§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many persons have so far been granted mortgages who were nominated by local authorities under his scheme by which building societies are making available £100 million to compensate for his reduction in local authority mortgage lending; what is the average level of advance; and in what proportion of these cases building societies have significantly reduced their status requirements or widened the scope of the type of property on which they lent, so as to admit persons into the lending category who would not otherwise have qualified for it.
§ Mr. ArmstrongWith the full co-operation of the building societies satisfactory progress is being made. Many local authorities are now in direct touch with particular building societies and my Department does not need to be directly involved in individual transactions. The information requested is not available.
§ Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will list the local authorities which are taking advantage of his £100 million mortgage advance scheme, indicating also, in each case, the amount of mortgage money they have been allocated, and from which building societies.
§ Mr. ArmstrongThe scheme is open to all housing authorities. My regional officers are arranging for individual authorities to be put in direct touch with particular building societies. Depending on local authority circumstances, it has126W been decided not to make specific allocations of mortgage money in every case.