HC Deb 12 January 1981 vol 996 cc476-8W
Mr. Kaufman

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report, for each local housing authority in England, the number of applications for purchase or lease of council dwellings under section 1 of the Housing Act 1980 so far received, the number of firm negotiations in progress, and the number of sales completed; and if this information is not yet available, when he expects it to be available.

Mr. Heseltine

The information requested by the right hon. Member is not available. Local authorities have been asked to provide information about right-to-buy applications and sales on a quarterly basis. The timing of the publication of this information will depend on how quickly authorities complete the new statistical return being used. I would hope that the information would be available by April.

Mr. Kaufman

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will obtain from the Housing Corporation and publish in the Official Report, for each housing association required to sell dwellings under section 1 of the Housing Act 1980, the number of applications to purchase so far received, the number of firm negotiations in progress, and the number of sales completed.

Mr. Heseltine

The information requested by the right hon. Member is not available. Information about right-to-buy applications and sales will be obtained from the Housing Corporation on a quarterly return similar to that for local authorities. I would hope the information would be available by May.

Mr. Kaufman

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many of the nine local authorities listed in paragraph 3 of his supplementary answer, Official Report, column 232, 16 December 1980, have since that answer applied for a waiver, and how many have qualified for a waiver; of those which have still not qualified for a waiver, by how much each has overspent; what that overspending is as a percentage of that authority's budgeted expenditure for the year in question; what the total overspend of all authorities that have not qualified for a waiver is as a percentage of total budgeted expenditure of all English local authorities for the year in question; and what penalty he is imposing on each of the authorities that have not qualified for a waiver.

Mr. Heseltine

None of the nine authorities I listed on 16 December has since applied for waiver. The total budgeted overspend of these authorities is 0.4 per cent. of total budgeted expenditure for English authorities for 1980–81.

The table below shows: the amount by which each authority's budget for 1980–81 exceeds the Government's expenditure target: each authority's planned overspend as -a percentage of its budget; and the grant abatement to which each authority will be liable if the House approves the Rate Support Grant (Principles for Multipliers) Order 1980, which will be debated on 14 January.

The abatements remain broadly as I indicated to the local authorities on 18 September, but will be reduced by a small amount to take account of authorities' contributions to urban programme expenditure. Alternatively, they may be increased if an authority budgets for increased expenditure and raises its uniform or adjusted uniform rate, for example by levying a supplementary rate.

In addition, the Lambeth and Hackney partnerships will receive no urban programme monies in 1981–82 for new projects sponsored by them. Some new money will be available for schemes by other partners, or those which involve Private business or the voluntary sector. Continuing commitments will not be affected in this context.

Authority Budgeted overspend 1980–81 Budgeted overspend as percentage of budget Grant penalty
£m £m
Camden 4.746 11.2 5.22
Tower Hamlets 6.352 16.0 1.55
Lambeth 5.645 10.5 2.10
Hackney 6.814 17.7 1.01
Lewisham 4.220 10.6 0.97
Brent 8.987 11.0 0.71
Waltham Forest 4.072 6.8 0.53
Hounslow 4.447 8.5 0.55
Greenwich 1.204 4.4 *0.41
* November 1979 prices.