House of Commons Hansard Debates for 9 Mar 1993

Mr. Channon : Who came top of the poll?

Mr. Brandreth : At the top are many favourites, including Virginia Andrews, Agatha Christie, Catherine Cookson, Len Deighton, Dick Francis, Jack Higgins, Victoria Holt, Stephen King, Ed McBain, Ruth Rendell, Wilbur Smith and Danielle Steel, all with loans of over1 million. Sadly, my noble Friend Lord Archer is not among those with over1 million. He is in the over 500,000 list-- [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East scoffs. Whenever we in this country come across a successful person, we scoff. We love to take successful people and instead of, as people do in other countries, putting them on a pedestal and saying "Well done," we chip away at the statue. We mock the successful people who bring millions, if not billions, of pounds to this

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country. [Interruption.] Oh, yes, they are coming to life now, because they are at home when it comes to mocking success. What is interesting is that the work of the registrar reveals to us not only what contemporary writers are receiving public lending rights, but what classic books are being read by people nowadays.

Sir Roger Moate : Far from attacking successful authors, we are rewarding them with £6,000 each. Is not that munificence? Do they also say thank you to the public for this largesse?

Mr. Brandreth : Indeed we do, although I am not one of the 97 out of 16,000 authors who receive the public lending right. The principle is that we should reward authorship.

The classic authors, those who are most borrowed--up to half a million borrowings a year--are Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Tolkein, Anthony Trollope--

Mr. Snape : Order. They cannot benefit from public lending right.

Mr. Brandreth : This is work produced by the public lending rights office in Stockton-on-Tees and taken from the annual report, and it is part of the funding that goes to the administration which produces this useful information. I did not think that the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) was in the Chair.

In the second division, over 100,000, the list ranges from Charlotte Bronte to George Orwell--a socialist, but none the less he is here. This is an open opportunity scheme. Even William Shakespeare is being borrowed.

Mr. Robert Spink (Castle Point) : May I remind my hon. Friend that his cocoa is getting cold?

Mr. Brandreth : My hon. Friend is quite right, and my children may well be up.

All that I want to say is that the English literary heritage is the glory of our civilisation. It is quite right that we should recognise the contribution that authors make to our cultural and literary life. We are right to reward the living ones with public lending rights. They play a very important part in our civilised life. Let us acknowledge with gratitude something wholly good that is emanating from the House tonight.

11.31 pm

Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South) : May I briefly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) in his contention that this money should not be paid? I very much welcome tonight's order, not least because it will keep 16 of my constituents in work for another several years. I believe that, if an author sells a book to a public library which is then lent out, he is forgoing sales and therefore revenue which he would get from sales all over the country. In the light of that, it seems only right that some payment should be made and some record kept of which books are the most borrowed from our libraries.

I thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) for their congratulations to my constituents. We have an excellent leader in

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Dr. Parker, the present registrar for public lending right, as we had under his illustrious predecessor, John Sumsion, whom I knew very well.

I am pleased to see that, on the 10th anniversary, which unfortunately I was unable to attend, but which the Secretary of State did attend, in my constituency, the top-selling author, and thus the top-rewarded author, was a north-eastern one--Catherine Cookson--who I believe has led the polls for several years in the past.

The 16 people in Stockton-on-Tees work extremely hard. They have recently had a wonderful new computer, which should bring down their administration costs quite sharply, I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Sproat). Therefore, he need not have too many worries about the percentage currently being taken in administration costs. It is a hard-working, efficient team, which has been given plaudits by people who know of the work that it does. I wish it every success in the future.

11.33 pm

Mr. Key : It is appropriate that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) rounded off this important debate. I know what interest he takes in the work of his constituents, who perform a service to all of us who love books, whether we write them, read them, borrow them or buy them. I am grateful to him for his interest and support, as I know his constituents are.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) is always a very hard act to follow. We are all grateful to him for enlivening the debate and giving that right sense of joy which should come from anyone who loves books. Books are about so much more than what is inside them. I recall a former Archbishop of Canterbury who insisted that, before he read a book, he always smelled it to check that it would be all right, so it takes all sorts.

The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), who opened the debate, addressed serious issues. I will seek to demonstrate that, far from the public lending right being gravely affected, as she argued, it is flourishing and will continue to expand. The profession of librarian is an honourable one. It is also a modern and up-to-date profession which is responding to the changing demands and expectations of those who use libraries.

It is not the case that a library could be regarded as successful, irrespective of what it does, if only it were open six days a week, morning and afternoon, for 60 hours. I have no power to intervene in the day-to-day management of the public library service. Library authorities are best placed to decide on service provision, including opening hours and library closures, taking into account local needs and resources.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a statutory duty under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 to ensure that library authorities in England meet their duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient public library service. He has no powers to interfere in the day-to-day management of the service. The hon. Lady was tempting us to stray down the path of a local government finance debate which I would have been glad to hold, considering the happy time I had in the Department of the Environment, but it would not be appropriate. I must not forget that my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester's cocoa is getting steadily colder. At this time of year, we would expect competing bids in local authorities. The example most widely quoted has

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been Manchester. I am delighted to hear that the libraries and theatres department has been required to make savings which mean that there will be no library closures, and that the department's savings will be less than those for some other departments.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) is to be congratulated on steering the legislation through some years ago, and on being the first Minister, I think, responsible for the implementation of the principle. When he was responsible, I know that he went to Stockton to ensure that the system was up and running. My right hon. Friend asked important questions which I shall seek to answer concisely. Of the 30 library authorities--not libraries, incidentally ; there will be libraries within the authorities--in the PLR sample, four this year supplied loans data from several branches. That enabled us to increase the sample size from last year's figure of 10.6 million to 16.1 million books. From the 16.1 million loans sampled, our computer estimates individual book issues to equal the total loans from United Kingdom public libraries. To recognise the fact that sampling strength varies between regions, the calculation is done in two stages ; first, the computer takes the loans recorded in each region to arrive at a regional estimate, and then adds the regional totals to arrive at the national estimate.

My right hon. Friend asked whether community residents could receive money. The answer is yes. He asked about children's books ; there is no qualifying minimum number of pages any more. Among the illustrious titles mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester, who will now be thinking about heating up his cocoa, we find not only Agatha Christie and Ruth Rendell but Enid Blyton, who continues to be in the category of estimated loans of more than 1 million.

On reference books, a sub-committee of the Public Lending Right Advisory Committee is concluding its deliberations. I reassure my right hon. Friend that illustrators qualify, as do editors. Therefore, there has been progress since he was responsible for these matters. The installation of the computer has led to a reduction in the funding that is available for distribution. The 90 per cent. target is not fanciful. The registrar is keen to establish a figure of 11 per cent. on which he can work for administrative expenses. The European Commission has submitted a draft directive on rental and lending rights. That was submitted in January 1991 and advocates recognition in each member state of the right of authors to remuneration for the public lending of their books. At present the United Kingdom has a reciprocal public lending arrangement only with Germany. However, there was much opposition to the lending right provisions of the draft directive. As a result, a compromise has been agreed by the member states, allowing countries to continue to give priority to the cultural objectives of their national schemes and to exclude certain types of library institution from PLR calculations. Therefore, the principle of subsidiarity applies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Sproat) objected to the principle of PLR. I assure him that 16 civil servants means 16 : there are no part-time officials. There is one committee, the excellent Public Lending Right

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Advisory Committee, which has nine members who work extremely hard on behalf of us all. There is a £1 minimum limit and a £6,000 upper limit, and money for those who qualify above that figure is redistributed. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) still finds that a fallacious principle. I shall clearly not convince him otherwise, and I am ever mindful of the cocoa of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester.

It is important to recompense authors in this way. The sale of one book to a public library ensures that many readers will take advantage of that authorship. I appreciate that those readers might have purchased copies of the book if the library service had not provided it. There are other examples of regular payments for the product of a person's mind. For example, there are many patent payments. The principle of copyright is designed to assist in that area.

The scheme depends on computers, and the computer has been the cause of a considerable increase in this year's administrative expenses. An advisory group includes representatives from the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency and the Cabinet Office internal audit. A contract was awarded to BIS Information Systems to replace the computer. That was worth £580,000 and accounts for a great deal of the amount to which my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich referred. Staged payments for the contract are being made on the successful completion of each phase. The design was completed in March 1992 and testing began in May last year. The old and new systems have been running in parallel. One of the benefits of the new system will be additional storage capacity.

Public libraries added 11 million books to their stock in 1990-91. Many public libraries have increased book expenditure in real terms over the past decade, and for the first time in a decade, borrowing last year was up. Book issues are increasing, especially in the shire counties--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : Order. I looked at the monitor before I took the Chair and I noticed that my predecessor brought the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman to order. The Minister is straying down the same road and I urge him to return to the subject under debate.

Mr. Key : I am a lost sheep in this argument, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful to you for bringing me back to order. I sought to give the hon. Member for Cynon Valley the courtesy of a reply, but perhaps I should speak to her elsewhere to reassure her and allay her fears.

The expectations of the public in this respect have risen and, through our recognition of the public lending right, we have seen that libraries are not just repositories of our uniquely rich heritage but resource centres for our communities, important to the quality of our lives. It is a modest mark of our gratitude to those with gifts and skills of writing that we make this increase to the public lending right and I commend the order to the House. Question put and agreed to .

Resolved ,

That the draft Public Lending Right (Increase of Limit) Order 1993, which was laid before this House on 17th February, be approved.

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PETITIONS

Excavation (Thurrock)

11.45 pm

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : I am pleased to present to the House a petition by County Councillor Reg Lee, Margie Roberts and other residents of Aveley in my constituency of Thurrock, and other men and women from Essex, who are concerned for the protection and promotion of the environment and who consider that, without the intervention of this place, permission shall be granted to the company Greenways to excavate and fill Aveley No. 3 pit which is situated on the Romford road in Essex with a consequential blight on properties, hazards from increased lorry movement and pollution of the soil and atmosphere--work which they would have to endure for a further 17 years.

Wherefore, your petitioners--

who exceed 3,500--

pray that your honourable House shall seek to persuade the Secretary of State for the Environment to exercise his power to determine this planning application following an independent public inquiry where the views and objections of the petitioners can be heard and examined by an independent Inspector appointed for this purpose, and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. To lie upon the Table.

Rail Privatisation

11.46 pm

Mr. Peter Snape (West Bromwich, East) : I rise to present a petition on behalf of the Railway Development Society, signed by no fewer than 18,753 members of the public, against the privatisation of British Rail. The petitioners believe that, far from solving British Rail's problems, privatisation will add to them, and that the railway industry needs investment, not dismemberment.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House : Will abandon the ill-conceived British Rail privatisation proposals and embark urgently upon a properly funded investment programme. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

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Castle Fraser, Grampian

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.-- [Mr. Arbuthnot.]

11.47 pm

Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) : This debate, which I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring to the House, was triggered by the decision of the Castle Fraser estate in my constituency in January to serve eviction notices on 16 tenants to secure vacant possession for the break-up and sale of the estate.

Before the letters went out to the tenants, they were called together and told that they would be receiving this notice because it had proved impossible to sell the estate as a going concern as they had been told should have been possible.

At the time, they were not told of their rights that, for example, a sheriff court order would be required before they were evicted ; nor were they given any idea that there could be flexibility in the notice that they had been given. In some cases, all they were told was they had to be out of their homes and would lose their jobs at four weeks' notice.

As can be imagined, that caused a furore in the area. In Gordon district in the past two years, the number of tenants who have gone on to the housing list because tied accommodation was no longer available was 21 and 39 respectively, so 16 coming in one go from one estate was a high proportion of the total that might be expected in any one year.

I contacted the factor of the estate to try to persuade him to be more flexible, and he told me that he recognised that he would have to go through the sheriff court and that he had not instigated that procedure. Nevertheless, he had not told the tenants that, and they thought that the letters were legal notices that they were bound to obey.

It also turned out that the claim that there had been no bids that could have kept the estate together or continued the employment and tenancy of the tenants was not true ; there were bids for substantial parts of the estate which would have maintained some of the employment and some of the tenancies. That outcome is still possible.

On the good side, no sheriff court action has been taken. I understand that negotiations are still in hand to complete the sale, and it is possible that some tenants may be retained. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that was not made apparent at the time notice was given, because a great deal of heartache and anxiety could have been avoided. When I met the tenants a couple of days after they received that notification, they were shaken, shocked and in many ways disillusioned with their treatment.

One sad aspect is that Castle Fraser was in many ways a model, well run estate. The tenants were well treated and the houses well maintained. In that context, the termination of the tenants' employment and the summary notice that they were required to leave was a bigger shock than otherwise might have been the case. The case highlights a number of important issues. It shows that the present law relating to tied tenancies in Scotland is unsatisfactory. I make it clear that I do not oppose the principle of tied housing, for I recognise its essential role in rural areas. Tied housing could be the subject of a debate, but I do not want to embark upon one at this stage.

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People who work on the land need to live close to their jobs, and tied housing is one means of bringing that about. The question is not whether we should get rid of tied housing--I do not think we should, and I do not want to promote or to support legislation to that effect. What matters is managing the transition in a humane and sensible way that gives the tenant fair treatment and does not impose an untoward burden on already hard-pressed local authorities. The trustees of the Castle Fraser estate took advantage of the law as it stands and the local authority's good will to deposit a problem on the public sector, to maximise the sale value on the break-up of the estate. They should not have been allowed to do that. I am not suggesting that the trustees did anything wrong or illegal, but that we should look to the law as it stands.

I do not believe that the trustees would have taken that action if they had not taken the view that they could dump the problem on the local authority to resolve. Any local authority would find 16 tenants suddenly deposited on its homeless list a problem. My local authority of Gordon has more problems than most in that respect.

There should be a requirement in law for the landowner to observe a court process to recover his property--not just the sheriff court requirement, but a specific claim to demonstrate a good reason for requiring vacant possession. A good reason would be that he needed the house for land management or agricultural purposes ; that he needed it for himself or his family, which would be a reasonable entitlement ; or that the tenant had caused problems, broken an agreement, or presented a nuisance.

The action should not become effective until the tenant had been adequately rehoused. That would remove the deep anxiety caused to tenants seeing an eviction date looming and not knowing where they were to live. Such changes would not undermine the owner's fundamental right to recover his property, but would prevent an owner from exploiting the situation simply to secure vacant possession to maximise his return or profit from the property's sale. It would remove from tenants the worry of being turfed out into

bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and provide them with the knowledge that they would not be moved until they had been adequately rehoused.

When notice is served, there should also be a requirement to notify the tenant--in writing if possible--of his or her rights. It is astonishing that tenants can be given notice, as they were at Castle Fraser, without any indication that they had the right to await a court order. Tenants should be able to seek advice, perhaps from the local authority officer responsible for the homeless. The local authority and I gave the Castle Fraser tenants the information they required, but two or three days after they were given notice. I regret that the estate's factor gave them no such indication until pressed to do so. I do not believe that any tenant should be faced with that kind of shock, and I do not believe that local authorities should be left to cope with the situation without assistance. Gordon district is the fastest growing community in Britain--apart from Milton Keynes, which has the benefit of a development corporation to deal with its housing problems. The council has an excellent record of housing management : a very high proportion of houses--approaching 30 per cent., I believe--have been sold. Despite that, or perhaps partly because of it, we have seen increasing homelessness and a lengthening waiting list.

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According to the most recent figures, 2,029 people were on the waiting list on 4 March. Between 1 April last year and 28 February this year, 435 homelessness applications were received ; by the end of January, 290 had been accepted as priorities. It is estimated that, between the middle of this year and the middle of 1998, 2,433 new houses will be required in Gordon to meet the projected increase in the population.

At present, the council estimates that 1,183 houses are likely to be built, of which precisely three will be local authority houses. Currently, no local authority houses are being built anywhere in Gordon district. I must say that I find that astonishing. Because of keen demand, the price of houses in Gordon is generally high. The real shortfall in the community is of affordable houses to rent and low-price starts : whenever such houses become available, they are snapped up, leaving a waiting list that is still rising.

Let me say in parenthesis to certain people in Gordon district that tearing up the local plan and allowing people planning permission to build in every field in the area does not meet the need of affordable houses to rent.

The council has shown itself to be flexible. It has taken up every initiative presented by the Government and the Housing Corporation, and has given a lead in exploring every possibility of co-operation, joint ownership and different forms of tenure. There is no ideological conflict between Gordon district and the Government ; there is simply a plea for resources.

People become very angry about those who are put into bed-and-breakfast accommodation. They are not concerned only about the hardship ; the accommodation is often good, although it does not constitute a satisfactory home from which children can set off to school and to which they can return. Gordon district estimates that it will cost it a quarter of a million pounds in the current financial year, and it has already spent £120,000. That is not a sensible use of public money, but the council has been forced into it.

A strategic agreement has just been signed with Scottish Homes, which I understand is likely to bring in more than £20 million and will provide between 400 and 500 homes over the next three to five years. Of course I welcome that ; but that number of houses will not contain, let alone reduce, the waiting list. Welcome though they are, the houses are not in proportion to the problem we face in the north-east of Scotland.

I see that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson) is in the Chamber. Let me point out that the problem is not confined to Gordon district. I have been in touch with Aberdeen city council, which tells me that the figures peaked in 1987, with 2,000 people on the homeless list ; the most recent figure is 1,606. Only 57 council houses are being built throughout the city, against a waiting list of 4,400 and a transfer list of 6,200. The Minister must realise that the problem is very large, and getting larger every year. At present, we are not doing nearly enough to deal with it.

The population expansion in Gordon and in the north-east of Scotland has been consistent for almost 20 years. It is not just a matter of oil and gas people moving into the area. It has changed the profile of the population. It has ensured that we have a younger mix, with a growing number of households in relation to total population. That is increasing the pressure on the housing authorities and established businesses outside the oil and gas sector.

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We are making a great contribution to national resources and national wealth, and I think that we are entitled to be given assistance to deal with our problems. We do not operate on a low- rent basis. Houses are well maintained and well funded, but we cannot provide something with nothing. That is, fundamentally, what I believe the Government have got to take on board.

The Government should now accept that the particular circumstances of the Castle Fraser debacle bring home the need for a radical rethink of housing policy in the north-east of Scotland, especially in rural areas. I believe that the Government should give serious consideration to changing the law, to giving more security to tenants in tied accommodation and to providing proper resources to meet the needs, so as to enable the local authorities to deal with real homelessness problems and the hidden homelessness of people on waiting lists who are unable to buy.

The local authorities are perfectly willing to co-operate with the Government on a variety of different terms of tenure and different ways of solving the problems. There are no ideological problems, but to date I have to say that, despite their expressions of good will, the reality is that the Government have not acknowledged the scale of the problem that arises out of our economic success in the north-east of Scotland. As a consequence, we see genuine, individual hardship for people who are unable to get adequate housing.

We also see a constraint upon the economic development that is so beneficial not just to our own community but to the economy of Scotland and the economy of the United Kingdom. I urge the Minister to take on board the fact that the housing problems of the north-east of Scotland need a fundamental reappraisal.

12.1 am

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) : I congratulate the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), who has done a service to his constituents by raising this subject.

I have no objection whatever to Gordon district council going to Scottish Homes regarding the allocation of£20 million to further the strategic agreement that it has entered into with the district council, if it feels that an adjustment is urgently needed to deal with these problems. It therefore follows that it may be possible for the district council to follow up with the Scottish Landowners Federation the £3.3 million that has been allocated for bringing empty houses, some of them in Grampian, back into use.

I shall of course take account of what the hon. Gentleman has said about the needs of a growing population, not only in his constituency but in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson), who is here tonight. These matters will be taken into account before the final allocations are made. May I express my sympathy for those men and women who face the possibility of losing their homes when they are made redundant? Although the Scottish Office has no powers to intervene, I have asked officials to contact Gordon district council to establish the facts and see how it can assist. Also, with the agreement of Countess Iveagh,

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my officials have spoken to the Castle Fraser factor and solicitor, who has supplied further information on the current position. It may help the hon. Gentleman if I set out briefly what we understand to be the situation.

The Castle Fraser estate is owned by a trust, which for family reasons decided in 1991 to sell the estate. The argument runs as follows. The late Major Smiley had set standards for the estate which required staffing levels substantially above those required for an estate on commercial lines. It was therefore recognised that any new owner might not keep the present staff complement. This would apply whether or not the estate was sold as a whole, or in a number of lots. In fact, the estate was advertised for sale either as a whole, or in eight lots. As the seller concluded that no satisfactory offer was received for the whole estate, it is now being sold in eight lots. Many of these will be sold to farmers, who will require the tied houses for themselves and their families.

There are 13 families and 16 employees affected by the sale--not 16 families as suggested in press reports. I have been informed by the estate that the Iveagh family has been concerned about the future of these employees and that they are receiving substantial redundancy payments. The redundancy notices have included a formal notice that the tenants' right to occupy these houses ceased with their employment. However, the estate has not taken any action to evict the tenants. It has also negotiated with the new owners to obtain agreement to be flexible about the timing of action to take possession of tied houses, to give the tenants additional time to find alternative accommodation.

I understand that there has been some progress. The estate itself has provided accommodation for two families, and Gordon district has rehoused a single man. I believe that four more families have found alternative accommodation. I hope that more families will be able to find other homes and jobs, in some cases through re-employment by the new owners. Here again, the Scotish Office has no direct powers to intervene, but I hope that both old and new owners will be sensitive to the employment needs of those affected, and I trust that special consideration will be given to the possibility of re-employing those workers. I also understand that the estate has given guarantees of accommodation to six recently retired employees.

As for the current legal position, the hon. Member is aware that tied tenancies are part of contracts of employment. As such, they fall outside the scope of the law of landlord and tenant. All employees will have been made aware of the conditions attached to the tied tenancies when they accepted employment, but I appreciate that the changes of ownership are both sudden and difficult for all concerned.

I must emphasise that tied tenants cannot be evicted without a court order. For Castle Fraser tied tenants who are agricultural workers, under section 24 of the Rent (Scotland) Act 1984, the sheriff can suspend a court order for possession in certain circumstances--for example, in response to representations if the actions of the owner are considered to be unreasonable or would cause hardship to the individuals concerned. I consider that there is a strong moral obligation, which should be accepted by the estate owners in such cases, to allow a satisfactory time for the estate employees to relocate themselves and their families. It is a sign of responsible land ownership that, when such

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sales take place, there is a sensible period of transition to enable the former estate employees and their families to adjust to the new conditions.

The hon. Member will be aware that English legislation is not identical to that in Scotland. He has referred in the past to the legislation in England on security of tenure in so far as it affects tied tenants who are agricultural workers. Unfortunately, such legislation would not help estate employees, who do not qualify as agricultural workers. Introducing such legislation in Scotland would be complex, and could have implications for other aspects of Scots law, including agricultural law. However, I have decided to ask the Scottish Law Commission to examine the question of tied tenancies and to give me its views in due course. I trust that that will reassure the hon. Member that I am treating his remarks with great concern. I have seen a copy of the letter to the hon. Member from the Scottish Landowners Federation. I note that discussions involving the Rural Forum and others are under way about the problems caused by tied tenancies. I understand that those are continuing, and it would be premature for me to comment on the proposals at this stage. I would naturally support any action which, while recognising the benefits of tied tenancies, gave proper emphasis to the interests of tenants. But I would make two points.

First, although the SLF claims that the real problem is a lack of alternative housing, as I have already said, we are taking vigorous action to improve the supply of rural housing. Secondly, I note the SLF's concern about the ineffective working of the English Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committee, which decides whether repossession of a tied house is justified on grounds of agricultural necessity. That justifies my caution about the introduction of such an approach in Scotland.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce : Will the Minister give way? Lord James Douglas- Hamilton : Briefly, as I have a lot of ground to cover.

Mr. Bruce : May I explain that the Scottish Landowners Federation says that the reason why the advisory committee is not working is the shortage of suitable accommodation in the relevant areas--so the two aspects are linked.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton : We are working hard to ensure that there is more accommodation, and Scottish Homes' rural housing strategy is geared to achieving that end, by housing associations providing affordable homes for rent, and grants for rent and ownership--GRO--funding, to provide low-cost home ownership or housing for rent.

Rural home ownership grants are also available to individuals in remote areas to enable them to build their own homes. The target for 1992-93 is to provide 1,000 new or improved units in rural areas. More than 80 per cent. of that target has already been achieved, and 100 per cent. is forecast by 31 March. That will be a remarkable achievement. But even more importantly, Scottish Homes plans to provide 1,600 homes for rent or sale in rural areas in 1993-94, an increase of 60 per cent. over this year's target. That includes 100 grants for local people to build their own homes.

Considerable resources are of course needed to support such ambitious plans. We have increased Scottish Homes'

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overall programme to £327 million for 1993-94, an increase of 9 per cent. on the original plans for this year. Rural areas are set to benefit to an even greater extent from the additional resources. The programme for 1992-93 includes around £47 million for expenditure in rural areas. The programme for 1993-94 will include more than £55 million for expenditure in rural areas--an increase of almost 22 per cent., which is a substantial step forward.

As well as providing large numbers of affordable homes, Scottish Homes is also promoting innovative responses to the special needs of rural areas. The 10 rural demonstration areas, set up as part of its rural housing strategy, cover a wide range of areas and initiatives. Scottish Homes is also working with other key agencies in rural areas, in particular with local authorities. Scottish Homes has now signed strategic investment agreements with more than 30 local authorities, many of which cover rural areas. I was very pleased to hear that Scottish Homes and Gordon district council recently signed the agreement which allows for a five-year investment of around£20 million. This will provide around 450 new or improved units of mixed house type, as the hon. Member mentioned.

One project of note which may assist in that connection is the £1.7 million housing development for first-time buyers at Pitmedden, through a partnership between Scottish Homes, Stewart Milne Construction and Gordon district council. The 42 homes will primarily be targeted at Gordon district council's tenants and people on the council's waiting list, with particular attention to those on low incomes. The first houses are scheduled for completion this summer, which might be a relevant timetable in the context of this debate. Such schemes have a double benefit ; they provide not only homes for those on low incomes, which is important for the economic prosperity of the area, but also free district council accommodation, which in turn helps it to tackle homelessness.

While on the subject of local authorities, I should also note that rural authorities receive a greater share of the housing revenue account resources available, compared with the scale of their housing stock. In 1993-94, rural authorities with just over 23 per cent. of the council housing stock will receive 25.2 per cent.--more than £97 million out of the provisional HRA allocations. Rural authorities with just 29 per cent. of the Scottish population will receive 34.4 per cent., nearly £37 million of the national non-HRA allocations available for assistance to the private housing sector for 1993-94. Rural local authorities also have a relative advantage in the distribution of housing support grant.

I might add that, through Scottish Homes, we have worked for example with the Scottish Landowners Federation in Grampian, Tayside and Fife to help bring empty properties in rural areas back into use. Scottish Homes is also working with the Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Defence on similar initiatives.

Those initiatives are some of the many carried out using an additional allocation of £3.3 million, which I earmarked specifically just before the election, in this financial year, to bring empty properties back into use. They also include projects to bring empty upper-floor town centre property back into use. In total, those projects will bring into, or retain for, use almost 200 properties. That is a matter that the district council might like to follow up with the Scottish Landowners Federation, in case there might be relevant possibilities in that area.

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