HC Deb 04 February 1981 vol 998 c283
13. Mr. Murphy

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what priority the Government are giving to the public expenditure in the new towns as against investment in the inner urban areas.

Mr. Heseltine

As the new towns programme reaches completion the level of public investment is bound to decline. Our new initiatives in the inner cities will increase the level of public investment there. Expenditure in both areas has, however, to be considered in the light of available resources and demands from elsewhere. There are no precise formulae for measuring the relative priorities.

Mr. Murphy

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the speedy winding up of the new towns commission and the new towns corporations would help to free a large amount of public expenditure, which could then be used for urban renewal?

Mr. Heseltine

I shall with permission, Mr. Speaker, make a further statement about that later this afternoon. If we do not spend so much public money on the new towns, resources will be available for expenditure elsewhere. However, it does not follow that savings in the new towns would flow into the inner urban areas.

Mr. Newens

Has not the right hon. Gentleman discriminated against new towns, in that he has applied a rate support settlement to them which in many cases has deprived them of the necessary funds and housing subsidies? Is he aware that to date he has postponed and refused to reach a settlement on section 10 grant matters, which means that many of the new towns are unable to deal with the problems of maintenance and design defects of the houses which were passed on to them by the development corporation? Is that not a matter about which he should be ashamed?

Mr. Heseltine

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that a meeting will be conducted by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State in about two weeks to discuss the precise problems to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I would not in any way accept the criticisms implied in his question about the rate support grant. We have simply reallocated to other authorities whose cases, on the measure of an independent basis of analysis, seemed to be more critical than those of the authorities that lost grants.