§ Mr. Costainasked the Minister of Public Building and Works if he will make a statement on the work of his research and development department in the last nine months.
§ Mr. C. PannellDuring the past nine months my Directorate General of Research and Development has carried out a comprehensive review of research and development work related to the building and civil engineering industries in this country. It has commissioned from universities a number of research projects relevant to the construction industry and is actively studying proposals for increasing the resources available for building research and the dissemination of technical information in the industry. In the field of development two large barracks projects built by industrialised132W methods have been completed. Contracts have been let for a further barracks project and for over 2,000 married quarters, one of the biggest housing contracts ever placed in this country. Design work has started on a £1 million pre-production programme for the Directorate General's own steel-framed system, Nenk. Further progress has been made with dimensional co-ordination and preliminary work has been put in hand on the change to the metric system.
As I announced to the House on 22nd July, national Building Regulations for England and Wales (excluding inner London) have been made and published and I expect to publish a technical Explanatory Memorandum early next year.
The Directorate-General has continued its work on winter building and has just issued a film on techniques suitable for smaller builders. It administers a Grantin-Aid to the National Building Agency which is mainly expended on the services that the Agency gives to local housing authorities in conjunction with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to help them in using industrialised building methods. It has provided support for the Committee on Agrément, whose Report was recently published, has been concerned with the preparation and organisation of exhibitions, lectures, films and other publicity material, and has issued certain publications, notably handbooks on "Preparing to Build" and "Selective Tendering for Local Authorities". It has continued to collect, analyse and disseminate statistical information and to contribute advice on the construction industries in connection with the Government's work on economic planning.
My Ministry is represented on the Economic Development Committees for the Civil Engineering and Building Industries by members of the Directorate-General, which works closely with these bodies.