HC Deb 08 December 1982 vol 33 cc834-6
4. Mr. Cryer

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many council house sales he expects for 1982.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley)

Sales by local authorities and new towns in England in the first three quarters of 1982 expressed at an annual rate were some 185,000.

Mr. Cryer

Is the Minister aware that there is a waiting list in Keighley of 550 persons for 50 vacancies? Will he explain how council house sales will provide homes for those who are looking for rented accommodation when there is a massive decline in new council house building starts under his Government? If he thinks that the selling off of council houses is so marvellous, why does he not apply the same standards to the private sector and require private landlords to sell off their houses at 50 per cent. discounts with guaranteed mortgages?

Mr. Stanley

Those who are on the waiting lists and those who want rented accommodation will be substantially helped by the result of the sale of council houses during the lifetime of this Parliament. We reckon that it will increase the capacity of housing authorities to spend by about £3,000 million.

Mr. Dobson

That is not true.

Mr. Stanley

It is the Government's firm view that they have the right only to bring about sales of assets that are in public ownership. If the hon. Gentleman believes that the right to buy should apply also to the private sector, I find it strange that he should be planning to fight the next election under the banner of a party that will take away the right to buy from 6 million public sector tenants.

Dr. Mawhinney

Is my hon. Friend aware that after his intervention the Labour-controlled Peterborough city council is now selling council houses and that hundreds of my constituents, many of them Labour supporters, will be for ever grateful to him?

Mr. Stanley

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. A significant contribution has been made by him to ensure that his constituents secure their legal right in their city.

Mr. Frank Allaun

Are councils not now lumbered with paying interest on these homes for the next 60 years? Will not this burden fall on other tenants, taxpayers and ratepayers? Does it not apply even more strongly to the half-baked scheme of Mr. Monckton, which was leaked this week?

Mr. Stanley

The hon. Gentleman will remember from his time in Committee when considering the 1980 Bill that local authorities cannot sell under the right-to-buy provisions below the cost floor. Local authorities are having the benefit of hundreds of millions of pounds of capital receipts from council house sales.

Mr. Heddle

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the council tenants who exercised their right to buy in 1982 and who obtained a mortgage from the local authority are now worse off, by paying 12½ per cent. interest, than they would be if they were borrowing from a building society at the encouragingly low rates of interest that societies are now offering? Does he agree that it is in the interest of every council tenant who has exercised his right to buy to reschedule his mortgage, so releasing the money to the council and enabling it to build the new homes to which the hon. Member for Keighley, (Mr. Cryer) referred, and thereby meeting the housing demand, which is reflected in every local authority waiting list?

Mr. Stanley

My hon. Friend is right. The right to a mortgage under the 1980 Act ensured, broadly speaking, that the local authority mortgage rate did not fall below the building societies' recommended rate. The result of the Government's success in reducing inflation and reducing the building societies' rate is that some local authorities' mortgage rates are somewhat higher than the building societies' rates. We are encouraging local authorities, where they wish to do so, to roll over their local authority mortgages to building society mortgages and to get the substantial benefit of capital receipts as a result.

Mrs. Ann Taylor

As the Minister has said that local authorities should sell council houses to build new council houses, will he tell the House how many council houses have to be sold on average to enable a local authority to build one new council house? Is the figure 10, 12 or 15?

Mr. Stanley

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is soon to answer a question tabled by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) on that issue. The hon. Lady should bear in mind that if the right-to-buy provisions and the sale of council houses were not operating, local authorities would have about £3,000 million less to spend on housing.

Mr. Cryer

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the entirely unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I give notice that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

5. Mr. Spriggs

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report details of those local authority housing departments which have sold housing accommodation to sitting tenants, with numbers of houses, flats and bungalows (a) actually sold and (b) on which contracts for sale have been exchanged.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young)

Figures for the period April 1979 to June 1982 were placed in the Library following the reply by my hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Construction to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) on 24 November 1982. Over 94 per cent. of sales in England since April 1980 have been to sitting tenants.

Mr. Spriggs

Is the Minister aware that applications by council tenants who wish to buy can be hastened if they ascertain when the appropriate committee that considers the applications is sitting? Is he aware also that, of the 1,400 cases where terms have been processed in St. Helens, which is my constituency, 1,197 cases have been processed and the local authority is awaiting replies from the tenants' solicitors in the remaining cases?

Sir George Young

I am slightly surprised to hear that every case must go to the housing committee. Many local authorities have, in the interests of a slightly speedier processing of the applications, delegated those decisions to officials. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's local authority will examine that.

Mr. Eggar

Is my hon. Friend aware that many local authorities are deliberately loading the charges for communal services in flats and maisonettes? What action is he taking to ensure that that does not happen?

Sir George Young

Any hon. Member who feels that a constituent is being obstructed in seeking to exercise his right to buy should write to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction, or to me, and the Department will take up the case with urgency.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

What advice will the hon. Gentleman give to my constituents and others who followed the Government's advice to purchase their council houses and then found that they were caught by the other prong of Government policy, which is to make them unemployed, whereupon they discover that not only have they lost their job but are in danger of losing their house?

Sir George Young

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is advising his constituents who are in those circumstances that they are entitled to supplementary benefit assistance to meet interest payments. There is no need for them to be homeless if they lose their job.