HC Deb 15 December 1971 vol 828 cc454-5
28. Mr. Skinner

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest figures for housebuilding in the public sector, and what is the yearly total for 1971.

Mr. Amery

In Great Britain in the public sector 12,000 permanent dwellings were started and 12,800 completed in October, 1971. The year's total cannot be stated yet.

Mr. Skinner

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the year's total will show that council house-building is lower than at any time since 1961 when the Conservatives were last in power? Is it not time that the right hon. Gentleman got his social priorities into the right order and told his Department to double the amount of council house-building that is due to take place in 1972 rather than instruct it in wasting time preparing dud Questions for his back-bench stooges?

Mr. Amery

May I inform the hon. Gentleman—and I assure the House that I did not plant this Question with him, although it may seem like it from the reply—that the figure for October for public sector starts is 12,046, as against 11,665 for September, and it has therefore gone up by 3 per cent.

Mr. Frank Allaun

Is not there bound to be a further serious decline in council house-building next year because of the fall in starts this year? Second, will not the decline be even worse because the Government are to double council rents, which will mean that many families in serious housing need will be unable to go into council houses even after rebate, if they get it?

Mr. Amery

I am sorry—no doubt it was because he was mulling over his supplementary question—that the hon. Gentleman was not listening to my last reply. I have just announced that there was a 3 per cent. increase in October compared with the figure for September.

Mr. Allaun

One month.

Mr. Tebbit

In order that the—

Mr. Allaun

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt but the Minister knows very well that the year's figures are down, and therefore it is cheating—

Mr. Speaker

Order. That is not a point of order. Mr. Tebbit.

Mr. Tebbit

So that we can get rid of some of this irrational hatred of hon. Members opposite of the number of houses being built for private ownership exceeding those being built for municipal tenancies, could we not have a survey conducted sometime into the number of people who are anxiously waiting to buy a house as well as some of the puffed-up figures produced for local elections of the number of people on waiting lists?

Mr. Amery

My hon. Friend has made a most interesting and positive suggestion, and I will certainly look into it.

Mr. Crosland

Only a minor civil servant could have planted that supplementary question.

I am delighted, I may say, by the October figures, but, judging from the figures in today's papers, quoting the latest statistics from the Department, is it not the case that the third quarter's figures are still down on the second quarter? Are we not in a period when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is trying to increase public investment in every sector in which this is possible? Why has not the Minister been able to persuade the Chancellor to do something for this one critical field of housing?

Mr. Amery

The right hon. Gentleman has asked a number of additional questions which do not arise directly from the Question put down to me. I should be glad to answer them if he would put them on the Order Paper.