HC Deb 23 November 1977 vol 939 cc1508-10
7. Mr. Knox

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has any plans to encourage the adequate supply of private accommodation for students at universities and polytechnics.

Mr. Freeson

Apart from the provision of on-campus accommodation, a great deal is being done in the public sector to meet the needs of single persons, including students. The housing Green Paper suggested a number of measures to help those who wish to buy homes; and we shall, in the current review of the Rent Acts, take full account of the rôle of rented housing in meeting students' and other single persons' needs.

Mr. Knox

That was a very disappointing and inadequate reply. When will the Minister take positive steps to encourage a substantial increase in student housing associations, and when will he set up a register of students' accommodation which would be exempt from security of tenure?

Mr. Freeson

The hon. Gentleman's last suggestion has been considered and rejected by the Government after a great deal of discussion. The housing association movement to which the hon. Gentleman referred has trebled the amount of housing it is providing annually during the past three years. A great deal of that housing—not enough yet—is being provided for single people, including young single people, such as students.

Mr. Douglas-Mann

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a group of students can pay a great deal more for given accommodation than any family seeking that accommodation would be able to pay, and that removal of security of tenure would simply result in the students paying substantially higher rents and their becoming even more attractive to the landlord compared with an ordinary family, thus aggravating the problems for other people in university towns?

Mr. Freeson

My hon Friend has summarised very well the reasons that led us to reject the proposal that the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Knox) put to me.

Mr. Rossi

Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that in the autumn of 1974 the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), then his Under-Secretary of State, wrote, as Minister, to me giving an undertaking that the Government would introduce legislation to remove student accommodation in the hands of private landlords from the effects of the Rent Acts? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that since the breaking of that undertaking countless students have suffered considerable hardship every September, even including this Septem ber? In view of that, does he not regard his answer as both a breach of faith and terribly complacent?

Mr. Freeson

It was certainly not complacent. We had exchanges on several occasions two or three years ago about the proposal put by the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Knox) and we rejected it for the reasons stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann).

Both before and since the 1974 Rent Act there have been difficulties, to a degree, for students in polytechnics and universities in September of each year. But it is not true that the position is worse. If anything, the evidence that I have—it is only indicative evidence—is that the position is somewhat better now than it has been in the past.