§ Mr. Norman HoggTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will outline the estimated costs to public funds of(a) keeping homeless families in hotels and (b) building new council houses for those families.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThis information is not held centrally.
§ Mr. Norman HoggTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will provide figures showing the numbers of housing applications and the numbers officially accepted as homeless in Scotland for each year since 1978.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonThe information requested is set out in the table.
Homelessness: Applicant Households, Scotland Period of application year ending 31 March Number of applications Number assessed by local authorities as homeless 1979 16,035 7,493 1980 15,460 7,440 1981 14,868 7,025 1982 15,955 8,270 1983 16,539 8,664 1984 15,516 8,086 1985 20,461 9,912 1986 23,647 11,015 19871 24,726 10,321 1 provisional.