§ The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker)My right honourable friend the First Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
I am today announcing my approval to 58 new schemes that could release up to £3 billion more investment to tackle another 170,000 homes and further reduce the number of non-decent social homes. This adds to the considerable achievement of there already being 1 million fewer social homes below the decency standard than seven years ago.
I am also announcing a new scheme which would enable proposed stock transfers with a funding gap to go ahead. This will ensure that the option of a stock transfer is available to those cases where the stock has a negative value.
The new schemes draw on funding using our three designated routes for councils which need extra resources to make their stock decent.
I have awarded 12 local authorities places on the fourth round of the Arms Length Management Programme. These are Bassetlaw, Brent, Ealing, Eastbourne, Hammersmith & Fulham, Newark & Sherwood, Nottingham, Rotherham, Sandwell, Sheffield (partial), Slough, and Wolverhampton. Together, the bids from these authorities are for over £1.8 billion and cover just under 114,000 non-decent homes.
I have agreed nine new schemes under the private finance initiative. These are in Cheshire, Derby, Kent, Kirklees, the London Boroughs of Croydon, Islington and Lambeth, Manchester and West Wiltshire. We are making PFI credits of around £370 million available to tackle 3,300 non-decent homes as well as providing new and refurbished affordable housing and building new sheltered and supported housing.
Thirty stock transfer schemes in 14 local authorities have been awarded places on the 2004 transfer programme: Broxbourne, Ellesmere Port & Neston, Halton, Hyndburn, Kings Lynn & West Norfolk, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Macclesfield, Mid Devon, North Somerset, Sedgefield, Stafford, West Lancashire-and seven more in four local authorities have had places held open: Manchester, North Norfolk, Preston, and Teesdale. Together they generate £1 billion of private sector investment to tackle 56,000 non-decent homes and keep the stock in good condition for 30 years.
62WSThese announcements are a tremendous achievement which show that we are making great strides toward our aim, which I confirmed in the Sustainable Communities Plan in March 2003, of making all social housing decent by 2010.