Parliament Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes :—The new Housing Bill passed
its third reading last week in face of Liberal and Labour protests that much more is necessary than an abolition of the 1924 subsidy and an agreement with some Building Societies to secure a proper supply of cheaply rented houses. Labour criticism stultifies itself by insistence that only subsidized municipal building can produce such houses, but other criticisms of the Bill are very substantial. Sir Hilton Young surprised everybody by devoting most of his third reading speech to a Marmion- like call to charge the slums. The Bill has nothing to do with the slums, except that it saves public subsidies to other-forms of housing effort. However, the Government does seem determined to accelerate slum clearance, and the Minister's decision to call upon local authorities to pursue programmes drawn up on a time schedule is sound, if he proves really able to act himself where an authority proves recalcitrant. Mr. Shakespeare has done good Parliamentary work during the passage of this Bill, and is an Under-Secretary worth watching.
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