—because there is an idea that the railway may stop using the line, even for sending up a truck, owing to the cost of the maintenance of the sleepers. There is also some idea that in time there may be a change of ownership of the railways, and if that comes about I do not know whether the new owners will be particularly justified in such uneconomic expense as that entailed in keeping this line in condition fit even to send up a truck.

What I maintain is needed is a road to the nearest high road, which is a quarter of a mile away. I realise that it is a difficult job in that it is a very steep hill and the road might be one in four, or one in five, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman—perhaps he is not accustomed to our Yorkshire hills—that that is a very frequent circumstance. In fact, the approach to each of the three nearest villages is up a hill of one in four or one in three, so there is nothing very unusual or difficult there. If a road was made to the highway, the people would have access to the nearest village of Grosmont, one and a half miles away, not altogether a satisfactory access, as it means going through a ford which is blocked for part of a year. But there is another village two miles away, with schools and a railway station, and I think two churches, and all sorts of facilities, which would then he available for them.

The cost of this road is, I believe, something under £1,000. The agent to the estate has given me that figure and a qualified surveyor whom I consulted thought it could be done for about £750. I expect the Minister may have in mind something more expensive, but I would press on him that public authorities and Government Departments are sometimes more ambitious than is really necessary. We only want a single track road capable of taking a vehicle of some sort. The local authorities say they cannot make this road. The owner cannot do it because he says it would be more than he can afford. When we take into account that these houses are let at only 3s. 6d. or 4s. a week rent, we can see that by the time he has paid the maintenance charges there is not very much to spare, and moreover these houses will probably be demolished in a few years time because they are so very much out of the way. It would therefore be very uneconomic for the owner to spend money on this road, but he is prepared to give the land and he is also prepared to provide the stones.

When I raised the matter in correspondence with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in the unfortunate absence through illness of the Minister, a letter I received in reply said: … if the council themselves proposed to carry out the work it might well be that with the many urgent calls on labour and material at the present time they could not be given high enough priority to enable the project to proceed. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that same county council has lately received authority to spend ten or twenty times the amount involved in widening a main road. That may be the admirable thing to do and I have no criticism of it at all, but I suggest that in the present state of acute housing shortage it is more important to make houses tenable than it is to provide roads for cars to go at still greater speed.

I suggest that this is really a housing problem. I know the Minister will agree that he has certainly not got all the houses he would like to see and perhaps I might add that we have not got all the houses we were led to expect, but I do not on this occasion want to recriminate. I want to conciliate because I want to get something out of the right hon. Gentleman. If other houses were available I would certainly not raise this matter, but I suggest that if those people did not continue to live in those conditions they would be homeless and therefore it is good business at the present time to spend the equivalent of about £30 a house on making these houses habitable. Presumably in a few years time it will be easy to replace them. Houses today are worth much more than they will be when we have the men and materials available. Therefore, it is surely worth improving the conditions to make these houses habitable, which I maintain, they are not at the present time. Moreover, if the railway is to be maintained, even under present conditions, that will be a considerable cost to the State when they own it as against the cost on making this road.

I suggest that this is not a case for legal niceties, for what is or is not legal, but a question of urgency to get round a difficult matter. May I express to the right hon. Gentleman what my hopes are in the matter? I hope he will give the local authorities the power to make this road, and that he will make a grant towards the cost of it so as to encourage them to carry it out. I would like to make it quite clear that I am not asking for anything which will improve the value of the land for the owner, because he, I know, will not only give the land and provide the stone but he would, I am sure, give an undertaking that the rents would not be raised above the present level of 3s. 6d. or 4s.

This is a very small matter, but I realise that small matters arc sometimes difficult. Surely, however, the right hon. Gentleman, with his great reputation for vigour and improvisation, will not be daunted by a difficulty of that sort? I have known him for a long time. It may be that his heart is in the wrong place, I often think it is, but it is a large heart and, if I may say so in the best sense of the word, a soft heart. I cannot believe that an appeal to him would be in vain where it is a question of real suffering and hardship to be avoided by energy and initiative on his part.