Orders of the Day — GLASGOW CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 April 1956.

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Photo of Mr William Reid Mr William Reid , Glasgow Provan 12:00, 24 April 1956

I rise to support the Bill. Owing to the lateness of the hour and because of the request of the hon. Members who are to conclude the debate, I shall speak for not more than a few minutes, but there are some statements which must be answered. The first statement with which I wish to deal was made by the hon. Member for Cathcart (Mr. J. Henderson) who, to show how fair the Deacon Convener and the Dean of Guild were, said that during his membership of Glasgow Town Council twenty years ago both of those men voted with the Labour Party in favour of generating electricity at Pinkstone.

He was most unfortunate in using that illustration, because I then happened to be chairman of the Transport Committee. There was no such proposal twenty years ago to generate electricity at Pinkstone. In fact, electricity has been generated at Pinkstone since 1898, fifty-eight years ago, so that I am afraid that in the twenty years during which the hon. Member was a member of the town council he must have got mixed up with his dates. I happen to have been a member for thirty years, both before the hon. Member entered the council and after he had left it.

The next point with which I want to deal, and that very briefly, was made by the hon. Member for Pollok (Mr. George). He said that if we wanted to know something about the good work done by the Deacon Convener and the Dean of Guild, we had only to look at the housing conditions of Glasgow. I ask any hon. Member to pay a visit to Glasgow and to look around at their handiwork.

Look at housing conditions in Glasgow. They are a disgrace to civilisation. Glasgow is the worst housed city in the United Kingdom, and if housing conditions in Glasgow, according to the hon. Member for Pollok, are to be taken as a criterion of the good work done by the Dean of Guild, then the sooner the whole thing is wiped out of existence the better.

As the hon. Member for Maryhill Hannan) and the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) said, in 1949, a lord provost was foisted on the Glasgow Corporation against the will and votes of the elected representatives. As has already been said, one representative had to be brought back from France in order to bolster up a minority vote to put in the civic chair someone who was not wanted by the elected representatives. The feeling of disgust in Glasgow was so great that three years later the city saw to it that a mistake like that should never happen again; the people of Glasgow increased the Labour Party's membership to such an extent that on the next occasion a Labour representative was elected as lord provost of the city.

I have no desire to detain the House any longer. I sincerely trust that every fair-minded Member of this House will support the Bill promoted by the City of Glasgow, which is a fair Bill, having the support of the vast majority of Glasgow's citizens.