Empty Properties (Hansard, 17 March 1976)

§ 16. Mr. Budgen
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will send out a circular to local authorities asking them to compile a comprehensive list of all empty properties in whatever condition which are in their ownership.

§ Mr. Freeson
No, Sir; but we will be issuing a circular on the better use of housing stock soon and this will cover matters concerning empty properties, in both the public and private sectors.

§ Mr. Budgen
Does the Minister agree that the right thing to do would be to stop taking more previously privately-owned houses into what he calls "social ownership" and to allow landlords to be freer of the suffocating restrictions of the Rent Acts?

§ Mr. Freeson
No doubt the hon. Gentleman will wish to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, in the debate that is to follow. However, the answer to his question in the meantime is "No". We do not intend to close down our municipalisation programme or the programme for the purchase of houses by housing associations to bring them into the public sector.

§ Mrs. Millie Miller
In spite of his reply to the original Question, will my hon. Friend consider including columns in the statistics regularly returned by local authorities to his Department to show vacant properties in both the public and private sectors to enable local authorities to plan their programmes of acquisition according to current statistics? My hon. Friend may not be aware that at present only 15 of the 32 London boroughs—this is in the greatest stress area of the country—are keeping regular records in this respect.

§ Mr. Freeson
I am not sure that I shall be seeking to get the kind of statistics to which my hon. Friend has referred in precisely the form that she seems to be suggesting, but the possibility of getting a methodical follow-through of empty properties—techniques are being developed by a number of authorities—is in our minds, and we are considering it in the preparation of the circular to which I have just referred.

§ Mr. Stephen Ross
May I speak in support of the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mrs. Miller) and ask that the Minister does as the hon. Lady has asked? Further, may I say—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]. I apologise. I shall start again.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough: I know that he will ask a question.

§ Mr. Ross
May I ask the Minister whether these figures can be published? Many of us are under the impression that local authorities are sitting on a great 1316 many empty properties and it is time that they put their own house in order.

§ Mr. Freeson
I propose to touch on this question if the matter is pursued further in the debate to follow later this afternoon. Meanwhile, I repeat what my right hon. Friend and I have said on a number of occasions in the past: it is quite incorrect to say that local authorities in general—although there are exceptions—are sitting on a large and undue number of empty properties. The biggest problem in this matter lies, if anywhere, in the private sector, not the public.

§ Mr. Ronald Atkins
Does my hon. Friend agree that a more serious problem is the large number of empty privately-owned houses, most of them in terraced blocks, which are deteriorating either because there are no mortgages available for that type of property or because they need to be taken over by local authorities?

§ Mr. Freeson
In areas where that is the position and properties are standing empty for a long time and therefore deteriorating, I should welcome initiatives by local authorities to bring such properties into public ownership. They could then be repaired, brought up to a decent state and occupied by families in need. This is the basic reason for our municipalisation policy.