HC Deb 27 February 1980 vol 979 cc1335-6
7. Mr. Richard Wainwright

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to meet the chairman of the Building Societies Association.

Mr. Heseltine

I have no immediate plans to meet the chairman of the Building Societies Association. We last met on 18 January, and will meet again as appropriate. My Department has close and frequent contacts with BSA representatives.

Mr. Wainwright

When the right hon. Gentleman's Department is next in contact with the BSA, will he ensure that building societies are urged to compete more vigorously with each other so that potential house purchasers have a wider choice of terms and conditions and, in some cases, less exacting ones?

Mr. Heseltine

The hon. Gentleman will know that there are a number of reports, and I have conducted my own investigations into the wide issues that form the background to his question. It would be wrong for me to anticipate the conclusions that I shall draw from those reports. It is worth making the point that any step of the sort that the hon. Gentleman has in mind might easily lead to higher mortgage rates.

Mr. McCrindle

When the Secretary of State next meets the BSA, will he tell the association that it is no part of the Government's policy to adopt the recommendation in a report published in the past week which could lead to a tax on owner-occupation not dissimilar to schedule A, which some of us spent a decade urging the previous Conservative Government to abolish?

Mr. Heseltine

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the question of schedule A, which I understand is the subject of a bitter defeat of myself in the processes of Government, because I failed to get it re-introduced. As the words have never crossed my lips since the return of this Government, it is unlikely that that is a true story.

Mr. Ioan Evans

As the Prime Minister is meeting the guru Milton Friedman today, will the right hon. Gentleman pass a message through the right hon. Lady to ask whether his philosophies are working with regard to housing. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that when MLR was 70 per cent. mortgages reached a record height and yet the banks were making hundreds of millions of pounds in extra profits?

Mr. Heseltine

The hon. Gentleman will, therefore, want to support the Government in our efforts to reduce public expenditure, which is the root cause of the problem to which he draws our attention.