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Housing Capital Receipts

Mr. Beith: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether, under transitional provisions relating to the Local Government Act 2003, housing authorities currently repaying debt from housing capital receipts will have the transfer of these receipts to Central Government fully offset in the calculation of housing subsidy for the next two years. [135915]

Keith Hill: The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will publish the proposals for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) subsidy for 2004–05 shortly.

Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what representations he has received about turning the housing renewal pathfinders into urban development corporations; and if he will make a statement. [136994]

Keith Hill: None.

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many housing market renewal pathfinders have websites; and whether it is his policy to encourage this. [136995]

Keith Hill: Market Renewal Pathfinders communication strategies are determined by them to reflect local circumstances. Currently as part of their communication strategies two pathfinders have websites. These are Merseyside at www.newheartands.co.uk and Newcastle Gateshead at www.newcastlegateshead pathfinder.co.uk.

Housing Refurbishment

Mr. Dobson: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether the capital funding allocated to Arm's Length Management Organisations for housing refurbishment

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is treated in the same way in Government Accounts as capital supplied for the same purposes by local authorities. [136969]

Keith Hill: Capital resources for housing refurbishment investment is currently provided to Arms Length Management Organisations and local authorities through credit approvals, a permission to borrow up to a certain limit. These approvals are supported, as required, by subsidy payments through the Housing Revenue Account (HRA).

Credit approvals are not shown within central Government Accounts as they do not reflect cash transactions between Central and local Government. Subsidy paid within the HRA is shown within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Resource Accounts.

Capital resources that are secured through borrowing, or provided for separately, by local authorities would be identified within their own accounts.

Housing Statistics

Mr. Drew: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many (a) house starts and (b) overall house sales there were in (i) 1980, (ii) 1990, (iii) 2000 and (iv) the last year statistics were available, broken down by region. [136751]

Keith Hill: The information requested is as follows.

(a) The latest available statistics for total house starts by region for 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2002 are tabled as follows:

	1980	1990	2000	2002
North East	6,046	7,272	7,094	6,387
North West	17,156	19,293	18,683	19,112
Yorkshire & the Humber	12,829	11,922	13,813	14,615
East Midlands	13,256	13,537	15,130	16,004
West Midlands	13,761	15,862	15,780	14,659
East	17,032	17,477	18,686	19,315
London	8,226	9,850	15,300	16,914
South East	27,162	21,710	23,440	25,303
South West	15,872	16,546	16,741	16,918
Total	131,340	133,469	144,667	149,227

Source:

Returns to ODPM from local authorities

(b) The latest available statistics for overall house sales by region for 1996 (first year available), 2000 and 2002 are tabled as follows:

	1996	2000	2002
North East	38,701	46,941	58,268
North West	110,350	137,645	165,889
Yorkshire & the Humber	83,419	101,504	122,380
East Midlands	78,727	97,080	113,253
West Midlands	87,417	100,871	117,982
East	117,065	130,699	148,081
London	139,587	153,854	173,286
South East	182,719	192,439	223,564
South West	111,290	123,972	138,925
Total	949,275	1,085,005	1,261,628

Source:

Land Registry

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Local Elections

Dr. Pugh: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many allegations of electoral fraud in the North West Region have been investigated in the last 10 years. [134290]

Mr. Raynsford: The information requested on electoral fraud at elections is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Local Government Finance

Phil Sawford: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister which local authorities received a grant settlement that was limited by the ceiling in 2003–04; and what percentage increase each of these authorities would have received if a ceiling had not been imposed. [137130]

Mr. Raynsford: A table showing the percentage increase in grant before floors and ceilings for all authorities is available in the Library of the House.

Phil Sawford: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the cost would have been in 2003–04 of funding local authorities in accordance with the funding formula if a ceiling had not been imposed. [137131]

Mr. Raynsford: If the same grant floors had been retained then the full cost of the floor would have to be entirely financed via the scaling factor for all authorities above the floor. The factors by which grant increases were scaled back would have changed from approximately 0.94 to 0.84 for education authorities; from approximately 0.90 to 0.53 for police and fire authorities; and from approximately 0.95 to 0.64 for shire districts.

Alternatively additional money would have to be found to meet the cost of the floor. The total cost of the floor was £266,591,602 for all authorities in 2003–04.

Phil Sawford: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what action he is taking to remove the ceiling imposed on local authorities in order to bring their grant settlement up to the funding formula in future years. [137132]

Mr. Raynsford: The White Paper 'Strong Local Leadership—Quality Public Services' made clear the intentions of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to retain floors and ceilings in order to ensure that all authorities receive a reasonable increase in grant, and to avoid large fluctuations in grant from year to year.

Local Government Revenue

Mr. Cousins: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what (a) amount and (b) share of local government revenue was accounted for by (i) revenue support grant, (ii) other Government grants and funds, (iii) universal business rate and (iv) council tax in (A) England and (B) each council tax levying authority in England in (1) 1996–97 and (2) 2002–03. [137220]

Mr. Raynsford: A table showing figures for England is available in the Library of the House.

Mobile Phone Masts

Mr. Dismore: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the effects of the recent high court judgement concerning the issue of health and mobile phone mast planning applications. [136825]

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Keith Hill: The judgment by Mr. Justice Richards on 22 October in the case of "Phillips v The First Secretary of State and others" was about the compliance with the procedural requirements in the planning appeal process and was confined to its own facts. It does not have any wider ramifications.

The judgment reflects Planning Policy Guidance Note 8: Telecommunications that it is for the decision-maker to decide whether health concerns are a material consideration and what weight to place on them.

Nevertheless, PPG8 states that, in the Government's view, if a proposed mobile phone base station meets the international guidelines for public exposure (the ICNIRP guidelines) it should not be necessary for a local planning authority, in processing an application, to give further consideration to the health aspects and any concerns about them. It remains the Government's firm view that the planning system is not the appropriate mechanism for determining health safeguards.

New Deal

Mr. Woodward: To ask the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the (a) schemes and (b) funding made available to St. Helens South since 1998 under the New Deal for Communities. [134647]

Yvette Cooper: There are no New Deal for Communities (NDC) Partnerships in St. Helens South, and so no NDC funding has been made available in the area. However St. Helens does receive Neighbourhood Renewal Funding.

The 39 NDC areas were chosen by firstly considering the degree, intensity and extent of deprivation in different areas, based on the 1998 (then current) Index of Local Deprivation. Secondly, we aimed to have a regional spread, so that lessons could be learnt from experiences across the whole country. Each NDC Partnership has a grant of between £35 million to £62 million to spend over the 10-year lifetime of the Programme.

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