§ Mr. Gordon Campbellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he will authorise the Scottish Special Housing Association to provide houses for locally resident key workers in certain areas of housing shortage;
137W(2) if he is aware that the policy of providing housing for incoming key workers does not give locally employed key workers priority on house allocation lists, inducing them to move to areas where they are regarded as incoming key workers, and reducing the effectiveness of the policy in the areas concerned; and whether he will issue a circular to local authorities recommending them to make allocations to local key workers.
§ Mr. RossThe provision of houses for employees is a valuable means of facilitating the establishment or growth of industry in an area, but it must be used with discretion. While it is usually restricted to incoming workers, there are occasions when both local authorities and the Scottish Special Housing Association allocate houses to key employees already resident in the area and I do not think they need further advice on the matter.