§ 40. Mr. Watkinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many purchases have been made of privately-built unsold houses by local authorities, and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. CroslandThe purchase of 12,358 such dwellings by local authorities in England and Wales was approved in the 1974–75 financial year. This is an encouraging result of the initiative that we took in Circular 70/74 to meet the emergency situation in which newly built houses stood empty at a time when the local authority housebuilding programme was running at a very low level.