HC Deb 16 June 1971 vol 819 cc432-4
18. Mr. Tebbit

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total number of improvement grants approved during the first quarter of 1971; and how this compares with the figure for the comparable period of 1970.

Mr. Amery

It was 40,950; this figure is 42 per cent. more than in the first quarter of 1970.

Mr. Tebbit

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his Department's success in getting a much higher take-up of these grants than has ever been achieved before. Would he also remember that many authorities are now back in Labour hands—hands that had a dreadful reputation for bulldozing areas of sound housing, whose residents had deep roots in the places in which they had lived for years, and replacing them with the potential slums of the next century? Would he continue to put great emphasis on the improvement of these good old houses?

Mr. Amery

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his endorsement of our policies, for which he has always consistently pressed. I take his second point very much to heart. It is, of course, far better to improve houses where this can be done than to tear them down, because of all the human implications. People like living in the community to which they are attached, where they have their friends.

Mr. Leadbitter

Under what legislation did these improvement grants come about? Would the Minister confirm that they are agreed, passed and decided upon under the provisions of the Labour Government's 1969 Housing Act?

Mr. Amery

I am glad to pay wholehearted tribute to Lord Greenwood for his work in this matter. We are building on the foundations that he laid, which he was not able to exploit or develop as much as he might have, just as we are looking forward very much to building on the foundations of fair rents bequeathed to us by the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman).

Mr. Freeson

In view of his very welcome congratulations to the last Labour Administration for the introduction of the Act in question, would the Minister reject the insulting observations of the reactionary Member for Epping (Mr. Tebbit)? Coming to the specific point about the operation of the Act and the take-up—here I put a non-polemical point—would the Minister accept that it is important for the future monitoring of the success of this Act in improvements that we do not just register the statistics and the grants which are approved but find some way of registering the actual take-up of the approvals to get an accurate picture of what is happening down in the districts? Would the Minister consider this point seriously in the Department?

Mr. Amery

On what the hon. Gentleman calls the non-polemical side, I will discuss this with our statisticians. We have so far simply been following in the footsteps of our predecessors. On his polemical point, my answer would be in the negative. I understood my hon. Friend to be taking the Labour Party to task for not having made the best use of the legislative opportunity which it had achieved in 1969.