At Alhambra House, the Westminster City Council offices; the local authority provide this information, which I take it the Minister of Works is courageous enough to supply to them. Apparently the public may inspect this, but, unfortunately, the public appear not to have done so. I fear many hon. Members of this House would be startled at the figures revealed in this schedule. I could take hon. Members through a list of luxury hotels in London and show the work done there. The Piccadilly Hotel spent £2,734 to clean and decorate the exterior. The Ritz spent £2,150 for the same purpose—all with Ministry of Works licences—and to repair and decorate what must surely be an interesting spectacle known as the Grand Gallery—which I personally have never seen—they spent £3,633. The Criterion Restaurant was much more modest and asked for a licence for only £900 for exterior decoration which, with a singularly disingenuous euphemism, the Minister calls "Renovating the front elevation," or dolling up the front as it might more popularly be termed.

I can give other items. For example, the Park Lane Hotel was apparently distressed because its customers had to suffer from fuel rationing because of the old-fashioned coal-burning method of providing central heating, so they ordered a brand new one burning dollar-costing oil: a little matter of £3,971. While on the job, they also repaired the ballroom for £396. The Criterion Restaurant, on the other hand, apparently suffered from some lack of cold, and put in a nice new cold room for £1,500, again with the Minister's permission. While on the job, they got licences for £3,000 or £4,000 to put in new concrete floors and, a particularly choice item, £1,000 to put their staircase in order. One would infer that for some years past the Criterion's customers have gone trembling up the dilapidated staircase which urgently needed £1,000 spent on it to put it in order.

It may be said—and I understand the argument—that, after all, London is the heart of the Empire, and we do not want to look shabby when trying to attract tourists. Apart from the fact that a casual glance at the hotel registers of the places I have mentioned shows that most of the tourists are from Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and similar points in this country, I do not want the Minister to be misled by the fact that he often sees left-hand drive 1947 American cars outside: The spate of generosity on the part of newly found relatives in the United States has impressed many of their unfortunate and austerity limited friends in the United Kingdom. We all know that tourists come, and they know exactly the conditions in this country.

The case made out for restoring London's finery, or making it look more attractive, would be more convincing if it were not for the fact that about half a mile away from these premises—in which every extravagance is indulged on this pretext, in Tom Paine's words, Lament the plumage but forget the dying bird. —there are people living in abominable and disgraceful housing conditions, with overcrowding and dampness, conditions which have long disgraced our living standards in London and elsewhere; there is a desperate need for elementary but urgent repairs, yet they cannot get them done because of lack of labour and materials. Therefore, I cannot see the force of the argument in favour of spending thousands of pounds in this way on our West End hotels.

There is another item which the House might find instructive. Lansdowne House in Berkeley Square received a licence because apparently the corner of it was damaged. They were granted a licence for £5,900 to repair that little corner which had been damaged. Was that licence granted to some new export industry which had been driven into the heart of fashionable London? Was it granted to some urgent Government administrative office? Was it granted to somebody who was planning a new drive for agriculture? No, Sir. It was granted to a Mayfair florist's shop: a sum of £5,900. I venture to think that when that licence arrived it was not only the nightingales who sang in Berkeley Square.

Before I pass from Westminster, I should be failing in my duty if I did not raise a matter which will probably divide opinion on both sides of the House, namely, the new House of Commons which is being built. We manage very well in this Chamber; and apparently the people in another place manage very adequately in their somewhat smaller surroundings. It is obviously wrong that we should be spending enormous sums on the House of Commons, when the expenditure could be easily postponed. One is very mindful of the dignity of the House of Commons, but I do not think it adds to the dignity of the House, or of its Members, when people see that vast sums are being spent on work which could easily be deferred. I do not want to weary the House by going into details of licences granted to clubs, which range from £800 to £8,000. It is obvious that of this £4 million only about 2 per cent. could be said to be urgent work which could not be postponed, or work which would help this country in its present economic position.

Regretfully, I now turn to my home town, which I have the honour to represent, where I find the position is no better. The Ministry are granting licences there at the rate of £30 million a year. If the majority of these licences are for really essential work, I and all the other Members for that area have been blissfully unaware of it. We have been made amply aware of the widespread luxury building contained in this vast sum. In the streets, large cradles can be seen going up at hotels for repainting and building. On the other hand, we have deputations from people in the building industry complaining that men have been paid off for two or three days because they are waiting for paint for urgent housing purposes. There is one small restaurant in Manchester which has secured a licence of £8,000 to renovate lavatories. These must be a sight to inspire the most depressed members of the Manchester community. Convenience, apparently, has been raised to a very high level of art. Great offices which could easily wait are being built at the Royal Exchange, while at the same time Manchester Corporation are cutting their housing programme to one-third, and the people are suffering great hardship due to the housing shortage. What is also important is the difficulty of getting repairs to dilapidated houses. This work could be done if there was not this drain on materials and labour in the manner I have suggested.