§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how much of the £720,000 difference between the £280,000 cited in the explanatory and financial memorandum of the March 1979 Housing Bill and the £1 million cited in 596W the explanatory and financial memorandum of the December 1979 Housing Bill, as being required to publicise the changes in the law resulting from the Bill, is allocated for publicising the right to buy for public sector tenants.
§ Mr. StanleyThe present Government have no responsibility for figures quoted to Parliament in the explanatory and financial memorandum of the previous Government's Housing Bill of March 1979. It is not possible to provide a firm breakdown at this time of the £1 million estimate into the expenditure that will be required to publicise the different aspects of the Bill.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many private tenants will be affected by the provision of clause 62 of his Housing Bill to convert all controlled tenancies to rent regulation.
§ Mr. StanleyPrecise figures are not available, but the Department estimates that there are about 200,000 controlled tenancies in England. Tenants will be affected only as and when applications are made to the rent officer for fair rents to be registered.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will detail those clauses in the Housing Bill which incorporate changes which have been made to his original intentions for this Bill, as a result of the responses he has received to the various consultative documents he has issued in connection with the Bill.
§ Mr. StanleyThe clauses in question are numbers 4, 24, 29, 34, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 and 91 plus schedules 3 and 4.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, referring to lines 12 and 13 of paragraph 23, page ix, of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill, he will give the corresponding figures in these lines appropriate to substitution of (a) seventh, (b) tenth, and (c) twentieth for the word fifth which appears as the third word in line 12.
§ Mr. StanleyI refer the right hon. Member to "Appraisal of the Financial Effects of Council House Sales" which 597W is in the Library. It provides a cash flow appraisal over an eight-year period, as well as a net present value appraisal over a 20-year period, on a wide range of assumptions.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will state the number of controlled tenancies affected by clause 67(1) of the Housing Bill in (a) the city of Manchester and (b) the area covered by the county of Greater Manchester.
§ Mr. StanleyClause 67(1) of the Housing Bill refers to amendments to section 100 of the Rent Act 1977 made in clause 67(2) and (3). These amendments apply to all possession cases involving dwelling houses let on or subject to statutory or protected tenancies under part I of schedule 15 to the Rent Act 1977, including all controlled tenancies. Separate figures for the number of controlled tenancies in the city of Manchester or Greater Manchester are not available, but it is estimated that in 1977 there were about 27,000 and 86,000 tenancies of nonresident private landlords in each area respectively.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the number of regulated tenancies which will be affected by clause 58 of the Housing Bill in (a) England and Wales (b) the city of Manchester and (c) the area covered by the county of Greater Manchester.
§ Mr. StanleyAll regulated tenancies in England and Wales could be affected by clause 58. Our latest estimates is that there were 1.4 million such tenancies in England in 1977. No estimate is available of the number of such tenancies in Wales. Separate figures for the number of regulated tenancies in the city of Manchester or Greater Manchester are not available, but it is estimated that in 1977 there were about 27,000 and 86,000 tenancies of non-resident private landlords in each area respectively. Those figures include the regulated and controlled tenancies in the two areas.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give his estimate of how much of the £60 million referred to in lines 2 and 3 of para- 598W graph 25, page vii, of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill may relate to tenants in (a) the city of Manchester and (b) the area covered by the county of Greater Manchester.
§ Mr. StanleyWe have insufficient information to break down this national estimate by region. Of the total number of private tenants at present receiving rent allowances, both from local authorities and via supplementary benefit, about 6 per cent. and 2 per cent. are in Greater Manchester and the city of Manchester respectively.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the total cost for the years 1980 to 1984, inclusive, of increased rent allowance payments to, respectively, private tenants and housing authority tenants resulting from the increases in rents permitted by clauses 58, 62 and 69 of the Housing Bill, corresponding to the £60 million and £12 million by 1982–83 cited in page 25of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill.
§ Mr. StanleyThe figures of £60 million and £12 million can only be indicative of the broad order of magnitude of possible payments when the relevant provisions may have come into full effect. The payments for the years 1980 to 1984 will be dependent, amongst other things, on the rate at which use is made of the Bill's provisions.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the consultative documents which he issued in connection with the Housing Bill, together with the cost of compiling, producing, and distributing them.
§ Mr. StanleyThe papers concerned are
Tenants' charter provisions;The Right to Buy";Local authority housing subsidy system;Improvement and Repair.It is not possible to produce accurate estimates of the cost of compiling the papers since the work was not done separately from other work on the preparation of the Housing Bill. A broad estimate of the total cost of reproducing the papers—including the cost of paper—sending them out by post, together with 599W the costs for the press notices issued on their publication, is about £3,600.
§ Mr. Strawasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Reporta table setting out in detail the calculations and assumptions relating to the statements as to the financial consequences of the sales of council houses at paragraph 23 of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill.
First year £m. 1979 Survey prices Fifth year Capital Initial receipts 21 21 Repayments of principal 5 21 26 Current Rent loss —4 —20 Management and maintenance savings 0 4 Housing Revenue Account receipts (mainly interest income on mortgages) 9 39 Mortgage support —2 —11 30 —6 69 —31 Net savings 24 38 say 35 to 40 Because of the uncertainties regarding the assumptions used in calculating current account savings in later years a range is assumed, giving a total effect, capital plus current, estimated to be £35 million to £40 million in the fifth year.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many housing association and related tenants there are; how many will be given the right to buy their homes by the Housing Bill; and how many will be excluded from the right to buy as a consequence of clause 2(1) and (2) of the Housing Bill.
§ Mr. StanleyIt is estimated that there are 340,000 tenants of registered housing associations. Of these, some 215,000 are tenants of associations covered by the exclusions in clauses 2(1) and (2). In these cases I am considering a provision which would enable these associations to sell. The remaining 125,000 tenants will have the right to buy subject to the same exclusions as for local authorities and new towns.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the savings expected in the fifth year from 10,000 sales a year of council houses, of from £35 million to £40 million, as stated
600W
§ Mr. StanleyThe analysis asked for is given below. It assumes a sales programme of 10,000 dwellings each year for five years based on an average selling price after discount of £7,000 and with 30 per cent. private financing. Withdrawal of Exchequer housing subsidy to local authorities following sale is not taken into account in this instance as it is here a transfer between central and local government.
in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Housing Bill, paragraph 23, are savings per year or an aggregate over the five years.
§ Mr. StanleyThe savings quoted are ones which, under the assumptions used, are expected in the fifth year of a programme of 10,000 sales per annum—that is after 50,000 sales—not the aggregate savings over the five years.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the increases in rent allowance payments of some £60 million to private tenants as a result of increases in rents permitted by clauses 58 and 62 of the Housing Bill, as stated in paragraph 25 of the explanatory and financial memorandum, are the aggregated total for each year from the implementation of the Act up to and including 1982–83 or the annual total for 1982–83 only.
§ Mr. StanleyThey relate only to 1982–83, on the assumption that the provisions may have come into full effect by then.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish details of the number of extra staff involved, or the extra time that will 601W have to be worked, or both, that will cause the additional public expenditure of £1 million stated in paragraph 25 of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill, final sentence of the paragraph; and whether these are additional to the effects of the Bill on public service manpower stated in paragraph 36 of the memorandum.
§ Mr. StanleyThe estimate referred to assumes a possible increase of the order of 10 per cent. in the staff of the rent officer service, which currently numbers some 1,330. This is not additional to what is stated in paragraph 36 of the memorandum.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the intention behind the final sentence of paragraph 27 of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill is that local authorities will have £20 million per annum less to spend on other housing projects and activities each year if they are to provide the repair grants for older dwellings in structural disrepair and grants to tenants.
§ Mr. StanleyWithin their overall allocations, it will be for local authorities to decide how much they spend in exercising the proposed powers to which the right hon. Member refers. To the extent that they exercise the powers, the funds involved will not be available for other housing investment purposes.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the annual cost of the additional manpower referred to in (a) sentence one, (b) sentence two, (c) sentence three, (d) sentence four and (e) sentence five of paragraph 36 of the explanatory and financial memorandum of the Housing Bill.
§ Mr. StanleyThe cost will depend on the use made of the provisions of the Bill, but possible estimates are as follows:
- (a) About £8 million.
- (b) About £½ million.
- (c) None. The memorandum assumes that authorities will obey the law.
- (d) Less than £1 million.
- (e) About £1 million.