11. Mr. Alan W. WilliamsTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many units of housing were completed by housing associations and local authorities in Wales during 1995–96; and what is the total number of applicants on housing waiting lists. [288]
§ Mr. Jonathan EvansThe figures are 3,802 and 164 respectively, reflecting the policy of making housing associations the main provider of new social housing. Waiting lists are kept by the individual housing providers. Information is not held centrally.
Mr. WilliamsWill the Minister look into the problems of one of my constituents, Mrs. Tattersall of Llandovery, who has been on the housing waiting list for five years? She has seven children and lives in a three-bedroom semi-detached house. Four boys share one bedroom and their ages range from 10 to 18; the two girls share the second bedroom; and the infant sleeps in his mother's room. The living room, which has to serve eight people, is 12 ft by 11 ft. The conditions are frankly 19th century.
In April, I raised the problem with my local authority and the housing association, but when I checked in October I learnt that it had still not been solved. In fact, two of the teenage children had nervous breakdowns this summer, unquestionably because of the appalling overcrowding. The Welsh Office received a copy of my latest letter about the problem on 13 October. Will 905 Ministers look into the appalling problems of that family, which has been badly let down by the housing association and the local authority?
§ Mr. EvansThat account is hardly a good advertisement for Welsh local government in Labour party hands, is it? Since Housing for Wales was established in 1988, some 27,000 additional homes have been provided in the Principality—because of that initiative and investment of £1.2 billion from the Welsh Office. Furthermore, the hon. Gentleman's local authority has received £6.8 million to fund its housing association grant programme in 1995–96. The hon. Gentleman should be pressing his local authority a lot harder than he appears to be doing.
§ Mr. RogersWhy does not the Minister do what he suggests, and press local authorities and others to provide him with housing waiting list figures? I find it absolutely disgraceful that the Welsh Office does not know the combined waiting list in Wales. Those figures are held by the housing associations, and the Minister has said that he has now made them primarily responsible for the provision of social housing, so why on earth does he not simply write to them to ask how many applicants there are?
§ Mr. EvansGiven the number of years the hon. Gentleman has been in the House, he must know that it is Government policy to ensure that the prime provider of social housing should be housing associations, but that local authorities play a key role in relation to the allocation of social housing. He will also know that local authorities across Wales tend to adopt different approaches in relation to the compilation of figures on housing need.
§ Mr. RogersHow many are on the waiting list?
§ Mr. EvansIt does the hon. Gentleman no good to go in for histrionics designed to cloud the responsibility of his own local authority.