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private housing finance world have spelt out to the Government that 67 per cent. is the bottom line. Below that point, schemes will not go ahead.I hope that the hon. Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) will join me in pressing the Minister to make available the report on affordability which was prepared by the Housing Corporation and which now rests in his Department. I am pretty sure that it reveals that housing associations are being forced to push up rents, which makes schemes unsustainable. The net result is that housing associations can only take tenants who can guarantee that they are on full housing benefit. If they cannot, they will not get a place.
I urge the Minister to make the report available so that it can be discussed and the figures can be worked through in those terms. By changing grant relationships and by not taking account of housing benefit changes, the Government are pricing people out of even housing association housing, yet the Government insist that housing associations--and only housing associations--should provide affordable housing.
Special capital grant approvals are to be cut from 75 per cent. to 60 per cent. That means that for improvement grants to be paid at all to hard-up owner-occupiers, local authorities will have to meet 40 per cent. instead of 25 per cent. of the cost. We had hoped that there would be some reference in the autumn statement to the problems that local authorities face in terms of mandatory grants. The whole of their housing investment programmes could be consumed by the demand for improvement grants, yet the Government seem simply to be turning a blind eye. I urge the Minister to look again at mandatory grants and at their impact on local authorities' ability to serve housing needs in the round.
Let us look in slightly closer detail at the £750 million package to take 20,000 properties off the market through acquisitions by housing associations. We believe that that is inadequate when almost 250,000 properties either have been repossessed or were unsold in the first place. On BBC News on 12 November, John Wrigglesworth of UBS Phillips and Drew referred to the sum as
"a snowflake on an iceberg".
Although the scheme is limited, the Government could sharpen it and substantially improve it.
Can the Minister assure us that the available money will go only to mortgage lenders who are running or who are about to set up mortgage rescue schemes? Why is the money not tied in so that there can be real and workable mortgage rescue schemes? That would make the money go further, as properties would not just be taken off the market. We would be reassured that repossessions would slow down, which would in turn prevent more repossessed houses coming on to the market. Why not link the scheme so that it does not simply reward lenders who repossess but goes some way towards keeping people in their own home?
Surely the same grant rates should apply to those schemes as they do to any other schemes funded by the Housing Corporation. Lower grant rates will simply lead to unaffordable rents and to dwindling housing association involvement in the scheme. In practice, the scheme is too inflexible. Some lenders may want to lease properties rather than to sell them outright. Why cannot the Government relax leasing restrictions on local authorities and on housing associations, and allow 20-year leases? There should be a combination of buy-back and leasing.
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It is not clear whether the properties that are in disrepair or have been vandalised are to be included in the scheme. It is now evident that many properties that have been repossessed are in a terrible state. It is estimated that 100,000 repossessed properties standing for sale are in a poor condition and increasingly are being vandalised. Although lenders should bring properties up to standard, why do the Government not allow previously rundown properties to be included in the scheme as long as the lender agrees to do the necessary improvement work to bring them up to scratch, so that people can move into them?Why cannot local authorities be given a guarantee of first refusal so that they can use the properties for homeless families? There would then be a direct link between cutting temporary accommodation bills and bringing the properties back into use.
What do we find for local authority tenants in the small print of the autumn statement? We find that council rents are to be forced up by 9 per cent. in the coming year--more than twice the rate of inflation. It will mean an average of £2.50 on everyone's rent. The Government then tell us that there is no problem of people being priced out of their homes. The measures in the autumn statement will have that effect and will force people into debt and insecurity. How can people exercise their rights if they find that they are increasingly in debt and unable to meet the primary demand to pay the rent? The Government fail to help not only those with mortgages, but those with rents.
There was no housing windfall in the autumn statement. Many homeless families, tragically, will still face a cold and bitter winter. There is no real evidence that the Government take the housing crisis seriously. Perhaps in the coming months they will listen to the lobby of the tenants and of the churches which is coming to the House. In the meantime, the autumn statement is part of the Government's clear strategy of simply putting off what they cannot bear to face today because it is politically embarrassing. We are not being presented with a new policy. It is simply a time-buying exercise to get the Government into the calmer waters of less hostile headlines.
As homelessness and unemployment inexorably rise, the Government's pitiful failure to recognise and to take seriously the scale of the housing crisis will become plainer for all to see. We intend to keep the spotlight on the Government's lack of housing policy. We continue to monitor initiatives that constantly prove ineffectual. We shall continue to press for emergency measures to tackle street homelessness not only in London but elsewhere. I remind the Minister that rough sleeping is no longer confined to London.
We shall press for real measures to revive the housing market and we shall continue to demand that people have the right to rent. We shall harass the Government in detail until our society is a lot closer to ensuring that everyone's right to a decent, appropriate and affordable home is realised. The Minister's great claims today for his Government's minuscule measures will not even stand the test of this Parliament.
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5.7 pmMr. Jonathan Evans (Brecon and Radnor) : I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle). I noticed that the words "welcome" and "glad" passed his lips. However, the tone was rather different. It was a speech by a rather lugubrious hon. Member. In terms of visual aspect, he was the nearest thing to Clement Freud.
I can understand why the hon. Gentleman was so gloomy. He appears to be an aficionado of "Black Dog" in the Mail on Sunday --his required Sunday reading, at least according to his speech in the Committee considering the Housing and Urban Development Bill. Last Tuesday, he gave us a warning about what was likely to happen the following Thursday when the Chancellor made his autumn statement. He quoted "Black Dog", saying :
" There is worrying news about Sir George Young the affable Housing Minister, whose budget has reportedly vanished in this autumn's draconian spending round.'"--[ Official Report, Standing Committee B ; 10 November 1992 ; c. 3.]
The hon. Gentleman then quoted more from that article. I can understand why the hon. Gentleman was so gloomy. He has found that the budget of my hon. Friend the Minister has not evaporated. Instead, it has been considerably expanded and I welcome that. I particularly welcome the extra funding that has been made available in Wales. Some £38 million of extra funding will be used by local authorities and Housing for Wales and to assist the work of housing associations. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has already said that he will discuss that allocation with the chairman of Housing for Wales and that wide-ranging discussions will take place about how that money can be spent because we must ensure that the money is spent wisely. In that regard, I want to raise some concerns with my hon. Friend the Minister.
It is important that the money should not be used as a catalyst for mortgage lenders to take further action in cases where they are staying their hands in respect of repossessions. The hon. Member for Leeds, West referred to the deterioration of properties which have come on to the market. If the money was to be spent solely on purchase and rehabilitation of those properties, it is important that we consider the taxation rules.
When I was involved with Housing for Wales, I was concerned about the fact that there was a shift towards new build away from the rehabilitation of property. That shift occurred because 17.5 per cent. VAT is added to the cost of the rehabilitation of property. It would be deeply damaging if much of the new funding was leaked away in that fashion. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider that point in the discussions with the Housing Corporation and the local authorities when they assess how the funding can be used. I am also anxious that the rural housing problem should be recognised in Wales and elsewhere. So often when we discuss homelessness the problem is referred to in the context of cardboard city and images of people in desperate circumstances sleeping in the shop doorways of many of our major cities. Many of the problems are being addressed by initiatives referred to by my hon. Friend the Minister. However, as a result of those stark images, we sometimes lose contact with the fact that there is also a
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rural housing crisis. The problem of people who earn the lowest wages and live in rural areas is pushed into the background. I am pleased to say that in Wales at least that problem has been recognised. Twenty-eight per cent. of the funding to housing associations in Wales is given to associations that work in rural areas and perhaps that lesson could be followed in England. Some of the Welsh initiatives will avoid situations that have occurred in towns because it has been recognised that the funding should be invested on the basis of local needs.Although councils may have ideas about local housing needs, sometimes the people who live in the villages have the best means of identifying the local housing needs. That is why several initiatives have been started in Wales which draw together local needs surveys. They have identified problems in relation to housing which the local housing authorities may not have recognised in some parts of the Principality.
Once the problems have been identified, there is investment, but not in those vast council estates--the monoliths of municipal socialism of the past as I like to describe them. Instead, perhaps between two and eight houses are built in a village and they become part of the village. They do not become ghettoes. Those houses are not just part of the community ; they are attractive to local people and young people can stay, live and work in the communities in which they have been raised.
Initiatives have also been taken on a national level, and also in Wales, to bring into use the empty accommodation above shops. That is a worthwhile initiative for which funding has been made available and it is quite apart from general support made available for the vital renting and shared ownership programme.
My hon. Friend the Minister outlined the steps being taken to attempt to deal with rough sleeping in our cities. I particularly welcome my hon. Friend's attempt to reduce the figures in terms of the use of bed-and- breakfast accommodation for so many families. Before I came to the House, and subsequently in articles that I have written on the issue, I have stated that it is unacceptable for a Government who have been in office for 13 years still to have so many people, even on today's figures, living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That is not something with which I want to be associated and I know that my hon. Friend the Minister does not wish to be associated with it either.
More than that, the provision of bed-and-breakfast accommodation does not make economic sense. All the surveys show that it can cost between twice and three times as much to accommodate people in those absolutely unacceptable conditions than if we were to house them properly in the first place. I welcome the steps that have been taken to reduce the proportion, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, from 24 per cent. to 18 per cent. During the many years that I will be a Member of this place, I hope that we will ensure that the figure is reduced substantially--and the earlier the better.
I hope that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) will not take offence when I say that he adopted a sanctimonious approach. At one point, he seemed to say that the Government should simply be building more houses. That may be a disservice to him, but I do not believe that simply more housebuilding is what is needed. On the contrary, it seems that we have sufficient properties.
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It is well known that there are about 750,000 empty properties in private and public hands. We can all argue about the accuracy of the figures and we often hear all sorts of figures bandied around the House. However, we might agree that about 150,000 families are currently accepted as being homeless by local authorities. In such circumstances, we should urgently seek a marriage between the two sets of figures.According to the figures that I have seen, 9.7 per cent. of public housing in Liverpool appears to be empty. It is unacceptable that there are local authorities--including authorities which at least two hon. Members in the Chamber now represent--in which the amount of council house rents outstanding is colossal. The highest amount outstanding is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. According to my figures, there are some £35 million of uncollected council house rents in the hon. Gentleman's authority.
I know that it is said that the cause of such outstanding rents is that people are in desperate financial circumstances and they cannot afford to pay the rents. I notice that the hon. Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) is in the Chamber. He will be aware that his local authority, within which many people face strained financial circumstances, has performed much better in terms of collecting council house rents than Southwark and Bermondsey or Greenwich.
Mr. Raynsford : Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a serious problem in respect of people being able to afford rent or mortgages in the rented and privately-owned sectors? Does he accept that mortgage arrears have increased dramatically, as have rent arrears? When the Government propose to increase rents in council properties by on average 9 per cent., when they expect public sector workers to accept a maximum 1.5 per cent. pay increase, does the hon. Gentleman accept that that is a recipe for further increases in arrears?
Mr. Evans : I made a misjudgment. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was about to explain why Greenwich had an outstanding figure of 25 per cent. in council house rents--about £13 million. I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman would be able to tell us how many houses in his constituency might be built for that sum.
Mr. Charles Hendry (High Peak) : Has my hon. Friend noted the correlation between councils that are dilatory at collecting rents and those that have bad records in respect of occupied housing and the number of vacancies in boroughs such as Southwark? Southwark is the fourth worst borough in London in terms of vacancies. One of the few councils with a worse record for vacancies is the Liberal Democrat-controlled borough of Tower Hamlets.
Mr. Evans : I also have made that correlation. I represent the largest constituency in Wales--I think that it is also the largest constituency in England and Wales--and we have managed, through all local authorities in Wales, many of which are controlled by friends of the Labour party, to keep down the number of public housing voids. The figures that I was able to gain from the Welsh Office in a parliamentary answer only last week show that there is a direct balance between housing association voids and council house voids of 1.2 per cent. in Wales. When we compare that with the situation in which there have been
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up to 10 per cent. voids in some local authority areas in England, we see that far more needs to be done than just throwing money at the problem.Mr. Simon Hughes : I agree. The hon. Gentleman will imagine that, for obvious reasons, I am critical of my local authority, but one thing that he may not know, which is relevant and has been raised with Ministers, is that there is an unfair method of calculating the amount needed per unit of property, which is called the management and maintenance allowance, across different authorities. For no current, valid reason there is a differential allowance--government to local authority money--which means that boroughs such as Southwark get far less than otherwise identical boroughs with the same housing needs.
Mr. Evans : I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. I am sure that he would not wish to excuse his local authority's performance in terms of that staggering figure of outstanding council house rents, particularly when he so graphically illustrates the housing problem in London.
Ms. Glenda Jackson : The hon. Gentleman has spent some time being highly critical of local authorities. I should like to give him an example of what is happening in the private rented sector in London. In one case, a young woman found a room for herself in a house where the rent was £45 a week. She would have had to claim housing benefit to pay it. Her landlord suggested that, as she was claiming housing benefit, they should bump up the rent to £60 and split the difference. She refused to do that and is therefore homeless. Another case involves a young couple, one of whom was a student. Her boyfriend became ill. When their landlord discovered that they would be reliant on housing benefit, they were asked to leave. That is yet another example within the private sector. Local authorities are saints in comparison.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Before the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans) continues, let me say that interventions are becoming progressively longer. That is not confined to one side ; I make the observation to all.
Mr. Evans : I am obliged for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to be as generous as possible to Opposition Members. I certainly do not defend the activities of landlords who behave in the way that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms. Jackson) has outlined. She appears to have in her hand a document which presents some detail of that case, but it seems to me as a lawyer that the first case that she outlined is one in which the involvement of the police should be considered at an early point. It clearly was an invitation to participate in a criminal offence.
Ms. Jackson rose --
Mr. Evans : I shall give way just for clarification and then I shall make progress.
Ms. Jackson : A lawyer would realise that any case requires evidence.
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Mr. Evans : I am sure that the hon. Lady has not been putting points to me without evidence. I rather hoped that she put her case with evidence to support her assertion. I shall now make progress. It has become clear that it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that we improve the supply and condition of our rented housing stock. Quite apart from the other choices and availability that there may be of different tenures, that has to be a cardinal point. The Government, sometimes in the face of substantial opposition, have given positive support to housing associations, and they deserve congratulations for that. In the course of that work they have had to attempt to deal with a manifest distortion in the rented housing sector. I refer in particular to the way in which the private rented sector, sometimes because of the abuse that is piled on many landlords who have attempted to operate within the private sector, has declined substantially. That has been regarded with some sadness by hon. Members.
It must be recognised that if there are three quarters of a million empty properties, although many are in the public sector, a large proportion of them are in the private sector. One would wish those properties to be brought into better use. One factor that must be borne in mind when we consider the Opposition's figures is that the Government have given substantial support through the housing benefits system.
I note the point that was made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, but, according to figures that I obtained from the Library this morning, in the past year £5.9 billion in support was given. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) is not terribly happy about that because, in seminars and conferences around the country, he has been saying that that is manifestly dreadful and stupid. Taken together with the other amounts of support in terms of the Government's house building programme, there is substantial assistance--up to 18 per cent. of the public sector borrowing requirement, according to the figures that I saw today.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey referred to such evidence and said that mortgage tax relief is a bad thing. The hon. Member for Greenwich shares that view. The proportion of support available under mortgage tax relief has substantially eroded over the years, and that must be recognised. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey is shaking his head, but that is absolutely true. Inflation and tax decreases have substantially eroded that benefit, as a result of which it is fairly likely in the current year that the amount of support available through housing benefit will overtake the support that is given under mortgage tax relief. At the moment, 69 per cent. of households in Wales are receiving support through the housing benefit structure initially directly from the Government and then from local authorities.
Hon. Members recognise that there is a housing crisis in this country--I hope that I made that clear at the beginning of my speech. If there were no crisis there would not be a need for all the steps that the Government have taken to address the problem. My hon. Friend the Minister is regarded throughout the country as a person who genuinely recognises the scale of the problem. Many of the initiatives over the past few years are directly as a result of the pressure and influence that he has been able
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to bring to bear. I am absolutely sure that, with my hon. Friend in charge of our housing programme, we have a policy that all our colleagues can support.5.28 pm
Ms. Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate) : Although I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate, I do not welcome the fact that for the fourth time in this Parliament we are debating the issue of homelessness. I look forward to the day when homelessness will have no place in this Chamber or in the cities and towns of this country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) has referred to homelessness as a scar on the face of society. While agreeing wholeheartedly with his sentiment, I disagree with his analogy, because over time scars heal, but during this Government's tenure of office the number of households accepted as homeless has tripled, to stand at 150,000. That represents 400,000 adults and children. According to the Shelter briefing, which I am sure all hon. Members received in time for the autumn statement, almost 63,000 of those families will spend this Christmas in unsuitable temporary housing, such as bed and breakfast hotels and local authority hostels.
There are enough learned documents around to prove the dangers for children in bed and breakfasts--quite apart from the economic costs. In London, the cost of keeping a family in bed and breakfasts is estimated at £14,500 a year. The damage done to children is almost inestimable. Children in bed and breakfasts tend to catch illnesses far more easily and to have greater difficulty in learning and in creating real social relationships. The borough in which my constituency lies has 1,900 families with no homes of their own ; that figure does not include the number forced to use voluntary hostels or squats or cardboard boxes for shelter.
There is no doubt that the plight of the homeless is a matter of concern to hon. Members on both sides of the House, but a former leader of the Conservative party once said that it is not enough for people merely to say that they care ; their actions must support their words. The Government's actions so far have failed to alleviate, let alone eradicate, the evil of homelessness.
Last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer unveiled a number of proposals in his autumn statement designed to boost the housing sector--proposals to which the Minister referred today. One proposal was to purchase 20,000 empty homes. Another was that councils would be allowed to spend the capital receipts that they earn between now and December 1993. That was done, the Chancellor said, to make a real contribution to housing families in need.
What was the background against which the announcement was made? Twenty thousand homes are to be purchased, but last year 75,000 homes were repossessed. Capital receipts will be released from now until December 1993, but more than £8 billion in capital receipts have already been accumulated. So the Government can buy 20,000 homes, yet they allow the seizure of 75,000.
This is a time of deep recession, when people are much concerned that they may have no jobs, when--to quote Shelter--the rate of mortgage repossessions in England alone is running at 200 a day and when loans more than 12 months in arrears had risen by June 1992 by almost 25 per cent. to more than 110,000. So the Government, on the
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most optimistic estimate, are giving £1.75 billion in capital receipts but are blocking the £8 billion that councils have already raised from the right to buy.On top of all this, the Government tell councils, which have the prime responsibility for housing those in need, that they will give them less money next year to discharge their duties than they did this year--that has always been the trend while the Conservative party has been in power. Spending on housing in real terms fell from £11.6 billion in 1978-79 to £5.5 billion in 1991-92--a reduction of £6.1 billion.
The Government claim that they care about the homeless, but in the next breath they say that it is not for central Government to generate the growth in the housing sector which the homeless so desperately need and in their third breath they announce that they will bring in spending measures that will prevent local government from generating growth.
Homelessness under this Government has become an epidemic, and it is eating away at the fabric of society. How much potential is wasted in the doorways of the shops lining the Strand? How many doctors, teachers and business men could have grown--could still grow--out of the people who have no home of their own and hence no opportunity? What can be said of a Government who deny them that opportunity? The Conservative manifesto states :
"The opportunity to own a home and pass it on is one of the most important rights an individual has in a free society."
But what of those denied the right to live in a home, never mind own one? A right to clean, decent, affordable housing should be guaranteed, and if all else fails it is incumbent on the Government to safeguard that right. If solving the problem of homelessness means Government intervention before lunch, breakfast and dinner, so be it. Homelessness will not be solved by the reintroduction of restrictions on capital receipts, due to come into effect in December 1993. Nor will it be solved by the restrictions on council spending due to come into effect in April 1993. Nor will it be solved by unemployment, by recession or by the slump to which no end is in sight--
Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) : Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms. Jackson : I shall shortly have finished my speech.
The glossy brochure in my hand is not, it may surprise my hon. Friends to hear, a charter produced by the Government. It is called, "The London Day Centres Directory : Services for Homeless People". As Conservative Members can see, it has many pages and many more sub-divisions. Instead of tackling the basic problem of homelessness and our inadequate housing stock, we are being directed to manage homelessness--to find it acceptable and to tolerate it. Many people have asked me why homelessness and the problem of housing are not higher up the political agenda--
Mr. Evans : Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms. Jackson : I say that these issues are high up the political agenda--we will all see how high as Christmas approaches. For a few weeks before Christmas, local and national newspapers will publish schemes under which the homeless will be taken off the streets and put in damp, drafty vaults under bridges. There they will be fed turkey
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dinners on paper plates and there they will toast each other in champagne from polystyrene cups. Come Boxing day they will become invisible again.I urge the Government to set in train before Christmas real measures that will make this glossy brochure utterly irrelevant by this time next year.
Mr. Evans : Will the hon. Lady give way?
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I am not clear whether the hon. Lady is giving way.
Ms. Jackson : I have concluded my speech.
5.37 pm
Mr. Gary Streeter (Plymouth, Sutton) : This will be the fifth time I have spoken since becoming a Member inApril. By some strange coincidence, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have been in the Chair on each occasion. I do not presume to detect any connection beyond the fact that we represent neighbouring seats.
I was interested to hear the excellent remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), who said that he foresaw many happy years in the House for himself. Given that he has a majority of 130, one can only conclude that that was an example of great confidence--admirable confidence.
I congratulate the Government on the excellent measures in the autumn statement to help boost the housing market and meet housing need. We all want everyone to have a decent home at an affordable price, and it is encouraging that the Government have introduced more measures to meet that end.
I refer first to the £750 million to be provided for housing associations to buy up an estimated 20,000 repossessed properties in the next 12 months, to convert them to homes for rent. That will be an important measure to free the housing market, which has been bogged down during the past two years. The Government have taken an incisive and imaginative measure to get the market moving again at the lower end, by removing 20,000 empty and repossessed properties from the market. I support that excellent measure, as it will help to stimulate the housing market.
I welcome the reduction of the interest rate to 7 per cent.--as low as I can remember during my working life--which is an excellent boost for the property market. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister is listening--
Mr. Streeter : I am sure that my hon. Friend is--I did not wish to infer otherwise. I thought that he might have nodded off and that perhaps the headphones were his personal stereo. I hope that he will speak severely to building societies that fail to pass on the benefits of lower interest rates for several months. Recently, the Halifax announced that it would pass on the benefit in January. I must declare an interest, as it is lending me a small amount of money. Why cannot the Halifax pass on the benefit of that rate reduction in December?
Building societies and banks have a lot to answer for in failing to pass on interest rate reductions early enough, and we shall hear more about banks in the Adjournment
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debate tonight. I hope that the Government will get tough with those building societies and banks that fail quickly to pass on the reductions.Excellent deals are available in the market place for first-time buyers and people who want to move house, who will be able to borrow money at advantageous rates. I scanned the Sunday newspapers and found that one could get a loan on a fixed rate of interest for seven years--long enough to tide us over the next upturn in the property cycle which is bound to come--at 8.25 per cent. Anyone who wants to plan ahead with certainty can take the sort of packages on offer at 8.25 per cent. There has never been a better time to buy a property, and I hope that that message is getting across to home owners and first-time buyers.
Even estate agents have begun to report an upturn in activity during the past few days, which is greatly to be welcomed. We hear much about the difficulties that home owners have suffered during the past two years-- about negative equity and repossessions. Those are real problems, but it is not right for us to concentrate on a short-term problem and to allow it to negate a long-term benefit. There is no doubt that home ownership remains the aspiration of the vast majority of families, and so it should be. In the long term, home ownership is a great asset to any person or family. It is undoubtedly the single biggest asset that most people have, and is to be encouraged. I welcome Government measures to encourage it and the forthcoming rent-into-mortgage scheme which will extend the choice of home ownership to another layer of the population.
I also welcome the capital receipts initiative, announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his excellent statement on Thursday. I am not the only one to welcome it. On Friday 13 November, a report was published in the Plymouth Western Evening Herald --an excellent local newspaper--which stated :
"Plymouth could be in for a £2 million windfall from council house sales, courtesy of Chancellor Norman Lamont it emerged today. City Housing Chairman Pat Kelly gave a cautious welcome to Mr. Lamont's announcement yesterday that councils can now spend all the money they make from selling land and houses. Mr. Kelly said, I have done some sums which indicate we could generate between £1.5 million and £2 million from the sale of about 100 council houses that we have in the pipeline'."
That is a cautious welcome from a left-wing Labour-controlled authority, which is no friend of our party or of the homeless. By May 1991, when I ceased--by the will of the people--to be the housing chairman in Plymouth, I had already set up many deals between the council and housing associations, which the local authority instantly froze for ideological reasons. It preferred to keep people waiting on the streets and in bed-and- breakfast accommodation, rather than to deal with evil housing associations, which it saw as the wicked private sector. That was an absolute disgrace. That same council has welcomed the statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on capital receipts, estimating that it will release up to £2 million during the next 14 months, which will enable the council to build up to 100 council houses. That is a measure of the support that my right hon. Friend's excellent initiative has in this country. A cautious welcome from the left-wing Plymouth city council is the highest accolade.
I welcome the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) to the Opposition Front Bench, although he is no
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longer in the Chamber, and I listened to his speech with interest. I am pleased that he intends to press for measures to improve housing, and I offer to accompany him on his trips around Labour- controlled local authorities--I am sure that that was what he had in mind-- to urge them to get their act together, to collect rents, carry out repairs, utilise voids and deal with housing associations rather than turning their backs on them.Mr. George Howarth : Does the hon. Gentleman care to name one Labour authority that turns its back on housing associations?
Mr. Streeter : I have already named Plymouth city council, which turned its back on housing associations for 18 months, hoping to keep all the land in its ownership so that it could build council houses, knowing that it would never have the money to do so.
Mr. Howarth rose--
Mr. Streeter : No, I must move on. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Leeds, West at long last understands the need to press for measures to improve the housing stock-- doubtless by putting pressure on Labour-controlled authorities.
In addition to the Chancellor's excellent statement about capital receipts on Thursday, I welcome the fact that he has been able to maintain the Housing Corporation's budget for the next three years and even to add to it. That is greatly to be welcomed. Housing associations in Plymouth are planning to build more than 250 houses in the next 12 months and the 100 houses that the city council may be able to add to that will be an excellent step towards meeting the needs of the homeless. I welcome the fact that the budget has been not cut but augmented. No doubt that owes much to the Government's commitment to the homeless.
The Government should encourage councils to consider not merely selling houses or land to release capital receipts to spend on housing. Plymouth Pavilions is a leisure and conference complex, which was built by the local authority at a cost of £25 million and which is running at a loss of £1.5 million per annum. Local authorities should not run such centres. If that complex were sold to the private sector, it would make a profit, and release money which could be spent on noteworthy assets and meritworthy schemes in Plymouth. I suggest that local authorities should consider such sales. The Government can only create a framework and it is for local authorities to deal with their housing stock, and to suggest initiatives to take full advantage of the excellent leadership given by the Government.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) spoke about releasing the £5.5 billion currently held by local authorities ; he referred to those funds as "historic capital receipts". But the motion does not say how local authorities would deal with the shortfall in their general funds which spending that money would create. The interest currently accruing on those capital receipts comes from the general fund of local authorities throughout the country. If that money were spent, the interest would not enter the general fund and the shortfall would have to be covered by community charge payers. The hon. Gentleman did not mention that. If he is committed to that course of action, I invite him to make
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