§ Mr. Hardyasked the Minister of Health whether he will make a statement about the allocations of houses to be made in the light of the decision of the Government to remove the cut on housing.
§ Mr. BevanYes. Allocations to local authorities are made by my Principal Regional Officers under standing administrative procedure. I also make within the total housing programme appropriate 145W arrangements with my colleagues for the requirements of new towns and for houses to be built for the programmes of other Government Departments. The total allocations which will in due course be made for 1951 will be designed to secure the completion of houses in England and Wales at an annual rate of approximately 175,000 houses a year. In making allocations to individual local authorities account has to be taken of a number of factors, including the amount of work outstanding from previous allocations at the time when the allocation is made. The individual allocations can be judged, therefore, only in the light of full knowledge of the local circumstances on which they were based. Publication of such figures would be misleading and cannot give such a reliable picture of local progress as is already available in the published returns in Appendix B which show every three months both the number of houses under construction in each district and the number of houses in tenders approved or licences issued which have not yet been started.