§ 1. Mr. Home RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people in Scotland are in arrears with mortgage payments; and how many houses have been repossessed as a result of mortgage default during the last year.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton)Information on the level of mortgage arrears and the number of repossessions is not available for Scotland.
§ Mr. Home RobertsonHow convenient for the Minister. Does he accept that mortgage default is now one of the major causes of homelessness in Scotland and that 130 people in East Lothian became homeless last year because of mortgage default? That is about 15 per cent. of the official homelessness figure in my constituency. Is he further aware that a significant proportion of such folk bought their district council houses at a discount and are now having to be rehoused by the same local authority? Will he please admit that the Government's cockeyed housing policy has now made a crisis into a disaster of homelessness for many people?
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonI can tell the hon. Gentleman that only 4 per cent. of homelessness applications were attributed to that cause by the applicants. I stress that Clackmannan district council operates a scheme for tenants who are aspiring owners but find themselves in difficulty. Any other district council may operate that scheme if it so wishes. We have also developed a cash incentive scheme for housing associations to assist homeless families. Few people become homeless because of mortgage default and the figure is well below the number in England.
§ Mr. Bill WalkerDoes my hon. Friend agree that figures from the building societies show that about 96 per cent. of those with mortgages in the United Kingdom are not in default of any kind? Every trader would love to be able to present such figures. Does my hon. Friend also agree that there has been considerable interest in the extension of the rents-to-mortgages scheme, and can he tell me something about it?
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonYes. First, 0.47 per cent. of all mortgage holders in Britain have been subject 266 to repossession. That is well below 1 per cent. and the percentage in Scotland is lower because market values are lower. My hon. Friend asked me about the rents-to-mortgages scheme. We launched our publicity on the scheme on Friday, and there have been more than 4,000 expressions of interest from local authority tenants throughout Scotland. That shows that many people believe that this is the bargain of the century.