Mr Wallace Lawler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, although he speaks about local authorities now being able to increase the proportion of 100 per cent. advances that they make, in many cases local authorities do not make even one-fifth of their advances of 100 per cent. loans, particularly in connection with the purchase of older property? Will he do something to ease the difficulties of many people...
Mr Wallace Lawler: I, too, take a somewhat cautious approach to the terms of the Regulations. I am not a civil engineer and I look at the Regulations through the eyes of a layman and as a member of a leading housing committee—one of many who will have to see that the additional requirements are met if the Regulations are passed and who will have to face up to any additional financial obligations which may be...
Mr Wallace Lawler: Is the hon. Member suggesting that the House might meet this expense by additional Government subsidy, rather than that local authorities should carry it on housing accounts?
Mr Wallace Lawler: While I do not necessarily disagree with the hon. Gentleman's recent references to medical officers of health, does he see a situation arising where a local authority might be paying a very high salary to its director of social services, and be obliged still to pay an even higher salary to its medical officer of health who will have greatly diminished powers?
Mr Wallace Lawler: I join in the welcome given to the invaluable Seebohm Report and to most aspects of this Bill. In opening the debate, the Secretary of State said that one of the main purposes of the Bill was to organise services to deal with the family as a whole. The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) has anticipated what I want to say about the importance of the establishment within the...
Mr Wallace Lawler: While it is agreed that this advice has been given and has been frequently repeated, is the hon. Lady aware that it has been just as frequently disregarded? Why does she think that it will not continue to be disregarded in future?
Mr Wallace Lawler: The figure is 120,000.
Mr Wallace Lawler: Figures and statistics, and we have had plenty of them in the debate to date, can be very interesting, and they can be put rhetorically about certain aspects of construction, and can be compelling, but I am much more concerned about, and want to direct what I have to say to, the general concern of people, the ratepayers, who have to pay the very high costs of constructing public buildings...
Mr Wallace Lawler: I accept what the Parliamentary Secretary says, that not a very high priority has been given, and I want that position to continue. I shall read HANSARD, and I shall read that he suggested that the not quite so high priority will begin to lift in favour of more offices and shops.
Mr Wallace Lawler: There is a way to control this which has been employed in the Midlands, and in the local authority with which I have some association. Reference has been made to bricks and also to British Standard Time. It is not without interest to note the recent edict from one leading brickyard that transport drivers need not apply until after 10 a.m. because of the detrimental effect of British Standard...
Mr Wallace Lawler: I would rather calculate the cost of a transport vehicle to any section of the building construction industry for one week. This is what builders and those operating transport fleets have to face. I would assess it at 12½ per cent., and this is in an industry which has already had nine increases during the last 15 months. That is a direct answer to the question by the hon. Gentleman, and I...
Mr Wallace Lawler: I shall not seek to comment on the remarks which have been made about the drop in housebuilding or the figures of starts. The public is not so much interested in the exchange of statistics between the various sides of the House, but is looking for constructive proposals to increase home building and to lower costs. The Minister has said, obviously in defence of the lamentable fall in...
Mr Wallace Lawler: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has raised this point. What I said in that debate, and have since made perfectly clear, is that there are certain types of houses where we could lessen a little the existing standards—for example, homes occupied by one person which have two inside toilets.
Mr Wallace Lawler: I have already replied to the point, and I will continue with what I was saying. A tremendous total of £620 million per annum is being poured from the Exchequer into the various forms of housing subsidies—£340 million to the public sector, including supplementary benefit payments towards rents, £220 million to owner-occupiers, including supplementary benefit payments of some £20...
Mr Wallace Lawler: I am quite aware of that. It does not invalidate the point that I shall go on to make, and I would ask the hon. Gentleman to pay attention to what I am going to say. Privately-rented tenancies continue to drop year by year. Between 1967 and 1968 alone, the reduction, taking the combined total of controlled and unfurnished tenancies, was in the region of 230,000. This drop is significant and...
Mr Wallace Lawler: The hon. Gentleman should not misrepresent me. I did not reject it, but said that we, the Liberals, would approach such a suggestion with caution.
Mr Wallace Lawler: The answer is simple. We believe that this is a matter which should be discussed by an all-party committee. Hence our proposal for the establishment of such a committee.
Mr Wallace Lawler: It is not.
Mr Wallace Lawler: We expect and we get high standards generally from our police. However militant the demonstration—whether one against the Springboks' tour or a revolt by students—the police are expected to be there safeguarding the right to demonstrate within the framework of law and order, and sometimes with risk to life and limb. One spectacle which the House and the country would not like to see would...
Mr Wallace Lawler: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that an official of a responsible body representing 100,000 policemen is exaggerating the position and asking for an assurance that ought not to be and will not be given by the Home Office?
