Improvement Grants

HC Deb 26 July 1972 vol 841 cc1796-800

7. Mr. Frank Allaun

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will introduce safeguards to prevent exploitation of the Government grants for improving old houses and flats for profit-making purposes, including a condition that such properties should not be sold within three years of improvement without specific approval by the local authority.

Mr. Amery

No, Sir. It is for the local authority to decide whether or not to make a discretionary grant in any particular case.

Mr. Allaun

But what steps will the Government take to help? Surely the Minister is aware that speculators are buying up old properties, hustling out the tenants, applying for grants, receiving up to £4,500 for converting an old house into three flats, and then selling them for a very large profit? Surely this is wrong and can be prevented.

Mr. Amery

The hon. Gentleman will remember that his noble Friend, Lord Greenwood, when he was Minister for Housing, removed the restriction on the approval of grants by local authorities. We do it for the same reason. I quite understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety about speculators. My anxiety is concentrated on the fact that 2.3 million people in this country still live in substandard houses, and I do not want to do anything which will slow up the improvement of these homes.

Mr. Allason

What is the difference to the public purse between someone improving a house and then selling it andhis selling it as it stands and the purchaser then improving it?

Mr. Amery

My hon. Friend has a good point. There is very little difference. In any case, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor gets his whack of all the proceeds.

Mr. Leonard

Will not the Minister at least give some guidance to local authorities in this respect? Has he taken account of a recent article in the Housing Review which gave specific examples of speculators making very substantial profits, which are approximately equal to the size of the improvement grant, and which suggests that a large number of people have been uprooted as a result of these operations and have added to the problem of homelessness, about which we have heard?

Mr. Amery

Where discretionary grants are concerned, local authorities have complete discretion whether to give the grants. Where the standard grant is concerned, they have to give it, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to prevent the installation of a bathroom or indoor sanitation in any houses. Surely the situation as it stands today is in no way unsatisfactory. The hon. Gentleman will remember that if there is any question of compulsory purchase, the Department of the Environment might well have to adopt a judicial position in this and to decide for or against an appeal. It may well be unwise to give guidance to authorities, which in any case might involve them in very heavy expenditure.

Mr. Freeson

Is not the Minister missing the whole central point of the questions? Is he not aware that they are not directed to reducing the rate of improvement of the bricks and mortar but to the question of the displacement of increasing numbers of moderate-income families from these areas as a result of the purchase of these properties for conversion and sale as business propositions? Is not there a study taking place in the Department on this matter? If the Minister can confirm that, why has he not mentioned it to the House? Will he take it from the Opposition that we believe it right that local authorities should be encouraged to move into this area of property dealing to carry out the conversions and improvements themselves and to let at reasonable rents?

Mr. Amery

I am very reluctant to advise local authorities to embark on the very heavy expenditure which compulsory purchase orders might put upon them. We are studying the matter; we should be irresponsible not to do so. But I have nothing like enough information to put before the House about my conclusions on the study. As of now, no information has been put before us to suggest that there is any substantial number of people deprived of good accommodation as a result of improvements. All the information we have points the other way.

12. Mr. Judd

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will establish an inquiry into the proportion of improvement grants going to owner-occupiers and the proportion going to property companies.

Mr. Amery

No, Sir. The numbers of grants approved to owner-occupiers and landlords respectively are already known. No useful purpose would be served by attempting any further subdivision.

Mr. Judd

Does the Minister agree that it was never the intention of any of those concerned with this enlightened legislation to swell the profits of property companies at the taxpayers' expense? He says that he is concerned with answering housing need, but is he not troubled by the evidence of an increasing tendency to displace existing occupiers so that profits can be facilitated for property companies? Does not the Minister think that an inquiry at this juncture would be helpful, particularly when there are genuine owner-occupiers who are not getting discretionary grants and who feel particularly frustrated?

Mr. Amery

The hon. Gentleman is labouring under a misunderstanding. No tenant in a controlled or regulated tenancy can be evicted. The penalties against harassment have been sharply increased. There are very few tenants living in unregulated tenancies where improvement grants would be applicable.

Mr. Evelyn King

Is it not a fact that it is not property dealers who occupy flats but tenants? To deprive the tenant of his bath in order to annoy a particular kind of landlord whom the hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) does not like would be a singularly inept procedure.

Mr. Amery

Clearly it is essential to improve the housing stock and the housing conditions. I repeat that no controlled or regulated tenant can be evicted under the present law and that there are very few cases where improvement grants can be applied to unregulated tenancies.

Mr. Stallard

We have tried so many times to enlighten the Minister on this matter that I am almost sick of trying. Does he accept that all over inner London people are being evicted, harassed, bought out and pushed out of controlled and regulated tenancies by speculators making big, fat profits out of the improvement grant scheme? Will the Minister accept that, or do I have to invite him to the London borough of Camden where I can show him evidence of it?

Mr. Amery

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that in my present job I am in close contact with the leaders of the London boroughs, including the London borough of Camden. They have not put before me massive evidence of the kind the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Crosland

If the Minister seriously means that he has no evidence of people being, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. Stallard) says, pushed out, shoved out, harassed, occasionally evicted in inner London, he must be totally out of contact with reality. Will he come with me to any housing authority in London? Let him come with my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) and myself to the Colville area of Kensington where in the last few months hundreds of families, in consequence of improvement grants, have been pushed out of their present accommodation for the sake of developers' profits.

Mr. Amery

It remains an interesting point that none of these councils, most of which are of the persuasion of the Labour Party, has made representations to me about individual cases and I do not as yet know of any cases of homelessness—there may well be some, of course—or of anyone moving to inferior accommodation as a result of this.