§ 6. Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs the income from rents for 1959 compared with the last complete year before the operation of the Rent Act.
§ Mr. H. BrookeI have no figures for house rents alone. The figures for rental income from land, dwellings and all other kinds of buildings, before providing for depreciation, are £1,145 million in 1959 and £814 million in 1956. The figure for 1959, which is provisional, as full information for that year is not yet available, includes of course rental income from the many new buildings brought into use subsequently to 1956. The figures are estimated according to the definitions used in the National Income Blue Books.
§ Mr. AllaunI thank the Minister for those figures, which are very revealing. Is it not the fact that in the first two years alone there was an increase from £814 million to £1,038 million, an increase of 28 per cent. in two years? Since then, as further thousands of houses become decontrolled every week as the tenants remove or die, will not those figures be substantially increased, quite apart from the addition of rent for new buildings, which is a small item compared with them?
§ Mr. BrookeI remind the hon. Gentleman that the figure of £814 million, which I quoted and he repeated, does not cover rent from houses and flats alone, but from all kinds of property.