§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will arrange to obtain information about the demand for accommodation for single persons, with a view to including information thereon in housing returns.
§ Mr. ChannonHousing needs are best assessed by local housing authorities. It would not be practicable to require them to maintain records in a form which would seek to isolate single people, or which could be sufficiently well defined to justify aggregation and publication in national housing returns.
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§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will introduce legislation to require local authorities to provide a proportion of housing units for single people in their building schemes.
§ Mr. ChannonThe responsibility for assessing the range of housing needs in their areas rests with local authorities. Their duty to consider these needs, in drawing up their housing policies and building programmes, already includes the claims of single people.
§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will relax the cost yardstick on appropriate building programmes so as to encourage building units of accommodation for single persons.
§ Mr. ChannonMore flexible cost yardstick arrangements were introduced last November to enable local authorities to proceed with new schemes to meet all types of housing need at a cost which reflects local market conditions. If the hon. and learned Member has a particular case of difficulty in mind perhaps he will let me have details.
§ Mr. Stallardasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will issue a circular to local authorities on housing needs of single persons.
§ Mr. ChannonI intend to do so, as a supplement to the design bulletin on the housing needs of single people which was issued in 1971. The Department is already approving for subsidy schemes of self-contained dwellings for single people by local authorities and housing associations. These can include schemes on the new lines set at Goscote House, Leicester.
§ Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will introduce legislation giving financial incentives to local authorities in stress areas to encourage the provision of new housing for single people.
§ Mr. ChannonThe existing housing subsidies apply to new dwellings for single people as to dwellings for others
§ Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will introduce legislation to require local 187W authorities to ensure that housing is provided for single people made homeless by development.
§ Mr. ChannonLocal authorities are already required by the Land Compensation Act 1973 to provide accommodation for people, including the single, displaced by redevelopment in some circumstances; there is also the range of legislation which gives protection against unlawful eviction. Authorities are aware of the need to cover, in their housing policies, the needs of single people.