I do not know what the right hon gentleman means by large part of the country . for all I know , over a geographical area what he says may be true . for example , let us consider the area in which the hon member for Exeter plays such a large part . if the government knock down one cottage in the middle of Dartmoor , they may be removing all the slums over a wide area . but if the Minister means , by large part , areas where people are living in great concentrations of population , then the answer is that the areas that are not keeping up with the slum clearance programme represent the majority of unfit houses in the country . the figures which the right hon gentleman quoted in the white paper , relating to 50 local authorities who were behindhand in their programmes , included authorities in some of our great industrial areas . if , when he talks about the problem being solved over a large part of the country , he is merely noting that in Torquay , for instance , 41 out of 42 houses were demolished in five years , I give him his figures , but we know that in the great industrial areas the situation is completely different . the right hon gentleman is entitled to make the point that he is not solely responsible for slum clearance , and that it is a question of partnership between him and the local authorities . when things go well , we do not hear much about the contributions made by local authorities , but we are likely to hear about them when things go badly . what are the reasons for the slow completion of the slum clearance programmes ? he gave first priority to the shortage of technical staff , but I would like to point out one reason for that shortage . up to 1957 , local authorities had been encouraged to build up the technical staffs in their housing departments , under the drive of the early years , but then they were suddenly faced with a drastic cut in their programmes , imposed by the government , and they had to turn away their technical staffs , who found work elsewhere . that was not the fault of local authorities . once an establishment has been arrived at for carrying out a certain programme it is very difficult to maintain it if government interference causes frequent fluctuations in that programme . one of the alarming things that the Minister said was in reply to a question put by my hon friend the member for Oldham , East ( Mr Mapp ) . he said that he hoped to see the recruitment of technical staff improved by the engagement of staffs from other local authorities as they completed their slum clearance programmes . that was a rather nasty shock for local authorities who were hoping that when they had completed their slum clearance programmes they would be able to go on with their other necessary programmes - perhaps to increase their programmes for houses for the old people , for the sick and the disabled , and also to expand their programme of houses for general needs . by his answer the right hon gentleman was saying that when local authorities completed their slum clearance programme he was going to cut down their programmes for other forms of house building to force the transference of technical staffs to those areas which had still to complete their slum clearance programmes . another difficulty has been the rise in the cost of land , about which the House has had a good deal to say . there are two aspects of this problem . there is the special problem of areas in which there is an excessive demand for land , about which I do not want to say much at the moment . but even in areas where there is no reason to suppose that the demand for land is abnormal the price has risen enormously . my constituency of Widnes is in an industrial part of Lancashire , which is not developing very rapidly . nevertheless , although only five or six years ago &amp;pound;500 an acre was considered a fairly stiff price to pay , in the last few compulsory purchase orders it has made that local authority has been paying over &amp;pound;7,000 an acre . that is some measure of the obstacles which face a local authority which is trying to carry out its slum clearance programme . the question of the interest rate affects both the cost of land and the increased cost of building . local authorities are caught both ways . they are caught in relation to their normal costs , because any increase in the rate of interest means an immediate increase in rents . they are also caught by the excessive cost of all the auxiliary services which have to be added to the actual building cost . in this connection , the government issued some interesting figures , which I propose to use rather than my own , because we must presume that the government figures are fairly accurate . if a rate of interest of 3 3/4 per cent - which is about equivalent to the public works loan board rate in 1950 - is compared not with the present rate of 6 1/8 per cent , but 5 3/4 per cent , the difference in respect of the loan charges on a house costing &amp;pound;1,500 is about &amp;pound;32 5 s a year . that may not seem a great deal of money , but it is enough to knock out even a &amp;pound;24 subsidy . in other words , over the last ten years the government have really not been paying any subsidy at all . they have been increasing costs by raising the rate of interest on loans while increasing the subsidies by a figure not nearly enough to meet the extra costs caused thereby . we can , therefore , say that the present unhappy position in slum clearance is largely due to the obstacles placed in the way of local authorities either directly or indirectly , by government policy . I do not know what the current estimates will be , but in last year &apos;s estimates the amount of money paid out in subsidy for expensive sites rose very drastically . was that due to the fact that more expensive land was being used , or that the government were having to pay expensive site subsidies on ordinary land in areas where no such subsidy would have had to be paid before ? I suspect that the second alternative was the cause of the increased estimates . I now turn to the question of overspill , in respect of which it is very difficult to discover what has been happening . it is one of the engaging peculiarities of the situation that the Scottish housing return gives figures relating to the rehousing of people from overspill areas while the right hon gentleman as far as I know , is careful never to give any such figures . I do not know what has been happening . all I know is that some years ago the permanent Secretary reckoned that about 2 million people were required to move from the great towns , and that that meant the building of over 500,000 houses . if that information is married with the estimate of a former Minister of housing and local government - the present Secretary of state for commonwealth relations - that 20,000 houses were needed annually for overspill , we see that that envisages a programme lasting for about twenty-five years , which is a fairly long-term project . it is much more than even the development of a single new town . the last figures I have seen , which related to 1958 , showed that under 10,000 houses were being provided to accommodate overspill . I do not know what has happened since , but I suspect that , if anything , things have got worse . let us now consider the right hon gentleman &apos;s attitude towards the new towns , which form a very important part of the whole problem . for many years it has been very difficult to get the right hon gentleman to come clean on the question whether or not he intended to build any new towns . for a long time he was rather evasive about it . in a debate in July , 1960 , he said : I do not rule out the idea of other new towns &amp;hellip; . it is easy for the leader of the opposition to suggest the idea of more and more new towns as a complete solution , but he never addressed himself , in his speech , to where these new towns should go . - ( official report , 18th July , 1960 ; Vol 627 , c 56-7 . ) if one read that statement in the context of the new towns act , it was reasonable to assume - and I think that most people assumed - that the government were not intending to provide any new towns , either because they could not find sites , or because they did not want to . when the new towns bill was being considered , the government were implored again and again to provide compensation for redundancy , or to give a glimmer of hope to the people employed in the new town corporations that they would get employment in other new towns . all that the right hon gentleman would say was that when the new towns were completed there would be openings for them in the general administration of the new towns . but at no time was he prepared to give any hope that other new towns would be provided . the right hon gentleman would not pay compensation for the people who were made redundant . the demoralising effect on the staff of the new towns was deplorable . naturally , the people who were faced with the possibility of their jobs coming to an end , the best people , the younger people , the people who had most hope in getting out of the new towns back into either other aspects of public service or into private enterprise , took every opportunity to get out because they knew that , sooner or later , their jobs would come to an end and as far as they could see there was no hope of any alternative form of employment . what has happened now ? in 1951 , a preliminary plan was prepared for Lancashire , to include Parbold as a new town . in the final plan that was submitted in 1956 , Skelmersdale , which was approximately the same , was designated by the Lancashire County council as a new town area . that was cut out of the 1956 plan . as late as July , 1960 , the right hon gentleman was still saying that he could not find sites for the new towns , yet within a matter of six months he was telling us in the House that he had decided to approve Skelmersdale as a new town . could anything be more crazy ? could anything be more crazy than to demoralise the staff , to break up the morale of the corporations , to do all one can to create the impression that the new towns are a dying industry , and then , when one has successfully done that , to resurrect a new town which was suggested originally in 1951 and suddenly decide to approve it ? I have seen some of this . Widnes is a reception area for Liverpool . we have been vitally concerned about whether new towns would be built . I am sure that everybody concerned with the problem was under the impression that the ministry had decided not to build a new town in Lancashire . now I am delighted that we are to have one . if there is to be a new town , could there be a more crazy and incompetent way of setting about getting a successful new town than the method adopted by the government ? what is required from the right hon gentleman is more than a few new towns dotted about here and there . what is required is a determined effort to relocate not only people , but industry , away from London and the South . the co-operative permanent building society sends out an interesting bulletin about the price of houses on which it has lent money . it points out that the outstanding feature of the property market during 1960 was the marked rise in the price of houses in the London area and in the home Counties . 