HC Deb 08 November 1978 vol 957 cc955-6
18. Mr. Rooker

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest figures for house building in the private and public sectors.

Mr. Shore

The figures for September were published on 6th November. In the private sector 15,500 houses were started and 12,500 completed in September. The total from January to the end of September is 117,600 starts and 109,400 completions. In the public sector 9,000 houses were started and 10,400 completed in September. For the period from January to the end of September there were 85,400 starts and 96,900 completions.

Mr. Rooker

Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the reasons why public sector completions will be less this year than they would otherwise have been is that local authorities such as Birmingham have disbanded their direct building departments and handed over their contracts to builders who have then gone bankrupt, so that estates of half-finished council houses are now littering my constituency, for example—which is no damn good at all for my constituents? What will my right hon. Friend do about that?

Mr. Shore

I am always anxious to help my hon. Friend in any way that I can. I believe that his point about action taken against direct building departments is one part of the explanation in his area and, indeed, in one or two other areas. But there are other rather more generalised difficulties, and the major one is that housing approvals have lagged way below what we allocated funds for last year and again this year.

Mr. Sainsbury

Does the Secretary of State expect that among the totals which he gave there will be sufficient units for those in special need, such as the elderly and the disabled? Would it not be helpful if the Department's statistics always separately identified the number of housing units which have been designed for those people in special need, since most local authorities are not meeting the self-evident need in those areas but are concentrating on providing too many standard homes, which the private sector can perfectly well provide?

Mr. Shore

I shall look at the hon. Gentleman's suggestion about publishing more detailed information on types of housing, but the general trend has been towards the provision of a greater proportion of public rented housing for old people and, increasingly now, for disabled people as well. These are trends that we all wish to encourage.