§ Mr. Lightbownasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a breakdown of the housing public expenditure programme for 1985–86.
§ Mr. GowFollowing discussions with the local authority associations at the Housing Consultative Council on 30 November and with the Chairman of the Housing Corporation, I am able to announce decisions on housing capital and current expenditure for 1985–86.
Total provision for housing capital expenditure in 1985–86, including forecast housing capital receipts next year of £1,731 million, is £3,055 million. I have decided to allocate those resources as follows:
£ million Local authorities 2,324 Housing Corporation 685 New Towns 43 Home Loan 3 Capital resources next year for the Housing Corporation include net provision for £605 million plus estimated capital receipts of £80 million. This will maintain provision for a substantial level of investment by the corporation. I will announce the detailed breakdown of the corporation's approved development programme as soon as possible.
The New Towns' share of resources again reflects the fact that the publicly-rented building programme in the New Towns has virtually ended. The remaining investment is concentrated on providing sites for private development, on shared ownership and on repair and improvement of dwellings prior to transfer to local authorities.
The provision of £2,324 million for local authorities includes forecast capital receipts of £1,595 million. Details of those forecast receipts and of the underlying assumptions were given in reply to the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) on 12 December at column 500.
My right hon. Friend is announcing separately today the arrangements for local authority capital programmes in 1985–86 including proposed changes in the prescribed proportions of capital receipts and other measures to reduce the risk of overspending the cash limit.
The HIP allocation total for 1985–86 is £1,600 million. Authorities will be able to reinvest their capital receipts, albeit at the reduced prescribed proportions. On the basis of our forecasts, authorities will be able to undertake at least an extra £325 million of investment in addition to their HIP allocations, from receipts arising in 1985–86. I have discussed with the local authority associations the method of distributing that total between individual authorities. Each authority will be informed shortly of its allocation.
As regards housing current expenditure, I have considered carefully the views of the local authority associations on the consultation papers which I issued on reckonable income and on reckonable expenditure on management and maintenance for 1985–86.
I have decided to determine an increase in the local contribution for housing subsidy purposes of 60p a dwelling a week. It is for authorities themselves to decide how to finance that contribution. On management and 93W maintenance, I have decided to increase the expenditure counting towards the subsidy calculation by 4 per cent. over the level assumed for 1984–85.