§ 11. Mr. MichaelTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to provide local authorities with additional resources for the refurbishment and redesign of housing estates.
§ Mr. BaldryWe provide substantial resources to local authorities every year for capital spending on housing. The housing investment programme for this year is £1.75 billion, and a further £356 million is provided for the estate action programme and £87 million for housing action trusts. Local authorities may also draw on almost all capital receipts generated before the end of this year, which provides them with a major opportunity for additional spending on housing projects.
§ Mr. MichaelWill the Minister admit that he is involved in the ridiculous business of giving with one hand and taking away with the other? An excellent local authority that I visited recently had a scheme to develop an estate, not least with a view to preventing crime, for which some money for phase 1 has been obtained from the Government. A cut in the authority's capital budget brought about by the Department meant that it has lost even more than it had gained from the grant. What would the Minister say to that authority? Is not that a ridiculous Government recycling operation that constrains councils and prevents them from doing what is needed in their communities?
§ Mr. BaldryWhat the hon. Gentleman says does not accord with the facts. This year, 167 new estate action schemes will be started. There are 225 existing schemes, many of which involve extensive estate refurbishment over a number of years. The regeneration of those estates will cost millions of pounds. We are investing in many of the worst run-down estates in the country. We are determined to ensure that every housing estate is brought up to a very good standard.
§ Sir Donald ThompsonI congratulate my hon. Friend on the estate action schemes that he has initiated in my constituency—in Brighouse, Elland and Todmorden. Many of those initiatives will stop estates from declining to the stage that has been reached in other parts of the country.
§ Mr. BaldryMy hon. Friend makes a good point. Estate action schemes also enable tenants to become much more involved in the running of their estates. The means and the resources that we are providing ensure that tenants have a much greater influence over the homes and the areas in which they live.
§ Mr. PikeDoes the Minister not accept that the reality is that many excellent estate action schemes have been put in jeopardy because insufficient capital resources have been provided to enable local authority grant applications to be met in full? In many cases, central Government assumptions about anticipated capital receipts led to grants being made that were far below what local 918 authorities had hoped to get. In housing partnership schemes, bids totalled £142 million, but grants amounted to only 20.71 per cent. of that total. Does the Minister not accept that estate action schemes cannot be carried out if local authorities do not have the money?
§ Mr. BaldryLast year, Burnley had an estate action scheme for the Bardon estate. This year, Burnley has had money for an estate action scheme for the Trafalgar Gardens estate. The reality is that this year 167 new estate action schemes will be started and we are investing £356 million in those schemes. About £1 billion has been invested in recent years in estate action, which has enabled estate action schemes to be carried out on no fewer than 1,000 estates.