Housing Starts (Hansard, 20 January 1982)

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin)
My 607 Lords, since we came into office the Government have taken a number of steps to help private house—builders. We repealed the Community Land Act; we lowered the rate of development land tax; we have streamlined planning procedures and looked to the releasing of land for development. We are encouraging local authorities and private house—builders to work in partnership to carry out a variety of low—cost home ownership schemes. This year over 100 local authorities are disposing of land under licence to private builders. We are providing extra inner—city money to stimulate low—cost home ownership, with priority for schemes with a high gearing of private to public sector finance. All these factors are contributing to the rise in private housing starts.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, can my noble friend say how much local authorities have received in capital sums from the sale of houses and land, and what percentage of these receipts are available for reinvestment in new council house projects?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, in addition to their individual HIP allocations, authorities may use their capital receipts as they wish. The exact amount is not known, but it is at least some £593 million in 1982–83, which is a very considerable sum, and I think should enable authorities to do a great deal in this area.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, the long list which the Minister has just read out gave the impression that in this country housebuilding is booming. Is he aware that the contrary is the truth, that the construction industry is in an extremely depressed state? Can he say what the position is on the public sector building side? Is he aware that the housing lists are lengthening in England and Wales? Is he aware that in Wales there are 25,000 applications for council houses? Is he aware that it is of no help to the present Government to give a misleading impression that all is well in the building industry when in fact things are extremely bad?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, in no way did I give a misleading impression. The Question asked what the Government were doing to help private sector building and I gave a list relating to exactly that. I made no observation as to whether the level of housebuilding was satisfactory or otherwise. It was not my intention to do so. But when the noble Lord asks about and stresses his concern at the general level of house building—and that is what he meant when he referred to the public sector, although this Question is specifically directed to the private sector of housing—I must tell him that the other figures which I gave in response to the supplementary asked by my noble friend are also not without significance. There is now the scope for local authorities—perhaps in ways not generally applicable in recent times—to have sufficient monies to do what they want in terms of building, if they decide that that is their priority.

§ Lord Beswick
My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister be good enough to tell the House what was the actual market value of the £593 million worth of public property which they have disposed of?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, the noble Lord will surely know that I am not in a position to say that. The bulk of it, of course, comes from the sales of council houses and clearly the individual calculations will depend upon many factors such as the original cost, the level of debt that it reduces and so on. Many factors are involved, and the noble Lord knows that I cannot give him that information.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, reverting to the terms of the original Question, will my noble friend indicate what in real terms is the percentage increase for the third quarter of 1981 as compared with the third quarter of 1980?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, I do not have that figure readily to hand, but I will gladly write to my noble friend about it. The fact is that there is an upward trend and one would want to see it at a higher level. But we must bear in mind that there has been a big change in the whole housing scene. There is today a much greater emphasis on, for example, renovation and rehabilitation than there was previously. This cannot be left out of the whole debate on housing. The noble Lord opposite referred to the question of waiting lists. I think that that is another debate entirely and one would want to look very carefully at those before coming to conclusions about them.

Lord Oram
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that in the original Question his noble friend was distinctly selective in his choice of statistics since he has chosen as his base year 1980, a year in which private housing starts had been drastically reduced as a result of the Government's actions? Would he not have been better employed asking what actions the Government took to reduce private housing starts from 162,000 in the last year of the Labour Government to 102,000 two years later in the first year of this Government? Surely there is little credit to be gained or to be claimed in first causing a problem and then doing something to mitigate its effects?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, I revert to what I originally said when answering the Question. The fact is that the level of starts has increased, and that must surely be satisfactory or, if not satisfactory, at least encouraging to those who are interested in seeing more private sector building.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, is the Minister aware that in his reply to the original Question he quite rightly concentrated on the improvement in the private sector? What concerns many of us is that it has been at a massive detriment to the public sector. The figures are as follows. Last year the amount of council—

Several noble Lords
Order!

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Young)
My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would be good enough to ask his question?

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, I was just about to ask my question when I was interrupted. I was asking whether the noble Lord was aware that, while no one would 609 quarrel too much with the improvement in the private sector, the real argument concerns the detriment to the public sector; and for 1980 the grand total of houses built in Great Britain was the lowest since the mid-1920s?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, the fact that the private sector builds more, or less, is not in any way a matter which makes more, or less, the building of public accommodation. The two are not related except in so far as in the past many local authorities and public bodies held on to land and did not release land, which made it impossible for the private sector to build as they would have liked to do. But the level of public sector building is a matter for the authorities themselves to decide, and that they will do.

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, while we are all delighted to hear of any turn upwards anywhere in this Government's record, this particular figure will have to be multiplied by about five times before the Government have any hope of getting to the point where they started?

§ Lord Bellwin
My Lords, I do not think that that really calls for a reply, but one ought to say in the context of the whole of housing that the position generally is not the same as it was. There is, in fact, a crude surplus of housing as such and one of the great problems that concern those who are involved with this subject relates to many other factors such as the level of housing and the kind of housing that should be built. I think that if local authorities were to concentrate on one- and two-bedroomed units, thereby enabling many who live in three-bedroomed accommodation to go into those units, that too would affect public housing. Many factors are involved.