§ Mr. WilshireTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures his Department has introduced since 1979 to help council tenants to buy their own homes.
§ Mr. Michael SpicerThe right to buy was introduced in 1980 to enable council tenants to buy their homes, and has been regularly improved since: the qualifying period has been reduced from three years to two, discounts have been increased and tenants of disabled persons' housing, outside sheltered schemes, have been given the right to buy. Over 1.2 million tenants of local authorities, new towns and housing associations in England have bought their homes as sitting tenants since 1979 under the right to buy or on voluntary terms. Since 1989, local authorities have also had the power to pay grants to help their tenants buy homes of their own on the open market.
§ 65. Mr. SumbergTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest figure he has for the number of tenants in the north-west of England who have bought their homes under the Government's right-to-buy legislation.
§ Mr. Michael SpicerIt is estimated that, up to the end of March 1990, 111,000 dwellings had been sold by local authorities and new towns in the north-west of England under the right-to-buy legislation.
I have today placed in the Library a table giving available information on local authority sales up to March 1990. It shows year-by-year information for each authority since 1984–85 together with cumulative figures since April 1979 and the proportion of stock sold since April 1979.