§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Environment to what extent he anticipates increasing or decreasing the building of houses in the private and public sector; and whether he will take action to ensure that increased house building takes place in the areas with problems connected with immigration, such as the London borough of Newham.
§ Mr. StanleyThe public expenditure provision necessary for new public sector house building has been maintained and will allow all the tender approvals expected this year to go ahead. For local authorities, tender approvals last year came to 60,000. In the current year the financial provision is sufficient to enable the same level of approvals to be achieved. The actual number of approvals will, however, depend on the 37W progress that the local authorities make with their building programmes.
As regards private house building, we have already acted to remove constraints and restore builders' confidence by halting the Community Land Act; by reducing the rate of development land tax to a single and firm, figure of 60 per cent. and raising the amount of development gain exempted from tax in a financial year from £10,000 to £50,000; and by ending the arrangement that surplus public sector land be offered first to public authorities, so that land will in future be released much more quickly on to the open market. We are considering urgently what more should be done to promote private sector activity both where there is housing stress and generally.