HC Deb 24 July 1975 vol 896 cc757-8
7. Mr. McCusker

asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the future of the Housing Executive.

The Under-Secretary of State for North Ireland (Mr. J. D. Concannon)

It is honed to lay before Parliament later this year an Order in Council which will give the Housing Executive new responsibilities in relation to the improvement of the existing housing stock. There are no other plans to change the role of the executive, which has its own internal arrangements under constant review to improve its efficiency.

Mr. McCusker

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if public authority housing is to get on to an even keel once again some real sense of local identity has to be established? Will he consider setting up liaison committees between district councils and the Housing Executive to deal with such matters as mundane repairs, house allocations and so on? Only by doing this will we get acceptance again that the community has to pay its way.

Mr. Concannon

We have various offices up and down the Province, and this is one of the matters concerning the Housing Executive in its review. At the same time we should recognise the special difficulties of the Housing Executive. Its headquarters has been bombed nine times. Several of the other offices, along with large numbers of houses, have also been bombed. In 1973–74 there were 340 explosions affecting 6,800 houses. Belfast has had 1,495 Housing Executive houses vandalised. All this takes up valuable resources and money which I can hardly afford to spend.

Mr. Fitt

Does my hon. Friend accept that although the Housing Executive is woefully deficient in many areas, especi- ally in terms of repairs, what we want is to improve the efficiency of the executive and to resist any attempt which may be made by certain political orders to return the functions of the Housing Executive to the local authorities which created such a disaster in their running of housing in Northern Ireland in the past?

Mr. Concannon

I have no intention of reverting to local government control of housing in Northern Ireland. It would be a retrograde step to move away from the concept of a single impartial housin authority.