I think my noble friend Lord Dudley made reference. In short, I should suggest to your Lordships that it is direct contact with the responsible Minister which can give the best encouragement and stimulus to local authorities, and that cessation of that contact and that stimulus would not be well calculated to promote their activity.
May I remind your Lordships of the two directions, each equally important, in which at present that control is exercised? It is exercised, of course, negatively, by the requirement that the Ministry can make of local authorities that their proposals—the numbers and types of houses, the exercise of their borrowing powers and the like—should be approved by the Minister; and it is exer-

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cised positively by the power of the Minister, if he is satisfied that local authorities are not adequately performing their duties, to step in and to do the work himself, charging the cost to the local rates. It is at that point that I feel in the suggestion of my noble friend a great difficulty arises. In their report the Committee contemplated leaving that formidable weapon of default in the Minister's hands. None the less they recommend that the local authorities' estimates of housing needs should be submitted to the Commission, and that the Commission, and not the Minister, should have the power of approving sites and types of houses and so on. If that means anything it surely means that the adequacy or inadequacy of local authorities' proposals is to be determined by the Commission when their approval is sought, but at the same time the Minister will have the duty of adjudicating and determining upon the very same issues in deciding whether or not an occasion has arisen when he should exercise default powers. I would have supposed that that situation must inevitably result in deadlock, unless you can postulate that the Commission and the Minister will always see eye to eye.
What evidence in fact is there that the functions of a central housing authority have been inaedquately performed, as things are, by the Minister of Health? No one would contest the view that good housing is a central and fundamental element in health. However much Governments since the War have differed, they have up to now all agreed upon this principle, that the proper central executive authority to deal with housing is the Ministry which was constituted by Statute, as it was said, "for the purpose of promoting the health of the people of England and Wales." I suggest that in view of that intimate connection the decision of all the Governments on that matter has been wise. My noble friend Lord Amulree referred to the effect in the production of houses due to the partnership between the Ministry of Health and local authorities since the Ministry was formed in 1019. I do not repeat that beyond saying that, leaving aside for a moment questions of private enterprise and subsidy and the like to which I will come in a moment, the production of nearly 2,500,000 houses in fifteen years is a very stupendous and
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remarkable national achievement. Such an achievement as that does to my mind suggest that whatever mistakes we have made in the past, due perhaps to lack of always complete foresight or an ordered plan, at all events the system of production cannot be held to be one which is incapable of producing good results.
I cannot, either, be satisfied that this proposed division of functions between Minister and Commission would in fact work any better in actual practice. My noble friend behind me suggests that the Minister should retain his supervisory and quasi-judicial functions as well as control over policy. What in fact does that mean? I quite agree that there may be a theoretical objection to the present position by which the Minister has it on his shoulders to confirm compulsory purchase orders and slum clearance schemes as well as executive responsibility for housing, but I am very doubtful whether in fact the position would be greatly eased by an arrangement by which a Commission admittedly working, if the scheme is to succeed at all, in the closest co-operation with the Minister, were openly to be assisting local authorities in the preparation of material for these inquiries. It seems to me to introduce an element of cross-organisation which would be highly inconvenient. After all the judicial functions of the Minister are a comparatively small problem, and I think that to set up a Housing Commission in order to remove that slight anomaly would be like burning down the house to roast the pig.
It has been said frequently this afternoon that it is important that housing should be taken out of Party politics, and that is adduced as an argument for the Housing Commission. Simultaneously, let me remind the House, it is said that the Minister is to retain supervisory functions and control of policy. Now those two things seem to me to be in violent and sharp contradiction. How the Minister is to continue to control policy and at the same time the Housing Commission is to produce the beneficial effect of taking the whole thing out of Party politics I do not readily see. I am quite sure that those are right Who pay that in fact it is not possible to take out of Party politics a subject which is so essentially political and arouses such sharp

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and continuing political interest as does housing. May I remind your Lordships of another not wholly dissimilar case? Take the case of unemployment administration. I imagine that men of all Parties, or at any rate a great many men of all Parties, would agree that there is no subject which it is more pre-eminently desirable to keep clear of influences sometimes associated with Party politics, and yet because that subject is one of such immediate, universal and continuing interest there has been a general refusal to have it any way withdrawn from Parliamentary control.
It has been said two or three times this afternoon in relation to this matter that there have been eight Ministers of Health during the last fifteen years, and that that in itself is a sad commentary upon the discontinuity of our housing policy. As a matter of fact, the mortality among Ministers of Health has not meant discontinuity in the sense in which I think the argument has been used this afternoon. Pour major Housing Statutes have been passed since the War. The first one was the Act of 1919, and the action that was taken under that was stopped by the Government which passed the Act. The Act of 1923 was passed by a Conservative Government, was operated by a Labour Government, and ultimately brought to an end by another Conservative Government. The Act of 1924 was passed by a Labour Government and actively operated by a Conservative Government, and the Act of 1930 was passed by the Government of noble Lords opposite and is now being used as a statutory basis for slum-clearance schemes, which are being carried out to-day by local authorities all over the country. I have no doubt, I will add, that any Government that may possibly succeed this Government in years to come will continue and build upon legislation that my right honourable friend hopes to pass through Parliament this autumn.
The tasks which the Committee suggests should be undertaken by the Housing Commission are, if I may refresh your Lordships' minds, first of all, responsibility for organising a national survey of housing needs. The noble Lord who moved the Motion will perhaps permit me to say that as he and his friends have already decided the number of houses required, it is not perhaps
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immediately apparent why a further survey is demanded.
LORD BALFOUR OF BUELEIGH: Perhaps the noble Viscount will allow me to point out that I did say this was only a guess, because we have not the data.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I appreciate that, and in this matter the Government and the noble Lord are in complete agreement, because we also feel that a survey is necessary, and it will be undertaken. The position with regard to surveys is at present as follows. Surveys have already been carried out by the Ministry and local authorities with regard to unfit houses, and surveys with regard to overcrowding will be an essential part of the legislation which the Government propose to introduce in the autumn. I think that, perhaps, answers one of the questions which the noble Lord opposite asked me in his speech. It is also proposed by the Committee that this Commission should help local authorities by providing expert guidance, by co-ordination in different branches of the work, and in various ways that have been mentioned of helping the local authorities to carry through their great task, and to ensure, so far as may be, that new construction, the abatement of overcrowding, slum clearance, and reconditioning, are all brought together, as Lord Reading pleaded that they might be, under one coherent national plan. But, my Lords, for the most part I think all that field and scope of work contemplated for the Commission is exactly what is being done to-day by the Ministry of Health, and, so far as I am aware, as I have said, no one has said that the Ministry of Health are not doing it properly.
I think, however, I can carry the discussion a little bit further in one direction, not unconnected with this topic which I think was present to the mind of the most reverend Primate, and that concerns the use that can be made of public utility societies. In so far as more use might be made of public utility societies, my right honourable friend proposes to introduce legislation with that very object in view. The object of this legislation will be to authorise local authorities to hand over to public utility societies, by agreement, blocks of housing work. By that, I mean that the local authorities will be enabled to transfer

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to public utility societies property acquired by the local authority with a view to making it fit by conversions, adaptations, etc. for occupation by the classes that we have in view. I contemplate that the public utility societies would carry out the necessary works and then manage the whole property. Provision also will be made to enable the society to submit proposals to the local authority for making such arrangements, either in relation to property already held by the local authority, or in relation to property which the society might feel was suitable for acquisition by the local authority. Perhaps I may add that when the work is such as would rightly be assisted by a subsidy from the Exchequer, that subsidy would be passed on to the society, and in any case it is proposed that local authorities should be empowered to make advances to societies and borrow for that purpose on the security of local rates.
The last point of my noble friend's case to which I feel bound to make reference is that it is suggested that, with the assistance of a State guarantee, money could be found by the Commission in almost unlimited amounts and at lower rates of interest than can be obtained under the present machinery. I am advised that the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, was right when he said in connection with this that in his judgment that proposal was largely an unnecessary one. At present, it is true, as he said, that the large local authorities raise their money as cheaply as His Majesty's Government can, and where that does not happen the money is available for smaller authorities through the Public Works Loans Board, which charges, I am advised, broadly speaking, for expenses of management, 1 per cent, in addition to the rate at which the Government are able to raise money. The present rate charged by the Board is 3½per cent. I am advised that the loans of the Commission could not be made available more cheaply than those of the Public Works Loans Board, and that if the ¼ per cent, were not charged by the Leans Board the costs of handling the money must be defrayed out of the Exchequer, which would be, in fact, a veiled subsidy in a new form.
The only other thing I wish to say by way of objection to the proposal of this type of National Housing Commission is to reiterate what fell from Lord Astor,
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and was an element of doubt, I think, in the mind of the most reverend Primate—namely, the intimate and close relation between the housing work of the Ministry and all the other work which it performs. Especially close, of course, is that connection in all the field of local finance. The other thing I would say is that it would be unfortunate, and indeed disastrous, in the view of the Government, to make so radical a change in the organisation of housing administration when slum clearance is at its most active stage. It would cause delay and prejudice the new proposls that we intend to submit in the autumn.
The third proposal is one which it might well be possible to meet, and that is that consideration should be given to the proposals for systematising the supply of building materials, and so on. I can well suppose that your Lordships might be inclined to consider that however strong the case may be against any general form of Housing Commission, there nevertheless might be a good deal more to be said for the appointment of such a central body for such a purpose as this. There can be no doubt that the improvement in the methods of building and the business side of it is all a field that demands constant watching, and that for the reason that was put with convincing force by Lord Balfour and others—that the lower the costs the lower the rent. On the point that there is a great deal to be gained by steady development of mass production and the technique of all that side of it—upon all that the Government are in warm agreement with Lord Amulree, and owe a great deal to him for the thought that he has given to these matters. I think also that the co-ordination of contracts and orders, so that they may be properly related in time to the possible supply, is a factor to which due regard is essential as a means of preventing prices being put up against housing authorities, and I can assure your Lordships that the importance of all these matters is very present indeed, both to the Government end to housing authorities. As a matter of fact, I think the bigger housing authorities, owing to the large scale of their own operations, are in a pretty good position to secure the benefits of mass production on their own account, and it is to the small authorities that special attention in these respects is required.

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In short, the view of the Government in regard to this matter is that the most practical and the best way of securing these purposes is not the establishment of a new Corporation, which would, I think, have many of the disadvantages to which I referred a few minutes ago, but it is rather by the way of organised cooperation between the different housing authorities, and I am at liberty to inform your Lordships that recently my right honourable friend has addressed a letter to the Association of Municipal Corporations, inviting their views on the subject, and enquiring whether they themselves would be prepared to provide machinery for systematising the purchase of building materials and other activities connected therewith. Their reply, when it is received, I need hardly say, will receive my right honourable friend's most careful consideration.
There is connected with that a correlated or complementary method of procedure, and that is through the instrumentality of an Advisory Council on housing matters, to which the most reverend Primate made reference, and which it is, indeed, proposed to establish in the legislation which my right honourable friend will bring forward in the autumn, and to which in another connection I must make further reference in a moment. But it is by such measures that we believe that the end in view can be most effectively secured, and with the minimum of interference with the existing machine. That machine, I would remind your Lordships, is at present working at the highest pressure, and if at any time it is found by the Government that the co-ordination to be secured by this means is inadequate, then it will be necessary to consider how far other methods can be introduced. I can assure your Lordships that the situation is one which will be constantly watched, particularly with the increase of activity in the building trade that must follow the development of these programmes.
But experience does not as a matter of fact—and I speak in the presence of experts—always show that a great development of building has the effect of putting up costs. The reason in part, I am advised, is one that is not always realised, and that is that the material that is required, even for the wholly unprecedented amount of small house building now in progress, forms a
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relatively small part of the total volume of building that is going on in the country. But, none the less, so anxious is my right honourable friend to guard against every possible risk that might accrue in this field that he is continuing, and makes active use of, an Interdepartmental Committee that has been in permanent session for some years past, whose constant duty it is to review prices of building material and make reports for those whose duty it is to watch the course of them.
I do not know whether it would interest your Lordships if I gave you just one figure. Comparing the years 1924 and 1934, in the year ending March 31, 1924, the total number of houses built was 86,000; in the year ending March 31, 1934, the total number was 266,000—more than three times as much. And yet the prices of materials were generally considerably higher in 1924 than in 1934. I do not, of course, draw any sort of moral from that; I only quote those figures to show that an increased volume of house building does not necessarily carry with it soaring prices, as some persons have been disposed to fear. It will not be forgotten that Lord Moyne's Committee did definitely express the view that, while in theory no doubt there was much to be said for it, and that bulk purchase might result in large economies, yet the introduction of a large scale purchaser, supported by Government finance, in their view was not at all unlikely to have the very opposite effect from that which was intended.
Now I must turn to the general question of housing policy that is raised in the first part of the Motion and which has been, as I think, dependent upon the other part, the machinery to which I have referred. The proposal that the noble Lord has brought before us is, of course, amplified in my noble friend Lord Amulree's Report, which contains the recommendation that the housing of lower paid workers at rents within their means should be accepted as a national responsibility and as a public service. I am not quite clear what that language means. It might be held that the obvious meaning of it was that the Government should establish a universal test of means, should then determine the proportion of income which might in different circumstances be available for payment of rent, and then, by one means or another—

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either by arranging transfer from home to borne of different values or by some system of rebates—should undertake that every family was charged with the rent which, on the scales laid down, it ought to pay.
That proposal I do not here or now discuss, because I do not believe it is what the Committee intended; but I permit myself this observation upon it, that the administrative implications of any such proposal would be of the most formidable kind. But if, as I suppose, the recommendation, means that the provision of houses for lower paid workers is a purpose which every Government must use every effort to attain, then I can assure your Lordships that, as I understand it, that does truly represent the existing position, and is, in fact, the reason why we are all here discussing housing to-night. Tine existing position, after all, is one in which local authorities are charged with the duty of considering and submitting proposals for working-class housing in their areas, as they are charged with the further duty of abolishing and replacing slums, and under legislation to be forthcoming they are also, I understand, to be charged with a similar duty in regard to the elimination of overcrowding. Therefore, I think I can assure the noble. Lord who moved that the principle stated in the Committee's report is the basis of the present Government policy, of which the instruments are the housing agencies of local authorities and private, enterprise, all co-ordinated by the National Government.
The question is whether the object of policy to which we should subscribe should, as the Motion suggests, be the production of one million houses at this level of rent. On the advice that is open to me, and for other reasons, I shell quite shortly endeavour to make plain that, while His Majesty's Government are not less anxious than my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh or anyone else with whom he may be associated to see real progress made with the housing problem of this country, I do not believe that the task of achieving that will be assisted by the acceptance of such a proposition. In the first place I venture, with great respect, to suggest that the solution of the housing problem is not facilitated by
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round statements as to size, the evidence for which must inevitably be of doubtful validity.
The noble Earl opposite who spoke, I think estimated that several million houses were required—I am not sure whether it was two or three or four or five millions—in the next ten years. While I do not desire to criticise the figure of one million in detail, I think there can be little doubt that the calculations on which it appears to be based are very far from being secure. The figure itself is apparently taken, as I think the noble Lord stated, from the excess of families over the number of occupied dwellings. As he was the first to admit, from that many deductions had to be made: the large figure of vacant dwellings, the fact that many families entered on the census return, as Lord Jessel reminded us, consist of one person, and, lastly, the distribution of wage-earners at different rates of wages, to which also Lord Jessel made reference and which is set out in Lord Amulree's report. The upshot of these deductions must be that the number of houses required to be provided at these rents on the Committee's own calculation would be very much less than the suggested one million.
It is doubtless quite unnecessary to remind your Lordships that as regards the provision of houses for those who can afford some higher rent the housing problem is already in process of solution. If the present rate of house production should continue, the total output of houses during the next ten years would far exceed two millions, and I think that would throw an entirely different complexion upon the whole problem. At the same time my right honourable friend and the Government fully recognise the importance of that to which the Bishop of Winchester alluded, following the mover—namely, the need that exists for a sufficient pool of houses to let at rents within the means of the lower-paid wage-earners, but I can assure the House that steps are being taken by His Majesty's Government in accordance with a carefully framed and ordered plan. It is quite useless, in the view of the Government, to make an arbitrary estimate based on quite unreliable statistical material as to the number of such houses required. A much more scientific approach to the problem is in the opinion of my right honourable friend necessary,

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and the position as it stands to-day is as follows:—A survey has been made by local authorities of the number of slum houses that may have to be replaced; the next step will be a survey of the number of families now living in overcrowded conditions for whom better accommodation is required; and, lastly, there remains the statutory duty resting on local authorities to meet any housing needs in their areas which may remain when account has been taken of the slum clearance scheme, the overcrowding scheme, and the large activities of private builders.
It is the view of His Majesty's Government that in that ordered fashion the housing needs of the country will be adequately ascertained and met. In their view it is wrong to base housing policy on hypothetical calculations, and that for a reason that is very fundamental. It is really for this reason that I hope Lord Balfour of Burleigh will not feel constrained to press, as the primary object of housing policy, the provision of a definite number of houses, whether a million or any other. That fundamental reason is this: That the principle of such a policy is the very principle which has been tried by successive Governments during the last fifteen years and has been discarded as unsound. I am well aware, of course, that the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, is not suggesting that a subsidy should in general be provided for the provision of low-rented houses. He recognises that houses can now be built by local authorities to let at the desired low levels without assistance of direct subsidy. Private enterprise cannot yet provide houses to let at these rents, for the local authorities have the advantage of long-term loans and cheap money, and it is these advantages that make possible' such rent levels as Lord Balfour has in mind, except, as he said, where the land costs or rates are high or some other special circumstance exists.
Nevertheless it is the view of His Majesty's Government that to invite the State, whether in the form of the Ministry of Health or in the form of a National Housing Commission, and the local authorities to concentrate primarily upon the provision, at large—and I underline the words "at large "—of low-rented houses is to invite them to fall into the
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very error from which our national housing policy has been rescued during the lifetime of the present Government. It has been said over and over again in this debate that during the last fifteen years we have built just about 1,200,000 houses with the aid of subsidy, and no fewer than 850,000 of these houses are lot at low rents, but they have made no more than a negligible contribution towards the solution of the evils of bad housing—namely, slums and overcrowding; and it is the recognition of that tragic fact that has led the Government to believe that the housing problem can be solved only by bringing to an end the era of unregulated State-assisted housing and beginning the era of regulated housing dealing with first needs first. Therefore it is that the policy which His Majesty's Government would invite your Lordships to approve would rather be that of providing, in accordance with an ordered plan, whatever number of houses may be needed to overcome the evil that rightly moved the country to indignation, and to do that by beginning, first, with a direct attack on the conditions which are the most intolerable.
In conclusion let me try to sum the matter up. May I remind your Lordships how this policy is to be carried out, of the steps that are now being taken, as we think with success, and of those which we intend should follow? Already local authorities have submitted plans for the demolition of all houses which they have found in their areas to be unfit for habitation, and for the provision of accommodation to replace them at low rents. During the next five years 280,000 houses unfit for human accommodation will be swept away, and 294,000 houses will be built for those who are now forced to live under intolerable conditions. Therefore at the end of five years there will, as we may hope, except in a few towns where a longer period is necessary, be no more slums.
In the second place in the autumn the Government will propose to Parliament legislation for the purpose of defining standards of accommodation and of providing a sufficiency of houses to enable those standards to be observed, and assistance will be proposed to enable local authorities to provide the housing accommodation needed, including accommodation at low rents for those who will no

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longer be permitted to live in overcrowded conditions. These proposals will involve rehousing and replanning on a scale which it has never yet been possible to contemplate, and will be of a kind that neither this nor any other country has previously undertaken. In addition to those undertakings, it will remain the duty of local authorities to meet any need in their areas far low-rented houses. The extent to which that need will be met by private enterprise, or will require the intervention of the local authority, is one that must vary according to the circumstances and the needs of different districts.
We have endeavoured, and are endeavouring, to give every encouragement to private enterprise to provide the working class houses that are needed, but where there is evidence that private enterprise is not meeting the needs of a district my right honourable friend is prepared to entertain favourably proposals for the erection of un-subsidised houses by local authorities and will deal with this matter in a purely practical way and having regard to the two dominant conditions—namely, what is the need for houses and what is the extent to which that need is already being met by private enterprise. It is perhaps worth mentioning that in the progress of this business and legislation special regard will be had to the needs of rural areas, and provision will be made for them. I would ask that it should not be forgotten how great is to-day the development, indeed, the boom, in private house building. It is now going on at the rate of something like 240,000 houses a year. Of these of course many are built for sale to the comparatively well-to-do, nevertheless a substantial and an ever-increasing proportion is being provided for wage earners.
I cannot give the right reverend Prelate the precise figures he asked for, because I do not believe they are available, but I would ask him whether it is not true to say that, when the remarkable increase in the last few years of private house building and cheap houses is considered, it would be in the highest degree rash to assume that that process cannot be carried a little further and reach the point at which private enterprise can provide houses at rents within the means of the lower-paid wage earners. I think also it would be right
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ignore altogether the effect which the provision of houses by private enterprise on so large a scale as that must inevitably have in releasing accommodation already occupied.
It is for reasons such as those that I have endeavoured, I am afraid at inordinate length, to lay before your Lordships that the Government find themselves unable to accept my noble friend's Motion, however grateful they are, and he will believe me they are indeed grateful, to him for the work he and his friends have done and for the contributions that they have made. To provide means whereby continuing assistance, as they hope, of this kind may be available to the Ministry of Health, His Majesty's Government propose, as an integral part of the next stage of their housing policy, to appoint a strong Advisory Committee of the kind which it seemed to me that the right reverend Prelate had in his mind also, to which the Ministry of Health would be able to refer at all stages for advice on the problems still to be solved.
I do not think that there is more that I need add. I have sought to give your Lordships the reasons why, in our judgment, the establishment, of a Housing Commission, however clearly defined, in contradistinction to the Ministry of Health would hinder and not help the work we have in view. With the other part of the Motion as to the need for houses, although for the reasons I have given I deprecate the suggestion of building at large, except in relation to ascertained needs, the Government, I need hardly say, are in complete agreement with the principle that all the citizens of this country should have decent houses in which to live. That is the goal which we intend to reach through our present policy, and I hope that I have not been wholly unsuccessful in satisfying your Lordships and the noble Lord who moved the Motion that we shall in fact achieve it. If the noble Lord is satisfied, as I think I am satisfied, that there is great common ground between us on this subject, and that if we differ at all it is on procedure only that we differ, I would, if I might, ask him not to press the Motion to which the Government would find it difficult in this form to assent, but, if he felt so able, to withdraw his Motion and continue to give us all the help that he can in the pursuit of a task on which we are all commonly combined.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I fear that even at this late hour there are one or two things I must ask your Lordships' permission to say. I would like first of all to deal with the extremely interesting topic raised by the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, the bed-bug. The only thing that astonished me about the noble Earl's reference to the bed-bug was that he seemed to think it was peculiar to new houses. The noble Earl gave it as a season for not building any more new houses and he seemed to think that the bed-bug was something new. Anybody who knows anything about housing and has had to do with housing knows that the bed-bug is one of the greatest scourges. There is nothing new about it. I venture to reassure your Lordships that you need not be alarmed by those pests that the noble Earl talked about. There is nothing new about the bed-bug, nor about the progress of the bed-bug.
At the same time I think everybody interested in housing has the greatest reason to be grateful to the noble Earl for giving the matter publicity. It is true there is a taboo on the subject. I think this bug should be talked about but not talked about as if it was something new or as if it supplied any reason for not building any new houses. The bug comes to the new from the old houses in the furniture and there are perfectly good means of dealing with it. The noble Earl referred to various methods but the real thing which deals with it is hydrocyanic acid gas. It is the only thing. As a matter of fact I made a speech about this recently and a gentleman who saw a report of the speech in the paper wrote to say that hydrocyanic acid gas was no use because a bed-bug could hold his breath for four hours. That is not strictly correct. Hydrocyanic acid gas has been used with great success by numerous local authorities.
The noble Earl referred to the danger of using old material. His two remedies were not to use old material and also not to build new houses at all. The real remedy is to organise a system which is being done by certain local authorities so that no tenant shall be put into a newly built house until his furniture and effects and his own clothing have gone through a proper systematic process of
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disinfestation. That can be done and is being done. There is no reason whatever to stop new building because of the bed-bug. I should like to support the noble Earl's suggestion that the Report should be issued as a Command Paper It is a most interesting little creature. He has a proboscis which he sticks into you to suck your blood. As your Lordships know, human blood coagulates. This animal has a particular sort of saliva which prevents your blood coagulating until he has had time to have a good feed. It is an extraordinary provision of nature and it makes him quite an interesting creature.
To revert to the Motion which we have been debating this afternoon, I think my noble friend Lord Amulree and his colleagues have no reason to complain of the attention that has been given to their report. They stand rather in the position of the man who has a constructive proposal to make, and obviously the report provides a target which is much easier to shoot at and criticise than mere vague suggestions. I think a good deal of the criticism of the report has been based on some misunderstanding. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and the noble Lord, Lord Jessel, referred to provisions which would only come into effect in the event of default. Provisions for action in the event of default exist already in legislation and they are there at the command of the Minister. But the alternative suggestion is that the powers of default should be exercisable through a public utility society or some other authority. There is nothing very startling in that and it would be exercised in very few cases. In point of fact I think the Minister has never defaulted a local authority yet. Therefore criticism on that score is a little outside the main attack which was intended to be made on the report.
Of course we all recognise that the main division of opinion is as to whether or not this new body should have executive or advisory function. Apparently everybody thinks there should be some new body although they would give it a different name. The most reverend Primate suggested a Departmental Council on housing. I do not much care what the name should be. A rose will smell as sweet by any other name. Everyone seems to want a new body to do many

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of the things we suggest. I am not going to try to traverse in detail the criticisms. I will content myself by saying that we have already a precedent in the Electricity Commissioners and the Central Electricity Board in relations with the Ministry of Transport. I do not believe the difficulties are insuperable, although I recognise that in the matter of housing the Ministry of Health offers a peculiarly intricate problem because of all the other matters, such as sewers, roads, and other things, in regard to which the Ministry is already in relation with the local authorities. All I would say is that I think if it were determined to set up such a body with executive functions it could be done. Obviously, an unofficial Committee like ours is not in a position to suggest with authority the precise scope of the function to be conferred upon it. I think it could be done. I do not want to delay your Lordships by replying fully to the criticisms of the report which have been made in this debate.
I am bound to express my gratitude to the noble Viscount who answered for the Government for the kindly way in which he dealt with the suggestions made. I think he has given us a very substantial degree of satisfaction. He has told us that there is to be a new and comprehensive survey. After all, that was the basis of a good deal of my criticism—that until you had a comprehensive survey you could not tell what was wanted. Then you are to have this body, advisory in the first instance, to deal with public utility societies and to perform a number of these other functions which we suggested should be carried out by the Housing Commission.
The only thing I regret about the reply of the Government is that I do not think the criticisms that I made with regard to the provision of houses for sale were met. We were told that the boom in housing goes on. I gave your Lordships reasons, which I still think are convincing, to show that the boom is not really solving our problem. Figures of houses to let at low rents are not available. Nothing has been said from any quarter of the House to controvert the view that existing building is not going to provide houses to let at low rents. Nothing was said to controvert the view I expressed
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as to the undesirability of the lower-paid wage-earner owning his own house. Many of these houses are undoubtedly being built for sale to small owners. They are houses that will fall into the hands of speculators and will undoubtedly contribute to the slum problem in the future. After what has fallen from the noble Viscount I do not desire to press my Motion to a Division. My attitude after this debate cannot be other than that of one who still continues to hope for the best. I do feel that the right way to set about the thing is first to ascertain what you have to do and then set about doing it—not begin to do it by degrees and then find out how big the task is going to be. I will not detain your Lordships longer, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: My Lords, as it is not unusual at this time of the Session for changes to be made in the programme of business, may I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House if he will be good enough to say whether there is any alteration in the business set down on the Paper for to-morrow? I should like at the same time to ask whether it is proposed that we should sit on Monday next.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for asking this question. We shall meet to-morrow at three o'clock instead of at the usual time. The Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Melchett is postponed, but the Government business will be as on the Paper. I am afraid, however, that I must ask your Lordships to allow me to be guilty of a slight irregularity. As your Lordships no doubt know there is a statement to be made in another place with regard to air policy in answer to a question. There will, of course, be no debate upon it. I think it would be well if the Secretary of State for Air, who is a member of your Lordships' House, made the same statement in identic language at as nearly as possible the same time here. Therefore, I propose to ask your Lordships to allow him to intervene either before or after the Committee stage of the Milk Bill, as

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may be most convenient, in order to make the statement which is being made in another place, so that your Lordships may be informed with regard to it.
The other question which the noble Lord asked was with regard to sitting on Monday. I think it will be convenient to have a sitting on Monday, because there is a good deal of business which has to be got through at this stage of the Session and I am anxious that Tuesday's sitting shall be mainly occupied with the Report stage of the Road Traffic Bill.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: At what time will the House meet on Monday?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think that on Monday it will be sufficient if the House meets at the usual time, a quarter past four, and probably that will be more convenient than an earlier time. There are a good many more or less formal Bills, such as the Colonial Stock Bill and the Isle of Man (Customs) Bill, which require a Second Reading, but I do not think that there is anything on Monday which is likely to prove contentious. I think that if we meet at a quarter past four we shall be able to dispose of our business at a reasonable time. That will leave the decks clear on Tuesday for the Report stage of the Road Traffic Bill and perhaps the Milk Bill, though as to that I shall have to ascertain. The Bills I have mentioned are on the Order Paper for Tuesday, but I am proposing to put upon the Paper a Motion that they shall be taken a day earlier, and I shall move that Motion at the commencement of business tomorrow.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: I am very much obliged to the Leader of the House for giving us this information. He has told us of an important statement which is to be made to-morrow in another place, and from what he said I feel sure that that statement should be made simultaneously here, by the Secretary of State for Air. I understand that it will be a statement which will not be debated, but I should like to say now, as we are approaching the end of the Session, that if the importance of the statement necessitates our desiring on this side of the House some time for a discussion on the subject which is raised, I hope the Leader of the House will give
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us an opportunity if he possibly can, and allow us time to put down a Motion which will lead to such a debate.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Of course, I shall be only too pleased to do everything in my power to facilitate a debate.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: If it is necessary.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: If noble Lords on the other side of the House think it necessary. I cannot give a pledge as to time, because there is a certain amount of necessary business to be done, but I will certainly do everything I can to arrange the business of the House so that there shall be full opportunity for a discussion after the statement has been considered and digested.
LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE: I thank the noble Viscount.

BINGLEY GAS ORDER, 1934.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the urban district council of Bingley:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
The evidence taken before the Joint Committee from time to time to be printed. Leave given to the Joint Committee to report from time to time. First Report, being a Report on the County Courts Bill [H.L.] made, and to be printed. The Minutes of Evidence on the County Courts Bill [H.L.] (with the Proceedings of the Joint Committee thereon) laid upon the Table.

COUNTY COURTS BILL, [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee, with Amendments, and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next, and Bill to be printed as amended.
House adjourned at seven minutes before eight o'clock.