Council Houses (Sale)

HC Deb 07 March 1979 vol 963 cc1233-5

6. Mr. Gow

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many council homes and council flats were sold by local authorities to sitting tenants during the first nine months of the current financial year; and what was the equivalent figure for the same period of each of the two previous financial years.

Mr. Shore

It is estimated that, between April and December 1978, English local authorities sold 23,400 houses and 400 flats. During the equivalent periods in 1976 and 1977, when authorities did not differentiate in their returns between houses and flats, sales of 3,734 and 9,440 dwellings respectively were reported. Information on the proportion of dwellings sold to sitting tenants is not separately compiled, but the evidence that we have suggests that a majority of such disposals would have been to sitting tenants.

Mr. Gow

Does the Secretary of State agree that the figures which he has just announced confirm the view which he expressed in his speech on Monday, that increasing numbers of council tenants have been and are anxious to buy their own houses, and will he say what proposals he has to meet precisely that demand which he himself acknowledged on Monday?

Mr. Shore

The hon. Gentleman ought to look a little more carefully at the announcement which I made. What I was determined to do was to put a stop to what I consider to be abuses, and the abuses are the sale of empty properties and newly built properties on the open market to people who, in my judgment, could just as easily acquire accommodation themselves in the private housing market. The argument about selling council houses or council properties to sitting tenants, especially in areas where there is not a great pressure—although there are many areas where there is still great pressure of housing need—is, in my view, rather different. Provided that the two years' residence rule is accepted, authorities will be free to continue to sell.

Mr. Frank Allaun

Will my right hon. Friend accept warmest congratulations on his three steps this week, which will go a long way to help those on the waiting lists for council dwellings? Secondly, if the evil of this municipal asset stripping continues, will my right hon. Friend go further and consider the Labour Party's policy of stopping all sales at below market price, which gives a discount to certain people and an unfair incentive to damage a social asset?

Mr. Shore

In fact, most sales below market price, as my hon. Friend puts it, are of new properties, where the cost of building has been in excess of the actual sale price. I believe that the measure which I have announced will largely take care of that. Beyond that, there is the question of the discount, but against the discount has to be weighed the fact of pre-emption—the right to buy at the original sale price—which a council may be able to exercise in five years' time, and that is a matter which needs to be balanced very carefully.

Mr. Rossi

Can the Secretary of State give his estimates of the number of sales which will be diminished as a result of his announcement on Monday?

Mr. Shore

It is difficult to do that at the moment, because we shall have to compile—

Mr. Rossi

The right hon. Gentleman has no idea?

Mr. Shore

At the moment I literally do not have a full picture of the number of houses which are being kept empty by different councils in London and elsewhere in the hope of selling them. We know a good deal about the GLC figures because those have become available, but I do not yet have, at it were, a nationwide picture of the number of houses which are being kept empty.

Mr. Rossi

Is the Secretary of State telling the House that he announces policies without knowing the consequences of those policies?

Mr. Shore

That is an absurdity. The hon. Gentleman knows the position perfectly well. There are two aspects to the policy which I announced. The first is the number of houses which are empty at any given time. Secondly, there are the numbers which are about to be completed or are in the pipeline of construction and which, until I announced my change of policy, would have been sold. I cannot give an exact estimate of those figures, for obvious reasons.

Mr. Jay

Will my right hon. Friend say when the decision which he announced on Monday will come into force, since great damage is still now being done to housing in London by council house sales?

Mr. Shore

I have kept the period of consultation pretty short, and I intend to bring the new directive into effect at the end of next week.