§ Mr. Heddleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many homeless households there were in each 671W of the regions of the United Kingdom for each of the last five years, including the number of homeless households for whom local authorities accepted responsibility for securing accommodation in the second half of 1979.
§ Mr. Geoffrey FinsbergI have nothing to add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White) on 25 March. The results for the second half of 1979 for England are not yet available. Information on homelessness in the remainder of the United Kingdom is the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
§ Mr. Heddleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many of the official number of homeless households in each of the regions of the last five years, including the second half of 1979, were officially categorised as homeless because of mortgage default.
§ Mr. StanleyI regret that this information is not available regionally except at disproportionate cost. However, the national estimates of the number of homeless households who lost their last accommodation because of mortgage default are as follows:
1975 2,000 1976 2,700 1977 2,900 1978 2,600 1st half 1979 1,100 2nd half 1979 900 Results for 1975–1977 are not collected on the same basis as those for later years and are not comparable.