§ 40. Mr. Lennox-Boydasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Biggleswade Rural District Council is receiving applications for houses at the rate of 200 a year, while he has given permission for only 40 houses to be built in the current half-year; and whether he will increase this allocation to enable the numerous applicants on the waiting list to be rehoused more quickly.
§ Mr. BevanI am aware that Biggleswade have a substantial number of applicants, but their housing programme must be related to local resources and progress with existing commitments. Consideration to a further allocation will be given in the light of progress.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydIf the right hon. Gentleman does not at this stage feel able to increase the allocation, will he look again sympathetically at one or two local suggestions which have been made and which, I believe, could be carried out, without affecting the ultimate building programme? They would enormously help the present problem in a district which still has 1,000 people waiting for homes.
§ Mr. BevanI do not know what is meant by that supplementary question. All I know is that authority was given in January of this year for the building of 40 houses, but that only 12 of these are in tender.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydMy intention was to ask the right hon. Gentleman to look again at certain suggestions made by the local authority—the conversion of a large house into flats, for example, and one or 555 two other suggestions—which would alleviate a very grave problem.
§ Mr. BevanI should have thought that the first thing for the local authority to do is to build the houses which they are authorised to build.