§ Mr. PikeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest estimates of housing property remaining vacant; how much of this is owned by(a) local authorities, (b) the private sector and (c) Government Departments for each local authority in England; and if he will make a statement.
§ Sir George YoungLocal authorities in England report the numbers of their own dwellings that are vacant at 1 April on their annual HIP1 return. Details for individual local authorities are available from the "1993 HIP1 All 433W Items Print", a copy of which is in the Library; columns A71 and A76 gives figures for vacant dwellings inside and outside the authority's area, respectively.
Housing associations report the numbers of their own dwellings vacant at 31 March on their annual HAR10/1 return. I have today placed in the Library a table giving the reported numbers of vacant housing association dwellings in each local authority area. The figures are incomplete as there are around 900 vacant dwellings—3 per cent. of vacant dwellings—for which an analysis by district is not available.
In addition to providing information on those of their own dwellings that are vacant, local authorities are also asked to provide estimates of the number of private sector and other public sector vacant dwellings in their area on their annual housing investment programme returns. The reported information for each local authority is given in columns A74 and A73 respectively of the "1993 HIP1 All Items Print".
There are doubts about the quality of some of the estimates provided by authorities. Information from the 1991 English house condition survey suggests that the England total for the private sector may be an over-estimate, and data from central Government Departments on their own vacant dwellings, for which no geographical breakdown is readily available, indicate that there is under-reporting of public sector vacant dwellings.