30 NOVEMBER 1951, Page 3

Freer Housing

The effect of Mr. Harold Macmillan's statement on Tuesday, increasing from one-fifth to one-half the proportion of the hous- ing allocation that may be built by private enterprise and pro- viding for more houses for sale, is to introduce an element of common sense into a field where nonsense has flourished for some years. Next year there will be more houses, it will be easier for those who wish to buy a house to do so ; and there will be smaller houses for those who do not want or need the larger ones so persistently provided by Mr. Bevan. The Socialist Member who described this as " terrible news " should most certainly be given an opportunity to prove it in the fuller Parlia- mentary debate which Mr. Attlee called for. The Government has nothing whatever to lose by giving the Opposition a chance to say their say on housing. Mr. Macmillan was able to show, in the few minutes given to the subject at question time on Tuesday, that ample safeguards have been provided to ensure that families with 'the most urgent need for a house come first. He was able to refute very easily Mr. Herbert Morrison's sug- gestion that there might be fewer houses for letting—since the purpose is to provide more houses .both for letting and for. sale, or in other words to try to meet the real demand which exists, rather than some hypothetical demand which Socialists think ought to exist. The Minister did not point out, as he might well do in a full debate, that the effect of providing more houses for sale, without subsidy and with economies in scarce materials, is to reduce inflation, and that the drive to produce a " people's house," making full use of recent research, could have a similar effect. The simple fact is that, even in present conditions, it should not be unduly difficult to do considerably better than the Labour Government in the field of housing, so long dominated by the prejudices and perversities of Mr. Aneurin Bevan. It is not necessary to be brilliantly clever. It is only necessary, in the first instance, to stop being foolish.