§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a table showing average rents, including private sector rents, in each of the main Scottish regions and average domestic rates charged by each of the Scottish local authorities.
§ Mr. RifkindInformation on the average level of total rents—that is, public and private sector—is not available at regional level within Scotland. An estimate based on the general household survey puts the average level of total rents for the whole of Scotland at £5.20 per week in 1979, subject to a wide margin of uncertainty for sampling error. Information is available at a regional level on the average rent paid by local authority and new town tenants: this is given in the following table, for the year 1980–81.
1980–81 Local Authority and New Town rents Region Average Weekly Rent £ Scotland 5.99 Borders 6.47 Central 5.41 Dumfries 5.70 Fife 6.11 Grampian 5.84 Highland 5.92 Lothian 6.70 Strathclyde 5.94 Tayside 5.58 Orkney 6.75 Shetland 5.60 Western Isles 7.19 Information on domestic rates for each local authority in Scotland in 1980–81 was published in"Scottish Housing Statistics", No. 10, a copy of which is in the Library.