§ Mrs. EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what his Department's budget was for council and other publicly financed housing (i) in cash terms and (ii) in real terms, in 1998–99 prices and (iii) as a percentage of Scottish GDP each year since 1978–79; and how much was spent per council tenant and publicly financed housing tenant in Scotland in (i) cash terms and (ii) real terms, in 1998–99 prices, in each of these years. [43392]
§ Mr. Macdonald[holding answer 2 June 1998]: The available information is set out in the table. To provide meaningful information relating expenditure on housing to GDP, it would be necessary to include not only housing expenditure by the Scottish Office but also other public housing expenditure including, in particular, Housing Benefit which has increased substantially over the period.
430WGiven that Scottish Homes' grant in aid is used largely to support housing development by housing associations and private developers, it is not meaningful to divide the totals in the table by the numbers of public sector tenants in each year.
£ million Year Scottish Office housing budget in cash terms 1,2 Column 2 at estimated 1998–99 prices 1978–79 542 1,760 1979–80 691 1,922 1980–81 738 1,736 1981–82 667 1,430 1982–83 616 1,233 1983–84 535 1,023 1984–85 516 940 1985–86 430 742 1986–87 457 766 1987–88 504 802 1988–89 434 647 1989–90 459 640 1990–91 539 696 1991–92 604 733 1992–93 536 624 1993–94 541 612 1994–95 552 615 1995–96 497 539 1996–97 449 474 1997–98 531 546 1998–99 508 508 1 The figures for the Scottish Office housing budget in columns 2 and 3 include Housing Support Grant, Housing Revenue Account capital allocations, Scottish Homes grant-in-aid (prior to 1989–90, expenditure on the Housing Corporation and Scottish Special Housing Association), allocations to the former New Town Development Corporations, and resources made available in 1997–98 and 1998–99 under the capital receipts initiative. 2 The figures exclude, however, repairs and improvement grants made by local authorities to owner occupiers, expenditure on Housing Benefit, local authorities' capital receipts and local authority capital funded from current revenue. They also exclude private sector investment levered in as a result of Scottish Homes' grants to housing associations and private developers.