HC Deb 28 May 1957 vol 571 cc203-4
29. Mr. H. Wilson

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the changes recently made in connection with local authorities borrowing for capital purposes.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft

In order to shorten the waiting period for local authorities proposing to make stock issues, it has been decided to restore the arrangement in force before 1955 by which local authority stock market issues and placings were made only for amounts of £3 million or more. This will have the effect of reserving the stock market for those authorities whose needs are larger than can readily be met in the mortgage market, and it will make room in the mortgage market for the smaller authorities to whose needs it is better suited.

Mr. Wilson

When many local authorities were taken away from the help and protection of the Public Works Loan Board and were driven into the market, they had every ground for complaint; and is it not the fact now that many of the smaller authorities are finding that they cannot, as they were told they would have to do, borrow in the market? Will the Chancellor now say whether the Public Works Loan Board is open to them with the same freedom as was before 1955?

Mr. Thorneycroft

I have had no complaint from local authorities about this new arrangement, which is, indeed, I think, the most convenient for them. The position of the Public Works Loan Board remains exactly as it was before this re-arrangement of the stock market issues.

Mr. Lindgren

Will the Chancellor consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is continually receiving complaints not only from individual local authorities but from local authority associations in regard to this?

Mr. Thorneycroft

I certainly will consult my right hon. Friend, but I do not think that he is getting any complaints about this particular question.