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Mr. Worthington : I was simply trying to make the point--and I think I did so effectively--that choice is being denied to tenants by the Scottish Office. Nothing that we are asking for is out of line with what the Department of the Environment is doing. The Department would allow development corporation tenants of English new towns to transfer to the district council. The Scottish Office and the Minister have decided to deny Scots that choice. The Minister must still be trying to get brownie points with the Prime Minister at a time when it does not matter whether he gets them.
In Committee, there was great embarrassment when a dawn raid occurred at 10.30 am, and two Conservative members of the Committee, who had not managed to get up by that time, failed to arrive and we voted out a clause. Therefore, the Bill as it stands is very strange, because the crucial clause on new towns is missing from the second part of the Bill. There are two major aspects to the part of
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the Bill that we are discussing and they are both addressed by our new clause. The first is the importance of wind-up to the new towns, and the second is the importance of the new towns to Scotland. The key issue is the right of tenants to choose district councils as landlords. We demand that district councils should be available as an option. Some 89 per cent. of tenants in a recent survey thought that district councils should be one of the choices. We write that into our new clause. There is nothing revolutionary about that. Until 1984, that was accepted in England and Wales, where 17 new towns have been wound up. The only exception to the rule was Runcorn, because the local district council, for its own reasons, did not want to be a housing authority.The history of the issue is that, until the mid-1980s, new towns in England and Wales that were wound up had their housing stock transferred almost automatically to the relevant district council. Then the Government decided that more choice should be available. The Housing and Planning Act 1986 contained a provision to enable new town dwellings to be transferred to bodies other than local authorities, but local people still had the right to choose the district council.
A ballot was held in Peterborough in October and November 1987 and when the result was announced in December, 93 per cent. of tenants of an 85 per cent. turnout wanted to transfer to the district council. We want the same rights to be given to tenants in East Kilbride, Glenrothes and the other new towns in Scotland as were given to tenants in Peterborough.
In August 1988, the Department of the Environment issued a consultation paper entitled, "New Towns Housing Transfer" in which plans were announced to repeal part III of the New Towns Act 1982 in favour of new transfer arrangements enabling approved landlords to compete with district councils, but local people still had the right to transfer to the district council.
As recently as 1989, the Local Government and Housing Act--in section 172(2)--made it quite clear that in new towns in England and Wales people can transfer to district councils within whose district the dwelling is situated, or to an approved landlord.
On 11 October 1989, in another place, Lord Hesketh said : "The Government will bring forward regulations which will include the detailed provisions for such tenant consultation. They will include a ballot in which we would expect tenants to be able to choose between the district council and a landlord approved by the Housing Corporation."
The Minister finds ballots extremely difficult. To paraphrase what he said in Committee, ballots are difficult because they narrow the choice--they make one say yes or no, and that is unacceptable to the Minister.
Mr. Adam Ingram (East Kilbride) : My hon. Friend was paraphrasing what the Minister said in Committee. The accurate quote is : "A ballot is potentially a difficult and dangerous course of action."--[ Official Report, First Scottish Standing Committee, 6 March 1990 ; c. 539.]
That sums up how the Government view the democratic choice facing new town tenants in Scotland.
Mr. Worthington : The Minister has a very limited vocabulary. It consists of the words "flexibility" and
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"choice" and he does not know the meaning of choice. We are trying to tell him that it means that one could choose between alternatives.I am sure that there is considerable resentment in the new towns about the leaflet that was sent to tenants to tell them that they have a choice--that was the title of the leaflet. However, choice excludes the number one option for tenants.
Lord Hesketh said that even at that stage--in 1989--the Government intended to continue to offer a choice in England and Wales. He said :
"It is proposed that the tenants would be offered a choice between the local council and an approved landlord as the future owner of their homes." --[ Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 1989 ; Vol. 511, c. 490- 91.]
That is all that we ask for in the Bill. It is puzzling why the Scottish Office have made a universal declaration of independence. It is not good enough for the Minister to say that at some stage in the future--at wind-up --they may allow a choice, because we know what will happen during the next few years. The full Government propaganda machine will go into operation, and people will be persuaded to choose immediately because of the fears that the Government will be stirring up.
The only honest thing that the Government can do is to tell people now that there will be a choice which will include the district councils as possible landlords if tenants so wish.
The Government are clearly desperately embarrassed about the situation. In Committee, the Minister used some strange language when he was talking about the "strong preference" of 40 per cent. of people who showed an interest in owner-occupation, but the "bare" 50 per cent. who thought that they would choose the district council at wind-up. According to the Minister, the Government are seeking to achieve choice, but they do not want people to choose now. We do not think that people should be making choices now, but they should know that choice will be available at wind-up.
The point that I am making will be exemplified and elaborated by my hon. Friends who represent the five new towns in Scotland. They will express the authentic views in the new towns in Scotland. It is strange that although the new towns are success stories, the Government and the Tory party have failed to achieve any representation in those areas. If the Government continue denying choice to the residents of new towns, they will do even worse in those areas in future.
As I said in Committee, it is not simply a question of the right of tenure. We accept the case for some variety in the choice of tenure of housing in the new towns. It is not simply a question of different systems of tenure and the right to choose a landlord ; it is the right to choose where one lives. It is the right of residents of East Kilbride, Glenrothes, Irvine, Cumbernauld or Livingston to continue to live in the new towns. The other options that the Government put forward give far too much weight to the depth of one's pocket in whether one can live in that area. For many people with modest incomes their only real chance of continuing to live there or being given preference over newcomers, would be through district councils playing a major role in housing policy in those areas.
Many other issues affect the new towns. The Government have said, and we accept their intention, that it is extremely important to maintain the momentum of economic development in the new towns. However, the
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way in which the Government are going about that is not maintaining that momentum. I am sure that all my hon. Friends who represent new towns will confirm that the impression going around is that the new towns are going out of business simply because the development corporations are going out of business. That is lessening their competitive edge in comparison with areas such as the north-east of England. It would have been much more satisfying if we had been given a satisfactory explanation in Committee of the role of the local development corporations. We were not denied that for any malign reason, but because the Government do not know.So that other hon. Members can have a fair share of the debate, I shall conclude. I repeat to the Government that it is unacceptable to deny tenants the opportunity to transfer to the tenancy that they want. Why is the number one choice being denied? What is in it for the Government to create indecision and uncertainty and to make people worry--particularly elderly people who do not want to buy?
Mr. Ingram : They cannot afford to buy.
Mr. Worthington : My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) is quite right.
Why will the Government not realise the good sense of new clause 2, which makes it explicit that we will offer the residents of new towns and the tenants of the development corporations the choice of landlord and that choice must include the local district council?
Mr. David Lambie (Cunninghame, South) : As a representative of the youngest new town--Irvine, in the district of Cunninghame--I am pleased to take part in today's debate.
When we are discussing a Scottish Parliament and more independence for the Scottish people, Mr. Speaker keeps reminding us that this is a United Kingdom Parliament. The Under-Secretary for State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), who is also chairman of the Tory party in Scotland, appears on television, on the radio and in the newspapers every week reminding the Scottish people of the benefits of being members of the United Kingdom Parliament. That is why I am disappointed that the Government should be introducing new clause 9 as a replacement for clause 30 which they lost in Committee.
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The Government had a majority in Committee and it was their job to ensure that Government policy was carried during the debate on clause 30. They failed to get Scottish Conservative Members to come upstairs and vote. Now, because the Scottish Tory Members failed them, the Government will depend on English Tory Members. At 7 o'clock tonight, when we vote on a matter dealing primarily with Scots who live in Scottish new towns, the clause will be reintroduced as a result of the votes of the English Tory majority, mainly from the south-east of England. That is discrimination against the Scottish people and shows that the sooner Scottish representatives are away from this place the better it will be for Scotland and for the people who live there.
Mr. Jim Sillars (Glasgow, Govan) : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is even worse than he says, because tonight English Tory Members of Parliament will be
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voting down majority Scottish opinion although in England they applied the same standard that we are arguing for today?Mr. Lambie : I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I intended to make the same point to reinforce what was said forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). The Government are not only bringing in English Members of Parliament to vote against Scottish political opinion, especially that of the representatives of the new towns in Scotland, but they will be voting against what they introduced in the legislation applying to tenants of the English new towns. That is why I make this last-minute appeal, to the Government and to those English Conservative Members who are to be used as Lobby fodder tonight, to change that policy and to withdraw the new clause.
Mr. Bill Walker : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Lambie : I shall not give way, because I promised not to speak for long.
I represent Irvine, the youngest new town, where the winding-up order will be published in 1996 and the new town wound up in 1999. There will be at least two general elections before the effects of the Bill apply to Irvine. I know that, after the next general election, when there is a Labour Government, we shall rescind this legislation and the fears of my constituents, the tenants in Irvine new town, will be removed.
The Government are offering new town tenants certain options, if they do not wish to buy or to take part in any schemes involving mortgages which will give them the right to buy. Among those options is to hand over the houses to Scottish Homes when the new town has been wound up. The people in Irvine new town are afraid of the policies of Scottish Homes. I am not prepared to say whether those fears are justified. They think that Scottish Homes was brought into being as a Tory Trojan horse to eliminate the public rented sector. I believe that my constituents are correct to be afraid of Scottish Homes.
The other option for tenants is to become tenants of organisations such as Quality Street, a private sector limited company which tenants fear is interested only in making money. In every vote taken, new town tenants have always chosen Cunninghame district council as their landlord.
I hope that at this late stage the Government will rescind their decision to go it alone in Scotland, implement the policy that was accepted for England and give the tenants of Irvine development corporation the opportunity to become tenants of Cunninghame district council when the new town is wound up.
Mr. Bill Walker : I shall be brief, because hon. Members representing new towns should be given an adequate and fair hearing. I hope that they will understand that my being brief means not that I could not speak at length but that I believe that they should be heard.
The hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) made great play of the fact that the Government are introducing legislation for Scotland different from that for England. That comes rich from a member of a party which, when in government, enacted provisions for
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revaluation every five years in Scotland but not in England and Wales. I could give a long list of similar points, but I will not do so.The hon. Member for Cunninghame, South should bear in mind the fact that Scottish Homes is the inheritor of the Scottish Special Housing Association, which did a good job, and of the housing associations, which have a long and distinguished record in Scotland. To suggest that the new body, Scottish Homes, is less than Scottish or something of which we cannot be proud is nonsense--it is Scottish, and it will be run by Scots for Scots.
Of course we are different in Scotland. We are always telling people that we want to be different. Yet when the Government introduce legislation making Scotland different, all we get is girning and greeting from Opposition Members.
Mr. Ingram : I certainly will not be as brief as the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), who made not a genuine contribution to the debate but a mere interruption.
When Opposition Members voted down clause 30, the Minister accused them of being frivolous and opportunistic. The truth is that a Whip was at fault in not ensuring that Conservative Members were present to vote. The vote went deeper than that, because it showed the indifference of Scottish Tory Members to voting on such an important issue. It was not frivolous or opportunistic, but a clear statement of the views of the people of the new towns on what was happening in Committee.
I said after the vote that, if the Minister had been more willing to listen, more flexible and more prepared to take on board the broad consensus on the arguments being advanced, I would not have voted against the clause. His inflexibility and unwillingness to listen forced Labour Members into that action. There is nothing wrong in our tabling new clause 8, which reflects the principles that we tried to advance in Committee, but without any response from the Minister. Mr. Bill Walker rose--
Mr. Ingram : If the opportunity arises, I might give way to the hon. Member for Tayside, North. I am conscious of the fact that other hon. Members who represent new towns want to speak in the debate. Everyone involved in the new towns, not only Members of Parliament or local representatives but residents and tenants, are deeply concerned about what the future holds. In Committee, I mentioned comments made to me by industrialists in Irvine, one of whom asked, "Who will speak for industry when the development corporations are wound up?" No one could answer that. Opposition Members cannot say what is in the Government's mind, but the Government are not saying who will speak for industry when the development corporations are wound up.
There was deep disillusionment and disappointment about what happened in Committee. Everyone recognised that, at some stage, the new towns would have to be wound up. There were constructive responses to the Green Paper-- although perhaps they were not what the Government wanted to hear--but there were gasps of surprise at the drafting of the White Paper and people were stunned by the lack of detail in the Bill. They waited to see
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whether any flesh would be put on the bones of the Bill in Committee. The Minister was probed and pushed by Opposition Members about how the considerable assets that the new towns have built up over the years were to be disposed of and how they would be managed in the future for the greater good of not only the new town communities but the wider communities in which they exist and the Scottish economy. He was further probed and pushed on local authorities' role in the management of those assets and what the role, structure and function of the vague body called the local development company would be when it was given their industrial and commercial assets to manage.The local development company is not mentioned in the Bill, yet in Committee the Minister said that it is a key element in Government policy. When we tried to question him about it, we were simply pushed aside, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) said, he does not know what it will do. The answers that we were given were evasive and shifty. The minds of the people who are aware of the success of the new towns were not put at rest by the Minister's approach.
Attempts were made in Committee to include in the Bill the basic principles now set out in new clause 8. They were watered down following the arguments in Committee in the hope that the Minister, even at this late stage, would respond to the wide concern that has been expressed.
I repeat the point that was made in Committee about the need for a proper economic audit of the assets of the new towns. The Government say that they will conduct an audit of the recreational, environmental and parks assets of the new towns, but they are not prepared to conduct an economic audit of the industrial, commercial and land assets of the new towns. They are saying, "All that detail is contained in the annual reports of the new town development corporations ; go and find it yourselves." That is disgraceful. A proper portfolio of what the new towns are worth is required. We do not agree with the Government's proposed method of disposing of the new towns' assets, but none the less there is a need to understand their total worth. The Government are not prepared to concede that, because, I suspect, they do not want people to be aware of their total worth. They want to give away those considerable assets, all of which were built and developed at public expense, at knock-down prices. In Committee, the Minister said that the understanding of the worth of the assets is essentially an administrative matter, but that is not the view of the people of the new towns. It is essential to their understanding of what will happen when their communities are wound up that they should understand the worth of those assets.
Local authorities have asked to be able to purchase, through equity participation, a share in the local development company. It is accepted that the Government will press ahead with that body. The local authorities say, "If that is to happen, can we have a role in the development and management of our town?" We made this request in Committee. Will the Minister please concede the point? Will he instruct or advise the new town development corporations, over which he has direct control, to allow the local authorities to have not a controlling place, but simply a place on the board? If the Minister does that, he will mirror the arguments that he claims to support in relation to the private and public
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mixture which is supposed to be for the good of the Scottish economy. When we made that appeal for the new towns, we were told that it was a matter for the development corporations. The Minister is not prepared to give that simple advice or instruction to the development corporations.6 pm
Through new clause 8, we are asking the Minister to recognise that local authorities should have the right to buy equity participation, and I should like to hear what objections he has to that proposal. I again ask the Minister, as I did in Committee, to give a green light to that concept, because it will encourage the development corporations to involve local authorities in the development of their towns.
I shall leave it to my colleagues to refer to the need to consult on wind- up about transportation. It is unbelievable that a consultation process is not enshrined in the legislation. The Minister said that consultation would take place, but I do not trust the Minister or the Government to consult properly with any level of representation within the new towns. The hon. Gentleman dismissed the concept of ballots as too democratic--perhaps resulting in the wrong answers, according to his thinking.
I have been involved in housing matters since I moved to East Kilbride 20 years ago and since I have been a local authority representative, leader of the council and the Member representing that new town. The choice to be given to new town tenants is a major issue in the new towns, as my hon. Friends the Members for Clydebank and Milngavie and for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) pointed out. That view cuts across the whole community--not only people who live in development corporation houses but those who have bought their houses and whose children would expect one day to be able to get a district council house or, if in a new town, a development corporation house. They are worried about what the future holds. The Minister has not said anything of any substance on that score.
We need from the Minister a clear statement that he has revised his thinking and realised how inflexible he has been over the past year and a half since this exercise started and this matter was considered in Committee. He has consistently refused to grant tenants that right and has caused unease in the minds of residents and tenants of new towns. This is not a party political point--it cuts across the breadth of the community. It is a point about tenants who are worried about what the future holds for them and for their families in terms of the opportunity to get a development corporation house.
Worry is felt not only by the people who live in the new towns but by the officials. I have received a document written not by my new town development corporation but by the Glenrothes development corporation. It was dated 20 February 1990 and was considered by the development corporation's board. It made four main points about the concern felt by those who manage the houses. The development corporation said :
"The uncertainty in this matter is to continue."
The officials commented on the survey of tenants in Scottish new towns and, contrary to the Minister's consistent interpretation of such surveys, said :
"It is clear from the Survey findings that a substantial majority of our tenants would, if required now to make a choice, choose the District Council."
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Everyone holds that view, except the Minister. It prevails within the new towns. The chief officers of the development corporation concluded :"in order to remove uncertainty on the part of our tenants, it is desirable that the Government should announce now whether when the Corporation is wound up its tenants will be permitted to transfer to the District Council. The Corporation is invited to say whether representations on these lines should be made to the Industry Department for Scotland."
I do not know whether those representations were made, but I referred to that development corporation document because it showed that the professionals--even those who may be interested in a management buy-out-- recognise the fear of the people whom they have tried to place in houses and over whose interests they have so much control. I should be interested to hear whether the Minister has received a report from Glenrothes development corporation and whether he is prepared to move from his inflexible position.
The point about English legislation needs to be repeated. This is a valid point, unlike the case that was trivialised by the hon. Member for Tayside, North. All Members voted for that legislation. It is not English versus Scottish legislation. The correct legislation applies to England. The same principle, not necessarily the detail, should apply to tenants in Scotland who will be affected by the wind-up orders. They should be allowed to "choose" the district council as a landlord, rather than "say" that the district council "will" be the landlord.
Mr. Bill Walker : I would not wish the hon. Gentleman to think that, because I made a brief intervention, I was being trivial. I was not. The Labour party thought that it was right to introduce fundamental legislation on revaluation which had an impact on every council house tenant and ratepayer. One can argue about the details, but I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's principle. The Labour Government introduced legislation providing for separate revaluations. That was important fundamental legislation and there was nothing trivial about it. The Labour Government introduced it on the principle that it was right to legislate differently for Scotland.
Mr. Ingram : The hon. Gentleman shows us that, whether his interventions are brief or long, they are always trivial. Reference is made in new clause 3 to an important aspect which was argued about in Committee- -vacant houses. It has been proposed in certain new towns that vacant houses should be sold off either in management buy-outs or to other housing entrepreneurs and that the new owners would manage the housing stock. I have heard about a price in my new town of East Kilbride of £4,000 a house. That is a ridiculous price for an asset which may be worth up to £50,000--for example, newly built houses in green environments. It is unacceptable.
In new clause 3, we have said that, because of the growing homelessness in the new towns and the demand for housing, the Minister should at least accept that vacant property should be transferred to the district councils on wind-up at a price to be agreed between the development corporation and the district council. That is not such a radical concept. The approach proposed in new clause 3 is the proper approach to adopt : those houses should be transferred to the district council.
I hope that the Minister will show himself more responsive and flexible in dealing with these most important issues than he has in the past 18 months.
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Mr. Barry Porter (Wirral, South) : The House may wonder why I should have the effrontery to intervene in Scottish matters. My mother's maiden name was Brown, which does not help much. My father served in the Liverpool Scottish military forum in the war and was later transferred to the 51st Highland division. I do not like porridge very much, but I prefer Loch Fyne kippers to Manx kippers. It could be said that that gives me my credentials, but the real reason why I choose to intervene is that, as a number of hon. Members have said, this is a United Kingdom Parliament. Unless the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) gets his way, I shall continue to speak in a United Kingdom Parliament on Scottish, Irish and Welsh affairs, as I shall on English affairs and on any other affairs that may be appropriate.
I have listened with interest to a debate about housing. I have great pleasure in supporting the Government's housing policy over the past 10 years, but one or two matters concern me. It appears from the arguments advanced by Opposition Members that there is some block on district councils having the right to choose to become landlords in due course. I must say to my hon. Friend the Minister of State that the document provided by the great and glorious Conservative central office does not back up that view. I quote :
"The Bill proposes that district councils should not be the automatic inheritors of new town housing at wind-up."
Fine ; that is super by me. But the central office brief continues :
"They remain an option among a number of other possibilities." Will my hon Friend confirm that, to be the case, and that when the wind-up is completed, the option of a partial transfer to district councils is not ruled out? Whether or not the district councils are dreadful, awful, demented or mad is of no consequence to me. If the Scots choose to elect such people, that is a matter for them ; they must suffer the consequences.
Mr. Worthington : The hon. Gentleman is making a helpful speech. The handout to which he referred says that, at some stage in the future, the choice of going to district councils may not be ruled out. What we ask is quite simple--that that choice should be ruled in now, because if it is not ruled in now it will be open to a Government of the present Government's disposition to rule it out in future. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are being reasonable?
Mr. Porter : The answer to that is that I do not know, because I am waiting to hear from the Minister precisely what the position is. I must add, however, that I shall need to be convinced that there is some specific reason why Scotland should be treated in a different way from England and Wales. In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) and as his PPS, I have to say that I remain to be convinced. If the Scottish people wish to treat their district councils in a certain way, which may be different from what we should like, that must be a matter for them--otherwise, what is the point of having local government?
Mr. Norman Hogg : I listened with interest to the Minister of State. Judging by his remarks about the Government losing clause 30, he cannot have attended the same sitting of the Standing Committee as me. Nobody was being frivolous ; what happened was that Conservative
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Members failed to turn up. My hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) described an event that took place at half-past 10 in the morning as a dawn raid. I can only conclude that, once upon a time, he worked at a college or somewhere similar. But whatever kind of raid it was, it was certainly successful. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram), who made an excellent contribution today and made excellent contributions on behalf of new town tenants throughout the Committee proceedings, was right to take the Minister to task for saying that the event was frivolous. The clause was lost because Conservative Members were dilatory in performing their parliamentary duties.6.15 pm
I view the setting up of the local development companies with some concern. I am sorry that the Minister has not felt able to say that he hopes that these commercial organisations--that is what they will be--will none the less accept the principle of having local authority representatives on their boards. There is no difficulty with that ; it happens in other organisations, including commercial organisations, and there is no reason why it should not happen with the local development companies. I am surprised that the Minister is not encouraging it.
The development corporations themselves have greatly benefited from the presence of local authority representatives. Over the years in Cumbernauld, the development corporation has had representatives from the Labour party, the SNP and the Conservative party, although none of the Conservative representatives came from Cumbernauld, because, as we all know, Cumbernauld is a Tory-free zone.
The development corporations have benefited from the experience of local authority representatives and from their knowledge of local conditions. It is a sad day if the Government now so disapprove of local government and if the principle of local government is so ideologically unacceptable to them that they are prepared to reject altogether the idea of local authority representatives. The local development corporations will be the poorer for their mistake. The Government information--not only on housing but on inward investment--that is reaching those who live in the new towns and industrialists with factories in the new towns is very scant indeed. I hope that the Scottish Office will do something to improve that. It is to the credit of local newspapers and their editors that the information has found its way to the people through them. Even at this late stage, however, there is a shortage of information about what is intended.
We have concentrated today on housing, and that must be right. I am sorry that the Government have not taken into account any of the representations that they have received from SLANT--Scottish Local Authorities with New Towns. I fear that that is because, yet again, they do not think that local government has anything to say about anything that they might want to listen to. That is a great mistake. SLANT was set up by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride when he was leader of East Kilbride council, Councillor Rosemary McKenna, who subsequently became the provost of Cumbernauld, and myself to help all those concerned with the winding up of the new towns development corporation.
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It is to be regretted that, once again, the Government have set their face against any view that the local authorities may wish to express. They have ignored the local authorities just as they have ignored the hugely well-attended public meetings in my constituency. I have never seen anything like it except during a general election campaign. In various areas of my new town, we have had numerous meetings attended by more than 100 people. I am sure that the largest meeting that my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie has attended since he became Opposition spokesman was the meeting that we had in my constituency when we met the people of Carbrain to discuss the wind-up.All those people have said the same thing. They want the option of the district council as their landlord. No one in the Labour party or in any other political party is telling tenants of corporation houses that they should become council tenants. We accept that housing associations and co- operatives are options. I reluctantly accept that choice must include private landlords. However, it is unacceptable for the Government to tell tenants that they cannot choose the district council as landlord until the end of the process. The Government are saying that the district council might only then be a choice. That is disgraceful.
We have had this Conservative Government for a long time. I am sorry that they talk about choice, but tell people, "We know what's good for you and we will tell you how to behave." If that is contemporary Conservatism as expressed by the Minister of State, we will be saying farewell to him at the next general election. I hope that, even at this late hour, the Government will have regard to the views of the people who live in the new towns.
Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston) : By the nature of our proceedings, this debate on the Government's new clause is rather more open-ended than I had anticipated on Second Reading. I understood initially that the open-ended nature of our proceedings tonight was the result of what I had hoped was a wise and fair-minded decision of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) to absent himself from a critical vote in Committee. However, I more readily comprehend his absence in that I understand that the vote took place at dawn.
The happy result of that misunderstanding is that the House faces a choice between two very different new clauses on the wind-up of the new towns. The critical difference lies in the treatment of the housing stock. Before I consider that, I want to respond to the observations by the Minister of State about industrial promotion in new towns following the wind-up.
When the Minister of State described a development company in Committee, he made it perfectly plain that it would be a commercial operation. He said :
"The development company will be a Companies Act company, with a normal share structure, board of directors and articles of association. It will be commercially driven."--[ Official Report, First Scottish Standing Committee, 1 March 1990 ; c. 479.] The problem is that a decision that may make commercial sense for that commercially driven private company may not be a decision that makes industrial sense for the new town's local community. Livingston is one of the younger new towns and we have many green-field sites awaiting development. Indeed, the whole of Livingston is built on a green-field site. The existing development corporation, perfectly properly and responsibly, has
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encouraged high-tech, high-skill, electronic companies on those green-field sites. Undoubtedly that gives us a strong, healthy economic base and that was the right decision to take.If that development corporation had been a commercial company with development powers looking simply at how to maximise its rate of return on those green fields bang in the middle of Scotland's motorway hub, it would have developed warehousing and distribution facilities that would have maximised the returns, but provided the minimum number of jobs.
The Minister of State has constantly avoided facing the fundamental problem. It is clear from the White Paper that the Government's motivation in the Bill is to maximise the rate of return on the sale of the new towns' assets. It is impossible to read the White Paper without hearing cash registers ringing at the back of Ministers' minds. There is inevitably a conflict between maximising the return on the new towns' assets and protecting the economic future and basis of the people who live in those new towns.
The main issue of concern to my constituents and to the constituents of my hon. Friend who represents the other four Scottish new towns is, what will happen to the houses that people rent from the development corporations once the corporations are wound up? I read the debates in Committee about housing. In a spirit of compassion, I must tell the Minister of State that I felt sorry for him when I did that. Now, that is uncharacteristic of me and I promise my hon. Friends that I will try to conquer that uncharacteristic sentimental weakness. However, I have been part of delegations to the Minister, as have my other hon. Friends who represent the Scottish new towns, and we have discussed that matter. I hope that I speak for some of my colleagues when I say that it is impossible not to be moved by the Minister's obvious discomfort when we discuss that matter. The Minister is impaled on a fork. Having used the language of tenants' choice for several years, he suddenly finds that the one choice that tenants want is the choice that he does not want to give them. That is the fundamental problem. In Committee, the Minister of State referred to the fact that the percentage of people who expressed a preference for the district council was "barely 50 per cent." I challenge the Minister now to explain to this democratically elected House of Commons how "barely 50 per cent." differs from a clear majority. The two must surely be synonymous. The survey from which the Minister quoted shows that only 12 per cent. expressed an interest in any other landlord. Of those who want to remain tenants and expressed a preference, four out of five expressed a preference for the district council. I submit that it would be an outrage if they were denied that choice at wind-up. I want to refer to the distress that the Minister faced in his speech today and also in Committee about the fact that quite a number of the new town residents want to purchase their houses and become owner-occupiers. It is not necessarily the case that even those who intend to buy have no interest in what happens to the rest of the housing stock. Over the past month, the clear majority of people in Livingston who have come to me for assistance with a housing problem and in desperate housing need were owner-occupiers facing dispossession and a forced sale either as a result of a marital split or because of redundancy.
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The position of those people on wind-up threatens to be impossible. The statutory authority with a duty for homelessness in Livingston is West Lothian district council. As I understand the Minister, after wind-up that council may be stuck with that duty and responsibility, but without any housing to fulfil it. It will no longer have access to Livingston development corporation housing stock to discharge its responsibility.
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