§ Mr. Nigel JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many lettings became available as the result of the abolition of rent control in June 1987.
§ Mr. BaldryRent control in England was ended, for new lettings only, when the relevant provisions of the Housing Act 1988 came into effect on 15 January 1989. The most recent figures available are from the 1990 private renters survey. By summer 1990 there were an estimated 480,000 lettings in the newly decontrolled sector in England, 130,000 of them in properties which had not been let to private tenants two years earlier.