§ Sir G. Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that no air-raid shelter, or even blast wall, is allowed to be demolished without the permission of the regional office of the Ministry of Home Security; and, as this procedure involves delay, will he arrange for local authorities to deal direct with the Ministry on some laid-down scale of costs.
§ Sir D. SomervellExpenditure by local authorities on the demolition of air-raid shelters and other structural protection provided by them attract Exchequer assistance, and in addition there rests upon the Department a responsibility to ensure that in the present labour situation the number of men employed on such work does not exceed the allocation made for the purpose. In order to maintain reasonably adequate control over the expenditure of both money and labour, it has been felt necessary to require the prior submission to Regional offices of proposals to undertake this type of work. I will consider the question of prescribing a scale of maximum costs when greater experience has been obtained of the actual cost incurred in representative cases and when improvement in the labour situation permits of the execution of demolition works on a wider scale than is at present possible.