§ Major Beamishasked the Minister of Health how many standards of sawn softwood for housing will be required to complete this year's housing programme; and how many standards were required in each of the last four years.
§ Mr. BevanThe quantity of timber required for the housing programme can be calculated on the basis of approximately 1.6 standards per house. With a stabilised programme of 175,000 houses a year for England and Wales, this means approximately 280,000 standards a year. As the process of building is a continuous one and as, therefore, at a particular date houses are at varying stages of construction it is not possible to estimate how much will actually be required to complete this year's programme.