HC Deb 08 March 1978 vol 945 cc636-7W
40. Mr. Dudley Smith

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress his Department has made in its discussions in trying to achieve a policy whereby local authority and housing association properties are provided with more than one system of heating.

Mr. Armstrong

It is open to individual housing authorities and associations to select heating systems for their dwellings in the light of their own experience and local circumstances. The Joint Working Party on Heating and Energy Conservation in Public Sector Housing, on which the Department of Energy, local authorities and the Housing Corporation are represented, has considered the possibility of providing chimneys in new electrically heated dwellings, and I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 17th February 1978 to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost)—[Vol. 944, c.399.]