§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many housing starts in (a) the private sector and (b) the public sector he estimates will be made in 1980; and how these figures compare with the years since 1970.
§ Mr. StanleyOn estimates of public sector housing starts in 1980, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave her on 30 January 1980.—[Vol. 977, c. 684]—In the private sector returns by builders in March published today suggest that they were expecting to start about 130,000 private sector houses and flats in Great Britain in 1980. Starts in Great Britain in the years since 1970 are as follows:
587W
(thousands of dwellings) Public sector Private sector 1970 154 165 1971 137 207 1972 123 228 1973 113 216 1974 146 106 1975 174 149 1976 171 155 1977 132 135 1978 107 157 1979 80 140
§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many housing completions in (a) the private sector and (b) the public sector he estimates will be made in 1980; and how these figures compare with the years since 1970.
§ Mr. StanleyCompletions in 1980 will depend largely on the rate of progress with dwellings now under construction.
Completions for the first two months of 1980 in Great Britain were public sector 16,800 and private sector 21,000.
Completions in Great Britain in the years since 1970 are:
(thousands of dwellings) Public sector Private sector 1970 180 170 1971 159 192 1972 123 196 1973 107 187 1974 129 141 1975 162 151 1976 163 152 1977 162 140 1978 131 149 1979 102 133
§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many houses he estimates will be needed in 1980 to be built in order to meet demand in (a) the private sector and (b) the public sector.
§ Mr. StanleyThe last time an exercise to quantify the demand for housing was attempted was in the housing Green Paper of 1977. There is no reason to suppose that housing circumstances have changed so materially since then that the information flowing from an undated version of the paper published then would lead individual authorities to change materially the judgments which they will in any case make. As the authors of the Green Paper acknowledged that the quantifying of housing demand is highly speculative, we do not in the circumstances propose to repeat the exercise.