House of Commons Hansard Debates for 22 Jan 1992

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pressure to bear upon a former Secretary of State for Scotland who is now denying this country the benefit of these funds.

Mr. John D. Taylor : Since European regional aid is supposed to be for additional public expenditure in the regions, why do the Conservative Government prevent regional aid going to local authorities throughout the United Kingdom?

Mr. Heseltine : The right hon. Gentleman must know that very substantial increases in assistance have been provided through one Government programme or another to deal with the sort of issues that the matter covers. The Government have expressed the clear view that that has enabled additional funding to flow because we took into account the potential of the ERDF scheme. Anyone who has the slightest doubt about the force of these arguments should remember the eloquence with which they were expressed by Commissioner Millan when he was Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Andy Stewart : While Bruce Millan plays politics in Brussels, it is left to the British Government to give additional resources to coalfield areas. For example, in my constituency alone in the last financial year we received £0.5 million from British Coal Enterprise Ltd., £3 million in land reclamation grants and almost £1 million from the rural development programme. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that those valuable resources will be available in the coming year?

Mr. Heseltine : No one has fought harder than my hon. Friend to bring resources to deserving areas. I do not think that we should deny Commissioner Millan the opportunity to play politics in Brussels. Certainly there will be no job for him in government in this country.

Poll Tax

12. Mr. Canavan : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many representations he has received to date about the timing of the abolition of the poll tax.

Mr. Portillo : We have received a number of such representations.

Mr. Canavan : Is not the Minister ashamed to be going into the general election campaign telling electors that they will have to suffer the poll tax for another year or more? Would not it be in the interests of all the people to abolish the poll tax immediately and to reimburse local authorities with additional Government grant as a temporary measure until a much fairer system of local government revenue raising is introduced after Labour wins the general election?

Mr. Portillo : Is not the hon. Gentleman ashamed that he told electors not to pay their community charge bills, and will he now pay the debts of those poor people who listened to his advice before he ran off and left them in the lurch?

Mr. David Shaw : Can my hon. Friend confirm that one benefit of the community charge has been the increased accountability to which it has held left-wing councillors? Will he confirm that after the abolition of the community charge, the new council tax will also increase the accountability of left-wing councillors?

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Mr. Portillo : I believe that one reason why the community charge was so fiercely fought by the Opposition parties was precisely because it made clear the connection between spending decisions taken locally and the level of tax to be paid locally. Under the council tax as well there will be a direct relationship between what an authority spends and what it has to charge its people. That is an inescapable reality.

Mr. Blunkett : Can the Minister confirm that on the issue of taxation the greatest incompetence and the biggest waste of public money are inflicted on the people not by the Opposition but by the party that introduced the poll tax? Will he give an absolute assurance that there will be no last-minute gerrymander to prevent poll tax bills going out before the date of the general election?

Mr. Portillo : The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who have both raised this topic this afternoon, seem to be uncommonly rattled that the Government will do something to make our election victory even more certain. As I have said time and again, we have made clear the amounts of money available to local government next year. They are generous amounts and they are what the country can afford. If the hon. Gentleman wants to know about the waste of resources in local government, he has only to look at the Lambeths, the Haringeys, the Hackneys and the other councils that have become bywords for waste.

Derelict Land

13. Mr. Simon Coombs : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what further proposals he has to reduce the extent of derelict or disused land in public ownership.

Sir George Young : My right hon. Friend is today laying before the House regulations requiring local authorities to maintain and publish registers of their unused and underused land. Other possible measures to reduce the extent of such land in public ownership are also being considered.

Mr. Coombs : I am sure that everyone--at least all Conservative Members--will welcome the news that registers of derelict and disused land are to be published for the first time. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is very sad that nearly 12 years have elapsed since legislation on that issue was first put in place? Is not it about time that further measures deliberately to stimulate the disposal of that land were put to the House?

Sir George Young : As my hon. Friend will know, considerable progress has been made in addressing that problem over the past 12 years through derelict land grant, city grant and other measures. None the less, there are about 150,000 acres of vacant land in urban areas, about half of them publicly owned. For that reason, we are looking at what further measures are necessary to make faster progress.

Mr. Soley : I should start by congratulating the hon. Gentleman on being the only Minister who still answer questions in this decrepit old Government. Will he introduce a register, as he is doing in respect of other areas,

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of Government-owned land and property? I refer, for example, to the 24 houses in Nyland road, Swindon, which have been empty for up to 10 years and the 60 houses that have been empty in RAF Valley, Bryn Trewan estate, which are about to be sold off as a job lot, presumably to depress the housing market while we keep families in bed-and- breakfast accommodation. All those properties have been empty and unused, and all are owned by the Government. They are part of the 16 per cent. of the empty housing stock owned by the Government. We have no register, no action, bed-and-breakfast, cardboard city--what a record.

Sir George Young : If the hon. Gentleman really wants to do something about empty houses, perhaps he will address his political colleagues in Liverpool, for example, where one in 10 houses are vacant. Perhaps he will talk to his political colleagues in Manchester, Lambeth, Hackney and Southwark. That is where the bulk of the empty houses lie, and that is where he should use his energy to make progress.

Sir Anthony Durant : When my hon. Friend looks at structure plans, will he take account of empty land that is owned by nationalised industries, local government or any other local authority?

Sir George Young : As my hon. Friend will know, it is the purpose of a structure plan to identify appropriate land use for the totality of land in a certain area. We would certainly expect local authorities, be they counties or districts, to identify positive uses for derelict land and to bring it back into use before they come up with proposals to make any encroachment on green-field land or land in the green belt.

Water Payments

14. Mr. Madden : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress is being made to offer water consumers a choice in how to pay for their water consumption.

Mr. Baldry : The Director General of Water Services is encouraging companies to improve customers' awareness of their right to opt for a meter at their own expense and to deal with difficulties such as the high cost of installation and the unattractive tariffs set by many water companies. The director general's policy on charging for water was set out in "Paying for Water, the way ahead", a copy of which has been placed in the Library.

Mr. Madden : Is the Minister aware that many people, including families in Bradford, are terrified of their water bills as a result of having water meters fixed to their homes? Is he aware also that they are unable to pay their bills and are putting their health and hygiene at risk by unreasonably cutting their use of water? Will he instruct the water companies not to install water meters compulsorily? As a member of a party that proclaims its support for freedom of choice, will he arrange urgently for water consumers to have a real and genuine choice of how they pay for their water in future?

Mr. Baldry : Each company is responsible for deciding on its preferred system of charging, subject to the

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overriding requirement that it does not give undue preference to or unduly discriminate against any class or group of customers. Metering is one obvious way of charging for water services and is the general method in other countries. It is potentially the fairest charging method as customers have some influence on their own bills.

Sir Teddy Taylor : Does the Minister accept that the public would be more willing to pay by any means for their water supply if the Government would act speedily and effectively on the alarming report published this morning by the National Rivers Authority, which indicates clearly and precisely that agriculture is responsible for the biggest source of serious pollution incidents affecting public water supplies? Will he accept that the Department of the Environment has a special responsibility to protect the general public and the water supply against the huge and mighty pressures from agriculture which are always there?

Mr. Baldry : It is because we recognise those responsibilities, not only in relation to agriculture but generally, that privatisation has enabled the water companies to invest some £5,000 a minute, each and every minute between now and the end of the century, on enhancing water quality in this country.

Mr. Cryer : Does the Minister accept that his response on compulsory imposition of metering is unacceptable to ordinary people? In Bradford many people object to the imposition of metering by Yorkshire Water, an organisation which puts private profit before public service. If the Government are really concerned about genuine choice and the citizens charter and all the other public relations paraphernalia, why do they not give citizens a choice and make it their right to have either metering or a general charge?

Mr. Baldry : Water is a facility for which it is right and proper that there should be a payment. Metering is one obvious way of charging for water services because it is generally the method used in other countries and it is a fair method because consumers are then paying only for the water that they use.

Repossessions

15. Mr. Andrew MacKay : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his latest discussions with lending institutions concerning repossessions.

Mr. Heseltine : Last month, ministerial colleagues and I had a series of meetings with the Council of Mortgage Lenders to discuss the problem of mortgage arrears and repossessions. These resulted in agreement on the measures which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced to the House on 19 December. I spoke to Mark Boleat, the Director General of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, earlier today on my return from Brussels, and I expect the lending institutions to be in a position to make announcements within the next two to three weeks.

Mr. MacKay : I readily recognise that the agreement has been of great benefit to many home owners who, through

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no fault of their own, are in fear of repossession, but will my right hon. Friend agree that it is absolutely critical that Mr. Boleat, on behalf of the lenders, ensures that housing associations are provided with those funds quickly so that they can be seen to be taking over the houses that could have been repossessed and so completely put at rest the minds of those who still live in some fear?

Mr. Heseltine : We all sympathise with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay). He will have welcomed the assurance of the building societies that they will not act against those people who have borrowed money from them, albeit in arrears, who are making a reasonable contribution or whose contributions are covered by income support.

Mr. Gould : Was not the half-baked scheme announced before Christmas not only too little and too late but a classic case of passing the buck? Has the Secretary of State not just, in effect, confirmed that not a single agreement has yet been concluded under the scheme by any building society or housing association, so that not a single household has yet benefited in the way that was suggested by the hon. Member for Berkshire, East a moment ago? Is it not now clear that the whole sham was, typically, designed to deal with embarrassing headlines rather than with the real and pressing problems faced by thousands of families threatened with the loss of their homes?

Mr. Heseltine : I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was obviously half asleep on Saturday when the Mortgage Corporation announced the first such scheme. The most important help to give to people in those circumstances flows from the fact that interest rates have been cut by 4 per cent. since October so reducing the typical mortgage by an average of £70 a month. Anyone who is genuinely concerned about people having to pay their mortgages would be appalled by the Labour party's proposal to put tax rates up to 59p in the pound.

Acid Rain

16. Mr. Alan W. Williams : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest assessment of the damage caused by acid rain to mountain streams in upland Britain and to trees across the country.

Mr. Trippier : There is clear evidence suggesting that the 40 per cent. reduction in the United Kingdom's sulphur emissions over the past 20 years is helping to bring about a decrease in acidification in some areas. The latest work on trees shows little evidence of widespread acid rain impact.

Mr. Williams : What does the Minister think of National Power's proposal to switch Pembroke power station to the use of orimulsion fuel? Does he recognise that that will result in a massive increase in sulphur emissions which will mean that Pembroke will be the single largest sulphur emitter in Britain and, as it is sited on the western coast, it is in line to produce the maximum environmental damage? If that proposal goes ahead, will he insist that it is accompanied by flue gas desulphurisation?

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Mr. Trippier : To make it clear to the hon. Gentleman, the commitment that has been given to the House and to the country by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy in terms of meeting the large combustion plant directive, actually stands. The Government's commitment to cut emissions from large combustion plants from 1980 levels to 60 per cent. by the year 2003 and to cut NOx by 30 per cent. by 1998, is a target which will be met.

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