§ 7. Mr. Smallasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total number of houses demolished in Scotland during the years 1965, 1966 and 1967, and the total number demolished in the years 1962, 1963 and 1964.
§ Mr. RossFigures for the last quarter of 1967 are not yet available. In the three years from 1st October, 1964, to 30th September, 1967, 36,947 houses were demolished, and in the previous three years, 26,378.
§ Mr. SmallI am grateful for that increased progress in the removal of obsolescence. But will my right hon. Friend concentrate on local difficulties in getting demolition progressed in Scotland?
§ Mr. RossThat is one of the matters to which we are applying our minds, and we have had the advantage of the Cullingworth Report. I am satisfied that we need to make even better progress if we are to achieve any of these targets. Apart from this, it must be remembered that we are here talking only of slums demolished. For those taken out of use and not yet demolished the figures are about 50,000 for the past three years, compared with 37,500 in the three years before.
§ Miss Harvie AndersonDo those figures include or exclude houses demolished for road works?
§ Mr. RossI think that such houses will probably be included in the total figures I have given of demolished and closed houses.