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Mrs. Maddock: I did recognise that fact in my speech.
Sir Anthony Durant: I apologise. The hon. Lady must have done so during the short time I was out of the Chamber getting some nourishment. I saw her doing the same just after me. I accept that. The grants for facilities for disabled people are generous.
I also welcome the grants for clearance, which are important in respect of large estates where clearance is necessary if new, smart estates are to be built. The Bill will assist councils in dealing with grants for clearance.
Mr. George Stevenson (Stoke-on-Trent, South):
We have heard much from Conservative Members about such important matters as the organisation of the architecture profession, but I want to concentrate on part I and the scandal with regard to renovation grants.
Having created the crisis of unfit houses and the lack of resources to meet that scandalous situation, the Government intend to remove the mandatory right to an improvement grant for houses that are statutorily unfit and, effectively, to walk away from the problem.
Like every other hon. Member, I was prepared to give the Minister the benefit of the doubt and listen to what he had to say, but his arguments fell into a significant pit of disrepute when he tried to convince the House that the Government's intention was to pass responsibility to local authorities. The Minister was trying to convince us that the Government support local authorities and that they think that local authorities do a good job. The Government have spent 17 years systematically undermining local authorities, yet the Minister has the temerity to suggest that the Government's motivation here is their love for local authorities and their belief that all local authorities are so competent that they will do a better job than the Government. It was at that point that the Minister's argument fell to pieces.
As we approach the 21st century, the removal of that right to grant will condemn millions of people to live in houses that are unfit for habitation. Hon. Members must reflect on that. After 17 years of Tory rule, that is the prospect that millions of people face. There are hundreds of such people in Stoke-on-Trent, many of them in my constituency.
I want to give the House some idea, in the short time available, of how serious the situation is, using the example of Stoke-on-Trent, which is by no means unusual. Hundreds of authorities face the same problem. I give the following information for Conservative Members' delectation.
The latest information from Stoke-on-Trent shows that 419 owner-occupiers are waiting for a mandatory renovation grant. Sixty-one involve landlords on whom notices have been served, 74 are for mandatory disabled facility grants and 57 are for assistance for minor works. In the case of 51 mandatory renovation grants to landlords where notices have been served, and in the case of 167 mandatory disabled facility grants, application forms have been issued.
As a result of preliminary investigations by the local authority, it is estimated that some 780 owner-occupiers are in unfit properties where initial property appraisal has shown that they meet all the criteria for a mandatory grant. I could give more statistics, but I shall not bore the House--particularly Conservative Members, who are not very interested.
If we tot up the figures, we see that, in Stoke-on-Trent alone, 1,600 properties would qualify for grant, about 800 of which would qualify for a mandatory grant, yet they have no chance of getting one.
What do the Government do in the light of that disgraceful situation, which affects not only Stoke-on-Trent, but authorities countrywide? They walk away from it. They pick up their ball and walk away. The Minister is not fooling anyone when he tells us that that is because the Government have great faith in local authorities. We all know that the reason for the Bill is that the Government have been stung by the justified criticism of the chaos that they have created in this area of housing. When the Bill becomes law they want to be able to say, "It has nowt to do with us; local authorities are to blame." That is the real motivation behind the Bill. If the present Government are still in power--which I doubt--Ministers may well reply to our questions by saying, "Don't blame us; blame local authorities."
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) mentioned the Under-Secretary of State's visit to Stoke-on-Trent following our representations. I, too, thank the Under-Secretary of State for taking the time and trouble to go and see for himself what is happening. Our arguments were clear; the hon. Gentleman listened, he saw, and his heart melted slightly. We thought that it had, anyway, and we thought that there would be a little more money to spend on that vital area--£300,000 in supplementary credit, in fact.
This is where I depart slightly from what was said by my hon. Friend. Supplementary credit approval does not mean more money from the Government; it means that the council has authority to borrow, and that local taxpayers must pay. As I have said, I thank the Minister for his interest, for his visit, and for taking part in discussions with us, but the fact remains that, having recognised the problem, he said that no more Government money was available--"but you can borrow a bit more if you like, and council tax payers can pay."
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
As we are short of time and several of my hon. Friends wish to speak, and because it is of utmost importance to my constituency, I shall concentrate on the part of the Bill that deals with grants. I shall, however, refer briefly to part II, and the measures that arise from the Latham report. Having known Michael Latham, and having studied the report when it was published, I believed that action was necessary, and I am glad that the Bill provides for action. I recognise, however, that many of the issues involved would best be debated in Committee.
I agree with some hon. Members who have spoken today, and with bodies such as Age Concern, that the Government have merely paid lip service to the
importance of the home energy efficiency scheme by including measures in the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer cut more than £30 million from the programme in last year's Budget. That is not consistent; it is nonsense.
Some 250,186 dwellings in the north-west are unfit for habitation. It is a serious problem--certainly in my constituency, where much of the housing stock is pre-1918 and in need of major renovation. Let us consider what the Government have done for home improvement. In 1983, there was a bonanza before the general election when, as hon. Members will recall, councils were given unlimited resources to provide grants to improve older housing stock. I believed at the time that that was a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of the election, and to a large extent my suspicions proved correct. Immediately after the election, there was a clampdown on the available funds.
From that time on, the Government have consistently attacked home improvement and modernisation. In the 1988 Budget, they stopped tax relief on mortgages and loans; that came into effect on 6 April. In the 1984 Budget, they introduced VAT on home improvement work; that came into effect on 1 June 1984. Then there was the means test for grant introduced in 1990 as a result of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. In ending mandatory grants the Government are driving another nail into the coffin, preventing the improvement of older housing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) said that he thought that, when a Minister visited his constituency and saw the problem, his heart melted a little. Housing Minister after housing Minister has been to Burnley, but I have not seen one respond in a way that would do a single thing to deal with the problem. They have all uttered nice words of concern, but not a penny has been spent. When Ian Gow was a housing Minister he visited Burnley, and I must say in all fairness that he did not only go to the houses that we had arranged for him to go to; he stopped the car here, there and everywhere, and jumped out to look at houses for himself. When he returned to London, however, he wrote a nice letter saying that he recognised the problem but that no more cash was available at that time.
Another former housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), visited Burnley twice. I have lobbied him on behalf of the north-west, including Wigan; I have lobbied him with groups representing Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire--with councillors, council officers and Members of Parliament. At the time--some four years ago--the right hon. Gentleman recognised the difficulties involved in a service that is demand-led. The answer, however, is not to clamp down on grants and do away with them, as the Government are doing; that merely directs resources in a slightly different direction.
All the north-east Lancashire authorities came down to meet the right hon. Member for Acton. He said then that north-east Lancashire, and Burnley in particular, had a peculiar cocktail of problems: low incomes, a high proportion of home ownership and pre-1918 properties and low values, even after improvement. Let me tell the Minister who will wind up the debate that we still have exactly that problem, and that the Bill does nothing to deal with it.
How will councils cope under the new arrangements that will do away with the mandatory right to ask for a grant? On many occasions, former Ministers refused to acknowledge that councils were having to exercise rationing because they were unable to meet their statutory requirement to provide mandatory grants due to lack of cash. How does the Under-Secretary think that councils with major problems in their areas will be able to determine their priorities? I look at Burnley and wonder whether the priority will be Daneshouse, Stoneyholme or Burnley Wood. I am glad that I am not on the council and have to take such difficult decisions. There are just not enough resources to deal with the problems.
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