§ 15. Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is satisfied with the progress being made with the sale of council houses in Scotland.
§ Mr. AncramYes. Since 1979, over 78,000 public sector tenants have bought their houses, binding contracts of sale having been concluded in a further 3,300 cases, and there are approximately another 5,800 applications at an earlier point in the pipeline. Local authorities are also increasingly appreciating the need to process sales quickly. The average time to complete transactions continues to fall and is now approximately eight months.