§ Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury)I rise to draw the attention of the House — and the Government, who have clearly not recognised the extent of the problem—to the desperate need in Britain to improve the levels of funding for repair and construction work in public housing.
The problem begins—and any analysis of the problem should begin—with the question of housing need. I doubt whether any Conservative Members have known what it is like literally to be homeless, totally dependent on decisions made by others about one's housing accommodation; thrown into bed and breakfast accommodation by an uncaring local authority, living, as a man just 10 doors from me has lived, in a damp basement, the sole remaining tenant of a private landlord, with the rest of the house being sold off around him as part of the private property boom, the social revolution, about which we have heard so much from the Government. He is scared and worried as he is literally harassed by his landlord.
Nor do Conservative Members know what it is like to live on Bentham Court Estate in a decaying environment with graffiti and urine-covered staircases, with damp and condensation filling the flats, the tenants waiting patiently for sufficient funds to be available for the full rehabilitation of their estate.
Those are examples of the human side of housing need, the very real despair and misery felt by hundreds of thousands of people throughout Britain who lack the most basic right of all, the right to have a decent roof over their head, and without that right nothing else — no other freedom—becomes possible.
Even when that human need is translated into statistics, the result is alarming. Let us look briefly at Islington, of which my constituency forms half. On 1 April there were about 8,000 people on Islington's waiting list. That represented an increase of 40 per cent. on April of the previous year. The rate of increase accelerated during that period of 12 months. In the first quarter of 1982–83, 73 applications a week were being received. In the last quarter, 115 applications a week were coming in for the housing waiting list. At the same time, 1,915 households had applied as homeless to the borough in that year. That was an increase of 36 per cent. on the previous 12 months.
Hackney and Islington between them still have the highest proportion of unfit housing in London, as shown by the census returns of 1981 and the recent Greater London house condition survey. All the evidence shows, therefore, that apart from a high basic level of need in any case, that need is now increasing at an alarming rate.
At the same time, the supply of rented accommodation is falling. It is falling as a direct result of cuts in housing investment funds that have been imposed by this and the previous Conservative Government. Two years ago, 400 flats or houses were available for letting in Islington. The figure now is usually below 200. In 1982–83 fewer flats were available for letting than for seven years previously. That was the tail end of the rehabilitation boom of the late 1970s. The supply of new or rehabilitated accommodation has dried up, which is hardly surprising, because it reflects what has happened nationally with the lowest number of housebuilding starts since the 1920s.
994 In addition to all these problems, we have in Islington the problem of the transferred GLC estates, to which I have referred previously. There are problems of disrepair. There is a desperate need to upgrade and improve them, a need that is greater, if anything, than the need in the older estates which were previously Islington estates. Entirely inadequate funds are available either in revenue terms or in capital terms under the transfer orders and HIP allocations that are made available to the GLC and through it to the boroughs. These funds have been commented on by Conservative-controlled boroughs as well as by Labour authorities. All the local authorities in London are agreed that the level of funds that are available to repair and improve the ex-GLC estates are inadequate.
In addition, there are the added problems that are posed by non-traditional methods of construction, which were encouraged deliberately by Governments and environmental departments of all political persuasions throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. We had concrete blocks, which caused rampant condensation, dampness and cold-bridging, with fungus and mould growing on the walls. We had deck-access flats with no sense of community within estates. We had Bison wall-frame blocks, with panels falling off the outside. We had Airey homes, which needed to be demolished or to have thousands of pounds spent on them to bring them into a proper condition.
The Government have partly recognised the problem, because they have made special provision for Airey homes where the right to buy has been exercised. But they have not recognised the problems that face local authorities or the tenants of local authorities. They do not seem to be interested in helping local authorities with the enormous bills that they face —the Association of Metropolitan Authorities estimates that the overall bill will be about £5,000 million — to put right the non-traditional construction over the next few years.
The Government's response has been to ignore both housing need in general and particular problems. When complaints are made, the Government explain that they are interested in giving people the right and the freedom of choice to become home owners. For most of my constituents, that is not a realistic option. In Islington nearly a quarter of the adult population are unemployed. The wages of those who are employed are consistently lower than the average wage.
The operation of market forces in the property market puts prices far beyond the scope of the great majority of ordinary people who are my constituents. Prices are being pushed ever upwards in the property market. Home ownership is a realistic option for only a very few people. The majority of my constituents need homes to rent, and they need those homes to be put into better repair, to be in better condition, to be set in a better environment and to be provided in greater numbers than at present.
The long-term answer to the problem is to have proper levels of investment under the housing investment programme allocations for local authorities. However, HIP allocations have been repeatedly cut in the past three years. It looks as though the new Government will continue that policy. Those allocations suddenly spurted last Christmas when the Secretary of State for Defence, who was then the Secretary of State for the Environment, realised that something was going wrong with the capital spending figures. I am pleased that Islington was one of the authorities which were able to avail themselves of that 995 spurt in funding. However, a cycle of cuts and spurts is no way in which to run a sensible housing investment programme.
We need a massive injection of proper levels of funding into the repair of existing housing and the provision of new housing to rent. For areas such as Islington, the HIP allocations of the past few years simply need doubling to meet the scale of the problems. We also need greater certainty about allocations. We have the 80 per cent. rule, for which we are thankful, but it is not sufficient because it does not enable local authorities to plan ahead properly, to commit themselves to contracts, to do the necessary architectural work or to plan a proper programme for the housing needs of their area. If we had proper forward planning and genuine allocations in real terms for the future rather than for 12-month periods, there would be far less danger of underspending by many local authorities.
Before the Minister makes great play of underspending throughout the country, I remind him that Islington is one authority which has consistently spent the funds that were available to it, and that last year the GLC met all of its targets in spending the available allocation. We need far greater certainty and proper forward planning, with proper levels of investment.
In that respect, we have a major problem with improvement grants. The Government provided extra funding authority last year and have done so again this year for improvement grants to the private sector but no commitment has yet been given to extend that funding for improvement grants into the next financial year.
Improvement grants require spending over a relatively long time. There is a long lead time for the spending of money on a property by a private owner. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for a local authority to plan the spending of improvement grants and the basis on which it should make improvement grants available in the short term. I hope that the Minister will feel able to commit a guarantee of extra funding for improvement grants in 1984–85, not simply for the current year.
As if all of those problems were not enough, the Government have a blind spot in that they ignore the revenue impact of that portion of expenditure on capital work in housing which is not met by subsidies. That expenditure therefore falls as a debit in inner city areas on the housing revenue account and the cost must be met by the ratepayers. Moreover, it counts as revenue expenditure and can qualify for block grant penalty. We had the absurdity last Christmas of the Secretary of State for Defence encouraging authorities such as Islington to spend more in capital terms, while penalising authorities such as Islington for the revenue impact of precisely the same spending.
Will the Minister therefore commit the Government to expanding such rate-borne consequences of expenditure from consideration for block grant penalty? Of course, that will become an extremely important question, with the new promised legislation on rate capping for local authorities. I hope that the Minister will accept that as a difficulty that is faced by inner city local authorities with large housing revenue account deficits. But of course the demand for extra money, for a sensible planning policy and for sensible treatment of rate support grant will be criticised by the Government as asking for too much money, as being too expensive and as being a drain on public expenditure. I passionately disagree with all of that.
996 However, even if those arguments are accepted, there are decisions that can be taken by the Minister on a whole host of items, even within a given ceiling of expenditure. He could take them later today if he wished to, and they would make life a lot easier for tenants, for those on waiting lists, and for local authorities and housing associations which are struggling to provide decent housing in their areas. I shall go through some of the items on which the Minister could decide.
First, the Minister could speed up and relax the project control guidelines and mechanisms for local authorities. He could let local authorities know, for example, what ground rules are used by his Department in determining whether to accept a project under project control. He could explain why some projects in my constituency which are below 100 per cent. on the scale of cost and value have been refused, while projects in other constituencies which have been up to 130 per cent. above cost guidelines have been accepted. The Minister could begin to lay down some ground rules to guide local authorities on what will be accepted and what is likely to be rejected.
Secondly, the Minister could make it easier under the project control system and under the new total indicative cost system for housing associations to renovate houses into single family dwellings, instead of—as happens at present — effectively forcing houses into multiple conversions that are consistently divorced from the desperate need for family accommodation with gardens. The way in which the present system operates is that local authorities have to put forward proposals for conversions in order to get projects through the project control system. If they simply put forward proposals for rehabilitation as a single family dwelling, it is more likely to be rejected than if it is a conversion. That means that the priorities are wrong when it comes to housing need. The Minister could quite easily change the guidelines to achieve a more sensible policy.
Thirdly, the Minister could speed up the process of listed building consent. Those processes are currently causing chronic delays in, for example, the Lloyd Baker area of Clerkenwell in my constituency, where virtually every building is listed, and where it is very difficult for the local authority to proceed with rehabilitation schemes until listed building consent has come through. There are chronic delays both at the GLC and at the Department of the Environment.
Fourthly, the Minister could bring back Parker Morris. For all Parker Morris's faults, it did at least form a basic guarantee of minimum standards. Now, of course, they are no longer mandatory. Standards and quality are falling, especially where projects are constrained by cost and project control criteria.
Fifthly, the Minister could go for proper standards on items that are currently excluded from approval. An example of that was provided by a constituent who telephoned me yesterday. She lives in a rehabilitated flat in Richmond avenue. The flat is affected by severe damp, with wallpaper peeling off the walls and mould growing up them in her kitchen and bathroom in the rear extension to the flat. The reason for that is that there were insufficient funds under project control when the building was rehabilitated to put proper insulation and a good heating system into those two rooms. It happens far too often and is a classic example of the blind cutting of costs at the outset of the project to conform with the current 997 system, which only causes greater cost to the local authority in the end, and much distress to the tenant in the meantime.
Sixthly, the Minister could amend the new local authority total indicative cost system for the funding of housing associations and co-operatives. He could grant discretion to local authorities to give percentage increases in areas up to the level normally given at present by the Housing Corporation. That is not at present available to local authorities and, as a result, housing associations are being discouraged from approaching local authorities for funds and are turning almost exclusively to the Housing Corporation in areas where those percentage increases are needed.
Seventhly, the Minister could relax the higher standards of rules for housing association funding. He could end the absurdity of builders' work in connection with the provision of telephone cables being excluded as a luxury item in housing association grant approval. In one block of flats that was renovated, if work had not been carried out, while the renovation was going on, to instal telephone cabling, no one moving into those flats could have had a telephone. It was essential that the work should be carried our, yet the cost of that was discounted as being a luxury item and a higher standard.
Eighthly, the hon. Gentleman could allow compensation to be paid for inconvenience, noise disturbance, dust and the disruption of their peace and quiet while work is under way with tenants in residence. At present there is no system whereby any compensation for inconvenience can be paid to such tenants. I was astonished by the Minister's reply to my written questions on the subject some weeks ago. The tenants of Samuel Lewis Trust buildings in Liverpool road in my constituency have been suffering for two years because of contractors on their estate. It astonishes me that the Minister did not regard that as suitable for compensation, whereas if someone moves out of his flat because work has to be done, it is regarded as being worthy of considerable compensation. Will the Minister give some thought to allowing compensation as part of the capital cost of the work being carried out?
Ninthly, the Minister could give grant subsidy to local authorities on major items of work, which have to be added to repair or improvement contracts during the course of work. At present such items are excluded from subsidy approval, and often they arise from problems that were unforseeable at the outset of a contract. We must operate the subsidy system much more carefully. Two estates in my constituency have suffered from the problem.
Tenthly, the Minister could allow local authorities to acquire properties by agreement from the private sector, especially where elderly owner-occupiers wish to sell their properties to the council in return for secure tenanted accommodation for the rest of their days. At the moment, it is extremely difficult for local authoritiies to receive permission to acquire by agreement and then to use the property for renting.
The eleventh point is that the Minister could allow local authorities to consent to dispose of properties far more readily to housing associations and co-operatives, which can often bring those properties into use more rapidly. The present process is painful, slow and uncertain. No political 998 point is gained by deliberate delays that are injected into the process, and I plead with the Minister to make that process of consent to dispose easier and more rapid.
The Secretary of State could rather more frequently uphold his inspectors' decisions on compulsory purchase orders and allow local authorities to proceed with compulsory purchase where clear public benefits are to be gained and the inspector concurs.
On all those fronts there are simple steps which the Minister could take easily by administrative action and which would smooth the path to the creation of good rental housing at prices people can afford. These are all important minor matters, but beyond that it is necessary for the Government to recognise the scale of the housing problem, especially in the inner city areas, and to respond with proper and increased levels of investment. If the Minister can give no hope or help even on the minor points that I have listed, let alone on the major one of the level of investment required, what answer can I return to the tenants of Bentham Court who are anxiously and patiently waiting for improvements to their estate and to the lady in Richmond avenue with no heating in her extension rooms?
What answer can I return to the family on Barnsbury estate with four children and another on the way in a two-bedroom flat? They have nowhere to move to because there are no available flats. What answer can I return to the tenants of the Samuel Lewis Trust who are pleading for some compensation for their constant distress during two years of building work? What answer can be returned to the hundreds of thousands of homeless or poorly housed people? The scale of the problem is vast and distressing, and it is a cause for anger and action. The scale of the Government's response so far has been pitiful.
§ Dr. David Clark (South Shields)I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) for bringing this subject to the attention of the House. It is an important topic and I believe that it is useful that the House be constantly reminded of the difficulties that face so many people in the housing market. Not only should the House be reminded of this, but through the House we must remind the Government of their absolute failure in housing. It is hard to imagine areas as different as my constituency and that of my hon. Friend. Geographically, we are 300 miles apart, yet, as I listened to him, I recalled that I face the same problem in south Tyneside as he faces in Islington. During the past four years the problems became worse, and they will continue to become worse. My hon. Friend rightly pointed out the Government's failure to tackle the problem of public housing. In a sense, it seems that the Government have a vendetta against local authorities, especially when it comes to housing.
My hon. Friend mentioned also the private landlord problem which is much greater in parts of London than in other parts of the country. Even in my constituency where there are few private landlords, often the poorest accommodation is in the private sector. I vividly recall that during the election campaign, I came across an old lady in her 80s who had no inside toilet and had to walk down the yard to get to one. She had no hot water. The landlord was a Tory councillor, which shows that things have not changed over the years. The Minister is one of the few to have shown some courtesy and visited south Tyneside. He has seen some of our problems. The local authority has 999 spent more than it should have done on housing and I am sure that it will have it knuckles rapped. We took advantage of the Government's offer six months ago and grabbed all the money that we could. However, Government cuts mean that we still have people who have no hope of having central heating installed, window frames renewed, their houses rewired and bathrooms
The problems that we face are faced throughout the country—in Bermondsey, Islington and elsewhere. If one analyses the problem, one comes to the conclusion that the Government's ideological dogma is put before people's needs. That charge can be made in many areas but especially housing.
I have heard the Government talk about freedom. The Conservative party claims that it is the party of freedom. I have said before, and I repeat, that I do not believe that it knows the meaning of freedom. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury said slightly differently, decent housing is one of the basic freedoms to which people are entitled together with the freedom of a job, health, education and so on.
If we study public expenditure we find that the areas which are essential to freedom are those that the Government have seen fit to cut the most—education, health, pensions and housing. Housing has perhaps been cut more than most. The Government would be well-advised to listen to my hon. Friend's point about the rolling programme. It is becoming increasingly difficult for local authorities to plan on an ad hoc, Government grant year-to-year basis. My local authority draws up plans. That is followed by Government cuts and paring, and everything is thrown into disarray. Alternatively their are problems such as the Airey and Orlit houses, to which my hon. Friend has referred, which again throw out the housing departments' programmes and work schedules. The Government should consider this ad hoc year-to-year financing more seriously.
I made the point that I felt that the Government had singled out housing to bear the brunt of their planned reductions. I do not want to quote figures because I believe that they often confuse the House, but there has been a reduction of over 60 per cent. during the past four years in the Government's planned provision for the housing market. That has been especially true about the housing investment programme. The result has been that in many areas local authorities have had to double rents. Although local authorities have taken the blame for that, it should have been placed firmly at the Government's door.
It is not just that rents have increased but, as my hon. Friend said, there has been a catastrophic decline in the number of houses being built, especially in the public sector. As the Minister is aware, fewer public sector houses are being built than at any time since the 1920s. I know that the Government take some joy from the latest figures, and we too are pleased that there has been an increase. However, it has been an increase from a very low plane to which the Government took them figures down.
All this would be all right if there were not a demand for houses. There is a crude surplus of about 500,000 houses. However, if we take into account the second home market, the vacant dwellings, people between moves, that figure must be adjusted. If one does all the calculations on the basis of the figures used by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities—I am sure that the Minister will be happy to accept them—there is a short-fall of 1000 about 500,000. What appears to be a crude surplus of just under 500,000 changes, when all these other factors are taken into account, into a shortfall of over 500,000.
That is one major problem to which the Government are not addressing their mind, but it is not only that that worries the Opposition. In addition, there is the large number of houses in a state of disrepair. Probably over 1,250,000 houses are in a state of serious disrepair, and well over 1 million are unfit for human habitation. That was at the end of 1981. That must worry the Government. The Opposition would not pretend that these problems could be solved at a stroke, but let us look at the enormity of this task of putting into decent shape those houses that are unfit. One estimate is for £20,000 million.
Unless the Government change their mind and start trying to tackle the problem, that £20,000 million will become geometrically worse as the years go by. It is worth reminding the House that at current spending and current rate of building, it will take 666 years to replace the existing stock. That is one of those useless statistics that is still worth quoting because it reminds the House, and especially the Government, of the enormity of the task facing them, and of their abject failure to tackle the problem.
I know that the Minister will talk about renovating grants and the new initiatives announced last year, all of which we welcome. However, they have to be measured against the reduction in house building over the past few years. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury made a pertinent point when referring to the extra cost involved in these renovation grants. The problem is serious in that respect.
I know that my local authority would like to operate the system more efficiently, if it could, but, in view of Government cuts, and the Government's strictures on local spending, there are many worthwhile schemes in my constituency, that may have been registered and may benefit under the scheme, but which have now waited many months for the schemes to be implemented, through no fault of the local authority, but through the fault of the Government in not allowing a local authority to take on extra staff.
One can make an excellent and irrefutable case showing that the Government have failed the nation when it comes to the building of new houses and the renovation of old ones. As a result of their failure, many people are suffering greatly from the Government's policy, in this matter of basic human rights. The Government's plan does not make sense. A relevant housing programme will cost extra in resources. However, savings can be made, and it would then be financially imprudent for the Government to go ahead and live up to their level of housing investment.
I wish to put my argument in simple terms. We all know that one of the fastest ways to get the economy moving is to stimulate the construction industry. The industry constantly reminds us of that fact. and I think that economists have proved that to be true. Recently I examined the unemployment figures for my constituency. Nationally, hundreds of thousands of building workers are unemployed. Hundreds of thousands of people who worked in trades such as plumbing and bricklaying are also unemployed. If the Government stimulated their own housing investment programme, the unemployment level would be reduced at a stroke.
I shall narrow the argument down to my own constituency. According to the latest figures that I have, 1001 more than 800 building workers are unemployed in my constituency. The cost to the nation in lost national insurance contributions, lost tax, unemployment benefit and administration is between £100 and £120 per week for each of those building workers. That is not much less than they would be getting if they were in work and contributing to society.
The Minister also knows that there are acres of flat and derelict land in my constituency ready to build upon, but unfortunately nobody wishes to buy the land or to build on it. Moreover, 7,000 people are on the waiting list for houses in my constituency. My weekly surgeries show that the problem is getting worse week by week. It makes sense for the Government to increase their housing investment policy. Although it would be a considerable sum, great savings could be made in unemployment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury deserves credit for bringing this subject to the notice of the House in such a compassionate and concerned manner. He has done a great service to his constituents. I hope that the Minister will remember not only the supplemental matters but the main thrust of my hon. Friend's argument. The Government frequently say that problems cannot be solved by throwing money at them. There may be some truth in that, but I submit that if more money were made available this problem could be solved.
I hope that the Government will act upon the advice of my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)I wish to add three brief points to the picture accurately and fairly presented by the hon. Members for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) and South Shields (Dr. Clark).
No area of public expenditure, local or national, has suffered greater reductions than the housing budget. In the past five years, central Government spending on public sector housing has been cut by about 50 per cent. Local authorities have reduced their expenditure commensurately. Following Government exhortations to reduce spending in that sector, local authorities have sought to avoid the penalties that would have been imposed on them if they had continued to spend according to need rather than abiding by the strictures of the Government.
Yet the housing sector is one of enormous need and severe lack of resources, this year as in previous years. It is important that the Minister should tell us now whether, when the Department sets about evaluating the amount of money that local authorities are to lose in the coming months, local government is to continue to lose money required for the housing repairs and construction so desperately needed especially but not only in the inner city areas.
It requires no special intelligence or experience to see that money that is not spent now will make the repair and renovation bills even greater in the future. With every year that passes without proper renovation schemes on estates now reaching the end of their useful life without wholesale renovation, more and more of those properties become empty because more and more of them become unhabitable, and so the housing stock is reduced. Without commensurate new building there is not the housing stock to meet the need.
1002 One of the implications of reduced housing stock is that in areas in which the local community depends almost entirely on the public housing sector for their homes people have a simple choice. Either they remain in the community, in the area in which their families and forebears have lived, or they seek to move away not from choice but forced by the inability of the local authorities and effectively of the Government to produce the housing stock required. A serious effect of the Government's failure to fund housing construction and renovation as a priority is thus the breakdown of the inner city communities due to increasingly appalling conditions.
The Government may believe that it is necessary for all departments of Government and local government to cut their expenditure. It should be pointed out, however, that central Government have continued to increase their expenditure while local government has continued to cut back. There have been cuts in all areas of local government, while national public sector spending in areas unaffected by local government has continued to increase.
Clearly, some of those sectors are demand-led. Social security payments must be made, and the Government would claim that they cannot immediately affect the demand for that sector of Government expenditure. As has been said, however, demand in sectors of that kind is so high because instead of investing money to put people back to work the Government have to take money out of the DHSS budget to pay unemployment and other benefits. As the hon. Member for South Shields said, the Government should realise that the best investment is investment now in people, in jobs, in construction, in repairs and in renovation. Investment now will save and not increase expenditure in the future, both locally and nationally.
As the Government set about their assessment of local government and as they prepare the White Paper that we understand is to be published during the summer recess, the Government have the opportunity to say that to recompense the housing sector for all the cut-backs and the set-backs that it has suffered in recent months and years should now be a Government priority. If the Government deny people the opportunity of a decent home, they are storing up enormous problems for themselves whenever they next have to face the electorate in the future, for many of the electorate will still be living in public sector housing.
§ 8.4 am
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young)All three hon. Members who have taken part in the debate at such an anti-social hour are to be congratulated on their genuine concern for housing and on the constructive suggestions which, on the whole, they put forward.
If I were to begin with a criticism, it would be that all three hon. Members seemed to concentrate exclusively on the role of the public sector in meeting the housing problems that remain. It would have been fairer had there been some recognition of the fact that the private sector can help tackle these problems.
Many people in local authority accommodation and on local authority waiting lists would like to, and can, buy their own homes. If local authorities developed a constructive partnership with the private sector, they could at no cost to themselves help to tackle some of the real problems that hon. Members have described.
1003 Let me make that point more forcefully with regard to Islington. We have just received the bid from Islington for next year. It has made no provision whatever for the sorts of schemes about which I have been talking, or indeed for any type of low-cost home ownership initiative at all. On the other hand, in the submission that we received from Islington last year, when there was a different administration, there were proposals for improvement for sale and shared ownership. Dogma pursued in this way does not benefit the people whom the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) is trying to help.
Had there been just one sentence in the hon. Gentleman's speech about empty properties in Islington, that would have lent more balance to his case. I notice that on 1 April 1982, 2,373 council-owned houses or flats in Islington were empty—a total of 5.8 per cent. of the stock — of which 734 dwellings had been vacant for more than a year. There is an opportunity which the local authority should grasp in the interests of those on the waiting lists.
§ Mr. Chris SmithThe Minister will notice from other figures in Islington's HIP bid that 1,500 of those 2,200 dwellings are currently undergoing repairs or improvements and that a further 200 or so are available for letting. Therefore, the figures are not quite so bleak as he appears to be suggesting.
§ Sir George YoungI am delighted that Islington recognises that, with 5.8 per cent. of its stock empty, this is an opportunity, at relatively low cost, to make real progress in housing.
I shall try to deal with the many points that the hon. Gentleman raised, but if I do not answer them all I shall write to him. He referred to ex-GLC properties. The GLC has a substantial programme for the renovation and improvement of its former stock and is committed to that under the transfer orders. The details, timing and priority for works to be carried out under the programme are matters for agreement between the GLC and the boroughs concerned, but the Government recognise the importance of this programme. The fact that the GLC's housing investment allocation is related essentially to its commitment to the transferred stock is a reflection of that.
The council received a significant increase in its allocation for the current year to help it fulfil those obligations, and the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that there is an even larger increase in its money Bill provision for the current year which takes into account the substantial additional resources available to the council through capital receipts.
There are two further points. First, one cannot look at the GLC's HIP allocation in isolation. The more resources we allocate to the GLC, the less there are for boroughs such as Islington. Therefore, this is not quite so straightforward as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
Secondly, the GLC is free to determine its priorities within the provision allowed in the money Act. If it chooses to use its capital receipts for activities other than the improvement programme, like all other authorities it is free to do so.
The hon. Gentleman also complained that the project control system was hindering his authority in its efforts to improve the housing stock. I know that in the past 1004 Islington has alleged that the system prevents it from providing single family units, but I do not accept those criticisms.
The Department has intervened under project control in only 4 per cent. of all projects nationally, or 1 per cent. of all dwellings renovated. The intervention rate in London is admittedly higher than elsewhere, although not markedly so if the number of dwellings rather than the number of schemes is taken into account.
In the hon. Gentleman's own borough, out of 150 schemes submitted in the first six months of this year, my Department has intervened in only seven, or less than 5 per cent. of the total, which is only marginally above the national average. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman cannot lay at our door the delays that he mentioned.
The hon. Gentleman's accounts of his authority differed substantially from the accounts given by his predecessor, Mr. George Cunningham. The progressive, enlightened authority about which we were told this morning differs radically from the extravagant, remote, loony-Left authority about which I heard only a few months ago.
The hon. Gentleman also asked for consistency between housing associations and local authorities on total indicative costs. That is a rather up-market subject for 8 o'clock in the morning, but we accept the desirability of achieving consistency between the two schemes. The basis on which supplementary cost criteria might be agreed with individual local authorities is still being considered and local authorities are still making points to us about our proposals.
At the beginning of the year we received complaints that delays in assessing local authority-funded housing association schemes were holding up housing association improvement programmes. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that we have now cleared the backlog of cases and taken steps to ensure that further delays in assessment are avoided.
When the hon. Gentleman spoke about the rented sector, he was speaking exclusively about the public rented sector. His party is in part responsible for the decline of the private rented sector, which has a role to play. I regret the opposition to shorthold, which in London provided an opportunity to make maximum use of the housing stock.
I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's point about listed buildings consent and the speeding up of decisions. There are no proposals to exhume Parker Morris. I was slightly surprised to hear a champion of local democracy asking the Government to tell him exactly what sort of houses he should be building.
The hon. Gentleman asked us to give consent to municipalisation more readily. That is not a sensible use of boroughs' HIP allocations. It adds nothing to the nation's housing stock and provides no work for the construction industry. I should prefer the boroughs to spend their allocations on new build or other methods that have a greater multiplier effect.
The disposals to housing associations are somewhat complicated. I give consent where it is shown that the housing association has a scheme that meets some minority need in London and has the skills and resources to carry it out, whereas the boroughs have not. We are anxious that the boroughs should not switch from the 1005 ratepayer to the taxpayer some of the responsibility for meeting housing need in their areas of London. That is why we consider that matter carefully.
The hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. ClarK) spoke about resources made available by the Government for housing. It is important that the House should have the figures, because they give a slightly different story from that which we heard earlier. Last year — that is for 1982–83 — we made about £2½ billion available in England for housing investment by local authorities. That represented an increase of about 6 per cent. in real terms on provision in the previous year and about a third in cash on authorities' actual expenditure in that year.
In addition, as both hon. Members were good enough to say, last October we offered authorities extra housing investment programme allocations in response to bids for housing investment generally, and we promised them retrospective allocations without limit for spending on home improvement grants in particular. As a result, we approved additional allocations of £200 million, including a substantial sum of money in Islington. Details of authorities' expenditure in 1982–83, which my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction announced last Monday, showed that, collectively, local authorities underspent the resources available to them by £800 million.
It is difficult to maintain the case that resources are inadequate when so much of those that are made available remain unspent. What we hear from Islington proves the Government's case that it is possible to spend the allocations. Islington did so, and I commend it for that. That puts the spotlight on those local authorities which failed to spend the allocations that we made available to them — allocations for which they asked before the beginning of the year.
This year we have again made about £2½ billion available for housing investment by local authorities, which is a fairly substantial increase on what was spent last year. This year the resources available for investment by the Housing Corporation are £690 million and for housing investment by new towns some £60 million. Those are significant amounts. We have rather grudging approval for the 80 per cent. commitment that we introduced last year—a commitment into which no previous Administration have ever entered.
I take the point about home improvement grants. They represent a carry-over commitment to 1984–85 and authorities are reluctant to approve any more until they know what their allocations will be for next year. We are aware of the problem. I cannot say anything about it today, but we hope to make a statement as soon as we can, in the interests of applicants and local authorities.
It is for the local authorities to determine their own priorities within the resources available.
§ Dr. David ClarkThe Minister said that we could expect a statement about home improvement grants. Will a statement be made to the House or will it be made during the recess? It would be of great help to local authorities if they knew their position.
§ Sir George YoungI should mislead the hon. Gentleman if I said that a statement was likely in the next three or four days. We understand the urgency and we want to make progress as rapidly as possible.
1006 How local authorities spend their money is up to them, but the key priority is to improve the condition of existing housing stock. Each hon. Member mentioned that and it was underlined by the English house condition survey. I was delighted with the response by local authorities to the evidence now available. Authorities spent about £430 million on home improvement grants last year—more than double the amount spent the year before. We expect them to spend even more, perhaps even half as much again, this year. We are helping them to do so by our promise of additional HIP allocations again this year if their spending on grants exceeds a predetermined threshold. The Government are also providing extra resources this year for enveloping — a technique pioneered by Birmingham city council to achieve significant economies of scale by improving whole terraces or neighbourhoods as part of a single project.
We are anxious to help the public sector. In about two and a half hours time we shall be considering the Housing and Building Control Bill in Committee upstairs. It introduces a right of repair for local authority tenents. Under the Bill, secure tenants will have the right, with the landlord's approval, to carry out repairs themselves, or to arrange for them to be caned out. They will then be reimbursed for the work, receiving no more than it would have cost their local authority to undertake the work itself. We shall issue a consultation document on how the details of the right to repair should work.
Some local authorities already operate similar schemes voluntarily. We believe that a statutory right to repair will do a great deal to relieve the sense of frustration and impotence felt by tenants when authorities fail to respond promptly and efficiently when notified of the need for repairs.
Reference was made to defective system-built houses, the Airey and other types built in the 1940s and 1950s, and to the more modern industrialised buildings of the 1960s and 1970s. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities recently published a report on the former types and it promises a report on the latter in the autumn. The Government have commissioned their own research from the Building Research Establishment. We shall, of course, look carefully at all the reports.
I cannot make a definitive statement now, but it might be helpful if I outline our policy. Opposition Members do not have a monopoly of concern on the issue. In February we announced a special scheme of assistance for private owners of Airey houses. Since then we have been giving urgent attention with the BRE to the possibility of defects in other prefabricated reinforced concrete houses built in the same period. About 150,000 such houses were built in the 1940s and 1950s. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction intends to make a statement as soon as possible. I cannot anticipate what he might say, but we made it clear in February that we were willing to consider, in the light of the evidence, whether a more comprehensive scheme of assistance should be made available to private owners of such houses. The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury was anxious to extend that help beyond private owners.
The AMA report calls for a review of the HIP system and for specific subsidies to take account of the additional costs which it estimates will fall on local authorities to repair prefabricated reinforced concrete houses still in their ownership. We await its conclusions on the later industrialised building of the 1960s and 1970s. On the 1007 earlier types, I must tell the House that the evidence in the AMA report simply does not justify its assertion that expenditure of £5 billion is needed to remedy the defects.
As regards the capital resources, we have always made it clear to authorities that we shall take account of the need for investment to remedy defects in all system-built dwellings when we determine next year's HIP allocations. We shall continue to honour that commitment, based on the evidence.
As regards the revenue consequences of investment, since 1 April 1981 capitalised repairs have been eligible for housing subsidy. About 100 local authorities will receive subsidy this year. For the others, no Exchequer assistance is available because they can reasonably be expected to look to their own resources—either rents or rate fund contributions — to meet their current expenditure on housing. We do not see the case for singling out this section of the housing budget for specific revenue assistance.
There were two parts to the hon. Gentleman's case. He referred also to resources for construction. I should like to say a few words on new housebuilding. The signs are now much more encouraging than they have been for many years. Private sector starts rose by about 20 per cent. in both 1981 and 1982. That recovery has been sustained so far this year. Starts in the five months to May were nearly one fifth up on the same period last year. In the public sector the trend towards lower starts which began under the Labour Government has finally been reversed. Starts last year were about 40 per cent. up on 1981, the year in which the trend flattened out. Starts to May this year are again higher than in the same five months of 1982. It is important to have the facts available, because one would not have guessed that from what Opposition Members said. But the facts speak for themselves.
I conclude by assuring all hon. Members of the Government's firm commitment to continue to provide a realistic level of resources for housing repair and construction from the public sector, but in turn I ask them to recognise that resources for housing are also available from the private sector. We owe it to our constituents and to those in housing need to use all the resources that are available to make real progress with tackling the waiting list and modernising this country's housing stock.