HC Deb 10 June 1975 vol 893 cc377-80

10.23 p.m.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton)

I am grateful to the Minister for this opportunity of even four minutes to raise in this House the problem of the desperate housing deficiency in Burton-on-Trent.

The most romantic, imaginative and polemical orator could not describe Burton-on-Trent as a town of great architectural beauty. In the great hey-day in the nineteenth century, in Burton when one could get a drink for a penny and dead drunk for twopence, and the great names of the British brewing industry had their empires in our town, they threw up thousands of workers' cottages which have now become little better than slums. They are still standing drab, monotonous, shabby, in their terraced rows—a tribute to the builders but not to the architects. They are solid but deficient in the basic amenities, with no bath or inside WC or hot or cold water or wash-hand basins.

That is a familiar enough tale in the Midlands, but Burton's problem is far worse than the national average. In a town of perhaps 20,000 houses, 9,800 are pre-1914, 6,000 are in a poor state of repair, 7,000 are without the standard amenities and 800 are owned by the local authority and in desperate need of modernisation. It is to that issue that I address the Minister.

It would be churlish to apportion blame. The fact is that we now have a vigorous East Staffordshire District Council determined to do something about it. Encouraged by Government circulars and ministerial statements, they have determined to end the housing despair and deficiency. They have planned to tackle the task sensibly and with practical restraint. They aim to build 300 new houses over the next five years and to improve 150 houses a year. They have determined to end the housing misery by 1980–81.

Imagine, then, the blow when the request for £411,000 for modernisation was turned down and an allowance of only £50,000 was made by the Department of the Environment. That means instead of modernising 150 houses a year, modernising only 20. The result of that will be not only bitter disappointment and despair for tenants who have been happy to see that their council has been committed to this widespread redevelopment, and a serious set-back in the programme and a blow to the enthusiasm and devotion of the councillors and officers who are committed to the scheme, but also the further deterioration of council houses to the point where they become clearance areas and therefore more expensive. This will throw the whole new building programme out of gear.

I have raised this issue to ask the Minister to consider Burton as a special case. Its housing situation is far worse than the national average. Its application has been cut not by 50 per cent. but by 87 per cent.. The proportion of harm that will flow from the failure to have a substantial increase in the amount that has been offered will be greater than will occur in most towns in the Midlands. Where the new local authority has acted so responsibly, that is a very sad blow.

Basic housing amenities are a right which ranks high in the order of today's priorities. I ask the Minister to be good enough to offer Burton a thread of hope—a small sum of money out of the £44 million which he has released for special cases. I ask him not to be too rigid in the application of the rule of thumb by which he has laid down a measure for the allocation of extra resources. It is not my nature to beg, and perhaps the Minister will never again see me do this. If he does want a repeat performance he had best give me a crumb or two worth humbling myself for.

10.26 p.m.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Reginald Freeson)

I express my appreciation to the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) for passing certain papers to my Department at short notice so that during the short time I have had to prepare for our few minutes together I could have an idea of the points which he wished to raise.

I will go briefly through the position as we have experienced it. The position on the control of expenditure on improvement schemes is that it is firm Government policy, despite doubts expressed in several quarters, to move away from capital expenditure on improving pre-war and inter-war council estates—which no doubt are in need of improvement but have all the basic amenities—towards spending that money on council-built and council-municipalised, substandard obsolescent dwellings. This requires a transitional period. Most of the money available this year has gone to committed contractual works, most of which received 76 per cent. Most of those properties do not come within the priorities we have now laid down, but there will be a progressive shift.

Time prevents me from describing more fully the background policy, but I shall turn to the position in East Staffordshire. There is no doubt that East Staffordshire is in need of an urban renewal strategy. The Department has been in touch with the new authority during the past year to try to get a rehabilitation and urban renewal strategy under way. We still intend to give it backing, although we are under some financial constraint.

Cutting through all the correspondence and all the contacts there have been in the short time available to me this even- ing, I can say that a meeting has been arranged for 16th June between officials of my Department, at regional level, and the local authority officials to go into detail about what comprises the proposal of urban renewal strategy briefly referred to by the hon. Gentleman.

If it is clear that there is a practicable and workable programme, part of which is a rehabilitation programme, it will certainly be my wish to try to provide, from the £44 million which I have available for this programme nationally, an additional allocation to East Staffordshire so as to increase the amount of activity this year even if it is not possible to achieve the full programme.

The main objective still remains that, whatever the difficulties in this area, however we may be able to assist after a practical programme has been discussed on 16th July, we shall still work with the local authority—and with many other local authorities—for a period of years ahead, not just one year, to achieve a satisfactory strategy whereby the resources which are available—they are limited; we have between £200 million and £300 million—will go primarily to rehabilitating substandard, obsolescent properties throughout the country and will not continue to be spent largely on properties which already have the basic amenities—as has been the practice for the last three to five years. That is the policy, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that if it is possible within the resources available to me—

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.