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Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 10 December 1970.

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Photo of Gerald Kaufman Gerald Kaufman , Manchester Ardwick 12:00, 10 December 1970

Government policy will put unprecedented amounts on the rents in the constituency. The Manchester Evening News has estimated that the Government's policy will add nearly £1 a week to rents for my constituents, many thousands of whom live in corporation dwellings, and a spokesman for the corporation has described that estimate as realistic. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman to Manchester at any time to tell that to the people who live in corporation dwellings and whose rent was increased months ago, but not until after the General Election and the municipal election.

The Order will have harmful effects in other respects. My hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood mentioned the necessity of providing amenites for new estates. New estates are being built in my constituency. People complain to me that there are no libraries to service people in the new estates and, worse still, libraries are being closed down in other parts of my constituency where they have been a great boon to old people whom the sheer meanness of the Conservative controlled Manchester Council has deprived. We cannot expect any expansion under the policy which the Order embodies.

Part of the perimeter of my constituency is on the Mancunian Way. It was a great misfortune a little time ago that the child of one of my constituents was killed while playing over the Mancunian Way. At the inquest her father made the point that there were limited play areas available to children in the area. I am in correspondence with the council about this and in this respect the council is actually trying to do something, and some action is being taken. But play areas require money and resources and the Order will not make that kind of provision possible, even though it is so necessary for the children of the people I represent.

This Order tells us about the elimination of unnecessary work. The hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg) in a scathing speech—scathing in terms of the sycophancy with which hon. Members on the other side of the House greet anything which the Government put to this House—spoke about this part of the White Paper. If corporations are being called upon to eliminate tin-necessary work, and heaven knows the Manchester Corporation is not doing anything unnecessary—it is not doing things which are necessary—how on earth can they expand amenities greatly required by constituents? For example, the Manchester Corporation is promoting a Private Bill which will, among other things, compensate people whose domestic amenities are disturbed by the noise from Ringway Airport. I have asked the corporation to consider giving the same compensation to my constituents who live near the freight liner depot in Ardwick and Longsight and whose homes are being made uninhabitable by the freight traffic.

The corporation will not put this into the Bill, it has not got the money. The policy embodied in the Order scarcely makes it possible for the corporation to do anything about it. There is a great debate going on in Manchester about the need for a place where people can make open-air speeches, an extension of democracy. The city council wanted to do something about it, it was actually considering it—it has been considering it ever since April. After passing a resolution in April saying that it was desirable, it decided in November to take no further action because of the expense.

The Chairman of the City Planning Committee said that such a Speakers' Corner would cost half a million pounds, I would be the last to advocate spending that sum on a Speakers' Corner when it could rehouse hundreds of people in my constituency, who badly need housing, However, as the Manchester Evening News said in a leading editorial on 26th November: Such estimates are sometimes to be taken with a grain of salt. They are made because the Corporation are not willing to do it and are looking for an excuse.

This is something which the people of Manchester want very badly, as is shown by my correspondence, but it is highly unlikely that we will get it at half a million pounds or even £500 under the skinflint policy embodied in the Order.

All of these matters are burdens which will be passed on to a Labour-controlled council in Manchester just as similar burdens will be passed on to other Labour-controlled authorities when we gain control of hundreds of seats next May, as we obviously will. In the country as a whole and in Manchester in particular, it will then be for the Labour Party to revive the civic services and civic pride. Our cities must be well run or the social problems inherent in them will worsen. We have the experience of the United States to show us what happens to great cities, especially the inner parts of great cities, when they are neglected and when private affluence is put ahead of dealing thoroughly with this problem. The philosophy behind the policy the Government are putting forward is one of neglecting our large cities and neglecting our urban problems. This is a philosophy which is wrong and the longer the Government continue with it and the policy embodied in the Order the sooner will the country come to realise how wrong it is.