Housing Starts (Hansard, 20 January 1982)

§ 16. Mr. Winnick
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total number of local authority and private housing starts in 1981; and how many of the local authority starts were for sheltered and other forms of special type accommodation.

§ Sir George Young
In the first 11 months of 1981 there were 20,000 starts for local authorities and new towns and 97,000 for the private sector in England. Of the 17,000 local authority and new town dwellings started in the first three quarters of 1981, 1,900 were dwellings for the chronically sick and disabled. Figures of starts on dwellings for the elderly are not readily available but will be published in "Housing and Construction Statistics" this year.

§ Mr. Winnick
When will the Government recognise that these miserable, pathetic figures will result in a 275 formidable housing crisis in the country and endless heartbreak and tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be rehoused? I ask the Ministers responsible for housing when this Tory vendetta against council dwellings will end?

§ Sir George Young
The position would have been infinitely worse if we had adopted the policy advocated by the Opposition of freezing council rents. If that had happened, there would not have been a capital investment programme.

§ Mr. Frank Allaun
Is the Minister aware that the pitiful figure of 20,000 that he quoted compares with 87,000 only three years ago? Is the hon. Gentleman aware, further, that this morning hon. Members received figures from the building trades employers showing that only 19 per cent. of their firms were fully or nearly fully employed? Would it not be more sensible to take 440,000 building trade workers off the dole and have those firms working at 100 per cent. capacity?

§ Sir George Young
It is partly for that reason that we have increased the local authority housing investment programme next year, for the first time since 1974–75. If the hon. Member talks about cuts, I remind him that the figure for public sector starts fell from 173,000 in 1975 to 81,000 in 1979.

§ Mr. Alton
On the basis of the figures just given by the Minister, how long will the 1 million people still living in houses without inside toilets, running hot water or bathrooms have to remain in those properties? Will he also say whether he agrees that, if the number of sheltered homes were increased, more family dwellings could be made available to people on waiting lists and that it would also get off the dole queue many building workers whose potential contribution is being wasted?

§ Sir George Young
If the local authority in Liverpool would make faster progress in selling council houses, more money would be available with which to tackle the problems mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. Alton
indicated dissent.

§ Sir George Young
There is no point in the hon. Gentleman shaking his head when I say that. Real resources are available with which to tackle these problems.

§ Mr. Durant
Will my hon. Friend remind the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton) that if local authorities used their capital receipts they could do a great deal more to improve their properties?

§ Sir George Young
That is the point that I was trying to make. Now that the point has been reinforced by my hon. Friend, I hope that it will go home.

§ 17. Mr. Hardy
asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authority homes he now expects to be built and how many improved during 1982.

§ Mr. Stanley
This will depend on the decisions of local authorities on the spending of their single block capital allocations and their capital receipts.

§ Mr. Hardy
Will the Minister tell the House of any peace-time year since the brick was invented when fewer houses were built than will be built in 1982 or were built in 1981?

§ Mr. Stanley
There has been a reduction in starts on the local authority side, but there has been a significant increase in private sector starts in the course of 1981. As for 1982, I go back to what was said previously. There is still substantial scope for local authorities in the present financial year to spend more on housing. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the example of Rotherham council. The position there is that capital expenditure on housing half way through this financial year was only just under one-third of the allocation and its receipts.

§ Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
As I understand it, a council can spend only half its receipts from the sale of council houses on building new ones. Will my hon. Friend consider allowing councils to spend all their receipts in this way so that council house building may increase?

§ Mr. Stanley
I assure my hon. Friend that the other half is not lost. It is taken into account in making allocations nationally. The local authorities retain all the cash. But if sales of council houses scored 100 per cent., the net allocations would be smaller. I remind my hon. Friend that there are other receipts that score 100 per cent. All sales of land score 100 per cent., and there has been a substantial increase in allocations this year as a result of land sales made by a number of authorities.

§ Mr. Kaufman
rose—

§ Mr. Hardy
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the Minister's lamentable failure to show—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. If the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) gives notice of his intention to raise the matter on the Adjournment, he will prevent his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) from being called.

§ Mr. Kaufman
Why do the Minister and his colleagues consistently mislead the House with the claim that they have increased the housing investment programme allocation for the coming year? Is it not a fact that on the figures that the Minister gave me, the housing investment programme allocation is reduced by 4 per cent., and that that 4 per cent. reduction is based upon a phoney 9 per cent. inflation figure?

§ Mr. Stanley
The right hon. Gentleman is living in the world which ended on 31 March 1981. From 1 April 1981, all local authorities have been able to add their capital receipts to their base allocations. The facts are that the gross provision for housing—the allocation plus receipts—represents an increase in real terms next year.

§ Mr. Kaufman
Is that not a completely phoney comparison? We are talking about the allocations in the information that the Minister provided to me. These are allocations, not notional capital receipts, and on these allocations the Government have reduced housing investment programme allocations by more than £70 million. Will the Minister stop misleading the House?

§ Mr. Stanley
It is the right hon. Gentleman who is misleading the House. He knows that every local authority has been told in explicit terms in a different document that it is able to add its capital receipts to its allocation. This represents several hundreds of millions of pounds extra nationally which local authorities can add to their housing programmes as from 1 April this year.

§ Mr. Heddle
Does my hon. Friend agree that there are ways of meeting housing needs other than by building new 277 homes, including the promotion by local authorities of shared ownership, low-cost ownership and building for sale?

§ Mr. Stanley
My hon. Friend is right. I am encouraged by the fact that there has been a significant response in the past six to nine months to the very important range of low-cost home ownership initiatives introduced by the Government.

§ Mr. Hardy
I am sorry that I was a little premature in rising on my point of order just now, Mr. Speaker. I was extremely shocked by the Minister's display of his complete ignorance of the problems of local government. I beg to give notice that I shall seek an early opportunity to raise this grossly unsatisfactory matter on the Adjournment.

§ 18. Mr. Thomas
Cox asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many (a) council and (b) private houses are now under construction in the Greater London Council area.

§ Sir George Young
About 13,000 local authority and 14,300 private dwellings were under construction in London at the end of September 1981.

§ Mr. Cox
Is the Minister aware that those figures are an appalling indictment of two and a half years of Tory Government? In view of the enormous housing problems in London, why cannot the Government start to put into employment the thousands of building workers whom they forced to go on to the dole and get the local authorities to start to tackle these problems? The hon. Gentleman knows that they have to be tackled. Surely now is the time to start doing it.

§ Sir George Young
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will get some comfort from the fact that private sector housing starts in London in the third quarter of 1981 were nearly double the number in the comparable period of 1980. The 1982–83 HIP allocation for London is £558 million, compared with £549 million this year. London will receive a HIP allocation equivalent to more than £200 per household compared with less than £100 per household for the rest of the country. We are trying to tackle London's housing problems.

§ Mr. Major
To put the matter in context, how many council houses in Greater London are empty and have been empty for many months?

§ Sir George Young
Our latest figures show that there are 32,814 local authority dwellings empty in London.