HC Deb 12 July 1978 vol 953 cc1482-4
3. Mr. Michael Morris

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of the deficit on housing revenue accounts is now met from rents.

Mr. Freeson

On the latest available information for a full financial year, the proportion of housing revenue account costs of local authorities in England in 1977–78 covered by rents was 56.5 per cent.

Mr. Morris

Is not that a grossly misleading figure when the official figure produced in Cmnd. 6393, the White Paper on public expenditure, referred to rebated rents and was given as 43 per cent. and is currently 44 per cent.? Are we to understand from the Government that they have now totally abandoned the policy as laid down in that White Paper that after rebates the target should be 50 per cent., as further emphasised by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?

Mr. Freeson

There is nothing misleading about what I have said, any more than it would be misleading to indicate the figures for rent allowances in the private sector. Certainly the figure quoted by the hon. Gentleman for the aggregate rent income, following rebate, of about 44 per cent. is correct. I was speaking initially of gross rent income, which is what goes into the housing revenue account. As has been made quite clear many times in the House and elsewhere, the figures referred to in the White Paper on public expenditure were projections. They were not target figures.

Mr. Frank Allaun

Is not Labour in favour of maintaining the subsidies both for owner-occupiers and for council tenants? Is it not a fact, implicit in the question just asked, that Conservative Members and the Conservative Party are in favour of cutting council house subsidies and thereby deliberately raising rents for 6 million families?

Mr. Freeson

I believe that one must draw that conclusion, and a much worse conclusion as well, because, in addition to that, it is the Conservatives' intention to cut back massively on investment in public sector housing. They have been asked their views on this several times and have never made their position clear. The question of the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) is also to be criticised because it reflects a lack of understanding of what goes into housing revenue accounts. They are not concerned simply with the cost of running existing estates, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.

Mr. Heseltine

Is it not quite clear that the Minister for Housing and Construction has been providing one set of figures in order to avoid giving the figures which the House has been seeking to obtain? Is it not true that the White Paper, Command 6393, about which the Minister has been questioned, set out quite clearly that the percentage of costs covered was 43 per cent., that it was the Government's intention that it should rise to 50 per cent. or over, and that the Government even went so far as to project a saving in public expenditure of £180 million a year to be made by 1978–79? Will the Minister now say that the figures included in the Government's White Paper are no longer to be taken as reliable?

Mr. Freeson

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will either constantly not understand or constantly misinterpret answers that he has been given. The figures I have quoted, and which have been exchanged across the Floor of the House, are not new. Both figures, the gross rent income and the net rebated rent income, have been well established for some time. There is no question of not providing that information on the Floor of the House.

As has been made clear previously to the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members, the White Paper to which he refers set down a series of projected figures. They were not target or policy figures. They were influenced, and will continue to be influenced—as will be the savings figure to which the hon. Gentleman referred, which has also been explained previously—by, for example, changes in interest rates. The changes in interest rates up and down over a period of time have already had a marked effect on the total level of subsidy paid into the public sector.

Mr. Morris

I have had a grossly misleading answer from the Minister for Housing and Construction and will seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Speaker

There is a formula for seeking to raise the matter on the Adjournment.