Mr Frank Allaun, the member for Salford East, said in the Commons yesterday that five million families in Britain were now living in houses without baths. In Manchester a quarter of a million men, women and children were living in houses without baths. In his constituency five out of ten houses had no bath and no inside toilet. In Burnley, Wigan, Rochdale, and St Helens the proportion was one in three. Many other provincial cities were in a similar state, and Glasgow was far worse. Owner-occupiers were taking advantage of the Government scheme for installing bath and inside toilet in approved houses, but it was being largely ignored by private landlords.

“This is an appalling situation and most of these houses are also without hot-water supply and inside lavatory, I believe that the Welfare State has not even started when these conditions exist. The only solution is for the tenant to be able to apply for the grant. If the local authority approves the house as suitable for the improvement, the landlord should be compelled to install the bath.”

In modern terms, a fit house was one with a bath and hot water, and he asked if the Government would apply the Act more strictly.

130,000 grants

Sir Keith Joseph (Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Local Government) said that slum clearance was Government policy and in addition there were several million old houses which had a useful life. The idea of improvement grants did not “catch on” with owner-occupiers or landlords until 1958. Previously, there had been a thin trickle of applications, but in that year 35,000 improvement schemes were carried out with grants and the figure for this year looked like topping the 130,000 level. The Minister would like to see 200,000 improvement grants a year, with a quarter of a million as the ultimate annual figure.

Since figures had been split, it was shown that 18,000, or 27 per cent, of the grants made in the first nine months of this year had been made to landlords. “So far, I would say that the end is encouraging and there is absolutely no case for compulsion while houses are being modified at the rate of 400 a day – much as we wish the figures were higher still.”