§ Mr. Kaufmanasked 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. HeseltineIn 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.
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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
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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.