asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that 35 bungalows in the area controlled by the borough of Beckenham cannot be occupied because of the absence of essential fittings; and if he will receive a deputation from the borough of Beckenham Council to go into the whole matter.

I am advised there are 27 temporary houses in Beckenham still awaiting complete sets of internal components. These will be supplied as soon as they are available, and in the circumstances it would not serve any useful purpose for a deputation from the council to be received.

Why will the Minister not receive a deputation to hear the views of the people on the spot? Is he aware that the inability of about three Ministries to agree with all the rules and regulations is holding up these houses?

I cannot accept the hon. Member's suggestion. It is quite impossible for me to receive a deputation from every authority in Great Britain. I should be doing nothing but receive deputations.

asked the Minister of Health which local authorities have requested the adoption in their areas of the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946; and how many orders he has issued under Section I and for what areas.

Three hundred and eighty-six local authorities have informed me that they wish to have tribunals and I am circulating the list in the OFFICIAL REPORT. No orders have yet been issued, but I have asked local authorities to submit names for membership and as soon as tribunals can be manned and staffed the necessary orders will be made.

asked the Minister of Health, why the house in Eaton Square, S.W.I, now being used by the Instituto de Espana was not requisitioned for housing purposes.

The powers delegated to the clerks of local authorities are for the requisition of unoccupied properties. This house has been occupied throughout the war.

asked the Minister of Health whether he will extend the provisions of the Rent Restriction Acts to safeguard tenants not at present protected from unreasonable demands for increased rents under threat of eviction, in view of the fact that a date has now been given for the termination of leases for the duration.

The question of extending the scope of the Rent Restriction Acts will be considered in connection with the general review of the provisions of those Acts, but I can hold out no prospect of early legislation.

In the meantime, will my right hon. Friend do something for the innumerable working and middle-class tenants who have no protection, by compelling or impressing upon local authorities the need for much freer use of their requisitioning powers than has hitherto been the case?

I have on many occasions impressed on local authorities not only the need to requisition premises to provide accommodation for those without it, but also the effect of requisitioning upon the price of houses.

:Would the Minister consider appointing a Select Committee on this matter with a view to the codification and rationalization of the Rent Acts and the provision of a comprehensive scheme for the future?

There was a committee on this matter which has reported. At the moment our main difficulty is not wisdom but time.

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that many cottages in rural areas have been scheduled by local authorities as qualifying for assistance under the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts, but that work is being held up pending the introduction of legislation already foreshadowed; and whether he will take steps to encourage the owners of such houses to commence at once work for which labour and materials are available.

I do not feel justified in giving special facilities for this work at the present time. When I receive the report which I have asked the Rural Housing Sub-Committee of my Central Housing Advisory Committee to make, I will reconsider the question in the light of their report and of the position in regard to labour and materials at the time.

Will the Minister make an announcement to the effect that, if any legislation is introduced, it would be made retrospective?

There is nothing at all preventing reconditioning from being done now. There is plenty of opportunity for people to recondition their property if they wish to do so. What I cannot agree with is that there is any more need to give subsidies to private property owners in rural areas than in urban areas.

Can the Minister say when he is likely to receive the report to which he referred?

I am hoping to get it quite shortly.

asked the Minister of Health how many permits the Dover Rural District Council have granted for work in the St. Margaret's Bay area; and how many workmen are involved by the sanctions for that work.

I understand that 29 licenses issued by the Dover Rural District Council for work in the St. Margaret's Bay area are still operative, and that the number.of men engaged on the licensed work is 70.

asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that at least 30 skilled workmen are now engaged in carrying out repairs and alterations at a house called The Hermitage, St. Margaret's Bay, Dover, recently purchased by Mr. Clarence Hatry; that resentment is caused in Dover and elsewhere at this use of so many workmen for a private purpose when war damage repairs and the building and rehousing programmed need all available labor; and if he will make inquiries to ascertain if the number of workmen employed at The Hermitage is justified.

Inquiries have been made and I am informed that a licence was issued by the Dover Rural District Council on 13th March for repairs to this house costing £500. On Monday morning, when one of my officers visited the site, six skilled men were employed on this work. I am having further investigations made.

May I ask the Minister if he can justify 17 men working on the garden of this house and another eight on lowering the cliff path in order that passers by might not oversee into the garden, and will he consider further inquiry into this particular matter?

In answer to the first part of the question, I am under no obligation to justify it, because I did not undertake the work, but I will certainly undertake to investigate it. I am informed that there has been quite a considerable amount of exaggeration, and that a great deal of this work that lies outside the £500 is work upon which men are engaged in repairing war damage.

asked the Minister of Health whether he will make it clear to local authorities that they are empowered to issue W.B.A. symbols in respect of materials ordered from builders' merchants for repairs of an urgent nature essential for the preservation of existing accommodation on the same basis as those now issued in connection with the provision of additional housing facilities.

asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that local authorities are finding it impossible to obtain supplies of materials from builders' merchants for urgent repair works where a sanitary breakdown endangers the health of the occupants, where urgent structural repair is necessary to avoid collapse and where work is required by statutory notice or under bye-laws; and if he will therefore arrange for priority certificates to be issued for materials required for work of this nature.

I would refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave to similar Questions on 9th May about the supply of materials for urgent and essential repairs. Local authorities are not empowered to grant priority symbols, for maintenance and repair work, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works and I do not wish so to empower them. Arrangements have, however, been made whereby builders' merchants who supply materials in good faith for certain classes of urgent repair work can obtain priority, if required, for the necessary replacements, and I think that this will get over the difficulties. I am sending the hon. Members a copy of an explanatory circular which has been sent to local authorities on the subject.

Is the Minister aware that public health committees are seriously perturbed by the absence of priority facilities so that landlords and tenants can comply at once with the orders given by their sanitary inspectors, and that Circular No. 146 does not give these necessary priorities, so that landlords and tenants can carry out this work?

It is perfectly true that the first effect of the circular was to prevent repair work being done that they wanted to have done, but the new circular will enable those priorities to be claimed.

Will the Minister send me a copy of the new circular?

Certainly, Sir.

Is the Minister aware that practice varies as between one administrative area and another, and that some local authorities are actually issuing W.B.A. priorities for replacements? Is he also aware that neighboring authorities which do not do so are having extreme difficulty in getting materials for builders and plumbers engaged on urgent repairs, because builders' merchants are disregarding his instruction to release small quantities without requiring symbols?

There has been difficulty, which is inevitable in the circumstances. We are very anxious to prevent building materials going into black market repair work, and it is inevitable that, when we tighten up the supply of materials, some people will find themselves in difficulties. It is much easier to relax the operation of the circular than it is to prevent black market operations in building materials.

Can the Minister say if his reply applies equally to the essential reconditioning of rural cottages?

Certainly, it does.

asked the Minister of Health if owing to difficulties experienced by private builders in the Orpington division, he will give the same facilities for obtaining the necessary materials, such as slate and lead damp courses, lead, guttering and rain-water down pipes, both in cast iron and in asbestos, to these builders, especially those engaged on local authority contracts, as to the local authorities.

A private builder who is in possession of a building licence already has the same facilities for obtaining materials as a local authority. In neither case is priority given to work of maintenance and repair which does not result in an increase of accommodation.

Is the Minister aware that there are over 2,000 families— not persons— wanting houses in the Orpington area, and that, if these regulations were removed, the work would be done much quicker?

The hon. Member is given to making what are quite often irrelevant obiter dicta on the matter.

" Et tu, Brute."

asked the Minister of Health when he intends to make a statement as to the financial terms to be offered consultants under the proposed new National Health Service.

This will be a matter for discussion with the profession when Parliament has settled the general structure of the new service.

asked the Minister of Health when the new aural-aid outfit will be available to the public and how supplies will be sold.

As yet, we have only the blue print, but we are pressing on with arrangements for manufacture and distribution. There will be no avoidable delay, and I will make a further announcement as soon as I can.

Before the Minister issues this appliance, will he ensure that there are set up throughout the country the facilities for the proper examination of people who are hard of hearing in order that they shall not be induced to part with money for hearing aids that are not suitable?

I hope to make a number of arrangements; in the first place, for preventing the exploitation of this apparatus, which has been produced by the Post Office, and in which there ought to be no private enterprise interests at all; and, next, to provide facilities for the proper diagnosis of hearing difficulties so as to adjust the apparatus to the nature of the individual case.

asked the Minister of Health whether he will give an assurance to existing E.M.S. hospitals, that they wilt continue to be retained until such time as a coordinated hospital policy can be carried out.

As the commitments of the Emergency Hospital Scheme contract, the scheme itself must contract; and I cannot therefore give my hon. Friend this assurance. I can, however, assure him that no emergency hospitals are given up without first considering the probable future needs of the hospitals services.

Is the Minister aware that many of these hospitals are losing their emergency nursing staffs, such as married nurses and V.A.Ds., because of their uncertainty as to what is the future policy, and that enormous sums of public money have been spent on converting and equipping these hospitals? In view of the desperate need of hospital accommodation, why cannot the Minister give the hospitals a temporary assurance that they will be retained?

I am surprised to learn that there is any misunderstanding about future hospital policy. I thought it was perfectly clear. It may not be universally approved, but it is certainly clear. With regard to emergency hospitals, I have no Parliamentary authority to provide hospitals, except for patients intended to be treated by the emergency hospital service. That is my difficulty and, until we get the new powers, the Ministry of Health cannot own hospitals.

May I press upon the Minister the necessity of realising that the needs of the sick population of this country should be paramount, and that there should be no question of closing hospital beds until alternative accommodation is provided?

I am afraid no Minister of the Crown can act except within the authority agreed by Parliament, and I cannot make available to people hospital facilities which Parliament has not agreed.

asked the Minister of Health if he will specify the particular documents which were handed to CD. personnel when they were transferred to duties of mortuary attendants during the war, which made it clear to these men that they were not employed in the CD. general services and that, therefore, they were not entitled to post-war credits and gratuities.

Such matters were for the individual scheme making authorities and no special notices were used; in any case, the postwar credits and gratuities schemes were not announced till November, 1942, and March, 1945, respectively.

Would the Minister say if he thinks it is fair that people transferred from Civil Defence general service to the unenviable task of duty in a mortuary should lose their gratuities?

I am afraid that the transfer of workers during the war created a whole series of anomalies with which it is not possible to deal.

asked the Minister of Education how many of the 20,000 teachers in the Forces have now been released under Class A and Class B.

Up to 30th April, 8,491 teachers, including Scottish teachers, had been released from the Forces in Class B. No information is available on the number released in Class A, but up to 31st March, 1946, the total number of teachers who had returned from all types of war service to schools or colleges maintained or aided by local education authorities in England and Wales alone, was 13,467. The total number of English and Welsh teachers released, which should be compared with the figure of 20,000 mentioned by my hon. Friend, cannot be stated precisely, but it must be substantially more than 13,000.

asked the Minister of Education on what date she proposes to open the Llandrindod Wells Emergency Training College; and if she is aware that there is a considerable longer delay for Welsh students accepted for training than there is for those accepted for one of the English entrench training colleges.

I hope that this college will be opened some time in the autumn, but I cannot be more precise until further progress has been made with the work of alterations to the buildings. Candidates wishing to train in Wales, who just missed gaining admission to the first Welsh Emergency Colleges, will probably have longer to wait than English candidates who became available at about the same time, but I seen no reason to believe that, on the average, Welsh candidates will have longer to wait than candidates wishing to train in England.

Is the Minister aware that the Llandrindod Wells Emergency Training College was, first of all, promised to be opened at Christmas, then again at midsummer and, now, in the autumn, and is she further aware of the extreme hardship caused to those people who have been accepted and who find it difficult to get another job while waiting to go in?

We hope to get these premises finished by the time stated, but there is the shortage of labour and material. With regard to the hardship caused to those waiting to go in, some of them are being offered places in English colleges and, as the hon. Member knows, we are taking certain steps to help those who are kept waiting for a considerable period.