A New Housing Policy The announcement of a new Government
housing policy by Lord Halifax in the House of Lords on Wed- nesday came as something of a surprise. For details of the plan we must wait till the autumn session, but the statement that the project involves rehousing and replanning on a scale which neither this nor any other country had previously contemplated is sufficient indica- tion of the magnitude of the Government's ideas. It remains, of course, to be seen whether the achievement will be equal to the conception. And it is not unreason- able to ask why it has taken successive post-War Governments over a dozen years, and the present National Government close on three years, to resolve to define minimum standards of accommodation and determine that no inhabited building shall fall below them. But the Government must be given full credit for its good intentions. The new policy is entirely to be welcomed, though the extent of the proposed under- taking is in itself an argument for the institution of a Statutory Housing Commission. The greater the work the less appropriate is it to entrust it to a section of a Ministry with a multitude of other important problems on its hands. The building of a million new houses— mainly houses to let rather than to sell, and the private builder only builds to sell—may be necessary, and that calls for supervision by a specialized body with far larger powers than the new Advisory Committee which the Government proposes to appoint.
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