Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I have listened to all the speeches in this Debate and I cannot help being impressed by the tremendous importance of the subject we are discussing. When we consider that the coal industry is the basis of the whole of our industrial activity in this country, on which everything else depends, and which, in the past, has been our biggest export trade, it makes us realise that it is far above the...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I used that word by mistake. May I now say "unpopular"?
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: After hearing the speech of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Key) and the colossal problem in his constituency I feel timid at putting the case of Plymouth, which has not suffered like London although it has suffered very heavily. For that reason I intervene to make two or three points. The first is that Plymouth will have to provide 15,000 houses, which will be required for the...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: This is a very big and grave matter, involving the whole future of one of the biggest industries of this nation. We are asked to judge on the experience of the last few years whether it would be better to administer the industry from a national point of view, under a separate Ministry, or under the aegis of the Board of Trade, by which it used to be administered through the Mines Department....
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I beg to move, in line 7, after "owner-occupier," insert: or the owner of such an interest in land not exceeding in value five thousand pounds. I am very grateful that this Amendment has been called so that I may say one or two words upon it. I frankly admit that its object is to extend the supplementation allowed to the owner-occupier to a particular class of owner-investors. On all sides of...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: That is a weakness of the drafting. I would not like to see a man who owns a lot of houses, and whose business it is to let them out in large numbers, get the supplementation.
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I welcome this Bill wholeheartedly, and I want to do my part in refuting the attack which has been made by the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. O. Davies) on the Minister of Labour. I have been associated with factory work during the whole of the past four or five years, and I have not found any Ministry more human, more sympathetic and more willing to take care of the workers than the...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: It is because I know that people have unfortunately to be put off work that I welcome this increase in unemployment benefit, and I welcome the fact that the large fund which has been collected from the contributions of the workers themselves should be made available for this increase. I am glad that the Minister is making use of the fund in this way. There is no denial of the fact that there...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: In a Clause of this nature, which is applied to a limited number of cities, it is difficult not to come here for special pleading on behalf of the city one represents. This particular problem applies to a limited number of cities throughout the country. They are the ones mainly affected by blitz damage, and they are largely the cities concentrated in the thought of this Bill as a whole. My...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: Clearly, I think the county authorities would be making a profit out of the war, and out of the damage which has been done to the city. These blitzed cities have, of course, heavy loans against them. They are going to lose rateable value and thus have less security than that on which they raised those loans in the past. That is a point which must be borne in mind. I hope the Committee will...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I tried to answer that by saying that, owing to the blitz and also to circumstances connected with the Services, the city will lose something like 24,000 or 28,000 families, and their rateable revenue will go into the county. The city will definitely lose the rateable value of that population, because the houses in which they will live will be built in the country, and not in the city. There...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: They will lose something because of those localities coming into the city. That is a definite value, and it is a value they should certainly receive. But they should not receive compensation for what they have never had, which is the displaced population.
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: The matter which has just been raised by my hon. Friend is one of great importance to cities which have been destroyed, and the authorities in which are wondering what they will get in the way of compensation, either under this Bill or the War Damage Act. Although I realise the narrowness of the Ruling which has been given, from the Chair, I do not like to be silent. There is a feeling in the...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to one issue on this Clause. I had an Amendment on the Paper dealing with the Clause from a commercial and industrial point of view, and under the Clause as drafted the planning authority is able to dispose of the land or let the land only with the consent of the Minister. Here, I fall in with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I reinforce the words of my horn and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland). I represent a city exactly like his. It has been through a most desperate time and it is estimated that a fifth of the city's houses have been destroyed. If we are to wait for a Town and Country Planning Bill we have to wait a long time before there is accommodation for the people to live in....
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I intervene in this Debate in order to express my appreciation of the words in the Gracious Speech which deal with the good progress that has been made with the rebuilding of our damaged cities. This, in my mind, is one of the most important things which is before the State at the present time. When the time comes to consider the question of rebuilding our damaged cities, I think the...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I do not wish to intervene in this Debate except to say that I am associated with one of the London hospitals in connection with the T.B. problem, and I think we all welcome the scheme of radiographical stations throughout the country for the early detection of T.B. I think that if T.B. can be detected in the early stages it can be very largely cured. I am associated with some voluntary...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I sympathise very much with the last words of the speech made by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies). When the Prime Minister made his statement about the future he said that the proposed new House of Commons should be built within the four walls of the old Chamber as they at present exist. But my feeling is that the Chamber as it was was too small for the needs of this...
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I think the Prime Minister's remarks did definitely limit the thing to a restoration of the old Chamber.
Colonel Hon. Henry Guest: I want to say that a great deal of the arguments which we desired to bring up in this Debate have been largely anticipated in the right hon. Gentleman's opening speech, in particular when he spoke of the Joint General Staff of Industry, if we may call it that, in which he is going to bring together representatives of the Forces and of Production. Nothing is more difficult for a manufacturer...
