§ Mr. Lightbownasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give details of plans for further encouragement of the sale of public sector flats and wider private sector involvement in the ownership and management of council housing.
§ Mr. John PattenYes. A number of factors have discouraged tenants of flats from buying their homes. In recognition of this, my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales propose to increase the discounts available on flats under the right to buy scheme. The new discount scale will run from 42 per cent. to 70 per cent.; the present upper limit is 60 per cent. on flats. No change is proposed in the discount scale for houses, which currently runs from 32 per cent. to 60 per cent.
The general consents will be amended to enable the new discount scale to apply straight away to voluntary sales of flats.
Proposals to give further protection to buyers of flats against unexpectedly high service charges for repairs in the early years of the lease were announced in answer to a Question for the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) on 22 October, at column 129.
We have also received representations that the requirement to repay discount on resale can cause hardship, and can be an obstacle to people who wish to move to take up employment. We propose to reduce the repayment period, for houses as well as flats, from five to three years. The full discount will be repayable on disposal in the first year after purchase; two thirds in the second year; and one third in the third year.
This change will apply to former tenants who have already bought their homes under the right to buy, and most voluntary sales schemes, except where an owner has become liable to repay discount before the new provisions come into force.
We shall also introduce provisions to enable local authorities to encourage greater tenant participation in management through the delegation of management responsibilities to a wide range of bodies; to safeguard tenants' right to buy where the ownership of tenanted estates is transferred from the local authority to (for example) a trust; and to enable housing management start-up, training and education grants to be made to encourage better and more innovative management. We shall be writing to the local authority associations and others on these provisions shortly. We shall also extend the present ground for possession (and the associated arrangements for compensation) where a local authority intends to develop or do works to a dwelling to cases where possession is required for disposal to the private sector, for renovation or redevelopment as part of a scheme approved by the Secretary of State.
We expect to introduce a Bill shortly to give effect to these proposals.
§ Mr. Tom Coxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the number of empty council properties in each of the London boroughs on 31 October.
§ Sir George YoungInformation for 31 October is not available. The figures relating to 1 April 1985 provided by 619W the authorities, including the Greater London council, in their housing investment programme returns are listed in column A81 of the "HIP1 (1985) all items print" which is available in the Library.
§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will bring forward legislative proposals to give local authority tenants the right to manage all or part of their estates by tenant management co-operatives.
§ Mr. John PattenI have no immediate plans to provide a statutory right for tenant management co-operatives to take on management responsibilities. However, I am giving every encouragement to local authorities to make voluntary arrangements of this kind, and I refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave earlier today to my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-East (Mr. Lightbown).