Parliamentary Notes
Our Parliamentary correspondent writes : As I have pointed out before in this column, the War is throwing a searchlight on the whole mechanism of Government, central and local ; nowhere has the test been more severe than in the London area. The reorganisation of London government, as of Tyne- side government, is always resisted by a series of vested interests and defensive associations. In planning the Civil Defence Services and preparing the country against attack and possible invasion new powers have been assumed by the Central Govern- ment, but for months past Government Departments have been issuing hundreds of permissive circulars in the hope that action would follow. One thinks of the endless discussion over Air Raid Precautions two years age with three successive Home Secretaries : one thinks of the repeated changes of personnel at the Board of Education and the changes in policy over school shelters. Now London is suffering from a multiplicity of small authorities, with all the resultant strains and friction. The remedy never was to hand over complete powers to the Home Office, Ministry of Health or Board of Education, but to see that a ...oper regional authority existed with which central departments could deal. At the present moment London's devastated areas are being visited by several Ministers, includ- ing Cabinet Ministers, by county councillors, senior officers of the Unemployment Assistance Board, Regional Commis- sioners and many others. Meanwhile the people in District A badly need a communal feeding-centre, in District B a ferry- service, in District C a radical change in shelter accommoda- tion.
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