HC Deb 06 March 1981 vol 1000 cc226-8W
Mr. Kaufman

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many rents for each rent officer area in England have so far been registered for shorthold tenancies.

Mr. Heseltine

In order to get some indication of the geographical incidence of shortholds, rent officers are asking applicants for rent registration a voluntary question as to whether their letting is a shorthold. Up to 13 February, the number of rent registrations where applicants had indicated that their letting was a shorthold is set out in the table below.

Number of Fair Rents registered for Shorthold Tenancies
London
Barking
Barnet 3
Bexley 1
Brent
Bromley
City of London
Camden
Croydon 1
Ealing 2
Enfield
Greenwich
Hackney
Hammersmith
Haringey 2
Harrow 1
Havering
Hillingdon
Hounslow 2
Islington
Kensington and Chelsea
Kingston upon Thames
Lambeth
Lewishan
Merton 1
Newham 1
Redbridge 1
Richmond upon Thames 1
Southwark
Sutton
Tower Hamlets
Waltham Forest 1
Wandsworth 1
Westminster 1
London subtotal 19

Rest of England
Avon 7
Bedfordshire
Berkshire 4
Buckinghamshire 5
Cambridgeshire 6
Cheshire 2
Cleveland 3
Cornwall 16
Cumbria 10
Derbyshire 9
Devon 24
Dorset 8
Durham 2
East Sussex 10
Essex 16
Gloucestershire 7
Greater Manchester 5
Hampshire 8
Hereford and Worcester 3
Hertfordshire 1
Humberside 4
Isle of Wight 3
Kent 25
Lancashire 9
Leicestershire 1
Lincolnshire 1
Merseyside 1
Norfolk 17
Northumberland 5
Northamptonshire 1
North Yorkshire 16
Nottinghamshire 2
Oxfordshire 4
Shropshire 4
Somerset 12
South Yorkshire 11
Staffordshire
Suffolk 3
Surrey 3
Tyne and Wear 5
Warwickshire 2
West Midlands 8
West Sussex 2
West Yorkshire 13
Wiltshire 3
Rest of England subtotal 301
England total 320

It should be emphasised, however, that the figures do not represent the number of shorthold lettings taking place for the following reasons: first, because this is a voluntary question; second, because shorthold lettings where a fair rent has already been registered cannot be indentified until the rent is re-registered which may not be for up to three years; and third, because an application for a fair rent need not be made until 28 days after the start of the tenancy in cases where no fair rent is registered, and some applications already made by 13 February would still be being processed.

It is the Government's view that the number would be significantly higher were it not for the Labour Party's deliberate attempt to sabotage shorthold, thus denying housing to people in need.