HC Deb 11 February 1958 vol 582 cc183-4
7. Mr. Lewis

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will publish in HANSARD a table of figures giving the monthly amounts of moneys, for which he gave loan sanction to the appropriate local authority in Rochdale, for house-building and other local authority services for each of the months from October, 1951 to October, 1957; and, on the basis of these capital sums having to be repaid over sixty years with the current rates of interest in being at the time of borrowing, what the total cost of repayment of capital and interest will be for each of these borrowings at the end of 60 years.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins)

No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is unable to see what value there could be in publishing the figures of loans sanctioned month by month over a period of seventy-two months. As regards the second part of the Question, the assumptions contained in it are so unreal that it would be a waste of time to work out the figures.

Mr. Lewis

Are we to take it from that reply that the Minister is afraid to confirm the report that has been published by an independent authority that a house which was costing £1,500 in 1951 is now costing a local authority £6,000 on repayment? Does not this disprove the oft-repeated claim of the Government that they want to combat inflation and does it not show that they know local authorities regard this as the worst Government they have ever had?

Mr. Bevins

The hon. Member can infer what he likes. My right hon. Friend would not be a party to wasting public money to produce hypothetical figures.

Mr. Lindgren

Would the hon. Gentleman admit that the figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) are correct, and that they show an undue proportion of interest as compared with land, wages and materials?

Mr. Bevins

That may be so—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is so."]—but the Question assumes that the Rochdale local authority always borrows over a period of sixty years and assumes that it borrows at the current rate of interest, which is nonsense.