HC Deb 04 December 1974 vol 882 cc534-5W
Mr. Nicholas

Edwards asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will compare total public expenditure on housing in the current financial year with the figures for 1964 and 1954.

Mr. Freeson

Total public expenditure on housing in the United Kingdom was, at outturn prices, £556 million in 1954 and £814 million in 1964. The latest year for which a comparable figure is available is 1973 when the total was £2,221 million.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the main items of public expenditure on housing in the current financial year, distinguishing between subsidies to public sector housing and to owner-occupiers and itemising the cost of the present rent freeze, rent rebates and allowances, the rent element of supplementary benefits and supplementary pensions, and the loan to the building societies.

Mr. Freeson

Estimates for the main items of public expenditure on housing for 1974–75 were published in December 1973 in the White Paper on Public Expenditure to 1977–78 (Cmnd. 5519), a copy of which is in the Library. The public expenditure cost of the Government's main measures since 28th February 1974—including the rent freeze—is set out in the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) on 12th November.— [Vol. 881, c.68.] Comprehensive figures will be published in the forthcoming White Paper on Public Expenditure to 1978–79.

Rent rebates and allowances account for £275 million of the estimates shown in Cmnd. 5519. Since supplementary benefit is paid as the difference between overall requirements and overall resources, the element for housing costs is not separately identifiable.

What, if any, net public expenditure will arise this year from the £500 million of short-term loans to building societies will depend on the timing of repayments.

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