HC Deb 12 November 1980 vol 992 cc464-6
10. Mr. Straw

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is (a) the estimated number of housing starts in the public sector for 1980–81 and (b) housing capital expenditure for 1980–81; and what were the corresponding figures for starts and expenditure, at constant prices, for 1976–77.

Mr. Heseltine

Provision for gross capital expenditure on housing in the public sector in 1980–81 is £2,040 million at 1979 survey prices. The corresponding figure for 1976–77 was £3,517 million. In April to September 1980 there were 25,500 public sector starts in England, compared with 84,700 in the same period in 1976. Public sector starts in 1980–81 will depend largely on the proportion of their allocations which local authorities have decided to devote to new building and on how far we are able to allow them to make any further commitments this year.

Mr. Straw

In the light of those figures, which show that in 1976—the year of the Labour Government's moratorium—there was the second highest number of starts in any year during the 1970s and the fact that those starts were four times the number likely to be achieved by the present Government, may we have an end to the wilful and palpable falsehoods from the Government suggesting that their housing policy bears any relationship to the Labour Government's policy? Will the Secretary of State for once have the honesty to admit that his housing policy is to abandon local authority housing as we have known it in the past 25 years?

Mr. Heseltine

I do not want to embarrass the hon. Member, but he is right to take the public sector housing starts in Britain in 1976, when they totalled 170,000. The next year the Labour Government reduced them to 130,000, the year after they were reduced to 107,000 and the year after that they were reduced to 80,000.

Mr. Michael Morris

Will my right hon. Friend also remind the House that not once in the five years of the Labour Government did the performance reach the objectives laid down in public expenditure White Papers? Would it not be helpful if my right hon. Friend reminded us that district authorities that sell assets can bolster their HIP allocation?

Mr. Heseltine

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right in saying that the Labour Party's performance never met—or did not usually do so—the figures that it put forward. I have never expected the Labour Party's performance to live up to its promises.

Mr. Leadbitter

Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that, in addition to the national picture, which is tragedy enough, in my constituency we have five starts this year, with over 2,000 people on the housing list, and that in the critical year 1981–82 there is the possibility of only 25 completions? The local authority has asked the right hon. Gentleman more than once if he will discuss with it the nature of its problem. Why does he persist in refusing?

Mr. Heseltine

If the figures that the hon. Gentleman has given are a true reflection of what is happening in his constituency—and I am not suggesting otherwise—they mean only that the local authority concerned has decided to spend its substantial HIP allocation somewhere else.