HC Deb 21 April 1980 vol 983 cc16-7
12. Mr. Alan

Williams asked the Secretary of State for Wales when next he intends to meet the Council for the Principality.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards

I have no immediate plans to meet the Council for the Principality, though I expect to meet its representatives on the Welsh Consultative Council for Local Government Finance when it meets on 15 May.

Mr. Williams

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us his estimate of the cost of the Clegg award as it affects teachers in Wales? Will he compensate Welsh local authorities for those costs, or does he expect the cost to be met by further cuts in education or by the sacking of teachers?

Mr. Edwards

The right hon. Gentleman would receive a more helpful and detailed answer if he asked a specific rather than a general question. In making their allocation to local authorities, the Government made estimates of the likely cost of a Clegg award. Provision has been made in the financial allocation to local authorities, from which they can plan.

Mr. Alec Jones

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that with the cut in the housing improvement programme in Wales of £28.5 million it is impossible for local authorities to complete as many houses next year as they did this year? What message will he give to the Council for the Principality and to the homeless people of Wales when the Government will sell more houses than they are building?

Mr. Edwards

Under the Labour Government there was a declining trend in house building. We have continued those policies and met their guarantee of an 80 per cent. allocation. I have nothing to add to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary—[Interruption.] Again, we get an intervention from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands) from a sedentary position. His local authority has received 92 per cent. of its previous allocation.

Mr. Best

Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, given the percentage of poor housing stock in Wales, the emphasis should be not on new building but on improving the existing housing stock?

Mr. Edwards

My hon. Friend will be aware that we have just announced an important new initiative that will help local authorities to improve houses for sale.

Mr. Wigley

Does not the Secretary of State recognise that 15,000 to 20.000 building workers are unemployed in Wales, that 60,000 families are on waiting lists for council houses and that it is therefore ridiculous to pay people to be out of work?

Mr. Edwards

Jobs will not be created if we cannot reduce public expenditure, public borrowing and interest rates. Such reductions must remain the Government's central objectives.