Ministry of Health.

Part of Orders of the Day — Supply [17TH Allotted Day]. – in the House of Commons at on 15 July 1920.

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Photo of Mr Donald Maclean Mr Donald Maclean , Peebles and Southern

I have received my information from those who have practical knowledge, and to say now that materials have been free for anybody to use, as regards building materials during the past eighteen months, seems to me to be flying in the face of what I hear from men who are in the middle of the business. I know we have to make allowance for the enormous financing difficulty, which is no doubt very serious, but I do not think I am far out when I say that to provide 900,000 houses which are needed now you want very little short of £1,000,000,000.

There is an added factor of real seriousness that the arrears are increasing. We heard a statement to-day with regard to the proposed increase of railway fares. You have to consider in this matter the hundreds and thousands of people, employed in London, who pour in and out every day for distances of thirty or forty miles. You are going to double the cost of a third-class season ticket to Southend. A season ticket which cost £15 is going to cost £30, and this will cause hundreds and thousands of people, who now travel out of London, to enter into this awful competition for houses in London. The problem of the holidays, although serious, is trifling compared with these things. With the increase of population going on there is no emigration, as there used to be, to relieve congestion, because you cannot get ships to take the people, and all the while this housing problem is daily increasing in urgency and in arrears from all those evil causes to which I have referred. We can all sympathise with any Minister who is charged with this terrible responsibility, and I confess that I do not see a way out of it.

It is easy to criticise and say that during the past eighteen months this and that might have been done, and we are entitled to say it. The question is, What are you going to do now? Money is extraordinarily difficult to get. I happen to know, from my own personal experience in business, that this difficulty is increasing. I suggest that you should get rid of as much officialism as you can. I know it is very difficult to do it. Once you have got these things inside a public Department, the tendency is to hold on to everything. I think my right hon. Friend is as conscious of that as anybody, but you will never solve this problem by officialism. I hope my hon. Friends of the Labour party will not think that I am hitting at their views.