§ Dr. McDonaldasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what percentage (a) the duty on tobacco and (b) the duties on alcoholic drinks would each have to be raised beyond the increases proposed in the Budget in order each to yield the cost of an increase in child benefit to £5.20 per week (i) in a full year and (ii) in the current financial year instead of £4.75 as proposed; and what would be the effect on the prices of 20 cigarettes, a pint of beer, a bottle of spirits and a bottle of wine.
Mr. PeterRees [pursuant to his reply, 6 May 1980]: The information is:
for first-time house buyers, particularly those on local authority housing waiting lists, who wish to buy houses modernised by local authorities under the recently announced " Improvement for sale scheme ".
§ Mr. StanleyI cannot hold out any prospect of additions to the housing investment programme allocations which have been announced for 1980–81. However, local authorities are free to determine what provision is made for mortgages within their single HIP allocation. The Housing Bill contains a new and comprehensive power for local authorities to indemnify building societies which will help widen the scope of societies' lending. Such indemnities will not count against the HIP unless they are invoked. In so far as local authorities dispose of dwellings improved for sale and held under part V of the Housing Act 1957 with mortgages under section 104 of that Act, those mortgages do not count against the HIP allocation.