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Wednesday, October 17, 1973
The new Housing Authority and Housing Department are addressing
themselves to this gigantic task with enthusiasm and imagination. They
have inherited a lean period, but they aim to work up to a plateau of
production in 1976/77 of new homes for 200,000 a year and thereafter to
maintain it. They must do this without making excessive demands on the
labour market. Later in the debate the Secretary of Housing will be speaking
about this and other problems facing the new Authority. These include,
depressingly, the need for resite areas to tide over the lean years the
Authority has inherited.
The Authority indeed faces many important problems of day to day
But we must never forget that nearly all are symptoms of
administration.
the dominant disease
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scarcity of housing. The only sure cure is therefore
to end the scarcity.So the primary task of the New Authority and Housing
Department must be to build fast, to build well and above all to keep on
building.
Social Welfare
The new 5-year plan for social welfare, which I referred to last
year, has been published together with a White Paper and both came into
effect on 1st. April. The first draft was the product of a mixed working
party of official members and of unofficial social workers. This was published
as a green paper, and after the views of this Council had been taken an
opportunity was provided for the public and the voluntary agencies to express
their views on the plan, These were taken into account in the final White Paper
which now embodies the plan. I recapitulate because I am sure that this process
of consultation will commend itself to Honourable Members as the right way to
handle plans of this sort.
The plan
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