HC Deb 25 February 1976 vol 906 cc368-71
16. Mr. Newton

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make additional resources available for the improvement of council houses.

Mr. Crosland

As indicated in the statement of 12th February by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, an additional £50 million is being made available for public sector house improvement during 1976–77 as one of a number of measures designed to alleviate unemployment.

Mr. Newton

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I wish that the Chancellor would always respond so quickly to such sensible suggestions? Is he aware that I should be even more grateful if this measure had been achieved by curtailing wasteful expenditure on municipalisation and if there were any sign of an immediate review of a housing policy which seems to result in the misspending of more and more money and the creation of a bigger and bigger problem?

Mr. Crosland

No doubt municipalisation is not a major issue in Braintree, but if the hon. Gentleman represented a borough in an inner city centre in any of our great cities he would know that it is often the only way of saving property in bad repair and bringing empty houses back to the housing market.

Mr. Heffer

Will my right hon. Friend get in touch with local authorities in conurbations such as Liverpool and tell them to get on with the job of housing improvements? In particular, will he point out to them that it is a scandal that council houses can be left standing empty up to eight or nine months after the previous tenants have moved out? The excuse made by the council is that it does not have the people to deal with the repairs. In an area such as Liverpool that is an absolute disgrace. Will my right hon. Friend tell the Liverpool Council to get on with the job of getting new tenants into council houses?

Mr. Crosland

I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend. However, the problem of council houses standing empty is not anything like as serious as the problem in the private sector.

Mr. Raison

Oh!

Mr. Crosland

The national figures indicate that the proportion of the council housing stock that is empty is very much smaller than the proportion of empty houses in the private housing stock. In Liverpool and Merseyside the problem goes wider than my hon. Friend has suggested. New house building in Mersey-side, alone among the conurbations, fell last year as compared with the year before. The total housing situation on Merseyside is a matter of great urgency.

Mr. Michael Morris

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are thousands upon thousands of empty properties that have been municipalised by local authorities? Would it not be much more sensible if authorities spent their money on repairing and improving those properties before buying further properties?

Mr. Crosland

Surely the hon. Gentleman knows that the object of Section 105 expenditure is precisely to redirect local authority spending towards the housing that the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I must make that plain. I shall give the House the information in one form or another, but I insist that the problem of empty housing is not solely or primarily a problem of empty houses in the public sector. It is more a problem in the private sector.

Mr. George Cunningham

Will my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that in distributing the additional £50 million between local authorities, the principal criterion will be to distribute it roughly in proportion to the stock of properties bought from the private sector, properties which are often empty and awaiting rehabilitation by the local authority?

Mr. Crosland

That cannot be the principal criterion. The money was provided partly, as my hon. Friend knows, as an anti-unemployment measure. There will have to be two criteria. The first must be the housing criterion, which my hon. Friend has mentioned. The second must be the level of unemployment in the construction industry.

Mr. Stephen Ross

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in my constituency, as opposed to Liverpool, some local authority houses have been empty for as long as two years? It is said that these properties have been standing empty because very often there has been delay on the part of the Department of the Environment in approving schemes for modernisation.

Mr. Joseph Dean

It is a Liberal council.

Mr. Ross

It is not a Liberal council. Will the Secretary of State remember that the Isle of Wight has an unemployment rate in excess of 8.3 per cent. and that it could do with some of the £50 million?

Mr. Crosland

All of us in all parts of the House look to the Isle of Wight for guidance in our housing policies. The suggestion that the Isle of Wight has a prior claim in terms of unemployment or housing problems must cause some dispute.

Mr. Raison

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that one reason for the appalling housing situation in many inner city areas is the present absurd system of Rent Acts? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the need for an urgent reform of the system? Will he tell the House that he will look much more kindly than his hon. Friend on the sort of proposals put forward in a Private Member's Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane)?

Mr. Crosland

I have already announced that we shall be reviewing the complex Rent Acts in the course of the housing finance review. I must correct the hon. Gentleman and point out that the decline in the private rented sector, contrary to what is constantly said by his right hon. and hon. Friends, proceeded at just as rapid a rate under the Conservative Government as during the past two years.