§ Mr. Heseltineasked the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what was the revenue cost, loan charges, repair, maintenance, supervision and management of a new council house in 1978, or the period for which most recent figures are available;
(2) what was the capital cost in 1978, or the period for which most recent figures are available, of the average new council dwelling;
(3) what was the average (a) rebated rent and (b) unrebated rent received from a new council house in 1978, or the period for which most recent figures are available;
(4) what was the average rent rebate received per new council house in 1978 or for the period for which most recent figures are available.
§ Mr. ShoreIn England, the current average cost of a newly-built local authority dwelling, including land, is estimated at about £14,500. The equivalent figure 67W at the beginning of the financial year 1978–79 was about £13,500.
The revenue costs in 1978–79 of a House completed at the beginning of the year—and therefore costing £13,500–are estimated to be:
- (i) loan charges—interest and debt redemption—£1,410
- (ii) supervision and management, and repairs and maintenance £190. This figure is the estimated national average cost per dwelling, both new and existing. There is no reliable information on management and maintenance expenditure which deals separately with new dwellings.
The financial year 1978–79 is not yet complete and for this reason there is an added degree of approximation in the figures.
The average weekly unrebated rent in April 1978 of council houses completed during the previous year is estimated to be £7.03 per week, i.e. about £370 a year.
It is not possible, from the information available, to calculate average weekly rebated rents classified by age of dwellings. However, for all dwellings it was £5.20 per week at April 1978. The equivalent unrebated rent for all dwellings was £5.85 per week. This gives a figure for average direct rebates—that is, excluding those paid through supplementary benefit—of £0.65 per week, but it should be noted that this is a broad average across all local authority tenants and not only those in receipt of some direct rebate.
§ Mr. Rossiasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the subsidy paid by central and local government on a new council house in 1978 or the latest year for which figures are available.
§ Mr. ShoreThe estimated first year subsidy—that is, first year cost net of unrebated rent—for an average new council house completed in England on 1 April 1978 is £1,230. About three-quarters of this sum is covered by central Government housing grant, and the remainder from local resources. This figure excludes any rent rebates which the tenant might receive.