§ Mr. RifkindI beg to move amendment No. 176, in page 41, leave out lines 4 to 36 and insert—
'54(1) For paragraph (a) of section 2(3) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1974 there shall be substituted the following paragraph—
- "(a) unless they are satisfied that the owner of every parcel of land on which the improvement works are to be or are being carried out, other than land proposed to be sold or leased under section 145(4) of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1966, has consented in writing to the application and to being bound by any conditions imposed by or under section 9 of this Act ;" and after subsection (3) of that section there shall be inserted the following subsection'.
§ Mr. RifkindThe amendment removes all restrictions on the classes of person who may apply for improvement or repair grants, save for the one requirement that an applicant who is not the owner of the property must obtain the owner's consent to the application being made.
§ Amendment No. 177 is a consequential amendment to amendment No. 176.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment made : No. 177, in page 41, line 37, leave out from ' 11(5) ' to end of line 39 and insert
'of this Act shall not apply where an applicant for an improvement grant is not the owner of the land to which the application relates.'.—Mr. Rifkind.
§ Mr. RifkindI beg to move amendment No. 179, in page 41, line 43, leave out ' to (c) ' and insert ' and (b)'.
737 This is a purely drafting amendment, with no policy implications.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. RifkindI beg to move amendment No. 180, in page 42, line 2, after ' amounts ', insert ' of grant ' ;.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 185 to 187 and amendments Nos. 252 to 254.
§ Mr. RifkindAmendment No. 180 is simply a drafting change.
With regard to amendments Nos. 185 to 187, orders and regulations will be laid shortly increasing the maximum approved expenses for standard amenities and repair grants in line with the movement in costs since the levels were set in 1977. The amendments ensure that when the Bill comes into effect the various amounts specified will take account of the revaluations proposed.
The Liberal Party's amendments Nos. 252 to 254 have a similar effect with regard to the matters covered by the other amendments.
§ Mr. SteelThe level of improvement grants was not discussed in Committee. Impatient Conservative Members must realise that it is new matter that we wish to discuss on Report.
The Under-Secretary of State has proposed an upgrading of the levels of standard improvement grants. I contend that the upgrading will prove inadequate to meet the increase in building costs over the past few years. If the rise in building costs is coupled with the planned reduction in Government expenditure on new housing, it is clear that there will be little development in the provision of homes of a tolerable standard in Scotland over the next four or five years. It is essential that the House considers whether it is being realistic in saying that improvements involving putting in an inside toilet, a bathroom, re-roofing, damp-coursing, wall adaptation and internal alterations can be carried out within the proposed ceiling of £2,000. Surely that is unrealistic.
738 I accept that in my amendments I may have gone too far in the opposite direction. I make that concession before the hon. Gentleman replies. I did that deliberately because it is necessary to bring home to the House the realistic cost, which is probably about £10,000. If it is argued that to encourage people to bring their houses to a tolerable standard it is necessary to offer a grant of about 50 per cent., that means making available a grant of about £5,000.
What is a grant of £5,000 of public money to bring a house to a tolerable standard as against the cost of a new house? Surely a grant of that sort is still value for money. The Government have set out their planned reduction in public expenditure in 1983–84 on new house building, and it is important that we pay attention to the possibility of rescuing houses through improvement. I have long held the view that it is important to abolish the bulldozer mentality and to rescue the housing stock.
I have a constituency interest. In 1967 there appeared the famous Cullingworth report on Scotland's older houses. It pinpointed the town in Scotland with the largest number of unfit houses. It was not Glasgow but Galashiels, in my constituency.
I remember the day when the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State came to Galashiels in the days when there was a town council. At that time he was the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in another Conservative Government. He was responsible for housing. He felt strongly, as I did, about the need for the council to get on and remove the blot and ensure that the houses were brought up to standard.
I remember the then Under-Secretary saying to the town council that his target date for bringing all the houses in the town up to a tolerable standard was 1980. We are now in 1980 and he is the Secretary of State for Scotland. Galashiels' town council has disappeared—
§ Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)It did not disappear.
§ Mr. CormackI am being accurate.
§ Mr. SteelThe house improvement programme has not proceeded as fast as we would have wished. I have used Galashiels as an example because it was highlighted in the report.
§ Mr. YoungerThe right hon. Gentleman will recall that 1973, when I was in the position that he described, was the greatest year that we have ever had for house improvements. There was a certain interlude after 1973 when I was not responsible for making decisions.
§ Mr. SteelI do not dispute that. We have arrived at the target year and, sadly, we have not been able to cure the problem. It is a difficult technical problem, particularly in Galashiels, because of the scattered nature of the houses which have not been improved. I give that as a specific example. I could give the example of Glasgow where about 51,000 houses—16.5 per cent. of the total stock—are still below the tolerable standard, so I am not simply raising a constituency problem.
11.15 pm
At a time when the Government have taken a deliberate policy decision to cut back on new house building, are they determined to make a major drive back into house improvement of the sort that the present Secretary of State made when he was in office in a junior capacity? The answer to that question must be "No" if the Government intend to stick to the figures in the Bill, because there is no way that landlords of unimproved houses or people occupying unimproved houses will feel a strong impetus to continue with improvement, given these low levels of grant.
That is not merely a constituency view, or a Liberal Party view. COSLA has already said that the expenditure on house improvement should be reviewed annually, and that the grant limits should be raised. It also said that the Secretary of State should be more liberal in the exercise of his discretionary powers to approve applications from local authorities for grants above the permitted level for areas where large numbers of houses are below the tolerable standard. I agree with that view.
The Secretary of State for the Environment has already suggested that there will be an upward review for England 740 and Wales. I assume that the Scottish figures will follow suit. But, as soon as he declares that, any owner or any landlord who is contemplating improvement will put it off until the magic day when the figures are reviewed upwards.
I apologise for detaining the House at this late hour, but this is an important matter which should not be dealt with in a couple of minutes. Unless the Government are prepared to consider an uprating of the improvement grant figures, they will be failing to keep up the necessary impetus in the house improvement programme in Scotland.
§ Mr. RifkindI am glad that the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) has intervened in this debate, because when I spoke earlier I inadvertently, although he does not realise it, commended his amendments to the House. His intervention gives me an opportunity to clarify the Government's position.
Government amendments Nos. 185, 186 and 187 would preserve the value of the improvement grants in real terms compared with the situation in 1977, whereas the amendments proposed by the right hon. Gentleman would double them in real terms. He can rest assured that the figures that the Government have given preserve the position and take account of the changes in cost over the last three years.
The right hon. Gentleman will also be pleased to know that, in order to assist private owners and others with their improvements, the Government, in their housing allocation in the non-housing revenue account which deals with these matters, have been able to preserve in real terms the allocation to local authorities this year compared with last year. For a number of authorities, including certain authorities in the Borders, they have increased the allocation significantly. The Government recognise the objectives that the right hon. Gentleman seeks to achieve. Clearly it is not possible at any time to do as much as we would like, but we have indicated that this is a priority, and our amendments preserve in real terms the value of these important grants.
§ Mr. SteelWhen the Under-Secretary speaks about "real terms", is he speaking in terms of general inflation, or does 741 he mean building costs? Bearing in mind the earlier intervention by the Secretary of State who condemned the previous Administration, why does he base the figures in real terms on what was happening a year or two ago when we know that the house improvement programme was not given sufficient impetus? Why not increase the figures now?
§ Mr. RifkindThe question whether the house improvement scheme was given sufficient impetus does not depend on the level of the grant. It depends on the size of the allocation to local authorities. But we cannot go into that matter now.
With regard to the size of the grant, I am advised that the value in real terms is preserved compared with the value in 1977. That would be meaningless unless the grant could purchase sufficient similar facilities as would have been available in that year. At present, with the problems of levels of expenditure, that seems reasonable : In these circumstances, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that this is a perfectly appropriate level at which to be putting these grants at present.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. RifkindI beg to move amendment No. 181, in page 42, line 4, leave out from ' 1974 ' to the end of line 10 and insert
'in the definition of "owner" the words "but in Part I includes such a lessee as is mentioned in section 2(3)(a) of this Act" shall cease to have effect.'.
§ Mr. RifkindThese are almost entirely consequential amendments. Amendments Nos. 228 and 229 simply list the repeals and alterations to the Housing (Scotland) Act 1974 required by the amendments already introduced. I commend the amendments to the House.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§
Amendment made : No. 184, in page 42, line 10, at end add—
'(4) The Housing (Scotland) Act 1974 shall be amended as follows—