§ Mr. Gwilym JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the capital receipts held on deposit from the sale of council housing to those whose homes they are for each council in Wales, for each year since 1979; for what reason it has not been decided to make provision for these moneys to be returned to the ratepayers/chargepayers; and what interest has accrued in each year to each of those councils.
§ Mr. Nicholas BennettUnder the arrangements brought into effect on 1 April 1990 by part IV of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, local authorities are required to set aside a proportion of their capital receipts—the "reserved part"—as prudent financial provision for credit liabilities. The balance—the "usable part"—is available for any capital purpose. Authorities must also repay at least a prescribed minimum amount of debt from revenue each year.
Authorities are not, however, required to redeem debt from the reserved part immediately. The timing of debt redemption from capital receipts is left to each authority to decide in its own circumstances.
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(£ thousands) Outstanding HRA loan debt at 31 March 1991 Unredeemed HRA reserved part at 31 March 19901 2 Unredeemed HRA reserved part at 31 March 19911 1990–91 HRA receipts redeemed in 1990–91 Alyn and Deeside 22,266 1,600 3,260 0 Colwyn 14,533 1,624 2,151 0 Delyn 18,987 0 0 999 Glyndwr 8,804 2,021 0 654 Rhuddlan 10,707 2,046 2,672 0 Wrexham Maelor 43,200 6,576 0 3,246 Carmarthen 26,214 2,667 3,150 0 Ceredigion 17,453 3,561 0 1,382 Dinefwr 14,108 183 1,733 0 Llanelli 21,378 56 0 1,752 Preseli Pembrokeshire 16,576 3,416 5,831 0 South Pembrokeshire 7,254 3,458 0 843 Blaenau Gwent 76,671 4,060 1,939 0 Islwyn 35,395 5,569 6,458 0 Monmouth 30,424 2,110 3,812 0 Newport 74,408 7,709 0 2,058 Torfaen 57,112 2,342 5,538 0 Aberconwy 8,006 4,253 5,008 0 Arfon 14,279 3,932 4,285 0 Dwyfor 4,466 243 33 410 Meirionnydd 4,906 1,100 1,616 0 Ynys Mon 30,678 3,095 4,499 0 Cynon Valley 26,259 1,671 2,801 0 Merthyr Tydfil 33,316 1,812 0 1,042 Ogwr 43,586 3,224 5,524 0 Rhondda 48,336 0 490 0 Rhymney Valley 54,120 3,616 4,859 1,210 Taff-Ely 29,211 4,720 9,516 0 Brecknock 15,181 5,234 6,096 0 Montgomeryshire 14,816 6,791 7.576 0 Radnorshire 9,666 2,585 3,094 0 Cardiff 100,758 0 5,286 0 Vale of Glamorgan 35,826 16,669 19,728 0 Port Talbot 19,949 1,739 1,744 464 Lliw Valley 27,692 2,718 4,549 0 Neath 25,212 1,125 2,561 0 Swansea 64,274 689 3,839 0 Total Wales 1,106,027 114,214 129,648 14,060 1 Unredeemed reserved part of capital receipts relating to Housing Revenue Account services, at 31 March, as reported by local authorities. 2 At midnight i.e. at the introduction of the new capital control system. In Wales, to encourage the provision of low-cost home ownership, certain capital receipts have a nil reserved part allowing full recycling of the receipt. These include sales of undeveloped housing land, sales of housing on shared equity terms and sales of housing where the purchaser is required to make significant repairs or improvements as a condition of sale. Details are given in schedule 1, part II of the Local Authorities (Capital Finance) Regulations 1990.
Set out in the table, for each authority, are the figures for the total outstanding housing revenue account debt at 31 March 1991, the unredeemed, reserved part of capital receipts at 31 March 1990 and 31 March 1991 and the total of HRA 1990–91 in-year receipts applied to debt redemption in that year.
Under the capital control system in force before 1 April 1990, authorities could use a proportion of their in-year and accumulated cash capital receipts for new capital expenditure each year for certain "prescribed" expenditure and could spend without such restriction on "non prescribed" items. There was no reserved part.
The information requested on interest accrued is not held centrally.