§ Mr. Kirbyasked the Minister of Health how many families in Liverpool still need housing accommodation due to damage to their homes by enemy action; what steps will be taken in the near future to provide proper housing accommodation for them; how many families in the city have been specially recommended by the medical officer of health for rehousing due to the presence of tuberculosis in the family; and what steps are being taken to provide suitable accommodation for them?
§ Miss HorsbrughFour thousand, six hundred and forty families whose homes have been damaged or destroyed are at present living in billets, lodgings or part houses. In view of the large number of such families priority for the re-housing of other cases had to be discontinued in1804W August, 1940. Since then individual cases of tuberculosis, mostly from among homeless families already recommended, have been considered and during the past three months nine tuberculosis families have been accommodated, leaving six to be dealt with. Extended first-aid repairs have been carried out to more than 70,000 houses and further work is being undertaken in so far as labour and materials can be made available for the purpose. Owing to the urgent demands of the present strategic building programme new house building, which is the crux of the matter, cannot yet be resumed, but as my right hon. Friend stated recently in the House, the possibility of labour and materials being made available for the extended repair of empty houses in order to bring them back into use is being examined, and my right hon. Friend is doing all he can to ensure that new house building can be resumed immediately conditions permit.