Orders of the Day — New Clause. — (Power to extend the area of a local planning authority.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 9 October 1944.

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Photo of Mr Arthur Molson Mr Arthur Molson , High Peak 12:00, 9 October 1944

I think the Committee will have listened to my right hon. Friend's reply with feelings of profound disappointment. He has introduced a Bill to deal with an emergency and to enable a number of heavily blitzed towns to be replanned, reconstructed and rebuilt. And when these seven heavily blitzed towns ask their representatives to bring a Clause before the Committee and say that in their considered opinion it will not be possible for them to carry out the intention of the Bill unless a Clause of this kind is incorporated in it, surely the Minister should not confine himself to criticisms of the proposals which have been put forward but should rather seek to satisfy the Committee that the Bill will be workable even if the Clause is not incorporated. Nothing that fell upon him indicated to my mind that he had really considered whether it was possible for these towns to be rebuilt if nothing were done to assist them. I was not able to follow the line of my right hon. Friend's reasoning about the assistance that was being given to these authorities if they built outside their own area. He said they received assistance from the Treasury and they would then be the owners of the housing which they would have put outside their own boundaries. But this re-housing of working class population requires a subsidy from the local authority as well as from the Treasury. I cannot, therefore, see how it can be argued that the financial position of these blitzed towns is going to be facilitated. They are obliged to provide alternative accommodation and are going to lose the benefit of the rateable value.