HC Deb 06 February 1985 vol 72 cc930-1
13. Mr. Marlow

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take action to privatise local authority housing other than through individual sales to sitting tenants or third parties.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

Private developers have bought, improved, and successfully resold, thousands of derelict and vacant local authority dwellings. Some local authority tenants are taking on the responsibility for running their own estates through management co-operatives. I want to see these welcome trends accelerated.

Mr. Marlow

As it appears that in those countries where rented accommodation is provided by commercial enterprise rather than by a municipal organisation the housing and the environment are better and the cost is somewhat less, will my right hon. Friend consider being more radical in his proposals and require some local authorities to divest themselves of some of their larger and less well-run estates to private enterprise organisations licensed by the Government and operating within certain requirements?

Mr. Jenkin

There are now some 70 schemes of substantial local authority estates or blocks of flats being refurbished and developed in partnership between the public and the private sector. Some of those include tenanted estates. It is encouraging to find that when tenants are offered the chance of and consulted about participating in such ventures they prefer to do that rather than to stay with the local authority. That is something that we are pursuing with considerable energy, because I believe that it is an important development.

Mr. Winnick

Why does the Secretary of State not recognise that hundreds of thousands of people are living in great housing hardship and misery because they cannot be housed by their local authority? Is it not a striking illustration of the Government's callous indifference that they have each year cut the amount of money made available to local authorities? In my borough, only because it has not had the money available, no contracts for new council housing have been entered into for the past six years. When will the Secretary of State recognise his responsibility towards people in such a desperate housing plight in my borough and the rest of the country?

Mr. Jenkin

I am a bit surprised that the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to welcome schemes where private sector money will relieve local authorities of the cost and responsibility of refurbishing some of their most unattractive and difficult to let areas so that the local authorities can concentrate on providing for the needs where the hon. Gentleman has identified. He has a blinkered view of the best way forward in this matter.

Mr. Spencer

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is only too self-evident from the evidence of Socialist city councils up and down the country that the vast amounts of money that have been directed into those quarters have not benefited the council tenants, who were meant to be the beneficiaries, and that it is necessary to consider new methods of financing housing for those who cannot afford to pay for it themselves?

Mr. Jenkin

I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I am prepared to adopt the words of one Labour leader of a council in the north-west, who said the other day: In many of these great urban estates the public sector has caused the problems, and they will not be solved without the support of the private sector. I agree with that.

Mr. Cartwright

Does the Secretary of State confirm that the best way to deal with monolithic council estates is not to sell them for private profit but to devolve power to the tenants to enable them to run their own affairs through management and maintenance co-operatives? What practical steps is he taking to encourage local authorities to make progress along those lines?

Mr. Jenkin

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is room for a variety of solutions. Some of the tenants' cooperatives that have been developed have been extremely successful. If he consulted his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), he would find that it is a matter of great regret that Liverpool city council has cut off tenants' co-operatives from any access to city finance—

Mr. Simon Hughes

Quite right.

Mr. Jenkin

The hon. Member says "Quite right." He should go and talk to the people who are waiting for their houses from those co-operatives.

Mr. Hardy

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in many areasa local authorities are not allowed to improve as many houses as they would like, or as their tenants and local ratepayers would like? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that in those areas regional and local newspapers are frequently given to criticising councils for their failure to improve as many houses as they would like? Will the right hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear to the media that councils cannot improve the number of houses that they would like because of Government policy and ministerial action, rather than because of their own decisions?

Mr. Jenkin

If the hon. Gentleman has only just discovered that it is the Government's policy, in pursuit of their general economic initiatives and the control of inflation, to keep a firm control of public spending, I am not quite sure where he has been for the past five years. I would have more sympathy for any council that had gone out of its way to seek private sector partnership to try to resolve some of its problems—[Interruption.] I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman's council has done just that. That is the way in which those blocks of flats and estates can be refurbished and developed. There are now examples all over the country which are cheered and applauded by those who live on the estates.