DR. Addison's Statement.

Part of Orders of the Day — Supply. — [14TH Allotted Day.] – in the House of Commons at on 30 June 1919.

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Major NEWMAN:

The last answer of the right hon. Gentleman was to the following effect: The Housing Acts do not contain any definition of a person of the working classes which is of general application. That leaves the matter in an unsatisfactory state. But I would impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that there really is an urgent need for housing for the middle classes as well as the working classes—perhaps greater! After all, though this matter, according to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary, has been left to the local authorities themselves to decide, certain pressure can be brought to bear by the Local Government Board or the Health Ministry—whichever it is—on the local authorities to tell them that a number of houses are to be built for middle-class men as well as for men of the working classes, and that in their scheme they have to take into consideration the need of all classes of the community because this is a national housing scheme.

I do not often agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench (Sir D. Maclean), but I do say I think it is a very great pity that private enterprise in building has been discouraged. The hon. Member for Sheffield (Sir T. Walters) spoke as a great authority. Ho went on to tell us that, as a matter of fact, there was nothing against the private builder being able to go ahead and build houses at once. I wish that was true. But a little while ago the Local Government Board sent to local authorities some memoranda. I read these very carefully, and came to the conclusion that if building was not going to be done for a local authority by a builder that particular builder had little or no chance of getting any building material. If any other Member of this Committee has studied these memoranda, as I have done, I imagine he will come to the same conclusion: that is, that the Local Government Board, or the Government, or the Ministry of Supply—whichever the official Department may be—has collared all the building materials at present—perhaps quite rightly—and that they are going to deal them out to the various local authorities as they get their schemes ready, and that at the present time the private builder has little or no chance at all if he wants to start off on his own. It is a poor outlook for the middle-class man who has to come down to a very small house, which may be well-built and fairly comfort able, but the accommodation of five rooms or so is small. But it is the best he has to hope for a few years, for he cannot, as he could before the War, hope to get a private builder to put up a house for him.

There is one other suggestion I should like to make to the President of the Local Government Board. There are in London a great number of empty houses at the present time—largely in Kensington. These are too large for those who had them before the War, and they will possibly never be inhabited again as they were then ! Why not turn these large houses into flats straight away? The right hon. Gentleman told me the other day that the local authorities had power to do this on their own. They may have power—