Sitting of 25 February 1952

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  MEMBERS SWORN
  Several other Members took and subscribed the Oath.
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    CITY OF LONDON (GUILD CHURCHES) BILL (By Order)
    Read a Second time, and committed.
    WEST HARTLEPOOL EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
    Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  MINISTRY OF FOOD

    Pigs
    Mr. William A. Stewardasked the Minister of Food if he will consider shortening the period of notice required of pig producers desiring to sell their pigs to his Department.
    The Minister of Food (Major Lloyd George): There is so much to be done between the date of notice and the reception of the pig that it would be very difficult to reduce the period.
    Mr. Gerald Nabarroasked the Minister of Food the reasons for the continued retention of restrictions upon the owner-rearing and subsequent owner-consumption of pigs reared on the owner's premises and fed with the owner's swill.
    Major Lloyd George: Regulations are necessary to maintain the general rule that all pigs must be slaughtered for the ration. The working of the arrangements is always carefully watched and will be reviewed again this spring.
    Mr. Nabarro: But does my right hon. and gallant Friend realise that there is a close association between the identity card and the Regulations governing the slaughter of a pig, in that both of them are an infringement of the rights and liberties of the subject? Why should not any householder who wants to raise a pig, feed a pig, kill a pig, and eat a pig not do so without Ministerial dispensation?
    Major Lloyd George: There is one important point which arises out of that. Much as we all desire what my hon. Friend wants, the fact is that there is not sufficient feeding stuffs at present to ensure that this could be done without certain restrictions.
    Mr. Nabarro: My Question asks why the owner should not feed a pig with his own swill.
    Major Lloyd George: It would not be a very good pig if it was fed on swill alone.
    Dr. Barnett Stross: Does not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that in all these cases it is desirable that the local authorities should be able to inspect the pigs when slaughtered, whether they are privately owned or not, in view of the fact that the owner who has fed and reared the pig does not know if it is diseased when he kills it?
    Major Lloyd George: They are, in fact, expected to do so.

    Bacon Production, Norfolk
    Brigadier R. Medlicottasked the Minister of Food if his attention has been drawn to the need for a new bacon factory in Norfolk; and if he will give favourable consideration to the early construction of such a factory.
    Major Lloyd George: Foot and mouth disease restrictions recently delayed the killing of some pigs in Norfolk, but the facilities for dealing with pigs produced in the county are adequate under normal conditions. I doubt, therefore, whether capital expenditure on a new bacon factory there could be justified at present.
    Brigadier Medlicott: Will the Minister at least bear this possibility in mind not only for normal requirements, but because the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease indicated that such a factory would have been of the greatest possible convenience and would have saved a great deal of food?
    Major Lloyd George: Normally, transport facilities from Norfolk to the Midlands, where the factories are situated, is quite satisfactory.

    Meat
    Mr. George Jegerasked the Minister of Food when the present meat agreement with the Argentine expires; and what steps he is taking to seek to renew it and to ensure a continuous supply of meat to this country.
    Major Lloyd George: The period within which the quantities of meat specified in the current Protocol were to be delivered ends on 23rd April. The question of new arrangements is under consideration, but I cannot make a statement at present.
    Mr. Jeger: Does the Minister propose to initiate discussions on behalf of the Ministry or propose to leave the market open to private enterprise traders who, we understand, can flood the country with meat if only the Minister will give them the opportunity?
    Major Lloyd George: I am sure the hon. Gentleman appreciates that the arrangements which have to be discussed before 23rd April cover a great many other commodities than meat.
    Mr. E. Shinwell: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman really believe that private enterprise can persuade Peron to send meat to this country?
    Major Lloyd George: I am certain that what private enterprise did in the past it will do again.
    Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that President Peron has said that he would welcome a resumption of private enterprise buying because the Argentine would get higher prices for meat?
    Mr. Victor Yatesasked the Minister of Food if he is aware of the dissatisfaction existing in Birmingham over the quality of meat at present being distributed in the city; and if he will take steps to see that the quality is improved.
    Major Lloyd George: No, Sir; Birmingham has had its proper share of best quality meat.
    Mr. Yates: Is the Minister aware that considerable numbers of housewives in Birmingham are complaining that the quality of meat they are receiving is worse than they have ever experienced, especially some of the lamb, which is mutton, and the pork, which is quite uneatable and almost 90 per cent. of which is bad?
    Major Lloyd George: There has been no general complaint received from Birmingham—none at all. I would point out that of the home-killed meat distributed a slightly higher proportion goes to Birmingham.
    Mr. John Profumo: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that this dissatisfaction exists not only in Birmingham, but all over the country—dissatisfaction which has not just started but which has continued the whole way through under the regime of the late Government?
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister of Food if he will make a statement on the domestic meat ration, in view of the 50,000 tons shortfall of supplies from the Argentine.
    Major Lloyd George: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) on 4th February.
    Mr. Lewis: In view of the claims of the so-called experts and of the Tory Party that private enterprise can buy meat cheaper and in greater quantity, will the Minister give an assurance that he will allow private enterprise to buy meat from the Argentine?
    Major Lloyd George: Certainly, as soon as we can rectify the position created before we came into office.
    Mr. Shinwell: How long does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman intend to take refuge for his inefficiency and complete inability to respond to the needs of housewives by making extravagant allegations against the late Government which he knows are untrue?
    Major Lloyd George: The question now under discussion, meat, has nothing whatever to do with me because the protocol which was supposed to bring the meat in was signed by the late Government and does not expire until the end of April.
    Mr. Shinwell: Were we not told during the General Election, and have we not been told since by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and his new political friends, that they could do better than the late Government, and when are they going to do so?
    Major Lloyd George: I will repeat with the greatest pleasure the statement that we can do better than the last Government, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to have a little patience.
    Mr. Lewis: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give an assurance that when this contract ends he will allow private enterprise to buy the meat if they can do it better and cheaper?
    Major Lloyd George: I will make the same observation to the hon. Gentleman as I made to his right hon. Friend, and that is to have patience.
    Mrs. Jean Mannasked the Minister of Food when the present meat ration will be increased.
    Major Lloyd George: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) on Monday, 4th February.
    Mrs. Mann: But does the Minister realise that that reply is no reply at all, that the meat ration is far too small, and that housewives are waiting for an increased ration? Does he really rely on the Argentine agreement only? Where are all the men who were to scour the world looking round for meat?
    Major Lloyd George: At this time of the year Argentine supplies are of great importance to this country and—
    Mrs. Mann: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman rely on the Argentine?
    Major Lloyd George: At this time of the year. We cannot avoid that very well, because at this time those supplies are coming in. The fact is that, low as the ration may be, it is substantially higher than it was this time last year.
    Mrs. Mann: In view of all these replies of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will he consult his noble Friend in another place with a view to taking down the motto, above the door of the Ministry of Food, "We not only cope: we care"? Will he have it removed immediately?
    Mr. Cyril Benceasked the Minister of Food whom he has appointed to fill the existing vacancies on the buying commission for meat.
    Major Lloyd George: As there is no buying commission for meat, I am not clear what the hon. Member has in mind.
    Mr. Bence: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman assure the House that when the commission is appointed to negotiate a new agreement he will appoint experienced meat traders to buy for the Ministry of Food and not allow these traders to go to the Argentine to negotiate for the private interests which they represent?
    Mr. Benceasked the Minister of Food what quantity of deer meat has been imported from the Scandinavian countries since 25th October.
    Major Lloyd George: Private imports of deer meat are not recorded separately in the official trade returns and I therefore cannot state what the quantity has been.
    Mr. Bence: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider including it in the meat rationing scheme, because venison is a particularly red meat?
    Major Lloyd George: The total of all the imports of game mostly from Sweden, is only 60 tons, so it is hardly worth while.

    Vegetables (Distribution Costs)
    Miss Elaine Burtonasked the Minister of Food what price was paid for lettuces and other vegetables at the various stages of distribution, namely, grower, wholesaler, retailer and customer, as revealed by the inquiry now completed by his Department; and what percentage increase this was at each stage.
    Mr. Frederick Willeyasked the Minister of Food whether he will publish the results of the inquiries made by his Department following through the prices of fruit and vegetables.
    Major Lloyd George: This inquiry was strictly limited in scope and in particular did not extend to a costing of actual distributive operations. To publish particulars which could only give an incomplete picture of the position would, therefore, be misleading.
    Miss Burton: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that when I asked for this inquiry to be made in May last it was specifically with regard to lettuce and other vegetables? Will he therefore look at the matter again and see if this information can be made public?
    Major Lloyd George: I understand that out of thousands of transactions, covering many varieties, which take place every day in this country this inquiry covered only 47 transactions and was, therefore, quite misleading.
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the inquiry was pursuant to an undertaking I gave to the House and that it would be an advantage to all hon. and right hon. Members if they had the information, however incomplete it would be, because there is a real need of information on this subject?
    Major Lloyd George: I do not agree. If only 47 transactions were inquired into I cannot see what possible value it would be.
    Miss Burton: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this inquiry was asked for because all quarters of the House agreed that the cost of distribution was one of the major reasons for the high price of vegetables? Are the Government prepared to do anything to bring down the cost of distribution?
    Major Lloyd George: Of course we are. Although the number of transactions investigated was very small, on the whole those inquired into refuted many of the assertions about the gap.

    Fish Transport
    Mr. Desmond Donnellyasked the Minister of Food whether he will take steps to expedite the White Fish Authority's consideration of a flat rate for transportation of fish.
    Major Lloyd George: I understand that the White Fish Authority are now working out the details of their transport scheme and are anxious to bring it forward as soon as is practicable.

    Imported Hog-Casings
    Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Liptonasked the Minister of Food what dollar expenditure is incurred by importing hog-casings from the United States of America; and
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    what measures are being taken to encourage the use of hog-casings from the sterling area.
    Major Lloyd George: One thousand five hundred and twenty-two tons of hog-casings valued at £1,331,923 c.i.f. were imported from the United States of America during the year ended 31st December, 1951. There is no restriction on their import from the sterling area.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: In view of the unnecessary dollar expenditure which has been and still is being incurred, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman stop American imports of sausage skins until all available supplies from home sources and from the sterling area are utilised?
    Major Lloyd George: We shall, of course, try and save all the dollars we can, but the fact is that at the moment the main source of supply is the United States.

    Abattoir, Sunderland
    Mr. F. Willeyasked the Minister of Food what progress has been made in the construction of the new abattoir at Sunderland.
    Major Lloyd George: A decision has yet to be reached about the site for this slaughterhouse. Planning approval was not given for the site originally suggested and the suitability of another site is being considered.

    Fish, Rabbit and Poultry Prices
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Food if he is aware that the price of rabbits in the shops of Coventry averages 6s. to 7s. 6d. for a medium-sized rabbit, namely, 2s. to 2s. 6d. per pound; and what steps he proposes to take to deal with the situation.
    Mr. Lewisasked the Minister of Food whether he will introduce price control on the selling price of fish, rabbits and poultry during the period of the import cuts.
    Mr. Leslie Haleasked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that fish prices reached new record high levels in January, 1952; and whether he will reconsider the question of controlling the price of fish.
    Major Lloyd George: With permission I will answer these Questions together.
    Mr. Hale: On a point of order. Is it not an innovation in the procedure of the House to couple a Question about fish with other Questions under the designation of rabbits?
    Mr. Speaker: The genera do seem to be distinct but perhaps the answer will resolve the difficulty.
    Major Lloyd George: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. A. Evans) and the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Morley) on 12th November. I do not think it would benefit the consumer to re-impose price controls over these commodities.
    Miss Burton: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that the answer of the fish traders to the suggestion was that if one controlled the price of fish the fish would then disappear? Does he approve of the ethics of such a situation? Will he deal with the matter?
    Major Lloyd George: I do not know about the ethics, but I have to face facts as they are—which is not a bad thing to do sometimes, if I may say so. Experience has shown that that is what does happen, and I would remind the hon. Lady that the late Government took off control for the reason that the fish was neither better in quantity nor in quality as a result of control.
    Sir Waldron Smithers: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend not aware that not even he can, with impunity, defy the law of supply and demand and that he cannot produce rabbits out of a hat?
    Mr. Lewis: Is not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the last Government did successfully control the price of fish and that during the last war price control proved very satisfactory? In view of the fact that my Question deals with poultry will he give an answer to that, because the birds do not fly away?
    Major Lloyd George: I do not know about flying, but the same thing applies to poultry, fish and rabbits. When there is control they disappear.
    Mr. Hale: On a point of order. My Question, which is a very important one, refers specifically to fish and to the facts of the situation as they were in January
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    last. Could I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, as to whether, if the Minister is allowed to go over the whole range of prices in one answer, I can question him about the price of steel about which we are all concerned at the moment?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot go as far as that.
    Major Lloyd George: With regard to the new high record levels in January, I am going to refer to the price in February, which was less than half the price of January. The main reason for the high price in January was the conditions under which the fish had to be caught. Out of 42 days in that period, gale warnings were issued on 31 days.
    Air Commodore A. V. Harvey: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend invite the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Miss Burton) to go to the White Sea in a deep-sea fishing vessel and see the difficulties of catching and landing fish? If he would do so I should like to arrange the visit for them.
    Mr. Hale: Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman like to take the risk of standing in a housewives' queue when they are buying fish on the limited income they have at the moment?
    Miss Burton: Is the Minister and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey) aware that one does not go to the North Sea to catch rabbits? Might I also ask whether, if the Minister of Food went to the Argentine to get red meat the price of rabbits would come down?

    Imported Fruit
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Food the nature of the proposed reductions in imports of canned and fresh fruit from Western Europe; the types of fruit affected by such import reductions; and the total estimated value, in 1952, of the import reductions.
    Major Lloyd George: No further reductions of these imports are at present proposed over and above those foreshadowed in the Press announcement on 7th November, 1951. The main types of canned and fresh fruit affected are soft fruits, apples, grapes, etc. It is impracticable at this stage to make reliable

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    estimates for the year about reductions and savings on individual items in the import programme.
    Mr. Nabarro: Would the right hon. and gallant Friend say what arrangements are in hand by his Department to offset these reductions in imports by an increase in home-produced fruit? What assurance will the Minister of Agriculture be giving to farmers that when they produce more fruit there will be a market for it in this country?
    Major Lloyd George: I think there will be no question about a market at this juncture.
    Mr. Nabarro: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend realise that, in the last few years, all efforts for an increased production of fruit at home have been stultified by the effects of dumped fruit imports?

    Eggs
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Food what part of the shell-egg consumption of the United Kingdom, during 1951, was imported and what part home-produced.
    Major Lloyd George: Of the controlled supplies of eggs consumed in the United Kingdom during 1951 about 23 per cent. were imported and 77 per cent. home-produced.
    Mrs Mannasked the Minister of Food if he will make a statement on the egg allocations for this year.
    Major Lloyd George: There have been 14 allocations on average in the first six weeks of this year. I cannot say how many there will be over the rest of the year.
    Mrs. Mann: Can the Minister say whether he expects the allocations to be as good as last year's, and if he is getting enough feedingstuffs to give us an increase in egg production?
    Major Lloyd George: I think we can expect as many as last year because we had then a particularly bad early spring flush. It is a very risky thing to say, but I think we shall be no worse off; but a lot depends upon the hen itself.
    Mrs. Mann: Are there enough feeding-stuffs for increased egg production?
    Mrs. E. M. Braddock: Can the Minister assure us that, in the next rationed allocation, eggs of such small size as the one I have here—[HON. MEMBERS: "Throw it"]—will not be included? In view of the inquiries he made rising out of a Question I had on the Order Paper, but which was not answered because of the recent adjournment of the House, will he give an assurance that housewives are not compelled to receive eggs of this small size on the ration, and that they can refuse them and demand eggs of a reasonable size?
    Major Lloyd George: I am sorry about that egg, but I think it is an imported egg. I think I recognise the size of it. Our own are very much better. Naturally, I will do what I can to improve the position.
    Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. Is it in order, Mr. Speaker, for the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock), to produce a china egg which purports to be a shell egg? Is not that bogus evidence?
    Mrs. Braddock: Further to that, will it be in order if I throw it at the hon. Gentleman to prove that it is an egg, Sir?
    Mr. Speaker: Certainly not.
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Food by what procedure retailers are permitted to sell unrationed eggs which have failed to hatch out after a period of artificial incubation.
    Major Lloyd George: Eggs which have been incubated for any period and which are marked with the letter "H" are excluded from the operation of the Eggs (Great Britain) Order, 1951, which controls the sale of eggs. These eggs may, therefore, be sold freely, but the public should know that they deteriorate very quickly.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that most of these eggs have deteriorated by the time they reach the shops? Is it the policy of the Government to encourage the sale of these dud eggs other than by way of use as missiles at election time?
    Major Lloyd George: This has nothing to do with us. Before the war most of the eggs of this sort were sold for pig

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    food. They are all marked "H," so the public can take them or leave them as they wish.

    Household Commodities (Distribution)
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Food if, in view of the rising cost of living, he will conduct an inquiry into the system of distributing household commodities with the purpose of eliminating wasteful complications and unfair profits.
    Major Lloyd George: I am not sure what commodities the hon. Lady has in mind. But my reply to her Question on 4th February about specific foods applies in substance to food generally, and I cannot usefully add to it.
    Miss Burton: Are we to understand from that answer that H.M. Government are not prepared to bring down the cost of living by reducing distribution costs? If so, what is the use of the Minister of Food when he cannot give a good answer to any question at all?

    Ration Books
    Mr. J. Hallasked the Minister of Food what arrangements he is making for the next issue of ration books.
    Major Lloyd George: New ration books will be issued between 17th of April and 7th of May at special distribution centres. The arrangements will be similar to those which, I understand, worked well last year.
    Mr. Hall: What action does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman intend to take to prevent the abuse of the rationing system, through the abolition of identity cards?
    Major Lloyd George: We went into that matter very carefully because we are very much affected as a Ministry, and we are satisfied that the steps which we have taken will be sufficient to prevent any abuse.
    Mr. Lewis: Will the Minister give an assurance that there will be a general increase in all rations in accordance with the Tory Party's Election promises?
    Mr. Raymond Gower: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend say that no proof of identity will be required apart from the production of the identity card number, which people know?

    Overspilled Beer (Sales)
    Mr. Norman Doddsasked the Minister of Food what are the results of his investigation into the measures which might be undertaken to reduce undesirable risks involved in the sale of overspilled beer; and if he will take action for the progressive substitution of line glasses instead of the usual brim glasses.
    Major Lloyd George: The investigation is incomplete, but so far there is little evidence of danger to health. I have noted the suggestion made in the second part of the Question.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not think that it makes nonsense of the clean food campaign if the unsatisfactory practices associated with the overspilling and the re-sale of overspilled beer are not dealt with? Does he not think that it is essential to provide larger glasses to give customers full measure and drastically to reduce overspilling by unsteady hands?
    Major Lloyd George: I have said already that the inquiry is incomplete. With regard to the second part of the Question, big items of expenditure are involved.
    Mr. James Hudson: As long as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman considers it necessary to make investigations into the risks run by beer drinkers, in view of the very considerable amount of beer that they drink, does he not think that the time has come for examining those risks that they appear to think desirable rather than undesirable?
    Sir Herbert Williams: Is not beer an antiseptic?

    Scarce Foods (Distribution)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Food what action he proposes to take to ensure a fair distribution of scarce foods, in view of the increasing difficulty in obtaining non-rationed foods consequent upon import restrictions; and if he will introduce points rationing at an early date.
    Major Lloyd George: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Members for Gravesend (Sir R. Acland) and Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Adams), on 21st November, 1951.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider that points rationing would be too expensive? If so, would he give consideration to a system of unit vouchers for retailers as in the case of dried fruits, particularly in view of the canned meat situation which is becoming desperate, through unfair distribution?
    Major Lloyd George: I do not accept the suggestion about unfair distribution. As I said in answer to a previous Question, I am always watching the matter very closely. The fact is that the commodity position in these articles at the moment is far better than it was when the points rationing scheme was abandoned.
    Sir W. Smithers: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that the principle over-ruling all these matters is this: that if we restrict consumption we restrict production?

    Sugar (Jam Making)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Food if he can yet make a statement about the sugar bonuses for jam making in 1952, comparing them with the allocations for 1950 and 1951.
    Mrs. Mannasked the Minister of Food the amount of sugar he expects to allocate to housewives this year as bonus issues for jam making.
    Major Lloyd George: I regret that I cannot at present add to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dodds) on this subject on 30th January.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that the housewife wants some information in order to make preparations, and is he aware that he is rapidly earning the name of "The housewives' nightmare"?
    Major Lloyd George: I am sorry to hear that, but I will let this information be known as soon as I possibly can. I have already pointed out that on more than one occasion it has been the end of March before the bonus was announced, so there is nothing peculiar in the present position.
    Mrs. Mann: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that on more than one occasion there has been a bonus issue
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    of extra sugar for marmalade making in January, and we have missed that? Surely it is time we had some improvement in the position.
    Major Lloyd George: I shall do it as soon as I possibly can, but I would point out that before this Government came into office the equivalent of three bonuses had been cut by the late Government.
    Mr. Bernard Braine: Would my right hon. and gallant Friend not agree that the present sugar supply position would be very much better if the late Government had given to sugar producers in the Commonwealth a satisfactory deal, such as my right hon. and gallant Friend has given?

    Sandwich Spreads (Prices)
    Mr. Lewisasked the Minister of Food if he is aware that jars of fishpaste and sandwich spreads are being sold at the equivalent rate of between 12s. and £1 per pound and whether he will take steps to control the retail price of these commodities.
    Major Lloyd George: Fish paste and sandwich spreads are available at a wide range of prices from about 5s. per lb. and 4s. 4d. per lb. respectively. I do not propose to control the retail prices of such commodities.
    Mr. Lewis: Does the Minister think that that is a fair, equitable price for these commodities? Does he not think that they could and should be reduced? Does he not think that they should be controlled?
    Major Lloyd George: The most popular sell at 4 oz. for 1s., and the more expensive ones, like "Gentlemen's Relish," at a much higher price.

    Hides
    Mr. G. B. Draysonasked the Minister of Food on how many occasions this year has his Department withdrawn hides from public auctions; and what is his policy in this connection.
    Major Lloyd George: Less than 3 per cent. of the total quantity of hides offered have been withdrawn at 10 of the 18 public auctions held between 1st January and 16th February. My policy is to obtain reasonable prices based on current

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    values and, in accordance with established trade practice, reserve prices are fixed for each auction.
    Mr. Drayson: Is the Minister aware that some of the prices his Department is expecting to get are well above the world prices, and that manufacturers are called upon to pay these higher prices for British hides and are unable to compete in foreign markets?
    Major Lloyd George: Only 3 per cent. of the total volume have failed to reach those prices. By far the greater part of those were in one particular auction.

    Fat Stock (Christmas Shows)
    Mr. Robert Crouchasked the Minister of Food if he will give the same opportunities with the same conditions at all Christmas Fat Stock Shows in 1952 as were given to butchers to buy fat stock at the Smithfield Club Fat Stock Show in 1951.
    Major Lloyd George: The arrangements at Smithfield last year were an experiment. The results are now being studied with a view to deciding future policy, and an announcement will be made as soon as possible after discussion with the interests concerned.
    Mr. Crouch: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware of the important part fat stock shows play in improving home livestock? Is he aware that if all fat stock shows have equal treatment in the current year he will have more and very much better quality English meat?
    Major Lloyd George: Yes, I realise the importance of fat stock shows, but I cannot hold out any hope of being able to extend the arrangements next year to what will be about 300 or 400 shows. It is physically impossible at the present time.

    Milk Production
    Mr. Crouchasked the Minister of Food what was the total home production of milk in the years 1950 and 1951, respectively.
    Major Lloyd George: Gross production of milk in the United Kingdom in the years 1950 and 1951 was 2,239 million gallons, and 2,152 million gallons respectively. Of this, 356 million gallons were
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    retained on farms in 1950, and 360 million gallons in 1951.
    Mr. Crouch: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend assure us that he will try as soon as possible to stop this serious decline in our milk production?
    Major Lloyd George: Yes, certainly; but I would point out that the decline in the first five months of last year was almost entirely owing to the bad weather.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's reply mean that there is a possibility of milk having to be rationed this summer?
    Major Lloyd George: I certainly hope not.

    Statutory Orders
    Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Food how many Statutory Instruments affecting the price of food or the amount of the ration have been made from 1st November, 1951, to 28th January, 1952; how many of these introduced a reduction of price; and how many involve an increase of ration.
    Major Lloyd George: Thirteen Orders affecting the price of food to the consumer or the amount of the ration have been made in this period. None introduced a price reduction; two introduced a ration increase.
    Mr. Hale: Yes, but is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that we remember those two and others as well? Is he attempting to say that this lamentable record is also due to the late Government? Will he say how long the late Government's actions are to dominate his policy, and when he will really consider the question of resignation, or else of doing something?
    Major Lloyd George: It is not a question of my blaming the late Government. I can compare figures. There were 35 Orders in the last year increasing prices, not seven.
    Captain Richard Pilkington: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend contemplating rationing either potatoes or bread, as the inefficiency of the late Government led to?
    Major Lloyd George: No.

    Tea Ration
    Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Food whether he is now in a position to make a statement with regard to the tea ration.
    Major Lloyd George: No, Sir.
    Mr. Hale: Why not? Is not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that very considerable disquiet has been aroused about tea by obnoxious pamphlets which have described it as of inferior quality, and suggesting that the second cup is not as strong as the first, and saying that there is no excuse about dollar expenditure in connection with the buying of tea? Has the Minister's attention been drawn to a particularly tendentious pamphlet called "Over the Tea Cups," issued by an organisation describing itself as the Conservative and Unionist Central Office?
    Major Lloyd George: The hon. Gentleman asked me if I had any statement to make. The answer is still, No, Sir.

    Rations
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Minister of Food which items of food have suffered a decrease in rationed amounts since October, 1951.
    Major Lloyd George: Meat only.
    Mr. Hynd: Although the reply is "meat only," are these decreases in accordance with the promises made to the electors at the General Election?
    Sir W. Smithers: Is it not a fact that the meat shortage is due entirely to the Socialist policy of bulk buying and of not allowing competent merchants to work under free and healthy competition?
    Mr. Donnelly: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say, speaking on behalf of his hon. Friends on the back benches, whether those on the back bench are now totally opposed to all kinds of red meat?
    Miss Burton: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) the names of the meat buyers who have been negotiating meat agreements on behalf of the past Government, so that he might know that they are men skilled in private enterprise buying?
    Sir. W. Smithers: Did they go out on their own account or on the Government's account?

    Distributors' Margins
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Food the aggregate amount per annum of the increased margins he has recently granted to distributors.
    Major Lloyd George: The increase in grocers' retail margins was given to meet an ascertained fall in nett income due to higher wages, transport charges and higher costs of packing materials, etc. The aggregate yearly value will depend on the total quantities of groceries and provisions distributed over the year and will certainly be less than the increased costs.
    Mr. Willey: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell the House what was the aggregate assumed for the purposes of these negotiations?
    Major Lloyd George: An estimate of something in the nature of £10 million.
    Mr. Willey: Will this £10 million be borne by the housewives through increased prices?
    Major Lloyd George: Eventually, of course, all price increases will be passed to the consumer if they exceed the ceiling which was laid down by right hon. Gentlemen opposite.

    Food Price Increases
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Minister of Food which items of food have increased in price since October, 1951.
    Major Lloyd George: Taking the increases on all kinds of food both rationed and unrationed and including all seasonal rises, the number of increases is 16.
    I will with permission, circulate details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Hynd: Are those famous 16 items, in which prices have been increased, in accordance with what we were commonly led to believe by the Election promises of hon. Gentlemen opposite?
    Major Lloyd George: At least it is not such a rapid rise as was the case previously. The hon. Gentleman must realise that it takes a little time to stop these increases.
    Mr. Douglas Jay: Has the Minister any proposals at all for bringing any of these prices down?
    Major Lloyd George: The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as anybody that the proposals put forward by the Government are aimed at stabilising these things.
    Captain Pilkington: Was there any single item of food which did not have an increase in price under the previous Administration?
    Following are the details:
    Some cereals and cereal products; bacon; sago, tapioca, arrowroot, semolina; canned beans; canned strained infant foods; cheese; fish and meat paste; fresh fish; some fresh fruit and vegetables; some jams and preserves; jellies; milk; pulses; rabbits; shredded suet; vinegar.

    Feedingstuffs, Accrington (Storage)
    Mr. Richard Fortasked the Minister of Food whether the stock of animal feedingstuffs, stored at Perseverance Mill, by Huncoat Station, near Accrington, is now properly housed, restacked and protected; and what steps he is taking to see that there is no recurrence of the deterioration brought to the attention of his Department in October, 1951.
    Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir. Every precaution is being taken to see that the goods are properly stored and kept in good order. We are clearing the site as quickly as the weather allows.

    Bananas
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Food when he will make an allocation of bananas to fruit retailers who at present have no allocation.
    Major Lloyd George: I am examining these arrangements and my Department will shortly discuss possible changes with the trade.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: What happens to the banana allocations of retailers who go out of business? Will the Minister do what he can, as quickly as possible, to help small shopkeepers by a more equitable distribution of the present supplies?
    Major Lloyd George: I appreciate that there is considerable hardship involved under the system existing today. We are looking into it, and I will bear the hon. Gentleman's point in mind.

    BRISTOL ROAD, BIRMINGHAM (RESURFACING)
    Mr. Donald Chapmanasked the Minister of Transport what plans have been, and are intended to be, made for the resurfacing of the Bristol Road, Birmingham, following the ending of the tramway system in June, 1952, and the completion of the present extensive works connected with new water mains.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. John Maclay): The Birmingham Corporation are the responsible highway authority. They inform me that schemes are being prepared now for resurfacing the carriageway of this road where necessary, including the length affected by the removal of the tram track and the laying of new water mains.

    KOREA (SUGGESTED VISIT OF M.P.s)
    Mr. F. Beswickasked the Prime Minister if he will consider appointing a delegation of hon. Members to visit Korea during the Easter Recess or other convenient time.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill): I cannot feel that such a delegation is necessary.
    Mr. Beswick: While I do not overestimate the value of a Member of Parliament as a tonic to morale, would it not be reasonable, by now, for men to have expected someone from this House to have gone out to see the conditions with which they contend?
    The Prime Minister: I have not facts at my disposal to enable me to estimate with any exactitude the improvement in morale which would follow from a visit to Korea by the hon. Gentleman.
    Hon. Members: Cheap.
    Mr. F. J. Bellenger: Might it not have another effect, if the right hon. Gentleman permitted it—that it would enable hon. Members who have constituents in Korea to acquaint themselves with the circumstances under which our soldiers are fighting out there?
    The Prime Minister: It is a question of balancing loss and gain.
    Lieut.-Colonel H. M. Hyde: Would the Prime Minister not reconsider his decision

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    in view of the fact that when I was in Korea last month the troops I saw there expressed the desire for more live entertainment?
    The Prime Minister: That aspect should no doubt be considered.

    ATOMIC ENERGY TESTS, AUSTRALIA
    Mr. R. J. Mellishasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the intended visit of Ministers to Australia to view the intended atomic energy experiment in that country.
    The Prime Minister: No Ministers will be visiting Australia to view the test of the United Kingdom's atomic weapon there.
    Mr. Mellish: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware how glad we all are to hear that?
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the Prime Minister invite a delegation of the Christian churches, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, to see the explosion of this infernal machine and to report progress?
    The Prime Minister: I am not quite sure about that. Anyhow, as the whole of the preparations were made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, when he was Prime Minister, perhaps the hon. Member for Ayrshire, South (Mr. Emrys Hughes), would ascertain from him whether he desires a delegation of Christian churches to examine the infernal machine, for which he has accepted responsibility.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order. In view of the complete evasiveness of that answer, and owing to the fact that I was no more responsible for the last Government than the Prime Minister was responsible for Mr. Neville Chamberlain, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter at the earliest possible opportunity on the Adjournment.

    MINISTERS (PRIVATE INTERESTS)
    Sir W. Smithersasked the Prime Minister what regulations govern the continuation of salaried service with a private company on appointment to Ministerial office.
    The Prime Minister: I have recently issued general guidance on this subject, and as the text is rather long I will circulate a copy in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the text:

    1. It is a principle of public life that Ministers must so order their affairs that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their private interests and their public duties.

    2. Such a conflict may arise if a Minister takes an active part in any undertaking which may have contractual or other relations with a Government Department, more particularly with his own Department. It may arise, not only if the Minister has a financial interest in such an undertaking, but also if he is actively associated with any body, even of a philanthropic character, which might have negotiations or other dealings with the Government or be involved in disputes with it. Furthermore Ministers should be free to give full attention to their official duties, and they should not engage in other activities which might be thought to distract their attention from those duties.

    3. Each Minister must decide for himself how these principles apply to him. Over much of the field, as is shown below, there are established precedents; but in any case of doubt the Prime Minister of the day must be the final judge, and Ministers should submit any such case to him for his direction.

    4. Where it is proper for a Minister to retain any private interest, it is the rule that he should declare that interest to his colleagues if they have to discuss public business in any way affecting it, and that he should entirely detach himself from the consideration of that business.

    5. Ministers include all members of the Government except unpaid Assistant Government Whips.

    Directorships
    6. Ministers must on assuming office resign any directorships which they may hold, whether in public or in private companies and whether the directorship carries remuneration or is honorary. The only exception to this rule is that directorships in private companies established for the maintenance of private family estates, and only incidentally concerned in trading, may be retained subject to this reservation—that if at any time the Minister feels that conflict is likely to arise between this private interest and his public duty, he should even in those cases divest himself of his directorship. Directorships or offices held in connection with philanthropic undertakings should also be resigned if there is any risk of conflict arising between the interests of the undertakings and the Government.
    Shareholdings
    7. Ministers cannot be expected, on assuming office, to dispose of all their investments. But if a Minister holds a controlling interest in any company considerations arise which are not unlike those governing the holding of

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    directorships and, if there is any danger of a conflict of interest, the right course is for the Minister to divest himself of his controlling interest in the company. There may also be exceptional cases where, even though no controlling interest is involved, the actual holding of particular shares in concerns closely associated with a Minister's own Department may create the danger of a conflict of interest. Where a Minister considers this to be the case, he should divest himself of the holding.
    8. Ministers should scrupulously avoid speculative investments in securities about which they have, or may be thought to have, early or confidential information likely to affect the price of those securities.

    PUBLIC SERVICE (COMMUNISTS)
    Sir W. Smithersasked the Prime Minister if, in view of Communist infiltration, he will introduce legislation to make all persons employed in national and local government take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, on the lines of the oath taken by Members of Parliament.
    The Prime Minister: I am not aware of any sufficient reason for this change.
    Sir W. Smithers: Does not the Prime Minister think that action should be taken soon to stop this Communist menace, which is the root of all our troubles? Does he not realise that there is no difference in principle between Socialism and Communism?
    Mr. H. Hynd: Will the Prime Minister undertake to see that before anyone is allowed to take a solemn oath of this kind he will be found to be in a fit state to do so? [Laughter.]
    The Prime Minister: I have not got the point of this hilarity. I very much doubt whether it is the Communists in this country who are the root of all our troubles. They certainly have a large measure of assistance from fellow-travellers and others who give sympathetic aid to their views.

    EX-PRISONERS OF WAR, JAPAN (COMPENSATION)
    Mr. Stewardasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs when he proposes to pay compensation to prisoners of war in Japanese hands according to Article 14 of the Peace Treaty.
    The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on 20th February.

    U.N. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE (U.K. CONTRIBUTION)
    Mrs. Barbara Castleasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what contribution has been pledged by the United Kingdom to the 1952 technical assistance programme of the United Nations; and how this compares with her contribution in the first financial period.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: A sum of £450,000 has been pledged for the 12 months of 1952, compared with a contribution of £760,000 for the first period of 18 months.
    Mrs. Castle: Is it not really deplorable that this country should reduce an already paltry contribution to the world fight against poverty to an even more paltry one; and is not this economy most unwise in view of the fact that such an investment in technical assistance is the best defence we can have in making a world attack upon poverty?
    Mr. Lloyd: I certainly agree that due weight should be given to the importance of technical assistance, but so far as the contribution of this country is concerned less than 10 per cent. of the previous sum had been spent up to 30th September, 1951, and I do not believe that the contribution which we have given will in any way impair the work that is being done.
    Sir Richard Acland: Does the Minister realise, that, as a percentage of the national budget or the national income, our contribution is markedly lower than the contribution of almost any comparable country? Will he reconsider this question, because we are showing up in a very bad light in the international sphere?
    Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: Is it not a fact that the recent conference on this matter failed to reach the target of £20 million because our contribution had been cut? Is it not of major British interest to increase the world output of food and raw

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    materials, which is the main purpose of this technical assistance programme?
    Mr. Lloyd: I do not believe that the achievement of the total sum has in any way been impaired by what is, after all, a very small reduction in our contribution, compared to the contribution of the previous Government.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Is it not a 40 per cent. cut on the contribution of the previous Government?
    Mr. Lloyd: I endeavoured to make this point clear in my previous answer. The contribution of £760,000 was for a period of 18 months. This contribution is £450,000 for a period of 12 months; so the reduction is very small indeed.
    Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that since the original contribution was made there has been a general increase in prices, so that this contribution does not measure up to the previous one? Is it not also a fact that if we are to make a sustained attack upon world poverty, which is the greatest cause of unrest in the world today, we should be increasing this contribution and not reducing it?
    Mr. Sydney Silverman: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that the world will never be free from fear until it is free from want? From that point of view, does he not think it would be better to take a little extra money out of the vast amount which is to be spent on re-armament? If that were done the security of this country and the world would be greatly increased.

    ANGLO-EGYPTIAN CONVERSATIONS, 1950
    Mr. A. Fenner Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the fact that the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published a record of conversations on 5th and 6th June, 8th July and 3rd and 14th August, 1950, between Field-Marshal Sir William Slim, Mr. Chapman Andrews, British Minister in Cairo, Sir Ralph Stevenson, British Ambassador, Air Commodore Hayes and Moustafa el Nahas Pasha, Mohamed Salah ed Din Bey, Moustafa Nosrat Bey, and Group Captain Ibrahim Gazzarine, he will publish a record of these and subsequent conversations as a White Paper.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. As the hon. Member will be aware, subsequent Anglo-Egyptian conversations on the defence of the Suez Canal and on the Sudan were recorded in a White Paper (Command 8419) presented last November. The conversations to which he refers were of an informal and technical nature and no agreed records were kept.
    Mr. Brockway: Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the record, as published by the Egyptian Government, is accurate, particularly in respect to the alleged statement of Field Marshal Slim that a conflict between Russia and the capitalist countries is inevitable and that Russia is preparing to attack Egypt?
    Mr. Lloyd: The account given was not an accurate or agreed account.
    Mr. Shinwell: Was the Government informed by the Egyptian Ministry for External Affairs that they intended to publish these informal conversations?
    Mr. Lloyd: The answer is, "No."
    Mr. Shinwell: Is that not rather serious? Is it not serious if we cannot trust the Egyptian Government in matters of this sort—conversations between accredited representatives of this Government or, at any rate, the Government of this country and the Egyptian Ministry for External Affairs? Surely they should not have published a record of these informal conversations without at any rate acquainting this Government of their intentions?
    Mr. Lloyd: What the right hon. Gentleman has just said may well be so; but I do feel that at the present time no useful purpose is served by delving into what happened in August, 1950.
    Mr. James H. Hoy: What steps have the Foreign Office taken either to correct or to deny the reports which have been published?
    Mr. Lloyd: A White Paper was published in this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not about this."] It was about a subsequent discussion that took place. But I do suggest that at the present time no useful purpose is served by going into it.
    Mr. Hoy: In view of the statement attributed to Field Marshal Slim would it not have been advisable if the Foreign

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    Office had issued a statement in contradiction of that report?
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: In reference to the supplementary point made by the ex-Minister of Defence is it not a fact that Socialists used to stand against secret diplomacy?
    Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman understand that the purport of my question is to ascertain why these informal conversations, which were apparently regarded by Field Marshal Slim and his associates as private in character, were placed on record by the Egyptian Government and given publicity, despite the fact that this Government were not informed?
    Mr. Lloyd: I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has just said but I still adhere to the view which I stated previously, that the present time is not a very suitable one for ventilating this kind of controversy.
    Mr. Arthur Henderson: In view of the present international situation is this not strictly a matter on which the right hon. and learned Gentleman should state, on behalf of H.M. Government, that they do not accept any suggestion that war is inevitable between the West and Russia? Does he not think they should issue a statement saying that the statement credited to the C.I.G.S. was inaccurate?
    Mr. Lloyd: My first answer to the first supplementary of the hon. Gentleman opposite was that the account of the conversations was inaccurate.

    SUDAN CONSTITUTION
    Mr. Fenner Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps are being taken to implement the policy of the Government to recognise the right of the people of the Sudan to self-determination, and to establish self-government within the Sudan before the end of the present year.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The report by the Chairman of the Constitution Amendment Commission set up by the Governor-General on 31st March, 1951, has been published in Khartoum, and two White Papers prepared by the Sudan Government have been laid before the Sudan Legislative Assembly. When the
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    Assembly's views on the main provisions of the report are known, a draft amendment to the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Ordinance of 1948 will probably be prepared for its consideration.
    While, naturally, I cannot predict how long it will take to frame a Constitution fully acceptable to the Sudanese people, I am confident that the Sudan Government are taking the necessary measures as rapidly as it lies in their power to do so. Her Majesty's Government, for their part, will give the Sudan Government every encouragement to complete this process by the end of the year. Thereafter, it will be open to the Sudanese to decide on the status of their own country.
    Mr. Brockway: While appreciating that answer may I ask, first, whether those White Papers will be made available to the House, and when; secondly, whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that the limitations on self-government proposed by the Egyptian Government have caused discontent, even in pro-Egyptian circles in the Sudan? Is it not, therefore, necessary that the British Government should speed self-determination as soon as possible?
    Mr. Lloyd: So far as the first supplementary question is concerned, I will consider that matter. So far as the second is concerned, we have made it perfectly clear that it is our desire to secure as rapidly as possible in the Sudan representative institutions. As soon as those have been instituted it will be for the Sudanese to decide their own future.
    Mr. T. Driberg: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us an assurance that the Foreign Secretary's very welcome statement on this subject in his last speech in this House was an unqualified one, and that no further consideration will be given to even a formal gesture of recognition of the Egyptian claim to sovereignty over the Sudan, which would obviously prejudice the right to self-determination?
    Mr. Lloyd: The position of H.M. Government was made perfectly clear in the statement which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made on, I think, 15th November in this House. He referred to it again on 5th February, and I have nothing to add to or detract from that statement.

IRON AND STEEL (PRICE INCREASE)
The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
114. Mr. G. R. STRAUSS: To ask the Minister of Supply whether he now proposes to raise iron and steel prices.
The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): Mr. Speaker, with your permission and that of the House, I should like to answer Question No. 114.
I have today signed an Order raising the controlled maximum prices of iron and steel. This has been made necessary by the increased costs and increased volume of the steel, pig-iron, iron ore and scrap which are being imported from abroad and by the higher costs at home of wages, transport, fuel, scrap and other materials. [HON. MEMBERS: "And profits."] We might have something to say about that later. It is estimated that these increased costs will during the current year amount together to about £75 million.
As the House knows, the Iron and Steel Corporation expressed the opinion, both to the late Government and to the present Government, that the loss involved in importing finished steel and re-selling it at the lower home prices should not be borne by a levy on the industry, but should be met by a subsidy from the Exchequer. For the same reasons as our predecessors, we have felt unable to adopt this policy.
However, in order to put this issue in its proper perspective, I should perhaps draw the attention of the House to the fact that, out of the total increased costs of £75 million, only some £4½ million arises in respect of imported finished steel. Of this £4½ million, about £1 million is in respect of imported finished steel from the United States, whilst the remaining £3½ million is in respect of similar imports from other countries.
The increased prices, which work out on an average at about £4 more per ton, are reckoned to yield over the year an additional £56 million. It will be seen, therefore, that the rise in costs of £75 million will not be fully reflected in the new prices. It is hoped that it may be possible to meet the balance of £19 million out of the earnings of the industry.
Mr. G. R. Strauss: May I first ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is a fact that the profits of the publicly-owned iron and steel industry up to the end of September were about £65 million, and that increased charges were permitted from the middle of August which amounted to another £65 million, making a total of £130 million on a capital of £240 million in the industry; and whether, in fact, there is not ample in the profits of the industry to meet part, and the greater part, of the increase proposed at the present time?
May I further ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware of the serious inflationary result of this increase, and whether it is not, therefore, to be avoided if at all possible?—and we maintain it could mostly be avoided. May I further ask him whether, in fact, the main purpose of this substantial increase is to see to it that the balance sheets of the publicly-owned companies contain such very large profits as to make the transfer of these companies to private owners attractive; and whether this is, therefore, nothing more than the first step in denationalising the industry? And are these proposed increases in keeping with the Government's policy of keeping prices down?
Mr. Sandys: I must say I am a little surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, who knows so much about this business of steel prices, should ask questions of that kind. First of all, may I remind him that when he increased prices last August he increased them by £5 a ton? I would also inform the House that if we had applied the same formula in fixing the margin of profit as was applied by the right hon. Gentleman in calculating the new prices which he adopted last August, we should have had to raise prices by at least £1 a ton more than we have actually done. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I think that what I have said has quite a lot to do with the question.
As regards the profit of the industry, the figures—which, I would inform the House, only reached me in their final form on Friday—amount to £63 million, or rather are at the rate—and I would emphasise that—at the rate of £63 million a year. Some of the figures are based only on a six-months' period. That figure includes profits on engineering, since

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the nationalised companies include a great number of other industries; also bridge building, chemicals, and all sorts of other extraneous activities. It includes the premiums on exports, which has never been taken into account, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, in fixing prices, and a number of windfalls. All that comprises the figure of £63 million. From that has to be deducted tax—Income Tax and Profits Tax—the cost of servicing the Iron and Steel Stock, and also the amortisation which is laid down in the nationalisation Act. After deducting these sums, we are left with a figure of £25 million.
On the general criticism made by the right hon. Gentleman, I should like to point out that, with the increased costs of £75 million, to which I have just referred, and gross profits of £63 million, it will be seen that if the industry's earnings continue at the same rate next year as last year, and if no increase, as is now suggested, were made in prices, there would be a very substantial loss, on top of which the industry would have to meet a sum required to service the Iron and Steel Stock and to meet amortisation amounting to £10 million.
Mr. Strauss: May I put one further question at the moment? No doubt we shall have an opportunity of discussing this matter later. Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that I authorised an increase in August at the rate of £65 million a year? That was in anticipation of the increases in costs which we knew were coming on to the industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] They were taken into account, or at any rate a substantial part of the increase in costs which the right hon. Gentleman now talks about were taken into account, by myself when I increased those prices substantially in August.
Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman must be more of a prophet than I thought. I should like, as the right hon. Gentleman has challenged me on that point, to give the House the figures making up the additional cost of £75 million which were not taken into account in the August price increase. Additional costs—that is, for an annual period—arising from the importation of steel and steel-making materials amount to £46 million, which includes the figure of £4½ million for finished steel, which I have already
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quoted. Increased home costs amount to £29 million, which includes the increase in freight charges, which the right hon. Gentleman certainly could not have foreseen because they occurred only the other day—
Mr. Strauss: I anticipated them.
Mr. Sandys: —the increased cost of home scrap—the right hon. Gentleman anticipated that no doubt—the increased cost of coal, coke and fuel oil introduced only in December, the increase in wages, and the increase in other materials, and also the costs mainly due to the higher proportion of pig iron which is being used in steel-making owing to the shortage of scrap. All this amounts to £29 million. The £46 million cost of importing materials and the £29 million home costs together make a sum of £75 million.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: We really cannot debate this now.
Mr. Herbert Morrison: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether this very serious decision was reached departmentally on his personal responsibility, whether it was reached with the Department in consultation with the Treasury, or whether it was reached by the Government as a whole? I think it is important for the House to know whether the Government as a whole reached this decision or whether it was purely departmental.
Mr. Sandys: It was a Cabinet decision.
Mr. Speaker: We really cannot debate this complicated matter now. I think that the House has been very forbearing. This is still Question time. It is a very complicated matter and if the House wishes to discuss it, it must find another opportunity.
Mr. R. T. Paget: On a point of order. This seems to be a matter of very great importance and it has only been raised now. As you pointed out, Mr. Speaker, this not a convenient moment to debate it, and I therefore ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of calling attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "The conduct of the Minister of Supply in forcing the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation and in sanc-

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tioning an increase in steel prices." This is the first occasion on which that could have been raised. It is a matter of tremendous importance to the whole country. I submit that it falls within the rule, and that the Adjournment of the House should be moved for a special and immediate debate upon that subject.
Mr. Speaker: There is another statement on that matter to come, and if the hon. and learned Gentleman raises the matter then, I will consider it.
Mr. James Callaghan: On a point of order. I fully defer to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that this is not the occasion on which to debate the matter, but some of us wish to ask questions about it. I think, Mr. Speaker, that it is within your recollection that we have had two or three Front Bench questions and not a single question from any bench behind. Therefore, may I ask one question?
Mr. Speaker: I am not saying that this is not very important; obviously it is. I am only asking the House to choose a better occasion to go into this complicated matter than this crowded Question time.

IRON AND STEEL CORPORATION (CHAIRMAN'S RESIGNATION)
Mr. Sandys: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
In view of the resignation of Mr. Steven Hardie as Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain, I wish to inform the House that I have appointed the Deputy Chairman, Sir John Green, to succeed him as Chairman of the Corporation.
Mr. G. R. Strauss: Before my hon. and learned Friend raises the point which I have in mind, I should like to ask a question. Is it the Minister's intention to appoint another member to the Corporation shortly, because at present it is, I understand, below the statutory minimum. Is that his intention?
Mr. Sandys: That is my intention.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider appointing an independent inquiry to go into the whole of the causes of the resignation?
Mr. Sandys: No, Sir.
Miss Irene Ward: On a point of order. As there has been one supplementary from the other side, would it be in order for there to be one supplementary from this side?
Mr. Speaker: I call Mr. Attlee, who has a question on business.
Mr. Paget: I think that you indicated, Mr. Speaker, that you regard this as a matter of great importance, and that I should, after the Minister's statement, ask leave to move the Motion which I mentioned before.
Mr. Speaker: There is one important Question—that on the business—and at the end of that, it will be in order.
Later—
Mr. Paget: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of calling attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
"the conduct of the Minister of Supply in forcing the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation and in sanctioning an increase in steel prices."
Mr. Speaker: The first thing I have to point out is that one cannot make use of this Standing Order procedure on two subjects at the same time. It must be one matter of urgent public importance. Therefore, this Motion is not in accordance with the Standing Order, and I cannot accept it.
The hon. and learned Gentleman has now amended his Motion to read:
"… a matter of urgent public importance, namely, The action of the Minister of Supply in sanctioning an increase in steel prices.'"
May I be informed—I ask this of the Minister—whether the increase in steel prices will necessitate an Order?
Mr. Sandys: Yes, Sir. The Order will be laid, and it can be prayed against in the ordinary way.
Mr. Speaker: If the matter is covered by ordinary procedure and the Order can be prayed against when it is laid, the Motion does not fall within the Standing Order.
Mr. Strauss: As the matter seriously affects the economy of the country in many respects and is very urgent, would it be in order to move a Motion dealing with the resignation of the Chairman of

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the Iron and Steel Corporation, around which all the major issues and serious consequences that we have in mind are centred? If that is in order, may we submit such a Motion to you?
Mr. Speaker: If the matter were confined to that issue and any subsequent discussion were strictly confined to it—that is, not dragging in steel prices because that would be out of order—I would consider a Motion on those lines.
Mr. Strauss: I should like to move a Motion on those lines.
Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: Regarding the relevance of those two subjects and your decision, Mr. Speaker, that they are two separate subjects, would it not be correct to say that the question of steel prices is related to the question of the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation, and that therefore it would be very difficult to debate the matter if it were restricted in the manner suggested?
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Further to that point of order. Could you indicate, Mr. Speaker, how long the House is to wait for the Opposition to clear up this matter?
Mr. Strauss: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of considering a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
"The resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation."
Mr. Sandys: On a point of order. I wish to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the main reason given by the late Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation for his resignation was the question of steel prices. May I ask, Sir, whether you are ruling that it will be out of order to discuss anything to do with steel prices in a debate such as that proposed by the right hon. Gentleman?
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman has asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of considering a definite matter of urgent public importance, to wit,
"The resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation."
In that form, no responsibility of any Minister is suggested, and the Ad-
716
journment of the House cannot be moved unless the matter falls within the purview of some Minister whose action is called in question. Therefore, the Motion cannot be accepted.
Mr. Strauss: I did not add in the Motion the words that the resignation was caused by the action of the Minister of Supply because I felt that was known by the whole House and therefore the words were unnecessary; but if, Mr. Speaker, the addition of those words is necessary to put the matter formally in order, I shall be very glad to add them.
Mr. Speaker: I am bound very strictly by the Standing Orders, and I am very clear in my own mind that the Motion as put to me is not in order. Consequently, I do not think it is really in the interests of the House that we should continually amend these Motions. They ought to be put forward in a finished form. I think that for discussing these matters the House must choose a method other than Standing Order No. 9.
Mr. H. A. Price: In view of the events of the last five or six minutes, Mr. Speaker, would it be possible for you to instruct hon. Members opposite in the use of Standing Order No. 9?
Mr. Speaker: I do not think that is called for, although Standing Order No. 9 is a very complicated Order.
Mr. Leslie Hale: May I call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the Motion as originally mentioned definitely and specifically called attention to the conduct of the Minister of Supply in forcing the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation. That was the point put before the House. You, Sir, were good enough to afford the hon. and learned Member—though somewhat hurriedly and in difficult circumstances—the opportunity of amending the Motion. When it was later moved by my right hon. Friend, there were two or three words omitted.
With very great respect, Sir, and appreciating the latitude you have given, would it be in accordance with the traditions of this House to say that the Motion cannot now be moved with those few words reinserted; because, with great respect, I would then submit to you, Sir, that we

717
have not yet proceeded to the Orders of the Day and that I should be perfectly in order in asking leave to move the same Motion myself. However, I think it would be more in accordance with the dignity and the propriety of the House if this Motion were moved by my right hon. Friend, who has a greater knowledge of the subject and greater responsibility.
Mr. F. J. Erroll: Further to that point of order. Was not the resignation of the gentleman in question announced while Parliament was sitting on Friday afternoon, and, therefore, has not all opportunity of raising the matter subsequently been lost?
Mr. Speaker: On the ground of urgency, I think the Motion was in order because, although the resignation was announced on Friday afternoon, the matter could not be raised then, and the hon. and learned Gentleman has taken the first opportunity of doing so.
Mr. I. Mikardo: I wish to refer back, Mr. Speaker, to your Ruling on the Motion as it read when it referred to the subject of steel prices and when you took the counsel of the Minister as to what would be the form in which the matter would come before the House. I submit from memory, and without having Erskine May by me, that what the authorities say is that a Motion to adjourn the House cannot be moved under Standing Order No. 9 if some act bringing the matter before the House has already been committed. In my humble submission, that means that in this case, if the Order which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to lay had already been laid, that would have made it impossible for the Adjournment of the House to be moved under Standing Order No. 9, since an act would already have been committed which would lead to our discussing the matter in another form. But that Order has not yet been laid, and, therefore, it seems to me that a Motion under Standing Order No. 9 cannot be ruled out on that ground.
Mr. Speaker: In answer to that point of order, if there is an early opportunity of discussing the same matter, it does not fall within the Standing Order, and as we have heard that the Order is about to be laid and can be prayed against, that rules out the matter.
Mr. Hale: In view of the fact that the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation will be wholly irrelevant to the Order which the right hon. Gentleman says he has now made and upon which we can discuss only steel prices, I now beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
"The conduct of the Minister of Supply or of Her Majesty's Government, in forcing the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation."
Mr. Speaker: I will read the amended version to the House:
"… to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the discussion of a matter of urgent public importance, namely The action of the Minister of Supply in forcing the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation.'"
Captain Charles Waterhouse: I do not think that what you read, Mr. Speaker, were the words read by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale).
Mr. Speaker: They are near enough to make no difference. They give the point. In this form, the matter is undoubtedly being raised at the first opportunity, and therefore it is urgent. It is a definite matter in this form. As to its public importance, that is a matter for the House on this occasion.
The pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and, not less than Forty Members having accordingly risen, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), until Seven o'Clock this evening.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (BUDGET DATE)
Mr. C. R. Attlee: Has the Leader of the House any statement to make with regard to business?
The Minister of Health (Mr. Harry Crookshank): As the House is aware, on 29th January my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that he would advance his Budget to the earliest possible date, namely, 4th March. For various reasons this has since been found to be impracticable. My right hon. Friend will now open his Budget a week later, on 11th March. I thought it right to give this early intimation to the House.
We also feel that it would be more convenient both to the House and to the Government if the Defence debate were postponed from Thursday until Wednesday of next week. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] This is why. This will give the necessary time to consider the results of the meeting of the North Atlantic Council at Lisbon and also for necessary consultation between my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the new Minister of Defence to whom he will be handing over in the interval. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will himself conduct the debate on Wednesday of next week.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister hopes that the postponement of this debate will not inconvenience the House, but in making our arrangements we must have regard to both the public and the Parliamentary interest.
The proposed business for Thursday of this week will be as follows:

Second Reading:

Cinematograph Film Production (Special Loans) Bill.

Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, which it is hoped to obtain by about 7 o'clock.

Report and Third Reading:

Industrial and Provident Societies (No. 1) Bill.

Committee and remaining stages:

Diplomatic Immunities (Commonwealth Countries and Republic of Ireland) Bill.

Mr. Attlee: I have three points to make. I take it, Mr. Speaker, that you will conduct the debate on Wednesday though the Prime Minister may open the discussion. May I ask whether a statement will be made in the House by the Foreign Secretary upon the Lisbon conversations prior to the defence debate? It is reasonable that hon. Members should have this matter before them before we have the defence debate. On the question of the Budget, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he knows of any precedent for a Budget date, which has been announced, suddenly being switched over to another week? It seems to be most inconvenient and extraordinarily incompetent.
Mr. Crookshank: It is hoped that before the defence debate there will be a convenient opportunity for my right hon. Friend, who, I hope, will by then have returned from Lisbon, to make a statement to the House. As regards the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I am afraid that I have not had time to look up the precedents.
Mr. Douglas Jay: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement about the Budget, following the recent announcement of the postponement of the Health Service Bill, can he explain why the Government have got into such a muddle and how long they are going on in this fashion?
Mr. Leslie Hale: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the Cinematograph Film Production (Special Loans) Bill is a highly contentious one and that these constant enunciations of a pious aspiration that such an important debate will be concluded by 7 p.m. deprive private hon. Members of their rights and interests in these important matters? As the right hon. Gentleman has now had a week to think it over, can he say when the National Health Bill is coming in and who will handle it? Can it be taken in the extra week now available before the Budget?
Mr. Crookshank: With regard to the first point about the Cinematograph Film Production (Special Loans) Bill, all I said was that I hoped that it might be concluded by that time. Surely I am still allowed to hope things.
Mr. Herbert Morrison: Having regard to the muddle revealed about the business of the House today, and the unreadiness of the Leader of the House last Thursday to answer questions about the business of the House, can the right hon. Gentleman provide a day for the House to discuss the duties of the Leader of the House?
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain a little more clearly why it is thought convenient to postpone the defence debate until after the conclusion of the Lisbon meeting? Would it not be very much more advantageous if his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary at Lisbon were placed in possession of the views of the House before he finally commits this country to programmes of which we may not approve?
Mr. Crookshank: I cannot help thinking that if we had done it that way round we should still have had a complaint.
Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: In view of the postponement of the Budget, can we now have the National Income White Paper and the Economic Survey before the Budget takes place?
Mr. Crookshank: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer who will, no doubt, have noted his predecessor's inquiry.
Mr. Attlee: Surely the Leader of the House makes himself acquainted with these things. After all, he is responsible
722
for providing hon. Members with the necessary information before the debates which he arranges.
Sir Waldron Smithers: As my right hon. Friend now has another week before the Budget, will he publish an official statement about the awful mess left by the Socialist Government?
Mr. A. C. Manuel: Will the Leader of the House tell us when the Health Service Bill will be discussed as there is now a further week to play about with?
Mr. Crookshank: I am not dealing with the general business of the House. I am dealing with the alterations arising out of these decisions.
Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: Can the Leader of the House say—he has not told us yet—why it has been found necessary to postpone the Budget by one week?
Mr. Jay: If the Leader of the House cannot answer any other questions, can he at least give us a firm assurance that the Budget really will be opened on 11th March?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings on the Income Tax Bill [Lords], the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Bill and the Export Guarantees Bill and of the Committee on Export Guarantees [Money] exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  TOWN DEVELOPMENT BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.15 p.m.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The town development plan, for which I am asking the assent of the House this afternoon, marks a new stage in a long series of attempts to deal with a difficult and baffling problem. It has its origin in the work of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Industrial Population which sat under the chairmanship of Sir Montague Barlow before the war, and reported in 1940. That report received widespread approval. Broadly speaking, what Sir Montague Barlow's Commission recommended was decentralisation and dispersal. That was their remedy for the disease of over-concentration and overcrowding.
  In pursuance of that purpose, much action has been taken since, but mostly negative in character. I think there is general agreement that disorderly expansion of great cities into the countryside was a process which had gone too far before the war, and it has been the object of the various planning authorities to prevent this bulging out on the fringes of already overcrowded communities, and to provide some kind of green belt around them. Hence the various negative controlling actions which have been taken by the public authorities concerned with planning, including my Ministry.
  Since the population of overcrowded towns and cities must be given accommodation somewhere, it has now become plain that negative control is not enough and that some positive action must be taken. In other words, if towns are not allowed to swell they must be encouraged to hop.
  There are two main methods by which such a solution can be sought. They are the expansion of existing towns, and the creation of new towns. I would remind the House that in Professor Abercrombie's Plan for Greater London, which was produced as long ago as 1944, three times as many people from London were to be accommodated in town expansion as in
  724
  new towns. A number of the latter are now well under way, and it is high time to give an impetus to the first method, on which I think we must rely for the main contribution upon expansion.
  Meanwhile, I should like to say something about the new towns. Many people have had misgivings about the wisdom of launching such a policy without some pioneering experiments. There are bound to be mistakes and misfits, but I should like to pay my tribute to the energy and enthusiasm of those who are serving the new towns, which have already made good progress. I think they will soon make rapid progress. After all, the first of the new towns round London was only effectively started in 1947, and the last of them in 1949. Like any other large development, they have had to undertake major works such as water supply and sewage.
  There were bound to be teething troubles, but these are largely in the past, and I feel confident that the new towns will be able to make a substantial, perhaps even a spectacular contribution to the housing needs of Greater London in the future. At any rate, it is my intention to assist and further their work by all the means in my power.
  We must now begin to make progress. Perhaps the more vital of the two needs is that some simpler and less drastic cure for overcrowding must be found. We require a remedy capable of more general and more flexible operation for, after all, the designation of a new town is a large and ambitious enterprise involving very heavy expenditure of public money and creating special local problems. Yet the general purpose for which new towns were created must be carried on with a fresh momentum and on a wider front. The natural tendency of the large towns to swell must be controlled and some stimulus must be given to a form of development which will meet their individual needs without damaging the interests of their neighbours.
  For many centuries historians and critics have deplored the growth of the great wen of London, and it has long been clear that in the case of London and other great cities, if the populations of these overcrowded towns are to be provided with the appropriate conditions of life, some limit must be put to their growth.

  725
  The unhappy feature of the first attempt to deal with overcrowding was the development of the purely dormitory area. This involved immense transport problems and created almost as many new social problems as those which it attempted to cure. Following these early, and in some respects unfortunate, experiments there is now general acceptance of the idea that not merely should a population be exported, but that its industry should be taken with it or fresh industry attracted so that the new organism may be a balanced and healthy creation capable of varied life and employment.
  This Bill is founded on this basic principle. It will also try to restrict the unhealthy growth of what I would call absentee landlordism by one great authority in the area of another. At the same time, while it preserves local rights and local authority it will seek to promote the solution of this problem by agreement and by co-operation.
  Broadly speaking, the purpose of the Bill is that the large cities wishing to provide for their surplus populations shall do so by orderly and friendly arrangements with neighbouring authorities. For convenience the town or city wishing to solve its own problem of overcrowding is termed the exporting authority and the county district, which is acting as its partner in this undertaking, is called the receiving authority. I want to make it clear that it is our purpose that all these arrangements should be reached by friendly negotiation and not imposed by arbitrary power.
  I also want to emphasise that the main object of the Bill is to assist the receiving local authorities to build up their own areas, for this is to be the normal method. After all, it is only right and natural, for we must look first to the local authority which is responsible for the district into which the people and industries are to move. First of all, they are on the spot, they are in full and active operation, and if they are able and willing to do the job they ought to have the opportunity and the responsibility.
  At the same time, there may well be occasions when the receiving authority—the county district—would be wise to make use of the building organisation or the special experience of the exporting authority. Such an agreement might take several forms. The exporting authority
  726
  might act in its own right in agreement with the district council or as agent for the district council. I am thinking, so far, of agreements between county boroughs—the exporting authorities—and the district councils who are the receiving authorities. This is the normal pair in contact for this purpose.
  But we must not forget the county councils in which the receiving district councils are situated, for they also are vitally concerned. The receiving county councils, under the law, are the local planning authorities and, as such, they will be deciding the areas which are to be expanded. We must look to them to see that the development is well and truly planned, with due provision for industry and due provision for social needs.
  This will be the main role of the county councils. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that the Bill gives them for the first time actual housing powers. Thus, should it prove necessary, they can take a hand in seeing that the development plans are actually carried into effect.
  There is another difficulty which has to be faced and I will not hide it from the House. However willing the receiving authorities may be to undertake these often onerous responsibilities, and however friendly and co-operative the district councils and the county councils may prove; however reasonable and generous the exporting authority may be—that is to say, the overcrowded town or city—there are often burdens to be borne which put too heavy a strain on any or all of these purely local resources, at least in the initial stages. In other words, they require a sweetener, and such a sweetener the central Government should, and by this Bill, is empowered to provide.
  Hon. Members will observe that the language in which the Bill is drafted is sometimes, as in all modern legislation, a trifle obscure, but our purpose is plain. And our intentions, I hasten to add, are strictly honourable. Of course, in the role of fairy godmother the central Government is not quite what it used to be. We cannot shower the gifts that used once to fall so easily from the Exchequer, for the fairy godmother is a bit down at heel herself. Indeed, I ought to express a real sense of gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the sympathy and liberality which he has shown in support of this Bill. In return, we must try to

  727
  ensure that in the widest sense we get real value for our money.
  Perhaps hon. Members might like to know next to what sort of service it is proposed that the central Government shall contribute. The first and the most important is the acquisition of land and the cost of site preparation for housing, shops and industry and the cost of main water supply and sewerage. These are the essential preliminaries to development, for without water and sewerage there can be no large-scale development, whether residential or industrial.
  But these are not enough. Land must be made ready for building and it may have to be levelled, estate roads have to be made, and water, sewerage and other services provided to the individual building plots. This is what the private estate developers on the big scale have always done, so as to have an uninterrupted run of houses. Local authorities will have to do the same if they are to attract development to the places where they want it. In the same way, they must be able to attract industry by the offer of fully prepared factory sites.
  We are also providing some help to be given in appropriate cases towards the cost of building houses. In the main, it will be for the services I have described —the acquisition of land, preparation of land, water, sewerage and so forth—but in certain cases we are taking power to give help in the actual building of houses. This will take the form of a contribution towards the statutory rate charge.
  But I want to make it clear, and indeed to emphasise, that it is no part of our intention that the Exchequer should shoulder a liability which should rightly fall upon the exporting authorities. Those authorities have a responsibility for housing their people, and they ought not to be relieved of it by the mere fact that the houses have to be built within the area of another authority.
  After all, it is no new experience for local authorities to build houses outside their areas and to bear the whole cost of buying and making ready the land and building the houses, except only for the statutory Exchequer contribution.
  Mr. Clement Davies: Does the right hon. Gentleman con-
  728
  template that the scope of the Bill shall be limited to cases where the exporting authority and the receiving authority are contiguous? The Minister has mentioned the great London wen. Let me take as an example the Black Country wen. Supposing that area exported to the delightful county of Montgomery, would the Bill apply?
  Mr. Macmillan: Yes. They need not be contiguous they can go across the county borders. I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked that question. In-county moves are a different point, but the question asked by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is, of course, covered by the Bill. As I have said, the exporting authorities are expected to assume that responsibility, and they do so. I think that the exporting authority must normally carry their responsibility, whether the receiving council do the work for them or not.
  I do not think there will be difficulty about this, but we are taking the power in the Bill to give rate support to the house building only in certain circumstances, which, roughly, are these: where it is the only way in which we shall get the houses built in the right places, and where it would not be reasonable to expect the exporting authority to pay the rate contribution.
  It is difficult to lay down any hard and fast rule, because the circumstances will vary a great deal, but some developments will be carried out not very far from the exporting areas. Others, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has envisaged, may be at a considerable distance. In some cases, local employment will already be available and so make it easier to arrange that the houses are allotted simply upon the basis of housing need and nothing else.
  In other cases, of course, industry will have to be brought in to keep the balance, which is so important, and which, indeed, is the whole purpose of the Bill. In those cases, houses will have to be allotted with some regard to the industries' need of particular types of worker, as well as to the general rule of housing need. That is essential if we are to get the kind of industries we want, and to get the moves which are so important.
  But in all cases, the general principle will be that the exporters will contribute to the statutory rate charge

  729
  broadly to the extent that their own urgent housing needs are directly relieved by the houses that are being built. In other words, they will be responsible to the extent of the relief they get for the people from their own housing lists, and we shall do our best to deal fairly with the authorities on the merits of each case.
  Mr. David Logan (Liverpool, Scotland Division): May I ask a question regarding the overspill that is likely to arise and the population going from, say, the City of Liverpool? Is there any reservation to the Minister under the Bill whereby we shall not be denuded of labour or left with empty sites in the city? Will the right hon. Gentleman see that these are filled up before we are able to build satellite towns outside the city?
  Mr. Macmillan: I am glad that the hon. Member asked that question. It is one to which I have, naturally, given urgent attention. I am very pleased with the results from the local authorities to whom I have spoken on this matter. They are fully cognisant of the importance of filling up their vacant sites. That was the first question I have asked them, and I have been much impressed by their response. There are, however, some difficulties, and the hon. Member, from his long experience, will agree that if one re-develops an area or clears a slum, one is not, alas, able to provide in that area the same population that is taken out of it. There is always this problem.
  As regards vacant sites in London, for instance, the Metropolitan boroughs have been given by the London County Council the responsibility of smaller sites. The L.C.C. are working hard, and I have seen their plans for developing the vacant sites. In some cases, a certain amount of demolition is required to make a proper development; but with all the good will in the world the figures that are shown to me make it clear that this process of what I would call building up the smaller towns into bigger towns will still have to be carried out, and is the right way, instead of the bulging overspill which has been followed up to now.
  I should like to come now to the question of the principle on which the central contribution is to be assessed. It is, perhaps, misleading to say "on what prin-
  730
  ciple." In practice, it will be what is necessary to get the job going. The circumstances of cases vary so widely that it is very hard to make hard and fast rules, and the amount of help that will be given by the central Government will be settled ad hoc in negotiation with the authorities concerned, exporting and receiving, and with the county councils; and we must try to find, in practice, a middle course between being too niggardly and too lavish, too prodigal or too miserly.
  It will be necessary for the Minister to be satisfied that there is a real need to contribute to an undertaking of this kind before he makes any financial contribution. If it was of a very small character, comprising just a few hundred families, I should not regard it as a scheme of this kind; nor would a contribution be given where it was clear that the cost of the scheme was not beyond the resources of the receiving authority. On the other hand, when the plans are on a large scale, or put a burden upon those concerned which, we feel, the national Exchequer ought to pay, we shall certainly, as we take power to do under the Bill, make our contribution.
  There are two kinds of contribution which, it has been suggested, we ought to make and which we do not think we ought to make. The first is a contribution to the county services which will be necessary to deal with the additional population. The main service concerned will be education, and we think that these services ought to be provided by the county council, even for the extra populaiton, in the future, as they have been provided by them in the past. In the past great movements have taken place—during and between the two wars—from the overcrowded towns into the adjoining counties. It is true that these movements were often badly planned and the development often wrongly sited, but the intention of the Bill is to prevent the repetition of these mistakes.
  It has always been the responsibility of the county councils to provide for the education of the immigrants they receive. After all, fairly generous assistance is available by way of grant from the Ministry of Education and, of course, in certain circumstances, further assistance may be forthcoming from the Exchequer Equalisation Grant. This position we do not think is altered by this Bill. It is the

  731
  provision of water, sewerage and of houses which make, in general, the heaviest demands on capital expenditure and have to be financed over a long period of years, before they can bring in any substantial return. Moreover, these services are part of a single whole; the houses cannot be built unless the water and sewerage are provided. They are part of housing and this Bill is primarily to promote housing and re-housing.
  There is another form of contribution for which we have been asked, but which we do not think we ought to give. I must be frank about it because I think there is some feeling of disappointment. That is a contribution to a move which is wholly within one administrative county. Grants in this field are only made in the case of transfer across administrative county boundaries. In other words, it will apply from a county borough to a county, including cases where that county happens to be the old historical county from which the county borough sprang. For instance, there is the case of Salford to Worsley, because Salford is a county borough on its own and, therefore, it is a move across a county boundary.
  Mr. Charles Royle: As one of the hon. Members for Salford, I am very much concerned that the right hon. Gentleman should suggest that it is not part of the County of Lancashire; it is a very definite part of it.
  Mr. Macmillan: That is why I said there is some misunderstanding. There is an administrative county boundary between the county borough and the County of Lancashire. Why I said I thought there was some confusion was that it does not cover in-county moves, but it does cover a move from county boroughs. It would cover a move from Liverpool or Salford into Lancashire, but not an in-county move within that administrative county. There has been some misunderstanding because, as the hon. Gentleman says, Salford is in Lancashire. It does apply from a county borough to a county, including places where that county is the old historical county out of which the administrative county borough has been carved.
  It may be asked why there is this limitation. I know, for instance, that in Essex perhaps that is the most pressing
  732
  of the problems; and where we are not dealing with it there is some concern. One of the chief problems which we are trying to solve is that of the large county borough, the large city and the overgrown town and, of course, the London County Council itself. These are the towns and cities which have insufficient ground in their own areas to provide houses for the existing population. Therefore, they must go outside. The figures make clear that they must go outside to meet their needs. They must spill into the area of another county. That is the typical and urgent case with which we wish to deal. The great majority of the moves contemplated and the schemes supported will be moves of that character.
  Acute overcrowding leading to the bursting of the boundaries is very unusual in the case of a county district, that is to say, in a non-county borough or urban district council area. Generally, it has more room to expand within, or at any rate, close to its own boundary and usually there is a choice of housing sites. There is no necessity or compulsion to go some distance outside, as is the case with many county boroughs. That is why we have thought of this problem primarily as moves across administrative County boundaries. I know there are some cases—they are very conspicuous in Essex—where overcrowding and congestion in the inner areas will necessitate a movement of population and industry into outer areas—a move perhaps comparable with some of those with which I am dealing under the Bill—
  Nevertheless, I think that when the Minister asks Parliament for authority for financial assistance he ought, as far as possible, to limit and define the cases in which assistance will be given. We must draw the line somewhere. It is in the nature of the case with which this Bill is dealing that we cannot define, or even tell, Parliament the precise amount we are to spend, or ask to spend. Therefore, I think we ought at least to try to define the cases where assistance would be given. The only frontier which we have been able to find to rest upon is the line between within county moves and moves across an administrative county boundary. Most of the former will be of a minor character and most of the latter will be of a major. Moves

  733
  within a county will be wholly planned by a county council and a county council already has the power, if it thinks fit, to assist any of its district councils in providing for overspill coming from another of its districts.
  Mr. Malcolm McCorquodale: The county borough of Croydon and the non-county borough of Epsom are almost contiguous with the green belt, or almost completely built up, and they will probably have to overspill into the same area. Will that not give Croydon an advantage over Epsom in that Croydon will be eligible for a grant, whereas Epsom will not?
  Mr. John Parker: May I make the same point? West Ham and East Ham are overcrowded, but so are Leyton, Walthamstow, Dagenham and Barking and they are very much in the same position in the outer London area. The fact that no new county borough can be created is a big disadvantage in these areas. A town like Croydon, or East Ham, or West Ham has a great advantage over its neighbours. Is not that very unfair?
  Mr. Macmillan: I will try to answer both hon. Members. I do not want to get drawn into the question of the ban on the creation of more county boroughs.
  If this Bill were to give automatic grants I do not think we could justify laying down any line of demarcation, but it only gives the central Government discretionary power. The most important thing it does is to give the right to make agreements, most of which, I hope, will not have to be supported by the central Government with money at all. That may be an advantage because the county itself will probably be willing to make such an agreement with a county borough. If there were an automatic attraction of some subsidy, I think it would be possible not to draw a line, although it would be very embarrassing to have the field so wide.
  As the support of the central Government is not based upon a principle but on the ad hoc agreement of the Minister, the sweetener is necessary to help to do something we very much want done. I think we must draw a line, at any rate for the initial stages, because the work that has to be done under this Bill is a
  734
  big job. The major part of what we want to do is to facilitate agreements on the lines I have laid down. That is a point which will no doubt be pressed, perhaps in the Committee stage, and my hon. Friend and I will, of course, consider any further representations upon this issue.
  Mr. Frederick Mulley: Arising from the same problem, the other way round, can the Minister assure those county boroughs which are unable to extend their boundaries that there is nothing in the Bill to prevent them from continuing to build outside those boundaries where that is desirable because industry, etc., cannot be moved, and that if the rural authorities try to prevent that extension he will not give his sanction to that attitude?
  Mr. Macmillan: The mood in which that question is asked is just the sort of mood we do not want in approaching this problem. I am trying to approach it, as I think we should all do, with a view to getting agreement between those authorities as to how they can mutually solve each other's problems. After all, this is one country, we are all the subjects of one Monarch, we are neighbours one with another. If the attitude is to be that everyone so dislikes everybody else that the whole question is simply that of one kind of authority trying to attack and injure another, we shall not make the progress either under this scheme or with housing, for which the whole country is looking with anxiety.
  I will go further and say that this Bill is merely a machinery Bill plus a certain amount of Government assistance in respect of certain things done within the existing framework of planning. It does not in any way override it; it does not weaken it or strengthen it.
  Mr. Arthur Colegate: Is it clear that this Bill neither detracts from the right of a county borough to come to this House for an extension of its boundaries nor the right of a rural district council to defend itself if it wishes to do so against such a proposal?
  Mr. Macmillan: My hon. Friend has put the case exactly. The House will judge any Measures put before it, and all the ordinary planning operations will continue as now.

  735
  I should like to give one or two examples. This is a rather complicated subject and I apologise to the House for the length of my speech, but I think it is important to get on record what we are trying to do. The movements with which we are trying to deal may be quite large, almost the size of a new town, involving perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 people, or they might be much smaller, amounting to 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000 people.
  An example of the first might be that of Leyland, in Lancashire, while an example of the second might be that of Bletchley in Buckinghamshire. It will be seen that what we are trying to do is to achieve the objective which has long been agreed upon, and towards which the new towns provide one, but only one, kind of solution, over a much wider area and under much more flexible and simple machinery. I stress that this method is, in differentiation from the new town method, one that makes fuller use of existing local machinery.
  It is our firm intention that the new receiving authorities shall not merely be the recipients of a dormitory population from another authority. Those who go to them are not expected to travel daily backwards and forwards across the green fringe. They are expected to settle and make a new life, with their industries and employment, their social activities, their churches, their chapels and their clubs in the areas into which they are to be asked to move.
  Mr. J. A. Sparks: Would the Minister say how he proposes to bring that about—how he proposes that industry should be taken to these expanded areas?
  Mr. Macmillan: The purpose, first of the agreements, then of the grants and then of the development of the estates, the water, the sewerage and all the heavy capital grants is to apply the same principles which we have tried out in one large set of experiments—the new towns —in a much wider and more flexible way over a much larger number of smaller areas.
  The purpose of this Measure is to stimulate the growth of smaller towns rather than to allow the great towns to swell still further their unwieldy and amorphous shape. Moreover, this method —I lay stress on this—will allow the receiving authority to play its proper rôle,
  736
  for it has the primary responsibility. I hope we shall thereby avoid some of the difficulties which have arisen in the new towns, where a corporation is nominated and not popularly elected, and there are accordingly bound to be certain strains. This new system will proceed within the established framework of local government.
  I have tried to explain the purpose of the Bill. There are a large number of detailed points which can be more suitably dealt with in Committee. I do not think it is necessary to trouble the House by going through the Bill Clause by Clause, but I must say something a little more precise about the machinery. What we propose is perhaps a little unusual in administration but I think it is very sensible.
  We shall try to promote friendly relations between the exporting and receiving authority wherever possible. We shall look, in the first instance, to the receiving authority, but where it cannot or will not do the job there is the exporting authority or the county council—I stress that—in whose area the receiving county district council is situated. Any of these authorities may come into the scheme. They may act singly or in a combined effort; and the exporting authority or the county council may act on behalf of the receiving district. Two or more exporting authorities, two cities or two county boroughs, may, if they wish, be joined together in a joint body to carry out a scheme or share in one.
  We hope that in every case these arrangements may be made by means of mutually satisfactory negotiation. It is true that we reserve the power of the Minister in default of agreement to make an Order; but I hope this power will be regarded as being one in reserve and seldom if ever brought into play. In any event, we have provided that where an Order is made in the case of disagreement between authorities, the Order shall be subject to negative Resolution procedure so that the rights of the House of Commons may be preserved—
  Mr. Sparks: But does not that power already exist under previous Acts, whereby local authorities may jointly develop an area in another part?
  Mr. Macmillan: Yes, but there are so many much more complicated things that

  737
  they have to do that it is necessary to have this Order-making power. Otherwise, I Would not trouble to put it in the Bill. This Order-making power is in Clause 9, which I think has caused some apprehension from a somewhat different angle. I wish to say a word about that. All that an Order under this Clause can do is to say which authority is to carry out a development where there has been a failure to agree with the receiving district council.
  It does not enable the Minister to give any planning approval to a particular proposal. It simply says that if something that already has planning approval is to be done and there is no agreement as to the arrangements, he has the right to make an Order. Planning approval must be obtained under the procedure of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. That is absolutely untouched by the provisions of this Bill. Therefore, there can be no by-passing of the local planning authority which is, of course, the county council.
  If there is a dispute about whether or not the proposed development is in the right place objections may be heard at an ordinary public inquiry. In other words, all planning issues will have to be settled before there can be any question of the machinery of this Act being brought into operation. I hope that by this explanation some apprehensions may be allayed.
  In certain cases Orders to carry out these agreements may be made without any appeal to the House of Commons, but those are very limited cases. In every case they are purely formal. They are merely Orders to make legal and effective agreements into which everybody has entered, and I did not think it convenient to use the negative Resolution procedure. In every other case where there is any disagreement between any of the people concerned there will be an appeal to the House of Commons.
  Indeed, in two instances we have provided for affirmative Resolution procedure. The first is in Clause 13. That is where the point is reached where some of these transitional schemes must be brought to a final conclusion. That stage is reached when the receiving authority is able to stand on its own feet and carry the whole burden without assistance either from the exporting authority
  738
  or the central Government—in 10 or 15 years or whatever the period may be—when the process is complete. That is the point when the receiving authority takes over the whole responsibility.
  The House will realise there may well be a division of opinion and even dispute about the precise conditions of the take-over, or the value of the inheritance, or whether the time is ripe for the "heir," the receiving authority, to step into the inheritance; or whether the estate is an asset or a liability. If there is a disagreement the ultimate decision must be made by the Minister but the Bill provides that an affirmative Resolution be laid before both Houses of Parliament.
  In Clause 15 that is done again; where the same sort of consideration may lead to disagreement on the joining up of neighbouring sewerage schemes and the value of contributions, and so forth. There, again, an affirmative Resolution will be required. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members may feel that we have tried to preserve Parliamentary control as much as possible, and, indeed, more than is sometimes the case.
  There is one further Clause which I wish to mention on which there may be disagreement, namely, Clause 17. Under the Town and Country Planning Act local authorities have the right to lease land or buildings, but they may not sell the freehold of land or buildings, except in special cases. But under the Housing Acts they have the full right to sell without any curtailment or circumscription by any proviso about special cases. In all cases the approval of the Minister is required.
  Frankly, I am not very clear on what principle exceptional cases ought to be administered. I think my predecessors have approved the sale of land for a church as such a case, but disapproved the sale of land for a factory. There is confusion and I certainly do not want to raise this matter as part of a wide ideological dispute between the advantages of freehold, leasehold or any other system of tenure. Flexibility and variety are needed in this as in many other things.
  In a number of cases local authorities have told me that they would like to attract into a developing area an industrialist who is not prepared to undertake

  739
  the cost of building on a leasehold, but would prefer freehold. There are cases where they feel there is no particular advantage in retaining the freehold and that it is not worth the heavy administrative burden to them to do so. The Minister will retain the power to give assent, but I would give him discretion to consider the merits of each case and to pay regard to the views of local authorities.
  I would thus widen the scope in which he is trusted to carry out the broad purpose of strengthening the growth of a healthy and diversified community. In other words, I would give the same amount of discretion under the Town and Country Planning Act as he has under the Housing Acts and I do not think that is an unwise or an unreasonable thing. I know that it meets quite a number of requests which I have received.
  This Bill, coming in a mild interval between other parts of our business, raises no partisan conflicts. Its broad outline took shape under the Administration of my predecessors and its drafting began under their instruction. I would express my obligation to the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) and his Parliamentary Secretary for this inheritance. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not misunderstand me when I say that this is the most important of the Measures open to us, even more important than the new towns, because of the greater variety of usefulness. I Count myself fortunate that this first Measure which it is my duty to present to the House today is of a non-controversial character.
  I am anxious to meet many of the points of detail which will doubtless be raised during the later stages of the Bill. It is commonly said, and, I think, with truth, that the centralising tendencies of the age are continually reducing and circumscribing the sphere and responsibilities of local government. Whether or not it will fall to my lot to be able to make some much more radical contribution to the cure of this evil I cannot tell.
  But, meanwhile, I feel that there are held out in this Bill new opportunities for local authorities for valuable and creative work together by their efforts and by mutual co-operation. For all these reasons I commend the Bill to the
  740
  House in its broad principles as a valuable piece of social machinery, and, above all, as an indispensable instrument in the promotion of an expanding housing policy.
  Major H. Legge-Bourke: I wonder if my right hon. Friend has considered the difference of responsibility between the central Government and the receiving and exporting authority. Has he considered where the Board of Trade will come in? If he wishes to get industries into other areas he must have the Board of Trade working with him, otherwise industrialists will be reluctant to come or may even be encouraged to go elsewhere as has happened in the case which I have in mind.
  Mr. Macmillan: All that, of course, is very true. The changing situation and conditions ought to affect the objects and even the pressure which Government Departments bring upon industrialists—
  Mr. Sparks: They take no notice—
  Mr. Macmillan: —when new industries are to be created. I know the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me because he has had experience of the same old special areas which I know so well. It was quite right that there was pressure by Governments on the location of industries to try to get them into what we called the old depressed areas. Whether that has gone too far I do not know. I think perhaps it has. But it is equally important that we should use the movement of any industry for the purpose of better planning and safeguarding of towns.
  With the armament programme and the export programme a Government Department has considerable influence in deciding the allocation of steel supplies and other raw materials, and I think we have to try to secure co-operation between Government Departments and industries to achieve our main purpose, which is to develop an industrial community and not a mere dormitory.
  Mr. W. A. Burke: If there is no industry available to go there, does it mean that there will be no housing? The right hon. Gentleman has said that housing and industry should go forward side by side, but how is he going to get

  741
  the industry as well as housing, and what powers will he have to compel industry to go there?
  Mr. Macmillan: I think the hon. Gentleman is pressing the point a little beyond reason. It does not mean that, if there is no possibility of bringing in any particular industry, there will be no housing. Everybody must be aware of this movement that has been going on, and I saw it myself in a new town where, out of an overcrowded part of London, an industry was being moved in, and the workmen and members of the staff were being consulted as to whether they wanted to go or not.
  Very good propaganda work is being and can be done in this direction. I have even known of a case in which the wives of the men concerned were taken out there and shown what the place would be like. There may be difficulties; of course, there will be. I am not going to say that there will be no housing without movement of industry, but the sooner we can get these plans pushed forward the better it will be for the country.
  5.12 p.m.
  Mr. Hugh Dalton: I should like to begin by disclosing an interest which has already been mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Macmillan). I am the father of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman discovered a lively infant on his arrival in his Department and he has completed the clothing of it. I am not committed to all the details of the clothing, as embodied in this Bill, and there will be many points to be examined in Committee, but I am committed to the principle that this is a sound infant whose life should be encouraged and preserved.
  The main purpose of the Bill, as we who took part in the late Administration contrived it, is to bring about a state of affairs in which more people in this country will be living in the smaller towns and fewer people will be living in the larger towns—in other words, a diffusion of population gradually brought about from these horribly over-concentrated areas of population which are one of the fruits of laissez-faire in the miserable 'twenties and even earlier—and a more healthy spread of the population so that people will be able to get into
  742
  the countryside and enjoy the reasonable amenities of the countryside without having to undertake long and costly journeys from the places where they live.
  Its aim is also to provide that these people shall live reasonably near their work, and shall not spend a large part of their time, substance and nervous energies in travelling to and from their work as "commuters," as our American friends call them.
  Therefore, the purpose of this Bill is a worthy and desirable one, though when we come to the Committee stage various reassurances will be sought. I will not go into them in detail now, but will only say that some local authorities will be concerned about the Bill, which explains why hon. Members in various parts of the House have been rising like fish at eventide. It is because they have received from some of the local authorities' associations a number of suggested doubts which they are anxious to have dispelled, and I hope they will have them dispelled.
  As I understand them, the three principal doubts which they are anxious to have dispelled are these. First, there is the doubt whether what I may call the normal housing operations of the normal local authority will be interfered with, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to reassure them on that point. Now that he has won this remarkable series of victories over his colleagues in the Cabinet, on which I congratulate him, I hope he will carry the matter a stage further and jolly along his colleagues, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if necessary, into an acceptance of the proposition that, over and above anything that is done by this Bill, the local authorities will continue to receive full support for their own normal housing programme. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he has a flexible ceiling and that he is not limited to 200,000 or any fixed number of houses, and therefore I hope he will be able to say that there is no conflict between action under this Bill and action by local authorities in their normal housing activities.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), has asked some questions. I got into trouble some time ago for saying this, but the Sheffield authority is a good one. They want to be assured—and this is the second doubt—

  743
  that, if they come along in the future with a reasonable case for the extension of their boundaries so as to include some of the housing estates which they have already established outside their boundaries, that case will not be prejudiced in any way by anything contained in this Bill. I hope that that assurance can be given, and that it will reassure Sheffield and other authorities similarly placed. Whatever the principle may be by which the right hon. Gentleman will determine requests for extensions of boundaries—and I am not concerned to say more than that they will persist—it should not be altered by reason of anything done under this Bill.
  Mr. Mulley: I am very much obliged to my right hon. Friend for putting the case of Sheffield, but what we are concerned with is the antiquated procedure which has to be followed in regard to local government boundary extensions. The Sheffield Corporation succeeded in persuading this House of its need, but was unable to secure the approval of another place. We are anxious that nothing in this Bill shall prevent us from carrying on new housing development in the areas of other authorities because we cannot get an extension of our boundaries there.
  Mr. Dalton: The Sheffield case has now been put both by myself and by my hon. Friend, and I hope it will be sympathetically considered.
  Thirdly, some local authorities are concerned with a very much broader question. They want to be assured that, when the right hon. Gentleman has taken his decision regarding the large matter of local government reform—I do not know how near he is to doing that—it shall not be altered in any way by reason of the provisions of this Bill. I hope that he will be able to reassure them on that point.
  These are three of the principal preoccupations of the local authorities, and I hope they can be met. The right hon. Gentleman has made some reference to new towns, and I hope that any apprehension about them is not firmly based. It is that these new devices might interfere with the forward drive to build the new towns and bring industries into them. I rather gather from what the right hon. Gentleman said that that is not so. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman has said that he
  744
  hopes the new towns will help substantially by making a spectacular contribution to housing development and the placing of industry in the right places. I hope that nothing within the terms of this Bill will set back the new towns drive.
  It is, indeed, immensely important—and I said this when I myself occupied the position now held by the right hon. Gentleman—that we should have no more of these miserable dormitory communities, in which the vast majority of the people spend their time, money and nervous energy in travelling to and from their work. More and more people should live reasonably near their place of work. Industry must be infiltrated into these new communities, broadly in phase with the housing developments, and, in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley who put some questions to the Minister, I would say that if the Government will try to do that, it can quite easily be done.
  Provided that Ministers do not fail to check obstructive tendencies, provided that they do not give encouragement to those tendencies, of which there are very many, this can easily be done, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not be backward in pushing any obstructionists, in any place or at any level, in the direction which we desire. We must prevent a situation arising in which a factory, vacated by an industrialist moving out into a new town, is occupied by another industrialist coming, perhaps, from some place where it would be much better if he stayed. We were thinking along those lines in the late administration.
  I do not know how far the present Government have gone, but I was wondering whether, for example, if a factory became vacant in London, Birmingham or any other big town through putting work and industry into a development town, it would be possible to use that vacant factory for storage, for which there is a great need under the re-armament programme, instead of allowing bricks and mortar and other building materials to be used for the creation of new storage premises elsewhere. That seems to us to be most wasteful and uneconomic, and it would be very advantageous if we could get those vacant premises used for some other purpose than the continuation of industry.

  745
  I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman is looking at that.
  One or two places were mentioned by him in which he thought that these development towns might be established, and I hope that he will act in a fairly wide geographical sense in this connection. It is not only in London that too many people are living too close together. The same might apply to Birmingham, where there is a great cluster of population in and around that city, the West Riding towns like Leeds and Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, and so on. If this is to be attempted at all, it must be attempted on a wide scale, and efforts must be made to get the population and the industry to move out from all these places where now too many people are living too close together. That is the fundamental objection to the present state of affairs.
  At this stage I shall not say anything about the other points mentioned, except that they will require consideration in Committee. I merely say that the fundamental idea of this Bill is very sound and very important, and I and some of my colleagues take full responsibility for this initial idea. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), announced in the House when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry the lines on which we were intending to proceed.
  If there had not been an unfortunate change in the composition of the House, although not in the majority of voters in the country, this Bill would have been introduced approximately at this time and maybe approximately in this shape by the late Government. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friends to support the Second Reading of the Bill today, although they will be active in Committee and will watch closely any illegitimate threat which may here lie to any legitimate local authority activity.
  5.24 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Legh: I rise with considerable diffidence because this is the first occasion on which I have had the privilege of addressing the House, and also because I am a little uneasy about some of the results which may flow from this Bill. So while I ask the House to extend to me the usual courtesy and to be indulgent towards my shortcomings, of which I am fully conscious, I must also
  746
  ask for a measure of sympathy in the position in which I find myself. Perhaps it would have been prudent to keep silent, but I have had to consider the extent to which this Bill is in the real interests of my constituents. Perhaps it may be that those interests will not be very much affected one way or the other.
  It seems to me that this Bill has to be looked at from three different angles. The first is the need to provide a solution to the difficulties of rehousing the overspill of congested cities; the second is the effect upon the finances of the exporting and receiving authorities; and the third is the social and economic implications of the policy behind the Bill.
  As regards the first, it seems quite clear that the success of my right hon. Friend's housing programme will depend in part upon the immediate availability of land on which to build. This Bill should do much to check the constant sprawl beyond their boundaries by county borough councils. This is at the moment one of the main ways by which county borough councils obtain building sites and this method leads to interminable disputes because naturally county and county district councils do not want to lose rateable value. The Bill should remove this obstacle to the availability of land, and for that reason its provisions are to be welcomed.
  It is essential that building programmes should not be held up by the inability to obtain land. On the other hand, let me say that the picture conjured up in one's mind of planners sitting in their offices in every county borough in the land, poring over maps and searching for little inoffensive country towns upon which to pounce and to expand into what they like to call a balanced community, is a dismal one. I have an innate distrust of planners at whatever level they operate. This distrust probably dates from the occasion when a planner told me that if I wanted to build a cottage for an employee, I must build it in the middle of my kitchen garden or not at all.
  I turn now to the possible effect of the Bill's provisions upon the finances of the exporting and receiving authorities. No doubt it would be unwise to generalise in too great detail because of the variation in local conditions, but on the whole it appears to be certain that the receiving county and county district councils will

  747
  have to insist that the whole of the rate fund contribution of £5 10s. a house is met, in respect of each house built under this Bill, by the exporting authority, or by the Exchequer or by both. On the basis that this provision is made it seems reasonable to hope that the increase in the rateable value of the receiving district, together with the increase in the capitation payments, will more or less cancel out the increased liability for providing essential services which will fall upon the receiving district council.
  On the other hand, in the case of the receiving county council, the provision of additional services, particularly education, will mean an additional burden upon the ratepayers of the county as a whole. Of course, this burden will be offset to a certain extent by the fact that the county will be gaining and not losing rateable value.
  On the whole, therefore, it seems to me that for county councils the financial results of development foreshadowed in this Bill will be preferable to the financial consequences which occur when county borough councils develop land immediately outside their boundaries, because, when they do that, sooner or later they are given permission to expand their boundaries to take in the land which they have developed. Then they grab the rateable value of these areas at the expense of the county and county district councils. It is a great merit of this Bill that it does not make possible further grabbing of rateable value in this way.
  From the point of view of the Exchequer, an additional liability is assumed which would not arise if the development were to be carried out by the exporting authority. Yet we find—and, if I may say so, I think this is perhaps a weakness of the Bill—that the Bill does not define at all clearly the amount of assistance which will be provided by the Treasury in aid of the receiving district.
  But I am sure from what my right hon. Friend has just said, that he realises that county councils will be very much concerned to see that the Treasury make adequate contributions. I also ask my right hon. Friend if, between now and the Committee stage, he will consider strengthening the provisions of Clause 4 so as to oblige the exporting authority to make a fair contribution towards the
  748
  relief that it is going to receive. When a county borough exports its overspill, it is, in fact, getting rid of that section of its population which represents its heaviest liability, while at the same time it is retaining all the high rateable value which is represented by the shops and offices and other business premises.
  The third angle from which the Bill has to be examined is that of the social and economic implications of its policy. There is much to be said—and it has been said—for the argument that development by the process of suburban sprawl is undesirable because it results in successive rows of dormitory estates in which people live but do not work or seek recreation or live any social life at all. But it is to be noted that these objections do not apply to sprawl as such but only to the sort of sprawl which provides houses but not work and amenities as well. To solve that problem it is unnecessary, therefore, to develop existing small towns. That particular problem of suburban sprawl would be solved if the sprawl were made to include new factories, new shops and amenities as well as houses.
  I am a little uneasy because of the potential threat to the legitimate interests of those who live in and around the small country towns which are to be expanded and because of the scope which the Bill gives to the planners. Planners are astonishing people. It is fascinating to observe how even the wisest and most enlightened of men, once they have anything to do with town and country planning, become tickled to death with the idea and quite convinced of the rectitude of their theories and their decisions. What a paradise there will be for them if they are to be permitted to expand a small town until they have achieved their idea of a balanced community.
  But the small towns of the English countryside are very well balanced already. They do not need to be told, and do not want to be told, how many plumbers they are to have or how many clerks or retired Army Officers. They are perfectly happy as they are, and as they always have been, meeting all the requirements of the agricultural economy of the countryside.
  The threat to agricultural land is plain enough for anybody to see, but maybe there is an even greater danger—that new light industries in the expanded towns will

  749
  attract labour away from agriculture and horticulture. That would be a very serious matter, and I suggest it is one to which the Minister of Agriculture will have to give serious consideration.
  I do not imagine that any county council or county district council will want to see the London County Council or a county borough council building within its boundaries. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] Local councils will prefer to do the necessary building themselves. But my right hon. Friend must be prepared for some recalcitrance. After all, every existing town has its own housing problem already and its own waiting lists, and countrymen are not always going to take kindly to the rehousing of strangers in their midst under the best possible modern conditions when they themselves are still wanting houses badly and their villages are still waiting for piped water, sewers and electricity.
  I hope that the powers provided in Clause 9 of the Bill will be used sparingly. I have no fears of what will happen so long as my right hon. Friend is the Minister. But one of these days we may have a change of Government, and what will happen then? Well, optimism is not encouraged by the experiences of my own county of Hampshire at the hands of the late Government in the matter, for instance, of the siting of the new Caltex oil refinery or in the matter of re-housing the overspill of the city of Portsmouth. But the small towns of the English countryside are part of our national heritage and it can never be right that the legitimate interests of those who live in them and in the surrounding villages should be neglected or despised.
  5.38 p.m.
  Mr. Clement Davies: I most sincerely congratulate the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Legh) upon his maiden speech. We were all struck by the ease of his manner and his imperturbability, which, looking back upon our first efforts in this House, I only wish that I and some of the older Members here could have displayed. He was very right in choosing as the subject of his maiden speech a matter with which he is very familiar. He has already made himself an authority on local government and we have listened with interest to his first speech in this House. I sincerely con-
  750
  gratulate him, and I hope very much to hear him again.
  I think it is a very good rule of the House that when there is complete agreement between the Front Benches, then is the moment when hon. Members should examine a Bill with even greater care than usual, especially when one finds there is almost agreement as to how the Bill came into existence. The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) claims the paternity and the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government claims the maternity, and they are both very proud of this Bill. There can be no doubt about the purpose of the Bill. It is a purpose which should command the wishes of all that it should be carried into effect. Whether this Bill will achieve that purpose remains to be seen. I hope sincerely that it does.
  About a fortnight ago I was addressing this House on the question of the rural areas, and I pointed out that the tragedy of the rural areas was the fact that there was a continual exodus from those rural areas into the congested areas. I gave the figures for my own county, with which I am most familiar. The recent census, figures of which were published in the middle of last year, showed that in the rural areas the fall in the population between 1931 and 1951 was no less than 12½ per cent. and that in my own county there had been a steady loss of population over a period of something like 70 or 80 years, so that we are a purely agricultural county with a smaller population today than we had in that county in 1800.
  That is the tragedy of the countryside. But there is an equal tragedy here in these congested areas. One has only to look at what is happening here in London morning and night to see the tragedy of it, with the tired people pouring into the railway stations in the evening, having done a full day's work, and then having to strap-hang all the way until they reach their stations, with then a walk, or possibly having to go by bus or tram again. The same thing happens in the morning before they begin their day's work.
  I happen to live near Victoria, and I see the thousands pouring out between half-past eight and half-past nine in the morning, and if I happen to be going home at about this hour I see again the

  751
  thousands flowing back again. That cannot be good for the health of those people or the health of the nation, or of its production. Here indeed we have the dormitory system.
  I had the honour of being asked by the late Government to preside over two committees whose work related to London. One, the first committee, had to inquire into whether the Abercrombie Report could be accepted by the then 145 local authorities. I am pleased to say that with certain amendments they did accept it. Then I had to preside over another committee which had to decide what was to happen to the plan which had been accepted.
  We were all agreed that it was impossible to leave it as it was, and that there ought to be a regional authority who should see that that plan was being carried out. We only disagreed as to what should happen in the interim, whether there should be a joint authority or whether the interim period should be covered by an advisory authority. But we were all agreed that somebody should be responsible for carrying out the plan. So far as I know, nothing has happened since. That Report has been pigeon-holed.
  I have been reminded of the need for some action. I have heard tonight from hon. Members who represent county boroughs that they are anxious that there should be no limitation upon their power to extend their areas. That is happening everywhere I would remind hon. Members that the danger in all these places is megalomania. There are any number of towns where it has been agreed that the population should be limited to, say, 100,000, and there is not one of those towns which did not object and say, "Why should we not go up to 250,000?" That is happening all the time.
  I ask hon. Members to recollect that within 30 miles of this House is one-fourth of the population of Great Britain—11 million people. The most complacent people I know are the people of London. They put up with conditions that I do not think anybody else would tolerate, and they make no complaint. Even we Welsh people insist upon having one day on which to discuss the affairs of Wales. There are only 2½ million of us. The Scottish Members insist upon having much
  752
  more time for the discussion of Scottish affairs. I do not complain. But where are the London Members, bearing in mind the million people for whom they are responsible? Why are they not asking for more time in which to discuss their own particular problems, which are very vital?
  It is essential that one should recognise the conditions in which these people are living today—this tremendous congestion, this conglomeration of people—and all the time they are pouring in from the countryside. We did our best to limit the number; we stated that there should be a limitation on the numbers coming into this 30-mile area of London, and especially into the inner circle of London. But in they keep on coming, regularly—not only year by year and month by month, but day by day.
  Will this Bill do anything real to solve this tremendous problem? That is why I was asking the right hon. Gentleman whether he visualised the extension of this far away beyond contiguous areas, where the receiving area is close to the exporting area—the kind of thing of which many of these towns have already had experience. I remember when I was holding another inquiry, one of the towns that suffered most was Llanelly—a very small area with a very excellent council who were anxious to improve their housing conditions and to get open spaces for their people, and especially for the children. All it had to do was to go outside into the rural areas of Carmarthenshire, pull down its own slums, reduce its own rateable value and increase the rateable value outside. I take it that this Bill would apply to such a case as that.
  But that is not enough. I instanced to the right hon. Gentleman the Black Country as it is called, and that conglomerated area beyond Birmingham, Wolverhampton, South Staffordshire and Warwickshire. He himself mentioned what used to be known as the distressed areas, which are now known as the development areas. It has been the policy of successive Governments since 1944, when we had the Coalition Government, to encourage people to go to these development areas, to push them in and increase the difficulties. If anybody wants to build a factory and has not got enough capital, he has only got to go the Government and they say, "Oh, you go to one of our development areas. We will do our best for you. We will lend you money. We

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  will actually build the factory for you. If you want a siding from the railway, we will put it down for you. If you want a new road we will build it. We will do all these things to encourage people to leave the countryside, give up the healthy conditions and pour into this area once again." Is that also still to be the policy pursued under this Bill? Because if we are to do that, this Bill will be useless.
  Mr. Colegate: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman allow me to intervene? I wish to get this argument clear. The idea of encouraging factories to go to development areas—I was concerned with one in South Wales—was to employ labour unfortunately unemployed in those areas.
  Mr. Davies: By all means deal with the people already there, and find work and industry for them—for those already there but why go on to encourage people who live in rural areas to go to those other areas? Why not encourage industries to go into the rural areas as well, so that those people there would remain there? I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has gone, because I have in mind one instance in which we brought a deputation to see him when he was President of the Board of Trade. It was about the need for helping the small market towns, to which the hon. Member for Petersfield referred.
  Those towns have been, by trial and error, for centuries the centres of vast areas—the centres of culture in those areas. We want them to be maintained. We want our people to go into them, and not to go farther. The right thing to do would be to encourage industry and to encourage better housing in those small towns. The case I have in mind that we took to the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was that of Welshpool. A definite promise was then made. We so impressed him that he said, "I will do my very best to get industry to go into that town." Nothing was ever done, and many years have since elapsed.
  Mr. James MacColl: How far does the right hon. and learned Gentleman take this argument? Let him consider the case of my own constituency, which has a shortage of labour. Is he prepared to see the heavy chemical industry exported into the rural areas?
  Mr. Davies: The first thing is not to encourage people to go where there is
  754
  already congestion. If we can possibly put industry elsewhere, let us by all means do so. If we can put industry within easy reach of a growing rural population, let us put it there. Nowadays it is realised that the economic unit of an industry is roughly somewhere about 250 to 300.
  That being so, what I want to know is whether this Bill can be used to encourage industry to go from the congested areas. Or can new industries be discouraged from going to congested areas and encouraged to go rather to the old market towns, to keep the people out from the conglomerated areas, and to encourage them to remain closer to the places of their birth? If the Bill will do that, then it will accomplish the purpose which, I hope, the right hon. Gentleman has in mind, and it will do a considerable amount of good not only to industry but for the health of the people of this country. Did the hon. Gentleman want to ask me a question?
  Mr. F. Blackburn: I just want to be clear what the right hon. and learned Gentleman meant when he was talking about the economic unit being 250 or 300. What exactly does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean by the "economic unit"?
  Mr. Davies: That would be in most industries—not in the very big ones, of course—
  Mr. Blackburn: A unit within industry?
  Mr. Davies: Yes; it would be the usual, ordinary industrial economic unit. It is recognised that it is somewhere about 250 to 300 in the ordinary county and market town.
  5.55 p.m.
  Mr. Henry Brooke: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) for having pointed out that it is high time that the House devoted some hours longer than we have tonight to discuss the overspill population problem of London. My one desire is that this Bill, which will obviously need careful examination in respect of some Clauses in Committee, shall facilitate smooth working arrangements between those large cities that have an overspill

  755
  problem which everybody must recognise and sympathise with, and the country districts or small towns, some of whose people may desire a larger population, while others may, at first at any rate, regret the prospect of city people coming and spreading houses over their fields. This is a national problem, and jointly we have to work out solutions to it.
  My own regret is that this Bill was not produced earlier. I represent the only London borough which actually has a higher population now than before the war, despite considerable destruction by bombing. We Londoners look back and remind ourselves of the words which were used by the then Minister of Town and Country Planning almost six years ago, on 5th March, 1946, when, speaking of the decentralisation of London, he said:
  "The intention is to make provision for about a million persons and concurrently a related quota of industrial firms to be accommodated farther out—mainly in a few new towns and in selected existing towns within 20 to 50 miles of London's centre."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1946; Vol. 420, c. 190.]
  We need not argue today whether the figure of a million is correct, but in the six years there have been two bitter disappointments to us. One is that the new towns have up to the present produced fewer than 4,000 houses—a very different result from the picture which was placed before us in 1946. The second, as my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. Legh) said in his admirable maiden speech, is that no solution is possible unless industrial movement is co-ordinated with human movement.
  The hon. Member for Clapham (Mr. Gibson), sitting opposite, will confirm it when I say that an all-party deputation went from the London County Council three or four years ago to the then President of the Board of Trade to express London's deep concern at the Board's complete failure to assist firms and industrialists desirous of developing new factories in close proximity to the new centres of population which were growing up around London. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that this Bill, for all its good intentions, may itself fail unless he can secure the full and practical good will of the President of the Board of Trade in encouraging and assisting the movement of industry.
  756
  My own feeling is that the London County Council now has reached a most dangerous situation where it is rapidly running short of available housing sites, though I am sure it is the intention to build on blitzed sites in London that are available. Personally, I think that London should have made earlier contacts with some of the towns around, so that in those areas friendly schemes of housing expansion might have been worked out. This Bill, I grant, will facilitate that, but I wish myself that bigger progress had been made meanwhile.
  I hope that we shall make sure in Committee on this Bill that, while it facilitates smooth arrangements between local authorities, it will not interfere with the proper independence of local government. The local government machine must operate the Bill. The Minister may be able to help with the lubricating power of his money, but if we were to let the administration of the Bill get altogether out of the control of the locally-elected people of the country, we should be doing a very bad thing for the future.
  There are three or four points which perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary could clear up if he is to reply to the debate. First of all, what meaning is to be attached to the word "overpopulation"? The word "congestion" is fairly familiar on the Statute Book, but how will an authority have to prove that it is over-populated? Will it be by reference to an approved development plan, or what? Secondly, among the services to which the Minister can make contributions are water and sewerage. There is no mention of equally necessary services such as street lighting. Can we consider whether all the right services are included here? I am sure that that should be carefully examined in Committee.
  A third point which is bound to cause concern to what I might call the exporting authorities, unless the Parliamentary Secretary can clear it up for us today, is what will be their position with regard to Government grants if, taking advantage of the Clauses of the Bill, they begin to exercise outside their own boundaries powers—other than housing powers—which up to now they have had authority to exercise only within those boundaries? Should they reach an

  757
  agreement with a receiving area to pay for doing certain things for which they would normally pay within their own areas with the help of grant aid, is it guaranteed that they will receive the same grant aid for what they do under the Bill?
  Fourthly, I think both the exporting areas and the receiving areas will be keenly interested to know how any new development under the Bill stands in relation to development charges. If I remember rightly, provision is made in the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act relating to the incidence of development charge for the New Town Corporations. I think development charge is not levied in that case, but some payment in lieu is made. Is a similar arrangement contemplated here and, if not, how is the development charge to fall? It strikes me that, unless some special provision is arranged, it may easily deter authorities from being as anxious as we should wish them to be to try and use the Bill.
  I know that many hon. Members wish to speak, and I have compressed my remarks to the utmost. I greatly hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading this afternoon so that these and other matters can be examined in Committee.
  6.4 p.m.
  Mr. Aneurin Bevan: I ask the indulgence of the House for just a moment or two. Indeed, I should not have intervened at this stage had I thought it possible to obtain the Second Reading of the Bill today, but I doubt very much whether it will be possible to do that in view of the large number of hon. Members who wish to speak and the other business which is shortly to take place.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): Although the House did not suspend the Rule for this Bill, we make up afterwards the time which is lost. The time on the Adjournment is not taken out of the time for Second Reading.
  Mr. Bevan: But I understand that there is other business. I listened with great interest to the speech of the Minister outlining the Bill. He commended the Bill to the House on the
  758
  ground that he had inherited it from his predecessor—and that now appears to be a favourite Government argument. It enables us to say that what is commendable in what the Government are doing is by imitation of their predecessors, whereas what is evil is by their own invention.
  We have been told by the Government that the Bill was hatched by the previous Minister of Local Government and Planning. I am familiar with many of the problems with which the Bill proposes to deal, but I must say that I am rather surprised that the right hon. Gentleman has taken so pessimistic a view of the future of the Conservative administration. A large number of the problems with which the Bill deals arise out of the existing structure of local government.
  Very many of these problems would fall to the ground at once if there were a radical re-organisation of the local government structure, [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh; they may retort quite easily, "Why did you not do it?" The answer is quite simple. If they look back over the records they will find that I probably introduced more major Bills in one Parliament than have been introduced by any one Minister in any one Parliament over the last 50 years; and I could hardly strain the patience of the House by introducing still another.
  But hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen opposite have told us that they propose to stay in office for three years. [HON. MEMBERS: "Five."] I see; as anxieties increase, their ambitions mount. In that case, surely the Government and their supporters have plenty of time in which to consider the re-organisation of local government. Why bring this niggling thing before the House now, when a major operation could solve many of the difficulties with which the Bill proposes to deal?
  As the right hon. Gentleman has been searching around in the pigeon holes in order to find out for what inventions we had already been responsible, let him search around a little more. There are one or two quite interesting ideas about the re-organisation of local government which he will discover in his Department if he looks for them; and if he will bring them forward, I will bless them.

  759
  There is no need for the right hon. Gentleman to plead that no thinking has been done on this matter, because a very great deal of thinking was done upon it. Indeed, he need do no thinking on the subject himself; it has all been done for him. All he needs to do is to imitate and to say, "After all, this is not my Measure: this is the Measure of my predecessor."
  If, therefore, the right hon. Gentlemen have plenty of time, they also have the ideas—which they also inherited from their predecessors; and there is nothing at all to prevent the Minister from dealing with a vast number of problems raised by the Bill and a large number, indeed, not dealt with in the Bill but which could be met by the re-organisation of local government.
  Mr. Colegate: Surely the right hon. Gentleman examined this matter very closely himself. Did he not tell the House that he could not see any sort of solution to the local government problem which was likely to go through the House in the near future?
  Mr. Bevan: I said I saw no possibility of a solution to the local government problem which would go through that Parliament in the near future, because we were coming to the end of the Parliamentary period. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are at the beginning of a Parliament.
  Squadron Leader A. E. Cooper: The right hon. Gentleman should not make a statement which he cannot substantiate. The statement to which my hon. Friend refers was made during the Second Reading of the Ilford Corporation Bill, and was made in the first few months of the 1950 Parliament.
  Mr. Bevan: The first few months of the 1950 Parliament? Of course, but I should hesitate to suggest that the re-organisation of the local government structure of this country could be undertaken at the beginning of a Government with a majority of six.
  We know how ardent and devoted are hon. Members opposite, with their majority of 17. Hon. Members have told us that they propose to remain in office for five years. Are we, therefore, to conclude that during the whole of those five
  760
  years we are to see no radical re-organisation of local government? We are now being told that they are going to be there for five more years, and still these problems are going to be left untouched. I must say I am rather depressed—and local authorities outside will indeed be depressed—at the lack of invention and also the lack of courage which the Government benches are showing on this matter.
  One of the main difficulties that have to be dealt with by this Bill and which this Bill approaches tentatively is the making of local government housing grants mobile from one local government authority to another. There is a fixed and limited local government structure and, because that structure does not meet the proper industrial requirements of the country, housing subsidies that alight on one particular authority have to be made mobile to another local authority if populations are to be enabled to move at all.
  This is a very serious part of the problem but, nevertheless, the Bill does approach that problem in the manner in which we have discussed it on several occasions. I doubt whether this will ever be effective. I doubt very much whether the exporting authorities will be sufficiently induced by these provisions, and I doubt very much whether the importing authorities will regard the financial provisions as adequate for the purpose. All this Bill does is to take the existing overall Treasury commitment and make it available to other local authorities who otherwise would not be able to obtain it. It imports little or no new money.
  The Financial Resolution is vague because one does not know what local authorities will do, and therefore one cannot estimate beforehand what the amount of money will be. If the amount of money were considerable the Treasury would obviously insist on some figure being put in. The reason why the Treasury does not do so is because the Treasury knows it is a very small amount of money that is involved. From my own experience of the Treasury a very small amount of money indeed would be involved. That means that a very small amount of activity will be undertaken; so, what we have here is a nice, charming piece of window-dressing that does not in fact deal with the problem at all.
  There was one very serious problem with which we were concerned, which I

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  discussed on several occasions with the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, to which we were making a tentative approach at that time. It was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton). The problem is this: If a factory in a congested area is vacated—if an industrialist proposes to accept a factory in a new town, a satellite town or one of these developed towns—what guarantee is there that someone else will not take over the factory which is in the congested area and maintain it? It is a very serious problem.
  If a factory owner is unable to dispose of the old factory on terms which are attractive to him he will be reluctant to go out. If he disposes of the factory on attractive terms, that means that somebody else has taken it over, from inside or outside, and the position is back where it was before. This is a problem arising directly out of the maintenance of property rights. We have heard hon. Members opposite deplore the activities of the planners. They have talked all the time about the traditional inheritance of the British countryside; but the countryside is not the only traditional inheritance of Great Britain; there are the Liverpools, the Gorbals, the Poplars and the Stepneys. They are also the inheritance of Great Britain, and the problem we are faced with is that of dispersing the population much more widely over the country so as to reduce the slums and bring a breath of fresh air into the centres of our cities.
  The solution of that problem has over and over again been prevented by the assertion of private property rights. [An HON. MEMBER: "Communism."] Hon. Members may talk about Communism as much as they like, but here is the manifest conflict between wise social living and predatory property claims. If we did our job we should make it impossible for an industrialist going out to sell the old establishment for industrial purposes.
  Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: If that was what was required, why did not the right hon. Gentleman see that the Government of which he was then a Member—though he subsequently resigned from it—brought in legislation to that effect in the Act of 1947, instead of attaching full compensation rights to an existing use?
  Mr. Bevan: The answer is that at the moment we are dealing with a problem which has accumulated as the new towns have grown. This is a real problem; it is not a theoretical problem. To be frank, this particular difficulty did not occur to the framers of the new town legislation, but it was in fact becoming increasingly apparent as we saw the new towns growing up and found it impossible to persuade industrialists to go out unless they were allowed to sell their own premises.
  I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should be prepared, during the Committee stage of the Bill, either to frame or accept a Clause to deal with that problem. Unless it is dealt with the most important problem will be outside the frontiers of this Bill. It will not be sufficient to plead private property rights in this case, because no private property rights ought to be maintained if their maintenance means the continuation of slum conditions and slum property in the hearts of our great cities.
  In their own legislation before the war hon. Members opposite extinguished the property rights in slum property. Therefore, if one has slum industrial property, or industrial property in the hearts of our great cities—which means that slums are contiguous to them—these property rights should be extinguished there also. In some cases there may be a great deal of local and personal burdens, and I do not leave out the possibility of some compensation. Nevertheless, I do not consider that compensation claimed in this case ought to result in the perpetuation of slum conditions. This particular problem, which is one with which we are all concerned, is not contained within the four corners of this Bill, and I hope it will be considered before all the stages have been completed.
  There is one feature of the Bill of which, to be quite frank, I approve very much, and that is the extended power to sell land outright in the new towns and development towns, and on housing estates. I do not consider that we ought, where we can prevent it, to perpetuate all the evils of leasehold, and I see no reason why a local authority should be a leaseholder any more than a private person.
  I do not believe in the leasehold system. I believe in the freehold system, and when I was at the Ministry of Health I

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  made my views known to the local authorities. I informed the local authorities on several occasions that where they wished to dispose of land freehold I would approve the sale. I did not agree with the argument that the maintenance of leasehold was necessary for good town and country planning development purposes.
  There are other powers which local authorities can exercise to see to it that property is properly looked after and that the buildings are in accordance with good town planning. It is not, in my view, essential to retain leasehold rights in order to bring that about. Therefore, I heartily support the proposal that the Town and Country Planning Act should be amended so as to give powers that I obtained from the House for housing purposes.
  This evening and on the Second Reading the argument has been used—it is the general argument that ought to be used and not the particular one, to which we come in Committee—that there is something wrong with this Bill because it will mean a dispersal of a large number of artisans in the countryside, and thereby suck from the farms the agricultural labour which the farms need. I believe that to be a shallow argument; I believe it to be unfounded, and I believe it to be contrary to the facts.
  The central fact about the countryside in this respect is that if there is a wholly rural countryside without urban amenities we shall not keep the agricultural population there. The central fact is that the womenfolk, in particular, will no longer put up with the absence of urban amenities, which countryside work involves. In fact, because of this it was laid down as part of the housing programme that we should discourage the building of isolated agricultural workers' cottages. I always thought that hon. and right hon. Members opposite were wrong in insisting in giving farmers housing subsidies in building isolated cottages. What we wanted to do was to try to build communities so as to provide the agricultural worker with all the facilities of urban life.
  It is no use hon. Members romanticising about the attractions of rustic life. Most of those who romanticise about them are always able to avail themselves of urban amenities as well. We have passed the day when we can talk about
  764
  roses round the door and drawing pails from a well. The agricultural worker and his wife now insist that they should have exactly the same sort of life as, and perhaps rather fuller and wider than, the town worker is able to obtain.
  I do not believe that enlarging the small county towns would result in sucking any labour from the farms. On the contrary, I believe it would add labour to the farms, because just to the extent that they can become the hubs of rural life, people travelling to and from the farms and the agricultural gardens, and the villages, we shall have a mixed community, and to that extent we shall keep the workers on the farms. We shall not keep the workers on the farms by hanging on to a tradition which no longer cones-ponds with the psychology of the agricultural worker.
  Therefore, in so far as the Bill will affect this dispersal and redistribution, I am heartily in favour of it. I believe that it will not have a substantial effect. It will ease things here and there. It will get rid of an anomaly I always thought was undesirable in local government development, and that is one local authority leap-frogging over several local authorities, acquiring land in another local authority area and building and managing townships there. Because of that, when I was at the Ministry of Health I told my friends in the London County Council that I could not approve the acquiring of any further land outside the county area by the London County Council. It was becoming an outrage against good local government outside London.
  In so far as this Bill enables population to move from the centre of great cities and live under the control of local governments in the reception areas, I think it is a good thing. I therefore think that the Bill ought not to be opposed. We should do our best to amend it and, I hope, improve it in Committee but I regret very much the lack of ambition the Government have shown at this early stage in facing one of the most difficult problems—the re-distribution of population in Great Britain.
  6.26 p.m.
  Mr. Malcolm McCorquodale: As a great many hon. Members wish to speak, I do not propose to detain the House for more than a few moments. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Member

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  for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) will forgive me if I do not follow him into the interesting arguments he has adduced to the House. I must say that at one time I thought he was straining rather far in endeavouring to bring something like political partisan prejudices into an otherwise peaceful debate; while at another time he appeared to be extremely slighting and rather patronising about the claimed offspring of one of his erstwhile colleagues.
  I should like to congratulate the Minister, not only on the happy way in which he introduced this Bill, but also on the stimulating and refreshing vigour with which he is promoting his great housing campaign. In so far as this Bill helps to build more houses for our people, it will have the support of us all.
  There is just one point I wish to raise, which I think should be mentioned on Second Reading, and that is all I wish to say about the Bill. The Minister said that the Bill provides, for the very first time, except so far as the L.C.C. is concerned, for county councils to enter into the sphere of building council houses. I must say that I cannot help but regard this step with some apprehension. I do not believe that the county councils are at the moment suitable people for building houses. They are relatively remote from the public; and indeed have a great deal on their hands already—some people think almost more than they can perform.
  In my judgment, housing is essentially a service which requires the closest and most intimate connection with the public concerned. Apart from that, the county councils have not at the present time, I would assume, such staffs and personnel as would be required for the building of council houses, and the only way in which they could get them would be by robbing other authorities who are already building these houses.
  The small commitments in this Bill would not justify county councils setting up house building departments, and they would therefore be clamouring that their powers should be extended and that the service that they were inaugurating should be used more extensively. I think that this might be regarded as the thin end of the wedge which would open the way to permitting county councils to enter sub-
  766
  stantially into the house building programme. That I do not think would be desirable, and I trust that the Minister will be able to make quite plain that this Bill will not support general housing activity by the county councils.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Frank Tomney: The right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) said he felt that the county councils should not be the authorities to undertake these projects. Something can be said for that point of view, but it cannot be strongly upheld in relation to an authority such as the London County Council, which is confronted with one of the most grievous problems of any authority in the country. That is why this Bill is very welcome.
  All hon. Members intimately concerned with this problem will judge it more or less from their own experience, and in the county in which I live the Hertfordshire County Council, of which I am a member, has special problems. I shall try to outline one or two of them to the Minister. Although of a minor character, it is very essential they should be dealt with to remove some of the pin-pricks which are the constant concern of the authorities who receive these surplus people.
  The position of the Hertfordshire County Council is perhaps unique in connection with the establishment of new towns, in so far as it has a bigger intake of new towns than any other authority. Until recently, it was largely an agricultural county. The burdens which will now be placed upon it by the provision of services will be considerable, especially as the County of Hertford has only one town which can be said to be a highly-industrialised centre. That town is Watford. Almost three-quarters of the Watford rate is precepted by the county authority; a tremendous amount of money. The rest of the county is composed mainly of small urban towns and villages. Desite that, we have willingly shouldered the burden of these new towns. Central Government finance, however, does not provide for the relief of the services which are now needed.
  One particular point, which I ask the House and the Minister to bear in mind, and on which we cannot afford to fall down, is in the provision of schools. This

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  County, which, in the past, has been predominantly Tory, had been backward in the provision of new schools until after the war. The county architect's department now has this problem constantly before it, and has done splendid work. Since 1945, it has built 40 schools chiefly by prefabrication, which is a wonderful achievement, and we cannot, despite the requirements of re-armament or anything else, back down upon this particular programme in Hertfordshire, for reasons which I shall try to outline. The incoming population requires the building of larger school-rooms. There is a shortage of teachers and of all the planned services that go with schools, especially transport, and this has placed on the county a problem of the utmost magnitude.
  The main towns in the county have not yet qualified for the equalisation grant, and I hope that the Minister, on the Committee stage of the Bill, will give consideration to trying to alleviate some of the problems which will fall upon this county, which was mainly agricultural. The school position is most acute. One peculiar feature of the housing situation there is that the people coming into the new towns are mostly of the artisan and low-income group. By reason of the high cost of living, it has become more and more necessary for married couples to go out to work, and in many cases they have to travel to and from London. This cannot be helped, but it means that the children left behind in the schools often have to stay there long after school hours, sometimes until their parents return from their employment in London.
  This is a very grievous problem. That is why we must push ahead as fast as we can with the establishment of play centres, communities centres and the amenities which go with the development of new towns, which must not be sacrificed for the sake of economy in the national Exchequer. The provision of teachers and houses for them are additional great problems. I ask the Minister to consult the Minister of Education to see if a direction cannot be given to the London County Council—because that is where most of these children are coming from—to release a number of their licences for the establishment of teachers' homes in Hertfordshire. If that
  768
  is not allowed, we want the position to be rectified, because at present we are not able to staff the schools because houses cannot be found for the teachers, and they will not travel to and from London.
  The same thing is applicable, in a lesser degree, to the police and fire services. With regard to industry, mentioned by the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), I doubt whether, after making a survey of the new towns, enough industry can be established there to support the working population within its boundaries, without their having to go to London to seek employment. There has not been a great expansion or direction of industry to this county. We cannot transfer from any part of London or anywhere else so many skilled engineers into a new town in Hertfordshire. We have to take the population as we find it, and we cannot say that certain industries shall follow.
  Therefore, there can be no essential building up of an industrial population on a skilled basis. The problem is to get the skilled workers into the right industries at the right time. All these problems which are connected with this Bill will depend upon the extension of an adequate transport system. When one makes a survey of the railway position in the county, one realises that the people there cannot be adequately served by transport facilities without the integration and re-organisation of the railway services of the county. It needs a tie-up not only with the authorities concerned, but also with the Minister of Transport.
  If the Minister will see that in the counties which are providing the main services for the new towns there are no reductions in the essential services, especially schools, the Bill will have achieved its object. I ask him to examine the proposal, because we shall not have happy people moving from slum conditions to happy homes unless we have happy children in happy schools. I beg the Minister to give this matter his earnest consideration.
  6.41 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel W. H. Bromley-Davenport: I find it very difficult to follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney), because I hardly heard a single word of what he said, in his inaudible monologue.
  I should like to welcome the Bill straight away. Its object can be simply

  769
  and plainly stated to be to provide homes for our people. I represent a county constituency. I hope it will not be considered that I am speaking too much from either the county or the country man's point of view. I want to consider the Bill, as we all do, from the angle of what is best for the nation as a whole.
  When the Bill becomes law—I hope it will be amended considerably before it does—I trust there will be a better understanding between the town councils and the county councils. Some town councils are of the opinion that whenever they want to build homes in the country the county council says, "Go away. You cannot have that area. It is good agricultural land."
  In the case of Cheshire, that is certainly not true because Cheshire has already provided an excellent development plan, which I understand is now in the hands of my right hon. Friend. Cheshire is in exactly the same position as other county councils. It has accepted the problem of housing the overspill and is willing to assist in building homes to house these unfortunate people. All that the county councils are concerned about is that the houses should be built in the right places; otherwise, if good agricultural land continues to be taken away and destroyed, as has been said, houses will only be built for the people to starve in.
  On the other hand, some county councils feel that certain town councils do not care what good agricultural land is destroyed and that all they want to do is to spread outwards and grab more land from the county. Wherever that attitude exists, I hope that when the Bill becomes an Act it will softly and silently vanish away like the Boojum.
  In general, it is strongly felt that the Bill gives far too wide powers to the Minister without sufficient right of appeal for interested parties, and also that it subjects local authorities to excessive interference from Whitehall. In his excellent maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Mr. Legh) said something that we constantly hear and that has almost become a platitude. It is not that we are not fully confident that the Minister will give wise and fair decisions; but Ministers come and Ministers go, and one day another Minister will reign in the stead of my right hon. Friend, and another Minister
  770
  might misuse the dictatorial powers given under the Bill. It is not what the Minister will do which worries us; it is what any Minister can do under the Bill which causes our anxiety.
  I should like to ask this question. Will the Minister of Agriculture be consulted on each and every occasion on which an Order is made or contemplated under the Bill, and in case of disagreement, who wins—the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Minister of Agriculture? Shall we ever have any means of knowing how the Minister reached his decision or shall we be handed the well-known bromide, "My dear fellow, Ministers cannot quarrel in public. We have made our decision, and that is enough"?
  I urge the Minister of Agriculture to use all his influence with the Minister of Housing and Local Government, because there is always bound to be a tremendous temptation to grab the best agricultural land, for four reasons—first, it probably does not involve any difficulty in clearance, it is reasonably level, it is well sited, and it is well drained.
  According to Clause 1, "town development" is the provision of accommodation for residential purposes and it may include the provision of industry or other activities, public services and "other incidentals needed." By "incidentals" is meant, I suppose, anything which opens and shuts. Apparently the Minister can, by Order, expand an existing township or create a township on virgin land without recourse to the New Towns Act, 1946, and if this is so, it must surely be wrong.
  What provision is there that town development shall conform with the development plan of the area concerned? It seems that under Clause 8 the Minister can authorise, and under Clause 9 compel, development in an area which the development plan indicates should not be developed. Therefore, it seems that a development plan which has been carefully and maturely considered can be entirely vitiated in respect of the area concerned or radically altered without compliance with the procedure laid down in the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. Is it right to give any Minister such powers?
  Clause 9 contains the cause of the greatest anxiety. Apparently no consultation is required with either the receiving authority or with the county council before letting in a stranger authority. Is

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  that a fact or is it not? If it is a fact, surely it cannot be right or fair. If it is a fact, I hope the Clause will be amended to provide for such consultation and that it will be made obligatory on the Minister, if the county council is willing to act in place of the receiving authority, to authorise them to do so before considering the claims of a stranger authority. The claims of the county council in matters of this kind have always been paramount.
  What provision is there under Clause 9 to prevent compulsory acquisition by the stranger or overspill authority, of land of good agricultural value, contrary to the development plan of the area concerned, and against the wishes of the receiving authority, the planning authority and the county authority concerned, whether their objections are reasonable or otherwise? By this Clause, apparently, the Minister of his own volition can flout the opinions of those authorities, and the only safeguard appears to be by Prayer. There is no provision for consultation with the Minister of Agriculture, the National Farmers' Union or other bodies who may be interested. No mention is made of any inquiry. It is left solely to the Minister to decide whether the authority has hampered or impeded development.
  I find it terribly difficult to understand this Clause and, therefore, when I went back to my constituency this weekend I had an example given to me of what the Minister can do under this Bill. Three independent legal experts confirmed it. Here is the example. A town might say to a county council, "We want site A for town development." The county council might reply, "We cannot let you have site A. It is unsuitable, it does not fall in with our development plan, it is good agricultural land, and it is not in the interests of either the county concerned or the country to have it. Therefore, we give you an alternative. We offer you site B." The town can reply, "We do not want site B. It is not suitable for our requirements. What we want is site A, and we are going to take it."
  This problem is then put to the Minister for decision. Under this Clause the Minister can reply, "I am satisfied that this is a proposal for town development on a substantial scale; I am satisfied that the county council are unwilling to take action in such development; and, therefore, I order that the town shall take
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  action and develop site A." That is the opinion I have, and the Parliamentary Secretary will, no doubt, tell me whether the legal advice which I have had is correct. There is to be no public inquiry, no one is allowed to raise objections, and the only method to get justice is by a Prayer for an annulment of the Order. We know how much change we get out of Prayers. In that event, how can all the evidence be produced by Prayer, and how can the objections of the interested parties be raised?
  If I am right in this example, what is the alternative to what I have been saying? I have an alternative proposal to make. In such a case of dispute, an independent tribunal should be appointed by the Lord Chancellor to hold a public inquiry into the matter and report to the Minister. That report should be published, and, if the Minister decides to make an Order under Clause 9 following that inquiry, it should be subject to an affirmative Resolution in both Houses of Parliament. By this means not only will justice be done, but justice will appear to have been done.
  6.54 p.m.
  Mr. J. A. Sparks: I am very glad to have this opportunity of saying, briefly, a few words on this Bill, because it affects very considerably my own constituency, which is heavily industrialised, overcrowded, and unable to solve its housing problem within its own boundaries. We must realise the limits to which this Bill goes, because we would be most unwise if we thought that it goes to the root causes of our troubles about congestion and overpopulation. From my experience and that of my constituency I know that, unfortunately, it does not.
  The Bill is designed to relieve congestion and overpopulation. What are the causes of congestion and overpopulation? In most cases they are due to over industrialisation, and unless we can deal with the causes we cannot hope to provide the remedy for that evil. I do not think that the Bill goes anywhere near far enough to deal with the root causes of congestion and overpopulation. It has been stressed by one or two previous speakers that the Bill does nothing to decentralise industry. When I put a question to the Minister about this during his speech, all he was able to say

  773
  was that he hoped that as a result of Government action they might be able to persuade industries in congested areas to leave those areas and to go to other parts. That just will not wash at all.
  In my constituency—and it is a small constituency—there are at least 500 factories and industries, both small and large. We are near to the new town of Hemel Hempstead, but it must be admitted that that new town, which was designed to reduce congestion in Acton and the inner urban areas, has not achieved its purpose. We have been unable to persuade any industrialist of any size within my constituency to transfer his enterprise from the congested area to the new town of Hemel Hempstead or, indeed, any other new town.
  So we have this position—that, while many of our people are going outside the area to be rehoused, the industries remaining in the town, being short of labour, automatically draw into the area almost the same number of people as those who have departed to be rehoused elsewhere. It is essential, therefore, to remember, when considering this Bill, that we cannot hope to effect a dispersal of population from the congested areas of our towns and cities if, at the same time, we do not devise ways and means of reducing the industrial concentration which has given rise to the problem of over population and congestion in many of our towns and cities. I believe there is a serious weakness in the Bill in that it omits from its provisions any real attempt to bring about the decentralisation of industry, which is responsible for over-population and congestion.
  There is another weakness in the Bill. It does not give to the local authorities of congested areas the power to control factory accommodation in order to prevent new people coming into a congested area to take the place of those who have departed elsewhere. This Bill will very likely have the effect of stimulating the emigration of people from congested areas, but will do nothing to prevent the immigration of new people to maintain the—
  It being Seven o'Clock and leave having been given to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance) further Proceeding stood postponed.

  IRON AND STEEL CORPORATION (CHAIRMAN'S RESIGNATION)
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Hale rose—
  Major Guy Lloyd: On a point of order. I ask for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, whether it is, in fact and after due consideration, in order to debate a subject which may be the subject of a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, owing to the fact that the gentleman, Mr. Hardie, who has been referred to in connection with the subject that we are to debate, has revealed, contrary to the Official Secrets Act, a Government decision to raise the price of steel. That being so, is it in order to debate a subject which may yet be the subject of such a prosecution?
  Mr. Speaker: It is in order. I have heard nothing about the prosecution, but the existence or absence of a prosecution in the future is hypothetical.
  Mr. Hale: I beg to move (under Standing Order No. 9), "That this House do now adjourn."
  The hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just intervened on a point of order has raised a remarkable point in relation to the Minister of Supply, whose last principal contribution to the debates of this House was when he was protesting against a paper sent to him in connection with the Official Secrets Act because of certain information that he was alleged to have communicated when he was a Territorial officer. I cannot congratulate the hon. and gallant Gentleman on his tact in raising that matter.
  I move this Motion for the purpose of calling attention to an urgent matter of definite public importance, namely, the conduct of the Minister of Supply in relation to the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation. It is one of the curiosities of the proceedings of this House that these matters have to be raised at the earliest possible moment before all the information is available, and that they have to be debated before all the information is available. So far as I know I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hardie and have had no communication from him. So far as he is concerned, there is no information

  775
  available to me that is not available to any Member of this House.
  I should like to add that the House will be aware that, in a sense, it was almost by way of accident this afternoon that I found myself charged with this duty. I hope very shortly to have the support of my right hon. Friend the former Minister of Supply, who has a much greater knowledge of these matters than I and who could much more appropriately have moved this Motion, but for that accident.
  The first point that one would put, in the somewhat uncertain circumstances, is this: If you have a constant series of threats to murder someone, and if they are accompanied quite often by the assertion, "We are not in a position to do it now, but just you wait until we can do it"; if motives are made clear and hatred is shown, and if public expression is given to that hatred; then the court, after the potential murderers have got into the position to commit the crime if they think fit, should at least hold that there is a pretty strong case for investigation as to whether the whole series of events is related.
  In this case, unfortunately for the Minister of Supply, there is a dying statement which is available to be quoted from the daily Press. Mr. Hardie, in resigning this exceedingly important post, a post quite vital to the progress of our trade and industry, a post of the highest responsibility in which one would have thought that a distinguished man should have the same protection as is afforded to the humblest civil servant in the pursuance of his duty, wrote a resignation letter which opened like this:
  "My Dear Minister,
  I have given serious consideration to the differences in policy in regard to prices and other fundamental matters apparent between us in recent conferences. I recognise, moreover, that the divergence of view between us is unfortunately such that there is little prospect of reaching that basis of constructive and harmonious working which I had hoped we might attain."
  I shall not read the whole letter. I am sure that the correspondence has been read by everybody who is present in this debate, and there is a limited time for the debate. I am not anxious to take up unnecessary time. [HON. MEMBERS:
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  "Hear, hear."] I am grateful for that support. Mr. Hardie concludes his letter:
  "In my opinion the combined effect of the direction dated 13th November, 1951, given by you to the Corporation, the statement you made to the House of Commons at the time, and your policy towards the Corporation since, is to prevent me from carrying out my duties and responsibilities as chairman of the Corporation."
  That is a direct charge against the propriety of the action of the Minister himself. It is a clear charge, to which wide publicity has been given and made under the responsibility of a distinguished public servant occupying the highest position.
  What was the attitude of the Minister this afternoon? I should think for the first time in the history of the House of Commons we saw the spectacle of a Cabinet Minister, when his own conduct was impugned, rising on a point of order to try to prevent his conduct from being impugned. I venture to suggest that never in our political history has this House, which has always valued the independence and integrity of its Ministers, had to witness so lamentable a spectacle.
  I do not propose, unless I am challenged on the matter, to deal in detail with the many points that Mr. Hardie raised, but it is clear from his very long statement that Mr. Hardie has had constant difficulties over a period and that he has, according to his view, been placed in a position in which it became increasingly impossible for him to carry out his important duties.
  There are two points to which I must give attention. You, Sir, were good enough to give us guidance of a preliminary character on the ambit of debate in the course of these proceedings. Your Ruling was made, as I understand it, on the basis of the statement made by the Minister of Supply that an Order had been made which was going to affect steel prices. Therefore there would be an early opportunity of debating the question of steel prices.
  In the very limited time which has been possible since the proposal for this debate was initiated, we have made such inquiries as we could. So far as I am able to trace, there is no copy of any such Order in the Library of the House of Commons, and therefore we are in the position that we have it only on the statement of the Minister that an Order is to be made. Thus the ambit of the debate may be

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  limited by the suggestion that an Order may come forward which no one has yet had an opportunity of reading. [Interruption.] There is a voice which appears to be well-informed and which says that the Order has been signed today. I understand that it appears from the Votes and Proceedings that it has been laid today.
  Mr. Geoffrey Bing: May I say that, like my hon. Friend, I have tried to find this Order? There is a copy of this Order in manuscript with "January" crossed out and "February" written in with, so far as I can find, no authority given for the alteration. I understand that it was deposited in the Votes and Proceedings Office together with Schedules amounting to some thousands of words. No effort has been made, so far as I discover from the staff of the Library, to see that hon. Members get a copy of this document, on which the ambit of the debate is to depend. From the quick look I have had of this Order, it seems very different from that described by the Minister of Supply.
  Mr. Hale: The Minister of Supply is on the Government Front Bench, and he will no doubt tell us something about the Order when he rises to take part in the debate. I do not want to waste time in raising points of detail on a matter of broad general principle, but these seem singularly unfortunate proceedings to which we may have to draw attention when we have considered precisely what has happened.
  I do not challenge for a moment your Ruling that the question of steel prices can be excluded by the fact that an Order has been made or laid, is being made or laid, or will probably be made or laid, but I would at least suggest to you that we must be able to discuss the reasons for Mr. Hardie's resignation without discussing in detail whether those reasons are appropriate or not, and that in so far as Mr. Hardie gives reasons for his resignation we must be in a position to quote those reasons or there can be no effective discussion at all.
  I must call the attention of the House to what did happen in connection with the Iron and Steel Act. The appointment of the Corporation was made, if I remember rightly, after the House had risen in July, 1950. There was a debate on this matter during the short re-
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  assembly of the House for a few days in September, 1950. Then we had the extraordinary procedure of a further debate on the same matter in February, 1951. Indeed, we watched the attacks upon the Iron and Steel Corporation growing from day to day. In many respects we saw the power of the Press used to denigrate the members personally. We had a Question on the Order Paper of the House of Commons from one hon. Member asking if it were not true that somewhere in his remote past one of the members—not Mr. Hardie—had been a member of the Communist Party. Speaking for myself, I thought that was the sort of allegation which was confined to the lowest semi-Fascist forces in the United States of America.
  It is not my desire tonight to add any fuel to the fire of controversy. I am trying to present a case without calling in the evidence of people of no great importance or of people with no great sense of responsibility. I prefer to refer the House to what the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said on this matter in the course of debate. [An HON. MEMBER: "Call in the Communist Party."] I am sure that was a most intelligent comment but, unfortunately, I did not hear it, so I cannot deal with it.
  The Prime Minister made two speeches on this matter and his speech on the second occasion summarised clearly what was being said—but I have forgotten one other matter to which attention ought to be drawn. There was another speech. I have not in these last three hours been able to verify my references and therefore what I say is from recollection and with no certainty. One distinguished member of the Conservative Party made a speech about Quislings, and I think it was made at the Brighton Conference of the Conservative Party. I have not the exact words, but what he indicated most clearly in that speech was that anyone who joined a nationalised board was a Quisling and would be dealt with as such. The purport of that remark was not that the man was a traitor to his country but that he was a traitor to his class.
  Mr. Speaker: I do not want to limit the freedom of this discussion but the hon. Gentleman is getting some way away from the conduct of the Minister. I accepted the Motion on the understanding that what was to be discussed was the action

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  of the Minister, in the words of the Motion, in forcing the resignation of this gentleman. I ask the hon. Gentleman to confine himself to that.
  Mr. Hale: The point I am making is a perfectly simple one, Mr. Speaker, and may I put it to you respectfully? I am saying that there is evidence on which this House can assume that Mr. Hardie has been deliberately forced to resign, to remove himself from the Corporation. I am producing quotations to show that it is clear that the Conservative Party Conference was told that that course would be taken and that the present Prime Minister—[Interruption.] If I may refer to the speech of the Prime Minister in the course of the debate, headed "Iron and Steel Industry," but which was essentially at that time a debate on whether or not the Corporation should have been appointed, I find some remarks that I quote with very real reluctance when I think—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, quote them with very real reluctance—
  "What is this new dispensation under which we have now to live, and into which the steel trade is to be plunged? The modern world, with all its varieties, has, I think, produced a no more curious figure than that of the millionaire Socialist, or Socialist millionaire."
  It is fair to say to the right hon. Gentleman that obviously he does not think it wrong to be a millionaire because few people have associated with so many. It is right to say, too, that he obviously does not think it very wrong to be a Socialist because he called in the help of Socialist Ministers to assist him at the worst period of the war. What he does think is wrong is the mixed marriage. He thinks it is wrong for the classes to intermingle, because they might breed. Then he went on to say:
  "Here is a type, very rare, but when it appears very potent. We have a type of mentality in the Socialist millionaire which reconciles the most violent denunciation of the capitalist exploitation of the proletariat with the fullest enjoyment of its fruits."
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I hope hon. Members opposite will applaud the next two sentences. This is what was being said, not about nationalised industries in general or about individuals on them, but about Mr. Hardie in particular. It was being said by the person who is now Prime Minister, and I ask hon. Members opposite to applaud
  780
  when I have finished the next two sentences.
  "There are a few in every country. Herr Krupp, who was, and may be again, a millionaire, and was certainly a Nazi Socialist, is a case which springs to the mind."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th February, 1951; Vol. 483, c. 1758.]
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"] I wonder that hon. Members do not sink in shame when they hear a quotation of that kind. I do not know from what kind of springs that comes to mind, but they are pretty dirty and cloudy waters, and it is a pretty filthy mind which makes a statement like that.
  I do not intend to detain the House for long. I have tried to do no more than to make clear to hon. Members why we consider this matter is one of urgent public importance. Across the Atlantic they live under a dispensation in which the personnel of all Ministries change as the party changes, but we had hoped that we were a little beyond that. I know that the attack made on my right hon. Friends above the Gangway in the constituencies is all too often that they appointed far too many people of the other party to posts instead of appointing people from their own.
  I believe this is the only case in which it is said that the chairman of a great nationalised industry happened to be by chance a member of the Labour Party—[An HON. MEMBER: "Citrine."] Yes, indeed. I am much obliged, but he was not originally appointed as chairman, he took the place of somebody else. At any rate the point is sufficiently obvious when, in the case of 15 nationalised industries, they are able to quote only one.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Supply has held office for some six weeks and I have not been able to trace him as having taken part in the steel debates in the past to any great extent. Nor indeed, so I believe, was he supposed to know anything much about supply. So the attacks made upon the Steel Corporation, which suggest detailed experience of the job, comes a little ill from an appointment such as his under these circumstances—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nepotism."]
  We are anxious to know why this course has been taken in secret, why the Chairman is now able to say that these

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  differences had gone on over this period, why he now makes public in detail an allegation that his occupation of his post has become intolerable. When that is said in public, and when there is such overwhelming evidence in the documents, in the debates, in the newspapers and in the journals of a deep-seated and bitter antipathy based upon political hatred which has gone on since the days of his appointment, and which has been expressed in terms so surprising as some of those to which I have drawn attention, then obviously it is in the interests of this House to make immediate and urgent and cogent inquiry.
  7.20 p.m.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: I beg to second the Motion.
  I fully agree with the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), that ever since Mr. Hardie was appointed Chairman of this important Corporation there has been a permanent, spiteful vendetta waged against him by Conservative politicians and Conservative newspapers. If that were in doubt, the jeers and the ironic cheers which met some of the remarks of my hon. Friend when he referred to Mr. Hardie as a distinguished public servant, as he indeed was, amply prove that this gentleman still has today the antipathy of the Members who sit on the other side of the House and that his important work, on the success of which the welfare of this industry largely depends, has throughout been made as difficult as possible by the actions and attitude of the Conservative Party.
  It is necessary when we are considering this resignation and the reasons for it to ponder for a moment, and to recall the conditions under which he was appointed. There was a great antipathy by the Conservative Party to his appointment, because it broke the political strike initiated by Steel House to prevent the Iron and Steel Act ever operating. It will be remembered that the edict had gone out from Steel House, and documents supporting this allegation have been published in the Press, discouraging as strongly as possible any person of standing in the iron and steel industry to serve on the Corporation. The reason for that edict was quite plain. It was implicitly stated that it was hoped that if nobody
  782
  with experience in the industry served on the Corporation, it would be impossible for the Government to carry out the Act which Parliament had passed.
  That request, or edict, by Steel House undermined, as I and my colleagues maintain, the foundations of our Parliamentary democracy. The Act of Parliament had been passed and it was the duty of Government and of every democratic citizen to see that that Act was implemented as well as possible. This action by Steel House was warmly supported by the Members of the Conservative Party in this House. They therefore greatly resented the appointment of a man distinguished in business to the Chairmanship of the Corporation, because it defeated the Conservative plan to sabotage the Act of Parliament.
  Mr. Hardie, it must be appreciated, accepted the offer to serve as Chairman of the Corporation at considerable personal sacrifice, but he felt it his duty to do so because it would enable him to use his long, valued and immense experience in conducting large-scale industrial organisations, in helping to make this basic industry an efficient organisation, serving wholly and solely the national interest. Parliament had decided that the Corporation should undertake certain duties and responsibilities to the industry, and Mr. Hardie had felt it his duty to serve on that Corporation and to use his talents in making it a success.
  There are two other reasons why the party opposite disliked Mr. Hardie and carried out this vendetta against him on every possible occasion. One was that he was a successful business man, of high standing and great respect; it was therefore impossible to ridicule the Corporation or its Chairman, as the Conservatives would like to have done if a nonentity had been given this post. They could not deny that this was a man of considerable standing, knowledge and experience, and they resented him for that reason.
  The second reason, which was referred to by my hon. Friend is that he was a supporter—rather remote and not a very active one, but a definite supporter—of the Labour Party ideals; and whereas the party opposite thought it always perfectly right to appoint Conservatives to any job, they thought it wholly wrong that we should

  783
  appoint someone—not because of his political opinions, but because of his standing and experience—to carry out this important task because he happened to believe in the principles on which the bill was founded. We did not take that view.
  Thirdly, there is one more reason why the party opposite disliked Mr. Hardie; and reference has been made to this matter frequently in Conservative papers, and in financial papers, too. They said, "This man has too strong a personality. He is a difficult man to deal with." In other words, he was a man who was not prepared to be browbeaten by the political leaders of the industry—and very powerful people they are.
  I confess to the House that one of the reasons why I appointed Mr. Hardie was that, apart from his great capacity, he was also a man of strong personality. I knew well that if the Corporation was to be a success and to carry out the duties which Parliament had imposed upon it, it was essential that the Corporation should be strong, should act vigorously and should not be deceived or browbeaten continually by the political leaders at Steel House.
  I maintain—I do not know that anybody has contradicted this, and I have not seen any attack on this matter supported by any evidence—that Mr. Hardie and the Corporation of which he was Chairman—an active and dynamic Chairman—carried out his duties, and the Corporation their duties, exceedingly well; that the changes they brought about were good changes and beneficial. I challenged the Government, the last time I spoke on this matter, to point to one single change brought about which had done harm to the industry. I quoted a number of important ones which had brought great benefit to the industry.
  Mr. Hardie had adopted the policy —I had many discussions with him about this throughout—that he was going to move slowly forward; that he was going to take no step or any action concerning the steel industry without having discussion and consultation with anybody and everybody in the steel industry with knowledge on the matter or a special interest; that he would
  784
  go forward in a co-operative spirit, and never impose his will or that of the Corporation on the industry in any matter whatsoever without having the longest and fullest discussions.
  On one or two occasions when I talked over the problems of the industry with Mr. Hardie, as I did regularly, I must confess that I was sometimes slightly impatient at the slow progress which the Corporation were making, and I thought sometimes that they were paying far too much attention to what I considered to be oppositionist consultations—rearguard actions—by leaders of the industry, who were trying to prevent the Corporation carrying out its duties.
  However, that is as may be. Great progress was made. Good will was being slowly and effectively established right throughout the steel industry by the Corporation, under Mr. Hardie's leadership. I have not taken a census, of course, but from my knowledge and experience I believe it would be found that a large section, if not the majority, of the managerial classes in the steel industry would say that the changes which they feared would damage the industry have not been brought about, that there has been ample co-operation and consultation throughout, that benefits have been substantial, and that they are grateful to the way in which the Corporation has proceeded.
  Mr. E. Partridge: Absolutely untrue.
  Mr. Strauss: What has happened? Mr. Hardie, I know, when the change of Government took place, intended to remain as Chairman of the Corporation if he were permitted to do so, because he felt it was his duty to carry on that post in the spirit of a trustee in respect of those duties and responsibilities imposed upon the Corporation by Parliament.
  But the position slowly and steadily became impossible. The actions of the Government, and of the Minister of Supply in particular, undermined the authority and the position and responsibility of the Corporation, and the result is that now, as the culminating incident—this is only the culminating incident—of a disagreement on prices, Mr. Hardie has felt that he has been forced to resign. The only alternative was to carry on in an intolerable situation and take responsibilities he was not prepared to take.

  785
  It is quite untrue, as the Minister of Supply said, that the only reason given for his resignation was disagreement over the prices. My hon. Friend has already quoted the resignation letter of Mr. Hardie, in which he states the reason quite clearly. I will quote the sentence again:
  "In my opinion the combined effect of the direction, dated 13th November, 1951, given by you to the Corporation, the statement you made in the House of Commons at the time, and your policy towards the Corporation since is to prevent me from carrying out my duties and responsibilities as Chairman of the Corporation."
  So prices were just the final straw that broke the camel's back and there are many other reasons for disagreeing which, in Mr. Hardie's opinion, justified his resignation. The most important, quite clearly from his letter, is that direction given by the Minister to the Corporation and that direction which was outlined to us in the statement the Minister made in the House. I have not seen the directive myself, I merely remember the Minister's statement. It was, in fact, that the Corporation would not be allowed to proceed to carry out any re-organisation schemes in the industry without obtaining the prior consent of the Minister.
  What does that mean? Here is a Corporation taking responsibility for an industry which it finds requires considerable re-organisation to make it really effective and efficient. An immense amount of regrouping was necessary. Plans, particularly in South Wales, in which the Corporation were concerned were urgently necessary in order that the industry should perform at its best and render maximum service to the country.
  There were many units in the industry which were inefficient, and many which were efficient. All required alterations, it may be changes in the members of their boards, or reorganisation.
  All this work required doing, but the Minister said, "You are not to do it unless you come to me first and get my consent." It was plain that the Minister would not give his consent to any such change unless all the directors concerned agreed, and that if the directors said that it was all wrong and that pending de-nationalisation there should be no changes and improvements, the Minister would certainly have supported the
  786
  directors and turned the Corporation down.
  That meant, in effect, that the Corporation and the Chairman, with his particular responsibility, were bound to sit back and see the inefficiency, unable to move a finger to do anything about it. They could not get rid of directors who were no good, nor bring about regroupings which were required, because the Minister said it could not be done without his consent, which certainly would be withheld. That was a consideration which made it practically ineffective as the authority responsible for Parliament and to the country for the welfare of the industry.
  There were many other things the Corporation were doing. They were engaged in technical work with three or four of the best technical experts in the industry seconded to work out improved and structural and financial problems, and they were getting on very well indeed until this Government came into office. Then, of course, that work stopped and all this work on re-organisation had to come to an end.
  Perhaps an even more urgent anxiety was this—I know Mr. Hardie was much concerned with it—finding that the organisation responsible for buying raw materials for the industry was wholly inadequate. One of the reasons in his mind—and I think he was right—which caused our lack of raw materials was the absence of an effective purchasing organisation for the industry. One existed, the British Iron and Steel Corporation, an offshoot of Steel House. Preliminary steps were taken to put it right and to put good people on it. I suppose that because of the directions of the Minister that work could not proceed and the industry was faced with having further shortages of raw materials, maybe, in future years owing to the impotence of the industry to see that a proper organisation was set up to produce the materials which were needed.
  The final and important work on which the Corporation were engaged was that of preparing development plans for the industry. The industry requires a great deal of development. Boasts have been made in the past about the amount of development which has already taken place. It will be remembered that when the Labour Government came into office the industry said they had plans to put

  787
  into operation £168 million worth of development in the industry and that it would be carried out in five years. They used that as an argument against nationalisation. But the Corporation found that between a third and a half of those plans had not only not been completed but had not been started. Yet obviously a great deal of development was required.
  I know Mr. Hardie was worried about this. They reckoned that about £200 million worth of development was essential in the next two or three years, and the work of preparing those development schemes and giving authority for the progress of those schemes and making plans for raising the money was all suspended. Owing to the action of the Government and the Minister of Supply no one could any longer look upon the Corporation as having that authority, that final say in all these matters, which is so essential if the industry is to be effectively developed as a whole.
  It is therefore true that, as a result of the action of the Minister of Supply, not only in regard to prices, on which I hope we are to have a discussion some other day, but in his general attitude and putting into effect the policies of the Government the work of the Corporation was made impossible and Mr. Hardie felt forced to resign. The resignation of Mr. Hardie, who was engaged solely in the interests of the industry and was trying to bring about its welfare, because of the frustrations which were imposed upon him, is only one aspect of the matter. We are not concerned with the personal aspect at all. We are concerned with the underlying policy, and if it is said by the Minister of Supply that these limitations which have been imposed on the Corporation have been the inevitable and natural consequence of the decision of the Government to de-nationalise the industry and that the consequences have to be faced, I would not quarrel with him in that conclusion.
  Of course all these difficulties which are imposed on the industry today, the removing of the responsibility and authority of the Corporation, the difficulties facing the industry through lack of authority and leadership, the holding up of essential re-organisation schemes, are the result of the decision of the Government to de-nationalise this in-
  788
  dustry. But that does not make the situation any better. We said at the time the decision was made that it was bound to create uncertainty in the industry, causing dislocation and holding up of the vital and urgent progress of re-organisation and expansion.
  The process of gradual stagnation which we foretold has not gone very far yet, but it has gone far enough to cause this dramatic protest from the Chairman of the Corporation, and I think we and the nation ought to be grateful to him for calling the attention of the country not only to what has happened, but to what is likely to happen in the future. Let the House and the country be under no delusion on the matter. If the process of long periods of uncertainty and stagnation, which I say is an inevitable result of the decision to de-nationalise the industry continues, or if the ridiculous measures which some papers have prophesied—I do not know with what accuracy—of a hotch potch of private and public enterprise, mixing the worst features of both, were applied, the crisis in the industry of which we today have heard only the first rumblings will develop with steady and deadly effect, with serious consequences not only to the iron and steel industry but to the economy of the country as a whole and the welfare of its people.
  7.40 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Watkinson: On a point of order. May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker? I am not in any way challenging your Ruling in accepting the Motion, but I think I am correct in saying that its terms were that the Minister had forced the resignation of Mr. Hardie and that it was necessary for the mover and seconder of the Motion to bring forward evidence before this House that such definite action had been taken by the Minister to force the resignation of Mr. Hardie. I have listened carefully to the speeches of the mover and seconder and they have not brought before the House any concrete evidence whatever that the Minister took any action that would directly remove Mr. Hardie from his position.
  Mr. Speaker: As the hon. Member says, the gist of this Motion is that the Minister forced the resignation of Mr. Hardie, I gathered from the two speeches

  789
  which we have heard that an argument was, shall I say, addressed towards that point. How cogent and relevant that argument is is not for me but for the House to decide, but some, shall I say, argument tending in that direction has been given.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. A. Woodburn: On a point of order. Would it not be for the convenience of the House, and perhaps shorten the debate, if the Minister gave his side of the question before the debate proceeded?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me.
  The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): Further to that point of order. I should like to hear a little more of the case before I attempt to answer it. So far I have heard very little.
  7.43 p.m.
  Mr. Spencer Summers: I regard the speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) as both mischievous and objectionable. The only extenuating circumstance that occurs to my mind is that he found himself in the position of moving the Motion solely because his hon. and right hon. Friends had found themselves quite incapable without his aid of finding a form of words which would be in order to enable the moving of the Adjournment of the House.
  He attempted to insinuate that this situation between the Minister and Mr. Hardie was based upon a vendetta. It is significant that the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), who seconded the Motion, made it plain that, in his judgment at least, there was no personal vendetta about it. His complaint was that this Government were no longer according the support to the policy of Mr. Hardie that the preceding Government were able to give His complaint is not really that the Minister ought not to have accepted Mr. Hardie's resignation, it is that his right hon. and hon. Friends are no longer sitting on the Government Front Bench.
  What is the true position? The Corporation had a discussion with the Minister about what should be done in
  790
  the industry in the light of changed conditions—the need to import steel at much higher prices than obtained here.
  Mr. Julian Snow: On a point of order. May I ask whether we ought not to invite the hon. Member to declare a personal interest in this matter?
  Mr. Summers: In reply to that observation—[Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will do me the courtesy of allowing me to reply to a personal reference—I apologise profusely if on this occasion I omitted, for the first time in the many steel debates in which I have spoken, that customary reference to a personal interest. I hope the hon. Member will acquit me of anything other than an oversight, and I readily accord—
  Mr. Snow: Further to my point of order. I hope the hon. Member will also give me some credit by believing that one asks for a disclosure of interest, if it exists, in order to understand what value to place on an hon. Member's evidence.
  Mr. Summers: I am not interested in hon. Members' motives. I am only too ready to acknowledge my interests in so far as I am a director of one of the nationalised concerns. That is the interest I have in the industry. I was saying that the real position surely is that there have been—
  Mr. Hale: Do I understand the hon. Member to say that he does not hold any qualifying shares, that he is merely a director?
  Mr. Summers: I happen to be slightly more knowledgeable on this subject than a lawyer. I was compelled to give up at the take-over price those shares which were formerly the qualification for a directorship. Therefore, I no longer possess those shares.
  I was trying to direct the attention of the House to what I believe to be the real position vis à vis Mr. Hardie and the Minister. The Corporation were called upon to discuss with the Government what steps should be taken to deal with the situation with which the industry is faced, namely, greatly increased costs since prices were last fixed.
  As a result of those discussions, one member of the Corporation has found himself unable to agree with the

  791
  policy which has been agreed between his colleagues and the Government, and it is only right and proper that any member of an organisation placed in that position should tender his resignation. No other course would have been the honourable course for him to take, and the Minister had no option but to accept the resignation of that member. The Minister has no alternative but to accept the resignation of a member of an organisation who finds himself at variance with his colleagues.
  Mr. George Chetwynd: If the hon. Member says that the proper course for the Chairman is to resign in such circumstances, how does he square that with his retention of a directorship in a nationalised undertaking to which he is most violently opposed?
  Mr. Summers: I do not know how far you, Mr. Speaker, would regard it as being in order for me to reply to the hon. Gentleman, but in so far as you permit me to reply to that observation, I will only say that I regard it as a patriotic duty, and indeed a duty to those who have worked for my family business ever since I was connected with it, to continue to serve that company in the belief that there is still time to right the wrong that is being done—[Interruption.] The way in which my remarks have been received only go to confirm that the real complaint of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite is that they are no longer the Government of the day.
  I hope the House will permit me to bring them back to the real gravamen of this charge, the impropriety of the Minister in accepting the resignation of Mr. Hardie. [HON. MEMBERS: "Forcing his resignation."] That is the gravamen of the charge, and I submit that the Minister had no option but to accept the resignation. If the speech of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) had been in any sense realistic, he should have insisted on the colleagues of Mr. Hardie also resigning, on the grounds that they have been thwarted over the policy which they considered it in the national interest to pursue. In fact, that is not the case. Mr. Hardie has resigned; and as he is at variance with the policy pursued by his colleagues and the Government, he was quite right to do so, and
  792
  I applaud the Minister for accepting his resignation.
  Mr. Aneurin Bevan: On a point of procedure. Does not the Minister of Supply think it would be for the convenience of the House if he now made a statement on this matter? [Interruption.] I did not say on a point of order. I said on a point of procedure. That would not prevent him from making another statement if he wished to do so. In fact, I am sure the House would give him permission to make a second statement. But we ought now to have from him a statement of facts not yet disclosed to the newspapers or to this House, because I can assure him this is a very serious matter to those of us who represent coal and steel constituencies.
  7.53 p.m.
  Mr. Maurice Edelman: Hon. Members on this side of the House have listened to the story of the shameful persecution of a distinguished public servant, and it is very hard to escape the conclusion that so far as the public interest is concerned the wrong man resigned. The Minister should have resigned. If the Minister had been in Coventry last Saturday, as he was invited to be, he would there have heard something of the views of the organised workers and the trade union movement; not only about his adventurous inefficiency, which is now well known, but, in addition, something of what workers feel about his treatment of one who sacrificed a great deal in order to serve his country, and I am speaking now of Mr. Hardie.
  One would have thought that the Chairman of a nationalised board, one whose reputation would have been decided by whether the companies which he controlled made a profit or not, would have welcomed with open arms the suggestion that the price of steel should have been raised; because, after all, that is the simplest way to show the economic profit which hon. Members opposite always claim to be the touchstone of efficiency. One would have thought he would have taken that facile way out. One would have thought he would have welcomed the opportunity of enlarging the profit which the Iron and Steel Board made during 1951.

  793
  The fact that instead he chose to resign is merely confirmatory evidence of the difficulties to which the right hon. Gentleman subjected him in the performance of his duties. When I was in Coventry I talked to a mass conference of shop stewards who were concerned with increasing production. They had met together in order to suggest to each other ways and means by which production could be increased and the existing unemployment diminished.
  In the course of their discussions they were preoccupied with the fact that if the action which the right hon. Gentleman proposes is in fact carried out, if the price of steel is to be raised, it will certainly hit the whole export industry. If the export industry is hit by the Government it will mean that unemployment, which is already with us, will be enlarged. The consequences of the action by the right hon. Gentleman will not merely be reflected in the simple resignation of Mr. Hardie, but will be reflected throughout the country in the difficulties, the new difficulties, which the export industries will have to meet.
  Consequently, we have two difficulties arising directly out of the policy which the right hon. Gentleman has advocated and which Mr. Hardie has resisted. On the one hand there will be a most savage and dangerous inflation. In addition to that, our industries are—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): The hon. Member has heard the Ruling of Mr. Speaker, that we cannot go into the question of the price of steel. We must limit the debate merely to the responsibility of the Minister in forcing the resignation of Mr. Hardie.
  Mr. Edelman: Of course, Sir, I bow to your Ruling. I had no intention of going into the individual prices. I was merely associating the question of price with the purpose of Mr. Hardie's resignation. If I may quote from the statement which Mr. Hardie made, he said there were
  "differences … in regard to prices and other fundamental matters."
  With your permission, Sir, I will continue to touch on those other fundamental matters, but before I turn to them I would make some reference to the alleged crime of Mr. Hardie. I can best do so by quoting the words which Mr. Hardie him-
  794
  self used in his resignation statement. He said:
  "I had hoped, with the support of the Government, to be able to hold down steel prices … as a contribution to a general stabilisation of prices in the national interest."
  I do not propose to develop that point. I will merely say that the offence of Mr. Hardie was that he wanted to hold down the cost of living—something which, of course, hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House always have advocated—and to resist the purpose of hon. Members opposite, as represented by the right hon. Gentleman, who wishes to raise the cost of living by raising the price of steel. That is surely something which is inescapable.
  I wish to talk of one major fundamental cause which led to the resignation of Mr. Hardie. Here let me interpolate that I have the advantage of not knowing Mr. Hardie personally. I think that is an advantage, because I can judge him, as all hon. Gentlemen who are fair-minded will seek to judge him, upon his record and his work. There is no question of personalities. I am merely concerned with the standing and accomplishments of Mr. Hardie.
  Everybody will recognise that during his period of office he was successful in putting the Board of which he had control on an economic and business-like basis. He was successful in producing a trading profit which even the right hon. Gentleman, despite his sophistries earlier on, will not deny. The reward for that successful work for this gentleman, who sacrificed so much to take on this job, has been the treatment which the right hon. Gentleman has given him, which, despite his desire and urge to serve the nation, has forced him to resign.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), the former Minister of Supply, mentioned the question of raw materials and the fact that we are today having difficulty in steel production directly due to the circumstance that we were not able to produce sufficient iron ore and other raw materials which we required for steel production. I have no doubt that hon. Gentlemen opposite will lay that at the door of the former Labour Government.
  The fact is that the procurement of iron ore and other raw materials required for the production of steel was in the hands of the British Iron and Steel

  795
  Corporation, Limited, which is a private commercial undertaking associated with Steel House. The ore was bought by the British Iron and Steel Corporation, Limited—B.I.S.C. (Ore)—and the very fact that these procuring agencies were not controlled by the Iron and Steel Corporation was the circumstance to which Mr. Hardie rightly objected, and was also the circumstance which was most strongly favoured by the British Iron and Steel Federation because that was the profitable side of the industry. Whatever steps were taken, whatever errors were made or whatever the failures or commercial ineptitude of those who ran the organisation, they always knew that they would be compensated for their errors by the industry's funds.
  Mr. Hardie, being himself a competent business man, and objecting in the strongest terms to the commercial inefficiency shown by private enterprise, wanted to make sure that the procurement of the raw materials necessary for the production of steel was actually in the hands of the Corporation, and that, of course, was one of the chief causes of his dispute with the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Hugh Fraser: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me? It is a very interesting point which he has been making, but is it not odd that Mr. Hardie did not resign before his point of difference with the Minister of Supply and the Government? Perhaps, in this interesting apologia for Mr. Hardie, the hon. Gentleman will place this fact in its proper perspective?
  Mr. Edelman: I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman opposite has drawn the attention of the House to the circumstance that Mr. Hardie, during the period when the Labour Government was in power, did not resign, but what is the history of his attitude towards the procurement of raw materials?
  Throughout the history of the Iron and Steel Corporation, Mr. Hardie consistently and publicly advocated that the procurement of raw materials should be brought within the ambit of the Iron and Steel Corporation, and, as the result of discussions which took place, it was eventually decided, in the teeth of the most bitter opposition from the Iron and Steel Federation, that on the board of
  796
  the commercial undertaking there should be some representation of the Iron and Steel Corporation. That was merely a compromise and was inadequate, but, for the time being, as my right hon. Friend has said, it was part of the slow but steady progress which the Corporation were hoping to achieve.
  Under the present Government, all hopes of continuing that process of obtaining control, in the Iron and Steel Corporation, of the procurement of essential raw materials has been dissipated, because the right hon. Gentleman opposite has publicly and consistently opposed any structural organisation, as he called it, in the industry.
  Mr. Walter Fletcher: Will the hon. Gentleman explain what he means by obtaining control? A change of buyer does not mean obtaining control of a source of supply.
  Mr. Edelman: The hon. Gentleman has wide experience in the procurement of raw materials, but the methods which he has described in the past I have always challenged and resisted.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This debate is getting too wide. It has to be related to the Minister's responsibility.
  Mr. Edelman: I apologise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for having been side-tracked by the hon. Gentleman opposite.
  The responsibility of the Minister in this matter is that he frustrated the attempt of Mr. Hardie to carry out the policy with which he had been entrusted by Parliament, and the policy which, in fact, was in process of being carried out. Therefore, I think that one thing is absolutely certain, and it is that, whereas we on this side of the House believe that we have a responsibility to see that the decisions of Parliament are not challenged by industrial action, we are opposed to and resent any attempt by hon. Gentlemen opposite, by those who are associated with them or those who back them, to influence decisions of Parliament, either by concerted action by organisations like the Iron and Steel Federation or by any Parliamentary attempt inspired by them to dispose of honourable and upright men like Mr. Hardie in the conscientious and effective discharge of the duties laid upon them by this House.
  Mr. Bevan: On a point of procedure. It is very difficult to recollect what has happened on previous occasions, but, in my recollection, whenever a Motion of this kind—
  Mr. John Rodgers: On a point of order.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is rising to a point of order.
  Hon. Members: No, a "point of procedure."
  Mr. Bevan: Whenever a Motion of this sort has been moved in this House on previous occasions—
  Mr. F. A. Burden: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman is not speaking to a point of order.
  Mr. Bevan: The hon. Gentleman should control himself for a moment.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman was rising to a point of order.
  Mr. Bevan: I would do so, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if I could get some quiet. Whenever a Motion of this sort has been moved in the House in the past, and it required a disclosure of the facts, the Minister concerned has always taken the earliest opportunity of putting the House in possession of the facts. On this occasion, the Minister has not done so. Would he now do the House the courtesy of informing it when he is likely to rise?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Sandys: On a point of procedure. May I rise to say that, in my experience, I have never known a Motion of this kind put forward without anybody advancing any facts to support it.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have already ruled that that is not a point of order. Mr. Barber.
  8.8 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Barber: It is clear, from what has been said already on both sides of the House, and also from the correspondence concerning the resignation of Mr. Hardie, that this whole matter is intimately tied up, in part, at any rate, with the question of the increase in the price of steel which was announced
  798
  by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply this afternoon.
  Two facts stand out absolutely clearly, and neither can be denied by anybody. The first is that the Cabinet decision, of which we heard this afternoon, to raise the price of steel was taken in agreement with the Iron and Steel Corporation. On that there can be no dispute whatever. The second fact is that Mr. Hardie, in his letter of resignation, gave as one of the pretexts for resigning the fact that it had been decided to increase the price of steel. That appears in his letter of resignation.
  Mr. Bing: On a point of order. The House is in the greatest difficulty in regard to the statement just made by the hon. Gentleman opposite. He has said that this matter had something to do with some rise in the price of steel, but it was ruled by Mr. Speaker that any such discussion would be out of order, because we must not traverse the ground covered by the Order. As we have not had any explanation from the Minister why the Order has been made, in view of the difficulty, will it be possible for you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to direct the Minister to give the House some indication of what is in the Order so that hon. Members on both sides of the House may know what is contained in it and what is not?
  Mr. W. Fletcher: Is it not perfectly obvious, from what he said before, that Mr. Hardie would not have resigned at all if he had waited until some effective—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The question of price may not be discussed in this debate. The debate is limited to the Minister's responsibility for the resignation of Mr. Hardie, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides will confine themselves to that issue.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: Further to that point of order. What Mr. Speaker ruled to be out of order was the matter covered by the Order. We have not got the Order. We have been begging the Minister to tell us about it. The Minister has gone to ground and dare not speak until so much time has gone by that he cannot be answered. Surely we are entitled to know what is in the Order.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is out of order to discuss the Order in this debate.
  Mr. Bing: I am sorry to delay the House in this way, but this is a matter of some importance, because the Minister of Supply secured that Ruling from Mr. Speaker by saying that the Order would be laid today. He must have known at that time that that Order would not be available to hon. Members. He therefore attempted to prevent a debate in the House by applying a general blanket and giving everybody to understand that matters which might or might not be covered in the Order could not be discussed in the debate. The House is entitled to some explanation why he deceived Mr. Speaker and persuaded Mr. Speaker to give a Ruling which he would never have given had he known what the position was.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot inquire into that. I am bound by the Ruling of Mr. Speaker, as the House must realise.
  Mr. Barber: Further to that point of order. As this matter arises out of something I was saying, perhaps I should make it clear that I have no intention whatever of going into the merits or demerits of the rise in the price of steel. Indeed, I shall refer to it only in so far as it is directly concerned with the resignation of Mr. Hardie and is referred to specifically in the letters which form the basis of the subject matter of our discussion. As I understand the Ruling of Mr. Speaker—and I was here at the time he gave it—we are in order when referring merely to the fact that a rise in prices had been considered—
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. J. Rodgers: On a point of order. Is the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) in order in referring to another hon. Member of this House as having deceived Mr. Speaker?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: As the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) well knows, deceiving Mr. Speaker would certainly be out of order.
  Mr. Hale: May I inform you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, of the point which I submitted to Mr. Speaker on this matter, because I think it is right that you should know. I reported to Mr. Speaker that we had made a search in the Library for
  800
  the Order which the Minister of Supply said would be laid today and that we were unable to find it. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Horn-church (Mr. Bing) continued the search and then reported that there was apparently in the Vote Office a long, undated manuscript document—so long that it was quite impossible to read it. We did not, therefore, know anything about the Order.
  In these circumstances, we thought it would be courteous to the House if the Minister of Supply would say why he made that statement today, which he may not have intended at the time to be in-accurate but which certainly deceived the House and which has since been found to be inaccurate. In those circumstances, it seems to me that at the moment we are restraining ourselves with a very considerable amount of strength of mind and courage—restraining ourselves from saying what we really think about the Minister of Supply, which would certainly be out of order.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman raised that point at the beginning of his speech and Mr. Speaker adhered to the Ruling he had already given that discussion of the prices would be out of order in this debate.
  Mr. I. O. Thomas: Further to that point of order. I understand that, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the House, an Order which is being laid must be available for Members before it becomes, in effect, an Order which is laid. As the Order to which reference has been made by the Minister has not yet been made available to Members, then, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, it has not yet been laid.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understand that the Order has been laid.
  Mr. Thomas: Further to that point of order. Would you, for the information and guidance of Members, define what is meant by the term "an Order has been laid"?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a matter for me.
  Mr. Thomas: I must persist in this matter, because I think the House is not being given a fair deal. In accordance

  801
  with the Rules of Procedure of the House, if an Order which is supposed to have been laid is not available to Members, then it has not yet been laid.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is raising a matter which it is not within my province to decide. Mr. Barber.
  Mr. Barber: With reference to a certain, specific issue—and I am sure the House will know to what I am referring —Her Majesty's Government and the Corporation were in entire agreement, with the single exception of Mr. Hardie.
  Mr. Paget: How does the hon. Member know?
  Mr. Barber: From the evidence on this matter, to which I cannot refer by name, at any rate. It is perfectly clear from the letters of resignation of Mr. Hardie that he disagreed on this matter of prices —and I can only refer to it as such—with the Minister, whereas it is clear from the action which has been taken that the Corporation have agreed with the Minister.
  Mr. Paget: Has the hon. Member read Mr. Hardie's statement?
  Mr. Barber: Yes, I have. One thing is quite clear—that Mr. Hardie is in violent conflict not only with the action which was taken by the Minister of Supply this afternoon but, indeed, also with the remaining members of the Iron and Steel Corporation. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is the evidence?"] I state this as a fact, to be accepted or not, as hon. Members think fit. After all, we have had many other facts put before us since this debate started at seven o'clock, and we are able to judge them on their merits. I state as a fact that Mr. Hardie was out-voted by his colleagues on the Board on this issue to which we have been referring. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers) has said—
  Mr. Edelman: As the hon. Gentleman has produced as a fact something which can only be hearsay, may I tell him, equally out of hearsay, that what he has said is wholly inaccurate?
  Mr. Barber: That is a matter for the House to decide. With these facts as a background—
  Mr. William Ross: On a point of order. Is it not quite obvious that the debate is becoming a farce as a result of the failure of the Minister to make his speech?
  Mr. Barber: When this matter was first raised, I anticipated that that line might be taken. The fact is, without any doubt at all, that Mr. Hardie chose the only proper course which he could take on disagreeing with his colleagues, and, indeed, as has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, the only proper and honourable course which any decent man could take. Hon. Members opposite have suggested, in the way they have presented their side of the case, that Mr. Hardie has been forced to resign by the action of the Government and, in particular, by the action of the Minister of Supply.
  Mr. Woodburn: I gather that the hon. Member suggests that the Corporation were in disagreement with Mr. Hardie. Mr. Hardie did not suggest that the Corporation had disagreed with him, because clearly if the Corporation as a whole had taken a vote, for example, then, going on the figures given, they could have agreed with the Minister's policy, in which case Mr. Hardie would have lost the confidence of the Corporation. he would have resigned, not because of the action of the Minister, but because he had lost the confidence of the Corporation. But in his letter Mr. Hardie said nothing of the kind. He said he resigned because of several conditions which the Minister has imposed upon the Corporation with which Mr. Hardie disagrees and under which, he said, it is impossible for the Corporation to carry on. That appears to conflict with what the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Barber) is telling us.
  Mr. Barber: I appreciate full well what the right hon. Gentleman is saying; but whatever may be the contents of the letters—which I am sure we have all read —I suggest there were deeper and more potent reasons why Mr. Hardie resigned than the reasons he has mentioned in his letter—if, indeed, they are valid at all. It seems to me a little odd that, if Mr. Hardie resigned on this occasion because of a disagreement with the Minister or with the Government's policy, he did not in fact resign last August, because on that occasion also he disagreed with the

  803
  policy of the Government—the Labour Government—when it abolished the Exchequer subsidy on the cost of importing finished steel.
  To my mind the conclusion is abundantly clear that Mr. Hardie resigned because he was no longer able to co-operate with his colleagues. Hon. Gentlemen opposite no doubt desire to cloud over the real arguments which concern the future of the iron and steel industry. So far as Mr. Hardie's personal suitability as Chairman is concerned, I would remind the House that the hon. Member for Oldham, West, who opened this debate, referred to the propriety of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply. I think that the very fact that Mr. Hardie has had the impropriety to make public a decision to raise the price of steel in advance of the issue of the Order shows him, in any event, to be totally unfitted to hold an office having such a responsibility.
  8.23 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: The right hon. Gentleman the Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Let the Minister speak."] I am quite willing to give way to the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.]
  Deputy-Speaker: Hon. Members must allow the debate to go on.
  Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: May I make it quite clear at the outset that, had the Minister of Supply shown any desire to speak, I should gladly have resumed my seat forthwith. I only speak because he has still not yet made up his mind as to the time when he chooses to intervene in this debate and give the House the information to which it is entitled.
  Some hon. Members have spoken in this debate as if Mr. Hardie was in the dock. My interpretation of the Motion and the discussion which is now taking place is that it is the Minister of Supply who is in the dock and whose very doubtful behaviour in this connection merits the most searching scrutiny on our part.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) drew attention to what has been the constant line of approach of the Conservative Party, for many months past, towards the Board of the Iron and Steel Corporation. Though he did not have the quotation
  804
  by him, he was quite correct in referring to a speech made by the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury who, I think at a Conservative Party conference, held out some vague threats as to what a Conservative Government would do to those industrial leaders who would co-operate with the then Labour Government in taking seats on the Boards of nationalised industries.
  My hon. Friend did quote some rather scurrilous remarks made by the present Prime Minister when iron and steel was discussed in this House on 7th February, 1951. He could have quoted another remark which was made by the present Prime Minister on that occasion, which he did not do, I suppose, because he did not want to trespass unduly upon the time of the House. The Prime Minister, in the course of that debate, made this further statement—talking of Mr. Hardie as long ago as the 7th February, 1951:
  "His arrogant behaviour as a servant and a tool of the Government will certainly be the subject of continuous attention."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th February, 1951; Vol. 483, c. 1758.]
  That is one of the promises or pledges that the Conservative Party made and which they have only too well and too persistently carried out. This continuous attention that the Prime Minister promised would be devoted to Mr. Hardie, finally brought to a head by the present Minister of Supply, has now culminated in his resignation.
  So far as I interpret the Motion, it very clearly fastens the responsibility for this situation upon the present Minister of Supply. If it can be said by way of extenuation, I should say that anyone who has to work under the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister of Supply would find life a little difficult and would have to ask himself frequently, if not almost every day, whether it is possible for any intelligent man or woman with the interests of this country at heart to work under his supervision or day-to-day interference.
  Mr. Anthony Fell: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. and gallant Gentleman, in his tirade, to discuss how all sorts of people might work under the Minister of Supply, or are we discussing one particular person—Mr. Hardie?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Lieut.-Colonel Lipton.
  Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: That point of order having been dealt with as it deserves, I should like to reiterate what is surely obvious even to hon. Members opposite and that is, that in the present Minister of Supply we have a right hon. Gentleman under whom it is quite impossible for any intelligent or patriotic citizen to work for the benefit of the community as a whole. I ask any hon. Member opposite to admit, if he dares, that he considers himself less fitted than the present occupant of the office to carry out the duties of Minister of Supply in the present administration. There being no response to that invitation—
  Mr. F. J. Erroll: I should like to say that in the opinion of all of us on this side of the House it is a gross, unmannerly—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: If the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Supply feels very strongly upon the matter I hope that such few remarks as I have been making will induce him to get on his feet when I sit down; but there are one or two other things I must say, and if the Minister of Supply is itching to get on his feet I will bring my remarks to a close as quickly as possible. That is on the assumption that I shall be followed by the right hon. Gentleman.
  If I were to be told that the right hon. Gentleman is not going to intervene yet I am perfectly prepared to go on a little longer than I otherwise would do. I see in this episode just one further step forward in the direction of a political purge or vendetta which is being carried out by the present Administration and of which we have had more than one example in the last few months. We have seen the beginning of this purge in the removal of any known supporter of the Labour Party from the development corporations of the new towns.
  Mr. Stephen McAdden: What about Monica Felton?
  Mr. Burden: If Mr. Hardie had been so ill-treated, and if Mr. Hardie had the full support and confidence of his colleagues, why is it that not one of those have resigned?
  Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: We are in this unfortunate position, that until the Minister of Supply gives us the information we have no knowledge of what the other members of the Corporation think about this matter. I want to pursue this point. This episode—
  Mr. Watkinson: On a point of order. May I ask your guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as I asked the guidance of Mr. Speaker earlier in this debate? Surely this Motion, as its terms clearly state, says that the Minister of Supply forced the resignation of Mr. Hardie. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has just said that he has no knowledge, and can have no knowledge, of the circumstances leading up to Mr. Hardie's resignation. In any event, neither he nor any of his colleagues have yet brought any concrete evidence before the House to show why such resignation took place. In those circumstances, may I ask whether the Motion we are debating is in order?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The second part of that point of order is for the House itself to decide. With regard to the first part, this Motion is limited to the Minister's responsibility, and if hon. Members—
  Mr. A. C. Manuel: He is irresponsible.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. If hon. Members on both sides confined their arguments to the Minister's responsibility, they are in order. Anything beyond that is completely out of order upon this Motion.
  Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: I was only pleading ignorance of the extent to which other members of the Corporation either agreed or disagreed with Mr. Hardie. That may emerge in due course if the Minister of Supply condescends to take the House into his confidence.
  The action of the Minister of Supply in forcing the resignation of Mr. Hardie, and of the pressure leading thereto, is clearly evidenced by the only document that is before us at the moment. The resignation letter of Mr. Hardie makes it quite clear that it is the policy of the right hon. Gentleman since November, 1951, which prevents him from carrying out his duties and responsibilities as Chairman of the Corporation. That is

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  the point we are discussing. The right hon. Gentleman may say that is it perfectly within his power to compel Mr. Hardie to resign. No one disputes that, but what the House is entitled to know from the Minister are the reasons or motives that prompted the Minister, ever since at least November, 1951, to bring such pressures to bear upon Mr. Hardie as to make his continuance in office as Chairman of the Corporation quite impossible.
  The right hon. Gentleman has, not perhaps introduced, but encouraged an evil feature in our political life—an evil feature which has been deliberately encouraged by the present Government since it came into power, the evil principle that with a change of Government any known supporter of the Labour Party who occupies a position of responsibility in any nationalised undertaking must, for that reason, consider himself or his tenure of office to be in jeopardy. That is what has already happened in connection with the new towns. There have been many cases of it already, and that is what is happening tonight and being encouraged by the Minister of Supply.
  There is no other reason for the difficulties that have been put in the way of Mr. Hardie's continuance as Chairman of the Corporation other than the political vendetta which has been carried on against the Iron and Steel Corporation for a long time past, and which has culminated under the inauspicious supervision of the present Minister of Supply in this lamentable resignation, which I think is a slur upon a tradition which this country has hitherto held in high regard —the tradition that a man rendering good service to the public shall not be penalised because of his political convictions.
  Several Hon. Member rose—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Robson Brown.
  Hon. Members: The Minister.
  Mr. James H. Hoy: On a point of order. If we are not to have a speech from the Minister of Supply now, can the House have an assurance that at least we shall have a speech from the Prime Minister's son-in-law?
  The Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: There is very strong feeling, I think not only on one side of the House, that the House should be put in possession at the earliest possible moment of many facts of which we are at present unfortunately ignorant. Would it not be possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to speak now, or for the Minister to speak now and the Parliamentary Secretary to wind up the debate? Would not that be convenient from the point of view of both sides of the House?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a matter for me to decide.
  8.36 p.m.
  Mr. Robson Brown: I presume that in this matter there is no need for me to declare my personal interests. I believe that when we have taken out of the debate all the political heat and fervour and got down to the basic facts they are fundamental and simple. If we examine Mr. Hardie's letter, we find that three-quarters of it is devoted to his expression of views and disagreement with regard to the subsidy on steel under present circumstances. I believe that Mr. Hardie did the right and honourable thing which an honourable gentleman would do under such circumstances. I feel in this matter a great sympathy for him, because obviously he has attempted to carry out his duties as Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation honourably and faithfully according to his lights.
  I could criticise, and I may do in my remarks, the fact that there was certainly one judgment carried out during his chairmanship which has had very serious consequences to this country. If we examine the position, I say that it would be intolerable to suggest that the will of one man should be allowed to override what I understand, according to the letter of the Minister of Supply, was a majority view of his own colleagues on the Board.
  Mr. Manuel rose—
  Mr. Robson Brown: Time is going on, and I want to keep my remarks as short as possible. I say, first of all, that no man should attempt to override the majority views of his colleagues on the Iron and Steel Board.
  Mr. Manuel: On that particular point—
  Mr. Robson Brown: I am not going to give way now. I will give way at a suitable opportunity when I have made my point. I repeat, for the sake of clarity, first, that it would be intolerable for any man to override the judgments and the majority view of his colleagues on the Iron and Steel Board secondly, the recommendations of the leaders of the industry itself, and finally, the carefully weighed wishes and conclusions of his Minister and his expert advisers. I say that the overwhelming weight of these three considerations were such that the Chairman of the Board had no other alternative than to resign. At the same time, it is quite natural in the circumstances that he should wish to resign. I see no evidence here of any compulsion or pressure being brought to bear by the Minister on this particular issue. The decisions of the Minister must always be paramount.
  All other considerations apart, the late Minister of Supply himself, in his speech this afternoon, made it perfectly clear that very frequently—I believe he said monthly—he conferred and consulted with the Chairman of the Board—
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: Much more frequently than that.
  Mr. Robson Brown: And he said that the Chairman was not making progress quite enough to satisfy the Minister, obviously showing that he himself was imposing on the Chairman his will, his wishes and desires. The position, so far as the present Minister of Supply is concerned, was made perfectly clear on the Floor of the House at the time the Minister took office. It was done in open and honourable fashion, and if at that time the Chairman had felt any strong desire or reasons for not continuing I say that was the time he should have resigned.
  The late Minister of Supply has claimed for the Steel Board, as it exists today, and its Chairman a completely clear bill of health and has said that there could be no complaint of any kind with regard to judgment or lack of judgment. Whatever omissions and commissions may be discussed at greater length on another occasion, there is one thing relating to Mr. Hardie's chairmanship to which I wish to refer, and that is the scramble for pig-iron and scrap which was allowed between the steel producers and the iron founders during the past
  810
  year. It inevitably meant a fall in the overall output of steel and a considerable increase in the output of pig-iron. The iron founders were allowed to increase output by 260,000 tons, an increase of over 7 per cent.—
  Mr. Strauss: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Member because he is always so fair in his speeches, but I want to put him right on a point of fact. Whatever responsibility may be involved in the point he is now raising—I do not accept that any blame is involved—it would be the responsibility not of the Corporation but of the right hon. Gentleman who is in charge of the Ministry of Supply.
  Mr. Robson Brown: I thank the late Minister for taking his share of responsibility—it is honourable of him to do so —but it does not for a moment alter the facts of my argument and indictment[Interruption.]—May I proceed? The country should be informed of the position and our present Administration ought to take immediate steps to rectify it. I repeat, the iron founders were allowed to increase their output by 260,000 tons last year, an increase of about 7 per cent.—
  Mr. Jack Jones: Is the hon. Member suggesting that, whoever was to blame for the allocation, which gave the iron founders what the hon. Member considers to be a greater proportion of raw materials than they should have had, the material was wasted and is now lying in stock somewhere as finished goods? Is it not a fact that the material produced as a result of the allocation was of vital importance, particularly in connection with castings for the export trade?
  Mr. Woodburn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It has already been explained by my right hon. Friend the former Minister of Supply that this was not the responsibility of Mr. Hardie, and as the debate is concerned with the allegation that the Minister is responsible for forcing Mr. Hardie's resignation, is it in order to discuss the question of iron foundries and their share of the iron resources of the country compared with steel?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): If it is linked with the retirement of Mr. Hardie, it can be discussed.
  Mr. Hale: Further to that point of order. As we have all spoken under an inhibition and have not been allowed to refer to these things, may we seek the leave of the House to address the House again? Also, as the argument of the hon. Member is that some rather dubious responsibility of Mr. Hardie's—the hon. Member always speaks with sincerity but the facts are challenged—may have operated in the mind of the Minister in bringing him to take the decision to force Mr. Hardie's resignation, has not the time come for the Minister to tell us what was in his mind at the time so that we can come to a judgment on the issue?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I cannot answer the second question. The answer to the first question is simple. Anyone can speak twice by leave of the House, but they have, of course, to be called by the Chair first.
  Mr. Robson Brown: I have developed my argument very swiftly. I must now bring it to a conclusion, but all the facts must be available to the House. I always follow with the greatest interest the contributions of the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones), and I should like in the course of my remarks to answer the point that he makes. He asked me what the effect was of allowing increased pig-iron for castings at the expense of finished steel production. The answer is the core to the whole question.
  There was a 7 per cent. increase in the output of the iron foundries and a fall of no less than 655,000 tons in the production of steel. Part of that was due to the diversion of scrap and pig-iron supplies from the steel plants to the iron foundries. The scrap supplies to steel works from home sources alone were reduced by 104,000 tons while the foundries were allowed to have 137,000 tons more. That was an extremely shortsighted policy, for it is well-known—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think this is going beyond the resignation of Mr. Hardie.
  Mr. Robson Brown: I will defer to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I hope I may be permitted to answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham. I would say that it is well known that the use of castings and sheet steel can be varied or alternated without interference in the final product. The
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  position is that one ton of sheet steel can be used against two or three tons of iron castings for the same result. That was the fundamental error on the part of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation.
  In conclusion, not one of these points alters the basic fact that here is a position where the Chairman of the Corporation was in complete conflict with all the other informed elements within the industry and with his Minister. I commend him for resigning as he did. He had no other alternative.
  8.46 p.m.
  Mr. Jack Jones: I rise to support my hon. Friends. This debate will go down as rather important in two respects—first, that we have found at long last a promise that was made now being carried out, the promise made by one hon. Member opposite when he suggested that the Tories would know what to do with the industrial Quislings when they came back to power. The second is that this debate will focus the searchlight of publicity on the whole of this matter.
  The facts appear to be quite plain and simple. The Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation, for whom everybody in this country who knows him has great respect, has resigned for reasons which are known to him and the Corporation. The person who could make the best contribution to this debate would be Mr. Hardie himself, but his position precludes him from so doing. Time alone will bring out the details as to why he resigned.
  The Corporation, with Mr. Hardie in the chair, took office at a time of great difficulty. We were not able to set up a complete Corporation as laid down in the Act. We established a Corporation with the minimum number of people upon it, some of whom were nominated as a matter of legal expediency to make up the number. That left us with two men of experience of the industry who were part-timers, and there has never been full and complete information available to the Corporation on such matters as those about which Mr. Hardie resigned.
  The Corporation has done useful work. From time to time some of us who were entitled to ask questions, not in this place but elsewhere, have found out that the Corporation were making steady and sensible progress in carrying out the Act of Parliament in

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  the interest of those who were primarily concerned, the workers inside the iron and steel industry. This resignation will have a serious effect upon the country, and particularly upon those people who were looking to Mr. Hardie for leadership to improve their lot.
  I have no doubt in my mind what was the reason for the resignation. I do not blame the present Minister of Supply. After all, he is only the tool of a Cabinet which is determined to bring the nationalisation of the steel industry to an end at all costs. He is more to be pitied than blamed in being placed in that rather invidious position. We used to talk about industrial nepotism; now we switch to political nepotism, but that is beside the point.
  My final point is this. Mr. Hardie resigned because of reasons of a serious nature. Nationalisation was making steady progress. For instance, a pool of wealth was created within the industry and the more efficient, richer and larger parts of the industry were compelled by law to contribute to the needs of their unfortunate brothers in the less efficient parts of the industry. There was concentration on such things as education within the industry. I know that the Federation started that, but they just started it before nationalisation. Steady progress was being maintained towards obtaining the ideals that the Bill set out to get. It was so progressive as a matter of fact that the Tory Party decided that it could no longer be allowed to progress any further.
  Those of us who know exactly what is going to happen, know that this potential increase—I cannot really talk about an increase because there is a rumour that in the near future the Government's policy will be designed to skim off the cream of the industry so as to be able to sell to those people under this new increase, with higher profits than otherwise they would have been able to do. I shall have more to say about that when the de-nationalisation Bill is being discussed.
  8.51 p.m.
  Mr. F. J. Erroll: I was interested to hear that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) should know already what is in a Bill which has not yet been published. It would seem that the clairvoyance that
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  one has come to expect from Brixton has spread to the Northern counties as well. It is high time that everybody opposite stuck to the facts and tried to support the Motion which they have brought before the House at very short notice.
  We have heard very little in the way of solid fact in support of the Motion, but a great deal in the way of clairvoyance and supposition. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Hardie was a friend of the Labour Party, and they are extremely upset that he should have tendered his resignation. [An HON. MEMBER: "He has been kicked out"] No. He chose to resign, but it is obvious that he maintains close or underground contact with his friends in the Labour Party in order to choose the moment which, in the opinion of hon. Gentlemen opposite, will do most damage to the Government—
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: On a point of order. The hon. Member has made a very serious allegation against the ex-Chairman of the Corporation. He has suggested that Mr. Hardie has acted quite improperly. I want to know whether a statement of that sort, made in the House, should not be supported fully by evidence, as it is against somebody outside the House, or withdrawn.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not think that a point of order arises.
  Mr. Strauss: May I then address myself to the hon. Gentleman? He has suggested that the ex-Chairman of the Corporation was in secret, underground communication, passing on facts, with people outside the Corporation, which is a most serious allegation. Will the hon. Gentleman either produce facts supporting that allegation or withdraw it, or repeat the allegation outside the House?
  Mr. Erroll: The right hon. Gentleman, who is normally so very fair in raising points of order, is imputing to me words which I did not use. What I said was that Mr. Hardie was in contact with Members of the Labour Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Underground contact."]—certainly, "underground communication" was the phrase—with Members of the Labour Party, so that he could be advised of the right moment at which to tender his resignation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh," and "Withdraw."]—so as to—
  Mr. Strauss: Again I ask whether the hon. Member who has made a statement which appears to me to be highly slanderous, is prepared to repeat the allegation outside the House or to give evidence here and now to support it.
  Mr. Erroll: The invitation to repeat a statement outside the House is an old trick, an old trap, and the right hon. Gentleman should not expect me to fall into it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Then withdraw it."] I am now going on—
  Mr. Manuel: Cheap jack.
  Mr. Erroll: I am now going on—
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order, order, If the hon. Member says anything which I think is out of order, I shall make him withdraw it.
  Mr. Erroll: I am now going on, if hon. Members opposite will allow me to do so.
  Mr. Woodburn: So far as my knowledge goes, and I have some little knowledge, the statement which the hon. Gentleman has made is absolutely untrue.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order, order—
  Mr. Woodburn: I am now putting a question to the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think we should not put things quite so strongly as that—
  Mr. Woodburn: I said, "As far as my knowledge goes." I did not say it was untrue because the hon. Gentleman may have some knowledge which I have not. I think it is hitting below the belt for an hon. Member to take advantage of his position in the House to make a personal attack on a public servant without having the courage to do so outside where it could be answered.
  Mr. Erroll: Hon. Members opposite are at present preventing me from stating my case inside the House and, before they have heard that case, they are challenging me to state it outside. I was interested to learn that Mr. Hardie should have passed on this information and been in communication with the hon. Member who represents a Scottish division—[HON. MEMBERS: "Right hon. Member."] I am sorry, the right hon. Member. Of
  816
  course he was promoted to a more distinguished post in another Department until last November.
  Mr. Woodburn: I understand that the hon. Gentleman is now making an allegation against me, namely, that Mr. Hardie has been in communication with me. I have said that so far as my knowledge goes, and certainly so far as I am concerned, the statement he has made is quite untrue.
  Mr. Erroll: I said that the right hon. Member was kicked upstairs. Perhaps he would tell me I am wrong about that?
  Mr. Manuel: Cheap jack.
  Mr. Erroll: It is quite obvious that Mr. Hardie chose his moment for resignation after consultation with members of his own political party, because he chose to divulge publicly information which was then confidential to him and to members of the Government—
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: May I ask where the hon. Gentleman got that information?
  Mr. Erroll: —and that was obviously a calculated move, designed to force the hand of the Minister of Supply into making a premature disclosure of the order. It was also a breach of that trust which we are entitled to expect from all public servants, whatever political party they may belong to.
  In this matter I want to draw the attention of hon. Members opposite particularly to the completely different behaviour which has been accorded to this Government by the other heads of nationalised undertakings. Since names are being mentioned I want particularly to mention the head of the British Electricity Authority, a devoted member of the Labour Party, who has conducted the work of his great State monopoly with singular propriety, intelligence and statesmanship. He has found no difficulty in Collaborating with a Conservative Government and in maintaining his independence and position. I suggest to hon. Members opposite that if they want a standard of conduct in these matters they must look outside the Iron and Steel Corporation.
  Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman is the last person to talk about standards of conduct.
  Mr. Erroll: We know perfectly well that Mr. Hardie, in vainly attempting to hold down prices, as it is said he has claimed, was merely using a convenient opportunity to get out of a situation which did not suit him at all. We know furthermore that it will not be long before the Party opposite gives him his due reward, namely, a safe seat in a Labour constituency.
  Sir Hartley Shawcross: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I am genuinely a little concerned about this matter. Is it in order for an hon. Member of this House to make charges against a person in regard to the discharge of his duties whilst a public servant which, if not amounting to the commission of a criminal offence—as I think the charges of the hon. Member did—are at any rate charges of gross impropriety, without adducing a shred, a rag or a tittle of evidence in support of them?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The procedure of the House is that we always try to make ourselves responsible for any statements we make.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Aneurin Bevan rose—
  Mr. Sandys rose—
  Mr. Bevan: On a point of order. The reason I have risen now and not given way to the Minister is because I suspected him of a trick. He has treated the House with gross discourtesy. He could have spoken much earlier. I hope that before I conclude I may be able to convince hon. Members opposite that this matter is a little more serious than they seem to think.
  First, we have just heard from the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) a complete disclosure of the psychology of the Tory mind. He has practically admitted that it is the normal practice of Tory industrialists to betray industrial secrets to their political party. That is the only significance that one can attach to what the hon. Member has just said about the conduct of Mr. Hardie. He has, without the slightest piece of evidence, dared to suggest to the House that a great public servant, occupying a position of immense responsibility, has entered into a squalid conspiracy so as to time his resignation—[HON. MEMBERS: "That is true."]—from his office in order
  818
  to get the utmost political capital for the party to which he belongs—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and that has been said to the House of Commons without the hon. Member giving one single fact upon which to base it. In very nearly 23 years in the House of Commons, I have heard nothing dirtier than that. Indeed, if hon. Members opposite are not shocked by its immorality, it is because it is their normal conduct.
  I have been listening to the debate from the very beginning with a great deal of anxiety. With some of the debate, with some of the speeches on this side of the House, I have not agreed. It has seemed to me to be dangerous to suggest that the Minister responsible for a Department—which means the House of Commons, eventually, because his responsibility is the responsibility of the House —is a less fit person to judge the national interests than the chairman of a corporation. In so far as Mr. Hardie has set himself up—I do not think he has; but in so far as he suggests in his correspondence that he is a better judge of the national interest than is the Minister of Supply, Mr. Hardie claims too much.
  The responsibility of deciding what is in the overriding interests of the nation rests with the Minister, because only by it resting with him can it rest here. Once we deny to the Minister of Supply, or to any other Minister responsible for a great nationalised undertaking, the right to determine what he thinks to be in the national interests, then we are erecting a species of the corporate society more familiar to Italian Fascist principles than to the British democratic Constitution. I have always denied the right of these great corporations to decide such issues.
  We cannot discuss the price of steel—I am not proposing to discuss it—although I have never known the House of Commons being put in a more embarrassing position. I do not want to accuse the Minister of Supply of deliberate deception, but I do accuse him of crass incompetence that he dares to suggest that Mr. Speaker's Ruling should be guided by an Order that he has not yet made available to hon. Members of the House.
  While I entirely agree with him that it is for him to advise the House as to what is in the national interest, it is for us to

  819
  make a judgment whether the Prime Minister has been wise in his selection of the Minister of Supply. I am bound to say to him that I have been watching him, as we all have, with great interest. I saw nothing in his previous Parliamentary career to justify his appointment as a Parliamentary Secretary, and I have seen nothing in his conduct this evening that convinces me, or would convince any other objective person here, that as Minister of Supply he is worthy of his task.
  We must in this House speak with the utmost frankness, and I do not mind hon. Members opposite speaking with equal frankness. I suggest seriously to the House that a Minister, young in his position, should have sought the earliest possibility of putting before the House all the evidence he has to enable us to reach a conclusion without having this unnecessary discussion for three hours.
  The reason I rose to my feet is that the Minister said that he had heard nothing in the course of the discussion which would lead him to suppose that he had any case to answer. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am bound to say to hon. Members that I would think very carefully before cheering that statement. I represent an iron and steel coal constituency. Miners and steelworkers will read this debate with close attention. We had a discussion the other day in which every hon. Member was seized with the seriousness of the economic difficulties in which this nation is placed, and no one will deny that. We are receiving letters on that all day. I have received a request quite recently asking me to go down to address meetings, very large meetings, of members of trade unions who want to take industrial action in order to influence the decisions of this House. I deplore that.
  Mr. H. Fraser: I see there is a group called the "Tribune Group" who have been attacked this very day by Mr. Deakin.
  Mr. Bevan: I have never heard a cheaper retort. I say at once, because I am not to be taunted by such impudent interjections, that I believe it would be a profound mistake for the trade union masses of this country by direct industrial action to try to influence the course of
  820
  Parliamentary legislation. If the hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. H. Fraser) had been more patient and less anxious to sneer, he would have waited for the end of the sentence. I believe that it would be mistaken, but I am bound to ask the House this question.
  When I go to speak to steelworkers and miners and ask them to refrain from striking to prevent the Government from doing what they have no mandate to do, what am I to reply when they quote the speech of the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Summers), who practically admitted that he remained a member of a nationalised industry in order to sabotage that industry? I am bound to ask hon. Members opposite what reply are we to give when they put together the speeches of the new Prime Minister in which he attacked a person because, being rich, he became a Socialist and then allowed himself to be chairman of a nationalised board, and when that person himself in his own letter states that his position has been made intolerable by the son-in-law of the Prime Minister? I warn hon. Members that they are really playing with dynamite.
  I do not support Mr. Hardie when he sets himself up as an equal constitutional authority, but that is not the issue before us. The issue before us is that the steelmasters—Steel House—always tried to use their industrial power to prevent this House from nationalising the industry. That has never been denied. We had the evidence in the last Parliament. Today we have the evidence again. My right hon. Friend the former Minister of Supply said this afternoon that the case against Mr. Hardie was that he broke the strike of Steel House. We now have the evidence that they remained there to foul the nest, disguised under the patriarchal language of maintaining the virginity of their family business.
  Here we have a charge in the mouth of Mr. Hardie, who says in other words that the Minister of Supply, who now for five months has been unable to present this House with the Government's proposals about steel, is not ready yet. But 1945 the Prime Minister moved a vote of censure within six weeks of the then Government taking office. Here the Prime Minister has merely bargained for the purchase of steel from America under humiliating conditions. The resigned Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corpora-

  821
  tion accuses the Minister of Supply, in other words, of spending five months, not in making steel nationalisation a success, but in sabotaging it in the interests of a Bill that he has not yet hatched.
  It is the duty of a Minister of the Crown to have views as to what should be done on grounds of high policy but until his views are made known it is his duty to make every other enactment as efficient as possible. Instead of that, the Conservative Party and the right hon. Gentleman, although they make statements to the country about the denationalisation of steel, have not yet brought forward concrete proposals: but in the meantime, while the country and industry are languishing for steel, they use their political power to make it more difficult for the industry to carry on.
  I must say that even I never thought that class warfare would be carried on so nakedly as that. Nevertheless, the view that most of us—all of us—take on this side of the House is that workers outside should not allow themselves to follow that example, because before very long—long before hon. Members now think—the country will have a further opportunity of reconsidering its verdict—long before, because never in the history of the House of Commons, certainly never in my experience, have I known a Government in which all the appearance of senile decay was so evident.
  9.15 p.m.
  The Minister of Supply (Mr. Duncan Sandys): It is alleged in this Motion that by my action I forced the resignation of Mr. Hardie as Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. I have been criticised during the debate for not speaking earlier, but I think that anyone who has been sitting through this debate will agree with me that I was obliged to wait—and I have waited long —in order to hear the case being made out against me.
  I have listened attentively and patiently throughout this debate, but I must say that I have not heard one single argument or fact advanced which was relevant to this Motion and which supported the contention that I forced Mr. Hardie's resignation. From some of the speeches one would have thought hon. Members opposite had not even read the exchange of correspondence which took place on the subject.
  822
  A number of hon. Members have said some pretty rough personal things, but I do not propose to follow their example by entering into personalities, either about hon. Members opposite, or about the persons involved in this affair.
  The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), in moving this Motion, read some extracts from Mr. Hardie's resignation letter. Failing any arguments or statements from the party opposite during the course of the debate, I propose to take as my text Mr. Hardie's letter of resignation, and to answer it point by point to make clear what happened and what did not happen.
  The first point made in Mr. Hardie's letter of resignation was this, and I quote from it. He referred to,
  "… differences in policy in regard to prices and other fundamental matters apparent between us in recent conferences."
  As I said in my reply to Mr. Hardie, which was published in the Press, there have been, and I repeat it emphatically in the House tonight, no differences of policy whatsoever between the Corporation and myself. I emphasise the word "Corporation." I will try to satisfy the House on this point by dealing with the various allegations which have been contained in Mr. Hardie's letter of resignation and give all the specific points.
  In his letter Mr. Hardie wrote:
  "I have protested against the decision to place on the steel producers heavy levies to meet the cost of imported manufactured steel."
  This issue must be divided into two parts. The first is the question of the levy on finished steel. The other is the question of the levy on imported crude steel, semis and raw materials.
  Mr. Woodburn: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one question? He says that there has been no disagreement between the Corporation and himself on any matter of policy. I gather he is now going on to discuss the levy of steel. But may I put this question: in Mr. Hardie's letter, as I understood it, there was a statement in regard to directives issued by the Minister—
  Mr. Sandys: I said I was going to deal with every point in Mr. Hardie's letter, and I propose to do so.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman was going on to discuss the increase in the

  823
  maximum prices of steel, and that section of the increase which arises from the import of steel into this country. I thought that was quite clear. I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker, since we have strong views on that matter which we did not put forward, whether the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to put forward this argument now.
  Mr. Speaker: In answer to that point of order, I think the position is perfectly plain. It will be out of order to argue either for or against the increases in the price of steel, because that will be subject to debate when the Order comes to be discussed, but it is quite in order for the right hon. Gentleman, in reply to the speeches that have been made, to narrate the history of this affair as part of his statement, without arguing the merits of the increase or the opposite. I think that is exactly what the House would desire.
  Mr. Sandys: I was not even proposing to relate the history. All I was going to say was that there was only one exception to what I have said with regard to there being no difference on policy between myself and the Corporation, and that was on the question of the levy on finished steel. That is a difference which existed, as I explained at Question time today, between the Corporation and the late Government, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite knows.
  The late Government decided to abolish the subsidy on imported finished steel. The Corporation disagreed with that decision, and asked us to reverse that decision. The present Government, for the same reason as the late Government, decided to adhere to the existing policy and not to reintroduce the subsidy. That is the only matter of policy on which there was a disagreement between myself and the Corporation.
  The other half of this problem of the levy does not concern finished steel, but imported crude steel, "semis" and raw materials. On that issue, the Corporation—I say again, the Corporation—as distinct from Mr. Hardie, were agreed that the levy for these purposes should be raised on the industry and should be reflected in prices.
  Mr. Manuel rose—
  Mr. Sandys: As I have already indicated, the Corporation agreed with the
  824
  Government on this question, but Mr. Hardie made it clear that he himself was not in agreement with the views of the Corporation.
  The next point raised in Mr. Hardie's letter to me related to raw materials. He said:
  "I have urged steps, and offered my aid, to rectify the severe shortage of raw materials."
  One would have thought on reading that passage in his letter that Mr. Hardie and the Corporation had put forward to me a whole series of important recommendations as to how we could deal with this crucial, critical and urgent shortage in the supply of raw materials. But not at all. That was not at all the position. All that has happened is that there have been a few rather vague letters and conversations. I have pressed the Corporation to give me further and more specific and detailed recommendations for action, so that I could consider what could be done, but, time and again, I have had no response to my requests for detailed and specific proposals.
  In November, for example, the Chairman of the Corporation wrote to me about raw materials, and made certain proposals. I will explain them to the House. In the first place, he proposed that the Corporation should take over control of B.I.S.C. and B.I.S.C. (Ore). I immediately discussed this matter with Mr. Hardie, because it seemed to me one which should receive immediate attention. It is a very important decision to take, to abolish the common purchasing organisation of a great industry and to hand it over to another organisation.
  I asked Mr. Hardie if he would explain to me in what way B.I.S.C. was failing in its duty. In our discussions he was quite unable to give me any explanation whatsoever, except to express his dissatisfaction with it. I am not asking the House simply to take my view as to what happened in the conversation. I asked the Chairman of the Corporation if he would be good enough to consider the matter more closely and to write to me explaining how he considered that the existing organisation was failing in its duty. I received no further communication from him on that subject.
  The only really concrete proposal supported by arguments, which was put forward to me by the Corporation to secure greater supplies of raw materials

  825
  was in relation to Sierra Leone. Mr. Hardie came to see me and emphasised the importance of our taking action to secure larger supplies of the iron ore which is mined in Sierra Leone and, if possible, to get not only increased production there but also a greater proportion of the iron ore produced in that Country. As a matter of fact, before Mr. Hardie's visit, I had already arranged to see the Chairman of the Sierra Leone Development Company, which owns the iron ore concession in that country, but I was glad to know that the Corporation agreed with us about the importance of this proposal.
  I had a long discussion with the Chairman of this Company, and we have had correspondence since. I hope that this will lead to satisfactory results not only in the expansion of production, if possible, from existing mines but also, possibly, in the development of other mines in that area. That is the only concrete proposal, as far as I can see—and I have looked through all our files—which was made to me by Mr. Hardie on behalf of the Corporation on the question of raw materials.
  Let me make it plain straight away that the Government are not sheltering behind the Corporation's failure to put forward concrete proposals about raw materials. We recognise fully the immense importance and urgency of increasing the supply of raw materials for steel making at this critical time. All I can say is that in a short period the Government have achieved considerable results in obtaining more steel and steel making materials. I ask the House to agree with me that what has been achieved in this field by the Prime Minister's visit to Washington and in other ways compares extremely favourably with the results achieved by the Party opposite when they were in power.
  I should like to remind the House that when the late Chancellor of the Exchequer went to the United States last September he tried to negotiate the importation from America of some 800,000 tons of steel during 1952. He secured about 125,000 tons for the first quarter of this year, but he was unable of get any firm commitments beyond that.
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: As my right hon. Friend is not here to put this question himself, would the Minister agree that the
  826
  agreement finally concluded later on by the present Prime Minister was in fact the agreement which my right hon. Friend started to negotiate? The exchange of metals was discussed. It is true that no conclusion was at that time reached, but megotiations were well under way for some such agreement as was concluded dater on by the present Prime Minister.
  Mr. Sandys: That does surprise me after the right hon. Gentleman himself, only a few days ago, made a speech in a debate in this House, criticising the whole of this agreement.
  Mr. Strauss: The right hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. I think I said twice in the course of that speech that this agreement was to be welcomed in this House and that it was welcomed by the Opposition. There were some objectionable features to it which I discussed, but I never said the agreement as a whole was a bad one.
  Mr. Sandys: I was present during the debate and I did not form the impression that the agreement generally commended itself to the right hon. Gentleman. I should say that the Prime Minister's recent negotiations in Washington secured—[Interruption.] What I am saying goes far nearer to the Motion than most of the speeches of hon. Members opposite. The point I am making, which is strictly relevant to this debate, is that the Government have been active in trying to secure more raw materials, which is one of the points Mr. Hardie criticised.
  Mr. Paget: Was that necessitated by the inefficiency of the B.I.S.C.?
  Mr. Sandys: In his recent negotiations in Washington the Prime Minister obtained a firm promise for the equivalent of one million tons of steel—about 800,000 tons of steel and about 200,000 tons of pig iron and scrap.
  Over and above this, the American steel industry agreed to make available to us some 750,000 tons of iron ore—the equivalent of another 250,000 tons of steel. Therefore I maintain that this Government cannot be criticised and that in fact they can be proud of their achievements in obtaining raw materials.
  Moreover, as a result of negotiations with other countries our imports of steelmaking raw materials are going to be substantially greater in 1952 than they

  827
  were in 1951. The Government have been active and successful in trying to get more raw materials.
  Mr. Manuel: On a point of order. I would, with respect, Mr. Speaker, ask you to give a Ruling on whether we are discussing the record of the Government in its steel purchases in America or the case of Mr. Hardie and his resignation.
  Mr. Speaker: So far as the record of the Government in acquiring raw materials is relevant to the Motion, it is quite in order.
  Mr. Sandys: Another proposal put forward in a very vague way to me by Mr. Hardie was that I should give my approval to what he described as a "scheme of decentralisation." The object of this was to group various companies. I cannot describe it in greater detail because I was not given any. My reply to his proposal was that, before giving my approval, I must have in writing from Mr. Hardie more details of the scheme, and be told in particular on what principles it was to be based. I wrote to Mr. Hardie asking him to let me have fuller details in writing and a more precise explanation of the scheme. Mr. Hardie replied that he was not prepared to commit himself to any particular grouping scheme until he had consulted the publicly-owned companies. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am not complaining, but after receiving that letter I did expect that he would consult the publicly-owned companies and would write to me again about it. In point of fact, he never communicated with me again on the subject.
  Mr. I. O. Thomas: On a point of order. When the Minister makes a statement of fact like that, does he not owe a duty to the House to give the dates on which those happenings took place?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Thomas: What were the dates?
  Mr. Sandys: I have not got the dates
  Mr. Paget: On a point of order—
  Mr. Sandys: I have just been handed them.
  Mr. Paget: On a point of order. When the Minister refers to a document, is it not his duty to lay that document before the House?
  Mr. Speaker: The Minister merely said in general terms that there was correspondence; that he wrote this and that. That is not mentioning a document which has to be produced. I would ask the House to remember that the right hon. Gentleman has been the subject of considerable criticism during this Adjournment Motion, and it is surely his right to get a fair hearing.
  Mr. Sandys: I have since found what the date was. I thought I had not got it. The date of Mr. Hardie's reply is 3rd December. I hope hon. Members opposite feel satisfied and relieved by that.
  The next point to which I should like to refer, and which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), is the question of development. Mr. Hardie complained to me in a letter of the delays which had occurred over the development schemes of the industry—I understand that to a large extent the complaints related to a period some way back—and suggested that the Corporation should completely control the development of the industry. I invited Mr. Hardie to say in what way the Corporation had not already got full control of the development of the publicly-owned companies since it seemed to me it already had complete and absolute control, and what action he recommended in order to accelerate development. Mr. Hardie, as in other cases, was not able to put forward any concrete proposals at the meeting, nor did he follow it up with any subsequent correspondence.
  Now I turn to the effect of my direction upon the Corporation. Mr. Hardie, in his letter of resignation, wrote to me:
  "In my opinion the combined effect of the direction, dated 13th November, 1951, given by you to the Corporation, the statement you made to the House of Commons at the time, and your policy towards the Corporation since, is to prevent me from carrying out my duties and responsiblities as Chairman of the Corporation."
  Let us be clear about the purpose of the direction given on 13th November. The purpose of that direction was to ensure that the Government would be consulted before any important change was made in the financial structure or

  829
  management of the industry. The right hon. Gentleman said today that the direction amounted to my saying to the Corporation, "Stop everything; do nothing," but nothing could be further from the truth.
  I would remind the House of what was said in the debate on the King's Speech on 12th November. In the course of my speech, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) interrupted me—I had just read the text of the direction—and said:
  "The right hon. Gentleman has read the statement which he proposes to issue as a direction to the Corporation. Am I right in assuming that that means that until this House and Parliament pass the new Bill, if they do, the Corporation are told, You must do nothing; you must make no changes at all—not even the plans you contemplated'?"
  to which I replied:
  "The direction does not say that at all. It says that the Government must be consulted before further changes are made so that we shall have the opportunity of judging whether the changes contemplated are likely to frustrate the intention of the Government and of the majority of the Members of this House." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th November, 1951; Vol. 493, c. 673.]
  Hon. Members: Oh!
  Mr. Sandys: That seems to me a perfectly proper attitude to adopt. I would like the House to know how this direction in fact operates. I expected that some major issues might arise which I would have to consider and that there might be disagreement—but not at all; nothing but a whole series of small points were put to me, many of which perhaps need not have been put to me at all. I welcome the fact that the Corporation took no risks in this matter and did submit quite a number of points to me. I will give the facts to the House. Since I issued the direction the Corporation has put 18 proposals to me of which I approved 13. I held three in abeyance for further consideration and I refused my consent to two.
  The two cases I will give to the House. The first was a proposal to remove three directors of Guest Keen and Baldwins, and six directors of Guest Keen and Nettlefolds. I did not give my consent to those changes. The second proposal which I did not accept was the proposal to order the Santon Mining Company to sell some securi-
  830
  ties of a nominal value of £19,000 which, so far as I could see, the company did not wish to sell. I did not think that that was a matter in which the Corporation should have intervened, and I refused my consent. Those are the only two points on which I did not give my consent as a result of the direction, apart from the three which I am still considering. I leave it to the House to judge whether those two points are of such magnitude as to justify Mr. Hardie's sweeping statement that my direction prevented him from carrying out his duties.
  Now I come to the question of the alleged disagreement over the increase in prices. I am precluded by your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, from going into the whole question of prices and the merits or demerits of the proposals, but I should just like to read what Mr. Hardie himself said in his letter to me. He said:
  "… I have expressed to you my strong views against the Government's decision to increase maximum prices of iron and steel, especially in view of the large increase in the profits of the publicly-owned companies …"
  Hon. Members will observe that he said "my." Mr. Hardie said:
  "… I have expressed to you my strong views …"
  He did not say "the Corporation's strong views." That is the key to the whole issue.
  The Corporation has agreed the new prices which are contained in the Order, and it was Mr. Hardie himself who informed me, in front of the other members of the Corporation, of the Corporation's decision to agree to these prices. At the same time, however, he stated to me that he had been outvoted by his colleagues.
  Mr. Manuel: The right hon. Gentleman has said that the Corporation agreed to the increased prices. Does that mean that he would have accepted the vote if the Corporation had disagreed with them?
  Mr. Sandys: I am stating a fact, and it is that the Corporation informed me of their agreement with the increased prices. To my mind, that is a very important factor.
  It seemed not to be admitted by the party opposite that there was any disagreement between Mr. Hardie and the

  831
  Corporation. If there are any doubts about that, I hope the House will be kind enough to pay attention to the most recent letter which I received from Mr. Hardie acknowledging my letter accepting his resignation. This passage appears in it:
  "There was no reason for me"—
  that is, Mr. Hardie—
  "to give publicity to any differences of opinion there may have been between me and some of my colleagues.…"
  If hon. Members require it, that is complete confirmation of what I said in my letter, namely, that there was a difference of opinion between Mr. Hardie and the members of the Corporation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) said that if Mr. Hardie was out-voted by the Corporation and had therefore lost the support of the Corporation, he would have had to resign. That is just what happened.
  Mr. Woodburn: When I ventured to intervene before the right hon. Gentleman promised to refer to the matter again. He has said there was never any disagreement in policy between himself and the Corporation. he has not explained whether the Corporation agreed with the policy in that direction for a standstill. I would be glad if he would answer that one.
  Mr. Sandys: I think that is rather a red herring, if I may say so. All I can say is that I did not have one word of protest from the Corporation about it, but that does not necessarily mean that they welcomed it. If that had been the trouble surely Mr. Hardie would have resigned last November.
  The fact that there was a disagreement and that Mr. Hardie no longer commanded a majority in the Corporation was, of course, the real reason for his resignation, and all the alleged differences between the Corporation and myself are nothing more than a smoke screen. I repeat finally, the differences on which Mr. Hardie resigned were differences between himself and the Corporation, and not differences between myself and the Corporation. Having lost the support of his colleagues on this vital issue of prices, Mr. Hardie—and I agree with him
  832
  entirely—took the only right and proper course by resigning—
  Mr. Edelman rose—
  Mr. Sandys: No.
  He took the only right and proper course by resigning and to suggest that I forced his resignation is without any foundation, without the slightest vestige of truth, and is unsupported by a single fact or argument advanced during this debate.
  Mr. Edelman: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, I should like him to deal with one point. He has spoken about the vote inside the Corporation. Will he say whether Mr. Hardie was alone in opposing the Government on that question of price, or whether he had any support within the Corporation, and is not Mr. Hardie's complaint also that those who voted for an increase in price were acting under the duress and discipline of the right hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Sandys: I will reply to that. All I know is what Mr. Hardie told me himself officially at this meeting. He said that he wished to make it quite clear that this decision had been taken against his advice and against his wishes and that he himself had been out-voted. I did not inquire whether any other members of the Corporation had been out-voted or not.
  9.54 p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: The Minister has treated the House with contempt. For some time he has been reading from letters—[Interruption.] Now that we have only five minutes of this debate left, quite obviously hon. Members opposite are doing their utmost to try to prevent anyone who replies from being heard. The Minister said, "How can it be said that I frustrated Mr. Hardie when I only refused two of his requests which he submitted to me?" Did the Minister seriously think that Mr. Hardie or the Corporation were going to waste time putting before the Minister proposals which they knew he would not accept, quite apart from the fact that he made this gratuitous direction—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Hale: On a point of order. You did appeal for silence for the Minister, Mr. Speaker. Is my hon. and learned Friend not to be heard?
  Mr. Speaker: I have called "Order" several times. I ask that the remaining minutes of this debate be conducted with decorum.
  Mr. Paget: The Minister starts off by saying, as his very first action when he is new in office, that he has given a general direction to this Corporation that every proposal for re-organisation must be brought to him. He made it perfectly obvious—let us cut away the nonsense that we have been hearing—that the Minister and his party were going to do their utmost to frustrate what the Corporation were doing. The duty imposed upon the Corporation by Act of Parliament is to make the steel re-organisation scheme work, but the Minister has done his utmost to put every frustration in the way.
  It is a bad time to try to introduce into a political conflict industrial matters, and
  to carry on industrially the vendetta which the Prime Minister declared against Mr. Hardie when he compared Mr. Hardie to Herr Krupp. We know the viciousness which the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister have shown towards Mr. Hardie from the day of his appointment. All this has now been brought to its climax. We are now told by the Minister, "I wanted to co-operate with him." That is what the Minister is trying to say now, but it is the most—
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn)rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put accordingly, "That this House do now adjourn."
  The House divided: Ayes, 203; Noes. 250.

  Division No. 31.]

  AYES

  (10.0 p.m.

  Acland, Sir Richard

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Albu, A. H.

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)

  Ewart, R.

  Lewis, Arthur

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Field, Capt. W. J.

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

  Ayles, W. H.

  Fienburgh, W.

  Logan, D. G.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)

  MacColl, J. E.

  Baird, J.

  Follick, M.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Foot, M. M.

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Bence, C. R.

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  McLeavy, F.

  Benson, G.

  Freeman, John (Watford)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Beswick, F.

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)

  Gibson, C. W.

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Bing, G. H. C.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Wakefield)

  Manuel, A. C.

  Blackburn, F.

  Grey, C. F.

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Blenkinsop, A.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Mayhew, C. P.

  Boardman, H.

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Mellish, R. J.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Messer, F.

  Bowden, H. W.

  Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Bowles, F. G.

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth

  Hannan, W.

  Monslow, W

  Brockway, A. F.

  Hargreaves, A.

  Morley, R.

  Brook, Dryden (Halifax)

  Hastings, S.

  Morrison, Rt Hon. H. (Lewisham, S.)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Moyle, A

  Callaghan, L. J.

  Healey, Denis (Leeds, S.E.)

  Mulley, F. W.

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)

  Murray, J. D

  Champion, A. J.

  Herbison, Miss M.

  Nally, W

  Chapman, W. D.

  Hobson, C. R.

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Holman, P.

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Clunie, J.

  Houghton, Douglas

  Oliver, G. H.

  Cooks, F. S.

  Hoy, J. H.

  Orbach, M.

  Coldrick, W.

  Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)

  Oswald, T.

  Collick, P. H.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Padley, W. E.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire

  Paget, R. T.

  Cove, W. G.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.).

  Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Pannell, Charles

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Pargiter, G. A

  Daines, P.

  Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)

  Paton, J.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Peart, T. F.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)

  Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)

  Popplewell, E.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Porter, G.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Jones, David (Hartlepool)

  Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)

  Deer, G.

  Jones, Frederick Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Dodds, N. N.

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Reeves, J.

  Donnelly, D. L.

  Keenan, W.

  Reid, Thomas (Swindon)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W

  Reid, William (Camlachie)

  Edelman, M. Eden, Rt. Hon. A.

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Rhodes, H.

  Edwards, John (Brighouse)

  Kinley, J.

  Richards, R.

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

  Stross, Dr. Barnett

  Wigg, G. E. C.

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras. N.)

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Swingler, S. T.

  Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)

  Ross, William

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)

  Royle, C.

  Taylor, Rt. Hon. Robert (Morpeth)

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Schofield, S. (Barnsley)

  Thomas, David (Aberdare)

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)

  Shackleton, E. A. A.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Williams, Ronald (Wigan)

  Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley

  Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)

  Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas(Don V'll'y)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Thurtle, Ernest

  Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)

  Short, E. W.

  Tomney, F.

  Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)

  Silverman, Julius (Erdington)

  Turner-Samuels, M.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Viant, S. P.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Slater, J.

  Wallace, H. W.

  Yates, V. F.

  Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)

  Weitzman, D.

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Snow, J. W.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Sparks, J. A.

  Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Mr. Pearson and Mr. Holmes.

  Strachey, Rt. Hon, J.

  White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  NOES

  Aitken, W. T.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Keeling, Sir Edward

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm

  Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Lambert, Hon. G.

  Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)

  Drewe, C.

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.

  Dugdale, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir T.(Richmond)

  Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

  Arbuthnot, John

  Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)

  Duthie, W. S.

  Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)

  Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)

  Eccles, Rt. Hon. D. M.

  Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.

  Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Lindsay, Martin

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Erroll, F. J.

  Linstead, H. N.

  Banks, Col. C.

  Fell, A.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)

  Barber, A. P. L.

  Finlay, Graeme

  Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Barlow, Sir John

  Fisher, Nigel

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Baxter, A. B.

  Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

  Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S.W.)

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Fletcher, Walter (Bury)

  Low, A. R. W.

  Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)

  Fort, R.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Foster, John

  McAdden, S. J.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)

  McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.

  Birch, Nigel

  Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell

  Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Gage, C. H.

  McKibbin, A. J.

  Black, C. W.

  Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)

  MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Boothby, R. J. G

  Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

  Bossom, A. C.

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)

  Bowen, E. R.

  George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd

  Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)

  Boyd-Carpenter, J A.

  Godber, J. B.

  Markham, Major S. F.

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Braine, B. R.

  Gower, H. R.

  Marples, A. E.

  Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

  Graham, Sir Fegus

  Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)

  Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Maude, Angus

  Brooman-White, R. C.

  Hare, Hon. J. H.

  Maudling, R.

  Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)

  Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C

  Bullard, D. G.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Medlicott, Brig. F

  Bullock, Capt. M.

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Mellor, Sir John

  Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

  Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

  Molson, A. H. E

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Harvie-Watt, Sir George

  Monckton, Rt. Hon Sir Walter

  Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Hay, John

  Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir Thomas

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Heald, Sir Lionel

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Carson, Hon. E.

  Heath, Edward

  Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Nabarro, G. D. N

  Channon, H.

  Higgs, J. M. C.

  Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.

  Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)

  Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.

  Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)

  Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W)

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Nutting, Anthony

  Cole, Norman

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Oakshott, H. D

  Colegate, W. A.

  Hollis, M. C.

  Odey, G. W.

  Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

  Hope, Lord John

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Antrim, N.)

  Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

  Hopkinson, Henry

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

  Cooper-Key, E. M.

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Horobin, I. M.

  Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Howard, Greville (St. Ives)

  Partridge, E

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

  Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

  Peake, Rt. Hon. O.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Crouch, R. F.

  Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.

  Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

  Crowder, John E. (Finchley)

  Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)

  Peyton, J. W. W.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Davies, Rt. Hn. Clement (Montgomery)

  Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.

  Pilkington, Capt. H. A

  De la Bére, R.

  Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich)

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Deedes, W. F.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)

  Digby, S. Wingfield

  Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Donaldson, Comdr. C. E. McA.

  Jones, A. (Hall Green)

  Profumo, J. D.

  836

  837

  Raikes, H. V.

  Spearman, A. C. M.

  Turton, R. H.

  Rayner, Brig. R

  Speir, R. M.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Redmayne, M.

  Spent, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)

  Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.

  Remnant, Hon. P.

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Vosper, D. F.

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Stevens, G. P.

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Roberts, Maj. Peter (Heeley)

  Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)

  Walker-Smith, D. C.

  Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

  Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

  Robson-Brown, W.

  Storey, S.

  Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)

  Roper, Sir Harold

  Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)

  Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)

  Watkinson, H. A.

  Russell, R. S.

  Studholme, H. G.

  Webbe, Sir H. (London & Westminster)

  Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.

  Summers, G. S.

  Wellwood, W.

  Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur

  Sutcliffe, H.

  White, Baker (Canterbury)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)

  Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)

  Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)

  Teeling, W.

  Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)

  Scott, R. Donald

  Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Wills, G.

  Shepherd, William

  Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)

  York, C.

  Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)

  Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.

  Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)

  Touche, G. C.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Snadden, W. McN.

  Turner, H. F. L.

  Brigadier Mackeson and Mr. Butcher.

  Resolution agreed to.

  TOWN DEVELOPMENT BILL
  Postponed Proceeding on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," resumed.
  Question again proposed.
  10.10 p.m.
  Mr. Sparks: Before the debate was interrupted—
  Mr. James Simmons: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. Do I understand that we are continuing the debate on the Town Development Bill, although it is not included in the Motion suspending the Standing Order?
  Mr. Speaker: In answer to that question, Standing Order No. 9, under which we have recently been operating, provides that the time taken up by discussing the Motion for the Adjournment shall be added on to the time for discussion of the Bill and so the Bill will be open to discussion for another three hours.
  Mr. Sparks: Before the interruption of the debate on this Bill, I attempted to explain to the House one or two weaknesses which appeared to exist in the Bill. I wanted to give some idea of the problems of London and of those localities known as congested areas where there is serious over-population. I said that I believed there were two principal weaknesses in the Bill; first, there was no provision for decentralisation of industrial concentrations, and secondly, there were no powers given to local authorities to control the accommodation vacated by an exported population. I said it was important for us to realise the causes of congestion and over-population if we are to remedy that state of affairs, for the Bill
  838
  is put before the House as a major contribution to the relief of congestion in built-up areas and for the relief of over-population.
  What are the causes of congestion and over-population? I think it will be realised that congestion in built-up areas is due very largely to intense industrial concentration or over-industrialisation, and wherever we have heavy industrial concentration we have overcrowding and congestion, one of the problems to which this Bill seeks to provide a solution. It is my contention that the Bill does not deal with the main essential causes of congestion and over-population in so far that it makes no contribution whatever to the decentralisation of industry in those areas where congestion and over-population arise.
  My constituency has had experience of this. It is one of the most heavily industrialised constituencies in the southern part of England. In my constituency there are more than 500 factories of one kind or another; the area is built up, with a serious housing problem, and there is no possibility of dealing adequately with it unless there is power to export our surplus population to other regions, as provided in the Bill.
  I want the House to realise the problem. Thousands of people might be sent to these expanded towns from areas which are congested and yet congestion would remain for the simple reason that we have found it almost impossible by voluntary means to persuade industrial enterprises to leave the congested areas and go to the new and expanded towns and there provide employment for the exported population.

  839
  Consequently, everyone who has had experience of this problem will agree that there is no way of effecting industrial concentration which causes congestion except by more compulsory power exerted by the Government and by the payment of adequate compensation to terms which may be displaced. The position is that many thousands of people may be exported from the congested areas, but if the industrial concentrations remain as they were, the places of those people will promptly be taken by immigrants coming into the area to take employment in the various factories in which the vacancies arise.
  Therefore, it does not matter what these industrial areas do in the way of exporting their population, their problem remains the same because emigration is followed by the immigration of people taking the places in the factories of those who have already moved away. So this is a never-ending problem.
  When we discuss this question of industrial decentralisation and the export of population, and when one talks to industrialists about decentralising their industries and going into the new towns or elsewhere, they say, "Take your population there first so that when our factories come we shall have a labour force available." Yet when one goes to the population concerned they say "Take your industries there first so that when we go there there will be a job for us." It is like the ancient problem, which came first, the hen or the egg?
  Unless we have some power, either within this Bill or by some other means to bring about industrial decentralisation from the congested areas so that as the population migrate to other parts industry goes with them, we cannot hope effectively to reduce the congestion and densities in the built-up areas.
  There is a second very important point. There is no power in this Bill for local authorities to control the accommodation made vacant by an exported population. Population can be exported and the accommodation they previously occupied will be re-occupied by outsiders coming into the areas to take the places and jobs in the factories of those who have gone.
  We have to face the essence of the problem, and it is no use the right hon. Gentleman thinking that the Government
  840
  will persuade the industrialists that they really ought to move in the national interest because the industrialists have their own problems and difficulties. Unless the Government are prepared to undertake something more than mere persuasion, I am afraid we shall leave untouched the real and essential cause of congestion and over-population in many of the areas concerned.
  I wish to say a few words about the problem in London. Although my constituency is in Acton, a suburban part of London, I would emphasise that London is something very much more than the geographical area of the County Council. The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said earlier that he has been interested in two important committees which have been studying this problem of London. It has been pointed out that a quarter of the population of our country is centred within a 30-mile radius of Charing Cross, and within that area alone there are 1,250,000 people who have to be exported to the areas specified in this Bill. I want the right hon. Gentleman to indicate where the proposals of his own Department are co-ordinated and linked to the provisions of this Bill.
  First, we have the Greater London Plan by Professor Abercrombie. Then there is another Committee of which the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery was the chairman. They coordinated the Greater London Plan proposals with the wishes of 145 local authorities embraced within its geographical area and submitted their findings to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. That Ministry arranged to publish its policy in regard thereto. In 1941 a document was issued from the Ministry known as the Greater London Plan Memorandum by the Ministry of Town and Country Planning on the Report of the Advisory Committee for London Regional Planning. That is the policy of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, and, so far as I can gather, he said nothing about it when he moved the Second Reading of this Bill.
  We should expect the principles of that memorandum to find a place in this Bill. The memorandum lays down the necessity for decentralising approximately 1¼ million people from the London County Council area and from what are known

  841
  as the inner ring towns in the circumference of the London County Council. There are supposed to be 618,000 people decanted from London, and 415,000 from the inner ring towns. It is expected that 233,000 people will find a solution to their problem by voluntary means and that leaves the Ministry with a responsibility for decanting 1,033,000 people into the outlying areas, and this problem the Bill is intended to cater.
  That is a very great problem to face. It is suggested in the Ministry's policy 672,000 of these people should be accommodated by the expansion of existing towns 194,000 in the new towns and 101,000 in quasi-satellite areas. I wish to know whether the policy of the memorandum is to be carried out. It is important that we should know, because it is an excellent proposal, although it will be difficult to carry out and is one which it must be admitted will create quite a problem.
  The policy provides for decentralising these 1,033,000 people into 89 towns within the Greater London Plan area, and 11 towns outside that area. In other words, they are to be dispersed to 100 reception authorities. What about the exporting authorities? There are 22 authorities concerned with the export of this population, plus the London County Council, and they are to effect some means of exporting these 1,033,000 people to 100 reception authorities. These reception authorities vary in status and size from 750, in the little village of Rain-ham, to 69,000 at Watford. Most of these authorities are very small, and they are quite incapable themselves of taking the initiative on any scale to put into effect the principles of that memorandum. Until the right hon. Gentleman does something about it, the memorandum and its proposals are likely to remain a dead letter.
  Again, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney) raised the question of schools. Of course, in all these expanding towns, if new populations are to go there, there must be other things besides houses. Amongst other things, there must be schools, and I think the House would like to know exactly where the policy of the Ministry of Education on school building fits into these proposals in the expanded towns. How can we run down the building of
  842
  schools throughout the country, including these reception areas, and, at the same time, hope to accommodate the children who are to be exported from other parts quite soon?
  It is obvious that either the existing schools are going to be overcrowded or that the Government must have a policy of priority for school building in the reception areas, where this increase in the population is to take place.
  Further, what about health clinics, libraries and other facilities of that kind? The local authorities in the reception areas, or the majority of them, are themselves in no position to carry out the provision of such amenities and social services, and we would like to know from the Minister whether there are to be priorities in the provision of health clinics and other such services in these areas.
  The right hon. Gentleman has told us nothing about how this policy is to be co-ordinated, but has merely said that something is going to be included in the Bill to permit authorities to do certain things, that I assume that he will then sit back in his chair and watch the thing go on, as if by magic. It will not work out like that at all. I have some little experience in my own constituency, as have some of my hon. Friends, of trying to achieve this policy of developing housing estates in other parts, because we have not got the land within our own boundaries to do it. It is quite true that the majority of these reception authorities will not willingly consent to have decanted upon them 1,033,000 people from the London area.
  From my own experience I can say that an authority like my own has found great difficulty, even where land was available, in persuading the other authority to consent to the acquisition of land to build houses for people on our own housing list. We would not grumble so much about that if the authority itself would do it with our help. We would not complain, but the great majority of them decline to provide housing schemes in their own areas, because they do not want this overspill population, and have declined to give their consent to any other authority buying land there for housing developments. I know that there are exceptions here and there, but they are few and far between.

  843
  If the right hon. Gentleman expects this Bill to be carried out and be a success, he himself must do something about this, and he ought to tell us exactly what he thinks he should do, Speaking for the London area, I say that we just cannot leave 23 authorities who are to export their population to engage in a wrangle with 100 reception authorities outside as to which reception authority is to take whose surplus population, and, unless there is some co-ordinating scheme to give effect to these principles, they will remain a dead letter. It just will not work unless there is some plan; if it is left merely to the exporting authorities and the reception authorities to indulge in a dog fight which may last for years on end, we shall not get very far with the proposals in the Bill.
  It is essential for the Minister to devise ways and means of co-ordinating this plan of decentralisation of industry and population so that the whole thing can be done in a satisfactory way on a proper basis. We must have that so that the bottle-necks can be ironed out and the exporting authorities can be put in touch with the reception authorities and the whole matter determined without the interminable wrangles about whose population shall go to which areas.
  There are many Government Departments concerned with this problem. One hon. Member mentioned the Board of Trade. Well, it really is, to some extent, their responsibility to effect industrial decentralisation; but the Board of Trade has other problems apart from this, and I should like to know what the Minister proposes to do in regard to the many Government Departments which are concerned. The Board of Trade is concerned with industry; the Ministry of Housing and Local Government with housing; the Ministry of Education with education and schools; the Ministry of Health with clinics and day nurseries. How are all these functions to be co-ordinated between all the Departments?
  There is another important point. When we talk of houses being built in reception areas, does one understand that it is Government policy for one house to be built to let while one is built for sale? That is very important. If the policy of the Government is to apply in this case that for every house built in a reception
  844
  area to let there is to be one built for sale, then the whole thing falls down. That is not meant to imply that there should not be houses for sale, but the fifty-fifty basis really jeopardises the success of this Bill, because the great majority of the people in need of better accommodation—people who want, and need better housing—cannot afford to buy. I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree with me. Therefore, it is important that the Government's policy in regard to these expanded reception areas should be modified to provide a preponderance of houses to let rather than houses for sale.
  I should like to conclude with one or two other points. I think that it is vitally important, if congestion is to be reduced, and if our overcrowded towns and cities are to be eased, that there must be power given to prevent immigration into these areas as the populations are exported to other expanded towns. Could the Minister clear up some doubts about the operation of this Bill, for it might be used to bolster up the present structure of local Government and delay a full consideration of local government reform. Is the Bill designed to delay the reform of our local government? We all know that it is sadly overdue, and it is time the matter was taken in hand. An assurance from the Minister that there is no intention to delay this necessary reform would, I think, be helpful.
  The Bill does not provide for Exchequer contribution to be made in respect of development in a county district to relieve congestion or over-population in another county district within the same administrative county. This restriction appears to operate to the detriment of an overcrowded non-county borough seeking accommodation for some of its surplus population in another district of the same county. That applies to my own authority in Middlesex, where the county council's draft development plan provides that a constituency like mine can nominate from its housing lists persons to be accommodated in the outer districts of the county.
  The Bill does not permit of that being done, and I think it is a great mistake that a county district shall not be allowed to develop in another part of the county although a county borough can. If there was a county borough in

  845
  Middlesex, as, of course there is not, nor can there be by law, it could develop in any part of its own county, but a county district cannot.
  We have to recognise that there are many county districts, and indeed there are quite a few urban districts, in Middlesex that are far bigger in population than half the county boroughs, and this policy of preventing county districts within a county from developing housing schemes in conjunction with other districts in the same county is wrong and ought to be changed. I trust the Minister will take into consideration this serious objection to this Clause in the Bill.
  I should also like an assurance from the Minister that nothing in the Bill will be used to prevent development by housing authorities of land outside their areas, or adjacent, or near, to their boundaries where suitable land is available: that the Bill though temporary in character will not be used to delay local government reform, but where a receiving authority is unable to carry through the full scheme of development then the exporting authority will be permitted to carry out development in preference to the county council, and that the power to make Exchequer contribution shall be extended to enable contribution to be made in respect of development within the county district to relieve overcrowding in another county district in the same administrative county.
  I have, I think, exhausted all the points I wanted to make, and I think I have made up for the time lost in the discussion. As we have until one o'clock to debate this Bill—and it is an important Bill to all of us who are interested in solving our housing difficulties let there be no mistake about it—I hope we shall be able to produce a Bill that is workable, and which can make a substantial contribution to the rehousing of thousands of people who are miserably penned up in one or two rooms in our towns and cities.
  10.40 p.m.
  Squadron Leader A. E. Cooper: There are one or two things said by the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) with which I agree, especially the last few sentences in which he commented on the fact that he was exhausted. I
  846
  think many hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House felt at one stage that he would use up the entire three hours left to us.
  In so far as this Bill makes a contribution towards the solution of our serious housing difficulties, it will have the support of the majority of all hon. Members of this House, but we must say to the Government that there are certain aspects of it which some of us severely criticise. Not least of them is the point made by the hon. Gentleman in connection with the position of county districts. Frankly, I was not impressed with the argument of the Minister. Indeed, I do not think any argument can be adduced which can support the position which the Government have taken up on this aspect of the matter.
  I was particularly impressed, when listening to the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), when he called for some reform of local government as being the one way in which many of our problems could be solved. It really comes hard for the right hon. Gentleman to criticise this Government for any lack of action in that field, when he himself had ample opportunity over six years to do something positive about it. Indeed, he went so far as to say that the position was now such that it was very serious and that something ought to be done quickly. I want to call the attention of the House to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman during the Second Reading of the Ilford Corporation Bill. Inviting the House to reject both the Ilford Bill and the Luton Bill, the then Minister of Health said:
  "Ilford and Luton are not having inefficient services as a consequence of their present position. Local government on the whole is, as it were, ticking over, not as satisfactorily as we would like,"—
  And this is the important part of his statement:
  "but nevertheless there is no urgent, overwhelming reason why we should change it radically at this stage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th April, 1950; Vol. 474, c. 1060.]
  The only reason I can see why the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman has changed is the purely geographical one, that he has now changed from one side of the Chamber to the other.
  Mr. A. J. Champion: Two years later.
  Squadron Leader Cooper: May I point out to the House that if the right hon. Gentleman had dealt with local government in this country, as indeed it was his duty to do, the position of the authority represented by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. G. Hutchinson) and myself would not be so seriously prejudiced as it is under this Bill. By all standards Ilford, with a population of 187,000, should have been a county borough a long time ago. Also in the County of Essex there are a number of other authorities which should have county borough status and which would then have received the benefit of this Bill.
  Mr. Mulley: I think the hon. and gallant Member is wrong in ascribing all the blame to my right hon. Friend. If he consults the Division lists of which he complains he will find that a large number of his hon. Friends voted against that proposal.
  Squadron Leader Cooper: That is not a particularly apposite intervention, because the Minister was speaking on the reform of local government as a whole, whereas the Division lists are concerned primarily and solely with the question of the Second Reading of the Ilford Corporation Bill.
  Mr. Mulley: I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I understood him to complain that Ilford was not now a county borough, and that was the decision which the House took on that date.
  Squadron Leader Cooper: I certainly complained that Ilford is not a county borough. I have been complaining about it for many years. The point I have made is that when hon. Gentlemen opposite were sitting where we are now and had a substantial majority, they had it within their power to carry out some reform of local government and, had they succeeded in doing their duty, many of the problems which now affect the country would never have arisen. The fact is there are no votes in local government and, consequently, the Labour Government would not get bogged down in this difficult problem.
  The Government will have to look most seriously at this question of the contribution to be made available to the county districts. It is really an invidious and
  848
  impossible position that faces the very large authorities if this Bill goes through in this form.
  I want to make one other point, and it is one I think of substance. It concerns the conditions which exist in certain parts of the country, particularly in areas which are served by the London County Council. In the county of Essex and around London there are a number of L.C.C. housing estates. These estates are in a sense expanded towns. They are estates built within the area of a particular local authority. The landlord is, of course, the L.C.C., and they fit into these estates people from London, as is quite proper. But having done that, they then cease to have any responsibility for the sons and daughters of the people in those estates. The result is that sons and daughters become the responsibility of the local housing authorities, which themselves may not have any additional land on which to build. So their own housing position can never be solved. Indeed, it can only get worse because, as they house the sons and daughters, all that happens is that the L.C.C. feed in more and more families.
  We must ask that provision is made to secure that the position of the local authorities who are the receiving authorities and who have to take in under this Bill large numbers of people from outside is secured, and that in the subsequent letting of the property recognition of the sons and daughters must be taken into consideration, otherwise in years to come these local authorities will have as serious a problem as we have today.
  Mr. C. W. Gibson: I appreciate the point the hon. and gallant Gentleman is making about the L.C.C. estates outside the county of London, and that the local authorities are made responsible for the services for the sons and daughters, but is it not also the fact that the rateable values of the local authority are greatly increased as a result of these estates? Also, if the hon. and gallant Member wants to have a right to a say in the filling of vacancies on the estate, is he prepared to agree that the L.C.C. should have some right to draw from the estate some of the rate income, because an enormous amount of rate money is going to the local authorities through these estates?
  Squadron Leader Cooper: The hon. Gentleman is very astute, and the Labour controlled L.C.C.—
  Mr. Gibson: Answer the question.
  Squadron Leader Cooper: I will answer it, but in my own way. The L.C.C. have been endeavouring to secure from local authorities some concession along those lines.
  Mr. Gibson: No.
  Squadron Leader Cooper: On the contrary, I have not been present at the meetings but I have seen the minutes of the discussions which took place between the L.C.C. and the various authorities in Essex, and so the hon. Gentleman must allow me to say that I know what I am talking about on this point.
  It is not a fact that the rateable value which accrues to the local authority in consequence of having an L.C.C. estate on one's doorstep is a profit. On the contrary, the amount required for education for the L.C.C. houses is far greater than the rate income from these particular houses. However, that is not the point I am seeking to make at all. In my own division of Ilford, we have this large Becontree estate on which some 2,000 L.C.C. houses have been built. We have a waiting list of our own of something like 3,000.
  Our problem must of necessity get progressively worse by the very fact that we have an L.C.C. estate within our borders. We can only build less than 1,000 houses in the area, so we are going to have some 2,000 families we can never house still on our own list. The sons and daughters of the existing L.C.C. tenants become the responsibility of the Ilford authority, while further families are fed into the area. It is to safeguard local authorities from this difficult and impossible situation that I am asking the Government to consider the matter.
  10.51 p.m.
  Mr. G. Lindgren: I am glad to have an opportunity to come into this debate because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) mentioned, I had the privilege of announcing in this House that this Bill would be presented. I must congratulate the Government on bringing it forward. But, since it has been brought forward, and excellent
  850
  though the Minister's speech was, I have been very frightened while listening to the speeches of hon. Members opposite. Apart from the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke), not a single Member from the Government benches has really understood the problem of this Bill.
  I did wish that hon. Members had been present or, if they were, bad listened to their own Minister making his statement today. This problem is a part of a whole national decentralisation problem which arises from the policy of the late Government and the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, and the New Towns Act, 1946. These dealt with the matter in two ways. First, the New Towns Act provided for a Development Corporation and Treasury support, because the general local government machine in the area in which the new town is to be developed is not strong enough to carry the cost of the development to be carried on.
  Secondly, there was the development of expanded towns which had a healthy local government machine capable of handling extraordinary local government development in its area. The importance of this expanded towns Bill, or of this Town Development Bill, is that in the London area alone we have eight new towns being developed, but they will take only 370,000 people, which is only one-quarter of London's overspill. Three-quarters will be by expanded towns.
  The conception of this Bill has no relationship to local government reform. It is a Bill conceived as a necessary second instrument to the new towns developed for London's overspill. It recognises that there is a large number of smaller towns which cannot carry adequate services for their own areas and would be better for being a little larger. A Minister in a Government with a majority of 25 dare not bring in local government reform any more than the last Labour Government could. True, it was a possibility in the 1945–50 Parliament, but we had not the time because of the many other problems we had to deal with. It was a question of what was most important.
  The question of local government reform transcends all party loyalties. The right hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire

  851
  (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) and the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill), were seen fighting over Luton having county borough status. Members on this side of the House and some Members opposite from Sheffield were asking for boundary extension, and Labour Members on the periphery of Sheffield were fighting against it. I believe that local Government reform is a fundamental necessity and that most of the problems that we face today in the general services of this country cannot really be tackled until we tackle local government reform. But local government is controlled by local councillors and local councillors are, in the main, those who are most active in the various political parties—and they, of course, have their effect upon hon. Members of this House. We can tell in the Division Lobby whether an hon. Member is a county borough or county area member.
  We must deal with this, not on the basis of party politics, but as services which can be handled as an economic unit, always remembering that local government does not exist for the glorification of councillors or for the existence of any particular authority, but to render service to the people; and the last who seem to be considered are those consuming local government services, the ordinary citizen.
  I want some assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary, because unless there is a very different conception in the application of this Bill by the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary compared with hon. Members behind them then, as my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) said, this Bill is a dead-letter.
  The first urgent necessity for expanded towns is that industry and the social services in the area should go along together. A great deal of consultation has already taken place. There has been consultation with the planning authorities and the old Ministry of Local Government and Planning; and while there was a Labour Government in control, and even though there were Tory authorities in the periphery of London, because of the confidence they had in a Government that really knew what it wanted, those Tory local authorities were prepared to play ball and to work
  852
  in conjunction with the L.C.C. and the Ministry in dealing with this problem of overspill.
  But if there is to be a half-hearted attitude, then I can quite easily see that this Bill will get no further than the Statute Book and will never really be implemented. Unless industry goes with housing, then these estates will become nothing more or less than dormitories, adding to the traffic chaos, making for a lower standard of living for the people transferred there. One must realise that from the point of view of the worker the bus, rail or tube fare is something additional to his rent—and what he spends on fares he cannot spend on food, clothing and all the other necessities of life. We must move industry, but industry cannot move unless the workers are sure than in the areas to which they are going the social amenities will be waiting for them.
  Do not forget that these are mainly Londoners or town people with whom we are dealing. They will not go into country areas unless social services and amenities are available for them. These people are the younger workers, with the younger families, and they will not go into the areas unless they are assured of educational facilities for their children. The aim of every worker is to give his children a better chance in life than he had, and he sees in the educational machine the opportunity for that better chance.
  The Minister of Education and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have tended to cramp the Bill, and the activities of the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary, before it came to the House. Without a complete assurance that there will be no slackening up of the school building programme in the expanded towns, we will not get industry and the workers to go there. All that we shall get to go to any of these areas will be, perhaps, the clerical and professional types, who will use it as a dormitory, with the result that the Bill will not become effective in any way. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, therefore, for an assurance in regard to educational facilities.
  I have not said all this without good reason. The Minister himself—I was delighted to hear him do so—praised the activities of the new towns, and their progress has been very good. They have

  853
  gathered such momentum that their progress in the next few years will be quite effective. But there is already a slackening of activity within some of the new towns, because there is an indication of the slowing up of education as a result of the cuts imposed by the Minister of Education. The expanded towns must have these facilities.
  I hope that the Minister will make it clear beyond all doubt that he believes in well balanced development. The right hon. Gentleman said as much in his speech today, but we should like some effective assurance at the winding up of the debate so that his statements in the House—I say this quite boldly and frankly—can be used with the local authorities in the areas for which the expanded towns are likely to deal.
  I should like to raise two points rather than to continue on generalities. One is a constituency point. I represent the Wellingborough Division of Northamptonshire, and to that urban district is to be moved the Government Ordnance Survey Department. That move, which was arranged during the lifetime of the previous Government, is to take place over the next 10 years. It means the movement of 3,500 Government employees, representing a total of 8,800 people, to settle within the urban district of Wellingborough.
  That will mean 2,500 extra houses, and additional hostel accommodation to meet the needs of the single workers who are moved. To give an example of the extent of the expansion it will involve to the Wellingborough U.D.C., it means an additional annual expenditure of £42,000, and a capital cost of about £450,000.
  This major development—an increase of one-third over the present population —is not covered directly by the Bill, because it is not the movement of an overcrowded population from any of the towns that are overcrowded. In magnitude, however, it is a major expansion of the area, a much larger expansion than will take place in many of the expanded towns. Representations have been made to the right hon. Gentleman's Department by the Urban District Councils' Association, and I hope that these representations will receive consideration, because I believe that this type of expansion in Wellingborough, which is
  854
  one that comes about through Government action—the dispersal of Government Departments—is one that should be recognised under the Bill.
  The last point I want to make is to return to the plea for the Home Counties. My hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney) and Acton (Mr. Sparks) touched upon it. The Minister justified in his speech the fact that there should be no grant to county councils in the Home Counties for educational development in particular. I have been associated with local government in Hertfordshire for many years.
  In Hertfordshire we are to receive 200,000 people from the London area, 120,000 of whom will go to the new towns and 80,000 into the expanded towns. Already for development in the new towns additional capital costs of education are very heavy indeed. The hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper) mentioned that in the early days, in particular, the rateable value that is created, including the industries which move with the population, the shops, the service industries and cinemas, is not a rateable value which meets the heavy capital costs of the initial stages in school building.
  Hertfordshire has been a very active authority in the provision of school facilities for the expansion within the area. They have already shown they are prepared to co-operate with the L.C.C. and with the Department in receiving people into Hertfordshire and into many towns, including St. Albans, Ware, Baldock and others.
  If this dispersal policy is really to be effective, people who are to be moved ought to feel they will be welcomed in the area to which they are going. They should have "welcome" on the mat in a big way. It is not very nice to go into a new area and see in the local Press a report of a local council meeting saying every person coming into the area is a burden on the area. I know Hertfordshire is not the only county in this difficulty—Essex and Kent have their problems too. Unless there is some real approach to the problems of county councils, I feel there may be a slackening of this policy.
  When I was at the Ministry, Hertfordshire presented a memorandum of the

  855
  problems created by new towns which, I think, had considerable force. It was under discussion with the Treasury, but I am afraid the previous Minister did not get very far with the Treasury on this problem. Because it was not done then is no reason why it should not be started now.
  We have this Bill, which is a good Bill and makes an opportunity for a real transfer of population, an opportunity for these people to have a new start in life, to be received by an authority which is willing to co-operate, and I feel it is a job in which there should be the fullest co-operation between those within the councils and the Government of the day. If we can get that, and the Minister and his Department will show the enthusiasm for it, which would have been shown by the previous Government, and of which there was an indication in the Minister's speech, then I am certain this Bill can really be effective in making London a more reasonable place for the Londoners to remain in, and giving an opportunity for those going outside London to have the life they ought to have.
  Brigadier Terence Clarke: The hon. Gentleman has made two points. One was a constituency point, the other not quite so important. What did he do about his constituency point when his party were in power? I never heard a word from him on that subject.
  Mr. Lindgren: The hon. and gallant Gentleman would not have done. The local authority took the correct channels of approach—and so correct that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would not even know them. They went through the Local Authorities' Association—the Urban District Councils Association, and the latter has presented a memorandum to the right hon. Gentleman's Department. That is the method of negotiation, and I should have thought by now, although the hon. and gallant Gentleman's experience of this House is not very great, that he would know that Members when they sit on the Treasury Bench as Ministers or junior Ministers do not concern themselves with constituency matters in relation to their own Department.
  11.11 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: This Bill is evidently going to receive a welcome from.both sides of the House. I hope nothing that I shall say will disturb the harmony which has hitherto prevailed. The Bill will undoubtedly make a valuable contribution to the difficult and perplexing problem of the dispersal of congested urban populations; but I am bound to say that I think that it has come too late. It would have made a much more valuable contribution in the year immediately after the end of the war.
  Everyone is agreed that the congested populations of our towns and urban centres must be dispersed. The obstacle to dispersal since the war has hitherto been the difficulty, as the hon Member for Acton (Mr. Sparkes) pointed out, of dispersing industry. The principal obstacle to the dispersal of industry has been the policy of the Government. My experience of industry has been that it is very ready to move out to new towns and to the new urban communities which the London County Council and other great authorities have created, provided that the necessary assent from the appropriate Government Department is forthcoming. But that is just the thing they have not been able to get. I make no complaint about that because the policy of the Government—and it may well have been right—has been that the movement of industry should take place first into the Development Areas.
  That has been the policy, and I am not going to discuss the wisdom of it now. But it has had this result. It has made the new urban communities which the L.C.C. and the other great urban authorities have created indistinguishable in their character from those dormitory authorities which everyone condemns. In my own consituency, the Hainault Estate is indistinguishable from the type of estate developed between the wars. The bulk of the population is engaged in industry in other parts of London. There is the daily journey backwards and forwards; there is the problem of local amenities, and perhaps even more difficult, the problem of the great change in the life which they live in those new suburbs; there is, too, the no less important change in the relative cost of living in these new urban communities compared with those parts of London from which they come.

  857
  So we have really re-created in these post-war estates exactly the conditions which everybody is united in condemning. That has been brought about by this difficulty in securing the dispersal of industry into the new areas. The L.C.C., when they undertook the development of what are called "quasi-satellite areas" around London, recognised this problem and set aside adjacent areas for the development of industry. But they have only just begun to succeed in getting any industry because the policy of the Government has been to disperse industry, not to the new housing areas or the new towns, but to the Development Areas in other parts.
  At the conclusion of the war, when it became evident that the Government's policy was, first, to disperse industry to the Development Areas, if the dispersal of population to what are called the "expanded towns" had then been encouraged, I believe that many of the difficulties of dispersal would not now exist.
  The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) spoke of the Advisory Committee on London Regional Planning. That body was set up by the then Minister of Town and Country Planning for the purpose of making recommendations as to the manner in which the Greater London Plan was to be carried out. One of the things which the Committee recommended was that there should be a much greater degree of dispersal of population, not to new communities, but to "expanded towns." That advice was, to a very large extent, rejected by the then Minister. How unfortunate that was is something which we can all now see.
  The then Minister did not accept the recommendation made by the Advisory Committee, although he did agree to increased dispersal to the expanded towns, in excess of the dispersal recommended in the Greater London Plan. But nothing was done at that time to facilitate the dispersal of population into the "expanded towns." If this Bill had been passed then, it would have made a much greater contribution to the problem of the de-congestion of the urban population than it is likely to make today. Now, to some extent, at least, dispersal of industry into the Development Areas is over and industry can more readily go to the new towns and the new urban communi-
  858
  ties created around London and Manchester and other great centres of population. I see that the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Nally) shakes his head; well, I except Manchester, but it is true of London.
  Industry, to an important extent, has always existed in most of the towns to which expansion is directed, and there was always the possibility that established industry there can expand and could absorb the additional population dispersed from central areas. There is, too, as the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) has pointed out, a great difference between dispersing population into entirely new communities and into established areas. The amenities to which people are accustomed, and for which they look, exist more readily in an established area than in an entirely new community.
  Nevertheless, this Bill should be welcomed, late as it is, for it will make a useful contribution to this very complex and obstinate problem of the dispersal of the congested population by the central areas into the towns around London and other great centres of population which are able to take them.
  I desire to direct the attention of the House to two other points, both of which have been made during this debate. The first is that made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper), and a number of other hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House. I hope my right hon. Friend will be able to say that he will reconsider the question of the application of this Bill to the movement of population between county districts in the same administrative county.
  The example my hon. and gallant Friend gave of the borough which he and I have the honour to represent is the best example one could choose of the limitation which the absence of this provision in the Bill puts upon them. Here we have a great town, indistinguishable in size and character from the adjoining county boroughs of East Ham and West Ham. When Ilford Corporation has built a few more houses we shall have no more sites available in the town. What are we to do? East Ham and West Ham, when their space is absorbed, will be able to take advantage of this Bill and disperse their surplus population into other districts in the county of Essex. We

  859
  cannot do it in Ilford, although our problem is as acute and of the same character as theirs. I hope my right hon. Friend will be able to give some assurance that he will examine this matter again and extend the provisions of this Bill to movement between districts within the same administrative county.
  The other matter is that raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) and relates to the position that arises under Clause 9. As my hon. and gallant Friend pointed out, if a dispute arises between two local authorities as to which shall carry out a particular development, that dispute is determined by the Minister without any obligation to hold first a public inquiry. My right hon. Friend said, "Well, this Clause will not affect normal town planning procedure." As I understood him, he means that if the planning authority—which will be the county council of the county in which development is proposed—objects to this proposed development upon planning grounds, the normal planning procedure will have to be followed. Objections will have to be submitted to the Minister and the Minister will have to determine them after holding a local enquiry in the ordinary way.
  That is perfectly true, but supposing there are no objections on planning grounds to the proposal for development in a county. Supposing that the objection is that an outside authority and not the county council wants to carry out development. There is no provision in the Bill that there should be any public inquiry into that matter. Therefore, in some cases, which may well be the most acute cases of controversy between local authorities, the Minister will give his decision without the safeguard of first holding a public local inquiry.
  I am quite sure that on reflection my right hon. Friend will see the difficulties. If disputes of this nature arise, it is desirable that the Minister should come out into the open and hear the views of everybody first at a public local inquiry before he makes up his mind. I hope that he will be able to give us some assurance on this point too, that during the Committee stage, Clause 9 will be amended so as to provide that there will be afforded to those local authorities who
  860
  desire to take objection—it may be a perfectly reasonable objection—to what is proposed, an opportunity of stating their case in public before the Minister determines the issue between them and those with whom they are in conflict.
  Those are the only two matters dealing with details of the Bill to which I want to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend. I am glad that he has brought forward this Bill. Even at this late stage I think it will make a valuable contribution to this difficult, perplexing and stubborn problem of the dispersal of our overcrowded urban population.
  11.27 p.m.
  Mr. C. W. Gibson: In giving general support to this Bill, may I first take up a point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper) so that the record may be right. It is not correct to say that the London County Council on any of its county estates around London has asked for a share of the new rateable value which those estates create. I say that with some knowledge as, until recently, I have had seven years of chairmanship of the Housing Committee of the London County Council and have met all the local authorities around London to discuss these matters. It would be a pity if the idea went around that that sort of thing has been done by the county council. In fact, the L.C.C. has given considerable sums of money in capital grants to the many local authorities in the years in which its county estates have been built.
  Squadron Leader Cooper: Is it not the fact that the L.C.C. subsidises its own houses to a much greater extent than do other authorities, where the rate subsidy is of the order of £5 10s. per house per annum, whereas the L.C.C.'s rate subsidy is about £26 per annum? It is this greater sum—the difference between £5 10s. and £26—which the L.C.C. has been endeavouring to secure from those authorities where they have at present some of their estates.
  Mr. Gibson: If it has happened it has been during the last 12 months. It certainly did not happen during the seven years when I was chairman of the Housing Committee, and I do not think it is happening now. It is true that there is a considerable rate charge on every

  861
  house which the London County Council builds outside the county, but it is the L.C.C. ratepayer who pays that and not the ratepayer in the district where the houses are built. The L.C.C. accepts housing liability in all these estates for the sons and daughters of the tenants they put into those houses, and many thousands have been rehoused by the county council.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) spoke of the way in which the county authorities around London have co-operated fully with the L.C.C. in its terrific problem. Hertfordshire is one of those counties. Although they have been faced with a large number of additional difficulties and a great deal of additional cost as a result of the work done by the London County Council in that county, nevertheless they have done their best to co-operate with the L.C.C., and the L.C.C. is very grateful. That also applies to Essex and Kent, who have been also burdened with the overflow from London.
  In these days everybody says that London is too big and, while they do not say that London should be depopulated, they think that about one million or more of its people should be sent outside the county. Having said that however, they object to any of them coming into their particular areas. I can understand that, but they must not keep on grumbling about the large size of the population of London if they object to one of the remedies.
  This Bill will help us. I do not think, however, that even the Minister would claim that the Bill will do very much more than help us to a comparatively small degree, because the number of people who can be housed in expanded towns in comparison with the enormous number of families in the L.C.C. area must be very small. It would be wrong to expect too much from this Bill.
  While it will not solve our problem, it will be of very considerable help, as I know from experience when I tried to get the co-operation of local authorities, in whose area I was trying to arrange for the L.C.C. to build, not to raise too many difficulties when we started development.
  Mr. G. Hutchinson: Has the hon. Member not overlooked the fact that his hon. Friend the Member for Welling-
  862
  borough said that three-quarters of the overspill from London would have to be taken by the expanded towns?
  Mr. Gibson: I have not checked the figure that my hon. Friend gave, but as we have a waiting list of nearly 2,000, as the hon. and learned Member knows full well, it is very doubtful if 25 per cent. of those will find themselves in expanded towns during the next five, six or even 10 years. The only point I wanted to make was that it would be wrong to expect from this Bill much in the way of solving our housing problem.
  At the same time, I should say that the Bill will make a very considerable contribution towards smooth working between the receiving authorities and the exporting authorities, and will, to some extent, provide the oil which will grease the machine in the shape of a little extra financial aid from the State.
  One of my greatest troubles every time I met local authorities outside London was their complaint about the very great extra cost. They seldom referred to the increased rateable values and the rates they got as a result, which over the period of life of the buildings more than repaid them for any capital expenditure they were put to in the early years of the building of the estate. Nevertheless, it was a very serious difficulty with many of them, and if this Bill assists in that direction it will be very helpful in the housing problem. The Memorandum talks about congestion and over-population, and refers to the need for creating machinery which will help to solve that problem, and this is done by providing means whereby the receiving and exporting authorities can co-operate. If this is done in the early days of these schemes this will be extremely useful.
  The London County Council area has an enormous problem. We have on our waiting list more than 70,000 urgent cases, namely, cases of families which are either over-crowded or among which there are members in bad health, or where three families are living in a house built to accommodate one family. This last-mentioned predicament is creating enormous family and social difficulties.
  The London housing authorities have done well since the war. Looking at the housing summary for the end of December, I saw that in the L.C.C. area no less than 187,000 homes have been

  863
  provided by the L.C.C. and the Metropolitan boroughs since the end of the war. That is a great effort. But he would be a fool who said that that effort by any means solved the housing problem. Many of those on our waiting list will have to go outside the county if we are to solve not merely their housing problem, but develop fully the Greater London Plan. Therefore, the L.C.C., which I suppose has the biggest problem of the whole country, is very interested in this effort to smooth the way for out-county housing.
  Although London's population is about 750,000 fewer than it was before the war, and we have built many houses since the war, we still have an enormous housing problem. We have also the problem of houses that are 100 or more years old, having reached the limit of their useful life and are now becoming slums of the worst kind. These must he pulled down if we are to rebuild London, as everyone want to see it rebuilt. Therefore, I welcome any assistance which this Bill may give in providing a larger amount of housing outside the county.
  I must refer to the question of decanting employment. As the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke) said, he and other members of the London County Council have on several occasions during the period of the last Government visited the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Town and Country Planning regarding the need for bringing into what have been called the "quasi-satellite towns" the London County Council is building, and the other pre-war out-county towns, employers willing to go to them. Many large manufacturers in London were willing to go to them but were not willing to go to a depressed area.
  I have in mind a large works in Bermondsey that wanted to go out on the east side of London. It made preliminary inquiries to discover whether it could get a large enough site. But we were told by the Board of Trade that they must go to the old depressed areas. They said, quite understandably, "We cannot do that. To begin with, we cannot take our skilled and key men to those areas. They won't go, and in any case, as a pure matter of economics, it is wrong to take our factory too far away from the
  864
  London docks." So the possibility of doing a piece of good town planning in London completely died out.
  I think the trouble has been that while the idea has been there—and sometimes the will has been there too—the machine set up to tackle the question was much too involved and complicated. It took so long to work—something like 12 or more Departments had to be consulted before a firm could get a permit to transfer to another site; arguments went on and it was all a heart-breaking business —that nothing occurred and the firm stayed where they were.
  Even if they move there is still the problem of what to do with the factory they vacate. If they are to be re-let to some other firm to produce goods, then they do not solve the problem but only repeat it over and over again. Under the Town and Country Planning Act the local authority could of course deal with it, but they would have to buy it and pay compensation to the owners. I do not know one authority in London which was prepared to do it, because of the enormous burden on their finances.
  Very few factory sites have been bought by the L.C.C. since the end of the war under the Town and Country Planning Act, and works which should be moved are still there in some cases. Firms which have moved their works to another part of the country have had their factories let to other firms producing that kind of goods, but those old factories are still in the wrong area and they are still overcrowding the district very much.
  This Bill does not touch that problem at all, and unless some method can be found and some amendment is made to the Town and Country Planning Act to make it possible for the local authorities to meet these tremendous costs, I am afraid that nothing will happen, because even the so-called rich London County Council could not meet the enormous cost of paying out to the owners of these factories and sites; but unless we do something about it we shall never solve the problem.
  Even if this Bill works and there is the fullest co-operation between the receiving authorities and the exporting authorities and We get houses built, as I believe the L.C.C. could, there is the problem of making sure that the rents charged for

  865
  the houses are such as the workman coming from London with his family can afford. This is becoming more and more of a problem. I know of one London borough council which, in order to balance its housing accounts, is charging £1 1s. rent for a one-room flat. That is an absolutely impossible rent, not only for the old people and old-age pensioners for whom the flats were meant, but also for the small family. By the time they have added the rate charge, it becomes a matter of at least 30s. or more for rent alone.
  Recently I saw a list of rents for one of the new towns, where £3 a week was asked for a two-bedroom flat. That is how rents are developing in the new towns. When one adds the cost of travel and the social inconvenience, for a time at any rate, with which a family would have to contend, it is easy to understand why there is difficulty in the letting of houses and flats. This problem of rents, therefore, seriously affects the possibility of a successful drive to build houses in the expanded towns.
  I know that additional State rate assistance is to be provided in the Bill, but this is a matter which will crash the scheme unless a way is found of keeping rents down to a level which the average workman can meet. The other method, of course, is to increase wages, which is what I would do, to meet these extra charges; but that would raise all the old arguments about inflation, rising prices, and so on.
  We are driven back, therefore, to the necessity of some form of subsidy to keep the rents down. Unless this problem is tackled, even with the best will in the world and with all the co-operation which the Bill will bring about, we shall still be faced with the problem of letting the houses at rents that people can afford. This would put another difficulty in the way of building up our new cities, which will be fresh and better in every way than those in which past generations have lived.
  I wish the Bill a smooth passage. No doubt, when it reaches the Committee stage, a large number of Amendments will be moved. I hope that the House will now proceed to give it a Second Reading.
  11.47 p.m.
  Mr. W. F. Deedes: Those of us who have taken part in the debate have represented either the exporting or the importing areas. I am not quite clear for whose interests the hon. Member for Clapham (Mr. Gibson) was speaking, but I think it was the exporting areas.
  Mr. Gibson indicated assent.
  Mr. Deedes: It is important that one should declare one's interest, and therefore I say that I represent an area which is importing the population who are to be assisted under the Bill—the division of Ashford, which is not a new town but is one of the towns scheduled for expansion, whose population is roughly to be doubled, from 20,000 to 40,000. I want, therefore, briefly to touch on one or two points affecting, not the new town, but the expanding town, in relation to the Bill, on which we have not yet received all the assurances that I should like.
  There is a disposition to believe that the financial terms of the Bill are generous. We do not know the sum involved. I do not think the Minister himself knows, because the estimates returned by the local authorities concerned were made some time ago. The sum involved, however, probably will be considerable.
  The only point which, I think, should be made on behalf of the reception areas is that if the contribution is generous, it is not over-generous, since the areas affected did not ask to undertake the work which has been imposed upon them. Despite the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), all the reception areas within my knowledge have gone on with their job and have received their populations and have written "Welcome" on the mat. I do not think their contribution should be under-rated. I do not think there is anyone from the exporting areas who would wish to controvert that.
  Mr. W. Nally: The hon. Gentleman is talking about the Home Counties. He will agree that this is a national Bill, applying nationally, and I wonder if he would agree to accept the proposition that it is a great mistake to make the generalisations we have had in the last two or three speeches, that what is capable of application to the problems, shall we say of London and the Home Counties, is necessarily true for the whole

  867
  of the country where, more or less, in relation to the big cities, the same problems exist?
  Mr. Deedes: I only wish to speak within my knowledge about Kent, which plays a big part like the other Home Counties in this reception. In my experience the terms of reception have been uniformly good, and there is concern at getting on with the job which, without this Bill, has not been easy. It has been tackled with considerable efficiency and promptitude.
  The next point—and perhaps it is a minor point—will rise, I think, on the negotiation of the sums of money which will be given in each case. The Minister did mention this, and it is quite obvious that a different basis of the estimate must be arrived at in each area. There will probably be no difficulty over this, but it would be unfortunate if any haggling over the financial terms led to any delay in the work which should go forward. I am sure it will not, but I should like to hear a little more about the basis of the negotiations in each particular case with the local authorities. There is bound to be wide variation in costs according to the policy which the reception authority has taken. There is a maximum density laid down in reception areas, but there is no minimum density laid down. A good many local authorities are naturally concerned to Use as much ground as they can. That seems to me to be likely to have a considerable effect on the cost involved.
  Arising out of that, there is the time limit of these local schemes. At the moment the schemes go in terms of five years and I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that that could be a handicap to the surveyors concerned. A longer term view, if that were possible, might, in the end, under the terms of this Bill, save much cost in respect, say, of duplication of the utilities. Five years seems a long time, but it is not necessarily a long time in planned development spread over 25 years. It does also seem that the question of boundaries and the use of boundaries may arise, and it seems possible that the Minister's power to extend boundaries will arise out of this measure.
  I have only one other important point to make. First it is natural that some
  868
  local authorities should wonder whether or not there are any strings attached to the proposals in the Bill. I do not think this is being unduly suspicious. Within my experience nothing of this kind is free. Many local authorities are tackling this in different ways. Some are being independent. I think there are five ways in all in which an authority can carry out this scheme. My own area of Ashford is being as independent as it can.
  I hope we shall get an assurance that none or the generous financial provisions under this Bill will in any way make it less possible for a local authority to be as independent as it can, and it can rest assured that no pressure will be brought to bear on it from any new direction. With this Bill too, the Minister should review the relations of the Ministry with the Board of Trade, with particular respect to the siting of industry.
  I have always held the view that from the social and economic development point of view it is vital that industry and housing march together in these reception areas. If the housing grows too fast then there is unemployment: if the industry grows too fast then there is overcrowding. It is by no means easy to co-ordinate the two and there is evidence at the moment that the machinery between the Board of Trade and the Ministry is not working as it should. That difficult problem must be tackled in particular relation to this Bill because, if we get unbalance as between the arrival of industry and the building of houses, then a lot of money is going to be wasted. There is a temptation always to allow the immediate and urgent demands of industry to get priority over the longer term planning which is envisaged in the next 25 years under most of these schemes. That should be more closely knit, and then we shall get from this Bill proper value for money.
  11.57 p.m.
  Mr. Desmond Donnelly: I am glad the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) finished by talking about the need for housing and industry to march side by side, if only for the reason that I had some difficulty in following the rest of his speech. At one stage I felt he might have been dictating an article to his local newspaper rather than addressing the House of Commons. He is quite right, however, about the im-

  869
  perative need to see that Ashford does not have a large housing estate dumped on it without the industry with it.
  During the debate the Minister has heard from both sides of the House speeches expressing extreme disquiet about the present machinery for the distribution of industry from the main conurbations. I am not one to say that the Development Areas have had enough industry. I represent a Development Area, and have seen the pitiful unemployment of those areas. There is still a hard core of unemployment. It will take another 20 years to tackle the problem, and I have never taken the view that the Development Areas should not have industry steered to them. At the same time, we feel there is a comparable problem, in an inverted sense, as far as the big cities are concerned.
  We are saying that there is still too much industry allowed to grow in London and other big industrial centres. Far too many industrial certificates are being issued by the Board of Trade in the London, Manchester, and Birmingham regions. I would urge the right hon. Gentleman to look at some of the figures for the licences which have been issued for factories in these regions to see whether or not the situation is not far more disquieting than may appear from casual observation.
  I hope I may be excused if I speak at some length at this hour, but I have spent a good deal of my life dealing with town planning. I hope the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, thinking of their legislative programme in the next few months, will not think too hardly of me if I take up some of their time in dealing with the Bill. It is not often we have a debate on town planning.
  A great deal has been said about the relief of congestion of the big cities. That is very important indeed. Really, that is the basis of all town planning legislation in this country. It began many years ago, one stage of it being the revolt against bad housing conditions created by the industrial revolution. But there is another very real and valid reason for supporting this Bill, and that is the help which it will give to the countryside.
  One hon. Member opposite spoke about the rural areas in a rather condescending sort of way; I represent a
  870
  rural area and would tell him that we welcome it wholeheartedly because the declining population problem will never be arrested unless proper industry is available to those who cannot find work on the land. It has been said that the Bill might draw away labour from the agricultural industry, and that is a point of view. But is it thought that the women of the villages should not be considered? Where are they going to find employment, for they cannot all work on the land? If there are expanded country towns, with small, light industries, there will be opportunities for these women and girls who cannot work in agriculture. That is something which could be done by a Bill of this nature.
  The history of the last hundred years, with the drift from the villages to the big towns, and the writings of men like William Morris and Ebenezer Howard, show that the whole problem is that there has been far too much centralization of industry in the big cities and far too little promotion of industry in the country towns. If we look at this problem as it is in our own time and with the will to reverse that trend, we may get somewhere in helping the countryside.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) spoke of the imperative necessity for bringing new amenities to the countryside, and this Bill has a real and important benefit for the countryside; it can play a part in helping those towns to be places where people can live full and useful lives—happy and industrious lives; and I hope that the Minister will resist the blandishments of some of the "squirearchy" behind him who are afraid that they will lose people who might give cheap labour on their land. There are other people of the countryside in addition to the "squirearchy" who would like to see the opportunity of a productive life, not merely for their own benefit.
  Mr. Bernard Braine: Could I make this one point? The hon. Member implied that those of us who represent receiving areas have an objection, for some ulterior motive, to the transfer of population from the crowded towns. There is no such objection, except on the grounds that the New Towns Act, as administered by the late Govern-

  871
  ment completely ignored the feelings and susceptibilities of the people in the receiving areas. It is that which has created antagonisms difficult to remove.
  Mr. Donnelly: The hon. Gentleman has strayed into the wrong debate. We are not dealing with the New Towns Act.
  Mr. Braine: The hon. Gentleman persists in misunderstanding. So far there are no expanded towns. So far, the only development of this kind has been the new towns.
  Mr. Donnelly: I feel that the hon. Gentleman has for too long made political capital out of the unfortunate fears of the people living in his constituency and in trying to incite them purely for political purposes. Let me come back to the reasons for the Bill.
  A great deal has been said about the need for relieving congestion in the big cities. I do not know whether anyone in the House has read the "Evening Standard" survey of traffic in London, which appeared recently. It discloses a most appalling state of affairs in London. I do not drive a car very much in the city because I live in Wales, but when I do come up I see the changes which have taken place in the traffic problem. I take my car back to Wales and do not bring it back again for three or four months, when I can see that the problem has become even more appalling. There is a colossal waste of petrol, time and manpower, and unless something is done quickly about decentralising London traffic congestion will strangle this great city.
  The tragedy is that London is becoming more and more a great invalid and can be helped only by operations and blood transfusions. If anyone wishes to take this diagnosis to its logical conclusion, the only thing to do would be to extinguish it as an effective industrial city by some lethal chamber. We have now to look at the problem as it is now, and say that not one more industry and not one more person will be brought to London but that the population will be reduced as speedily and as effectively as possible.
  A great deal of the success of this Bill will depend on the way in which it is administered, and a great deal of that depends on the way in which the right hon. Gentleman wins his battle, not with
  872
  the Chancellor of the Exchequer this time, but with his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, in obtaining a new orientation of the policy of issuing industrial certificates for factories in the London region.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Mr. Gibson) will go down in history as one who has played a large part in the housing of the population of this great city. He has been the most distinguished chairman the housing committee has had for a long time, and he has spoken about the problem of rents which is tied up with this matter. He was recently a member of a committee which published a report on the conditions of life in flats, and it is a report which should be on the table of every housing official of every local authority in the country. It gives an idea of the social problems created by living conditions and life in the modern blocks of flats: cliff dwellers of the 20th Century. It raises a financial problem too.
  The right hon. Gentleman may be looking for money soon. If he does not get it from the Exchequer he might consider altering the differential in the subsidy between houses and flats. There have been about 26,000 flats built in London since 1945 and the subsidy on each of them is about £1,000 more than on a dwelling house. If we go on building at this rate, say 10,000 flats in the next five years in the London region, we shall find that we shall be spending £10 million more of public money which might well be utilised for the benefit of the country towns and receiving areas in different parts of the country.
  If the right hon. Gentleman wants to provide decent living conditions for those in London, then one thing he must insist does not happen—and it is within the orbit of his Department to see that it does not—is a repetition of any monstrosities such as the great block of flats being built at Stevenage at the moment. They are useless, because rents there are in the region of £4 a week. That is a preposterous rent to ask anyone coming off the local authority housing list to pay. The right hon. Gentleman should ask his Department to look at this situation to see how it ever came to arise. If he does not do that, it will lead to serious problems in the new towns and in the ex-

  873
  panding country towns in different parts of the country. It is disgraceful.
  Having said so much for the reasons for the Bill, perhaps I may say something about the contents of the Bill. I join my hon. Friends in giving it a warm welcome. It is a relatively small Measure, but it can be a very important one. I agree, however, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) that it can only be a temporary Measure if we are to have effective local government reform in the next few years. Nevertheless, within the context of the existing machinery, it is a vitally essential Measure in order to get something done about decentralising people from the big cities and in addition to the New Towns Act.
  In the Bill there are one or two points which seem to be disturbing. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman himself touched upon one in the course of his admirable speech today. In passing, may I say that his speech might well be distributed in the form of a White Paper to some of his colleagues on the back benches, because it would teach them something about the town planning legislation which we have. I would give a special copy to the hon. Member for Billericay.
  I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look again at the limitation imposed in Clause 2 of grants to transfers within the boundaries of one county. It seems to me that it is not just a problem for Essex or for any other part of the London region. It can well apply to the periphery of any of the big conurbations. It applies to Lancashire and Cheshire as well. I see here the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) who is so jealous of the rights of Salford. The hon. Member will appreciate full well that on the boundaries of the Lancashire conurbations within one county there is a great deal of overcrowding which can only be decentralised to another area in the same county. I am sure that if he brings that to the notice of the Minister it will have added force to the objections which have been made from both sides of this House, and which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will look at in detail in the course of the Committee stage of this Bill.
  There is another point about which I am a little disturbed. It is difficult to go
  874
  into detail, but no scale of grants is shown in the Bill. We want to know what we are doing. It is all very well to come down to this House and ask us to give this Bill a Second Reading. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would be the first to complain if a Labour Government came down and asked for a blank cheque. I hope he will ask for a substantial sum of money, but we do not want to discuss this Bill at length and then find we have voted nothing to help the decentralisation of the big cities.
  We want to have some idea from the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies to the Debate, of how much this will involve in the way of expenditure. The whole basis of Parliament is that it controls expenditure, and we want to know what control we have. What is likely to be involved? How much will be spent? We want to know that for a number of reasons. Not only because we are jealous of our rights, but because we realise that there is only a limited amount to be distributed and we want to see how it is to be distributed.
  I see my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) present. He has a Motion on the Order Paper dealing with the problem of the blitzed towns. It is quite right that he should feel very strongly about this matter. Why should he not get some money for the blitzed areas? I hope he will receive some satisfaction before he is asked to support the Second Reading of this Bill and will know how the money is allocated between one priority and another. In this way I am not detracting in any way from the importance of the Bill, but my hon. Friend should know where he stands.
  I should like now to touch on one or two other problems, which are not in this Bill but which will have to be dealt with later by the Government, or by some subsequent Government, because they have not, as yet, been more than cursorily glanced at. My right hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) and Ebbw Vale mentioned the question of vacant factories. It is all very well to talk about this problem in the abstract, and to some extent I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale when he talked about extinguishing all property rights in this respect, not because I disagree with him in theory, but because I

  875
  can see the practical difficulties of dealing with this matter at the moment.
  If an industrialist is going to move from London to St. Albans or some other such town, he is dependent on the finances to undertake the move from the sale of the factory he now occupies in London. The transfer depends on his getting the best possible price for his old premises. The same problem exists in moving a dwelling from one place to another. The occupant has got to sell one before he can buy another. This is a problem to which the Government have got to apply their minds. I am not proposing to offer any solution. I leave it to them, and I very much hope that they are going to look at this problem quickly; otherwise it makes nonsense of the whole problem of decentralisation, which is the policy we understand the Government are attempting to pursue. It is essential in the implementation of any great major town planning report, such as the Abercrombie Report for Greater London.
  An equally parallel problem existing to some extent in housing is the amount of grants available for slum clearance. That involves a big problem, which I do not think we can go into in sufficient detail at the moment.
  There are one or two other questions which have been mentioned at various times in the course of this debate. The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) referred to the set up of the planning machinery. The right hon. and learned Gentleman presided over a committee which produced reports on this question. I should like to know what happened to the Clement Davies reports, and in particular what has happened to the minority report which my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) and Professor W. A. Robson signed.
  It seemed to me that the majority report was a pale affair, and that the minority report had some real proposals. If something could be done on the lines suggested in that minority report we might get somewhere, but I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us tonight what has happened to the Clement Davies' reports. Several hon. Members have spoken about this, so the Parliamentary Secretary will realise the disquiet which exists on both sides of the House.
  876
  There is another question which I want to put and which has not been mentioned in the course of the debate. Would the right hon. Gentleman the Minister and his Parliamenary Secretary look into the possibility of setting up as an additional agency to help the local authorities in country towns, a housing agency on the same lines as the Scottish Housing Association or the Northern Ireland Housing Trust, with the powers of a mobile new towns corporation.
  Many arguments could be advanced in favour of these bodies. I am not suggesting that they should actually build the houses, but that they should be additional agencies for the promotion of building. The Minister will appreciate the importance and necessity of getting on with the house building programme, because to some extent not only is his own fate tied up with this, but the future of his Government also. For his own good, and in the hope of promoting his successful future, he ought to consider setting up yet another building agency to get the houses built for the advantage of himself, the Government, and the people.
  In conclusion, and dealing with matters which are not in the Bill, perhaps I may ask the Parliamentary Secretary when he replies to say what the Government are doing about local government reform. We want to know what is going to happen. If the Government are to stay there for five years, is it proposing to do anything about this? Uncertainty is bound to exist until we get some pronouncement from the Government. If they find the circumstances too difficult to be tackled in view of their small majority, it may be that the present Government will leave over the matter to be dealt with next time when we have a larger majority. But we should like to be told what is happening.
  I see that time is slipping by and the Parliamentary Secretary is anxious to reply. One or two of my hon. Friends are also anxious to speak, and the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Nally) has been here a long time. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite are mainly concerned with local points, but the hon. Member for Bilston speaks for the nation.
  One or two administrative problems remain. There is, for instance, the ques-

  877
  tion of building allocations. Much of the success or failure of any decentralisation policy is tied up closely with housing allocations. I hope the Minister will remember that it is no good talking of decentralisation and giving allocations on the old basis to local authorities which before the war may have built large numbers of houses and used up all their land while not giving them to expanding authorities which could use these allocations more effectively.
  We ought to see that in future houses are built in the county areas, and not in the built up urban areas. It is important to remember, in dealing with town planning legislation, that it is a social development, and not necessarily an architectural one. Too many people see town planning as the icing on the cake of amenity. In point of fact it is the recipe which goes to make the ingredients of the cake.
  Industrialists, and goodness knows there are enough of them opposite, will appreciate that planning a factory production line does not stop at the factory gate, but takes into account the way raw materials reach the factory, the cost of carrying them and the way in which the finished article is distributed. A great deal also depends on communications, on how the workers get to and from the factory, their efficiency in working, their wage demands and standards of life, and their whole philosophy of life. It is that problem which is really tied up with changes in town planning in this country.
  The whole basis of town planning legislation in this country has been due to a revolt against the housing conditions created in the 19th Century, and it is not in any way connected with the Continental town planning methods which have grown up in association with Le Corbusier and other crack-pots in other parts of the world. Therefore, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with some of these problems raised tonight. He has seen our great concern and interest in these questions; it springs from our desire to further the Bill. I hope he will give us a satisfactory answer and that during the Committee stage he will be prepared to give consideration to one or two of the problems we have mentioned.
  12.26 a.m.
  Mr. C. N. Thornton-Kemsley: At this very late hour I shall be very brief. Let me say, at the outset, that I warmly welcome this Bill. I believe that in Committee there are certain improvements that we will want to suggest—for example to support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) in his plea that in considering Clause 9 we should ask that there shall be a public local inquiry and that if the Minister still has to bring his powers of dictation into play, that his directions should be subject to an affirmative Resolution procedure of both Houses instead of to the present negative Resolution procedure.
  There is another matter that is giving me concern and that is that the Bill—if I understand it correctly—can in certain circumstances over-ride the local authority's development plans. These development plans had to be submitted by the end of last July. Some of them have had an extension of time, but most of them are at present under consideration by the Ministry. I think it is of the greatest possible importance that they should be respected by the people. I think they should be regarded as sacrosanct, once they are approved.
  The excellent booklet which has been published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office called "Development Plans Explained" and which was written by Mr. B. J. Collins, the County Planning Officer for Middlesex, says:
  "The approval of a development plan will crystallize the answers to many contested questions. Arguments of long standing may be resolved. A formal pronouncement is at last made in a Statutory document that such-and-such is the manner in which the county or city should be encouraged to develop. It must be a reassurance to public authorities, to business men, to farmers and to all other residents with private plans."
  When a development plan is passed hope it will be sacrosanct; that as far as possible the expanded towns which are selected shall be those which are marked in the development plans as being scheduled for extension and that expansion will be confined to those towns which have already provided for it.
  Some of my hon. Friends have been critical of some of the provisions of the Bill, as much, I think, because of its

  879
  origin as because of its contents. But what is the alternative? The new towns will not solve the problem. The 15 which have been designated will absorb less than half a million people from areas whose overspill population by any reasonable standard of density must be something of the order of 3 million. At the end of 1951, less than 3,000 houses, capable of taking about 10,000 people, had been built in those new towns.
  But that is not all. For many of our overcrowded cities—Leeds, Liverpool and for Tyneside, for example—no new towns whatever have been so much as projected. The alternative which we have seen is the undesirable alternative to which the London County Council has had recourse, of building in out-country estates and building in their own Green Belt, of which none of us can approve. It would be far better to expand county towns than to go on building at increased densities on expensive sites in already overcrowded towns.
  It is madness to go on increasing the size of our cities. For defence reasons alone, we ought to concentrate on dispersal. It is much cheaper, as the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) pointed out, to build houses with gardens in the expanded towns, and when that is done there will be enough over to assist in the provision of public services. Dispersal is the official policy of this Government, as it was of the last. Let us back it up for all we are worth.
  The 1951 progress report of the Ministry refers to expanded towns as likely ultimately to be major contributors to the relief of over-crowding. It is something of an achievement that this Government has at this time been able, for the "ultimately" of its predecessors, to substitute the "action this day" of the present Administration.
  12.32 a.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): I hope that the many hon. Members who have been disappointed in not catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, will forgive my intervention at this stage, but at 1 o'clock we shall have completed a full Parliamentary day of discussion on the Bill, and we have had the advantage, as far as the time fac-
  880
  tor is concerned, of not having a winding-up speech from the Opposition.
  We have also had a maiden speech, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Petersfield (Mr. Legh) on a very able and lucid exposition which showed clearly his great grasp of local government affairs. I belong to the 1945 vintage of politicians —or, at any rate, of Members of the House. I do not know whether it was the shattering effects of the war which left us in a rather nervous condition, but certainly we did not seem to have the confidence and poise of the 1951 vintage. Nothing seems to terrify them. The hon. Member made a splendid maiden speech, and the points to which he referred will be looked into carefully. I hope that the House will listen to him on many more occasions.
  It is gratifying that the House has approved the intention of the Bill, although doubts have been expressed in some quarters as to the adequacy of the machinery and, in some cases, hon. Members have said that the machinery is too severe. Even the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) displayed his enthusiasm, and with such vigour that I began to doubt whether it was a good Bill, but only for a moment, because I saw that behind his intentions he was seeking to attract to himself most of the credit for the Bill.
  Then we had another former Minister, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) who, like the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, has not been with us since the steel debate ended. He rose and indicated that he would speak for a few minutes. There was a subdued opening, which was followed by 23 minutes—longer than the three succeeding speeches put together. That Celtic fervour, which we associate with him, led him, instead of referring to it as a good Bill, to speak of it contemptuously and call it a niggling Bill and window dressing. I do not wish to introduce party politics into this happy gathering—[An HON. MEMBER: "Obviously not."]—but the diversity of opinion between the two right hon. Gentlemen does illustrate how harmonious relations must have been in the last Socialist Cabinet.
  Mr. C. W. Gibson: They were not both in the Cabinet.
  Mr. Marples: They were both in the Cabinet.
  The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale took even more credit to himself. He said that he produced more major Measures than any Minister in the last 50 years. Thus we had the edifying spectacle of two Socialist Ministers in competition as to who could slap his own back hardest. The right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland asked for an assurance that nothing in the Bill would delay local government reform. The answer is that there is nothing in the Bill which would delay local government reform. In my opinion this Bill may even accelerate local government reform, which would be a very good thing.
  The second assurance for which he asked was on whether ordinary housing would go ahead. The answer to that is a categorical, "Yes." In the third question he asked he used there a phrase of the Fabian party for the first time in this debate, "conurbation," and asked if town expansion which would relieve conurbation would be nation wide and not confined to London. The answer is, "Yes." Development should take place all over the country where it is required, not merely in London.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked one more question which I would like to answer. He asked for an assurance that the Bill would not prevent municipal corporations acquiring land adjacent to their boundaries. Nothing is further from my right hon. Friend's intention. Housing authorities have their responsibilities and where it is appropriate—I emphasise the word appropriate —that houses should be built as a physical extension, it ought to be done. My right hon. Friend asked me to stress his hope that neighbouring authorities would reach agreement between themselves in such cases, if it was at all possible.
  I would like to deal with other points. On the question of industry, which was raised by a number of speakers including the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland and the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke), the difficulty is that unless industry is decentralised and goes into the expanded towns the scheme will not succeed. The difficulty with decentralisation is that it is superb
  882
  in theory and extremely difficult in practice. It is difficult because of the heavy initial investment on sewerage and services which sometimes, in winter, can be dishearteningly slow from the technical point of view.
  There are many men who are not willing to leave the town where they have many roots; and so it is not easy, but there are two ways in which we hope to do it. The first is by giving the factories the necessary facilities, the services, and perhaps the industrial estates. The industries which will move into the expanded towns will be expanding industries, those that are constantly enlarging. They will rarely include an industry not wanting to enlarge. The new towns have attracted industrialists because of the attractiveness of the layout which enables them to take advantage of modern technique in each particular industry.
  Our second method is the attraction of the younger people by the offer of housing. It is the younger people who generally tend to come into the new or expanded towns, and they will assist in the employment of the industries that move.
  Mr. Ernest Popplewell (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West): Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point will he give an assurance that there will be no question of taking away or transferring the direction of new industries from the Development Areas into the expanding towns? The Development Areas can still do with a great many new industries to meet any possible recession of trade.
  Mr. Marples: Some development areas can, and some cannot do with more industries. It depends on the area. I should like to make this point, as the hon. Gentleman used the word "direction" in his intervention, that we do not intend to direct industry. The idea is to induce them.
  The hon. Member for Hampstead asked a number of questions about finance. Since I came into my present position I have realised the competing pressures brought to bear on the Minister of Housing and Local Government when it comes to finance. When I was listening to the case for a county council put by one Member, and then to the case for a county borough put by another hon.

  883
  Gentleman I was reminded of that story told of Louis XIV who, when presenting a medal to the most successful of 12 competitors in an archery contest, was heard to say, "By doing this I have made one man ungrateful and eleven men discontented." Rather like this Bill, the pressure on the Minister by the local authorities is difficult to cope with, and I hope hon. Gentlemen will assist us in this respects.
  The hon. Member for Hampstead said that the Bill gave practical help for water and sewerage, and asked about street lighting. This would come under site preparation. Then he asked what would happen to grants in aid now given to a local authority when it builds outside its area. The answer is that nothing in the Bill takes away existing financial benefits from a county borough which decides to build under this Bill. Thirdly, he asked how the exporting and receiving authorities stood in relation to the development charge. The answer is that they stand in exactly the same position as the new towns do. Under Section 83 of the Town and Country Planning Act there is a certain method of computing development charge which is advantageous to the new towns, and the same section will apply to the expanded towns.
  The question of financial help for county services was raised by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Towney) and the hon. Member for Petersfield, in his maiden speech. The criticism is that there is no financial help for county services in this Bill. By county services I mean mostly schools, and in some cases, highways. But county services are really consequential upon the expansion of a town. The difficulty in expanding an existing town will be in the initial stages when the amounts of money expended will be heavy and there is no return; that is, expenditure on water, sewerage, and so on. Once houses have been erected, then rates will flow in and, therefore, the county services are consequential on the development and flow from it. If we have only a limited amount of money available it is better to use it in the early stages rather than in the later.
  One thing I would say to the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) is that the Lancashire County Council has
  884
  undertaken a great measure of responsibility in the matter of providing county services for the overspill from Salford and Manchester.
  Mr. W. Nally: In relation to Manchester and Salford, although he is perfectly right about the magnificent way in which the Lancashire County Council has helped both cities, does the hon. Gentleman think that Cheshire has cooperated with the readiness and the same good will?
  Mr. Marples: The Cheshire development plan has shown a remarkable breadth of view in making sure that the population of the congested areas of Lancashire have been looked after. The Government do not in this Bill propose to find all the money; the burden should be shared, as partners, with the county council and the district councils. In the case of a really poor county, the Exchequer Equalisation Grant will help, and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), who spoke today, when in opposition, asked for help. But the last government had power under the New Towns Act of 1946 —and had it for five years—and he and his hon. Friends did not apparently give that assistance. Now, in opposition, they ask for that assistance and that perhaps is not as fair as we all know the hon. Gentleman likes to be in these matters.
  There is the thorny question of an "in-county" move not being helped financially. The right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale), the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) the hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper) complained that in-county moves were not helped. This Bill provides for out- county moves—that is, movements between one county and another—and I think there has grown up a misunderstanding, "County," in this sense, means the administrative county; that is, the geographical area as known by the man in the street, less those county boroughs which are their own planning authorities. Salford is a city, and if it moved to Worsley, which is an urban district, it would qualify for the grant, but Lancashire always does things in the early stages before the rest of the country, and Salford has already made arrangements to build in Worsley.

  885
  Let me say a word about in-county moves; there are three types. First, there is the in-county move where an urban district has land of its own on which it can build. If it decides, for planning reasons not to build on its own ground, but jump two miles away, then if we included in-county moves, it would actually receive an Exchequer grant. The purpose of the Bill is not to assist a move of that nature.
  The second type would be where an urban district or district council has no land, but is surrounded by a green belt or open country for many miles and leaps two or three for convenience' sake within its own planning authority area. These two types form the bulk of the in-county move, and it is no good altering the rule to create more anomalies. My hon. Friends and hon Gentlemen opposite made a powerful appeal about the necessity for helping certain of the in-county moves. Only in certain of them, and without promising anything, my right hon. Friend will certainly be examining the question again very seriously indeed.
  We now come to the Clause which has given rise to contentious feeling among my hon. Friends especially, and that is Clause 9. It was started by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport), who had strong feelings about the matter as we all could hear. Incidentally, he said he got advice from three lawyers and they all agreed. My experience is that if three lawyers agree it is highly probable that they are not right. I would like to explain that Clause if I can. On the planning side it does not deal with the use of land. This is not a planning Bill, and has nothing whatever to do with how land shall be used.
  The future planning of land will be the same as it has been in the past. It will be governed by the Town and Country Planning Act and existing legislation still holds good unless specifically repealed. In planning, that Act, with the safeguards of the public inquiry, will decide what takes place. This Bill does not decide what is built: it does not decide where it is built. It only decides who shall build, and, therefore, if I may say so with respect, a great number of the points raised in this
  886
  debate are irrelevant, because planning comes under the Town and Country Planning Act, which is not superseded by the Bill.
  The purpose of the public inquiry which has been urged by my hon. Friends behind me is to see that any one individual who has a grouse and whose property is affected can voice his objection, and voice it publicly. Where land is developed, people can object, and where a compulsory purchase order is served there is also a public inquiry. Under Clause 9 where we decide who shall build, the real question which the Minister has to decide is which authority is best equipped to do the job and that depends on the technical efficiency of the organisation, and no public inquiry is necessary, because I doubt whether the average member of the public has a contribution to make or has his interests affected so far as that point is concerned.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: Will the Parliamentary Secretary allow me. I am not anxious to detain the House at this hour, but there were at least eight Members on that side of the House and three on this side who were anxious to talk about the Bill which raises for each and everyone of us a supremely constituency problem. I hope he is not suggesting that they will have to move the Closure but the last two speeches have been made from his side of the House and hon. Members on this side were waiting to speak.
  Mr. Marples: We are all obliged for the contributions which the hon. Gentleman makes in this House from time to time. I am glad to see him here for the latter part of our debate if not for the earlier part. I am sure, if he had leapt to his feet earlier instead of preparing his speech for the previous debate, he would have caught Mr. Speaker's eye.
  We must get this Bill tonight in order that the legislative programme can be dealt with. I believe I am voicing the opinion of most hon. Members when I say that they want to get the Bill to the Committee stage. This Bill was on the stocks before this Government took office. It has been improved by the originality and the fertility of my right hon. Friend's mind. Normally when a question is put by you, Mr. Speaker, to this House, the Opposition indicate their agreement by a

  887
  rather gloomy and surly silence. But on this occasion I ask the Opposition in general—I cannot ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland to use his powerful voice, as he is not here—not only to pass this silently, but to pass it noisily and acclaim it with a loud and joyous shout of "Aye". I hope that when it comes to the Committee stage, many of the hon. Gentlemen who had not taken part in this discussion will give us the benefit of their advice which on this occasion we are not able to have.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn)rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Committed to a Standing Committee.

TOWN DEVELOPMENT [MONEY]
Considered in Committee of the whole House under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[Queen's Recommendation signified.]
[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]
Resolved,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to encourage town development in county districts for the relief of congestion or over-population elsewhere, it is expedient to authorise payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

(a) of contributions towards expenses incurred by local authorities in relation to development in county districts undertaken primarily for the purpose of providing accommodation to relieve congestion or over-population elsewhere and carried out after the thirty-first day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty-one;

(b) of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act in moneys so payable under any other Act.—[Mr. H. Macmillan.]

Resolution to be reported this day

INCOME TAX BILL [Lords]
Considered in Committee.
[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]
12.59 a.m.
The Chairman: It might be for the convenience of the Committee, as there are 532 Clauses and 25 Schedules, if I put them in blocks. If anyone particularly wants to speak on any block, perhaps he will stop me and then we can adjust the proceedings accordingly.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clauses 1 to 81 stand part of the Bill."
Mr. Leslie Hale: Are we not to have any short statement from the Attorney-General?
The Chairman: This is a consolidation Bill.
Mr. Hale: I appreciate that, Sir Charles, but we raised with the Attorney-General certain considerations about consolidation upon which I had hoped he would have made two or three introductory remarks. But if he has nothing to say, I do not press the point.
Clauses ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clauses 82 to 168 stand part of the Bill."
1.0 a.m.
Mr. Geoffrey BingWith respect, Sir Charles, I should like to put a point to you.
The Chairman: What Clause does the hon. and learned Member wish to speak on, so I can put it specifically?
Mr. Bing: I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
I do so in order to give to the Patronage Secretary the opportunity of giving us some indication about the business which will be before us. I do so very respectfully, because we all know the difficulty which the Government has been in, and we are anxious to facilitate the passage of this Measure. It seems to me a good occasion on which the Patronage Secretary should just let us know what

889
further business it is expected to take tonight. We have had the position where a great number of hon. Members on the other side of the Committee were kept out of a previous debate, and we do not want anything of the sort to happen again to the Government side and also to this side of the Committee at a later stage.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn): It is intended to take the Committee stage of the Bill with which we are dealing at the moment, but not to take the Committee stage of the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Bill or the adjourned debate on the Second Reading of the Export Guarantees Bill. There are one or two small matters under the Representation of the People Act which it was hoped to take. We hope that is agreeable to the Committee. It is not our intention to sit late.
Mr. Hale: I suggest, following that report by the Patronage Secretary, that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) should not at this stage press his Motion to a Division. The reason why I suggest that is we are anxious not to frustrate Government business at all, but we have laboured under the disadvantage of great difficulties That is really because many hon. Members were anxious to speak from their constituency point of view on the last Measure, but they had not the opportunity of doing so before the Closure was moved. I hope I shall not be ruled out of order if I suggest that while it would be proper to accept the Closure Motion at one o'clock, it might not have been accepted earlier on—
The Chairman: We cannot go back on a decision of the House.
Mr. Hale: I am much obliged to you, Sir Charles, but I was not saying anything controversial. Indeed, I was trying to be conciliatory. We all appreciate the unusual situation, and I should certainly like now to go home, as do my hon. Friends.
On the Income Tax Bill there were many matters to which I should like to draw attention. I was a little concerned on the last occasion that the Attorney-General accused me of discourtesy. The last thing I should wish to do would be to be discourteous to the right hon. and
890
learned Gentleman. The Attorney-General has been good enough to send me some explanations of some of the points which I raised on Second Reading, and although I would have preferred a discussion on them and have the benefit of the intervention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I feel that at this hour we should finish this part of the business.
This is an important Bill and, as it is a consolidation Measure, it contains many questions of importance. It is, however, exceedingly complex and would be difficult to discuss now, which was why I ventured to suggest to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Horn-church, who, I know is actuated entirely by—[An HON. MEMBER: "Malice."] I can appreciate the momentary indignation of the hon. Member who made that remark. After the 18 months through which we passed from February, 1950, to October, 1951, I would not suggest that there is not a moment when people make comments which are a little injudicious and a little unfair at this late hour of the night. That is one of the reasons why we ought to bring the business to a conclusion. I would suggest to my hon. Friend that he does not press his Motion to a Division at this time of the night, and also because of the charming answer of the Patronage Secretary, even though I have been kept here to move the first Amendment to the Agriculture (Fertilisers) Bill, which I am now not going to move at this Sitting.
Mr. I. Mikardo: I do not object to the views which have just been expressed by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). I share most particularly his view that most of us are anxious to get home. Therefore, I would join in the plea to the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) not to press his Motion to a Division. But it is not a good reason why we should not adjourn that the Attorney-General has sent a letter to my hon. Friend which no other hon. Member has had an opportunity to see. I do say that at some stage in the proceedings the right hon. and learned Gentleman should read this letter, or impart its contents to the Committee, so that the rest of us may be, in some measure at least, as wise as he and the hon. Member for Oldham. West.
Mr. Bing: In seeking permission to withdraw this Motion may I say one word to the Committee and to the Leader of the House, who, I am glad to see, is with us. The other business, which is not being taken today, is of considerable importance, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see that it is put down for a time when there can be full and reasonable discussion. The President of the Board of Trade was good enough to say, of the Export Guarantees Bill, that it concerned the whole trade of the nation and our whole future. That is not a matter which we ought to discuss at one o'clock in the morning. I think everyone will be grateful to the Patronage Secretary, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 82 to 168 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 169 to 532 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 1 to 25 agreed to.
Bill reported, without Amendment.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Mr. Vosper]
1.8 a.m.
Mr. Bing: There is Just one point to which I wish to call attention, and that is the deplorable use of initials in indicating where an Amendment is. If hon. Members will look at the opening of the Bill they will see that the letters "N.J." are used indiscriminately to indicate Northern Ireland or National Insurance. If, even at this late stage, it is possible to make some distinction, I suggest it will be received in Northern Ireland with considerable favour.
Bill accordingly read the Third time. and passed, without Amendment.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Draft House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) (Bristol, North Somerset and Weston Super Mare) Order, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd December, 1951, be approved.—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]
1.9 a.m.
Mr. Geoffrey Bing: Before we part with this Order there is a point which arises in regard to all these Orders upon which the Parliamentary Secretary can perhaps help the House. As I understand the Act, for three years after July, 1948, it was not within the power of the Boundary Commission to make even limited recommendations.
I should like to ask whether the Boundary Commission are now, from this date onwards, entitled to make more general recommendations. It would be a help to the House if we knew whether this was a general or a particular recommendation. There are a great many cases in which there are constituencies where the numbers very considerably exceed the quota —for example, among urban districts in Essex there are no less than five where the quota is exceeded by more than 30 per cent. Can we therefore have some indication as to what are the general recommendations of the Boundary Commission? Are we really to have limited areas of this sort or are we to have more general areas?
1.11 a.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): I have not had notice of the point which the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised and it is rather difficult to make an answer at this time tonight without notice. Perhaps the best way I can reply to the point is to refer him to the Report of the Boundary Commission for England which he will find was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 3rd December, 1951—and these Orders are made as a result of that Report.
I cannot tell him whether or not that is part of a wider policy or whether it is merely a specific recommendation as regards these two Orders; but it is certainly following precisely the terms of that Report that these Orders are now laid.
Mr. Bing: Would it not be of convenience to the House generally, when we consider these Orders and when there is a possibility of wider Orders being made rather than narrower Orders, to have a general statement from the hon. Gentleman as to what is the general policy of the Boundary Commission in regard to these matters, which would be of value in subsequent discussions?
Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that I shall take note of what he has said and I will draw my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to the points he has raised.
Resolved,
That the Draft House of Commons (Re-distribution of Seats) (Sunderland and Houghton-le-Spring) Order, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd December, 1951, be approved.—[Sir H. Lucas-Tooth.]

LAND, SURREY (REGISTRATION)
1.14 a.m.
The Attorney-General (Sir Lionel Heald): I beg to move,
That the Draft Registration of Title (Surrey) Order, 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29th January, be approved.
This is an Order which has already been approved in another place. Its object is to extend the compulsory registration of title in the case of land to Surrey.
I should tell the House that there was objection raised to this Order. In accordance with the procedure laid down, under the Land Registration Act, a public inquiry took place and a report was made by a distinguished member of the Chancery Bar, Mr. Neville Grey, Q.C., to the then Lord Chancellor recommending that the Orders should be made; and in pursuance of that my noble Friend the present Lord Chancellor has decided that the Order should go forward. It has been approved in another place and we ask that it should be approved by the House.

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE [MONEY]
Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to consolidate with amendments certain enactments relating to customs and excise, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any remuneration and allowances payable to the Commissioners of Customs and Excise.

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE [MONEY]
  WAYS AND MEANS

    CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
    Resolution reported,
    That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to consolidate with amendments certain enactments relating to customs and excise—

    (1) the duties of customs and the rates thereof chargeable on imported goods—

    (a) if entry is made thereof, except where the entry or, in the case of an entry by bill of sight, the perfect entry is for warehousing, shall be those in force with respect to such goods at the time of the delivery of the entry;

    (b) if no entry is made thereof, shall be those in force with respect to such goods at the time of their importation;

    and, in the case of goods brought by sea, the time of importation of the goods shall be deemed to be the time when the ship carrying them comes within the limits of a port within the meaning of the said Act of the present session;

    (2) where the original gravity of any worts in which fermentation has commenced has been determined, in the manner provided by the said Act of the present session, for the purpose of charging the excise duty in respect of beer, any deduction allowable under that Act from the original gravity so determined shall not have effect so as to reduce the original gravity by reference to which the duty is charged below the actual gravity of the worts as ascertained by the proper officer in accordance with that Act;

    (3) the reduction in the drawback payable on tobacco which, by virtue of section one of the Manufactured Tobacco Act, 1863, as amended by the Finance Act, 1904, is directed to be made in respect of inorganic matter contained in the tobacco shall be deemed always to have been a reduction of an amount bearing the same proportion to the amount of drawback otherwise payable as the proportion by which the weight of the tobacco, after the removal of the

    895
    moisture and any inorganic matter contained therein, would be less than seventy-eight per cent. of its weight after the removal of the moisture but before the removal of inorganic matter;

    (4) where, in pursuance of any power conferred by the said Act of the present Session, the Commissioners of Customs and Excise have during any period refused to allow the removal or sending out for home use of goods of any class or description, then, in the case of any such goods which are removed or sent out for home use after the end of that period, the duties of customs or excise and the rates thereof chargeable on those goods shall be those in force at the date of the removal or sending out of the goods.

  CUSTOMS AND EXCISE BILL
  Resolution of the House [19th February] relating to the Bill, and so much of the Lords Message [21st February] as signifies their concurrence in the said Resolution read:
  Bill committed to a Select Committee of Five Members to be joined with a Committee to be appointed by the Lords:
  Mr. Benson, Mr. Champion, Mr. Maudling, Sir Patrick Spens and Mr. Touche;
  Power to send for persons, papers and records:
  Three to be the Quorum.—[Mr. Vosper.]
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them with such of the said Orders as are necessary to be communicated to their Lordships, and to request them to appoint an equal number of Lords to join with the Committee appointed by this House.

  BLITZED CITIES (RECON- STRUCTION)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Vosper.]
  1.16 a.m.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Just before Christmas, we had a debate in the House on blitzed cities, but no apology is needed for raising this matter again because since we had that debate the blitzed cities have suffered a double blow. First, we have had the statement by the Ministry to various of the blitzed cities on the subject of steel allocations, and secondly, we have had the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the capital investment programme.
  These two blows together constitute by far the most serious setback which the blized cities have received since they started upon their reconstruction programmes after the war. The danger is that if this policy which the Government have now declared is carried through, the whole prospect of planning in the blitzed cities will be disrupted.
  A few days ago, I went with a delegation from the Plymouth Corporation to see the Parliamentary Secretary on this matter. He received us most courteously and did his best to be as helpful as he could; but he could only act within the limits laid down by Government policy, and the limits laid down by that policy are so severe that they make planning virtually impossible.
  Consider what has happened. This illustration is from my own city, Plymouth, but it applies to many of the other blitzed cities also. When we had the debate before Christmas, we were optimistic enough still to hope for an early announcement of the normal allocation of licences for starting on new projects in the reconstruction areas during this year. We feared that the number of those projects might not be as much as we would like, but we still hoped for enough to maintain continuity and to retain our labour force on reconstruction.
  But now we understand that there is to be no provision whatever for issuing licences for any new projects this year, and there is no indication of when a definite announcement can be made

  897
  about what new projects may be started this year. Such a statement as this would have been made enough in itself, but something much worse has happened.
  Under licences issued by the Labour Government, projects had already been started and developments in the City of Plymouth, for instance, had already received delivery dates for steel. Considerable sums of money have already been spent on the sites, but now, some of these projects are to be held up for the lack of any guarantee about steel later this year.
  Even that is not the end of the story. The policy which the new Government have declared must mean, if it is carried through, a reduction in the labour force engaged on reconstruction in our blitzed cities. In my own city, the only chance of saving anything from this part of the wreckage would be if we were allowed to go ahead with such projects as the rebuilding of our Guildhall or our Library, which require very little steel and which certainly are overdue and necessary if we are to have elementary amenities provided. But here we are confronted with the second ban imposed under the new policy of the present Government: the capital investment cuts. I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary would dissent from the description of the facts which I have given.
  Now, I should like to look for a moment at the reasons which are given for these fresh limitations which have been imposed. The first claim of the Government, as I understand, is that the stoppage of these projects is inevitable owing to the physical absence of the steel. The steel, we are told, is just not there. I understand why the Ministry says this, but I do not think it is a completely correct statement of the facts. What the Ministry really means is that the steel is not available under the allocation made to them. It is being used for other purposes. Indeed, some of the steel previously allotted to us under licences issued by the Labour Government, have been taken for these other purposes.
  We believe, on this first issue of steel, that a much bigger fight should have been put up by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to get a proper allocation of steel for the blitzed cities,
  898
  particularly when the present policy and the present allocation does involve the hon. Gentleman's Ministry in a breach of faith with the developers and the blitzed cities themselves.
  The same kind of criticism, I believe, can be made on the second issue—the question of cuts in the capital investment programme. The other day in the House the Minister himself made some replies on this subject. He was asked about the capital investment allocation to blitzed cities this year, and he gave a most nonsensical reply. He said the capital investment programme for the blitzed cities would not be known until the end of the year.
  We know this reply was nonsense for a variety of reasons. First, there was the specific statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he made the announcement which referred to the general capital investment programme, and, secondly, there is the information the local authorities have had in the blitzed cities when they have applied for licences for various projects.
  The truth is that capital investment allocations for the blitzed cities have been cut to practically nothing, and I ask the Parliamentary Secretary tonight to tell us what is the total figure allocated for capital investment in the blitzed cities last year, and what it has been cut to this year. I hope the hon. Gentleman gives us that, even if it contradicts what the right hon. Gentleman said last Tuesday.
  I refer to HANSARD for 19th February, column 24, when the Minister was asked by the right hon. Gentleman for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton):
  "whether or not there is a reduction in the provision for the rebuilding of blitzed cities this year as compared with last year?"
  The reply of the Minister was:
  "cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman until we come to the end of the year." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1952; Vol. 496, c. 37.]
  I say that reply, apart from it being complete nonsense, is also an attempt to deceive the people in the blitzed cities because here the right hon. Gentleman is trying to pretend that the cut in the capital investment programme, which has taken place, does not affect the issue at all. I hope the hon. Gentleman will tell us tonight exactly what are the figures and show what a ridiculous reply this is.

  899
  It is a pity, I think, that the Minister himself has not made a better effort to understand the problem of the blitzed cities. This issue is all the more important because the developers are now being asked to make plans for building in different forms of construction to use less steel. I am sure they will do all they can to carry out that very wise suggestion, but there will not be much sense in it unless they can have a guarantee that capital investment cuts will ease. It is not much use escaping the Macmillan axe on steel, if they have their heads cut off by the Butler guillotine on investments.
  The Ministry have not fought hard enough for a proper allocation for the blitzed cities. They have taken the Treasury's decree far too tamely. This is not the first time we have had this kind of difficulty in the blitzed cities. We have had shortages of steel before and difficulties in capital investment, but on all of these occasions, when we raised this question in the House of Commons under the previous Government, we had an understanding of the difficulties of the blitzed cities and a Ministry which would fight for their rights.
  We must start from the beginning again to educate this new Government in the special problems which blitzed cities have to face. The truth of the matter is that the present capital investment ban means that blitzed cities are, in fact, receiving no priority whatsoever. They are being treated in exactly the same way as cities and towns that were not bombed at all during the war. It is especially hard on such cities as Plymouth which have not yet been able to recover their pre-war rateable value.
  If the hon. Gentleman's Department are going to go through with such a policy and not fight for a better allocation of steel and capital investment for these cities, and if this is to be the new policy of this new Government, then at least the Ministry ought to re-consider and reopen the question of a special grant for blitzed cities.
  If we are to be told tonight that we are to be denied the right to go ahead as fast as we were able to do under a Labour Government with reconstruction in order to regain our rateable value, then it alters the whole of the previous argu-
  900
  ment of the Ministry of Health and the argument the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has put up now for the allocation of special grants.
  If the hon. Gentleman is to say tonight that his Ministry can do nothing to try and make a better fight on behalf of blitzed cities for more steel and better capital investment, and he can say nothing hopeful, I hope he will understand the problem a bit better than his Minister did the other day. I hope he will go back to the Department and make a solemn resolution that instead of taking the Treasury decision lying down he will make a fight for the blitzed cities which bore the brunt during the war.
  1.27 a.m.
  Mr. J. J. Astor: This is the first time I have had the honour to address the House and I am in need of the usual indulgence accorded to those making their maiden speech.
  The two factors that are hindering the reconstruction of the blitzed cities are the shortage of steel—which is necessary for defence and exports—and the cuts in national expenditure, cuts which are necessary to avoid national bankruptcy. Any comparison between the efforts of the last Government and this Government can only be fair if it is remembered that between the years 1945 and 1951 the whole of our economy was underwritten by foreign aid, and that during that period the world situation did not necessitate the defence programme that we have to have now. The citizens of these cities realise that they must have a proper defence programme because without it they might be blitzed again, and that is the last thing they want. They also realise that unless these cuts are made, their wages and pensions will become valueless.
  But within these limiting factors, I should like to make three points. Firstly, in order that the blitzed cities may be able to retain their labour forces—and I speak for Plymouth, which is somewhat isolated in the West—it is essential that there should be continuity in the flow of materials. I put forward the suggestion that the Parliamentary Secretary might get the Ministry to give guidance as to the possibility of having phased programmes, and, while steel is short, using load-bearing bricks with which a building of between four and five storeys can

  901
  be constructed. Load-bearing stone could also be used. In this way we could retain the labour force during the period of the steel shortage.
  My second point concerns the position of the blitzed cities in relation to new towns. It has been suggested that new towns have not been cut as much as blitzed cities. It is argued that where new towns are half built, it is a waste of public money if the building does not continue. That arguments also applies to building in the blitzed cities where licences have been issued and the building started, and, therefore, it is imperative that material be made available for these so that money is not lost and the Ministry are not forced to break faith with private developers.
  Thirdly, one sometimes forgets the importance of blitzed cities. The greatest testimony to the blitzed cities is the fact that the enemy in the war was prepared to risk men and materials in an effort to annihilate them. That surely is testimony enough. I speak for blitzed cities in general and for port towns in particular; and it does seem somewhat illogical to repair battleships if one does not reconstruct the place that provided the facilities for those repairs and also many of the men who sail in Her Majesty's ships.
  1.32 a.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Marples): This is the second occasion tonight on which I have had the privilege of congratulating an hon. Member—on each occasion from this side of the House—on a maiden speech. That to which we have just listened had many advantages; it was lucid, clear, and easy to hear, and, above all, my hon. Friend represented the interests of his constituents in a very moderate and constructive manner. It was constructive as opposed to being merely destructive.
  My hon. Friend made the point that he is worried about retaining the labour force in Plymouth. That is an extremely good point, because if there is not sufficient building work to carry out, the force may tend to disappear from Plymouth and it may be difficult to attract it back. But I can assure him that we in the Ministry will try to see that all the building work is kept at a level to retain the force.
  902
  My hon. Friend spoke of erecting buildings that did not use much steel, and referred to load-bearing walls of brick. In that connection, may I ask blitzed cities to consider the recasting of their building programmes so as to dispense with the use of steel as much as possible? That is possible by the use of load-bearing walls in brick. If they think it necessary to build in steel, I ask them to use reinforced concrete and thereby save up to 50 per cent. of steel.
  May I add that I hope the House will have the opportunity of listening to my hon. Friend on many more occasions, as, indeed, it has often listened to his ancestors in the past.
  I come now to the points raised by the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) who, if I may say so with respect, is in one of his more benign moods and expressing sweet reasonableness, and who has been tonight mild and constructive. He spoke of the limiting factors of steel and the capital investment programme, and asked whether the allocation of steel to the blitzed cities this year, as compared with previous years, was to be reduced. The Minister was quite right in saying that it is not possible to do that now, even if it were desirable.
  There has been a tendency in debates in this House to regard government as planning either everything or nothing at all. Either the government plan right down to the last detail, or it is all laissez faire and there is no planning. The Socialist Government always specialised in rigid planning, in which they related their allocations to a given calendar year irrespective of altered circumstances during that year. We have adopted an entirely different method. We have a flexible plan, because conditions change. I should like to quote to the hon. Member for Devon-port what another journalist, Mr. W. Lippmann said about planning.
  "It is the duty of military and diplomatic planners always to be prepared with more than one plan, and never to tie themselves irrevocably to a fixed and rigid estimate of what their opponents might do. There is a difference between a survey and a plan-especially dealing not with a 'still' but with a changing kaleidoscope continually shifting in all its. aspects."
  We have had to have a flexible plan, because we did not know what quantities. of steel we should have in the second

  903
  half of this year, and to make a rigid allocation of steel would be to make a plan which in effect—
  Mr. Foot: Mr. Lippmann knows a little less about blitzed cities than the Minister. Is the Minister really saying that there has been no decision by the Government to cut the actual figure allocated for capital investment in blitzed cities? If he is, it is complete contradiction of what was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 29th January.
  Mr. Marples: If the hon. Gentleman had listened more closely, he would have observed that I was referring to steel and not to capital investment. He rises with indignant rage about an item I have not yet mentioned.
  I was on the question of steel. If I may say so, we do not know what steel will be allocated. We have not allocated it for the whole year: we have allocated only for the first instalment, and the remaining instalment depends on a variety of factors. We hope to get from America one million tons of steel, but the timing of its arrival cannot be settled definitely until shipping difficulties are known. It may be just under a million tons. In an earlier debate hon. Gentlemen were not keen on getting it, and if they had had their way we should have been in difficulties.
  The hon. Member for Devonport waxed indignant on wrong premises in dealing with the uses made of steel. The steel we are consuming today is on plans and designs passed by the Socialist Government, our predecessors. They were very wasteful in the way they used steel. They used structural steel in place of reinforced concrete, and had they started fewer offices, or used reinforced concrete, they would have saved a great deal of steel. In one block of offices they used 2,010 tons of structural steel, but if they had used reinforced concrete 1,000 tons of steel would have been saved.
  What would Plymouth give for 1,000 tons of steel now? The time for the hon. Gentleman to raise his complaints about the lack of steel allocation to Plymouth was when excessive use was being made of it elsewhere and when his own party were in power. The blitzed cities, like Plymouth, stood up to a tremendous attack during the war and
  904
  deserve every sympathy, but I suggest that they should re-design, if possible, the rebuilding of their centres.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned a library. I want to get this matter straight for the record because, when we last debated this subject, the hon. Gentleman said that the City Library in Plymouth was destroyed by Hitler's bombs and that:
  "Hitler burned the books in a large number of our cities, and the first act of the new Government so far as the City of Plymouth is concerned is a Hitlerite act of condemning our library to continued destruction and uselessness."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th December, 1951; Vol. 494, c. 2513.]
  What the hon. Gentleman did not say was that the proposal for rebuilding the library was turned down by his own Government.
  Mr. Foot: No, it was not. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is wrong about that. It was turned down by the hon. Gentleman's Government under the capital investment ban, which he will not have time to deal with unless he hurries.
  Mr. Marples: If the hon. Gentleman will look at it carefully, he will find that the previous Government would not allow them to rebuild the library.
  I will deal now with the capital investment programme. Again the same principles apply to this as to steel. It is to be reviewed later in the year. Therefore, no person can accurately give the hon. Gentleman the allocation to blitzed cities for the year because it has not yet been made.
  Mr. Foot: There has been no cut?
  Mr. Marples: It has not been made. There is not a cut or an increase. It has not been decided, so how can anyone give it to the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Foot: The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it in the House.
  Mr. Marples: No. The capital investment programme is to be reviewed before the end of the year because circumstances may change.
  Brigadier Terence Clarke: Under the Socialist Government, we got neither houses nor anything else for the blitzed cities. Now under a Conservative Government we may get some-

  905
  thing. There were many opportunities previously when the hon. Gentleman opposite could have assisted me, because I also represent a blitzed city and I had no assistance whatever from him when I raised exactly the same matter on the Adjournment. Now that we have a Conservative Government, the hon. Gentleman attacks my hon. Friend. I see no ground for such an attack.
  Mr. Marples: I still cannot give the figure to the hon. Gentleman, nor can anyone else until a review is made. I suggest to him that he should wait until later in the year, when we may be able to give him a figure which might be more encouraging.
  Mr. Foot: Can the hon. Gentleman give us any date? It is no use asking the blitzed cities to make plans for using less steel if they are not to know whether they will have sufficient capital investment allocation with which to go ahead.
  Mr. Marples: My right hon. Friend has already said that the limiting factor is not capital investment but steel, and that he will see that the capital investment requirements of the blitzed cities match the available steel. Therefore, all this discussion about capital investment may provide the hon. Gentleman with good propaganda for what he has in mind, or party points, but it is not the deciding factor in their building of the blitzed city centers.
  Now I come to one more point. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a special grant. Judged by the test of rateable value per head over the whole country, the blitzed cities are relatively wealthy. If they were not, they would get help under the equalisation grant.
  One last point. The hon. Gentleman deplored the failure to consult with the local authorities concerned before the decision was taken about the delays in reconstruction, and urged consultation with a view to reversing the policy. The Department have always been in touch with the local authorities, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and they know the programmes of the blitzed cities for reconstruction purposes. There is no doubt that we are well aware of the fact that,
  906
  as far as we are concerned in the Ministry, the blitzed cities have not been allocated enough steel for their entire building requirements. We have that in mind and we shall continue, as a Department, to press it whenever meetings are arranged on the allocation of steel.
  What has dictated the inadequate allocation to the blitzed cities has been the shortage of steel in relation to the commitments which the Government have to undertake now because of the overloading of the programme which was handed on to them by their predecessor. That is what necessitated a three months standstill on most of the building operations. When a legacy is received where the amount of work on hand is greater than the available resources, there are only two alternatives: either to increase the resources, which we cannot do, or to cut down on the amount of building which is going on.
  Mr. Foot: The Ministry has less steel.
  Mr. Marples: We would have had even less. Hon. Gentlemen opposite ridiculed the million tons which my right hon. Friend got from America.
  Mr. Foot: Not at all.
  Mr. Marples: This afternoon there were cries. I was in the House this afternoon when hon. Gentlemen opposite were dissenting from the view that the million tons of steel which my right hon. Friend secured from America was a good bargain for this country. If it had not been for that, I do not know what would have happened to our building programme.
  The hon. Gentleman has had the answers to most of the questions he put. I am sorry that, because of the limited time at my disposal, I cannot speak any longer, but we do want to treat the blitzed cities with sympathy, and we shall do all we can.
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock on Monday evening, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Fourteen Minutes to Two o'Clock a.m.

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