Sitting of 1 February 1956

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Thornaby Station (Batmen)
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the Secretary of State for Air how many batmen are employed at Thornaby Royal Air Force Station by officers living in married quarters; and what are their duties.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Nigel Birch): Three are employed part-time. The duties are similar to those carried out by batmen in an officers' mess.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it right that Regular Royal Air Force personnel should be engaged upon cleaning and polishing thoroughly on Monday the lounge and hall; and dusting and mopping the dining room and morning room? This is an extract from a document for which a constituent of mine was put on five days' confinement to barracks for sending to me? Does the right hon. Gentleman think it right that the time of these men should be wasted in this way? Should not these jobs be performed by the officers' wives?
    Mr. Birch: I think the hon. Gentleman knows that all Regular batmen are volunteers. I think that the case to which he is referring happened some time ago.

    Personal Case
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will release from further service 2755077 Leading Aircraftman G. A. Kerley, Royal Air Force Station, Sopley, details of whose case have been sent him by the hon. Member for Swindon.
    Mr. Birch: Leading Aircraftman Kerley has not yet applied for release.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: As soon as he applies in the proper way—and sometimes aircraftmen do have some difficulty in knowing what are the proper channels—will the Secretary of State give sympathetic consideration to his application, in view of the fact that his wife, who is an invalid and suffering from a very serious disability, has just had a child, and because I am quite certain that if the right hon. Gentleman knew as much about this man's domestic circumstances as I do he would look with great sympathy on his application?
    Mr. Birch: Obviously no decision can be given until the actual application is made, but my experience of the Air Ministry over a good many years—and I think that all hon. Members would agree—is that it gives careful attention to these cases.

    Hunter Aircraft
    Mr. Stracheyasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is now satisfied with the performance of the Hunter aircraft; whether restrictions upon firing its guns can now be lifted; how far it is still intended to proceed with the production of this aircraft in the numbers originally contemplated; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Birch: The Hunter has proved its flying qualities in the Service. There are still certain restrictions on the firing of the Hunter's guns, and a programme of modifications is in progress. As a result of the current review of the defence programme, there will be a small reduction in orders for Hunters.
    Mr. Strachey: Can the Secretary of State give us some greater reassurance that this, in itself, fine aircraft will be got through its teething troubles before in fact it is obsolete? Can he not tell us what the programme as to numbers is likely to be in the future?
    Mr. Birch: Obviously it would be wrong for me to give exact numbers, but we hope that quite a number of modified aircraft will be operational before the summer.
    Mr. Beswick: The Secretary of State said that this aircraft has proved its flying qualities. In that proof, can he say

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    whether the aircraft comes up to the operational standard of which the F.100 is capable?
    Mr. Birch: Yes. The F.100 is a later aircraft, but it is a comparable aircraft.

  ROADS

    Forth Tube Project
    Major Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he has now received a report from the panel of experts examining the Forth tube project.
    The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): Not yet, Sir. The panel is working hard. I hope to get its report in a month or two.
    Major Anstruther-Gray: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that this matter is regarded as urgent in Scotland? Would he not consider asking the panel to give an interim report?
    Mr. Watkinson: The panel has not so far fallen behind its programme of work, or behind the date when we thought it would be able to report.
    Mr. Hamilton: Will the Minister give an assurance that, whatever the outcome of the report, the Government will fulfil their promise that a crossing of the Forth will begin within the four years?
    Mr. Watkinson: That is another question.

    Street Lighting
    Mr. Pageasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will initiate legislation to promote improvement and uniformity in the street lighting of those roads in built-up areas on which there is a substantial volume of traffic.
    Mr. Watkinson: Street lighting is the responsibility of local lighting authorities, and they are well aware of the recommended standards of lighting for such roads and are, in general, bringing them up to these standards as their circumstances permit.
    Mr. Page: Is not the legislation with regard to street lighting chaotic at the moment? Is not the difference between grants for street lighting and grants for
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    road improvement deterring local authorities from carrying out lighting improvements which are very necessary from the point of view of road safety? Is there not something which my right hon. Friend can do not only to improve but to create uniformity in street lighting?
    Mr. Watkinson: If my hon. Friend would like to make any specific points to me on that question, I should be very glad to look at them. None the less, this is the responsibility of local authorities and not the central Government.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the best encouragement he could give to local authorities to carry out reforms in lighting would be to have a word with the Chancellor with a view to his reducing the interest rates which local authorities have to pay when they borrow money in respect of these necessary works?

    London-Yorkshire Motorway
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many objections have been lodged to his plans for the first 53 miles of the proposed London-Yorkshire motorway; when hearings of these objections commenced; when the hearings will be completed; and when construction will start.
    Mr. Watkinson: By the end of the objection period I had received 136, of which a number are objections from owners and tenants in respect of the same piece of property. One of these has now been withdrawn. I am carefully considering all the representations made, and until I have completed this examination I am unable to answer my hon. Friend's further questions.
    Mr. Johnson: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that when the grants have been decided and the contracts have been placed he will leave it to the engineers to carry out those contracts in the normal way and not compel them to refer to his Department for decisions upon minor matters of detail?
    Mr. Watkinson: I am afraid that that is rather a long way away at the moment.

    Loughton By-pass (Bridge Works)
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation for how long work was held up on the Loughton

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    by-pass on route A.5, while the beams for the bridge, which had to be constructed, had to be redesigned owing to the inadequacy of the original design; and what total extra cost will have been incurred on account of this delay.
    Mr. Watkinson: In this case the contractors have an outstanding claim against the county council for compensation in respect of delay to the progress of the works. Until this has been disposed of, I do not think I should make a statement on the points to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Mr. Johnson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this delay was aggravated by the fact that the county surveyor had to refer even minor matters to his Ministry? Is he further aware that the extra cost involved was in no way the fault of the contractors concerned, but was due to the methods of bureaucracy?
    Mr. Watkinson: On the broad issue, if my hon. Friend can give me any suggestions which will help to speed up road construction, I shall be only too pleased to consider them, but this specific case is sub judice as far as I am concerned.

    Schemes (Co-ordination)
    Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what up-to-date technical information he has as to the extent to which the cost of building the new highways envisaged in his programme could be reduced if the construction could be carried out in a rapid and comprehensive manner instead of in piecemeal fashion necessary under the present system; and whether he will arrange with the Road Research Laboratory to make a report on this subject at an early date.
    Mr. Watkinson: Once a scheme for a new road has been authorised the work is carried out as rapidly as possible in accordance with the best modern practice. It is true that certain improvements are authorised in sections, according to their priority in relation to that of schemes elsewhere, but that is necessary and reasonable.
    Mr. Janner: Would the Minister agree with me that traffic is increasing very much more rapidly than the provision of roads to accommodate it? Does he not
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    think there ought to be some radical change in our approach to this matter?
    Mr. Watkinson: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we certainly have to do more to keep traffic flowing. As to the details of the particular plan, I cannot answer in this Question.

    Linlithgow Bridge (River Avon)
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he can now announce a starting date for the new Linlithgow Bridge over the Avon.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Hugh Molson): Not yet, Sir, as tenders have not yet been invited.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that it is nearly a year since he said that it was a first priority? Can this not be speeded up a little?
    Mr. Molson: I am very familiar with this matter. I saw the right hon. Gentleman and some of his friends in connection with it eighteen months ago. There was some difficulty with the Stirling County Council but that has now been sorted out, the consulting engineers have been reappointed, and they hope to invite tenders by the end of February, with a view to the proposed work being started a little later.

    Otley-Wetherby Road (Accidents)
    Colonel Stoddart-Scottasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that there were double the number of road accidents in 1955 compared with the average for the previous five years on the Otley-Wetherby Road between Pool and Harewood Bridge; and why the dangerous road surface was not repaired until there had been these accidents and two deaths.
    Mr. Molson: I am aware of the accidents which have occurred. The slippery surface which developed at the end of July, 1955, was promptly dealt with by the highway authority in August. The increase in the accident rate was not confined to the slippery section nor to the short period during which it remained slippery. In particular, there is no evidence that either of the two fatal accidents was due to any condition of the road surface.

    Tyne Bridge
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what inquiries he has made regarding the siting of a new bridge crossing the Tyne.
    Mr. Molson: The Tyne Tunnel Joint Committee has informed us that the best site would be between Jarrow and Howden on approximately the same line as that selected for the proposed tunnel.
    Mr. Willey: Will the Minister look at this matter again, because there is a considerable difference between the bridge and the tunnel? The best site for the bridge is not necessarily the best site for the tunnel, and there are various interests in the North-East which think that the location of the bridge should be different from that of the tunnel.
    Mr. Molson: I fully recognise that a tunnel is a different thing from a bridge. It does not necessarily follow, therefore, that the most suitable place for a bridge would be the most suitable place for a tunnel. On this occasion, however, it is the view of the joint committee of the two county councils that that is the case.
    Mr. Ede: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that a survey was made— and would have been acted on some years ago—for a bridge which would have connected the two county boroughs of South Shields and Tynemouth, which is a much more suitable place?
    Mr. Molson: No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will make representations to the county councils on that subject. We, however, are dealing with the joint committee, and the two county councils are of the opinion that this is the most suitable place for the bridge, if it is to be constructed.
    Mr. Ede: But the point to which I am alluding is not within the jurisdiction of the county councils.
    Mr. Molson: In that case I can only suppose that that is a slightly different project from that which we are discussing.
    Mr. Short: Would the hon. Gentleman hazard a guess as to what would happen if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) were put into closer communication with the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)?
    Mr. Molson: I should always be happy to act as a liaison between hon. Members.

    Pedestrian Crossings, Gypsy Corner
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware of the dangerous location of pedestrian crossings at Gypsy Corner, Western Avenue, Acton; and what steps he proposes to take to remove the crossings to safer positions, in view of the heavy accident rate at this point.
    Mr. Molson: A number of accidents have taken place near this signal-controlled junction, but I do not think that it would help if we were to shift the pedestrian crossings. I hope the duplication of the western arm of Western Avenue, scheduled to begin next year, will improve matters.
    Mr. Sparks: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the traffic lights controlling east-west and west-east traffic do not synchronise, which causes confusion in the minds of pedestrians wanting to cross the road? Is he also aware that although the pedestrian crossing lights show green, pedestrians very frequently cannot cross because of the heavy traffic filtering from other directions? If he cannot find and provide any other alternative, will he consider the introduction of an all-red phase to give pedestrians a chance to cross the road in safety?
    Mr. Molson: I am aware that there have been a number of accidents here recently and that it is because the two streams of traffic are not stopped at the same time. The reason for that is to facilitate traffic turning to the right. I will certainly look into the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised, but so far as we have been able to study the matter it is not likely to be put right until we have been able to carry out major road improvements there. In five out of the seven recent accidents the pedestrians did not cross at the lights but some distance from them.

  TRANSPORT

    Road Safety
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is aware that the Midland Federation of

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    Road Safety Committees is disturbed at his action in refusing grant of any road safety publicity expenditure for 1955–56 which is in excess of the expenditure for the previous year; and, in view of the smallness of the amount to be saved and of the rate of increase in accidents, if he will reconsider his decision.
    Mr. Watkinson: I am aware of the concern expressed by the Midland Federation of Road Safety Committees. I recognise the great value of the road safety campaigns run by local authorities, but I am afraid I cannot increase road safety grants for the current year ending on 31st March.
    Miss Burton: While I am glad that the Minister appreciates the anxiety that his has caused, may I ask whether his Answer means that after 31st March he will feel able, as in the past, to agree to any realistic increase of grant in this respect, particularly in view of the alarming increase in road accidents?
    Mr. Watkinson: I will certainly consider very carefully what the hon. Lady has said.
    Mr. G. R. Strauss: In view of the appalling increase in road accidents, could the Minister not reconsider, with the Treasury, the desirability of increasing by very small amounts grants for these active and most useful campaigns by local authorities, and not wait many months before taking the necessary steps in that direction?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not think, perhaps, that the right hon. Gentleman heard my last words. I am only concerned at the moment with the current year which ends on 31st March, and I cannot do anything in these remaining weeks.
    Mr. Pageasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many local authorities have not set up local road safety committees; and what percentage that number bears to the total number of local authorities empowered to set up such committees.
    Mr. Molson: One hundred and seventy-four local authorities or 13½ per cent. of the total.
    Mr. Page: Is there nothing else that my hon. Friend can do to persuade those local authorities which have not set up road safety committees to set up these very valuable committees?
    Mr. Molson: We regard them as extremely important and valuable from the point of view of road safety, and we are doing all we can, through the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, to encourage local authorities to do so. I hope that the publicity which my hon. Friend's Question has given to this matter will result in some other local authorities setting up these committees.
    Mr. Anthony Greenwoodasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what plans he has for making the National Road Safety Campaign more effective.
    Mr. Watkinson: I am planning to continue the National Road Safety Campaign through the local Road Safety Committees set up by local authorities and with the help of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. In addition, I intend from time to time to contribute to the general campaign by means such as the specially written booklet on "Sense and Safety," which was published on 17th January. Another immediate measure is the free distribution of the Highway Code for one year to people renewing their substantive driving licences. This starts today.
    Mr. Greenwood: Can the Minister say whether he has read the statement issued by Mr. Maurice Rickard on resigning as publicity consultant to the National Road Safety Campaign? In view of the lamentably small number of local authorities that have set up road safety committees—as disclosed in his earlier answer to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page)—does not the Minister think that some more centralised road safety publicity campaign is necessary?
    Mr. Watkinson: I know Mr. Rickard's views, and those of many other people who naturally feel very worried about the number of deaths on the roads. I shall certainly look very carefully into the point raised by the hon. Member.
    Mr. Greenwood: Will the Minister take as a precedent the campaign carried out by the Labour Government in 1947?

    Vans (Side Windows)
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is prepared to introduce regulations making side windows in small vans obligatory so that the accident risk may be reduced.
    Sir F. Medlkottasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will introduce regulations making compulsory the provision of side windows in trade and similar vans, so as to increase the range of the driver's vision.
    Mr. Molson: My right hon. Friend could not contemplate this action as he is not satisfied that considerations of road safety justify compulsion.
    Miss Burton: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that in Coventry over a period of twenty months there have been seven accidents which could be attributed directly to this lack of side windows, that the Coventry Water Undertaking desires to fit them, and that if it did so the Purchase Tax on each vehicle would be increased by £100, which is quite impossible? Will not the Minister look at the matter again?
    Mr. Molson: I am not concerned with the question of Purchase Tax—that is a matter for the Treasury. From the point of view of road safety, we are not of the opinion that the provision of side windows would have any appreciable effect. Under Regulation 16 of the Construction and Use Regulations, 1955,
    "Every motor vehicle shall be equipped either internally or externally with a mirror so constructed and fitted to the motor vehicle as to assist the driver if he so desires to become aware of traffic to the rear of the vehicle."
    We believe that the fitting of mirrors of that kind is a great deal more conducive to safety than having side windows, in which case it would be necessary for the driver to turn his head when, as a matter of fact, it would be better if he looked in front of him.
    Sir F. Medlicott: Cannot we persuade the Minister to adopt a more crusading attitude in this matter? Is it not a fact that this business of road casualties is a grim and desperate battle in which no means should be neglected to prevent casualties, however few they may be?
    Mr. Molson: Nobody is better aware than I, as Chairman of the Road Safety Committee, of the gravity of the accidents which at present occur. We see no reason whatever to suppose that the provision of windows behind the driver's seat is
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    going to be of any value at all in averting accidents, and we think that mirrors are a better and more scientific way of guarding against accidents.
    Mr. Usborne: Does not the Minister understand that the object of side windows is to enable the driver to see sideways, and the object of mirrors is to enable him to see backwards, which are quite different things? Will he not think again, if he can?
    Mr. Molson: The hon. Gentleman apparently does not understand what the principal Question was. It does not refer to side windows beside the driver's seat, but to side windows behind the driver's seat.
    Miss Burton: As I am dealing with certain accidents which have occurred and not with problematical theories, would the Minister be prepared to look at evidence from Coventry concerning these accidents to see if his opinion is right?
    Mr. Molson: I am always willing to look at any evidence in order to confirm the opinion to which I have already come.
    Mr. Strauss: In view of the hon. Gentleman's reply to one of my hon. Friends, will he look at the Question again, when he will see that there is no suggestion of side windows being fitted behind the driver as he suggested?
    Mr. Molson: This refers to the provisions of the Purchase Tax Orders, and they refer to windows behind the driver's seat.

    Road Haulage Vehicles (Disposal)
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what revised estimate he made of the loss on disposal of vehicles by the British Transport Commission before proposing to legislate to terminate the Transport Levy.
    Mr. Watkinson: A reassessment was made of the capital loss based on the latest information available. With other compensation payable to the Commission under the Transport Act, 1953, the total amount was estimated as approximately £12¼ million.
    Mr. Davies: How was it possible to arrive at that estimate when the disposals which were planned in regard to the parcels, meat and remaining vehicles had

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    not taken place? Does this mean that, the estimate now having been fixed at £12 million, the Minister will abandon all further sales so that the loss falling on the Commission will not be greater than that amount?
    Mr. Watkinson: First, this is an estimate, and, secondly, before long the House will no doubt be discussing legislation upon which this whole question can be examined.
    Mr. Davies: Will the Minister give an undertaking that if the estimate is greater than that, the Government will, in view of the proposal to terminate the Levy at the end of the year, bear that loss, and that it will not fall on the Commission?
    Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Gentleman would care to put down that question, I will answer it.

    Road Haulage Disposal Board
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will now state when he proposes to terminate the appointments of the members of the Road Haulage Disposal Board.
    Mr. Watkinson: I am not at present in a position to make any statement on this matter.
    Mr. Davies: Will the Minister tell us what further work the Road Haulage Disposal Board has to do, in view of the fact that there was no tender whatever for the parcels company, that the only tender for the meat organisation had to be rejected because it was fishy; and why, since the remaining vehicles up for disposal are very few in number, the Board is kept in existence?
    Mr. Watkinson: I think that if the hon. Gentleman studies a little more carefully the duties which the Board has to do he will see that there are certain very important remaining duties which devolve upon it.

    British Transport Commission (Appointments)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will so exercise his powers of appointment under Section 1 (2) of the Transport Act, 1947, that the top control of British Transport shall be placed in
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    the hands of experienced transport trade unionists, instead of in the hands of men whose working lives have been spent in other than the transport industry.
    Mr. Watkinson: No, Sir. While it is my constant desire to use the skill and wise counsels of the trade union movement to the full, I am convinced that the British Transport Commission is best directed by a well balanced board who, between them, have experience of the transport business and also wide knowledge of administrative and industrial practice.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister laying it down as a principle that inexpert persons shall be in charge of expert and difficult technical problems? Can he give any reasons for that surprising proposition?
    Mr. Watkinson: I am laying it down as a principle that I am going to pick the best men I can find for the job.
    Captain Duncan: Can my right hon. Friend say whether this Question is a sign of a change in the Socialist Party policy from Socialism to syndicalism?
    Mr. Watkinson: I would not know anything about that.

    Fares and Freight Charges
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will give a general direction to the British Transport Commission to consider the possibility of following the example of the cement industry and agree not to increase their fares on freight charges during the next six months.
    Mr. Watkinson: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Scotstoun (Sir J. Hutchison) on 25th January.
    Mr. Johnson: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the example set by the cement industry and followed by other industries is a very commendable one? Why is it that a nationalised industry cannot follow that example?
    Mr. Watkinson: I certainly think that the example of private enterprise industry in this respect is a very commendable one. Perhaps one of the differences is that some, or perhaps all, those industries are making profits, while the railways— which are mentioned in my hon. Friend's Question—are certainly not.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that it is much easier to reduce prices or keep them steady when one is overcharging than when one is charging at cost price?
    Mr. Nabarro: Go to the bottom of the class.

    British Road Services (Vehicles)
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the number and aggregate unladen tonnage of the vehicles owned by British Road Services at the date of the Royal Assent being given to the Transport Act, 1953; the number sold by the Disposals Board to 1st January, 1956, and their aggregate unladen tonnage; and the number of vehicles and their aggregate unladen tonnage remaining in the ownership of British Road Services at 1st January, 1956.
    Mr. Watkinson: The number of vehicles at the time the 1953 Act received the Royal Assent was 36,776. The number of vehicles sold up to 1st January last was 18,832. The number remaining in the hands of British Road Services at 3rd December, 1955—the latest date for which figures are at present available— was 16,731. There was a reduction of 1,200 in the size of the fleet due to vehicles bought or sold in the course of normal replacement. Figures for tonnage could not be obtained in the time available and I will write as soon as possible to my hon. Friend.

    Traffic Indicators
    Sir F. Medlicottasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he has now completed his examination of the problem caused by winking traffic indicators on motor vehicles; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Watkinson: No, Sir. The Road Research Laboratory, following their interim report, are carrying out a further investigation into certain aspects of the problem and I must await their report on this.
    Sir F. Medlicott: Will the Minister give the House an assurance that when he is further examining this matter he will not be unduly influenced by considerations of the export market but will pay attention solely to the need for the safety and convenience of drivers?
    Mr. Watkinson: I shall have to try to do both.
    Mr. G. R. Strauss: Has there not been a very long delay about this matter? We were assured that we should have that report from the Laboratory by the end of last year and some statement by the Minister. Now we are told that further investigation is taking place. The longer action is delayed the more difficult it will be. Can we have an assurance when we will have an announcement?
    Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman is on a good point when he says that we ought to get this cleared up as soon as possible. I will do what I can.

    Vehicle Testing
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (1) what steps he is taking to make periodic inspection of motor cars compulsory;
    (2) if he will now set up further vehicle-testing stations similar to the one at Hendon.
    Mr. Watkinson: As I announced last week, the Government have accepted the principle of compulsory periodic vehicle testing. The vehicle-testing station at Hendon is a pilot venture from which I hope to gain much useful information. I do not intend at the moment to open any more in advance of a general scheme.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the Minister aware that since these two Questions were put down the Government have reversed their policy in this matter and decided to follow the policy of the Labour Party? We hope that that will be continued, of course. Is he further aware that we shall study his detailed proposals on this matter with the very greatest care?
    Mr. Watkinson: I appreciate that since the hon. Gentleman put these Questions down things have happened elsewhere, but I hope there are no politics in trying to stop deaths on the road.
    Mr. Usborne: Before the Minister decides to set up many more testing stations like the one at Hendon, will he consider the possibility that that kind of expense could be better used in other ways? Is he aware that the Birmingham

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    Accident Prevention Road Safety Campaign is also of the opinion that that could be so?
    Mr. Watkinson: We had better wait until the Bill comes back to the House.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Would the Minister agree by way of encouragement to introduce a regulation to ensure that only those cars which have passed the vehicle test at Hendon shall be allowed to park in New Palace Yard?

    Public Footpaths (Appeals)
    Mr. Anthony Greenwoodasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the average period which elapses between the hearing of representations and objections in respect of proposals to close public footpaths and the announcement of his decision.
    Mr. Watkinson: A local inquiry is not often necessary in these cases. Circumstances vary so greatly that no useful average period between hearing and decision can be given. The length of that interval depends on the complexities of the case and, in particular, whether the merits of different substitute routes have to be investigated.
    Mr. Greenwood: Is the Minister aware that the question relates, not to the amount of time taken in arriving at a decision, but the amount of time taken in announcing the decision after it is reached? Is he aware that according to the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, the average length of time taken in making the decision on appeals to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is only three months, but that in the case of appeals to his Department it is much longer and often prejudices the future of the footpath concerned?
    Mr. Watkinson: I will certainly have a look at that point.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    Rearward-facing Seats
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is now in a position to make a statement on the policy to be adopted for civil aircraft in this country in so far as backward-facing seats are concerned.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Profumo): This is a matter on which expert opinion is not unanimous. It is to be discussed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation in September this year, and any decision affecting British aircraft must await the outcome of the discussion.
    Miss Burton: While being aware, of course, that this has gone on for a long time and that opinion is not unanimous on the subject, may I ask the Minister if he appreciates that people would like to know at what decision the Government may arrive? May we hope that it will not be later than September?
    Mr. Profumo: I quite appreciate the hon. Lady's interest in this matter. I do not think that I can give an undertaking that a decision will not be later than September. The matter will only be discussed in September. Meanwhile, it is generally recognised that the Government's policy is that we should not make rearward-facing seats mandatory, in view of conflicting opinions on the matter, until some international agreement is arrived at, which would mean that all airlines could do the same thing.

    Scheduled Services (Airports)
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the average number of days in a year in which scheduled services of British airlines are unable to use London, Idlewild, and Paris, Le Bourget, airports, respectively.
    Mr. Profumo: It rarely occurs that the scheduled services of British airlines are unable to make use of any of these airports for so long a period as 24 hours. In fact, there were no such occasions in 1955 at London Airport, Idlewild, or Le Bourget, apart from a period when the latter was closed during a strike of French Air Traffic Control Officers.
    Mr. Callaghan: Is the Minister aware that there is some concern that London Airport is not able to be used nearly as frequently as the other two that he mentioned because of fog? Has he made any estimate of the loss of revenue arising from that, and is anything being done to speed up fog dispersal units?
    Mr. Profumo: It is true to say that London suffers from fog to a certain

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    extent more than other aerodromes. I have no estimate of the amount of money lost. There have been various estimates. I think the hon. Gentleman will realise that one of the chief reasons for building Gatwick is that it can be an alternate for bad weather. With regard to fog dispersal, one must remember that F.I.D.O. will only clear fog and not low cloud or heavy rain, which also cause diversion from London Airport.
    Sir T. Moore: Will the Minister therefore agree that it is a very good thing for the safety of passengers in this country and those coming from other countries that Prestwick Airport should be available?
    Mr. Profumo: Prestwick is at present the second international airport in the United Kingdom.

    Britannia Aircraft
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how soon he expects the Britannia to be in service; and for what routes he has approved its use.
    Mr. Profumo: I understand that British Overseas Airways Corporation expects to have Britannias in service on the route to South Africa in July or August of this year. The Corporation intends to introduce the Britannia to other routes, beginning with the route to Australia, as deliveries and the completion of training arrangements permit.

    B.E.A. Aircraft (Contaminated Fuel)
    Mr. Grimondasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will make a statement on the finding of salt water in a British European Airways Viscount refuelled at Gibraltar.
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation in what circumstances the Viscount airliner flying from Gibraltar to London on 2nd January forced-landed in France; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Profumo: Yes, Sir; since this incident occurred it has been established that the fuel taken on board at Gibraltar was contaminated with sea water. When the Viscount was 70 miles west of Bordeaux, flying at 21,000 feet, No. I engine failed followed by No. 2 and
    910
    shortly No. 4. The crew took emergency action and it appeared that a ditching operation would have to be made. Through the able assistance from the French Air Traffic Control authorities, the captain, who displayed the highest standards of airmanship, was able to make a landing at the military airfield at Cazaux.
    Mr. Grimond: I am sure the House will join with the Minister in what he has said about the captain's skill and courage in making a forced landing. Can the hon. Gentleman assure us that there will be a full inquiry into how this affair arose, and will he also say whether this is not almost a unique event in the history of British airlines and is certainly not likely to be repeated?
    Mr. Profumo: I can assure the House that there is every likelihood that there will not be a recurrence of that type of incident. British European Airways and the petroleum company have taken most careful steps since the incident occurred. A report, which is, of course, primarily the responsibility of the Corporation, will be sent by the Chairman to my right hon. Friend for him to study.
    Mr. Beswick: While I have no doubt that the Minister will study the report with the greatest interest, is it not a fact that the crew of the aircraft displayed most outstanding skill and presence of mind? Might I suggest that it would not be inappropriate to make some recognition of their achievement?
    Mr. Profumo: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman joins me in the words that I uttered in my original reply. This is a matter for the Chairman and Board of the Corporation, in the first instance at any rate.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is a matter far beyond the mere concern of the Corporation? It is a matter of great public interest to know that an investigation is being made and that steps will be taken to prevent such an incident occurring in future. The public will want to know exactly how the incident occurred.
    Mr. Profumo: I can only repeat that my right hon. Friend recognises his overriding responsibilities for safety, and it is for that reason that Lord Douglas will

    911
    furnish him with a full report which he will study with the greatest care when it arrives.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: While I agree with hon. Members who have paid tribute to the captain of the aircraft, is my hon. Friend satisfied with the inquiry by the Corporation? Does he not think that it is a matter which should be investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department?
    Mr. Profumo: No, Sir; I do not think so. The facts seems to be fairly clear. I ought perhaps to add that B.E.A. has suspended its engineer at Gibraltar because, having discovered that contamination was present, he failed to follow B.E.A.'s instructions about action to be taken when fuel contamination is discovered.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the public will want some report? If Lord Douglas is not able to publish his report, will the hon. Gentleman ensure that the public gets some report when the investigation is completed?
    Mr. Profumo: If there were any overriding reason why my right hon. Friend felt that he should make a further statement, he would of course do so, but it would not preclude Lord Douglas from making some statement on behalf of the Corporation. I hope the House will allow us to leave the matter there, because it is at present under consideration.

  SHIPPING

    Ports Efficiency Committee (Report)
    Mr. Pageasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation when he anticipates that he will receive the Report of the Ports Efficiency Committee which is investigating delays to road vehicles in dock areas.
    Mr. Watkinson: The Committee is pursuing its inquiries as quickly as possible, but I cannot say when it will be able to present a Report on this matter.
    Mr. Page: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate the urgency of this matter in that the lack of facilities in the ports for marshalling goods brought by road transport is not only increasing the cost of
    912
    exports, but also the cost of imports? It is a matter of national urgency at the present time, particularly having regard to the efficiency achieved by Continental ports.
    Mr. Watkinson: I know my hon. Friend's interest in this matter and, therefore, I am quite sure that he will appreciate, just as well as I do, the immense amount of work involved even in getting the basic statistics to enable the Ports Efficiency Committee to start the job.
    Mr. Callaghan: While the Minister is awaiting these statistics and Report, will he inform ship-owners and exporters that there is neither congestion nor delay at the ports of Cardiff, Barry, Newport or Swansea in South Wales?
    Mr. Watkinson: I shall be delighted to do so, and I am very obliged to the hon. Gentleman for doing it for me.

    Ports (Use)
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation which ports are not being used to their full capacity for handling shipping.
    Mr. Watkinson: The effective capacity of a port depends upon a number of factors, and I could not attempt to particularise the individual ports which may have spare capacity for different classes of traffic. Port authorities bring to the notice of shippers and shipowners the capacity they have available for particular trades. The distribution of traffic between ports is ultimately the responsibility of the shippers.

    Labour-saving Machinery
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how much manpower has been saved by the installation of labour-saving machinery in the docks in recent years; and to what extent time has been saved in loading and unloading.
    Mr. Watkinson: Although progress is being made with the installation of labour-saving machinery in the ports, it is not possible to specify exactly the saving in manpower, but some remarkable savings of time in the turn-round of ships have been achieved by the installation of machinery, particularly in handling bulk cargoes.
    Mr. Russell: Does my right hon. Friend mean by that that the ships are now being turned round in the ports more quickly or more slowly than before the war?
    Mr. Watkinson: It is so difficult to give an exact comparison. In some ports they are certainly being turned round more quickly. If my hon. Friend is interested. I will give him all the information I can.

    British Ships (Flag Transfers)
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many ocean-going vessels are owned by British companies and operate under another flag; and how many British ships have been transferred to another flag during the past five years.
    Mr. Watkinson: A company which is qualified to own a British ship cannot lawfully own a ship trading under a foreign flag. During the last five years. 511 ships of 500 gross tons and over, formerly registered in the United Kingdom and Colonies, have been transferred to other registers.
    Mr. Awbery: In view of the number of ships which are being transferred to maritime nations which will not conform to I.L.O. conventions, will the Minister take steps to prevent the future transfers or sales of these ships to such countries unless he has special reasons for agreeing to them?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not think that any of us likes these flags of convenience, but the difficulty is that there is a very narrow balance of advantage whether this restriction would help or hinder the shipping industry.
    Mr. Grimond: Does not this question draw attention to a very serious matter in shipping? Is not it the case that, owing to high taxation in this country and the disregard of international conventions by other countries, shipowners who patriotically keep their ships under the British flag are working at a great disadvantage?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not think that that is the same question. The difficulty is that some owners, at least, have transferred their flags to other countries. I do not think that the question of high taxation is the only point which arises.

    Life-saving Apparatus
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what experiments or tests have been made into the use of inflated dinghies or life-rafts for the saving of life at sea; and if he will make it compulsory for ships to carry such life-saving apparatus.
    Mr. Watkinson: Extensive trials of inflatable life-rafts have been carried out by my Department and the Admiralty, and I have approved the use of these rafts in both merchant ships and fishing boats. I am in process of making Regulations requiring their carriage in a wide range of fishing boats. Their compulsory carriage in merchant ships is for further consideration and, in part, depends on amendment of the 1948 International Conventions for the Safety of Life at Sea. Her Majesty's Government have already proposed this amendment to all signatories of the Convention. In the meantime, I have the matter under active review with the shipping industry, and I am glad to say that many ships are being voluntarily equipped with this apparatus.
    Mr. Awbery: Will the Minister press for a change of attitude of the convention of 1948 so that these dinghies can be used, in view of the fact that the senior officers of his Department are satisfied that it is necessary to use dinghies and that they can save life at sea?
    Mr. Watkinson: I agree with the hon. Gentleman and will certainly do what I can to increase their use.

    Coastal Vessels (Hatch Covers)
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that the safety of many coastal vessels depends on the strength of the canvas which covers the hatches; that when this is torn by the sea the hatch covers become loose and liable to be washed away; and if he will make a regulation for a locked bar to be placed across every row of hatch covers in order to retain the firmness of the hatches even when the canvas is broken.
    Mr. Watkinson: Load-line rules which govern these matters already require hatch covers to be provided with steel bars or other equivalent means for efficiently and independently securing each section of hatchway covers after the tarpaulins are battened down.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that at the inquest on the men who were lost on the motor vessel "Citrine" off Falmouth a few weeks ago, a representative person said that it was a mockery that the safety of a vessel should depend upon the canvas cover on the hatches? Surely something should be done to make hatch covers safe, apart from the wedging of the canvas?
    Mr. Watkinson: I have looked at the report of the loss which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. I do not think he knows that I have already ordered a preliminary inquiry. I do not think I ought to comment further on the matter.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: In view of the disquiet in West Cornwall at the rather unfortunate remarks at that inquest by somebody who was really in no position to make them, would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is a real need for giving information so as to allay suspicion of and unfairness to the people who constructed and manned that vessel, and that it should be quite definitely stated whether the remarks are true or not? There has been considerable anxiety not only in West Cornwall but in Glasgow as well.
    Mr. Watkinson: This is a very important point, and that is why I have asked for a preliminary inquiry.

  RAILWAYS

    Automatic Train Control and Safety Measures
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (1) what progress was made during 1955 by British Railways in the installation of automatic train control; how many miles of permanent way operated by the British Transport Commission were fitted with such equipment, and how many locomotives, respectively, at 1st January, 1955, and 31st December, 1955; and what progress in improved railway safety is planned for 1956;
    (2) in view of recent railway accidents at Milton, Berkshire, Barnes and elsewhere, unattended signal boxes and similar failures of railway organisation and administration, what consultations he has had with the British Transport Commission and what special steps he proposes to take during 1956 to allay the rising
    916
    apprehension of the railway travelling public, improve safety measures, and increase automatic and other equipment of the latest types, designed to reduce the number and extent of accidents and smashes on British Railways.
    Mr. Watkinson: On the general question of railway safety, I would refer my hon. Friend to what I said on 25th January in answer to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Knutsford (Lieut-Colonel Bromley Davenport) and the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) about discussions I have had with the British Transport Commission and the steps being taken by the Commission and the trade unions. I would also remind him of the significant statement issued by the British Railways Productivity Council last Friday about planned productivity through work study for increasing efficiency in British Railways. All this shows an improving situation of promise for the future.
    As regards automatic train control, the most important thing is to have a system which is safe, efficient and reliable and which will command the unquestioning confidence of the railwaymen. This can only be developed by thorough practical trials, and development during 1955 reached an advanced stage. Three thousand and thirty track miles and 3,462 locomotives are fitted with automatic train control equipment, but these figures include the 2,953 track miles and 3,408 locomotives of the former Great Western Railway and the Tilbury Line. The number of locomotives so fitted is almost the same as at the beginning of 1955, but 27 additional track miles were fitted between London and Grantham towards the new trial length of 210 track miles which should be completed by the middle of this year.
    Mr. Nabarro: Do not these figures reveal the fact that during the last few years practically no progress has been made in the installation of additional automatic train control devices, excepting those that were in existence at the time of nationalisation on the old Western region? Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is rising public apprehension in regard to railway accidents and that what is needed is a specific assurance that there will be an improvement in the rate of equipment in that connection during 1956?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do nol think my hon. Friend was in his place last Wednesday or he would have heard my answers to these questions when I gave a quite clear assurance that we were pressing on with this equipment as quickly as we can.
    Mr. J. Harrison: Will the Minister make it quite clear that he does not accept the suggestion which appears in Question No. 24 that unattended signal boxes are a failure of railway organisation, because it is a normal and safe practice to close signal boxes at different times during the 24 hours?
    Mr. Watkinson: It would not be proper for me to go into that sort of detail until I have seen the technical reports of recent accidents from my inspecting officers.

    London Airport-Waterloo Line
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he has completed his examination of the proposal for a new railway line from London Airport via Whitton to Waterloo.
    Mr. Profumo: The possibility of a rail link to London Airport is still under examination. A possible railway alignment has been found, and the next stage would be to commission an engineering survey.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will the Minister press on with this proposal? The efficiency of London Airport would be vastly increased if some fast nonstop rail communication to Waterloo or some other rail terminus were provided at the earliest possible moment, as it would obviate the present dreary journey from the airport and reduce traffic congestion?
    Mr. Profumo: The dreary journey will be cut down when the Cromwell Road extension is completed. I must make the point that any agreed scheme would have to take its place among other capital investments.
    Mr. Page: But was not a committee set up to consider the installation of a monorail between central London and London Airport? Has that committee reported and, if so, what is its report?
    Mr. Profumo: The committee was charged with looking into the possibility
    918
    of a monorail, and it is at the present moment considering that as well as the railway, but I do not think that one should necessarily wait for such a scheme as the monorail if one can find another way to speed up the time taken to get to and from London Airport.
    Mr. Beswick: Will the possibility of having a rail extension to London Airport affect the decision to move the Air Terminal to Kensington?
    Mr. Profumo: No, Sir. When the Air Terminal is moved to Cromwell Road we hope that the time taken by the B.E.A. buses to get to London Airport will be cut down by between ten minutes and a quarter of an hour.

  INLAND WATERWAYS (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY)
  Mr. Grant-Ferrisasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will appoint an independent committee to inquire into the future of canals and inland waterways, with due consideration not only of transport requirements but also of the numerous other interests concerned.
  Mr. Watkinson: Yes, Sir. A thorough investigation was made in 1954 by the Board of Survey appointed by the British Transport Commission to inquire into the Commission's own waterways, but the widespread interest aroused by the Board's Report indicates that there-is a need for further inquiry on a broader basis which will embrace the entire system of inland waterways in this country and the wide variety of interests concerned in their future. I have accordingly appointed a committee for the purpose of carrying out such an inquiry. Mr. Leslie Bowes, Managing Director of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, has kindly consented to be Chairman of the committee. I will arrange for a list of the members and for the terms of reference to be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Grant-Ferris: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the Answer he has given will give very great satisfaction indeed, not only to all canal and inland waterway enthusiasts, but also to the large and growing population who believe that a great part can be played by our canals and inland waterways if they are given a proper chance?
  Mr. G. R. Strauss: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his Answer does not give anything like that satisfaction to many who are equally interested in the future of the canals in this country? Does he not realise that to set up yet another committee now to consider the whole of this question, when all the facts are well known, and when all that is required— and urgently required—is a Government decision on policy, is really regrettable and deplorable? Is it not a fact that all the Minister is doing by setting up this other committee is obviating for a long time the need to face the facts of this problem?
  Mr. Watkinson: No, nothing of the sort. It is quite clear that if we are going to make the most—and that is what we want to do—of our inland waterways system it had better be examined by an impartial body which will report quickly and objectively on the best way of handling the situation.
  Mr. K. Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that in the terms of reference there is expressed an urgent opinion on the part of the Government that the canals have a contribution to make in the future movement of traffic and goods about the country?
  Mr. Mellish: Is it not a fact that many of these inland waterways were allowed to go into disuse over a period of years long before the transport industry was nationalised; that when the Commission was established it produced for the first time proposals to make some of these inland waterways effective, and that what was required was cash to do the work? Is it not also a fact that this cash was refused, and that many of the plans were shelved? Would it not be a good idea to take the plans off the shelf and do a good job?
  Mr. Watkinson: When the hon. Gentleman reads the terms of reference, I think he will see that they are drawn to meet that situation.
  Mr. Callaghan: Could the right hon. Gentleman answer two questions? First, will not this new, and, in our view, procrastinating committee, hinder the Commission in getting on with the plans which it has already announced for modernising a substantial part of the
  920
  canal system? Secondly, will the terms of reference of this new committee take into account the financial consequences of any proposals, and will the committee be free to put forward proposals as to who should bear the cost of those parts of a canal which are not regarded as proper for economic development?
  Mr. Watkinson: The British Transport Commission plan was fully announced, and the announcement that I have made today does not cut across it in any way. I am sure the hon. Gentleman recognises that that represents only a small proportion of the canal length. As to the second point, that is fully covered in the terms of reference.
  Following is the statement:
  COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO INLAND WATERWAYS
  Composition Chairman:

  Mr. Leslie Bowes, C.B.E., Managing Director of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company.

  Members:

  Mr. John Corbett, Partner in Messrs.

  Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company.

  Mr. G. C. Godber, Clerk of the Shropshire County Council.

  Mr. H. E. Hopthrow, C.B.E., Assistant Secretary, Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd.

  Mr. W. A. Muddell, J.P., Chairman of the Land Drainage Committee of the
  River Boards' Association.

  Mr. Francis Ritchie, a Member of the National Parks Commission.

  Mr. Michael Rowe, C.B.E., Q.C.

  Mr. John Wilson, C.B.E., J.P., General Manager and Secretary of the Clyde Navigation Trust.

  Terms of reference
  "1. To consider and report on the future of the country's system of inland waterways and to make proposals for any measures necessary to achieve:

  (i) the maximum economic use of the system;

  (ii) the future administration of and financial arrangement for such inland waterways as cannot be maintained economically for transport purposes, having regard in particular to the requirements of public health and safety and to the facilities which these waterways can provide for purposes other than transport, such as recreation, water supply, land drainage and disposal of effluents; and

  (iii) the conversion of canal sites to other purposes when this is considered desirable and practicable.

  921
  2. To consider the present law relating to the closing of waterways to navigation and to make recommendations."

  NAPALM AND HYDROGEN BOMBS
  Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the expression of opinion in Britain against the manufacture, testing and use of napalm and hydrogen bombs; if he will now state the policy of the Government in relation to taking steps to secure a national and international ban on the manufacture, testing and use of these bombs; and what steps he has taken during the last two months, and what steps he intends to take, to implement that policy.
  The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
  Her Majesty's Government are aware of many expressions of opinion both for and against the production and use of various types of weapons. The Government's position has been repeatedly made clear by my right hon. Friend. I would refer the hon. and learned Member in particular to my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) on 6th December in connection with tests of nuclear weapons. It remains the view of Her Majesty's Government that a comprehensive disarmament agreement is the only final solution to all these problems.
  Mr. Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Prime Minister will take advantage of his present visit to the United States and Canada to discuss these vital problems?
  Mr. Butler: While there is no fixed agenda for those talks, I think they will range over all the great important issues such as this. It seems likely, therefore, that this subject will be among those which will naturally be considered.
  Mr. Strachey: While appreciating that this country must not be put in a position of inferiority in the matter of hydrogen bomb tests, cannot the Government understand that that is no reason for failing to press for a ban on further tests at a suitable date or after a suitable period?
  Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister answered the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) on that point on 6th December. I would further remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Sub-Committee of the United Nations Disarmament Commission has been invited to meet again in London, and it will probably meet at the beginning of March.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (CHARGES)
  Lieut-Colonel Bromley-Davenportasked the Prime Minister, in view of his recent request to firms and organisations to give undertakings not to increase prices, what steps he proposes to take to bring this desideratum to the notice of the Post Office, Her Majesty's Stationery Office and other Government Departments concerned with the sale of any item to the public.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  I can best explain the position as follows. In those sectors of industry where productivity is increasing—and it was those to which my right hon. Friend was primarily referring—the firms concerned have a choice between, on the one hand, charging lower prices or, on the other, putting up prices and paying higher wages or dividends. In the case of Government Departments, with all allowance for increases in efficiency, any inadequacy in the charges imposes on the Exchequer a loss which must be met either by the taxpayer or by borrowing.
  Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: With great respect to my right hon. Friend, what on earth is the good of asking private enterprise not to increase its prices when nationalised industries do exactly the opposite? Can my right hon. Friend mention one single nationalised industry which is not raising its charges almost continuously? Is not the recent increase in book postage, for instance, causing great hardship throughout the country?
  Mr. Butler: It is somewhat difficult to make an exact analogy, as I have tried to describe in my original Answer, between Government Departments, to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, and private

  923
  industry. But in general it is desirable that prices should be reduced wherever possible.

  ATOMIC ENERGY

    Peaceful Uses (European Co-operation)
    Mr. Warbeyasked the Lord Privy Seal if he will state the policy of the Government regarding British co-operation with other European countries in the peaceful uses of atomic energy.
    Mr. R. A. Butler: Collaboration between a number of European countries in the peaceful uses of atomic energy is still under discussion between them, and it is too soon yet to say in what form British participation in such collaboration will be possible.
    Mr. Warbey: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the important statement made by M. Guy Mollet on the Euratom proposal, and noted his expression of the view that this country should be associated with Euratom more closely than it has been with other European projects? Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the importance, from the political point of view, of seeing that this matter is no confined within a narrow "little Europe" basis?
    Mr. Butler: Certainly, and the hon. Member will perhaps have also read the Report of the O.E.E.C. Working Party on European collaboration on atomic energy. We have undertaken that we must give this very close consideration. We must bear in mind association with O.E.E.C. as well as with the imaginative ideas which originated at Messina and which evolved the organisation known as Euratom.
    Mr. J. Edwards: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm or deny that diplomatic representations have been made in the six capitals opposing the idea of Euratom?
    Mr. Butler: In order that I may give an accurate reply, I should like the right hon. Gentleman to put that Question on the Paper.

    MALTA (ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH)
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    MR. J. GRIFFITHS: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether, in view of the forthcoming referendum in Malta, he will give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government accepts and supports the assurances given to the Archbishop of Malta by representatives of the Malta Round Table Conference as set out in paragraph 79 of the Report, Command Paper No. 9657.
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): With permission I will now answer Question No. 80.
    My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the House on 24th January that Her Majesty's Government were considering the Report of the Malta Round Table Conference and that no action would be taken until there has been an opportunity of debate. The House will not expect or wish me to prejudge the decision which will be taken here and in Malta on the question of Integration.
    I have read the Pastoral Letter of His Grace the Metropolitan Archbishop of Malta with the attention and respect that any pronouncement from him is bound to command. It would be unworthy of the importance of the issues we have to decide if His Grace's words were misinterpreted by protagonists of either side in the controversy over Integration.
    I would remind the House of what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on 10th November to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion:
    "My hon. Friend can be assured that Her Majesty's Government will take no action to prejudice the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Malta."
    I feel sure that the House when it comes to debate the Report will pay very great attention to the views on this matter of the members of the Conference, which of course was representative of all parties in this House.
    I can moreover assure the House that Her Majesty's Government will not commend to Parliament any proposals which run counter to the assurances given to the Archbishop of Malta by representatives of the Round Table Conference as set out in paragraph 79 of its Report.
    Mr. Gaitskell: We welcome the fact that the Colonial Secretary has made this statement. I am sure that, in view of the Archbishop's Pastoral Letter, and despite the fact that we have not yet debated the Conference Report, it was wise for the Government to make their position plain, as they have done in the Minister's statement. Speaking for my right hon. and hon. Friends, we fully endorse the assurances given by the representatives of the Conference to the Archbishop as stated in paragraph 79 of the Report.
    Mr. Clement Davies: Might I say a word as now the only Member of this House who was one of the representatives appointed by our colleagues to have the honour and privilege of seeing His Grace and repeating in this House the assurances which we gave him in private, and they are precisely in the words which are set out in paragraph 79.
    Mr. Teeling: As I have seen the Archbishop since this took place, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the Archbishop was not completely satisfied with these definite statements made to him and that in his Pastoral Letter that fact is clearly set out? In view of the fact that Lord Perth, the only Roman Catholic member of the Round Table Conference, has added a rider to all this by stating that this is:
    "… on the assumption that appropriate and satisfactory assurances are provided in connection with any new constitutional arrangements"
    can my right hon. Friend say whether, as the referendum is taking place within ten days' time, such assurances will be a possibility in the future?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Clearly, steps will have to be taken, if the decision of the House goes in favour of integration, to put into concrete fashion the assurance that I have just given, but I hope that what I have now said will be regarded as adequate assurance. It is, of course, not possible to formulate written guarantees in connection with new constitutional documents in advance of a decision of the House that such documents should be prepared.
    Sir F. Markham: May we also have an assurance that everything will be done to safeguard the rights and traditions of religious minorities which are involved?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  FILM INDUSTRY
  Mr. Rankin: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 10th February, I shall call attention to the state of the film industry, and move a Resolution.
  CHILDREN ACT, 1948 (OPERATION)
  Miss Vickers: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 10th February, I shall call attention to the desirability of a review of the working of the Children Act, 1948, and move a Resolution.
  SOCIAL SERVICES (PRIORITIES)
  Mr. Teeling: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 10th February, I shall call attention to the need to consider the question of priorities in the social services as a whole, and move a Resolution.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  HOUSING SUBSIDIES BILL
  Considered in Committee [Progress, 3lst January.]
  [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

  HOUSING SUBSIDIES BILL

    Clause 3.—(RATE OF SUBSIDIES FOR DWELLINGS.)
    Amendment proposed: In page 4, line 15, to leave out from "the" to "or" in line 21 and insert:
    "local authority's area in which the dwelling is situated."—[Mr. Bevan.]
    Question again proposed, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause.
    The Chairman: I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee if this Amendment is discussed with the four Amendments immediately following, as they are all related to the same point.
    3.40 p.m.
    Mr. James MacColl: It will be in the recollection of the Committee that when we reported Progress last night I was making a few remarks about this Amendment, a circumstance which, I thought, brought rather more pleasure to me than it did to hon. Members in the Committee. I have had an opportunity of reading in the OFFICIAL REPORT what I said last night and I am impressed by the pungency with which I developed the arguments I was about to make. In those circumstances, I do not think it necessary for me to trouble the Committee by repeating them.
    I should like to summarise my two main criticisms of the Clause. The first was that it leaves far too much power in the hands of the Minister. It leaves some very vital decisions about the deployment of industry at the arbitrary discretion of the Minister. The second point is that the conditions are so obscure that it is quite impossible for anyone trying to plan a housing programme to know in advance whether the authority is to receive a subsidy or not without considerably protracted negotiations with a Government Department.
    Considering the way in which the right hon. Gentleman and his Parliamentary Secretary have played up the idea that they are giving more independence and
    928
    more discretion to local authorities, this is a curious example of where they are trying very much to tighten central Government control.
    Mr. Julian Snow (Lichfield and Tamworth): I take it that I am in order, Sir Charles, in addressing myself to the Amendment in my name, the fourth of the Amendments to which you have referred?
    The Chairman The Chairman indicated assent.
    Mr. Snow: I wish to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) in the Amendment he has moved and to address myself in particular to the Amendment in my name, which, in short, provides for certification by the Minister of Labour should there be a shortage of manpower, in his opinion, in any given industry.
    I think the Minister will not accuse me of any discourtesy to him personally if I say that what most of us on this side of the Committee are afraid of is a judgment of a Tory Minister in given circumstances of unemployment. It is this discretion of power rather than an obligation on his part that we are challenging. In the speech of the Minister on an earlier Amendment he said that the sort of case he had in mind which would fall within the power or powers given by this Clause was.
    "… where the need for more houses arises from a major new development which is essential in the national interest and which must be carried out in an area where the local authority has only a small pool of existing houses …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st January, 1956; Vol. 548, c. 874.]
    If we are faced with the imposition of industry on localities such as happened in my constituency at Rugeley, what assurance is there that there will automatically be more houses provided without further additional cost? If, for instance, a new and very large generating plant is located in the province of a local authority, is not the local authority entitled to suppose that financial provision will be made by the central Government? The Minister will say that, of course, that is within his discretion. We say that it is a responsibility of the Minister of Labour where an additional labour force is to be imposed to inform or advise the Minister of Housing and Local Government that as a result more houses will be necessary.

    929
    Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale made use of the picturesque phrase that the Minister was giving himself powers for "capricious decision." Would that I were able to emulate that sort of phrase. My right hon. Friend said in a different way what we on this side of the Committee all feel, that the Minister has to be tied down in some way. It is to me interesting to find that since the Committee stage of this Bill began the local authority of Rugeley, which I mentioned as an illustration when discussing an earlier Amendment, has received a letter from the Department of the Minister requesting the local authority to build 100 new houses for miners which will attract the higher subsidy rate.
    I am not at all clear as to the authority the Minister was using in making such a request to the local authority in anticipation of this Bill. I presume that he was justified in so doing, but it is this sort of request to a local authority which we want to remove from the area of caprice or area of decision entirely on the responsibility of the Minister. Therefore, I speak to this Amendment with a view to making the Minister of Labour provide a certification upon which the Minister of Housing and Local Government must act.
    3.45 p.m.
    It is, apparently, necessary to provide for the provision of houses not only where there is an existing shortage for a specific industry, but where, as a result of industrial economic planning, a shortage will exist. Many of us feel that we cannot leave that matter entirely to the judgment of the Minister. There is the added complication of regional allocations which, we feel, is not flexible enough. The local regional offices of the Ministry should be able to submit a request to the Minister for allocations based on the certification of the Minister of Labour.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): I think it might perhaps be helpful to the Committee if, at this stage, I draw attention to the exact purpose of the manner in which paragraph (d) is drawn and the assumptions on which that form of the paragraph rest. It will be seen that it provides the higher
    930
    rate of subsidy—not without qualification —for persons coming from outside the area of the authority building the houses. If there were no qualifications at all the absurd result would follow that every housing authority would be building houses for its neighbours and vice versa.
    Mr. Aneurin Bevan: A good Christian principle.
    Mr. Powell: Our attention is, therefore, directed to the four qualifications in line 16 and following. The first is that the subsidy applies only where the persons come from outside in order to meet the urgent needs of industry. The second is that the arrangements for providing the houses must have been approved by the Minister, and the third, which is bound up with it, is that they must have been so approved
    "as being desirable by reason of special circumstances."
    If those last words were not there the Minister's approval would relate merely to the arrangements in accordance with which the dwelling was provided, but in giving his approval he has to consider whether there are special circumstances necessitating the provision. He may only give his approval if he is satisfied that such circumstances exist and that the urgent needs of industry are of a kind which the Minister is satisfied require the provision of houses for persons coming from outside that authority's area and, also, that they so require the housing by reason of special circumstances.
    The conditions are very tightly drawn and the degree of urgency and national character of that need have to be very clearly established in order to comply with the wording of the paragraph. The fourth condition, which is a very natural and reasonable one, is that the Minister lays down conditions of giving his approval which must be complied with to attract the higher rate of subsidy.
    There are two main considerations which the Committee should bear in mind. The first is that every house provided under paragraph (d) will make possible the housing of a family which may be in much less acute housing need than families on the waiting list of the local authority concerned. It might be a little strong to say that this provides for jumping the queue, but at any rate it imports a factor other than housing need according

    931
    to which local authorities generally allocate the houses available to them.
    We should, therefore, be very jealous and draw very narrowly the conditions which would justify a situation in which persons coming from outside the area of a local authority are rehoused, although inside that local authority's area there may be many families on the waiting list who are in severe housing need.
    Mr. Bevan: This raises a very important point. I understand that not only will there be the additional number of houses required by the influx of population in the area due to special circumstances, but also that there will be a selection of tenants for those houses. Will it be by the Minister? That is what the hon. Member means by his last statement.
    Perhaps I may make it quite clear. There have been occasions when, for example, the Minister of Health found it necessary to influence a local authority to provide houses for key workers in certain areas. I remember having many deputations on the point. It was always an extremely difficult matter, because it meant the jumping of the queue in respect of key workers. Do we now understand that the additional number of houses which will attract the higher rate of subsidy will also be in a different category in respect of the fact that the Minister will influence the actual placing of tenants in them?
    Mr. Powell: These houses are provided for the accommodation of persons coming from outside; that is implicit in the whole provision. How those persons are to be selected, who those individuals are who will go into the houses provided under that formula, are matters which will be part of the arrangements which the Minister approves and may be, if necessary, specified in the conditions which he lays down. At any rate, the Committee can be satisfied that this higher subsidy would not be payable unless those houses were, in fact, providing accommodation for persons coming from outside the area to meet the urgent needs of industry and that the arrangements and conditions were such as to ensure that those qualications were complied with.
    Mr. Bevan: This is a very serious matter.
    Mr. Powell: It is in the paragraph.
    Mr. Bevan: This is the first time that we have heard this interpretation. Up to now, we have understood that additional houses would be needed in the area to meet the influx of population—that we understand—and that schemes have to be made. We are now told that the Minister can, in his view, so interpret these words as to put particular tenants in the houses. That is a very serious matter indeed.
    Mr. Powell: The right hon. Gentleman is harking back to the old days when he was Minister of Health, and there were housing allocations to each individual housing authority. If it was established to his satisfaction that there was an industrial need for more houses in total in a given area, the right hon. Gentleman increased the allocation accordingly and then it remained for the local authority to deal with that higher total of houses which it was allowed to construct.
    Now we are in a different framework. The local authority is building houses to a number determined by itself to meet its general housing needs. Circumstances may arise that the local authority may be also required to provide houses—this, of course, is a voluntary arrangement; nobody can compel the local housing authority to do that; there is no power to do so—for persons coming from outside the area. In these circumstances so far as the local authority does so provide dwellings for that purpose, and subject to the conditions which are part of the scheme, those houses will attract the higher subsidy.
    Mr. Snow: How does the Minister reconcile that with the illustration I gave in my speech of the local authority which has been requested by his Department to provide 100 more houses for miners, with no specification of incoming miners?
    Mr. Powell: As the hon. Member has only just mentioned the point, naturally I have no information upon it. The point I am making to the Committee is that such an arrangement as this—many hon. Members opposite are seeking to extend it—inevitably means that the workers coming from outside the area, just because in the national interest they are needed in a new area, will have an

    933
    advantage over many families already resident there. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the Committee to see that this facility is not given except where it is really required in the national interest and that the definition and appreciation of the national interest is as narrowly drawn as possible.
    There is, of course, a constant movement of industry between one area and another and a constant movement of labour. If, wherever it were established that labour was moving to meet the needs of industry from one area to another, these preferential subsidy conditions came into effect the result would be that a coach and horses would be driven through the general housing duties of many local housing authorities. Therefore, it is the very essence of an arrangement like this that the national interest shall be conceived for this purpose in the very narrowest and highest terms.
    The other underlying principle is that these cases will normally be those where the local authority, either by reason of its size or by reason of special circumstances, has no large pool of existing houses, so that an influx of this kind and the building of additional houses in its area would represent a very big proportional increase. That would be another factor which must be taken into account in establishing that the necessary special circumstances exist.
    Obviously, there will be many large local authorities with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of established prewar and post-war houses who will be able to provide, and will, naturally, provide, for the industrial labour flowing into their areas without any special burden resulting. I ask the Committee to observe how narrowly paragraph (d) is drawn and the logical reasons which demand that it should be so narrowly drawn; and, in the interests of the duties of housing authorities generally, not seek to widen it.
    I am now able to reply to the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow). The request made to his local authority was to provide additional houses for incoming miners to meet the urgent needs of the mining industry in that area. It is, of course, still a request, but it relates, as the hon. Member will observe, to incoming miners from outside the area.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. Bevan: It is obvious that since last night the Department has been scratching its head about this matter, because now the umbrella is very much smaller than it was stated to be last night when the Minister made a speech on this subject. Indeed, it is not only smaller, but also full of holes today. I propose to make some further inquiries. It is always a delight to listen to the Parliamentary Secretary. He is always so lucid that the weaknesses of his own case become apparent as he proceeds.
    There are several categories of arrangements for meeting the circumstances that can be met by the Clause. There is overspill, there are expanded towns, and new towns. This is a fourth category. We are not yet quite clear how the fourth category arises, but, nevertheless, there is a fourth category. In the other three categories, an additional subsidy and even an increased subsidy can be paid. There is the fourth category, a special incursion of additional labour in circumstances of national need.
    We discussed that definition last night, and we arrived at a number of very interesting conclusions. The first conclusion, which has been at least in part italicised by the Parliamentary Secretary today, is that, of course, that category can be only where a nationalised concern is involved. Otherwise, there is discrimination as between one private interest and another. We have gleaned that much at last from the Government, because that is what the hon. Member has now said. He said this definition must be narrowly conceived. What he meant by narrowly conceived was, obviously, that it must be applied to a matter of overriding national interest; and that, obviously, must be where there is no competing interest elsewhere.
    Mr. Powell: What logic!
    Mr. Bevan: What the hon. Member says is this. The local authority is assumed—I want the Committee to consider this assumption for a moment—to be building houses to meet general needs, and building up to its capacity. Why is it so assumed? That is what the hon. Member said. It is assumed, having regard to its normal circumstances, to be building to its capacity. I can hear what

    935
    the hon. Member is saying to his right hon. Friend. I can hear because of these miserable instruments, the loudspeakers. If he will scan his words in the OFFICIAL REPORT he will see that he said exactly that—that the local authority was building up to its capacity, and that its capacity was exceeded because of an additional incursion of labour.
    How does he decide whether the local authority is already building as many houses as it should for its normal general needs? Will he give us the criterion? It is nowhere in the Bill. Obviously, that local authority, in the case we are considering, could be building fewer houses to meet its general need than it should build, and so doing in order to get additional subsidies for the additional houses. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I will try to explain it to him in words of one syllable. Perhaps he can follow it then.
    We have not yet had from the right hon. Gentleman his definition of the obligations of local authorities. He confused himself the other day by saying that the local authority has the duty to build houses. There is not a single Statute in which that is laid down. It has an obligation to review. It has no obligation to build. If the right hon. Gentleman says that it has an obligation to build, then he has an obligation to see that it does build. He really must be a little bit more on the mark than this. Does the right hon. Gentleman state to the Committee that he conceives it his duty, as Minister of Housing and Local Government, to compel a local authority to build for the general needs of the population of its area to an amount he himself considers to be desirable?
    The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Duncan Sandys): The right hon. Gentleman again questions this duty of local authorities to provide houses. I think that he is merely quibbling. Section 71 of the Housing Act, 1936, says:
    "It shall be the duty of every local authority to consider the housing conditions in their district and the needs of the district …and …to prepare and submit to the Minister proposals for the provision of new houses for the working classes …"
    It is really inconceivable that Parliament would have passed an Act laying upon the local authorities the duty to review the needs of their areas and to submit
    936
    proposals for the provision of houses if that did not imply that there was a duty upon local authorities to provide those houses.
    Hon. Members: Hear hear.
    Mr. Bevan: I hope hon. Members opposite will not cheer too soon, because they are preparing a Procrustean bed for themselves.
    Let us see what those words mean. They do not say the local authority shall "adequately" build. They merely say that it shall review and shall prepare and shall submit proposals to the Minister. They do not, however, impose upon the Minister the obligation to see that the local authorities will meet adequately the needs of their populations. That is the point, for a local authority could put up one house only, and then stop building. Indeed, before the war may local authorities put up none—none. Yet these powers were in existence then. Will the Minister tell the Committee that in his view every Conservative Minister of Health before the war neglected his duty?
    The right hon. Gentleman wants to have it both ways. He wants to say that the local authorities have a duty to build. If it is their duty to build then the Minister has the duty to see they perform their duty. Many local authorities, before the war, built no houses for general need. Does he, therefore, say that his predecessors before the war neglected their duty to make the local authorities do their duty? I ask him.
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman has been Minister of Health himself and responsible for this sphere of administration. He does not suggest, surely, that the Minister is responsible for everything that a local authority does not do, which in the Minister's opinion it ought to do. That would amount to Whitehall taking over the whole of local government.
    Mr. James Callaghan: No.
    Mr. Sandys: Of course it would.
    Mr. Bevan: Education, for example?
    Mr. Sandys: The 1936 Act, amended by the 1946 Act, clearly laid upon the local authorities the duty to provide

    937
    houses for those who require council houses in their areas and to submit proposals to the Minister for the provision of those houses. The duty of the Minister is to examine those proposals and either to approve them or not to approve them. It is not, however, the business of the Minister to decide exactly how many houses are needed in each local authority's area, or to build them himself if the local authority do not do so.
    Mr. Bevan: Some duties are imposed on local authorities which it is the duty of the Minister to see carried out. There are certain provisions for the public health which have to be made, sanitation, for example, in which case the Minister can set aside the local authority unless the local authority does its duty. Then there is education. There are different duties, of different importance. There are statutory duties imposed upon local authorities which it is the duty of the Minister to see they carry out. There are other duties the local authorities should carry out, but which they can neglect; and the Minister can do nothing about it. So there is a difference between the duties, and two conceptions of them.
    However, the right hon. Gentleman used the word "duty" the other day in the former sense, as though there were an obligation on the local authorities to build houses for general needs; but there is no such obligation. We are, therefore, perfectly clear now that a local authority, in the light of Clause 3 (3,d,) can, in fact, not build any houses at all for general need. But there may be an influx of population into its area. I am asking the right hon. Gentleman to clear up the mind of the Committee on this. If it is building no houses for general needs, will he lay down the number of houses it should build before the additional houses can count for additional subsidy?
    Suppose, to take a theoretical case, an analogous local authority in the same area, with the same kind of population, and the same sort of industry is building 250 houses a year for general needs, but the local authority where the influx takes place is building none. Does the Minister say that it must, first, build up to 250 houses to meet its own general needs before the additional houses will rank for the higher subsidy rate?
    Mr. Sandys: No. He does not.
    Mr. Bevan: So, in other words, if a local authority knows that there will be an influx of population into its area it need build none and, therefore, all the additional houses will carry subsidy.
    Mr. Sandys: It is very difficult to follow the meanderings of the right hon. Gentleman. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We have discussed almost everything except the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. If the right hon. Gentleman would read the Clause before making his speech, it would be helpful. It is absurd to suggest, as the right hon. Gentleman in his very tortuous argument has suggested, that this provision would enable a local authority to provide for itself the houses it needs at the higher subsidy rate by neglecting to build houses for its own people at the general needs subsidy level, and then to get round the whole provision by drawing a subsidy of £24 for additional houses. That is what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting.
    If it did that, the additional houses would be exclusively for incoming people from outside. [HON. MEMBERS:"NO."] Of course they would be. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to it and the purpose of his Amendment is related to it. Perhaps he would read his Amendment before making a speech about it. It is wasting the time of the Committee to have to go round and round matters which have no relevance to the Clause or to the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman has moved.
    It is perfectly clear that the £24 subsidy under subsection (3,d relates only to persons coming from outside the area. It says:
    "… provided by a local authority for the accommodation of persons coming from outside the area of that authority…"
    It is quite ridiculous to suggest that in this roundabout way it would be possible for a local authority to obtain the £24 subsidy for housing its own people by means of neglecting to do so in the first place.
    Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman has used a large number of adjectives. I am quite good at them myself. If he wants a competition in the use of adjectives, I am quite prepared to enter into it. It would be much better if he dealt with the argument. How does he assess

    939
    the fact that the local authority has in fact met its own general needs? He says —and it is a perfectly proper argument—that what we are to do is merely to give the higher subsidy in respect of additional people coming in, the actual bodies themselves, and that the local authority is assumed to be ready to co-operate in an enterprise of that sort—it is assumed to be ready for the Minister to put the bodies in the houses on the ground that it would get the additional subsidy.
    The authority itself would, of course, provide no rate subsidy at all, so all that will happen under this proposal is that the Minister thinks that he will be able to meat the additional industrial needs of that population by persuading the local authority—he admits that he has no power to make it—to put up houses in its area only with the additional national subsidy. Let him try it; he will fail.
    Those houses will be either higher rented or, if the rents have to be kept down, will have to carry a rate subsidy, and no local authority will provide an additional rate subsidy in order to keep down the rent for incomers. In fact the whole provision is eyewash.
    4.15 p.m.
    Mr. Sandys: It is all very well to say that the local authorities will not be able or willing to do it. In fact, local authorities are doing it at present. On a subsidy of £22 1s. they are building houses for incoming miners and providing the rate contribution. They are doing it willingly, and if they were not willing to do it it would not be done. That is going on today. It is absurd to suggest that they will not be able to do for £24 what they are now doing for £22 1s.
    Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman's argument is that at present the local authorities are providing the rate subsidy and receiving the higher subsidy. The right hon. Gentleman is exempting them from the obligation of making the rate subsidy under the Bill. Is that not so?
    Mr. Sandys: They are not forced to do it.
    Mr. Bevan: Exactly, so in future they will have only the existing subsidy.
    Mr. Sandys: I do not want to take up the time of the Committee, but the right
    940
    hon. Gentleman is being very misleading in his remarks. At present, the local authorities are undertaking schemes for the building of additional houses in order to accommodate incoming miners and others in their area. They are doing that voluntarily, which means that they are voluntarily making a rate contribution. Is there any reason to suppose that when they are given a subsidy of £24 instead of £22 1s. they will cease to be willing to make the same rate of contribution as they are voluntarily making now?
    Mr. Bevan: There is every reason to suppose that they will not. In fact, we are having protests from all over the country. Not only will they not make an additional rate subsidy, but the higher rates of interest now being charged are inhibiting local authorities from providing houses. We have resolutions from local authority associations. There is one from the Association of Municipal Corporations, dated 31st January, referring to what happened in October. It says:
    "Since that time the Association has received many letters from borough councils of all shades of political opinion expressing anxiety regarding the Government's new housing policy. At their last meeting the housing committee of the Association reviewed the provisions of the Housing Subsidies Bill now before Parliament and placed on record their serious concern at the possible adverse effect which the rising rates of interest on loans raised by local authorities and the intention of the Government to withdraw within a year or two all housing subsidies for general housing, may have upon the ability of housing authorities to carry out their statutory obligations to provide for the housing needs of the people."
    In the face of decisions of that kind from all over the country the right hon. Gentleman calmly gets up and says, "There is no reason to suppose that local authorities will not continue to do in the future what they have done in the past." He says that I am guilty of tortuous reasoning, but the right hon. Gentleman is being specifically told that the provisions of his Measure, in addition to the high interest rates, are inhibiting local authorities from meeting the sort of conditions that are set out in Clause 3.
    It is no use the right hon. Gentleman losing his temper with me because he has got himself into trouble, and it is no use his trying to shelter the paucity of his policy behind high falutin' adjectives. If the Committee stage is to proceed as peacefully as it has proceeded up to now,

    941
    the right hon. Gentleman will have to restrain his desire to use these adjectives. We have not done badly so far, but I warn him. We made a very unusual arrangement about the Committee stage of the Bill, an arrangement which I have never seen made before. It is that the Opposition has limited itself to a certain time-table. We have kept to it rigidly and honourably, but I am bound to tell the right hon. Gentleman that there are three ways in which the Committee stage of a Measure can be conducted.
    One is by the Government curtailing discussion and imposing a time-table, with all the bitterness and sense of frustration which that creates. One is not to have a time-table, but to rely on the Closure and all-night sittings, which we have striven to avoid. The third is by having a reasonable debate on the Measure in Committee without all the bad temper which arises from all-night sittings. But that implies a readiness on the part of the Government to listen to the argument and to make reasonable concessions. We have not had one yet.
    Mr. Sandys: Yes, one.
    Mr. Bevan: Purely drafting. That is characteristic of the attitude which the
    right hon. Gentleman has adopted. Here we are on this side of the Committee representing the point of view of the overwhelming majority of local authorities. We represent, I am quite certain, the overwhelming majority of the people of the country. We are faced with a Bill for which the country was never prepared in the recent Election. The Minister represents a very small minority of the population in this Measure, yet we on this side of the Committee are having no concession of any kind at all. We strove a few days ago to obtain a concession for old people, but we got none.
    We shall keep our bargain as far as we can, but the bargain always implied serious consideration of the Bill and the readiness of the right hon. Gentleman to listen to the argument. It always implied, also, that if we could make our case we should have something from him. We have had nothing. Unless the right hon. Gentleman mends his ways, the Bill will not have as smooth a passage from now on as it has had up to now.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 241, Noes 204.

    Division No. 95.]

    AYES

    [4.25 p.m.

    Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

    Cary, Sir Robert

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Alport, C. J. M.

    Channon, H.

    Godber, J. B.

    Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Gomme-Dunoan, Col. A.

    Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Gower, H. R.

    Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.

    Cole, Norman

    Graham, Sir Fergus

    Armstrong, C. W.

    Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

    Grant, W. (Woodside)

    Ashton, H.

    Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

    Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

    Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Green, A.

    Baldwin, A. E.

    Corfield, Capt. F. V.

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Balniel, Lord

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Grimond, J.

    Banks, Col. C.

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Grimston, Sr Robert (Westbury)

    Barber, Anthony

    Cunningham, Knox

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R.G.

    Barlow, Sir John

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Gurden, Harold

    Barter, John

    Davidson, Viscountess

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Baxter, Sir Beverley

    D'Avigdor-Coldsmid, Sir Henry

    Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

    Beamish, Mai. Tufton

    Deedes, W. F.

    Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

    Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

    Dodds-Parker, A. D.

    Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

    Bell, Ronald (Bucks, 8.)

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

    Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)

    Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

    Doughty, C. J. A.

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Hay, John

    Bidgood, J. C.

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

    Head, Rt. Hon, A. H.

    Biggs-Oavison, j. A.

    Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

    Heath, Edward

    Bishop, F. p.

    Duthie, W. S.

    Henderson, John (Cathoart)

    Body, R. F.

    Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David

    Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Bossom, Sir A. C.

    Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

    Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

    Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

    Erroll, F. J.

    Hirst, Geoffrey

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

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Holland-Martin, C. J.

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Fell, A.

    Holt, A. F.

    Brooman-White, R. C.

    Finlay, Graeme

    Hope, Lord John

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

    Fisher, Nigel

    Horobin, Sir Ian

    Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

    Fort, R.

    Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Freeth, D. K.

    Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

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

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    Howard, John (Test)

    Campbell, Sir David

    Gammans, L. D.

    Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewlsham, N.)

    Carr, Robert

    Garner-Evans, E. H.

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

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

    Maitland, Hon. Patrlok (Lanark)

    Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

    Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Marlowe, A. A. H.

    Sharples, R. C.

    Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh,W.)

    Marshall, Douglas

    Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

    Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)

    Mathew, R.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Hyde, Montgomery

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

    Speir, R. M.

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Mawby, R. L.

    Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, s.)

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Bye)

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

    Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Molson, A. H. E.

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Morrison, John (Salisbury)

    Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Mott-Radelyffe, C. E.

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Nabarro, G. D. N.

    Storey, S.

    Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

    Nairn, D. L. S.

    Studholme, H. G.

    Keegan, D.

    Neave, Alrey

    Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

    Kerby, Capt. H. B.

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

    Kerr, H. W.

    Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Kershaw, J. A.

    Nield, Basil (Chester)

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Kirk, P. M.

    Nugent, G. R. H.

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

    Lagden, G. W.

    Nutting, Rt. Hon. Anthony

    Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.

    Lambton, Viscount

    Oakshott, H. D.

    Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

    Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

    Langford-Holt, J. A.

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

    Touche, Sir Gordon

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Turner, H. F. L.

    Leavey, J. A.

    Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

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

    Osborne, C.

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

    Page, R. G.

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

    Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

    Vickers, Miss J. H.

    Linstead, Sir H. N.

    Peyton, J. W. W.

    Vosper, D. F.

    Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

    Pitman, I. J.

    Wade, D. W.

    Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

    Pitt, Miss E. M.

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Longden, Gilbert

    Pott, H. P.

    Walker-Smith, D. C,

    Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Wall, Major Patrick

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Profumo, J. D.

    Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

    McAdden, S. J.

    Raikes, Sir Victor

    Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

    Macdonald, Sir Peter

    Ramsden, J. E.

    Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

    Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

    McKibbin, A. J.

    Redmayne, M.

    Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

    Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

    Remnant, Hon. P,

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

    Renton, D. L. M.

    Woollam, John Victor

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Robertson, Sir David

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Maclean, Fitzroy (Lancaster)

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Roper, Sir Harold

    Mr. Legh and

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Colonel J. H. Harrison.

    Maddan, Martin

    Russell, R. S.

    NOES

    Alnsley, J. W.

    Collins, V. J. (Shoreditch & Finsbury)

    Hastings, S.

    Albu, A. H.

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Hayman, F. H.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Healey, Denis

    Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

    Cronin, J. D.

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Cullen, Mrs. A.

    Herbison, Miss M.

    Anderson, Frank

    Daines, P.

    Hobson, C. R.

    Awbery, S. S.

    Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

    Holman, P.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Darling, George (Hillsborough)

    Holmes, Horace

    Balfour, A.

    Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

    Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

    Bartley, P.

    Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

    Howell, Denis (All Saints)

    Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Deer, G.

    Hoy, J. H.

    Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)

    de Freitas, Geoffrey

    Hubbard, T. F.

    Beswick, F.

    Dodds, N. N.

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

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

    Dye, S.

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Blackburn, F.

    Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Boardman, H.

    Edelman, M.

    Hunter, A. E.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

    Bowles, F. G.

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Irving, S. (Dartford)

    Boyd, T. C.

    Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

    Isaacs, Rt. Hon, G. A.

    Brockway, A. F.

    Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

    Janner, B.

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Fienburgh, W.

    Jeger, George (Goole)

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Fletcher, Eric

    Jeger, Mrs.Lena(Holbn & St.Pncs.S.)

    Burke, W. A.

    Forman, J. C.

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Burton, Miss F. E.

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Gibson, C. W.

    Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

    Callaghan, L. J.

    Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Carmichael, J.

    Grey, C. F.

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Castle, Mrs. B. A.

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Kenyon, C.

    Champion, A. J.

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Chetwynd, G. R.

    Hale, Leslie

    King, Dr. H. M.

    Clunie, J.

    Hamilton, W. W.

    Lawson, G. M.

    Coldrick, W.

    Hannan, W.

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

    Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

    Llndgren, G. S.

    944

    945

    Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

    Logan, D. G.

    Parker, J.

    Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

    Mabon, Dr. J. D.

    Parkin, B. T.

    Sylvester, G. O.

    MacColl, J. E.

    Paton, J.

    Thomas, George (Cardiff)

    MoGhee, H. G.

    Pearson, A.

    Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    McInnes, J.

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Thornton, E.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Popplewell, E.

    Timmons, J.

    McLeavy, Frank

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

    Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

    Usborne, H. C.

    MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Probert, A. R.

    Viant, S. P.

    Mahon, S.

    Proctor, W. T.

    Warbey, W. N.

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Rankin, John

    Weitzman, D.

    Mann, Mrs. Jean

    Reid, William

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Rhodes, H.

    West, D. G.

    Mason, Roy

    Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    Mayhew, C. P.

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

    Messer, Sir F.

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Wigg, George

    Mikardo, Ian

    Ross, William

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Royle, C.

    Willey, Frederick

    Monslow, w.

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Williams, David (Neath)

    Moody, A. S.

    Short, E. W.

    Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tlllery)

    Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

    Mort, D. L.

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Moss, R.

    Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

    Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

    Moyle, A.

    Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

    Snow, J. W.

    Winterbottom, Richard

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Oram, A. E.

    Sparks, J. A.

    Yates, V. (Ladywood)

    Owen, W. J.

    Steele, T.

    Zilliacus, K.

    Paling, Will T. (Dewsbur,)

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Palmer, A. M. F.

    Stones, W. (Consett)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

    Mr. J. H. R. Rogers and

    Mr. J. Taylor.

    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Godfrey Nicholson): I think it will be for the convenience of the Committee if the Amendment to Clause 3, in page 4, line 23, in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) is discussed with the next six Amendments on the Order Paper.
    Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I beg to move, in page 4, line 23, to leave out "some other area" and to insert:
    "outside that area or by some other local authority for the purpose of accommodating persons coming from that area and in either case for the relief of congestion or overpopulation within that area or."
    This Amendment relates to subsection (3, e.) So far, we have been discussing the previous paragraphs in that subsection and the one most closely connected with it is paragraph (c). This Amendment proposes that when relieving congestion or over-population in an area by building outside that area, it should be immaterial whether the building is done by the exporting or by the importing authority, because in paragraph (e) the building has to be done by the exporting authority.
    My Amendment is a little wider, but broadly similar to the two following Amendments both in the name of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) and some hon. Friends of mine and some hon. Friends of his. The only difference between this
    946
    Amendment and those two Amendments is that the hon. Gentleman would insist that the additional category to be included by these Amendments should be a group of houses, and that there should be an interval of not less than five miles between the place where they are put up and the boundary of the exporting authority. I feel sure that we can rely on the support of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends because the difference is much too trifling to matter.
    The second and the third of this series of Amendments are somewhat similar. They relate to the same type of point, but they are cases where there is a definite relation of agency between the exporting and the importing authority; that is to say, cases which would be covered by the Amendment which I have moved but, within those cases, only circumstances where the importing authority is doing the work on behalf of the exporting authority. The two other Amendments deal with a rather different type of point, to which I will refer later.
    Apart altogether from any general consideration, it appears that the Government are willing to provide the higher subsidy in any case where a local authority of a congested or over-populated area builds in another area. Then follow a number of qualifying words. If the qualifying words are in either case complied with, and the building goes on not in

    947
    the congested or over-populated area but in some other area, always in relief of the congestion or over-population, it makes no difference in principle which is the actual building authority. It may be the exporting authority, it may be the importing authority.
    It has to be done as part of a scheme, it has to be done in relief of congestion or over-population, but it is immaterial which of the two authorities does the building and to carry the matter a stage further, exactly what are the arrangements between the two authorities concerned. In some parts of the country, particularly in Lancashire, we get this kind of case: on the one hand, the congested and over-populated area authority sends its population out and provides houses for it in the receiving area and, on the other hand, the local authority of the receiving area provides houses for exactly the same type of person in exactly the same circumstances. The only difference between the two groups of cases is which authority does the actual building, and in that connection there may be, there probably will be, financial arrangements between the two authorities concerned.
    I suggest to the Minister that he ought to make the task of local authorities in these circumstances as easy as possible. If the right hon. Gentleman refuses this Amendment the houses in this type of case will have to be provided by the exporting authority, with whom the importing authority will probably come to some arrangement. It is bound to, because the houses, as buildings, will remain in the area of the importing authority.
    I fancy that I shall be told that this is the case of the exporting authority, and that if we look at paragraph (c) we shall find the case of the importing authority. Unfortunately, when one comes to a comparison of the two paragraphs, they do not by any means cover the same sort of case. Paragraph (c) is the one that we are not discussing at the moment, and I will only say enough to indicate that it contemplates large-scale development, for the Town Development Act, 1952, is not really concerned with anything else, and the Minister's approval is required. One presumes that that Act, and what is being done under it, is a clear indication of the
    948
    Minister's intention about the paragraph. I am merely referring to what is contemplated under it.
    When we come to paragraph (e) we find that something rather different and uncertain and not what is really required is provided by the paragraph as it stands. Apart from the point as to which is the building authority and which of the two in what circumstances should receive the subsidy, there is another point. What we are really trying to deal with in the paragraph is the mischief of congestion or over-population in one of those towns which have not got any room at all on which to build. Anyone who has been through our industrial districts can find examples without any difficulty.
    I will give one instance. I remember going to Salford many years ago. I travelled from Manchester through an area with the picturesque name of Irlam-o'-th'-Heights. I found there no heights but only slums. Salford was grossly congested and over-populated. Even in those days the long-standing difficulty of Salford was that it could not possibly cope with its housing problems within its own area. It had not even enough room to turn round like a little dog which is beginning to lie down. It had no decanting area available within its boundary, and thus it had somehow or other to deal with its problems by building outside.
    Salford is not the only such place. The difficulty which was acute in Salford then has now become the difficulty of the London County Council, which has practically no room in which to turn round and it has to ooze over its borders into all sorts of places. Congested areas of that kind have, in those circumstances, to be dealt with by exporting population, but surely it ought to be left to the local authorities themselves, subject to a degree of Ministerial control, to decide what to do about this kind of thing. An authority may be able to make a number of comparatively small arrangements which would go a long way to meet its difficulties. Unfortunately, such small arrangements do not seem to be covered in the Bill.
    4.45 p.m.
    Again, an authority might wish to make a large-scale arrangement. I agree that if the authority of the congested area is making a large-scale exportation, it may

    949
    be that in some cases it will be similar to development for the purposes of a new town. However, the new towns are social experiments on a very considerable scale. The new town of Corby, in my constituency, is to have a population of 40,000. That is one of the smaller new towns. I believe that in some cases the populations reach about 80,000. The new towns always have the character, which was not provided for in the legislation, that some industrial development goes with them, and this is very much larger in some cases than in others. Glenrothes, Cwmbran, Peterlee and Corby are obvious cases of industry closely linked with population. Some new towns are rather more residential, but even in those cases considerable industry is growing up.
    What I have in mind, and the thing for which we ought to provide the highest subsidy, is something on a smaller scale than that, something which is definitely for the relief of congestion or overpopulation, often just over the border of the exporting authority and quite close to it. That is the sort of thing that is happening in Lancashire. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will look at this rather broadly. If we take a large authority like the London County Council—I sometimes think that it cannot count less than 10,000 at a time, at any rate when it is dealing with population—it will probably bring itself within this sort of Clause, although I am not certain because of the industrial point, but smaller authorities, of which Salford is an example, may have exactly the same sort of difficulties and may even be worse off, but will never be brought within these provisions. When Salford pushes some of its population perhaps just over its borders or ten or twenty miles away, who will say whether Salford is causing development of a new town character? It is much too narrow to limit it in that way.
    I may be met with the answer that one has to be very careful about this or one will be postponing the general needs of the receiving district in the interests of the needs of the incoming population. I do not believe that is a really serious difficulty. I should have thought that the point was who had to pay for it in the long run, and one can reasonably expect the exporting authority to have some contribution
    950
    to make in return for the relief of its difficulties.
    Be that as it may, I would remind the Committee that, in substance, the Bill is not giving large additional subsidies. I am well aware that there is a small increase in some cases. Broadly speaking, the main object and effect of the Bill is to cut the general need subsidies, and what the Opposition are doing is trying to salve something from the wreck. From that point of view, I should have thought that there was every case for giving special facilities for this kind of thing, because a large town may be able to make these arrangements but a small town will not be able to do so. The suburban growth of outer London, as distinct from inner London, has no doubt been carried too far. We are wise to have new towns and a Green Belt.
    Altogether to deny development of that character to some of the congested and over-populated areas in the industrial districts of the North and in other parts of the country seems to be the sort of injustice that one commits by giving way to the powerful and making hay of the weak. Even if that is a slightly exaggerated form of putting it, I am sure that I am right in saying that they ought to have encouragement in these matters.
    I will refer very briefly to the two Amendments which I did not mention. They are, in page 4, line 23, to leave out from the second "area" to "or" in line 27; and in line 24, to leave out from "development" to "or" in line 27. The object of the first is to leave out these qualifications at the end of the paragraph. The other makes a smaller alteration. They are really ways of giving effect to the sort of point which I have just been putting to the Minister. I need not say more about them except that the language of the Clause seems to be an instance where the Minister is giving himself rather wide discretion; or else he will find that his intentions are, in fact, more cramped than he supposes from the language of the Bill.
    I urge him to reconsider the whole of the paragraphs, I hope to accept the first, or, failing that, the two parallel Amendments on the first point, and also carefully to consider whether the general words at the end are required and whether the matter could not be more simply expressed.
    The Temporary Chairman: There is a mistake on the Notice Paper. The word "in" should be inserted before the phrase, "some other area." That is the form in which the Question will be put.
    Mr. Mitchison: I apologise for that clerical error, Mr. Nicholson, and for omitting to mention it in moving the Amendment.
    Mr. Robert Jenkins (Dulwich): I desire to speak about my two Amendments which are being considered with the one which has been moved by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). They are closely interdependent and one is consequential upon the other. To some extent I want to follow and support the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Kettering. The whole of subsection (3, e) deals with overspill. The Minister in effect has said that he is prepared to pay an additional subsidy for a dwelling if it is
    "provided by the local authority of a congested or over-populated area in some other area as part of a scheme of comprehensive development the general character of which is in the opinion of the Minister similar to development for the purposes of a new town under the New Towns Act, 1946. …"
    In other words, if a local authority exports a large number of its people to a new town or creates a new town, an additional subsidy is possible.
    However, it is not clear how the Minister will judge whether an exporting authority building a certain number of houses, building up a certain community outside its own boundaries, is doing so for the purposes of a new town under the New Towns Act, 1946. We wish to see added to that paragraph the Amendment, in page 4, line 27, after"1946"to insert:
    "or
    (ii) as one of a group of houses erected by the said local authority at a distance of not less than five miles from the boundary of their area for the relief of congestion or over-population within their area."
    It is not suggested that the Minister should make a contribution to a local authority which merely just spills over its own boundaries into a neighbouring local authority. It is not the idea that the Minister should give an extra subsidy if houses are built exactly on the perimeter of the local authority, but only if
    952
    there is a distance of five miles between the new estate and the perimeter of the local authority which is exporting its population.
    I shall be brief, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister will have regard to this point. These two Amendments are completely non-party. They have been suggested by the Association of Municipal Corporations, which has given a considerable amount of thought to the effect of the Bill. Notwithstanding what the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said this afternoon about the Association passing resolutions condemning the Bill, it is doing its very best, with the advice it can give, to make the Bill more workable and, incidentally, more fair.
    The paragraph deals with only part of the problem. For instance, one of the preceding paragraphs deals with the question of industry. Some district estates are associated with industry, but a large number of local housing authorities, as has been said by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering, have to overspill because of their lack of building land. Some are too small and their financial resources are too small for them to set up some large development which would come within the New Towns Act, 1946. They will want to build, say, between 200 and 2,000 houses.
    I cannot believe that, as the paragraph stands and unless there were some close association between what was built, say 2,000 houses, and a real development corporation—and unless that local authority in addition to building houses built schools, halls and the other things that go to make up a new town—the Minister could possibly bring himself to say that such houses would qualify for a subsidy. It is for that reason that the Amendment is put forward.
    If a small local authority has to overspill, but not to the extent of a new town, it cannot get the additional subsidy, although in proportion to its financial resources it may be doing just as much as a large town like London to deal with overspill.
    Mr. Mitchison: I agree with so much of what the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) says that I should like to get this point clear. The two Amendments with which he is particularly dealing would not quite cover that

    953
    point, but it would be covered by the Amendment in page 4, line 23, to leave out from the second "area" to "or" in line 27, and the Amendment in line 24, to leave out from "development" to "or" in line 27, which leave out the restrictive words relating to new towns. I see the hon. Member nodding agreement, and I take it that he is supporting those two Amendments.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mr. Robert Jenkins: There is just one other point I wish to make. If we visualise a situation on which an exporting authority buys land five miles from its own borders and puts up, say, 300 houses, it does not, under the Bill as at present drafted get the subsidy. The importing authority not only gets the value of having an increased population but it also takes the rateable value and any subsidy that would be payable to the exporting authority. In other words, the exporting authority loses the subsidy and its population.
    In many cases there is every reason to suppose—I am advised that it is so—that if that took place on a reasonably large scale, the authority would in fact lose the Exchequer equalisation grant because of the number of persons going out of its area into the adjoining area. That is the position, I am advised.
    The better a local authority does its job from the point of view of housing, the more it is likely to be penalised, and I would urge my right hon. Friend to do something about this matter. I know that he is keen on getting the maximum number of houses built and upon getting slums cleared but this provision is not effecting that. I am trying to make the point that the more keen a small local authority is on getting rid of over-population and overspill, the more restrictive is the effect of this Clause; and a local authority would hesitate to act in that way because it would receive no subsidy if it did. I ask the Minister to give the same consideration in this matter to the small local authorities as to the large authorities who are in fact setting up new towns. I ask him to consider the wording of the Amendments in the name of my hon. Friends and myself.
    Mr. Percy Daines: There has been so much agreement that I sincerely hope that the Minister will continue it, and that for the first time we
    954
    shall receive a concession from him. I wish to put the case for the borough which I represent, and I do not apologise for doing so, because I think the argument is applicable in a number of other cases. In my borough we have no building sites left at all. It is a case of overspill or nothing.
    We have 6,000 applicants on our live register and 600 people living in prefabs on land which must be given up, on Wanstead Flats, etc. We estimate that, arising from the change so far as requisitioned property is concerned, there will be another 300 families. What we find ourselves up against time and again is that other authorities do not want to make arrangements with us: they resist us by every legal means possible. Therefore the chances of boroughs such as mine making arrangements with importing authorities are very remote. It comes down to the fact that our people may go out—and we find this in the case of the new towns—but because of the pressure of rents, which is wrapped up in this problem, they begin to come back again in no small numbers.
    The argument has been advanced by the Minister, particularly during the debate on Second Reading, that there is a reservoir of pre-war houses at low rents which will equate and bring down the new rents which must be charged if there is no subsidy at all. But that does not always apply. There are a number of boroughs and districts in the same position as my own authority, but let me take the case of my own authority. We find that our pre-war housing comprises only 7·8 per thousand as against the figure for the county boroughs of 356. It is perfectly obvious that even with the existing increase in charges and the interest rates and so on, we shall, if we go on building, have to charge very heavy rents indeed.
    When the people of East London, particularly in my borough, have moved out to some existing housing scheme perhaps fifteen to twenty miles away, inevitably they come back to work, and the position of those people will be quite unthinkable. They are bound to face a very heavy bill each week for fares. I do not want to be unduly controversial but I noticed that the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) said that it was the intention of the Minister to build more houses—that is the only point

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    on which I differ with the hon. Gentleman—but I appeal to the Minister to realise that here is a big chance, if he proposes to behave in a reasonable way and to give a concession, for him to make a concession on this issue, which affects the lives of so many people in my constituency.
    Mr. Eric Johnson: I wish to invite my right hon. Friend to look at the very special case of Manchester and to see how we are affected. Under the terms of this paragraph Manchester would be entitled to the higher rate of subsidy for dwellings built outside its area as part of a development of new town proportions. Manchester has been prevented by Ministerial decision from undertaking the development of new towns on particular sites at Mobberley and Lymm and has been compelled to look round to find all sorts of odd sites all over the place in order to house the people whom we would much rather have in a new town. The city is already building 4,777 houses in different places outside its borders and is negotiating for the building of another 14,000. It appears to me that Manchester will be severely handicapped by the terms of this paragraph because Ministerial decisions have prevented the building of new towns.
    It is true that Manchester receives a subsidy of £22 10s. for houses built outside its area to replace slum houses, but only £10 for the other houses. On the other hand, local authorities in receiving areas get £24 irrespective of the houses they build. That seems rather unfair. I am sure my right hon. Friend will appreciate that it is impossible to allocate every house built outside the city for people who have been living in slums. We have to meet the needs of many other people. For example, in Manchester there are 13,000 families living in lodgings who have been put on the housing lists. As the Bill stands at present, local authorities outside will get £24 whereas Manchester will get only £10 for housing of a similar kind.
    I ask my right hon. Friend to recognise the very special position of Manchester which seems to me to be rather more difficult than that of most local authorities. I hope that he will be able to produce a new paragraph, or include some
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    form of words giving him power in suitable cases to approve the granting of the higher subsidy where a local authority has to build outside its area and the operation does not come within the scope of new town development. Alternatively, my right hon. Friend would help Manchester by giving approval for some sites for new towns.
    Mr. Charles Royle: For many days the Minister and his hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench have been resisting the arguments put forward from this side of the Committee, but it may be that, as a result of the interventions of two of his hon. Friends in the persons of the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) and the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson), we might make a little more progress than we have been making during the past few days. At all events, we say to those two hon. Gentlemen that we hope to give them the opportunity to carry their arguments to their logical conclusion. We hope that, if necessary, when the time comes they will accompany us for once in a while to the Division Lobby where they will be in really good company.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) opened the door for me in the debate on this group of Amendments. I was delighted to find that my constituency of Salford had been graced in the past by his presence. I am quite sure that Salford must have benefited by that in days gone by. He talked of Salford in the past, and perhaps I might be permitted to say something else about my own constituency, as has been done so often by other hon. Members in the course of these debates.
    We in Salford pride ourselves, justifiably I think, that in our scheme for overspill with a neighbouring body at Worsley in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) we were the inspiration of the 1952 Town Development Act. As a result of that experiment between Salford and Worsley we really set something going, and by that Act many other authorities have been enabled to get down to the question of overspill. I would say in passing that when we entered into that scheme with a neighbouring authority we were not thinking only in terms of slum clearance, but of blitz sufferers, overcrowding, new

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    families, prefabricated houses which were decaying and, ultimately, of derequisitioned houses. In fact, we were thinking of the whole gamut of housing needs, and that is why we entered into that plan with our neighbouring authorities.
    I suggest to the Minister that if he allows the Clause to remain as at present drafted he will wreck these magnificent schemes. We are greatly indebted to the smaller neighbouring authority of Worsley for all it has done. So far, 1,200 houses have been built in that area for Salford people, and the ultimate scheme was to have been for 4,500 houses.
    Will the Minister tell us where he draws the line between that kind of development and a new town? The provision of 4,500 houses could mean the housing of 15,000 or 16,000 people. Many of the new towns are working on a basis of about 30,000 or 40,000 people. Is the Minister definitely saying that he is prepared to draw a line between 16,000 and perhaps 30,000, and that the smaller population does not come within the meaning of a new town whereas the larger of the two populations does?
    I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that that is not the conurbation of Greater London or of South-East Lancashire. He knows those districts well, and we all know that one cannot move from one authority to another unless one knows it very well. Why should the Minister fix the line in the way that he is doing, thus preventing people from obtaining houses which they would otherwise get?
    Although I refer to the scheme which is now in operation, the first of these two Amendments would also bring in other ideas which we have. We in Salford are at the moment in negotiation with the Tyldesley Urban District Council. In that case, it would not be a question of the importing authority building houses for the exporting authority. Salford would be purchasing land in Tyldesley on which to build houses for Salford residents.
    5.15 p.m.
    The aim of this Amendment is to cover both systems, and, by so doing, to provide houses for the people. I wish to hold out to the Minister a qute new incentive and one that might even tempt him. The more overspill cases in my constituency of Salford, West, the more
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    the votes cast for me at a General Election diminish. The vast majority of the people who have the advantage of overspill are the people who vote for me at elections. They are going to places where there is either an overwhelming Labour or Tory majority and where their presence will not make the slightest difference. But it will make an awful difference to me. I have been in the House of Commons for nearly 11 years, but it is much more important that the people living in miserable conditions in Salford should be properly housed than that I should continue to be a Member of the House.
    Mr. John Harvey: I rise to preserve the theme of harmony that we have had at least for the last half hour or so. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be impressed by the fact that there is obviously a quite genuine depth of feeling on both sides of the Committee that a little more needs to be done in this connection than is being done in the Bill as at present drafted.
    I am not certain that I would follow the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) all the way to the end of his remarks, because I think that it would be a great pity if it were to be thought that populations could be moved about in relation to voting strength. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion was a frivolous one, but it is one which outside the House is sometimes more seriously thought about than it ought to be. People sometimes think that things are done in that sort of way.
    I want to speak particularly about the borough which I represent and of which by accident at this moment in time I happen to be the only representative in this Committee. The Borough of Walthamstow is, of course, very seriously concerned with this problem, and, not being able to tackle it alone, it has made arrangements with eight or, it may be, nine other boroughs in its part of the world in an endeavour to overcome these difficulties.
    After negotiation, the boroughs managed to acquire certain land in rural Essex. They were encouraged by the Minister to acquire that land. It was not acquired without a great deal of opposition, but the boroughs banded together and after many vicissitudes they seemed to be within sight of a large overspill

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    scheme which would help them all. Unless something is done to save it that scheme cannot continue, and the very valuable co-operation which has been built up between these nine boroughs in tackling their housing problem will prove fruitless. There will be no point in continuing it.
    I appreciate that the Minister would naturally prefer to see new town schemes, as such, but these things are not always possible; indeed, they take a long time to prepare—and in this part of London, at the moment, the need is much more urgent. This is the only reasonably quick way in which the housing needs of these nine boroughs of which I have first-hand experience—and there are presumably many others in a similar situation in other parts of the country—can be met. If the Minister can make some additional concession here in the light of what is quite clearly the feeling of both sides of the Committee, he will be doing a great deal for his own reputation and, which is much more important, he will be doing a great deal for the many thousands who, despite all the progress that has been made in housing, are still in need of homes of their own.
    Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: My name is associated with two of the Amendments which we are now discussing. It appears under the name of the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) in relation to the Amendment which proposes that the higher subsidy shall be paid in the case of houses which are built within five miles of a congested area, in order to relieve it, and also in the list of names supporting the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), which is of a broader character. In view of the unusual harmony which has existed in the Committee this afternoon I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the broader Amendment, but, even if he is unable to do that, I hope that he will have no hesitation at all in accepting the less demanding Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Dulwich.
    Like previous speakers, I propose to illustrate the case for the Amendment by speaking of my own constituency. Experiences have been recited to us in connection with towns like Manchester and Salford—with which I am familiar—and
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    smaller towns in the Lancashire area. I want to deal not only with the problem of Slough but of the neighbouring area of Eton. The two areas are complementary. I speak of them with some confidence because the Minister has a knowledge and experience of them. When I speak of Slough I am thinking not only of that town; I know that it is typical of many towns which have developed rapidly in recent years. Luton is another example.
    Until recently these towns have been what are termed "importing areas." I very much dislike terms such as "importing" and "exporting." They make it seem as though we are dealing with raw materials and goods rather than human beings. We must always remember that we are dealing here with a problem which may mean human happiness or human suffering. Slough has been an importing town because to it have come populations from all over the British Islands, attracted by its trading estate. They have come especially from the depressed areas of South Wales, Lancashire, Scotland, the north-east coast and Belfast. In thirty years the town's population has grown from a mere 17,000 to nearly 70,000. Not satisfied with that, it is now taking in an overspill population of 70,000 from London.
    Until now it has been described as an importing area, but a change is taking place. The whole area is becoming built-up, owing to the rapid increase of the town, but because we had no drainage we could not build for a long time, and 40 per cent. of the public housing in the town is now under construction or under contract. That has been done so thoroughly that there is now no land upon which houses can be built. In consequence, Slough has changed from an importing to an exporting authority. The effect of this has been serious for many of those people who are employed in Slough. We did have a rule that, even if someone did not live in our borough, if he had worked in it for four years he could be placed on our housing waiting list—but because we have no land upon which we can build we have had to exclude most of those who would have had the benefit of that qualification in the past. Workers are travelling long distances to Slough. Only last week I received a letter from a worker who travels each day from East Ham to Slough

    961
    and back. Many people travel twenty or thirty miles, although the majority live in the neighbouring authorities of the Eton Rural District Council and the Eton Urban District Council.
    I emphasise the fact that it is not only a matter of there being a need to provide houses for these people; there is a new, growing, industrial centre, essential to the export industry, in which workers can be employed but where they cannot have houses. This is an enormously important matter from the point of view of industry as well as of mere housing accommodation. In that situation the need is to be able to build estates near Slough—or, in the case of Luton, near Luton—which would not be new towns but comparatively small estates.
    I am pleading that the higher subsidy under the Bill should be made available for those estates. I have proposed, locally, that a conference should be held between representatives of the Slough Borough Council, the Eton Rural District Council, and the Eton Urban District Council, and that they should together work out this problem—because it affects Eton as well as Slough. Many of the workers employed in Slough are living in one or other of the Eton local authority areas.
    5.30 p.m.
    Such a conference would be able to consider three alternative schemes for a solution of this problem. It could consider building by the congested town in the area of another local authority. We have already had one instance of that in the estate which has been built at Wexham, which is in the Eton rural area, and for which the Slough Borough Council is responsible. Secondly, the estate could be built by another authority taking full responsibility for it. Thirdly, it could be built by another authority on behalf of the congested area.
    As the right hon. Gentleman is piloting a Bill to deal not only with slum areas but specifically with overspill, the terms of it should be sufficiently wide to cover all three alternatives which I have just put before him. The Clause might permit a higher subsidy in the case of a congested town which built in another area. It might, though not necessarily always, cover the estate built by another authority taking the full responsibility. It would
    962
    not necessarily cover an estate built by another authority on behalf of a congested area.
    I ask the Minister to accept the Amendments, which will enable the Bill really to fulfil one or two limited purposes in dealing with the overspill problem. I hope that the fact, which is very unusual, that speaker after speaker from both sides has made the same plea to the Minister, will induce him to make a concession in regard to the Amendments.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: We have had a most encouraging display of unanimity from both sides of the Committee about the inadequate provisions in the Bill to meet the problem of overcrowded areas which want to get rid of their slums but have nowhere to put the occupants of them.
    I share the distaste expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) at the way in which jargon has descended upon these matters. Words and phrases like "overspill," and "exporting and importing authorities" create an atmosphere of expert detachment, whereas we should really be concerned with the hideous conditions of living of ordinary families which the representations from this side of the Committee, and I am bound to say from the Government side too, are designed to ameliorate.
    I hope that the Minister will reconsider the provisions of the Bill for the payment of subsidy to exporting authorities. As the Bill stands, subsidies are provided quite inadequately in the limited class of case under subsection (3, (e). Too little consideration has been given to this basic difficulty of new town development. Many councils have been unable to persuade any other authority to participate, and that has been the experience in West Ham. A number of approaches for marriage have been made by the borough to various authorities, but I am sorry to say that all the advances were rejected. Now, like the last rose of summer, West Ham has been left "blooming alone."
    Sir Frederick Messer: If is leap year. Try again.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: West Ham has tried to deal with the problem itself and has been forced to embark upon a programme

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    of acquiring land at Stanford-le-Hope for the purpose of erecting there an out-borough estate. It is proposed to build 1,500 houses within the terms of paragraph (e) as
    "the local authority of a congested or over-populated area."
    There is a substantial case for saying that this is "part of a scheme of comprehensive development" within the meaning of the paragraph.
    I would ask the Minister whether it is the view of his Ministry that because this scheme is limited in size and nature to a housing estate it is not eligible for subsidy within paragraph (e)? I fear that his answer may be that it is not eligible but I should be most grateful to be told. This is a matter of considerable importance, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will answer this specific question during the debate.
    If the answer is that the plan for the erection of these 1,500 houses is to rank only for the £10 subsidy, the cost to the West Ham Council, over and above that which was contemplated when the scheme was first considered, and indeed approved by the Ministry, will be as much as £51,000. The increase of rents to compensate for the loss of subsidies will be about 4s. 7d. a week. The effect would be to put this new and vital housing development out of the reach of a great many people in my constituency who desperately need housing accommodation.
    An additional trouble, certainly in the initial stages, would be that this development would not be connected with industrial development in the immediate neighbourhood. There would be the additional burden for the tenants of fares for travelling, at a time when fares are notoriously on the increase. The hard facts of pounds, shillings and pence would put this housing out of the reach of families who most desperately need to be rehoused.
    The history of this matter is a little astonishing and justifies the authorities in complaining about Departmental vicissitudes and apparently unreasonable changes of policy by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The Minister confirmed the compulsory purchase order for the land at Stanford-le-Hope, and approved the application by West Ham Council for this development
    964
    in preference to applications by the London County Council and by Thurrock Council. By that act of approval the present Minister's predecessor recognised that the development at Stanford-le-Hope was a proper contribution to a solution of West Ham's housing needs and of London's overspill.
    I emphasise the position in my constituency because it makes such a clear case. The provision of estates like that which is proposed by West Ham is linked directly with the task of slum clearance. If West Ham's slum clearance programme is to be carried out it is essential that means should be made available to the council for out-borough development of this kind. Without such development our slum clearance programme cannot go further.
    I submit, therefore, that if the present Minister is sincere about this alleged campaign—"crusade"is, I think, the honourable word used in connection with slum clearance—and unless he is quite cynical about it, better provision for proper and adequate subsidies for these out-borough estates is quite essential.
    The Minister has conceded the point that I now seek to make in relation to West Ham in the terms of a letter from his predecessor to the London County Council rejecting the county council's application for planning permission for this scheme, but accepting and approving West Ham's application. I submit that what was said in that letter is quite contrary to the present provisions of the Bill. The Minister said:
    "West Ham had a large waiting list and the possibilities of rehousing in their once densely-developed borough were limited to vacant war-damaged sites which are rapidly being used up. The council must deal with their considerable problem of slum clearance in the near future but could not do so unless they had land outside the borough on which to house the people displaced. They would need this land within the next two or three years—"
    This was the Minister writing, not a representative of the constituency in this House. The Minister went on to say:
    "While he does not underestimate the size of the London County Council's housing problems he is impressed by the immediacy of need of the West Ham County Borough Council for housing land which will enable them to make an effective attack on their problem of slum clearance. In the light of this and the considerations set out above the Minister thinks it right to permit the … development proposed by the West Ham Council.
    Mr. Powell: If I may intervene, I would remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that in so far as houses are provided to rehouse people displaced from slum dwellings they qualify for the higher rate of subsidy; so on that score there is no need for anxiety.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: Is the Minister now saying that so long as the West Ham Council can satisfy the Minister that this estate in Stanford-le-Hope of 1,500 houses is connected with its slum clearance programme it will attract the higher subsidy?
    Mr. Powell Mr. Powell indicated assent.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: I should like to have some definition of this. There is undoubtedly provision for slum clearance in the Bill. But I understand that intimations have been given to the West Ham Council that this estate at Stanford-le-Hope is not to carry the higher subsidy. If the Minister now tells me that I am wrong, I shall be delighted to give way. I invite the Parliamentary Secretary, if necessary after consultation, to give a specific ruling about this matter.
    Mr. Bevan: We discussed this yesterday. I understand that the higher rate is given only in respect of slum houses demolished, apart from the other schemes we are discussing.
    Mr. Powell: It is in relation to persons rehoused from slum dwellings—to provide accommodation for persons displaced from slum dwellings as defined——
    Mr. Bevan: What my hon. and learned Friend is asking is whether houses for other persons, not necessarily from slum dwellings but associated with slum dwellings, will carry the higher subsidy. I understand that they will not.
    The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): The Committee must keep to some semblance of order in this debate.
    5.45 p.m.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) for his intervention. What I am saying is that this out-borough development is essentially linked with the provision of accommodation for those living in blitzed areas which are being cleared and also in areas of
    966
    slum clearance. Unfortunately, in my constituency, they are all mingled together. The flying bomb was no discriminator in these matters. I do ask for a quite clear ruling on this point before the debate goes very much further. I gather that the Parliamentary Secretary is encouraging me to think that all is well—that the Stanford-le-Hope estate of 1,500 houses will carry the full subsidy. Is that so or is it not? Could I have a specific answer to that question?
    Mr. Powell: The hon. and learned Member was talking a lot about West Ham's difficulty in getting on with its programme of slum clearance, and quoted a letter from my right hon. Friend's predecessor. I reminded him that accommodation provided to rehouse persons displaced in the course of slum clearance attracts the higher rate of subsidy.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: The hon. Gentleman really cannot ride off on that. He has put the theoretical position to the Committee.
    May I repeat my question? Will that apply in the specific case of Stanford-le-Hope, where authority has been given by the Minister for the building of 1,500 houses? He has drawn my attention to certain provisions of the Bill, but will that estate carry a full subsidy? I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary has not answered that question. The Committee will have taken note of his undertaking, but I ask the question for the third time. The hon. Gentleman can, through the usual channels, get in touch with those who may be informed of the particular matter, his Parliamentary Private Secretary being apparently a little more alert at the moment than appeared to be the case at certain stages of yesterday's debate. Before the debate has long continued may we have a specific answer to my question, because it is not a question relating only to my limited constituency interest but is of widespread significance, and I think that the Committee is entitled to a reply.
    Mr. Powell: I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the provisions of Clause 3 (3,a), together with the interpretation Clause, Clause 11. It will depend on whether or not the houses in this or any other scheme fall within the limits of that definition. The hon. and learned

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    Member was talking as though the absence of the higher subsidy would impede the progress of slum clearance, and I was pointing out that where slum clearance is concerned the higher rate of subsidy is payable.
    Mr. Bevan: I do not think that we can leave it at that. We had a very protracted discussion about this matter yesterday. What we want to know is this. If houses which are not slum houses are removed in connection with a slum clearance scheme do the houses that are substituted for the houses which are not slum houses carry the higher rate of subsidy? Clause 3 (3, a) says:
    "provided by a local authority for the purposes of slum clearance or re-development."
    Our point yesterday was this. There may be a number of houses which may not be slums but are taken down by a local authority in the course of redevelopment, and we wanted those houses also to qualify for the higher rate of subsidy. We were told quite clearly that the only houses which would rank for the higher rates would be those that were substituted for slums. It does not matter where they are put provided they are in substitution of slum dwellings pulled down. That is how I understand it.
    Mr. Sandys: It is all in Clause 11 (1).
    Mr. Bevan: We should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether houses to replace houses which are not slum houses but which are pulled down in connection with a slum clearance scheme—as well as the slums themselves —will qualify for the higher rate of subsidy. That is the question—may we have an answer?
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: May the Committee have an answer to that question?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I understood that the hon. and learned Member had brought his remarks to a conclusion.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: I shall not detain the Committee much longer. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has assisted me in presenting the matter in a direct fashion. The Committee has not had an answer from the Government Front Bench on this point. It is all very well to draw our attention to Clause 11, but I ask again
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    whether, in that kind of provision in connection with a slum clearance programme, a borough development of the kind to which I have referred will attract the higher subsidy. It is quite a clear question, and we are entitled to an answer.
    Mr. T. L. Iremonger: There is obviously a real difficulty here both in the matter of interpretation and of the Minister's intention. I have already, at an earlier stage in the consideration of the Bill, made my point concerning borough council of the constituency which I represent. It finds itself in great difficulty, and I should like to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey). We are all associated, in these boroughs, in this joint venture whereby our local authorities have acquired property outside our boroughs in Essex, and a great deal of thought and imagination has been put into it.
    One cannot represent a constituency in that part of outer London for very long without becoming aware that the need for houses is still the greatest social need in this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Tell that to the Minister."] I think that my right hon. Friend and his predecessor have shown by their actions that they are more than well aware of that fact. Hundreds of thousands of people who have been rehoused by the efforts of my right hon. Friend and his predecessor have every reason to know that that is so.
    However, there is still a considerable amount to be done and I find myself in a difficulty. People come to see me about their housing problems, and, although it is not my responsibility, I arrange for them to be interviewed by the chairman of the housing committee.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. The hon. Member seems to be directing his argument to the Second Reading.
    Mr. Iremonger: In that case, Sir Rhys, I shall quickly remove myself from that ground.
    I am pointing to the difficulties of boroughs in relation to the Amendment now under consideration, because they are

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    trying to provide houses for people on their housing lists which they can never provide in their boroughs because they have not got the ground on which to build. To get over that difficulty some boroughs in Essex, of which my constituency is a part of one, have bought land outside the borough boundaries. They are now in a position of having undertaken to build houses which they would not have undertaken to build if they had thought that they would not attract the full subsidy, and now they find that they are not. As a result, they will have to charge higher rents than they intended in the first place. Their tenants will find that not only will they have to pay higher rents, but they will be faced with a higher cost of living because they will have to travel further to their work.
    It would be very helpful if the Minister could clarify this position about his intentions in regard to redevelopment as opposed to slum clearance. In addition, I should like to know whether the Minister will now say that houses built in new development areas as part of any redevelopment plan will attract higher subsidies, even though he did not in the first place intend that to be so. In my constituency, at any rate, it will cause great embarrassment and confusion in the plans which have been made by the local authority if the higher subsidy is not paid.
    Mr. Bevan: The argument is now becoming rather wide, and we on these benches wanted an answer from the right hon. Gentleman on the question of overspill. I think we should meet the other point later. We would rather at this stage have a reply about the Amendments to which we have been addressing ourselves.
    Mr. John Parker: There is a point which has not yet been put and to which my Amendment is addressed. I should like to associate myself with all the other Members for Metropolitan Essex who are pressing the Government on this matter, but there is a distinction between some of the Metropolitan Essex constituencies and others. West Ham and East Ham are long developed areas, and there are many slum areas there which need clearing. But there are other areas, like my own constituency of Dagenham, which resemble the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough
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    (Mr. Brockway), where there are practically no slums but where, between the wars and since, the area has been built up. A large number of people have entered and we are nearly full now, with the result that the local authority has to try to find estates outside its boundaries in order to house people on its housing list.
    We have 4,000 people on our housing list; there is no room to build for more than a very small number, and those houses are, in fact, being built. When they have been built, the area will be full. That is true of a large number of boroughs in Metropolitan Essex. It is true of Ilford, Barking, Walthamstow, Leyton and Romford, and it will soon be true of Hornchurch and Thurrock. Very few of those areas have slums to be cleared, but all of them have this problem of housing their surplus population.
    I fully agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger). If we have to put an estate a long way outside the boundaries and that estate has no special subsidy, there will be heavy expenses for people travelling to and from their work, in addition to the high rents, which will make it impossible for people who want those houses to take them.
    Let me take the case of Dagenham. We have bought, with the authority of the Minister, a small estate in Canvey Island. There is no industry in Canvey Island. The people who will be rehoused there will have to travel to the new town of Basildon or to Dagenham to their jobs. They will have to pay heavy fares on top of high rents.
    Also, we have gone into association with other boroughs, including Walthamstow, to build one big estate and take a certain number of houses each, in order to have some comprehensive development. No doubt, many comprehensive development schemes of that kind can be arranged. But will they rank for a special grant under the Bill? Can the Minister make that clear?
    Under this Bill, the Government discriminates against the small local authority which wants to develop an estate somewhere else, which wants to start not a slum clearance scheme but a scheme to provide for an overflow of its surplus population. No doubt, a large town can go ahead and

    971
    have such a scheme; it would, no doubt, be possible for the Minister to approve of Manchester doing this sort of thing, but I do not see how a small town will be able to undertake a development scheme outside its boundaries.
    I therefore hope that the Minister will deal not only with the question of slum clearance, but also with the important problem of the great many boroughs which need to have overspill for which there appears to be no arrangement in the Bill.
    6.0 p.m.
    Mr. Powell: The group of Amendments which the Committee is considering together covers two points. One is a minor point with which I want to deal briefly at the outset and the other is the major issue on which the greater part of the debate has centred.
    The minor point is that some of these Amendments would enable paragraph (e) to cover comprehensive development similar to development for the purposes of a new town, if it were undertaken not only by the exporting authority but by the importing authority or by some third authority. It is very difficult to conceive a case in which the importing authority, which is normally a rural district but at any rate anything but a great town or city, would be in a position to undertake development of a kind which could be on a par with the development of a new town by a development corporation. Nor is it likely, and it is very doubtful whether it is desirable, that such a service should be performed on a brokerage basis by yet a third authority which would build in an area not its own to meet the needs of an area not its own.
    This sort of development will occur where a great town, with great resources and great housing and development experience, undertakes the enterprise of establishing what is comparable to a new town, and it is not readily to be conceived that that could occur otherwise than where the developing authority was the exporting authority.
    The main effect which most of these Amendments have, and the main concern of hon. Members who have spoken in the debate has been to widen the application of paragraph (e) to include any out-boundary development.
    Mr. Mitchison: Paragraph (e).
    Mr. Powell: The effect would be to widen it to include all development, all provision of houses, undertaken by a housing authority outside its own boundaries; or, in the case of the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) and others, provided it were at a distance of five miles.
    It is important that the Committee should clearly recognise what is the essential difference between new town development and development which can be regarded as comparable to it, on the one hand, and the building of estates outside a borough or town development, on the other hand. The definition of town development which, where it is carried out by the receiving authority, as the Committee will remember, attracts the higher subsidy under paragraph (c), is in Section 1 of the 1952 Act; and it is development
    "undertaken primarily for the purpose of providing accommodation for residential purposes";
    and then follow the descriptive words,
    "(with or without accommodation for the carrying on of industrial or other activities, and with all appropriate public services, facilities for public worship, recreation and amenity, and other requirements)."
    One therefore has four grades of out-county development. There is the simple estate, with a minimum of non-housing development included in it; there is town development with the appropriate public services, etc., in the words which I quoted, but without industrial concomitant; there is town development in the fuller sense, where there is an industrial factor; and, finally, there is the true new town which is conceived literally as a new town and laid out on the full scale, planned to the full development envisaged, with the whole range of facilities for employment and for leisure which are found in a normal fully developed town.
    What is being asked here is that we should apply the higher rate of subsidy payable to an exporting authority not to the last category only but to all cases of housing provision outside the authority's boundary. But the Committee has already decided—and we had a full discussion on this aspect of the matter yesterday—that where the building falls

    973
    under the heading of town development, the higher subsidy should be payable only where it is undertaken by the receiving authority; and, therefore, all the more that where it is mere estate development it should attract the higher subsidy only where the housing is provided by the receiving authority.
    May I remind the Committee of the underlying reason for which that is so, and within the scope and principle of the Bill must be so. At the risk of wearying the Committee, I would again repeat that the underlying presumption of the Bill is that the great majority of local housing authorities will be able to continue to build as far as necessary to meet their general housing needs without undue rate burden or unduly high rates, on the assumption that they pool the subsidies which they receive on their whole existing and future stock of houses.
    On that assumption there is no difference between the position of a housing authority which goes on building to meet its general needs within its boundaries and one which, for various reasons, goes outside its boundaries. It is still building for its general housing needs and it is still in a position, like any other authority, to pool the subsidies which it receives. Indeed, if we were to extend this paragraph we should be making an unfair discrimination in favour of authorities which happened to have no development land remaining within their boundaries. There would be two authorities, one with building land within its boundaries and one without, and the former would be unable to receive the higher subsidy whereas the latter would receive it; but both would be building for the same needs and under the same financial conditions.
    Mr. Albert Evans (Islington, Southwest): Is it not within the Parliamentary Secretary's recollection that the basic assumption on which he is building his case was a general assumption and that it has been admitted, even from the Treasury Bench, that that general assumption will not necessarily apply in every case?
    Mr. G. Lindgren: There is another fundamental point which the Parliamentary Secretary seems to have forgotten. In out-county building one big difference arises. The big difference between
    974
    a scheme inside a county and a scheme outside is that the local authority building outside loses the rateable value of the land outside the area, but it may be called upon to make some contribution towards the local services in the area it is helping to build.
    Mr. Parker: What about the position of such a borough as my own, where two-thirds of the houses belong to the L.C.C. and cannot possibly be included in a pool of rents?
    Mr. Powell: I think that my answer to the hon. Member for Islington, Southwest (Mr. A. Evans) is most in point. It is admitted that there will be a minority of local authorities—we believe it will be a very small minority—which, for various reasons, even after pooling their rents, cannot be expected to meet their general housing needs with the £10 subsidy or without subsidy at all. But there is no reason to think that that minority in any way coincides with local authorities which happen to have to build outside their boundaries in order to meet their housing needs. At another point in Committee we discuss the provisions of the Bill for dealing with cases in which local authorities cannot meet their general housing needs without undue burden or unreasonable rents.
    Perhaps I may come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and repeated by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren)— the loss of rateable value. It is alleged that there is this difference between a housing authority which develops inside and one which develops outside its boundaries: that the latter loses the rateable value or, rather, does not gain the extra rateable value which accrues from the construction of houses. But, of course, it does not have to provide the associated services either. It does not have to provide any of the services for the inhabitants of those houses. Although it does not acquire the rateable value it does not acquire the burdens either. If it had built those houses inside its boundaries it would have had to provide the whole range of local government services for those who live there.
    Mr. Mitchison: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he will recollect that the rate burden is imposed for housing purposes as well as services purposes.

    975
    It has hitherto included a compulsory rate contribution and, very often, a supplementary one. It will now include, we hope, some contribution from the rates.
    Mr. Powell: Yes, it is true that a small fraction of the total rate burden which goes on local authority services is attributable to the rate subsidy in respect of housing, but in general the local authority which builds outside its area is rid of the obligation to provide services for the persons who are accommodated outside its area. Broadly, that is the case.
    What, then, is the justification for giving this special subsidy to the exporting authority in the case in which the development is equivalent to the creation of a new town? The answer is that when a new town or anything analogous to it is developed, at the outset there must be an immense amount of unremunerative expenditure, which is not directly connected with the provision for housing need. There is the lay-out on a much wider scale than would be necessary in estate development. There is provision for industry, not as an adjunct, but sufficient as the new town develops to provide employment for all those who will live in it.
    The developing authority in this case has to meet burdens which do not fall upon the exporting authority in any of the other types of development outside its boundaries. There is the further fact that usually building costs will be higher by reason of the grass roots nature of the development in a new town area than normally they would be in the case of an ordinary estate development, or town development.
    I was asked a question about the application of the higher rate of subsidy in respect of slum clearance.
    Mr. Bevan: Before the hon. Gentleman goes on to that, let us be quite clear about this. We have had a very long discussion, in which hon. Members on all sides of the Committee have taken part. Are we to gather from the extremely ingenious argument to which we have listened that an exporting authority which has no additional building land inside its area but has to build houses outside its area is now a rather luckier authority than an authority which has additional land within its area? It is apparently
    976
    an advantage not to have sites within the authority's area.
    Mr. Powell: No, that exporting authority only attracts the higher rate of subsidy for the houses it builds if it builds them in circumstances analogous to new town development in which it is obliged to incur a very heavy initial cost not shared by any other type of development. So it is far from an advantage to be undertaking that particular kind of decentralisation.
    I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) whether the higher slum clearance rate of subsidy did not also apply to comprehensive development. I think the same question was asked by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker). This matter was debated at length by the Committee yesterday and the Committee decided that comprehensive development, as defined in the ambit of the planning Acts, was not within the scope of redevelopment for the purposes of paragraph (a) of this subsection.
    On the narrower point of the position in West Ham, that authority has 2,854 slum houses and its plan is to deal with about 1,200 of those in the next five years. If it displaces 1,500 families from those slum houses it will get 1,500 subsidies of £22 1s. wherever the houses are built to house those people. That subsidy will also be paid on any houses which have to be demolished in order to give an appropriate clearance area in the sense of Part III of the Housing Act, 1936. The demand which will be created by the work of slum clearance in that constituency will be met by higher rates of subsidy wherever the houses in replacement are built.
    6.15 p.m.
    Mr. C. W. Gibson: That, I take it, will include all those houses in areas technically known as "grey land" whether they are actually slum houses or not?
    Mr. Powell: That is correct.
    I would advise the Committee that to widen the scope of this paragraph beyond that of development analogous to new towns would be both inconsistent with the underlying principle and assumption of the Bill and also unfair to other local authorities with an equal housing need which are able to meet it within their

    977
    boundaries. I would, therefore, advise the Committee to reject this series of Amendments.
    Mr. F. Blackburn: I should like to raise a small problem with which the Parliamentary Secretary has not dealt. I admit that my Amendment does not cover it entirely, but that Amendment was put down merely as a peg on which to base a case. It would require to be supported by the last Amendment proposed to line 23.
    During the past few years in my constituency and some other towns in northeast Cheshire, a small number of houses have been provided by local authorities for overspill from Salford. Those houses have been attracting the usual subsidy and there has been a contribution towards the rate fund from Cheshire County Council. This has been a sort of good neighbour scheme under which each year a few houses have been erected for the people of Salford. So far as I see there is no provision in this Bill by which such a scheme could continue to attract any subsidy and I should like to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say about that.
    In addition, my constituency is likely to be a reception area for a fairly large overspill scheme from Manchester. I take it that a scheme for about 4,000 houses would be entirely covered by paragraph (e) as it stands. The houses would be built by the exporting authority and I take it that the scheme would be a development considered as similar to that under the New Towns Act. If I am correct in my assumption that this matter would be covered by paragraph (e), the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) about the scheme in Worsley would be alleviated.
    Mr. Powell: It depends upon the nature of the scheme. The mere size of a scheme does not, as such, either exclude it or bring within the scope of paragraph (e). It must be a scheme which can be fairly regarded as comparable with a new town. Of course, size would be a factor because it would be difficult for a small number of houses to be comparable to a new town, but the hon. Member should not assume that unless the nature of the scheme itself—in its detail and whole structure—can be fairly regarded as
    978
    analogous to a new town it will fall within paragraph (e).
    Mr. Blackburn: The scheme would include all the qualifications which the Parliamentary Secretary read as being necessary under the New Towns Act. Therefore, am I correct in my assumption that it would rank for subsidy?
    Mr. David Jones (The Hartlepools): In his closing sentences, the Parliamentary Secretary sought to argue that if the Amendment to which I have appended my name were conceded, it would place the authority which has to build houses in the area of another local authority at an advantage as against the local authority which builds the same type of house within its own area.
    Will the hon. Gentleman address himself to this point? The authority which has to build its houses in another authority's area, while having to meet the cost of building the houses, would not get for itself the additional rateable value, which would be obtained by the authority which builds the houses within its area. Indeed, the export of a number of its population to a neighbouring area might conceivably affect its Exchequer equalisation grant because of a reduction in population.
    It seems quite unreasonable, therefore, to argue that the local authority which builds its houses outside its own area would have an advantage over the authority which builds within its own area. The disadvantage of not securing the additional rateable value of the new houses and the distinct possibility of a loss of Exchequer equalisation grant seem to me to be perfectly sound reasons why the Amendment which carries my name should be accepted.
    Mrs. Joyce Butler: I listened very carefully to the Parliamentary Secretary, but it seems that he quite fails to appreciate the reason why the small local authorities seek land outside their borders other than through the Town Development Act and the new towns and expanded towns arrangements. When the hon. Gentleman suggests that the new estates that these local authorities want to build are in exactly the same category as houses built within the areas of other borough authorities, he fails to realise the extent of this problem of land.

    979
    These small, congested boroughs are trying to relieve over-population, which is supposed to be one of the purposes of the Bill—there is no question about it. They have been forced to buy land outside their boroughs because under the Town Development Act and the provisions for the new and expanded towns, although they have taken some of the surplus populations from the industrial areas, they have not in the main taken people from the housing waiting lists of the local authorities concerned. The only way in which the small, congested authorities, such as those in Middlesex and the others to which reference has been made, can have a sizeable building estate is by purchasing the land and building the houses themselves.
    To do that demands considerable effort and a great deal of negotiation. As has been pointed out, there is in other areas great opposition to local authorities obtaining land. All this adds up to the fact that if only the reduced subsidy is given, many of these authorities will say that it simply is not worth their while to proceed with their schemes. That is the point with which the Amendments are concerned.
    If the Minister wants to relieve overpopulation, here is one of the most effective ways of doing it. Unless he gives the higher subsidy these authorities, after all their efforts and struggles, who feel that they have achieved something in acquiring the land, will say, "We are just not going on. It is £10 today, it will be nothing tomorrow, and fresh difficulties will be put in our way. We will abandon the whole thing." That is the essential difference between local authorities which build outside their areas and those which build within their areas, where these particular difficulties of acquiring land and of finance do not obtain.
    I ask the Minister to consider our proposals from that viewpoint. In view of all that has been said today, can he not consider the Amendments again and do something to help the relief of overpopulation, which it is the declared intention of the Bill to achieve?
    Mr. Lindgren: We have had a good discussion on this group of Amendments, and I would draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to an unusual feature of our discussion. Hitherto during the Committee
    980
    stage we have been looking at empty benches opposite. There were times yesterday when not a single Member of the party opposite was present. Today, we have had a reasonable attendance by hon. Members opposite. Many of them have made speeches, speeches which have been exactly in line with those made by my hon. Friends on this side, and yet the Parliamentary Secretary has failed to make any concession whatever.
    I have called attention to this afternoon's unity because the previous stages of the Bill have been a rather one-sided battle; we have been hitting fairly hard at the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary. Time and time again, when we have made points, we have been told, particularly by the Parliamentary Secretary, "I would call the attention of the Committee to the fact that the basic principles of the Bill are slum clearance and dealing with overspill." This afternoon, however, the Parliamentary Secretary has "blown the gaff," because he has shown that that is not at all the purpose of the Bill.
    All the cases which have been dealt with by hon. Members on the Parliamentary Secretary's own side of the Committee and those dealt with by my hon. Friends on this side have been cases of overspill, in which a local authority has no land within its confines on which to build and its population has to be decanted. The Parliamentary Secretary said, in effect, "All we are going to deal with is overspill in large-scale development, where it is on a basis of dealing with 40,000, 50,000 or 60,000 people." The normal overspill of an ordinary municipal borough or even of a small county borough is not being dealt with.
    It may be that Manchester or London, for example, would come within the field of action, but we must look further. Not only are the Government cutting out subsidies for housing purposes; they are breaking up existing legislation. Under the arrangements for the expanded towns to deal with overspill, hardly anything is being done outside the Borough of Swindon and the urban district of Bletchley. When the London County Council was prepared to accept schemes with local authorities under the Town Development Act, the Ministry killed them in two ways. First, the Ministry refused to give sufficient grants to assist with the extension

    981
    of facilities for water, sewerage, lighting, playing fields and the rest, which are necessary in the areas.
    The Bletchley scheme was started under a Labour Government and commitments were entered into by the Labour Government, which the present Government could not evade, with the Bletchley Urban District Council. Although certain concessions have been given, the Government are now making it almost impossible for schemes to proceed because the interest rates so increase the charges to be borne by the existing ratepayers in the area that the schemes are being given up. Accordingly, we can now rule out the Town Development Act. In the first place the Government refused to give adequate grants for essential services; and, secondly, the rates of interest cause added difficulty, even to local authorities who are prepared to consider schemes.
    6.30 p.m.
    When the arrangements for the new towns were being worked out it was intended that there should be a new town development corporation to undertake the estate development in any area the local authority of which had not sufficient resources, not enough officials or too little money, to be responsible for it. The New Towns Act was not intended to apply to boroughs which could competently undertake their own expansion. Those towns are the expanding towns, and the Borough of Swindon is one of them.
    What has happened since the present Government have been in office? In the four and a half years they have been in office no new towns have been designated. It was the Labour Government who introduced and passed the necessary legislation. Until it was on the Statute Book, no new town building could be done, and the Labour Government started the work of the new towns from scratch. The Act was passed in 1946, and between 1946 and 1951 the Labour Government made all the arrangements for 14 new towns. The present Government have not designated one. They have, however, interfered with the machinery devised for the development of the new towns.
    The hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) was talking today about the problems of Manchester. The Labour Government made an arrangement for the
    982
    designation of a new town—Congleton— to deal with overspill from Manchester. What have the present Government done? After their first action of putting up the interest rates to satisfy the bankers, they adopted a policy by which there will be in future no new towns except for the relief of such crowded places as Manchester, London and Birmingham, because they are considered the best able to undertake new town development.
    This involves what we in local government circles have always tried to avoid. We have never liked out-county building, and avoided it if we could. There are always difficulties when a local authority's policy involves another local authority, or the usurpation, as it were, of another local authority's duties and powers. Local authorities do not like usurping one another's powers, even in building. The Government's policy means that London County Council, Birmingham City Council, Manchester City Council, in dealing with their overspill problems, will have, each of them, perhaps, to take over a couple of rural districts and an urban district and usurp the powers of the local authorities in those areas.
    The intention under the New Towns Act was to avoid interference with local authority powers, and that was why the device of the development corporation was adopted. It was the intention that there should be a development corporation for a new town, a corporation of business men to deal with the estate development, while the normal local government functions were to be left to the local government units in the area.
    We now know that, whatever the Government may say about it, this Bill is not to deal with slums, because in so far as it relates to the expansion of towns, it will permit those expansions only on a large scale. There can be only "substantial" expansions, as the Minister put it, and that means that it will assist only such cities as London, Birmingham and Manchester. The ordinary boroughs will get nothing out of the Bill.
    My hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) has a case which illustrates the fact that the Bill will not help in these respects. A previous Minister of Housing and Local Government had authorised a compulsory purchase order in favour of West Ham

    983
    and against the London County Council, because it was desirable to have some slum clearance in West Ham. Now, families displaced by a slum clearance scheme must go to houses in new housing schemes, even outside the borough in which the slum clearance is being done.
    We have heard some talk about how people will be better off in new areas. It is true, of course, that if, for instance, London County Council houses some of its people in Essex, or Kent, or Surrey, or Hertfordshire, it will be saved some costs on education, but the local authority receiving the overspill will have additional educational costs. There are other factors, too. The people who are thus moved away from their former homes have to pay more in fares to go to their work, and that is in reality an addition to their rent.
    Mr. J. A. Sparks: Unless they change their jobs.
    Mr. Lindgren: Yes. I was speaking of people who retained their jobs which they had when they lived in their former homes. They may, perhaps, give up those jobs and get new jobs nearer their new homes. Men who do that often have to take a lower rate of pay.
    What the Government are saying to the ratepayers is, "You must pay increased rates to build houses 30 or 40 or 50 miles away for other people." Tenants of council houses in the London area may have to pay as much as 5s. a week more rent to finance the building of houses far away for other people and so that they can be let at reasonable rents.
    The Government are saying that the local authorities, whether they want to or not, must pool rents and subsidies, but this is spreading the pool rather wide. Where will the pool end? Will it so spread that at last all the resources of all the local authorities in England and Wales
    are pooled and averaged out between them? The Government are running into enough trouble with the local authorities already without seeking any more. The Urban District Councils' Association has already condemned them, and the A.M.C. has condemned them. In all my experience of local government I have not known that association to condemn any Government. It has sometimes been a little rough in its language to the Government, or about the Government, but I have never known it wholly to condemn a Government before.
    In spite of the fact that there has been unanimity of opinion among hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who have spoken in this debate, the Government seem determined not to accept the Amendment. Unless the Government are prepared to make some concession to us, I shall have to ask my hon. and right hon. Friends to press the matter to a Division. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite, who have gallantly criticised the Government today, and who have asked the Government to make some amendments to the Bill, to put their words into deeds and to join us in the Division Lobby, so that the Government may understand that not only are we on these benches against the Bill, not only are the local authority associations against the Bill, not only are the people of the country against the Bill, but even certain Conservative Members of Parliament are against the Bill, because of the conditions they know in the areas they represent in this House of Commons.
    Mr. Blackburn: Are we to take it from the silence of the Minister that it is the intention of the Government that the good-neighbour scheme should come to an end?
    Question put, That the words "in some other area" stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 250, Noes 208.

    Division No. 96.]

    AYES

    [6.40 p.m.

    Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

    Banks, Col. C.

    Biggs-Davison, J. A.

    Aitken, W. T.

    Barber, Anthony

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Alport, C. J. M.

    Barlow, Sir John

    Bishop, F. P.

    Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

    Barter, John

    Body, R. F.

    Anstruther-Gray, Major W.J.

    Baxter, Sir Beverley

    Bossom, Sir A. C.

    Armstrong, C. W.

    Beamish, Maj. Tufton

    Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

    Ashton, H.

    Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Atkins, H. E.

    Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

    Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

    Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

    Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

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

    Baldwin, A. E.

    Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Balniel, Lord

    Bidgood, J. C.

    Brooman-White, R. C.

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

    Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

    Nairn, D. L. S.

    Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

    Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

    Neave, Airey

    Burden, F. F. A.

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Holland-Martin, C. J.

    Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

    Butler, Rt. Hn. R.A.(SaffronWalden)

    Holt, A. F.

    Nield, Basil (Chester)

    Campbell, Sir David

    Hope, Lord John

    Nugent, G. R. H.

    Carr, Robert

    Horobin, Sir Ian

    Nutting, Rt. Hon. Anthony

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

    Oakshott, H. D.

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

    O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

    Clarke, Brig.Terence(Portsmouth,W.)

    Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

    Cole, Norman

    Howard, John (Test)

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

    Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

    Osborne, C.

    Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert

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

    Page, R. G.

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K,

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

    Panned, N. A. (Kirkdale)

    Corfield, Capt. F. V.

    Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

    Peyton, J. W. W.

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Pickthorn, K. W. M.

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh, W.)

    Pitt, Miss E. M.

    Crowder, Petre (Ruislip-Northwood)

    Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)

    Pott, H. P.

    Cunningham, Knox

    Hyde, Montgomery

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

    Profumo, J. D.

    Davidson, Viscountess

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Raikes, Sir Victor

    Davies, Rt.Hon.Clement(Montgomery)

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Ramsden, J. E.

    D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Deedes, W. F.

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Redmayne, M.

    Dodds-Parker, A. D.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

    Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

    Remnant, Hon. P.

    Doughty, C. J. A.

    Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

    Renton, D. L. M.

    Drayson, G. B.

    Keegan, D.

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

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

    Kerby, Capt. H. B.

    Robertson, Sir David

    Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

    Kerr, H. W.

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

    Duthie, W. S.

    Kershaw, J. A.

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Eccles, Ht. Hon. Sir David

    Kirk, P. M.

    Russell, R. S.

    Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

    Lagden, G. W.

    Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Lambton, viscount

    Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Sharples, R. C.

    Erroll, F. J.

    Langford-Holt, J. A.

    Shepherd, William

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

    Fell, A.

    Leavey, J. A.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Finlay, Graeme

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

    Speir, R. M.

    Fisher, Nigel

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

    Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

    Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Fort, R.

    Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

    Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Freeth, D. K.

    Linstead, Sir H. N.

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

    Storey, s.

    Gammans, L. D.

    Longden, Gilbert

    Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)

    Garner-Evans, E. H.

    Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.

    Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

    Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

    Godber, J. B.

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Teeling, W.

    Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

    McAdden, S. J.

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Gough, C. F. H.

    Macdonald, Sir Peter

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Gower, H. R

    Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry

    Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.

    McKibbin, A. J.

    Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

    Graham, Sir Fergus

    Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

    Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

    Grant, W. (Woodside)

    McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

    Touche, Sir Gordon

    Grant-Ferris, Wg.Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Turner, H. F. L.

    Green, A.

    Maclean, Fitzroy (Lancaster)

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Gresham Cooke, R,

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Grimond, J.

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Vickers, Miss J. H.

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Maddan, Martin

    Vosper, D. F.

    Gurden, Harold

    Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Wade, D. W.

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Wall, Major Patrick

    Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

    Marlowe, A. A. H.

    Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

    Harvey, Air Cdr. A. V. (Macolesfd)

    Marples, A. E.

    Watkinson, H. A.

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Marshall, Douglas

    Whitelaw,W.S.J.(Penrith & Border)

    Harvie-Watt, Sir George

    Mathew, R.

    Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

    Hay, John

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

    Wils, G. (Bridgwater)

    Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.

    Mawby, R. L.

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

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

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Heath, Edward

    Moore, Sir Thomas

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Morrison, John (Salisbury)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

    Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

    Mr. Studholme and

    Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Nabarro, G. D. N.

    Mr. Richard Thompson.

    NOES

    Ainsley, J. W.

    Bartley, P.

    Boardman, H.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

    Allen, Arthur (Bo<ob/>orth)

    Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Benson, G.

    Bowles, F. G.

    Anderson, Frank

    Beswick, F.

    Boyd, T. C.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

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

    Brockway, A. F.

    Balfour, A.

    Blackburn, F.

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    986

    987

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Hubbard, T. F.

    Probert, A. R.

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Rankin, John

    Burke, W. A.

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Reeves, J.

    Burton, Miss F. E.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Reid, William

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Hunter, A. E.

    Rhodes, H.

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

    Callaghan, L. J.

    Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Carmichael, J.

    Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Castle, Mrs. B. A.

    Irving, S. (Dartford)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Champion, A. J.

    Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

    Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

    Chapman, W. D.

    Janner, B.

    Ross, William

    Chetwynd, G. R.

    Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

    Royle, C.

    Clunie, J.

    Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn & St.Pncs.S.)

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Coldrick, W.

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Colliok, P. H. (Birkenhead)

    Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Collins, V. J.(Shoreditch & Finsbury)

    Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

    Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

    Skeffington, A.M.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Cronin, J. D.

    Kenyon, C.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Cullen, Mrs. A.

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Sparks, J. A.

    Daines, P.

    King, Dr. H. M.

    Steele, T.

    Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

    Lawson, G. M.

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Darling, George (Hillsborough)

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R. (Ipswich)

    Davies Ernest (Enfield E.)

    Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

    Stones, W. (Consett)

    Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

    Lindgren, G. S.

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

    Dodds, N. N.

    Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

    Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

    Dye, S

    Logan, D. G.

    Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

    MacColl, J. E.

    Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

    McGhee, H. G.

    Swingler, S. T.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    McInnes, J.

    Sylvester, G. O.

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

    McLeavy, Frank

    Thomas, George (Cardiff)

    Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

    MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

    Mahon, S.

    Thornton, E.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Timmons, J.

    Fienburgh, W,

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Forman, J. C.

    Mason, Roy

    Viant, S. P.

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Warbey, W. N.

    Galtskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

    Messer, Sir F.

    Weitzman, D.

    Gibson, C. W.

    Mikardo, Ian

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

    Monslow, W.

    West, D. G.

    Grey, C. F.

    Moody, A. S.

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

    White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Mort, D. L.

    White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

    Hale, Leslie

    Moss, R.

    Wigg, George

    Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Moyle, A.

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Hamilton, W. W.

    Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

    Willey, Frederick

    Hannan, W.

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Williams, David (Neath)

    Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

    Oram, A. E.

    Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

    Hastings, S.

    Owen, W. J.

    Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

    Hayman, F. H.

    Padley, W. E.

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Healey, Denis

    Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

    Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

    Palmer, A. M. F.

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Herbison, Miss M.

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Winterbottom, Richard

    Hewitson, Capt. M.

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Hobson, C. R,

    Parker, J.

    Yates, V. (Ladywood)

    Holman, P.

    Paton, J.

    Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

    Holmes, Horace

    Pearson, A.

    Zilliacus, K.

    Houghton, Douglas

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

    Popplewell, E.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Howell, Denis (All Saints)

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Mr. Short and Mr. Deer.

    Hoy, J. H.

    Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

    Question put and agreed to.

    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Julius Silverman: I hope that the Minister will still reconsider the Clause. It imposes very serious obligations upon local authorities. My own local authority, Birmingham, has a tremendous overspill problem. Within the next very few years no more new building land in the city will be available. Consequently, some provision will have to be made for Birmingham applicants for houses to go outside the city.
    988
    It is estimated that we should have to provide for 50,000 families outside the city boundary. That is an overspill problem of not merely a large town but what amounts to another city. The question is: where are we going to put the people? So far, the Minister has not been very helpful in that respect. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill is intended to provide primarily for slum clearance. He should bear in mind that slum clearance of itself creates an overspill problem.
    We are finding in Birmingham that, even when we rebuild as densely as we

    989
    can, we can only rehouse three out of every five tenants displaced by slum clearance. It means that if one clears an area where 5,000 families are living one has to find fresh building land for 2,000 of those families even after providing for a dense redevelopment in the area. Even if it is correct to say that the Bill is intended to deal with slum clearance, it creates an overspill problem which must be dealt with and people like those whom I have mentioned have to be rehoused outside the local authority's area.
    No single method of tackling overspill can deal with the problem. Even if the Government provide for a new town for the Midlands conurbation, that of itself will not solve the problem. I cannot think of a place in the Midlands where one can build a new town for 50,000 or even 30,000 families.
    There are three methods of tackling the problem. One is to build a new town, the other is to provide for other local authorities to take the new tenants, and the third is to enable cities like Birmingham to build outside their area. In Birmingham, we have been in contact with certain local authorities who are prepared to accept our tenants, provided that Birmingham takes the responsibility of building for and housing the tenants. In view of the hight rate of interest and other obligations it is quite understandable that some of the small local authorities are not prepared to accept this burden. Unfortunately, these negotiations are now bedevilled by the financial terms and provisions of this Bill. I hope that the Minister will look at the Clause again and consider what can be done to assist areas like Birmingham to provide for their overspill.
    Mr. E. Johnson: I should like to draw the attention of the Minister to yet one other point which is of special interest to many of us, namely, the question of temporary bungalows, to which reference is made in subsection (3,b) of this Clause. On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend said that he could not agree to take power to designate as unsatisfactory those temporary bungalows usually known as "prefabs" which have been erected in various parts of the country. He said that they were good houses and were suitable for small families.
    990
    I would agree entirely that these "prefabs" are still very much better houses than many of the slum houses. However, they were meant to last only ten years. They are rapidly becoming unsatisfactory temporary housing accommodation. Many more will be extremely unsatisfactory by 1965, which is the year in which those on public open spaces have to be pulled down under the provisions of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954.
    I understand that subsection (3, b) covers those houses and that the Clause need not have anything added to it to enable my right hon. Friend to designate these "prefabs" as being in a category which covers houses built for rehousing and attracting a subsidy of £22 1s. I hope that that is correct and that my right hon. Friend will be able to confirm it.
    Another point which I should like to clear up concerns prefabricated houses built upon public open spaces. There are 1,530 of these in Manchester, 738 of them in my constituency. Indeed, I have 12½ per cent. of all the "prefabs" on public open spaces in the county and, therefore, I am interested to know what will happen. They have to be removed by 1965 under the Housing Repairs and Rents Act. I should like to know from my right hon. Friend whether, when that happens, the houses which have to be built to accommodate the people who are living in these "prefabs" will attract a subsidy of £22 1s. If my right hon. Friend can reassure me on that matter it will give great satisfaction to the people of Manchester.
    Mr. Blackburn: I should like to say a few words about slum clearance and the rate of subsidy. Slum clearance should be much more a national problem than a local problem and should be dealt with on a national basis. I agree that there is a subsidy of £22 1s., compared with £10 for ordinary housing provision, but the problem of slum clearance arises chiefly in the urban districts, in those districts which have in the main contributed to the industrial wealth of the country in the past. The problem of slum clearance has not arisen because of some crime which the present inhabitants of these towns have committed.
    Now, these people have placed upon them the heavy burden of clearing the slums. I can best illustrate the matter by

    991
    giving an example from my own constituency. According to returns in a Ministry publication, the proportion of sub-standard houses to the total hereditaments in the three non-county boroughs in my constituency are 25 per cent., 21 per cent., and 15 per cent. Those percentages give some idea of the problem created by slum dwellings.
    7.0 p.m.
    I took the figures for two municipal boroughs in the same county which are chiefly residential. The figures there were 1·7 per cent. and 1·05 per cent. I have compared those figures with some seaside resorts, taking four examples, two county boroughs and two non-county boroughs. For the county boroughs the percentage was 0·15 per cent. and 0·6 per cent. and for the non-county boroughs it was 0·28 per cent. and 0·044 per cent. Therefore, the burden of dealing with this problem is being spread most unevenly throughout the country, and in my opinion it should be dealt with much more on a national scale than considered as a small problem for each local authority.
    On the Amendments to paragraph (e) I asked a specific question about the good neighbour policy which has been pursued by an authority in my own constituency and by other neighbouring authorities. I asked whether it was the intention of the Government that this should be brought to an end and I think I am entitled to have a reply.
    Finally, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the problem of overspill between now and the Report stage to ensure that there are sufficient provisions in the Bill to deal with the many facets of the problem that will arise in that connection.
    Mr. D. Jones: Paragraph (b) of subsection (3) enables the Minister to designate for the purposes of the higher subsidy certain classes of unsatisfactory temporary housing accommodation. It is general in its terms and except for camps, which are specifically mentioned, neither Parliament nor the local authorities which will have to operate the proposed law, know what it is intended to cover. The war and the post-war period have produced a variety of temporary accommodation such as camps, temporary hutments, a wide variety of prefabricated bungalows and requisitioned dwellings.
    992
    I seek to particularise two classes of this accommodation where the local authority is bound to rehouse the occupants within a known period. The first consists of requisitioned houses where the owner is unwilling to accept the licensee as his tenant, and the local authority is unable to acquire the property either by purchase or lease on reasonable terms. In these circumstances, the local authority is required by the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, to relinquish requisition of the property by 1960. As the licensee cannot remain in the property as a statutory tenant at that time, and the local authority has been unable to acquire the ownership of the property, it has no alternative in the majority of cases but to rehouse the licensee.
    The second class consists of temporary housing accommodation erected on open spaces. Here again the local authority is unable to rehouse the people resident in those temporary buildings. The Minister has said as regards both these classes that the local authority needs no stimulus by way of increased subsidy to encourage it to remove the dwellings in question, and that there is already stimulus in the existing law which will require the local authority to do something about rehousing the tenants before 1960 or 1965 as the case may be.
    The Association of Municipal Corporations takes the view that housing subsidies ought not to depend solely on stimulus. Post-war housing has up to now been in the nature of a partnership between the Government and the local authority, and since by reason of recent Acts of Parliament local authorities have a special and urgent problem of rehousing which cannot be postponed, they should be given special financial assistance.
    These two classes are likely to be particularly onerous for the local authorities concerned, and I share the hope of my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) that the Minister will reconsider this point between now and the conclusion of the proceedings on this Bill in order to make it possible for local authorities to meet their obligations under recent legislation without undue strain.
    Mr. Graeme Finlay: I want to address a few remarks on the subject of the success or otherwise of the policies

    993
    of decongestion by the Government in relation to London. We know that by means of new towns and expanded towns, as well as various other analogous means which have been under discussion in this Committee, some decongestion is going on.
    Just before Christmas, my right hon. Friend gave an Answer to the House indicating that about 19,000 houses had been let to people who were on London's housing waiting lists. If we multiply that figure by four, as being about the average number of inhabitants in a house in a new town, we find that 76,000 people have been absorbed from London by the new towns. But, of course, the new towns have built a larger number of houses than that, and it is nearer to 5,000 which have been occupied by inhabitants who have not come from the London area, so that we get about 20,000 people who have not been absorbed from that area.
    When we look at the population figures for London we realise that London, which shrank in the war, started to expand immediately afterwards and went on expanding steadily between 1946 and 1950. In 1951, for the first time, it started to contract again, when the population went down by 67,000 to 8,350,380 from the figure of 8,417,380 at which it stood in 1950. Thereafter, in 1952, it went up again, and in 1953 and in 1954 it contracted slightly, so that from the peak figure of 8,417,380 in 1950 it is now in 1954, the last figure available, 8,319,220, which is about 100,000 less than it was at the peak.
    If we take into account the arrangements which have been made by the new towns and by the expanded schemes under the Town Development Act of 1952 in a town such as Bletchley, to which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) referred, we wonder to what extent this process is being effective. I have certain figures which indicate the growth of industry since the war. In 1945, the licences which were granted to factories in Development Areas by the Board of Trade amounted to 62 per cent. whereas the London region received only 2 per cent. In 1954 the trend was reversed. The Development Areas were getting only 18 per cent. and the London region was getting 29 per cent. So there is a process which has to be watched carefully if the policies of the
    994
    Minister are to command success and if our great conglomeration of Metropolitan London is to be eased of its strain. Therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend what is being done in this connection.
    For example, the London County Council can get special Exchequer grants in respect of sterilising land where there are factory sites, and so on. What coordination is there of licensing as between the Department of my right hon. Friend and the Board of Trade? Is the planning permission which is required before a business can set up inside the Greater London area granted, and is that a sufficiently effective barrier to control the process? If it is not, London will become an unmanageable Frankenstein. I should like to hear something about the general success of the broad strategy of my right hon. Friend in this matter.
    Mr. Sandys: My hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Finlay) raised some rather wide issues in his short and very concise speech and I do not think I should be in order in pursuing them, although I think that his remarks were as relevant to the matters under discussion as some of the earlier speeches in the debate.
    Perhaps I may be allowed, in reply to him, to say that the most energetic efforts are being made by the local authorities concerned and by myself to see that new industry does not come into the Greater London area at the same time as we are trying to export population to the new towns and the expanded towns outside. In approving the County of London Plan, I specifically cut out many acres of land which the L.C.C. proposed to allocate to industry and I tightened in every sort of way the possibilities of converting residential property into commercial or industrial use. The L.C.C. are also taking steps to devote an increasing amount of money to buying and sterilising industrial property which is wrongly located.
    All this will not be done in a day and the magnitude of the problem is bound to appal anybody who has to deal with it, but none the less I have no doubt that strenuous and conscientious efforts are being made in the right direction and in the direction which my hon. Friend desires.
    Mr. Arthur Holt (Bolton, West)Mr. Arthur Holt (Bolton, West)rose——
    Mr. Sandys: I do not think I ought to go far into the point, because that would be an abuse of the time of the Committee.
    The hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) and the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) emphasised the importance of dealing with this question on a national scale. The hon. Member for The Hartlepools referred to the difficulty which might arise under recent legislation, in particular the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act. I dealt with that earlier, and I sincerely believe that the changes which will be brought about by the Bill should make it no more difficult for local authorities to carry out their obligations under that Act.
    Mr. D. Jones: The right hon. Gentleman appreciates that that impression is not shared by any of the local authority associations. They have said that in their view it will make it more difficult.
    Mr. Sandys: I argued the point earlier. I cannot see how the Bill can affect their position, for the simple reason that the policy underlying the Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act rests not upon the assumption that the great majority of the people now living in requisitioned houses will be rehoused elsewhere, but on the assumption that a substantial proportion of those requisitioned houses will continue to be occupied by the present licensees as a result either of agreements to rent the houses from the owners or, alternatively, of arrangements to buy the houses from the owners. It is only in such a way that a problem of that magnitude can be dealt with, and I made that abundantly clear during the passage of that Act. I also referred to it the other day.
    The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said that the problem of slum clearance should be dealt with on a national scale. It is very easy to use those broad phrases, but what exactly he means I do not know. I cannot conceive that the manner in which we are dealing with it is other than dealing with it on a national scale.
    Mr. Blackburn: Much more should be provided by public funds rather than the burden being placed on those local authorities which have the greatest problems. The subsidy should be higher.
    Mr. Sandys: Building a house to replace slum clearance does not cost more, by and large, than building a house for general needs. There is no financial difficulty about building a house to replace a slum. The reason that we are giving the larger subsidy is not because of any increased cost involved. Sometimes it costs a little more, sometimes a little less, when one has allowed for realising the value of the materials of the house which is demolished. It costs roughly the same to build a new house on a bare site as to pull down a house, sell the materials and rebuild on that site. The reasons for which we are providing a larger subsidy for slum clearance is not any extra cost involved to the local authority but a desire to encourage local authorities to concentrate to a greater extent than has been the case hitherto on the problem of clearing the slums.
    The hon. Member asked whether we wished what he described as "a good neighbour policy" among local authorities in his area to come to an end. Of course we do not. Naturally, we wish any satisfactory arrangements for co-operation between local authorities to continue, and the Bill in no way precludes this.
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. Blackburn: Surely it precludes it in the very example which I gave, where my authority and an authority in northeast Cheshire have been building a few houses for Salford overspill. The Bill contains no provision for any subsidy for the building of houses for that purpose.
    Mr. Sandys: I cannot say that the Bill provides an additional subsidy for that purpose.
    Mr. Blackburn: It provides no subsidy.
    Mr. Sandys: The ordinary subsidies will be available as would be available if it were done under any other arrangement.
    Mr. Mitchison: For a year or so.
    Mr. Sandys: These houses are not placed in a different category from other houses because they are built by some arrangement for co-operation between local authorities, but we should naturally like any of these arrangements which are working satisfactorily to continue.

    997
    The hon. Member for Aston (Mr. J. Silverman) said that some local authorities around Birmingham are willing to accept overspill population from the City of Birmingham provided that Birmingham Corporation undertakes the building of the houses needed. He asked what would be the subsidy position for those houses. If they are to be owned by the receiving authority—that is, the authority in the area in which they are to be built—they will attract the £24 subsidy. If, on the other hand, they are to be owned by the City of Birmingham, they will form part of Birmingham's total housing pool and Birmingham will be able to allocate tenants to those houses in exactly the same way as they allocate tenants to their own houses within the city. There would, therefore, be no justification for treating those houses differently from homes built within the city and perhaps only a mile or so away.
    Mr. Mitchison: Would the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to tell me under which paragraph of the subsection those houses would attract the higher subsidy if they were owned not by Birmingham but by the local authority on the spot?
    Mr. Sandys: Perhaps I should have qualified my remarks by saying, provided they are carried out with the approval of the Minister in the area of that authority under subsection 3 (3, c)—that is, houses provided in accordance with a scheme of town development.
    Mr. Mitchison: That would be a scheme of town development?
    Mr. Sandys: The hon. and learned Gentleman has not told me exactly which scheme he has in mind, but provided it is a scheme of that kind the houses would qualify for the higher subsidy if they were owned by the receiving authority. If, as I believe is the practice in most cases, they will be owned by the City of Birmingham, who will build them, own them and dispose of them for the purpose of allocating tenants to them, they will not be treated differently from any other houses which Birmingham builds for its population.
    Mr. J. Silverman: Will the Minister say what is the logical distinction between a
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    house where Birmingham does the building and a house where the local authority does the building? Both provide for the same class of tenant. Why should one attract a subsidy and not the other, simply because Birmingham is not able to make satisfactory arrangements with the local authority and has to do the building itself?
    Mr. Sandys: It should attract subsidy if it is built and owned by the receiving authority, because it is unreasonable to expect the receiving authority, which may be a small rural district with comparatively few houses of its own—and this may be a substantial scheme which may altogether alter the plans of the authority's housing pool—to average out the rents and possibly have to increase rents for its comparatively few local inhabitants in order to make it possible to build houses for Birmingham and to charge the incoming population reasonable rents.
    That might be the case if the authority had to carry out this large expansion out of all proportion to its normal building programme with the £10 subsidy. That is why in these cases we have thought it right to pay the highest rate of subsidy of £24. Where Birmingham itself is building a comparatively small number of additional houses just over its border, which, for all practical purposes, are houses built by Birmingham for Birmingham people, there seems to be no justification for paying an increased subsidy.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) raised the question of prefabricated temporary houses. I said on an earlier occasion that I would have a further look at the position. If these are to be dealt with in the Bill, they fall to be dealt with in Clause 3 (3, b). That refers to houses
    "provided by a local authority for the purposes of rehousing persons coming from such camps or other unsatisfactory temporary housing accommodation as the Minister may designate for the purposes of this paragraph."
    They come into the category of temporary housing accommodation. If they are so unsatisfactory—and by that I mean really unsatisfactory for some reason; I do not regard the general run of temporary prefabricated houses as being unsatisfactory—that they are not capable of being repaired at a reasonable cost, the houses built to rehouse people from

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    those temporary prefabricated houses will qualify for the £22 subsidy.
    The other class into which I undertook to look was those prefabricated temporary houses which are now built on open spaces and which local authorities from time to time may wish to pull down. There are statutory time limits within which these houses have to be pulled down. We all recognise, as I said earlier, that we would like to see the removal of these houses from the cities' open spaces —which, in most cases, are none too numerous—as soon as practical, having regard, at the same time, to the housing position in that area. In other words, I do not wish to take action which in any way will compel local authorities, in areas where there is acute housing shortage, to pull down satisfactory houses, even though on open spaces, before the authorities themselves think that is desirable within the limits of what the law provides.
    What I am prepared to do—and this is a matter which requires no amendment of the Bill—is to say to the Committee that, in practice, under this Clause I intend to designate temporary prefabricated houses which local authorities decide to remove from open spaces. That does go some way towards meeting the point put by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, but I could not, of course, for the reasons I have already explained, consider designating for higher subsidy temporary prefabricated houses which are away from open spaces and which are still satisfactory, because the only effect of that would be to stimulate local authorities to pull down houses which for small families are really satisfactory accommodation.
    Mr. Mitchison: I should like to make one observation on the Minister's last point, which is of some importance. If the local authority itself thinks that the temporary "prefabs" are in an unsatisfactory condition, is that enough to qualify for the subsidy? The right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that it is the local authorities who, by statute, are judges of what is an insanitary house, or unfit accommodation, for a number of other purposes. I hope he will not say that he would require to interfere with a discretion in the matter which, I am sure he will agree, would be honestly exercised.
    Mr. Sandys: I always hesitate to answer a rather detailed point "off the cuff," but I think that it would be right that local authorities should have the same degree of discretion in deciding whether a prefabricated temporary house is unsatisfactory as they have in deciding whether it is unfit. In all cases they are subject to confirmation by the Minister, whose inspector goes into these matters. I see no reason why they should not be treated in the same kind of way.
    Mr. Tom Brown: Would the Minister consider designating caravans as unsatisfactory temporary accommodation? Many caravan camps have sprung up in recent years.
    Mr. Sandys: I do not think that that comes within the terms of the answer which I have given.
    Mr. Sparks: The right hon. Gentleman said that he was prepared to consider a subsidy on the removal of temporary dwellings from parks and open spaces, but not in other cases. Is he aware that in London and many other big cities and towns prefabricated houses have been put on the sites of dwellings which were two to seven-storey flats? Many local authorities had to use such vacant sites, because there was nowhere else to put such houses. Most of those authorities have very heavy housing lists and a severe housing problem. They intended to demolish those prefabricated houses and restore the two to seven-storey flats so that six families could be housed in the place of the one in the "prefab." Will the right hon. Gentleman seriously reconsider that point, which is very important?
    7.30 p.m.
    Mr. Sandys: The hon. Member overrates the relief which the local authority would get if his suggestion were adopted. There may be six or seven storeys to this building that he would like to put where one "prefab" is standing so that it would house six or seven families. I am not saying that we accept his suggestion, but the local authority would get an additional subsidy only in respect of the rehousing of one family out of an unsatisfactory house.
    Mr. Mitchison: I do not propose to take the time of the Committee for more than a minute or two. We have had a very full discussion on a number of

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    points in the Clause, and particularly on subsection (3). What strikes me about it is that not one hon. Member has made a speech in support of members of the Government except the members of the Government themselves, who have cordially and loyally supported one another. From their own back benches they have had nothing but criticism, and the bitterness of the criticism has varied with the personality of the hon. Member and with the depth of the grievances to which he felt bound to give vent. That is not a good beginning for what, on any showing, will be a difficult Clause to administer.
    I keep on watching right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite slipping back into the grievous fallacy that they are giving a substantial increase of subsidy in some of these cases. All that they are doing is cutting housing subsidies in general and refraining from cutting in some cases. It is true that, on a rather complicated hypothesis which could not possibly affect more than a small number of dwellings, one or two may come out a £ or two better, but, by and large, the object of the Bill is to cut the housing subsidies, with a view to removing the general subsidy completely in a year or two. These are the exceptions to it.
    It is clear that these exceptions do not go nearly far enough. They will allow some of the business of exporting surplus population for various purposes to preserve its existing subsidy in some cases, but will not cover the efforts that have been made by the very local authorities who are in the greatest difficulties in this matter. It is the comparatively small local authorities, pressed and crushed within their narrow boundaries with a surplus population that they have no room to house or to decant, who find difficulties at present. They will be uncommonly hard hit by the removal in a year or so of the subsidy and its present reduction.
    They will not be helped by the Clause. There are some concessions, illogical and one-sided, which may help in certain circumstances some of the larger authorities, but only if, and in so far as, they comply with what the Minister thinks is the right way to do it. The effect of the Clause is, once more, to take away the initiative and discretion which local
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    authorities have always had in the past, and to put one more rope around them, tied by the Minister.
    I cannot refrain from a word about the "urgent needs of industry." This is a most perilous phrase. It will allow the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is no doubt a member of the Government in consultation with his colleagues, to decide what the urgent needs of industry are. Quite frankly, we know too much of the associations of the Tory Party in the past with big business and we are told too little about the sources of Tory Party funds to be happy about any provision in a Bill which leaves the decision on a phrase of that sort to the discretion of a Tory Minister.
    For that reason alone we cordially dislike the wording of the Clause. We have done our best to make the Clause more reasonable by Amendment, to remove some of its inconsistencies and to give back to local authorities a little of the discretion which the Minister of Housing and Local Government ought to preserve instead of reduce. We have failed at every point. The only concession we have had from the Minister—and he was driven to rely on it as an instance of his reasonableness—was a mere matter of postponing the operation of the reductions for a period so short that he could not possibly have made any in that period. Otherwise, he has not made a single concession, not only to us, but, in the case of this Clause, to his hon. Friends, who represented the views not only of their constituencies but, in one important matter, of the Association of Municipal Corporations.
    If that is not perverse obstinacy in a Government what is it? At the end, what have we to say? We are offered something, the preservation of some subsidies in certain circumstances. We think it is a niggling gift, ill worded, ill-conceived and insufficiently thought out; but, still, it is a gift. We are not going to refuse it and we are not going to divide against the Clause, insufficient though we think it is.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 5.—(POWER TO INCREASE SUBSIDIES IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.)
    Mr. A. J. Irvine: I beg to move, in page 5, line 22, to leave out from "accommodation" to "that" in line 24 and to insert "in the district of."
    This Clause gives the Minister power to increase subsidies in certain circumstances, and he can exercise it if he forms an opinion upon two matters set out in the Clause. The purpose of the Amendment is to suggest that in the first case it ought to be quite sufficient if he is of opinion, on application, that there is an urgent need for more housing accommodation, and that he need not, in terms of statutory obligation, have regard to whether or not that need can only be met by housing provided by the local authority.
    There is an additional danger in the Clause that it may well come to be the practice that a burden will be placed upon a local authority when it makes its application. It is not clearly indicated in the Clause who will have the onus of proving and of satisfying the Minister that the housing need can only be met by the accommodation provided by the local authority. While those words remain in the Clause there is a distinct peril that, in practice, local authorities making application to the Minister will find it necessary not only to have to prove the existence of an urgent need for more housing accommodation but to satisfy the Minister that they and nobody else can supply it.
    That may be a very difficult onus to discharge. It may not be within the local authority's competence. In my submission it would be entirely wrong that any burden of that kind should be imposed on the authority. A local authority might find it necessary to bring forward evidence of an absence of private applications for development, of private tenders and the rest, and I suggest that, under the first head, it should be necessary only for the authority to satisfy the Minister of the existence, in the district of that authority, of an urgent housing need.
    Mr. Mitchison: I regard this Amendment as going beyond a mere matter of drafting. I would read the Clause as leaving the burden—if one can use such
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    a word in relation to what is really an administrative matter—on the local authorities, but it seems to me that the Amendment also raises a real question of principle, and if the Parliamentary Secretary is to reply I should like to put this to him.
    Suppose the requirement that it should be shown that the urgent need can only be met
    "…if that accommodation is provided by that authority"
    is left out—which is what the Amendment seeks—the local authority will still have to show that there is the urgent need; it will still have to show, by the provisions of the next paragraph, an "unreasonably heavy rate burden" or "unreasonably high rents" in the case of the accommodation provided by them. The substantial question is this. If the local authority shows that there is urgent need, that those other matters do actually exist, but is unable to show—and does not believe—that the accommodation can only be met by them, is the Minister in that case to have power to direct an increased subsidy?
    I wish to give two instances, the first being non-controversial and the second not. This is the first. Suppose that under authorised arrangements urgent need can be met by a housing association. From the language of the Bill it is quite clear that then the needs are not provided by the authority but by the housing association under authorised arrangements with that authority. It will be realised that, as the Bill is at present worded, though the local authority may make the arrangements, and though all the other requisites may be there, it may be unable to apply for the discretionary grant which the Minister is enabled to give. I do not think that is intended. If it is intended, then I should very much like to know the reason for this curious distinction between what the local authority does itself and what is done under authorised arrangements between it and a housing association. It is certainly not a distinction that is made in other parts of the Bill.
    7.45 p.m.
    I now come to what I suspect—from the Parliamentary Secretary's political history and, if I may use the phrase, the look in his eye—will be a bit more controversial. Suppose on making its plea

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    for an additional subsidy the local authority gets this answer from the Ministry: "We fully recognise that in your area there is urgent need, and that you could not carry out the work without imposing a much heavier rate burden— even an unreasonable one. We fully recognise that it would mean unreasonably high rents. In fact, if you are to build council houses at all we recognise that you have qualified under this subsection in every respect but one. We happen to know that there is a housing company round the corner"—or a private landlord—"who would be perfectly willing to put up accommodation on the spot, so you do not qualify, because although this is urgently needed housing accommodation it could be provided by private enterprise."
    I wonder what the answer to that will be. There is not the least doubt that under the Clause as it stands, the Minister—if that is the true position—is precluded from giving the additional subsidy, and the hon. Gentleman will perhaps allow me to observe that we shall have one more instance of the Tory doctrine of, "Never do by public enterprise what you can possibly do by private enterprise." We shall have another instance of another Tory doctrine—that housing is a matter of profit in the main and only to be left to local authorities when nobody else can do it.
    We say that housing is a service, and that the relationship between a council and a council house tenant is, in the nature of the case, a better relationship and one preferable to that between a private landlord and a tenant. For that reason we say the opposite to what the Parliamentary Secretary will say if he gives me the answer that—in language chosen by himself and therefore more apt to his own philosophy—he will no doubt give, which is that the local authority will not get the additional subsidy unless it can show that, however urgent the need, however high the rate burden and however high the rents, nevertheless private business could not do the job.
    Mr. Powell: While I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) that this Amendment somewhat transcends a matter of drafting, there will be no need for me, in explaining the necessity for the words proposed to be left out, to ascend into the regions
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    of ideology into which he made an excursion.
    If the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) will reflect, he will see that if the accommodation required could be provided, and the need met by any other agency, it is unreasonable that, nevertheless, the local authority should incur an undue rate burden and then approach the Minister for higher subsidies in consequence. This is a charge made upon both the local ratepayer and the Exchequer. In all reason it must be shown that it is necessary that it should be incurred.
    When the hon. and learned Gentleman was stating his case he made a very significant alteration in the wording of the Clause as it stands. He said that if it is shown that the accommodation can be provided by another agency, then the conditions in paragraph (a) will not be fulfilled. That is not so. The reference is to an urgent need which will only be met by accommodation provided by that authority.
    Mr. Mitchison: The actual words are:
    "… if that accommodation is provided by that authority."
    Mr. Powell: No, the condition is that that should be the only way of meeting the need. Unless the accommodation provided is apt to meet the need—that is to say, if its character and the rent at which it is likely to be available are such that it will meet the housing need which exists, paragraph (a applies and the Minister goes on to consider paragraph (b)
    Mr. Irvine: Who has to satisfy the Minister?
    Mr. Powell: I was coming to the point of where the burden of proof rests, but for the moment I want to make it clear that it is not sufficient to say that another agency can provide housing accommodation. What has to be shown in order that paragraph (a) shall not apply is that another agency can meet the need, and that is quite a different matter.
    If we assume—and that is what the wording of the Clause says—that the urgent need can be met by another agency, I think the whole Committee will agree that it would be unreasonable that the local authority should then burden itself with this task and approach the Minister for a higher subsidy.

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    The hon. Member for Edge Hill asked where the burden of satisfying the Minister rests. It rests, of course, with the local authority. It is the local authority which makes the application, and it is on its application that the Minister has to form the opinion in the terms set out in the Clause. But, of course, that does not mean that the local authority has got to prove its contention in mathematical terms or in terms which would necessarily be satisfactory in a court of law. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering expressed it very well when he said that this will take place administratively. The Minister has got to form a reasoned opinion by administrative means and at an administrative level that the only way in which the urgent need can be met is by the provision of the accommodation by the local housing authority.
    I suggest that when the wording of the Clause is carefully studied, it will be found to be unreasonable that these words should be omitted, as they would leave the door open, at any rate in theory, to an unnecessary operation and to an unnecessary rate burden and payment of subsidy.
    Mr. Mitchison: This is a comparatively minor Amendment, and though I do not for one moment accept the hon. Gentleman's proposition that if private enterprise could do it the local authority ought not to be allowed a discretionary subsidy in an otherwise proper case, I do not, in the interests of time, regard it as one that necessarily calls for a Division. At the same time, I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill that he does not propose to withdraw his Amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. MacColl: I beg to move, in page 5, line 29, to leave out "and other."
    Curiously enough, at this comparatively late stage in our Committee proceedings, I think that this is the first time that the gloomy spectre that has haunted us all the time we have been considering this Bill has been produced in public for examination. At the back of the policy behind this Bill is this principle of pooling rents, and that is the basis of die right hon. Gentleman's policy, of his Bill and of his gamble with the housing of the nation.
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    I think I am right in saying that this is the first and perhaps the only place in which it is specifically mentioned in the Bill. It comes into the Bill at this stage in what one might describe as the means-test Clause. This is the Clause under which the wretched local authority, having got itself into a terrible mess in its housing, overpressed by the burden that is laid on it, has to come to the Ministry and ask for assistance.
    We are discussing, as we were discussing on the previous Amendment, the conditions upon which the Minister is prepared to consider such a request. One of the conditions—the one with which my Amendment deals—is that, first of all, one must be satisfied that there are no private enterprise builders who might succeed in making a few pickings for themselves before the council steps in. Secondly, one must be satisfied that there will not be a crippling rate burden falling on the authority. Thirdly, one has to decide, not that the particular houses which the authority wants to build cannot be built at reasonable rents, but that if the rents for those and all the other houses in the possession of the local authority are raised to the full and get the full results from rent increases even then the housing revenue account cannot be balanced under reasonable conditions. Only then can an authority go to the Minister and chance its arm by asking for an extra subsidy. That is the background to this Clause, which has been quoted so optimistically and rather innocently by some hon. Members on both sides of the Committee from time to time. Those are, in fact, the harsh terms of this Clause.
    I am not making a speech against the pooling of housing rents. As a matter of policy, carried out by a housing authority after due consideration and after careful examination of its position, I think that in many cases there is a great deal to be said for some degree of pooling rents. I think that is part of a prudent housing policy for most councils. I am not at all quarrelling with the idea that a council, if it wants to do so, as part of its policy, ought to consider whether some of the costs can be spread over all its housing.
    That, however, is quite a different matter. In fact, people who believe, as I do, that there is something in that, and who have spent a certain amount of time trying to persuade their friends that there

    1009
    is something in it, are the very people who are likely to be most indignant at this principle now being used as part and parcel of a savage slash on Government participation in housing, which is what this Bill is.
    This is not a matter of a council which, after having received adequate support from the Exchequer, as it has been receiving in the last ten years, finds that in those conditions it cannot make a go of things. Here we are considering quite a different situation. Here is a position in which a council which, for all its new house building for general purposes, is not to get any Exchequer subsidy in a year or two's time and even now is only going to get a miserable subsidy. Therefore, not only is such a local authority, which by definition is a poor one, to have its subsidy cut, but it is also to be faced with the enormous rise in the rates of interest, which is quite an arbitrary act on the part of the Government.
    There is no obligation about it. It is only part of a calculated policy of the Government to back out of partnership with the local authority in building up the local authority's social services. The Government have performed these two arbitrary acts of sabotage of local authority housing, and have held the knife which has caused the damage to these councils which, as I say, are poor ones, the ones with the heaviest load of poor people, with the lowest rateable value, the lowest amount of good-class residential property, the least commercial development, with all the difficulties of a struggling industrial town and with a background of poverty. That is the kind of local authority which is going to be affected by this provision.
    8.0 p.m.
    It will not be the City of Westminster which will ask for assistance but the very poor industrial authority which for many years has struggled to maintain its services and to fulfil its housing obligations and which now will be defeated solely because of the Government's arbitrary act. It will not be defeated merely in the sense that it will be unable to carry out some luxury frill building—which is what the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary seem to imply when they are discussing these matters. They brush aside housing for general needs
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    as if it were not important and as if there was no need to worry about it.
    In fact, housing without subsidy, as has been made perfectly clear, will include all future housing provision for old people and all future housing provision to deal with overcrowding—two problems most likely to hit those poor industrial towns to which I have referred. For instance, we have the kind of authority which has the worst problem to face, the biggest burden of old people requiring assistance with accommodation and the biggest need for subsidy housing. I can almost hear the Parliamentary Secretary saying, "They have some slums. Why should they not clear those? They need not bother about the old people."
    Many housing authorities with some sense of social service will not feel that way about housing the old people. They will try to tackle the problem even if the Government wash their hands of responbility for it and will not share the burden. Those are the authorities with the minimum of resources and the maximum of responsibilities. Yet they have to come cap in hand for a means test in order to try to get what has been described as an additional subsidy. In fact, it is not an additional subsidy; it it not some sort of luxury frill. It is what the Government ought to be paying in any event if they were fulfilling their obligations and sharing the joint undertaking of local authority services.
    Before such authorities can receive this subsidy they have to show that they have spread the cost of the Government's financial policy and subsidy policy throughout the range of all houses they possess, whenever they were built, whatever the cost at which they were built and whatever the subsidy they may have enjoyed when they were built.
    Mr. Barnett Janner: Or wherever they were built.
    Mr. MacColl: We are not considering the question of expediency or what is judicious policy in one area or in another, as decided by the elected representatives. This is a case of the Government forcing this provision upon a local authority, whether the local authority likes it or not.
    In any case, is there a very strong case in principle for saying to a local authority, "If we go on building houses for old people it will put a heavy burden on

    1011
    somebody"? The reason for that heavy burden is that the Government have backed out and will not help. Is there such an irrefutable case in principle for saying that the burden ought to be put on the tenants of old council houses rather than on the general taxpayer? I cannot see that there is.
    Such a tenant may have taken a house perhaps twenty or thirty years ago at what was then the current rent for the house. He enjoyed what was the subsidy approved at that time by Parliament. It is one thing to say that he ought to pay for the increased cost of the repairs to his own house but quite a different thing to say that he ought to bear on his rent, as well as on his rates—for they will go up, too—the cost of 1957 housing of old people. I cannot see why the existing tenant should bear that cost any more than the general taxpayer.
    I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not start arguing about whether or not it is a good housing management arrangement to try to pool rents. That is a matter of prudence which can reasonably be left to the local council. We are looking at the compulsion being placed on those unfortunate authorities who are in such a crippled condition that they have to come to the central Government to ask for some help.
    After all, why stop there? I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not thought of having a walk round the town hall to see that there is no extravagance. He might say, "You have the mayor's chain. You can pawn that to help. We want to make certain that there is no excessive furniture in the town clerk's office before we are prepared to give you a grant." Why not hand over the town hall to be run as a gambling saloon to meet some of the costs? Why stop at the tenants? Why pin the responsibility upon them for bearing this cost?
    I invite the Committee to say that in this sphere, more perhaps than in any other, they cannot accept the Government's policy, because the Government are using the weapon of poverty and need to force their policy on to reluctant local authorities. This is a case in which, more than in any other, it is wrong to insist upon the pooling of rents. I hope that the Committee will support the Amendment.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson): It might be convenient for the Committee to discuss, with this Amendment, the next Amendment, in page 5, to leave out line 30.
    Mr. Sparks: I should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) in his Amendment.
    I can carry my mind back a few years to when we sat on the Government Benches and when at local authority election time Conservatives throughout the country condemned us for imposing controls and interfering with local authorities in the execution of their duties. Yet the provision in this Clause is a deliberate interference with the function of local authorities.
    By what right does the Minister claim to dictate to local authorities the rent they should charge their tenants? By what act of justice can he claim to hold this threat in his hand that unless local authorities charge the rent he dictates they shall not receive the benefits of the Clause? This is a detestable principle which he is introducing into the Bill.
    We on this side of the Committee believe that local authorities should be left to administer their housing and rental schemes in the way they think fit and proper. Some authorities have introduced pooling arrangements, some have differential rent schemes, some have rent rebate schemes and some have no need of them because there are alternative methods of dealing with the question. The right hon. Gentleman is imposing from Whitehall a means test on every tenant of every local authority in the country. In order to carry out the provision of this part of the Clause local authorities are forced to adopt such a policy.
    Council tenants have been maligned a lot by hon. Members opposite, who very often denounce them. We hear much talk about Rolls Royces and television aerials outside the dwellings of council tenants. What the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite do not realise is that many of those council tenants have already paid a very substantial part of the cost of the houses in which they live.
    When we talk about pre-war council tenants being low rented, which is not true as a general rule throughout the country

    1013
    —it may be true of some parts but not of others—it should not be forgotten that many of them have already paid a substantial part of the cost of the house. That being so, by what right does the Minister impose upon them the burden of paying 1956 rents which are inflated because of the failure of the Government policy, which has sent up the cost of living and the general cost of housing construction? By what right does he impose that burden on people who in many instances have paid more than half, probably 75 per cent., of the cost of the council house in which they now live?
    We are proposing to leave some words out of this part of the Clause. The effect would be to leave with the local government responsibility for arranging its own rents in the way best suited to its own purposes. I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman should claim to interfere in matters of this kind. We have to take conditions—building costs and the cost of living—as we find them in 1956. In my constituency and most parts of London the economic rent of a three-bedroomed flat in a six storey building is likely to be £3 15s. a week. By what right are we to ask pre-war tenants to pay a substantial part of the current rent of that flat?
    There may be some people who have to be rehoused who can afford to pay such a rent, but others may not. The local authority has ways and means of adjusting that of its own accord. The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in basing his decision whether or not he will provide additional assistance upon rental standards. Other factors must be taken into consideration. These very vague words which refer to an "unreasonably heavy rate burden" represent factors which should not be tied to a system of council rentals.
    8.15 p.m.
    It is quite wrong to lay down as the principal basis upon which the Minister will make his judgment the level of rents of council dwellings. I think it quite wrong for him to interfere and dictate to councils throughout the country what rents their tenants should pay. He should have some general regard to the rate burden in the area and certainly some regard to the rate fund contribution and the housing revenue account. He should
    1014
    also have regard to the cost of new housing construction.
    He should leave entirely to the local authority the administration of its system of rentals. As he has said on many occasions, this subsidy is to be given to local authorities—so long as it lasts, of course —and they may use it and dispose of it to the best advantage. In this Clause he goes much further than that. He is laying down that, unless it charges its tenants a rent which he thinks they ought to pay, the authority will not get this additional subsidy irrespective of what the rate burden is and irrespective of other factors. That is an unwarrantable interference in the domestic affairs of council tenants. It is an interference in the activities of local authorities. The Minister should have far more confidence in them. He should allow them to have responsibility for the administration of their rental systems and not hold this threat over their heads that they must carry out his dictates before they can hope to get financial assistance.
    Mr. Gibson: The reference in Clause 5 to unreasonably high rents being one of the factors the Minister is to take into account before he considers giving an increased subsidy raises an entirely new point in housing legislation. I do not see how the Ministry will be able to operate this provision.
    Who is to determine what is an unreasonably high rent, and how is that to be determined. On what basis is the amount of rent to be calculated? Is it to be a fanciful thing such as we read about in the Daily Mail a week or two ago when it was suggested that thousands of council tenants had incomes of £20, £30, or more a week? I represent a London constituency and I have not yet found a London family with an income of that amount living in a municipal flat. What I do know is that the returns for Income Tax purposes published in the Government's Blue Book on Income and Expenditure show that in 1954—the last available figures—there were more than 18 million workers whose incomes after tax had been deducted were much less than £10 a week.
    Some of us know the level to which rents have already gone. Even in London, in some of the boroughs, rents are being charged equivalent to, and even more than, 25 per cent. of the tenant's income.

    1015
    All or us to whom people come in our "weekly surgeries" have experience of complaints by tenants of very high rents which are absorbing such a large proportion of the family income that clothes are being worn out and the tenants find it impossible to replace them. They do not even get enough food—which is not surprising in view of the way food prices have been allowed to rise since this Government came into power and the tremendous drop in the value of the £. People are complaining about that kind of thing.
    I will give one illustration. A poor woman who came to see me four weeks ago complained that she was being charged £2 9s. 8d. a week for a two-bedroomed flat. Her husband's wages were £8 a week as a labourer in the electric power industry in London. That, I understand, is the correct trade union minimum rate. The woman had two young children and there was no other income in the family. She and her children were undoubtedly suffering severely because of the struggle to try to make ends meet on a wage of that kind with that amount of rent to be paid. She told me that she would have to get work to enable the family to meet some of its financial troubles. I am sure that her case is typical of what is happening all over the country. Therefore, one has to look very carefully at a suggestion that the Minister or his officers should have power to decide what is an unreasonable rent.
    What is an unreasonable rent in London? I think that 50s. a week is an unreasonable rent for a two-bed-roomed flat in London. It is vastly out of proportion to the pre-war rent for a flat of that kind, even adding to the pre-war rent the 8 per cent. which local authorities and landlords can add for the capital cost of improvement. Is that the kind of figure which is to be used in London? Many rents are much higher than that.
    The councils which are trying to do their job in a humane way are fixing their rents at a much lower level. I read a report by the county council a week or two ago which shows that it is increasing its rents this year. Even so, they work out at about one-tenth of the average wage in London, which, according to the
    1016
    Ministry of Labour Gazette of a few weeks ago, is at present £10 17s. a week. I should add that they are net rents. Ten per cent. of that figure is roughly the average rent of county council flats in London. How high above that do we go before the rent becomes unreasonable? Are we to adopt a figure which the local authority itself says is unfair?
    It seems to me, therefore, that this is an unworkable part of the Bill—unless the Minister intends never to give any additional subsidies, which is rather what I suspect all through the Bill. Any attempt to operate its provisions is bound to create difficulty in application and enormous troubles with the local authorities. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) that this could be an unreasonable interference with the long-prescribed right of local authorities to fix their own rents. I have heard it said many times in the House of Commons that the fixing of rents for municipal properties is entirely the responsibility of local authorities. That is where the responsibility should lie. If rents are too low, there might be difficulty about balancing the housing accounts. I admit that troubles have arisen. Even the wealthy London County Council still has to have a fairly considerable additional subsidy to keep its rents at their present level, and other councils are similarly placed.
    If a Conservative council does not want to make any subscription from the rates, rents are pushed up to a figure which, on present-day earnings, is utterly impossible for the tenants to bear and is the cause of the tremendous discontent which exists, not only in London, but in all the large towns where this kind of policy has been pursued.
    Any attempt by the Minister to operate this procedure in the calculation of additional subsidies is bound to be unworkable. He would be well advised to accept the Amendment to enable himself to operate the Bill, which is difficult enough to work in any case, a little more easily than otherwise would be the case. On practical, humanitarian grounds, rents ought not to be more than about 10 per cent. of a man's weekly earnings. I feel, therefore, that the Clause gives to the Minister a power which he ought not to have and which should be left in the hands of local authorities.
    Mr. A. Evans: I hope that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary appreciate how we read the two words which we seek to delete from the Clause. I hope the right hon. Gentleman appreciates the implication that we attach to them. To a local authority which gets into difficulty with its building for general need, which finds itself in difficulty with an overburdened rate fund and with rents rising because of the loss of subsidy, these words seem to us on this side to say, "You need not apply for the additional subsidy unless you are operating a differential rents scheme."
    The Minister has written into the Clause the condition that hard-pressed local authorities need make no application for special consideration and for the additional subsidy unless they have first begun to operate some form of differential rents scheme. That is the implication that we attach to these two words. I should like the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary to say whether we are right or wrong.
    8.30 p.m.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. MacColl) said in introducing the Amendment, this is the only place in the Bill where the Minister has dared to bring in his pet theory of differential rent. Intellectually, he has based his whole case for the reduction of subsidies upon the theory that by spreading the burden, the increase need not amount to more than 8d. a week. His case for the reduction and, finally, for the abolition of the basic subsidy has been built upon this theory of spreading the increased rents, by means of a form of differential rent, over the whole of the property owned by the local authority. This is the first as it is also the last place in the Bill at which the Minister seeks to bring into the Bill this idea of his—and it is only an idea, a theory: it has yet to be tested in practice.
    It seems to me that these words are quite unnecessary, even for the Minister's own purposes. He has full discretion to consider every application for additional subsidy. He can consider all the facts of the local conditions; he can go into each case fully, and, unfettered, he can make his decision on each case on the facts of each case. Therefore, there is no reason why the Minister should have inserted into the Clause his own pet theory of the differential rent. He can
    1018
    have his way. He can help where he thinks his help is needed. He can refuse additional subsidy where he thinks refusal justified. He can use his discretion, completely unfettered, even without these words. I think he would be wise to rely on his judgment of the facts of each case, and to delete this almost impudent insertion of his pet theory into this Clause.
    Mr. Clement Davies: The Clause describes exactly the conditions under which we in country districts labour. I speak particularly about my own county. The Clause describes the conditions of the local authorities there, where there is a great need, an "urgent need"—those are the words of the Clause—for more houses.
    The costs of building are abnormally high in such districts. They are high because the distances are great to the centres where the materials can be obtained. They are high also because the number of builders is very few and competition is very limited. The rates are abnormally high. I have often mentioned them in this Chamber. There are one or two localities which occupy the unenviable position every year of being the highest rated in the country. That is the position. The provision of accommodation has to be left to the local authorities.
    Why, therefore, are these words necessary? What will happen now? Local authorities will be anxious to provide the accommodation A local authority will say, "The costs will be so much. Our rents here are already too high for the incomes in this rural area. The rates are already abnormally high. Now we must apply to the Minister." What answer will the Minister give, in view of these words? I should have thought that the answer given by the Member for Islington, Southwest (Mr. A. Evans) was right. The Minister has complete discretion whether to give this additional help or to withhold it. What advantage will there be in putting in this additional condition which local authorities must face before they apply? What further protection is there, therefore, for the Treasury or for the Minister?
    I should have thought that this wording was an unnecessary discouragement to the local authorities, who already find themselves in very great difficulties. What

    1019
    they need at present is encouragement, and I was hoping that this Clause would be the very one to give encouragement to the local authorities in all the rural districts, to the local authorities which are already suffering so much and which are so anxious to provide the accommodation which is needed. If it is not provided—and this is another matter I have had to mention here before, and more than once—my people, failing to get accommodation, will have to seek their homes and their livelihood elsewhere, although they prefer to remain in the land of their birth.
    Mr. Janner: This paragraph cannot be considered without reference to the earlier one, but it seems to me rather strange that paragraph (a) is put in.
    The Deputy-Chairman: We are not discussing that paragraph.
    Mr. Janner: I am discussing it in relation to this subsection, and I think, Sir Rhys, that in a moment or two you will see how it applies.
    Local authorities throughout the length and breadth of the country are faced—I know very few, if any, which are not— with the difficulty of providing housing accommodation, and the rates are, consequently, being heavily affected already. Every housing authority is faced with the urgent need for more housing accommodation. Why place a local authority in the position in which it will be impossible for that authority to deal with the situation at all?
    We are asking in this subsection that unreasonably high rents for that and other housing accommodation shall be taken into consideration. Is not the Minister already aware that local authorities have almost come to the limit of what can be charged for the housing accommodation which already exists? In my own constituency, the problem is an extremely serious one. The chairman of the housing committee has described already the amount that is to be put on the tenant as being "a bitter blow." Eleven thousand people are waiting for housing accommodation. Rents have had to be increased by as much as 6s. 6d. a week, and the rents of pre-war houses have been increased.
    I am afraid that the Minister does not understand that it is not only the rent of
    1020
    the house that is important. There is also the fact that the cost of living in other respects has gone up to such an extent that the local authorities cannot and must not be encouraged to make it impossible for a person to have a home as well. That is precisely what this subsection is asking us to do. It is asking the Committee to accept a position, without the Amendment, in which a local authority has to pool the whole of its housing and further increase the rates, although they have reached the straining point, before the Minister will grant permission for the additional subsidy to be paid.
    That is a very disheartening thing for local authorities, as I know from knowledge of my own constituency. In Leicester, I am quite convinced that the council has done its best to keep rents down. The Government, in consequence of their policy, have forced rents up and up. The result is that people in parts of the town are considerably agitated already about the amount of rent which they have to pay in consequence of the action of the Government. I am certain that there will be further agitation when they know that if an allowance is to be made in a particular district in respect of the subsidy it will have to be paid not only by the people for whom houses are being built but also by the rest of the inhabitants of that town.
    Attempts have been made for years to keep the rents at the lowest possible level, not to raise rents as is intended by the provisions of this Bill, and not to put everything in a pool for the purpose of raising rents. On the contrary, until the coming of the present Government everybody realised that it was essential to keep rents low so that people should have a roof over their heads and, in addition, be able to keep their families in reasonable surroundings. This provision in the Clause means that those with fixed incomes and those who are aged will have their rents increased. People who have budgeted for their family needs must now pay additional rents following upon this pooling idea.
    The Government should think again about this matter. Not only are they interfering with the duties of local authorities, many of whom take those duties extremely seriously, but they are also setting an example to authorities to increase their rents beyond the paying

    1021
    capacity of the tenants. "High" in itself indicates that the rent is rather heavy, but what do the Government mean by "unreasonably high"? The Government have no right at all to interfere. The country will strongly resent this action. It will still resent it, but will resent it less if the Amendment is carried.
    Mr. Powell: This was a difficult Amendment for the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) to propose to the Committee, for the hon. Member is a well-known proponent of the principle of pooling subsidies in their application to the rents of local authority houses. That point of view, however, has long ceased to be heterodox. Today, there can hardly be any local authority in the country which applies the subsidy it receives specifically to the house or groups of houses in respect of which the subsidy is being paid. Most authorities, under varying schemes and methods, pool the subsidies they receive over their existing stocks of houses.
    Mr. Mitchison: The hon. Gentleman, of course, has much more information about this than other people can have. Does that apply to the rural authorities in the same way? Does Montgomeryshire, for instance, which was mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), pool its rents, and do rural districts generally?
    Mr. Powell: I will come to that point later. I notice that the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) mentioned that the rents of pre-war council houses had been increased to a considerable extent to meet deficiencies arising on post-war houses.
    Mr. Janner: No, I did not say that. I said that the rents went up because of higher prices, and that higher rates of interest were imposed by the present Government. That is an entirely different matter.
    8.45 p.m.
    Mr. Powell: They went up because they were being used, in part at any rate, to meet the deficiencies arising on the postwar construction. They are deficiencies in the housing revenue account. That is a typical example of what most major housing authorities experience. Pooling
    1022
    of subsidies in one form or another is already a generally accepted practice.
    Mr. Mitchison: In rural areas?
    Mr. Powell: If the hon. and learned Gentleman will let me continue I shall come to that point.
    Then, ask the hon. Member for Widnes and his hon. Friends, what about the situation of the local housing authority which, even if it pooled its subsidies, would still find itself in the position either of incurring an unreasonably heavy burden on the rates or of having to charge unreasonably high rents? May I at this point interpose that I do not think there is anything sinister about the expression "unreasonably high" in that collocation. I think the reason for the expression is that a rent could be unreasonable in two directions and that for legal exactitude it was the height of the rent that had to be specified as being unreasonable. It is purely a matter of terminology.
    Although one would hardly believe it from the debate, this Clause is designed to meet the position of those local housing authorities about which the hon. Member for Widnes asked. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) cited his own county, but many of the local authorities in that area are precisely of the type which it is envisaged the Clause might cover. Obviously I cannot express it more definitely than that, because it must depend upon the calculations which follow from the actual schemes put forward to my right hon. Friend. Yet it is that type of case which it is envisaged will fall to be dealt with under the Clause.
    Now follows the question, "What is the interpretation of the crucial qualifying words 'unreasonable in respect of rate burden and unreasonable in respect to the height of the rents'?" No one can quantify exactly—I had to get that word in somehow—a discretionary expression such as this is intended to be, and must be if the Clause is to leave a discretion to the Minister to deal with the great variety of cases. I would suggest to the Committee, however, that the natural interpretation of an unreasonably heavy rate burden and unreasonably high rents is one which is unreasonably heavy or high in comparison with rate burdens or rents in other reasonably comparable local authority areas. That is the natural

    1023
    manner of interpreting an unreasonably heavy rate burden or an unreasonably high rent. Naturally the Minister will look at the general level of rents being charged in other local authority areas comparable in character with the one in question, and to the rate burden in comparable areas. It would seem to me to be the natural interpretation of those words that they should rest upon such a comparison.
    Much has been said about this Clause importing a means test. It does nothing of the sort for the individual tenant. There is an essential distinction between pooling of rents and the application of a differential or rent rebate scheme. One can pool rents and still have flat rate rents. A differential or rent rebate scheme is only one form of the pooling of rents, although I must say that when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Clapham (Mr. Gibson) referred to some of the rents charged by the London County Council——
    Mr. Gibson: I was not. I was referring to rents charged by other county councils.
    Mr. Powell: I see. Certainly there are cases where the level of rents being charged by local authorities who do not apply a differential rents scheme gives rise to the reflection whether they would not be well advised to consider adopting one. However, that is not implicit in the Clause; it is not implicit in the words which it is proposed to delete. The only implication is that the subsidies received by a local authority will be pooled over the whole area of the houses which it owns.
    Mr. Mitchison: I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that the Clause does not refer to differential rents schemes as distinct from the pooling of rents. May I take it from that that the existence or non-existence of a differential rents scheme will be left to the individual local authority and not considered as a relevant circumstance when the Minister exercises his discretion under the Clause?
    Mr. Powell: What I am saying is that there is nothing in the application of the subsidies received over the whole stock of houses belonging to a local authority which enforces upon that authority the adoption of a differential rents scheme, a
    1024
    rent rebate scheme or any other form of the pooling of rents. However, there is, of course, a means test in the sense in which the hon. Member for Widnes used the term, implicit in the Clause. It is the provision that the local authority concerned must show cause to the Minister, and the Minister must be satisfied that there is an unreasonably heavy rate burden or unreasonably high rents involved in the contemplated housing operations. That is nothing new to our housing legislation.
    Mr. Mitchison: I am very sorry to press the hon. Gentleman, but he did not answer my question. Perhaps we are getting to the extreme limits of the Amendment. Is it or is it not the case that a differential rents scheme will be considered as a relevant circumstance by the Minister when exercising his discretion under the Clause?
    Mr. Powell: The Minister has obviously to take everything into account, but the effect of the words:
    "…for that and other housing accommodation …"
    leaves the matter entirely open. That has to be looked at in the light of the circumstances of the individual authority.
    Reverting to the question of the means test in the sense of the local authority which is making the application coming to the Minister, as the hon. Member for Widnes said, "cap in hand," local housing authorities have at any rate since 1946 been invited to come "cap in hand" to the Minister in order to earn the standard amount of Exchequer contribution under Section 3 of the 1946 Act. The Minister has in that case to be satisfied that the provision of the house in respect of which the application is made would impose an undue burden on the district, and then, if the Minister thinks fit so to determine, the standard amount of the annual Exchequer contribution shall be the special standard amount. Therefore, under the legislation introduced by the Labour Party, local housing authorities which claimed special treatment had to go "cap in hand"—if the hon. Member for Widnes must have it that way—to the Minister to show that there were special circumstances obtaining in their area. The discretion remained then, as it will remain now, with the judgment of the Minister.
    Mr. MacColl: I was perfectly well aware of that, and was also well aware that the hon. Gentleman would make that point. The distinction that I drew was that in the case of the 1946 Act the Treasury were already paying a full general subsidy on all houses and, therefore, it was only in respect of the excess that an application became necessary. Also, the specific terms relating to the amount of rent increase were laid down in the Act and were not left to the discretion of the Minister.
    Mr. Powell: Oh, no. The hon. Member is confusing it with Section 7 of the Housing (Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1946. The word "undue" in "undue burden" was in the discretion of the Minister, just as "unreasonably heavy rate burden" is in the discretion of the Minister in this Clause. The two are on all fours.
    Mr. MacColl: Will the Parliamentary Secretary address himself to Section 3 (2, (b) of that Act?
    Mr. Powell: That imported a restriction which is not present in the Clause we are considering. The Minister could not give the special standard amount under the 1946 Act, even though he was satisfied that there was an undue rate burden, unless the rents in that area were below the average for comparable authorities. So I do not think that is an advantage on the side of the 1946 Act, if that is the paragraph to which the hon. Member for Widnes is referring.
    In view of the fact that the pooling of rents—which is recommended by many Members opposite and which in one form or another is the general practice among local authorities—is implicit in the words which are under discussion, it would be unreasonable for any local authority to qualify under the Clause, simply by taking account of the finances of the new houses. Most authorities do not do that at the present time, because they spread the burden over the existing stock. I suggest that the Committee resist the omission of those two words.
    Mr. A. Evans: Will the Parliamentary Secretary deal with the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and myself, which was that the two words are superfluous and that their absence would in
    1026
    no way fetter the discretion of the Minister?
    Mr. Lindgren: The Parliamentary Secretary has been more hard put to it on this Amendment than on many others. He is a most knowledgeable person, and he knows the value of words and he knows the legislation. Deliberately to apply to his context the phrase that we on this side of the Committee are in favour of the pooling of subsidies was very misleading. Of course we are in favour of the pooling of subsidies. In the inter-war years we fought Tory Government after Tory Government to get it. With varying rates of subsidy and varying rates of interest we had varying rents for similar accommodation and we had to keep separate housing revenue accounts for each housing scheme.
    9.0 p.m.
    Local authorities got into an unholy mess, and we had to press successive Tory Governments to permit pooling. Ever since the Housing Act, 1936, housing subsidies have been pooled. Where the Minister deliberately goes wrong is that this is not pooling, but excluding subsidies, for there is no subsidy to give. It is true that we now have the £10 subsidy, but later there is to be no subsidy.
    The Minister is saying that what we ought to do, because the Tory Government are taking away the subsidies, is to spread the lack of subsidy over previous housing schemes so that existing tenants should pay the subsidies which properly should be paid by the Treasury. That is not pooling. If I were in other circumstances I could call it something else. They have a name for it in the Army.
    Let us look at what we are doing. This Clause shows how the Tory Party are prepared to use even the housing of the people for purely party political purposes and to be as ruthless as they can, after they have secured power, which they use for the benefit of their friends. During the time of the Labour Government, subsidies were £16 10s. from the Government and £5 10s. from the local authority rates. Interest was at 2½ to 3 per cent. That was a reasonable subsidy from the centre, a reasonable rate contribution and a reasonable rate of interest. Local authorities were then able to build good houses at reasonable rents.
    Mr. Peter Kirk: But not
    many of them.
    Mr. Lindgren: We were getting 200,000 a year until the Tory Party came to power and upset the whole economy of the country for purely party political purposes. [HON. MEMBERS: "HOW?"] I will show Government supporters how. If they really knew the effect on the people of this legislation they would not be so inclined as they are to jibe.
    The first thing the Tory Party did when it came to power was to increase the rate of interest from 3 per cent. to 4 per cent.
    The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): The hon. Gentleman must keep to the Amendment.
    Mr. Lindgren: I am keeping to the Amendment, Sir Rhys.
    We are asked, in the Clause, to spread part of the increased subsidy over the tenants of houses that are not yet built. The increased rate of interest meant an increase in the rent of future council houses of 4s. 6d. per week. The Tory Party had only a majority of 20 in the House of Commons so, purely for party political purposes, because they knew that if rents were up by 4s. 6d. a week there would be trouble, they increased the subsidies to £26 14s. and £8 18s., making a total of £35 12s., to keep the rents level. Since that time rates of interest have risen five times in just over twelve months from 4 per cent. to 5¼ per cent.
    I put this point to the Parliamentary Secretary. If subsidies of £26 14s. from the centre and £8 18s. from the local rates were justifiable when his party had only a majority in the House of Commons of 20, and the rate of interest was 4 per cent., why is the subsidy being withdrawn now and the increased subsidy which was given by the Tory Party at that time to meet the increased cost of interest rates being spread over houses which are to be
    built in the future at interest rates of from 5¼ to 5½ per cent.?
    There is no question of spreading. This is placing on houses that have already been built a charge over and above the normal charge in respect of houses yet to be built. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] The Government have no answer.
    I will give way if the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister can show the justification for spreading part of the increased subsidy given on houses built after 1945 over houses built prior to that date in order to deal with houses which are to be built with less subsidy and at 5½ per cent.
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Lieut-Colonel Marcus Lipton: There is no answer.
    Mr. Lindgren: In this Amendment we are asking, instead of what the Govern-wants, which is to spread the lack of subsidy and the increased cost of housing arising from the increased interest charges and the withdrawal of the subsidies, over past building, that the determining factor shall be the rent required of a scheme under construction at the time. We consider that that is justifiable.
    There is very little justification for saying that, because the Tory party has deliberately increased housing costs and interest charges, houses built in 1922, 1923 and 1924 should bear increased rents to assist in respect of the rents of houses built in 1956 and 1957. We say that the scheme being undertaken at the time should be the determining factor as to whether the rent is reasonable or unreasonable, and unless we can get a better explanation than we have so far received I must advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide.
    Question put, That the words "and other" stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 235, Noes 206.

    Division No. 97.]

    AYES

    [9.6 p.m.

    Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

    Barber, Anthony

    Bishop, F. P.

    Aitken, W. T.

    Barlow, Sir John

    Body, R. F.

    Alport, C. J. M.

    Barter, John

    Bossom, Sir A. C.

    Amory, Julian (Preston, N.)

    Baxter, Sir Beverley

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.

    Beamish, Maj. Tufton

    Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

    Armstrong, C. W.

    Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

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

    Ashton, H.

    Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Atkins, H. E.

    Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

    Brooman-White, R. C.

    Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

    Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

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

    Baldwin, A. E.

    Bidgood, J. C.

    Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

    Balniel, Lord

    Biggs-Davison, J. A.

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Banks, Col. C.

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

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

    Campbell, Sir Davio

    Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

    Carr, Robert

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

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

    Osborne, C.

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Page, R. G.

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh, w.)

    Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

    Cole, Norman

    Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)

    Peyton, J. W. W.

    Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

    Hyde, Montgomery

    Pickthorn, K. W. M.

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Pitman, I. J.

    Corfield, Capt. F. v.

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Pitt, Miss E. M.

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Pott, H. P.

    Crosthwaite-Eyre., Col. O. E.

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Crowder, Petre (Ruislip-Northwood)

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Raikes, Sir Victor

    Cunningham, Knox

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Ramsden, J. E.

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Davidson, Viscountess

    Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

    Redmayne, M.

    D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Keegan, D.

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Deedes, W. F.

    Kerby, Capt. H. B.

    Remnant, Hon. P.

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

    Kerr, H. W.

    Renton, D. L. M.

    Doughty, C. J. A.

    Kershaw, J. A,

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

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

    Kirk, P. M.

    Robertson, Sir David

    Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

    Lagden, G. W.

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

    Duthie, W. S.

    Lambton, Viscount

    Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

    Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Roper, Sir Harold

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Langford-Holt, J. A.

    Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Leavey, J. A.

    Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

    Erroll, F. J.

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

    Sharples, R. C.

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Shepherd, William

    Fell, A.

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

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

    Finlay, Graeme

    Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

    Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

    Fisher, Nigel

    Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

    Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)

    Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

    Linstead, Sir H. N.

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Freeth, D. K.

    Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

    Speir, R. M.

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

    Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

    Gammans, L. D.

    Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.

    Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

    Garner-Evans, E. H.

    Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    George, J. C. (Pollok)

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

    McAdden, S. J.

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

    Gough, C. F. H.

    Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry

    Storey, S.

    Gower, H. R.

    McKibbin, A. J.

    Studholme, H. G.

    Graham, Sir Fergus

    Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

    Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

    Grant, W. (Woodside)

    McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

    Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

    Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Teeling, W.

    Green, A.

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

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

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Maddan, Martin

    Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

    Gurden, Harold

    Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

    Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

    Touche, Sir Gordon

    Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

    Turner, H. F. L.

    Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Maoclesfd)

    Marlowe, A. A. H.

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Marples, A. E.

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Harvie-Watt, Sir George

    Marshall, Douglas

    Vickers, Miss J. H.

    Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.

    Mathew, R.

    Vosper, D. F.

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

    Wall, Major Patrick

    Heath, Edward

    Mawby, R. L.

    Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

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

    Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

    Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

    Moore, Sir Thomas

    Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

    Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

    Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

    Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

    Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

    Nabarro, G. D. N.

    Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Nairn, D. L. S.

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Holland-Martin, C. J.

    Neave, Airey

    Woollam, John Victor

    Hope, Lord John

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Horobin, Sir Ian

    Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

    Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

    Nield, Basil (Chester)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

    Nugent, G. R. H.

    Mr. Edward Wakefield and

    Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

    Oakshott, H. D.

    Mr. Godber.

    Howard, John (Test)

    O'Neill. Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

    NOES

    Ainsley, J. W.

    Beswick, F.

    Burton, Miss F. E.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

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

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

    Blackburn, F.

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Boardman, H.

    Callaghan, L. J.

    Anderson, Frank

    Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

    Carmichael, J.

    Awbery, S. S.

    Bowles, F. G.

    Castle, Mrs. B. A.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Boyd, T. C.

    Champion, A. J.

    Balfour, A.

    Brockway, A. F.

    Chapman, W. D.

    Bartley, P.

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Chetwynd, G. R.

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Clunie, J.

    Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Coldrick, W.

    Benson, G.

    Burke, W. A.

    Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

    1030

    1031

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Irving, S. (Dartford)

    Reeves, J.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

    Reid, William

    Cronin, J. D.

    Janner, B.

    Rhodes, H.

    Cullen, Mrs. A.

    Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

    Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

    Dairies, P.

    Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn & St.Pncs,S.)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Davies,Rt.Hon.Clement(Montgomery)

    Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

    Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

    Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

    Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

    Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

    Ross, William

    Deer, G.

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Royle, C.

    de Freitas, Geoffrey

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Dodds, N. N.

    Kenyon, C.

    Short, E. W.

    Dye, S.

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

    King, Dr. H. M.

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Edelman, M.

    Lawson, G. M.

    Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Skeffington, A. M.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

    Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Lindgren, G. S.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

    Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

    Sparks, J. A.

    Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

    Logan, D. G.

    Steele, T.

    Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

    Mabon, Dr. J. D.

    Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R. (Ipswich)

    Fernyhough, E.

    MacColl, J. E.

    Stones, W. (Consett)

    Fienburgh, W.

    McGhee, H. G.

    Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mclnnes, J.

    Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

    Forman, J. C.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Swingler, S. T.

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    McLeavy, Frank

    Sylvester, G. O.

    Gibson, C. W.

    MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Mahon, S.

    Thomas, George (Cardiff)

    Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Grey, C. F.

    Mann, Mrs. Jean

    Thornton, E.

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Timmons, J.

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Mason, Roy

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Grimond, J.

    Mellish, R. J.

    Usborne, H. C.

    Hale, Leslie

    Messer, Sir F.

    Viant, S. P.

    Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Mikardo, Ian

    Wade, D. W.

    Hamilton, W. W.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Weitzman, D.

    Hannan, W.

    Monslow, W.

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

    Moody, A. S.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Hastings, S.

    Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

    West, D. G.

    Hayman, F. H.

    Mort, D. L.

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    Healey, Denis

    Moss, R.

    White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

    Herbison, Miss M.

    Moyle, A.

    White, Henry (Debyshire, N.E.)

    Hewitson, Capt. M.

    Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Hobson, C. R.

    Oram, A. E.

    Willey, Frederick

    Holman, P.

    Owen, W. J.

    Williams, David (Neath)

    Holmes, Horace

    Padley, W. E.

    Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

    Holt, A. F.

    Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

    Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Palmer, A. M. F.

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

    Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Williams, W. T. (Barons Court).

    Howell, Denis (All Saints)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Winterbottom, Richard

    Hoy, J. H.

    Parker, J.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Hubbard, T. F.

    Paton, J.

    Yates, V. (Ladywood)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Popplewell, E.

    Zilliacus, K,

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

    Hunter, A. E.

    Probert, A. R.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Proctor, W. T.

    Mr. Pearson and Mr. J. T. Price.

    Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

    Rankin, John

    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. Ernest Thornton: I beg to move, in page 5, line 32, to leave out from "authority" to the first "the" in line 34.
    The Deputy-Chairman: It might be convenient to discuss at the same time the next Amendment, in page 5, line 33, to leave out"(c)."
    Mr. Thornton: In this Clause the Minister seeks authority to increase subsidies in certain specified cases, and then seems to place restrictions on his authority which make the practical effect of the Clause almost meaningless. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the need and desirability of pooling rents between the
    1032
    low-cost houses and the high-cost houses, but the Government then exclude from consideration for a special additional subsidy a class of house which cannot possibly be pooled—the house in an overspill housing scheme.
    If that is not the explanation, I wonder why the Minister seeks to exclude the three categories of houses mentioned in Clause 3. If the Minister seriously wishes to grapple with the housing problem of our great conurbations and, at the same time, help to meet the pressing need of our vital basic industries, he should afford the maximum help to the houses which come within categories mentioned in paragraphs (c, (d) and (e) of Clause 3.

    1033
    This problem is vital to cities like London, Manchester, Salford, Liverpool and Birmingham and to all our great congested industrial areas. Tonight, however, I want to pinpoint the problem of houses in category (c) of Clause 3, because this reveals a problem arising from overspill development. I have in my constituency a high successful overspill development— the Worsley Town Development Scheme which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) mentioned earlier this afternoon, was the pioneer effort which led to the introduction of the Town Development Act. This overspill scheme in Worsley, which is an important part of my important constituency, is an excellent example——
    Mr. Jack Jones: An excellent constituency; a good Member there.
    Mr. Thornton: —of co-operation between a county borough, a county council and an urban district council. This scheme, which was a pioneer scheme, has been highly successful up to the present. It was a scheme in which the predecessors of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary took a very great interest. They were looking forward to its completion. Ultimately, the scheme was to consist of 4,500 houses. The standard of the houses built there and the layout of the estate, were highly commendable, but the scheme is now jeopardised by the Bill. There are already grumbles from the tenants about high rents. That is understandable because, as I and the Parliamentary Secretary indicated earlier, in these overspill schemes——
    The Deputy-Chairman: It does not appear to be in order to discuss the details of these schemes under this Clause, but merely whether they should be included or excluded.
    Mr. Thornton: I am coming to that point, Sir Rhys.
    In my submission, under paragraph (c) these houses should qualify for the discretion of the Minister to give subsidies over and above the £24 provided. Since March, 1955, higher interest rates and reduced subsidy have heightened the problem of higher rents to such an extent as to jeopardise the success of the scheme.
    1034
    I want to quote not my own authority, but the authority and statement of Councillor J. Pennington, Chairman of the Worsley Town Development Joint Management Committee, a very responsible and able local government administrator, who recently said:
    "At a recent meeting of the Worsley Town Development Joint Management Committee strong protests were made against the increased rates of interest now payable by local authorities and fears were expressed that increasing rents arising from the increased interest charges and the reduced subsidy from 1st April last would make it impossible for Salford families in urgent need of housing accommodation to accept houses in Worsley."
    It is quite obvious that if rents rise to such a level families from Salford, the exporting authority, cannot accept tenancy of these houses and the whole scheme will fail. The town development scheme will stop. In addition, they are faced with added expense in travelling from their new homes in Worsley to Salford, where most of their jobs still are and are likely to be for some time because industrial development has not yet kept pace with the speed of housing development.
    The treasurer of the Worsley Joint Committee estimates that as a result of increased interest rates and the new subsidy proposals the cost of each new house now building or to be built will be increased by 9s. a week over the cost of houses built up to 31st March, 1955. That of itself is an indication of why this kind of house should come within the provisions of the Minister's discretion in Clause 5 to help towards increased subsidy to lower excessively high rents. This jump in revenue cost of houses building and to be built since March, 1955, will increase the average rents of the whole of the houses in the scheme by 2s. a week in the first year, 1s. 2d. a week in the second year, and smaller amounts in the following years. The smaller amounts result from the fact that as the number of houses completed grows in proportion to the number of houses built in each year, the burden of the higher rent charges will be on a diminishing scale.
    Another important factor is that the increased rents of the overspill houses have the effect of widening still further the gap between rents of overspill houses and rents of comparable houses administered and owned in the ordinary housing scheme of the Worsley Urban District

    1035
    Council. This quick, serious increase in already high rents jeopardises the success of this so far highly successful scheme and its continuing expansion. As was pointed out by the chairman of the committee whom I have quoted, there will be great difficulty in obtaining Salford tenants at these very high rents; and as I have already indicated, additional travelling expenses will be involved for those who reside so far from their employment.
    The increase in overspill rents will largely take place in the next five years. After the completion of the scheme in from seven to ten years' time, assuming that it does go forward, other rents generally will probably tend to climb nearer to the rent level of the overspill scheme houses. It might well be asked why the Urban District Council of Worsley does not pool the whole of its house rents. Worsley has played the part of the Good Samaritan, it has welcomed these worthy citizens of Salford into its own ranks, but I think it would be asking rather too much of the Worsley council house tenant to bear increased rents to lower the rents of the Salford citizens who come into the town. That would be more than reasonable to expect of the citizens of Worsley, generous though they are.
    Even if that were done, it would not solve this very pressing problem. Worsley Urban District Council has only 1,200 pre-war low-cost houses. When the overspill scheme is completed, there will be 4,500 houses in the scheme by 1962. By that year, in addition to the overspill scheme, Worsley Council hopes to have 2,000 post-war houses. Thus, the system of all-inclusive pooling would give the ratio of 1,200 low-cost houses to 6,000 or 7,000 high-cost houses. The only effect, therefore, of all-inclusive pooling would be excessively to increase the rents of the Worsley council house tenants for an infinitesimal reduction in the level of rent of the Salford overspill scheme. Therefore, that is not a practical solution.
    Where this relatively high concentration of high-cost houses occurs, it presents a particular problem, which should call for the Minister's discretion in increasing the subsidy above the £24 level. These overspill house rents are not only high actually: they are high relatively in relation to the other houses in the area. That, of course, is a cause of some friction, but
    1036
    this disparity between the level of rents of the Worsley Urban District Council's houses and the level of rents of the houses for the overspill population will tend to diminish after seven or ten years' time.
    9.30 p.m.
    Therefore, while this case is not peculiar to Worsley alone, for there are other similar cases elsewhere in the country, I believe that it is a crystal clear case that calls for the Minister's discretionary powers, if he has any intention at all of using it, and I ask the Minister seriously to consider increasing the subsidy beyond the £24 limit. He could do it on a year by year basis, review it year by year——
    The Deputy-Chairman: I do not think that that arises on this Amendment.
    Mr. Thornton: If the Government are serious in their desire to concentrate on the main housing problems, if the Government are serious in their claims to develop housing where it is most urgently needed, and if the Minister is serious in his claim that he is redirecting the housing drive into the most socially useful channels, then here is an opportunity for the Minister to vindicate himself by extending his discretion to the paragraph (c) category of houses.
    If, on the other hand, he adheres to the strict limitations imposed by this Clause, one will not be unreasonable in assuming that the Government's main purpose is to cut back seriously the rate of house building, for let them make no mistake about it, the effect of the Bill and of the Government's policy of high interest rates will be to slow down, if not to stop one of the most successful and socially useful rehousing schemes we have seen in the post-war period. I hope the Minister will reconsider the Clause and agree to introduce some measure of generous flexibility which would guarantee the continuing success of this and other commendable and socially useful schemes.
    Mr. Mitchison: I am sure the Committee appreciates the sincerity and the eloquence with which the case of Farnworth and thereabouts has been put by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton). It was a case relating, as he put it, to Clause 3 (3, c) and, of course, the Amendment is a little wider. One presumes that the Minister

    1037
    has not put the exception of dwellings dealt with in paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) in the Bill here unless it is necessary; that is to say, unless there are cases in which (c), (d) or (e) houses, but for this exception, might be the subject of his discretion under this Clause.
    We on this side of the Committee are perfectly well aware that the (c, (d) or (e) houses would not have their subsidies cut, would attract a higher subsidy than the general needs subsidy; but, on the other hand, the Minister's discretion under this Clause goes up, in the case of a dwelling other than a flat, to £30, and the (c,) (d) and (e) figure is £24. What we are discussing, therefore, is whether there is any good reason why the Minister should be precluded from giving an extra £6 in the cases of the houses covered by those three paragraphs. I am not going to deal with this point at great length because, as I say, clearly the Minister would not have put in the words unless there were houses to which he could apply this additional remedy, if he does not debar himself from doing so.
    I want to take one case, and I will take a house under paragraph (d) as an instance. Let us take it that there is some industry in the local authority area in question. Let us take it that that industry has urgent needs and that for that reason people have to come into the area, not having houses there, in order to meet those needs. That is the paragraph (d) case. If that happens these immigrants are not going to help the general housing position in the area. They are, on the contrary, going to make it more difficult for the local authority, because even with the £24 subsidy, the local authority will still have to meet more than that in the process of building the houses.
    Whether that is regarded as building expenditure or as services and administrative expenditure, one way or another the burden will be added to a little. It may perfectly well be that as a result of that move into the area there will be a more urgent need for more housing accommodation and conditions will exist, or arise, that cannot be dealt with without an unreasonably heavy rate burden or unreasonably high rents. In those circumstances, I completely fail to see why the Minister should expressly preclude himself
    1038
    from giving the additional £6 in these cases.
    There is, as one can see in Clause 3, a type of case to which he desires to give special encouragement, and yet, under the Bill as it is drawn, it is precisely to that type of case that he cannot extend the full discretionary relief under Clause 5. I will not say any more about the character of that discretionary relief for the moment because we shall find it easier and more proper to say it on the Motion, That the Clause stand part of the Bill—and there is a good deal to be said about it.
    For the moment, I confine myself to the one point raised by the Amendment. Why does the Minister think it necessary to prevent himself giving additional relief, amounting to £6 in the case of a house and a corresponding sum in the case of a flat? Why does he preclude himself from giving that relief in the very class of case which he particularly desires to encourage? Why does he put himself in the position of finding that he is perhaps giving additional relief in an ordinary case and unable to give it in a case equally bad but which happens to fall within the scope of one of these paragraphs?
    I would remind the Minister once more that this relief is entirely within his discretion. First of all, his opinion has to be formed on certain matters, and he can then decide the amount of any additional subsidy. In those circumstances why exclude these categories?
    Mr. Sandys: The effect of the Amendment would be to make houses defined in Clause 3 (3,c,) (d and (e) eligible for the discretionary grant under Clause 5. It is an Amendment which is certainly well justified if only to elicit information as to why these three categories of houses have been excluded from the operation of the discretionary grant.
    The hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) said that houses in these three categories should be eligible for this special grant because—and this was the main reason he gave—they are houses which cannot be pooled in the sense referred to in our earlier debates. That is to say, the subsidies payable on them cannot be regarded as part of a pool of subsidies which would include a great number of other houses belonging to the local authority concerned.
    Mr. Thornton: I do not know whether I made it clear, but my remarks were directed entirely to the category (c) houses.
    Mr. Sandys: I thought that the hon. Member was introducing the Amendment as a whole. Group (c) houses come under town development, and the hon. Member was referring to a town development scheme in his own area at Worsley which is operated for the benefit of Salford. That is perfectly true about some of the houses but not about all of those mentioned.
    I should prefer to take the three categories one by one. First, I should like to take the one which was referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), that is the category (d) houses provided to meet the needs of incoming workers and required for an urgent expansion of industry. We have already very exhaustively discussed this problem when we dealt with the two earlier Clauses. It is the general problem of providing houses for incoming miners and others and I do not think that it would be useful if I went over all that ground again.
    I can say briefly that the reason for not applying the discretionary grant under Clause 5 to these houses is in the main the conditions governing the grant in Clause 5 (1, b), namely:
    "… unless the Minister exercises his powers under this section that housing accommodation could not be provided without imposing an unreasonably heavy rate burden or necessitating the charging of unreasonably high rents for that and other housing accommodation provided by the authority."
    We feel that those conditions would not be appropriate to local authorities building houses for families coming in from outside.
    They would imply, and this was the point which was made rather forcibly by the hon. Member for Farnworth, that we expected the receiving authority which was to build these additional houses for incoming workers to pool the subsidies and, if necessary, to increase the rents of their existing inhabitants in order to average down the rents of the incoming workers.
    9.45 p.m.
    The hon. Member for Farnworth said it would be asking too much to expect the citizens of Worsley to accept an increase
    1040
    in their rents in order to help to keep down the rents of the newcomers from Salford. He then explained that Worsley had only a comparatively small number of houses, that the expansion scheme was considerable, and that it would unbalance their finances and their housing programme. For that reason—a reason which I cannot put in a better way than the hon. Gentleman put it—we do not think it would be right to expect the receiving authority in such an area to pool the subsidies and to average the rents. Putting them into this Clause would imply that we expected them to do so. If we attempted to insist on such a condition, there is no doubt that all these development schemes would come to an end, because those receiving authorities would refuse to make agreements, and these schemes go forward as a result of agreements between local authorities. It would make such agreements virtually impossible if we adopted that line. Does the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) want to interrupt me?
    Mr. Ellis Smith: So the people must stop in Hankey Park?
    Mr. Sandys: I was not saying that. I have said that it would not be practicable to apply these conditions under such circumstances. The additional houses built for the newcomers in such areas must, by and large, be financially self-supporting. I say "by and large," because there is no reason why some contribution should not be made from the local rates if the local authority think that desirable. In the long run, of course, the newcomers bring in rateable value and additional activity and wealth to the new area. But, by and large, we consider that they should be looked at separately from the existing pool of houses in the area into which they come.
    That is the reason why, while providing the higher subsidy of £24, we are not providing the additional grant under the conditions of Clause 5 which are inappropriate. Houses provided by a receiving authority as part of a scheme of town development under Clause 3 (3, c), to which the hon. Member for Farnworth referred, are in much the same position, in certain respects at any rate. It is suggested that Clause 5 should apply to these houses, but for the same reason it

    1041
    would be inappropriate to apply this condition of Clause 5 (1,b)to the making of a grant to authorities in that position——
    Mr. Thornton Mr. Thornton indicated assent.
    Mr. Sandys: I see that the hon. Gentleman nods his head in agreement. If we were to apply the discretionary grant under Clause 5 to houses built in Worsley, we should be implying that we would do exactly what the hon. Gentleman thinks would be unfair, and I entirely agree. That is the main reason why houses built as part of a development scheme under Clause 3 (3, c) are not included in the discretionary grant under Clause 5.
    Mr. Thornton: I am grateful to the Minister, but I cannot accept his reason, because I think that the Minister's discretion in interpreting this Clause would be the charging of a reasonably high rent for that and other housing accommodation provided by the authority. Some attempt was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to give a comparison of high rents. In Worsley we have two separate housing schemes and there would be a reasonable or unreasonable level of rents for one category and a reasonable or unreasonable level of rents for the other category. I think the Minister's explanation is an attempt to get out of what he ought to do in the Clause.
    Mr. Sandys: The hon. Gentleman may think the Clause should be different, but I really think he would not like his Amendment to be adopted in the form that he suggested. The provision is quite clear; one cannot get away from it. Subsection (1, b) says:
    "… that unless the Minister exercises his powers under this section that housing accommodation could not be provided without imposing an unreasonably heavy rate burden …"
    That is the first point.
    The hon. Gentleman says that the new houses ought to be treated differently from existing houses. One cannot have a set of rates for people living in new houses which is different from the rates of people living in existing houses. That would not be practicable. I think I have given clear reasons why it is inappropriate, for the precise reasons which the hon. Gentleman himself advanced, to apply these conditions to a case of that kind.
    Mr. Thornton: I would direct the Minister's attention to the fact that the words are:
    "… an unreasonably heavy rate burden or necessitating the charging of unreasonably high rents for that and other housing accommodation…"
    The words "that and other housing accommodation" presuppose two separate categories of houses. Thus, it is within the Minister's province under the Clause to treat them as separate categories and to assume that there are reasonable and unreasonable rents in relation to each category.
    Mr. Sandys: If the words were "that or other housing accommodation" they might mean what the hon. Gentleman suggests. However, it was brought out in the debate on an earlier Amendment that what is meant is that the rents over all the houses owned by the authority are to be taken into account in deciding whether unduly high rents would have to be charged in order to build new houses without the additional discretionary grant offered under Clause 5.
    Apart from that argument, there is an additional reason in respect of this category of houses under town development schemes why Clause 5 should not be applied. It is that the Minister already has power to increase the Exchequer contribution up to a total greater than the provisions of Clause 5 permit. Under the Clause the subsidy can be raised from £24 to £30, but under the Town Development Act, as amended by the First Schedule of the Bill, the Minister will have power to increase the Exchequer contribution by another £8, making a maximum of £32. That is a good reason for not including those houses under the provisions of Clause 5.
    In this connection I should like to say just a word, in passing, about the example, given by the hon. Member for Farnworth, of Worsley. It is often a good thing to consider precise and not merely abstract examples. The houses in the scheme at Worsley are owned by Salford. I think that they are built by Worsley for Salford and owned by Salford. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are owned by Worsley."] I understood that they were owned by Salford as happens in many of these cases. Worsley will, of course, receive £24 subsidy for those houses and

    1043
    another £8 from Salford as its contribution, making a total of £32, which again is more than the houses would get if they had the maximum of £30 under Clause 5.
    The "7d. calculation." if I may refer to it as such, which I made on an earlier occasion and to which Members opposite have referred—that is to say the increase in the average rent which will be needed as a result of the reduction in the subsidy and the increase in the interest rates— for Salford is 7d. It works out to exactly the average for the country as a whole. Of course the rents in Salford are not very high.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: I should not think they were.
    Mr. Sandys: However, I will not go into details of that kind now.
    There is a third category to which the Amendment refers and those are houses which fall in the class defined in Clause 3 (3, e), that is to say houses provided by a local authority of a congested area outside its area and on a scale and of a character comparable to that of a new town. Those houses will, of course, attract the higher subsidy of £24. That will help to meet the additional costs
    involved in a scheme of comprehensive town development such as we have in mind here.
    The reason that it is not proposed to allow these authorities to draw an additional grant under Clause 5 is that the houses in these outside estates would belong to the exporting authority. That is clear from the Bill which refers to those houses
    "… provided by the local authority of a congested or over-populated area in some other area…."
    Those are houses which are built and owned by the exporting authority which has built them in some other area. Those houses will therefore form part of the total pool of the houses of the exporting authority and will therefore be within the pool of the local authority. If the exporting authorities were to qualify for assistance under Clause 5 in respect of those houses, they could, of course, apply for it. However, that is most unlikely in view of the fact that they will be large authorities.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 233, Noes 199.

    Division No. 98.]

    AYES

    [10.0 p.m.

    Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.

    Carr, Robert

    Graham, Sir Fergus

    Aitken, W. T.

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Grant, W. (Woodside)

    Alport, C. J. M.

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

    Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Green, A.

    Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.

    Cole, Norman

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Armstrong, C. W.

    Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

    Grimond, J.

    Ashton, H.

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

    Atkins, H. E.

    Corfield, Capt. F. V.

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Gurden, Harold

    Baldwin, A. E.

    Crowder, Petre (Ruislip-Northwood)

    Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)

    Balniel, Lord

    Cunningham, Knox

    Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

    Banks, Col. C.

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfd)

    Barber, Anthony

    Davidson, Viscountess

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Barlow, Sir John

    D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Barter, John

    Deedes, W. F.

    Heath, Edward

    Baxter, Sir Beverley

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.

    Henderson, John (Cathoart)

    Beamish, Maj. Tufton

    Doughty, C. J. A.

    Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)

    Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Hill, John (S. Norfolk)

    Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

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

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

    Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.

    Holland-Martin, C. J.

    Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

    Duthie, W. S.

    Holt, A. F.

    Bidgood, J. C.

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Horobin, Sir Ian

    Biggs-Davison, J. A.

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Erroll, F. J.

    Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

    Bishop, F. P.

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Howard, John (Test)

    Body, R. F.

    Fell, A.

    Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)

    Bossom, Sir A. C.

    Finlay, Graeme

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

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

    Fisher, Nigel

    Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Fleetwood-Hesketh, R. F.

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)

    Freeth, D. K.

    Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark(E'b'gh, W.)

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

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Gammans, L. D.

    Hyde, Montgomery

    Brooman-White, R. C.

    Garner-Evans, E. H.

    Hylton-Foster, Sir H. B. H.

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

    George J. C. (Pollok)

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.

    Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

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

    Gough, C. F. H.

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Campbell, Sir David

    Gower, H. R.

    Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Mathew, R.

    Shepherd, William

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

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

    Joynson-Hicks., Hon. L. W.

    Mawby, R. L.

    Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

    Keegan, D.

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

    Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)

    Kerby, Capt. H. B.

    Moore, Sir Thomas

    Spearman, A. C. M.

    Kerr, H. W.

    Mott-Radolyffe, C. E.

    Speir, R. M.

    Kershaw, J. A.

    Nabarro, G. D. N.

    Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)

    Kirk, P. M.

    Nairn, D. L. S.

    Stanley, Cap. Hon. Richard

    Lagden, G. W.

    Neave, Airey

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Lambton, Viscount

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Nicolson, N. (B'n'mth, E. & Chr'ch)

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

    Langford-Holt, J. A.

    Nileld, Basil (Chester)

    Storey, S.

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Nugent, G. R. H.

    Studholme, H. G.

    Leavey, J. A.

    Nutting, Rt. Hon. Anthony

    Summers, G. S. (Aylesbury)

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

    O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

    Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.

    Teeling, W.

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

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

    Osborne, C.

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

    Page, R. G.

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

    Linstead, Sir H. N.

    Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)

    Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

    Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

    Peyton, J. W. W.

    Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

    Lloyd-George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G.

    Pickthorn, K. W. M.

    Touche, Sir Gordon

    Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.

    Pitman, I. J.

    Turner, H. F. L.

    Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)

    Pitt, Miss E. M.

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Pott, H. P.

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Macdonald, Sir Peter

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Mackeson, Brig, Sir Harry

    Raikes, Sir Victor

    Vickers, Miss J. H.

    McKibbin, A. J.

    Ramsden, J, E.

    Vosper, D. F.

    Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Wade, D. W.

    McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

    Redmayne, M.

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Wall, Major Patrick

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Remnant) Hon. P.

    Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Ronton, D. L. M.

    Whitelaw, W.S.I.(Penrith & Border)

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

    Maddan, Martin

    Robertson, Sir David

    Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

    Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)

    Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

    Woollam, John Victor

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

    Roper, Sir Harold

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Russell, R. S.

    Marlowe, A. A. H.

    Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Marples, A. E.

    Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

    Mr. Oakshott and Mr. Godber.

    Marshall, Douglas

    Sharpies, R. C.

    NOES

    Ainsley, J. W.

    Cullen, Mrs. A.

    Hobson, C. R.

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

    Holman, P.

    Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

    Davies Ernest (Enfield, E.)

    Holmes, Horace

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Awbery, S. S.

    Deer, G.

    Howell, Charles (Perry Bar)

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    de Freitas, Geoffrey

    Howell, Denis (All Saints)

    Balfour, A.

    Dodds, N. N.

    Hoy, J. H.

    Hartley, P.

    Dye, S.

    Hubbard, T. F.

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Edelman, M.

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Benson, G.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Beswick, F.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Hunter, A. E.

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

    Edwards, Robert (Bllston)

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Blackburn, F.

    Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

    Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

    Boardman, H.

    Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

    Irving, S. (Dartford)

    Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

    Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)

    Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

    Bowles, F. G.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Janner, B.

    Boyd, T. C.

    Flenburgh, W.

    Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

    Brockway, A. F.

    Fletcher, Eric

    Jeger, Mrs.Lena(Holbn & St.Pncs.S.)

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Forman, J. C.

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Gibson, C. W.

    Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

    Burke, W. A.

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

    Burton, Miss F. E.

    Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Grey, C. F.

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Kenyon, C.

    Callaghan, L. J.

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Carmichael, J.

    Hale, Leslie

    King, Dr. H. M.

    Castle, Mrs. B. A.

    Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Lawson, G. M.

    Champion, A. J.

    Hamilton, W. W.

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Chetwynd, G. R.

    Hannan, W.

    Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)

    Clunie, J.

    Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

    Lindgren, G. S.

    Coldrick, W.

    Hastings, S.

    Logan, D. G.

    Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

    Hayman, F. H.

    Mabon, Dr. J. D.

    Collins, V.J. (Shoreditch & Finsbury)

    Healey, Denis

    MacColl, J. E.

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

    McGhee, H. G.

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Herbison, Miss M.

    Mclnnes, J.

    Cronin, J. D.

    Hewitson, Capt. M.

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    1046

    1047

    McLeavy, Frank

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Swingler, S. T.

    MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

    Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

    Sylvester, G. O.

    Mabon, S.

    Probert, A. R.

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Proctor, W. T.

    Thomas, George (Cardiff)

    Mann, Mrs. Jean

    Rankin, John

    Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Reeves, J.

    Thornton, E.

    Mason, Roy

    Reid, William

    Timmons, J.

    Mellish, R. J.

    Rhodes, H.

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Messer, Sir F.

    Roberts, Rt. Hon. A.

    Usborne, H. C.

    Mikardo, Ian

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Weitzman, D.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Monslow, W.

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    West, D. G.

    Moody, A. S.

    Ross, William

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

    Royle, C.

    White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

    Mort, D. L.

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)

    Moss, R.

    Short, E. W.

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Moyle, A.

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Willey, Frederick

    Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Williams, David (Neath)

    Oram, A. E.

    Simmons, C. J. (Brlerley Hill)

    Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

    Owen, W. J.

    Skeffington, A. M.

    Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

    Padley, W. E.

    Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)

    Palmer, A. M. F.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Winterbottom, Richard

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Sparks, J. A.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Pargiter, C. A.

    Steele, T.

    Yates, V. (Ladywood)

    Parker, J.

    Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R. (Ipswich)

    Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

    Paton, J.

    Stones, W. (Consett)

    Zilliacus, K.

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)

    Popplewelll, E.

    Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Mr. Pearson and Mr. Rogers.

    It being after Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION) BILL
  Notwithstanding anything in paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 57 (Standing Committees (Constitution and Powers)), Part II of the Bill to be considered by the Scottish Standing Committee as if such Part had been a separate Bill,
  1048
  which after committal by the House had been so allocated; and when the provisions committed to the Scottish Standing Committee and the provisions committed to Standing Committee D have been reported to the House, the Bill to be considered as if it had been reported to the House as a whole.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

  ADJOURNMENT
  Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]
  Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Ten o'clock.

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  SWAZILAND (MINING AND MINERAL RIGHTS)
  SWAZILAND (MINING AND MINERAL RIGHTS)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Danish Bacon (Price)
  Danish Bacon (Price)
  Sausages (Meat Standards)
  Sausages (Meat Standards)
  Rabbits
  Rabbits
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Elephant and Castle Area (Development)
  Elephant and Castle Area (Development)
SHIPPING
  Steel Supplies
  Steel Supplies
ROYAL NAVY
  Industrial Dispute, Singapore
  Industrial Dispute, Singapore
EDUCATION
  School Population
  School Population
  Archaeology
  Archaeology
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Glaxo Laboratories, Slough (Explosion)
  Glaxo Laboratories, Slough (Explosion)
PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Prisoners of War, Far East (Compensation)
  Prisoners of War, Far East (Compensation)
  Retirement Pensions
  Retirement Pensions
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Film Quotas
  Film Quotas
BRITISH ARMY
  Victoria Cross (Recipients)
  Victoria Cross (Recipients)
  Kneller Hall (Cost)
  Kneller Hall (Cost)
MINISTRY OF WORKS
  Building Trade Operatives
  Building Trade Operatives

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers

THE EARL OF WOOLTON
The Right Honourable Frederick James, Viscount Woolton, C.H., having been created Viscount Walberton, of Walberton in the County of Sussex, and Earl of Woolton—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE
William Philip, Baron De L'Isle and Dudley, V.C., having been created Viscount De L'Isle, of Penshurst in the County of Kent—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
VISCOUNT INGLEBY
The Right Honourable Osbert Peake, having been created Viscount Ingleby, of Snilesworth in the North Riding of the County of York—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a.
HEYWOOD AND MIDDLETON WATER BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a.
SION COLLEGE BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a, and referred to the Examiners.
ELDER YARD CHAPEL CHESTERFIELD BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a.

COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT CONSTRUCTION
3.9 p.m.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA LORD BRABAZON OF TARA rose to draw attention to the unsatisfactory situation existing to-day relative to the building of commercial aircraft in this country; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name. It is a Motion which affects a great industry. I always think it wise to declare at the start any interests which one has, because that certainly clears the air. I have absolutely none at all and have never been interested in any aircraft firm at any time. That extends over some fifty years. I do not know whether that was a very intelligent course, because I might have been a millionaire; but I would rather be a Member of your Lordships' House than a millionaire.
A NOBLE LORD: You might have been both.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: There is one activity which I must disclose—that is, that I am chairman of the Air Registration Board. That is a very remarkable body which Parliament, in its wisdom, set up by Statute. It grants certificates of airworthiness, and it can ground machines. It has very considerable powers. It is an organisation quite unique in this particular country. It is, I must say, typically English. It is composed of some of the most distinguished and knowledgeable people in aviation in the world. They do an immense amount of work; they carry great responsibilities—and they are paid exactly nothing. I should like to make it clear that I speak this afternoon for nobody except myself. No one will say, I think, that I am not a friend of aviation. I am the looker-on who sees most of the game To-day, however, I find myself in the position of critic; it is not a rôle that I like very much, but I cannot see our position in the world of aeronautics degenerating without raising my voice in protest. We have, as a nation, spent a great deal of money since the war on aviation. A great deal has been spent on research, and all that I consider has been well spent—but then aviation is an expensive science.
This afternoon I want to speak of three civil machines and the building thereof: the Brabazon, the Princess and the

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V1000. The trouble all started with the decision of the Air Staff during the war when they laid down that the resources of manufacture in this country were not to be occupied in making transport machines. A troop transport was not, in their opinion, a war machine. America took a different view, and said that troop transports were war machines. They proceeded to make many of them, and your Lordships will understand that, as a result, their industry started years ahead of ours in developing the great civil machines of the world. They were able to turn over very quickly into making civil aircraft, and they obtained an immense lead by reason of that fact.
After the war, the Secretary of State for Air at the time and the Minister of Aircraft Production set up a committee—a very talented committee—of which they made me chairman. Our job was to express users' requirements as to future civil aircraft to be built. We made various recommendations with which I will not bother your Lordships, but recommendation No. 1 was for a machine that could fly from London to New York non-stop either way. That, of course, automatically calls for a very big machine in order to get a pay-load and to carry the fuel. I should like to make it clear, right at the beginning, that it was not for us to say whether the machine should be built or who should build it. The Minister of Aircraft Production at that time decided to have that machine built. He did not ask who wanted it or who was prepared to use it. That I have always considered a somewhat strange piece of forward planning. It also seemed to come as a sort of afterthought that, in order to fly, the machine had to get off the ground; and in order to get it off the ground an aerodrome had to be constructed by the works which cost an extra £4 million.
The machine was, in fact, years late in delivery, and I do not think that the proper engines for which it was designed have even yet been produced. Lord Beaverbrook, in this House, spoke of the recommendation of my committee—recommendation No. 1—and referred to the machine as "The Brabazon." That name stuck to it, but I cannot say that I enjoy very much being associated with its extraordinary career, because altogether this was a sorry tale and the machine was eventually broken up "un-
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honoured and unsung." That little excursion into building an aeroplane cost the taxpayer just over £12 million.
The next machine I want to speak about is the Princess flying boat. The Brabazon Committee did its best to try to get users to recommend that a big flying boat should be constructed. No operator was prepared to join in such a recommendation, so we were unable to recommend the building of such a machine. The Ministry of Supply, on the other hand, took a different view. They ordered three, and I must say that I congratulate them, even now, on their vision and initiative in getting these machines built. There were some snags. I think it was a pity that they ordered the same engines as were scheduled for the Brabazon. They must have known that the firm were quite incapable of producing them.
Who was to use that machine afterwards? That is another question which might well have been asked. The answer is that possibly South American air lines might have used it—your Lordships may remember that at that time there was a third Corporation which was to occupy itself with flights from this country to South America. The great Air Commodore Brackley was extremely keen on it. He was then the head of South American Airways; and when he died what a loss it was to us! South American Airways disappeared; it was merged into B.O.A.C., who definitely refused to have anything to do with this aircraft. And to this day these machines remain down at Cowes, unused.
That is not exactly a stimulating story either, but there are two observations I should like to make upon it. First of all, I consider it a scandal that at the present day we are running no line at all to South America. It is nothing less than a shame. Secondly, there is the general neglect of the flying boat by this country. America is a continent, and wants great land machines. We are different; we are a great sea empire. The flying boat should be our particular brand of aircraft. Great stretches of water are handy to most of our possessions, but no imagination has been shown by the operators. We have missed here an opportunity of having the most luxurious aircraft in the world—I say that advisedly, because with a big flying boat the hull is necessarily larger

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than that of a land machine, consequently giving tremendous comfort, spaciousness and luxury. Your Lordships will remember the flying boats in the old days, smaller than is contemplated to-day; but even now everybody says that travelling by flying boat was more attractive than travelling by any other machine in the world. You had room to move about in it and were not packed in like sardines as is the modern practice in civil aircraft.
Now I come to the V.1000. This was ordered by Transport Command. I have always thought that it was a strange thing that Transport Command should order such an extraordinary machine, because they could operate it on only a very few aerodromes, owing to the length of the runway required to take off and to land. After the machine had got a long way, this order was cancelled. I should like to quote the official reason why it was cancelled. It was stated in another place [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, V01. 547 (No. 79), col. 1940]
"The R.A.F. decided that it did not want it because it was taking longer than had been anticipated, and because in those circumstances the R.A.F. could, by buying Britannias instead, get the job it had in mind done more quickly and at much less expense on public funds. That is the real reason why the military version was cancelled."
In fifty years' experience of aviation, I have never yet seen an aeroplane which was not heavier than anticipated and which was not delivered late, so those two excuses might indeed have been thought of at the very beginning. But I congratulate the R.A.F. and Transport Command for at least having the imagination to make such a machine, because one has to realise that transport machines for Transport Command and for civil aviation differ very slightly and they might have been developing one which would have been useful for civil aviation.
There seems to be no co-operation between Transport Command and the Corporations. It would appear that B.O.A.C. was not brought into the picture at the beginning, when it would have nursed the machine along, together with Transport Command, because a lot can be done that way, when the operator and the manufacturer get together. Your Lordships will have noticed how Mr. Peter Masefield and Mr. Edwards of B.E.A. and Vickers, working together, hatched the Viscount, which has been
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a great success. But one gathers from the Press that the V.1000 was offered to the B.O.A.C. at the end, and the B.O.A.C. said "No," although it was competitive with the Douglas and the Boeing. Here again, I would quote the official explanation given in another place [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 547 (No. 79), col. 1940]:
"The point here is that it is perfectly clear that we could not launch an aircraft of this size and type on the world market unless it was first bought and run in by a home operator. About that there is no argument, and the firm itself never questioned that."
I do question it. Machines of that type are what one might call empirical models. The equivalent in America, the D.C.8 and the Boeing, are machines on paper. Whether they will come up to their specifications nobody knows. But they have sold 170 of them, and when they put them out to the market they will not have any assured operators. They have sold 170 of these machines, every one of which will cost over £1 million. Yet, because B.O.A.C. say that they will not operate it, the V.1000 is dead. I believe that that decision is much resented in this country, for the reason that it means that we give up being a competitor on the Blue Ribband route of the world, which is from America to this country. The B.O.A.C. have their Britannias to come and they have ordered twenty Comets. But there is no really fast long-range machine in prospect to rival the Douglas and the Boeing, and B.O.A.C. have not even ordered the American machines. Therefore, I ask whether it is the policy of our great Corporations to run tramps in future and not liners.
Mr. Edwards, the designer of the V.1000, says that his machine would be one per cent. slower as at present envisaged, but there are compensating advantages. I should like to draw attention to the fact that the engines that are to be fitted to the American machines are not thoroughly predictable as to performance. Meanwhile, in this country we have produced far and away the best engine for that job—namely, the Conway, and now we have nowhere to put it. It may be that these engines could be adopted by American manufacturers—indeed, they would be wise to use them. But why the taxpayer in this country should help to provide engines for American machines wants a little following. It might be wise to get a licence

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from, say, the great firm of Douglas, to build D.C.8s here and fit them with our engines. The remit would certainly be a hybrid, but your Lordships will be familiar with the fact that Her Majesty on her flight to Lagos flew on just such a machine, a machine designed by Douglas and built in Canada and fitted with English engines. Apart from being an extremely noisy machine, it is one which is very successful.
I think your Lordships will agree that the story of the production of these three machines is really opera bouffe. As a piece of ragtime forward planning, it stands out as a supreme example of waste of opportunity and money. I should like to say here and now that I accuse no Party of being to blame. I accuse no individual of being to blame. Like all great mistakes in history, everything was done with the best intentions. I have tried to put myself in the position of the Minister who is to reply, and I do not think his job will be very difficult. If he deals with the question from the R.A.F. point of view, from Transport Command point of view, he can put up a very good case. If he deals with the situation from the Ministry of Supply point of view, he can advance some convincing arguments and much wisdom. If he deals with it from the Ministry of Civil Aviation's point of view, they have committed no fault, and if he deals with it from the Corporations' point of view, they have done what was more or less expected of them. He can make a case for every one of them. Individually they stand in white sheets, but collectively they stand condemned before the whole nation as being responsible for an incompetent piece of organisation.
Your Lordships may well ask what should be done, and I have the temerity to say what I think should be done. All my life I have been more or less in the position of being a male Cassandra, in which everything I prophesy comes true but is never believed. But here I would put forward something which I hope will one day take place. I have four recommendations that I should like to make. The first is that Transport Command in the future should pioneer new civil types of machines and not rely wholly, as they do to-day, on obsolescent machines to carry troops. They, in conjunction with the operators, would then develop the great future civil machines. That is
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American practice and it is wholly sound. It links up the military with the civil, to the advantage of both.
My second recommendation is that there are too many aircraft firms. This wants attention from the Ministry of Supply, to see that not more than four or five should exist. That would help the design and drawing office staff, and make better use of all those facilities which at present comprise a bottleneck in our aircraft manufacture. Thirdly, I should like to see it laid down as an instruction that in ten years' time the Corporations should fly wholly British machines. Ten years will give them plenty of time to get ready. Lastly, I suggest that we should lay it down that no order should be given for a great civil machine until the following agree to co-operate and operate it: the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Corporations and the independent operators joined with the great shipping lines.
There should be a Committee of three people presided over by a Cabinet Minister, and he should have two colleagues, one a prominent Member of the Opposition, so as to keep continuity and not make it a Party matter but a national affair, and a well-tried civilian with experience—someone like Sir William Farren, Sir Arnold Hall or Peter Masefield. Those are the recommendations that I put before your Lordships. I hope that the Minister in considering them will not turn them down flat but will examine them; and I entreat him not to examine them departmentally, or every one of them will be turned down. If they can be examined at Cabinet level, there perhaps is a chance of the wood being seen and not only the trees.
In conclusion, I should like to say this. The poor old taxpayer makes no fuss at all about his money being spent on aviation, because I think he appreciates more than some of our Ministers do the importance of the subject. In the old days we were judged by the great ships built in this country, that arrived in every port of the world. To-day we are assessed as an engineering nation by the quality of our aircraft as they touch down all over the world. They are bits of Britain that people can see. In this industry we have pioneered and spent much blood and treasure. In the past

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the world has marvelled at our performances. What is so bitterly resented to-day is that from now on, apparently, we are to give up the struggle; we are to admit that we are beaten and have become second class, running freighters while the expresses of the world are in other hands. I will not admit that we are cast in a pigmy mould; nor do I believe your Lordships will agree that all is well. I beg to move for Papers.
3.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, we have just listened to a most impressive speech, not only for the style in which it was delivered but for the technical knowledge that it showed. I cannot pretend to add anything to the technical case that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has just made—it seems to me unanswerable. However, I think I can add one or two general observations from a broader background. As a taxpayer I resent intensely the fact that, taking the V.1000 as an example, we have provided £2,300,000, and at the end of it there is nothing to show for it. I could not agree more with what the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, said about making sure, before we embark upon designing and constructing these expensive machines, that in the end there will be a market for them. It seems to me that the instances that he gave show that, as things are now, we start upon these gigantic programmes without knowing in the least whether anybody is going to make use of the machines in the future.
I venture to compare with that want of method what has been happening in the United States of America. I do not suggest that we, with our much smaller resources, can compete with their gigantic programmes, but at the same time it is worth noting how, quite apart from the money aspect, they have built up the position which they now hold in civil aviation and civil air transport. So far as I can gather, the military and the civil sides have worked closely in touch, and in that way they have been able to make certain of a large market before they started building their machines. Look at the results. I am told that at the present time the United States own 1,250 large transport planes, and that 750 are now on order. I am told, also, that in one month during 1954 orders to the value
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of no less than £100 million were given for civil and military transport machines; further, that at the present moment the United States Government have accepted as the basis of their defence policy—I put it as high as that—the great mobility of aeroplanes and flying boats. At the present moment there is a flight across the Atlantic and the Pacific every fifty-four minutes, bringing the personnel and the material for the American Forces. Every hour of the day fifty-six military personnel, five hospital personnel and ten tons of high-priority freight are being carried across the Atlantic and the Pacific.
I can go back further and point to the fact that during the heat of the Korean War 230,000 men and 60,000 tons of freight were safely carried by air from the United States to Korea. Compare those figures—discount them as you will with the greater resources that are behind them—with what was happening here the other day. We had to send two or three battalions to Cyprus, a proceeding that I should have thought could have gone almost automatically without any trouble at all. Yet we had so few transport machines, military or civil, that we had to take some out-of-date Shackletons from Coastal Command, in every way unfitted to transport troops, having no possibility of carrying guns, no possibility of carrying heavy material and, I am informed, not even seats for the troops to sit on. We had to take them from Coastal Command because this policy which the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has so well criticised—or this want of policy—during the last ten years has left us with practically no air transport at all.
I suggest that, as things are today, something must be seriously wrong. I ask myself certain questions, and perhaps the Government will consider the right answers to them. I do not suggest that they should give answers to me today, but I put these questions to them. First, is the Royal Air Force Transport Command really necessary if it cannot produce better results than we have seen in recent years? So far as I understand, the Army has no special transport command of this kind, and I would ask the Government to consider whether it would not be better to treat aeroplanes like ships, and let some Department like the Board of Trade make the arrangements with them. Secondly, is the Ministry of Transport the

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right Department to supervise these arrangements? I should have thought the Ministry of Transport was so fully occupied with railway affairs, with the settling of labour disputes and with the arrangements for wages, that any Minister of Transport has far too much on his hands to give the time that is necessary to the development of civil aviation. Lastly— and this is a very bold question on my part—is the Ministry of Supply really necessary in peace time? Perhaps I am conservatively minded, but I have a strong feeling that, however necessary the Ministry of Supply may have been in war time, it is not needed in peace time; and, judging from experiences that have been described to us this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, I wonder whether we should not have got on much better and much more quickly if we had not had the fifth wheel of the Ministry of Transport.
Those are the questions. As I say, they are much too wide for me to expect an answer this afternoon, but they are questions which sooner or later the Government will have to face. That brings me to my two final observations. First of all, the Government should decide at once to make full use of the mobility of air transport. They should regard it as the normal procedure that troop movements should be by air. They should enter into charter contracts with the companies upon the kind of plan that already exists with the shipping companies. The charters would have to be sufficiently long to enable the civil firms to obtain their capital. If that were possible, it would remove from the Government the great responsibility of having to find these large sums of money. Mobility should be the very basis of our defence policy and as far as I can judge, certainly from the case the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has made this afternoon, we have not been making full use of it, although of all the countries in the world, we are the one that most gains by it.
Lastly, we should make sure of the market for these great machines, costing now more than £1 million each, and in a few years' time probably costing £2 million each. We should make sure of the market, and we should not take a narrow view of it. We should bring into our consultations the representatives of the Dominions, particularly Australia, who in
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recent years has been a pioneer in civil aviation. Bring them in from the beginning. They have a great wealth of expert opinion. I remember them in the early days when they were almost the sole pioneers in the field of civil aviation. Bring them in, bring the constructors in and make sure, before you start building one of these V.1000, Brabazons, or whatever it may be, that there will be a demand for them when they are completed.
3.49 p.m.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, will allow me to congratulate him on what I thought was a most admirable speech. He said that he spoke as a critic. I think he might have said a friendly critic, for we know well in the aviation world that aviation has no greater friend than the noble Lord. I am in agreement with practically everything he said, but there were just two small points I noticed upon which I should like to comment. I think the noble Lord said that the decision that America should build transport aircraft during the war was an Air Staff decision. I am not sure, but I have an idea that it went further than that, and that it was a Government decision and cannot be laid only at the door of the Air Ministry.
The second point was that, at the end of his speech, I think the noble Lord said something about "Have we a feeling that we ought to give up the struggle?"—is there a sort of defeatist atmosphere in these matters? I can only say that I have come across no such defeatist attitude at all and that the aircraft industry and those concerned with aviation are determined that we shall come out on top in the competitive struggle that lies ahead. We shall not content ourselves with freighters and small fry of that sort. The British aircraft industry has grown at a great pace and, from the point of view of finance, communications and defence, it is of the greatest national importance. It is quite fair, though, to inquire whether all is well with it, because of the great Government expenditure involved. Side by side with really great achievements on the part of the industry go many reasons for uneasiness—many failures and many delays. The fact is that to-day neither the R.A.F. and the Fleet Air Arm nor civil aviation have

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the aircraft that they require for performing their tasks.
Money has been poured in, but still we have not the aircraft we need, either civil or military. What we have has been enormously expensive; it has cost beyond all reason, and the delays on delivery dates have been inexcusable. That is the case that the aircraft industry has to answer. Your Lordships will agree that it is a formidable case. The Armed Forces are, of course, the industry's largest customer, civil aviation playing very second figure. Of course, the R.A.F. take the lion's share of output. If we are concerned about this industry, it is because of the remarkable prospects which lie before it. There is the very large export business. Export orders to the value of £341 million have been achieved. The year 1955 was expected to be a better year even than 1954 in exports, and in 1954 export orders were over £56 million. Then there is the revenue from manufacturers abroad, who manufacture under licence. Although civil aviation orders are, as I have said, secondary to the military orders, they are, and will be, very considerable.
Looking into the none too distant future, we may expect to see at least £2,000 million spent on replacements of the aircraft now in service; and of course there will be the engine spares, which are expensive. They will represent a considerable figure. Then again, air traffic is sure to expand, and expand rapidly. In addition, there is an increasing demand for aircraft for what I will describe as odd uses—for surveying, for crop spraying and so on. All these things, added together, mean that tremendous prospects lie before the British aircraft industry. It is for that reason that I feel that the Ministry of Supply are well advised, and the nation is well advised, to have a large, but not too large, and efficient aircraft industry kept in being, although at times it may appear, as the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has said, that we may have too many firms. About that aspect I hope to say something a little later.
With regard to the finance which is involved, in the course of building an aircraft to Service specification, there is sure to be a great deal of redesigning, the entire cost of which is borne by the
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State, because no firm will give a price until after completion of the aircraft concerned. It may happen that, in spite of all this, an aircraft never gets into production, yet the firm may make very considerable profits. The aircraft industry is an industry which relies very greatly upon research, in the cost of which the State pays the lion's share. The sums involved are great. A wind tunnel may cost as much as £8 million. In three years the Ministry of Supply spent £388 million upon research, much of which, of course, would be due to military and defence requirements and only about one-third of which would be at the door of civil aviation.
In addition to research, development work is also very expensive. As regards the development of the Rolls Royce Avon engine—a magnificent engine—I understand that the figure for that is about £22 million. The development of the Bristol Proteus engine up to the Proteus III has cost, I believe, £13 million. The story of the Proteus engine is particularly interesting. Proteus I went to the scrap heap; Proteus II gave way to Proteus III, and B.O.A.C. have decided upon the Bristol B.E.25 for the Britannia whilst still waiting for the Proteus III to materialise. No wonder £13 million went on development! The arrangement whereby the State pays its share of the finance in these matters is that it pays actual costs "reasonably and properly incurred … with the addition of a profit at non-risk rates." "Incurred"—but who certifies that the cost was "properly incurred"? Has whoever does that the qualifications for deciding whether or not the expense has been "properly incurred"? The reasonable profit which is added, the cost-plus, is 10 per cent. for profit, and 15 per cent. on capital expenditure. A prototype may cost £2 million, so it can be seen that "cost-plus," the addition for profit, can be very considerable.
The published figures bear that out, because between 1949 and 1953 Rolls Royce profits increased from £1¼ million to £4½ million, Bristol's went up from £1¼ million to £2½ million and Hawker-Siddeley went up from just under £5 million, in 1950, to just over £11 million, in 1954. I am particularly anxious not to be misleading in this matter. I realise that part of these enormous profits

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may have been fairly earned for extremely valuable work, even though it did not yield actual deliveries. Of course, when these contracts are allotted, there are no penalty clauses in them for non-delivery, late delivery or straight failure. Having said that, I hasten to add that nor is there anything in them in the shape of incentive or reward for improving or speeding up production.
The way the matter works is this. For instance, in the case of the Brabazon I, about which the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, told us, the expense was estimated originally at £3 million for two aircraft, for two Brabazon I's. In the end, we got one for £12 million—and it went to the scrap heap, where it realised £12,000 without its engines. Nevertheless, very likely quite properly, a large profit was made by Bristol on that transaction. A profit was also made by Avro on the disastrous Tudors. Then, of course, there were the ill-fated Princesses. I join warmly with Lord Brabazon of Tara in saying that I hope we shall yet see the flying boat come into its own. It is interesting to notice that although, as the noble Lord said, we might be expected to have a use for the flying boat, and America no use, owing to her great land mass, at the present moment it is America who is going ahead with flying boats. I mention those three most unfortunate businesses because we want no more of such costly and unprofitable enterprises. Reverses and setbacks we are bound to encounter from time to time, but there should not be so many of them, and they should not be on such a scale.
Why do many of the troubles of the industry arise? Can it be that we have been trying to produce too many types, with the result that we fail to produce our minimum requirements? May it also be the case that we are far better at designing and engineering than at actual production? Production is a technique in itself, and we shall not get good production unless sufficiently large orders are given at a time. I heard quite recently of a total order for one hundred of a particular aircraft and the order came in instalments, 25 at a time. In this respect, I should like to mention that the Douglas firm would not start on the D.C.8 until they had orders for 80. I understand that three successive orders for the Britannia were respectively for 15, 7 and 11. Orders
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for the Vanguard and Comet IV were 20 each.
"Penny packet" orders of that nature, and too many alterations in requirements after the orders, small though they are, have been given, could and should be avoided. We want more courageous and better planned ordering, which would give us the aircraft on time and would also save money. Complaints come in from engineers, from employees and from shop stewards about the lack of planning in production which results in idle time, wasted hours and the inefficient use of the time of skilled engineers. I have mentioned that the cost-plus system of payment is likely to lead to a "Why worry; what's the odds?" mentality. There is no effective wage structure throughout the industry, and I am afraid that any firm which tried to effect economies in regard to labour would find that it was losing its labour to firms who said, "Well, what the hell!"
What is Britain's position in the aviation world at the present moment in return for State expenditure on our aircraft? Have we been getting value for money? We seem to be concentrating at the moment on three air liners—the Viscount, the Comet IV and the Britannia. The Comet and Britannia have been planned for the Atlantic and Empire routes. I am not quite sure—perhaps the Minister may see fit to tell us—whetter the pressurisation problems of the Comet IV and Britannia have been fully and satisfactorily solved at this moment. Then what is the position in regard to military aircraft? The average output since the war has been from 75 to 150 monthly. Obsolescent Vampires, Meteors and Venoms are still flying, and some of the newer machines are already obsolescent. Obsolete and obsolescent aircraft are ineffective in war, and in peace they create a dangerous illusion of security. Think of the waste which is involved in equipping British and Commonwealth forces with Meteors and Vampires.
I have mentioned the rate of production in military aircraft since the war. By way of comparison I might quote the MIG.15 which was in service two years after its first flight, and for which the production figure in 1951 was 150 a month. The Sabre, developed in America but built at Montreal, first flew in October, 1947. In October, 1949, it was in service with the American

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Air Force. With us the dates between first flight and service seem to vary between two-and-a-half and three years.
My Lords, it is not only I who feel disturbed by this state of affairs. Certainly there has been much to regret—many delays. The late Under-Secretary of State for Air said that the production programme of the Hunter fell badly behind. Again, he said of the Swift programme
"I have made no secret of the fact that this is way below what we expected,"
though he added:
"But this is not a tragic affair. We have merely met considerable development difficulties."
Without going so far as calling it tragic, I think I should take rather a more serious view of this than to brush it aside in that rather lighthearted manner. The noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, said:
"I do not conceal our disappointment at the delays,"
and Sir Winston Churchill himself spoke of "grave disappointments." So there is no question whatever that there have been delays and there have been disappointments, with the result that the Air Force has not been modernised. When we come to the Fleet Air Arm, we find that it has not one modern strike aircraft in its squadrons. These are incontestable facts. Almost every year at the Farnborough Air Display one hears of wonderful projects and one sees wonderful prototypes, but, like child prodigies, these seem to fade away. Yet by their appearance they prove the super-excellent quality of our designers and engineers. If that is so, why do these projects come to nothing? They astonish only to disappoint, and they seem to flatter only to deceive. Like most of your Lordships I read the White Paper of 1955. It was a long apologia for the fact that the R.A.F. had not its proper aircraft.
Turning to civil aviation, although the war ended in 1945, and this is 1956, there is still no British civil aircraft on the prestige North Atlantic route. We are still "flying American" on that route. I believe that it is hoped that the Comet IV, which supersedes the Comet III, will be in service by 1959. It is difficult to be absolutely certain about such dates
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because they vary so rapidly and almost from month to month. But if that is so (and we hope it will be so), it must be remembered that the Comet IV will not do the London—New York run non-stop and the Bristol 300 long-range aircraft will, I understand, do that flight non-stop with "scheduled regularity," although even with the B.E.25 engine its speed will be only 400 miles an hour. Until that is available, its speed will be 350 miles an hour. I do not know whether we can have any confirmation of the time when the Comet IV will be in service on the Atlantic.
There has been very strong criticism from Sir Roy Fedden, who should know what he is talking about, over the shortage of proper aircraft for the R.A.F. He said that we should by now have 2,000 swept-wing fighters and 500 strategic bombers, as against the 600 and 50 respectively which, he believes, are all we now have. He was very sweeping in his criticism. He said that we had never been so short of aircraft for the Royal Air Force as we are to-day and that in civil aviation we have only "one foot in the door." He blamed those responsible for planning. Her Majesty's Government for lack of imagination, the chief engineers and senior executives of the aircraft industry, and also the Society of British Aircraft Manufacturers for failures. In fact, according to Sir Roy Fedden all concerned in aircraft production had sinned and come short of the glory. Sir Alfred Munnings, lecturing on modern art, could hardly have been more catholic in his condemnation than was Sir Roy Fedden in his criticism of the British aircraft industry. He did manage to screw out a little comfort for us in the end, however, because he had praise for what he called a
"nucleus of trained and disciplined engineers, with unbeatable creative and inventive capacity."
I believe that those are the men who will eventually win for us a leading position in the civil aviation world.
The truth is that America beats us only on production. We beat her on many other counts, and if we put our minds to it we should be able to catch up with her on production methods. But if America beats us in production she is also ahead of us in research and development. What the Americans do in this

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field has to be seen to be believed. I can assure your Lordships that when America builds a wind tunnel she builds a wind tunnel; and I am now informed that the American Government has built six high-altitude test chambers for turbo-engine testing. They cost £5 million each. I believe that we nave one such chamber building, but that there is no information about the date when it will be in use. It will not be available for perhaps a year or more.
The lesson for us from these facts is that research, design and testing must be unceasingly pressed on and backed by more decisive planning and speedier decisions than have come from the past few Governments. Our troubles always come back to this question of production. We design a tine aircraft; we build a fine prototype; and then, through poor production, we fail to reap the reward. As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has said, all our aircraft—the Comet, the Viking and the Britannia—are late. Sir Miles Thomas has said quite truly:
"Passengers cannot be carried on promises."
He added:
"British aircraft manufacturers must realise that time is fleeting and that punctuality of delivery is of paramount importance."
What can be done to improve matters? It is no good criticising unless one tries to put forward some suggestions of what can be done. I believe that the industry should be rationalised in proportion to the orders we can place. It might be going too far to cut it down, as has been suggested, to four or five firms, but I believe that there are far too many firms, especially fringe firms. The Minister of Supply has just stressed the great advantage that America possesses in test facilities and numbers of trained engineers. He said:
"We are developing as many civil aircraft as an industry can tackle without over-straining our technical resources."
He implied that we are over-straining those resources. He went on to say that "There may be something" in suggestions that we may have too many firms, and that "Further concentration of firms might well be an advantage." I believe the Minister has advanced very strong reasons for some rationalisation of the industry. The demand for draughtsmen and stressmen forms a bottleneck which
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impedes progress at this moment. I wonder whether all these are at present employed on work of national importance. Perhaps rationalisation in respect of those essential men would be good. I do not know what is the position with the jig and tool makers and draughtsmen, but they have certainly been in very short supply. Production engineers are, of course, of the utmost importance.
Then there is the question of modifications. On the last occasion on which this question was debated we heard of 700 modifications to one aircraft. Can nothing be done to impress upon the Services that the best is the enemy of the good and that they often defeat their own ends by too many modifications? Mark Twain said. "Everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The aircraft industry is never discussed without modifications being blamed for many of our troubles. Her Majesty's Government never deny the charges, but nothing happens: the practices continue.
The question of a Transport Command has been touched upon to-day, and here again I have a suggestion to make. We have not a really effective Transport Command such as we should have. Air transport is absolutely essential to air power, and the Fighting Services increasingly need air transport. I believe that the constitution of a real and effective Transport Command, sufficiently large, would be of the greatest help to civil aviation, because the needs of a Transport Command and civil aviation obviously dovetail at very many points., A Transport Command being a common necessity of all three Services, it should be regarded as the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence.
My suggestion would be that responsibility for Air Transport Command and for electronics should be taken away from the Ministry of Supply and vested in the Ministry of Defence. That would take a great load off the Ministry of Supply which, although it is far from being as black as it is painted (as I well know), is nevertheless very over-loaded and consequently runs into criticism from time to time. I think that if those two, Air Transport Command and electronics, could be taken out of the Ministry of Supply it would mean a great easing of the burden on that Ministry. It would also make the Ministry of Defence a far more effec-

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tive Ministry and give it a far more realistic raison d'être than perhaps it has at the present moment. I believe that this co-ordination of military and civil air transport would give maximum efficiency at minimum cost. I would point out that Boeing, Lockheed and Douglas have all developed fine aircraft on the basis of large orders for military transport aircraft.
I believe that this step becomes more urgent as requirements increase and costs grow enormous. Lack of co-ordination, as the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has pointed out, very largely accounted for the abandonment of the V.1000 and withdrawal of support from its civil version, the VC.7. I believe these figures to be correct. I have been told that the Ministry of Supply went ahead with that very costly project of the V.1000 on the basis of an order from Transport Command for six of them. B.O.A.C. did not want the V.1000—they said so a long time ago—and even had they wanted it I do not think that they could have wanted more than eight of these machines. Before going ahead on the strength of an order for six aircraft, did the Ministry of Supply consult jointly Transport Command, B.O.A.C. and B.O.A.C.'s empire partners? I believe that now the Ministry of Supply and B.O.A.C. are discussing the possibility of turbo-jet aircraft by 1960 to fly from London to New York non-stop. Are they consulting the Empire operators about this project? Are Transport Command and possible foreign purchasers being brought into such consultations. It seems to me that they certainly should be. I believe that the aircraft will cost at least £1 million. I do not think that B.O.A.C. alone is likely to order the forty which would be necessary to "break even" on the cost. A larger order than B.O.A.C. can give would be necessary to make that project economic. That is why I ask if these consultations are taking place.
In conclusion, I should like to say that I have the greatest admiration for some of the firms in the aircraft industry and for the designers and executives whom I have met in these firms. I most sincerely wish the industry well, for their sakes as well as for the security and prosperity of the nation. I have endeavoured to stick to the facts in what I have said to-day. I hope that the lessons of the past, and, indeed, of the present, will be learned,
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and I am sure that our experience as time goes on will deepen the real confidence which I, at any rate, feel in the future of this remarkable industry.
4.24 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, I should like to re-echo everything which the last speaker, Lord Winster, has said about the weight and usefulness of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara. But I should like to make just a few remarks from the technical point of view. I speak in this debate with considerable temerity since I am the only Member of your Lordships' House who has not, as have all the noble Lords who have spoken and those who will speak, occupied a great position in the aeronautical field as Secretary of State. I entirely agree with what Lord Brabazon of Tara has said (and this was emphasised particularly by Lord Winster) in regard to flying boats. I hope that the noble Earl who is going to reply on behalf of Her Majesty's Government will be able to give us some indication as to when the de-cocooning of these boats that are lying at Southampton and the putting in of suitable engines will take place, because that is a vital line of development which we cannot afford to neglect.
As your Lordships, I think, know, our most outstanding airliner of to-day is the Vickers Viscount. It is the first propeller turbine job in the world, and it is accorded the premier position by the world. I think something over 280 of such aircraft are on order. George Edwards, of the Vickers Company, the designer of the Viscount, has a good replacement machine on the way, the Vanguard, which is slightly larger and capable of carrying more passengers over a greater range. I think we ought to remember that in the international field the Lockheed Electra—which has already been mentioned in this debate, I believe, by Lord Winster—is a worthy competitor. It may be a little larger and a little faster and at the moment it is picking up more orders.
With regard to the Comet, I think that all Lord Winster has said is correct. It is too small, as it now is in its redesigned form, for the job in hand. What we want really is a larger edition of the Comet. The change in the whole aspect in regard to jet propulsion in the United States, which is an affair of the last half

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year or so, is quite remarkable. We, on the other hand, have one excellent answer in the long-range propeller-turbine Bristol Britannia. This machine has already been mentioned. It promises extremely well. But if there is to be a switch over to the turbo type of propulsion, as is the case in the United States, then as your Lordships are well aware, that raises a big question in regard to alteration in aerodrome size. There is also the very great difficulty of the noise nuisance, about which so much has been said in your Lordships' House.
In conclusion, it seems to me that if we want—as I am sure we do—stability and prosperity for our aircraft industry, it would be a good thing for stability if we could engineer a really swift, forward move for aircraft carrying goods by air on a much larger scale than is practised to-day. That would give us bread and butter work for the aircraft industry for many years to come. In view of the technological difficulties from which the roads and railways are suffering, something of the kind is required. I end by once more congratulating the noble Lord who initiated this Motion and by saying that, when Lord Pakenham has spoken, we shall look forward to hearing what the noble Earl who is to speak on behalf of Her Majesty's Government has to tell us.
4.29 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate, but, having heard the speech of my noble friend, Lord Brabazon of Tara—which I must say I think was one of the most interesting, informed and constructive speeches I have ever heard in this House—it seems to me that he raised matters of such importance that it behoves those of us who have had a certain kind of experience of these matters and who are not, I hope, prejudiced by them but have learned lessons for the future from that experience, to say a word or two to the House on the issues which have been raised. I, at any rate, can claim experience of this sort—and I hope that I have learned from it—having been both Secretary of State for Air and Minister of Civil Aviation.
The first thing I should like to say is that I cannot endorse too strongly what Lord Brabazon of Tara said (and this was supported by the noble Viscount, Lord
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Templewood, another former Secretary of State for Air) on the importance of co-operation between the Royal Air Force Transport Command and, indeed, the whole of the Ministry and the Corporations, and the makers, and that that co-operation should come at the earliest possible stage. I would add that co-operation means thinking together and it means give and take. In deciding on a machine, I think a greater part of the "give" has to come from the R.A.F. and Transport Command, for this reason: that the Corporations are business companies and people can travel by a British airline or a foreign airline according to the service provided and, I might add, according to the safety provided—that is always an important thing in air transport. But Transport Command are not under that limitation. The people they send out in their transports have to go where they are told to go. I do not mean by that that they should not have good transport; but that is the reason why it is more for the Corporations, in reason, to call the tune than for Transport Command.
I would call the attention of your Lordships—or rather recall your Lordships' attention, because what I am saying is a good deal in line with what my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara has said—to the prospects in civil aviation over the Atlantic, and I am going to confine what I am saying now entirely to the Atlantic route. After all, that is where the dollars are and where the greatest prestige is; therefore it is the most important. We have a situation to-day where none of the new aircraft is on the Atlantic route and we are doing quite well—incidentally, by British lines largely flying American machines. Presently, the Britannia, which can fly the Atlantic without a stop, will be in service. Then, possibly for two years, possibly for three (because it is true that every aircraft is always late in arriving in service, as more than one noble Lord has said and as those of us who have held any of these offices know from our own experience), the Britannia may win and hold the Blue Riband of the Atlantic. And from what I know of the firm which is making it and the designers, and, indeed, of the reinforcement which has gone to that firm, I believe it will be a first-class aircraft.
After two or there years, the new American machines, the Boeings and the

743
Douglases, will conic in. I do not say that they will fully come up to performance: they might be a bit below; they might also be a bit above. What is probably quite certain is that they will be heavier than the estimates on paper, and that, in the natural sequence of development, they will be a great deal faster than the Britannia. The Blue Riband will pass to one of these United States aircraft. Then I know exactly what is going to happen. The B.O.A.C., which will have been flying Britannias successfully, will find themselves up against the competition of the American lines flying faster American machines, and they will do what they have always done—and I do not blame them as a commercial firm; they will say to the bevy of Ministers who deal with this matter, not excluding the Chancellor of the Exchequer who, oddly enough, was left out of the picture when the other Ministers were mentioned as having failed to take these decisions. "If we are to earn dollars, apart from keeping our prestige, we must buy these American machines." We have seen this happen over and over again.
But even if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to agree that the B.O.A.C. could have the dollars to buy machines, they might not be able to buy them. We have been told of the orders which have already been placed in America for these aircraft while they are on the drawing board, and I have no doubt that these firms, who are also great makers of military machines, will get cluttered up with Service orders. They are also in the guided missile business and it will not be at all easy to add a number of orders. The B.O.A.C. would come in at the end of the queue, and even if the Government gave them permission to buy it would be a long time before they obtained the machines. I do not know that the firms concerned would be anxious to put them up the queue at the expense of somebody who is able to pay dollars.
If I have that picture right—and I think my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara will agree that it is a true picture—then, based on the interests of British air transport alone, is there not a strong case for going now for an airliner which will be equal to, or better than, the American? That seems to me a strong case for not
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dropping this Vickers aircraft. I do not know whether it is the best; at any rate, it is the one which was ready to come forward. Looking at the Viscount and the other machines that Vickers have made, and at the close co-operation bettween Vickers with the engine-makers (I think I am right in saying that probably we have the best engine to put into this machine, and that is half the battle), I think a tremendous case is made for reconsidering the decision to drop altogether the new Vickers aircraft, on which millions of pounds have apparently been spent.
There is no Party polities in this question: I take it that it is still the policy of whatever Government are in power to "buy British" and "fly British." After all, when I produced the original White Paper on the future of civil aviation, which was a production of our National Government—the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will bear me out in this statement—we were all agreed that, if possible, the British Corporations should fly British machines. Then the other side came in and nationalisation was very much to the fore. It was thought a good thing to drop the partnership of shipping lines, which I had arranged. I am not quite sure that the present Leader of the Labour Party would take that view to-day. The point came that we should have a completely nationalised industry—I am not going to argue the merits of nationalisation; the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, need not think that—but never was there any difference about "flying British," if we could, provided always, of course, that there were good enough British aircraft available, because passengers cannot be forced on to the planes. We had to give way to the extent of allowing the Corporation to buy a number of foreign aircraft, because there were not good enough British machines; and if there are not good enough British machines, that will always be necessary, whether the nation owns the Corporation or individual citizens are shareholders in it. That proviso, that there shall be adequate British machines available, surely carries with it this corollary: that it is the duty of the Government, the Royal Air Force, the Corporations—essentially the Corporations—and the makers to do their best in a co-operative and forward-looking spirit to have adequate British aircraft available.

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The Government are quite justified, in my opinion, in putting a good deal of pressure on the Corporations in this matter. I was greatly interested to read a report of a speech of the new Leader of the Labour Party, made, I think, somewhere in the country, and what he said about nationalisation. I believe I summarise correctly his words by saying that he said his Party must take a new and somewhat wide look at nationalisation; that nationalisation was not a virtue in itself, and the justification for it was that it should be applied to an industry only if it was necessary in order that that industry might serve the broad national interest in the best way. I think that is broadly the line that he took, and I do not disagree with it.
If I were debating nationalisation (which, of course, I am not) I should agree that there is a good deal to be said for that point of view. But if you take that point of view—and we who are less addicted to nationalisation than some members of the Labour Party can justify it to ourselves only on the ground that we can get better national results by it—surely it gives the Government the right, and indeed, as I think, the duty, to say to these Corporations that they must take the long view over this matter and co-operate with the Government and the Air Ministry to get the right kind of British aircraft in the future. It is only if that policy is so comprehensively regarded, looking so far forward, that I believe we shall avoid the disaster that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, forecast if we do not take timely action. This is a debate full of constructive suggestions, some of them critical—but then we must be critical. After all, I believe we are all criticising ourselves, because we have all been in this matter, more or less; and if we cannot be critical of ourselves and of each other sufficiently to learn from the past for the future, then we are not much good as a Government, or an Opposition or, as it were, an elder statesman sitting on the side line. I am sure it is in that spirit that my noble friend who is to reply will accept this debate.
In conclusion, I should just like to join in the plea for the flying boat. When I was at the Air Ministry and, later on, Minister of Civil Aviation, I was always a champion of the flying boat, and I agree that it is the most comfortable air-
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craft to fly in. The air operators, here and in America, are against it, but air-fields can be more and more expensive, and if we have these flying boats, we should use them. Look at the places where we operate. I remember Dr. Colijn, the Dutch Prime Minister of many years ago, long before the First World War, having an intimate talk with me about what should be done in the Dutch Indies—I hope that I am not revealing Cabinet secrets. The Admiralty had said to him: "What you want are some nice ships." But ships were expensive, even in those days. Dr. Colijn said to me: "What do you think about it?" My noble friend Lord Cilcennin will no doubt riposte that I was at the time Air Minister—no, I do not think I was; I think I was Colonial Secretary. So I was really quite unprejudiced.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT CILCENNIN): Before the last war; not before the First World War.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Yes, before the last war. I ventured to say to Dr. Colijn: "You could get some flying boats much more cheaply than you get these destroyers and other ships. After all, look at all the little bights and bays all through your islands. Might not the flying boats come in most useful?" I still believe that the flying boat has an actual and a potential use which is quite worth while. Do not let us lose the technique and the capacity for making them and flying them. I have spoken for longer than I intended, but what I have said is the fruit of experience in these offices. I believe that we all ought to look at the future on the lines that my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara and others have indicated to us.
4.48 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, we on this side of the House were hoping that my noble friend Lord Ogmore would speak this afternoon, but pressing duties have detained him elsewhere and I have been asked to step into his place more or less at the last minute. However, it is a real privilege to take part in a debate initiated with such great distinction by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, who has been followed by others very eminent in this field. It is also a special pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Swinton.

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He mentioned that he had been Minister of Civil Aviation and Secretary of State for Air, but, with his customary modesty, he did not mention that he is the only individual, noble Lord or Member of another place, who has occupied both those positions; and therefore he speaks with an authority on these topics that may clearly be regarded as unique. I shall be returning to one or two of his observations later, but I would say now that I think I have listened to every speech made on civil aviation by the noble Earl in the last ten years, and always with the utmost enjoyment, except on one occasion, and then perhaps I was a little biased, because he was calling for my instantaneous removal from office.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I am glad that I failed.
LORD PAKENHAM: That is extremely handsome of the noble Earl. I was going to say that he made out such a strong case that for a moment I was not certain whether he might not be right, and I was lucky that my noble friend Lord Attlee did not take his view of things. I remember that on that occasion the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, was down to speak, and who knows what he was going to say? Unfortunately, he was poisoned at lunch, so he was unable to take part. If we knew what he was going to say we might know who poisoned him, but that has never been revealed. I should like to say to the noble Earl that when I was Minister of Civil Aviation I owed a tremendous amount to the advice of his great mentor, the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara. And the work that the noble Lord did all through that period, and has done since, as head of the Air Registration Board, is something that only those concerned with civil aviation can appreciate at its full value. He stands apart in the field of civil aviation, as we all know very well.
It is difficult in a sentence or two or, shall I say, in a few minutes, to sum up in a fair way the performances or failures of this great industry. I would offer the humble opinion that the Society of Aircraft Manufacturers—among whom I had, and I hope shall have, even after this speech, a number of friends—have rather over-played their hand. They have made it seem that it is almost committing
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sacrilege to criticise the aircraft industry—almost like criticising Buckingham Palace, the Royal Navy or Westminster Abbey. That, I think, has bred a kind of counter-irritation, so that quite a number of people are going about and saying that the whole thing is a shambles. That, of course, is an exaggeration in the other direction. This afternoon we have tried to strike a fair balance. I am bound to say that I think the aircraft industry, at any rate taking a short-term view—I think they have to take a long view—will benefit greatly from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara. He feared no one; he spoke his mind, and he described the whole affair as an incompetent piece of organisation. I feel those were the most operative words that have so far been uttered this afternoon.
I know that there are many achievements to the credit of the aircraft industry since the war. A friend of mine who has just come home from Vienna, where he is serving the country, informs me that the British aircraft industry is a great national asset, and that the arrival of the Viscount in Vienna sends up our stock every time it occurs. Of course the Viscount is a wonderful aircraft, but when we take the last ten years of civil aircraft manufacture, what does the achievement boil down to? The only major success is the Viscount, though we have the minor success of the Dove and the Bristol Freighter. I speak in the presence of those who know these things better than I do, but I should be surprised if these sentiments can be challenged by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who is himself an airman and is to speak with all the authority of the Government in a few minutes.
It is worth asking ourselves, therefore—and this is what we are all trying to do, in our different fashions, this afternoon—what has gone wrong. All this good will, as the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, said, and yet here is the result—"buckets" of money spent and only the Viscount, and one or two other minor successes, to show for it. We have had references to nationalisation. When I was preparing, rather hastily, my remarks, I was wondering whether it was bringing in a red herring if I referred to nationalisation this afternoon. However, the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, whom I follow wherever possible, has set me the example, and I would make just one observation.

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The noble Earl was talking about the national Corporations. No one can say that they are private enterprise in the ordinary sense; they are completely dependent on the Government. The grand old virtues claimed for capitalism can hardly he ascribed to the aircraft industry—the circumstances do not make it possible. On the other hand, they are not nationalised; they are somewhere betwixt and between. I think it can be argued (though I am not in any way this afternoon presenting a case for nationalisation, and it certainly is not a case that I have come here to explain) that in the aircraft industry at the present time we in this country are getting the worst of both worlds. I am afraid one is bound to feel that.
Let us try to be constructive. I have come down with one or two general thoughts and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, has made us think hard and fast in the brief but cogent speech that he has delivered to us. Before coming to one or two suggestions of my own, may I refer briefly to one or two of the noble Lord's suggestions that were not in my own mind? He suggested that the Corporations should be required to "buy British" exclusively within ten years. That seems to me reasonable. To turn back to the theme developed by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, that is really in keeping with his own ideas and the ideas, I think I can fairly say, of all of us. Therefore, I see nothing unreasonable in asking that within ten years this should be accepted as an objective.
There was one other suggestion the noble Lord made which he had not time to develop, for I know that he never likes speaking for long—he is a model to all of us—and that is that Transport Command should accept a new and special responsibility. I should not like to criticise that proposal before knowing more fully what was in his mind. I quite agree with the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, that obviously there must be co-operation between all parties, and Transport Command may well come into the picture there. The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, was asking that Transport Command should take over the main part of the responsibility for developing civil aircraft. Without the opportunity of consulting my colleagues, I should ques-
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tion whether that was the right course and, therefore, I should certainly like to reserve the views of myself and anyone associated with me. I would much rather see the responsibility placed still more clearly on the Corporations; bat if that is done, then they must be remunerated more adequately for the responsibility so assumed. At that point, in so far as I was able to follow the noble Lord's argument, I wonder whether he would wish to press his suggestion.
Coming to various other points which he made, speaking with all his personal authority, and which some others of us had in mind, I would say that I agree entirely about the need for concentration. I suppose one can think of concentrating either on particular types while keeping the firms intact—with which proposal I think we all agree. The Minister in another place seemed to suggest that that was Government policy. Or one can think of combining the resources of particular firms for particular purposes, and that idea also has many attractions. The noble Lord did not stop there, and I am glad he did not.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, came flat out for reducing the number of firms to four or five, or sonic such number. There again, I have not had the opportunity since he spoke of full consultation, but I should be surprised if that idea did not prove attractive to many of my own colleagues; and certainly, speaking for myself, I see strong advantages in it. I am sure that there are too many firms engaged. The noble Lord put his finger on a point which must be fully explored. Indeed, I feel that what was in his mind was right and true. I would also suggest (I do rot think this aspect was dealt with by the noble Lord) that we must find some method if we can—I know it is not easy—of improving the arrangements under which contracts are entered into with a firm. At present there do not seem to be sufficient rewards for success or sufficient penalties for failure. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, when he replies, will say a few words on that matter, or at any rate indicate that he is sympathetic to some new approach to the contract system.
Finally, among the many points he raised, I would come to his suggestion of a committee. When we talk about committees, we all begin building schemes on paper which look attractive until they are

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put into practice. It is much easier—and I suppose no one in this House knows this better than does the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—to work out a paper scheme for co-ordinating all the relevant Departments than to bring such an arrangement to perfection.
I feel that the Ministry of Supply must not be left with the sole responsibility in this connection. The veil is not torn away during the lifetime of an individual Government and I do not know what machinery exists for co-ordination, but I do not think I am making an improper disclosure—and, if I am, I shall very soon be rapped over the knuckles—when I say that the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, who was so beloved in this House, played a most important part in co-ordinating the activities of the Departments concerned, directly or indirectly, with the ordering of aircraft. I am talking now not of the day-to-day activities but of long-term ordering and the arrangements for drawing up the programmes. I would venture to think that certainly a Cabinet Minister—perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, himself, who has, no doubt, wide duties but not duties which have been previously disclosed to us, or, possibly, one of his colleagues—perhaps the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Butler—might assume the chairmanship of the committee concerned with this question of ordering aircraft over a long period ahead.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, had in mind a committee. He mentioned something which sounded agreeable, but I wonder whether it would be quite within the atmosphere of our Constitution. He suggested that this committee should have as chairman a leading Cabinet Minister—I entirely agree with that—but he thought there should also be included a prominent member of the Opposition, to preserve continuity. 1 wonder—perhaps one day we shall hear the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, speak on this subject—whether that would be a sound constitutional practice. Noble Lords may recall sonic examples from the early days of the Committee on Imperial Defence. There may be precedents, but it is a matter on which the Government of the day would have to accept full responsibility. I wonder, therefore, whether a prominent member of the Opposition could be associated with it in
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quite that way. By all means have some expert who is thought to have Opposition views, so that there shall be as little danger of a break as possible; but I question whether one can take one of the leading members of the Opposition and put him on to a committee whose operations, conclusions and results may be controversial and must, therefore, make it difficult for the gentleman in question if his Party and the Government fall to disagreement.
I do not wish to detain the House for more than another moment or two, but I should like to say that any fair-minded person coming here this afternoon and listening to the discussion would feel that all was not well with the aircraft industry. I do not think anybody could feel that we were malicious in our criticisms, but no one could feel that the matter should be left where it is. Various suggestions have been made. I have no doubt that, when the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, conies to reply in a few moments he will, with his usual courtesy, pay a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, whose speech will be described as "a memorable speech"; the debate will be referred to as "a memorable debate," and that will be that. This question, within Government circles, will then go into winter quarters for another year. That is the real danger. I feel that some sort of teeth ought to be put into this Motion. We all have our separate ideas. I do not pretend to be the only person or the main person to understand the problem. There is unanimous agreement among those who care for the aircraft industry that things are going wrong and have been going wrong for quite a while, completely irrespective of Party politics.
Therefore, it seems to me that a serious inquiry is the only step that can reassure the public or ultimately serve our country. I put this forward with great diffidence in the presence of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, because, when the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, suggested an inquiry on some other matter the other day, the noble Earl told him that he, Lord Beveridge, had volunteered for every inquiry in the last twenty years and he thought there had been too much of that kind of thing. I apologise, because I see that I am clearly misrepresenting the noble Earl. I hope that the idea of this inquiry will be taken seriously by

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Lord Selkirk. I can assure him that here I am speaking for the Opposition. This is not a last minute idea of mine; this is the considered view of the Opposition, and surely there can be no possible Party question in this. The desire to rationalise the aircraft industry—I am not talking of "nationalising"; I am talking of "rationalising"—must be something, surely, which is unconnected with Party.
The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, if I may put it to him crudely, will not carry the House or any fair-minded person with him this afternoon if he comes along and says that, on the whole, things are pretty good, and pays the customary tributes. I do not think anybody would be satisfied with that. There is disquiet completely unrelated to politics. In all seriousness, speaking for the Opposition but putting a point of view which has no special connection with any Party or group in the State, I beg the noble Earl to consider that there are widespread fears and, so far as we can judge, justified fears that things are wrong with the aircraft industry. In those circumstances, I say to him that it is the duty of the Government to allay the disquiet and to deal with this situation as constructively as possible by setting up a full and thorough inquiry.
5.7 p.m.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, at one time I thought the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, was going to make all my speech for me. I should have been grateful to him. I thought he might have gone on to thank the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, and to say a number of other things which would have helped me. I must say straight away that I think this debate has been unnecessarily depressing. We have in front of us the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Douglas of kirtleside, who to-day is flying exclusively British aircraft—and they are not bad aircraft at all. I do not want to draw the noble Lord, but I think it is fair to say that.
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, speaks with great authority on this subject. Although some of us may think the Brahazon Committee Report an absurd document and too closely connected with the Brahazon aircraft, speaking for myself I was amazed at the vision shown in that document of twelve to
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thirteen years ago, viewed in the light of what we know to-day. It is very easy, on this subject, to be wise after the event, but, in fact, of the five aircraft proposed, four were brought substantially to maturity. That was no small achievement. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, to say that we have given up the struggle, that we have thrown in our hands on passenger aircraft and have gone in for freighters, is carrying the argument a little too far.
I must for a moment underline the difficulty of this industry. After the war, of course, we were going through a period of flux and change. Many expensive mistakes were made—there is no doubt about that. Of course, one of the difficulties was that of getting an assured user. The Corporations had not settled down at that time, and it was not easy to get a user. It is worth remembering just what is involved in this business at the present time. I agree that it is a matter which should be examined at the highest level. I find myself in full agreement with what the noble Lord says there because the problems necessarily involve pretty high policy.
First of all, let us remember, taking an aircraft like the Britannia, that there is about £ 30 million tied up in that project. And that is only one project. A project of this size will take anything from, say, six to seven years, and quite likely nine years, to mature. It is worth noting that that is longer, or may well be longer, than the life of any normal Government; so that, necessarily, anything started by one Government will necessarily go on into the period of the next Government. That is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, made about making the proposed committee to some extent representative of both sides of the House. I very much appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said. Anybody in the Opposition who finds himself on such a committee would be in considerable embarrassment if he found himself in total disagreement with what the committee said. I do not know whether he would get up in Parliament and make a violent speech, which would of course wreck the committee, or whether he would sit down and accept a measure of responsibility. It is an attractive idea, but I think it contains real difficulties of that sort.

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The nature of the work to be done is exceedingly complex. I mention this only as an instance. The Comet which is being built now contains, I believe, two million items; each one is numbered, each one has to be drawn, and each one has to be manufactured—this quite apart from things like nuts and bolts. Then, when that process, such as it is, has been gone through, whilst the design may be entirely successful, the aircraft may be noncompetitive because, in the meantime, someone has built a better one. I say this only because it constitutes a real problem in the international field. I am told, moreover, that there are somewhere in the order of 2,000 medium and large aircraft in scheduled service. If we give them a life of ten years, that means that there are about 200 required each year. To provide those 200 aircraft something like ten substantial firms are seriously endeavouring to take part in the venture. When we remember that in one way or another America produced last year 14,000 military and civil aircraft, it is, I think, easy to see that the capacity to-day is far in excess of what is required for the commercial market. The fact is that it is an extremely speculative business; it is a difficult and exacting task and, without the military background, it is difficult to cover overheads and put this development on a sound economic basis.
I see that the President of an American airline said this, in describing his attitude towards buying new aeroplanes:
"We are buying aeroplanes that have not yet been fully designed, with millions of dollars we do not have; and we are going to operate them off airports that are too small, with an air traffic control system that is too slow, and we must fill them with more passengers than we have ever carried before."
This is a well-known airline in America, and it indicates that even there there are those who want to be depressing and those who say that the future contains difficulties. We are facing these problems.
There has been a good deal of reference to Transport Command. I am sure that that is perfectly right, although we are not talking about military aircraft to-day. If I can, I want to confine my remarks substantially to commercial long-range aircraft. In any industry it would be nice to throw over the overheads to some other activity. What is being asked
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for, putting it in the simplest way, is a concealed subsidy; that is really what it amounts to. That is a very nice thing, and I have no doubt that that is what is happening, in America. I would say to the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, that a great deal of military work is done by long-term charter.
The real difficulty which we are facing to-day is that of quantity production. That is the really distinguishing feature which exists between ourselves and the United States of America. Some of your Lordships may have seen The Times article on this subject the other day, which showed that for each of the big Douglas, Lockheed and Boeing aircraft made since the war—that is, the Constellation, the D.C.6 and the Stratocruiser—there have been about 500 orders, spread between the military and civil authorities. That presents an entirely different position from anything which we are able to do. Moreover, of the aircraft produced in the United States about 90 per cent. are military, and their military orders are over ten times, and perhaps considerably more, the size of ours. They are, therefore, dealing with an entirely different problem. We have to be much more careful in the way in which we develop.
There has been a great deal of emphasis in regard to the need for the closest possible co-operation in the earlier stages. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, speaking with his great authority, dealt with that matter. We agree with that point, of course, but we think that that is what is happening to-day. On the civil aviation side, certainly, there is a much closer link than there was formerly.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: But was there in regard to this particular aircraft?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am coming to that. Perhaps it would be convenient to deal with it straight away. B.O.A.C. were interested in the V.1000 from the beginning, when it was ordered by Transport Command. It is rather interesting to me to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Winster, should think that Transport Command were wrong ever to order it.
LORD WINSTER: No.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I understood from the noble Lord that he thought that six was an absurdly small number to order; but I may be wrong. Transport

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Command decided that they did not want it. I do not propose to argue why they did not, but they decided in that way. They then pressed B.O.A.C., and B.O.A.C. were pressed to take a civil version. B.O.A.C. also said they did not want it. You may argue that B.O.A.C. were wrong. But should the Ministry of Supply then have given a development contract for an aircraft for which there was no purchaser at all? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Winster, who said that the Douglas Company would not build an aircraft until they had eighty orders. Would we be right to encourage anyone in this country to build an aircraft where there was no demand? I think we should have been quite wrong to do so.
LORD WINSTER: The only question I wished to ask was how much development work was put into the V.1000 on the strength of an order for six aircraft. I understand that a considerable amount of development work was done at great expense, and that a great many design man-hours were absorbed in it, apparently all on the basis of an order for six aircraft.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I think that that is one of the points in regard to an aircraft which one cannot help. Whether six or a thousand are being built, the design period is roughly the same. That is the fundamental difference between a ship and an aeroplane. The amount of expenditure in design of an aircraft is so great that there must be some production features which are not necessary in a ship. Whatever number are required, the design period is the same. The difference between the Brabazon and the V.C.7 was that, when it appeared that the aircraft was not wanted, the development was not started. Noble Lords may argue that that was wrong.
I am not going to cast my mind forward into the early 1960s, six years ahead. It is easy to do so, but it is a little harder to do so from this Box than from somewhere else. I am not going to say what aeroplanes can or cannot do, but I can assure noble Lords that the points they have made are very much in mind. It may be that the next pure jet to fly on international routes will again be a British aircraft, as was the first.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: I do not want to interrupt the noble Earl unduly, but, with great respect, he seems to me not to be answering the most important aspect of the matter which was put to him. Of course we accept it when he tells us that when the work on the V.1000 had gone a certain way Transport Command said they did not want it, and that B.O.A.C. were brought in at the beginning. But he also said that when Transport Command did not want it they tried to get B.O.A.C. to take it—which does not look much like co-operation from the start. But the point is this. I am not being critical when I ask him, even if neither B.O.A.C. nor Transport Command would buy an aircraft, ought we to have gone on making it? Looking forward to the time when the Britannia has, not exhausted its usefulness but rather ceased to be anything like the best machine crossing the Atlantic, when the Americans come in with new aircraft, will not B.O.A.C. at that time need an aircraft able to compete with the new American machines? Will not Transport Command also need an aircraft, and cannot there now be co-operation to try to get an aircraft which will suit both? That was the whole point of what I said.
THE EARL OR SELKIRK: My Lords, I fully appreciate the noble Earl's point and I can tell him how we propose to do that. I will not speak in terms of aircraft for it is not practicable for a Government to prophesy in detail what will be the performance of aircraft in six or seven years' time: it would be most unwise to do so. In our approach to this problem we agree with what has been said: that the Corporation must take responsibility for the aircraft which they order. That is unquestionable. It is useless to seek to encourage them to take an aircraft which they do not want. We have a Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee which meets at the Ministry of Supply. On it are senior representatives of the Air Ministry, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, the Treasury, the Ministry of Supply, B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. The object of the Committee is to ensure that the Corporations and the Air Ministry—the operators mainly concerned—are fully informed on what is likely to be available, so that when they make their decisions they may know the position. It is to ensure also that the

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views of operators, both military and civil, are taken into account before any development contract is placed. I thought the noble Lords, Lord Pakenham and Lord Brabazon of Tara, wished to step that Committee up to a higher level. That suggestion will be very carefully considered along with the other points made.
The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, made an interesting suggestion upon what may take place with the Britannia. There are two ways in which his point could be answered. I am not prepared to say that this is a matter for Government decision because where such a decision is made the responsibility of B.O.A.C. in this matter is automatically undermined. The decision has to be made, with the fullest knowledge, by B.O.A.C., who must come to the Government and say: "This is the aircraft we wish to buy." It is then for the Government to make up their mind whether or not to give a contract. The noble Lord, Lord Winster, asked about pressurised cabins. This problem has been solved in both the Comet and the Britannia, but as the Comet IV is not yet built, while the difficulty has been solved in theory the solution has to be proved in practice. Both aircraft will, of course, go through tank tests. The noble Lord was worried about cost-plus contracts. Civil contracts are no longer placed on that basis. Development contracts are given with a fixed amount for each, to encourage economy in cost.
A good deal has been said about flying boats. It is well known that flying boats are commercially unattractive and a former Government was severely criticised for pressing on with the three Princesses. That, at least, was a development of flying boats which appeared to them, at that time, to be wise. The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, deplored the absence of services to South America. That was, of course, a direct result of the Comet accident. I agree with the noble Lord that it is of the utmost importance that those services should be resumed as early as possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Winster, spoke of putting Transport Command under the Ministry of Defence. Transport Command is, of course, at present under the Air Ministry. I do not know whether his suggestion included the development of transport aircraft. The difficulty is that
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those on the civil aviation side are always rather suspicious when Ministers primarily interested in military aircraft are responsible also for their aircraft. Noble Lords will remember that that was the position before the war, when the Air Ministry were in charge of civil aviation. The position was not very popular with civil aviation operators. I believe I have now answered a large number of those questions which have been asked and I will only add—
LORD PAKENHAM: If I may interrupt the noble Earl, as he seems to be drawing to a conclusion, may I point out that he has not yet referred to the idea of a thorough inquiry?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am not enamoured of an inquiry; neither perhaps is the noble Lord, although he was responsible for a very historic one, for which he has always been given the greatest credit. The noble Lord mentioned the matter in his very last words and I should not like to turn it away cavalierly. But the question arises: what sort of inquiry does the noble Lord really wish to have? Does he want an inquiry to decide what should be the structure of the industry or an inquiry on how aircraft should be built? Such inquiries are unlikely to be of value. The noble Lord must be aware that the general structure of the aircraft industry is constantly under observation by the Ministry of Supply who, I believe, have not been quite as unsuccessful as has been made out.
I thought the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, dismissed the Britannia a little easily. After all, as the noble Earl knows, the Britannia may well be the best Atlantic aircraft for a period of years. It is a material achievement.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: That is what I said. I am not decrying the aircraft firms; I said quite deliberately that the Britannia would certainly have the Blue Riband of the Atlantic for three years, and possibly more, and that I was quite certain that, with all the skill in the factory which is making it, it would be an absolutely first-class machine. If that is decrying something, then I do not know what praise is.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am very grateful for what the noble Earl has said. That puts the matter in a much fairer light.

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The problem with which my right honourable friend the Minister is concerned is one which has been emphasised a number of times to-day that is, the number of firms. I think it is generally recognised that in the engine world we are probably rather better off than in the airframe world. That may be due to the fact that there are fewer design firms in the engine world than in the airframe world. What my right honourable friend is certain of is that, whether there are too many firms or whether there are not, there are too many projects and that the number of projects to be taken up should be reduced considerably.
Whether we should do that by amalgamation of firms I should not like to say. I hesitate to suggest compulsory amalgamation, because compulsory associations are not often altogether successful; but a great deal might be done, I think, by emphasising that certain firms should receive major contracts and then allowing them to draw together other firms, whether by sub-contract or sonic other sort of association. But I do not feel that it would be wise to abrogate our responsibility in some measure—if I may so put it—by having an inquiry. This is a matter which I admit we discuss in a non-Party way. It is a matter in which those who are concerned have a responsibility somewhere. Whether it be B.O.A.C., B.E.A., Transport Command or the Ministry of Supply, they have a big responsibility of one sort or another.
I have no doubt that, whatever is done, they will be criticised. We may be accused of showing lack of imagination in Government Departments, but it must be borne in mini that imagination is very often shown by Government Departments by spending large sums of Government money. If we did that we should be accused of being spendthrifts. On the other hand, if we took up every good idea brought to our attention we should not have enough money to enable anyone ever to bring a project to maturity. It is not true that there are "buckets and buckets" of money available. If we try to concentrate on a few designs, and to bring them on with the fullest support we can, we shall no doubt be accused of interfering too much in the industry and of being dictatorial and selective. But that is the policy which we intend to pursue. The Minister believes—and I
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feel certain that he is right—that that is the course most likely to bring forward the most suitable aircraft. We have a small industry and we are facing a giant competitor in the United States of America. That competitor's salesmanship, I would remind your Lordships, makes a very considerable impression.
Frankly, I believe that we are in a stronger position than we have been in at any time in the last ten years. I think it is fair to say that we have the best medium-range aircraft, and it may well be that next year we shall have the best long-range aircraft. I do not say that that is enough, but I think there is a real chance that by the time the big American jet aircraft get going we may well have something which can adequately compete with them. Do not forget that the advertisements for these airplanes relate to a period five years hence—which is a long way away. I do not wish, in view of what has been said in the debate, to give the slightest idea of complacency on the part of the Government. I merely say that we will consider most carefully what has been said. I have tried to make the situation seem less depressing than it has been painted by Lord Brabazon of Tara and other speakers. I would emphasise that we are most grateful to noble Lords for giving us their views on this complex subject, to which, I must say frankly, there is no simple organisational answer.
5.34 p.m.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords. I must first thank those noble Lords who have followed me in this debate. A debate on this sort of subject brings to mind what Mark Twain said about Coney Island—"If you like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing you like." So it is with a debate of this nature. Either you like it, or you do not. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, asked me whether I was in favour of some form of contracting by the Ministry of Supply whereby a firm received a reward if they were good and suffered a penalty if they were bad. That seems to me to be a first-class idea, but we must remember that in the case of the three machines of which I have been speaking, two never had proper engines and the last one did not fly. So how that matter would be adjusted from the point of view of contract it is difficult

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to imagine. Just one word about Transport Command. It is true, of course, that if Transport Command is used in conjunction with civil aviation that is, in a way, giving a concealed subsidy. But, as I have said, it works extremely well in America, and I cannot see why it should not do the same here. Transport Command is not always busy running troops round the world. There are periods of calm in which they could be usefully employed developing these new types. But that is a subject which might he considered as a separate debate.
The noble Earl who replied on behalf of the Government said that I had overstated my case in saying that we should become a second-class operating nation. The fact remains, does it not, that in planning for big machines it is a nine-year proposition. We are anticipating a good time of successful operation with the Britannia, but what is to happen after that? The point I am putting to the Government is this: if you are going to be successful after that you have to do something about it now; but you are doing nothing about it now. The noble Earl has suggested that the Government attach considerable weight to the question of whether B.O.A.C. will ask for a machine. I can assure him that B.O.A.C. is an ad hoc organisation that takes opportunities only as they occur and does not go in for long-term planning. It is because I am afraid of that, because I am afraid that they will not ask for a machine, and that the Government will not make a machine that will hold its own in the future, that I leave this debate, as I have left many others, feeling very dissatisfied. But I should not like to divide the House, and so I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

LONDON AIRPORT COMMUNICATIONS
5.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT THURSO VISCOUNT THURSO rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have yet decided on the best method of improving communications between the centre of London and the airport at Heathrow, either by means of mono-rail or by the construction of a new branch line between the airport and one of the London stations; and when the work is expected to begin. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, my only source of consolation as I rise this afternoon is my confidence in the indulgence which it is the custom of your Lordships to extend to those who address the House for the first time. In the year of the Coronation of our Gracious Queen, it was a constant theme of public speeches and newspaper articles that we were entering a second Elizabethan Age. In the first Elizabethan Age our national leaders foresaw, and events have proved, that our destiny lay upon the Seven Seas. In the second Elizabethan Age, those of your Lordships who have contributed to the important and searchingly critical debate to which we have just been listening have shown us that we shall be able to fulfil our destiny only if we are strong in air defence and if we win for our country a leading place in the rapidly growing sphere of air commerce, both for passengers and for freight.
Our Mercantile Marine has been served by great seaports—London, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow and many others. There is room indeed for well-equipped airports, but for a long time to come London, with its satellites, will remain, as it is now, the principal centre of international air communications, both for this country and, I believe, if we are wisely led, for Europe as a whole. So to-day I cast myself for the rÔle of the Derby dog, cantering along behind the important debate to which we have been listening, in order to draw attention to one of the deficiencies of London Airport, a deficiency which has been publicly criticised by its principal users.
I shall not attempt to detain your Lordships to-day by discussing the failure of successive Governments—though I think it a possibly dangerous failure, and certainly one which is hampering the operations of the airport—to provide a fog-

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dispersal apparatus, such as was used by Bomber Command during the war. Nor shall I discuss the failure to provide a free customs area at London Airport, although London Airport is now losing traffic to Amsterdam and Frankfurt, where such free trans-shipment areas have been established. The most obvious and glaring deficiency at London Airport, and the one most loudly and constantly lamented by its users, is the inadequacy of communications with central London. Travellers fly into London over the Atlantic Ocean and across the Continent of Europe and debouch on to a road which is congested and ill-lit.
It was for these reasons that I ventured to put down a Question to Her Majesty's Government a year ago. I asked whether the rail development plan, of which we had then just been told, included provision for the improvement of the communications of London and other principal airports and whether they were considering the use of the mono-rail for this purpose. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend your Lordships' House on the day the Question was called and my noble friend Lord Rea was good enough to ask it for me. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, replied on March 1 that Her Majesty's Government had had this matter under constant review and that they would be glad to entertain proposals of a practical character. The noble Earl threw a douche of cold water over the mono-rail, and referred optimistically to the Cromwell Road extension. But that extension will serve not only London Airport, but also the whole of the private car and lorry traffic between London and die West Country; and the increase in that traffic will rapidly choke the new artery between London Airport and the city.
On July 13, having learned that the practical proposals which the noble Earl had requested had been submitted to Her Majesty's Government, I raised the question afresh. I found that the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, was still standing with his feet firmly on the Cromwell Road extension, but wish one eye cocked at the memorandum which had been presented to him from British European Airways. I received no encouragement from him on July 13, and accordingly, on November 30, I tried again. This time the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, assured the House that the possibility of providing a rail link
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between London Airport and one of the London stations had been the subject of considerable discussion in the Department, that the proposals of the British Transport Commission and of British European Airways were being studied in detail, but that he could not encourage me to hope that he would be able to report progress before Christmas. So I thought it better to leave it for a little time. I hope the noble Lord will now agree that we have left it long enough.
Meanwhile, Mr. Masefield, the former chief executive of British European Airways, has published some calculations about the effect of the construction of a mono-rail. The traveller would be conducted from London Airport to the centre of London in five minutes, compared with something like thirty to forty minutes under present conditions and even longer w hen the conditions are unfavourable to motor traflic. The journey from London to Glasgow by Viscount would be reduced by 1· to 2 hours if there were a mono-rail. When pressed on this suggestion, not only by me but also by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and others, noble Lords representing the Government have suggested that the mono-rail is not a practical method and that in America they have dismantled sore of the mono-rails. That is not the view which is now taken in Germany, for on December 23 in Cologne a plan for the construction of a mono-rail from Cologne to Opladen was approved by the Cologne City Council. It is now just on a year ago since the noble Earl, Lord. Selkirk, told your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government had had this matter under constant review. Meanwhile, the Germans in Cologne have acted.
Whatever the Government's decision may be, no one will say that they have rushed it. No one will say that they have left any stone unturned or any expert unconsulted. For my own part, I will cheerfully accept whatever the noble Lord may offer me this afternoon, whether it be a rail link or a mono-rail, but I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be able to announce a decision to-day, or at least tell the House what they propose to do to improve these deplorable communications. Perhaps the noble Lord would also be kind enough to add, as I put at the end of my Question, when the work will begin.
5.48 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I would not quarrel with any statement of fact that the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, has made. So far as I am aware, his facts are perfectly correct, though I am awaiting corroboration of the Cologne monorail scheme. Meanwhile, I will tell him what the present position is. We are well aware of this difficulty, which occurs not only in London but in every major city in the world. The usual method of reaching an airport is by road. I believe that Moscow and Brussels are the only exceptions, where a rail link is provided. But for London we are thinking beyond the road: for the alternative airport of Gatwick the main approach will be by rail and, as the noble Viscount knows, schemes for rail access to London Airport itself have been studied and are being studied at the moment.
The noble Viscount twice asked Questions on this subject last year. In each case I had to reply that in the first instance we relied on the Cromwell Road extension as providing a considerable relief for the next few years. I did say, however, that we were fully aware that it could be argued that, further ahead, something more than road transport would be required. One development which provides relief straight away is the establishment of the new B.E.A. terminal in the Cromwell Road curve. Admittedly that is some distance from the centre of London and from Waterloo, but it is not necessarily farther away from the residences and hotels of travellers, and it is expected to reduce the ordinary road journey from an hour, which is the approximate time taken from Waterloo, to some thirty-five minutes. That is a fairly substantial reduction. If we were able to do it in thirty-five minutes at the moment, London Airport would compare not at all unfavourably with most of the other airports in the world.
What about the future? First of all, we have eliminated certain suggestions or projects. There is, first, the suggestion of helicopters which is sometimes put forward. We think that that would be much too expensive and would create great problems of air access. Then there is the extension of the existing underground railway, which would be a feasible proposition, but would bring us to the point that the underground railway exists to run stopping trains, and unless one carried out
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some major engineering works any trains on such an extension would have to continue to be stopping trains to the centre of London. That would not be much good, because it takes quite a long time. Therefore that suggestion has been ruled out. Then there was the possibility of the rail link-up with the Great Western Railway into Paddington. That was ruled out, I believe, on the score that it would cost more than the Southern link.
In the middle of September there was an inter-departmental committee of the operators, the British Transport Commission and the Ministry, appointed to study possible rail routes to the airport. Its first job is to find an alignment, and then to have an engineering survey carried out; and meanwhile it can go on making what one might call statistical inquiries about potential passengers, operating costs, and so on, and deficit, if any—I would call the attention of the noble Viscount to the word "deficit." When this committee have finished their task it is then for the parties concerned—that is to say, the operators, the British Transport Commission and the Minister—to decide whether to sponsor the scheme or not, in order to get it inserted in some capital programme; and if so, how the loss—again I dwell on the word "loss"—is to be met. The committee have worked out what seems to be a reasonably good alignment by Whitton Junction, Barnes and Clapham. There are certain alternatives in the middle of that, but those have not yet been evaluated. That link could lead ultimately either to Victoria or Waterloo, whichever is convenient, but it would probably go to Victoria, because I understand that B.E.A.'s tenancy of their terminal at Waterloo ends in 1957. There is quite a good deal of engineering involved in this link; tunnelling under the airfield itself; a possible doubling of quite a fair section of the track; and even a possibility of having to add an extra line on the bridge over the river into Victoria. This means that it is a somewhat extensive undertaking, but it does seem to be the best rail link available.
In addition to this orthodox study, the International Mono-rail Company have put forward a project for a mono-rail starting at the new B.E.A. Cromwell Road terminal and running down the Cromwell Road and Bath Road, suspended on great pylons over these roads

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down to the Airport. Incidentally, I may say here that I understand the sponsors reckon a journey time of eighteen minutes at a maximum speed of 50 m.p.h. So that if the noble Viscount's five minutes is correct, and for the centre of London we take the Cromwell Road curve, I leave him to do the precise arithmetic, but it would require a speed of something in the neighbourhood of 150 m.p.h., and I do not think the Member of Parliament for the people en route would have a very light post-bag on that subject.
This particular scheme involves a unique adaptation of an almost unique principle. I understand that in this particular patent no mono-rail has ever been constructed. It involves engineering problems of great magnitude, and it must have an unknown impact on the life of the community through which it would run, particularly if the astronomical speeds which the noble Viscount proposes were to be considered practicable. And., of course, questions of safety would arise, on which the railway inspecting officers would have a lot to say. My information is that this type of project is still at the drawing-board stage, and even a large-scale model has not yet been erected. It would therefore be a bold decision indeed by Her Majesty's Government, not only to pin all their hopes for ready access to the Airport on so untried a scheme, but to submit many thousands of Londoners to be the preliminary guinea pigs.
Another study is proceeding on the question of traffic congestion on, around and near the Airport. It is possible that the people who are conducting that inquiry may interpret their terms of reference rather widely and may make recommendations which would have effect on traffic further back into the middle of London. So one can say that studies are being made on mare than one front, but it is all for the long term. For the short term, we regard the Cromwell Road extension improvement, which is due to be completed during the year 1959, and which I am informed should reduce the journey time to thirty-five minutes, as a reasonable contribution.
LORD GIFFORD: May I ask whether that time includes the fly-over at Hammersmith Broadway? If it does not, I think it is very optimistic.
LORD HAWKE: I understand that it does not include the fly-over at Hammersmith Broadway, so that with the fly-over one should get something better. When my right honourable friend gets reports from the Transport Commission and the Air Corporations he will have to satisfy himself on what he would like to see clone, but I am afraid it is quite impossible at this moment to guess whether it will be done. Large sums of money are involved, and large quantities of steel. If the decision had to be taken at this moment, I think there would be little doubt that it could not be a favourable one, in view of the financial situation and the steel situation. There are many other much more urgent traffic projects which need to be carried through—for instance, the C tube scheme. If the noble Viscount were to send a reliable observer to Oxford Circus station between the hours of four and half-past five, he would be horrified at what he saw. Hundreds of thousands of Londoners are travelling under the most uncomfortable and tiring conditions, all due to lack of capital expenditure—to say nothing of the trunk roads, the Great North Road, and so on. All these would have to compete with this scheme. I appreciate that the noble Viscount has a fear that the situation may get progressively worse. If it does, there are other works besides rail works which can he called into aid. But in the present state of our finances and the transport problems of this country, it would be very difficult for any Government to justify spending something like £ 10 million of public money on reducing by a further few minutes the time of the air travellers from London Airport. I apologise to the noble Viscount for not having been able to give him a softer and smoother Answer, but I believe that I have given him a realistic one.
6.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the full and courteous answer which he has given me this afternoon. I am glad to hear that so much work and study has been going on, of which hitherto we have not heard very much. At the same time, I trust that further consideration will be given to the two major proposals for preventing what is already a bad, and will become a deteriorating, situation at London Airport—the mono-rail and the

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link with Victoria or Waterloo. For the rest, I hope that the ameliorative proposals of which he has told us will be successful. I was not quite sure about the economy in time of this new terminal at Cromwell Road. It seems that it will cut down the time to thirty-five minutes, but only for those who live near Cromwell Road. Of course, the importance of London Airport from the point of view of the economy of the country is the facility it affords for the transaction of business, and those travellers will be going to and from the City of London. Perhaps the noble Lord will permit me on some future occasion to revert to this matter to ask him how things are going.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I have so often seen the noble Viscount sitting in his place that it never occurred to me that it was his maiden speech we have heard. I offer him belated congratulations for an excellent speech. I will not go further, because I may tell him that he was quite out of order in speaking a second time, and so am I.

CROSBY CORPORATION BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at six minutes past six o'clock.