Council House Sales

HC Deb 23 May 1973 vol 857 cc452-5

15. Mr. MacArthur

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a further statement about the progress of the sale of local authority houses to sitting tenants.

Mr. Younger

I have been informed of the completion of the sale of 917 houses to sitting tenants by 63 local authorities.

Mr. MacArthur

Is my hon. Friend aware that these figures are welcome but that they represent very slow progress? Will he take more urgent action to encourage local authorities to offer houses for sale to their sitting tenants and so help the spread of property ownership, which all of us on this side believe in? Does he agree that this is the only way in which many young couples in Scotland will be able to own their own houses?

Mr. Younger

I agree with my hon. Friend that there is scope for considerable expansion of council house sales. I should add to my original answer that, in the new towns, 2,025 houses have been sold since 1970. The Scottish Special Housing Association has now started sales and I understand that it has sold about 250. I agree that the vast demand particularly on the part of young couples in Scotland to own their own homes could be greatly assisted if local authorities helped in this way by allowing them to buy the homes in which they at present live.

Mr. James Hamilton

Is the Minister aware that, because of the number of people who are homeless and on the housing lists, many local authorities cannot afford to sell council houses? Is he further aware that many young couples who want to buy their own homes cannot manage the down payment and certainly cannot get a mortgage? If he will come clean on this and tell the House where they can get a mortgage and down payment, he will be answering the question.

Mr. Younger

If one wants a mortgage, one can go to the building societies. They are giving out mortgages right now to people who want them, and I hope that they have the hon. Gentleman's encouragement in doing so. As for the waiting lists, it makes no difference to a waiting list if a family which is at present living in a house and is likely to carry on living in it on a rented basis decides to buy it and is given permission to do so and continues to live in it. It makes no difference to the waiting list because the council receives money from that house which it can use to build a house for a homeless family.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne

What is my hon. Friend's attitude towards local authorities seeking to dispose by sale of vacant council houses in respect of which I believe the matter is in his discretion?

Mr. Younger

Any applications of that sort would be considered on their merits, taking into account the availability of houses in the area and the size of waiting lists. There are circumstances in which this can be a very helpful thing for all concerned.

Mr. Robert Hughes

How can the Minister be so naive as to say that the sale of a house to a sitting tenant makes no difference to the waiting list? Is he not aware that if, instead of this obsession with selling council houses, he were to act to control and keep down the prices of private property, sitting tenants could buy outside the council house market, thereby releasing houses for people on the waiting list?

Mr. Younger

But the great difficulty for young people starting to buy their first home is to get a home they can afford to buy at the low price they can afford to pay. One of the ways of achieving this is to allow them to buy the council house in which they live. The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind: either he is in favour of encouraging young couples to own their own homes or he is not. I should like him to come clean on this and make his view clear.

17. Mr. Sproat

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will seek to introduce measures to give council tenants a statutory right to buy their homes after living in them for a certain time, subject to a right of appeal by local authorities on the grounds of specified local housing problems.

Mr. Younger

I share my hon. Friend's wish to see more council tenants being given the opportunity of buying their houses, and I hope that local authorities will come increasingly to realise that this is in their own interest as well as that of their tenants, but I am not persuaded at present that any new statutory rights should be created.

Mr. Sproat

Will my hon. Friend keep this matter very much under review? Does he not agree that it is a disgraceful fact that Aberdeen, Glasgow and Dundee have not sold one council house to their tenants, and that the Scottish sales figure that he has just given—917—compares shamefully with the English figure of over 16,000 houses? Does he not agree that the dogmatic Labour-controlled authorities are frustrating the natural and right feeling of many families in Scotland which want to own their own houses?

Mr. Younger

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is very regrettable that some of these local authorities are refusing to do this. All I can say is that they will have to answer to their electors, including those young couples who live in the areas concerned and who want to buy their their own house but are refused the right to do so by the action of their councils.

Mr. Robert Hughes

Has not the answer to this matter been given, certainly in Aberdeen and Glasgow, by the massive defeat of the Government's supporters in the municipal elections? People of Scotland do not want council houses to be sold. Will the Minister say how young couples starting off life can find their way on to the waiting list to qualify for buying their first home?

Mr. Younger

The hon. Gentleman knows the rules for getting on to the waiting lists of various local authorities as well as I do. The hon. Gentleman's views about the people of Scotland are strangely at variance—[Interruption.] I am not sure about the strange noise coming across to my right ear. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is no use saying that people in Scotland do not wish to buy their council houses when literally thousands are applying to do so.

Mr. Edward Taylor

Have the Government closed their minds to statutory powers in this matter?

Mr. Younger

No, I have not closed my mind to any of the alternatives, but at present it would not be right to introduce new statutory powers.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown

While this might have been the subject of speeches at the recent Tory Party conference at Perth—I suppose that it was one of the few subjects raised—will the Minister at least consult some of us who know something about council schemes and the social problems which might arise from any indiscriminate instructions to local authoties that they must sell council houses?

Mr. Younger

The question of social problems has to be looked at very carefully at all times, but I am not aware of any social problems having arisen in any of the places where these houses have been sold so far.