HC Deb 28 November 1984 vol 68 cc918-9
8. Sir Anthony Grant

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many acres of land were recorded on the local authority land register at July 1984 as being vacant, dormant or derelict land in public ownership.

Mr. Kenneth Baker

At 1 July the land registers gave details of 110,863 acres of unused or underused land owned by local authorities and other public bodies in England.

Sir Anthony Grant

Is it not time that this absurd hoarding was stopped? How many disposal notices have been issued to public sector land owners under the 1980 Act, and what has been the effect of this notification?

Mr. Baker

I echo my hon. Friend's sentiments. As far as we have been able to discover, about 18,000 acres have been sold, leaving about 110,000 acres on the register. We examined nine sites and then proceeded to issue directives about a fortnight ago for the disposal of them. We shall be looking at other sites as well.

Mr. Eastham

With regard to the so-called hoarding of local government land, is it not a fact that three factors affect local authorities? The first is inadequate derelict land grants, the second is inadequate housing investment allocations and the third is that private developers are interested only in leafy suburbia, and not in the inner cities.

Mr. Baker

The amount allocated for derelict grant is going up this year, and stands at about £75 million. The capital investment in housing, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction has said, will be over £3 billion this year. As to leafy suburbia, in the past month I have visited two or three sites in the north of England where derelict inner city council estates are being renovated and refurbished with Government assistance.

Mr. Steen

It is reassuring that my right hon. Friend follows all previous Secretaries of State in saying that the amount of public land is too much and unacceptable, as this has been said for about 10 years. Could not my right hon. Friend instruct all public authorities to reduce their derelict and vacant land by perhaps 25 per cent. a year, otherwise the land will never be used?

Mr. Baker

I am not as pessimistic as my hon. Friend. I do not have the powers that he asked me to use. We intend to keep up the pressure on the vast amount of land that is not used. The whole purpose of the legislation is to bring idle land into active use.

Mr. Straw

As my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Park) and for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham) have made clear, the truth is that the Government's actions wholly belie their words. The Government have put local authorities which wish their derelict and dormant land to be brought into public. use—whether in the private or public sector—in a financial straitjacket by restricting the conditions governing the availability of derelict land grant and by prohibiting the full use of capital receipts by local authorities. If the Minister wishes to encourage local authorties to do what they want to do—to bring this land into use—why does he not lift forthwith the restrictions on the use of capital receipts?

Mr. Baker

The capital receipts from the sale of housing land can be as high as 100 per cent. I ask the hon. Gentleman to get his facts right about the derelict land grant. Each year we are increasing the amounts available for derelict land grant. This is a major priority for my Department.