§ 3. Mr. MossTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many houses are forecast to be provided by housing associations over the next three years.
§ The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Howard)The Housing Corporation currently expects to provide grant towards about 170,000 homes over the next three years. In addition, local authorities will fund schemes, using local authority housing association grant.
§ Mr. MossI congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on announcing a significant 11 per cent. increase in the number of new homes to be built, over and above our manifesto pledge of last year. Over the past year, local authorities in my constituency of Cambridgeshire, North-East have benefited substantially from housing association money. Will my right hon. and learned Friend also confirm that the announcement in the autumn statement that the rules on capital receipts were to be relaxed provided yet more opportunity for investment in new homes built for rent?
§ Mr. HowardI am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I can certainly give him the confirmation that he seeks. We estimate that about £1 billion worth of capital receipts may be available for investment in housing, and local authorities can use them to support housing associations' new build. In 1992–93, about 6,000 new houses were built using local authority housing association grant, and the Housing Corporation's own programme for 1993–94 has been expanded by about £117 million in contributions from local authorities.
§ Mrs. DunwoodyWhen will the Secretary of State be able to tackle the problem that more housing associations face every day, whereby their need to balance the books means that they will soon be charging rents that will be extremely difficult for people who need low-cost housing to pay? Is not he aware that many councils gave assistance to housing associations, providing suitable sites at peppercorn rents, or selling them cheaply, on the assumption that low-cost housing would be provided, yet now they find that their own people are being priced out of the new housing associations?
§ Mr. HowardPeople who need low-cost housing get the help provided through housing benefit, which is an excellent example of a targeted benefit directed to people who need help.
§ Mr. Harry GreenwayWill my right hon. and learned Friend examine housing associations' practice of demanding land from local authorities for nothing, which is causing great resentment among local authorities that are obliged to give up land for housing to housing associations? Will he also re-examine the right to buy housing association properties?
§ Mr. HowardHousing associations are not in a position to demand what my hon. Friend says that they demand. We are encouraging them to work with local authorities and they are increasingly doing so. I will give careful consideration to my hon. Friend's suggestion concerning the right to buy.
§ Mr. BattleIs not it a fact that housing associations will still provide a mere 3 per cent. of the total housing stock, and that all the Government's piecemeal housing initiatives together will go nowhere near providing the 100,000 new homes for rent every year that the Institute of Housing and other bodies say are desperately needed by thousands of homeless people still sleeping out, and by the 147,000 people registered with local authorities as statutorily homeless? Will not the intention of the Secretary of State's right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to cut housing benefit later this year force even more people to lose their homes in the face of high and rising rents?
§ Mr. HowardThe hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense, as he usually does. We are making substantial progress in addressing the housing problems which we face. It will not do at all for Labour party spokesmen to come to the Dispatch Box and reel off meaningless statistics, while claiming to be a party of financial probity, for one claim is totally inconsistent with the other.