House of Commons
Tuesday 19 December 1995
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
ENVIRONMENT
Local Authority Housing
1. Mr. Waterson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to encourage more local authorities to transfer their housing stock to alternative landlords. [4875]
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer): To facilitate the transfer of council estates in poor condition, I announced on 28 November a new deprived estates challenge fund worth more than £300 million over the next three years.
Mr. Waterson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that large-scale voluntary transfers of housing stock have several benefits, including the diversification of housing stock, better management and faster repairs for tenants while providing capital receipts for local authorities which can be put back into social housing, used to pay off debts or used to reduce the council tax burden on council tax payers?
Mr. Gummer: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I am pleased to see that authorities such as Manchester are now seeking to use LSVT to ensure that they can tap the capital that is tied up in housing estates and use it for the benefit of tenants.
Area Cost Adjustment
2. Mr. Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects the inquiry into the area cost adjustment to be concluded; and if he will make a statement. [4876]
The Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration (Mr. David Curry): It is our intention that the review team should report in June 1996. Professor Robert Elliott of the University of Aberdeen has agreed to chair the review of the area cost adjustment. He is an expert on labour markets and earnings in the public sector. The local authority associations have nominated Roy MacIver, until recently the Secretary-General of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. My right hon. Friend has nominated David McDonald, a former under-secretary in my Department.
Draft terms of reference for the review are being discussed by members of the review team and local authorities' representatives. When these are settled, a copy will be placed in the Library.
Mr. Fabricant:
That sounds encouraging. Does my hon. Friend agree that there must be something intrinsically wrong with a system whereby a school in Staffordshire with 900 students receives more than £250,000 less than a similar school in Surrey which has similar costs? Is not it even more wrong that Labour-controlled Staffordshire council is sitting on huge reserves which it does not use? Is it not about time that we funded schools centrally from the Department for Education and Employment? Let us have central funding, but local control.
Mr. Curry:
I do not agree that something is intrinsically wrong with a system in which there are differences in funding. The fact is that there are schools in different areas, and the purpose of the review is to find out what the total additional costs are. On that matter, my hon. Friend and I will have to agree to disagree.
As far as Staffordshire is concerned, a 3.1 per cent. permitted increase in budget and a 5 per cent. per capita increase in education funding should be fully adequate to fund increased demography and any reasonable teachers' pay award.
Mr. Tipping:
The Minister said that the report would be available in June next year. Will he now give a commitment that a new and fair system will be in place for the financial year 1997-98? Does he appreciate that local authorities want action and not words? The present system discriminates against Nottinghamshire and the east midlands, which just want a fair deal.
Mr. Curry:
Everyone wants a fair deal, but everyone disagrees as to what that fair deal is. There is a very good case for taking into account total employment costs around the country. In the review, we are trying to bring up to date this indicator, as we do with other indicators on a regular cycle. If the review team is able to come up with an agreed outcome which is robust and gives better answers than we have at the moment, we will seek to employ that at the earliest opportunity.
Sir Anthony Grant:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present system prescribes that a person who takes one step across the border of Cambridgeshire into Bedfordshire is suddenly deemed to be in a very expensive area? Is this not a crazy system which has gone on for far too long? I appreciate my hon. Friend's efforts in this matter, but will he make sure that there is no undue delay in the review? Will he consider using the travel-to-work area system, rather than the arbitrary county boundaries?
Mr. Curry:
We examined carefully the travel-to-work area system in the past year, and it did not prove sufficiently robust. The county councils tried to make their scheme of actual costs work, and that did not work either. That is why we have introduced an independent review, and we have appointed as chairman somebody who is an expert in labour market economics, because this is about costs in the labour market. I hope that the review will be able to produce a robust outcome
Mr. Dobson:
Can the Minister confirm that, according to Government figures, if Staffordshire county council were to receive the same grant allocation for education per pupil as the Tory borough of Westminster, it would be able to recruit 4,895 extra teachers next year?
Mr. Curry:
Would the hon. Gentleman like to make the same calculation for Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Camden and Lambeth? What benefits Westminster benefits all the other inner London authorities, and it is about time that the hon. Gentleman realised it.
3. Mr. Spring:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the effects of the decision to raise capping limits on local authority expenditure. [4877]
Mr. Gummer:
The flexibility is to enable local authorities to meet priorities in education, and has been given in response to local authorities' requests and assurances that they will act responsibly.
Mr. Spring:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposed capping limits for Suffolk county council should prevent it from wasting taxpayers' money? Does he share my outrage at the squandering of council tax payers' money in the form of the council leader's Christmas card, which bears the red rose insignia of the Labour party? Does my right hon. Friend agree that such an utterly tasteless display of Labour propaganda at Christmas is an absolute disgrace?
Mr. Gummer:
I was surprised, as my hon. Friend was, to receive such a Christmas card from the Labour leader of Suffolk county council. I believe that the Opposition would be extremely annoyed if the Department of the Environment sent out Christmas cards with the Tory torch--even though that would be justified, as only the Government have an environment policy.
Ms Eagle:
As the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has admitted that the settlement for schools will be used up by increased numbers of pupils, salaries and inflation, and as the Treasury has also admitted that council taxes are expected to go up by 8 per cent., is not it therefore true that council tax payers will be paying more and getting less under the new settlement?
Mr. Gummer:
No, I do not think that it is. The hon. Lady would know that, if she looked at the facts and at councils that are properly run and that seek to make savings when unnecessary spending takes place. We have just heard about a small example in Suffolk. More than £2 million has been spent on signs for roads in Suffolk, and £250,000 on a road that will never be built. That is only in one county, and if that money were applied to education, much more could be done.
Mr. Atkins:
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the removal of capping restrictions, together with the 5.5 per cent. increase in the education budget for Lancashire, means that there is no excuse whatever for the county council not to pass on that money in full to schools; and
Mr. Gummer:
I am sure that everybody in Lancashire, as in every county in the country, now knows precisely how much extra money is available for schools. If it does not get through to the schools, it will be the Labour-controlled county council's fault.
4. Mr. Jim Cunningham:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many empty houses there are in the United Kingdom. [4878]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. James Clappison):
There are 845,000 empty houses in England.
Mr. Cunningham:
When will the Minister stop being complacent about the large numbers of homeless people? Specifically, what will he do about the Department of Trade and Industry's void properties and the Ministry of Defence's void properties?
Mr. Clappison:
The hon. Gentleman should know of the importance that we attach to reducing the number of empty Government-owned homes. We made that a priority in our White Paper; and the announcement of the privatisation of married quarters will also assist the process. The hon. Gentleman should also realise that, included in the total that I have given him, there are a large number of empty private properties, many of which have been brought into use in the private rented sector during the past few years as a result of our deregulation proposals. The Labour party always wants more regulation--that is the party's instinct--which would reduce the supply and reduce the amount of private rented accommodation available for homeless people.
Mr. Dunn:
Although I accept that a large number of empty homes are owned by local authorities, will the Minister confirm that 18 of the 20 worst local authorities in terms of empty homes are Labour-controlled?
Mr. Clappison:
Certainly. It is a shame that some local authorities with high numbers of vacant properties cannot reach the standards of those with low numbers. Hackney, Labour-controlled, has the highest number of empty properties--5 per cent. It is a shame that it cannot match the standards of Wandsworth, fewer than 1 per cent. of whose properties are vacant.
Mr. Raynsford:
Why will not Ministers acknowledge their failure to tackle the scandal of empty properties, instead of attacking local authorities? Incidentally, local authorities are the only organisations to have reduced the number of their empty properties in the past few years. Will the Minister recognise that the Government's record is the worst of all? The number of empty Government properties has increased scandalously, in fact. The Ministry of Defence has the worst record; its homes should now be offered to people in need instead of being privatised under the disgraceful deal which the Secretary of State for Defence is doing with his adviser.
Mr. Clappison:
It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman cannot join me in maintaining that the worst
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |