Northern Ireland Housing Executive (Hansard, 4 February 1988)

§ Mr. Roy Beggs (Antrim, East)
May I place on record my thanks to you, Mr. Speaker, for permitting me to draw attention to the misleading information supplied to me by the director of operations—the deputy chief executive—of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive on behalf of its chairman.
On 7 December 1987 my Ulster Unionist colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) who is here tonight and will, I hope, catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker), the mayor of Lisburn, Mr. Bleakes, and myself, met the chairman and senior officers of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive at the housing centre in Belfast. It was not a social call and we declined to accept any hospitality prior to a formal business meeting. It was an opportunity to raise specific matters and to have them dealt with on behalf of constituents.
At that meeting I referred particularly to problems in my constituency and to the problems being experienced at the Windmill estate, Carrickfergus, where windows larger than the original windows had been installed in some properties. I had been informed that new venetian blinds and curtains, fitted to suit the original windows, became a total loss to the tenants who could not afford to replace them after the imposed change in window size. I sought information and assistance for my constituents.
The director of operations, the deputy chief executive, replied on behalf of the chairman of the Housing Executive about the four areas of concern that I had raised at the meeting. His letter, dated 18 December, dealt with the specific issues of redevelopment proposals at Tullygarley, Lame, the Windmill estate, Carrickfergus, Green Walk, Rathcoole and Ballystrudder. He gave a detailed response and for the information of the House I should like to place on record his response to the problems at the Windmill estate, Carrickfergus: At present, there is an ongoing planned external maintenance scheme at Westmount Avenue, Windmill, Carrickfergus which includes for the replacement of front and rear panels and front and rear windows. However, from the date the proposals were submitted to Building Control until the contract was awarded, regulations in relation to lighting and ventilation changed with the result that the demands of our original windows did not now satisfy the current Building Regulations, and so large windows were installed in the first five dwellings and curtains and venetian blinds no longer fitted. The contractor has now come to an agreement with the tenants by way of compensation, and in view of the publicity surrounding this contract, the Building Control Officers have now agreed that we can revert to the original specification and provide windows of a smaller size to those being replaced. I work closely with all the councillors in my constituency. Fortunately for me, in east Antrim we have no Sinn Fein councillors to work with. I, in turn, endeavour to enlist the support of councillors and undertake to keep them informed.
Early in the new year, on 8 January, I copied the relevant reply from the Housing Executive about the Windmill estate to the mayor of Carrickfergus, Alderman Jim Brown. Because of the repeated references in that reply, I copied it to the district building control officer at the town hall in Carrickfergus and asked him for his comments, which were as follows: 1259

(1) There is no minimum size requirement regarding windows in the Building Regulations.

(2) There has been no change in the Building Regulations regarding minimum window size since Building Regulations were introduced in 1973.

(3) The Building Regulations do not require that buildings erected under former control, e.g. Bye-laws, be brought to current standards."

How can those points be reconciled with the statement I received on behalf of the chairman of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive? Is it not more than a coincidence that an application for building regulation approval arrived at the building control department in Carrickfergus borough council on 8 December 1987, a day after my visit to the Housing Executive headquarters in Belfast?
The building control officer's fourth point was this: Application for Building Regulation approval was not received until the 8 December 1987. This followed my becoming aware of the work which was being carried out following press reports of the controversy in early December, 1987. I then drew to the attention of the N.I.H.E. and their agents that an application was required for the work which was being carried out. So the executive was aware that no application had been properly made. The fifth point was: Since there was no requirement under the Building Regulations, to change the window size in the first instance, I did not subsequently agree that windows of the original size would be satisfactory. There was no necessity for such an agreement! Again I was very concerned at the apparent contradiction in that statement.
I am a simple man, brought up to believe every word from my mother's lips. She often said, "Now come on, son —tell the truth and shame the devil," and I always tried to please her. I believe that even when the truth hurts it must be told. It is vitally important that hon. Members should be completely confident, and be able to place their trust in their dealings with other hon. Members and with civil servants in our various Government Departments. They should even be able to place their trust and confidence in their dealings with officers employed in quangos such as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
Since applying for and being granted this Adjournment debate, I received the following correspondence, dated 29 January 1988, from the director of operations. I do not know whether to believe it. but here it is: Dear Mr. Beggs, I wrote to you on 18th December 1987 responding to a number of matters which you had raised when representatives of your Party met with the Executive on 7th December 1987. In that reply (paragraph 2), I referred to the external maintenance scheme for Westmount Avenue, Windmill, Carrickfergus and I gave an explanation for the change of window size in the first five dwellings of the project. I have now been advised that my reply on this matter was inaccurate. The information was provided by the Executive's professional Consultants responsible for the project and the Executive Officer who prepared the reply had no reason to believe that the information provided to him was incorrect. It was inconceiveable that the Consultant would allow the project to proceed on site without seeking formal Building Control approval. The Executive acknowledges that neither the Building Regulations, nor Building Controls were in any way responsible for the change of windows which occurred to five dwellings in Westmount Avenue. I am most concerned that the information given to you was incorrect and offer my sincere apologies. I, too, am most concerned that I should have received such a response in the first instance. It should never have been necessary for that officer, at his level, to have to come back with such a response. However, if I had not asked for 1260 comment by the building control officer in Carrickfergus council, the misleading information would not have been detected. This experience has shattered the confidence of elected members of my party in the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. It makes one believe that it is necessary to look closely at every reply one receives.
It is not unreasonable for some of us to ask how many similar cover-ups have gone unchallenged. I do not think that anyone could consider that to be an unreasonable thought to harbour. I am not so ungracious as not to accept the follow-up letter of explanation and apology, dated 29 January, from the executive.
From this singularly disgraceful experience, my party colleagues believe that no expense must be spared by the Minister in providing full and detailed answers to questions raised in the House regarding activities in the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, which requires more thorough scrutiny than occurs at present. The Minister answered questions on this matter, on 3 February 1988, from my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross), whose disappointment and dissatisfaction I share. The costs likely to be incurred in making available the information sought through those written answers is well worth it.
I bring this matter to the attention of the House and of the Minister. I trust that he will agree with me that it should never have been necessary for me to bring this matter to the House or for him to be here to deal with it. It is inconceivable that such inaccurate information should have been relayed to a Member of this House. I trust that the Minister will assure the House that such action as is necessary will be taken to ensure that it can never happen again, and that the so-called professional consultants who proffered the advice in the first instance are reprimanded. Otherwise, I am sure, that some of us could legitimately feel that those who supplied the information had been apt pupils of Sir Robert Armstrong in being economical with the truth, or guilty, as another distinguished gentleman once said, of terminological inexactitude.

§ Mr. Clifford Forsythe (Antrim, South)
I am glad to have the opportunity to support my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) in this matter. My remarks will be short, and I hope to the point.
I must admit that I speak more in sorrow than in anger. Along with my colleagues on this Bench, I have endeavoured to work a system which I find undemocratic and generally unresponsive to the needs of my constituents. It is a shock to find that our efforts to iron out general housing problems by having a full and frank discussion with top officials of the body responsible for housing in Northern Ireland have been exploited by deflecting our relevant and specific questions with what has subsequently turned out to be misleading information.
It is even more surprising that that should have happened at the meeting referred to by my hon. Friend, which took place on 7 December. It was attended not only by senior officers of the Housing Executive, but by a representative number of the board members, including the board chairman.
I remind the House and the Minister that this is the second time recently that the conduct of that body has been raised in this place. It was last raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. M. Smyth). On that occasion he was concerned that Members of Parliament, 1261 all of us from Northern Ireland, had been told that we could not raise any matter on behalf of our constituents without producing to the Housing Executive a letter of authority from the constituent concerned. I am glad that that mistaken impression was subsequently corrected and each of us received a letter of apology.
However, the matter is much more serious. If a body under the control of a Minister who is responsible to this House—we should remember that those who attended the meeting included the chairman of the board of the Housing Executive — is prepared through carelessness, laziness or, worse still, deliberate intent to mislead other Members of this House, that must call into question the rights and privileges of this House. Those rights and privileges were fought for and established over the centuries and have been jealously guarded by this illustrious House at all times.
It also unfortunately raises the question: has it happened before? Has it happened in other similar bodies in Northern Ireland, either knowingly or unknowingly? Those questions are probably impossible to answer without a great deal of investigation.
We hope that the Minister in his reply will give us a categorical assurance that he will do all in his power to see that it does not happen again. For our part, we will be extremely careful in future to see that it does not happen again. I only hope that we do not have continually to come back to the House seeking Adjournment debates to get the truth from the Housing Executive.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Richard Needham)
The information given to the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) was, as he rightly said, incorrect. Mr. Cameron wrote to him apologising fully for having given the hon. Member wrong information. Mr. Cameron, whom Opposition Members know well, deeply regrets that, and I am absolutely convinced that there was no intention in his letter to the hon. Member to do anything other than give him the facts as they were presented to him.
As the hon. Member pointed out, a consultant employed by the Housing Executive was undertaking the work. The hon. Member raised the matter with the Housing Executive, on the basis that some of his constituents had complained that the larger windows had been placed in the buildings, which meant that their blinds and curtains did not fit. When the Housing Executive inquired of the consultants why this had happened, quite frankly, it got a cock and bull story. The Housing Executive deeply regrets that it fell for that line, and wrote to the hon. Member as it did.
The chairman of the Housing Executive is known to Opposition Members. In my dealings with him, even though I have occasionally taken hospitality from him, I have found that it has not in any way altered his strenuous defence of his right to question the Government's policies in relation to the money and back-up that the Housing Executive requires. He is a man of great personal integrity and determination and feels very strongly that hon. Members should be fully informed about what goes on in the Housing Executive.
The Housing Executive has 170,000 houses to manage, spends approximately £500 million per year and does 1262 about 400,000 repairs each year, and things do go wrong. The chairman regrets that, and I am sure that the officers of the Housing Executive regret that. If there are ways to improve the relationship between the Housing Executive and hon. Members, I am sure that the executive would be only too willing to accept that. Of course there will be occasions when hon. Members, write to the executive, as there are when we write to our local housing authorities, and sometimes receive replies which we do not find to our taste. Having said that, I am not saying that information should not be given to hon. Members promptly, politely and properly, and it should be correct in every detail.
I inquired today how many letters had been received from hon. Members for Northern Ireland since the election. Some 3,600 have been received, and some 3,400 from councillors. The executive does its best, but the best sometimes falls short of the ideal.

§ Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South)
Would the Minister say that it is coincidental that the letter to my hon. Friend arrived the day after the Order Paper was published? Will he acknowledge that most of those letters refer to simple items and press for cases to be considered? Does he share my concern about important matters such as a contractor being given further contracts when he was not insured? We were fobbed off with the sort of answer that had been put to the chairman, that such practice is detrimental to the public interest, to the taxpayers and to the Housing Executive.

§ Mr. Needham
If there are cases in which the hon. Gentleman feels that contracts may have been given without proper consideration, I should take that immensely seriously. It is crucial that that sort of construction is carefully monitored. I know that that view is fully understood by the chairman, the board and the officers of the Housing Executive. Having said that, I accept that it has not always got it right. If the hon. Gentleman presses me on whether it is a question of conspiracy on the one hand or a cock-up on the other, I think that, when mistakes were made, they were more likely to have been as a result of inadvertence rather than some deeply laid plan to avoid giving proper and sensible advice to hon. Members.
Nevertheless, I accept that hon. Members have every right to raise matters in the House if they feel that incorrect information has been given. I welcome that, because it is extremely important that the Government know exactly what is going on. Hon. Members are best able, in dealing with their constituents, to discover the facts on the ground.
I am sure that hon. Members will accept that the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland has done a remarkable job over the past few years in raising the standard of public-sector housing and in effecting repairs. However, that does not give grounds for complacency.
I accept the point that the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) has made. We shall look, as will the chairman, at what can be done. If hon. Members think that steps could be taken to improve relationships with the Housing Executive at local, regional or central level to make communication easier and more efficient, we shall look at that.
On behalf of the Housing Executive, and Mr. Cameron, I apologise for the fact that the hon. Member for Antrim, East was given incorrect advice. I have looked into the matter carefully. I do not believe that there was any 1263 intention to give that advice. Nevertheless, the wrong advice was given and I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and to the House.
1264 Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Ten o'clock.