Orders of the Day — Local Authority Housing

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 June 1959.

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Photo of Mr Jack Browne Mr Jack Browne , Glasgow Craigton 12:00, 18 June 1959

Perhaps the hon. Member will at least do me the kindness to let me finish my sentence.

As I was saying, there has been no slackening of effort on the part of local authorities, hut, of course, the effort is becoming a little more difficult, and it is being directed into slightly different channels.

First of all, the local authorities, especially in the industrial areas, are tending to concentrate more and more on slum clearance and redevelopment of their central areas, and who would disagree with that? We must make the best use of the sites available. Secondly, they are now tending to concentrate, in order to give a slightly higher density, on multi-storey flats. Multi-storey flats take a long time to design and build as compared with ordinary houses. I do not think any hon. Member opposite really wants us to go on building in the fields and to allow the centres of our towns to decay. In any case, there is now a difficulty about building in the fields because virgin sites are getting smaller and harder to find.

Instead of blaming the Government, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central did, we should realise that the local authorities, who are doing such a wonderful job, have a difficult task to perform. The hon. Member said that the decline in house building is due to high interest rates and low subsidies. There is not a great deal that I can add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Pollok said. We refuse to be put on the defensive about this question.

I listened to the hon. and learned Member for Kettering and others talking about low interest rates. If the Government wish to assist housing, is it not better to come out in the open and give suitable housing subsidies than to upset the whole economy by suggesting preferential interest rates and opening a flood of difficulties? I should have thought that the Labour Party would suggest that we should put up the subsidies rather than have the ridiculous idea of taking one sector out of the economy and saying that we will give that sector a low interest rate.