§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Cope.]
2.10 am§ Mr. David Penhaligon (Truro)I take the opportunity presented by this Adjournment debate to raise what I believe is a problem unique to my part of the country. On the whole, houses in Cornwall are built not with bricks, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, but with concrete blocks. What is required to produce a concrete block is obviously concrete and a bulk or fill material to go with it. The vast majority of houses that have been built by this method over the years have used for that fill material the waste produced by the china clay industry. I emphasise that, as far I am aware, there are no problems with the china clay waste built houses. They have served the county well and are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
However, in the 1920s and 1930s several hundred houses were built not with the china clay material as the fill but with waste from some of the old tin mines. In particular, the waste from a mine known as the East Wheal Rose mine in Newlyn East was used quite extensively. According to Dr. Nixon of the Building Research Establishment, who made a report on this phenomenon in August 1979, for reasons of chemistry—which I confess I do not totally understand—the fill material from the mine at Newlyn East contains quantities of arsenic, lead and antimony, and the sulphides of these metals react with the concrete over a period to form gypsum. A block so affected has no strength whatever. In Cornwall that block is known as a "mundic" block, and it is the obvious effect of a block with no strength on a person's home that I wish to discuss in this debate.
In effect, it is a time bomb in people's properties. Some of these blocks have been in houses for 20 years. They perform perfectly satisfactorily, and then suddenly deteriorate. Some houses are now 60 years old and appear to the layman quite satisfactory, but previous evidence suggests that it is quite possible that they will, in effect, explode—not in the physical sense of an explosion, but they lose their strength and deteriorate.
I have seen examples of block no stronger than dry beach sand. Certainly one can pull it apart with one's bare fingers. No instrument is necessary. One can grab the material with one's fingers. There have been structural collapses, and there are many properties in which there is substantial structural danger. In some properties it affects one wall and in others just a few bricks within a wall. It manifests itself initially usually by the property being damp. One sees cracking on the outside of the walls. It is a serious problem.
One asks how many there are. I put a question to the Minister a few weeks ago, and the Department of the Environment replied that it believed that there were 300, concentrated mainly in the Truro area. I believe that there are more.
Since my interest in this matter has become known within the county, I have had properties affected by mundic block drawn to my attention in Truro, Perranporth, Camborne, Redruth, Newquay, Falmouth and Penzance. Properties seem to be affected in the whole of Cornwall, except for the St. Austell area where the china clay waste material is available and one presumes that the tin mine 376 material was never used, and the Caradon area, which is the area nearest Plymouth, which is the part of Cornwall furthest from the old tin mines. It is not a new problem. I have been aware of it since I was a boy.
I believe that the old Truro rural district council used this material in a number of council houses that it constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. On the whole, the council gave up repairing them. It demolished and replaced them. I believe that there is another block which has reached that stage and which is to be replaced.
One block in Ladock, for reasons that no one has ever explained satisfactorily, was not demolished but sold to a builder with the structural problem admitted. Unfortunately, somehow between that builder owning the block and it coming back on the market, the fact that the properties had mundic block was forgotten. The council never put it on the search details. I now have constituents living in houses—originally council houses—which are affected substantially by mundic block. I feel that that block is a disgrace.
It is not the main problem that I wish to draw to the attention of the House. The biggest problem is in the private sector. During the months since it has been mentioned in the local press, dozens of people have come to see me. They found their houses were a bit damp, had them investigated, and discovered that their £30,000 houses were worth £5,000 or, in some cases, virtually nothing.
When one meets one's constituents, the despair that this recognition imposes on people, the feeling of hopelessness and the realisation that a lifetime of saving to purchase a property and decorate it nicely for retirement is wasted, has to be seen to be believed.
I have not been optimistic. I have not told my constituents that I believe that there is an easy solution, but I was somewhat encouraged by a press release from the Department of the Environment on 14 February 1983 when the Minister announced the start of a scheme for financial help for those who owned Airey houses. From my interpretation of the press release, it seems that the Airey house problem is not dissimilar to the problem that exists in my constituency. Substantial help is offered to Airey house owners to try to rectify the structural faults. It amounts to up to £10,500 outside London and £14,000 in London.
The press release refers to 2,000 properties being affected so the Government are clearly expecting to spend a considerable amount of money to help people who face difficult problems.
I am asking the Minister to provide a similar scheme for the unique problem of mundic blocks. I believe that the matter is urgent. The vested interest to remain silent has led to an underestimation of the problem in many ways. If the Minister or I were unfortunate enough to own one of these houses, we would not be tempted to get it on the front page of the local paper so that everyone would know that we had a mundic block house, in which case the chance of finding some other poor soul to whom to sell it would be zero.
I know of one recent case where a building society wrote off a constituent's mortgage because it was agreed by the building society that it owed a duty of care to the mortgagor as it had not located the mundic block when granting the loan.
That decision has had repercussions. Building societies are now reluctant to lend money on any property in my 377 constituency built between 1920 and 1940. A constituent recently told me that he had been refused a mortgage on a property which appeared perfectly sound, with no sign of any deterioration, because a chemical analysis of one of the concrete blocks revealed an arsenic content of 800 parts per million and someone thought that that might be a mundic block which might eventually deteriorate. As I understand it, no one really knows whether an analysis of 800 parts per million is serious. The scale of the fear about this can thus be imagined.
The excellent Government repairs grant scheme, under which a useful sum has been spent, stipulates that for help to be given the house must have been built before 1919. That produces an ironic situation in my constituency, as at one end of the street a house built in 1910, but by no means in bad repair, is eligible for grant, while a house at the other end of the street that is virtually falling down due to Mundic block is not eligible even for the £3,600 grant because it was built in 1925. That is a very sad irony for the people affected by it.
The "pre-1961" scheme provides that up to £6,375 can be provided for repairs and improvements so long as no more than 70 per cent. of the total goes on repairs. In other words, 30 per cent. must be devoted to improvements. Very few of the properties about which I am concerned need any improvement. They are excellent properties, beautifully decorated, magnificently cared for and well equipped, but for the fact that they are in danger of falling down. Therefore, although that scheme has helped one or two people, it by no means approaches the full magnitude of the problem.
I cannot over-emphasise the fears building up in the area about these houses built between 1920 and 1940. I seek three undertakings from the Minister. First, a Government sponsored survey is needed to ascertain the extent of the problem in the county. Secondly, an attempt should be made to develop a test whereby one can predict fairly confidently whether a person's property is likely to be affected by Mundic block collapse. Thirdly—by far the most important but in no sense a party political matter — my constituents look to the Government for some sign that the Government are at least prepared to consider a scheme similar to that announced for Airey houses. If the Minister can give any assurance that the Government are moving in that direction, or are interested in doing so, he will do a great deal for the well-being of many of my constituents.
This is a substantial problem in my area and, tragically, it is not likely to go away. Indeed, one fears that this may be only the first mention of it in the House, as I suspect that the problem will be with us for some time yet.
§ The Under Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw)No one in the House could fail to be impressed by the cogency with which the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) put his case, as he invariably does on matters affecting his constituents, and by the peculiarity of the problem that he has described and its traditional value in providing houses in his area. He also rightly raised some of the consequences involved in any attempt to identify and to provide assistance for the problem that he has described. I shall concentrate on the mechanics of such assistance and whether this might be available in a form that would help the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
378 I must tell the hon. Gentleman at the outset that my remarks are unlikely to be particularly encouraging to him, but the facts must be put on record at this point. The fundamental question that he raises is whether improvement grants could be made available for repairs to houses built with mundic blocks. That is the root cause of the problem.
There are various types of improvement grant. The home improvement grant and the intermediate grant are already available for any dwelling produced before 2 October 1961. The intermediate grant is for the provision of standard amenities and so is unlikely to be appropriate for the case in question. The hon. Gentleman conceded that. Improvement grants are aimed at general improvement rather than repair, but they can include an element for repair and replacement. In cases where substantial and structural repair is needed, up to 70 per cent. of the grant can be given for repair and replacement. The grant is given at the discretion of the local authority.
I must emphasise that there must be works for improvement as part of the scheme. The hon. Gentleman recognised that in the vast majority of the housing stock to which he referred, such improvement is, frankly, not necessary. A dwelling would certainly not qualify for an improvement grant if the only problem was one of disrepair. I suspect that that is the condition of most of the dwellings referred to by the hon. Gentleman. It appears from what we have heard about mundic blocks that they would generally not be likely to qualify for improvement grant. Also, in order to qualify for an improvement grant, and owner-occupied dwelling outside Greater London must have a rateable value of less than £225. I do not know whether the mundic block houses would qualify on this basis or not. Special grants 'which are intended to deal with specific problems in houses in multiple occupation are not, I think, appropriate here.
The type of grant which on the face of it would he the most appropriate is the repairs grant. Before the Housing Act 1980, repairs grants were available only in cases of hardship in housing action areas and general improvement areas. We decided to make repairs grants more generally available to deal with the increasing problem of structural disrepair in the existing housing stock. The 1976 English house condition survey showed that this problem was at its worst in houses built before 1919. Since resources available for grants were limited, we decided that we should concentrate our efforts there to prevent older houses from falling into unfitness and having to be demolished.
The 1980 Act provides for repairs grants to be made for repairs of a substantial and structural nature to "old dwellings". The meaning of "old dwelling" is to be defined by the Secretary of State by order. The current order came into effect on 29 September 1982 and defines "old dwelling" as a dwelling which is or forms part of a building erected before 1 January 1919. It would be possible by a further order to extend the range of dwellings eligible for repairs grants and specify a later date of construction. Such an order would require the consent of the Treasury. Owner-occupied dwellings are also subject to a rateable value limit as in the case of improvement grants. The mundic block houses will not under the present order be eligible for repairs grant because they were, I believe, built after 1919.
In reply to a question from the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) on 10 November 1982, my hon. 379 Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction announced that he was, without any commitment at that stage, considering whether to make the cut-off date for repair grants later than 1919. That matter has now been reviewed and, in a further reply to the hon. Member for Keighley, my hon. Friend said:
We have been giving careful consideration to this matter. The conclusion we have reached is that, for the moment, there should be no change in the cut-off date for eligibility for repairs grants. The results of the 1981 English house condition survey show that 93 per cent. of the properties in substantial disrepair were in fact built before 1919."—[Official Report, 27 January 1983; Vol. 35, c. 500.]It is true that the latest English house condition survey did show an increasing problem of disrepair in the inter-war housing stock, but it has been decided that, given limited resources, the 1919 cut-off date should not be changed. The greatest problem of disrepair is still concentrated in the pre-1919 stock and for the time being efforts must be concentrated there. Regrettably, I must say, therefore, that the cut-off date for repair grant cannot for the present be changed in such a way that it will benefit the owners of mundic block houses.The hon. Member may be inclined to pick up this point and ask if, even if the cut-off date cannot generally be varied, there is any chance of making a specific variation which would just apply to the mundic block houses alone. Section 71(3A) of the Housing Act 1974 does provide for the definition of "old building" to be prescribed by order by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury. It is possible by a further order not only to redefine "old building" generally but also to redefine it to apply to a specific category of dwelling. I am not persuaded, however, that the circumstances of this type of house differ in kind from other examples of deterioration in houses built between the wars, so as to justify a special order in the case of mundic houses alone.
The Carrick district council has asked that the problem should be dealt with in another way—by permitting the council to assist owners in the same way as it may assist owners of Airey houses under the scheme introduced on 14 February 1983. The hon. Gentleman referred to that matter. One component of that scheme is that repairs grants are an option by which the local authority may at its discretion help owners. That component of the scheme was in fact effected by a special order of the type just mentioned. It applied a new meaning to "old dwelling" specifically for dwellings of the Airey type. It also varied the rateable value limit to cover these dwellings. But this 380 variation was made because the circumstances in the case of Airey houses seemed entirely exceptional in both the scale and the spread.
The hon. Gentleman will of course be aware that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction made a further statement on 8 February this year on the subject of deterioration in Orlit and other prefabricated reinforced concrete houses as a result of carbonation of the concrete and the use of chlorides in its manufacture. In his statement, the Minister again made it clear that although, on the evidence then available, the combination of circumstances in the case of these houses was not the same as that thought to justify special assistance to the owners of Airey houses, he would be ready to consider any new fact that might emerge in the light of the technical data on prefabricated reinforced concrete houses which he was asking the Building Research Establishment to gather.
While I have considerable sympathy for the owners of mundic block houses, I cannot at the moment offer any promises about changing the legislation in such a way that they can be assisted.
I note the three points raised by the hon. Gentleman. He asked for a survey of the problem. I shall report that request to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. I fully understand that until the problem is assessed it would not be feasible to discover whether it is sufficiently widespread to warrant special arrangements being made. I have considerable sympathy with the idea that a research operation would be a sensible use of my hon. Friend's powers, and no doubt he will give that suggestion consideration. I shall ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.
On the two other points that the hon. Gentleman raised — the tests of properties to determine whether the difficulty of the mundic block will occur, and assistance, I cannot go further than what I have already said. We are presently unable to meet the hon. Gentleman's requests. However, the Building Research Establishment is currently investigating many of the characteristics of building components. It might be possible to invite it to examine this problem also, but that again is a matter for my hon. Friend, not for me. Suffice it to say that the way in which the hon. Gentleman has put the points, with such clarity and force, means that we shall certainly consider all that he has said. If it is possible to go further than I have suggested, my hon. Friend will write to him.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Three o' clock.