NEWS OF THE WEEK
LORD WOOLTON'S speech in the.House of Lords on Wednes- day, in reply to a motion expressing regret that the promised White Paper on planning had not yet been issued, was as completely unsatisfactory as every previous utterance of every previous Minister concerned with the vast and vital subject of reconstruction has been. Captain Peter Thorneycroft says something on a later page 'of the repeated and intolerable frustration of public hopes over the last two years. The present Minister of Reconstruction promises "proposals " at a date described with convenient absence of precision as " after Easter." He had previously promised them for " after Christmas," and is no doubt entitled to protest that "after Easter " is "after Christmas" a fortiori. Meanwhile unofficial proposals in this field by responsible bodies have their value. One set of such is embodied in an interim report of the Conservative Sub-committee on Housing published on Tuesday. The futility of any attempt to frame a housing programme till the Government has reached some conclusion about the Barlow, Scott and Uthwatt reports is plain. The Conservative report rightly insists that it is impossible to frame a successful long-term housing policy without settling the questions of compensation and betterment, and impossible to attain the main objectives presented by the Barlow Commission without effective machinery. That Commission, like the Scott and Uthwatt Committees, demanded the setting up of an effective Central Authority. The Conservative Sub-Committee will not agree that the new Ministry of Town and Country Planning constitutes such an Authority. It has no powers to initiate national plans, nor authority over other departments concerned with land. Insisting that decisions regarding the location of industry are absolutely indispensable to a housing policy, the report urges that a real Central Authority should be set up as soon as possible, and that its first step should be to order a survey of all war-time factories, their facilities for transport, and the accommodation for their work- people. But everything stands still because the Government, after two years and more, has not made its mind up about planning. Lord Wootton stated that the Government had not changed its opinion on the general question. The implication that the Govern- ment has an opinion to change is surprising, but welcome.
